RUTHFULLY YOURS

Secretary of State John Kerry – who was heard last Sunday on an open mike between Sunday TV appearances disparaging Israel’s efforts to limit civilian casualties in Gaza – arrived in Cairo on July 21st to frantically cobble together an immediate ceasefire. Seeking the help of Egypt and the United Nations, and even the Hamas-friendly countries of Turkey and Qatar, Kerry is looking for some kind of consensus by the major players in the region for a peace-at-any price formula. He is insisting on a premature ceasefire before Israel is able to find and destroy all the tunnels built under Palestinian civilians’ homes, schools and hospitals, which Hamas is using to hide its weapons and as bases from which to sneak its jihadists into Israel for the purpose of abducting or killing its citizens.

“The objective here is to get the fastest possible ceasefire. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to be fast, and it certainly doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, but that’s the goal,” a senior US official travelling with Kerry was quoted by AFP as saying on condition of anonymity.

Kerry is even throwing in additional money for Gaza to help seal the deal. On top of the half a billion dollars that the Obama administration is continuing to send to the Palestinian “unity” government in which Hamas is a partner, Kerry has just offered a $47 million bribe in the form of so-called “humanitarian” aid for Gaza. Some of the $47 million would flow through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This is the very same agency which found at least twenty Hamas rockets in one of its schools and which is reported to have returned those rockets to the “local authorities.” In Gaza, the “local authorities” are presently the Hamas operatives who govern Gaza. Presumably, UNRWA will be sharing the Kerry-provided windfall with those same “local authorities.”

As usual, while the Obama administration is prepared to reward the Palestinians, it seeks to pressure Israel into agreeing to a short term peace that will simply buy Hamas more time to build up an even greater arsenal of deadly weapons. Before Kerry left on his latest jaunt to Cairo, he was heard on the open mike issuing a not-so-subtle warning to Israel not to try the Obama administration’s patience. “I hope they don’t think that’s an invitation to go do more,” apparently referring to the Obama administration’s rhetorical support for Israel’s right of self-defense. “That better be the warning to them.”

After arriving in Cairo, Kerry acknowledged Israel’s right to defend its citizens from Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks, but then added: “We are deeply concerned about the consequences.”

Elizabeth Warren was the star at the annual Netroots Nation conference in Detroit last week. Netroots Nation is the largest gathering of left wing activists, the Left’s answer to those on the extreme Right of the Republican Party. A kiss on the cheek by the Massachusetts squaw, after her talk, left a gay-rights activist “verklempt.” “I want to bottle her and take her everywhere,” said Debby Dingell. (As an aside and totally irrelevant to the subject at hand, Ms. Dingell, wife of retiring Congressman John Dingell, is running for the seat her husband is vacating after 59 years, and which his father occupied for twenty-two years before that. Perhaps, like 19th Century European royalty, a Dingell feels entitled to represent Michigan’s 15th District!)

Liars can be found in abundance in Washington. In fact, it may be that the ability to fabricate is woven into the fabric of a politician. But there are few you can tell whoppers with such aplomb, while exuding such innocence, as the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren. Standing before a crowd of adoring worshippers, as she did recently in Detroit, she shamelessly called out Republicans for “rigging” the system. Yet “rigging” is exactly what she did in securing her teaching job at Harvard Law School. She brazenly lied, claiming to be of Cherokee descent, in order to be considered a minority. And Harvard, arguably home of the nation’s finest law school, never bothered to investigate her claim. She lied to get to Harvard. She lied to secure her Senate seat. She is a student of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals in political warfare – don’t debate your opponent; demonize the person, freeze the image, personalize the target in whatever slanderous way you choose and then polarize the pulverized individual to avoid any possibility of sympathy. History is replete with political leaders like Ms. Warren, but very few of them served in a democratic republic.

What is it about the illiberal left wing of the Democrat Party that likes people for what they symbolize, rather than for who they really are? Such attitudes mean we nominate and elect people with little understanding of their true underlying character. Barack Obama was elected President because he had great oratorical skills that allowed him to promise much, but neither the Press (other than some on the right wing), nor most people inquired into his background. His lack of experience in any leadership roles, or, for that matter, his very limited time in Washington was ignored. His associations with those like his minister Jeremiah Wright and mentors like Frank Marshall Davis, Edward Said, Derrick Bell and Bill Ayers did not ring alarm bells. People saw the package, and not the contents. He was intelligent, articulate, good looking, and African American. Voting for him allowed people to feel sanctimonious, and cleansed from any deep-rooted tinge of racial prejudice they might previously have felt.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is coming to Israel on Tuesday, following a visit to ‎Cairo to meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and U.N. Secretary-General ‎Ban Ki-moon. The purpose of both trips is to try and secure a cease-fire in Gaza.‎

It’s been a while since Kerry has graced the region with his presence. This is just as well. ‎If it hadn’t been for the secretary of state’s flying back and forth between Jerusalem and ‎Ramallah for months on end to “assist” in the establishment of a Palestinian state, there ‎would not be a war going on in Gaza right now.‎

As is always the case when Israel engages in “two-state-solution” talks with the ‎Palestinian Authority, terrorism against the Jewish state ensues. Buoyed by what they ‎perceive as a crack in Israeli armor, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas up the ante on ‎demands already met — such as the release of massive numbers of terrorists held in Israeli ‎prisons — and then launch operations against the Israeli homefront.‎

The present war in Gaza, thus, has Kerry’s fingerprints all over it.‎

But Washington is in a bit of a bind. On one hand, the White House and State ‎Department are hostile to the national camp in Israel, which they see as represented by ‎Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They feel much more comfortable with figures like ‎outgoing President Shimon Peres and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who parrot their own ‎delusions about the way to achieve peace.‎

On the other, even the doves in America are hard put to denounce such a clear-cut case of ‎a “war of no choice” as the one that Israel is being forced to engage in right now.‎

This is why Kerry and U.S. President Barack Obama keep making statements about Israel’s ‎right to defend itself out of one side of their mouths, while urging restraint out of the ‎other.‎

It also explains the dripping sarcasm, caught on a hot mic at Fox News on Sunday, which ‎Kerry expressed about Israel’s assertion that it has been taking every step to avoid killing ‎innocent Gazans. Talking on his cellphone to his deputy chief of staff, Kerry said, “It is a ‎hell of a pinpoint operation. … We’ve got to get over there.”‎

Later, when asked by Fox about his tone, he said he had “reacted obviously in a way that, ‎you know, anybody does with respect to, you know, young children and civilians.” What ‎he did not explain was why his disdain on this score was not reserved for, you know, ‎Hamas, the organization wholly responsible for the deaths of “young children and ‎civilians” — you know, both in Israel and in Gaza.‎

* J. Millard Burr is a Senior Fellow and Rachel Ehrenfeld Director of the American Center for Democracy.

Let no one doubt. Within Islam, no censure is assigned to the personal accumulation of wealth. And no known member of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimun) has been condemned for either the pursuit or the accumulation of wealth.

Muslim scholars gathered in Istanbul last week to debate the ‘Caliphate’ declared recently by the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), aka IS), the Sunni terrorist group that operates in Iraq and Syria.

Titled “World Islamic Scholars: Peace, Moderation and Common Sense Initiative,” delegates from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and other countries gathered in Istanbul. The meeting was attended by Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and the President of Turkish Religious Affairs (Diyanet) chaired the event.

Erdogan is a known Muslim Brother, and Gul is certainly an Islamist if not a declared Ikhwan. Davutoglu, an emerging member of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), has a special interest in the Balkans. He is known for his close association with Mustafa Ceric, a senior member of Europe’s Muslim Brotherhood branch and a participant in the U.K.-based “Radical Middle Way” movement involving numerous Ikhwan scholars.

Within a decade of its creation in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood was split internally by those who felt that the movement was not sufficiently revolutionary and those who sought to follow an evolutionary path to political power. Indeed, over the years a number of former Muslim Brothers have led terrorist movements, the like of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, Egypt’s Gamaa Islamiya, and even Al Qaeda–movements that have initially been shunned by the Muslim Brotherhood. These groups broke too many rice bowls to be embraced publicly. And if the Muslim Brotherhood leadership was about anything, it was the creation of personal wealth.

Thus, the ISIL formation of an ‘Islamic Caliphate’ devoted to the recreation of a Salifist state not only threatens the Ikhwan ricebowl, it has first offended Turkey (the last home of the Caliphate). Most importantly, it threatens the economic well-being of the Middle East itself, and by projection, the Muslim Brotherhood. But when IS stormed the Turkish Consulate in Mosul on June 10, taking all 49 there hostage — including Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz — Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government passed a law that effectively bans all public debate and reporting of the crisis. Reportedly, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has argued that “the Turkish flag must continue to fly.” The IS made the Turkish Consulate its main headquarters, while Erdogan has warned the United States against any airstrikes against IS in Iraq.

Anyone who follows the actions in the Middle East or Islamic communities readily becomes aware that Muslims continuously make demands on their non-Islamic neighbors.

One would assume they come to westernized countries like the USA for a better way of life. Yet through their ongoing demands it appears they want to convert our lives to the strict oppressive Islamic life style they’ve left.

For example the Council on American-Islamic Relation’s (CAIR-MI) Executive Director Dawud Walid, sent a complaint letter to the Michigan Roseville Public Schools stating that “School staff and teachers are not to serve as advocates for one particular religion by passing out slips inviting parents to give permission for their children to attend religious instruction.” Yet he offered a booklet, called “An Educator’s Guide to Islamic Religious Practices” a book that elevates Islam.

As is common for Muslim communities, Muslims in New York City are demanding special treatment at the expense of non-Muslims. They demand public schools cater to their religious food limitations. They prepared a video showing kids telling how heartbreaking it is to have to eat peanut butter and jelly, or bring something from home. It makes them feel different. Interesting that their Arabic clothing (i.e. hajib) does not make them feel different.
The vegetarian options offered are insufficient to satisfy their demands. Could it be that their intention is to have non-Muslims submit to Islam one step at a time.

During the public comment period in February 2014, at the Dearborn city council meeting, a Muslim, Mr. Hassan, demanded that the city institute sharia patrols to keep young people out of parks and to prevent the sale of “offensive” magazines in stores.

Mr. Hassan also wants the city to institute sharia compliant patrols to establish sharia compliant censorship at libraries. Fortunately, the city council shot down Hassan’s demands. http://wizbangblog.com/2014/02/22/muslims-demanding-their-own-sharia-patrols-in-michigan/

OH PULEEZ! DONE SO MUCH HARM WITH HIS “PROGRESSIVE” IDEOLOGY AND NOW HE SUPPORTS ISRAEL. HE SAYS “PAINT ME BLUE”…I SAY PAINT HIM RED-FACED…..RSK
I’m done apologizing for Israel.

It’s tiring to apologize over and over. Instead, I’ve decided to come clean: I am a progressive American rabbi who leans left pretty hard. I’ve been engaged, as a US faith leader, in work to reform gun laws, extend LGBT rights around the world, grant refuge to illegal immigrants, protect women’s reproductive choice, and more. Paint me blue.

So, when it comes to Israel, many of those with whom I engage in social reform expect me to react to Israel’s military actions in Gaza with scorn and criticism. To be fair, there are times when I do. My Zionism demands I speak out on behalf of the Israel that remains, in my world-view, the most ambitious project-in-process of the Jewish People. Whereas Israel’s 66 short years have witnessed strength and resilience that have redefined Jewish identity in profound ways, the global Jewish family remains interwoven with Israel. If you question this, scan the last week’s news for anti-Israel rallies in Antwerp, Los Angeles, Paris, Boston, and elsewhere that featured widespread anti-Semitic chants and violence against Jews.

So I’m a progressive US faith leader. I’m a Zionist in Berkeley, CA. I’m a Jew in the world, worried for my family. So here is my response to those criticizing Israel this week.

To those who suggest that Prime Minister Netanyahu is over-reacting to the missiles, I offer this response which I have now shared regularly at campus and communal conversations:

Israel is treating wounded Palestinians during this conflict, risking Israeli lives in surgical strikes to destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels created with building materials Israel allowed into Gaza for infrastructure projects to benefit Palestinian society. Just for a moment, consider the deaths that would result from Israel wishing harm on Palestinian civilians. In just the last 48 hours, Israel has allowed over 10 tons of goods into Gaza. During the past weeks, Israel has agreed to two humanitarian cease-fires. In the first hours of those ceasefires, Hamas rained down over 70 missiles onto Israel civilians.

Israel is being hanged on a public gallows erected on the grounds of the United Nations with yards of rope gleefully supplied by the Muslim world. But the hangmen are mostly Westerners who still think that the Muslim lynch mob at their doorstep can be pacified with the death of a single victim.

There are three things you can do when you are about to be hanged. You can walk proudly, recite a glorious line or two to embed your martyrdom in historical memory, and then allow yourself to be hanged. Jews have an extensive body of experience with that brand of martyrdom.

Alternatively you can plead your case all the way to the gallows, arguing that a mistake has been made, that your case has been improperly reviewed, begging for someone to listen and do something. This way also ends in a hanging. But it’s the hanging of a slave without even a shred of dignity attached to it. A man that dies pleading with his murderers, and puts his fate in the honesty of the liars and hypocrites whose own crimes makes the worst of his look like virtues, is a craven fool.

Because there is really only one thing you can do when the noose is being placed around your neck. Resist. A noose works by tightening around your neck and cutting off your air or breaking your neck. If you resist the tightening of the noose, you may actually survive. On the other hand if you follow through all the procedures, if you allow your hands to be tied behind your back, and the noose to be fastened around your neck while trusting in the system to do right by you– your death is inevitable.

For two decades Israel has been walking toward the gallows. Its leaders have led it there by empty international assurances. Its people have been led there by refusing to see what is waiting ahead for them, even while the blood was being cleaned off the streets.

Every attempt to reach a peaceful solution, every concession and show of good faith, has only tightened the bonds around its hands and the noose around its neck.

For years, peace processors and pundits have threatened that to stop its “growing international isolation,” Israel must make “painful concessions” and withdraw from territory. The “growing isolation” was always a myth. Israel’s trade with Europe has grown constantly in recent years, even as it developed new markets and ties in Asia. Tourism has reached record levels almost every year, as has the number of Israelis traveling abroad. Except to those sensitive to the movements of postmodern dance troupes, the international isolation was a chimera.

Now, however, international isolation has truly arrived–not from holding territory, but from leaving it. With the suspension of American and European flights to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, rockets from Gaza yielded what peace processors said settlement construction would. The flight suspension by all major airlines is a major–even if temporary–economic, diplomatic, and psychological setback for Israel. It finds itself, for the moment, in same position as Iraq, Libya, and Somalia.

The subtext here is that Israel has a sword at its neck: face a private-sector no-fly zone or agree to a cease-fire that lets Hamas keep its rockets, and thus close Ben Gurion Airport again at the time of its choosing. It is a lose-lose proposition.

Yes, Israel faces international isolation–as a consequence of its attempts to avoid international isolation. Of course, nuanced thinkers are already explaining why this should not prejudice further, massive territorial withdraws from the hills immediately overlooking Ben Gurion Airport and the coastal plain.

Everyone is jittery from the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine, they will say. If so, Hamas has succeeded in turning Israel into Donetsk. Moreover, the timing of the FAA’s absurd and unjustified warning seems to have more to do with Kerry’s visit to the region to impose a cease-fire on Israel. Until his administration’s flight ban, that effort seemed entirely futile.

The West Bank is vastly larger and closer to central Israel than Gaza. What Hamas could do periodically and with great difficulty will be a daily occurrence. Israel would be able to survive, but with a sword at its neck, and on terms constantly dictated by the Palestinians, and whoever is ultimately in charge of the FAA.

Operation Protective Edge is now two weeks old. Since the ground offensive began Thursday night, we have begun to get a better picture of just how dangerous Hamas has become in the nine years since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. And what we have learned is that the time has come to take care of this problem. It cannot be allowed to fester or grow anymore.

We have known for years that tunnels were a central component of Hamas’s logistical infrastructure.

What began as the primary means of smuggling weapons, trainers and other war material from Hamas’s sponsors abroad developed rapidly into a strategic tool of offensive warfare against Israel.

As we have seen from the heavily armed Hamas commando squads that have infiltrated into Israel from tunnels since the start of the current round of warfare, the first goal of these offensive tunnels is to deploy terrorists into Israel to massacre Israelis.

But the tunnels facilitate other terror missions as well.

Israel has found tunnels with shafts rigged with bombs located directly under Israeli kindergartens.

If the bombs had gone off, the buildings above would have been destroyed, taking the children down with them.

One of the most outspoken advocates for the 2 state dissolution was Alan Dershowitz…..makes this column very noteworthy….rsk

Hamas’s decision to fire rockets in the direction of Ben Gurion Airport may well have ended any real prospect of a two-state solution. Whether the regulators and airlines that have stopped flights to and from Israel are right or wrong, this stoppage cannot possibly be tolerated by a democratic country that relies so heavily on tourism and international travel. It is of course a war crime to target an international civilian airport, as Hamas has clearly done. Israel has every right to keep that airport open, employing all reasonable military means at its disposal. Since Hamas fires its rockets from densely populated civilian areas, there will be more Palestinian civilian deaths.

Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
This of course is part of Hamas’ grand strategy: by targeting Israeli civilians and international air travel from its own civilian areas, Hamas leaves Israel no choice but to take military actions that risk the lives of innocent Palestinians. There will be even more innocent Palestinian deaths now, as Hamas has raised the stakes considerably for Israel. Every country in the world would do everything in its power to keep open the airports, which are the lifelines to its economic viability. Hamas knows this and welcomes Israeli military action that produces more dead Palestinian civilians and hence more international criticism of Israel.

Even more importantly, Hamas’ actions in essentially closing down international air traffic into Israel, considerably reduces the prospect of any two-state solution. Israel will now be more reluctant than ever to give up military control over the West Bank, which is even closer to Ben Gurion Airport than is Gaza.

Were Israel to end its military occupation of the West Bank—as distinguished from its civilian settlements deep in the West Bank—it would risk the possibility of a Hamas takeover. That is precisely what happened when Israel removed both its civilian settlements and its military presence in Gaza. Hamas took control, fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilian targets and have now succeeded in stopping international air traffic into and out of Israel.

Israel could not accept the risk of a Hamas takeover of the West Bank and the resulting Hamas rocket attacks at the nearby Ben Gurion Airport. It may still be possible to create a two-state solution whereby Israel withdraws its civilian settlers from most of the West Bank and agrees to land swaps for areas that now contain large settlement blocks. But Israel will have to retain military control over its security borders, which extend to the Jordan River. It will also have to maintain a sufficient military presence to assure that what happened in Gaza does not happen in the West Bank. These military realities do not have to exist forever. Israel’s military presence could be reduced if the Palestinian Authority were to maintain effective control over the West Bank and prevent terrorists from using that area to send rockets and terrorists into Israel.