RUTHFULLY YOURS

Turning up the lights!

It’s happened to me three times in the past few weeks. Once, while giving a tour, in the middle of a suspense story, the next time at a Brit, a baby’s circumcision, and two days ago, during a candle-lighting ceremony; all at Ma’arat HaMachpela, the tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.

On the second night of Hanukkah we had a double candle-lighting ceremony. The first, at six o’clock, was with the police. Hebron police commander, Itzik Rachamim, together with some officers and police, were listening to Rabbi Hillel Horowitz speak about the eternal elements of Hanukkah. Then, as he mentioned the great miracle, the great blessing and the lights of Hanukkah, which still shine upon us today: Allah HuAbar. The muezzin began his call to prayer, with the loudspeakers facing into the Machpela courtyard, drowning out whatever anyone might try to say. Rather than begin lighting the Hanukkah menorah, the gathered crowd began singing and dancing to Eli Gilboa’s accordion music, in an attempt to prevent having to listen to the noise being projected by the Arab muezzin.
muaz1.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Q2sRkbM8w

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11105,css.print/pub_detail.asp
Review: Fascism and Theater

Fascism and Theatre: Comparative Studies on the Aesthetics and Politics of Performance in Europe, 1925-1945 by Gunter Berghaus (Feb 1996)

The first time I watched a political convention to nominate and select presidential and vice-presidential candidates – I forget whether it was a Democratic or Republican one, it hardly mattered then, and does not matter now – I was astounded and not a little appalled by the sheer mindlessness of the event. There they were, hundreds of party delegates from all the states, a great slobbering mass worked up into consecutive bouts of noisy, frenzied rapture over supposedly charismatic nonentities whose platforms and speeches were measures of carefully crafted banality and skillfully inserted buzz words.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11104/pub_detail.asp
The 7 December hearing focused on military communities in the United States (U.S.), which Peter T. King described as the most sought-after target for Islamic terrorism. King’s Homeland Security Committee report, “Homegrown Terrorism: The Threat to Military Communities Inside The United States,” was issued the same day. It documents the startling surge in Islamic plots and strikes against military targets since 2009, which included the June 2009 attack at an Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas and the November 2009 attack by Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Ft. Hood, Texas.

More than 30 other threats and plots against U.S. military communities since 9/11 have put service members in the Islamic jihadist bull’s-eye, not just at dangerous posts overseas, but “inside the wire,” at home. Those communities are exceptionally vulnerable because of the Department of Defense’s refusal to define or defend against the enemy threat doctrine of shariah Islam—a doctrine that makes jihad obligatory for all Muslims.

As King’s hearings and the Committee report both point out, Islamic jihadis of unknown numbers are penetrating our defenses by enlisting in the U.S. Armed Forces. Many of them have been inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born al-Qa’eda operative who was killed in Yemen in September 2011. Although he is no longer writing for Inspire, al-Qa’eda’s (now-defunct) slick English language online magazine, al-Awlaki’s many sermons recorded on DVD and available at myriad jihadi websites continue to urge individual Muslims to put their faith into practice through individual jihad (or fard ‘ayn).

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1985/From-the-Vault-4-Looking-Back-on-Iraq.aspx Another entry in the Iraq “journal” — a column from February 2004, reposted below. The set-up: It’s nearly one year after the US invasion, and nearly eight years before US troops finally withdraw from Iraq. We are at a turning point only we don’t know it. In fact, the charade is becoming untenable even […]

Hate Crime at Williams? Posted By Roger Kimball

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/12/22/hate-crime-at-williams/

Last month, late on the Saturday night of homecoming weekend at elite Williams College, some unknown person scrawled a highly unpleasant and ugly graffito on the wall of an upper floor of a student dormitory. The dreaded “N-word” figured prominently in the message, so written to generate the maximum incendiary impact.

Adam Falk, president of the College, was instantly on the case: “A great deal of harm has been done by this vile act,” he said in a public letter [1] to the grieving Williams Community, which was wracked by this horrible, horrible incident. “Since there is no excuse for behavior so offensive, hateful, and harmful — anywhere, but especially at Williams — we will continue to do all that we can to hold the perpetrator(s) accountable.”

He cancelled classes and athletic practice for the following Monday, using the day as an opportunity for “healing” and to teach about the evils of racism and how such attitudes would not be tolerated on his campus. The Counseling Center, Chaplain’s Office, and Multicultural Center advertised psychological help for students who might feel traumatized by this “shock.” A group of students marched to the local police station to demand that the police aid campus security in investigating this “hate crime.” Eventually, even the FBI — the FBI! — was enlisted to investigate this “horrifying,” “vile,” “hateful,” “offensive,” “harmful” act.

Can the United States Continue to Suffer the Willful Ignorance of her Government and Survive?

http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/2011/12/can-united-states-continue-to-suffer.html

Herschel Smith and I have had some lengthy conversations about this current war, the disposition of the enemy, their relationship with the civilian populations amongst whom they operate and the substance of the religion they all claim to adhere to. Fundamentally, we agree. We have had some minor disagreements about strategy selections from time to time but agree that an unintended consequence of ‘giving the nod’ to the “innocent population” in the AO (Area of Operation) is more dead American servicemen. For me; that is intolerable! As far as I am concerned, the number one responsibility of an American administration, American elected “servants”, Sec Def, the Pentagon and the entirety of upper echelon military circles is to declare the security of the United States, it’s citizenry and it’s Warrior community as primary before choosing which strategy to employ and govern our use of force in the AO.

URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/22/mitt-romney-has-more-in-common-with-kim-kardashian-than-he-does-with-ronald-reagan/ It seems apparent to some that America is headed for a new dark age, with the destruction of American Exceptionalism thanks to our young and manifestly ignorant president, the decline of America’s public schools thanks to corrupt and self-centered teachers’ unions, and the dumbing-down of our culture thanks to radical secularists and their rejection […]

http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2011/12/17/chris_powell/doc4eeb59c3c29bd202950830.txt
Having made New Haven a “sanctuary city,” where local government nullifies federal immigration law by awarding city identification cards to illegal aliens to facilitate their lawbreaking, Mayor John DeStefano now proposes to allow illegals to vote in municipal elections in Connecticut.

Ordinary state legislation for that would not be enough, as the state Constitution provides that only citizens can be electors, so a state constitutional amendment would be needed as well. Since federal law forbids anyone who is not a citizen from voting in federal elections, two voter lists would have to be maintained, one for local elections and one for president and Congress. Would the local voter list then be kept secret, as New Haven has concealed its list of city ID card holders, lest immigration lawbreakers become identifiable?

But those are mere details. The point, Mayor DeStefano, says, is about “how you define community.”

Indeed it is, but in a sense far broader than what the mayor means. For the community most at sake is the national community, and the bigger issue is whether the United States should retain the right to define itself as a nation or just default to some amorphous mass and become whatever outsiders might choose to make it.

http://sarahhonig.com/2011/12/22/another-tack-just-hate-wholeheartedly/

Iconic Palmach songwriter and Israel Prize laureate (1983) Haim Hefer celebrated hate (only partly tongue-in-cheek) as a downright pleasurable and invigorating force. In his poem Zehubim (Yellows) he muses (my translation) that

Love and amity
Are signs of immaturity.
Mercy and all the rest
Are worthless relicts of the past.

One thing hasn’t lost its attraction:
That strange penchant for abomination…

Nothing here is smart or dumb,
Or logical, my chum –
So just hate wholeheartedly
So utterly impulsively.

Hefer’s insights into the compulsive nature of hate are remarkably borne out by the unbridled offensive of Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer on Bank Leumi’s “Two Million Good Reasons” campaign. It set out to aid a broad variety of nonprofit organizations. The idea was for the public to vote online for its favorite among the 139 vying outfits – among them, alas, Im Tirtzu.

The top 10 were to receive bigger shares of the NIS 2 million set aside for grants, while lesser gifts would go to the next 50 contestants. To Oppenheimer’s consternation, it emerged that Im Tirtzu was a top contender. Im Tirtzu, it cannot be stressed enough, is an absolute anathema to the leftist Peace Now.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/22/army-to-allow-hijabs-turbans-in-junior-rotc/
Army to allow hijabs, turbans in Junior ROTC

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has announced that the Department of Defense will now allow Muslim and Sikh students participating in Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) to wear headscarves and turbans while in uniform.

The decision, announced Thursday, followed an October incident in which Muslim teen Demin Zawity quit JROTC when her commanding officer at a Brentwood, Tenn. high school would not allow her to wear her hijab in the homecoming parade.

CAIR later wrote to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta requesting “constitutionally-protected religious accommodations for the girl and for future Muslim JROTC participants.”

In a letter to the Muslim organization sent on Panetta’s behalf, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Larry Stubblefield explained that based on the incident that led Zawity to quit JROTC, the Army will now be making more accommodations for religious headwear in the training program.