01/8/15

Always More

Arlene from Israel

I begin here with a correction:  When I last shared news of the electoral campaign, I mentioned irregularities in the Likud primary. And I spoke about the fact that one candidate demanded a recount and came close to securing a reasonable slot on the list as a result.  This was Tzipi Hotovely, pictured below.  My brain was not working when I wrote, however, and I typed “Tzipi Livni” instead. Many readers caught this.  I appreciate it, because it means my readers are paying attention.  But I also appreciate that just about every single reader who wrote to me indicated that he/she knew it was an error and that I meant Hotovely.

 

Credit: kikar

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And then a tribute to a very special lady, Joan Peters Caro, who passed away yesterday. Joan was a courageous journalist, devoted to truth, who wrote “From Time Immemorial,” which documented poorly understood facts about the Jewish and Arab demography in the land in the years prior to and right after the founding of the modern State of Israel.  Scrupulously researched, it is considered an indispensable resource by many who care about Israel as the Jewish state.

levitt

 

 

 

Credit: Levitt

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Coming back to Tzipi Livni just briefly…Arutz Sheva says she claimed yesterday that she and Herzog would make Israel “popular” again – something she maintains Netanyahu could not do.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/189633#.VK7ipZv9nIU

This position, which I find deplorable, goes a long way to demonstrating what is wrong with the left.

It is several years ago, when she was foreign minister, that she gave a talk at a conference I attended.  She explained that we “had to” give away Judea and Samaria in order to make the world happy, as this was important.  I got up and walked out.  Would do the same today, of course.

Our positions must be based on what is best for us, and we must stand up strongly for our rights, whether this makes the world “happy” or not.

What is more, her claim that Netanyahu is responsible for the “increasing isolation” that Israel is enduring is just plain wrong.  The UN and the EU are horrendously one-sided, but around the world we are forging new relationships with some states, and strengthening our relationships with others. Read about our growing ties with India, for example, or Japan. And the very quiet cooperation with the more moderate Arab states (something that would have been impossible not so long ago). We are not increasingly isolated.

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On the other hand, I was not exactly ecstatic about a statement made by Netanyahu on Tuesday, either:

He says he is still in favor of a “two-state” solution, as he espoused it in his Bar Ilan speech of 2009, but the Palestinian Arabs have rendered this impossible:

“I don’t think withdrawing settlers is practical at the moment.”
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Netanyahu-says-unlikely-settlements-will-be-dismantled-if-elected-to-fourth-term-386887

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I know exactly what is happening, as it is fairly obvious on the face of it: Kerry is telling Netanyahu he will support Israel in international forums. But, as the US opposes unilateral actions by the PA because negotiations are the way for the Palestinian Arabs to secure a state, Israel must be willing to consider coming back to the table to negotiate that state.

And so, our prime minister is playing both sides.  Yes, sure I’m for that state, he says for public consumption, but look, the PA has made it impossible for us to proceed.

He’s certainly correct, that the PA has made negotiating impossible. This is what makes the position of leftists who call for us to negotiate a state now so ridiculous. But, it is time for our head of state to say that a Palestinian state is not the way to go, in any event, because of Jewish rights in the land.  He should not be going on record, once again, for that “two state solution.”

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United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced on Tuesday that the Palestinian Arabs will formally become a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on April 1.  What is more, the court’s registrar said yesterday that jurisdiction would date back to June 13, 2014.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/07/us-palestinians-israel-un-idUSKBN0KG1JV20150107

This is something I do not understand: retroactive jurisdiction. Bringing jurisdiction back to the middle of June means possibly giving the PA the opportunity to level charges against Israel for her actions in the Gaza war. (There are still issues regarding jurisdiction of place – as Hamas and not the PA is in control in Gaza.)

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Meanwhile, the State Department has declared that the US does not believe Palestine qualifies as a sovereign state and doesn’t recognize it as such and does not believe that it is eligible to accede to the Rome statute.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=22659

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International lawyer Alan Baker, writing for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, agrees with the US position.  He says that the Secretary General should have refused to accept the request of the PA because the Rome statute limits membership to states, and explains why “Palestine” is not a sovereign state.

Says Baker:

“…the acceptance by the Secretary General of the Palestinian request is legally flawed and was determined under false pretenses – ‘false’ because there exists no sovereign Palestinian state, and ‘pretenses’ because of the pretension by the Secretary General as if such a state exists when he is fully aware that there is no legal basis for this.”

http://jcpa.org/un-approves-pa-icc/

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Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) yesterday introduced a bill that would immediately stop all US aid to the PA, until such time as the PA withdrew its application to the ICC. The bill is entitled, “Defend Israel by Defunding Palestinian Foreign Aid Act of 2015.”

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/01/08/rand-paul-launches-senate-bill-to-defund-palestinian-authority/

Love it!  Let’s see how many Republicans stand up now.

Credit: US Senate

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There is no one reading this who is not aware of the horrendous Islamist massacre that took place at Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and I doubt there is anyone reading this who is not horrified and whose heart does not go out to those killed and their families.

The news reports yesterday spoke of the many tens of thousands who crowded the streets in Paris and elsewhere in France, as well as in other countries, showing solidarity with those slain (“Je suis Charlie”).  It is in this report that I found just a little glimmer of hope: out on the streets, not in their homes, staring at the TV and clucking. Is the world just possibly beginning to wake up?

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Last I wrote, I spoke of the major snow storm predicted.  I even included a lovely picture of snow falling. But a slight rise in temperatures changed that scenario here in Jerusalem. Chilling to the bone cold, but not cold enough. We had fierce weather, but it was pouring rain, and hail, and sleet. They’re talking about snow for tomorrow.  We’ll see…

 

Credit: rvbloggers

01/7/15

Stonewall is not Selma

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

President Obama has celebrated anti-police riots at a New York City gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, saying, “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma and Stonewall…”

With the new film “Selma” opening on Friday, Obama’s claim deserves some serious scrutiny from the media. In Selma in 1965, protesters were met with force and violence from the police. Martin Luther King, Jr. had led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators from Selma, Alabama to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. At Stonewall in 1969, gay protesters waged war on the police. Obama apparently can’t see the difference. (Seneca Falls is the name of the city in New York that served as the location for an 1848 conference on the rights of women in society.)

Our forebears were rioting homosexuals at a bar waging a war on the police? That’s what Obama is saying. What’s more, he’s comparing homosexuals fighting the police to blacks marching for their rights, including the right to vote.

The truth, as the video “From Selma to Stonewall” shows, is that the homosexual demands for political power based on their sexual needs and desires were far different than black people peacefully seeking their civil rights through protests and demonstrations. “Gay is not the new black,” notes the narrator, Eric Holmberg.

What’s more, in 1969 Stonewall was a location for men known as chicken hawks wanting sex with underage boys. Some of the homosexuals were, indeed, harassed by law enforcement. But the police who raided the place were also getting complaints about homosexuals having sex on the streets and in public bathrooms, and their use of illegal drugs.

Nevertheless, the date of the raid and the riots, June 28, 1969, is now “celebrated” as a “gay pride” event.

The far-left view, which has been embraced by Obama, is that violence can be a necessary part of progressive “change,” and that the Stonewall riots were a milestone on the road to equality.

In the case of the riots in Ferguson, the latest example of progressive change, recent documents obtained by Judicial Watch show high-level Justice Department involvement. Judicial Watch reported that the documents “suggest that the [Justice Department] unit deployed to Ferguson took an active role in working with those fomenting unrest and demanding the prosecution of police officer [Darren] Wilson. As indicated by their own activities, the CRS [Community Relations Service] agents were not there to impartially advance the broad public interest. Instead, we learned from the documents that the CRS made every effort to advance a political agenda in tandem in special interests whose only goal was to stir up racial unrest.”

So while we face foreign threats of violence, our own Justice Department stirs things up domestically. In New York City, that has meant the murder of two police officers.

The complete story of the “Ferguson rebellion,” as the Marxists call it, has yet to be written. Meanwhile, under Obama’s direction, the National Park Service is actually designating the Stonewall Inn as a National Historic Landmark, saying, “Stonewall is nationally significant because it is associated with events that outstandingly represent the struggle for civil rights in America.”

These attacks on police are celebrated as “progress” on the road of Marxist dialectical change. So perhaps the Ferguson riots will also become the scene of a national historic landmark.

We had noted back in 2009 in our piece titled, “Obama Celebrates Anti-Police ‘Gay’ Riots,” that “Several police officers trying to enforce the law at the sleazy establishment [Stonewall] were injured by violent homosexuals.” Police had to defend themselves and the community against violent protesters.

Police reports say that one of the victims was a police officer “treated at nearby Saint Vincent’s Hospital after being bitten on the right wrist by a Stonewall rebel.” One officer was beaten about the face with an “unknown object,” one was hit in the eye and injured, and another was shoved and kicked.

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced earlier this year “a new theme study to identify places and events associated with the story of LGBT Americans for inclusion in the parks and programs of the National Park Service.” She made the announcement outside the Stonewall Inn.  This was followed, on June 10, by a National Park Service “scholars roundtable” regarding this initiative.

Jewell declared at the event, “I had a great day, one of the best days in my 14 months or so in this chair about 10 days ago. That was at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village when we announced the National Park Service’s undertaking this theme study. It was a great day.”

Tim Gill joined Jewell at the Stonewall event. He is the founder of Quark, Inc., a computer software company worth $500 million. The Gill Foundation, which now claims assets of $260 million, has been described as the largest funder of gay and lesbian causes in the United States.

Gill is also the major financial supporter of the National Park Service campaign to “celebrate” the riots at Stonewall, and find other places to designate as critical to the homosexual struggle. The study is called a “public-private partnership,” with funding provided by the Gill Foundation through the National Park Foundation.

How far will the recognition of “gay rights” go? Just  a few doors down from the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York City is a place that sells various sexual devices, blindfolds, handcuffs, and even a cage for one’s sexual “partner.” So-called “leather pride” is a prominent aspect of homosexual rights today. A few doors down is a “New Age” shop with crystals, incense, and books about witches. In the same vicinity is a “head shop” featuring marijuana smoking devices.

The life and times of Harry Hay, a communist agitator for homosexual rights and “man-boy love,” could receive a special designation as well.

A “Spirit of Stonewall” proclamation was issued in 1994 arguing that “man-boy love” had to be recognized as an important part of homosexual history and conduct. Hay, the founder of the modern gay rights movement and member of the Communist Party, was one of the signers. Hay had been upset that sexual abusers of children were not permitted to march in the regular gay pride parade.

The North American Man-Boy Love Association celebrates his contributions to their “struggle.”  NAMBLA calls them “intergenerational relationships.”

The National Historic Landmark Nomination form for the Stonewall Inn notes that Hay had spoken of the “magnificent Stonewall Rebellion [which] erupted here in New York City…revealing in a flash our next new concept…gay—as a socially viable collective identity.” It refers to Hay’s demonstration for adult-child sex as merely an “alternative march” in 1994.

But Hay is not alone in the homosexual rights movement for his support of sex with children.

On October 10, 2009, Obama mentioned Stonewall, as well as his “great friend and supporter, Terry Bean,” a co-founder of the major homosexual lobby, the Human Rights Campaign.  Obama referred to “the story of the Stonewall protests, when a group of citizens—(applause)—when a group of citizens with few options, and fewer supporters stood up against discrimination and helped to inspire a movement.”

Bean has since taken a leave of absence from the Human Rights Campaign after he was arrested on sexual abuse charges involving sex with a minor.

Charles C. Johnson of GotNews reports that through the Charles M. Holmes Foundation, Bean financed a film called “Dream Boy,” described as a gay, love story about a shy high school kid who gets seduced by his neighbor and school pal. We confirmed that the foundation, which Bean chairs, lists an investment in Dream Boy LLC in its 2010 income tax return, and that Dream Boy LLC was the registered agent for the film when it was featured at a 2008 “Outfest” homosexual film festival. The film was rated R for sexual content, with some violence, including a rape involving teens.

The Holmes Foundation is based on assets accumulated by homosexual pornographer Charles M. Holmes, a friend of Bean who died of AIDS and owned Falcon Studios, which is said to be the world’s largest producer of “high quality gay male videos.”

The Bean arrest has put the focus back on the fact that the idea of having sex with children, in addition to anti-police violence, has been part of the homosexual rights movement in the United States all along. This is what “Stonewall” has come to represent.

Obama wants the taxpayers to sponsor this “celebration” of perversion.

Our first president, George Washington, who court-martialed sodomites and kicked them out of the revolutionary army, must be turning over in his grave.

Considering how the Obama administration regards Stonewall, it is not unreasonable to assume that the location of the “Ferguson rebellion,” as the communists call it, will be designated in the next two years as a national historic landmark. Perhaps the actual location will be a looted or burned-out building.

It will signal yet another phase in the fundamental transformation of the United States.

The new Republican Congress has the opportunity to stop official historical recognition for a gay bar that featured an anti-police riot. But will any GOP House or Senate member challenge Obama’s version of history?