BERNARD LEWIS'S 2007 PROPHECIES

For the full article go to JP: http://tinyurl.com/htzoq4d

The world according to the remarkable scholar and celebrity historian.

I’d like to congratulate Bernard Lewis: Not only did he celebrate his 100th birthday on May 31 – an achievement which obviously owes something to forces and good fortune beyond his direct control – he should be congratulated for not spending the better part of the century, and certainly recent decades, saying: “I told you so!” The temptation must be enormous.

In an interview with him written in 2007 by then editor-in-chief David Horovitz and reporter Tovah Lazaroff, Lewis was asked: “In your writings you have spoken of the feelings of humiliation and rage in the Muslim world. When will their rage subside, if at all?” The answer: “One way [for them] to alleviate their rage is to win some large victories. Which could happen. They seem to be about to take over Europe.”

Post: “‘About to take over Europe?’ Do you have a time frame for that? It sounds pretty dramatic.”

Lewis: “No, I can’t give you the time frame, but I can give you the stages of the process: Immigration and democracy on their side, and a mood of what I can only call self-abasement on the European side – in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism, to surrender on any and every issue.

“I was talking only the other day at the Herzliya conference with a German journalist.

We were chatting informally over a cup of coffee. He was expressing his profound alarm at the mood of what he called self-abasement among the Germans at the present time. ‘We mustn’t do anything to offend them. We must be nice to them. We must let them do things their way,’ and so on and so on and so on.”

What does that mean for the Jewish communities of Europe, even in the short term, Lewis was asked.

“The outlook for the Jewish communities of Europe is dim,” he replied.

Soon, he warned, the only pertinent question regarding Europe’s future would be, “Will it be an Islamized Europe or Europeanized Islam?”

LEWIS IS a rare breed: a celebrity historian and scholar. He coined the phrase “the clash of civilizations” – made famous by Samuel Huntington – and many of his studies on the Ottomans and the Middle East are still considered classics.

Not bad for somebody born the same month as the Sykes-Picot agreement dividing the Middle East between the British and the French.

A few years ago, I reviewed a collection of his essays, speeches and articles titled Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East.

A line of thought that appears throughout is that the separation of “church and state,” such a basic concept in most of the Western world, is not compatible with Islam.

Among his insights: “The emergence of a population, many millions strong, of Muslims born and educated in Western Europe will have immense and unpredictable consequences for Europe, for Islam and for the relations between them.”

I don’t want to hear a “Told you so!” so much as an update in the wake of the current mass migration to Europe’s shores, as borders in the Middle East disappear and fences are erected even within the European Union.

He doesn’t get everything right – who can? – but some special Lewis touches that I found in the book when I first read and reviewed it, stood out again when I dusted off my copy for another look in honor of his centennial birthday.

“Comparing the relationship between property and power in the modern American and classical Middle Eastern systems, one might put the difference this way: In America one uses money to buy power, while in the Middle East, one uses power to acquire money,” he writes.

Similarly, Lewis recognizes the “intensely personal character” of almost all aspects of Muslim government, where the ruler, families, clans and ethnic loyalties are far more important than the state itself.

This, I believe, is the key to understanding what is going on now, and will continue to be true.

It’s not a criticism. It’s a phenomenon that requires recognition and understanding.

Any discussions on a future Palestinian state, for example, should take into account the rivalry (to put it lightly) between Gaza and the West Bank, and even between different cities within the West Bank.

TRIBALISM IS inherent in human nature.

It is natural to identify with a smaller unit.

We may live in the global village, and even consider ourselves citizens of the world, but ultimately there is always some other identity closer to home.

This is an underlying message behind Britain’s upcoming Brexit vote on whether or not to leave the EU – which will have tremendous implications for the UK and also for nationalist, breakaway movements throughout the continent.

It’s the premise that every major sporting event is based on.

If the vast majority of its residents were to consider themselves primarily as Europeans, whose nationality is of secondary importance, the 2016 UEFA European Championship, the 15th such quadrennial football championship, would not be kicking off on June 10 and the world would not be gearing up for the Rio Olympics later this summer.

The heightened security is a sign of the downside of the tribalism. More classic Lewis: In a chapter headlined “License to kill,” he stresses: “At no point do the basic texts of Islam enjoin terrorism and murder,” adding, however: “Terrorism requires only a few.”

That is true for terrorism committed by supremacists of all backgrounds, of course.

My British background made it inevitable that I have an affiliation to a football club, even without understanding the game. In England, it was easy: My family has traditionally been Arsenal supporters and I saw no reason to break that multi-generational chain.

When I arrived in Jerusalem, I gravitated to Beitar Jerusalem, which was on a winning streak, and quite often my work for the Post’s local paper in the late 1980s took me to events and parties where the team members would hang out. (I recall local legend Uri Malmillian telling me that playing football was similar to playing chess, you had to have a strategy and be able to think a few moves ahead.) I remained loyal to the team as long as I could. Ultimately, it wasn’t the players who got me down but the fringe group of violently racist fans known as La Familia.


It takes a huge amount of courage and conviction to break away from a top team, but Beitar Nordia Jerusalem did just that – it created a fan-based club where, unlike Beitar Jerusalem, everyone could feel safe and at home.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I often followed its most recent – hugely successful – season via Facebook updates as I prepared for Shabbat on a Friday afternoon. A new coach, Moshe Salmi, was appointed this week.

The team, and its fans, are good sports, crying “foul” at racism and proving that pride does not have to be accompanied by prejudice.

In the Irving Kristol lecture delivered in March 2007, Lewis said: “A favorite theme of the historian is periodization – dividing history into periods. Periodization is mostly a convenience of the historian for purposes of writing or teaching. Nevertheless, there are times in the long history of human adventure when we have a real turning point – the end of an era, the beginning of a new era. I’m becoming more and more convinced that we are in such an age at the present time – a change in history comparable with the fall of Rome, the advent of Islam, and the discovery of America.”

What the future will bring, only time will tell. That, and perhaps, a thorough review of Bernard Lewis’s remarkable work.

Video of the week: Why The West Doesn’t Care If Terrorists Kill Jews http://tinyurl.com/j26fe47

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SECRETARY KERRY EMPOWERS PALESTINIAN TERRORISM

By Ron Jager http://www.ronjager.com/index.php/15-oct-2015-recent

The writer, a 25-year veteran of the I.D.F., served as a field mental health officer and Commander of the Central Psychiatric Military Clinic for Reserve Soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since retiring from active duty, he provides consultancy services to NGO’s implementing Psycho trauma and Psychoeducation programs to communities in the North and South of Israel. Today, Ron is a strategic advisor at the Office of the Chief Foreign Envoy of Judea and Samaria.

SECRETARY KERRY EMPOWERS PALESTINIAN TERRORISM

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded last week. The experimental discoveries that earned this year’s Nobel Prize were made about 15 years ago. It took a while for the discoveries to be confirmed, and for the community of physicists to realize the consequences. “Waiting for the dust to settle” in physics takes time. In the Middle East, it takes even longer for “political dust” to settle. For Secretary Kerry alas, understanding the consequences seems to be beyond his capacity; his lack of comprehension concerning the changes that have transformed the Middle East and linking the current terror wave afflicting all of Israel to “settlements” only further empowers Palestinian Arab terror.

A "massive increase in settlements" built by Israel in recent years has led to the "frustration" and "violence" now stoking its decades-old conflict with the Palestinians, US Secretary of State John Kerry said at Harvard University this past Tuesday night during a question-and-answer session, “and there’s an increase in the violence because there’s this frustration that’s growing”. So the commonsense conclusion of this kind of reasoning and logic is that Palestinian Arabs who are carrying out the terror attacks against Jews over the past two weeks should be portrayed as victims who are presumably being driven to desperate measures by Israeli policies and should not be held accountable or responsible for incitement and the terror that follows.

Kerry’s myopic depiction of what is transpiring in Israel fits like a glove with the efforts of the Palestinian Arab and Islamic Movement leadership to spin tales about every single stymied Palestinian Arab terrorist in recent days – whether the terrorist was killed to halt the killed spree or disabled in the act.

Self-defense is defined as the inalienable right of an individual or a group to fight back when there is an imminent threat of bodily harm to oneself and likewise to others nearby while the threat is ongoing – especially in the case of an obvious deadly threat. This right is enshrined in law almost universally. It is born of an instinct to preserve and protect life. But in the eyes of Secretary Kerry and all too many Arabs – especially in the Palestinian Authority and among Israeli Arabs whom belong to the Islamic Movement what is an elementary natural premise everywhere does not apply to Jews nor to Israel.

The glaring hypocrisy of Secretary Kerry’s unfounded assertion of linking “settlements” and terror throughout all of Israel confers upon Palestinian Arabs the right to extract vengeance even long after the original pretext- be it true or false. This is the most infuriating aspect of Secretary Kerry’s thinking in response to the current terror wave and Palestinian Arab homicidal attacks on Israeli civilians including children. This denial for Israelis of the right of self-defense empowers internet brainwashed Palestinian Arabs to continue and stalk Jews innocently going about their daily chores throughout many of Israel’s main cities.

Secretary Kerry clearly isn’t interested in listening to what’s being written and said in the Palestinian Arab media or even on social media. There the message is clear. The drive to kill Jews on the streets or wherever they can be found is rooted in incitement based on Islamic extremism. The current wave of terror isn’t about settlements, borders, or a desire for a two-state solution. This is all about Islamic hatred, intolerance, religious bigotry, lack of human civilized decency, inability to be neighborly, instigation of young clueless uneducated people based on LIES (and historical revisionism), and a general culture of death. The barbaric killing spree over the past 2 weeks all stems from a religious and historical Islamic intolerance for Israel and the Jews of Palestine prior to 1948 who have had to put up with this over the past 120 years.

Secretary Kerry incomprehension and inability to hold Palestinian Arab terrorists accountable for their murderous behavior and instead blame their Jewish victims personifies more than anything else the self-imposed preference to live in a fantasy world in which enough pressure on Israel will solve the problems in the Middle East.

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE

By Victor Davis Hanson

For the full article go to : http://tinyurl.com/qyzpkup

The U.N. need only take five simple steps.

Perhaps we ought to broaden our multinational and multicultural horizons by transcending the old comprehensive settlements, roadmaps, and Quartet when dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, a dispute which originated with the creation of Israel.

Why not simply hold an international conference on all of these issues — albeit in a far more global context, outside the Middle East?

The ensuing general accords and principles could be applied to Israel and the West Bank, where the number of people involved, the casualties incurred, and the number of refugees affected are far smaller and far more manageable.

Perhaps there could be five U.N. sessions: disputed capitals; the right of return for refugees; land under occupation; the creation of artificial post-World War II states; and the use of inordinate force against suspected Islamic terrorists.

In the first session, we should try to solve the status of Nicosia, which is currently divided into Greek and Turkish sectors by a U.N. Greek Line. Perhaps European Union investigators could adjudicate Turkish claims that the division originated from unwarranted threats to the Turkish Muslim population on Cyprus. Some sort of big power or U.N. roadmap then might be imposed on the two parties, in hopes that the Nicosia solution would work for Jerusalem as well.

In the second discussion, diplomats might find common ground about displaced populations, many from the post-war, late 1940s. Perhaps it would be best to start with the millions of Germans who were expelled from East Prussia in 1945, or Indians who were uprooted from ancestral homes in what is now Pakistan, or over half-a-million Jews that were ethnically cleansed from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria following the 1967 war. Where are these refugees now? Were they ever adequately compensated for lost property and damages? Can they be given promises of the right to return to their ancestral homes under protection of their host countries? The ensuring solutions might shed light on the Palestinian aspirations to return to land lost sixty years ago to Israel.

A third panel would take up the delicate issue of returning territory lost by defeat in war. Ten percent of historic Germany is now part of Poland. The Russians still occupy many of the Kurile Islands, and Greek Cyprus lost sizable territory in 1974 after the invasion by Turkey. The Western Sahara is still annexed by Morocco, while over 15 percent of disputed Azerbaijan has been controlled by Armenia since 1994. Additionally, all of independent Tibet has been under Chinese occupation since 1950-1. Surely if some general framework concerning these occupations could first be worked out comprehensively, the results might then be applied to the much smaller West Bank and Golan Heights.

In a fourth panel, the international conference should take up the thorny issue of recently artificially created states. Given the tension over Kashmir, was Pakistan a mistake — particularly the notion of a homeland for Indian Muslims? North Korea was only created after the stalemate of 1950-3; so should we debate whether this rogue nation still needs to exist, given its violent history and threats to world peace?

Fifth, and finally, is there a global propensity to use inordinate force against Muslim terrorists that results in indiscriminate collateral damage? The Russians during the second Chechnyan War of 1999-2000 reportedly sent tactical missiles into the very core of Grozny, and may have killed tens of thousands of civilians in their hunt for Chechnyan terrorists — explaining why the United Nations later called that city the most destroyed city on earth. Syria has never admitted to the complete destruction of Hama, once home to Muslim Brotherhood terrorists. The city suffered the fate of Carthage and was completely obliterated in 1982 by the al-Assad government, with over 30,000 missing or killed. Did the Indian government look the other way in 2002 when hundreds of Muslim civilians in Gujarat were killed in reprisal for Islamic violence against Hindus? The lessons learned in this final session might reassure a world still furious over the 52 Palestinians lost in Jenin.

 In other words, after a half-century of failed attempts to solve the Middle East crisis in isolation, isn’t it time we look for guidance in a far more global fashion, and in contexts where more lives have been lost, more territory annexed, and more people made refugees in places as diverse as China, Russia, and the broader Middle East?

The solutions that these countries have worked out to deal with similar problems apparently have proven successful — at least if the inattention of the world, the apparent inaction of the United Nations, and the relative silence of European governments are any indication.

So let the international community begin its humanitarian work!

Greek Cypriots can advise Israel about concessions necessary to Muslims involving a divided Jerusalem. Russians and Syrians can advise the IDF on how to deal properly and humanely with Islamic terrorists. Poland, Russia, China, and Armenia might offer the proper blueprint for giving back land to the defeated that they once gained by force. A North Korea or Pakistan can offer Israel humanitarian lessons that might blunt criticisms that such a recently created country has no right to exist. Iraq and Egypt would lend insight about proper reparation and the rights of return, given its own successful solutions to the problems of their own fleeing Jewish communities.

But why limit the agenda to such a small array of issues? The world has much to teach Israel about humility and concessions, on issues ranging from how other countries in the past have dealt with missiles sent into their homeland, to cross-border incursions by bellicose neighbors.

No doubt, Middle East humanitarians such as Jimmy Carter, Arun Gandhi, and Tariq Ramadan could preside, drawing on and offering their collective past wisdom in solving such global problems to those of a lesser magnitude along the West Bank. –

Video of the week: ”The Story About Christians In Israel That Was Never Told” http://tinyurl.com/pq9ogmn

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CAROLINE GLICK CHALLENGES EUROPEAN AMBASSADORS

By Tovah Lazaroff 12.12.2014

For the full article: http://tinyurl.com/ks9v58y

Europe should apply a double standard to Israel when judging its actions compared to other Middle Eastern nations, Danish Ambassador Jesper Vahr said on Thursday, causing sparks to fly at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in the capital.

“Israel should insist that we discriminate, that we apply double standards, this is because you are one of us,” Vahr said during a panel discussion on relations between Israel and Europe.

Israelis sometimes ask why Europe applies a different standard to its neighboring countries, such as Syria, Vahr said. “Those are not the standards that you are being judged by. It is not the standards that Israel would want to be judged by,” he said. Israel should want to be held to European standards, not Middle Eastern ones, he said.

“So I think you have the right to insist that we apply double standards and put you to the same standards as all the rest of the countries in the European context.”

The Jerusalem Post’s diplomatic correspondent, Herb Keinon, who moderated the panel, asked Vahr if his statement couldn’t be seen as “patronizing” to the Palestinians.

Vahr responded: “I am not sure it is,” particularly given that Israel is the stronger party in the conflict and the Palestinians are the weaker one. It is “natural,” Vahr said, to engage differently with Israel, a country with whom Europe, including Denmark, has an extensive cooperative relationship with in trade and cultural affairs.

Vahr’s comments angered Caroline B. Glick, the Post’s senior contributing editor, who retorted that they were a “statement of contempt for our intelligence.”

“I consider Europe’s keen interest in the Middle East, specifically Israel, to be an obsession,” she said. “It is an obsession that Jews have seen from Europeans from the time of Jesus.”

Glick was particularly struck by Vahr’s reference to a common culture between Israel and Europe. “We have this whole common culture, I mean really? We respect international law. You guys make it up,” she said.

In 2001, the United Nations Security Council approved a binding resolution that bars UN member states from funding or supporting terrorist organizations, Glick said. That resolution, she said, has not stopped Europe from “funneling billions of euros into rebuilding terrorist-controlled Gaza.“This is in contravention of binding international law that you signed onto,” she charged.

But when it comes to Israel, Europe simply invents international law, Glick said. Europe acts as if it is required by law to sanction Israel for activity over the pre-1967 lines in West Bank settlements and Jerusalem, even though there is no such binding international legislation, she said.

“There is no such binding law. You guys are funding settlements in Western Sahara.You are funding them directly,” she said. “This is not a double standard. This is a singular standard for Israel. This is not about international law. It is about an obsessive, compulsive need to constantly pick at the Jewish state,” she said.

After receiving applause from the audience, Glick continued: “No, I do not want to be proud that you are looking at us in a different standard from our neighbors because you are not looking at our neighbors as human beings. “What you are saying is that they are objects. The only actor in this entire region are the people they are trying to annihilate.

“The only people who are supposed to be judged for our actions, and always poorly, are the people who are doing everything possible – more than Europe, more than the US, more than anyone – in order to protect the lives of the Palestinians,” she said.

For the video go to:http://tinyurl.com/ks9v58y

Editor’s Note:- We have been unable to get the video of the Danish Ambassador’s right of reply to Glick but will send it on to you, our readers, if we do succeed to get a copy.

From someone attending the conference, we have been informed that in his right to reply to Glick, the Danish Ambassador did not address the points raised by Glick but materially diverted the conversation to criticize Glick’s recent book.