RUTHFULLY YOURS

Tomorrow, the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannock Burn that gave Scotland freedom from the English, resident Scots aged 16 and older will go to the polls to determine whether Scotland will remain part of the United Kingdom, or if it will become independent.

(The British and Scottish crowns were reunited in 1603 with the ascension of James I as England’s king. James I was already, as James VI, King of Scotland. However, it would not be for another 100 years, until May 1, 1707, that the Act of Union brought open borders to Scotland.)

The Scots are an independent, loyal and stubborn people. As Niall Ferguson noted in Monday’s New York Times: “If you said to the average Glaswegian, ‘If you down that beer, you’ll get your head kicked in,’ he would react by draining his glass…and [then] telling the bartender, ‘Do it again.’” But they are also a thoughtful, creative and industrious people, having produced such luminaries as Adam Smith, David Hume, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, John Paul Jones and one of my favorite authors, the late George MacDonald Fraser.

In the campaign for independence, Alex Salmond and his Scottish National Party (SNP) have appealed to the emotions, using ideology and policy grievances as their principal tools. Mr. Salmond has phrased the “Yes” campaign as a struggle between Scotland and Westminster – the powerful against the weak, a lord (or laird) versus his servants. His arguments have been heavy on the romantic and nationalistic, but light in terms of responding to hard questions: What currency will Scotland use? How would the two countries divide declining revenues from oil production? Will large Scottish banking and insurance institutions, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, move out of Scotland as they have threatened to do? Where will the UK’s Trident nuclear subs be based if they are forced out of the Royal Naval base in Glasgow? What will be Scotland’s share of UK debt? If Scotland reneges on that debt, as Mr. Salmond has indicated he might, what will be the effect on the country’s credit rating? How will Edinburg finance the welfare state Scots have grown accustomed to, and which they want to continue and expand? How high will taxes have to be raised? What will be the impact on the economy? How will reserves for a central bank be funded?

Once again, Islam takes centre-stage, while the West watches anxiously on. From Brussels to Beijing, terrorists are still slaughtering civilians. Across Africa, from Libya to Nigeria and Kenya, fragile states are falling apart under the Islamist assault. In the Middle East, the Syrian civil war has now spread to Iraq and threatens to destabilise other states. Further East, Pakistan is under Taliban attack even before Afghanistan is evacuated by Nato. We are now seeing the results of President Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq, his encouragement of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, his irresolution in Syria, his appeasement of Iran and his failure more generally to grasp the scale of the Islamist challenge to the West. Elliott Abrams and Alexander Woolfson show how the world is paying a heavy price for a US administration that lacks a coherent strategy and a Nato that is not fit for purpose.

In Britain, the dispute between Michael Gove and Theresa May over the infiltration of schools by “extremists” has overshadowed the equally alarming consequences of such indoctrination. Hundreds of young Muslims emerge from the schools and mosques of cities such as Birmingham and Bradford, volunteer to fight for the Islamist cause in Syria, then return to bring jihad back to Britain. The attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels was the work of just such a jihadist from France, and it may only be a matter of time before horrors perpetrated in the name of Islam on the road to Damascus are repeated on the streets of London.

The world is still reeling from one of the periodic waves of fundamentalism that have expanded the Umma since the days of the prophet. Looking back to the first rise of Islam in the 7th century, Gibbon reflects on the secret of its success in Volume the Fifth of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “Mahomet was alike instructed to preach and to fight, and the union of these opposite qualities, while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success: the operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear, continually acted on each other, till every barrier yielded to their irresistible power.” The perennial refusal of Islamic doctrine to distinguish between, let alone to separate, mosque and state, has hitherto been an almost insuperable obstacle to Muslim acceptance of modernity and integration into secular society; but it is also the secret weapon of jihad. The chimera of a new Caliphate lies behind the sudden collapse of Iraqi democracy, now unprotected by US troops, under the onslaught of an Islamist blitzkrieg.

Although Gibbon preferred Islam to Christianity, he did not disguise the former’s hostility to Judaism; in fact, he called Islam’s founder “the enemy of the Jews”. Compare this description with the latest Islamist video to go viral. Shot by ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), which has been responsible for the worst atrocities in Syria and now for the conquest of Mosul and Tikrit, the lyrics to this battle hymn include the following line: “Break the crosses and destroy the lineage of the grandsons of monkeys.” The reference to monkeys recalls the anti-Semitic depictions of Jews in Islamic scripture and tradition. The fact that one of the first European jihadists to return from Syria chose Jews as his first victims is not accidental. But it is also important not to overlook — as so many do — the new militancy directed at Christians of terrorist insurgents such as Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and ISIS. Elsewhere in this issue, Inna Lazareva reports on the fortunes of Christians in Bethlehem and Nazareth. Unlike the anti-Zionist narrative promoted by most of the churches, she finds a new realism among Christians about the state of Israel, which they see as their protector against Islamist persecution. Some are even ready to fight in the IDF.

FORWARDED BY JANET LEVY ROSS
BRITAIN ON WAY TO BECOMING JUDENFREI.

I actually never thought I would have to write an article like this, from the green and pleasant land of England.

However it is becoming truly frightening to be a Jew in UK. What is so remarkable is how quickly it all appears to have happened. One can now start to experience what it must have been like in parts of Europe under Nazi threat, when friends and neighbours
suddenly and without warning, turn on you because you are Jewish.

In the last week or so alone, we have seen the Tricycle Theatre banning the annual JEWISH film festival, which is one of the most important Jewish events of the calendar. The famous Edinburgh Fringe arts festival has also
banned Israeli connected theatre groups.

We have the Parliamentary Member from Bradford, a large town in Yorkshire, announcing his town to be “Israeli” free, as well as reading that a leading
Scottish Nationalist has apparently declared that an independent Scotland will be “Israeli free”. None of us are surely naïve enough to not understand that in practice it means Judenfrei, unless individual Jews renounce their
loyalty to Israel.

Leading Supermarkets have been invaded and ransacked by anti-Israel terrorists, threatening staff and customers. The supermarkets have succumbed to this terrorism, with rumours swirling around that they are soon to stop
selling all Israeli products. Only a day or two ago, a major supermarket in Central London, actually took all kosher products off the shelf. Think about that- all Jewish products banned, many not even from Israel at all.

Over 100,000 people marched through London recently in an anti Israel and anti Jewish orgy of sheer hatred.

I know people whose lifelong friends are putting the most hideous anti-Semitic rantings on their “Facebook” pages.

Our Jewish so called leaders have let us down. I personally haven’t seen nor read any leading member of our Jewish representative bodies, or Rabbis, standing up in public for our community .

This is not a good time to be a Jew in Britain. Apparently in France it is far worse.. We are being cowed and terrorised by home grown anti-Semites, and by imported oriental ones. [British “code” for muslims.]

Only in the last few days have some of the leading Newspaper columnists begun to wake up to the hatred they have themselves stirred up by their coverage of Gaza, replete with its ancient Jewish blood libel of deliberate
child sacrifice.

Natan Sharansky said recently that Europe is death to Jews, and he is so correct. History shows that anything can generate the hatred. If it wasn’t Gaza it would be something else.

Lloyd Levy
London
18 August 2014

Over-analysing and under-analysing — are these not the two sins of thought which we are all meant to avoid? Believing a sniffle is a presage of imminent death. Not bothering about a pain in the chest. Thinking all the problems of the world are easy to solve. Deciding that most things are too difficult to solve. Over-thinking and under-thinking are the Scylla and Charybdis between which we all navigate. But there is one challenge at this moment in particular which the world would do well to understand a bit better and over-think a bit less. Our future depends on it.

Michelle’s hashtag: Celebrity support warmed the heart but more than 200 Nigerian girls remain in captivity or have been sold as slaves
During the last few months the world has seen several varieties of the same evil stretch out, assert themselves and proliferate. Last April 276 schoolgirls were abducted in north-eastern Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram. The translation of their name is usually given as “Western Education is Forbidden” but “Non-Muslim Teaching is Forbidden” is a more accurate rendering. The world ignored this atrocity until the human interest angle of the story spurred people to virtual action.

But no political leaders were keen to explain why the group had taken the girls. Few media outlets explained the simple but crucial detail that the terrorist group was made up of Islamic fundamentalists and that their captives were Christians. Fewer still mentioned that the formal Arabic name of Boko Haram is Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad or “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”. Or that, as one of the group’s leaders, Abubakar Shekau, explained for anyone who would listen, “This work that we are doing is not our work, it is Allah’s work, we are doing Allah’s work.”

A Twitter campaign was started. Numerous well-meaning celebrities including Michelle Obama and David Cameron posed with the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Months later and, with the exception of a few dozen who had managed to escape, the girls remained either in captivity or had been sold into slavery. And so the world’s attention moved on, touched but unenlightened.

A little while back, leaving the local “swimming hole” frequented by residents and summer tourists, I noticed a large group of dark-clad visitors sitting in a circle and solemnly keeping what appeared to be a meditative vigil. They had occupied a considerable space where others would normally pass on their way to one of the promontories leading to the river. They were obviously Muslims, probably an extended family, conspicuously observing the traditions of their native culture and, oblivious to their surroundings and the people who had to detour by an arduous route around them, preparing no doubt to face the Qiblah (direction to Mecca) and to devote themselves to prayer.

Just the other day, I had a similar experience. Since there are no facilities at the beach, swimmers often change out of their bathing suits into street clothes beside their cars, shielded by towels held by friends and intimates or strung between the open doors of their vehicles, an operation conducted in an atmosphere of courtesy defined by a mutual and studied disregard. I was assisting my wife in this delicate maneuver when three Muslim men emerged from the trail giving onto the parking lot. Soon they were trying to stare over and between the towels, mesmerized by the partially hidden lure of a woman in semi-undress. My wife had to enter the car and slide low into the front seat while I glared indignantly at the intruders. Then, as I was about to confront them — the odds were not in my favor, but so be it — they moved aside and, after a few moments, spread carpets on the grass margin a few yards away and ritually prostrated themselves in prayer — close enough that I had to be careful when backing the car out.

It was not violence, but it was a violation, a transgression of the norm, remarked by several others in the parking lot who were struck by so blatant an infringement of both common decency and shared space. These men clearly did not realize or, more likely, did not care that they were contravening the tacit agreement of reciprocal discretion that prevailed among us, whether friend or stranger. They were animated by a robust and incontestable sense of their own priority, a conviction of privilege that need not take into consideration the cultural usages and social expectations of those they had come to live among. The same goes for the band of votaries blocking a public route, heedless of the inconvenience caused.

Such behavior is patently different from the Muslim-inspired havoc and thuggery erupting in Canadian cities like Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, or in the municipal war zones of many European cities with sizeable Muslim populations. But it was nevertheless a visible presumption of specialness and of indifference to the conventions of ordinary civility.

Every immigrant group in this country has variously adapted to the heritage culture, integrating more or less seamlessly by the second generation. However, second-generation Muslims are increasingly being radicalized, some going off to fight with jihadist militias in the Middle East and Africa, others plotting terror attacks on the very country that has offered them freedom, health care, education and the opportunity to prosper.

Five hundred people gathered on the third floor of the United Nations recently for a conference on the rise of anti-Semitism. Although held at the U.N., the conference was sponsored by the by the U.N. Permanent Mission of Palau and the Aja Eze Foundation.

“If you want to know why Palau is doing this, the answer is that it’s a matter of practicing our faith,” said Dr. Caleb Otto, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Palau to the United Nations. Otto, who delivered the opening statement at the conference, was among seven speakers at this event. “As a Christian nation,” he said, “we believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the twelve tribes of Israel. … This God has said, ‘I will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel.’ ”

That is why, according to Pastor Mario Bramnick, vice president and chief liaison for Israel and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership, “every single nation historically that has come against Israel has, in fact, been judged by God.”

“This is a historic meeting,” he added, “There never has been a meeting on anti-Semitism like this in the halls of the United Nations.”

The reason for this, said Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, is “because the United Nations itself is the leading global purveyor of anti-Semitism.”

To prove this point, Bayefsky stated that around 35 percent of all resolutions and decisions approved by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council condemn Israel. “That’s anti-Semitism,” she said. Fifty percent of the emergency sessions held by the U.N.’s General Assembly (GA) over the past 60 years “were convened to denounce Israel.” In addition, Bayefsky said, in 2013, 70 percent of the GA resolutions targeting a specific country for human rights abuses focused on Israel.

However, this conference didn’t merely focus on anti-Semitism coming from the United Nations, but largely on the vast number of anti-Semitic incidents that have been occurring around the world. Ron Prosor, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, illustrated this point, quoting the World Zionist Organization figures which state that during July, European anti-Semitic incidents increased by 436%, American incidents rose by 130% and anti-Semitic acts in South America rose by 1,200%

“Where is the outrage? Where are the universal condemnations? The silence of 2014 sounds very, very similar to the silence of the 1930s,” he said. “Seventy years have passed, yet there is little difference for European Jews in 1937 and 2014.”

The Democratic party has infantilized women…..making abortion and “women’s issues” priorities instead of issues like foreign policy, immigration, energy and healthcare. The GOP’s female candidates- incumbents and challengers- have moved on and have taken on the major issues and crises of our time…..rsk

It may seem unusual that the husband-and-wife team of Mary Matlin and James Carville have managed to carve successful careers in large part by being on the opposite sides of the political divide. But the really big surprise is that she’s a conservative and he’s a liberal!

Among married couples, it’s usually the other way around, a preference consistently reflected in polling data. In fact, women of all ages 18 to 85 and within all major racial, educational, and marital-status segments of society are more likely to register as Democrats. And the preponderance of liberal feminists in academia continues to prime the pump so that this gender gap persists into the future. Democrats count heavily on the crucial support of women in order to win elections. It helps, too, that women more reliably vote than do men.

Hollywood celebrity Rob Lowe once remarked that he was a liberal because, as an actor, he had greater “empathy” for the feelings and needs of others, the assumption being that Democrats are more empathetic and Republicans are, well, more pathetic. This fallacy continues to drive party rhetoric, as it seeks to portray Democrats as compassionate and Republicans as combative.

Naturally, women want to be seen coming down on the side of compassion. That’s why Democrat campaigns are heavy on the emotion of “doing the right thing,” even if in the end it takes society down the wrong path. For example, Democrat candidates rarely focus on issues like balancing the budget or easing the debt burden on future generations. In their appeal to women, Democrats have had greater success with issues onto which they can slap a face of injustice or immediate need.

Hillary Clinton, who lay low for a while, emerged from the shadows last weekend and headed hand-in-hand with Bill to the Iowa caucuses, hoping for better results than she’d had in her last bid for the presidency. After her usual coy act as to whether she is, indeed, running again, Clinton made a succinct statement to the effect that raising the minimum wage, making education affordable, supporting equal pay for equal work, and giving all people job opportunities is what her party is for – and the Republicans aren’t.

America needs a change of direction domestically to cope with a dangerous and disorderly world.

The reports of Darrell Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are a clinic on how government is really run. The latest on ObamaCare is no exception.

We see Chet Burrell, head of Maryland insurer CareFirst, emailing in alarm last April to White House aide Valerie Jarrett. The administration had just publicly stated its “risk corridor” plan would be revenue neutral—i.e., no extra taxpayer dollars would be available to cover insurer losses.

We see Mr. Burrell warning that sticking with this plan would mean politically “an unwelcome surprise,” namely premium hikes of 20% or more later this year as ObamaCare policies come up for renewal.

We see Ms. Jarrett emailing back in concern. We see her later assuring Mr. Burrell that insurers would get 80% of what they sought. After another program tweak in May, the figure would be closer to 100%.
Sure enough, this week came the fallout. Bob Laszewski, a policy wonk and former insurance executive whose bloggings are closely followed in the ObamaCare debate, writes that the administration has succeeded in temporarily suppressing incipient ObamaCare price hikes, contributing to an illusion of sustainability. He suggests that some insurers might even slash rates to “grab market share because they have nothing to lose with the now unlimited ObamaCare reinsurance program covering their losses.”

The non-surprise revealed here is that ObamaCare turns out to be just another subsidy program, throwing money at health care. In economics, you can’t subsidize everybody but we’re trying: 50 million Americans get help from Medicare, 65 million from Medicaid, nine million from the Department of Veterans Affairs, seven million (and counting) from ObamaCare, and a whopping 149 million from the giant tax handout for employer-provided health insurance.

Much of this money (which will total about $1.3 trillion in 2014) is shoveled out regardless of need, driving up prices and spurring production of services of dubious value. The spending is less effective at improving the nation’s health. An “Affordable Care Act” worth its title would have gotten us off this kamikaze mission. It didn’t.

http://unitedwithisrael.org/innovative-israeli-brain-procedure-broadcast-live-to-12000-american-doctors/

An Israeli medical team performed an innovative life-saving procedure while 12,000 American doctors watched via live broadcast.

A cutting-edge brain catheterization procedure was performed at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem while being broadcast live to 12,000 American doctors in Washington.

The procedure, another example of Israel’s important medical innovations, significantly diminishes the threat to the patient undergoing the operation. The revolutionary stent is covered with a microscopic net that opens up against the arterial wall and can prevent the passage of particles toward the brain, thus preventing cerebral-vascular accidents during its implantation.

The life-saving procedure was debuted in Israel and viewed by American clinicians attending the TCT (Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics) Conference, the world’s largest and most important educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
Shaare Zedek Medical Center

Shaare Zedek Medical Center. (Photo: Nati Shohat/Flash90)

Shaarei Zedek is one of 21 hospitals from around the world to participate in the conference and broadcast live medical procedures.
“This is a World Debut”

The medical team performing the procedure was rigged with audio and visual equipment so as to better present the technique to their audience. Two advanced broadcasting stations were set up at the entrance to the hospital to relay the event to the expectant spectators in the US. They received a step-by-step explanation of the ground-breaking treatment.

“This is a world début for this stent, which provides a first-rate solution to the problem,” says Dr. Yaron Almagor, director of the Invasive Cardiology Unit at Shaare Zedek. “There is no doubt that this is a world-class innovation which can revolutionize the treatment of the carotid arteries and will minimize cerebral damage in the future.”

http://unitedwithisrael.org/fda-approves-groundbreaking-israeli-lung-imaging-system/

The FDA recently approved a groundbreaking, non-invasive, radiation-free lung imaging system created by Deep Breeze an Israeli company.

Deep Breeze is an Israeli company based in Or Akiva in the Haifa District that has invented a non-invasive, radiation-free lung imaging system. Using Vibration Response Imaging, the system generates a real-time picture of the lungs.

This new technology is already being heralded by experts as the biggest breakthrough since ultrasound. It will be used to help diagnose cancer, asthma and other pulmonary diseases. Sales of the system will begin in the US shortly.

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