Dr. Mordechai Kedar – Speaking tour to the U.S. and Canada: April–May 2020

/in , , , , , /by

These days the Middle East is undergoing a profound and historic transformation. Many Middle East scholars are attempting to understand the developments in the Arab world and in the Arab and Muslim culture and religion. Additionally, Iran’s nuclear aspirations are the cause of a deep concern to many all over the world.

In the U.S. things are changing: the Jew-hatred genie comes out of the bottle and attacks against Jews become more and more frequent.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar, the Director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), a research associate of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a lecturer in the Department of Arabic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, is one of Israel’s leading figures in understanding the Arab world. Until recently he was the Middle East analyst of the daily newspaper “Makor Rishon” as well as other publications. Dr. Kedar is a frequent guest in the Israeli, Arab and international media. In June of 2019, Dr. Kedar gave a very insightful presentation on Capitol Hill on “What Are the Obstacles to Finding Peace in the Middle East, and What Are the True Roots Behind the Hatred Between the Saudis and Iranians?”

Dr. Kedar will be on a speaking tour, visiting North America, between Pessah and Shavuot 5780, April 16 to May 26, 2020. He is available to be booked for lectures and various presentations. He can be a scholar-in-residence for a weekend or give presentations and lectures during the weekdays.

His lectures are about the Middle East, Israel’s existence within the Middle Eastern environment, the struggle over Jerusalem, Anti-Semitism in the Islamic world and Iran, combatting the BDS etc. Please see the list of topics below.

A number of Dr. Kedar’s lectures in English are on YouTube.

Last June, Kedar gave a 2-hour interview to JBS’ Rabbi Mark Golub:

Part 1:

Part 2:

You might have watched Dr. Kedar’s famous interview on al-Jazeera about the right of Jews to build in Jerusalem:

In May 2012 Dr. Kedar spoke in a conference about the problems of the Israeli public diplomacy

Dr. Kedar’s weekly analysis about the Middle East on Israel National News.

Dr. Kedar would like to offer his lectures (see list below) to Synagogues, Churches, Mosques, universities, colleges, schools, community centers, organizations etc. He does not need a 5 star hotel and prefers to stay overnight with a family. Dr. Kedar travels in economy class and his fee is reasonable.

Dr. Kedar is planning to be in North America between April 16 and May 26, 2020.

If you would like to view a sample lecture or if you have any ideas or suggestions please feel free to contact Dr. Kedar at the e-mail: kedar.tour@gmail.com

Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation);
Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies;
Lecturer in the Department of Arabic,
Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
Phone in Israel: +972-544-778-908
US Mobile (while in North America): 917-868-3551
Kedar.tour@gmail.com

Possible Topics:

Jewish Issues:

1. Jew-Hatred / Antisemitism: roots, causes and ways to deal with it
2. Israel and the Diaspora: the widening gap
3. Against All Odds – A miracle named Israel
4. The European Jewry – where to?
5. The situation of European and American Jewry – similarities and differences
6. The mass migration to Europe and the Jewish communities

Israeli Issues:

1. The Results of the 2019 General Elections
2. The Controversy in Israel over Judea, Samaria and Gaza
3. Right, Center and Left in Israel

Israel and its neighbors:

1.Trump, Putin and the Middle East – What Can We Expect?
2. Israel at 72: Achievements and Challenges
3. Israel in a Changing Middle East – Challenges and Opportunities
4. Israel and the Palestinian Issue – Possible Solutions
5. The Middle East – where to?
6. Peace in the Middle East – What does it Need?
7. Iran – Where to?

Understanding Arab and Muslim Culture:

1. “The Arab Spring” – Why did it fail?
2.Tribalism in the Middle East and its influence on politics and state building.
3. Turkey – What went wrong?
4. What is the struggle over Jerusalem all about?
5. Why do many Muslims hate the West?
6. Understanding the Iranians – What motivates the Ayatollahs?
7. Hezbollah – Ideology, politics and modus operandi.
8. Hamas – Ideology, politics and modus operandi.
9. Islam – A culture in crisis.
10. Islam in Democratic State – The Islamic Movements in Israel.
11. Democracy in the Middle East – Opportunity or danger?
12. Islamic Radicalism – Causes, ideology and ways to face it.
13. Sunnis and Shi’is – Why do they hate each other so?
14. Islamic Women between Tradition and Modernity.
15. Palestinian Political Illustrations – Cartoons and messages.
16. The Right of Return in the Palestinian National Ethos.
17. Hizballah, Hamas, and Israel – Living with the enemy.
18. Clash of Values: Gender and Family Issues – Sources of tension between Islam and the West.
19. Arab Intellectuals – Where are they?
20. Arab Mass Media – their role in ME societies.
21. The Other Voice in the Arab World – My personal experience.

Lecture Subjects Concerning Military Intelligence:

1. Flawed intelligence assessments and mistaken policies resulting from cultural differences.
2. What motivates Arab states, societies and armies?
3. How to understand the Arab state media?
4. Major mistakes made by the Western coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lectures on Israeli domestic issues can also be considered.

VIDEO: Never Will Masada Fall Again!

/in , , , , /by

Join us on the top of Masada to better understand the importance of the pledge every Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldier takes.

The IDF pledge on Masada states, “Never will Masada fall again.”

Dr. Wexler took us on a journey to 70 AD when a small number of Jewish fighters and their families refused to surrender to a more powerful Roman army. Rather than surrender their wives and children to a future of rape, slavery, and torture, these fighters took the lives of their loved ones and then their own. When the Romans eventually breached Masada, there was no one alive to take as a prisoner. The Jewish fighters denied Romes victory by taking their own lives. What choice would you have made? Now fast forward to WWII.

Few people realize how close the Nazis along with their Muslim allies, nearly conquered North Africa and what is now Israel. The Nazis allied with Mohammed Amin al-Husseini (Arabic: محمد أمين الحسيني‎; c. 1897 –1974.) al-Husseini was said to be more Nazi than his Nazi masters when it came to the murder of European Jews. Adolf Hitler and al-Husseini formed the Muslim SS Handscar Divisions tracking down and killing enemies of the Nazis. In return, Hitler was to give al Husseini the concentration camps to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child living in the Middle East. Dr. Wexler explains the importance of the allied victory at the second battle at Alamein in 1942. This battle stopped the advancement of the Nazis into North Africa and the Middle East.

The defeat of the Nazis at Alamein was monumental.

Before the victory, it was expected the allies would lose North Africa, and Hitler would get the oil and diesel fuel he desperately needed to win the war. Alamein was one of the pieces of the puzzle that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII. The 650,000 Jews living in what is now Israel declared Mt. Carmel to be the spot where they would make their final stand. Resulting in the story of Masada replaying itself on the high ground of Mt. Carmel.

Watch this short video, as Dr. Wexler connects the dots of history not taught anywhere in the West.

On Domes and Drones

/in , , , , /by

Will the growing use of drones by the Gaza-based terror groups make the billion dollar Iron Dome and anti-tunnel barrier useless—or at least irrelevant?

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (The more things change, the more they are the same.) – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, French novelist (1849).

Departing briefly from the upcoming elections, Sunday’s media headlines conveyed the news that a drone, launched from the Gaza Strip, had attacked an IDF position near the border, with an explosive charge. This incident follows a similar one, several months ago, when a Gazan-based terror group, Islamic Jihad, attempted to drop an explosive device on an IDF tank.

“Unrealistic” realists?

Although fortunately, the damage caused in these attacks was negligible, it would be a grave error to dismiss the scope and scale of the prospective threat that drones could present.

Of course, compared to the menace of massive barrages of rockets/ missiles on the one hand, and infiltration by bands of heavily armed commandoes via underground tunnels, on the other, the danger posed currently by drones may seem relatively minor.

However, we should recall that this was much the case for those very perils back in 2005, when Israel undertook the ill-advised unilateral abandonment of Gaza. Back then, when the most destructive weapon at the disposal of the terrorist organizations was a primitive rocket with a range of 5 km and an explosive charge of 5 kg, today’s situation seemed inconceivable!

Indeed, had anyone then predicted that, a little over a decade later, Israel would be faced with an arsenal of missiles with ranges of over 100 km and warheads of over 100 kg, with a warren of underground attack tunnels and with nascent naval forces, they would have been dismissed as unrealistic scaremongers. Sadly, of course, recalcitrant realities would have proved them right! (No pun intended.)

Accordingly, Israel has been forced to spend literally billions of dollars to devise defensive countermeasures (such as the Iron Dome missile defense system and the subterranean anti-tunnel barrier) to contend with threats that were barely imaginable less than a decade and half ago.

Aggressive measures & defensive countermeasures

Moreover, I have long been at pains to underscore that no matter how successful Israel’s defensive countermeasures may prove to be, there is little doubt that the Palestinian-Arab terror groups will eventually devise some offensive measure to circumvent it.

Indeed, six years ago I cautioned: “Defensive weapon systems, however, sophisticated and effective, inflict no cost on determined adversaries and hence can never deter them from attempting to devise methods to circumvent or overwhelm those defenses.”

In similar vein, almost five years later I wrote: “Every time the Gazan terrorists developed some offensive tactic, Israel devised some countermeasure that was designed to thwart the attacks, rather than prevent them being launched in the first place.”

I detailed the sequence of aggressive measures and defensive countermeasures that have emerged hitherto: “Thus, suicide attacks resulted in a security fence and secured crossings; which led to the development of enhanced rocket and missile capabilities; which led to the development of the multimillion dollar Iron Dome; which led to the burrowing of an array of underground attack tunnels; which led to the construction of a billion dollar subterranean barrier; which led to the use of incendiary kites and balloons that have reduced much of the rural South, adjacent to the Gaza border, to blackened charcoal”.

The danger of drones

In this context, I issued repeated warnings as to the use of drones to thwart existing missile defenses and anti-tunnel barriers—see for example here , here and here–and pointed to the danger they may entail: “…it takes little imagination to envisage the deployment of future modes of Judeocidal assault on the Jewish state and its citizens—such as a possible drone swarm carrying explosive—perhaps even some non-conventional—charges, to be detonated on, or over, some luckless Jewish community .”

Fortunately today, there appear to be some signs of greater awareness regarding the potential perils posed by the drone threat and a sense of greater unease as to what they may portend. Thus, following the previously mentioned attempt, several months ago, one military analyst—echoing my earlier concerns—wrote: “Security agencies will overlook the minor impact of the device …and will instead focus on the implied threat that a larger or more ominous payload would represent.”

Following the latest attack, a well-known military correspondent commented:

“…terrorist groups in the blockaded coastal enclave are continuing to innovate and find new weapons to attack Israel’s military…The drone attack over the weekend was a dangerous escalation”, and warned that: “This weekend’s attack is a wake-up call that Israel must take seriously because drones, like rockets, pose threats not only to troops but to the thousands of residents who live in communities near the border… both need to be met with an iron fist.”

“Eliminate Hamas; re-garrison Gaza”?

Under the headline “Israel must launch a campaign in Gaza to counter dangerous drone threat”, another leading pundit expressed similar sentiments: “UAVs operated from Gaza that can drop explosives endanger not only IDF troops but Israeli communities bordering the Strip as well.”

Counselling a robust response, he wrote: “Israel must act as vigorously against this threat from the coastal enclave as it does against similar attacks from the north… The real solution to this challenge, like other threats originating from Gaza, is to restore Israeli deterrence and change the policy of containment.”

Sadly, none of these generic endorsements of assertiveness actually provided a prescription, even in broad outline, of actionable policy that could break the deadly cycle of aggressive measures and defensive countermeasures.

Expressing his frustration at this, one exasperated talk-backer wrote: “Why Israel allows Hamas to continue to up its threat is beyond understanding.” Astutely he diagnosed: “The cost of constantly countering Hamas attacks is far more than Hamas’ cost to conduct them” and advocated “Israel …must act decisively and boldly to eliminate Hamas once and for all…Eliminate Hamas and re-garrison the Gaza strip.”

Doubtless, at first glance such a stark proposal may seem overly extreme. However, eschewing it for over a quarter-century has allowed what was once a terrorist nuisance to develop into an emerging strategic threat.

The harsh dilemma

It is, of course, quite plausible that Israel will eventually find some (probably very expensive) measure to counter the drone threat. But it is no less plausible, that the Gaza-based terror groups will develop some measure to overcome, or by-pass it—until the Jewish residents, who live in the South, find they no longer can—or wish to—continue to subject themselves and their families to the ongoing trauma of unending terror attacks. Then Israel will find itself confronted with a harsh dilemma: There will either be Arabs in Gaza or Jews in the Negev, but in the long run, there will not be both!

To avert the specter of the depopulation of the South by Jews, Israel must come to terms with the grim realities that prevail in Gaza—and realize:

(a) The population of Gaza is not the victim of its leadership, but the crucible in which that leadership was formed and from which it emerged.

(b) The only long-term solution for Gaza is not its reconstruction, but its deconstruction.

(c) The only way Israel can ensure who rules Gaza is to rule it itself.

(d) The only way Israel can rule over Gaza without ruling over “another people” is to remove that “people” from the area over which it is imperative for it to rule.

(e) The only way Israel can remove the Gazan population from Gaza without forcible expulsion is by a largescale initiative for the incentivized emigration of the non-belligerent population and afford them an opportunity of a more secure and prosperous life elsewhere.

Could anything be more compelling?

© All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: John Bolton Out — and the Consequences, unveiling what’s at stake for U.S. national security.

VIDEO: The Vortex — Left Lane Merge

/in , , , , , , /by

TRANSCRIPT

In the near past, Church Militant has talked about the parallel tracks of the political left and the theological left.

That was owing to the obvious shared agenda items between liberal-socialist politicians and liberal-socialist theological types.

Well, given the current climate in the country, it’s time to amend or update that analogy of parallel tracks.

The two tracks or lanes have now merged into just one giant “Left Lan,” with socialist politicians and socialist clergy now indistinguishable from one another.

When America was more religious-minded than the nation currently is, Democratic strategists would often complain that their party positions in favor of abortion, for example, had ceded “God” to the Republicans.

Indeed, the campaigns of Ronald Reagan were all about religious values and wrapping the cross up in the American flag.

And it worked — spectacularly.

Americans of all stripes who had an innate sense that the underlying issue with America was not economic but rather moral began heavily migrating to the GOP and locking down all sorts of political races.

But that was more than 30 years ago.

While religious-minded Americans were basking in the glow of victory, the long march through the institutions by the socialist-Marxist crowd was laying the groundwork for the overthrow of religion in America.

The college education system in the 80s had only just begun to pervert and convert the minds of the young.

More and more people attended college and ran up massive debt while colleges became correspondingly wealthier with American taxpayer dollars.

But the colleges themselves were putting the finishing touches on a complete ideological takeover by Marxist-styled professors.

Thirty-plus years since then, two generations of Americans who went to college have now essentially abandoned belief in God and their ranks are swelling every year.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s a Catholic college like Notre Dame which long ago betrayed the Faith or a public college, a college degree is almost a guarantee you don’t believe in God in any substantive manner or, at the most, are indifferent.

Now the Marxist college crowd with their millions of alumni have set about on a course to completely co-opt religion as a political issue.

No longer do Democratic Party strategists sit in back rooms lamenting the GOP stranglehold on the so-called “values voters.”

They are making an aggressive pitch for them and giving their Marxist ideology cover as being somehow religious or moral in the process.

So-called man-made climate change — originally called global warming until that proved not true — is now dressed up not just as a scientific issue, but in the end, a moral issue.

Greedy Americans are causing hurricanes, which then go on to wipe out poorer nations; therefore, Americans who support Trump are evil and sinful — that’s how the narrative goes.

And the moment you get to inject the “morality” issue into politics, all the liberal clergy get to start spouting off.

It’s kind of funny, you know, because this was the same crowd back in the 1980s and 1990s under serial abuser Bill Clinton who kept telling religious-minded Americans that you can’t legislate morality.

Now, that’s all the Marxist Democrats want to do — in fact, they can’t stop talking about it.

And they are joined by a full-throated effort of the U.S. bishops and every liberal priest, lesbian nun, and professional Catholic in the country.

Every single Democratic talking point is dressed up in high moral terms: equal rights for sodomites; free will to be able to kill your child at whatever stage you want; banning guns because guns kill; proven serial killers being exempt from the death penalty; illegal immigrants having the same rights as legal immigrants.

You name it, there is not one single Democratic Party talking point that does not have considerable theological heft behind it, and a large part of that heft is coming from the U.S. hierarchy and the James Martins of the world.

The entire process has been usurped and reversed.

It used to be that natural law truths — like abortion is killing and homosexual acts are depraved — were the basis for political laws. The morality informed the political process and the laws agreed.

Now, with religion on a steep decline in America, and things only growing worse, the exact opposite is the process.

People decide they want to live an objectively immoral life, so they get politicians elected who will pass laws which correspond to their immorality.

And they bring along equally immoral clerics who provide all the cover the guilty need to feel good about their actions of undermining morality in America.

There is no longer any need to distinguish between the political left and the theological left. Those two lanes have merged and are now the same — just, the Left.

America has arrived at this place in history because this is the natural result of pluralism, especially in the arena of religion.

The Marxists saw an opening, a chink in the armor that could be exploited, and they have moved in for the kill.

As demographics change and trends follow, election 2020 may very well be the last election where authentic religion is anything but an afterthought, a historical footnote. This is why the Marxist Democrats are trying, and largely succeeded, in seizing the high ground on the “morality” issue.

They are this close to dispatching religion and God from the political scene; and what better strategy to do so than to present a picture that religion can be approached in all sorts of different ways?

But then again, all they needed to do was to have just read the writings of the homopredator Cdl. Joseph Bernardin back in the 1980s who even then was part of this plan to rid America of religion.

It was Bernardin, after all, that blazed the trail for Marxist theologians with his proposal that the pro-life issue was not just about abortion, that there was a consistent ethic of life, making homelessness or being unemployed just as significant as being murdered in the womb as Blase Cupich, Bernardin’s worthy successor in Chicago, has publicly stated.

This complete collapse you see around you, the merger of theological and political socialism was first engineered by a homosexual dominant Catholic clergy, many of whom poisoned young minds at hundreds of formerly Catholic colleges for decades and have the stage for the downfall of religion in America.

Election 2020 will either be the last hurrah, or it will be the ushering in of a completely new America which will grow increasingly violent toward authentic religion.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Prominent Christians Falling Away

/in , , , , /by

Recently, we have been hearing about some well-known professing Christians leaving the faith.

What causes a seemingly solid Christian to walk away from the faith? In some cases, it could be temporary discouragement. In others, it could be a result of burnout. We all need breaks. Even Jesus even took time for rest. God has even built into the week one day off—the Sabbath. If we burn the candle from both ends, we can suffer the consequences of burnout.

In still other cases it can be the result of perhaps a terrible experience, like a brutal church split. I once experienced a church split—I told people this is as close to a divorce as I ever hope to get.

In some cases, those who fall away may have done so because they associate pain with the faith. Christian apologist Alex McFarland wrote a whole book, 10 Answers for Skeptics (Bethany House, 2011), where he dissects the unbelief of many modern-day skeptics and provides answers to their objections.

Alex told me, “In medicine, physicians sometimes speak of a patient’s ‘presenting problem,’ which may be different from their actual problem. Some diagnostic questions and a thorough examination help the doctor determine the true source of an illness. In apologetics and evangelism this is also very much the case. The objection that a skeptic presents may not at all be the actual reason that they have rejected God, or have turned away from Christianity. “

For his books, McFarland spent a lot of time interviewing 34 professed atheists. He said to me, “Surprisingly, 28 of the atheists I interviewed were ex-Protestants. 100% of the people I interviewed answered affirmatively that they had or still do occasionally pray. In fact, immediately after a radio debate with one atheist (during which he had vehemently defended his unbelief), off air he asked me to pray for his wife who had cancer.”

What are we to make of this? McFarland sheds further light: “For years I said, ‘emotional pain is often the starting point for intellectual skepticism.’ I now modify that to say, ‘The road to skepticism always begins with emotional pain.’ It is the default position of the human mind to believe in God. Atheism is a learned pathology. It is counter-intuitive on so many levels. However, many skeptics resolutely train themselves to see the world through the eyes of unbelief because of disappointment with God through some past experience.”

Finally, McFarland noted, “As I interviewed atheists, my heart went out to so many of them who tearfully told about their perception of unanswered prayers, loved ones who weren’t healed of terminal illnesses, toxic experiences in church, and respected ‘Christian leaders’ who in some way let them down.” Painful indeed.

Meanwhile, Christianity is based on some bedrock facts of history. And no amount of disbelief voids those facts of history.

In a different context, John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things.” The facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus are solid. He was crucified publicly in the Roman Empire, and then soon after reports popped up all over the place of Him appearing to various people—mostly His disciples. But in two cases, He appeared to skeptics, who became converted—Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the Apostle, and James, who later became the Bishop of Jerusalem.

The most important consideration is that even if millions of professing Christians fell away, it still would not undermine the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

Luke was a first century physician. He was a companion and fellow traveler with the Apostle Paul. Luke wrote one of the four Gospels, and he followed it up with the first chronicle of the early church, the Acts of the Apostles.

Early in that book, Dr. Luke states, “To these [the apostles] He [Jesus] also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.” (Acts 1:3, NASB)

The original skeptics of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead were the apostles themselves. Jesus manifested Himself as alive over and over, providing them with “many convincing proofs.” Those apostles were so convinced they went out to the four corners of the earth (“Doubting Thomas” as far as south India) to proclaim Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead. Most of them were martyred for this proclamation.

There are solid historical reasons for believing that Christianity is true, and Alex McFarland has written many books demonstrating this.

It is tragic to see Christians fall away from the faith, but ultimately the loss is theirs. For the Bible notes, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Their Obsession with Death

/in , , , , , /by

It was a lovely, warm August afternoon in Jerusalem, 2001, a time when people strolled about, greeted neighbors, enjoyed a beverage or ice cream at an outdoor café, or lunch in the numerous restaurants.  It was a day when an Arab man, carrying a guitar case, entered the crowded Sbarro’s pizzeria, an eatery specifically selected for the large number of Jewish children it attracted.  He bought a slice of pizza and sat down among the Jews at one of the tables, contrary to the constant myth that Israel is apartheid.  Upon finishing his snack, he opened the case and ignited the “nail bomb” that the female terrorist and mastermind, Ahlam Tamimi, had smuggled into Israel.  The suicide terrorist, Izz Al-Din Shuheil Al-Masri, blew himself up along with 15 other people, including seven children (two Americans), and wounding about 130, some hideously, and one who remains in a coma.

Although Tamimi, the architect of the Sbarro massacre, had been apprehended, tried, convicted, and condemned to 16 life sentences in an Israeli court of law, she was released in an Israeli prisoner exchange.  Gilad Shalit, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), who had been kidnapped by Hamas militants in a cross-border raid via underground tunnels near the Israeli border, had been held captive for more than five years as a bargaining chip.  The Israelis were finally able to secure his release on October 18, 2011, but only as part of a complete prisoner exchange in accordance with the PA 2004 Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners, by turning over 1,027 Palestinians, including Ahlam Tamimi, who were collectively responsible for killing 569 Israeli citizens.

The terrorist’s mother was subsequently honored by Mahmoud Abbas with $910,823 (3.2 million shekels) for her glorious sacrifice – except that the sacrifice is suddenly no longer sacrificial, but a means to an end, the commercial enterprise required for fame and fortune in the Arab world.

  • Tamimi, then age 21 and Hamas’s first female terror operative, had been awarded $51,836, until her release from prison.  Now, a free and unrepentant terrorist, she is “exiled” to Amman, Jordan, home to her parents and most of her siblings, married and raising a family.  In opposition to the extradition treaty signed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with Israel on March 28, 1995, followed by the exchange of instruments of ratification by Jordan and US President Clinton on July 29, 1995, Tamimi is free to travel under Jordanian protection throughout the Arab world. She speaks about her terrorist career and incites to murder Jews.  The US Department of Justice and the FBI recently revealed the serious terrorism charges against her, maintaining the still valid and binding “Treaties in Force” (page 252), but after two years, Jordan still blocks extradition of only Tamimi.
  • Her cousin/husband, another impenitent convicted terrorist-murderer who was also released in the Shalit trade deal, receives monthly payments from the PA.
  • The bombmaker, Abdullah Barghouti, earned $213,848 for several now-infamous bombings, and is currently serving 67 life terms in an Israeli prison.
  • The Sbarro terrorists and their families receive $7,321 monthly, generous stipends doled out by Mahmoud Abbas from the coffers of the world’s “humanitarian aid” given only to “Palestinians.”

Ilhan Omar’s infamous words, “It’s all about the Benjamins, Baby,” were another Arab tradition – the projection of their own blameworthy deeds on others.  

For an overall scope of the pay-to-slay business, remuneration to terrorists came to $134 million in  2018 alone, with individuals receiving from NIS 1,400 to NIS 12,000 per month, depending upon the length of their imprisonment in Israel.

How does the society produce these inhuman weapons of mass destruction?  Where should we place responsibility for the damaging construct of Islamic family life – the hierarchy, interaction, communication, commitment, the hopes and fears, the warped moral code, social relatedness, stress and crisis management?  The Koran defines them all.

In Islam, children are produced and raised for exploitation – objectified for the sake of fulfilling the demands of Allah and Mohammed and controlled in the shame/blame society. The children are restrained by shaming – taught they are defective, guilty of feeling they have done something wrong, and unworthy enough to be driven to suicide – to achieve honor for group acceptance. The young, prepubescent boy may be humiliated by the emotional and sexual abuse he is forced to endure by older men.  He is obedient and in a perpetual state of anger also at his mother for her subservience and for not protecting him.  His perpetual shame prevents him from becoming an autonomous adult and getting his needs met appropriately.  In order to cleanse himself, he projects that shame onto others, with an eagerness for revenge.  Addicted to rage and drilled in a variety of weapons, he is eager to do battle with Jews and Christians, to achieve martyrdom and glorification, his only release from the oppressive culture.

The girl feels the brunt of the shame/blame culture, as she is subject to the embarrassment, pain and possible lasting infection from the Female Genital Mutilation, and the constant reminder that she may be veiled, stoned and killed, and blamed for sowing disorder in the “ideal society.”  Consider the clothing restrictions to live almost completely covered; the ban against certain hairstyles and smoking; bans on socialization, travel, schooling, celebrations and music.  This society exists on domination and submission, on a lack of empathy and sexual misery, where rape plays a particularly unique role.  The girl may become one of four wives in a resentful, competitive household, a concubine or sex slave.  The male’s psychological fusion with his immature and frightened mother keeps him terrified of women and sex, programmed to “kill off his mother” by murdering other women in cold blood as well as their own mothers and non-Muslims.  The female cannot extricate herself from the confines of an  Islamic life of degradation, of marriage, neglect and violence, unless she emulates the boy’s role.  If she becomes a female jihada, she will earn praise, admiration, and be paid handsomely for her acts of terrorism, even for the final act of martyrdom.  Here are profiles of some infamous female terrorists:

  • Wafa Idrees was the first female suicide bomber, in 2002. Forced into marriage with a first cousin, delivered of a stillborn and divorced, she detonated herself with a 22-lb. bomb in Jerusalem, injuring more than 100 others.
  • Ayat al-Akhras was the third and youngest Palestinian suicide bomber, age 16 or 18, to detonate herself.  Losing family members to violence, and being left single and pregnant by a Farah operative, may have been the stimuli for her action.
  • Dalal Al Mughrabi, recognized as a martyred “Palestinian” fighter who contributed to the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978, her bus hijacking resulted in the death of 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, and 72 wounded.

And what happened to other murderers who were released along with Tamimi?  A select few are shown here:

  • Hasam Badran, a former leader and current international spokesman for Hamas, had been sentenced to 17 years for multiple lethal bombings, including the Sbarro, the Dolphinarian discotheque in Tel Aviv that killed 21, the Passover Seder at Park Hotel that killed 30 and injured 140, 20 seriously, was released and believed living in Qatar.
  • Bassel Himouni, who planned multiple shooting and roadside bomb attacks, was released, deported, and now lives in the Gaza strip.
  • Amir Dukan was involved in financing terrorism for Hamas. He was released to Gaza and remains in contact with Hamas and other terrorist groups.
  • Hisham Abd al-Qader Ibrahim Hijaz raised funds for terrorist activities, planned abductions and shooting attacks, and was responsible for the deaths of ten Israeli civilians and soldiers.  He was released and lives in Qatar. Saudi’s contribution of funds supporting Palestinians (terrorism) exceeded US $15 billion by July 2003,
  • Ayman IsmailSalalmeh Sharawneh was imprisoned for 38 years for multiple terrorist attacks, including injuring 19 in Beersheba.  Upon his release, he immediately returned to terrorist activity.  Re-arrested in 2012, and again released, he returned to terrorism

International aid to the Palestinians is a contentious issue.  Australia ended direct aid to the PA amid fears that money is going to terrorists (July 2018), America cut $200 million of its aid to Palestinians (August, 2018), and New Zealand suspended UNRWA funding (August, 2019), while Norway and Ireland (June 2019) increased theirs, as have a shocking number and variety of organizations.  In keeping with Mohammed’s mandates, the “free male Muslim is entitled to the spoils of battle when he has participated in a battle to the end of it.” (Reliance of the Traveller, o10.0) The dubious generosity of the European Union enables the Palestinian Authority to pay the rewards for terror to Palestinians, with no oversight on corruption of subsidies to convicted terrorists. A Times of London journalist wrote (October, 2013), “Billions of euros in European aid to the Palestinians may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption,” yet the euros continue to flow in.

Mahmoud Abbas never reveals that donors’ funds go to the PLO, and he assures the jihadis and their families that there will always be money for those “heroic” Palestinian Arabs who will slaughter the children and Holocaust survivors.  He also knows he can count on the Europeans to turn a blind eye to the misuse of funds as they continue their own eternal war against the Jews.

Acknowledgment: Frimet and Arnold Roth – http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com
In loving memory of Malki Roth HY”D and Michal Raziel HY”D and all who suffered and died at the hands of Islamic murderers.

© All rights reserved.

The Church and Socialism: The Fallacy that Will Not Go Away

/in , , , , /by

Hadley Arkes: The good society works to broaden not burden the freedom of ordinary people to make their livings doing ordinary things. 

Another report in the unfolding story of this pontificate:  The redoubtable Daniel Mahoney, who reads and sees everything, brought me the account of Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, who has been serving since 1998, and now under this pope, as the head Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences.   Just last year he told a reporter that, “at this moment, those who best realize the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese.”  He focused his praise on the Communist regime for “defending the human person” – this in a regime that has taken compulsory abortion as one of its defining policies.

A former colleague of mine, from a wealthy family in Brazil, used to say that she was a Marxist and a Catholic. I thought that anyone who could say such a thing could not possibly understand either one.  And yet here we are in an age when young people in America have been credulous enough to be drawn to something called “socialism” – and drawn even with the examples still around us, in Cuba and Venezuela, of the impoverishing and lethal effects of these regimes.

Leo XIII and John Paul II put out ample warnings about the moral inversions that may settle in as people talk themselves into a concern for relieving the conditions of the poor. For they often detach themselves from the moral framework that puts in a central place the primacy of the “human person.”

The American Founders never used the word “capitalism.” They spoke rather of the “system of personal liberty,” and the way people made their livings simply provided one notable domain in which personal freedom was exercised, with legal and moral restraints.

John Locke saw the origin of property in the rightful claim that people have to the fruits of that labor they do with their own hands. But that in turn depended on the prior premise that they were the owners of their own hands.  They would not have that claim, say, if their hands were owned by someone else – if they themselves were owned as property, as slaves.

As Lincoln made his case against slavery, he had to make the case anew that people were the owners of themselves and their own labor.  And so, as he argued, a certain black woman may not be his social or intellectual equal, “but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands. . .she is my equal, and the equal of all others.”  Her right to work – and keep what she earns – he treated as a species of natural right.

Leo XIII had put the accent in the same place in Rerum Novarum: “when a man engages in remunerative labor, the impelling reason and motive of his work is to obtain property, and thereafter to hold it as his very own.”  That motive springs from the deepest inclinations of nature to sustain oneself and one’s family; it is a “natural right,” he said, and a critical support to one’s freedom.

The Socialists would transfer property to a collective or the community, and that move would, he said, “strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life.”  [Italics added.]

Leo XIII saw through the rhetoric that was as common in his day as in ours:  schemes were often offered under the banner of high-flown sentiments, seeking to deliver men from want and solve the problem of distribution; and yet, as he recognized, they work by removing or burdening the freedom of ordinary people to make their livings doing ordinary things.

In our own day, those ordinary things may be: braiding hair, shining shoes, or driving a gypsy cab from the subway to the safety of one’s own door (a fine scheme finally stifled by the unions in New York.)

John Paul II made the telling point that, when the Church talks about the “preferential option for the poor,” it doesn’t reduce the meaning of poverty to poverty in material goods.  The Church encompasses rather a sense of spiritual and moral impoverishment.

When we understand that the question of “the human person” remains the central question, then the foremost question, or the foremost “right,” is the right to life, including, as John Paul II says, “the right of the child to develop in the mother’s womb from the moment of conception.”

What is the Church’s doctrine, then, on the economy and the “social question”? John Paul II said that it reduces to this:  “[The Church’s] sole purpose has been care and responsibility for man. . . .the only creature on earth which God willed for its own sake. . . .We are not dealing here with man in the ‘abstract,’ but with the real, ‘concrete,’ ‘historical’ man.  We are dealing with each individual, since each one is included in the mystery of Redemption. . . .This man is the primary route that the Church must travel in fulfilling her mission.” It is “the way that leads invariably through the mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption.”

“This, and this alone,” he said,  “is the principle which inspires the Church’s social doctrine.”  And that explains, at the root, with sufficient depth and reach, everything that the Church need say about “capitalism” – or anything else.

COLUMN BY

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College and the Founder/Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding. His most recent book is Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law. Volume II of his audio lectures from The Modern Scholar, First Principles and Natural Law is now available for download.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Fool in the Vatican

Fellow Millennials: Here’s Why We Must Reject Socialism

One Word Could Destroy Catholic Education

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2019 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

The Vortex — Spin Cycle

/in , , , , /by

TRANSCRIPT

Not to harp on the scandals in Buffalo, because there are plenty of them going on in dioceses all over the country, but we’d like to draw your attention to something that occurred at the emergency press conference last week of Bp. Richard Malone.

Malone, you will recall, was secretly recorded by his priest secretary in a high-level meeting discussing the case of a homopredator priest sexually harassing a seminarian.

This was just the latest in a string of cases of neglect, deceit and cover-up involving Malone and how he runs his diocese.

The constant flood of accusations against him from within his own chancery has become almost a nightly topic on Buffalo’s local news stations, and no one single local reporter has done any more work on this case than Charlie Specht of WKBW.

Specht has not only reported on Malone and the corruption that follows in the wake of the lying, cheating bishop, he has also confronted him directly at press conferences.

Malone never comes off looking good when Charlie starts asking questions of him.

It was, in fact, Charlie who aired the secret audio recordings showing Malone, again, in a role of trying to cover up and spin the story of the priest in the most favorable light — if that’s possible — with a chief concern being how it would appear in the media.

So here’s the part you need to really be aware of because it goes right to the heart of everything Church Militant has been reporting for years — that too many of the bishops are liars and cheats and instead of actually trying to fix the problem, they do nothing but try to spin the issue.

In short, there is no real desire to reform anything because they really think, down deep, that there is nothing wrong.

To that end, they will not allow reporters or outfits that challenge their evil and wickedness like Church Militant, for example, to gain access and ask the tough questions.

And, if you need proof, video proof, of this tactic, here it is.

Malone’s communications handler, Kathy Spangler, sent out a note to local Buffalo meeting inviting only certain reporters to the emergency press conference.

Conspicuously absent from the list: Charlie Specht.

And as background, institutions never — repeat, never — contact media outlets for a press conference and tell them which reporters are allowed in.

The only reason that would be done is to prevent a specific reporter from asking searing, intelligent, probing questions that would instantly expose the evil.

At the press conference, this exact issue arose when a local reporter asked Malone point blank why he was trying to control who was allowed to attend and ask questions.

He of course deflects and lets it appear that it was Spangler’s decision — watch this exchange.

That is the most shameless display of spin control and, frankly, bull pucky you will ever hear.

Malone told Spangler that Specht was not to be allowed in, and she made up a cock and bull story about her innocently just inviting reporters she regularly worked with — and oh yeah, the room she chose was really small and not a lot of people would fit.

Kathy, stop lying.

In her deliberately manipulative invite she sent to Buffalo media, she gave the names of who was invited and then bluntly added, “No replacements permitted.”

That is the phrase that gives proof of her lie that she is inviting people she was familiar with and worked with.

Media outlets determine who goes and covers a story from their staff, not the sponsor of the press conference.

It would be much more honest for her to have just come out and said that Malone didn’t want Charlie Specht there and refuse to say why, although anyone with a detectable brain wave would have known why Malone doesn’t want Specht throwing out questions.

Bad bishops don’t want to be challenged. They don’t like being exposed. They don’t like their filth and double-dealing and machinations being exposed to the light of day.

That’s why Church Militant is never granted an interview by these men and it is also why the Catholic establishment media is.

The undynamic duo of Malone/Spangler is just further proof of the never-ending need for an independent Catholic Media.

And for the record, as a life-long reporter, you won’t hear this story reported in the Catholic establishment lapdog media because they aren’t real reporters and they don’t care.

Any real journalist would be outraged at this blatant attempt to control the message by excluding a hard-hitting reporter.

Even the fake news Luciferian media threw a hissy fit when Trump pulled the press credentials of CNN’s Jim Acosta a few months back.

The unaccountable hierarchy is simply out of control. They let homosexual men run the Church, they lie and cover it up, they refuse to tell the truth — and now they are blocking even secular media types from asking tough questions.

Good thing it’s not a massive, massive crisis.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

The Moral Decay of the Democratic Party — It’s no longer the party of Thomas Jefferson

/in , , , , /by

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus.” – Thomas Jefferson (Letter to William Canby, September 18, 1813).

Thomas Jefferson is considered the founder of the Democratic Party. Today you do not hear about President Jefferson. Why is that? Perhaps the quote above is the answer. Jefferson was a Christian and a believer in Jesus.

Why is the Democratic Party evil and immoral?

In an article titled The Equation That Explains Evil Dennis Prager presents a simple equation that inextricably leads to evil:

GI – W = E

Good Intentions (GI) minus Wisdom (W) leads to Evil (E).

Today’s Democratic Party has long used good intentions without wisdom to create new public policies. These public policies have lead to evil and an immoral society. The Democratic Party is at its core bad, black, dark, evil, iniquitous, nefarious, rotten, sinful, unethical, unlawful, unrighteous, unsavory, vicious, vile, villainous, wicked and wrong. Why? Because the Democratic Party lacks wisdom.

The Democratic Party is evil and immoral.

Let’s take a look at each of the Merriam-Webster synonyms for immoral.

BAD

The Democratic Party is simply bad because of its rejection of morality. This is particularly evident in how it treats those who disagree with them. Those who support the Democratic Party bully those both in the party and those not, by name calling. Members of the Democratic Party and their allies throw around words like: racist, misogynist, Nazi, deplorable, capitalist, homophobic, Islamophobic, 1%, etc. The purpose is to silence anyone who would not give them total power and control.

BLACK

Black is both a color and a race. Today blacks predominantly vote Democratic. The Democratic Party works daily to keep blacks within the fold by telling them that Republicans in general, and President Trump in particular, are racists. But who really are the racists? Who created the Ku Klux Klan? Who created the welfare programs that keep blacks dependent on government social programs? Who supports Planned Parenthood that kills more unborn black babies than any other race? Which party hates white people?

DARK

The Democratic Party has taken the dark road toward Socialism. Socialism leads to serfdom. The core of Socialism is greed, one of the seven deadly sins. Democrats constantly propose forcibly, via taxation, taking from those who work and giving to those who do not work. The Democratic Party is at its core greedy.

EVIL

At a CNN special on the Climate Crisis Senator Bernie Sanders, when asked by a teacher what he would do to control population growth, said women “in poor countries” should have access to birth control. This is population control via Eugenics.

INIQUITOUS

Iniquity is defined as a gross injustice. Can you name any Democrat, or one of their supporters, who has committed a crime, violated the public trust, used their public office for personal gain or broken the law who has not been brought to justice? Injustice is a gross iniquity.

NEFARIOUS

Nefarious is defined as flagrantly wicked or impious. The Democratic Party has embraced groups and individuals who are flagrantly wicked such as the LGBTQ activists, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffery Epstein, Bill Clinton, etc. Impious is not showing respect or reverence, especially for God. Can you name any Democrat that has publicly stated that God is no longer needed in our lives? Have you seen the Democratic Party ally like the ACLU work to remove God from the public square?

ROTTEN

Rotten means suffering from decay. Can you name any inner city controlled by the Democratic Party that is rotting? Can you name any city controlled by the Democratic Party that is infested with: diseases, acute poverty, lawlessness, rats, vermin, etc.?

SINFUL

Can you name any Democrat who has not violated at least one of the Ten Commandments? Perhaps the most nefarious (see above) is the Democratic Party’s violation of the 10th Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, nor his farm, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his!” The 10th Commandment warned everyone about the lure of Socialism/Communism/Marxism.

UNETHICAL

Can you name any Democrat who has been unethical? Violated the public trust recently?

UNLAWFUL

Think about the Russian collusion hoax.

UNRIGHTEOUS

Think about how supporters of President Trump have been attacked repeatedly. Some have even called a red hat as triggering.

UNSAVORY

Think about using government funding of abortion to cull the population of the world in order to stop climate change.

VICIOUS

Think about how viciously President Trump and his supporters are attacked daily by Democratic members of Congress, the media and the Democratic Party. Think about the confirmation hearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

VILE

Vile includes synonyms such as: foul, nasty, unpleasant, bad, disagreeable, horrid, horrible, dreadful, abominable, atrocious, offensive, obnoxious, odious, unsavory, repulsive, off-putting, repellent, revolting, repugnant, disgusting, distasteful, loathsome, hateful, nauseating, sickening. Can you name any recent statement by a Democrat that fits one or more of these labels?

VILLAINOUS

Think of the words and actions that come out of the mouths of the supporters of Democrats in Hollywood.

WICKED

The Democrat mantra is wickedness. See evil above.

WRONG

Democrats are wrong about everything. Their policies, positions, history and embrace of Communism are just wrong. The Democratic Party forgets history and therefore is doomed to repeat it. The only historical fact is that Socialism has failed 100% of the time.

Conclusion

As Dennis Prager in his article The Equation That Explains Evil notes:

The problem with communists and with leftists who don’t consider themselves communists is not that none of them mean well. It’s that they lack wisdom. There are wise and foolish liberals, wise and foolish conservatives; but all leftists are fools. Every one of the Democrats running for president is a fool. This is not, however, a description of their totality as a human being. Fools may be personally kind and generous, may be loyal friends and devoted spouses, and of course, they may be well-intentioned. But in terms of making the world worse, there is little difference between a well-meaning fool and an evil human being. Tens of millions of well-intentioned Westerners supported Stalin. The Westerners who supplied Stalin the secrets to the atom bomb were not motivated by evil. They were simply fools. But few evil people did as much to hurt the world as they did. [Emphasis added]

In 2016, the Oxford Dictionaries selected “post-truth” as the “Word of the Year” and defined it as “a term relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

Today the Democratic Party is built upon the shifting sands of post-truth.

Anyone disagree? If so please leave a comment.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEOS:

The Democratic Party wants to run the U.S. – Tucker Carlson

Bruce LeVell Debunks Trump is a Racist Narrative – Daily Caller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Democrat Implosion: ‘Classless’ 2020 Candidate Ripped by Biden Aide

What Will Democrats Destroy First: Themselves Or The Country?

Democrats Are Buying Votes To Win In 2020

There Are No Rules For Democrats

The Equation That Explains Evil

Democrats Once Again Embrace Population Control to Save the Planet

What San Francisco Got Wrong About the NRA and Its Definition of Domestic Terrorism

Philosophy of Post-Truth

TWO MUST SEE MOVIES: ‘Overcomer’ and ‘The Peanut Butter Falcon’

/in , , /by

We normally review one movie at a time. However, we highly recommend that you see these two great films about friendship, compassion, redemption, humility and humanity.

The first is “Overcomer.”

Overcomer is directed by Alex Kendrick, who also plays the role of coach John Harrison, and produced by Stephen Kendrick. 

Overcomer is a very special and emotional journey of a troubled young black girl named Hannah Scott played by Aryn Wright-Thompson. Hannah must overcome the travails that life has given her. She must deal with her father abandoning her and the death of her mother from a drug overdose. The only thing she is good at is running, but she suffers from asthma, probably caused by her mother’s drug use during pregnancy.

Hannah’s life journey changes when her Christian high school principle Olivia Brooks played by Priscilla C. Shirer asks her to read Ephesians, the Tenth book in the Holy Bible. This causes Hannah to be born again. Hannah goes from being a victim to becoming a child of God.

It is hard to hold back the tears of joy as Hannah not only find herself, but so do many others.

The second is “The Peanut Butter Falcon.”

Much like “Overcomer” the film “The Peanut Butter Falcon” is about overcoming one’s disabilities and living one’s dream. The star is Zak played by Zack Gottsagen. Zak has down syndrome and has been institutionalized by his family. He is a ward of the state and the state doesn’t really care about Zak and his ambitions.

Zak escapes and here in begins his adventure to achieve his dream, to become a wrestler.

This film, despite its use of some harsh language and some violence, is about friendship, God and deliverance.

Both films left me asking myself who am I?

I highly recommend seeing both films. They will inspire you to be grateful for what you have.

Video Special Report — Bishop Busted on Secret Audio Tapes

/in , , , , , , /by

Buffalo bishop remains defiant.

TRANSCRIPT

The beleaguered bishop of Buffalo, Richard Malone, is now facing furious calls for his resignation.

The calls are reaching fever pitch following the release of secret audio recordings revealing that Malone himself thinks he will not be able to survive as bishop much longer.

The tapes were recorded secretly by Malone’s own personal secretary, Fr. Ryszard Biernat, during a conversation between the two men.

In that conversation, Malone confesses that his own staff is saying it’s time to go and that he does not think he can survive this latest scandal.

Despite what he said in the secret recordings, Malone continued in what critics call his arrogance, holding a press conference where he declared he is staying.

The specific scandal is tied directly to Christ the King Seminary in Buffalo and involves yet more charges of homosexual harassment of seminarians — and the reappointment by Malone of accused priests.

Malone has tried unsuccessfully for a year to keep the lid on the burgeoning scandal that has been decades in the making.

His repeated attempts to cover up, however, have blown up in his face, owing to a series of whistleblower disclosures made to local Buffalo media.

It got so bad that CBS News’ 60 Minutes aired a segment last October interviewing whistleblower Siobhan O’Connor, who was Malone’s private secretary and who had released hundreds of pages of internal documents proving Malone was covering up abusers.

It was less than a month after the 60 Minutes segment that Church Militant caught up with Malone in the Detroit airport asking him about his reinstatement of a three-times accused homopredator priest.

Malone, traveling back from the national conference of bishops meeting in Baltimore was accompanied by his spokeswoman, Kathy Spangler, who attempted to run interference for the bishop and physically block our access.

Spangler is key here because Malone brought her on staff last year specifically for damage control.

She is part of Malone’s inner circle and reports are she too was saying resignation was imminent.

As the scandals erupted last year, Malone stood defiant, refusing calls back then for him to step down.

The latest case involves the striking story of Fr. Jeffrey Nowak, who is alleged to have broken the seal of confession and made sexual propositions to second-year seminarian Matthew Bojanowski.

Bojanowski went to Fr. Biernat, Malone’s secretary, and told him everything about Nowak’s harassment.

Father Biernat then secretly recorded meetings with Malone where the case of Fr. Nowak was discussed.

In an Aug. 2 damage control meeting with his inner circle, Malone comes straight out with his deep concerns about Fr. Nowak.

Yet, after being caught on tape freely admitting he fully comprehends the issue of Nowak’s homopredation of Bojanowski, Malone plotted a course to keep everything covered up.

In a disturbing turn of events, Buffalo insiders tell us that Malone is trying to cover for Nowak because Nowak has dirt on Malone and is using it as blackmail against him.

While details have been relayed to us here at Church Militant, we have not yet been able to confirm those, so we will hold off on reporting any specifics. But that is at least the talk folding into this scandal.

In either case, Malone was keeping details of Nowak under wraps and even issued a midnight statement last night to try and cover his tracks.

What’s clear is that Malone’s history in Buffalo, where he inherited a polluted seminary which was part of the South American gay seminarian pipeline, a story Church Militant broke last summer, has been nothing less than abominable.

All sources in Buffalo report that it’s no longer a question of if, but when, the lying, cheating Malone will have to step down.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Buffalo Abuse Cover-Up Allegations: Will ‘Vos Estis’ Be Applied?

Homosexuality and Catholic Decline

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Why an Arab-Israeli Peace may be Impossible

/in , , , , /by

According to an article on www.aljazeera.net (Arabic version) of 28 July 2019, the Jordanian “artists union” demanded that all Jordanian actors and technicians working on a certain film set in the Petra region should withdraw from the project–even though the producer of the film is himself, an Arab.

The reason given for pulling all the Jordanian actors and technicians out of the film project was the claim by the union that “it falsified the history of the Levant region, especially Petra and southern Jordan, and was a security threat to Petra and southern Jordan.”

The producer, himself an Arab, argued that the film is based on historical facts and it will be filmed as the script is written because it will not be shown in the Arab world, but in America.  Yet, the Jordanian actors, and the union, have all stuck to their guns in rejecting this film because of the belief that it “gives the Jews rights in the Petra region.”

So, what is the storyline of this script that so offends Jordanian sensibilities?

According to the producer, the script, though based on historical facts, was drawn from a “fictional story” published by the “Arab Institute for Studies” in Beirut, and was well-known in Jordan’s capital ‘Amman a while back.  The story is about a young Jordanian boy who discovered a slab of stone with ancient Hebrew writing on it.  He then turns the stone over to the Jordanian department of antiquities.  The plot then revolves around the Department of Antiquities trying to confront the criminal gangs that trade in stolen antiquities, while also trying to fend off the Israeli Mossad trying to intervene in the matter.

Looks like a good patriotic script for Jordan, but what the naysayers are all objecting to is the very idea of an ancient Hebrew inscription even existing in Jordan.

In actual fact, such an inscription on a stone slab stele was found in that region in the 1860s.  It is known as the Mesha stone.  The Moabite king Mesha (Moabite for “Moses”) had this stele inscribed and erected (as a sort of ancient “Facebook page”) complaining about their god Khamosh deserting them and allowing “Omri,” the king of Israel (northern ten tribes) and his son to achieve hegemony over them for forty years, and then Khamosh giving king Mesha the strength to win back lost territories and then some.  This stele was written sometime in the 9th century B.C., and the basic facts are confirmed in 2nd Kings 3:4-8.

Most scholars of North West Semitic languages (Hebrew, Amorite, Ugaritic, Aramaic, Phoenician, Moabite, and Edomite) believe that the Moabites were illiterate and that the Moabite king had to hire an Israelite or Jewish scribe to inscribe the stele.  So, in other words, the famous Mesha Stele is an historical example of an ancient Hebrew inscription, written by a Jew, or an Israelite (not the same thing), discovered in southern Jordan and which the Jordanian government itself is demanding its return to Jordan from France (where it is currently on display in the Louvre in Paris).

And, yet, we now see Jordanians protecting a film that depicts exactly that sort of thing and in a fictional story no less!

In a possibly related story, on 03 August, the Saudi-owned al-arabiyya TV channel reported that Jordan has issued a prohibition against all Israelis from praying at the tomb of Aaron which is located in that same general area of southern Jordan.

ANALYSIS:

What these stories tell us is that there is so much hatred in Jordan towards Israel in particular and Jews in general that the Jordanians (most of whom are actually Palestinians) deny the existence of the historical fact of Jews and Israelites having ever passed through Jordan during all the centuries that they lived in the region.  In other words, their current belief system demands the erasure of all history that predates Islam in the region.

And this goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian issue.  Arab propagandists have long been trying to rewrite the history of the Levant to erase any evidence of Jewish and/or Israelite presence in the region–ever.  This is in spite of the fact that their own Qur’an, as well as early Arabic histories, make countless references to the bani Israel and repeat many of the Old Testament stories almost verbatim.

This hatred-generated denial of history makes it impossible for Jordanian Palestinians, and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to ever accept the state of Modern Israel as an entity that deserves to continue to exist.

The only possible solution to this impasse would be a Western supported and managed program (using radio, TV, and the internet) to “force feed” the history of the region to the region’s Arab and Palestinian citizens until they come to accept the reality of the historicity of the Jewish and Israelite presence in what is now Israel and the West Bank, and the influences these ancient Jewish and Israelite communities had on their neighboring cultures.

Did Jefferson Really Edit Out the Miracles from his Bible?

/in , , , /by

Once in a while, the myth that Thomas Jefferson edited down the Bible in order to remove the miraculous, resurfaces. He supposedly did this because he was essentially an unbeliever who thought that religion had no place in the public square.

A couple of years ago, I teamed up with a pastor from Jefferson’s home town of Charlottesville, Virginia, Dr. Mark Beliles, to write a book on the faith of our third president. The book is Doubting Thomas: The Religious Life and Legacy of Thomas Jefferson (Morgan James, 2014).

There are two main points to our book.

  1. Whatever serious doubts he may have privately held later in life, Jefferson was not a lifelong skeptic. In fact, when he was most productive and helpful to the country, he was from all outward appearances a practicing Christian. This would include when he wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom (1777, passed in 1786), which says that because of the example of the “holy author of our religion” (Jesus), people should be free to believe or disbelieve.
  2. Regardless of whatever theological unorthodoxy he held (later in life), he did not believe in the separation of God and government—which is the way the ACLU and other secularists try to portray him. For example, on a regular basis, when he was president, Jefferson attended the Christian worship services held at the U.S. Capitol building—services he approved of, which continued long after he was president.

As president, Jefferson took time one night in 1804 to cull through the sayings of Jesus as found in the four Gospels. Why did he do this?

The title he himself put on this unpublished work gives us a clue: The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted From the Account of His Life and Doctrines as Given by Matthew, Mark, Luke & John; Being an Abridgement of the New Testament for the Use of the Indians Unembarrassed with Matters of Fact or Faith Beyond the Level of Their Comprehensions.

This abridgment, clearly intended for the Indians, was not a biography of Jesus, only His “philosophy” as the title states. As such it left out most material found in the Gospels that did not fit the goal of compiling a “philosophy,” but there is no evidence of a motive to delete all of the miracles or evidences of Jesus’ divinity.

As our third president, Jefferson had made the largest land addition in American history with the Louisiana Purchase. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of Native-Americans, many of whom had never heard about Jesus, were added to American territory. He wanted them to benefit from the moral teachings of Jesus Christ.

Jefferson believed:

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus.” (Letter to William Canby, September 18, 1813).

Much thought in the Christian world has gone toward important theological matters like the nature of Christ (as fully divine and fully human), and the nature of the Godhead—Three Persons, One God (the Trinity). Jefferson felt (perhaps condescendingly) that such matters of theology and philosophy were beyond the Indians. As a result, he wanted to simplify Christ’s teachings. He may have been misguided, but there’s no evidence that his motive was secularization or anti-supernaturalism, as many today claim.

Jefferson wanted the Native-Americas benefit from Jesus’ moral teachings–things we take for granted, like: the golden rule (i.e., do unto others as you would have them do unto you, Matthew 7:12) or the command to love one another, as Christ loves us (John 13:33).

There is no evidence I am aware of that Jefferson ever published “The Philosophy of Jesus.” There is evidence that around 1819, he created a second version of his private book, this time in English (the King James Version), in French, in Latin, and in Greek (the language of the Gospels). It was only published long after his death.

Apparently, he used this compilation of the teachings of Jesus for his own personal edification.

Here are some miracles that remain the so-called “Jefferson Bible”:

  • Jesus sent His disciples to “heal the sick,” “cleanse the lepers,” “raise the dead,” “cast out devils” (Matthew 10:8).
  • He healed a man on the Sabbath (Luke 14:1-6);
  • He raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead (Matthew 9:18-25);
  • He healed the bleeding woman (Matthew 9:20-22);
  • Jesus healed two blind men (Matthew 9:27-31).

Jefferson’s approach to the Bible, to strip away some of its rich doctrine in Christology or in the beauty of the Godhead, is not commendable or worthy of imitation. But contrary to what some atheists say today, Jefferson was not on a crusade to edit the miracles out of the Bible.

Why do so many Muslims murder in the name of Allah?

/in , , , /by

A neighbor of mine was listening to the day’s headline news. It was about an Afghani immigrant in Paris who went on a knife wielding rampage against numerous people waiting at a bus stop. He had been shouting the Muslim war cry, Allahu Akbar (Allah is Greater) as he plunged the knife into one victim after another. The horror prompted my neighbor to ask, “Why do so many Muslims murder in the name of Allah?” Why indeed!

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted in the book, Gandhi: The Power of Pacifism, by Catherine Clement, as follows:

“While Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees and Jews, along with several million adherents of an animistic religion, all coexisted in relative harmony, one religion that would not accept compromise stood out from the rest: Islam.”

Gandhi was referring to the experience during his lifetime in the Indian sub-continent, but the growth of Wahhabism and the current resurgence in Islamic triumphalism since Gandhi’s death in January 1948 now poses an increasingly existential threat to the West, to Judeo-Christian civilization, as well as to Hindus, Buddhists, and members of other faiths or no faith.

The question repeatedly asked is how and why so many Muslims, young and old, living in the West and enjoying all the material and educational benefits bestowed upon them — are committing hideous acts of terror and perpetrating atrocities upon non-Muslim innocent civilians, even against their very own neighbors. Those Muslim Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, frequently murder Jewish civilians. Thousands have died and been maimed as victims of the blood soaked hands of Palestinian terrorists including just this week when a young Israeli girl, who had just celebrated her 17th birthday, was brutally murdered while hiking with her father and brother.

The Times Square bombing attempt on May 1, 2010 by Pakistani-born, Faisal Shahzad, and the 2009 Fort Hood massacre of unarmed members of the military by Major Nidal Hasan are well-known. So was the attempt at terrorism by a Somali immigrant, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who had come to America at the age of five with his family as a refugee from the hell that is Somalia, yet who attempted to kill thousands during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. Mohamud arrived about the same time that the fiendishly anti-Semitic Somali ingrate, Ilhan Omar, arrived and who now pollutes Congress as a Democrat member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Since the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon by the 19 Saudi Arabian Muslim hijackers, in which 3,000 people were murdered, a long and depressing list of atrocities have been perpetrated by other Muslim ingrates.

It was the baleful President Carter who undercut the shah of Iran, an autocrat who jailed and restricted the jihadists and Islamic groups, but who was nevertheless a supporter and ally of America. Just like President Obama, who equally undercut Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the subsequent void was quickly and gleefully filled by Islamic fundamentalists and the Muslim Brotherhood who imposed barbaric sharia law and raised the banner of Islamic supremacy. This is the same Obama who gave $150 billion to the mad mullahs in Iran and horrifically provided them with a roadmap to obtain a nuclear arsenal.

With the shah’s fall came the Ayatollah Khomeini from his exile in France, and almost immediately Carter’s catastrophic act resulted in a seemingly endless and humiliating imprisonment of American Embassy staff in Tehran. Since then Iran has fed the flames of Islamic terror around the globe, arming, and funding terror organizations such as Hamas and Hezb’allah.

Ayatollah Khomeini preached violence to ultimately conquer “the land of the infidel.” By that he meant not only Israel, but Christian European states and Britain, the United States, and the entire non-Muslim world. His fanatical followers throughout the Muslim and Arab world have all endorsed the legitimacy of jihad against what they call the “enemies of Islam.” Islamic martyrdom operations – specifically blowing up soft targets like the spectators at sporting events – are guarantees to paradise for the jihadists, even if their victims are women and children.

So the answer to my neighbor, and to those talking heads in the media who endlessly ask why so many Muslims commit such atrocities, can be seen both in Koranic passages and in, for instance, the sickening hate indoctrination found in the regime-controlled Palestinian schools and TV and radio broadcasts.

Here are some of the grisly passages from the Koran:

“Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them.” Koran 2:191

“Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood.” Koran 9:123

“When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them.” Koran 9:5

“Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable.” Koran 3:85

“The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them.”… Koran 9:30

“Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam” Koran 5:33

“Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies.” Koran 22:19

“The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them.” Koran 8:65

“Muslims must not take the infidels as friends.” Koran 3:28

“Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.” Koran 8:12

“Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels.” Koran 8:60

And here are some examples of the Palestinian broadcasts that sow hate among children as young as three years of age, spawning yet another generation of terrorists and destroying hope of any true and lasting peace with the embattled State of Israel.

For example, the children’s show, The Best Home, included a scene in which a young girl recited a poem filled with messages of hate and other libels demonizing Jews. The poem made the vile and fantastic assertion that Jews, “Allah’s enemies, the sons of pigs,” defiled the Quran and Jerusalem, “murdered children,” “cut off their limbs,” and “raped the women in the city squares.” Here is the twisted example of the very horrors carried out by the Islamists and jihadists being falsely ascribed to their victims.

In our politically correct world, members of the fake media and commentators often seek to distance Islam from so many acts of horrific violence, using terms of alleged distinction such as “radical Islam” or “moderate Islam” and so on. But let us reflect on the words of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the close friend of both Iran’s genocidal Ayatollah and its president.

In reply to the term “moderate Islam,” which was apparently quoted to him by a Western journalist, Erdoğan erupted and said: “These descriptions are very ugly; it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam, and that’s it.”

Certainly, attempting to constantly give, as liberals and the Left do, a free pass to Islamic abuses; to play down its violent ambitions of world conquest; to ignore the evident threat to Judeo-Christian civilization from sharia law and imposed dhimmitude merely encourages the violent tendencies of the followers of what was so presciently called by Winston Churchill, “an ideology wrapped in a religion.”

The two Chechen brothers, as with so many other Muslims, thus almost certainly succumbed to the hatred towards non-Muslims which proliferate in Islamic texts, on Islamic websites, and in Islamic social media. And they are not alone as that knife wielding Afghani proved so horribly in Paris.

© All rights reserved. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

INTEL REPORT: Israel-Lebanon, Israel-Egypt-Hamas, Japan-America

/in , , , , , /by

ISRAEL-LEBANON

Last week we reported that the Foreign Minister of Bahrain, Shaykh Khaled bin Ahmad bin Muhammad Aal Khalifa, tweeted that Israel has a right to defend itself, in response to the flap over the two Israeli drones that violated Lebanon’s airspace, one of which carried explosives and took out an Hizbollah office in south Beirut.  In this context, the Bahraini FM stressed that since Iran “has declared war against all of us,” implying that any attack against any of their IRGC entities, their Lebanese Hizbollah, their “popular mobilization” militias in Iraq, or their Houthi arm in Yemen, constitutes “self defense.”

This week, according to www.al-jazeera.net, the Bahraini FM has doubled down by directly accusing Hizbollah of escalating the situation by attacking Israel (in reference to Hizbollah’s taking out an Israeli military vehicle this weekend).  Then he took it a step further by accusing the Lebanese government itself of being complicit in the escalation.  This would stem from the fact that the “Lebanese government” (which includes Sunni and Christian members) is essentially hostage to Hizbollah).

Therefore, according to the Bahraini FM’s reasoning, the Lebanese government is responsible and “any aggression by one state against another is forbidden by International Law” and is subjecting its citizens to the subsequent danger.

The Foreign Ministry of Bahrain then issued a formal statement ordering all of its citizens in Lebanon to leave immediately.

The above statements by the Bahraini FM were also reported on the Saudi-owned www.al-arabiyya TV, a day later.

ISRAEL-EGYPT-HAMAS

Israel sharing sensitive Counter-Terrorism (CT) intelligence with its arch enemy, the terrorist entity of Hamas?  Ridiculous!  Or is it?  According to an article published by

al-Monitor, a Washington, DC-based news entity founded by a Christian Arab-American from Lebanon/Syria, that is exactly what is happening.  The author of this al-Monitor article is one Shlomi Eldar, an Israel-based journalist who for the past two decades has covered the Palestinian Authority and Gaza for Israel’s TV channels 1 and 10.

Here is how this has come about:  Israel and Egypt have been sharing intelligence information for several years.  At first this intelligence information included CT on Hamas, which both countries considered to be a terrorist group.  Egypt had declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist group in 2013 with former General as-Sisi assuming the presidency of Egypt’s nominally civilian government.  Since Hamas was founded as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Hamas was automatically included in that designation.

Furthermore, Egypt has been having trouble with Hamas in terms of cross-border smuggling of weapons, drugs, and jihadis.  As a part of this Egypt-Hamas contention Egypt had closed its border with Gaza and joined with Israel in enforcing an embargo on it.  Egypt had also accused Hamas of aiding the anti-government protests and terrorist activities in Egypt’s Sinai.

So, what gives?  What led to both Egypt and Israel altering their positions on Hamas? Or vice-versa?

For one thing, according to Mr. Eldar, Hamas has been moving closer to Egypt in order the get the embargo eased.  Egypt, for its part is wanting to woo Hamas to get its aid and cooperation vis-à-vis the ongoing CT war in the Sinai, and beyond that, to entice it on board a possible future pan-Palestinian peace deal with Israel.

However, as Hamas has moved closer to Egypt, including pretending to disassociate itself from the mother ship, the MB, in order to please Egypt, a note-worthy splinter group has declared Hamas to be a “traitor” to the “Arab-Islamic-Palestinian” cause and has begun conducting car bombings and other terrorist acts against the terrorist group Hamas!

The name of this splinter group is bayt al-miqdis, which in Arabic means “The House of Holiness” and is a name for Jerusalem.  This term also refers to an Islamic prophecy contained in the ahadeeth referring to a massive Islamic army that will march out from Khorusan (an area in SW and central Asia including Afghanistan and parts of Iran, Pakistan and other Central Asian countries).  This army, it is said, will bear the “black banners” and will reconquer bayt al-miqdis for the Muslims.  Most Palestinians believe that when this Latter Day army reaches their region that they will become the vanguard, the spearhead, of this army as it destroys Israel and takes over Jerusalem.

Hamas, consequently, fears that this bayt al-miqdis organization will out recruit it and become a major threat to its hold on power in Gaza.  Thus its acceptance of CT intel from Israel, the very entity it has vowed to destroy.  But, of course, it can’t admit to itself that it is doing so.  This is where Egypt enters the equation according to Mr. Eldar.  This bayt

al-miqdis group is the primary group causing Egypt headaches in the Sinai, and so, as Hamas has recently moved closer to Egypt, it and Egypt are now sharing CT intelligence on bayt al-miqdis and “inadvertently” as Hamas accepts CT intel from Egypt among that CT intel is intel Israel has provided to Egypt.  Egypt, for its part, passes along Israeli CT only that intel agreed upon by Israel.  “The very essence of a paradox” says Mr. Eldar. “The relationship between Israel and Hamas is tangled and complex, with all sorts of remarkable twists and turns.

This paradox also underscores two age-old adages:  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” (at least temporarily), and “politics makes for strange bedfellows.”  Frankly, Egypt, Israel, and Hamas all in bed together is about as strange as it can get.  Welcome to the modern Middle East.

JAPAN-AFRICA

Over the weekend, and immediately after the G-7 meeting in France, Japan hosted the Japan-Africa conference.  Egyptian talk-show host ‘Amru Adeeb reported on this conference for his al-hakaya (The Story) show as a vehicle for boasting about Egypt’s importance.  Mr. Adeeb first beamed with pride over President as-Sisi’s hobnobbing with the world leaders of the planet’s major powers, then flying directly to Japan to represent the entire continent of Africa as this year’s president of the Organization of African States.

According to Mr. Adeeb, Japan has pledged to invest some $20 billion U.S. in Africa, in hopes of competing with China for Africa’s allegiance.