America's Potential Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution - Dennis P. Halpin

by Dennis P. Halpin

America’s coming potential Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is, thus, a likely roadmap for economic, political and cultural disaster.

Supporters of free speech and basic civility throughout the world watched in horror for a decade as Chinese university campuses descended into violent chaos during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Respected professors were shouted down, subjected to public shaming that included being paraded through the streets in dunce caps, and forced to attend public “struggle sessions” which included torture.  Anne Thurston recounted the use of the “airplane” maneuver in her work Enemies of the People:  

“You Xiaoli was standing, precariously balanced, on a stool. Her body was bent over from the waist into a right angle, and her arms, elbows stiff and straight, were behind her back, one hand grasping the other at the wrist. It was the position known as ‘doing the airplane.’… On both sides of the blackboard were chalked her name and the myriad crimes she was alleged to have committed. She was accused of being a bourgeois academic authority.”

While living in China two decades ago, I heard numerous personal horror stories from Chinese friends who were of the Cultural Revolution generation. One woman recalled with tears how her sister was driven to suicide by Red Guard harassment on a college campus; another recalled how her father, a high-ranking provincial official, was taken away in the middle of the night never to be seen again. Even Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s son, Deng Pufang, was subjected to Red Guard violence -- being pushed out of the window of a building at Peking University in 1968 and, as a result, becoming a wheelchair-bound paraplegic.  During that same Cultural Revolution, Mao’s fanatic wife, Jiang Qing, had rival Zhou Enlai’s adopted children, Sun Yang and Sun Weishi, tortured and murdered by Red Guards – Sun Yang died in the basement of Renmin University. 

The current uproar on American campuses, specifically at the University of Missouri and at Yale, has not reached anything near a level of Red Guard violence. Yet the video of Mizzou Assistant Communications Professor Melissa Click, calling for “muscle” for use against a student reporter and then attempting to grab his camera, displayed a fanaticism worthy of any Red Guard.  And the Yale student shouting obscenities at Professor Nicholas Christakis and demanding his firing because of an email his professor spouse sent out concerning freedom of expression in the wearing of Halloween costumes brings to mind past scenes of chanting Red Guards waving little red books giving the “Quotations of Chairman Mao.”  On November 18th Yale News reported that Yale President Peter Salovey had emailed students his support for Professors Nicholas and Erika Christakis, rejecting demands that they be fired.  Such mindless, intolerant, and vulgar Red Guard-like demands are indeed unworthy of America’s great institutions of higher learning. 

As with Mao’s Red Guards, the current American student movement has been galvanized by an attack on university administrators. The Red Guards accused university officials of “intellectual elitism” and “bourgeois tendencies.” A number of university officials were toppled, just as in the recent case of the University of Missouri president.

In China, fired school administrators were then forced to perform such degrading labor as cleaning toilets. Fellow students were also subjected to Red Guard ridicule for “bad class” backgrounds (usually descendants of the landlord class, capitalists, or intellectuals) in a manner similar to the current attacks on “white male privilege” on some U.S. campuses. The labeling by the Red Guards of individuals as “capitalist roader” was as devastating as the current labeling as “racist” is in America. 

The Red Guards sought the repression of any divergent ideas. The cancellation of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s scheduled appearance at commencement ceremonies at Rutgers University last year by student protestors is one more example of political correctness run amok. Putting aside concerns for free speech and academic freedom, Ms. Rice and her historic achievements, including becoming the first black woman to serve as secretary of state, represent that very diversity and merit-based achievement which the student culture warriors claim to so highly prize. And besides, Ms. Rice likely would have had some very sage advice to give young graduates just setting out on their post-academic careers. The loss was for the Rutgers students and their tuition-paying family members. 

Another example is that of demonstrators at political rallies seizing microphones and attempting to shout down speakers such as in a recent case with Senator Bernie Sanders.This mindless thuggish behavior displays a total disregard for that civil political discourse which is the hallmark of a free society, in sharp contrast to Maoist China.         
American university students should recall that one of the greatest proponents of political correctness in the twentieth century was Chairman Mao. China paid a terrible price for a decade-long closure of its universities and the resulting lost generation of students sent to labor in the remote countryside. American diplomat David Dean recalled this scene in his memoirs Unofficial Diplomacy: The American Institute in Taiwan, pages 60-61: “Mary and I were witnesses, watching from a window in our apartment in Beijing, to a sad ‘ceremony’ sending hundreds of students out to the far reaches of China… And there were crowds of parents weeping bitterly as their children boarded the special buses. Some would never see their son or daughter again. Being sent down to the countryside frequently meant permanent exile.” 

The great debate of the decade-long Cultural Revolution over “red versus expert,” i.e. that strict adherence to Maoist ideology was more essential than any technological or scientific expertise, deprived China of those very skills later promoted by Deng Xiaoping’s “four modernizations.” As a result, Mao’s China remained an impoverished, isolated backwater out of sync with the economic boom then engulfing such neighbors as Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. Is that ideologically-driven backwardness the future for America that today’s student demonstrators desire?  

America’s coming Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution on its college campuses will not involve a formal school shutdown or an exile of students to remote sections of the Rocky Mountains. It will lead, instead, to a shutting down of ideas and an erosion of those academic skills vital to prepare America’s students for a challenging global economy. Mizzou professor Melissa Click, for example, reportedly specializes in research on “50 Shades of Gray readers and fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga.”  As university students in developing economies study science and engineering, how will a greater knowledge of Lady Gaga make American students ready to compete in the global marketplace?

With the accelerating costs of a college education, as exemplified by millennial voters’ expressed concerns over the debt serving of their student loans, one would think that they would demand more content from their universities and their professors. Curriculum based on political correctness and sensitivity training seems a prescription for a declining America. Only when China threw off the fanatical political focus of the Cultural Revolution in favor of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping did it rise to be the world’s second-largest economy. America’s coming potential Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is, thus, a likely roadmap for economic, political and cultural disaster. 


Dennis P. Halpin is a visiting scholar at the US-Korea Institute (SAIS) and an advisor to the Poblete Analysis Group. 

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/americas_potential_great_proletarian_cultural_revolution.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Muslims Must Denounce Armed Jihad - Tarek Fatah

by Tarek Fatah

I read the cliché-ridden statements by imams and Muslim academics, but no one dared to denounce "armed jihad".

On Nov. 12 -- the day before the Paris terrorist attacks -- two ISIS suicide bombers blew themselves up in Beirut, killing 43 people, mostly Shia Muslims. It was the worst terrorist attack in Beirut since the end of the Lebanese civil war.

One would have expected outrage among the Islamic communities of the world. However, the blast barely made a ripple in the robust Islamic social media community. If Islamic leaders and clerics were outraged by the ISIS atrocity, it was not reflected in any significant manner on Twitter and other social media.

This would change dramatically the following day, when ISIS struck again in a multi-pronged attack on Paris for being "the capital of sin" in the words of Islamic State. In all, 129 people died in what the French prime minister labelled an act of war.

As ordinary citizens to prime ministers and presidents around the world reacted in horror, Islamic leaders suddenly remembered the Beirut tragedy.

The significance of an attack on a NATO country by ISIS was not lost on the Islamists. As the glare of public scrutiny caught them, they hurried to equate the Paris attacks to the Beirut bombing and started venting contrived anger that the media had not given fair coverage to the Lebanon disaster, compared to France.
 
Muslims who had not uttered a word about Beirut were now tweeting their anger about Beirut receiving less importance than Paris.

Of course, this wasn't true. The western media covered the Beirut blast extensively. As the website Vox.com reported, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, and many other media covered the Beirut bombings, while CNN aired one segment after another on it.

Within 24 hours, the hashtag #TerrorismHasNoReligion was trending worldwide as Islamists jumped on the victimhood bandwagon in a bid to trivialize the Paris attack. Their argument seemed to be that because Muslim on Muslim terror was the order of the day across the Islamic world, westerners should not express grief if Muslims attack the West.

It wasn't just Islamists who were pushing the point that the Paris attack had nothing to do with Islam. The former prime minister of Slovenia told the India Ideas conclave in the picturesque Indian city of Goa that, the "Paris attack had nothing to do with religion." In Toronto, Islamists and their leftist allies protested with placards saying, "Terrorism has no Religion".

Of course "terrorism has no religion," but the terrorists do have a religion and almost invariably that religion is Islam. Of course not all 1.2 billion Muslims are terrorists or even Islamists, but enough are.

What more Muslims need to do is openly denounce the Islamic doctrine of armed jihad, and renounce the application of Sharia in public law. But they won't.

I read the cliché-ridden statements by imams and Muslim academics, but no one dared to denounce "armed jihad".

They could do more. Islamic clerics should stop praying for a Muslim victory over Christians, Jews, Hindus and atheists that takes place in mosques around the world. Of course they dare not.

We have a choice today. Fight and destroy ISIS and vigorously condemn the Islamist political agenda, or be ready to die as innocent Parisians did last week.

Terrorism may not have a religion, but most terrorists certainly have one, and that religion is typically Islam.


Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and columnist at the Toronto Sun, is a Robert J. and Abby B. Levine Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/5636/muslims-must-denounce-armed-jihad

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Obama's Permanent Protest - Matthew Vadum

by Matthew Vadum

Why the rise in rioting and civil unrest under Obama is no coincidence, but part of the plan.

After making America poorer, weaker, less free, more race-obsessed and balkanized throughout his tumultuous presidency, Barack Obama is gearing up to use his two tax-exempt nonprofits to continue attacking what remains of the republic's civil society after he leaves office in 14 months.

Obama's presidency "has been pockmarked by rioting, looting and protests," as he "encouraged the nonstop civil unrest exhausting the nation," writes the Hoover Institution's Paul Sperry. Obama and his "army of social justice bullies" are going to make things worse before he leaves office on Jan. 20, 2017.

Our indefatigable Community Organizer-in-Chief is planning to use Organizing for Action (OfA) and the Barack Obama Foundation to continue punishing America for its imaginary sins and to promote manufactured controversies long after he leaves the White House.

Chicago-based OfA has trained "more than 10,000 leftist organizers, who, in turn, are training more than 2 million youths in [Saul] Alinsky street tactics," according to Sperry. This "army of social justice bullies" will carry on Obama's campaign to fundamentally transform America. 

OfA is a less violent version of Mussolini's black shirts and Hitler's brown shirts, or of the government-supported goon squads that Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and Cuba's Castro brothers use to harass and intimidate their domestic opponents. OfA units brought muscle to the 2011-12 fight in Wisconsin over that state's out-of-control government labor unions. OfA has bludgeoned Democrats that Obama deemed insufficiently left-wing, especially red-state congressional Democrats who had been wavering on the issue of Obamacare.

OfA’s activism relies heavily on the Internet and draws its inspiration from MoveOn, which developed a successful model for meet-up activism and point-and-click fundraising. Today, the campaigns waged by OfA and MoveOn often overlap. Sometimes both groups produce mass e-mails that arrive in members’ e-mail boxes within minutes of each other.

OfA, however, is only part of the picture.

Obama's presidential foundation -- which hopes to raise $1 billion, roughly double what was raised for the George W. Bush library -- may end up eclipsing OfA as a locus of destructive, nihilistic, antisocial activism in the post-Obama era. Obama intends to use his foundation, based at the planned Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side, to continue wreaking havoc in America and around the globe. 

A "scaled down" version of OfA will reportedly reside at the Barack Obama Foundation whose website states ominously, "As President Obama has said, the change we seek will take longer than one presidency." Obama's "historic candidacy was never simply about winning an office; it was about building a movement to tackle challenges that would define a generation. This work will live on in the Obama Foundation, which will inspire citizens across the globe to better their communities, their countries, and their world."

But at least until the foundation is fully operational, Organizing for Action will remain Obama's primary nonprofit vehicle for subjecting the American people to the community organizer-style terrorism that got him where he is today.

Sperry notes that OfA holds "organizing summits" on college campuses and uses social media to "mobilize flash mobs against 'biased cops,' 'climate-change deniers,' 'Wall Street predators' and 'gun extremists.'" It organizes rallies against conservative opponents of same-sex marriage, expanded LGBT rights, abortion, and amnesty for illegal aliens.

During the nationwide battle over Obamacare, OfA sent out a mass email attacking the good faith of opponents. Those who questioned the wisdom of Obamacare weren't Americans who sincerely disagreed with the president, but "Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.”

Just yesterday OfA executive director Sara El-Amine bombarded her fellow Obama zombies with an email attacking as flat-earthers courageous lawmakers like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) who, unlike the global warmists, actually believe in science. OfA also sends out creepy emails every year urging supporters to celebrate Obama's birthday.

OfA was created because the White House could not lawfully use the 13 million e-mail addresses that the campaign compiled in 2008. The Democratic National Committee set up the allegedly grassroots movement as an in-house project to continue to proselytize on Obama’s behalf between elections. It was previously called Organizing for America but that name was jettisoned, probably because it sounded too pro-American.

Organizing for Action is a 501c4 nonprofit "social welfare" organization formed in January 2013. Because a 501c4 is allowed to be more political than a standard 501c3 nonprofit, donations to it are not tax-deductible (though, like a 501c3, its operations are not subject to taxation). At the end of 2013 it reported $26 million in total revenue, 197 employees, and 27,282 volunteers.

OfA uses the same domain name as Obama's campaign, www.barackobama.com, and runs something it calls the Community Organizing Institute which conducts "documentary film screenings, panel discussions and receptions with distinguished guests."

Obama has also used taxpayer money to train "hundreds of thousands of junior agitators through AmeriCorps, a Clinton youth program he’s dramatically expanded," Sperry writes, "and through My Brother’s Keeper, the 'racial justice' initiative he launched in the wake of the 2012 death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin." 

Obama openly supports the violent Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements, which are "coordinating activities with nonprofit ACORN clones, who are being secretly bankrolled through Justice Department subprime settlement funds extracted from banks."

Sperry laments that 

Obama is leaving behind a generation of militant jerks — collectively known as his “family” — to continue to proliferate protests and militate against everything and nothing. These irritating, self-absorbed, belligerent brats will “hands-up, don’t shoot” themselves into every cobwebbed corner of society, and the liberal media will give them the national bullhorn to amplify their hatred every time.

Chronic social irritation can do lasting damage to the fabric of a nation. By falsely accusing people of racism ... or sexism ... or homophobia ... or Islamophobia — or whatever other “ism” or phobia they come up with next — these agitators are creating angst and hatred in people’s hearts that wasn’t there previously.

Which is precisely the point.

Happy Americans have no interest in fundamentally transforming the nation.


Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative reporter and the author of the book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260841/obamas-permanent-protest-matthew-vadum

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

How Hitler-era brown shirts took over Hunter College - Phyllis Chesler

by Phyllis Chesler

The real point of the raucous protests last week was masked by demands for pay parity and free education so as to get students on their side. Then came the anti-Semitism. That is just the way Hitler's brown shirts worked on Germans.

For the first time in the 21st century and on the American campus, legitimate economic grievances, specific to New York City, specific to the United States, have been tied to Zionism.

Led by a screaming woman in hijab and a man, assisted by the usual outside agitators, students screamed themselves hoarse at Hunter College, a branch of City University of New York not far from where I live just a few days ago.

“Zionism out of CUNY!” “Zionists out of CUNY!” “Intifada, Intifada” was chanted, screamed, roared, over and over again. You may see it here and here.

Their demands for pay parity for adjunct professors is just and long overdue. Their demands for “tuition-free education, the cancellation of all student debt, a minimum wage of $15.00 for campus workers” is, perhaps, more idealistic as well as economically challenging.

However, their demands for “an end to racial and economic segregation in education, racialized college-acceptance practices, work program requirements for students on public assistance, and an end to the rapid gentrification and privatization of public school property” verges on the surreal and smacks of Occupy Wall Street and the Ferguson riots.

The next demand is obscene. 

“We demand CUNY divests from Israel, companies that maintain Zionist occupation, private prisons, and prison labor…the Zionist administration invests in Israeli companies, companies that support the Israeli occupation, hosts birthright programs and study abroad programs in occupied Palestine, and reproduces settler-colonial ideology throughout CUNY through Zionist content of education. While CUNY aims to produce the next generation of professional Zionists, SJP (Student for Justice in Palestine) aims to change the university to fight for all people’s liberation.”

What’s Israel got to do with these domestic campus issues? Absolutely nothing—but in the mind of these Muslim Brotherhood indoctrinated students it has come to symbolize every conceivable injustice, both real and imagined; it has come to justify the stabbing, bombing, and car-ramming of Jewish civilians everywhere, especially but not exclusively in Israel or, as we saw on Friday in Paris, against Israelis—and the anti-Israel boycotts undertaken by the EU and by American academic organizations.

I have long referred to CUNY as the Communist University of New York because both the faculty and administration lean far left. If there is indoctrination going on, that indoctrination is anti-Israel and pro-Palestine; it is certainly not pro-Israel and anti-Palestine. But these paranoid ravings, this scapegoating of Jews, Zionists, and Israel for the very crimes being committed by Arab terrorists and their supporters, which include large chunks of the American professoriate, is what the new totalitarianism sounds like.

If there is intimidation, bullying and Blood Libels on campus it is anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism, not Islamophobia or anti-Arab-a-phobia, and it is coming from the Muslim-Brotherhood inspired Left; from Islamic-inspired and Christian liberation theology inspired Jew-hatred among angry African-Americans; from the anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic behaviors of the world’s political leaders; and from the silence of our own professoriate—a silence which amounts to complicity as well as to cowardice.

This “million student march” throughout all of CUNY was endorsed by the NYC Students for Justice in Palestine, a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization outlawed in Egypt; by their cells at Hunter College, the College of Staten Island (where I taught for nearly 30 years), John Jay College (where I taught for a semester), by the Law School at CUNY, and by St. Joseph’s College and Pace College.

The Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association must be stopped. They are supported by a terrorist organization and should not be allowed on an American campus. They are not a “club.” They are Brown-shirts on the move.

Students who have been taught that is it permissible to shout speakers down, interrupt and heckle them, force out distinguished academics, compel payment for outside non-academic rabble rousers, feel empowered by totalitarian Group Think, conduct angry rallies like this one at Hunter College are no better than Hitler-era Brown-shirts. They are not behaving like college students.

They should be emphatically condemned by the administration, and either expelled or de-programmed, whatever works.

Phyllis Chesler

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/17914#.Vk29HL-zdds

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Guess who's funding incitement against loyal Arabs? - Gil Ronen

by Gil Ronen

MKs: NIF supports Baladna, which produced a video inciting against Arabs who join the IDF.

Talia Sasson

Yoni Kempinski

 

Deputy Minister of Defense Eli Ben-Dahan and MK Moti Yogev (Jewish Home), MK Merav Ben-Ari (Kulanu) and MK Miki Zohar (Likud) dispatched a letter this week to Talia Sasson, President of the New Israel Fund, in which they demanded that the Fund cease its support for the “Baladna Association for Arab Youth” organization.

Baladna recently produced a music video inciting against Arabs and members of other minorities who enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces, and calling on minorities to refuse to enlist.

Ben-Ari and Zohar are co-chairs of the Knesset Caucus for Encouraging and Promoting the Enlistment of Minorities to the IDF and Civil Service. The letter was also signed by by leaders of the minorities enlisting in the IDF, including Father Gabriel Nadaf, Sara Zoabi and Mohammad Ka’abiyah.

The letter states that “in the clip, musicians Tamer Nafar and Jowan Safadi protest against the enlistment of Arab youth, Israeli citizens, into military service. We see as extreme and destructive the incitement against minorities who wish to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, and to integrate themselves into the Israeli society."

"We demand that you both immediately cease funding the 'Baladna Association for Arab Youth' organization, and that you issue a statement categorically and unequivocally condemning the incitement against the minorities serving in the Israeli Defense Forces or Israel’s Civil Service.”

Ka’abiya, a social activist in the Bedouin community encouraging Bedouin youth to enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces, explained: “Enlisting minorities in the Israeli Defense Forces is an existential threat to the organizations and movements working within the Arab community against enlistment; this is because enlisting minorities in the Israeli Defense Forces means integrating the Arab youth into Israeli society, which negates the need for [the organizations], and makes them irrelevant, because they don’t reflect the public’s agenda. This is why they use incitement, fear and encourage harassment against those who enlist, thereby hoping to disconnect them from the Israeli society.”

Deputy Minister Ben-Dahan said: “I demand that the New Israel Fund, which cloaks itself in a Zionist mantle, cease supporting organizations which act against minorities serving in the Israeli Defense Forces and which act to harm them. It is completely unacceptable that funds from the New Israel Fund will go towards harming the core values of the state of Israel and the IDF.”

Matan Peleg, chairman of the "Im Tirtzu" movement, which initiated the establishment of the Caucus for Promoting and Advancing Minority Enlistment, added: “The New Israel Fund supports organizations which promote incitement and harmful speech towards minorities who wish to take an active part in Israeli society and in the Israeli Defense Forces."

"The NIF, which claims to promote equality and Jewish-Arab coexistence, does exactly the opposite when it supports and funds anti-Zionist organizations such as the 'Baladna Association for Arab Youth,' which divides the Arab society in Israel, segregating themselves from the Israeli public, instead of bringing the two closer together.”


Gil Ronen

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203653#.Vk44S7-zdds

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Radical Islam: The Invisible Enemy - Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick

The deadly threat that the leftist political establishment refuses to acknowledge.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

As the cleaning crews were mopping the dried blood from the stage and the seats of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, a depressing act appeared on stage in distant Iowa.
Saturday night the three contenders for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination took to the stage in Iowa for a debate. The moderator asked them whether they would be willing to use the term “radical Islam” to describe the ideology motivating Islamic terrorists to massacre innocents. All refused.
Like her former boss, US President Barack Obama, former secretary of state and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton not only refused to accept the relevance of the term. Clinton refused to acknowledge what radical Islam stands for.
She merely noted some of what it rejects.
In her words, “I think this kind of barbarism and nihilism, it’s very hard to understand, other than the lust for power, the rejection of modernity, the total disregard for human rights, freedom, or any other value that we know and respect.”
Her opponents agreed with her.
But of course, it is easy to understand what motivates Islamic terrorists. They tell us all the time.
They want the world to be run by an Islamic empire.
When they are in charge, they will kill, subjugate, convert or enslave all non-Muslims, except Jews.
The Jews will be obliterated.
The attacks they carry out in the Western world are viewed both as battles for the soul of Muslims worldwide and as a means to terrorize non-Muslims into accepting subjugation.
True, there are competing schools inside of the world of radical Islam.
On the one hand, there is the Sunni version of radical Islam propounded by the Muslim Brotherhood.
They want the Islamic empire to be an Islamic caliphate. On the other hand, you have the Shi’ite version of radical Islam propounded by the Iranian regime in Tehran. Its adherents want the Islamic empire to be ruled by an ayatollah in Tehran.
For Americans and the rest of the free world though, this is a distinction without any real meaning.
The radical Islamic goal of destroying America – and the rest of the world – is the same regardless of who ends up winning the intramural jihad contest.
And as we have seen repeatedly in recent years, the sides are happy to come together to achieve their common goal of killing us and destroying our societies.
The Americans’ avoidance of reality is not unique.
The Europeans also refuse to see it.
Following the jihadist massacres at Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher in Paris in January, French President Francois Hollande insisted that the attackers who killed in the name of Islam had nothing to do with Islam.
After jihadists in London beheaded British soldier Lee Rigby outside his barracks in 2013, British Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that the attack, carried out in the name of Islam, had nothing to do with Islam.
The operational consequences of the West’s refusal to acknowledge the nature of the forces waging war against it have been disastrous.
Radical Islam is an ideology that serves both as an organizing principle for civil societies and a military doctrine. By ignoring it, the US and the rest of the free nations of the world have made it impossible to conceptualize or implement a strategy for either discrediting it or defeating its adherents.
Rather than develop comprehensive plans for dealing with this enemy, the Americans, the Europeans and others have opted for a mix of policies running the spectrum from appeasement to whack-a-mole operations.
Abroad, appeasement has taken its most significant form in the US-led nuclear deal with Iran. As the largest state sponsor of terrorism and the most active radical Islamic imperialist force in the Middle East, Iran is the ground zero of radical Islam. It not only oversees and directs the operations of its puppets, like Syrian President Bashar Assad, and its foreign legions, like Hezbollah. The Iranian regime has also played a key role in developing Muslim Brotherhood offshoots like al-Qaida, which received, and likely continues to receive training and direction from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. As for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, if Iran had been interested in preventing its rise, IS would never have taken over any territory in either country.
At home, appeasement of radical Islamic forces has involved embracing Muslim Brotherhood front groups and insisting that radical Islamic clerics are moderates because they aren’t pulling any triggers.
The West’s whack-a-mole war against radical Islam at home and abroad has meant that even as one group – like core al-Qaida – is cut down, it is swiftly replaced by other groups, like Islamic State. And if IS is eventually cut down, it too will be replaced by another group, and then reconstitute itself as IS when the West’s attention is taken up by the next major group.
Obama has enabled this state of affairs by defining the enemy as narrowly as possible, reducing the whole sphere of radical Islam to a few discrete groups – like al-Qaeda and IS – that he seeks to defeat or contain.
It is not simply that the whack-a-mole strategy doesn’t work. It is self-defeating. Since the radical Islamic trigger pullers in the West are usually no more than a few people who get together to murder people, insisting that someone has to be a card carrying member of a recognized terrorist group before authorities will go after him makes it almost impossible to find operatives and prevent attacks.
The murderers Friday may well never have received formal orders to commit their attacks from a central jihadist headquarters. They may have met at a mosque in Paris or Brussels and decided to do it.
Certainly they needed no advanced training to mow down people eating dinner or watching a rock concert. They didn’t even really need to know how to shoot straight.
As for their explosives vests, all they needed was a guy with a working knowledge of explosives to set them up with the means to turn themselves into human bombs. Maybe he trained in Syria. Maybe he has a degree in chemistry from the Sorbonne.
Maybe he is just good at following YouTube videos.
The most important component of Friday night’s massacre was the terrorists’ radical Islamic motivation.
Their belief in their ideology motivated them to die killing innocent people. Everything else was secondary. They may have been inspired and loosely directed by the heads of IS. But if Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed six months ago, they would have found another source of inspiration.
And that’s the main point. While Friday’s killers may have given their allegiance to IS, they were operationally and ideologically all but indistinguishable from their predecessors in the London subways in 2005 and the Madrid commuter rails in 2004 who hailed from al-Qaida. Likewise, while the US may have seriously degraded core al-Qaida in the Middle East over the past seven years, IS in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Libya is an organic extension of al-Qaida.
To defeat these groups, the US and its allies need to adopt a strategy that is rooted in an acknowledgment of the nature of our true enemy: radical Islam.
Armed with this recognition, the nations of the free world can determine operational guidelines for combating not only specific, discrete groupings of adherents to this ideology, they can develop overall strategies for combating it at home and in the Middle East.
At home, such strategies require Western governments to penetrate, disrupt and destroy radical Islamic networks on the ground in a sustained, concentrated manner. In the Middle East, they require the free world to stop seeking to appease leaders, regimes and militias that support and ascribe to radical Islam.
Sunday night, a group of Parisians stood outside one of the sites of Friday night’s massacre and sang “La Marseilles.” Without fear, a woman garbed in the black robes of radical Islam stepped into the crowd and began bellowing out “Allahu Akbar.” She probably isn’t a card carrying member of IS. Rather, in all likelihood she is just someone who ascribes to radical Islam and so sees France as her enemy.
Assuming the women doesn’t belong to a terrorist group, French officials will not monitor her or her relatives. If she or any of her relatives murder their fellow citizens of France, authorities will probably say they were lone wolves.
Every day the US and its allies maintain their refusal to acknowledge that radical Islam exists and that the regime in Tehran, al-Qaida, IS, Hamas and all the rest are mere expressions of this larger ideology, the danger radical Islam poses to the survival of free societies will continue to mount and grow. Saturday night’s Democratic debate was a depressing reminder how low we have fallen.


Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260835/radical-islam-invisible-enemy-caroline-glick

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The world is at war - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

The world has finally seen the light - or is it the darkness? It is going to have to reassess some of its sacred cows if it wants to survive.

The world is at war. And that's old news. Immediately after 9/11, over 14 years ago, former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy said that WWIII had begun. The only thing that has changed over the past few days is that the rest of the world is also beginning to realize that it is at war.

The Western world, the immutable objective of World Jihad, has awakened to find itself standing on a firing range where its heart serves as the target and its culture is the bulls-eye.

Tragically, the bell tolls in the form of mass murder and the sight of blood flowing like water Last Friday's attack in Paris was not just the wanton murder of innocents, it was also an attack against the symbols of Western culture: theater, concerts, restaurants, stadiums. In the proclamation claiming responsibility for the atrocity, Islamic State announced that it did not merely attack the capital of France, it attacked the capital of prostitution and adultery and the "standard bearer of the Crusades."

Islamic extremists are at war with the most iconic symbol of Western culture, liberty – and primarily, with the liberation of women.

The attack against the Russian plane on its way from Sharm a Sheikh is part of that war. Russia is fighting the Jihadists in Syria, making its citizens a legitimate target in Jihad eyes. It doesn't matter that these were innocent tourists who only wanted to relax on the Sinai Desert's pristine beaches. And if the crash harms the economy and causes tourism to slump is Sisi's Egypt, that is all to the good. He is, after all, an enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood. Add to that the cultural by product: those tourists, mostly female, come to the Sinai beaches, drink alcohol, possibly take drugs, and lie on the sand minimally clothed, all of which infuriates Islamic fundamentalists.

The war is not limited to firearms and bombs. More and more people are beginning to discern the gaps allowing the enemy to breach the walls of the West's encampment. The mass migration from Islamic lands, starting in the seventies, is well entrenched in Europe but has not integrated into European culture, has not adopted its mores and has, instead, carefully held on to its original culture, nurtured in neighborhoods where the host country's culture is not welcome.

As a result of last weekend's attacks, French President Francois Hollande announced that France will change its laws to allow the government to cancel the citizenship of suspected terrorists. Now they wake up? Where were they three years ago, in 2012, when Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two sons Arieh and Gabriel and the little Miriam Monsonego were murdered in Toulouse by a murderer who arrived from the Jihadi fields of the Middle East? Where was the French government after the murders at Hyper Cacher and Charlie Hebdo this past January? What steps were taken when Ilan Halimi was barbarically murdered in Paris in 2006? All these terrorist murders were perpetrated by Muslims who could have had their citizenship revoked. France is shutting the barn door now that the horse has bolted.

If it wants to survive, Europe must go beyond mere legal measures and constitutionality and begin examining three of the principles that are the mainstays of its culture: human rights, political correctness and multiculturalism.

The concept of "human rights" is a broad term that took over much of Europe's public, media and legal discourse as a result of WWII, the Holocaust and Europe's colonialist crimes. This all-embracing concept has left no room for its counterpart, "human obligations', and is interpreted to mean that every human being has basic rights whether or not he fulfills his basic obligations and duties. That is the reason Europe granted the entire world's unemployed the right to reach its shores.

An exaggerated concept of human rights also provided the justification for not having children. As a result, the demographic statistics for Europe are disastrous, making it necessary for a constant stream of foreign workers to arrive to work in factories, transportation, services, groceries and laundromats. Except that these workers, unlike immigrants in the past, live in cultural enclaves and do not budge from the lifestyles of their countries of origin.

This brings us to the next Achilles' heel, multiculturalism. Many Europeans believe that a country can manage to contain a number of cultures. In the case of Islamic immigrant culture, that means allowing polygamy, dependence on welfare systems, family violence, vandalism, violence against people who are not Muslims, unorganized labor and the acceptance of Sharia courts whose verdicts are often at odds with the host country's laws.

The real meaning of multiculturalism in this case is the takeover by a violent society of the non-violent host culture in the public, economic and political domain, a situation that cannot go on for long. Law enforcement officers fear entering the violent neighborhoods that harbor this culture, one that lives on the social, economic and political periphery of the host country. Marginal people who feel neglected and ostracized are a short distance from terror.

The third problem Europe will have to find a way to deal with is political correctness that shuts the mouths of anyone pointing to the problem by labeling them racists, extremists and rabble rousers, then placing them in the docks to be castigated by the media, academia, politicians and the public. Political correctness paralyzes any efforts against those who are destroying the foundations of society – it has reached the point where, in Sweden, it is forbidden to connect the rising harassment and rape of women to Muslim immigrants, even though the vast majority of the incidents really are perpetrated by Muslim immigrants - who believe that the wives of infidels are their property.

The battle is not confined and cannot be confined to those who fired, blew up and murdered hundreds of French and Russian citizens over the past month. The war is being waged on a much larger battlefield, with a comprehensive ideological framework that justifies violence against the nations of Europe and their culture.  The nations of Europe must take back the ability to defend themselves instead of allowing democracy to be used as a tool in the hands of those who are against democratic values, especially that of liberty.

Israel is part of the campaign

Israel talked for quite a while about declaring the "Northern Branch" of the Islamic Movement, headed by Sheikh Raed Salah,  illegal. This branch currently enjoys all the protection and freedoms which a democratic society provides its citizens, but does not believe in democracy in the slightest. It subscribes only to the Islamic values as set down by the Muslim Brotherhood's philosophers. It does believe in liberty, but only for Muslims, and not including religious liberty or the freedom to leave the Islamic faith. It does believe in equality, but only between Muslims, while Jews, Christians and infidels must live under Islamic protection with limited rights. It does believe in monotheism, but other monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Judaism, are deemed invalid, while Islam is the only true faith.

The Islamic Movement believes that Jews form religious communities which are part of the various nations in which they live and therefore are not a nation deserving of its own state. They believe that the Land of Israel, in its entirety, is holy to Islam and only to Islam, so that there is no justification for the State of Israel's very existence – in their eyes, it is the state of a non-existent nation with an invalid religion, whose territory is slated to become part of a Muslim country.

The branch headed by Raed Salah was founded in 1996. Since then, he has been inciting Israeli Arab citizens against the state, its government and its army, and is especially virulent about Israeli control over the El Aksa Mosque, the site of Judaism's Holy Temples.  He views Jewish control on the Temple Mount as an indication of Judaism's return to life, posing a theological threat to Islam and so the Movement works feverishly to undermine Jewish hold on Jerusalem.

The Northern Branch

Both the Northern and Southern Branch believe in the same ideology, but the Southern Branch plays the Israeli political game, sits in the Knesset and acts as though it accepts the existence of a Jewish State. It is less violent and therefore less popular among Israeli Arabs.

Now that Israel has decided to declare the organization illegal, it is crucial to oversee the effectiveness of that measure on two fronts;

a. Have the movement's activists stopped their anti-Israel activities or have they gone underground and moved to less legal and more violent attacks?

b. How will this move affect the rest of Israel's Arab citizens? Will they side with the movement and its goals or will they – in time – turn their backs on it.

This is a war, a war against Islamic fanatics, and in war as in war. The West and Israel do not have the option of losing.

Written in Hebrew for Arutz Sheva, translated from the Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky, Arutz Sheva Op-ed and Judaism editor.


Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Source:

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The EU's Embarrassing Little Secret in Labeling Israeli Products - Malcolm Lowe

by Malclom Lowe

• The EU alleges that the "Interpretive Notice" has nothing to do with a boycott of Israel, and the U.S. has officially concurred in that assessment. The EU says the Interpretive Notice merely responds to "a demand for clarity from consumers, economic operators and national authorities." But this is disingenuous.
• There is a long list of separatist movements in the EU, some demanding independence, others demanding greater autonomy. It is easy to imagine that some Jews in Israel have corresponding sympathies with such movements and "demands for clarity" about the products of the respective European states. Surely some Israeli Jews would like to buy Scotch whiskey only from the few firms that are still in Scottish hands. How can Israelis' right to know fairly be denied? Israel is entitled to request that Europeans label their products accordingly.
• What has happened is another manifestation of the infuriating zeal of the European Commission to issue endless directives to all member states in order to impose uniformity in cases where most Europeans never imagined that uniformity was necessary.

On November 11, 2015, the Commission of the European Union issued the "final" version of its "Interpretative Notice on indication of origin of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967." It recommends the labeling of all such goods as originating in an "Israeli settlement." The decision aroused dismay and anger not just in the parties constituting the current Israeli government but also in most of the parliamentary opposition in the Knesset.

After all, the original settlement program in all those areas was the Allon Plan. This plan was adopted shortly after 1967 by the then Labour Alignment, which was the direct ancestor of the chief current opposition party. So the European Commission has succeeded in alienating also those whom it would like to replace the Netanyahu government.

One current Knesset member, Michael Oren, reacted to the "Interpretative Notice" by getting himself photographed in an Israeli supermarket where he was sticking homemade "Made in Europe" labels on the appropriate products. His evident aim was to dissuade Israelis from buying them.

Superficially, Oren's reaction conforms with one of the four anti-boycott strategies that this author recently defined, namely, to organize boycotts of boycotters. But Oren's hasty reaction, if it should succeed, would achieve the opposite of his aim.

Oren is correct in his perception that Israel has little power to influence decisions of the European Union (EU), but every power to impose its own labeling requirements. But he overlooked the basic fact that, currently, only three members of the EU require such labeling: Belgium, Denmark and the United Kingdom.

What has happened is another manifestation of the infuriating zeal of the European Commission to issue endless directives to all member states in order to impose uniformity in cases where most Europeans never imagined that uniformity was necessary. This behaviour, together with the propensity of European courts to overrule UK law, is what mainly propels the increasing desire of Britons to leave the EU. We should not rush, as Oren did, to punish all the EU states for the follies of the Commission.

Consequently, the Israeli reaction should be directed only toward EU states that implement the "Interpretive Notice," thus encouraging the other member states to ignore it. Indeed, the "Interpretive Notice" itself states that "enforcement of the relevant rules remains the primary responsibility of Member States."

A "senior European official" has admitted that the European Commission restricted itself to giving advice. As for the member states, he remarked: "If they don't do it, most likely not much will happen. But 16 member states did ask for clarification so I assume this will be partly implemented." Already, implementation of the "Interpretive Notice" has been rejected by the Hungarian minister for foreign affairs and trade, and by the ruling CDU faction in the German parliament. So Israel is entitled to draw up its own labeling requirements, but should apply them only to imports from EU states that impose labeling requirements on Israel.

Michael Oren himself could introduce appropriately targeted Israeli regulations by submitting a private member's bill in the Knesset. (Obviously, this path is more tactful than legislation initiated by the government itself.) If that is more trouble than Oren needs, there are over a hundred other Knesset members who could do it. To that end, let us first examine the provisions of the "Interpretive Notice" and then employ them as a precedent for the Israeli response.

Rights and Wrongs of the "Interpretive Notice"

The Interpretive Notice begins by noting that the EU "does not recognise Israel's sovereignty over the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967, namely the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem." Indeed, all the trade agreements between the EU and Israel were made on that assumption, which Israel respects. Consequently, Israel agreed a decade ago that goods produced in those areas should not enjoy, for instance, the same tax exemptions as goods produced in pre-1967 Israel.

Thus far the Commission is within its rights, also when it notes that EU legislation requires goods to show their "country of origin" or at any rate their "place of provenance." Where the Commission goes astray is in its attempt to define the implications of that requirement in the present case. The Interpretive Notice states (Section 10):

"For products from the West Bank or the Golan Heights that originate from settlements, an indication limited to 'product from the Golan Heights' or 'product from the West Bank' would not be acceptable. Even if they would designate the wider area or territory from which the product originates, the omission of the additional geographical information that the product comes from Israeli settlements would mislead the consumer as to the true origin of the product. In such cases the expression 'Israeli settlement' or equivalent needs to be added, in brackets, for example. Therefore, expressions such as 'product from the Golan Heights (Israeli settlement)' or 'product from the West Bank (Israeli settlement)' could be used."

Consider the case of Inon Rosenblum, which was recently featured in the Times of Israel. Rosenblum was told by his Palestinian neighbours in the Jordan Valley that nothing could grow in the intensely salty soil. Undeterred, he spent decades improving the soil, which now produces "dates, grapes and ten kinds of fresh herbs, all for export." Apart from himself and his son, everyone else working there is Palestinian. He also gave his Palestinian neighbours date palm seedlings so that they could start their own production. Result: the circa 7,000 Israelis and 10,000 Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley now "account for 40% of the medjool dates around the world."

Next, consider whiskey production in Scotland. According to the Distillery Owners Guide, Scotland's distilleries are today overwhelmingly owned by non-Scots. The biggest owner is Diageo, with headquarters in London, but other owners include huge corporations whose headquarters are in India, Thailand and Japan, not to mention Trinidad and other countries. Typically, most of the workers in the distilleries are Scots, but the top management may come from outside Scotland.

The European Commission wants to distinguish between Rosenblum and the Palestinian neighbours whom he helped, by labelling his dates "Israeli settlement." By the same token, those distilleries in Scotland and the residences of their managers constitute English settlements, Indian settlements, Thai settlements, etc. For that matter, if an Indian company purchased Rosenblum's plantations and installed an Indian manager, they would then also become an Indian settlement.

On the Golan Heights, the situation is somewhat simpler. The area belonged to the sovereign state of Syria, as defined by the boundary between the former French and British Mandates, except for where the Syrian regime had encroached beyond that boundary in the years before 1967. There is a clear distinction between Syrian citizens, who live in the four Druze villages, and Israeli citizens.

Not so in the West Bank. Before 1967, the Palestinians living there were Jordanian citizens. They and their offspring mostly continue to hold Jordanian passports. So if Rosenblum's dates are to be labeled "Israeli settlement," the dates grown from the plants that he gave his neighbours should be labeled "Jordanian settlement." This is no joke: the Jordanian regime has formally renounced claims to the territory, but it continues to seek influence there. In particular, it is proud that Jordan, not the Palestinian Authority, officially administers the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

In so-called "East Jerusalem," the situation is even more complicated. A considerable number of Israeli Arabs, especially from the Galilee, have taken up residence there. So any business of theirs is an "Israeli settlement," according to the European Commission. The Jordanian citizens that Israel found there in 1967 were all given Israeli identity cards. In the meantime, thousands of them have taken out Israeli citizenship, which required renouncing their Jordanian citizenship, and thousands more have submitted applications. Thus, according to the European Commission, any business of theirs instantly becomes an "Israeli settlement" when their application is accepted, and they must re-label their products accordingly. (The same applies to those Golan Druze who have taken out Israeli citizenship, but they are numbered in hundreds rather than thousands.)

This is so ridiculous that the European Commission would be advised quietly to forget about "East Jerusalem" in promoting its "Interpretive Notice." The geographic term itself has become ridiculous. Jerusalem is located on a mountain ridge running from north to south, so since 1967 the Jewish population has expanded in those directions, not to the east. Because the European bureaucrats repeat their archaic vocabulary rather than consult the map, they imagine that such neighbourhoods as Ramot (Northwest Jerusalem) and Gilo (Southwest Jerusalem) lie in a mythical pre-1967 "East Jerusalem."

Boycotting products made by Jews, now, and then.

Potential Israeli Regulations

The "Interpretive Notice" of the European bureaucrats, seeking to clarify regulations, has ensnared itself in absurdities. Precisely those absurdities provide a precedent for ingenuity in formulating corresponding Israeli regulations.

The European Commission alleges that the "Interpretive Notice" has nothing to do with a boycott of Israel, and the U.S. Administration has officially concurred in that assessment. It merely responds, says the "Interpretive Notice" to "a demand for clarity from consumers, economic operators and national authorities." But this is disingenuous. The Commission has indicated (although this is not stated in the "Interpretive Notice" itself) that the first products to be labeled will be fresh food and cosmetics. It can hardly be a coincidence that Jordan Valley dates and an Israeli cosmetic firm have been favourite targets of boycotters. These were exactly the consumers who demanded such clarity and the Commission is satisfying their wishes.

There is a long list of separatist movements in the EU, some demanding greater autonomy, others demanding independence. As many Jews in Israel have European connections, it is easy to imagine that some of these Jews have corresponding sympathies and "demands for clarity" about the products of the respective European states. Surely one can imagine Israeli Jews who would like to buy Scotch whisky only from the few firms that are still in Scottish hands. How can Israelis' right to know fairly be denied? Israel is entitled to request that Europeans label their products accordingly, both in this case and in innumerable other like cases.

The countries whose separatist movements are most conspicuous are Spain and France. But -- as suggested above -- they should be left out for the moment, since they have not yet adopted regulations of the kind called for by the European Commission.

A bill in the Knesset would therefore have to formulate three main requirements for action by the appropriate Israeli government ministry. First, to draw up for each EU member state a list of the relevant regions. This is relatively easy. Second, to formulate detailed regulations for the three states that already label "settlement products." Third, a statutory duty to formulate like regulations for any other EU state, but only if and when it decides to adopt the "Interpretive Notice."

Even Denmark has separatist movements in Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Bornholm. The cases of Belgium and the UK hardly need explaining, except that Belgium has its German minority and the UK has a separatist movement in Cornwall, which should therefore be added to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

It may seem rather silly to label many Scottish distilleries as "English settlements," although one can probably find Scots who feel that way about them. This author is on record as not favouring separatism in the UK, but only (as a Welsh speaker) due provision for regional cultural differences. But the silliness merely reflects the silliness of the European bureaucrats and their "Interpretive Notice." In practical terms, imitating the silliness has a sensible effect: it imposes a counter-burden upon the original sillies for the burden that they impose upon Israel.

A Possible Compromise?

To be precise, the "Interpretive Notice, as quoted above, asserts that "the expression 'Israeli settlement' or equivalent needs to be added." That is, it does not absolutely require that particular expression, so is there some alternative mutually acceptable to the European Commission and Israel?

For instance, replacing "Israeli settlement" with "Israeli product" would be less offensive to Israelis. Only, it would be anathema to Scots to label any whiskey as an "English product."

Perhaps the European Commission and Israel could settle for "Israeli-owned enterprise" on Rosenblum's dates and "English-owned enterprise" on Scotch whisky, respectively. This form of description is accurate; it should satisfy the Commission's desire not to "mislead the consumer as to the true origin of the product." The remaining problem is that -- whatever formula is used – this is an unnecessary expense imposed by bureaucrats on business. But since the Commission has decided to go down that path, the Israeli Knesset may have no choice but to follow with its own parallel legislation.

Malcolm Lowe

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6921/israel-eu-product-labeling

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The Prime Minister’s speech that was missing at the funeral - Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

by Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

How reassuring it would have been had this speech been given!

Saturday night, the funeral of Rav Yaakov Litman and his son Netanel, hy"d. One after another, people speak to the thousands who came to pay their final respects to those who were murdered in the terror attack that took place immediately before the Shabbat that just ended, but one speech was missing, one speech that was most essential: a speech by the prime minister.

This is what it should have said:

My brothers and friends, on Friday the despicable murder of a father and his son was committed in the presence of their family, which was on its way to a “Shabbat Chatan” to celebrate the upcoming wedding of their daughter. This murder is not a private matter. Yaakov and Netanel were murdered only because they are Jews living in the Land of Israel. They are our symbol of martyrdom. The despicable murderer is not a lone wolf, as some on the Left want to define him.

Let us not confuse the facts – the murderer was indeed the only one who pulled the trigger, but he carried out his act due to the atmosphere created by the society in which he grew up and developed, a society that sanctifies death and turns murder into a tool to be used by its members, a society whose  goal is to expel us from here, from the only country that we have on the face of the Earth, from our historic Land, for which we have yearned, generation after generation.

Our armed forces will catch the murderers. There is no doubt of this, but this is not enough. And neither is the severe punishment imposed on the murderer. The score must also be settled with the population that provides such villains with backup as well as practical and moral support, a society that celebrates the murder of Jews with sweets and promises the murderers that emerge from it eternal life in Paradise.

They celebrate with candies and pastries and we will celebrate when we complete another two new communities in the names of the holy martyrs. With the establishment of these new communities we will tell them, both the murderers and those who send them – while you wanted to expel us, the result that you achieve will be the opposite. We now plant a stake even stronger and more deeply into our land. We will expand and “burst forth, to the Sea, to the east, to the north, to the Negev." (Genesis 28,13-14).

Building in our Land is an obligation and a privilege for us regardless of our neighbors’ cruel, barbaric murderous deeds. Until now, we have not done this because of international pressure from the world, which had not yet internalized the dangers of radical Islam. These days the entire world is paying the price for its blindness and its illusions. We clearly state that from now on, building, new communities and applying Israeli sovereignty are the most effective answer to terror, along with continuing to clearly declare our intentions to hold on to our Land.

The new community, “Yade Ya’akov”, will arise on the piece of land next to Adorayim, in the South Hevron Hills close to where father and son were murdered, and the new community “Hai Netanel” will arise on another piece of land in the South Hevron Hills. Likewise, 1000 residential units will be built in Kiryat Arba- Hevron in their blessed memory.

The government of Israel would approve the gradual application of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria by a large majority. And the first phase would be in South Hevron Hills. This is how we will act from this point on. The enemy will watch and understand that the government of Israel has chosen life. We have chosen to turn our backs on the disastrous Oslo Accords, for which we have paid a steep price in the blood of more than one thousand and five hundred fatalities from among our people.

From now on, the government of Israel is changing from an attitude of despair and absorbing blows to taking initiative and leadership.

From the military standpoint as well, we will change our approach. The IDF has already received instructions to enter areas A and B. Our forces have already begun aggressive and forceful action, whose purpose is a thorough search and collection of weapons that Arabs have accumulated, some of which, catastrophically, we supplied with our own hands.

From now on the diplomatic line that we will pursue vis a vis our colleagues is an Israeli readiness for peace, but only in exchange for peace. The peace that we will offer is immeasurably more valuable in the long run than whatever they could promise us.

From here, we march onward – it is not the UN that will decide our future, but our own deeds. The blood-soaked clods of earth will bloom, and the Land will flourish wondrously. And upon it, a people, a nation and a state will thrive, living according to Divine, eternal ethics and turning away from distorted moral values.

May we be consoled in building the Land!


Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/17909#.Vk3OnL-zdds

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