RUTHFULLY YOURS

Peter Beinart: Trojan Horse in the Temple

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/30/peter-beinart-trojan-horse-in-the-temple/

Peter Beinart, author of the recently published The Crisis of Zionism and editor of the Daily Beast’s “Open Zion” blog, has been criss-crossing the nation on a speaking tour for months, speaking at synagogues and to Jewish student groups on college campuses. He sometimes lectures alone, and sometimes engages in “debates” with individuals whose areas of disagreement with him are limited.

American Jews are not alone in laying out the welcome mat for Beinart. Within the past week, the Jerusalem Post published an editorial welcoming Beinart into the “big tent” of “Zionism,” and commending his call for a boycott of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria as “well-intentioned” and somehow different from similar calls by foreign governments. In an unprecedented move, the Jerusalem Post’s weekly columnist Isi Leibler was compelled to condemn his own newspaper’s editorial as “idiotic.”

Why are we Jews laying out the red carpet to this man? And why, in general, are we Jews so friendly and deferential to our worst enemies?

One reason is that, despite the efforts of our enemies through the ages to portray us as super-sophisticated criminal masterminds, we Jews are actually very simple-minded and naive, at least where our enemies are concerned.

Beinart professes at every opportunity to love Israel and to even be a “Zionist.” He boasts that he even has an Israeli flag displayed on the wall of his six-year-old son’s room. This seems to render his Jewish audiences oblivious to Beinart’s repetition and endorsement of nearly every element of the Arab world’s anti-Israel narrative and his overwhelmingly negative characterization of Israel as an “undemocratic” society.

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/30/bold-bill-in-senate-to-stop-palestinian-refugee-scam
The US Senate Appropriations Committee has approved an important amendment to a bill. Proposed by Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, the amendment would change the definition of “Palestinian refugee” such that the number of people now given that status would shrink from about five million to about thirty thousand.

The U.S. currently contributes annually about $250 million of the approximately $600 million budget of UNRWA, the UN agency that provides housing, education, and welfare to Palestinian “refugees.” The U.S. has funneled a total of $4.4 billion to UNRWA since it was founded in 1948.

Under the Kirk amendment, the funding to those no longer considered refugees would not necessarily end; they could be defined as poverty cases. But only the thirty thousand, instead of five million, would still be designated as refugees.

What explains the vast differential in numbers? Before and during Israel’s 1948-49 War for Independence, about 650,000 Palestinian Arabs (many of them very recent immigrants from other Arab countries) left the territories that became Israel. About thirty thousand of them are still alive today.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/30/texas-university-cancels-book-with-israeli-authors/

Texas University Cancels Book with Israeli Authors

A female Arab author claims a “cherished victory” by forcing the University of Texas to scrap the publication of an anthology of women’s voices from the Middle East – because two of the twenty-nine writers were Israeli.

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UT Austin was planning to publish the book in honor of the late American scholar Elizabeth Fernai, a professor there whose life and work were focused on the Middle East.

At first, novelist Huzama Habayeb was delighted to contribute as one of fifteen Arab writers. But that turned to “horror,” as a Gulf News editorial put it, when she realized that the collection would also feature two Israeli women, Yehudit Hendel and Orly Castel-Bloom. Habayeb withdrew her manuscript, complaining to the Center that Israel is an “occupier” of her land “Palestine” – although she was born in Kuwait, raised in Jordan, lives in Dubai, and has never set foot in Israel.

The university accepted her withdrawal but moved forward with plans to publish. Taken aback by this, Habayeb determined to ban the book altogether. She urged other Arab contributors to withdraw their manuscripts. A friend, Egyptian novelist Radwa Ashour who is married to a Palestinian poet, was the first to go along. Then others got onboard.

The Center shrugged and said the book was already at the printers and would be published as is. Habayeb wasn’t about to give up. “There are academic boycott movements around the world protesting the Israeli occupation,” she said, then incorrectly claimed that “the only two countries where they don’t exist are the United States and Israel.” She threatened to embarrass the university: “It doesn’t need a genius to figure out that the Texas center wanted to resolve the issue quickly and silently.”

How Can Obama’s Middle East Policy Possibly Get Worse? Answer: Look at Syria

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/05/29/how-can-obamas-middle-east-policy-possibly-get-worse-answer-look-at-syria/?print=1

Some of my readers are unhappy that I keep criticizing President Barak Obama and his government. The problem, however, is that this administration keeps doing terrible things in the Middle East. And the most damning evidence on these actions comes not from Obama’s enemies but from the administration itself and the supportive mass media.

Here’s the latest such item:

“U.S. Hopes Assad Can Be Eased Out with Russia’s Aid,” by Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, in the New York Times.

For almost three years, Obama insisted he would win over the Syrian dictatorship and make it America’s friend rather than Iran’s number-one ally. That was ludicrous. Forced by the uprising to back away from Damascus, the Obama Administration has spent almost a year bumbling about what to do.

The U.S. government’s main activity was to entrust to the Turkish Islamist regime the job of forming an umbrella Syrian opposition leadership. Not surprisingly, Ankara pursued its own interest by assembling a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated group, the Syrian National Congress. Though several members resigned, complaining of the radical Islamist control, the Obama Administration is still trying to force hostile oppositionists to join.

Now the administration has unveiled a new and equally terrible policy. I’ll let the New York Times’ reporters explain it:

“President Obama will push for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad under a plan that calls for a negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Assad’s government in place. The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal. Obama, administration officials said, will press the proposal with President Putin of Russia at their meeting next month. Obama’s national security adviser raised the plan with Putin in Moscow three weeks ago.”

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/05/old_tyrants_never_dietheyre_honored_by_the_un.html at May 30, 2012 – 06:02:07 AM CDT

THIS THUG WASTED AND TRASHED ZIMBABWE AND TURNED IT INTO A FAMINE AND EPIDEMIC RIDDEN SEWER. RHODESIA WAS THE MOST PRODUCTIVE AND SELF SUFFICIENT NATION IN AFRICA AND MUGABE (WHO WAS ELECTED BY A POPULAR MAJORITY) WAS THE POSTER BOY FOR THE “NEW AFRICA- ONE MAN ONE VOTE” MOVEMENT….RSK

No, this move by the UN to ask Robert Mugabe, former tyrant of Zimbabwe, accused of ethnic cleansing and bankrupting his country by allowing 10,000% inflation, to be a “leader for tourism” does not show the dysfunctionality of the United Nations. Nor does it show that the UN is a useless, hopeless gaggle of muddle headed nincompoops.

Right on both counts.

Using Robert Mugabe in any capacity, for any reason, under any circumstances reveals the UN to be just plain evil.

Guardian:

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has been asked by the UN to champion tourism. Photograph: Aaron Ufumeli/EPA/Corbis

With a line-up that includes Drew Barrymore, David Beckham, Orlando Bloom, and Ricky Martin, the UN’s choice of ambassadors has been known to cause raised eyebrows or the odd smirk.

Seldom, however, has there been such anger, or questioning of the organisation’s credibility, as that greeting the appointment of a new international envoy for tourism: Robert Mugabe.

Improbable as it seems, the Zimbabwean president, who is widely accused of ethnic cleansing, rigging elections, terrorising opposition, controlling media and presiding over a collapsed economy, has been endorsed as a champion of efforts to boost global holidaymaking.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/05/birth_certificate_whac-a-mole.html

THE MEDIA CAN TELL YOU THE COLOR OF THE FIRST LADIES’ UNDIES BUT WILL NOT INVESTIGATE ALL THE UNKNOWNS ABOUT OBAMA…IT WOULD ALL BE SO EASY TO DISMISS IF RECORDS AND TRANSCRIPTS WERE RELEASED…..RSK

Would you like to play a neat parlor game with your friends? Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate forgery contains so many forger’s errors which are visible to the naked eye or which can be seen on your computer under slight magnification that you can play a fun game finding them, either alone or in a contest with your friends. It’s similar to the arcade game Whac-A-Mole, where you pound a mechanical mole back into its hole before it disappears on its own and randomly reappears in another one of the five holes in the game. You can score by time per defect — five points for each one found within two minutes, for example — or by total score — five points for each defect for the length of the game. (Note: Conservatives will generally spot these defects more quickly than liberals do.)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/romneys_historic_opportunity_low-cost_energy_fuels_economic_recovery.html Energy, the lifeblood of the economy, is the Achilles heel of President Barack Obama. Mitt Romney can win the November election if he concentrates his campaign on a sensible energy policy. Mr. Romney will have to make a case not merely against Mr. Obama’s failings but also for why he has the better plan […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

The respected black commentator and philosopher Thomas Sowell has described the growing toll of black-on-white violence as a race war. I would take issue with that only because “war” implies a level of organization that supersedes that of the flash mobs.
Most of the riot organizers have moved on to cozier job titles, like Al Sharpton, who has gone from organizing riots and boycotts to holding down a desk at MSNBC and serving as the unofficial White House liaison to the black community. The old riots were usually a combination of organized protest and opportunistic violence. The organized riot is on the decline, but the opportunistic violence is still very much with us.

There are no shortage of what, the media occasionally describes as, “racially-motivated-attacks”. Every society has its outside groups targeted for opportunistic violence. The people you beat up and rob when you’re bored and there’s nothing good on television. These are people whose lives are worth less than yours, against whom your group holds an enduring grudge against and whom the authorities will not intervene to protect.

In America, the outsider is perversely the majority. There was a time when opportunistic violence was white-on-black, but the authorities, both legal and cultural, have done an excellent job of stamping that out. Black-on-white opportunistic violence remains commonplace because it’s safe in the same way that a 19th Century lynch mob was safe. While technically illegal, there is little public outrage over it, and the odds of being prosecuted for it are better than any other form of violence. The flash mob, like the lynch mob, relies on safety in numbers, the complicity of the authorities and the weakness of the system to beat the law.

Imagine for a moment that you are a black teenager or twenty-something, living in a blighted neighborhood, with few job prospects, a lot of free time and a lot of social networking. You know that white people are “bad”, not so much because of the street agitators telling you that white people are the devil, but because the entire society that you live in has been telling you that from Day One.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/05/25/did_the_state_department_just_create_5_million_palestinian_refugees

Did the State Department just create 5 million Palestinian refugees?
The U.S. government considers the descendants of Palestinian refugees to be refugees, a State Department official told The Cable, and another top State Department official wrote in a letter to Congress that there are now 5 million Palestinian refugees.

The two new policy statements come in the midst of a fight over whether the United States will start separating, at least on paper, Palestinians who fled what is now Israel in 1948 and 1967 from their descendants.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved unanimously an amendment to the fiscal 2013 State Department and foreign operations appropriations bill that requires the State Department to report on how many of the 5 million Palestinians currently receiving assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) are actually people who were physically displaced from their homes in Israel or the occupied territories, and how many are merely descendants of original refugees.

The amendment, as passed, was watered down by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) from a version proposed by Sen.Mark Kirk (R-IL) that would have required more in-depth reporting on how many UNRWA aid recipients are now living in the West Bank, Gaza, and other countries such as Jordan. An even earlier version of the bill would have made it U.S. policy that Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, and those who are citizens of countries like Jordan are not, in fact, “refugees.”

The State Department objected strongly to the Kirk amendment, claiming that any U.S. determination of the number or status of refugees was unhelpful and destabilizing and that refugee determinations are a final-status issue that must be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/29/the-white-house-sieve Leaking away intelligence secrets — even to Hollywood — for re-election advantage. Big leaks can change the course of world events. The leaker behind the Washington Post story identifying nations in which the CIA had secret prisons to hold and interrogate captured terrorists sought to thwart those nations’ cooperation and some of those nations […]