Tag Archives: Jews

Wisdom From Someone Who Executed Successful Middle East Policy

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On Sunday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about the recent events in the Middle East.

The article reports:

Former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, had some wise words yesterday about Israel.

Israel has to finish the job. Now. She cannot stop.

People have responded, “I don’t agree with you politically at all, but this is true!”

Kushner wrote:

September 27th is the most important day in the Middle East since the Abraham Accords breakthrough.

I have spent countless hours studying Hezbollah and there is not an expert on earth who thought that what Israel has done to decapitate and degrade them was possible.

This is significant because Iran is now fully exposed. The reason why their nuclear facilities have not been destroyed, despite weak air defense systems, is because Hezbollah has been a loaded gun pointed at Israel. Iran spent the last forty years building this capability as its deterrent.

President Trump would often say, “Iran has never won a war but never lost a negotiation.” The Islamic Republic’s regime is much tougher when risking Hamas, Hezbollah, Syrian and Houthi lives than when risking their own. Their foolish efforts to assassinate President Trump and hack his campaign reek of desperation and are hardening a large coalition against them.

Iranian leadership is stuck in the old Middle East, while their neighbors in the GCC are sprinting toward the future by investing in their populations and infrastructure. They are becoming dynamic magnets for talent and investment while Iran falls further behind. As the Iranian proxies and threats dissipate, regional security and prosperity will rise for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike

The article concludes with more of Jared Kushner’s statement:

The philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy wrote on X, “I keep reading everywhere that Lebanon is ‘on the brink of collapse.’ No. It is on the brink of relief and deliverance.”
Moments like this come once in a generation, if they even come at all.

The Middle East is too often a solid where little changes. Today, it is a liquid and the ability to reshape is unlimited. Do not squander this moment.

Let’s all pray for success, for peace and for the good judgement of our leaders.

Lebanon used to be the garden spot of the Middle East. I pray that someday it will again be the beautiful, free land it once was.

 

Isn’t This Racist?

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On Wednesday, The Jewish News Syndicate reported that the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Israeli presence to be illegal in any area over the 1949 armistice line. That’s interesting. Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East where Jews, Christians, and Muslims have the same rights and are allowed to participate in the government of the nation. Why is the United Nations picking on the a non-racist country in the area rather than the countries where Jews are not allowed? Why–because there are now enough Muslim countries in the United Nations to begin to take over the organization and to align with the non-Muslim tyrants to attempt to make Sharia Law and Muslim dominance a feature of the United Nations.

The article reports:

More than 40 countries sponsored the resolution, which was the first that Palestinians filed after being granted unprecedented privileges, for a non-U.N. member, earlier this year.

The resolution calls on the Israel Defense Forces to withdraw completely from Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip within 12 months, which means evacuating all Jewish communities beyond the armistice line, including Jerusalem’s Old City.

It also bans arms sales to the IDF of any equipment that would be expected reasonably to be used in the territory over the 1949 lines and calls for a boycott of all products produced by Jews in those areas.

The resolution text lacks any mention of Israeli security concerns, historic ties to the lands or Hamas’s terror attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.

Just for the record, this is the land given to Israel by the Balfour Declaration”

These are the borders for the Jewish state set up by the League of Nations:

The Arabs do not have a legitimate claim to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, or the Gaza Strip. Historically, all of these lands are Jewish and play a major role in both Jewish and Christian history.

The article at the Jewish News Syndicate concludes:

Arsen Ostrovsky and Nadav Steinman, CEO and board chair, respectively, of the International Legal Forum, stated that “today, simply put, the United Nations has become the diplomatic arm of Hamas” and that the resolution “is just the latest in a litany of obscenely one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N. since Oct. 7.” 

“All it does is reward the murderers, rapists and abductors of Hamas while pouring further fuel on worldwide antisemitism and eroding whatever remaining credibility of the already problematic and politicized International Court of Justice, upon which this resolution is meant to be based,” they added. “Ultimately, peace will only prevail when Hamas is defeated and the hostages are released, not through tiresome antics and pyrrhic Palestinian ‘victories’ at the U.N.”

Giving land to terrorists has never worked in the past. There is no reason to believe that it will work in the future.

A Warning From Someone Who Knows

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It is disturbing (to say the least) to see college students chanting, “From the river to the sea….” I wonder if they understand (or care) that they are calling for the genocide of Jews. There seems to be no recognition of the fact that there are still American hostages being held or that the ‘war’ began with a terrorists attack (aka war crime) committed by Hamas.

On Sunday, Townhall posted a warning to those who sympathize with Hamas. The warning comes from Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the founders of Hamas.

The article quotes reports:

He has called the terrorist group a religious movement “waging a holy war” under the guise of a political party. He has not shied away from criticizing the group in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack after seeing how some in the U.S. have responded with protests on college campuses and pressure in Congress to end the action in Gaza before Hamas has been eliminated. 

“Bending to terrorists will have consequences,” Yousef said. “We are sending the wrong messages. These people don’t receive our statements or our action as a form of tolerance that we are trying to reach peace.They perceive it as weakness. “The more we continue sending the wrong messages, the more we complicate the situation,” he added. “We have to stand firmly regardless. … Hamas is a designated terrorist group in the United States, according to the American law, so it’s a ridiculous thing of any lawmaker not to be able to distinguish this group. Via Fox News Digital.

We have been warned.

I Have No Doubt This Is The Result Of American Meddling

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Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz wants to be Prime Minister of Israel. The Biden administration is working with him to make that happen. Mr. Gantz has visited America numerous times recently to meet with top Biden administration officials. He has gotten so wrapped up in his own ambition that he has forgotten his loyalty to his own country. He is reported to support the idea of an eventual two-state solution. He has forgotten that the residents of the Gaza Strip were sending missiles into Israel before Hamas took over. Why does he think a new state in Gaza would be any different?

On Saturday, MSN reported:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz demanded on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commit to an agreed vision for the Gaza conflict that would include stipulating who might rule the territory after the war with Hamas.

Gantz told a press conference he wanted the war cabinet to form a six-point plan by June 8. If his expectations are not met, he said, he will withdraw his centrist party from the conservative premier’s broadened emergency coalition.

…Gantz said his proposed six-point plan would include bringing a temporary U.S.-European-Arab-Palestinian system of civil administration for Gaza while Israel retains security control.

It would also institute equitable national service for all Israelis, including ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are now exempted from the military draft and have two parties in Netanyahu’s coalition determined to preserve the waiver.

We have already seen the corruption and takeover of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Why would anyone be willing to allow anyone other than Israel to control Gaza? When Israel controlled Gaza before 2005, the greenhouses of Gaza fed Gaza and Israel and Gaza prospered. When the Israelis left Gaza, the residents destroyed the greenhouses and shortly thereafter began firing rockets into Israel. The residents destroyed their own infrastructure and used aid money from other countries to build tunnels and buy weapons. It is telling that Israel has air-raid shelters throughout the country for civilians, and Gaza has tunnels to protect its military and no air-raid shelters for civilians. That alone tells you how much the people in control of Gaza value human life. Israel is the only country in the world that truly cares about Israel’s security. If we want Israel to continue to exist, we need to let Israel control Gaza. Just as Arabs have more freedom in Israel than in any other country in the Middle East (there are Arabs in the Israeli government–there are no Jews in the governments of any Arab countries), the citizens of Gaza will have more freedom under Israel (and Israel will be more secure and the Middle East more stable) if Israel controls Gaza.

 

When The World Is Upside Down

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The recent pro-Palestine protests on American college campuses were a disgrace. The students were not only overlooking the fact that there are still Americans held hostage by Hamas, but many of the homosexual students who were part of the protests have no idea how they would be treated in a Sharia Law compliant country. Ignorance is bliss, but it is not always safe or healthy.

On Saturday, Front Page Magazine posted an article about some of the Biden administration’s actions in response to the protests (some of which definitely overstepped the boundaries of peaceful protest). The subject of blocking Jewish students from attending class does not seem to be covered in the Biden administration’s response to the protests.

The article reports:

After weeks of bias intimidation by Hamas supporters aimed at Jewish students and faculty, including Khymani James, an encampment leader who had talked to Columbia University officials about killing Jews, the Biden administration’s Department of Education, with the inevitability of a rigged slot machine in Reno, is launching a “civil rights investigation” into the university for “extreme anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic harassment”.

The complaint comes from ‘Palestine Legal’, the same group providing advice to the encampment protesters.

It complains that “Columbia has reinforced the hostile anti-Palestinian environment, including by suspending Students for Justice in Palestine — a student organization that advocates for Palestinian human rights — for engaging in speech activity supporting Palestinian rights”

What sort of “speech activity” did Columbia University’s SJP chapter engage in?

After Oct 7, Students for Justice in Palestine hailed the Hamas rape of girls, murder of babies and kidnapping of children as a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance”.

The national organization which has 200 chapters on campuses across North America put out a ‘toolkit’ which explained that the Jewish victims were “not civilians” and could be freely targeted.

Its poster for a ‘Day of Resistance’ featured an image of the paraglider that Hamas terrorists had used to massacre and rape young Israelis at a music festival.

Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine celebrated the “unprecedented historic moment for the Palestinians of Gaza” and asserted their “full solidarity with the Palestinian resistance”. It was also a signatory to the “victory or martyrdom” statement signed by the national organization.

The article concludes:

The Department of Education refuses to protect Jewish students from Hamas supporters, but rushes to protect Hamas supporters from Jewish students.

This is much more reminiscent of Germany in the 1930’s than the values of most  Americans. Remember that Germany began enacting anti-Semitic laws in 1933, followed by the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. In March 1933, Dachau, the first concentration camp opened. The anti-Semitic actions of the German government also spawned Kristallnacht in 1938. I do not want to see America go down that path.

Money Talks–We Need More Of This

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On Monday, Breitbart reported that Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, will end his donations to Columbia University due to the violence against Jews.

The article reports:

The billionaire NFL owner noted that he is thankful that Columbia helped him start his adult life with the opportunities it offered him so many years ago. Still, now the university is “no longer an institution” he recognizes, Fox News reported.

“It was through the full academic scholarship Columbia gave me that I was able to attend college and get my start in life, and for that, I have been tremendously grateful. However, the school I love so much – the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity – is no longer an institution I recognize,” he wrote in a statement released Monday.

Kraft added, “I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country. I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff, and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken.”

The article concludes:

On Sunday, the White House issued a statement in response to the ongoing anti-Israel protests and encampment taking place at Columbia, describing them as being “Antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous.”

White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates issued a statement acknowledging that American citizens have the “right to peaceful protest” while adding that “calls for violence and physical intimidation” against the Jewish community are unacceptable.

Where are the protests for the people who have been held hostage or killed by Hamas since October 7th?

When Senators Turn Out Much Better Than Expected

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On Sunday, Steve Hayward posted an article at Power Line Blog about some recent comments by Senator John Fetterman. I am amazed by the common sense of a man who when he was elected seemed seriously limited in his mental capacities. The article includes the following Tweet, which was in response to Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning Israel that it may find itself diplomatically “isolated” in the world if it attacks Rafah:

We need to remember that Israel did not start this war. We also need to remember that Israel has not been training its kindergarten children for war since 1948. Israel is not the problem. Arabs have more freedom in Israel than in any other part of the Middle East–they are included in Israel’s governing bodies, they are able to buy land, and they are treated as full citizens. In the Arab nations, Israelis are not shown that respect. It’s time to demand equal rights for Jews in the Middle East and to end the terrorist groups that planned October 7th.

One Of The Biggest Obstacles To Peace In The Middle East

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On Thursday, Breitbart posted an article about a recent statement by Imam Abdou Zindani in a sermon at the Islamic Center of Warren, Michigan, in January.

The article reports:

Muslims will yet “slaughter” the Jews “like sheep” when the opportunity arises, according to a Michigan Islamic cleric who appealed to Allah, seeking to become “soldiers” for Islam in any form desired, including death.

In a sermon at the Islamic Center of Warren, Michigan, in January, Imam Abdou Zindani warned of the fate of Jews everywhere, pointing to a Palestinian businessman who told a Jewish New Yorker what Muslims have in store for the Jews. 

This statement is in keeping with statements in the Hadith, one of the guiding documents in Islam.

The article continues:

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, Jewish man,” he said. “One day will come, and we will slaughter you like a sheep and the stone and the tree will work… undercover for us, [saying:] ‘Hey Muslim, come, there is somebody hiding here, get up and kill him.’”

The Sheikh was apparently referencing a grisly passage in the Islamic text, known as the Hadith, that reads as follows: “Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the stones and the trees will say, oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me — come and kill him.” The same excerpt is cited in the Hamas terror group’s charter.

He later made an emotional appeal to Allah, begging that Muslims be made his “soldiers.” 

“Every way you want us to be — with the tank, with the eye, with the money, with the hand, make us soldiers for Islam,” he said. “Make us die the way you want us to die.”

The clip, which was originally streamed live on the mosque’s YouTube channel, has gone viral in recent days, with many expressing outrage over the radical rhetoric being espoused on American soil.

“They are here. Islamists are in the US. They are preaching Islamic supremacy, terrorism and the destruction of our culture,” warned one X user. “Is the FBI on the job? Do you care about uncontrolled, illegal immigration? How long will people wait?” 

“It’s getting late,” he added.

I don’t think a peace treaty is worth anything when one of the parties has this theology as the basis of their culture.

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What We Were Told vs. The Actual Truth

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On Sunday, Townhall posted an article about a shooting in Vermont in November. The story we were told by the mainstream media does not line up with the facts.

The article reports:

In November 2023, Jason J. Eaton, 48, shot and wounded three students of Palestinian descent in Burlington, Vermont. The crime was investigated as “hate-motivated.” Nothing was confirmed, but Joe Biden commented on it, along with other Democrats, despite zero confirmation that Eaton was fueled by anti-Muslim rage…

…Meanwhile, Biden was mum about the death of a pro-Israeli protester in California, who got bashed in the head by a pro-Palestinian demonstrator. As it turns out, Mr. Eaton supports Hamas. Daniel Greenfield had a lengthy article debunking the Islamophobia narrative (via Front Page Mag)

Front Page Mag reported the following:

On December 6, Seven Days, a local news outlet known for breaking stories about local politics, revealed that Eaton had tweeted, “the notion that Hamas is ‘evil’ for defending their state from occupation is absurd. They are owed a state. Pay up.” 

Responding to an article about a proposed ceasefire, he wrote, “What if someone occupied your country? Wouldn’t you fight them?”

Local politicians were aware of this which is why in December a Burlington City Council resolution from Councilman Ali Dieng, an African Muslim immigrant currently running for mayor, trying to tie the shootings to an attack on Israel failed, and so did a resolution pushing the false claim that the students had been targeted because of their identity. 

The latest Islamophobia hoax had fallen apart in Vermont, but still lingered nationally. 

The article concludes:

Yikes. Many retractions are warranted, but you know that’ll never happen. The media has yet to fully repent for spreading lies about Russian collusion. This was a serious trip-up by the media, but the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas talking points were already baked into the cake. These rabid, antisemitic leftists were going to rally, call for Jewish genocide, and harass innocent Jews on the streets. This poured fuel on the fire, but the eruption of anti-Jewish hatred from the activist and professional Left was more grounded in Israel’s existence and the IDF’s invasion of the Gaza Strip after Hamas’ heinous terrorist attack on October 7.

We are being fed lies by the mainstream media. Those lies have worked to divide us and to impede the progress of the American dream. It’s time to ignore the lies and bring the American dream back.

Destroying The Basis Of Past Unity

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America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Our original laws were based on the Ten Commandments as listed in the Bible. In colonial America, children were taught to read using the Bible. The Bible was the common thread that united us. We were Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, but we all believed in the Bible. Religious freedom was  a major right of all Americans. Now that common thread is becoming frayed, and there are those who want to eliminate it altogether.

Just the News posted an article yesterday titled, “Democrat congressman calls religious liberty a ‘pretext for discrimination.’”

The article reports:

Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney described religious liberty as a “bogus term” and a “pretext for discrimination.”

The New York congressman made the comments Monday on MSNBC while reacting to a Supreme Court ruling banning discrimination against gay and transgender people.

“And we know that Neil Gorsuch is a supporter of so-called religious liberty, which is a bogus term,” Maloney said, describing it as a “pretext for discrimination hiding behind the guise of religion.”

The article concludes:

During his interview Maloney also said that America would benefit if there were high schoolers in the nation’s legislature.

“If we had more high school kids in Congress we’d be a better country,” he said, adding that young Americans are leading progressive movements.

I’m saddened to think this Representative thinks that religious liberty is a bogus term. It’s one of the things the Founding Fathers fought for. Does he think freedom of speech is also a bogus term? As for high school kids in Congress, the reason many of them are progressives is that they have not yet encountered the real world. Many high school progressives abruptly become conservatives when they see the amount of money the government takes out of their paycheck.

Anti-Semitic Or Just Mean-Spirited

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Jews have been called the ‘canary in the coal mine.’ For whatever reason, when governments allow or sponsor mistreatment of Jews, even worse things follow. John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog yesterday that should give all of us pause. We are all aware of the rather unique actions of some governors and mayors who have decided that the coronavirus spreads very easily in rallies to protest business closures but does not spread at all in rallies to protest police. It’s a somewhat amazing double standard. Well, Mayor de Blasio in New York City has taken it one step further–hundreds protesting in the streets of the city without masks or social distancing is fine–little Jewish children playing in their neighborhood playground are a public health risk.

The article reports:

It has appeared throughout the Wuhan epidemic that Warren Wilhelm Jr. Bill de Blasio is eager to crack down on Jewish funerals and other gatherings while turning a blind eye to much larger gatherings not involving Jews. He has now gone over the top, ordering the gate to a park frequented mostly by Jews welded shut, while encouraging massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Paul Watson reports:

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered gates at a park in a Jewish area welded shut to keep people out despite simultaneously approving numerous mass gatherings of BLM protesters.

“Bill de Blasio is Welding the gates at the biggest park in the Jewish community, (Borough Park, Brooklyn) So your child shouldn’t try to break in,” tweeted Joel Fischer. “While Hundreds of thousands of people gathered yesterday at Brooklyn Museum.”

...UPDATE: This tweet says that local Jews have cut the lock and opened the gates. Not sure how the lock relates to the welding that apparently was going on earlier. I report, you decide.

This mayor, who is so concerned about little children playing in the park, is the same mayor who demanded that nursing homes admit people who had tested positive for the coronavirus. Hopefully this is his last term as mayor.

Letting A Lie Stand

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John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog today about a lie told by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. She has made a number of anti-Semitic statements during her short term in Congress.

The article reports:

Yesterday Tlaib retweeted the claim that a “herd of violent Israeli settlers” had “kidnapped and murdered” a seven-year-old Palestinian boy. The original tweet was accompanied by a video that showed an Israeli rescue team recovering the body of the boy from a cistern.

The article concludes:

The whole thing was a hoax, made up out of whole cloth. (Not the death of the boy, which was real, but the assertion that he was murdered by Israeli “settlers.”) The tweet by the Palestinian politician, Hanan Ashrawi, has now been deleted, as has Tlaib’s retweet. But Tlaib’s deletion was silent, with no explanation or apology, or any attempt to correct the misinformation that she had spread to tens of thousands on Twitter.

What happened is obvious. Like many people, Tlaib believes anything that tends to confirm her pre-existing bigotry. There is no need to investigate or verify the facts when an opportunity to smear Jews is at hand.

Anyone can make a mistake and believe something that isn’t true. However, Congresswoman Tlaib owed the people who follow her on Twitter and explanation of why her tweet was deleted and a correction to the story. Kidnapping and murder is generally not something that Israelis do to children. Unfortunately the Palestinians who Tlaib supports have a history of killing innocent people–both Israeli and American–citizens of Israel and tourists. The Representative needs to check her facts more carefully.

The House Of Representatives Accomplished Something Good

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On Tuesday The Hill posted an article about the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on the bill titled, “Opposing efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel.” A similar bill was introduced in the Senate, but was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations on March 25, 2019. No further action has been taken on the Senate bill.

The final vote was 398 yeas, 17 nays, 5 voting present, and 12 not voting. (The numbers are from the U.S. House of Representatives website.)

The article at The Hill notes:

The resolution’s opponents included progressive freshmen Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who support the BDS movement.

House Democratic leaders brought the resolution to the floor under a fast-track process that required a two-thirds majority for passage and limited debate to 40 minutes. No one spoke in opposition to the resolution during the allotted debate, but the two progressives delivered floor speeches earlier in the day to express why they’d vote against it.

Tlaib, citing her family’s Palestinian roots, said she “can’t stand by and watch this attack on our freedom of speech and the right to boycott the racist policies of the government in the state of Israel.”

Someone should point out to Tlaib that Palestinians have full rights in Israel. They are more free and more prosperous than the Palestinians that live anywhere outside of Israel.

The article continues:

Lawmakers opposed to BDS stressed that the boycott movement against Israel is unlike other boycotts in American history, arguing that it espouses anti-Semitic views and undermines the prospects for peace in the long-running Palestinian conflict

“Here’s the thing about the global BDS movement: I don’t believe it promotes racial justice or social change at all. It promotes a one-sided view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that seeks to marginalize Israel, that would deny the Jewish people the right of national self-determination,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said during floor debate.

“You want to criticize a government, that’s your right. You want to stop buying products from a certain country, that’s also your right. But participating in an international commercial effort that undermines Israel’s legitimacy and scuttles the chances of a two-state solution isn’t the same as an individual exercising First Amendment rights,” Engel added.

Unfortunately, the Palestinians have illustrated the fact in recent years that they are not interested in becoming a positive member of the global community. In 2005 Israel removed its settlers from the Gaza Strip and turned the land over to the Arabs. Up until that point the Gaza Strip was the home of greenhouses that supplied fruit and vegetables around the world and had a flourishing economy. The first thing the Arabs did was destroy the greenhouses (and thus destroyed the basis for the thriving economy). Since that time the Gaza Strip has been used as a base for firing rockets and building terrorist tunnels into Israel. Money given to the Arabs that was earmarked for humanitarian purposes has been instead used to buy weapons and build tunnels. The Palestinians do not want to exist peacefully in a two-state solution–they want to destroy Israel.

The following is taken from an article I posted in January 2018:

Until the Palestinians stop training their children to kill Jews, there will be no peace in the Middle East. The BDS Movement is simply another way to attack Israel. I am glad most of the House of Representatives understood that.

Antisemitism In Ireland

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CBN News is reporting today that the “Control of Economic Activity (in) Occupied Territories” bill is making its way through the Irish government.

The article reports:

The proposed law would make it illegal for Irish citizens to buy goods and services from Israeli citizens in what they define as the occupied territories. That would make it illegal to buy an ice cream, a postcard or a bottle of water in the old city of Jerusalem.

…The bill is called the “Control of Economic Activity (in) Occupied Territories”.  If convicted under the bill, an Irish citizen could be fined more than a quarter of a million dollars and spend up to five years in jail.   

…Prof. Kontorovich says Irish leaders may be hesitant to pass the bill.

“One of the only reasons the law has not been passed yet is because the Irish government is properly worried about the consequences it’s going to have for Irish companies doing business in America and many of the large American companies doing business in Ireland like Apple. Because America has strict laws against boycotting Israel,” he explained.

This is simply BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanction) on steroids. First of all, there are no ‘occupied territories.’ That is a term invented by Arabs who still want to drive the Jews into the sea. Second of all, this is antisemitism pure and simple. America has laws against boycotting Israel because these boycotts are not morally justified. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has freedom of religion–Jews, Muslims, and Christians are all free to worship in Israel. Also, a boycott of goods in these areas hurts the Arabs who work there more than it hurts the Israelis. Arabs commute from the Arab territories that have no commerce into Israel where commerce flourishes. When companies in the border areas of Israel close because of boycotts, the Arabs suffer.

Why Our Children Need To Learn History

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If our children are not taught history, they will believe any lie they are told about past events. Recently Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib attempted a major rewrite of the history of World War II.

Yesterday The New York Post posted her comments and the truth.

Ms. Tlaib stated:

“There’s always a kind of calming feeling when I think of the tragedy of the Holocaust, that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity . . . in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-Holocaust, post-tragedy . . . And I love that it was my ancestors that provided that in many ways.”

That sounds very nice, but history tells a different story. Haj Amin al-Husseini was the mufti of Jerusalem. He met with Hitler and visited German troops.

The article reports:

According to the German transcript of the meeting, the mufti said: “An appeal by the Mufti to the Arab countries . . . would produce a great number of volunteers eager to fight.”

To the mufti’s delight, Hitler promised that after conquering the Southern Caucasus, “Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere.”

Meanwhile, the British gave in to Arab demands, sharply limiting the number of Jews who could enter the Mandate during the Holocaust. Ships were turned around and, like in many Western countries, Jews were sent back to certain death in ­Europe.

After the United Nations voted in 1947 to partition mandatory Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, five Arab armies invaded in an attempt to make it all Arab. Sounds like a really safe haven, Rep. Tlaib.

In 1948, the Arabs living in Israel were told to leave their homes to join with the Arab nations surrounding Israel to ‘drive the Jews into the sea.’ They were promised that after the Jews were defeated, they would get their land back. Obviously the Jews were not defeated, and they lost their land. The story that Ms. Tlaib is telling is purely fiction, although it may be what she was taught growing up. Truth is the first casualty of war, and in the Middle East the truth is easily lost or distorted.

Learning From History

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On October 31, Breitbart reported that after the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue on October 27, Jewish Americans are taking firearms training in record numbers. It is unfortunate that Jewish Americans feel the need for weapons training, but considering the lessons of history, it is perfectly understandable.

The article reports:

And while there are some members of the Jewish community pushing back against the idea of using guns to keep synagogues safe, Stern notes, “To wait for law enforcement to arrive simply is not the answer.”

Zev Guttman was afraid of guns until Saturday’s attack, but now he chooses to be armed. He said, “Everybody has to find a way to react; this is my way.”

Brooklyn borough president Eric L. Abrams reacted to the Pittsburgh attack by making clear he will be armed when he goes to a synagogue. He said, “It’s not popular, but it’s right.” He added, “We have to live in the real universe that we’re in.”

NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said, “I applaud and agree with Eric L. Adams and I am registering immediately for a gun license. And I encourage other Jews to do so to protect their institutions and synagogues. If we are targets, we need to be prepared.”

The following is from a National Review article from 2013:

In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for “public safety.” The interior minister warned that the records must not fall into the hands of any extremist group.

In 1933, the ultimate extremist group, led by Adolf Hitler, seized power and used the records to identify, disarm, and attack political opponents and Jews. Constitutional rights were suspended, and mass searches for and seizures of guns and dissident publications ensued. Police revoked gun licenses of Social Democrats and others who were not “politically reliable.”

Our Second Amendment is important. Gun registration has too much opportunity to be abused to be a realistic policy. Are you willing to allow a government that in the past has spied on Americans and used government agencies to fight political opponents have access to information regarding gun ownership?

America would be a safer place if all law-abiding citizens took firearms training.

In Remembrance

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This was posted on my Facebook page today by a Facebook group:

Today we remember the awful night known as Kristallnacht. During the night of November 9-10, 1938 there were a series of attacks against Jews and Jewish businesses throughout Germany.

Kristallnacht, meaning the Night of Broken Glass, refers to the streets of Germany which were covered in broken glass belonging to the shops and windows of Jewish-owned buildings and synagogues.

During the night, 91 Jews were murdered and 30,000 were arrested and later deported to the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau. 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed.

Today we remember antisemitism suffered by Jews in Germany and do not forget that even today there are acts of antisemitism worldwide.

Never again!

The United Nations Needs A History Lesson

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted a story about a proposed UNESCO resolution regarding Israel. The resolution is further evidence that the United Nations has lost its way as a peace-keeping organization and has become an outlet for antisemitism around the world.

The article reports:

The United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a draft resolution on Thursday that failed to acknowledge the Jewish people’s ties to the Temple Mount, raising ire in Israel.

The proposal “strongly condemns the Israeli escalating aggressions and illegal measures against the Waqf Department and its personnel, and against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to their Holy Site Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif, and requests Israel, the Occupying Power, to respect the historic Status Quo and to immediately stop these measures.”

It omits the Jewish name for the holy site—the Temple Mount—and instead refers to it only by its Muslim name—Al-Haram Al Sharif.

One of the things that happened after the 1967 war was that Israel allowed religious people access to their religious sites. Under Muslim rule, that does not happen–Christian churches and Jewish synagogues are destroyed when Muslims control a country along with historic artifacts.

Currently, one of the strongest voting blocs in the United Nations is the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. This bloc is made up of a number of nations that support a worldwide caliphate, Sharia Law, and the destruction of Israel. As long as this bloc is a major player, the United Nations cannot function as an organization working toward world peace.

The article at Power Line includes some of the history of Jerusalem:

David conquered the Jebusites and captured Jerusalem 3,000 years ago. Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish life and worship ever since. Herod the Great raised the Second Temple, where Jesus taught and, according to the Gospels, drove out the money-changers. Jesus was arrested, tried and executed in Jerusalem. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple following the Jewish rebellion not long thereafter. Jews have lived in Jerusalem, and sought to return there from around the world, for millennia. Muslims arrived in the area roughly 1,600 years after the Jews, on the most charitable interpretation of history.

Temple Mount is exactly that–the site of the Second Temple, for sure, and perhaps, as tradition records, the location of Solomon’s temple and, long before that, the place where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac. To suggest that Temple Mount has no historical connection to the Jewish people, and the modern state of Israel, is ridiculous–precisely the sort of absurdism that international leftists, and especially Arabs, engage in. It would be like claiming that Washington, D.C. has no connection to the American people, only worse, by 2,750 years or so.

The Israeli government has gone to the length of issuing a publication detailing the millennia-long relationship between the Jewish people and the Promised Land. I admire the Israelis’ patience, but in their shoes, I think I would tell the lunatics–the UNESCO resolution was sponsored by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan, and supported by any number of Europeans–to get stuffed.

It is truly time for the United States to leave the United Nations and to evict them from their New York City headquarters. One of my daughters suggested that they might leave voluntarily if we forced them to pay all of the diplomats’ parking tickets. I think that is a really good idea.

When The Image And The Truth Totally Disagree

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This story is based on a story from November 2015, but it is particularly relevant now. As I have said before, I am not a strong supporter of Donald Trump, but I am dismayed at the charges routinely leveled against him that have no basis in fact. One day I am going to read in the news that Donald Trump conferred with aliens on Mars before deciding to run for President (and what is worse–there will be people who believe that).

On November 13, 2015, The American Spectator posted as article about some activities of Donald Trump during the 1990’s. These activities totally negate the most recent charge that Donald Trump is a racist.

This is the story:

…The culture clash began to approach a climax last fall, when Mr. Trump’s lawyer sent members of the town council a copy of the film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” a film that deals with upper-class racism. Mr. Trump then approached the town council about lifting the restrictions that had been placed on the club. He also asked some council members not to vote on the request because their membership in other clubs created a conflict of interest.

Last December, after the council refused to lift the restrictions, Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Palm Beach, alleging that the town was discriminating against Mar-a-Lago, in part because it is open to Jews and African-Americans. The suit seeks $100 million in damages.

… Mr. Foxman seems pleased that Mr. Trump has elevated the issue of discriminatory policies at social clubs. “He put the light on Palm Beach,” Mr. Foxman says. “Not on the beauty and the glitter, but on its seamier side of discrimination. It has an impact.”

In recent weeks, Mr. Foxman says, the league has received calls from Jewish residents telling of how Palm Beach clubs are changing. Locals concur that in the past year, organizations such as the Bath and Tennis Club have begun to admit Jewish patrons. The Palm Beach Civic Association, which for many years was believed to engage in discriminatory behavior, this month named a Jewish resident as its chief officer.

In other words? In other words, long before he was running for president, there was Donald Trump battling racism and anti-Semitism in Palm Beach society. Using every tool at his disposal.

This was almost twenty years before Donald Trump announced his run for the Presidency. These are not the actions of a racist.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Statement Regarding Orlando

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Below is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement regarding the shooting in Orlando:

In Orlando, a terrorist walks into a nightclub and murders nearly 50 human beings. Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters cut down in cold blood.

They did nothing wrong. They were dancing with friends, they were enjoying music with loved ones.

Why did the terrorist murder them?
Because he was driven by a fanatical hatred.

He targeted the LGBT community because he believed they were evil.

Now, the murderer wasn’t alone.

Regimes and terrorist organizations around the world ruthlessly persecute the LGBT community.

In Syria, ISIS throws gays off rooftops.
In Iran, the regime hangs gays from cranes.

Too many people have remained silent in the face of this awful persecution.

This week’s shooting wasn’t merely an attack on the LGBT community. It was an attack on all of us, on our common values of freedom and diversity and choice.

Radical Islamist terror makes no distinction between shades of infidel.

This week it was gays in Orlando. A few days before that it was Jews in Tel Aviv. Before that it was music fans in Paris; Travelers in Brussels; Yazidis in Iraq; Community workers in San Bernardino; Christians and journalists in Syria.

All of us are targets.

We believe that all people are created in the image of God.

ISIS, by contrast, believes that all people who aren’t just like them deserve to die.

We will not be terrified into submission.
We will fight back. And we will triumph.

Today I ask you to reach out to friends in the LGBT community. Comfort them.
Tell them you stand together, we stand together as one. And that you will always remember the victims.

Tell them they will never be alone, that we are all one family deserving of dignity, deserving of life.

I have no doubt that those who seek to spread hate and fear will be defeated.

Working together we will defeat them even faster.

We need to stand united, resolute in the belief that all people regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of their race, regardless of their ethnicity, all people deserve respect, deserve dignity.

Why Europe As We Have Known It Is Lost

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Gates of Vienna posted an article today about a funeral to be held in St. Pauli‘s church is Hamburg, Germany. The Christian-Muslim funeral is for a young IS fighter “Bilal” who was killed last summer in Syria at the age of 17.

The article reports:

She is glad to have the opportunity for a funeral, says the mother. “A burden” fell from her heart. Such a farewell ceremony is important for his friends, too. The funeral service will be conducted by Pastor Sieghard Wilm and the Albanian Imam Abu Ahmed Jakobi. Florent Prince N., as his name was originally, was baptized as a Christian and converted to Islam later.

Florent was born in Cameroon, came to Germany as an infant, and grew up in St. Pauli [an inner-city district of Hamburg]. Probably when he was 14, he came into contact with the radical Salafist scene, and converted to Islam. In May last year, he travelled on a fake passport to Syria to fight for the Islamic State.

In Syria, it seems, he realised that the circumstances had little to do with what had been promised to him. He therefore recorded an audio message in Rakka in Southwestern Syria, in which he criticised the IS. Shortly thereafter, he was dead. In early March, the audio file was distributed. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution thinks it is possible that he was punished for his message by the IS.

Pastor Wilm himself knew Florent from his work with youth. He [Florent] had been a friend of the pastor’s foster son for several years, and active in the community. There are photographs of him climbing up the facade of St. Pauli Church. It was important to him, so Wilm, that Christians and Muslims celebrate together, to make it clear that they pray to a “god of peace”.

You mean the ‘religion of peace’ that just killed 25 Iraqis by dissolving them in nitric acid (story here)?

The article at the above link also states:

ISIS has published a list of punishments for crimes, everything from theft and homosexuality to “spying for the unbelievers.”  The punishments seem almost unbelievably cruel to us, but all of them have a sharia law justification.  When it put 13 teenagers to death for watching soccer on television, it cited their ‘breaking religious law’ as the reason for their murder.  When it crucifies people accused of banditry, there is a reason in sharia law for the practice.

Thus, this reported method of execution by acid ought also to have a sharia law justification.  None has yet been forthcoming, but if the report is true there must be some reason why ISIS thought it was an appropriate and fitting punishment for spies.  Regardless of the opinion of Western experts on Islam, ISIS believes it is enacting sharia accurately.  They have studied it carefully, and always have reasons for their atrocities that are rooted in sharia law principles.

The young man died fighting for ISIS. I don’t think a Christian funeral was appropriate. A Muslim funeral would have been appropriate. I am not making a judgement on the fate of the young man’s soul, I am simply reflecting on the fact that he was a Muslim at the time of his death. The god of Islam is not the God of Christianity. If you compare the Koran and the Bible, that fact becomes very evident. The Bible makes it very clear that God loves the Jewish people; the Koran calls for the destruction of both Christians and Jews. Christians who choose to align themselves with Muslims will eventually have a very rude awakening.

Taking A Step In The Wrong Direction

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about a new labeling requirement enacted by the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

A memo issued earlier this month by the Obama administration directs the U.S. “trade community” and government partner agencies to explicitly label Israeli-made goods that have been produced in the West Bank.

The Jan. 23 directive states that it is “not acceptable” to label goods coming from Israeli companies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as having been produced in “Israel.”

The area that President Obama refers to as the West Bank is part of Israel. In an article I posted in April of 2011, I explained:

“Both the New York Times and the Washington Post, in their April 22 editions, report that a group of prominent Israeli leftist intellectuals demonstrated in Tel Aviv in support of a Palestinian state based on the “1967 borders.””

…“Compounding this lie, the Times and the Post also erase from actual history the fact that during Jordan’s illegal 1949-67 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including the entire Old City of Jerusalem, Jews were barred from Judaism’s holiest sites — the Western Wall, Temple Mount and Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs.   A return to the 1967 line would deal Jews a similar fate. 

“The truth, so lacking in the Times and the Post, is that Israel still awaits an eastern “border” that can and will be fixed only as part of a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , as mandated by the UN Security Council in Resolution 242.  In the meantime, history and Arab aggression  have  swept away the 1949 armistice line and, notwithstanding the lie perpetuated by the Times’ Isabel Kershner and the Post’s Joel Greenberg, a “border” still remains an elusive quest that has yet to reach its  final destination.”

This is a map of the British Mandate for Israel:

IsraelMap

I need to explain that Palestine was the name the British gave to Israel. There never was a Palestinian state. I really think Israel has made enough land concessions. The land Israel has not brought peace, it has simply provided additional launching pads for Hamas to launch rockets at Israeli civilians. Labeling goods that are from Israel as not from Israel is a petty cheap shot that should be beneath the American government.

American Universities Heading In The Wrong Direction

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article yesterday about the increase in anti-Semitic incidents on the campuses of American colleges.

The article reports:

Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses spiked in 2015, with 302 incidents against Jewish students recorded at 109 schools in 28 states, according to a new report warning that the rise of anti-Israel organizations is fueling hatred and making many campuses unsafe for Jews.

The array of incidents were recorded at many universities and often included Nazi imagery, slurs calling Jews “evil,” and calls for Jews be murdered, according to a report published by the AMCHA Initiative, an organization that seeks to protect Jewish students.

The organization created an online database that logs in real time reports of new anti-Semitic incidents at colleges across the nation. Several anti-Semitic incidents have been recorded in the first month of 2016.

According to the AMCHA website:

AMCHA – The code word that helped survivors identify fellow Jews in war ravaged Europe now stands for another kind of support system. Established in 1987 by a group of Holocaust survivors and devoted mental health professionals, AMCHA set out to create a framework for mutual aid,memory processing and grief resolution.  Now, close to three decades later, AMCHA provides a full range of psychological and social services to Holocaust survivors and their families and continues to be a home and safe place for them to unburden their hearts and share their stories with others.

Anti-Semitism has been a problem on American college campuses for a while. In June of 2012, I posted an article about anti-Semitism at colleges in America. The article deals with a presentation by Professor Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of the University of California Santa Cruz.

In that article, I reported:

Professor Rossman-Benjamin pointed out that there are two basic forms of anti-Semitism on our college campuses–the bullying, intimidation, and name-calling directed at individual Jewish students and the attempt (often supported by professors) to delegitimize Israel. The second sometimes takes the form of petitions that universities divest themselves of any investments in Israel.

One of the sources of the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment is a group called the Muslim Students’ Association (a group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood).

The article at the Washington Free Beacon concludes:

At least 15 college campuses—including George Washington University, the University of Maryland, and Tufts University—had incidences of anti-Semitic graffiti, including swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs.

“Jews—the root of all evil” was written on a wall in the Brooklyn College campus library, the report found.

Other incidents across the country include mezuzahs being vandalized, swastikas being scrawled on school buildings, and convicted terrorists being invited to speak on campus.

At Towson University, one vandal repeatedly went across campus writing, “Hitler was right” and “with Jews you lose.”

Similarly, a the University of California at Berkeley, “Zionists should be sent to the gas chamber” was found “etched on school property,” according to the report.

Leila Beckwith, an AMCHA co-founder and professor emeritus at the University of California at Los Angeles, warned that college officials often dismiss discrimination against Jews.

“Anti-Semitism, what many of us thought only a decade or so ago was a sad part of our history, continues to rear its ugly head on campuses from coast to coast,” Beckwith said in a statement. “What those of us that monitor cases on a regular basis know is today’s anti-Semitism not only includes swastikas and historical anti-Jewish slang.”

The presentation by Professor Rossman-Benjamin took place in a synagogue. After the presentation a group of people were standing around discussing what they had just heard. One person in the audience who was Jewish mentioned to me that her daughter had encountered anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment at the college she attended in a major metropolitan area. She commented sadly that she wished she had sent her daughter to a Christian college, where she felt her daughter would have been treated better. While I am glad that the woman understood that most Christian colleges are not anti-Semitic and support Israel, I am saddened that many American campuses are teaching and allowing the racism that is anti-Semitism.

Somehow These Remarks Were Ignored By Most Of The Press

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Yesterday Newsbusters posted an article about the recent Hanukkah celebration at the White House. Not only did the Rabbi speaking totally ignore the historical significance of Hanukkah, he insulted the Jewish people who were celebrating the holiday. Somehow the press neglected to comment on that particular part of the story.

The article reported a portion of the statement:

SUSAN TALVE: With all the schmutz in the world, can you believe that we are here with the President of the United States and the President of Israel celebrating Hanukkah, in the White House?

And I know we bring many people here with us, each and every one of us.

I stand here today with my 90-year-old father, whose parents fled the Ottoman Empire. And as they passed by Lady Liberty they planted within us the promise that the gates would stay open for all immigrants and all refugees who would come to build America.

And I also stand here with my fierce family of clergy and Black Lives Matter activists who took to the streets of Ferguson to stand firm until all members of the community would see God in the face of the other.

I stand here for two groups of St. Louis moms, one working to get the guns off of our streets, and the other working to get help clean up the fires of the toxic nuclear waste that are threatening our lives in St. Louis and throughout the country.

And, of course, I stand with my sisters who lit these lights at the Kotel this year.

I stand here to light these lights that say no to the darkness of Islamophobia, and homophobia and transphobia and racism and anti-Semitism and all the other isms that dare to dim our hope.

And I stand here, like President Rivlin said, the Maccabees of old who defied the culture of their time that said that destiny could not be changed, and instead they jumped in to write a new story that demanded freedom and equal opportunity for all.

And today, friends, we stand with the President of the United States and the President of Israel, who today stand together in this critical moment in history when we must do everything to ensure security for Israelis and justice for Palestinians as allies committed to a lasting peace for all people.

Ins’Allah, Ins’Allah, Ins’Allah, Ins’Allah.

In a world of political correctness, when did it become appropriate to praise Allah at a Jewish celebration? This is a new degree of insensitivity on the part of the Obama Administration–I realize that President Obama was not the speaker, but he should have responded to the remarks.

In case you are ready to accuse me of cherry picking, here is the full video. The insensitive remarks begin at about the 8:49 mark.

 

Just For The Record, This Is The Image That Won The Contest

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Datechguyblog posted the winning picture from the Draw Mohammed contest in Garland, Texas. This picture perfectly sums up the battle for free speech. The problem in Texas was not Pam Geller’s contest–it was the Muslims who felt that it was their duty to kill people exercising their right to free speech. P–s Christ is a 1987 photograph by the American artist and photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist’s urine. It was part of an art exhibit in New York. As offensive as it was, no one who was offended attempted to kill anyone. In the mid-1970s, Skokie, Illinois, was at the center of a case concerning the First Amendment right to assemble and the National Socialist Party of America, a neo-Nazi group. Skokie ultimately lost that case. Skokie had a sizeable Jewish population which objected to the Nazi-planned march. The march went ahead. Again, no one was killed. The First Amendment allows for freedom of speech. It does not protect anyone from being offended by that speech. The First Amendment should not be curtailed–if Muslims cannot live under the laws of America, they need to leave. If anyone comes to America, they need to be willing to live under the laws of America. The problem is not Pamela Geller–the problem is people living in America who are prone to violence and do not respect the rights of Americans.

 

draw-mohammad