Israel Is for Jew-Friendly Free Speech Only

And I thought that Israel was all for free speech!

Didn't Netanyahu attend the Paris demonstration of the world leaders in support of freedom of expression, even to the point of physically pushing his way to the front?

From "Israel Demands UN Condemn Iran's Holocaust-Themed Cartoon Contest":

Israel’s top representative to the United Nations is demanding that the world body condemn the Iranian government for hosting a contest featuring Holocaust-themed cartoons.

Ron Prosor wrote a letter over the weekend to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and global delegates urging them to publicly censure the contest, which is scheduled to take place this coming April.

The contest organizers said the event is a response to the massacre of journalists at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo last month. The magazine was targeted due to controversial cartoons it had published depicting Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, in humorous situations.

The organizers argued that the event is in line with Western values that preserve humans’ right to freedom of expression.

The contest winners will receive awards, while one cartoon will be chosen for exhibition at a museum featuring Palestinian works of art in Tehran.

Israel: Modesty Patrols, Orthodox Power

Did you know that in certain neighbourhoods in Israeli cities women are welcomed by signs inviting them not to enter the area unless they are dressed "modestly"?

How much do Gentiles in the West know regarding Israel - beyond the headline news about bombings of Gaza - and Judaism generally?

So-called "modesty signs", like the one pictured above, for years have been a common sight in ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods of Jerusalem.

They usually say: “Please do not pass through our neighborhood in immodest clothes” followed by a rather detailed description of the permissible clothing, for example "closed blouse, with long sleeves, long skirt, no trousers, no tight-fitting clothes."

Women are asked to obey the imposed dress code in wordings such as this: “Please do not disturb [or offend or violate] the sanctity of our neighborhood and our way of life as Jews committed to G-d and His Torah."

I wonder how many women dress according to the above description but, apart from Muslim women, my guess is that they are not numerous. To see what Jewish Orthodox women look like, see the photo above the post.

That's probably why Judge David Gideoni, who ruled in favour of a group of women who started a legal battle to have the signs removed, wrote: "The signs were meant to limit the use of the public domain by all women. This could create an expectation or understanding that the area in which the sign was posted belongs in practice to a certain population."

But what aggravates the problem is that Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods are not in remote areas: they are central parts of a big city. Many of these districts contain or are next to public buildings, offices or institutions, like health clinics and government departments. Jerusalem women need to travel to such places and, when they do, they shouldn’t be left with the choice of changing their clothes or being verbally or even physically harassed.

NBC News reports:

In Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such "sins" as wearing a red blouse and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.

In recent weeks, self-styled "modesty patrols" have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography.

"These breaches of purity and modesty endanger our community," said 38-year-old Elchanan Blau, defending the bearded, black-robed zealots. "If it takes fire to get them to stop, then so be it."

Many ultra-Orthodox Jews are dismayed by the violence, but the enforcers often enjoy quiet approval from rabbis eager to protect their own reputations as guardians of the faith, community members say. And while some welcome anything that keeps secular culture out of their cloistered world, others feel terrorized, knowing that the mere perception of impropriety could ruin their lives.

"There are eyes and ears all over the place, very similar to what you hear about in countries like Iran," says Israeli-American novelist Naomi Ragen, an observant Jew who has chronicled the troubles that confront some women living in the ultra-Orthodox world.

The violence has already deepened the antagonism between the 600,000 haredim, or God-fearing, and the secular majority, which resents having religious rules dictated to them.

Religious vigilantes operate in a society that has granted their community influence well beyond its numbers — partly out of a commitment to revive the great centers of Jewish scholarship destroyed in the Holocaust, but also because the Orthodox are perennial king-makers in Israeli coalition politics.

Thus public transport is grounded for the Jewish Sabbath each Saturday, and the rabbis control all Jewish marriage and divorce in Israel.

In recent years, however, the haredim have eased up on their long campaign to impose their rules on secular areas, and nowadays many restaurants and suburban shopping centers are open on the Sabbath.

These days, most vigilante attacks take place in the zealots' own neighborhoods.

...The unidentified, 31-year-old woman had left the ultra-Orthodox fold after getting divorced, according to the indictment filed by the Jerusalem district attorney's office. The indictment said her assailant tried to get her to leave her apartment in a haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem by gagging, beating and threatening to kill her. He was paid $2,000 for the attack, it said.

A 17-year-old who moved to Israel from New York five years ago said she was hospitalized after being attacked with pepper spray by a crowd of men outraged that she was walking down a Jerusalem street with boys.

"They can burn in hell," said the girl, who would identify herself only as Rivka.

She lives in Beit Shemesh, a town outside Jerusalem where the vigilantism has been particularly violent. Zealots there have thrown rocks and spat at women, and set fire to trash bins to protest impiety. Walls of the neighborhood are plastered with signs exhorting women to dress modestly — spelled out as closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts.

'Stupid troublemakers'
The state, catering to religious sensitivities, subsidizes gender-segregated bus routes that service religious neighborhoods. Ragen and several other women challenged the practice in Israel's Supreme Court after an Orthodox Canadian woman in her 50s told police she was kicked, slapped, pushed to the floor and spat upon by men for refusing to move to the back of the bus.

Another Beit Shemesh girl, who asked to be identified only as Esther, said zealots threw rocks, cursed and spat at a friend for wearing a red blouse — taboo because the color attracts attention.

...But the rabbis are afraid to condemn them, says Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, another community member.

"They can't come out against zealots who champion modesty. Here and there they write against violence, but the militants ultimately set the tone," he said.

Stores are targeted too.

'This store burns souls'
In August, a Jerusalem man was placed under house arrest on suspicion he set fire to a store in a haredi district of the city that sold MP4 players.

"It started about six months ago. They would come into the store, about 15 of them at a time, screaming, 'This store burns souls!' and they would throw merchandise on the floor and threaten customers," said 31-year-old Aaron Gold, a haredi worker at the Space electronic store.

One Friday night, just before the Sabbath was about to begin, "they smashed a window, doused the place with gasoline and lit a match," Gold said.

Now, a big sign behind the counter says, "All products sold in this store are under rabbinical supervision. By order of the rabbis, no MP4s are sold here."

Clothing stores that sell clothes regarded as provocative have been vandalized, and bleach thrown at merchandise.

Suspicion sparks attack
Girls have been expelled from school after being seen talking to boys, a punishment that ruins their marriage prospects.

"It could be very innocent; she could be talking to her brother," Ragen said. But once thrown out of school, "no one — NO ONE — will take you in," she added.

In one case, the violence reached the highest levels of haredi society.

Three years ago, a son of Israel's Sephardi chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, was accused of kidnapping a 17-year-old boy, beating him at knifepoint and terrorizing him with snarling dogs because he had sought the attentions of the accused's unchaperoned sister.

The son was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail.

His sister married a different suitor the following year. [All emphases added]

Reading all this, I can't help being reminded of the Islamic world in so many ways.

The Muslim Invasion of England

I know it's not new but I've just heard it.

A British Naval Destroyer stops four Muslims in a row boat, rowing towards Brighton. The captain gets on the loud hailer and shouts:

"Ahoy, small craft, where are you heading?"

One of the Muslims stands up and shouts:

"We are invading England!"

The crew of the Destroyer all start laughing and, when the captain finally stops laughing, he gets back on the loud hailer and says:

"Just the four of you?"

The Muslim stands up again and shouts:

"No, we're the last four. The rest are already there!"

Harf: ISIS Is All about Lack of Jobs

We have all seen the video of ISIS's recent horrific beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya.

Mr Obama, how many Christian terrorists have beheaded Muslims? How can you compare violence in Islam with violence in Christianity?

US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf was interviewed by Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball about the atrocity.

She mantained that “we cannot win this war by killing them [ISIS], we cannot kill our way out of this war”.

I don't know if it's possible to respond to an enemy that kills, beheads and burns people alive without the spilling of blood.

Harf went on to argue:

[The video of ISIS] underscores to people that it isn’t just a fight in Iraq and in Syria and that it’s not just a fight about dropping bombs on terrorists. It’s really how we stop the causes that lead to extremism in a place like Libya, the fact that there’s no governance, and there’s no opportunity for young people, it lets groups like ISIL grow there and flourish there, which is what you saw with this awful situation with these Egyptians that you just mentioned, but this is a longer fight, it’s fighting them on social media…they’re using social media to get converts to their cause and to spread their hatred all over the world. This week, we’re going to have over 60 countries here in Washington to talk about how do we combat this violent extremism together in the long-term, not just in the short-term fight.

Right now, what we’re doing is trying to take their leaders and their fighters off the battlefield in Iraq and in Syria, that’s really where they flourish…we’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them, so are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians they’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them, we cannot kill our way out of this war. We need, in the longer term, medium and longer term, to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs…

[W]e can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance, we can help them build their economies, so they can have job opportunities for these people. You’re right, there is no easy solution in the long-term to preventing and combating violent extremism, but if we can help countries work at the root causes of this, what makes these 17-year-old kids pick up an AK-47, instead of try to start a business? Maybe we can try– try to chip away at this problem, while at the same time going after the threat, taking on ISIL in Iraq, in Syria, and helping our partners around the world.”

This is a particularly absurd version of the old socialist position: it's the economy, stupid!

From Karl Marx to Bill Clinton, socio-communists believe that everything in human society is governed by the economy and every problem can be solved by trowing money at it.

"What makes these 17-year-old kids pick up an AK-47, instead of try to start a business?" is an especially ridiculous way of putting the question, in the context of Muslim jihadists. Materialists don't attach any importance to what people believe in, what doctrines and ideals inspire and motivate their behaviour.

That's why they're so badly equipped to deal with the Islamic threat, deriving as it does from a faith and frame of mind.

Harf's half-baked theory about how to address the big problem posed by ISIS echoes the "liberal" proposed elimination of crime in Western societies by getting rid of poverty and unemployment as its "root causes".

I'm not so sure that the US really wants to defeat ISIS. But this is not the first time that Ms Harf is out of her depth when trying to defend the indefensible: American strategy in the Middle East.

Videos: Muslim Children Learning to Kill

The Facebook page Australia says NO to Islam Sharia Law has the graphic above.

While Western kids learn how to avoid offending even the slightest sensibilities of all ethnic groups - except Whites - and religions - except Christianity -, Muslim children are taught different lessons: how to slaughter conscious animals and next how to slaughter humans, as the next video illustrates.

At a Muslim school for children, stuffed animals were used to accustom the youngsters to blood and violence, as the horrid (visually and acoustically) video below shows. The little ones are trained to slaughter sheep and other animals, including men.

They'll be ready for animal sacrifice, halal slaughter, beheadings and, if the worst comes to the worst, burning people alive.

H/t to Alessandra Nucci and ‎Pål Dugstad

Why Muslims Win and We Lose

Muslims fight for something. We fight against that something.

This is the big difference. We are fighting purely in defence. We don't have the same passion.

They are fighting for Islam. We don't like it, but we must admit that it is a whole system of living one's life, guiding a state and establishing its laws.

What are we fighting for? The ability to believe in nothing, pursue as many material possessions as we can, dissipate our lives and use as many swear words as is humanly possible. Big deal! That is really going to put fire in our belly, certainly.

People can be prepared to die only for something they believe in with all of themselves.

That's why Christian martyrs are legions while it's difficult to come up with many secular martyrs.

And people can fight with courage and ardour only for something that excites their imagination.

That's why Christian Europe was capable of repeatedly defeating Islamic enemies and remain free, while post-Christian Europe is doomed.

Here's how the great Pat Buchanan puts it:

T.S. Eliot said, to defeat a religion, you need a religion.

We have no religion; we have an ideology—secular democracy. But the Muslim world rejects secularism and will use democracy to free itself of us and establish regimes that please Allah.

In the struggle between democracy and Allah, we are children of a lesser God. “The term ‘democracy,’” wrote Eliot, “does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike — it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God … you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.”

Germany used democracy to bring Hitler to power. Given free elections from Morocco to Mindanao, what kind of regimes would rise to power? Would not the Quran become the basis of law?

If Charlie Hebdo were a man, not a magazine, he would be torn to pieces in any Middle East nation into which he ventured. And what does a mindless West offer as the apotheosis of democracy?

Four million French marching under the banner “Je Suis Charlie.”

Whom the gods would destroy …

The first comment on Buchanan's article shows the shallowness of the materialistic view:

Napoleon once said “God is on the side of he who has the strongest battalion.” Not: “The strongest ideology”. History is littered with the corpses of intense oddball gangs that tried to hit way above their league and were crushed. Bullets and bombs are ruled by mere physics, not fervor.

There are indeed many more cases in history of armies or armed groups who defeated stronger forces. If combatants are not motivated, they will flee or surrender.

It's people who fight, with whatever is in their minds egging them on. Weapons - even the most sophisticated - don't fight. The laws of "mere physics" can do nothing in war without a desire to utilise them.

In the case of our decadent Western societies, in which living a comfortable and easy life is a primary goal, fighting whatever or whoever threatens this cosiness defeats the object. So, given a choice between losing comforts and security in the future for not having defended them or losing them now in order to defend them, people prefer to wait and see if any possible danger will disappear as if by magic. When they are convinced that it won't, it will probably be too late to put up a resistance.

But hey!, at least we have protected - by doing nothing - our desire to believe in nothing.

Global Warming Protest Nixed Due to Cold

It's not a joke.

Yesterday a global warming protest set for this weekend at Yale University was cancelled because of the frigid weather and snow.

Fossil Free Yale, a pressure group that wants the Ivy League university to divest itself from fossil fuels, said the protest will be indefinitely postponed.

The Daily Caller says:

As this reporter writes this article, the weather in New Haven, Connecticut where Yale is located stands at -9 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chill. Saturday is expected to have weather in the low 30s with snow and Sunday will be 20 degrees with snow and rain, according to the Weather Channel.

This is not the first time that the weather doesn't play ball with the climate change brigade.

Many global warming events in the past have been held at sub-zero temperatures.

It's unlikely, though, that even the worst weather will make believers in Anthropogenic Global Warming theory reconsider their views: when in 2013 the UK suffered its coldest March in 50 years, they saw that as a sign of global warming.

This is what philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper calls "ad hoc hypotheses": in plain language, excuses to keep afloat a debunked theory.