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~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

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Category Archives: Islamic Small Wars

Cryptic – Integrity | Loyalty

09 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by commart in A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Philosophy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

disingenuous speech, idealism, integrity, lying, malignant narcissism, political exploitation, political theater, propaganda, theft

You may have your integrity before God; your adversary does not; he has loyalty leveraged by fear, greed, or need: the father can be a very bad father — and in that is the fighting.

Link – On Political Manipulation – How the Palestinians, Among Others, are Played

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Political Psychology, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Israel, media exploitation, Palestinian, propaganda, red-green alliance

“In an unseen control room, to the producers’ signal, as I responded with words like ‘coexistence’, ‘integration’ or ‘pluralism’, a technician pulled the trigger and rolled the stock ‘Israel as a terrorist state’ footage; detonating my truthful and universal message. I had been reduced to an instrument of rank media opportunism.”

http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/9411652/a-muslims-ambush-weekend-sunrise-bares-its-anti-israel-bias/ – 1/8 (10)/2015.

Related:

I’ve been appearing a lot on Iran’s Press TV Show the Debate. Anyone who watches the show can see it’s not really a true debate, but a propaganda show put on by the Velat-y-Faqih regime in Iran.

http://kaplanwatch.blogspot.com/2014/06/im-back-will-try-to-post-more-often.html – 6/17/2014.


“Disingenuous speech” is just a fancy way of saying “dishonest talk” or, let’s get right down to it: “lying” — and as far as BackChannels is concerned, lies are told either to hide something (often the liar’s own thieving from his marks) or to get something (through deceit).

Test the thought on the oligarchs of post-KGB Soviet Russia now FSB-controlled neo-feudal Russia; or Ayatollah Khamenei and his brother (by the grace of the Setad conglomerate); on Victor Orban’s developing “regime” in Hungary; on the guy with the “White Palace” in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

There’s more to the politics played, I will grant you, but the destruction of integrity before a malignant narcissism and controlling (and frequently sadistic) will would seem a common denominator.

# # #

Jordan – Are We Going to End Up with “Hamasestine”?

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Jordan, Political Psychology, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Jordan, Mudar Zahran, Palestinian

Posted 1/6/2014

“They want to keep the state of enemyhood with Israel, and they want the Palestinians to think ‘thank God, we’re going to go back some day'” (7:55)

Mudar Zahran may need to launch a fleet of leaflets, posters, and slogans after all:

Islamic State group militants gained a foothold on the Jordan-Iraq border Tuesday when they destroyed at least six Jordanian border control posts, according to reports from Jordanian activists and Islamic fighters associated with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

http://www.ibtimes.com/isis-destroys-least-six-border-control-stations-jordan-iraq-border-1759922 – 12/16/2014.

The jackal pack of greedheads and zealots driving the Islamic Small Wars respect no weakness and take heart with such wins.  Like it or not, by either advancing or losing, they force the hands of power to act and reach decision.  The news of raids on Jordanian border control stations follows by nine days King Abdullah’s likening the fight with ISIS to “a third world war”.


This coming Friday, January 9, will mark the tenth anniversary of his victory in the Palestinian Presidential election. Funnily enough, though, his term was supposed to end six years ago. It didn’t — mainly because he’s called off every election since. Which means that this Friday will mark not only the birth of Mahmoud Abbas’ Presidential rule, but the death of Palestinian democracy.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/01/06/the-ten-year-klepto-dictatorship-of-mahmoud-abbas/ – 1/6/2015


The multiple pun that would be “Hamasestine” may meet its match in “Fatahlism”, for the worse Fatah’s position in the middle east conflict, the more loud and pushy the rant of its old man, “Abu Mazen”, the father who has protected no one’s interests but his own and in terms of what he is: another dictator.

While the malignantly narcissistic might define Palestinian progress in terms of harm brought to Israelis — Christian, Jewish, and Muslim — a more normal psychology might wish to watch for measures of progress in human rights and qualities of living brought to the refugees of 1948 and their progeny wherever they are living today.  In that regard, Abbas and much of the Arab world beside have accomplished nothing more than bad mouthing the Jews, and next to that old and boring behavior, modern and progressive secular democrat Mudar Zahran looks pretty good: at the very least, he questions the integrity of the old guards, royal and so-called revolutionary, while he himself has room today to promote his own forthright ethics, honesty, and objectivity.

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudar_Zahran

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/author/Mudar+Zahran

http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/12/09/arab-political-refugee-mudar-zahran-on-temple-mount-we-arabs-and-muslims-are-harming-al-aqsa-not-israel-or-the-jews/ 12/9/2013.

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West Papua – Where Foreign Journalists Are Not Allowed

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Papua New Guinea, Politics, South Pacific, West Papua

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Indonesia, politics, West Papua

Post 9/15/2014.


 NO

Freedom of the Press

Open Courts

Self-Determination

Indonesian State Impunity Promotes

Cultural Genocide

Murder

Rape

Theft

Torture


Until the hour someone sends me the “who, what, where, when, how, and why” on a breaking event, I, perhaps others as well, may not be able to do much more than add to the advocacy and compile whatever’s on the web in news and organizational support for this buffer that has been politically birthed between west and east, between democracy and narcissistic authoritarianism.


This Anzac Day weekend, we opened the first ever Free West Papua campaign office in Australia.

For more than 50 years, my people have suffered what I considered to be a slow-moving genocide under the repressive military occupation of Indonesia. During the second world war, the “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels” of West Papua came to the aid of Australian soldiers. Now it is the West Papuans that need Australia’s help in order to end human rights abuses so that my people can be free to live in peace.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/28/west-papua-my-people-need-australias-help-before-it-is-too-late – 4/27/2014.


Five West Papuans were killed when Indonesian military and police personnel shot into a protesting crowd on Monday, local media reported. Reports say the protesters were not separatist rebels, but community members angered by the alleged assault on a group of adolescents who had clashed with soldiers the previous night.

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/12/10/West-Papuan-killings-cast-doubt-on-Jokowis-promises.aspx?COLLCC=2682691678& – 12/10/2014.


The protesters, some carrying ceremonial Papuan hunting bows that have a purely ritual function, expressed their grievance through a traditional Papuan waita dance, which involves shouting, running in circles and mimicking birdsong.

The police ordered the protesters to disperse and then struck them with batons and sticks when they refused to comply. Police and military personnel then fired live ammunition into the crowd.

http://www.ucanews.com/news/sydney-papua-incidents-offer-stark-contrast-in-media-access/72686 – 12/23/2014.


For years I worked as a tour guide, sharing my knowledge of the region with those few individuals who desired a glimpse of what the National Geographic calls “one of the wildest, most isolated frontiers on earth.” But on this visit I wanted to verify a village burning in the Lanny Jaya area and continue filming the West Papuan refugees living in Papua New Guinea.

http://www.independent.com/news/2015/jan/01/spoiling-paradise/ – 1/1/2015.


Jakarta: Two French journalists have been sentenced to two months and 15 days imprisonment in an Indonesian jail for reporting in the West Papua province while on a tourist visa.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/french-journalists-thomas-dandois-and-valentine-bourrat-receive-twomonth-sentence-20141024-11b9pb.html – 10/24/2014.

Additional Reference

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/connect-asia/papua-activist-hubertus-mabel-shot-by-indonesian-military-reports/1062038 – 12/17/2014.

http://www.humanrightspapua.org/

http://paper.li/Black_WPapuan/1371945233

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/22/west-papua-mediablackout.html – 9/22/2014.

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/west-papua-forgotten-war-unwanted-people – n.d.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/the-human-tragedy-of-west-papua/ – 1/15/2015.

http://etan.org/issues/wpapua/2014/1409wpap.htm – September 2014.

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/9173 – 4/22/2013: “The military presence in West Papua is almost always accompanied by human rights violations such as killings, arbitrary arrests, rape and torture.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Star_flag

On “Uncontacted People”

The Indians’ decision to make contact was not driven by a desire for material goods, however, but by fear. With the help of translators who spoke a closely related indigenous Panoan language, the Acre Indians explained that “violent attacks” by outsiders had driven them from the forest. Later, details emerged that their elder relatives were massacred, and their houses set on fire. Illegal loggers and cocaine traffickers in Peru, where the Indians are thought to come from, are likely to blame, according to the Brazilian government. Indeed, Funai’s own nearby monitoring post was shut down in 2011 due to increasing escalations with drug traffickers.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140804-sad-truth-of-uncontacted-tribes – 8/4/2014.


So what do anthropologists who specialize in first contact say? Are there ‘uncontacted tribes’? The short answer is ‘no’, and while I appreciate SI’s work on behalf of ‘tribal’ people, I find it disappointing to find that they still use this sort of language. Any one who reads the material on their web page will see that by ‘uncontacted’ they actually man ‘frequently in contact with, and victimized by, outsiders’. Let’s take a look at the evidence from SI’s website.

http://savageminds.org/2008/07/01/are-there-uncontacted-tribes-the-short-answer-no/ – 7/1/2008


Posted 1/8/2014.


Caption statement by the Free West Papua Campaign:  "West Papua, Melanesia. Rally organised by the KNPB. These are the images the Indonesian government is trying to stop the world seeing. The Indonesian government always lies to the world and says that West Papuans who want freedom are just small groups in the jungle. In fact the vast majority of peaceful civil society want freedom. This is why Indonesia dosen't want foreign journalists in West Papua. Because every West Papuan who they meet tells them they want freedom. This is the truth in West Papua. That almost everyone wants to be free. This is the truth that Indonesia is trying to hide. West Papuans want to be free and Indonesia believes it has the right to torture and murder those who want to be free."

Caption statement by the Free West Papua Campaign: “West Papua, Melanesia. Rally organised by the KNPB. These are the images the Indonesian government is trying to stop the world seeing. The Indonesian government always lies to the world and says that West Papuans who want freedom are just small groups in the jungle. In fact the vast majority of peaceful civil society want freedom.
This is why Indonesia dosen’t want foreign journalists in West Papua. Because every West Papuan who they meet tells them they want freedom.
This is the truth in West Papua. That almost everyone wants to be free. This is the truth that Indonesia is trying to hide. West Papuans want to be free and Indonesia believes it has the right to torture and murder those who want to be free.”

# # #

Gülen and the Gulls (the American Public)

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, North America, Political Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Turkey, United States of America

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

autocracy, conspiracy, Gulen, Islam, malignant narcissism, narcissism, neo-feudalism, neo-medievalism, political psychology, political science, politics

In a normal public school district, you’d be able to tell who the vendors are, but in charter world, it’s purposely opaque. It must amount to millions of dollars of business that aren’t going out to bid, or that in all likelihood, aren’t even going out to Americans.

http://www.tbfurman.us/2014/07/a-patronage-empire-concept-and-its.html – 7/31/2014.

Related:

http://gulencharterschools.weebly.com/concept-schools-favored-vendors.html – September 2013.

Also from TB Furman:

Basic research, basic due diligence, basic critical thinking skills— these are the only things required to figure out that there are multiple connections between this transnational social/political/religious movement and the three charter schools in Chicago, that these connections are purposely blurred to keep people uninformed, and that this phenomenon is consistent with the established patterns of behavior of the Gulen Movement worldwide.

http://www.tbfurman.us/2014/04/taking-good-long-look-at-concept.html – 4/9/2014. Page contains audio recording and slide show, “Gulen 101”.

Related: Herkul – This Week: The Broken Jug: Droplets of Wisdom from the Heart: “Genius Minds and Flourishing of Talents.”  12/21/2014.  The main web appears in Turkish while the English version appears to begin on the page cited.  After practically and classically describing a narcissistic personality, Gulen goes on to say:

“By even developing a certain code of rebellion of their own, they might begin to refuse even very plausible thoughts developed as a result of serious pondering and forget the fact that doing things for the sake of God is exalted above all.

Actually, what lies at the root of such wrongs is a lack of learning manners. In the past, people who were responsible for education were very good teachers of manners as well.”

Behave!

🙂

And obey Gülen — as regards aspects of the autocratic, authoritarian, unreasoning, and cult-of-personality dimensions evident in the Fathullah Gülen story, Rachel Sharon-Krespin’s Middle East Forum piece (Winter 2009) contains plenty for related reflection.

TB Furman’s latest: “The Million (Billion?) Dollar Question Charter School Oversight.”  January 3, 2015.

Related: Sharon Higgins’ Charter School Scandals blog.


Today, despite the rhetoric of European Union accession, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has turned Turkey away from Europe and toward Russia and Iran and reoriented Turkish policy in the Middle East away from sympathy toward Israel and much more toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. Anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic sentiments have increased. Behind Turkey’s transformation has been not only the impressive AKP political machine but also a shadowy Islamist sect led by the mysterious hocaefendi (master lord) Fethullah Gülen; the sect often bills itself as a proponent of tolerance and dialogue but works toward purposes quite the opposite. Today, Gülen and his backers (Fethullahcılar, Fethullahists) not only seek to influence government but also to become the government.

“Fethullah Gülen’s Grand Ambition” – Turkey’s Islamist Danger – by Rachel Sharon-Krespin – Middle East Quarterly – Winter 2009, pp. 55-66.


Gulen, once respected by Erdogan, is now vilified and branded an “assassin” — a reference to Hassan Sabbah’s violent medieval cult. Thousands of public servants allegedly close to the Gulen community have been removed from their jobs. Some have been arrested.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/12/turkey-erdogan-gulen-war-benefit-lesser-known-islamic-groups.html#ixzz3NxZdUY00 – 12/30/2014.


“A Gülen organization controls the real estate companies that own their schools. They charge rent to their own schools and taxpayers foot the bill. They refuse to answer public records requests, falsify attendance records, and cheat on standardized tests. Yet, Ohio continues to grant them charters to operate.”

Scott Beauchamp quoting Matthew Blair in in article in The Atlantic, “120 American Charter Schools and One Secretive Turkish Cleric,” August 12, 2014.


No more tender a national achilles heel offers itself to America’s enemies quite like public education.

That Fethullah Gülen’s organization has run itself into trouble against Turkish autocrat Erdogan fits with the same emerging neo-feudalism that has surfaced in Russia, i.e., cabal of shady nouveau riche rise to operate organization out of the public’s view, exploit the same, any which way (and they produce sufficient tell-tale propaganda to prove it), and live lavishly promoting their favored or more convenient ideological or religious program – but then they must contend with one another.


There is a “Gulen Movement 101, Session One”.

This, however, is what I have listened to while working on this piece:

Sharon Higgins’ closing questions:

  • Have these charter schools been built on a foundation of exaggerations, half-truths, and lies?
  • Why won’t public officials publicly address this situation?
  • Americans are still in the dark because no national reporting has been done that portrays the extent of the GM’s (Gülen Movement’s) presence here?
  • Why are taxpayers — who don’t know about this group — being forced to fund these schools?

 # # #

Link – Pakistan’s Military Backbone Extolled

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by commart in Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

military, Pakistan, terrorism

A wounded nation on the edge of rage heard with sheer horror and disbelief as the mandated leader encapsulated the collective wisdom of the political parties in a committee that would take a week to decide what the plan of action should be. And then to ensure that no wound was deprived of any salt, Mr Sharif talked politics and joked with Imran Khan sitting next to him.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/809904/sharif-sharif-and-us/ – 12/21/2014.

# # #

FTAC – On Haron Monis – Mentality

19 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

criminal minds, Islamic Small Wars, narcissistic scripting, political psychology, sociopathy, terrorism

He sent out plenty of “signal” by way of prior crude verbal behavior and visible crime, but the targets of his mentality and those who share it have been slow to promulgate or reinforce sedition and treason laws and to inaugurate detention / investigation without charge in some form. In legally egalitarian liberal democracy, what is done to one must be applicable to all of a class of offender (abortion clinic bombers, for example, are terrorists too), and that may be impeding reaction.

I suspect Muslim-majority states have a deeper quandary as regards identification with these aggressors on two grounds: one is fear of mafia politics in force by these gangs — the feudal seem accustomed to doing away with critics and rivals; and the other involves buy-in and getting something out of the program (and that, apparently, equals some 63,000 Facebook “Likes” for a garden variety narcissistic murderer).


Carlos Bledsoe, Little Rock
Nidal Malik Hasan, Fort Hood
Dzhokar Tsarnaev, Boston Marathon (he’s in Yahoo news today)
Michael Zihaff-Bibeau, Ottowa

At best: an incomplete list.

I hesitate to coin a term in what seems to me, online at least, an ambivalent and confused field: the study of narcissism.  However, in relation to Bledsoe, Hasan, Tsarnaev, and Zihaff-Bibeau, on might suggest the existence of internalized narcissistic scripting.  Each discovered laid out (just for them) a ready made mission in “political Islam” (Erdogan’s Islam, Baghdadi’s Islam, Qaradawi’s Islam, all Islam where either autocratic official or dependent fascist follower endorse civilizational Islamic supremacism).  Once convinced by example and much reinforced by al-Qaeda or Brotherhood-type community-wide communications composed to encourage and incite bloody murder, these “lone wolves” (it has been claimed Monis had more than 60,000 “Facebook buddies”) are primed to deploy themselves and steal from the world the lives of innocents.

Additional Reference

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/22/world/canada-shooter/index.html 10/24/2014.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/22/world/americas/canada-ottawa-shooting/ – 10/31/2014.

http://news.yahoo.com/marathon-bombing-suspect-due-court-thursday-053742889.html 12/18/2014.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/doctors-supervising-ft-hood-suspect-nidal-malik-hasan-long-concerned-strange-behavior-article-1.414605 – 11/12/2009.


http://jihadology.net/2013/12/23/guest-post-abdulhakim-mujahid-muhammad-carlos-bledsoe-a-case-study-in-lone-wolf-terrorism/ – 12/23/2013: 

‘‘Like I said’’ there’s an all out war against Islam and Muslims in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Waziristan, Chechnya, Somalia, Palestine, Phillipines, Yemen etc. And Muslims have to fight back. Like I said before in a past interview we believe in an eye for eye not turn the other cheek. Now it’s a all out war on America and I’m on the other side. The side of the Muslims Yes! The side of Al-Qāeda Yes! Taliban Yes! Al-Shabaab Yes! We are all brothers under the same banner. Fighting for the same cause which is to rid the Islamic world of Infidel and Apostate Hypocritic regimes and Crusader Invaders and re-establish the Caliphate, the Islamic Empire and Islamic Law as was ended officially in 1924 by the fall of the Ottomans.”

Update – December 23, 2014

We allowed Iranian Man Haron Monis into our country on a business visa and then welcomed him as a political refugee. Charged with fraud at home, the Iranian government asked for him back. But we said no to the Iranians. When Monis wrote inexcusable letters to the families of soldiers who died in Afghanistan, describing them as pigs and Nazis, we excused that — delivering only a slap on the wrist of 300 hours of community service. Some called for his Australian citizenship to be revoked. We said no to that, too. We allowed Monis to remain an Australian citizen, a gift sought out by millions of refugees who are keen to embrace and respect Australia as an open, generous and free country.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/sorry-history-of-tolerating-the-intolerant/story-e6frg7bo-1227165583579?nk=10cef80bb687c64406dfa1a23f22fba2 – 12/24/2014.

To the left of this tile, the reader may find the more formally correct version of the epigram that goes, “Those who would be kind to the cruel are in the end made to be cruel to the kind.”

As noted, The so-called “lone wolves” among terrorists are not quite alone nor unknown to authorities.

The one thing they are not before committing murder: stopped.

Related —

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-siege-memorial-service-for-katrina-dawson-20141223-12cnqv.html – 12/23/2014.

# # #

Link – ISIS – Ukraine

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by commart in Islamic Small Wars, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

The Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) split off from Al Nusra in 2013 as the Syrian Civil War progressed. Geopoli.info has extensively documented its origins, where its fighters come from, parties that benefit from its action, unholy alliances and Russian-speaking commanders. In June 2014, as ISIS was making gains in Iraq, getting widespread publicity we came across a video from Eastern Ukraine – introducing “Islamic state of Donbass and Lugant” (“Lugant” is made up of words “Lugansk” and “Levant”) in Eastern Ukraine.

http://geopoli.info/?p=867 – 12/1/2014 – video included.

# # #

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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