The Headlines- Haaretz: "Hundreds of settlers clashed with Israel Defense Forces soldiers and police officers in the West Bank yesterday, after the settlers violated a military ban on marching near Ramallah... Six protesters were arrested, and several more were detained for questioning and then released."

The Reality -


See more videos of the Beit El March here at Israel Reporter

Conventional Holocaust commemorations follow a particular narrative. We recognize the heroism and suffering of the survivors, sometimes we even recognize the evil of the perpetrators even if the narrative limits it to a generic evil or one only limited to a handful of people on top, rather than the millions of perpetrators necessary to produce millions of victims.

If Santayana's truism about learning from history or being doomed to repeat it is applied, it is applied in a vague way leaving people with the impression that the way to avoid future Holocausts is to oppose dictators and racism. Jews of course have been all too willing to diminish their own history by going along with this and turning the Holocaust into a civics lesson, universalizing it into a warning on the evils of bigotry and forgetting what matters.

Forget the official lessons and commemorations now. It's time to tear down the myths and speak the truth.

The first myth is that the Holocaust was a unique event in history. It is nothing of the kind. The only thing unique about the Holocaust is that for the first time industrialization was used to aid in the extermination of Jews to a certain degree. But while many Jews were killed with technological methods such as the gas chambers, most were killed with bullets, through abuse and other old fashioned means.

Industrialization allowed the German war machine to capture large amounts of territory and execute a genocide of the Jews on a large scale but the only real difference with Haman's plan to wipe out the Jews in every land thousands of years ago was planning and efficiency.

Is the Holocaust actually something new? On Pesach we recite, 'In Each Generation They Arise To Wipe Us Out,' and that is a summation of Jewish history. Beginning with Pharaoh there has rarely been a century in human history when there has not been a large well armed group of people whose plans focused on wiping out the Jews in one way or another. Often there has been much more than one.

In 1953, less than a decade after the end of WW2 and the liberation of camps, the very forces of the USSR which had liberated many of the camps began preparing for another Holocaust that would have wiped out the Jews in Soviet controlled territories, a plan only interrupted by Stalin's death. Little more than another decade later in 1967 much of the Arab world prepared to invade Israel and push the Jews into the sea. Not only is the Holocaust not a unique event, but there were two attempts to repeat it in less than a generation.

What focuses our attention on the Holocaust is the scale on which it succeeded and that it coincided with a period when visual recordings could be made to commemorate it. During Bar Kochba's revolt the Romans killed over half a million Jews using entirely primitive technology. During the Chmelnitsky Massacres of the 1650's the Ukrainian Cossacks killed hundreds of thousands of Jews. The total number of Jews killed throughout the Crusades and Europe and Israel cannot be properly accounted for. Neither can the full toll from the Spanish Inquisition.
All these examples come from the Christian world but Jews were equally subject to numberless atrocities in the Muslim world in which tens of thousands of Jews could be killed at a time.

But by focusing on the sheer scale of the Holocaust and treating it as a unique event, rather than learning something Jews forget the most fundamental truth that our history is a cycle of Holocausts perpetuated from century to century. One that has by no means ended just because Schindler's List was screened in theaters across America. Instead we remain ignorantly certain that a Holocaust will not be repeated and denounce anyone who rejects this as a paranoid alarmist. And this is why the very accentuation of the Holocaust's uniqueness threatens Jewish survival, it takes a cyclical event in Jewish history, isolates it and pretends to draw lessons from it, ignorance that will only insure its repetition.

The second most pervasive myth is a focus on Nazi Germany as the perpetrators. Germany was certainly the home base for Nazism but their role was merely to supervise a process much of the world supported and aided or at best had no strong feelings about. The Holocaust was very much an international project. It could not have and did not succeed without strong local collaboration and cooperation to identify, detain and exterminate Jews.

Multi-culturalism is not an antidote to Anti-Semitism or another Holocaust because the Holocaust itself was altogether multicultural. Before the Germans had even entered France, foreign Jews were being rounded up into detention camps. When Jews were being rounded up into soccer stadiums for Germany after the fall of France, it was again the French people who did it. It was not the Germans alone who went on to hunt the Jews of France but Ukrainians imported for their supposed ability to spot Jews among the French population. The percentage of the Jewish population wiped out in Poland and Holland was above 90 percent vastly topping the percentage in Germany because the Dutch and the Poles proved more enthusiastic Nazi collaborators than many Germans. Indeed there are numerous cases of Jews surviving in German cities, far fewer such cases across Eastern Europe.

Part of the planning for the Holocaust came from the Muslim world and the Mufti of Jerusalem. The SS contained 60,000 Muslims and several mostly Muslim divisions drawn from Croatian and other Eastern European Muslims. From Ireland to the Ukraine many nationalities saw in Adolf Hitler and Nazism, a chance to win their own independence from foreign powers and embraced Nazi ideals and spawning their own Nazi parties and Nazi regimes. These predictably vilified England, the United States, Russia and 'International Jewry.' Hundreds of thousands of the ranks of the SS were Eastern Europeans. 55,000 were Dutch. Over 10,000 were Belgians. The list goes on and on across Western and Eastern Europe.

But talking about the Nazis is only half the picture of the Holocaust. The other half were the allies and the so-called free world. The question is often raised, 'Why Was the World Silent?' But this is an absurd question. The better question is why wouldn't the world have been silent?

The United States was one of the most tolerant lands for Jews in the world. And in the US one of the most popular radio personalities was the rabidly Anti-Semitic Father Coughlin. Henry Ford of Ford Motors had the Protocols of Zion translated into English and published a newspaper 'The Dearborn Independent' dedicated to Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Many colleges had quotas for Jewish students and the Klan was more popular than ever. Eugenics was as popular in the United States as it was in Germany and states were sterilizing people they considered unfit to reproduce, a category in which many of the proponents of eugenics wished to include the Jews. Leo Frank the President of the Atlanta chapter of the Bnai Brit had been lynched in Georgia by a mob that allegedly included a former speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives and the son of a United States Senator. The US Military Intelligence Division was busy researching an international Jewish conspiracy and treating the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a factual document of Jewish intentions.

This is the worst of the American historical background against which the Holocaust took place. It is little wonder that when humanitarian congressmen lobbied to allow in 20,000 Jewish children to America a range of patriotic organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution rose up in a storm of protest warning of dire consequences and the bill died in committee. The St. Louis with its nearly 1000 Jewish passengers was forced to return to Europe. Assistant Secretary of State Breckenridge Long not only worked to prevent the entry of Jewish refugees onto American soil but even to prevent US territories from accepting Jewish refugees. Long deliberately worked to prevent even existing quotas from being filled to make sure that as few as possible Jewish refugees escaped the Nazis for the United States. All the while Charles Lindbergh was touring America claiming that Jewish propaganda was pushing the US into a war with Germany.

All this was mild compared to the activities of England which used ships it obtained from the US under Lend Lease to maintain a blockade preventing ships with Jewish refugees from reaching Israel so as to avoid angering the Arabs. Many people naively believe that it is only more recently that Westerners eager to appease Arabs have looked away from the murder of Jews but that is in truth a state of affairs that has been going on for much of the 20th century. Even those European countries which supposedly remained neutral such as Switzerland deported Jewish refugees back into the arms of the Germans.

Some people might wonder how all this could go on. How could the supposed 'Good Guys' act like this. The answer is simple. Much of the world liked the Germans and didn't like the Jews. Germany had become seen as the underdog, a country abused and exploited by the great powers. As the Arabs have today, relentless German protests of unfairness and discrimination as a country oppressed by the world powers brought them international sympathy. Some like the Irish sympathized with Germany because of their hatred for England. Some because they hated Communism and still others because they opposed war, capitalism and militarism. As the Arabs have today, sympathy for Germany united many improbable groups from the far-right to the far-left all of which agreed that we were to feel sorry for Germany and the German people and supportive of their nationalistic and liberationist aims.

Anti-Semitism had become the theology of the European right wing Catholic press in the 19th century which was filled with the supposed crimes of the Jews. Anti-Semitism was one of the few things that the average Englishman, Frenchman, Russian, German or American could agree on. Many of them might not agree with the actual genocide but they wouldn't be and weren't particularly troubled about it either. Anti-Semitism was not merely bigotry born from prejudice but a consensus across nations, religions, races and ethnic groups that the Jews were bad. Anti-Semitism was not and is not the province of any individual class, race or ideology. It was equally found in all of them and still is today. After decades of fighting Anti-Semitism as a form of bigotry it has resurfaced more virulently than ever in slightly new guises. To treat the Holocaust as an outbreak of racial prejudice is as useless as applying anti-bacterial soap to an AIDS outbreak. Yet the universalists insist on that precisely because it diminishes the Holocaust as an event in Jewish history and hijacks to further the aims of many of the same people who stood idly by when it happened and are doing so again today.

The third and final myth has to do with the role that Jews played in resistance and rescue, an issue most gloss over. The simplest way to understand the reality behind the myth is to map over the way Jews are dealing now with Arab terrorism.

In America the dominant Jewish response was apathy, much as it is today in regards to Israel. The elite of American Jews prided themselves on the degree of their assimilation viewing themselves as Americans rather than Jews and were determined not to do anything to upset that general perception by performing a Jewish act such as agitating on behalf of Europe's Jews. Many American Jewish leaders such as Stephen Wise priding themselves on their access to FDR and were little more than yes men who relayed the President's agenda down to their organizations and suppressed any dissent much as American Jewish organizations continue to function today. Those organizations that were created were more concerned with following the rules than with saving Jews and the most fundamental rule was not to criticize the President, England or demand any action on behalf of Jews. The dominant theme of American Jews was to support the war effort in a non-partisan way and hope that things work out for the Jews of Europe. Given the choice of being good Democrats or saving millions of Jews, they chose to be good Democrats and they have never truly regretted it since or remotely changed their ways.

In Europe the religious leadership functioned much as it does today in Israel concerned with the day to day needs, rather than with long term planning for survival and as a consequence wound up leading their communities to the gas chambers. In Israel the theme was much the same as in America with Britain substituted for the President and Britain did not want more Jewish immigration and so the Jewish authorities accepted that verdict, particularly fervent Anglophiles such as Chaim Weizmann who could not care nearly as much for the Jews as he could for dear old England.

All across the Jewish world the dominant themes were slavish obedience to political authority, fear of identifying with other Jews rather than with their given nation, confusion, a multitude of organizations working at cross-purposes and squabbling down to the end even in the Warsaw Ghetto. It is a deeply sad history and it is one we are once again repeating today.

The Jews of America worshipped and continue to worship FDR and Harry Truman as friends of the Jews though they were both bigots who treated Jews and every other race with unmitigated contempt and had no interest or concern for the fate of the Jews of Europe. Nothing has changed either as we witness the pathetic spectacle of Jews debating whether Bill Clinton or George W. Bush was the best friend to the Jews in the White House. Never mind the even more deranged spectacle of those who introduce Jimmy Carter or Richard Nixon as candidates for this absurdly surreal position. Nothing has been learned by the Jews or anyone else from history and from the Holocaust and it seems likely that nothing will be learned.

The phrase 'Never Again' itself sums up the painful absurdity as it is repeated in all sincerity by the same Jewish figures who defend the policies that are once again bringing millions of Jews to the point of extermination. Holocaust commemorations are held in Reform temples whose Rabbis sign petitions calling for the resumption of US aid to the Hamas run Palestinian government. When the Bush administration holds back some criticism of Israel, these very same organizations and figures write up petitions calling on the administration to further pressure Israel. As Israel is carved up in the name of appeasing the Arabs as the Allies carved up Czechoslovakia to appease the Germans, the Jews continue our annual Holocaust commemorations and pilgrimages like madmen lost in memories of the home we once had while the home we have now unheeded burns.

Since we have neither remembered nor understood the Holocaust it is better to forget it than to repeat it. The hour is late and grows ever later and the chance to learn the lessons we might have learn is almost past. It is not merely National Socialism nor dictatorship nor bigotry that threatens us and championing human rights or fighting intolerance will not save us, for there are at least as many, if not more, of those who hate us in the ranks of the warriors against all bigotries and intolerance, except those directed at us. We are part of a cycle of history in which we face the constant threat of annihilation, not for reasons or in ways that can be countered through an afterschool special. It is not something that we can rely on the conscience of the world to protect us against. And if there is any lesson that we must learn from the Holocaust, it is not to repeat the same mistakes we made last time around of putting our faith in Presidents and political leaders, of prioritizing Liberal Democratic activism over saving our brothers and of being certain that this time we will be safe, that the world has learned its lesson.

The world no more learns its lessons than we do.

Rabbi Marc Schneier, the Rabbi most likely to wind up in a newspaper story and least likely to accomplish anything usefull, has been appointed by Olmert to head Kadima USA, to promote the foreign wing of an Israeli political party.

Rabbi Marc Schneier is a publicity hound famous for his Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and appearing in numerous ads with former drug dealer, rapper and Louis Farrakhan supporter, Russell Simmons. When the ADL criticised Simmons promotion of Farrakhan's Million Man March, Simmons blasted back warning the ADL that they would trigger even more Anti-Semitism.

Simmons attempt to recreate himself as a kindler gentler and tolerant figure is particularly ironic considering that it was his label Def Jam Records that was behind the group 'Public Enemy' which continued to trade in explictly Anti-Semitic lyrics with songs such as 'Swindler's Lust.' His political organization Hip-Hop Summit Action Network is headed up by a top Farrakhan associate. He has called Louis Farrkhan a saint, promoted him widely and his Def Poetry Jam has featured the son of Amiri Baraka who accused the Jews of being responsible for 9/11 and Suheir Hammad whose work is filled with lyrics supporting terrorism.

Rabbi Marc Schneier however hasn't limited himself to promoting just one Anti-Semite. He also accompanied the mastermind of the Crown Heights Pogrom, responsible for at least two murders, Al Sharpton on a trip to Israel and tried to legitimize Jesse 'Hymietown' Jackson. Rabbi Marc Schneier has played a significant rolethem and now Olmert has drafted him to help legitimate Kadima, a party illegally appointed to power under a leader who was indicted for corruption and continues to be the target of several criminal investigations.

Rabbi Marc Schneier has a record of having no compunction in collaborating with any figure no matter how repugnant, e.g. O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran was a trustee of his foundation, along with the aforementioned Simmons and celebrity pr specialist, Ken Sunshine. Now 'Rabbi' Schneier joins his fellow shameless careerists in Israel in prostituting himself for the support of a corrupt borderline criminal organization.

In his latest screed, Barry Chamish quotes Jim Searcy accusing WTC owner Larry Silverstein of being behind the attacks of September 11th calling him a "Sabbataian" Jew. Last week Barry Chamish called Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, a Sabbatean. Prior lists of people Chamish called Sabbateans including pretty much everyone. Chamish, whose own observance is dubious at best, makes it a habit to slander and insult other Jews as Sabbateans.

Jim Searcy is a fundamentalist Christian and conspiracy theorist who has done an interview with Barry Chamish promoting Chamish's books, complete with a 1-800 number, and thus earning Chamish money. In it Chamish does his usual routine about the New World Order, mentions the UFO Nephilim who are attacking Israel. To quote Chamish in the interview;

"THERE WAS THIS UFO WAVE AND ASSOCIATED WITH IT WERE GIANT SIGHTINGS....UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVEN'T REACHED THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY AND I SHOULD...THAT WAS THE BIG CRIME. AND THAT'S WHAT THEY DID IN ISRAEL ALL OVER AGAIN IN '93, THEY HAD THEIR WAY WITH JEWISH WOMEN. AND AS STRANGE AS IT SOUNDS, LOOK AT THIS BOOK "RETURN OF THE GIANTS".I USUALLY DON'T TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE DO YOU KNOW THAT MY ENEMIES JUST DESTROY ME...NOW I TAKE THE POINT OF VIEW THAT THEY'RE NOT FROM OUTERSPACE. MORE AND MORE I AM BEGINNING TO SEE THAT THESE ARE SOME SORT OF INTERDIMENSIONAL DEMONS OF SOME KIND."

But who is this Jim Searcy whom Chamish endorses and reveals the secrets of the interdimensional UFO demon rapists?

Jim Searcy claims that Kabbalah is the work of the devil. That Noahide laws are a Satanic Lubavitch conspiracy to enslave all to serving Lucifer.

"It is no surprise that the average Christian has never heard of these laws. These Noachide so-called laws originate in the Babylonian Talmud.. Something to think about is why the antichrist rulers of this world, push the seven Noachide laws so strongly, as they try to erase every public display of the 10 Commandments...

The facts and truth behind the Antichrist Luciferian Noachide laws is startling. The Kabalists and other occult Jewish groups are simply an integral part of the overall Antichrist Luciferian plan to destroy humanity for their god, Lucifer. It is sad how the Luciferians do not see how Lucifer also hates all his human servants and will destroy them too. The Noachide laws may become the basis of the new antichrist global Luciferian constitution. "

Searcy also claims that the Magen David is an occult Satanic symbol. So is the Talmud according to him, Kabbalah and well pretty much anything Jewish that hasn't been adopted by Christians. This is the sort of hatefull Anti-semitic trash that Barry Chamish hangs around with and uses to defame other Jews, when he's not hanging around with this Holocaust denier buddies.

At the end of his latest screed, Chamish threatens to quit if "not one person anywhere has the courage to fund what I know to save the Jews," translation if he doesn't get enough money. Shamelessly the same Chamish who demanded that no one donate money to the refugees of Gush Katif, patronizes anti-semites and then abuses Jews demanding money lest he quit.

Go ahead Barry, quit.

This is a subject which both the left which defends Muslim outrage and the right which condemns it have generally gotten wrong by missing the most important point.

When the left compares the Muslim response to that of a persecuted minority what they fail to realize is that Muslims do not see themselves as a persecuted minority whose religion is insulted. Muslims do not believe that there are other religions, only Muslims and heretics since Muslims believe that Islam is the only natural religion of mankind. Muslims do not describe non-Muslims who convert to Islam as converts but more commonly as 'reverts,' returnees to Islam.

Therefore it stands to reason that Muslims cannot comprehend the notion of 'tolerating' differences of opinion. As far as they are concerned, there are no differences. There are only examples of heretical behavior by heretical Muslims, namely us. In this worldview Islam is the only religion of mankind and the world is properly ruled by Islam and it is only a matter of time until each and every country falls under the Dar-Al-Islam, the Islamic sphere. Muslims in those countries have every right to insist on Islamic law because that in their view is the destiny of each nation of the world.

When the right demands that Muslims tolerate other people's beliefs, they fail to realize that Islam can no more co-exist with alternative beliefs than Communism could. Islam, unlike Jews or Americans, lacks ethnic or national ties. It is a fiction wholly held together by belief. What Muslims perceive as mockery or heresy becomes an attack on the entire structure that holds them together. Muslims are not outraged because they are dealing from a position of strength but a position of weakness. Islam is a brutal un-modernized medieval ideology clumsily binding together disparate peoples fighting for survival in the modern world by exploiting ignorance, bigotry and ultimately violence.

Skepticism to Islam is what antibiotics are to bacteria. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam has not survived through centuries of debate and heresy but only existed through conquest and totalitarian rule. It cannot perceive itself surviving any other way. Without Islam a thousand peoples suddenly disintegrate back to their individual identities like Mongolian raiders falling apart into warring groups. With Islam, Islamic fundamentalists dream of rebuilding a Mohammedan Empire stretching across the world. Whether or not they succeed depends on whether or not the nations they have targeted have the resolve to resist them.

Note a high ranking police officer restraining an officer from an attack

On April 16th over Pesach thousands of marchers braved the closed Wallerstein road between Beit El connecting the Gush Talmonim where the normal route would have been 10 minutes by car because of the blockage it is instead over an hour. Olmert had decided to maintain clear territorial integrity for the Palestinians between Ramallah and Bir Zeit while Jewish travel remains barred there.

Facing police and military blockades the marchers nevertheless continued their approach and the majority succeeded in reaching their destination at Yad Yair, a former demolished outpost, that had been founded in the memory of Yair Mendelsohn who was murdered by terrorists in the early 90's. The police clearly under orders to avoid a repetition of Amona varied their tactics from arguing to harassment to violence. Six people were arrested, three of them girls who were reported to have been struck after being taken inside police vans.

The official media reports have of course produced the usual propaganda accusing the settlers of violence and claiming the march had failed. But led by Daniella Weiss, the Mayor of Kedumim, who has broken from the useless and government lackeys of the Yesha Council, and has in turn been cut off from funding; the march succeeded where much larger groupings failed because of honest leadership that did not negotiate with the police and broke the marchers into small groups to which the police responded by also breaking up into small groups that thinned their presence and position. It is also a demonstration of what could have been done at Gush Katif under a leadership determined to do more than chant slogans and shout their love for the army but engage in real activism.

This is the leadership, the initiative and organization that is badly needed if the ethnic cleansing of Yehuda and the Shomron is to be prevented.

The regular accusation Jews have to face from the right and occasionally the left is that 'Jews control Hollywood' and that therefore Jews, collectively, are responsible for Hollywood movies. When these criticisms are issued from the Christian religious right, they're usually issued by the same sort of people who argue that Catholics can't be held responsible for the Spanish Inquisition or the Holocaust, but that Jews must take collectively responsibility for the actions of some wealthy Hollywood executives and producers in funding movies by Catholic directors like Martin Scorcese or Kevin Smith that Christians find offensive.

But let's consider how Hollywood actually portrays Jews. First of all Hollywood rarely ever portrays Jews. This is a situation that has held up pretty well from the golden age of cinema right up until today. Those Hollywood figures who are Jewish don't like to be reminded of it or associated with anything Jewish

When Ben Hecht was working to organize a fundraiser to cover the costs of transporting Jews to Israel through the British blockade he asked David Selznick (Producer of King Kong, Gone With the Wind) to sign on as a prominent Jewish figure. Selznick asked Hecht what made him think that he David Selznick was Jewish. Hecht bet him that he could call any three people in Hollywood and ask them if David Selznick was a Jew and get the right response; which he promptly did.

After WW2 when Jews became somewhat more tolerated in America, Jewish figures in the public light became more open about their Jewishness. Today we even have the bizarre spectacle of public figures suddenly rediscovering some Jewish roots in time for a media blitz, as Gwyneth Paltrow did around Oscar time.

This hasn't however changed Hollywood's portrayal of Jews. When counting out the old line comedians, TV tends to portray Jews as nerdy, pushy, annoying and cheap. Jewish men on TV are almost always intermarried. Jewish women on TV, when they appear, are usually more obnoxious than the men. But even they rarely appear because mostly patently Jewish characters played by Jewish actors are transformed into non-Jews on a regular basis. Consider for example that on Seinfeld Kramer, George and Elaine were described as non-Jewish.

Jews rarely appear in movies altogether. When asked to think of a Jewish movie the average person would probably list the grotesque figure of Woody Allen, whose career is dedicated to self-hatred in a way that the Amos and Andy couldn't even being to aspire to or Schindler's List, whose two main characters were Germans and in which Jews appeared only as supporting characters. This is the usual state of affairs. As on TV stories involving Jewish characters are transformed into non-Jewish characters. Max Apple wrote a short story about his reaf life experiences living with his 107 year old grandfather. The movie version transformed the characters from a Jewish family to a Polish family. The very Irish D.B. Sweeney was cast to play the grandson and the director attempted to cast Robert Mitchum to play the the grandfather but finally had to settle for all too Jewish, Peter Falk.

How does a real life Jewish family become a Polish Catholic family on screen. It begins when the Jewish executive producers hire a non-Jewish director and screenwriter to transform Jews into non-Jews. Such incidents are not isolated but common place. Jewish characters have a narrow place in Hollywood in comedy where they are permitted to portray grotesque characters who ridicule Judaism and Jews; but even there the odds aren't so good.

Witness the current state of affairs where in time for Pesach, two movies about Jewish holiday celebrations are being released. First there's 'When Do We Eat,' the portrayal of a household full of thoroughly depraved and dysfynctional characters prepearing for a Passover meal. It goes without saying that Judaism is mocked and that the Jews there are portrayed as disgusting and that the only source of spirtuality there is an African-American woman wearing a cross around her neck.

Then there's 'Keeping Up With the Steins,' a movie about an average Jewish family if the average Jewish family were wealthy socialite Hollywood millionaires. It centers around a Bar Mitzvah, one that is of course devoid of spirtuality or religious significance, and is only a way of keeping score with the neighbors. Of course you'll hear much less about 'Keeping Up With the Steins,' because these Jews may be shallow stereotypes but they are human beings and they do learn and grow. By contrast 'When Do We Eat' is heavily hyped by the usual liberal Jewish publications such as JTA, The Forward and the UJA weeklies because it is exactly the display of nauseating Jewish self-hatred that Hollywood approves of. Much as blacks were limited to jolly displays of tap dancing, Jews are limited to appearing as grotesque neurotics.

The real discrimination in Hollywood is that it is run by liberals who dislike religion and despise and slander any political view but their own. If Jews collectively have any relation to Hollywood it is as victims to a degree that is far more pervasive and unspoken than anyone else.

 No sooner than there is a discussion of military affairs, out comes former disgraced General and Presidential Candidate Wesley Clark. This time it's an attack on Donald Rumsfeld whom Clark accuses of having made "bad policy choices," proclaiming, "he needs to go." Of course not too long ago it was Bill Clinton, Clark's old friend and patron, who decided he needed to go when Clark nearly started WW3 by making hostile moves against Russian troops in a Kosovo airport. "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you," Lt. General Mike Jackson, commander of the British NATO forces had told Clark. Clark was then removed prematurely from his post and he had nothing left to do but write his memoirs and plan a political life. First Clark began a covert 'Draft Clark' campaign while denying that he wanted to run for President. Then he ran for President on an platform opposing the War in Iraq only to double back again on that giving a hodgepodge of answers that made Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it" look like a model of coherence. Finally at one question, Clark cried for help from his assistant to answer the question for him. To compensate for his complete cluelessness though, Clark's campaign volunteers handed out 'Clark Bars' and pointed out that Michael Moore supported Clark. It did him little good. Now Clark has become little more than a talking head, a representative of the left who pops up to voice his opinion before popping back down into the hole he came from. The same arrogance and egotism combined with incompetence, that cost him both his military and political posts, manifests itself and then like a poltergeist he is gone again. Goodbye Wesley Clark

" --עוֹד יִשָּׁמַע בְּעָרֵי יְהוּדָה, וּבְחֻצוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַם, קוֹל שָׂשׂוֹן וְקוֹל שִׂמְחָה, קוֹל חָתָן וְקוֹל כַּלָּה"

"Yet again will be heard in the cities of Yehuda and the streets of Yerushalayim, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride..." (Jeremiah 33:11)

Here a Jewish wedding takes place in Sebastia in the Shomron and guests dance over the remains of ancient stone. Sebastia was once the capital of the kingdom of Israel of King Omri, after whom Sharon's son is named after, who introduced intermarriage into the royal household that produced the corruption of Ahav and Izevel and Ahaziah.

Sebastia was part of the second aliyah, the second return to the Shomron after its liberation in 1967 traveling even on Tisha Ba'av and in defiance of Rabin and the authorities who threatened to expell them by force. Like the expulsion of the Jews of Gush Katif last year, the expulsion of the Jews began after Tisha Ba'av resulting in clashes between the settlers and the IDF. And nearly 40 years later they are still here and song resounds in the hills of the Shomron and the gladness of bride and groom.

It is said that in the month of Nissan on Pesach we were freed and on Nissan we will be freed again, from exile to redemption and all the hills and valleys will resound with song.

Chag Pesach Sameach

After the so-called Boro Park riots, Mayor Bloomberg accused the crowd of "putting people's lives at risk" though it is not clear in what way or how. To bolster their account of a real threat from the protesting Chassidim, two men were charged with assaulting police officers, Chaim Glick and Chaim Appel.

Chaim Appel's list of charges is truly massive. He is charged with two counts of attempted assault - one a felony - menacing, obstructing governmental administration, two counts of disorderly conduct, and one count of harassment. But as AnotherRuth of Hashemsforever has pointed out, all but the 'obstruction of government administration' charge which is a standard 'refusing to comply with police orders promptly' charge often used to arrest protesters were added at the arraignment. This is very strange since the supposed assault occured on the scene against a Sergeant. Under those circumstances it's hard to imagine why additional charges were only added during the arraignment unless they were being tacked on to create the illusion of a serious incident.

According to the DA's office the claim is that Chaim Appel 'kicked a sergeant in the leg in an attempt to trip him,' this is a confusing description at best. The DA's office admits the Sergeant was not hurt. Yet Appel was not charged with this until the arraignment itself. And the arraignment charges seen in this light are absurd.

Two charges of Attempted Assault with Intent to Cause Physical Injury, Violent Behavior and Harrassment. If there were such horrific charges to make against him why was the only charge that the police actually arrested him on was Obstruction, a charge that is further clarified when the arraignment tacks on the real charge of Refusing to Move.

It's easily imaginable that in a surging crowd a man might have stumbled against a police officer. This man may or may not have been Chaim Appel, because had it been Mr. Appel, it seems likely that the police would have known what to charge him with. Later on when the police were asked to tote up anything that might lead to some kind of charges, the Sergeant managed to recall his foot colliding with someone in the crowd and the charge was tacked on to one of the men who had been already arrested because odds are against the NYPD being able to tell one Chassid from another or caring to do so.

And so the justice system grinds on.

There's been a lot of talk about the so-called rioting by Orthodox Chassidim after the arrest of an elderly 75 year old man who was manhandled and abused after he asked for a police officer's badge number. Of course most of the 'rioting' consisted of people standing around their own neighborhood and not getting promptly out of the way when told to do so by police officers along with a few incidents of settings cardboard boxes on fire in the street; nevertheless Jewish leaders have hurried to condemn them, the liberal press that would be nodding sympathetically to stories of police abuse and public protest if the community in case had happened to be Black or Latino quickly tacked on lurid headlines to the whole thing. Jewish opinion as a whole leaned strongly towards condemnation, as Jewish opinion usually does.

But let's consider two cases. In 1986 a group of white teenagers chased Michael Griffith, who was black, onto the Belt Parkway where he was struck by a car and killed. The resulting press and racial tension from the Howard Beach case was the talk of the media for months on end, produced widespread condemnation and brought down Mayor Ed Koch and replaced him with David Dinkins who proved all too willing to tolerate racial violence, as long as it was black on white racial violence.

Only a few days ago, an NYU student named Broderick John Hehman, pictured above, handed a dollar to a homeless man in a wheelchair. Shortly thereafter he was chased by a gang of black teenagers shouting 'Get the White Boy' into the path of a car where he was struck and killed. Hehman had been taking a course on 'Urban Violence in America' before he was killed. His death has been a course in and of itself. The New York Times story did not mention either his race or that of the assailants. The case has barely appeared in the media. There has of course been no racial unrest.

The key difference in those cases is that the influence of the noise a community made resulted in justice given rather than justice defered. Under the Guliani era any restraints on the NYPD were lifted, the civilian complaint review board became a joke and most complaints were never even filed. The Bloomberg era hasn't been much different with politicians believing that fighting crime requires throwing away the rules. It is far from clear that the behavior of the police officers involved will be seriously investigated but it is certain that without the 'riots' there would have been no investigation at all and that is genuinely sad.

It is a sad state of affairs when the law doesn't apply to the authorities unless a segment of the public has to engage in dangerous confrontations with the authorities. It is a demonstration that a negative side-effect of the civil rights era is to reward the squeaky wheels while letting everything else fly. Such a situation transforms a civil society into a bantustan where no one trusts the authorities and protection requires belonging to a visible and voiciferous community willing to fight for its members rights. If Chassidim play by the rules that the liberal Jewish elite have forced Americans to play by, whose fault is that really?

Jonathan Safran Foer made the list of New York Press' '50 Most Loathsome New Yorker's' with good reason. At the age of only 25 he received a 500,000 dollar advance for his first novel. That's extremely unusual for a first time novelist because a book advance is calculated against potential royalties and unless the first time novelist is a celebrity or somehow notorious, giving an advance that size either presumes that the book will make millions of dollars or that something is seriously wrong in the business.

In Jonathan Safran Foer's case the latter is true. With him everything you need to know begins with the fact that his brother is the editor of the New Republic magazine. The New Republic may not be well known outside of some elitist circles but it remains a prominent bastion of a certain class of old line intellectual liberal. It's also a major's writer's market. Little wonder then that Franklin Foer was able to elevate his brother's career on a silver spoon.

His first novel was written with Joyce Carol Oates as his advisor. On its initial release it received praise from John Updike, Salman Rushdie, Isabell Allende, Russell Banks and so on and so forth. It received reviews from major papers that were little more than bootlicking in print form. The Times for example wrote that the book was, "a work of genius," breathlessly proclaimed that Foer had "staked his claim for literary greatness," and declared that "after it, things will never be the same."

But Jonathan Safran Foer has not only relied on his brother's access to provide him with a silver spoon, he's cynically jumped on major tragedies to push his novels. Everything is Illuminated exploited the Holocaust as background for yet another tragi-comic piece about a man-child. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close shamelessly exploited 9/11 for a foul-mouthed story complete with a flipbook of pictures. And now Foer, who is an atheist, assaults Kosher food on behalf of PETA which has itself exploited the Holocaust and compared Holocaust survivors to pigs in its ads. Truly birds of a feather.

Now Foer who has proudly described himself as secular and an atheist, is going after Kosher Shechita in cahoots which PETA whose really agenda is to do what animal rights groups have often succeeded in doing in Europe, which is to ban Kosher Shechita as a vehicle for banning meat eating entirely. For an atheist like Foer attacking religion has its own worth but additionally his own success has been premised on a constant flow of publicity to force people to pay attention to him by exploiting serious issues. This is yet another example of that as Foer will produce a remix of the PETA video with commentary from left wing Rabbis who will typically distort Torah for their own agenda.

"The Torah makes clear that the very permission to eat meat is an exemption, it's a compromise," 'Rabbi' Greenberg is quoted as saying. Of course the Torah says no such thing and 'Rabbi' Greenberg, Clinton's apointee to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, who was forced to resign when he authored a petition to pardon escaped criminal Marc Rich, on museum stationary, knows this.

"Kashrut is an attempt to moderate, to make more gentle, our savagery toward the natural world," argues Conservative Non-Rabbi Wolpe.

Much of this follows the usual left wing attempt to pass off vegetarianism as the word of G-d. Never mind that Kashrut like all things we do is not about serving an ecological agenda but following the word of G-d. And the real point of the movie is of course to attack eating meat as evil and to promote vegetarianism. Abel who was a shepherd was favored in the eyes of G-d over Cain who worked with the earth. It was the man who 'exploited animals' who was the gentle one and the man who stuck to plants who was cruel. The Jewish leaders from our forefathers Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov to Moshe and then later King David were shepherds. If 'exploiting' animals that is using animals for meat, milk, fur and leather was cruel, then Judaism is cruel too and that is the real hidden agenda behind the campaign against Kosher. It is as always an attack on Judaism.

PETA, whose tactics primarily focus on viciously slandering anyone who disagrees with them, distributing pornography, assaults and lawbreaking; drew its intellectual inspiration from Peter Singer, whose ideas go well beyond what anyone who supports 'Animal Rights' realizes. Peter Singer and current PETA head Ingrid Newkirk are supporters of legalizing bestiality. Newkirk herself pleaded with Arab terrorists not to use donkeys to carry out bombings but to presumably do their bombings the old fashioned way.

Peter Singer himself is an atheist who argued that human life has no more worth than the life of an animal. Singer wrote that infants could be killed up to 28 days after birth, particularly if he or she is crippled. Nazi-Hunter Simon Wiesenthal then wrote a letter condemning, "A professor of morals ... who justifies the right to kill handicapped newborns." Singer pushed a UN project supporting awarding 'Human' status to apes and supported the euthanasia of people with Alzheimer's disease.

PETA has meanwhile distributed booklets to children teaching them that if their father fishes they should keep their pets far away from him, because their father is a brutal murderer and might kill them. They sent their activists to schoolyards warning children that if they drink milk, they will get sick. They've driven their own mini-pornography industry, which has earned them condemnation from feminist groups and put up posters which contrasted victims of the Holocaust with pigs; in Germany.

Forget the slaughtered cows of PETA's Postville video, these are the people behind Jonathan Safran Foer's latest project and it merits a documentary far more than yet another PETA effort to manipulative and deceive the Jewish public. In his interview with the "Forward" Foer attempted to distance himself from PETA's politics, but his project is done under PETA's auspices, uses PETA video footage and propaganda and pushes PETA's agenda; so any such attempts at distancing are nothing more than attempts at plausible deniability.

Foer will put on a slick presentation to ask if Kashrut is moral. It's time to ask instead if collaborating with PETA and its sick agenda is moral.

"The former residents of the recently-destroyed Jewish community of Sa-Nur perpetuate a town custom: remembering the hero and Moslem convert Baruch Mizrachi, who was executed by Arabs in 1948.



(IsraelNN) - Mizrachi's story is one of physical, spiritual and societal courage. He was born as Hamuda Abu-La'inin to a prominent Arab family in the Galilee in 1926; his mother, known to have been of Jewish origin, died when he was very young. Around age 13, after having studied in a public Arab school in Tzfat, he transferred to the Jewish "Alliance" school in Haifa, where he studied Hebrew and Bible. This brought him close to the Jewish People, and he decided to convert to Judaism.

The youngster went to the Chief Rabbinate in Jerusalem, but in accordance with custom, he was twice rejected. The third time, at the tender age of 16, he was accepted and allowed to convert to Judaism. He lived in Haifa as a religious and observant Jew, worked as a clerk, and joined the Etzel organization in fighting the British occupation. He was ultimately arrested by the British, and was among those exiled to Eritrea.

In Africa, Baruch was offered a release if he would merely agree to return to his Arab and Moslem roots - but he refused. He was then made to suffer cruel abuse by the Sudanese guards, at whose hands he was seriously wounded.

Upon his return, shortly before Israel declared its independence in May 1948, he undertook a mission to destroy an Arab headquarters in Jenin, where war was being prepared against the future Jewish state. He was caught by Arabs, who executed him the same day in the village of Kfar Jaba - near what became, close to 50 years later, the Jewish town of Sa-Nur.

Assumed to have been buried in the Shomron, which remained under Jordanian control until 1967, Mizrachi was memorialized only by a plaque at Har Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. After the Six Day War, the IDF Governor of the Jenin Region, Lt.-Col. Tzvi Resky, arrived in the village of Kfar Jaba, and began to seek information about the fallen hero.

Resky learned of a burial cave in the area, and together with IDF Rabbi Lt.-Col. Dov Shachor, Etzel representative Ben-Tzion Katznellenbogen, and local geographical expert Tzvi Hermoni, they paid a visit to the cave and the local Mukhtar. The Mukhtar, known to have saved a Jewish unit from death at the hands of his fellow Arabs in 1948, told the Israelis what he remembered of the period. He said that the village was the seat of an Arab military court, which executed three Arabs and Mizrachi. Baruch Mizrachi did not plead for his life, the Mukhtar said, but simply decided to die as a Jew.

Yossi Dagan, spokesman for the former residents of Sa-Nur, said, "Baruch Mizrachi has no family and no one to say Kaddish for him. We therefore decided to adopt his memory and to serve as a replacement for his family. We will tell his story and preserve his legacy." The people of Sa-Nur were planning to build a monument in his memory - but these plans, and others, were cut short by Ariel Sharon's Disengagement of last summer.

Following the recovery of his body in 1967, Mizrachi was reburied in the Netanya Military Cemetery (Plot 1, Row 2). Former Sa-Nur residents will visit his gravesite tomorrow, on the 58th anniversary of his death."

(I don't usually repost entire stories but this was one that seemed worth reposting)

"O Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that going round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground
St. Patrick's Day no more we'll keep, his colours can't be seen
For there's a bloody law against the wearing of the green."

(Dion Boucicault, The Wearing of the Green)

While thousands of illegal aliens marched in the street and mobs waving Mexican flags and chanting racist slogans that the entire continent belongs to them and everyone else should go back to europe, schools were the scenes of walkouts and protests by Mexican students as well. These students were not penalized even when they hung the Mexican flag over the American flag, which was itself hung upside down as seen above.

However at numerous schools students who brought American flags to school had their flags confiscated, were suspended for even bringing the flags and were in some cases even arrested by a selective school administration policy. Post 9/11 when the left ramped up its war against the display of the American flag, with some organizations such as Cablevision barring it entirely, schools forbidding it, neighborhood committees barring the display of the flag and even some government offices doing the same; seems as if it might be time for a Constitutional ammendment for the protection of the flag, not from flag burning but simply protecting the right of Americans to display their flag.

The courts have long defended the rights of students to publish and print just about anything, no matter how offensive, in student papers. Predictably displays of patriotism never earn the same defense as displays of obscenity but maybe it's time to change that. It is a sad state of affairs that we have gone from fighting against flag burning to fighting for the mere right to fly the flag but such is the reality of life under socialist tyranny.

Write your congressman, if you have one. The right to display the flag should be protected by law.

If there was one thing Benjamin Netanyahu had come to stand for it was his reformist economic policies that challenged Israel's outmoded socialism and also tackled the monopolies with which Israel is overrun, particularly the monopolization of the banking sector. Twelve groups control 60 percent of the market value of all of Israel's companies, these groups use banks to buy and control families of corporations. These groups themselves are controlled by powerfull billionaires very much involved in Israeli politics.

When Netanyahu began working to destroy these monopolies as finance minister, particularly in the banking sector which is the linchpin used to control the Israeli economy, he made some very powerfull and dangerous enemies. And the entaglements become very corrupt indeed. Consider one of the 12, Matthew Bronfman of the Bronfman clan who purchased a controlling stake in the Israeli Discount Bank from the State of Israel while being elected to the World Jewish Congress audit and budget commission to cover up the corruption practiced under his father and investigated by the New York Attorney General. His partner in the bid was arrested New Jersey buisnessman Charles Kushner who among a litany of financial crimes paid a prostitute to entrap a witness against him.

There were no other bidders for the Israeli Discount Bank because Israeli banks are not financially profitable in and of themselves, they are only good for amassing corporations which Bronfman proceeded to do buying up majority control of Ikea Israel, Blue Square Israel's largest supermarket chain which controls 35 percent of the country's supermarkets. Bronfman's emphasis has been very much on the 'peace process' promising that peace would produce economic dividends. At the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, Bronfman reiterated that an Israel at peace will be a magnet for foreign investment. Of course the interest of such figures is not in actual peace but in doing buisness, such as Bronfman's plans to expand his group into Palestinian areas, something that requires the cooperation of the Palestinian Authority, namely Hamas. It is little surprise that Bronfman was a donor to the Barak campaign.

A much more obviously hands on example is another of the 12, Haim Saban, close personal friend of Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon; best known to Americans for inflicting the Power Rangers on a generation of children, but behind the scenes was the Democratic Party's largest donors donating over one million dollars in 2000 alone and 7 million dollars in 2002. He became the owner of Germany's largest television corporation and acquired a controlling interest in Bezeq, Israel's national telephone company. Thanks to his donations to the Clinton Administration he was appointed to the President's Export Council where he had input on US trade issues.

In 2002 he donated 13 million dollars to the Brookings Institute to create the Saban Center for Middle Eastern Policy whose senior fellow is Shibley Telhami, Vice Chair of Human Rights Watch, Middle East and currently using the Saban Center to advocate on behalf of Hamas penning such phrases as, "Many in the Arab world, including liberals...now see possibilities in Hamas' victory and seem fully prepared to accept that the organization will change. They are viewing it through the prism of hope." Another scholar is Akbar Ahmed who after 9/11 warned the Department of Homeland Security that, "At the time of September 11, there were millions of Muslims in the world and probably a few dozens of them wanted to do harm to the US. But when you antagonise and alienate Muslims like this, those that are angry at America start to multiply. "

The Saban Forum held in November of 2005 under its auspices featured predictably enough Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres and of course Ehud Olmert. In attendance was Sharon's close advisor and architect of his schemes, Dov Weinglass as well as World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who raised money for the transfer of the greenhouses of Gush Katif to Arab hands and today holds down a post at the State Department as he goes around lobbying for more money for Hamas.

Defense Secretary Shaul Mofaz was there along with Amnon Lipkin Shahak, former Shabak head and reborn peace activist Avi Dichter, current Justice Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and and Immigration Tzipi Livni who bailed out of Likud for Kadima, Stanley Fischer Governor of the Bank of Israel and former Deputy Director of the IMF, Dalia Itzik who bailed out of Labor for Kadima, Dan Meridor Olmert's likely next Justice Minister, Gilead Sher one of the chief negotiators with the Palestinians who wrote up a paper on the legality of Disengagement, Dov Lautman who combines extensive buisness interests with extensive positions in left wing organizations. Along with Bill and Hillary Clinton, former ambassador Dennis Ross, Sandy Berger who got a slap on the wrist for stealing and destroying top secret document, Strobe Talbot who was behind the Kosovo War and former Ambasador Martin Indyk who took tampering in Israel's domestic policy to new heights.

At this forum Kadima's elite to be and the men and women who had done much to bring Israel to the brink of destruction met up with their Clinton era counterparts who had worked towards the same goal under the auspices of a billionaire with worldwide media interests who had not so secretely funded their political ambitions.

The disaster that would follow saw the crippling of Israel's Labor and Likud parties, the promotion of fake pensioner's party led by another billionaire buisnessman with major foreign interests and a Mossad veteran, not to mention the deeply corrupt Yisrael Beiteinu mafia. It was not an accident of fate but a well orchestrated campaign to destroy what remained of Israel's democracy by inflitrating Likud and Labor's voting ranks in order to destroy them from the inside and create a new Putinesque government party, Kadima, devoid of ideals with no allegiance to anything but international interests.

The 12 billionaires and the politicians they support have no interest in peace or Israel's security or fighting terrorism. They are not motivated by ideals, only by power and profits. They have no goals besides being on top. They are not Zionists and they are only Anti-Zionists insofar as Zionism interferes with their bottom line and holds back their profits. Their goal is to dismantle as much of Israel as is needed to appease the Arabs and the West to smooth the way for their buisness ventures. To them Israel is nothing more than a corporation, portions of which they will liquidate to improve productivty and market value while its executives will be rewarded with generous bonuses such as Sharon's greek island or Olmert's million dollar house sale.

The buisnessmen made common cause with the left wing because they see international respectability and open markets as the key to their success. They do not care if buses blow up in Jerusalem. They don't ride buses anyway. If bombs blow up in Haifa cafes, that too is alright because they prefer Parisian ones. If shells fall on Ashkelon or any part of Israel they will simply move. They have adopted Peres' vision of a New Middle East without borders or economic barriers and they greedily lust for the potential profits no matter the cost.

If they are not stopped, Israel will not survive.

Every industrialized nation desires cheap labor often in the form of immigrants or minorities who do the dirty work while the corporations profit. Ultimately also that same desire for cheap labor is what destroys nations.

Within a generation a third of France will be made up of African and Middle Eastern minorities, most of them Muslim. France imported them eagerly when it needed the cheap labor even as it introduced social policies that insured the crippling of domestic businesses in the face of a socialist system. It imported millions of immigrants who were supposed to do the jobs the French didn't want to do. The immigrants multiplied, the jobs went away and the projects in which the immigrants lived have become no-go zones for police where drug dealers and gangs rule and from which they move out to carry out attacks all across France.

Today the Bush administration and many Republicans and Democrats are telling us that the illegal immigrants will be doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do. The same administration that has defended the rampant outsourcing now proposes to legalize as many as 12 million illegal immigrants to do the dirty jobs cheaply. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens marched in rallies across America making a laughingstock of the law, for when criminals can march in massive numbers, the law has already become irrelevant. While the media focused on photos featuring American flags, the actual rallies were full of Mexican flags and many of the American flags were waved upside down.

The Mexican government has been working hard to export its own minority problem to America and profit from the dollars being sent home to family members in Mexico. Our politicians assure us that we are legalizing hardworking people who will do the dirty jobs we don't want to do, a flagrant display of racism which ignores the very real question of what happens when those jobs aren't around anymore or they stop wanting to do them. Immigration as a source of cheap labor is a pyramid scheme since the American dream is upwards mobility leaving us with two choices, either Americans must do the jobs that Americans don't want to do or we require a constant flow of new immigrants to do the lower class jobs. Of course with middle class jobs being squeezed out by outsourcing, the American dream is severely endangered and instead we are relying on a vast migration and promising them a smaller piece of a shrinking pie.

It takes no imagination to see this situation winding up much the same as it has in France. Racist organizations like LaRaza (For the Race) are already commonplace in the Southwest and on the West Coast. When Mexican immigrants wave Mexican flags, Americans may imagine that this is no different than Greek or Norwegian or Indian immigrants waving their own flags but it indeed quite different. Unlike the aforementioned nations, Mexicans have not forgotten that the Southwest and the West Coast were seized by the United States in a war with Mexico. Aside from vague references to the Alamo, Americans may have forgotten how the West was won but that is the privilege of the victors, the losers rarely forget and the idea of the Reconquista is alive and well. Americans may think of Mexicans as cheap labor but many Mexicans think of themselves as returning to reclaim their patrimony. Whether they are right or wrong, it is well worth considering the long term price to be paid.

Under the brunt of multiculturalism America has increasingly lost the ability to absorb incoming immigrants except through the global profusion of its entertainment industry. The result is balkanization instead of assimilation. As in France armed and militaristic Latin American gangs like the paramilitary M-13 are already operating in the United States. Drug convoys come in using armored vehicles, military tactics and body armor. The recent discovery of a cave dug under the American border and the impounding of a submarine in Columbia meant to be used for drug smuggling tells us that the various cartels are aspiring to higher end military tactics beyond anything we have even faced from Al-Qaeda. In Columbia the cartels have been replaced by the drug dealing Marxist terrorists of FARC backed by the Venezuelan government which is working on its ties to Iran and hosted the first Arab-Latin-American summit last year, in which all the participants managed to agree on their hatred of America and Israel.

While too many conservatives look at France and sneer imagining it could never happen here, in fact it is happening here. It is not difficult to translate a march of a 100,000 to a riot of a 100,000. All that separates one from the other is the law and the very fact of the marches demonstrates that the law is absent.

And in the absence of the law, we can look forwards to following the footsteps of Paris.