RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4864/some_good_decisions_at_last_in_middle_east_talks_crisis

Finally some good sense:” I would suggest a step further still – returning to “routine dealings with the Palestinians” as they were before Oslo, before the rest of the world poked it’s collective finger into the hornets’ nest.”…rsk

Nick Gray is Director, Christian Middle East Watch, a British organisation dedicated to objective and factual discussion of Middle Eastern issues, especially of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

As the doomed-from-the-start Israel-Palestinian talks finally crumble into dust, some good decisions have finally come from all sides. None of them will salvage the unsalvageable, but all show signs of reality taking precedence over fantasy.

Just over a week ago, on the eve of releasing the last scheduled batch of Palestinian terrorists (sorry, “gallant freedom-fighters”), the Israeli government cancelled the move unless they received a guarantee that the Palestinians would extend the peace talks to the end of this year.

“Not fair!” screamed the Palestinian leadership. “Oh, no!” sighed John Kerry and his team, “not more obstacles.” Despite the resulting accusations, this was a good decision by Israel. It is almost a certainty that the Palestinians would have scuttled away from the talks once they got their last promised prisoner release; no doubt to acclamation from the Palestinian “street”.

In a scenario so oft-repeated it gets boring, Israel has again been pressured to make more and more painful concessions while Mr Abbas has got away again with a total lack of compromise, offering only more and more demands that he knows Mr Netanyahu cannot meet.

Abbas has shown clearly in the past months that he does not want to end the decades-long conflict. He will never recognise Israel as a Jewish state and he is not about to destroy the fantastical dreams of the refugees and Palestinian diaspora to return to the homes they left in 1948 or 1967. Of course this is at least in part because he wants to end his life in retirement and not in a pool of blood.

The rise in diplomatic temperature has caused what may prove to be the last round of frantic shuttle diplomacy by John Kerry as he rushed back to the region last week to try by any means possible to stop his peace bid from exploding in his face.

And here we come to another good decision.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4866/norway_s_capital_to_get_first_muslim_only_school_to_teach_arabic_and_muslim_values

Norway’s capital’s first Muslim-only school will teach “Arabic and Islamic values as well as the standard subjects on the curriculum, replacing the subject of Religion, Philosophy and Ethics with Islam, Religion and Philosophy”

Amid cross-party opposition, Norway’s education ministry has approved an application for the capital city Oslo to get its first Muslim-only school, the country’s English language online media outlet, The Local reported on Tuesday.

The school, which reports said would have 200 students when it is fully operational, is to be founded at the behest of the Association of Muslim Mothers.

According to the report in The Local: “…the school would teach its pupils Arabic and Islamic values as well as the standard subjects on the curriculum, replacing the subject of Religion, Philosophy and Ethics with Islam, Religion and Philosophy.”

Islam and multiculturalism are highly sensitive subjects in Norway in the wake of the massacre perpetrated by far-Right extremist Anders Breivik in July 2011. Breivik killed eight people in a bomb attack in Oslo and a further 69 at a socialist youth camp on Utoya island. Breivik cited as one of his primary motivations the alleged “Islamisisation” of Europe.

Nonetheless, even members of the opposition Labour Party have voiced concerns that the move to open such a Muslim-only school could be divisive.

“We spend a lot of money on inclusion in Norway, and now we are apparently going to be spending it on segregation.” the Labour chairman of Norway’s parliamentary education committee, Trond Giske, was quoted in the above mentioned report as saying.

The growing Muslim population of Norway is estimated at 4-5 percent, with that figure rising to between 8 and 10 percent in Oslo.

http://www.americanthinker.com/assets/3rd_party/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/04/who_is_governor_chris_christie_really_pandering_to.html

Pundits have written about Governor Chris Christie’s recent faux pas at the Republican Jewish Coalition conclave in Las Vegas. The Governor mistakenly called the territories that Israel was forced to conquer in its defensive wars of 1967 and 1973, “occupied.” The fact is that the Palestinians have consistently refused to negotiate in good faith, refusing to even verbally acknowledge of the existence of a Jewish state.

The reason that the term “occupied territories” is offensive to some is that those facts seem to be glaringly omitted by that particular phraseology.

Certainly, Governor Christie should have been better briefed. It appears that Christie later apologized for the use of the term to Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish philanthropist, major humanitarian, and political benefactor, at whose Las Vegas hotel the event was held.

After the apology, the enlightened oracles of the media began alluding to the fact that the only reason that the governor apologized for the wording was to pander to Mr. Adelson because of his wealth and generosity to political campaigns.

The most odious comment came from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who compared Adelson to Iran’s dictator Ayatollah Khamenei saying they had, “…one thing in common — they are both trying to destroy Israel. Adelson is doing it by loving Israel to death. Khomeini is doing it by hating it to death.”

Not agreeing with a policy for making peace with those who daily demonstrate that they are clearly not ready for peace, by inciting children to blow themselves up in pizza restaurants by teaching them that one day all of Israel will someday be theirs, does not equate with “trying to destroy Israel.”

If Mr. Friedman had spent time speaking to the parents of some of the Israeli children who have been killed by the terrorists lionized by Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, he would understand a bit more of just what the Jewish state is really up against, and how out of touch he is with the reality on the ground.

http://www.steynonline.com/6250/degrees-of-separation

Today, Brandeis University announced that it was reversing its decision to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, following complaints from faculty, an online petition, and pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which represents nobody but is flush with Saudi cash. The biases of the academy are well known: Robert Spencer is in no danger of getting an honorary degree any time soon, nor Douglas Murray. Nevertheless, in this instance, Brandeis University is stiffing someone who’s black, feminist and from Somalia. Which makes their decision the most explicit recognition yet that, in the hierarchy of identity-group politics, Islam trumps everything, including race and gender.

Brandeis said they had changed their mind about Ms Hirsi Ali’s degree because “we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values”. Presumably, Tony Kushner’s statement that the state of Israel shouldn’t exist is entirely consistent with Brandeis University’s core values, because no one bothered rescinding his honorary degree.

I wrote about Ayaan a couple of years ago in Maclean’s:

She lives under armed guard and was forced to abandon the Netherlands because quite a lot of people want to kill her. And not in the desultory behead-the-enemies-of-Islam you-will-die-infidel pro forma death-threats-R-us way that many of us have perforce gotten used to in recent years: her great friend and professional collaborator was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam by a man who shot him eight times, attempted to decapitate him, and then drove into his chest two knives, pinning to what was left of him a five-page note pledging to do the same to her.

What would you do in those circumstances? Ayaan and I had repaired to that third-rate bar after a day-long conference on Islam, jihad, free speech and whatnot. That’s usually where I run into her, whether in Malibu or at the Carlton Club in London or at a less illustrious venue. Would you be doing that with a price on your head? Or would you duck out of sight, lie low, change your name, move to New Zealand, and hope one day to get your life back? After the threats against the Comedy Central show South Park the other week, Ms. Hirsi Ali turned up on CNN to say that the best defence against Islamic intimidation is for us all to stand together and thereby “share the risk.” But, around the world, every single translator of her books has insisted on total anonymity. When push comes to shove, very few are willing to share the risk.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/04/08/reid-really-rich-rich-rich-rich-rich-people-keep-women-from-equal-pay/?print=1

Harry Reid is really dumb, dumb, dumb dumb and dumber….rsk

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters after a policy luncheon today that “really rich, rich, rich, rich, rich people” are trying to keep women from earning as much as men.

Democrats were on the offensive for Equal Pay Day, when President Obama issued executive orders to prohibit federal contractors from retaliating against employees who choose to discuss their compensation and to collect information from federal contractors on pay broken down by sex and race.

“For the last few days, you’ve heard it, you’ve heard it, and you’ve heard it. I’m going to repeat it today. In America, a man who works the same job a woman has makes more money than she does. It takes a woman until today every year to make up for what she lost last year,” Reid said.

“So my Republican colleagues, I guess, think that pay gap doesn’t matter that much since I had not a single person come to the floor — well, we’ve had a couple. One of them came and said it was a bill for trial lawyers,” he continued. “But basically they do nothing but stand in the background and filibuster. I get it. Two Congresses ago, they did it last Congress, and they’re doing it this Congress, filibustering our moving to this important piece of legislation.”

Reid spoke of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which comes to the floor Wednesday with heavy opposition from Republicans.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/rip-peace-process/?print=1
Why is it that Mr. Speyer, like almost all commentators on the moribund “peace process” has to end with the following tripe ?: “Israel will and should continue to make clear to both the PA leadership and to Jordan that it is willing to reach a solution based on partition with appropriate security guarantees, or a long term interim accord if this proves impossible.” In other words the so called peace process is not dead…just resting?…..rsk

The April 29th deadline has not yet been reached, but it may be said with confidence that the initiative by Secretary of State John Kerry to revive the ‘peace process’ between Israelis and Palestinians has already reached its final destination: failure.

The failure of this initiative was obvious from the beginning. To everyone except, apparently, Kerry himself. This reality lent an element of low farce to the entire proceedings.

By now, it should really be obvious to any serious observer that there is no chance that the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating process will produce a comprehensive peace between the two sides.

There are two core reasons for this. One of them is of long-standing, the other is a development of the last decade.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/is-tom-friedman-anti-semite/?print=1

Read a collection of Tom Friedman columns and after a short while, they begin to sound very familiar. Much like his fellow Times columnist, Paul Krugman, Friedman almost never has anything new [1] to say, so he goes back to the old standbys every few weeks spitting out pretty much the same venom directed at those who have not adopted his worldview. Krugman thinks more government spending and higher taxes on the wealthy are what are needed to solve every problem (the disappearance of the Republican Party would also help). In many of his columns, Krugman sounds almost needy, as he demands credit for all the “insights” he has offered the world in his columns (“I was right and they were wrong about austerity, deficits, inflation, interest rates and the size of the stimulus package!”).

Friedman thinks the world is primarily threatened by global warming and Israeli settlements. Friedman seems unconcerned, though, with his own global warming footprint, as he regularly flies first class around the globe, and relaxes in his “modest” Maryland home [2]. Conserving and living modestly are for the masses, not Times writers who married into enormous family money.

Friedman would be a good choice to be the new CEO of Mozilla, except that he knows nothing about the business. Of course ignorance of a subject has never stopped him from opining about various subjects in his columns. Friedman is not a demographer, but he states as fact in his latest column that there are 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank , thereby supporting his thesis that Israel needs to get out of the area to preserve its Jewish character. Some Israeli demographers think that 2.7 million number may be overstated by a million or more — hardly surprising when the higher estimate is based on earlier self serving numbers offered up by the Palestinian Authority and happily lapped up by Times columnists and reporters, who seem unaware [3] that the figure has even been challenged.

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/
Yesterday was “National Equal Pay Day,” one of those silly appellations that are applied to an increasing number of otherwise blameless days. In this case, responsibility goes to the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE). The concern is the gap between pay for women and that of men for “similar” work. Besides the difficulty in defining “similar,” there are also the questions of performance, risks and hours worked that any employer must consider when thinking about pay. Nevertheless, the commemoration of days such as this are celebrated more for the political good they afford needy politicians than for the betterment of society.
Democrats up for re-election are particularly needy as they face what could be a gray November. The economy is limping along. ObamaCare may have signed up 7.1 million people, but 6 million lost coverage in the process, so net sign-ups are not very impressive. (As an aside, it would be interesting to know what we taxpayers spent in software and advertising expenses to sign up a net of 1.1 million people.) Overseas, we have created a mess, from the Middle East to Ukraine to the East China Sea. We have apparently abandoned the principles of the Monroe Doctrine. “Without the United States in the lead,” as Victor Davis Hanson wrote recently, “the world cannot remain the world as we have known it since 1946.” Scandals have rocked this Administration, bringing comparisons of “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” Obama to “I’m not a crook” Nixon.
So what is Mr. Obama to do? As they face re-election, no candidate wants him by their side. So the President resorts to familiar and proven issues, those that poll well and serve to fire-up Democrats’ base – same-sex marriage, pre-school, child care, family leave and pay equity.
The original Equal Pay Act was signed into law in 1963 by President Kennedy, but that proved inadequate to politicians who consider having to pay for birth control to be a violation of a woman’s rights. So in 1996 “National Equal Pay Day” was born. It comes on a Tuesday, because it represents how far into the work week women must work in the next week to earn what men made the previous week. Yesterday, Mr. Obama signed an executive order barring federal contractors from penalizing employees who discuss their compensation. (Will that EO apply to union leaders from docking a member who complains about using his dues to pay for politicians antithetical to his beliefs?) The President also signed a memorandum that will require contractors to release salary summary reports broken down by race and gender. Quality of work performed, to this White House, is obviously of less importance than measurements of equality.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304640104579487444112949138?mod=Opinion_newsreel_3

Thousands of Arabs are Dying in Syria and South Sudan. Where’s the Outrage on behalf of those truly suffering?

Provoked by the predictable collapse of the farcical negotiations forced by Secretary of State John Kerry on the Palestinians and the Israelis, I wish to make a confession: I have no sympathy—none—for the Palestinians. Furthermore, I do not believe they deserve any.

This, of course, puts me at daggers drawn with the enlightened opinion that goes forth from the familiar triumvirate of the universities, the mainstream media and the entertainment industry. For everyone in that world is so busy weeping over the allegedly incomparable sufferings of the Palestinians that hardly a tear is left for the tribulations of other peoples. And so all-consuming is the universal rage over the supposedly monumental injustice that has been done to the Palestinians that virtually no indignation is available for any other claimant to unwarranted mistreatment.

In my unenlightened opinion, this picture of the Palestinian plight is nothing short of grotesquely disproportionate. Let me leave aside the Palestinians who live in Israel as Israeli citizens and who enjoy the same political rights as Israeli Jews (which is far more than can be said of Palestinians who live in any Arab country), and let me concentrate on those living under Israeli occupation on the West Bank.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304512504579491773676739210?mg=reno64-wsj

The annals of academic political submission have a new honoree in the form of Brandeis president Frederick Lawrence, who on Tuesday revoked the honorary doctorate the university planned to confer on Ayaan Hirsi Ali at its graduation.

By choosing to recognize Ms. Hirsi Ali, an advocate for women and girls in Muslim societies, Mr. Lawrence and his trustees perhaps figured they run the school. Student and faculty activists and pressure groups like the Council of American-Islamic Relations corrected that misimpression in eight days.

In an unsigned statement (we’d also hide if we were Mr. Lawrence), Brandeis called Ms. Hirsi Ali “compelling” but added, “That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values. For all concerned, we regret that we were not aware of these statements earlier.”

Ms. Hirsi Ali is a well known controversialist and lives under death threats because she does not conceal her convictions, especially about the ties between violence and fundamentalist Islamism. If Ms. Hirsi Ali’s critics support the practices she has either experienced or dedicated her life to erasing, such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation, honor killings, or Shariah Law, then they should say so.