How can it be possible for Western media to ignore the highest ideal in Israeli society, which is to save a life?

How can it be possible for Western media to ignore the highest ideal in Arab society, which is to TAKE a life?

Does the truth mean so little to these people?

What an amazing reflection on Western culture. We actively ignore the vilest, most awful examples of depravity in Israel’s enemies while vilifying and calling awful, EVERYTHING about Israeli society.

If we didn’t accept this stuff as fact, they wouldn’t be able to make any money.

Hmmmm….

Which might account for the reason why so many of these media outlets are losing money.

Maybe there’s hope for us, after all.

Terrifying Video Shows Young Saudi Arabian Man Auctioned Off as ‘Sacred Sacrifice’

May 17, 2012 by Mytheos Holt, The Blaze

Picture this: A festive, affluent gathering of rich men, many dressed in flowing white robes, in a country dominated by religious fervor. In their midst stands a father, whose son stands next to him, impassive in a black uniform as the father declares that the son shall be a “sacred sacrifice” just like his brothers. A chatty auctioneer then begins to open bidding for the young man’s life, all while people cheerfully shout out bids, and the father looks on in pride.

If you thought this scene took place in some sort of horrific, pre-medieval time, long before the advent of running water, video cameras or the internet, then we’re sorry to report that you were completely mistaken. Not only is this scene not from an ancient and rightly defunct civilization, but it actually took place this year, in the back yard of a country that the United States still considers an ally. Specifically, it took place early this year in Saudi Arabia, and was caught on-camera in a Youtube video that is going viral due to the horrific nature of what is depicted.

If you have a strong stomach, you can watch the video below, courtesy of Gateway Pundit:

The “auction” in question bears very little context, but a few disturbing details should suffice to explain it. We know that the young man being offered up for auction is quite literally being offered up as a suicide bomber – a “martyr” or “sacrifice” for Islam. As to why he’s being auctioned off, this event is sort of a twisted charity auction to compensate the father for his loss. That’s right – this man is literally selling his son’s life in order to get money to live off of.

For those of you who don’t want to watch through the video, we’ll spoil the ending. The final bid is the Saudi equivalent of roughly $400,000 – far less than the settlement numbers on most wrongful death lawsuits in the United States. Apparently, devaluing human life means diminishing market returns for the sort of monsters who want to sell their own children into suicide.

I got some flack from the peanut gallery back in February when I posted that Nearly 53% of Israeli Arabs are proud to be Israeli. Not only did some not believe it… they didn’t WANT to believe it.

There really are idiots out there who want the conflicts in the Middle East to continue.

Well, here’s a little bit of extra support for those statistics. There is a new party forming, of Israeli Arabs who are pro-Israel. This will probably take some votes away from Likud and Kadima, but the idea that there’s a political party in Israel, of Arabs that are pro-Israel…

That is just completely awesome.

God bless you guys!

Israeli Arab to form new pro-Israel party

Founder of party tentatively labeled Israeli-Arab Nationalist Party says other Arab parties serve only Palestinians.

By Gil Hoffman, 04/27/2012 | The Jerusalem Post

Move over Balad, Hadash and the United Arab List-Ta’al.

In the next general election, there will be a new Arab party. But what is tentatively labeled the Israeli-Arab Nationalist Party will be very different from the current Arab factions in the Knesset.

While those factions’ MKs have been criticized for being too extreme and vocal in their criticism of the Jewish state, the new party will be unabashedly pro-Israel and take a very different approach.

“Most Arab citizens are in favor of coexisting, cooperating and living in harmony with Jewish Israelis,” the party’s founder, Sarhan Bader, told The Jerusalem Post. “The other Arab parties place too much emphasis on the Palestinians and external Arabs. But it’s more important to serve the Arabs inside Israel who want to live here in peace with our Jewish cousins. After we solve the problems of internal Arabs, we can help the Palestinians.”

Bader said he would fight for the rights of Israeli Arabs and fair expression for his sector, which he said totaled 22 percent of the population. He said his party would represent its constituency better than the current Arab parties, in part because he intends to join the coalition, which no Arab party has ever done.

“To serve the Arabs properly, it’s important to work together with the ruling party in the coalition,” he said. “The Druse MKs who are part of the coalition [in Likud, Yisrael Beytenu and the Independence Party] help their constituency a hundred times more than every Arab MK in the opposition. I will dramatically improve things for the Arab sector.”

Bader, 36, has been involved in local politics for many years in Nahaf, his Upper Galilee village.

Out of a belief that large ruling parties can be more effective, he was a member of the Likud before deciding that the formation of a pro-Israel Arab party was more urgent.

Asked if backing Likud caused him problems, he admitted that he had encountered hostility but said he always resolutely defended his politics.

Bader’s behavior reached the Prime Minister’s Office, which encouraged him to form the party that may end up acting as an Arab satellite party of Likud.

“Only a strong party like Likud can bring peace,” he said. “It’s true historically.

Read the rest of the article here.

It’s called Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance), and I’ve been through 15 of those. When the sirens wail it’s as if you can, for just a moment, touch those who paid the price for Israel’s freedom, and feel the anguish of those who laid to rest their sons and daughters.

I cannot think of too many things more horrifying than for a father to bury his son.

Why am I writing about this now?

I’m not sure.

It wasn’t a good week.

But, I was reminded of my failure when Barry Rubin ended his opinion piece yesterday with these words:

In all of this and throughout the nation on this day, there was not a word of hatred, of reviling any enemy. No smugness of triumph, no desire for conquest; no thirst for revenge or punishment. Thus behaves the world’s most slandered nation.

 - The Region: Frozen in Time

A nation like this is truly a nation worth dying for.

The Region: Frozen in time

By Barry Rubin, 04/29/2012 | JPost.com

There was not a word of hatred, of reviling any enemy. No smugness of triumph, no desire for conquest; no thirst for revenge or punishment. Thus behaves the world’s most slandered nation.

As we set out down Tel Aviv’s Ibn Gvirol Street to the Herzliya Gymnasia high school, all the stores were closing. The police cordoned off the street to vehicles and, as on Yom Kippur, hundreds of people strolled down the middle of the pavement. Past the city hall, where a concert was starting up, we passed by the small memorial of restless stones that marks the place where prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.

That night in November 1995, I’d come home from the peace rally that had turned into a mass of mourners when the news spread that Rabin had been murdered a few meters away. I walked, crying, into the small room, then a family room and now our office, where I’m writing this. Our daughter sat on my wife’s lap.

Now our daughter is 17 years old, playing a leading role in her school’s Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration program. In the school’s courtyard, plastic chairs have been set down tightly, arm to arm, for about 1,000 people.

All of them are full. The front two rows are reserved for the school’s graduates who now are in the army and the parents of those former students who have fallen.

At precisely 8 p.m., with an un- Israeli sense of discipline, everyone rose at the same moment as the sirens went off. Those are the same sirens as the ones I heard signaling incoming Iraqi missiles almost a quarter-century earlier. A flag is slowly lowered to half-mast. The father of one slain soldier-graduate says Kaddish; a cantor chants the “El Maleh Rahamim” prayer, modified for the occasion but rooted in the prayer for those martyred a thousand years ago in Europe by the pogroms accompanying the Crusades.

These are the parts of the program repeated every year. It is possible that such things would grow stale and routine. But they don’t.

They are simply – literally – too close to home; too fresh in the mind and raw in the emotions. For all of these students will have to serve, too. And every citizen – not just every soldier – is a potential target.

Read the rest of the article here.

But, that’s not true. They go hand in hand. Without fear there can be no courage because courage is the…

mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficult

 - Merriam-Webster

Or the…

willingness to act in the face of fear

- me

If you don’t have courage, fear leads to all kinds of things like cognitive dissonance , which is the…

psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously

- Merriam-Webster

But, that definition doesn’t talk about fear. What is the connection between cognitive dissonance and courage?

Well, if you’re afraid, you have a choice. You can acknowledge your fear and respond. Or, you can reject the fact that you have anything to be afraid of – and do all kinds of crazy stuff, in the process.

You can guess what most of America is doing today.

Israel is not.

Do you want to see Arabs living free?

You have to come to Israel.

Do you want to see Arabs living in peace and prosperity?

You have to come to Israel.

Do you want to see Christians living in the Middle East without fear of persecution?

You have to come to Israel.

Do you want to see Jews living without fear of persecution?

You have to come to Israel (or the US).

You can find these things nowhere else in the Middle East. And, in some cases, you cannot find this anywhere else in the world.

Israel truly is an amazing place. It truly is what’s right about the Middle East.

You should try it sometime.

The above video is a presentation of jerusalemonlineu.com.