Jewish Acceptance About to Die in Europe

 

There are any numbers of measurements which one can point to depicting threats to the continued acceptance of the presence of Jews. The increased levels of anti-Semitism and the accompanying violence perpetrated on Jewish members of numerous European nations is just the beginning. France has witnessed so much violence targeting Jews that they have called up reservists activating their military units and placed them at virtually every Jewish institution where Jews may congregate. This has meant that French soldiers are guarding every Synagogue, every Jewish school, almost every Jewish pre-school, a plethora of Jewish daycares and even some Jewish markets, especially in Friday afternoon as the Shabbat shopping rush takes place. Even with all of this has not completely prevented anti-Semitic attacks in France as the recent murder of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor in Paris, Mireille Knoll. This harmless lady was stabbed eleven times and violated in other ways before her apartment was set on fire. The bottom of the article lists a number of other similar anti-Semitic driven murders committed in the French recent past. The list is honestly frightening, and we are only in France.

 

Moving to the east we enter Germany on which we just reported on the assault of a Jewish youth on the streets of Berlin resulting in the youth being more seriously wounded than initially thought. This attack was simply representative of one side of a triple-sided closure of German Jews, two of them described in this USA Today article which defines threats from the Islamic refugee influx and the nationalist right-wing neo-Nazi and related anti-Semitic groups. The third threat comes from some on the extreme left who have taken to blaming the Jews for the increasing violence against the Jews themselves. As pointed out deep in this article, there has also been a rise in anti-Semitism on the left as well as the right and amongst some of the Muslims with growth coming from all the aforementioned sides. Even in the schools anti-Semitic bullying has occurred targeting girls and boys alike.

 

Sweden is not an ideal place filled with acceptance and love for their Jewish population which is facing increasing violence with Malmo becoming a city with what might only be called no-go areas for Jews. In Italy it is reported that from Malmo we go to Milan and the hate is the same anti-Semitism which has even infected soccer crowds. We are shown that being called a ‘Jew’ is one of the worst insults used by Italians which happens at soccer matches despite efforts by the authorities. Moving across the Channel to Britain we find that anti-Semitic hate crimes hit record high as violent assaults increase by more than a third in a year. These are simply an introduction as expressing Jewish themes or following actual religious obligations become crimes, these are the real signs that Europe will soon spit out its Jews if not worse.

 

But the real stories lie at opposing ends of Europe. Poland has recently passed a new law making a crime out of references to any Polish participation in the Nazis genocidal murder of Jews during World War II, thus making such a thought crime and against national speech code. Even worse is when even performing Mitzvahs and fulfilling Biblical commandments become criminal acts. How can a Jew remain living in a nation and raise a family when performing even the most basic and central command from the Torah, one demanded of Avraham by Hashem and practiced by the Jews during the Exodus before entering the Holy Lands and the rite by which every male child shares the same covenant made by Avraham when committing to Hashem and his ways and laws. The Mitzvah of the covenant to which we refer is Circumcision, an act which will become illegal and punishable by a punishment of up to six years in prison. This is what a new law recently proposed by Silja Dögg Gunnarsdóttir from the Progressive Party, a center-right, populist party, along with eight other members of Parliament from across the political spectrum. Should this become law, then the message is that Jews, as well as Muslims, are not welcome in Iceland and that any residing in Iceland who has a male child will be required to choose between following the laws of the land or the laws of their people and Torah. Any Jew who is honest will choose Torah and making the covenant for their child with Hashem and need to leave Iceland or become a fugitive from Justice. Such a law has been passed before in Europe back in Nazi Germany where having been circumcised was very likely a death sentence as it was considered proof positive that one was a Jewish male.

 

Aurora Borealis Over Reykjavík, Iceland

 

Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland are amongst the countries who have considered circumcision bans in the modern era. Thus far, none have actually been passed and stood challenges but it is very likely that Iceland will blast through that door and not simply unlock and open it. This will not be a polite passage of a ban as it has been made clear and indisputably shown that passing such a law banning circumcision would be a religious ban and insult to both Judaism and Islam and that believers of these faiths, one of the world’s largest and potentially the world’s oldest religions, would find residing in a nation with such a law on the books impossible. The problem is that once this door has been even cracked open, let alone blown off its hinges, will begin to allow the other nations who had previously considered banning circumcision will return to reconsider and this time having a precedent which they can point to as their license to follow suit in protecting infant male children from the imposition of barbarous actions of the religiously dogmatic parents. Europe has been moving towards considering religious people to be dogmatic and suffering mental difficulties and requiring social readjustment and potentially claiming such people as unfit parents. Adding circumcision to the intended acts of a religious person may soon come to be cause for placing a child under state care. This will be the threat which will send European Jews rushing for the exits taking their children where their safety will be better assured.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Will America Explode First?

 

There has been any number of editorials commenting about the presumed unrest in the United States. They all, more often than not, have referred to the extreme anger and protest existing on social media. They assume that as social media was largely quiet during the Presidency of Barack Obama and has been very noisy since the election of Donald Trump as President that the United States public was more unified during the former and very distressed now. There have been those who point out that there is this old expression of the “silent majority” which was described as what awoke to elect President Reagan. This was presumed to explain that the “silent majority” actually is silent. There is some support to this as these are presumed to be the older people plus ones who are not as computer active as the ones now protesting so vehemently. After all, they are presumably silent, right? Still, how completely upside down and fouled does the world, and the United States in particular, have to be for Donald Trump to be elected to the Presidency? That has been one of the overriding questions which are somewhat more difficult to answer. Had the election gone the other direction, there would be people asking how far things must have gone awry and has become to elect Hillary Clinton. The other question is how crazy have things become that an avowed socialist and former Communist to almost win the Democrat primary elections. Well, how far gone have things become in the United States?

 

The first point that we believe shows that the political class has completely lost all connection with reality has been the debt. Things were viewed as having reached the verge to going off the rails when George W. Bush was elected President and the debt stood near five-trillion dollars. Eight short years later the debt had all but doubled pushing towards ten-trillion dollars. Then enter President Barack Obama and another short eight years later and the debt had almost doubled again approaching twenty-trillion dollars. Things actually went off the rails far earlier when the politicians decided that they could only afford to pay the interest on the debt and never pay down the debt. When under President Willian Jefferson Clinton with a Republican Congress managed to make a budget that on paper did not add to the deficit, the nation celebrated as if President Andrew Jackson completely paid off the debt which was celebrated on January 8, 1835. By the end of 1935, the debt had returned to between thirty to thirty-five billion dollars. Apparently, the debt had been eradicated for just a few weeks and then Congress returned to business as usual. Debt appears to be the norm and not the exception. Eventually, one of two things are going to happen, either there will be a Constitutional Convention called by the States to amend the Constitution placing a balanced budget amendment onto the Constitution with a stipulation that some percentage, ten sounds like a good number, of each budget must be applied to the principle of any existing debt until all debt is vanquished and to be reapplied instantly should new debt accrue. Anything short will lead to the worst possible option, default.

 

Eventually the interest on the debt will exceed the ability to allow paying the full amount and still running the government and meeting promised payments and allotments. Now it is possible to continue to pay the interest and all government expenses as long as there is somewhere for the United States to borrow the necessary amounts of money. This became a problem when China closed its loan office to the United States. This led to some creative financing. The Federal Reserve sold the United States the needed moneys while creating this money through bonds which it gave to the main lending banks. This method works just fine providing that these funds remain dormant in the lending banks. The problem comes when the economy becomes more active and there comes a demand for more loans and these funds begin to be utilized by the loaning banks. This is called giving the money velocity in economics. This leads to inflation as the money supply begins to increase, and in this case possibly rapidly. With inflation comes the problem of removing this excess currency from the monetary supply. There are two means for completing this task, taxes and interest rates. There are, needless to point out, ramifications to each of these means. Increasing interest rates makes the interest on the debt, which is refreshed through short-term loans on the debt, rise and eventually this leads to default or spiraling inflation. So raising interest rates is out of the question and explains why interest rates have been artificially kept so low. The other means is taxes and increasing taxes ends the economic activity and leads to less tax moneys being collected. This would also eventually lead to default or spiraling inflation. Any means used will, eventually, lead to default on the debt which will cause a loss in faith of the dollar. What would that cause?

 

A crisis in the dollar would have any number of consequences. First, and likely the most devastating, the world would all but immediately demand that some different or group of different monetary notes be used as the new reserve currency. If a group of currencies were chosen, there would be some form of complicated and intricate formula to determine what the rest of the world’s currencies would be worth. The other choice would be some mythical means for establishing exchange rates and the various values of currencies. The reason for these confusions and problems is easy to explain, gold is no longer the basis of any currency. As the dollar was the reserve currency when President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, he took the world off the gold standard and now currencies floated against the arbitrary value of the dollar. This is also why gold prices fluctuate against the dollar, though they actually do not gain or lose value. If you were to figure what a Ferrari would have cost in gold in 1971 and then figured the price of a Ferrari cost in gold today, the difference would be relatively negligible. That is why these claims that investing in precious metals, especially gold, will make you more wealthy in the future. It will not, you may receive more dollars, Federal Reserve Notes, but they will have very much the same purchasing power as the money you utilized to purchase the gold in the first place.

 

Tulipmania

 

Would defaulting on the debt ruin the United States? Interestingly enough, such a default would allow the United States to get out of debt faster. The dollar would immediately lose much of its value and imported goods would become prohibitively more expensive. On the other hand, it would make American made goods extremely affordable to the rest of the world, except China who falsely set their currency tied to the dollar, so China would also become a pauper nation. This would allow the United States to become a prime location for manufacturing, as American labor prices would be lower than almost everywhere else where the ability of the work force is comparable. Made in America would become desirable once again not only for quality but also for affordability. Still, a default would be ruinous for American business initially and numerous companies, especially those manufacturing overseas, would find they were no longer able to be profitable and they would be replaced by new companies which would spring up almost overnight. The largest problem would be foreign corporations and billionaires could buy large shares of American companies which would provide the United States with the funding to climb out of the hole they would find themselves to have fallen. The real losers would be those people holding stocks and other investments which were in dollars as overnight they would become almost worthless compared to their value just a few days, possibly hours earlier. Such a default might lead to another stock market crash but the following dark days could be avoided providing that Congress was locked in political gridlock and unable to act. Financial bubbles burst and that makes room for new smaller bubbles to begin. That is the normal cycle for investing, especially if you are investing in tulips in the Netherlands from 1619 to 1622 when the bottom fell out when one person decided that tulips were not worth their price and everyone realized that mania had led them astray. Those left holding tulips had lousy investments but very pretty flowers to show for the insanity. On that flowery lesson, we will let the American mania continue and see when their crash comes or if they might be saved by some sagely leadership, whenever that is proven to be found. In the meantime, stay tuned for more fun and watch the crazed social media; it can be amusing as long as nobody gets hurt.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Some Ideas Never Die; Such as the Oslo Accords

 

Truly some ideas never die even when they have long passed their use-by-date. The Oslo Accords are one such set of ideas which died the day that President William Jefferson Clinton handed to Yasser Arafat, after beating Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak into complete submission, everything he had demanded and Arafat walked out without a word and started the Second Intifada. It was later revealed that Arafat had planned the Second Intifada as the Palestinian answer to not getting their demands at the Camp David negotiations and still insisted that Israeli resistance to a common peace was the reason for the violence. Over a thousand Israelis were murdered and tens of thousands were injured, many with permanent and severe damage from the bombings with bolts and screws lodged permanently next to their spines, hearts and other organs or jammed into their brains all inoperable due to location. Many lost limbs, an eye or both eyes and other disfigurements. The Second Intifada, on top of Arafat refusing to make peace even after his terms were met, defined the situation and should have been the post mortem for the Oslo Accords. Arafat’s understudy and successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has often made clear to any willing to translate his Arabic speeches that the only peace he will allow Israel is the peace of the grave. As the pro-Palestinian protesters throughout Western countries chant ad-nauseam, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine must be free.” The word ‘free’ in this chant has a double meaning, the obvious that all of Israel is Palestine and secondly that every Jew will have been eradicated as Palestine must be Judenrein. Abbas has flatly stated even in English that should they be forced into accepting a shared state beside Israel, it will simply serve as the launching pad for the remainder of the conquest and eradication of the Zionist Entity. Even his saying Israel is difficult for this man and his band of minions.

 

What is truly sad is not only the number of Western leaders who remain sold on the Oslo two states for two peoples principle; it is the number of Israeli military and intelligence leadership who also are still sold on these lies and deceptions. There never has been any Oslo agreement because the understanding of the two sides were as divergent as possible. Israel saw them as the opportunity for peace and cooperation and the Palestinian leadership, with the support of the Arab world behind them, saw it as taqiyyah, a deceit used against an infidel in order to advance Islamic interests and conquest. The concept of taqiyyah is well established and understood by any first year graduate student in Middle Eastern studies programs; and if not, they should find a different area of study. The problem is that peace is such a universal and central structure in Western thought and philosophies, as are negotiations and dealing honestly and forthrightly, that to believe that things are otherwise is difficult, though possible if one tries and concentrates on exactly what the other side says to their own people. What makes things more difficult is that the liberal leftist media and populations refuse to allow themselves, under any circumstance, to believe that peace might be impossible to attain in any situation. If the left today were faced with the onset of World War II, they would negotiate and negotiate until the free world consisted of some small atoll in the South Pacific surrounded by Japanese and German naval vessels, and they would be negotiating still. There is also the little fact that Israel is seen as the Jew amongst nations and as such has a separate and impossible set of expectations which are made worse by the leftist Jews, such as those who make up J-street and other similar groups, who also apply this absurd demand that Israel sacrifice and sacrifice with no end to how much or how far the sacrifice demanded be, as they are not the ones who will pay the price. Some have even gone so far as to claim, what do the Israelis have to lose in sacrificing for peace as they can always come and live in the United States. This is, in and of itself, an absurd piece of illogic not to mention, history has shown what happens when Jews face death and try to rely on the good graces of the Western nations.

 

We recently read an article on Politico targeting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over his disagreement with the outspoken and mostly retired military and intelligence corps, and how such a disagreement is leading Israel dangerously close to fascism. It was the author’s, and we trust the editors’ as well, that Israelis would be better led by its military and intelligence officers than under their elected leader. The article is titled Netanyahu vs. the Generals and went on and on endlessly stating the same tired logic as if repetition and quoting every last individual supporting the spitefulness against Netanyahu would eventually wear the reader down. The piece might actually be the opening shot across the bow announcing the candidacy of Ehud Barak for Prime Minister. Small hint to those in agreement, should Israelis have a choice between Ehud Barak and virtually any moderate or even extremist right wing politician, Barak would lose convincingly. Where his reputation is not nearly that of Guy Fawkes, the disasters attached to his time as Prime Minister preclude his ever holding that position for as long as Israelis have memories of his atrocious policy choices, of which the hasty and disorganized routing retreat from Lebanon is just the beginning of the highlight reel. For the record neither of us supported Likud and in one case, at least, Bibi Netanyahu was much of the reason why as there are numerous other Likud members who would very easily garner our votes, but that is up to the Likudnics to decide. We realize that changes take time, so time will tell.

 

British Mandate as prescribed division between Arab State of Jordan and Jewish State of Israel

 

As far as peace with the Palestinians, we need realize that the term Palestinian once meant the Jews residing under British Mandate rule while at those times the Arabs were known as Arabs or Palestinian Arabs as compared to Palestinian Jews. One also need remember that this was during the period when both Jordan and Israel were simply the Mandate. Eventually the plan was enacted and Jordan became the Arab State and Israel the Jewish State. The most obvious difference was Israel permitted Arabs, whether practicing Muslims, Christians, Jews or any other or no religion, to remain residing with full rights as citizens, while Jordan expelled any Jew ever to come within their area under their control. That was made most evident after they conquered by force of arms in an offensive war parts of Judea and Samaria, renamed it West Bank, and evicted every last Jew under pain of death, gifting their lands to people favored by the government and destroyed every Synagogue and Jewish religious academy within said lands. The adopting of Palestinian by the Arabs was just one part of their adoption of all of Jewish history with some simple adjustments in an effort to claim them and not the Israelites, the Jews, were the earliest surviving peoples from these areas. Anybody familiar with Judeo-Christian religions knows this to be a deceit and even more so if they are knowledgeable of Islamic and Arab history, as the Arabs did not venture forth from the Arabian Peninsula until the Seventh Century. That date is almost, if not, two millennia after the Israelites arrived from their Exodus from Egypt; one might be familiar with this as there is a book of the Old Testament with the same name. If we were to count from the times when Abraham first arrived in the land, we would need close to another half of a millennia if not more. Their deceit can only last as long as people continue to give their lies credence, which they do at their own peril. Such brings us to our next discussion, the awakening of the Western World.

 

For most of the past century plus the casualty of Islamic violence has been the Jewish communities in the area of Israel both before the birth of the nation in 1948 and continuously afterwards starting with the invasion by multiple armies the morning of her birth. India and Russia had rather publicly covered conflicts and numerous African nations have also been subjected to violence as have much of the Balkans. Then there have been the intra-Islamic violence. It has only been the turn of the Twenty-First Century which has brought continued and sustained Islamic violence to the Western World. What is going to be instructive is exactly how the developed world reacts to the onslaught of Islamic violence. Of further interest will be whether or not their views and demands upon Israel are altered even in the slightest as a result of these experiences. Russia has shown Israel a fair degree of respect and freedom to act as necessary while not giving full measure as they also keep relations with the Muslim nations such as with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria; for it is with Syria they hold their Mediterranean warm water Atlantic Naval ports.

 

Beyond this, the longest standing restrictions on Islamic activities belong with Japan. Many are unaware but Japan has always refused Muslims permanent residence status in their lands. Further, Muslims may not own property, may not operate a business and the worship of Islam is banned. Needless to point out but no Mosque may ever be built on Japanese soil. Muslim tourism is permitted but any Muslim tourist caught conducting any form of Islamic instructions or otherwise attempting to spread the word of Islam is summarily and immediately deported along with their entire family; and if with a group, then the entire group is deported. The Japanese treat Islam as if it were a dread plague that once taking a foothold could threaten life on their islands. If the news is accurate, and we see no reason to disbelieve our sources, Cuba has recently refused permission for a Mosque to be built on their island, Cuba, that’s right, Cuba! Angola is but the first in alphabetical order of African nations enacting some limit if not outright ban on Islam.

 

In Europe the latest trend has been in opposition to Angela Markel‘s open door policy for Muslims with Norway having deported many hundreds resulting in a better than 50% drop in felonies. This is allowing their police to attend to other functions rather than putting out crime emergencies twenty-four-seven for the first time since the ‘refugees’ began arriving. Additionally there have been reports of attacks against Mosques and Muslims with some areas becoming so unfriendly that the Muslims are deporting themselves back to their home nations. The Czech Republic has flat banned Islam from their country declaring it to be an evil. Muslims in Ireland have reached the conclusion that they are less than welcome and in Belfast, as a start, the Muslims have been departing for home sweet home and this appears to be the trend across all of Northern Ireland. The British Home Secretary is preparing legislations which, though not expressly stating their application to Muslims, are aimed at curtailing anti-social behavior and allowing greater leeway in deporting or using other lesser methods to control an out of hand situation. The Polish Defense League has issued a warning to Muslims against their continuing certain behaviors and sixteen states have drafted legislation banning Sharia. A number of states in America are entertaining laws banning Sharia or any foreign code of laws all aimed at preventing the use of Sharia. China has imprisoned twenty-two Imams for preaching hate and anti-China themes and has executed eighteen jihadists. China is additionally stamping out any campaigns for separatism especially in the largely Islamic western province of Xinjiang. Muslim prayers are banned in government buildings and schools in China. Our last example of such measures comes from the Netherlands where a group of Ministers of Parliament are calling for the closure and destruction of all Mosques. One Minister stated “We want to clean Netherlands of hateful Islam.” He did not differentiate hateful Islam from any other form of Islam. Speaking on behalf of the right wing Party for Freedom, a nationalist party, Minister of the Dutch Parliament Machiel De Graaf stated, “All Mosques in the Netherlands should be shut down. Without Islam the Netherlands would be a wonderful, safe country to live in, as it was before the arrival of Muslim ‘refugees’.”

 

The world appears to slowly be awakening to the real face of Islam; a violent and unruly cult more desirous of ruling the world than of acting in what the rest of the world believes is a religious manner. Every other previous imperialist religion, Christianity, Shinto, Hindu and any others, have all been reformed and now stand side by side with all these religions seeking peaceful coexistence and mutual assistance. The exception to this rule is obvious, Islam. When Mosques are discovered in numerous countries to contain more rifles, grenades, bombs and bomb making material than prayer rugs and prayer books, then there is a definite problem. As the developed world realizes, along with the rest of the world, this threat for what it is, it is hoped that they will apply their learned knowledge to the situation in Israel. This could finally allow the solution which should have been applied immediately after the Six Day War, Israel attaining her originally promised borders, which includes the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and those previous Jordanian citizens and their families deported to the Arab nation of their choosing willing to receive them, or into Syria. The double standard cannot be continued after the truth has been driven home that Islam does not play well with others and is treacherous to the continued health of any nation it inhabits. What is good for the European nations and the world in general must, in all fairness, also be permitted Israel. To do otherwise is pure anti-Semitism, and this time that is an accurate accusation and an accurate application of the terminology.

 

Beyond the Cusp