RUTHFULLY YOURS

The entire issue of Palestinian statehood, and the Palestinian narrative on which it is based, are nothing but a giant hoax so transparent it is inconceivable that anyone even feigns credence to it.

‘With the two-state solution… Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the chosen people? What will become of all the sacrifices they made – just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse…. Then we will move forward.”

– Abbas Zaki, senior PLO official. (ANB TV, Lebanon, May 7, 2009)

Two recent events have once again propelled Palestinian statehood into the forefront of media spotlight, after several months of it being overshadowed by other events like developments in Ukraine, the war in Gaza and the televised barbarity of Islamic State.

One was the statement by Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven (subsequently somewhat equivocally revised) that his country would recognize a Palestinian state. The other was the British Parliament’s (nonbinding, but in the eyes of some, historic) vote on recognition of statehood for the Palestinians.

In light of these incidents, I was invited to appear on i24news news and participate in a discussion with a Palestinian interlocutor on the prospects for, and the prudence of, establishing a Palestinian state.

Much of what follows reflects the things I said during that 20-minute debate – and the things I didn’t, but would have, had time permitted.

Surprised by Great Britain? Why? Their Pashas (the word for General in the Arab Legion created by Great Britain) routinely enabled terrorist raids against the Jewish residents of Palestine until days before independence. Britain’s notorious White Paper of 1939 which cut off Jewish immigration to Palestine on the eve of the Holocaust was a death sentence for millions of European Jews trapped in Europe. After World War 11, British perfidy persisted and the 1939 White Paper remained the basis of British policy. Its cruel provisions kept wretched survivors of the Holocaust trapped and homeless in displaced persons’ camps in hostile European nations or behind barbed wire in detention camps in Cyprus.

Ancient and ramshackle ships were piloted by valiant volunteer crews that transported the wretched survivors of the Holocaust to Palestine in defiance of the perverse British blockade between 1946 and 1948. There were more than 140 voyages by about 70 ships bringing European survivors to Palestine. More than half were stopped by British navy patrols and sent to internment camps is Cyprus, or Atlit detention camp and some to Mauritius.

All but two of the ships were almost decrepit…four from pro World War 1, but among them they carried 60,000 refugees who had been at the brink of hell seeking succor in Palestine. When these ships reached the Palestine coast they were apprehended, boarded, and often rammed by the Royal Navy Pashas.They used tear gas, clubs and firearms against refugees who occasionally fought back with sticks and eating cutlery.The 4,530 passengers of the Exodus were threatened with return to Germany. An American volunteer William Bernstein was clubbed to death on the Exodus in 1947 . The ship was brought into Haifa port under British escort; there the Holocaust survivors were forcibly transferred to another ship and returned back to Germany via France.

Historian Martin Gilbert includes Abba Eban’s account of what happened there in Israel: A History (p. 145):

“[In Haifa] the four members watched a ‘gruesome operation.’ The Jewish refugees had decided ‘not to accept banishment with docility. If anyone had wanted to know what Churchill meant by a “squalid war,” he would have found out by watching British soldier using rifle butts, hose pipes and tear gas against the survivors of the death camps. Men, women and children were forcibly taken off to prison ships, locked in cages below decks and set out of Palestine waters.’

My native land Bolivia recognized Israel one day after Independence. England abstained.

Paralysis afflicts western powers, allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran and its venomous proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to grow ever stronger and usher in new horrors.

In the past I have written several published articles, both regarding the ancient ties between the Kurds and the Jews, as well as the more recent examples of Israeli support for the Kurdish people in their fight against Arab aggression.

The present and immediate moral crisis that surrounds the Kurdish resistance against ISIS in the city of Kobane cries out for Israeli and Jewish assistance to perhaps the only true friend Israel has in the Middle East apart from many in the Druze community.

Let me quote from what has just appeared in Britain’s Daily Mail. It is an account of what horrors Kurdish fighters discovered after liberating parts of Kobane from the ISIS Islamo-Nazis:

“I have seen tens, maybe hundreds, of bodies with their heads cut off. Others with just their hands or legs missing. I have seen faces with their eyes or tongues cut out – I can never forget it for as long as I live,” Amin Fajar, a 38-year-old father of four, told the Daily Mail about the incredible scene in Kobane. “They put the heads on display to scare us all.”

Another resident, 13-year-old Dillyar, watched as his cousin Mohammed, 20, was captured and beheaded by the black-clad jihadis as the pair tried to flee the battle-scarred town.

“They pushed him to the ground and sawed his head off, shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ (Allah is Greater) the boy said. “I see it in my dreams every night and every morning I wake up and remember everything.”

Farmer Ahmed Bakki said his cousin, a father of seven, stayed behind when his terrified family fled.

“We phoned my cousin and [ISIS] answered his phone. They said, ‘We’ve got his head, and we’re taking it,” Mr Bakki said, adding that the most brutal ISIS barbarians were European Muslims.

“They are Chechen, they are English, they are from all over Europe. We know because we can hear their accent,” he told the paper after escaping to a refugee camp in Turkey.”

Let me also quote the words of Jerome Roos, writer, filmmaker and PhD Researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, who wrote the following on October 4, 2014 in TeleSUR English.

Americans are shaken by government’s inability to function.

Ebola is causing such anxiety that even alarm over an outbreak of enterovirus D-68 — far more prevalent and linked to the deaths of at least four children — has been crowded out. Ditto news of the Islamic State’s rampage, a stock-price rollercoaster, and the impending midterm elections. Understandably, two concerns dominate the public discussion.

One is incompetence. Lulled into ever more dependence on government by the metastasis of regulation in what used to be the realm of private action, Americans are shaken by Washington’s inability to function. It is bungling elementary tasks. There is a sense of unraveling, a sense that officials are not merely out of their depth in addressing problems but incapable of spotting the problems in the first place — or, even worse, responsible for creating the very problems that then explode into crises.

Intimately related is the other concern: dishonesty. People expect politicians to spin and, at times, to out-and-out lie. I’ve been contending for a while now that our politics are no longer rational but tribal. Being right is secondary to being on the “right” side, as that side is perceived by the popular culture. That culture has largely tuned out the news and is swayed more by character assassination than by linear, fact-based argument. Official dishonesty is the natural result. When it is more important that “our side” wins than that the sensible thing be done, it is to be expected that the partisans, especially those in power, will say whatever they need to say to get through the news cycle. After all, fewer people than ever care about the news part of the news cycle; they care about the drama and their sympathies will be with their heroes — the fibs told to escape the latest jam are more admired for craftiness than condemned as breaches of trust.

Still, as we’ve previously observed, there is a breaking point. You can only abide politics as soap opera for so long because politics is actually about real life and real stakes. Reality cannot be scripted. Therefore, politics cannot forever be stage-managed as a “narrative” with “optics,” a daily show focused on how the lead character is affected by the latest crisis.

A century ago, a pioneering effort in global philanthropy whose legacy lives on.

PLEASE ALSO READ ABOUT HOOVER’S EFFORTS TO RESCUE EUROPEAN JEWS….

EX-PRESIDENTS AND THE JEWS: CARTER VS. HOOVER by Rafael Medoff

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2014/10/16/ex-presidents-and-the-jews-carter-vs-hoover-by-rafael-medoff

The world has grown accustomed to international organizations devoted to saving civilians in the midst of armed strife and social upheaval. Groups including Doctors Without Borders, World Vision and CARE are well-known and world-renowned. Almost forgotten is the American whose achievements a century ago set an example for these and many other philanthropic efforts: Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States.

In August 1914 Hoover was living in London. He was a highly successful mining engineer with business interests on every continent except Antarctica—but he was also restless, confiding to a friend that he wished to “get in the big game” of public life. He had his opportunity when, just days before his 40th birthday, Great Britain declared war on imperial Germany. “If my judgment of the situation is right,” Hoover wrote to a friend, “we are on the verge of seven years of considerable privation.”

In the early weeks of World War I, Hoover and other leading Americans in London organized emergency relief assistance for more than 100,000 American travelers fleeing the continent of Europe for England and safe passage home. His efficient leadership impressed the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, Walter Hines Page. Page, along with others, soon tapped him for a far greater mission of mercy.

Rep. Hensarling whom I had the pleasure to meet and hear last week at a private function is a bright, educated, principled conservative who is articulate and charming as well. Move over John Boehner…Hensarling is as good as it can get in Congress…..and he is running unopposed….with a great agenda for all Americans….rsk

Jeb Hensarling may be the most important Republican elected official you’ve never heard of. He will become even more important if his party wins control of the U.S. Senate in November’s elections, two weeks from this Tuesday. He’s also a leading candidate to eventually succeed John Boehner as House speaker.

So it’s a good moment to sit down with the Texan, who represents a district near Dallas and is now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to talk about the political possibilities and strategy. He believes the GOP is “poised for a good election” but not a great one. Good because President Obama is ineffectual and unpopular. Not great because Republicans haven’t talked enough about their plans to encourage job creation and rising incomes.

But if Republicans do win a majority, count Mr. Hensarling among those who think they will have to do more than stymie Mr. Obama for his final two years. They’ll have to produce legislation, he says, putting bills on the president’s desk that he will have to sign or veto. The political trick will be calculating what to pass that Mr. Obama might conceivably sign, and what to pass anyway to educate the country and prepare for the 2016 election.

Together with Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who is expected to become chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Hensarling will drive economic policy in the House. A cerebral veteran lawmaker who opposed the bank bailouts, he carries the respect of both tea party conservatives and establishment moderates within the GOP.

He’ll need that credibility because he is aggressive in sketching out a 2015 legislative agenda for faster economic growth. The common theme he stresses with Journal editors is liberating people from bureaucracy, whether they are seeking a mortgage, buying health insurance, crossing America’s southern border to make an honest living in the U.S. or simply filling out their tax returns.

President Obama bowed to the growing Ebola political furor on Friday and named a so-called Ebola czar, though maybe the better label is apparatchik. His man isn’t a military general, despite the troops in West Africa, or even someone with so much as nominal expertise in disasters or infectious disease. He’s the political operative Ron Klain.

President Obama is selling the new position as an “Ebola Response Coordinator” to restore order and manage operations across government. This would seem to require some familiarity with epidemiology and federal assets like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Klain’s resume does not extend much beyond his stints as chief of staff to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden , unless you count his job quarterbacking the Solyndra fiasco as no big deal.

If you’ve been exposed to fault-finding in Mr. Obama’s Ebola campaign and experienced symptoms such as chills, anxiety or skepticism—or you’re worried that you’ve communicated such criticism to others—do not fear. We know this epidemic can be stopped, and Mr. Klain’s field team will apply triage, contact tracing and meticulous political infection control practices.

Then again, anonymous White House aides are telling the press corps that Mr. Klain’s partisan skills as a fixer are a credential. This may be the best indication to date of how Mr. Obama regards the dangers of the Ebola crisis, with risks to his own approval ratings near the top. Maybe three-star commander Valerie Jarrett can next prosecute the air war against Islamic State, if she isn’t already.

Mr. Klain’s appointment is even less reassuring considering it is devised in part to counter the more unfortunate ideas circulating in other political precincts. Republicans and a few Democrats aren’t immune to political fever either, in particular on a travel ban for West Africa.

British MPs show the extent of their anti-Israel leanings.

The vote this week by the British Parliament to recognize a Palestinian state is being treated as a nonevent by diplomats in both Jerusalem and London. Though the margin of 274 to 12 was lopsided in favor of recognition, more than half the Parliament either abstained or didn’t show up. The nonbinding resolution will have no effect on Britain’s longstanding policy of recognizing a Palestinian state only in the context of an agreed two-state solution.

But symbolism can also be revealing. Some of the revelations came in comments by the MPs. Andrew Bridgen, a Tory, offered the view that the U.S. was “very susceptible to well-funded powerful lobbying groups and the power of the Jewish lobby in America.” David Ward, a Liberal Democrat, tweeted that he’d fire rockets at Israel if he were living in Gaza.
The mindset such statements betray speaks for itself. It is particularly disturbing after a summer that witnessed eruptions of anti-Semitic venom on Europe’s streets.

The Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act doesn’t do enough to fulfill the promise of its name.

On Aug. 7, President Obama signed into law a $16.3 billion bill to “overhaul” the Veterans Affairs health-care system. The Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act was lauded by the White House and Congress as a law that put vets back in the driver’s seat. But that’s just not so.

Supporters claim the new law allows veterans to see private doctors more quickly. Not true. Only in cases where the veteran has waited longer than the “wait time goals” of the VA can that veteran be seen by an outside doctor. What are the wait time goals? It’s hard to say. The law first defines them as 30 days. But one paragraph later the law allows the VA secretary to submit “actual” wait time goals to Congress. If the actual wait time is longer than 30 days, the actual wait time supplants the 30-day “wait time goal.” One wonders how Congress and the White House could high-five over that language.

Even if the vet manages to live through the wait time and see a private doctor, he can only stay with that doctor for 60 days before it’s back to the VA to start all over again. Why bother?

The law allows the VA to punish employees who intentionally manipulate VA wait times by faking medical appointment data. Apparently, the VA needed a special provision to punish employees for fraud and falsifying government records. One wonders why the U.S. Criminal Code wouldn’t do.

The law also creates a “Commission on Care” to examine the quality and accessibility of the VA health-care system. That sounds good. Trouble is, the commission isn’t in any hurry. The VA secretary has a full year just to appoint the members. Quick to enact, slow to act.

http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/around-the-globe/isis-hostage-a-terrible-surprise-is-waiting-for-you-8815
ISIS Hostage: “A Terrible Surprise Is Waiting For You”
In a new video distributed by the terrorist organization, a British journalist warned of the consequences of an American attack. “Anyone who hoped for an orderly operation will be terribly surprised,” John Cantlie, a photojournalist captured in Syria in 2012, stated in the video. It is unclear whether the remarks were voluntary or forced.