RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=14165

Last week, a baby born in the Gaza Strip was named “Knife of Jerusalem” by his doting parents. Paying homage to terrorists is nothing new among Palestinians, but the parents in question wanted their tribute to be original.
Rather than imitating the common practice of immortalizing specific “martyrs” killed while committing atrocities, this family from Rafah decided to highlight the weapon of choice employed in the current jihad against the Jews.
In spite of its ongoing conflict with Hamas, which reigns in Gaza, the Fatah-dominated leadership of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah was tickled by the couple’s innovative gesture. After all, murdering Israelis is a shared goal, regardless of other points of contention. For this reason, a photo of the newborn and his birth certificate adorned Fatah’s official Facebook page on Friday.
This is but one tiny example of the way in which Palestinian children are raised and groomed to glorify violence. First they imbibe it with the milk of their mothers, most of whom were born after the signing of the Oslo Accords, or were young children during that period. Then their teachers take over, feeding them false material from hate-filled schoolbooks supplied by the very PA that came into existence through a phony peace process only the Left imagined was genuine.
It is this incitement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been denouncing, in an effort to explain to the world that the current wave of terrorism, characterized mainly by stabbing attacks, has nothing to do with Al-Aqsa mosque. It has everything to do, he is arguing, with the lies pounded into Palestinian kids’ heads from the time they emerge from the womb.
Nothing illustrates this better than a baby called Knife of Jerusalem.

The last few weeks have given credence to the notion that Palestinian society has sunk to a level of depravity from which it can no longer emerge. The degeneracy starts with Palestinian President for Life, Mahmoud Abbas.

Echoing the sentiments expressed by his mentor and Nazi collaborator Haj Amin al-Husseini, Abbas in a televised speech in mid-September rambled on about how the Jews “defile the Al-Aqsa with their filthy feet.” He then issued a veiled call for holy war by proclaiming that “Each drop of blood that was spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood as long as it’s for the sake of Allah. Every martyr will be in heaven and every wounded person will be rewarded, by Allah’s will.”

As it frequently does, the Obama administration largely ignored Abbas’ repugnant, anti-Semitic comments and his veiled calls for violence but the Palestinian street paid heed. In the weeks that followed, Palestinian terrorists – or as Abbas refers to them, “martyrs” – engaged in an orgy of violence targeting women, children and the elderly. Just today, a 76 year old educator and US citizen– the grandfather of eight children – succumbed to wounds sustained two weeks ago in a cowardly Palestinian gun and knife attack in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood. There were also a number of attempted knife attacks though thankfully, the only fatalities were Palestinian Authority Arab terrorists.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2015/10/michel-houellebecqs-critique-of-western-anomie/

NOTE: Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission—recently translated into English—depicts a dystopian near future in which France undergoes Islamization. The protagonist, François, is a cynical and unhappy professor at the Sorbonne, which has recently become a Muslim institution. Although the book raised predictable cries of Islamophobia, not to mention death threats against the author, Benjamin Haddad argues that it is an attack not so much on Islam as on modern, secular, and liberal European society:

Michel Houellebecq’s latest novel, flawed as it is, gets at the heart of some of the issues contorting the West—and liberalism writ large—at the turn of the 21st century.

Le monde, monotone et petit, aujourd’hui,
Hier, demain, toujours, nous fait voir son image:
Une oasis d’horreur dans un désert d’ennui!
—Baudelaire, “Le Voyage”, Les Fleurs du Mal
The existence of irrational economic agents had always been the dark ride, the secret fault in any economic theory
—Michel Houellebecq, The Map and the TerritoryFrance, 2022. After a disastrous second term for President Francois Hollande, France’s mainstream political parties suffer crippling losses in the first round of presidential elections. In the run-off, the Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, and the Muslim Brotherhood, a new party running on an Islamic platform led by Mohammed Ben Abbes, a savvy and charismatic politician, face off. The country is being convulsed by a wave of urban violence—violence that is largely being downplayed by a cowardly media afraid to play into the FN’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric. Paranoia and conspiracy theories dominate conversations. Is France headed towards a military coup? The center-right UMP and the Socialist Party decide to support Ben Abbes in a bid to block the FN from acceding to power. They negotiate a deal: the Muslim Brotherhood gets to keep only the Education Ministry while compromising on other portfolios.Islamists, it turns out, unlike the French political elite, understand the importance of education in deciding a country’s fate. French higher education progressively turns Islamic: the Sorbonne is bought out by Saudi Arabia, professors are required to convert, women are compelled to wear the hijab, and programs are rewritten to integrate Islamic teachings. Rimbaud’s rumored late conversion to Islam becomes official dogma.At the same time, security across the country is, almost magically, reinstated; unemployment drops dramatically, largely thanks to strong fiscal incentives for women to stay home. Like a Muslim De Gaulle, Ben Abbes reorients the European Union towards the Mediterranean Sea, integrating North African countries in its ambit. His policies are popular among the French. The country seems to have finally found a new driving force after decades of decline and doubt.All this provides the backdrop to the life of Francois, a disillusioned Sorbonne literature professor, the narrator of Michel Houellebecq’s futuristic novel, Submission—a novel that quickly became the number one bestseller in France, Germany and Italy upon its publication.

Democratic Senator Chris Coons from Delaware betrayed his backers and his voters when at the end of the summer, as the Senate returned from recess, he announced that he was supporting President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Coons announced his decision in an address at the University of Delaware. There Coons acknowledged that the deal was terrible for America. He detailed all the ways the deal harms US national security and places US allies, including Israel at grave risk.

“Frankly, this is not the agreement I hoped for,” Coons began.

“I am troubled,” he explained, “that the parties to this agreement – particularly Iran – have differing interpretations of key terms, and I remain deeply concerned about our ability to hold Iran to the terms of this agreement as we understand them.

Coons continued, “Under this agreement, Iran retains a civilian nuclear enrichment program that grows steadily in scope and the hardened underground nuclear facility at Fordow continues to exist filled with centrifuges which, while sidelined from enrichment for fifteen years, are not permanently shelved.

Contrary to the wishes of the U.S. State Department, the U.S. House of Representatives has just frozen $370 million in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority in response to mounting criticism concerning Palestinian anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement that has led to the rash of lethal attacks that have left over a dozen Israeli civilians dead over the past several weeks. This money was intended to develop Palestinian infrastructure and foster economic growth, but instead, it is being used by the Palestinian Authority to incite the murder of Jews and to sow destruction within Israel.

Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security advisor under President George W. Bush who is now with the Council on Foreign Relations, went further and has suggested that additional penalties should be imposed including the closing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington, sanctioning PA officials and others with visa bans, and earmarking U.S. aid for specific programs untainted by corruption so long as Palestinian leaders continue to incite their people to murder Israelis.

Hopefully, the U.S. government will no longer be swayed by the fallacious arguments that Palestinian terrorism is motivated by “political and social desperation”, “frustration and alienation”, “Israeli settlement activity”, “failure to agree on borders”, and “the inevitable consequence of neglect” – phrases that are often used by administration officials and members of the mainstream media to excuse and/or justify Palestinian terrorist actions. Truth is, Palestinian violence is not induced by any of the above, but it is in fact driven by hope – the hope of annulling Jewish national sovereignty and dismantling the Jewish nation-state.

University unions in shock move to boycott themselves
In a shock move America’s largest union of university professors – the Council of Research and Academic Professionals (CRAP) which along with the American Studies Society (ASS), had recently voted in favour of an academic boycott of Israel, has voted to extend the boycott to America and hence will be boycotting itself.

Over 80% of the Union’s members took part in the vote, with a massive 13 voting in favour and only 11 voting against. This came after an impassioned plea by CRAP member Professor Angela Ayers-Davis who said:

Since we are boycotting Israel as a racist, colonial, warmongering, apartheid state, it is only fair that we do the same to America. After all, America is illegally occupying an entire continent belonging to the indigenous Native Indian population and more recently Puerta Rico and Hawaii as well as the Mexican land of Texas and California. America is also fighting a racist, illegal, colonial war against Islam in many countries. And of course America has a system of apartheid against its black citizens.

The CRAP President, Professor Ivor Loudmouth, eloquently laid out the obligations for professors and the consequences of the boycott:

Since we must boycott all academics in America, we must cease all communication between ourselves and our students. We are therefore arranging for the permanent shut-down of all American universities until the occupation, apartheid and all foreign wars end. Moreover, since the boycott obviously applies to all cultural and social interactions this also means that any professors who are married to each other must get divorced immediately. Since we are also encouraging non-academics to observe the boycott those professors who have non-academic partners should also ask their partners – and indeed all other family members – to cease speaking with them. For the sake of optimal family cohesion we recommend that professors remove themselves entirely from the family home and live in isolation. Professors will still be able to carry out their own unfunded independent research. However, whereas in the past they have been able to publish their work in journals run by themselves or their friends, they will now only be able to submit their articles to themselves and they must be rejected on the grounds of the boycott. CRAP will provide a template for self-rejection letters.

“We will not work with Israel’s universities” say 340 UK academics.

· In an unprecedented statement university teachers say they will not do business with Israel’s university institutions and system.
· Professors and lecturers, Fellows of the Royal Society and Fellows of the British Academy say they will not visit Israel’s universities.
· Academics from across 72 different institutions have made the Commitment, more expected to follow as campaign grows.
· Full page advertisement in The Guardian newspaper announces launch of the Commitment.
· Israeli universities “deeply complicit” with Israeli violations of international law.

A commitment signed by 343 academics across UK’s higher education system says they will not accept invitations for academic visits to Israel. They will not act as referees in activities related to Israel academic institutions, or cooperate in any other way with Israeli universities

This Academic Commitment is a response to the appeal for such action by Palestinian academics and civil society due to the deep complicity of Israeli academic institutions in Israeli violations of international law. Signatories have pledged to continue their commitment until Israel complies with international law, and respects Palestinian human rights.

The need for solidarity with the Palestinian people, as expressed in the Academic Commitment, is made more urgent today by the current escalation of violent conflict in Israel/Palestine. The fatalities are overwhelmingly of Palestinians engaging in street protests provoked by Israel’s 48-year and ever tightening occupation.

Here’s the roll of shame:

No need to rush to Specsavers or search for a magnifying glass: read more on this here

Declares Joy Wolfe, the redoubtable chairperson of StandWithUs UK:

‘ StandWithUs UK strongly condemns the call from British academics to boycott Israel. This move does nothing to help the Palestiians and potentially damages the long standing mutually beneficial links that are so important to both the UK and Israel. We welcome the strong statement from British Ambassador David Quarrey condemning the boycott call and reaffirming the UK’s anti boycott commitment. Ambassador Quarrey reiterated the importance of the significant and fruitful relationship shared by Israel and the United Kingdom.

“The British Government firmly opposes calls to boycott Israel. We are deeply committed to promoting the UK’s academic and scientific ties with Israel, as part the flourishing partnership between the two countries,” he said in a statement.

“The reality is one of rapidly strengthening trade and tech links between Britain and Israel. As David Cameron has said, the UK Government will never allow those who want to boycott Israel to shut down 60 years worth of vibrant exchange and partnership that does so much to make both our countries stronger,” he added.

Israeli academics should look closely at the names of those signing the boycott letter and ensure they do not further the double standards of the boycotters wishing to continue personal links’.

Nine years ago self-proclaimed “climate hawk” David Roberts was contemplating Nuremberg trials for deniers:

When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.

But in his latest piece, at Vox.com, he’s singing a rather different tune:

Basically, it’s difficult to predict anything, especially regarding sprawling systems like the global economy and atmosphere, because everything depends on everything else. There’s no fixed point of reference.

Now he tells us.

Grappling with this kind of uncertainty turns out to be absolutely core to climate policymaking. Climate nerds have attempted to create models that include, at least in rudimentary form, all of these interacting economic and atmospheric systems. They call these integrated assessment models, or IAMs, and they are the primary tool used by governments and international bodies to gauge the threat of climate change. IAMs are how policies are compared and costs are estimated.

When all strands of Palestinian political society came together in a deadly incitement based on religion radiating out from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, it left many dead on both sides of the religious divide – including the Jewish Israelis who were the prime target of Islam-motivated Palestinians.

Although the Islamic Movement and Hamas were two of the leading Palestinian instigators of the violence, it was the statements of a presumed secular Mahmoud Abbas that inflamed the Palestinian street. He, like Yasser Arafat before him, presumed to speak for the Muslim world when he exhorted his people in a televised address to his people on September 16,

“We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”

He was referring to his incitement to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount plateau, which is the holiest place in Judaism. About them he said,

“The Al-Aqsa Mosque is ours. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is ours as well. They have no right to desecrate the mosque with their dirty feet; we won’t allow them to do that.”