The Bookworm Beat 12-3-15 — the mini round-up and illustrated edition
I’ve come across a few fascinating and delightful things and am tossing into this Bookworm Beat both posts and pictures:
A study about Palestinian violence explains the “lone wolf” syndrome
Every time Muslims commit mass murder in America, our elites in the Obama administration and the media (but I repeat myself) tell us that it’s not jihad, it’s just a “lone wolf.” What these great Progressive thinkers mean, of course, is that the acts are not being committed by a member of a formal army, receiving orders from a central command. Their logic is that, if there’s no central command point, there’s no jihad; there are just a few wacky individuals who happened to be in touch with overseas terrorist masterminds, who were recognized by all as a devout Muslim (although this devotion was often of recent vintage), and who somehow managed to throw a few “Allahu Akbars” into the carnage.
Israel, of course, has lately had a plague of “lone wolf” “lone wolf attacks,” often by teens and women, none of whom are taking direct marching orders from command central in either Hamas or the PA. Daniel Polisar did a study about Palestinian violence against Jews and he distilled the results of his long-term study to examine the current “lone wolf,” knife-stabbing. What Polisar discovered is that these “lone wolves” aren’t really alone at all. That is, they’re not aberrant outliers. Instead, they are reflecting the central tenets of their society and acting on the dominant paradigm in their community. In their world, it’s praiseworthy to kill Jews, both because Palestinian society at large says that Jews deserve to die and because the same society says that each Jewish death advances Palestinian social and political goals.
In other words, once a society has embraced a corrupt idea, “command central” is no longer necessary to take practical steps to advance that idea. Instead, each individual appoints himself as a soldier in a very real, albeit unstructured, army.
And speaking of that paradigm shift, one that sees every person in a hate-based society believe himself called-upon to destroy every person that the hate-based society deems an enemy, Jonathan Tobin has written a pitch-perfect article about Marsha Levine, the retired Cambridge professor who refused to impart information to a 13-year-old Israeli girl because, in Levine’s eyes, the girl is guilty simply because she is part of a society that “oppresses” the Palestinian people. Here’s Levine’s letter in response to the girl’s very politely-phrased and quite flattering request for information about horses, Levine’s specialty:
I’ll answer your question when there is peace and justice for Palestinians in Palestine. I am a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians. I support Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. You might be a child but if you are old enough to write to me, you are old enough to learn about Israeli history and how it impacted on the lives of Palestinian people. Maybe your family has the same views as I do, but I doubt it. So I suggest you look at this link.
yours sincerely,
Dr. Marsha Levine
Levine has engaged in a perfectly Nazi-like collectivism: In the late 1930s in Nazis Germany, when a Jew was alleged to have tried to kill Hitler, all Jews in Germany were told to cough up reparations. Only when you deny individuals their humanity can you come up with this notion of collective guilt. This is, as Tobin writes, relying on Polisar’s study, the apex of true antisemitism:
Levine is just one person, and if this was just a solitary, nasty Jewish woman with a complex about Israel, we might do better to ignore her rather than pile on to the point where, no doubt, she probably now sees herself as a martyr to Zionist oppression. But there is something significant about her rants. It’s not just that a Jewish leftist can be found to spout rhetoric delegitimizing Israel and Israelis even if it means attacking a child. We know there are plenty of leftists, especially in Britain, who are filled with loathing for fellow Jews. The really significant thing about Levine’s stand — and by extension the other leftist Jews she probably speaks for — is how much it dovetails with the culture of Jew-hatred that leads individual Palestinians to go into the streets and to try and slaughter any random Israeli they meet.
[snip]
For Jew-haters, whether Western ideologues who happen to be Jewish or Palestinians, Israelis have no rights of any kind. The “resistance” they support is not to the “occupation” of the West Bank but to the Jewish presence in any part of the country, including Zichron Yaakov, which was settled by Jews in 1882. Any crime against them — whether rocket attacks from Gaza or shootings or stabbings — is considered legitimate. Nor are they interested in the fact that Israeli withdrawals, such as the one from Gaza, was answered with terror rather than peace, or that the Palestinians have refused several offers of independence and statehood with refusals and violence. Nothing matters to either the Jewish left or their Palestinian counterparts but the crime of Israel’s existence for which every Israeli Jew may be required to pay for with their lives.
It bears repeating that those who would deny Jews the same rights they would never think of refusing to any other people in the world are engaging in discriminatory behavior. That means those who single out the one Jewish state in the world and its people for such treatment are engaging in anti-Semitism. That the bias of these “critics” of Israel echoes the vile hate that is motivating Palestinians to treat the murder of Jews as their national sport only confirms that their purpose is not justice but hate.
As always, antisemitism tells you nothing about Jews and everything about Jew-haters — and none of it’s nice.
And no, this same analysis does not apply to Americans’ logical and reasonable concerns about Syrian immigrants. Thus….
No, you’re not paranoid. Syrians are a terrorism threat
Sultan Knish (aka Daniel Greenfield) has come up with the best way I’ve seen to explain the risks of mass Syrian immigration here, while at the same time destroying the claim that the Syrians are nothing more than 21st century Jews escaping from Nazi Germany:
Syria is a terror state. It didn’t become that way overnight because of the Arab Spring or the Iraq War.
Its people are not the victims of American foreign policy, Islamic militancy or any of the other fashionable excuses. They supported Islamic terrorism. Millions of them still do.
They are not the Jews fleeing a Nazi Holocaust. They are the Nazis trying to relocate from a bombed out Berlin.
These are the cold hard facts.
ISIS took over parts of Syria because its government willingly allied with it to help its terrorists kill Americans in Iraq. That support for Al Qaeda helped lead to the civil war tearing the country apart.
The Syrians were not helpless, apathetic pawns in this fight. They supported Islamic terrorism.
A 2007 poll showed that 77% of Syrians supported financing Islamic terrorists including Hamas and the Iraqi fighters who evolved into ISIS. Less than 10% of Syrians opposed their terrorism.
Why did Syrians support Islamic terrorism? Because they hated America.
Read the whole thing, here.
There is a difference between Levine’s attacking an individual Jewish girl, based upon ancient antisemitism, and a legitimate fear of a group of people that have enthusiastically supported the same terrorists who are taking aim at countries throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe and, if San Bernardino is indeed a terrorist attack, against the US too. We are not castigated any single individual merely for existing. We are saying, though, that as a group, based upon their own societal paradigm, the Syrians are statistically likely to cause great harm to us once they come here.
The latest Leftist marching orders against prayer
In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, those of us who spend too much time on the internet, especially on social media, were made instantly aware of a new Leftist meme: Christian prayers are evil. Suddenly there were Tweets, posters, Facebook posts, and even a New York news front page excoriating Christians for daring to offer their prayers instead of instantly jettisoning the Second Amendment:
David French provides many other examples of this explosive meme — one that shows that your average Dem on the internet is definitely absorbing Leftist paradigms at warp speed — and he fully understands what these memes portend in America’s cultural debate:
The attack on “thoughts and prayers” represents a convergence of two of the Left’s nastiest traits — its hysterical anti-Christian bigotry and its impulse to shame and silence its ideological opponents. There is no American demographic the Left despises more than Christian conservatives. Even as it cherishes Muslim religious liberty and rails against “Islamophobia,” it systematically mocks Christians and attacks Christian religious expression. “Clock Boy” gets White House invites while the owners of Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A are threats to the Republic. Muslim college students deserve a “safe space,” while Christian student groups are systematically marginalized and often kicked off campus.
Combine this bigotry with the Left’s increasing insistence that dissenting speech isn’t just wrong but dangerous and violent, and we have a very real problem. Earlier this week, pro-life Americans were treated to an avalanche of vitriol, with claims that even the most conventional pro-life arguments were inherently provocative and “irresponsible.” As the San Bernardino shooting unfolded, the Left went even further, mocking and attempting to shame any speech that wasn’t in line with their preferred posturing. You’re either part of their “solution” or you should just shut up.
Please recall that I’ve been saying for years (long before Obergefell), that the gay marriage press was just the beginning in the Left’s battle against Christianity:
As you know, one of my main reasons for supporting Proposition 8, which amended the California constitution to define marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman, was because I believe that move to redefine marriage has the potential to put the State and religion organizations — especially the Catholic church — into a head-on collision.
Liberals, when confronted with this notion, will often argue that, while the Catholic Church objects to abortion, that’s never created a constitutional crisis. What they ignore is the fact that, while the church is not in the business of providing abortions, it is in the business of providing marriages.
[snip]
Keep in mind that, for Catholics, marriage isn’t just a white dress, cake and Mendelssohn’s wedding march. Instead, it’s a sacrament. A basic tenet of the religion is the joining of man and woman before God.
So imagine this scenario: Two men go to the local Catholic parish and demand that it marry them. The priest, sympathetic to their love for each other, nevertheless states that he cannot, at a purely religious level marry them. The men turn around and sue the Church for violating their Constitutional rights. Suddenly, the judicial system is called upon to examine doctrinal issues to determine whether they mesh with Constitutional issues. It’s a scary scenario for anyone who takes seriously the principle that government may not interfere with religious doctrine.
Having “won” the gay marriage battle, the Left is now going on to its next offensive in this war.
Not all celebrities are airhead Leftist bimbos
Deion Sanders just won my vote for most intelligent celebrity of the week, possibly the month, maybe even the year. This was his answer to some reporter’s question about gun control as a response to the attack in San Bernardino:
“I don’t think that guns [are] picking up themselves and pulling triggers on [their] own,” Mr. Sanders told The Associated Press Wednesday night at Footwear News’ 29th Annual Achievement Awards in New York City. “I think people are doing that. It says more about people than it says about guns.”
It’s been climate change all along
In a must-see post, John White, writing at Catholic Vote, explains that it’s really been climate change all along when it comes to this so-called terrorism that only stupid Republicans fear.
Little Bear Schwarz probably has a climate change problem too
It turns out that if you’ve been genderqueer and then revert to cisgendered, you retain the sanctimony, silliness, and self-centeredness that comes from thinking everyone cares about your gender choices and identity. Oh, before you click on that link, let me do you a favor that Moonbattery didn’t do: Beware of the photo at the end of the post. As many said in Moonbattery’s comments, they should have been given a warning or been provided with free eye bleach.
And a few posters