September 11 and Seeing the Writing on the Wall

Sept. 11 2017

Reflecting on this dark anniversary in American history, Clifford May thinks back to a conversation he had in early September 2001 with the late Congressman Jack Kemp and the late diplomat and political scientist Jeane Kirkpatrick.:

[Kemp and Kirkpatrick] told me they were concerned that, with the cold war concluded, the United States had taken a holiday from history and a premature peace dividend. [For] who attacked us in Beirut in 1983, in New York City in 1993, at Khobar Towers in 1996? Who bombed two of our embassies in Africa in 1998 and the USS Cole in 2000?

The answers, respectively: Hizballah, a group connected to al-Qaeda, Hizballah again, and al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, Israel was being hit by waves of suicide bombers and too many people seemed to be saying, “Well, you know, the Palestinians have grievances.” When did grievances become a license for murdering other people’s children? And those who harbor grievances against America—will we excuse the violence they inflict on us, too?

They asked me to do a bit of research, to determine whether any serious attempts were being made to understand what was happening and to devise policies to defend America and other democratic societies effectively from terrorists, their masters, and their financiers. . . .

As became all too clear a few days later, too few attempts had been made. May concludes:

Sixteen Septembers ago, enemies emerged out of a clear, blue, late summer sky. In truth, of course, the storm had been gathering for decades.

Read more at Washington Times

More about: 9/11, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Palestinian terror, Politics & Current Affairs, U.S. Foreign policy, War on Terror

Western Europe’s Failures Led to the Pogrom in Amsterdam

Nov. 11 2024

In 2013, Mosaic—then a brand-new publication—published an essay by the French intellectual Michel Gurfinkiel outlining the dark future that awaited European Jewry. It began with a quote from the leader of the Jewish community of Versailles: “My feeling is that our congregation will be gone within twenty or thirty years.” The reasons he, and Gurfinkiel, felt this way were on display in Amsterdam Thursday night. Michael Murphy writes:

For years, Holland and other European countries have invited vast numbers of people whose values and culture are often at odds with their own. This was a bold experiment made to appear less hazardous through rose-tinted spectacles. Europeans thought vainly that because we had largely set aside ethno-sectarian politics after the atrocities of the 20th century that others would do the same once they arrived. But they have not.

Perhaps the most unsettling part of this self-described “Jew hunt,” which left five people hospitalized, was the paltry response of the Dutch police. Reports suggest officers failed to act swiftly and, in some cases, to act at all. “I and two others ran to the nearest police station, but they didn’t open the door,” one of the victims claimed.

One hopes there is a reasonable explanation for this. Yet Amsterdam’s police force—with its increasingly diverse make-up—may have had other reasons for their reluctance to intervene. Last month, the Dutch Jewish Police Network warned that some officers “no longer want to protect Jewish targets or events,” vaguely citing “moral dilemmas.”

Read more at National Post

More about: Amsterdam, Anti-Semitism, European Islam, European Jewry