This man is guilty of the imprisonment and torture of 30,000 Christians!

Daily we read about the persecution and killing of Christians and Jews. Those being oppressed are voices crying out for justice. This issue is falling on deaf ears both here in the United States, across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and now in North Korea.

Testimony before the United Nations Human Rights Council:

“A witness saw a young woman who folded her hands in a praying fashion when the SSD [State Security Department] interrogated her. The SSD suspected therefore that she was a Christian. They took her to another room and beat her until she confessed.”

LettersofConfession.com reports:

Every day in North Korea’s prison camps, 30,000 Christians rise in the predawn hours, eat a few mouthfuls of corn porridge and cabbage, and trudge to an assigned workplace. They then spend about 15 hours toiling in coal mines, cleaning and maintaining the camp, or doing farm work or construction work. In late evening, they return to housing units or apartments above their workplace to eat the same meager meal before falling to sleep on concrete floors.

Other Christians are not so fortunate. Instead of laboring for hours at backbreaking work under the eye of cruel guards, they’re locked in torture chambers and underground prisons. Survivors of North Korean prison camps have described being locked in cages like animals, forced to stand for hours in tortuous positions and beaten until they vomited blood.

About 200,000 North Koreans are thought to be detained in prison camps that aren’t even acknowledged by the communist government to exist. Authorities are very careful to conceal details about the camps from the outside world. The camps are disguised as military or farming facilities, and only officials with special security clearance are permitted to visit. During a United Nations investigation that culminated in an incriminatory report earlier this year, North Korean authorities repeatedly denied investigators entrance to the camps.

North Koreans found guilty of lesser infractions are sent to the kyohwaso, or ordinary labor camps, from which they might one day be released. But those found guilty of serious “crimes,” such as practicing Christianity, are sent to the kwanliso, controlled areas for political prisoners. The regime often arrests entire families, punishing three generations of a family for the crime of one member.

Most political prisoners sent to the kwanliso are incarcerated for life, if they aren’t executed immediately. Inmates are denied contact with the outside world, and not even their closest family members receive information on their whereabouts. Very few people have ever been released from a kwanliso.

There are four known kwanliso prison camps. Camp 14 holds about 15,000 prisoners, who work in mines, and only one person is known to have ever escaped. Camp 15, which holds about 30,000 prisoners, is unique in that it has separate areas for those imprisoned for life (Total Control Zones) and those considered redeemable through labor (Revolutionary Zones). Camp 16, which is located near a nuclear test site in the north, is thought to hold 20,000 prisoners. And Camp 25, which is more like a maximum security prison, holds only a few thousand prisoners but has doubled in size since 2006.

Conditions in the camps are so bad that nearly 40 percent of inmates die of starvation, while others commonly lose up to half their body weight. Prisoners tell of eating grass and rats to survive and of fighting over a single kernel of corn. One escapee, Shin Dong-hyuk, said his own mother began to compete with him for food. Survivors of these camps are often permanently disfigured from torture and from being chained to walls for days or weeks at a time.

Most of those who have disappeared into kwanliso in recent years have been found guilty of one of three crimes: they tried to flee North Korea, they had unauthorized contact with citizens of South Korea, or they were revealed as Christians. According to testimony before the United Nations, Christianity in North Korea “has been compared to a drug, narcotics, a sin and a tool of Western and capitalist invasion.” The work of Christian missionaries is “akin to vampirism.”

While Christianity is not explicitly illegal and a few show churches are even allowed in Pyongyang, in practice, authorities consider adherence to the Christian faith a political crime. State security makes concerted efforts to identify Christians. Agents are trained to suppress religious activities and to systematically interrogate repatriated citizens about their contact with churches and missionaries while outside North Korea. Those found to have engaged in such conduct face harsher punishment.

The 30,000 believers in these concentration camps are prisoners of a war being waged on Christians in North Korea. It’s a war that began in 1948, when North Korea was established as a state. North Koreans, who share the gospel, as Mrs. Park did, pay a high personal price. Secret Christians there have known and accepted this for years. They fully expect their faith to result in their imprisonment. However, a Christian who works closely with North Korean defectors said they do not regard imprisonment with surprise or outrage; on the contrary, they regard the prison camps as their mission field and view everything leading to their imprisonment as training.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Nigeria: Islamic jihadists of Boko Haram kidnap 20 more women

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo of President Kim Jong Un of North Korea is courtesy of Reuters/KCNA.

FBI investigating death threats to Bergdahl’s father

RS-Lynched-300x271

For a larger view click on the image.

Some death threats are newsworthy. Some aren’t. When Daisy Khan, the wife of Ground Zero Mosque Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, claimed to have been threatened a few years ago (not coincidentally at the height of the Ground Zero Mosque controversy), it was international news. So are these alleged threats to Robert Bergdahl. But the many death threats that counter-jihadists receive are never news.

This is because the purpose of the mainstream media’s publicizing of these death threats to Khan and Bergdahl is not, as one might think, to inform the public about the threats themselves. The point of publicizing them is to demonize the opposition to a cause the media loves but the public hates. 70% of the American people opposed the Ground Zero Mosque, but the media loved it; so Daily Khan’s supposed death threats were publicized. And now, amid the growing dismay over the Bergdahl trade, suddenly we hear that Robert Bergdahl has received death threats. This is a signal that media is going to run interference for Barack Obama yet again, and try to force the American people to swallow the Bergdahl trade.

A few of the death threats I have received over the years:

Robert Spencer must be shot head…”

And via email:

“Robert Spencer has his right to speech. But someday he will slip up, he will visit a place that doesn’t honor such infidel ‘rights.’ And what a day they will have with him. You’ve heard of head cheese and blood pudding? See, modern hip Muslims like me like to be look different than everybody else in Western society. And we don’t like to believe Islam has any real enemies left. But Robert Spencer, well, he will see the sacred text come to life…’fuel the fires of hell…’ only when they are done with him. Peace and Love.”

“Robert Spencer the Second, born on February 27, 1962, is a hairy man who…currently lives on [specific street] in [specific city] with [specific relatives]…” (Pro-jihad hatchet man Nathan Lean, late of Reza Aslan’s Aslan Media and apparently also connected with John Esposito’s Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, has trafficked in this kind of veiled threat many times, publishing on Twitter what he thinks is my home address and the addresses of places he thinks I frequent — thereby knowingly endangering innocent people even if I am a thousand miles away from where he thinks I am. That Aslan and Esposito would work with this bottom-feeding thug and stalker reveals a great deal about their actual agenda.)

“Killing of this man is a model… SPENCER-Model..Spencer himself deserves the same? he should be sloughtered like that man. Silencing the EVIL.”

“THIS IS AN OPEN THREAT TO YOU AND YOUR ORGANIZATION TO STAY AWAY FROM MUSLIMS AND ISLAM IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU. YOU SON OF A BITCH . YOUR MOTHER WAS A C**K-SUCKING WHORE . IF YOU GOT THE GUTS AND BALLS PRINT THIS ON YOUR WEB SITE AND TELL PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE BEING THREATENED. U FILTHY C**K-SUCKER HAVE A NICE DAY”

“Yes. Yes..We finally reached out him. Ka’ab Binu Ashraf has been traced. He will be soon found. Will this be like VAN-Goooordhd. I am not sure. Allah Knows.. But Spencer you will pay the price…Just wait to pay the price.”

“Robert….It was really good I found you in a local supermarket. and I followed you.. so i know your address now..tell you fool followers you are going to be deceased very soon… any one taking your seat and getting killed? I am sure most of your followers are cheeky cowards.”

“Do me a favor Spencer and put this as a blog post like you do to all those threatening mails. Be careful, I am very near to you. I located you and I know you have little security around you. I am coming to slit your throat with a bland knife.. and it will pain a lot.. since you misled a lot of people and became a fitnah on earth.. it is a duty of a good muslim to kill you! go report this to FBI or CIA..And don’t worry, I won’t attack you unguarded.. but i will surely kill you in the most easy manner possible because I don’t like to slaughter human beings.. Die and go to hell.. for sure..and yea I have a new name for you…Robert ‘hawknoseinhell’ spencer.”

“Bowe Bergdahl’s Father Has Been Getting Death Threats,” by Laura Zuckerman, Reuters, June 8, 2014 (thanks to Kenneth):

SALMON Idaho (Reuters) – The father of Bowe Bergdahl, the Idaho soldier released from captivity in a controversial prisoner swap with the Taliban, has received emailed death threats that authorities are investigating, an Idaho police chief said on Saturday.

The first of the death threats sent to Bob Bergdahl at his home near Hailey, Idaho, was received on Wednesday, the same day the city canceled a planned rally celebrating the release of his son, Hailey Police Chief Jeff Gunter said.

“There were four specific emails with death threats given to the FBI and they are looking into it,” Gunter told Reuters in an interview.

Authorities are providing security to Bob Bergdahl and his wife, Jani, but Gunter declined to elaborate on those measures.

Bergdahl’s release after being held for nearly five years in Afghanistan provoked an angry backlash in Congress among lawmakers over the Obama administration’s failure to notify them in advance. Some of Bergdahl’s former comrades have charged that he was captured in 2009 after deserting his post.

U.S. military leaders have said the circumstances of Bergdahl’s capture are unclear, with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging critics to wait for all the facts to be known before rushing to judgment on Bergdahl.

The threats came as Hailey, a tourist community of some 8,000 people in the mountains of central Idaho, was buffeted by hundreds of vitriolic phone calls and emails.

The celebratory spirit that infused Hailey a week ago with news of Bergdahl’s release turned to apprehension as an onslaught of angry messages were directed at city officials, businesses and friends of the Bergdahls over a hometown rally to mark his freedom planned for June 28.

As many as 15,000 supporters and protesters were expected to descend on Hailey for an event that would have overwhelmed the resources and infrastructure of the remote mountain town and potentially risked public safety and property, city officials have said.

Residents of the close-knit community have been surprised and dismayed by an angry backlash that seemed to fault them for seeking to aid the Bergdahls in a time of need, Gunter said.

“We’ve always come together in tragedy or crisis, whether it be fire or one of our own being a prisoner of war. Whatever the problem is, the community will be there to help the people experiencing it,” he said.

RELATED VIDEO: Comments on news reports that Bowe Bergdahl joined the Taliban to wage jihad against American soldiers:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/s7Rx12vjTe0[/youtube]

 

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Bergdahl ‘healthier than expected’: No intelligence supported bad health, says senator

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is courtesy of the Associated Press.

For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Qur’an will be heard at the Vatican

When will there be Christian prayers and readings from the New Testament at the Grand Mosque in Mecca?

Will the Qur’an readings at the Vatican feature these verses?

Christians have forgotten part of the divine revelations they received: “From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a covenant, but they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so we estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the day of judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done.” — Qur’an 5:14

Jesus is not the Son of God: “O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not “Three” – Cease! (it is) better for you! – Allah is only One Allah. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender.” — Qur’an 4:171

“It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” — Qur’an 19:35

Those who believe that Jesus is God’s Son are accursed: “The Jews call ‘Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! ” — Qur’an 9:30

Jesus was not crucified: “And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger – they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.” — Qur’an 4:157

“Islamic prayers to be held at the Vatican,” Al Arabiya, June 6, 2014

For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran will be heard at the Vatican on Sunday, in a move by Pope Francis to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Francis issued the invitation to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit last week to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, Peres, and Francis will be joined by Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders, a statement released by Peres’s spokesperson said, according to the Times of Israel.

Holy See officials on Friday said the evening prayers would be a “pause in politics” and had no political aim other than to rekindle the desire for Israeli-Palestinian peace at the political and popular level, according to the Associated Press.

Low expectations

The Vatican will broadcast a live feed of the event to viewers across the world.

However, expectations for the event should be kept low, according to Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the custodian of Catholic Church property in the Holy Land.

[No-one should think] “peace will suddenly break out on Monday, or that peace is any closer,” AP reported him as saying.

On Friday, the Pope met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and discussed ways of promoting peace and stability in Asia the Vatican said in a statement.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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What could possibly go wrong? Federal agencies are building a massive database to collect personal financial data

The federal government is building a database that will contain extensive personal financial information for over 200 million Americans, the Washington Examiner reports:

The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an April 16 Federal Register notice of an expansion of their joint National Mortgage Database Program to include personally identifiable information that reveals actual users, a reversal of previously stated policy.

FHFA will manage the database and share it with CFPB. A CFPB internal planning document for 2013-17 describes the bureau as monitoring 95 percent of all mortgage transactions.

FHFA officials claim the database is essential to conducting a monthly mortgage survey required by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and to help it prepare an annual report for Congress.

[U]nder the April register notice, the database expansion means it will include a host of data points, including a mortgage owner’s name, address, Social Security number, all credit card and other loan information and account balances.

The database will also encompass a mortgage holder’s entire credit history, including delinquent payments, late payments, minimum payments, high account balances and credit scores, according to the notice.

The two agencies will also assemble “household demographic data,” including racial and ethnic data, gender, marital status, religion, education, employment history, military status, household composition, the number of wage earners and a family’s total wealth and assets.

The National Mortgage Database (NMD) website insists that “We Are Protecting Your Information”:

Information in the database will not identify any individual and we have put safeguards in place to ensure that information in the database is handled in accordance with federal privacy laws and the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Critics like the U.S. Chamber’s Center for Capital Market Competitiveness disagree with this assertion. A CCMC letter to the FHFA states that the database “will intrude unnecessarily upon Americans’ privacy, increase the risk of financial fraud and identity theft, and undermine consumer confidence in the security of their financial information.”

CCMC has a number of criticisms with the database:

  • “The FHFA has not clearly stated the need for the NMD” nor has it explained “why existing databases or a more limited version of the NMD might not meet the FHFA’s purposes.”
  • The FHFA “lacks clear authority to gather, store, and analyze the vast amounts of sensitive personal and financial information that will be tracked in the NMD.”
  • Federal privacy law “does not allow an agency [FHFA] (here likely acting beyond its authority) to share confidential information with another agency [CFPB] simply because they share similar policy goals.”
  • The FHFA hasn’t adequately explained how this tempting target for hackers will be protected.

Since the FHFA will be sharing the database with the CFPB, it’s important to look at some questionable behavior from this agency. Last month, it was discovered that the agency will spend nearly $400,000 on an all-staff meeting in Washington, D.C. in July. Also earlier this year we found out that a renovation of its Washington, D.C. headquarters has “soared to $145.1 million from a prior estimate of $95 million.”

The CFPB is housed inside the Federal Reserve and isn’t funded by Congress, it is, in the words of Rep. Jeb Henserling (R-TX), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, “unaccountable to the American people.”

Both agencies can say, “Trust us,” but in the case of the CFPB, its fiscal track record and the lack of institutional accountability should make us question its ability to keep that promise.

Follow Sean Hackbarth on Twitter at @seanhackbarth and the U.S. Chamber at @uschamber.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Photographer: Justin Grimes/Flickr. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

What Every American Boy needs: The Boy Scout Handbook — 1970 Edition

The attack on our young boys by those who want to fundamentally transform them can and must be reversed. The perfect gift anyone can give a young man is the Boy Scout Handbook – 1970s Edition.

Here is a link to a free PDF of the original 1911 Boy Scout Handbook courtesy of the Gutenberg Library.

Before he becomes a scout a boy must promise: On my honor I will do my best; To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the scout law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

The 1911 Scout Handbook states, “Another scout virtue is self-respect. He ought to refuse to accept gratuities from anyone, unless absolutely necessary. He ought to work for the money he gets.” In the 1911 the Twelve Points of the Scout Law are:

1. A scout is trustworthy.
2. A scout is loyal.
3. A scout is helpful.
4. A scout is friendly.
5. A scout is courteous.
6. A scout is kind.
7. A scout is obedient.
8. A scout is cheerful.
9. A scout is thrifty.
10. A scout is brave.
11. A scout is clean.
12. A scout is reverent.

Everything I Know About Economics I Learned from Tinder by Joseph S. Diedrich

The Huffington Post calls it “the Twitter of dating.” It’s Tinder, an 18-month-old mobile app now available in two dozen languages. Millions of men and women, mostly millennials, have flocked to the Tinderverse. It’s exhilarating, enticing, and occasionally disturbing.

To begin, you download the app and log in via Facebook. Tinder hijacks essential data—name, age, photos, mutual friends, and likes—from Zuck’s house and builds you an editable profile. Then you go window shopping—not for shoes, but for other users in your area. Swipe right if you like what you see and left if you don’t. When two people swipe right for each other, they’re “matched,” and a chat conversation opens.

You may have already known all that, perhaps from personal experience. What you probably didn’t know is that Tinder is also an economics textbook. Besides getting you laid, the app teaches you the fundamentals of the “youngest of all sciences.”

Human action

For Ludwig von Mises, economics starts with a foundational understanding of human action. He defines human action as “purposeful behavior” precipitated by perceived “uneasiness” and “the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.”

That’s precisely why I downloaded Tinder. Some of my needs, wants, and desires were not being met. I was not perfectly content. By engaging in the purposeful act of using the app, I expected that I would come closer to contentment. Whether or not that happened is none of your business.

Subjective value

The cornerstone of Austrian economic thought (to which Mises adhered) is the subjective theory of value. When Mises writes, echoing his forebear Carl Menger, “value is not intrinsic, it is not in things,” he underscores the basic premise of Tinder. The choice is mine to make to swipe right. While the app can find people for me based on my location and input parameters (age, gender, etc.), it cannot (and could never) quantify or calculate my valuation of the beauty of another.

My valuations neither impede nor enhance another man’s abilities to make his own subjective valuations. Nobody can be declared “objectively attractive” prior to or because of a swipe. I doubt, for instance, that many people swipe right for anarchy tattoos, but I do. Indiscriminately.

Law of returns

Originally articulated in 1815 by the classical economist David Ricardo, the law of diminishing marginal returns states that “as more and more resources are combined in production with a fixed resource—for example, as more labor and machinery are used on a fixed amount of land—the additions to output will diminish.”

More generally, the per-unit (marginal) benefit gained from something diminishes with every further addition of that thing.

When I first started Tindering, I vetted every individual with a critical eye. I swiped deliberately and meticulously. After awhile, however, each additional profile seemed less and less significant. I began to scrutinize with less intensity. My thumbs got faster. Likewise, I remember my first Tinder match vividly: It increased my match total from zero to one. But now, a new match raises the proverbial boat nary an inch on my Tinder sea.

The role of advertising

Economists have sparred over the role and value of advertising. Prominent figures such as John Kenneth Galbraith believed that advertising is a scourge on society. Firms use advertising to create artificial demand for their own products, thereby distracting the gullible public and siphoning wealth from more productive uses. Galbraith’s contemporary F. A. Hayek saw it differently:

It is because each individual producer thinks that the consumers can be persuaded to like his products that he endeavors to influence them. But though this effort is part of the influences which shape consumers’ taste, no producer can in any real sense ‘determine’ them.

Information shared by Tinder “producers” is more or less advertising. For that, I am grateful. It helps me make decisions as a “consumer.” As Mises says, “The consumer is not omniscient.” Oh, you like gin? Please, tell me more. Your profile picture includes multiple cats? Swipe left. I much prefer the market of Tinder to blind-date socialism and arranged-marriage communism.

Assurance contract

An assurance contract is a mechanism through which one party agrees to provide a collective good if and only if other parties first provide resources that reach a threshold when aggregated. The idea first appeared in The Review of Economic Studies in 1989. Authors Mark Bagnoli and Barton L. Lipman explain: “Agents voluntarily contribute any non-negative amount of the private good they choose and the social decision is to provide the public good if contributions are sufficient to pay for it.”

When I swipe right on Tinder, I pledge my contact information (my Tinder “address,” if you will). The app takes note of my pledge and holds it in escrow. Upon reaching a threshold (viz., two reciprocal right swipes), Tinder provides the threshold good (a chat conversation). Neither my match nor I are obligated to actually chat, however. The contract only assured us that the feature would be made available, not that it had to be used.

On the whole, Tinder is a vast marketplace of individuals making choices. That’s the economy in a nutshell. Use the app to shop around, find a date, or fall in love . . . with economics.

ABOUT JOSEPH S. DIEDRICH

Joseph S. Diedrich is a Young Voices Advocate and a law student at the University of Wisconsin. He also works with multiple Internet startups, including Liberty.me.

Ugly “Homo-Mafia” Is Coming after You

Militants are seeking the home addresses of every person who has ever signed a petition for traditional marriage. Are we prepared to stand up against militants who show up at our door?

In an editorial WN.com titled “Bullies drove Mozilla’s Brendan Eich from public square” asks, “Should the 7 million Californians who voted for Proposition 8 in 2008 all be fired? I’m not joking — or even fear-mongering. Photos of the day Pro-Russian Ukrainian activists, Rwanda remembrances, Pacific Ocean military rescue of a sick 1-year-old and more. Photos of the day: April 4, 2014 Thursday (April 3), the chief executive of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, resigned his job due to intense pressure from activists who want to redefine marriage. What outraged the activists was something Eich did six years ago: He made $1,000 donation in support of Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman… read more »

[youtube]http://youtu.be/VOJ-BlcidV4[/youtube]

 

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of WN.com

“Scambushed” by Adam Trent -The Short Sale Scam and Greed

Adam Trent is an amazing young man and magician. I met Adam when he did a show in Sarasota, FL. He is a true American and loves to make a moral point, like thou shall not steal. To learn more about Adam go to his new website: AdamTrent.com.

Adam writes, “The new Travel Channel series ‘Scambushed’ I’m on premiered. In the show, we go around to tourist destinations and scam tourists with new and old cons. This is a clip of one of my favorite bits.” Check it out the latest from of bait-and-switch or the scambush.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/vVRxOOTYp3M[/youtube]

 

The Illusionists 2.0

Adam notes, “I got together with some friends for a show called ‘The Illusionists 2.0’ at The Sydney Opera House in Australia. We ended up breaking box office records, selling $3 million of tickets in just 9 days. Because of it’s success, we have dates in New Zealand, Dubai, and others over the next few months. See the Trailer for it HERE:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/aImqezxj1AU[/youtube]

WARNING RATED XXX: “Gay Day” at Disney Orlando on June 7th

Thanks to the generous support of concerned citizens across America, Florida Family Association will fly TWO aircraft most of the day Thursday, June 5th and Friday, June 6th and one aircraft the first half of Saturday, June 7th to warn tens of thousands of families about Gay Day at Disney.

Supporters all across America donated $17,510 exclusively for this project.  The cost of the contract with Aerial Messages to pull the banners is $17,000.  The remaining $510 will pay for costs associated with monitoring the event.

The primary objective of this project is to warn families before they expose their children to Gay Day’s revelry and before they pay Disney for parking and admission.

Florida Family Association has had a team attend several past Gay Days at Disney.  This team has routinely witnessed thousands of people enter the park after they paid for parking, tickets and novelties only to see the gay day revelry and leave the park immediately.  In several years past, the team has witnessed as many as 10,000 people enter the park only to promptly exit before 1:00 pm.

Florida Family Association created a campaign that used aircraft banners to warn families about Gay Day before they entered Disney World in 20112012 and 2013.

Given the past three year’s success, Florida Family Association has contracted with Aerial Messages to pull the following banners for 40 total hours during the respective days and hours along the Interstate 4 corridor where many hotels  are  located  and  where  travelers exit for Disney World:

  • TWO AIRCRAFT Thursday, June 5, 2014 from 10:30 am to 7:30 pm “WARNING GAY DAY AT DISNEY 6/7.”
  • TWO AIRCRAFT Friday, June 6, 2014 from 9:00 am to 7:30 pm “WARNING GAY DAY AT DISNEY 6/7.”
  • ONE AIRCRAFT Saturday, June 7, 2014 from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm “WARNING GAY DAY AT DISNEY 2DAY.”

Florida Family Association has received many emails from people who benefited from the aircraft banner.  The following are some examples of the emails received from the public:

—– Original Message —–
From:  K.S.
To: <ffafloridafamily.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2013 1:25 AM
Subject: New message for Florida Family: sent by K.S.

We are staying at the __  __ hotel right now. Thank God we looked up and saw your banner! Our children are 8 and 10, they go to a private Christian school. They are beautiful, innocent children and we are so appreciative you warned us! It’s so sad that we paid a lot of money to be here and we can’t go to a Disney park tomorrow. God Bless you and thank you again.

Sincerely,

K.S.

—– Original Message —–

From: “Apache”
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 4:21 PM
Subject: New message for Florida Family: sent by Josh R

Thank you for the warnings flown over Disney as my family and I would like to avoid being caught up in “Gay Days.” We appreciated knowing g before we were in the middle of it. Apprecite you standing up for traditional values! Thanks JR

—– Original Message —–
From: Anonymous
To: <ffa@floridafamily.org>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 10:38 PM
Subject: New message for Florida Family: sent by Anonymous

I just wanted to say thank you for the banner that was flown today advising of the gay day event. I had planned to take my family, which includes my young children, to Disney but we are making alternate plans. I’m sure it has not been easy taking this public stance, but I for one appreciate the information you are sharing. While I don’t mind the decisions people choose for themselves, I do not feel an organized event such as this where young children  will be exposed to who knows what is appropriate.

—– Original Message —–
From:  Jennifer
To: ffa@floridafamily.org
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2013 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: Florida Family Association will warn tens of thousands of families about Gay Day at Disney with two aircraft banners.

Brilliant, and thank you!  We changed our plans to avoid the day.  I believe it lasts longer than a day, though.  We heard from people last year who accidentally went and said the gay people displayed their beliefs in the worst ways.  I just can’t imagine how terrible it is for the families who have no idea…

A SPECIAL THANK YOU to everyone who generously donated the resources for this project.  Florida Family Association will issue a report on this project early next week.

Shocking video: Educators pushing Racism and White Privilege agendas on children

white-privilege

This image appears on billboards in Minnesota. For a larger view click on the image.

The National Liberty Federation has released the latest in a series of videos from the White Privilege Conference (WPC) in Madison, Wisconsin. The third video shows attendees, including children, being indoctrinated by educators into believing by being white they are privileged. Children are made to feel shame for being white. They are told that “racism drives everything in America.”

According to the WPC website, “Participants at the WPC may obtain either Continuing Education Credits/Clock Hours, or Academic Credit (High school students, undergraduate and graduate students may earn 1-3 hours of academic credit at either the undergraduate or graduate level).”

Speakers at the White Privilege Conference included: Jacqueline Battalora, Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Saint Xavier University; Daniel Beaty, Award-Winning Actor, Singer and Writer; Rosa Clemente, Community organizer, independent journalist, and hip-hop activist, Joe Feagin, Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M; John Powell, Professor of Law and African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law; and Howard Stevenson, Professor of Education and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Watch this latest investigative report:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/nJVHKKRbZ6s[/youtube]

On Immigration: My House is not Your Home

Since the economic crash of 2008, I think everyone has had to make adjustments – except the federal government – including cutting back on discretionary spending, fewer weekends at the beach, eating out less, etc. What I like about Americans is that when times get hard, we have a tendency to reach out to help those around us who are less fortunate. We will share a loaf of bread with a neighbor. We will give a bag of groceries to a needy member of our church. We will pay the fees for our child’s friend to attend summer camp.

Those we have some connection to will always be on the receiving end of our largess when we have the wherewithal and after we have fulfilled the obligations we have to our families. This is the America I love and cherish. But this love is becoming somewhat diminished in light of recent numbers on the level of homelessness among children in the U.S. There are two groups in the U.S. that we should never allow to suffer – children and senior citizens. Children are pure, innocent and totally dependent on us adults. Senior citizens have paid their dues to society and paved the way for us to enjoy the privileges we have.

But those aren’t the only two groups we should be concerned about. A record 1.16 million students in the United States were homeless last year, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education. These were students from K-12 for the school year 2011-12, the latest numbers are available. This was a 10 percent increase from the previous school year. According to the federal government, there were 55.5 million students enrolled in school during this period, meaning about 2 percent of all students were homeless.

The states with the largest increases of homeless students were: California, New York, Texas, and Florida. What is interesting about those states is they are the same states with the largest population of people in the U.S. illegally.

The Obama administration has actually encouraged a flood of illegal children to trek across Central America through Mexico into the U.S. because they have made it perfectly clear that they will not enforce our immigration laws. This public declaration has put our own kids at dire risk.

According to Reuters, “An estimated 60,000 such children will pour into the United States this year, according to the [Obama] administration, up from about 6,000 in 2011. Now, Washington is trying to figure out how to pay for their food, housing and transportation once they are taken into custody.

The flow is expected to grow. The number of unaccompanied, undocumented immigrants who are under 18 will likely double in 2015 to nearly 130,000 and cost U.S. taxpayers $2 billion, up from $868 million this year, according to administration estimates.”

So, if these are the numbers the Obama administration is using, they are probably conservative.

We are already more than $17 trillion in debt and you want to take money (that could be used for citizens) away from our homeless children to take care of those noncitizens who are in the country illegally? Really? I am totally with humanitarian aid, but not at the expense of my own U.S.-born children.

The problem has gotten so bad that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has set up an emergency shelter at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas that can hold 1,000 illegals. That’s right, we are housing illegals on military bases; but our own children are living on the street or in a homeless shelter. We Americans are the most generous, kind, giving people on the face of the earth; but enough is enough. Let’s take care of our own first.

America doesn’t have an immigration problem. We have an enforcement problem. There is nothing wrong with the laws on the books; we need to simply enforce them. The interesting thing that my open borders and pro-amnesty friends will never discuss publicly is this: America accepts more legal immigrants into the U.S. annually than the total of all the other nations of the world combined.

So, I will not allow those who disagree with me to dismiss me as xenophobic, heartless, without compassion, etc. Show me a parent who will take away from his family to give to a total stranger and I will show you an unfit parent. Because you are in my house does not make it your home.

President Obama sides with Mexico and drug cartels against the people of of Arizona

Professor Terry J. Lovell, Ph.D. speaks on Obama and Holder suing the state of Arizona and its immigration law SB 1070. Dr. Lovell is a professor at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona. Dr. Lovell puts a different spin on what President Obama is doing to Arizona. This may be the best video produced on the illegal alien problems that are being experienced in border states across America.

Watch the video, it lays out the issue of illegal aliens. Forward the email to at least ten people you know. We need to get the word out.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/tsH8xvjTAlo[/youtube]

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image was take by Wing-Chi Poon.

What ‘Gay Marriage’ did to Massachusetts — Update!

World Net Daily’s Bob Unruh reports, “The few workaholics at the pro-family MassResistance long have been fighting for traditional values, parental involvement in schools, and responsible education system decisions. Until now, they’ve focused much of their attention on Massachusetts, which has provided no lack of work. But now their outreach is touching those who want to pull the reins on “gay-straight” clubs, promotions of books like “King and King” to children, and other components of a strategy pursued by homosexuals to make those lifestyle choices mainstream in Estonia. And Hong Kong. And Finland. And more.”

The organization created a straightforward video presentation a few months ago simply describing the changes in their state because of the advance of homosexual “marriage” and more.

This video is the update to the blockbuster report and video done previously by MassResistance. Most people don’t know what REALLY happens when same-sex “marriage” is imposed. The effects on society are outrageous and far-reaching.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABCDEFGH[/youtube]

 

To learn more read our comprehensive report “What Gay Marriage has done to Massachusetts: Its far worse than people realize“.

Pope Francis: “Tear down this Wall” around the Vatican

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” – Matthew 7:20

vatican wall close up

Detail of a small section of the wall surrounding the Vatican.

The Israeli security barrier certainly causes much contention. Despite the enormous length and breadth of China’s Great Wall, Israel’s protective shield is much debated. Although Saudi Arabia’s $700 million electrified wall is grander, Israel’s is more maligned. Thailand’s 75 km barrier with Malaysia was also constructed to protect against Muslims, yet Israel’s is more vilified. Even though more walls exist in the United Kingdom to separate Protestants from Catholics, Pope Francis Xavier finds Israel’s more attention-worthy. Neither does this pope mention the massive walls around the Vatican (photo at right), yet the surrounding Italians are peaceful, charming and friendly.

And how about when Pope Francis endorsed redistribution of wealth? Did he ever consider returning to Israel all the Jewish artifacts that had been pillaged by Roman soldiers over the centuries and are now concealed in the Vatican’s vast treasure caves?

The pope never once acknowledged that Israeli lives – Jewish, Christian, and Muslim – have been saved by the security barricade. Rather, by comparing Israel’s safeguard that keeps terrorists from murdering Israelis to the Warsaw Ghetto walls that imprisoned a captured and tormented Jewish people until they were put to death,  he validated the Islamic terrorists.

The wall prevents the Palestinians from fulfilling the Qur’anic decree of killing those who will not convert to Islam. It may also be a creative outlet for the illiterate, unschooled, and otherwise-idle youths who have no other method of venting their regime-driven frustration and anger. However, having just read that Hamas pays youths to riot with stones on the Temple Mount, acting out at the wall may be another profitable source of income.

nonie_darwish

Nonie Darwish

As Nonie Darwish explains in Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Muslims resent the Jews’ having accomplished more in 66 years than their brethren have in 1400, and they experience shame of false prestige for taking ownership of invention and creativity from the vanquished.  Therefore, rather than compete in a modern world of ideas, Islam prefers to sacrifice generations of women and children to destroy Israel.  Islam is not a religion, but an Arab imperialism and protectionist tool to preserve their supremacist Arab culture. To this end, Islamists created Sharia and jihad, from which they grant themselves to defame, intimidate, lie, terrorize, kill, and wage war.

They remain a mostly harshly ruled, severely frustrated and angry third-world people whose only real achievements have been destruction and conquest of productive and intellectually superior civilizations, which they then reduce to their original 7th century mentality. Inspired by a brutal warlord, murderer, slave trader, pedophile, rapist, and looter, these people may kill to leave their earthly troubles for heavenly sexual bliss or secure the credit they covet by appropriating others and calling them Muslims or Palestinians. Such is the case with Moses, Christopher Columbus, Albert Einstein, and now, Jesus.

This pope seemed prepared with an assault on Jesus’ Jewish heritage and language. Replacement terminology includes Jesus for Yeshu; Mary for Miriam; Israelites for Jews; now there is Palestine, a name that never existed in Jesus’ lifetime.

While the debate may continue, an expanding circle of scholars has rejected the common notion about Aramaic.  They are now convinced that the language Jesus used to teach his talmidim (disciples) was Hebrew, not Aramaic.

There is a growing conviction that Hebrew was also the language in which the original “Life of Jesus” was first conveyed. Christian scholars working in cooperation with Jewish scholars in Jerusalem have been among the first to develop the evidence for this theory.  Further, while the Christian New Testament contains some Aramaic place names and quotes, Hebrew, not Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of the Gospel of Matthew. Hebrew also vastly dominated the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Pope Francis welcomed being photographed, first, as sympathetically touching the wall of antisemitic scrawls and, second, in front a picture of Jesus swaddled in a terrorist kafiyyah, a repulsive depiction that he accepted. How many more changes might the public expect? And if, as suggested in the Vatican newspaper, Pope Francis Xavier may be compared to St. Francis Xavier, there may yet be another connection.

Saint Francis Xavier was born in the Basque kingdom of Navarre in 1506, soon after the 1492 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. In 1516, the Spanish invaders confiscated his family’s lands and demolished their castle’s protective wall and gates, and they were surrounded by war for 18 years. This was a time when Jews spoke Basque and followed native customs.  They were permitted to own real estate, cultivate their own land, and ultimately became successful. While their knowledge, ability and industry won them respect and influence, their increased wealth triggered Christian jealousy and provoked the clergy’s hatred. Jews were forced to live apart, although “protected,” and obliged to take positions of money lending in order to pay the excessive taxes imposed upon them.

When Francis Xavier later befriended St. Ignatius of Loyola in university, they turned to Catholic missionary service, and made vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and the conversion of Muslims in the Middle East.  Together they travelled to India, Indonesia, Japan, and Borneo and converted 30,000 people, more than any other since St. Paul. Francis dispatched the holy Inquisition to Goa, Portuguese-controlled India, which targeted the Christianos Nuevos, Iberian Jews and Muslims who had been forcibly converted during the medieval era. Francis is said to have died before the atrocities began, but is believed to have assisted in the first Auto-da-fé (public penance and burning at the stake), in Portugal in September 1540.

More people are killed by Islamists each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined.

Did Pope Francis pander to the Muslims to resume St. Francis’s vow to convert Muslims to Christianity? Was he wooing the Muslims or was he lured into a propaganda trap?  Perhaps this was to be another Munich Betrayal – deliver the Jews to the Muslims in exchange for mercy for Catholics. It has also been reported that Pope Francis Xavier intends to change the Vatican constitution.

Where have we heard this before? If we cannot identify his purpose now, then by his fruits shall we know him.

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Deliverance from evil?
No Holds Barred: Pope Francis and the need to confront evil

Was the Jewish Pogrom in Baghdad on June 1, 1941 a Holocaust Event?

In our June 2014 New English Review interview with Dr. Harold Rhode, we discussed the Farhud, the Nazi influenced pogrom that occurred on the Jewish festival of Shavuot, June 1, 1941, The Future of the Babylonian Jewish Archives.  Note this exchange:

Gordon: During World War II, the Jewish community in what we call Iraq really had a series of horrible experiences.  What was the experience during World War II and who were the persons who were involved?

Rhode:  The British had ruled Iraq and in the mid 1930’s, Iraq was given its independence. It had a king but there was a coup led by a man by the name of Rashid Ali who was working with the Nazis, in cahoots with the Mufti of Jerusalem who was living in Baghdad at the time. The Mufti was also working with Hitler. When Rashid Ali’s forces took over in 1941, there was a pogrom (farhood in Arabic) against the Jews. The Jews up until then never really worried. Yes they had been second class citizens because in the Muslim world, neither Jews nor Christians nor any non-Muslims were allowed to rule over Muslims.

In reality, however, the Jews actually ran much of the Iraqi economy at that time, and were involved in many other activities which helped Iraq run relatively smoothly. … After about six days in 1941 when approximately 180 people were killed, a lot of property was destroyed and many Jews were injured – all of a sudden Jews said: “wait a minute, something is wrong here. Maybe we don’t have a future here.” Iraqi Jews weren’t ardent Zionists at the time. But the farhood really shook them to their very foundations. The State of Israel was declared in 1948, i.e., it was the rebirth of the Jewish state which had existed 2000 years ago.

After Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the Arabs – including Iraq – did their utmost to destroy it. Life became almost unbearable for the Jews of Iraq. Especially in Baghdad but in other places in Iraq as well. Kurdistan, however, was a different story. Life was much better for the Jews in Kurdistan which was Northern Iraq.

On the occasion of the 73rd commemoration of the Farhud Ha’aretz published an article raising the question of whether it should be considered a Holocaust event, “Lawyers make case for giving Iraqi Jews Holocaust benefits”.    There is ample evidence of Nazi involvement in the coup by Iraqi strongman Ali Rashid al-Gaylani, the Nazi Foreign ministry, and the German Ambassador to Iraq.  Then there was the role of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al Husseini who was living in Baghdad after he was forced by British Palestinian Mandatory authorities to leave given his role in the Arab riots from 1936 to 1939. prior to the occurrence of the Farhud, for sanctuary in Berlin as Hitler’s house guest during WWII.  Edwin Black chronicled the 1941 Baghdad pogrom and both Nazi and Hussein’s involvement in his 2010 book, The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/rknnKYP5Iqg[/youtube]

See our January 2011 Iconoclast post on Eric Stakelbeck’s interview with author.

The Ha’aretz article presented evidence by experts representing the Farhud victims and surviving families, contested by Israel’s Holocaust Survivors Rights Authority at the Finance Ministry.  Ha’aretz cites Dr. Yaakov Toby of the University of Haifa, an expert retained by the Authority, saying:

 “Berlin’s affairs were directed toward the European continent, not elsewhere.” He added, “There was no expectation, and certainly no order, from the German government to the Iraqi government to carry out any government activity inside Iraq, and certainly not one of violent incidents or killing of Jews.”

The rebuttal to the Authority’s expert Dr. Toby is based on the investigative research of Professor Yitzchak Kerem, an expert on Spanish and Oriental Jewry.   Ha’aretz notes:

In his professional opinion, he wrote, “The deciding factor in the outbreak of the Farhud was Nazi incitement against Iraq’s Jews, which was carried out by the Nazi regime through the representatives and agents it appointed.”

He draws a firm conclusion. “The Farhud must be seen as an integral part of the Holocaust that the Nazi regime brought on our people.” He calls the Farhud “the Kristallnacht of Iraqi Jewry.”

Here is some of the evidence cited by Ha’aretz of Nazi involvement in the Baghdad pogrom supporting Professor Kerem.

On the devastation wrought by the Farhud, the Ha’aretz article noted:

According to statistics at Yad Vashem, 179 Jews were killed, more than 2,000 wounded, and 50,000 were victims of theft during the Farhud (an ancient word meaning imposing brutal terror on the subjects of a regime). “Terrible acts of cruelty were carried out during the pogrom. Babies, elderly people and women were murdered and their limbs hacked to pieces. Women were raped. Synagogues were damaged and Torah scrolls desecrated,” according to a brief paper in Hebrew about the Farhud at Yad Vashem’s website.

The extent of Nazi involvement in the Farhud revealed:

The historical material includes minutes of a German military discussion, the Nazi foreign ministry’s correspondence, British army intelligence reports and the report of the investigative committee established in Iraq after the pogrom. The Iraqi prime minister, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani; the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini; Adolf Hitler and his book Mein Kampf; the Nazi radio station that broadcast from Berlin and had reception in Iraq; and the fascist youth movement that mirrored Germany’s Hitler Youth all play major roles in the material.

Professor Kerem collected testimonies proving that al-Gaylani’s government had been funded by the Nazis. In a telegram sent on May 21, 1941 from Baghdad, Dr. Grobba, Germany’s ambassador in Iraq, writes that he transferred tens of thousands of gold ingots to al-Gaylani. Alongside that, he gives an update about al-Gaylani’s request for 80,000 more gold ingots and mentions the agreement that was about to be signed between Germany and Iraq, as part of which the Nazis would grant a loan of one million gold ingots to their allies in Baghdad.

Money and propaganda were not the only things the Nazis provided to Baghdad. They also sent weapons to Iraq in an attempt to help the Iraqis fight against a common enemy — the British. Professor Kerem found evidence of that in the archives of Germany’s Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry. He says that in the minutes of a meeting of the supreme German command from May 7, 1941, it is written that “Hitler decided to assist Iraq in every possible way, including sending arms, ammunition, money and military aid.”

While the German effort failed, before the British returned to install a new government, the Farhud occurred:

Indeed, the German attempt to help the Iraqis fight the British failed On May 29, 1941, after the British reached the gates of Baghdad, al-Gaylani fled from Iraq. The Jews thought that the danger had passed, and on the morning of the Shavuot festival, June 1, 1941, they emerged wearing their holiday clothing to welcome the pro-British ruler, who had returned to Iraq. But Iraqi troops set upon them, and within hours Jews were being attacked all over the city and in other places as well.

“Farhud, ya ummat Muhammad!” (Farhud, O nation of Mohammed!) was the cry of the mob when the signal was given to murder and rob the Jews,” Hela Kargola later said. “Thousands, regardless of gender, age or status, took part in the celebration of slaughter and theft.”

Carol Basri President of the Corporate Lawyering Group, LLC, published a monograph in the Fordham Journal of International Law  in 2002 entitled,   “The Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: An Examination of Legal Rights: A Case Study of the Human Rights Violations of Iraqi Jews”. In a section concerning the Farhud in Baghdad, she cited six causes of the rampage drawn from the Official Iraqi Government Report prepared by the British. They appear to support the arguments of Professor Kerem:

First, was the German Legation spreading sustained anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda under the direction of Dr. Fritz Grobba?

Second was the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, and his entourage, which accompanied him to Iraq in 1940.

Third, the Report blamed Palestinian and Syrian schoolteachers, installed in every school, which had “poisoned the pupil’s [sic] minds and turned them into instruments of their propaganda. Whenever they perceived that the government was taking any steps against Nazism, they went into action, arousing the students who would then go out in demonstrations and issue harmful manifestos.”

Fourth, the Report blamed the German Arabic-language radio station, which also spread Nazi propaganda (and had an increased effect after Rashid Ali made it legal to listen to the station).

 Fifth, was the Iraqi Broadcasting Station, which over the two months Rashid Ali was in control,” broadcast false reports about misdeeds in Palestine. The broadcasts contained patently inflammatory agitation against Jews and powerful appeals to Nazism.”

Sixth, the Report blamed the Futuwwa and Youth Phalanxes, both pro-Nazi paramilitary groups, which have participated heavily in the Farhud. The Report also laid blame on the hierarchy of the Baghdad Police for its inaction and ordered it brought before a military tribunal.

As Basri noted the British Ambassador could have ordered British forces encamped near Baghdad to quell the two day rampage, but didn’t. Moreover after the Farhud was over, Nazi sentiments were still rampant. She cites Freya Stark who was at the British Embassy, who observed in 1942, Iraq was a “country seething with disguised Nazis and swastikas appearing everywhere (even on the back of my car).” Then Basri cites a British Intelligence report in the same year saying:”whatever the outcome of the war.., the Iraqis will punish the Jews eventually.”  The report noted “fear inspired by Moslem threats” and the fear of Hitler’s upcoming Spring Offensive in the Middle East.

After the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 the Iraqi government moved to deprive Jews of citizenship and passed  national legislation expropriating property including personal possessions. The estimates cited by Basri of property stolen by the Iraqi government ranged from $150 to $200 million and with economic indexing may be in well excess of a billion.  For the Israeli Finance Ministry’s Holocaust Survivors Rights Authority to suggest that the Farhud wasn’t a Holocaust event would appear too questionable in view of the evidence. The irony is that while Iraq’s Jews were not Zionists at the time of the Farhud, following their repatriation to Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah  in 1950 to 1951, they became highly productive and committed citizens of the Jewish nation.  The repatriation, resettlement and absorption of Iraq’s Jews was paid for by the State of Israel with contributions from world Jewry. No UN or American government funding was involved.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is of  a mass grave of victims of the Farhud, 1941. It is a scan of a page from the book ‘Iraq’, edited by Haim Saadoun, published by the Ministry of Education and the Ben – Zvi, Jerusalem, (5762, 2002) page 17.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.