“War,” as the Roman historian Sallust once observed, “is easy to begin but difficult to stop.” Americans know this to be true because they have lived it in places like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan.

For good or ill, after nearly 10 years of war, the table is being set for President Barack Obama to declare victory in Afghanistan and pull the troops out.

“By us killing Osama bin Laden, getting al Qaeda back on its heels, stabilizing much of the country in Afghanistan so that the Taliban can’t take it over,” he said in a recent interview, “it’s now time for us to recognize that we’ve accomplished a big chunk of our mission and that it’s time for Afghans to take more responsibility.”

This is what Obama had in mind in late 2009, when he authorized the Afghan surge and concluded that “it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan,” before promising that “after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

Those 18 months will have come and gone in July. Setting aside the bizarre notion that America’s “vital national interest” has an expiration date, the real question, it seems, is not whether or not “it’s time for Afghans to take more responsibility” but this: are Afghans capable of taking on more responsibility, capable of maintaining the institutions we have built to resist the impulses to jihadism, and if not, does staying the course serve America’s interests or does withdrawing?

Reasonable people can and do disagree about the answer to that multifaceted question.

On one side, there is growing sentiment in the White House and Congress to bring the troops home. Sen. Carl Levin, for instance, wants to withdraw at least 15,000 troops by the end of this year. This is a reflection of public sentiment. A recent CNN poll reveals that 58 percent of Americans oppose the war, and 54 percent think the U.S. should no longer be involved in Afghanistan.

It’s no wonder why the American people have tired of the war. With more than 1,580 American troops killed, $444 billion spent and nearly a decade of commitment fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, America has already made an enormous sacrifice. Moreover, many Americans simply don’t think this counterinsurgency can be won.

On the other side, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, wants to press the initiative. He recently reported that ISAF has “inflicted enormous losses on mid-level Taliban…and taken away some of their most important safe havens” and that standing up new Afghan army units and creation of the Afghan Local Police is reintegrating “reconcilable insurgents” back into society, much like the Sons of Iraq program did during the surge he led in Iraq.

Petraeus said last week that progress against the Taliban and other insurgent groups is “fragile” and “reversible.” “We want to ensure that Afghanistan does not become, again, a safe haven in which [al Qaeda] might plot attacks such as those of 9/11…The only way to achieve that mission, of course, is to help our Afghan partners to enable them to develop the ability over time to secure and govern themselves.”

Likewise, outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that “if we keep this momentum up, we will deliver a decisive blow to the enemy and turn the corner on this conflict.” The operative phrase from Gates’ perspective is “if we keep this momentum up.” As Defense News notes, Gates finds himself “sparring at a distance with White House aides who are pushing for a faster drawdown of the 100,000-strong U.S. force.”

Incoming Pentagon chief Leon Panetta seems to share Gates’ view, arguing at a confirmation hearing that “to be able to finish the job, we’ve got to keep the pressure up.”

The Bin Laden raid has caused a fierce backlash in Pakistan as the U.S. is accused of violating the country’s sovereignty. The Pakistani government now faces enormous pressure, at home and from the U.S., and has chosen to tote an anti-American line and deny any wrongdoing. This atmosphere is giving momentum to the government’s political opponents who are pushing it to become even more hostile to the U.S.

As written here last week, the Pakistani government had to know that the Abbottabad compound was built to hide a person of extremely high value. After all, a senior army officer lives right next door only 80 yards away. If it did not, then the country’s military, government and intelligence services are extraordinarily incompetent. Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani, however, denies that is the case and portrays his government as being both competent and innocent.

“Yes, there has been an intelligence failure. It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies in the world,” Gilani said. He added that it is “disingenuous for anyone to blame Pakistan…for being in cahoots with al-Qaeda.”

He said that Bin Laden deserved to die but harshly condemned the raid and said “Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force” should a raid like the one that killed Bin Laden be repeated. “Any attack against Pakistan’s strategic assets, whether overt or covert, will find a matching response,” he declared.

Earlier, the Pakistani army said it would bring down the number of American soldiers in the country to “minimum essential” levels and the Army Chief of Staff said there would be a “review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States” if another raid occurs.

Gilani said an investigation into how Bin Laden was able to hide in Pakistan would take place, but it is doubtful whether it will result in any meaningful action. The ambassador to the U.S. said “heads will roll once the investigation has been completed.” This was contradicted by the Interior Minister who said no resignations would be necessary.

Gilani and the Pakistani government are being criticized for failing to stop the raid and are now trying to ride a wave of anti-American sentiment, with some angry over the death of Bin Laden and others angry over the willingness of the U.S. to act on Pakistani territory. About 1,000 people have protested in Abbottabad and between 800 and 1,200 protested in Quetta and called for retaliation against the U.S. for the death of Bin Laden. The Supreme Court Bar Association is planning nationwide protests.

Despite claims by NATO’s military command — and President Obama himself — that killing Col. Muammar Qaddafi is not part of their military objective in Libya, they have set about to do just that. On April 30th, in what appears to be an attempt to assassinate Qaddafi through targeted air strikes, NATO missed getting Qaddafi and his wife, but allegedly killed one of Qaddafi’s sons and three grandchildren, a claim that Libyan rebels dispute and remains unconfirmed. Although the son in question happens to be the black sheep of the family and played very little part in the current fighting, the attack raises serious questions about NATO’s unstated commitment to directly effecting regime change in Libya — contrary to both UN authorization and President Obama’s pronouncements on the conflict.

Another NATO strike on April 30th badly damaged a non-military, non-governmental building housing the Libyan Down’s Syndrome Society. NATO is clearly willing to risk destroying civilian buildings, including schools, as part of its unauthorized campaign to take out Qaddafi. Nevertheless, the NATO mission’s operational commander, Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, continues to maintain that NATO is only going after clear military targets.

“All NATO’s targets are military in nature,” Bouchard said, “and have been clearly linked to the Qaddafi regime’s systematic attacks on the Libyan population and populated areas. We do not target individuals.” Such denials of the obvious parrot the official US position, which distinguishes between the political goal of seeing Qaddafi go and the more limited “humanitarian” goal of protecting Libya’s civilians from Qaddafi’s forces. However, not everyone in the international coalition is willing to be so coy about the real objective. British Defense Secretary Liam Fox, for example, has said that Qaddafi is a “legitimate target.”

When the United Nations Security Council approved the use of military force in Libya on March 17, 2011, it authorized member states, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, to “take all necessary measures” to protect civilians under threat of attack in the country. Supporters of Security Council Resolution 1973, including the United States, stressed that the military objective was solely to protect civilians from further harm. There is no authorization to use military force in order to bring about regime change through assassination of Libya’s leader or otherwise. Foreign occupation of Libya in any shape or form is also expressly prohibited.

Initially, NATO, led by US air power, adhered to the limits set by the UN resolution. It intervened just in time to prevent an impending massacre of civilians in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. It established a no-fly zone and attacked Qaddafi’s ground troops and weaponry to further protect civilians from harm.

However, when the Libyan regime did not immediately collapse and the rebel forces proved incapable of mounting a serious challenge without substantial assistance from the international coalition, NATO upped the ante. It made a deliberate decision to take the side of the rebels in what amounts to a civil war. It is also waging its campaign against the Qaddafi regime in Libya’s most densely populated areas, including the capital of Tripoli, with inevitable civilian casualties from NATO attacks added to the mounting civilian casualties caused by loyalist and rebel forces.

Supporters of NATO’s aggressive campaign against Qaddafi argue that the only way to make sure that civilians are protected is to get rid of the dictator who is harming them. However, this argument is fallacious for both pragmatic and legal reasons.

In Greece, a second flight from reality has begun in earnest. In Aphidnai, a small town north of Athens where local residents lost their exemption from a roadway toll due to the austerity measures forced on Greece’s debt-ridden government, a movement known as “Den Plirono” (“I Won’t Pay”) was born.  The sentiment has gone national, and many citizens brazenly refuse to pay highway tolls or bus and subway fares, which have risen 40 percent. In a country with a reputation for lax law enforcement, such a movement is apparently effective in the sense that many people are getting away with such protests.  At the same time, it is a recipe for economic suicide, as the specter of default once again looms large.

Greece is currently servicing a $159 billion bailout loan.  It’s overall debt is $491 billion in a country with 11.3 million people, which comes to $43,450 of debt per person (sound familiar?).  Last Friday, the Greek government addressed the current crisis, laying out plans to privatize some key government businesses, including Europe’s biggest betting firm, OPAP, and reduce its stakes in others, such as telecom company OTE, and the Public Power Corporation. Regional airports and port authorities will also be privatized.

“Optimistic” forecasts conclude that Greece can raise $72 billion from such privatization. Benefit cuts, effective tax hikes and other measures would save about $33 billion in 2012-2015, bringing its budget deficit down to about 1 percent of GDP in 2015 from 15.6 percent in 2009.  ”The government presented today a broad and specific mid-term fiscal plan up to 2015,” Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou explained to Reuters. “This shows the commitment and willingness to proceed with fiscal consolidation and proceed further with structural reforms.”

Unfortunately, the debt markets weren’t buying it — literally.  Borrowing premiums rose to record levels last Thursday, perhaps spooked by a comment from Werner Hoyer, one of Berlin’s deputy foreign ministers and a member of the junior coalition party Free Democrats (FDP), who said it would “not be a disaster” if Greece were forced to restructure its debt. “[If Greece's creditors agreed that talks with Athens] would be helpful toward a restructuring of the debt, then of course this would be supported by us,” Hoyer was reported as saying. Adding to the uncertainty was the fact that a speech by Greek Prime minister George Papandreou earlier on Friday to address the debt crisis was seen as lacking in details. Papandreou promised to provide them after the Easter holiday. “The plan will be completed in the coming weeks and will be then submitted to parliament,” Papandreou told a cabinet meeting. “Today we are presenting the basic guidelines of a roadmap that will lead us from the Greece of crisis to the Greece of creativity,” he promised.

Yet government has seen disappointing revenues due in large part to an ongoing problem with tax evasion, and a deepening recession which threatens to undermine fiscal targets required by the EU and IMF. Further complicating efforts are Greek labor unions which have threatened to once again go on strike to protest austerity measures they see as futile. “It doesn’t matter how much family silver they sell, it won’t work,” said Nikos Kioutsoukis, general secretary of GSEE, the country’s largest private sector union. “After these announcements, we will take action.”

Mr. Kioutsoukis’s comments reflect the anger of those opposed to maintaining the present course, including the I Won’t Pay movement, whose “civil disobedience” translates into outright thuggery.  Activists, who many Greeks believe are spurred on, or hijacked by, left-wing political parties, have covered ticket machines on buses and trams with tape, even as thousands of people refuse to validate public transport tickets when they take the subway or the bus.  Doctors from state hospitals have blockaded pay counters to prevent patients from paying consultation fees.  A bus inspector hired to crack down on fare dodgers was shot. Thugs attacked Antonis Loverdos, the health minister, during a hospital visit in Athens, and James Watson, the 83-year-old Nobel Prize-winning geneticist, was attacked as he prepared to give a speech at the city’s university in Patras.

Social commentator Nikos Dimou explains the ease with which many Greeks engage in such behavior. ”There is a general culture of lawlessness, starting from the most basic thing, tax evasion or tax avoidance, which is something that Greeks have been exercising since their state was created,” he said.

Jihad violence all over the country? What jihad violence? We hate violence, dude! We are pacifists! Hold my rife and I will make the peace symbol for you! "Most Pakistanis are pacifist, says survey," by Amir Wasim for Dawn, June 9 (thanks to Sanjay):

ISLAMABAD: A majority of Pakistanis don't approve of Islamabad's decision to join the US-led war on terror but, at the same time, they don't believe that the Taliban are fighting for Islam, according to a survey carried out by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (Pips).

Findings of the "Radicalisation in Pakistan" survey released on Tuesday show that 63.6 per cent of the respondents were against joining the war on terror, and 46.3pc were of the opinion that the Taliban were not fighting for Islam.

Even among those who sounded sympathetic to the militant organisation, 39.7pc condemned its acts of violence, such as attacks on girls' schools, cinemas and CD shops. But about 22pc of them did not know how to respond to such acts.

According to the survey report, Taliban has sympathisers mostly in Balochistan (49.4pc) and Punjab (30.1pc) who believe that they are fighting for Islam.

Surprisingly, there are not many Taliban sympathisers in Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Only 22pc respondents in Fata and 25.3pc in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa believe the Taliban are fighting for Islam.

However, 45.7pc of the respondents in Fata did not respond to the question.

The report reveals that Taliban do not enjoy much support in Sindh, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The respondents appeared concerned about the condition of Muslims and 77.7pc thought that they lagged behind other nations. Most of them (31.2pc) were of the opinion that this is because they had deviated from Islam. Only 18.1pc maintained that it was due to their backwardness in the fields of science and technology.

This is a recurring theme throughout Islamic history: failures are blamed on lack of Islam, and a period of bloody fanaticism ensues, until the people begin trying to find ways to soften Sharia's hard edges.

Another significant finding is that a large number of people (46.8pc) want religio-political parties given a chance to rule the country, despite the fact that the electoral performance of these parties were not "impressive' in October 2002 when analysts attributed whatever success they achieved to the strong anti-American sentiments in the country.

The respondents also expressed interesting views on Jihad.

Very few (2.7pc) were of the view that Muslims had failed to progress in the world because they had lost their passion to fight against their enemies. About 28pc people believed that Jihad should be waged against cruelty and not to spread Islam to every corner of the world as five per cent of the respondents believed.

A large number of the respondents (20.4pc) were concerned about religious differences in the country. They blamed these disagreements for sectarianism and religious extremism.

However, a large number of people (21.6pc) did not take the disagreements seriously and said that these had been preordained and prophesied. The survey clearly captures growing religiosity among the masses.

Not surprisingly, 65pc of the respondents said a person who did not pray five times a day could not become a better Muslim. Nearly 59pc of them said the struggle for implementation of Sharia was also Jihad.

However, about 81pc of the respondents considered female education as "extremely necessary" and only a small percentage (12.5) thought it was "not very important".

Nearly 23pc of the people surveyed said they did not listen to music, and (15.8pc) of them said it was because of religious reasons.

Interestingly, 51pc of the total sample endorsed Junaid Jamshaid's decision to quit singing....

"Yemen arrests 50 foreigners," by Mohamed Sudam for Reuters, June 7 (thanks to all who sent this in):

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen has detained around 50 foreigners accused of links to al Qaeda after intensifying monitoring of Arabic language schools, the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper said on Monday.

Al-Hayat said that U.S., British, French and Malaysian nationals were among the foreigners detained since a failed December attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane. The Nigerian suspect in that case had studied Arabic in the country's capital Sanaa....

Citing Yemeni security sources, al-Hayat said one of those arrested was a 24-year-old French man who traveled to Yemen in October from Egypt to study Arabic, even though he was fluent in the language.

Prized for the purity of its dialect and inexpensive living costs, Yemen was long a popular destination for students of Arabic. But over the years, foreign Islamists have occasionally arrived in Yemen in the guise of studying Arabic only to join up with militants....

It is predominately understood that Israel was in the right in her actions during the latest operation against the Gaza flotilla. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on the mark when he unequivocally stated that Israel “will never apologize for defending itself.”  The problem is not always being right but also being strategic which is Israel’s biggest challenge.

Consequently, the world was “outraged” the UN was “shocked” and once again we can see how Israel is held to a double standard that no other country in the world is held to. Israel is expected to always behave morally and treat the Palestinians with silk gloves in order not to hurt or offend them in any shape or form. The Palestinians, meanwhile, can do no wrong even when they openly engage in acts of terrorism.

Moreover, it is the hyper-sensitive focus on Israel by the global media outlets that draws attention to every flaw Israel has. Israel by no means is perfect but it is the only democratic country in the region which actually abides by a rule of law. The same freedoms we hold dear as Americans can only be found in Israel. Yet it is Israel that brings the U.N. Security Council together for more commissions and inquires than any other nation and holds anti-Israel kangaroo courts on a regular basis.  The stark contrast relates of course to the real threat – a nuclear Iran, which just a few days ago announced that it now has enough uranium for two nuclear bombs. And yet, somehow it is much easier for the world to focus on the “peace activists” of the flotilla.

The halo effect generated by Israel’s actions against Palestinians spawns the sympathy Palestinians want and yearn for as it depicts them “helpless” and illustrates how Israel is the true obstacle for peace. In fact, this is why the Palestinians and the Arab world at large love to quote UN resolution 242 whenever they have an opportunity. 242 has become the foundation for the land for peace formula drafted after the Six Day War, and a superficial reading seemingly places Palestinian/Arab brokers of peace in a position of strength. For Arabs, this “legal” prerequisite emphasizes the give and take aspect: if Israel valued peace, it would return land; if Arabs wanted land, they would give peace.

The reason Arabs love to quote 242 is that it is a deceptively simple equation; on the one hand it talks about the exchange of land-for-peace with Israel, meaning that there is room to negotiate peace. On the other hand, although we naively believe that it also calls for recognition of Israel as the Jewish state, that is not the case.

In theory they can say they really want peace but in practice it is very far from the truth. The resolution calls for “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” It deliberately does not call for withdrawal from “all” or “any” because the resolution’s authors knew that such demands were unreasonable. As far as “peace” goes the resolution lays on the bureaucratic boilerplate and calls for “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

The UN Resolution demands that Israel gives up some land in exchange for some, still unspecified, peace. Israel is still waiting. In the context of when the resolution was passed (November 1967) the Arab response was clear. 242 remains the best smokescreen for Palestinians and Arabs, since they say they want peace based on 242 but in the same breath, usually in Arabic, they reassure one another that they are committed to the “3 no’s of Khartum.” And indeed this position has not changed much over the past forty plus years: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel is still what motivates many Palestinians in their yearning for Israel’s death.

Today, under the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, “land-for-peace” automatically translates into “land-for-talk” because to most generous Americans and Europeans, talk – not peace – is all that Israel should expect, and possibly deserve, in exchange for territorial concessions. This is the motivation which drove Hizbullah to attack Israel in 2006 and Israel to act against Hamas in Gaza in 2009.

Talk is cheap. Land and lives are expensive. If the Palestinians really want to talk about Resolution 242 as the basis for anything, they should first get their own territories under control, stop firing rockets at Israeli towns, and start creating a decent civil society. Until then Israelis have learned a hard lesson that until the other side stops wanting to wipe Israel off the map, resolutions like 242 really aren’t worth the paper they’re written on and Israel will need to continue combating “peace activists” who work towards violence rather than true peace.

Asaf Romirowsky is a Senior Fellow at EMET and an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Turkey has been at the center of the now infamous flotilla incident involving a Hamas-connected Turkish “NGO” which attempted to run an Israeli naval blockade off the coast of Gaza. The flotilla was supported financially by Hamas and peopled primarily by their Turkish allies. It was purportedly seeking to transport 10,000 tons of humanitarian supplies to Gaza.  But in fact, Israel supplies Gaza with 15,000 tons of food, medicines, and related humanitarian support every week.  There seems to be more here than meets the eye.

Turkey remains a prime transit route for Southwest Asian heroin into Western Europe. International trafficking organizations that operate within the country, from Ankara to Istanbul and beyond, excel at evading narcotics blockades and interdicts. With all the focus on Turks sailing towards the Hamas seas, defying Israel’s determined effort to bar delivery of military weapons and material to the terrorist government that runs Gaza, one wonders how genteel Turkey’s own internal borders have been.  Does her treatment of religious and ethnic minorities model Western humanitarian values? Consider Turkey’s treatment of her Armenian, Catholic, and Kurdish minorities.

Adolf Hitler, a personal friend and ally of Grand Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini, the founder of modern-day Palestinian Arab nationalism, said in 1939:  “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Certainly not Istanbul.  For nearly a century, Turkey steadfastly has refused to acknowledge their barbaric genocide between 1915-1918 of 1,500,000 Armenian men, women, and children. Turkey will not apologize or even acknowledge the genocide they perpetrated, assuring that one of the most heinous war crimes of the twentieth century festers unresolved. American President Theodore Roosevelt contemporaneously wrote in 1918: “[T]he Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it…[T]he failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense.”  British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said: “In 1915 the Turkish Government began and ruthlessly carried out the infamous general massacre and deportation of Armenians in Asia Minor…There is no reasonable doubt that this crime was planned and executed for political reasons.”  In 1981, Ronald Reagan urged in a Presidential proclamation that the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust never be forgotten “like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it.”

Throughout the week, Israel has acknowledged and publicly regretted the loss of human life due to the flotilla incident, even as Israel has explained why she must continue blockading Gaza – namely, because recent experience has evidenced again and again that Hamas supporters will not stop trying to ship rockets, grenades, and anti-tank missiles to Israel’s bordering enemies to launch terror assaults against Jewish civilian communities. Meanwhile, Turkey still denies the Armenian Genocide ever happened.

As for the country’s Catholics, Bishop Luigi Padovese, a Roman Catholic bishop, was stabbed to death in Turkey on Thursday shortly before he was scheduled to depart for nearby Cyprus to meet with Pope Benedict XVI.  Three years ago, three missionaries’ throats were cut out in central Turkey. Their deaths were meant to send a message. The men were disemboweled, and “their intestines sliced up in front of their eyes. They were emasculated and watched as those body parts were destroyed…Fingers were chopped off…Noses and mouths and anuses were sliced open.” One was stabbed 156 times, another 99 times, and their “throats were sliced from ear to ear,” according to International Christian Concern, an American organization based in Washington, D.C.   There is no record of sorrow from Rachel Corrie backers or the IHH.

Under the Turkish Constitution enacted by Kemal Ataturk nearly a century ago, ethnic minorities were barred from expressing cultural distinctiveness in Turkey.  Thus, even as the United States is home to many foreign-language television and radio stations, the Kurdish language was absolutely banned in 1991.  Expressions of Kurdish nationalism continue to be repressed; Kurds in Turkey are restricted from giving their children Kurdish names. Turkey has moved closer to the governments of Syria and Iran in dealing with Kurdish nationalism.  In 1995, Leyla Zana, the first Kurdish woman ever elected to Turkish parliament, was sentenced to fifteen years incarceration for “separatist speech,” and her political party was barred. While she was incarcerated in Turkish prison, the European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize in Human Rights. (By contrast, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset was aboard the Gaza flotilla and returned safely to Parliament after the it was stopped.)  In the 1990s, the Turkish government was spending some $8 billion annually deploying 300,000 troops in southeastern Turkey to suppress Kurdish nationalism.  For numerical perspective, consider that President Obama announced last week that he is dispatching 1,200 National Guard troops to provide administrative support along the porous American border with Mexico.

Turkey killed approximately 25,000 Kurds in the mid-1990s, destroying some 3,000 Kurdish villages during the effort to repress Kurdish nationalism and producing more than 2,000,000 Kurdish refugees.  According to Minority Rights Group International, in a report funded by the European Union, as many as 40% of Kurdish women in Turkey are illiterate and nearly half the children of Kurdish refugees receive no education.  In addition, the government obstructs Armenian and Greek minorities’ school educational efforts.  The Turkish war against the Kurds is so visceral that it threatened Turkey’s willingness to join with American troops against Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in neighboring Iraq. In an official EU 2006 “Progress Report” on Turkey’s fitness for acceptance in the European Union, it was concluded inter alia that “Turkey [still] needs to significantly improve the situation of fundamental rights in a number of areas and address the problems that minorities are facing.”

Now that the world has been talking Israel for the past week, slowly coming to understand more fully why Israel needs to protect her borders from Hamas state-sponsored terrorism in Gaza, it seems it’s time to talk Turkey.

Dov Fischer is a legal affairs consultant and adjunct professor of the law of civil procedure and advanced torts. He was formerly Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and writes extensively on political, cultural, and religious issues.  He is author of General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine and blogs at www.rabbidov.com

The former speaker of Iran's Parliament, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, says the Israeli assault on the Freedom Flotilla is "just the beginning of the end for Israel."

He made the remarks on Saturday during a meeting with Press TV correspondent Hassan Ghani, a Freedom Flotilla activist who was recently released by the Israelis.

Haddad-Adel said the attack "opened a new horizon to the world" and that the world can now see the true nature of the Israelis.

He added, "The Israelis showed that they are enemies of humanity, not only Arabs or Muslims, but every human being." [...]

"I believe that tomorrow will be another day for Israelis. They are condemned by the whole world. One of the results that we can gain from what happened is the point that before this massacre, the Israelis, the Americans, the British government, and the French government were claiming that Iran is the most important danger for the Middle East and for the whole world, although, they knew that we don't want to make bombs. After what happened to the Freedom Flotilla, everybody is asking whether Israel is the real danger for the world and for peace. Which is the real danger?

Saudi Arabia's religious police are investigating three young Saudis who challenged the country's strict laws in a TV programme.

The two men and a woman were featured in a MTV documentary talking about how they wanted to subvert the Islamic laws of the country.

In recent years the rulers of the oil-rich kingdom have said they want to instigate reforms.

But lawyers say the three could face stern penalties.

The Saudi judicial system is based on a strict Islamic code and can hand out jail terms and floggings for people who break them.

Segregation

In the programme - called Resist the Power! Saudi Arabia - a girl named only as Fatimah told how she disguised herself as a boy to ride a bicycle in the streets of Jeddah.

The 20-year-old also railed against the traditional women's dress - a black robe known as an abaya.

She said she made her own abayas in bright colours, which she sold to friends.

A young man, Aziz, talked about his attempts to break the strict segregation of the sexes in Saudi life - to meet his girlfriend for a date.

"We are not free to live as we like," said the 24-year-old.

That's Sharia for you.

The four part documentary, which was screened in the US, also followed a Saudi heavy metal band who struggled to find venues that would allow them to play.

An official at a court in Jeddah said the films were being investigated for the crimes of "openly declaring sin" and a decision would be made on whether to prosecute in the next few days, Reuters reported....

As the world continues to demonize Israel for her role in defending her citizens in the Gaza flotilla debacle, pro-Israel demonstrators pushed back against the onslaught of invectives being hurled at the Jewish state in a rally that was staged on Tuesday evening, June 1st in front of the Turkish Consulate on E 46th Street and 1st Avenue, outside of the United Nations. Organized by the organization called RAJE, the Russian American Jewish Experience, over 300 rally attendees took to the streets in defense of Israel. Holding aloft such signs that read “Israel: We Stand With You,” “Gaza Peace Activists Don’t Use Clubs or Knives” and “Peace Activists Should Not Support Hamas,” the demonstrators held both Israeli and American flags and called for an end to Hamas terrorism.

Dovid Ha’Ivri of the Shromron Liaison office and a resident of the Israeli settlement of Tapuach said, “Any country in the world has a right to defend themselves and Israel is no different. Clearly, this purportedly ‘Free Gaza’ flotilla was filled with Hamas supporters who refused to cooperate with the Israeli military. They had their own nefarious agenda and it’s just too bad that the lives of our commandos were put in jeopardy. Orders should have been given that the Mavi Marmara be sunk. Israel has nothing to apologize to the world for and certainly Turkey has no right to pass judgment on Israel after the Holocaust that they inflicted on the Armenian population.”

Just several blocks away in front of the Israeli Consulate, several thousand pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas apologists gathered for their own raucous demonstration in which they spewed forth their own inimitable brand of vitriol against Israel. “The Israelis are murderers and pirates and they should be tried for war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said Ahmed Wahad of the organization Al-Awda. Insisting that the mission of the flotilla activists was purely a humanitarian one, he denied allegations that the people on the Mavi Marmara brutally assaulted Israeli commandos as they descended on to the ship. “Look, the people in Gaza are suffering due to the inhumane Israeli blockade of food, medicine and other essential supplies and these people on the boat were victimized by the savage Israeli occupiers,” he continued.

Members of the anti-Israel contingent began marching down East 42nd Street towards Times Square shouting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “No more US tax dollars for Israel” as they called for the end of the ‘occupation’ of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Video evidence of the incident reveals quite clearly that the Israeli commandos came aboard the boat peacefully, without the intention to inflict harm, when they were set upon by passengers wielding metal pipes, clubs, and knives. Several pistols were stolen from the commandos and shots were fired as one commando was thrown overboard into to side boat.

“It’s really pretty simple. At one time such terrorist groups as Hamas and Hezbollah believed that the best way to destroy Israel was to murder our citizens either through conventional warfare and through suicidal terrorist attacks. They woke up and came to the conclusion that such actions only garner sympathy for Israel. Now, they are keenly cognizant of the fact that the war they are fighting is through the media and world opinion, so the best way to destroy us is to force us into a position to kill them,” said Meir Epstein, 52, of Monsey, NY who traveled down to attend the pro-Israel rally.

Across the street from the Turkish consulate stood Turkish nationals and members of the vehemently anti-Israel Neturei Karta movement who continued to berate Israel while leveling epithets laced with hatred at members of the pro-Israel contingent. “Murderers, occupiers and pirates” they shouted while calling for the annihilation of Israel. “Israel should not exist because it is a racist state and we oppose the Jewish character of the state. Why should the Jews have their own country, when the land that they live on was stolen from the Palestinians. A country composed of Jews cannot be a true democracy,” said Fagria Behar, a Turkish national.

The defiant pro-Israel faction continued to shout, “Am Yisroel Chai,” (the people of Israel live) and “We have the right to self-defense” while police kept both sides separated behind barricades. “The fact that the UN saw fit to hold an emergency security council session to condemn Israel is nothing new,” said Ronn Torrosian, a renowned New York publicist and a board member of RAJE. “It is cesspool of Jew hatred and what these so called peace activists on the Turkish vessel pulled off was nothing short of a cleverly devised anti-Semitic lynching,” he added.

What best summed up the collective thoughts of the pro-Israel rally goers was a sign featuring an Israeli flag and the words under it: “It’s better to have a Jewish State that’s hated by the whole world than an Auschwitz that’s loved by it.”

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Lisa Daftari, a journalist specializing in Iranian affairs.  She is a guest contributor on Fox News and has been published in Frontpage Magazine, Washington Post, CBS.com, NBC, Voice of America, and PBS.  She communicates with individuals living in Iran and tells their stories.  In 2006, she was invited to show her documentary on bringing regime change to Iran to a subcommittee of Congress.

FP: Lisa Daftari, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Tell us about your work in regards to Iran and what inspires you to engage in it.

Daftari: As a journalist, I am drawn to human stories, particularly ones that demonstrate the effects that society and politics have on ordinary peoples’ lives. In the case of Iran, these stories are quite numerous and revealing. Whether it is a story about a young girl who was arrested for her voicing her political views or a father of two who is forced to work four jobs just to put food on the table, I think these stories are the best ways to understand the struggles of the Iran people right now.  It is a well-known fact that the Islamic Republic is a radical, fundamentalist and unjust government, but through talking to the Iranian people and understanding their lives can we better grasp how this regime plays a role in daily routine of the people.

FP: What has drawn you to Iran?

Daftari: Obviously my background, as an Iranian-American, has played a significant role in fostering my passion and interest in the area. Every time I had a research assignment or paper in school, I would find some way to do my project on Iran.  Growing up, I was incredibly cognizant of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, or the Enghelab, the word for revolution in Farsi. I knew that it had changed the fate of my family significantly and that is how we found ourselves living in this country.  My family, like many other Iranian families, shared these conversations and anecdotes at the dinner table. My siblings and I felt a deep nostalgia for a time period we did not live through and yearned to understand and experience that time for ourselves. Later when I became a journalist, I wanted to tell human stories in the backdrop of larger social, political and cultural issues. Clearly, starting with my own people felt most natural, particularly when the Iranian people experienced their most crucial historic moment only 30 years ago.

FP: Tell us a bit about the radical, fundamentalist and unjust government that rules over Iranians.

Daftari: The Iranian people see their government as an imported entity; a group of fundamentalists whose beliefs in radical Islam are stronger than their nationalistic ties to the country.  This clashes strongly against a large population of Iranians who consider themselves extremely patriotic. We also have to remember that Iran is made up of a rich cross section of various religions, cultures and dialects. Obviously there is no government that can represent them all, yet they share and celebrate the Iranian culture and old heritage they have in common.

Above all, this regime, cloaked in religious fundamentalism, angers the people with its hypocritical actions. They deny the people so many of their basic rights, yet we have extensive evidence of their own indulgent lifestyles. We know of their lavish vacations around the world, their lucrative real estate portfolios, their international bank accounts storing millions of dollars, and their access to some of the world’s best universities for their children.  The people of Iran are savvy and resent the double standards.

FP: You have researched the Iranian American community and its evolvement over the last 30 years. Can you enlighten us a bit on your findings and observations?

Daftari: The Iranian American community has developed an extremely unique dual identity. Over the last thirty years, many of these Iranians had lost hope in ever going back to their homeland, and likewise in ever seeing this government change. The result has been an Iranian American community that has emerged quite successfully. They are represented in all types of occupations and areas of business.  They have excelled in politics, music, film, fashion, real estate and technology.  They have raised their American born children to share an unwavering allegiance to the United States. In June however, it was remarkable to see how invested even American born Iranians were in the fate of their inherited homeland.  In large cities across the U.S., Iranians and Iranian Americans gathered by the thousands to stand in solidarity with the protestors in Iran.  They felt a real glimmer of hope with this political impetus that really moved the community.  They had been waiting for such a moment for a long time.

FP: We know of course that Iranians are still bravely protesting and being tortured every day. The fascists who rule the country are cracked down on the protests and continue to crack down viciously and sadistically. Your thoughts? What’s coming up?

Daftari: Many describe the Iranian people at the time of the protests as a pot that boiled over. The impetus, or better yet, the excuse, was frustration over a fraudulent election, but the reality was that the Iranian people, both in Iran and abroad, had been waiting three decades for such a moment. With every breach of justice, with every hanging, with every whip that slashed down on an innocent woman’s arm, for every stone that was violently hurled at a young Iranian’s head, the grievances had amassed.

Since last June, Iranians came out in protest during holidays and other commemorative days, particularly those momentous to the regime. They came out on these days to show that their grievances are directly against the regime.  By protesting on Islamic holidays and on days special to the Islamic Republic, they made a stand against the government and what it stands for. The people of Iran are incredibly nationalistic. They are patriotic and their Iranian heritage runs deeper and stronger than anything else.

We are coming up on the one-year anniversary of those protests, and Iranians are organizing for smaller demonstrations.  We are seeing an evolving Iranian force, partly as a result of the threats that the regime has made against those who come out and partly because the Iranians realize that to be shot at, beaten and rounded up and taken to prison is not going to be the avenue to freedom. The main issue for the protestors is and has been a lack of leadership and strategy.

FP: Why is it, in your perspective, important to talk about Iran in the context of its people and their experiences and disenchantment?

Daftari: In the case of Iran, it is imperative to get to know the people, their struggles, their experiences and what they really want going forward. The Iranian people are multi-faceted. Iran is such a vast country that has varying religions, dialects and sub-cultures that create a rich cross-section of Iranian culture. In the past, many would erroneously group together the Iranian people together with their regime, but since the elections, I think it has become quite clear that that is not the case.  The people of Iran have a 30-year-old story to tell. Everyone in Iran is and has been dramatically affected by the political landscape in the country; just as the lives of Iranian Americans and Iranians living anywhere else in the world have been remarkably shaped by the political on-goings of the last three decades.

FP: What are the chances that the Iranian people can overthrow the despots who have them imprisoned? How can we best help the Iranian people to do so?

Daftari: If we were to look at the Iranian dilemma as a social one in addition to a political one, it has become obvious that the people of Iran have and will continue to further out-grow their government. Although this regime has only been around for 30 years, as a result of the Ayatollah Khomeini-backed baby boom following the Iran Iraq War, almost 70% of Iran’s population was born under this regime. That is a very significant statistic. It means that an overwhelming majority of the country is young, modern, and under the age of 30. Even though living under the confines of a theocracy is the only life they know, many of these young people are overtly disenchanted with their government.  Overthrowing, or maybe better stated, shaking this government is inevitable. Their grievances are specific and prevent them from living a normal life on a daily basis.  They just want to live normal lives and be free to blog, to sign onto Yahoo or Google, to walk down the street with their boyfriends and girlfriends, to go to college despite not having any connections to the clergy, etc.

There is a lot of pressure on the youth of Iran, and that is what is propelling them to go out to the streets in demonstration. They want better, and they know it is out there. The Iranian people are smart, savvy, intellectual people who refuse to be represented by fundamentalist, tyrannical leaders who are holding them back. Whether it is through demonstrations or any other way they can voice their frustrations, they will continue to do so until change is brought about.  There’s a lot of hopelessness, and that’s what this struggle is about.

The question that is frequently asked of the Iranian people is: What can the rest of the world do to support them in this struggle? I think the answer has always been to unconditionally support them. It would mean to educate oneself about what is going on in the region, to ask for Iran stories when the subject suddenly escapes the media, to ask questions of elected government officials, and as taxpayers, to interrogate the United Nations on not taking a serious stance on Iran and its nuclear agenda.

FP: Lisa Daftari, thank you for joining us.

In light of the catastrophic spill off the Gulf Coast, BP has become one of the world’s most abhorred companies. While the most recent calamity may be an isolated lapse in judgment and preparedness, this is not the first time that BP has found itself in a high-profile scandal. From the current eco-crisis to disregard for international security, foes accuse BP of placing revenue above all potential cost factors. Following in the footsteps of past offenders like General Electric (GE) and Halliburton, BP is actively engaged in business and trade with Iran, despite the impending threats the nation poses to international peace and stability.

BP’s continued support for Iran adds the energy giant to the ranks of international companies that have defied the international community’s efforts to hold the nuclear-seeking mullahs to account by continuing to do business in the country.

To be sure, doing business with Iran is not necessarily illegal. Current and proposed sanctions do not prevent companies from engaging in oil sales. But with business practices not officially restricted, energy companies like BP continue what some government officials and policy experts see as morally-bankrupt business practices. The company chooses its current policy of Iranian engagement amid the country’s non-compliance with requests by the United Nations and Western powers to contain nuclear ambitions, not to mention increasing evidence that Iran has heavily assisted Iraqi insurgents. Despite these issues, BP appears unwilling to sever its contracts with Iran.

Such lax regulations have some wondering why the United States and international allies refrain from more restrictive sanctions. According to the Wall Street Journal, sanctions on Iranian oil exports would likely increase world-wide costs, which, in turn, would potentially lead to an increase in U.S. gasoline prices well beyond their currently elevated status. Furthermore, officials suspect that an oil embargo would create economic instability for U.S. allies who are already experiencing fiscal woes. As a result, the WSJ reports that “…companies like Shell and BP PLC continue to do a brisk business buying Iranian oil products.”

When asked about companies engaging in business with Iran, Mark Ware of Vitol Group (energy-training company) said, “Everyone buys from the Iranians—governments, states, other companies. It’s not subject to any legislation,” serving as yet another prime example of the “because we can” mentality that is likely driving BP’s current policy. Predictably, representatives from BP have been unwilling to speak to the press about the company’s Iranian business connections.

Despite very obvious ethical contradictions, BP claims to embrace honesty and integrity. According to the company’s web site, “As one of the world’s leading companies, we have a responsibility to set high standards: to be, and be seen to be, a business which is committed to integrity.” BP goes on to state that it can best be characterized by four key words – progressive, responsible, innovative and performance-driven. Ironically, recent developments show BP at a loss in each key area, as gallons of oil continue to siphon into Gulf waters. Furthermore, ongoing business relations with a rogue nation do little to validate BP’s self-professed zeal for incorruptibility.

When it comes to choosing whether to engage in Iranian business interests, the ethical answer is explicit, yet BP has been inconsistent and indecisive in its approach. In 2005, BP’s Chief Executive John Browne said the following regarding the company’s business relations with Iran: “To do business with Iran at the moment would be offensive to the United States, and therefore against BP’s interests. We’re very heavily influenced by our American position.” While this stance appears firmly solidified, Browne took a very different tone in 2001. According to Business Week, at that time Browne was growing impatient with the U.S. government’s strained relations with Iran. According to the article, “Sources close to BP say Browne recently told Vice-President Dick Cheney, who was reviewing U.S. energy policy, that BP had been more than generous in waiting for the situation between the U.S. and Iran to improve.”

According to a 2005 Guardian article, prior to the 9/11 attacks BP was looking to invest in Iran. However, the attacks made such a venture less viable, as Browne said, “Right now it is impractical for BP because 40% of BP is in the US and we are the largest producer of oil and gas in the US. Politically Iran is not a flyer. One day I hope it is.” Here again, the concern is rooted in politics and the explanation is devoid of any allegiance to the nations in which BP primarily operates. Nowhere does BP’s rhetoric match the company’s penchant for truth and integrity. The focus was on BP’s bottom line.

In 2010, The New York Times reported on 74 companies who have done business with Iran, while receiving monies from the U.S. government. BP is listed as an “active” Iranian business partner, admitting to providing Iran with gasoline until 2008 – just three years after the company made public claims about its plans to cease working with Iran.  During this time, BP also admits to “…operating two fields and a pipeline” outside the rogue nation; the National Iranian Oil Company had a stake in this property. Currently, the company purchases “small quantities of crude oil” from Iran.

While BP is not necessarily violating the law by economically engaging Iran, U.S. leaders and policy experts fear that companies who ignore Iranian noncompliance with the UN and Western powers are only emboldening the nation’s leaders. Between the Gulf oil spill, which will likely have lasting environmental impact, and BP’s current Iranian policy, the company will likely remain under fire for months to come.

PBS's Tavis Smiley recently claimed that "every single day in this country" Christians commit terrorist acts. Interviewing the heroic ex-Muslim freedom fighter Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Smiley repeated common leftist dogmas about how Christian terrorists are more numerous and violent than Muslim terrorists, and have committed more terrorist acts inside the U.S. than Muslims have. Smiley's views are silly, but they're also ultimately misleading and dangerous, as they divert attention from the genuine threat from Islamic jihadists and, by sapping our civilizational self-confidence, weaken our ability and will to resist those jihadists.

On the show, Hirsi Ali was speaking about Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Islamic jihadist and U.S. Army psychologist who, shouting "Allahu akbar," murdered 13 people at Fort Hood last November; and about Faisal Shahzad, the jihadist with ties to the Pakistani Taliban, who attempted to set off a car bomb in Times Square just weeks ago. "Somehow," said Hirsi Ali, "the idea got into their minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do and that they would be rewarded in the hereafter."

Actually, there is no mystery about how they got this idea. The Koran guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111). Recruiters for suicide bombings the world over use this verse to promise Muslims troubled by a guilty conscience that they can be free of fears of hell if they kill some infidels and die in the process. But instead of asking Hirsi Ali to elucidate the motivations of such people, Smiley played the moral equivalence card, asserting: "Christians do that every single day in this country."

Hirsi Ali, an atheist, but realistic and clear-eyed enough not to fall for Smiley's moral-equivalence con job, was incredulous, and asked Smiley: "Do they blow people up?"

Smiley plowed doggedly ahead into Rosie ("Radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam") O'Donnell fantasyland: "Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that's what Columbine is -- I could do this all day long. There are so many more examples of Christians -- and I happen to be a Christian. That's back to this notion of your idealizing Christianity in my mind, to my read. There are so many more examples, Ayaan, of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples of Muslims who have done that inside this country, where you live and work."

Smiley, like so many others, is ignorant of or indifferent to the key distinction here: that neither the Columbine killers nor any other mass murderer that he could invoke, even if they come from a Christian background, were motivated to kill by Christian texts and teachings. Islamic jihadists, in contrast, invoke Islamic texts and teachings both to justify their actions and make recruits among peaceful Muslims....

Read it all.

Mohamed Nazim, a man who posed a question to Wahhabi televengalist Zakir Naik has become the country's first prisoner of conscience since president since Nasheed took office in 2008.

Nazim asked Naik the verdict in Islam for individuals who were still struggling to decide on faith in a country such as the Maldives, where most people practise religion not by choice but because they inherited it from their parents.

Naik's jumbled response that the Maldives government should decide the plight of such people suggests that he hadn't properly researched the country to which he had come to lecture. Clearly unused to intelligent debate, Naik then went on the insult Nazim's knowledge of Islam and education.

"Don't try to be too smart," he told Nazim. "I have to educate you from scratch."

Following the exchange, a section of Naik's auidence hounded Nazim and allegedly attacked him before police took him away.

The latest news is that police have now obtained a court order to extend Nazim's detention. But Maldivian judges have not extended similar cooperation to police for people accused of murder, child abuse and rape.

Mohamed Nazim did say he was not a believer of Islam, but it could be argued that he was speaking hyphothetically to elicit an answer from Zakir Naik. Only Nazim himself can verify his religous stance.

Nazim has effectively become the country's first prisoner of conscience since Mohamed Nasheed, a self-professed champion of free speech and democracy, took office.

While Article 9 (b) of the Maldives constitution states a citizen of Maldives may not be deprived of citizenship, 9 (d) states that a non-Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives. And, Article 10 states that state religion is Islam and that no law contrary to any tenet of Islam shall be enacted in the Maldives. [...]

To my knowledge none of Nazim's alleged attackers have been arrested for taking the law into their hands, even though they must have been caught on TV.

Meanwhile, although Naik himself is reported to have said things which might be contrary to Maldivian law, such as promoting under-aged marriage, no one has called for the arrest of the preacher yet.

Memorial Day is a great and wonderful way to remember our patriotic heroes who sacrificed their lives to help us breathe the air of freedom. This day is observed with families and friends visiting cemeteries and memorials to pay homage to their loved and forgotten ones.

“Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.”
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Memorial Day was first celebrated on May 30, 1868. It was observed by placing flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers during the first national celebration. Gen. James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which around 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who were buried there.

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. This date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

The alternative name of “Memorial Day” was first used in 1882. It did not become more common until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. On June 28, 1968, the United States Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved three holidays from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend. The holidays included Washington’s Birthday, now celebrated as Presidents’ Day; Veterans Day and Memorial Day. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971.

Red Poppies are a tradition inspired by a poem in 1915, “In Flanders Fields,” Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

Memorial Day is a day of remembrance of those who have died serving our country. I tear at the sound of “Taps” played at ceremonies on Memorial Day. “We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them.” –Francis A. Walker.

It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the VETERAN, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the VETERAN, not the politician, Who has given us the right to vote.

I will tear up as well. We will be with our son, Scott, at his gravesite in Bigfork, Montana in memory of his service to our country.

Have a fun, safe, and memorable Memorial Day.

God Bless America and our great United States.

Noam Chomsky was one of the organizers and promoters of the MIT-Harvard campaign to boycott and “divest” Israel a few years back.  Well, last week Israel decided to boycott one of its own boycotters. Chomsky was refused entry into the country when he tried to cross over from Jordan, for purposes of giving an anti-Israel speech at a Palestinian “university” in Ramallah.  As such, Chomsky joined the very select club of people who have been prevented from entering Israel because of their blatant anti-Israel activities and their open collaboration with terrorists.

Chomsky was on his way to give an anti-Israel speech at Birzeit University.  (Instead he gave the speech by videoconference from Jordan.)   Now, Chomsky had been in Israel for visits before, and was even hosted at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheba.  In fact the entire “ban” was evidently nothing more than some bureaucratic glitch in the instructions to Israeli border passport checkers.  Chomsky was invited at the Jordan River Crossing to enter the country instead through the Tel Aviv airport.  Ironically, the Israeli bureaucratic glitch resulted in Israel accidentally doing the right thing.

But this did not prevent a worldwide campaign of anti-Israel vilification by the usual crowd, denouncing Israel for the “banning” of Chomsky, complete with denunciations of “Israeli fascism.”   Led by the Daily Kos, the leftist blogs declared, “Chomsky was banned by the occupation army,” even though the Israeli army had nothing to do with it. Far leftists inside Israel joined in the brouhaha. Chomsky groupies accused Israel of suppressing freedom of speech.  Never mind that there are sufficient reasons to keep Chomsky out of Israel that have nothing to do with his anti-Israel opinions, such as his friendly ties and meetings with the Hezb’Allah terrorist group or his long track record of celebrating and promoting Holocaust deniers.  In fact, no sooner was Chomsky denied entry into Israel than he popped over to Lebanon, and there met with the Hezb’Allah terrorists and attended a salute to Hezb’Allah chief murderer Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, as reported in the Ya Libnan, a Lebanese news service.

Chomsky himself denounced the Israeli decision to block his entry as “Stalinism.”  To tell the truth, when I first heard that Chomsky accused Israel of Stalinism I assumed he meant it as a compliment.  Chomsky has gone out of his way to defend Stalin and he publishes his own articles in all the prominent Stalinist websites.  But like most Stalinists these days, Chomsky prefers to label himself an “anarchist.” This, of course, is the very same individual who spent much of his career as the academic spokesman for the Khmer Rouge regime, the ultra-communists who can only be described as Stalinists on steroids.  Chomsky defended Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge as they annihilated the Cambodian population and he still doubletalks his way out when asked about the genocide that the Khmer Rouge conducted. He once claimed the Khmer Rouge actually SAVED millions of Cambodian lives.  Even far-leftist The Nation demolished Chomsky for his toadying up to Pol Pot.

There have only been a few other cases of people being prevented from entering Israel because of their ties to terrorists or their involvement in anti-Semitic or anti-Israel campaigns.  Norman Finkelstein, the unemployed hate-monger fired by DePaul University, was banned from entering Israel a couple of years back because of his intimate collaboration with Hezb’Allah terrorists. Others banned from Israel include  Richard Falk, the retired Princeton propagandist who has made a career out of denouncing Israelis as Nazis. He was denied entry into Israel as a UN “investigator,” because that UN “investigation” was nothing more than a campaign of lies and smears about Israeli “war crimes.” Falk earlier had been allowed to enter Israel as a private citizen.

Chomsky has, in the past, been welcomed to enter Israel even though he proclaims that he considers both the US and Israel to be far worse than Nazi Germany.  When not dealing with linguistics, Chomsky may be best known for his obsessive cheering on of terrorists and occasionally holding meetings with them.  Chomsky has pow-wowed with Hezb’Allah terrorists.  He has also long been a major promoter of Holocaust deniers. Like Falk and Finkelstein, Chomsky has long led the campaign to boycott and “divest” Israel.  Even a free speech absolutist must concede that there is some logic to a victim of a boycott boycotting that boycotter.  Chomsky has led the jihad against Israel’s existence for as long as he has been a public figure.  He is also a pathological serial liar.

Now, whether or not one agrees with them doing so, democratic countries, in fact, often deny entrance to people whose opinions or politics they find repulsive.  The very same people now whining about Israel refusing Chomsky access to the country to engage in anti-Israel agitation were strangely silent when Britain prohibited 16 people from entering the country on grounds that they held politically incorrect opinions.  These included US radio host Michael Savage.  Before that, the UK banned Rev. Fred Phelps from entering the country because he is anti-gay.  Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a candidate for the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, was barred from entering the UK because of his opinions.  The UK has banned a whole host of Israelis from entering their country, including activist Moshe Feiglin.

The United States has banned all sorts of people from entering, not limited to those suspected of having ties to terror groups.  In some cases it was because of their political views.  Journalist Robert Fisk was banned for this reason.  Professor John Milios from Greece was banned.  Curiously, few in the world denounced the US for being a fascist country on that basis.  Tariq Ramadan, the darling of the pro-jihad Left, was barred until recently from both the US and France.  Liberian President Charles Taylor and other leading Liberians were banned from entering the US because of their support for rebels in Sierra Leone.  Canada has also banned people because of their views or behavior, most famously the case of George Galloway, the British Member of Parliament because of his intimate ties to Saddam Hussein.

Germany, Austria and some other European countries routinely ban Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers from entering their territories and sometimes jail them when they enter.  Germany banned the Reverend Moon from entering.  And so on.

In the late 1970s, a professor of literature at the University of Lyon named Robert Faurisson wrote two letters to Le Monde claiming that the gas chambers in concentration camps used by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews did not exist and were a Jewish hoax.  Faurisson was convicted of Holocaust denial and hate speech in two trials in France, in 1983 and 1990.

Noam Chomsky has long been the most prominent defender of Faurisson.  Chomsky’s father had been a Hebrew teacher at Gratz College in Philadelphia (which I attended in the 1960s).  Chomsky the younger may be the most academically distinguished Jewish anti-Semite on the planet, even though his theories about linguistics have evidently lost much of their favor among researchers in recent years.

In the 1980s Chomsky signed a petition denying that Faurisson was an anti-Semite and saluting Faurisson as a “respected professor.”  Chomsky not only defended Faurisson’s “academic freedom” but endorsed the content of Faurisson’s anti-Semitic diatribes.

Chomsky also wrote the foreword to one of Faurisson’s Holocaust denial books. There Chomsky wrote: “Is it true that Faurisson is an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi? As noted earlier, I do not know his work very well. But from what I have read — largely as a result of the nature of the attacks on him — I find no evidence to support either conclusion. Nor do I find credible evidence in the material that I have read concerning him, either in the public record or in private correspondence. As far as I can determine, he is a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort.”

In defending Faurisson, Chomsky wrote: “I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson’s work.”

Now if anyone is looking for another reason why Israel should legitimately prevent Chomsky from setting his paws on the Holy Land, how was that?  Add it to Chomsky’s role in the Israeli boycott movement and his associations with terrorists.

Should Israel have prevented Chomsky from entering?  It was clearly justified in doing so. But was that the right choice?   Personally – I would have let him in and then immediately had him arrested him for Holocaust denial (if not of Jews then surely regarding the genocide of Cambodians) and anti-Semitism.  Like many countries in Europe, Holocaust Denial is illegal in Israel, although the law is never enforced against anyone, even Arab politicians.  And Israel has an “anti-racism” law on the books, albeit one only used against rightwing Jews, and Chomsky is clearly in violation of it.

Indicting Chomsky under that would have made such a wonderful legal precedent.

I’ve written on this site and elsewhere about the curious phenomenon of Jewish intelligence, so competent across the disciplines and professions—approximately .04 per cent of the world’s population garnering 18 per cent of Nobel prizes—and yet so feckless and inept when it comes to taking stock of its precarious position in the world and working to ensure its own perpetuation. I’ve suggested a heuristic distinction between specialized intelligence and general intelligence, with Jews excelling at the former and lamentably deficient in the latter. Jewish accomplishments in music, mathematics, literature, theology, economics, science and jurisprudence are legendary. At the same time, millennia of social and cultural quarantine must have their effect on the sensibility of a people, producing a creature who is always in danger of contracting that wasting disease which Ruth Wisse in Jews and Power has diagnosed as “the veneration of political weakness”—not a smart move given the bloody historical register.

There is also a powerful strain of self-loathing and self-betrayal in the Jewish sensibility, exemplified by the personage whom Wisse anatomizes as “the ubiquitous informer, or moser…For every Mordecai and Esther who risked their lives to protect fellow Jews, there were schemers who turned betrayal or conversion to profit.” This is as true today as it was yesterday and the day before that, and as it is likely to be tomorrow, assuming there is one. We can plot the long chronicle of perfidy along a continuum from the iconic to the picayune, let us say from Cain who slew his own brother to Josh Levinger today, an MIT lab technician and member of the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement, who invented the “Boycott Toolkit.” This is described in a press announcement as “a resource where users can generate lists of specific products and companies targeted for boycotts [and] locations of stores that sell each product.” To paraphrase Lee Kaplan of Stop the ISM website, who has written about this latest development, in today’s high-tech environment there’s even an app for treachery against Jews. And it was provided by a Jew. This is only another way of refusing to be one’s brother’s keeper.

Being Jewish myself, I have tried, intently if not quite successfully, to understand this mysterious and self-destructive tendency that prospers in the Jewish soul. It should be immediately evident to anyone who thinks about it that such indifference to the sanguinary lessons of history—whether out of a benign identification with the supposedly universal aspirations of mankind, known in Hebrew as the yetzer hatov, or the malign inclination toward defection from principle and unscrupulous opportunism, the yetzer hara—must inevitably lead to self-immolation. For that matter, to these traditional Hebrew terms we might propose a third, the yetzer ba’arout, or the inclination to ignorance, which is equally noxious and no less widespread. All three yetzerim invite disaster. In the last analysis, the antisemite does not distinguish between Jews; even those he regards as accomplices would not be spared in a final reckoning.

There is a passage in Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness which makes this running together of distinctions painfully clear. Referring to the Nazi cleansing operations in the Polish town of Rovno, he writes: “the Germans opened fire and slaughtered on the edge of pits, in two days, some twenty-five thousand souls…well-to-do and proletarian, pious, assimilated, and baptized, communal leaders, synagogue functionaries, pedlars and drawers of water, Communists and Zionists, intellectuals, artists, and village idiots, and some four thousand babies.” As I commented in The Big Lie, “the message is that we’re all incriminated. Warm Jews, lukewarm Jews and cold Jews are equally at risk. At the end of the day, the antisemite never stopped to take their temperature.”

It matters little which of the three inner dispositions or yetzerim governs Jewish thought and behavior, be it the tropism toward the “good” that issues in a kind of unanchored evangelism at the expense of one’s own well-being; or the inclination toward communal infidelity, the breaking faith with one’s  threatened collective for one’s own sordid advantage; or just plain ignorance,  lethargy and intellectual vagrancy. Removed from the social and political dynamic of what historian Robert Wistrich calls “the longest hatred,” hatov, hara and ba’arout lean alarmingly toward the same destination.

Psychologist Scot Gardiner in his recent publication Roots, Episodes, Cohorts conceives of good and evil “not as a dichotomy but as a dimension”; those “at the ends of the scale” are still related. The same is true of the three yetzerim, the good, the bad and the ugly, which all have the potential to divert attention from the essential issue: continuation. In the absence of common sense—which a commenter to a previous article of mine felicitously renamed “uncommon sense”—grounded in a knowledge of history and a willingness to survey and confront the world as it is, in other words, in the absence of non-specific or general intelligence, none of the three catalytic propensities has much survival value.

To begin with, the unreflected practice of the yetzer hatov is no guarantee of divine favor and certainly not of earthly longevity. The temptation to embrace the high abstractions of universal justice, ecumenical peace and various lofty idealisms of purpose and belief seems endemic to the ethical component of the Jewish mind. Perhaps generations of Torah study and Talmudic speculation have led inexorably to a passion for remote implausibilities and the esoteric delight in intricate or elevated fantasies. Being lost in thought leads to being lost in the world, specific intelligence and notable accomplishments notwithstanding.

Albert Einstein, to take a resonant example, was by general consent a pretty smart guy and one of the two or three greatest physicists who ever lived. His mind could traverse the mathematical contours of time, gravity and space—his proper discipline—but when it came to Israel and the hard thinking necessary for ensuring its survival in the boiling cauldron of the Middle East, he was a veritable dummy. Much like that dubious glory of the Jewish people Martin Buber, Einstein believed that Israel should strive to entrench a form of cultural Zionism in its communal soil. But he repudiated Zionism as a nationalist enterprise, which required the maintenance of defensible borders and a spirit of martial vigor and self-assertion. Speaking at a seder in New York, as reported in Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe, he told his audience that his “awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power.” A political innocent, he could not see that absenting such facts and qualities, Israel might never have come into existence or would have been rapidly obliterated once it had.

The same is more or less true of another Jewish luminary, Avishai Margolit,  feted as Israel’s “foremost philosopher.” A founding member of Peace Now, which should tell us all we need to know, Margolit insists that Israel should lift the “siege” of Gaza, forgetting that the so-called siege allows thousands of tons of supplies, medicines and electrical power to transit from Israel into Gaza, except when the crossings are closed owing to Hamas sniper fire and mortar bombardments or when the Ashkelon generator comes under attack. The great philosopher also appears untroubled by the prospect of suicide bombers and  guerilla fighters sifting into Israel as students, laborers and patients. Further, Margolit does not seem aware of the fact—he has much company here—that Israel is under no obligation, neither domestic nor international, neither legal nor moral, to victual and replenish an uncompromising enemy. What other nation on the planet would commit a folly of this nature? Margolit may be an acclaimed “thinker” but he is neither wise nor street-smart; the fatuousness of his proposals is exceeded only by the dangers they would unleash. In short, Margolit is a typical Jewish savant of emeritus caliber, crowned with laurels and showered with awards, dispensing nuggets of pseudo-sagacity, and completely irrelevant.

Then there are the Jews who embody the yetzer hara, the propagators of lies and harms. These are Jews like Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University, famous for describing the country that pays his salary, which he is apparently in no hurry to forgo, as an “apartheid state,” and for having raised his arms in solidarity with Yasser Arafat in his Mukataa compound during the last intifida. Or Bard College professor Joel Kovel who has published a book titled Overcoming Zionism in which he condemns the creation of Israel, places the term Islamo-Fascism in scare quotes, traffics in barefaced lies (“Israel’s bombing of ambulances,” its deliberate targeting of “humanitarian aid workers and UN observers,” its causing of ecological disasters, etc.), and opts for the one-state solution beloved of closet antisemites. Or poet Aharon Shabtai who in his volume J’Accuse vilifies Israeli soldiers as killers from the egg. Or author Shlomo Sand, celebrated in Europe for his recently published The Invention of the Jews which argues that the Jewish “nation” is a late social construct without historical or biblical warrant. Or Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, who solicits funds from the Saudis and flagrantly tilts HRW reports to excoriate Israel and “parrot Palestinian testimonies.” Or filmmaker Shimon Dotan whose documentary Hot House sympathetically profiles Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Tamini who murdered fifteen Israelis, eight of them children. Or the leftist daily Haaretz’s literary critic and belletrist Yitzhak Laor who champions the late, fiercely anti-Israeli Palestinian laureate Mahmoud Darwish (who compares Jews to “flying insects”) andconsiders Israel as a country fighting a “dirty war,” a killer of “unarmed Palestinians.” Or Middle East prof Mark LeVine who believes Israel needs to be saved from itself and that the Gaza war was unjustified, and cites highly contaminated sources like “a joint Tel Aviv University-European study,” Jimmy Carter, a Hamas spokeman in the Los Angeles Times, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), revisionist Avi Shlaim, Haaretz Israel-bashing lefties Gideon Levy and Amira Haas, and of course the redoubtable Neve Gordon, to support his bias. Of despicables like Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Naomi Klein and Ilan Pappe, nothing more need be said; the very names are sufficient.

Perhaps the worst of this lot, in terms of the empirical harm done to the Jewish state and by extension to Diaspora Jews as well, is the South African jurist Richard Goldstone, crouching like a spider at the center of a UN web of lies. On September 16, 2009, Goldstone tabled his United Nations Report on Israeli conduct during Operation Cast Lead, accusing Israel of crimes it did not commit while effectively exculpating Hamas for crimes it did. Goldstone’s strategy was initially to establish a moral equivalence between a country defending its citizens and a terrorist organization deliberately attacking that country’s civilians. As one delves deeper into the Report, the strategy becomes ever more insidious, presenting Israel and Hamas not merely as moral equivalents but as political incompatibles, that is, Israel is depicted as a terrorist regime and Hamas as a legitimate government. Goldstone also implied that Israel, but not Hamas, might be referred to the International Criminal Court. In the words of Alan Dershowitz, with reference to the breaking scandal of Goldstone’s apartheid past as a white South African hanging judge, “Goldstone is an ambitious opportunist…He has always put personal advancement over principle.” With Jews like Goldstone, who needs antisemites?

All of these “haraites,” if I may coin a word, have profited in one way or another from their moral delinquency, basking in public renown, cashing in on book sales and lecture fees, furthering their careers and assuming positions of public or institutional importance. Apostasy pays.

The constituency of the ignorant, the negligent, the indifferent and the apathetic is no less vast. The third yetzer is ubiquitous among the Jewish population at large but flourishes most conspicuously on university campuses. Leading the charge of the Israel-divestiture movement at UC Berkeley, to take a representative instance, is the Jewish group Kesher Enoshi which, as former head of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association Abraham Miller writes, “partners with the virulently anti-Zionist group Students for Justice in Palestine.” Moreover, “fully one-third of the Jewish Studies program faculty signed a petition on behalf of the divestiture resolution.” Even Berkeley Hillel has become problematic, “showcasing…Israel-bashing groups.” Jewish apathy, he continues, along with Jewish left-wing politics, promotes the Palestinian narrative while prejudicing the Zionist future. Similarly, as Daniel Gordis, president of the Jerusalem Shalem Center, says of Brandeis University’s Jewish students who objected to Israel’s ambassador Michael Oren delivering a commencement address, “one is struck by an astounding simplicity, and frankly, an utter lack of courage to stand firm against the tidal wave of unbridled hostility toward Israel.”

These students are enormously energetic in pursuing their project of delegitimizing the Zionist experiment which is Israel, but they are nonetheless totally apathetic in undertaking the quest for truth, that is, the effort to disambiguate the historical and legal facts stifled beneath the many layers of propaganda to which they readily succumb. A moribund curiosity and a lack of enthusiasm for real scholarship are infallible symptoms of intellectual lassitude. These students are obviously bright in their way, no doubt excelling at their studies, yet the simplicity of mind is also startling in their failure to recognize how they are ultimately delegitimizing themselves. Apathy and simplicity together constitute the third yetzer, the inclination to ignorance, of which these campus Jews are the chief carriers and the heralds of things to come.

These three categories of desolation will overlap to some extent. Where does one locate the plethora of anti-Zionist Jewish organizations, like J Street, the New Israel Fund, the Committee on New Alternatives in the Middle East, the Union for Progressive Zionists, the Israel Policy Forum, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace (Brit Tzedek V’Shalom), Rabbis for Human Rights, Gisha, Peace Now, B’Tselem, the American Jewish Committee, Choice (Breira), the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, Independent Jewish Voices, the Union for Reform Judaism and most recently JCall, among hundreds of simulacra? Some of their members will be motivated by what they regard as a higher vocation, generally of a leftist stamp, others are in the game to advance their own narrow interests, and still others have little idea of the consequences of their lobbying. But like their assorted compatriots, they too are tarred by the promiscuousyetzer brush.

I have presented merely a random sampling from all sides of the yetzerdivide—scientists, philosophers, poets, sophists, casuists, professors, students, organizers, the whole megilla. What they all share in various degrees is a specialized intelligence that generates proficiency in their respective fields. But they have something else in common too, namely, an inability to connect with the reality of a world that has rarely managed to welcome or accommodate the Jew in its midst. What is missing here isordinary smarts.

There are, of course, exemplary figures blessed with prodigies of (un)common sense and worldly perceptiveness, from, say, the great Halachic scholar Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman (the Vilna Gaon) for whom secular knowledge, particularly history and geography, were paramount concerns, and the founder of the Zionist movement Theodor Herzl, to contemporary political writers like Caroline Glick, Sarah Honig, Barry Rubin, David Horowitz, David Hornik and Dennis Prager, among others. I suspect they comprise the exceptions. But for so many Jews, both among the acclaimed and the general public, an education in the ways of the world is asine qua non. And especially for Jews distracted by the yetzerim—even the admittedly noble yetzer hatov—such an education would enable them to adopt the necessary strategies for survival, to wit, waking consciousness, group solidarity and a belated awareness that the state of the Jews is inseparable from the Jewish state.

How to acquire this education, this inclination to worldly knowledge and pragmatic intelligence—let us call it the yetzer hada’at, the most essential impulse of all—is obviously another question entirely. But one thing is certain. Knowledge of the temporal domains of history, politics and culture, and of one’s place in the unfolding drama of human relations, is the ground of perseverance. Only thus can Jews subject to the enchantments of rootless exaltations, venal self-aggrandizement and congenial mental indolence finally repudiate the derisory pageant of the foolish, the contemptible and the ignorant. For moral and intellectual redemption is the condition of communal survival.

"Kenya court rules Islamic courts are illegal," from the BBC, May 24 (thanks to Davida):

Kenya's Islamic courts are illegal and discriminatory, a panel of judges has ruled.

The three judges said the Islamic "Kadhi" courts favoured Islam over other faiths, and that this was unconstitutional as Kenya was a secular country.

The issue of Islamic courts has been a contentious point in the country's new proposed constitution.

It is due to go to a referendum in August.

The Kadhi courts - set up under British colonial rule - mainly deal with matters of marriage and inheritance for Kenya's Muslim minority.

The Christian church in Kenya brought the case to court six years ago....

Any journalist who has studied [George] Soros with sufficient attentiveness has learned to greet his public utterances with skepticism. Soros evinces, at times, what can only be called a professional pride in his skill at deception. His work affords him ample opportunity to hone this skill. Soros’s Open Society foundations have facilitated coups and rebellions in many countries, always ostensibly in the interests of “democratization.” In a 1995 profile in The New Yorker, Soros told journalist Connie Bruck that the “subversive” mission of his Open Society network has required him to wear a variety of masks through the years. In some countries, Soros would adopt a pro-communist pose while in others he would play the anti-communist. Only Soros himself knew where he really stood – and perhaps not even Soros. “I would say one thing in one country, and another thing in another country,” he laughed.

The November 2003 uprising that toppled Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze is a case in point. While visiting Ukraine, Soros categorically denied press reports linking him to the coup. He told reporters in Kiev on March 31, 2004, “Everything in Georgia was done by its people, not by me. I had nothing to do with it.” However, in July The Los Angeles Times quoted Soros thus: “I’m delighted by what happened in Georgia, and I take great pride in having contributed to it.” Which version is to be believed? In many ways, the Shadow Party reflects the personality of its creator, an institutional manifestation of its author’s fascination with smoke and mirrors. Secrecy, misdirection and disinformation are its stock-in-trade. A fog of deception cloaks its operations at every level.

– The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hilary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party

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