RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/110309/gop-conventions-rabbi-in-chief

GOP Convention’s Rabbi-in-Chief Meir Soloveichik, scion of a famous Orthodox dynasty, will give the Republicans’ invocation
By Yair Rosenberg|

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik will bless the Republican National Convention Tuesday.

Pol Position
How the heir to an Orthodox rabbinical dynasty landed in Pennsylvania’s Senate race
By Allison Hoffman
With all the speculation in recent weeks over whether Mitt Romney would tap a fellow Mormon to deliver a prayer at the Republican National Convention, one never would have guessed that the opening invocation would be delivered by a rabbi. But on Tuesday afternoon, when the convention makes its belated beginning after being postponed due to inclement weather, Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik will be the clergyman kicking off the proceedings.

If the name Soloveichik sounds familiar, that’s no surprise: The 35-year-old rabbi—who graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva University, then went on to Yale Divinity School, and received his PhD in religion from Princeton in 2010—is a scion of one of Orthodoxy’s most celebrated rabbinic dynasties. And like many of his family members who manage to keep one foot firmly in the Beit Midrash and the other in the public square, Meir Soloveichik certainly gets around.

Unprecedented Sharia Enforcement by City Governments — on The Jamie Glazov Show, Tuesday, August 28, 2012, 8-9 pm Pacific
Pamela Geller joins Frontpage’s radio show to take your calls for the full hour.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/unprecedented-sharia-enforcement-by-city-governments-on-the-jamie-glazov-show-tuesday-august-28-2012-8-9-pm-pacific/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577615331538288616.html

For the past 67 years, the United States has been criticized for being the only country to drop atomic bombs on another sovereign nation. But while the anniversaries of Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945) rarely pass without comment or controversy, another crucial date is completely ignored: Aug. 29.

Between July 16, 1945, the day the U.S. tested the first atomic device in New Mexico and realized that it actually worked, and Aug. 29, 1949—when the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb—the U.S. held a nuclear monopoly.

No country has ever held a greater strategic advantage over the rest of the world—not Rome under Caesar, France under Napoleon, or Germany under Hitler. Yet between 1945 and 1949, America’s friends and enemies lost very little sleep. Why not? Because the idea of the U.S. using its great advantage to take over the world with nuclear bombs was ludicrous to all but the most irrational minds.

Instead, the U.S. spent the late 1940s focusing on other things. It upgraded its consumer economy, rebuilt its former enemies with the Marshall Plan, and actually downgraded its military.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union took control over all of Eastern Europe and provoked a confrontation with the West when it broke all previous agreements and denied the U.S. access to Berlin. The Chinese Communist Party defeated the Nationalists and Mao Zedong declared the People’s Republic on Oct. 1, 1949. And Kim Il Sung began his preparations to drive his North Korean army across the 38th parallel. Clearly a nuclear U.S. didn’t seem to frighten its enemies from doing whatever they desired.

Similarly, in today’s greatest danger zone—the Middle East—it has been widely speculated that Israel has had a nuclear monopoly over all of its sworn enemies for perhaps half a century. In that same period, much larger Arab armies (the combined militaries of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, with help from the Saudis) have threatened Israel’s very existence in 1967 and again in 1973. That doesn’t include the continued terror attacks across Israel’s borders since the United Nations partitioned the territory in 1948, or the missile attacks now coming from Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. Israel’s response, like that of the U.S., has always been a strong defense with conventional weapons.

Few people lost a wink of sleep over the American nuclear monopoly in the 1940s—and when the Saudis or Syrians or Egyptians have turned off their lights over the past half-century, the last worry on their minds has been being blown to bits by an Israeli nuclear bomb.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/to-hell-in-a-handbasket-carter-obama-and-the-arab-spring/

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Ruthie Blum, a twice weekly columnist for Israel Hayom (the English website of Sheldon Adelson’s daily Hebrew paper). For two decades she was a senior editor and regular columnist at the Jerusalem Post. She moved to Israel from the United States in 1977 and resides in Jerusalem. She describes herself as a “right-wing bohemian,” a term she invented to distinguish her politics from those of neoconservatives, paleo-conservatives, and libertarians — because she is a bit of all three. She has four children (three boys and a girl), all of whom served in the IDF. She is the author of the new book, To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the “Arab Spring.”

FP: Ruthie Blum, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Let’s begin with what inspired you to write this book.

Blum: Thanks Jamie.

I began researching the book exactly two years ago, shortly after Jimmy Carter published his appalling book, “Peace Not Apartheid.” I was commissioned to write it by David Azrieli, a renowned Canadian-Israeli architect and philanthropist, who had lost his family in the Holocaust, and who had spent his teenage years escaping the Nazis by the skin of his teeth.

Originally, the book was supposed to be a kind of indictment of the Carter presidency. The idea behind it was to show Carter’s responsibility for the fall of the Shah of Iran, the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the mishandling of the American embassy takeover, and hence the current situation in which the mullocracy in Iran is soon to be in possession of nuclear weapons.

Four months into my research, the so-called “Arab Spring” erupted, when a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire. Suddenly, everything I had been reading and discussing with my interviewees for the book came to life again — only this time it was President Obama at the helm.

FP: Why were you pessimistic about the “Arab Spring” from the very beginning?

Blum: Partly because I actually live in the Middle East, and don’t tend to translate the statements and actions of Arabs into some watered-down version of America-speak. When Tunisians, Egyptians, Lybians and Syrians take to the streets and scream for blood, it doesn’t ring like the desire for freedom and democracy. Rather, it is an expression of rage at being “the abused,” as opposed to “the abuser.” It is not an expression of a desire to end a reign of terror; it is an expression of the desire to be the ones at the helm of that terror.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577615300669832384.html

A few days ago there occurred one of those telling little episodes that captures the essence and folly of the Obama administration’s approach to foreign policy. The meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement is being hosted this week in Iran, and the administration had urged United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon not to attend as a signal of displeasure at Tehran’s serial violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Of course Mr. Ban is going.

The administration’s response to Mr. Ban’s decision was “muted,” according to the New York Times, evidently out of sympathy for his delicate position: Most U.N. member states are also members of the Non-Aligned Movement, and it’s customary for U.N. secretaries-general to attend the meetings. There’s also hope Mr. Ban will make a public stink in Iran about its leaders’ nuclear bid or their calls to wipe out Israel. And maybe he will.

Still, there’s no overlooking the central point of this tussle: In the global popularity contest between Barack Obama and Ali Khamenei, the ayatollah is winning.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3312/the-pro-palestinians Once again, it has been exposed that Americans and Europeans who claim to be pro-Palestinian are actually just Israel-haters. For them, the Palestinian issue is just a vehicle for vomiting their hatred for Israel, and most likely all Jews. They are closer to Hamas and Islamic Jihad than to moderate Arabs and Muslims. The […]

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19077.xml Suddenly, a murderous threat has intensified in Afghanistan: American servicemen are being killed there at an accelerating rate by Afghans who ostensibly are their allies. These attacks have been dubbed “green-on-blue” incidents, an antisceptic and deliberately inoffensive way of describing the treachery of Muslim natives (designated by the Islamic color green) against our folks […]

AAP: Health Benefits of Circumcision Outweigh the Risks HAVE THE PONTIFICATORS WHO EXPRESS SUCH CONCERNS FOR THE INFANTS EVER DISCUSSED THE HOLIDAY ASHURA WHERE MOSLEM MEN AND BOYS AS YOUNG AS FIVE ARE BEATEN AND FLOGGED UNTIL THEY BLEED? RSK PLEASE READ: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/ashura/ http://www.parenting.com/article/benefits-circumcision?page=0,0 Some groups have even tried to make the practice illegal. Activists […]

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/27/israels-clock-is-running-out-o/print Last February Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said “Israel is a true cancer tumor on this region that should be cut off.” Khamenei promised to support any groups fighting Israel anywhere in the world. On about August 17, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said Israel’s existence is an insult to humanity. There has been an almost […]

At the risk of sounding superannuated, I knew and loved his father. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Florida from 1983 to 1989 and then as a Senator from 1989 to 2001. He served as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, 1997-2001. Israel and America had no better friend. And it is “like father like son”….Connie Mack is great. Support him if you can.

http://conniemack.com/