RUTHFULLY YOURS

Sister Helen Prejean, the Roman Catholic nun who has made her career campaigning against capital punishment and ministering to those on death row, spent five visits with Boston bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev and testified that he had “sympathy for his victims.” Despite evidence to the contrary revealed during the trial at which the killer sat impassively, registering no emotion at the anguish of victims and their families, Sister Helen sensed pain in Tsarnaev’s voice and could feel his sincerity when he said that “no one deserves to suffer like they did.” The question, as Hillary Clinton famously said, is what difference does it make?

Sister Helen’s objection to capital punishment presumably isn’t limited to the possibility of wrongful conviction; in this case, the defense admits that their client is the right man, the killer of three and the maimer of 264 other victims whose lives will remain forever changed by the physical damage and trauma caused by his treacherous deeds. Tsarnaev, of course, is a Muslim whose allegiances remain with those who have murdered 10,000 Christians in Indonesia alone from 1998 – 2003 and whose victims keep growing with daily massacres of non-Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East. So we have a killer who continues to hold his religious beliefs and has never denied that he was one of the two people who prepared and detonated the nail-studded bombs intended to kill and mutilate the people of Boston. Had Tsarnaev not expressed what Sister Helen calls “regret,” would he be less deserving of her support? Did she visit him five times in order to be sure that she heard those gratuitous and self-serving words?

Free speech, like all of our Constitutional rights, is something we have to use. If it isn’t used, and used as the Founders intended it to be used, it will disappear.

The Muslim terrorists’ attack on Pamela Geller’s “Draw Mohammed” contest in Garland, Texas ended in the welcome and deserved deaths of the attackers before they could harm any of the participants. It also has resulted in a fit of knuckle-rubbing denunciations of Geller and the event even among conservatives. The media’s message – including from the conservative media — is entirely wrong.

Liberals, like the idiots of MSNBC, say that Geller’s event was “hate speech” which they contend isn’t protected by the First Amendment. Some on the conservative side say the event was needlessly provocative, an abuse of free speech and – in one faux-conservative Washington Post columnist’s terms – “baiting the field” for the terrorists.

But the facts, and our constitutional jurisprudence, indicate exactly the opposite: it was necessarily provocative. And, buried in that intellectual framework, is not just an essential defense of free speech that Geller’s event forced us to recognize but also the broader concept that it was an essential defensive act in the ideological war in which we’re engaged.

Two seemingly unconnected recent events but in reality intimately connected are sure signs that the war on terrorism is being lost.

Of course, we must begin with that old Chinese adage: When a fish starts rotting, it stinks first from the head. President Obama has undeclared the war on terrorism, refusing even to name the enemy. But it takes two to tango — and the Islamic terrorists cling to their effort to inflict hurt on the United States whenever and now, alas, wherever, they can.

The recent attack in Garland, Texas, revealed what the general public only had guessed: There are resident terrorists — some U.S. born, others naturalized citizens, some of Muslim descent, others converts to Islam — ready to spring into action. Whether, indeed, the Garland two were under the discipline of Daesh, the Islamic State, claimed or “lone wolves” operating on their own may be irrelevant. FBI Director James Comey confirms our worst fears: There are hundreds if not thousands of American Daesh sympathizers.

Last week, the Lausanne framework deal between the P5+1 powers and Iran on Iran’s nuclear program was concluded and immediately talked up as a good deal by President Barack Obama. But President Obama’s advocacy ran into factual and logical difficulties –– for example, how can the President claim that “every pathway” to an Iranian nuclear weapon is “cut off” until Iran at least signs dismantling its nuclear program –– not least because Iran flatly denied many of his claims.

But even if the deal was devoid of basic flaws –– for example, Iran is to retain intact all its centrifuges, nuclear facilities and ballistic missile R&D programs, while being free of unfettered inspections –– and even were Iran to adhere to it, the deal nonetheless is actually a disaster, for two reasons:

The wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors were fought for many years on the battlefield between armies. In recent decades the arena of conflict has shifted from hand-to-hand combat to a war of narratives.

Everybody agrees that the current affluence of Israel, its modern infrastructure and economy were developed by the Jews. The Palestinian Arab narrative is that as the ancient, indigenous people of Palestine they feel dispossessed and they deserve to take over Israel’s riches. Jewish claims to their heritage in the land of Israel are supported by abundant archaeological artifacts and historical records.

Meanwhile, there are no records to support the Palestinian narrative. In history, art and literature there is no trace at all of any Muslim people referred to by anybody as “Palestinians.”

For the second time in as many years, grass roots pro-Israel New Yorkers held a rally outside the NYC UJA Federation building and blasted their shofars to bring attention to what they are describing as a deficiency of leadership.

More than a hundred people showed up to hear speeches criticizing the NYC UJA-Federation, especially its president, Alison Doctoroff, for giving their hecksher to organizations that seek to financially harm Israel, and to join in the 100-strong Shofar blowing intended to focus attention on the problem.

The pro-Israel activists were protesting the decision made by the UJA-Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council leadership to allow groups which support boycotts of such iconic Israeli products as SodaStream and Ahava to once again march in the NYC Celebrate Israel Parade.

Beth Gilinsky, the president of the National Conference of Jewish Affairs, one of the organizational supporters, has been trying for many years to galvanize what passes for institutional Jewish leadership in the United States to take strong affirmative positions on behalf of Jews and the Jewish State. She sees the BDS (Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel) campaign as the latest anti-Semitic strategy, one for which too many Jews have fallen.

The history of the visionary liberal-left, as presented by Doug Rossinow, is an engrossing tour-de-force in terms of bringing to life the oft-contentious and divisive glittering disco ball of American collectivism.

Visions of Progress: The Left-Liberal Tradition in America, by Doug Rossinow, contains in its title the term “traditional.” The book is colored throughout by a yearning for years and causes past, when “radicals” and leftists wore suit jackets and had haircuts instead of sporting Che Guevara T-shirts and tattered fashion designer jeans, and the distaff elements looked more like clean-cut pom-pom girls instead of slovenly, foul-mouthed sluts, and when the “liberals’ and “radicals” cooperated to advance their collectivist causes in this country.

It’s almost as though Rossinow were hankering for the days of good grooming and presentable attire in the march to a Progressive utopia.

In fact, the cover of Vision features two young figures from a 1962 May Day poster. One can project the man and woman in their old age today as arch-conservatives worried about their IRA’s, 401k’s, and retirement portfolios. That is, worried about what’s left after the socialists/progressives/social justice warriors have dipped their beaks into them.

May 12, 1948: President Truman meets in the Oval Office with Secretary of State George Marshall, Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett, Counsel to the President Clark Clifford and several others to discuss the Palestine situation. Clifford argues in favor of recognizing the new Jewish state in accordance with the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947. Marshall opposes Clifford’s arguments, and contends they are based on domestic political considerations. He says that if Truman follows Clifford’s advice and recognizes the Jewish state, then he (Marshall) would vote against Truman in the election. Truman does not clearly state his views in the meeting.

May 12, 13, and 14, 1948: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford and Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett discuss the different views held in the White House and the State Department regarding whether the United States should recognize the Jewish state. Lovett reports to Clifford on May 14 that Marshall will neither support nor oppose Truman’s plan to recognize the Jewish state, that he will stay out of the entire matter.

May 13, 1948: Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, writes to President Truman: “I deeply hope that the United States, which under your leadership has done so much to find a just solution [to the Palestine situation], will promptly recognize the Provisional Government of the new Jewish state. The world, I think, would regard it as especially appropriate that the greatest living democracy should be the first to welcome the newest into the family of nations.”

May 14, 1948: late morning eastern standard time (late afternoon in Palestine): David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, reads a “Declaration of Independence,” which proclaims the existence of a Jewish state called Israel beginning on May 15, 1948, at 12:00 midnight Palestine time (6:00 p.m., May 14, 1948,eastern standard time).

May 14, 1948, 6 p.m. eastern standard time (12:00 midnight in Palestine): The British mandate for Palestine expires, and the state of Israel comes into being.

May 14, 1948, 6:11 p.m. eastern standard time: The United States recognizes Israel on a de facto basis. The White House issues the following statement: “This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the State of Israel.” To see a color copy of this document click here.

May 14, 1948, shortly after 6:11 p.m. eastern standard time: United States representative to the United Nations Warren Austin leaves his office at the United Nations and goes home. Secretary of State Marshall sends a State Department official to the United Nations to prevent the entire United States delegation from resigning.

May 15, 1948: On May 15, 1948, the Arab states issued their response statement and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq attack Israel.

On May 6, 2015 Fox News reported, “Purported ISIS warning claims terror cells in place in 15 states.” [2]

Here is how that ominous report began:

A grim online warning from a self-described American jihadist said Sunday’s terror attack in Texas was the work of ISIS and that the terrorist group has scores of “trained soldiers” positioned in 15 states, awaiting orders to carry out more operations.

The warning, which was posted on a file-sharing site, could not be verified, but was signed by Abu Ibrahim Al Ameriki. That name matches the moniker of a shadowy American known to have joined a terrorist group in Pakistan several years ago and who has appeared in propaganda videos before. The chilling threat named five of the states where it is claimed that ISIS has terror cells in place.

News coverage about this threat included statements by the administration that it was prepared to pay millions of dollars to anyone who could provide information to enable them to locate leaders of terror organizations. Monetary payments for information is a good strategy. However, although it is not generally known, immigration benefits or visas for aliens illegally present in the United States and their families can provide a far greater incentive to get aliens to provide vital information. I base this assessment on my personal experience.

Alvaro Vargas Llosa’s The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty [2] is less of a study of the life of the Communist killer than a look at how his totalitarian legacy poisons Latin America today. Totalitarianism in Latin America is the real theme of The Che Guevara Myth. The myth is less about Che the individual than the idea that violent terror can bring reform rather than further cycles of brutal oppression.

As Alvaro Vargas Llosa points out, “Che Guevara had a lot more in common with the men and systems he fought than would seem conceivable.” The same was true of Fidel Castro, the son of a plantation owner who received a wedding gift from Batista or Vladimir Lenin, the son of a nobleman.