RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/30/womens-rights-and-double-standards/

Well, it seems the Obama team lately was running short of things over
which to bash Israel and so it decided that the treatment of women in
Israel is something that needs condemnation. Led by Hillary Clinton,
the Obama administration thinks that Israel does not treat its women
nicely or respectfully enough. This is the same Hillary Clinton who
never had much to say about the treatment of women in the Clinton
White House. Other administration bashers of Israel joined the feeding
frenzy.

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/index.php/pruden/full_column/more_than_malarkey_in_the_strait

It isn’t saber-rattling by Iran that’s making noise in the Middle East, but rhetoric-rattling. Nobody does it better.

The latest purveyor of big malarkey is the chief of the Iranian navy, who would execute the Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz in answer to the Western sanctions against Iran for its work on a nuclear weapon.

“Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran’s armed forces is really easy,” he says, “or as Iranians say, it will be easier than drinking a glass of water.” (Those witty Persians.) Then, in deference to the real world, he added a caveat: “But right now, we don’t need to shut it.”

Al-Qaeda Relocates to Africa
“If You Said You Were a Christian, They Killed You”

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2714/al-qaeda-nigeria-boko-haram

BIN LADEN LIVED IN KHARTOUM DURING THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION AND MADELEINE ALBRIGHT AND CLINTON REFUSED SUDAN’S OFFER TO CAPTURE HIM….RSK

Nigerian Christians are under attack. On Christmas day, the Islamist group Boko Haram targeted churches in Nigeria’s capital, killing 40 innocent people. Boko Haram — literally “Western Education is a Sin ” — opposes whatever comes from the West, such as education, culture and science, and considers Christians as an obstacle to building an Islamic caliphate.

Boko Haram has recently increased its attacks against Christian Nigerians, who make up 48.2% of the country’s population. Last November, of Boko Haram killed 150 Christians and bombed 11 churches. “It was a direct attack against Christians. Members of Boko Haram asked: ‘Are you a Christian or a Muslim’ If you said you were a Christian, they killed you. […] I saw someone who was slaughtered like a lamb in front of a church,”said a representative of the Christian Association of Nigeria.

According to the Nigerian newspaper, Sunday Tribune, Nigerian intelligence believes that the intensification in the activities of Boko Haram is aimed at putting the group in advantageous position to secure the leadership of “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.” A report in the hands of the Nigerian government allegedly confirms that after the killing of the U.S.-born Al-Qaeda top leader ,Anwar Al-Awlaki, in an air strike in Yemen by a joint CIA-U.S. military operation, Al-Qaeda is seeking to relocate from the Arabian Peninsula to Africa.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/151218 Report: US Pushing Israel to Free Barghouti The Obama administration wants Israel to release arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti so he can run for election. The Obama administration is trying to convince Israel to release arch-terrorist and mass-murderer Marwan Barghouti. According to the Hamas-aligned Al Quds daily, Washington views Barghouti as its preferred candidate for Fatah […]

http://townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/2011/12/29/is_russia_covering_up_real_cause_of_plane_crash/print

‘Tis the season for media list-mania, and (true confession) I always am mildly surprised upon viewing Top 10 story lists to find that I’ve forgotten some humdingers. Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011?

In fact, given a tally of my own columns, jihad is the top story of 2011, just as it has been since at least 2001. Not that the media see it that way, of course; they see the spread of Islam’s law and call it “diversity” in the West or “Arab Spring” in the Middle East. They are blind to its implications, they apologize for its depredations and, in general, they commit professional malfeasance by misrepresenting the facts. Then again, at least they cover it.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1685/pub_detail.asp Christian couple and their one-year-old baby are shot dead by Muslims [DAILY MAIL] Iraq surge’s advocates fear gains will be lost Fragile democracy at risk, they warn [WT] The U.S. Fifth Fleet said it would not allow any disruption of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, after Iran threatened to stop ships moving through […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11129/pub_detail.asp
Did you hear the song Aussie comic Tim Minchin wrote savagely satirising Islam for Channel 4’s Eid special? No, I didn’t either. It didn’t happen and it never would happen: first because no broadcast station in its right mind would ever allow it; second because I don’t believe that Minchin would be stupid enough to write it.

And I’m not calling Minchin out for physical cowardice on this issue. From the Danish cartoons to the Paris bombing, we’ve seen far too many cases of artists testing the right to free speech – only to find that where certain religions are concerned, such matters are strictly verboten. But what I am definitely accusing him of is hypocrisy and moral cowardice, as regards the banned song he wrote for a Jonathan Ross Christmas special likening Jesus to a blood-drinking zombie.

Personally, I’m sorry we didn’t get to hear the song. As one of those typical, laissez-faire, occasional churchgoing C of E types, I have no problem with having my religion being satirised. Also, the points he apparently made in it sound not just funny but also quite astute: yes, there definitely is something very weird about the New Testament story.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

“The Arab Spring had dried up a long time ago. There were no palatable regional alternatives to the Islamists, no philosophy with a regional grip that could counter it, and even the left hesitated to be actual alternatives to the Islamists, fully embracing a secular vision for their countries. Everything that happened was inevitable and it will happen again so long as the region is so barren that even when there is the freedom to choose, there is still nothing worth choosing.”

All it takes to understand why the Arab Spring was doomed to turn into an Islamic Winter is that Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa were being asked to choose between a Socialist left and an Islamic right. The left has consistently lost open elections in Europe and America, it lost the battle of ideas in Russia and China, and unsurprisingly it also lost the Arab Spring.

Unfit to Print Posted By Bruce Bawer
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/29/unfit-to-print/print/

The other day I took note here of a recent New York Times feature in which several prominent figures from the worlds of law and religion were invited to answer the question: Is religious freedom in America under threat? I focused on one of the responses, entitled “A Campaign Against Patriotic Muslims,” in which Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, maintained that when it came to his coreligionists, the answer was a definite yes. Al-Marayati painted a picture of an America awash in “anti-Islam groups” and “Muslim haters” who make life difficult for American Muslims, whom he depicted as overwhelmingly peaceful, freedom-loving, and terrorism-hating. It didn’t seem to matter to the Times that Al-Marayati himself is a longtime associate of and apologist for terrorists.

Another participant in the same Times feature was Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor. Like Al-Marayati, Feldman claimed to be concerned about a plague of Islam-hatred in America. Feldman complained about legislative proposals in Oklahoma and Tennessee that would “ban Islamic law from the courts — a measure that the American separation of church and state makes completely unnecessary.” Feldman concluded: “It would be nice to say these proposed laws are un-American. But they are sadly reminiscent of our history of targeting vulnerable religious minorities out of bigotry and political expediency. We can only look forward to a day when anti-Islamic sentiment seems as archaic as these other old hatreds do today.”

It’s interesting to note that while the New York Times was giving Al-Marayati and Feldman a platform from which to preach about the supposed persecution of Muslims in America, a woman named Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was actually being persecuted, and prosecuted, in Austria – not for being an adherent of Islam but for speaking the truth about it. Most readers of Front Page will know about Sabaditsch-Wolff, whose whole saga has been covered here, from her frank, fact-based statements about Islam at a 1997 seminar to her conviction last February on the charge of “denigration of the religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” to her appeal to a higher court, which last week affirmed the February verdict and ordered her to pay a €480 fine or spend two months in jail. Sabaditsch-Wolff, who refuses to pay the fine, quite rightly called it “a black day for Austria.”

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

Rep. Ron Paul is now in first place in the Iowa caucus polls, second in New Hampshire and third nationally. This has prompted a former close aide of his, Eric Dondero, to speak out about the anti-Israeli views he expressed to him in private. The Paul campaign is ridiculing Dondero as a “disgruntled former staffer” and another aide, an Israeli, is defending Paul. A close examination of Paul’s books, newsletters and statements give credence to Dondero.

Dondero worked closely with Paul from 1987 to 2003. After he left, he nearly ran against Ron Paul but instead supported another candidate. Dondero claims that the presidential candidate is not anti-Semitic but “wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all.” Dr. Leon Hadar, a dual American-Israeli citizen who served as a foreign policy advisor to Paul during his 2008 presidential campaign, has risen to Paul’s defense. He says that Paul does not want to see Israel eliminated as a state, yet Paul praises an anti-Zionist group that envisions just that.

On page 317 of his book, “Liberty Defined,” Paul laments the influence of the Israeli government on America and the “apartheid conditions that Palestinians are subjected to.” He says that “Even newspapers in Israel are willing to discuss this issue openly, but it is essentially never permitted in the United States.” He praises J-Street for challenging “AIPAC’s monopoly control of the discussion” and Peace Now. He expresses his pleasure that an anti-Zionist group called the American Council for Judaism has growing support.