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July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

June 13, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine

Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends

JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 12, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

June 11, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'

JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination

June 6, 2008

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem

Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs

JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 5, 2008

David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'

Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread

JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 4, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'

Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus

JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler

June 3, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel

JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?

He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review January 15, 2008 / 8 Shevat 5768

Globaloney

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There is something surreal about the spectacle of President Bush touring the Persian Gulf. It calls to mind the signature line of Mad Magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman: "What, me worry?"


Mr. Bush's trip is, after all, premised on the notion that the Arab leaders he is courting there are reliable allies. Such a proposition should be subjected to the closest of critical scrutiny by Congress, the press and the American electorate since a number of highly debatable, and increasingly portentous, policies are predicated on this assumption. These include:


Saudi Arabia and the other, smaller desert principalities are "moderates" who are as opposed as we to the totalitarian political agenda of fanatical ideologues such as Osama bin Laden.

The Gulfies share our concern about the rising power of Iran and therefore can be counted upon to join us in countering that region's would-be Islamofascist superpower. It follows not only that we can safely provide these autocracies with an array of advanced weapons, but we must do so.

The Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf will be helpful in brokering a peace between Palestinians and Israelis - if only the United States pressures the Jewish State to make territorial and other concessions that may imperil the latter. And,

The willingness of the Gulf's potentates to recycle the immense wealth they have accumulated in recent years - primarily through oil sales at exorbitantly inflated prices - to purchase big stakes in U.S. companies and capital markets is a welcome development. Such investment is to be encouraged, and those who say otherwise should be condemned as "Chicken Little xenophobes" in the words of former GE chairman Jack Welch and his wife, Suzy.


In fact, the Welch tag-team used a January 21 Business Week column to admonish a letter-writer worried about Arab and other sovereign wealth funds buying up American corporations: "In trying times, U.S. companies always attract opportunistic, activist shareholders. Sometimes they look like Carl Icahn or Nelson Peltz. Sometimes they look like shiny-faced hedge fund managers just out of Wharton or Harvard Business School. And sometimes - like now - they look Chinese or Saudi or whatever. It doesn't matter. They're all after the same thing: the opportunities in America's capitalistic market."


Unfortunately, this confidence in the inexorable forces of "globalization" is as misplaced in the case of the so-called "pro-Western" Arab states as are the other assumptions driving American policy towards the region at the moment. To be sure, at least some of those to whom President Bush has been paying court in recent days are genuinely desirous of American protection, arms, pressure on Israel and investment opportunities. But to confuse such short-term, expediency-driven common interests with a durable strategic partnership is, for want of a better term, globaloney.


A litmus test of the true intentions of the Saudis and other oil-rich Arab fiefdoms can be found in an initiative moving forward in Western capital markets - including, increasingly those of the United States - in parallel with their sovereign wealth investments in major financial institutions and exchanges: Shariah finance.


As my colleague, Alex Alexiev, has noted in an important analysis of this phenomenon, Shariah finance is an invention of the Muslim Brotherhood, not the Koran; it dates back to the 1920s, not the seventh century. This Islamist invention is designed to promote and underwrite that ideology's political agenda of ghettoizing and dominating Muslim populations - and, in due course, non-Muslim ones.


Forcing American enterprises to offer products Islamist "Shariah advisors" deem to comply with their political-religious-legal code is a Trojan horse for legitimating that code, Shariah, as practiced by the Saudi, Taliban, Sudanese and Iranian regimes. It enriches and gives enormous influence to these advisor/ideologues and affords them new opportunities to drive millions (if not billions) in tithing and profits to so-called Islamist "charities" and other enemies of the West.


Encouragement of this cancer by Saudi and like-minded investors inside the West's capitalist system is one of the ominous facts that belies the benign nostrums about globalization and the Persian Gulf served up by the likes of Mr. and Mrs. Welch, and embraced by the Bush Administration. Shariah finance is a prime indicator of why real care must be exercised about arming its proponents, weakening our ally - Israel - at their behest and encouraging their strategic penetration of our markets.


With respect to the latter, this would seem to be an ideal time for increased scrutiny of Gulf states' purchases of American companies. Last year, in the wake of the firestorm concerning Dubai's proposed take-over of American ports, Congress enacted legislation to strengthen the hand of security-minded federal agencies involved in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Heretofore, CFIUS has been a notorious rubber-stamp even for transactions involving deeply problematic foreigners, as long as they bring cash. Incredibly, the Bush Administration is reportedly poised to adopt implementing regulations that will effectively gut this legislation - and compound CFIUS' past, toothless oversight.


A Democratic-led Congress returns to work this week. In 2006, its leaders promised that, if given a chance to run Capitol Hill again, they would restore the constitutionally mandated concept of checks-and-balances. Arguably, the practice of that principle of divided government has never been more needed than with respect to the all-too-prevalent, "What, me worry?" attitude in Washington about the true nature, reliability and ulterior motives of our "friends" in the Persian Gulf.


Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. heads the Center for Security Policy. Comments by clicking here.

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