RUTHFULLY YOURS

On beating the dead horse of the Confederacy and the Confederate flag. And while we’re at it, consign “Gone With the Wind” and other “racist” movies to the dustbin of cinematic history?

It is America’s congenital, generations-old anti-intellectualism that renders the country easy prey to hysteria, the kind of hysteria that results from educational policies that stress the unimportance of ideas in daily life. But this hysteria is taken advantage of by the Left and the Mainstream Media, both of which are always ready to stoke up the fires of emotional, headless chicken behavior if the destruction of the object suits their agenda.

After sparking controversy by saying President Barack Obama deliberately damaged U.S.-Israel ties, the former ambassador says he is anxious about Iran, questions the U.S.’s military credibility and can’t keep quiet while Israel’s future is in jeopardy.Dr. Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. who is currently a member of the Knesset on the Kulanu list, published his new book this week and managed to achieve every writer’s dream: It sparked an international uproar.

Oren issued a string of articles and lectures to coincide with the launch of his book, “Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide,” thus maximizing interest in this memoir from his time as ambassador (2009-2013). In his book he distills his views on U.S. President Barack Obama and his attitude toward Israel, and particularly his attitude toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Oren’s article in the Wall Street Journal last week accusing Obama of “purposely damaging Israel-U.S. relations” drew outrage from the White House and from its representative in Tel Aviv, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, who accused Oren of lying and catalogued his book as fiction.

This week, while visiting New York, Oren took the time to conduct a telephone interview with Israel Hayom, saying he wrote it out of a sense of duty.

“The book is very balanced, very fair, with a lot of subtle nuances highlighted by a process that began in 2009 when I assumed the [ambassador’s] post,” he says.

“Everything that I wrote in the book is firsthand knowledge; things that I heard in intimate conversations behind the scenes. It tells what really happened there. I analyze how we got to where we are on critical issues, mainly the administration’s attitude toward Iran.

The Corker-Menendez legislation, or as it is officially known, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of ‎‎2015,‎ enables congressional review of the impending deal on Iran’s nuclear program. However, it can also be seen as one in a long line of ‎actions by Congress effectively abdicating the legislature’s constitutional authority in foreign policy to the executive. In this case, the ‎Senate has chosen not to consider the Iran agreement as a treaty, which would require approval in that body by a 2/3 ‎vote.‎

The act calls for both the House of Representatives and the Senate to get a vote on the Iran agreement. If they both disapprove of the agreement, then the ‎president can veto the disapproval, and Congress will then have an opportunity to override the veto with a 2/3 vote in each house ‎of Congress. The agreement has to be submitted to Congress within five days of its signing, and Congress has 60 days to vote on ‎approval, with foreign relations committees meetings to be scheduled within 30 days of the submission of the agreement. While this ‎congressional review process is underway, the president is prohibited from waiving or relaxing sanctions on Iran that are currently in ‎place and operative.‎‎ ‎

David Singer is an attorney and international affairs expert and writer based in Sydney, Australia
The European Union (EU) runs the risk of being labelled “Jew-hater” – should it proceed with its plans requiring supermarkets and other retailers to label products made by Jews in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) differently from those made by Jews in Israel.

No matter what spin the EU uses to justify any such discriminatory labelling – the EU will be seen to be actively supporting the 2005 Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel – whose manifesto states:

“We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel … We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel …”

“These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”

The US Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, finding in the Fourteenth Amendment an opportunity to ‘enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.’ In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia lacerates his colleagues’ arrogant and elitist eagerness to subvert democracy.
Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best. Individuals on both sides of the issue passionately, but respectfully, attempted to persuade their fellow citizens to accept their views. Americans considered the arguments and put the question to a vote. The electorates of 11 States, either directly or through their representatives, chose to expand the traditional definition of marriage. Many more decided not to.

Win or lose, advocates for both sides continued pressing their cases, secure in the knowledge that an electoral loss can be negated by a later electoral win. That is exactly how our system of government is supposed to work.

Hurrah for gay marriage. But why do supporters save their vitriol for its foes instead of the barbarians at our gates?

On Friday my phone was blowing up with messages, asking if I’d seen the news. Some expressed disbelief at the headlines. Many said they were crying.
None of them were talking about the dozens of people gunned down in Sousse, Tunisia, by a man who, dressed as a tourist, had hidden his Kalashnikov inside a beach umbrella. Not one was crying over the beheading in a terrorist attack at a chemical factory near Lyon, France. The victim’s head was found on a pike near the factory, his body covered with Arabic inscriptions. And no Facebook friends mentioned the first suicide bombing in Kuwait in more than two decades, in which 27 people were murdered in one of the oldest Shiite mosques in the country.

They were talking about the only news that mattered: gay marriage.

This article is adapted from Fault Lines, a memoir to be published by Criterion Books in October. David Pryce-Jones is a novelist and historian, whose most recent book is Treason of the Heart: From Thomas Paine to Kim Philby. He is a senior editor of National Review.
The belief that their primary identity was French had put their lives at risk for no purpose. They couldn’t imagine that the Germans and a good many French made no such distinctions about Jews and were determined to kill off the lot.

On December 1, 1939, an official with the title of Head of State Collections wrote to the Gestapo to draw attention to what he called the “rich inventory” and “outstanding things” to be found at Meidling, my grandmother Mitzi’s house in Vienna. In his opening paragraph he made the all-important point that she was a “Jewess with English citizenship”. The sheet of paper bore the stamp of the Nazi eagle. Below the typewritten greeting “Heil Hitler” was an illegible signature.

Six weeks later, on January 14, 1940, the Gestapo duly drove up to Meidling and expropriated everything in it, all the furniture, linen, silver. The full list of stolen pictures comes to fifty-seven, carefully inventoried by the Gestapo. A further selection of twenty-two was made on behalf of the State Collections. One of the paintings listed is a Van Dyck of Saint John, a favourite subject of that artist. The Head of State Collections had his eye on this picture, and he was particularly disappointed that it had gone missing. Within twenty-four hours of moving into Meidling, he was already recommending an investigation into its whereabouts. To this day, it is still unaccounted for, and the only plausible explanation is that one of these Nazis had been quick enough to lay hands on it for himself.

While American liberals were celebrating SCOTUS’ illegal decision forcing gay marriage upon all 50 states – and thereby nullifying the 10th Amendment – ISIS threw 4 gays from the roof of a building.

As always, a crowd had gathered to watch the brutal mass murder:

#Syria #ISIS Executed a gay man in #DirZour by throwing him from High building in front of the people #LoveWins #IS pic.twitter.com/dHvj7Jmku4

— الرقة تذبح بصمت (@Raqqa_Sl) June 26, 2015

Now, I’ve got a question for my liberal friends: why is it that you pretend that gays are persecuted in the United States (which isn’t and wasn’t true at all, they’re able to live together, have relationships, and do whatever they please), while you – at the same time – ignore what’s going on in ISIS’ self-declared radical-Islamic caliphate where homosexuals are literally thrown from buildings?

Ah, never mind, I know the answer: because that would be “intolerant.” Right. Sorry, I forgot for a moment that killing gays is perfectly fine if you’re a Muslim extremist, but refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding is discriminatory if you’re Christian.

At a small dinner party last night, our host glided lightly over the activities of the Supreme Court this past week in order to canvass the table’s thoughts about who the candidates might be for the 2016 presidential election. The usual names percolated through the sands of our discussion. My suggestion that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy was by no means a sure thing was met with friendly disbelief. The Democrats do not have another plausible candidate, ergo, the Hillary is it. I still have my doubts. The aging activist clearly has health issues and is so festooned with scandal—not to mention her utter lack of accomplishment as a senator or secretary of State—that even James Carville must be worried. “No, no,” it was explained to me. “The Hillary is it. It doesn’t matter what she’s done. Someone could turn up a video of her selling Libyan women and children into slavery and she would still get the nomination. It’s not her against the other chap (or, as it may be, the other lass), it’s their team against ours, blue against red. American politics are increasingly polarized, which means they are increasingly nasty. What matters is power, not principle.”

Fresh off a victory lap in the Rose Garden where the #LOVEWINS president narcissistically defined agreeing with him as “love,” President Obama segued from LGBTQ rights into racial rancor and Biblical misrepresentation during a eulogy where he also defined “God’s grace” as agreeing with him.

Taking to the pulpit at slain Charleston Emanuel A.M.E. Church’s pastor and state Senator Clementa Pinckney’s going-home celebration, Barack ‘Can you say Amen’ Obama assumed a black-preacher cadence and began the eulogy by “Giving all praise and honor to [a] God” whose Word the president normally revises with as much liberality as he does the U.S. Constitution.

Wily, crafty, and well done, the president’s torturous twisting of Scripture was rivaled only by Chief Justice John Robert’s opinion on Obamacare.

After a perfunctory acknowledgement of the slain pastor’s wife, daughters, and church family, the president cracked a few self-deprecating jokes before diving headlong into a discourse on racial and progressive politics.