RUTHFULLY YOURS

WHERE PERSECUTED JEWS MAY GO

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3040/benzion-netanyahu

The logical conclusion for these critics is that Israel would be more democratic if it were less Jewish. No Zionist leader would agree with this. These critics also conveniently ignore the continual Arab rejection of any compromise solution to the conflict and their repeated rejection of any partition proposals and resolutions.

Throughout history political systems have come to an end when citizens of countries lose faith in them. The state of Israel has not had to face this situation in the extreme, but it has been challenged by so-called “post-Zionism.” Among the themes derogatory towards Israel are that Zionism — the movement of Jewish self-determination which led to the establishment of the state of Israel — is a colonial enterprise; that a Jewish state is by nature undemocratic; that it is basically immoral as it was founded on the domination, or even the ouster — by force and other means — of another people; that the creation of Israel caused a catastrophe for Palestinian Arabs; that Israeli occupation of disputed territory is a violation of human rights; that Israel is an imperialistic power and a threat to world peace.

This criticism is deficient in many respects. It is a quaintly insular view of Israel — a country in a world of globalization and complex interdependence, confronted by continual hatred so that it must always be prepared to defend itself. Its proponents are singularly naïve in their expectations of a perfect social and politically egalitarian, secular society, and are guilty of prejudice against devout religious believers in a way they are not toward followers of other faiths. Moreover, these critics misunderstand Zionism, a word coined by Nathan Birnbaum in 1891, which in fact includes a pluralistic variety of approaches.

What particular aspects of the different views of Zionism are unacceptable to the critics? Do they want to eliminate the state of Israel? Proponents of Zionism saw that Jews in the Diaspora had been excluded from world history, and so believed it was necessary to establish a state for the Jewish people as a national unit. The Israeli Declaration of Independence speaks of “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate like other nations.” Advocates varied about the solution: “territorialists,” wanted any suitable areas including Uganda where persecuted Jews might go; others demanded a state in Palestine or Eretz Israel [the Biblical Land of Israel]; practical Zionists proposed settlements; others urged a solution by political and diplomatic means; socialists disputed with the political right; nationalists disagreed with internationalists, and the religious coexisted with the free-thinkers.

The post-Zionists argue that Zionism is a colonialist concept essentially founded on injustice towards the local Arabs, and that the differences in Israel now in status, income, and rights between Jews and Israeli Arabs means that the state is therefore undemocratic. The logical conclusion for these critics would be that Israel would be more democratic if it were less Jewish. Herzl and many others would have disagreed with this conclusion. He wrote in his diary in1895 that Jewish settlement would bring immediate benefits to the land, and that “we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion.”

The fundamental external reality — which seems to escape those who challenge the legitimacy of Israel — is that many Arab countries and Palestinians, having warred and engaged in constant hostility, still refuse to recognize Israel’s legitimacy. Necessarily, security is vital; the problem is to what extent should this interfere with Arab claims to the land and rights? The present mainstream view is that a secure Israel is better than a territorially extended one.

Certainly a variety of opinions exist within Israel on the nature of the economy and the free market, on the cultural identities that make up the mosaic of its society, and on the inequalities both within the Jewish community and between Jews and non-Jews. But to conclude that Zionism is a colonialist or racist movement is to go far beyond rational analysis, and to touch on the periphery of antisemitism.

Although attitudes toward the Arabs in the territory differ, there never been any official policy to expel them from the territory. In spite of this, critics of Israel persist in the allegation that Zionism has promoted this view. They are mistaken in this belief as they are in their aversion to the exercise of Israeli power to defend itself, while at the same time shirking any realistic alternative proposals.

The main assertions of critics are that Israel is too nationalistic — that it should no longer be a Jewish state but rather a democratic one, implying an incompatibility between the two; and that Israel should end its occupation of captured territory, even as it stands threatened by many countries that have repeatedly announced they would like to displace it. These critics also conveniently ignore the continual Arab rejection of any compromise solution to the conflict and their repeated rejection of all partition proposals and resolutions. Post-Zionism tends to become anti-Zionism — the denial that Israel has a legitimate right to exist but comfortable with the right to exist of other newly-created states, such as Moldova, or Bangladesh.

It is therefore fortunate that the book, The Founding Fathers of Zionism by Benzion Netanyahu, the recently deceased 102 year old patriarch of an important Israeli family — including Jonathan the celebrated hero who was killed while leading the mission to rescue Jewish hostages held by the PLO at Entebbe airport on July 4, 1976, Benjamin, Prime Minister of Israel, and Iddo, a prominent physician — has been translated from Hebrew and is being published for the first time in English. The author is well known both as a renowned scholar, especially for his 1400 page, controversial book, The Origins of the Inquisition in 15th century Spain, dedicated to Jonathan.

Netanyahu’s book is a series of essays on five major writers — Leo Pinsker, Theodore Herzl, Max Nordau, Israel Zangwill, and Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky — who contributed to the intellectual foundation of Zionism and thus indirectly to the establishment of the state of Israel.

In earlier years, Netanyahu was an activist in the Revisionist Zionist movement, for a time secretary to its founder, Jabotinsky, and head of the U.S. branch of the movement during World War II. In 1940 he approved the campaign of Jabotinsky, who had formed Haganah in 1920 as a separate fighting force, to create a Jewish military force to fight against Nazi Germany, and to call for a Jewish state. Although he never renounced his favorable opinion of Jabotinsky, his essays are eminently fair in their evaluation of all of his five founders.

Netanyahu traces Zionism back to late 19th century Russia and the rise in Eastern Europe of a national consciousness, partly as an outcome of religious longings, but largely as a result of attacks on Jews and the manifest anti-Semitism there.

It is of course true that some in the Jewish community do not acknowledge the land that is now Israel as the necessary homeland for all Jews. The founders in Netanyahu’s book thought otherwise. Their arguments, which played a major part of the intellectual foundations on which the state of Israel was built, were based on the understanding, which turned out to be prescient, that European Jews would be doomed without a Jewish state in which they would be protected and could defend themselves. For Netanyahu the motivation of Zionism, also as expressed by his founders was not religious but political.

The declaration at the First Zionist Congress that Herzl convened in Basel in 1897 was that “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.” This implied an international charter for Jews to return to Palestine. The result, Herzl believed, would be not only a state but also the ending of antisemitism. Herzl emphasized the need for the Jewish people to rule, and to believe in their own powers. Netanyahu sums up Herzl in three words: “believe, dare and desire.” In Herzl’s novel, Altneuland, a character concludes, “If you will it, it is no dream.”

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3042/geert-wilders-first-amendment

Address before the Gatestone Institute, New York City, April 30, 2012.
Adherence to religion must be a personal choice. No religion should demand that those who leave it be killed; this makes it a totalitarian ideology rather than a religion. A religion must never mandate the subjugation of those who do not belong to it. A religion must be in accord with basic human rights. This ideology also harms Muslims. That is why we have to end the biggest disease in the world today, the cultural relativism which pretends that all cultures are equal. If Israel falls, the West falls. That is why their fight is our fight. We should support it.

I am happy to be in New York again, even though in my country today it is Queen’s Day, a national celebration. This is why I am wearing my orange tie.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address all of you. It is always good to be among friends. It is an honor to be here in the presence of so many people who care for the preservation of freedom in our civilization.

It is great to be in America, the beacon of liberty, the land of the free, the land where people are still allowed to speak freely. I know what I am talking about. I was acquitted after a legal ordeal that lasted almost three years. I had been brought to court for criticizing Islam.

Though at the end of the day I was acquitted, the court case was a disgrace. It was a time-, money- and energy-consuming nightmare. This charade that happened in the Netherlands for the last few years could not have happened in your great country, where the First Amendment guarantees people the freedom to express their opinions.

The First Amendment is what we need in the Netherlands and Europe.

I am in New York for the release of my book “Marked for Death.” It reveals how Islam has already profoundly changed Europe in the last decades. It exposes the cultural relativism which has affected Europe so deeply that many in Europe refuse to stand for liberty and prefer to appease Islam. It explains why Islam is a threat to freedom.

As you know, people who speak out like me pay a steep price for speaking these truths. Apart from legal attempts to silence me, there are also the threats by radical Muslims to kill me. I have been living under permanent police protection for almost eight years now. But I do not regret one word. I see it as my duty to warn the West.

I have traveled widely in the Islamic world. I have read the Koran. I have studied the life of Muhammad. It made me realize that Islam is primarily an ideology rather than a religion. This ideology wants to impose Islamic sharia law on the whole world, including us the Kafirs, the non-Muslims. This ideology is also outspokenly anti-Semitic.

This ideology also harms Muslims. Islam believes that everything men have to know can be found in the Koran. As such, it is hostile to all forms of innovation. But without innovation there can be no progress and people cannot prosper.

Many people unfortunately are blind to the nature of Islam because they do not realize what Islam is, and mistakenly believe that it is a religion just like any other religion.

I have written my book to inform them.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NE01Dj06.html

THIS IS AN UPDATE ON YESTERDAY’S COLUMN: THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD WANT THE BAKERY NOT THE PITA

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2012/04/29/the-muslim-brotherhood-wants-the-bakery-not-the-pita-david-spengler-goldman/

Egypt’s national tragedy took a turn towards farce April 27, when Saudi Arabia closed its embassy and several consulates after demonstrations that “threaten the security and safety of Saudi and Egyptian employees, raising hostile slogans and violating the inviolability and sovereignty”, according to a Saudi statement. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States were supposed to anchor an international aid package that will forestall a disorderly financial crisis.

With a critical fuel shortage cutting into food supplies and essential services, Egyptians already have a foretaste of chaos. The two-for-a-penny pita, the subsidized flat bread that provides much of the caloric intake for the half of Egypt’s population living on less than $2 a day, is at risk.

A battle over the Muslim Brotherhood’s international ambitions may push Egypt over the edge into a Somali level of horror. I warned in this space on April 11 [1] that the Muslim Brotherhood thinks that it can thrive on chaos. The anti-Saudi demonstrations support this interpretation of the Brotherhood’s actions.
The anti-Saudi demonstrations began after a Saudi court sentenced an Egyptian lawyer, Ahmed el-Gezawi, to a year in prison and 20 lashes for offending the Saudi monarch King Abdullah. It’s not clear who started them, but Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood apparently encouraged them.

The Saudis claim that Gezawi was smuggling Xanax into the kingdom. Just who started the demonstrations against Saudi embassies and consulates is unclear, but the Muslim Brotherhood is holding a net to catch the fallout. As Reuters reported April 28,

Holocaust Lesson: Genocide Always in the Name of ‘Human Rights’ Posted By Steven Plaut

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/30/holocaust-lesson-genocide-always-in-the-name-of-human-rights/

Every single act of genocidal aggression is couched in the language of human rights and the need for self-determination for minorities. One of the most infamous began as a supposed struggle to defend the human rights of an oppressed minority group, as an innocent demand for self-determination. All Hitler wanted was to achieve self-determination for the Sudeten Germans, to free them from oppression and mistreatment at the hands of democratic Czechoslovakia.

Never mind that the ethnic Germans living under Czechoslovak rule were being treated infinitely better than were Germans living under German rule. In fact, the Sudetens were arguably the best treated minority in all of Europe. Never mind that Germans already had achieved self-determination in the form of nation states – ­ Germany and Austria – to which Sudeten Germans could freely move. Never mind that the ONLY reason Germany was demanding self-determination and independence for the Sudetens was as a ploy to destroy all of Czechoslovakia and then to carry out genocide. Sound familiar?

The modern Czechoslovakian state came into existence in 1918; in the first of many parallels with modern Israel, it was a country recreated after centuries, having been destroyed and absorbed by others over the years. In the Middle Ages, Bohemia and Moravia had been separate Czech kingdoms, enjoying varying degrees of independence, generally within the framework of the Holy Roman Empire.

Modern Czech nationalism emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century. During World War I, Czechs participated in resistance and espionage against the Axis powers, and their leaders lobbied in European capitals for independence. After centuries of persecution, the Czechs reestablished their sovereignty following World War I and linked up with their Slovakian cousins in the new state of Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia contained a diverse and heterogeneous population, like the Habsburg Empire from which it emerged. In particular, about 23 percent of its citizens were ethnic Germans, concentrated in the Western section known as the Sudetenland. Most Sudeten Germans were violently opposed to incorporation within the Czechoslovakian state. Instead, they identified openly with larger neighboring countries and fundamentally opposed the very existence of the new state. On October 21, 1918, German deputies from all parts of the former Austrian Empire convened and issued a call for national “self-determination” for the Germans of Czechoslovakia, using the term President Woodrow Wilson had recently added to the international lexicon. In the following year, Sudeten Germans launched a wave of violent demonstrations and terrorism in opposition to the inclusion of their lands in the Czech state. In addition, thousands of Sudeten Germans fled from the new state to the neighboring countries of Germany and Austria.

The new Czechoslovakia thus included a large element with questionable loyalty to the state. Czechoslovakia was ruled by social democrats committed to social reform and egalitarianism; they made attempts to resolve this problem by winning over the hostile minority through economic integration, tolerance, freedom, and liberal social reform. The first Czechoslovakian president, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, a powerful, strong-willed, charismatic, and progressive politician, proposed a comprehensive program of equality for all national groups in the new state.

Czechoslovakia quickly developed in the 1920s into a stable parliamentary democracy with protection for all the freedoms found in modern Western states. A large number of political parties contested elections and gained representation in the parliament. The country passed legislative programs that were among the most progressive in the world. Trade union activism and power bloomed, and widespread experimentation with cooperative agriculture took place.

The German minority was permitted to operate its own schools in its own languages and control its own local affairs. German was an official national language in the German areas of Czechoslovakia. Sudeten Germans voted and were elected to parliament. On the whole, the Sudeten Germans enjoyed better treatment than any other national minority in Europe.

However, by 1937 the Sudeten Germans found themselves at the center of escalating tensions. The radicalization of nationalist movements in neighboring countries, where power was seized by revolutionary and xenophobic leaders, led to growing international conflict. Specifically, the pan-German ideology and imperialist ambitions of the Third Reich inflamed the Sudeten conflict. Adolf Hitler saw Czechoslovakia as an integral part of the German national homeland, an area to be absorbed and integrated into the Reich.

As international tensions grew, Berlin complained more and more about discrimination and mistreatment of the Sudetens. In response, Sudeten Germans moved away from peaceful coexistence in favor of polarization and extremism. Their growing nationalist movement was anti-liberal, anti-democratic, and authoritarian. The Nazi Party was formally banned in Czechoslovakia but support for the Sudeten German Party (SdP), the Nazi surrogate party, soared; in 1935 it received 63 percent of the German vote in Czechoslovakia (a higher percentage than what the Nazis received in Germany in 1933), and 78 percent in 1938. The SdP never outlined a political or social program of nation-building beyond demanding “self-determination.”

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/30/sharia-in-moscow/

Sharia in MoscowPosted By Daniel Greenfield

“You think that we are coming here as foreigners, but we believe that we are at home here and maybe you are the foreigners. We will make those laws that suit us, whether you like it or not, and any attempts to change that will lead to spilled blood. There will be a second dead sea here and we will drown the city in blood.”

Those were not the words of some back alley preacher, but of noted Moscow lawyer, Dagir Khasavov, giving an interview to a television station about his proposal to implement Sharia courts in Russia. Interspersed with footage of death sentences being executed, Khasavov spoke about his new organization that would protect Muslim rights and claimed that his proposal was only the beginning of a worldwide expansion.

“We are going to expand this net, we will begin in Russia, first Asia, and then everything will be encompassed, as it was in the Caliphate,” Khasavov said. According to Khasavov, Russian security services already unofficially refer cases involving Muslims back to Sharia courts and his proposal to officially establish such courts would only legitimize the parallel justice system that already exists for the millions of Muslims who now live in Moscow and other cities.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/lessons_from_the_fall_of_saigon.html

The 37th anniversary of the fall of Saigon today is a good time to review the utility of American security promises — including those purchased with American blood — to countries fighting ideologically based insurgencies.

There were 540,000 Americans in Vietnam at the peak of the U.S. part of the war in January 1969. Precisely four years later, in January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, and the U.S. promised continuing support to South Vietnam, where nearly 2.6 million Americans had served and more than 58,000 had died. Eight months later, Congress voted to halt all combat operations, and by December, only 50 American military personnel were left in the South. President Nixon resigned in July 1974, and two weeks later Congress reduced aid to South Vietnam by one third. In late December, the North attacked positions in the South. In January 1975, the cross-border invasion began. The North Vietnamese military expected the war to take two years. On 21 January, President Ford told a press conference the U.S. was unwilling to re-enter the war. Three months and nine days later, Saigon fell.

Phuoc Long in January; An Loc, Ban Me Thuot, Quang Tri, Tam Ky, Hue, Chu Lai, and Danang in March; Qui Nhon, Tuy Hoa and Nha Trang on April 1; Xuan Loc held out almost two weeks; Saigon was encircled on the 27th, and three days later, the war was over. For the South Vietnamese, there was much more horror to come as they fell into the clutches of people who despised their beliefs and their way of life — into the clutches of violent ideological communists. An estimated 1 million people were imprisoned without formal charges, 165,000 died in “re-education camps,” and 2 million impoverished and miserable people fled the country.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/

DO LEFTIST FOLLIES GET YOU DOWN? DO YOU WORRY ABOUT DANGER TO ISRAEL AND THE WEST?DO YOU SEE THE THREAT OF RESURGENT ISLAM? ARE THE WARMISTS MAKING YOU HOT UNDER THE COLLAR?

GO TO THIS FABULOUS SITE AND SUPPORT THEIR WORK NOW.

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/forget-homeland-security-now-its-about-environmental-justice#ixzz1tW9iOqn4 Under Creative Commons License: Attribution   It is the nature of any government to seek to expand its authority. The Founding Fathers knew this and gifted Americans with a Constitution that limits authority devolving it to the states and to “the people.” Read the Tenth Amendment. It isn’t working. […]

Billions to Terror, But It’s For Your Safety

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/billions-to-terror-but-its-for-your-safety#ixzz1tW8AEAZd

The AFP reported on Friday,

President Barack Obama has signed a waiver to remove curbs on funding to the Palestinian Authority, declaring the aid to be “important to the security interests of the United States.”

We need first to understand that the US Congress froze a $192 million aid package to the Palestinian Authority last September after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas defied the US and sought to attain UN endorsement of Palestinian statehood.

The Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2012 states under section 7040 (a) PROHIBITION OF FUNDS,

None of the funds appropriated by this Act. may be obligated or expended with respect to providing funds to the Palestinian Authority.

Section 7040 (b) WAIVER states,

The prohibition included in subsection (a) shall not apply if the President certifies in writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President pro tempore of the Senate, and the Committees on Appropriations that waiving such prohibition is important to the national security interests of the United States.

In simple English, section ‘a’, “no funds to the Palestinian Authority” may be ‘waived’ according to section ‘b’ if “it is important to the national security interests of the United States.”

Obama has now signed a waiver and instructed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to inform Congress accordingly.

By citing section ‘b’ the ‘waiver’ Obama signed circumvents Congress and releases all funds immediately,

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

SUBJECT: Waiver of Restriction on Providing Funds to the Palestinian Authority

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 7040(b) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2012 (Division I, Public Law 112-74) (the “Act”), I hereby certify that it is important to the national security interests of the United States to waive the provisions of section 7040(a) of the Act, in order to provide funds appropriated to carry out Chapter 4 of Part II of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended, to the Palestinian Authority.

BARACK OBAMA

Iranian naval admiral: ‘If needed, we can move to within three miles of New York’

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/iranian-naval-admiral-if-needed-we-can-move-to-within-three-miles-of-new-york?f=must_reads#ixzz1tW7Rvhf8

The Islamic Republic of Iran said Tuesday that it has the ability to position a naval vessel within three miles of the East Coast of the United States.

“The power of our naval forces is such that we have a presence in all the waters of the world and, if needed, we can move to within three miles of New York,” Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said Tuesday during a speech to the students of the University of Yazd in Iran. His remarks were quoted by an Iranian student news agency.

This naval saber rattling represents a stark escalation in Iran’s war rhetoric, as the West weighs the question of whether to impose new economic sanctions or directly attack the Islamic regime’s illicit nuclear facilities.

“The Americans’ only tool to rule the world is their naval dominance of the Persian Gulf,” Fadavi added, “and they will face any other power that threatens their status.”

The admiral was speaking on the anniversary of a failed April 24, 1980 U.S. military operation – dubbed “Operation Eagle Claw” – that sought to rescue American hostages held captive at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

A Pentagon official responded to Fadavi’s claim on Friday. “You should ask the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps what their plans are,” the official told The Daily Caller. “We support freedom of the seas and encourage all countries to follow international laws.”

But on Friday, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Iran’s top air force commander, told the Fars New Agency that the Islamic republic’s military is also capable of crippling or disabling U.S. aircraft carriers.