Levitt Letter Extra News

By Spengler, www.ATimes.com

These charts accompany the article on page 1 of the July ‘08 Levitt Letter.

The countries shown in the chart are:

             Suicide Rate      Fertility Rate
             (per 100,000)     (per 100,000)
Israel           6.2               2.77
United States    11                2.1
France           18                1.98
Iceland          12                1.91
Ireland           9.7              1.85
Denmark          13.6              1.74
Finland          20.3              1.73
Serbia           19.3              1.69
Sweden           13.2              1.67
Netherlands       9.3              1.66
United Kingdom    7                1.66
Canada           11.6              1.57
Portugal         11                1.49
Switzerland      17.4              1.44
Estonia          20.3              1.42
Croatia          19.6              1.41
Germany          13                1.41
Bulgaria         13                1.4
Russia           34.3              1.4
Austria          16.9              1.38
Greece            3.2              1.36
Hungary          27.7              1.34
Slovakia         13.3              1.34
Italy             7.1              1.3
Spain             8.2              1.3
Poland           15.9              1.27
Slovenia         25.6              1.27
Ukraine          23.8              1.25
Bosnia           11.8              1.24
Belarus          35.1              1.23
Czech Republic   15.5              1.23
Japan            24                1.22
Lithuania        40.2              1.22
Singapore        10.1              1.08
Hong Kong        18.6              1

By Janet Levy, ww.frontpagemag.com

The practice of political correctness may soon be tallying another casualty: the pig. Increasingly, as America and the rest of the Western world continue accommodating Muslim religious demands, pork food products are being singled out for removal from dining tables, and pig-related trinkets banished from the desks of office workers.

If this continues, good ol’ American food, such as the barbeque—replete with hot dogs and ribs—and the typical American breakfast of eggs, bacon, and sausage might be seen as the equivalent of political poison. Could outright censorship of pig depictions in drawings, pig references in literary works, and pig portrayals in movies be far behind? Could the well-known cartoon figure Porky Pig become a cultural embarrassment of our unenlightened past as we fear to utter the “P” word?

Though the notion may seem more appropriate for a comedy routine, an increasing number of pig-related incidents, accommodations, and Muslim demands in recent years points to an uncertain future for our porcine friend and its place in our economy, culture, and culinary traditions.

In October of 2005, the United Kingdom, clearly farther along than the rest of us on the road to dhimmitude due to its proportionally large and more radical Muslim population, banned piggybanks as promotional gifts from its banks. At about the same time, government social welfare offices called for the removal of all pig paraphernalia, including pig calendars, toys, and accessories from employee desks. These new regulations were ostensibly implemented so as not to offend Muslim patrons.

Meanwhile, in the United States in 2007, several school districts removed pork products from their cafeteria offerings. Dearborn, Michigan, schools banned pork completely to avoid the possibility that Muslims students might unknowingly eat it. The district later added special halal foods to its menu to cater to the demands of its Muslim population. An elementary school in San Diego that offers Arabic, single-gender classes, and Muslim-only organized prayer no longer offers pork to any of its students. And in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where the administration is debating elimination of Christmas holiday celebrations, pork has already been banished from the school lunchroom.
Orthodox Jews, who follow kosher laws that prohibit the consumption of pork, have never demanded such special considerations for their chosen dietary habits nor have Jews feared accidental pork ingestion. They privately moderate their consumption according to their religious observances and often consume food prepared at home according to prescribed regulations.
Contrast this to how Muslims and their dietary habits are treated. In April 2007, a 13-year-old middle school prankster was suspended and his behavior labeled a hate crime for placing a bag with a ham steak on the lunch table of a group of Muslim students. That same month, Muslims started a Facebook group, “Fight Against Pork in Frito-Lay Products.” The more than 1,800 participants sought to pressure the company to remove pork enzymes from its cheese seasonings.

Last year, Somali Muslim employees at a St. Louis Park, Minnesota, Target store refused to handle pork products, citing religious reasons. Target made special allowances for Muslim employees, who now scrutinize customer purchases and can call for assistance when a pork product appears at their check stand. Presumably, the Muslim employees knew they would be encountering bacon and pepperoni pizza when they signed on for their jobs and have no problem collecting a salary paid out of profits from pork sales.

In 2007, the Year of the Pig, an imam in Taipei complained after receiving a greeting card from Taiwan’s foreign minister depicting celebrating pigs. When “Year of the Pig” postal stamps were issued, the Taiwanese government cautioned citizens about using them on letters and parcels to Muslim friends or to Muslim countries. That year, China banned pig images and the mention of pigs in television advertisement to avoid offending the country’s Muslims.
This year, the popular story, The Three Little Pigs, was banned in a primary school in the United Kingdom as the school’s administration thought references to pigs might offend Muslim pupils. Another school removed all books containing stories about pigs, including the talking pig “Babe” from classrooms following complaints from Muslim parents. In 2007, a UK church school production of The Three Little Pigs was renamed The Three Little Puppies to maintain multi-cultural sensitivities. Ironically, the pig is mentioned often in the Koran as a derogatory reference to Jews.

In further accommodation to Muslims, Fortis Bank in the Netherlands and Belgium dropped its pig mascot. Knorbert the pig was eliminated after seven years with a statement from a bank spokesperson that “Knorbert does not meet the requirements that the multicultural society imposes on us.”

A recent BBC report described how pork butchers are gradually being put out of business as Turkey adopts a more fundamentalist Muslim character. Pork slaughterhouses are being closed in record numbers to accommodate sharia law countrywide.

In 2004, a Muslim-owned investment company, Arcapita (formerly Capital Crescent Investments) acquired the 1,200-unit Church’s Chicken chain. In 2005, Arcapita, with a net income of $70.5 million and assets worth $1.2 billion, enjoined a franchisee from selling pork products. In correspondence with the franchisee, the corporate owners cited violation of sharia law as the reason for prohibiting the sale of bacon, ham, and sausages. The restaurant owners were thereby forced to surrender to corporate demands and operate under sharia law.

Where will this end? Will “Animal Farm” be banned at our high schools and university campuses? Will the words “pork barrel spending” and “porker” be eliminated from the vernacular? Will the Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain be forced to change its name and re-brand its products? This could all be quite amusing if the implications weren’t so grave.

The pig is an icon of American culture, a culinary tradition, and an important component of our economy. While high grain prices and competition from Chinese imports are recognized as the two greatest threats to the industry, hog producers could be overlooking a larger threat to their livelihood looming on the horizon.

Pork production is a vital part of the U.S. economy, producing more than 22 billion pounds of meat annually, contributing almost $40 billion to the GDP and employing more than 500,000 workers in pork industry-related jobs. In addition, important pork co-products include heart valves, skin grafts for burn victims, gelatin, plywood, glue, cosmetics, and plastics. At 28% of total world production, the U.S. is the second largest pork producer after China, which produces close to 50% of the world total. Pork ranks third in U.S. meat production behind beef and chicken, and average yearly per capita consumption is about 50 pounds.

If the momentum to alter America’s dining habits and cultural traditions to suit Muslim religious habits continues, American liberty, freedom, and culture could actually be threatened. Laughable though it may seem on the surface, Arab petrodollar profits have the heft to use an economic backdoor approach to implement sharia law in the United States against the will of the public. As Arab Muslims continue to heavily invest in our economy, they will continue to force submission to sharia law and undermine our democracy, individual rights, and religious freedom. We must be vigilant and aware of this threat and act against it vigorously and immediately.

The world should appreciate what it has accomplished.
By Alan M. Dershowitz, www.CSMonitor.com

As Israel celebrates 60 years of nationhood and looks ahead to the next 60 years, the world should appreciate what the Jewish state has accomplished.

Built on the ashes of the Holocaust, Israel’s birth was followed by a massive attack from all sides by the surrounding Arab nations. Threatening another genocide, they managed to kill 1 percent of Israel’s population, but Israel survived – and even thrived.

In the years since, the Jewish nation has turned deserts into gardens, swamps into orchards, sand dunes into cities. Lacking the natural resources of its neighbors, Israel made the best of what it had. It became a high-tech giant, specializing in life-saving medical technology. Indeed, it ranks second only to the United States in NASDAQ listings.

Faced with barren land, Israel has also developed agricultural technologies that maximize food production, and exported these life-saving and life-enhancing technologies to the rest of the world.

This young nation has also produced more art, literature, music, academic articles, and books than most countries triple its size. As Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in an otherwise critical article in The Atlantic:

“Israel is, by almost any measure, an astonishing success. It has a large, sophisticated, and growing economy … the finest universities and medical centers in the Middle East; and a main city, Tel Aviv, that is a center of art, fashion, cuisine, and high culture spread along a beautiful Mediterranean beach. Israel has shown itself, with notable exceptions, to be adept at self-defense, and capable (albeit imperfectly) of protecting civil liberties during wartime…. Zionism may actually be the most successful national liberation movement of the 20th century.”

Israel’s Arab citizens, numbering 1.2 million, live longer, healthier lives, and have lower infant mortality, better educational opportunities, and more basic liberties than the Arab population of neighboring states.

Even in its efforts to defend itself from aggression – it was attacked by Arab states in 1948, 1967, and 1973 – Israel has exemplified restraint and high ethical standards.

Although Tel Aviv was bombed by the Egyptian Air Force in 1948, Jerusalem was rocketed by Jordan in 1967, and several Israeli cities were threatened by Syria in 1967, Israel never bombed Cairo, Amman, or Damascus. (It did attack terrorist bases in the suburbs of Beirut in 2006.)

In its efforts to protect against terrorists, it has also complied with a high standard of human rights, even while its enemies have targeted Israeli civilians while deliberately hiding behind human shields in densely populated civilian areas.

When I speak at university campuses, I issue the following challenge: Name a country, faced with comparable threats to its own citizens, that has ever tried harder to comply with the rule of law or human rights than Israel.

No one has ever named such a country, nor could they. Certainly not the United States, which repeatedly bombed enemy cities (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Tokyo, Cologne). Certainly not Britain, which in addition to bombing cities fought one of the dirtiest colonial wars in Kenya. Certainly not France, which also fought a brutal colonial war in Algeria. Not Russia. Not China.

This is not to say that Israel’s actions have always been commendable. They have not. Israel deserves perhaps a grade of B-minus, but in a world where ‘C,’ ‘D,’ and ‘F’ is common, that’s pretty good.

Yet, despite this remarkable history of achievement, not only for its own people, but for the world in general, Israel remains a pariah nation.

It is reviled by the United Nations, which helped create it, and by a large number of the world’s countries and people. It has been condemned by the General Assembly more than all the other nations of the world combined – a world that includes such tyrannies as North Korea, Iran, Cuba, China, Syria, Libya, Belarus, and Saudi Arabia. It has been subject to calls for academic boycotts, despite having one of the highest levels of academic freedom in the world. It has been threatened with divestment, though it exports more life-saving technology per capita than any nation on earth.

What explains this vast disparity between Israel’s accomplishments and the near-universal condemnation it has received? When one of the world’s best nations is condemned as the worst, we must consider the motives of those who are condemning.

Let me be crystal clear: I am not suggesting that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. To the contrary, criticism of Israeli policies and actions is healthy. I have been on the forefront of criticizing Israel for establishing civilian settlements on the West Bank. Within Israel itself, criticisms of Israeli policies and actions are pervasive. Just read the Israeli press. Or attend the numerous antigovernment demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. What I am talking about is not criticism of Israel but rather demonization, delegitimization, and disproportionate attacks that go to the very essence of the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

Consider the following question: Would any other country that struggles so hard for its survival, while at the same time trying so hard to remain within the rule of law, be subject to the kind of irrational hatred to which the Jewish nation is exposed? Is the Jewish nation now being treated with the same irrationality with which “the Jews” have been treated for centuries? This is the daunting question that must be faced by those who single out Israel for unique condemnation as it celebrates 60 years of unequaled accomplishments.

Imagine how much more Israel could contribute to the welfare of the world during the next 60 years if it were blessed with peace and were allowed to turn its swords into plowshares!

• Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School.