jackengelhard

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Southampton Univ. Loud on Israel, Silent on UK Rape Epidemic

March 24, 2015

Apparently the British don’t care much for their daughters. That can’t be true. But I only know what I read in the papers.

So I’m reading that it’s beginning to dawn on British parents that their daughters are being sexually assaulted at a rate that can only be called an epidemic.

Here’s a snippet:

“The scale of the abuse in Oxfordshire, a county in southeast England, mirrors similarly shocking accounts of the sexual exploitation of white British girls by Muslim gangs in Bristol, Derby, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford, and implies that the problem is not isolated, but endemic.”

We expect this to be happening in Muslim countries like France, Denmark and Sweden. But the English speak our language.

My own introduction into the crisis came some time ago from a report about Rotherham, where the locals took it in stride, that their girls, some as young as 8, were being sexually molested by Pakistani Muslim men. People were afraid to speak up. They’d be labeled Islamophobic. So they let it go, and the raping of thousands continued. Read this for the timeliest drama about the clash of civilizations.

So now we know that Rotherham is not alone. The problem is widespread and you would expect some action to be taken.

Well, yes, absolutely, but not about that – how about this?

The University of Southampton does not have the time and does not wish to be bothered about the fact that its neighbors are being sexually violated. That it’s happening next door and up the street, so close tohome, well, well, dear, dear, but there is other business to attend to miles away – namely Israel.

Now the Jews, here is a problem that needs to be solved, again, and so it goes that Southampton, named among the top 10 UK universities, will be hosting a conference April 17 to 19, about Israel’s legitimacy. Does Israel have a right to exist and do the Jewish people have a right to live?

That is not the official wording of the program but it’s close enough and please don’t try to kid me. I hear what you’re saying but I know what you’re thinking.

Europe’s gone brothel again.

The program says that some of the finest anti-Semitic minds have been invited to present their views at the orgy, while pro-Israel speakers cannot be found.

That too is not the official wording, but I am trying to be of service beyond the formalities, which includes Oren Ben-Dor.

He is listed as a distinguished Israel basher and a leading self-hating organizer of this anti-Semitic flogging.

This is still Europe, you know. They remember Auschwitz, fondly.

That is not the official wording in the program. Officially he is a professor of law and philosophy at Southampton, which sounds like a nice job, but he wants more.

He wants Israel boycotted. So do all the other speakers, to a man, and woman. They all want Israel eliminated.

They won’t this say outright. That would be so impolite. But that’s what they mean. This is still Europe, you know. They remember Auschwitz, fondly.

They can’t deal with something happening in their own neighborhoods.

Nope. Can’t be bothered, and who wants to offend Islamic sensibilities?

That could be trouble.

But Israel? Always open for business and no trouble at all.

Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. The new thriller from the New York-based novelist, The Bathsheba Deadline, a heroic editor’s singlehanded war on terror and against media bias. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Website: www.jackengelhard.com

THIRTEEN REASONS TO VOTE FOR NETANYAHU

March 15

As the result of his powerful speech before the United States Congress, Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu immediately surged to the top of the class. He became a World Leader and I agree with those who say that at the moment Netanyahu is the preeminent leader of the world.

Even if you do not agree with every comma, period and semi-colon of his leadership – a man like this does not come along every day.

To toss him out of office would be a terrible waste of a golden resource. Not since Golda Meir has Israel had a leader so admired throughout the world.

Netanyahu speaks, the world listens – can Israel afford to lose this voice?

To replace him with Yitzchak Herzog would be to replace him with a man nobody knows. Herzog would be starting from scratch.

Israel would be starting from scratch…so far as making Israel’s case before the nations.

So that’s reason Number 1 as to why it’s in Israel’s vital interest to keep Netanyahu (Likud) in office.

2. Netanyahu is a “worldly” leader. This means that he knows how the world thinks, how the world speaks – specifically when it comes to America. He knows our language, he knows our slang. He does not come across as some exotic potentate, but rather as one of us. This makes him readily identifiable as a man who shares our hopes and dreams. This is a man we can root for.

3. Like Theodor Herzl, he is “fit to meet with kings.” This is a prized virtue.

4. That he tends to be too worldly, as some argue, I would argue that with the eyes of the world so focused on the Jewish State, every step a minefield, an Israeli leader must know the skills of give and take – a time to be resolute, a time to relent. I too am not happy about Netanyahu’s building freeze or of some of his other concessions.

But I do not face the constant pressure coming from the international community. Netanyahu knows that what happens in Israel does not stay in Israel.

Next morning it ends up in The New York Times. See here for the bigpicture.

5. So Netanyahu understands how delicately he must maneuver to “bribe the devil” while keeping Israel safe.

Haaretz. This is theIsraeli paper that ran an op-ed that mocked Elie Wiesel for his “thin elderly body” and referred to Netanyahu’s Congressionalspeech as an appeal that mined “all that Holocaust jazz.”

6. None of his concessions in word and deed are as wild delusional as those being proposed by the Left, the Herzog/Livni ticket.

That’s the Party (Labor) being supported byHaaretz. This is the Israeli paper that a few days ago ran an op-ed that mocked Elie Wiesel for his “thin elderly body” and that referred to Netanyahu’s Congressionalspeech as an appeal that mined “all that Holocaust jazz.”

Who in Israel can cast a vote for that!

And be sure of this – a vote for Herzog is a vote for Obama. Is this what Israel wants?

7. The economy is strong. In most countries, that’s all it takes to get someone re-elected.

8. Netanyahu has omitted or at least toned down any talk of a two-state solution. Establishing a separate state, an Arab state inside Israel – as the Left’s Amos Oz once again insists in Haaretz – is to invite ISIS inside Israel’s living room.

9. Instead, Netanyahu boldly proclaims Israel as a Jewish State and demands that the rest of the world, and Israel itself, recognize it as such.

10. No division of Jerusalem. To be honest, I do not know what he intends to do about the “West Bank” – Judea/Samaria.

11. But we know Herzog’s intentions. Along with his partner Livni, the wheeling and dealing has already begun.

12. I trust that there will be no drama about this from Netanyahu. Yes, I believe him when he calls Judea/Samaria a Biblical Trust.

13. Netanyahu, as opposed to other Jewish leaders is not shy about connecting Modern Israel to her Biblical roots – the ultimate proof of her sovereignty.

Every time we vote we gamble. There is no such thing as a sure bet. But for a safe bet, Benjamin

Netanyahu is the man.

Herzog, Hillary and No Promises To Keep Except Retreat

March 22, 2015

When no single candidate excites you, what do you get? Bill de Blasio is what you get.

About 80 percent of New York City’s eligible voters stayed home during the last mayoral elections, leaving the town wide open for a man already dubbed Gotham’s worst mayor in history, or as The New York Post calls him, and I quote so don’t blame me – calls him “Mayor Putz.”

Who’s even talking about New York? Not me. I’m talking about voters in America and in Israel who’ve thrown in the towel.

In Israel the only choice is Benjamin Netanyahu, not only because he’s a good guy, but mostly – have you seen the other guy?

That would be Yizchak Herzog. Together with appeasement pal Tzipi Livni, Herzog is running a campaign based on the rallying cry of retreat.

When did retreat become a nation’s desirable destiny? I can’t think of any candidate anywhere stumping happily for surrender – except in Israel, where, at least in Tel Aviv, thousands gathered in support of Herzog/Livni, in other words, for moving the country backwards.

(Yes, I know. When the wartime shofar blows, Tel Aviv rushes to the front as courageously as the rest of the nation.)

Give the Arabs everything they want and you’ll be happy, goes the argument from the Labor Left.

Think small; I guess that’s the new creed among politicians vying for our love. No grand vision, not from today’s men and women who want our votes.

Think small. Lie Big.

But in America, it’s the same deal. We have nobody, nobody that excites us when it comes to leadership. Maybe it’s just me.

I’m a Child of the 60's. I remember a politician who gave us a dream. Dreams don’t have to come true, but humans, we need something to keep us going, a grand design that promises us a future that will be better for ourselves and for our kids. Just thinking about it is enough.

Just give us a chance. That’s all we ask.

We cannot sustain ourselves with malaise, a concept that suffocates the spirit with the insistence that things will always be the same, or maybe even worse.

JKF promised us a New Frontier, a reinvigorated America, and we responded with a Space Program that got us to the moon.

Our generation walked a head taller because we were given a task. These few words set us on the path to greatness: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” More here. We have nothing like that from this generation, neither in America nor in Israel.

Here in America, frankly, I don’t know what the hell we’ve got. Our politicians are so shallow or so corrupt that all we can do is shrug. There’s no choice but to say, what’s the difference? Hillary Clinton, for example, is both. She is both shallow and corrupt, but out of a population of 320 million, this is the best the Democrats have to offer. The GOP? Who can tell one from another?

From the men and women who run our country today, practically every word is a maneuver around the truth, a lie, and once again, we shrug.

On Hillary’s email scandal, even her most loyal supporters, like James Carville, can only can only submit: Yes, she’s corrupt. So what? (My interpretation.)

Where are the best…where are the brightest…nowhere to be found running for office.

The Democrats have no Kennedy and the Republicans have no Reagan and Israel, outside of Bibi perhaps, has no man of vision.

I say “perhaps” because here too, what’s the plan? What’s the dream? As Jews, it’s the dream that’s sustained us over the centuries. Moses’ dream was so strong that, for the love of his people, Israel, he said, “Okay, Dear Lord, if you destroy this people for being so stiff-necked, destroy me too. Erase me from your Book.” Wow!

We could use some of that stiff-neckedness today, instead of turning pansy. If not Moses, or David, we could use a Herzl.

Imagine any of them campaigning on platforms of retreat and slogans of surrender. Goodness, Herzl was full of vigor and statesmanship even without a state.

He had a dream and because of that dream he was “fit to meet with kings” and to gather millions to the cause of Zion.

Forty years in the desert we trekked in pursuit of a promise, to follow a dream. Did it pay off? You bet!

This leads me to quote this famous extract from the novel “IndecentProposal.” The PR director of a major casino is explaining why millions turn to gambling: “We give them the dream. We all feel that we’ve been cheated by life. Nobody is happy with what he’s got. That’s why they flock here by the millions, in pursuit of something better. That’s the human cry. We want. We need – something better, please.”

Without a dream, no way to run a life, no way to run a country.

NETANYAHU, HAUNTED BY JABOTINSKY'S NIGHTMARE

Over the past few days, jotting notes on paper napkins, I had it figured why Benjamin Netanyahu shouldn’t go.

By the time I got to the computer and then started reading what others were saying, I completely changed my mind.

When even momentarily I find myself on the same side as Haaretz and The New York Times, on anything, I know something’s wrong.

They’re against Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Congress and bypassing the White House on the perils of a nuclear Iran.

Israel’s Prime Minister, they say, ought to terminate the trip that was extended by Speaker of the House John Boehner. Netanyahu says he’s going.

Watch out, they say. There will be hell to pay for antagonizing President Barack Obama. Better to heed Democrat Obama who is willing to give Iran all the time it needs to act sensibly, rather than heed Republican Boehner who, like Netanyahu, favors heavier sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Boehner and Obama are at odds on practically everything, and now that Republicans run the show in the House and Senate, it’s each man to his corner.

Practically all the resources belong to the President. He has built his Office as a private business. He has outwitted Congress at every turn.

There will be blood.

So into the middle of this strictly American political feud comes Israel, and for this reason I thought it best for Netanyahu to stay home.

My original thinking made sense, until it didn’t.

I wrote that Netanyahu was walking into a trap. I saw nothing but trouble ahead at a time when the United States needs Israel more than ever.

There are a thousand reasons why he should go, and only one reason why he shouldn’t, namely Obama, and that is the only reason that counts.

For sure, I surmised, Netanyahu will give a stirring speech. He will prove that Iran poses a threat to Israel, the region, the United States, in fact the entire world.

There will be applause. There will be standing ovations. Boehner will be the first to rise to his feet. He knows the American homeland is at risk.

So Netanyahu will win over Congress – but then what?

He must still face Obama and when the going gets tough, Boehner won’t be around. Obama remains Commander in Chief and between Obama and Netanyahu it is personal.

How’s this for a Mafia message that came from somewhere inside the White House? “Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.”

Obama has been aching for a fight and feeling snubbed, this could be his Netanyahu moment.

Practically all the resources belong to the President. He has built his Office as a private business.

He has outwitted Congress at every turn. He has outsmarted both Houses on healthcare and immigration. He releases terrorist prisoners at his whim. Congress has the power of the purse? So does the President. He can shift money (and support) for or against Israel if not from this pocket then from another pocket.

He can start wars. He can stop wars, Congress be damned. He has no equals. He has no competitors. That’s not how it should be. But that’s how it is.

Even the Supreme Court bent to his will on Obamacare.

Yes, the GOP now runs Congress. But we shall see if even that makes a difference.

Obama decides Israel’s fate at the UN, the International Criminal Court and wherever votes are taken to decide Israel’s standing among the nations.

Does Obama know that only Israel – only a strong Israel -- stands as a savior against regional and worldwide doom and that it is America’s vital interest to support the Jewish State? Does Obama know what’s going on in the Middle East? Surely he knows that it’s chaos and that through a domino effect entire civilizations are tumbling.

But his animosity against Netanyahu may cloud his judgment.

Does Netanyahu know that Obama has nearly all the power?

Surely he knows – and surely he must go to make his case. Finally, it came to this observer that there is no choice.

Throughout the generations the Jewish people never fared well when they chose silence.

Haunted by Jabotinsky’s nightmare, Netanyahu refuses to be calmed or quieted.

Zeev Jabotinsky was advised to hush up. Don’t make trouble. But he kept speaking against the European catastrophe he saw coming, and it came. This time it’s Iran and Netanyahu is wise to the looming catastrophe from the country that never misses a chance to declare its intentions to destroy Israel…first Israel, then America.

For the sake of Zion, for the safety of the United States, the Prime Minister of Israel must speak, and let the chips fall where they may.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

A Baffling Question: Women Attracted To ISIS - Op-Eds - Arutz Sheva

Again this morning the BBC carried as its top story the question of why three homegrown women left England to join ISIS in Syria.

They volunteered themselves for overseas Jihad, and the English are perturbed over the loss of their daughters – three of them.

But when 1,400-plus English girls were being raped by Pakistani Muslims in England itself, in the town of Rotherham, over a period of two decades, the BBC could hardly be bothered. No one in England seemed to notice or to care, and even Rotherham’s townsfolk kept mum so as not to arouse Islamic sensibilities.

What a strange obsession about this but not that and I sure can’t figure it out. It’s getting so that nothing makes sense.

Because it is a fact that more than three of the world’s daughters are falling voluntarily into the arms of ISIS -- this plague of barbarism scorching the Middle East and beyond. Thousands, from all over and even from America, are leaving the comforts of home to join the savages. That boys and men find Jihadist butchery so attractive; that is one sickness. (Three radicalized men arrested only today, two in New York, one in Florida.)

But women?

If it’s true that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, ISIS is hardly the place.

I assume that this urge to hook up is something biological – gravitation to the strongest male in the herd.

Daughters of the Western World need to have a talk with their fathers. Dads trust no neighborhood boys over the age of 15, so just imagine.They’d learn that these Jihadi bums are not Super Heroes. Nor are they a new Race of Giants. They’re good at taunting the world. They tower over their helpless victims to induce submission.

Is that the come-on? This is not like “Fifty Shades of Grey.” With these bums every Jihadi Bride is a sex slave and every sex slave is for keeps. Sadism, bondage and discipline are what they practice on their women whether their women like it or not. More on all that here.

They do not share our manners and dating rituals and they do not stop at the word NO.

Mockery is another one of their tricks and on this they do have the upper hand to our everlasting shame. The civilized world’s lack of response, starting with Obama, has us stricken with global Stockholm Syndrome. We’re buying what they’re selling but that should not include our damsels serving as useful carnal idiots.

The Jihadists appear to be invincible, if that’s the attraction, to breed with the winners, let’s remember that they plunder people who have no boots.

Today it’s Christians and Kurds mostly in Syria and Iraq but they have bigger plans.

Women go for this? Well, apparently we live in a world where more and more people are seduced by the temptation of mindless brute force.

To the strong man goes the girl. It’s in all the movies. It’s in the comic books,,,

To the strong man goes the girl. It’s in all the movies. It’s in the comic books. It’s the Law of BMOC…the allure for the big man on campus.

Infatuation is a strange business.

Henry Kissinger drew women in his heyday. “Power,” he found, “is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

Power, yes, and I would add, fame…even fame of the most disgusting sort.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev gained an all-girl cult following after he was charged and arrested for his part in the murderous Boston Marathon attack. He received hundreds of loving tweets and even at this moment, standing trial, the girls are outside with banners weeping for his acquittal. He’s cute and that’s all that counts.

Women flock with marriage proposals to men on death row. What is this!

We need to hear from Gloria Steinem and her fellow feminists how this happens. This needs to be explained. Does anybody know? The mystery escaped Freud as he asked this question: “What does woman want?”

Still baffling.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Spielberg’s Misplaced Jewish Heart

January 29, 2015

Some time ago a neighbor got himself a job as an intern for a movie being made here in New York. He’s still a young kid.

“Guess who came on the set?” he phoned, gushing.

“Julia Roberts.”

“No! Steven Spielberg. Should I tell him I know you, the author of ‘Indecent Proposal?’ He’ll go nuts.”

“Yes he will,” I said, “and that’ll be the end of your career in the movies.”

Earlier, I had written my thoughts on his film “Munich.” I wasn’t polite and neither was he in response. Made headlines.

If you understand terrorists, was my conclusion, you are a terrorist. To understand is to justify. If you do not hate evil, you are evil.

At the time, and maybe still today, Spielberg was the most powerful director in Hollywood, and though writing novels is my business, it does not hurt when Hollywood makes an offer you can’t refuse. Trifling with a force like Spielberg can prove ruinous but fortunately “Indecent Proposal” had already been done and done up big by Director Adrian Lyne. So I was safe for that page to screen.

Next in line I have “The Bathsheba Deadline” and it will be done by someone soon, but not by Spielberg, unless he wants to try me on this book’s uncompromising take on Radical Islam. Much too pro-Israel, this novel, to be sure, and much too tough on leftists in Hollywood and elsewhere.

The movie “Munich” was about Israelis going after the Islamic monsters who committed the atrocity at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In cold blood they murdered 11 Israeli Olympians. Israel tracked down these beasts one at a time. If you loved justice, you cheered.

Not so in “Munich.” This was the worst movie Spielberg ever made and maybe the only bad movie he ever made. From the script mostly done by Tony Kushner, the movie gave us views of justified Arabs and dubious Israelis – “both sides of the story” in other words.

Or in the words of Kushner himself, through interviews: “I have a problem with the idea of a Jewish state. It would have been better if it never happened.”

Thus did this Jewish screenwriter avail himself of literary license to twist and malign a triumphant story to suit his personal prejudices.

Kushner is on record accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing – and THIS is the man Spielberg chose to write the script for a film that should have been about Israeli heroism. This should have been like “Entebbe “– Jews browbeaten and down beaten over the centuries, finally capable of avenging their tormentors.

Not here with Spielberg and the man he says he trusts more than anyone else when it comes to Israel – Kushner.

30 million watched “Munich” (though still a box office flop) and came away no friends of the Jewish State, no fans of Israel.

Here’s what set off my public spat with Spielberg, when about “Munich” I wrote elsewhere: “Jews pioneered Hollywood. If, as our enemies say, we own Hollywood, well, here's the plot twist - we have lost Hollywood, and we have lost Spielberg. Spielberg is no friend of Israel. Spielberg is no friend of truth.”

I would write it again, even though maybe I have mellowed. Spielberg is a good man. Just this morning I heard him say how worried he is about the rise of anti-Semitism. Nice. Then I saw him taking part, again this morning, at the memorial services at Auschwitz for Holocaust Remembrance Day, where he appeared to be truly stricken by the testimonies among some of the 300 survivors present.

I know about the archive he has built for remembrances of the Shoah. I think it cost him millions. But how many people will see those archives? Thirty thousand?

But 30 million watched “Munich” (though still a box office flop) and came away no friends of the Jewish State, no fans of Israel.

Spielberg is a great director. Think of his power to persuade and to move emotions.

Imagine if he were to use his genius to light up the screen with the adventure that is Israel, a nation raised from the ashes to proclaim liberty for all.

Imagine this place where Jews can dream, live unafraid and provide the world with the most glorious wonders in science and technology.

Where is that movie?

Where is the Jewish heart when it comes to the Jewish State?

What’s wrong with these people who only love us after we are dead?