It’s Not Always Critical

Posted on: November 6th, 2012

As the worse in now behind us, and yet with restorations efforts still ahead of us, I believe that the terms utilized so widely this week to describe a terrible predicament should force us to reconsider their use when, thankfully, tragedy doesn’t strike. Though my heart and soul are with those hurt by the storm, I am disturbed that so many of these very adjectives are commonly used to describe common occurrences, a far cry from the critical situation that so many Americans on the East Coast are facing.

Politicians Promise to Help Israel: Will It Be Too Little, Too Late?

Posted on: November 5th, 2012

"If Israel is attacked" is a phrase heard often by mostly well-meaning politicians from both American parties when they are out on the campaign trail, or even while holding office, to express their intent to come to the aid of the Jewish state. But as anyone who both follows current events and has any semblance of logic knows, not only is the phrase trite, but it reveals a certain unfamiliarity with the Middle East today and is even dangerous as pertains to Iran.

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The Islamists’ Need to Feel Wronged

Posted on: November 5th, 2012

When the truth finally came out that three loyal Americans and the American Ambassador had been murdered in Benghazi, Libya, on 9/11/12 as the result of a calculated terror attack and not, as the White House had been insisting for two weeks, a YouTube video made privately by an American and released months earlier, the President abruptly changed his discredited story, and surreally tried to slip the world into believing he had called that attack an act of terror all along.

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Even After Sandy – It’s Still Romney for President

Posted on: November 4th, 2012

One thing this storm has done is to give the President an advantage in the election this coming Tuesday. If there are no glitches, the President gets to look Presidential. This is something Romney can’t do. He is only a candidate. This will surely tip the close race in the President’s favor. But I hope it doesn’t. Although I don’t think Obama is a bad President, I don’t think he is the best President for the country right now.

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What the West is Funding: Palestinian Suppression of Free Speech

Posted on: November 4th, 2012

The Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria -ed.] has come up with a new method to silence its Palestinian critics. From now on, any Palestinian writer or journalist who dares to criticize Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his policies or demand an end to corruption will be accused of "belittling the dignity of the state." Since the beginning of this year, at least 10 Palestinian journalists, bloggers and political opponents have been detained by various Palestinian Authority security services for writing about corruption and criticizing the Palestinian leadership.

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Troops in the Streets

Posted on: November 4th, 2012

Every now and then an email comes my way warning about the day when the government unleashes the military against its own citizens. This day isn't likely to come because for one thing the current regime is not particularly fond of the military. The Obama Administration isn't inflicting massive cuts on the military, cutting their health care and pushing veteran officers out the door because it likes the military as an institution. It doesn't.

When All Else Fails, Play Gin Rummy

Posted on: November 4th, 2012

He recognized me before I recognized him. We were in Yerushalayim on different sides of the street. He was six foot two waving and yelling my name. “Noach, Noach, Noach Schwartz, the social worker! It’s me Yechiel Klein! Don’t you remember me?” He was wearing a hat, white shirt and suit and looked like a regular bochur from the Mir or Brisk. He did not look like the Yechiel I had met ten years earlier at a clinic in Boro Park.

Things You See from Over Here

Posted on: November 4th, 2012

We stare at the images of devastation, both to personal property and to the very shoreline of the Eastern Seaboard, and we are aghast.

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Driving The Iranian Regime Into The Ground

Posted on: November 1st, 2012

There’s no question Iran’s corrupt and abusive regime is feeling the bite of tough new sanctions. These sanctions are our only hope short of armed conflict of stopping Iran – the world’s number one sponsor of terror and single greatest threat to the state of Israel – from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The Importance Of Strong Management In Day Schools

Posted on: November 1st, 2012

One of the hottest topics across all spectrums in the Jewish community is the financial sustainability of Jewish day school education in America. Schools have invested a lot of time and resources to train their professionals in the art of fundraising, developing donor relationships, and launching effective capital campaigns. And there has been a concerted effort among Jewish educational organizations to establish programs to assist day schools in improving their governance and developmental practices.

Obama’s Attempts At Making Nice With The Mullahs

Posted on: November 1st, 2012

It turns out that soon after taking office, President Obama tried to make friends – totally – with the mullahs’ regime in Iran.

Life Beyond Politics

Posted on: November 1st, 2012

The coming winter is going to be a hot one. The smell of it is already wafting through the national-religious community, which for some time now has been in the middle of an unprecedentedly egotistical primaries campaign. For those who have had enough of advertisements saying how great one candidate is and how problematic another, here is a story about two national-religious pioneers in Judea and Samaria, one a fighter in the army and the other a fighter in the public sphere. Just a reminder that there is life beyond egocentric political campaigns.

Blackout

Posted on: November 1st, 2012

In Union Square the chess players sit alone under the statue of George Washington waiting for a game. A Latino family, father, mother and son, sit on the sidewalk holding cardboard signs and singing. “I’ll be your friend, when you’re not strong.” The big chain stores are closed but the bodegas are open and Muslim and Chinese storekeepers charge up to ten dollars for a gallon of water. New York City in blackout, in short, is much like New York City as usual.

Will the US Help the Muslim Brotherhood Take Jordan?

Posted on: October 31st, 2012

It might be helpful now to start wondering what sort of ideas Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, and its leader, Controller General Sheikh Hamam Sai'd, will advance if they seize power in Jordan -- possibly with the blessing and encouragement of the United States.

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Egypt’s Plans for an Arab Superstate

Posted on: October 30th, 2012

As Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi looked on smilingly, the cleric told the crowds that, "We can see how the dream of the Islamic Caliphate is being realized, Allah willing, by Dr. Muhammad Morsi and his brothers, his supporters, and his political party. We can see how the great dream, shared by us all -- that of the United States of Arabs …shall, Allah willing, be restored. The United States of Arabs will be restored by this man and his supporters."

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Freedom House Readies Downgrade of Israel, Based on Palestinian Deceit

Posted on: October 30th, 2012

In a clear distortion of information, the once prestigious Freedom House, a not-for-profit organization that purports to monitor which societies in the world are truly free, appears deliberately to have omitted and misrepresented easily verifiable information in what can only be seen as an attempt to downgrade Israel from "free" to "partly free."

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Benghazi’s Tough Questions

Posted on: October 30th, 2012

The story of how the Obama Administration failed to secure a U.S. consulate and then failed to send in support while it was under attack may turn out to be the biggest scandal of this administration. But that will only happen if Benghazigate is the subject of a thorough and rigorous investigation. And that means basing stories on facts or on reliable reports, rather than on speculation and internet rumors that no one would take seriously in any other context.

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American Muslim Group Features Imam with Ties to Hamas

Posted on: October 29th, 2012

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, founded in 1994 by operatives from Hamas, this month continued its tradition of embracing individuals with ties to terrorist organizations, such as Mousa Abu Marzouk and Yusuf al Qaradawi, by featuring, as the speaker for the annual banquet of its Florida chapter, Kifah Mustapha, an imam from Chicago, whom the U.S. government has named a party to Hamas financing.

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The Liberal Man’s Burden

Posted on: October 29th, 2012

One-hundred and thirteen years ago, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about the American enterprise in the Philippines. The title of that poem has since become a byword for racist colonialism and yet its text is a sardonic recitation of the dim virtues of the "Savage wars of peace." "Go bind your sons to exile, To serve your captives' need;" Kipling wrote. "To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. Fill full the mouth of Famine, And bid the sickness cease." This moral imperialism has never gone away, though it is no longer thought of in racial terms. For over a hundred years, the United States has gone on trying to feed and cure the world, sacrificing for others and seeing nothing in return.

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Which Fatah Won the Palestinian Local Elections?

Posted on: October 29th, 2012

Fatah leaders were quick to declare victory in the October 20 local elections in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria -Ed.]. But the results of the vote for 93 municipal and village councils show that the vote was anything but a victory. True, in some cities and villages, Fatah did win a majority of seats. But this is not the same Fatah that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and the old guard leadership of the faction had backed.

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