RUTHFULLY YOURS

Twenty miles west of London, in Surrey, lies a quiet meadow along the Thames River. It is a centuries-old place deep in the heart and soul of England, though no formal memorial to it was placed there until the middle of the last century by (ironically) the American Bar Association. Almost a century ago, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem [1] about it:

At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
Your rights were won at Runnymede!
No freeman shall be fined or bound,
Or dispossessed of freehold ground,
Except by lawful judgment found
And passed upon him by his peers.
Forget not, after all these years,
The Charter signed at Runnymede.

That charter, the so-called “Great Charter” (or Magna Carta in the Latin used by the Norman rulers of the time), signed under duress by the tyrant King Jacques (we now call him “John”), reined in the power of his capricious reign, 800 years ago today. The event will be commemorated this evening [2] at the site (morning in the U.S.) by Daniel Hannan, southeast England’s representative to the European Parliament, and fierce critic of the EU and defender of the principles of the Anglosphere.

Appeasement defined the global conflicts of the 20th century. Time after time, America and other forces for freedom and democracy withheld their power in efforts to appease the most evil regimes in recent history. Over and over again, the policy of appeasement has ended in disaster. Now, conservative giant Victor Davis Hanson asks: why is appeasement so seductive and where will it take us in the 21st century?

In this collection of Hanson’s best columns from the last four years on the policy of appeasement today and in history, the path becomes clear. If America continues down the road of appeasement with radical Islamic groups and aggressive regimes in Russia and North Korea, the world will see a conflagration rivalling World War II.

A copy of the book can be purchased here.

‘Nobody has a monopoly on making mistakes.” When I was Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to the end of 2013, that was my standard response to reporters asking who bore the greatest responsibility—President Barack Obama or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—for the crisis in U.S.-Israel relations.

I never felt like I was lying when I said it. But, in truth, while neither leader monopolized mistakes, only one leader made them deliberately.

Israel blundered in how it announced the expansion of Jewish neighborhoods and communities in Jerusalem over the border lines that existed before the Six Day War in 1967. On two occasions, the news came out during Mr. Netanyahu’s meetings with Vice President Joe Biden. A solid friend of Israel, Mr. Biden understandably took offense. Even when the White House stood by Israel, blocking hostile resolutions in the United Nations, settlement expansion often continued.

The text of Magna Carta of 1215 bears many traces of haste, and is the product of much bargaining,” the British Library website surprisingly states to individuals examining this iconic document for the first time. Yet Magna Carta, which turns 800 today, richly deserves being called, in the words of British Member of the European Parliament Daniel Hannan, the “most important bargain in the history of the human race.”

Driven to rebellion by abuses of royal taxation power, nobles imposed the Magna Carta (“Great Charter” in Latin) upon England’s King John at Runnymede on the Thames on June 15, 1215. The name merely reflects the document’s length, not any contemporary understanding that Magna Carta would become the “greatest constitutional document of all time,” as described by Britain’s most renowned jurist, Lord Denning. “Most of its clauses deal with specific, and often long-standing, grievances rather than with general principles of law,” the British Library notes. “Some of the grievances are clear; others can be understood only in the context of the feudal society in which they arose. The precise meaning of a few clauses is still uncertain.” Certain Magna Carta articles, for example, regulate borrowing from Jews, reflecting the money-lending role this people played in a medieval society that forbade Christians from earning interest.

On trade, terrorism and nuclear proliferation, Democrats would rather not know.

Because a wing of the Republican Party is hostile to immigrants, it’s tempting to see the GOP as a descendant of the mid-19th-century Know Nothing Party, infamous for its antipathy to Irish-Catholic newcomers—the Mexicans of their day. But if the Know Nothings have a 21st-century heir, it is Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic Party.

So much was made clear last week, when House Democrats did their best to torpedo the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. So opposed is Mrs. Pelosi’s party to free trade—that is, so beholden are Democrats to organized labor—that the party was prepared to defy President Obama and vote against a $450 million retraining scheme to scuttle TPP.

ROME—Pope Francis calls global warming a major threat to life on the planet, says it is due mainly to human activity, and describes the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels as an urgent matter, in a published draft of a much-awaited upcoming letter on the environment.

The draft copy of “Laudato Si’ ” (“Be praised”), his encyclical on the environment, has been eagerly awaited by business, policy makers and environmental groups. It was published online on Monday by the Italian magazine L’Espresso, three days ahead of its scheduled publication date.

The Vatican said the posted text wasn’t the final document, which would remain under embargo until Thursday, but it didn’t say whether there were material differences between the draft and the final document.

Left to themselves, certain of Israel’s potentially nuclear adversaries could bring the Jewish state into eternal darkness, into fire, into ice. It is essential, therefore, that the country’s leadership take appropriate steps to ensure that any failure of national deterrence would never spark a regional nuclear war. In this connection, it is especially important that the IDF continue to plan conceptually around a distinctly fundamental understanding: Nuclear deterrence and conventional deterrence are not separate or discrete security postures. Always, these core protective strategies are more or less critically interrelated.

It is time to call things by their correct name. A nuclear war in the Middle East is no longer inconceivable. This is the case, moreover, even if Israel were somehow to remain the only nuclear weapons state in the chaotic region.

Thursday marks the 200th anniversary of the British and Prussian victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, a battle that changed Europe temporarily and France, perhaps, forever.

We all know the jokes: “Why do the French plant trees on the banks of the Seine? So the Germans can march in the shade.” “Used French army rifles: only dropped once.”

Since World War Two, there has been a sneering arrogance that characterizes our French ally, an arrogance unjustified by past achievement in peace and war. Their foreign minister at the time of the 2003 Iraq invasion was Dominique de Villepin. When asked who he hoped would win in Iraq, he refused to answer. But, as I said on Chris Matthews’ program “Hardball” at the time — before he went nuts – going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion: you just leave a lot of noisy, useless baggage behind.

It wasn’t always this way. Hundreds of years ago they weren’t “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.” It’s taken centuries for the French to become what they are today.
To understand why France is what it is, you have to study both its national psychology and its history.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33126723

King John of England sealed the original document in 1215 in Runnymede in Surrey, close to the River Thames.The charter first protected the rights and freedoms of society and established the king was subject to the law.

Magna Carta ‘changed the world’, David Cameron tells anniversary event

Mr Cameron told the audience Magna Carta would “alter forever the balance of power between the governed and the government”.And he said the document had inspired different generations and countries across the world.

He said: “Why do people set such store by Magna Carta?”Because they look to history. They see how the great charter shaped the world, for the best part of a millennium, helping to promote arguments for justice and for freedom.”

Pharrell Williams Schedules September Performance in Israel

Art Garfunkel performed in Israel on Wednesday, Bon Jovi will be here on October 3, and the list of artists arriving in Israel has now been joined by one of the hottest names in the world of music, American producer and rapper Pharrell Williams.

At the moment, the 42-year-old Williams is scheduled to perform at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park around September 9, a few days before the Jewish New Year.