RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Jewish supporters of the Iran deal can’t possibly think that the agreement itself makes America or Israel safer. They are driven by something else – by a desire to find favor with the current occupant of the White House, the news media, and the academic and intellectual elites whom they admire. It’s disturbing, and in some ways hard to understand. Jews Against Themselves sheds much-needed light on the subject and deserves to be on everyone’s “must reading” list.”

Isn’t it remarkable how much of the fight over the Iran deal is a battle between different factions in the Jewish world?

First off, one would think it would be an argument primarily over whether the agreement endangers America, not Israel. After all – as Prime Minister Netanyahu reminded us in his webcast this week – Iran still regards America as “the Great Satan.” Israel is just “the little Satan.” Sure, Iranian protesters add an occasional “Death to Israel” to their chants, but it is “Death to America” that is heard loudest and longest.

Yet on Capitol Hill, the question that seems to be occupying everyone’s mind is: how will Jewish Congressmembers vote? And on the op-ed pages and the radio talk shows, we hear mostly about AIPAC vs. J Street, and pundits speculate as to whether other Jewish organizations will support or oppose the Iran deal.

Aptly named Senator Dick Durbin is Schumer’s closest rival to succeed Senator Harry Reid who is retiring. Dick Durbin is a favorite of CAIR and gets very high marks from the Arab American Institute for his anti Israel stance…..rsk
Democratic senators say Sen. Charles Schumer’s opposition to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran won’t prevent him from becoming their next leader.

Even a potential rival to Schumer said Democratic senators who back the Iran deal will not turn on Schumer over the divisive vote.

“I don’t think the choice of the next Senate leader is going to be based on any single vote. Members of the caucus respect Chuck and know he’s gone through a thoughtful reflection. I don’t think it has any impact on the leadership race,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told The Hill in an interview.

An Israeli delegation headed by Yitzhak Molcho headed to Cairo for secret talks with senior Egyptian officials. PHOTO: Michal Fattal/Flash90.

An high-level Israeli delegation arrived in Cairo on Tuesday afternoon for private meetings with senior Egyptian officials, Israel’s Channel 2 reported, citing Turkish news agency Anadolu.

According to the report, the group was headed by attorney Yitzhak Molcho, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former chief peace negotiator with the Palestinians.

Due to the secret nature of the meetings, no details save Molcho’s presence in Cairo were released to the press.

The development comes amid reports of strengthening Egyptian-Israeli security and diplomatic relations. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in June assigned senior diplomat Hazem Khairat to serve as the country’s first ambassador to Israel in three years. Khairat is expected to arrive in Tel Aviv this fall after Israel confirmed the appointment and welcomed Egypt’s decision.

Khairat belongs to a well-known family of diplomats, and has served as Egypt’s representative to the Arab League, as well as Egypt’s ambassador to Syria and Chile.

Why Iran’s Anti-Semitism Matters A close read of Obama and Kerry’s comments on whether Iranian leaders seek Israel’s destruction •

A few days ago, I spoke with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about the politics of the Iran deal (you can find the full interview here), and at one point in our conversation I put to Kerry what I thought was—to be honest—something of a gimme question: “Do you believe that Iranian leaders sincerely seek the elimination of the Jewish state?”

Kerry responded provocatively—provocatively, that is, if you understand Iranian leaders, and in particular the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the way I understand them: as people theologically committed to the destruction of Israel. Quotes such as this one from Khamenei help lead me to this conclusion: “This barbaric, wolflike, and infanticidal regime of Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated.” The supreme leader does not specialize in nuance. (Here is a long list of statements made by Iranian leaders concerning their desire to bring about an end to Jewish sovereignty in any part of the ancestral Jewish homeland.)[available at website link above]

Kerry’s stated understanding of the regime’s anti-Semitism is somewhat different from mine. He told me, “I think they have a fundamental ideological confrontation with Israel at this particular moment. Whether or not that translates into active steps, to quote, ‘Wipe it,’ you know …”

My e-mails are crowded with columns on Charles Schumer…some praise and some doubt about his motives, and lots of reminders that he is a liberal.

When he ran for office Schumer had no middle ground pretensions…he was always a liberal and he gratified those who elected him by remaining a liberal. And, he did support and campaign for Obama in 2008. So did the majority of voters in New York state.

Now, he has defied the party line- an act of courage- and here is something you may not know. The late Chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel, Harb Zweibon and I visited Congressman Schumer’s office on a number of occasions and we were always welcome. We always pressed the case for the “settlements” in Israel and he was so friendly that he spoke at an early AFSI conference. Furthermore, although he supports the liberal line of a two state solution, he has never, not once, joined the chorus of invective against Israel and vociferously defended Israel’s blockade and actions in Gaza.

He was elected by liberals and now he has taken a stance which they oppose. Being angry at him for being an uber liberal is akin to being mad at a zebra because it is not a horse….rsk

It is oft-remarked that the Democratic party is less an ideological enterprise than a mere coalition of interest groups. This is certainly true when it comes to higher-education reform, which Democrats reliably approach from the perspective of giving more money to college students, more money to college graduates, and more money to colleges themselves — all three groups, of course, leaning to the left.

The college plan Hillary Clinton announced today is not quite as bad as typical attempts, since it incorporates a few decent ideas from the right and center that did not make it into President Obama’s community-college plan. But it’s not much better.

Clinton’s offer is less aggressive than that offered by her opponents Senator Bernie Sanders and Governor Martin O’Malley: It promises, instead of their four years of free college, two free years of community college and four debt-free years at an in-state public university. But the fundamental structure is the same, and it is the same structure that has helped push college costs to the incredible levels where they are today.

Hillary’s plan is almost entirely silent on controlling the total cost of college.

That Donald Trump has said something incoherent is not remarkable. But even for a campaign that has largely substituted adjectives for ideas, Trump’s recent incoherent comments on immigration were remarkable, coming as they do from a candidate who has made immigration the keystone of his platform. His intellectual failure is instructive, and the other candidates should learn from it.

Trump’s original proposal was to build a wall and force the government of Mexico to pay for it. The latter half of that proposition is too silly to merit much criticism and may be dismissed as bluster. The first half is a little more complicated: The actual geography of the U.S.–Mexico border ensures that there will not be a wall, though a series of barriers is desirable. But that is only a small part of the solution: Walls can be ascended or tunneled under, and must be patrolled; recent research suggests that more than half of new illegals do not sneak cross any border but simply enter legally and overstay their visas; no effective national system is in place to enforce our immigration laws at the critical place: the work site. “Build a wall” is at most a part of the broader solution.

The threat is not just to individuals but to religious institutions, and the latter are remarkably vulnerable.

In “The Decline—and Fall?—of Religious Freedom in America,” Bruce Abramson does an admirable job of presenting the historical and legal background of the current assault on religious liberty and, in particular, on the protections afforded by federal and state laws under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). His essay is especially poignant for its appeal to Abramson’s fellow Jews to rally to the aid of those (mainly, so far, my fellow Christians) caught in the crosshairs of an ideological movement on the march.

Given the essay’s compelling virtues, I only wish I shared Abramson’s faith in the enduring ability of the RFRA framework to withstand the forces arrayed against it. Although it has proved efficacious in protecting the free exercise of religion on the part of individual businessmen and women who dissent from today’s progressivist orthodoxies, the larger threat is not just personal but institutional, and it is accelerating.

Let’s take the most salient front, namely, gay marriage. At issue in the Obergefell decision handed down by the Supreme Court in June was not gay marriage as such; it was whether, in the name of non-discrimination and equal treatment under law, the state should confer the trappings, rights, and obligations of a millennia-old arrangement between men and women on couples who happened to be of the same sex. It was in these terms—that is, the terms of equality—that the gay-marriage movement had waged its campaign, and in those terms that it achieved its remarkable success.

Secretary of State John Kerry is becoming increasingly frantic as he takes his case for the deeply flawed Iran nuclear deal around the country.

His latest argument, that congressional disapproval of the deal will be the “ultimate screwing” of Iran’s clerical Supremo – and that we should care – verges on hysteria.

Whether it’s hysterically funny or a psychotic condition would be a tough call, if only the stakes weren’t so high for our security and the security of our friends and allies, starting with the Iranian people.

John Kerry has much to hide on his ties to Iran. As I revealed more than ten years ago, Mr. Kerry has long been sympathetic to the Islamist regime in Tehran.

In June 2002 – just nine months after the 9/11 attacks on America – Mr. Kerry headlined a fund-raising gala for the American-Iranian Council, a pro-regime lobbying group seeking to roll back U.S. sanctions and promote U.S. investment in Iran.

It was his birthday and Obama was grouchy.

“It’s my birthday and I’m going to be blunt,” Obama told the Jewish leaders meeting with him. When they complained that, “Words have consequences, and when they come from official sources, they can be even more dangerous,” he was unapologetic. “If you guys would back down, I would back down from some of the things I’m doing,” he warned.

By that he meant that if they stopped objecting to the Iran deal, he would stop accusing critics of his nuclear sellout to Iran of being money-grubbing warmongers.

Obama complained, “It’s been a really busy day. You’d think they’d be nicer to me on my birthday.”

His busy day had consisted of a meeting with the ineffectual UN Secretary General, lunch with Biden and a photo op in the East Room. But he also had reservations at Rose’s Luxury, an expensive Capitol Hill restaurant where ordinary people wait for hours to get in.