RUTHFULLY YOURS

Has the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement succeeded in bringing Israel to the point of South Africa when it ended apartheid and reformulated itself into a non-racist state? Despite the egregious falsity of the historical comparison, the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University recently held an informal debate on this question titled, “Palestine’s South Africa Moment? The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement.” The audience of approximately 140 people—a mix of students, self-described Palestinians, activists, and fellow travelers—filled the Columbia Law School lecture hall.

Rashid Khalidi, Columbia’s Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, restated a point often made by political interlocutors, in an intonation that fully communicated his contempt:

If you’re Palestinian and you live in certain places, say New York City, like myself . . . you are lectured that the Palestinians should be non-violent. . . . What usually follows that is . . . “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?”

To the supportive audience, Khalidi provided the confrontational answer from which, he claimed, he would normally “manfully refrain”:

Well, the Palestinian Gandhi may well have been shot down in cold blood by an Israeli sniper during a demonstration like the two children per week who are killed. . . . Maybe the Palestinian Gandhi is in prison. Maybe the Palestinian Gandhi had something else happen to her or to him.

In other words, who knows whether this paragon ever existed, but surely Israel’s to blame for his non-appearance.

White House and Department of State officials contend that – irrespective of Congress – President Obama can apply effective diplomatic, commercial and national security pressure, coercing Israel to repartition Jerusalem, and retreat from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria to the 9-15 mile wide pre-1967 sliver, surrounded by the violently turbulent and unpredictable Arab Street.

That inaccurate underestimate of the power of Congress – which has traditionally opposed pressure on Israel, echoing the sentiments of most constituents – was recently expressed by US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro: “what is unmistakable about our foreign policy system is that the Constitution provides the president with the largest share of power….”

The assertion that US foreign policy and national security are shaped by presidential omnipotence is refuted by recent precedents and the US Constitution. The latter was created by the Founding Fathers, who were determined to limit the power of government and preclude the possibility of executive dictatorship. They were apprehensive of potential presidential excesses and encroachment, and therefore assigned the formulation of foreign policy and national security to both Congress and the president. Obviously, the coalescing of congressional policy among 535 legislators constitutes a severe disadvantage for the legislature.

According to the Congressional Quarterly, the US Constitution rectified the mistakes of its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, upgrading the role of Congress to the primary branch of the US government. “Hence, the first article of the Constitution is dedicated to Congress. The powers, structure, and procedures of the national legislature are outlined in considerable detail in the Constitution, unlike those of the presidency and the judiciary….”

Whether the fourth quarter 5% growth of the U.S.gross development product [GDP] is a fluke, another wave of the troubled sea of the longest recovery in recent American history, it is evidence of the miraculous strength of the U.S. economy.

Some are predicting it means a return to 3% annual growth rates next year, still not what is required to reduce both cyclical and the new digital revolution induced structural unemployment, but back to “normal” trends..

The war the Obama Administration has been waging against business, private initiative, and historical American innovation hasn’t been able to stifle the basic American entrepreneurial spirit. Nowhere is that more apparent, of course, than in energy.

For the energy revolution which has come about as a result of the private sector pursuing new technologies to develop shale gas and oil, of course, are at the center of the miniboom. And, the chutzpah of the Obama Administration’s claiming credit for something it fought as vigorously as its amateur planners could – promoting higher energy costs to encourage their vaunted shift to new fuels — is even by the standards of this Administration, outrageous. It remains to be seen whether a new administration in 2017 might open government including offshore lands and reinforce the U.S.’ position already as the number one oil producer in the world and a potential major gas exporter.

Whether it is recreational drivers enjoying the new, lower gasoline prices, or the petrochemical industry moving back from overseas to use as throughput cost a price for gas a quarter of deliveries in East Asia, the domestic economy is getting a shot in the arm. Not even the threat of an unconstitutional Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency all-out attack on all American electrical production and manufacturing can stymie the trend.

The international impact of this remarkable and relatively sudden development is still playing out.

The world energy price, however much markets are segregated by political concerns, is still in the throes of being threshed out. But lower energy prices, even in the fickle oil market, are obviously with us for several years. That’s the result of the American shale revolution, but also – despite all the feuds and guerrilla in the Mideast – the coming on market of more and more production. Boycotts and sanctions have only increased the black-markets nipping and tucking through all the back alleys of the world economy to market more oil.

It’s hard to know where to begin with what we already see as the immediate results of the world energy goldmine:

Saudi Arabia, hoping to impede the American and foreign shale revolution with its higher costs, is pumping more oil than ever from its low-cost resources. It hopes not only to have an effect on a possible competitor as the U.S. moves to becoming, again, a gas [liquefied natural gas, LNG] and oil exporter, but to deal a blow to its Mideast rivals.

Venezuela’s two-bit caudillos are in trouble with their heavy oil. [They will have new competition as the Keystone XL Pipeline finally overcomes Obama’s opposition to deliver similar Canadian tar sands oil to the Houston where one of the few refineries which can handle Caracas’ goo exists]. Nor can the collapsing Venezuelan regime continue to feed subsidized energy to its leftwing anti-America playmates. It remains to be seen if Obama’s life preserver thrown to a Castro regime, the first victim of such a shutoff, can save that crumbling dictatorship which has brought infinite misery to its people.

Muslim Terrorism has become as much of a Christmas tradition for Christians in the West, as it already was for Christians in the Muslim world, where Somali Muslim gunmen attacked a Christmas party at an African Union base.

A Somali Muslim attempted to bring terrorism into the United States by bombing a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland in 2010. Mohamed Osman Mohamud (twice the Mohammed for twice the mayhem) had a simple goal, “I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave dead or injured.”

Mohamed Mohamud was just following up on the work of Christmas Day flight bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab over from Nigeria who stuffed his underwear full of plastic explosives and tried to detonate it on Flight 253.

Islamic “lone wolves,” together with their many Islamic wolf packs here and abroad, wish to unmake a world they never made with murder and mayhem and conquest.In his December 25th “Christmas” column, “Every Christmas Now Comes with Muslim Terrorism,” Daniel Greenfield observed about the average, unassuming Muslims in our midst:

They may lapse at times. They may get through a university education, attend nightclubs, listen to the same music all the other kids their age do– but there’s still a ticking time bomb inside their heads. And that bomb is the same one that appears as the lit fuse on the turban of the cartoon Mohammad.

An average and unassuming Muslim next door or down the street can douse the fuse himself by repudiating Islam. He can convert to Christianity, to Judaism, to Buddhism, to Scientology, or even become an atheist. Apostasy is absolutely imperative, but comes with some risk because Islam, the “religion of peace,” decrees the death of an apostate.

Honor killings of girls and women who are “seduced” by Western cultural and social norms are a result of a partial or full repudiation of Islam by their victims. The killings are committed by average and unassuming Muslim parents and relatives. The perpetrators preserve their ethereal “honor”; the victims lose their lives.

Exposing the ‘pinkwashing’ lie

On Wednesday, thousands of tourists from around the world arrived in Israel for the Nonstop Gay Festival, a joint venture of the Tourism Ministry and the Tel Aviv Municipality. From Dec. 24 to Jan. 7, members of the lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgender communities of North America, South America and Europe are being offered an array of activities and entertainment across Tel Aviv.

The ostensible draw of and impetus for this two-week celebration of LGBT life in the Holy Land is the relatively warm weather, which is why its logo is a snowman made out of sand, wearing a rainbow scarf and holding a flag with the temperature of 20°C (68°F) written on it.

And though it is true that tourists escaping freezing weather elsewhere are happy to bask in the sun along the shores of the Mediterranean, the real reason that this particular tourism campaign was a shoe-in for success has to do with Israel’s reputation as one of the most gay-friendly places in the world.

This is but one aspect of the Jewish state that illustrates its openness and pluralism, something that would be less striking if the tiny democracy were not surrounded by barbaric regimes. Naturally, it is the very freedom of Israeli society that most irks those regimes, which aim to destroy Western civilization as a whole and to wipe out Zionism in particular.

That they oppose all forms of human rights makes perfect sense. It is impossible to wield the kind of power required to subjugate the masses when individuals have a say in how they lead their lives.

What makes no sense at all, however, is the phenomenon of leftist apology for those regimes, and simultaneous bashing of Israel, in the name of human rights. Because it is now indisputable that Israel is LGBT-friendly, a convoluted tactic has been employed by the Left to attack the Jewish state on this score. This involves accusing Israel of “pinkwashing.” According to the accusers, Israel boasts about its LGBT-rights record in order to obfuscate its abuse of Palestinians, even gay and lesbian ones.

Canadian Member of Parliament and international human rights warrior Irwin Cotler, the architect of the 2005 law which legalized gay marriage in Canada, considers the spread of the “pinkwashing” lie to be both worrisome and worsening. Cotler was Canada’s justice minister and attorney-general at the time of the passing of the Civil Marriage Act, which was organized around two principles under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Quality Rights and Freedom of Religion. The first gave gays and lesbians the equal right to civil marriage. The second gave rabbis, priests and imams the right not to conduct or sanction a gay marriage, if doing so would violate their beliefs.

When asked on Thursday about Israel (where marital rights are still governed by the Orthodox Rabbinate, which means that any couples ineligible to wed under a strict interpretation of Jewish law are not able to marry in Israel, but are recognized by the state if they tie the knot abroad), Cotler was unequivocal.

“There’s only one country in the Middle East in which gay rights are protected, and that’s Israel,” he said.

This sentiment was echoed in a New York Times ad that ran this week. Sponsored by “America’s Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach, in conjunction with This World: The Values Network and Stand with Us, the ad shows a photo of a man, under the rhyming headline: “Hamas, ISIS [Islamic State] and Iran kill gays like me. In Israel I am free.”

The accompanying text, in smaller print, says it all:

“My name is Rennick Remley. I’m a gay American and I support Israel. If I lived in Gaza or Israel’s neighboring states, I would be thrown in jail, mutilated or killed.

Gordon Barnes, the editor-in-chief of The Advocate, penned the disturbing editorial calling for violent protests.

A disturbing editorial in a CUNY grad-student newspaper calls for rioters protesting the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to arm themselves and wage violent war with cops.

“The time for peace has passed,” says a revolutionary editorial titled “In Support of Violence” that was penned by editor-in-chief Gordon Barnes in the Dec. 3 issue of The Advocate.

‘The acts of looting, destruction of property and violence directed towards state representatives is not only warranted, it is necessary.’
– Gordon Barnes

“The problem with the protesters’ violence in Ferguson is that it is unorganized. If the violence was to be organized, and the protesters armed — more so than the few that sparingly are — then the brunt of social pressures would not be laid onto middling proprietors [of looted small businesses], but unto those deserving the most virulent response of an enraged populace,” Barnes writes in the CUNY Grad Center’s publication.

Pick up any international press these days, and you might think Israel is on the verge of catastrophe – with sanctions from Europe just around the corner, boycotts being adopted by academia and beyond, terrorism back in vogue on the streets of Jerusalem and tourism in a tailspin.

You wouldn’t be faulted for assuming that businesses around the world would certainly soon be pulling out of the Start-up Nation – after all, who wants to fly into a war zone or consort with an international pariah? That assumption would be very wrong, judging from the turnout at the first conference put on earlier in December by OurCrowd, the Jerusalem- based crowd-investing platform.

OurCrowd makes it possible for individuals to jump into the once-exclusive venture capital game, as long as they have a minimum of $10,000 to invest. The company identifies promising start-ups; its investor members decide where to spread their money.

OurCrowd has generated plenty of buzz since it launched in early 2013, in no small part due to its energetic founder, Jon Medved – who has been either leading or backing Israeli hi-tech companies for close to 30 years.

To prevent this Palestinian State that Europeans seem determined to push down our throats, many people are discussing a “Palestinian Spring” revolution. They simply do not know what else to do to protect ourselves from these “Goodists” of Europe.

Do they honestly think we will have better lives in a “Palestinian State”?

ISIS operatives are already in Egypt, ready to take over the Sinai Peninsula, and with their eyes set on Libya. Is this what the Europeans really want?

Listening, in both English and Arabic, to the latest speeches of Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas and his fellow Fatah Central Committee members, we get the uncomfortable feeling that the Palestinian State, now being promoted in Europe, will not only be a threat to the stability of the entire region, but to us who have to keep living here, as well to those countries in Europe who promote it.

The heritage of centuries has been wiped out in little more than a year.

Eventually the need to wipe out all traces of unbelief becomes obsessive. At one time, for instance, Egyptian law demanded that any house found to contain a copy of The Apology of al-Kindi (a book containing a polemical dialogue between a Muslim and a Christian) would be demolished along with 40 houses around it.

Ethics were defined by what Allah said was good or evil in Sharia law. The Islamic State’s behaviour is solidly rooted in Islamic ideology, law and practice. It is only when this fundamental fact is grasped that we will be able to address what confronts us.