So, a Muhammad Ali walks into a Bar...

...Mitzvah.

But in a twist that illustrates the mosaic of American life, the onetime member of the Nation of Islam -- never considered a friendly group to the Jews -- happens to have a Jewish grandson. And that grandson, Jacob Wertheimer, recently became a Bar Mitzvah at Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Center City, with his grandfather in attendance. 

This is the best of America.  If only too many of my fellow online liberals weren't so viciously invested in knee-jerk reactionism against all things Jews and Israel, discourse would be just that much better these days.  I intend to post a couple of times a month here from this point on out, exploring this particular phenomenon, mostly from my main online home, the blogs at The Atlantic.

Anyway, this is just an intro post.  So, hello.

Has the Arab Spring Sprung a Leak?

Mike L.

So it seems.

The Washington Post reports:

Egypt’s high court nullifies parliamentary elections; military may take over lawmaking

CAIRO — Egypt’s highest court ruled Thursday that much of the country’s Islamist-dominated parliament was elected illegally, a decision that will force the dissolution of the legislative body and that plunged the country into turmoil on the eve of a landmark presidential election.

Local newspapers and Arabic television channels reported that Egypt’s military rulers would seize legislative power and planned to announce that the lower house was being disbanded.

So the military has decided that they do not want to live under al-Sharia and the courts are dissolving the lower house which is comprised almost fifty percent by the various Islamist factions, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood.

Of course, the Obama administration is continuing to lie to the American public by pretending that the rise of radical Islam throughout the Middle East, and in Egypt in particular, is actually a good thing because it allegedly represents the democratic will of the people.

"Throughout this process, the United States has stood in support of the aspirations of the Egyptian people for a peaceful, credible and permanent democratic transition," Clinton said at a news conference of the US and South Korean foreign and defense ministers.

"Now, ultimately it is up to the Egyptian people to determine their own future and we expect that this weekend's presidential election will be held in an atmosphere that is conducive to it being peaceful, fair and free," she added.

When is the administration going to get it through their skulls that the primary characteristic of these revolutions taking place throughout the Muslim Middle East are not about democracy, but about the rise of radical Islam?

Why are they so blithely accepting of the Muslim Brotherhood, when the Brotherhood has an historical provenance that goes directly to Nazi Germany?

In any case, this may very well lead to a civil war in Egypt. Great numbers of the Egyptian people want a Sharia-dominated government and they will not take kindly to the actions of the courts or the military.

We shall see what is going to be be, but Barry Rubin says this:

This event poses a huge problem for the Obama administration — and I’ll bet it caught them by surprise. Does the U.S. government condemn the military and put sanctions on it, demanding that the Muslim Brotherhood be put into power? There is no easy solution. But we are likely to have the strange situation of an American president fighting to put into power an anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic political force that is opposed to all U.S. interests, because — after all — they did win the election.

The Obama administration has no problem with radical Islam, for if it did it would oppose the Muslim Brotherhood, not just it's Qaeda offspring. This being the case, I am not so certain that the administration will find this a difficult choice and, indeed, Hillary Clinton's words above already demonstrate that the administration will stand with the Islamists against the Egyptian military and the Egyptian court system.

While most of us would like to see some form of secular democracy flourish in the Middle East, it should be obvious that, Israel aside, this is not going to happen any time soon and that merely favoring democracy even if that democracy brings fascism to power is just as foolish in this century as it was in the last.

As Rubin says, there is no easy solution, but supporting the contemporary iteration of Nazism as it has emerged in the Middle East is probably not in Americas best interest.

Perhaps someone should inform Barack Obama that Americans, generally speaking, oppose Nazism and oppose fascism and that if they really understood the nature of the Brotherhood Americans would oppose the Obama administration for its friendship with that genocidal movement.

I wouldn't hold my breath, however.

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By the way, the Brotherhood was founded in the 1920s, just as the Nazis were rising in Germany.

Sayyid Qutb, who wrote "Our Struggle with the Jews," was one of its most prominent ideological founders and here is a picture of him from back in the good old days.





Isn't that mustache cute on such a baby face?

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

The Two Faces of Barack Obama

Mike L.

In last week's meeting with Orthodox Jewish leadership Barack Obama claimed "that he had been consistent in his support for Israel throughout his first term as president." This is, of course, nonsense. The truth is that Obama's "support" for Israel, if we can call it that, is entirely capricious and inconsistent and one need only take a gander at his most recent actions regarding the Jewish state in order to see this.

In the last few days we have two separate incidences regarding President Barack Obama and the Jewish state of Israel that I find to be illustrative. On the hand, Obama awarded Shimon Peres the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which could indicate the president's respect for, and friendliness toward, the Jewish people and the Jewish state. On the other hand, at the insistence of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

The US blocked Israel's participation in the Global Counterterrorism Forum's (GCTF) first meeting in Istanbul on Friday, even though Israel has one of the most extensive experiences in counterterrorism in the world.

How friendly toward Israel can president Barack Obama be if he won't even allow Israel to participate in an international conference on counterterrorism, particularly given the fact that there is no country on the entire planet that suffers more from terrorism and, consequently, has the greatest expertise in counterterrorism? This is not the act of a friend or a close ally, but of a capricious politician who is more interested in catering to Islamic anti-Semitism than he is in promoting the normalization of a demeaned, but close ally to the United States.

The GCTF, one of the pillars of President Barack Obama's antiterrorism campaign, was established in September 2011. The White House calls the forum as a wise use of force against terrorism, and chose Turkey as the forum's joint chair, together with the US.

The White House chose Turkey as the counterterrorism forum's joint chair. Turkey? Is this the same Turkey that is turning away from the west and looking more and more in the direction of political Islam and the Islamist state of Iran? I believe it is. Is this the same Turkey that is demanding that Israel apologize for its own attack against that country? Why, yes. It is, in fact.

The GCTF sought from the outset to bridge old and deep divides in the international community between Western donor nations and Muslim majority nations. And it has, I think, done that quite effectively," said a top US official at the press briefing before the opening session.

Well, sure. Nothing helps to bridge the "deep divides" between Western nations and Muslim majority nations more than giving Israel a kick in the head, which is precisely what the Obama administration has been doing since it came into office. Obama's pattern has been to kick Israel in the head and then claim that the kicking was Israel's fault, usually for daring to build housing for Jewish people on historically Jewish land.  He then generally insinuates that the kick in the head is really in Israel's best interests and that the kicker, Barack Obama, is Israel's Best Friend Forever.

Many Jewish liberals buy into this lie simply because they would prefer to believe that the guy who they voted for really does hold Israel and the Jewish people with affection and respect. I voted for Barack Obama, too, but anyone not wearing ideological blinders, and who has followed this administration viz-a-viz Israel, knows that Obama is a capricious and unreliable ally to Israel, but ideology tends to trump honest assessments of reality. It is for this reason that the administration can tell Jews where we may, or may not, be allowed to live in the ancient Jewish city of Jerusalem and liberal diaspora Jews will simply yawn. They can't quite see the obvious injustice of it because widespread Jewish Stockholm Syndrome inclines them to believe that their fellow Jews in Israel are guilty of various offenses against humanity, against the Palestinians, against Jewish moral traditions, against common human decency, and are therefore in need of reigning in by the president of the United States.

Republican politicians claim that, since one third of the GCTF's members are Muslim countries, the Obama administration is trying to deepen ties with the Muslim world at Israel's expense.

Yes, what would give the Republicans any such crazy notion other than, perhaps, the actual behavior of the US president? Progressive-left diaspora Jews will tend to claim that the Republicans are making hay out of nothing in order to hurt Obama's electoral chances. They will do so despite the fact that it is a hallmark of this administration to reach out to America's enemies while disrespecting America's friends, particularly the Jewish state of Israel.

The awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Shimon Peres is an act of pandering. The administration still needs us (for the moment) in order to enhance Obama's reelection bid, but it is the betrayal of Israel at the Global Counterterrorism Forum in Istanbul which tells us the truth about this president and his dysfunctional, semi-hostile relationship with the state of Israel.

Giving away medals, like giving away belly rubs, is easy, effective, and almost entirely meaningless. Preventing Israel from joining with other countries in an effort to address the problem of terrorism, however, more closely represents the true modus operandi of this president.  But whether Obama wins or loses come November the American Jewish electorate needs to look at both faces of this president, not just the smiling one that gives out belly rubs, and scratches behind the ear, to a well-meaning, but often naive, liberal Jewish constituency.

This is What Jews Live with on the Left

Mike L.

LOL (0+ / 0-)

"Do not fuck with them unless you want your ass handed back to you "

I'm an American-American and I fuck with Israel every day in public opinion and with my politicians and haven't had my ass handed to me yet.

Israel is in reality a pipsqueak that couldn't survive without US support and protection...and that could end some day.

What you gonna do then? Hell you couldn't even whip rag tag Hezbollah. US pentagon military liaisons to Israel like Col. Lang have all describe your military as 'swat team' not a disciplined military force.

But go for it tough guy see if you can whip all your 'enemies" in the ME without the US.

I am all for you're trying it...''suicide is painless, it brings about many changes.''

"Something happens. Then you have to make a choice and take a side."...."The Quiet American", Graham Greene

by renfro on Wed Jun 13, 2012 at 09:39:07 AM PDT

He's laughing at the notion of Israeli Jewish suicide.

There is no other people on the entire planet in which open contempt is acceptable on the progressive-left other than open contempt for the Jewish people of the state of Israel, as well as their Jewish supporters in the diaspora. The exception is that of Evangelical Christians, which progressives tend to despise almost as much as they despise Jewish supporters of the Jewish state.

This is one small example of why I cannot support the progressive movement.

Spitting hatred at the Jews is OK on the left, but it's not OK with me.

"Progressive Zionists" may seek to pretend like its only a few fringe crazies within their movement, but if so those few fringe crazies also control much of the left-wing press, are decision makers at major universities, and increasingly represent the left-wing European mainstream.

Until Jewish liberals recognize, and somehow deal with, the hatred that is spreading toward them from within their own political movement, they will find themselves objects of contempt from the both the left and the right.

They are objects of contempt from the left, as we see above, for supporting the state of Israel.

They are objects of contempt on the right, or at least the Jewish right, because they also support a movement, the progressive movement, that tends to despise the Jewish state. This is the central contradiction in what it means to be a "progressive Zionist" and it is a problem that they studiously avoid addressing.

The price of admission into progressive-left circles, such as Daily Kos, if you openly support the Jewish state of Israel, is getting perpetually spit upon by your alleged allies.

I fail to see why any self-respecting (i.e., non-dhimmitudenous) Jew would put up with it.

When Will Progressives Acknowledge the Jihad?

Mike L.

What is it going to take for progressive-Zionists, in particular, to acknowledge the rise of radical Islam and to speak out against it? There are millions of children throughout the Middle East who are taught to despise Jews and the Jewish state of Israel in what is the most vociferous genocidal Jew-Hatred that we have seen since the rise of Nazi Germany.

Gaza kindergartners want to 'blow up Zionists'

Kids at Islamic Jihad kindergarten celebrate end of year by demonstrating how Palestinian prisoners are 'tortured' in Israel. Teacher: We educate them to love resistance, Palestine

This is not about Israeli policy or the so-called "occupation."  No.  It is about the unacceptability of Jewish sovereignty on any land that was at any time part of the Umma.

"It is our obligation to educate the children to love the resistance, Palestine and Jerusalem, so they will recognize the importance of Palestine and who its enemy is," the kindergarten's director said.

They train their children toward genocidal Jew Hatred and western progressives blame Jewish Israelis for Muslim hatred toward them. As Jews we're supposed to support the progressive movement, because we traditionally have and because we were an essential part of its creation to begin with, despite the fact that this political movement, my old political home, has sold us down the river entirely.

The children were dressed up in uniforms of Jihad's armed-wing, the al-Quds Brigades, and each of them received a toy rifle. Some of them held up photos of Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi.

'Until I die as a shahid.' Gaza kids during party

During the ceremony the children were asked to stand next to mock coffins draped with flags of the various armed factions. The flags bore the images of "shahids (martyrs)."

One child, Hamza, said "When I grow up I'll join Islamic Jihad and the al-Quds Brigades. I'll fight the Zionist enemy and fire missiles at it until I die as a shahid and join my father in heaven.

"I love the resistance and the martyrs and Palestine, and I want to blow myself up on Zionists and kill them on a bus in a suicide bombing," he said.

They are trained to hate us, and to kill us, yet progressives, as a group, blame us for their hatred. To the extent that progressives are even willing to acknowledge the Jihad, which generally they will not because they honestly believe that noticing the genocidal Jew Hatred emanating from the Arab-Muslim worlds represents "Islamophobia."

The stupidity, frankly, and the injustice, is just incomprehensible. What we are seeing in the Middle East under the misnomer "Arab Spring" is the rise of fascism and Barack Obama encouraged us to think about the rise of Muslim fascism as one might think about "the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat."

This, by the way, is also the kind of thing that Sandra Tamari... well, now we know why should called herself "Soysauce"... encourages when she spreads hatred toward the Jews of the Middle East under the banner of "human rights." She is one of those who seeks to put an acceptable face on genocidal fascism among well-meaning, but ideologically blinkered, western progressives.

We have got to stand up and say, "NO."

The US government is, essentially, funding what we see above and it has to stop. Hamas must be eliminated because their movement is one of Islamic Nazism and they believe that they have a religious mandate to kill Jewish children in their beds.

Couldn't Happen To A Nastier Terrorist Loving Israel Hater (Updated!)

Doodad

This diary by soysauce made me smile. She finally got what was coming to her for her hatred.

My participation in an interfaith delegation trip to Palestine and Israel was blocked by Israeli officials who detained, interrogated and then expelled me because they deemed me to be "a security risk.".....

The Israelis demanded access to my gmail account. When I refused to provide my password, they said that I must be hiding something sinister. That's when they said I was a terrorist.

I was taken to security to claim my suitcase. They went through my belongings thoroughly and searched every inch of my body. ....I was taken to a prison cell where I was detained overnight and then was driven onto a runway to board a commercial flight to Europe and then onto the States.

Karma, soysauce....pure Karma. Keep it up Israel!

Read  MBNYC's comments for the best take on this.

Man, I wish I had been there to see her get what she had coming.

Update by Mike:

Yes, the entire Peanuts gang could hardly be more pleased.



:O)