While I am fond of Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Richard Lugar (R-IN), and Mark Udall (D-CO), all valuable members of the Senate, there is an air of unreality about the immigrant entrepreneur bill that they have introduced.
The twin premises behind the legislation, which I question, are that innovative potential immigrants who want to come to the U.S. are not coming because of the current laws, and that this legislative proposal will take care of that alleged problem. For the details of their proposal, the Startup Visa Act of 2011 (S.565), see here.
Not surprisingly, the snake-pit which is the Arab World — specifically Egypt — is concentrating on hatred of Israel as opposed to creating free, economically sound, and open societies. DEBKAfile, a highly reliable source on Middle Eastern politics, has found evidence that one of the fruits of Egypt’s revolution may be the betrayal of that country’s peace treaty with Israel:
“I deplore the abject silence on the part of the world in the face of the horrific murder of the Fogel family”, declared Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis at a special memorial for the Fogel family held on the upper west side of Manhattan on Thursday evening, March 17th, following Taanis Esther. Speaking from the Hineni Heritage Center, (the world headquarters of Hineni, the internationally renowned Torah outreach organization that she founded in 1973), Rebbetzin Jungreis told her audience of over 300 people, “the Fogels were holy souls, and as the angels of Shabbos that followed them home from synagogue departed, and the angel of death arrived.” Expressing shock and outrage over these murders, the Rebbetzin queried, “The barbaric nature of these gruesome murders is simply incomprehensible. What kind of beasts could kill a family in cold blood; what kind of beasts could slash the throat of a three month old infant?”
Will the Qaddafi-like, “socialist” dictatorship of Syria led by Bashar al-Assad soon fall to a peoples’ uprising? Some observers consider the words “dissent” and “Syria” to be oxymoronic. The ruling Assad dynasty (from the tiny, non-Muslim Alawite minority) has a strong security apparatus and is absolutely brutal. Remember that in 1982, papa Hafez al-Assad shelled the city of Hama, killing more than 20,000, to crush an Islamist rebellion (and, of course, lots of civilians). But there have been courageous voices of dissent (see here, here, here), and — most significantly with popular revolutions going on right now in Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, etc. — just yesterday, “At least three protesters have been shot dead in the south Syrian city of Deraa as security forces clamped down on a protest rally.”
There’s no doubt that, starting with President Bush’s prescient toppling of Saddam, ripples started spreading in the Middle East, and the notion that, “Hey, if they can vote and start businesses, why can’t we?,” is infectious. Lebanon had its “Cedar Revolution” and small steps towards political loosening up began in places like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. These ripples have culminated in the recent upheavals in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. If Syrians are willing to risk their lives for freedom against horrid tyrants like Bashar al-Assad, anything’s possible. Vive la liberté, égalité, et fraternité!
Oh, one question to all you morons out there who idealize murderous thugs like Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong Il: Are you crying because your “socialist” buddies like Qaddafi and Assad are in trouble?
Palestinian and Arab propaganda has demonized Jewish settlers as illegal, fanatic, racist, violent, angry, and hell-bent on revenge. The mainstream media has followed suit and has consistently justified Palestinian terrorism against Israelis as caused by the “provocative” settlements. People consistently forget that Arabs were murdering Jewish civilians on a mass basis for fifty years before the Jewish state was born and then for an additional twenty years before Israel won the 1967 war of self-defense, long before there were “settlements.” The Arab murder of Israeli civilians continues to this day. Please see the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on “Which Came First — Terrorism or ‘Occupation’?”
In recent years, small groups of Moroccan Berber activists, particularly younger people, have challenged the enforced silence regarding Israel, expressing an interest in both the state of Israel and Jewish history, including the Holocaust. They even linked this interest to the alleged historic connections between Jews and Berbers in ancient times, including the initial resistance to Arab conquerors by the Kahina, a supposedly Jewish-Berber queen, and the multilayered, more recent relations existing until the mass departure of Jews for Israel in the 1950s and 1960s from Berber villages and towns.
WASHINGTON (March 2011) - The Center for Immigration Studies has produced its first web-based film that looks in depth at what it is like to live as an Arizona rancher amongst the isolation and dangers posed by illegal immigration. “A Day in the Life of an Arizona Rancher: Border Fences, Illegal Aliens, and One Man’s Watchtower,” released one year after the March 2010 tragic murder of rancher Robert Krentz, unravels the mindset of a rancher trying to balance the complexities of illegal immigration when dealing with protecting himself, his family and his property from unknown, constant and potentially dangerous trespassers who in Arizona are nearly always illegal aliens.
On Sunday afternoon, March 13th, an organization called JCC Watch held a news conference outside the Jewish Community Center of the upper west side in Manhattan to spotlight the nefarious partnership that the board of directors of the center have established with groups that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The JCC in Manhattan is a beneficiary agency of the UJA-Federation.
JCCWatch.org is a volunteer organization that came into being when it was discovered that the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, through its “Other Israel Film Festival” (OIFF) website, actively partners with or links to groups that, in addition to their stated missions, support, fund, or closely work with organizations that advocate the BDS movement against Israel.
From Congressman Keith Ellison’s emotional breakdown to Congresswoman Jackie Speier’s accusations of “racism,” last week’s hearings on Muslim radicalization have made it clear that those who oppose the hearings have little of substance to offer. Still, the tactics used by such apologists — namely, appeals to emotionalism and accusations of racism — are influential enough that they need to be addressed and discredited once and for all.
It is all happening and far more quickly than even I had anticipated; and yet, the events are so surreal that they seem to be happening in slow motion, as if we are dreaming or in a really bad movie.
That is because we view it all — but are helpless before it.
The natural disasters: an earthquake which may have killed more than 10,000 people in Japan and an unintended Japanese nuclear meltdown are fully matched by the moral and man-made disasters in Libya and in Itamar, the West Bank town in which Palestinians slaughtered five members of the same Israeli family. In addition to the 35 and 36 year old parents, Udi and Ruth, the child victims were thee months old Hadas, 4 years old Elad, and 11 years old Yoav.
The official hymn of the U.S. Marine Corps famously begins with “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country’s battles on the land as on the sea.” The reference to Tripoli alludes to the Battle of Derna of 1805, the first overseas land combat fought by U.S. troops and a decisive American victory.
Recent fighting in Libya prompts a question: Should the marines be sent anew to the shores of Tripoli, this time to protect not the high seas but the rebellious peoples of Libya rising against their government and calling for assistance as they are strafed from the air by troops loyal to Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi?
As with Egypt, American sympathies instinctively side with Libya’s oppositional forces as they seek to overthrow the tyrant Qaddafi — and rightfully so. But where U.S. foreign policy is concerned, prudence is in order. This is especially the case considering that the Obama administration has evinced inconsistency, if not incoherence, regarding the Middle East: vowing not to “meddle” on behalf of Iranian dissidents, while eagerly disavowing onetime U.S. ally Mubarak; confidently stating that Mubarak’s authority was secure at the start of the revolution, even as he was toppled weeks later; and misguidedly being open to talking with existentialist enemies such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Exceptionally heavy security prevailed at Brooklyn College on Thursday evening, March 10th, as conservative commentator, prolific author and founder of the FrontPage Mag web site, David Horowitz, delivered a lecture in response to the propaganda being promulgated by the organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week on campus.
Over 150 people gathered at the college library auditorium to listen to Mr. Horowitz’s speech entitled the “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Myths and Facts” and was sponsored and organized by Brooklyn College student Yosef Sobel and Mitchell Langbert, an associate professor in the department of business and economics. “Because the Hillel organization on campus was too afraid to sponsor me, I must thank those who had the courage to do so.” said Mr. Horowitz. Despite numerous warnings prohibiting verbal disruptions, bellicose Muslim student hecklers abounded and Mr. Horowitz’s remarks were often punctuated by the sounds of acrimonious, ad hominem attacks.
The mob roars its hoarse, ear-splitting chants. “Death to the Jews,” “Death to Zionism,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free.” Keffiyas abound: On heads, over faces, around shoulders. The Arab “street” is on the move — in Toronto, Montreal, Amherst, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, St. Louis, Houston, Berkeley, and in Oxford, Belfast, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, and many other Western cities.
“You can sit here and talk about jihad from here to doomsday, what will it do? Suppose you prove beyond any shadow of doubt that Islam is constitutionally violent, where do you go from there?”
Such was Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi’s response to my assertion that Islamists seek to resurrect the caliphate and wage offensive jihad to bring the world under Islamic rule (during a 2008 debate titled “Clash of Civilizations“).
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