Give 'Em Hell, Bibi!

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under.}

During the 1948 presidential campaign, Harry Truman toured the country attacking Republicans and putting forth his own views on what was best for America.  At one point during a speech in Bremerton, Washington, a man in the crowd cried out, "Give 'em hell, Harry!"

To the delight of the listeners Truman called out, "I don't have to give 'em hell.  I just tell 'em the truth and they think it's hell!"

Well, one thing is certain, Benjamin Netanyahu has not been "giving 'em hell" in recent years.

Under pressure from a hostile American administration and its European Union partners, Benjamin Netanyahu, was forced to humiliate himself by apologizing to Turkey's president Erdogan for the fact that Turkish Jihadis got themselves killed in a foolhardy attempt to break the blockade of Gaza.  Netanyahu caved to the Palestinian demand that it release Jihadi terrorists in return for the privilege of maybe, at some point, sitting across the table from Palestinian-Arab dictator, Mahmoud Abbas, who is now in the tenth year of his four year term.  Netanyahu agreed to support the creation of a "Palestinian" state on traditional Jewish land in Judea and Samaria and provided electricity to Gaza while the Gazans were shooting rockets into the southern part of the country, making life practically unlivable there.

Netanyahu even agreed to a ten month freeze on building within Jewish townships in Judea and Samaria in order to encourage Abbas back to the negotiating table, but Abbas refused until the final weeks of that ten month period, pocketed the concession and then demanded an extension of the freeze in return for exactly nothing.

No matter how many concessions Israel makes, the Palestinian Authority never reciprocates, continues to teach its children to despise Jews, and incites its people to violence against us.

Yet, as far as Barack Obama is concerned, it is the side that calls for peace and that makes concessions, i.e., the Israeli side, which is intransigent, while the "Palestinian" side calls for blood, never makes a concession, and is never asked to concede anything.  It does not matter to the Obama administration what the "Palestinians" do or do not do, because it is the Jews of Israel, and only the Jews of Israel, that must be disciplined and forced into compliance.

As for Obama, he did give 'em "hell"... the Israelis that is.

As Caroline Glick recalls in the Jerusalem Post:

He and his representatives have given a backwind to the forces that seek to wage economic warfare against Israel, repeatedly indicating that the application of economic sanctions against Israel – illegal under the World Trade Organization treaties – are a natural response to Israel’s unwillingness to bow to every Palestinian demand. The same goes for the movement to deny the legitimacy of Israel’s very existence. Senior administration officials have threatened that Israel will become illegitimate if it refuses to surrender to Palestinian demands.

Last summer, Obama openly colluded with Hamas’s terrorist war against Israel. He tried to coerce Israel into accepting ceasefire terms that would have amounted to an unconditional surrender to Hamas’s demands for open borders and the free flow of funds to the terrorist group. He enacted a partial arms embargo on Israel in the midst of war. He cut off air traffic to Ben-Gurion International Airport under specious and grossly prejudicial terms in an open act of economic warfare against Israel.

But, now, Netanyahu has an opportunity to "give 'em hell" in return and I very much hope that he does so.

This is not for the purpose of giving Obama the comeuppance that he so richly deserves, but to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear bomb within 2 years or 5 years or 10.

Obama broke his promise.  He told the world that the United States would prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weaponry, but now he has changed his tune.  Instead of preventing Iran from nuclear break-out capacity, the Obama administration wants the United States to constrain, but not impede, Iranian nukes for maybe ten years, while allowing it a one-year window for completing its Jihadi Bomb.

The reason that Obama is going to allow Iranian nuclear break-out capacity is because the US administration is endeavoring to turn the Islamist state into a regional strategic partner.  It is also for this reason that the Obama administration is comfortable with Iranian expansion into Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, if not Iraq.

This is entirely unacceptable to the people of Israel - left, right, and center - and the Sunnis throughout the region are, for the most part, no happier about any of this than are the Jews.  The only people who seem comfortable with Iranian nukes are Barack Obama and the Iranians, themselves.

If Obama gets his way, we will see an arms race throughout the Middle East with virtually every significant player scrambling to kick-start their own nuclear programs.  There is certainly no possible way that Egypt will allow a nuclear armed Shia Iran without Cairo gaining that capacity, as well.

What is necessary is for the American people to make it clear to the Obama administration that we stand not only with the people of Israel, but with people the world over - most particularly in the Middle East - who understand that a nuclear-weaponized Iran is potentially disastrous enough that as a basic matter of common sense it must be prevented.

Obama is not up to this job, because his heart is clearly not in it.  Obama the community organizer from Chicago is comfortable with Iranian nukes.

Benjamin Netanyahu the commando from Israel clearly is not.

I say, give 'em hell, Bibi.

Just tell 'em the truth and they'll think it's hell.

Rest In Peace

American race-baiting and Middle Eastern Jew-baiting

Sar Shalom

In 1981, RNC committeeman gave an interview describing the evolution of race-based appeals in which he said:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

A similar process happened in the anti-Israel appeals for support. From the start of the Palestinian national movement in the 1920's at least until the riots following the UN Partition vote, the refrain of those opposing the rise of Israel was

Filastin bladna
W'al yahud klabna

In English,

Palestine is our land
and the Jew is our dog

By the 1960's, the Arabs started to recognize that explicit expressions of Jew-hatred were counterproductive. So they started making appeals based on addressing the Palestinians' dispossession. By the 21st century, the message morphed again into saying that all that is needed is enforcement of international law. Essentially, calling for adherence to international law is more abstract than calling for alleviation of the Palestinians' "dispossession" which is more abstract than calling the Jews dogs.

Why is it that the Left can easily recognize the Right's racially coded dog-whistles beneath the facade of neutral sounding language, but see nothing wrong when the Arabs' advocates use the same tactic of dog-whistle appeals to Jew-hatred couched in the noble language of international law? That is what we need to call them out on.

Johnny Cash Came to Town

JayinPhiladelphia

The Man in Black was born on this day in 1932.  One of America's pioneering musical icons, he was deeply committed to social justice, and was a strong supporter and friend of Israel.

In the mid-1990s, when Israeli cities, and particularly Jerusalem, were attacked by Palestinian suicide bombers, tourism to Israel fell off sharply. The Cashes, now in their sixties, returned to Israel for a fifth visit, and with their own money produced a TV film titled Return to the Holy Land. Throughout the film -- a musical travelog through pastoral, bucolic sites associated with the life of Jesus -- the Cashes assured their American viewers that Israel was as beautiful and tranquil as ever, and they should not hesitate to visit it soon. There is no mention in the film of the conflict with the Palestinians, nor of any internal debates or dissension within Israel. Despite the changes in Israel, and in world attitudes toward the Jewish state, Johnny and June Carter Cash’s zeal for Zion remained intact.

Often described as a founding father of modern Christian Zionism, his solid liberal credentials, such as his activism on behalf of prison reform and as an advocate for Native American rights, do not necessarily mesh well with the picture many anti-Israel types would like to paint of his kind.

A deeply patriotic American, this is my favorite quote of his -

"I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine." - From Ragged Old Flag on The Great Lost Performance, recorded at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, NJ, 1990

A fantastic philosophy to live by.  He would have been 83 today.  He had his struggles and failures like anyone, but I'd say on balance he left the world a better place than he found it.

This is What Non-Muslims Face at Holiest Site for Jews

Michael L.



The above is what greeted Congressman Dennis Ross.

I find it absolutely disgraceful and am utterly ashamed that Israel allows this to go on.

The situation on the Temple Mount is a day-to-day humiliation not just of the Jewish State of Israel, but of the Jews, more generally.

Israel needs to tell the Waqf to go take a hike and reinstate its own authority on that bit of property.

Everyone should have fair and equal access to, and privileges upon, the Temple Mount.  Why are we honoring Arab and Muslim religious bigotry toward non-Muslims?

Furthermore, this "third-holiest-site-in-Islam" mantra is utter nonsense.  Until the rise of late 19th century Zionism the Temple Mount was in increasing disrepair and suffered from Muslim neglect, because they did not care about the Temple Mount which, needless to say, is mentioned nowhere in the Koran.

They only began to care about the Temple Mount when Jews started showing up in Jerusalem in significant numbers.  It is not that they really want the Temple Mount, but that they simply do not want us to have what is ours.

There is something about the nature of Islam that forces it constantly to want to supplant anything that is non-Muslim.  It is a form of religious imperial aggression, in fact, and Israel should not put up with it.

It certainly does not have to and it shouldn't and if the rest of the Islamic world does not like it, let them pound sand.

A Big Tip 'O the Kippa to Ian at the Elder's joint.

The Daily Kos "Jew Rule"

Michael L.

{Originally published at the Elder of Ziyon.}

As a progressive-left political blog, Daily Kos is infested with anti-Zionists and encourages what one participant has dubbed the Jew Rule.  In The Jew Rule on Daily Kos, "dhonig" reminds us that for many participants when Jews are murdered by Jihadis in Europe, ultimately it is Israel's fault for allegedly being mean to the perfectly innocent, bunny-like "indigenous" population.

Of course when some horrendous maniac in North Carolina shoots up three young Muslims no one would suggest that ultimately it's the fault of the Islamic State or Saudi Arabia.  No one would ever try to justify, or explain, the murders by pointing to the excesses of Islam.  On the contrary, everyone would understand that the murderer is solely responsible for his behavior and no one would endeavor to shift blame to other members of the victim's ethnicity, nation, or people.

Daily Kos, like much of the Left, has special rules for Jews.  The Jew Rule, of course, is not a formal rule.  It is merely the way things are on the foremost progressive-left blog in the United States.

What Honig calls the Jew Rule is actually nothing more then the influence of garden variety anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.

He writes:

Daily Kos has become a haven for anti-Semites. There, I said it. Sure, the anti-Semitism is usually couched in "but Israel" terms, but it's there. Allow me, please to give a recent example of the Jew Rule here, the one that says, "every other form of bigotry and hatred is rejected here, but feel free to blame the Jews, as long as you use the word 'Israel' when you do it."

I'm going to compare two recent incidents, and diaries about each. The first is the murder of three young Muslim students in North Carolina. The second is the murders the other day in Denmark. I'll assume, for the sake of this diary, that readers are familiar with both.

Under a piece entitled Jews are NOT at war with Islam. But jihadi terrorists have declared war on Jews, Honig finds a number of examples of how Daily Kos members use Israel as a justification for the murder of European Jews.

Here are a few examples:

Of course they did nothing to deserve being (56+ / 8-)

killed.  But the role the current Israeli leadership plays in endangering Jews around the world cannot be ignored.  Otherwise you're discussing the issue in a vacuum.

by Paleo on Sun Feb 15, 2015 at 11:08:46 AM EST

So, Paleo is not arguing that they deserve it, but that it is perfectly understandable why any Arab or Muslim would want to kill Jews, because the Israeli government has them, rightfully, filled with impotent rage.  Your average "Kossack" believes, therefore, that Arabs have every right to kill Jews.

Sure, the victims don't deserve it, but Israel...

Or, say, this for an example:

The actions of the Israeli state create a clear and present danger to Jews across the world.  That's not debatable.  To discuss the issue of murderous anti-Semitism among jihadi extremists without acknowledging their best recruiting tool is simply dishonest.

by Dallasdoc on Sun Feb 15, 2015 at 11:29:06 AM EST

Dallasdoc thinks that Israel manufactures hatred for the Jewish people and, thus, danger for the Jewish people and that this conclusion is "not debatable."  The crazed Jihadis may do the killing, but behind the Jihadis lurks the evil Jewish state which causes radical Islamists to go into a murderous rage at random Jews.

They just cannot help themselves.

Sure, the victims don't deserve it, but Israel...

Whether the Jewish people of the world like it or not, they are tied to the actions and existence of Israel as a Zionist state. I can understand you do not want to discuss it but unless you want to turn this into a book review of Leon Uris's Exodus book, expect others to disagree with you.

by Sinan on Sun Feb 15, 2015 at 01:30:39 PM EST

Sinan is a bit more strident concerning the Jew Rule.  We are tied to Israel and, therefore, responsible in some measure for its behavior.  Thus it is perfectly natural for Muslims to seek to kill random Jews anywhere in the world.

Sure, the victims don't deserve it, but Israel...

Or, how about this one?

To not address the obscene Israeli policy, euphemistically called "mowing the Palestinian lawn", which involves the starvation, imposition of drought and killing of innocent Palestinians as having some relationship to the re-emergence of anti-Jewish violence may be interpreted as purposely deceptive.

When the noble term "Never Again" is meant not as a declaration that humanity will no longer abide by genocide, no matter who the victims, but is instead used as a justification for Israeli preemptive violence against their neighbors, that declaration loses all moral authority.

If we're attempting to analyze the circumstances that contribute to such violence, we must not be myopic and view events in a vacuum. 

by elesares on Sun Feb 15, 2015 at 11:36:05 AM EST

This person obviously sees the world through the eyes of Hamas.  She honestly believes that the Jewish people of the Middle East are so utterly immoral that the government of Israel would intentionally starve Arab children and impose drought upon them... as if Jews command the weather.

This is the contemporary blood-libel and anyone who thinks that Israel is this evil is unquestionably an anti-Jewish racist.

When Obama told Jewish Israeli college students that they needed to see the world through "Palestinian" eyes, is this what he had in mind?  Self-loathing?  That we should hate ourselves through the eyes of those who hate us?  Perhaps what is really needed is for the great Arab majority to try to see the world through Jewish eyes, for a change.

In any case, sure, the victims don't deserve it, but Israel...

Again, no one would suggest that the murder of the three young Muslims in Chapel Hill was in any way due to anything other than whatever hallucinations, racist or otherwise, that Craig Hicks may have endured when he opened fire.  However, whenever a Jew is killed by a Muslim the act is justified by pointing the trembling finger of blame at the Jews of the Middle East.

The western Left is, in fact - as we see by the behavior of Barack Obama - endeavoring to drive a wedge between the Jews of the diaspora and the Jews of Israel.  If Israel represents, as I believe it does, the salvation of the Jewish people, then progressives in places like Daily Kos are trying tell Jewish people that we are immoral for embracing that country and, thereby, defending ourselves and our people.

They prefer their Jews weak, guilt-ridden, and compliant.  Israel, however, stands as a constant reminder that traditional Jewish subservience can no longer be expected.   Individual Jews may exhibit the galut mentality, but the Jews as a people are redeemed by Zionism; that is, by autonomy grounded in collective self-defense.

Here is another example of how Daily Kos progressives seek to divide the Jewish people from the State of Israel in order to undermine our well-being, solidarity, and security.

In a piece entitled Will Netanyahu Ask US Jews to Become Traitors, someone writing under the nom de blog, tsackton, suggests that if American Jews agree with Benjamin Netanyahu, in his dispute concerning Iran with Barack Obama, then we are traitors to the United States.  He writes:

Our President is trying to negotiate a deal to prevent another war in the Middle East, and most of the country supports him on this.  For Netanyahu to imply that you cannot be an American Jew and still support these negotiations with Iran is a call for Jews to abandon America.

Of course, Netanyahu has implied no such thing.

The purpose of this "diary," ultimately, is to give notice to American Jews that if we disagree with Barack Obama then we are traitors to our country.  The purpose is to keep American Jewry in-line in the most egregious manner possible short of violence.

Israel has become a violent, anti-democratic (no equal rights for palestinians)  and vastly corrupt and racist country.

If Americans are forced to choose, the outcome will not be pretty. 

In other words, this individual despises Israel and is threatening American Jews.

This is what the progressive-left has evolved into.

The Jew Rule reigns and Honig should be commended.

Americans support Israel, but do Democrats?

Michael L.



A recent Gallup survey demonstrates that Americans favor Israel over "Palestinians" by terrific margins.  Seven out of ten Americans have a "mostly favorable" or "very favorable" view of the State of Israel.  In contrast, less than two in ten have a "mostly favorable" or "very favorable" view of the Palestinian Authority.

However, when one breaks the findings down by political party a very different image emerges.



A full 83 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israelis than "Palestinians" in the Arab-Israel conflict.

However, only a minority of Democrats sympathize more with Israelis - a mere 48 percent - which when I went to school suggests that a majority of Democrats do not sympathize more with Israel than with the "Palestinians."  My suspicion is that this is probably the first time within polling Americans on the Arab-Israel conflict that a majority of Democrats favor the Arabs over the Jews.

The consensus among American Jews - if not Jews, more generally - is that support within the United States for Israel must remain bi-partisan.  It seems, however, that this bi-partisanship is in considerable jeopardy.

The Democratic party comes out of the tradition of social justice and Civil Rights as it expressed itself in the last half of the twentieth century.  Democrats stood with Martin Luther King, Jr., not Republicans.  Democrats fought for feminism and a woman's right to choose an abortion, not Republicans.  It was Democrats who both started the Vietnam War and did most to end it on the grassroots level, not Republicans.

The natural sympathies of American Jewry has been with the liberals and the Democrats since FDR, because it was the liberals and the Democrats who were fighting for the little guy, the down-and-out, the outsider.  And if there is one thing that Jewish people know a little something about it is, as we recently saw on PBS' Downton Abbey, what it is like to be an outsider.

However, after the 1967 6 Day War, Israel gradually went from being "David" to being "Goliath" in the popular imagination of the progressive-left and the activist grass-roots of the Democratic party.  This development was very much encouraged by the Arabs who realized that since they could not defeat Israel militarily then they could, perhaps, defeat it on the field of propaganda which is the western mind.

For thirteen centuries Jews lived under the jack-boot of Arab-Muslim Supremacy.

Our numbers were kept low and any security that we had depended on knowing our place as dhimmis within the system of Islamic imperial jurisprudence known as al-Sharia.  We were not allowed to ride horses, only mules.  We were not allowed to repair or build new synagogues.  In some places we were not even allowed to go out in the rain lest Jewish filth wash onto, and thereby contaminate, the clean Muslim streets.

And now the West is telling us that Jews are being mean to Arabs.

The Arab states, plus the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria, launched a war against the Jews directly after the Holocaust that is ongoing ever since.  World War II never actually ended for the Jews of the Middle East, it merely morphed into the Long Arab War.

The people who call themselves "Palestinian" are the forward cadre of the much larger forces arrayed against those Jews.  Their job is to attack and attack and attack in any manner that they possibly can - including encouraging their children to engage in the traditional Arab sport of stoning Jews - until Israel responds and then, as soon as it does, the western propaganda machine rolls into action.

For years the Gazans were shooting rockets into southern Israel making life impossible there.  The economy was in shambles and children were developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because they were continually having to race into bomb shelters.  However, as soon as Israel responded by destroying those terror tunnels and targeting Hamas fighters, the progressive-left and the grassroots-netroots of the Democratic party rose up as one to denounce Jewish Israelis for genocide, ethnic-cleansing, targeting children for death, and any other vile accusation that they could throw onto the wall in order to see what might stick.

Needless to say, western journalists did more than their part in the defamation game as Matti Friedman has so nicely illustrated.  It is as if they honestly think that Arabs have every right to try to kill Jews and if Jews fight back, this represents a form of aggression.

Meanwhile, of course, the academics - such as the vile SFSU Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, of Race and Resistance Studies fame, who advised the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) during a period when they were holding up signs calling for the murder of "colonizers"  - were telling their students that Israel is a racist, imperialist, colonialist, apartheid, militaristic, racist state... despite the fact that it has far-and-away the best human rights record of any country in the entire region.

In any case, an ongoing campaign of defamation against the Jews painted them as modern monsters or the New Nazis and has succeeded in turning progressives and Democrats against one of the most persecuted people in human history... on moral grounds.  The Jews of Israel may believe that they are acting in self-defense, but progressive Democrats know that they really act out of racism and white privilege, or Jewish Supremacism, or the shear lust for violence.

And this, ultimately, is why the Democrats have turned against the Jews.

They honestly think that the Jews of the Middle East richly deserve whatever beating they get.

Dabiq # 1: Khilafa Declared

Michael L.

Dabiq is the official recruiting magazine of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

In order to understand this group, we need to understand how they see themselves.  The first thing to know is that the Islamic State is an apocalyptic death cult whose behavior is designed specifically to cause a war with the West in order to bring about the end of the world.  They honestly believe that on that day Jesus will return, break the cross and affirm Islam at the End of Days.

They would obviously not put it in such terms, but they clearly see themselves as on the vanguard of an Islamic revolution leading to a cosmic show-down.

Despite the brutality of the Islamic State, Dabiq is enthusiastic and upbeat.

On the first of Ramadan 1435H, the revival of the Khilafah was announced by the spokesman for the Islamic State, Shaykh Abu Muhammad al- ‘Adnani ash-Shami (hafidhahullah).

The good news was followed by the first official speech of Amirul-Mu’minin Abu Bakr al-Husayni al-Qurashi al-Baghdadi (nasarahullah).

The announcements filled the streets of the Islamic State with faithful joy.

On June 29th of last year, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself the Caliph, thereby demanding the loyalty and cooperation of the entire Muslim world.

Glad tidings for the Muslim Ummah

Amirul-Mu’minin said: “O Muslims everywhere, glad tidings to you and expect good. Raise yourhead high, for today – by Allah’s grace – you have a state and Khilafah, which will return your dignity, might, rights, and leadership.

It is a state where the Arab and non-Arab, the white man and black man, the easterner and westerner are all brothers.

One thing to note about the Islamic State is that in certain areas it is actually quite liberal.  They see all Muslims as brothers, so long as they maintain the Islamic State's ultra-fundamentalist view of Islam.  They do not care where you come form or about the color of your skin.  The only thing that matters is that you be a good member of the Ummah as they understand it.

The Islamic State also makes a point of clothing, feeding, and housing those within the Ummah without resources, when they are able to do so.

Of course, in other ways, obviously, the very last thing that the Islamic State can be called is liberal.

A new era has arrived

of might and dignity for the Muslims

Amirul-Mu’minin said: “Soon, by Allah’s permission, a day will come when the Muslim will walk everywhere as a master, having honor, being revered, with his head raised high and his dignity preserved.

Anyone who dares to offend him will be disciplined, and any hand that reaches out to harm him will be cut off.

It is often suggested that the Arabs have an honor-shame culture and certainly the segment above seems to affirm this.

The world has divided into two camps

Amirul-Mu’minin said: “O Ummah of Islam, indeed the world today has been divided into two camps and two trenches, with no third camp present:

The camp of Islam and faith, and the camp of kufr (disbelief) and hypocrisy – the camp of the Muslims and the mujahidin everywhere, and the camp of the jews, the crusaders, their allies, and with them the rest of the nations and religions of kufr, all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the jews.”

When Barack Obama insists that we are not at war with Islam, he is countering the opposite claims of the Islamic State, whose sole purpose is to bring about the final confrontation with the West, which it refers to as "Rome."  Obama's reluctance to put boots on the ground is, in part, a desire to not give the Islamic State what it craves and what it craves is Western soldiers on Islamic State land for the purposes of Jihad, the Holy War.

A Call to Hijrah

Amirul-Mu’minin said: “Therefore, rush O Muslims to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis...

The State is a state for all Muslims. The land is for the Muslims, all the Muslims. O Muslims everywhere, whoever is capable of performing hijrah (emigration) to the Islamic State, then let him do so, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory.”

The announcement of the arrival of the Caliphate changes the nature of the relationship between the Ummah and Islam.  Now that Abu Bakr has revealed himself, it is obligatory for all Muslims who are capable of doing so to join their brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria.  No longer is it sufficient to be a good Muslim elsewhere.  All able Muslims must move to the Islamic State.

At this point the magazine goes forward to announce and celebrate a number of recent military victories, complete with gruesome photos of dead babies.

On Monday, the 25th of Sha'ban, the mujahidin of the Islamic State succeeded in liberating the strategic town of Tal Afar in Wilayat Ninawa.

The Islamic State is, of course, expansionist.  The Caliphate, for it to maintain respect and allegiances, must conquer almost perpetually.  So far, of course, they have done a pretty amazing job and now control a mass of land larger than Great Britain.

Among the things that the group is very open about are their methods of conquest:

Because there were almost no safe havens on the earth left for the mujahidin, the ideal land for hijrah was a place where they could operate without the threat of a powerful police state. In the case of Abu Mus’ab, he chose Afghanistan and later Kurdistan as a base to form Jama’atutTawhidi wal-Jihad.

Al-hamdu lillah, there are now more lands with conditions that support jihad, such as Yemen, Mali, Somalia, the Sinai Peninsula, Waziristan, Libya, Chechnya, and Nigeria, as well as parts of Tunis, Algeria, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Shaykh Abu Mus’ab (rahimahullah) implemented the strategy and required tactics to achieve the goal of Khilafah without hesitation.  

In short, he strived to create as much chaos as possible with the means permitted by the Shari’ah using attacks sometimes referred to as operations of “nikayah” (injury) that focus on causing the enemy death, injury, and damage.

So, their Modus Operandi is to establish themselves in areas with week central governments that can be made weaker through spreading blood and chaos and, thus, to expand from there.  Both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama hold some of the responsibility for the rise of this group.  Bush for destabilizing Iraq and Obama for providing a power vacuum for the Islamic State to fill.

Sadly, they are now opposed by the present leadership of famous jihad groups who have become frozen in the phase of nikayah attacks, almost considering the attainment of power to be taboo or destructive. And rather than entrusting the affairs of the Ummah to the pious mujahidin, the present heads of these groups insist upon leaving the matter out for grabs so that any munafiq can stretch out his arm and reach for the leadership of the Ummah only to destroy it.

This is a reference to the split between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.  If the Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda is the parent organization of the Islamic State, but doctrinal differences have divided the organizations.  Qaeda has refused to accept the authority of the Caliph and, therefore, remains largely underground.  If they had fully accepted the authority of Abu Bakr they would have folded their organization into the larger one, but they have refused to do so.

The entire point of the organization can be summed up in the final page of Dabiq # 1:

Abu Hurayrah reported that Allah’s Messenger (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) said, “The Hour will not be established until the Romans land at al-A’maq or Dabiq (two places near each other in the northern countryside of Halab).

Then an army from al-Madinah of the best people on the earth at that time will leave for them. When they line up in ranks, the Romans will say, ‘Leave us and those who were taken as prisoners from amongst us so we can fight them.

The Muslims will say, ‘Nay, by Allah, we will not abandon our brothers to you.’ So they will fight them. Then one third of them will flee; Allah will never forgive them. One third will be killed; they will be the best martyrs with Allah. And one third will conquer them; they will never be afflicted with fitnah.

Then they will conquer Constantinople.

People often claim that Islam is in need of reformation.

That may very well be the case, but these guys would argue that they are the reformation.

Finally, it is more than a little imperative that we keep a very sharp eye on these people because they are exceedingly dangerous, control the better part of two countries, are gaining thousands of recruits on a regular basis from around the world, have considerable military hardware, and have proven themselves to be the single most unbelievably vicious political movement in the world today.

They must be stopped and for some reason I do not think that community organizing is going to do the trick.

Countering Violent Extremism

Michael L.

Last week the Obama administration issued a "fact sheet" entitled "The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism."

The plan is to Engage, Mentor, Support, Communicate, Partner, and Educate communities about something or other.

Given that certain someones (to rename nameless) have been running completely amock in some certain part of the world and continue to inspire others to kill other people - although no one knows just who or why - it is appropriate that the government of the United States concern itself with this matter... whatever it is.

Here is the White House plan in the specifics.

The Obama administration is going to build awareness of something, counter someone's extremist narratives and will place great emphasis on community.

Most experts believe that whatever any of this means it should be sufficient to achieve our goals, once we honestly decide what those goals are.

Not content to take full measures, however, the Obama administration has even developed plans that go beyond the above.

The underlying premise of the approach to countering violent extremism in the United States is that (1) communities provide the solution to violent extremism; and (2) CVE efforts are best pursued at the local level, tailored to local dynamics, where local officials continue to build relationships within their communities through established community policing and community outreach mechanisms.  The Federal Government’s most effective role in strengthening community partnerships and preventing violent extremism is as a facilitator, convener, and source of research and findings. 

So, not only are communities involved in the effort to Counter Violent Extremism, but the Federal Government intends to partner with those communities.

I don't see how violent extremists of any sort - Russian anarchists with little round bombs or Weathermen Underground members getting stoned and blowing themselves up while playing with dynamite or, say, radical anti-abortionists who kill health care providers in the Midwest -  can possibly do anything once communities become aware of them, particularly since those communities - wherever they may be - will be partnering with other partners, including Federal Government partners.

Since the release of the Strategy, local governments and communities around the United States have developed prevention frameworks that address the unique issues facing their local communities.  Three cities—Greater Boston, Los Angeles, and the Twin Cities—with the leadership of representatives from the Federal Government, have created pilot programs to foster partnerships between local government, law enforcement, mayor’s offices, the private sector, local service providers, academia, and many others who can help prevent violent extremism. 

Here we see the full extent of the partnering.

According to the Strategy the Federal Government will partner with an entire array of people including the police and the private sector and academia.  Once the professors get involved, you just know that the terrorists have not a chance.

Of course, it is a tad unclear on just what type of professors would be useful in Countering Violent Extremism?  Is there any such thing as "violent extremism studies"?  Or perhaps professors of Ethical Philosophy will explain to people just why it is that burning people alive in cages is perhaps something other than ethical?

In any case, the Strategy does not end there... no, it continues.  Aside from the partnering going on, the Obama administration, according to the Fact Sheet, intends

1) to appoint the first-ever senior level, full-time CVE Coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security.  {And I, for one, could hardly be more grateful.}

2)  to spend 15 million dollars (!) for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to support community-led efforts to build resilience and an additional 3.5 million in National Institute of Justice research and evaluation grants to address domestic radicalization; a workshop with the creative arts community and community leaders in Los Angeles to develop innovative, scalable and implementable programs and tools to Counter Violent Extremism.

3)  to lead a workshop with the creative arts community of Los Angeles.  {Who better, after all, to Counter Violent Extremism than southern Californian poets and graffiti artists?}

4)  to sponsor a joint DHS and DOJ symposium for local partners to collaborate and share best practices.

5)  to join Canada and the United Kingdom to bring together researchers from four robust and comprehensive research programs.

We also learn that the United Nations is very much involved in the effort to Counter Violent Extremism and that "Ministers from nearly 70 countries, the UN Secretary-General, senior officials from other multilateral bodies, and representatives from civil society and the private sector will gather during the Ministerial segments of the Summit to develop a comprehensive action plan against violent extremism."

You have to give the Obama administration credit.  They actually managed to earn the cooperation not only of the United Nations, but of 70 countries!

The administration also intends to use social media to offer a positive narrative to counter someone else's less than positive narrative.  This is so that young people can go on Facebook and come to understand that while burying random children alive might be fun and exciting, it tends to diminish one's employment possibilities for the future.

Finally, in "September 2013, President Obama launched Stand with Civil Society, a global call to action to support, defend, and sustain civil society."

And there you have it!

This is the Strategy for Countering Violent Extremism.

I feel confident that neither the Ku Klux Klan, nor the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), can possibly stand up to the Strategy.

{Don't you?}

Why is Obama so Afraid of Benjamin Netanyahu?

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under.}

Barack Obama seems terrified of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu received an invitation to speak before Congress concerning the Iranian threat from Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, and he accepted.

The problem is that Obama suspects that Netanyahu will stress the idea that Iran should not be allowed to achieve nuclear break-out capacity, while Barack Obama seems to think that Iran should be left alone to achieve that capacity, while he seeks to normalize and legitimize American relations with Islamists.

Barack Obama is terrified that Americans might agree with Netanyahu's commonsensical notion that the West should not allow a hostile Islamic theocracy, that has regularly threatened both Israel and the United States with death, to enrich uranium for the purpose of making a bomb.

Obama, needless to say, has reminded us that the Ayatollahs claim no interest in constructing nuclear weaponry.  And while Obama may be a deeply trusting and kind-hearted soul, those of us with an inclination toward self-defense may be a tad more skeptical.

Thus, in order to prevent Netanyahu from speaking, or to undermine his credibility with both Congress and the American public, Obama has ordered his people away from the speech and is encouraging anyone who will listen to do likewise.

Obama has such a disregard for the American Jewish community - despite (or, perhaps, because of) their servant-like devotion - that reports are now emerging that Obama intends to snub AIPAC.

The Jerusalem Post tells us:

Michael Oren addressed on Saturday media reports that the White House may boycott the upcoming AIPAC conference in an attempt to undermine Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Congress address, calling AIPAC a "strategic asset" to the State of Israel whose status "must not be harmed." 

"Should the American government choose to boycott AIPAC," Oren said, "it will essentially choose to boycott its strategic alliance with Israel."

Barack Obama is so petrified of Benjamin Netanyahu that he is even willing to throw Jewish support in the trash merely to undercut the ability of the Prime Minister to communicate with the American public.

All this gibberish concerning "protocol" is merely the lame excuse the administration is giving in order to justify the snub.  Just what justification the administration will give for snubbing AIPAC has yet to be seen, but whatever the justification, if Obama wanted to attend AIPAC he would.  If he wanted to send senior administration officials, he would do that.

And if he wants the Democratic Party to send a clear message to its Jewish constituency that neither the administration, nor the party, are to be trusted by the Jewish people, then he will do that and that is precisely what he is doing.

Year by year, Barack Obama has shown himself to be a much better friend to political Islam (Islamism) then he is to the American Jewish community, or Jewish people more broadly.

Barack Obama and his people demean and insult the Prime Minister of Israel, even going so far as to anonymously call him "chickenshit" in what has to be one of the least professional examples diplomatic hostility and malfeasance in recent U.S. history.

The reason that Obama dislikes Netanyahu has very little to do with Netanyahu, himself.  This president would not like any Jewish Israeli leader that believes in Israeli self-defense, because no Jewish Israeli leader - left, right, or center - would favor a deal that leaves Iran with nuclear break-out capacity.

All Obama hopes to do is kick the can down the road so that when he leaves office Iran will not yet have the bomb.  The fact that he will leave them with the capacity to get the bomb shortly thereafter seems not the least bit troubling to this president.

Fortunately, it is troubling to Benjamin Netanyahu and whether Obama likes it or not - and he emphatically does not - Netanyahu is going to tell the world that allowing for a nuclear Iran is both irresponsible and criminally insane.

If Obama was hoping to keep Democratic Congresspeople away from Netanyahu's speech, he seems to have failed.   Less than two dozen of 188 Democratic representatives have agreed to stay away from Netanyahu's speech and that means that the great majority of Congress will be in the gallery listening to every word.

One has to wonder how it is that Barack Obama, a man who was once president of the Harvard Law Review, could be so afraid of spreading the idea that Iran should not be allowed to gain nuclear weaponry?  That is pretty much all Netanyahu is likely to say, after all.  Nothing that the man is likely to say to Congress will be earth-shattering or new.

If I am right - and I suspect that I am - all we are going to hear from Netanyahu are reasons why a nuclear-armed Iran is a terrible idea, not the least which reason is that it will lead to Middle Eastern arms race with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, not to mention Turkey and perhaps even Jordan, scrambling to gain their own nuclear weapons.

Obama is manufacturing hatred toward both Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish State of Israel, and thereby Jews more generally, merely because Netanyahu is going to plea to the American people to support Israel in preventing Iranian nuclear break-out capacity.

If Obama believes otherwise, he should allow Netanyahu to speak and then clearly tell the American public just how it is the Netanyahu is mistaken.

If the president of the United States cannot even bring himself to refute such an argument, then how can we possibly trust him to refute Iranian nuclear potential?

Finally, for Barack Obama to snub Netanyahu on the grounds that meeting so close to the Israeli election would amount to interfering with that election is the very height of hypocrisy.  Everyone who follows Israel knows that the Obama administration has sent a team into Israel for the purpose of unseating the despised Netanyahu in favor of a US puppet like Herzog or Livni.

Obama likes his Jews soft and malleable.

Elder of Ziyon Column Preview

Michael L.

My column at the Elder's Joint tomorrow, usually published at 11 AM EST, is entitled The Daily Kos "Jew Rule."

Here is a tid-bit:

As a progressive-left political blog, Daily Kos is infested with anti-Zionists and encourages what one participant has dubbed the Jew Rule.  In The Jew Rule on Daily Kos, "dhonig" reminds us that for many participants when Jews are murdered by Jihadis in Europe, ultimately it is Israel's fault for allegedly being mean to the perfectly innocent, bunny-like "indigenous" population.

Of course when some horrendous maniac in North Carolina shoots up three young Muslims no one would suggest that ultimately it's the fault of the Islamic State or Saudi Arabia.

Anti-Israel mentality in Democrats and others

by oldschooltwentysix

A view held by most at this site is that an anti-Israel mentality has occupied a disproportionate space in the Democratic Party, especially among progressive activists and filtered down to those that follow Democratic politics. Others scoff at the notion. It is just the fringe, they say, not the "mainstream" Democrats.

Here is more fodder in the matter. Back in 2003, current State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf wrote a college honors thesis entitled, The Religious Right in American Support for Israel. According to her former professor, it was about how conservative evangelical support for Israel complicates U.S. foreign policy.

The theme about how evangelicals really don't care about Israel is a tired one that loyal progressives like to trot out whenever pro-Israel Christians enter the fray. As if these people did not think that Israel and America are siblings in shared values. Or that Israel is good for American security and profits the world. These people are not killing Jews, either, or creating so much of the violence we see today, despite their "ulterior" motives.

We should not forget that they are social conservatives, however, which to many Democrats translates into bad people. They are despised by some, even more than Netanyahu!

Can one be more mainstream Democrat than Ms. Harf? If only the evangelicals would tell the truth about their intentions, then Israel would have less support and U.S. foreign policy toward Israel would be less complicated. The argument that this is just a fringe seems weakened.

But there is more concerning the anti-Israel mentality. Harf has a journalistic background, too. She wrote for the Indiana Daily Student and then became a media spokesperson for the CIA before the State Department, and says her training has helped her to deal with the press.

Often there is a confluence in the anti-Israel mentality between progressive Democrats and journalists. This is not surprising. They run in the same circles, along with many in academia. And it allows an opportunity to include the video of Matti Friedman's excellent speech in the UK to BICOM on January 26. The text is here.

How well Friedman describes those journalists and others, like Ms. Harf, that have been informed in such a way that they stress jobs for Jew hating terrorists and believe if only Israel would go away, so would most all these problems.

Ironically, while evangelicals pray for the end of Israel, others actually work to bring that end.



A surreal mentality that uses Israel, the only Jewish state, as the fulcrum of an immoral world is immoral itself, especially when one considers the treatment of the Jewish people by the non-Jewish world, and that Israel is among the best places in treating minorities. The disparate treatment in other contexts would be called illegal discrimination. Until this mentality is repudiated, there will be little actual progress. These purveyors will keep making the same mistakes, driven by their prejudice, then wonder why hate and violence persists.

Dabiq Magazine

Michael L.

Most westerners only first heard of the Islamic State (or ISIS or ISIL) - and its joyous psycho-sexual orgy of beheadings and crucifixions and burying children alive and the raping of young girls, and so forth - within the last few months.

If anyone doubts the depths unto which humanity is capable of sinking, there is nothing like the mass beheadings of Christians to really snap one out of one's vegetable torpor.

In any case, there is much confusion about who these people are and just what they want.

Thankfully, they seem perfectly content to tell us precisely who they are and what they want and are even publishing a glossy magazine called Dabiq which the Clarion Project has available in English:

It portrays the Islamic State as they see themselves: boasting of their victories and painting a romantic image of the restoration of an Islamic golden age and the heralding of a "glorious" new caliphate based on holy war.

Dabiq is a place in Syria that is supposed to be the location for one of the final battles according to certain Muslim myths about a final apocalypse. Choosing such a name for the magazine highlights the caliphate's goals.

Dabiq # 1 declares the Caliphate!

That is very big news for very many people all around the world.

The first issue of Dabiq, "The Return of Khilafah" is focused on the declaration of the caliphate and what that means. Some of the ideology behind the group is explained in an attempt to persuade more Muslims to join. It also explains the name of the magazine, and boasts of ISIS' victories. It also talks about efforts made to build support among local tribal groups, reporting their pledges of loyalty to Abu Bakr al-Baghadi, the self-appointed caliph of the Islamic State.

Listening to the Obama administration talk about ISIL, one can be forgiven for perhaps getting the impression that they are just a random group of maniacs who have come together in Iraq and Syria for the sole purpose of killing people and causing mayhem.  The administration seems to think that if we can just somehow get them useful employment then they'll stop burning people alive in cages.

My suspicion is that Obama is indulging himself in a pipe-dream, but one thing that it is necessary to understand is how theologically-driven this movement really is.  You cannot defeat them without understanding them and you cannot understand them without seeing them as they see themselves and the key to that is their religious ideology.

The Atlantic has an exceedingly important article by Graeme Wood entitled, What ISIS Really Wants that is a must-read for those concerned about the rise of this fun-filled organization.  (Hat tip to the Elder.)  Wood writes:

The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.

Wood, it should be noted, is skeptical that a military approach should be the primary approach in how the West deals with these people.  He believes that given the groups ideological rigidity it contains the seeds of its own deterioration and demise, but that we need to understand the Islamic nature of the movement if we are to hasten that demise, rather than inadvertently encourage its growth.

Obama's desire to shield Muslims, in general, from the unjust consequences of being associated with Jihadism is perfectly understandable.  But to deny the Koranically-based, apocalyptic sensibility of this heinous religious-political movement is to misunderstand it completely.

More importantly, to not understand and articulate to the American people that it controls a landmass greater than the size England, is something of a betrayal.

It is also akin to leaping into a boxing ring blindfolded.

In any case, I suspect that Dabiq is going to be a terrific source of information, entertainment, and humor going forward.

You should check it out.  It's bright and shiny.

Murdering Words

geoffff

An article at New Matilda by an Australian academic on something he proves to be very much outside his field. How often do you see that?

In this case the something is freedom of speech. Also geopolitics and the notion of racism.

As a consequence the professor has flung one of the laziest smears of racism that you will see anywhere.The logic will astound you. 

He does not leave it at that. He makes this reflex allegation in a piece in which he contends that freedom of speech is stunted for some by the Prime Minister because Abbott is exercising his right to respond in full force to critiques. Doing his job, anyone else would say. Just as every other PM has since time immemorial. This is called liberal democracy. Fortunately there is still quite a lot of it around.

This is a complaint that the principle of free speech in Australia is warped and restricted by prejudice in an article where the writer smears the PM as a racist. With respect, the professor has had an irony bypass. So many of them have.The very presence of his piece disproves his point. How often do you see that?

How else to explain a phenomenon like Noam Chomsky, for instance. His malign influence in the West is confined to the universities, wider elsewhere, but no one can deny he flourishes under the political culture he has spent a long and prolific career denouncing. His very presence disproves everything he says. There is some kind of dead hand over the minds of the intellectual and academic left that blinds out entirely the main points. 

Part of the problem with the academic left has to be that they have breathed in the freedoms and virtues of our political culture so deep into their bones for so long and for so many generations they have long forgotten the meaning of powerful ideas such as freedom of speech. The abundance and fortune of fresh air freedom has gone to the head. The free air is invisible so it is completely out of mind.  

They need to get out more or something. 

A reply, slightly edited, follows. Here is the professor's article.

Freedom In Abbott's Australia: Did Someone Say Racism?

By Carl Rhodes

Keywords: 

professor carl rhodes

tony abbott

grong grong

prince philip

It seems freedom of speech is a pretty subjective thing in Team Australia, suggests Professor Carl Rhodes.

There has a lot been said in 2015 about freedom of speech. In the wake of the Hedbo massacre in Paris pundits and politicians have been hailing it as a central value of democracy.

Never one to pass up on the opportunity to breathe life into his faltering ratings in the opinion polls, Tony Abbott stepped up with vigour. Condemned were the ‘Islamists’ for their hatred of democratic freedom.

Even more recently, after bullets were showered over a Copenhagen café hosting satirical cartoonist Lars Vilks, Abbott was on the front foot proclaiming that “the Copenhagen attack is an affront to one of our most fundamental values - freedom of speech”.

Abbot is clearly making a distinction between who he sees as the ‘us’ and the ‘them’. When he speaks of ‘our’ values it is quite clear who is included and excluded by this possessive pronoun.

When Stephen Hicks shot and killed three Muslim students in the United States earlier this month, Abbott was not rushing to the press gallery to condemn terrorism. He was silent.

The freedom Abbott speaks of appears only to be one that is to be directed against terrorists who he can associate with Islam. Terrorism in Africa and Pakistan is off Abbott’s radar. So is the Islamic condemnation of what he refers to with rhetorical flourish as the ‘Islamic State death cult’.

Did someone say racism? Abbott stands up proud and righteous when condemning Islamic terrorists, but there is no comment when it comes to white terrorists. It seems that the freedom of speech that Abbott himself exercises is most selective. It is reserved for defending Western victims against non-western terrorists.

Continues here.

A reply:

geoffff
Posted Friday, February 20, 2015 - 17:49

This is the most sustained, confused piece on the idea of freedom of speech out of a university in memory.

Nothing in it makes any sense at all. It is striking how often you can say that about an article written by an academic on something even marginally outside their field. It is even more striking that so many attempt it. That alone inspires ungenerous speculation. Why do they do that?  

Let us be clear about this. Freedom of speech does not imply some sort of right to be indulged. Speak up by all means. By doing so you may be confirming only that you are an idiot. Others have the right and freedom to say so and why. That is not a curtailment of your freedom. What you appear to be suggesting is that your freedom of speech depends on somebody else's being suppressed.  

What is this? Freedom of speech for you and those you agree with but not for any critics? Otherwise your freedoms are impinged? Your critiques are good.The PM's, doing his job, and calling it as sees it, are bad?  

Freedom of speech does not infer an obligation on others to take you seriously or even to listen. Speak out if you want. Whether anyone takes any notice of you is their business and theirs alone. If they and the government choose to ignore you, outside of some formal process, then that is entirely their prerogative.

Freedom of speech does not create an obligation to speak.  Perhaps you think Abbott should have said something about that terrible crime in North Carolina but the fact he did not hardly has anything to do with freedom of speech. How on earth do you figure it has? Whose? His? Yours?

Once you raise the North Carolina crime then you have lost the argument. You have merely confirmed you have nothing on the subject worth hearing; and this is an exercise of the freedom to say so. Suck it up or ignore it. The choice is entirely yours. No offence but no one else cares. This is known as freedom. .

The crime in the US, as shocking as it was, was committed by some hateful gun nut against people he knew. Neighbours. What exactly motivated this known nutter may emerge in the trial but it isn't difficult to imagine some form of hatred played a role. But what  truly distinguishes it from the crimes of political Islam is that the monster was immediately grabbed by the state, taken out of circulation and will be subjected to the full force of due process that, this  being North Carolina, will likely mean that  the killer will be on trial for his life.

No one is speaking up in his defence. No one is trying to explain, understand, excuse or justify this crime. Of course he will have a lawyer at trial who will do her important job. However this is a man who has seen his last sun. He is buried forever in one way or another. 

To pick out this single event from abroad and present it as some kind of counterweight to the daily dump of atrocities committed in the sweep of political Islam across the globe has to be some kind of fresh genus of delusion. Maybe an old delusion driven to a new height. Abbott ignored this horrible crime because it is irrelevant to what he was talking about.

Terrorism in Afghanistan and Africa are not under anybody's radar.  On the contrary.There too, terrorism is savage and rampant, also driven by Islamist ideology that inspire gangs and insurgencies that have put Australian service personnel  in harm's way for years. Whose radar is that under? 

The suggestion that Abbott is a racist because the killer in North Carolina was a "white man", and his victims Muslims, is actually disgraceful.  Loose allegations of racism, like loose allegations of antisemitism, are contemptible.

This is a loose allegation of racism if there ever was one. 

An unhelpful contribution at a bad time. There is something very unpleasant going down in our universities. It's about time it was called. 

cross posted geoffff's joint

                     Jew Down Under    

Jewish Palestinians

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under.}

Here is a question.  If there are Palestinian Muslims and there are Palestinian Christians, how is it that there are no Palestinian Jews?

Here is a possible answer.

Prior to 1948 the Jews of the British Mandate of Palestine referred to themselves as "Palestinian" in a manner not unsimilar to the way that I refer to myself as a "Californian."  The Jerusalem Post was the Palestine Post, the Israeli Opera was the Palestine Opera and so forth and, therefore, the Arabs did not use that attribution.  It was only after the formal establishment of Israel that the Arabs could start comfortably calling themselves "Palestinian" and most did not do so until the late 1960s.

{In this way, I am myself older than are the "Palestinians" as a people.}

So much of our approach to understanding the Arab war against the Jews is trapped in outmoded tendencies of thought that are buttressed by loaded terminology derived from the so-called "Palestinian narrative."  "West Bank," for example, always leaps to mind.  The very term "West Bank" deletes 4,000 years of Jewish history on Jewish land, yet it is used daily by almost everyone who discusses the ongoing war.

The term "Palestinian" - a word that means "conqueror," by the way - serves a similar function, except inside out and backwards.  If "West Bank" erases Jewish history, "Palestinian" invents a distinct nation, with a contrived history, where no such nation was previously understood to exist.  "Palestine" is simply a word that the Romans used to rename Judea and Samaria after the Philistines.  Once the Romans destroyed and scattered the Jewish remnant in the First Century CE they renamed Judea and Samaria (or Yehuda and Shomron in the Hebrew, if you prefer) after the ancient enemies of the Jewish people.

In the twentieth-century, of course, "Palestine" referred to the British Mandate of Palestine.  In this way "Palestine" was merely considered a region or a district and the people who called themselves "Palestinians" were mainly the Jewish residents of the area.  The term was never meant to denote a distinct ethnicity or nation any more than, say, Saharan represents a distinct ethnicity or nation.

Or, for that matter, Californian.

Everyone who resides in the state of California is a "Californian."  No specific ethnic group who live here get to decide that they, and only those of their choosing, can legitimately refer to themselves as "Californian."  Any effort to legalize such ridiculous distinctions would be laughed directly out of the halls of Sacramento.

The biggest mistake that Israel ever made was in recognizing a newly formed and allegedly separate group of Arab-Muslims who started calling themselves "Palestinian."  From a historical stand-point there never was any such distinct people until Arafat and the Soviets conjured them up toward the end of the twentieth-century for the specific purpose of challenging Jewish claims to historically Jewish land.

Before that the local Arabs and Muslims - many, if not most of whom, hailed from surrounding regions - defined themselves according to ethnicity, as Arab, according to religion, as Muslim, and according to both family and tribe.  What they did not do is define themselves as "Palestinians" because until 1948 they generally considered the "Palestinians" to be Jews.

The historical prestidigitation performed by Arafat and friends is nothing short of remarkable and is truly a testament to long-term thinking and creative anti-statesmanship.  They had a specific goal, to obliterate and replace Jewish sovereignty on the land where Jews come from.  In order to accomplish this goal the PLO started referring to the local Arabs as "Palestinians" and once that was accepted by the international community it became easy to suggest that the indigenous Palestinian people are under the jack-boot of Zionist imperialism and oppression... or however else one might wish to formulate the anti-Semitic, because anti-Zionist, talking points.

So, yes, everyone who resides in the former British Mandate of Palestine is "Palestinian," if we insist on using outmoded and counterproductive terms of expression.  But if we must use the term "Palestinian" than we should make it clear that this recent social construction of an identity is entirely "racist" and discriminatory in its essence because those who claim that identity do so in an exclusionary manner.

Not that Jews want to be "Palestinian," of course, but everyone who resides in what was the British Mandate of Palestine is, in that sense, a "Palestinian."

Muslims Volunteer to Protect Synagogue in Norway

Michael L.

Writing in the Times of Israel, Stuart Winer tells us:

In the wake of a deadly shooting attack at a synagogue in Denmark last week, a group of Norwegian Muslims intends to hold an anti-violence demonstration at an Oslo synagogue this coming weekend by forming a “peace ring” around the building.

One of the event organizers, 17-year-old Hajrad Arshad, explained that the intention was to make a clear statement that Muslims don’t support anti-Semitism.

“We think that after the terrorist attacks in Copenhagen, it is the perfect time for us Muslims to distance ourselves from the harassment of Jews that is happening,” Arshad told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK in an interview cited by The Local News website on Tuesday.

She noted that the group aimed to “extinguish the prejudices people have against Jews and against Muslims.”

Sometimes it is necessary to give credit where credit is due and young Hajrad Arshad, and his people, deserve great credit for this initiative.

If we had more Hajrad Arshad's around I would close up this blog and go write about fishing or food.

Hoping for Hate

Michael L.

Much of the Left is hoping for hate.

Three young Muslim Americans were murdered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, near the university of.

According to BBC.com:

Police say that Craig Hicks, 46, carried out the shootings as a result of a parking dispute.

But they have not ruled out the possibility that the killings may have been motivated by religious hatred.

At least 12 firearms were taken from Mr Hicks's home after he handed himself in to be arrested, police say.

He is reported to have described himself online as a "gun-toting" atheist.

Yet for reasons that I can merely speculate about much of the Left has decided that this was a "hate crime."  That is, many people on the progressive-left - millions of Americans - are utterly convinced that Craig Hicks killed those young people simply because they were Muslim.

I spoke with a close friend of mine yesterday who works at Stanford University and who is a highly intelligent and thoughtful person who told me that she believed it was a hate crime and that there was no point in even discussing it because her mind was made-up on the matter.

I simply looked at her and said, "Well, many millions of people agree with you."

But I do not get it.

A white guy killed three Muslim Americans.

Must that automatically mean that he killed them because they were Muslim Americans?

I would not make that assumption were they Jewish.  I would wonder, certainly, and I would look to see what evidence is out there, but I would not automatically leap to that conclusion unless there were cries of "Alahu Akbar" and the sound of automatic rifle fire.

This is not to say that bigotry was not a contributing factor.  We know that Hicks despised religion and although hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people are combing his Face Book page, I have not seen anything to indicate that he singled out Islam.

I am, however, in this case, less interested in Mister Hicks than I am interested in just why it is that so many people feel a need to hope for hate.

The people in the photo above are mourning the loss of Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha.

Yusor and Razan were a young married couple starting out in life and they were slaughtered by a maniac.  Hicks may be a bigoted maniac, but a maniac he is and he will never see a day of freedom again in his life, if our system of justice is related to justice.

But the fact of the matter is that there is no reason to assume that this was a hate crime.  It may very well have been, but there is nothing, thus far, to suggest that Hicks killed these young people because they were Muslim.

FBI Hate Crime Statistics in the United States from 2011 show that among hate crimes, by religion, 63.2 percent were victims of anti-Jewish bias, while a mere 12.5 percent were victims anti-Islamic bias.

The question then becomes, why does the Left assume that American Muslims are subject to widespread anti-Muslim bigotry while almost entirely dismissing the far more significant statistical presence of anti-Jewish bigotry?

Why do so many on the Left seem to hope for hate for some and downplay it for others?

In other words, what are the acceptable boundaries for malice within the western Left?

Adelle Biton Z"L

 JayinPhiladelphia

Adva and Adelle Biton; Arutz Sheva

The four-year old terror victim who was stoned by Arabs two years ago, as a two-year old, simply for being Jewish in the land where Jews come from, has passed away.

Adelle was critically wounded in March 2013, when the family car was attacked outside of Ariel in Samaria by Arab terrorists, who hurled rocks at the vehicle and caused it to veer off the road and crash headfirst into a truck.

The fist-sized rock struck Adelle directly in the head, leaving the two-year-old baby critically wounded and in mortal danger. Doctors said her recovery from the blow was nothing short of miraculous.

Adelle had been in and out of the hospital since in a grueling rehabilitation period.

Rocks kill.  May her murderers, and those who support such 'resistance,' never know a moment of peace again.