<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; David Goldman</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/author/david-goldman/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:56:08 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Obama Legitimizes Morsi&#8217;s Protection Racket</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-goldman/obama-legitimizes-morsis-protection-racket/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-legitimizes-morsis-protection-racket</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-goldman/obama-legitimizes-morsis-protection-racket/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Nov 2012 04:57:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Goldman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ceasefire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Morsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=166302</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In one stroke, the Obama administration overturns thirty years of American policy.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/david-goldman/obama-legitimizes-morsis-protection-racket/hillary-clinton-and-mohamed-morsi/" rel="attachment wp-att-166305"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-166305" title="Hillary Clinton and Mohamed Morsi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/morsi1-450x270.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="162" /></a>Hamas fires 275 rockets at Israel and is rewarded with<em> de facto</em> acceptance as a legitimate negotiating partner in the Middle East peace process, as well as with a relaxation of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza coast. Israel is prevented from exacting a price for Hamas&#8217; actions sufficient to deter future attacks or degrade Hamas&#8217; capabilities. In one stroke, the Obama administration has overturned thirty years of American policy, which rejected negotiations with Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Secretary of State Clinton, to be sure, did not negotiate directly with Hamas, but rather with Egypt&#8217;s President Mohammed Morsi, who supported Hamas unequivocally and encouraged its attacks on Israel. Morsi is the leader of Egypt&#8217;s Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian chapter. It is astonishing that American officials and the world media have hailed Morsi simply because he first sicced his dog on his neighbor, and then called the dog off.</p>
<p>As the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/21/with-gaza-deal-new-role-for-egypt-islamist-leader-guarantor-quiet-between-hamas/#ixzz2Cu0rFO00" target="_blank">Associated Press</a> put it:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;The accord inserts Egypt to an unprecedented degree into the conflict between Israel and Hamas, establishing it as the arbiter ensuring that militant rocket fire into Israel stops and that Israel allows the opening of the long-blockaded Gaza Strip and stops its own attacks against Hamas. In return, Morsi emerged as a major regional player. He won the trust of the United States and Israel, which once worried over the rise of an Islamist leader in Egypt but throughout the week-long Gaza crisis saw him as the figure most able to deliver a deal with Gaza&#8217;s Hamas rulers.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>It is a misstatement of huge proportions to suggest that Morsi &#8220;won the trust of Israel.&#8221; On the contrary: American pressure prevented Israel from degrading Hamas&#8217; terror capabilities.</p>
<p>When Hamas cranked up its rocket barrage against Israel ten days ago, numerous analysts asked: Why now? In retrospect, the answer appears obvious: Because Barack Obama had been re-elected and had a free hand. From February 2011, when National Intelligence Director <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/02/director-of-national-intelligence-james-clapper-muslim-brotherhood-largely-secular/" target="_blank">James Clapper praised the Muslim Brotherhood</a> as a &#8220;largely secular&#8221; organization, the White House has made clear that it believes that the Brotherhood represents the wave of the future in the Middle East. American backing for Morsi was nearly derailed in September when the Egyptian president failed to provide security for America&#8217;s embassy in Cairo during riots that followed the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi. That affront has been forgotten amidst the accolades.</p>
<p>America&#8217;s traditional allies in the region, notably Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States (notably excepting Qatar) <a href="http://mondediplo.com/2012/11/02egypt" target="_blank">viewed Morsi as an enemy</a>. Almost out of cash and suffering from extreme shortages of fuel and other essential items, Morsi failed to obtain financial support from the Saudis. With a current account deficit of perhaps $1.5 billion a month, Egypt was running on fumes and small handouts from Qatar and Turkey. A number of American commentators suggested that Morsi was motivated to act moderately because he needed Saudi and American help to prevent economic catastrophe. Precisely the opposite is true: the only way Morsi could shake down the Saudis for significant sums was to threaten a regional blowup.</p>
<p>Morsi read the American political landscape accurately. He perceived that the White House was so deeply invested in the success of the Muslim Brotherhood that it would respond to a crisis provoked by Hamas by splitting the result down the middle, giving Hamas sufficient concessions to allow the terrorist group to declare victory. He also understood the implications of Mitt Romney&#8217;s supine performance during the third presidential debate on foreign policy. The Republican party continues to drag around the chains of the Bush foreign policy like Marley&#8217;s ghost, and will offer no opposition to Obama. Influential Republicans, moreover, are so invested in the notion of Islamist democracy that many of them will go along with Obama in supporting Morsi&#8217;s protection racket. Bill Kristol, for example, opined in the Weekly Standard&#8217;s <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kristol-podcast-thankful-things-middle-east-arent-worse_663784.html" target="_blank">weekly podcast</a> that Morsi has &#8220;behaved somewhat responsibly&#8221; and that the ceasefire, although it might last only a few months, was &#8220;better than nothing.&#8221;</p>
<p>Turkey&#8217;s Islamist prime minister Tayyip Erdogan had another motive for backing Hamas. Turkey views the prospect of Syrian disintegration and the spinoff of an autonomous zone for Syria&#8217;s two million Kurds as an existential threat. At current trends, half of Turkey&#8217;s military-age population will come from Kudrish-speaking households within a generation, and a Syrian precedent for Kurdish autonomy threatens the integrity of the Kurdish state. Erdogan is counting on the Muslim Brotherhood to rule a unified Sunni government in Syria, and has allied with Morsi to bring this into effect. Turkey&#8217;s weakness gives Morsi additional bargaining power.</p>
<p>Presuming that Morsi&#8217;s ceasefire holds, the absence of rocket fire from Gaza during the next several months holds little comfort for Israel. Hamas will have more opportunity to stockpile the longer-range Iranian Fajr rockets that struck near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem last week. Iran <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/report-iran-transfers-fajr-5-missile-technology-to-gaza/2012/11/21/ae7865b6-33e1-11e2-92f0-496af208bf23_story.html" target="_blank">has boasted</a> that it has transferred the technology to Hamas to quickly produce the rockets in Gaza. Whenever the ceasefire breaks down, Hamas will have far greater capacity to kill Israelis in the future. If Israel were to strike Iran&#8217;s nuclear capabilities, the price it would pay in rocket attacks from Hamas as well as Hezbollah in the north would be substantially greater than it is now.</p>
<p>Israel suffered a setback, but not a decisive setback, because the whole Gaza business is tangential to the overriding strategic issue, namely Iran&#8217;s prospective acquisition of nuclear weapons. Were Israel to attack Iran&#8217;s nuclear bomb-making capacity, it will pay a higher price for doing so in terms of civilian casualties. That is a human tragedy but not a strategic disadvantage. Hamas does not represent a strategic threat to Israel, and the degraded and demoralized Egyptian military represents less of a threat to Israel than at any time since its founding, while Syria represents no threat at all. The unexpectedly strong performance of Israel&#8217;s anti-missile technology, meanwhile, represents a new and critical strategic advantage for Israel. Egypt&#8217;s Morsi may obtain a respite, but Egypt will continue to live under the threat of economic breakdown for the indefinite future. The Muslim Brotherhood will fail to stabilize Syria.</p>
<p>Nothing that happens in Gaza will decide the future of the region. Israel still must decide whether to attack Iran&#8217;s nuclear program in the face of adamant opposition from the Obama administration. It is not clear how long the window of opportunity will last for Israel to pre-empt Iranian nuclear weapons deployment, but it is measured in months, not years.</p>
<p><strong>David P. Goldman is a <a href="http://pjmedia.com/">PJMedia</a> columnist and the author of </strong><em><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/159698273X/pajamasmedia-20">How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too)</a>.</strong><br />
</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-goldman/obama-legitimizes-morsis-protection-racket/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>42</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Angels and Inquisitors</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-goldman/angels-and-inquisitors/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=angels-and-inquisitors</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-goldman/angels-and-inquisitors/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:48:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Goldman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dostoevsky]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Arelius]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mortality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[point in time]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=116857</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[David Horowitz's new book shares a profound meditation on mortality and faith. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pointintime2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-116865" title="pointintime" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pointintime2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="614" /></a><strong>Reprinted from <a href="http://www.atimes.com">atimes.com</a>.</strong></p>
<p><em>A Point in Time by David Horowitz. </em><br />
<em>Regnery Publishing (August 29, 2011). </em><br />
<em>Price US$24.95, 128 pages.</em></p>
<p>One popular comedian argues that it must be dreadful to spend eternity in heaven. No matter how wonderful it might be at first, eventually you’re bound to get used to it and end up bored to death. By the same reasoning, one would shrug off the torments of hell over time, and the experience would be the same as heaven. Truth told, Dante’s account of the saints contemplating the Godhead in the “Paradiso” section of Dante’s <em>Divine Comedy </em>always bored me, without having to wait for too much of eternity to tick by.</p>
<p>This paradox came to mind reading David Horowitz’s new book, <em>A Point In Time</em>. For a quarter of a century, Horowitz has told unpleasant truths about the political left where he spent the first half of his career before turning conservative some 30 years ago. Horowitz surpasses himself in this new essay, though, by telling unpleasant truths about the human condition. What begins as a personal meditation on mortality on the model of Marcus Aurelius shifts into a rough-and-tumble confrontation with faith.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/images/book211211b.gif" alt="" align="right" hspace="6" vspace="2" />Horowitz has been wrestling with human adversaries all his life, and now, like Jacob, he has wrestled with angels. Jacob bested the divine being (Esau’s guardian angel, in rabbinic commentary) but got a dislocated hip for his trouble. Horowitz does not quite pin the matter down, but he does give Fyodor Dostoevsky’s guardian angel a black eye.</p>
<p>This undertaking took courage, for the Russian novelist’s “Grand Inquisitor” parable is a favorite of good people who agree with Horowitz on most of the practical issues. Dostoevsky’s discursion at the end of <em>The Brothers Karamazov</em> is everywhere cited as an exemplary defense of faith against materialism, by reduction ad absurdum. (I count more than 100 references over the years to this parable in articles published in the religious monthly First Things.) The Inquisitor famously denounces the returning Christ for refusing Satan’s dare to make bread from stones, admonishing him that the religion of bread – communism – will displace the religion of eternal life.</p>
<p>It is easy to attack the fallacies of one’s enemies, but much harder to take on one’s friends. Dostoevsky is a hero of faith to many good people; Horowitz exposes the great writer’s faith as inadequate, even twisted. The author of <em>The Brothers Karamazov</em>gave lip service to life after death, but poured his passion into an earthly paradise. Although Dostoevsky exposed the horror behind the socialist utopia, he conjured another earthly dystopia. As Horowitz writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>Dostoevsky had written in his notebooks: “I want the full kingdom of Christ.” He had then crossed out the words “I want” and put in their place: “I <em>believe</em> in the full kingdom of Christ.” And then: “I believe that this kingdom will be accomplished, and it will be with us in Russia.” Other nations lived only for themselves but Russia was different, he believed; it was a nation that lived for Christ. “Now that the time has come,” Russia would take the lead in establishing the kingdom of God, “becoming the servant of all for the sake of universal reconciliation … [and] ,,, the ultimate unifying of humanity.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Dostoevsky, Horowitz concludes, “had become his own Inquisitor incarnate,” a nominal Christian who eschews the Kingdom of Heaven for earthly rewards. It turns out that the writer did not find the prospect of contemplating the Godhead through eternity especially satisfying, and preferred to bring heaven down to Earth.</p>
<p>It is even worse than that, for Dostoevsky’s apocalyptic vision required a Satanic enemy, which turned out be the Jews, as usual. Horowitz writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>Every quest for a redemption in this life faces a necessary enemy in the opponents of its promised future. So it was with Dostoevsky’s quest for a universal harmony in Christ, whose path was blocked by a people who were by nature insular and self-centered, as Dostoevsky viewed them – Jews. “The Yid and is bank are now reigning over everything,” he confided to his notebooks, “over Europe, education, civilization, socialism.” The Jew “will use [his bank] to uproot Christianity and destroy civilization.”</p>
<p>Like every would-be redeemer, Dostoevsky viewed the apocalypse as imminent: “The Jews’ … reign is drawing nigh! Coming soon is the complete triumph of ideas before which feelings of love for humanity, the longing for truth, Christian feelings … must give way.”</p></blockquote>
<p>The communist movement to which Horowitz’s parents adhered until the 1956 Nikita Khrushchev revelation of Joseph Stalin’s crimes, he observes, was Gnostic: it espoused a knowledge which if wielded by an elite, the proletarian vanguard, would solve all the problems of the world. Dostoevsky, I might add, abhorred Gnosticism in its Marxist guise, but clung ferociously to another form of idolatry, the worship of one’s nation.</p>
<p>Men who have no faith in the Absolute Other, the God of the Bible, will worship themselves – either their brains, in the form of Gnosticism, or their bones, through tribalism. The tenacity of the Soviet empire derived from a devilish combination of both: the Marxist claim to universal salvation wedded to Russian nationalism.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-goldman/angels-and-inquisitors/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>21</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 393/406 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 07:47:54 by W3 Total Cache -->