RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/peak-housing-peak-fraud-peak-suburbia-and-peak-property-taxes

Once again pundits are claiming that housing is “finally recovering.” But they’re overlooking three peaks: Peak Housing, Peak Financial Fraud, and Peak Suburbia, all of which suggest years of stagnation and decline, not “recovery.”

Here is the latest Case-Shiller index, which has traced out a nearly textbook bubble and a return to the mean that has been artificially restrained by trillions of dollars of Federal subsidies and backstopping of the housing market:

http://politicalmavens.com/

Two obituaries are prominently featured in the Times today (May 1). The first is for Ben Zion Netanyahu who is headlined as a “hawkish scholar,” an oxymoron that conjures up first fights in the library stacks; the second is for Fred Hakim, a Times Square hot dog vendor whose selection to share the page seems motivated less by the significance of the deceased than by an attempt to offset the importance of his page-mate’s accomplishments. Both articles feature pictures of a smiling father entwined with a smiling son. Can you see the editors deciding on their choices? “Let’s commemorate the man who penned a 1,300 page history of the Spanish Inquisition, was editor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica, the Encyclopedia Judaica and The World History of the Jewish People, the father of the current prime minister of Israel (whom we don’t like) and to balance that, let’s highlight the guy who sold hot dogs and knishes in a seedy 7 seat luncheonette on Times Square. Or maybe the editors saw equivalencies between the two men – after all, Hakim was a gym teacher at the Murray Bergtraum High School in lower Manhattan and Netanyahu taught at Cornell, another New York school. Or perhaps it was a case of free association – say the names Ben Zion and Netanyahu quickly 3 times, click your heels and what comes to mind is Hebrew National – a famous hot dog and a perfect segue.

In Netanyahu’s obituary, the Times would have us believe that “revisionist Zionism originally opposed creating the new Israel by dividing Palestine between Jews and Arabs. It wanted a bigger Jewish state, which would have included present day Jordan.” It goes on to stress that “The revisionists were led by Vladimir Jabotinsky, whose belief in the necessity of an ‘iron wall’ between Israel and its Arab neighbors has influenced Israeli politics since the 1930’s.” You don’t have to be a scholar to learn what has been omitted from these statements; just go to Wikipedia’s entry on Jabotinsky and read the following: ” In 1934, he (Jabotinsky) wrote a draft constitution for the Jewish state which declared that the Arab minority would be on equal footing with its Jewish counterpart ‘hroughout all sectors of the country’s public life.’ The two communities would share the state’s duties, both military and civil service and enjoy its prerogatives. Jabotinsky proposed that Hebrew and Arab should enjoy equal rights and that ‘in every cabinet where the Prime Minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab and vice versa.”

http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?q=node/89338

“It was the Arabs, not the Jews who rejected partition in 1948,” he said. “It was the Arabs who attacked the new Jewish state. While I have sympathy for the Palestinian people, you can’t take their expressions of peace seriously when they are constantly showing maps of the land of Israel as greater Palestine.”

He urged his audience to get the facts about Israel out, especially on university campuses, to be proactive rather than reactive. “Hold regular events that promote Israel in the best possible way,” he said. “And show people that Israel is much more than just the conflict. Show all the ways that Israel is helping humanity. Be proud of Israel, not apologetic.”

WINNIPEG — Kasim Hafeez has seen the truth and, in an address to a largely Jewish audience at the Asper Jewish Community Campus on Feb. 6, he pulled no punches.

Wahhabism, the Saudi Arabian version of Islam, is little different than Nazism, Hafeez said.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should be facing war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, he said.Anti-Zionism is code for antisemitism, he said.

The Islamic concern for Jerusalem is purely political, he said. Until the creation of Israel, Jerusalem was unimportant to most Muslims.

And often, he noted, those who claim to be pro-Palestinian are just anti-Israel.

Hafeez, 29, a British-born Muslim of Pakistani origin, knows of what he speaks.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/ I have written from time to time on this blog about the phenomenon of anti-Semitism — a vice that is far more widespread and insidious than many understand. I have written about it in Europe, and readers have replied that it is simply a matter of immigrants. “Real” Europeans don’t do that anymore.Not so, […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1809

“In a eulogy for Zionist leader Max Nordau in 1931, Benzion Netanyahu said, “With all the love he had for man and society, and with his active participation in public life, the truth of the matter is that he was lonely. When the people began to diverge from Zionism, again he remained lonely, now among his brothers. His big eye examined the events as they unfolded and he cried out in pain, but his cry was carried only by the wind. I am puzzled by his deep optimism, the optimistic serenity within this volcano of a man. He died in loneliness with a contented face.”

“So wrote Professor Netanyahu, from the bottom of his heart, and it appears that today, as we stand over his own grave, that he had actually delivered his own eulogy back then: “He died in loneliness with a contented face.”

When I learned of the death of Professor Benzion Netanyahu, a great sadness came over me. A great sadness came over Jerusalem.

One hundred and two years of man and spirit have left behind a huge void that, for me, represents the scenes of my childhood and evokes the feeling of my childhood home. In my parents’ house, where my late father toiled, together with Professor Netanyahu and Dr. Abba Ahimeir, on the ambitious endeavor of compiling the Hebrew Encyclopedia, Netanyahu’s name was said with the utmost respect and appreciation. With him gone, a giant in a generation of giants that lived among us, an entire world has disappeared. A world for which he served as a spokesman and a preserver.

http://amilimani.com/2012/05/a-perspective-on-islam/#more-1734 I was born in a Muslim family that did not push religion down the kids’ throats. Yet, religion always cast a big shadow on everything. I just had to deal with it and couldn’t simply set it aside. And Islam, the Shiite Islam was the most pervasive religion around. I went to all kinds […]

http://www.qassam.ps/news-5647-Qaradawi_We_need_to_prepare_for_the_day_of_Israels_Demise.html ِAl Qassam website- Doha- Head of the International union for the Muslim scholars Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradawi renewed his optimistic remarks regarding the demise of Zionist entity and the return of the occupied Jerusalem and Aqsa Mosque for Arabs and Muslims saying:” Zionists would inevitably demise in and out of Palestine and we are in […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3047/rational-iran If the West takes no action, each Iranian target will remain a target: dissident Iranians, Sunnis including the Saudis, European capitals, Americans and American interests, Western-oriented South Americans, Israel and Jews. Russia and China will support Iran with no concern for American disapproval. Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, Venezuela and Nicaragua will have their patron intact. […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3045/france-elections-decline France is country where the reports of the inevitable failure of the pension systems were presented to successive governments for over 25 years without a decision being proposed or taken. In the main mosques, Imams have been making explicit appeals to vote for François Hollande. An observer from North America trying to analyze the […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/02/the-truth-about-the-apartheid-wall/ I was recently challenged by a polite academic who claimed to be dumbfounded by the fact that I rejected as absurd his use of the term “Apartheid Wall” to refer to Israel’s security barrier fence. He demanded to know why I objected to the term, and what I thought was a more appropriate name […]