RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/08/25/israel-leper-or-light-unto-the-nations-part-4-why-is-israel-so-lousy-at-making-its-case/?print=1

Check out the previous installments in P. David Hornik’s ongoing series exploring how Israel is perceived around the globe.

August 4: Israel: Leper or Light Unto the Nations? Part 1: The Whole World Against Us
August 11: Israel: Leper or Light Unto the Nations? Part 2: That Bird Could Be a Mossad Agent!
August 18: Israel: Leper or Light Unto the Nations? Part 3: From Woodstock to the Promised Land

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In a recent blog post, British Jewish author and commentator Melanie Phillips took the European Union to task for deciding to boycott Israelis who live in East Jerusalem, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), and the Golan Heights.

Phillips clarifies why the EU’s designation of all Jewish life and activity in those places as “illegal” is legally, let alone morally, baseless. But if the EU and the UN regularly and ritually make this “illegality” charge, and pressure and punish Israel accordingly, Phillips claims that

the fault in large measure surely lies with Israel. For although some may find this incomprehensible, Israel does not make to the world the one case that matters—why Israelis are fully entitled under international law to build their homes in these territories….

And Phillips attributes that failing, among other things, to

Israel’s bleak and despairing judgement that the international community, composed of those who historically and presently were and are driven by obsessive hatred of the Jewish people and which finds expression for that hatred through vehicles such as the UN and EU, will always do the bidding of those who wish to destroy the Jews and is therefore impervious to reason and morality.

While I wouldn’t put it quite so strongly, I found those words noteworthy and insightful. It’s true, as many have complained, that Israel tends to be hesitant and diffident in making its case. Here I want to suggest three of the factors that have a discouraging effect.

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/obama-indicts-obama/?print=1 One of the problems that Barack Obama has in mounting an attack against the Assad regime is that the gambit violates every argument Barack Obama used against the Bush administration to establish his own anti-war candidacy. The hypocrisy is so stunning that it infuriates his critics and stuns his supporters. Deriding the Iraq war […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ It’s an article of American faith that Japan is an incredibly strange place. The world has been mapped and GPS’ed to death ruining much of the thrill of discovery. There probably aren’t any hidden cities with remnants of lost civilizations lurking in the deserts of Africa or the jungles of South America. That just […]

A version of this column is scheduled for publication Monday, September 2, 2013, at worldtribune.com  Syrian Crisis [Cont.]   Pres. Barrack Obama’s sudden volte-face on a strike against the Syrian regime of Pres. Basher al Assad has only put on hold the enormous stakes in the crisis’ ultimate outcome. In one of those curious turns […]

Obama Pushes Syria Intervention With Same Argument He Ignores On Iran www.HumanRightsVoices.org. This article by Anne Bayefsky originally appeared on Breitbart.com. President Obama has turned to Congress to save him from staggering political isolation on the global stage. It is an isolation that is the inverse of the promise of a passionate and reciprocal multilateral […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ion-mihai-pacepa/high-noon-for-america/

Once in a while, a great book – like a great red wine – becomes better over the years. “High Noon for America,” by the managing editor of FrontPage Magazine, Jamie Glazov, is such a rare book.

This breathtaking work was published in 2012, soon after our military intervention in Libya, and it rightfully starts with an in-depth analysis of our administration’s Middle East policy. We are now facing a similar intervention in Syria, and I strongly recommend that anyone even slightly interested in foreign policy and long-term peace go back to this book.

“High Noon for America” is not Jamie Glazov’s book. It is America’s book, conceived and developed over several years of roundtable dialog between Jamie and some of the most authoritative experts in foreign policy, intelligence, political affairs, economics and religion of our day. Among them: Robert McFarlane, President Reagan’s national security adviser; Richard Pipes, former member of the National Security Council, one of the world’s leading authorities on Soviet history; Natan Sharansky, former Soviet prisoner, later member of the Israeli cabinet; Roger L. Simon, prize-wining screenwriter, founder and CEO of PJMedia; Vladimir Bukovsky, former leading Soviet dissident and candidate for president of the post-Soviet Russia; and Michael Ledeen, America’s foremost authority on Iran. Full disclosure: I also contributed to Jamie Glazov’s book, and I have been a longtime contributor to FrontPage.

On Sept. 1, 1945, ( September 2 in Japan)representatives of the empire of Japan formally surrendered to the Allies aboard the Missouri,  anchored in Tokyo Bay.

The only person to have interviewed the last seven presidents of the US and the last six prime ministers of the UK, Frost had been with Al Jazeera English since its launch in 2006.

No comment. rsk

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/31/obama-set-speak-syria-white-house-115-pm-edt/

“About 25 minutes after concluding his remarks, Mr. Obama departed the White House with Mr. Biden in a motorcade to play golf at Fort Belvoir in suburban Virginia.”

In a dramatic turnaround, President Obama said Saturday that he will wait for congressional authorization to punish Syria for a chemical weapons attack, even though he has decided a military strike is needed.

“We should have this debate,” the president said in an announcement in the White House Rose Garden. “I respect the views of those who call for caution.”

After more than a week of deliberation, Mr. Obama essentially put the onus on Congress to stop him from launching missile strikes against targets of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Lawmakers are not scheduled to return from their August recess until Sept. 9.

“I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets,” Mr. Obama said, adding that he intends such action to be “limited in duration and scope.”

With Vice President Joseph R. Biden at his side, Mr. Obama said, “I’m confident we can hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons, deter this kind of behavior, and degrade their capacity to carry it out.”

The president said U.S. military forces are positioned in the region to strike at his command.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/epa-to-regulate-water-vapor-emissions/?print=1 At a news conference in Washington today, President Obama announced that he is directing the Environmental Protection Agency to act immediately to enforce a new set of regulations to limit emissions of dihydrogen oxide gas, or water vapor, one of the primary causes of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. “The world faces a crisis,” the […]