RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1467

The bone in Joubran’s throat

This week, Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran broke protocol. Following the swearing-in ceremony of incoming Supreme Court President Asher Grunis, the attendees did what is customary at public events such as these: They stood and sang the national anthem.

Joubran, the first Israeli Arab to have a permanent appointment to the country’s highest court, kept silent. Hatikvah, after all, is a song about the “Jewish soul” yearning to be a “free nation in the land of Zion and Jerusalem.” And though Joubran, like all of his counterparts in the Palestinian territories (and many of his fellow Arabs with Israeli citizenship) may have designs both on Zion and on Jerusalem, he is not a Jew. Therefore, he didn’t feel right about joining the choir.

Joubran’s abstaining from singing the anthem, written as a poem by Naphtali Herz Imber in 1878, was as much his legal right as it was his personal prerogative. That’s the beauty of living in a pluralistic democratic society; a citizen can express himself as he pleases, as long as he is inflicting no harm on anyone else. And, despite claims to the contrary on the part of ill-wishers, Israel is the epitome of such a society. That Joubran is among the cream of its crop, occupying a place on the bench of the most politically powerful judiciary in the Western world, is but one example of the Jewish state’s true nature.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=260125

Unavoidably, as frustration with the two-state principle increases, the quest for alternatives will begin.
Anti-Israel hatred on campus crests each year during an event called “Israel Apartheid Week.” With this ominous name and programs that thrive on ignorance and blind disregard for the facts, tens of thousands of college students are urged to rise up against Israel
– Dore Gold, February 23, 2012

Israel is completely outclassed and outmaneuvered on a battleground it doesn’t even understand it is on
– Melanie Phillips, January 9, 2011

Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) is once again upon us. Described on its official website as “an annual international series of events held in cities and campuses across the globe,” its aim is “to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement.”

Traditionally, IAW includes events (lectures, films, rallies, poetry readings, art exhibitions and so on) spanning anything from 60 to 90 cities from Albuquerque to Zurich.

This year, however, a new condiment has been added to spice up the noxious brew of deceit, distortion, and disinformation on the IAW menu.

http://www.israpundit.com/archives/43986 A unanimous vote by the Florida House on the Stand with Israel Resolution February 29 capped a similar vote cast by the State Senate on February 1 A  Zionist of America press release today noted this accomplishment which  recognizes Israel’s Rights to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem: Senate Resolution 1396, passed on February 1, 2012, was […]

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/02/3913061/florida-mulls-outlawing-shariah.html#storylink=cpy

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A measure to ban the use of foreign laws in domestic courtrooms is progressing in Florida’s statehouse, one of dozens of similar efforts across the country that critics call an unwarranted campaign driven by fear of Muslims. Forty such bills are being pursued in 24 states, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a movement backers say is a response to a glaring hole in legal protections for Americans. Opponents say the bills simply address a made-up threat and could threaten agreements made under Jewish or other religious law.
“There have been all sorts of wild accusations about what this bill does,” said Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, who sponsored the Senate bill in Florida. “This is very clear, very simple: In American courts we need American laws and no other.”
The Florida measure passed the House on Thursday 92-24. It awaits a full vote in the Senate.
If passed, Florida would join three other states – Louisiana, Arizona and Tennessee – in approving legislation curtailing the use of foreign laws. An Oklahoma ballot measure got 70 percent approval, but it goes a step further in specifically mentioning Sharia, the Islamic system of law. A federal court has blocked the measure’s implementation until its constitutionality is determined.
The twin House and Senate bills in Florida make no mention of Shariah law or any other specific foreign system. The language of the legislation, in fact, seems innocuous, outlawing the use of foreign law only when it violates rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and only in certain domestic situations, such as divorces and child custody cases. It does not apply to businesses and says it shouldn’t be construed to prohibit any religious organization from making judgments in “ecclesiastical matters.”
But that’s done little to quiet critics who see such legislation as right-wing fear mongering.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/big-creep_630044.html
The Big CreepAn attempt to rehabilitate Bill Clinton is in full bloom. Unsurprisingly, the would-be hagiographers leave a lot out.

The aging fops and dandies who edit Esquire magazine—yes, it still comes out, check a newsstand if you don’t believe me—devoted a chunk of their issue this month to Bill Clinton. It was an unusual move. Typically, under the motto “Man at His Best,” the editors concentrate their attention on those fabulous new chukkas Donna Karan just introduced, or the optimal thread count for Ralph Lauren Egyptian cotton sheets, or the yummy new clover-accented absinthe imported from Azerbaijan at $33 an oz.—or even, when el machismo oversweeps them, a superhot new starlet in slingback spike heels with off-color stitching and a simple but elegant choker. What I mean is, when these gentlemen put a politician, even an ex-president, on the cover and a long interview with him inside, you know something’s up.

So there he was on the cover, spookily lifelike, legs akimbo, head cocked, eyes moist, his large, experienced hands fairly gleaming from the exquisite manicure. “Bill Clinton and 78 other things we can all agree on,” read the headline. We may seem like a divided country, the editors were telling us, but at least we can all come together around the Man from Hope: “He has become the rare consensus figure in a country that has lost all sense of consensus.”

THANKS TO VICTOR SHARPE….SO APTLY NAMED….RSK
Hillary Clinton In Tunisia: Don’t Worry, ‘Zionist’ Haters, Hillary Clinton And The Obama Administration Have Your Jew-Hating Back

This would be beyond belief if it wasn’t coming out of the Obama administration.

A Town Hall featuring Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Tunisia according to the State Department’s own transcript:

QUESTION: My name is Ivan. After the electoral campaign starts in the United States – it started some time ago – we noticed here in Tunisia that most of the candidates from the both sides run towards the Zionist lobbies to get their support in the States. And afterwards, once they are elected, they come to show their support for countries like Tunisia and Egypt for a common Tunisian or a common Arab citizen. How would you reassure and gain his trust again once given the fact that you are supporting his enemy as well at the same time?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, let me say you will learn as your democracy develops that a lot of things are said in political campaigns that should not bear a lot of attention. There are comments made that certainly don’t reflect the United States, don’t reflect our foreign policy, don’t reflect who we are as a people. I mean, if you go to the United States, you see mosques everywhere, you see Muslim Americans everywhere. That’s the fact. So I would not pay attention to the rhetoric. (so basically don’t listen to what they say we really don’t like Israel and the Jews)

Secondly, I would say watch what President Obama says and does. He’s our President. He represents all of the United States, and he will be reelected President, so I think that that will be a very clear signal to the entire world as to what our values are and what our President believes. So I think it’s a fair question because I know that – I sometimes am a little surprised that people around the world pay more attention to what is said in our political campaigns than most Americans, say, are paying attention. So I think you have to shut out some of the rhetoric and just focus on what we’re doing and what we stand for, and particularly what our President represents.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-atlantic-interview-obama-rewrites-his-record-on-israel/

On the eve of a meeting between President Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the President has orchestrated the publication of his most revealing interview yet on the state of relations between the two countries. Instead of bolstering his pro-Israel image, however, the interview is proof positive of his dangerous animus towards the Jewish state and its elected leaders.

The interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg took place earlier this week but was released only today. In it, the President exasperatedly asked: “Why is it that despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they’ve had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?” To which Goldberg solicitously responded “that’s a good way to phrase it” and the President replied “there is no good reason to doubt me on these issues.”

Let me count the ways.

During the interview the President claimed to “have Israel’s back” among other places at the United Nations. The administration’s actions at the UN allegedly corroborate that his “relationship [with Israel] is very functional and the proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

What digestible meal might that be? The President specified: “When you look at what I’ve done with respect to…fighting back against delegitimization of Israel, whether at the [UN] Human Rights Council, or in front of the General Assembly, or during the Goldstone Report, or after the flare-up involving the flotilla – the truth of the matter is that the relationship has functioned very well.”

Actually, the truth is that President Obama has done more to legitimize the delegitimizers of Israel than any other President in the history of the Jewish state. For instance, one of his opening foreign policy moves was to join – for the first time – the UN Human Rights Council, allowing the full weight of American membership to boost the credibility of this viciously anti-Israel body.

When the President decided to join the Council he knew full well that the body organized every regular session around a permanent agenda of ten items: one directed only to Israel-bashing and another to the remaining (unspecified) 192 UN member states. But the administration claimed that it joined the Council to reform it from the inside during a 5-year deadline imposed by the General Assembly. The reform scheme went down in flames last June and the agenda remained unchanged. What was the President’s response to the ritualized Jew-bating that carries on unabated in a global forum in the name of human rights? He is now actively seeking a second-term on the Council for the United States.

Not once, did President Obama make the equal treatment of the Jewish state a condition for remaining on this “human rights” body – notwithstanding that the whole foundation of the UN Charter is the “equal rights of nations large and small.”

At the General Assembly, the President’s speech of 2010 specifically planted in the minds of every listener and fueled a September 2011 date for a “state of Palestine” becoming “a new member of the United Nations.” Moreover, President Obama devoted more than a third of his entire General Assembly statement focusing on what Israel should and should not do, knowing full well that the deadly Arab narrative is that the failure to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict on their terms is the root cause of Islamic fanaticism and violence. In other words, it was the President himself who used his speech in the UN forum as a pressure tactic against the state of Israel.

On the flotilla of Turkish-backed extremists who attempted to violate Israel’s lawful blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, the Obama administration extraordinarily permitted the Security Council to adopt a presidential statement within 24 hours of the event. The statement cast the flotilla participants as humanitarians, was silent on Israel’s legitimate concerns about arms-smuggling, and made no mention of Hamas at all. Without taking any time to ensure the facts were at hand, the Council unanimously agreed to a UN investigation of the Israel Defense Forces which the United States would have never have legitimized for American armed forces in similar – or in fact any – circumstances.

And as for Iran, President Obama’s use of the United Nations has moved the country in only one direction – inexorably closer to obtaining nuclear weapons. President Obama was the first U.S. President to preside over a meeting of the UN Security Council in September 2009 – and he personally took the opportunity of controlling the Council agenda to tie nuclear non-proliferation together with nuclear disarmament. His move had the predictable effect of setting back non-proliferation efforts by giving Iran one more excuse to delay, while disarming Americans moved to center stage. The sanctions regime belatedly adopted by the Council has been an incontrovertible failure.

At rock bottom, the President’s interview makes one claim more poisonous to Israel’s welfare than all others. He argues that if Israel uses military force against Iranian nuclear sites, then the timeline for any negative consequences will start with Israel – not Iran

http://www.romirowsky.com/11279/israel-jordan-and-palestine The relationship between Arabs and Jews as it relates to the modern State of Israel has always been examined through the lens of land, given the theological bond both peoples have to the land itself and how they define themselves. Since 1937, most thinkers on the topic saw the idea of the two-state solution […]

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2908/president-obama-turns-a-corner-on-iran

ALWAYS DEPENDABLE TO BE UNDEPENDABLE……DERSH, A PROMOTER OF THE TWO STATE DISSOLUTION OF ISRAEL ALWAYS STRUTS HIS POMPOUS RAGE….AND THEN….GOES BACK INTO THE ARMS OF THE OBAMATHONS. THIS IS COLUMN IS SHEER NONSENSE….. ON IRAN OBAMA WALKS SOFTLY AND OFFERS A LIMP CARROT…RSK

President Obama has turned an important corner in his efforts to persuade Iran not to try to develop nuclear weapons, and in his efforts to persuade Israel to allow his combination of punishing sanctions and tough talk to work. In his recent interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic Magazine, President Obama sent a clear message to the Iranians that he is not bluffing, that he means it when he says that American policy is not to accept a nuclear Iran, and that no option, including a military one, is off the table if sanctions and threats appear not to be working.

I was not surprised by President Obama’s strong words, because he said similar things to me in private conversation. But now he has said them in public, and with words that are unequivocal and put his credibility, and the credibility of our country, on the line. (I will not repeat the President’s words here because they can be found in the Goldberg article that appears http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/obama-to-iran-and-israel-as-president-of-the-united-states-i-dont-bluff/253875/).

For those who have claimed that Obama is anti-Israel and/or weak on Iran, these forceful statements should make them reconsider. I, for one, am satisfied with the President’s words. Now I want to hear them repeated by Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, by Joint Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey and by others in the Obama Administration. For me the problem has never been President Obama. His voice has generally been strong and clear in support of Israel’s security and his determination to prevent Iran from securing nuclear weapons. The same cannot be said for other members of his administration. The resulting mixed message has been viewed as a green light, or at the very least a yellow light, by the Iranian mullahs. Now they have been given a clear red light, and if they try to speed past that red light, they should understand the grave consequences.

Having said all this, there still is some distance between the United States and Israel when it comes to timing and red lines. Israel has a closer red line, because it may soon lack the military capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, if that program succeeds in going underground to bunkers that are impenetrable to Israeli bombs. The United States has more time, and a further red line, because it has far greater capacity to destroy even a deeply buried Iranian nuclear weapons program. This difference requires the Israelis to place great trust in President Obama’s promises.