RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11056/pub_detail.asp

“That understood, the opposition, sirs and madam, is Barack Obama. Now, knock it off with attacking each other and put your country ahead of your egos. For if we are stupid enough, if we are short-sighted enough, to lose sight of who the real opposition is, you lose, the country loses and the world loses.”
One cannot turn on the television or radio without some talking head or so-called political analyst pontificating about how Newt Gingrich is grandiose, how Mitt Romney isn’t really a Conservative – and how they both have flipped on several issues – or how Ron Paul’s foreign policy is isolationist. Glenn Beck, to many people’s extreme disappointment, even went so far as to call Speaker Gingrich a Progressive (I guess ratings are down at GBTV). It makes for good news show content, to be sure. In certain respects there is truth to the critiques. But this hyper-critiquing and self-immolation also does two things that Conservatives and Republicans fall prey to each and every time the General Election cycle comes calling: It deflects from addressing the differences between the GOP field and the opposition; and it provides the opposition with talking points, opponent research and the luxury of hiatus.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11051/pub_detail.asp
The modern-day Tea Party is a loose amalgamation of people who came together in March 2009 to protest against passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare. There was a large gathering in Washington, D.C. with estimates of several hundred thousand to a million participants.

There had been other events associated with the Tea Party movement and in the 2010 midterm elections the movement was credited with returning power to the Republican Party in the House of Representatives by supporting candidates that associated themselves with the movement. It is, however, not a political party in its own right.

The story of the original Tea Party that occurred on December 16, 1773 is told in a new book, “Ten Tea Parties: Patriotic Protests That History Forgot” (Quirk Books) by Joseph Cummins, a historian who quite coincidently lives in Maplewood, NJ, my home town for more than sixty years until I moved to an apartment complex one town over. Maplewood has a number of homes from the Revolutionary War era so a sense of history pervades the community. Just up the road is Morristown, the site of one of George Washington’s winter headquarters and Jockey Hollow where his soldiers were billeted.

Cummins’ book is a useful and perhaps surprising reminder that Boston was not the only site where British tea was dumped overboard rather than pay even the threepence tax on it. There were in fact similar events in Philadelphia, Charleston, New York, and in the other colonies, Chesterown and Annapolis in Maryland; York, Maine; Edenton and Wilmington, North Carolina; and Greenwich, New Jersey.

Study Shows U.S. Mosques Are Repositories of
Muslim Brotherhood Literature and Preachers
For more information:
David Reaboi dreaboi@securefreedom.org (202) 431-1948 or
Travis Korson tkorson@securefreedom.org (202)-719-2421

Washington, D.C., December 14, 2011 – Perspectives on Terrorism, recently released a comprehensive study on violence-advocating texts in American mosques titled Sharia Adherence Mosque Survey: Correlations between Sharia Adherence and Violent Dogma in U.S. Mosques.

The Shariah Adherence Mosque Survey found that 80% of U.S. mosques provide their worshippers with jihad-style literature promoting the use of violence against non-believers and that the imams in those mosques expressly promote that literature.

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000706928

Apple to set up Israel development center

Aharon Aharon will head Apple’s first ever development center outside of its California headquarters.

Apple Inc. has decided to open a development center in Israel focusing on semiconductors, the first R&D venture for the company outside the United States, sources told Globes Wednesday.

The decision was made even before the company entered into talks to acquire Herzliya-based flash storage solutions provider Anobit Ltd.

RELATED:
Apple stumble seen as open door for rivals

Apple has hired Aharon Aharon, a veteran player in Israel’s high tech industry, to lead the new development center.

Although Apple is a global innovation leader, the company is a relatively small investor in R&D. The producer of the iPad and iPhone invested $2.4 billion in R&D in 2010, which was only 2% of its revenue, much less proportionately than other high-tech companies.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150757
Expose: The Vatican Wants to Lay its Hands on Jerusalem
The Vatican is now reiterating demands for control of religious sites in Jerusalem. Jordan’s occupation 1948-1967 didn’t bother them.
“Peace negotiations in the Middle East must tackle the issue of the status of the holy sites of Jerusalem”, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, declared several days ago in Rome.
The Vatican’s former foreign minister asked to place some Israeli holy places under Vatican authority, alluding to the Cenacle on Mount Zion and the garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
The first site also houses what is referred to as King David’s tomb.
“There will not be peace if the question of the holy sites is not adequately resolved”, Tauran said. “The part of Jerusalem within the walls – with the holy sites of the three religions – is humanity’s heritage. The sacred and unique character of the area must be safeguarded and it can only be done with a special, internationally-guaranteed statute”.
The Israeli government and the Vatican are deadlocked in discussions over the status of the religious sites. Vatican officials are now reiterating their demand for control over the religious sites in the ancient and holy city founded by King David as the capital of ancient Israel and now the capital of the reestablished Jewish state.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=2242

ALL SELF RESPECTING MEMBERS OF THAT MAJOR GROUP OF MINOR THINKERS SHOULD RESIGN. …..RSK

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was honored by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations on Wednesday night with their Annual National Service Award.

Accepting her honor, Rice, the second-youngest U.S. representative to the U.N., as well as the first African-American woman to serve in such a role, applauded U.S. President Barack Obama’s record on Israel.

“From the moment he took office, President Obama’s guidance has been clear: to strengthen and deepen that commitment [to Israel],” Rice said, in a speech whose excerpts were reprinted in Foreign Policy. “He has been clear all along that our special relationship with Israel is deeply rooted in our common interests and our common values.”

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She went on to laud the joint cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli militaries, which she said has increased under Obama’s watch. “We’ve increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels. That’s why, even in these tough fiscal times, we’ve increased foreign military financing to record levels. That’s why we’ve also included additional support for the lifesaving Iron Dome anti-rocket system — which saw action just days ago in defense of innocent Israelis who live near the Gaza frontier.”

Rice added, “If you ask members of the uniformed military of Israel or the United States, if you talk to leaders at the Kirya or the Pentagon, you’ll hear the same assessment: the American commitment to Israel’s qualitative military edge has never been stronger. That’s a fact, plain and simple.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/284398
Springtime in November: Islamist Group Hosts Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood Leader on Capitol Hill
Yes, you read that correctly: Somehow, the Muslim Public Affairs Council has been given space in the Cannon Office Building on Capitol Hill this evening to welcome Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of the Ennahda, the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate that recently won the election in Tunisia.
MPAC is an Islamist group whose founders included disciples of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna as well as admirers of Hezbollah — some of whom referred to the Shiite terrorist organization that is an arm of Iran as a “liberation movement,” rationalizing its 1983 bombing of the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut as a “military operation” rather than a terrorist attack. After 9/11, MPAC’s current director, Salam al-Marayati, immediately pronounced that Israel should be on top of the list of suspects. (More background on MPAC from the Investigative Project on Terrorism, here.)
Rachid Ghannouchi is a longtime Islamist who was actually banned from the U.S. during the nineties — when he was invited here by Sami al-Arian, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative who has since been convicted on a terrorism charge. Consistent with the Brotherhood’s wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing marketing makeover, which is a perfect strategy for winning over Westerners desperate to be convinced, he and Ennahda are putting on their moderate airs. They purport to have committed to refrain from implanting sharia, to protect women’s rights, etc.
But Islamists have trouble maintaining this charade, especially when they think credulous English ears are not listening. As the Investigative Project on Terrorism reports in its story about tonight’s festivities, only a few months ago, in an interview with an Arab-language website, Ghannouchi called for the destruction of Israel and expressed optimism that the Jewish state would soon disappear:

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

Western columnists eager to bestow their blessing on the democratic impulses of the Arab Spring are troubled by its darker side, the bigotry, the sexual violence and religious fanaticism. Rather than admit that they may have gotten the Arab Spring wrong, they look at its dark side as an external factor, rather than an internal one.

Case in point, Jeffrey Goldberg’s recitation of Anti-Semitism in the Arab Spring leads to the same baffled attempts to understand. “On the surface this makes no sense: Arabs are rising up against Arabs, so what does this have to do with the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”?” he asks.

The question isn’t all that baffling if you look back at the historical context of the Protocols which emerged from the poison pens of two secret police agents of two different countries seeking ways to stifle reform by associating their opponents with a vast Jewish conspiracy. It took place in a century where the left and the right spent a good deal of time accusing each other of working for the Jews. That century gave way to the next one where they stopped writing essays and began running death camps.

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/102952/sec_id/102952

In the Middle East, the world’s attention has been diverted by the threat of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the turmoil of the Arab Spring turning into winter in the Arab Muslim heartland. However, another conflict is rapidly emerging over development of vast natural gas fields offshore in the Levant Basin of the Eastern Mediterranean, which could transform Israel into a major world energy producer and change the geo-political landscape. At stake is who will win control over an energy prize of over 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and more 1.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil according to estimates of the US Geologic Survey. The trigger has been the successful exploratory drilling completed by an Israeli American consortium, Noble Energy, Inc of Houston, Texas and Israeli partner Delek Group, which in 2009-2010 discovered more than 26 billion cubic feet of natural gas in several fields offshore in Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off shore in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Tamar, Leviathan smaller gas field discoveries offshore have the potential of achieving energy independence for Israel and creating a major export market across the Mediterranean in the EU. Coupled with the onshore development of more than 260 billion barrels of oil to be developed from shale formations in the Shfela basin, these natural gas discoveries will transform Israel’s economy, that is, if threats by Israel’s Arab neighbors and Turkey permit its secure development with allies Cyprus and Greece, who would share in important gains.

Watch this YouTube video of the visit by US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro to the pipe-laying vessel, “The Solitaire” contracted by Noble Energy, Inc. to connect the offshore gas fields to on-shore receiving facilities in Israel.

Daniel Yergin, renowned energy expert says in his new book, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the remaking of the Modern World:

Underlying all of this is the recognition that an increasing share of [energy] resources is offshore. When you have energy resources on land you know where things stand. When they’re offshore, things can get murkier.

This looming war over control and development of the Levant Basin offshore gas fields has been given scant attention by the Obama Administration. Halting efforts have been made this summer to reconcile the Maritime border between Israel and Lebanon, now essentially controlled by Iran ally Hizbullah. Instead the Obama Administration has chosen to address the other world energy conflict zone along the periphery in the South China Sea, with dispatch of US Naval contingents to joint exercises with Vietnam, and a Presidential visit to Australia following the recent ASEAN meeting in Honolulu announcing the stationing of 2,500 Marines at a base in Darwin. The lack of attention about the conflicts of offshore natural gas development in the Levant Basin has yet to capture the mainstream media’s attention. However, it has clearly caught the attention of world oil and gas experts ans well as Israeli, Canadian and US business publications along with the press in Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon and Turkey, all of whom are actors in the swirl of competing gas developments in the Eastern Mediterranean region. A region sizzling with daily reports of threats and military show of force to protect these vital energy resources.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10909

If you thought only Palestinian Authority schoolchildren’s textbooks demonize Israel, look closer to home.

Dr. Richard L. Cravatts
The author is director of the Communications Management Program at Simmons College, and is the author of the forthcoming book, Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews.

A Newton South High School student in Massachusetts was alarmed recently when she received what appeared to her to be blatant anti-Israel propaganda from her World History teacher. This incident brings to the forefront once again the reality that, even at the pre-college level, the narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is frequently contorted to reflect ideology rather than history, scholarship, and fact.

The high school’s World History teacher, Jessica Engel, had given a student a section on Palestinian women from the Arab World Notebook, which described the fact that “Over the past four decades, women have been active in the Palestinian resistance movement.”

What was their treatment at the hands of the “brutal Jewish state”, for doing nothing more than ‘resisting?’ “Several hundred have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed by Israeli occupation forces since the latest uprising, ‘Intifada,’ in the Israeli occupied territories.”