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November 2014

TOBIAS GREY: A REVIEW OF CAROLINE MOOREHEAD’S BOOK “VILLAGE OF SECRETS-DEFYING THE NAZIS IN VICHY FRANCE”

Villagers from the Cévennes cooperated to save thousands of innocents wanted by the Nazis and their French collaborators.

In 1934, when André Trocmé took up his new post as the Protestant pastor of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, an isolated, wind-swept village in the highlands of the Haute-Loire in the French Cévennes, he and his family could have been forgiven for ruing their luck. Enclosed by mountains and prey to heavy snows during the long winters, the village could be cut off from the outside world for weeks at a time. Trocmé’s new parishioners seemed to him “as grey as their granite farmhouses,” he wrote in an unpublished memoir. “They talked incessantly about death.” Not the most engaging qualities on the surface, but as the charismatic pastor eventually discovered, it would take a special kind of bullheadedness to defy the Nazis and their French collaborators in 1940-44.

The inhabitants of Le Chambon and its surrounding parishes in the non-Occupied Zone of south-central France would save thousands of lives during World War II: Communists, resisters, Freemasons and a large number of Jews, including hundreds of orphaned children and babies whose parents had been deported to the death camps, were all given vital refuge from the Gestapo and French Milice, the paramilitary force created in 1943 by the Vichy regime to combat the Resistance. Nearly everyone in the town cooperated to save these innocent strangers, Trocmé among them.

After the war, about 40 people from Le Chambon, including Trocmé and his wife, Magda, were awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the World Center for Holocaust Research. A best-selling book, “Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed” (1979) by Philip Hallie, and an award-winning documentary film by Pierre Sauvage, “Weapons of the Spirit” (1987), were made about the extraordinary efforts of the people of Le Chambon. Now, in “Village of Secrets,” Caroline Moorehead delivers the definitive account of how and why they did what they did.

(Moderate) Jordanian Parliament Prays for “Spirits of Heroes” Who Murdered 4 Rabbis By Daniel Greenfield

Jordan is a moderate Muslim country.

But it’s not exactly surprising. This would be the Jordanian parliament which fought any effort to criminalize honor killings and which called for the release of a Jordanian soldier who murdered seven Israeli teenage girls. With good reason. Jordan was the original “Palestine”.

After the brutal murder of four Rabbis, this story via Elder of Ziyon comes as no surprise at all.

On Wednesday, Jordan’s parliament offered a prayer in honor of the spirit of Ghassan Abu Jamal and Uday Abu Jamal – the terrorists who slaughtered five people.

The prayer was held as the House of representatives session opened.

MP Khalil Attieh requested his fellow representatives to recite the Fatiha for the “spirit of the heroes.”

The Fatiha is the first chapter of the Koran, recited on important occasions.

Attieh further declared that the murders were a “natural reaction to the occupation crimes against the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinians.”

In addition, MP Mohammed Al-Qatathh of the House of Representatives issued a statement to the assembly condemning the “Zionist attack on Jerusalem and its people” in the wake of “the heroic operation” on the synagogue in Har Nof.

Obama Deports American Jobs By Daniel Greenfield

Obama’s excuse for his illegal amnesty will be that the immigration system is “broken” forcing him to act. But when Obama says that the system is broken, he means that some parts of it still work and so he intends to break immigration all the way through to benefit his own corrupt political allies.

That will hurt his own voters the most, but the Democratic Party has a notoriously masochistic relationship with its voting base. It beats them up and then it gaslights them by hugging them and telling them that it was really the mean Republicans who punched them in the face.

When African-American unemployment rates rise, the workers who can’t find jobs because of all the brand new DREAMERs won’t blame the White House, they’ll blame the evil Republicans for income inequality, assuming Sharpton manages to read the term correctly from his MSNBC teleprompter.

According to Obama our immigration system is broken because it doesn’t allow illegal aliens who illegally crossed the border to take American jobs. That’s not a broken system, that’s what the system is supposed to do.

When illegal aliens aren’t allowed to legally take American jobs, that’s how you know the immigration system is working.

In the language of progressivism, helping means ruining and fixing means breaking. A system that fulfills any useful purpose must be reformed out of all usefulness. If the tattered shreds of the immigration system still keep a single Democratic voter from legally cashing a welfare check and casting a vote, then immigration must be reformed and helped and fixed until it is completely destroyed.

The immigration system is broken because it was reformed so many times that it makes as much sense as an outhouse on a space shuttle. Its main function now is to bring millions of people without jobs to a country where millions are out of work. Obama wants to fix that by adding millions more people.

Geert Wilders: Islam’s War Against the Free West

Below are the video and transcript to Geert Wilders’ speech at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. The event took place Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

“It is always a pleasure to be in the United States. And it is an honor to be at Restoration Weekend again. Especially at this moment when a new Congress and a new majority in the Senate are preparing to lead this great country and change it for the better.

I am a politician from Europe. I am a member of the House of Representatives in the Netherlands and the leader of the Party for Freedom, the leading party in the Dutch opinion polls today.

Before I continue, let me tell you something about my life as a European politician.

I am not a President, nor a Governor, nor even a member of Cabinet, just a member of Congress. For over ten years now, I have been living under 24/7 police protection. I lived with my wife in army barracks, prison cells and safe houses until this very day, just to be safe.

Wherever I go, armed policemen accompany me to protect me against Islamic jihadis. Al Qaida, the Taliban, ISIS and many others threatened to kill me because I tell the truth about Islam and speak out against the Islamization of our free Western societies.

In Europe we have made a terrible mistake. During the past decades, our politicians foolishly allowed millions of Islamic immigrants to settle within our borders. Everywhere the Islamic culture was welcomed as an enrichment. Nowhere was the demand made that the immigrants assimilate.

Not a single European leader had the guts to state the obvious and tell the truth: Our Western culture based on Christianity, Judaism and Humanism, is far superior to the Islamic culture and immigrants have to adopt our values.

JACK ENGELHARD:SYNAGOGUE MASSACRE: ENOUGH STATUS QUO?

Jerusalem Synagogue Massacre: Enough Status Quo, Maybe?

Four rabbis at prayer in a Jerusalem synagogue were murdered – hacked to death — by a pair of terrorist Arabs, and this we all know. We have since learned, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the homes of these terrorists will be destroyed, and this is too is not big news. (A Druze-Israeli policeman to the rescue has become the fifth fatality.)

Nothing, in fact, is really news. Another day, another massacre. Despite the shock, the grieving and the rage, Israelis have learned to take it in stride.

We also learn that Har Nof, the same place where all that happened only hours ago, is “back to normal.” Those words from an Israeli spokesman.

Yes, the doors of the shul are open again, the blood wiped clean of Rabbis Moshe Twersky, Aryeh Kupinsky, Kalman Ze’ev Levine and Avraham Shmuel Goldberg.

Among Israelis, getting back to normal is a matter of pride. “We won’t live in fear. We won’t be intimidated.” That is the message.

For Obama’s citing Palestinian suffering in the same breath as this atrocity, no words at this moment except one – disgraceful.
Admirable, I suppose.

Rescission? But Of Course! By Andrew C. McCarthy

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/392982/rescission-course-andrew-c-mccarthy Unlike my friend Quin, I am not the slightest bit surprised that the GOP may use the Theater of Rescission to playact “opposition” to Obama’s executive amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. As Quin and Eliana report, that gambit has been floated by Representative Hal Rogers of Kentucky, the Republican establishment factotum who chairs […]

DANIEL GREENFIELD: TEARS DON’T PROTECT AGAINST MURDER ****

After serving a few years in prison for his role in the Munich Massacre, Willi Pohl moved to Beirut. The brief sentence was a slap in the wrist, but Pohl had still served more time in prison than the Muslim gunmen who had murdered eleven Israeli athletes and coaches during the 1972 Summer Olympics. Mohammed Safady and the Al-Gashey cousins were released after a few months by the German authorities.

They went back to Lebanon and so did he.

A decade after the attack, Willi Pohl had begun making a name for himself as a crime novelist. His first novel was Tränen Schützen Nicht vor Mord or Tears Do Not Protect Against Murder.

While Pohl was penning crime novels, Israeli operatives had already absorbed the lessons of his first title. Tears, whether in 1939 or 1972, had not done anything to prevent the murder of Jews. Bullets were another matter.

The head of Black September in Rome was the first to die, followed by a string of PLO leaders across Europe. Those attacks were followed by raids on the mansions and apartments of top Fatah officials in the same city where Pohl had found temporary refuge. By the time his first book was published, hundreds of PLO terrorists and officials were dead.

European law enforcement had failed to hold even the actual perpetrators of the Munich Massacre responsible, never mind the representatives of the PLO who openly mingled with red radicals in its capitals. Israeli operatives did what the German judicial system had failed to do, putting down Safady and one of the Al-Gasheys, while the other one hid out with Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

The Israeli raid on the PLO terrorists in Beirut’s Muslim Quarter missed one important target. Arafat. And so, on another September day, some later, September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin shook hands with Arafat and proclaimed, “Enough of blood and tears! Enough!”

MY SAY: DEMOCRAT KEYSTONE COPS

As our series on the election at Family Security Matters shows, construction of the Keystone Pipeline was a big and very partisan issue in the election. Many democrats wiggled on it saying they were in favor of it as long as there were limiting environmental amendments. They also proposed amendments demanding that only domestic oil be transported, oblivious to the fact that oil from Montana and North Dakota would flow through the pipeline and the millions of jobs it would create.The vast majority of the Republican challengers as well as incumbents were in favor of the Pipeline without those amendments designed to save earthworms.

Some democrats did vote in favor, most notably the recently defeated Senator Begich of Alaska. You can see the list in your state by going to:

http://scorecard.lcv.org/roll-call-vote/2013-179-keystone-xl-tar-sands-pipeline-kxl

Please note this is an “environmentalist” score card so a vote in favor is seen as bad.

ALAN CARUBA: PRAYING OR NOT ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT ****

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/praying-or-not-on-the-temple-mount?f=puball

The Palestinians never lose an opportunity or excuse to kill Jews. What is feared is a new intifada or holy war in Israel, specifically in Jerusalem, where attacks on its civilians and soldiers have been occurring. The present grievance has to do with the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism, but one that was taken over by Muslims when they invaded in 638 A.D.

Muslims have a habit of either destroying the places of worship of Jews and Christians or converting them to mosques. In the case of the Temple Mount, known to Arabs as Masjid al Aksa, the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik, around 688 A.D., built the Dome of the Rock, a mosque. The site, Mount Moriah, had been holy to Jews for 3,000 years as the place where Abraham offered his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice when his faith was tested by God.

As recorded in 2 Chronicles 3:1 “Then Solomon began to build the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David, his father.”

And then Mohammad came along with a fanciful story. As recorded in the Koran, Sura Al-Isra 17:1. “Glory be to Him who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Sanctuary to the farthest Sanctuary, whose precincts We did bless…” According to Mohammed, one night he was transported from Mecca to Jerusalem, escorted by the angel Gabriel. From the future site of al-Aksa, he ascended to Heaven where he met the great prophets before returning to Mecca. Suffice to say the “Night journey” became a sacred event for Muslims and al-Aksa, when built, a sacred mosque.

Apparently anything in Islam is justification enough to kill any “unbeliever” and Jews have been on the top of that list since it was created by Mohammed, largely because the Jews of his time refused to abandon their faith and accept him as a prophet.

When Israel became a sovereign Jewish state in 1948, it was immediately attacked by its Arab neighbors and has had to fight several wars since then. It has never been free from attacks, the latest being those by Hamas from Gaza that provoked a military operation to stop their ceaseless rocketing.

Jonah Goldberg: ‘Shirtgate’ and Common Decency

Had scientist Matt Taylor simply dressed professionally for TV, there would be no “scandal” to speak of.

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta project accomplished one of the most impressive scientific feats in our lifetime. They essentially moved a clunky machine from one speeding bullet onto another, by remote control, from 310 million miles away. It’s hoped this achievement will help usher in a new era of space exploration by teaching us how to exploit the raw materials swirling around the solar system. Also, it was really cool.

But it wasn’t cool enough for some feminists who found the shirt worn by Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist, to be a bigger deal. Taylor’s shirt, designed by a female friend, depicts a bunch of attractive, scantily clad women drawn from comic books holding guns. (Slate’s Amanda Marcotte oddly described their stances as “pornographic poses.”)

Rose Eveleth, a science writer, tweeted in response to a televised interview with Taylor: “No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt.”

A meteor shower of hashtagged rage rained down on both sides of the Atlantic. “Shirtstorm!” “Shirtgate!” and similar bullshirt.

What should have been the best week of Taylor’s professional life ended with him weeping on TV as he apologized for his alleged crime.

Many of my friends and colleagues on the anti-PC right have responded with understandable outrage. And it’s true: Taylor’s confession of wrongdoing did feel forced — awfully North Korean.

Still, the feminists have a point. Although I like the shirt (which is now selling like hotcakes), I would never wear it to a nice restaurant, never mind on a globally broadcast TV interview. The reason I wouldn’t wear it has very little to do with my fear of offending feminists. It’s simply unsuitable professional attire. I’d ask critics of the feminist backlash, would you wear it on a job interview? How about to church or synagogue?