RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Woolwich horror demands a response
The murder of Lee Rigby is an atrocity which demands a response. No one else should have to suffer his fate

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3635/the_woolwich_horror_demands_a_response

The atrocity in Woolwich last week was one of almost unspeakable cruelty. Any right-minded person would have felt shock and intense anger that a British citizen was publicly butchered to death on the streets of his own capital city. The fact that the victim was a soldier, and targeted for this reason, made the killing feel much more raw and direct, as if this was an attack on us all. That this happened in full public view added a feeling of helplessness and frustration to our anger.

The minority of people who argue that this should be treated as ‘just another murder’ – as though this case was not exceptional – are not only wrong but callous and wilfully blind to the problem. An unarmed British soldier was murdered in the most brutal way in broad daylight on a London street for the very reason that he was a British soldier. The killers then stood there and gloated over their crime and shouted their reasons, based on their extreme Islamist ideology.

Those who claim that this killing was done by two ‘nutters’ who ‘happened to be Muslim’, or ‘happened to invoke Islam’, are dodging the issue. This is just intellectual laziness or moral cowardice, an unwillingness to face up to the very real problem of extreme Islamism.

The contemptible tiny minority that tries to draw comparisons between this killing and British military actions in Afghanistan are morally warped. All wars cause civilian deaths, but British soldiers in Afghanistan are not in the business of running down Afghan civilians and then hacking them to death with cleavers. British troops are there with the consent of the elected Afghan government and the authority of the UN. The vast majority of deaths in Afghanistan (as all UN and NGO studies demonstrate) are caused by the Taliban and other Islamist insurgents, not ISAF forces.

If our critics really wanted to look at who was ‘killing Muslims worldwide’, they would find that the answer is violent Islamists and repressive regimes, not the West. The argument that ‘Western foreign policy’ causes terrorism does not get us very far. What are they suggesting: that Al-Qaeda should be given a veto over every action we take abroad, that we should defer to the judgment of machete-wielding terrorists?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323975004578503040989151234.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Curious IRS Timing

The IRS has admitted targeting groups that wanted to speak on issues during the 2012 election season. But did the agency also target tax-exempt groups that opposed Administration policy priorities?

At a House oversight hearing last week, Treasury Inspector General Russell George opened the door on the possibility of more IRS political targeting. Asked by Chairman Darrell Issa whether there were other political criteria that IRS workers had been told to “be on the lookout” for, Mr. George said he could “not give you a definitive answer, sir, at this time. But I certainly will.”

A definitive answer is needed because troubling cases are surfacing. The Arlington, Virginia-based Leadership Institute, a 501(c)(3) that trains young conservative activists, says it was audited in 2011-2012 and had to produce some 23,000 pages of documents for the IRS as well as answer questions about where its interns came from and where they are currently employed.

Curiously, the intrusive questionnaire came from the IRS’s Baltimore office on February 14, 2012, soon after the Cincinnati office asked the Hawaii Tea Party on January 26, 2012 to “provide details regarding your relationship with the Leadership Institute” and “provide copies of their training materials.” The group’s audit fell squarely within the IRS’s 2010-2012 season for conservative targeting.

A Pennsylvania pro-Israel group called Z Street says it filed for 501(c)(3) status in December 2009, intending to operate purely as an educational group. Founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus says that its tax counsel called the IRS in July 2010 to check on the slow pace of approval, and the IRS acknowledged its targeted enforcement.

Asked about the slow pace of approval, the IRS auditor on the case, Diane Gentry, said the application was taking so long because auditors were supposed to give special scrutiny to groups “connected with Israel.” Ms. Marcus says Ms. Gentry further explained that many applications related to Israel had to be sent to “a special unit in D.C. to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.” Z Street filed suit in August 2010 in federal court in Pennsylvania alleging “viewpoint discrimination,” and its case has since been moved to Washington, D.C. Ms. Gentry did not return our phone calls.

http://news.yahoo.com/john-kerry-israel-prosperity-may-blocking-peace-process-173817417.html Is it possible that the many accomplishments and economic prosperity of Israel is preventing the peace process from moving ahead in the Middle East? That seems to be what our Secretary of State thinks.   U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East on May 26, […]

  http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/ This article by Anne Bayefsky originally appeared on The Jerusalem Post. It is opening week of another session of the UN’s top human rights body, the UN Human Rights Council, and antisemitism will once again be promoted around the globe via an organization built on the ashes of the Jewish people and sworn […]

More Peace, Less Process: The Key to Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has already visited the Middle East four times since President Barack Obama named him to the post back in February. Perhaps anticipating the large number of yawns that such a statistic is likely to produce, Kerry directly addressed, during his […]

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now
· Israeli scientists have developed a gel that can reverse paralysis due to nerve damage.
· An Israeli’s medical theory from 1980 is curing cancer today.
· 300 Israeli and Palestinian Arab children took part in the 2013 mini world cup.
· IBM Israel’s computers are able to identify water leaks.
· Israeli technology is to treat UK sewage.
· Israeli security protects international railways.
· Israel won the Eurovision Song Contest (the primary school version).

http://unitedpatriotsworldwide.com/vinienco/2013/05/28/europes-tolerance-tested-islam/
Islam’s War of Annihilation against Hindus, by Arnold Ahlert

A thought-provoking essay written by Narain Kataria, president of the Indian American Intellectuals Forum, sounds a familiar alarm. “Hinduism Faces Eclipse” reveals that “the anti-Hindu forces within and without India are working in tandem on an insidious mission to destroy our civilization and culture, and obliterate Hinduism from the Indian soil.” Kataria further contends that Indians are not facing terrorism, but worldwide jihad, which he calls a “fully globalized franchise…working overtime to destroy all non-Muslim nations.”

Muslims currently comprise 20 percent of India’s 1.2 billion population, the rest of which is overwhelmingly Hindu. But as Narain points out, Indian Muslims have engaged in a series of attacks on Hindu citizens, temples, …

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Tommy Robinson: ‘Time for the English Spring’

An estimated 1,000 members of a British nationalist group rallied against Muslims on Tuesday, as anger built over the arrest of a 10th suspect in the grisly machete killing of a soldier on a London street.

“They’ve had their Arab spring. This is time for the English spring,” said Tommy Robinson, a leader of the English Defense League, said in The New York Post.

Police were trying on Tuesday to contain the protest, which took place right in downtown London. Protesters surged around Prime Minister David Cameron’s office on Downing Street, chanting slogans against the Muslim community.

Police already broke up one clash with the …

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Russia to Send Anti-Aircraft System to Syria

Russia will go ahead with plans to deliver S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria despite Western opposition and Israel saying it would “know how to act” if Syrians receive the advanced weapons system.

Moscow said that by sending in the anti-aircraft system, it would deter “hotheads” intent on intervention in the two-year-old conflict, the deputy foreign minister said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also accused the European Union of “throwing fuel on the fire” by letting its own arms embargo on Syria expire.

The comments came after Israel said it will know how to act if Russia sends the …

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Egyptian Jihadist Leader: Bin Laden Blew Himself up to Avoid Capture

Nabeel Naeem Abdul Fattah, former leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (1988- 1992), claimed that Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden was not shot dead by US Special Forces (SEALs) in ‘Operation Geronimo’, but blew himself up to avoid capture soon after they launched the raid at his Abbotabad compound in Pakistan on May 2, 2011.

“Bin Laden’s burial at sea story was fishy. US President Barack Obama lied when he claimed that Bin Laden was buried at sea. Bin Laden’s body parts were cut into multiple pieces, which is similar to suicide attacks following the bombing, so as not to …

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Muslims Take Hostage, Batter Prison Guard in Assault Sparked by Beheading of Lee Rigby

Prison staff feared their colleague, locked in a room and being attacked by Muslims, was facing the same gruesome death as murdered soldier Lee Rigby.

The terrified officer, in his 30s, was finally freed by a specialist riot squad who stormed the room where he was held for five hours and beaten mercilessly by the men, who told him he would die.

And the vicious assault was sparked by a simple call from a prison imam to pray for drummer Lee who was butchered in the street last week near his barracks in Woolwich, South East London.

The ringleader of the prison attack …

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http://spectator.org/archives/2013/05/28/obama-declares-peace Peace for our time? Not on Obama’s watch. It was only last week that I posed the question of how long the war the terrorists are waging against us will continue. President Obama answered that question in his 23 May speech at the National Defense University. His answers should scare the hell out of […]

Another Iranian ‘election’ to look forward to http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=4473 On Monday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed the graduating class of Imam Hossein University in Tehran, the military college that trains future members of the Revolutionary Guards. Referring to the presidential election scheduled for June 14, which will mark the end of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s eight-year […]

I am feeling a bit scandal whipped by the many revelations about the Obama administration which were airbrushed during the campaign of 2012. And, I am full of remorse now, more than ever, for the loss of Mitt Romney, and at a loss about what can save our nation and the Republicans in 2016.

A good primer and a great read is Gabriel Schoenfeld’s book. This is not one of the myriad “sore loser” brickbats that were hurled at Mitt Romney after the devastating loss. This is a serious accounting of what went wrong and how it determined the outcome.

Gabriel Schoenfeld was intimately involved in the campaign as a senior adviser. His essays on national security and modern history have appeared in leading publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Weekly Standard, New Republic, Atlantic, National Interest, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Commentary, where from 1994 to 2008 he was senior editor. His books include: A Bad Day on the Romney Campaign: An Insider’s Account; Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law; and The Return of Anti-Semitism.

Those of us who cheered at Romney’s knock out of Obama in the first debate when it was about the economy, were buoyed and confident that in succeeding debates, particularly on foreign policy Romney would triumph. Instead, we cringed when he flubbed the debate on what should have been his strong suit. But now what?

I posed the following question to Gabriel Schoenfeld:
“In the book you site the awkward handling of the anniversary of 9/11 in the Romney campaign…..particularly in light of the evolving protests in Cairo and Benghazi as being critical.I am persuaded that Romney got some awful advice but what we know now …leaves me perplexed and wondering what moves one can make in preparing for 2016.
Given that now we know the lies and obfuscations and negligence of those events which were kept from us…and candidate Romney, do you think the outcome could have been different?

Much of this is out since your book was completed….Have you any second thoughts?”
His answer:
“The revelations about Benghazi that have appeared since my book was locked into type four weeks ago only serve to confirm its thesis. The Obama administration made multiple mistakes before, during, and after the Benghazi episode and it took monumental misjudgment for the Romney campaign to turn an Obama vulnerability into a Romney vulnerability. But that is what happened on the night of Sept. 11, 2012.
I am certainly not arguing that the campaign’s mishandling of this episode cost Romney the election. But politics is a dynamic thing. And if Romney had managed to raise the issue effectively, it would have provided at least an opening, a way for him to change the momentum of a race that was turning against him. The things we have learned over the last few weeks only confirm that this was a missed opportunity. The administration, for a variety of reasons, intra-bureaucratic and political, was misrepresenting what happened in Benghazi. If Romney had handled this deftly, he would have been able to score somewhat more in the second and third debate. As it was, he was unable to talk effectively about the fiasco. The campaign also told the RNC to stand down with a highly effective ad that explained Benghazi to the public in readily digestible sound bites coupled with vivid images. The big lesson for 2016: it is folly to ignore foreign policy–which is what the Romney strategists deliberately attempted to do. When a crisis occurred, they were woefully ill-equipped to deal with it. ”
READ THE BOOK….74 PAGES THAT PACK A POLITICAL PUNCH FOR THOSE WHO CARE DEEPLY ABOUT THE NEXT ELECTION.