RUTHFULLY YOURS

“The central mitzvah or commandment for our era is the mitzvah of Tikkun Olam. It is the defining mission of Jews to strive for the repair of the world by making society more just, fair, egalitarian, and sensitive. Judaism demands that we repair the world by striving for social justice. It is the mission of Jews in the Divine Plan for the universe to repair the world by repairing man, by improving and advancing mankind.”

The above paragraph is a fair representation of what has become the defining raison d’etre of Judaism as conveyed by non-Orthodox liberal Jewish organizations and synagogues in America. It is not a direct citation from any of them, but is an accurate paraphrase of what has become the canon of non-Orthodox Jewish liberalism in our time.

It is the “modernized” and contemporary “reinterpretation” of “Jewish ethics” as defined and inculcated by much of the Reform and Conservative movements. It is also the “theology” of Jewish radical leftist groups operating at the fringes of the Jewish community, including the “Renewal/ALEPH” movement, the “Eco-Judaism” groups, the “Tikkun community” of people and groups that are satellites to the magazine by that same name published by tikkun-activist Michael Lerner, and what remains of the “Reconstructionists.” Lerner, it should be added, discovers “repair of the world” even in LSD consumption.

What are we to make of “Tikkun Olam” proclamations?

Foreign Office Arabist Sir Richard Dalton ( a former British ambassador to Libya and to Iran), seen in the above footage telling the BBC’s Jane Hill that “Israel exaggerates the threat of Iran” and that last year’s nuclear “deal” will be honoured”conscientiously” by Iran not merely for 15 years but indefinitely, is set to chair an event at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) addressed by the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr Mohammed Javar Zarif.

Protests Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews:

“To give Zarif a platform to speak at a prestigious London venue like Chatham House is nothing less than an insult to British values. This is a man who has publicly supported Hezbollah, an Iranian-funded organisation which is widely believed to have perpetrated acts of terror around the world including the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural centre in Argentina which killed 85 people and the bombing of a tourist bus in Bulgaria in 2012 which killed six.

Hezbollah has also been found to have used funds from drug trafficking operations to buy arms.

Zarif represents a regime which has been complicit in massive violations of human rights beyond its borders, including in Yemen, where it supports the Houthis, whose flag proclaims ‘Death to the Jews’.

His is a government which sponsored a Holocaust cartoon competition, condemned around the world and notably by UNESCO. Zarif is the representative of a vile regime and a pariah terrorist state. His presence at Chatham House is an affront to anyone with a belief in peace and justice.”

http://jamieglazov.com/2016/02/05/but-isis-kills-muslims-too-on-the-glazov-gang/

This special edition of The Glazov Gang was joined by Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center who writes the blog The Point at Frontpagemag.com.

Daniel discussed “But ISIS Kills Muslims Too!”, analyzing Obama’s favorite and specious mantra that ignores how totalitarian entities eat their own. (See Raymond Ibrahim’s article on this issue here.)

Don’t miss it!

The US and others, while suggesting they are strong supporters of Israel and its need for security, in reality are not promoting peace. Their policies are actually sustaining and rewarding terror.

Let me explain…

President Obama for example has repeatedly stated throughout his administration America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakable. No doubt these are reassuring words to Israel and its friends around the world. However, his actions contradict his words.

How so? It has been the policy of the US and others to condemn the “settlements” and the “occupation” as the main obstacles to achieving peace with the Palestinians. For those who subscribe to said view, where were the occupation or settlements in 1948 or 1967? They did not exist.

However, in order to see the folly of blaming the lack of peace on these issues, we must look at what the statements imply.

They suggest the US is attempting to be balanced. This is meant to appeal to the Arab world, which believes the US has been too supportive of Israel for many years.
They allow the US to avoid tackling the real issues which are preventing peace.

WHAT will it take for many in the Left to openly condemn the Islamic State? Why this silence in the face of evil?

In January, the Islamic State threw two men off a tall building in Iraq for the “crime” of being gay.

In February, they threw another gay man off a building, this time in Syria and, when he somehow survived, had a crowd stone him to death.

IS is in a war against gays — not just against Jews, Christians and any Muslim thought insufficiently devout.

But what have our main gay representatives — largely Left-leaning — said in response to such savagery against gays?

The NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby? Silent.

Victoria’s Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby? Not one press release.

Labor frontbencher Penny Wong, openly lesbian? Nothing.

Former Greens leader Bob Brown, our first openly gay senator?Also nothing.

Members of the Balad faction of the Joint Arab List – Haneen Zoabi, Jamal Zahalka, and Basel Ghattas – met the families a day before Palestinian President Abbas did the same. They attempted to hide the fact that the meeting took place.
Ynet reporters

A day before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met the families of terrorists in his Ramallah office, three Knesset members of the Joint Arab List met terrorists’ family members, among them those who have perpetrated deadly attacks as part of the current terror wave.

The three MKs in question are Haneen Zoabi, Jamal Zahalka, and Basel Ghattas. Among the relatives of what the MK’s called “shaheeds” (martyrs) was the father of Baha Aliyan, the terrorist who murdered three in a combined stabbing and shooting attack on a Jerusalem bus, along with his collaborator Bilal Ranem.

Aliyan’s father said in a video that the meeting was “warm and productive.” According to him, “The Palestinian Knesset member brothers listened to the suffering and pain of the shaheed’s families, whose bodies are held in Israel.”

According to the terrorist’s father, “The Knesset members’ hearts were open and they listened to every word we said. They emphasized that they would make every effort to return the bodies by pressuring the government in the Knesset and conducting talks with the security and diplomatic officials in the Israeli government. It was settled that we would continue to meet in order to keep track of the matter in the near future.”

The phrase encapsulates the common notion that Islam “shares” the same humanistic values as Christianity and Judaism.

“Islam is Just Christianity Misspelled”

Daniel Greenfield, writing in his Sultan Knish column on February 2nd, “Will Banning Muslim Migration Ruin the Anti-ISIS Coalition?” noted:

The Muslim world wants to know what to expect from us. It hates Obama because of his unreliability. To them, his political ideology resembles some species of mysticism which they do not share. It much prefers an arrangement based on mutual interests over our misguided mystical attempts to discover shared values by pretending that Islam is just Christianity misspelled. (Italics mine.)

I couldn’t resist using that last part – “Islam is just Christianity misspelled” – as the thematic title for this column. But it is true. The phrase encapsulates the common notion that Islam “shares” the same humanistic values as Christianity and Judaism. The three faiths are alleged to be interchangeable, distinguished only by their traditions and rituals, with no significant or worrisome doctrinal differences. Christian and Jewish clerics who engage in “interfaith dialogue” with Muslims act under the assumption that Islam is just another religion, basically benign, not out to threaten or hurt anyone or force people to act against their religious beliefs by converting “peacefully” to Islam.

But there is no “peaceful” conversion to Islam. Islam tolerates no other religion. It is fundamentally “anti-coexistence.” To paraphrase Henry Ford’s 1909 dictum, Islam’s philosophy of coexistence is, “You can have any religion you want as long as it’s Islam.”*

I discuss the futility of “interfaith dialogue” in my January 2nd Rule of Reason column, “Interfaith Bridges to Islam,” which is based on Stephen Coughlin’s vital critique of our current and absolutely anemic and counter-productive “War on Terror” policies, Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad. Coughlin offers a brutal, thorough, but necessary vivisection of the pretentions and fallacies of interfaith dialogue. I noted that:

Postmodernism has allowed Islam unopposed and unparalleled entrée into the minds and values of Westerners. Coughlin discusses how this entrée works and the consequences of Christian and Jewish religionists compromising their own beliefs by agreeing to form a “united front” for peace and coexistence and multi-beliefs with Islam. He correctly identifies the chief culprit and enabler of Muslim Brotherhood-dominated interfaith dialogue as postmodernism. Postmodernism is not incidental to the inroads being made by Islam in the West. It is a key factor.

What do campus microaggressions, safe spaces, trigger warnings, speech codes, and censorship have to do with higher learning?

American universities want it both ways. They expect unquestioned subsidized support from the public, but also to operate in a way impossible for anyone else.

Colleges still wear the ancient clothes of higher learning. Latin mottos, caps and gowns, ivy-covered spires, and high talk of liberal education reflect a hallowed intellectual tradition.

In fact, today’s campuses mimic ideological boot camps. Tenured professors seek to indoctrinate young people in certain preconceived progressive political agendas. Environmental-studies classes are not very open to debating the “settled science” of man-caused, carbon-induced global warming – or the need for immediate and massive government intervention to address it. Grade-conscious and indebted students make the necessary ideological adjustments.

Few sociology courses celebrate the uniquely American assimilationist melting pot. Race, class, and gender agenda courses – along with thousands of “studies” courses – have been invented. A generation of politicized professors has made the strange argument that they alone have discovered all sorts of critical new disciplines of knowledge – apparently unknown for 2,500 years – to ensure that graduates would be better educated than ever before.

Universities have lost their commitment to the inductive method. Preconceived anti-Enlightenment theories are established as settled fact and part of career promotion. Evidence is made to fit these unquestioned assumptions.

Two unfortunate results have predictably followed.

Roberta Flack, years earlier, sang what has become the Europeans theme song, “Killing Me Softly.” Despite the reported wilding spree of at least a thousand North African refugees who groped women at the New Year celebration in Cologne, Germany, despite allegations of two rapes, despite condemnation by Prime Minister Merkel, the mayor of the city has requested that women monitor their “code of conduct.” Apparently German authorities will contest to their last breath that tolerance dedication will not yield. This is the tolerance that kills, softly at first and violently in time.

What Germany represents is a continental death knell in which tolerance trumps personal safety and even survival. Compassion is the sentiment of the day. Yet it is hard to imagine inviting one million citizens into the country who are not assimilable with many on the public dole. This is one of those rare moments in history when people are paid for bad behavior.

Much of the chaos Germany now endures was predictable. After all, many Muslim men treat woman as inferior, mere objects for their sexual delectation. The Koran endorses the proposition that a woman has half the rights of a man in any legal proceeding. Nonetheless, the compassion crusade goes on.

A German “education expert” proposed Wednesday that Arabic becomes a mandatory subject in German schools to enable refugees and Germans to coexist.

Thomas Strothotte, president of Kühne Logistics University and a renowned voice in education issues, told Die Zeit that society as a whole would benefit and “keep up” with a new reality from becoming increasingly multicultural. Strothotte has served as president at several German universities and founded two private schools in the city of Magdeburg.

“We would appreciate being a country of immigration and multiple languages,” Strothotte said. “Refugee children need to learn German and German children Arabic.”

Strothotte believes increased understanding of Arabic will have positive effects on Germany culturally, economically and politically.

Strothotte is not the first to call for Arabic classes in the German curriculum. Christian Wiesenhütter, deputy chief executive for the Berlin Camber of Commerce, called Arabic a new “world language” back in 2013, long before the Syrian refugee crisis was on the horizon. Strothotte primarily wanted to boost German business with the idea.

“We must finally acknowledge that Arabic is a world language,” he said. “We have to stay on pace.”