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Ruth King

MARK STEYN: MRS. THATCHER’S LOSING VICTORY

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345435/mrs-thatchers-losing-victory-mark-steyn
A few hours after Margaret Thatcher’s death on Monday, the snarling deadbeats of the British underclass were gleefully rampaging through the streets of Brixton in South London, scaling the marquee of the local fleapit and hanging a banner announcing, “THE BITCH IS DEAD.” Amazingly, they managed to spell all four words correctly. By Friday, “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead,” from The Wizard of Oz, was the No. 1 download at Amazon U.K.
Mrs. Thatcher would have enjoyed all this. Her former speechwriter John O’Sullivan recalls how, some years after leaving office, she arrived to address a small group at an English seaside resort to be greeted by enraged lefties chanting “Thatcher Thatcher Thatcher! Fascist fascist fascist!” She turned to her aide and cooed, “Oh, doesn’t it make you feel nostalgic?” She was said to be delighted to hear that a concession stand at last year’s Trades Union Congress was doing a brisk business in “Thatcher Death Party Packs,” almost a quarter-century after her departure from office.
Of course, it would have been asking too much of Britain’s torpid Left to rouse themselves to do anything more than sing a few songs and smash a few windows. In The Wizard of Oz, the witch is struck down at the height of her powers by Dorothy’s shack descending from Kansas to relieve the Munchkins of their torments. By comparison, Britain’s Moochkins were unable to bring the house down: Mrs. Thatcher died in her bed at the Ritz at a grand old age. Useless as they are, British socialists were at one point capable of writing their own anti-Thatcher singalongs rather than lazily appropriating Judy Garland blockbusters from MGM’s back catalogue. I recall in the late Eighties being at the National Theatre in London and watching the crowd go wild over Adrian Mitchell’s showstopper, “F**k-Off Friday,” a song about union workers getting their redundancy notices at the end of the week, culminating with the lines:

Elusive Arab-Israeli Peace? I hate To Break The News… by Gerald A. Honigman

http://q4j-middle-east.com But if Barack Obama is not the main reason for a lack of progress (and that’s indeed a possibility), he’s certainly not been a major constructive force either. Secretary of State John Kerry recently carried Team Obama’s old/new schemes to the Middle East–with predictable results. The Arabs swear they won’t budge in any “negotiations” […]

NIDRA POLLER: FRENCH BUDGET MINISTER CAUGHT DODGING TAXES

d-intl.comhttp://www.d-intl.com/french-budget-minister-caught-dodging-taxes/

French Budget Minister caught dodging taxes

President Hollande’s government of exemplary virtue shattered

PARIS. One week after President Hollande spoke to the nation in a tepid sleep-inducing TV interview, a sort of fireside chat without a hearth, the Jérôme Cahuzac scandal exploded in his face, shattering his pretentions to govern with exemplary virtue. The disgraced Budget Minister, working under the authority of Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici and responsible for tracking tax evaders, does in fact have an undeclared account in a tax haven. The scandal was revealed on December 4th by Mediapart, a hard-hitting online newspaper to the left of the left, that digs up the truth and delivers it in strong righteous doses … available only to paid subscribers. Why did it take the Hollande government four months to confirm the rumor and rid itself of the offender? Commentators are tossing a coin to see if it comes up ineptitude or attempted cover up. It may be both.

Jérôme Cahuzac was a handsome young cardiac surgeon in 1988 when he was appointed head of the pharmaceutical division in the Health Ministry of the Mitterand government. After his first stint in politics he became a consultant to drug companies. He opened the Swiss bank account in 1992—the socialist Mitterand was still president—using as straw man a tax lawyer who is a friend of National Front leader Marine Le Pen.

In association with his wife, also an M.D. (divorce proceedings are currently underway), Cahuzac opened a hair transplant clinic while pursuing his political career. He campaigned with the socialist Lionel Jospin in 1995, was parachuted to Villeneuve-sur-Lot and elected deputy in 1997, voted out in 2002, re-elected in 2007, and has served as mayor of the town since 2002. After heading up the Finance Commission of the National Assembly under the previous administration, Cahuzac was brought into the squeaky clean government of François Hollande. He was known for rigorous, sometimes harsh budget management and relentless pursuit of tax dodgers. Making the rich pay their fair share is the very foundation of the Hollande government. The failed attempt to impose a 75 percent tax on yearly individual income over a million euros was glorified as a call for “fiscal patriotism”.

For the past four months Cahuzac has been vehemently denying the Mediapart accusation: face to face with his fellow cabinet ministers and the President, publicly to the media and Parliament. When the lumbering official investigation finally confirmed the tax evasion, Cahuzac confessed and resigned. He was excommunicated from the Socialist Party and enclosed within a sky-high firewall as calls arose for new elections (from the National Front’s Marine Le Pen), resignation of the PM and formation of a new government (Jean-François Copé, head of the UMP), dissolution of the entire operation and creation of a 6th République (Jean-Luc Melenchon of the Front de Gauche).

PERSECUTION OF NON MUSLIMS SPREADING TO UK FROM OIC COUNTRIES—THE CASE OF A HEATHROW WORKER

Note a couple of things in the short video (follow the link):
1) The dhimmi reporter and the victim both use the politically correct modifiers “radical,” “fundamentalist” and “extremist” rather than just “Islam” or “Muslim.” It is clear that their free speech has already been compromised as they fear using accurate terms and descriptions of those who practice a hate ideology. (Very restrictive hate speech laws were instituted in the UK in 2006, but only to protect Muslims).
2) The Muslims are free to criticize the Christian woman, threaten her and state that Islam will take over the UK but the Christian woman is fired for defending her friend and her religion.
3) The UK has 85 Shariah courts.
4) The state you “don’t mess with” – Texas – has had a shariah court since 2002.
Janet Levy,
Los Angeles

Persecution of Non-Muslims Spreading To UK From OIC Countries – The Case of A Heathrow Airport Worker
By ICLA Admin • on April 11, 2013

ICLA has written about how Muslims who want to frighten Christians in places like Pakistan merely have to accuse them of blasphemy in order to turn their lives upside down. Increasingly it seems that this kind of mentality is beginning to thrive in places like the United Kingdom. Read more & see video: http://www.libertiesalliance.org/2013/04/11/persecution-of-non-muslims-spreading-to-uk-from-oic-countries-the-case-of-a-heathrow-airport-worker-2/

DANIEL GREENFIELD: THE WEEK THAT WAS PART 2

FAREWELL TO THE JEWISH VOTE
To the extent that there ever was an American Jewish consensus, it’s collapsing into the same partisan divide as the rest of the country, with left-wing Jews on one side and right-wing Jews on another.

The American Jewish vote is breaking down into polar opposites. The middle ground is vanishing and is being replaced by Jewish voters who are still actively engaged, but dislike ‘moderate’ politicians and prefer strongly partisan stands.

The American Jewish vote is starting to look like the rest of America. The process will take a while for generational reasons, but by 2025, it’s likely to be nearly complete.

Grassroots Jewish Republicans Moving to the Right

YOU GOTTA ADMIRE HIS FLEXIBILITY
Apparently America has too many jobs so Obama will be spending taxpayer money to support Russia’s defense industry on behalf of Afghanistan. And he’s doing so over the bipartisan objections of Congress from both the right and left and a ban on buying them written into the NDAA.

Aside from throwing almost $700 million to a company owned by the Russian government at a time when Obama has taken a chainsaw to the United States military, subsidizing the Russian defense industry helps it develop more weapons that will be sold to America’s enemies.

That money will help fund R&D for the next generation of weapons that an American military dismantled by Obama will be facing on the battlefield.

Obama Overrides Congress to Buy $690 Million Worth of Russian Choppers for Afghan Air Force

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

It’s not clear if the Israelis entirely understood how close the Americans were to Arafat and his outfit. For instance, Israel long believed that Arafat’s intelligence chief Ali Hassan Salameh, one of the masterminds of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic games, was a CIA asset. The truth is that the so-called Red Prince meant much more to the U.S.-Arafat relationship, serving as one of their key intermediaries and a symbol of the nature of their relationship.

The cables show that two years after Munich, the American ambassador to Beirut, George McMurtrie Godley, met with Salameh—described in the cables as Arafat’s “security adviser”—to negotiate the size of the entourage that Arafat would take to the U.N. General Assembly meeting and how many of them would be allowed to carry guns.

As Ambassador Godley cabled after the May 1974 Maalot massacre, in which members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestinian killed 25 Israeli hostages, 22 of them children: “long-term implications of Maalot tragedy on Fedayeen movement and Israeli-Arab relations are even more upsetting than loss of young lives and anguish of Israeli nation.”
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

The situation is much the same today with the Muslim Brotherhood standing in for Arafat.

DANIEL GREENFIELD: THE WEEK THAT WAS PART ONE

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ DON’T TELL ME WORDS DON’T MATTER “Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” Obama once said, while insisting that they meant the opposite of what we thought they meant. The left believes that words matter because they allow people to communicate the wrong sort of ideas. Change the words and you change the ideas. Islamism […]

The Deconstruction of Israel: Has the Countdown Begun? By MARTIN SHERMAN

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Into-the-fray-The-deconstruction-of-Israel-309562

Into the fray: Last week I warned of the sinister subtext of Obama’s visit. This week, that subtext is emerging as headline news.

I am opposed to an independent Palestinian state, because in my own judgment and in the judgment of many leaders in the Middle East, including Arab leaders, this would be a destabilizing factor… and would certainly not serve the United States interests.

– Jimmy Carter, February 25, 1980

The only way for Israel to endure… as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.

–Barack Obama, March 21, 2013

We oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state…. Nothing will deflect us from these fundamental… commitments.

– Jimmy Carter, March 23, 1980

We continue to believe in the two-state solution on the 1967 borders.

– Barack Obama, March 21, 2013

Being a proverbial – and some would say, perennial – “prophet of doom” is neither easy nor fashionable in Israel today. After all, there is so much evidence of burgeoning power and prosperity that pessimism seems positively perverse: Surging GDP per capita, amazing advances in science and technology, massive gas finds and the prospect of soon-to-be-attained energy independence…

Like “Chicken-Licken”?

Unless you happen to be warning about the starkly incontrovertible dangers, immanent in Iranian nuclear ambitions, you tend to be dismissed as a paranoid “Chicken- Licken,” mongering irrational fears as to the imminent fall of the firmament.

This is particularly true for anyone who keeps harping on the perils entailed in what is misleadingly dubbed “the peace process,” and in the doctrine of political appeasement/territorial retreat on which it is based. But these perils can be just as pernicious – indeed, perhaps even more so – than distinctly discernible dangers, however daunting, such as those emanating from Tehran.

It is precisely because the mechanism by which they inflict damage is surreptitious, incremental and gradual that the accumulated level of menace grows almost imperceptibly, until it reaches potentially devastating levels. At any given point, it is easy to misperceive them as innocuous, and denigrate calls for caution as alarmist.

“The death of a frog” revisited

Several years ago I published an article, titled “The death of frog” (November 29, 2010), in which I cited an excerpt from Daniel Quinn’s novel The Story of B, describing how if a frog is placed “in a pot of tepid water…, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor…

and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.”

I warned that this was eerily reminiscent of the unfolding political realities in Israel: “Given the ongoing attrition in Israeli position… its continual acquiescence to expose itself to ever-escalating risks, and the accumulating string of concessions agreed to, the trenchant question that must be raised is: When will the lethal boiling point be reached?”

Educating for Peace: Palestinian Authority School Books Preach Peace, Love…and Bomb Making Max Keisler

http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/04/12/educating-for-peace-palestinian-authority-school-books-preach-peace-love%e2%80%a6and-bomb-making/

In an April 6 Guardian piece Harriet Sherwood described the relentless flurry of hate mail that Israeli journalist Amira Hass has recently received as a result of an article advocating the inclusion of occupation resistance as part of the curriculum for Palestinian schools.

According to Hass, Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli soldiers is “an action as well as a metaphor of resistance” and a “…birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule”. As such, it is perfectly reasonable for Palestinian schools to offer “basic classes in resistance”.

In response to Amira Hass’s piece, some wild-eyed, bearded, skullcap-wearing Israeli extremists filed complaints with the police and the Israeli attorney general, demanding that she be investigated for incitement to violence and terrorism.

Guided by Messianic visions of blowing up the Temple Mount and replacing two of Islam’s holiest sites with ‘The Third Temple Resort & Casino’, craven Zionist interlopers have long asserted that the way Palestinian children are educated is proof of the true intentions of the Palestinian leadership vis-à-vis Israel.

According to Dr. Zion Ben-Judah, former assistant to the travelling undersecretary of the pro-settler Yesha Council: “When you google translate: ‘A just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East’ from English to Arabic, you get: ‘Palestine’s war ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine.’”

Yet, the findings of a study released this morning lend credence to the counter claim that the Palestinian Authority has in fact done much to promote true coexistence with Israeli Jews.

The Grand Enterprise to Tabulate Reactions of the Esteemed Allah’s Loyal Legions (GET-REALL), which reviews textbooks from the West Bank, Gaza and other parts of the Islamic Caliphate, unveiled its 2013 report at a packed press conference held in occupied East Jerusalem’s Abu Shukri Humus & Felafel dining establishment.

The organization reviewed 234 textbooks currently used in West Bank Palestinian schools for students in grades one through 12.

The findings indicate that the PA is already teaching its younglings to resist their Israeli overlords – but with rules and limitations that must be adhered to. This kinder and gentler curriculum includes a clear distinction between Israeli civilians and soldiers; Israeli men and women can rest assured that while still regarded as thieving colonial imperialists, at least there’s no chance of them being hauled off to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Court.

The below sampling of textbooks reviewed by GET-REALL indicates that beyond the occasional dead Israeli, there pervades a sincere desire on the Palestinian side to usher in an era of peace, love and harmony between Arabs and Jews:

1) Diaries of a Young Contrarian – Adolf Hitler Reflects: 1918-1924

2) Jihadist in the Rye

Palestinian Arab Museum that “Rewrites” History Funded by the West (VIDEO)

Palestinian Arab Museum that “Rewrites” History Funded by the West (VIDEO) Palestinian Authority officials on Thursday joined a ceremony to lay the cornerstone for a new museum of “Palestinian culture, history and society”  in Birzeit near Ramallah. “The museum will not only be for Palestinians but will reach out to the whole world through an […]

Jihad is Cool: Jihadist Magazines Recruit Young Terrorists

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3969/jihad-is-cool-jihadist-magazines-recruit-young

Jihad recruitment has evolved into using a mainstream format, it is now cool. Print and online magazines provide practical detailed instruction on how to commit terrorist acts. The latest offering, Lone Mujahid Pocketbook, Spring 2013, is published courtesy of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire magazine, and is available on multiple websites.

It bills itself as “A Step to (sic) Step Guide on How to Become a Successful Lone Mujahid” and already has enthusiasts. Using hip, modern language conventions and rap lingo, the cover asks “R U dreamin’ of wagin’ jihadi attacks against kuffar? … Well, there’s no need to travel abroad, coz the frontline has come to you. Wanna know how? Just read ‘n’ apply the contents of this guide which has practical ‘n’ creative ways to please Allah by killing his enemies ‘n’ healing the believers’ chests.” Creepily akin to a teen magazine, the Pocketbook specifically targets prospective American jihadis with tips, tactics and incitements to carry out terror attacks.

It offers Inspire’s glossy, high quality graphics and a professional finish to pages methodically detailing the types of bombs; the best locations for attacks and other ways to generally reap mayhem. Using everyday supplies such as sugar, motor oil or pressure cookers, readers are enthusiastically encouraged to wage jihad in their communities. Many of the features are repeats from Inspire’s first 10 issues.

For example, “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” and the “Ultimate Mowing Machine” offer simple, do-it-yourself advice to “cause chaos and terror among the public.”

Mixing religious devotion with a desire to be cool in the MTV generation, the magazine offers an attractive picture for jihadi wannabes, perhaps inspired by the mass popular appeal of rapping gang-bangers who make gun violence “cool.” Jihad has never been easier.