02/9/15

LISTEN: An Islam scholar politely unloads on President Obama’s ‘terrible deeds in the name of Christ’ remarks

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

In light of America’s ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, and the continued conflagration of jihadism throughout the world, we sat down with prolific Islam scholar Andrew Bostom, author of several books including “Iran’s Final Solution for Israel: The Legacy of Jihad and Shi’ite Islamic Jew-Hatred in Iran,” and “Sharia Versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism,” to discuss everything from the doctrinal basis of Iranian policy to his take on General Sisi in Egypt (full interview at bottom).

But it was during a question on President Obama’s recent National Prayer Breakfast remarks in particular that Bostom provided one of his most contrarian and compelling responses, stating:

Let me start with the Civil War — I mean this is a president who — we can excuse him for his ignorance of Islamic theology and Islamic history, you know despite his nominal background in Islam as a child. But excuse me, but the abolitionists were Christians, and the United States literally went to war with itself, unlike any other society before, to extirpate the longstanding, thousand year longstanding evil of slavery in virtually every human civilization. It’s just appalling that he doesn’t even grasp that fundamental decency about this country.

…[I]f you look at what he’s [President Obama’s] referring to in terms of the Crusades…if I could just share with you something that I wrote ten years ago [from Bostom’s “Jihad Begot the Crusades,” parts 1 and 2]…

The jihad is intrinsic to the sacred Muslim texts, including the divine Qur’anic revelation itself, whereas the Crusades were circumscribed historical events subjected to (ongoing and meaningful) criticism by Christians themselves. Unlike the espousal of jihad in the Qur’an, the constituent texts of Christianity, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, do not contain a form fruste [incomplete] institutionalization of the Crusades. The Bible sanctions the Israelites conquest of Canaan, a limited domain, it does not sanction a permanent war to submit all the nations of humanity to a uniform code of religious law. Similarly, the tactics of warfare are described in the Bible, unlike the Qur’an, in very circumscribed and specific contexts. Moreover, while the Bible clearly condemns certain inhumane practices of paganism, it never invoked an eternal war against all of the world’s pagan peoples [for example like Koran 9:5 does…].

The Crusades as an historical phenomenon were a reaction to events resulting from over 450 years of previous jihad campaigns.

So I just did what I could back then to put some of this…blather in context. And then of course he [President Obama] goes on and talks about the Inquisition.

Well…Islam too has had its inquisitions. It’s had its inquisitions against other Muslims dating back to the 9th century…and it also had a horrific inquisition…in the 12th century, imposed upon the Jews in particular, who were massacred, pillaged and enslaved by the tens of thousands, and then forcibly converted to Islam. And some practiced crypto-Judaism, and they were subjected to the same practices curiously that were adopted by the inquisitioners in the same region, so you could argue this might have even been a historical prototype, just within a couple centuries later.

Bostom added:

And the big difference Ben, I think, is that we in the West, as religious and non-religious people, criticize all of these ideologies — whether they’re religions like Christianity and Judaism, or whether they’re very, very horrible secular totalitarian ideologies like Nazism and Communism.

All of the baggage that we have accumulated — and we have accumulated a lot of baggage, unlike in Islamdom, is open to criticism. And that is a profound difference Ben.

You can listen to the full interview below, during which we also discussed topics including:

Bostom’s view on the notion that Islam is a religion of peace
How Islamic doctrine guides Iran’s policies
- Jihadism
- Najis — impurity of the non-Muslim
- Jew-hated specifically
Why the so-called “Green Movement” in Iran is not any better than the politicians in power today — only differing in terms of tactics
The ramifications of a nuclear Iran, and why negotiations with Iran are so disastrous
Why Bostom is more circumspect of Egypt’s General Sisi than other conservatives

Note: The link to the book in this post will give you an option to elect to donate a percentage of the proceeds from the sale to a charity of your choice. Mercury One, the charity founded by TheBlaze’s Glenn Beck, is one of the options. Donations to Mercury One go towards efforts such as disaster relief, support for education, support for Israel and support for veterans and our military. You can read more about Amazon Smile and Mercury One here.

02/9/15

Sen. Ted Cruz on ABC’s This Week from the Munich Security Conference

02/9/15

It’s Not Just Brian Williams

By: Alan Caruba
Warning Signs

“When reporters forfeit their credibility by making up stories, sources, or quotes, we are right to mock them. When their violations are significant or repeated, they should be fired,” says Charles Lipson, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. “Demanding honest reporting has nothing to do with the reporter’s politics, personality, or personal life. It is about professional standards and our reasonable expectations.”

Writing at Real Clear Politics.com, Prof. Lipson concluded by saying, “It’s essential for our news organizations, and it matters for our democracy.”

Are we seeing a trend here? Dan Rather at CBS and now Brian Williams at NBC? Well, two news anchors are not a trend, but biased and bad reporting is. It’s not new, but it does seem to be gathering momentum and nowhere has it been more apparent than the millions of words written and spoken about “global warming” and now “climate change.”

It would be easy and convenient to lay the blame on America’s Liar-in-Chief, President Barack Obama, but the “global warming” hoax began well before he came on the scene. It was the invention of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) dating back to its creation in 1988 when it was established by the UN Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization.

The IPCC came to world attention with the creation of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that committed the nations that signed it to reduce “greenhouse gas emissions” based on the premise that global warming—a dramatic increase—was real and that it was man-made. The Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11, 1997. The United States Senate rejected it and our neighbor, Canada, later withdrew from it. Both China and India were exempted, free to continue building numerous coal-fired plants to generate the energy they need for development.

Today, though, the President is an unrelenting voice about the dangers of “climate change” which he and John Kerry, our Secretary of State, have rated the “greatest threat” to the world. Obama’s national security strategy document was released just a day before he equated the history of Christianity with the barbarism of today’s Islamic State.

The national security document included terrorism to which it devoted one out of its 29 pages. Essentially Obama sees all the problems of the world, real and imagined, as challenges that require “strategic patience and persistence.” This is his way of justifying doing nothing or as little as possible.

Still, according to Obama, the climate is such a threat, his new budget would allocate $4 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency for a new “Clean Power State Incentive Fund” to bribe more states to close even more power plants around the nation. He wants to increase the EPA’s overall budget by 6% to $8.6 billion. The Republican Congress is not likely to allocate such funding.

As for the environment, there have been so many lies put forth by the government and by a panoply of environmental organizations of every description, buoyed by legions of “scientists” and academics lining their pockets with billions in grants, that it is understandable that many Americans still think that “global warming” is real despite the fact that the Earth is now 19 years into a well-documented cooling cycle.

Not only are all the children in our schools still being taught utter garbage about it, but none who have graduated in recent years ever lived a day during the non-existent “global warming.”

On February 7, Christopher Booker, writing in The Telegraph, a British daily newspaper, wrote an article, “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever.” You are not likely to find any comparable reporting in a U.S. daily newspaper.

Citing research comparing the official temperature graphs from three weather stations in Paraguay against what had originally been reported by them, it turned out that their cooling trend had been reversed by the U.S. government’s Global Historical Climate Network and then amplified by “two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the National Climate Data Center.”

Why should we be surprised that the national media continues to report on “global warming” when our government has been engaged in the deliberate distortion of the actual data? It is, however, the same national media that has provided virtually no investigative journalism to reveal what has been going on for decades.

What fate befalls Brian Williams is a mere blip on the screen of events. At this writing, I cannot see how NBC could ever keep him as the managing editor and news anchor.

What matters regarding much of the product of the mainstream media is the continuing torrent of “news” about “global warming” and “climate change”; the former is a complete hoax and the latter a factor of life on planet Earth over which humans have no control, nor contribute to in any fashion.

02/9/15

Mike Vanderboegh at Our Capitol Our Rights Rally, Feb. 7th, 2015 Olympia, WA

Hat Tip: BB

02/9/15

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, 104th Reagan Birthday Dinner, Eureka College, February 6, 2015

Hat Tip: BB

02/9/15

Black Criminals, White Victims, and White Guilt

By: James Simpson
Accuracy in Media

The media have relentlessly fanned the flames of racial hatred, while engaging in a systematic pattern of misinformation and blatant suppression of facts surrounding the perpetrators and victims of crime. As a result, so-called “criminal justice reform” is now being proposed to release more criminals from jails, supposedly to make amends for the unjust “mass incarceration” of black men.

The figures come quickly but are never subjected to the necessary scrutiny. Last fall, for example, the George Soros-funded ProPublica published a claim that black youths are killed by the police at a rate 21 times higher than white youths. Mass media parroted that claim, but the data are incomplete and biased. They represent just 1.2 percent of police departments nationwide, and most reports come from urban areas, where the population is disproportionately black.

More reliable data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggest that in 2012, 123 blacks were killed by police using firearms while 326 whites, including 227 non-Hispanic whites, were killed. These data, however are also not entirely reliable, but represent a larger data set than the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR).

CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill, a racial agitator fired by Fox News for defending cop-killers, spread another misleading statistic about police shootings, claiming that “Every 28 hours, an unarmed black person is killed by police.” This too was trumpeted in the media. It became a twitter hashtag, “#every28hours,” and another mantra like “hands up, don’t shoot.” But it is demonstrably false. There were 313 blacks killed by police, security guards and other “vigilantes” in 2012. Dividing 313 into the number of hours in a year (8,760) yields 28. However, 177 of these “unarmed black persons” were actually armed with firearms. That leaves 136. Others may have been technically “unarmed” but were threatening the officer’s life, for example with their car—or as in Michael Brown’s case, attempting to take the officer’s gun. Many more were not the result of shootings, but accidents, e.g., during vehicular chases. Finally, some of the shooters were not police. When the hyperbole is removed, the facts present a much more reasonable explanation. Barring a small number of tragic mishaps, police shootings are usually justified.

Let’s look at the other side now. In 2013 alone, 49,851 officers were assaulted with firearms, knives and other weapons. Over the past 10 years, on average, 150 police officers have been killed in the line of duty every year. Fifty-seven of these were shot, stabbed, strangled or beaten. Of the 509 officers feloniously killed in the past 10 years, 46 percent of the perpetrators were black, despite their representing only 13 percent of the population. Do we call this a black war against the police?

Black Crime & Incarceration

Critics also argue that blacks’ 40 percent share among U.S. prison populations is direct evidence of institutional racism (see table). In a color-blind society, they charge, incarcerated black populations would reflect their 13 percent share of the general population.

However, if black crime rates were the guide, it would seem that blacks are, if anything, underrepresented in prison populations. The table below presents FBI data on homicide offenders. Blacks exceed all other groups in murders committed in 2013. In prior years it was actually worse.

In 2007, the CDC broke out total homicide numbers and rates by age and race. The murder rate among blacks is similar to the rates in some of the most violent third-world nations (see below). No other racial or ethnic group comes close.

The table below shows murder rates among males by age. Note that for 20 to 24-year-olds, the murder rate among blacks (109.4/100,000) is 17 times higher than the rate for whites (6.4/100,000). Among 15 to 19-year-olds, it is over 20 times higher. The average for all ages is 13 times higher.

Finally, black-on-white crime is substantially greater than the reverse. The table below shows murders by race of offender and victim in 2013. Note that overall, blacks kill as often as whites, although blacks represent only 13 percent of the population. Note also that black-on-white murder is more than double the rate of white-on-black murder (409 to 189). Similar results were found for 2012, 2011, 2010 and prior years.

If these rates were to hold, and the roles were reversed—i.e., if blacks represented 64 percent of the population while whites comprised only 13 percent—black-on-white murder would have exceeded 2,000 killings in 2013, while white-on-black murder would have resulted in only 39 deaths. The table also shows that for all races, most murders were committed by members of the same race. This is because criminal violence usually occurs within one’s own community. Finally, in the other categories of violent crime—rape, robbery and aggravated assault—blacks consistently committed about 40 percent of the total in 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

So the disproportionate arrests, incarcerations and shootings of blacks should come as no surprise. Their 40 percent representation among the prison population fairly reflects the proportion of crimes committed by blacks in the U.S. This is not evidence of institutional racism, but rather a social pathology evident within the black community. They have been committing crimes at the highest rate by far of any racial/ethnic group for decades.

In recent years, blacks have committed unspeakably heinous acts against whites and other racial/ethnic groups. Probably most notorious was the brutal 2007 murder of a young Tennessee couple, Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian, who were on a date when carjacked by four men and one woman. Newsom was repeatedly raped while Christian was forced to watch. He was then taken out, shot, and lit on fire. They repeatedly raped Christian, then poured bleach down her throat, stuffed her in a plastic bag and threw her in a kitchen trash bin to die.

There was no national news reporting of this double murder, despite its singularly vicious nature. More recently, a 19-year-old Mississippi girl, Jessica Chambers, was burned alive by suspected black perpetrators, who poured lighter fluid down her throat, ignited it and left her to die. No arrests have been made although Chambers supposedly identified her attackers before she died.

Each year in cities across the country, officials brace for widespread violence associated with black events. Author and journalist Colin Flaherty has documented over 500 cases of black-on-white violence in 100 American cities in his 2013 book, White Girl Bleed A Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It.

Flaherty will be publishing a second book, “Don’t Make The Black Kids Angry: How white liberals and black media ignore, deny and encourage racial violence.” A pre-publication copy reviewed by this author adds further evidence to how this problem continues to be systematically suppressed by police, politicians and national news media.

Flaherty has reported extensively on the “knockout game,” where the goal is to knock a person out with a single, surprise blow to the head. Variants include “point ‘em out, knock ‘em out,” “knockout king,” “one hitter quitter,” “happy slapping” and Polar Bear Hunting. The perpetrators in all cases are black.

The knockout game is not a new phenomenon—the first reported case occurred in 1992—but in the past few years it has become much more widespread. At least seven people have been killed and hundreds, if not more, injured. Another new term is “flash mob,” where a group coordinates through social media to meet in large numbers, often to go on looting and vandalism sprees. Again, the perpetrators are almost always black.

Flaherty reports on mass mob violence that has been going on for decades. In 1989, 50,000 blacks descended on Virginia Beach, Virginia on Labor Day weekend to celebrate “Greek Week.” It degenerated into days of widespread violence and looting. Over 100 stores were damaged, 50 people were injured and 650 arrested. The National Guard had to be called in. Similar violence became associated with “Greek Week” for years afterward and has since spread to many other holiday weekends in Virginia Beach.

The Indiana Black Expo attracts 200,000 people annually and has been associated with widespread violence for over 10 years. After years of silence, the Indianapolis Star reported “a sense of dread” as the 2014 Expo date approached. They weren’t disappointed. Among other acts of violence, 10 people were wounded by gunfire in street violence. The 2011 Urban Beach Weekend in Miami Beach was characterized as a “rolling race riot.” Hip Hop performer Luther Campbell, a co-founder of the event, no longer goes, saying it is too dangerous. Many such events have been canceled because the local community demanded it, including Freak Nik in Atlanta, the Greekfest in Philadelphia, Black Family Reunion in Daytona Beach and others.

Fanning the Flames

It doesn’t help when President Obama mocks America by enlisting race-hustler Al Sharpton as an “advisor.” In the Tawana Brawley case, Sharpton falsely accused white police officers of raping a black woman.

Acting on Obama’s orders, Attorney General Eric Holder has made reverse racism official administration policy. For example, in hearings regarding a new “hate crimes” bill in 2009, Holder stressed that “only historically oppressed minorities” would benefit. After dropping the infamous 2008 voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party, Holder made it clear that the Obama administration will not prosecute any voting rights cases against blacks. Former Civil Rights Division lawyer J. Christian Adams adds that Holder treats cases of racial bias against whites with “open contempt.”

Grade school kids, especially in inner city neighborhoods, are subjected to anti-white racist indoctrination. Students from Booker T. Washington Middle School in Baltimore, Maryland recently attended an event titled “Re-Claim, Re-Pair, Re-Form, Re-Produce—REPARATIONS Now!” at the historically black Morgan State University. Louis Farrakhan was the keynote speaker. He called whites “crackers” and told the audience:

As long as they kill us and go to Wendy’s and have a burger and go to sleep, they’ll keep killing us. But when we die and they die, then soon we’re going to sit at a table and talk about it! We’re tired! We want some of this earth or we’ll tear this goddamn country up!

There is even a college curriculum that focuses on “White Privilege,” and annual “White Privilege Conferences” are widely attended by teachers and students alike.

We are seeing the result of this indoctrination by academia and the media. In a Detroit courtroom recently, black thugs Fredrick Young and Felando Hunter were sentenced to life for the 2012 robbery, torture and execution of white teenagers Jourdan Bobbish and Jacob Kudla. When given the opportunity to apologize to the victims’ families in court, Young said:

I’d like to say sorry to the families of Aiyanna Jones, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and I want to apologize to them for not being able to get justice for their loved ones who was murdered in cold blood—and in respect for the peaceful protest, I want to say hands up don’t shoot. Black lives matter—that’s it, your honor.

Black author and political commentator Mychal Massie says black lives don’t matter, to blacks. In his video “Just How Much Do Black Lives Matter?” he states:

From 1882 to 1968, 3,446 blacks were lynched. But from 1973 until the present time, a period of 42 years, 17.3 million black babies were aborted. Why don’t we hear about that? Did white policemen do that? That 17.3 million is equivalent to 45 percent of the black population today. So do black lives really matter?

Massie has a unique take on U.S. race relations. He objects strenuously to being singled out by race. “Words like ‘black community’ and being called a ‘minority’ are insults to me,” he told AIM in an interview. “I am an American. How can I be a minority if there are 300 million of me? That is segregation speech. It identifies black people as ‘different.’ People don’t think about these things until you mention them.”

Massie called Ferguson “an undeniable exhibition of the depravity of a people.” He makes the point that civilized people do not burn down their own homes and businesses, adding that Michael Brown was a thug terrorizing his neighborhood, who was going to get shot sooner or later by police or another gangster.

Massie was interviewed for this report. Read the full interview, here.

Famed civil rights icon Dr. Alveda King has a slightly different take. She says that Ferguson protesters did have a point, but that violence is never necessary. “To fix these problems,” she says, “we need to work together on conflict resolution, guided by God’s love, not war.”

Daughter of A.C. King and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr, Dr. Alveda King was also interviewed for this report. Read her full interview, here.

The Communist Roots of Black Racism

Black racism has been encouraged by outside communist agitators, many of them white. Since the turn of the last century, communists have manipulated the civil rights movement, and have been stoking the fires of discontent deliberately. Massie credits lifelong communist and Stalin admirer W.E.B. Du Bois with initiating the international communist movement’s effort to capitalize on black discontent early on. After a visit to the Soviet Union in 1927, Du Bois called it, “the most hopeful vehicle for the world.” Du Bois helped found the NAACP in 1909.

Bayard Rustin, who acknowledged that “blacks were ripe for [manipulation by] Communists,” helped found Martin Luther King, Jr’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s movement was corrupted after he was assassinated. Massie states, “Out of that group came Joseph Lowery and others who mouth complaints designed to stir the caldron of anger, victimology and rabid hatred for anyone who dares attempt to share the message of truth and life.” (Ed. Note: Lowery made news in 2012 when campaigning for Obama by saying “all white people would go to Hell.” He said it was a joke.)

The “White Privilege” concept was created by Noel Ignatiev, a hardcore Communist Party member and former Harvard University professor who founded the journal, Race Traitor.

White guilt has allowed the Left to dramatically expand the welfare state. Trillions of dollars have been spent on welfare. Yet, as Mitt Romney recently noted, under Obama “there are more people in poverty in America than ever before.” Many people are unaware, however, that the modern welfare system was designed by radical leftists to suck minorities into permanent poverty, providing a reliable voting bloc for Democrats and sowing the seeds of discontent within the black community. It was inspired by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, two die-hard socialists, who advocated packing the welfare rolls in order to bankrupt and crash the system. They wanted it to fail. The Cloward Piven Crisis Strategy was formulated to create an army of militant, angry blacks that would serve as foot soldiers in the coming socialist revolution. Piven described the rationale as recently as 2011:

[B]efore people can mobilize for collective action, they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant… So, a kind of psychological transformation has to take place; the out-of-work have to stop blaming themselves for their hard times and turn their anger on the bosses, the bureaucrats or the politicians who are in fact responsible.

Cloward and Piven sought to rig the welfare system for failure to provoke that anger. Their apprentice was Wade Rathke, the founder of ACORN. ACORN’s proud protégé was Barack Hussein Obama.

02/9/15

Hypocrisy Writ Large

Arlene from Israel

Hypocrisy is all around us, but I will focus today on the very significant information that the Israeli NGO Regavim has uncovered regarding the EU:

The Europeans protest long and loud about “illegal Israeli building” in Judea and Samaria. But what it turns out is that they have been supporting illegal Arab building in Area C. The Oslo Accords assigned full control (civil and military) of Area C to Israel. This is apparently irrelevant to the EU, in spite of the fact that the EU was a witness to (and according to international lawyer Alan Baker) a guarantor of the Oslo Accords.

The building is being done in Ma’aleh Adumim and near E1 (a region that stretches between Ma’aleh Adumim and Jerusalem). Clearly, this is intended to establish facts on the ground, by way of supporting a Palestinian state.

As the JPost reported last week (emphasis added):

“According to Regavim, European Union support for the Palestinians has in recent years moved from ‘passive diplomatic and financial assistance to a situation of active cooperation in illegal building which the Palestinian Authority has been advancing unilaterally since 2000, as part of its strategic plan to create a Palestinian state de facto, while avoiding the need for negotiations with Israel.’

”This week, prior to the release of its latest report, Regavim took journalists to look at a number of Beduin encampments straddling E1 as well as the Jerusalem-Jericho road. They are not temporary tent encampments as they were in years past, but rather clusters that – in addition to tents and tin shacks – also include modular structures with cement floors bearing the EU logo.

”According to Ari Briggs, Regavim’s international relations director, the EU logo is placed on the structures in the belief that this will prevent Israel from demolishing them. Israel is not likely to take down a building with an EU logo, due to concerns over both public relations damage and the harm it could cause to relations with the EU, he said…

“The EU-funded structures, according to Meir Deutsch, the director of Regavim’s policy and government relations department, are being placed illegally on state land, and in some cases in restricted nature reserves.

“When Regavim appealed to the High Court in 2008 to compel the state to demolish illegal buildings in the area, it ruled that this could not be done until an alternative living arrangement was found for the Bedouin living there. Israel then began planning a city – called Ramat Nueima – north of Jericho for some 12,000 people, a plan now adamantly opposed by the Palestinians and the EU.

“In November, a meeting of EU foreign ministers issued a statement that, in addition to their usual condemnations of land expropriation and settlement construction, also slammed plans to ‘displace Bedouin in the West Bank and the continued demolitions, including of EU and member states funded projects.’”

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Report-EU-building-hundreds-of-illegal-structures-for-Palestinians-in-Area-C-of-West-Bank-390184

Charges Briggs:

“This is great hypocrisy. Any time a building goes up for Jews, they raise an outcry, call it illegal and say it endangers peace. They are building illegal houses for Arabs.”

According to Deutsch, from 2012 to 2014, the EU spent millions of euros in putting up more than 499 structures.

~~~~~~~~~~

An excellent story on the Regavim report, complete with a large collection of Regavim photos and maps, has also been put out by the Daily Mail (emphasis added).

“Official EU documentation reveals that the building project is intended to ‘pave the way for development and more authority of the PA over Area C’… “Locally, the villages are known as the ‘EU Settlements’, and can be found in 17 locations around the West Bank.”

Because the Daily Mail is in the UK, it has an emphasis that is different from that of the JPost: Concern is expressed about European tax money being spent on this illegal venture.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2874883/EU-funding-illegal-building-West-Bank-says-report.html

Notable among the pictures is one of a man in an EU uniform threatening Israeli soldiers with a rock.

A structure in Area C bearing an EU flag:

Credit: Regavim

And the full Regavim Report here:

http://regavim.org.il/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Position-Paper-European-Building-in-Area-C-US.pdf

~~~~~~~~~~

The staff of Regavim has worked hard to produce this scrupulously researched material. Now, as always, it falls to us to spread this information as broadly as possibly. Truth must be exposed.

~~~~~~~~~~

Already we have seen one positive outcome to this report.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to move forward with a plan to demolish some 400 Palestinian structures built in the West Bank with European funding, Israeli media reported Friday. “

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-orders-demolition-of-eu-funded-palestinian-settlements-in-west-bank/

02/9/15

The Arrogance of the ‘Kanye Klan’

By: Frank Salvato

I didn’t watch the Grammy Awards and I haven’t for years. Long ago it ceased being about rewarding talent with recognition, instead serving as a platform for industry politics and the anointment of the chosen few. That said, the level of arrogance displayed by rapper Kanye West (Mr. Kim Kardashian) should garner him expulsion from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and a complete shunning from the industry.

For the second year in a row Mr. West stormed the stage in protest when his preferred artist failed to win in their nominated category. In each instance he encroached on the winning artists’ moment in the spotlight; their moment to be celebrated by their peers in recognition for being selected by the majority as outstanding (this is what democracy looks like, Kanye). Last year he brutishly encroached on Taylor Swift, a gifted country music talent. This year he usurped Beck’s moment after he was named recipient of the Album of the Year Award. To the latter, West was upset that his preferred nominee, Beyoncé, failed to win in that category, even though she walked away at the end of the evening with three trophies in other categories.

Mr. West is quoted as saying:

“I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We ain’t gonna play with them no more. And Beck needs to respect artistry and he should’ve given his award to Beyoncé.

“Because when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration…And we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day, and they listen to that Beyoncé album and they feel like it takes them to another place.”

Mr. West’s actions – as well as his statement – conjure up some concerns.

Mr. West denigrated Beck’s talents and art form in what can only be seen as a personal attack. Examining West’s protest, he alludes to the idea that Beck is not a “real artist,” and that his talent is somehow inferior to that of Beyoncé’s. Truthfully, I am not an ardent fan of Beck, although I have nothing against his music. It’s just not my preferred genre. Neither is Rap (and I especially dislike Gangsta Rap, which I find harmful to society on almost every level). Nevertheless, I recognize that each of these genres is seen by those who enjoy them as art forms, none “superior” to another, just different. Evidently, Mr. West is a “musical supremacist”; someone who finds no worth in diversity of genre, voice, taste or preference.

Additionally, one has to be concerned about Mr. West’s inability to control his emotions. It is one thing to be of a creative opinion; to emote displeasure and disappointment when one’s preferred tastes are not validated. It is quite another to be uncontrollable in your anger to the point where you infringe upon another’s moment, time and space. By storming the awards stage – not once, but two years in a row – Mr. West has proved himself incapable of controlling his emotions. He has also proved himself to be a spoiled brat; an embarrassing product of the arrogant entitlement class.

Lastly, Mr. West – and all who agree with his actions and the onus of his statement – has exposed himself as not believing in the very systems he so vehemently declares to support: diversity and democracy. Every member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences votes on the nominees presented to them. To wit, the Grammy Awards are chosen through a purely democratic process. Additionally, every member – from all genres – is afforded the ability to vote in every category (although they are encouraged to vote only in the genres they have expertise in), thus, assuring diversity. Evidently, for Mr. West, democracy and diversity are only important when he and his “Klan” are the beneficiaries, when the shoe is on the other foot, democracy and diversity…not so much.

Mr. West’s protestations have quite a bit more to do with entitlement and arrogance than they do with legitimate protest. He has gotten incredibly wealthy and influential through his “talents,” yet he believes he is entitled to more; to have everything go his way, all the time. Evidently West believes that because a gaggle of sycophants hang on his every word that the rest of the world’s population must exalt his as well. This must be a debilitating moment for Mr. West.

Here’s a news flash, Kanye. Not everyone likes Beyoncé. To that end not everyone likes Beck. But enough people liked Beck’s album more than they liked Beyoncé’s and that garnered him the award for Album of the Year. Deal with it.

And, Mr. West, not everyone cares for you, your music, your lifestyle or your arrogance. Many of us find it childish and ignorant. Now, what stage are you going to storm to exhibit your adolescent behavior in protest to that reality?

Oh, and as far as your threat to boycott the Grammy’s if you don’t get your way? Well, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I think the Grammy’s will survive.

Frank Salvato is the Executive Director of BasicsProject.org a grassroots, non-partisan, research and education initiative focusing on Constitutional Literacy, and internal and external threats facing Western Civilization; a division of The Archangel Organization, LLC, His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His opinion and analysis have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, The Jewish World Review, Accuracy in Media, Human Events, Townhall.com and are syndicated nationally. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel, and is the author of six books examining Islamofascism and Progressivism, including “Understanding the Threat of Radical Islam”. Mr. Salvato’s personal writing can be found at FrankJSalvato.com.

02/9/15

Forum: Is Journalism Dead?

The Watcher’s Council

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: Is Journalism Dead?

The Independent Sentinel: If journalism isn’t dead, it’s critically wounded. People are going to blogs more-and-more for their information out of desperation.

Journalists by-and-large are no longer reporting the news, they are manipulating it.

They aren’t journalists any longer, they are commentators, inventors of the news and political operatives. They no longer serve as watchdogs and they aren’t embarrassed by that fact.

Journalists who don’t go along are brought into line or they are out the door.

Brian Williams is NBC’s Walter Mitty, but there are far more dangerous posers out there who are transforming the way Americans think, when they are not dumbing them down that is.

Dan Rather is still revered.

We accept all these liars and there is no accountability when they lie.

Simply Jews: Journalism as a profession isn’t dead and will never be dead. As any profession it requires professional education, extensive support (both on the ground and in the back office, including professional fact checking and, not to be forgotten nowadays, legal support). The tools and the means do change with time and technology progress, but it doesn’t mean that citizens’ journalism will be ever able to fully replace the professional one. At the best it will serve as a watchdog and as a complementary tool, but not as a replacement.

As for cases of sloppy or politically (or otherwise) skewed journalism: these are probably inevitable, as long as the live people, with all their conflicting motivations and all their strange impulses continue to work in the field. Why should, to take one example, Brian Williams signify the end of the journalism, when we had a much earlier example of Walter Duranty? And, not being a scholar of journalism history, I bet that such examples go many years back, way before Duranty. Rotten apples are an inevitable presence in any bushel of apples. And the fact that cases like these are discovered and aired by their fellow journalists is the best warranty of the general health of that profession. It is a keeper.

JoshuaPundit: Journalism itself isn’t dead, but it’s become rare and more often than not an unpaid (or poorly paid) pursuit. The process started, I think, when the Left took over most of the major journalism schools and having the proper ideology became increasingly important when it came to getting hired. And as the Left began increasingly using news as political propaganda at institutions they controlled like the New York Times and the Associated Press wire services, which allow ‘reporters’ to simply rewrite whatever these organs put out and disperse it without actually questioning it or investigating it further.

It was the Left’s control of most of the mainstream media that led to alternative channels like FOX, the conservative blogosphere and talk radio. Would Rush Limbaugh have 23 million people listening to him every day if the major newspapers and the alphabet networks on TV were actually practicing journalism? If they hadn’t been caught in so many deliberate lies and misstatements? And the practice has never stopped.

There is still a market for journalism… in fact, I think people are hungry for it. But the Left isn’t going to give up its megaphone any time soon, nor do I see proper standards of journalism or a differentiation between news reporting and commentary emerging in the near term.

GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: Gotta go with Mikey G on this here topic…

What difference does this make? For many conservatives, the “mainstream media” is an epithet. Didn’t the Internet expose the lies of Dan Rather? Many on the left also shed few tears, preferring to consume their partisanship raw in the new media.

Most cable news networks have forsaken objectivity entirely and produce little actual news, since makeup for guests is cheaper than reporting. Most Internet sites display an endless hunger to comment and little appetite for verification. Free markets, it turns out, often make poor fact-checkers, instead feeding the fantasies of conspiracy theorists from “birthers” to Sept. 11, 2001, “truthers.” Bloggers in repressive countries often show great courage, but few American bloggers have the resources or inclination to report from war zones, famines and genocides.

The democratization of the media — really its fragmentation — has encouraged ideological polarization. Princeton University professor Paul Starr traced this process recently in the Columbia Journalism Review.

After the captive audience for network news was released by cable, many Americans did not turn to other sources of news. They turned to entertainment. The viewers who remained were more political and more partisan. “As Walter Cronkite prospered in the old environment,” says Starr, “Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann thrive in the new one. As the diminished public for journalism becomes more partisan, journalism itself is likely to shift further in that direction.”

Cable and the Internet now allow Americans, if they choose, to get their information entirely from sources that agree with them — sources that reinforce and exaggerate their political predispositions.

And the whole system is based on a kind of intellectual theft. Internet aggregators (who link to news they don’t produce) and bloggers would have little to collect or comment upon without the costly enterprise of newsgathering and investigative reporting.

The old-media dinosaurs remain the basis for the entire media food chain. But newspapers are expected to provide their content free on the Internet. A recent poll found that 80 percent of Americans refuse to pay for Internet content.

There is no economic model that will allow newspapers to keep producing content they don’t charge for, while Internet sites repackage and sell content they don’t pay to produce.

Professional journalism is not like the buggy-whip industry, outdated by economic progress, to be mourned but not missed. This profession has a social value that is currently not reflected in its market value.

The Right Planet: Is Journalism dead? At first glance, it certainly looks that way. But, to be fair, there are some who attempt to do honest journalism (former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson comes to mind). But they appear to be a dying breed.

So just what is journalism? As one who studied journalism in college, I was taught to simply ask the who, what, why, where, when and how, minus the editorializing. I’ve long been of the opinion the major networks (i.e. ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.) abandoned journalism long ago, replacing it with political advocacy masquerading as journalism–specifically, shilling for “progressive” causes and the Democrats. I’ve heard people on the right, and even the left (see Kirsten Powers), refer to the major news networks as “state-run media.” That says it all, if you ask me. So much for a free press, huh! I’ve noticed, at least in my own experience, that the mere act of simply asking the who, what, why, where, when and how is enough to send a number of leftist political advocates masquerading as journalists into an apoplectic fit. It’s as if many so-called journalists have merely become “narrative readers” shilling for all things progressive. Anything deviating from the leftist narrative is ridiculed, mocked, dismissed, marginalized, demonized, etc.

Syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, Jr., who writes for CNN, recently came out and unambiguously stated he believes there is a strong bias at the major networks (including CNN) that favors Democrats, while constantly demonizing Republicans. As far as what can be done to remedy the situation, I’m a big fan of competition. There’s a new news network called One America News Network (OANN) that appears to be trying to do some honest journalism, separating editorial content from reporting. I wish them success. I think we need more OANN’s right now. The leftist leanings of many so-called news organizations is undeniable, in my opinion. And those who would state otherwise are simply being disingenuous, or suffering from a severe case of denial.

The Glittering Eye: Journalism is alive and well. It’s committed on a regular basis by our very own Tom of Virginia Right! and Greg of Rhymes With Right. However, there are a number of aspects of journalism as it has been practiced that are extinct, on life support, or endangered that include:

– the 5Ws style of reporting
– beat reporters
– foreign bureaus
– copy writers
– big city dailies
– newspaper conglomerates financed with debt

The 5Ws style of reporting (who, what, where, when, why) has been considered obsolete for a generation. It has been replaced with the “point of view” style–something that used to be eschewed as editorialization. If you find it difficult to tell the difference between the news section and the opinion section that’s why. Only the largest newspapers have foreign bureaus anymore. They’ve been replaced with foreign stringers or the wire services and I hold that responsible for the very low quality of the reporting about what’s going on outside our borders. Beat reporters, too, are becoming increasingly rare.

The big noise in newspaper writing today is the automation of writing routine stories. Basically, copy writers and, largely, editors are becoming things of the past. They’ll be replaced by a computer program.

Big city dailies have collapsing for the last half century. In 1960 Chicago had a dozen different daily newspapers. Now it has two and those are both parts of large media conglomerates.

Something I’ve been predicting for some time is the decline of the debt-financed newspaper conglomerate. For thirty years we saw newspaper after newspaper gobbled up by one conglomerate or another, the purchase financed with debt, the newspapers themselves saddled with the debt, in essence paying for their own purchase, and the conglomerate taking cash out of the deal. It sounds like a good plan until you factor in the competition newspapers are getting from the Internet in general and Craiglist in particular. Nowadays the margins are so slim in the newspaper business it’s hard for the newspapers to service their debt. Small highly local newspapers are still doing okay. They don’t have the debt problems and their owners don’t expect to lead lifestyles of the rich and famous, much as stereotype of the newspaper business has been for over a century, when Joe Pulitzer invented the newspaper conglomerate.

These are all subjects I’ve written about from time to time over at The Glittering Eye. Before he landed a job as a lawyer my dad worked as an editorial writer for the old St. Louis Star and the insights he conveyed to me about the nature of the newspaper business seventy-five years ago have given me an interest in and a distinct viewpoint on the developments in the business today.

Well, there you have it!

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02/9/15

The Arab Armies

By: Alan Caruba
Warning Signs

The ongoing Syrian conflict, the fall of the Yemeni government, the burning of the Jordanian pilot, and other events make one wonder why even those Arab nations with significant military capabilities tend not to use them against a common enemy.

The attacks on ISIS by the Jordanian air force have been a dramatic example of what could be done to eliminate this threat to the entire region if the other military forces would join in a united effort.

This raises the question of why the armies of various Middle Eastern nations do not seem to be engaged in destroying the Islamic State (ISIS). The answer may be found in a casual look at recent history; these armies have not been successful on the field of battle. Most recently what passed for the Iraqi army fled when ISIS took over much of northern Iraq.

Since 1948 the Arab nations that attacked Israel were repeatedly defeated. The Iraq-Iran war conducted by Saddam Hussein finally stalemated after eight years. Later it took the leadership of the U.S. to drive Saddam’s Iraq out of Kuwait.

Israeli fighter jets

In October 2014, the Business Insider published a useful ranking of Middle Eastern militaries put together by Armin Rosen, Jeremy Bender, and Amanda Macias. Ranked number one should surprise no one. It was Israel which has a $15 billion defense budget, 176,000 active frontline personnel, 680 aircraft, and 3,870 tanks.

Unlike previous administrations dating back to Truman, while the U.S. is technically still an ally of Israel, in reality the Obama administration has demonstrated animosity toward the only democratic nation in the region. Indeed, the U.S. has been engaged in lengthy negotiations with Iran that would ultimately permit it to become a nuclear power. There isn’t a single Middle Eastern nation that wants this to occur and it has greatly harmed U.S. relations with them.

Ranked second militarily is the Turkish Armed Forces with an $18.1 billion defense budget, 410,000 active frontline personnel, 3,675 tanks and 989 aircraft. This nation has shifted heavily toward being an Islamist state as opposed to the secular one it had been since the end of the Ottoman Empire in the last century. Its military hasn’t been involved in a conflict since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. It is a NATO-allied military but that doesn’t mean it will support NATO in a future conflict. It was used against the Kurdish separatist movement in the 1980s, but these days the Kurdish Peshmerga, between 80,000 and 100,000 strong is now ranked as “one of the most formidable fighting forces in the Middle East” and it is likely the Kurds will carve their own nation out of an Iraq which barely exists these days.

Number three among the Middle East militaries is Saudi Arabia with a $56.7 billion defense budget, 233,500 active frontline personnel, 1,095 tanks, and 652 aircraft. It has been closely allied with the U.S. for decades, but the Obama Iranian nuclear negotiations have negatively affected that relationship. One can assume the same from its other allies, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has also provided “substantial assistance” to post-coup Egypt.

The rankings put the United Arab Emirates a #4, Iran at #5, Egypt at #6, Syria at #7, Jordan at #8, Oman at #9, Kuwait at #10, Qatar at #11, Bahrain at #12, Iraq at #13, Lebanon at #14, and Yemen at #15. The Business Insider article noted that “The balance of power in the Middle East is in disarray” and that’s putting it mildly.

Debka File, an Israeli news agency, reported on February 5 that “The group of nations U.S. President Barack Obama assembled last September for an air offence against ISIS inroads in Iraq and Syria is fraying.”

It deemed the participation of the UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Bahrain as “more symbolic than active” noting that Iraq has no air force to speak of and an army in name only while the Saudis “allotted a trifling number of planes to the effort” and Bahrain has no air force at all. The UAE has the biggest and most modern air force and it has reportedly joined with Jordan to attack ISIS strongholds.

Debka reported that the coalition is “adamantly opposed to Obama’s policy…and loath to lend their air strength for its support” and that is very good news for ISIS, but not for the rest of the Middle East.

In October, Commentary magazine published an analysis by Ofir Haivry, vice president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, about the “Shifting Alliances in the Middle East.” It began with the observation that “The old Middle Eastern order has collapsed” as “the ongoing Arab uprisings that begin in late 2010 have unseated or threaten to unseat every Muslim government in the region.”

Postulating ‘five broad, cross-regional, and loosely ideological confederations”, Haivry concluded that “Perhaps our biggest challenge is not a new Middle East, but a new United States in paralysis. Under the Obama administration, America’s historic aspiration to shape events in the region has given way to confusion and drift.”

It should not come as that much of a surprise that Israel has been developing intelligence and security relations with several Arab nations, including what the Middle East Monitor described as “growing secret cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.” That sounds like very bad news for Iran and very good news for the rest of us.