http://spectator.org/archives/2011/12/12/why-is-newt-still-rising After Saturday night’s Iowa debate, I’d bet $10,000 that Mitt Romney has sunk himself. Well, I might if I had an extra $10,000 lying around, which I don’t. But after that debate, and more than a week of relentless attacks on him, why is Newt Gingrich still rising and Romney still sinking? Gingrich’s staying […]
An Invented People Posted By David Meir-Levi
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/13/an-invented-people/print/
On Friday, December 9, presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich was interviewed on cable TV’s The Jewish Channel, where he made the unexpected comment that the Palestinians are an invented people with no apparent right to their own state. His remarks, summarized in the Washington Post, were promptly condemned; but is he correct?
Let’s recall that Mr. Gingrich has an MA and PhD in History from Tulane University. In fact, history is quite clear on this issue. Mr. Gingrich is correct, and the first to say so was Daniel Pipes.
The name “Palestine” derives from the Philistines, who originated from the Eastern Mediterranean (perhaps Greece or Crete) and invaded the region in the eleventh and twelfth centuries B.C. Related to the Bronze Age Greeks, they spoke a language akin to Mycenaean Greek. Their area of habitation on the Eastern Mediterranean littoral became known as “Philistia.”
When Romans arrived a thousand years later they corrupted “Philistia” to “Palestina,” from whence “Palestine.” Six hundred years later, the Arab invaders corrupted “Palestina” to “Falastin.”
Throughout all subsequent history there was never a nation of “Palestine,” never a people known as the “Palestinians,” nor any notion of “historic Palestine.” The region remained under successive foreign rulers, from the Umayyads and Abbasids and Ayyubids to the Fatimids, Ottomans and British. During these millennia the term “Falastin” referred to an undefined geographical region, much like “Appalachia” or “the great Southwest” in modern U.S. geography.
http://www.prudenpolitics.com/index.php?/pruden/signup_o
If we can get through the last of the Pundit Primaries, the actual Republican voters can get on with the business of choosing the man to liberate America from Barack Obama. But the path to presidential power is strewn with little rocks who imagine they’re mighty boulders.
The “debates”—it’s an insult to the memory of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas to call them “debates”—are actually only occasions for television moderators to parse, preen and demonstrate how little actual wit and learning you need to pretend to knowledge of public affairs. The “debates,” with their emphasis on the unimportant, have taken the selection process away from the party without actually shaping either the race or the candidates.
The flickering television screen, which is all about illusion, is thus allowed to define what passes for reality. The candidates get their 15 minutes of fame, which isn’t much, but it’s all most of these worthies will ever see of presidential fame.
http://townhall.com/columnists/marcorubio/2011/12/13/forcing_washington_to_live_within_its_means/page/full/ Washington politicians do not live by the same rules that virtually all families and small businesses play by. It is your responsibility to balance your budget, spend no more than what’s in your bank account, and have a plan to manage common expenses like student, home and car loans. But in Washington, money is […]
All-American Muslim – Threats, Intimidation and Hate Posted By Daniel Greenfield
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/12/all-american-muslim-%e2%80%93-threats-intimidation-and-hate/
For the first time in weeks All-American Muslim is back in the news, not for anything on the show, but over the commercials. A number of sponsors have stopped advertising on the show, including Lowe’s. Muslim groups and their supporters have taken this development in stride by trying to blackmail the home improvement chain into advertising on the failing TLC series.
Is blackmail the right word? California State Senator Ted Lieu threatened boycotts and more disturbingly “legislative remedies” if Lowe’s doesn’t submit. Lieu, who clearly doesn’t believe in the separation of mosque and state, is shamelessly pandering to his Muslim constituents but his thuggery is fundamentally un-American and dangerous. No advertiser should be compelled to sponsor any television show.
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/12/its-not-workplace-violence-its-islam/
This week, the Obama Administration made an announcement regarding the attack on Fort Hood in 2009. In that incident, you’ll recall, gentle Muslim psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan – who had apparently been taking Islamic training from gentle Muslim terrorist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki – picked up a handgun and proceeded to murder 12 soldiers (one pregnant) and one Army civilian employee; another 29 were injured. None of the soldiers were armed. Finally, a civilian police sergeant put Hasan down with five shots, paralyzing the gentle Muslim from the chest down.
Two years later, President Obama’s Defense Department called this incident “workplace violence.” You know, like when you punch a guy at the water cooler for sleeping with your wife. Except you’re a Muslim and there are forty co-workers, none of whom have slept with your wife, and you’re trying to shoot them to death while shouting “Allahu Akhbar!”
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/12/newt-challenges-the-myth-of-palestinian-nationalism/ Newt Challenges the Myth of Palestinian Nationalism Posted By Bruce Thornton On December 12, 2011 @ 12:20 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 9 Comments Newt Gingrich touched off a mini-firestorm when he told a Jewish television channel that the Palestinians are an “invented” people “who are in fact Arabs,” and “who were historically part […]
Roger Simon sums this up quite nicely below, but the nabobs are still dithering about Newt. Well here is something that Rael Jean Isaac , editor of OUTPOST found about Churchill…..
We may have to hope Gingrich turns out to be Churchill in power, not a loose cannon. Anyway, here’s a quote from Roberts about Churchill. From Hitler and Churchill, p. 97: “He [Churchill]had an astonishingly fertile mind. ‘Winston had ten ideas every day,’ his Chief of the Imperial General Staff Loard Alanbrooke used to say of him, ‘only one of which was good, and he did not know which it was.” Roosevelt made a very similar remark, saying that the Prime Minister had a hundred ideas a day of which six were good (a much larger number if an even lower percentage).”
Hmmmm….sound a tad familiar?….rsk
Gingrich Tells Truth about ‘Palestine’—MSM Goes in a Dither
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/12/10/gingrich-tells-truth-about-palestine-msm-goes-in-a-dither/
One of the cardinal rules of politics: you’re not supposed to tell the truth, only polite lies.
One of the pleasures of Newt Gingrich is that he occasionally disobeys this rule. He did so again in an interview with The Jewish Channel that has set the world in a dither, by saying such things as: It’s “delusional to call it a peace process,” claiming that the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority and Hamas alike “represent an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”
Well, duh.
Didn’t Yasser Arafat, the head of Fatah, walk out on the peace talks when he had ninety percent (or more) of what he said he wanted and start Intifada II? Doesn’t their current head Abu Abbas stay as far from the peace table as possible, looking for every excuse not to talk, as if he had some undisclosed allergy? And, most obviously, doesn’t the Hamas Charter call directly for the extermination of Israel?
Unfortunately, except for a handful of Palestinians, most of them don’t want a two-state solution. They want a one-state solution.
That’s the truth that “polite politicians,” unlike Gingrich, don’t want to talk about; but, in actuality, until it’s stated clearly and faced, nothing will change. (Hello, Leon Panetta)
Gingrich is doing a service in that regard, just as he is doing a service in pointing out the historical truth that almost no one referred to Palestinians as a people until after Israel was established. They were just Arabs in the area. Now they get to have a state, assuming that’s what they really want. The jury is still way out on that one.
Examples on the ground from a premier religious freedom attorney.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/sharia-law-already-devouring-uk/?print=1
In 2008, while arguing for the need to formally introduce Sharia law into the law of the United Kingdom, the Archbishop of Canterbury claimed Sharia law was “inevitable” in the UK . He denied it was an “alien” system and called for “constructive accommodation” of Muslim law. He did this in a calculated and provocative manner, while denying a place for its more “extreme punishments.”
It is unlikely that many members of the Muslim community would be satisfied with an Anglican primate determining the limitations of the Quran and Sharia law.
This argument was rapidly followed by the Lord Chief Justice: Lord Phillips helpfully said there was a place for Sharia law, particularly in mediation. He lamented the “widespread misunderstanding” of Sharia law. The newly established Muslim Arbitration Tribunals immediately put a picture of the Lord Chief Justice on their website in appreciation of his endorsement.
In the United Kingdom, the many thousands of Sharia courts can quietly go about their business of implementing “justice” in a form totally “alien” to the Judeo-Christian tradition, denying human rights to many of our citizens — particularly women.
The “constructive accommodation” of Muslim law reached a logical conclusion with the declaration this year of Sharia law controlled zones in a number of areas geographically spread over the country, where the Islamist militants enforce their will. Their posters declare: “No music or concerts, no porn or prostitution, no drugs or smoking, no gambling, no alcohol.” A reign of terror has begun, with threats of implicit violence against anyone who “insults” Islam, changes religion, or fails to dress appropriately. I have already been contacted about assisting two individuals subject to Islamist threats.
The police stand passively by, adhering to their diversity training.
If the Labour Party had won the last general election in 2010, I believe they would have introduced Sharia law into the United Kingdom. Things have changed for the better since David Cameron became prime minister — he has criticized “state multiculturalism” as causative of terrorism and radicalism. An inquiry of the Ministry of Justice into the operation of Sharia courts had to be stopped as Muslim leaders refused to cooperate with the government; they wanted to continue to execute Sharia law in secrecy. However, this has only heightened concerns. A Conservative peer has sought to introduce legislation delimiting the operation of Sharia courts as discriminatory against women. The home secretary has at last refused entry visas to “hate preachers” like Zakir Naik. (The last Labour government welcomed Hezbollah terrorists to lecture the police on “political Islam.”)
http://pjmedia.com/blog/united-states-of-europe-one-step-closer-to-reality/?print=1
The make-or-break summit convened in Brussels to avert the collapse of Europe’s single currency set the stage for yet another anti-democratic European power grab.
The leaders of the 27-member European Union met in Brussels on December 8 and 9 under pressure to deliver a decisive solution to Europe’s two-year-old sovereign debt crisis.
But the high-profile summit — which was billed by many as the last chance to save the euro single currency — did little to resolve the immediate crisis at hand, namely the massive debt loads of most European countries and the spiraling costs of borrowing more money to pay off those debts.
Instead, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy (aka “Merkozy”) leveraged the crisis summit to secure a “historic” commitment from all of the 17 countries that use the euro single currency (aka “eurozone countries”) to transfer broad new economic and financial decision-making powers to unelected and unaccountable technocrats in Brussels, the administrative capital of the EU.
The new “fiscal compact [1]” is a major step on the road to creating a single economic government in Europe. By giving Brussels more power to codify and enforce debt limits and impose central oversight of national budgets, the agreement takes the EU on step closer to consolidated and centralized fiscal authority in Europe. Among other features, the agreement also gives the European Court of Justice the right to strike down national laws that conflict with diktats issued by bureaucrats in Brussels, although EU legal experts are still unsure about how this can or will be enforced.
British Prime Minister David Cameron was the only EU leader who refused to go along with what many observers have described as an attempted European coup d’état.
Cameron vetoed the European power grab after Merkozy refused to give Britain — which uses the pound, not the euro — a written promise that the City of London would be exempt from heavy-handed EU rules and regulations that could damage its £46 billion (€54 billion; $72 billion) financial services sector.
In particular, Cameron had demanded that Britain be able to veto any usurpation of regulatory power over financial services from London to Brussels. He was especially keen on avoiding a move towards a Europe-wide financial transaction tax that would see London become a less attractive destination in which to do business.
In this context, Cameron had also insisted on measures that would prevent the eurozone countries from demanding that euro-denominated transactions be conducted in Frankfurt or Paris, something that would reduce the amount of business being done in the City of London.
Cameron’s veto will make life more complicated for Europe’s empire builders. In practical terms, rather than amending the existing Lisbon Treaty, which comprises the constitutional basis for the EU, the other 26 member countries of the EU will now have to forge a completely new “intergovernmental” treaty.
The agreement reached in Brussels on December 9 calls for the new treaty to be drafted within the next three months (by March 2012), even though in the past this process has taken many years. After that, the treaty will need to be ratified by each of the 26 countries. Some of them, such as Ireland, will also require holding public referendums.
Without Britain on board, the other 26 EU countries could also face potentially complicated legal obstacles, especially on how the new treaty will be enforced.
Moreover, Cameron says he will not allow the other 26 EU leaders to use the institutions of the 27-member EU to draft and police regulations for the 17 eurozone countries. Presumably, this would include the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, which Britain, as a member of the EU, helps to pay for through its annual contributions to the EU budget. He says the EU institutions are there to serve the interests of all 27 countries equally and not just a small group.
