|
In this mailing:
by Soeren Kern
• February 6, 2017 at 5:00 am
- "The
question is simple and cruel: will our children live in a free,
independent, democratic country?" — Marine Le Pen, leader of
France's National Front party.
- "Economic
globalization, which rejects any limits, has weakened the immune
system of the nation by dispossessing it of its constituent
elements: borders, national currency, the authority of its laws in
conducting economic affairs, and thus allowing another world to be
born and grow: Islamic fundamentalism." — Marine Le Pen.
- "Islamic
fundamentalism instrumentalizes the principle of religious freedom
in an attempt to impose patterns of thought that are clearly the
opposite of ours. We do not want to live under the yoke or threat of
Islamic fundamentalism." — Marine Le Pen.
- "Globalism
is based, as we see, on the negation of the values on which France was built and on the
principles in which the immense majority of French people still
recognize themselves: the pre-eminence of the person and therefore
its sacred character, individual freedom and therefore individual
consent, national feeling and therefore national solidarity,
equality of persons and therefore the refusal of situations of
submission." — Marine Le Pen.
- "Those who
come to France are to accept France, not to transform it to the
image of their country of origin. If they want to live at home, they
should have stayed at home." — Marine Le Pen.
- "In terms
of terrorism, we do not intend to ask the French to get used to
living with this horror. We will eradicate it here and abroad."
— Marine Le Pen.
- "Everyone
agrees that the European Union is a failure. It did not deliver on
any of its promises, particularly on prosperity and security....
That is why, if elected, I will announce a referendum within six
months on remaining or exiting the European Union..." — Marine
Le Pen.
- "The old
left-right debates have outlived their usefulness.... This divide is
no longer between the left and the right, but between patriots and
globalists." — Marine Le Pen.
National Front party leader Marine Le Pen, speaking at
a rally in Lyon, France on February 5, 2016. (Image source: Public Senat
video screenshot)
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-establishment National Front
party, has officially launched her campaign to become the next president
of France.
Speaking at a rally attended by thousands of her supporters in Lyon
on February 5, Le Pen launched a two-pronged attack on globalization and
radical Islam. She promised French voters a referendum on remaining in
the European Union, and also to deport Muslims who are deemed a security
risk to France.
Le Pen's political platform is contained in a manifesto of 144
promises regarding immigration and global trade.
Polls show that Le Pen — who said the election of U.S. President
Donald J. Trump "shows that people are taking their future
back" — is one of the most popular politicians in France.
by Dexter Van Zile
• February 6, 2017 at 4:00 am
- The notion that
the Israeli pilot is the only one who has any responsibility for the
child's death is simply false. A lot of bad choices were made — by
Palestinians — prior to the death of the young child and Atef Abu
Saif knows it; he just can't — or will not — address these choices,
at least not in this text.
- The reality
that Saif will not confront in his book [The Drone Eats With Me]
is that Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza
Strip, bears a huge measure of responsibility for the suffering he
documents. Hamas has repeatedly started wars that it cannot win
against a country that cannot afford to lose.
- During these
conflicts, it has launched rockets from schoolyards and has used
hospitals as command centers for its leaders, putting civilians on
both sides of the conflict at risk. When children are killed by
Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas puts their bodies on display to
demonize Israel, and writers such as Saif assist in this tactic.
- During the war
in 2008–2009, Hamas... used cement and other building materials
allowed into the Gaza Strip—ostensibly for the benefit of
Palestinian civilians—in order to construct tunnels that could
penetrate Israel and serve as a means to kidnap Israeli soldiers and
civilians.
- During its 2012
fight with Israel, Hamas leaders declared that killing Jews is a
religious obligation. Hamas promotes a genocidal organization that
seeks Israel's destruction and yet Saif does not speak a word about
this lethal ideology or actions before or during the 2014 war.
- Honesty
requires that the deaths of these Palestinian children serve to
drive — not obstruct — the conversation toward Palestinian abilities
and responsibility.
- On and on he
goes in an emotionally powerful but intellectually dishonest lament.
Saif simply cannot come to grips with the responsibility Palestinian
leaders have for the suffering in the areas they govern.
- This is exactly
what Saif's condescending patrons and boosters in the West are
looking for — narratives that allow them to embrace and broadcast
baseless hatred for the Jewish state in the name of human rights.
- Westerners who
feast on this narrative do not help the Palestinians, but hurt them,
by responding to the misdeeds of Palestinian elites with
condescending pats on the head instead of the rebukes they warrant.
A Hamas official recounts
on Palestinian TV how Israeli forces gave advance warning to him, to
evacuate his home before bombing it. He goes on to describe how after the
warning, he rushed to gather friends, family and neighbors on the roof of
the building to use as human shields, which caused Israeli forces to
abort the strike.
After returning from an awful weekend trip with a Christian youth
group, I told my mother I wanted to stop going to church in the next town
over and worship where we lived. "Nobody likes me over there,"
I said. Her response was direct and brutal: "Maybe they are not the
problem. Maybe it is you."
It was a shock. Mothers are not supposed to talk that way to their
11-year-old sons (so I thought). In the years since, I have tried, with
varying degrees of success, when in a difficult position, to look at the
role I played in creating the circumstances I find myself in.
Maybe I have behaved in unlikable ways and need to stop. Life
together with other people — with any measure of peace — requires a
willingness to dispense with a false belief in one's innocence. We all
tend to believe that nothing is ever our fault; more likely, we realize
that many things are.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment