Friday Afternoon Roundup - A Day in May

DISUNION SQUARED

I passed through Union Square on Wednesday. The park on the square happens to be the fallback point of Occupy Wall Street, but the OWS crowd was a little hard to spot. Oh there were a few vendors in the business of selling "radical" T-Shirts and pins, proceeds to either benefit the occupation or him, but the rest of the occupation was hard to find.

The breakdancers working for tips weren't with OWS, but what about the clown with pink hair? The men playing chess for money obviously weren't, that was too capitalist an activity. The NYU students sitting around and drinking soda? The guy playing jazz on a sax? The Halal mafia vendor sending smoke and a burnt smell from his cart? The dogwalkers? The artists drawing cartoons of tourists? The vendors at the farmer's market unloading ostrich meat and gourmet goat cheese?

The signs reading GENERAL STRIKE MAY 1and STOP EVERYTHING are still pasted to walls, but the first has come and gone and there was more of a showing in Moscow than in New York City. Some of the signs urged everyone not to come in to work or school or even do housework, but defying the housework strike I vacuumed my rug on the first. For now a giant inflatable rat hasn't shown up outside my window.

Finally I encountered a grossly obese man in union gear with a white hard hat and a sign around his neck ranting about billionaire war criminals or something equally stupid. I was going to snap a photo, but then I realized that would justify him standing there. OWS is a media driven phenomenon. Ignore it and it goes away.

I passed him by as he argued feverishly with a man in a business suit about something or other. Near the curb the breakdancers were hitting their rhythm and Mexican illegal aliens were selling t-shirts with a picture of armed Indians and text reading, "Homeland Security" and something about repelling terrorists for hundreds of years. It's not the type of shirt you ever see a Mexican or actual Indian wearing, but some of the more radical white college kids probably love it.

After September 11, the leftists occupied Union Square for a month or two. I saw them on that very day writing up peace signs and cautioning against vengeance. Most people paid them no attention. The weeks wore on and they scrawled peace signs on the statue of George Washington marking evacuation day and did the usual Occupy Wall Street antics, long before there was an OWS or anyone was paying to them. Eventually they got evicted and the statue cleaned up.

Living in New York City you learn to deal with pests of all kinds, but the thing about pests is that they eventually go away. Sic Transit OWS. Take the A Train, hook up with Metro North and go home.



OCCUPY CAMERAS

... but in the meantime OWS is making friends and influencing people by attacking photographers who take their picture.

Takeaway quote

"The protesters' argument is righteous, but is also silly," José Martín, a 30-year-old activist and Marxist who has been involved in militant actions for over a decade and attended the Wildcat march, says. "Still, there is some philosophical legitimacy to what these people are saying. We're not here to legitimize the state. If journalists are willing to incriminate those engaged in illegal actions, it's very difficult for me to suggest they shouldn't be angry with the photographer."

Read that last sentence again and you can grasp the incredible sense of entitlement on the left when it comes to the media. And the only people to blame for that are in the media.



...ABOUT THAT CALIPHATE

Remember that Caliphate everyone keeps talking about? Well it might kinda he here already. It's a story that most have overlooked.

The 32nd summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council may be remembered as the dawn of the Caliphate with the Saudi proposal to accelerate the union of the six GCC States likely to dramatically change the region. The union is being described as “EU Style,” but in practice it would be a larger version of the United Arab Emirates, a federation of tribal monarchies.

The combined entity would have a 1 trillion dollar GDP and some 35 percent of the world’s oil reserves, giving it immeasurable influence on the global stage. And that nucleus of power and wealth would be used to consolidate its influence over rest of the region and the world. If the GCC integrates Yemen, it will be able to turn the Persian Gulf into the Arabian Gulf, and if it integrates Libya, Sudan and Iraq, then it will have a combined population of 100 million and be able to approach the 50 percent world oil reserves marker.

There's more in my piece on the Rise of the Saudi Superstate, including the collision between two or three Caliphates. One run by the Muslim Brotherhood and one that is a projection of Iranian power.



FUN WITH NUMBERS

I don't know how accurate these numbers are, but French reports of overseas voting claim that

Sarkozy received 92 percent of the vote in Israel

Hollande received 82 percent of the vote in the Palestinian Authority

And that was before Hollande appointed Christiane Taubira as the Justice Minister. Good luck with that Burqa ban. Three Arab-Muslims have also been appointed to the cabinet. Najat Belkacem-Vallaud for women's rights, Yamina Benguigui for French-speakers abroad and Kader Arif for veterans.

I'll have lots more on this in an upcoming Front Page article.



UGLY THINGS

I had been holding back this piece for a while as the topic was an ugly one and I had known Rabbi Avi Weiss and respected him, despite his liberal politics, as someone who genuinely cared about the Jewish People. That is not at all the case with the institution operating under his name which is waging a war against the Jewish People.

This piece wasn't a lot of fun to write, it's less fun to deal with, but it concerns the left-wing infiltration of the Orthodox Jewish community... which is unfortunately not paying attention to what is going on.

What am I talking about? If you've seen articles on Uri L'Tzedek, then you may already have some idea. What you may not know are some of the people behind it.

The Rosh Beit Medrash of Uri L’Tzedek, Elisheva Goldberg, is an Anti-Israel activist who works for George Soros’ New America Foundation, as an assistant to Peter Beinart and a contributor to his Open Zion blog. The former Compliance Officer and current Director of Tav HaYosher Engagement at Uri L’Tzedek, Hadas “Dasi” Fruchter, is a J Street and Occupy Wall Street supporter. And the Uri L’Tzedek Board includes a member of J Street’s Finance Committee.

Or what Uri L'Tzedek actually is.

Uri L’Tzedek is a pale imitation of its true inspiration, Jewish Funds for Justice, and it is arguably nothing more than JFJ working the Orthodox side of the Jewish communal street. Uri L’Tzedek has coordinated events with Jewish Funds for Justice, its literature has featured JFJ content and its leading personnel are for the most part either veterans of Jewish Funds for Justice or the American Jewish World Service, another left-wing organization funded by George Soros. Uri L’Tzedek largely depends on grant money from the same foundations that fund these two groups. That raises the question of whether Uri L’Tzedek is anything but a front for JFJ and AJWS activism under an Orthodox brand.

I discuss some of this in the article, The Left-Wing Movement to Hijack Kosher Food. But in the long run Uri L'Tzedek cannot be dealt with, without dealing with Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and its left-wing agenda to keep stamping out community organizers who work to undermine the Jewish community while calling themselves Rabbis.



THE 1 PERCENT

"When Mahmoud Abbas returned to the Palestinian territories [after the signing of the Oslo Accords], I gave him $25,000 at the request of the late President Yasser Arafat," Rashid claimed. "Today, he and his sons have palaces and property estimated at 15 million Jordanian Dinars [Approximately $21 million] in Palestine, Jordan, Tunisia and other places."

I buried the lead there. The lead is that the Palestinian Authority has been diverting millions to Israeli Arab political parties, which raises some interesting questions, and nullifies any claim that the PA isn't aspiring to take the whole country, not just Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

For all the legitimate criticisms of past Israeli PM's that can be made, including on corruption issues, they don't seem to have managed to buy themselves palaces and 21 million dollars worth of property using American tax dollars.

It's not because they aren't personally corrupt. Olmert certainly was, but because Israel is an actual functional country with checks and balances which limits the abuses of even the highest official. Arafat and Abbas had nearly unlimited power. They can all buy themselves mansions because there is no actual country there, just a bunch of militias and their leaders dividing up the pie.




OBAMA, BORN EVERYWHERE AND OF EVERY FAITH

So as it turns out Obama was born in Hawaii, when he wasn't born in Kenya, he's a Christian when he isn't a Muslim, and he is so very many things to all people.

His bio is of course just one of those funny accidents like everything else, forget about composite girlfriends, like most con artists, Obama has an entire composite identity that shifts depending on the audience that he is targeting at any given time.

But this seems like even bigger news...

According to Klein’s book, Wright told Obama, “Well, you already know the Muslim piece of your background. You studied Islam, didn’t you?” Obama replied, “Yeah, Rev, I studied Islam. But help me understand Christianity, because I already know Islam.”

Asked if he converted Obama from Islam to Christianity, Wright said, “That’s hard to tell. I think I convinced him that it was okay for him to make a choice in terms of who he believed Jesus is. And I told him it was really okay and not a putdown of the Muslim part of his family or his Muslim friends.”

Wright is for all his repulsiveness a credible enough figure. He's never hidden what he is. Obama used Wright as his Christian mentor, until Wright became a liability. Christian theology isn't my specialty, but looking at whether any of Obama's statements on Jesus violated Muslim beliefs might be telling.

This sort of thing has been noted before. Muslims do believe that Jesus was a prophet (who will come back and break the cross), but they don't believe that he was the son of god or that he rose from the dead.

Oddly enough the Muslim version of the birth of Jesus appears to be conflated with the Biblical account of the Birth of Ishmael. It's likely that they just cut and pasted Ishmael onto Jesus.


... further followup on the bio at Western Rifle Shooters with commentary from Ann Barnhardt and an important point is made.

The Breitbart group AND the HotAir fools (Ed Morrisey and Allahpundit), ONCE AGAIN are pissing all over people who dare point out that Obama’s eligibility to hold the office of the Presidency is seriously, seriously in question. They are doing this in the same breath WHILE REPORTING THIS VERY STORY, which proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that Obama is a liar and con-artist.

WHY? Why do these “conservatives” refuse to engage reality on this point?

Ann gives her answer and I partly agree with it, but I would also add, timidity. The media has succeeded in defining Birther as something that Republicans don't want to be. And that message goes from the top down. To avoid being classed as a Birther you can only report this kind of story by firmly stating that you are in no way questioning where Obama was born. You're just questioning why he lied about where he was born.

I see no reason why anything that Obama says should be accepted as true or why any documents that a notorious liar and con artist and his accomplices provide should automatically be treated as genuine.

There's a basic paradox here. If we truly believe, for example, that this administration shipped guns to Mexico to subvert the Second Amendment or that it covered for Black Panther party members engaged in voter intimidation, then we believe that it is completely unprincipled and does not abide by any rules. That means it is capable of lying about anything and everything.

Analyzing documents and photos is not in my area of expertise, which is why I don't run pieces on it, but my position is simple enough. But my position is simply not to accept anything coming from these people as genuine or credible until it is conclusively established as such by independent voices.




 THE DE-CHRISTIANIZATION OF BETHLEHEM

Muslims and their apologists keep raving on about the "Judaization of Jerusalem", but Guillo Meoti talks about the De-Christainization of Bethlehem.

After the 1948 war, Christian communities suffered most in the West Bank, not under “Israel’s occupation,” but because Muslim refugees were cynically settled in their midst by the Arab leadership. Ramallah was 90% Christian before the war, while Bethlehem was 80% Christian. By 1967, more than half of Bethlehem’s residents were Muslim, while Ramallah is a large Muslim city today.

In a process of “Lebanonization,” Arafat changed Bethlehem’s demography by bringing in thousands of Muslims from refugee camps. Arafat then turned the city into a safe haven for suicide bombers and transformed the Greek Orthodox monastery, located next to the Church of Nativity, into his residence. Christian cemeteries and convents were desecrated and Christians became the PLO’s human shields.

In the first year of the second Intifada, when Arafat’s terrorists ravaged Christian towns by gunfire and mortars, 1,640 Christians left Bethlehem and another 880 left Ramallah. 

JEWISH SETTLERS STORM A MOSQUE

...actual photos of what Arab sources described as settlers storming a mosque. You be the judge.



BAD GUY IS STILL BAD GUY

... in other news, evil is persistent and persistently evil.



 NANNY STATE LOGIC

David Cameron said it was “ludicrous” that parents received more training in how to drive a car than in how to raise children.

I for one think it's ludicrous that people receive more training in how to drive a car than run other people's lives for them.



THEY SAID THAT OLD MO WAS DEAD, BUT HE SAID I NEVER DIED

I may have been dead for over 1000 years but I am still very much alive.

 What is my religion? My religion is my ambition. My ambition was to dominate all the peoples of the world and to have them all living by my rules. I wanted total obedience. I wanted to be praised and revered by everyone on earth. I was careful to cover my ambition in the cloak of religion so that my authority had the backing of the Almighty. Who would dare disobey me then?

Ah who indeed.



THE BURNING NORTH

Is Canada headed for a native uprising? A lot of Canadian scenarios seem to involve an American invasion, which is a scenario that may make sense if you're looking south at a vast country on the other side of the border,  but makes little sense looking north.



THE COMPOSITE MAN

For quite a while, Obama has reminded me at least a little bit of the F. Scott Fitzgerald character Jay Gatsby—that is, not in the details, but in the fact of being a self-constructed man.

Obama truly is his own creator.