RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=aabae2e175f3579408b9ef9ad&id=af652827df&e=c3c6d0eb75

Attending the Herzliya Conference’s panel on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like following Woody Allen’s therapy through his movies: you know that the patient is hopeless and that the new movie is going to be a mere repetition of the previous one, and yet you maintain the ritual out of snobbism. This year’s panel, however, was more like a flashback. I felt like I was watching the ending scene of Mighty Aphrodite, when the Greek tragedy turns into a Broadway show.

The panel included seven speakers: Tzipi Livni (chairperson of the “Hatnuah” party), Shlomo Avineri (a Hebrew-U emeritus professor), Robert Danin (from the US Council on Foreign Relations), Michael Herzog (from the Washington Institute for Near East Policies), Yoaz Hendel (chairman of the Institute for Zionist Strategy), Nati Sharoni (chairman of the Council for Peace and Security), and Dani Dayan (former chairman of the Judea and Samaria Council). The moderator was Barak Ravid, the diplomatic correspondent of Haaretz.

Supposedly, the purpose of a panel is to present different opinions and to have a debate. In this panel, however, all but one member expressed support for the “two-state solution” (the only minor differences between the speakers were about technicalities). Even the moderator clearly stated his opinion and sided with the six panelists who expressed their support for the “two-state solution.” The only dissident was Dani Dayan, who was added at the last minute (his name was not on the original program, and an extra seat was squeezed-in for him right before the session started). In the end, seven speakers (including the “moderator”) said that a Palestinian state must be established in Judea and Samaria, and one speaker begged to differ. It was a 7-1 ratio, or an 86% majority –an impressive display of pluralism and balance.

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2013/03/13/yes-justice-scalia-section-5-is-a-racial-entitlement-doj-says-so/ Truth and revolution can appear suddenly, and darken the brightest of times. Consider yesterday’s Department of Justice inspector general’s report documenting the rancid racialist attitudes of the Voting Section staff. (See: “Inspector General Report of Racialist Dysfunction Inside DOJ.”) The Justice Department should hope that Justice Antonin Scalia — or his clerks — don’t […]

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/north-koreas-real-best-friend/?print=1 Basketball eccentric Dennis Rodman is reportedly planning an August idyll with North Korea’s young tyrant [1], Kim Jong Un — a replay of his February excursion to Pyongyang, from which Rodman returned to report that his new best friend, Kim, does not want war. He just wants a phone call from the president of […]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9929154/Labour-peer-Lord-Ahmed-suspended-over-claims-he-blamed-imprisonment-on-Jewish-conspiracy.html

Labour peer Lord Ahmed suspended over claims he blamed imprisonment on ‘Jewish conspiracy’
Labour has suspended a peer who is alleged to have blamed a Jewish conspiracy for the imprisonment he received over a fatal motorway crash.

The Times has reported that Lord Ahmed, a Labour life peer, claimed that he received his prison sentenced because of pressure on the courts from Jews “who own newspapers and TV channels”.

Lord Ahmed, who in 1998 became the first Muslim life peer, is said to have claimed that the conspiracy was a result of his support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

He is said to have made the comments in a TV interview in April last year while on a visit to Pakistan.

Labour today suspended the peer “pending an investigation”.

Lord Ahmed, who was born in Pakistan, became Baron Ahmed of Rotherham at the age of 40.

In 2007 he was highly critical of the awarding of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, claiming the author had “blood on his hands.”

In 2009 he was jailed for dangerous driving after sending and receiving text messages minutes before being involved in a fatal motorway crash. The Court of Appeal later suspended his 12-week jail sentence.

He was freed after serving 16 days in jail after Martyn Gombar, a 28-year-old Slovakian was killed on Christmas Day in 2007 after his stationary car was hit by Lord Ahmed’s Jaguar.

In the TV broadcast it is alleged Lord Ahmed said of his jail sentence: “My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians. My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.”

A criminal law expert told the Times that if Lord Ahmed had made the claims in the UK, he could have faced prosecution for a hate crime.

A spokesman for the Labour Party said they will be “seeking to clarify” the remarks.

http://www.jidaily.com/c48e4?utm_source=Jewish+Ideas+Daily+Insider&utm_campaign=ae2559882d-Insider&utm_medium=email

“……. that turns Schindler into a feel-good movie about the handful of Jews who survived thanks to our hero. It doesn’t minimize the real Schindler’s achievement to point out that the Holocaust was about the doomed many, not the relatively lucky few. Pity the poor Jews who didn’t know him.”

Universal has just brought out a 20th-anniversary Blu-ray edition of Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust movie, Schindler’s List. Don’t blame whoever got stuck writing the box copy—”Experience one of the most historically significant films of all time like never before,” and so on—for a certain awkwardness about how best to strike the celebratory note. The package is also notably stingy with the undignified extras that usually tempt consumers to repurchase a beloved classic, but what were you expecting, a blooper reel?

That crack isn’t meant to be gratuitous, believe me. Call it a reminder that Schindler’s List is every bit as much a Hollywood product as Groundhog Day, which came out the same year. Unlike Groundhog Day, it’s got the Academy Awards—seven of them—to prove it. In my book, nothing that wins that many Oscars can be altogether holy.

However ennobled by its topic, the movie was nonetheless conceived as entertainment—of a very somber sort, to be sure—by one of the most gifted of all crowd-pleasing directors. That is, it was meant to be accessible and popular as well as impressive. Still, my fellow oldsters may recall how some African American high-school students in Oakland who got sent to see the thing a month or so after its premiere—on MLK Day, no less—stirred up nationwide consternation by laughing at some scenes. They’d committed what was already the sin of treating Schindler as just another afternoon at the multiplex.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2911/western_funded_palestinian_tv_insists_land_occupied_in_1948_will_return_to_us_one_day

ONLY FOOLS CAN CONTINUE TO HARBOR THE TWO-STATE DISSOLUTION BLATHER…..OR MORE TERRITORIAL CONCESSIONS BY ISRAEL….IT IS AS VIABLE AS RETURNING TEXAS TO MEXICO OR FLORIDA TO SPAIN….RSK

In yet another revelatory video, Palestinian Media Watch shows how despite consistent calls for a two-state solution, Palestinian television is still teaching its children to await the destruction of Israel

n previous occasions, The Commentator has reported on the wide variety of Western taxpayer-funded incitement emanating from the Palestinian territories.

This continuous onslaught against the existence of the State of Israel comes not from Hamas, but rather, from the Western-funded ‘peace partner’, the Palestinian Authority.

It has been discussed [PODCAST] how US, UK and European taxpayer money is funding radio, television and print media that disseminate ‘hate education’ – another such example reaches us today from Palestinian Media Watch.

As can be viewed below, the latest video shows a Palestinian Authority TV (PATV) show, wherein the host declares to a room of children, “land occupied in 1948 [the founding of the State of Israel] will return to us one day.”

PA TV host: “And of course we will never forget that we have land that was occupied in 1948, which will return to us one day. Remember well, children. Also [remember] to safeguard our folklore, our national games, the folklore in all its forms, our dress and our food and our games and anything that forms the Palestinian folklore – we have to safeguard it. If we don’t safeguard it, then the occupation might steal it as well, as it stole our land. Right? Do you agree with me? Bravo!”

Persistently, calls are made by the United Nations and other Western organisations for a two-state solution peace process to re-emerge. These calls are of course nullified in the face of such hateful and inciteful statements such as these.

Until recently, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Department for International Development have signalled that no measures would be taken regarding Palestinian incitement, although various members of the British Parliament have declared their intent to halt the funding process for those with nefarious intent.

Around 80 percent of the Palestinian Authority’s budget came from Western aid in 2010, with the United States providing around $500m a year on average, and Britain sending £80m a year.

The Show Trial of Sergei Magnitsky Russia puts a dead man in the dock.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324077704578358132019896910.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopBucket

It sounds like something out of a Nikolai Gogol story, but it’s true: Sergei Magnitsky, killed by abuse and neglect in a Russian prison at the age of 37, is now on trial more than three years after his death.

On Tuesday a Russian court held the second hearing of a sham trial to convict him posthumously of tax evasion. That hearing was postponed at the request of Magnitsky’s state-appointed defense attorney, who pleaded for more time to prepare a defense.

Assuming this gesture was not part of the charade, he needn’t have bothered. As in the show trials of the 1930s, the outcome is assured. The whole point of putting this dead man on trial is to secure a conviction and rob the victim of his status as an international martyr. Last year the U.S. passed the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions and bans from travel to the U.S. Russians implicated in his murder. Some countries in Europe may do the same.

The Putin government has no interest in seeing Magnitsky’s name cleared. Yet it is revealing that Moscow feels bound to produce a verdict. Even Vladimir Putin’s Russia seeks to adopt the trappings if not the substance of criminal justice.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324532004578358142463632614.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Tottenham Hotspur fans must be wary when they follow the London team across the Channel.
By TOBY YOUNG

For Tottenham Hotspur’s corps of traveling fans, Thursday’s soccer game in Italy against Internazionale Milano holds many dangers—and not just to their team. When Tottenham played Lyon in a Europa League game last month, 150 visiting fans were set upon by a group of neo-Nazis, with three Spurs supporters ending up in the hospital. It was the second time in recent months that the team’s fans have been attacked by a fascist mob in Europe—in November, several Spurs fans were injured when they traveled to Rome to see Tottenham take on Lazio. Their assailants screamed “Jews” before attacking them with knives and clubs.

Tottenham’s supporters are no strangers to anti-Semitism. The North London team has been known as the “Jewish club” since the beginning of the early 1900s, when it regularly attracted over 11,000 Yiddisher supporters to home games. In 1986, it was the first big team (and the last) to hire a British Jew, David Pleat, as a coach, and a Happy Yom Kippur message has made an annual appearance in the club’s official program since 1973.

The story of how Tottenham came to be adopted by Britain’s Jews as “God’s chosen football club” is a curious one. The conventional wisdom is that it’s because the team’s White Hart Lane stadium is next to one of England’s largest communities of Orthodox Jews, but that’s not the reason. Indeed, it’s doubtful Tottenham draws more than a handful of supporters from this neighborhood, given the traditional indifference of Orthodox Jews to soccer.

The true explanation has more to do with London’s public transportation system and the fact that soccer games in England are normally played on a Saturday afternoon. Jewish immigrants from Europe at the beginning of the 20th century tended to settle in London’s East End, an area associated with West Ham, one of Tottenham’s London rivals. However, the reason Spurs became the “Jewish club” is because White Hart Lane was easier to get to using London’s now defunct network of electric trams. That meant East End Jews could go to synagogue on Saturday morning, wolf down a bowl of lokshen soup and travel to “the Lane” in the afternoon without breaking the Sabbath rule against using a vehicle powered by a combustion engine. Or that’s the team lore, anyway.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324532004578358773509307346.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

In choosing Pope Francis as his new name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio conjures Francis of Assisi, emphasizing the church’s humility, poverty and charity.

The election of Pope Francis may prove to be not only a turning point for the Catholic Church, but for all humanity. For the first time in a millennium, the most venerable institution on earth will be led by a man from outside Europe, the Argentine son of an Italian.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio told the multitudes after the announcement of his elevation on Wednesday that he would lead them on “the path of love”—a reference, surely, to Francis of Assisi, the great 13th-century saint from whom he has borrowed his pontifical name. The daring novelty and profound symbolism of the new pope’s name cannot be overstated. Just as Benedict XVI named himself after the great founder of Western monasticism and preserver of Western civilization during the Dark Ages, so Francis has named himself after the founder of the Franciscans in order to signal the church’s humility, poverty and charity.

As a Jesuit, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires has set his sights on a simpler, humbler, more missionary style than the intellectual grandeur of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, now pope emeritus.

Jesuits are of course famously intellectuals too, but Pope Francis is the son of a railroad worker and poor Italian immigrant. He has always stayed true to his roots, and his election signifies the longing of the cardinals to return the church to its roots, too—as an unworldly, dedicated band of pilgrims.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2447/A-Bronze-Star-for-Submission.aspx

Heard about the chaplain from Ohio whom Uncle Sam has recognized with a Bronze Star for a PowerPoint presentation? Must have been some PowerPoint presentation — and so it was.

The Dayton Daily News reports:

Trainer, who’s now in the running to be named Chaplain of the Year for the entire Air Guard, was in the third month of his voluntary deployment to Afghanistan last February when U.S. troops at Bagram Airfield mistakenly burned copies of the Muslim holy book.

The ensuing outrage claimed more than 30 lives, including two U.S. troops and two U.S. military advisers.

Within 48 hours, Trainer developed a PowerPoint presentation on the proper handling and disposal of Islamic religious material that was seen by every American — military and civilian alike — in Afghanistan. The presentation then was distributed to the U.S. for use in all pre-deployment training.

“This entire mission,” Trainer said from his office at the Springfield Air National Guard Base, “could be undermined by an action like that.

“All that good work. You realize how quickly that work can be undermined.”

I think it was this one.