RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/susan-rice-israel-settlements_n_4278346.html

The Benghazi liar did not need congressional approval to lie in her new gig…rsk

WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s top national security aide on Thursday blamed Israeli settlement expansion announcements for some of the latest tensions between Israel and the Palestinians as U.S.-brokered peace talks between the two sides have faltered.

In a speech to a Washington think tank, Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, said the United States remained committed to Middle East peacemaking, but made clear that it saw Jewish settlement construction plans as hampering those efforts.

“We have seen increased tensions on the ground. Some of this is a result of recent settlement announcements. So let me reiterate: The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” she said.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2013/11/he-has-their-measure-australian-jewish.html Associate Professor Philip Mendes is a left-leaning Aussie Zionist and a much-published historian of the Jewish Left in Australia.  I’ve referred to him on this blog before, here. In an op-ed, entitled “The BDS movement and the opportunistic exploitation of self-denying Jews,” on the website of the ABC, he writes, inter alia: ‘[T]here is […]

“An International Ghetto Bench”: Boycott’s just another word for picking on the Jews Courtesy: http://edgar1981.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/apartheid-israel.html Coffee-splutteringly shocking, eh, this photo of apartheid in Jerusalem taken recently by British blogger Edgar Davidson? No wonder Israel’s compared to South Africa in the bad old days. Thus, in a recent interview, the leftwing British film director Ken Loach explains […]

http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/ I once heard a quote attributed to Aristotle that says; “The Law is Reason, Free from Passion”. While this may be the theoretical desired handling of legal matters, it is never-the-less apparent that only a percentage of any given legal and political population actually practices this.   What we have been witnessing is an […]

http://www.jewishledger.com/2013/11/doom-and-gloom-or-rich-opportunity/

Now that the dust has settled a bit on the Pew Research Center’s “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” it’s time to see how Jewish Connecticut is responding.

Conducted between February and June, this is the most comprehensive national survey of the Jewish population since the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey conducted by United Jewish Communities (now Jewish Federations of North America). More than 70,000 screening interviews were conducted to identify Jewish respondents in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Longer interviews were completed with 3,475 Jews, including 2,786 Jews by religion and 689 Jews of no religion. While many communities are taking steps to incorporate the findings of the Pew study into their programming, not everyone accepts the findings as gospel, so to speak. In short, the study has its detractors.

While respondents overwhelmingly reported that they are proud to be Jewish and have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people, the survey also suggests that Jewish identity is changing in America, where one in five Jews (22 percent) now describe themselves as having no religion.

The survey explored identity, intermarriage, religious beliefs and practices, attitudes toward Israel and the Holocaust, and social and political views. The entire report is available at pewforum.org.

The Ledger asked representatives of Connecticut’s Jewish communities to weigh in on how the findings impact upon their respective constituencies and future plans. Several responded.

 http://www.thetower.org/kerry-briefing-senators-slam-white-house-chamerlain-style-iran-deal-anti-israel-statements/ Senators walked out of a Banking Committee briefing given by Secretary of State John Kerry this afternoon expressing renewed dissatisfaction with the administration’s approach to negotiations with Iran, and blasting administration officials for attacking the credibility and concerns of both of U.S. allies and of other U.S. lawmakers. Speaking on his way out of […]

http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2013/11/no-offense/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=f9e49ff987-Mosaic_2013_11_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-f9e49ff987-41165129 Blood libels against Jews have been with us from time immemorial. Last week, one occurred in a Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet, where it was falsely claimed that Israeli troops were murdering Palestinians and harvesting their organs. Rejecting Israeli calls for official condemnation, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt retorted that freedom of expression had to be protected and that […]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/we-have-nothing-to-hide-sri-lanka-declares-ahead-of-chogm/story-e6frg6so-1226760003852

JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL HYPOCRISY WHEN IT COMES TO ISRAEL….JOHN KERRY MADE A “CAREFULLY WORDED” STATEMENT ON THIS IN MARCH :”the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry did not fail to recognize that Sri Lanka is in fact “on the path toward lasting peace and prosperity following decades of civil war and instability”. AND HILLARY CLINTON IN 2012 AS SEC. OF STATE…URGED SRI LANKA TO “CREDIBLY INVESTIGATE CHARGES”…..BUT JUST MENTION ISRAELI “SETTLEMENTS” AND THEY GO BALLISTIC…..RSK
SRI Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse says he’s ready to defend his country against allegations of war crimes raised at this week’s commonwealth summit, saying it had “nothing to hide”.

Tony Abbott and other commonwealth leaders are under pressure to raise concerns about Sri Lanka’s human rights record at the Colombo summit, which is already being boycotted by leaders from Canada, India and Mauritius.

But, speaking on the eve of the 53-member group’s summit, Mr Rajapakse said: “We are very open, we have nothing to hide.”

Mr Rajapakse said he was ready to meet British Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss allegations that up to 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed by Sri Lankan forces in the closing stages of the civil war in the island’s north.

“I will be meeting him and we will see what, I will also have to ask some questions,” he said.

Mr Rajapakse, who was elected president of the former British colony in 2005, mounted a stout defence of his administration’s handling of allegations of rights abuses.

The Obama administration has little interest in world leadership. http://www.nationalreview.com/node/363895/print The United States has ridden — and tamed — the wild global tiger since the end of World War II. The frantic ride has been dangerous, to us, but a boon to humanity. At the same time, America’s leadership role has been misrepresented and misunderstood […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/363907/obamacare-schadenfreudarama-jonah-goldberg It feels pretty good to watch the whole thing fail. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the unraveling of Obamacare. First, the obligatory caveats. It is no laughing matter that millions of Americans’ lives have been thrown into anxious chaos as they lose their […]