NYC Mayor Ed Koch dies on Daniel Pearl's yahrzeit- revives concern about democracy's needed vigilance against Islamism

NYC Mayor Ed Koch (Photo: NY Daily News)

ED KOCH, the voluble three-term mayor who helped bring New York back from the brink of fiscal ruin in the 1970s and came to embody the city with his wry, outspoken style, has died at the age of 88 of heart failure in NYC.

As mayor from 1978 to 1989, the forceful, quick-witted Koch, with his trademark phrase "How'm I Doin?," was a natural showman and tireless promoter of both himself and the city.

New York writer Pete Hamill said in a 2005 discussion of Koch's legacy, "Here was a mayor who was a combination of a Lindy's waiter, a Coney Island barker, a Catskill comedian, an irritated school principal and an eccentric uncle.  He talked tough and the reason was, he was tough."  

In The Algemeiner, Dovid Efune says: 

Mayor Ed Koch (Courtesy: Vanity Fair)

It was only three weeks ago when he (Mayor Koch) told me in an interview that he felt President Obama had betrayed Israel with his nomination of Chuck Hagel. “Frankly, I thought that there would come a time when he would renege on what he conveyed on his support of Israel,” Koch said, adding, “it comes a little earlier than I thought it would.”

We published Koch’s articles nearly every week, and it was clear to me, just by the sheer volume of those which focused on Israel, that the Jewish State, and his Jewishness for that matter, were topics that were very close to his heart.

“Why would you expect Israel to cooperate in its intended lynching?” he asked recently in a passionate letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron. He viciously defended Israel’s right to self defense and called out those who displayed hypocrisy in their dealings with Israel on a regular basis.

“I’m of the belief that the leaders of the Jewish community have to do more to make Jews aware, young Jews aware, of the importance of Israel,” he told me in another interview late last year.

It is therefore noteworthy and fitting to point out that besides the ‘Hear o Israel’ prayer, the only other quote that Koch has engraved on his tombstone is the final statement of Daniel Pearl, the Jewish journalist who was kidnapped and beheaded while in Pakistan investigating Al Qaeda back in 2002.

“My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish,” reads the defiant etching, attributed to “(Daniel Pearl 2002, just before he was beheaded by a Muslim terrorist.)”

Koch explained that “the sense of justice that Judaism teaches” was the reason he elected to have the words “He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith,” etched on the gravestone he prepared for himself. ...

How befitting that the day of his passing, Feb 1st 2013 comes 11 years to the day after the brutal murder of Daniel Pearl, that icon of Jewish pride. They will forever share a yahrzeit, and in many ways a legacy." 

That Mayor Koch died on Daniel Pearl's yahrzeit draws deserved attention to Pearl's legacy- and the Islamic supremacism which so threatens the West and Judaism. 

Photo courtesy Hiram 7

The late Christopher Hitchens was honored to present the 2010 Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA.  He consoled Daniel's surviving parents Judea and Ruth Pearl from the last scene of Shakespeare's Macbeth, "Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt.  He only lived until he was a man that which no sooner had his prowess confirmed.  In the unshrinking station where he stood.  But, like a man, he died.  Your cause of grief must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end."  

Mr. Hitchens then warned about anti-Semitism- particularly within Islam- as the precursor warning of fascism and tyranny. 

"Because anti-Semitism is the godfather of racism and the gateway to tyranny, fascism and war, it is to be regarded not as the enemy of the Jewish people alone, but as the common enemy of humanity and of civilization- and has to fought against very tenaciously for that reason, most especially in its current, most virulent form of Islamic Jihad.

Daniel Pearl's revolting murderer was educated at the London School of Economics. Our Christmas bomber over Detroit was from a neighboring London college - the chair of the Islamic Students' Society. Many pogroms against Jewish people have been reported from all over Europe, today as I'm talking. And we can only expect this to get worse. And we must make sure that our own defenses are not neglected.

Our task is to call this filthy thing, this plague, this pest, by its right name. To make unceasing resistance to it. Knowing all the time that it's probably ultimately ineradicable, and bearing in mind that its hatred towards us is a compliment, and resolving, some of the time (at any rate) to do a bit more to deserve it!"

Mayor Koch's public service  is remembered in this WABC TV News obituary:

In an interview conducted in 2007, Former Mayor Edward I. Koch reflected on his life and political career, and talked of how he would like to be remembered.


Asked by reporter Tim Weiner: "How do you want to be remembered?" Mayor Koch replied, "I want to be remembered as being a proud Jew who loved the people of the City of New York. And did his best to make their lives better."  

A documentary about his life opened just prior to his demise.  Glenn Whipp writes in the L.A. Times:

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch died the same day a new documentary about his life and legacy opened in New York.

"Koch," which will open in Southern California theaters beginning March 1, offers evidence that the combative mayor had mellowed little in his later years. Filmmaker Neil Barsky conducted extensive interviews with Koch in his Manhattan apartment in 2010 and early 2011, where the former mayor, who ruled New York from 1978 to 1989, spoke of his controversial time in office, offering no restrictions on subject matter or time.

Here is the trailer:


The N.Y. Times reviews "Koch"



Asked by reporter Tim Weiner: "How do you want to be remembered?" Mayor Koch replied, "I want to be remembered as being a proud Jew who loved the people of the City of New York.  And did his best to make their lives better."

Obama ups anti-Zionist foreign policy - to the bewilderment of his pro-Israel voters

Barack Obama and Defense Secy candiate Sen. Chuck Hagel

Since Obama's re-election to the presidency last month, many people concerned about global jihad movement's growth have felt trepidation. Publishing on her blog, Israel's Caroline Glick has called to task both Mr. Obama and those professed "concerned-about-Israel" who voted for him. In just a month, Obama has upped his ante against Israel, both through not deterring the U.N.'s Palestinian recognition vote, and in Obama's appointing anti-Zionist candidates, Susan Rice and Chuck Hagel, for cabinet secretary posts. Ms. Glick also calls to task those surprised that they re-elected this agenda.

Many in the American Jewish community are aghast to discover that President Obama is planning to appoint former Senator Chuck Hagel to serve as Defense Secretary. If you want the skinny on how Hagel has come to be known as one of the few ferociously anti-Israel senators in the past generation, Carl from Jerusalem at Israel Matzav provides it. ... 

Obama enabled the Palestinians to get their non-member state status at the UN by failing to threaten to cut off US funding to the UN in retaliation for such a vote.

Both Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush issued such threats during their tenures in office and so prevented the motion from coming to a vote. Given that the Palestinians have had an automatic majority in the General Assembly since at least 1975, the only reason their status was only upgraded in 2012 is because until then, either the PLO didn’t feel like raising the issue or the US threatened to cut off its financial support to the UN if such a motion passed. This year PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas said he wanted to have a vote and Obama responded by not issuing a threat to cut off UN funding. So the Palestinians got their vote and, as expected, it passed overwhelmingly. 

Seeing the upgrade as a Palestinian move is a mistake. It was a joint Palestinian-American move.

A glimpse into Obama Admin's leftist/Islamist Middle East agenda; More Jews find safe future with Romney

Presenting an award to Shimon Peres events doesn't outweigh undermining Netanyahu against Iranian enemy

If current trends hold, Mitt Romney is poised to capture the largest share of the Jewish vote by a Republican since Dwight Eisenhower. According to a new index, released by Investor’s Business Daily, Obama is pulling under 50% of the Jewish vote and Romney is pulling nearly 40%: 

Based on these figures, the Jewish vote aggregate average figures for today show President Obama with 48%, Mitt Romney with 39.1%, and 12.7% undecided. 

Obama sabotaged Israel's Azerbaijan attack plans against Iran
by leaking them to the press

These numbers mark the lowest level of support for a Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter who received only 45% of the the Jewish vote running against Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the greatest amount of Jewish support for a Republican candidate since 1956 when Eisenhower attracted 40% of the Jewish vote. 

Barack Obama won an astounding 78% of the Jewish vote in 2008, meaning that he has bled 30 points of support among this vital coalition. This will be a major factor in a number of states, Florida chief among them. Romney is running 17 points ahead of John McCain’s abysmal 22% share four years ago. This is a major shift, one that can potentially oust Obama from the White House.  (Justin Higgins in JHPolitics.com)

Despite the campaign pomp & ceremony, the reality of the Islamo-Marxism flourishing under Obama means trouble for democracy in the Middle East. A look back at the leftist activism surrounding Netanyahu's visit to the White House and speaking appearance at AIPAC this year.  Commentary from luminaries including Jon Voight, Michael Medved, Amb. John Bolton, Prof. Barry Rubin, & Bob Kunst show and tell the breakdown of Zionist safety and trust by Obama's leftist undermining of Israel's security.

DNC platform slip reveals Obama, Democrat Party disdain for Israel

Amidst boos and multiple votes, Democrat National Committee reverses White House position and reinstates G-d and Jerusalem to party platform.

Charles Krauthammer charges the Obama White House with "moving the party" by undercutting Israel's position by not reversing Obama's omitting previous rejections of Israel returning to 1967 borders, Palestinians to return to Israel, and isolating anti-Zionist Hamas.

PJ Media's Roger Simon gives his experience of the Charlotte vote:

... I was staring, again at least temporarily, into the gaping yaw of the 1930s.  For those fleeting seconds, I realized that, yes, it could also happen here, because, make no mistake about it, those copious boos were not for “God” (except, perhaps, for a few scattered nitwits), but for Israel. A sizable and serious claque on the Democratic National Convention floor was shouting and applauding against the Jews.

Back when I was a kid, when I used to see the Auschwitz numbers on the arms of the nurses in my doctor father’s office, I would wonder how something that horrible could happen. It was beyond my childhood imagination. No longer, unfortunately. Not that the Democratic Party is the equivalent of the Nazi Party, even remotely. I won’t indulge in that game. But those boos, taken with the overall theme of the convention — that we all belong to the government — are chilling. That people of color are often the ones being seduced by this garbage is even more depressing to this ex-civil rights worker. Where, oh where, is Martin Luther King? 

Conventions in general encourage group think, especially now that they are so planned and canned. That is why I cannot believe that Barack Obama (or his clone Valerie Jarrett) did not approve the platform in advance. They can deny that all they wish, but it is absurd to think people who devote their lives, more than anything, to political success would leave such a stone unturned. The platform reflected the manner in which Obama regards Israel, disdain tempered by desire for Jewish votes and money.

DemoCast has tracked Obama's alienating the US-Israel alliance, and movement towards Islamism over his term.  Here are several hours and dozens of clips worth of evidence:



Wayne Allen Root writes in Fox News:

Given the cold shoulder Obama has given Israel since his inauguration, it is not a major shock that he is the first US president to refuse to help Israel defend her citizens and national security. What is a major shock is his showing in no uncertain terms his bias against Israel’s right to defend herself BEFORE the election.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/04/why-obama-has-abandoned-israel-and-jews-should-abandon-obama/#ixzz25jlLKyH3

Sound the call against Obama Admin enabling Iran to nuclear-weaponize:Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen at Zionist Organization of America event

Rep. Michele Bachmann urged the Pentagon to develop a war plan “immediately” that would evaluate ways to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Zionist Organization of America Director Morton Klein
joined by Rep. Michelle Bachmann and honoree Glenn Beck

The Zionist Organization of America annual banquet featured Republican congresswomen Florida’s Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Minnesota's Rep. Michelle Bachmann joining against the Obama Administration's Middle East policies in concert with keynote speaker, GBTV's Glenn Beck.

Six Congressmen attended, including Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who called on President Barack Obama “to accelerate covert operations and cyber operations in Iran and order the CIA Director to take all means necessary to stop Iran from getting the bomb before it is too late,” said Bachmann, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

“And the Pentagon should prepare a war plan immediately to tell us what to do to prevent Iran from gaining those nuclear weapons,” she continued.

Z.O.A. reception (Courtesy: Pamela Geller)

In Prime Minister Netanyahu’s video message, he praised Z.O.A. Exec. Director Morton Klein for being a “passionate Zionist” and the ZOA for ”promoting the truth no matter what the consequences are."

Netanyahu also lauded Beck, telling him, “You too have been fearless in defending Israel against the slanders that are hurled against [it]. You’ve done that with considerable personal cost, but you’ve never backed off, you’ve never flinched, you’ve never walked away. And I want to tell you how deeply we appreciate this stand of courage and integrity.”

Glenn Beck portrayed the challenges facing Israel and the Jewish people in apocalyptic terms -- as the ultimate showdown between good and evil. Beck was the only speaker at the dinner whose voice reached a pitch more feverish than Klein’s.

Beck said he came to the ZOA as a brother. “It’s personal,” he said repeatedly.

And clearly he has not been chastened by the urgings of some Jewish groups to tread lightly with the Holocaust analogies. Again and again he invoked them, saying the world stood on a precipice like the one it faced in 1939 -- only this time it’s worse, as not only is the world ignoring rising evil, he said, it is actively helping it along.

(Full article from JTA)

Pro-liberty, pro-Israel activist who protested Sen.Obama at South Florida temple in '08 - seeks So. Fla votes to unseat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Bob Kunst stands-up against candidate Sen. Obama's prospective selling-out of America & Israel in May, 2008. He alone stood outside the Boca Raton synagogue where Obama was electioneering. Mr. Kunst endeavored to send a message to the journalists and the Jewish town-hall attendees - to vote against Obama to prevent him from weakening America and Israel against Marxists and Jihadists, externally and domestically.



Mr. Kunst's judgement may be seen as prophetic. Mr. Kunst is currently a candidate for the House of Representatives from South Florida's District 20, running as an Independent to unseat Obama-acolyte, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).