RUTHFULLY YOURS

Fittingly, the 150th anniversary of Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse fell on the sixth day of Passover, “the season of our freedom,” when Jews celebrate God’s eruption into human history to free them from Egyptian slavery. Appomattox denoted the end of the American Civil War, which claimed 750,000 lives. The equivalent number proportionate to today’s population would be 7 million. Understandably, Americans remain obsessed with the conflict, by far the bloodiest in our history.

The American Republic which the Civil War renewed, purged with blood of the stain of slavery, arose from a biblical vision of governance in the English Revolution of the 17th century, as Harvard’s Eric Nelson, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik and others have shown.

The Cuban fiasco

In that simplistic jargon characterizing Pres. Barack Hussein Obama’s worldwide “transformation” of U.S. foreign policy, the chief argument for his Cuban shift has been “[T]hese 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked.”

In the facts of history, in this as in so many other instances, Obama is wrong.

The fact is that U.S. policy toward Cuba, with its ups and downs, has been generally successful.

First, of course, the outcome of the Cuban Missiles Crisis of October 1962 prevented the Soviet Union from obtaining an advanced offensive weapons base just off the U.S. southern coast. The confrontation was a turning point in the Cold War. Moscow’s victorious march through control of Central and Eastern Europe and its threat to Western Europe began to be reversed when JFK back off Nikita Khrushchev’s gamble.

Secondly, the Soviet Union’s Cold War effort, using the Castros’ regime, to infiltrate and create other Communist states in Latin America was beaten back – in Costa Rica, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Colombia. Indeed almost every Latin American government at one time or another was a target, if unsuccessfully.

That is not to say, of course, that American policy toward Havana was a string of unbroken successes, or that, in fact, it was always clear-headed.

What would you do if you read a book that predicted the end of your country…and, in effect, the end of your life and those you love? You’d probably cry a bit…I did. You’d probably reject it…I do.

But you’ll think about what the author wrote…I am.

You’ll want to dismiss it as nonsense…I wish…more, I believe he is wrong.

Tuvia Tenenbom has written a book, “Catch the Jew”. He’s a fantastic writer – more, he’s a journalist…and I can tell you I say that about very few people today. Most so-called journalists, certainly the ones who work for BBC, CNN, and sad to admit, even the “friendly” media like Fox News, are more interested in shaping the news, rather than reporting it. They “frame” it, they will tell you, but the frame is faulty because it comes with a predetermined conclusion. Tenenbom’s book doesn’t. You aren’t quite sure where he’s going to end up – at varying points, you wonder whether someone else will be finishing it because he ended up getting murdered upon discovery that he isn’t the Aryan Christian he pretends to be. He goes among the right and laughs at them; he meets with the left and finds them moronic. He meets with Druze, Bedouin, Muslim, Christian and Jew…and pretty much every denomination among them. I wish I could have met with him because what he considers the “center” of Israel, really isn’t; what he calls the “extreme right”, isn’t either. There are two things I think he got wrong. Considering how long the book took, how much time he spent in Israel…that’s really not too bad. What he got right is placed before you with sharp, insightful and even sarcastic sentences thrown out there for you, the reader. As he meets with some politician, it is as if he turns his head and speaks to you, explaining that you, like he, should not be fooled by the hot air in the room.

Oy vey when Ayatollahs are more reliable than the Gray Lady.
I can’t imagine what it’s like when the top editors at The New York Times get together to further glorify Obama at the expense of Israel, only to find themselves a laughingstock. Or maybe I can:

Tom Friedman: “We made a mistake.”

“Mistake? We’re Liberals. We never make mistakes. Friedman, you’re fired.”

If only…

What happened? On Wednesday the wizards at the Times’ “editorial board” sought ways to put lipstick on a pig to sell it as kosher. The editorial, written under the spell of gobbledygook, declared that the Iran Nuke agreements were a win for the United States over the ayatollahs and that Israel ought to know better than to second-guess President Obama.

So shut up, the Times explained. We know what’s good. Iran has agreed to everything, even the gradual lifting of sanctions.

Too bad Barack Obama didn’t spend less time in Chicago with Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn and more with typical South Side “homeys.” The future president of the world’s most powerful nation might have learned about real- world diplomacy.

Community organizers indeed! Those gentlemen really know how to “organize a community” in their favor. Any of these gang leaders (and even members) could teach Obama that earning real-world respect and defending your turf is a cinch. And it’s not by emulating Anastasia Steele at the hands of Christian Grey.

Obama arrived in Panama City On April 10th for the Summit of the Americas wearing the usual sign on his back for such events, a big bold one reading: “KICK ME!” The “dissing” by Latin American leaders started much earlier, however.

ANY day now, Hillary Clinton is expected to declare that she is running for president. For most Americans this will be as surprising as the news that Cinco de Mayo will once again be on May 5th. Mrs Clinton has had her eye on the top job for a long time. She nearly won it in 2008 and is in many ways a stronger candidate now. She and her husband have built a vast campaign machine. The moment Mrs Clinton turns the key, it will begin openly to suck up contributions, spit out sound bites and roll over her rivals. Some think her unstoppable: Paddy Power, an Irish bookmaker, gives her a 91% chance of capturing the White House in 2016.

Steady on. The last time she seemed inevitable, she turned out not to be. The month before the Iowa caucuses in 2008, she was 20 points ahead of other Democrats in national polls, yet she still lost to a young senator from Illinois. She is an unsparkling campaigner, albeit disciplined and diligent. This time, no plausible candidate has yet emerged to compete with her for the Democratic nomination, but there is still time. Primary voters want a choice, not a coronation (see article). And it is hard to say how she would fare against the eventual Republican nominee, not least since nobody has any idea who that will be. The field promises to be varied, ranging from the hyperventilating Ted Cruz to the staid Jeb Bush. Rand Paul, a critic of foreign wars and Barack Obama’s surveillance state, joined the fray on April 7th (see article). Still, Mrs Clinton starts as the favourite, so it is worth asking: what does she stand for?

Iran has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty time after time, often undetected; it also continues to violate Article 2, clause 4, of the United Nations Charter: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…”

During the British Mandate, the entire area was known as Palestine. The official listing for “Place of Birth” on all passports at the time — for everyone, including Jews — was Palestine.

One can only hope that what clearly seems such a fatally dangerous deal — that threatens the existence of not only Israel, the Middle East and Europe, but, with Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile program, also the United States — will not be allowed to happen.

The notion of Israel’s “right to exist” has been in the news twice in recent days.

It’s not all Iranian nukes and other harmless fun. Before they fade from view, here’s a few news items I wanted to note:

~This is a Canadian story, but it’s not irrelevant to what’s going on in Indiana and beyond. The gist of Robyn Urback’s column is captured by the headline:

On A Day About Inclusivity, Anti-Bullying Activists Protest Laureen Harper’s Support

This is in reference to the so-called “International Day of Pink”, which is supposedly to protest the bullying of LGBTQ students. Something called “the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity” (CCGSD) invited Mrs Harper, the Prime Minister’s wife, to be an official “ambassador” for the event, and she accepted. Don’t ask me why.

But next thing you know big chunks of the LGBTQWERTY machine announced they would have no truck with the Day of Pink on the grounds that Mrs Harper is married to a big transphobic bully:

Critics called the CCGSD’s decision to appoint Laureen Harper a spokesperson as a “major misstep,” a “huge mistake,” “gross” and “totally offensive.” One tweeter said she is “married to a huge bully of LGBQT folk,” and thus, shouldn’t be offering her support, and many pointed to the government’s stalled progress on Bill C-279 — a transgender rights bill — as the reason why the prime minister’s wife has no business showing support for gay and trans youth.

It’s not only at the nuclear talks that Iran is goose-stepping right over those polite U.S. diplomats to grab all it can get. At the United Nations, Iran has just won a seat on the governing board of — what else? — UN Women.

Yes, you read that right. On Friday, at the UN, Iran won a three-year term, starting Jan. 1, 2016, on the board of UN Women [1] — the UN’s self-described agency “for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.” Never mind that the UN’s own special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, reported last month [2] that under President Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s oppression of women is worse than ever.

How did this happen? In procedural terms, it was the latest product of the toxic UN system in which seats on governing boards are allocated to geographic blocs. Each bloc gets a quota of seats to fill, and puts forward a slate of candidates. Iran belongs to the Asia-Pacific States, which in this case avoided such awkward democratic customs as competition by putting forward five candidates for five seats: Samoa, United Arab Emirates, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Iran.

The Islamic State has released a new 11-minute video called “We Will Burn America” that calls for supporters to attack the American homeland and promises another 9/11.

At this juncture I would note the New York Times’ front page article on December 29 that described how America’s top war fighters, namely Special Operations Command, freely admit that they don’t understand the ideology driving ISIS and other Islamic terror groups:

WASHINGTON — Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, commander of American Special Operations forces in the Middle East, sought help this summer in solving an urgent problem for the American military: What makes the Islamic State so dangerous?