RUTHFULLY YOURS

Bernard Lewis: A Stand-Up Guy Who Fell Down

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/08/09/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion/

I HAVE GREAT REGARD FOR HIS ACUMEN AND KNOWLEDGE…HOWEVER, IT HIS HIS SUPPORT OF CAMP DAVID, OSLO, GAZA, WYE, ROAD MAP THAT IS SO DISTURBING AS WELL AS HIS PROMOTION OF THE MYTH OF AN ERA OF GREAT COMITY BETWEEN ARABS/MOSLEMS AND JEWS….THE ERA CONSISTED OF A FEW BURPS AND BUMPS IN HISTORY ALL PRECEDED AND FOLLOWED BY UNRELENTING HATRED OF JEWS SINCE THE TIME OF THE PROPHET…. IT WAS NOT ALWAYS SO WITH LEWIS….READ THIS SHORT ESSAY…..RSK

The unapologetic Lewis viewed Islam as unrelentingly autocratic, with a conception of freedom, “hurriyya,”—perfect slavery to an autocratic Allah and his sharia—antithetical to the uniquely Western notion of individual liberty. In short, for Lewis, Islam was a totalitarianism, analogous to Communism—a direct analogy he in fact made. Quoth Lewis, circa 1954:

I turn now from the accidental to the essential factors, to those deriving from the very nature of Islamic society, tradition, and thought. The first of these is the authoritarianism, perhaps we may even say the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition….Many attempts have been made to show that Islam and democracy are identical-attempts usually based on a misunderstanding of Islam or democracy or both. This sort of argument expresses a need of the up- rooted Muslim intellectual who is no longer satisfied with or capable of understanding traditional Islamic values, and who tries to justify, or rather, re-state, his inherited faith in terms of the fashionable ideology of the day. It is an example of the romantic and apologetic presentation of Islam that is a recognized phase in the reaction of Muslim thought to the impact of the West….

Without ever offering any coherent intervening historical or doctrinal explanations, “The Islam is Autocratic Totalitarianism Lewis,” five decades later, Lewis suddenly morphs into to “The Evangelical Democratist Lewis,” epitomized by his rather unhinged essay, from 2006, “Bring Them Freedom Or They Destroy Us.”

As noted here,

Lewis then [in the 1950s] was both unapologetic and pellucid in identifying the intractable obstacle to such efforts at democratization—Islam itself. ..Lewis’s volte-face on the merits of experiments in “Islamic democracy,” has been accompanied by his equally troubling intellectual legacy regarding three other critical subject areas: the institution of jihad, the chronic impact of the Sharia (Islamic law) on non-Muslims vanquished by jihad, and sacralized Islamic Jew-hatred.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=269521

SHAME ON GORDIS FOR THE PUSILLANIMOUS RESPONSE ABOUT GAZA AS A MODEL FOR ISRAELI WILLINGNESS TO COMPROMISE:

“Yet for some reason, Gordis, who recently penned a rather telling riposte of Beinart’s book in this paper, chose to be largely non-confrontational and to avoid assertively challenging either the credibility of Beinart’s sources or the cogency of his arguments.Although he began making an excellent opening point – that essentially there is “nothing Israel can do to end the conflict – not even land for peace” – he ended up severely undermining his case, declaring that he had no real disagreement with Beinart on most issues and that basically they shared the same vision for Israel – even if they differed on how to attain it. Acknowledging a priori that your adversary’s case is essentially valid is not a recommended strategy for winning arguments.
Perhaps most disturbing was his reassuring Beinart he too had many reservations about the settlements and that “many are going to have to get bulldozed.”

“We have shown in Gaza,” continued Gordis, trying to convince Beinart that settlements are not a real obstacle to a viable Palestinian state, “that we know how bulldoze when we need to bulldoze.”
That is not the lesson of the 2005 Gaza disengagement. The real lesson is that even if we do bulldoze, it is of no avail. It is pity that Gordis chose not drive this home.

Into the Fray: Last week’s exchange in NY was disappointing – more for what was not said rather than what was.

“I wish you all, the parents and the entire tribe of settlers… restorers of the Jewish settlement in Hebron… great blessing and joy in raising your son. Bringing your son into the covenant of the Patriarch Abraham, in the city of Abraham after 40 years separation from it, has a special symbolic significance. It bears testimony to our continuous connection to this place, to which we have returned never to leave.”

– Yigal Allon, January 29, 1969

These sentiments, conveyed in a congratulatory letter from the Labor Party’s iconic moderate, to a family in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish neighborhood adjacent to Hebron, on the occasion of the first brit ceremony in the community, underscores how decoupled from historical fact and political context the discourse on the Palestinian issue has become.

Allon, who commanded the Palmah in the War of Independence, served as deputy prime minister, education minister and foreign minister under Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin.

He was arguably the first mainstream politician to explicitly propose making far-reaching territorial concessions in Judea and Samaria, in what came to be known as the Allon Plan. Yet even he, the archetypical “pragmatic” secular Zionist, understood the profound significance of Hebron for the Jewish people, its heritage and its nationhood.

Relativity of ‘radicalism’

It is instructive to keep this in mind when assessing last week’s debate between Peter Beinart and Daniel Gordis at Columbia University, sparked by the publication of Beinart’s book The Crisis of Zionism.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/10/documents-withheld-in-gsa-scandal/print/

The watchdog agency for the General Services Administration is declining to release hundreds of thousands of documents about travel fraud investigations, saying the disclosure could interfere with ongoing law enforcement proceedings.

The Washington Times had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking copies of final reports for all travel fraud probes since 2007, as well as information about a highly publicized audit of lavish spending for a GSA conference in Las Vegas.

In a letter explaining the decision to withhold many of the records, an attorney for the Office of the Inspector General for the GSA noted that “over [800,000] documents are being withheld.” The letter said releasing the records could “interfere with ongoing enforcement proceedings.”

Since the conference audit was already released, the decision to keep the records from public view provides further evidence that criminal charges could come next in the 2010 GSA conference scandal.

Inspector General Brian Miller already has recommended a criminal probe as accusations of bribery and kickbacks emerged following his report on the conference. And the GSA official who planned the conference, Jeffrey Neely, invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination at a congressional hearing last month.

Issued last month, the inspector general’s report on the more than $800,000 Western Region Conference sparked bipartisan outrage on Capitol Hill and the ouster of GSA’s top official, Martha Johnson.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1871 The rise of rape Sexual abuse of women, in one form or another, appears to be on the rise in Israel. As is always the case with crimes of this nature, it is difficult to tell whether the phenomenon is actually increasing, or whether it is being taken more seriously than before and therefore […]

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks List of Islamic Terror Attacks For the Past 30 Days Date Country City Killed Injured Description 2012.05.10 Afghanistan Paktika 4 5 Four others are left dead when six Shahid suicide bombers attack a government building. 2012.05.10 Syria Damascus 55 372 Two Religion of Peace suicide bombers detonate during the morning rush hour, sending at […]

http://times247.com/

Evidence of al Qaeda in Syria mounts
Ynet
Friday, May 11, 2012
News
Evidence of al Qaeda in Syria mounts
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that U.S. intelligence indicates “an al-Qaeda presence in Syria,” but said the extent of its activity was unclear. “Frankly we need to continue to do everything we can to determine what kind of influence they’re trying to exert there,” Panetta said. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz1uYbeuasu
Astronauts ask NASA to cool it on warming
National Review Online
Friday, May 11, 2012
News
Astronauts ask NASA to cool it on warming
Veterans of America’s space program are among the 49 retired NASA employees who recently asked the agency to halt what they consider its unscientific advocacy of climate alarmism. Read more…
Pirates seize oil tanker off Oman coast
BBC
Friday, May 11, 2012
News
Pirates seize oil tanker off Oman coast
A Greek-owned oil tanker has been hijacked by pirates in the Arabian Sea. About 200 people are currently thought to be held as hostages on vessels seized by the pirates. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz1uYbnvtRG

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/11/egyptian-actress-under-fire-for-playing-mother-teresa/
WHO IS HANAN TORK?
http://213.158.162.45/~egyptian/index.php?action=news&id=17696&title=%E2%80%98Let’s%20build%20Egypt%E2%80%99%20launched%20in%20US
‘Let’s build Egypt’ launched in US
The Egyptian Gazette Online
Saturday, April 30, 2011 04:16:13 PM
WASHINGTON – Egypt’s Ambassador in the US Sameh Shokri took part in the ‘Let’s build Egypt’ campaign on Friday night in Virginia, with the participation of Goodwill Ambassador Egyptian actress Hanan Tork, her compatriot, preacher Moustafa Hosni, and some American and Egyptian VIPs, the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reports.

Hanan Tork, a popular actress in the Middle East of Egyptian origins, who recently took to the hijab and retired from acting, has returned to the silver screen—to much criticism and threats from the same Muslims who formerly praised her for donning the veil. According to Al Sawt, the actress is under “vicious attack” for accepting to play the role of Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun who, for 45 years, dedicated her life to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/11/blaming-obamas-problems-on-bush-on-the-glazov-gang-1/

Tommi Trudeau, Rob Nelson and Nonie Darwish joined The Glazov Gang this week and fought it out over the silence about Islam in our society. Below are all three parts of a three-part-series. Part I deals with The Fate of a Chinese Dissident, Part II involves the debate over whether Obama can legitimately blame his problems on Bush, and Part III focuses on how criticizing Islam is increasingly becoming forbidden.

hat Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner Really Showed Us About Israel

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/11/what-lt-col-shalom-eisner-really-showed-us-about-israel/

The media firestorm over Israeli Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner never seems to end. It all started when video was posted of Eisner violently striking a protester with his rifle, sparking outrage throughout the world. Immediately, the video was shown as proof of Israeli brutality. But is this really a fair depiction?

Eisner was immediately condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff. The Israeli media relentlessly covered the incident. He was suspended, has been banned from holding command posts for two years, was reassigned to a training school and is still under investigation. It is very possible that he will face further punishment.

That is the real story here. Israel’s furious reaction to the video debunks what its enemies claim it proves. If the Israelis were so inhumane, this wouldn’t be such a big story. There is no other country in the Middle East that would react the same way if roles were reversed. Ironically, the controversy is showing what is so good about Israel, even if no one notices.

Some context is also needed here. A group of about 250 anti-Israel activists were stopped as they tried to get on Highway 90, as the IDF requires advance notice of such crossings as a security precaution. Keep in mind, the group was part of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that says it is non-violent but supports “the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggles.” In other words, ISM supports violence.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/time-to-terminate-big-wind-subsidies

Unprecedented! As bills to extend seemingly perpetual wind energy subsidies were again introduced by industry lobbyists late last year, taxpayers finally decided they’d had enough.

Informed and inspired by a loose but growing national coalition of groups opposed to more giveaways with no scientifically proven net benefits, thousands of citizens called their senators and representatives – and rounded up enough Nay votes to run four different bills aground. For once, democracy worked.

A shocked American Wind Energy Association and its allies began even more aggressive recruiting of well-connected Democrat and Republican political operatives and cosponsors – and introducing more proposals like HR 3307 to extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC). Parallel efforts were launched in state legislatures, to maintain mandates, subsidies, feed-in tariffs, renewable energy credits, and other “temporary” ratepayer and taxpayer obligations.

This “emerging industry” is “vitally important” to our energy future, supporters insisted. It provides “clean energy” and “over 37,000” jobs that “states can’t afford to lose.” It helps prevent global warming.

None of these sales pitches holds up under objective scrutiny, and their growing awareness of this basic reality has finally made many in Congress inclined to eliminate this wasteful spending on wind power.

Entitlement advocates are petrified at that possibility. Crony corporatist lobbyists and politicians have built a small army to take on beleaguered taxpayers, rate payers and business owners who say America can no longer afford to spend more borrowed money, to prop up energy policies that drive up electricity costs, damage the environment, and primarily benefit foreign conglomerates and a privileged few.