Displaying posts published in

February 2016

Yes, Many Journalists Choose Sides in a Conflict—and Often for the Worst Reasons Zenobia Ravji

It’s important to remember that journalists are human beings, too—and just like everyone else at work, they can often be overwhelmed, underprepared, bought with kindness, and subject to unconscious bias.

People always ask me if I’m pro-Israel. No one has ever asked me if I am pro-America or pro-Canada or pro-Kenya, where I was born. What does it mean to be pro-Israel? The question even seems vaguely offensive, as if it questions the legitimacy of Israel itself.
I am sure that the concept of a Jewish state has always made sense to me. Perhaps because I myself come from an ancient ethnic and religious minority, the Zoroastrians, who continue to live in a diaspora outside of what was once our homeland, Iran.
So I came to Israel with a predisposed understanding of the need for a state, a safe haven for a people that has been a global minority for millennia and continuously persecuted. But as for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I had no clue what was going on, who was right and who was wrong.
What I came to realize was that you simply cannot understand this highly complex, multidimensional situation unless you come see it for yourself and experience it for yourself, without preconceived notions. This is hard to do. So whom do we rely on to do it? For most people, it’s the Western media, and we presume they know what they’re doing. For the most part, they don’t.
I first came to Israel in January 2014 for a short trip. This two-week holiday turned into two years. At the time, I was a graduate student in journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While traveling, I stumbled on a really eye-opening story—“everyday life” in the West Bank. In the U.S., I was exposed to images of violence and chaos any time the West Bank was mentioned in the news. So when I accidentally ventured into the West Bank during my travels, I had no idea I was even there. I was surrounded by tranquil scenes, modern infrastructure, and economic cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis. I guess this was too boring to make any headlines.
I thought it would be interesting to show people the uneventful side of the story. This wasn’t to negate any social and political injustices of the situation. I just thought people should see the entire truth—not just soldiers, bombs, and riots, but also what’s happening when none of the drama is taking place.
And it wasn’t just the normalcy of life in the West Bank that went unreported. Many of the human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority were never mentioned, such as the lack of freedom of speech and the press, and a complete neglect of the Palestinian people by their own politicians, who continue to exploit the peace process while pocketing European and American funding for a “free Palestine.” My work, however, didn’t consist of criticizing the PA. I thought I should leave that to the “real” journalists. It was their job, after all, to report such things.

The Insanity of Jewish Philanthropy Funding Hamas Only the insane think that Jews should help Hamas kill Jews. Daniel Greenfield

Jane Kahn and Michael Bien, two activists with the anti-Israel New Israel Fund, had a complaint about San Francisco’s Jewish Community Federation. They were unhappy that JCF wouldn’t fund Hamas.

Or more specifically, they whined that “we were unable to make donations through our JCF donor-advised philanthropic fund to certain organizations that we support”. One of those organizations was the American Friends Service Committee because the JCF narrow-mindedly refuses to help fund groups that “endorse or promote anti-Semitism” or promote BDS.

The American Friends Service Committee does these things and more. It promotes BDS as if that were its religion right down to a “BDS Summer Institute”. And it has a long and troubled history with anti-Semitism from urging Jews to “tolerate some anti-Semitic remarks” to throwing a shindig for Iranian madman Ahmadinejad.

But, more importantly, the AFSC has urged the United States to deal with Hamas despite its call for the eradication of the Jewish people. It has a history of supporting Hamas front “charities” and its website defends Hamas and describes its murderous terror attacks against Israeli civilians as “the use of violence in resisting Israel’s occupation”. It tells supporters “U.S. government policy officially supports Israel’s continued siege on Gaza and the Isolation of Hamas. This is a situation that must end.” It urges supporters to demand a, “complete end to Israel’s siege on Gaza and engagement with Hamas.”

AFSC Palestine-Israel program director Mike Merryman-Lotze justifies anti-Semitic terrorism by arguing that, “Violence is the inevitable response.” AFSC figures advocate the destruction of Israel in various forms. AFSC coordinates with other extreme anti-Israel groups, including JVP. This isn’t a new development for the AFSC which has an ugly history of defending politically correct genocide.

Iran’s Proxies to Create “Islamic Republics” Dollars flow to expand Islamist ideology of Iran and its proxies. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

Iran has created an Islamist empire through its loyal proxies in dozens of countries. More recently, these Iranian Islamist proxies have become empowered and emboldened to an unprecedented level. Their leaders are publicly announcing their desire to create Islamist states, which are modeled after the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For example, this week, the Deputy Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, pointed out in an interview, to a state-owned Iranian outlet, that he truly believes that “Islam is the solution to all of man’s problems, in all places and at all times.” As a result, he contends that it is a “doctrinal and cultural imperative” to overthrow the secular state in Lebanon and set up an Islamic Shiite political system. He also desires the new state to precisely resemble the one created by Ayatollah Rooh Allah Khomeini, the autocrat founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran who tried to establish a political establishment similar to that of Muhammad over 1400 years ago.

Hezbollah is not the only ideological Islamist proxy that is coming out with such blatant announcements. Others of Iran’s proxies−including Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), Badr Organization, Liwa Abu Fadl al-Abbas (LAFA), Kataib Al Imam Ali−have publicly reasserted their mission of creating a state similar to that of Khomenei’s.

Leaders of Hezbollah and other Shiite Islamist groups funded by Iran have made their allegiances to Iran by believing in the concept of “Absolute Wilayat al-Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurist) which was coined by Ayatollah Khomeini. The concept of “Absolute Wilayat al-Faqih” follows that all domestic, social, economic, political and foreign policy maters are in the hand of one person (who is elected by Allah: The Supreme Leader). This is similar to how things were ruled in Muhammad’s era. The Supreme leader has the right to enact, suspend, and abolish any laws based on his discretion, Shari law and Islamic Jurisprudence.

Rush: Why is Rubio the Only One Saying it? Brian Lilley

El Rushbo is showing why he is the top talk show host in America once again. During Monday’s radio show Rush Limbaugh didn’t make fun of Marco Rubio for saying that President Barack Obama is doing what he does on purpose.

During Saturday’s debate in New Hampshire, Rubio repeated a variation of the same line several times: “Anyone who believes that Barack Obama isn’t doing what he is doing on purpose doesn’t understand what we are dealing with here,” Rubio said.

The repetition was mocked during the debate by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and since then by others, but on Monday, Limbaugh was asking why others were not parroting Rubio’s line.

“This is really, really important,” Limbaugh said. “There are only two people that I’m aware of that are making a consistent point of this. Rubio, actually, is atop of this. Rubio and Cruz are the only two in the entire Republican field. Carly Fiorina may have said something like this occasionally. With Rubio, it’s a theme. With Cruz, it’s close to a theme. And the real question is: Why do the other Republicans in the field disagree?”

WaPo Op-Ed: ISIS Fighters Are Human Beings Too Just human beings who behead captives, burn children alive, and enslave women. Mark Tapson

Last Friday a Washington Post contributor penned an op-ed with the provocative title, “ISIS kidnapped my best friend. But when I met its fighters, I couldn’t hate them.” The op-ed seems intended to convey a poignant, emotional insight about the tragic human cost to everyone trapped in the hell that is ISIS-controlled territory. But the end result is moral equivalence.

Photojournalist Sebastian Meyer relates that his best friend was kidnapped in 2014 by ISIS militants. Meyer can’t say much more than that, he claims, without further endangering his friend, who presumably then is still being held captive somewhere even after all this time. Given the opportunity months later to question an ISIS captive, Meyer – eager to get some answers and some catharsis – was surprised to find himself becoming sympathetic to the fighter for having been recruited into service with the Islamic terror group at what we in the West would consider the tender age of 13.

Meyer detailed the captive fighter’s background:

Ali was born in 1995 and joined the Islamic State in 2008, at the age of 13, he told me. He was trained as an assassin and given his first mission two years later. He and three friends were sent to kill four Iraqi police officers in Mosul. The group tracked the men down, executed them with shots to the back of their heads and buried them where they fell. Ali said he had killed eight or nine men in battle, not including the five he’d beheaded.

Sorry, Madeline Albright, but I’d Rather Go to Hell Than Support Hillary Clinton No problem! By Katherine Timpf

If you are a woman, you don’t get to pick which presidential candidate to support based on his or her stances on the issues like men do — you have to support Hillary because she’s a woman like you are.

Think that sounds sexist? Well, it is. In fact, it’s some of the most idiotic pieces anti-woman garbage I’ve ever heard — which is why it’s so sad that it’s coming from Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright, both of whom are widely considered to be feminist icons.

On HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Steinem said that women “get more activist as they grow older. And when you’re younger, you think: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.’”

First of all, there are approximately 9 million reasons to support Bernie over Hillary if you’re a liberal woman. Bernie has a long, consistent record of supporting the things that liberal voters consider important — like fighting for LGBT rights and against Wall Street — while Hillary has a record of supporting whatever the hell happens to be politically convenient at the time.

Now, Steinem eventually sort of apologized by saying that she “misspoke” and actually wasn’t trying to say that “young women aren’t serious in their politics.”

First of all, that’s crap. Saying that young women decide who to vote for based on how to get boys absolutely is saying that they “aren’t serious in their politics.” It can’t be interpreted any other way.

Will Britain Vote to Leave the European Union? By John O’Sullivan

As the referendum on Brexit (i.e., Britain’s departure from the European Union) gets closer, advocates of Britain remaining a member, such as prime minister David Cameron, are looking and sounding more and more like “Baghdad Bob” denying the arrival of the U.S. Army even as, over his shoulder, we see GIs pulling down Saddam Hussein’s statue.

Over David Cameron’s shoulder, we can see the young migrant men storming Europe’s porous borders, the scenes of mass sexual assault in Cologne, the long lines of people in southern Europe made permanently jobless by the Euro, the toppling of moderate governments (left and right) weakened by the Eurozone’s “austerity” policy, the relentless rise of populist, nationalist, and Trotskyist parties across the continent, and the dithering and incompetence of the EU’s central institutions in the face of these massive problems.

Seemingly oblivious, Cameron tells us how the European Union guarantees Britain’s prosperity and security today, but that soon it will be even more beneficial as a result of the reforms he has just secured in his European negotiations. On even cursory examination, however, these reforms don’t do what they’re supposed to do, and even if they did, they would still be inadequate because they are dependent upon future EU agreements rather than being firmly agreed now.

The best example is immigration because, by 80–20 majorities, British voters want to see it cut drastically and control of Britain’s borders regained by London. Cameron promised to meet these demands until recently. But when he realized that the EU would never agree to limits on the free movement of labor, he quietly shelved them and instead called for a “waiting period” of four years before new EU migrants to Britain became eligible for social benefits. It was argued that this fulfilled Cameron’s pledge to reduce immigration levels by making “benefits migration” less attractive.

This maneuver was both a cheap appeal to popular prejudices and completely ineffective as a means of reducing immigration. Most — the great majority — of intra-European migrants come to Britain to work, not to go on welfare. They would be largely unaffected by this “reform.” Immigration levels would not fall or even moderate significantly. After four years, however, the immigrant workers would be able to claim welfare benefits for themselves and their dependents — including those dependents living in their country of origin.

You Don’t Know What Obama Said at the Mosque By Dennis Prager

If you seek to understand Barack Obama and his views, the best place to go is his speeches. But you have to read them in their entirety, not rely on hearing them or on the media’s summary of them. When you do, you come to realize how often what Obama says is morally and intellectually confused and even untrue.

The most recent example was his speech last week at a mosque in Baltimore. In addition to reassuring Muslim Americans that they are as American as Americans of every other faith — a point that any president, Republican or Democrat, would and should make — President Obama spoke a lot of nonsense, some of it dangerous nonsense.

President Obama: “So let’s start with this fact: For more than a thousand years, people have been drawn to Islam’s message of peace. And the very word itself, ‘Islam,’ comes from ‘salam’ — peace.”

Why did Mr. Obama say this? Even Muslim websites acknowledge that “Islam” means “submission” [to Allah], that it comes from the Arabic root “aslama” meaning submission, and that “Islam” is the command form of that verb.

That’s why “Muslim” means “One who submits,” not “One who is peaceful.”

America’s Balkan Values White liberals and black careerists vigorously reject the MLK ideal of a color-blind society. By Victor Davis Hanson

The racial spoils industry survives on several requisites.

One, Americans must be readily identifiable as being non-white or white. Two, once non-white claimants pass the racial litmus test, they must think and speak in a particular progressive manner, in dutiful obeisance to those who set up and perpetuate the racial spoils system. And three, racialism must remain defined as a one-way bias.

The problem with the first criterion is multifold. America today truly is a multiracial, intermarried society in which the old rubric “white” no longer equates to “of European descent.” Obama’s racist former minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright appears whiter than many Americans of Mediterranean heritage.

Lots of Americans of various hues are de facto classified as white, either by themselves or by the government that refuses to make them eligible for affirmative action. Over the years I had hundreds of students who were clearly non-white in appearance, first-generation Americans of Arab, Armenian, and Punjabi background, who did not qualify for any racial set-asides. The vast majority of them were as dark as or darker than third-generation Mexican-Americans who did.

Many whites of European descent are indistinguishable from so-called Latinos. Certainly a Sicilian-American can look more “Latino” than someone of Mexican or South American descent. If Ted Cruz took his mother’s name, no one would know that Ted Wilson was Latino. If George Zimmerman had used the name Jorge Mesa, the Trayvon Martin confrontation never would have made front-page news. Such a rigged system cannot even defend its own biases. Accordingly, it retreats toward the subjective category “diversity” to make up prejudice and its remedies, in ad hoc fashion, on the basis of career and political expediencies.

Good News: Female Muslim Prof. Says Muslims Can Rape, Rob Infidel Women Only in Some Circumstances By Raymond Ibrahim

Straining at gnats while swallowing camels is increasingly how Islam’s apologists rationalize away the violence and hate Sharia engenders for the “infidel,” the non-Muslim. Consider the significance of yet another video of yet another learned Muslim justifying the enslavement and rape of non-Muslim women.

Suad Saleh, a female professor of doctrine at Al Azhar University, correctly defines the Arabic phrase melk al-yamin — “right hand possession” (see Koran 4:3):

[Non-Muslim] female prisoners of wars are “those whom you own.” In order to humiliate them, they become the property of the [Muslim] army commander, or of a Muslim, and he can have sex with them just like he has sex with his wives.

Ms. Saleh’s comments are not new or unique. Countless Muslims — beginning with Muhammad himself — have confirmed that Islam permits the sexual enslavement of non-Muslim women seized during the jihad.

Saleh cannot even take the “honor” of being the first Muslim woman to support this inherently misogynistic creed.

Of interest here to the West is how the Al Azhar professor claims the Islamic institution of sex slavery is fair and just — it’s just that too many Muslims exploit it, to the detriment of Islam:

Some [Muslim] opportunists and extremists, who only harm Islam, say: “I will bring a woman from East Asia, as [as a sex slave] under the status of ‘right hand possessions.’ And with the consent of my wife, I will allocate this woman a room in the house, and will have sex with her as a slave girl.”