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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Exodus</title>
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		<title>‘Exodus’ – French-Style</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/stephenbrown/exodus-french-style/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=exodus-french-style</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/stephenbrown/exodus-french-style/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Aug 2014 04:54:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exodus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[riots]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=237556</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Anti-Semitic violence has France’s Jews heading to the exits.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/An-ultra-orthodox-Jewish-001.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237557" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/An-ultra-orthodox-Jewish-001.jpg" alt="An-ultra-orthodox-Jewish--001" width="318" height="234" /></a>The lights are going out in the land of the Enlightenment.</p>
<p>The violent, anti-Semitic nightmare Europe thought it would never see again after the Nazi Holocaust is raising its ugly head once more, this time on French soil.</p>
<p>Jew-hatred, mostly among France’s six and a half million Muslims, is reaching such threatening proportions that an increasing number of the country’s 500,000 Jews feel forced to leave their native land to ensure their safety. At one Jewish agency that assists French Jews to emigrate to Israel the telephone, it was reported, “does not stop ringing.</p>
<p>“For 2014, one will have to register a record number of departures of French Jews for Israel since its creation in 1948,” the agency’s director told the French newspaper <i>Le Figaro</i>. “It will safely exceed 5,000 people. In 2013, there were already 3,300, an increase of 73 percent compared with 2012.”</p>
<p>And one can expect the numbers to climb even higher after the recent displays of Jew-hatred in France that “shocked” and “dumbfounded” the country’s Jewish community. In two demonstrations on successive July weekends in central Paris, demonstrators, mostly Muslims of North African and Middle Eastern descent, allegedly protesting Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip, shouted anti-Semitic slogans, attacked police, burned vehicles and damaged stores.</p>
<p>Authorities banned the second demonstration after the first one saw two synagogues and a kosher grocery store attacked, all accompanied by shouts of ‘Death to the Jews’. But the ban didn’t make any difference. The demonstration went ahead anyways. Mob rule and barbarism won out over law and order. And the government’s apparent powerlessness, or unwillingness, to enforce the ban was very noticeable.</p>
<p>“Saturday at the synagogue, there was only talk of packing one’s suitcases,” said the publication manager of a Jewish newspaper after the riots. “One has the feeling that this is only the start, that this is going to become more radical&#8230;”</p>
<p>According to <i>Le Figaro</i>, some young, French Jewish families are leaving both because of the country’s increasingly anti-Semitic climate, which, they believe, endangers their children, and the French economy’s poor performance. Representatives of France’s Jewish community told the newspaper parents fear putting their children into Jewish schools and summer camps because of possible anti-Semitic attacks. And who can blame them when one recalls French jihadist Mohammed Merah, who murdered four people, three of them children, at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012.</p>
<p>“In the face of civil society’s indifference, one senses a keen anxiety of some families concerning their ability to lead a quiet life of Jewish identity in France,” said the emigration agency director.</p>
<p>While this indifference is disturbing enough, the outright support the demonstrators receive from leftist segments of the French political class is equally disconcerting. France’s radical left parties, such as the Green, Communist and New Anti-Capitalist Party have made an alliance with the anti-Semitic demonstrators from the ‘banlieues’ (France’s immigrant ghettos). The New Anti-Capitalist Party, for example, helped organise the first demonstration, and a mayor, also a Green Party member, took part in the banned protest.</p>
<p>This alliance, according to French philosopher Robert Redeker, is due to radical leftists having abandoned their traditional hope of using the working class as the instrument to destroy society. To the radical left’s eternal disappointment, French workers were not revolutionary enough. But Muslim rioters are. In them, the extreme left sees the proletariat’s replacement in carrying out the historic duty of violent revolution.</p>
<p>Members of radical left parties have also made statements that are outrageous in content but nevertheless contribute to the increasingly poisonous and threatening anti-Semitic climate facing France’s Jews. For example, a French deputy to the Europe-Ecology-The Greens (EELV), another environmental political outfit, justified the attacks on the synagogues, claiming on Twitter they are like “embassies.</p>
<p>“When the synagogues are acting like embassies, it is not surprising that they are subjected to the same attacks as an embassy,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the communists were also not behind in making similar, illogical claims to rationalise the violence and Jew-hatred. France’s Communist Party, along with the other radical left parties, was upset authorities banned the second demonstration. It issued a communique calling this measure a “very serious and extremely worrying hindrance concerning the right to demonstrate.” The communique also claimed “small, pro-Israeli groups” were the cause of the first demonstration’s “acts of violence and incitements to hatred.”</p>
<p>Well, one has to admit, it is nice to see someone finally calling for human rights and freedom of political expression while waving the hammer and sickle. But it seems to have escaped the French communists&#8217; notice, along with their party’s history between 1917 and 1991, that it was rioting, anti-Semitic Muslims attacking synagogues and not Jews attacking mosques that led to the ban. Besides, Islamists hardly need anyone to incite them to hate Jews. They’re self-starters.</p>
<p>One communist deputy to France’s national legislature even asked President Francois Hollande, in an open letter, to ban the Jewish Defense League (JDL), whose members defended the synagogues during the attacks. He called the JDL a “criminal, fascist organization,” since it was equally “responsible for the provocations” that led to the violence. Again, this particular communist politician needs a serious history lesson when it comes to “a criminal, fascist organisation.”</p>
<p>France’s mainstream Socialist Party (SP), which currently rules the country, is also a cause for concern. The head of France’s Jewish student union said Jewish students are still waiting for the government to “provide not only answers regarding security, but real proposals to re-establish co-existence in our neighbourhoods, our universities.</p>
<p>“We are posing questions on the ability of the Republic to protect its citizens,” he said.</p>
<p>These students might have to wait a while longer, however, if the SP’s left wing is charged with finding security and co-existence solutions, since it appears to be in the anti-Israel camp. Thirty-three SP deputies of the National Assembly signed a joint communique “for peace and justice in the Middle East” that was sent to media outlets. It called for “French and European authorities to use all their influence to stop immediately and without delay the violence which has been going on since July 8,” the date of Israel’s Gaza invasion. No mention was made of the rockets Hamas had fired at Israel prior to this date that brought about the Israeli military response.</p>
<p>“Together, we have the duty to use our freedom of expression and right to demonstrate peacefully,” the communique further stated.</p>
<p>Understandably, some editors took the communique as a SP call to demonstrate against Israel’s Gaza intervention at an upcoming protest march. Several signatories immediately denied this and blamed the media for misinterpretation, professing their opposition to anti-Semitism. However, about 30 SP deputies did take part in the authorised demonstration, which went off peacefully, possibly because the organizers had to put up security guarantees.</p>
<p>But the socialist deputies’ presence at the demonstration can be understood in a different, darker context as concerns France’s Jews. After the synagogue attacks, Francois Hollande, France’s president and SP leader, declared the fight against anti-Semitism “a national priority.” But the fact that a block of his party’s national deputies chose to be present at an event where anti-Semitic outbursts, possibly violent ones, could have occurred, shows they are not interested in any project that rejects this evil, even one initiated by their own leader. This also casts doubt on their professed anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>Even worse, the Socialist deputies’ presence at the protest can be viewed as a silent endorsement of the previous demonstrations’ anti-Semitic violence. While the extreme left directly supports such vileness by openly blaming the Jews, mainstream socialists are doing the same, but indirectly and with subtlety. Which can only encourage further, anti-Jewish attacks.</p>
<p>France’s Jewish community should also not place much hope on their country’s political class resolving the deteriorating security situation, which, some believe, is now not only unresolvable but “explosive.” Hollande himself, for example, switched from a pro-Israeli position at the start of the Gaza conflict to one now termed “balanced.” This was obviously done to please France’s Muslims, which his party regards as a voting constituency. So after first appearing resolute in supporting Israel, he is now vacillating. France&#8217;s Jews can probably expect similar treatment in the future, especially around election time. Besides, one also must be quite cynical to begin with to be able to strike a “balanced” position between Israel and Hamas.</p>
<p>Considering the recent anti-Semitic riots and jihadist attacks their community has endured over the years, including murders, it is no surprise Jews are fleeing France in record numbers. And it is wise they do so, since, with increasing Muslim immigration, one can only expect a corresponding rise in anti-Semitism. No one speaks of a decrease.</p>
<p>But the best reason for France’s Jews to emigrate was revealed in the open letter the communist deputy sent to Hollande, calling for the JDF’s banning. By wanting to strip the synagogues of any defense, such as the JDF represents, the radical left displays its true goal, albeit its short-term one, which is for France to have its own ‘Kristallnacht’.</p>
<p>This also converges nicely with the aims of their anti-Semitic Muslim allies, already experienced in destroying synagogues and churches in Islamic countries. In a nice, Nazi-like touch, the radical left can also be expected to twist any future synagogue destruction to appear as the French Jews’ own fault. The two allies’ long-term goal, which, history has shown, occurs after a ‘Kristallnacht’, is a second Holocaust.</p>
<p>So when anti-Semitic demonstrators are yelling ‘Death to Jews’ on central Parisian streets, France’s Jews should realize they mean it. Some of those leaving now know that they do.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Ari Shavit and American Jewry</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/ari-shavit-and-american-jewry/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ari-shavit-and-american-jewry</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/ari-shavit-and-american-jewry/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2014 04:53:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ari Shavit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exodus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jewish community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[my promised land]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=235603</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the best-selling author represents the rupture between American Jews and Israel. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/maxresdefault1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235606" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/maxresdefault1-450x328.jpg" alt="maxresdefault" width="270" height="197" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-One-Ari-Shavit-and-American-Jewry-361484">Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">Go into any Jewish community in the United States these days and spend a few hours talking to people. At a certain point in the conversation, at least one person will bring up Ari Shavit’s bestselling book, </span><em style="color: #000000;">My Promised Land</em><span style="color: #000000;">.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Mention of the book will arouse great enthusiasm.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Invariably, a prominent member of the group will say, with utter conviction, and to the nods of all present, “I think that Shavit’s book should be required reading for all American Jewish students.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The most illustrious American Jewish writers and editors today are all but unanimous in their praise for Shavit’s book, which they proclaim is an “epic” account of Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As Martin Kramer wrote this week in the online journal </span><em style="color: #000000;">Mosaic</em><span style="color: #000000;">, “the last ‘epic’ account of [Israel’s birth in] 1948 to seize the imagination of its Jewish and non-Jewish readers,” as Shavit’s as done, was Leon Uris’s </span><em style="color: #000000;">Exodus</em><span style="color: #000000;">, published in 1958.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Uris’s book was inspirational, historic fiction that told the story of Israel’s birth. Decades of American Jewish readers were profoundly influenced by the narrative. Ask any American Jew over the age of 35 who made aliya if he read Uris’s Hollywood-style account of the Zionist revolution.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The answer is almost always affirmative.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Like </span><em style="color: #000000;">Exodus</em><span style="color: #000000;">, Shavit’s </span><em style="color: #000000;">My Promised Land</em><span style="color: #000000;"> has been a runaway success. As Kramer noted, Shavit has been embraced by the Jewish establishment’s celebrity intellectuals – sharing stages with New Yorker editor David Remnick, and Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg. He’s been kvelled over by Tom Friedman and Franklin Foer from </span><em style="color: #000000;">The New Republic</em><span style="color: #000000;">.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Shavit got marquis billing at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington in March, and has been feted by the Jewish Federations and the most affluent synagogues in America.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Unlike </span><em style="color: #000000;">Exodus</em><span style="color: #000000;">, which is a fictional account of Israel’s founding, Shavit insists that his narrative is the undisputed truth. As Foer put it in his blurb an on the back cover, Shavit’s book is an “epic history&#8230; full of moral complexity&#8230; [and] mind-blowing, trustworthy insights.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Also, unlike </span><em style="color: #000000;">Exodus</em><span style="color: #000000;">, Shavit’s tale of Israel is not one of heroism, determination, faith and gumption.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Rather, Israel’s tale is morally ambiguous.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Israel is a country born in sin, and its subsequent history has been plagued by tribalism, fanaticism, displacement and war crimes.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">On the other hand, Israel isn’t all bad. Shavit still loves it with all his heart because it is a great country made up of human beings. And you should love it too. At least a little bit.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Shavit’s portrayal of Israel revolves around the continuous clash between the bad and good things that Israel is and does. A primary anchor of the “Bad Israel” narrative is Shavit’s account of the battle of Lydda (Lod) in the 1948 War of Independence. In “What happened at Lydda?” Kramer provides a critical assessment of Shavit’s account of that battle.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Shavit referred to the battle of Lydda as “Israel’s black box.” As Kramer put it, Shavit maintains that, “in its story lies the dark secret not only of the birth of Israel but indeed of the entire Jewish national movement – of Zionism.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to Shavit’s telling, the Israeli forces that conquered Lydda from the Jordanian Arab Legion and the local Arab irregulars in July 1948 massacred civilians who were hiding in a mosque. Shavit alleges that after killing the innocent, Israeli troops forced local Arabs to bury the bodies to hide their crime, and murdered the Arabs who dug the graves.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The purported massacre, according to Shavit, fomented the Arab flight from Lydda. Shavit judges the soldiers and commanders who participated in the operation. But he lays the blame for these alleged events on “Zionism.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">“Zionism,” he wrote, “carries out a massacre at Lydda.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Shavit claims his historical narrative is based on interviews he conducted in the 1990s with soldiers who participated in the battle. Shavit has not released the transcripts of those interviews.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Yet, as Kramer relates, the same sources to whom Shavit attributes his story gave opposite accounts in on-record, and in many cases, on-camera interviews with other reporters and researchers.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Through his point-by-point examination of Shavit’s narrative, Kramer demonstrated that Shavit’s account is arguably no less fictional than Uris’s idealized portrayal of Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Kramer found no clear evidence that a massacre was carried out at Lydda. At best, there is an argument between historians about what happened.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Shavit’s claim that the dead were “civilians” is not supported by historical accounts of the battle. His claim that 250 Arabs were killed in the battle is disputed.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Moreover, as Kramer demonstrates, contrary to Shavit’s claim that Israeli soldiers allegedly killed Arabs out of rage and not for reason of military necessity, the documentary history of the battle contains no evidence of malice by any of the soldiers or commanders involved in the battle.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">A perfectly reasonable explanation of the evidence – and a better one than Shavit’s claim of original sin – is that the Israeli fighters fought a hard battle in an urban area under the accepted rules of war. And people died.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Whereas Shavit wrote that the Israeli forces buried the bodies of the Arab dead to hide evidence of their supposed war crime, according to the participants’ firsthand accounts, the Arab dead were buried because it was hot and the bodies would have rotted if they weren’t interred.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As for murdering the Arab burial detail, one of its members – who lived his whole life in Lydda (Lod) after the war – was interviewed on record about the battle several times. He was neither killed at the time, nor did he allege that his colleagues were killed.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Kramer ends his article by calling for “the grandees of American Jewish journalism who rushed to praise Shavit’s Lydda treatment” to tell their readers the truth about the at best dubious nature of Shavit’s account of the battle.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Kramer is right to hold Shavit’s enablers to account. But the problem is that promoters like Jeffrey Goldberg (who presented Shavit’s as “a beautiful, mesmerizing, morally serious and vexing book,” for which “I’ve been waiting most of my adult life”) are unlikely to be called to order by their American Jewish audience.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Goldberg, Remnick, Friedman, Foer and David Brooks are not operating in a vacuum. True, they are leading voices in the American Jewish community.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">But their stature owes mainly to the American Jewish community’s desire to listen to them. They reflect the values and preferences of the American Jewish community more than they shape them.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">AIPAC didn’t give Shavit the center stage at its annual conference because David Remnick featured an abridged version of his tale of the Lydda “massacre,” in The New Yorker. AIPAC gave Shavit center stage because AIPAC leaders like his message of Israel’s moral deficiency just as much as Remnick does.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">How can this be? Shavit’s most enthusiastic readers are not uninvolved Jews. They are not American Jews who have left the community.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Shavit’s biggest admirers are members in good standing of the American Jewish community.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">They belong to synagogues. They belong to AIPAC. They give to the Federation.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">What is it about his dishonest moral indictment of Israel that excites them? For generations of American Jews, Israel was perceived as “poor little Israel.” As they saw things, Israel was economically backward. It was dependent on charity from the American Jewish community. And it needed organizations like AIPAC to protect and promote its interests in Washington.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">There was truth behind these perceptions in Israel’s early years in particular. Israel was a weak country and a poor country. American Jewish support was a critical component of Israel’s economic and diplomatic viability. But in recent decades, Israel has become more and more capable of standing on its own.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today Israel is not dependent on the charity of American Jews. It is a prosperous country with a healthy, rapidly growing and diverse economy.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">With Asia expected to eclipse the US as Israel’s largest trading partner next year, Israel has become less dependent on the US in general than it was in the past.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Israel’s economic vitality is an unwelcome development for many American Jews who cannot get their arms around Israel not needing them to save it.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And as Israel becomes more powerful, American Jews are becoming less willing to defend Israel in any meaningful way.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">For the past decade, AIPAC made convincing the White House and Congress to pass sanctions against Iran its primary goal. But when President Barack Obama told AIPAC to stop lobbying for further sanctions after he signed the interim nuclear deal with Iran last November, AIPAC folded like a deck of cards. Israel and the Republicans on Capitol Hill who had pushed the legislation were left high and try.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Defending Israel to an unsympathetic president from the Democratic Party is apparently too much to ask most pro-Israel American Jews to do.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And this is where Shavit’s book comes in.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">By portraying Israel as a country that is morally deficient, Shavit gave the American Jewish community two gifts. First he gave them a way to feel morally superior, and therefore patronizing toward Israel. Israel, they can say, committed a massacre – and did so because its founding ideology is poisonous. American Jews would never do such a thing. But out of the kindness of their hearts, like Shavit, they will continue to love this unworthy cousin.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The second gift Shavit gave the American Jewish community was the ability to feel comfortable refusing to be inconvenienced for Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Clearly – given Israel’s moral failings as portrayed by Shavit – American Jews should have no interest in picking up and making aliya. But beyond that, since Israel is a morally lacking country, there is no reason for them to take a serious stand on its behalf. There is no reason for them to object to the galloping anti-Semitism on college campuses. The BDS people may be over the top, but according to Shavit, they have a point.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">There is no reason for them to stand up to Obama. He is using “tough love” to make Israel free itself of sin and atone for its past crimes – like the one it committed in Lydda.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The success of Shavit’s book reveals the rupture in the relationship between the American Jewish community and Israel. A generation ago, being pro-Israel meant believing in the justness and morality of Israel and being willing to be inconvenienced a little or even a lot to defend the Jewish state.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today, being pro-Israel means that you support Israel despite its immorality because you are forgiving. And supporting Israel means you’ll help Israel so long as it doesn’t inconvenience you in any way or make you feel uncomfortable about anything at all.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Ari Shavit’s libelous account of the birth of Israel is just playing to the crowd. It’s time to start worrying about how to heal a crowd that celebrates being lied to in this way.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>The Mass Exodus of Christians from the Muslim World</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/the-mass-exodus-of-christians-from-the-muslim-world/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-mass-exodus-of-christians-from-the-muslim-world</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 04:30:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=188735</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reliving the true history of how the Christian Middle East was forced into Islamic darkness.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/1789.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-188737" alt="1789" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/1789-450x326.jpg" width="270" height="196" /></a></i><strong>Originally published by <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/05/07/mass-exodus-christians-from-muslim-world/">Fox News</a>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>To order Raymond Ibrahim&#8217;s new book, <em>Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians</em>, <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/productlist.html?key=Y2BKMV7DFZXY">click here</a>.</strong></p>
<p>A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway.  Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other.</p>
<p>We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world—much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian—came into being.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://in.christiantoday.com/articles/christians-could-disappear-from-iraq-and-afghanistan/6919.htm">U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom</a> recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.” In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”</p>
<p>Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion.  Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.</p>
<p>In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million.  Today <a href="http://www.persecution.org/2011/10/31/remembering-iraq%E2%80%99s-displaced-christians-one-year-after-baghdad-church-massacre/">fewer than 400,000 remain</a>—the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when <a href="http://www.meforum.org/2878/iraq-christians-persecution">countless Christian churches were bombed</a> and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.</p>
<p>The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg.</p>
<p>Now as the U.S. supports the jihad on secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls that it’s a “<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/christians-flee-from-radical-rebels-in-syria-a-846180.html">sacred duty</a>” to drive Christians away.</p>
<p>In October 2012 the <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/32561?idnews=32561&amp;lan=eng#.UYbwY7WTioN">last Christian in the city of Homs</a>—which had a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-plight-of-syrias-christians-we-left-homs-because-they-were-trying-to-kill-us-8274710.html">Christian population of some 80,000 before jihadis</a> came—was murdered.  One teenage Syrian girl said: “We left because they were trying to kill us… because we were Christians….  Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house.”</p>
<p>In Egypt, some <a href="http://www.christiannewstoday.com/Christian_News_Report_900171.html">100,000 Christian Copts</a> have fled their homeland soon after the “Arab Spring.”  In September 2012, the Sinai’s small Christian community was attacked and evicted by al-Qaeda linked Muslims, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/us-egypt-sinai-copts-idUSBRE88R1A320120928">Reuters reported</a>.</p>
<p>But even before that, the Coptic Orthodox Church lamented the “<a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3761/guest-column-egypt-christians-distraught">repeated incidents of displacement of Copts from their homes</a>, whether by force or threat. Displacements began in Ameriya [62 Christian families evicted], then they stretched to Dahshur [120 Christian families evicted], and today terror and threats have reached the hearts and souls of our Coptic children in Sinai.”</p>
<p>Iraq, Syria, and Egypt are the Arab world.  But even in “black”  African and “white” European nations with Muslim majorities, Christians are fleeing.</p>
<p>In Mali, after a 2012 Islamic coup, as many as <a href="http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=15403&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CatholicWorldNewsFeatureStories+%28Catholic+World+News+%28on+CatholicCulture.org%29%29">200,000 Christians fled</a>.  According to reports, “<a href="http://www.christiantoday.com/article/appeal.for.christians.in.mali/29908.htm">the church in Mali faces being eradicated</a>,” especially in the north “where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive Christians out… there have been house to house searches for Christians who might be in hiding, church and Christian property has been looted or destroyed, and people tortured into revealing any Christian relatives.” At least one pastor was beheaded.</p>
<p>Even in European Bosnia, <a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/24019-report-christians-flee-bosnia-amid-discrimination-islamization">Christians are leaving en mass</a> “amid mounting discrimination and Islamization.”  Only 440,000 Catholics remain in the Balkan nation, half the prewar figure.  Problems cited are typical:  “while dozens of mosques were built in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, no building permissions were given for Christian churches.”</p>
<p>“Time is running out as there is a worrisome rise in radicalism,” said one authority, who further added that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina were “persecuted for centuries” after European powers “failed to support them in their struggle against the Ottoman Empire.”</p>
<p>And so history repeats itself.</p>
<p>One can go on and on:</p>
<p>• In Ethiopia, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/thousands-christians-displaced-ethiopia-muslim-extremists-torch-churches-homes-2057387870/#ixzz2SSF8T1xb">thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes</a> when “Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.”</p>
<p>• In the Ivory Coast—where Christians have been crucified—Islamic rebels “<a href="http://www.assistnews.net/STORIES/2012/s12080114.htm">massacred hundreds and displaced tens of thousands</a>” of Christians.</p>
<p>• In Libya, Islamic rebels forced <a href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Islamists-chase-nuns-from-Libya,-people-pray-for-their-return-27021.html">several Christian nun orders</a> serving the sick and needy since 1921 to flee.</p>
<p>• In Muslim-majority northern Nigeria, where nary a Sunday passes without a church bombing, Christians are fleeing by the thousands; one region has been emptied of <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Islamist-violence-drives-nearly-95-per-cent-of-Christians-from-Nigerian-state.html">95% of its Christian population</a>.</p>
<p>• In Pakistan, after a Christian child was falsely accused of desecrating a Koran and Muslims went on an anti-Christian rampage, an entire Christian village—men, women, and children—<a href="http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/aug/27/fearful-pakistani-christians-make-home-in-forest/#ixzz26C97sAXj">was forced to flee into the nearby woods,</a> where they built a church, permanently resided there.</p>
<p>• In Somali, where Christianity is completely outlawed, Muslim converts to Christianity are fleeing to neighboring nations, including Kenya and Ethiopia, sometimes to be <a href="http://www.persecution.org/2012/09/07/somali-christians-fear-militant-islam-at-home-and-abroad/">tracked down and executed</a>.</p>
<p>• In Sudan, over half a million people, mostly Christian, have been <a href="http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=5521">stripped of citizenship</a> in response to the South’s secession, and forced to relocate.</p>
<p>To anyone following the plight of Christians under Islam, none of this is surprising.  As I document in my new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621570258/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1621570258&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=uhurnetw-20"><i>Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians</i></a>, all around the Islamic world—in nations that do not share the same race, language, culture, or economics, in nations <i>that share only Islam</i>—Christians are being persecuted into extinction.  Such is the true face of the global Islamic resurgence.</p>
<p>Often forgotten is that, in the 7<sup>th</sup> century, half of the world’s entire Christian population was spread across what is now nonchalantly called the “Muslim world.” Then, Islam, born in the deserts of Arabia, burst out in <a href="http://www.meforum.org/3182/history-muslim-conquests">a series of world-altering jihads</a>, conquering and slowly transforming these once Christian nations into Islamic nations.</p>
<p>In order to evade sporadic persecution and constant discrimination, over the centuries most Christians converted, while others fled.  A few opted to remain Christian and live as barely tolerated third-class subjects, or <i>dhimmis</i>, according to Sharia law.</p>
<p>They eventually experienced something of a renaissance during the colonial and post-colonial era, when many Muslims were Westward-looking.</p>
<p>But today, with the international resurgence of Muhammad’s religion, these remaining Christians are reaching extinction, as Islam’s 1400 year mission of supremacy and global hegemony continues unabated—even as the West looks the other way, that is, when it’s not actually supporting it in the context of the so-called “Arab Spring.”</p>
<p><em>[Note: The version of this article appearing on Fox News was shortened to meet the word-count limit.]</em></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>How California Could Stop Its Population Exodus</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/how-california-could-stop-its-population-exodus/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-california-could-stop-its-population-exodus</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/how-california-could-stop-its-population-exodus/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Oct 2012 04:25:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=147425</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A draconian idea perfect for a state that disdains personal liberty.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/day-20-CA-state-line-wide.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-147428" title="day-20-CA-state-line-wide" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/day-20-CA-state-line-wide.gif" alt="" width="375" height="261" /></a>California was once the land of opportunity, but it is going down the tubes. Several of California&#8217;s prominent cities have declared bankruptcy, such as Vallejo, Stockton, Mammoth Lakes and San Bernardino. Others are on the precipice, and that includes Los Angeles, California&#8217;s largest city. California&#8217;s 2012 budget deficit is expected to top $28 billion, and its state debt is $618 billion. That&#8217;s more than twice the size of New York&#8217;s state debt, which itself is the second-highest in the nation.</p>
<p>Democrats control California&#8217;s Legislature, and its governor, Jerry Brown, is a Democrat. California is home to some of America&#8217;s richest people and companies. It would then appear that the liberals&#8217; solution to deficit and debt would be easy. They need only to raise taxes on California&#8217;s rich to balance the budget and pay down the debt — or, as President Barack Obama would say, make the rich pay their fair share.</p>
<p>The downside to such a tax strategy is the fact that people are already leaving California in great numbers. According to a Manhattan Institute study, &#8220;The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look,&#8221; by Thomas Gray and Robert Scardamalia (October 2012), roughly 225,000 residents leave California each year — and have done so for the past 10 years. They take their money with them. Using census and Internal Revenue Service data, Gray and Scardamalia estimate that California&#8217;s out-migration results in large shares of income going to other states, mostly to Nevada ($5.67 billion), Arizona ($4.96 billion), Texas ($4.07 billion) and Oregon ($3.85 billion). That&#8217;s the problem. California politicians can fleece people in 2012, but there&#8217;s no guarantee that they can do the same in 2013 and later years; people can leave. Also, keep in mind that rich people didn&#8217;t become rich by being stupid. They have ingenious ways to hide their money.</p>
<p>California has one-eighth of the nation&#8217;s population but one-third of its welfare recipients.</p>
<p>According to Businessweek, &#8220;it is one of the few states that continue to provide welfare checks for children once their parents are no longer eligible.&#8221; There&#8217;s nothing new about the handout strategy. As far back as 140 B.C., Roman politicians found that the way to win votes is to give out cheap food and entertainment, what came to be known as &#8220;bread and circuses.&#8221;</p>
<p>Given the widespread contempt for personal liberty and constitutional values, there might be a way for California politicians to solve their fiscal mess. They can simply stop wealthy people from leaving the state or, alternatively, like some Third World nations, set limits on the amount of assets a resident can take out of the state. This would surely be within their jurisdiction and would not raise any constitutional issues, because it would serve a compelling state purpose. In other words, if California were to set up border controls to stop people, as East Germans did at Checkpoint Charlie, before they cross the state line, such action would be protected by the 10th Amendment.</p>
<p>The fact that many Californians have managed to get their assets out of the state complicates the issue. Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution authorizes Congress &#8220;To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.&#8221; This is known as the commerce clause. There&#8217;s no question that people who pull up stakes and leave California affect interstate commerce; California has less tax revenue, and recipient states have more. What California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris might do is sue Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Oregon in the federal courts for enticing, through lower taxes and less onerous regulations, wealthy California taxpayers.</p>
<p>Were California to take such measures and have a modicum of success, one wonders how many Americans would be offended by such an encroachment on personal liberty. After all, how would forcing an American to remain in a state differ in principle from forcing him to purchase health insurance?</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Reclaiming Religion from the Left</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/kidist-paulos-asrat/reclaiming-religion-from-the-left/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=reclaiming-religion-from-the-left</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:06:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kidist Paulos Asrat]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[How political correctness is undermining the sacred.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/0.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58373" title="0" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/0.jpg" alt="" width="384" height="288" /></a></p>
<p>Two television networks showcased Cecil B. DeMille’s epic 3 ½ hour <em>The Ten Commandments</em> this Easter: ABC and Canada’s CBC. The 1956 film had no need for our 21<sup>st</sup> century Computer Generated Imagery to convince us that the Red Sea was indeed parting, and that the “bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed” (Exodus 3:2). I wondered if the networks made this choice because there is really no superlative modern narrative of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection? We have Mel Gibson’s <em>The Passion of Christ</em>, but its gore and blood is too hard to take at Easter. <em>The Last Temptation of Christ</em> by Martin Scorsese is too idiosyncratic, and would be something to watch and study at another time in the year. There are plenty of bland and insipid made-for-television versions of Christ’s story, many of which are programmed during Christmas, but for some reason they were not screened this Easter.</p>
<p>Perhaps these channels chose to commemorate Passover rather than Easter, which fell around similar dates this year. Or they’re simply following the ritual of politically correct inclusiveness. Even President Obama has made Passover Seder-at-the-White House a new tradition, hosting it for the second time as President. No other President before him has hosted the Seder at the White House. Obama’s Seder started on a whim, it seems. During his campaign trail, two young Jewish aides were celebrating their Seder in a basement of a Pittsburgh hotel, away from home and family, when Obama joined their festivities.</p>
<p>Obama’s interest in Jewish celebrations may indeed be a liberal’s outreach to cultural diversity &#8211; after all, the White House now hosts Ramadan dinners. But, it fits his narcissistic personality, conforming the Seder to any situation he may be experiencing at the time of the holiday. At the first, impromptu, Seder in Pennsylvania when his campaign was steeped in the Reverend Wright controversies and was “in the desert,” as another campaign aide put it, Obama proclaimed “Next year at the White House” as an addition to “Next Year in Jerusalem” commonly said at the end of the dinner. Perhaps, as suggests Judi Kantor from the <em>New York Times,</em> this year’s focus could have been one of the universalist themes that Obama is so fond of: to free Americans from the bondage of capitalist healthcare and to give them the abundance of Obamacare.</p>
<p>The Center for American Progress has another suggestion. In it’s <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/04/passover_immigration.html">article</a> on Obama’s Seder celebration this year, CAP cleverly used the Bible’s New Revised Standard Version to quote from Exodus 22:21: “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” Almost all the other versions use “stranger”, “foreigner” or “sojourner” in lieu of “resident alien,” clearly portraying a temporary dweller and not the long-term inhabitant that “resident alien” implies. The CAP’s advice to President Obama is that he treat Mexican illegal aliens with the same compassion they interpret from the NRS, and pass comprehensive immigration reform. But when we parse the words, it is clear that illegal aliens are not the “resident aliens” implied by CAP, but emboldened Mexicans, foreigners and strangers, who wish to take advantage of the lax rules and borders that makes it possible for them to enter and reside in the country with impunity.</p>
<p>One has to marvel at the President’s Seder chutzpah after his dismal treatment of Prime Minister Netanyahu during his recent visit to the United States. It is one thing to celebrate an ethnic festival, but another to respect the significance that the celebrants give their rituals. The Israelites that Obama commemorates in these Seders were freed from bondage in Egypt, and their descendants later received their Promised Land. Yet, Obama seems intent on removing this sacred land from the Jews, and forcing on them new enemies who are probably far more ruthless than the Egyptians.</p>
<p>Modern Christians are in as much danger as modern Jews. Our liberal neighbors, with their feel-good, made-up Christianity are destroying our religion and our communities. Liberal church leaders support issues ranging from comprehensive immigration reform to same sex marriage. Atheists, who have nonetheless constructed their own religion, now have their prophets. In the April 2010 publication of <em>Vanity Fair, </em>atheist Christopher Hitchens performs an iconoclastic dismantling of the Biblical Ten Commandments and then gives us his own petty ten. Like the Old Testament’s Jews, we have to trust that God will free us from our current tribulations.</p>
<p>In fact, End Time preachers use the exodus as an allegory for our liberation. Our ultimate release is entry into God’s heavenly land. But the Passover and Easter stories are also our personal stories. The journey from bondage to freedom reflects our own mundane ordeals. And we experience death and resurrection with each sin and atonement. Celebrating these holidays each year gives us the hope that we too will inherit our particular Israel.</p>
<p>The liberal, politically correct television stations were right after all. The story of Moses, recounting a people’s freedom from slavery, and culminating with the abiding Ten Commandments, was an apt choice for these holidays. Would that our leaders understand and practice its significance. Not just as at religious celebrations, but throughout the year.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Hardened Heart</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/moshe-dann/obamas-hardened-heart/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-hardened-heart</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:01:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Moshe Dann]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[How it reminds us of the meaning of Exodus. ]]></description>
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<p>As if Jews needed a reminder about what a modern rendition of &#8220;Pharaoh&#8217;s  heart hardened,&#8221; President Obama is providing an example, emphasizing an  important lesson: the Egyptian dictator/king was part of the process of  liberation and, ultimately, of God&#8217;s will and the destiny of the Jewish People.</p>
<p>Despite Obama&#8217;s nasty treatment of Israel&#8217;s Prime Minister and  unreasonable demands, Hillary Clinton&#8217;s condemnations  and suggestions that Israel is responsible for war crimes, human rights  violations and hindering America&#8217;s war efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan;  despite Israel&#8217;s demonization at the UN and Arab/Muslim boycott and isolation,  the Israeli government and the Jewish People are stronger and more united.</p>
<p>In Egypt,  three millennia ago, Hebrews (as Jews were then called) not only suffered as  slaves, but believed that slavery was their lot. Not yet a people, they had  descended to the lowest rung of human existence, spiritually as well as  physically; they lived in a state of unconsciousness.</p>
<p>Moses and Aaron awakened Jewish awareness; but it took ten plagues to  convince Pharaoh to allow the Jews to leave, a process of realization that  involved suffering and destruction, especially for the Egyptians. Had Pharaoh  allowed the Jews to leave immediately, there would not have been a revelation of  divine power, in contrast to Pharaoh&#8217;s phony ego-trip.</p>
<p>Not only was it necessary for Jews to understand that Pharaoh was not  God, it was also important for Egyptians. Only when the Egyptian army was  engulfed and destroyed was the meaning of The Exodus revealed. But that was only  the beginning of freedom.</p>
<p>The great Jewish Liberation Movement that inspired countless others to  resist subjugation and oppression was connected to two objectives: the Covenant  at Sinai, which was the beginning of the Jewish People, and the conquest and  settlement of the Land of  Israel as the fulfillment of divine  commandments, the struggle towards Jewish destiny.</p>
<p><em>Galut</em> (exile) is part of <em>Geulah</em> (redemption); both are necessary parts of the process of developing  consciousness. Without a vision of <em>Geulah</em>, <em>Galut</em> is meaningless  tragedy.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s hard-heartedness towards  Israel and the  Jewish People is now obvious to all. As difficult as that seems, however, it is  yet another omen of good things to come. That does not mean that there won&#8217;t be  hard times; there will be – for sure. But this is only a test.</p>
<p>It would have been more comfortable if Obama and Pharaoh had treated the  Jewish People more kindly. But that would have obstructed the process of  spiritual awareness.</p>
<p>Jewish liberation is not only physical, but is a creative process of  self-discovery, as an individual, as part of a family, a nation and a People.  The historical episodes are markers on a path towards a grander purpose. With  miracles and tragedies along the way, we need to be attuned to both.</p>
<p>Pharaoh became obsessed with destroying the Jews, and, in the process  destroyed his own country; many other tyrants followed his example. And the  Jewish People are still around.</p>
<p>The story of The  Exodus reminds us that there are no easy roads to self-discovery – as  individuals and as a People. We eat &#8220;the bread of affliction&#8221; in comfort,  thinking we are free and independent, yet, hesitant to be committed; full of  accomplishments, we are paupers of responsibility.</p>
<p>Obama puts it to us: what rightfully belongs to the  Jewish People in the Land of  Israel?</p>
<p>Obama and his friends may not like  Israel, and it&#8217;s  disappointing, but it may also be a way of clarifying what is important for us,  and for finding our integrity.</p>
<p>Passover/Pesach – the celebration of freedom – begins  with an act, but evolves into an ongoing drama of immense proportions. Obama&#8217;s  wrath turns us back to meaning of The Exodus: we are in God&#8217;s hands.</p>
<p><em>The author is a writer and journalist living in </em><em>Jerusalem</em><em>. </em></p>
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