NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View of Jupiter

Nice Terrorism?

Michael L.

The mainstream media and the politicians never cease to amaze me.

In virtually every terrorist attack that we have in the United States, or the West, more generally, there has been a great reluctance to use the term "terrorism" much less "radical Islamic terrorism."

Fort Hood, an obvious terror attack, was dubbed "work place violence" by Ostrich-in-Chief, Barack Obama.

When Omar Mateen shot up the Gay nightclub in Orlando he admitted to a 911 officer over the phone that he was a follower of ISIS big shot, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which means, pretty much by definition, that Orlando was a Jihadi attack. Nonetheless, people blamed a sort-of generalized American homophobic bigotry or some nefarious "gun culture" promoted by the NRA or, you know... Republicans.

And, yet, in the hours directly after the horrific Nice attack, yesterday, everybody was using the term "terrorism" to describe this attack. The great irony is that this may be the one that actually is NOT a terror attack.

It might very well be, but we do not know that yet.

For Nice to be considered terrorism there must be an ideological basis, religious or otherwise, for Mohamed Lagouaiej Bouhlel's aggression. It is not enough that 84 people were needless run down by this crazed maniac behind the wheel of a big white truck. For this to be considered terrorism it must be shown that Bouhlel did it for ideological and/or religious and/or political reasons and, so far, we do not have that information.

It may be forthcoming as I write, but all we know at this point is that the killer was French-Tunisian with a criminal record. He was very likely of Muslim descent, but that does not meet the standard for determining terrorism.

It might also be that he was simply stone cold crazy and this might have nothing whatsoever to do with the Jihad... but I still would not bet on it.

Below is a brief audio file of me discussing the horror above.

A Significant Point of Difference between the Elder of Ziyon and Abu Yehuda

Michael L.

There is a distinct point of disagreement between the Elder of Ziyon and Vic Rosenthal of Abu Yehuda that seems worthy of discussion.

I follow both of these writers for the obvious reason that both write for the EoZ, as do I.

Rosenthal has a piece from Monday, July 4, entitled, "How to talk to Jews about Israel."

In reference to the overall pro-Israel discussion, Rosenthal writes:

Quite a few years ago, I went to a meeting in San Francisco about Israel advocacy, sponsored by the ADL (when the ADL was still interested in Israel advocacy). One of the speakers suggested a form of triage: there are those that are strongly against us, those that are strongly with us and those that haven’t decided. Talk to the ones that are undecided, he said. {My emphases - ML.}

Four points.

There are:

1) Those that are strongly against us.

2) Those that are strongly with us.

3) Those who haven't decided.

Conclusion:

4) Talk to the ones who haven't decided.

This is precisely what the Elder and Michael Burd of J-AIR's Nothing Left radio broadcast concluded if you click through onto about the 22 minute mark.

However, in his recent piece Rosenthal believes that he was mistaken to try to convince the "undecideds."

He writes:

My personal approaches were, if anything, more frustrating. People were polite, but noncommittal. As time went on, I realized that they weren’t uninterested; rather, they sensed that my position wasn’t shared by many Democratic politicians, NPR and the New York Times. They suspected that I was influenced by Republican ideas or even becoming a Republican myself. I realized, in 1960s slang, that they were shining me on. 

Anything I said was tainted and could be ignored.

"Shining me on"?

That's a phrase that was not used when I was coming up, but the point is well-taken.

Rosenthal directly contradicts the Elder and Michael Burd because believes that few such creatures known as the "undecided" exist via the conflict.

It soon became clear that there weren’t very many ‘undecideds’. There were those that were pro-Israel, those that were against us, and those that would not listen because being pro-Israel was out of their political comfort zone.

Therefore, Rosenthal concludes that pro-Israel / pro-Jewish advocates should de-emphasize - at least somewhat - the Jewish tendency to reason with unreasonable people.

He writes:

The best thing that pro-Israel American Jews can do is to exemplify Jewish pride, self-respect and self-reliance (like the Jewish state itself). Trying to be ‘Americans of the Mosaic persuasion’ is not a good strategy, as Jewish students are discovering. They should act like Jews, representatives of the people whose roots are in ancient Judea.

So, the question is, do we as pro-Israel / pro-Jewish advocates seek to convince the "undecideds" or do we stiffen our spines and exemplify Jewish pride?

Or is that a false dichotomy?

Thesis > Anti-Thesis > Synthesis.

I say we do both.

Nothing Left # 107 (Updated to include audio and transcript)

Michael L.

Michael Burd and Alan Freedman have these exceedingly interesting individuals up for conversation today.

Jeremy Jones (AIJAC), Uri Silberman, Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, Gary Mallin, Mike Lumish, and Isi Leibler.

You should definitely give it a listen.

The guys have been generous enough to give me five minutes per week to have my say in the world and we'll see what we want to do with it.

This week, as part of my series concerning the failures of progressive-left Zionism, I focus on the tendency among hard-left Jewish Zionists, like those of the J-Street variety, to blame Jews who building housing for themselves and their children beyond the "green line" for Arab-Muslim refusal to make peace.

I think that we need more in the way of Jewish community radio, which is precisely what these guys are up to in Melbourne.

Update:

Here is my bit with the raw, unedited transcript below:



Heya guys, this is Michael Lumish of Israel Thrives, that Israel dash thrives dot blogspot dot com as well as Shirlee Finn's place over at Jews Down Under and a regular contributor to the Elder of Ziyon blog.

And you spoke with the Elder just last week and I was very interested to listen in on that conversation. The Elder definitely has his pulse on the cutting edge of Jewish political concerns and concerns around the security of the State of Israel.

I don't know exactly from where the Elder does his work, but I am speaking with you from Oakland California and I want to thank you guys for the opportunity to continue this series and want to discuss some fundamental criticisms that I have with the western Jewish left.

Last week I spoke about my first criticism of the western Jewish left, and really the western-left more generally, and that is an ideological inability to acknowledge the rise of the Jihad as a political movement not only throughout the Middle East, but throughout the world.

Orlando was a Jihadi attack and anyone who imagines otherwise is burying his or her head directly in the sand... like an Ostrich.

If Donald Trump manages to wander into the White House it will, at least in part, be because he is willing to acknowledge the enemy and SEEMS willing, at least, to take the fight to the bastards.

However, my second criticism of the Jewish Left, and the one that I want to focus upon today, is in the Jewish Left tendency to whip up hatred toward other Jews.

This is precisely what the comfy-cozy Jewish progressive-Left does in places like San Francisco or the Upper West Side of Manhattan or ensconced within any number of universities throughout Europe and the United States when they bitch and moan and whine and complain about Jews daring to live in Samaria or, excuse me, Judea?

The very land where Jewish people come from?

So I am to understand that both Mahmoud Abbas and US president Barack Obama think that it is something akin to a war crime if Jews build housing for themselves on the very land of our ancestors?

I mean, if the Jewish Left honestly believes that Israel - between the river and the sea - is conducting an Occupation - with a capital O - as if it is the Great Mother of all Other Occupations - an occupation of the peace-loving, olive-growing, indigenous Arab population then the conversation is over.

There is no conversation to be had because what much of the Jewish Left, essentially, is telling the world is that the Jews of the Middle East are a bunch of land thieves and their supporters throughout the diaspora are corrupt and heartless beneficiaries of an unjust occupation and of the persecution of the indigenous owners of quote unquote historic Palestine.

What this means, of course, is that as the diaspora Jewish left tends to hold our friends beyond the green - such as, for example, Yosef Hartuv who operates the Love of the Land blog out of Hebron - in contempt they are simultaneously providing both the Arabs and the rest of the world with a justification for Arab-Muslim bloodlust toward the Jewish people.

This is a deadly mistake.

Y'know, the Elder was in Israel last week and for all I know he is still there but he has a piece from Wed July 6 entitled The American Jewish community has already embraced BDS against "settlements"

In that article he discusses Ariel University which he describes as a beautiful campus with about 15,000 students, including many hundreds of Arab students who regularly dialogue with Jewish students through various student organizatons.

It has the only free electron laser particle accelerator in the entire Middle East.

How do you like that??

I don't know what it means, but it certainly sounds all scientific.

free electron laser particle accelerator, huh?

I had no idea that there were such things as unfree electrons.

In any case, the point of the Elder's article was to point out that pro-Israel Jewish groups from the US refuse to visit Ariel University.

Why?

Because it is beyond the green line.

Ariel University, even for AIPAC even for Birthright, represents those bad Jews over there.

J Street, which is essentially an enemy of the Jewish state, dropped in for the purpose of getting a gander at their ideological foes.

Christian groups from the US visit when they are in Israel because, unlike J Street, they actually are friends of Israel but the supposedly pro-Israel / pro-Jewish left seemingly cannot bring itself to.

If even we do not think that we have any real right to our ancestral homeland, why would anyone expect anything else from the Brits or the Democrats?

Pew Poll Results: Liberal Democrats Prefer Palestinian-Arabs to Jews

Michael L.

{Also published at Jews Down Under.}

When, exactly, did the Long Arab War Against the Jews of the Middle East begin?

From a modern historical perspective these are the phases of the Arab-Muslim aggression against the Jewish people as is clear from the secondary sources.

Phases of the Long Arab War Against the Jews in the Middle East: 

Phase 1, 1920 - 1947: Riots and Massacres

Phase 2, November 1947 - April 1948: The Civil War in Palestine

Phase 3, 1948 - 1973: Conventional Warfare

Phase 4, 1964 - Present: The Terror War

Phase 5, 1975 - Present: The Delegitimization Effort

Some would argue that it started with Muhammad in the seventh-century around the time that the head-chopping tradition really got fashionable on the Arabian peninsula.

Others would suggest that it was a modern racist response to the Jewish people daring to return to, and build upon, Jewish land despite the fact that it had already been conquered by the invading Muslims. In this view, the 1920s, with its Arab riots and politically grounded pogroms in places like Hebron and Jerusalem, would represent an initiation point of the contemporary conflict.

The significance of non-Jews and non-Israelis to the never-ending war is obviously important. It should not be determinative; that is, what non-Jews think about Jews in the Middle East should not determine Israeli policy, but it has a significant effect and this is particularly true of the United States.

In my opinion, as an American, the US has too much influence with Israel and I am happy to see Israel - particularly during the Age of Obama - expanding its relationships across the globe from Africa to China to Latin America so that hostile American presidents, like Barack Obama, have a diminished influence on the lives of Middle Eastern Jews.

This is particularly true given the fact that the next president of the United States, like the current one, is probably going to be a liberal Democrat and recent polling shows that, for the first time, liberal Democrats prefer the Palestinian-Arab aggressors against the Jews of the Middle East.

According to a Pew Research study, published on May 4 of this year, 40 percent of liberal Democrats favor the Arabs in their war against the Jews, while only 33 percent favor the Jews.



These statistics are fairly remarkable given that for a century the Democratic Party has had no more loyal constituency than American Jewry.

Depending upon the level of American Jewish masochism and instilled self-doubt, this may begin to change. It certainly did with me. I come out of the tradition of the Democratic Party as molded by Franklin Roosevelt and bequeathed to me, and my post-Vietnam Era friends, via the New Left and the hodge-podge of its interests.

These included, of course, the anti-war movement, feminism, environmentalism, Gay rights, ethnic rights, and so forth.

When I was coming up as a kid I was a liberal Democrat and most of my friends tended to be liberal Democrats. For most of us this was probably less out of a conscious decision then merely representing the political environment that we grew up in. Most American young people, in the 1970s and 1980s from my part of the country, New York and New England, tended toward the Left.

However, I did what little I could do in recent years to warn the Democratic Party that if they continue to hate on Israel and provide venues of support for anti-Semitic anti-Zionists they would erode the support of American Jews.

It does not require genius to untangle the obvious.

Settlement Construction and the Criminalization of Jewish Life

Michael L.

{Also published at the Elder of Ziyon and Jews Down Under.}

Writing in Commentary magazine, Evelyn Gordon tells us:

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predictably assailed Israel’s announced decision to build 800 new apartments in Ma’aleh Adumim and eastern Jerusalem. He noted that just four days earlier, the Middle East Quartet (i.e. the U.S., EU, UN and Russia) had issued a report deeming settlement construction an obstacle to peace. What Ban didn’t mention is that just a few days before that report came out, a leading Israeli leftist expert on the settlements published a comprehensive rebuttal of this claim, providing facts and figures showing that the settlements effectively aren’t growing at all.

The sheer unbridled racism and arrogance of the international Left, of the EU, the UN, and the Obama administration never ceases to amaze.

They honestly want us to believe that Jews living upon, and thus building upon, land that we come from, and that was purchased, makes us thieves.

They honestly want us to believe that the land of our ancestors actually belongs to the Arab invaders of the seventh-century CE despite the fact that Israel was the land of the Jewish people millennia before Muhammad's armies showed up with their religious-imperialist ideology of head-chopping.

The hypocrisy is profound.

The Criminalization of Jewish Existence

Ban Ki-moon wants us to think that the decision to build 800 new apartments in Ma’aleh Adumim and the eastern section of Jerusalem somehow represents an obstacle to peace? How is this possible? If an Arab builds a home in the suburbs of Paris is that a war crime? Is that an obstacle to peace?

Should that Arab not be allowed to build on land that he has purchased because it is not "Arab land"?

Anyone who ever suggested any such thing would be knocked in the head as a stone-cold racist, but not if you suggest it about a Jew living in Judea!

If a Jew building a second bathroom for his family in the eastern part of Jerusalem, or anywhere in the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, is an obstacle to peace it is only because the Arabs and the EU and the UN and the Obama administration have made it an obstacle to peace. There is nothing unpeaceful about building on property that one has purchased and that is precisely what we are talking about.

They are criminalizing the mere Jewish presence on Jewish land because Jews cannot live on that land if they cannot build on that land. Does the Obama administration really want to tell the Jews of Judea that if they build an elementary school for their children that they are unethically imposing upon the rights of Arabs?

A Touch of History

The Arabs stormed out of their peninsula in the seventh-century, gobbled up the Middle East, almost took-over Europe, but were stopped at the "gates of Vienna" and thereby had to satisfy themselves merely with conquering the Iberian Peninsula.

Since that time they have conducted an ongoing genocide of both the Christians and the Jews in the Middle East and, yet, somehow, feel themselves morally aggrieved.

It is an astonishing long-term propaganda success story.

Arab-Muslim imperial aggression is historically the foremost example of imperial aggression in the world. It even, remarkably, overshadows imperial Roman expansion. Medieval Christian Europe responded to this Arab-Muslim aggression against their fellow Christians with what we call "the Crusades." In the West the Crusades are interpreted as a form of European malice that is often docketed with other atrocities, including the Holocaust.

The reason for this is because, since the Enlightenment, Europe and the West have undergone a remarkable transformation that has brought us from a primarily theological worldview to a primarily secular and scientific worldview. The secular and the scientific suggested a questioning stance toward the world. This questioning stance met with Jewish introspection and moral sensibilities to give us the West as we know it today.

{G-d help us.}

As we know, the Arab-Muslim world has not gone through such a reformation since the early days of the empire... when Islam stood atop the world. There was a time when Islamic societies led in science and discovery, but those days are long over and the reason for that is because Islam means "submission" - not "peace" as Obama would tell you - and submission by its nature must stifle free inquiry.

Ask Galileo.

Settlement Construction and the Racist Left

And this brings us back around to those uppity Jews, like my friend Yosef Hartuv of Love of the Land fame, and all the other hippie Jews like, say, Yishai Fleisher, who insist that we have every right to live in the land of our posterity. 

When racists like Barack Obama suggest that the Jewish people have no right to build on historically Jewish land they are resurrecting old, long established, medieval tropes that portray Jews as endless wanderers... as the Wandering Jew.

Somewhere in the introductory pages of A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz reminds us that early twentieth-century European Jews were told, and I paraphrase, "Get out of Europe! Go back to Palestine where you belong!"

Now we are told by leftist legends like former White House correspondent Helen Thomas to "get the hell out of Palestine."

The Jewish people are a long abused minority and we represent a whopping .02 percent of the world population.

Much of the Left often suggests that world peace is dependent upon making the Jews of the Middle East leap through imaginary hoops.

But the Day of the Dhimmi is Done.

My suspicion is that a growing number of Jewish people are getting tired of being pushed against the wall - for our own alleged well-being - by false friends like Barack Obama.

The real lesson of the Holocaust is that we must stand up for ourselves.