RUTHFULLY YOURS

In 850 BC, the legendary Greek author, Homer, introduced the mythical king of Ithaca, Odysseus, as a role model of leadership. Sailing home from the battlefield, Odysseus overcame sweeping temptations to dwell on wishful-thinking rather than reality. Odysseus overcame supreme seduction to stray away from the proper course of navigation, and join the beautiful Sirens, who lured sailors with their seductively hypnotizing voices, music and looks to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island.

In 2016, the modern day Sirens of the Western media and policy-making try to divert (and confuse) Israel from the proper course of combatting terrorism, contending that “one’s terrorist is someone else’s freedom fighter;” that Palestinian terrorism is reaction to occupation; that Palestinian terrorists are “lone wolves” not institutional; and that Islam is a religion of peace, not terrorism. However, contrary to freedom fighters, Palestinian terrorism – a branch of the 1,400-year-old inherent Islamic terrorism – has targeted Jewish and mostly Arab non-combatants (sometimes hitting combatants) deliberately, institutionally and systematically, as prescribed by the Quran, the Palestinian Covenant and Palestinian hate-education in schools, mosques and the media.

Moreover, Palestinian terrorism has plagued the Middle East since the 1930s – before the 1948 establishment of Israel and the 1967 Six Day War – focusing on Israel’s existence, not “occupation;” triggering civil wars, subversion and terrorism in Egypt (1950s), Syria (1960s), Lebanon (1970s and 1980s) and Kuwait (1990); assisting Saddam Hussein’s and Assad’s repression of Iraq and Syria; and systematically siding with anti-US and anti-Western rogue regimes, such as North Korea and Iran.

In 2016, Israel’s leadership is cajoled by modern-day Sirens from Israel, the US, Europe and Arab countries to stray away from its national security course of navigation, which has been charted by costly geo-strategic experience, security constraints and requirements, historical reality and commitments made to constituents.
The modern-day Sirens attempt to allure Israel to join a tempting, seemingly-unprecedented regional peace-for-our-time initiative, pampered by peaceful Arab talk, US and NATO security guarantees, possibly Western troops on Israel’s borders and a lavish economic package. Israel is enticed to accept a demilitarized Palestinian state on its borders, the re-division of Jerusalem, the uprooting of Jewish communities in the Land of Israel, and the miniaturization of its size – in the increasingly tectonic Middle East – to a 9-15-mile-sliver along the Mediterranean, over-towered by the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which are the “Golan Heights” of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Israel’s only (Ben Gurion) international airport, Israel’s major freeway (#6) and 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructure.

The contemporary Sirens try to smog Israel’s critical requirements of strategic depth for (routine) Middle East stormy days such as potential upheavals in Jordan and Egypt, which would cause havoc domestically, regionally and globally, posing a survival threat to the Jewish state. Middle Eastern realism requires security contingencies for future – rather than present day – lethal threats, emerging dramatically, unpredictably and frequently.

The 1970’s Black Liberation Army engaged in bombings, murders and prison breaks to further its purpose of “taking up arms for the liberation … of black people in the United States.”

Today, its little publicized, but very effective progeny, relabeled Black Liberation Collective (BLC), has chapters in almost 100 college campuses “dedicated to transforming institutions of higher education through … direct action and political education,” including, one chapter proclaims, “collective resistance” by “Black students from across the country.”

BLC’s objective is to end academic freedom. One chapter expressly attacks “first amendment enthusiasts” as “either unaware or unconcerned with the persistent racial inequality that prevents students of color from even accessing this right.” BLC rejects free speech as protecting “an imagined denial of rights to the dominant group [whites], instead of the … persistent denial of rights to the oppressed [Blacks].” Translated: the majority must surrender their Constitutional rights or Blacks will never have theirs. Further, they demand that colleges prosecute anyone who expresses a contrary view: “prosecute criminally … defamatory speech in the college community.” Duke’s chapter paraphrases it to prohibit any speech on campus “that offends [or] “insults groups.”

These BLC demands violate the Supreme Court ruling that “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right of freedom of expression.” Most colleges’ written guidelines guaranty academic freedom.

Typical is Brown University’s mandating it “must be a place where ideas are exchanged freely. By asserting their right to protest, individuals cannot decide for the entire community which ideas will or will not receive free expression.”

The reality is, however, that most colleges today ignore these principles to appease BLC mobs. Last year, former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, was forced from the podium and prevented from speaking at Brown.

BOSTON, June 10 (Reuters) – As lawmakers across the United States battle over whether to allow transgender Americans to use public restrooms that match their gender identities, universities are scrambling to ensure that dorms meet federal standards.

At a time of year when the nation’s 2,100 residential colleges and universities are sorting out student housing assignments, they also are poring over a May letter from the Obama administration that thrusts them into the national debate on transgender rights.

Known as the “dear colleague” letter, it makes clear that federal law protects transgender students’ right to live in housing that reflects their gender identity.

Schools that fail to provide adequate housing to transgender students could face lawsuits or the loss of any federal funding they rely on.

Although hundreds of universities had begun to offer gender-inclusive housing in response to student demand in recent years, many are now reviewing or expediting their plans so they can provide the option to incoming students for the first time this fall.

The policies are intended not only to accommodate transgender students, university officials say, but to help siblings, gay students who want to live with straight friends of the opposite gender or simply groups comfortable with mixed-gender housing.

Palestinian journalists are spearheading a campaign against Israeli reporters. They have been taught that any journalist daring to criticize the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Hamas is a “traitor.” They expect Israeli and Western journalists to report bad things only about Israel.

“It is very sad when you see that your colleagues on the other side are inciting against you and doing their best to prevent you from carrying out your work. This is harmful to the Palestinians themselves because they will no longer be able to relay their opinions to the Israeli public.” — Israeli reporter who has been covering Palestinian affairs for nearly a decade.

For Palestinian journalists, to be seen in public with an Israeli colleague is treasonous.

Many Western journalists turn a blind eye to assaults on freedom of the media under the PA and Hamas. They know they will be unwelcome in these places if they write any story that reflects negatively on Palestinians. Besides, the campaign against Israeli journalists is being waged by Palestinians, and not Israelis. To them, this fact alone makes it a story not worth reporting.

Nearly every Israeli media outlet has a journalist whose task is to report on what is happening on the Palestinian side. Until recently, these journalists would travel to Ramallah and other Palestinian cities in the West Bank to interview ordinary Palestinians, representatives of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and various Palestinian factions.

If you wonder what has become of us since the Greatest Generation began leaving the stage, consider this elegant 19th century warning from Victorian statesman and author, Sir William Francis Butler:

“The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.”

Despite that timeless advice, foolishness and political correctness recently joined hands at elite Northwestern University, neatly tucked away in Chicago’s toniest suburbs. As the Chicago Tribune reported last week, faculty opposition caused retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry to withdraw his name from a tentative appointment to head the university’s new institute on global studies.

Top officials at Northwestern had clearly viewed this prospective appointment as a huge win. In addition to his military rank, Gen. Eikenberry was deputy head of the NATO military committee, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and a distinguished public servant, intimately familiar with foreign cultures and decision-making at the highest levels of government. Then there was his gig at the newly minted Buffett Institute, underwritten by a $100 million grant from business magnate Warren Buffett’s sister, one of the largest research grants ever awarded to Northwestern. What could possibly go wrong?

Alas, the president and provost of Northwestern had obviously neglected a standard piece of academic wisdom, namely that faculty meetings are so vicious because the stakes are so small. Normally they are: But that whole ballgame changes when the faculty’s animal cunning is alerted that now, suddenly, something has arrived on campus that might be worth stealing.

Things at Northwestern began going south back in February. An “open letter on behalf of academic integrity” was signed by 46 faculty members but quickly became notorious for dismissing Gen. Eikenberry as a “non-academic career military officer” too closely aligned with American foreign policy to run a truly independent institute. Last week’s Tribune article quoted a professor of foreign languages who insisted, “It wasn’t because this guy was military. That wasn’t the case at all.” But as Max Boot sniffed in Commentary, “Apparently soldiers are good enough to fight and die for our freedom but are not good enough to teach our students. They are too biased, you see – in favor of America!”

Short, intense directed apprenticeships that teach students how to learn on their own to mastery are the future of higher education.

So it turns out sitting in a chair for four years doesn’t deliver mastery in anything but the acquisition of staggering student-loan debt. Practical (i.e. useful) mastery requires not just hours of practice but directed deep learning via doing of the sort you only get in an apprenticeship.

The failure of our model of largely passive learning and rote practice is explained by Daniel Coyle in his book The Talent Code (sent to me by Ron G.), which upends the notion that talent is a genetic gift. It isn’t–in his words, it’s grown by deep practice, the ignition of motivation and master coaching.

Using these techniques, student reach levels of accomplishment in months that surpass those of students who spent years in hyper-costly conventional education programs. The potential to radically improve our higher education system while reducing the cost of that education by 90% is the topic of my books Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy and The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy: The Revolution in Higher Education.

Let’s start by admitting our system of higher education is unsustainable and broken: a complete failure by any reasonable, objective standard. Tuition has soared $1,100% while the output of the system (the economic/educational value of a college degree) has declined precipitously.

A recent major study, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, concluded that “American higher education is characterized by limited or no learning for a large proportion of students.”

‘Academically Adrift’: The News Gets Worse and Worse (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

These two charts are the acme of unsustainability: college tuition has skyrocketed, along with federally funded student loan debt.

Four years ago, I wrote an article for American Thinker that I believed was the final word on academic “studies” that were contorted to put conservatives in a bad light. The study, which purportedly found that conservatives “are losing faith in science,” said nothing of the kind. It found that conservatives are losing faith in the scientific community. The authors simply declared the scientific community and science are the same, thus arriving at the conclusion they so desperately wanted to reach.

It was a real twofer: a bogus study that showed exactly why conservatives are losing faith in the scientific community.

But now there appears before the court of public opinion an even better example. Sharp-eyed readers may recall that in 2013, three professors from Virginia Commonwealth University found that conservatives tend to exhibit forms of “psychoticism,” such as authoritarianism and tough-mindedness.

That’s an oversimplification, of course, but not much of one – and it’s exactly how it was stated in thousands of articles.

Liberals were said to exhibit “neuroticism” and “social desirability” and were therefore more likely to support public expenditures on public assistance.

“Social desirability” can be stated in plain English as a “conscious effort to get along,” says Steven Hayward at Powerline, who brought the important facts to light in recent days.

As he notes, the original article on the study was published in the American Journal of Political Science. The article includes this comment.

In line with our expectations, P [for “Psychoticism”] (positively related to tough-mindedness and authoritarianism) is associated with social conservatism and conservative military attitudes. Intriguingly, the strength of the relationship between P and political ideology differs across sexes. P‘s link with social conservatism is stronger for females while its link with military attitudes is stronger for males. We also find individuals higher in Neuroticism are more likely to be economically liberal. Furthermore, Neuroticism is completely unrelated to social ideology, which has been the focus of many in the field. Finally, those higher in Social Desirability are also more likely to express socially liberal attitudes.

‘Uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood’

An Israeli parliamentarian who arrived on the scene of Wednesday night’s Palestinian terrorist attack in Tel Aviv summed up in a phrase what terrorism is all about.

“Uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood,” is how Likud MK Amir Ohana described what he encountered in the immediate aftermath of the shooting spree at the Max Brenner chocolate shop and cafe in the Sarona shopping complex.

No matter how precisely witnesses describe the attacks Israelis experience on a regular basis — the fear, the screams, and the killings — it is rare for words to capture carnage so well.

Yes, “uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood” tells us everything we need to know about the setting and its significance in the twisted, brainwashed minds of young people in the Palestinian Authority. It is precisely what the two young men, relatives from the village of Yatta near Hebron who brought makeshift assault rifles with them to an eatery on a summer’s eve, had envisioned. It was exactly their goal to slaughter Jews, some of them in casual dress and flip-flops, enjoying a respite from the oppressive heat of the day, others dressed to the nines, celebrating personal milestones.

Indeed, “uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood” says it all. It is a reminder of the funerals that will soon take place and the devastation entire families will feel for the rest of their lives; the months of physical rehabilitation and trauma awaiting those who were injured; and the tears of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters praying at bedsides.

“You never get used to it,” said a surgeon from the Sourasky Medical Center, where the wounded — among them one of the two terrorists — are being treated.

The rest of us in Israel, meanwhile, will be treated by the international community to reprimands about the need for peace, just as we are already being bombarded on local talk shows with the urgency for “an agreement with the Palestinians.” Like the terrorist attacks themselves, these pronouncements are repeated virtually without let-up.

The difference this time is the addition of the discussion about how Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new defense minister, who assumed his role only last week, is going to meet the challenge, particularly as a proponent of the death penalty for terrorists, which the Jewish state does not have. Natch.

This is something the Arabs in Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem and Gaza are keenly aware of, along with the knowledge that if they engage in particularly gruesome violence, they will be hailed as heroes by their society and leaders. Those who are killed while murdering Jews can look forward not only to paradise in the afterlife, but being martyrs after whom sports arenas, cultural events and streets are named.

Thankfully, Lieberman — whose alleged first order of business over the weekend was to strike terrorist bases in Syria — did not talk politics. Instead, he gave a brief press conference at the scene of the attack with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had just landed in Tel Aviv from a two-and-a-half-day trip to Russia, ostensibly to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of full diplomatic relations with Moscow, but really to cement growing ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is the sad but necessary upshot of the Obama administration’s attitude toward Israel in particular and the Middle East in general.

For some years now, the Obama administration has worked on developing a “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) strategy. Its goals: to be proactive in stopping terrorists from radicalizing and recruiting followers, and to address the factors that allow such actions to occur in the first place. Last week the result of some of these deliberations — a twelve-page strategy fronted by the State Department and USAID — was published.

In its foreword, Secretary of State John Kerry lists some of those countries affected by “violent extremism” (“from Afghanistan to Nigeria”) as well as the identity of violent extremist groups (“Da’esh . . . al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram”). The focus then, seems clear: countries with a significant Muslim population and Islamist terrorist groups. Yet here is where the strategy takes a turn for the surreal, because from the content of the actual strategy, you would not realize any such thing — the document is just that opaque, obfuscatory, and, ultimately, unhelpful.

Regarding why violent extremism takes root, the reader is treated to a variety of possibilities. They include “individual psychological factors . . . community and sectarian divisions and conflicts.” Other explanations are corruption, insufficiently robust courts, and a lack of tolerance among different ethnicities.

Apparently not even worthy of discussion is Islam or Islamism, words that are not mentioned once. This is no accident. There has been a concerted attempt to scrub any religious aspect from the actions of ISIS and al-Qaeda: That is why phrases like “violent extremism” even exist. (First mainstreamed by the British government, “violent extremism” was dreamed up as a way to avoid saying “Islamic” or “Islamist” extremism in the months after the July 2005 suicide bombings in London. The phrase swiftly traveled across the Atlantic and into the U.S. government’s vocabulary.)

The Israeli Left has a serious flag problem. Well, a problem with the Israeli flag to be precise. The one with the six-pointed blue star. Not the ISIS flag.

The Left intensely dislikes people who wave Israeli flags, although I think it would be okay with those radical anti-Trump protesters waving Mexican and Iranian flags. At the Israeli Left’s own rallies, like one widely reported recently, one sees oodles of Stalinist red flags, lots of PLO flags, and sometimes one may see Hamas flags, but no Israeli flags.

In a few famous cases, the Left’s contempt for the flag goes well beyond that. A few months ago, the ultra-leftist Israeli “artist” and “activist” Ariel Bronz appeared at an assembly sponsored by the anti-Israel Haaretz newspaper and pranced about the stage with an Israeli flag inserted in his rear end. Haaretz approved and hailed the behavior as the epitome of democracy and patriotism. In an earlier incident one Natali Cohen Vaxberg, also a leftist activist and actress, posted on the web videos of her relieving herself (number two, to be precise) on the Israeli flag. More courageous defense of freedom of speech, squealed Haaretz and its leftist amen choir in delight.

The latest twist in the Left’s jihad against the flag has to do with plans by participants in the upcoming Jerusalem Reunification Day festivities to wave it. This has triggered horrific anger among the enlightened Left. They are particularly irate because celebrants plan to march all over Jerusalem waving flags, including in all parts of the Old City.

That is simply fascism, scream the Leftists, especially because the celebrants will walk through the “Moslem Quarter” of the Old City. Flying flags under the noses of these “occupied” Arabs is intolerable oppression, even though these Arabs have Israeli citizenship and are welcome to join the celebrations and wave flags with the others if they wish.

So now a group of about 100 radical leftists has placed an ad in the press this week, paid for by you-know-who, denouncing plans to wave Israeli flags in Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day. The ad says that as peace seekers the signatories demand that the government and police prohibit the waving of flags in the “Muslim Quarter” of the Old City, which – they add – is near the Temple Mount and the day will be close to Ramadan. It should be noted that the signers do not express any opposition to PLO, Hamas, or ISIS flags flying on the PLO-controlled Temple Mount itself, nor in any leftist street rallies anywhere else in the country.