RUTHFULLY YOURS

American and European leaders are “shocked” that the Islamic State (IS) barbarians beheaded two American reporters, Steven J. Sotloff and James Foley. Their “shock” is disingenuous and troubling. They react as though such barbarism is something new among Islamists. It is anything but. And if not earlier, then certainly in the aftermath of al Qaeda’s attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, a spike in Islamic groups’ and individuals’ barbaric crimes has been reported worldwide.

Islamist beheading is nothing new. Open a Quran in any translation to find the instructions that the IS and other jihadists groups are following, in the name ‘the Beneficent, the Merciful Allah.’ Bloody fighting as prescribed in the Quran serve as the foundation of their religion of War.

Here are a few examples: The Book of Muhammad, verse 4 (47:4) – “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), strike off their heads; at length; then when you have made wide Slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives: thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens.”

According to the Book of Al-Maeda, verse 33 (5:33) -“The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.”

And the Book of Al-Anfal, verse 12 ( 8:12) – “I (Allah) will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off.”

The IS and other jihadists are doing their best to follow the Quran’s barbaric instructions, using machetes, the popular modern version of the Prophet’s 7th-century sword. Indeed, a sword features in the national flags of Iran–the center of Shia radicalism, and Saudi Arabia–the center of Sunni/Wahhabi radicalism. The sword is not merely a symbol. The sword represents WAR. the most important value for this radical regimes.

The Saudi kingdom carries out barbaric physical punishments today as they have done since Ibn Saud founded it in 1932. Cutting off hands of thieves, stoning to death, beheading and crucifying those who violated the sharia, are carried out regularly.

Russians are stupid. They should send Hamas fighters into the Ukraine: they’re undetectable.

Media attention has shifted from Gaza to the Ukraine where more than 2000 people have been killed since April. How many civilians, soldiers, children? No breakdown is deemed necessary. But the situation is troubling, Russia is accused of invading, economic sanctions are traded like gunfire, the image of pan-European peace is tarnished.

And then there is DAESH. The mother of kidnapped journalist Steven Sotloff appealed by video to the Caliph, begging for mercy, pleading with the Caliph not to punish her son for acts of a government over which he has no control. Declaring that she has learned much about Islam, she asks the Caliph to follow the example of the prophet Mohamed who protected the People of the Book. Similar appeals have been made in the past, many kept private, others made public. Is there a single example of one that was successful? Allow me to express my doubts. [September 2–Steven Sotloff was beheaded, as promised] What works is money, prisoner release, arms, safe passage. Not appeals for mercy, not misconceptions about Islam.

The Daily Mail reports that a guard from one of the prisons where James Foley had been held was executed the day after Foley was beheaded. Was Abu Ubaida Almaghribi really guilty of giving information to British intelligence or was John-the-knife pissed off because the Brits identified him so quickly?

Meanwhile, some journalists were still foaming at the mouth in Gaza. A recent issue of Libération fell into my hands the other day. After reading a human interest story from the ruins of Shujaiyeh, I had a fleeting thought of inviting the author, Luc Mathieu, to face me in an honest public debate. That’s probably as hopeless as the heartfelt plea from Sotloff’s mother. Mathieu’s double-page spread of bitter complaints against a background of rubble is a variation on the theme of “Why did they destroy my house? I’m not Hamas…” No one is Hamas, no Hamas fighters were anywhere in reach, no rocket launch pads were on the rooftop and no tunnel entrances at ground level. Well, ok, maybe a little tunnel entrance, but it’s no reason to bomb us to smithereens. The stink of putrefaction and the smell of raw hatred rise in crescendo, accusations mount skyward against the unfair air raids and land with disgusting details of desecration by Israeli soldiers bivouacked in the al Mghani home during the operation. They made a hole in the wall for their sniper, smashed up everything in the kitchen, left their excrements in the room with the birdcages… the cages are empty now. There is no attempt at verification, no other side of the story, no hard facts… it’s not journalism. It’s take my word for it because the victims are howling in pain. So what is it doing in a newspaper and what is its purpose? To fuel hatred of Israelis. And, since there aren’t so many of them here in France, Jews will do. The article ends with an implicit justification for future attacks. “Saïd” (who requested his real name not be used) says he tried to enlist in Hamas but was rejected because he doesn’t know how to shoot. The journalist asks Saïd’s 17 year-old son if he’d join up. “I have just one thing to say: look around, look at our houses bombed to rubble. You’ll understand what I’m going to do.”

Anti-Israel propaganda has been driven from the start by lies distortions and a massive rewriting of history. Blame for everything is piled on the Jews, while the crimes of the Arabs, including the Palestinians, are exonerated.

The American Vice-Consul, along with British officers and the British High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, stated at the time that the Arabs were encouraging flight while the Jews were doing all in their power to prevent it.

The Hagana’s behavior was the exact opposite of “ethnic cleansing.” Once order was restored, Arabs were appointed to key posts and part of the supplies originally earmarked for the Jewish inhabitants were given freely to the Arabs.

Just now I’m feeling a bit ashamed of being Irish. Although our music, dance, and Nobel-prize winning literature have helped us punch above our weight in the ring of international culture, our politics has never been a model for anyone — and it is getting worse.

Back in 2011, for instance, Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated that Ireland had undoubtedly become the most hostile country to Israel in the European Union, “pushing all of Europe’s countries to a radical and uncompromising approach.”

Oddly enough, Ireland also has a reputation as a country relatively free from anti-Semitism. According to John Gallen, anti-Jewish incidents are thirty-two times more likely in the U.S. than in the Poblacht na hÉireann. One of the reasons there are almost no anti-Semitic incidents in Ireland is that there are very few Jews in the Irish Republic in the first place: under 2000 (0.04% of the population).

This information is based on data from the European Jewish Congress and the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel-Aviv University; but I remain sceptical.

If you are a Jew in Turkey not even a funeral is peaceful.

Just imagine a Turkish Jew having a legal dispute with a Muslim Turk and facing this judge in the courtroom…

As usual, apparently Muslims are allowed to kill Muslims as they like, only Jews are not.

Nearly three years ago, the Israeli news site Ynetnews.com published an opinion piece written by a Turkish-Jewish girl. She wrote: “…I have never had the need to discuss my Jewish identity, let alone my Israeli identity… We are a Jewish family with a connection to Israel, and as fit for a Turkish family we enjoy… freedom of religious rituals and worship. Holidays and vacations, Jewish schools, synagogues, and Jewish after-school clubs, all out in the open, and with no reason to fear… (Nov. 17, 2011)”

Just when I suspected that the author must be describing a Turkey other than the one I lived in, her final line confirmed that it was the same Turkey: “Despite my love for Turkey, I have chosen to remain anonymous, in case, well, you know…” Well, I knew…

Last month, Georgia and Jak Karako, a prominent, affluent Jewish couple, were found stabbed to death in their apartment in Istanbul’s upscale Ortakoy neighbourhood, amid President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s thundering speeches that, “Israel was worse than Hitler,” and regular attacks on Israel’s diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul, including rocks thrown at — and hundreds of angry Turks trying to break into — the diplomatic compounds. The mayor of Ankara, Melih Gokcek, was quoted as saying: “We will conquer the consulate of the despicable murderers.”

Unfortunately, the Jewish couple had already been slain. But fortunately, this was not a crime motivated by anti-Semitism. The police quickly caught the suspects, an Uzbek couple who worked for the Karakos. They confessed to the killing. It was a simple criminal act like hundreds of others committed in Turkey everyday.

Problems abound with the U.N. agency responsible for helping Palestinians.

The United Nations has been quick to launch a special inquiry into Israel for defending itself this summer against Hamas terrorist attacks out of Gaza. But will anyone be investigating the role in this conflict of the U.N. itself?

This latest bout of war has underscored alarming questions about the U.N.’s chief agency in Gaza, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, better known as UNRWA.

Officially, UNRWA advertises itself as a strictly neutral party providing humanitarian and relief services — including schooling, health care, construction, loans, and emergency response — to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, including some 1.2 million beneficiaries in Gaza. In practice, UNRWA has become so enmeshed in the workings of Gaza that it effectively functions as a support service for the interests of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that rules the territory.

Hamas is dedicated in its charter and its public statements to eradicating Israel, and has used Gaza for years as a launching pad for bombarding Israel with rockets and mortars. Lacking the ability to obliterate Israel in one fell swoop, Hamas’s strategy has been to terrorize and try to delegitimize Israel, firing weapons from behind or near human shields, including UNRWA facilities, until the Israelis strike back in self-defense. Hamas then parades the resulting destruction before the world, blaming Israel for the conflict and punishing anyone in Gaza who might dissent. UNRWA plays along, condemning Israel in graphic terms while making scarce mention or none of Hamas.

Here’s a typical locution, plucked from an August 1 UNRWA daily Situation Report on Gaza: “Reportedly there were 100 rockets and 88 mortar shells fired toward Israel.” In UNRWA reports, it’s as if the rockets and mortars targeting Israel simply assemble and launch themselves.

During the thick of the fighting, in July, UNRWA reported discovering caches of rockets stored in three of its schools in Gaza. But not one of the related UNRWA press releases laid any blame on Hamas. UNRWA officials contented themselves with strongly condemning the unnamed “group or groups” who were using its schools as arsenals.

Have you noticed how much earthquake and volcanic activity has been occurring lately?

There was a major earthquake in Napa, California on Sunday, August 24th as well as considerable volcanic activity from Iceland to Papua, New Guinea. August was also a month that set records for colder U.S. temperatures.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there were some 1,097 “low max” temperature records broken in the U.S. between August 1 and August 23, meaning that the maximum temperature during that time period was the lowest it has ever been. NOAA reported that summer across much of the U.S. has been colder than normal.

Most of us, after decades of global warming predictions that became more and more absurd, rising sea levels drowning Manhattan and Miami, an upsurge in hurricanes, forest fires, and every other calamity, have concluded that none of these things have happened in the volume or intensity predicted. In the 70s we were told the Earth would get colder. In the 80’s and 90’s we were told it would get warmer.

A new book is advising us to prepare for a serious cold spell that is not only going to arrive in twenty to thirty years, but will likely stay around to become the next ice age. This time, though, the prediction is based on well-established climate cycles and the behavior of the Sun that was known as far back as Galileo’s day.

The new “normal” is colder weather and this is because the Sun’s sunspot activity has been in a cyclical decline since about 1998, producing the latest cooling cycle for the Earth.

“Israel is the only, repeat, only UN member nation whose sovereignty is challenged. Even more egregious is the fact that only Israel, repeat, only Israel is asked to accept “recognition of its right to exist” as a negotiable item.”

The Gaza war has come to a temporary lull, and as surely as day follows night, the peace processors are busy recycling the same old prescriptives for peace between the Arabs and Israel. They will demand suicidal territorial withdrawals from Israel in exchange for “recognition of Israel’s “right to exist.”

Simply defined it is as follows: In order to have its right to exist acknowledged, Israel must cease to exist.

No other nation in the world is given this choice.

Before World War 11, a significant portion of the global population lived under the sovereignty of European colonial powers including Palestinian Jews. At the conclusion of the war, decolonization accelerated and from 1945 to the 1980s scores of nations in Asia and Africa acquired sovereignty.

Concomitantly, those nations joined the United Nations which had 35 member states in 1946, grew to 127 members by 1970 and at present has 193 member states. Independent studies show that only 87 nations, roughly 45 % of those member states are real democracies.

Some former colonies retained some of the infrastructure and economic institutions of their former colonizers, but most remained suspicious and hostile to European-style government, political ideas, and economic institutions.

The outcome of independence has been catastrophic in Africa. Of the 55 nations of the African Union (Morocco, a former colony of France is not a member) only a handful, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Benin, Ghana, Mauritania and Senegal have achieved any real semblance of freedom and stability according to Freedom House ratings for 2014

Unfortunately, for the millions of decent and hapless people of that continent, elected or chosen leaders who offered so much hope of “one man-one vote” rule became crooks with their hands in the national till or hands soaked in the blood of their countrymen. Famine, epidemics, tribal wars, massacres, coups and jihads against innocent civilians have plagued the continent. Millions have died and millions live in abject fear and misery. Celebrities come and go and wring their hands, get their photo ops and then move on. A racist media and an indolent and hypocritical Congressional Black Caucus ignore their plight.

In Asia, during the same period (1946- 1981) the Philippines, Israel, India and Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) Indonesia and Malaysia( originally a federation of North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. Singapore was expelled and is now a sovereign City State) Cambodia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, gained their independence and are all members of the United Nations.

The vast majority of those nations are repressive at best and brutal tyrannies at worst. Among the Muslim nations, oppression of women, dissidents and harsh Sharia laws are the norm. Taiwan, a democracy, was expelled by the United Nations to accommodate The Republic of China in 1971, and their bid to join the United Nations as an independent nation was formally rejected in 2007. They remain an economically stable democracy without the “benefits” of UN membership.

Israel India and the Philippines are the only democracies in the post-colonial nations of Asia. And, in fact, it can be argued that of all nations which achieved in dependence in those decades, Israel is the most successful western type democracy- with highly advanced scientific , academic, civil rights, and cultural institutions that rival those of any in the West.

DANIEL GREENFIELD

John Kerry tried to read the Idiot’s Guide to the Koran, then he switched to a tape of Islam for Dummies and then he finally gave up and just assumed that Muslims were like the Amish but with longer beards.

Kerry spoke to a largely-Islamic audience at the State Department Wednesday, which had assembled to recognize State’s new “special representative for Muslim communities,” Shaarik Zafar. But the planned event was overshadowed by the brutal beheading of Sotloff by ISIS fighters in Iraq, pushing the secretary to again publicly condemn the group.

“But here today, what is really important — and I want to take advantage of this podium and of this moment, to underscore as powerfully as I know how — that the face of Islam is not the butchers who killed Steven Sotloff,” he continued, to immediate applause. “That’s [ISIS].”

“The face of Islam is not the nihilists who know only how to destroy, not to build,” Kerry went on. “It’s not masked cowards whose actions are an ugly insult to the peaceful religion that they violate every single day with their barbarity, and whose fundamental principles they insult with their actions.”

“The real face of Islam is a peaceful religion based on the dignity of all human beings,” the secretary asserted. “It’s one where Muslim communities are leading the fight against poverty. It’s one where Muslim communities are providing basic health care and emergency assistance on the frontlines of some of our most devastating humanitarian crises.”

What better moment could there be to push a completely revisionist history of Islam than while commemorating a man murdered by the Islamic State.

But which Muslim country represents this peaceful religion that offers dignity to all human beings? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? Kuwait? Yemen? Iran? Turkey? Indonesia? ISIS?

Muslim countries are poor because of their feudal structure. Their best doctors become terrorists. The real face of Islam is ISIS, not an army of Muslim NGOs fighting poverty and then funneling the money to Al Qaeda.

Secretary of State John Kerry should have extended his Nantucket vacation. That would have spared him and the nation from his embarrassing remarks praising Islam as a “peaceful religion based on the dignity of all human beings,” which he delivered just a day after ISIS released a video showing American journalist Steven Sotloff being beheaded.

Kerry was speaking at a ceremony honoring the State Department’s new special representative to Muslim communities, Shaarik Zafar. Rather than call on Muslim leaders around the world to publicly condemn ISIS in the strongest possible terms and do everything possible to counter ISIS’s recruitment campaign, ideology and financing, Kerry coddled them.

“I want to take advantage of this podium and of this moment to underscore as powerfully as I know how, that the face of Islam is not the butchers who killed Steven Sotloff. That’s ISIL,” Kerry said. He added that the real face of Islam is “one where Muslim communities are advocating for universal human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the most basic freedom to practice one’s faith openly and freely.”

Where exactly in Muslim-majority countries today is a non-Muslim free to practice his or her faith “openly and freely”? Ten out of the sixteen countries deemed of particular concern regarding their abuses of religious freedom are Muslim nations, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2014 Annual Report. The governments of these countries engage in or tolerate particularly severe violations of religious freedom, the report states.

The Commission makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress. Evidently, Kerry has not read the Commission report’s findings regarding the state of religious freedom in Muslim-majority countries or did not take them seriously. It also appears that Kerry has not read or understood the implications of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, based on Sharia law, which is diametrically opposed to the principles underlying the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Universal Declaration’s organizing principle is that “[A]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Another illegal settlement has arisen in the Judea-Samaria (West Bank) territories, the New York Times reports. Surely there will soon be an expression of “deep concern” from the Obama administration, a furious resolution from the United Nations Security Council, and a letter from twelve angry congressmen mobilized by J Street.

Oh, wait. It’s not a Jewish settlement — it’s an Arab settlement. Cancel the outrage!

A feature article in the New York Times on August 31 reports that the Palestinian Authority is building a new settlement called Rawabi. The first 600 apartments are already complete, out of a projected 6,000 units that will house an estimated 40,000 people.

While Jewish communities in the same area, with even larger populations, are called “settlements” by the Times and the rest of the world news media, Rawabi is for some reason characterized as a “town” and a “city.”

Why is one man’s community called a “settlement” and another’s a “town” ?

Because a “settlement” sounds like a foreign implant — something that has no business being there. A “town” sounds normal and natural. Supporters of the Palestinian cause — whether in the news media, the State Department, or misnamed “peace” groups — want to award Judea and Samaria to the Palestinian Arabs. They want everyone to recognize those territories to be “Palestinian.”

The problem they face is that there are three significant obstacles to calling the territories “Palestinian”: international law, history, and a text of religious history called the Bible.

According to international law, Jews have at least as much right as Arabs to build towns in Judea and Samaria. All of the documents related to the governing of those territories throughout the past century — the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate, and so on–specifically endorse the right of Jews to build there. The territories have never been part of a “Palestinian” state which made them legally off-limits to Jews.