Posts Tagged → Israel
Out of all proportion
If there is one core element to the “new thinking” taking America down, it is victimology.
You know, the idea that everyone is a victim, and some people are special victims and some are especially victimized.
For someone to be a victim, there must be a perpetrator, and political correctness has created all sorts of creative solutions to real and perceived wounds which perpetrators can, or must!, endlessly do to atone. America has been afflicted with this, to the absurd point where illegal aliens crossing our borders in search of better work are “victims” and deserve our taxpayer money and the right to vote themselves a lot more of it.
It is a fair idea that people should be treated fairly. No arguing with that. But what happens when whatever apology, compensation, or other action worth remedying the problem has been completed, and the victim identity remains? This phenomenon is nowhere more clearly evident than in the Middle East, or technically the Near East, where “Palestinian” Arabs have wallowed in artificial and purposefully perpetuated victim status for five decades.
Even their refugee status is inherited, contrary to every other refugee situation around the world. The UN helps maintain this arrangement.
Although there were nearly twice as many refugee Jews ejected from Arab and Muslim nations at the same time, no one talks about them. Islamic imperialism and Arab colonialism are responsible for one of the largest and longest-standing occupations ever on planet Earth, where the farms, homes, and businesses that once belonged to Jews are now the property of supposedly well-intentioned Muslim Arabs. Billions of dollars worth of property and banks were stolen overnight, from one group of people and given to another group that had no claim on it other than they held the knife and gun, and the victim did not.
If someone were looking for victims to feel bad for, the Jews have had that victim experience in spades, not to mention the Armenians (Christians who suffered a none-too-gentle genocide and land-theft at the hands of the Muslim Turks from 1910-1915), Kurds, Tibetans, and, well, never mind that the iconic and fiercely warlike Oglala Sioux ejected the Mandan, Cheyenne, and Pawnee from millions of acres of their historic Happy Hunting Grounds and militarily occupied them for hundreds of years…after all, the American Indians who massacred, tortured, and occupied one another are considered to have engaged in acceptable behavior. Anyhow, I digress…..
The Jews now find themselves fighting for their lives with their backs to the wall, yet once again against Islamic supremacists, Islamic imperialists, and Arab colonists; and those same Jews are now presented with yet another double-standard: Proportionality.
This is the idea that, if someone hits you in the face with the intention of killing you, but fails to do so that first time and is winding up to hit you again and harder this next time, why, you are only supposed to hit them back once and only just as hard as you were first hit. You are not allowed to land a knockout punch, despite having survived an attempted knockout punch.
The EU demands that endless Arab rockets from Gaza onto indigenous Jews, living an unbroken 3,000-year presence in their homeland, be met with…thousands of random rockets from Israel? My God no! Unacceptable!
Obviously, the idea of proportionality is alien to every people that has fought a war, especially a defensive war. War is fought to be won, and dumbing-down and reducing the effectiveness of your response is a foolish and possibly suicidal thing to do.
But Europe and America cater first and foremost to artificial victims, and no matter what, those victims are due every gift, every extra opportunity, every kind gesture in the face of bloody hands, truckloads of taxpayer money despite tremendous waste by the recipients, and so on and so forth. Although this behavior seems suicidal, suicide seems to be the new definition of democracy, in the interest of appeasing the ‘victims’ among us, out of all proportion to whatever happened in the first place.
But to give the supposed victims their due, proportionality must be maintained, and in the Middle East today, Western civilization is expected to fight Islamic aggression, theft, murder, and occupation with both hands tied behind its back. It is apparently the new thing to do.
Weakness in the West has consequences
Adolf Hitler rose to power in a sea of pacifism and “peace-ism,” that euphoric act of sacrifice that kills all the innocent people and empowers the evil ones.
Hitler knew the West was weak, and therefore ripe for consumption. Pacifism empowered Hitler. Weakness invited his genocidal attacks.
In beating Nazi Germany and then confronting their sister, the Soviet Union, at huge costs, the West found again its spirit of liberty and survival instincts. During that time the West experienced incredible material success and unimaginable increases in the quality of life.
But you know how over time material success breeds creature comforts and disinclinations to do anything that might upset the comfortable lifestyle emanating from material success. So pacifism and peace-ism have risen again, among European countries and many Americans, even as war is carried to our doorsteps.
Andrew Tahmooressi is a Marine Corps sargeant who took a wrong turn in the wild, unmarked American desert with his legal guns, and has been imprisoned by Mexico for months ever since. America has done zero to get him back, but the Obama administration has done everything possible to open the border to terrorists, children, criminals, and assorted other illegal burdens on two legs.
In Israel, three teenaged boys were abducted three weeks ago by Muslim supremacists, and then found today, dead, killed soon after they were taken. Half a dozen Israeli military and police officers have lost their jobs over the boys’ deaths, which were avoidable: One boy called the police and said they were being kidnapped. The policewoman called it a prank and did not act on it. Her Israeli military counterparts have been primed by overwhelming political correctness to look for Jewish kids with spray paint cans as their primary target, not murderous Arab terrorists, and they, too, ignored the phone call.
Europe is filled with Islamic institutions where hatred is preached and acted out every day, non-Muslims are gunned down in the streets, and the perpetrators and proponents are called “victims.”
The list goes on and on. The West is awash in enemies and insecurity, anarchy, but nothing is done.
Weakness breeds contempt and increased attempts to dethrone the boss. It is happening across Western Civilization: Our collective and individual weakness is being exploited by people who would take over our countries and change them into something else, something unrecognizable, something where liberty is unknown.
Will you choose to be weak? Or will you take action to preserve American liberties?
Michele Bachmann – say it, sister
Michele Bachmann said it loud and proud, and it’s not just Israel getting sold out, it’s thousands of years of tradition getting flushed, too, a cornerstone of Western Civilization. Michele, you have my greatest appreciation and respect for saying what must be said.
Ukraine: Obama batting zero, his cheering section still loud
Math was not always my strongest interest (although I did self-learn calculus in graduate school), so disregard the headline here. Obama’s foreign policy is such a catastrophic failure that he is way in the negatives; he is not at zero. Being at Zero would actually be a success.
Here is a partial list of countries and peoples seeking freedom from tyranny who have had the rug of American promises pulled out from underneath them by Obama:
Poland (defensive missiles).
Georgia (South Ossetia, invaded by Russia).
Israel.
Iranian citizens.
Syrian citizens.
And now it’s Ukraine that has learned the hard lesson of Obama’s recklessness. Whatever promises were made to get Ukraine’s nuclear weapons, like protecting Ukraine from Russian imperialism, have been openly tossed out the window by an Obama administration bent on destroying America from within. Wrecking America’s international standing is one way to destroy America at home.
Allowing aggressive imperial powers like Russia, China, and Iran to willfully expand their spheres of influence and domination lets Obama off the “aggressor” hook. He can claim he’s no “warmonger.” But his inaction and failure to live up to his own red lines and promises of American protection have created a vacuum into which the aggressors, the real warmongers, have stepped.
Growing up in a pacifist household, I used to ask the hard questions that no one could answer, like Why should someone not actively oppose an Adolph Hitler and a Nazi Germany? Answers were hard to come by, because there are no substantive answers to these questions.
Pacifism is evil because it legitimizes evil. Pacifism equates doing nothing with active aggression, imperialism, domination, subjugation, tyranny and all the barbaric cruelty that goes along with them. By failing to act, by failing to confront evil in a meaningful way, pacifists lend credibility to the aggressors. If Russian imperialism in the form of subjugating Ukraine is not confronted and thwarted, then it must not be so bad. Such is the message from Obama and other pacifists, intended or unintended.
This unwillingness to act creates a vacuum, and this vacuum is seen correctly as weakness. It invites even more aggression. History is replete with examples, so an Obama would have to willfully ignore the obvious historical truth in order to do what he is doing (and not doing) now.
I know Obama has his cheering section. That is the greatest sadness of all, because those same people claim to be ethical, humane, loving. So strong is the messianic love for this charlatan among his believers, that they will forgive and forget his greatest deceptions, his greatest failures, the trail of destruction and misery in his wake. Other people, other families, then pay with their lives, at best to be the subjects of pity by groups like OxFam and Rotary, intent on picking up the few broken pieces later on.
For shame.
Meanwhile, Obama hands off US relationships to Russia
Amazingly, Obama has managed to hand off a great number of America’s most important relationships to Russia and China.
By engaging Iran in meaningless negotiation, and easing sanctions with nothing in return, Obama has managed to alienate Saudi Arabia and Egypt, isolate Israel, and drive everyone towards China and Russia as the new sources (!!) of stability and strength.
Growing up Quaker did nothing for my ability to see reality. The Quaker discomfort with conflict is legendary (with the exception of making genocidal war against Israel), and that pacifism informs the foolishness now passing as “peace” in Obama’s relationship with evil Iran.
The longer Obama is in power, the less stable the world becomes, the stronger evil nations like Iran and evil groups like the Muslim Brotherhood become. And Obama’s supporters wonder why people like me question if Obama really is a Christian and really is pro America. You can’t do what Obama is doing and make those claims. America is becoming more vulnerable every day under Obama.
Comeuppance 101
If you run for US president on a platform of blaming the incumbent for everything, you just might find yourself in the same position some years later, with far less to show than that “failure” before you had.
Obama’s failure to create even a small international coalition to surgically remove Bashar Assad’s weapons of mass destruction is a result of his mistreatment of America’s key allies (Britain, France, Israel, Poland), his confused messages (pacifism vs. ‘red lines’ etc.), willingness to toss old friends overboard for whatever end…(Mubarak in Egypt), and his arrogant personality.
None of America’s former allies know if they can really trust Obama, and all of America’s avowed enemies believe he is a paper tiger.
Ye reap what ye sow….and more children in Syria will be gassed by Assad as a result. If this is Hope and Change, so be it. Most people call it disaster. It’s an expensive form of Comeuppance 101.
Of Molotov cocktails and fishing expedition gaffes
It has been an interesting day today, at home and abroad.
Obama gave a bizarre speech in Israel, and Biden made yet another unbelievable gaffe. Who knew that an empty bottle and a fishing tool could become weapons, but here you have it.
Obama loaded his Jerusalem audience with ultra-leftists, most or all of whom did not stand to applaud when Obama stated that Israel has a right to exist. Throwing his second Molotov cocktail into the Middle East (the first one in Cairo that set off the Arab Winter), he declared that the bigoted Arabs bombing Israel are just like Canada next door to the US. Who knows what bizarre actions will follow. If the unrest across the Arab world is any indication, it’ll be ugly, violent.
Across the ocean and then back home, Joe Biden is still spending gobs of taxpayer money traveling about like an itinerant salesman, preaching gun confiscation, contrary to the US Constitution. Earlier, Biden spent over a million taxpayer dollars for just a night in Paris and a night in London. Apparently he thinks he is some sort of royalty, living the high life. Today, Biden said that former US Congresswoman Gabby Giffords had been “mortally wounded.” This is the same woman who is now advocating gun confiscation. Wounded terribly, awfully, tragically, yes. Mortally? Obviously not.
And that’s the problem with the Obama folks. What is obvious to so many other people is invisible to them. And the consequences of being wrong are enormous. But what me worry?
Is World War 3 Upon Us? Ask the Muslim Brotherhood
Those Obama administration advocates for the Muslim Brotherhood were obviously wrong, knowingly or not. The Muslim Brotherhood is not some moderate, reasonable group of religiously observant people.
Rather, Egypt’s new MB president, Morsi, and his official political party, the MB, have taken a blatantly hypocritical stance on the right of Israel to self-defense. For years Israel suffered daily from dozens to hundreds of rockets launched by Muslim supremacists in Gaza. Morsi and the MB stood by and quietly applauded, because they hate Jews and Christians.
Then after months of “Why, I’m, gonna…” – type warnings from Israel to those Islamofascists daily raining explosives down on Israeli civilians, Israel began a defensive response to the attacks yesterday. Israel is doing what anyone would do.
And instead of demonstrating their dedication to consistent, good policy and diplomacy, the MB (also solidly embedded in the Obama Administration) and Egypt use bellicose, war-like language against Israel. If Egypt cannot abide by the basics of civilized relationships, then World War Three is indeed upon us, because Egyptian participation in the war against Israel’s existence logically follows.
Policy steps necessary to head this off: A) End America’s relationship with MB-led Egypt, meaning no more foreign aid, military hardware, B) leave Israel alone to do what it needs to defend its citizens, C) Exit the United Nations, to stop its incursions into American sovereignty.
September 11th, A Day of Remembrance, Reflection & Resolve
September 11th, A Day of Remembrance, Reflection & Resolve
September 11, 2012
By Josh First
September 11th is an American day of national remembrance and reflection. We remember the attacks on our defenseless civilians by Muslim terrorists, who used our freedoms against us on this day.
We reflect on American heroism, an innate trait seen most graphically on Flight 93, now memorialized at the crash site in Somerset County, Pennsylvania (which I had the honor to help create, leading the first two years of real estate protection there with the National Park Service, Somerset County, the local townships, the Families of Flight 93, PBS Coals, CONSOL Energy, the Mellon Foundation, and others, not to mention the many supportive landowners).
Should the American character of inclusiveness be continued in a way that invites these kinds of attacks? An inclusiveness at any and all costs?
Based on his experience in both world wars, British leader Winston Churchill quipped after World War II that the Americans wouldn’t show up to a fight until it was almost too late to win it. Will our generation of Americans languish in our non-judgmentalism, uber-inclusiveness, and moral relativism until it is too late?
The “too late” will be when Iran obtains nuclear bombs, which is in the end-process of happening with an American and European acquiescence that is exactly how the West dealt with Hitler before 1940. Pacifists call this avoidable prelude to widespread death “peace,” but what do they call it after the bombs start going off? They call it someone else’s failure.
Many people believe that those Iranian bombs will be directed at Israel only, but Iran fears and hates America more than Israel. To Iran’s Muslim leaders and most of its citizens, America is the epicenter of everything they oppose. It’s a clash of civilizations that they intend to settle with nuclear bombs and that we currently intend to resolve through endless discussion.
America’s porous borders and inability to fight back against Islamic supremacism at home or abroad mean that at least one Iranian bomb will find its way into a large American city. The devastation and economic fallout will be unimaginable. What if two or three bombs are snuck in, and detonated? Is it “peace” to ignore these questions, and is it “warmongering” to ask them?
The oft-quoted historian George Santayana said “Those who forget history are destined to repeat it,” which in the context of September 11th means that Americans who are forgetting what happened that day, and why, will be surprised the next time we experience a huge domestic attack. The problem is that the next attack will be with a nuclear bomb, maybe several, America may not be able to recover from the damage, and we don’t have to be surprised; we can take steps to stop it from happening.
So on September 11th, the modern equivalent of remembering the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, let us not just recall the pain that we felt, but rather also resolve that it won’t happen again. Let us take the small and big steps necessary to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, the personal ones, the professional ones, and the political ones.
Follow us on the web at joshfirst.com and our Facebook page, Josh First for Senate