Israel leaders past present

Benjamin Netanyahu

Zev Jabotinsky

Born in Russia in 1880, Jabotinsky learned law and later became one of the most prominent writers in the Russian language. The ensuing pogroms of 1903 motivated his Zionism, and he organized self-defense units and fought for the rights of the Russian Jewish minority.

After serving as a delegate to the 6th Zionist Congress, Jabotinsky, alongside Joseph Trumpeldor organized the first Jewish Legion during World War I.

Under the British mandate, Jabotinsky stood at the head of Jerusalem's Haganah (defense) against the Arab riots of 1920, for which he was incarcerated. After his release in 1925 he established the Revisionist Zionist alliance (Hatzohar), which called for the immediate establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.

In 1937 the national military organization in Israel became the military arm of Jabotinsky's movement and he became its commander. He also stood at the head of the New Zionist Union, The Beitar Youth Movement; these three bodies were three extensions of the same movement.

During WWII Jabotinsky was active in Britain and the United States in the hope of establishing a Jewish army to fight side by side with the Allies against Nazi Germany.

He died in 1940, with his will commanding that his remains be interred only in Eretz Israel by the future Hebrew Government, which was fulfilled later in 1964 when his and his wife's remains were reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

Menahem Begin

Menachem Begin was born in Brest­Litovsk in 1913, and was forced to flee with his family to escape the violence of WWI. He joined Jabotinsky's Betar youth movement in his teens, rising quickly to important administrative and leadership positions. He led Betar Czechoslovakia and Betar Poland by 1939, which engaged in weapons training to defend Polish Jewry, preparation and transport of "illegal" immigrants to Israel, agricultural training, and communications.

Contacting the dormant Jewish underground, Irgun Tzavi Leumi, Begin set about planning a Jewish uprising against the British authorities, which intensified immediately after World War II and continued until late 1947. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Begin disbanded the Irgun (organization).

From 1948 to 1977, Menachem Begin was the leader of Israel's opposition. In the 1950's, he led the movement against accepting German reparations for the Nazi Holocaust. In 1965, Begin merged his Herut Party with the Liberals to form Gahal, which later served as the foundation of the Likud Party. This merge saw the establishment of a National Unity Government, which finally brought Begin and other Gahal leaders to the Cabinet table. The National Unity Government continued until 1970, when Begin insisted that Israel condition Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's extension of the cease-fire across the Suez Canal on the signing of a peace treaty recognizing Israel.

In 1977, Begin was elected Prime Minister. As such, he helped initiate the peace process with Egypt, which resulted in the Camp David Accords and the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.

In 1981, Begin ordered the Israeli Air Force to bomb the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq, where the Iraqi regime was developing nuclear weapons. Despite international backlash at the time, it became apparent during the 1991 Gulf Warthat Israel's action had succeeded in hampering Baghdad's drive to acquire nuclear weapons.

 In 1982, after repeated acts of PLO terror, Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee to remove the terrorist threat from Israel's northern border.

Begin's decision to encourage Ethiopian Jews to immigrate to Israel later culminated in Operation Moses, which brought thousands en masse to Israel in the early 1980's.

He died March 9, 1992, and was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

 Mohammedans MB Islam hate judenphobia

Muslim Brotherhood leaders quote Prophet Muhammad at al-Azhar conference: "O Muslim, this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him"

Translating Jihad

While the much of the West was still congratulating themselves for their role in supporting the so-called 'Arab Spring,' Muslim Brotherhood members (the soon-to-be rulers of "the new Egypt") were at al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo on 25 November calling for genocide against Jews. The call came in the form of a recitation of an authentic hadith from the Prophet Muhammad, in which he declared that Muslims should fight against the Jews "until the rocks and the trees will say, 'O slave of Allah, o Muslim, this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." The occasion was the commemoration of what the International Union of Muslim Scholars named "Save al-Aqsa Friday" (for previous reporting on this day, see here).

I provided the translations for the above video clips, which were expertly put together by Vlad Tepes. His article follows:

 Mohammedans MB Islam hate judenphobia

Peter Grady

Muslim Brotherhood presented as face of moderate Islam

A group defended as representing the "moderate" face of Islam has called for the killing of all Jews.

The Muslim brotherhood, which recently won a majority of seats in Egyptian elections, has often been called a “moderate” faction of Islam.

The website, Ikhwanophobia .com, states that the group wants to represent the Muslim brotherhood as the face of moderate Islam. Following the election victory, many mainstream media outlets also claim the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate Islamic organization.

The Muslim Brotherhood  claims to be a moderate group. Speaking to the Associated Press, Essam el-Erian, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s new political party in Egypt, said, “We represent a moderate and fair party. We want to apply the basics of Sharia law in a fair way that respects human rights and personal rights.”

If Muslim Brotherhood defenders are correct, that the group is the face of moderate Islam, then it appears that moderate Islam believes in the killing of all Jews and the destruction of Israel.

 CAP Left Socialism Mohammedans SoroS enemy

The Center for American Progress’ Jihad Against the Free World

Daniel Greenfield

The colors of the American flag are red, white and blue, but the colors of the Center for American Progress are red, white and green. Red for the left and green for Islam.

The Center for American Progress is not just any organization. Headed up by John Podesta​, a co-chairman of Obama’s transition team and backed by a 38 million dollar annual budget, it is George Soros’ most ambitious attempt to turn his Shadow Party into a shadow government. CAP is the organization with the single greatest influence on the Obama White House and its foreign and domestic policy.

CAP is more than just another think tank; it’s a lever for shifting the Democratic Party further to the left, bought and paid for by George Soros​ and a roster of secret donors whose names are not made public by the secretive and powerful organization. Those who buy influence with it also get anonymity as part of the package.

But the Center is more than a rogue billionaire’s brand of progressivism turned into talking-point groupthink by Washington insiders. It is a link between the American left and the Muslim right, articulating the Islamist agenda as a vehicle for the foreign policy of the post-American left. It’s where Ali Gharib can run pieces whitewashing the Muslim Brotherhood​ while Zaid Jiliani attempts to justify the ambassador to Belgium’s comments denying the existence of Muslim anti-Semitism.

A CAP report co-authored by Wajahat Ali, a defender of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, and a board member of the Muslim Students Association, a Muslim Brotherhood front group, claimed that counterterrorism analysts were misrepresenting the threat of Sharia law and that Sharia was “overwhelmingly concerned with personal religious observance such as prayer and fasting, and not with national laws.” That particular revelation might come as a shock to raped women in Pakistan and gay men in Iran.

Ali’s Islamist leanings drove him to call on Obama to “interact with democratically elected Muslim governments and representatives, such as Hamas and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.” But despite Ali’s extremism, the Center allowed him to co-author a report on Islamic law and another report titled “Fear Inc.” which attempted to demonize Muslim and non-Muslim critics of Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

 Obama Mohammedans MB Qaradawi terrorism

The administration is working with a Muslim Brotherhood jurist.

Andrew C. McCarthy

The surrender is complete now. The Hindu reports that the Obama administration has turned to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading jurist, to mediate secret negotiations between the United States and the Taliban.

I wrote about Qaradawi at length in The Grand Jihad and, here at NRO, have regularly catalogued his activities (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here; see also Andrew Bostom’s “Qaradawi’s Odious Vision”). For those who may be unfamiliar with him, he is the most influential Sunni Islamist in the world, thanks to such ventures as his al-Jazeera TV program (Sharia and Life) and website (IslamOnline.net). In 2003, he issued a fatwa calling for the killing of American troops in Iraq. As he put it,

    Those killed fighting the American forces are martyrs given their good intentions since they consider these invading troops an enemy within their territories but without their will. . . . Although they are seen by some as being wrong, those defending against attempts to control Islamic countries have the intention of jihad and bear a spirit of the defense of their homeland.

Qaradawi urges that Islam must dominate the world, under a global caliphate governed by sharia. He maintains that Islam “will conquer Europe [and] will conquer America.” He sometimes qualifies that the conquering will be done “not through the sword but through da’wa,” but the qualification is a feint.

Da’wa sounds harmless — it refers to missionary work to spread Islam. Islam, however, is not like other religions. The idea is not to spread a set of spiritual principles but incrementally to impose a full-scale social system with its own authoritarian legal code, covering all aspects of life and instituting a caste system in which women and non-Muslims are subjugated. Nor is da’wa like other missionary work; it is the use of all available means of pressure — political campaigns, lawfare, infiltration of the media, control of the education system, etc. — to advance (a) the acceptance of Islamic principles and (b) the evisceration of principles (e.g., free speech, economic liberty) that undergird competitors, in particular, Western civilization. Moreover, the claim that da’wa is non-violent is frivolous. Much of the mission of da’wa is to rationalize terrorism as divinely mandated self-defense.

Thus does Sheikh Qaradawi champion Hamas, mass-murder attacks, and suicide bombings. “They are not suicide operations,” he brays. “These are heroic martyrdom operations.” Indeed, he elaborates, “The martyr operations is [sic] the greatest of all sorts of jihad in the cause of Allah.”

 Bellow Jews U.S. Holocaust Writing

The JC essay

Christopher Hitchens

Look first upon this picture, and on this… the two photographs of Saul Bellow that adorn the initial covers of the Library of America edition of his collected works.

In the first, we see a somewhat rakish fellow, sharply dressed and evidently fizzing with moxie, who meets the world with a cool and level gaze that belies the slight impression of a pool shark or racetrack con artist.

In the second, and in profile, we get a survey of a sage in a more reflective pose; but this is a sage who still might utter a well-chosen wisecrack out of the side of his mouth.

The antique history of the shtetl and the ghetto is inscribed in both studies of the man, but some considerable physical and mental distance has evidently been travelled in each case.

What use was war without also love? Yiddishism or no Yiddishism, this must count as one of the most affirmative and masculine sentences ever set down

At Bellow's memorial meeting, held in the Young Men's Hebrew Association at Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street in 2005, the main speakers were Ian Mc
Ewan, Jeffrey Eugenides, Martin Amis, William Kennedy and James Wood.

Had it not been for an especially vapid speech by some forgettable rabbi, the platform would have been exclusively composed of non-Jews, many of them non-American.

How had Bellow managed to exert such an effect on writers almost half his age, from another tradition and another continent? Putting this question to the speakers later on, I received two particularly memorable responses. Ian McEwan related his impression that Bellow, alone among American writers of his generation, had seemed to assimilate the whole European classical inheritance. And Martin Amis vividly remembered something Bellow had once said to him, which is that, if you are born in the ghetto, the very conditions compel you to look skywards, and thus to hunger for the universal.

 Drugs marihuana teens minds IQ

Cannabis users 'born with smaller front part of brain' affecting memory and decision-making

    The difference in size means brain is not as effective

    Research could identify those most at risk of becoming addicts

Jo Macfarlane

Teenagers who smoke cannabis are likely to have been born with an area of the brain that is significantly smaller than normal, according to new research.

Scientists have found that the area at the front of the brain, known as the orbitofrontal cortex, which controls memory, reward and decision- making, is six per cent smaller in children who go on to smoke cannabis compared with those who do not.

This difference in size may mean the brain is not as effective, so children with a smaller orbitofrontal cortex could be more impulsive and less capable of carefully calculated decision-making.

Popular: According to the British Crime Survey, more than a third of 16- to 24-year-olds used cannabis during 2009/10

In turn, this could make them more likely to experiment with cannabis.

Previous research has found that adults who are heavy cannabis smokers have much smaller brain volumes in this area, but it had, until now, been assumed the damage was caused by the regular drug use.

However, the new findings suggest that some people are born with the abnormality. The discovery could serve as an early-warning system to help identify those most at risk of becoming addicts.

 Perry campaign endorses Gingrich

Jackie Kucinich and Catalina Camia

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry ended his campaign for president today and endorsed Newt Gingrich as the best conservative to take on President Obama in the fall.

David Goldman, AP

Texas Gov. Rick Perry announces the end of his presidential campaign in North Charleston, S.C., on Thursday as his son, Griffin, and wife, Anita, look on.

Perry's departure two days before the South Carolina primary leaves four candidates vying for the GOP nomination.

"Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?" Perry said. "There is forgiveness for those who seek God. I have no question that Newt Gingrich has the heart of a conservative reformer" and "the ability to rally and captivate the conservative movement."

 Bellows HarperCollins TEA Writing Books

Adam Bellow hopes to give voice to the tea party with new conservative imprint at HarperCollins

James Patrick Cooper - Editor Adam Bellow has launched the new HarperCollins conservative imprint Broadside Books and its digital Voices of the Tea Party series.

Julia Duin

NEW YORK

Attention, conservatives: Adam Bellow says this is your moment.

The intellectual left, he contends, is in a vacuum. The right is where there are ideas, variety, excitement. And Bellow, a former liberal who has made a career of pushing conservative writers and controversial issues to the forefront of American publishing, wants to hear from you.

As an editor at the Free Press and then Doubleday, Bellow, son of the late novelist Saul Bellow, guided such provocative voices as Dinesh D’Souza (“Illiberal Education”), David Brock (“The Real Anita Hill”), Jonah Goldberg (“Liberal Fascism”), and Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein (“The Bell Curve”) to the top of the bestseller lists.

Now he thinks he can do the same with representatives from the tea party, the decentralized protest movement that has energized conservatives, dismayed liberals and spooked presidential candidates with its focus on free markets, limited government, fewer taxes and balanced budgets.

 Medieval Islamic law comparison

Fjordman

Professor Erik Anners, a Swedish historian of law, compares the legal profession to engineering and believes that law is the engineering of society. European legal history contains traces of both Greek and Mosaic law, which themselves carried some impressions of earlier civilizations, especially that of Mesopotamia. But European law was formed during the Middle Ages in a meeting between Roman law and other, especially Germanic, customs.
 
Anners comments that the rational school of law which emerged in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages differed strikingly from that found in Islamic regions, especially considering that they had both encountered the same Roman legal heritage. We have the testimony of an educated Muslim man from Spain travelling in the Crusader kingdoms in the twelfth century and noting, somewhat reluctantly, that the European infidels enjoyed a greater security of law than the contemporary Muslims did with their “corrupt qadis,” sharia judges.
 
Roman law – beginning with the Twelve Tables, the earliest written legislation of Roman law, traditionally dated to ca. 450 BC – dealt with matters of inheritance, obligations and contracts, property and individual persons. It forms the basis for the Civil Law codes of most countries of Continental Europe, distinguished from the Common Law of English-speaking countries.
 
In England, Common Law was largely Germanic law. For the Germanic peoples, the tribal assembly (mot or thing) had traditionally elected kings and declared war. However, Germanic customary law designed for non-literate societies proved inadequate to cope with complex urban commerce. Like the Roman Emperors before them, the Christian Emperor Charlemagne and his successors claimed the power to make laws for all their subjects. The Roman Catholic Church applied Canon Law in the Church courts. This was heavily influenced by Roman law.
 
The traditional customs of various European societies gradually blended with Roman customs. Before the coming of Christianity during the Middle Ages, Germanic peoples used to live in pre-state societies where there was no strong centralized authority that could enforce the law, but theft and violent crimes obviously took place in such societies, too, and had to be dealt with somehow. Individuals therefore depended upon their kin and clan for protection.
 
If a person accused of a crime agreed to pay a sum to the victim’s family and they accepted this, there was peace. This was known as wergeld or wergild (literally: “man payment”). The word were, meaning “man,” has been retained from the Germanic language known as Anglo-Saxon (Old English) and is found in the modern English werewolf. “Geld” is still the Dutch and German term for “money,” whereas the word means “debt” in the Scandinavian tongues.
 
Historian Julia Smith explains in Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000 that it “expressed in monetary terms the slight done to familial pride, reputation, and integrity: the obligation to pay a wergeld imposed upon the offender and his relatives an equivalent degradation.” Moreover, “Except to the extent that the Roman juridical principle that an individual was solely and uniquely responsible for his own actions may have remained enforceable in some parts of the Mediterranean, early medieval Europe was a feuding culture.” Normally, however, “wergeld was paid in order to deflect the risk of vendetta.”