US premiere of "Israel Indivisible"- biography of ancient-through-modern Israel, draws Michael Medved to keynote

"Indivisible" Film Tackles Crusade to Destroy Israel- Chris Mitchell at Ariel, Israel premiere (courtesy CBN News)



Michael Medved, radio host, author, and film critic addresses the U.S. premiere of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations' "Israel Indivisible" at National Religious Broadcasters Conference in Nashville, Feb 23, 2014.

Video: "The Middle East Today: A post-Arab-spring analysis" from AIPAC Policy Conference. Bret Stephens, Robert Satloff, & Amos Harel (Ha'aretz)

"The Middle East Today: A post-Arab-spring analysis" from the most recent AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, March 2013.

Robert Satloff: Executive Director, Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Amos Harel: Ha'aretz newspaper, military correspondent and defense analyst
Bret Stephens: Foreign affairs columnist & Editorial Board member, The Wall St. Journal
Moderator: David Victor: former President, AIPAC



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Audience questions and panelists' answers 

Prof. Barry Rubin's death revives interest in video interview about his views on west's Mid-East policies

Barry Rubin, a prominent Middle East policy analyst, died in
Israel on Monday following an 18-month struggle with lung cancer. Prof. Rubin survived just past his 64th birthday.  He is survived by his journalist wife, Judith Colp Rubin, and their daughter and son.

Barry Rubin’s reach in the world of Middle East scholarship was broad and deep.  He served as director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, a columnist at The Jerusalem Post, the editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs and a contributor to the PJ Media website.

History-buff Rubins participated in Civil War re-enactments

Rubin, a D.C. native, had been a Fulbright scholar and a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received his doctorate from Georgetown University in 1978. He was a noted skeptic of Palestinian nationalism, saying that Islamism was too deeply embedded in the region to accommodate a true peace with Israel.


“Clearly, the Obama administration does not understand Middle Eastern regimes and terrorist organizations, and if it doesn’t, it will meet miserable defeats,” he wrote on Jan. 12 at PJMedia.

His passing revives interest in his ideas. We re-publish an article of Mr. Rubin's on the Obama administration's Middle East policy, supplemented with a TV interview he did with us in 2011.

"The Solution: How to Deal with Obama Middle-East Policy" by Barry Rubin 

It is likely that the efforts of the Obama Administration during its second term will fail, not only because of its lack of understanding of the region and its ideology, but also due to the specific agenda.  No Middle Eastern country (only hostile ones or movements) can depend on the United States.  And to clarify this further:  No country -- including Israel -- can depend on the Obama Administration.

But as I noted above, this U.S. policy of Obama’s second term will fail. For example, the main goals of the second term are four big issues:

1)  Israel-Palestinian peace

2) Egypt government coalition with Muslim Brotherhood

3) Syrian civil war resolution with rebel victory

4)  U.S.-Iran rapprochement resolving nuclear issue.

Video 1- Leftist journalistic-bias intentionally whitewashes malevolence of Muslim Brotherhood

Yet because of irreconcilable differences, these may well be unresolvable. Due to such failures and hardline radical positions (Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, Syrian Islamists and regime, Iranian regime), the next administration would probably be forced back on recognition of extremism, support of allies, and U.S. interests.

Thus, regarding the “peace process,” we may well see the typical pattern in which the Palestinians wreck the peace process by rejecting or demanding even more concessions. Once again, it will only be necessary to wait until American negotiators learn better why their goals are impossible. Radicals will just raise their demands and demonstrate their anti-Americanism, and necessary priorities will shift.

Brigitte Gabriel & Dr. Mordechai Kedar slam administration's Islamism-fighting competencies

Brigitte Gabriel & Mordechai Kedar: Obama administration continue to misjudge and mis-play Middle East strategies.

Israeli-Arabist professor Mordechai Kedar and Lebanese-born, human-rights activist, Brigitte Gabrielle of Act! for America appeared on The Rick Amato Show on AWE TV on January 21, 2014.



The issues they address range from Obama's mocking al-Qaeda's resurgence as a "junior varsity team," to congressmen impeding establishing a Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi debacle, to the administration's  de-nuclear weaponizing strategy of embracing Islamist Iran at the expense of its Mid-East allies, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Gulf emirates.

"The Whistle-Blower Who Freed Dreyfus"- died 100 years ago today- from Robert Harris in The N.Y. Times

Essential reading from author, Robert Harris, in NY Times op/ed: 

The Opinion Pages|OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

The Whistle-Blower Who Freed Dreyfus

By ROBERT HARRISJAN. 17, 2014

Unlike his 21st-century counterparts Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, Picquart was neither a disaffected nor a junior figure in the organization he was to expose. On the contrary: In October 1894 he was a brilliant, rising army officer. One of his steppingstones to advancement had been a professorship at the École Supérieure de Guerre, and one of the officer-cadets he had taught there was a Jewish artillery captain, Alfred Dreyfus.

KINTBURY, England — Georges Picquart died 100 years ago this Saturday. To which the response from most quarters is likely to be “Georges who?” Even in his native France, his centenary is passing largely unremarked. Yet in the days of Queen Victoria and Theodore Roosevelt, Picquart was a figure of global controversy, revered and reviled in equal measure as the world’s most famous whistle-blower.

Picquart, like many of his contemporaries, was casually anti-Semitic. It came as no surprise to him when Dreyfus — the only Jew on the general staff — was suspected of passing secret intelligence to the Germans. It was Picquart who provided a sample of Dreyfus’s handwriting to the investigators. And when expert analysis seemed to confirm Dreyfus’s guilt, it was Picquart who met his unsuspecting former pupil in the Ministry of War so he could be quietly bundled off to prison.

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Mark Long

Robert Harris is the author of a forthcoming novel about Georges Picquart, “An Officer and a Spy.”  Read original article.

Why do Communists persecute Falun Gong Buddhists? Son of jailed persecuted Falun Gong practioner explains their plight

What's so objectionable to Communist China about "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance?" Falun Gong or Falun Dafa (literally means "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 through public lectures by its founder, Li Hongzhi.

It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with a moral philosophy. Falun Gong emphasizes morality and the cultivation of virtue in its central tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance (Chinese: 真、善、忍), and identifies as a qigong practice of the Buddhist school, though its teachings also incorporate elements drawn from Taoist traditions. Through moral rectitude and the practice of meditation, practitioners of Falun Gong aspire to better health and, ultimately, spiritual enlightenment.