World Events' Link Archive – Analysis
Greta Thunberg: A Living Explanation of the Left (JWR 12/31/2019)
| • | There are two primary reasons it is so difficult, if not impossible, to define leftism. | |
| • | One is that it ultimately stands for chaos: | |
| • | — Nonsensical and scatological "art." | |
| • | — "Music" without tonality, melody or harmony. | |
| • | — Drag Queen Story Hour for 5-year-olds. | |
| • | — Rejection of the concept of better or worse civilizations. | |
| • | — Rejection of the concept of better or worse art. | |
| • | — Removal of Shakespeare's picture from a university English department because he was a white male. | |
| • | — The end of all use of fossil fuels — even in transportation (as per the recent recommendation by the head of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization). | |
| • | — The dismantling of capitalism, the economic engine that has lifted billions of people out of abject poverty. | |
| • | The other major reason it is impossible to define leftism is that it is emotion-based. | |
| • | Leftism consists of causes that give those who otherwise lack meaning something to cling to for meaning. | |
| • | With regard to chaos, here is what Greta Thunberg wrote at the beginning of the month: "The climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice and of political will. Colonial, racist and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fuelled it. We need to dismantle them all." | |
| • | Greta Thunberg, like all leftists, seeks to dismantle just about everything. As former President Barack Obama said five days before the 2008 election, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." | |
| • | "Greta Thunberg's father has opened up about how activism helped his daughter out of depression ... how activism had changed the outlook of the teenager, who suffered from depression for 'three or four years' before she began her school strike protest outside the Swedish parliament. She was now 'very happy', he said ... 'She stopped talking ... she stopped going to school,' he said of her illness." | |
| • | The fact is life is better, safer and more affluent, and offers more opportunities for more people, than ever before in history. | |
| • | Just about all emotionally stable, mature people should be walking around the West almost delirious at their good fortune. | |
| • | Americans in particular should feel this way. | |
| • | But leftists (again, as opposed to many liberals) are not usually emotionally stable and are certainly not mature. | |
| • | Feminism and "fighting patriarchy" (in an age when American women have more opportunities than ever before and more opportunities than women almost anywhere else in the world), fighting racism (in the least racist multiracial society in history), fighting white supremacy (which has almost disappeared from American life) and fighting on behalf of myriad other leftist causes — in other words, fundamentally transforming society — gives meaning to people with no meaning. | |
| • | None of that is morally or rationally coherent. | |
| • | But it is very emotionally satisfying. Just ask Greta Thunberg's dad. | |
Iranian-backed attack on American Embassy in Iraq increases risk of US-Iran military conflict (Fox 12/31/2019)
| • | The protesters chanted "Death to America," threw rocks and called for a withdrawal of the more than 5,000 U.S. troops now stationed in Iraq – a long-sought goal of Iran's anti-American regime. | |
| • | Job One for the U.S. military is keeping Americans and the embassy secure. | |
| • | Some 120 Marines were sent to the embassy to provide increased security and U.S. helicopter gunships flew over the compound. | |
| • | If needed, U.S. forces can and no doubt will impose calm on downtown Baghdad. | |
| • | It's actually Iraq's duty to protect the U.S, Embassy. | |
| • | In one tweet Trump said "we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified." | |
| • | Later Trump tweeted: "Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!" | |
| • | This is all happening because Iraq is infested with Iranian influence. | |
| • | The power of that influence was clear when at first Iraqi police and security forces stood by while the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad began Tuesday – just as Iran planned. | |
| • | Iran has a grip on Iraq's police and military response. And Iranian officers have free rein across much of Iraq's state apparatus... | |
| • | Iraq's military has been thoroughly trained and supplied by the U.S. and other allies for years. | |
| • | Yet the failure of Iraqi forces to act against Iranian-backed militia forces in recent weeks has been similar to the paralysis that let ISIS sweep to the outskirts of Baghdad in the summer of 2014. | |
| • | Iraq has lost control to the point where Iran can mount harassing attacks on U.S. forces all over the country. | |
| • | American troops in Iraq were attacked 11 times in the past two months, according to the Pentagon. | |
| • | Trump had already waited weeks for Iraq to deal with these hostile acts. | |
| • | Iraq's own military would not or could not hit the KH Iran proxy gang that launched over 30 rockets at an Iraqi base where U.S. forces were stationed Saturday, killing one American and wounding four. | |
| • | Since Iraq couldn't cope, Trump approved the Sunday strikes by U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles, hitting weapons caches linked to the KH Iran proxy gang. | |
| • | The airstrikes also help remind Iran that America is willing to take military action. | |
| • | Long-term, Iran's guilt in the attack on the American Embassy in Baghdad shows why Trump has been right to impose maximum economic sanctions to pressure Iran, and why he insists on dismantling Iran's `terror network as well as its nuclear ambitions. | |
Jim Hanson: US should attack Iran in response to attack on our embassy in Iraq (Fox 12/31/2019)
| • | Once again, a U.S. embassy has come under an attack orchestrated by Iranian terrorists – but this time it is our embassy in Baghdad in Iraq rather than in the Iranian capital of Tehran as in 1979, when Iranian revolutionaries captured the U.S. Embassy and held 52 American hostage for 444 days. | |
| • | "Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many," the president tweeted. "We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!" | |
| • | Both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said the U.S. will consider attacks by Iran's proxies as if they came from Iran directly and respond accordingly. | |
| • | Now Iran has upped the ante and attacked the United States directly at our embassy in Iraq. | |
| • | It would be entirely justified for U.S. forces to now make another larger set of strikes against the Iranian militias in Iraq, especially those with large numbers of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps officers and equipment. | |
| • | They are the active menace and must be brought under control if Iraq is ever to be free of Iranian meddling. | |
| • | But a better way to show Iran that we consider the embassy attack a massive miscalculation would be to destroy much of the Iranian Navy. | |
| • | This would simultaneously remove Iran as a major threat to shipping in the region and would serve as a warning that we mean it when we say we hold the regime in Tehran responsible for the acts of its puppets. | |
| • | "Iran has fully undermined Iraq's sovereignty, leading these demonstrations. U.S. requires a new Iraq strategy." | |
| • | The intolerable assault on our embassy in Iraq is the result of the ill-advised decision to allow the virulently anti-American Iranian regime to build militias in Iraq to defeat the ISIS terrorist group. | |
| • | We must ensure that the Islamic Republic of Iran does not prevail in its quest for power and does not turn neighboring Iraq into a vassal state. | |
| • | ... the mullahs who rule Iran have unleashed all the proxy forces they built in Iraq to fight ISIS and are using the forces to crush Iraqi patriots and exert control. | |
| • | This has been brewing since President Barack Obama decided to cut and run from Iraq after our victory there 10 years ago. | |
| • | Obama's premature withdrawal left a vacuum in Iraq that was filled by Iran and ISIS. | |
| • | Inevitably, we had to return and destroy the evil ISIS caliphate, but in doing so we allowed Iran to build and consolidate power over many militias that now are openly attacking us. | |
| • | Our devil's bargain to use these militias as the shock troops in our counter-ISIS fight was another bad decision favoring Iran that was made by the Obama team in its misguided belief Iran could be a partner for peace. | |
| • | Just as it did in signing the ill-conceived nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama team naively believed that if America extended a hand of friendship to Iran the Islamic Republic would extend a hand of friendship to us. | |
| • | Instead, the Iranians have greeted us with an angry fist, seeing any U.S. concessions as a sign of weakness. | |
| • | Angry at the Trump administration for backing out of the deeply flawed nuclear deal and restoring economic sanctions on their country, the Iranian leaders are determined to cause as much trouble in their region as they can in hopes of pressuring President Trump to ease sanctions. | |
| • | Part of that pressure is seeking to turn Iraq from an American ally into an Iranian one. | |
| • | It is tempting to say we should wash our hands of the mess in Iraq and Iran and bring all our troops home and focus on domestic challenges. | |
| • | But that is a path to a nuclear-armed Iran dominating the region. | |
| • | We have avoided years of Iranian provocations. While war is not our desire, weakness now invites a large and costly war later. | |
| • | We must show the brutal Iranian regime and all the people in the region and the world, the U.S. is the strong horse. | |
| • | That is the only path to lasting peace. | |
Joe Kent: After airstrikes in Iraq, here is the way forward in Mideast for US (Fox 12/31/2019)
| • | If you have not paid attention to Iraq beyond the fight against ISIS, having Iraqis lay siege to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad may seem surprising. | |
| • | They are protesting the recent series of airstrikes the U.S. conducted against the Iranian proxy in Iraq, Katib Al-Hizballah. | |
| • | That group had conducted multiple rocket attacks on U.S. installations in Iraq in the last two months, with the most recent killing a U.S. contractor. | |
| • | Our retaliatory strikes were labeled a violation of Iraqi sovereignty by the Iraqi government and key members of the Iraqi government have vowed to strike the U.S. again. | |
| • | These events come as a surprise because the U.S. national security establishment has told us that despite the controversial beginnings of the Iraq conflict, we were successful at building a real government that can be a strategic partner in the region. | |
| • | To quickly make a government we allowed Shia exiles and Iranian proxies into the Iraqi government and turned a blind eye to Iran's control of the Iraqi state. | |
| • | The premise of the invasion was debunked early on and we lost almost 5,000 Americans and spent about a trillion dollars to get Iraq somewhat stable and needed something to show for it. | |
| • | But the stability we sold as a victory from 2008-2013 was just a tactical pause in the Sunni vs. Shia civil war that solidified Iran's control. | |
| • | The Obama administration was eager to continue this lie because it allowed us to withdraw from Iraq with the fig leaf of success. | |
| • | Iran's proxies wanted to make sure that we left on schedule and killed nearly 30 U.S. service members between May and August 2011 to ensure we left by the end of that year. | |
| • | The Obama administration had no desire to confront Iranian aggression; they valued cutting the so-called Iran deal above all other security priorities in the region. | |
| • | Iraq's Sunnis proved they were not defeated and would not live under Shia control when ISIS invaded Iraq in 2014. | |
| • | The Iraqi army promptly fled their posts, abandoned their U.S. weaponry and handed large swaths of northern and western Iraq to ISIS. | |
| • | This was a major blow to the narrative that Iraq was a real country with a real army. | |
| • | To replenish its defeated military, the Iraqi government allowed Shia militants to become part of the Iraqi security forces... | |
| • | When the U.S. returned to Iraq In 2015, not only did we have to re-equip the Iraqi army but we outfitted Iran's proxies as well. Long-term considerations took second place to the priority of stopping ISIS immediately. | |
| • | ... Iranian masters were more than happy to let us crush ISIS but they don't want us in Iraq long-term unless they can provoke us into a confrontation. | |
| • | So what options do we have? Do we stay and play tit-for-tat strikes until we find ourselves further entrenched in Middle Eastern wars, this time against the Iraqi forces we just equipped? | |
| • | We cannot forget that we hold the upper hand – we don't need Iraq but Iran does. | |
| • | Iran needs to retain control of Iraq to maintain links to its proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Bahrain and to maintain the ability to strike regional rival Saudi Arabia. | |
| • | Iran's strategic strength lies in its proxies and to fund these proxies they need to be able to do business in Iraq. Our sanctions have suffocated most of their other income streams. | |
| • | Therefore we should tighten the sanctions noose on Iraq, forcing the Iraqi government to make a hard choice, Iran or the world economy. | |
| • | We should also move U.S. personnel to the Kurdish region of Iraq or send them home. They are a liability if within striking distance of Iran's proxies. | |
| • | The Iranians can't provoke a fight or kill Americans if we are not there to act as targets. | |
| • | Another factor on our side is the grassroots protest movement calling for the removal of the Iraqi government and demanding that Iran stop interfering with Iraq. | |
| • | We should not be tricked into thinking we have to stay in Iraq, partnered with a government that has done nothing but betray us. | |
| • | We can leave until they make a compelling reason for us to return. We do not need Iraq, they need us. | |
| • | The argument to stay centers on being able to react to a resurgent ISIS. | |
| • | This is an emotional and losing argument. ISIS will return regardless of what we do. | |
| • | The national security establishment has led us to believe that we must be deeply involved in Iraq, constantly spending, fighting and dying for some nebulous influence and stability that has never been realistically defined. | |
| • | We possess the most powerful economy in the world and have the ability to project power when needed; we must understand our strengths and use them effectively. | |
James Carafano: US foreign policy in the 2010s — are we better off than we were a decade ago? (Fox 12/29/2019)
Lee Edwards: 4 most important lessons of Cold War – And why they are important today (Fox 12/27/2019)
| • | The Cold War was the most unconventional conflict of the 20th century. | |
| • | World War I and II shaped our history and our world, but they did not match the length or the complexity of the struggle that occupied superpowers and lesser powers on every continent for more than four decades. | |
| • | At stake was whether the postwar world would be dominated by the Soviet-led forces of totalitarianism or inspired by the principles of political and economic freedom embodied in the United States. | |
| • | Had the Soviet Union's expansionist ambitions not been contained, much of Western Europe as well as Eastern Europe might have become communist or at least friendly to communism, isolating the U.S. for years and perhaps decades to come. | |
| • | From 1945 to 1991, under nine administrations, Democratic as well as Republican, the United States pursued first a policy of containing the Soviet Union and communism, then a policy of detente and accommodation, and finally a policy of undermining and bringing down what President Ronald Reagan called an "evil empire." | |
| • | The world has changed significantly since 1945, but certain things remain true. | |
| • | Lesson #1: Ideas matter | |
| • | The philosophical ideas undergirding a regime matter, because they guide governments and help us to understand their conduct. | |
| • | The United States has been shaped by its founding principles of freedom, justice, and equality. | |
| • | They have sustained the nation through wars, depressions, impeachments, and cultural revolutions. | |
| • | The Soviet regime was shaped by the totalitarian principles of Marxism-Leninism. | |
| • | When leaders of the Soviet states admitted they no longer believed in communism, they undermined the ideological foundations of their power and authority. | |
| • | Russian president Boris Yeltsin was more to the point: "The idol of communism, which spread everywhere social strife, animosity, and unparalleled brutality ... has collapsed." | |
| • | Similarly, the mullahs who govern Iran — like the radicals behind ISIS — are guided by their commitment to a militant Islamic caliphate, a commitment that shapes their worldview and their conduct on the world stage. | |
| • | In China, the communist government struggles to rationalize the contrary demands of economic liberalization and political control. | |
| • | Lesson #2: Friends and allies matter | |
| • | The United States called upon and led a grand alliance against the Soviet Union... | |
| • | In contrast, the Soviet Union was never able to command true loyalty from the Warsaw Pact nations or the peoples within the Soviet Union | |
| • | Lesson #3: Leadership matters | |
| • | The history of the Cold War can be written through the biographies of leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain. | |
| • | ... Mikhail Gorbachev, who helped end the Cold War by abandoning the Brezhnev Doctrine. | |
| • | That doctrine, which held that Moscow would allow no communist state to become non-communist, had propped up the Soviet regimes for decades. | |
| • | The United States was successful when led by clear-eyed statesmen like Truman and Reagan, who crafted principled actions suitable to the circumstances they faced. | |
| • | Lesson #4: Statecraft matters | |
| • | A successful U.S. foreign policy depends on knowing when to apply force, as in Korea, and when to utilize diplomacy, as with the U.S.-Soviet negotiations to eliminate intermediate range nuclear missiles. | |
| • | A grand strategy for U.S. foreign policy begins with the thesis that the U.S. should clearly express its general principles of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law; be politically , economically and diplomatically active around the world; and engage militarily when it is necessary to defend its vital interests. | |
| • | Whether it is clashes with Islamic terrorists or long-term challenges from autocratic Russia or Communist China's attempts to expand its sphere of influence, a prudent foreign policy guided by our founding principles and backed by our capabilities offers the best path for the Unites States. | |
| • | That is a strategy for today, tomorrow, and the ages. | |
Recalling the Battle of the Bulge (JWR 12/24/2019)
| • | Seventy-five years ago, at the Battle of the Bulge (fought from Dec. 16, 1944, to Jan. 25, 1945), the United States suffered more casualties than in any other battle in its history. | |
| • | Some 19,000 Americans were killed, 47,500 wounded and 23,000 reported missing. | |
| • | The American and British armies were completely surprised by a last-gasp German offensive, given that Allied forces were near the Rhine River and ready to cross into Germany to finish off a crippled Third Reich. | |
| • | Yet the losing side is often the most dangerous just before its collapse. | |
| • | In retreat, the Germans were shortening their interior lines. They had the element of surprise, given confident allies who assumed the war would soon be over. | |
| • | The result was that Hitler's last gamble in the West was as tactically brilliant as it was strategically imbecilic. | |
| • | If Hitler's offensive failed, it would drain the last formidable reserves from the German homeland and leave it a hollow shell. | |
| • | Yet, during last two weeks of December, crack German veterans tore huge holes in the Allied lines and pushed them back almost 50 miles in some spots. | |
| • | On such a narrow front, German forces outnumbered the Americans, and their tanks and artillery were superior. | |
| • | Yet by the second week in January, the month-long offensive had largely failed. | |
| • | The Germans were in retreat. They had lost almost as many men and machines as the Americans but lacked a commensurate ability to replace them. | |
| • | What can we learn from our bloodiest battle on the 75th anniversary of it? | |
| • | The deadliest periods of a war are often near its end. The losing side puts up a desperate resistance that is often unexpected by the overconfident, winning opponents. | |
| • | One of the most lethal American battles in the Pacific Theater was fought at Okinawa, costing 50,000 casualties and ending just weeks before Japan surrendered. | |
| • | ... it was Patton alone who in America's darkest hour of 1944 most clearly grasped both the dangers of, and the solutions to, the disaster. | |
| • | To no avail, Patton had warned his superiors that a gambler like Hitler would likely try something desperate in December. Even before the generals met, Patton had preplanned a risky rescue operation. | |
| • | In a blizzard, he turned a large part of his army 90 degrees on a 100-mile trek to save the collapsing American lines to the north at Bastogne, Belgium. | |
| • | Had the American command followed the rambunctious Patton's recommendation to cut off the overexposed German bulge at its base, rather than conservatively try to push it back at the nose, the campaign would have ended even sooner, with far fewer lost American lives. | |
| • | The face of war changes with new technology. But its essence remains the same, because human nature stays constant. | |
| • | A long-ago American victory can remind us that when such calamities strike, the status quo is not always equipped to rise to the challenge. | |
| • | Instead, our future saviors are often right in our midst, characteristically loud and underappreciated, but savvy and vital to our survival. | |
| • | The Battle of the Bulge reminds us that when deadly enemies prove unpredictable, it is sometimes wise to have an even more unpredictable leader on our side. | |
Democrats beware — British election is final nail in the coffin of the globalist experiment (Fox 12/13/2019)
| • | Since the era of Margaret Thatcher the U.K hasn't seen such a surge toward the Conservative Party and this is such a large win that it will hold for at least a generation to come. | |
| • | A controversial leader with both wide support and lots of criticism, Johnson happened to be in the right place at the right time when the tidal wave of public opinion ushered in a new era for the U.K. and turned the pages of history simultaneously forward – to finally Leave the European Union – and backward – in returning the United Kingdom to national sovereignty and independence. | |
| • | The voters have been sending a clear message incessantly since 2016 – they wanted to leave the E.U. - and it has fallen on deaf or closed ears. | |
| • | Yet is there really anything surprising about wanting to control one's own destiny? | |
| • | What began in the 1970s as merely a common market trading agreement devolved into full surrender of borders and immigration and courts and trade and laws and even fishing waters. | |
| • | Regardless of how the other side has tried to spin and control the narrative, the Leavers never wavered and never bought into the lies that were peddled 24/7/365 by the Remainers. | |
| • | They never believed the insult that their vote was a mistake or looked back wishing they had voted to stay in the European Union. | |
| • | They never believed the lie that the E.U. provided stability to the U.K., but rather knew that the U.K. was providing stability to the E.U. | |
| • | They never believed the doom and gloom naysayers predicting economic catastrophe would come by leaving the E.U., but instead knew that economic calamity would occur by electing Jeremy Corbyn and his progressive policies of taxation and big government. | |
| • | They never believed that their future opportunities for trade and growth were tied to a small, declining population in Europe with fragile, failing leadership and crumbling economies, but rather looked to the U.S., to the Commonwealth nations and to the waiting world, knowing they would be welcomed back to trade and work together and align for good globally once out of the confines of E.U. oversight. | |
| • | ... with the U.K.'s imminent exit now from the EU, there will likely be other countries lined up right behind them also plotting their plan of escape. | |
| • | Overarching supranational bureaucracies don't help individuals – they help themselves – and the U.K. voters were smart enough to see that and brave enough to reject it. | |
| • | They have changed the trajectory of their nation's history and those who prosper in Britain's vibrant and independent future will thank them. | |
| • | Hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying individuals don't like being told what to do or how they should live. | |
| • | They don't like being dismissed as uninformed or too simple to understand the complexities of government. | |
| • | They resent having their voices ignored and having words put in their mouths about what they think and believe. | |
| • | Their priorities are not always in alignment with the loudest voices who wield the most power and ultimately they will refuse to give in to intimidation but will quietly go to the polls and make their silent voices heard in the arena of equality – the ballot box. | |
| • | ... democracy cannot – and should not – be dismissed by those who think they know better than the electorate. | |
| • | #The people should ultimately tell their government what to do, not the other way around. | |
Christian Whiton: Trump should cancel China trade deal [and raise tariffs] — Here's why (Fox 12/11/2019)
| • | Beijing promised to buy $50 billion worth of U.S. agricultural goods. But from the moment of the agreement, it was walked back that pledge, implying it will spend much less. | |
| • | Beijing agreed to protect U.S. intellectual property and threw in a handout for Wall Street by promising easier access to the Chinese market — a joke they have played for at least two centuries on visiting barbarians who imagine they can access China's large population. | |
| • | China did promulgate a new law that led a spokesman to declare, "Beijing will not discriminate between domestic and foreign enterprises when enforcing its [intellectual property] laws." | |
| • | This is also amusing to those who know history, since China doesn't protect domestic intellectual property either. | |
| • | Beijing insists that any concessions, such as they are, won't begin without the prior removal of tariffs implemented by the Trump administration. | |
| • | It won't address most of the "seven deadly sins" of Chinese trade misconduct, which, beyond intellectual property theft, include forced technology transfers in joint ventures, exporting deadly fentanyl to America, cyber attacks, currency manipulation, dumping goods to put U.S. companies out of business, and subsidizing Chinese state-owned enterprises. | |
| • | One other important factor has changed since October: the U.S. economy, whose stunning growth since Trump's election was needlessly slowed by Federal Reserve incompetence, has begun to roar again. | |
| • | Meanwhile, China's communist economy is sputtering. Trump has forever shattered the illusion that America couldn't get tough with China on trade because we were somehow beholden to them and vulnerable. The opposite is true. | |
| • | The trade war has compounded other economic problems in China and contributed to a noticeable downturn. | |
| • | Notwithstanding fake official numbers, GDP growth is probably near zero, debt is out of control, and food prices have spiked. | |
| • | Put simply, the USA does not need a trade deal with China, and now would be an unfortunate time to throw a lifeline to the Chinese government. | |
| • | Furthermore, given his strengthening political position, Trump himself doesn't need a deal, and China would be more willing to make a meaningful pact after it is stunned by his increasingly likely reelection. | |
| • | Delaying an agreement until at least 2021 would bring medium-term clarity and certainty to U.S. tariff levels and trade policy, which in turn would benefit U.S. businesses by making planning easier. | |
| • | In the meantime, the pending U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement that will replace NAFTA accounts for twice the trade volume and five times the American exports of any deal with China. | |
| • | Trump isn't just beating China economically, he is transcending it as a new economic and political world order emerges at this transformational period of time. | |
| • | He should tell Beijing and its duplicitous negotiators to take a hike. | |
James Carafano: How is Trump impeachment affecting America around world? (Fox 12/11/2019)
Varney: Trump is 'negotiator in chief' at NATO, world leaders are 'feeling the heat' (Fox 12/04/2019)
| • | "This is a hardline president. He does not back off. And our competitors, rivals and plain enemies are feeling the heat." | |
| • | "Watch out Europe, Trump's in town. Be careful China, you're negotiating with Trump. Watch out, Iran, Trump's in power on all fronts." | |
| • | "Iran's economy is collapsing. The people are in revolt. Hundreds of unarmed protesters have been shot dead in the street.... Now Trump pushed the Iranians to the brink. For 40 years, the Islamic Republic has been killing Americans and now they're killing each other and they are bankrupt. Trump is winning this one." | |
| • | "Europe, well, they don't know what to make of Mr. Trump. He arrived in London Monday night and this morning promptly laid down the law. Emmanuel Macron has proposed a digital tax, which would be paid largely by our dominant technology companies. If they go through with it, Mr. Trump will slap a 100 percent tariff on French cheese, wine, handbags and champagne." | |
| • | "Germany. President Trump complained loudly about their defense spending a measly 1 percent of GDP compared to 4 percent for America. They, 'have to shape up or things are going to get very tough,'" | |
| • | "On China, the president said he had no deadline for a trade deal," Varney explained. "In some ways, maybe it's best to wait till after the next election. That's the negotiator in chief. He can wait. It's China that's in trouble yet again." | |
| • | While Trump plays hardball with world leaders overseas, Democrats in Congress forged ahead with their impeachment investigation, moving the inquiry to the House Judiciary Committee for its first public hearing Wednesday. | |
| • | Despite their best efforts, ... Trump's success at the NATO conferences leave the Democrats "out in the cold while Trump lays down the law to Europe, China, Iran, and others." | |
| • | "He's putting America first. What a concept." | |
Harry Kazianis: NATO should die if allies won’t increase defense spending as Trump wants (Fox 12/04/2019)
| • | President Trump renewed his necessary and reasonable call for all NATO members to recommit to spending at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product for defense. | |
| • | Trump has been criticized by European nations for demanding that NATO members pay their fair share of defense spending, rather than simply relying on the U.S. to pick up a hugely disproportionate share of the costs. | |
| • | Nations like Germany – which are among the richest on the planet and can surely defend themselves against Russia – need to meet such an obligation. If they can't – or if they simply won't – America has the right to reconsider its commitments to NATO, and whether NATO needs to exist. | |
| • | Open any history book and one fact becomes clear rather quickly: no alliance between nations, let alone a grouping of nations, lasts forever. | |
| • | Either the threat that brought the alliance together disappears, or the shared advantage of the alliance simply ends. | |
| • | NATO was created 70 years ago to defend Western Europe against the powerful Soviet Union, which at the time exercised control over satellite nations in Eastern Europe and posed a real threat to nations further west. | |
| • | But just because NATO was needed in decades past doesn't mean it is needed now and will be needed far into the future. | |
| • | The Soviet Union no longer exists and has been replaced by a much weaker Russia and smaller independent nations on its border. | |
| • | In fact, parts of the Soviet empire are now NATO members, firmly aligned with the West. | |
| • | Russia remains a threat to the U.S. and the collective European continent, and there is no denying that. Moscow has enough nuclear firepower to destroy the entire planet and end civilization. | |
| • | Russia is modernizing its conventional armed forces and specializing in things like information warfare, cyber technology and electronic warfare to gain key asymmetric advantages over the West. | |
| • | But let's not kid ourselves for one second. Russia is not now and never again will transform itself into the menace that was the Soviet Union. | |
| • | Through decades of constant trials and tribulations, NATO stared down the mighty Soviets. | |
| • | Thanks to generations of Americans and Europeans and countless other allies around the world, democracy peacefully triumphed over communist tyranny. | |
| • | So what does one of the most successful alliances of all time do when its primary enemy is defeated? | |
| • | What happens when no one wants to admit that either the structure and mission of the alliance need to change, or it needs to end? | |
| • | Sadly, NATO came up with an answer that might haunt us for decades. It expanded eastward. | |
| • | Unfortunately, no one dared ask a simple question: How would Russia respond? | |
| • | It seems we forgot one of the key lessons of past great conflicts, whether they were cold or hot wars: the only way to ensure a past enemy does not become a future enemy is to make it into a friend and ally, and no longer a rival. | |
| • | The Soviet Union and later Russia did not get such treatment. They were our major global adversary and competitor. NATO was designed to defend against the Soviets – not embrace them as allies. | |
| • | In essence, NATO guaranteed its mission by helping to create a mission for itself – opposing Soviet and later Russian expansion – and leaders didn't even have the common sense to realize what they had done. | |
| • | But the pages of history can't be rewritten now. With that said, NATO members have failed miserably to spend the necessary funds for military research and development, combat readiness and overall commitment to ensure that if military action is needed, they would be ready – unless American forces come across the Atlantic to the rescue. | |
| • | In fact, study after study shows that NATO, in many combat scenarios, would lose in a military conflict against Russia. | |
| • | This is absurd. NATO nations should have all of the resources they need to take on a Russia if necessary. Russia's economy, after all, is roughly only the size of Italy. | |
| • | The good news is that Trump's words have had an impact. | |
| • | Even before Trump landed in London, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the latest spending figures of all NATO allies and, overall spending was up. | |
| • | Would any of this have happened if not for President Trump's tough talk? Likely not. | |
| • | Granted, Trump's way of dealing may not always endear him to foreign leaders. | |
| • | But it delivers results that past presidents failed to achieve with their smiles, handshakes and adherence to diplomatic protocol. | |
Are Netanyahu's indictments the same as the push to impeach Trump? (JWR 11/22/2019)
Cal Thomas: Trump’s support of Israel’s West Bank settlements is right decision (Fox 11/21/2019)
| • | Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced U.S policy toward Israel's "settlements" is reverting to one held by the Reagan administration; that is the right of Israelis to settle in the ancient lands of Judea and Samaria "is not, per se, inconsistent with international law." | |
| • | This is good news, not only for Israel and its right to national security and sovereignty, but after seven decades of enemy attempts to eradicate the Jewish state it says to the world, "time's up." | |
| • | Israel's enemies have had the most generous offers to live in peace, including the relinquishing of land captured by Israel after many aggressive and unprovoked wars and terrorist attacks. | |
| • | With ongoing propaganda statements by Israel's enemies, the firing of rockets into civilian areas from Gaza and elsewhere, and ongoing sermons attempting to justify the violent overthrow of Israel and the murder of Jews, a reality check is long overdue. | |
| • | Israel, under all of its prime ministers, has gone more than halfway trying to make peace. | |
| • | The responses have been as if no outreaches were ever made. | |
| • | Israel and the West have a right to question the sincerity of those Arab and Muslin nations when they continue to denounce and defame Israel and the Jewish people as illegitimate occupiers of "Palestinian" land. | |
| • | As long as such denial continues, there can be no opportunity for peace and Israel is well within its rights to defend itself against such ominous and ongoing verbal, theological and military threats. | |
| • | It is and always has been wishful thinking to believe that people motivated by hate, a mandate from Allah to conduct what would amount to genocide against Jews, and revisionist history as to the original owners of "occupied land" would miraculously change their minds and agree to reverse decades of provocations and proof of their ultimate objective. | |
| • | This has always been the danger when Westerners believe all humans are alike and given the right incentives can be persuaded to act in ways consistent with Western values and practices. | |
| • | Now if the European Union, whose hatred of Israel goes back to the shameless days of Nazi anti-Semitism and is now resurging, would only see the light and end its recently announced policy to require "goods from illegal settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories to be labeled as such," perhaps some real steps forward might occur. | |
| • | As long as a religious motivation for wiping out Israel persists, there will be no peace, and no two-state solution. | |
| • | It is why the Trump administration's position on the legality of settlements in Judea and Samaria is not only correct, but a necessary contribution to Israel's security and any true peace, or at least stability. | |
President Obama betrayed the Kurds (INN 11/10/2019)
| • | President Donald Trump's critics claim that his removal of 50 US special forces from the Syrian border with Turkey enabled a Turkish invasion, and betrayed the Syrian Kurds. | |
| • | In fact, it was President Barack Obama who betrayed the Syrian Kurds by abandoning them to the Islamic State. | |
| • | The Kurds are America's friends, but not legal allies. | |
| • | Whereas, Turkey is America's legal, treaty-bound, NATO ally that has become an American foe. | |
| • | If Trump were to send troops to save the Kurds from the Turks, he would be castigated by Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans for destroying NATO and starting another Mideast war. | |
| • | Trump made it clear, however, that America did not support the Turkish planned invasion of the border zone in Syria. | |
| • | He also repeatedly pledged to destroy the Turkish economy if Turkey commits atrocities against the Kurds. | |
| • | Trump has spent significant part of his term in office rebuilding America's credibility as an ally, after Obama essentially abandoned Israel, the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds. | |
| • | Obama reoriented America's Middle East policy in favor of the ayatollahs, attempting to make Iran the regional superpower. | |
| • | But Trump renewed America's alliances with America's traditional Middle East allies: Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab monarchies. | |
Newt Gingrich: Want to destroy lawless cartels? The starting point may surprise you (Fox 11/08/2019)
| • | The key to destroying the Mexican cartels is in America not Mexico. | |
| • | As long as Americans send an estimated $19 billion to $29 billion in drug money a year to Mexico (as estimated by ICE) there will be cartels willing to take it. | |
| • | Kill one generation of cartel leaders, and a new generation will emerge. | |
| • | The cartels have so much money and so much organized power that they are virtually a state within a state. | |
| • | Let me be clear: This lawlessness and violence isn't being fueled by Mexico. | |
| • | American money and American drug addiction have paid for the growth of huge criminal organizations of extraordinary violence and cruelty. | |
| • | The tragic reality is we have been fighting a "war on drugs" since President Richard Nixon declared it in June 1971. | |
| • | For 48 years, the official American position has been to stop addictive drugs. | |
| • | Yet, many of our policies undermine that war and, in fact, guarantee defeat. | |
| • | Everyone who advocates for open borders is advocating for easier access and greater profits for the drug cartels. | |
| • | Everyone who opposes controlling the border is actively making life easier for violent cartels. | |
| • | A controlled border could stop most of the drugs coming north and most of the guns flowing south. | |
| • | So-called "sanctuary cities" are in effect "drug trafficker sanctuary cities." | |
| • | We have a deep interest in helping the Mexican government defeat the drug cartels and regaining control over all of Mexico. | |
| • | We also have a deep interest in starving out the drug cartels before they bring their corruption and their violence further into the United States. | |
| • | If we are serious about wiping the drug cartels off the face of the earth, the place to start is the United States not Mexico. | |
| • | If American illegal drug purchases fell radically – even to less than a billion a year – the cartels would collapse because they would not have the money to pay their troops and to support their infrastructure. | |
| • | Follow the money is a good rule, and in this case, the money is made in America, spent by Americans, and needs to be cut off by Americans. | |
| • | The central battlefront in this war is dollars in America – not violence in Mexico. | |
Al-Baghdadi death a 'major win in war against radical Islam,' says Gen. Jack Keane (Fox 10/29/2019)
| • | "It's clearly a major victory for us in the war against radical Islam and particularly dealing with ISIS." | |
| • | "Anybody that tries to minimize the impact of this just doesn't know what they're talking about. Al-Baghdadi took several hundred fighters out of Iraq in 2012 and grew it into a force of 30,000, and invaded Iraq — and also formed a safe haven in Syria where he trained that force and declared an Islamic state." | |
| • | "No terrorist organization in modern times had ever accomplished anything like that." | |
| • | "It electrified the entire radical Islamic world. As a result of that, al-Baghdadi holds a status that no other terrorist leader has ever enjoyed." | |
| • | "Killing him is absolutely a setback for this organization... Will they appoint a new leader? They've got one today." | |
| • | "But it is [a] major, major issue for the organization. It impacts on their recruiting, it impacts on their funding, it impacts on their morale... It also underscores how important it is to rely on local forces in the region that we are working with." | |
| • | "The world is now a much safer place," Trump said. "God bless America." | |
US fears nuclear nightmare with unreliable ally – A scary ‘Doctor Strangelove’ scenario (Fox 10/24/2019)
Does Israel need peace? (INN 10/22/2019)
| • | There are two aspects to the answer: a universal and an Israeli one. | |
| • | Whether we like it or not, human societies traditionally have identified themselves according to a simple principle: "We and They." | |
| • | The presence of a strong and dangerous enemy facilitates the unity of a society, the formation of its spiritual values and prosperity. | |
| • | It was the case in Athens during the wars with Persia and in Rome during the confrontation with Carthage. | |
| • | The republican values of the Romans reached their highest peak - they disappeared when the external enemy was crushed, and Rome went on to larceny and ruthless conquests. | |
| • | We have witnessed the same course of action in the USA and the West in general. | |
| • | It's only in the face of the "Red Scare" that the democratic ideals of American society and its cohesion were extremely strong. | |
| • | Differences in the approach of the Democrats and Republicans basically disappeared: John Kennedy was as resolute as Johnson or Reagan in his willingness to confront the Soviets. | |
| • | And even Carter — a "soft-bodied" hypocrite — was forced to respond to the Kremlin's aggression in Afghanistan, rallying the nation. | |
| • | Paradoxically, the collapse of the Soviets was the beginning of the end of Western democracy. | |
| • | Millennials hate their own values and at same time naively believe in utopian theories. | |
| • | Leftist ideologies flourished in lush color. | |
| • | British Labour and American Democrats look like their predecessors in the same way the Turks of today look like the ancient Hellenes. | |
| • | Traditional spiritual and moral values are trampled to dust; self-flagellation and ingratiation before modern age barbarians from the East has turned into paranoia. | |
| • | Churches are turning into mosques. Christianity has given way to new fanatical quasi-religions: globalism, progressivism, the "fight against global warming" and the cult of sexual perversions. | |
| • | In America, the relations between white majority and the black minority have opened old wounds; in Europe, separatism has gained a new life. | |
| • | Destructive nihilism, avant-garde and anti-rationalism in all spheres of human activity have transformed the West ... into a society of "substantial emptiness". | |
| • | The European culture, rooted in ancient philosophy, the cult of experience, logic and reason of Locke, Spinoza and Descartes, the moral and ethical ideal of the Biblical prophets, is equated to the culture of the Berbers, Indians of South America and African tribes. | |
| • | ... Somali migrants urinating on masterpieces of Florentine masters were the symbol of the new era. | |
| • | There are no more "boys" and "girls". ... There are "pregnant transgender people" and 15 types of sexes, according to a Canadian Federation of Primary School Teachers... | |
| • | Coevals of those who landed in Normandy 75 years ago locked themselves in "Safe spaces" and coloring pages, unable to endure the anguish of the election of the "bad president." | |
| • | Like mushrooms sprouting after rain, infantile subcultures have sprung up... | |
| • | Universities have become their own parody. | |
| • | One of the graduate students published the article "The conceptual penis as a social construct" as a joke. This "Study" was greeted with enthusiasm. | |
| • | God was declared dead - he was replaced by exhibitionism, as a form of gaining unlimited happiness. | |
| • | The new rulers of thoughts praised schizophrenic thinking, overthrew the "suffocating" logic, declared as irrelevant the concepts of "good" and "evil", "morality" and "immorality", "truth" and "lies". | |
| • | Supporters of "flat earth" theory and even cannibalism revival have emerged to help prevent global warming. | |
| • | Classical art in galleries was replaced by ugly figurines with punctured eyes and buried noses; drawings on asphalt and on bodies; architectural complexes turned inside out with "interiors" made out of sewer pipes... | |
| • | This world, according to Solzhenitsyn, was "disassembled to the state of a cemetery, where there is no life, but every single thing or any idea emits a smell of decay." | |
| • | Islam, the rudimentary, archaic, patriarchal religion of the desert, has become the fetish of enlightened intellectuals. | |
| • | One generation has passed and the unimaginable happened: the total degradation of civilizational foundations. | |
| • | Now, let's talk about Israel. | |
| • | No matter how often we declare ourselves as a united people, no matter how we brag about our achievements, it sometimes seems that the only thing that really unites all of us is fear in the face of deadly external enemies. | |
| • | Drop this enemy and this anxiety, and you will see a patchwork mosaic community of people with basically little common ground except their being born Jewish. | |
| • | Once the reins of fear are released the demons of mutual disdain and dislike, in some cases hatred, will tear apart Israeli society. | |
| • | Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran – are the "forces" keeping people living in Israel from self-destruction, from the bitter fate the two Temples. | |
| • | Even for rational and sensible nations, peace has turned into an unbearable test. | |
| • | What will it be for Israel? Sadly, peace, not war, is the real danger for our people, which has not yet become one nation. | |
To whom does the land of Israel belong? (INN 10/20/2019)
| • | This Land belongs to the Jews alone, if you don't like it then leave it. | |
| • | Your enemy within your boarders march openly in recognition that the existence of a Jewish State is a catastrophe. | |
| • | Your Jewish citizens are preyed upon on their own streets the object of daily attacks. | |
| • | Their Arab leaders are encouraging this behaviour or even inciting it. | |
| • | While the West and the U.N. are pressuring you to work with them as partners in the "Peace Process," they are teaching their children in their school Books that Israel should not exist and the land belongs to the palatinates and nothing belongs to the Jews. Their children are being taught with Anti-Semitic books, these children are being turned into the next generation of terrorists. | |
| • | Your government must claim all of Israel as it's own and defeat every terrorist government that threatens it. | |
| • | The U.N. calls the Jews occupiers yet I have seen Arabs walking safely through Jewish communities, while Jews doing the same through Arab territory risk their lives. | |
| • | As I have observed the occupiers are the Arabs and the Jews are the occupied. | |
| • | While the Arabs walk through Jewish areas unafraid, the Jews may come under attack while visiting any of their own Holy Sites. | |
| • | Alexander The Great once said: " I am not afraid of an army of lions lead by a sheep, But I am, Afraid of an army of Sheep lead by a Lion." | |
| • | The World knows that Israel has an Army of Lions. Therefore what is missing? | |
US, Turkey, Syria: What is possible [and impossible] for the Kurds now (Fox 10/21/2019)
| • | There are two distinct grounds to criticize President Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria. | |
| • | One is the opening the withdrawal provides for Russia, along with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the government of Iran, to displace the United States in eastern Syria. | |
| • | The second criticism relates to the sudden and unprepared nature of the pullout, which abruptly left the Kurds – an American partner – to fend off a Turkish assault. | |
| • | The American partnership with the Kurds was always transactional – the least bad of several alternatives. | |
| • | No other regional force was willing and able to work with the United States to eliminate the ISIS territorial base – its so-called caliphate. | |
| • | But neither Presidents Barack Obama nor Trump ever endorsed the Kurdish aspiration to create an independent state on the liberated territory. | |
| • | Once the last ISIS strongholds had fallen in late 2018, President Trump ordered a U.S. withdrawal. Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest. | |
| • | The president was eventually persuaded to cut the number of U.S. troops in Syria in half, rather than end the American military presence in Syria entirely. | |
| • | Neither Turkey nor Syria appeared likely to tolerate an independent Kurdish state. | |
| • | Unless the U.S. was prepared to stay indefinitely, the Kurds were going to have to come to an accommodation with one or the other. | |
| • | U.S. officials tried to arrange an accommodation with the Turks, but this neither satisfied Ankara nor permitted a U.S. withdrawal. | |
| • | So 10 months after his initial withdrawal directive, Trump reissued the order – and this time he meant it. | |
| • | It was, in retrospect, a mistake for U.S. officials to have believed and encouraged the Kurds to believe American forces would remain indefinitely. | |
| • | Even if cynics say the United States has no moral responsibility to the Syrian Kurds, such clear abandonment could make it that much harder for Washington to recruit the next local partner when the inevitable need arises. | |
| • | Forced to choose between a Turkish occupation and the return of the Syrian state, the Kurds predictably chose the latter. | |
| • | But they made this choice under the worst possible conditions, facing an ongoing Turkish invasion and a precipitous American pullout. | |
| • | The real choices before the Trump administration in eastern Syria were: staying indefinitely; preparing an orderly exit, thereby opening the way for the return of the Syrian state and its allies; or leaving suddenly without warning. | |
| • | Lacking an orderly process for planning and executing national security decisions, the Trump administration ultimately defaulted to the worst of these alternatives. | |
A frightening, Chinese-dominated future poses a grave danger to world (Fox 10/17/2019)
| • | A little over 40 years ago, Chinese Communist strongman and reformer Deng Xiaoping began 15 years of sweeping economic reforms. | |
| • | They were designed to end the disastrous, even murderous planned economy of Mao Zedong, who died in 1976. | |
| • | In four decades, China went from a backward basket case to the second-largest economy on the planet. | |
| • | It lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese into the global middle class. | |
| • | Deng's revolution came at a cost of terrible environmental damage, the rampant destruction of local communities and continued political repression. | |
| • | A more efficient economy empowered dictatorship. | |
| • | Abroad, China systematically violated every tenet of international trade and commerce. | |
| • | It stole copyrights and patents. It ran up huge trade surpluses. | |
| • | It dumped products at below the cost of production to hook international customers. | |
| • | It threatened critics with boycotts, divestments and expulsions. | |
| • | China manipulated its currency. It demanded technology transfers from companies doing business in China. | |
| • | It created a vast espionage network in Western countries to steal technology. | |
| • | And it increasingly bullied and threatened its Asian neighbors. | |
| • | Such criminality abroad and such repression at home was contextualized and mostly excused by Western nations. | |
| • | U.S. foreign policy toward China seemed to be based on the belief that the more China modernized and the more affluent its citizens became, the more inevitable Chinese political freedom would be. | |
| • | Supposedly a free-market China would drop its communist past to become a Westernized democracy such as Japan, South Korea or Taiwan. Once China fully joined the family of successful, law-abiding nations, it would empower Western freedoms and help create a stable international order. | |
| • | None of that came close to happening. | |
| • | If in the past Chinese communism impoverished its own citizens but left the world mostly alone, now it has enriched more than a billion people at home and terrified 6 billion abroad. | |
| • | Westerners, who apologize when Islamists kill cartoonists and journalists for supposedly insulting Islam, do not say a word when China puts a million Muslims into re-education camps, bulldozes Islamic cemeteries and shuts down mosques. | |
| • | Loud human rights lions in Europe turn into kittens when it is a question of Chinese organ harvesting, forced abortions and sterilizations, and the jailing and execution of dissidents. | |
| • | American environmentalists demand a radical shutdown of the current fossil-fuel-based U.S. economy. | |
| • | They say little about greenhouse gas emissions from China, the biggest polluter in the world by far. | |
| • | Why are we becoming more like China than China is like us? | |
| • | China has the world's largest consumer market. | |
| • | Corporations get rich outsourcing their factories to take advantage of its cheap labor. | |
| • | Western intellectuals always romanticize lethal communists as misguided idealists rather than stone-cold authoritarians. | |
| • | Mao is still a hero to many in the West despite his liquidation of some 50 million people over his violent career. | |
| • | An appeasing world is terrified about what a huge military and economic colossus of 1.4 billion people will soon be able to do to its critics. | |
| • | China always channels the victimization myth that supposedly oppressed nonwhite peoples cannot themselves be oppressors. | |
| • | All these reasons and more explain why there wasn't a single major Western politician who warned the world of a frightening, Chinese-dominated future — one in which the West turned into China rather than China into the West. | |
| • | The single figure who finally issued such a warning, brash Donald Trump — without prior military or political experience — was as loudly and publicly damned as he was privately and quietly admired for doing so. | |
Why Turkey frightens Europe (INN 10/15/2019)
We’re finally discovering the ugly truth about China and the harm it has caused (Fox 10/03/2019)
| • | In these times of near civil war, Americans agree on almost nothing. Yet sometime in 2019, almost all of America finally got "woke" on China. | |
| • | For years, our leaders had yawned about Silk Road neo-imperialism in Africa and Asia, and gross abuses of human rights against Chinese religious minorities and political dissidents. | |
| • | Almost every assumption Washington made, both by Democratic and Republican administrations, was logically flawed at best. | |
| • | And at worst, these calculations were a weird mix of conservative commercial greed, liberal political correctness and shared screwball naivete. | |
| • | American trade and political appeasement were never interpreted by Beijing as magnanimity to be reciprocated, but always as weakness to be exploited. | |
| • | It was always ludicrous to think that the more concessions on trade and human rights the United States gave, the more China would Westernize and begin to resemble America or a European Union nation. | |
| • | ... the ability to buy a new cellphone never ensures the right to vote for a candidate of one's choice. | |
| • | Instead, all China did was auction off large sections of its new and more efficient economy to crony communist pseudo-capitalists and corrupt provincial officials in order to modernize the country, beef up the military, warp the international trading system — and make itself very rich. | |
| • | Why did America act in such a suicidal way on China? | |
| • | Cheap Chinese labor and lax American laws motivated hundreds of U.S. corporations to shut down their domestic assembly plants and relocate to China. | |
| • | Once American businesses got hooked on mega-profits, the Chinese government slowly started stealing their technology, infringing on copyrights and patents, dumping their own merchandise on the world market at prices below production costs, running up huge trade surpluses and manipulating their currency. | |
| • | But by then, American corporations were so addicted to laissez-faire profitmaking that they turned a blind eye and paid their hush money. | |
| • | Universities cashed in too, both by setting up lucrative satellite campuses in China and admitting tens of thousands of Chinese citizens. | |
| • | Most college deans and presidents simply ignored the dreadful human rights record of China, not to mention occasional expatriate espionage rings designed to steal engineering and high-tech research. | |
| • | ... If profits had blinded corporations to exploitive Chinese partnerships, political correctness conveniently offered academia and the media political cover... | |
| • | The result was that everyone profited and all remained willfully blind to the ascendant cutthroat and dictatorial colossus. | |
| • | The domestic winners in the appeasement of Communist China were the two American coasts... | |
| • | Suddenly, the intellectual and informational classes could sell their wares in a new global market, and they profited enormously. | |
| • | Few cared about the "losers" in the now-hollowed-out Midwest and in rural America. | |
| • | For corporate America, domestic muscular labor could be easily and cheaply replaced by millions of Chinese workers. | |
| • | Outsourcing and offshoring pulled investment capital out of America and put it overseas, as Chinese-assembled products brought far greater profits. | |
| • | Academics could not have cared less that the Deplorables and the working classes were being wiped out, given their politically incorrect social and cultural views. | |
| • | What finally woke America up were two unforeseen developments. | |
| • | First, the Chinese overreached and systematically began militarizing neutral islands in the South China Sea. They derided international commercial treaties. | |
| • | In racist fashion, they treated Asian and African countries as if they were 19th-century colonies. | |
| • | And they unapologetically lifted technology from America's biggest and most powerful corporations to turn China into something akin to George Orwell's "1984." | |
| • | Second, Donald Trump got elected president, all the while screaming that the Chinese emperor had no clothes. | |
| • | The cheerleaders finally listened and admitted that China had been buck naked after all. | |
| • | Now we will learn whether America woke up just in time or too late. | |
| • | Either way, no one will credit the loud Trump for warning that China was threatening not just the U.S. but the world as we have known it. | |
Joe Biden’s actions on Ukraine reek of extortion and obstruction of justice (Fox 09/25/2019)
| • | The roaring controversy over President Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden, and their respective actions toward Ukraine sorely lacks some key language: the word "extortion" and the phrase "obstruction of justice." | |
| • | Hunter Biden reportedly earned some $50,000 per month for his services, although he had no expertise in gas production and didn't know Ukraine from Utah. | |
| • | He was experienced, however, in being the son of the vice president of the United States who, as luck would have it, "was serving as the Obama administration's point man on relations with Ukraine and rooting out bureaucratic corruption." | |
| • | "I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee," the former vice president explained ... per the CFR's transcript. | |
| • | "And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from [then-Prime Minister Arseniy] Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn't." | |
| • | "I said, ‘I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars,'" Biden continued. | |
| • | "I said, ‘You're not getting the billion. I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours.' I looked at them and said: ‘I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.' Well, son of a b****. (Laughter.) He got fired." | |
| • | Biden's actions reek of extortion and obstruction of justice. | |
| • | And President Trump is the bad guy? | |
| • | ... just-announced impeachment inquiry — is fueled by merely an echo of a whistle. In other words, hearsay. | |
| • | Conversely, Biden's incriminating words were neither overheard nor just transcribed. | |
| • | In fact, he said this on camera at an on-the-record CFR meeting. | |
| • | Video tape exists of Biden boasting about securing the dismissal of the man who was probing his son's possible graft. | |
| • | So, apparently it's a potentially impeachable offense for President Trump to raise Biden's possible obstruction of justice in a conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky... | |
| • | Meanwhile, it's perfectly OK that the former vice president, as he personally crowed, blackmailed then-President Poroshenko into firing the top prosecutor who was investigating Hunter Biden's possible graft. | |
| • | Successfully sacking one's son's prosecutor via extortion: This is the textbook definition of obstruction of justice. | |
| • | ... like a guy with a red-rubber nose and giant, floppy shoes who screams "STOP CLOWNING AROUND!" the Democrats, yet again, are doing what they do best: psychological projection. | |
Britain's got one last chance to reembrace free-market democratic world it helped create (Fox 09/12/2019)
| • | England is an island. Historically, politically and linguistically, it was never permanently or fully integrated into European culture and traditions. | |
| • | The story of Britain has mostly been about conflict with France, Germany or Spain. | |
| • | The preeminence of the Royal Navy, in the defiant spirit of its sea lords, ensured that European dictators from Napoleon to Hitler could never set foot on British soil. | |
| • | As British Admiral John Jervis reassured his superiors in 1801 amidst rumors of an impending Napoleonic invasion, "I do not say, my lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea." | |
| • | Britain's sea power, imperialism, parliamentary government and majority Protestant religion set it apart from its European neighbors — and not just because of its geographical isolation. | |
| • | The 18th century British and Scottish Enlightenment of Edmund Burke, David Hume, John Locke and Adam Smith emphasized individualism, freedom and liberty far more than the government-enforced equality of result that was favored by French Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. | |
| • | It is no accident that the American Revolution was founded on the idea of individual freedom and liberty, unlike the later French Revolution's violent effort to redistribute income and deprive "enemies of the people" of their rights and even their lives. | |
| • | France produced Napoleon, Italy had Mussolini, and Germany gave the world Hitler. | |
| • | It is difficult to find in British history a comparable dictatorial figure who sought Continental domination. | |
| • | The British, of course, were often no saints. They controlled their global empire by both persuasion and brutal force. | |
| • | But even British imperialism was of a different sort than Belgian, French, German, Portuguese or Spanish colonialism. | |
| • | Former British colonies America, Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand have long been democratic, while much of Latin America, to take one example, has not until recently. | |
| • | In World War I, the British lost nearly 1 million soldiers trying to save France and Belgium. In World War II, England was the only nation to fight the Axis for the entirety of the war (from September 1939, to September 1945), the only Allied power to fight the Axis completely alone (for about a year from mid-1940 to mid-1941), and the only major Allied power to have gone to war without having been directly attacked. (It came to the aid of its ally Poland.) | |
| • | Historically, Britain has looked more upon the seas and the New World than eastward to Europe. | |
| • | In that transatlantic sense, a Canadian or American typically had more in common with an Englander than did a German or Greek. | |
| • | Over the last 30 years, the British nearly forgot that fact as they merged into the European Union and pledged to adopt European values in a shared trajectory to supposed utopia. | |
| • | To the degree that England remained somewhat suspicious of EU continentalism by rejecting the euro and not embracing European socialism, the country thrived. | |
| • | But when Britain followed the German example of open borders, reversed the market reforms of Margaret Thatcher, and adopted the pacifism and energy fantasies of the EU, it stagnated. | |
| • | Johnson's efforts as the new prime minister ostensibly are to carry out the will of the British people as voiced in 2016, against the wishes of the European Union apparat and most of the British establishment. | |
| • | But after hundreds of years of rugged independence, will Britain finally merge into Europe, or will it retain its singular culture and grow closer to the English-speaking countries it once founded — which are doing better than most of the members of the increasingly regulated and anti-democratic European Union. | |
| • | Britain has a last chance to re-embrace the free-market democratic world that it once helped to create — and distance itself from the creeping statism it once opposed. | |
Lisa Daftari: President Trump, don't accept a bad deal that will hurt the Iranian people (Fox 09/01/2019)
| • | Since Trump initiated the pullout from the nuclear deal (JCPOA) in May 2018, it's widely been the case that members of the Republican Party echoed the rationale of the President, believing that future talks are contingent upon behavior and holding Iran's government accountable for nefarious activities in weapons proliferation and terror support. | |
| • | Meanwhile Democrats believe in rapprochement, either resurrecting the Iran nuclear deal of 2015 or striking a new one — often holding that even a bad deal with Iran is better than no deal at all. | |
| • | "Everyone has a different motive, but they're all united in working against the President's goal of curbing Iran." | |
| • | "It's a weird coalition that's formed, made up of actual career deep state Obama loyalists, [Sec. of State Rex] Tillerson holdovers committed to preserving the deal, and the team of doves led by [Secretary Steven] Mnuchin at the Treasury Department." | |
| • | For his part, Trump has kept to his road map on Iran. No war. Lots of pressure. | |
| • | Undeniably, the pressure campaign has been successful in diminishing crucial economic sectors as indicated by reports of oil exports cut by approximately two-thirds and the various indicators of a plummeting Iran economy coupled with inflation. | |
| • | Even the regime's terror proxies are feeling the economic pinch, with charity boxes popping up in Lebanon to raise additional funds for Hezbollah. | |
| • | In the first such public plea for donations in almost 40 years, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group's future depends on civilian contributions. | |
| • | Despite the pressure, Tehran has continued its threatening rhetoric and taunting provocations. | |
| • | Further signaling a refusal to achieve a diplomatic resolution with the U.S., Iran's regime announced last month that it will increase uranium enrichment to 5 percent, taking their production above limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal. | |
| • | If the pressure campaign is working, why would the U.S. opt to enter another bad deal with Iran's government for the sake of meaningless entente? | |
| • | Didn't we try that and conclude that Iran's government cannot be trusted? | |
| • | Shouldn't a deal take into account Iran's other activities in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and in supporting terror groups in Gaza and Lebanon? | |
| • | Furthermore, another hollow Iran deal will repeat what was done under President Barak Obama — it will take internal pressure off the regime. | |
| • | What many analysts don't understand is that, for over four decades, the Achilles' heel of Iran's regime has not been any foreign aggressor or treaty. | |
| • | On the contrary, Iran's mullahs are more petrified of another well-organized, grass-roots internal uprising than anything else. | |
| • | Some argue that Iran policy should stand apart from our emotional ties to the freedom-loving people of Iran. | |
| • | But that would be forfeiting an 80-million strong ally in the broader battle against the mullahs. | |
| • | While no one wants to stand in support of sanctions that ultimately burden innocent people, it would be short-sighted to favor an empty deal that would scrap the chance for the Iranian people to stand up to their government for significant and long-lasting economic, social and political changes. | |
| • | Some may argue that it's an assumption, yet to be proved, that most people in Iran want regime change. | |
| • | But it certainly isn't conjecture to say the vast majority of Iranians want better lives — which they will lose the leverage to fight for if another bad deal is struck between the West and their leaders. | |
What Trump 'gets' about China that most American still don't — or won't (JWR 08/26/2019)
| • | Anyone who says that Donald Trump is unable to learn on the job hasn't been paying attention to how much his insight into a host of key problems has deepened over three years. | |
| • | He started out as an mossbacked mercantilist, fuming about the trade imbalance between the world's two biggest economies. | |
| • | Why was China selling us so many pots and pans, lightbulbs, TVs, and computers, while buying a much smaller dollar amount of pork bellies, cars, and tractors? | |
| • | Surely improper currency manipulation and state subsidies must account for so large a trade deficit, and surely, he imagined ... it was sucking the wealth right out of our nation. | |
| • | Though sophisticated economists countered that it benefits rather than impoverishes us to have another country sell us goods we want for less than it would cost us to make them, Trump sensed the social costs of this imbalance with an acuity the economists lacked. | |
| • | It was killing our factory towns, weakening our social fabric, and transferring abroad important skills and capabilities that we might someday regret having lost, especially if we needed to scale them up quickly. The gain in these transactions was easier to quantify than the loss. | |
| • | But Trump came to realize that the problem was much larger. | |
| • | To enter its market, China for years has required high-tech companies to transfer proprietary technology to local partners, so that U.S. corporate bosses, with their focus on quarterly results rather than long-term viability, promiscuously allowed Chinese firms to filch a storehouse of laboriously acquired Western knowledge that could vault so industrious a people to domination of the highest-value industries in short order. | |
| • | What's more, these were technologies key to the projection of power, both domestically, in Orwellian systems of social control, and globally, through cyberwarfare, spying, and sophisticated weaponry. | |
| • | Add to that Xi Jinping's hegemonic ambitions, already well advanced with his "Belt and Road" initiative meant to vassalize developing nations and establish embryo naval ports there, along with his illegal militarization of the South China Sea, and Lenin's contemptuous quip that the capitalists will sell you the rope to hang them with rings more ominously true than ever. | |
| • | Trump has grasped that China presents a national security problem even bigger than its commercial challenge, and he responded with a tariff regime that, given America's vastly superior economic staying-power, might force a reluctant China to change its ways. | |
| • | But Xi's best counterstrategy would be to do everything he can to stir up economic, strategic, and propaganda trouble to make Trump a one-term president. | |
| • | Then he could deal with a Democrat inclined to think that a centrally-planned and -controlled economy might be as good as — or even better than — a free one. | |
| • | He might have a freer hand with an orthodox Democratic foreign policy establishment holding the surprisingly Marxoid belief that, as culture is mere superstructure on an economic base, lots of "free" trade with China will inexorably liberalize their government and society — as those who admitted China into the World Trade Organization believed, and as Trump jeeringly does not. | |
| • | For electoral reasons, at the very least, Trump needs to explain both the economic and national security reasons underlying his China sanctions, stressing that they are two separate if interrelated concerns, with the national security worry by far the more important. | |
| • | With the swelling chorus of criticism of the tariffs as harmful to our own economy from Democrats, the mainstream press, and even some Republicans, he needs to explain that America's safety and geostrategic power are at stake. | |
| • | He also needs to keep this distinction clear in his own mind and emphasize it to his advisers, so that he does not accept a Chinese commitment to buy huge amounts of U.S. agricultural products and label that a victory, allowing Xi to go on his merry, imperialist way. | |
| • | Of course, he will be kicking over some longstanding shibboleths in doing so, including the idea that when nations engage in world trade (and send their kids to CalTech and MIT) they become more free. | |
| • | But the Midwestern farmers most harmed by the tariffs have readily grasped — and accepted — the tradeoff, so it is not an impossible argument to win, if only Trump will make it clearly. | |
Trump's pressure on China is working. Americans should back him on counter-tariffs (Fox 08/25/2019)
| • | No one, including President Donald Trump, wants a trade war with China. | |
| • | If our ongoing trade woes with China have revealed anything, it's just how convoluted and corrupt our relationship with the People's Republic has been for decades – and how badly we need to follow through on Trump's counter-tariff strategy to give our government the most effective leverage. | |
| • | Thirty years ago the overwhelmingly poor and rural totalitarian state had only just embarked on the economic liberalization that would eventually make it America's rival for world dominance. | |
| • | In 1989 the Chinese government was faced with months of mass protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in support of political freedoms. | |
| • | The Communist Party responded in 1989 with one of the most horrific mass murders in modern history. | |
| • | At least 10,000 people were killed by Chinese soldiers and tanks, according to a British government source. | |
| • | But instead of turning our backs on the brutal regime, the West – especially the United States – deepened economic links with Beijing. | |
| • | Over the next 30 years, American corporations entered into agreements with China's state-owned industries to build everything under the sun in Chinese factories with low-paid workers. | |
| • | Throughout this 30-year period, China's government has exploited the situation, using its leverage over American companies to steal their intellectual property. | |
| • | China has also used its leverage over American consumers and our elected representatives to make us look the other way as it puts American businesses out of business with abusive trade practices. | |
| • | Just as we did after Tiananmen, we let China get away with it, time and time again, until Trump finally put his foot down. | |
| • | His aggressive trade policies and strategic counter-tariffs have revealed a basic truth that previous American leaders either failed to acknowledge or use to our advantage: China needs us more than we need China. | |
| • | All it took to make American companies realize the raw deal they and our country were getting was a series of strategic tariffs that still haven't exceeded 30 percent. | |
| • | If you don't think those tariffs are effective, just look at how Beijing reacted over the past week. | |
| • | China is hurting and it's more than simply lost sales and a stalling economy. | |
| • | Companies, including some of the largest American retailers, are starting to flee China in droves. | |
| • | The pressure Trump has imposed on China is working. Chinese manufacturing companies are reportedly getting "desperate" as the communist country experiences its first real economic pain in decades. | |
| • | Meanwhile, the American economy and jobs market remain strong. | |
| • | When Trump announced on Twitter that he was "ordering" companies to "start looking for an alternative to China," he was encouraging a process that had already begun on the ground. | |
| • | The president also tweeted: "In the spirit of achieving Fair Trade, we must balance this ... very unfair Trading Relationship." | |
| • | Inflicting pain on China's economy is the only way to convince its leaders that they must end the abusive trade practices that have illegitimately enriched that country – and empowered its totalitarian government – for decades. | |
| • | Starting 30 years ago, the U.S.-China relationship went from bad to worse, even toxic. | |
| • | That the standoff continues shows how much is at stake. | |
| • | Thankfully, Trump has demonstrated the fortitude to stay the course until this relationship is fixed – for good. | |
Omar and Tlaib came clean about who they are and what they want. But is anybody paying attention? (JWR 08/21/2019)
| • | Many observers cite President Trump's pressure as the main reason behind Israel's last-minute decision to ban the congresswomen. | |
| • | However, other key factors are at play — including the fact that the congresswomen's itinerary was organized by a group with a history of glorifying terrorists. | |
| • | From the outset, their trip — almost exclusively planned to take place in Palestinian population centers — was intended to be a one-sided propaganda tour to paint Israel as an occupying aggressor. | |
| • | While both congresswomen are right to point out troubles facing Palestinian society — they both miss the mark by entirely absolving Palestinian leaders for their constituencies' woes and criticizing major Israeli security measures without providing even the slightest context. | |
| • | "The delegation would have seen firsthand. Yeah, why walls are destructive, not productive. They could've asked the people in Bethlehem how walls cut people off away from economic opportunities, from a way to live and do psychological damage that lasts forever." | |
| • | ... Tlaib's framing omits the fact that Israel put these measures in place following countless Palestinian terrorist and suicide attacks during the Second Intifada throughout the early 2000s. | |
| • | Counterterrorism experts cite Israel's security barrier as one of the most effective counterterrorism measures that drastically helped reduce Palestinian terrorist attacks and Israeli casualties. | |
| • | The wall did not alter Palestinian terrorist motivations. But it denied terrorists free entry to kill hundreds of Israelis. | |
| • | It is unfortunate that average Palestinian citizens are affected in adverse ways by these hurdles. | |
| • | But to frame these protective measures solely as a means to destroy Palestinian life is inaccurate and inherently dishonest. | |
| • | The security barrier was erected to stifle Palestinian terrorists, who continue to devote most of their resources and attention to killing Israelis. | |
| • | The same is true for security checkpoints. Omar and Tlaib presented them as instruments used to punish Palestinians, but Frimet Roth offered a sad reality check. | |
| • | "Rep Tlaib cried about her mother being 'dehumamized' at Israeli checkpoints. My child Malki, a US citizen murdered at 15, would be here today had a checkpoint stipped her murderer and a 10 kg bomb from entering Jerusalem. Remind Tlaib: checkpoints prevent terrorism — save lives." | |
| • | Since that brutal attack, the Palestinian Authority has paid more than $900,000 to the suicide bomber's family and accomplices. | |
| • | Supporters of Palestinian terrorism, on the other hand, view attacks against Israeli civilians as heroic and legitimate resistance. | |
| • | These supporters include groups like Miftah — the organization which planned and funded Tlaib and Omar's proposed trip. | |
| • | ... Miftah published an article in which describes Dalal Al Mughrabi as "a Palestinian fighter who was killed during a military operation against Israel in 1978" and as one of the Palestinian people's "national heroes." | |
| • | Mughrabi led a 1978 bus hijacking attack in which 37 Israeli civilians were killed. She is among the terrorist killers celebrated by the Palestinian Authority with monuments, summer camps and schools named in her honor. | |
| • | Miftah has a long track record of promoting anti-Israel incitement and previously glorified suicide bombers for "sacrificing their lives for the cause." | |
| • | Both Tlaib and Omar have generated controversy for some of their anti-Israel positions, including Tlaib's full support for the BDS campaign to boycott Israel and encourage business and academic institutions to divest investments in companies which do business in Israel. | |
| • | Tlaib compared the campaign to a boycott against Nazi Germany, while Omar has repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements including Jewish money controls American foreign policy. | |
| • | Critics of BDS emphasize the program's real goal is eliminating the state of Israel. | |
| • | That's difficult to deny when you consider the words of BDS leader Omar Barghouti: "We oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine." | |
| • | Neither politician mentions Palestinian terrorism or Palestinian incitement or Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel a Jewish state as obstacles to peace in the region. | |
| • | "The occupation is real; barring members of Congress from seeing it does not make it go away. We must end it together." | |
| • | "We give Israel more than $3 (billion) in aid every year. This is predicated on them being an important ally in the region and the only democracy in the Middle East. But denying a visit to duly elected members of Congress is not consistent with being an ally and denying millions of people freedom of movement or expression or self-determination is not consistent with being a democracy." | |
| • | Omar sarcastically references Israel as "the only democracy in the Middle East" using hand quotes. | |
| • | Depending on how one defines democracy, it is true that there are other democratically elected leaders in the region including Tunisia, Turkey, and Iraq. | |
| • | However, according to prominent indices measuring freedom worldwide, Israel remains the region's sole liberal democracy. | |
| • | The opposite is true for the Palestinian territories, whose governments systematically repress dissent and stifle many freedoms of expression and association, according to Human Rights Watch. | |
| • | But you won't hear these two congresswomen cite this huge distinction between Israeli and Palestinian society. | |
| • | We have yet to see Tlaib and Omar stand on a podium and hold a news conference against any other Middle East government with far worse human rights records than the Jewish state. | |
Omar and Tlaib rightly blocked from visiting ‘non-existent’ country Palestine (NYP 08/19/2019)
| • | At first blush, Israel's decision to bar Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib looked like a mistake. | |
| • | My gut reaction was that the move would simultaneously make Israel appear weak and allow critics to claim the incident proves the Jewish state has no interest in peace with the Palestinians. | |
| • | Both the United States and Israel looked to have blundered. Or so I thought. | |
| • | Then facts and history had their say. Now, I believe Trump and Netanyahu made the right move. | |
| • | They had no good options and chose the lesser of two evils. | |
| • | First, the facts are becoming more clear. | |
| • | Omar and Tlaib, we now know, rejected invitations to travel with other congressional members of both parties. | |
| • | The congressional groups there last week, for example, met with Israeli leaders and Palestinians in the West Bank. | |
| • | Why wasn't that good enough for Tlaib and Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress? | |
| • | In addition to wanting to go alone, they reportedly refused any government briefings and Netanyahu said their itinerary mentioned only "Palestine," a country that doesn't exist and a word often used to deny Israel's right to exist. | |
| • | ... the group that planned Omar and Tlaib's trip, MIFTAH, runs a Web site that publishes anti-Semitic articles and celebrates Palestinian terrorists, several of whom murdered Jewish children. | |
| • | The link guarantees that the trip would have been a nonstop assault on Israel. | |
| • | It also could have led to violence. The two planned to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque, located atop the compound known as the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims and Temple Mount to Jews, where there were clashes last week between Israeli security forces and Palestinians. | |
| • | Omar and Tlaib likely would have made provocative statements there, leading some Israelis to fear a larger round of violence. Why take that chance? | |
| • | A final fact that colors the entire incident was the odd behavior by Tlaib regarding her supposed desire to visit relatives in the West Bank. | |
| • | After Netanyahu's rejection, she appealed to Israel's Interior Minister Aryeh Deri for permission to visit on humanitarian grounds, citing her elderly grandmother. | |
| • | "This could be my last opportunity to see her. I will respect any restrictions and not promote boycotts against Israel during my visit." | |
| • | But when news of the agreement became public, some on the left accused her of caving in to Israel. | |
| • | Immediately Tlaib backed out and attacked Israel, tweeting that the conditions she agreed to were "humiliating" and adding, "I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in — fighting against racism, oppression & injustice." | |
| • | Deri got it exactly right when he concluded that Tlaib's "hatred of Israel outweighs her love for her grandmother." | |
| • | History proves that Israel is often held to a double standard, and this case is no different. | |
| • | Virtually every nation bars entry to those who wish it harm, yet it's an international incident when Israel does it. | |
| • | Tlaib and Omar were not going in good faith. | |
| • | Why is the burden on Israel to welcome them? Put another way, when did suicide become a virtue? | |
| • | ... Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the bait by condemning Trump and Netanyahu over the incident. | |
| • | Once again, Pelosi has it backward. She should be denouncing Tlaib and Omar for partnering with anti-Semites instead of taking their side. | |
| • | Maybe for once she could put principle over party. | |
| • | ... the ban does not create a problem for Israel as much as reflect the existence of one. | |
| • | Dems, following the lead of former President Barack Obama, are harshly critical of Israel, silent about Palestinian attacks and believe in wooing Iran, which threatens to wipe Israel off the map. | |
| • | Trump, on the other hand, has taken unprecedented moves that favor Israel. | |
| • | He moved our embassy to Jerusalem and recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights. | |
| • | He is confronting Iran after withdrawing from the nuclear pact and is preparing a plan that aims to settle the Palestinian issues. | |
| • | In the face of all this, the Palestinians refuse to talk to the administration and curse the president and his family. | |
| • | That's the side Tlaib and Omar have chosen, and they have only themselves to blame for the consequences. | |
Andrew McCarthy: Israel Is right to bar entry of ‘Squad’ mates Omar and Tlaib (Fox 08/16/2019)
| • | "Israel has hypnotized the world. May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel." So says Rep. Ilhan Omar, D., Minn. | |
| • | Well, it's a free country. Omar is not only entitled to her political opinions; she is entitled to express them as long as she avoids unlawful incitement. | |
| • | The same goes for Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D. Mich., who advocates the "one-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a final settlement in which there would no longer be a Jewish state and the territory that is now Israel would gradually become Palestine. | |
| • | Omar and Tlaib are members of the hard left, self-styled "squad." | |
| • | They are both BDS zealots. That is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement by which opponents of the Jewish state seek its extirpation. | |
| • | Israel later - graciously - agreed to allow Tlaib to visit her aged and ailing grandmother in the West Bank, provided she didn't use the trip to undermine her host. | |
| • | But the Jewish State was on solid ground with its initial denial. | |
| • | After all, the liberty to express one's views does not imply immunity from the natural consequences of doing so. | |
| • | Among these is that the nation Omar and Tlaib seek to destabilize and ultimately dismantle may deny them entry. | |
| • | President Trump not only endorsed the move; he appears to have catalyzed it with a tweet, asserting that Israel would "show great weakness" if it permitted a visit from Omar and Tlaib because, according to the president, they "hate Israel & all Jewish people." | |
| • | While this rhetoric is abrasive in the Trumpian style, Israel's exclusion of Omar and Tlaib makes eminent sense. | |
| • | Since when must a country, particularly one that daily confronts a terrorism challenge the likes of which we have never experienced, roll out the red carpet for aliens who mean it harm and encourage its enemies? | |
| • | Naturally, because the alliance of Islamists and leftists calls the tune to which our media-Democrat complex dances, we are enduring gaseous denunciations from official Washington. | |
| • | Progressive groups are echoing Omar's latest blather about how the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has "insult[ed] democratic values" (as if a nation's survival were not a democratic value). | |
| • | Despite this precious sensitivity about insults, Omar could not help herself but add that President Trump is an "Islamophobe." | |
| • | That term, shrewdly developed by sharia supremacists, intimates that critical examination of Islam – particularly, its doctrinal calls for jihad against non-believers – is racist. | |
| • | If this were not nauseating enough, Sen. Marco Rubio, R. Fla., chimed in with the Official Beltway Republican doublespeak: Even though we agree with Israel that Omar and Tlaib's BDS agenda is reprehensible, it "is a mistake" for Israel to slam the door on its foreign foes because you see, "being blocked is what they really hoped for all along." | |
| • | No senator, being feted as iconic Israel-bashers by Palestinians who want to disappear Israel is what they really hoped for all along. | |
| • | It is a reason for Washington to rethink its lunatic notion that we should care what the Islamist-leftist alliance thinks about anything – particularly since it bashes Israel only in its spare time from bashing America. | |
| • | In the Obama heyday of the Islamist-leftist alliance, we were gifted with U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, an effort to make it illegal to engage in speech that purportedly constitutes "hostility" against religion. | |
| • | (Translation: speech that actually constitutes expressions of alarm at the linear progression from Islamic texts to influential fundamentalist Islamic scholars to young Muslims carrying out jihadist brutality). | |
| • | Notwithstanding that Resolution 16/18 is a patent violation of the First Amendment, it was championed by the Obama administration, particularly the State Department under Hillary Clinton. | |
| • | When it comes to political dissent, why do we hear grousing from Senator Rubio and his fellow Republicans about the Israeli government but not our own? | |
| • | Washington, through the hocus-pocus of international law, was perfectly content to erode the right of Americans to speak about threats to America. | |
| • | Now, though, we're supposed to get upset over another country's exclusion from its territory of aliens who have no right to be there in the first place, and who brazenly seek entry precisely to agitate against the host country. | |
| • | Have you had a look at U.S. exclusion law lately? | |
| • | Our statutes, which are not nearly as robust as they should be about keeping hostile foreign ideologues out of our territory, nevertheless authorize barring the entry of aliens who are reasonably believed to be planning to violate our law; are likely to engage in activities that unlawfully oppose or seek the overthrow of our government; are members of a political or social group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity; and whose activities could have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S. (though not required to, we exempt foreign officials from this last exclusion). | |
| • | Even our laws would support Israel. It justifiably regards the BDS movement as an existential challenge to the nation's security and existence as a Jewish state. It has enacted a law that bars BDS activists from entering Israel. | |
| • | Omar and Tlaib, moreover, have extensive histories of associating with Muslim Brotherhood-connected groups that promote terrorism and seek Israel's annihilation. | |
| • | Israel is the freest country in its part of the world. Its ethnic Arabic citizens have more liberty and due process than they could hope to enjoy in sharia societies. | |
| • | It has its own alliance of leftists and Islamists that engages in robust dissent against the incumbent government. | |
| • | Its assurance of free expression guarantees that no argument Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib could make would be kept from Israelis and Palestinians who care to hear it. | |
| • | Democracy, however, is not a suicide pact. | |
| • | No rational country welcomes into its territory foreigners whose fondest wish is its demise. | |
Marc Thiessen: Anti-Semitism rising on left (Fox 08/14/2019)
| • | Recently the State Department revised its definition of ant-Semitism to include "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" – an apparent response to the rise of the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) movement, whose supporters routinely make such comparisons. | |
| • | "It's the same old story with some different words. If you are speaking with somebody who is defending some anti-Israeli ideologies, maybe not in the first minute, maybe not in the second minute, but in the third minute you will find that the same old story accusing Jews of every bad thing in the world. For me, that's very, very clear. I never saw any anti-Israeli theory that was not anti-Semitic." | |
| • | "I can't see why people feel free to compare Israel to the Nazis. I don't want to comment on it on an intellectual level. It's simply an insult. It's an insult to the victims and an insult to the survivors and an insult to a whole country, to a whole society." | |
| • | There was a time ... when "if somebody would [say] something like this, it would be the end of his political career. Now it's a question of two days maybe of troubles. And this is something terrible, because that means that there's no more responsibility with words." | |
| • | "I don't know why some politicians have a deep need to focus so permanently on this only one country. If you look to the United Nations, how many resolutions were concerning Israel and how many were concerning, let's say, Sudan?" | |
| • | While the rise of far-right populism has played a role, many victims say those on the right account for only a fraction of these anti-Semitic incidents. | |
| • | ... the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights asked European Jews who was responsible for the most serious incident of anti-Semitic harassment they had experienced: Only 13 percent said it was someone with a far-right political view, while 30 percent said it was an "extremist Muslim" and 21 percent said it was someone with left-wing views. | |
| • | The fact is that anti-Semitism is a growing problem on the left. In Britain this year, three members of the Labour Party resigned after accusing the party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, of being – as a former Labour general secretary put it – "institutionally anti-Semitic." | |
| • | In Washington, congressional Democrats have struggled to confront anti-Semitism within their own ranks. | |
| • | ... the rise of left-wing anti-Semitism is not surprising. "Do not forget that the Nazi Party in Germany was a party of workers." | |
| • | "We are many times thinking about the Nazis as far-right. They were also very deeply speaking ... to the left, using some leftist language." | |
| • | "People need to see Auschwitz. People need to come not only to cry over all of the victims ... but maybe to feel their own responsibility today." | |
| • | "We are nearly all bystanders now in our world, and our world is a free world. We have the capacity of action and we still do nothing to help those who are in a deep need of our help." | |
Daniel Turner: Decades ago, the UN promised climate disaster; so why hasn't it arrived? (Fox 07/05/2019)
| • | ... I have been told many times the end is near by doomsday prophets who have frightened people into green orthodoxy better than any cult leader. | |
| • | ... the mother of all doomsday scenarios: global warming. ... Deadly heat and floods. Ice caps melting. Polar bears dying. Alligators and sharks invading. TV shows. Movies. Books. | |
| • | Thirty years ago this week, the United Nations issued a global warming report that I distinctly remember. | |
| • | It predicted worldwide disaster. | |
| • | And here we are 30 years later, and I look back at that 1989 report, I think only this: What happened? | |
| • | The U.N. report was flat-out wrong. It was 100 percent, complete opposite, 180-degree wrong. | |
| • | Can I get an explanation, please? | |
| • | The report claimed we had a 10-year window to fix this or it would be irreversible. It wasn't. | |
| • | The report claimed the Soviet Union would have a bumper crop harvest because of shifting weather patterns. | |
| • | The Soviet Union collapsed months later. | |
| • | I'd be OK if this were a one-time mistake, but the U.N. continues to issue such hyperbolic reports. | |
| • | The phrase "we have 12 years to fix this" is parroted by almost every 2020 Democratic presidential candidate... | |
| • | On the bright side, we were told we had 10 years in 1989, so at least the prognosis is better this time. | |
| • | Why issue another report without correcting the first one? | |
| • | After all, this is "science," and one is expected to believe in science. | |
| • | So let's lay out the facts dispassionately and objectively, as any unbiased scientist would. | |
| • | Please identify the error and methodological change or formula or data point that has been corrected. Show your work. | |
| • | Otherwise, why should we believe you got it right 30 years later? | |
| • | Surely the IPCC has the means to do an after-action review. Since the report was issued the IPCC has raked in over $150 million. | |
| • | Looks like there's a prophet making a profit. | |
| • | No presidential candidate, and practically no politician, would ever say he or she is skeptical of these U.N. predictions. | |
| • | "Climate denier" is an accusation akin to "war criminal," and with a leftist movement that is growing more violent and assaulting and doxing journalists, it's almost imprudent to voice an alternative view. | |
| • | But the U.N. has a 30-year track record of being wrong on this issue, so I take its reports on climate change and "we have 12 years left" with a grain of salt the size of the Maldives. | |
Assault on Western Civilization (JWR 07/03/2019)
| • | Western civilization was founded on a set of philosophies that focus strongly on the sanctity of individuals and their power of logic and reason. | |
| • | This belief led to a desire to trust things that could be proven to be true or legitimate, from government to science. | |
| • | Judeo-Christian morality has formed the basis of most Western notions of ethics and behavioral standards. | |
| • | Thus, the attack on Western civilization must begin with the attack on the church and Christian values, and, just as important, the family unit must be undermined. | |
| • | The reason why the church, Christian values and family are targets of the left is they want people's loyalty and allegiance to be to the state. | |
| • | The church, Christianity and the family stand in the way. | |
| • | Just ask yourself: If you're a feminist, in which countries would you like to live? | |
| • | Would it be Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, China or countries on the African continent, north or south of the Sahara? | |
| • | The greatest efforts to downplay the achievements of Western civilization start at our colleges and universities. | |
| • | ... "the overwhelming majority of America's most prestigious institutions do not require even the students who major in history to take a single course on United States history or government." | |
| • | Because of this ignorance, our young people fall easy prey to charlatans, quacks and liars who wish to downgrade our founders and the American achievement. | |
| • | The left in our country often suggests that people who stand up for Western civilization are supporting a racial hierarchy. | |
| • | The fact is that the history of the world is one of arbitrary tyrannical abuse and control. | |
| • | Poverty has been the standard fare for a vast majority of mankind. | |
| • | America became the exception to what life was like. | |
| • | That exceptionalism inspired imitators, and our vision of freedom and liberty spread to what has become known as the Western world. | |
| • | Many do not appreciate the fact that freedom and competition in both the marketplace and idea arena unleashed a level of entrepreneurism, risk-taking and creativity heretofore unknown to mankind. | |
| • | Look at the marketplace of ideas. | |
| • | The Nobel Prize has been awarded to 860 people since its inception in 1901. | |
| • | The prizewinner distribution: Americans (375), United Kingdom (131) Germany (108), France (69) and Sweden (32); that's 83% of Nobel Prizes won. | |
| • | The large majority of other Nobel winners are mostly westerners. | |
| • | I might add that Japan has 27 Nobel Prize winners, but their first winner was awarded in 1949, after WWII led Japan to became more westernized. | |
| • | There's a reason why the West leads the world in terms of scientific innovation, wealth and military might and it has little to do with genetics. | |
| • | Instead, it's the environment of freedom, both in the market for goods and in the idea marketplace. | |
| • | Rigorous competition brings out the best in mankind. | |
| • | Leftists and would-be tyrants find Western values offensive. | |
Marc Thiessen: Trump is tough on dictators, despite his kind words (Fox 07/03/2019)
| • | Trump became the first American president to set foot in North Korea, where he praised his "great friendship" with North Korea's despotic leader, Kim Jong Un. | |
| • | Trump held another cringe-worthy press availability with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where Trump joked about Russia's electoral interference. | |
| • | And the U.S. president met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling him "one of the great leaders in 200 years." | |
| • | Oh, and before leaving, he said that he would be willing to meet Iran's leaders with "no preconditions." | |
| • | If President Obama had done any of this, conservatives would be howling with outrage. | |
| • | So why are they not angry with Trump? | |
| • | Simple. Because unlike Obama, Trump is taking a hard line with North Korea, Russia, China and Iran. | |
| • | And what he does matters a lot more than what he says. | |
| • | Obama did not simply embrace anti-American tyrants; he showered them with cash and diplomatic concessions. | |
| • | Not only did Obama do the "wave" with Cuban dictator Raul Castro at a Havana ballpark, but he also gave the Cuban regime diplomatic recognition and sanctions relief in exchange for absolutely nothing. | |
| • | Cuba responded by increasing its repression of dissidents on the island. | |
| • | Obama tried to meet with Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, but the Iranian leader rejected his request. | |
| • | Nonetheless, Obama cut a nuclear deal that gave the regime billions of dollars in sanctions relief — money Iran then used to fuel terrorism and Shiite expansionism across the Middle East. | |
| • | Obama was famously caught on an open microphone in 2012 telling then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have "more flexibility" after the election ("I will transmit this information to Vladimir," Medvedev replied). | |
| • | In 2009, Obama undermined Poland and the Czech Republic by canceling U.S. missile-defense agreements in a move that Moscow would have welcomed, and in 2014 he stood by as Putin annexed Crimea. | |
| • | Trump, by contrast, has given his tyrannical interlocutors virtually nothing. | |
| • | In North Korea, Trump has showered Kim with undeserved praise but has not lifted sanctions, unfrozen North Korean assets or granted Pyongyang diplomatic recognition. | |
| • | Quite the opposite, he has tightened sanctions on Kim's inner circle — and seized a North Korean ship that was violating sanctions. | |
| • | In his Putin meeting last week, Trump made unseemly jokes about "fake news" not being a problem in Russia. | |
| • | But Trump has also approved a massive arms and aid package for Ukraine; expelled Russian diplomats; authorized multiple rounds of new sanctions against Moscow for everything from election interference to treaty violations; withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; persuaded NATO allies to increase their defense investments; and twice bombed Putin's ally, the Assad regime, for Syria's use of chemical weapons against civilians. | |
| • | And before the Putin meeting, Trump announced that he is considering imposing new economic sanctions to block construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would allow Russia to increase flows of natural gas to Germany. | |
| • | With the exception of President Reagan, Trump is right that no American president has ever been tougher on Russia. | |
| • | In China, Trump might have praised Xi as "great" for declaring himself "president for life," but he has also punished China for its theft of American intellectual property by imposing 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods after China backtracked on a trade deal. | |
| • | And Trump has made clear that he stands ready to impose tariffs on an additional $300 billion in Chinese goods if China does not reach an agreement soon. | |
| • | Regarding Iran, Trump has expressed a willingness to meet with Iran's leaders, but he has also withdrawn from Obama's disastrous nuclear deal and imposed crushing sanctions that that reduced Iran's oil sales by 88 percent and drained Iran of 40 percent of its government revenue. | |
James Carafano: What those decrying America’s ‘endless wars’ are really talking about (Fox 07/02/2019)
| • | From the presidential candidate debate stage to new think tanks, voices from both left and right are demanding an end to America's endless wars. | |
| • | Only one problem: We're not fighting any endless wars. | |
| • | Even in this age of great power competition, these "new" isolationists would prefer America step off the playing field and wave from the sidelines. | |
| • | It's a strategy that would work well for Beijing, Tehran and Moscow – but not for the U.S. | |
| • | Today, what America does around the world is pretty much what it has been doing since 1945 – providing forward presence, deterrence, counterterrorism, training, assistance, and freedom of navigation. | |
| • | That's important work and a heavy lift, but it ain't war. | |
| • | The U.S. is a global power with global interests and responsibilities. That's not a choice; it's just who we are. | |
| • | No one today is arguing that the U.S. can child-proof the world to make America safe. | |
| • | But, walking away from problems doesn't work well either – as the Obama team more than amply demonstrated. | |
| • | They ended the war in Iraq. And, for that, we got a war with the caliphate. | |
| • | They ended the war in Afghanistan. For that, we got the resurgence of the Taliban. | |
| • | The reset with Russia produced a war in Ukraine. | |
| • | Tried to buy Iran off, and that didn't work. | |
| • | And they stood by as China moved to make the South China Sea its own and North Korea's Kim built out his nuclear arsenal. | |
| • | Trump has tried to stake out a middle ground. | |
| • | He isn't interested in being the world's babysitter, but he is willing to stand up and demonstrate sufficient resolve to protect America's interest. | |
| • | He has managed to do that – and finish off the Caliphate – without starting any new wars. | |
| • | So where are the endless wars? | |
| • | Or, more to the point, what's so bad about this administration's foreign policy? | |
| • | Look around, and you'll see Russia stonewalled in Crimea. | |
| • | Iran just failed to close the Straits of Hormuz. | |
| • | The DPRK is negotiating. | |
| • | The Stars and Stripes proudly sail the South China Seas, and there is nothing Beijing can do about. | |
| • | History supplies overwhelming evidence that weakness and indifference do not deter aggression and exploitation, they invite it. | |
| • | Trump's foreign policy has been dramatically successful at rebalancing U.S. interests. | |
| • | It has not brought war, much less endless war. To withdraw further from the world stage would only invite the world's bad actors to take center stage once more. | |
Trump's economic pressure on America's foes has been working — but our allies undermine him (Fox 06/24/2019)
| • | "I want to invade, if I have to, economically. We've created a much stronger country economically than when I took it over ... We have tremendous power economically. If I can solve things economically that's the way I want it." | |
| • | That is the Trump Doctrine in a nutshell. | |
| • | Winston Churchill famously said that meeting jaw-to-jaw is better than war. | |
| • | With Trump, the strategy seems to be jobs jobs jobs - at home and abroad. | |
| • | Sometimes that's a carrot, as with Kim Jong-un, where the president is trying to persuade North Korea's leader of the economic opportunity for his country if he gives up his nuclear plans. | |
| • | Sometimes it's the stick, as with Mexico and the tariff threat over border enforcement. | |
| • | President Trump's preferred weapon is economic. As he showed last week, he is not casual about military conflict, unlike the inhuman establishment geniuses who'd send other people's children - in their eyes, the deplorables' children - into war at the drop of a policy memo. | |
| • | After the weakness of the Obama nuclear deal, which lifted sanctions in exchange for practically nothing and gave Iran the green light to develop a nuclear weapon in the future — oh, and $150 billion to fund terrorism — the tough Trump sanctions enacted in 2018 have crippled Iran's terror funding and crushed its economy, nearly doubling its budget deficit and leading to rampant inflation and unemployment. | |
| • | "I'm not looking for war and if there is, it'll be obliteration like you've never seen before. But I'm not looking to do that. But you can't have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk? Good ... Here it is: Look, you can't have nuclear weapons. And if you want to talk about it, good. Otherwise, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time to come." | |
| • | There's only one problem: Iran thinks it can survive the sanctions. | |
| • | That's why it's lashing out, with attacks on tankers and now this shooting down of our drone. | |
| • | Why does Iran think it can survive these tough U.S. sanctions? | |
| • | Because of our so-called allies. Europe is fighting to keep the useless Obama deal alive. | |
| • | Iran believes it can divide and survive. | |
| • | It can survive Trump's maximum economic pressure because the Europeans want to take the pressure off. | |
| • | Why? Simple — it's the Swamp. | |
| • | When the Obama Iran deal was finalized and sanctions were lifted, state-backed European businesses rushed in to grab the cash. | |
| • | resident Trump is trying to avoid war through economic pressure. | |
| • | Our so-called allies are undermining that pressure and in the process making war more likely. | |
| • | Outrageously, this exact same pattern is playing out around the world. | |
| • | ... President Trump is the first western leader in50 years to stand up to China, and again, he's doing it with his preferred strategy, economic pressure. | |
| • | It's working: China's economy is weakening. ... "China's economy shows fresh signs of weakness. Lost momentum reflects battered sentiment stemming from the Trump administration's tariffs on Chinese exports." | |
| • | Our so-called allies, of course, are busily undermining this strategy. | |
| • | So now the U.K. is helping to fund Iranian terrorism and Chinese imperialism. | |
| • | What next, providing financing for ISIS? Oh wait - I think British bank HSBC already did that. | |
| • | The worst of all this is that, just as with Iran and Russia, the China suck-up has nothing to do with high principle or considered policy. | |
| • | It's just good, old-fashioned swampiness. | |
| • | The British, the French, the Germans — these so-called allies of ours — might think they're being clever by coddling authoritarian regimes for cash. | |
| • | But they're not. They're idiots because in the end, they will lose out — and that's embarrassing. | |
| • | They might also think that undermining this administration's economic pressure on China, Russia and Iran is smart because it's anti-Trump | |
| • | Well, they're wrong. It's not anti-Trump; it's anti-American. | |
| • | And after all that this country has done for them, that is shameful. | |
Andy Puzder: Trump tariffs incredibly useful in advancing our national security – Here’s why (Fox 06/21/2019)
| • | President Trump's critics often complain that his strategic use of tariffs violates sacrosanct principles of free trade. | |
| • | In reality, his bold approach is about securing truly free trade while protecting U.S. national security interests. | |
| • | Doctrinaire support for an idealized version of free trade ignores reciprocity. | |
| • | Trade isn't truly free unless it is truly fair. If one party is cheating, there's nothing fair – or free – about it. | |
| • | Over the past 75 years, America has led the world toward greater prosperity by serving as a role model for free trade. | |
| • | But while many other countries have followed our example, some have sought to take advantage of our openness. | |
| • | China has for decades been the most flagrant violator, with its numerous tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade. | |
| • | These barriers include China's manipulation of its currency to boost exports and depress imports, and the nation's brazen theft of American intellectual property. | |
| • | President Trump's strategic counter-tariffs represent a bold new approach to this long-simmering conflict. | |
| • | While the so-called experts in the media have warned about a "trade war" with Beijing, the U.S. economy is booming and China is facing serious economic headwinds. | |
| • | As a result, this is an opportune time to negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement that ends China's manipulations and allows truly free trade between the world's two largest economies. | |
| • | Another problem with doctrinaire support for a naive version of free trade is that it ignores America's right to protect it national security interests. | |
| • | Free trade obviously isn't free when foreign governments exert direct control over their corporations and use them to pursue foreign policy objectives. | |
| • | China is infamous for weaponizing its government-run corporations in defiance of free trade principles. | |
| • | Before President Trump took office, America went so far down the path of naive and unfair trade policies that we risked losing important industrial capacity needed for our national security. | |
| • | We should all be thankful that the U.S. government doesn't run America's corporations. | |
| • | But we shouldn't dismiss the obvious geopolitical dangers posed by state-owned foreign corporations, which are guided by political considerations rather than the pursuit of profit that is central to the logic of free trade. | |
| • | Luckily for America, President Trump's strategic tariffs have been an effective tool for advancing our national security interests. | |
| • | President Trump's strategic tariff strategy was also a last – but nonetheless successful – resort as a tool to induce Mexico to take increased responsibility for the illegal immigration crisis at our southern border. | |
| • | President Trump's use of strategic tariffs has certainly been a departure from the approach taken in prior administrations. | |
| • | But it is not an indication that the president will misuse or overuse tariffs as a tool to address every problem. | |
| • | Rather, Trump is seeking to strengthen the tenets of free trade by challenging those who take unfair advantage of American workers and companies. | |
| • | At the same time, he has used tariffs, or the threat of tariffs, in very limited circumstances as a diplomatic tool to advance U.S. national security interests. | |
| • | Under Trump, the Republican Party remains the party of free trade and a strong national defense. | |
US holds all the cards in showdown with Iran (JWR 06/19/2019)
| • | The Iranian theocrats despise the Trump administration. | |
| • | They yearn for the good old days of the Obama administration, when the U.S. agreed to a nuclear deal that all but guaranteed future Iranian nuclear proliferation, ignored Iranian terrorism and sent hundreds of millions of dollars in shakedown payments to the Iranian regime. | |
| • | Iran believed that the Obama administration saw it as a valuable Shiite counterweight to Israel and the traditionally American-allied Sunni monarchies in the Gulf region. | |
| • | Teheran assumes that an even more left-wing American administration would also endorse Iran-friendly policies, and so it is fishing for ways to see that happen in 2020 with a Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden presidency. | |
| • | Desperate Iranian officials have already met secretly with former Secretary of State John Kerry and openly with Sen. Diane Feinstein, likely to commiserate over Trump's cancellation of the nuclear deal and to find ways to revive the Obama-era agreement after Trump leaves office. | |
| • | To that end, the Iranians wish to disrupt world oil traffic while persuading China, Russia and the European Union to pressure the U.S. to back off sanctions. | |
| • | Iran hopes to provoke and embarrass its nemesis into overreacting — or not reacting at all. | |
| • | If Trump does nothing, he looks weak to this Jacksonian base of supporters. | |
| • | But do too much, and he appears a neoconservative, globalist nation-builder. | |
| • | Either way, the Iranians think Trump loses. | |
| • | Accordingly, Iran hopes to embarrass or bog down the U.S. before the 2020 elections. | |
| • | In Teheran's view, the challenge is to provoke Trump into a shooting war that it can survive and that will prove unpopular in the United States, thus losing him the election. | |
| • | It harkens back to its role in the 2003-2011 Iraq War, a conflict that proved that U.S. efforts could be subverted, hundreds of American soldiers could be killed, public support for war could be eroded, and a more malleable American government could be transitioned in. | |
| • | But what worked then may not work now. | |
| • | The U.S. is not only the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas, but soon to become the largest exporter of energy — and without getting near the Iranian coast. | |
| • | Likewise, American allies in the Middle East such as Israel are energy independent. | |
| • | America's Arab friends enjoy seeing competing Iranian oil all but off the market. | |
| • | Time, then, is on the Americans' side. | |
| • | But it is certainly not on the side of a bankrupt and impoverished Iran that either must escalate or face ruin. | |
| • | If Iran starts sinking ships or attacking U.S. assets, Trump can simply replay the ISIS strategy of selective off-and-on bombing. The U.S. did not lose a single pilot to enemy action. | |
| • | Translated, that would mean disproportionately replying to each Iranian attack on a U.S. asset with a far more punishing air response against an Iranian base or port. | |
| • | The key would be to avoid the use of ground troops and yet not unleash a full-fledged air war. | |
| • | Rather, the U.S. would demonstrate to the world that Iranian aggression determines the degree to which Iran suffers blows from the U.S. | |
| • | ... the truth is that America has all the cards and Iran none in its game of chicken. | |
| • | Because Iran is losing friends and money, it will have to escalate. | |
| • | But the U.S. can respond without looking weak and without going to war — and without ensuring the return to power of the political party responsible for giving us the disastrous nuclear deal that had so empowered Iran in the first place. | |
Why are the Western middle classes so angry? (JWR 06/13/2019)
| • | What is going on with the unending Brexit drama, the aftershocks of Donald Trump's election and the "yellow vests" protests in France? | |
| • | What drives the growing estrangement of southern and eastern Europe from the European Union establishment? | |
| • | What fuels the anti-EU themes of recent European elections and the stunning recent Australian re-election of conservatives? | |
| • | Put simply, the middle classes are revolting against Western managerial elites. | |
| • | The latter group includes professional politicians, entrenched bureaucrats, condescending academics, corporate phonies and propagandistic journalists. | |
| • | What are the popular gripes against them? | |
| • | One, illegal immigration and open borders have led to chaos. | |
| • | Lax immigration policies have taxed social services and fueled multicultural identity politics, often to the benefit of boutique leftist political agendas. | |
| • | Two, globalization enriched the cosmopolitan elites who found worldwide markets for their various services. | |
| • | New global markets and commerce meant Western nations outsourced, offshored and ignored their own industries and manufacturing (or anything dependent on muscular labor that could be replaced by cheaper workers abroad). | |
| • | Three, unelected bureaucrats multiplied and vastly increased their power over private citizens. | |
| • | The targeted middle classes lacked the resources to fight back against the royal armies of tenured regulators, planners, auditors, inspectors and adjustors who could not be fired and were never accountable. | |
| • | Four, the new global media reached billions and indoctrinated rather than reported. | |
| • | Five, academia became politicized as a shrill agent of cultural transformation rather than focusing on education — while charging more for less learning. | |
| • | Six, utopian social planning increased housing, energy and transportation costs. | |
| • | One common gripe framed all these diverse issues: The wealthy had the means and influence not to be bothered by higher taxes and fees or to avoid them altogether. | |
| • | Not so much the middle classes, who lacked the clout of the virtue-signaling rich and the romance of the distant poor. | |
| • | In other words, elites never suffered the firsthand consequences of their own ideological fiats. | |
| • | Diversity administrators multiplied at universities while indebted students borrowed more money to pay for them. | |
| • | Elites masked their hypocrisy by virtue-signaling their disdain for the supposedly xenophobic, racist or nativist middle classes. | |
| • | Yet the non-elite have experienced firsthand the impact on social programs, schools and safety from sudden, massive and often illegal immigration from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia into their communities. | |
| • | As for trade, few still believe in "free" trade when it remains so unfair. | |
| • | The middle classes became nauseated by the constant elite trashing of their culture, history and traditions, including the tearing down of statues, the Trotskyizing of past heroes, the renaming of public buildings and streets, and, for some, the tired and empty whining about "white privilege." | |
| • | If Western nations were really so bad, and so flawed at their founding, why were millions of non-Westerners risking their lives to reach Western soil? | |
| • | In the next few years, expect more grassroots demands for the restoration of the value of citizenship. | |
| • | There will be fewer middle-class apologies for patriotism and nationalism. The non-elite will become angrier about illegal immigration, demanding a return to the idea of measured, meritocratic, diverse and legal immigration. | |
| • | Because elites have no answers to popular furor, the anger directed at them will only increase until they give up — or finally succeed in their grand agenda of a non-democratic, all-powerful Orwellian state. | |
Could a low-yield, sub-launch nuclear missile stop a Russian first strike? (Fox 06/12/2019)
| • | "Russia has openly described, and rehearsed in military exercises, a military doctrine of 'escalate to de-escalate.' Under this strategy, Russia would attack using smaller nuclear weapons, understanding that the U.S. would hesitate to respond without a way to act proportionally. This doctrine has led Moscow to think it has an advantage and appears to have lowered its threshold for the first use of nuclear weapons." | |
| • | "There are currently over 1,000 nuclear warheads in the US arsenal that have low-yield options. A yield is considered low if it's 20 kilotons or less." | |
| • | Russia's belief that limited nuclear first use, potentially including low-yield weapons, can provide such an advantage is based, in part, on Moscow's perception that its greater number and variety of non-strategic nuclear systems provide a coercive advantage in crises and at lower levels of conflict. | |
| • | Recent Russian statements on this evolving nuclear weapons doctrine appear to lower the threshold for Moscow's first-use of nuclear weapons. | |
Newt Gingrich: China and how we got it wrong (Fox 05/19/2019)
| • | To put it bluntly, our strategies for dealing with China are failing, because they are not based on reality. | |
| • | For decades, our diplomatic, economic, and security strategies related to China have been based on a set of key myths. | |
| • | We (myself included) sold ourselves an optimistic, American-centric, fantasy version of China that has never existed – and will likely never exist. | |
| • | The real China is much more formidable and dangerous than we have wanted to believe. | |
| • | As I've been researching its past and present, I realized how remarkably I and others misunderstood this ancient country. | |
| • | Like many Western scholars and policy makers, I bought into the idea that open global markets and information sharing would bring China out of its communist-totalitarian past and into a global democratic (or at least open) future. | |
| • | We couldn't have been more wrong. | |
| • | In fact, China has always had its own agenda. | |
| • | It wants to reclaim its position as the Middle Kingdom – the center of world affairs. With its 5,000-year history, it is also deeply Chinese. | |
| • | It has no interest in becoming westernized. China is also deeply committed to its communist system – but its leaders have recognized that its people must be made prosperous to keep this system going. | |
| • | Further, I've learned how concerted they are in their efforts to undermine the United States, and other democratized western nations, with a very specific plan for technological and economic global domination. | |
Ayaan understands Islam’s Jew-hating Jihad for the prophet (INN 05/19/2019)
| • | "Then the apostle [Muhammad] went out to the market of Medina and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches" | |
Benedict Peters: Beware of China’s new colonialism (Fox 05/08/2019)
| • | America is slowly awakening to the growing menace of China's plans for economic supremacy. | |
| • | In 2013 Chinese President Xi Jingping launched an international investment program that became known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). | |
| • | Under a new mantra to connect the global economy, China began investing heavily in foreign infrastructure projects in over 60 countries that account for 60 percent of the world population and 30 percent of global gross domestic product. | |
| • | Geopolitical rivals are concerned BRI investment programs will deepen China's political influence and military expansion. | |
| • | Is BRI a lifeline for the developing world, or economic imperialism? | |
| • | U.S. officials are right to be concerned about the expansion of an infrastructure network that leaves crippling debt, faulty construction and project mismanagement in its wake. | |
| • | ... BRI projects left the local governments in severe debt and incentivized officials to appeal to China for debt forgiveness. | |
| • | When countries fall deep enough into debt, China will offer to renegotiate the terms of the debt in exchange for strategic assets or preferential treatment. | |
| • | China is running a rampant campaign of new colonialism through the developing world. | |
| • | The U.S. must do something more to present a viable investment alternative for government leaders participating in BRI. | |
| • | The American people and government policymakers are waking up to this growing problem. I just hope it is not too late. | |
China wants to replace America as THE global superpower — Here's what we must learn (Fox 04/25/2019)
| • | ... describe China's challenge to the rules-based world order and how, as a result, American interests and security are being put at risk. | |
| • | China is the most serious and formidable competitor that the United States now faces. It is essential to examine Chinese tactics and strategic thinking to better position the U.S. for this new era of competition. It will affect the future of our country for generations to come. | |
| • | One of the most revealing comparisons to Chinese strategy is the game wei qi, which is said to have originated in China thousands of years ago. | |
| • | Wei qi — more commonly known by its Japanese name "Go" in the West — is a game played with two players using a checkered board lined with 19 horizontal and 19 vertical lines. | |
| • | One player has 180 white round stones and another has 181 black round stones. | |
| • | The players take turns placing their stones on the board one at a time on the intersections of the checker lines. | |
| • | The goal of the game is to capture the most territory either by encircling empty spaces or your opponent's pieces on the board. | |
| • | The player with the most territory after all the pieces have been played, or after both players pass on their turns, wins. | |
| • | Go is an incredibly complex game due to the number of possible moves and board configurations. | |
| • | As the game progresses, there are multiple invasions, engagements, fights, and confrontations between players that occur in all different areas of the board at the same time. | |
| • | Moreover, it is a lengthy game that requires players to capitalize on short-term victories – but to never lose sight of the long-term strategy. | |
| • | ... the Chinese approach to strategy is reflected in Go. | |
| • | The American approach to strategic thinking ... is reflected in chess. | |
| • | American strategy relies on our technological superiority and capabilities. | |
| • | The U.S. focuses on force-on-force competition that seeks the result of total victory over the opponent. | |
| • | In chess, there are pieces that are more powerful than others that are deployed with the objective of capturing the opponent's king. | |
| • | Every move is directed toward protecting your own king and seizing your opponent's. | |
| • | In this way, chess is narrowly focused. | |
| • | Chess players must also preserve their stronger pieces to keep the balance of power in their favor and ensure a better chance of victory. | |
| • | The player with the most powerful pieces in play during the game will likely win. | |
| • | "On China," "If chess is about the decisive battle, wei qi is about the protracted campaign." | |
| • | In Go, every stone is equal. Players can unleash massive amounts of potential power by creatively and tactically placing their stones. | |
| • | All stones placed on the board work in close connection with one another, as each individual is a part of a larger, bigger strategy. | |
| • | Moreover, in Go there are multiple campaigns, pursuits, battles, and maneuvers happening at the same time across the board. | |
| • | As the board is constantly changing in complex, subtle, and dynamic ways, players must always have a sharp awareness of the overall situation. | |
| • | Due to the number of possibilities where players can place their stones and the limited number of stones available, players must know when to fight for or defend territory. | |
| • | More importantly, they must know when to let it go. | |
| • | In an evenly matched game, Go is a competition of simultaneous incremental victories. | |
| • | Total, decisive, and complete defeat of an opponent is not typically an attainable objective. | |
| • | Usually, games are won by just a few points. | |
| • | ... playing Go with a chess approach is dangerous. Similarly, it will be dangerous for the U.S. to continue to approach the challenges we face with China without understanding and seeing the totality and breadth of their strategy. | |
| • | We must examine all of these campaigns — in addition to others — collectively. | |
| • | We must understand this go-based approach, rather than look at each endeavor as an independent challenge. | |
| • | Each of China's campaigns work in concert with one another and will ultimately result in China's emergence as a global hegemon. | |
| • | China's current aggressive tactics will eventually undermine the United States, jeopardize our security, hurt our economy, compromise our values, and alter our way of life. | |
| • | Those trying to understand the challenges that the United States now faces with China need to learn how to play Go. | |
| • | Moreover, the United States must develop an American-based strategy in this new era of competition that is focused on our strength, capabilities, ingenuity, and American spirit. | |
Is Islam inherently violent? (INN 04/21/2019)
| • | To some people perhaps, the title of this article sounds Islamophobic. | |
| • | And as is the case, Muslims always rush to defend their religion by stating there is violence in "All religions." | |
| • | "The Quran contains at least 109 verses that speak of war with nonbelievers, usually based on their status as non-Muslims. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may hide. Muslims who do not join the fight are called ‘hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter." | |
| • | Right from the start, violence served as the engine of Islam under the command and supervision of Muhammad himself. | |
| • | For one, the Prophet's son-in-law and cousin, Ali, was titled the Commander of the Faithful for his unsurpassed feats of butchery. | |
| • | Ali with the assistance of one or two of his thugs, beheaded some seven hundred captives, most of them Jews, in only one day. | |
| • | And this man, Ali, is revered by the Shiites at the same level as Muhammad. | |
| • | On the Sunni side, Muhammad's equally revered is Umar, another unabashed killer of untold numbers. | |
| • | A pious Muslim does not and cannot believe in freedom of choice. | |
| • | In the religion of Islam — Submission — everything is up to Allah, as clearly and repeatedly stipulated in the Quran. | |
| • | Not only does Islam support violence, even its Prophet Muhammad commands: "Kill whoever changes his religion." Sahih al-Bukhari 9:84:57 | |
| • | Muslims, instead of march out of the suffocating swamps of submission to the meadow of liberty, Allah's faithful aim to drag the rest of humanity into the deadly Islamic quagmire. | |
| • | Islam may have been an improvement to the life of the savages that roamed the Arabian deserts some 1400 years ago. | |
| • | However, the 21st century world is not willing to surrender to the clearly failed and failing Islamic experiment, simply because of the claim that it is the one and only true religion of Allah. | |
| • | Islam is a religion bn through violence, raised by violence, thrives on violence and dies without violence. | |
ANALYSIS: Turkey's Erdogan is in real trouble (INN 04/12/2019)
| • | Rather than desperately attempting to hold Ankara in NATO, the allies should begin considering how to ease Turkey out." | |
James Carafano: Russia is a menace, but blame Putin and Obama, NOT Trump (Fox 03/29/2019)
| • | Trump has a Russia problem, but it has nothing to do with Robert Mueller's investigation. | |
| • | The real problem is – well, just Russia. | |
| • | And if you're looking for someone to blame, it ain't Trump. You do have two choices, though: Putin or Obama. | |
| • | Flip a coin. But before you make the call, let's pause to review how we got to where we are in U.S.-Russia relations. | |
| • | From the outset of his rise to power, Putin had two goals: first, to take complete control of the Russian state and second, to use that power and authority to sow discord among the transatlantic community, weakening the western nations politically, militarily and – where possible – economically. | |
| • | Why weaken the West? Because it would allow Putin to establish a hard sphere of influence over the surrounding nations – especially the former Soviet states. | |
| • | This would not only help Putin recapture for Russia the prestige it enjoyed in the communist era, but it would also assure the perpetuation of his control far into the future. | |
| • | That was always the plan, and it will likely remain the plan as long as Putinism has its gnarly fingers around the throat of the Russian people. | |
| • | But is it all Putin's fault? After all, Putin is just a thug with a mediocre economy and a middling military. | |
| • | That's why it is also fair to blame Obama. After all, who let Russia back into the great power game? | |
| • | Team Obama racked up a long list of seriously bad moves in dealing with Moscow. | |
| • | It's not like no one warned Obama that Putin's Russia was a rising menace. | |
| • | But Mr. "No Drama" simply pooh-poohed the notion that it was anything to worry about. | |
| • | Given that history, is it any wonder that Putin thought he could mess with the 2016 elections and get away with it? | |
| • | The main goal was, no doubt, simply to sow doubt and distaste about whichever candidate emerged the winner. | |
| • | But Trump's speculation that Moscow would have been happier with a Clinton presidency is probably right. | |
| • | Her election might well have perpetuated many of the worst elements of Obama's policies, including letting Russia undermine European energy security and energy free markets. | |
| • | Looking back solely to assess blame is, of course, a largely fruitless exercise. | |
| • | The point of looking back to figure out how we got where we are today is to help us understand what to do to move forward. | |
| • | In practice, this administration has looked back and learned the right lessons. Across the board, the team has been tough on Russia. | |
| • | And many on the left aren't happy about it. ... Their argument is that what we are doing now isn't working because Putin isn't changing. | |
| • | The flaw here lies in thinking that we can change him. | |
| • | We can't. Obama's approach certainly didn't, and Trump's policies don't try to. Putin will just keep being Putin, no matter who is in the Oval Office. | |
| • | What the current U.S. strategy does is something that Obama never did: recognizing Putin for who he is and pushing back on him. | |
| • | Frankly, Trump's biggest problem today is not Putin. Vlad has been put in his place. | |
| • | No, today the big problem is places like Berlin and Paris, where bumping heads with Washington is all the rage. | |
| • | The Euro-elite pine for an America happy to "lead from behind" and let them prate about "strategic autonomy" for Europe while raking in cash from Russian energy projects. | |
| • | Knowingly or unknowingly these voices are doing Putin's work for him, undermining the solidarity of the transatlantic community. | |
| • | Their vitriol is far worse, more damaging, and more dangerous than Trump's tweets. | |
| • | They need to wake up. Putin is our common problem. He's not going to change and he's not going away anytime soon. | |
| • | What's needed is a common effort to keep him from disrupting and weakening the transatlantic community. | |
| • | Who knows, if the Putin had to face a common front from the West, maybe he would start to mend his ways. | |
| • | Then we could all live in peace and prosperity. | |
To Russia With Love: Withdraw your 9M729s ASAP (INN 02/17/2019)
| • | There comes a point when you've been bluffing at poker, and you realize you've lost, and you have to fold. | |
| • | Putin and Russia have been playing a deadly hot game of poker with their violations of the INF Treaty, and Russia and Putin have lost badly and gotten burned. | |
| • | There comes a point when you've been bluffing at poker, and you realize you've lost, and you have to fold. | |
| • | Putin and Russia have been playing a deadly hot game of poker with their violations of the INF Treaty, and Russia and Putin have lost badly and gotten burned. | |
| • | So, Russia and Putin know exactly what the problem is and Russia and Putin know exactly how to solve the problem. | |
| • | China has bought off, manipulated, and false-flagged the whole spectrum of American media from news to TV fiction to the Hollywood Film industry into turning Russia into the greatest evil empire while China steals trillions of dollars of military and high technology and steals huge stretches of the South China Sea. | |
| • | China has played Russia for a fool, and Russia just seems to go on taking it like an even greater fool. | |
| • | China, along with the desperate Democrats, are pushing America into a Russo-phobic hysteria, and the situation is only going to get worse and more dangerous for everybody. | |
| • | Is Russia really planning to violently invade Europe? Is Russia really planning to violently occupy millions of extremely hostile people? | |
| • | Russia's economy is the size of a small American state, and its economy is dead in the water. | |
| • | So, why deploy a missile that is causing troubles when Russia and Putin already have enough troubles? | |
| • | The simple solution is to unilaterally and verifiably withdraw the damn 9M729 missiles, and save your chips for something important. | |
| • | Start a new page with America where Russia isn't China's partner in chaos and evil, but America's super-power partner for stability and good. | |
The US-Taliban peace agreement (INN 02/03/2019)
| • | It really is about time the West understood the thought processes of the leaders and heads of Islamist organizations. | |
| • | They approach things from an Islamist point of view, which declares openly that agreements of any kind with heretics are temporary in nature. | |
'Western imams who praise Islamic Caliphate are terrorists' (INN 01/24/2019)
| • | ... such words constitute a form of terrorism that might become armed terrorism should the opportunity present itself, and the West has failed to realize this. | |
| • | ... this form of Islamism is being taught in mosques and in Islamic schools throughout the West, and the natural course of such education is terrorism. | |
| • | ... the same Muslims who show enmity to other religions in their home countries come to the West and criticize Christians, Jews, the West, and secularism while demanding that nobody criticizes Islam. | |
| • | ... if Western politicians fail to stop the terrorist "wave" in the West, ordinary citizens will become more inclined to elect increasingly "extreme" leaders. | |
| • | "The main plan of the Islamists is to destroy Western civilization. They have said it themselves!" | |
China should think twice before threatening to attack Americans (Fox 01/04/2019)
| • | ... Chinese Rear Admiral ... announced that what the United States feared most was casualties and that the easiest way to defeat China's main rival was to sink two American supercarriers, killing over 10,000 sailors in the process. | |
| • | When that has happened, Admiral Lou announced, then "We'll see how frightened America is." | |
| • | ... followed just a few days later by China's President, Xi Jinping, who threateningly said China "reserves the option of taking all necessary measures" to ensure "peaceful reunification" with Taiwan... | |
| • | Xi added that Beijing was willing to "fight the bloody battle against our enemies," and menacingly predicted, "Reunification is the historical trend and the right path, Taiwan independence is ... a dead end." | |
| • | Taken together, along with other examples of bellicose rhetoric that has increasingly issued from Beijing officials, it is clear that Xi Jinping and his supporters have been badly rattled by the recent events. | |
| • | ... Xi and his followers have watched their diplomatic, economic and military initiatives come up short, engendering increased resistance from other Indo-Pacific nations rather than the re-alignment China expected. | |
| • | Now the Trump administration's trade tariffs threaten to destabilize the Chinese economy... | |
| • | China's desperate attempts to regain the momentum, however, betrays an ignorance of the American culture. | |
| • | China perceived the lack of strategic focus of the George W. Bush administration and the passive "lead from behind" foreign policy of the Obama administration as American decay and a decline. | |
| • | In reality, the foundational aspects of the American economy remain surprisingly strong and the American fighting spirit is not dead, but only sleeping. | |
| • | Those who would believe that the sinking of two aircraft carriers would trigger an impulse towards retreat would do well to make themselves aware of the United States' history and the impact events such as the sinking of the Lusitania, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the collapse of the World Trade Center had on the American psyche. | |
| • | What some have labeled the Jacksonian impulse could be described as a tendency towards great power rage. | |
| • | ... make no mistake: any attack upon a single U.S. aircraft carrier by long range aircraft, cruise missiles or ballistic missiles would surely generate a response against the bases those weapons were launched from, the sensors associated with them and the command and control nodes that directed them, and then the United States would turn its attention on the Chinese naval and merchant fleet. | |
| • | Before China knew what was happening, it would be cut off from the overseas sources of energy and raw materials that fuel its import/export economy. | |
| • | Within weeks it would be without fuel and its factories would be shuttered. | |
| • | The American economy, established in a nation that has most of the resources domestically available, would be able to ride out the storm, even if China attempted to climb the escalation ladder and attack targets in North America. | |
| • | Xi Jinping should try harder to understand his real strategic position while remembering that he who rides the tiger finds it difficult to dismount. | |
| • | There will be no return to global hegemony or Middle Kingdom status. | |
| • | As for the United States, it should follow the lead of President Trump and his new acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, who between them have identified that we are in an era of great power competition that will require more effort and that the focus of that competition is China, and China and China. | |
New Details Ruin Khashoggi Hero Story (JWR 01/04/2019)
| • | The gruesome murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi shredded the idea that Saudi Arabian royalty should be praised for reforming itself. | |
| • | That said, puh-leeze stop it with the adoration of a man who deserves none of it. | |
| • | Politico ran a gushing headline that read, "Jamal Khashoggi: The Free Thinker Whose Murder Shook the World." | |
| • | Time magazine named him one of "the Guardians," the journalistic muckrakers who became its 2018 Person of the Year. | |
| • | Time ... laid on the praise, and thick, writing: "Khashoggi put his faith in bearing witness. He put it in the field reporting he had done since youth, in the newspaper editorship he was forced out of and in the columns he wrote from lonely exile." | |
| • | In Vick's overwrought prose, Khashoggi was a bold and independent fact-finder. "What irked the kingdom and marked the journalist for death was Khashoggi's insistence on coming to that conclusion on his own, tempering it with troubling facts and trusting the public to think for itself." | |
| • | But it gets even better: "Such independence is no small thing. It marks the distinction between tyranny and democracy." | |
| • | But wait. ... How independent was Khashoggi? | |
| • | ... the Washington Post acknowledged a "problematic" arrangement between Khashoggi and the autocrats of Qatar, a nemesis of Saudi Arabia (and the owners of "independent" Al Jazeera). | |
| • | Of course, the Post buried these facts in paragraph 19 on page A-14, in a massive 5,000-word story. | |
| • | It deserved to be the lede. | |
| • | Text messages between Khashoggi and ... executive at Qatar Foundation International ... show she "at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government." | |
| • | "Khashoggi also appears to have relied on a researcher and translator affiliated with the organization." | |
| • | So Khashoggi was railing against one set of authoritarians ... with the research assistance and "drafting" and "shaping" of another set. | |
| • | This doesn't make his ruthless murder any less heinous. | |
| • | But it ought to curtail all the "Free Thinker Just Bearing Witness" rubbish. | |
| • | There's nothing like appropriating this victim. | |
| • | In reality, Khashoggi wrote 20 pieces for the Post website from September 2017 to September 2018. | |
| • | The Post published him once in the actual newspaper. | |
| • | It wasn't that passionately impressed with his opinions before he was killed. | |
| • | The Khashoggi exploitation continues. ... "Saudi Arabia right now is acting like a rogue nation, a rogue state that has no respect for the rule of law, for human life and dignity." | |
| • | That sounds like a fair comment — except being a dictator in the Middle East is not exactly going "rogue." | |
| • | It also sounds very much like the talking points the Qatar Foundation would "draft" and "shape" for the "independent" Post to say, even now. | |
Trump's decision to pull forces out of Syria has upsides (JWR 12/24/2018)
Saudi Arabia and Trump’s wisdom of low expectations (INN 12/06/2018)
| • | As if we don't know the Saudis. They did 9/11. They fund and spread their particular brand of Islamic intolerance – the Wahhabi doctrine – throughout the world. | |
| • | They build mosques with the aim to dominate our culture, thousands of them throughout Europe, Canada and the United Sates. They finally let women drive? Whoopee. | |
| • | Trump isn't fooled. He knows the score. As the saying goes; keep your enemies close. Trump knows what he's doing. | |
Netanyahu's Vietnam (INN 11/16/2018)
A missile a minute. What would the West do? (INN 11/13/2018)
| • | "Hamas is a terrorist organization and rocket attacks against Israel are completely unacceptable and must be condemned. Israel has full rights to an aggressive response". | |
| • | On the one side there is reason (Israel), on the other there is wrongdoing (the Palestinian Arab terrorists). | |
| • | 400 missiles launched in one single day from Gaza to Israel! | |
| • | 400. 1 missile per minute over five hours. | |
| • | What would the British have done and said, for example, if the French had launched the same number of missiles on the cities of the British coast from Calais? | |
| • | And what would we have said and done, we Italians, if the French had bombed Ventimiglia at this rate from nearby Menton? | |
| • | How is it that 400 missiles from Gaza against the schools, houses, buses and hospitals of Israel do not make the news or protests about the scandal, but we do ask Israel to defend itself with its hands tied, thus committing suicide and also asking for pardon for existing? | |
| • | What is this if not the old, smelly, anti-Semitism? | |
| • | ... Israel left Gaza in 2005 and that the only Jews in the Strip were Corporal Gilad Shalit, kept as a dog for four years, and the bodies of other Israeli soldiers that Hamas keeps in the morgue. | |
| • | ... in 2006 the Palestinian terrorists launched 1,123 missiles on Israel, 2,427 in 2007, 3,278 in 2008, up to now more than 13,000 - and 400 in one night. | |
| • | ... 20,000 missiles are stored in Gaza. | |
| • | ... 100,000 Israelis slept in bunkers last night. | |
| • | You can say "two states two peoples" but now one uses the state to destroy the other one. | |
| • | The military and terrorist aggression against Israel is the only one in the world, I repeat the only one in world, where large parts of Western public opinion openly take the part of enemies ruled by a dictator who attack a democracy. | |
| • | You can say whatever you want ... Anti-Semitism is like Ebola. It has infected the Western mind about Israel. | |
Steve Hilton: Trump is right, French President Macron completely wrong about nationalism (Fox 11/12/2018)
| • | Here's what Donald Trump said a few weeks ago: | |
| • | "You know they have a word, it sort of became old-fashioned, it's called ‘nationalist.' And I said, really? We're not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I'm a nationalist, OK? I'm a nationalist." | |
| • | Who could Emmanuel Macron have meant when he said this today: | |
| • | "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying ‘our interests first, who cares about the others.' We erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it grace, and what is essential – its moral values." | |
| • | OK, so let's take his words at face value. He said, "patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism." | |
| • | The definition of nationalism is "patriotic feeling, principles or efforts." The first synonym, that means the same meaning as, not the opposite, listed for nationalism is literally "patriotism" | |
| • | And that's according to the globalists at Google! | |
| • | But let's go beyond semantics. Let's take his argument, such as it is seriously | |
| • | The president of France is saying it's wrong to put your own country's interests first. He thinks something else — perhaps the European interest or the global interest should come first. | |
| • | But who decides what that is? | |
| • | Where does its legitimacy come from? | |
| • | How is it accountable, and to whom? | |
| • | What is Macron's mandate, exactly, for privileging the European or the global over the national? He was elected with French votes, not global votes. | |
| • | Just like President Trump was elected with American votes. At least he seems to understand that and understand who he's accountable to. | |
| • | Macron's attack on President Trump was highly revealing. | |
| • | It lays bare the astonishing arrogance of the globalist ruling class who think it's their moral duty to ignore democracy and instead run the world according to whatever makes life easier for the rootless and heartless global corporations that Macron and his gang of Davos elitists cravenly serve. | |
| • | And they have the nerve to lecture President Trump about morality! | |
| • | "Some leaders, like George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, wanted the United States to be a strong nation with a solid central government on that would oversee all the states. These leaders were called nationalists" | |
| • | So Alexander Hamilton was a nationalist! Perhaps that might convince the elites that there really is nothing wrong with putting your country first, in fact, it's the only truly democratic thing to do. | |
The PLO-Hamas divorce is final (INN 10/17/2018)
| • | Western culture takes what is said at face value, for example: If I say that I agree with the person I am talking to, it means that I have listened to what he says, thought about it and have decided to accept his opinion. | |
| • | The West has faith in the sincerity of the person talking, believes what he says and accepts it as is. | |
| • | After all, there is free speech and anyone can say what is on their mind, so that when someone says something, it is what he really thinks and feels. | |
| • | In the Middle East, however, everything anyone say has three layers: The upper and visible layer is the content of what has been said, the middle one is what the person speaking really means and the lowest is what he is hiding. | |
| • | While hearing someone's words, a listener in the Middle East tries to penetrate to the hidden layers, understand the real intention of the speaker and reveal what is being hidden from him. | |
Steve Hilton: At the UN President Trump should call for a total economic boycott of China (Fox 09/22/2018)
| • | It will be another opportunity for the president to set out his "America First" agenda and to explain that it's better, and more democratic, for sovereign nations to work together to solve problems than to hand over power to remote and unaccountable international bureaucracies. | |
| • | His approach is a stark contrast to the globalist ideology that has held sway for far too long - the idea that individual countries should subordinate their own national interest to some vague notion of the "global interest." | |
| • | This was the thinking that led to the biggest foreign policy mistake of the last two decades: the globalists' insistence on engagement with China. | |
| • | Mesmerized by their own fantasy of an economically borderless world — convenient for global corporations but disastrous for American workers — the elitists have helped bring China's brutal, authoritarian Communist regime to the brink of achieving its long planned-for attempt at world domination. | |
| • | President Trump should now reject in its entirety the failed China strategy of his globalist predecessors. | |
| • | This means not just continuing, through tariffs, to pressurize the Chinese regime on issues like the theft of vital technology from American companies. | |
| • | At the UN and beyond, he should rally the whole world behind a simple but audacious goal: to topple Xi Jinping's regime by turning China into a pariah state. | |
| • | The elitists argued that by integrating China into the world economy, we would benefit financially through increased, mutually beneficial trade and investment; and that we would benefit strategically by moving China away from communism towards openness and maybe even democracy. | |
| • | Of course the exact opposite happened, on both fronts. | |
| • | Over the next few years, manufacturing jobs in America were destroyed on a massive scale as China used its newfound access to "dump" its state-subsidized exports into the American and world markets. | |
| • | And instead of moving towards democracy, China has become ever more authoritarian and aggressive. | |
| • | The only difference is that now, it is incomparably richer and more empowered to assert its hegemonic mania - thanks to the elitists' catastrophic misjudgment. | |
| • | The greedy, foolish elites were mesmerized by the prospect of untold riches from China's untapped consumer markets - little realizing that China would never be as stupid as we were, and allow foreign competitors to get the edge. | |
| • | Well the Chinese got richer. And the elites in America got richer. | |
| • | But is China any more democratic? No; it has regressed, if that is possible, from communist oligarchy to an increasingly totalitarian state. | |
| • | Is China playing by the rules? No; it is quite literally taking islands from its neighbors, ignoring intentional rulings, and flouting agreed maritime boundaries. | |
| • | Instead of playing by the established rules of the international community it is actively setting its own, creating a network of quiescent countries... | |
| • | Its aggressive cyber-warfare against America has included not only industrial espionage but the theft of Americans' personal data on a massive scale. | |
| • | Meanwhile, Chinese industry continues to undercut American manufacturing, totally disproportionate tariffs are levied on foreign imports to China and currency manipulation has further put our exporters at an unfair disadvantage. | |
| • | Even when China does allow American corporations to compete in its markets, it's entirely on the regime's terms... | |
| • | And for technology companies, a condition of operation is to hand over commercial secrets in vital areas like AI and quantum computing. | |
| • | The Chinese have turned intellectual property theft into a weapon of war. | |
| • | Well now we know. We can't pretend that China wants anything less than world domination - economically, technologically, politically, militarily. | |
| • | We can't waste time hoping it will play by our rules. It won't. | |
| • | The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can take the aggressive stance we need to isolate this rising giant of a rival. | |
| • | We put all our might into fighting and winning the Cold War against the Soviets; the Chinese regime is an infinitely bigger threat because unlike the Soviet Union it is an economic powerhouse. | |
| • | Yes we have to get tough on our trade imbalances with China, as President Trump has been doing. But we can and should go further than that. | |
| • | It's time for a complete economic boycott of China. | |
| • | We can start by imposing exactly the same conditions on Chinese companies in America as the ones imposed on American companies in China: no independent operations, compulsory joint ventures and the forced handover of intellectual property. | |
| • | Next: no American company or investor should be permitted to support China's various schemes for world domination like One Belt One Road. | |
| • | All U.S. companies in China should pull out, and no new investments should be made. | |
| • | Yes this seems drastic but in the long run it is our only hope of putting sufficient pressure on the vile Beijing regime that it might collapse from within. | |
| • | China is our enemy, not our "partner," and we need to start acting like it. | |
Trump’s foreign policy is actually boosting America’s standing (NYP 08/11/2018)
| • | "Trump inflames ... Trump escalates ... Trump doubles down ... Trump risks ... By Violating Iran Deal, Trump Jeopardizes National Security." | |
| • | But since the world hasn't ended and since we're not dead yet, I humbly suggest it's time to take a deep breath and consider the other side of the story. | |
| • | By wielding America's power instead of apologizing for it, and by keeping his focus on jobs and national security, Trump is making progress in fixing the ruinous status quo he inherited. | |
| • | America First, it turns out, is more than a slogan. It is a road map to reshaping America's relationship with friend and foe alike. | |
| • | ... boasts and threats from Chinese officials and retaliatory tariffs on American soybeans and other products are raising fears that Xi is courting chaos by overestimating China's international clout. | |
| • | The erratic Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has silenced nearly all opposition but revealed the pressure he's feeling when he cryptically declared, "If they have their dollars, we have our people, our God." | |
| • | He urged Turks to exchange gold and other valuables for the lira in hopes of stopping the rout. Good luck with that. | |
| • | Then there's Iran. Notwithstanding Time magazine's scare claim, Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear accord and last week's imposition of sanctions aimed at the government and certain industries are adding to the economic pressure on the mullahs. | |
| • | "Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States. I am asking for WORLD PEACE, nothing less!" | |
| • | ... Europe loved Obama but ignored his polite request. Then came Trump, and, instead of looking for love, he demanded money. | |
| • | His scorching criticism focused on the fact that NATO was designed to protect Europe from Russia, so it's unfair for the US to pay the lion's share of costs. | |
| • | Naturally, he made it theatrically and, naturally, most coverage suggested he was tearing the alliance apart by publicly airing dirty laundry, including his blast at Germany for spending billions to buy energy from Russia. | |
| • | Busy attacking Trump, reporters ignored the fact that his criticism is bearing fruit. | |
| • | At home, the president's style spurs mass outbreaks of Trump Derangement Syndrome, but some foreign leaders appreciate his forceful clarity. | |
| • | The president's decision to right a historic wrong and recognize Jerusalem as the Jewish state's capital was met with such exaggerated predictions of calamity that it seemed as if Armageddon was at hand. | |
| • | In fact, many Arab leaders are tired of Palestinian rejectionism and some have serious military relationships with Israel focused on Iran and Islamic State. | |
| • | For that and other reasons, by the time the new embassy building opened in May, some media reports described it as a merely "symbolic" move. | |
| • | How about that — from Armageddon to symbolism in five months! That's rewriting history in warp speed. | |
| • | ... weakness does not improve relations. Strength does. | |
| • | Trump's big initiatives are in the early stages and remain unfinished. His team is solid but small and they are juggling a lot of complex issues. Time, persistence and luck are needed for success. | |
| • | Some foreign governments are waiting to see what happens in the midterm elections. While it waits, China is actively targeting red-state industries with tariffs in a clear attempt to punish Trump. If that isn't election meddling, what is it? | |
| • | If the GOP loses either house of Congress, Trump would be weakened for the final two years of his term. Foreign leaders would be tempted to hold out for better terms — or a new president. | |
| • | But if the GOP holds control, the president would be strengthened and command even more attention on the world stage. Then our nation could reap the full bounty of benefits from putting America First. | |
Anti-Russian hysteria isn't in America's national interest (Fox 08/11/2018)
| • | Anti-Russian hysteria appears to be replacing calm calculations of our national interest as the basis for U.S. foreign policy toward Russia – and that's a big mistake. | |
| • | The hatred and fear of all things Russian has reached a fever pitch in America today. | |
| • | ... the Trump administration announced it will impose new economic sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow's use of a nerve agent to try to kill former Russian spy... | |
| • | The new sanctions were prompted by a 1991 law that requires the U.S. to act against countries responsible for a chemical or biological weapons attack. | |
| • | They will bar U.S. companies from selling technology and other items with national security implications to companies funded or owned by the Russian government, affecting 70 percent of the Russian economy. | |
| • | ... they also include a provision that requires Moscow to give "reliable assurances" that it will no longer use chemical and biological weapons – and allow international inspections to verify this. | |
| • | If Russia refuses to provide these assurances and allow inspections, nearly all U.S. trade with Russia will be cut off. | |
| • | And there is talk that other countries would face sanctions for doing business with Russia as well. | |
| • | Drastic action like this is sure to worsen U.S.-Russian relations and make it harder to avoid the kind of escalation spirals and war-scares witnessed during the first Cold War. | |
| • | The fact of Russian interference in America's 2016 elections cannot be denied. | |
| • | However, regardless of what the probe of that interference by Special Counsel Robert Mueller concludes, the fact remains that Russia is a nuclear power that the U.S. is currently locked in a fierce political struggle with, including several proxy wars. | |
| • | Putin is a geopolitical rival and a very clever tactician. He's not a friend of America, but he's not an immediate national security threat who must be destroyed at all costs either. | |
| • | His regime is distasteful, but so was the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong's China, and Vietnam – each of which America had to eventually learn to live with. | |
| • | Ultimately, America still needs a clear-headed policy towards Russia that properly assesses the threat from Moscow and the risks of various responses. | |
| • | Washington's policy must be based on American interests and not on a blind desire to cause as much harm to Russia as possible. | |
| • | The catch with nuclear powers is to deter them while also making sure to never put them in too tight of a corner. | |
| • | The hard lesson learned from Europe's endless holy and civil wars – in which nations tried to impose their ways of life and political systems on each other – is that countries shouldn't interfere in each other's domestic affairs. That is how wars get started. | |
| • | Moscow's actions, including the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and the Skripal poisoning, necessitated a response from Washington. | |
| • | The question is how far does America go and how well do these latest sanctions advance U.S. interests? | |
| • | Recognition of both American and Russian core interests of sovereignty and security are important because it helps each great power avoid triggering the other's red lines. | |
| • | Russia isn't as powerful or stable as China. It is a weak, struggling former empire with an economy smaller than Italy's and only slightly bigger than South Korea's. | |
| • | Moscow is not a threat that requires Washington to push back on every front and admit every single former Soviet satellite nation into NATO. | |
| • | Diplomacy and grand strategy are about the pursuit of the national interest – about what is best for America. | |
| • | Wise leaders match means to national ends and do not act out of anger. Fools confuse means for ends and will take action simply out of spite. | |
| • | This is why NATO cannot endlessly expand and also why America needs to harden its election infrastructure and tell Russia that both countries must respect each other's domestic affairs and sovereignty. | |
| • | This is also why it is unclear what imposing more sanctions is meant to accomplish beyond punishment. | |
| • | Sanctions are better used as a threat to deter action, rather than as a punishment of unclear duration that is only imposed after another country has done something America doesn't like. | |
| • | It is possible to warn off Moscow from harming U.S. interests or from using biochemical weapons in NATO countries, while also concluding that relations with Russia must not deteriorate further. | |
Will Europe end like the Roman republic? (INN 08/09/2018)
| • | The political talkers who discuss immigration always politicize it, either as "invasion" or "welcome". | |
| • | People, on the other hand, know everything intuitively: that Europe, as our ancestor designed it for centuries, is collapsing. | |
| • | In Ceuta, the EU's extreme border between Spain and Morocco, 592 sub-Saharan migrants stormed and crossed the border with Molotov cocktails and bars, wounding dozens of Spanish policemen. | |
| • | Will we follow the example of the decomposition of the Roman Republic? | |
| • | Even then, the rich senatorial elite had become sclerotic and the rise of populist politicians, such as Catiline or Claudius, helped to destabilize the system through demagogic laws. | |
| • | Those 592 migrants did not escape from any war. They come to bring multicultural war to Europe. | |
| • | Radical Islam now tries to cancel the battle of Poitiers to reintroduce in history the idea of conquering a Europe that has already denied itself. | |
| • | This is the discourse of the Islamic State and other Jihadists and Muslim suprematists, which is not a historical accident, as much as Stalinism was not a disease of Communism. | |
| • | It is actually its fulfillment. | |
| • | And this is always the speech of the "immigrationists", those cynical liberals for whom the world is only a big market - as well as the beautiful souls of multiculturalism, who kneel before the power of the number: the victory of Islam is in fact, first of all, that of the demographic number, sanctioned by migratory phenomena as well as by judicial decisions, and most of all by the weakness of the Europeans, who are told to no longer be themselves. | |
Hatred of Israel prompts a UN official to discuss action against the Jewish state (Fox 08/09/2018)
| • | ... a senior United Nations official has suggested that Israel's U.N. membership may need to be reviewed or suspended for violating international law. | |
| • | ... also said that other nations may need to "review their relationships with Israel in the military, political, and economic investment spheres." | |
| • | If Lynk's denunciation of Israel was just the sentiment of one hate-filled U.N. official that would be bad enough. | |
| • | But in truth, Lynk's threat of international action to possibly suspend or even expel Israel from the U.N., isolate it, and cut off trade and investment is just one in a long list of examples of how the U.N. has targeted Israel for decades with hatred, discrimination, prejudice and absurd lies. | |
| • | This is truly bullying of a small nation on an international scale. | |
| • | U.N. officials have not threatened to suspend or revoke membership of North Korea, which imprisons people in slave-labor camps. | |
| • | They have not tried to boot out Syria, where a ruthless dictator has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in a civil war in the past seven years. | |
| • | Russia has illegally invaded Ukraine and Georgia and annexed Crimea, but remains a member of the powerful U.N. Security Council. | |
| • | Iran – which deprives its citizens of basic human rights, supports terrorism, sends fighters to wage war in neighboring countries, and would love to get nuclear weapons – does not face threats of being kicked out of the U.N. | |
| • | But Israel is targeted for more condemnation than any other country. This is despite the fact that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East, governed by an elected prime minister and parliament; a country with an independent court system, free expression and other human rights that are guaranteed to all; and – not coincidentally – the only Jewish nation on Earth. | |
| • | And Israel – a country where Jews have lived for 3,000 years – is absurdly branded the "occupier" of the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. | |
| • | Israel is a tiny country one-twentieth the size of California. | |
| • | It faces 200,000 rockets and terrorist attacks from Hezbollah in the north and from Hamas in the south. | |
| • | And it hears daily threats from the fanatic rulers of Iran to wipe the Jewish state off the map – and the Iranians are serious about this murderous goal. | |
| • | Hamas knows that no U.N. agency will ever condemn it for murdering Jews, even if it does this by putting Gaza's women and children in harm's way. | |
| • | Just days after 62 Palestinians were killed during a Hamas-led attempt to breach Israel's border security fence to enable armed terrorists to attack civilian communities in Israel, the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council convened a special session that voted to investigate Israel – but not Hamas. | |
| • | ... Hamas has diverted humanitarian shipments of building materials sent to Gaza – earmarked for repairs of civilian houses – for use in expanding its labyrinth of terror tunnels that reach into sovereign Israeli territory. | |
| • | The report says nothing about Hamas' summer camps where it brainwashes little children to hate Jews, its use of women and children as human shields, or its use of U.N. school grounds to launch missiles at Israel. | |
| • | No, you will only read lies demonizing the Jewish state with mendacious propaganda. | |
| • | U.N. Secretary General ... should fire ... the "human rights expert" whose idea of contributing to peace is to punish the victim of terrorist attacks –Israel – instead of the violent terrorist group Hamas. | |
| • | Guterres must take control of the U.N. or he may have to look for new funders beyond the U.S. to underwrite the travesty and folly that his international organization is descending into. | |
| • | American taxpayers have had about enough and now we have a president who just might shut the U.N. checkbook permanently. | |
Pope Francis Rewrites Catholicism ... and the Bible (JWR 08/07/2018)
| • | After 2,000 years of teaching that a moral use of capital punishment for murder is consistent with Catholic teaching, the pope announced that the catechism, the church fathers and St. Thomas Aquinas, among the other great Catholic theologians, were all wrong. | |
| • | And God and the Bible? They're wrong, too. | |
| • | The notion that it is immoral to execute any murderer — no matter how heinous the murder, no matter how many innocents he has murdered, no matter how incontrovertible the proof of guilt — is an expression of emotion, not of reason or natural law or Christian theology or biblical theology. | |
| • | Regarding the latter, the biblical commandment to put premeditated murderers to death is unique. | |
| • | Putting murderers to death is therefore the first moral law God gives the world. | |
| • | Why this draconian penalty for murder? Because the penalty is a statement about the seriousness of a crime, and the God of the Bible deems the wrongful, deliberate taking of a human life the pinnacle of injustice. | |
| • | Allowing all murderers to keep their own lives diminishes the evil of murder and thereby cheapens the worth of the human being. | |
| • | In God's words, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for G od made man in his own image" (Genesis 9:6). | |
| • | It is precisely to preserve the unique worth of the human being that the Bible mandates putting murderers to death. | |
| • | ... Pope Francis wrote, "today capital punishment is unacceptable, however serious the condemned's crime may have been." | |
| • | Unacceptable? To whom? It is acceptable to about half of American Catholics and about half of the American people. | |
| • | But it is unacceptable to the elites of our time, the people who have the most contempt for Catholicism and every other Bible-based religion. | |
| • | The death penalty, Francis wrote, "entails cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment." | |
| • | ... opposition to life imprisonment is already the norm in many progressive countries like Norway, where someone murdered 77 people, mostly children, and received a 21-year prison sentence. | |
| • | The Pope also writes that no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person." | |
| • | Most of us think it is the murderer, by committing murder, who has attacked his dignity and inviolability, not the society that puts him to death. | |
| • | We also think it is the dignity of the murder victim that is attacked by rewarding the murderer with room and board, TV, books, exercise rooms and visits from family members and girlfriends. | |
| • | "I think when people willfully, wantingly, without any remorse take someone else's life, they forfeit their right to be among us." | |
Iran's rejection of a Trump summit shows its contempt for compromise (Fox 08/02/2018)
| • | Don't look for any improvement in U.S.-Iranian relations anytime soon, or for a summit between President Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. | |
| • | "Mr. Trump! Iran is not North Korea to accept your offer for a meeting. Even U.S. presidents after you will not see that day." | |
| • | President Trump exposed Iran's diplomatic hypocrisy when he suddenly offered to meet with Iranian leaders if they wished. | |
| • | "They want to meet, I'll meet. Anytime they want. Anytime they want." | |
| • | "It's good for the country, good for them, good for us, and good for the world. No preconditions. If they want to meet, I'll meet." | |
| • | Secretary of State Mike Pompeo quickly added preconditions for a meeting. ... President Trump will meet Iran's leaders only if they "reduce their malign behavior" and "enter into a nuclear agreement that actually prevents proliferation." | |
| • | Contrary to what Iran's defenders suggest, history has consistently shown that the nation's leaders treat offers of accommodation with contempt... | |
| • | The Iranians negotiate faithfully only when they have no other recourse, and change their behavior only when diplomacy is backed by the credible imposition of costs for noncompliance. | |
| • | ... Iran is an aggressive and expansionist power that is actively exploiting sectarian fault lines to remake the Arabian Peninsula-Persian Gulf region and the wider Middle East in its own revolutionary image. | |
| • | ... the agreement failed to do anything to limit Iran's projection of military power across the region, its capture of territory and political power via proxies, and its aggressive ballistic missile program. | |
| • | As far as Iranian behavior is concerned, we should always look at how the regime allocates its scarce financial reserves – rather than listen to what its smooth-talking diplomats say to foreign audiences – if we wish to better understand Iran's priorities and objectives. | |
| • | The unfortunate truth is that Iran will only change its behavior when confronted with the credible threat of tough sanctions backed up by coercive U.S. power. | |
| • | America's Arab allies have learned the hard way that negotiating with Iran without leverage is an exercise in futility. | |
| • | The Trump administration understands that the Iran nuclear agreement failed to deal with ... the "Iranian playbook" – using proxies to prey on sectarian fault lines and "capture" weakened states in order to achieve total regional domination. | |
| • | President Trump also recognizes that Iran will not negotiate in earnest unless its leaders have no other recourse. | |
| • | Ultimately, a strong and steadfast America is the best antidote to Iranian mischief. | |
| • | So far, the Trump administration's unwavering stance has reintroduced an important element of deterrence toward Iran that had weakened considerably under the Obama administration. | |
China started the trade war, Trump is just trying to end it (Fox 07/28/2018)
| • | President Trump didn't start a trade war with China – he's trying to end and win the trade war that China launched against the U.S. | |
| • | As the president has frequently pointed out, the Chinese have been undermining the world trade system for years, and no country has been hurt more by China's unfair actions than America. | |
| • | America's trade deficit with China is so large it almost defies comprehension. | |
| • | A primary reason for this imbalance is that the Chinese have been blocking American manufacturers and food producers for years through discriminatory trade rules and prohibitively expensive import tariffs designed to keep U.S. products out of its domestic markets. | |
| • | It's not that American firms are unable to compete with Chinese companies. | |
| • | Rather, it's because China systematically takes measures to protect its industries and businesses from having to compete with American companies on a level playing field. | |
| • | The Chinese government gives huge subsidies to its own firms and excludes foreign companies from doing business in China. | |
| • | It regulates foreign firms unfairly, blocks imports through dishonest health and safety rules, and creates China-specific standards to prevent market entry. | |
| • | In addition, China forces foreign firms to transfer their technology to Chinese companies and comprehensively loots commercial secrets, especially from American firms. | |
| • | ... includes China's continued "pervasive industrial espionage against U.S. companies, universities, and the government" as well as China's "direct efforts to circumvent U.S. export controls to gain access to cutting-edge technologies and intellectual property in strategic sectors." | |
| • | China's subversion of world trading norms isn't a bug in the nation's economic system. It's a feature. | |
| • | Even Democrats recognize the importance of President Trump's trade sanctions on China. | |
| • | "We're now told that this is Trump's trade war. No, China declared (a) trade war on the United States 18 years ago." | |
| • | "I have to say, when President Trump says he's putting tariffs on the table, I think tariffs are one part of reworking our trade policy overall." | |
| • | "China takes total advantage of the United States. They steal our intellectual property using cyber theft." | |
| • | "Not only do they steal our intellectual property, they keep our good companies out, and say the only way you're going to be able to sell your American products in China ... is if you come to China." | |
| • | Because presidents before him avoided doing what was necessary to balance our trade relations with China, President Trump has to fight a trade war not of his own making. | |
| • | Fortunately for American workers, manufacturers and exporters, the president is fighting back against China and other nations that have been ripping off America for decades. | |
| • | This will be a difficult struggle, because other nations are unwilling to give up the benefits of unfair trade. | |
| • | Free trade requires fair trade, based on a common set of mutually beneficial rules. | |
| • | We finally have a president willing to take the actions necessary to put a stop to Chinese cheating and to protect America's national interests. | |
| • | President Trump isn't just fighting to stop Chinese market manipulation. | |
| • | He's fighting to secure a bright economic future for America and the American people. | |
Can We Trust Experts? (JWR 07/25/2018)
| • | People whom we've trusted as experts have often been wrong beyond imagination, and it's nothing new. | |
| • | Irving Fisher, a distinguished Yale University economics professor in 1929, predicted, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Three days later, the stock market crashed. | |
| • | In 1945, regarding money spent on the Manhattan Project, Adm. William Leahy told President Harry S. Truman, "That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The (atomic) bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." | |
| • | In 1903, the president of the Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Co., said, "The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty — a fad." | |
| • | Confidence in the staying power of the horse was displayed by a 1916 comment of the aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Douglas Haig at a tank demonstration: "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous." | |
| • | Albert Einstein predicted: "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." | |
| • | In 1899, Charles H. Duell, the U.S. commissioner of patents, said, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." | |
| • | Listening to its experts in 1936, The New York Times predicted, "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." | |
| • | Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was probably the greatest scientist of all time. He laid the foundation for classical mechanics; his genius transformed our understanding of physics, mathematics and astronomy. | |
| • | What's not widely known is that Newton spent most of his waking hours on alchemy. Some of his crackpot experiments included trying to turn lead into gold. | |
| • | He wrote volumes on alchemy, but after his death, Britain's Royal Society deemed that they were "not fit to be printed." | |
| • | Then there's mathematical physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), whose major contribution was in thermodynamics. | |
| • | To prove that one can be a genius in one area and an idiot in another, Kelvin challenged geologists by saying that Earth is between 20 million and 100 million years old. | |
| • | The point of all this is to say that we can listen to experts but take what they predict with a grain or two of salt. | |
Don't rush to judgment on the Trump-Putin summit - It will take months to clearly assess (Fox 07/17/2018)
| • | President Trump has shown once again that he does not take a conventional approach to diplomacy. | |
| • | The political and media earthquake of dire reactions coming after the summit was also off the charts. | |
| • | All that was missing was Chicken Little screaming hysterically that the sky is falling. | |
| • | ... the objective of the summit was absolutely conventional: to explore whether we have sufficient national interest and the leadership will to take a very unhealthy relationship with an important nation out of a well-worn rut and move it in a more constructive direction. | |
| • | Both Democratic and Republican presidents have engaged multiple competitors and even adversaries in summitry in pursuit of nothing more than this basic objective. | |
| • | President Trump appears to be returning to more of a realist approach to foreign policy that appealed to so many in the past, in a break from Obama administration policies. | |
| • | For all we know, important progress may have been made between Trump and Putin when they met behind closed doors, but we are left to react to what was seen in public – primarily their press conference. | |
| • | The blowback the president has received to his blunt words has at times created domestic and foreign policy problems. | |
| • | This has blinded politicians and experts in their assessment of election results, tax reform passage, getting NATO members to pay more for their own defense and other developments. | |
| • | This could well be the case with the rush to judgement on this summit. | |
| • | Done right, summits like the Trump-Putin meeting are an important part of President Trump's promise to break with Clinton, Bush and Obama policies – and return to realism, burden-sharing and rebalanced terms of trade. | |
| • | Meaningful progress in meeting the foreign policy challenges we are faced with – in Syria, Iran, North Korea, China, Ukraine and elsewhere – is more likely with less hostility and more cooperation from Russia. | |
| • | Cooperation is therefore worth exploring, even if skepticism is warranted. | |
| • | My sense is that President Trump has something he wants from Putin (perhaps on Syria) quickly and was in his "deal mode" Monday. That may have affected his public posture in the press conference, when he came across as more forgiving than warranted in terms of known Russian misdeeds. | |
| • | I believe in the direction President Trump intends to go, if all of the noise in our system (some of it justified) does not overtake the process. | |
| • | ... I have long counseled leaders not to draw long-term conclusions based on short-term tactics or events involving President Trump. | |
| • | The Helsinki summit was the opening of a multiple-act drama between the presidents of the U.S. and Russia. | |
| • | In the end, results – or the lack thereof – will speak louder than Monday's spectacle. | |
| • | We'll have a much better idea of the significance of the summit six months or a year from now than we do today. | |
Outrage over Trump, Putin Helsinki meeting – Did we expect president to call Putin a liar on global TV? (Fox 07/17/2018)
| • | Trump's critics responded with customary vitriol and excess, attacking the president in such extreme terms that his supporters only dig in even deeper. | |
| • | Democrats and never-Trumpers cannot help themselves; over the past two years, the public has grown weary of the non-stop, five-alarm fires, and they have tuned out. | |
| • | But really, did anyone really expect him to declare the Russian leader a liar on global TV? | |
| • | What would have been the point of traveling to Helsinki and arranging a summit between the world's two biggest nuclear powers, only to scuttle the chance at a new and improved relationship? | |
| • | Critics were most irate that Trump, in answering a question, didn't unreservedly say that he trusted our intelligence agencies more than Putin. | |
| • | On the other hand, that would have amounted to calling Putin a liar to his face. | |
| • | And, let's face it, as the months have passed and the politically conflicted behavior of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strozk and company have come to light, one may forgive the president for not leaping to the defense of the FBI, at least. | |
| • | After all, he was probably outraged, as all Americans should be, that the Justice Department chose — just three days prior to the summit — to release the indictments of 12 Russians accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic organizations. | |
| • | It certainly appeared to be an effort to undermine the president's meeting with Putin, or at least a not-so-gentle reminder from special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump's relationship with Putin was still being investigated. | |
| • | That seems like an act of gross insubordination. | |
| • | President Trump is absolutely correct that there are many issues on which we could use Russia's help. | |
| • | First is terrorism. Russia has been repeatedly attacked by Muslim extremists, just like the U.S. | |
| • | In 2004, a group of armed Islamic terrorists, mostly from Chechnya, held more than 1,000 people hostage at a school in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. When the siege ended, more than 300 people lay dead, including 186 children. | |
| • | In 2010, 40 people died when suicide bombers attacked Moscow's subway system. Just last year a suicide bomber killed himself and several others in the St. Petersburg metro. | |
| • | This is one arena in which information sharing has been and will be fruitful. | |
| • | Last December, Putin thanked President Trump for the CIA's help in thwarting a planned bombing of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg; at the time he promised to continue sharing anti-terror information. | |
| • | The U.S. could also use Russia's help as it attempts to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. | |
| • | Russia has nothing to gain from North Korea's acquisition of a nuclear weapon, and Moscow could help tighten the screws on Pyongyang's economy. | |
| • | Syria is a major issue to both Russia and the U.S. President Trump would like to exit that war-torn country, but needs Russian cooperation to make that happen. | |
| • | He wants Moscow to convince Iran to withdraw from Syria, in exchange for allowing the survival of Bashar Al-Assad's government. | |
| • | We do not know what President Trump and President Putin discussed in their two-hour, one-on-one meeting in Helsinki. | |
| • | We do not know what concessions the former KGB officer may have made, or what the former billionaire real estate mogul asked. | |
| • | We may never know how hard Trump pushed Putin on the hacking of the DNC and other intrusions into the U.S. democratic process. | |
| • | But, we do know that since taking office, President Trump has taken a much harder line on Russia than did his predecessor. | |
| • | President Obama visited Moscow in 2009 and soon thereafter abandoned a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic that infuriated Russia. Trump has since reinstated the program. Obama refused to send military-grade weapons to the Ukraine; Trump is doing so. | |
| • | Obama was reluctant to ramp up liquified natural gas exports that would compete with Russian gas, but Trump is prioritizing such shipments and calling out Germany for its reliance on Russian energy. | |
| • | Trump has surrounded himself with Russia hawks like National Security Advisor John Bolton and Defense Secretary James Mattis. | |
| • | If he were in cahoots with the Kremlin, he has a funny way of showing it. | |
| • | The reaction to the Helsinki conference was over the top, given how little we know about what went on behind the scenes. | |
| • | It was also sad. It's almost as though Trump's critics wanted him to fail. | |
| • | But wouldn't hoping for increased confrontations with Russia be... treasonous? | |
Ex-Georgian President: Mr. Trump, Putin does not bluff but you have the upper hand – use it (Fox 07/16/2018)
| • | ... many in my region share the same concern: Will the self-described "master negotiator" agree to a deal that poses an existential threat to American allies in Eastern Europe? | |
| • | I am somewhat more optimistic about the summit's prospects for several reasons — but cautiously so. | |
| • | I hope and believe his clear-eyed understanding of Russia's business environment bodes well for Monday's summit. | |
| • | ... while it is true that Putin tried to meddle in the U.S. elections and almost certainly favored Trump, it is also true that the Russian leader seriously miscalculated Trump's motivations. | |
| • | ... Putin got a determined, nationalistic, and highly unpredictable U.S. president — who staffed his national security team with well-known Russia hawks and Putin critics, such as John Bolton, Fiona Hill, and Gen. James Mattis. | |
| • | ... the Trump administration went beyond formal compliance with CAATSA in imposing historically harsh sanctions on Russian power brokers earlier this year. | |
| • | In my region, sanctioning government officials is not enough: Oligarchs and the authorities have always been inextricably linked. | |
| • | For the first time in the history of the U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship, the Trump administration acknowledged this nuance, by imposing sanctions on politically-connected oligarchs. | |
| • | These sanctions dismantled any pretense that oligarchs are legitimate business owners by treating them as they are — subsidiaries of the Russian government. | |
| • | I have several other reasons for optimism, including Trump's criticism of the Nord Stream II pipeline deal at this week's NATO summit and his authorization of lethal defensive weapons sales to Ukraine and Georgia last year — a dramatic reversal of Obama's policy. | |
| • | In spite of these promising signs, however, I must caution Trump to avoid the mistakes his predecessors have made with regards to Putin's Russia. | |
| • | The Western misperception of the Russian threat — in tandem with Putin's obsession with the "Western threat" — had devastating consequences for my region, including Putin's invasions and annexations of Georgia and Ukraine. | |
| • | Unlike many of his Western counterparts, Putin does not bluff. He is honest about his ambitions. | |
| • | And why shouldn't he be honest, when he does not have to pay the political price? | |
| • | Nevertheless, Western leaders often fail to listen. | |
| • | Unlike the American foreign policy agenda at times, the Russian agenda is clear and consistent. | |
| • | Putin will continue instigating and exploiting "frozen conflicts" in NATO-aspirant post-Soviet countries like Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, so that no independent state in his backyard will be welcomed into the Western alliance. | |
| • | Moreover, by promoting nationalistic, extremist, and corrupt politicians in the former Soviet space, Putin weakens Russia's neighbors by amplifying social divisions. | |
| • | As someone who has met with Vladimir Putin more than thirty times, has had to repeal his military attack and survived assassination threats from him, I have the following recommendations for President Trump: Be Reaganesque. | |
| • | Talk to the Russians, but start tough, and remember to "trust but verify" at each turn. | |
| • | By hiding the sticks and producing too many carrots, Bush and Obama attempted to demonstrate good will — which Putin interpreted as weakness. | |
| • | The language of sheer force is what Putin understands best. | |
| • | President Trump should not lose sight of the fact that he doesn't owe Putin anything: Indeed, Trump holds the upper hand. | |
| • | Despite Putin's bravado, the sanctions are hurting him tremendously. | |
| • | Now, it's America's turn to make demands. Russia should stop positioning itself as equal to the United States and stop pretending its foreign adventures, be they in Syria, Ukraine or Georgia, are part of a global fight against American expansionism. | |
| • | Moreover, Russia must stop threatening the U.S. with new weaponry, as Putin did during a recent address to the Russian Parliament. | |
| • | Furthermore, Trump must dash Putin's hopes that the U.S. will ever accept Russia's land grabs in the former Soviet space. | |
| • | The bottom line should be that America will respect the borders of Russia if Russia starts to respect the borders of its neighbors. | |
| • | I believe Trump should make a deal with Putin, with very specific terms: America will not undermine Putin's regime inside Russia — Putin's greatest fear — if Putin stops undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries. | |
| • | Only if Russia withdraws unconditionally from Ukraine and Georgia should the U.S. agree to discuss lifting sanctions. | |
| • | Finally, Trump — and the rest of the world — would do well to manage expectations. | |
| • | Only with calculated skepticism in the beginning will the U.S. achieve victory in the end. | |
Trump-Putin summit could improve US-Russia relations — And yes, that is a good thing (Fox 07/15/2018)
| • | ... President Trump has an important goal: improve relations with the world's second-ranked nuclear power – but only if doing so will benefit the United States. | |
| • | President Trump – despite what his critics say – is not a naive fool who will sell out the United States and our allies and make ridiculous concessions to Putin. | |
| • | And he understands that improving relations with Russia and changing Russian behavior is no easy task. But he also believes it's worth a try. | |
| • | The plain truth is that Russia is too big and too important a nation for any U.S. president to simply refuse to deal with. | |
| • | And because of that, it's to our mutual benefit for America and Russia to no longer be enemies. | |
| • | Sure, our interests don't overlap enough to consider a wide-ranging partnership or an alliance. | |
| • | But we can work together on some things, even if we will inevitably be opposed on others. | |
| • | Does Russia belong in the West, thanks to a shared cultural and religious foundation, joining institutions like the European Union or even NATO? | |
| • | Or is Russia so unique that it is a civilization separate from the West, thanks to its large territory straddling Europe and Asia? | |
| • | Does that mean Russia and the West will be locked in a clash of civilizations for all time? | |
| • | It may sound foolish today to hope for good relations between the U.S. and Russia. | |
| • | But history tells us that the most bitter of enemies can become allies in a fairly short amount of time. Our friends and foes change with the years. | |
| • | As he works to improve relations with Russia – cautiously, pragmatically and with his eyes wide open – President Trump should keep five important truths in mind heading into his summit with President Putin. | |
| • | First, the Cold War never really ended – there was just a brief intermission. | |
| • | A rogue Russia seems ready to confront the West at every turn. ... it will pursue its interests with great vigor – and isn't afraid to take on America. | |
| • | Second, the breakup of the Soviet Union was the geopolitical event of the last 50 years. | |
| • | The Soviet flag stopped flying over the Kremlin on Christmas Day, 1991. | |
| • | That was a historic Christmas present to our nation – the ultimate victory for us and our allies. | |
| • | There is a bitterness in the hearts of many of Russia's leaders, including Putin. A quest to reclaim past glory is clearly on his mind. | |
| • | And history tells us that can be a very dangerous thing indeed. | |
| • | Third, no matter what those on the left say, America is clearly in a commanding position in any confrontation with Russia. | |
| • | ... Russia is more of a giant gas station than anything else, with no global brands or truly innovative products to sell or showcase. | |
| • | Fourth, despite a history of rocky relations with the U.S. going back to the Russian Revolution in 1917, there are areas of shared interest for our two nations to build on. | |
| • | Neither side has any interest in seeing conflicts waged on the Internet break out into a shooting war between nuclear superpowers. | |
| • | Fifth, Washington must view the U.S.-Russia relationship in the context of a rising China – the true threat to America's national interest for decades to come. | |
| • | From claiming parts of the sea as its own "blue-water territory," trying to subjugate and diminish Taiwan's democracy, and using its newfound economic military muscle to dominate Asia, Beijing seeks to turn the vast Indo-Pacific region into its own sphere of influence. | |
| • | China, at some point, could turn its attention to the nearly empty stretches of land in Russia's Far East, some of which were part of Chinese empires of the past. | |
| • | With vast tracts of land filled with nearly limitless natural resources on Beijing's doorstep, Moscow would be wise to be wary – and consider stronger ties with America as an insurance policy of sorts. | |
| • | Finally, no matter what happens at the Trump-Putin summit Monday, all Americans should be rooting for President Trump. | |
| • | All of us benefit when there is dialogue between even the most bitter of adversaries – especially ones that have thousands of nuclear warheads that could turn our planet into atomic ash. | |
| • | We should recall how the left cheered when President Obama tried to reset U.S.-Russia ties. | |
| • | They should, at the very least, give President Trump the space to see what is possible. | |
| • | But we know they won't. And that is a real shame. | |
Trump, NATO head Stoltenberg have testy exchange at summit (Fox 07/11/2018)
| • | "But how can you be together when you're getting energy from the group you want protection from?" | |
| • | "Many countries in NATO, which we are expected to defend, are not only short of their current commitment of 2% (which is low), but are also delinquent for many years in payments that have not been made. Will they reimburse the U.S.?" | |
| • | He asked Stoltenberg to explain why Berlin was getting energy from Moscow, and asserted that Germany was "totally controlled" by and "captive to Russia" over a pipeline project. | |
| • | "We're supposed to protect you against Russia and yet you make this deal with Russia. Explain that. It can't be explained." | |
| • | Trump has called upon NATO allies to meet commitments to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. | |
| • | ... that European countries "want us to happily defend them through NATO, and nicely pay for it. Just doesn't work!" | |
Cal Thomas: Is Europe finally waking up to the threat of uncontrolled immigration? (Fox 07/10/2018)
| • | Sebastian Kurz, the far-right chancellor of Austria, has plans, according to the Daily Mail, to "expel up to 60 Turkish-funded imams and their families and ... shut down seven mosques as part of a crackdown on ‘political Islam.'" | |
| • | These mosques, Austria says, are being subsidized by the Turkish government, which is becoming more radical after the recent election, which granted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan new powers as he seeks to create a more "pious generation" in order to change to country and make it more Islamic. | |
| • | The chancellor told a recent news conference: "parallel societies, political Islam and radicalization have no place in our country... This is just the beginning." | |
| • | President Erdogan reacted by warning of a "war between the cross and the crescent." | |
| • | That war started centuries ago and manifests itself today in ways not limited to terrorist acts. | |
| • | Czech Republic President Milos Zeman has said it is "practically impossible" for Muslims to integrate into modern Europe. | |
| • | Zeman, a political liberal, also "blamed the New Year's Eve sex attacks in Cologne, Germany, on ‘Muslim culture.'" | |
| • | German Chancellor Angela Merkel has had a virtual open-door policy, particularly for Muslims from Syria. | |
| • | Hungary does not have a problem with Muslim immigrants. | |
| • | A government spokesman told ... it is because Hungary has no "welfare" programs and so immigrants migrate to countries with benefits. | |
| • | In Canada, Sheikh Shafiq Hudda has accused several organizations and individuals of defamation, because they misquoted him as wishing for the "eradication" of all 8.2 million Israelis. | |
| • | In fact, he claims, he was praying for "the eradication of only 6 million Israeli Zionists." | |
| • | Thanks for the clarification, Sheikh. Why is he still in Canada? | |
| • | ... the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said it is "disappointed to find inflammatory content remains in Saudi textbooks previously thought to have been removed." | |
| • | "... "despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the ‘monotheists') and unbelievers (the ‘polytheists' and ‘infidels')." | |
| • | "This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text, and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to ‘spread the faith.'" | |
| • | taught that adulterers and converts from Islam should be killed and that "The Jews conspired against Islam and its people." | |
| • | Why are Islamic schools that teach this stuff and the mosques that support them allowed to remain open? | |
| • | Some in Europe are awakening to the threat of uncontrolled Muslim immigration | |
| • | The U.S. and Canada would do well to follow their lead. | |
Trump is right — NATO is obsolete, and he's delivering that message loud and clear (Fox 07/10/2018)
| • | "Getting ready to leave for Europe. First meeting - NATO. The U.S. is spending many times more than any other country in order to protect them. Not fair to the U.S. taxpayer. On top of that we lose $151 Billion on Trade with the European Union. Charge us big Tariffs (& Barriers)!" | |
| • | "NATO countries must pay MORE, the United States must pay LESS. Very Unfair!" | |
| • | "Dear @realDonaldTrump. US doesn't have and won't have a better ally than EU. We spend on defense much more than Russia and as much as China. I hope you have no doubt this is an investment in our security, which cannot be said with confidence about Russian & Chinese spending." | |
| • | History teaches us obvious reasons for the breakup of alliances. | |
| • | Circumstances and threats change. One country's mortal enemy one day could be the nation's best friend the next. | |
| • | Just look back at World War II – our enemies Germany, Japan and Italy are our allies today. | |
| • | Our ally Russia (part of the Soviet Union back then) is our adversary. | |
| • | There is only one constant when it comes to smart foreign policy. A nation seeks allies and partnership where it has common interests. | |
| • | Sometimes those alliances lose their value or importance over time and break up. | |
| • | NATO was formed to defend against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. | |
| • | But the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact died in 1991 – and NATO's original mission died then as well. | |
| • | To be clear, Moscow is certainly a dangerous adversary. Its occupation and annexation of Crimea – thanks to its growing military might – as well as brutal chemical weapons attacks on British soil prove a rogue Russia needs to be deterred and confronted if need be. | |
| • | But today's Russia is not the superpower threat that the Soviet Union was. | |
| • | Russia's economy is roughly the size of Italy. | |
| • | But thanks to a tremendous amount of natural resources (particularly oil and natural gas) that it can sell, along with a military inheritance from the Soviet Union – including a large nuclear arsenal – Russia clearly poses a real threat to Europe that can't be wished away. | |
| • | ... if Europe really wanted to defend itself – and all NATO nations spent 2 percent their gross domestic products on defense, as they are supposed to be doing in the next few years – Russia would be no match for the might of just Britain, France and Germany alone. | |
| • | Add in the capabilities of all the other members of the alliance – with America playing a small role as well – and Putin would, at least in theory, have every incentive to play nice for as long as he stays in power. | |
| • | Instead, we have a situation where many of Europe's major powers have armed forces that can barely do anything anymore. | |
| • | Having focused on developing expensive social welfare programs that cost billions of dollars every year, Europe has instead outsourced its defense to the U.S. military and U.S. taxpayers. | |
| • | This forces America to put vital resources into Europe that are sorely needed elsewhere – especially in Asia. | |
| • | Even having a military with a $700 billion annual budget that is the best in the world does not mean America can defend all our allies all over the world. | |
| • | They have a responsibility to pay their fair share for their own defense and fill the ranks of their own armed forces... | |
| • | America's power and might must be focused on the greatest of all threats, with our partners and friends taking on the burden in other areas of the world that are closer to their doorstep. | |
| • | China is the national security challenge of our time. Russia does not even come close. | |
| • | And then there is North Korea. ... Washington must focus as much of its diplomatic attention – and if need be, military might – on ensuring that we find a long-term solution to deal with North Korea. | |
| • | ... it does mean a fundamental shift in burden that a Europe blessed with wealth and riches can easily maintain. | |
| • | ... if Europe is unwilling or unable to field a credible armed force to take on challenges from Russia or elsewhere, we must question the utility of an alliance that is a shell of what it used to be. | |
PA targets reporters – but that’s just half the story (INN 07/08/2018)
| • | "When democracy is in retreat, the first thing authoritarians do is silence those who are telling stories they dislike." | |
| • | So true. Applause! Applause! | |
| • | "While the United States isn't putting reporters in prison yet, the tactics of the current administration are dangerous." | |
| • | Naturally she meant Trump as being authoritarian, and dangerous enough to put reporters in prison, though not yet. | |
| • | It's chilling, she warned, and it's coming. | |
| • | Guess what? It came. But not under Trump. It came under Obama. Where was that speech from Miss Atwood? | |
| • | Disobedient reporters were not tolerated and found themselves shipped to re-conditioning camp – under Obama. | |
| • | Dinesh D'Souza was jailed for speaking out against Obama in his films and during his appearances on TV. They found some other pretext. But that fooled nobody. | |
| • | He offended Obama and was made to pay the price, and if that's not chilling, maybe this? "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." | |
| • | ... Fox News reporter James Rosen who was put under surveillance by Holder's Justice Department for digging too deeply into a story that might harm the Obama Administration. | |
| • | Nakoula Basseley Nakoula – name mean anything? | |
| • | Well it did to the Obama Administration, which had him arrested, yes, jailed, for some obscure strip of film that was blamed – wrongly – for touching off the 2012 terror attack in Libya. | |
| • | They needed somebody to take the fall, anyone except Hillary Clinton who was asleep on the job as Obama's secretary of state. | |
| • | Let's call this what it is – selective outrage. Under Trump, everything is treyf. Under Obama, everything was kosher. | |
| • | Those Guardians of a Free Press are quite selective about which writers get their laurels. | |
| • | Writers who don't have the proper connections, or who fall on the wrong side politically, get snubbed. | |
| • | Free speech for me but not for thee. Depends whose Cause is being gored. | |
| • | "The truth is that the Palestinian Authority is a body that has long been functioning as a dictatorship that suppresses freedom of speech and imposes a reign of terror on Palestinian journalists and critics." | |
| • | So where's the outrage about those tactics? We're waiting. | |
Amnesty International sees no reason for US to leave UNHRC (INN 06/27/2018)
The Trump way could succeed (INN 06/21/2018)
| • | Since Ronald Reagan went to Reykjavik to meet Gorbachev, Trump is the first US president who knew how to negotiate with America's enemies. | |
Europe's earthquake is underway (INN 06/21/2018)
Trump's willingness to walk away at the G-7 and North Korea summits show his foreign policy is working (Fox 06/10/2018)
| • | The more trade the U.S. carries out with other nations, the greater the chances to find an alternative to military action. | |
| • | However a refusal by nations to remove direct threats to our interests will get a response comprised of the full might and fury of U.S. power. | |
| • | President Trump's trip to the G-7 summit highlights free economic activity as the greatest way to improve the human condition, but with the caveat that all parties must operate fairly for this to work. | |
| • | The president also sees that many countries and companies take unfair advantage of the United States and he is willing to fight to create a level playing field. | |
| • | President Trump also told reporters that he would no longer accept "ridiculous and unacceptable" tariffs imposed by other nations on good imported from the U.S. and threatened to "stop trading" with nations that would not lower their tariffs. | |
| • | "We're like the piggy bank that everybody's robbing – and that ends." | |
| • | ... President Trump said he will walk away if there is no good deal to be made over North Korean nuclear weapons. | |
| • | The president said he will use the summit to size up Kim's willingness to denuclearize and that "I think within the first minute I'll know" if something good will come out of the summit. | |
| • | The president understands that absent a clear and present threat to U.S. security, it is not generally wise for America to be involved in regime change in other countries. | |
| • | The president also understands that we can and should encourage countries run by dangerous, oppressive and corrupt leaders to work to give their people more freedom. | |
| • | President Trump has shown he will assert the power of the United States when it is in our national interests to do so. | |
| • | But he will not seek out foreign adventures to spread American style democracy around the world. | |
| • | One welcome aspect of President Trump's leadership style is his belief we should reward our friends and punish our enemies. | |
| • | This has been somewhat lacking and even backwards in recent administrations, as in the Obama administration's treatment of Iran as a partner for peace and Israel as the problem in the Middle East. | |
| • | This brings us to the biggest wild card President Trump brings to the world stage: he is a change agent. | |
| • | It would even be fair to say he creates chaos and misdirection – and then looks for an advantage. | |
| • | But when you are dealing with longstanding problems and well-entrenched interests, metaphorically knocking over a few apple carts or a conference table or two can break that deadlock. | |
| • | The strategy lays out an America First version of the peace through strength doctrine that served us so well in the Reagan years. | |
| • | Tough words from President Trump about his unwillingness to accept an aggressive and nuclear-armed North Korea changed the dynamic and now denuclearization is an actual possibility. | |
| • | Tough words from President Trump about his unwillingness to accept an aggressive and nuclear-armed North Korea changed the dynamic and now denuclearization is an actual possibility. | |
Trump’s criticism of G-7 is ‘unprecedented’ scream the elite — That’s the whole point of Trump! (Fox 06/09/2018)
| • | You know you're getting somewhere when your opponents are all attacking you in the same way. | |
| • | So President Trump should feel a strong sense of satisfaction with a job well done after leaving the slightly pointless Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Canada... | |
| • | The U.S. president's critics are all using identical language in their denunciations of his policy positions. | |
| • | The complaints from U.S. allies over President Trump's trade policies is that these polices are "unprecedented." They say he is undermining the "rules-based international order." | |
| • | Notice that they don't actually engage with the substance of President Trump's arguments at all. | |
| • | We hear these criticisms from the pompous pearl-clutchers of the international elite. These include: | |
| • | World leaders with their bland communiques carefully crafted by time-serving bureaucrats who think they really run the show. | |
| • | Arrogant and unaccountable corporate stooges who run globalist multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. | |
| • | Self-regarding after-dinner pontificators of the Washington think tank circuit who float snootily over the real-world catastrophes engendered by their ideology without ever acknowledging that it may have even the slightest defect. | |
| • | The gullible commentators and journalists who unquestioningly lap up all this self-serving elitist Pablum while presenting themselves as fearless pursuers of "the truth." | |
| • | ... the foreign policy establishment is so invested in the old, pre-populist way of doing things – the elitist world order that gave us untrammeled and unfair globalization – that they cannot see its flaws, instinctively reject any criticism of it, and fight to preserve it despite the manifest cruelties it has imposed on working people in the Western world. | |
| • | Let's just take a look at that "rules-based international order" that the elitists are so anxious to defend. | |
| • | In country after country, the old order made the rich richer and working people poorer as incomes went down and jobs went away. | |
| • | It ripped apart the social fabric, helping to destroy local communities and break apart families. | |
| • | It undermined faith in government and democracy, as citizens saw that it didn't matter who they voted for in actual elections – the same, elite-serving policies would be pursued regardless. | |
| • | The "rules-based international order" isn't just unfair, as we've seen in relation to trade and tariffs, where the playing field is tilted heavily against America and permits rampant protectionism by the EU, Canada and others. | |
| • | The "rules-based international order" is ineffective as well. | |
| • | It didn't stop Russia from invading Crimea and Ukraine. It didn't stop the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS. It didn't stop Iran destabilizing the Middle East. It didn't stop China from getting to the brink of world domination. | |
| • | Oh – and it didn't stop North Korea from getting nuclear weapons. | |
| • | So yes, when President Trump confronts the failures of the "rules-based international order" directly, after decades of pusillanimous acquiescence by his predecessors, you could describe that as "unprecedented." | |
| • | ... doing things that are "unprecedented" is the very definition of Donald Trump's mandate. That's what he was elected to do. To shake things up. To change things. | |
| • | When you do something new, it is unprecedented. That's literally what it means. | |
| • | And yet the elites throw around that word "unprecedented" as a criticism. | |
| • | Nothing could be more revealing of their true beliefs: they actually loved the old order because they and their rich friends benefited from it. | |
| • | How disgraceful that they howl in protest when President Trump finally puts working people first. | |
Into the fray: Gaza - A “simple” solution (INN 06/01/2018)
| • | To remain at peace when you should be going to war may be often very dangerous....Let us attack and subdue...that we may ourselves live safely for the future. – Thucydides (c. 460–395 BCE) | |
| • | No government, if it regards war as inevitable, even if it does not want it, would be so foolish as to wait for the moment which is most convenient for the enemy .– Otto von Bismarck (1815–1890) | |
| • | If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against – Winston Churchill (1874-1965) | |
| • | ... attributes the failure of the effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to "...an inadequate understanding of the pathology it attempted to cure...[Accordingly], it did not solve the problem it was intended to fix, and it sometimes made it substantially worse." | |
| • | None of the prescribed remedies address effectively the underlying causes of the malaise, which are being mistakenly imputed, by misinterpreting its symptoms. | |
| • | Worse! What we are seeing is more than a mere misdiagnosis. It is nothing less than an utter reversal of causality; a complete inversion of cause and effect. | |
| • | To attribute the hostility toward Israel to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza plays directly into the hands of Israel's detractors. Indeed, it is, in effect, to be complicit with the enemy — endorsing its mendacious and malevolent narrative. | |
| • | ... it necessarily implies that if only Israel would somehow initiate/facilitate an improvement in Gaza's living conditions, the violence would subside. | |
| • | This not only reinforces the false claims that Palestinian terrorism is driven by Israeli-induced economic privation, but also that Israel bears the responsibility for such terror, which is, therefore, no more than an understandable reaction to hardship and despair, externally imposed by an alien power. | |
| • | ... the penury in Gaza is not the cause of Arab enmity towards the Jewish state. Quite the opposite! It is Arab enmity towards the Jewish state that is the cause of penury in Gaza. | |
| • | The current conditions in Gaza are the result of neither a lack of international humanitarian aid, nor of Israeli largesse. | |
| • | Gaza has enjoyed an abundance of both, only to squander them on efforts to harm Israel by diverting massive resources to the construction of a vast military infrastructure with which to assault the Jewish state. | |
| • | ... the priorities of the Gazan people, as a collective, are not to improve their socio-economic lot, but to inflict harm on the Jewish state, whose sovereign existence they obdurately refuse to accept — except as a temporary tactic to allow them to enhance their offensive capabilities to pursue a later endeavor to destroy it. | |
| • | In this equation of enmity, resolving the conflict has nothing to do with what the Jewish state does (or does not do). | |
| • | It has everything to do with what the Palestinian-Arabs are — and what they are not! | |
| • | Israel's decade long policy of ceasing fire whenever the other side ceases fire has allowed Hamas, and its terror affiliates, to launch repeated rounds of aggression, determining not only when they are launched and when they end, but also largely controlling the cost incurred for such aggression –ensuring it remains within the range of the "acceptable". | |
| • | This is clearly a recipe of unending and escalating violence — and must be abandoned before it culminates in unintended, but inevitable, tragedy. | |
| • | Earlier this week, over 180 rockets and mortar shells were launched at Israeli civilian targets in a 24 hours period. | |
| • | Each one of those projectiles was intended to take the lives of innocent Israeli civilians. | |
| • | As such, each launch was a clear case of attempted murder — and Israel should relate to them with commensurate severity. | |
| • | Poor aim on the part of the would-be murderers can — and should — not be a mitigating factor. | |
Marc Thiessen: Trump should make clear to North Korea that the Libya model is indeed on the table (Fox 05/25/2018)
| • | After months of pretending to be normal and reasonable on the diplomatic stage, North Korea's mask has slipped, and Pyongyang is back to threatening a "nuclear-to-nuclear showdown" that will "make the U.S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined up to now." | |
| • | Why is Kim Jong Un's regime lashing out? It's not because it is offended at talk of a "Libya model." | |
| • | It's because it was hoping to follow the "Iran model" — sanctions relief up front and weak inspections — and is starting to realize that is not going to happen. | |
| • | In a statement last week, North Korea rejected the "so-called Libya mode of nuclear abandonment, 'complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization,' 'total decommissioning of nuclear weapons, missiles and biochemical weapons' etc. ... [and] 'abandoning nuclear weapons first, compensating afterward.'" | |
| • | The Trump administration, the North Koreans said, "is trumpeting as if it would offer economic compensation and benefit in case we abandon nuke. But we have never had any expectation of U.S. support in carrying out our economic construction and will not at all make such a deal in future, too." | |
| • | In other words, Pyongyang rejected the very premise of Trump's proposed deal: security and prosperity on par with South Korea in exchange for complete denuclearization. | |
| • | ... "the Clinton administration, even the Bush administration got played in the past. We offered concessions to the North Korean regime in exchange for promises to end their nuclear weapons program only to see them break those promises and abandon them." | |
| • | ... the North Koreans are angry because Trump is not budging from his demand, when what they want are front-loaded economic benefits in exchange for promises of "mutual" and "synchronous" arms reductions. | |
| • | With its bellicose response, North Korea exposed the fact that it has no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons at the negotiating table. | |
| • | The president made the right decision by calling off the summit, which should disabuse Pyongyang of the notion that he is desperate for a deal. | |
| • | Now, his conciliatory public letter to Kim Jong Un should be followed by tough backchannel warnings that the alternative to negotiations is not to continue the status quo. | |
| • | ... Trump could also announce a major U.S.-Japanese joint project to develop missile defense capabilities to "shoot down missiles at their 'boost phase' (when they are at their warmest in their ascent and easier to track) through space, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other sensors and shooters" and also put major Chinese banks on notice that that they could face sanctions for financing of North Korean projects. | |
| • | Trump should make clear to both North Korea and China, absent an agreement, that sanctions will get tighter and military action is possible. | |
Alan Dershowitz: The media's misplaced sympathy for the Hamas lynch mob (Fox 05/21/2018)
| • | As evidence mounts that Hamas intended to murder Israeli children, women and men after breaching the border fence to Israel, Hamas apologists must ask themselves why they are on the wrong side of morality. | |
| • | The recent border attack and attempted invasion of Israel by Hamas was anything but a peaceful protest. | |
| • | It was a lynch mob targeting Israeli day care centers, schools, and homes. | |
| • | The goal of the lynchers, according to Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas political leader, was to "take down the border" and "tear their hearts from their bodies." | |
| • | "Hamas posted maps for their operatives showing the quickest routes from the border to Israeli homes, schools and day care centers near the border." | |
| • | Yet many in the media, and many Hamas sympathizers on the left, insist on portraying this invasion as a peaceful demonstration. | |
| • | One of Hamas' co-founders, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, recently told the truth in an interview with Al Jazeera: "When we talk about ‘peaceful,' we are deceiving the public." | |
| • | Thankfully, the Israeli military, who are the good guys in this encounter, were there to protect innocent civilians from being lynched. | |
| • | These good people lose sleep every time an Israeli sniper accidently kills an unarmed rioter because another rioter burned tires sending up black smoke calculated to block the view and distort the aim of Israeli soldiers whose job it is to protect civilians. | |
| • | The ordinary citizens of Gaza are also victims of Hamas' bloody tactic of promoting death and martyrdom. Only Hamas can stop the bloodshed. | |
| • | But it won't as long as the media gives it public relations victories every time Israel kills in self-defense. | |
| • | Every time an Israeli soldier kills a Gazan rioter or protestor, Hamas wins. And every time Hamas kills an Israeli civilian, Hamas wins. | |
| • | Because Hamas' dual goal is death among civilians on both sides. | |
Hamas wants Palestinians killed to score propaganda points against Israel (Fox 05/15/2018)
| • | A toxic co-mingling of violent Hamas terrorists and other armed people hid among Palestinians gathered at the security fence – including peaceful protestors and children being used as human shields. | |
| • | Clearly, if the Israeli forces intended to inflict maximum casualties, thousands of Palestinians would have died, rather than the 60 reported by Hamas. | |
| • | "I ask my colleagues here in the Security Council: Who among us would accept this type of activity on your border?" | |
| • | "No one would. No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has." | |
| • | "What would you do, each one of you, if a violent mob of tens of thousands were threatening your sovereign borders?" | |
| • | "What would you do if your people were faced with terror attacks day in and day out? You must not give in to the cycle of death the Palestinians have created. You must call out lies when you see them." | |
| • | ... was one of those attempting to get through the security fence Monday as saying: "We are excited to storm and get inside." | |
| • | When asked what he would do inside Israel, he told ... "Whatever is possible, to kill, throw stones." | |
| • | Two other young men carried large knives and said they wanted to kill Jews on the other side of the fence. | |
| • | ... so-called "Marches of Return" of Palestinians seeking to enter Israel have been neither peaceful nor about "rights" – unless you mean the right of armed mobs to invade Israel, attack Jews and work towards the destruction of Israel. | |
| • | Over the last few weeks, demonstrations have turned into riots and grown increasingly violent as attackers have attempted to burst into Israeli territory. | |
| • | Families' who cooperate with Hamas get $3,000 for every dead Palestinian. | |
| • | The accompanying orchestrated cacophony of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment across the globe dutifully depicts Israelis as Nazi-like murderers gunning down nonviolent protesters and portrays the Jewish state as pursuing ethnic cleansing against a heroic, outnumbered, neighbor. These are lies with no basis in fact. | |
| • | In fact, all of the media manipulation, all the cynical crocodile tears cannot wash away the truth – it is Hamas, not Israel, with blood on its hands. | |
| • | ... no matter how outrageous their actions, Palestinians can always count on the United Nations, the governments of many nations, and assorted nongovernmental organizations to give them a moral free pass. | |
| • | And Hamas is rewarded for its brutal policies by anti-Israel diplomatic moves by Turkey and South Africa and cynical calls to sanction Israel – never the Palestinians – at the U.N. | |
| • | Only strong U.S support will thwart anti-Israel resolutions the condemn Israel for doing what every nation on Earth does: defending its borders and its citizens. | |
Trump needs to study up on North Korea's history of duplicity before meeting with Kim Jong Un (Fox 05/01/2018)
| • | Before meeting with North Korea's "very honorable" (Trump's words) dictator, Kim Jong Un, the president should bone up on the history of that country's duplicity and deception, including ways it has used the wishful thinking of some past U.S. presidents to achieve its objectives. | |
| • | ... North Korea's nuclear program isn't a recent development. It began in 1979 and since then, its leaders have played the West, and especially the U.S., like a Stradivarius. | |
| • | In 1989, Pyongyang claimed it would agree that the entire Korean Peninsula become a nuclear-free zone (sound familiar?). | |
| • | Instead, ... it began requiring conditions and incredibly won concession after concession, sending a message that the U.S. could be had. | |
| • | In January 1992, North and South Korea reached an agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons from the peninsula, but North Korea refused to sign a "safeguards" agreement. | |
| • | More agreements, re-designations of nuclear plants into something they were not and more deception followed. | |
| • | Even Clinton's defense secretary, William Perry, ... told The New York Times: "I'd rather (face the risk of war) than face the risk of even greater catastrophe two or three years from now." | |
| • | Enter Jimmy Carter, who flew to Pyongyang in 1994 for a face-to-face with Kim Il Sung, the current dictator's grandfather. | |
| • | Kim, he said, was "revered" by his people and "treated as a combination of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln." | |
| • | No wonder North Korea has believed the U.S. to be a patsy ever since. | |
| • | Given North Korea's trail of broken promises, it is highly unlikely any new pledge will be honored. | |
| • | "In short, our experience with North Korea confirms anew the folly of appeasement... Above all it points up the error of lowering our guard." | |
| • | President Trump may be used to doing "deals" with New York developers and politicians, but compared to what he faces should he meet with Kim, he's seen nothing yet. | |
| • | Watch how you play your cards, Mr. President. In case you haven't noticed, the other side cheats. | |
In Gaza, Hamas is the oppressor — not Israel (Fox 04/25/2018)
| • | ... for four straight Fridays the Hamas terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip has organized protests at the border with Israel involving thousands of Palestinians. | |
| • | Some of the protesters have attacked Israel's border security fence "with explosives, firebombs and other means." | |
| • | "Huge plumes of smoke from burning tires (set afire by demonstrators) engulfed the border area." | |
| • | "Some of the activists` threw stones toward the fence or flew kites with flaming rags dangling from their tails." | |
| • | While most protesters aren't joining in the violence, some are violent and dangerous terrorists who want to tear down Israel's security fence to make it easy to launch deadly attacks on the Jewish state. | |
| • | No nation on Earth would welcome terrorist murderers to cross its borders to take the lives of innocent civilians. | |
| • | And if terrorists assaulted any other border on the planet, the number of attackers killed would undoubtedly be much higher. | |
| • | You might think the United Nations and countries around the world would be condemning the violent protests – but you'd be wrong. | |
| • | Israel's s actions to defend its border prompted the usual Israel-bashing at the U.N., in the media, and wherever left gathers to condemn the only democracy in the Middle East. | |
| • | It's tragic that violence is a daily fact of life in much of the Middle East, including Israel and the Palestinian territories. | |
| • | What the Palestinians and their supporters around the globe fail to acknowledge is that the true oppressor of Palestinians in Gaza is not Israel, which completely withdrew from the territory in 2005. The real oppressor of Palestinians is Hamas itself. | |
| • | Hamas' obstructionist policy of non-recognition of Israel – and its vow to destroy Israel as Jewish state – is not just empty rhetoric. | |
| • | The terrorist group regularly launches rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and spends millions of dollars building cross-border tunnels for terrorists to infiltrate Israel. | |
| • | ... only humanitarian aid from Israel sustains the lives of Gaza residents. | |
| • | ... you would never glean any of that from the latest round of headlines condemning Israel for using "disproportionate" force against civilians. | |
| • | As if Israelis were obligated to let themselves be killed by terrorists to make sure as many of them died as Palestinians to achieve proportionality. | |
| • | The reality is that the masses of Palestinians remaining a safe distance from the border are a cover for the armed terrorists seeking to crash through the fence each Friday and attack Israeli communities less than a mile from Gaza. | |
| • | This explains Hamas' resort to burning tires and flying kites with flaming tails – the thick black smoke is intended to offer cover to the infiltrators. | |
| • | ... you would never know any of that from the left-wing, Israel-bashing media or the enemies of freedom at the United Nations. | |
| • | ... Gaza residents have to recognize that despite Hamas propaganda, their bleak situation can no longer be blamed on Israel, which is in fact the source of humanitarian shipments of food, water and medicine. | |
| • | To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, ... Hamas isn't the solution to the problem; Hamas is the problem. | |
Putin, Russia and the hard truth about election meddling (Fox 03/27/2018)
| • | President Trump's order Monday to expel 60 Russian diplomats and intelligence officers from the U.S. in retaliation for the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain has sent U.S.-Russian relations to their lowest point yet during the Trump administration. | |
| • | The U.S. joined at least 22 other nations in expelling Russian officials in support of Britain... | |
| • | Just about all Americans, regardless of political party, can agree that Russian President Vladimir Putin is an aggressive leader who is one of our greatest geopolitical adversaries – not just because of the poisoning in Britain, but because of a series of other actions he has taken. | |
| • | But unfortunately, realizing that Putin is not our friend doesn't tell us how to deal with him and his government. | |
| • | We could do nothing and just let our differences with Putin and his government fester. | |
| • | But that would mean acceptance of the status quo – a divided and bloodied Ukraine, a continuing civil war with massive casualties and a refugee crisis in Syria, and a costly an arms race. | |
| • | Alternatively, President Trump could seek an accommodation with Russia to resolve as many of our differences as possible. | |
| • | But isn't accommodation with a dictator who denies his people many freedoms that we take for granted beyond the pale? | |
| • | Given the number of times we've sought a deal with the North Koreans – only to be lied to repeatedly and be treated as patsies – do you think them more trustworthy than Putin? | |
| • | And while Russia interfered with our 2016 presidential election, Kim has threatened to nuke the U.S. On the scale of things, isn't that a wee bit more serious? | |
| • | But let's talk about the meddling by the Russians in our presidential election. In monetary terms, it was small potatoes. | |
| • | And if the Russians had wanted to disrupt our politics, it's unlikely they could have done very much in 2016 or this year. | |
| • | We're already at peak craziness. Was it the Russians who prompted Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., to call for progressives to fight in the streets? | |
| • | Did the Russians ask Hillary Clinton to join the resistance? Do they edit the Washington Post and New York Times, or operate CNN and MSNBC? | |
| • | We don't need the Russians to make a mockery of American politics. We do it all by ourselves. | |
| • | And if we are to take further actions against Russia's meddling in our elections past and future, just what might we do? The First Amendment to our Constitution bars the federal government from interfering with free speech and freedom of the press. | |
| • | Instead, it makes the most sense to respond to Russia's interference in our election by going on the offense, tit-for-tat. | |
| • | If the Russians interfere in our elections, we should interfere in their elections. | |
| • | But guess what? We're interfering with Russia's internal politics already – and we were doing it long before the Russians started meddling on social media sites. | |
| • | If they messed with us, we had started it and it was they who were playing tit-for-tat. | |
| • | The U.S. government has a long record of supporting pro-democracy non-governmental organizations that seek to subvert undemocratic governments in other countries. | |
| • | For example, the National Endowment for Democracy is funded primarily by U.S. taxpayer dollars with a mission of exporting democracy. It does so around the world. | |
| • | In Russia, the National Endowment for Democracy has directed its grants to organizations that employ Putin's opponents or that engage activists to foster civil engagement. | |
| • | In truth, America has a long history of messing with other countries, beginning with our invasion of Canada in 1775. | |
| • | In a more recent example of taking sides in a foreign election under cover of supporting democracy, in 2015 President Obama's State Department gave $350,000 to an Israeli group – ostensibly to seek an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. | |
| • | In reality, the $350,000 was spent to build a voter database and train activists to oppose the democratically elected government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Obama detested. | |
| • | So where does that leave us? We might either shut down our efforts to export our ideals or expect that if we mess with Putin he'll mess with us. | |
| • | President Trump largely favors the former strategy. He'd like to slash the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy and clip its wings. | |
| • | He doesn't believe we should seek to export democracy, except by way of providing an example for other countries. | |
| • | Such a move would be a radical break in the American tradition of defending democracy abroad – and one we should not make. | |
| • | With all the mistakes we've made – with all the ways in which the cause of exporting democracy has been used to excuse foreign wars – the ideal of liberal democracy is worth defending and even exporting. | |
| • | We did so to resist communism and have no apologies to make on that score. | |
| • | But if we do these things, let's be realistic. It's naive to think we've heard the last from Russian trolls. | |
| • | As we do unto others, they do unto us. | |
Why a nuke-free North Korea is China's worst nightmare (Fox 03/12/2018)
| • | Picture this: thanks to a combination of diplomatic ingenuity, unique personalities and a historic willingness to see tensions in Northeast Asia disappear, President Donald J. Trump convinces North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to do the unthinkable and give up his nuclear weapons. | |
| • | If the Trump administration can somehow land the ultimate of deals, the geopolitical map would instantly be reset. | |
| • | And nothing would terrify China more. The reason, if you think about it, is obvious. The instability that Pyongyang brings to U.S. foreign policy presents to China a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to achieve many of its goals throughout the Indo-Pacific region. | |
| • | To be clear, China has benefitted in the past from America having its diplomatic focus elsewhere. | |
| • | Just a simple spin of the globe shows Beijing would stand to lose momentum in many key areas if Washington was again able to refocus on its great-power competition with the middle kingdom. | |
| • | Best of all, America would no longer feel indebted to China for its help on the North Korea nuclear challenge. | |
| • | South China Sea. America would finally be able to develop a fine-tuned approach to pushing back against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. | |
| • | Taiwan. Washington would also be able to fully assist Taiwan — a democracy of 25 million who is in constant fear of being absorbed by China... | |
| • | East China Sea. America and Japan could finally push China back in the East China Sea, a region in East Asia where Beijing has been aggressively trying to dominate vital sea lanes and islands. | |
| • | Trade. America's $350 billion trade imbalance with China could also finally be addressed, as the necessary political and diplomatic bandwidth would finally be available. | |
| • | ... if President Trump can land the biggest diplomatic deal on the planet, Washington could very well knock out two big problems at the same time. | |
| • | And the world just might not be the same. Now that is something worth striving for. | |
Trump needs to test North Korea's intentions — Now (Fox 03/07/2018)
| • | Almost out of the blue, North Korea seems to want to talk to everyone – including the United States. | |
| • | The so-called Hermit Kingdom, which almost brought the world to the brink of war last year, is now suddenly singing a different tune. | |
| • | There will be a summit of North and South Korean leaders, the first of its kind in many years. | |
| • | North Korea has agreed to halt any nuclear and missile testing while talks are ongoing. | |
| • | In a big win for the Trump administration, Kim Jong Un put on the table the idea that North Korea would be willing to talk about denuclearization... | |
| • | So, is the North Korean crisis is over? Is peace at hand? Will the North give up its nuclear weapons, conclude a long sought peace treaty with the U.S. and South Korea and eventually reunify with the South into a single nation? Is the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula finally coming to an end? | |
| • | No – imagining all these things will now happen would be wildly optimistic. | |
| • | In fact, if one thing is certain, it is that we are entering a more dangerous dance with Pyongyang than ever before. | |
| • | ... the Trump administration must move quickly to probe North Korea's intentions – to see if Kim and his regime are truly committed to the promises they have made. | |
| • | If not, we are doomed to another round of months, maybe years, of fruitless talks with the Kim regime that go nowhere – and buy Pyongyang time to perfect the very nuclear weapons we are desperately trying to rid from our world. | |
| • | Thankfully, a quick look at the calendar tells us current events will soon test this detente to see if it is actually real or just fake news being put out by Kim. | |
| • | Seoul and Washington should make one thing crystal clear: these exercises will not be canceled under any circumstances. | |
| • | ... North Korea should never, ever, be rewarded for coming to the negotiating table. | |
| • | ... Kim could demand a bribe before we even begin negotiations | |
| • | We must be leery and walk away from the bargaining table if Kim demands payments, sanctions relief, food or fuel supplies for simply talking. | |
| • | No rogue regime should be rewarded for doing the right thing – and we should back away if North Korea looks for concessions right at the outset. | |
| • | In the past, Pyongyang would string along U.S. and South Korean negotiators in meeting after meeting after meeting that never achieved any results. | |
| • | All the while, the Kim family would continue to refine its nuclear and missile technology. | |
| • | ... we should know very quickly what North Korea's strategy is – most likely a play for time to ensure it has a viable nuclear weapon that can hit the U.S. homeland. | |
Life in North Korea a horror. Why are we so hesitant to tell the massive Olympic audience about... (Fox 02/16/2018)
| • | ... a satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula at night. At the bottom, awash in light, is the free and democratic South. Meanwhile, the North is in complete darkness, save for a tiny pinprick of light in Pyongyang. | |
| • | The two countries ... have the same people and the same natural resources. Yet one is glowing with the light of freedom, innovation and enterprise, while the other is enveloped in the total darkness of human misery. | |
| • | Keep that darkness in mind while watching the North's Olympic charm offensive over these two weeks. | |
| • | Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, is not the "North Korean Ivanka." | |
| • | She is the vice director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, a senior leader of the most brutal repressive totalitarian regime on the face of the Earth. | |
| • | "It's like a religion. From birth, you learn about the Kim family, learn that they are gods, that you must be absolutely obedient to the Kim family." | |
| • | Any perceived disloyalty to the Kim family can result in a visit in the middle of the night from the Bowibu — the North Korean secret police — that could send not just the offender, but three generations of his or her relatives, to a forced labor camp for life. | |
| • | Under three generations of Kims, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have been imprisoned and killed in these camps. | |
| • | Inmates undergo the most brutal forms of torture imaginable, including being hung on hooks over open fires, while pregnant women are tied to trees while their babies are cut out of their bellies. | |
| • | Yet the camps are simply prisons within a larger prison. The entire country is one giant gulag. | |
| • | ... up to a million North Koreans died of starvation in the famine that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. | |
| • | "It was the only time in history that people have starved en masse in an urbanized, literate society during peacetime." | |
| • | North Korea's people starve while the regime pours its resources into its messianic quest to deploy nuclear missiles capable of reaching and destroying American cities. | |
| • | Even among the elites there is no safety. Last year, North Korea's vice premier for education was executed for not keeping his posture upright at a public event. | |
| • | Defense Minister Hyong Yong Chol was pounded to death with artillery fire for the crime of falling asleep at a parade. | |
| • | And if you wonder why those North Korean cheerleaders stay in such perfect sync, maybe it's because they saw 11 North Korean musicians lashed to the barrels of anti-aircraft guns which were fired one by one before a crowd of 10,000 spectators. | |
| • | "The musicians just disappeared each time the guns were fired into them. Their bodies were blown to bits, totally destroyed, blood and bits flying everywhere. And then, after that, military tanks moved in and they ran over the bits on the ground where the remains lay." | |
| • | This is the brutality that Kim Yo Jong represents. Yet despite this cruel reality, the media could not help fawning over the North Korean delegation. | |
| • | Reuters declared Kim Yo Jong the "winner of diplomatic gold at Olympics." | |
| • | CNN gushed how, "With a smile, a handshake and a warm message in South Korea's presidential guest book, Kim Yo Jong has struck a chord with the public." | |
| • | NBC even tweeted a photo of the North Korean cheerleaders with the heading "This is so satisfying to watch." | |
| • | Seriously? NBC failed to mention that in 2005, 21 cheerleaders were sent to a prison camp for speaking about what they saw in South Korea. | |
| • | Instead of normalizing the regime, this should be an opportunity to educate the massive Olympic audience about the realities of life in North Korea under the murderous Kim crime family that is pursuing the ability to threaten American cities with nuclear destruction. | |
Israel proves the NRA's arguments (INN 02/15/2018)
| • | ... Israel's gun policy is living proof of the arguments the American gun lobby has been making for years. | |
| • | Gun rights advocates contend that the way to stop mass shootings is by ensuring that there are always well-armed citizens present who can neutralize the shooter. | |
| • | "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". | |
| • | A bedrock of the NRA's philosophy is that criminals will always acquire guns illegally, and draconian gun laws only render law-abiding citizens defenseless. | |
| • | ... "civilians well trained in the use of weapons provide reinforcement in the struggle against terrorism"... | |
| • | ... Jerusalem Mayor ... called for every resident to carry a gun, and was even photographed traveling the city carrying a Glock 23. | |
| • | ... the overwhelming majority of terror attacks in Israel are stopped by armed civilians, not law enforcement. | |
| • | In Israeli eyes, guns are a valuable deterrent against terrorism. | |
| • | The vast majority of IDF soldiers aren't combat soldiers and are certified as 02 riflemen. To be 02 requires one to shoot between 40 and 70 bullets. | |
| • | The pistol course needed to obtain a license takes less than four hours. It is a far cry from the highly trained population that the Left imagines. | |
| • | Gun control has been proven to be a dismal failure in Israel. | |
| • | The Israeli Arab communities are rife with illegal weapons, with some police estimates putting the number of unlicensed weapons in the Arab sector as high as 500,000. | |
| • | Think about that for a second: The most heavily guarded borders in the world and a highly professional Shin Bet are still not enough to prevent criminals from obtaining illegal firearms. | |
| • | When terrorists attacked a school in Maalot in 1974, Israel did not declare every school a gun-free zone. | |
| • | It passed a law mandating armed security in schools, provided weapons training to teachers and today runs frequent active shooter drills. | |
| • | There have been only two school shootings since then, and both have ended with teachers killing the terrorists. | |
| • | It is an approach that the Americans should take to end the constant slaughter of innocents. | |
Trump administration's North Korea trap is set (Fox 02/13/2018)
| • | North Korea's Kim family are the greatest abusers of human rights on the planet today. Such a family ... deserves to be tried in The Hague for their sins. | |
| • | But instead of a one-way trip to answer for their countless crimes, the killer Kims were instead paid what can only be described as the ultimate honor: VIP seats in a luxury box at the 2018 Winter Games, right there with our own Vice President Mike Pence, thanks to a peace overture pushed by the two Koreas. | |
| • | And from there it gets worse. North Korea used this opportunity to mount what could easily be described as the greatest attempted rebranding of a country in modern times. | |
| • | Forgotten was talk of Pyongyang's missile and nuclear tests of last year or the 200,000 or so people trapped in prison camps. | |
| • | Oh no, instead we were told that Kim's visiting sister was the "Ivanka Trump" of North Korea. Seriously? | |
| • | Washington would continue to ratchet up pressure on the hermit kingdom and ... "will not stop imposing steep and escalating costs on the Kim Jong Un regime until it takes clear steps toward denuclearization." | |
| • | However, the Trump administration would be willing to "sit down and talk with the regime while that pressure campaign is ongoing." | |
| • | ... South Korea's President Moon assured Pence that Pyongyang would get no "economic or diplomatic benefits for just talking." | |
| • | This time, Moon apparently promised Pence there would only be concessions to the North "for taking concrete steps toward denuclearization." | |
| • | In fact, denuclearization is the key in any talks with North Korea. If Pyongyang is unwilling or unable to talk about its nuclear program there is simply no point in talking. | |
| • | Logic suggests quite strongly that if Pyongyang won't even go that far, to at least talk about their nuclear weapons program and its dismantling in any negotiation, then we have solid proof the North is simply biding for time. | |
| • | The Trump administration has laid out a nicely crafted trap for Kim to fall into – either he is willing to talk about the dismantling of his nuclear program or not and this is all a sham. | |
| • | And considering the fact that North Korea has been quite clear their nuclear weapons are not to be bargained away — they are enshrined in their sham of a constitution — the stage is likely set for less talking and more tensions fairly soon. | |
Does Trump understand what the US is up against? (INN 01/28/2018)
| • | ... civilized people forget "that there has ever been a category of human experience called "the enemy." The enemy is someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. | |
| • | And while it is true that the enemy always hates us for a reason, it is his reason and not ours. | |
| • | He does not hate us for our faults any more than for our virtues. | |
| • | He sees a different world from ours, and in the world he sees, we are the enemy." | |
| • | America is hated because it is the enemy – the Great Satan. | |
| • | Israel, like the United States, is the enemy, the enemy of Islam's world view. | |
| • | Israel's mere existence is a historical refutation of Islam. Israel's restoration is a refutation of Islamic prophecy and of its prophet Muhammad. | |
| • | This fact alone is a threat to the power structure if every Islamic state. Does Donald Trump, the great deal maker, fathom this? | |
| • | Mankind has always thought of the enemy as one you must kill or destroy first, otherwise, sooner or later, he will kill or destroy you. | |
| • | We do not think this way. "We are caught in the midst of a conflict between those for whom the category of the enemy is essential to their way of organizing all human experience and those who have banished even the idea of the enemy ..." | |
| • | "They hope that by pretending that the enemy is simply misguided or misunderstood ... he will cease to be an enemy. This is a fatal illusion." | |
| • | "To see the enemy as someone who is merely an awkward negotiator is perverse. It shows contempt for the depth and sincerity of his convictions, a terrible mistake when you are dealing with [a master of dissimulation] who wants you dead." | |
| • | ... if your enemy consists of men who will stop at nothing, who are willing to die and to kill, then you must be willing to do the same. | |
| • | "Only those who have mastered ruthlessness can defend their society from the ruthlessness of others." | |
| • | Ruthlessness will determine the outcome of World War III, just as it determined the outcome of World War II, when Dresden was napalmed and Hiroshima was incinerated. | |
| • | Today, however, our educators have been shaping our minds with utopian ideals "designed for men and women who know no enemy and who do not take precautions against him. These ideals are appropriate for a world in which everyone plays by the same rules, and accepts the same standards, of rational cooperation; they are fatally unrealistic in a world in which the enemy acknowledges no rule accept that of ruthlessness." | |
| • | The tapes of Bin Laden reveal that the destruction of the World Trade Center was not part of the original terrorists' scheme. | |
| • | Nevertheless, Muslims saw the collapse of the Twin Towers as a manifestation of divine intervention. | |
| • | The 19 hijackers did not bring down the towers; Allah did. It is no wonder that the Arab street erupted in exultation. | |
| • | 9/11 erased centuries of Islam's degradation vis-a-vis the West. The destruction was a victory for Muslims everywhere. It restored their overweening pride, their sense of superiority over the enemy. | |
| • | The Qu'ran praises the Muslim who "slays and is slain" for Allah (Sura 9:111). To die by annihilating the enemy is the Muslim's supreme glory. | |
| • | This sheds light on the bizarre behavior of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Netanyahu's "peace partner" with whom he wants to negotiate on the (impossible) basis of "reciprocity." | |
| • | The PA was offered statehood by PM Ehud Barak in 1999, but the transparent and ultimate goal of these Muslim/Arabs is not statehood but annihilation of the enemy, Israel. | |
| • | Israel's ruling elites cannot face the fact that compromise – the modus operandi of democracy – is foreign to Islam's world view. | |
| • | By civilization he means a standard that can be applied across cultures and across history. | |
| • | He sees civilization as having four prerequisites: (1) a stable social order, (2) the co-operation of individuals' pursuing their own interests, (3) the ability to tolerate or socialize with one's neighbors, and (4) a hatred of violence. | |
| • | Clearly, Islam lacks three of the four prerequisites ... of a civilization. | |
| • | We face a deadly asymmetry. Muslim leaders know the enemy; America's leaders do not. | |
| • | This is why if Iran develops nuclear weapons we may lose World War III. | |
No, Russia didn't work to elect Trump — It works to divide Americans, with the help of Democrats (Fox 01/28/2018)
| • | It's true that the Russians are meddling in U.S. politics – they have been since the Cold War. | |
| • | Sadly, the Democrats and the #Resistance are falling for the ploy of the Russians and helping their cause. | |
| • | The Russians are not deluded enough to believe they can control a U.S. president, so their actual goal is to sow discord and create infighting among the American people. | |
| • | They have certainly succeed in accomplishing this mission. | |
| • | The deluge of news stories and attention focused on supposed collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russians grew out of the need by Hillary Clinton and her supporters to have an excuse for losing – blame it all on those nasty, meddling Russians! | |
| • | Pinning the blame on the Russians actually played right into their hands. First, it inflated their influence well beyond reality. Second, it began to weaken President Trump before he even took office. | |
| • | The Russians were actually playing against the efforts of both candidates and against America and our electoral process overall. The more divided Americans are against each other, the happier the Russians are. | |
| • | The terms for such actors in the Cold War days – when the Soviet Union was openly working against us — were "Fellow Traveler" or "Useful Idiots." | |
| • | ... the damage that Democrats and others pushing the "Russia, Russia, Russia" narrative have caused is as real as the charges are false. | |
| • | The Russians aren't supporting President Trump. They are weakening America and infecting our public discourse and body politic. | |
| • | The efforts by the left to tie this to President Trump and his campaign have contributed to Russian success. | |
| • | The study found equal efforts against the right and the left to foment misinformation, generate arguments and generally cause problems. | |
| • | It is good for us as American citizens and certainly for our government to be aware of these efforts by the Russians, Chinese and others. | |
| • | It is unhelpful to spread the unfair and inaccurate idea that the Trump administration supports or benefits from them. | |
| • | None of us do, and that is why those on the left should stop helping the Russians in their pursuit of harming and weakening the United States. | |
Liz Peek: Trump challenges world's elites at Davos — Do they want to start winning, too? (Fox 01/26/2018)
| • | President Trump made the world's elites squirm Friday in Davos, but not for the reasons many expected. | |
| • | ... he invited the world to invest in America, citing the tax cuts and regulatory roll-back that make "Now the perfect time to bring business, jobs and investment to the U.S." | |
| • | ... the business titans and political leaders in the audience must have felt a chill. Not because Trump was challenging or upsetting the global order, but because he was winning in the midst of it. | |
| • | People around the world listening to his common sense remarks must have thought: what about us? Why isn't my president doing the same? | |
| • | ... he reiterated his pledge that "as president I will always put America first..." Adding, "just like we expect the leaders of other countries should put their country first also." Audiences thought, is my leader putting me first? | |
| • | He didn't, as some expected, threaten a trade war, but rather reiterated his stance that the U.S. welcomes trade deals that are fair and reciprocal. He indicated a willingness to enter into bilateral agreements, and also to perhaps join the TPP group, as long as it is in "the interests of all." | |
| • | Trump has recently called out rivals like China for unfair trade practices. He has accused them of stealing our intellectual property, dumping excess products like solar panels in an effort to drive competitors out of business and protecting domestic industries through tariffs and other barriers. | |
| • | As Trump vows to "protect the interests of our country, our companies and our workers," people around the world hope their leaders will, too. | |
| • | On immigration, a thorny and contentious issue not only in the U.S. but across the globe, Trump argued for policies that benefit the U.S. Yes, our doors are open, but we want immigrants that will "contribute to our economy, support themselves financially and to strengthen our country." | |
| • | Isn't it wise to invite people into your country who have the talents to make your nation stronger? Doesn't a merit-based approach like that in Australia make sense? | |
| • | Trump touted his administration's encouragement of domestic energy production ... rising oil and natural gas output is not just an economic boon to the U.S., but also promotes "energy security for our friends around the world." As he pointed out, "No country should be held hostage to a single provider of energy." | |
| • | In addition to touting job creation, Trump also promoted efforts to develop the workforce of the U.S., concluding that "the best anti-poverty program is a very simple and very beautiful paycheck." | |
| • | ... the president referenced his administration's effective partnership with the UN in tightening sanctions on North Korea, the success of the coalition to defeat ISIS and the emerging cooperation in confronting Iran's illegal missile adventures. | |
| • | ... his "simple message" put the world's elites on notice: "There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest and to grow in the United States." | |
Trump's Iran opportunity — give the mullahs a push (Fox 01/02/2018)
| • | It's not often that a president has a chance to rewrite history and correct a blunder by one of his predecessors... | |
| • | But that's what President Trump has in dealing with Iran this week: a chance to reverse the shameful failures of his predecessors in dealing with the Islamic Republic, and incidentally to rock the Middle East from end to end. | |
| • | From the latest reports coming out of Iran, hundreds of thousands of protesters have poured into the streets of the country's major cities, including the capital Tehran, calling for an end to a hardline mullah regime in demonstrations that have turned deadly — but which also show no sign of slowing down. | |
| • | Rewind almost a decade ago to 2009, when thousands of Iranians also poured into the streets to protest the reign of the mullahs, and appealed to an American president for support. | |
| • | That president was Barack Obama, who was happy to talk about democracy and "Arab springs" if it helped to topple U.S. allies like Egypt and trigger civil wars in Libya and Syria, but not if it involved toppling the mullahs with whom he hoped to negotiate a dubious nuclear deal. | |
| • | Instead, the Green Revolution was brutally crushed by the mullah's armed thugs, as Obama's obsession with getting a deal with Iran, and his delusion that a constructively engaged Iran could be a stabilizing factor in the Middle East, left him silent as protesters were mowed down in the streets. | |
| • | Instead of becoming a stabilizing force, Obama's Iranian partners have triggered instability and mayhem across the region, including sparking a proxy war with the Saudis over Yemen, stoking a vicious civil war in Syria, while also taking U.S. sailors hostage and giving the Taliban the weapons to kill Americans in Afghanistan — not to mention threatening Israel with annihilation. | |
| • | With the revival of demonstrations in Iran, however, President Trump has an unprecedented opportunity to reset the U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic. | |
| • | What steps can Trump take? First, reimpose all the sanctions against Iran that were lifted as part of the nuclear deal, especially against anyone that does business with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the brutal elite mainstay of the Tehran regime. | |
| • | Second, make it clear to the European Union and others who sit silent for fear their lucrative post-sanction deals with Tehran will fall through if the regime topples, that they will be held accountable to Washington and to history, if they stand by while one of the most despotic regimes in history once again crushes out the hopes of its citizens. | |
| • | Third, show unflinching support for the demonstrators and show that America, and the world, are indeed watching and hails their effort to create a new life for themselves based on democracy and freedom. | |
| • | This isn't about imposing regime change. It's about leveraging American pressure on a major sponsor of terrorism; on Vladmir Putin's reliable client; on Bashar Assad's chief protector; in ways that could usher in an entirely new and stable Middle East. | |
| • | One hundred years ago President Woodrow Wilson had the chance to topple a shaky Bolshevik regime when the Russian people rose up against it in 1918, and failed. | |
| • | ... Wilson withdrew the American troops who had landed in Siberia to keep Russia in the First World War; Lenin and the Communists survived; and over the next century tens of millions died. | |
| • | Today with Iran, the stakes may not be as high, but the opportunity has never been so ripe. | |
Women are leading in Iran. Where is their voice of support from the left? (Fox 01/02/2018)
| • | Mind you, this wasn't inauguration protests from January of last year with celebrity activists screaming freely into microphones about how much they've thought about blowing up the White House. | |
| • | This was a woman endangering her life and possibly the lives of her loved ones to stand up to government forces of a hardline Islamic theocracy. She was risking death. And yet, nevertheless, she persisted. | |
| • | Another woman was seen on tape declaring "You raised your fists and ruined our lives. Now we raise our fists. Be men, join us. I as a woman will stand in front and protect you. Come represent your country." | |
| • | Every one of these searing images are of women. Women are the predominant face of this blossoming revolution. Women are risking the most to speak out against the Iranian Mullahs. | |
| • | So the question must be asked: Where are the women's movement supporters in the United States and Europe, which gathered en masse to protest a newly inaugurated American president last year? | |
| • | More specifically, empowered by the cultural muscle of MeToo celebrity leaders and Women's March organizers such as Linda Sarsour: Why are you silent? | |
| • | If these nameless women can speak out in the face of true tyranny, risking actual imprisonment and death, why can't you? | |
| • | Iranian women are not adorning pink knitted hats, or costumes resembling female genitalia. They won't be attending award shows. They aren't wearing red cloaks and bonnets inspired by their favorite Netflix show. | |
| • | No, these brave women are caught on videotape and in photographs for the world to see, and the women's movements have yet to barely offer so much as a tweet or a Facebook post of support. | |
| • | The official Women's March Twitter account has tweeted exactly zero times in support of women protesting in Iran. Zero. | |
| • | What seems to be lost on Ms. Sarsour is that these women are currently risking their lives and protesting – not for the right to come to the United States – but for the rights to live and thrive in their own country. | |
| • | Women in Iran are shedding their hijabs while progressive women's movements in the United States try to hold them up as a symbol of empowerment and feminism... | |
| • | Women in Iran are standing in defiance of the regime's financial support of Hezbollah and Hamas rather than fair wages and human rights. | |
| • | But for progressive women's groups to oppose Hamas in the face of these protests, it would mean abandoning months of pro-Palestinian support... | |
| • | Remaining silent in the face of this growing movement is another black eye for Sarsour in particular, who is facing charges of ignoring complaints of sexual abuse while she was director of the Arab American Association. | |
| • | Hillary Clinton has not offered support of the women beyond a tweet stating she hopes "their government responds peacefully and supports their hopes." | |
| • | Hate to break it to the onetime self-declared ceiling breaker, but the government is very much not responding peacefully nor are they supporting their hopes. | |
| • | They are, indeed, emboldened financially by an Iran Nuclear deal she herself claimed partial credit for. | |
| • | Political support for the women of Iran would of course contradict the careful echo chamber narrative Democrat politicians spent months crafting in support of President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran – which is in fact a major reason for the uprising happening now. | |
| • | The Mullahs squandered most of their financial windfall from the Iran deal on support for terror groups such as the Assad regime, Hezbollah and Hamas after promising to invest it in the people at home. | |
| • | More importantly, the women of Iran have had enough and are leading the way, with or without public support from the self-declared women's groups on the left around the world, who have decided they are the public voice of resistance for women – except in places where a collective voice of support could actually help women the most. | |
| • | Their ideas of empowerment apparently stop where their politics start. | |
Trump was right to stand up to the UN's anti-American and anti-Israel bias (Fox 01/01/2018)
| • | The United Nations heads into 2018 with its reputation intact as a hopelessly biased anti-American and anti-Israel debating society that passes resolution after resolution condemning these two great democracies. | |
| • | At the same time, the U.N. General Assembly regularly turns a blind eye to human rights violations, aggression against neighbors and murders of dissidents by dictatorships around the world. | |
| • | A highlight of President Trump's foreign policy in 2017 was his decision to call out this absurd double standard. | |
| • | The latest example of U.N. members ganging up on America and Israel was the General Assembly's overwhelming approval of a resolution condemning America for recognizing the obvious fact that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. | |
| • | ... regarding the Jerusalem Embassy Act passed by big bipartisan majorities Congress in 1995. The act states: "Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than 31 May 1999." | |
| • | The Assembly action backfired because it's anti-American and anti-Israel bashing reflected more poorly on the United Nations than on the U.S. or Israel. | |
| • | To maintain that transnational spirit, the Assembly has avoided showcasing state-on-state body-slamming. | |
| • | Otherwise, its cathedral-like aura would lower itself to the level of a pro-wrestling cage match. But every so often its membership majority gives in to that spectacle – particularly when Israel is involved. | |
| • | If such cage matches are now to be held regularly at the U.N., skirmishing countries will game and exploit the Assembly for their own quick stake-raising and inexpensive global publicity, further weakening the Assembly's legitimacy and standing. | |
| • | In the end, the General Assembly's condemnation did succeed in one sense. | |
| • | It proved the United Nations deserves the sharp criticism it often gets from Washington and increasingly from others. | |
As we say goodbye to 2017, Nikki Haley stands up for the US and the UN's true ideals (Fox 12/30/2017)
| • | Each September, dictators, tyrants and appeasers from nations around the world arrive in New York City for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly and lie to the world about their own actions, denounce Israel as an illegal "occupier," blast America as an imperialist aggressor and attack some of our allies. | |
| • | No matter how small, weak, poor and insignificant they are, all nations have an equal vote in the General Assembly. | |
| • | And far too many cast those votes not based on fairness and justice, but to lash out at their enemies and flatter their friends – even when their actions have no basis in fact. | |
| • | Americans have a love-hate relationship with the U.N. We appreciate its charter, which guarantees the sovereignty of its member states and holds out the hope of a more just and humane world. | |
| • | But we realize that the conduct by nations at the U.N. often does not live up to the institution's great ideals. | |
| • | Fortunately, from time to time a diplomat comes along who stands up to the dictators and tyrants with such force that the original promise of the U.N. re-emerges | |
| • | Earlier this month, President Trump did something that his predecessors from both parties had promised to do in their campaigns, but never did as president. | |
| • | He recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and ordered preparations begin to move the U.S. embassy there. | |
| • | In response to the elected leader of the U.N.'s oldest democracy moving his nation's embassy to the actual capital of the Middle East's only true democracy, the U.N. passed a harsh resolution condemning America and Israel. | |
| • | With President Trump's backing, Haley let the assembled delegates know that America finally had had enough. | |
| • | "To its shame, the U.N. has long been a hostile place for the state of Israel," Haley told U.N. delegates. "I've often wondered why, in the face of such hostility, Israel has chosen to remain a member of this body." | |
| • | Haley then put the U.N. on notice that the U.S. "will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation. We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world's largest contribution to the U.N." | |
| • | As the world's most powerful nation, we have a responsibility to stand firm on behalf of the founding ideals of the U.N. – especially when such a stance is unpopular with the dictators, tyrants and their enablers. | |
| • | With her actions, Nikki Haley has joined the ranks of America's greatest U.N. ambassadors. The American people are fortunate to have her representing us. | |
Rape, sex trafficking, spread of disease highlight horrors on UN's watch (Fox 12/28/2017)
| • | "The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known. We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked." | |
| • | The U.N.'s problems, however, are larger than inefficiency and overspending; they include rape, sex trafficking and the spread of disease. | |
| • | A decade ago the U.N. promised to crack down on child sex abuse, yet ... years later children were still being "passed around from soldier-to-soldier. And in the years since, peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse the world over." | |
| • | This from the same entity that just put Saudi Arabia on the "UN Women's Rights Commission"... | |
| • | In 2014, the U.N. also placed Iran on the same human rights body. | |
| • | For an entity that feels Iran and Saudi Arabia deserve to sit on a human rights panel determining the fate of women, it comes as no surprise that last year the same collection of miscreants brought 21 resolutions against Israel, with just 6 against the rest of the world. | |
| • | "EU states have failed to introduce a single UNGA resolution on the human rights situation in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, or on 175 other countries." | |
| • | The U.N. is more than an inefficient over-spender, it is a cancer that American taxpayers are funding to spread. | |
| • | The crimes of sex trafficking alone should be enough for the decent countries of the world to condemn and dismantle it. | |
| • | Reducing the billions of dollars we pay by a few hundred million is nothing. | |
| • | President Trump and Ambassador Haleymust understand there is no benefit that now outweighs the calamity of the U.N. | |
| • | Ironically, we can now only achieve the U.N.'s initial mission of making the world a safer place by dismantling the U.N.itself. | |
Time to Defund the United Nations (JWR 12/27/2017)
| • | Last week, Democrats and many in the mainstream media became highly perturbed by the Trump administration's suggestion that the United States might tie continued foreign aid to support for its agenda abroad. | |
| • | Foreign dictators agreed. | |
| • | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spent the last year arresting dissidents, announced, "Mr. Trump, you cannot buy Turkey's democratic free will with your dollars, our decision is clear." | |
| • | Among those who voted last week to condemn the U.S. for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving its embassy to Jerusalem were North Korea, Iran, Yemen and Venezuela. Why exactly should the United States ever take advice from those nations seriously? | |
| • | We shouldn't. And we should stop sending cash to an organization that operates as a front for immoral agenda items. | |
| • | The United Nations spends the vast majority of its time condemning Israel... Meanwhile, the U.N. has done nearly nothing with regard to Syria. It has instead suggested that Israel turn over the Golan Heights to the Syrian regime. | |
| • | One of the great lies of the Obama administration was that diplomacy is a foreign policy. | |
| • | We often heard from it that the only two alternatives were diplomacy and war. | |
| • | But the moment that the Trump administration uses tools of diplomacy, including financial pressure, to achieve American ends, the left complains. | |
| • | Diplomacy is a tool, not a foreign policy, and the use of diplomacy to pressure other nations to follow our lead is not only smart but also necessary. | |
| • | There's no reason for us to continue cutting checks to prop up regimes that condemn us publicly for exercising the most basic standards of morality. | |
Palestinians must accept the reality of Israel as a Jewish state to achieve peace (Fox 12/25/2017)
| • | ... the real obstacle to peace is the stubborn refusal by Palestinian leaders to accept the reality of Israel as a permanent Jewish state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. | |
| • | Every time the U.S. makes demands of the Palestinians – to end terrorism, to stop paying terrorists in Israeli jails, to end efforts to circumvent negotiations by seeking U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state – the delusional Palestinian leaders threaten to stop talking to U.S. officials. | |
| • | ... if it were up to them, the majority of Palestinians would probably agree to a compromise peace plan with Israel. | |
| • | But unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority is a dictatorship run by Abbas without public support and with little regard for his people. | |
| • | It's true that the Palestinian people suffer deprivations because of Israel's policies and actions – but these problems are self-inflicted, because some Palestinians engage in terror that provokes Israeli countermeasures necessary to protect the safety its people. | |
| • | In the same way, the United States and many other nations have beefed up security after terrorist attacks. | |
| • | Meanwhile, Abbas has prevented elections for a decade and denies his people most civil and political rights. | |
| • | Arabs in Israel have far more rights and freedoms that Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza. | |
| • | The international community, the U.N., human rights groups, and pro-Palestinian advocates are silent when it comes to Palestinian abuses inflicted on their own people. They only care about Palestinians if some alleged abuse can be blamed on Israel. | |
| • | Palestinians also continue to make demands upon Israel as if they are the dominant power in the relationship. They delude themselves when they act as though Israel has any reason to accept such unrealistic demands. | |
| • | The belief that the international community will force Israel to surrender to Palestinian demands is the latest manifestation of Palestinian Derangement Syndrome. | |
| • | The Palestinians turned to terror many years ago in the delusional belief that they could bomb the Jews out of their homeland. | |
| • | But hijackings, suicide bombings, intifadas and ongoing attacks have not and will not succeed in improving the plight of the Palestinians. The violence has only made things worse for them. | |
| • | ... the Palestinians destroyed the land-for-peace formula by bombarding Israel with rockets. Most Israelis now demand concrete security guarantees before they withdraw from another inch of disputed land. Any nation in the world would demand such guarantees. | |
| • | The delusions of the syndrome are older than most Palestinians alive today, taught to them since childhood. | |
| • | But at some point, Palestinians will have to accept reality if they truly wish to reach a mutually beneficial peace agreement with Israel. | |
One way to counter Iran's aggression? Change the map of the Middle East (Fox 12/25/2017)
| • | Iran's geopolitical ascent is the most significant and dangerous development in the Middle East this century. | |
| • | Today, America should support indigenous forces that oppose – and seek independence from – Iranian domination. | |
| • | The United States also needs to recognize Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen for what they are: failed, artificial constructs now dominated by Iran. | |
| • | There is nothing sacred about these countries' borders, which seem to have been drawn by a drunk and blindfolded mapmaker. | |
| • | Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen are not nation-states as Americans understand them, but rather post-World War I artificial constructs, mostly created out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in a colossally failed experiment by international leaders. | |
| • | With their deep ethno-sectarian fissures, these four countries have either been held together by a strong authoritarian hand or suffered sectarian carnage. | |
| • | Indeed, the principal vulnerability of Iran's regional strategy is its dependence on brutal regimes to rule lands riven by ethno-sectarian fissures. | |
| • | The United States should exploit this vulnerability by supporting those forces in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen that oppose Iran's domination and seek greater self-determination or independence from their own capitals. | |
| • | The result could be transforming these failed states into loose confederations or new countries with more borders that more naturally conform along sectarian lines. | |
| • | Any redrawing of political relationships or borders is highly complex, and the United States cannot dictate the outcomes. But we can influence them. | |
| • | Iran is not a status quo power content to consolidate its winnings; its emboldened radical regime is intent to dominate the region and destroy Israel. | |
| • | In addition, Americans must concentrate on Iran's continued development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that could eventually reach the U.S. homeland. | |
| • | Artificial states have been divided or loosened before with some success, such as the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. | |
| • | President Trump should take the offensive to Iran. The current political structure of the Middle East serves Iran's interests, and it's time to upend it. | |
Trump's national security in tradition of Truman, Reagan and reality, not elite fantasies (Fox 12/18/2017)
| • | There have been two great strategic systems articulated successfully since World War II. | |
| • | The first was President Truman's public campaign to convince Congress and the American people that the U.S. needed to contain the Soviet Union. | |
| • | Truman's effort was supporting implementation of the strategy laid out in National Security Council Report 68, a top-secret policy paper written in 1950 that set the framework for 30 years of the Cold War. | |
| • | President Reagan, in a series of speeches and strategic initiatives, set as his goal defeating the Soviet Union and expanding freedom. | |
| • | Within 11 years of his election, the Soviet Union disappeared. | |
| • | Four presidencies – Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama – built their strategic efforts around a system of global multilateralism defined by lawyers, diplomats, and elite media. | |
| • | The gap between their idealistic vision and reality has been staggering. | |
| • | Disasters in Venezuela, Libya, Crimea, Syria, and elsewhere have demonstrated the collapse of the "New World Order" fantasy. | |
| • | The Trump campaign focused on these foreign policy failures as a major component of its appeal to millions of Americans. | |
| • | Candidate Trump's critique was sincere, and President Trump has now moved to replace the failed doctrine of the past. | |
Analysis: The aftermath of Trump's Jerusalem declaration (INN 12/12/2017)
| • | Watching the hysterical reactions to President Trump's decision to finally execute the 1995 Congressional Jerusalem Embassy Act and to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the capital of the country, one could be reminded of the words of the prophet Zechariah (12:2) | |
| • | "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem," the Prophet said thousands of years ago. | |
| • | Across the globe tens of thousands of protesters took the streets to express their anger with Trump's decision while leaders of states, including America's allies, lined up to condemn the move. | |
| • | In Israel, Palestinian Arabs and their Israeli brothers did what they always do when they don't agree with an issue concerning Israel: they resorted to violence and terrorism. | |
| • | In their anger, the Palestinian Arabs conveniently forgot that Trump had said his decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv and to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would not jeopardize the current drive to restart the moribund peace process and would not preclude territorial concessions in the city. | |
| • | "We are not taking a position on any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved." | |
| • | Appeasing terrorists never worked, to the contrary, it is an incentive to more violence and would encourage those who never reconciled them with the existence of a Jewish state in the Dar-al-Islam the territory which once formed the first Caliphate. | |
| • | In 1948, David Ben Gurion was pressured by the U.S. State Department to postpone declaring independence to which the first Israeli PM reportedly replied: Independence will always lead to Arab aggression so there is no need to postpone independence. | |
| • | The Palestinian discourse about the 100-year-old-conflict has always been based on the denial of Jewish history in the land of Israel and the canard that there always has been a ‘Palestinian people' which now claims Jerusalem as its "eternal capital." | |
| • | That's why Trump's statement that "Israel has made its capital in the city of Jerusalem, the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times," was so important. | |
| • | It was perhaps the most important line in the whole speech and as Professor Alan Dershowitz pointed out it was the "perfect response" to former U.S. President Obama's decision to throw Israel under the bus by supporting UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 2016. | |
| • | That one-sided resolution denied Israel's rights in Jerusalem and said that Israel's presence in places like the Western Wall, Judaism's second holy site, and the historic Jewish quarter of the Old City was "a flagrant violation under international law." | |
| • | Dershowitz, who voted two times for Obama in the presidential elections in the U.S., now says "Trump did the right thing by undoing the wrong President Obama did at the end of his presidency." | |
| • | Jerusalem has always been the core of Judaism and while the Koran doesn't even mention the name of the city once, the Bible mentions Jerusalem more than 660 times. | |
| • | "Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital is the essential step without which peace can never be achieved." | |
| • | ... Trump's recognition of Jerusalem "can serve as a healthy reality check for the Palestinians." | |
North Korea won't start a war — Trump shouldn't launch an attack (Fox 12/10/2017)
| • | The only way a war breaks out in Northeast Asia is if Washington starts it. | |
| • | The 50-year war between North Korea and its neighbor South Korea is over. North Korea lost. | |
| • | Dictator Kim Jong Un now presides over a dying society in the North — a prison camp full of about 25 million miserable, starving people masquerading as a country. | |
| • | North Korea lags in economic terms somewhere behind Ethiopia. | |
| • | In contrast, South Korea is an economic juggernaut; a nation of roughly 51 million with an economy larger than that of Russia, which has a population of about 144 million. | |
| • | In terms of per capita gross domestic product, South Korea ranks 31st in the world, while Russia ranks 68th and North Korea ranks nowhere. | |
| • | Kim's armed forces mirror his society's tragic condition. They are an aging tribute to the Soviet forces of the 1970s. | |
| • | Any attempt to employ them against South Korea's modern armed forces would end in devastating defeat for North Korea. | |
| • | Kim also knows that missile attacks launched from his soil against the South Korea, Japan or the United States would result in the immediate and total destruction of his Stalinist regime. | |
| • | Chinese President Xi Jinping has told Kim in very clear terms that if Kim launches an attack on his neighbors or the United States, he is on his own. | |
| • | To reiterate, the only way war breaks out in Northeast Asia is if the United States starts it. | |
| • | And this insight explains Kim's strategy. His best chance of survival is to goad President Trump into attacking him. | |
| • | Then Beijing – despite the Chinese distaste for their North Korean neighbor – will be obligated to intervene to defend Kim's regime. | |
| • | From Moscow's perspective, North Korea is useful insofar as it can be leveraged in a high-stakes game to bring Washington into conflict with not only North Korea, but more importantly with China. | |
| • | While China will not support North Korea in a war unleashed by the Kim regime, Beijing has said the Chinese Armed Forces will assist Kim if Washington attacks North Korea. | |
| • | To promote conflict with China ... Moscow is willing to provide just enough technical assistance to create the illusion of capability in North Korea. | |
| • | For Washington, the right course of action is obvious. Don't take the bait. | |
| • | The sole beneficiary of a conflict between the United States and China is Russia. | |
| • | Like Serbia in 1914, North Korea is unpopular with virtually every nation in the world, including China. | |
| • | Of course, in 1914 not a single European statesman regarded Serbia as a country so important that every major power in Europe – and eventually the world – would go to war over its future. | |
| • | My advice to President Trump is simple: Mr. President, Moscow is inciting Rocket Man. Don't take the bait. | |
Alan Dershowitz: Why Trump is right in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital (Fox 12/07/2017)
| • | President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital is a perfect response to President Obama's benighted decision to change American policy by engineering the United Nations Security Council Resolution declaring Judaism's holiest places in Jerusalem to be occupied territory and a "flagrant violation under international law." | |
| • | It was President Obama who changed the status quo and made peace more difficult, by handing the Palestinians enormous leverage in future negotiations and disincentivizing them from making a compromised peace. | |
| • | It had long been American foreign policy to veto any one-sided Security Council resolutions that declared Judaism's holiest places to be illegally occupied. | |
| • | Obama's decision to change that policy was not based on American interests or in the interests of peace. It was done out of personal revenge against Prime Minister Netanyahu and an act of pique by the outgoing president. | |
| • | It was also designed improperly to tie the hands of President-elect Trump. | |
| • | President Trump is doing the right thing by telling the United Nations that the United States now rejects the one-sided U.N. Security Council Resolution. | |
| • | So if there is any change to the status quo, let the blame lie where it should be: at the hands of President Obama for his cowardly decision to wait until he was a lame-duck president to get even with Prime Minister Netanyahu. | |
| • | President Trump deserves praise for restoring balance in negotiations with Israel and the Palestinians. | |
| • | It was President Obama who made peace more difficult. It was President Trump who made it more feasible again. | |
| • | Before June 4, 1967, Jews were forbidden from praying at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site. ... Jews could not live in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, where their forbearers had built homes and synagogues for thousands of years. | |
| • | These Judenrein prohibitions were enacted by Jordan, which had captured by military force these Jewish areas during Israel's War of Independence, in 1948... | |
| • | When the Jordanian government occupied these historic Jewish sites, they destroyed all the remnants of Judaism, including synagogues, schools and cemeteries, whose headstones they used for urinals. | |
| • | Between 1948 and 1967, the United Nations did not offer a single resolution condemning this Jordanian occupation and cultural devastation. | |
| • | When Israel retook these areas in a defensive war that Jordan started by shelling civilian homes in West Jerusalem, and opened them up as places where Jews could pray, study, receive medical treatment and live, the United States took the official position that it would not recognize Israel's legitimate claims to Jewish Jerusalem. | |
| • | But even that historic status quo was changed with President Obama's unjustified decision not to veto the Security Council Resolution from last December. | |
| • | President Obama's refusal to veto this one-sided resolution was a deliberate ploy to tie the hands of his successors, the consequence of which was to make it far more difficult for his successors to encourage the Palestinians to accept Israel's offer to negotiate with no preconditions. | |
| • | President Trump's decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital helps to restore the appropriate balance. | |
| • | It demonstrates that the United States does not accept the Judenrein effects of this bigoted resolution on historic Jewish areas of Jerusalem, which were forbidden to Jews | |
| • | After the UN, at the urging of President Obama, made it a continuing international crime for there to be any Israeli presence in disputed areas of Jerusalem, including areas whose Jewish provenance is beyond dispute, President Trump was right to untie his own hands and to undo the damage wrought by his predecessor. | |
| • | Some have argued that the United States should not recognize Jerusalem because it will stimulate violence by Arab terrorists. | |
| • | No American decision should ever be influenced by the threat of violence. Terrorists should not have a veto over American policy. | |
| • | If the United States were to give in to threat of violence, it would only incentivize others to threaten violence in response to any peace plan. | |
| • | So let's praise President Trump for doing the right thing by undoing the wrong thing President Obama did at the end of his presidency. | |
Memo to Jared Kushner (JWR p:/p3/2017)
| • | President Trump's son-in-law and designated Middle East peace envoy, Jared Kushner, told ... that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is key to solving larger goals, such as stopping Iranian aggression and Islamic extremism. | |
| • | If he believes that, he has fallen into the trap numerous and more seasoned diplomats have experienced. | |
| • | The most obvious impediment to peace in the region is a religious one. | |
| • | A visceral hatred of Jews is promoted in Palestinian media and many mosques and schools throughout the region. | |
| • | The destruction of Israel and elimination of Jews from land that has been historically and legitimately theirs for thousands of years is their goal. | |
| • | Radical Islamists believe Allah has ordered it. Why would they risk perdition by violating his command? | |
| • | Duplicity and deception are the coin of the realm in the Middle East. It is why many Palestinian leaders say one thing to the West and another to their own people. | |
| • | ... incremental steps toward a shared goal: the elimination of the Jewish state, which Iranian mullahs have described as a "cancer" in the Middle East. | |
| • | Does this sound like the language of people who wish to live in a peaceful state adjacent to Israel? | |
| • | A person not deceived by the mirage of a Middle East peace agreement should consider the numerous and unreciprocated concessions Israel has already made to advance the "peace process," which seems more like a war process from the Arab and Palestinian perspective. | |
| • | Many Palestinian and Arab leaders hate Israel (and Jews) not for what they do or don't do, but because they exist. | |
| • | If Mr. Kushner believes he can be a peace broker without understanding and accepting this basic fact, he is bound to end up like all the others who have inserted themselves into the region. | |
| • | Does Jared Kushner fully understand what he has gotten himself into? | |
Trump made the right call recognizing Jerusalem (NYP 12/06/2017)
| • | Here's the latest version of Fake News: President Trump ruined the Mideast peace process. | |
| • | The assertion is a worldwide headline, but for it to have a shred of truth, there would have to be a peace process to ruin. | |
| • | But since there isn't one, and there hasn't been one for years, the anti-Trump media is exposed again. | |
| • | By acknowledging what everybody in Israel already knows, that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state, and by putting in motion the process of moving the American embassy here, the president is making history and calling the bluff of the Palestinians. | |
| • | For 25 years, they've played a game with the world and previous American presidents. | |
| • | They endlessly demand a state, but will do nothing to build one. | |
| • | They won't accept the various boundaries Israel offered, can't or won't hold free elections and won't even negotiate in good faith. | |
| • | Instead, they can be counted on to do what they've always done. Make threats of violence, throw rocks and burn rubber tires in the streets. | |
| • | Most moving was our visit to the Galilee Medical Center, near the Lebanon border. It has treated more than 2,000 injured Syrians caught up in that nation's endless civil war. | |
| • | Ferried to Galilee and other hospitals in northern Israel by the Israeli military after making it to the border, the wounded, including hundreds of children, are given whatever treatment they require, all paid for by Israeli taxpayers, no questions asked. | |
| • | The hospital says the average stay is about 22 days, and most have had about three surgeries each. At least six Syrian babies have been born there. | |
| • | Before the Syrians are sent home, any tags or markings that would identify their clothing or bandages as Israeli are removed, lest they be killed as collaborators with the Jewish devil. | |
| • | Meanwhile, most of the Arab leaders thundering about the rights of the Palestinians being violated by Israel have not lifted a finger to help Syrian Arabs caught in a human slaughterhouse. So much for their compassion. | |
| • | It's just that the refusal of the Palestinians to take yes for an answer has left most Israelis cynical to the point of boredom. | |
| • | Israelis have better things to do with their lives and bigger problems to solve as a nation, including confronting terrorist regimes on three borders. | |
| • | If they do decide to negotiate in earnest, the Palestinians will find in Trump a broker who wants to help them make a deal. | |
| • | If they don't seize the opportunity, the Palestinians can go on making demands and threats. History has proven that to be a losing hand, and it's getting weaker by the day. | |
Pre-empting a nuclear strike (INN 12/04/2017)
| • | The question of today is: If the only real US military option available to President Trump that offers the possibility of a quick immediate American victory without millions of South Korean casualties and tens of thousands of American casualties is to pre-empt North Korea by nuking North Korea first, is this pre-emption a a legitimate and necessary strategy? | |
| • | ... if allowing Hitler to have nukes would have been insane, allowing Kim Jong-un to have nukes is even more insane. | |
| • | WMD have become more dangerous. North Korea could trump MAD theory and asymmetrically, but "rationally", use a tactical EMP nuke to paralyze the Korean peninsula and capture 30,000 US POWs that would effectively prevent any US nuclear retaliation. | |
| • | Kim Jong-un would have 30,000 living bargaining chips under which he would demand an American surrender of the entire Korean peninsula. | |
| • | ... in the case of North Korea, while America should use nukes to pre-empt North Korea's plans, it is not likely America will. | |
| • | In the Iranian case, the mad Ayatollahs in Tehran make Kim Jong-un look almost rational. | |
| • | Unless the American security establishment rationally discards its mad MAD theoriy of the "rational actor," we would do well to bring those old bomb shelters up to date. | |
Europe's Left has joined the Islamosphere (INN 11/18/2017)
| • | Everywhere you look in Europe, you see leftist intellectuals, politicians and militans coming to the defense of former inmates at Guantanamo, Iranian ministers and mullahs, convicted Palestinian terrorists or Sunni radical preachers. | |
| • | Some of them haill from anti-capitalism, others from the battles for the Third World, others simply hate the West, others want to eradicate Israel and the Jews. | |
| • | This Left has lost everything it had: The Soviet Union, the Third World, the Western working class, and it now sees radical Islam as a surrogate proletariat to mobilize the world against free market, democracy, pluralism and Western values. | |
| • | In 1917, many useful idiots in the West were able to convince many in the West that Communism in Russia was paradise (think about all the red spies in the UK and US), that the Gulag didn't exist or that it was the forced road to equality. | |
| • | In 2017, the new useful idiots repeat over and over how beautiful, equal and just the West will be after the submission to radical Islam. | |
| • | In 1917, they succeeded and for 70 years Western Europe was submerged by Soviet totalitarian darkness. Will they succeed again in 2017? | |
Trump represents the US far better in Asia trip than Obama ever did (Fox 11/15/2017)
| • | President Trump did us all proud on his Asia trip – at least those of us who are still prouder to be Americans rather than citizens of the world. | |
| • | He scored points by simply behaving like the leader of our nation and the free world. | |
| • | President Obama was never comfortable in either role. He often acted like he was ashamed of the United States and gave speeches that blurred the distinction between friend and foe. | |
| • | ... he was in Asia to address North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, help right America's trade imbalance with China, and reassure our allies about American staying power. | |
| • | The world was never comfortable with President Obama's bowing and scraping. Other nations couldn't understand why the head of the world's only superpower would deliberately project weakness rather than strength. | |
| • | At times President Obama seemed almost embarrassed by American power, as if he believed that America's free enterprise system was morally inferior to the vastly poorer but politically virtuous communist, socialist, and Islamic regimes he had to deal with. | |
| • | Our allies saw this behavior as, well, un-American. Our enemies were emboldened. | |
| • | ... China, and its increasingly open and brazen flouting of international laws and agreements, is the root of all the problems that we face in Asia. | |
| • | The U.S. trade deficit, for example, is in large part Made in China. | |
| • | China lets American companies into its country only to milk them dry of their technology and then squeeze them out. | |
| • | All the while, China's state-sanctioned cybertheft of intellectual property continues apace, bleeding away America's technological advantage. | |
| • | The North Korean threat is also, in large part, a Chinese creation. ... it is China's ongoing trade relationship with Pyongyang that keeps Kim's nuclear and missile ambitions alive today. | |
| • | ... the two communist dictators remain joined at the hip by a mutual defense treaty. | |
| • | ... there are China's destabilizing territorial claims, which have the potential to bring it into conflict with a dozen of its neighbors. | |
| • | ... it jeopardizes the free and open use of one of the world's most important waterways. In saner times, claiming an entire sea would be an act of war. | |
| • | "All responsible nations must join forces to isolate the brutal regime of North Korea. And to those nations that choose to ignore this threat or, worse still, to enable it: The weight of this crisis is on your conscience." | |
| • | To fault President Trump for not solving our problems with North Korea in his two days in China, as some are doing, is ridiculous. | |
| • | After all, the problem has been a quarter century in the making. | |
| • | ... instead of engaging in endless "six party talks," President Trump has tagged China as the key to cutting short Kim's nuclear ambitions. | |
| • | That is a lot more than three previous presidents have accomplished. | |
| • | Trade was an ever clearer win for Trump. ... may have only approved them to curry favor with the new American president and avoid a trade war, but who cares? This keeps American factories humming and our workers employed. | |
| • | ... Trump continued to repeat his long-standing charge that U.S.-Chinese trade relations are "very one-sided and unfair." | |
| • | "I don't blame China," President Trump then said, adding a new twist to the tale. "Who can blame a country that is able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit." | |
| • | President Trump also brokered major arms sales to our allies, Japan and South Korea, further contributing to righting the U.S. trade imbalance. | |
| • | He offered to mediate between the competing territorial claims of the half-dozen nations that lay claim to part of the South China Sea and China itself, which claims the whole. | |
| • | Of course, the last thing China wants is for America to interject itself into the South China sea dispute. | |
| • | China prefers to bully its smaller neighbors into surrendering their claims one by one. | |
| • | ... by now, Xi has surely realized that his days of taking advantage of the United States are over. | |
How Trump can immediately take control of Pyongyang situation (JWR 11/09/2017)
| • | "The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer," Trump told the North Korean tyrant Tuesday. "They are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face." | |
| • | The problem is that Kim believes precisely the opposite, and it will take action, not just words, for Trump to disabuse him of that notion. | |
| • | If Trump wants to stop North Korea's drive for nuclear missiles capable of striking the U.S. homeland ... he should announce that North Korean nuclear and missile tests will no longer be tolerated... | |
| • | Any attempt by North Korea to launch a ballistic missile will be met with a targeted military strike either taking out the missile on the launchpad or blowing it up in the air using missile defense technology. | |
| • | And any attempt to test a nuclear weapon will be met with a targeted strike taking out the test site and other related nuclear facilities. | |
| • | Trump should make clear that so long as North Korea does not retaliate, he will take no further military action against the regime... | |
| • | However, if North Korea does retaliate, then the United States reserves the right to, as Trump put it to the U.N. General Assembly, "totally destroy North Korea." | |
| • | The historical record suggests North Korea would opt for regime survival and not retaliate. | |
| • | Now is the time to announce a "Trump Doctrine" that North Korea shall not be permitted to develop weapons of mass destruction, or the means to deliver them, against the American people. | |
| • | ... proposed that any further missile tests be met with "a massive American and South Korean air and missile strike against all known DPRK nuclear test facilities and missile launching and support facilities." | |
| • | Preventing such tests test would be a justifiable act of self-defense. | |
| • | "North Korea may have the capability today to successfully conduct a nuclear attack on the United States." | |
| • | We should therefore operate on the assumption that it does have this capability and that any missile launch could in fact be a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States - which the United States has the right and responsibility to prevent. | |
| • | Announcing an end to all North Korean nuclear and missile tests would take control of the situation away from Pyongyang. ... Today, the Kim regime holds the initiative and can escalate tensions by carrying out nuclear or missile tests without consequences. | |
| • | Such a policy is not without risk. It is possible that North Korea could miscalculate and retaliate for a U.S. strike, thus sparking a full-scale military conflict. | |
| • | But if the Kim regime is so prone to irrational behavior, then it is better to find out now before it possesses the ability to destroy New York or Washington. | |
| • | If we cannot deter Kim from testing a nuclear missile, can we really deter him from using one once he has it? | |
| • | Trump should simultaneously announce a massive increase in funding for U.S. ballistic missile defenses, including boost-phase defenses that can take out a North Korean missile when it is still over enemy territory and presents a large, slower-moving target. | |
| • | And he should direct the intelligence community to focus its assets on providing early warning of any pending North Korean tests. | |
| • | With a Trump Doctrine declaring North Korea a "no-fly" and "no-test zone," Trump can accomplish what three American presidents before him could not - an immediate halt to North Korea's efforts to threaten American cities with nuclear missiles. | |
John Stossel: Communism turns 100 this year - why are people celebrating? (Fox 11/01/2017)
| • | This year marks the hundredth anniversary of one of the worst mistakes ever made: the Communist revolution in Russia. | |
| • | Communist regimes went on to kill about 100 million people. Most died in famines after socialist tyrants forced people to practice inefficient collective farming. Millions of others were executed in political purges. | |
| • | Yet when the Russian Revolution happened, people both inside and outside Russia were excited. | |
| • | Crowds cheered Lenin. No longer would nobles rule; no longer would capitalists exploit workers. Now the people would prosper together. | |
| • | "The undivided sway of the Imperialist nightmare is at an end ...(there will be) rule of the labouring classes." | |
| • | But you can't have government plan every aspect of people's lives and expect things to go well. | |
| • | Instead, you get bureaucratic planning commissions and secret police. | |
| • | A few commentators will call the protesters "idealistic" but impractical. They shouldn't. We should call them supporters of mass murder. | |
| • | Lenin ordered the hanging of 100 property owners at the very start of the Revolution, saying people needed to see the deaths of "landlords, rich men, bloodsuckers." | |
| • | Mass murder and starvation rapidly increased the death toll after that. | |
| • | Marx admitted that capitalism is productive but said that "capital obtains this ability only by constantly sucking in living labor as its soul, vampire-like." | |
| • | Even as the Russian regime killed millions, some journalists and intellectuals covered up the crimes. | |
| • | This year, the Times ran a series of essays commemorating the anniversary of Russian Communism, including one piece arguing that sex was better in the Soviet Union because the Revolution destroyed macho capitalist culture. | |
| • | Communism kills wherever it's practiced. But people still people believe. | |
| • | "I was so hungry. My uncle taught me how to trap rats. But the problem is, everybody is trying to catch rats. Rats run out, too." | |
| • | "Big, powerful government, it's very scary. It will keep growing like cancer, will never stop. If you empower government, not the individuals, we're going to lose this free country!" | |
The Soviet experiment's rise and fall (JWR 10/24/2017)
| • | Early next month, the world will mark the 100th anniversary of an event that largely shaped the 20th Century and continues to reverberate in the 21st: the Russian Revolution that brought the Communist Party to power on Nov. 7, 1917. | |
| • | With its slogans of equality for all, human solidarity, and the elimination of oppression and want, communism appealed to millions of people in the West in the last century. | |
| • | To many, the Soviet Union looked like the realization of a beautiful dream: a state truly run by and for the people, where class divisions were meaningless, workers were liberated from their shackles, women were equal to men, housing and medical care were free and everyone had dignity. | |
| • | Eventually, this dream clashed with the reality of the gulag — a vast system of camps in the USSR, where not only dissenters but also people accused of minor or nonexistent infractions by a paranoid regime were used as slave labor. | |
| • | Meanwhile, the Soviet regime's promises of social welfare and equality turned into the reality of privilege for the party elite and cramped communal housing, abysmal hospitals and food lines for the rest. | |
| • | Yet numerous Western intellectuals continued to excuse and romanticize the Soviet regime and communist regimes that followed. | |
| • | Later, many claimed that Stalin perverted the communist cause. Yet there is plentiful evidence that terror was part of the Soviet creed from the first days of the revolution. | |
| • | Vladimir Lenin, no less than Stalin, advocated extermination of the "class enemy." | |
| • | His associate Nikolai Bukharin, who was later killed in Stalin's purges and is often touted as a prophet of "humane" socialism, wrote in 1920 that "proletarian coercion," including executions, was "a method of molding Communist humanity out of the human material of the capitalist era." | |
| • | Communism lost much of its luster in the West after the 1991 fall of the USSR... But now, many people in the post-Cold War generation increasingly disenchanted with capitalism are falling for the romance of communist revolution all over again. | |
| • | It's not uncommon to see the hammer and sickle in the usernames of leftist Twitter accounts. | |
| • | The communist dictatorships of Cuba and even dismal North Korea still have their apologists. | |
| • | At the end of the last millennium, left-wing journalist Daniel Singer lamented in The Nation that the focus on communism's atrocities not only ignored its positive achievements but served to discredit "collective action and the possibility of radical transformation" in today's world. | |
| • | But collective action and social change are possible within democracy. And the communist experience certainly should be a cautionary tale for those seeking utopia, especially through violence. | |
Newt Gingrich: 'Death to America' — Why Trump's Iran policy is right (Fox 10/15/2017)
| • | When the Iranian parliament chanted "death to America" while unanimously voting "to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard," sophisticated diplomats may have pondered the symbolic meaning of "death to America." | |
| • | After all, our wisest and most sophisticated analysts have reassured us, it couldn't literally mean "death to America." | |
| • | The same analysts reassure us that when senior Hamas leaders are quoted saying "not a single Jew will remain" in Israel, they are really communicating symbolically. | |
| • | In my experience, dictators and revolutionary movements mean exactly what they say. In this case, the Iranians would like to destroy both America and Israel. | |
| • | Thankfully, President Trump understands this reality better than many so-called experts. | |
| • | President Trump has previously referred to the deal as "an embarrassment to the United States," and called it "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into." | |
| • | Since he was a candidate, the President understood that America is today with the Iranian dictatorship where it was in 1994 with the North Korean dictatorship. | |
| • | We now know that during 23 years of talking, posturing, and diplomatic maneuvering, the North Koreans simply kept building their nuclear weapon and missile programs. | |
| • | "History has shown that the longer we ignore a threat, the more dangerous that threat becomes." | |
| • | This will be a big surprise to Iran – and North Korea. Having been conditioned by eight years of President Obama to assume that America will always posture and then cave, neither of these rogue nations knows how to deal with a super power that is serious. | |
| • | The weaknesses of the Obama agreement with Iran are simply symptoms of the weakness and self-delusion behind the entire Obama team approach to the Iranian dictatorship and its revolutionary terrorist strategies. | |
| • | Iran has proved that appeasement and negotiation fail time and again. | |
| • | When President Obama came into office, nearly 30 years of hostility was replaced by a new vision of developing a relationship with the Iranian dictatorship. | |
| • | This is the delusional fantasy that has allowed Iran to dominate much of the Middle East, especially after Iraq was weakened by war. | |
| • | Even after President Trump's historic and amazing United Nations speech when he condemned the JCPOA and said Iran is a "reckless regime – one that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing death to America, destruction to Israel, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room," the Iranians responded by building more missiles. | |
| • | "Iran will strengthen its missile capabilities and not seek any country's permission", President Hassan Rouhani said on Friday rejecting demands from U.S. President Donald Trump. | |
| • | "We will increase our military power as a deterrent. We will strengthen our missile capabilities ... We will not seek permission from anyone to defend our country." | |
| • | ... "the rate of our missile production is so high that we are faced with the problem of space' to keep them in." | |
| • | The failure of the JCPOA is simply one component of a disastrous Obama policy which has enabled Iran to break out and begin to develop a hegemonic position across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon (with a dangerous extension to Gaza). | |
| • | Hezbollah, the Iranian front group in South Lebanon, has more than 100,000 missiles that can be fired into Israel. | |
| • | As though that isn't enough of a threat, the Iranians plan to build missile factories in Syria and Lebanon. | |
| • | Flush with money from Obama (including an airplane full of cash flown in like a drug cartel run), Iran has funded a proxy war in Yemen against the Saudis. | |
| • | On every front, Iran is a dangerous nation seeking to build up its capacity to wage war, project power, and intimidate its neighbors. | |
| • | Under the current agreement, the Iranians have reserved the right to keep their military installations secret. ... This means the inspections can have no validity, because inspectors will never know what they are not allowed to see. | |
| • | Finally, the United Nations agreement limiting Iranian missile development is being blatantly and publicly violated. | |
| • | How can you take President Trump's strong, clear denunciation of the dictatorship and argue that continued suspension of sanctions on Iran is both appropriate and vital to our national interest? | |
| • | Unlike President Obama, whose posture was all talk and no action, President Trump has begun to establish a pattern of taking real actions, creating real pressures, and insisting on real results. | |
| • | The administration should continue to oppose Iran's aggression in the region and seek to eliminate the fundamental flaws of the nuclear deal (starting with the sunset clauses). | |
| • | ... decertification will increase the Administration's leverage to fix the nuclear deal by clarifying that the US will not be satisfied to remain indefinitely in an agreement that is not in our national security interests. | |
It’s time to deploy US ships off North Korea to knock out missiles when they’re launched (Fox 10/14/2017)
| • | We need to be prepared to defend against new North Korean missile launches – and there is a way to do this short of full-scale war. | |
| • | One U.S. military option would be to deploy a special team of two or three guided-missile destroyers – ships especially equipped to target, track and shoot down ballistic missiles – to strategic locations off the North Korean coastline. | |
| • | The ships would be positioned outside the 12-mile internationally recognized maritime territorial limit, or at other locations that intelligence indicates would be effective. | |
| • | Erecting what amounts to a destroyer "fence" to contain North Korean missiles and knock them out of the sky might seem like a farfetched scheme. Can a handful of small warships really perform such a huge task? | |
| • | Since 2002, the Aegis combat system – a powerful weapons system used by the U.S. Navy that utilizes computer and radar technology to find, track and destroy enemy targets – has recorded 35 successful ballistic-missile intercepts in 42 test attempts. And in the last dozen tests, the SM-3s have only missed once. | |
| • | Nearly all of the tests pit a single U.S. missile interceptor against a single ballistic missile. | |
| • | Against an actual launch, the Navy could send up numerous interceptors, dramatically increasing its chances for a hit. | |
| • | The ballistic missile defense ships depend on SM-3 missile interceptors to blow apart enemy ballistic missiles relatively soon after they enter what's called flight midcourse, at their most vulnerable point where the atmosphere ends. | |
| • | This starts about 400 miles above the Earth's surface and extends out to a few thousand miles. | |
| • | SM-3s have no explosive warhead. Instead they work through sheer force, colliding with the targeted missile with the power of a 10-ton truck traveling 600 miles per hour. | |
| • | Every ballistic missile defense destroyer has the capacity to launch up to 96 missiles. | |
| • | Each ship would have to retain some Aegis capacity for self-defense and that missile number would depend on the mission. | |
| • | For argument's sake, assume a destroyer making up part of the "fence" could aim 80 interceptors at a launched North Korean missile. That would mean two ships could unleash a fusillade of 160 missiles and three ships could fire 240. | |
| • | If North Korea were to triple its single-day launch rate, which with sanctions seems extremely difficult, it could possibly send a dozen missiles aloft. In that case, the odds still favor the Aegis interceptors. | |
| • | An important step in making the fence operational would be for the U.S. to adopt rules of engagement that allow the Navy destroyers to shoot down North Korean missiles as soon as leave the country's airspace. | |
| • | If an SM-3 misses, there's little concern of collateral damage. The interceptor would burn up harmlessly as it reentered the Earth's atmosphere. | |
| • | Even if an interceptor collided with a nuclear warhead there would likely be no nuclear explosion. | |
| • | While North Korea could be counted on to rail at the "recklessness" of an Aegis interceptor taking out one of its missiles, the hornet's nest would be stirred up far less than in the case of a U.S. invasion of North Korea's territory or attack on a land target. | |
| • | If the moment for the destroyer fence to show its capability ever arrives, the U.S. Navy will have to make absolutely certain its missile-killing missiles don't miss. | |
| • | Of course, a destroyer fence is only a short-term fix. ... In the longer term, the Navy should consider upgrading more ships for ballistic missile defense. | |
| • | With bold use of proven, off-the-shelf missile-defense technology, the U.S. can turn the tables on Pyongyang, neutralizing its strategic missile threat without launching a war. | |
| • | The goal would be to buy enough time for cooler heads to prevail. | |
When Palestinian Arabs cry "Humiliation" (INN 10/06/2017)
| • | In addition to stabbings, car ramming and suicide bombings that have been frequently occurring at checkpoints, Palestinian Arabs claim they feel humiliated and harassed when Israeli authorities search them and their belongings; when they are prevented from traveling freely because of checkpoints, roadblocks, closures and curfews. | |
| • | Meanwhile in Israel, Israelis are searched numerous times during the course of a day. Israelis are asked to open their bags and purses for inspection. | |
| • | In most cases, they are subjected to body searches with a metal detector every time they enter a bank or a post office, pick up a bottle of milk at the supermarket, enter a mall or train station, or visit a hospital or medical clinic. | |
| • | Not one U.N. organ has protested the fact that, for years, an entire country has been harassed and humiliated. | |
| • | Israelis are searched not only when they go out for a cup of coffee at the local Coffee-shop, but also when they go to the movies or the theater or a concert, where the term "dressed to kill" has an entirely different meaning. | |
| • | No one abroad talks about the humiliation Jews in Israel are subjected to, having to write at the bottom of wedding invitations and other life cycle events, "The site will be secured [by armed guards]"... | |
| • | To date, no one protests the fact that Jewish schoolchildren in Israel are surrounded by perimeter fences with armed guards at the schoolyard gates. | |
| • | Not one Arab village in Israel or the Territories has a perimeter fence around it. | |
| • | Guards are not required at Arabic shops, cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, wedding halls or schools - either in pre-1967 Israel or in Judea and Samaria. Palestinians also do not need armed guards to accompany every school trip, youth movement hike or campout. They are not targets of terrorism. | |
| • | Israelis are told, in effect, to disguise themselves when traveling abroad - not to speak Hebrew in public and not to wear garments that reveal their Jewish/Israeli origins. | |
| • | On the other hand, Arabs who frequent Jewish cities and towns in Israel wear their traditional Arab headgear without fear of being attacked or harassed. | |
| • | Strangely, no media outlets and not a single human rights organization has fully and objectively reported or protested the daily humiliation and harassment Israelis suffer because of the Palestinian Authority's 'factory of terror.' | |
| • | Not one U.N. organ has protested the fact that, for years, an entire country has been harassed and humiliated. | |
| • | All this begs the question: Who are the victims and who are the victimizers? Who are the ones being harassed and humiliated? Palestinians or Israelis? | |
Trump is an internationalist, not a globalist (Fox 10/06/2017)
| • | The American president, they pontificated, should have celebrated the "United" part of the UN, not the "Nations" part. | |
| • | He should have been extolling the promise of globalism in his speech, not the virtue of the nation-state or national sovereignty. | |
| • | "Selfishness is popular. Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping no doubt nodded approvingly when they were briefed about Trump's words." | |
| • | Actually, no one would have been surprised if British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron were giving President Trump the high five, when he stated, "As president of the United States I will always put America first, just like you, as the leaders of your countries, will always and should always put your countries first." | |
| • | Western leaders may extol international cooperation during speeches. But in reality they remain committed to protecting their nations' interests. | |
| • | Indeed, every U.S. president has put America First and would have saluted Trump when he asserted that the American government's "first duty is to its people, to our citizens - to serve their needs, to reassure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values." | |
| • | Even President Barack Obama, the darling of the One-World crowd, put America First and dismissed cherished notions of globalism, when he sent American drones to destroy targets in Pakistan or kill one of its residents, Osama bin Laden. | |
| • | ... the post-1945 liberal international order, including the UN and other multilateral institutions, was not based on globalist principles, but on an internationalist vision that assumed that governments could and should cooperate if and when they conclude that it's in their national interest to do so. | |
| • | Like all previous presidents, Trump isn't a globalist. Like them he is an internationalist, committed to cooperating with other nations to achieve common goals based on mutual interests. | |
| • | Trump is an internationalist, and his repeated reference to how all states ought to prefer their own interests, was a specifically internationalist message. | |
| • | He said that the best international policies would emerge when each, having regard to its own interests, cooperates with all other countries. | |
| • | What Trump is not is a globalist who thinks that a country should sacrifice its own interests to advance fanciful principles advanced by a globalist elite composed of the academics and CEOs who attend Davos conferences and who have little regard for their fellow countrymen. | |
Follow Israel’s example: We must wage financial warfare against terrorists (Fox 10/06/2017)
| • | The United States and nations around the world battle ISIS and other terrorist groups with special forces and other ground combat troops, pilots of manned aircraft and drones, police, explosives experts, intelligence agents and informers. | |
| • | But to win the fight we also need financial experts who can deprive terrorists of money they require to wage war against us. | |
| • | Money is the common denominator behind everything that ISIS and other terrorist groups do and threaten to do. Without the cash to fund fighters and leaders, there would be no global jihad against the West. | |
| • | The Israeli military and security services waged relentless efforts to end the bloodshed, and elite counterterrorist units launched daring raids to kill and capture key terrorists – but the bombings continued. | |
| • | So Israel shifted its focus to the money that financed everything from bomb-building factories to the cash bonuses issued to the families of suicide bombers. | |
| • | ... followed the terrorist money from its source – whether it was cash raised by charities in the U.S., or multimillion-dollar transfers from Iran, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. | |
| • | Following the money wasn't enough. The cash and the accounts had to be taken from the terrorists or destroyed. | |
| • | Israel even encouraged human rights lawyers to use the power of the U.S. federal courts and multimillion-dollar law suits – brought against the state sponsors of terror and the financial institutions that served them – to place additional pressure on the cash flow that financed attacks. | |
| • | Some of the Israeli tactics, such as raiding banks, were criticized in the West – even by President George W. Bush – as being "Wild West" in nature. | |
| • | But eventually, the United States came to appreciate Israel's tactics and emulated them with the far-reaching muscle that only a superpower could flex. | |
| • | The European intelligence services will have to cut through red tape and muster their resources to bankrupt ISIS, intercept its ability to move money from country to country, and stop it from funding fighters and operations throughout the continent. | |
| • | Rendering a group like ISIS insolvent will yield victorious battlefield results. | |
| • | In 2014, during the fighting in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force incinerated over $10 million in Hamas cash that was earmarked to pay the salaries of terrorists on the front lines who hadn't been paid in weeks. | |
| • | When the money evaporated inside the flash of a missile strike, Hamas had no choice but to seek an end to the conflict. | |
| • | If European nations are truly serious about wanting to put an end to ISIS attacks on the continent they must accept that in the war on terror – primarily the financial war – there is no fair play, only results on a ledger. | |
| • | Days before terrorist attacks in Spain killed 13 and injured 100 in August, a judge in Germany sentenced a Syrian hairdresser to two years in prison for defrauding ISIS by tricking the terrorist organization into transferring 180,000 euros to him under the pretense of carrying out attacks in Germany. | |
| • | German authorities shouldn't have charged the man – they should have copied the scam on a much larger scale. | |
| • | To weaken the terrorists who target innocent men, women and children for murder and mayhem, America and European nations must adapt and develop new and decisive strategies to make sure that the next attacks are much more difficult to carry out. | |
| • | The bankrupting of terrorists must be the tip of this strategic spear. | |
What if South Korea acted like North Korea? (JWR 09/14/2017)
| • | The truth of the North Korea missile crisis is not the boilerplate assumption that China is the key to the solution, but rather that China is by design the root of the problem. | |
| • | China did not fail to realize that North Korea was developing a nuclear arsenal. | |
| • | Rather, it calculated that North Korea would do exactly what it is now doing, and that such nuclear roguery would serve China's strategic interests both on the Korean peninsula and in its rivalries with the United States and with America's allies in Asia. | |
| • | In other words, if China were in America's position, we would have likely witnessed a tragically destructive war a long time ago. | |
How to Get Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal (National Review, 08/28/2017)
North Korea represents the most imminent threat to US national security (Fox 09/12/2017)
| • | ... we will likely witness yet another cycle of fruitless diplomacy. The U.N. Security Council has already imposed the toughest sanctions ever on North Korea. | |
| • | After President Donald Trump declared that North Korea "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," Pyongyang publicly threatened to launch missiles against U.S. bases in Guam. | |
| • | Rapidly developing technologies can offer options beyond the tragic choice of appeasement or conventional attacks... | |
| • | These new weapons – and, just as important, the will to use them – allow for faster, more precise uses of force with less harm and risk, which could allow us to face down North Korea and other, looming threats. | |
| • | ... advanced drones could stealthily enter North Korean airspace to cripple Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and missile infrastructure. | |
| • | ... the Navy can surround North Korea with Aegis anti-missile cruisers, the Air Force could deploy drones in the airspace above to shoot down North Korean ICBMs in their initial boost phase, when they are most vulnerable. | |
| • | U.S. hackers could degrade North Korea's command and control of its missiles and destroy networks used to design and test missiles and warheads. | |
| • | American hackers could freeze North Korean regime accounts held abroad and cut the government off from the global banking system. | |
| • | Expanded space-based weapons can provide a third means to defend against the North. | |
| • | The United States may soon have it within its abilities to station an anti-missile system in geo-synchronous orbit over North Korea. | |
| • | It could attack North Korean ICBMs not only in their initial boost phase, but also as their warheads traverse space before plunging to their targets. | |
| • | Future space platforms could quickly strike North Korean ground targets with conventional weapons that have the force of tactical nuclear warheads, but with no radioactive fallout. | |
| • | Intellectual roadblocks, not technical difficulties, ultimately will slow the deployment of these weapons. | |
| • | Ever since the Catholic Church and European kings tried to ban the cross-bow, these arguments appear almost every time technological progress spurs advances in warfare. | |
| • | Efforts to ban these new weapons, however, would harm the cause of global security by limiting options to bring economic pressure and gradually escalating force against troublemakers. | |
| • | New technologies offer the opportunity for the United States and its allies to return to coercion as a tool of statecraft. | |
| • | New technologies could impose the same level of pressure with far less permanent damage by, for example, striking critical bottlenecks in Iran's energy industry with precision drone strikes, crashing the financial markets and banking system with cyber weapons, or shutting down all internet communications in Teheran. | |
| • | Using robotics, cyber, or space based weapons to conduct pinpoint warfare could even produce more freedom for a negotiated peaceful resolution of disputes, before leaders risk their soldiers' lives and their nations' honor. | |
| • | It would be the height of folly if the United States were to continue to restrain its development and deployment of new weapon as challenges rise around us, not just from North Korea but from rivals around the world. | |
In Interview, Top Indonesian Muslim Scholar Says Stop Pretending That Orthodox Islam and Violence Aren't Linked (Time, 09/07/2017)
| • | Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam. | |
| • | There is a clear relationship between fundamentalism, terrorism, and the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy. | |
| • | So long as we lack consensus regarding this matter, we cannot gain victory over fundamentalist violence within Islam. | |
| • | Radical Islamic movements are nothing new. They've appeared again and again throughout our own history in Indonesia. | |
| • | The West must stop ascribing any and all discussion of these issues to "Islamophobia." | |
| • | Within the classical tradition, the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is assumed to be one of segregation and enmity. | |
| • | To the extent that Muslims adhere to this view of Islam, it renders them incapable of living harmoniously and peacefully within the multi-cultural, multi-religious societies of the 21st century. | |
| • | [ISIS's] goal of establishing a global caliphate stands squarely within the orthodox Islamic tradition. | |
| • | But we live in a world of nation-states. Any attempt to create a unified Islamic state in the 21st century can only lead to chaos and violence. | |
| • | Any [fundamentalist] view of Islam positing the traditional norms of Islamic jurisprudence as absolute [should] be rejected out of hand as false. State laws [should] have precedence. | |
| • | Too many Muslims view civilization, and the peaceful co-existence of people of different faiths, as something they must combat. | |
| • | ... Western politicians should stop telling us that fundamentalism and violence have nothing to do with traditional Islam. That is simply wrong. | |
| • | If you refuse to acknowledge the existence of a problem, you can't begin to solve it. One must identify the problem and explicitly state who and what are responsible for it. | |
| • | Over the past 50 years, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have spent massively to promote their ultra-conservative version of Islam worldwide. | |
| • | ... we live in a time when you have to think and act realistically. | |
| • | ... the fact remains that you're taking in millions of refugees about whom you know virtually nothing, except that they come from extremely problematic regions of the world. | |
| • | ... there's an extreme left wing whose adherents reflexively denounce any and all talk about the connections between traditional Islam, fundamentalism and violence as de facto proof of Islamophobia. | |
| • | This must end. A problem that is not acknowledged cannot be solved. | |
Cal Thomas: On taxes and immigration — look to Hungary (Fox 09/07/2017)
| • | ... the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban lowered the corporate tax rate from 19 percent to 9 percent, the lowest rate among the 28 member states of the European Union. | |
| • | ... the United States' top marginal tax rate is 38.92 percent, just behind Puerto Rico and the United Arab Emirates. | |
| • | ... the country's 15 percent flat tax and lower corporate taxes have — surprise — increased government receipts because more people are being hired and they generate additional tax revenue. | |
| • | In the last seven years ... 700,000 new jobs have been created in Hungary, only 150,000 of which are government jobs. The government jobs are mostly for people who had relied in the past on social welfare programs. | |
| • | While American debt keeps rising, Hungary's debt is falling. | |
| • | Hungary has some of the toughest immigration policies in the European Union. | |
| • | Asked how many stayed, he replies "none," adding, "They (immigrants) all wanted to go to Western Europe, Germany, Scandinavian countries." | |
| • | Why? Because, he says, they have welfare programs in those countries and Hungary deliberately does not. | |
| • | The charges for this policy are familiar to Americans: "We are racists, we hate those people who come in," when in fact ... it is about maintaining Hungary's culture and way of life. | |
| • | What about the religious component when it comes to migrants from Muslim countries? | |
| • | "We do not underestimate that element. Islam is mostly fundamentalist. Europe is mostly secular, but even for those who don't believe in God, or go to church the very culture of Europe is Christianity." | |
| • | ... the massive flow of mostly Muslim immigrants is "undermining the very foundations of the European countries." | |
| • | ... even secularism is a threat to those foundations, "but when you bring in a completely different culture — and it's not superiority vs. inferiority — it's simply about the difference. If you see the experience in other societies, Islam is not integrating. They exist in parallel societies and live by their own rules. We don't like what we see in France, The Netherlands and Germany." | |
| • | He might have added that if a nation loses its culture, it loses the nation. | |
| • | The failure of especially Muslim immigrants to assimilate in ways that will preserve their host's culture is critical. | |
| • | Otherwise, it is not immigration, but invasion, which appears to be happening in Europe, a continent that has a lot of experience over many centuries when it comes to that practice. | |
| • | Hungary has provided a good example when it comes to tax reform and immigration policy. The U.S. could learn from it. | |
Barcelona: Islam is at war with itself and the West isn't helping (Fox 08/18/2017)
| • | Following yet another terrorist attack in Europe – this time in the Spanish city of Barcelona – the world's leaders are once again expressing their outrage at jihadi terror. | |
| • | Missing from these statements, however, is the fiery resolve of British Prime Minister Theresa May's condemnation made last June after her nation was assaulted on the streets of London. | |
| • | "The recent attacks are connected... by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism." | |
| • | Reflect for a moment on the attacks in America and Europe over the past 20 years. New York. Washington DC. Boston. Fort Hood. Paris. Brussels. Madrid. London. | |
| • | What do these attacks have in common? All were inspired by the teachings of Salafi Islam. | |
| • | Islam is a religion comprised of different types of believers that largely fall into two branches: Sunni and Shia. | |
| • | Most Muslims around the world are Sunni, while the Shia are fewer in number and predominantly live in Iran. | |
| • | Within Sunni Islam, there are dozens of different types of "churches" or sects with distinct beliefs. The vast majority are moderate and want to live in peace and prosperity. | |
| • | Not the Salafi sect, however. | |
| • | Salafis reject a separation of church (mosque) and state, believing that governments should be made up of religious clerics — and only clerics — that use the Koran to justify their governing decisions. | |
| • | It is this ideology that forms the backbone of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other jihadi groups. | |
| • | Sadly, the world's political leaders have let Salafis take advantage of our open, liberal societies by allowing the operation of Salafi mosques and madrassas (religious schools). | |
| • | From Bangladesh to Los Angeles, Salafis spread their violent beliefs shielded by the constitutional guarantees of free speech and religious liberty. | |
| • | This radical ideology is the dirty little secret in our war on terror. | |
| • | Most politicians don't want you to understand it. Why? If you did, the implications would be profound. | |
| • | Our politicians would make it clear that our fight is against a religious ideology rather than a random group of fanatics. | |
| • | Accordingly, the people and governments who embrace and spread Salafi Islam would be labeled enemies of the state. | |
| • | Next, Trump would fundamentally change his travel ban. As of now, the president is focused on six Muslim nations. | |
| • | But the truth is that the Salafi ideology reaches every continent, every country, and every city. In Germany, for instance, they number nearly 10,000 strong. | |
| • | Additionally, the administration would acknowledge that the Salafi sect is in the United States too, some as citizens. | |
| • | The FBI would work more closely with local law enforcement to prioritize the monitoring of these individuals and the mosques that indoctrinate them. | |
| • | Where laws need adjusting to allow for it, Congress would move quickly. | |
| • | Third, we'd recognize that some of our foreign policy decisions are working against us. | |
| • | From our war in Iraq to our efforts in Libya, it is we who have helped spread the virus of radical Islam. | |
| • | Recent case in point: we have provided money and military weaponry to Salafi Islamist rebels in Syria. | |
| • | Finally, we would publically address the role that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab nations have played in sponsoring and spreading Salafi Islam. | |
| • | Ever since 15 Saudis launched their attack on 9/11, America's politicians have made half-hearted demands of the Kingdom to do something about their terror ideology. | |
| • | Fifteen years later, very little has changed. Saudi Arabia still operates terror mosques and madrassas around the globe. | |
| • | Meanwhile, even Trump has faltered on taking a strong stance against the Saudis. | |
| • | Indeed, he spent his first overseas trip offering the Saudis $180 billion in business deals, including advanced weaponry. | |
| • | Not to be outdone, Trump's CIA Director gave a Saudi prince a medal for his work on countering terrorism. | |
| • | In other words, we continue to reward an arsonist for being a part-time firefighter. | |
| • | None of this will change until and unless politicians of all stripes start being honest about why our citizens, soldiers, and spies continue to die at the hands of Islamic extremists. | |
| • | It's the ideology. And it's time we're honest about it. | |
The North Korea gambit (INN 08/14/2017)
| • | Don't hope for much from Russia or China on the Korean Peninsula. The US has to go it alone — and it can. | |
| • | First, understand that North Korea is a pawn in a geostrategic chess game being played by China and Russia against the United States. | |
| • | The North Korean nuclear missile threat is built on technology provided by Russia and China, to threaten and if necessary wage nuclear war by proxy against the U.S. and its Pacific allies. | |
| • | Their North Korea gambit is to so increase the nuclear threat against the United States, so that U.S. security guarantees to Japan, South Korea and other allies will no longer be credible. | |
| • | Will the U.S. sacrifice Chicago and Denver to protect Seoul and Tokyo? China, Russia, and North Korea don't think so. | |
| • | Begging China and Russia to rescue the U.S. from nuclear North Korea plays right into their hands by messaging our allies that the United States is helpless, that real power over North Korea is not in Washington, but in Beijing and Moscow. | |
| • | Why should allies remain our allies if the U.S. is a helpless giant? Japan and South Korea may choose to realign with China and Russia for security. | |
| • | It is hard to imagine anything more injurious to U.S. credibility, after insisting that a nuclear-armed North Korea cannot stand for over 20 years, to now surrender in the face of North Korean ICBMs. | |
| • | Yet many foreign policy establishment Democrats and Republicans, who previously insisted a nuclear-armed North Korea is unacceptable, are now arguing for accommodation (really appeasement and surrender). | |
| • | If the U.S. learns to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea, will we also learn to live with a nuclear-armed Iran? With China annexing the South China Sea and Taiwan? With Russia conquering the Baltic states and the other territories of the former USSR? | |
| • | Iran, China, and Russia will probably think so. This way leads to global nuclear war, or to global surrender by the West, and a new world order dominated by Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. | |
| • | The United States to protect itself and maintain international credibility has little choice but to make a disarming strike, at least against the two North Korean satellites, that might be nuclear-armed for EMP attack, orbiting over the U.S., and against the dozen North Korean road-mobile ICBMs currently deployed. | |
| • | But if North Korea escalates, the U.S. must be prepared to escalate to massive disarming strikes, including use of nuclear weapons. | |
| • | China and Russia should be warned, to give them one last chance to disarm North Korea. | |
| • | Before proceeding, the U.S. should launch emergency programs, on the scale and intensity of the World War II Manhattan Project that developed the first A-Bombs, to strengthen missile defenses and protect the American people from the worst consequences of a nuclear attack by hardening the national electric grid against electromagnetic pulse (EMP). | |
| • | Immediately, move more THAAD interceptors to South Korea, more Aegis anti-missile ships around North Korea and in the Gulf of Mexico, strengthening U.S. missile defenses. | |
| • | In months, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could EMP harden many of the most important nodes in the electric grid and other critical infrastructures. | |
| • | Longer term, a crash program reviving President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative could deploy, perhaps in a few years, space-based Brilliant Pebbles. | |
| • | This promising anti-missile program was canceled by the Clinton Administration in favor of President Clinton's Agreed Framework and its policy of appeasement, which ultimately resulted in today's North Korean ICBMs. | |
| • | SDI, leveraging America's technological superiority, could render nuclear missiles obsolete — and thereby checkmate North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia. | |
Why should Israel have a right to self-defense? (JWR 07/25/2017)
| • | It's time to beat up on the Jews again, particularly the Jews in Israel and the West Bank. Once more they're not standing still enough to enable the Palestinians to maim and kill at will. | |
| • | Killing by stealth is what the Palestinian freedom fighters do best. They're pretty good at it, particularly when they get to prove their manly courage against women and children. | |
| • | The terrorists are upset this time because the Israelis installed metal detectors at the entrance to the al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, after three Arab Israelis shot dead two Israeli police officers just outside the mosque, using guns they had smuggled into the compound. | |
| • | Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and ever eager to pour something flammable on troubled waters so as to be helpful to someone passing by with a match aflame, said his government would "freeze contact on all levels" with Israel until the metal detectors are removed. | |
| • | This is negotiation, Middle East style: resolution on terrorist terms first, negotiations later. | |
| • | The Arabs have tried conventional warfare, even starting one war with Pearl Harbor-like stealth and surprise. They took their usual licking, and even that didn't work, though it is true that the Arab military colossus enjoyed only a 6 to 1 advantage. Ganging up on women and children is all that a defeated colossus can do. | |
| • | The killer looked typical. Omar al-Abed, 19, who lived in a nearby village, broke through a window and surprised the family with an unregistered knife, stabbing and slashing with stealth and surprise, killing the father, about 60, and his son and daughter, in their 40s, before they could gather their wits to fight back. | |
| • | The killer told his captors that he bought the knife two days earlier to avenge the metal detectors at the Temple Mount. | |
| • | Why won't the Jews give assistance to those who want to kill them? | |
Trump, in Poland, vows 'the West will never, ever be broken' (Fox 07/06/2017)
| • | "Just as Poland cannot be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail, our people will thrive, and our civilization will triumph." | |
| • | "We write symphonies, we pursue innovation... We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God." | |
| • | "We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression... We debate everything, we challenge everything, we seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves." | |
| • | "The story of Poland is a story of people who have never lost hope, never been broken and never, ever, forgotten who they are." | |
| • | "There are dire threats to our security and to our way of life — you see what's happening out there — they are threats. We will confront them and we will win — but they are threats." | |
| • | "We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism and we will prevail." | |
| • | "While we will always welcome new citizens who share our values and love our people, our borders will always be closed to terrorism and extremism of any kind." | |
| • | "Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have the desire and courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who subvert and destroy it?" | |
| • | "If we don't have strong families and strong values, we will be weak, and we will not survive." | |
| • | "We must work together to confront forces whether they come from inside or out, south or east, that threaten to undermine these values and erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that makes us who we are." | |
| • | "These forces are doomed to fail if we want them to fail, and we do indeed want them to fail." | |
You Can’t Destroy the Jihadists with Candlelight Vigils and Benefit Concerts (06/04/2015)
| • | The British have a decision to make: do they care more about multiculturalism and open borders or stopping Muslim jihadists from stabbing people and blowing up 8-year-old girls. | |
| • | How much more blood must be spilled in the name of the "religion of peace?" How many more throats must be slashed? How many more little girls must be sacrificed to quench their bloodlust? | |
| • | "I saw these three Muslim guys run up and started stabbing this girl. ... They were running up and saying, ‘This is for Allah.'" | |
| • | News anchors warned against a rush to judgment as pundits were predicting this is the new normal. | |
| • | The clearly delusional mayor of London tried to reassure citizens by announcing there was no reason to be alarmed. | |
| • | No reason to be alarmed? New normal? | |
| • | Wild-eyed savages rampaged through the streets of London shouting, "Allahu Akbar" as they stabbed people with foot-long machetes. | |
| • | And the mayor wants the people of London to think they have no reason to be afraid of the city's new normal? | |
| • | Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill must be turning over in his grave. | |
| • | Now, is not the time to run and hide. It is the time to stand and fight. | |
| • | We must stand together, side by side, and eradicate the jihadists. | |
London terror: Saturday attacks a tipping point in campaign to destroy the West (Fox 06/03/2017)
| • | There is no longer any doubt: the mayhem in London Saturday night has raised terrorism to a new threat level to the Western world. | |
| • | The methods, and reported reference to Allah by one of the knife wielders points to Islamic perpetrators. | |
| • | ... reflect the same boldness and brazenness on the part of the twisted warriors of the Islamist campaign to destroy Western civilization and force us all to worship their version of God. | |
| • | "My view is that we are no longer facing random acts of terrorism. We have reached a tipping point. This is now an insurgency." | |
| • | ... this latest spate of attacks is the natural evolution of years of recruitment among British Muslims by terror cells like ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda. | |
| • | "The Muslim terrorist population in Britain and Europe no longer feels constrained to live by stealth." | |
| • | "They have built an infrastructure, they have put it in place, and now they are moving up to the next level." | |
| • | For far too long, Western societies, including in the United States, have tried to rationalize what has now become an avalanche of violent hatred of democratic freedom, basic human rights, and freedom to choose if and how to worship. | |
| • | The result in Britain: government officials estimate there are more than 20,000 jihadists living among the population. | |
| • | Here's their message: We hate you and want to kill you. | |
| • | ... ISIS is peopled by Sunni killers and Hezbollah soldiers are Shi'a. The two Muslim sects dislike each other and have killed one another – always in Allah's name, of course. | |
| • | But here's the thing ... "Shi'as and Sunnis have had serious differences for centuries, but what we are seeing now is a global alliance, they are perfectly capable of making common cause to take down the West..." | |
| • | For British voters, this week's election may come down to one central issue: who will call these soldiers of Islam what they really are – savages – and keep us safe?* | |
Frau Merkel, you might not like Herr Trump but you need him (Fox 05/30/2017)
| • | Here's some unsolicited advice for German Chancellor Angela Merkel: Achtung! | |
| • | Merkel's uncalled-for remarks about the United States no longer being a trustworthy partner for its European allies set off a frenzy. | |
| • | Or is she just trying to keep her job? | |
| • | ... Merkel's horrible decision to open the gates of Europe to tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Africa turned her own people against her. | |
| • | Since she invited migrants into her country, and forced her neighbors to do the same, Europe has suffered nearly a dozen major terror attacks, none more horrific than the December 2016 Christmas market truck massacre in Berlin, which killed 12 and left Germany feeling very exposed to lone-wolf Islamic horror. | |
| • | And who was among the first to decry Merkel's come-one, come-all policy? Donald Trump. | |
| • | Who spoke up about the lopsided trade deficit the United States has with Germany? Donald Trump. | |
| • | Who lectured European members of NATO – specifically Germany – about not paying its fair share for the continent's defense. Same answer. | |
| • | Among her European counterparts, Merkel is used to being treated with deference. | |
| • | Germany is really the economic engine for the entire continent, and the only country willing to shell out its own resources to bail out the ne'er-do-wells like Greece, who have become addicted to free money. | |
| • | You might not like Mr. Trump, Frau Merkel. He is rude and outspoken and typically, in your view, American. | |
| • | But remember: Russia is to your east. Vladimir Putin is not impressed with the paltry defense force Europe could put together, if it did not have the United States behind it. | |
Seriously, Mr. President? Would you also trust the KKK to fight racism, anti-Semitism too? (JWR 05/25/2017)
| • | President Trump's speech was written by Westerners, delivered by a westerner and based on a faulty western premise, namely, that radical Muslims can be persuaded to abandon their goal of establishing a worldwide caliphate. | |
| • | It is a central theological principle of Wahhabism, an austere form of Islam based on a literal interpretation of the Koran, which Saudi Arabia has for years promoted in children's textbooks, in mosques and through its media. | |
| • | No reporter asked the central question ... Since Saudi Arabia's domestic and foreign policy is based on a theological worldview, have those views changed and if so, how did that "revelation" come to you? | |
| • | "The plan to add the Islamic State's Saudi affiliate to a U.N. list of terrorist groups was quietly killed two weeks ago in a bureaucratic maneuver at the U.N. Security Council..." | |
| • | "... the Saudis objected to the public acknowledgement of the existence of a separate Saudi offshoot of the terrorist group inside the kingdom." | |
| • | Arab and Muslim leaders have long said one thing to the West and the opposite to their own people. | |
| • | This is not "breaking news." The surprise is that Westerners continue to fall for it. | |
| • | ... Saudi Arabia will stop promoting an ideology that encourages terrorism only if their god cancels the order for establishing a worldwide caliphate, the elimination of Israel and the vilification of Jews. | |
| • | This is what the secular West under several administrations has failed to grasp. | |
| • | A policy forged in theology is not about to be changed by the urging of "infidels." | |
| • | "If we can change the conversation in the Islamic world from enmity towards the U.S. to partnership with the U.S., and if we can change the conversation in the U.S. and in the West from enmity towards the Islamic world to one of partnership, we will have changed our world and we will have truly drowned the voices of extremism and we will have drained the swamps ... from which extremism and terrorism emanates." | |
| • | It is an interesting metaphor in a desert land. | |
| • | "From our perspective, we judge Iran by its actions, not by its words." | |
| • | That's a suitable standard by which to judge the words of Saudi leaders. | |
Dershowitz: Terrorism persists because it works (Fox 05/23/2017)
| • | Every time a horrendous terrorist attack victimizes innocent victims we wring our hands and promise to increase security and take other necessary preventive measures. | |
| • | But we fail to recognize how our friends and allies play such an important role in encouraging, incentivizing, and inciting terrorism. | |
| • | If we are to have any chance of reducing terrorism, we must get to its root cause. | |
| • | It is not poverty, disenfranchisement, despair or any of the other abuse excuses offered to explain, if not to justify, terrorism as an act of desperation. It is anything but. | |
| • | Many terrorists, such as those who participated in the 9/11 attacks, were educated, well-off, mobile and even successful. | |
| • | They made a rational cost-benefit decision to murder innocent civilians for one simple reason: they believe that terrorism works. | |
| • | And tragically they are right. The international community has rewarded terrorism while punishing those who try to fight it by reasonable means. | |
| • | It all began with a decision by Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian terrorist groups to employ the tactic of terrorism as a primary means of bringing the Palestinian issue to the forefront of world concern. | |
| • | The hijacking of airplanes, the murders of Olympic athletes at Munich, the killing of Israeli children at Ma'alot, and the many other terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists has elevated their cause above all other causes in the human rights community. | |
| • | Other groups with grievances have learned from the success of Palestinian terrorism and have emulated the use of that barbaric tactic. | |
| • | Even today, when the Palestinian authority claims to reject terrorism, they reward the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists by large compensation packages that increase with the number of innocent victims. | |
| • | There is a name for people and organizations that pay other people for killing innocent civilians: it's called accessory to murder. | |
| • | The Palestinian Authority also glorifies terrorists by naming parks, stadiums, streets and other public places after the mass murderers of children. | |
| • | The United Nations glorifies terrorism by placing countries that support terrorism in high positions of authority and honor and by welcoming with open arms the promoters of terrorism. | |
| • | On the other hand Israel, which has led the world in efforts to combat terrorism by reasonable and lawful means, gets attacked by the international community more than any other country in the world. | |
| • | Promoters of terrorism are treated better at the United Nations than opponents of terrorism. | |
| • | Terrorisms will continue as long as it continues to bear fruits. | |
| • | England, France, Italy and Germany were among the countries that released Palestinian terrorists in the hope of preventing terrorist attacks on their soil | |
| • | Their selfish and immoral tactic backfired: it only caused them to become even more inviting targets for the murderous terrorists. | |
| • | ... no matter how terrorism works, the reality that it does will make it difficult if not impossible to stem its malignant spread around the world. | |
| • | To make it not work, the entire world must unite in never rewarding terrorism and always punishing those who facilitate it. | |
Israeli Ambassador on Trump in the Middle East: Iran remains the crucial issue (Fox 05/21/2017)
| • | President Donald Trump arrives in the Middle East with a large number of issues on his agenda. | |
| • | In Israel alone he is set to grapple with the possibility of moving the U.S. embassy, the chance he will recognize Jerusalem as our capital and the ever-present possibility of restarting the peace process with the Palestinians. | |
| • | While these are all extremely important causes which are fully supported and encouraged by Israel, they pale in comparison to the main task at hand when the leaders of our two countries meet: grappling with the increasingly growing menace of Iran in our region. | |
| • | Assad and his henchmen are puppets of the Iranian regime, propped up with their funding, trained by their military advisers and armed with their weapons. | |
| • | This Iranian proxy entrenched along our northern border is placing its weapons in homes, mosques and hospitals with the intention of once again committing a double war crime by targeting our civilians while using Lebanese women and children as their human shields. | |
| • | Iran's Republican Guards "Quds Force" trains the Hezbollah fighters, funnels money to them and directly provides the terrorists with these deadly weapons. | |
| • | ... Hamas is spending millions of dollars on digging sophisticated terror tunnels to try to attack our border communities. | |
| • | They aim to attack kindergartens and community centers with the hope of massacring as many innocent people as possible. | |
| • | Funding for these terror activities comes directly from Iran which has declared that support for this "resistance" is part of their foreign policy. | |
| • | Leaving aside the dangers of their supposedly dormant nuclear program and the ticking clock towards the sunset clause associated with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement, Iran's continued testing of ballistic missiles is extremely alarming. | |
| • | The Iranians' intentions for these missiles are no mystery. In fact, just last month they displayed their missiles in a military parade and wrote on one of them: "Death to Israel." | |
| • | Throughout the Middle East, wherever there is terror, death and a complete disregard for human life, there is Iran. This alliance of evil anchored by Iran must be met head on. | |
| • | We are grateful for America's leadership in fighting ISIS, standing up to Assad and attempting to assist in finally bringing peace with the Palestinians. | |
| • | Yet as worthy as these causes are, what is needed right now is a concerted effort to confront Iran by stringently enforcing sanctions that are in place, judiciously weighing further possible restrictions and continuing to leave all other options on the table in facing this extremist regime. | |
| • | "If we are speaking honestly about conflict in the Middle East, we need to start with the chief culprit, Iran." | |
| • | Israel, the U.S. and numerous moderate countries throughout the Middle East must work together in pressing on until this regime is isolated and no longer poses a threat to its neighbors and the world as a whole. | |
North Korea's regime must go, and the U.S. has options to make that happen (Fox 05/21/2017)
| • | In fact, North Korea is well overdue to test something much more menacing — another nuclear weapon. | |
| • | ... long march to develop a nuclear device that can rain down atomic terror not only on South Korea, Japan and U.S. bases throughout Asia – but eventually on the U.S. homeland itself. | |
| • | His goal is survival, and the only way to survive when faced with the awesome military might of a superpower is an atomic arsenal that can kill millions at the push of a button. | |
| • | These include tough sanctions on anyone helping the North Koreans develop nuclear weapons or missiles, the levering of cyber weapons on a grand scale to constrain and raise the costs of missile and nuclear advances, as well as more missile defenses deployed and retained in the area around North Korea. | |
| • | There is however one solution, the toughest of all solutions, that in all our hearts we know would solve this problem once and for all — one that is not for the faint of heart: the eventual change of regime in North Korea. | |
| • | No regime as evil, as sinister, and as dangerous as North Korea — the modern day equivalent of Nazi Germany with death camps where the regime tests chemical weapons on its own people — has survived forever. | |
| • | The sins of its leaders continue to grow with each passing day, sealing the regimes fate — clearly a question of when, not if, it will fall. | |
| • | ... we do know how North Korea keeps control of its citizens — the brainwashing of its society into believing that Washington and Seoul are the enemy and that they must starve and live in destitution to support an army that is the fourth largest in the world with an economy the size of Laos. | |
| • | We must exploit this weakness by working to educate the North Korean people of the abuses of the regime — to help them begin to understand the tyranny they live under. | |
| • | Citizens are also taking matters into their own hands — hacking government issued cell phones to talk to the outside world as well as trying to flee their prison-of-a-nation in increasing numbers. | |
| • | We must help awaken the hopes, aspirations and dreams of a people enslaved far too long. | |
| • | America must weaponize against the Kim regime the most powerful of passions — hope for a better future. | |
China's silky threat to American leadership (Fox 05/13/2017)
| • | This weekend, while the Sunday talk shows obsess about Trump, Comey and secret recordings, a top-level gathering in China will kick off the biggest challenge ever to America's place in the world economy: the creation of a 21st Century version of the ancient Silk Road travelled by Marco Polo. | |
| • | President Xi Jinping will host the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Summit. | |
| • | The BRI is Xi's $1 trillion – yes, with a T — plan to build state of the art roads, ports, pipelines and airports that will link China to 110 countries around the world and make Beijing the epicenter of world trade for decades to come. | |
| • | Russia's Vladimir Putin thinks the BRI is important enough for him to attend. So do the leaders of Turkey, Pakistan, the Philippines and 25 other countries, most of them with developing economies. | |
| • | The United States, trapped in political navel-gazing, could only ante up an assistant to the president. | |
| • | For Xi, the initiative is a brazen attempt to seize worldwide economic leadership from the United States. | |
| • | With official Washington bogged down on President Trump's tweets and his relationship with Russia, Xi sees an opportunity to bind emerging trade partners to him by offering them access to China's vast consumer market. | |
| • | "There are real political, economic and strategic goals at stake. It is China effectively applying soft power in a very visible way. It wants to become what the United States has been until now – the leader of the world economy." | |
| • | There is, of course, a catch: Xi will ask the heads of state that he is wining and dining to sign a joint communique endorsing Beijing's claims that Taiwan is part of China, and that it has legitimate territorial rights in the South China Sea. | |
| • | The summit's slogan is "One Belt, One Road." For Xi, that means showing that the rest of the world is girded to China, and that all roads lead to Beijing. | |
North Korea's Christians are suffering. We cannot forget them (Fox 05/12/2017)
| • | ... our guide told us how North Koreans come to the riverbank and wait until evening to attempt the risky swim to mainland China. | |
| • | The border guards have orders to shoot on sight, and anyone attempting to cross illegally is subject to summary execution. | |
| • | Once inside the country, I was suddenly struck by the eerie quietness that pervades the towns and cities we visited. | |
| • | I was shocked to see students typing on keyboards while staring at blank computer screens at one government school. They were pretending to do their classwork while the power was out. | |
| • | The Democratic People's Republic of Korea — a communist state of 25 million souls — is considered the most secretive nation on earth. | |
| • | Driven by the Kim family into isolation and a cultic reverence to the royal family, this small nation now threatens to destabilize the world with nuclear warfare. | |
| • | Yet, while rumors fly about secret islands used to stage missile launches, and stories emerge of U.S. citizens being held in hard labor camps, a whole narrative of persecution against Christians goes largely unreported in the media. | |
| • | Though exact numbers are hard to confirm — estimates range between 30,000 to 70,000 — tens of thousands of Christians are believed to be held in "kwanliso," or political labor camps. | |
| • | Often sick and malnourished, these captives are subject to extreme violence and crude torture, suffering beatings with electric rods and metal poles, and even being used as test subjects for medical experiments. | |
| • | Christians are frequently sentenced to these labor camps simply for owning a Bible. | |
| • | ... teacher told the class, "Today we're not going to give you homework." Naturally, all the children celebrated the news, but the teacher wasn't finished. | |
| • | "However, when you go home, look for a book. Normally it's black. Normally it's hidden. Normally it's the book your mom or dad read when you sleep. Normally it's hidden in the closet or the drawer or somewhere that's not reachable, but if you look hard enough you can find this book. And, if you bring it, we will honor you." | |
| • | With the scarf around her neck, she ran home to tell her mom what had happened — but her mom wasn't there. In fact, Eun waited all night for her mom, but she never arrived. | |
| • | When Eun got to school the following day, with an empty stomach, she found out the parents of 14 other students also hadn't come home the night before. | |
| • | Many people don't remember that in the early 20th century, Pyongyang was known as the "Jerusalem of the East," or that Christianity played a major role in the history of the Korean peninsula. | |
| • | Even after communism began to overtake North Korea, Christianity's influence was so prevalent that Kim Il Sung's father was a Christian and his father-in-law a Presbyterian minister. | |
| • | Today, I know brave Christians who smuggle Bibles disguised as phone books into the country. They risk their lives so others may have the opportunity to read the forbidden words of Jesus in their own language. | |
| • | During this time of great political intrigue surrounding North Korea, we must not forget the country's Christians. Countless thousands of them suffer daily for their faith. | |
The North Korean threat is not theoretical, it is reality (Fox 05/01/2017)
| • | North Korea is surging to the brink. Advancements in their missile technology and nuclear weapons program will soon put the United States in the crosshairs. | |
| • | "A North Korean missile tipped with a nuclear warhead, capable of reaching our homeland is no longer a distant hypothetical, but an imminent danger." | |
| • | A policy built around angry diplomatic statements and passive observation is no longer viable. | |
| • | The United States must seriously anticipate the use of force to eliminate this rogue nation's offensive nuclear capacity. | |
| • | When dealing with North Korea, it is critical to appreciate everything comes down to keeping Kim Jong Un and his family in power. | |
| • | That is why diplomatic measures, economic isolation, and international commendation have proven ineffective. As long as the leadership structure remains intact, everything else is of a secondary concern. | |
| • | While China, North Korea's primary ally, controls 90% of its trade, Chinese leaders are reluctant to take a hard line on the North, fearing a collapsed regime that would precipitate a refugee crisis and a potentially hostile unified Korea. | |
| • | Nuclear weapons are deemed the penultimate point of leverage preventing the United States and its allies from toppling North Korean regime. Make a move against Kim Jong Un and you will likely face a nuclear response. | |
| • | Should a conflict erupt, Seoul, South Korea, which lies just thirty five miles from the boarder, will be subject to an overwhelming attack. | |
| • | This leaves the United States in a difficult position. Lacking economic or diplomatic points of leverage, military action increasingly looks like a likely path. | |
| • | ... significant funds were expended for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, capabilities optimized for counter-insurgency warfare are wholly inadequate for a high-end conflict. | |
| • | A surface campaign fighting mile-by-mile up the peninsula would afford Kim Jong Un more than enough time to decimate the South and launch nuclear strikes. | |
| • | Instead, the United States needs to consider options that would collapse the North Korean threat as fast as possible. | |
| • | That means hitting targets in a concurrent, decisive fashion to prevent wholesale devastation in Seoul and a nuclear launch. | |
| • | Doing so demands America's most advanced combat aircraft — the B-2 bomber, F-22 fighter, and F-35 fighter. | |
| • | Their stealth technology is necessary for survival and their advanced sensor capabilities will allow them to locate their targets in an incredibly dynamic environment. | |
| • | There is just one catch: the US failed to procure enough of these airplanes because they were deemed to be outdated, expensive "Cold War" assets. | |
| • | While it is true that the Cold War is over, that does not mean adversaries stopped investing in advanced defenses. | |
| • | In fact, the world is far more dangerous than it was thirty years ago. This is a major problem given that the United States only has 20 B-2s, 185 F-2s, and a handful of F-35s in the inventory. | |
| • | It is time for the nation to acknowledge this capability gap and accelerate their acquisition.It is time for the nation to acknowledge this capability gap and accelerate their acquisition. | |
| • | Decisions made over the last several years have left the country in a precarious position. | |
| • | Failing to make such investments will leave the country woefully unprepared to execute a mission where the alternative to a rapid, decisive victory is unthinkable. | |
North Korean crisis 'worst I’ve seen,' top Navy officer warns (Fox 04/27/2017)
| • | ... testifying that it's only a matter of time before Kim Jong Un has the capability of launching a nuclear warhead toward the United States. | |
| • | "There is some doubt within the intelligence community whether Kim Jong Un has that capability today or whether he will soon, but I have to assume he has it, the capability is real, and that he's moving towards it." | |
| • | ... has "no doubt" the country intends to develop nuclear missiles that could be aimed toward South Korea and the U.S. | |
| • | "Kim Jong Un is making progress and all nations need to take this seriously because their missiles point in all directions." | |
| • | "If left unchecked, they will match the capability of his hostile rhetoric." | |
| • | "His rhetoric is going in one direction and his capabilities are approaching the lines of his rhetoric." | |
| • | "Where those lines cross, I believe we are at an inflection point and we wake up to a new world." | |
| • | "We want to bring Kim Jong Un to his senses — not to his knees. I have the forces in place to fight tonight if necessary." | |
| • | "THAAD allows us intercept capability to shoot down, at the high altitude level, ballistic missiles that go from North Korea to South Korea. THAAD is a system that would give an umbrella to protect South Korea." | |
| • | ... China is as responsible for where North Korea is today. | |
| • | "We're seeing more activity — positive activity — from China in this case than we've seen in a long time." | |
Krauthammer: Trump's Right That Iran Is Violating the 'Spirit' of the Nuke Deal (Fox 04/21/2017)
| • | "Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement." | |
| • | "The U.S. Department of State certified to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan today that Iran is compliant through April 18th with its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action." | |
| • | Only hours later, however, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson agreed with Trump and described the landmark deal as a failure. | |
| • | ... this is not a flip-flop for the Trump administration. | |
| • | ... three things are needed to develop a usable a nuclear weapon: fissile material, a way a to weaponize it, and ballistic missiles. | |
| • | "The problem is that the Obama administration looked only at the fissile element." | |
| • | "But what the Iranians are doing — and this is so obvious a child could see it — is while the program on the fissile material is frozen, they're working rapidly on the weaponization ... and of course on the ballistic missiles, which we can see." | |
| • | "Yes, they are developing a nuclear weapon. It's a violation of the 'spirit' of agreement, because the way they look at it, in half a decade, they'll be able to resume the fissile material — the enriching uranium — they will have weaponized, and they will have the missiles." | |
Alan Dershowitz: What North Korea should teach us about Iran (Fox 04/19/2017)
| • | We failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. | |
| • | As a result, our options to stop them from developing a delivery system capable of reaching our shores are severely limited. | |
| • | The hard lesson from our failure to stop North Korea before they became a nuclear power is that we MUST stop Iran from ever developing or acquiring a nuclear arsenal. | |
| • | A nuclear Iran would be far more dangerous to American interest than a nuclear North Korea. | |
| • | Iran already has rockets capable of reaching numerous American allies. | |
| • | They are in the process of upgrading them and making them capable of delivering a nuclear payload to our shores. | |
| • | Its fundamentalist religious leaders would be willing to sacrifice millions of Iranians to destroy the big Satin (United States) or the little Satin (Israel). | |
| • | ... the Iranian Mullahs were willing to sacrifice thousands of "child-soldiers" in their futile war with Iraq. | |
| • | There is nothing more dangerous than a "suicide regime" armed with nuclear weapons. | |
| • | The body of the agreement itself – the portion Iran believes is legally binding — does not preclude Iran from developing nuclear weapons after a certain time, variously estimated as between 10 to 15 years from the signing of the agreement. | |
| • | Nor does it prevent Iran from perfecting its delivery systems, including nuclear tipped inter-continental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States. | |
| • | If we are not to make the same mistake with Iran that we made with North Korea, we must do something now – before Iran secures a weapon – to deter the Mullahs from becoming a nuclear power, over which we would have little or no leverage. | |
| • | "Congress should pass a resolution authorizing this and future presidents to use force to prevent Iran from ever becoming a nuclear weapons state ... Iran must know now that the U.S. president is authorized to destroy –without warning or negotiation – any attempt by Tehran to build a bomb." | |
| • | A law based on these two elements –adopting Iran's reaffirmation as the official American policy and authorizing a preventive military strike if Iran tried to obtain nuclear weapons – may be an alternative we can live with. | |
| • | But without such an alternative, the deal is currently interpreted by Iran will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. | |
| • | In all probability, it would merely postpone that catastrophe for about a decade while legitimating its occurrence. | |
| • | This is not an outcome we can live with as evidenced by the crisis we are now confronting with North Korea. | |
Why Trump is right on North Korea (Fox 04/14/2017)
| • | The United States and North Korea are finally facing off this Easter weekend over Kim Jong Un's insatiable appetite for courting danger. | |
| • | While the rest of the world sits by, twiddling its collective thumbs and hoping that Kim comes to his senses, Trump has laid down a marker: test an underground nuclear device as you are threatening to do, and there will be consequences. | |
| • | The presence of a U.S. Navy strike force, armed with Tomahawk Cruise missiles, is the unspoken backup to Trump's clear message. | |
| • | The excuse for the North to conduct the test is morbidly fitting: Saturday is the 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-Sung, the current Kim's grandfather. | |
| • | What better reason to plunge the world into conflict than to thank granddad for all he did? | |
| • | Trump has raised the stakes in this showdown, unlike Barack Obama, who tried to give Kim toothless avuncular advice, or Bill Clinton, who was hornswoggled into a bad nuclear arms deal with Kim's father, in 1994. | |
| • | Clinton promised then that the pact would bring North Korea into the community of civilized nations. Right. Guess it all depends on what your definition of is, is. | |
| • | China's role in this showdown is crucial. It is now North Korea's only patron, keeping its economy barely afloat and protecting it from United Nations sanctions and condemnations. | |
| • | So far, there have been at least 15 meaningless finger-wags from the House of Humor on the East River in Manhattan. | |
| • | ... the two seemed to have reached a gentleman's agreement: China would do what it could to restrain the haircut challenged man-boy in Pyongyang. Trump, in return, would stay calm in the face of North Korean provocations and let China know what it planned to do. | |
| • | Like a smart aleck kid whose big brother is the captain of the wrestling team, Kim seems to believe he can act with impunity on the world playground. | |
| • | The Chinese, and before them, the Soviet Union, protected his granddad and his father for decades. | |
| • | The latest model Kim probably either doesn't understand, or maybe doesn't believe, that Trump is a new kind of American president. | |
| • | After visiting Mar-a-Lago at the very moment the U.S. was sending its regards to Syria, President Xi certainly knows that is true. | |
| • | But can he convince the juvenile delinquent who is his political ward to back off in time to prevent disaster? | |
North Korea: Trump's Tuesday tweet, Kim Jong Un and America's best options (Fox 04/11/2017)
| • | When it comes to dealing with the North Korean threat, President Trump is far more likely to pick up where President Obama left off. | |
| • | Trump has reportedly asked for — and received — a review of the full range of options for dealing with the growing nuclear threat from Pyongyang and the increasingly bellicose Kim Jong Un. | |
| • | That's the right approach, and there's nothing novel about it. | |
| • | U.S. policy has long been "everything is on the table" — the only practical policy when dealing with a regime that threatens to burn your cities to the ground. | |
| • | Circumstances may change, moving matters from the "be prepared for anything" stage to "drastic, decisive action is called for now? But that day is not today. | |
| • | When the president reviews all the options, the first to drop-off the list is an escalatory military conflict. | |
| • | Most of Seoul, a city of 10 million, is within range of North Korea's "cone of fire." An artillery and missile barrage from the North could be devastating. | |
| • | No president would choose, as Option One, a strike that would invite a response that could inflict mass civilian casualties among an ally. | |
| • | Likewise, the "let's negotiate" option was probably quickly dropped. | |
| • | Giving into North Korea's wild threats is exactly what Kim wants. Rushing to talk now would only encourage more provocative actions. | |
| • | That leaves the suitable and feasible options somewhere in the middle. This includes deterring North Korea with a protect-and-defend strategy. | |
| • | ... while demonstrating the capacity to reach out and touch the North Korean regime. | |
| • | The latter element is why we now have U.S. strategic bombers circling overhead and U.S. combat ships steaming to the peninsula. | |
| • | The other part of pressing Kim to back down is to squeeze the regime where it hurts — in the bank account. | |
| • | North Korea despite what you may have heard, is not the most heavily sanctioned country on earth. | |
| • | Yes, a lot of sanctions have been imposed on the regime, as far as paperwork is concerned. ... China, for example, routinely signs on to new sanctions, then just as routinely stops observing them within a few months. | |
| • | But cracking down on North Korea is a strategy that has given Dear Leaders pause in the past. | |
| • | Exasperated after trying everything else, even the Obama administration concluded in the end that's increasingly tighter sanctions are part of the best strategy for now. | |
| • | ... when Trump says we are going to deal with Kim with or without China, likely what he means is that Beijing can voluntarily agree to participate in the sanctioning regime or we'll do it with a heavy hand — one that will include Chinese firms and individuals doing business with North Korea. | |
| • | That would make the Chinese very uncomfortable, but Trump seems to be saying, it'll happen unless they start working harder to get Kim to tone down his act — and his actions. | |
| • | In other words, the free lunch for China is over. | |
| • | There are no easy answers for dealing with North Korean. ... What Trump ought to do — and is most likely to do — is follow this tough-minded but responsible middle course. | |
Killer’s hero welcome shows how hate thrives in Middle East (Fox 03/27/2017)
| • | When a Jordanian Army corporal killed seven Israeli schoolgirls 20 years ago, King Hussein traveled to Israel to kneel before the parents of the victims. | |
| • | In what may have been his finest moment as a leader, he told them: "Your daughter is like my daughter. Your loss is my loss." | |
| • | Hussein's profoundly moving gesture generated a flicker of hope for Jordanians and Israelis. | |
| • | From the public reaction to the recent release of the schoolgirls' killer, Ahmed Daqamseh, however, we learn that the late monarch's humanity is no match for the hatred generated by Muslim clerics. | |
| • | During his lifetime, King Hussein saw it all. As a teenager, he was at the side of his grandfather, King Abdullah I, when he was assassinated at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, for his willingness to seek peace with the Jews. | |
| • | The assassin was a former terrorist connected with Haj Amin Al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, collaborator with Hitler, and architect of a militant Palestinian anti-Semitism. | |
| • | Fifty years ago, Hussein joined in Abdel Nasser's war with Israel in 1967, only to lose half his kingdom. | |
| • | In the end, he rose above the hate and fear to make peace with Israel. | |
| • | And on that day in northern Israel, King Hussein displayed a nobility of compassion the world will never forget. | |
| • | That nobility did not find its way to the people. | |
| • | Before Daqamseh's trial, 200 lawyers and the Jordanian Bar Association competed for the privilege of defending him. | |
| • | Four years later, his mother reflected, "I am proud of my son, and I hold my head high. My son did a heroic deed and has pleased God and his own conscience. My son lifts my head and the head of the entire Arab and Islamic nation. I am proud of any Muslim who does what Ahmad did." | |
| • | Ahmed Daqamseh had 20 years in prison to reflect on his murder of the seventh- and eighth-grade students as they alighted from a bus at the "Island of Peace," a joint Jordanian-Israeli tourist location under Jordanian control. | |
| • | He took pains to shoot some of his victims at close range, and later lamented only that his M16 had worked imperfectly, so he was unable to murder the entire busload of students. | |
| • | Daqamseh learned nothing during his incarceration. After walking out of prison, he said: "They (Jews) are human garbage ...This garbage should be burned or buried." | |
| • | Upon his release, hundreds of enthusiastic supporters traveled to his hometown to welcome their "hero." | |
| • | With one exception, his "heroics" went unchallenged in the Jordanian media. | |
| • | ... consider a 2009 Pew poll that reported that negative attitudes toward Jews in Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon reached 95-98 percent. | |
| • | Contempt for the "other" didn't end with Jews: 40 percent of the Arab respondents held negative views about Christians. | |
| • | Where does this hate come from? Egypt's President Al-Sisi challenged the clerics of Al-Azhar, the world's oldest Sunni university, during a 2015 visit: | |
| • | "Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants — that is 7 billion — so that they themselves may live? Impossible! I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah." | |
| • | Attitudes in the Middle East are shaped to an outsize degree by mosque and madrassah, where Muslim clerics hold the keys. | |
| • | Many Muslim religious leaders point fingers at ISIS and Al Qaeda, hoping to distract attention from the fundamentalist message they serve up regularly, teaching contempt – and worse – for Jews, Christians, Westerners and gays. | |
| • | Recently, Mufti Muhammad Hussein, Palestinian President Abbas' appointee as chief religious authority, publicly stated that killing Jews — accepted in Islam as the "people of the Book" — is a Muslim obligation. | |
| • | When the great Chassidic Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchiv was asked how a charity campaign was going, he replied that he was halfway there. | |
| • | "I've gotten the poor to agree to receive. Now all I have to do is convince the rich to give." | |
| • | In the Middle East, there are people who lost their children to terrorists, yet still yearn for peace. | |
| • | Others embrace the preachers who teach the "holiness" of hate. | |
| • | In 2017, it seems, we are barely halfway there. | |
Ralph Peters: Turkish tyrant Erdogan's very low new low (Fox 03/23/2017)
| • | When a political charlatan lacks character as well as imagination, a tantrum in the face of reverses nowadays is apt to climax with him spitting the epithet "Nazi" at opponents. | |
| • | "Nazi" is the go-to insult wielded by immoral losers everywhere. | |
| • | The latest instance of diplomatic speech-decay comes courtesy of Turkey's would-be sultan, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently lashed out at the Dutch and Germans, calling them, yes, "Nazis." | |
| • | His successive outbursts erupted because the Dutch and German authorities would not allow Turkish politicians to hold rabble-rousing, neo-Islamist rallies on their soil. | |
| • | A majority "Yes" vote would fundamentally alter Turkey's government, converting it from a rough-and-ready parliamentary system to a "presidential" structure half a step shy of dictatorship. | |
| • | Erdogan thought it would be just fine to have his henchmen stir up division and hatred on foreign soil. | |
| • | Erdogan's Muslim-Brotherhood-influenced program also aims to deter Turks from integrating into European societies. | |
| • | For his bigoted part, Erdogan wants diaspora Turks to keep their distance from degenerate notions such as freedom of speech and association, free elections, women's rights, tolerance, secular education...all the evils of the modern world. | |
| • | At home, Erdogan has more journalists behind bars than China... | |
| • | He has jailed tens of thousands of public officials, educators and military officers (he used last summer's failed coup as an excuse for a massive purge of potential opponents). | |
| • | He's been rolling back Mustapha Kemal Ataturk's secular constitution at a breakneck pace. | |
| • | And, purely for political advantage, he re-ignited the conflict with Turkey's Kurds that had seemed a thing of the past. He has killed his own people, barbarously, after cynically labeling them as "terrorists." | |
| • | Erdgoan blackmailed Europe with refugees, cozied up to Vladimir Putin to blackmail NATO, and he's threatening a blackmail of base closures against the United State, if we don't break our laws and simply hand over Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living quietly in the Poconos whom Erdogan views as a threat to his one-man rule. | |
| • | And then, last week, he labelled German Chancellor Angela Merkel a "Nazi." ... Erdogan does know how to insult a German. | |
| • | As for the Dutch, they suffered terribly under the real Nazis three-quarters of a century ago. Calling the Dutch "Nazis" is as absurd, repulsive and insulting as claiming that Anne Frank served in the SS. | |
| • | Surely, all civilized people can agree that the term "Nazi" should be reserved for the real thing. | |
| • | What does one make of a head of state so irresponsible that he cannot control his mouth, insults would-be allies and violates the basic norms of decency? | |
Farage: Anti-Travel Ban Protesters Need to Reflect on London Terror Attack (Fox 03/22/2017)
| • | Brexit leader Nigel Farage reacted to Wednesday's terror attack in London, saying it should highlight the importance of properly vetting immigrants and refugees. | |
| • | "We've made some terrible mistakes in this country." | |
| • | He said the multiculturalism first championed by former Prime Minister Tony Blair led to divided communities. | |
| • | Farage said Americans watching the events on Westminster Bridge should start realizing that when President Trump enacts stricter vetting measures, he is doing it to protect the homeland and not to be divisive. | |
| • | "Protesters... need to have a long, hard think about what they are doing," he said, calling lax immigration policies an "open door inviting terrorism." | |
| • | He said such measures as 'extreme vetting' are common-sense, and added that Britons are hoping to look for stronger guidance from their leaders. | |
Hirsi Ali: Islamic Terrorists 'Don't Go to Liberals and Say Thank You' for Being PC (Fox 03/22/2017)
| • | ... criticized what she considered the "apologetic attitude" some liberals around the world have toward identifying the religious component to Islamic terrorism. | |
| • | Ali, a women rights activist who was raised Muslim in Somalia but later became an apostate, called such a mindset "masochistic and stupid." | |
| • | ... radical Islamic terrorists "don't go to liberals and say thank you so much, we'll stop terrorizing you" because of some on the left refuse to identify terrorism's religious component. | |
| • | Islamists only seek a Sharia-compliant world, Ali said, in the wake of Wednesday's attack in London, a city with progressive leadership, "and whoever is in their way is their enemy." | |
| • | She said anyone who does not understand that should not be legislating policy. | |
| • | Ali said that President Trump's Youngstown, Ohio campaign speech first showed her that he took the terror threat seriously, and selectively praised his travel ban. | |
| • | She said the ban was a good idea but was "clumsily" enacted. | |
| • | "It's incredibly difficult to vet people coming from [those countries]," she said, maintaining that he should have consulted more lawyers and experts to root out any inefficiencies in the document. | |
Steyn: Dems Turned Putin Into 'Bond Villain' With 'Drumbeat' Against Russia (Fox 03/20/2017)
| • | "They want to believe that they didn't lose the election... that someone stole it from them," Steyn said, calling their drumbeat against Russia "nuts." | |
| • | He said that the federal investigation into Russia's actions is akin to doing Putin's bidding, by appearing to undermine an American president "more than having some cabinet secretary in [Putin's] pocket would." | |
| • | He said the idea that America should turn Russia into a sworn enemy is "idiotic," calling Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan more dangerous than Putin. | |
| • | If President Trump's "Make America Great Again" plan does not conflict with Putin's plan to make Russia strong again, America should act more strategically toward the Kremlin. | |
Is Le Pen mightier than the sword? (Fox 02/20/2017)
| • | Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, is campaigning on an anti-illegal immigrant, anti-European Union, unabashedly populist platform. | |
| • | And yes, except for being a woman and not a billionaire, she could easily be called France's Donald Trump. | |
| • | Her chances of actually winning are considered slim, just as Trump's were. Her rhetoric is heated and offensive to many, like Trump's. She has no regard for traditional rules of political conduct. | |
| • | Her fans are rabid, her enemies legion and vicious in their appraisal of her. She is loathed by the press that covers her just like ... go ahead, fill in the blank. | |
| • | ... her self-declared supporters — most of them blue-collar working class or unemployed — say they will vote for only Le Pen or not at all. | |
| • | Much of her support comes for her non-stop call to halt immigrants from flooding into France as they have since the European Union opened its doors to displaced refugees from the Middle East and Africa. | |
| • | That open-arms policy is deeply unpopular in France. Le Pen vows to end it. | |
| • | She also questions the value of French membership in the EU, but has stopped short of saying she would lead a "Frexit" movement. | |
| • | Right now, the carnivorous French press are honing their swords over unproven allegations that Le Pen, who is also an elected member of the European Parliament, paid her personal bodyguard with funds earmarked for parliamentary purposes. | |
| • | Her late father, from whom she inherited leadership of the National Front, was a racist and a Holocaust denier. | |
| • | Le Pen rejects her father's extremism, but has carried on his mantra that France should be for the French. | |
| • | Le Pen visited Trump Tower in New York last month, but only to visit a friend who lives there. Both she and the American president say they never met. | |
| • | ... most political polls last November gave Trump no chance of winning the White House. | |
| • | Crow tastes better when it's marinated in a good French wine, don't you think? | |
The surprising truth about Iran and the West (Fox 02/16/2017)
| • | For the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, the United States treated Iran as if it were a major rising power in the world dominating the Middle East. | |
| • | But Iran is not a First World or even Second World power. | |
| • | Iran, as a Third World country, is far weaker than either the superpower United States or the rising First World power Israel. | |
| • | The Iranian military is weak, with very limited naval and air force capability. | |
| • | In the eight year war with Iraq in the 1980s the Iranian military was unable to beat Saddam Hussein's military. | |
| • | By contrast, in 2003 the American military destroyed it and took Baghdad in only 22 days. | |
| • | The United States can also likely count on help from three regional powers — Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. | |
| • | Iran takes 58th in the world in research and development. In business Iran rates 137th in the world for ease of doing business and 67th for entrepreneurship. Fully 20% of the adult population is illiterate. | |
| • | Given all this the fear of Iran getting nuclear weapons still remains real. | |
| • | But, even more real is the notion that the biggest power in the world, plus three significant regional powers, could handle Iran if they would put their minds to it. | |
| • | Only time will tell if that will happen in the days of the new American administration. | |
How to really deal with the North Korean nuclear threat (Fox 02/08/2017)
| • | North Korea is a "small country, far-away, about which we know little," to paraphrase a fateful comment in defense of appeasement from the 1938 crisis over Czechoslovakia. | |
| • | But there is one thing every American needs to know about far-away North Korea: its rulers are on a methodical and relentless quest for the capability to hit New York and Washington with nuclear weapons. | |
| • | The nuclear campaign that North Korea ... is planning against the United States is one it intends to win. | |
| • | Washington is badly unprepared to meet this threat, because too many of our leaders do not understand the Pyongyang game-plan. | |
| • | As bizarre and satire-prone as the North Korean regime's buffoonish-looking Kim Jong-Un and his servile courtiers may be, Pyongyang's leadership is neither irrational nor suicidal. | |
| • | The rationale behind this confrontation would actually be to achieve a maximum of strategic gain with a minimum of actual destruction and violence. | |
| • | The basic idea is to force Washington to blink in an escalating crisis on the Korean peninsula — a crisis of Pyongyang's own making, at a time and under circumstances of Pyongyang's own choosing. | |
| • | America's policy toward the DPRK has been an immense success in preserving a ceasefire in the Korean peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953 — this is "deterrence." | |
| • | But for more than a generation, bipartisan U.S. efforts to keep North Korea from developing nuclear weapons have come to naught. | |
| • | This should not surprise: only the North Korean government can denuclearize — and the existing government has absolutely no interest in making that dream come true. | |
| • | We need more effective defenses against the DPRK's means of destruction while simultaneously weakening the regime's capabilities for both conventional and strategic offense. | |
| • | Restoring badly eroded U.S. military capabilities — naval, air, ground forces and an aged strategic arsenal — is essential. | |
| • | As for weakening the DPRK's military economy, the foundation for all its offensive capabilities: we should put Pyongyang back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list — it never should have been removed in 2008. | |
| • | Sanctions with genuine bite should be implemented — the dysfunctional DPRK economy is uniquely susceptible to them. | |
| • | The United Nations has already gotten a comprehensive report on North Korea's grisly human rights record from its Commission of Inquiry on the situation in the DPRK: let governments of conscience now seek international criminal accountability for North Korea's leadership. | |
| • | Then there is the China question. ... it is time for Beijing to pay a penalty for its support for the most odious regime on the planet today. | |
Will President Trump stand behind his red line with Iran? (JWR 02/08/2017)
| • | The statement, followed by others and new financial sanctions on Iran, drew a diplomatic red line for that troublesome country. | |
| • | ... listed a long series of Iranian transgressions, including funding global terrorism, flouting U.N. resolutions on ballistic missile tests and attacking ships in international waters. He could have also mentioned seizing American sailors. | |
| • | "As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice." | |
| • | Asked later whether military action was a possibility, Trump said what all presidents claim: Everything is on the table. | |
| • | The situation is particularly precarious because after President Barack Obama's numerous empty threats, the United States has scant credibility to enforce them. | |
| • | Predictably, Iran dismissed the U.S. bluster and launched another rocket as Trump's domestic opponents protested his temporary immigration ban and its rollout. | |
| • | "The United States needs to be less predictable," Trump said. | |
| • | You may have noticed in the new president's first two weeks there was a good deal of unpredictability. Not by accident. | |
| • | "Iran," Vice President Mike Pence warned Sunday, "would do well not to test the resolve of this new president." | |
| • | And with his national security and State department secretaries in place, Trump now has his team assembled. | |
| • | A problem with ambiguity, of course, is that a paranoid opponent might overreact. | |
| • | More importantly, Trump must be prepared to impose consequences on his "notice." | |
| • | And then be prepared for the enemy's reaction to those consequences. | |
| • | Let Iran imagine how bad the consequences might be, starting with renewed sanctions. | |
Donald, duck! Now the Europeans are coming after you (Fox 02/01/2017)
| • | It's one thing to watch Chuck Schumer manufacture tears for immigrants, or Nancy Pelosi critique a nominee for the Supreme Court, for whom she is not entitled to vote. | |
| • | They are at least Americans, and entitled to voice their discontent with Donald Trump's nascent administration. | |
| • | It's another matter for the European Union – the most dysfunctional political and economic Rubik's Cube ever devised – to launch a frontal assault on its traditional across-the-waters ally, and, by the way, its main guarantor of military protection. | |
| • | In a piece of political showmanship on a par with Baghdad Bob (remember him?), the president of the E.U. has equated the Trump administration with China, Russia and radical Islamic terror as a threat to the security of Europe. | |
| • | Then came the sucker punch: "Particularly the change in Washington puts the European Union in a difficult situation; with the new administration seeming to put into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy." | |
| • | He's right. Trump has – in typically blunt fashion – said that European countries, long protected by NATO, have to pay their fair share for their own defense, or risk NATO becoming obsolete. In other words, the free ride is over. | |
| • | ... Tusk, who has to keep his member states in line lest another one threaten to pull out, is taking a chance of alienating the United States as a way of asserting E.U. influence. | |
| • | Tellingly, Tusk had his January 31 letter delivered to 27 E.U. member states – but not to the United Kingdom. | |
| • | In it, he implored his neighbors: "Let us show our European pride. If we pretend we cannot hear the words and we do not notice the decisions aimed against the E.U. and our future, people will stop treating Europe as their wider homeland." | |
| • | Exactly, Mr. Tusk. Exactly. Check the bellwether of public opinion. | |
A Comedy of Terrors: Western progressive thinking against nature & man (INN 01/17/2017)
Enemy of my enemy: Trump's comments on Russia may be intended for Chinese ears (Fox 01/10/2017)
| • | Of the many unconventional moves and remarks President-Elect Donald Trump already has made before taking office, one that rattles both Republicans and Democrats is his admiration for Vladimir Putin and his seeming determination to improve U.S.-Russian ties. | |
| • | But what if this most unusual leader is following his businessman's instincts, and taking a page from the diplomatic playbook of two brilliant world power players: Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger | |
| • | While no one – even Trump – thinks Putin is our BFF, the new president has been, even before he announced his candidacy, critical of China's double standard when it comes to trade with the U.S. and manipulation of its own currency. | |
| • | While the echo chamber of most cable news channels and newspaper editorial pages has reacted with shock and horror, Trump's denunciation of China versus his pragmatic stance on Russia recalls the historic and visionary Triangular Diplomacy employed by Nixon and Kissinger to rebalance relations among China, the Soviet Union and the U.S | |
| • | Whether Trump is planning a similar reshuffle in relations with China and Russia is unclear. But his harsh rhetoric about China's trade policies and expansion of its influence in Southern Asia, versus his kinder, gentler approach to Russia has China on its guard. | |
| • | The state-run China Daily newspaper last week warned the incoming administration not to push Beijing too far, or face consequences. | |
| • | That is something the Chinese never had to tell Barack Obama. They didn't and don't fear him. | |
| • | They might not fear Trump either, but they are wary. And that's a good thing. | |
This is the moment for an Israeli victory (INN 01/07/2017)
| • | The U.S.-sponsored Israeli–Palestinian "peace process" began in December 1988, when Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat met American conditions and "accepted United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, recognized Israel's right to exist and renounced terrorism". | |
| • | That peace process screeched to an end in December 2016, when the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 2334. | |
| • | "Forget about negotiating with Israel. Just pressure the international community to force Israel to comply with the resolution and surrender up all that you demand." | |
| • | As 28 years of frustration and futility clang to a sullen close, the time is nigh to ask, "What comes next?" | |
| • | I propose an Israeli victory and a Palestinian defeat. | |
| • | ... Washington should encourage Israelis to take steps that cause Mahmoud Abbas, ... and the rest of that crew to realize that the gig is up, that no matter how many U.N. resolutions are passed, their foul dream of eliminating the Jewish state is defunct, that Israel is permanent, strong, and tough. After the leadership recognizes this reality, the Palestinian population at large will follow, as will eventually other Arab and Muslim states, leading to a resolution of the conflict. | |
| • | Palestinians will gain by finally being released from a cult of death to focus instead on building their own policy, society, economy, and culture. | |
| • | With his life-long pursuit of winning ("We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning"), Trump would probably be drawn to an approach that has our side win and the other side lose. | |
| • | Victory also suits the current mood of Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. He's not just furious at being abandoned in the United Nations, he has an ambitious vision of Israel's global importance. | |
| • | ... Netanyahu being photographed recently carrying a copy of historian John David Lewis's "Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History" ... signals that he is explicitly thinking in terms of victory in war. | |
| • | Lewis in his book looks at six case studies, concluding that in each of them "the tide of war turned when one side tasted defeat and its will to continue, rather than stiffening, collapsed." | |
| • | That the Obama administration effectively became an ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran scared Sunni Arab states, Saudi Arabia at the fore, into being far more realistic than ever before; needing Israel for the first time. | |
| • | For these four reasons — Security Council Resolution 2334, Trump, Netanyahu, and Iran — the moment is right to meet the new year and the new administration with a revamped Middle East policy, one aiming for the Palestinians to "taste defeat." | |
Thanks to our mistakes with Iran, the North Korean threat to the US is at record levels (Fox 01/06/2017)
| • | Well you know it's the New Year when North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is threatening a new ballistic missile or nuclear test. | |
| • | This time, though, Kim Jong-un is saying the "Hermit Kingdom" is in the final stages of preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). | |
| • | This would be Pyongyang's first test of an ICBM. | |
| • | North Korea conducted over 20 ballistic missile tests in 2016 and has conducted 7 nuclear tests in the last decade, with 2 of those also coming in 2016. | |
| • | So much for those Western reporters who wondered if Kim Jong-un would be different from his father. | |
| • | They pointed to his "western education," love of the National Basketball Association, indifference towards politics and fondness for James Bond movies. | |
| • | Most concerning to me in recent years has been North Korea's ability to launch the long range Unha-3 rocket to successfully get 2 satellites in space. | |
| • | Several observers believe Kim Jong-un's threatened ICBM test could come on January 8th, the North Korean ruler's birthday or on January 20th, the date of the U.S. Presidential Inaugural. | |
| • | President-elect Donald Trump will have to deal with many national security challenges when he becomes our 45th President on January 20th. | |
| • | These range from cyber attacks, radical Islam, securing our borders and rebuilding our military. | |
| • | The North Korean threat, with its combined nuclear and ballistic missile technology capability, must rank near the top. | |
| • | On the campaign trail, candidate Donald Trump called the Iranian nuclear deal "the stupidest deal of all time" and said his top priority would be to "dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran." | |
| • | With regards to North Korea, candidate Trump said he wanted China to get more involved to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program. | |
| • | He's been right about both Iran and China. | |
| • | Iran has been the "great enabler" of the national security threat America faces today from North Korea. | |
| • | As documented years ago ... Iran has been in bed with North Korea since the early 1980s and has helped fund North Korea's missile development through oil and cash payments. | |
| • | ... Iran and North Korea entered into a scientific and technology agreement on September 1, 2012. | |
| • | ... following the 2012 scientific and technology deal between Tehran and Pyongyang, Iran deployed technical staff to North Korea to help with joint nuclear and missile development efforts. | |
| • | Following Iran signing the Geneva interim agreement, senior North Korean officials met in Tehran in 2014 to discuss expansion of ties between the 2 countries. | |
| • | A number of meetings involving Iranian and North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile technology experts reportedly took place in 2015. | |
| • | ... Iran has conducted at least 8 ballistic missile tests since the Iran nuclear agreement was signed. | |
| • | ... it was documented that North Korea and Iran were both using the same miniaturized warhead design that can be traced back to the infamous Pakistani scientist... | |
| • | Yes, our new President is inheriting the most complex national security and foreign policy situation a U.S President has ever faced. | |
| • | We are now seeing the consequences of getting a nuclear deal with Iran just to get a deal. | |
| • | Allowing Iran to be at least $150 BN richer as a result of unfreezing its assets, makes the current North Korean threat our new President now faces much more difficult. | |
| • | Make no mistake, thanks to "enablers" like Iran, the North Korean threat is the greatest nuclear weapons challenge to the United States since the Cold War. | |
| • | Come January 20th, 2017 it will be time for America to act and lead once again. | |
If Trump really wants to restore America’s global power, here are 5 lessons he must embrace (Fox 12/30/2016)
| • | The reality is that there isn't, and has never been, an accepted post-Cold War Liberal Order. | |
| • | And worse, the false assumption that one existed has contributed to two decades of decline in American global influence. | |
| • | With the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. had tremendous power to shape international security developments. | |
| • | But this opportunity was squandered, under both Republican and Democratic presidencies, as they embraced unrealistic, even utopian, foreign policy agendas. | |
| • | Both George W. Bush and Barak Obama aspired to transplant the American model around the world, toppling governments if necessary. | |
| • | The problem is, rather than birthing democratic regimes, this approach created failed states and vast areas of lawlessness which have become primary sources of international and regional insecurity. | |
| • | ... having won on a promise of fundamental change, President-elect Trump has an opportunity to dramatically shift the underlying assumptions that have guided two decades of foreign policy. | |
| • | If Trump is serious in his desire to restore American international power, there are some clear lessons that his administration must embrace. | |
| • | First, the impact of geopolitics is not nearly as diminished as American foreign policy has assumed. | |
| • | ... Putin has recognized that geography remains both a powerful asset and constraint, while Presidents Bush and Obama each demonstrated a lack of geographic concern by pursuing pet projects that established new landlocked countries. | |
| • | Next, avoid the idealistic assumptions that have led to failed states and ungoverned territories – the chief sources of current insecurity. | |
| • | Presidents Bush and Obama helped create five failed states by encouraging the downfall of hardline leaders, despite having no plan for what happens after. | |
| • | These interventions, which relied on a misbelief that power voids would be filled by democratic movements, have led to far worse conditions for the citizens and neighbors of each state than before the U.S. sought each dictator's removal. | |
| • | Third, maintain cooperative relations with Russia and China – or at least one of them | |
| • | The U.S. has long benefitted from the fact that its two main strategic rivals border each other, and thus, face more threats from each other than from the U.S. | |
| • | However, as has become clear over the last several years, when the U.S. has security conflicts with both China and Russia, the two nations are driven to cooperate more closely. | |
| • | Fourth, examine the motivations of a state, not just its leaders. | |
| • | In recent years, the U.S. has even intervened in domestic politics abroad, believing leadership change could fundamentally re-shape a foreign states' policies. | |
| • | ... an examination of America's decades-long assumption of an idealistic world order has made clear that it is the cutting of deals that can expand policy options and bolster security. | |
| • | Sanctifying some non-ideal situations may at times be distasteful, but it will lead to a far better reality than well-intended policies that create real nightmares. | |
Alan Dershowitz: John Kerry's meaningless speech and tragic missed opportunity (Fox 12/28/2016)
| • | Because Secretary Kerry's speech Wednesday came after the U.S.'s abstention on the Security Council vote, nobody in Israel will pay any attention to anything he said. | |
| • | Had the speech come before the abstention, there would have been some possibility of it influencing the debate within Israel. | |
| • | But following the U.S. abstention, Kerry has lost all credibility with Israelis across the political spectrum. | |
| • | The speech itself was as one-sided as the abstention. | |
| • | It failed to mention the repeated offers from Israel to end the occupation and settlements, and to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza: Arafat's rejection of the Clinton-Barak proposals in 2000-2001: and Abbas' failure to respond to the Olmert offer in 2008. | |
| • | To fail to mention these important points is to demonstrate the bias of the speaker. | |
| • | Kerry also discussed the Palestinian refugees, without even mentioning the equal number of Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries. | |
| • | Finally Kerry, seemed to confirm that in his view any changes from the pre-1967 lines would not be recognized without mutual agreement. | |
| • | This means that the prayer plaza at the Western Wall, the access roads to Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem on now all illegally occupied. | |
| • | This is, of course, a non-starter for Israelis. It is also wrong as a matter of history and law. | |
| • | Jordan captured these historically Jewish areas in 1948 when all the surrounding Arab countries attacked the new Jewish nation in an attempt to destroy it. | |
| • | When Jordan attacked Israel again in 1967, Israel recaptured these Jewish areas and allowed Jews to return to them. | |
| • | That is not an illegal occupation. It is a liberation. | |
| • | His one-sidedness was also evident in his failure to press the Palestinian leadership to accept Netanyahu's open offer to begin negotiations immediately with no pre-conditions. | |
| • | The existing settlements — even if expanded — do not pose any danger to the two-state solution, if the Palestinians really want their own state more than they want there not to be a Jewish state. | |
| • | ... settlement expansion is the consequence of Palestinian refusal to accept repeated offers from Israeli governments to end the occupation and settlements in exchange for peace. | |
| • | The primary barrier to the two-state solution remains the Palestinian unwillingness to accept the U.N. resolution of 1947 calling for two states for two peoples — the Jewish people and the Arab people. | |
| • | This means explicit recognition by Palestinians to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. | |
| • | The most important point Kerry made on Wednesday is that the Obama administration will not unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, without an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. | |
| • | He also implied that U.S. will not push for any additional Security Council resolutions. | |
| • | Kerry's speech is therefore just that: a speech with little substance and no importance. | |
| • | It will be quickly forgotten along with the many other one-sided condemnations of Israel that litter the historical record. | |
| • | Kerry could have done a real service to peace if he had pressed the Palestinian leadership to come to the negotiation table as hard as he pressed the Israeli leadership to end settlement expansions. | |
Why UN resolution condemning Israel is Wiesenthal Center's top anti-Semitic incident of 2016 (Fox 12/27/2016)
| • | The latest diplomatic ambush of Israel was only made possible by the US' historic reversal of its decades-long Mideast policy of vetoing one-sided anti-Israel initiatives at the United Nations Security Council. | |
| • | President Obama's ambassador's "abstention" last week at the United Nations was actually an endorsement of an onerous one-sided resolution that among other items, defines Judaism's holiest site as "occupied Palestinian territory" and encourages nations to undertake the boycott of goods made by Jews in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. | |
| • | That's why we've named it our top anti-Semitic incident of 2016. | |
| • | Make no mistake. This new resolution — developed with the Obama administration's knowledge and some say with its collusion — is much worse and more dangerous than the U.N.'s notorious 1975 Zionism equals Racism resolution. | |
| • | It radically undermines, if not destroys, Israel's relationship with the U.N. | |
| • | It makes any role for the U.N. in future Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations impossible. | |
| • | It has effectively removed any incentive for the Palestinian Authority to have face-to-face negotiations with the Jewish State. | |
| • | In their own countries, the French, British, Germans, Italians, and Ukrainian security forces spend days and nights searching every street corner for suspected terrorists threatening their citizenry. | |
| • | Yet the mantra of what is blocking the solution of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, remains one word, not terrorism, but "settlements". | |
| • | You want to guarantee a peaceful two-state solution? Convene a Security Council meeting on how to dislodge Hamas from Gaza, and you'll have one. | |
| • | That these bare knuckle anti-Israel maneuvers are launched against America's only reliable Middle East ally by its long-time ally, is despicable enough, but that it has been launched at 11:59 of the Obama Administration is almost beyond belief. | |
| • | If the U.N. ... continues its non-stop demonization of the Jewish state, we hope that the new Trump administration will seriously consider endorsing Senator Lindsay Graham's threatened bill to downsize the U.S.'s oversized annual financial contribution to the organization. | |
| • | As for President Obama and Secretary Kerry, their last-minute U.N. gambit seeks to add a fourth "achievement" to their Middle East legacy. Here are the other three: | |
| • | 1. Failure to destroy ISIS, early and outright. | |
| • | 2. The Iran nuclear deal that has only succeeded in furthering empowering the mullahocracy. | |
| • | 3. Syrian "red line" debacle. | |
| • | No matter what the pressure, no Israeli government, left, right or center, will ever accept that our people's sacred sites are built on stolen land; nor will it ever validate the lies denying the Jewish people's 3,500 link to the Holy Land — those very lies that now pass for historic "fact" at the United Nations. | |
| • | And rest assured, too, that Israel will never walk the gangplank for the convenience of a hypocritical world. | |
Cal Thomas: Will the West ever wake up to the ticking time bombs of radicalized Muslim immigrants? (Fox 12/27/2016)
| • | During the great wave of immigration in the early 20th century, the United States barred those afflicted with tuberculosis, venereal disease, trachoma and other serious diseases from entering the country. | |
| • | Now a different kind of infection is invading Europe and increasingly the United States. | |
| • | It's called radical Islamic terrorism. | |
| • | The West continues to admit people from terrorist countries, people who have been infected with this killer disease, seemingly fearing the affliction less than being labeled intolerant. | |
| • | So afraid of being charged with Islamophobia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted more than 1 million refugees in 2015 from nations that breed terrorists. | |
| • | It was inevitable that some would come to destroy rather than assimilate. | |
| • | Mounting evidence that many of these people are time bombs waiting to explode still fails to open eyes that have been deliberately shut. | |
| • | Responding to the latest terrorist attacks, President-elect Donald Trump said he has been proved "100 percent correct" when it comes to his plans to curtail Muslim immigrants from nations that spawn terrorists. | |
| • | Given the number already in Europe or those who have been self-radicalized and allowed into the U.S., it may be too late. | |
| • | The West can either acquiesce or fight back. | |
| • | Trump wants to fight back. It's better than waiting for the next attack, hoping we're not the target. | |
Ralph Peters: The Feast of Stephen 2016: We are living in a new age of Christian martyrs (Fox 12/26/2016)
| • | The second line of the Christmas carol slips past us. | |
| • | We hear "Good King Wenceslas looked out..." But what about the next bit, "...on the Feast of Stephen?" What's that about? | |
| • | December 26th is St. Stephen's Day — the Feast of Stephen — long an important celebration in the Christian calendar and now largely ignored. It's time to bring it back. | |
| • | Stephen was the first Christian martyr, the protomartyr, stoned to death in the years of persecution that followed the death of Jesus. | |
| • | ... Stephen was "a man full of faith," appointed to oversee the care of neglected widows. | |
| • | Stephen took on the established authorities, corrupt in deed and belief, and they could not refute his arguments. | |
| • | So, in timeless human fashion, the powers-that-were bribed witnesses against him. | |
| • | What has this to do with us, as the Year of Our Lord 2017 approaches? To believing Christians, the answer might be "Everything." | |
| • | The 2,000-year-old Middle-Eastern Christian civilization that began in the days of St. Stephen lies in ruins, persecuted as never before. | |
| • | As the Obama administration averted its self-righteous gaze, a religious genocide already underway accelerated across the region. | |
| • | Stubborn and dogmatic, the administration refused to acknowledge the problem of Christian refugees — those who'd survived the kidnappings, tortures, rapes, massacres and broad religious cleansing — even to the extent of labeling those who wished to help Christians as bigots. | |
| • | In Obama's global village, there's no room at the inn for Christian refugees. There's not even a stable. | |
| • | We've watched as a great religious civilization nears extermination. | |
| • | For millennia, through good and horrid times, the three great monotheist religions of the Middle East rubbed along together (with varying levels of friction). | |
| • | Then, in the lifetime of many of this column's readers, the Jews were driven out. Next came the turn of the Christians, as well as a number of minority faiths. | |
| • | Thanks to extremist Islam. | |
| • | This is a new age of martyrs. It's a time when those who believe in the transcendent generosity of Christ are driven from their homes to suffer exile. It's an age of blood spilled at a ravaged cross. | |
| • | Where are the campus demonstrations against the torture, rape and murder, the dispossession and massacre of Christians? | |
| • | Where is the outrage in the media? | |
| • | Where are the modern Pharisees we call "public intellectuals." | |
| • | Where are the consciences in our can't-be-bothered government? | |
| • | Those Christians who survive the new barbarians become refugees with nowhere to go. | |
| • | Assigned to "all-faith" asylum homes in Europe, they're tormented, beaten and threatened by violent migrants. | |
| • | Yet, we in the United States bar the door against them — in the name of religious tolerance, of all things. | |
| • | One day, we will be as ashamed of our denial of Christian refugees as deeply as we are shamed by our rejection of Jewish refugees from the Nazis. | |
| • | In this new age of martyrdom, a time when forces such as the Islamic State inflict torments on Christian captives to rival the tortures endured by the early saints, it's time to revive St. Stephen's Day to honor the countless martyrs our leaders ignore. | |
Diplomatic terrorism at the UN, courtesy President Obama (Fox 12/24/2016)
| • | The vicious condemnation of Israel at the UN Security Council on December 23, 2016 is a watershed moment in U.S.-UN relations – albeit not as President Obama hoped. | |
| • | Following the vote of fourteen in favor and one American abstention, Palestinian representative Riyadh Mansour and American Ambassador Samantha Power exchanged a telling handshake. | |
| • | Evidently, President Obama believes that he has put one over on Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the incoming Trump administration. | |
| • | But here's another possibility: treachery at the UN will not be cost free. | |
| • | Let's be absolutely clear about what has just happened. The Palestinians have completed the hijacking of every major UN institution. | |
| • | The 2016 General Assembly has adopted nineteen resolutions condemning Israel and nine critical of all other UN states combined. | |
| • | ... Israeli settlements are "the single biggest threat to peace" and the "primary threat to the viability of the two-state solution." | |
| • | Not seven decades of unremitting Arab terror and violent rejection of Jewish self-determination in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. | |
| • | This is not just any lie. This is the big lie of modern antisemitism. | |
| • | This is the lie that drove a Palestinian teenager in June of this year to creep into the home of 13-year old Hallel Ariel and butcher her with a knife in the back as she slept in her bed. | |
| • | Obama's failure to veto the resolution is at odds with long-standing American foreign policy that has insisted on peace through negotiations, and not UN-fiat, as the only way to ensure genuine and long-lasting recognition and cooperation | |
| • | At its core, this UN move is a head-on assault on American democracy. President Obama knew full well he did not have Congressional support for the Iran deal, so he went straight to the Security Council first | |
| • | Likewise, he knew that there would have been overwhelming Congressional opposition to this resolution, so he carefully planned his stealth attack. | |
| • | Profound betrayal of a true democratic friend of the United States is the only possible description. | |
| • | "... We overcame those decrees during the time of the Maccabees and we will overcome this evil decree today." | |
| • | The Security Council and President Obama leave a trail of devastation across the planet, with evil empowered and good forsaken. | |
| • | But their record does not have to be our future. Today's vote reminds us of what it takes for evil to triumph. | |
| • | Doing nothing is not an option for our new President and our incoming Congress. | |
| • | The time has come to undertake an urgent and full review of America's relationship to the United Nations, and to suspend financial support until that review can identify how best to use American dollars in the interests of peace, security and human dignity | |
Man who interrogated 9/11 mastermind says terrorists use political correctness to 'spread their jihadi (Fox e'/0/2016)
| • | One of the men who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad told Fox News' "The Kelly File" Wednesday that political correctness "started that chain" that led to Monday night's truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market. | |
| • | "[It] was political correctness and their unwillingness to get this person out of their country who had no business being there because he didn't have the right paperwork to prove who he was." | |
| • | German authorities Wednesday named Amri as the suspect in the attack, which killed 12 people and injured 48 others, touching off a continent-wide manhunt. | |
| • | Mitchell said that he and Mohammed, commonly known as KSM, had discussed the damaging potential of smaller, "lone-wolf"-style attacks more than a decade ago. | |
| • | Mitchell noted that Mohammed had been particularly struck by the terror caused by the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks. | |
| • | "For him, what surprised him was how much paralysis it caused given how few deaths were involved, few from his perspective." | |
| • | "And what he said to me was our civil liberties and our openness and our willingness to be responsive to other peoples' cultures ... were weaknesses and flaws that his God, Allah, had put into the American culture so that we could be defeated." | |
| • | ... Mohammed believed that the easiest way to win what he called "the long battle to take over the world with Sharia law" was "through immigration and by outbreeding non-Muslims." | |
| • | "He said that like-minded jihadi brothers would immigrate to Western democracies and to the United States, they would wrap themselves in our civil liberties for protection." | |
| • | ... "they would support themselves in our welfare systems while they spread their jihadi message, and then, when the time was right, they would rise up and attack." | |
| • | In response to the terror threat, Mitchell called for the U.S. to restrict immigration from countries that promote terrorism. | |
| • | "I hope there's gonna be change, because here's the way political correctness works for a guy like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: It allows them to operate in our midst without being challenged." | |
Will Obama betray America's staunch ally Israel, at the UN? (Fox 12/22/2016)
| • | The UN Security Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on a scandalous and irreversible Palestinian-led resolution purporting to decide that Israeli settlements violate international law. | |
| • | The Palestinians are in a hurry to capitalize on the deep-seated antipathy that President Obama has always had for Israel and its leaders, but occasionally repressed during election-cycles. | |
| • | Now an Obama foreign policy, with strong affinities for the UN mob, is unhinged. | |
| • | Add to this toxic mix, Obama's legacy problem. | |
| • | It turns out that a habit of systematically alienating America's allies and coddling its enemies didn't make the world a safer place. | |
| • | In the Middle East, Obama has left us with the horrors of the Islamic State, 400,000 dead in Syria and millions of refugees, carnage in Yemen, deadly chaos in Libya, and ruthless crackdowns in Turkey. | |
| • | And then there is Obama's Iran – the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism now unabashedly enriching uranium, upgrading centrifuges, and testing ballistic missiles. | |
| • | Not to mention North Korean nuclear weapons testing, occupied Crimea, an aggressive China, and an active stone-age cult called Boko Haram. | |
| • | With a mere four weeks to go until leaving office, the president has come up with a get-tough strategy. Slam Israel. | |
| • | For eight long years, the Palestinians have taken their cues from a President who continually took no for an answer. | |
| • | They said no to a Jewish state, no to direct negotiations, no to ending incitement to terror, no to building homes rather than terror tunnels, no to stopping payments to the families of dead terrorists, no to teaching their youth tolerance instead of violent antisemitism, no to giving up the demand to return millions of Arabs to eradicate a Jewish state demographically, and no to co-habitating with Jews on Arab-claimed land. | |
| • | And through it all, the message coming from the White House was that "settlements" – Jews living peaceful, productive lives on disputed territory whose ownership (by existing agreement) is to be determined through negotiations – are a fatal "obstacle to peace." | |
| • | ... Israelis have repeatedly been moved in advance of a negotiated end to hostilities by their own government for the sake of peace, only to have those hopes dashed time and again. | |
| • | Arab rejectionists consider all of Israel to be occupied territory and an illegal settlement from 1948 on. | |
| • | If President Obama fails to veto the Palestinian resolution – while chuckling from the golf course in Hawaii – the consequences will be profound. | |
| • | It will be a permanent outcome – the Russian and Chinese veto powers would prevent any effort to rescind it in the future by President Trump or any other president. | |
| • | It will doom any prospect of negotiations for the foreseeable future. | |
| • | Palestinians will have no incentive to negotiate since the UN gang will do their work for them. | |
| • | And Israelis will have been double-crossed; negotiated agreements can simply be "appealed" to the UN. | |
| • | ... President Obama made the preposterous claim that "almost every country on Earth sees America stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago." | |
| • | Wounding the people of Israel, who courageously struggle against an implacable foe and yet long for peace with their neighbors, will earn him the respect of the thugs at the U.N., and a legacy of shame. | |
To Islamists, the Germans are a bunch of cowards (INN 12/21/2016)
| • | "You love life, we love death", they continue to repeat. | |
| • | Because wherever they look, the combatants of Allah see only people and governments only too ready to capitulate. | |
| • | We could have hailed a meaningful change in the German policy toward Islamic terrorism if the day after the carnage at the Christmas market in Berlin, a couple of German war planes had bombed the Islamists' bases in the Middle East and pulverized a few dozen of them. | |
| • | Nothing happened. Nothing will happen. | |
| • | Through these random attacks, Muslims are now trying to understand if and how they can defeat the West. | |
| • | ... German "civil society" preferred to criticize itself rather than questioning the tangle of feelings that animates the warriors of Allah. | |
| • | They reacted like someone who is threatened by a hurricane does: accumulating supplies, nailing doors and windows and praying that the storm will end as soon as possible. | |
| • | But Islamic fundamentalists are different: if they don't encounter any resistance, they will act and strike in a more resolute way. | |
| • | If you are targeted by beheadings and kidnappings, bombings and shootings, and you react through hysterical outbursts about a "dialogue between cultures," you will get more violence. | |
Dr. Manny: History will not absolve Fidel Castro (Fox 11/26/2016)
| • | When I heard this morning that Fidel Castro had died, I honestly felt numb. He has been dead to me since the day I left Cuba for America, and over 40 years later, my feelings have not changed. | |
| • | As I worked to start my new life here and raise my beautiful family, I would sometimes hear snippets from grossly misinformed people around the world about the good that came from Fidel's so-called Cuban revolution, and I'd be reminded to count my blessings that I had escaped his horrors. | |
| • | Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was one of those jaded individuals who lauded Fidel's work. | |
| • | Under his tenure, he tried to implement some of Fidel's Cuban socialist ideals in Venezuelan society, which has left the country in economic ruin. Venezuelans are starving, simple needs like toilet paper are considered a luxury, medicine is impossible to find and the country is experiencing a mass exodus. | |
| • | All of this can be considered a legacy of Fidel Castro. | |
| • | As I'm reading about the millions around the world celebrating Fidel's death, my thoughts are with the thousands who died before him, often at the hands of his own doing. | |
| • | ... the Cuban people currently have a government-enforced curfew, and that they are being discouraged from congregating or making any comments about Fidel's death that may escape the island. | |
| • | How ironic, that despite the death of the man who has oppressed them for nearly five decades, the Cuban people are still being told what to do and how to do it. | |
| • | Obama believes that the relationship between America and Cuba can be forged with an all-access pathway, but fails to recognize the 50 years of blood, imprisonment and lack of individual rights that stand in the way. I do believe that Fidel's death will give President-elect Donald Trump an advantage in working to see to it that the only surviving Castro brother is stripped of his power on that island. | |
| • | The book was controversial because it was Fidel's speech about the importance of human rights, due process and fairness of the law in a civilized society. | |
| • | He spoke eloquently during the speech, which he gave while facing charges for a terrorist attack during the Cuban Revolution. | |
| • | How ironic, that the man who once recognized that individual liberties are an enormous part of a productive society, took away each one of them from his people, and died thinking that he did the right thing. | |
| • | History will not absolve Fidel, and neither will we. | |
Ex-Cameron adviser: Anti-Brexit ruling reveals staggering arrogance of liberal elites (Fox 11/04/2016)
| • | In the UK on June 23 this year, 17.4 million people voted in a referendum to leave the EU. It was the biggest democratic mandate for anything, ever, in British history. | |
| • | The decision, now famously known as ‘Brexit', was fought by the political, media and business establishment with all the ferocity that the elites here in America are now displaying in their desperate attempts to stop Donald Trump getting to the White House. | |
| • | In Britain, the people won and the establishment lost. | |
| • | So of course the arrogant ruling class didn't just leave it there: the people may have spoken, but they came up with the wrong answer. | |
| • | That was duly delivered Thursday, as a British court ruled in favor of a legal challenge to the process that UK prime minister Theresa May has set out for implementing the referendum result. | |
| • | In advance of the EU referendum, parliament did have its say. It did hold a vote — and it decided by a six to one margin to put the final decision on leaving the EU in the hands of the people, and to abide by the referendum result. | |
| • | During the campaign itself, the official government voting information distributed to millions of homes said clearly that "This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide". | |
| • | I do not believe that elected representatives will be so stupid as to overturn the democratically expressed verdict of the British people. | |
| • | But even in the unlikely event that they do, it will simply mean that they themselves are voted out in the next election. | |
| • | The establishment's pointless and counterproductive refusal to accept the verdict of the people shows that Britain has a detached and decadent ruling class that can't focus on real things affecting real people, and instead indulges its own vanity while ignoring the economic and social hardship faced by millions of people on a daily basis. | |
| • | American voters, take note. | |
Laura Ingraham: How the elites blew up the world (Fox 10/25/2016)
| • | "We should be more than worried. Neither America nor the world can afford a lurch into Trumpian isolationism." | |
| • | Everyone from The New York Times to Hillary Clinton herself touted the letter signed by 50 former GOP officials in August, stating their opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy. | |
| • | Like the generals in World War I who kept sending larger and larger numbers of men to die in hopeless battles, our elites believe that we need more of the same. | |
| • | There is no end to their handwringing and alarmism over the supposed damage a President Trump would do to the United States. | |
| • | The so-called "mainstream" press ... is full of stories about how Trump presents a threat to the "world order" that has purportedly governed foreign affairs since the end of World War II. | |
| • | But the truth is that the "world order" in question exists only in the minds of those pundits who aren't paying attention to life on this planet. | |
| • | The entire concept of a continuous, stable, and peaceful "world order" that goes back to 1945 would come as a shock to the many Americans who lost friends and loved ones on battlefields in Korea, Vietnam, and countless other places during that period. | |
| • | The whole notion that the world simply ran on auto-pilot, and that U.S. policymakers had few critical decisions to make, is simply wrong. | |
| • | After America's triumph in the Cold War, however, the difficulties of that struggle were quickly forgotten in Washington and the capitals of Europe. | |
| • | Western leaders congratulated themselves on the notion that they had reached "the end of history," and that liberal capitalism would reign supreme in perpetuity — a conclusion directly contradicted by centuries of real-world experience. | |
| • | Armed with this false premise, U.S. foreign policymakers on both sides of the aisle made a serious of disastrous blunders: | |
| • | They believed that NAFTA would promote better relations in North America, and reduce concerns over illegal immigration. | |
| • | They believed that the WTO would serve as a bastion of support for market economies, and would encourage countries like Japan to give up their mercantilist practices. | |
| • | They believed that facilitating the rise of China — by giving the Chinese practically unlimited access to Western markets and technology — would lead to a freer and safer world. | |
| • | They believed that a weakened Russia could do little to challenge the West. | |
| • | They believed that spreading democracy in the Middle East would lead to more stable and peaceful governments in that part of the world. | |
| • | They believed that cramming most of the historic nations of Europe into a single Union with a shared currency would lead to peace and prosperity. | |
| • | They believed that giving away our manufacturing base and welcoming illegal immigrants from around the world would lead to a happier and more prosperous America. | |
| • | They believed that as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton — a donor-controlled hack who may be the least persuasive person ever to hold high public office in this country — could help resolve the significant foreign policy problems that were already becoming obvious by 2009. | |
| • | I could go on, but surely these examples are more than sufficient to prove that our leaders have committed blunder after blunder since the end of the Cold War. | |
| • | History is not kind to fools, and the United States is paying an enormous price for throwing away the strategic advantages it enjoyed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Consider the following facts: | |
| • | Last year, for the 16th year in a row, real median household incomes in the United States were lower than they were in 1999. | |
| • | Middle-aged Americans have now lost most of their careers to an era in which the standard of living for the typical household has fallen. | |
| • | In 1999, China's annual GDP was $1.094 trillion. Last year, it was more than $11 trillion. | |
| • | In 1999, the U.S. national debt was $5.7 trillion. Last year, it was $18.1 trillion. | |
| • | In short, by almost any measure, the United States is weaker than it was during the afterglow of the Cold War — while China, our chief geopolitical adversary, has gotten much stronger. | |
| • | This decline was not inevitable — certainly no major U.S. policymakers predicted it. Instead, it is the result of a series of foolish mistakes that have consistently undermined our position while making life easier for our enemies. | |
| • | For most Americans, the global economy has become a nightmare from which they are trying to escape. | |
| • | On the big foreign policy issues facing America, Trump is right, and the elites are wrong. | |
| • | It is insane — and dangerous — to keep propping up a global trading regime that treats Chinese companies better than American companies. | |
| • | It is insane — and dangerous — to keep wasting the U.S. military on missions that cannot succeed. | |
| • | It is insane — and dangerous — to continue trying to maintain a position in the world that we can no longer afford. | |
| • | It is insane — and dangerous — to tear down all borders and effectively dissolve the nations of the West. | |
| • | Most of all, it is insane to install, as president of the United States, a vapid and untrustworthy politician who has consistently been wrong on every major foreign policy issue of the last 20 years. | |
The dangerous world of the inner circle (Fox 10/22/2016)
| • | "I believe that in all men's lives at certain periods, and in many men's lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the [Inner] Ring and the terror of being left outside." | |
| • | "Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life. ... If you do nothing about it, if you drift with the stream, you will in fact be an "inner ringer." I don't say you'll be a successful one; that's as may be. But whether by pining and moping outside Rings that you can never enter, or by passing triumphantly further and further in — one way or the other you will be that kind of man." | |
| • | We need to identify the Texacos in our lives, those inner rings that give us a temporary sense of belonging and inspire us to withhold invitations from those who would bring down the value of our group. | |
| • | We've also got to be honest with ourselves when we resent other people who are on the inside of circles we'll never break into. | |
| • | Because either way, when we fixate on the inner ring from the inside or the outside, we make ourselves beholden to a small world that constricts our ability to love others. | |
| • | We've got to invite God into these gaping holes in our hearts, those places that give a false sense of security or a bitter sense of resentment. If we do, we'll eventually find our desires change. | |
| • | We will find the inner ring that provides endlessly expanding circles of love where everyone is welcome, even us. | |
If the FARC deal passes, kiss Colombia goodbye (Fox 10/02/2016)
| • | Talk of non-interventionism from the Venezuelan regime belies an eagerness to expand influence beyond their borders. | |
| • | For many years, they have had their eyes on Colombia; now the so-called Peace Agreement will open the door for 21st-century socialism, perhaps irreversibly. | |
| • | On both counts, passage looks probable. Half of constituents plan to vote, and the "yes" side has the edge in support. | |
| • | Many on the "no" side will abstain and discourage participation, since they deem the referendum unconstitutional. | |
| • | Almost no one will read the agreement before voting, and the devil is in the details. | |
| • | This bloc, the brainchild of Hugo Chavez, opposes US influence in the Americas and advocates 21st-century socialism. | |
| • | These regimes have some of the most suffocated economies in world and a flagrant disregard for human rights such as free speech. | |
| • | "[Colombia] has the perfect conditions forChavista rhetoric: economic crisis and corruption." | |
| • | Like other Latin American countries, Colombia already has socialist leanings. | |
| • | Negotiation was in the tens of millions of dollars, but that is pennies compared to what is in store, up to $187 billion in the first 10 years. | |
| • | One reason is the bribe for FARC members: $700 up front and $217 per month for two years for 10,000-17,500 people. | |
| • | Gushing international praise from the likes of President Barack Obama is naivete and wishful thinking. | |
| • | Colombia yearns for peace, but she need not capitulate before Latin America's most bloodthirsty guerrillas. | |
| • | Voters can still reject this agreement and pursue a just and lasting solution. | |
"The all-time biggest Trojan Horse" (INN 09/29/2016)
| • | Ever wonder why there are so many Muslims and Muslim countries in the world? | |
| • | Over the millennia many countries were conquered, but didn't remain Persian or Greek or Roman as the case may be. | |
| • | The countries conquered in the name of Islam, became and remained Islamic. | |
| • | This transformation was not by chance but by design. | |
| • | All these countries were conquered by force then shorn of their wealth and many of their women. | |
| • | The inhabitants were either forced to convert or accorded Dhimmi (lower) status. | |
| • | As time went on all cultures submitted and eventually became Islamic. | |
| • | The advance of Islam was finally reversed in Spain and stopped at the Gates of Vienna in 1683. | |
| • | Thereafter the power of Islam went into decline but other than Spain, it never lost its hold on the people it conquered. | |
| • | This decline was reversed in the Twentieth Century when Arabs became wealthy as a result of their vast oil reserves. | |
| • | This wealth was then deployed to conquer the West, not by violent Jihad, but by stealth Jihad. | |
| • | "About sixty-one percent of the contents of the Koran are found to speak ill of the unbelievers or call for their violent conquest; at best only 2.6 percent of the verses of the Koran are noted to show goodwill toward humanity. About seventy-five percent of Muhammad's biography (Sira) consists of jihad waged on unbelievers." | |
| • | Mohammed started as a religious preacher in Mecca. | |
| • | It was during this period that the Koran 2:256 stipulated "There is no compulsion in religion" and 109:1 stipulated "You have your religion I have mine." | |
| • | Ultimately he was chased out of Mecca and migrated with his followers to Medina. | |
| • | Then began the Jihad period. From then on people were forced to convert under pain of death or were forced to live as Dhimmis (second class citizens) and pay (Jizya) for the privilege of living there. | |
| • | Koran 2:193. "Fight them (Kafirs) until there is no more discord and the religion of Allah reigns absolute but if they submit, then only fight those who do wrong." | |
| • | Thus it continues until everyone in the territory has submitted to Islam, accepts Dhimmi status and pays Jizya. | |
| • | Sura 9:5,29,41. "Slay the idolators [non-Muslims] wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the last Day.... Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah!" | |
| • | 51% of the Koran concerns itself with the Kafir. It is a political doctrine not a religious one. There is no golden rule. Kafirs are to be subjugated. Muslims are to dominate. | |
| • | "In the past Muslims tended to stay in Islamic countries. Today, the new politics is to migrate to Kafir lands and immerse themselves in local politics. This is the jihad of money, writing and speech. Their politics is to bring the Sharia to Kafir culture. An example is using Islamic money is to build departments in universities that will support Sharia and never criticize Islam." | |
| • | Unfortunately this migration is encouraged by globalist leaders such as Chancellor Merkel and President Obama. And of course, Hillary Clinton aspires to be one of them. | |
| • | "Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning: establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims' causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims' efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is." | |
| • | "The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers..." | |
| • | "We must possess a mastery of the art of "coalitions," the art of "absorption" and the principles of "cooperation." | |
| • | "Members of the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, and MPAC have sinister goals that are not in support of the US Constitution or The Bill of Rights. They have become a very dangerous "Fifth Column" in the United States, appointed by Obama to very high and sensitive positions in the US Government agencies." | |
| • | "A Trump Administration will establish a clear principle that will govern all decisions pertaining to immigration: we should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people. | |
| • | "In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test. The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today. | |
| • | "In addition to screening out all members or sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles – or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law. | |
| • | "Those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred, will not be admitted for immigration into the country." | |
| • | So you can see, rather that limiting his policy to weeding out terrorists, he advocates weeding out Jihadists who want to subjugate America to Islam. This is not racism. It is common sense and self-defense.. | |
Obama's New Middle East (JWR 09/30/2016)
| • | The new Syria is being born in the rubble of Aleppo. | |
| • | Fighting a guerrilla war with the help of the Sunni population, the anti-regime militias were able to fight from and hide from within the civilian population. | |
| • | Consequently, they were all but impossible to defeat. | |
| • | When Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to join the fight, he and his generals soon recognized that this manner of fighting ensured perpetual war. | |
| • | So they changed tactics. The new strategy involves speeding up the depopulation and ethnic cleansing of rebel-held areas. | |
| • | The massive refugee flows from Syria over the past year are a testament to the success of the barbaric war plan. | |
| • | The idea is to defeat the rebel forces by to destroying the sheltering civilian populations. | |
| • | By adopting a strategy of total war, Putin has ensured that far from becoming the quagmire that President Barack Obama warned him Syria would become, the war in Syria has instead become a means to transform Russia into the dominant superpower in the Mediterranean, at the US's expense. | |
| • | America's loss of control over the eastern Mediterranean is a self-induced disaster. | |
| • | For four years, as Putin stood on the sidelines and hedged his bets, Obama did nothing. | |
| • | As Iran and Hezbollah devoted massive financial and military assets to maintaining their puppet Assad in power, the Obama administration squandered chance after chance to bring down the regime and stem Iran's regional imperial advance. | |
| • | For his refusal to take action when such action could have easily been taken, Obama shares the responsibility for what Syria has become. | |
| • | Russia only went into Syria when Putin was absolutely convinced that Obama would do nothing to stop him from dislodging America as the premier global power in the region. | |
| • | ... Obama chose to stand on the sidelines in Syria because he wanted to make friends with Iran. Obama began his secret courtship of the mullahs even before he officially took office eight years ago. | |
| • | So Obama let Syria burn. He let Iran and Hezbollah transform the country into their colony. | |
| • | And he let Putin transform the Mediterranean into a Russian lake. Obama enabled the ethnic cleansing of Syria's Sunni majority, and in turn facilitated the refugee crisis that is changing the face not only of the Middle East but of Europe as well. | |
| • | Far from causing the Iranian to become more moderate, the nuclear deal has radicalized the regime still further. | |
| • | It is ironic that the new Middle East is coming into focus as Shimon Peres, the failed visionary of a fantasy-based new Middle East, is being laid to rest. | |
| • | But to survive in the real new Middle East, Israel must bury Peres's belief that peace is built by appeasing enemies along with him. | |
| • | The world in which we live has a place for dreamers. But dreams, unhinged from reality, lead to Aleppo, not to peace. | |
After Islamic State, fears of a 'Shiite Crescent' in Mideast (Fox 09/29/2016)
| • | From the point of view of Sunni Arab regimes anxious about Iran's regional ambitions, Islamic State — as repellent as it is — provides a silver lining. | |
| • | The extremist group's firewall blocks territorial contiguity between Iran and its Arab proxies in Syria and Lebanon. | |
| • | Pro-Iranian Shiite militias such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraq's Badr and Asaib Ahl al-Haq are filling the void left by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and they are much better equipped and trained than the Sunni extremist group. | |
| • | Abuses committed by Iranian proxies in Sunni areas are just as bad as those of Islamic State. | |
| • | "They are equally threatening, and one feeds off the other. Both of them are equally vicious, equally treacherous, and equally destructive." | |
| • | The West, he added, fundamentally misunderstood Iranian intentions in the region. | |
| • | "It's wishful thinking that, if we try to embrace them, they may tango with us. That's an illusion." | |
Holidays, Motivation and Shaheeds (INN 09/26/2016)
| • | The new wave of knife stabbing terror in Israel this past week, almost in sync with the terror attacks in the USA, raises the question: "Why now?" | |
| • | The most facile answer is pointing to the Muslim "Id al Adha" — "holiday of offering" — that also took place last week. | |
| • | These holidays are the culmination of a period in which religion, faith in Allah, stringent observance of the commandments and the avoidance of sin, in addition to the vilification of infidels, are paramount. | |
| • | Terror attacks against Jews are justified numerous times in Islamic sources. | |
| • | It is important to note that some of the negative messages in Islamic sources are meant for Christians and idol worshippers as well. | |
| • | To these must be added the promises that whoever sacrifices himself for Allah will be richly rewarded: | |
| • | "Do not think that those who die for Allah are dead, they are alive, and receive their sustenance from Allah." | |
| • | "They sit in Paradise with rivers flowing beneath them and Allah weds them to houris of Paradise." | |
| • | The Hadith – Oral Law – describes the beauties of Paradise lavishly, the presents given to the Shaheed and the pleasures to which he is entitled. | |
| • | The stories of past Islamic glory are told at every performance and in television series, and pride wells in the hearts of listeners at the tales of the conquest of infidels. | |
| • | The Muslims' constant reiteration of past glories leads them to yearn to go back to the days of pure faith that motivated their forebears and enabled their ancestors to empower Islam until it ruled an empire. | |
| • | The pitiful condition of the Islamic world today adds anger to their emotions accompanied by a strong desire to take revenge on whoever brought the Muslims from their powerful position in the past to the wretched misery that defines their status today. | |
| • | Stabbing Jews in Israel as well as terror attacks against infidels in the US or anywhere else during the Muslim holiday season are usually the result of a mixture of the old and new messages described above, and the motivation to perpetrate them comes from the religious material floating in the public space during that period. | |
| • | Another reason has been added to the list – the humiliating consecutive military failures of IS – the organization that once called itself ISIL – in Syria and Iraq. | |
| • | Now, as IS is being defeated on the battlefield, its supporters are out to take revenge on anyone responsible for this defeat, first and foremost the United States. | |
| • | When the Muslim holidays coincide with Jewish or Christian festivals, the maelstrom in the heart of potential terrorists is at an even higher level than usual, because the two religions which monopolize the public space were supposed to have disappeared, according to Islam. | |
| • | It follows that the common denominator of all Jihadists today and the topic that feeds their frenzy, is the commandment to take part in Jihad. | |
| • | Each terrorist feels – whether he is part of a cell or one of those called lone wolves – that his individual duty is Jihad for Allah in order to eliminate the heretics, whether or not he can complete the job and even if he pays with his life. | |
| • | As far as he is concerned, this is the right and logical thing to do. Who would not sacrifice temporal life in a miserable and cruel world for eternal life in a world of pleasure? | |
| • | The world must own up to the truth about the terror attacks perpetrated by Muslims, admit the motivation behind them and the goals which bring them to go out to war against those whom they perceive as enemies. | |
Europe's death rattle: Child euthanasia (INN 09/26/2016)
| • | The child euthanasia program in Nazi Germany, led by Dr. Karl Brandt, was not conducted in the camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka, but in the hospitals. | |
| • | Euthanasia for children reappears 70 years later, for the same reasons and in a country sharing a border with Germany: Belgium. | |
| • | Seventy years ago, it was only thanks the complaints of a bishop, August von Galen, that the Germans knew about the annihilation of children, sick and handicapped. | |
| • | Today in Europe infant euthanasia is performed with the applause of all. | |
| • | Dr. Brandt justified himself by evoking the suffering of his little victims at the Nuremberg Trials at the end of WWII: "I wanted to shorten the tormented existence of those unhappy creatures", Brandt said. | |
| • | Today, in Belgium, Karl Brandt, instead of hanging on the top of the gallows, would be in charge of a medical committee for child care. | |
| • | Child euthanasia, along with the family planning which only plans infertility, the laboratory of neo-Malthusianism and the "experts" of demography who conceal the truth to the public, is a symbol of Europe's biggest malaise: the culture of death and nothing under which the continent is rattling. | |
| • | Today, all of Western civilization is threatened by thanatocracy, a cult of death of which acceptance of Islamism is only one aspect. | |
| • | Our society also contains morbid lethal tendencies, a form of soft death. | |
| • | By secularizing society, the Western world has slipped into the deification of man that leads towards dehumanization. | |
| • | We must resist the thanatocracy by supporting two pillars: the defense of political values derived from the Enlightenment and the Judeo-Christian affirmation of the sacredness of life. | |
When the enemy [Iran] comes to town, we should give them what they deserve (Fox 09/22/2016)
| • | Last summer, the United States, Iran, and other world powers, minted the so-called Iranian Nuclear Deal. | |
| • | Iran talks peace — but promulgates terrorism and radical Islam, while an uncritical American press and feckless international class turns a blind eye to ongoing UN violations. | |
| • | All the while the Iranian regime uses recent cash infusions and new business to expand their radical ambitions. | |
| • | ... but, to quote candidate Barack Obama, "you can put lipstick on a pig...but it's still a pig." | |
| • | Make no mistake about it: despite the foolish efforts of the current American administration to put lipstick on the Iranian nuclear deal, the regime there remains our avowed enemy. Iran wants to kill Americans. | |
| • | Military veterans like me opposed the Iranian deal in the first place because, as we saw first-hand on the battlefield, Iran is an active enemy to American, our allies, and the West. | |
| • | The post-revolutionary Iranian regime was literally founded on opposition to American and the West, with their lodestar being "Death to America." | |
| • | From death squads to powerful IEDs, regime-backed Iranian agents have targeted and killed Americans and our allies wherever possible. "Death to America" literally means dead Americans. | |
| • | In fact, the so-called "moderate" who will stand at the UN podium today personifies this Iranian mantra. In 1995 he stood before a group of pro-regime students and proclaimed, "The beautiful cry of ‘Death to America' unites our nation." | |
| • | Just three years ago, the so-called moderate Rouhani said during his campaign, that "Saying ‘Death to America' is easy. We need to express ‘Death to America' with action. Saying it is easy." | |
| • | Not surprisingly to those who understand the nature of Iran's regime, the signing of a piece of paper has not changed this entrenched view — only accelerated it. | |
| • | Before the ink was dry on the deal, Iran was using their newfound military, financial, and international legitimacy to flex their radical muscles. | |
| • | Not surprisingly to those who understand the nature of Iran's regime, the signing of a piece of paper has not changed this entrenched view — only accelerated it. Before the ink was dry on the deal, Iran was using their newfound military, financial, and international legitimacy to flex their radical muscles. | |
| • | In the past year, Iran has boldly captured American sailors for use in propaganda videos, and continues to actively swarming our ships in international waters — arrogantly violating international norms. | |
| • | Not to mention fanning the flames of extremism and chaos in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel to name a few. | |
| • | All the while, the Obama administration equivocates, backs down, and apologies; a cycle of appeasement interpreted as sheer weakness by the Iranians. | |
| • | Bottom line, New York City ... should not open its arms to the leader of a regime that remains the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. | |
| • | When the enemy comes to town, we should give them what they deserve: the cold shoulder and condemnation. | |
| • | The Iranian deal has not changed the nature of the Iranian regime; instead, it has only made that regime more powerful, more legitimate, and more dangerous. | |
| • | The next president will confront this scary reality. | |
Hey, UN Corruptocrats: Spare Us Refugee Sanctimony (JWR 09/21/2016)
| • | As America reels from the latest terrorist attacks by Muslim refugees and immigrants in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota, the world's global do-gooders filled the Big Apple with their humanitarian hot air. U.N. officials convened in NYC this week to push for "collective action" to "protect the rights of refugees and migrants, to save lives and share responsibility for large movements on a global scale." | |
| • | Islamic jihadists are lopping off infidels' heads; kidnapping young African girls, Christian missionaries and Western tourists; incinerating Afghan schoolgirls; imposing mass genital mutilation on Muslim girls and marrying them off to lecherous brutes while they're still in grade school; pushing gays off of rooftops; mob-raping European women; casting fatwas on cartoonists, filmmakers and authors; and stabbing, shooting and bombing Jews, Christians and ex-Muslim apostates all over the world. | |
| • | But the real problem, the U.N. elites tell us, is "rising xenophobia" in countries whose citizens are sick and tired of open borders. | |
| • | ... President Obama used center stage at the U.N. General Assembly to rail against self-preservationism in favor of "global integration." | |
| • | "A nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself," he lectured. | |
| • | (Pay no attention to the brand-new fence at the White House now nearly 14-feet high to protect Obama from unwanted outside "integration.") | |
| • | This week's U.N. production of Caring Theater is just the latest attempt by the world's most feckless social engineers to compensate for their own abject, chronic failures. | |
| • | The U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights ... bloviated against "race-baiting bigots, who seek to gain, or retain, power by wielding prejudice and deceit, at the expense of those most vulnerable." | |
| • | What he didn't talk about: the decades-old corruption, fraud, and abuse perpetrated by the U.N. itself and its vast refugee bureaucracy. | |
| • | U.N. brass downplayed the barbaric treatment of refugees in its care as the result of a few rogues. | |
| • | But rape rooms and internet pedophile video productions were run by senior U.N. officials and other civilian personnel, untold numbers of whom fathered babies with young girls and teens held as prostitutes and sex slaves. | |
| • | Before the world's policemen barge in on us again to denigrate our efforts to protect our home, they should spare us the refugee sanctimony and clean up their own. | |
Beware the unholy alliance: Russia is working with radical Islam to undermine the West (Fox 09/20/2016)
| • | The world scene is changing, and not for the better. | |
| • | In recent weeks, Iran and Russia – two countries that exploit perceived weakness – have repeatedly flexed their muscles against the U.S. military – both in the air and on the sea. | |
| • | President Obama has consistently failed to name our enemy. | |
| • | He desires to create a modern international community based on mutual respect, international security, and global prosperity. | |
| • | This is a false narrative, plain and simple. | |
| • | How can these things be achieved when the United States faces a serious security threat? | |
| • | Only after we understand the true nature of the enemy we are facing will we be in a position to effectively combat it. | |
| • | Enemies of the West – including Russia, Syria, Iran, the Islamic State, and others – are working together – even if they are traditional enemies themselves such as Shiite and Sunni Muslims, or Russia and Iran – in order to destabilize the world and seize power for themselves. | |
| • | Our enemies no longer fear us and our allies don't trust us. | |
| • | If the United States is unwilling to sacrifice and stand up against dictators and terrorists, then the dictators and terrorists will work together to ensure more people around the world are oppressed, and they will oppose the United States at every turn. | |
| • | When we show weakness, they show strength. When we withdraw, they advance. When we lack strategy, they execute their strategy. | |
| • | And let there be no doubt, this will result in more terrorist attacks, more aggression, more lives lost, and a reshaping of the world order. | |
| • | Iran and Russia share one goal in Syria – to keep the Assad regime in power. | |
| • | One thing is clear: when the United States fails to lead, enemies of freedom will fill the vacuum and do everything they can to spread terror and oppression. | |
| • | This is not just a matter of geopolitical gamesmanship between global superpowers. | |
| • | Real lives are on the line – the lives of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East, women and children, and innocent people of all ethnicities and nationalities. | |
| • | But as history has also made clear, in a globalized world, terror and chaos are not contained in one region. | |
| • | First, we must clearly identify the enemy. Call the enemy what they are: radical jihadist terrorists who are at war with us. | |
| • | They will stop at nothing to destroy us and our way of life. | |
| • | Further, the U.S. needs strong leadership and deep resolve if we are to succeed in this new war. | |
| • | Though the Nazis have been vanquished and communism has been diminished, we now fight a more ancient and ideological foe –- a foe that wants each and every single one of us dead. | |
Blowing up Brexit: How Euro elites are trying to kill off UK independence (Fox 09/16/2016)
| • | When Britain voted to leave the E.U. in June — by a comfortable margin and with a record turnout — it may have seemed the fight was won. | |
| • | Yet political elites who believe they, not the people, are sovereign are gearing up for one more siege to deny the British independence. | |
| • | New Prime Minister Theresa May, although a "Remainer," has shown promising commitment by making her motto: "Brexit means Brexit." | |
| • | ... top E.U. officials meeting at a summit in Bratislava are planning to make life hell for Britain during negotiations, in the hope that a wobbly British political elite will simply give up and remain in the E.U. | |
| • | ... the familiar call is now being rattled out by left-wing politicians, the BBC, The Guardian and on social media — the British must vote again, or the referendum should be ignored altogether. | |
| • | Pro-E.U. demagogues at home and abroad have gone through an embarrassing litany of excuses of why the vote "doesn't count": the voters were conned, they didn't know what they were voting for, the voters were too old, the sample size was too small, and don't forget: "RACIST, RACIST, RACIST!" | |
| • | The argument settled on — perhaps the most brazen in its disregard for the voter — is that the referendum was merely "advisory" and therefore either the voters or parliament should vote again. | |
| • | The idea that the referendum, which dominated the national and international news for months and costs millions of pounds, was merely a practice run for the real thing, or was simply a glorified poll for parliament's general amusement, is of course total tripe. | |
| • | It is also contemptuous of democracy. Labour MP David Lammy recently grumped that parliament is sovereign. | |
| • | No, Mr. Lammy — the people are sovereign, and parliament is sovereign only in that it represents the people. | |
| • | And the people have spoken directly, they should not have to repeat themselves in order to be heard. | |
| • | Lammy is not the only one who wants to repeat elections over and over again until he gets what he wants, as if Britain were some third-world tin-pot dictatorship. | |
| • | ... the bureaucratic jihadists of the E.U. will use every piece of legislative trickery to try and force Britain out of its unacceptable and uncouth desire for independence. | |
| • | Regrettably, even major politicians from America — a land known for valuing independence — are against Brexit. | |
| • | Obama's famous comment ahead of the vote that Britain would be "at the back of the queue" infuriated Brits to the point many believed it helped the Brexit cause. | |
| • | As Britain's economy glows despite the predictions of doom, those committed to the European behemoth are becoming more desperate, and the attacks are likely to only get more sinister and more hysterical. | |
| • | It remains to be seen if Britain can hold fast. | |
| • | ... the battle for Brexit will be tough, bloody and long. Brexit hangs in the balance, but the signs are encouraging. | |
| • | Here is to hoping the Churchillian spirit of "we shall never surrender" continues to guide Britain's leaders as they face the challenge of a generation. | |
All Jews out of Palestine is not a peace plan (Fox 09/14/2016)
| • | The Obama administration is furious about Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent objection to Palestinian plans for a state with "no Jews." | |
| • | Netanyahu made the obvious comments that the Palestinian effort to purge all Jews from the West Bank amounts to "ethnic-cleansing" and "ethnic cleansing for peace is absurd." | |
| • | The State Department responded by shooting the messenger, calling Netanyahu's remarks "inappropriate and unhelpful." | |
| • | Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas makes no secret about Palestinian intentions. | |
| • | "In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli – civilian or soldier – on our lands." | |
| • | Simultaneously with promoting a Jew-free state, Palestinians routinely accuse Israel of "ethnic cleansing." | |
| • | The ethnic-cleansing mantra is frequently accompanied by Palestinian charges of ‘apartheid,' ‘racism,' and ‘Judaization.' | |
| • | The common thread of such hate speech is that the facts are irrelevant. | |
| • | Nearly two million Arabs live in Israel with more freedoms than in any Arab state. | |
| • | The State Department's response to years of Palestinian charges of ethnic cleansing against Israel has been silence. | |
| • | So when the Prime Minister of Israel took issue with Palestinian calls for an ethnically-cleansed Jew-free Palestine, why the sudden histrionics? | |
| • | The answer is that the charge of ethnic cleansing directed against Palestinians is the quintessential inconvenient truth. | |
| • | Netanyahu's candor challenges President Obama's line of thought, spelled out by U.S. Ambassador David Pressman at the General Assembly on November 24, 2015 as follows: "terrorism, violence, settlements and demolitions are increasingly creating a one-state reality and imperiling the viability of a two-state solution." | |
| • | Connecting "terrorism" and "settlements" in this way is as offensive as drawing a straight line between alleged American misdeeds and 9/11, or between Gitmo and San Bernardino. | |
| • | The UN's egregious discrimination and demonization of the Jewish state – directed at Israelis regardless of where they live – is the anti-Jewish kind of hate and incitement. | |
| • | The State Department went on offense because they have no defense. | |
| • | Playing the settlements card and advocating for a Jew-free Palestine is not a move to promote peaceful co-existence. | |
| • | It's an intrinsic part of a 67-year old xenophobic attempt to wipe the only Jewish state off the map. | |
| • | Truth ought to be more "helpful" than lies. | |
UN panel blames capitalism, property rights for lack of access to medicines in poor nations (Fox 09/14/2016)
| • | ... it's true, of course, that those countries have somewhat less access to the most expensive, cutting-edge medicines than do wealthy countries. | |
| • | It's also true that the latest medicines are often prohibitively expensive, and not only in the developing world. | |
| • | But poor countries also do not have the same access to hospitals, health care workers and infrastructure. | |
| • | Even clean water and basic sanitation are often issues... | |
| • | ... such an investigation also would have drawn attention to many inconvenient truths, including the failure of developing countries to resist corruption and develop their own basic institutions, high tariffs imposed on medicines by developing countries, diversion and resale of donated medicines, the myriad unsuccessful past campaigns to solve poverty through foreign aid. | |
| • | They aren't. In fact, the intellectual property system, while not perfect, is the best system ever devised for incentivizing innovation, transferring knowledge to encourage further innovation, and distributing the fruits of that innovation. | |
| • | In the last decade or so, pharmaceutical and biotech companies have developed more than 500 new medicines to fight killers like heart disease, HIV/AIDS, diabetes and cancer, and hundreds more promising drugs are in development. | |
| • | Apart from the incentive created by patents, where would new innovative treatments come from? | |
| • | You can't give access to medicines that were never developed. | |
| • | Of course, delinking access to goods from the unseemly process of investment, creation, marketing and distribution sounds ominously familiar... | |
| • | Of course, the real solution to enhanced access to medicines is greater innovation and technology transfer through more, not less, economic growth, which is driven by free market capitalism and property rights. | |
| • | Similarly, the means toward improved access to medicines is more rapid economic growth, which will allow for the development of critical health infrastructure, more health purchasing power for consumers and governments, more investment in the diseases plaguing those countries, and greater access to medicines in the developing world. | |
How Is the Godless West Working Out? (JWR 09/13/2016)
| • | These are all inevitable consequences of the death of belief in G0D and Judeo-Christian values, and of the Bible as society's primary moral reference work. | |
| • | Radical and aggressive secularism and atheism have replaced religion in virtually every school and throughout American public life. | |
| • | The prices that we Americans and Europeans are paying for creating the first godless societies in recorded history amount to civilizational suicide. | |
| • | Boys and girls are not to be referred to as boys and girls; Western elites dismiss national identity as protofascism; the belief that moral truth exists has been destroyed and replaced by feelings and opinions; fewer people are marrying; and more people live alone than at any time in American history. | |
| • | Western European countries have become empty, soulless places. | |
| • | They are pretty and appear materially secure (for now), but they stand for almost nothing (except "multiculturalism" and "tolerance"). | |
| • | There is no way to prove that G0D exists. | |
| • | But what is provable is what happens when societies stop believing in G0D: They commit suicide. | |
Trump adviser sides with Netanyahu on PA ethnic cleansing (INN 09/12/2016)
| • | "Prime Minister Netanyahu makes exactly the right point. The Palestinians want Israel to absorb countless 'refugees' — people who never lived in Israel and whose ancestors were never forced to leave Israel — while their so-called 'state' is required to be, as the Nazis said, judenrein (devoid of Jews). It is an entirely racist and anti-Semitic position." | |
| • | "Arabs live and work side by side with Israelis in the State of Israel. They attend universities, enjoy the strongest human and civil rights (including women's rights) in the region, and have access to world class health care. There is no better place for Arabs to live in the Middle East than in the State of Israel. With this background in mind, the Prime Minister of Israel correctly observes that the Palestinian demand to remove all Jews from their ancestral homeland in Judea and Samaria is nothing short of an attempt at ethnic cleansing. The State Department should be ashamed of their misguided reaction to Mr. Netanyahu's remarks." | |
| • | "The United States frequently refers to the ‘two state solution' as two states for two peoples. The Palestinian response — which the U.S. State Department refuses to challenge — is ‘one state for two peoples (Israel) and a second state just for Palestinian Arabs.' It is no wonder that the State Department under Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have lost credibility in the region." | |
9/11: The collapse of civilization (INN 09/11/2016)
| • | Not only the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11. | |
| • | The entire idea of the modern nation-state, which beheads the king, confines God to the church interior and enthrones man and society instead — all collapsed like a house of cards to the call of Allah-hu-akbar emanating from the cockpit just a second before the impact that shook the world. | |
| • | The president of the one and only world power, the standard-bearer of the ideology of liberty and prosperity that had triumphed over totalitarianism, communism and fascism, successfully navigated the stormy twentieth century and remained alone in the face of the collapse of all its competitors – did not know how to respond. | |
| • | The blow that he had received did not bear the return address of a nation state. | |
| • | With no other alternative, George Bush convinced his citizens that the state of Iraq was the enemy. He conquered it, hanged Saadam Hussein and of course — lost. | |
| • | "If you can't beat them, join them," said the Americans – and elected a president named Hussein who energetically dispensed of the remaining values that had built the liberty state. | |
| • | The American public is disgusted with him and is turning to the opposite poll; to a vulgar politician who, without Obama's legacy, would not have gotten past the very first primaries. | |
| • | Since the Twin Towers collapsed, the modern nation state has been collapsing, as well. | |
| • | The values built by the nation-states are not capable of dealing with the challenge of Islam. | |
| • | The nation states of Western Europe cannot stand up against the Moslem offensive. | |
| • | "In Judaism, G-d is not the focal point and neither is man. The dialogue between them is the focal point." | |
| • | This unique integration gives the Jewish State (exclusively) the basis to deal, as a modern state, with the challenge that has propelled an entire shaken civilization into collapse before our very eyes. | |
Netanyahu: There will be no ethnic cleansing in Judea, Samaria (INN 09/09/2016)
| • | "I'm sure many of you have heard the claim that Jewish communities in Judea Samaria, the West Bank, are an obstacle to peace. | |
| • | "I've always been perplexed by this notion." | |
| • | "Because no one would seriously claim that the nearly two million Arabs living inside Israel – that they're an obstacle to peace. That's because they aren't. On the contrary." | |
| • | "Israel's diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace." | |
| • | "Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews." | |
| • | "There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing." | |
| • | "And this demand is outrageous. It's even more outrageous that the world doesn't find this outrageous." | |
| • | "Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage." | |
| • | "Ask yourself this: Would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state? A territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks?" | |
| • | "Since when is bigotry a foundation for peace?" | |
| • | "At this moment, Jewish schoolchildren in Judea Samaria are playing in sandboxes with their friends." | |
| • | "Does their presence make peace impossible? I don't think so." | |
| • | "I think what makes peace impossible is intolerance of others." | |
| • | "Societies that respect all people are the ones that pursue peace." | |
| • | "Societies that demand ethnic cleansing don't pursue peace." | |
| • | "I envision a Middle East where young Arabs and young Jews learn together, work together, live together side by side in peace." | |
| • | "Our region needs more tolerance, not less." | |
| • | "So the next time you hear someone say Jews can't live somewhere, let alone in their ancestral homeland, take a moment to think of the implications." | |
| • | "Ethnic cleansing for peace is absurd." | |
| • | "It's about time somebody said it." | |
The revelation of Abbas's KGB service requires us to recognize that the Soviets' long game... (JWR 09/09/2016)
| • | The PLO's close and servile relationship with the KGB was first exposed in a systematic way in 1987, with the publication of Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief. | |
| • | ... "the PLO was dreamt up by the KGB." | |
| • | ... Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, at the direction of Moscow, convinced Yasser Arafat to employ political warfare, centered on phony protestations that he had abandoned terrorism, to weaken the West's resolve to defend itself and to cause Israel to doubt its own legitimacy. | |
| • | ... for the KGB, Israel was a target of subversion second only in importance to the US. | |
| • | In 1982 Abbas received a doctorate from the Patrice Lumumba University – or KGB U – in Moscow. | |
| • | According to KGB defectors, 90 percent of the university's faculty and staff received their paychecks from the KGB. | |
| • | Its purpose was to train KGB agents from the developing world, including terrorists. | |
| • | Abbas's fellow alumni included master terrorist Carlos the Jackal and future Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. | |
| • | Abbas received a doctorate for a thesis denying the Holocaust. | |
| • | That is, he used the cover of academia to vilify the Jewish state and deny Jewish history and suffering – a practice that has been his stock in trade in trade ever since. | |
| • | Rather than devote his energies to murdering Israelis, along the lines of the subversive program Ceausescu presented to Arafat, Abbas's main focus was the subversion of the European and the Israeli Left. | |
| • | Abbas focused his efforts on developing ties to the Israeli far Left. | |
| • | His efforts culminated in the 1993 Oslo peace deal which Abbas negotiated with Israeli leftist activists affiliated with then-foreign minister Shimon Peres through his deputy Yossi Beilin. | |
| • | The PLO's success in convincing the Rabin- Peres government that it had abandoned its goal of annihilating Israel came two years after the demise of the Soviet Union. | |
| • | In other words, the KGB's campaign of anti-Western subversion outlived the Soviet Union. | |
| • | Today, the subversive campaigns that first bore fruits in the Vietnam War have brought about a situation where increasingly, Western elites cannot accept the basic morality of their societies. | |
| • | The sense among Western elites that Western culture and history as a whole are morally impaired has dampened their concern about their future. | |
| • | According to the World Health Organization, a third of all deaths in Russia in 2012 were caused by alcohol. | |
| • | Russian male life expectancy is 64 – lower than it was a hundred years ago. | |
| • | Putin's short-term game empowers him to adopt policies with potentially high short-term payoffs regardless of the long-term dangers they create. | |
| • | Russia's policies in Syria and toward Iran are case in point. | |
| • | On the other side of the divide in Europe, the elites devote their remaining days in power to absolving themselves of imperialist and capitalist guilt. | |
| • | To this end, they have adopted the causes of those they falsely believe were most victimized by their predecessors. | |
| • | The same is true, albeit to a lesser degree, in the US. | |
| • | This then brings us back to KGB agent Abbas and his target, Israel. | |
| • | Against great odds, and at a steep price, over the past 10 years Israeli society stopped listening to the voices on the Left parroting Abbas's lies that Israel was born in sin, as a Western colonialist implant. | |
| • | Given the stakes, most Israelis today also have come to realize that our national self-confidence is a vital component of our long-term survival. | |
| • | When faced with foreign governments whose societies lack long-term prospects, Israel needs to put aside its yearning for long-term peace and stability and focus on short-term cooperative ties. | |
| • | The revelation of Abbas's KGB service requires us to recognize that the Soviets' long game of subversion continues on today. | |
| • | Whether or not Western societies persevere and reject the Soviets' central contention that they are unworthy of survival is not for Israel to decide. | |
| • | So, too, Israel will not convince the Russians to embrace a future based on freedom and the sanctity of life. | |
| • | All we can do is wish them the best and play the short-term game with them – while keeping our long-term interests front and center in our minds. | |
The Chinese, expert diplomats for thousands of years, snubbed Obama in public... (National Review, 09/09/2016)
| • | The president of the United States lands with all the majesty of Air Force One, waiting to exit the front door and stride down the rolling staircase to the red-carpeted tarmac. | |
| • | Except that there is no rolling staircase. He is forced to exit — as one China expert put it rather undiplomatically — through "the ass" of the plane. | |
| • | If the Chinese didn't invent diplomatic protocol, they surely are its most venerable and experienced practitioners. | |
| • | They've been at it for 4,000 years. They are the masters of every tributary gesture, every nuance of hierarchical ritual. | |
| • | ... the message, whether intentional or not, wasn't very subtle. The authorities expressed no regret, no remorse, and certainly no apology. | |
| • | No surprise. China's ostentatious rudeness was perfectly reflective of the world's general disdain for President Obama. | |
| • | His high-minded lectures about global norms and demands that others live up to their "international obligations" are no longer amusing. They're irritating. | |
| • | Foreign leaders have reciprocated by taking this administration down a notch knowing they pay no price. | |
| • | In May 2013, Vladimir Putin reportedly kept the U.S. secretary of state cooling his heels for three hours outside his office before deigning to receive him. | |
| • | And when Iran took prisoner ten American sailors in the Persian Gulf, made them kneel, and broadcast the video, what was the U.S. response? | |
| • | Upon their release, John Kerry publicly thanked Iran for its good conduct. | |
| • | Why should Xi treat Obama with any greater deference? Beijing illegally expands into the South China Sea, meeting only the most perfunctory pushback from the United States. | |
| • | Putin annexes Crimea and Obama crows about the isolation he has imposed on Russia. Look around. | |
| • | Add to that American acquiescence not only to ransoming hostages held by Iran but also to delivering the loot by unmarked plane filled with stacks of cold (untraceable) cash, like a desert drug deal. | |
| • | Some humiliations are so grotesque that even the Obama team can't miss it. | |
| • | ... Obama said he spoke to Putin about cyberwarfare, amid revelations that Russian hackers have been interfering in our political campaigns. | |
| • | We are more technologically advanced, both offensively and defensively, in this arena than any of our adversaries, said Obama, but we really don't want another Cold War–style arms race. Instead, we must all adhere to norms of international behavior. | |
| • | It makes you want to weep. This KGB thug adhering to norms? | |
| • | He invades Ukraine, annexes Crimea, bombs hospitals in Aleppo — and we expect him to observe cyber-code etiquette? | |
| • | We're back to 1929 when Secretary of State Henry Stimson shut down a U.S. code-breaking operation after it gave him decoded Japanese telegrams. | |
| • | He famously explained that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail." | |
| • | Well, comrade, Putin is no gentleman. And he's reading our mail. | |
How to face some of the realities of today? (INN 09/04/2016)
| • | Due to the extensive international subversion and the increase in the threats and the occurrence of terrorism in the world, people are getting more aware and more interested in identifying the problems and finding corrective measures to secure a better tomorrow for all, at least in the free countries. | |
| • | Unfortunately, most people remain silent due to the lack of reliable knowledge and due to the fact that they do not know what can be done to change the course of these events. | |
| • | Examining the international trends, it is obvious that every peace loving individual from ALL walks of life, will become a target, should the villains prevail. | |
| • | There is a surge in Radical Islam which is directed against all Infidel, should they be Christians,Jews and even Moderate Muslims. | |
| • | The following are some of the important topics that should be addressed in order to educate the dangerously ignorant population at large. | |
| • | 1. Whatever bad happens to the Jews, never ends with the Jews. Should the villains prevail, ALL free people from ALL religions will suffer the consequences. | |
| • | 2. Jews are indigenous in the Land of Israel. | |
| • | 3. Jewish presence in the land of Israel is legal and it is in accordance with international law. | |
| • | 4. Israel is not a foreign occupier of Arab Land. | |
| • | 5. The conflict in the Middle East has very little to do with Jews living in so called "Arab Land", "Disputed Land" or "the Jewish Ancestral Homeland", but it has everything to do with a world wide anti-infidel agenda. ... Some irresponsible Muslim Leaders Declare Aim at World Domination. Rome, London, Spain, Paris, America, etc. are some of the spelled out targets. | |
| • | 6. Some Muslims countries practice apartheid - For example: Saudi Arabia is currently implementing, special path for infidels, no advancement of Christians to top leadership positions, no permits to build churches or synagogues, no permits to carry or share religious literature. | |
| • | 7. The Dhimmi status of the Infidel under Muslim control is a long standing tradition. | |
| • | 8. Female Genital Mutilation under Sharia law, is being practiced world wide. | |
| • | 9. The status of the females under Muslim rule is oppressive. | |
| • | 10. Freedom of speech is under continuous assault in some Muslim countries. | |
| • | 11. Killing of LGBT individuals and Honor killing of females, are practiced under Muslim rule in many countries. | |
| • | 12. Arab Palestinian leaders refuse to recognize the state of Israel or negotiate a real peace, as they try to protect their own thievery and corrupt position of power. | |
| • | 13. Ordinary Arab Palestinians and oblivious international advocates are cruelly exploited by corrupt Arab leader, as willing foolish political instruments. | |
| • | 14. The UN financial support to the Arab Palestinians, greatly exceeded the support to any other group of refugees in the world, with terrible consequences to the Arab Palestinian refugees. | |
| • | 15. Only Arab Palestinian Refugees can give over a refugee status to their children and grandchildren, even if they live well in any country in the world. | |
| • | 16. Arab Palestinian leaders maliciously refused to rebuild Arab Palestinian refugee camps, as they preferred to control them, incite them and keep them angry, only to exploit them. | |
| • | 17. Arab Palestinians are distorting current and historical facts, in order to facilitate vicious incitement and terror, and to generate international sympathy. | |
| • | 18. HAMAS and Hizbollah are puppets of malicious Radical Muslims, who have an agenda to control the entire free world. | |
| • | 19. The only true democracy in the Middle East is the state of Israel but it is unfairly and frequently being blamed by the UN and other international entities. | |
| • | 20. Calling Israel an apartheid state is doing injustice to the South African victims of the real apartheid. | |
| • | Remember, for evil to prevail good people need to do nothing!! | |
Planning for Sovereignty (INN 09/04/2016)
| • | The main weakness of the movement for Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is the lack of an agreed upon plan for the integration of the Arabs living there into Israeli society. | |
| • | This is an integration that hardly anyone wants, neither Jews nor Arabs, yet without it no enduring Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is possible. | |
| • | Unpopular as it may be, integration remains the only path to peace. | |
| • | The Arab so-called "peace plan" calls for the eviction of hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria and their replacement by the descendants of the Arab refugees fron the fighting in 1948. | |
| • | Israel could not possibly agree to this plan, whose obvious purpose is to motivate sanctions against Israel for failing to accept it. | |
| • | In case anyone missed the point, Abbas has repeatedly stated that not one single Jew would be permitted to live in the future Palestinian state. | |
| • | Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is the only long term alternative to the Arab plan for the destruction of Israel. | |
| • | Sovereignty implies responsibility. A plan for the integration of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria into Israeli society requires three components: | |
| • | (1) Political, There needs to be a path to Israeli citizenship that most Arabs could follow without too much difficulty. | |
| • | (2) Economic. There needs to be a plan for the economic development of Judea and Samarisa holding out the promie of a substantial improvement in the standard of living of the Arabs living there. | |
| • | (3) Cultural. There needs to be a program of education in Jewish culture and tradition centered around education in the Hebrew language. | |
| • | Needless to say, any plan of this kind will face widespread opposition. | |
| • | Jews will see it as a threat to the Zionist character of Israel. | |
| • | Arabs will see it as a repudiation of their right to national self determination. | |
| • | And the entire "international community" will see it as a deviation from its cherished illusion of "two states for two peoples". | |
| • | Only under Israeli sovereignty is there any chance of mutual acceptance of Arabs and Jews within the borders of the land of Israel. | |
The consequences of a failed Palestinian Authority (INN 09/02/2016)
| • | Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, propped up by the international community and, by default, the Israeli government, has failed this community by his stubborn refusal to negotiate with Israel, a refusal based on his adamant rejection of living alongside a Jewish state. | |
| • | He has clearly also failed his own people who elected him back in 2005 and have been barred from expressing their democratic voice ever since. | |
| • | Surveys show a sharp fall in Palestinian Arabs supporting a two-state solution. There has been a radical fall in support for an Abbas-led Palestinian rulership and a rise in support for Hamas. | |
| • | ... the majority of Palestinian Arabs yearn for violence. 60% of West Bank Arabs and three quarters of Gaza Strip Arabs favor violence against Jews. | |
| • | The only way that Abbas can prevent Hamas from using the democratic process to take over the 'West Bank' is to block Hamas affiliated candidates in municipal elections. This is democracy, Arab Palestinian-style. | |
| • | This brings me to question the shallow mantra of a two-state solution being the only show in town. | |
| • | Has Kerry, Obama, or Hillary Clinton ever thought their way beyond this empty slogan? | |
| • | Have they ever considered the consequences of forcing Israel to withdraw from essential territory that is rightfully theirs to produce a Palestine that will, inevitably, be controlled by the Islamic terror organization, Hamas? | |
| • | For this surely is the direction they are taking us. | |
| • | My criticism is also aimed at the gullible Israeli politicians and Israeli strategic think tanks of the left. | |
| • | They think everything will be hunky-dory by waving a magic wand and declaring any future State of Palestine will be "demilitarized."_ | |
| • | What? You mean demilitarized like in Gaza? | |
| • | What will demilitarized look like when 'West Bank' Palestine is in the grips of a population-supporting Islamic regime, and their demilitarized terrorists are looking down on Ben Gurion Airport and Tel Aviv from the heights of Rantis with their demilitarized rocket launchers? What then? | |
| • | As Palestinian Arabs head to the municipal polling stations on October 8 (unless they are cancelled), it is sobering to consider the reality of the inevitable collapse of the Abbas Palestinian Authority. | |
| • | As for Israel, it is time to openly debate alternatives to a failed two-state solution before the consequences of a failed Palestinian Authority collapses on us. | |
Sen. Rand Paul: President Obama, what on God's green earth is our policy in Syria? (Fox 09/02/2016)
| • | This is a serious matter. It should require serious people making real plans with metrics for victory and an end strategy in sight. | |
| • | That is clearly not the case right now. | |
| • | We are seeing reports that U.S. arms are fighting U.S. arms. | |
| • | Turkey has rolled U.S.-made M60 tanks into Syria to attack U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds. | |
| • | These Kurds have our weapons and support — and have had special forces embedded with them. | |
| • | We helped these Kurds take towns from ISIS, yet now we watch our ally in Turkey attack them and our Secretary of State tells them to retreat from the gains they made with our help. | |
| • | A few miles away in Mare', Syria, CIA-backed "moderate" Syrian rebels fight Pentagon-backed Turkish Kurds. | |
| • | All the while ISIS slithers away into the shadows to watch two U.S. allies devour each other. | |
| • | Ironically, ISIS fighters now number under 25,000, while Turkish, Iraqi and Peshmerga Kurd forces are nearly 1 million strong. | |
| • | If only our allies were united, they could make short order of ISIS. | |
| • | ... the opposition to Bashar al-Assad has never been unified, and their hatred for each other typically trumps their desire to attack ISIS. | |
| • | Some rebel groups even acknowledge publicly that if and when Assad is defeated, their next target will be Israel — not ISIS. | |
| • | So far in this war we have funneled weapons to terrorists, armed multiple sides and generally acted as if we don't have a clue what to do in the region — and we've done it all unconstitutionally, with the president far exceeding his authority. | |
The threat of very accurate missiles (INN 08/11/2016)
| • | Throughout history, until 1945, a country was basically safe as long as no enemy army could invade and defeat its army. | |
| • | This basic strategic fact became obsolete with the invention of nuclear weapons, which could be thrown or delivered by plane over a defender's undefeated army and kill hundreds of thousands of a defender's population with a single warhead. | |
| • | The first generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) was not accurate enough to present much of a threat to military or strategic targets. | |
| • | More recently, however, technology driven by the computer revolution began to create a new strategic situation for the great powers. | |
| • | This technology controlled a warhead's accuracy not by improving the precision of the missile's launch, but by guiding the missile's warhead as it approached its target. | |
| • | "Terminal guidance," as this technology is known, can enable warheads to be delivered over very long distances and to hit within meters of their aim-points. | |
| • | The launch does not have to be perfectly accurate if the final trajectory of the warhead is controlled by guidance that depends not on the initial trajectory of the missile but on equipment on the warhead. | |
| • | To survive, a country has to make sure that it is not attacked by weapons that kill a large number of its citizens or that destroy so many critical pieces of infrastructure, like power plants, that its economy will be ruined. | |
| • | Precision-guided missiles make it possible to threaten decisive damage with a small number of non-nuclear weapons. They can have a strategic effect, in other words, that is comparable in important ways to that of nuclear weapons. | |
| • | That is, a precision-guided missile armed with a non-nuclear warhead can produce enough damage to justify its cost. | |
| • | The countries threatened by superpowers could have decisive damage inflicted on them by distant enemies leaping over their armies. | |
| • | But if terminal guidance technology spreads to more countries (and possibly to terrorist groups), we will be living in a new world. | |
| • | This prospect of a world containing many missile-armed countries, and perhaps missile-armed terror organizations, is distinctly unattractive. | |
| • | This is not only because of the bad effect such a scenario would have on political relationships and the prospects for peace. | |
| • | Limited missile forces, like those many small powers would be likely to possess, may not be effective unless they are fired first. | |
| • | There could be some trigger-happy regions in such a world. | |
| • | Much attention has been given to the need to avoid becoming a world containing many small nuclear powers. | |
| • | But there is another possibility: that the world will contain many countries in possession of precision-guided missiles. | |
| • | These missiles can't kill as many people as nuclear weapons can, but they can still produce many casualties and cause significant strategic damage. | |
| • | A world of widespread precision-guided missiles is not as dangerous as a world containing many nuclear powers, but it would still be much more dangerous than the current world or the worlds of the past. | |
Pope Francis and the Decline of the West (JWR 08/09/2016)
| • | Pope Francis made comments last week that reveal the most important single thing you need to know about the modern world: The most dynamic religion of the last hundred years has been leftism. | |
| • | Not Christianity, and not Islam, but leftism. | |
| • | Leftism has taken over the world's leading educational institutions, the world's news media and the world's popular entertainment, and it has influenced Christianity (and Judaism) far more than Christianity (or Judaism) has influenced anything. | |
| • | "... So I have two brief questions, Holy Father. When you speak of these violent acts, why do you always speak of terrorists but not of Islam? ... And then, ... what concrete initiative can you launch or perhaps suggest in order to combat Islamic violence?" | |
| • | "I don't like to speak of Islamic violence because every day when I open the newspapers I see acts of violence, here in Italy: someone kills his girlfriend, someone else his mother-in-law...and these violent people are baptized Catholics! They are violent Catholics...If I spoke about Islamic violence, I would also have to speak about Catholic violence." | |
| • | The pope of the Roman Catholic Church, when asked about Islamic terror and the slitting of the throat of a Roman Catholic priest by Islamic terrorists, responds that there is also Catholic terror — that a man who was baptized Catholic who "kills his girlfriend" is the moral and religious equivalent of Muslims who engage in mass murder in the name of Islam. | |
| • | How can anyone compare: | |
| • | A person who happens to have been baptized Catholic as a child — and may have no Catholic identity as an adult — with an adult who affirms a religious identity? | |
| • | The murder of a girlfriend (most likely a crime of passion) with the ritual murder of a Catholic priest because he was a priest? | |
| • | Individual murders that have nothing to do with any ideology with mass murders committed in the name of an ideology? | |
| • | "Terrorism is everywhere! ... Terrorism ... increases whenever there is no other option, when the global economy is centred on the god of money and not the human person, men and women." | |
| • | "This is already a first form of terrorism. You've driven out the marvel of creation, man and woman, and put money in their place. This is a basic act of terrorism against all humanity. We should think about it." | |
| • | Terrorism grows "when there is no other option"? | |
| • | The pursuit of money and terror have nothing to do with each other. Terrorism grows only when some ideology preaches it. | |
| • | All this statement does is provide an excuse for Islamist terror by blaming the "global economy" and the "god of money" instead of the terrorists and their god of death. | |
| • | It is a bad thing when money becomes a god, but there is no comparison between the "god of money" and the horrors of Islamic terror. | |
| • | Yazidi women weren't gang raped and burned alive because of the "global economy" and its "god of money." | |
| • | The Western combination of Judeo-Christian morality and political liberalism — with its doctrine of moral accountability, moral absolutes, confronting evil, and political and social freedom — has produced the most moral societies in world history. | |
| • | The pope of the Roman Catholic Church should be its greatest advocate. But because of leftism, he isn't. | |
When is a ransom not a ransom? (Fox 08/09/2016)
| • | When the Obama administration says it isn't. | |
| • | President Obama and his State Department want us to believe that $400 million in foreign cash that was flown into Iran under cover of darkness on an unmarked cargo plane was merely money "owed" to the world's No. 1 sponsor of terrorism from a failed arms deal negotiated with the Shah of Iran more than 35 years ago. | |
| • | The president says settling the claim now is actually saving money, the full amount of which might have had to be paid if the case were fully litigated before the court. | |
| • | What was the "other plane" carrying that was so important to the Iranian government that only its arrival would trigger the release of Mr. Abedini and the three other hostages, and its failure to land would keep them in captivity? | |
| • | Food? Toilet paper? Western movies? Or money? | |
| • | It is a sad day when one must choose between believing the American president or the Iranian government that has vowed to wipe out Israel and then come after America and subject the world to fundamentalist Islam. | |
| • | The administration refuses to say how many Americans have died directly or indirectly from Iran's support of terrorism. | |
| • | "There is principally one entity within the Iranian government that has need of untraceable funds. That entity is the Quds Force — the branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps focusing particularly on furthering the regime's goals worldwide by supporting and conducting terrorism." | |
| • | The Iranian regime clearly sees the $400 million as ransom for the illegally held Americans. | |
| • | Consider the definition of "ransom" and whether this fits what occurred in January: "The redemption of a prisoner, slave, or kidnapped person for a price." | |
Why borders matter — and a borderless world is a fantasy (JWR 08/02/2016)
| • | ... the Left continues to cherish the vision of a borderless world as morally superior, a triumph over artificially imposed difference. | |
| • | Yet the truth is that formal borders do not create difference — they reflect it. | |
| • | Elites' continued attempts to erase borders are both futile and destructive. | |
| • | Borders — and the fights to keep or change them — are as old as agricultural civilization. | |
| • | These disputes did not always arise, at least at first, as efforts to invade and conquer a neighbor. | |
| • | They were instead mutual expressions of distinct societies that valued clear-cut borders — not just as matters of economic necessity or military security but also as a means of ensuring that one society could go about its unique business without the interference and hectoring of its neighbors. | |
| • | While elites can build walls to insulate themselves, the consequences of their policies fall heavily on the nonelites who lack the money and influence to navigate around them. | |
| • | More broadly, those who deride borders are unwilling to address why tens of millions of people choose to cross them in the first place, leaving their language fluency and native soil — at great personal risk. | |
| • | People walk, climb, swim, and fly across borders, secure in the knowledge that boundaries mark different approaches to human experience, with one side perceived as more successful or inviting than the other. | |
| • | ... Western civilization, uniquely so, has usually defined itself by culture, not race, and thus alone is willing to accept and integrate those of different races who wish to share its protocols. | |
| • | Many unassimilated Muslims in the West assume that they can ignore Western jurisprudence and yet rely on it in extremis. | |
| • | Today's Pakistani new arrival in London might wish to follow sharia law as he knew it in Punjab. | |
| • | But implicit are two unmentionable constants: The migrant most certainly does not wish to return to face sharia law in Pakistan. | |
| • | Second, if he had his way, institutionalizing his native culture into that of his newly adopted land, he would eventually flee the results — and once again likely go somewhere else, for the same reasons that he left home in the first place. | |
| • | Similarly, when undocumented Latino youths disrupt a Donald Trump rally, they often wave Mexican flags or flash placards bearing slogans such as "Make America Mexico Again." | |
| • | But note the emotional paradox: In anger at possible deportation, non-citizens nonsensically wave the flag of the country that they most certainly do not wish to rejoin, while ignoring the flag of the nation in which they adamantly wish to remain. | |
| • | Borders are to distinct countries what fences are to neighbors: means of demarcating that something on one side is different from what lies on the other side. | |
| • | Borders amplify the innate human desire to own and protect property and physical space, which is impossible to do unless it is seen — and can be so understood — as distinct and separate. | |
| • | Clearly delineated borders and their enforcement, either by walls and fences or by security patrols, won't go away because they go to the heart of the human condition — what jurists from Rome to the Scottish Enlightenment called meum et tuum, mine and yours. | |
| • | Between friends, unfenced borders enhance friendship; among the unfriendly, when fortified, they help keep the peace. | |
EU-SSR: Bleeding Utopia (INN 07/27/2016)
| • | In summer of 1989, the Lithuanian Sejm decided to withdraw from the Soviet Union and establish Lithuanian laws in the country. | |
| • | It was the beginning of the end for the USSR - a giant corrupt monster, which for 70 years had bullied the world and its people under the pretense of communist ideology. | |
| • | Fabricated artificial entity, thoroughly impregnated with falsehood and lies, fell apart like a house of cards. | |
| • | Without a doubt the EU's bright and vivid facade does not resemble the meager greyness of the Soviet entourage. | |
| • | Of course, EU has none of the power, assertiveness and strict centralization that USSR had. | |
| • | However, supporting structures and the foundation were made from the same materials with the same guidelines. | |
| • | Without a doubt the EU's bright and vivid facade does not resemble the meager greyness of the Soviet entourage. Of course, EU has none of the power, assertiveness and strict centralization that USSR had. However, supporting structures and the foundation were made from the same materials with the same guidelines. | |
| • | The Soviet Union created a planned, controlled, and unsustainable economy managed by bureaucratic apparatus. The EU did the same, has tried to regulate economy artificially. USSR redistributed wealth on an equal basis - the EU has been wasting money on benefits to those who refuse to work. | |
| • | The USSR and the EU had imposed artificial universalist ideology on their people that promised a paradise on earth for coming generations. In the USSR it was called Communism. EU calls it "postmodernism". Using this slogan: "Let's denounce the old world!" - soviet apparatchiks, similarly to the European bureaucrats, drove their people to hell. | |
| • | The USSR created a huge bureaucratic machine, dictated ideology in all spheres of life — from politics to theater, architecture and fashion. This bureaucracy was completely cut off from the reality and the citizens. The same thing happened in the EU. | |
| • | The USSR instituted most severe censorship with persecution of dissidents. By subjugating governments, national media, the Academy and the judicial system the EU has established a cultural totalitarianism. The EU pursuit of dissidents has been more sophisticated, thus more efficient, veiled by concepts of "tolerance", "human rights" and "cultural diversity" - a devil invention. | |
| • | The Soviet Union cultivated a new "formation of people" - "Soviet people". Like the unskillful Gnostic Demiurge, the EU cultivated "post-modern people" – consumers without roots, values and moral compass, unable to see the difference between good and evil, fact and fiction. | |
| • | In order to create a "Soviet man", the USSR deliberately carried out the migration of nations, while destroying homogeneous historical communities and arbitrarily creating alien enclaves in the social body of other republics: Ukraine, Baltic States, Moldova, the Caucasus and in Central Asia. The EU has intentionally flooded its countries with masses of migrants from Third World countries and Muslim countries to destroy national cultures - labeling the process "multiculturalism". | |
| • | Communists created fussy, worthless and senseless art of "Socialist realism", symbolized by "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman". Postmodernists invented infantile "postmodern art" with cult of primitivism, rafting archaic forms, a meaningless set of sounds and wall paintings. | |
| • | The USSR intimidated its people with threat of nuclear apocalypse to distract them from poverty. EU frightens Europeans with environmental apocalypse; promulgating doubtful ideas about global warming by suppressing the real threat of global terrorism, the clash of civilizations and the collapse of the national states. | |
| • | The USSR drained the resources of wealthy republics - the Baltic States and Ukraine - to feed the weak, unproductive South. The EU doesn't fall behind. | |
| • | The USSR treated the Jews as a "fifth column", regardless of their contribution to science and medicine. EU has betrayed the European Jews while obstinately undermining Israel, despite its contribution to science and medicine- only to appease Muslims. The USSR created the "Palestinian people" and the PLO, turning "anti-Zionism" to use in its "anti-imperialist" policies. The EU has turned the creation of "a Palestinian state" into "the sacral dogma" of foreign policy, ignoring the geopolitical reality, Islamic fanaticism and the Middle East chaos. | |
| • | USSR continued limitlessly and greedily wasting resources to feed the various regimes until it ultimately collapsed from exhaustion. In its greediness and unscrupulousness, the EU is infinitely expanding by association with Turkey, North Africa and the Caucasus. | |
| • | USSR had dispersed the miasma of its pseudo-ideology throughout the world under the pretense of "fighting for the freedom of peoples" and "social justice." The EU is operating in a similar manner. | |
| • | "Bellum omnium contra omnes" ("The war of all against all") will bring Western Europe back to "Social Contract" of Hobbes, i.e. to voluntary tyranny. Ironically, hundreds of thousands of migrants will become victims of "multiculturalism". | |
| • | The elite will either flee or will "adapt", like Soviet apparatchiks after "Perestroika" who became oligarchs and Orthodox nationalists. | |
| • | One more experiment comes to an end, leaving behind anarchy and ruin. EU-SSR elite has destroyed prosperous countries just in a few decades – ironically, they've achieved even more than than did the geriatric Soviet elite. | |
Europe has lost the Islamic war (INN 07/25/2016)
| • | "The confrontation is inevitable." There are an estimated 15,000 Salafists among France's seven million Muslims, "whose radical-fundamentalist creed dominates many of the predominantly Muslim housing projects at the edges of cities such as Paris, Nice or Lyon. Their preachers call for a civil war, with all Muslims tasked to wipe out the miscreants down the street". | |
| • | On the ashes of the World Trade Center, George W. Bush rose to the fight. In those years, the United States and its European allies proved themselves "the stronger horse" and the forces of the "weaker horse" of Al Qaeda began to lose heart. When Islamists were thrown on the defensive, recruits dropped off. Attacks on Western cities diminished. | |
| • | After eight years of Barack Hussein Obama and Europe's retreat from the war on terror, the West appears to be the weaker horse and the Islamists the stronger one. | |
| • | "There is no political will for waging total war against ISIS. It would require 100,000 troops and massive bombing to eliminate as many jihadists as possible. We would have to abandon rules of engagement that privilege the enemy's people over our own. At home, we would have to increase deportations and publicly demani that Muslim communities in the West disavow Jihadism and Sharia law". | |
| • | Of course, Europe and the West are not adopting any of these important and clearly articulated measures. | |
| • | Radical Islamists have already infiltrated Europe's universities, mosques and cities' outskirts. | |
| • | Institutional Islam has been able to convince Europeans that terror "has nothing to do with Islam". | |
| • | Mainstream media is refusing even to spell the name of the enemy and it is just preparing new articles about the next victims of Jihad. | |
| • | Pope Francis is busy in preaching clemency to everybody. | |
| • | The remnant of European Jewry is fleeing the old continent. | |
| • | Europe's armies are getting smaller by the day. | |
| • | Abandon any hope: Without a major cultural revolution and shock, Europe is lost, Islamists will win! | |
| • | And as it goes along, we will cede more and more of our freedom and civilization to the Grand Jihad. | |
Turkey and Erdogan: Here comes the (real) caliphate (Fox 07/21/2016)
| • | If today's Western leaders possess one general trait, it's a genius for self-deception. | |
| • | Insisting that Islamist terror has nothing to do with Islam, or that religion has no strategic impact, or that all human beings want freedom and democracy, amounts to declaring that up is down, right is left and night is day. | |
| • | And midnight is coming for millions in Turkey, even as we insist that a dying flashlight is the sun. | |
| • | Over the past few years, many Americans heard the term "caliphate" for the first time as ISIS declared that the territory it seized from Iraq and Syria was the caliphate reborn. | |
| • | To us, "caliphate" appeared to be just another name for a vast torture chamber. | |
| • | But for hundreds of millions of Muslims, many of whom have nothing to do with ISIS, the caliphate is associated with a lost and much-romanticized golden age when the caliph, who was also the Turkish sultan, claimed spiritual dominion over all Muslims. | |
| • | In the 14th century, the Ottomans revived the still-older concept of a caliphate, declaring that the sultan and caliph were one. | |
| • | It remained so until 1924, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the great modernizer, abolished the office as a relic, insisting that Turks had to build a new Turkey and not lay claim to an enervating empire, temporal or spiritual. | |
| • | ... for Muslims under colonial rule, "the Caliphate carries a message of salvation through an international Muslim solidarity." | |
| • | That message of salvation, if not yet of solidarity, is back. | |
| • | The ragtag ISIS caliphate is merely the forerunner of the more ambitious caliphate to come. | |
| • | Convinced that history has no relevance, those same self-deluded Western leaders and diplomats refuse to recognize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's vision for "his" Turkey. | |
| • | He dreams not only of neo-Ottoman glory, but of a caliphate reborn and led by a Turk. (Might anyone venture a guess as to his candidate?) Essentially, the sultan and caliph both would be back on a Turkish throne. | |
| • | Today, Istanbul. Tomorrow, the world. | |
| • | If you decline to acknowledge what a man wants, you'll find it hard to understand what he does. | |
| • | The immense and destructive crackdown underway in Turkey now, with at least 10,000 Turks taken into custody and as many as 100,000 others dismissed from their positions — not only soldiers, but judges, civil servants, police and academics — isn't an end-game. It's a beginning. | |
| • | Erdogan didn't need a reason for this pre-planned purge. He had his reasons and his lists of names. He needed an excuse. The failed coup was a gift. | |
| • | This is the triumph of mosque over modernity, not of the rule of law, but of its supersession. | |
| • | It took almost a century in Turkey, but faith proved stronger than civilization again — a trend across the bleeding Islamic world. | |
| • | Shamelessly insisting that Gulen orchestrated the coup attempt from the Poconos, Erdogan is determined to crush even the faintest spark of dissent or resistance. | |
| • | The Turkish intelligentsia is about to find itself in the precarious condition of Germany's intellectuals and Jews in the 1930s. | |
| • | Erdogan wants power for himself, but he also, sincerely, wants it for his faith. He's a true believer and a megalomaniac. | |
| • | ... for now he has real support among half of the population, those for whom the fever of faith is the ultimate intoxicant. | |
| • | He polls better than Hitler did. "Mein Kampf" is no match for the Holy Koran. | |
| • | ... "Islamist fascism" genuinely fits Erdogan's program: populist intolerance justified by faith and harnessed by a leader who explains any failure in terms of victimhood. | |
| • | Erdogan offers exaltation and revenge, the tastiest dish in politics. | |
| • | The double-speak language, the naked propaganda, is present, too — as in Erdogan's claim that his purge of the opposition will strengthen Turkish democracy. | |
| • | Among the would-be sultan-and-caliph's cynical initiatives this week has been floating the revival of the death penalty for treason — in order to finish off key opponents permanently and intimidate those permitted to survive. | |
| • | But the real execution warrant has been issued: Erdogan killed the secular Turkey of Ataturk, the dream that a Muslim nation could take its place in the front rank of civilization. | |
Few in the West Are Serious About Islamic Terror (JWR 07/19/2016)
| • | It appears that no matter how many men, women and children Islamists slaughter or maim, few in the West take Islamic terror seriously. | |
| • | The elites of the Western world are far more preoccupied with — and fearful of — global warming than Islamic terror. They regard those who believe that Islamic terror is the greatest threat to civilization as not merely wrong but bigots. | |
| • | The universities of the Western world not only do not identify Muslim terrorists or Muslim terror organizations as Muslim but also teach students the falsehood that there is no moral difference between Islam and Christianity or Judaism. This has helped leave the West incapable of dealing with the root cause of Islamic terror — some of the teachings and practices of Islam. | |
| • | The business giants of the Silicon Valley are united in weakening Western civilization's ability to fight Islamic terror. ... The tech company refused to unlock the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, the husband of the married team of San Bernardino terrorists, to see whether he had accomplices — even though Farook was not the phone's owner and his employer, San Bernardino County, owned the phone and wanted it unlocked. | |
| • | "In the future, phones will be designed to prevent even Apple from opening them, just as the makers of some messaging services have already done. Such a move would be an unprecedented rejection of public authority and a potentially catastrophic blow to public safety. The prospect of criminals and terrorists communicating with phones beyond the reach of government search warrants should send a shiver down the spine of every citizen." | |
| • | The American government under its president, Barack Obama, does not call Islamic violence "Islamic violence." Rather, it's "violent extremism." | |
| • | Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States, has called for the U.S. to accept 65,000 Muslims from the Middle East. | |
| • | Even more extreme than Hillary Clinton's call for 65,000 Middle Eastern Muslims, Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, announced last year that Germany will accept more than 800,000 more Muslims into its borders — and, by extension, to virtually all European Union countries. | |
| • | There are already about 20 million Muslims in the EU, a significant percentage of whom do not assimilate and reject Western liberal values, and among the latter, a small but significant number are what we call radicalized. | |
| • | Despite this, the leader of the most powerful country in Europe calls for nearly a million more Muslims from the most radicalized Muslim region in the world — the Middle East. | |
| • | It is inconceivable that this situation will long endure. Most people in the West do not share its elites' broken moral compass. | |
Amb. John Bolton: Expect even more Middle East chaos after Turkey's sad death (Fox 07/18/2016)
| • | Most importantly, Erdogan's relentless pursuit of an increasingly radical Islamicization of Turkey will proceed largely unfettered. | |
| • | And no significant institutional or political opposition inside Turkey now stands athwart his penchant for authoritarianism. | |
| • | The triumph of Erdogan's government means he has swept the board clear of any real impediments to implementing his radical policies. | |
| • | Turkey's military, following the pattern laid down by Kemal (known widely as "Ataturk," meaning "father of the Turks"), was intended to be the guardian of the new, Europe-oriented nation-state he strove to create. | |
| • | For years, Erdogan has replaced high-ranking, secular military officers with loyal Islamicists in a blatant effort to bend the military away from its secular vocation, toward endorsing or at least accepting a re-established state Islam, harking back to the deceased Ottoman caliphate. | |
| • | Erdogan's success at stuffing the military's top officer corps with Islamicists and political loyalists likely explains why Turkey's military wasn't fully behind the coup attempt. | |
| • | Erdogan's increasingly dictatorial approach to governance has in recent years become ever clearer internationally, epitomized by his arrests and harassment of both foreign and domestic journalists he deemed critical of his regime. | |
| • | In earlier days, serving as mayor of Istanbul, he said publicly: "Democracy is like a street car. You ride it to the stop you want, and then you get off." | |
| • | Friday's coup attempt may well be precisely the stop Erdogan was waiting for. | |
| • | When he says the coup plotters "will pay a heavy price," he isn't kidding. And he will not stop with the coup's central figures. | |
| • | Obviously, any military coup in a theoretically democratic state is illegal (at least until it succeeds), but we can expect Erdogan's crackdown to be relentless and thorough. | |
| • | Conveniently, Erdogan has been hard at work for years packing the Turkish judiciary with Islamicists and political supporters. | |
| • | It comes as no surprise that Iran was among the first governments to congratulate Erdogan on retaining power. | |
| • | His victory is a significant blow to the West and to the NATO alliance, with every indication that Turkey will turn increasingly rapidly away from Western values and America in particular, Obama's personal friendship with Erdogan notwithstanding. | |
| • | The lamps have been going out all over the Middle East for years. Many more went out this weekend in Turkey. | |
| • | Whether we will see them relit in our lifetime remains unknown. | |
Have the Crusades finally started again? (INN 07/17/2016)
| • | Japan has always refused to allow Muslims to live permanently in their country and they cannot own any real estate or any type of business, and they have banned any worship of Islam. | |
| • | The African nation of Angola and several other African nations have officially banned Islam. | |
| • | Record number of Muslims, (thousands) deported from Norway as a way of fighting crime. Since these Muslim criminals have been deported, crime has dropped by a staggering 72%. | |
| • | In Germany alone in the last year there were 81 violent attacks targeting mosques. The German people are tired of the Muslim immigrants and want all of them deported. | |
| • | Austrian police arrested 13 men targeting suspected jihad recruiters. | |
| • | A Chinese court sent 22 Muslim Imams to jail for 16 to 20 years for spreading Islam hatred. | |
| • | Hundreds of Muslim families prepared to leave China for their own safety and return back to their own Middle Eastern countries. | |
| • | ... the hideous ISIS who are murdering young children and using mothers and daughters as sex slaves. | |
| • | These wars against Christians are supported by so-called moderate Muslims all over the world. | |
| • | British Home Secretary prepares to introduce 'Anti-social Behavior order' for extremists and strip dual nationals of their citizenship. | |
| • | The Czech Republic blatantly refuses Islam in their country, regarding it as evil. | |
| • | Groups of Irish locals went berserk and bashed teenage Muslim gangs who were referring to young Irish girls as sluts and saying they all should be all gang raped, according to Islam and "Sharia Law". | |
| • | North Carolina bans Islamic "Sharia Law" in the State, regarding it now as a criminal offense. | |
| • | It's time for a national referendum to ban Islam in America and close all the Mosques. | |
| • | "All mosques in the Netherlands should be shut down. Without Islam, the Netherlands would be a wonderful safe country to live in, as it was before the arrival of Muslim refugees''. | |
| • | Islam is not a religion, it is a political movement that has been expanding for hundreds of years. | |
| • | It is a missionary movement that wants to conquer the world. | |
Turkey's last hope dies (Fox 07/16/2016)
| • | Friday night's failed coup was Turkey's last hope to stop the Islamization of its government and the degradation of its society. | |
| • | Reflexively, Western leaders rushed to condemn a coup attempt they refused to understand. | |
| • | Their reward will be a toxic Islamist regime at the gates of Europe. | |
| • | Except for PC platitudes, our schools ignore the world beyond our shores. | |
| • | Deluged with unreliable information, citizens succumb to the new superstitions of the digital age. | |
| • | So a great country is destroyed by Islamist hardliners before our eyes — and our president praises its "democracy." | |
| • | That tragically failed coup was a forlorn hope, not an attempt to take over a country. | |
| • | For almost a century, the Turkish armed forces have been the guardians of the country's secular constitution. | |
| • | Each time, the military returned the government to civilian rule as soon as that proved practical. | |
| • | Friday night, mid-grade officers led a desperate effort to rescue their country again. They failed. | |
| • | The West cheered. Soon enough, we'll mourn. | |
| • | So who is the man our own president rushed to support because he was "democratically elected?" | |
| • | Recep Tayyip Erdogan is openly Islamist and affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which President Obama appears to believe represents the best hope for the Middle East. | |
| • | But the difference between ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood isn't one of purpose, but merely of manners: Muslim Brothers wash the blood off their hands before they sit down to dinner with their dupes. | |
| • | ... Erdogan has dismantled Turkey's secular constitution (which the military is duty-bound to protect). His "democracy" resembles Putin's, not ours. | |
| • | Erdogan has packed Turkey's courts with Islamists. He appointed pliant, pro-Islamist generals and admirals, while staging show trials of those of whom he wished to rid the country. | |
| • | Not least, he had long allowed foreign fighters to transit Turkey to join ISIS and has aggressively backed other extremists whom he believed he could manage. | |
| • | That's the man President Obama supports. | |
| • | Erdogan will use the coup as an excuse to accelerate the Islamization of his country and to lead Turkey deeper into the darkness engulfing the Muslim world. | |
Why France is Ground Zero in the war on terror (Fox 07/15/2016)
| • | The 9/11 era is over: today, France is ground zero. | |
| • | It is caught in a perfect storm of radical Islam's loathing, envy, and opportunity. | |
| • | The war between the radical Islam and the West is at its root a war of symbols, and France represents everything the extremists hate about the West. | |
| • | There is a laissez-faire enjoyment of life in France that is unique even by Western standards of contentment. | |
| • | The French life is by definition a successful objection to the retrograde medievalism offered by ISIS. | |
| • | That makes it a target. Unfortunately, it is an easy target. | |
| • | It is a curious thing that France's cultural hedonism is matched by a highly aggressive foreign policy. | |
| • | French troops have a presence in ten African countries, and Paris makes no bones about pursuing its national interest by force. | |
| • | There is great opportunity for radical Islamic leaders to point the finger and say, see there? | |
| • | France is bombing the Islamic community, and you – you Muslims, you Tunisians, you men from Nice and Belgium – you need to take revenge. | |
| • | Terrorism is a numbers game. Only a tiny fraction of people commit terrorism, but with the right messaging and examples, that fraction will grow larger. | |
| • | If a powerful symbol tells Muslims to kill Frenchmen in the name of jihad, and is seen successfully defying the West, then more Muslims will kill Frenchmen. | |
| • | The ideology legitimizes the behavior. | |
| • | That is what has happened with ISIS. The fraction has grown, and now it is out of control. | |
| • | Even though no tie between the Nice attacker and the Islamic State has yet been reported, ISIS still matters. | |
| • | It is a powerful symbol of Islamic defiance, like al-Qaeda before it, and needs to be destroyed. | |
| • | The French are now likely to do so. | |
| • | It may be best for President Obama's political legacy not to send combat troops back to Iraq, but he is buying that legacy with French lives. And Belgian ones, for that matter. Turks too. And Syrians above all. | |
| • | Almost certainly, France will now abandon its subordination to the United States in the ISIS war. | |
| • | Now it needs to destroy the beast. | |
Terror in Nice, France: This is war. It's aimed at the West. And we must fight back (Fox 07/15/2016)
| • | If ever there were a phrase that ought to be forgotten, it's the old trope: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." | |
| • | Many nations have suffered from "weapons of mass disruption" — attacks meant not just to produce mass casualties but to maximize confusion, fear and disruption. | |
| • | What is indisputable is what this campaign of global violence is: terrorism. | |
| • | That there is no universal legal definition of terrorism is no real obstacle to giving evil a name. | |
| • | What makes these attacks uniquely heinous and despicable is clear. | |
| • | Terrorism is the use or threat of violence, for a political purpose, against innocents. | |
| • | No ideology, no matter how twisted, no cause, no matter how desperate, can justify such acts. | |
| • | These monsters are not just attacking humans, they are attacking humanity — our humanity. | |
| • | And when people war against humanity, it is our fight to stop them, punish them, finish them. | |
| • | We all found ways to distract ourselves, delude ourselves, convince ourselves that there were more pressing challenges — challenges that just happened to be more familiar, less complicated and more comfortable. | |
| • | After Orlando, for example, it was far easier for the U.S. president to pivot to a pet issue like gun control and hate crimes than battling terrorism. | |
| • | The free world is long past wake-up calls, red flags, game changers, and new threats. | |
| • | The West is in the middle of a war it doesn't want. | |
| • | And the longer the West watches while the global Islamist insurgency surges on, the more terrorism shifts from an inconceivable, unacceptable horror to the banality of evil. | |
| • | To not fight a just war against Islamist transnational terrorism is to allow evil to chip away at the sanctity of humanity. | |
| • | Now the Obama administration will hold a summit of foreign ministers in Washington to discuss battling ISIS. It's awfully late in the game for that, but this is an administration that has tried to win a war by ignoring it. | |
| • | That's not how war works. Whether the blood is running on the streets of Nice or in a club in Orlando, this is war. It's aimed at us. And we must fight back. | |
Divorcing Angela Merkel (INN 07/04/2016)
| • | In an act of petulance that often happens after a split, European leaders, stung by the rebuff, warned the British people that they are on their own and to expect "no special favors." | |
| • | ... to put it bluntly, the British made it clear that they were divorcing Angela Merkel, Europe's most powerful leader who used her power to boss around an entire continent, beginning with her insistence that nothing must stop the tsunami flow of migrants. | |
| • | Millions kept coming, bringing with them a strange culture; people who can't play well with others. | |
| • | ... mostly men, and if many of them were decent and upstanding, the rest brought with them different habits and the inability or the refusal to assimilate. They imported the intolerance of Sharia. | |
| • | They came bearing anti-Semitism. Wherever they gathered, from one country to the next, the rape index zoomed. | |
| • | Even if it's only the few, that's all it takes to ignite terror, as we saw just the other day in Turkey, or any day anywhere, certainly Israel – and it has become much too simple and convenient to frame all acts of Islamic barbarism into the catch-all term ISIS. | |
| • | Go, make peace with such savages who walk among us. | |
| • | Eastern European countries began building walls to keep them out. | |
| • | Western European countries, taking instruction from the European Union headquartered in Brussels, were far too politically correct to even approach any such measure. | |
| • | Only Britain declared we've had enough, this has to stop. | |
| • | ... while certainly not unanimous, the majority announced themselves tired of being pushed around, namely by Angela Merkel. | |
| • | The influx began with her. She extended the invitation. She remains stubborn and defiant and blind to the migrant chaos she has provoked. | |
| • | The British returned the defiance by proclaiming themselves free from Merkel-style globalism. | |
| • | "We want our country back." That was their battle cry. | |
| • | That mirrors Donald Trump's message here in America. We also want our country back. | |
Deport them (INN 06/30/2016)
| • | Clearly, no rational voice would ask for an entire population to be removed. But this is no time to be rational. | |
| • | Look to the Wisdom of Solomon to find: "A time to love and a time to hate." | |
| • | Along with our sorrow at the murder of a 13-year Israeli girl at the hands of yet another fanatical Palestinian Arab named after their prophet, can we at least be allowed the comfort of anger – I mean howling through the roof anger at the barbarity and the injustice of it all? | |
| • | Will the world give us this much? | |
| • | Be certain that Israel will take no such action, for reasons too obvious to mention except to note that Israel is a nation of laws, that's one reason. | |
| • | More than a million and a half Arabs reside in Israel as full-fledged citizens. (Surely plenty of good among them, we must be quick to say.) | |
| • | So forget deportation except for the fact that at this hour of outrage, we turn to our impulses, and this is the first reflex – get them the hell out of here! | |
| • | But to where? Who wants them? Everywhere they go they cause bloodshed. Yesterday, Turkey. Before that, Orlando. | |
| • | Yes, the killer has been identified as Mohammed Nasser Tarayra. But it is also time to identify Mahmoud Abbas. | |
| • | Shouldn't this man...at least this man be deported...along with his crew of Fatah gangsters? | |
| • | Surely there will be talk about "the occupation." Who is occupying Turkey? Who occupied San Bernardino? Who occupied Fort Hood? | |
| • | Who occupied the Twin Towers in New York except for 3,000 innocents busy at work? | |
| • | This is no time to love your neighbor, when your neighbor is a killer from a confederacy of savages. | |
Istanbul terror: Turkey’s president pays the price for trying to befriend fanatics (Fox 06/29/2016)
| • | What does Turkey's destructive president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have in common with the Saudis, Pakistanis, Iraq's Sunnis and the conservatives of Germany's Weimar Republic? | |
| • | They all thought that they could exploit and control fanatics. One might as well try to befriend poisonous snakes. | |
| • | To his credit, Erdogan initially facilitated the growth of Turkey's economy. | |
| • | To his discredit, he has all but destroyed Turkey's democracy, reignited the Kurdish conflict for his own political advantage, suppressed the media, imprisoned opponents on ludicrous charges or concocted evidence, and dismantled the modernizing constitution that was the primary legacy of one of the great men of the 20th Century, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. | |
| • | And he thrust Islamization upon a country that had been a model of tolerance in the Muslim world. | |
| • | Erdogan's version of Islam follows the pattern of the Muslim Brotherhood: subversive, but rarely engaging in deadly violence. It has, in the past, exploited the ballot, rather than relying on the bullet. | |
| • | But Erdogan (like Mohammed Morsi in Egypt) grew impatient. He began pushing hard for ever more Islamization and a potent mix of faith and xenophobia. | |
| • | And he indulged in a personal vendetta that led to Tuesday's attack on Istanbul's airport. Erdogan detests Bashir al Assad, Syria's dictator and a minority Alawite — whose father had crushed the Muslim Brotherhood. | |
| • | Misjudging the staying power of the Assad regime, Erdogan backed various radical Islamist groups that flocked to Syria to wage jihad. He imagined, as so many have before him, that he could master and manipulate fanatics — and then dispense with them, once their utility had expired. | |
| • | And he armed them. He protected them. He let foreign fighters pass through Turkey to join the jihad. | |
| • | He lied to Western allies and sought to revive his battered vision of a new Ottoman Empire. | |
| • | Instead, the region became embroiled in war. The terrorists and insurgents did not act in Turkey's interests. They didn't take orders. | |
| • | And when Erdogan moved against them — meagerly — to protect Turkey's interests, they turned on him. | |
| • | Turkey became the target of jihad. That's ironic, to put it mildly, since Istanbul, long known as Constantinople, fell to the Muslim Ottomans in the course of jihadi warfare in 1453. | |
| • | Erdogan's Islam, although stern, was not extreme enough to appease the jihadi Aztecs of our age, men intoxicated by massive blood sacrifices to their corrupted vision of a god. | |
| • | For Erdogan, this terror wave's a political blow. For Turkey, it's a profound tragedy. | |
| • | Turkey matters to a degree that few Westerners appreciate. It's always been the land-bridge and invasion route for armies and ideas, the place where cultures collided and empires rose and fell. | |
| • | Anatolia, Turkey's heartland, also was a refuge for Muslims renewing their faith in humane forms, notably the Sufi mystics, poets and theologians (some of whose visions of the divine resemble those of Protestant mystics from northern Europe). | |
| • | The Ottoman Empire saw its share of intolerance, jihad and massacre over the centuries, but it also was a land of civilization compared to the barbarism that ultimately encompassed the Arab world. | |
| • | Turkey was never a land fully robbed of hope. Arabs wallowed, Turks strived. | |
| • | ISIS and other Salafist terror groups have recognized that the softest of soft targets and the one that has the most immediate effect on economies is the tourist industry. | |
| • | And efforts to protect tourists rob tourism of its pleasure. No one wants to lie on the beach under armed guard or stand in endless (vulnerable) security lines. It's easier to go elsewhere. | |
| • | Oh, and for the fanatics, attacking tourism also "cleanses" the realms of Islam of infidels. It's a twofer. | |
| • | ... Erdogan will only dig in. Dictators always do. In the meantime, he has rendered his country vulnerable to savages who delight in killing the innocents. | |
Multiculturalism: A Failed Concept (JWR 06/29/2016)
| • | German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism has "utterly failed," adding that it was an illusion to think Germans and foreign workers could "live happily side by side." | |
| • | Immigrants coming from Africa and the Middle East refuse to assimilate and instead seek to import the failed cultures they fled. | |
| • | Leftist diversity advocates and multiculturalists are right to argue that people of all races, religions and cultures should be equal in the eyes of the law. | |
| • | But their argument borders on idiocy when they argue that one set of cultural values cannot be judged superior to another and that to do so is Eurocentrism. | |
| • | That's unbridled nonsense. Ask a diversity/multiculturalism advocate: Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? | |
| • | Slavery is practiced in northern Sudan. | |
| • | In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limits placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education. | |
| • | Under Islamic law, in some countries, female adulterers face death by stoning, and thieves are punished by having their hand severed. | |
| • | In some African and Middle Eastern countries, homosexuality is a crime, in some cases punishable by death. | |
| • | Are all these cultural values morally equivalent to those of the West? | |
| • | The vital achievement of the West was the concept of individual rights, which saw its birth with the Magna Carta in 1215. | |
| • | The idea emerged that individuals have certain inalienable rights. | |
| • | Individuals do not exist to serve government; governments exist to protect their rights. | |
| • | But it was not until the 19th century that ideas of liberty received broad recognition. | |
| • | In the West, it was mostly through the works of British philosophers, such as John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. | |
| • | Personal liberty implies toleration of differences among people, whether those differences are racial, sexual, ideological or political. | |
| • | Liberty also implies a willingness to permit others who disagree with you to go their separate ways. | |
| • | This is not the vision of the new immigrants. ... "London, Paris, Stockholm and Berlin are among the major European cities that feature on a bombshell list of 900 lawless zones with large immigrant populations" | |
| • | The intellectual elite, courts and government agencies push an agenda that is anything but a defense of individual rights, freedom from conformity and a live-and-let-live philosophy. | |
| • | Part of that lesson is nonjudgmentalism, where one is taught that one lifestyle is just as worthy as another and all cultures and their values are morally equivalent. | |
| • | Western values are superior to all others. But one need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. | |
| • | By the way, it is no accident that Western values of reason and individual rights have produced unprecedented health, life expectancy, wealth and comfort for the ordinary person. | |
| • | There's an indisputable positive relationship between liberty and standards of living. | |
| • | There is also indisputable evidence that we in the West are unwilling to defend ourselves from barbarians. | |
| • | Just look at our response to the recent Orlando massacre, in which we've focused our energies on guns rather than on terrorists. | |
Greg Gutfeld: Brexit's babies: Why the Leavers won and the losers can't stop crying (Fox 06/28/2016)
| • | Yes, the Chicken Littles' pleading for a re-vote are the same ones who CAUSED the vote, through selective outrage, shallow taunts and cowardly ambivalence. | |
| • | Brexit could have been avoided if its critics could have been honest about the present day world. | |
| • | The Remainders remained home; the silent ones didn't . | |
| • | If you want to know who didn't go out and vote – it's the people hilariously demanding a second chance. | |
| • | The people who were sure Brexit wasn't going to happen, were so sure it wasn't going to happen, that they didn't bother to get off their arses and vote. | |
| • | Now they want a do-over, a redo, calling this election a mulligan. | |
| • | I don't think it works that way. If you didn't take it seriously the first time, and everyone else who voted did – that's on you. | |
| • | You were caught out in your arrogance and ignorance, assuming everyone who was for the exit was a frail, white angry pensioner. | |
| • | Turns out they were people you know – they just never told you so! | |
| • | The Remainders offended anyone who felt discomfort over mass migration. | |
| • | If you express any fears over the rise of Islamism and its assorted toxic doctrines (whose consequences are recently visible in horrific splendor), you are the bad guy – the racist. | |
| • | You are actually worse than the perpetrator of such misdeeds. | |
| • | The sense that control over your own country was now in the hands of impotent bureaucrats in Brussels, and that a vote to leave could wrest your country away from such toadies who are putting your country at risk – is not a symptom of racism or xenophobia. | |
| • | It's actually a sensible outlook given the state of affairs all over the globe. | |
| • | The modern human lacks sense of priority. | |
| • | Bold-faced names are expressing elitist outrage over a vote, while people down south are assaulting each other over toilet paper. | |
| • | Venezuela represents real-time suffering, not the hypothetical hysterias put forth over Brexit. | |
| • | The actual policies of a government – one lauded by Sean Penn and Oliver Stone – are creating a living hell, against the wishes of the suffering people. | |
| • | Venezuela's demise is caused by an ideology romanticized by the same people fretting over Brexit: socialism. | |
| • | It's just easier to call a British man who fought in World War II a racist, than it is to condemn an inhuman ideology that he fought and beat. | |
| • | ... despite leading moral lives we tend to care more about a small problem in our vicinity (my roof is leaking), than a larger problem far away (a mudslide kills hundreds). | |
| • | Even more, research shows that the larger the suffering, the less we react. Meaning our heartstrings will be pulled harder by the photo of one starving child – than many children equally in pain. It's weird but true. We care less when there is more. | |
| • | This moral cowardice as expressed by the most well-known of earthlings is what led to Brexit | |
| • | Brexit wasn't just evidence of a natural concern over one's well being in the face of rising Islamism amidst the European Union's lax immigration policy, it's also a big middle finger (or two "middle" fingers, if you're British) to those who cannot prioritize injustice, or evil. | |
| • | So call those who voted for Brexit bigots or idiots — you'll only encourage them. | |
| • | And by selectively ignoring greater evils around you — you'll be making the case for leaving better than the leavers ever could. | |
Similar frustrations for Trump and Brexit voters (Fox 06/27/2016)
| • | At the heart of the campaign that led Britain to vote to leave the European Union was a desire to regain independence lost amid a globalized world. | |
| • | It's the same kind of feeling that Donald Trump rode to become the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S., where he campaigns to put "America first" and "make America great again." | |
| • | "I love to see people take their country back. And that's really what's happening in the United States." | |
| • | The anxiety that drove the stunning "Brexit" decision has been brewing for at least a decade in the United Kingdom, as waves of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe arrived and the global economy was plunging into recession. | |
| • | "There's a real feeling things have changed and they've changed too fast." | |
| • | "This isn't the country I remember from growing up. I don't know exactly what happens next. I don't think anybody does. But I really feel like we needed something different, because this isn't working." | |
| • | ... the move to divorce the U.K. from the 28-nation bloc and its government in Brussels was celebrated by those who felt the changing country has lost its way since linking up with the rest of Europe. | |
| • | "Absolutely wonderful, best news ever. We want England — or Great Britain — to come back how it was years ago, and it's going the way that we want it to go." | |
| • | The billionaire businessman has tapped into the same concerns about a too-quickly-changing country that has left too many behind, and he's pledged to halt illegal immigration and bring back manufacturing jobs lost to factories overseas. | |
| • | Many see his "Make America Great Again" slogan as a vow to return the country to a time when they believe America was the undisputed world leader. | |
| • | "We have all been just wiping up the dirt. And it's like — we need to take our country back for us." | |
| • | "We've got to take care of ourselves before we take care of immigrants or somebody else. We've got to take care of our own." | |
| • | He said he's fed up with people who are in the country illegally, and argues that they take advantage of the system as he works hard to play by the rules. | |
| • | "There's too many deadbeats living off the system." | |
Giuliani: Trump is right, Obama is showing weakness (INN 06/26/2016)
| • | The "weakness" shown by the administration, said the former New York Mayor, is illustrated by the "withdrawal from Iraq, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the withdrawal of police officers from mosques, the failure of the president to use the term 'Islamic extremist terrorism,' these are all very bad signals to give to terrorists. The more they see weakness, the more they attack." | |
| • | The United States "does need profiling based on the characteristics of suspected murderers, suspected terrorists. You can't investigate everyone, and law enforcement is constantly profiling. You have to make a distinction between profiling based purely on race, religion, ethnic background or gender, and profiling based on facts." | |
| • | "If I'm looking for a serial killer who is 5 foot 4 with dark hair and I'm told that he is Italian-American, I don't go looking for Irish Americans or black people, I go looking for Italians who are 5 foot 4. When I went after the mafia, you could say that I ethnically profiled Italians. Well, why did I do that? Because to be a member of the mafia, you had to be Italian." | |
| • | "So to say that we are going to have more scrutiny of people belonging to the Islamic religion coming in from certain countries who are planning to kill us is only common sense. We just have to be aware of the fact that obviously not all members of the Islamic religion are terrorists — it would be terrible to suggest that — but it is true that most terrorists are in fact members of the Islamic religion. If you didn't pay special attention to that, you wouldn't be protecting the American people. So all this depends on how you define racial profiling." | |
| • | "Everybody knows that it was Islamic extremist terrorism. He wouldn't be telling us anything we don't know. In this particular case, the killer himself told us." | |
| • | "When the Justice Department released transcripts of the police call made by Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, they were going to omit all the references to Islamic terrorism and Mateen's pledge of loyalty to the Islamic State. That was the first decision made by the White House and the Justice Department, until many many people complained and they finally had to put it out." | |
| • | "I don't know what they think they're accomplishing. I actually think they're making it worse. They should just put out the facts. Instead, they hold the facts back and it only gets more attention." | |
| • | ... also said that Trump is "absolutely right that President Obama has been extremely weak in dealing with Islamic extremist terrorism." | |
| • | "The Islamic State would not exist in the form that it is currently in had President Obama not withdrawn from Iraq, and had President Obama intervened in Syria. Yes, it existed before he came into office, but it was a very small group." | |
| • | "Finally, he created this whole refugee crisis because he refused to set up a no-fly zone in Syria. He had been asked to do that by a number of senators, as well as the president of France, but he didn't do it. He threatened [Syrian President Bashar Al-] Assad with attack 12 different times if he used chemical weapons and backed down all 12 times. And he brought [Russian President Vladimir] Putin back into the Middle East. So I think that when Trump says that ISIS, in its present form, was created by President Obama and Hillary Clinton, I think he is right." | |
Why Britain's decision to exit the EU makes America safer (Fox 06/25/2016)
| • | The economic implications of leaving the European trading block are unknown, forecasts on both sides of the debate being mere speculation. | |
| • | But what is clear is that the security of the West is strengthened, not weakened by the break-up of the artificial and failing construct of the European Union. | |
| • | Sovereign states are driven by self-interest. These interests include defense, the economy, welfare, services, and border controls. | |
| • | Throughout history, states, communities, and tribes have recognized that they cannot operate in isolation. | |
| • | They've formed allegiances with other groups. In fact, most states have been formed by such allegiances. | |
| • | And it's happened organically and over considerable time until the moment is reached where borders are defined by landscape, language, culture and the inability to expand further due to confronting another state's border. | |
| • | The European Union was an out of control experiment. It started as purely a single market economic dynamic, not a security blanket. | |
| • | Defense of the West was and is covered by NATO – a military alliance that rests on the principal that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. | |
| • | ... the EU's rhetoric and ambitions suggested ... It wanted to become an unelected super-state, trying to draw together the strands of manifold histories and cultures and govern them from Brussels. | |
| • | There was talk of a European army, a European intelligence service, increasing antagonism toward America, and ultimately a mood of utter European arrogance. | |
| • | Such overarching constructs never work. History shows that in many cases they can result in catastrophic instability. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are examples. | |
| • | People never forget their roots, their religions, and their customs. Ultimately, attempts to suppress those norms end in rebellion or natural fragmentation. Sometimes it ends in terrible bloodshed. | |
| • | Our greatest ally is democratic America, not unelected bureaucrats in Belgium. We know the value of true allegiances – those who come to help us, those we help, states we stand shoulder to shoulder with to fight tyranny. | |
| • | Like-minded and self-interested units collaborate. A terrorist who is planning to attack the UK might attack the United States if his plan is thwarted. Therefore the UK works hand in glove with the US and other nations. | |
| • | Though intelligence and security services have a wary relationship with each other, they come together when confronting pure evil. We don't need an ideological European super-state to tie us into that principal. | |
| • | The European Union will ultimately break up. France and the Netherlands are now clamouring for a referendum in light of Thursday's result. They want self-governance, democracy, and control over their borders. They are scared that their defense is vulnerable within the EU. | |
| • | ISIS and other anarchists are attempting to wreak havoc. They have a bucket list of targets, but are clever. They will attack weaker and less obvious targets if necessary. | |
| • | Russia is a major threat. Putin feels he must be aggressive to appear the strong man in a vast and disparate country that for the most part has low standards of living and is hanging together by a cat's whisker. | |
| • | The Middle East is as ever the heartland of most of the world's terrorist problems. Many there blame the West and Israel for their problems, unwilling to naval gaze and wonder why they are fighting each other. | |
| • | To combat these and other threats, we need strong and independent states in the West and elsewhere which know right from wrong and crucially are able to act. | |
| • | With Great Britain out of the European Union, America once again has its closest ally back in the game. | |
A win for Britain: Brexit's victory is democracy's victory (Fox 06/24/2016)
| • | The results in Britain's referendum on its membership of the European Union are in. And what a result. Britain has voted to leave, by a margin of 52 percent in favor, or over 1.2 million votes. | |
| • | Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation Friday morning. | |
| • | In the end, it was northern England, a traditional working class heartland of Labour, that won it for Brexit. | |
| • | This wasn't simply a victory for the majority of the Conservative Party who wanted to leave. On their own, they would have lost. They won because the workers agreed with them. | |
| • | That decision was taken in an impeccably democratic way. In the future, Britain will govern itself as it has governed itself today: by decisions taken in Britain, not Brussels. | |
| • | There is no guarantee those decisions will be the right ones. But they will be British ones. | |
| • | Brexit is no silver bullet, and anyone who thinks it is will be gravely disappointed. | |
| • | In many ways, it increases the burden on Britain to pick the right policies: soon, it will no longer have Brussels to blame. | |
| • | A US-UK free trade area is now not just a possibility: it is the right thing to do, and to do soon. | |
| • | And we can hope that the EU learns a lesson from this. At the close of voting on Thursday night, they thought they'd won. | |
| • | If they'd gone down a different road, the vote wouldn't have happened. If they'd conducted a real renegotiation with Britain, Cameron might have won. | |
| • | But they didn't, and they didn't. It's now too late for them in Britain. If they don't change course, they will find other nations following Britain out the door. | |
When throwing boulders is "non-violent" (INN 06/22/2016)
| • | (Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in a Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.) | |
| • | When is the throwing of boulders "non-violent"? | |
| • | When a Palestinian throws them, of course. Just ask Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. | |
| • | ... Friedman included rock-throwing in his list of types of "non-violent resistance" that he hopes Palestinians will carry out. | |
| • | ... two passengers in an Israeli automobile were injured when "boulders smashed into the windows of their vehicle." | |
| • | Before throwing the boulders, the Palestinian attackers first spilled oil across the highway, hoping to cause cars to slide and crash. | |
| • | Despite attempts by advocates of the Palestinian cause to depict rock-throwers as children engaged in schoolyard hijinks, the truth is that these rock-terrorists are more sophisticated than one might imagine — sophisticated, that is, in the art of murdering and maiming Jews. | |
| • | Last year, when they targeted an Israeli school bus in Jerusalem, they attacked from two sides with different weapons: one hurled rocks at the windows, while the other threw bags of black paint at the front windshield, hoping to blind the driver and cause the bus to crash. | |
| • | They also long ago figured out that a rock can cause a lot more damage if thrown at an automobile moving at high speed. | |
| • | Surely many Americans Jews still remember how Palestinian rock-throwers murdered U.S. citizen Asher Palmer and his young son, Yonatan. | |
| • | By throwing the rocks from a fast-moving car at Palmer's car, which was traveling in the other direction, they doubled the impact of the rocks. That crushed the front windshield, causing the car to crash and killing both Asher and Yonatan. | |
| • | Last January, the Israeli police arrested a ring of 16 Palestinians who had carried out a number of rock or firebomb attacks against Israeli motorists along Route 443. | |
| • | ... several of the culprits had previously served prison sentences for terrorism — thus validating, once again, the charge by some Israelis that too many terrorists are receiving unduly brief sentences. The recidivism rate among released Palestinian terrorists is alarmingly high. | |
| • | Dozens, hundreds, even thousands of Palestinian rock-throwing attacks against Jews do not interest the New York Times or the Washington Post. | |
| • | But since a Palestinian teenager was killed in the latest incident, we can count on the American news media to suddenly sit up and pay attention. | |
| • | And since the teenager allegedly was a bystander rather than a perpetrator (although it remains to be explained why he was in the vicinity of Route 443 at 2:00 in the morning, when the attacks took place), the U.S. media no doubt will be very interested. | |
| • | Our own American legal system has already shown the way in dealing with rock-throwing. Not by ignoring it. Not by re-defining it as "non-violent resistance." But by treating it for what it is: attempted murder. | |
| • | Three teenagers threw rocks at cars on the Capital Beltway in Washington, D.C., in 1990,. wounding thirty drivers or passengers, including a girl who suffered irreversible brain damage. | |
| • | The attackers were convicted of "assault with intent to murder" and each sentenced to 40 years in prison. | |
| • | An editorial in the Washington Post at the time correctly asked, "What's the difference between assault with a deadly weapon — a shooting — and assault with rocks that hit cars at potentially lethal speeds?" | |
Stop the injustice against Islam! (INN 06/20/2016)
| • | Why should the presupposition of all our thoughts be that Islam is perfect, and that any imperfection must surely have nothing to do with Islam? | |
| • | As a person born and bred in a hard-core Muslim terror-state, as a person who grew up not in one, but two Muslim countries whose laws are more or less those of the Sharia, and as a person who lives in a European country where Islam determines what is allowed or not to be said and to be done, I can tell you that you should stop the injustice applied to Islam. | |
| • | If you live in Israel, if you live in North America or somewhere in Europe where you can still think as a free individual, then you should consider yourself privileged enough to be the heir to a civilization so great, that it achieved things none others have. | |
| • | The superiority of Western civilization is a fact. | |
| • | Nothing is perfect, and Western civilization is not, either. However being not perfect does not imply not being the best we have got so far. | |
| • | For many years, Western philosophy and science have treated, studied, examined and ultimately criticized Judaism and Christianity. | |
| • | Without wanting to idealize the European history, these scientific studies on the history and nature of Judaism and Christianity have taken place without any significant incidents or violence committed against the aforementioned scientists, scholars and professors. | |
| • | An ideology is a religion only if it calls for faith, and for those who have that faith. | |
| • | What stops any person - good or bad - from claiming to be a prophet, establishing a religion, writing a "holy book", and asking others to respect and abide by its laws? | |
| • | Consequently, in a scientific context, a religion ceases - and should cease - to be one. It should turn to be what it is, an ideology with all different aspects that it can encompass such as spirituality, afterlife, rituals, etc, for we know that different philosophical movements also discuss such matters often as seriously as religions do. | |
| • | Judaism and Christianity have gone through all the tests and criticism as a set of ideologies, just like any other ideology, be it artistic, be it political, or you name it. | |
| • | For the scientists and scholars in the "lab" (that includes the laboratory of human sciences), Judaism and Christianity were as much of an ideology as communism, Maoism, Hinduism, romanticism, impressionism, etc. | |
| • | Yet, when it comes to Islam, Western culture, our scientists, our "thinkers", our politicians, our "scholars", university professors and "anyone who is anyone", throw centuries of critical thinking and scientific examination into the garbage. | |
| • | Please stop calling Islam a religion of peace, whereas Islam does not see itself as peaceful. Islam has never been peaceful. | |
| • | Muhammed was not a peaceful man, and he was not shy about it. | |
| • | Muslims take pride in the warriorship of the founder of their religion and in the violence he and the early Muslims committed in order to conquer foreign lands namely mass rapes and forced conversions against Persians and the neighboring peoples. | |
| • | A peaceful Muslim has no one to look for as a role model, no tradition to see other than some fantasy about the "Golden Age" of Islam... | |
| • | The "Golden Age" was one in which Jews and Christians were considered as second-class citizens, paying an exuberant extra tax not to be killed for not being Muslims. | |
| • | I beg our policy makers, media elite, university professors, leftist loonies and multiculturalists to stop dreaming and halt the wishful thinking circus. Grow up. You are not in kindergarten anymore. | |
| • | If an ideology commands to kill, if terrorists who know the Koran better than you do, who know the life of Muhammed better than you do, and who go to mosque more often than you do, are motivated to kill based on Islamic ideological reasons, who are you then to lecture them and ultimately us, the victims, on what Islam is and is not? | |
| • | Who on earth are you to say this has nothing to do with Islam? Will you tell us soon that Muhammed's life had nothing to do with Islam either? The murders, the wars, the pedophilia, and the slavery? | |
| • | If Islam is a religion of peace, why is it so easily "hijacked" by "radical" Muslims? | |
| • | Why should the presupposition of all our thoughts be that Islam is perfect, and any imperfection must surely have nothing to do with Islam? | |
| • | We have based all our conclusions on empirical and measurable evidence, observation and experiment for as long as science has existed. Judaism and Christianity have undergone those methods, yet when it comes to Islam we make an exception. | |
| • | It does not matter anymore whether a large percentage of Muslims, no matter how large, do not want to kill you. We can not send them gifts and thank you cards for not wanting to kill infidels, gays, Jews and Christians. Not wanting to kill, is the minimum. That's the bar for any civilized society. | |
| • | Do not call something which does not look like a religion, a religion. Those who dream and wishfully think of "moderate" Islam and "moderate" Muslims have as much blood on their hands as anyone else. | |
| • | Are 14 centuries of forced conversions, mass rape, land appropriation, slavery, pedophilia not radical enough for those who believe in "moderate" Islam to be called "radicals"? | |
| • | Where is the "moderate" version of Muhammed's life in which he did not wage genocidal wars against non-Muslims, did not take people for slavery and in which he did not marry child brides and his own adoptive daughter in law? | |
| • | Where is the "moderate" version of the Koran in which there are no calls to strike terror in the heart of the unbelievers? | |
| • | Where is the "moderate" Koran in which Muhammed — far from being exemplary — is not considered the example for each and every Muslim to follow? | |
| • | Following Muhammed's example, means that a good Muslim is one that kills infidels, forces people into slavery, rapes children and stones the adulterers. | |
| • | Everything you see in Syria and in Iraq, has been going on for 14 centuries. | |
| • | The moral relativist narrative will continue to tell you that: "Oh well you know, the Bible is violent, too..." | |
| • | The Hebrew Bible has descriptive violence, mostly used against the Hebrews themselves by their very own G-d for they had gone astray. | |
| • | Any random idiot can tell the difference between the descriptive violence of the Bible and the prescriptive and imperative violence in the Koran, commanded by Allah against non-Muslims and other Muslims else the "religion of peace" determines not good enough at jihad. | |
| • | Islamophobia is the only rational reaction of a yet well-functioning brain. | |
| • | According to the multiculturalist social justice warriors, all cultures are equally good and bad (well except the Western ones which are a little bit "more bad"). And all religions are equally good and bad (except for Christianity and especially Judaism who are a little bit "more bad") and so it goes. | |
| • | They will tell you that you have to respect any culture or religion that claims to be one (no matter if does not look like or act like one), even if they do not respect you. Or worse, even if they want to kill you. | |
| • | Why should a Jew or a Christian respect Islam, if the latter thinks of him as a second-class citizen? | |
| • | Well, of course sadly many do, which is not surprisingly after decades of cultural Marxism, moral relativism and civilizational emasculation and disarming feminism. | |
| • | The cult of unconditional respect and tolerance towards the most intolerant of ideologies reigns in the West. | |
| • | Even if Islam openly expressed its will at the destruction of our way of life, that does not stop the cult of respect and tolerance from committing suicide, for that is what "unconditional" means. Enslaved. | |
| • | Westerners, now more servile, docile and disarmed than ever turn so quickly to self-criticism - an admirable quality which led us to our great achievements in the past but which is solely a path to suicide. | |
| • | After every attack, our politicians, our journalists and our intelligentsia rush to the media circus. After having made sure of having stated that it has nothing to do with Islam, even if the perpetrators cite the Koran chapter and verse, they proceed to condemn the "cowardly" attacks. | |
| • | Muslims have clearly defined their enemies (infidels and the world of war) for 14 centuries. | |
| • | In the recent decades, they have well-programed their invasion into the West, sucked up the social and economic benefits while doing as much harm as imaginable, training themselves more and more professionally, deceived the more and more sophisticated Western intelligence services and yet we call the attacks cowardly. | |
| • | And we are not even ready to recognize the name of our enemy, put aside taking any rational meaningful actions. | |
| • | As the late Christopher Hitchens once famously said: "The barbarians never take a city until someone holds the gates open to them. And it's your own multicultural authorities who will do it for you." | |
| • | We will lose because we are cowards, reluctant to see that Islam is not solely a "religion", but an ideology who is here to hate and to kill. | |
| • | We will lose because not only don't we think we have an enemy, but we welcome our enemy into our homes, as friends, make concessions to it and think that "all religions are equally violent", or some other nonsense such as "moderate Muslims are our allies". | |
| • | Today more than ever, we need a total separation of Muslims and non-Muslims across the globe. | |
| • | This is not racist as Islam is not a race, not more than communism or Nazism were. And it is not bigoted because bigotry is putting the life of billions of innocent people who are not responsible for the existence of Islam in danger. | |
| • | Yes their "religion" does also kill them and I am sorry that it does. I happen to hold any life sacred, and I mourn the loss of any innocent life. But I feel sorrier for us - infidels - who are the victims of Islam no matter how submissively and generously we behave. So maybe after all we should not. | |
| • | ... our beloved moral relativists, politicians, media elite, university professors, journalists, leftist loonies and social justice warriors have never set any lines after which their mythological "moderate" Muslims become "radical". | |
| • | Where is the line after all? Does that translate into the fact that we are all already condemned to live with living time bombs before they go off? | |
| • | ... there exists only one form of Islam. And that is - well you guessed - just your plain adjective-less Islam. | |
| • | Our belief in "moderate" Islam, and our foreign and domestic policy in the West also hurts our true allies in the Middle East, the former Muslims who today are atheists or converts to other religions. | |
| • | Nobody feels the moral obligation of welcoming the persecuted ex-Muslim atheists and Christians into Europe in lieu of the flow of the so-called "refugees" which as predominantly young men look exactly like an invasive, bringing rape and terror with itself before anything else. | |
| • | Well, it is not the first time that Muslims orchestrate an invasion of Europe, except in the past we were not disarmed with the multiculturalism mental illness and the cult of unconditional tolerance towards anything, especially not rape and murder cultures. | |
| • | ... there is only one Islam. The same one that commands to kill. | |
| • | Political correctness extremism and social justice warriorship has metastasized so deep within us that now we think we know someone else's "religion" better than themselves. | |
| • | While the Muslim world is laughing at us, distributing cookies and candies celebrating each terror attack in the West, especially if its victims are Jewish, we are busy making up words to exonerate Islam of all responsibility, we are busy fighting against "Islamophobia" as if it were a bad thing, we are busy making bathrooms gender neutral, we are busy importing fake invasive refugees with all their problems and rape culture and we are busy saying that after all nothing Islamic has anything to do with Islam.. We really make their job easy, don't we? | |
| • | "Moderate" Islam and "moderate" Muslims do not exist, and even if they did, not only they do not help, but they are part of the problem. | |
| • | When faced with mortal danger, it is perfectly normal, moral, rational and justified to paint with a broad brush. | |
| • | What is immoral and irrational is condemning innocent non-Muslims to live with living time bombs, without defining a line after which a "moderate" Muslim becomes "radical". A line that does not exist. | |
| • | If a "religion" at all, stop calling Islam a "religion" of peace, despite its own efforts, history and tradition to be anything but peaceful. | |
Understanding the Middle East chaos at its core (INN 06/19/2016)
| • | To make any meaningful difference to this still-expanding problem, American decision-makers would first need to look behind the news. | |
| • | Only after such a penetrating look, could our country's next president ever hope to progress beyond uttering useless second-order narratives of regional names, places, and ideologies. | |
| • | After all, for literally millennia, nothing here has really changed. Rather, from the beginning, war and genocide have stemmed from seemingly fixed and universal human needs to belong and never to die. | |
| • | In essence, in area geopolitics, the personal and the political have always been more-or-less interdependent. | |
| • | Indeed, no one can persuasively purport to understand Middle East chaos without first being willing to consider regional geopolitical relationships in their most fully reciprocal and complex expressions. | |
| • | There is more. Inevitably, such willingness will bring the strategist or analyst back to the individual human being. | |
| • | Inevitably, all area geopolitics will be contingent upon the specific wants and behaviors of this single human person, which are casually observable and readily predictable. | |
| • | To try and "fix" Islamic Middle Eastern chaos by imposing yet another contrived amalgam of military and political responses would once again miss the point. | |
| • | The core problem, our leaders ... should finally understand, is not narrowly political or military. It is, rather, very deeply "psychological," and also, very broadly "civilizational." | |
| • | The "real world" of Middle Eastern chaos is ambiguous. There is no point to overlooking this staggering complexity, or simply pretending that it need not impact our pertinent regional policies. | |
| • | At the same time, beneath this ambiguity and searing chaos lies a decipherable and plainly longstanding corpus of individual human needs. | |
| • | Among these needs, moreover, none is more harshly compelling, or authentically causal, than the unwavering human desire to belong, and, to live perpetually. | |
| • | ... each individual person can feel empty and insignificant apart from membership in some sort of crowd. | |
| • | Sometimes, this presumptively sustaining crowd is the ‘State.' Sometimes, it is the ‘Tribe.' Sometimes, as with ISIS, or Hezbollah, or Muslim Brotherhood, it is, at least residually, the Faith. | |
| • | Unless we humans can finally learn how to temper our overwhelming and nearly-ubiquitous desire to belong at all costs, our recurrent military and political schemes to remedy genocide, war, and terrorism will inevitably fail. | |
| • | Without augmentation by far more basic sorts of human transformations – namely, changes that produce more expressly individualistic human beings – these time-dishonored strategies for national security, collective security (United Nations), or collective defense (alliances) will continue to be ineffectual. | |
| • | It is largely this craving for membership and, as corollary, craving for belonging, that threatens to subvert individual moral responsibility, and, thereby, to ignite monumental crime. | |
| • | Not every human crowd or herd need be insidious or destructive; not even in the Middle East. Still, grievously ongoing crimes against humanity could never take place in the absence of such collectivities. | |
| • | Whenever individuals join together and form a crowd or herd, certain latently destructive dynamics of mob psychology are made available for explosive release. | |
| • | Significantly, this fateful combining of membership with destructiveness lowers each affected person's ethical and intellectual level to a point where even crimes against humanity may become acceptable. | |
| • | On the surface, ongoing brutalities in the Islamic Middle East represent fragmenting struggles between assorted warring herds. These herds, in turn, are the product of certain critically underlying individual needs to belong. | |
| • | These needs are themselves derived from the most primary human want of all. This, our leaders must finally understand, is the generally unquenchable yearning for immortality. | |
Enough is enough, Pope Francis should resign (Fox 06/17/2016)
| • | Pope Francis's three-year-old papacy, marred by controversy from the beginning, has hit a new low. | |
| • | From his "Who am I to judge?" statement on gay people that seemed to offer a hint at a change in church teaching, to his fumbles on contraception, to his recent claim that Donald Trump is not Christian, his off-the-cuff remarks cause headlines across the globe, often followed by some sort of "clarification" from the Holy See Press Office. | |
| • | His papacy has been a litany of confusing statements for the faithful on the most sensitive and delicate topics. | |
| • | While clear on political topics dear to his heart, but where Catholics can legitimately hold differing opinions, such as immigration, economics and climate change, on matters of doctrine, Francis muddied the waters to an extent that many well-meaning Catholics feel they no longer know where the Church stands on issues of faith. | |
| • | ... he was asked about marriage. He said: | |
| • | "It's provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say ‘yes, for the rest of my life!' but they don't know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don't know." | |
| • | To say that the "great majority" of Catholic marriages are null, or invalid, is a statement that is neither true, wise, nor fair. | |
| • | For a "pope of the people" he certainly doesn't give Catholics much credit. | |
| • | For a Catholic marriage to be valid all that is needed is the freedom to marry, consent from both parties, and the intention to marry for life and be open to children. That's it. | |
| • | For Pope Francis to say the great majority of marriages are null implies that the great majority of Catholic are ignorant fools who cannot understand the responsibilities of a bedrock of society that has existed for thousands of years. | |
| • | It also suggests severe doubt in the mercy and grace of God. The rule of thumb when the validity of sacraments, ... is concerned, is to assume validity unless something clearly contradicts that. | |
| • | Francis' statement demonstrates a lack of faith in the Church and its ability to vet couples seeking marriage, to teach them about what marriage is, and to administer the sacraments effectively. | |
| • | If most marriages are invalid because couples don't understand a life-long commitment, does that mean most priestly ordinations are invalid too? If so, are most masses invalid? Most confessions? | |
| • | The Church's authority rests, in part, on its claim to be able to communicate the sacraments and the teachings of Christ. | |
| • | Francis has cast doubt on the former, has done a poor job of the latter, and by doing so has brought the Church's legitimacy into question. | |
| • | Once upon a time Catholics would have been stuck with a bad pope, but since Pope Emeritus Benedict opened the door for a pope resigning when he can no longer do his job, it is time for the faithful to look at Francis and ask — "is this man able to lead the Holy Catholic Church?" | |
| • | At this point it is clear, Bergoglio has repeatedly proven himself unable to lead, and is doing incalculable damage to the Church that will take decades to heal. | |
| • | Pope Francis should resign, and Catholics should demand it, so the Church can begin recovering from the havoc his ill-advised and arrogant papacy has wrought. | |
Do we deserve this barbarity? (INN 06/12/2016)
| • | Can the killing of a gorilla in a zoo in Cincinnati, committed to save the life of a child, unleash more emotion and more media coverage than the decapitation of 21 Christians in a beach in Libya? | |
| • | ... mainstream television stations dedicated six times as much air time to the death of the gibbon Harambe than they did to the barbaric execution by the Islamic State of 21 Coptic Christians. | |
| • | Saturday, May 28, security officers fired at the gorilla to protect a three year old child who fell into the cage. | |
| • | In the five days after the death of the animal, the three major US networks devoted to this story 1 hour, 28 minutes and 17 seconds. | |
| • | In February 2015, a group of Islamist thugs dressed in black slaughtered 21 Coptic Christians on a beach near Tripoli. | |
| • | ... ABC, CBS and NBC spent a total of only 14 minutes and 30 seconds to report the massacre of those Christians: less than one-sixth of the time spent on the transmissions about the gorilla. | |
| • | The sadness over the death of a beautiful animal has been transformed into a platform for feelings directed against the child's parents from the working class. | |
| • | An online petition asking the State of Ohio to remove the custody of children from his parents raised 400,000 signatures, an impressive number. | |
| • | How many signatures were collected in favor of the Eastern Christians? | |
| • | A group of protesters distressed by the death of the gorilla organized vigils at the zoo to mourn the animal. | |
| • | For Christians, only silence. For Yazidis, greater silence. | |
| • | We don't recall the same hysteria against the parents of European volunteers who joined the Islamic State; indeed, there was even understanding towards them when their children left to become members of the Middle East butchers. | |
| • | Jack Hanna, a zookeeper, said in a statement to the media: "I bet my life on this, that child would not be here today", if zoo's officials would have not killed the gorilla. | |
| • | What the media lacks is at least the same compassion for the Christian victims of the butchers of ISIS. | |
| • | But perhaps the media just gives us what people want: "bread and circuses" as was said by the Romans. | |
| • | Is it possible that the killing of that caged primate moves public opinion more than 19 Yazidi girls burned in a cage by Islamist rapists? | |
| • | Do not be surprised that the next step was Orlando. | |
| • | We deserve barbarity in this world turned upside down! | |
'Son of Hamas': Islam is the problem (INN 05/23/2016)
| • | Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of one Hamas founder Hassan Yousef who in the past served as an undercover agent for the Israel Security Agency ... told the Jerusalem Post conference in New York that "Islam is the problem" and that the free world must fight it. | |
| • | Yousef ... risked his life working undercover for the Shin Bet, and during that time he supplied information that prevented dozens of suicide attacks and assassinations of Israelis and exposed numerous Hamas terrorist cells. | |
| • | He ultimately converted to Christianity and fled to the United States where he was granted political asylum. | |
| • | "At one point I thought that the Jewish nation is the enemy of humanity. I thought they were the enemy of our people, the Palestinian people, until I experienced what the Jewish nation truly is," said Yousef, who described Israel as "the only light in the Middle East". | |
| • | "We can fool ourselves, but there is an Islamic problem. "Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad, the Islamic State (ISIS) and Boko Haram - all of them kill in the name of Allah." | |
| • | "There is an Islamic problem and humanity needs to stand against this danger, because it is not directed only against Israel. This danger is against human evolution." | |
| • | "Humanity and the free world must unite. Today the free world should unite against Islam, not against Muslims but against Islam as a belief system. When the president of the free world says that Islam is a religion of peace, he creates the climate for the formation of more terror." | |
| • | ... Israel is a "nation that managed to survive the Holocaust and instead of assuming the role of victim and blaming everyone they were able to establish a democratic state - a young country which developed in less than 25 years. This is a good example for everyone." | |
The media as a weapon in the Israeli/Arab war (INN 05/16/2016)
| • | "Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but [in 1936] in Spain for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.... This kind of thing is frightening to me, because it often gives me the feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world." | |
| • | Israel is engaged in a war in which the media plays a fundamental role in influencing world public opinion and government attitudes and decisions. | |
| • | "A revolution happened without us knowing or paying attention. Perception truly now is reality, and our enemies know it." | |
| • | The Soviets played a critical role in facilitating the use of language as a weapon of demonization and delegitimization against Israel by creating a political language connecting the former Soviet-styled anti-Semitism to the present one. | |
| • | In defining the political vocabulary about Israel and the Jewish people, the Soviets established the cultural foundations for a new type of political anti-Semitism that has become part of mainstream culture. | |
| • | Vladimir Lenin, the Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist and an expert on the art of writing hate propaganda, explained how to implement this disinformation. | |
| • | "The wording (of our press campaign against our foes)," he said, "is calculated to provoke in the reader, hatred, disgust, contempt. The phrasing must be calculated not to convince but to destroy, not to correct the adversary's mistake, but to annihilate his organization and wipe it off the face of the earth. This wording must really be of such a kind as to provoke the worst notions, the worst suspicions about the adversary; it must sow discord and confusion in the ranks and be the opposite of phrasing which would convince and correct." | |
| • | Lenin also understood the critical need to broaden the base of supporters. "There was no sector of society," he believed, "that cannot be enlisted in the revolutionary movement by abrasive sloganeering and hate targeting." Locating the "pressure points" and "visible and accessible hate targets," became the responsibility of the revolutionary psychological warfare experts. | |
| • | The need for a scapegoat is crucial in this process. "Anger wants a personal victim, and wants it now," observed Gordon Allport, an American psychologist. | |
| • | "Violence is always an outgrowth of milder states of mind ... And so long as the target of wrath remains vague and ill-defined specific prejudice cannot crystallize around it. To have enemies we need labels." | |
| • | A Permanent Commission under the Social Sciences Section of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created "to coordinate research dedicated to the exposure and criticism of the history, ideology, and practical activity of Zionism." | |
| • | "The vocabulary of Middle Eastern politics has been enriched with a new formula — ‘the removal of the consequences of aggression.'" | |
| • | The Arab states identified Israel as the aggressor, and demanded restoration of Arab lands and the return of their Arab populations.12 | |
| • | On October 4, 1967, Komsomolskaya Pravda ... published an article declaring "Zionism is dedicated to 'genocide, racism, treachery, aggression, and annexation...all characteristic attributes of fascists.'" | |
| • | On November 10, 1975, the Russians and their Arab allies successfully passed U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism. | |
| • | On December 16, 1991, 85 countries, a little more than half of the 166 U.N. members co-sponsored the repeal resolution, including the Soviet Union and its former communist allies in Eastern Europe that had previously voted in favor. | |
| • | Yet the damage had been done. "Vilification of Zionism turned into a permanent feature of international life"... | |
| • | "That Zionism was a metaphor for universal evil became part of ‘common knowledge,' accepted or at least not contradicted by almost the entire international body politic." | |
| • | The Soviets added another element in manipulating language — the "reversal of culpability," which imposes a false historical analogy on the present. Thus, Goliath becomes David, and David becomes Goliath. | |
| • | The most prevalent use of this technique is the charge of "genocide," which conveys the fallacious claim that "Israel is doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews." | |
| • | Aside from being erroneous, this libel demeans the magnitude of the Holocaust and its uniqueness. | |
| • | These criticisms ultimately obscure the distinctions between what is right and wrong and undermines the foundations of Judeo-Christian morality. | |
| • | "How have the doings in a country that constitutes 0.01 per cent of the world's surface become the focus of angst, loathing, and condemnation more than any other?" | |
Trump versus the Muslim mayor of London (INN 05/13/2016)
| • | First the good news about Sadiq Khan. In his first act as London's newly elected Muslim mayor he attended a Holocaust memorial service. | |
| • | Next we hear that he plans a trip to Israel. This is still good. | |
| • | But after that, and even before that, the news is not so good. | |
| • | He says that if Trump is elected he won't come to the United States. (Ain't that a shame.) | |
| • | Then he says that if Muslims will be prevented, or limited, from entering the United States there will be consequences. Expect Islamic violence. | |
| • | If other words, we're asking for it if we don't elect someone entirely favorable to the Muslim world. This, of course, excludes Trump and favors Hillary. | |
| • | We get Muslim violence regardless who is president, don't we? We got 9/11 while George W. Bush was in office. Trump was nowhere in sight. | |
| • | We got Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon, San Bernardino and other acts of Muslim violence while Obama was in office and no one's been more favorable to the Muslim cause than Obama – except maybe LBJ. | |
| • | Back in 1965, LBJ signed into law the (Hart-Celler) Immigration and Naturalization Act that opened America's doors wide open for Muslims. | |
| • | Trump was nowhere to be seen when a Muslim Palestinian Arab, Sirhan Sirhan murdered Robert Kennedy in 1968. | |
| • | So why Trump, when it's Mayor Khan who should be in the hot seat. The day after he was declared the winner, buses in London were driving along with signs declaring "Glory to Allah" and we imagine that Hamas were handing out candy in Gaza and likewise the PA in Ramallah. | |
| • | Where – Trump might ask Mayor Khan – yes where is the Jewish mayor of Islamabad? | |
| • | Or where is the Christian mayor anywhere in Pakistan, Mayor Khan's ancestral home? | |
| • | So while the West celebrates itself for being so elaborately diverse, don't even dream about diversity anywhere along the world's 57 Islamic states. | |
| • | Only Western Democracies, like Britain, like the United States, like Israel, are expected to extend hospitality and equality – and we do. | |
| • | What about the rape epidemic that's been sweeping parts of London throughout the years? | |
| • | Khan needs to answer for his Pakistani countrymen who are alleged to be the dominant assailants against thousands of British women and girls. | |
| • | No wonder, then, that Trump keeps calling for a pause on migrating Syrian refugees. | |
| • | Altogether, Trump says, we need to think twice about a Muslim influx. He's appointing Mayor Rudy Giuliani to study the situation. | |
| • | Mayor Khan may turn out to be an okay guy. | |
| • | But he's no Mayor Rudy, who can still smell the burning flesh from what they came and did to us on 9/11. | |
Donald Trump will understand Middle East real estate in 5 minutes (INN 05/08/2016)
| • | As for the Middle East, real estate mogul Trump will quickly understand the topography, demography, and resource aspects of the Middle East real estate map. | |
| • | Here's a quick guide to the 5 keys to the Middle Eastern Real Estate's topographic, demographic, and asset-rich terrain. | |
| • | 1) Iran is shooting to steal, for itself, the Black Gold Triangle, taking it from the Sunni Kingdoms. | |
| • | So, on the face of it, the Middle East is a Sunni-Shiite fight over the fertile-crescent's oil riches. | |
| • | 2) Trump will notice that topographically the 4,000 meter-high Zagros Mountains that form Iran's western border are the dividing line between Persia to the east, and the Arabs to the West, and that all the oil is on the Arab's Western side. | |
| • | Iran's goal is to instigate Arab auto-genocide so that Iran can walk into the Black Gold Triangle without anyone stopping them. | |
| • | Trump will see the current Middle East turmoil not as a Sunni-Shiite battle to the death, but as a Persian plan to steal Arab oil resources. | |
| • | 3) Once Iran is seen as the ultimate fomenter of the horrific violence, mass-murder, and world terrorism, Mr. Trump will quickly see Israel as the key to forming a sustainable local regional Sunni defense alliance that will stop the Iranian hegemonic land-grab in its tracks. | |
| • | The key is the fact that the Middle East doesn't need American troops. The Middle East needs an American President who does not act like an Iranian stooge. | |
| • | Obama has done everything in his power to kill an Israeli-Sunni alliance. | |
| • | 4) Next, Trump will see that only thing that stands between Greece, a NATO member with 11 million Christians (that America is sworn to defend), and 370 million Muslims of the Middle East - is the safe and strong fortress of Eretz Israel including the entire 'West Bank'. | |
| • | Without Israel, the United States would have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year and lose many thousands of our precious soldiers defending Europe from an Islamo-Fascist invasion from the South-East. | |
| • | He will understand that control of the physical territory of Israel forms the key strategic European defense hub of the entire Middle East. | |
| • | For, as Alexander the Great schooled his generals in 333 B.C.E. after he rejected their urgent advice to immediately chase east after the Persian/Iranian Darius III after Alexander defeated Darius III at Battle of Issus... | |
| • | "Friends and fellow soldiers, I do not see how we safely advance ... to pursue [the Iranian] Darius with the neutral city of Tyre in our rear and Egypt and Cyprus still in enemy hands would be a serious risk... But with all Phoenicia [Israel] ... ours ... we shall be able to march on Babylon [Iraq] with security at home, with enhanced prestige and with Persia [Iran] excluded not only from the [Mediterranean] Sea but from the whole [Middle East] continent up to the Euphrates. | |
| • | With a safe and secure Israel, there will be peace. With a defeated Israel, the Iranian Pandora's evil box will become unstoppable. | |
| • | 5) Finally, in seconds President Trump will understand that the West Bank is the topographic mountains that tower over the low lands of the Sharon Plain that hold 70% of Israel's Jewish population. | |
| • | Trump will see the "2-State Solution" is the "Establishment's" prescription for an American catastrophic loss of its key geo-strategic asset in the region. | |
| • | In short, a President Trump will usher in a golden age of peace and harmony in the Middle East by recognizing that the "international establishment's" 2-State Solution is as much of an international fraud on America as is all of the "Establishment's" other domestic policies that have destroyed America's power of good in the world. | |
| • | And, critically, the real evil of the Middle East is Iran and its evil proxies who are now funded by Obama's treasonous Iranian Nuclear deal. | |
Palestinians: Peace starts with facing the harsh reality of hate (INN 04/28/2016)
| • | While Palestinian refugees are scattered over several countries and given few rights by their Arab hosts, and while they live in various states of dependence in Gaza and the West Bank, resolution of their status is delayed decade after decade, with occasional lip service paid to a negotiated two-state solution — the magic solution that would supposedly cure everything! | |
| • | Who should be blamed for this? Most of the world is quick to blame Israel. | |
| • | The Jews accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 which would have given the Palestinians a state more viable than what was given to the Jews, but the Arab states convinced the Palestinians that it was a bad deal, and the Palestinians have been rejecting all opportunities for a state ever since. | |
| • | The Arab states, many Europeans and the so-called "pro-Palestinian" movement have been using the same tactic since 1948 – keep the Palestinians in poverty, victimhood, and dependence so that Israel can be blamed, with the hope that Israel would lose legitimacy and its Jewish residents would be thrown into the sea or they would pack up and leave. | |
| • | Obviously it has not worked and it never will, but it has created what seems a carefully-planned hate culture for the Palestinians. | |
| • | Less than a week ago, in the official Friday sermon on official Palestinian Authority (PA) television — not Hamas — the PA preacher was praying for genocide: | |
| • | "Allah, punish Your enemies, the enemies of religion, count their numbers and kill them to the last one, and bring them a black day. Allah, punish the wicked Jews, and those among the atheists who help them. Allah, we ask that You bestow upon us respect and honor by enabling us to repel them, and we ask You to save us from their evil." | |
| • | All attempts by the U.S. to facilitate a final-status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians have failed. Has any reasonable person really expected those attempts to succeed? | |
| • | A society whose leaders campaign for a convicted terrorist to be given the Nobel Peace Prize, a society that teaches its children hatred and violence as part of its standard curriculum, a society that unabashedly teaches anti-Semitism through all means available, a society that putssuicide belts on children during political celebrations, a society that honors, glorifies and fundsterrorists, a society that uses a hateful version of religion to poison the minds of its children, a society that engages in widespread jubilation when Jews are victims of terrorist attacks, is not a healthy society that can develop peace of any kind. | |
| • | Peace cannot be achieved as if by magic. Teach the Palestinians the values that bring peace (acceptance of differences, religious tolerance, and non-violent conflict resolution) rather than the lies that bring hate. | |
| • | Stop the anti-Israel incitement and maybe in a generation or two, the Palestinians will be ready for peace. | |
| • | These are the values taught all over the liberal democratic world, including Israel, but somehow, when it comes to Arabs, all expectations of socialized behavior are thrown out the window. | |
| • | That peace requires — first — the end of the Palestinian culture of hate is obvious; yet this point is rarely made except by Israel and its supporters. | |
| • | Somehow, people expect to resolve a conflict without neutralizing the root cause of that conflict: teaching hate. | |
| • | While it is technically true that both sides have faults, the imbalance is so great that the analogy is not only meaningless, but, more importantly, dangerous. | |
| • | Resolving the hatred would finally allow Palestinians to look after their own interests rather than be obsessed and distracted with damaging the interests of Israel. | |
| • | They would find that their interests are quite consistent with those of Israel, and that peace would bring them huge dividends. | |
| • | They would be able to see these facts because they would no longer be blinded by hate. | |
| • | Teach Peace: This is the solution that Western politicians urgently need to talk about when they meet Palestinian officials. | |
| • | It should be at the start, at the middle, and at the end of every meeting and every speech, and all funding should be made contingent on it and strictly linked to it. | |
| • | Until this approach is adopted, there is really no point in talking about a negotiated two-state solution. | |
Obama meddles in Brexit but shuns Netanyahu when he speaks up about Iran (Fox 04/22/2016)
| • | President Obama defended his intrusion into British politics in taking sides on the controversial and divisive Brexit debate. | |
| • | "If one of our best friends is in an organization that enhances their influence and enhances their power and enhances their economy, then I want them to stay in. Or at least I want to be able to tell them ‘I think this makes you guys bigger players.'" | |
| • | Nor did he stop at merely giving the British voters unsolicited advice, he also issued a not so veiled threat. He said that "The UK is going to be in the back of the queue" on trade agreements if they exit the EU. | |
| • | President Obama must either have a short memory or must adhere to Emerson's dictum that "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." | |
| • | Recall how outraged the same President Obama was when the prime minister of a friendly country, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke his mind about the Iran Deal. | |
| • | Israel has a far greater stake in the Iran deal than the United States has in whatever decision the British voters make about Brexit... | |
| • | Benjamin Netanyahu was representing the nearly unanimous view of his countrymen, whereas there is no evidence that Americans favor or oppose Brexit in large numbers. | |
| • | So what is it Mr. President? Should friends speak their minds about controversial issues when visiting another country, or should they keep their views to themselves? | |
| • | Or is your answer that friends should speak their minds only when they agree with other friends, but not when they disagree? | |
| • | Such a view would skew the market place of ideas beyond recognition. | |
| • | A wit once observed that "hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue." | |
| • | It is also the currency of diplomacy and politics. That doesn't make it right. | |
| • | Let there be one rule that covers all friends – not one for those with whom you agree and another for those with whom you disagree. | |
| • | For me the better rule is open dialogue among friends on all issues of mutual importance. | |
Sorry to tell you, but... (INN 04/22/2016)
| • | I am sorry to tell you that the terror attacks we from which we suffer today and yesterday, a week ago, a month, a year and a decade and century ago, are all part of the same war, the same struggle, the same Jihad waged against us by our neighbors for over a century. | |
| • | Each of these is Jihad in Arabic, each is aimed at Jews just for being Jewish. | |
| • | I regret to remind you of the fact that this war began way before the establishment of the Jewish state declared in 1948... | |
| • | I hate to point out to you that the shouts we heard, mainly in the 1948 War of Independence, were "Itbach al Yahud" – "Butcher the Jews" – and not the "Israelis" or the "Zionists," because their problem is with the Jews who refuse to be dependent on the mercy of Islam, refuse to live as dhimmi, protected ones, the way Islam mandates for Jews and Christians. | |
| • | It is not pleasant to tell you this, but Israel's enemies' most popular chant is (in Arabic) – "Kyber, Khyber O Jews, Mohammed's army will yet return." Khyber is an oasis in the Arabian Peninsula that was populated by Jews until Mohammed slaughtered them in 626 C.E. | |
| • | The Jews, according to the Koran (Sura 5, verse 82) are the most hostile enemies of the Moslems. Verse 60 states that Allah's curse and fury upon them turned them into monkeys and pigs. | |
| • | Despite what you think, peace with Egypt was achieved only after Sadat realized that despite Arab efforts to destroy Israel ... the Jewish state managed to push back all the Arab armies and bring the war to their territory. | |
| • | The only objective of the Oslo Accords was to create a Palestinian entity with an army and weapons that would be used to destroy Israel when the time was ripe. | |
| • | ... our decision makers explained that he is only saying it for domestic consumption, and when suicide bombers set themselves off in our streets, the victims were called "victims of peace." | |
| • | It saddens me to tell you that all of Israel's efforts to please the Hamas Gazans failed, and Hamas went on from being a terrorist organization to becoming a terrorist state. | |
| • | The Gazans are pawns in the hands of Hamas, the Jihad and the Salafists, all of whom appointed themselves the liaison between the residents of Gaza and Paradise, having already given them a taste of hell on earth. | |
| • | It pains me to tell all the soul-weary peace seekers in Israel and the world, that the concrete and iron that you forced us to give the Jihadists in Gaza in order to rebuild their destroyed homes, were used to build tunnels of death both to Gazans and Israelis. | |
| • | You were wrong again – basing your policy on pipe dreams, delusions and hopes instead of on facts and figures. | |
| • | I hate to ruin the "two states for two peoples" party, but I must, because what is happening in Gaza today is exactly what will happen to the second Palestinian state you are trying to establish in Judea and Samaria. | |
| • | And when the snipers go back to shooting at passersby on Jerusalem streets from the walls of the Old City as their Jordanian brothers did until 1967, where will you hide? | |
| • | I am sorry to disappoint you but the worst thing that ever happened to Israel's hopes for peace was the rise of the peace movements, those calling for Israel to establish a terror state in Judea and Samaria and give up East Jerusalem for it. | |
| • | In the violent and radical region where Israel is trying to survive, anyone considered weak gets kicked, you know exactly where, and is sent to hell in the best case, or butchered and beheaded as a matter of course. | |
| • | In the Middle East, peace means that your enemies leave you alone because you are too strong, threatening and dangerous to start up with. | |
| • | Here, we have room only for the brave, the strong, the steadfast and those who believe in the justice of their cause. | |
| • | Anyone who lacks those traits can find a suitable home somewhere else, where life is peaceful, quiet, prosperous and blooming. | |
| • | May we suggest Paris, Brussels, Madrid, Boston or San Bernardino... | |
Unworthy of statehood (INN 04/20/2016)
| • | Incitement and anti-Semitic hate spewing out of the mouths of Palestinian leaders, empty words designed to perpetuate Palestinian self-promotion as the perennial victim when, in truth, they are only the victims of their own emptiness, the constant eruption of violence against Israelis from Palestinian Arabs raised to hate Jews and destroy Israel. | |
| • | If anyone is so utterly unworthy of statehood it is the Palestinian Arabs. | |
| • | Fraudulent history, internal divisiveness, wastage of massive global assistance, the diversion of international funding to propaganda purposes, incitement, lessons of hate, the financing and support of terrorism, their predilection to violence and the total inability to display to the world any respect for their neighbors... | |
| • | So the establishment of a Palestinian state would comprise two major terror organizations, one Islamic, the other Communist, currently at logger-heads with each other but united in their desire to see an end of Israel, regardless of signed agreements. | |
| • | And yet, the world has nothing to say about this apart from their ridiculous belief that the creation of Palestine is the only way to achieve peace! | |
| • | Marwan Barghouti sits in an Israeli jail. He is serving five consecutive life sentences for orchestrating the murder of Israeli civilians in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Givat Zeev, and injured others. | |
| • | The Palestinian Fatah party of Mahmoud Abbas calls his imprisonment a "war crime." Now the Palestinians are running a global campaign to have this unrepentant murderer nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize no less. | |
| • | Why not, the Norwegians gave one to arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat who launched his fatal intifada after flying to Oslo to pick up his award. | |
| • | Several thousand Palestinians have been killed by other Palestinians due to their internal political and religious enmity? Palestinian society is, within itself, divisive and violent. | |
| • | All in all, the consequences of the establishment of a Palestinian state, based on the reality of Palestinian politics and Palestinian society, are too intensely frightening to be seriously considered. | |
The Saudis practice mafia tactics (JWR 04/19/2016)
| • | The Mafia, in its heyday, ran lucrative protection rackets. Pay them and your business would be kept safe from "unforeseen" threats. Don't pay them and your business might go up in smoke with you inside. | |
| • | ... Saudi Arabia, playing the role of Mafia extortionist, has threatened to "...sell off hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." | |
| • | The Obama administration opposes the bill, saying it could potentially open the kingdom to lawsuits from relatives of the dead and injured. So? | |
| • | Fifteen of the 19 men involved in the terrorist plot were Saudi citizens and that country promotes the most extreme form of Islam known as Wahhabism. | |
| • | Adding to the suspicion that there is more to be learned about Saudi Arabia's role are 28 pages contained in the 9-11 Commission's report censored by the Bush administration for "national security reasons." | |
| • | "160 subjects of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including but not limited to members of the House of Saud and/or members of the bin Laden family fled the U.S. (on chartered planes when all other aircraft were grounded) between September 11, 2001 and September 15, 2001." | |
| • | "I think it is implausible to believe that 19 people, most of whom didn't speak English, most of whom had never been in the United States before, many of whom didn't have a high school education, could've carried out such a complicated task without some support from within the United States." | |
| • | The relatives of the dead have a right to know who funded the terrorist attack that killed their loved ones. | |
| • | The Obama administration claims that weakening the immunity law could put U.S. corporations, the American government and its citizens at legal risk because other nations might retaliate with similar legislation. | |
| • | The difference is that U.S. citizens are not hijacking planes and committing mass murder in other countries. | |
| • | For too long Republican and Democratic administrations have ignored the actions and teachings of Saudi Arabia, including textbooks used in Islamic schools that denigrate Jews and other "infidels" and the building of mosques that some imams are using to spread hate and recruit suicide bombers. | |
Maybe the hareidim have it right about IDF service (INN 04/18/2016)
| • | The stories I've heard from soldiers ... of the abuse and dangers that our soldiers are expected to subject themselves to daily, all in the interest of of "purity of arms" and "keeping the IDF moral" is heart wrenching, mind boggling, and infuriating all at the same time. | |
| • | We now have the Hevron soldier sitting in a jail while his parents are breaking under the emotional strain of their 19-year-old son being charged with manslaughter for shooting a terrorist who very well could have had explosives on him. | |
| • | It's not like this has never happened before. It has — and soliders have died and lost limbs as a result. | |
| • | He did, in those split seconds, what he thought was the safest thing to do. | |
| • | Better a dead terrorist than dead Jews defending us. | |
| • | Just what is so wrong with that logic? | |
| • | No — I do not want my children serving in the army of a country that will not protect and defend them not just as much but much more than it cares for the enemies who only want our death and destruction. | |
| • | If I give you, the holy IDF, my precious child at the age of 18 or 19, I expect - no, I demand - that you take every precaution to protect every single hair on the head of my kid. | |
| • | I expect and demand that you give them moral and emotional support. | |
| • | I demand that the 3 years of freedom and youth they sacrifice to stand at checkpoints in the blazing heat with heavy gear that weighs 1/3 of their body weight giving them stress fractures, or in freezing temperatures on hilltops, will be respected, appreciated, and honored. | |
| • | And if my soldier child must use her gun in the split seconds allowed to make life and death decisions, and even if she makes the wrong decision, I expect and demand my government to support her no matter what. | |
| • | It pains me to say this. Maybe those that chose not to send their children to the army have it right. | |
| • | Maybe they saw the immorality of a Defense Minister Ya'alon and Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chief of Staff Eizenkott who, even before an investigation was performed, publicly — PUBLICLY!!!! — spoke out against our soldier and threw him to the leftist dogs... | |
| • | Maybe they sensed that their children would be subjected to impossible choices, subjected to public humiliation, that no matter what they do it will be deemed wrong and they will pay for it either with their own life forfeited to the enemy or with a long jail sentence for defending themselves. | |
| • | We are in a war. But we are not in a war with soldiers from a sovereign country. | |
| • | We are in a war with terrorists who have no boundaries, whose only mission is to kill us, destroy us, and replace our state with theirs. | |
| • | It makes no difference to them if their target is pregnant women, babies, little kids on bikes or riding in car seats. | |
| • | They are the enemy. Not my soldier child. | |
| • | It's ridiculous that I even need to point that out to you. | |
| • | My soldier child is holy as is every soldier in the IDF. ... The least we can do is stand by them — right, wrong, or indifferent — in every situation. | |
Donald Trump is right about NATO, alliance burden sharing (Fox 04/15/2016)
| • | As a former Pentagon spokesman who's been stationed in both Europe and Asia over a 20-year military career, I believe Donald Trump is 100 percent correct to insist that our allies share the burden of collective defense. | |
| • | While Americans should be proud of our historical role to advance global freedom — defeating Nazism and imperialism during World War II, communism during the Cold War, and battling jihadist terror networks today, we can't be the world's policeman forever. | |
| • | Nope, we're $19 trillion in debt and our own national infrastructure is crumbling. Literally. | |
| • | Isn't it time to do some nation-building at home? | |
| • | Meanwhile, aside from natural disasters, our top allies don't worry about physically crumbling cities. | |
| • | And that's thanks to the American taxpayer underwriting their massive security bills since the 1940s. | |
| • | NATO is an alliance of 28 nations with a population of more than 910 million. America makes up over 1/3 the population, yet pays nearly three quarters of the defense expenditures. | |
| • | Each country is supposed to pay 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Yet only America, the U.K., Greece, Estonia and Poland are currently meeting their obligations. | |
| • | ... the newspaper noted that Japan and South Korea pay about half of the non-personnel costs of U.S. military basing. | |
| • | And his response: "Why isn't it 100 percent?" | |
| • | Even getting past the massive trade deficits with allies like Japan, we're funding a system that makes our allies nicer places to live than here. | |
| • | They're modernizing while we're struggling to keep ours on-line. | |
| • | But beyond the lopsided financial burden, our allies aren't pulling their weight on the battlefield either. | |
| • | ... only a handful of allies were willing to fight and die in Afghanistan. Some insisted their troops couldn't fight in the snow or mountains. | |
| • | A running joke during my Pentagon days was that "International Security Assistance Force" (ISAF) in Afghanistan, actually stood for "I Saw Americans Fighting." | |
| • | While we spend billions to defend Saudi Arabia and other Gulf State allies, we get practically nothing. Though they've signed up to fight ISIS, the vast majority of airstrikes are American. | |
| • | The Saudis ought to pay the bills, especially considering the role their hardline clerics play in creating jihadist networks in the first place. | |
| • | Let's recall that 15 of 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. | |
| • | While America shoulders the free world's defense burden, we must recognize the threats have changed. | |
| • | Today's greatest long-term threats to Europe and America are radical Islam-inspired terrorism and unchecked immigration, which by the way, go hand in hand. | |
| • | Next is nuclear proliferation and rogue nations like Iran and North Korea. | |
| • | Then the rise of China, busily hacking and cheating its way to superpower status. | |
| • | They don't have to conquer us if we internally collapse. | |
| • | Bottom line, our allies must get serious about defense. | |
| • | If they can't pull their own weight, why should we go broke carrying them on our backs? | |
Islam is Colonialism, 'Palestine' is Colonialism (INN 04/11/2016)
| • | At Israeli Apartheid Week, campus haters claim to be fighting "colonialism" by fighting Jews. | |
| • | You can't colonize 'Palestine' because you can't colonize colonizers. The Muslim population in Israel is a foreign colonist population. The indigenous Jewish population can resettle its own country, but it can't colonize it. | |
| • | Muslims invaded, conquered and settled Israel. They forced their language and laws on the population. That's the definition of colonialism. | |
| • | You can't colonize and then complain that you're being colonized when the natives take back the power that you stole from them. | |
| • | There are Muslims in Israel for the same reason that there are Muslims in India. They are the remnants of a Muslim colonial regime that displaced and oppressed the indigenous non-Muslim population. | |
| • | The Muslim conquests and invasions are well-documented. The Muslim settlements fit every historical template of colonialism complete with importing a foreign population and social system that was imposed on the native population. | |
| • | The only reason there's a debate about the Temple Mount is because Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem and ordered a mosque built on a holy Jewish site. | |
| • | The only reason there's a debate about East Jerusalem is because invading Muslim armies seized half the city in 1948, bombed synagogues and ethnically cleansed the Jewish population to achieve an artificial Muslim settler majority. | |
| • | There is no Muslim claim to Israel based on anything other than colonialism, invasion and settlement. | |
| • | The faith of Islam is the sworn religion of the sword. | |
| • | Islam is a religion of colonialism that spread through invasion, settlement and conquest. | |
| • | Islamic theology is nothing but the manifest destiny of the Muslim conquest of the world, colonial settler enterprises dressed up in the filmy trappings of religion appropriated from the culture of conquered Jewish and Christian minorities. | |
| • | Muslim terrorism is a reactionary colonial response to the liberation movements of the indigenous Jewish population. | |
| • | Even "Allahu Akbar" did not originate as a religious sentiment. It does not mean "God is Great", as it is often mistranslated. It was Mohammed's taunt to the Jews he was ethnically cleansing. His purge of a minority group proved that "Allah was Greater". | |
| • | Islam would not have existed without colonialism. It still can't exist without it. That is why the violence continues. | |
| • | From its Roman origins, 'Palestine' has always been a colonial fantasy of remaking Israel by erasing its original Jewish identity. The Arab mercenaries who were deployed by the Romans in that original colonial enterprise continued it by becoming self-employed conquerors for their own colonial empire. | |
| • | Advocates for 'Palestine' are not fighting colonialism, but promoting it. They are advocating for a discredited Muslim settler fantasy and against the indigenous Jewish population of Israel. | |
| • | "Palestine" has no history. It has no people. It has no borders. It has never been anything except a colonial invention. It is a name used by a variety of foreign settlers operating on behalf of colonial empires. | |
| • | Resistance to Islamic terrorism is resistance to colonialism. And Jews have the longest history of resisting the Islamic State under its various Caliphs throughout history. Israel is still resisting the colonialist Jihadist plans for the restorations of the Caliphate. | |
| • | Islamic colonialism has always been defeated, whether at the Gates of Vienna or in the Sinai Desert. Its colonial fantasies are false and will be defeated as many times as it takes, whether in the form of 'Palestine' or ISIS. | |
Where did all the “Islamic terrorists” go? (INN 04/10/2016)
| • | Obama's deconstruction of the facts on the ground is completely ahistorical. Not only does he deny that all these killers draw their inspiration from the teachings of Islam, but he denies that Islam has been marked by its warlike and anti-Western, anti-Christianity, and anti-Jewish fervor throughout most of its history. | |
| • | Any student of history knows that this fantasy of world domination has been the dominant mindset of Islam for the better part of 1400 years. | |
| • | A full-scale Islamic attack on the West was repulsed as recently as 1683 when Austria was attacked. | |
| • | In the 19th century, U.S. Marines had to attack and defeat the Barbary pirates in No. Africa who were disrupting Western shipping and enslaving Americans. | |
| • | We dare not forget that as recently as 1914-1918, the Ottoman Empire (Islamic religiously but ethnically Seljuk, not Arab) allied itself with the Central Powers in WWI, which alliance was intended to dramatically enhance Islamic power over the West. | |
| • | Instead of perceiving the historical truth, the Obama administration has determined to deconstruct the definitions related to every violent group within Islam. They are each being portrayed as non-Islamic for different reasons. | |
| • | But our enemies abound as never before in the Middle East. They all attend mosques. They all pray five times a day to Allah; they all read the same books. | |
| • | We see their concerted hatred for the West, and for Judaism and Christianity. But, according to our government, the perception of this reality is actually a massive misperception. | |
| • | Duplicity has replaced forthright policy and governance. | |
Inconvenient genocide (JWR 04/08/2016)
| • | The Christian communities of Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon are well on the way to joining their Jewish cousins. | |
| • | The Jewish communities of these states predated Islam by a millennium, and were vibrant until the 20th century. | |
| • | But the Arab world's war on the Jewish state, and more generally on Jews, wiped out the Jewish populations several decades ago. | |
| • | And now the Christian communities, which like the Jews, predate Islam, are being targeted for eradication. | |
| • | The ongoing genocide of Middle Eastern Christians at the hands of Sunni jihadists is a moral outrage. | |
| • | Persecution of Christians in Iraq began immediately after the US-led coalition brought down Saddam Hussein in 2003. With the rise of Islamic State in 2012, the process of destroying the Christian community went into high gear. And now these ancient communities are on the brink of extinction. | |
| • | One of the appalling aspects of ISIS's deliberate, open targeting of Christians for destruction is how little resistance it has received from local Sunni populations. | |
| • | ... in areas that have been conquered by ISIS, the local Sunnis have collaborated with their genocidal masters in raping and murdering Christian neighbors, plundering their property, destroying their churches, and driving them from their ancestral homes. | |
| • | Although precise data is hard to come by, it is clear that thousands of Christians have been slaughtered. Thousands of Christian women and girls have been sold as sex slaves in ISIS slave markets, subjected to continuous, violent rape and beatings. Nuns and priests have been enslaved, crucified, mutilated, kidnapped and held for ransom, as have lay members of Christian communities. Christians have been burned alive. | |
| • | And of course, a region needn't be under direct ISIS control for Christians to be targeted for destruction. The Easter massacre in Pakistan was further evidence that wherever radical Islamists gain power, they use it to murder Christians. | |
| • | Given the prevalence of Christian persecution, why is the West – which is overwhelmingly Christian – so reticent about mentioning it? And why are Western leaders loathe to do anything to stop it? | |
| • | There are two ways to end genocide. First, you can defeat those conducting it on the battlefield. | |
| • | The second way you can stop genocide is by evacuating the targeted population and providing its members with refuge. | |
| • | Substantively, Kerry's plan is to deny Christians refuge, and to abandon them to the mercy of their murderers. | |
| • | ... Kerry's statement was in line with the Obama administration's timid, feckless military campaign against ISIS. | |
| • | Everyone knows that the US military could take down ISIS in a matter of weeks if Obama ordered it to do so. | |
| • | As for providing refuge to the populations targeted with genocide, the raw data make clear that Obama does just the opposite. | |
| • | He is providing refuge for Sunni Muslims, who are not being targeted for genocide, which is being conducted by Sunni Muslims. | |
| • | And when presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz called for the US to provide refuge to Christians, who pose no security threat and are targeted with genocide and persecution while banning Muslim immigration, Obama accused him of bigotry. | |
| • | Beyond refusing to take the necessary steps to ensure that persecuted Christians are rescued from annihilation, the State Department has been rejecting visa requests from Christian activists and leaders from persecuted communities to visit the US to share information about their suffering with the American public. | |
| • | This, at the same time that the administration has welcomed Muslim jihad sympathizers, including Muslim Brotherhood members, to Washington. | |
| • | What accounts for this behavior? The answer is not ignorance, but ideologically- motivated bigotry. | |
| • | "Christians have been targeted [because]... Christianity [is seen] as a foreign ‘colonial' import. Christians are seen as linked to the West, which is perceived as corrupt and exploitative." | |
| • | In other words, Middle Eastern Christians, whose communities predate Islam, are targeted because they are perceived as Western implants. | |
| • | And the West ignores their suffering, because the Left in the West perceives them as Western implants. | |
| • | In both cases, prejudices, rooted on the one hand in jihadist Islam, and on the other hand in Western self-hatred and post-colonialism, reach the same bigoted conclusion: the only "authentic" people in the Middle East are Muslims. | |
| • | Everybody else is a colonial implant. And as such, they deserve what they get. | |
| • | The same ideological prejudice that refuses to recognize that the Islamic State is Islamic, refuses to recognize that jihad is unique to Islam, refuses to recognize that Christians as religious minorities are being targeted for annihilation, and refuses to recognize that the Christians of the Middle East are ancient peoples who have lived in their communities since the dawn of Christianity, also refuse to recognize the rights of the Jewish people as the indigenous people of the land of Israel. | |
| • | This is the reason that Western governments, led by the Obama administration, are unwilling to defeat ISIS. This is why they are giving preference to Muslim asylum-seekers, who they are incapable of screening, over Christians, who it is unnecessary to screen. | |
| • | This is why the same governments eagerly embrace every allegation of Israeli racism, real or imagined, while they ignore, or even fund racist Palestinian efforts to deny Jewish history, a history which leads to the inevitable conclusion that the Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel. | |
| • | The reason Obama refuses to protect Middle East Christians from extinction is because he cannot rescue them – either on the ground or by ensuring they can flee to safety – without abandoning his ideological faith that the only "natives" of the Middle East are the Muslims. | |
A country ruled by its judiciary cannot win the fight against terror (INN 04/08/2016)
| • | The justices of the Supreme Court and the attorney general are the real leaders in Israel. They can subvert government authority, and often do. | |
| • | The Supreme Court is not only a super-legislature, but it arrogates to itself the power to prescribe the morality, security and the military defense of the Jewish people! | |
| • | The Supreme Court's post-Zionist and socialist position dominates every aspect of governance and legislation, accomplished through the attorney general and his army of legal advisers in every government ministry, national authority and the military. | |
| • | The attorney general has significant power over the government and has repeatedly terminated the prime minister's preferred appointments to top security positions. | |
| • | Netanyahu wanted the IDF to attack Iran's nuclear sites but the General Staff refused, claiming that ties to the United States are more important than preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. | |
| • | The current attacks are not merely criminal acts and are not about individual rights, or lack thereof. They are about collective rights. The collective right of Jews to national sovereignty is under assault by the rival collective right of Arabs. If the Jews do not prevail in that struggle, they will lose their right to self-determination as a collective, as well as the individual rights of all the inhabitants of Israel, Jews and non-Jews alike. | |
| • | Israel was not established to be a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural liberal democracy. It was established to be the state of the Jewish people. As stated in the Declaration of Independence: to give expression to the "natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate... in their own sovereign state." | |
| • | Israel will not remain Jewish if it does not retain its status as the nation-state of Jews, with the exclusive source of sovereignty being the Jewish people — a Jewish state where minorities live with equal rights. | |
| • | The attackers are using violence and intimidation in the pursuit of a political aim: Israel's destruction. The full extent of the law should be applied to them. Terrorists do not have "democratic" rights to homes, free university education, priority medical care, etc. | |
| • | Concessions awarded to terrorists tend to increase the frequency of terrorist attacks. Arab Members of Knesset also do not have a "democratic" right to fraternize with the enemy, much less to call for Israeli Arabs to rise against their state or its citizens. | |
| • | The Knesset should publicly commit the courts and the new attorney general to help fight terrorism and to uphold the principles of the founding of the State of Israel. | |
| • | Furthermore, the rules of engagement of the security forces should not be prescribed by the Supreme Court. The rules should be devised by the government, per the instructions of the Knesset. | |
| • | The knife-stabbers and shooters are terrorists: They want to wipe Israel off the map. Those that engage in terrorism, encourage it or support it should have no place in Israel. | |
A Look Inside Britain's Muslim Sex Grooming Gang Scandal (American Thinker, 04/06/2016)
| • | For the past few decades, British authorities have been caught up in the pervasive meme of multiculturalism — the falsehood that all cultures are equal and that to believe otherwise is to commit the worst modern day offense — to be "racist." | |
| • | Under this fallacy, the British government in 2001 introduced a series of restrictive speech codes that criminalized criticism of Islam, followed by a Racial and Religious Hatred Bill imposing fines and even imprisonment for speech that "incited hatred against a person for their religious or racial background." | |
| • | Liberty Great Britain party chairman Paul Weston was arrested on suspicion of racial harassment after publicly reading a passage critical of Muslims from Winston Churchill's The River War. | |
| • | In this context and political climate, with racism conflated with religion – one specific religion – it is easy to see how government and public service employees would fear professional and legal repercussions (up to seven years in prison) merely for speaking up about criminal behavior by Muslims who justify their actions citing the Koran. | |
| • | In this way, teachers, police, child care workers, government officials and others have been silent about the growing menace of Muslim gangs who sexually groom and exploit children in the UK. | |
| • | ... multiculturalism-inspired political correctness along with its companion, willful blindness concerning Islamic doctrine, has jeopardized the safety and well-being of children. | |
| • | ... since 1988, this nationwide sexploitation has resulted in the shattering of lives of between 100,000 to 1 million girls. | |
| • | ... the fear of being deemed racist and facing criminal charges, dismissal or even threats of violence, has led to suppression of information and a stunning lack of intervention on behalf of young victims. | |
| • | In essence, an extensive, insidious operation that targets children for sexual grooming and enslavement has been covered up because of political correctness and fear of Muslim retribution. | |
| • | Non-Muslim pedophiles are typically lone adults who groom children for sex in reclusive secrecy, worry about being prosecuted by law enforcement, meet accusations with defensive denial and worry about being discovered, shamed, and criticized by friends or relatives. | |
| • | Muslim perpetrators, however, work in gangs, see nothing wrong with their shariah-sanctioned activities, receive collusive support from their communities and feel they are above the law. | |
| • | News coverage of the crimes has been mostly obfuscated by a complicit media that characterizes the overwhelmingly Muslim perpetrators as generic "Asians." | |
| • | Muslim flesh-peddlers operate as part of a well-organized extensive network of taxi drivers, shop and restaurant owners, and security guards. | |
| • | Girls, mainly between the ages of 11 and 14, the majority from state-run children's homes, are ensnared while traveling from school to home, at shopping malls, restaurants, bus stations and similar public venues. | |
| • | ... UK authorities have failed to warn parents that young girls are at risk or to recommend extra supervision and vigilance. | |
| • | The author reports that police routinely dismiss parents' concerns and have failed to set up surveillance operations at strategically significant locations. | |
| • | Police have even arrested parents for trying to save their children. In one such case, fathers, who were able to track down their daughters and tried to rescue them were arrested by police. | |
| • | ... local authorities – social workers, teachers' unions, educational organizations and childcare agencies – have made no effort to intervene or draw public attention to the pervasive threat. | |
| • | ... feared charges of racism preclude their mandated responsibility for the protection of children. | |
| • | ... major teachers' unions are behind an organization – Unite Against Fascism – that blocks the publicizing of the sex grooming gang phenomenon and its Muslim community participation. | |
| • | ... no mention was made of Muslim involvement or the victims' young ages. | |
| • | Gang members have been known to assert Muslim supremacy, make accusations of Muslim victimhood and racism, and threaten retaliation against the girls and their families. Some have clearly cited religious motivations for their crimes in court. | |
| • | Protection of defendants' rights supersedes that of victims, even with child victims. | |
| • | More distressing is the fact that the greater the Muslim population density in an area, the lower the conviction rate. | |
| • | The backdrop for sexual grooming and enslavement of children lies in Islamic doctrines ... the pervasive slave-taking history of Islam from the 7th century, as well as Islamic doctrine from the Koran citing Islam's view of non-Muslims, its treatment of women and sexual slaves, and the permissibility of sex with children by Mohammed's example with his nine-year-old third wife, Aisha. | |
| • | ... rape has historically been used as a weapon of war to assert Islamic supremacy. Islamic doctrine encourages the rape and enslavement of non-Muslims, even with married infidel women as a legal and moral enterprise. | |
| • | ... the required first and foremost allegiance to the Umma, or Muslim community, and the inbred obligation of enmity toward non-Muslims facilitates the pimping of non-Muslim girls and hinders any attempts at exposing its criminality and eventual prosecution. | |
| • | Sexual slavery has historically been used as a religious weapon to advance the domination of Islam. | |
| • | ... the sexploitation and enslavement of girls, once viewed as a great evil in Western society, has become a pervasive, routine, and almost pedestrian part of everyday life in the UK. | |
| • | ... Western civilization is fighting for its very existence in a clash between civilization and barbarism. | |
| • | ... book serves as a grave warning for other countries as they consider increased levels of Muslim immigration. | |
Surrendering to ISIS is the only way to defeat it (INN 04/05/2016)
| • | If you're keeping score, freeing Islamic terrorists from Gitmo does not play into the hands of ISIS. Neither does bringing Syrians, many of whom sympathize with Islamic terrorists, into our country. | |
| • | And aiding the Muslim Brotherhood parent organization of ISIS does not play into the Islamic group's hands. | |
| • | However if you use the words "Islamic terrorism" or even milder derivatives such as "radical Islamic terrorism", you are playing into the hands of ISIS. | |
| • | If you call for closer law enforcement scrutiny of Muslim areas before they turn into Molenbeek style no-go zones or suggest ending the stream of new immigrant recruits to ISIS in San Bernardino, Paris or Brussels, you are also playing into the hands of ISIS. | |
| • | And if you carpet bomb ISIS, destroy its headquarters and training camps, you're just playing into its hands. | |
| • | According to Obama and his experts, who have wrecked the Middle East, what ISIS fears most is that we'll ignore it and let it go about its business. And what it wants most is for us to utterly destroy it. | |
| • | Or as Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said, "If you kill your enemies, they win." | |
| • | But maybe if you surrender to them, then you win. | |
| • | Tens of thousands of Muslim refugees make us safer. But using the words "Muslim terrorism" endangers us. | |
| • | The more Muslims we bring to America, the faster we'll beat ISIS. As long as we don't call it the Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL, but follow Secretary of State John Kerry's lead in calling it Daesh. | |
| • | Because terrorism has no religion. Even when it's shouting, "Allahu Akbar". | |
| • | Obama initially tried to defeat ISIS by ignoring it. ... Unimpressed, ISIS seized Mosul. It was still attached to the old-fashioned way of proving it was strong by actually winning land and wars. | |
| • | Europe and the United States decided to prove that we were not at war with Islam by taking in as many Muslims as we could. | |
| • | Every single counterintuitive strategy for defeating Islamic terrorism has been tried. And it has failed. | |
| • | Islamic terrorism has followed an intuitive pattern of cause and effect. There's a reason that the counterintuitive strategies for fighting Islamic terrorism by not fighting Islamic terrorism don't work. They make no sense. | |
| • | The West's counterterrorism strategy makes less sense than the ravings of most mental patients. | |
| • | The only thing more insane than the counterintuitive strategy for defeating Islamic terrorism is the insistence that the intuitive strategy of keeping terrorists out and killing them is what terrorists want. | |
| • | If we police Muslim no-go zones, then ISIS also wins. If we deport potential terrorists, ISIS still wins. | |
| • | But if we let ISIS carry out another successful attack, then ISIS loses. And we win. What do we win? | |
| • | Politicians and experts claim that ISIS is insane. It's not insane. It's evil. Its goals are clear and comprehensible. The objectives of the Islamic State are easy to intuitively grasp. | |
| • | Our leaders and experts are the ones who are out of their minds. They may or may not be evil, but they are utterly insane. And they have projected their madness on Islamic terrorists who are downright rational compared to them. | |
| • | Unlike our leaders, Islamic terrorists don't confuse victory and defeat. They aren't afraid that they'll win. They don't want us to kill them or deport them. They don't care whether we call them ISIS or Daesh. They don't derive their Islamic legitimacy from John Kerry or a State Department Twitter account. | |
| • | They get it from the Koran and the entire rotting corpus of Islamic law that they seek to impose on the world. | |
| • | Our leaders are the ones who are afraid of winning. They distrust the morality of armed force and borders. | |
| • | They disguise that distrust behind convoluted arguments and counterintuitive rationales. | |
| • | Entire intellectual systems are constructed to explain why defeating ISIS is exactly what ISIS wants. | |
| • | ... ISIS does not care whether Obama talks tough, even if it's only his version of tough talk in which he puffs out his chest and says things like, "You are not strong, you are weak." It is not interested in Obama's "right side of history" distortion of American values either. | |
| • | ISIS is not trying to be counterintuitive. It's fighting to win. And our leaders are fighting as hard as they can to lose. | |
| • | The counterintuitive strategy is not meant to fight terror, but to convince the populace that winning is actually losing and losing is actually winning. | |
| • | This isn't a plan to win. It's a plan to confuse the issue while losing. | |
| • | But intuitive beats counterintuitive. Winning intuitively beats losing counterintuitively. | |
| • | Counterintuitively, collaborating with the enemy is patriotism. | |
| • | Intuitively, it's treason. | |
The subtle war against Israel (INN 04/03/2016)
| • | The soldier in Hebron shouldn't have had to pull the trigger and kill the terrorist who had just attempted to murder his comrade. The officers in the area should have done so. | |
| • | The seminal event that brought about the establishment of the State of Israel was the Holocaust, in which Jewish lives were considered worthless, or less. | |
| • | This view was held not only by the Nazis and their accomplices, but by the entire world. | |
| • | The Americans and British did not bother to waste even one or two bombs to halt the death industry and save Jewish lives. | |
| • | In other words, Hitler's speeches and the culture that he created, which negated the right of Jewish existence, filtered down and strongly influenced the world – both actively and passively. | |
| • | The entire existence of the State of Israel was designed – first and foremost – to reverse this reality. | |
| • | It is important to note that the State of Israel has always based its right to exist on this very point; on the restoration of the right of the Jews to exist and the natural legitimacy of Jewish lives. | |
| • | Ensuring national existence, however, is nothing more than the foundation for the actualization of our national destiny. | |
| • | After two generations of avoidance of our destiny, our existence also becomes meaningless and loses its legitimacy. | |
| • | That is how, slowly but surely, the life of the enemy becomes more important than the lives of our citizens and soldiers. | |
| • | ... the more that we flee our destiny for the imagined safety of jet fighters, submarines and flak jackets – the more we find ourselves bereft of existential legitimacy, returning to the place from which we fled – the place where Jewish lives become cheaper by the day. | |
| • | Just like Germany in the 1930s, Iran, which calls for the destruction of the Jews, has remained a legitimate and courted member of the UN. | |
| • | Israel's status and the legitimacy of Jewish existence are dissipating. | |
| • | It is once again legitimate to slaughter a Jew, simply because he is a Jew. It is still permissible to harm the terrorist, but only on the basis of the value of self-defense because the terrorist is "just ". | |
| • | Our ‘ethical' rigor over the terrorist's ‘rights' confirms the world's conviction that we also understand that this Land belongs to the terrorist and that he is the good guy in this story. | |
| • | The result is that very quickly, the self-defense principle also stops working for us. It is also forbidden to harm a terrorist. All we can do is try to shoot down the missile that he shot – and only while it is still in the air. | |
| • | Our friendly neighbors will always be forgiven and even liked after they slaughter us. | |
| • | Please do not be confused. This is not a national territorial dispute. We have no common border with Iran and the last thing that the Arabs of Hebron want is a state. | |
| • | (Did you ever hear of a Jordanian soldier stabbed in Hebron before 1967? But you did hear that 67 Jews were slaughtered in Hebron in 1929 – before the State of Israel was established.) | |
| • | We are dealing with the negation of the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty of any type on the face of the earth, and particularly, in the Middle East. | |
| • | In this respect, the scissors in the hands of the Arab teenager are more dangerous than the Iranian bomb. | |
| • | In Western culture, which associates morality with weakness, the scissors are much more convincing and thus negate our legitimacy more than the atomic bomb. | |
| • | This is not a national territorial war, a war of interests between two nations with similar cultures; a war in which rules of engagement, such as the Geneva Convention, can exist. | |
| • | This is not a war that ends with the victory of one of the sides or with a compromise. This is a war of total destruction, bereft of any ethical rules. | |
| • | It is a war in which the pre-meditated slaughter of women and children is acceptable and desirable – and viewed as legitimate, while we, who tie our own hands and endanger our soldiers in our quest for ‘morality' are always marked as the bad guys. Why? | |
| • | Because this is the most dangerous evil. It is confusing evil, without tanks and jets. It is evil that does not strike with armed force. | |
| • | It is evil that searched for and found our greatest weakness: our lost sense of the justice of our cause. | |
| • | When you breach just the tiniest of openings and give it legitimacy – you have fallen down a slippery slope and lost everything. | |
| • | We tried to evade our destiny and exchange justice for ethicality. Time and again we make the open-fire rules more stringent. | |
| • | We sacrifice hundreds of soldiers in our failed attempt to win some legitimacy in the merit of our ‘ethicality'. | |
| • | We do not attack civilians. We do not shoot at mosques. We send our sons into the alleyways and tunnels – we will not bomb from the air and we will not turn off electricity and water. | |
| • | We try to maintain all the rules of the Western world – and we have remained the ‘bad guys' in this story. | |
| • | Because it is impossible to exchange justice for ethicality. | |
| • | Even worse, when you surrender your destiny (and your justice in the process) and base your entire existence on ‘the ethical code', then you are tested there and only there – on the ethical playing field. | |
| • | But the ethical playing field is really a killing field. To remain there, we pay with the blood of our soldiers and civilians. | |
| • | The only way to get off the killing field is to fight back with the same weapons. | |
| • | If a knife wielding terrorist comes to murder Jews, he must be eliminated immediately. His life has become illegitimate. ... The elimination must be immediate, on the spot, with no courtroom proceedings. | |
| • | A terrorist must never live to the day of his trial – even if he were to receive the death penalty at its end. | |
| • | There are situations and planes upon which the court has no place. War is clearly such a situation. The war in which we currently find ourselves is the most difficult and subtle of all of Israel's wars. | |
The real meaning of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei's missile warning (Fox 04/01/2016)
| • | "People say that tomorrow's world is a world of negotiations and not a world of missiles." | |
| • | "If they say this thoughtlessly, it shows that they are thoughtless. However, if this is intentional, then this is treachery." | |
| • | Iran tested two ballistic missiles last fall and several over the last month. Written on the sides of two missiles recently tested by Iran reportedly were the words "Israel should be wiped from the pages of history." | |
| • | Iran is expected to soon launch a space-launch rocket that most experts believe will be a test to develop an ICBM capable of firing nuclear warheads against Europe and the United States. | |
| • | Iran has the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East and is the only nation in history to develop missiles with ranges of 2,000 km or more without having a nuclear weapons capability. | |
| • | Khamenei's recent comments echo earlier statements by Iranian officials who have said Iran never agreed to any restrictions on its missile program in the nuclear deal. | |
| • | Khamenei and the Iranian leadership do not want to join the community of nations – they want Iran to become a regional hegemon that will dominate the Middle East. | |
| • | They agreed to a nuclear agreement that they know is a fraud since it allows Iran to conduct nuclear activities while it is in effect. | |
| • | Khamenei's claim that tomorrow's world is a world of missiles really means he believes tomorrow's world is a nuclear-armed Iran because transporting nuclear warheads is the only purpose of Iran's growing ballistic missile arsenal. | |
| • | Khamenei knows he will get away with pressing forward with Iran's missile because the Obama administration is so desperate to protect the president's legacy nuclear agreement that it will not support any meaningful action against Iran in response to the missile tests. | |
| • | This means Iran's ability to make nuclear fuel and develop a nuclear weapons delivery system will make great strides as a result of President Obama's nuclear diplomacy. | |
| • | This will be Barack Obama's real foreign policy legacy. | |
| • | It is urgent that next American president reverse this disastrous legacy by tearing up the nuclear deal with Iran on his first day in office and initiate a new strategy to halt all Iranian nuclear weapons-related activities, require Iran to fully account for its past nuclear weapons work, and stop Iran's ballistic missile program. | |
US indignation on Iranian missile tests: biggest farce on planet Earth (INN 03/31/2016)
| • | This is the phoniest gamesmanship by our duplicitous administration this writer has yet to see. | |
| • | Nothing the administration could do would be more laughable and ridiculous than the present unbelievable and farcical expressions of American indignation. | |
| • | Farce #1 — U.S. expresses indignation about Iran "breaking the agreement." Yet, this same group was outraged when Israeli President Netanyahu came to speak against "the deal" at a meeting of Congress and asserted in the face of the Administration that Iran was untrustworthy. | |
| • | They are leaders in the Axis of Evil, a term that horrified the American left when it was uttered, and is still considered offensive by the duplicitous Left. | |
| • | Farce #2 – The U.S. Administration repeatedly said last Spring and summer that if Iran violates the agreement that sanctions could be re-imposed in a heartbeat. | |
| • | Yet, instead of immediately implementing procedures for sanctions re-instatement, we see a litany of bureaucratic complaints to the Security Council. | |
| • | Farce #3 - We're complaining, but no other signatories are listening. ... What can we do? Our hands are tied. This is a strategy known on the street as "passing the buck." | |
| • | Farce #4 - Feigned surprise at the mealy-mouthed mullahs. Imagine, the man on the street (myself and many, many others) knew from day one that you cannot negotiate with terrorist scum, but the brilliant Harvard and Yale types said "give peace a chance Mr. Nobody." | |
| • | So when they drop their first nuclear (hydrogen) bomb or missile somewhere, and there is utter devastation, we will say to the mealy-mouthed mullahs, "You know, that's not in accord with the agreement," but the other signatories will say the wording of the agreement is unclear. | |
| • | That's what happens when you have complacent communist consiglieres combining to concoct a common conspiracy. | |
| • | Every predictable move by our implacable enemies is treated by the appeasers in Washington DC as though it were a surprise, a surprising deviation from the expected good. | |
Why Westerners make inviting targets for terrorists (JWR 03/31/2016)
| • | Given such severe backlash elsewhere, why do radical Islamists prefer to strike Europeans and Americans — from Paris and Brussels to Boston and San Bernardino? | |
| • | No place has been more open to Muslim refugees than the United States and the European Union. Together they have accepted several million emigrants from the Middle East since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. | |
| • | The EU and the U.S. lavish foreign aid money on the Palestinians. America has offered a half-century of support to Jordan and Egypt. It is much easier to be a Muslim in Europe than a Christian in the Middle East. | |
| • | Obama has publicly deferred to Muslim interests while abroad. He apologized to the Turkish parliament for a host of supposed past American sins — "some of our own darker periods in our history." | |
| • | In symbolic fashion, Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The president's Cairo speech mythologized Islamic contributions throughout history and downplayed Western achievement. | |
| • | The Obama administration has in effect banned the use of the terms "jihadism" and "Islamic terrorism." It prefers a host of euphemisms for Islamic terrorist acts, from "workplace violence" to "man-caused disasters." | |
| • | CIA Director John Brennan redefined jihad as a "holy struggle" of Islamic self-purification rather than a Koran-sanctioned campaign against infidels. | |
| • | Despite all of that extraordinary presidential outreach, the West remains under constant terrorist threats and episodic attacks, often from Muslim youths who were offered sanctuary in places such as Belgium, France, Massachusetts and California. | |
| • | There are a number of reasons why jihadists prefer to target Westerners. | |
| • | The West is wealthy, sensual and liberal, and it offers the chance of global publicity to killers. | |
| • | Muslim immigrants from the Middle East prefer the higher standard of living in Paris than the abject poverty at home. | |
| • | But they also hate how such affluence insidiously tempts their own religious fundamentalism. They do not praise Europe for its generosity, but rather blame it for its decadence. | |
| • | The West is obsessed with mandated equality. The Muslim immigrant — who often arrives without education, language facility or money — easily learns how to blame his relative poverty on his hosts. | |
| • | He is rarely reminded that not being relatively well off in Frankfurt or Boston is still far better than being unsafe and poor in Yemen or Chechnya. | |
| • | America asks little of its immigrants. U.S. policies allow illegal entry en masse. America does not insist that newcomers learn English, and it largely prefers the trendy multicultural salad bowl to the time-tested assimilationist melting pot. | |
| • | As a result, there are entire communities where recent immigrants and their families prefer to guilt-trip, rather than show affinity toward, their adopted countries. | |
| • | Many Westerners are more scared of being labeled as illiberal or nativist than they are of being unsafe. | |
| • | ... jihadists trust that they can cull a handful of Westerners every few weeks from an otherwise indifferent herd. Their only challenge is to keep the harvest of Westerners down to a few dozen and not to get greedy in their bloodlust. | |
| • | Terrorists seem to believe that as long as they avoid another 9/11-like massacre, they can continue to take lives and insidiously weaken the West without awakening it from its morally indifferent slumber. | |
The self-delete of the President-in-Waiting (INN 03/31/2016)
| • | For the past seven years, Israel has consistently suffered under the unswerving anti-Israel policies of the Obama administration. | |
| • | If the next US president is a Democrat, then Israel can expect its relations with America to remain in crisis mode for the foreseeable future. | |
| • | Obama, from the beginning of his administration, stated his willingness to talk to Iran "without preconditions," willing to ignore U.S. property claims against Iran, and Iran's funding, providing equipment, weapons, training and giving sanctuary to terrorists. He offered Iran economic inducements and a promise not to seek "regime change". | |
| • | The administration demanded that Israel should deny Jews civil and property rights and should not assert its sovereignty over non-Jews. | |
| • | There is nothing in Hillary Clinton's history that would qualify her for the presidency, and much that should disqualify her. | |
| • | During Hillary's four years as Obama's Secretary of State, she was a full partner in Obama's hostile policies toward Israel. Moreover, as her internal emails have shown, all her close advisers are hostile to Israel. | |
| • | The historic catastrophe permitting Iranians to develop nuclear weapons, and making it difficult for Israel to stop them happened on Hillary's watch as secretary of state. | |
| • | The Obama administration's protracted and repeatedly extended negotiations with Iran allowed Iran time to multiply, bury, and reinforce its nuclear facilities, to the point where it was uncertain whether Israel still had the military capacity to destroy those facilities. | |
| • | America's allies knew Hillary's system was insecure and tried to work around it. One can assume America's enemies also knew, and tried to burrow within it. Emails about Ambassador Stevens' travel and security plans got on a private server in a Colorado toilet, and Ambassador Stevens ended up dead. | |
| • | Obama and Hillary justified their decision to overthrow Qaddafi by falsely insisting that Qaddafi was about to carry out a slaughter of his opponents that rose to the level of genocide. | |
| • | At the same time, they refused to notice evidence that al-Qaeda was a major force in the anti-Qaddafi rebellion and was well positioned to take control over large swathes of the country if he were overthrown. | |
| • | Libya is the reason Italy is now being destabilized by tens of thousands of "refugees" landing on its shores, because ports on the Libyan coast are now in the hands of ISIS and other jihadists that are running people into Italy. | |
| • | Obama's sympathies lie with Islam, so he is relaxed about jihadist attacks. | |
| • | He kept on jollying with Raoul Castro as jihadists attacked Brussels, sending a picture of himself laughing, while people had just been blown up at a level that is the equivalent of September 11 to one of America's allies. | |
| • | The implications regarding the administration's demand that Israel should withdraw from territory gained in the Six Day War and effectively end its sovereign rule over Jerusalem are dire. Every time Israel withdraws from territory, jihadists proclaim victory and are perceived as victors. | |
| • | It is preposterous that Donald Trump is considered a non-serious candidate for president, and that the serious, substantial candidate is Hillary Clinton, who as the chief foreign affairs official of the United States kept America's confidential business on a server in the bathroom of somebody's apartment. | |
| • | In his campaign, Trump asserted that he would close the U.S. border to Muslims "until we figure out what's going on." He also mentioned that Brussels used to be such a safe place before becoming jihadi central. | |
| • | He is alone among the presidential candidates in addressing Americans' anxiety that if their leaders are not careful, America could end up like Western Europe, facing repeated attacks from a deadly internal enemy. | |
| • | This is important to voters these days since the Democrats intimate that they will import enough foreigners to make America a permanent one-party state. | |
| • | ... Hillary ... asserted categorically: "Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism." | |
| • | When conventional politicians respond to terrorism with platitudes and even outright lies, it is no wonder that someone like Donald Trump can thrive as he senses and responds to legitimate public fears. | |
You can’t make it up. UN names democratic Israel as world’s top human rights violator (Fox 03/29/2016)
| • | According to the United Nations, the most evil country in the world today is Israel. | |
| • | ... condemning only one country for violating women's rights anywhere on the planet – Israel, for violating the rights of Palestinian women. | |
| • | On the same day, the U.N. Human Rights Council concluded its month-long session in Geneva by condemning Israel five times more than any other of the 192 UN member states. | |
| • | There were five Council resolutions on Israel. One each on the likes of hellish countries like Syria, North Korea and Iran. Libya got an offer of "technical assistance." And countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia and China were among the 95 percent of states that were never mentioned. | |
| • | No slander is deemed too vile for the U.N. human rights bodies that routinely listen to highly orchestrated Palestinian versions of the ancient blood libel against the Jews. | |
| • | "Israeli soldiers and settlers kill Palestinian children. They shoot them dead. They will leave them to bleed to death." | |
| • | "Israel... is directing its military machinery against women and girls. They are killing them, injuring them, and leaving them bleeding to death." | |
| • | ... accused Israel of sexual violence against children and "trying to exterminate an entire Palestinian generation." Speeches focused on the 1948 "catastrophe" in which a "settler colonial state" was established on Palestinian land. | |
| • | Picture these real-life scenes: | |
| • | In Geneva's grand U.N. "Human Rights" Council chamber, 750 people assembled, pounced on the Jewish state, broadcast the spectacle online, and produced hundreds of articles and interviews in dozens of languages championing the results. | |
| • | On the ground, Israelis are being hacked to death on the streets, stabbed in buses, slaughtered in synagogues, mowed down with automobiles, and shot in front of their children. | |
| • | At the New York's UN headquarters, 8,100 NGO representatives gathered from all corners of the globe, in addition to government delegates, and watched the weight of the entire world of women's rights descended on only one country. | |
| • | On the ground, Palestinian women are murdered and subjugated for the sake of male honor, Saudi women can't drive, Iranian women are stoned to death for so-called "adultery," Egyptian women have their genitals mutilated and Sudanese women give birth in prison with their legs shackled for being Christian. | |
| • | Isn't it about time that people stopped calling the U.N. a harmless international salon or a bad joke? | |
| • | All of this played out in the same week that Europe was reeling from the Belgian terror attacks. Petrified or already vanquished, no European state voted against this onslaught of U.N. resolutions against Israel. | |
| • | Here we are just 70 years after World War II and Europeans believe that they can license this vitriol against the Jewish state – the only democracy on the front lines of an Islamist war against human decency – and the consequences can be contained to the Jews. | |
| • | Two days after the Brussels attacks, Islamic states rammed through a Council resolution slyly labeled "Effects of terrorism on the enjoyment of all human rights" that was actually so anti-human rights even Belgium was forced to vote against it. | |
| • | Memo to Americans who are mad as hell: It's time to elicit a promise from our would-be leaders to refuse to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council or to legitimize the United Nations. | |
Did you hug a terrorist today? (INN 03/29/2016)
| • | Demanding peerless morality on the part of its soldiers is one thing. | |
| • | But requiring IDF guys to be more merciful than G-d, this is something else. | |
| • | That is pretty much where we are in the case of an Israeli soldier who last week finished off a terrorist who'd been wounded after a knifing spree. | |
| • | The terrorist was wearing a heavy overcoat, which suggests hidden explosives. Either way, the soldier felt he had no time to "stop and frisk." | |
| • | When in doubt, take no prisoners. | |
| • | The soldier was handcuffed and led off to jail. Today, a military court has formally charged him with "needlessly killing" the terrorist. | |
| • | Outsiders wonder what the fuss is all about. Soldier shoots terrorist dead – especially post-Brussels, a headline like that would be welcome in most parts of the world, mitigating circumstances be damned. | |
| • | But Israelis with children in the military are asking, since when is the life of a terrorist so precious and when did their own kids become so expendable? | |
| • | Are these the same Israelis who hunted down Eichmann and rescued the Entebbe hostages? | |
| • | Were rules of engagement strictly adhered to or to hell with it, we win, you lose? | |
| • | So today's handwringing in the name of morality appears to be excessive and somewhat absurd. | |
| • | In the heat of the moment a soldier has a split second to decide right from wrong, life or death. Hesitation can be deadly. | |
| • | The American military also prides itself in maintaining high moral standards. But, even under Obama, that does not stop us from droning terrorists to smithereens wherever we find them – and we don't ask questions, either. We incinerate them in 12 different countries, mainly, at the moment, Pakistan, Somalia and Afghanistan. | |
| • | There've been no investigations and no apologies. War means never saying you're sorry. | |
| • | Except, apparently, in Israel, where a military court has already taken its first step against the soldier. | |
| • | But more than this one soldier's future is at risk. | |
| • | At stake is the fighting spirit of a nation. | |
EXPOSE: Belgium accepted Islamization for electoral reasons (INN 03/29/2016)
| • | "For twenty years, he reigned in a sort of conspiracy of silence." | |
| • | "At the heart of this system was the powerful Philippe Moureaux, mayor of Molenbeek, media darling, who has had a real moral and political domination over Brussels' policy. He has created a climate of intellectual terror against the few who dared to stand up. Philippe Moureaux had realized that the future of socialism would depend on the immigrants who would become, symbolically, the new proletariat". | |
| • | "Without the immigrant populations, the Socialist Party would have been reduced to eight percent of the electorate in Brussels. We have become prisoners." | |
| • | "Multiculturalism has failed because we have allowed them to exclude themselves without integrating communities, causing a fragmentation of society." | |
| • | "We're talking about Belgian citizens who reject the values ??of our country. Salah Abdeslam is a typical example of a guy who could lead a comfortable life. He had a decent salary and a guaranteed job for life ". | |
| • | "It was a political electoral pact. Legal immigration (and illegal) was encouraged. Family reunification was facilitated. There was the granting of voting rights to foreigners, the fight against racism became the new paradigm of political discourse. And more: frequent visits to mosques, subsidies to Muslim associations, the provision of services to the Koranic schools, participation in the festival Eid El Kebir, anti-Israeli marches". | |
| • | When he was mayor, Moureaux also urged people to avoid driving during Ramadan, so as not to offend Muslims. | |
| • | "Most politicians chose not to listen to sermons that became increasingly radical and in this climate radical organizations such as the Belgian Islamic Centre and others have prospered freely. Molenbeek has thus become the fastest growing area of ??the Brussels region of Belgium. The population of the district increased by 12 percent in 5 years and 30 percent in 15 years. The Islamization is taking place before our eyes. Already 30 percent of Brussels is Islamic". | |
Self-destruct: Us or them (INN 03/29/2016)
| • | The War of Civilizations is well and truly here, right on our doorstep, for the entire world to see. | |
| • | These are not terror attacks. This is World War III in its incarnation of the enemy within: an asymmetric war that if not halted has the potential to go nuclear as Iran tests its long-range missiles with their leaders proclaiming "Death to the Jews" and "Death to Israel." | |
| • | Hitler was not a madman when he marshalled his people to carry out his plans. #He had a carefully thought-out agenda which we later labelled the personification of evil. | |
| • | But before the Second World War politicians, intellectuals and decision-makers world-wide did not believe that he could possibly carry out his plans. No, appeasement was the solution until millions upon millions lay dead on the ground, burnt in ovens and even burnt and buried alive. | |
| • | Many madrassas are financed to promulgate a particular form of Wahhabism that teaches whole populations not to accommodate values that are not their own. | |
| • | UNRWA finances millions who call themselves Palestinian refugees but are residents of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Gaza who were mostly born there. Most of this money is used for buying military materiel, training troops for warmongering and sending rockets into Israeli civilian areas, not for resettlement. | |
| • | Then there is the Iranian nuclear industry now helped by a United States agreement with financing that is increasing the risk of nuclear war. | |
| • | Now that the West is paying the price, the story is quite different. The West has the tools to stop this war in its tracks and allow the enemy to self-destruct. | |
| • | These tools are simply the control of money, the control of gold and the control of resources. | |
| • | Can large-scale murderous activities continue without money? Of course not. Even trading oil for black money can be stopped when the buyers are nations. | |
| • | The average human being in most societies, we would like to hope, just wants to live out their life peacefully, not to be forced into a war situation. | |
| • | But either way, remove the money and most of the warmongering will self-destruct. | |
| • | The world's powers have obviously forgotten the mantra after World War Two and the Holocaust – "Never Again." Or was it after the First World War – the Great War – The War to End All Wars? | |
| • | This is the choice: Call it the War that it is, take action to cut the head off the snake by throttling its money and the resource supplies that it lives on. | |
| • | The alternative is that the West will be responsible for its own self-destruction. | |
| • | Changing the mindset of its young resident enemy through re-education and tracking killers and their associates after events, as the West honestly believes is should do, is not the solution. | |
The shocking truth about how swiftly and effectively ISIS has spread jihad across the globe (Fox 03/28/2016)
| • | Deaths from jihadist assaults rose from an annual average of roughly 2,500 innocents per year from 2001 to 2006, to an average of 3,300 per year in 2007-2011, to 9,000 per year in 2012-2013 and to an average of more than 28,000 in 2014-2015. | |
| • | ... the West has proven itself unable to develop and implement effective strategies to confront, contain and defeat ISIS or any of the 34 terrorist organizations that have pledged their allegiance to it. | |
| • | The result is that deaths attributable to jihadists have increased by roughly 700 percent since 2011, and ISIS now has two caliphates (Iraq/Syria and Libya) from which it can threaten three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe. | |
| • | The causes are even more frightening. The neighborhoods where the West has most actively been engaged – Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya and Syria – are failed states. | |
| • | Egypt, another country in which the West involved itself, nearly became a terrorist haven with a government dominated by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood before the military overthrew it. Even so, it is still attempting to reclaim authority over parts of the Sinai Peninsula from terrorists. | |
| • | The West has demonstrated an ability to remove regimes relatively easily, but it has been unable to transition these countries toward stable governments that can maintain order and stability within their own borders. | |
| • | The course of affairs will unfortunately continue to move in the wrong direction because Western leaders appear incapable of doing anything meaningful about it. | |
| • | Today Iran directs Iraq's military. Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting a proxy war in Yemen. The U.S. has returned to Libya to conduct air strikes with fighter jets and drones against ISIS. Peace talks in Syria fall apart nearly daily. | |
| • | Western military and security services discuss their progress against either of the caliphates, but they do not appear willing to commit the short-term resources necessary to completely eradicate them. | |
| • | They need to recognize the magnitude of the defeat that it is facing and develop bipartisan solutions that will diminish and eliminate the swelling threat. | |
Obama, Western nations ignore reality (JWR 03/24/2016)
| • | ... ordinary Belgians were predicting grimly that security would be very tight that day — and that the next day, it would return to the same casual mediocrity that had failed to stop the attack in the first place. | |
| • | Again and again, we are attacked by people who have warned us of exactly what they intend to do, who have explained exactly what motivates them, and who have proved beyond doubt that they are sincere. | |
| • | Again and again, we respond to the violence with shock, psychoanalysis and a brief surge of force before going back to life — and business and security — as usual. | |
| • | That's what happened after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and other targets in France last winter. It's what happened after the shootings on the Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris last summer. And what happened after the stabbings at the University of California at Merced last fall. And after the Paris attacks the same month. And after the San Bernardino attack a few weeks later. | |
| • | When will the Western world decide to be serious about confronting this threat? After there is a biological or chemical attack in one of these cities — or worse? | |
| • | Tuesday's events in Belgium came days after the police arrested Salah Abdeslam, the final surviving terrorist behind the most recent Paris attacks. He was residing in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels. He had been there, and eluded capture, for more than four months. | |
| • | When Abdeslam was arrested, the neighborhood rioted. The people threw garbage and bottles at the police. Belgian media reported that the community had known the fugitive was hiding there the whole time. | |
| • | How can we have neighborhoods in European cities that shelter terrorists and then riot when we catch someone responsible for the murder of 130 innocent people (and the injury of hundreds more)? | |
| • | The challenge, of course, is much greater than a single neighborhood. | |
| • | "You could find the same in London. You could find the same in the north of France." | |
| • | These are countries whose residents travel freely throughout western Europe and even to the United States and Canada, with little or no scrutiny. | |
| • | In other words, the Brussels attacks should be a reminder that meeting the threat is going to require real changes and force us to reassess decades of assumptions. | |
| • | Swapping out our Facebook profile pictures and lightening up landmarks in solidarity will not be enough to address the danger we have allowed to grow up within Western countries. | |
| • | Which brings us to the president's trip to Cuba this week. President Obama has long aimed to sew closer ties with the Cuban regime, inspired by an idealistic internationalism that has clashed with the reality of events throughout his presidency — up through and including the attacks today. | |
| • | For the president, the juxtaposition of the Brussels attack with his tour of our hemisphere's last communist dictatorship must have been at least a little chilling. | |
| • | Let's hope it produces an epiphany in this final year of his presidency: to preserve the delicate balance between freedom and security that the Western democracies have uniquely maintained, we will certainly need Guantanamo, or places like it. | |
Will Europe fall? (INN 03/24/2016)
| • | Islamist ideology is the most dramatic challenge to Europe since Soviet Communism. | |
| • | But all our vigilance and the exhausting rules we must follow at the airports, make sense only if we understand that we are fighting a war against it | |
| • | And Europe's troubles come from the very denial of this battle and challenge. | |
| • | Abdeslam could have seen the mayor of the city from the window. | |
| • | Thousands of Eurocrats near him were toiling for the post-historical future, while thousands of Islamists, a few meters away, dribbled to convert Belgium into a Caliphate. | |
| • | We saw the results in the airport and metro. | |
| • | Abdeslam's neighbourhood, Mollenbeek, has become the most brutal laboratorium for multiculturalism. | |
| • | Europe created its own Jihadi executioners by adopting a suicidal form of multiculturalism in which the state gives you "panem et circenses", bread and circuses, and will close its eyes while you adopt the most genocidal form of Islam and you turn its cities into rogue states. | |
| • | "The border with the West is abolished because now political Islam has open spaces in London, Paris and Brussels". | |
| • | After the attacks in Paris last November, French journalist Eric Zemmour said: "France should bomb Mollenbeek, not Raqqa." Rude but right. | |
| • | These terrorists used Raqqa just as a shooting range, just for practice. This is a European war. These are Europe's children, the children of failed integration. | |
| • | In the Bataclan theatre, where they perpetrated the horrendous massacre of 100 people, these terrorists enjoyed looking sadistically at their victims. | |
| • | Europeans killing other Europeans. Like "Jihadi John", a British boy, beheading British captives in the Syrian desert. | |
| • | Europe has, in fact, its own Raqqas, cities turned de facto into Jihadist bases from which terrorists can plan attacks against other European nations. | |
| • | "There is a fatal conjunction between a counter-society, which rejects Western democracy, and our own blindness." | |
| • | "The risk of a civil war in the future is real. The humanist and anti-racist Left has deliberately been silent on the new Salafist totalitarianism and anti-Semitism. Civil war is lurking in the folds of multiculturalism". | |
| • | These days, the European media have been very busy publishing stories about the failure of Intelligence Services, the protection of the parents of these terrorists, the social roots of Jihad. | |
| • | Distractions to avoid mentioning Islamization and multiculturalism. | |
Post-Jihad Gesture Theater: Je Suis Sick of It (JWR 03/23/2016)
| • | While homicidal, suicidal and genocidal jihadists are busy plotting the next soft-target terror attacks on the West, docile Westerners are busy shedding cartoon tears and doodling broken hearts on social media. | |
| • | European artists rushed to fill Twitter and Instagram with images of Belgian comic book character Tintin weeping after vengeful Muslim terrorists left the Brussels airport and subway system buried in rubble and dead bodies. | |
| • | Residents of the besieged city — which recklessly opened its doors to mass Muslim immigration and criminalized the vocal dissent of those who've objected over past decade — meekly protested the Quran-inspired violence by leaving pastel-colored chalk messages pleading for "peace no war." | |
| • | And, of course, there will be flags lowered and monuments lit up all over the world this week in the national colors of Belgium to show "solidarity" with Tuesday's victims of The Perpetrators Whose Religion Shall Not Be Named. | |
| • | Hashtags, avatars and animated GIFs ad nauseam. These are the easy advertisements and maudlin displays of one's resolute opposition to an unidentified something that must be stopped somehow by unspoken means. | |
| • | They are sincere-seeming shows of collective unity that disguise the millennial-age indulgence of publicly patting one's own back for supposed moral courage. | |
| • | Pre-Twitter, outraged Americans all donned "Never forget" magnets and ribbons on our cars and lapels after 9/11. I was one of them. | |
| • | But after 15 years of hapless homeland security theater and bipartisan pandering to terror-coddling "Islamophobia" shriekers, I'm so, so sick of noble gesture paraphernalia. | |
| • | I'm sick of preening celebrities who tell me to "PrayForTheWorld" and celebrate diversity while indiscriminate floods of Muslim refugees across Europe and America corrode the pillars of peace and freedom. | |
| • | I'm sick of Silicon Valley moguls who pretend to champion free speech while muzzling the speech of those who use the Internet to criticize the very open door immigration policies that fertilized European and American soil for jihadists. | |
| • | I'm sick of all the same old emasculated politicians who declare that "justice will be served," "this must end" and "we stand against terror," while refusing to take even the smallest baby steps to register and track Muslim refugees already here, stop new ones from coming in and tying up our overwhelmed immigration bureaucracy, and drain the jihad swamps inside our own borders. | |
| • | We've had enough piles of memorial flowers. We've heard enough hollow lip service paid to resolve. Where is the world's active resistance to the sharia-imposing soldiers of Allah? | |
| • | When German invaders attempted what they thought would be an easy romp through the tiny neutral country in 1914 on their way to Paris, resistance fighters who were outnumbered 14 to 1 took a brave stand in defense of their sovereignty. Bracing for an onslaught, King Albert addressed his people: | |
| • | "One single vision fills all minds: that of our independence endangered. One single duty imposes itself upon our wills: the duty of stubborn resistance. In these solemn circumstances two virtues are indispensable: a calm but unshaken courage, and the close union of all Belgians. ... It is the moment for action. ... [A] country which is defending itself conquers the respect of all; such a country does not perish!" | |
| • | How far the West has fallen. Farewell, steeled wills. You've been replaced by an army of sad-faced emojis. | |
When it comes to terror, isn’t it time we started listening seriously to Trump? (Daily Mail, 03/22/2016)
| • | How many more innocent men, women and children are going to be blown to pieces by these murderous bastards? | |
| • | How many more airports, train stations, sports stadiums, restaurants or concert halls will be obliterated in a hail of suicide bombs and bullets? | |
| • | How many more world leaders will wring their hands on national television afterwards and spout pointless platitudes about the ‘poor brave victims' and ‘heroic emergency services'? | |
| • | How many taunting, gleeful claims of responsibility will the despicable perpetrators of these evil crimes be able to issue? | |
| • | Yet just as the world is crying out for strong decisive leadership, there is none. | |
| • | America has a demob happy President Obama eeking out his last few months in office. A man whose infamous ‘leading from behind' philosophy to foreign policy has been partly responsible for the war in Syria raging uncontrollably for five years – allowing fundamentalism to ferment. | |
| • | Obama has zero interest in doing anything tangible to really deal with ISIS. | |
| • | Europe, meanwhile, is splintering at the seams, ravaged by an unprecedented migration crisis that nobody seems to have a clue how to handle. | |
| • | German chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to let a million migrants into its country is already seen to be an utter disaster. | |
| • | France, reeling from two horrendous attacks in Paris, is understandably highly fearful of yet more terror coming its way. | |
| • | Belgium officials effectively conceded today that they have no real way to protect themselves against the ISIS threat. | |
| • | ... nobody seems to be doing anything concrete to stop ISIS, or even suggesting a new way to do so given the spectacular lack of success to date. | |
| • | Trump, current front-runner for the Republican nomination, wants to hit ISIS ‘so hard they never recover'. | |
| • | (As he told me: ‘You've got to take them out and you've got to take them out harshly and you've got to take them out fast.') | |
| • | He also wants a short-term ban on Muslims entering the U.S. until, as he puts it, ‘we figure out what the hell is going on?' | |
| • | And he wants to torture suspects like Abdeslam with techniques like water-boarding to try and extract information about future attacks. | |
| • | Oh, and he wants to build a giant wall to stop illegal immigrants pouring over the Mexican border into America. | |
| • | Trump told me countries must tighten their borders in light of these terror attacks, especially to anyone related to an ISIS fighter in Syria. | |
| • | He told me he wants law-abiding Muslims to root out the extremists in their midst, expressing his bafflement and anger that someone like Abdeslam was able to hide for so long in the very part of Brussels he had previously lived. | |
| • | He told me America must make it far harder for illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. and thinks European countries should follow suit. | |
| • | He told me he believes there are now areas of many major European cities which have become poisonous breeding grounds for radicalized Islamic terror. | |
| • | I saw a guy, a non-politician unfettered by PC language restraints, who is genuinely furious at the devastation which ISIS is wreaking, and seriously concerned for the security of his fellow Americans and indeed, the citizens of Europe. | |
| • | ... he firmly believes that ISIS will murder countless more Americans and Europeans if somebody somewhere doesn't stand up and punch them hard in the face. | |
| • | Someone prepared to stop spewing politically-correct niceties after these attacks, hoping nobody gets offended, and actually DO something. | |
| • | Let's be honest with ourselves, right now ISIS is winning this war and will continuing committing utter carnage on our streets on an ever graver and more barbaric scale until they are stopped. | |
| • | Hate Donald Trump all you like, but at least he seems to recognise the magnitude of the threat and at least he has firm proposals for how to try to defeat it. | |
| • | They may not win him the Politically Correct Pontificator of the Year award. But how many more scenes like this morning's appalling images from Brussels are we going to tolerate before we try a non-PC option to beat these disgusting excuses for human beings? | |
| • | I asked Donald Trump to send a message to the large majority of non-violent, decent Muslims who are as disgusted by these attacks as the rest of us. | |
| • | ‘I have great respect for Muslims, I have many friends that are Muslims. I'm just saying that there is something with a radicalized portion that is very, very bad and very dangerous. I would say this, to the Muslims, when they see trouble, they have to report it, they're not reporting it, they're absolutely not reporting it and that's a big problem." | |
Europe's karmic destiny (INN 03/22/2016)
| • | In 2004 and 2005 Islamic terrorists blew up the Madrid train and London subway; 243 civilians were murdered and 2,750 were wounded. | |
| • | Neither attack stopped the flow of Muslim immigrants nor staunched the politically correct thinking of European leaders about Islam. | |
| • | In 2012, a terrorist shot and blew up seven people and wounded 125 civilians on the street of Liege, Belgium. | |
| • | That same year, in Burgess, Bulgaria, an Islamic terrorist blew up six civilians on a bus and wounded thirty more. The bus was transporting 42 Israeli tourists. | |
| • | In early 2015, Islamic terrorists shot down and murdered 20 civilians and wounded 22 more in the infamous attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices and the kosher deli. | |
| • | Later that same year, Islamic terrorists murdered 130 civilians and wounded 368 more in Paris. | |
| • | World leaders marched and sent condolences, but the European Union did not change its policies. | |
| • | It did not clean up its "no go" zones which police fear to enter, where terrorists hide out as they plan their attacks, and where Sharia law prevails, not European civil law. | |
| • | In 2016, women were sexually assaulted by gangs of Muslim men in many cities in Germany, Austria, and Scandinavia. | |
| • | Now, three months later, and despite police vigilance and an ongoing manhunt, Islamic terrorists blew up 34 civilians and wounded 83 more in Brussels, Belgium. | |
| • | The groups which claimed responsibility for these terrorist attacks include: Al-Qaeda, a lone non-Muslim Jihadist, Hezbollah (our Iranian partners), and ISIS (Obama's JV team). | |
| • | Historically, Europeans mobs and European leaders either led or were passively complicit in the systematic and perpetual pogroms of Jews and thereafter in the Nazi murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust. | |
| • | Jews were the non-violent and assimilated Semites. | |
| • | Today, the politically correct descendants of these Europeans are facing a terrible karmic destiny. | |
| • | They have reaped a whirlwind of violent, hostile, and unassimilated Semites — our cousins, the Muslims, or, if you will, the Islamists. | |
| • | (Not all Muslims are Islamists or even Islamist Jihadists but neither are they risking their lives to stop these evil-doers). | |
| • | In addition, for having aided and abetted the contemporary scapegoating of Israel (which is a new form of anti-Semitism); for having attempted to appease the Jihadists in their midst by throwing Israel as a bone to them, Europeans are now facing a thousand rape attacks and bombing jihads. | |
| • | One hopes that Europeans will finally understand that this is precisely what Israel has been suffering and that appeasement is not an option. | |
| • | There are too many European (and Americans) who prefer to see the suffering of the immigrants over and above the murderous violence of the Jihadists; the desire of immigrants to escape the hot wars in the Muslim world for the freedom and opportunities in the West over and above their almost guaranteed further radicalization and the consequent growth of intolerance. | |
| • | America is the last country standing which represents the Western enterprise. The presidential election which is upon us will decide the fate of the world. We had better choose wisely. | |
Brussel's pact with Saudi Arabia gave the world Molenbeekistan (INN 03/22/2016)
| • | How did Molenbeek, the "Little Manchester" that the former Socialist mayor Philippe Moureaux proudly called a "socio-multicultural laboratory", become the headquarters of the European jihad from Atocha to the Bataclan. | |
| • | "Islam was recognized officially in Belgium in 1974, by the former King Baudouin, who had developed good ties with the royal family of Saudi Arabia (SA). This recognition was coming in opportunely as it was in the midst of the oil crisis and Belgium was hoping that this recognition would be taken as a sign of good will and openness towards SA, therefore securing oil supply for Belgium." | |
| • | "In 1974, Muslims living in Belgium were mostly 1st generation coal and other industry workers from Morocco and Turkey who were slowly starting to get organized in order to open prayer spaces and small mosques." | |
| • | "As a follow up of this recognition, Belgium offered the ‘Pavillon du Cinquantenaire', 200 meters away from Schuman Place and the EU headquarters, to Saudi Arabia, which transformed it into ‘the Great Mosque of the Cinquantenaire', and filled the void in terms of religious authority to become the de facto Islamic authority in Belgium." | |
| • | "Native Moroccan imams have also been heavily influenced by the Wahhabi or another version of the salafi approach of Islam. Therefore, when in Belgium, there was no real disconnect - apart from nuances - between their own conservative teachings and the ones promoted by the Great Mosque directly under the supervision of SA." | |
| • | "The impact of SA, through the Great Mosque, has also been very widespread because they've been disseminating tons of books for free in all languages to mosques and other Islamic organizations, as well as Qu'rans..." | |
| • | The pact with Belgium is part of a larger global project: Bruxellistan? Belgistan? a vision of Islam that is based on the absolute monotheism (tawhid), the prohibition innovations (bid'ah), the rejection of everything that is not Muslim, the excommunication of the "unbelievers" (takfir) and the armed struggle (jihad). | |
| • | Saudi Arabia donates a million euro annually to 20 mosques in Mollenbeek for their renovation and maintenance. | |
| • | We are paying the consequences of that suicidal blackmail between Belgium and Saudi Arabia. The transformation of the Iris in the Crescent. | |
| • | Belgium, once famous for the Madonna by Michelangelo in Bruges, now makes headlines for Molenbeek, the operative base for the Islamic holy war against the European everyman. | |
Did the UN just admit that Israel is among the happiest places on Earth? (Fox 03/21/2016)
| • | In case you missed it, Sunday was International Happiness Day. | |
| • | This year's top ten are pretty much the ones you would expect: Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Holland, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden. | |
| • | All are peaceful, long established, prosperous democracies with homogenous populations, located in the calmest regions of the First World. | |
| • | And then, at number 11, comes Israel. | |
| • | Israel? A hated democracy in the world's most violent neighborhood? | |
| • | A society where boys and girls are drafted into the army at eighteen and men do military reserve duty well into their forties? | |
| • | Where taxes are higher and salaries far lower than in dozen countries that rank lower on the happiness scale? | |
| • | A nation with a history so somber that it has three separate national days of mourning? | |
| • | When the UN happiness report was published it shocked Israel's post-Zionist intelligentsia, for whom it is doctrine that Israel is a miserable place that gets worse by the day. | |
| • | ... 86% of Israelis over the age of nineteen said they were "very satisfied with their lives," — the same percentage of very happy Australians. | |
| • | These statistics are interesting because they paint a picture of life in Israel that is very different from the usual portrayal in the international media. | |
| • | But they are crucial for understanding an essential truth about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. | |
| • | ... a list of rules for reporting on the Middle East... Rule 12: "The Israelis will always win, and the Palestinians will always make sure they never enjoy it." | |
| • | ... correctly reflects Palestinian fantasy which, unhappily, is the basis for Palestinian policy. | |
| • | For most of the past century, the Arabs of Palestine have believed that the Jewish state was an artificial entity, a concoction of Europeans who would, if sufficiently pressured, go back where they belonged. | |
| • | That led to a decades long campaign of terrorism, propaganda warfare, efforts at international demonization, anti-Israel UN resolution, rocket attacks, bogus peace offers, threats about the demographic power of "the Palestinian womb" (one of Yassir Arafat's favorites), moral posturing on the evils of occupation and then more terror. | |
| • | The current iteration features a campaign of almost daily knife attacks on Israeli citizens by Palestinian teenagers and a worldwide effort to make Israel into a pariah state. | |
| • | What the Palestinians do not understand is this is not going to work. In fact, it is a counterproductive waste of time. | |
| • | Israel is a country with a vibrant Hebrew cultural scene, great restaurants and nightlife, abundant tourism (it is a destination for both Evangelical pilgrims and LGBT visitors), world class universities, honest courts, omnipresent internet connection, newly discovered oil reserves, plentiful water resources (thanks to Israeli techniques of desalination), a booming high tech sector, low unemployment, steady immigration, increasing a high Jewish birth rate, bloodless elections and plain old daily life. | |
| • | The Palestinians need to internalize this. So do American policy-makers and anyone else banking on life becoming so intolerable that Israel gives up on itself. | |
| • | With apologies to Tom Friedman, here is Rule Number 1: Israel is very good at turning bitter Palestinian lemons into sweet, satisfying lemonade. | |
A challenge to Ban Ki-moon: Condemn the murder of my father and Abbas' embrace of his murderer (Fox 03/21/2016)
| • | My father, Richard Lakin, was a kind gentle person. An elementary school principal who educated thousands of children, teachers and parents. | |
| • | A life-long activist dedicated to promoting human rights, social justice and peaceful coexistence. | |
| • | He moved to Israel in the 1980s and founded a school in which Jewish, Christian and Muslim children studied English together as a second language. | |
| • | His book "Teaching as an Act of Love" set forth his educational philosophy with the message "every child is a miracle" that needs to be nurtured with love. | |
| • | On October 13, 2016 two Palestinian terrorists attacked a bus full of innocent passengers in Jerusalem. It was a vicious and brutal attack. | |
| • | They shot my 76-year-old father in the head. They then stabbed him multiple times after he fell to the ground, severing most of his vital organs. | |
| • | The knife broke in the process. The scene was horrific. Screaming wounded, bodies and blood everywhere. | |
| • | My dad was rushed to the hospital with the giant knife blade still lodged in his stomach. | |
| • | U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited my father in the ICU before he died. We stood next to my unconscious father, a beautiful man who once read books to his granddaughters, but now kept alive by machines. | |
| • | He died two weeks later and Ban sent my mother an emotional condolence letter in which he promised to "speak out against terrorism and incitement." | |
| • | But the Secretary-General and his UN never publically condemned the Palestinian terrorists who murdered my father, nor the years of Palestinian incitement that fuels this brutality. | |
| • | Palestinian leader Mohamad Abbas met the terrorist's father, calling the man's son not a terrorist who murdered innocent civilians, but a "martyr" who has gone to heaven. | |
| • | Ban reacted with silence. Just as he been silent for years allowing wanton Palestinian incitement to hatred and violence in his UN schools in Gaza and the West Bank. | |
| • | How would Ban have reacted if a North Korean "resisting" South Korean occupation stuck a knife into Ban's father - someone Ban has described as the humble man who nurtured him and educated him "to lead by example" – and stabbed him to death just for being a South Korean? | |
| • | Would Ban's "guiding principle" be to sit silently as he did when my father was murdered? | |
| • | Would Ban rationalize the actions of his father's murder because North Korean "frustration and grievances are growing under the weight of nearly" 63 years of South Korean occupation – the phrase he used ... to describe Palestinian murderers? | |
| • | ... Abbas praised the murderer of my father and called him a martyr. | |
| • | That was not a call for Palestinians to make peace. That was, and is, incitement to terror. | |
| • | Ban must point blame squarely where it belongs – not play phony word games blaming "natural" consequences of Palestinian "frustration." | |
| • | "To lead by example has been my guiding principle... You have to always be more exemplary than other people, in terms of work ethics; in terms of public service you have to always be in the front, ahead of everybody." | |
| • | ... I issue a direct challenge to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: Condemn unequivocally the murder of my father Richard Lakin. Condemn President Abbas for glorifying his murderer and inciting the next murder. | |
| • | It is actually quite simple and straight forward. A peaceful old man is riding a public bus home from a doctor's appointment. A dual citizen of Israel and the United States who has dedicated his life to educating children and teaching coexistence. | |
| • | Terrorists, indoctrinated in hatred, board the bus, shoot him in the head, and then stab him multiple times. He dies two weeks later. | |
| • | The failure of the United Nations to condemn unequivocally Palestinian terror against Israelis, and their continued rationalization of terror, makes more violence inevitable, and distances us from the peace and coexistence, for which my father stood, and for which the people of Israel stand today. | |
Iran is not hiding its intentions. So why are many US politicians willfully ignoring them? (Fox 03/17/2016)
| • | When Iran's radical leaders believe they get their marching orders directly from Allah, there is no way they would violate those instructions, which include the eradication of Israel and the defeat of the "Great Satan," which would be America. | |
| • | Predictably, Iran denies any of its missiles are designed to carry nuclear weapons. | |
| • | Islamic extremists are permitted by the Koran to lie to infidels in pursuit of their earthly goals. | |
| • | In another exercise in denial, an Obama administration spokesman claimed to be unaware of any missile launch. | |
| • | The spokesman would only say, "It's important that Iran live up to its obligations under the (nuclear) deal." That's not about to strike fear into the Mullahs. | |
| • | Two of the ballistic missiles reportedly carried messages in Hebrew that said, "Israel must be wiped out." | |
| • | It's nice that Iran is not hiding its intentions, though U.S. diplomats and too many politicians refuse to take these gestures seriously. | |
| • | President Obama assured us that if Iran violated the agreement, sanctions could be re-imposed, but that won't be effective, especially after unfrozen cash has already been transferred to Tehran. | |
Today North Korea — Tomorrow Iran (INN 03/16/2016)
| • | The Obama administration's willful blindness to the present nuclear missile threats emanating almost daily from North Korea is a "teaching moment" on how President Obama — and any future Democrat administration that supports Obama's nuclear deal — will respond to nuclear missile threats from Iran. | |
| • | Denial. Obfuscation. Impotence. This is how President Obama is reacting to the fact that North Korea is a fully fledged nuclear missile state. | |
| • | No doubt it is how President Obama, or a future President Hillary Clinton or President Bernie Sanders — who also support the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) — will react when Iran reveals to the world that it too is a nuclear missile power. | |
| • | North Korea has conducted four overt nuclear tests, the last possibly of a hydrogen bomb. | |
| • | All of these nuclear tests are illegal violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which North Korea once subscribed in order to acquire its nuclear infrastructure. | |
| • | North Korea has conducted numerous illegal missile tests violating United Nations resolutions. | |
| • | North Korea's KSM-3 and KSM-4 satellites fly on a south polar trajectory that evades U.S. National Missile Defenses and at the optimum altitude, if the satellites contained nuclear warheads, for exo-atmospheric detonations that would generate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could blackout most of North America for months or years. | |
| • | The Congressional EMP Commission warned that a nationwide blackout lasting one year could kill 90 percent of the U.S. population from starvation and societal collapse. | |
| • | So, how is President Obama reacting to North Korea's illegal missile tests, illegal nuclear tests, and apparently practicing a nuclear EMP attack that could kill 9 of 10 Americans? | |
| • | Denial. President Obama denies that North Korea has nuclear armed missiles. | |
| • | Obfuscation. President Obama and his State Department claim that North Korea has not yet demonstrated that they can make a nuclear weapon "miniaturized" so it is small enough to be delivered by a missile. | |
| • | Impotence. President Obama pleaded with Russia and China to gain their approval for tougher sanctions against North Korea. | |
| • | Admiral William Gortney — whose job is to protect the U.S. from missile threats — warned the Atlantic Council: "I agree with the intelligence community that we assess that they [the North Koreans] have the ability, they have the weapons, and they have the ability to miniaturize those weapons, and they have the ability to put them on a rocket that can range the [U.S.] homeland." | |
| • | So, can Israel trust Vice President Joe Biden's March 9 promise to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the people of Israel that America "will act" if Iran violates the nuclear deal? | |
| • | For Israel, there is a vitally important lesson to be learned from President Obama's ongoing nuclear missile crisis with North Korea. | |
| • | If Democrats control the White House, in any present or future nuclear missile crisis with Iran — Israel is on its own. | |
How US taxpayers funded the murder of an Iraq vet in Israel (INN 03/15/2016)
| • | Taylor Force had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, he had served at Fort Hood in the year of the infamous Islamic terrorist attack on the base, but a Jihadist finally caught up to the veteran, whose father and grandfather had also served their country, in civilian life during a visit to Israel. | |
| • | Bashar Masalha, the Islamic terrorist who murdered Force, was shot dead by Israeli police around the time that Biden was hanging out a mile away at the Peres Center for Peace. | |
| • | But Biden and his boss signed the checks to Iran and the Palestinian Authority that motivated and rewarded Force's killer. | |
| • | Masalha came from Qalqilya which is under the civil control of the Palestinian Authority. | |
| • | Fatah celebrated the murder of Taylor Force and other victims of the attack, praising Masalha as a "heroic martyr". | |
| • | It named him and two other terrorist attackers as "the pride of all of the young Palestinians" and urged future terrorists to go on killing in their name. | |
| • | Palestinian Authority television called the terrorist who murdered an American, a Shaheed, a martyr for Islam. | |
| • | And the Palestinian Authority's support for the murder of Taylor Force doesn't just end there. | |
| • | The Palestinian Authority pays terrorists based on the amount of harm they caused and the resulting jail sentence. | |
| • | Had Masalha survived his attack on Taylor Force and the other victims, he would have likely been paid $2,000 a month for his act of terror. | |
| • | That's pretty good money in a place where $2,000 is more like an annual income. | |
| • | It's so good that that there's no shortage of terrorists eager to kill for cash. | |
| • | And the Palestinian Authority has no shortage of money to pay Muslim terrorists to kill Americans and Israelis because the terror organization which claims to be a state is subsidized by the United States with billions of dollars. | |
| • | In 2014, the PA spent $144 million on payments to convicted terrorists. Its terror budget benefited from Obama boosting 2014 foreign aid to the PA to $440 million. For "peace". | |
| • | In just one year, the PA paid out $78 million to the families of terrorists. Masalha's family will receive money each month for the murder of Taylor Force. | |
| • | That money will come from American taxpayers. It will come from you, if you are a tax-paying US citizen. | |
| • | Americans are paying money to Islamic terrorists who kill them. | |
| • | They are paying money to their families so that the terrorists know that even if they die, their families will be taken care of by their victims. | |
| • | After a vague condemnation, Biden headed to a meeting with the head of the Palestinian Authority, PLO and Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, whose organization encouraged and financed the murder of Taylor Force. | |
| • | While the body of Abbas' latest American victim was flown back to his family, Biden grinned at the Osama of the "West Bank", shook the bloody hand of the head of a terrorist organization that is among the world's top terrorist killers of Americans and promised him more cash that will be used to help kill more Americans. | |
| • | Why do Jewish houses in Jerusalem offend Biden more than the murder of an American veteran? | |
| • | And sadly, the taxpayer financing of Islamic terrorism in Israel doesn't end with the Palestinian Authority. | |
| • | Obama signed off on Iran's nuclear program. As part of that deal, Iran got $100 billion in sanctions relief. And he generously threw in a check from the American people to the Shiite terror state for $1.7 billion. | |
| • | As part of its celebration, Iran announced that it would pay $7,000 to the families of terrorists in Israel. | |
| • | On top of the American taxpayer money that the family of Taylor Force's killer will receive from the Palestinian Authority, they will also receive blood money from Iran. | |
| • | Funding terrorism is popular in the Muslim world. The Saudis were funneling $5,300 to the families of dead terrorists in Israel. | |
| • | And too much of the money being used to murder Americans is coming out of the pockets of Americans. | |
| • | Taylor Force is not alone. He is the second American to be murdered by Muslim terrorists in Israel this year. | |
| • | Many other Americans have been stabbed, shot at, wounded, stoned and terrorized. And the money funding their attackers came out of their own pockets. | |
| • | Members of Congress from both parties have tried to cut off aid to the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority. | |
| • | But Obama, like the presidents before him, has refused to listen or to follow the law and continues to fund terrorist attacks in Israel in much the same way that Saddam Hussein used to. | |
| • | As long as the United States funds the Palestinian Authority, it's funding Islamic terrorism. | |
| • | The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade appears on the State Department's own list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The Brigade is an arm of Fatah, whose terrorist boss, Mahmoud Abbas, was one of the first foreign leaders Obama phoned on his first day in office. | |
| • | Despite skipping Israel's parliament, Obama paid a visit to the terrorist leader's Muqata fortress, ignoring Abbas' own statement, "As far as I am concerned, there is no difference between our policies and those of Hamas. So why are they labeled as terrorists?" | |
| • | It's clear that this administration will not do the right thing. But if its successor does not stop paying terrorists to kill, then Taylor Force will not be the last American victim of taxpayer subsidized terrorism. And their blood will be on his or her hands. | |
Barack Obama's Cuban mistake (Fox 03/10/2016)
| • | When I was four years old, my mother took me, my brother and sister out of Panama. My parents wanted to escape poverty and open the doors to education and opportunity for their children. | |
| • | Those doors shut in Panama thanks to a Castro-like populist dictator named Arnulfo Arias. He jailed, tortured and oppressed anyone who did not obey his regime. | |
| • | He discriminated against dark-skinned people, blacks, Asians and native people – many of whom, like my grandfather, died building the Panama Canal. | |
| • | America's left-wing academics and Hollywood celebrities have long romanticized Latin American strongmen as righteous revolutionaries, opposed to mid-20th century American military and business dominance of the region. | |
| • | But to people living in those nations, the reality is that the revolutionaries became cruel, oppressive dictators in the case of Arias, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and most of all, Fidel Castro. | |
| • | Given my scars, President Obama's trip to Cuba later this month leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. | |
| • | To me, it is painful to see the president of a nation based on individual liberty and protection of rights under law have to keep silent about the thousands of people who have suffered oppression at the hands of the Castro regime. | |
| • | Obama's premise is that an infusion of Americans, with ideas and money, will lead the Cuban people to demand a more open and free society. | |
| • | But the reality of the moment is that the president has normalized relations without obtaining a schedule for resumption of democratic freedoms, human rights and property rights for the Cuban people. | |
| • | ... since Obama's change in policy, "the number of individuals jailed arbitrarily has gone up." | |
| • | "The Cuban government continues to repress dissent and discourage public criticism." | |
| • | "It now relies less on long-term prison sentences to punish its critics, but short-term arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders, independent journalists, and others have increased dramatically in recent years. Other repressive tactics employed by the government include beatings, public acts of shaming, and the termination of employment." | |
| • | "Despite increasingly open diplomatic relations, severe restrictions on freedoms of expression, association and movement continued. Thousands of cases of harassment of government critics and arbitrary arrests and detentions were reported." | |
| • | But for all the promises, political rights remain absent. | |
| • | The president will take in an exhibition baseball game between the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Cuban national team during his visit to Cuba. | |
| • | It will be fun. But to my mind, knowing what my father went through in Panama, it is hard to match fun and games with the reality of ongoing repression in Cuba. | |
European nihilism opens the door and Islam steps in (INN 03/09/2016)
| • | In Brussels, practising Catholics today amount to 12% of the population and some 19% are active Muslims. | |
| • | Forget the Madonna of Bruges by Michelangelo. Now Belgium makes the headlines for Mollenbeek, the Muslim suburb of Bruxelles where jihadists planned the November 13th attacks in Paris. | |
| • | Belgium is unique: it is the first nation blending appeasement to Islam and a suicidal form of nihilism. | |
| • | In Belgium euthanasia is out of control. In 2015, a record number of people were killed by lethal injection. Over 2,000 "mercy" killings. | |
| • | The population of Belgium is about 11 million. If the same rate of euthanasia were registered in the United States (330 million), it would amount to 60,000 killings annually. | |
| • | There is something deeply sick in Belgium, a great country that has given us the Adoration of Van Eyck and the beautiful Flemish architecture. | |
| • | Belgium is the the country with the highest per capita number of volunteers for the Caliphate. | |
| • | Brussels is "the capital of the Jihad", as well as the European Union. | |
| • | This is what Belgium means: those who "suffer life" will be conquered by those who abhor life. | |
| • | No country in the world is more determined to disappear than Spain, where this year for the first time in one century there have been more deaths than births. Spain today is a medical destination for gay sterile couples who want to pay for in vitro fertilization. | |
| • | Italy, a country with zero demographic growth and which will soon start to lose population, refused to join the military coalition against ISIS. | |
| • | Germany, another big European country with falling birth rates, has a new foreign policy: migrants' accommodation. | |
| • | From Belgian suicides to Spainish empty cradles, Europe is indifferent to its future. This indifference is clearly expressed in the low birth rate. | |
| • | Why do you choose to fight in a war? There are wars of plunder and pillage, but the goal of civilized nations is to go to war so that today's generation can sacrifice itself to protect future generations. | |
| • | But if there are no future generations, there is no reason for today's youth to die in war. | |
| • | Today Europeans, to quote Franz Rosenzweig, "foresee a time when their land with its rivers and mountains still lies under heaven as it does today, but other people dwell there; when their language is entombed in books, and their laws and customs have lost their living power". | |
The World Is Getting Worse, But This Time America Won't Save It (JWR 03/08/2016)
| • | I cannot imagine any thinking person who does not believe the world is getting worse. | |
| • | The number of slaughtered and the number of refugees from slaughter is immense and growing. | |
| • | Islamic State now controls territories from Afghanistan to West Africa. | |
| • | ... approximately 10 percent of world Muslims have a favorable opinion of the Islamic State and terror against civilians. That's more than 100 million people. | |
| • | The Iranian regime has just increased the reward it will give to anyone who murders Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, is increasing its repression at home, now has more than a hundred billion additional dollars to spend on terror and regularly calls for the annihilation of Israel. | |
| • | Iran just received from Russia the most powerful anti-aircraft weapons that exist outside the United States, making a successful air attack on Iran almost impossible. | |
| • | Europe is allowing in another million migrants from the Middle East, few of whom share Europe's primary moral values. | |
| • | ... European countries are making criticism of Muslims or Islam — no matter how rational the critique — a crime punishable by jail time and/or fines. | |
| • | The only thing stopping regular mass murder of Europeans and Americans is increased European and American police work. And no one believes that this will suffice to prevent future attacks. | |
| • | Russia is led by a KGB man who seeks to replace American influence with Russian influence wherever possible. | |
| • | The United States is led by a president whose primary foe seems to be the prime minister of Israel, even though the prime minister's country happens to be the freest, most moral and most pro-American country in the Middle East. | |
| • | The commander of the U.S. Pacific Command recently told Congress "that China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea," in order to gain "hegemony in East Asia." | |
| • | Cuba now has American recognition, and as a direct result has felt free to increase its subjugation of the Cuban people. | |
| • | In the United States, most universities are being taken over by a fascistic expression of leftism. Student thugs take over administration offices with impunity, shout down speakers with whom they differ, and many faculty members support them. | |
| • | In the name of "diversity" and "tolerance," American universities, once a jewel of free thought and intellectual inquiry, have become places Americans who cherish liberty and cherish America increasingly fear to send their children. | |
| • | Contempt for America and its founding ideals are indoctrinated into America's youth from high school on. | |
| • | As its universities make clear, the West is committing suicide. At UCLA one doesn't have to read a single play by Shakespeare in order to receive a degree in English. | |
| • | But one is fully indoctrinated regarding "White Privilege," "systemic racism," "income inequality," "homophobia," "hate speech," "climate change" and whatever radicals care about. | |
| • | A Republican presidential debate opens with a comment by the leading Republican candidate about the size of his penis. And the audience cheers. | |
| • | The American president, a black man elected in the hope that he would unify the races, has overseen the greatest rift between the races since the 1960s. | |
| • | One result is a rhetorical (and increasingly lethal) war on police that has led many officers to minimize proactively policing largely black areas. | |
| • | Many generations have believed that the world was getting worse. | |
| • | But since 1776, there was a great nation that one could still rely on to stem the decay. Now that great nation, under the influence of its own elites, men and women of the left, is itself in decay. | |
| • | So, who can save the world now? | |
The Trump message to Lower Slobbovia (JWR 03/08/2016)
| • | Some of our most thrilling celebrities are threatening to abandon America, our beloved politicians are boring the rest of us to death in nightly pie-throwing contests, and "foreign leaders" are pulling the bedcovers over their heads in terror. | |
| • | "As the Trump rhetoric has continued, and in some cases 'amped' up, so too have concerns by certain leaders around the world." | |
| • | The economics minister of Germany, who you might think would be devoting full attention to the swarms of migrants from the Islamic world threatening to make Muslims of Germans, says the Donald threatens peace and prosperity. | |
| • | The president of Mexico compares the Donald to Mussolini and Hitler. | |
| • | The fear of such a wall is that it might actually work, as such a wall has worked in Israel, and hamper the dumping of an excess of Mexicans. | |
| • | Foreign criticism is thus mostly hyper-ventilation; diplomats must have someone to complain to, and to report that he said something in what used to be called "cables" to the home office. | |
| • | ... diplomats from countries where everyone must mind his tongue lest it be removed with a rusty knife, never quite learn how America works, and think the U.S. government can control what a candidate, like everyone else, is allowed to say. | |
| • | Donald Trump scares these foreign diplomats because they think he might mean what he says about forcing the rest of the world to do their share of the heavy lifting required to keep the free world more or less free. | |
| • | "European diplomats are constantly asking about Trump's rise with disbelief and now with growing panic. With the European Union facing a [serious] crisis, there's more than the usual anxiety about the United States turning inward when Europe needs American support more than ever." | |
| • | Donald Trump did not come out of nowhere, like a summer squall that ruins the picnic. | |
| • | The wheel that goes around comes around, and it may be about to crush anyone who doesn't get out of the way. | |
Violence and terror in the Islamic religious war against the Jews (INN 03/08/2016)
| • | The violence emerging from many parts of the Islamic world is barely matched elsewhere. It has gained an increasingly religious character. | |
| • | One recent development is the deal struck between the Obama Administration, its allies and the Iranian government, as if one could trust these genocide promoting Shiite Muslim totalitarians. | |
| • | Another is the rise of the Sunni Islamic State Movement, which even surpasses other Muslim religious terror movements in its cruelty. | |
| • | Western multiculturalists have promoted many fallacies. One such is that all cultures are equal in value. ... to accept this manifestation of moral relativism is to give license to extreme Islamic violence. | |
| • | Another is the belief that Islamism is something structurally different from Islam, rather than an extreme version of it. | |
| • | Yet another major fallacy is that Muslim law, or "shariah", is compatible with democracy. To the contrary, it is anti-democratic aiming at a Muslim theocracy. | |
| • | In the Arab world, more often than not, the manipulation of elections negates any semblance of democratic intent. | |
| • | The poorly controlled massive influx of refugees from Muslim countries into Europe increases the probability of terror attacks like the Paris killings of November 2015. | |
| • | One does not even have to be a ‘licensee' of a terror group in order to become a terrorist. A culture of do-it-yourself murders and violence has sprung up among extreme Muslims. | |
| • | In my view, a specific religion at any given time is predominantly what its followers make of it. There are many Muslim scholars who support violent interpretations of the Koran and sharia. The jihadists, even if a minority, have tens if not hundreds of millions of sympathizers. | |
| • | The threats for humanity emanating from the Islamic world are huge. Israel and Jews have been significantly targeted abroad. Muslims themselves have been hurt by extremists in their own countries. | |
| • | Indeed the great majority of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed or wounded and the millions displaced have been harmed by their own co-religionists. | |
Into the global leadership vacuum (JWR 03/07/2016)
| • | ... the world has never seemed as dangerous and leaderless as it does now. | |
| • | Only the extremists and bullies act boldly, and therefore they have seized the initiative. | |
| • | It is a moment in history that evokes the haunting words of W.B. Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." | |
| • | The simple fact is that there is more instability in the world today than at any time since the end of World War II. | |
| • | The threats come from emboldened expansionist powers such as Iran, Russia and China, and also terrorist aggressors such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida. | |
| • | In short, the enemies of freedom are on the march. | |
| • | The absence of American leadership has certainly not caused all the instability, but it has encouraged and exacerbated it. | |
| • | For example, while the threat of violent Islamist extremism has existed for several decades, the military and political disengagement of the United States from Iraq after the success of the surge and our failure to intervene to stop the slaughter in Syria have conspired to create a vacuum in the heart of the Middle East. | |
| • | This vacuum has been exploited by the region's most dangerous anti-American forces: totalitarian Sunni fanatics and the Islamic Republic of Iran. | |
| • | The result is the creation of a terrorist sanctuary of unprecedented scale and Iranian domination over multiple Arab capitals. | |
| • | Russian President Vladimir Putin has also moved to exploit the vacuum, first by seizing Crimea and moving into eastern Ukraine in 2014. | |
| • | Rather than deterring Russia from further aggression, our hesitation in Ukraine signaled to the Kremlin that the United States itself could be deterred when Russia acted boldly and decisively. | |
| • | Putin soon extended this lesson to Syria, where he dispatched his forces last yearin order to turn the tide of war in favor of a weakening Bashar Assad. | |
| • | The U.S. response? To ask for Putin's help in extinguishing fires that he himself has been feeding. | |
| • | This fits a broader pattern. In too many places in recent years, the United States has treated its adversaries as essential partners to be courted, while dismissing or denigrating its historic allies and partners as inconveniences or obstacles to peace. | |
| • | In a conversation with the leader of a European ally, some of us asked what the United States could do to be most helpful to him and his country. His answer was direct: "Elect a president who understands the importance of American leadership in the world." | |
| • | That would be in our national interest and is also wise counsel to American voters as we decide whom to support in this year's topsy-turvy presidential election. | |
Italy is capitulating to Islamic autocrats (INN 03/05/2016)
| • | Of the four capitals of the ancient Roman Empire (Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, Antioch), only the first still belongs to the West. Islam has canceled out all the rest. | |
| • | That is why in Jihadist published material, Italy is still a target for conversion. | |
| • | In Isis propaganda, the black flag of the Caliphate waves over the Vatican, and the Colosseum is in flames. | |
| • | In 2004, Osama Bin Laden gave a speech on "The new Rome," and in the footsteps of the brave Pope Benedict's Islamic speech at Regensburg University Al Qaeda proclaimed: "Muslims will conquer Rome as they conquered Constantinople". | |
| • | "Constantinople was conquered, but there remains the second part of the prophecy, that is the conquest of Rome". | |
| • | These days, Italian leaders are giving reasons for Islamic fanaticism to hope that day is now closer than ever. | |
| • | After the government of Italy called for "respect" for the sensibilities of Rouhani, the museum placed large boxes over several nude sculptures. | |
| • | The president of Italian Parliament, Laura Boldrini, visited the Grand Mosque of Rome without hiding her joy. "I hope that the Italians know how to distinguish between Islam and ISIS". | |
| • | Italy's government is also running away from its political and military responsibility against the Islamic State. | |
| • | Next time that Iranian and Arab leaders visit Rome, maybe my government, again out of "respect their culture and sensitivity", will withdraw all the copies of "Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie from the bookshops. It could be an unberarable sight for the Iranian ayatollahs, who condemned the author to death and just raised the bounty over his head. | |
Lehi legend: Israel is no longer fighting terror! (INN 03/04/2016)
| • | Ezra Yakhin, now 88 years old, was a legendary fighter for the Lehi Underground ("Lohamei Herut Yisrael" - Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) that fought the British Empire during the 1940s to liberate the land of Israel. | |
| • | "Since I first opened my eyes as a baby, I see and hear that the Arabs murder Jews and that continues to today. As a baby we were saved by a miracle from the massacre that took place in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood (of Jerusalem - ed.), and mother would wake up every few days with screams and nightmares." | |
| • | Explaining how he decided to join the Lehi Underground, Yakhin said, "this situation developed in me the desire to fight. As a child my brother explained to me about how the Maccabees fought the Greeks because they ruled Israel and we didn't, I understood that we would need a state and army to fight the Arabs because the British wouldn't do it for us." | |
| • | "And that brought me the aspiration that when I would grow up, I would fight for the nation of Israel." | |
| • | "They kill us and we aren't fighting. In war you kill the enemy, but we aren't doing that. Since the Bar Lev Line (fortifications built in the Suez Canal in 1968 - ed.) the nation of Israel stopped fighting in order to win. We put up the security barrier and stopped fighting, and since then we are just on defense and curbing the enemies." | |
| • | "The problem is in leadership and only in leadership, the nation wants to fight, the nation is disappointed every time they (the government - ed.) jump on a ceasefire." | |
| • | According to Yakhin the generally agreed upon theory that Iran is the primary threat to Israel's existence today is wrong, and "we need to defend ourselves a lot more from the Egyptians than we do from the Iranians - they are closer and the people there hate us more than the Iranian people." | |
| • | ... "we are in our country and we decided to live, all those who harm us should know that they and their surroundings will pay a price." | |
| • | "This is our land and all of it is our land, and those who harm any part of it or part of the nation of Israel - their blood is on their head. If you harm Jews in Europe and the Diaspora, we have no right to get involved there. They have the right to rule there and to do what they want with those who are there. Jews want to live and defend themselves - let them come to this land." | |
Koran verses made for the Knesset (INN 03/03/2016)
| • | Koran verses that Oktar claimed indicated praise for Jews and Christians in general actually praised only Jews and Christians who had converted to Islam. | |
| • | Oktar's examples of ideal relations between Muslims and the People of the Book were examples of Jewish and Christian subservience to Muhammad and to Islam. | |
| • | "... the world can never be without Islam. The peace and love for which the world longs can only come through Islam. We have the Qur'an, the true and immutable Book of Islam for that; the only thing needing to be done is to educate people with the Qur'an." | |
| • | "Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad), and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." (9:29) | |
Moral relativism, moral equivalence, and historical revisionism (INN 02/28/2016)
| • | The progressive failure to appreciate Israel's existential concerns was reflected by the international uproar over the Knesset NGO Transparency bill, which would require Israeli NGOs receiving at least half their funds from foreign governments to register as foreign agents and identify their funding sources. | |
| • | If progressives find the law conceptually repugnant, why did they not condemn attempts to target conservative organizations in the United States? | |
| • | Progressives have never seemed troubled by disclosure laws that have been on the books in the U.S. for the better part of a century. | |
| • | The "Foreign Agents Registration Act" was passed by Congress in 1938 to require those representing foreign interests in a "political or quasi-political capacity" to disclose their foreign relationships, sources of funding, and organizational activities in order to enable "evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons." | |
| • | Progressives often reprimand Israel for taking actions to defend her sovereignty or preserve her Jewish character, often reflecting an antipathy for Jewish historical rights that is rooted in the progressive holy trinity of moral relativism, moral equivalence, and historical revisionism. | |
| • | Islamist terrorism is not considered wrong by moral relativists who deem it a culturally organic reflection of the society that spawns it. | |
| • | Many on the left take it a step further by ennobling terrorism as a reaction to western provocations. | |
| • | The use of moral relativism to condemn Israel while exonerating terrorists is incongruous, and its proponents often claim their view is really one of moral equivalence. | |
| • | Moral equivalence assumes ethical parity between parties in conflict and holds that their actions cannot be judged out of context from each other. | |
| • | Israel's actions are rarely condoned because she is considered a rogue state, while Islamic radicals are given moral license because they are perceived as redressing genuine grievances. | |
| • | If such a view were applied to all conflicts, no sovereign nation would ever be able to defend itself from aggressors presumed to be morally justified. | |
| • | The neutral exercise of moral equivalence is dishonest in its balancing of self-defense with the aggression that provokes the response. | |
| • | Those who portray Arab-Muslim hatred of Jews as an understandable response to historical wrongs evoke a past that never really existed. | |
| • | Judaism has never incited against Islam and Jews have never subjugated Arabs. | |
| • | Jews have always been the persecuted minority, whose ancestral land was usurped through jihad. | |
| • | The concept of benign tolerance for "people of the book" in general – and Jews in particular – is inconsistent with the historical reality. | |
| • | Jews in Islamic society lived a subservient existence as long as they paid the jizya (poll tax) and accepted their lowly status. | |
| • | Obama's Jewish acolytes often claim an ethical obligation to support him because of putative similarities between Syrian refugees today and Jews during the Holocaust, but this comparison is false and misleading. | |
| • | Jews were not marked for genocide during the Holocaust because of their political affiliations, economic status, or religious beliefs. Whether rich or poor, capitalist or communist, traditionally observant or heretical apostates, Jews were murdered solely on the basis of blood and ancestry. | |
| • | In contrast, many Syrians today have left their country because they backed the wrong faction, joined the wrong party, or lost their homes and livelihoods. Some simply seek escape from a war zone. | |
| • | However, none are threatened by a government extermination program based on race, ethnicity or nationality. | |
| • | Though Yazidis and Christians are killed by ISIS if they refuse to convert, they are not among the refugees seeking entry to the U.S., and have actually received little sympathy from the administration. | |
| • | Their bias against Israel is philosophically predetermined and ideologically fixed – regardless of how they justify their preordained conclusions. | |
| • | Israel should give them no credence, and the Diaspora should recognize their blather as inconsistent with normative Jewish history and values. | |
The tough choices of overseas intervention (JWR 02/25/2016)
| • | The United States has targeted a lot of rogues and their regimes in recent decades: Muammar Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Manuel Noriega and the Taliban. | |
| • | As a general rule over the last 100 years, any time the U.S. has bombed or intervened and then abruptly left the targeted country, chaos has followed. | |
| • | But when America has followed up its use of force with unpopular peacekeeping, sometimes American interventions have led to something better. | |
| • | The belated entry of the United States into World War I saved the sinking Allied cause in 1917. Yet after the November 1918 armistice, the United States abruptly went home, washed its hands of Europe's perennial squabbling and disarmed. | |
| • | A far bloodier World War II followed just two decades later. | |
| • | It may have been wise or foolish for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to have intervened in Vietnam in 1963-1964 to try to save the beleaguered non-communist south. | |
| • | But after 10 years of hard fighting and a costly stalemate, it was nihilistic for America to abandon a viable South Vietnam to invading communist North Vietnam. Re-education camps, mass executions and boat people followed — along with more than 40 years of communist oppression. | |
| • | The current presidential candidates are refighting the Iraq war of 2003. Yet the critical question 13 years later is not so much whether the United States should or should not have removed the genocidal Saddam Hussein, but whether our costly efforts at reconstruction ever offered any hope of a stable Iraq. | |
| • | The complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops in December 2011 abruptly turned what President Obama had dubbed a "sovereign, stable and self-reliant" Iraq — and what Vice President Joe Biden had called one of the administration's "greatest achievements" — into a nightmarish wasteland. | |
| • | Hillary Clinton bragged of the 2011 airstrikes in Libya and the eventual death of Gadhafi: "We came, we saw, he died." | |
| • | But destroying Gadhafi's forces from the air and then abandoning Libya to terrorists and criminals only created an Islamic State recruiting ground. | |
| • | The Benghazi disaster was the nearly inevitable result of washing our hands of the disorder that we had helped to create. | |
| • | In contrast, when the United States did not pack up and go home after its messy wars, our unpopular interventions often helped make life far better for all involved — and the U.S. and its allies more secure. | |
| • | President Harry Truman's intervention to save South Korea from North Korean aggression quickly turned into a quagmire. Communist China soon launched a massive invasion into the Korean peninsula. | |
| • | By 1953 — at a cost of roughly 35,000 American lives, about eight times more U.S. fatalities than in Iraq — America had at least saved a viable South Korea. | |
| • | More than 60 years after the U.S. saved South Korea, thousands of American peacekeepers still help protect a democratic and successful south from a nightmarish, totalitarian and nuclear north. | |
| • | Some 60 million people died in World War II, a global war that the United States did not start and did not enter until 1941. Yet American power helped defeat the Axis aggressors. | |
| • | Unlike the aftermath of World War I, the United States stayed on to help rebuild war-torn Europe and Asia after World War II. The Marshall Plan, the NATO alliance, the defeat of Soviet Union in the Cold War, the foundations of the later European Union, and Asian economic dynamism all followed — along with some 70 years of relative peace. | |
| • | After Milosevic's removal, only the presence of American-led NATO peacekeepers on the ground prevented another round of mass murder. | |
| • | Donald Trump has rightly reminded us during his campaign that Americans are sick and tired of costly overseas interventions. | |
| • | But what Trump forgets is that too often the world does not always enjoy a clear choice between good and bad, wise and stupid. | |
| • | Often the dilemma is the terrible choice between ignoring mass murderer, as in Rwanda or Syria; bombing and leaving utter chaos, as in Libya; and removing monsters, then enduring the long ordeal of trying to leave something better, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. | |
| • | The choices are all awful. But the idea that America can bomb a rogue regime, leave and expect something better is pure fantasy. | |
Libya disaster: Have Western leaders learned anything? (Fox 02/19/2016)
| • | Libya devolved into a failed state when NATO assisted Qaddafi's radical jihadist opponents in killing him and then promptly abandoned the country. | |
| • | Left in the wake were two rival governments competing for power, which created space for Islamists to turn Libya into a cesspool of extremism. | |
| • | Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to call the debacle American "smart power at its best." | |
| • | How will the West ever learn anything if it can't identify its most obvious failures? | |
| • | Libya has no central functioning government that can provide security for its citizens. ISIS fights to expand its caliphate along the Mediterranean to points as close as 200 miles from Europe's vulnerable southern border. | |
| • | It has imposed Shariah law in the areas under its control. It exploits Libya as a base to export weapons, jihadists and ideology to Europe, other African countries and the Middle East. | |
| • | The difference between then and now is that Qaddafi kept the lid on the garbage can long before 2002-2003, when he became a reliable U.S. ally against radical Islam. | |
| • | He changed his behavior, gave up his nuclear weapons program, paid reparations to the victims of his atrocities and provided invaluable intelligence that disrupted numerous Islamist terror plots. | |
| • | It represented a massive foreign policy success, and the U.S. thanked him by facilitating his murder. | |
| • | Similarly, the West embraced former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in his struggles against Islamist forces, and then it threw him under the bus. | |
| • | Both Qaddafi and Mubarak did everything asked of them, but they ended up dead or in jail. | |
| • | Is there any question why Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad does not negotiate an end to his country's civil war and clings to Iran and Russia to keep him in power? | |
| • | Iran cheated on its nuclear program for years. As a result, the U.S. gifted it with more than $100 billion – including $1.7 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars – and it hasn't changed its behavior in the slightest. | |
| • | The only official who seems to make any sense is U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who said recently, "The Libyans don't welcome outsiders intruding on their territory." | |
| • | He was referring to ISIS, but he might as well have been talking about the West. | |
| • | Allies that brought stability to the region are gone. Former and current antagonists benefited from Western incompetence. | |
| • | NATO snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Libya. | |
| • | Refugees flood Europe. Terrorist attacks continue to spread geographically and in lethality. The Syrian civil war rages on. | |
| • | Iran lavishes its newfound wealth on its nuclear program and campaign of global terror. | |
Salah Farah: A hero whose actions and words could help change the world (Fox 02/17/2016)
| • | History will remember Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouaziz. He was an unknown Tunisian street vendor who set himself and the Arab World on fire, on December 2010, in an ultimate protest of harassment and humiliation inflicted by his own government. | |
| • | Tragically, the Arab Spring has morphed into a deep freeze of hopelessness and despair that has seen millions flee the Middle East for Europe and helped swell the ranks of ISIS. | |
| • | Today, the unabating scourge of global Islamist extremism spurs the key question: "Where are the Muslim moderates?" | |
| • | President Obama was correct in arguing that Americans' attitudes toward Muslims and Islam are too often linked to jihadist terror and extremism. | |
| • | But he could have assuaged some of the fear and mistrust by highlighting the likes of American Muslim reformers like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser who, after 9/11, founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy with a clarion call for moderation and unflinching rejection of extremism in the name of Allah. | |
| • | The president also could have highlighted the religious tolerance on display in at least one Muslim country. Most Americans never heard of Azerbaijan. It's a 95 percent Muslim country adjacent to Iran, where Christians pray in their churches, Jews have a school for hundreds of children, and Sunnis and Shiites share mosques. | |
| • | ... the participants went beyond PC pablum and instead they issued the Marrakesh Declaration, a statement of principles and actions that embraces the right of religious minorities in Muslim countries to follow their consciences unmolested. | |
| • | The Marrakesh Declaration is an impressive effort of authoritative insiders to reclaim the soul of Islam from dangerous fanatics. | |
| • | When al-Shabaab terrorists recently ambushed a bus in Kenya, they demanded that the Christians and Muslim passengers separate. Somalia-based Al-Shabaab has a long record of slaughtering civilians who could not recite passages from the Koran. | |
| • | This time the terrorists were challenged by Muslim men on the bus who went out to argue with the terrorists and by Muslim women who gave their head scarves to Christian female passengers. "Kill us together, or leave us alone," they demanded. | |
| • | This time, the terrorists backed off, but not before they murdered one Christian who tried to escape, and Salah Farah, a 34-year-old teacher, whom they shot multiple times and who later succumbed to his wounds. | |
| • | Before he died, Salah declared: "People should live peacefully together. We are brothers... Let us help one another and let us live together peacefully." | |
| • | President Obama has strived to connect Americans with their communal instincts of inclusion. | |
| • | The Marrakesh religious scholars introduced a better conceptual framework for multi-faith tolerance. | |
| • | But the greatest hope comes from a Kenyan teacher. If only we could reverse engineer the decency of Salah Farah and his fellow Muslim passengers. | |
| • | What gave them the inner strength to do the right thing with no regard for personal safety? How did their understanding of Islam differ from the others? | |
| • | If Salah's heroic sacrifice inspires Muslims, along with Christians, Jews and Hindus, the world will surely be a safer and better place. | |
| • | ... embody Gandhi's paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible, "The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience." | |
The Western media and world leaders have Israeli blood on their hands (INN 02/15/2016)
| • | When people of sound minds display clear signs of deviation from reality it demands of us to examine the symptom and expose the defect. | |
| • | From an Israeli perspective, it is a world where the roles of victim and aggressor have been flipped, where the language of legality and illegality has been switched, falsehood is promoted as news and truth goes missing. | |
| • | When he said that "Nothing excuses terrorism," this was simply a throat-clearing exercise before going on to do just that, excuse Palestinian terrorism. | |
| • | While Israel is enduring daily assaults by Palestinian terrorists for six months, the Secretary-General said about the murder of Israelis: "It is human nature," he said, "to react to occupation..." | |
| • | No, it is not "human nature" to grab a knife or a gun and go hunting for Israeli Jews to kill, including the targeting of young women and children, and for someone of Moon's stature to say such things is appalling. | |
| • | He claimed that Palestinians are provoked by "despair" when the truth is they are driven by the religious imperative and the hope of achieving fame and glory exhorted and incited by their corrupt leadership. | |
| • | Wouldn't it be more honest to admit that Palestinian terror is not about the absence of their state but the existence of the Jewish state? | |
| • | Israel has not occupied another people's land because the disputed territories never belonged to any other people. | |
| • | ... appalling false storyline hid the truth that the three Palestinians attacked and killed a 19 year old girl, Hadar Cohen, and badly wounded another girl as they came into Jerusalem on a killing spree armed with knives, rifles and explosives. | |
| • | Why do they do this? Why is it that Jewish victims of Palestinian terror do not exist in the mind of many Western news editors? It is not just the expression "Islamic terrorist" that escapes the Western political and editorial truth test, it is also the words "Palestinian terror" that either cannot speak its name, or can be justified by blaming the victim, Israel. | |
| • | They do it because this does not fit their mindless propaganda and imagery of Palestinian victimhood at the hands of Israelis. | |
| • | They fail to adequately report, if they report at all, on the anti-Semitic nature of the incitement campaign that drives crazed minds to pick up a weapon and kill Jews. | |
| • | This message would damage the progressive secularism of perceived values of human rights that has, for too long, placed the Palestinians as their poster-child idol of their global campaign of sympathy for the oppressed and downtrodden. | |
| • | Western media and the international community not only swerve mentioning the Israeli victims of Palestinian Arab terror. They also fail to highlight these crimes inflicted by the Palestinian leadership on their own people. It doesn't fit their agenda. | |
| • | As such, they fail in their moral duty to inform and effect change. | |
| • | By covering up and supporting Palestinian deadly aims they have the blood of innocent Israelis on their hands as they aid and abet a malevolent and murderous Palestinian agenda. | |
A courageous idea to stop the murders (INN 02/10/2016)
| • | It takes a village to raise a child. | |
| • | Children are being raised in many Arab villages to hate from birth with the ultimate aim and honour of being a shahid — a martyr — if they kill Jews. Their schoolbooks and their media bring them up to believe this. | |
| • | Their teachers, their parents and their whole villages dance and celebrate when Jews are murdered by their own teenagers. It is no accident that their young people are murdering Jews. | |
| • | All efforts to stop this have not worked. | |
| • | The worst is the human cost to bereaved families. The cost to maintain security is huge whilst the daily horror continues. | |
| • | Resilient citizens are losing patience as murder after murder robs the Jewish people of future generations. | |
| • | One solution to these murderous acts by young people and the support of their society is to raze the village of the murderers to the ground and to expel all of their residents to their brothers in Jordan, Gaza (or dare I say Syria?). | |
| • | A Jewish community should immediately be built in its place. | |
| • | If Israel does this a few times it will be in the interests of every single Palestinian who wants to live in Israel to discourage these murders. | |
| • | This solution is not wholesale population transfer, nor is it ethnic cleansing. | |
| • | We live in a world where millions of people are now being forcibly relocated as an alternative to being killed. | |
| • | Razing one or two villages and the expulsion of a few as a deterrent is a peaceful method of stopping the beginnings of a war in which could lead to tens of thousands of casualties with the destruction of hundreds of Arab villages. | |
| • | Israel is not and will never be part of the Caliphate. | |
| • | As the leaders of these people stuff their bank accounts with donor money and brainwash their people, the Israelis are losing patience and will have to look to the biblical dictate of "Be Strong and of Good Courage" to take the bull by the horns and solve this issue once and for all. | |
| • | This may be the last opportunity to create peace for all in Israel by making an example of the murderers and those who support them, whilst enabling those who genuinely want peace to attain it. | |
'There is no radical Islam — Islam is itself radical' (INN 02/08/2016)
| • | "Conciliation or clashing — how to deal with the threat of radical Islam." | |
| • | "There is no radical Islam. Islam is radical. It's true that there are Arabs who want to live in peace, but the moment that we give them something, we provide a tail wind for the radicals. Because Islam is a radical cultural movement that is not prepared to accept the fact that we exist." | |
| • | "the Muslims distinguish between the (ancient) sons of Israel and the Jews. The Jews, i.e. the Israelis, are cheaters, liars and all the rest." | |
| • | ... "the state of Israel is an open wound for the Arab world, and a wound must be closed. We forget that the liberty of man and democracy are expressions that are heresy in the Muslim world." | |
| • | "the state of Israel is an open wound for the Arab world, and a wound must be closed. We forget that the liberty of man and democracy are expressions that are heresy in the Muslim world." | |
End the two-state narrative (INN 02/08/2016)
| • | There has never been a "two-state solution" – only a "two-state narrative." | |
| • | The former never existed because a "solution" to the Israel-Palestinian dispute would have required, as a threshold matter, that Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state, renounce terrorism, discontinue anti-Israel incitement in their schools and abandon their desire to flood Israel with so-called "refugees" from other countries who never spent a day of their lives in Israel. | |
| • | ... the creation of a democratic Palestinian state would have abruptly caused the end of the villainous Arafat/Abbas regime and its corrupt stranglehold on the blood money extracted for years from the US and other western nations. | |
| • | The Arafat/Abbas shakedown – a masterful game of extortion played out on the world stage – goes like this: They threaten the United States that if they don't receive a massive sum of unrestricted cash, they will not be able to "restrain" terrorist attacks against Israel and other targets around the world. | |
| • | The US then pressures Israel to uphold this non-existent "solution" and, lo and behold, the United States is at the epicenter of a "peace process"... | |
| • | Once Arafat, and now Abbas, receive their ill-gotten bribes, they put most of the money off-shore in anonymous bank accounts, and purchase enough muscle and fire-power to control and subordinate their constituents (who have never known any other form of government). | |
| • | Importantly, they never permit any substantial funds to be used to improve the quality of Palestinian Arab life, thereby ensuring that the street rage that is so essential to their extortionate threats is never extinguished. | |
| • | That's the "two-state solution" – an illusion that serves the worst intentions of both the United States and the Palestinian Arabs. It has never been a solution, only a narrative. But even the narrative itself now needs to end. | |
| • | The narrative needs to end because it is preventing the opportunity for real progress that has the potential to improve the lives of Palestinian Arabs and Israelis alike. | |
| • | Instead of enabling Abbas to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from his people and to perpetuate an environment of poverty and despair, the United States, once and for all, must call his bluff, and demand complete accountability and transparency before any funds are released. | |
| • | The approach to peace between Israel and the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria now should be premised upon the fact that the Arabs dislike Abbas and his ruling class even more than do the Jews. | |
| • | What we need to focus on is identifying and supporting the Palestinian Arab existing and aspiring middle class – hopefully, and quite possibly, the majority of the population — and advancing their education, infrastructure and opportunity. | |
| • | These folks want a better life and have absolutely no confidence in getting there through the Palestinian Authority ruling regime. At this juncture, a Palestinian state is the last thing the middle class wants – they know better than anyone how corrupt and inept their people are at self-government. | |
| • | Radicalized Palestinian terrorists need to be rooted out and eliminated. | |
| • | But the remainder – perhaps the majority – of Palestinians should finally benefit from the hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes paid by the US State Department to Abbas. | |
| • | Fostering a Palestinian middle class is the solution of the 21st century and it has nothing to do with two states. | |
The failure of multiculturalism (JWR 02/04/2016)
| • | "We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law." | |
| • | ... the director general of Britain's Security Service, said that "'the scale and tempo' of the danger to the UK is now at a level he has not seen in his 32-year career. British police are monitoring over 3,000 homegrown Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks on the UK." | |
| • | ... President Obama visited a Baltimore mosque. According to The Daily Caller, the mosque "has deep ties to extremist elements, including the Muslim Brotherhood." That mosque is not alone, as a map on the paper's website reveals. | |
| • | "The president believes that one of our nation's greatest strengths is our rich diversity." | |
| • | I doubt terrorists believe that. I don't believe that diversity, as practiced in America, exists in any country with a Muslim majority. | |
| • | ... head of the Norwegian Police Security Service, recently warned against further Muslim immigration. | |
| • | When U.S. politicians suggest a similar approach, they are denounced as "bigots" and "Islamophobes." | |
| • | What we are witnessing is the complete breakdown and failure of multiculturalism. | |
| • | Dictionary.com defines multiculturalism as "the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society, as a state or nation." | |
| • | That definition contains a glaring contradiction. | |
| • | A society cannot be unified if it preserves different cultures and cultural identities within itself. That's why our national motto is translated "out of many, one." | |
| • | To the multiculturalist it appears to be, "Out of one, many." | |
| • | History demonstrates that no nation can long survive if it forgets why it exists. | |
| • | Our failure to inculcate American traditions, beliefs and history, even in the native born, not to mention immigrants, is rapidly destroying the country bequeathed to us by our forebears. | |
| • | Leftists in Europe and the U.S. have promoted multiculturalism, believing that once Muslims experience our freedoms and dedication to equality they will want to be like us. | |
| • | It doesn't appear to be working and anyone familiar with the Koran and its "kingdom of this world" instructions knows it likely won't. | |
| • | Our enemies see our weakness and failure to understand their objectives, which include destroying the West and establishing a worldwide caliphate. This is not top secret information. | |
| • | Not all Muslims are terrorists, to be sure, but large numbers of radical Islamists profess allegiance to the faith and they are more than willing to wreak havoc in pursuit of their goals. | |
| • | An ancient proverb reminds us: "There are none so blind as those who will not see." | |
'Europe, learn from Israel!': Exclusive interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (INN 02/02/2016)
| • | When Theo van Gogh was murdered by an Islamist on a street in Amsterdam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali could not even attend the funeral because she would have put the lives of others at risk. | |
| • | So the Dutch intelligence agreed to take her to the morgue. | |
| • | The next day, bodyguards accompanied her from her home and gave her three hours to pack and leave. | |
| • | From there she went to the air base at Valkenburg, near The Hague, where she would be embark on a plane. | |
| • | The portholes were closed, they told her not to approach them nor go near the door. | |
| • | The plane was full of soldiers. Hirsi Ali was leaving a country at war. | |
| • | They landed at a military base in Maine, in the United States. | |
| • | This is how the love affair between America and the first refugee from Western Europe since the Holocaust began. | |
| • | A story that continues to this very day. | |
| • | Hirsi Ali recently released her third book on Islam, "Heretic", an optimistic book on the reform of Islam. | |
| • | Where does your optimism for a reform of the Islamic world come from? "It is a possibility, not a certainty. But I am optimistic because of the violence committed today in the name of Islam, which is creating so much tension, and it is not just committed by individuals, but by states and organizations. People are more and more afraid of radical Islam..." | |
| • | On February 1, many feminists around the world will celebrate the World Hijab Day, the International Day of the Islamic veil. "It is multiculturalism, the ideology that eliminates the rights of individuals in favor of groups, communities. Europe is committing a cultural suicide." | |
| • | You were the first authentic dissident in the Islamic world. "The dissidents of Islam are fundamental, because we are those who ask the critical questions, who pursue the critical thinking. Asking the questions means risking your life..." | |
| • | "... Unfortunately, today there is a combination of fear and multiculturalism, moral relativism, the sense of guilt for the Muslim population because of colonialism. When I started going to university in the Netherlands, many did not want to hear about the Holocaust in the classroom, they were told not to speak of the Jews of Israel. This served to suppress criticism of Islamic doctrine. We must stop demonizing Israel and learn from it." | |
| • | "... Freedom of expression is therefore fundamental for the opening of the Islamic world to reason. But sometimes I think it's too late..." | |
| • | "I am happy in America, but even here there are the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations. In ten years I have seen a significant radicalization in America". | |
| • | "We are at a critical point in Europe today: the immigration of millions of people must be stopped even before Europe stops the indoctrination in the mosques and imams. If we do not stop the brainwashing, there will be another lost generation in Europe. Muslims must stop Sharia now. I keep repeating it, but who is listening?". | |
| • | "... sharia is the worst violation of human dignity. Sharia is against civilization and European culture". | |
| • | So speaks a brave woman who carries on her own body the consequences of that poisonous flower. | |
Palestinian Arabs are willing executioners (INN 01/31/2016)
| • | UN-designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day is just behind us and perhaps it is the time to consider what makes Palestinian Arabs so barbaric and so full of hate for Jews and Israelis that they have no reservations about stabbing and murdering infants, children, women and men as they go about their daily chores | |
| • | Both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Arabs are equally involved in the current terror wave afflicting all of Israel. | |
| • | Before there was Israel, Arabs still killed Jews. ... Maybe it's not the Jewish houses or the so-called "occupation" that are at issue here. Maybe it's the Jews. Maybe it's their Palestinian Arab murderers and their primal hatred of Jews, similar to the indiscrimate Nazi hatred of all Jews. | |
| • | Arabs who are citizens of Israel enjoy the benefits of living in a free and democratic nation. | |
| • | ... although some view the community with suspicion and see them as untrustworthy, Israeli Arabs have infinitely more human rights in Israel than Jews ever had when they lived in their former Arab countries, or that Arabs have in any Muslim nation in the Middle East today. | |
| • | Not surprisingly the fundamental freedoms bestowed on Israeli Arabs are overlooked by the very Arabs that enjoy and benefit from their democratic rights in Israel. | |
| • | The hearts and minds of many Israeli Arabs continue to be overwhelmingly "occupied" with Jew-hatred. This is the true narrative about the so-called "occupation". | |
| • | For the Palestinian Arabs and the Palestinian Authority (an organization funded entirely by the Obama Administration and European nations) premeditated murder has become a tool for "redemption." | |
| • | The current terror wave can trace its roots to the link between Nazism and the nascent Palestinian Arab national movement during the years of the Holocaust preceding the establishment of the State of Israel. | |
| • | The common thread unifying the desire for the total destruction of Jews is shared by both Palestinian Arab terror and Nazism, hence the validity of the term Islamo-Nazism. | |
| • | The Palestinian Arab Authority broadcasts daily programs of incitement to children and adults on TV glorifying terrorists killed as they attempted to murder Jews, hanging their pictures on light posts in major Arab Palestinian cities and promising heaven for those who murder Jews. | |
| • | From a historical perspective, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the founder of Palestinian nationalism, was notorious in his efforts to persuade the Nazis to extend their genocide of the Jews to the Palestine Mandate. | |
| • | The Mufti met Hitler and Himmler in Berlin in 1941 and asked the Nazis to guarantee that when the Wehrmacht drove the British from Palestine, Germany would establish an Arab regime and assist in the "removal" of its Jews. | |
| • | Hitler replied that the Reich would not intervene in the Mufti's kingdom, other than to pursue their shared goal: "the annihilation of Jewry living in Arab space." | |
| • | The Mufti settled in Berlin, befriended Adolf Eichmann, and lobbied the governments of Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria to cancel a plan to transfer Jews to Palestine. | |
| • | Subsequently, some 400,000 Jews from these countries were sent to death camps. | |
| • | The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini in Mandatory Palestine played leading roles in inculcating the spirit of Nazism into Muslim consciousness. | |
| • | Overlooked in the history books is the fact that about 100,000 European Muslims fought on the Nazi side in World War II. | |
| • | They included two Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS Divisions, an Albanian Waffen SS Division in Kosovo and Western Macedonia, the Waffengruppe der-SS Krim, formations consisting of Chechen Muslims from Chechnya, and other Muslim formations in Bosnia-Hercegovina. | |
| • | Nor has much been mentioned about Abu Mazen, the unelected President of the Palestinian Arab Authority; In 1972, Abu Mazen was responsible for raising the funds required for the Munich Massacre of 11 Israeli athletes. | |
| • | He acquired much of his subversive skills at the KGB headquarters in Moscow, where he received (at Moscow University) his Ph.D. on Holocaust Denial. | |
| • | No Western society would tolerate a holocaust denier holding a prominent position, but Abu Mazen has been accorded respect and is welcomed in all major capitals of the world. | |
| • | Abu Mazen represents the indisputable connection between spirit of Nazism and its central role in Palestinian Arab consciousness. | |
| • | Palestinian Arabs, in ways similar to the Nazis in the past, have created a false and deceptive reality that will sooner than later crumble and implode. | |
| • | Over the past five years we have all witnessed how quickly Arab leaders throughout the Middle East have to flee from their own people due to the eruption of rage and hatred by the Arab mobs. | |
| • | The true narrative of the Middle East is that no Arab state genuinely respects human rights. No Arab state hosts a responsible media. No Arab society fully respects the rights of women or minorities, and no Arab government has ever accepted public responsibility for its own shortcomings. | |
| • | Blame has become the opium of the Arabs, and the greatest blame for their failures is that directed at Israel. | |
With Iran it's strictly business (JWR 01/28/2016)
| • | Corporate giants and politicians are salivating at the prospect of doing business with a regime led by a man who has referred to Israel as "an old wound" that "should be removed." | |
| • | There is plenty of money to be made in deals with the devil, but at what cost? | |
| • | In the 1930s when European and American businesses traded with the Nazis, the rationale seemed to be, "If we don't sell to them, someone else will." | |
| • | That amoral view, no doubt, contributed to the slaughter of an estimated 11 million people. Six million of these were Jews. | |
| • | Re-visiting this hall of shame ought to at least give corporate and political bodies pause when dealing with a regime that seems perfectly willing to finish the job Hitler and his brownshirts started. | |
| • | Have they learned so little from history that they are willing to repeat it? | |
| • | ... quite a number of corporations ignored what the Nazis were doing so long as they could continue to do business and make a profit. | |
| • | IG Farben was another company that dealt with Nazi Germany. The company licensed to various companies the pesticide Zyklon B, which was used to suffocate millions in the death camps. | |
| • | Deutsche Bank in 1998 accepted "moral responsibility" for its dealings with the Nazis. These dealings included knowingly buying gold taken from people murdered in the camps. | |
| • | What would be the morally responsible approach to Iran? Because the regime is complicit in the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), which have led to the deaths of American servicemen and women, the morally responsible thing to do is not to conduct business with Iran. | |
| • | Given the depths to which human nature appears to have sunk, however, that is unlikely to happen. After all, it's strictly business, right? | |
Filtration of terror (INN 01/28/2016)
| • | ... to fully police terror, there should not just be a policy to avenge it, but to prevent it as well. | |
| • | By implementing the proper filtration of terrorists, the violence could come to a standstill. | |
| • | One of those buried this week is slain mother of 6, Daphna Meir, who was brutally murdered in front of 3 of her children. | |
| • | The stabbing terrorist tried to go after her daughter next, but the blade became stuck, and then with a heroic effort she shoved the door shut against the man and locked him out of her house, before bleeding out before her screaming children, saving them from directly sharing in her fate. | |
| • | Forget about saying, "You can't fault 99 percent success." Yes, you can fault it; 30 times in the past few months alone. | |
| • | The case of Daphna Meir's murder highlights this glaring reality. This was not a terrorist tunnel assault. | |
| • | It was a guest worker in her home town. He was there WITH CONSENT of current Israeli security measures | |
| • | Just as credit card companies have a method to determine one's credit score and probable trust ratio, the same process can be held for people who are trustworthy enough to reach this level of appraisal. | |
| • | ... at least law abiding fidelity must be ensured of any guest worker, OR THEY DON'T WORK HERE! | |
Holocaust Remembrance Day and UN Chief Ban Ki Moon’s cowardly act (Fox 01/27/2016)
| • | From the time Moses first showed up at Pharaoh's palace, to the moment the few living Jewish skeletons crawled out of the gates of Auschwitz on the day of their liberation by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945, we have always taught our kids and reminded ourselves and anyone else who would listen, that memory holds the key to redemption. | |
| • | Could there possibly be a worse sin than willfully forgetting? | |
| • | This January 27th we learn that there are sins far worse. | |
| • | Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, who, as he has done each year on this day, will preside of the international organization remembrance of 6 million dead Jews. | |
| • | Yet he chose the eve of this hallowed anniversary to bestow a moral and political blank check to Palestinian terrorists who this week alone buried knives into mother of 8, a pregnant woman and a beautiful young woman buying groceries for her grandparents. | |
| • | According to Ban, the current Intifada by knife, gun, and vehicle "is a reaction to the fear, disparity and lack of trust the Palestinians are experiencing." | |
| • | He went on to explain that "Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and the paralysis of the peace process," he said, blaming "the occupation" for causing "hatred and extremism." | |
| • | "As oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism." | |
| • | Powerful words and imagery: fear, lack of trust, frustration, and humiliation. | |
| • | What a tragedy that Mr. Ban lacked the courage to use this Holocaust Remembrance Day as a teachable moment for Palestinians and other "frustrated" and "humiliated" young Arabs and Muslims. | |
| • | He should have told them, "instead of embracing the culture of death of ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Shabab, why not read Eli Wiesel's 'Night,' or Victor Frankel's 'Man's Search for Meaning'? | |
| • | Instead of using the heroic and tenacious trek of Holocaust survivors to find hope amongst the ashes of their loved ones, Mr. Ban defaulted to political expediency that doesn't help a single Palestinians but does succeed in further embedding a dangerous double standard when the victims of terrorism are Jews — especially Israelis. | |
| • | ... the effect of his words was to tell Palestinians and by extension anyone with a gripe against Israel, that he understood the pain of today's murderers of Jews. | |
| • | Across Europe, the continent's elite will pause for a moment of silence of the victims of the Nazis and then will return to their deafening silence about anti-Semitism in their own countries; where virtually every Jew is a potential target for a hate or Islamist terrorist, where synagogue needs armed guards to protect its Jewish parishioners, where anti-Semitic hate crimes go unpunished... | |
| • | Yes, Wednesday, on International Holocaust Memorial Day, we can see that there is something much worse than forgetfulness: Shedding crocodile tears for dead Jews while doing nothing to defend live Jews. | |
Postmodern cultural totalitarianism has changed the very nature of man (INN 01/26/2016)
| • | "Where were the German men?" | |
| • | Ethical codes, embedded in us on a genetic level, would demand that we intervene on behalf of the women. | |
| • | Especially, in a situation where normal adult men were more numerous than the rapists, and the rapists themselves were not terrorists, cyborgs or aliens, but mere street punks. | |
| • | A great number of strong healthy men, having heard the girls screaming and crying, and having seen the crimes being committed, didn't do anything to save the victims. | |
| • | We heard women blaming the victims and defending the rapists. ... We learned about dozens of female journalists who concealed the truth because the rapists were "refugees". | |
| • | Feminists? We didn't hear their voices. As we haven't heard their voices in Sweden, Norway and England, where thousands of girls have long ago been turned into "white meat". | |
| • | Instead, all we hear is a subtle mumble ... states that "sexual violence is an issue for people of all ethnic origins". | |
| • | Why, during the revolutions in Romania, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, were there no cases of gang rape of girls during demonstrations, as occurred in Tahrir Square? | |
| • | "Sexual harassment is not automatically binding to migration and immigration," Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said in Davos. Sure! | |
| • | ... the highest rates of rape convictions were for individuals born in North Africa and Iraq. They were convicted of rape at rates of 17.5 times the native Swedish rate respectively. | |
| • | We are speaking about a commonplace situation, typical for the patriarchal Muslim world - for Iraqis, Afghans or Somalis - where a non-Muslim woman is nothing more than a sexual object, an easy and natural prey, a whore. | |
| • | The Civil war in Lebanon took place not least because of the mass rape of Christian women by Palestinians. | |
| • | If "refugees" ever dared to do the same at home - in Algeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia - with Muslim girls, they would be buried alive. | |
| • | There are strict and oppressive laws of clan vengeance and no one dares to harass a woman from another clan or tribe without bearing an inevitable cruel punishment. | |
| • | European women have no protection from their families or even the state, with the latter taking the side of the perpetrator. | |
| • | Why are western politicians paralyzed by fear? | |
| • | The issue is not about right or left ideology. ... The issue is about a healthy, normal perception of the world based on genuine European-Western values. | |
| • | These small countries, squeezed between millstones of formerly great empires, having survived Soviet despotism, now know the value of freedom and dignity. | |
| • | They were vaccinated against Universalist ideologies. | |
| • | Is it not curious that Czech Republic and Slovakia are the only countries that accept genuine refugees facing a terrible fate - Christians and Yazidis from Iraq, but not mature and aggressive young men heading to Europe for an easy life and "white meat". | |
| • | What has happened to the world, when men, women, politicians, and the elite betray their daughters and children in order to please newcomers with their baser instincts and a cult of male power? | |
| • | The answer is sad - the culture of postmodernism has managed to do what couldn't be achieved even by the Communist propaganda machine. | |
| • | It has degraded the instinct of self-preservation, natural reactions embedded in humans on a genetic level, the ability to feel compassion and protect a victim – a woman, a girl, a child. | |
| • | An abstract ideology has suppressed the mind and senses. | |
| • | I left USSR as a hater of Soviet totalitarianism. Now I realize that the cultural totalitarianism of political correctness has turned out to be much more poisonous. | |
| • | The Soviet regime dictated harsh rules and established censorship. However people remained normal human beings. | |
| • | They laughed at authorities, composed jokes about Brezhnev, made satirical films in spite of the censorship, and learned to read newspapers between the lines. | |
| • | Cultural totalitarianism succeeded much more. It affirmed a relentless self-censorship, turned people into sterile zombies, and exterminated basic senses of responsibility and dignity. | |
| • | It changed the very nature of man, and indeed, it was a unique experiment of its proponents on their own people. | |
Why is France commemorating the Holocaust with Iran's president? (Fox 01/26/2016)
| • | A year ago on January 27, 2015, French President Francois Hollande came to Auschwitz to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation. | |
| • | Hollande was surely sincere in what he said. But this year he will not be going to Auschwitz for the anniversary. | |
| • | Instead, he will be at the Elysee Palace to welcome the Iranian president. | |
| • | The January 27th is not just the date that Auschwitz was liberated. It is also the day that France, along with the rest of the world, thanks to a U.N. resolution, marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, dedicated to recalling the victims of the Nazi genocide and preventing similar crimes against humanity. | |
| • | ... adding an extra layer of tragic absurdity, Iran is currently running its annual Holocaust cartoon contest, a response to the caricatures of Muhammad published by Charlie Hebdo (which cost the artists their lives). | |
| • | The theme of the contest is: "Did the Holocaust really happen?" Since the Iranian leadership think it is acceptable to laugh at anything except the Prophet anti-Semitic "jokers" of all stripes — the extreme right, the extreme left, Islamists, and assorted others — will have the opportunity to let loose on the gas chambers. | |
| • | Perhaps President Rouhani wants to show the world that Iran has changed. We therefore propose that President Hollande invite his guest to join him in a visit to the Shoah (Holocaust) Memorial in Paris. | |
| • | The head of the Islamic Republic of Iran could read there the endless list of names of the deported, those who were shot, gassed, denied all humanity and dignity, and those who, in Primo Levi's words, are killed a second time by "denying the horrors they suffered."* | |
| • | It is doubtful that President Rouhani would be interested in making such a visit. | |
| • | But the very offer would mark a deeply meaningful gesture from the French president, making clear that France remembers, and has every intention of fighting those who threaten liberty, human rights, peace, and fellowship. | |
Fantasy Islam (INN 01/24/2016)
| • | A game in which an audience of non-Muslims wish with all their hearts that Islam was a "Religion of Peace," and a Muslim strives to fulfill that wish by presenting a personal version of Islam that has little foundation in Islamic Doctrine. | |
| • | After the advent of Islam, people needed to believe in Allah, the god of Islam, and Muhammad to receive their reward. | |
| • | ... context is important. So to provide some additional context, take into consideration what Muhammad himself had to say about the status of Jews and Christians who remained faithful to their religions after the advent of Islam: | |
| • | "By Him in whose hand is the life of Muhammad, he who amongst the community of Jews or Christians hears about me but does not affirm his belief in that with which I have been sent and dies in this state (of disbelief), he shall be but one of the denizens of Hell-Fire." | |
| • | Muslims are forbidden from being friends with Jews (5:51); the Jews are among the worst enemies of Muslims (5:82); Muslims are specifically commanded to fight Jews (9:29); Allah curses the Jews (9:30); and Jews are among the worst of creatures and will live in the Fires of Hell (98:6). | |
| • | Muhammad drove the Jewish tribes out of Medina, supervised the beheading of 600-900 captured Jewish males (combatants and non-combatants), and had this to say: | |
| • | "The Hour will not be established until you fight against the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.'" | |
| • | "No Muslim would die but Allah would admit instead of him a Jew or a Christian in Hell-Fire." | |
| • | And on his deathbed Muhammad gave one last command: "I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslims." | |
| • | "Quran-abiding Muslims" are required to follow the commands of Allah found in the verses of the Koran. And among those verses is one specifically commanding Muslims to follow the teachings and example of Muhammad (59:7). | |
Is the Swedish foreign minister an anti-Semite? (INN 01/24/2016)
| • | Netanyahu answered emphatically and poignantly that Israel is not above criticism, but it should be held to the same standards that everyone else is being held to. | |
| • | The PM went on to say, that the Swedish FM's comments are outrageous, immoral, and unjust. | |
| • | People are defending themselves against assailants wielding knives, who are about to stab them to death, and they shoot the terrorist, and that's extra judicial killings? | |
| • | ... devised a widely accepted 3D litmus test for modern anti-Semitism: Demonization, Double Standards and Delegitimization and is a set of criteria intended to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. | |
| • | It's clear that on the double standard test, the Swedish FM passes with flying colors, especially when one looks around the mideast, at the horrifying levels of rampant murderous violence and persecutions going on, not to mention medieval judicial systems that execute punishments by heinous means of beheadings, stonings and amputations. | |
| • | The Swedish FM's silence about these heinous attacks on innocent Israeli civilian women, in contrast to her deriding criticism of Israel responding in self-defense to murderous terrorists attacks, demonstrates prejudice and bias against the Jewish state of Israel. | |
Terrorism pays: How to flummox the White House, the EU — and defeat the 'Palestinians' (JWR 01/22/2016)
| • | That's what the father of Dafna Meir's murderer said when the Palestinian media asked him what he thinks of his cold-blooded son Murad Adais. | |
| • | On Sunday afternoon, Adais butchered Meir in her home, in front of her children. | |
| • | Whether Adais Sr. is really happy that his son will rot in prison is less important than the fact that he said what he said to his home crowd. | |
| • | He knows that his audience thinks his son is a hero. And so he played to his audience. | |
| • | ... throughout most of the past quarter-century a solid majority of Palestinians have supported terrorism against Israelis. | |
| • | Moreover, the more murderous an attack, the more it is supported. | |
| • | ... this campaign is not being carried out by "lone wolves," who have been incited by Palestinian Authority propaganda. | |
| • | Rather, that propaganda reflects the murderous hatred that the vast majority of Palestinians feel toward Israelis and Israel. | |
| • | Adais and his comrades may or may not be members of terrorist groups. But they are the loyal representatives of their terrorism-supporting society. | |
| • | Obviously, any talk of a peace process in this climate is utter folly. The most Israel can aspire to is to deter the hate-soaked Palestinians from attacking us. | |
| • | Twenty-five years of survey data make clear that most Palestinians believe that terrorism pays. | |
| • | And the plain fact is that they are right. For the past generation, the Palestinians have only benefited from killing Israelis through terrorism. | |
| • | The fact that Israeli concessions to the Palestinians have strengthened their conviction that terrorism pays rather than convinced them to make peace shows that all concessions in the face of terrorism are dangerous. | |
| • | ... the Palestinians have learned that the Israeli public does not have the final word on whether or not they will be rewarded for their crimes against humanity. | |
| • | The Palestinians believe that Israel is dependent on Western goodwill. So to the extent that the West pressures Israel surrender to Palestinian demands, the US and the EU work hand in glove with Palestinian terrorists and prove that they are right to murder mothers in their homes in front of their children. | |
| • | Israel is under a coordinated assault by the Palestinians who hate us and the Europeans and Americans who are hostile to us. | |
Is North Korea testing Iran's nuclear device? (INN 01/21/2016)
| • | The provisions of the agreement negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry and his team of sycophants make Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time" negotiations with Hitler look like a stroke of genius. | |
| • | Iran's Islamic regime is an incredibly dangerous foe. Like ISIS ... Iran has an apocalyptic view of current and near-future events. | |
| • | Devotees drive both, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic State, to quicken the End Times apocalypse. | |
| • | Iranian leaders hold to a Shia brand. ISIS leaders hold to a Sunni brand. But both are obsessed by a belief that their messiah is coming. | |
| • | Obama and Kerry have witlessly cut a Faustian bargain with Iran, whose theocratic supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is all too happy to lead chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" in response. | |
| • | We believe ... that Iran already has the bomb and is working on figuring out how to get it into a vehicle and send it our way. | |
| • | ... working together with North Korea, they will seek to take out our electric infrastructure and anything electronic via satellites they already have in space and others they'll put up into space. | |
| • | Unlike most satellites that orbit the earth horizontally (from west to east), the Iranian and North Korean satellites orbit from south to north over the poles, often going right over the center of the U.S. | |
| • | To those who don't understand the difference between a standard nuclear warhead and a hydrogen bomb, the latter is 1,000 times more powerful and what was tested seemed closer to what fell on Hiroshima than something that could take out a couple of cities. | |
| • | The Iranian regime has been working their way to a nuclear bomb for almost thirty years. While Iran may well have achieved its nuclear goal, testing their monster would not have been possible in Iran. | |
| • | So, where else could they go to test? Most likely to North Korea with a gift of badly needed oil and perhaps with some money and food. In exchange, Iran would get North Korea to test their bomb for them and it may not be the first time. | |
| • | The vicious mullahs want that $150 billion to finance not only Islamic terror, but both theirs and North Korea's efforts to utterly destroy the U.S. in an instant. | |
Dollars for hostages (JWR 01/21/2016)
| • | Expecting Iran to use this windfall for purposes other than terrorism would be like expecting a kidnapper to donate the ransom money to a children's hospital. | |
| • | "In (implementing) the deal," Rouhani said, "all are happy except Zionists, warmongers, sowers of discord among Islamic nations and extremists in the U.S. The rest are happy." | |
| • | This is a regime that allowed the beating of Christian missionary Saeed Abedini in an attempt to force him to renounce his faith and convert to Islam. | |
| • | We are repeatedly told by clueless Western political leaders that Islam is a "religion of peace" and that the Koran prohibits "coercion" in matters of faith (Surah 2:256). | |
| • | By your fruits you shall know them. | |
| • | Pleasurable outcomes do not always validate policy and our enemies in Iran, and among the various terrorist groups it supports, are bound to receive the message that if they can just grab Americans and hold them hostage long enough, America — at least under this administration, which they perceive to be weak — will give them what they want. | |
| • | ... the Ayatollah Khomeini believed Reagan was a "cowboy" and might actually drop a nuclear bomb on Iran if the Americans were not freed. | |
| • | That and Reagan's subsequent hardline approach to the Soviet Union came to be known as "peace through strength." | |
| • | The American left's approach might be characterized as "war through weakness." | |
Iran: Did Obama turn a garden snake into a boa constrictor? (Fox 01/21/2016)
| • | Having ensured the safety of these Americans, we should analyze the prisoner swap within the broader context of our foreign policy decision-making regarding Iran. | |
| • | Secretary Kerry has insisted there is no connection between the Iran nuclear deal and the release of American hostages. However, there are no coincidences in politics, especially related to the simultaneous transfer of $100 billion to Iran, the lifting of terrorism finance-related sanctions, and the apparent application of new ballistic missile test-related sanctions. | |
| • | The prisoners' release came on the implementation day of President Obama's Iran nuclear deal, which will likely be one of the most misguided foreign policy disasters since the 1938 Munich Agreement. | |
| • | Despite great hope and promise conveyed by President Obama, implementation of the Iran nuclear deal creates a strategic alliance with the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. | |
| • | As a pre-condition to negotiations, Iran received $700 million per month of repatriated oil profits, totaling $12 billion. | |
| • | Surely, the release of American prisoners would have been a minor request in exchange for this financial windfall. | |
| • | At that time, Iran's economy was dire, largely due to the long-term economic sanctions imposed by the United States as a response to Iran's state support for terrorist groups. | |
| • | The outcome of this agreement will ultimately add hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran's coffers through financial transfers and economic trade, which will only further enable their state-sponsored support of terror. | |
| • | ... the Obama administration has made concession after concession, doing everything it can to avoid upsetting an increasingly emboldened Iran. | |
| • | His proclivity to vacillate is apparent as we recall the disappearing "red line" in Syria, leaving our allies to wonder where America stands. | |
| • | n another provocation, Iran last week captured two U.S. Navy vessels and detained 10 American sailors, even broadcasting propaganda video of the sailors, with hands on their heads, held at gunpoint. | |
| • | ... these diplomatic actions come only months after Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition of over 30 Islamic countries to combat global terrorism. Instead of working with these Gulf partners, along with Israel and Egypt, to garner regional leverage against Iran, the Obama Administration has strategically pinned itself in a position of propping up the Iranians in an effort to defend the competence of the Iran deal. | |
| • | The Obama administration's deferential negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal and exchange release of prisoners reveal a concerning inability to design and execute an effective strategy in the Middle East. | |
| • | History will record whether the Obama administration has turned a garden snake into a boa constrictor. | |
Bennett: Real threat to Israel is leaders' complacency (INN 01/19/2016)
| • | "The main threat to Israel's security comes not from the north or the south, not from the rockets of Hamas and Hezbollah, and not even from Iran. Neither is the diplomatic deadlock our main threat — but rather a deadlock in our thinking." | |
| • | "It is not the murderers who attack our civilians in Israeli streets and bring their concrete blocks into the heart of Jerusalem - but rather our mental blocks. Instead of shaping our future with our own hands, Israel is dragged into an existing reality. This, in my opinion, is the greatest threat to our security." | |
| • | "The warm and comforting assumption of the best Israeli army in the world and the best soldiers in the world, as correct as it may be, will not turn our strategy..." | |
| • | "We must ask ourselves how it can be that, in all our struggles against Hamas and Hezbollah, we are left bleeding but the head of the hydra has remained immune..." | |
Pope Francis, condemn the slaying of Israeli mothers (INN 01/18/2016)
| • | While the Pope was preaching and speaking in the synagogue, Palestinian terrorists butchered an Israeli woman in front of her children. | |
| • | This is the Vatican's biggest sin: silence. | |
| • | All the Popes blessed Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization, the terrorist seeking to win for the Arabs not only the territories liberated by Israel in 1967, but all of 1948 Israel. | |
| • | Arafat and his followers had shed the blood of Jewish schoolchildren and athletes, politicians and passers-by, in and beyond the Middle East. His organization's actions had horrified the world. | |
| • | But the Popes gave them publicity and legitimacy, including the current PLO's chief Mahmoud Abbas, whom Pope Francis recently called "Angel of Peace". | |
| • | "The Church, which did not say a word about the massacre of the Jews for six years in Europe and has not had much to say about the killing of Christians for seven years in Lebanon, is now ready to meet a man who committed the killings in Lebanon and who wants the destruction of Israel in order to complete the work carried out by the Nazis in Germany..." | |
| • | We could also remember the Bethlehem Church of the Nativity standoff, when the Church and the Pope rallied behind the Palestinian terrorists who desecrated the Christian shrine and came out against the Israeli soldiers. | |
| • | In short, the Catholic authorities sanctioned the terrorists' right to use the church as a shelter. | |
| • | By refusing to mention the name "Israel" and by refusing to condemn the slaying of an Israeli mother in Otniel, Pope Francis just confirmed himself as being another Papal bystander in front of genocidal violence against Israel and its people. | |
Could Obama's nuke deal unleash Iran's Apocalyptic Muslims? (Fox 01/18/2016)
| • | "Apocalyptic Islam doesn't want to simply attack us, it wants to annihilate us." | |
| • | "Apocalyptic Muslims like the leaders of Iran and the leaders of the Islamic State believe that we are living in the End Times and that it's their mission from Allah to bring about the end of the world as we know it." | |
| • | "We're not talking about 1.6 billion Muslims," he said. "We're talking about ten percent or less who are radicals." | |
| • | But ten percent of 1.6 billion is still a mighty big number – and they want to destroy Christians, Jews anyone else they consider to be an infidel. | |
| • | "They want to establish their global Islamic kingdom where everybody has to follow Islam." | |
| • | "And that is a substantively, significantly different and much more dangerous form of radical Islam than even Al Qaeda and Hamas and the Taliban." | |
| • | When Al Qaeda thinks you're crazy, you're really crazy." | |
| • | "And these people are not just crazy – they're demonic." | |
| • | And yet President Obama and his administration are trying to appease the Islamists – including the ones currently in charge of the Islamic Republic of Iran. | |
| • | "Once you understand Apocalyptic Islam, you understand just how dangerous it is to give Iran not just one path to nuclear weapons, but two." | |
| • | "This president doesn't understand the threat of radical Islam. He won't even define that – much less Apocalyptic Islam." | |
| • | It's not so much that the world is facing a future threat – the threat is already here. | |
| • | "These people are crucifying Christians, they're beheading people. They are creating mayhem and really genocidal conditions in Syria and Iraq and our current president is just using half measure to run some sort of public relations war against them." | |
The Iran nuclear agreement is national security fraud (Fox 01/18/2016)
| • | As the Obama administration celebrates what it claims is a great victory for its nuclear diplomacy with Iran, many Americans are scratching their heads and wondering how we got to this point given the many examples of Iranian bad faith and belligerent behavior since the nuclear deal was announced last July. | |
| • | ... it will receive approximately $150 billion in sanctions relief even through Iran is still designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terror and was listed in a June 2015 State Department report as the world's leading terrorist state. | |
| • | Over the last six months, Iran increased its support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah, its terrorist proxy. | |
| • | Iran is threatening Saudi Arabia by backing a Shiite insurgency in Yemen. | |
| • | Iran tested ballistic missiles in October and November even though President Obama and Secretary Kerry said last July that under the deal Tehran would abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions for eight years calling on it to halt its missile program. | |
| • | Iran fired rockets last month near a U.S. aircraft carrier. It also detained and humiliated 10 U.S. Navy sailors last week. | |
| • | At the same time, few Americans understand that Iran keeps its nuclear infrastructure under the nuclear deal and will be allowed to expand it. | |
| • | Iran will continue enriching uranium under the nuclear deal with 5,000 uranium centrifuges and will be developing more advanced centrifuges while the deal is in effect. | |
| • | Although Iran agreed to remove the core of a plutonium-producing heavy water-reactor, it will be rebuilt and redesigned with Chinese assistance. | |
| • | Although President Obama and Secretary Kerry said Iran sent all of its enriched uranium out of the country, they failed to mention that this was a swap for an equivalent amount of uranium ore that can be converted into enriched uranium in a few months. | |
| • | And then there is the issue of the "swap" of five American hostages for seven Iranian criminals held in U.S. prisons and the removal of 14 other Iranian criminal and terrorists from the INTERPOL wanted list. | |
| • | As objectionable as this sounds, President Obama and Secretary Kerry failed to mention that Oman paid Iran $500,000 ransom each for the release of the Americans and that several were brutally mistreated while incarcerated. | |
| • | Given these factors, how can the Obama administration claim Iran has complied with the nuclear agreement? | |
| • | How can it justify providing over $150 billion in sanctions relief that Tehran is likely to spend on terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East? | |
| • | How can the United States reward a state that used Americans as hostages to advance its policy goals? | |
| • | ... because the Obama administration wanted a legacy nuclear agreement with Iran so badly they made any concession necessary to get one. | |
| • | The Iran nuclear agreement is national security fraud. It will not stop or slow Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. | |
| • | Seeing itself as the big winner in the nuclear deal, Iran probably will be emboldened to expand its efforts to destabilize its neighbors and sponsorship of terrorism using the estimated $150 billion in sanctions relief it won in the deal. | |
Europeans did not learn from the Jews (INN 01/15/2016)
| • | One skill of a true statesman is the ability to learn from the experience of other countries and peoples. | |
| • | The number of European politicians who have managed to learn anything from Israel's experiences over the last decades seems minimal. | |
| • | The outbreak and handling of the recent mass sex assaults in Cologne and other German cities has also demonstrated their inability to learn anything from what has happened to Jews in Europe during the current century. | |
| • | The extreme characteristics of crimes committed by some Muslim immigrants should have given European politicians and police pause for thought. | |
| • | Islam is not only a religion and an ideology. The culture of the Muslim world is very different from that of the Western democracies. | |
| • | The recent incidents in Germany again demonstrate that some immigrants bring considerable negative attitudes with them from parts of the Muslim world. | |
| • | The sex assaults were a damning indictment of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's open borders policy toward the refugees. | |
| • | In their response to the mass sexual assaults, German Muslim organizations demonstrated a very common reaction among Muslim immigrants in the Western world. They reproached the police for their behavior. | |
| • | Rather than asking ‘what can we do to help suppress ugly characteristics from fellow immigrants from Muslim countries and culture,' — a move which would require them to own up to such characteristics — they try to shift the blame to others. | |
No more martyrs funerals (INN 01/14/2016)
| • | Israeli government officials agree: they announced that they cannot stop Arab terrorism. We can expect, therefore, that more Jews will be murdered and maimed. | |
| • | Excuses from politicians, police and IDF commanders are pathetic. | |
| • | Waiting for the next tragedy to happen is unacceptable. Neutralizing a terrorist after they have launched an attack is not sufficient. | |
| • | Putting barriers at bus stops offers barely minimal protection. Cameras on the street only help to identify terrorists after an attack. More police on the street is reassuring but doesn't work. | |
| • | The only way to stop homicidal jihadists is to create disincentives, making the price that they will pay – in their minds – unacceptable. | |
| • | The only thing that could dissuade them is the knowledge that their path to martyrdom would be blocked. | |
| • | The simplest and most effective obstacles would be to bury Islamic terrorists at sea or cremate their bodies, both of which are forbidden according to Islamic law. | |
| • | Some have suggested burying terrorists with pig entrails since, according to Islam, contact with a pig defiles Muslims to such an extent that it prevents them from the rewards of an afterlife. | |
| • | This may seem extreme to some, but if it works and saves lives, it's worth trying. | |
| • | And, according to legend, it was used effectively by US Gen "Black Jack" Pershing to stop Muslim terrorists in the Philippines a century ago. | |
| • | Under no circumstances should bodies of terrorists be returned to families where they will receive glorious funerals and used in parades to promote violence. | |
| • | This shames the memory of their victims, our country and our civilization. | |
| • | Anyone who is found to be an accomplice should be deported; their property should be confiscated and turned over to the family of the victim. | |
| • | Islamic hate-preachers should be banned and, if necessary, deported. | |
| • | Families of the terrorists will be outraged until they and their communities understand that terrorism will not be tolerated and terrorists will not be honored. | |
| • | We all have the right to live without fear of terrorist attacks. And we don't have to sacrifice ourselves in order to prove that we have moral principles and value life. | |
| • | We are facing an evil that must be conquered and eliminated, not only for Israel, but for the world. | |
| • | The right to life is always more important than the desire to destroy it. | |
Put down that fiddle! (INN 01/12/2016)
| • | The enemies of the Jews need to know that we are not easy targets. That we will defend ourselves by any means necessary and when threatened, take care of business. | |
| • | The government needs to supply every Jewish and law-abiding Israeli citizen with the adequate means to stop terrorists dead in their tracks. | |
| • | While Hamas and many Palestinians celebrate each Israeli murdered in cold blood, they have the audacity to call these terrorists "brave" and heroic. | |
| • | Someone shooting into a crowd of unarmed civilians, many of them women and children, is probably the best example of cowardice on the planet. | |
| • | It doesn't take a hero to do such violent, despicable acts. It takes a brainwashed coward. | |
| • | Our true heroes in the US military protect civilians and put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms. | |
| • | The IDF is the same. Even in wartime, they bend over backwards to insure the least amount of enemy civilian casualties. Have the Palestinians ever sent leaflets to a kibbutz or Israeli community stating that they were coming in and all civilians should vacate the premise? | |
| • | It's been shown over and over again that responsible and law-abiding armed civilians help deter crime, not encourage it. Criminals pick on soft targets. | |
| • | The mindset of a terrorist is very much like a criminal. They will do their best to avoid armed defenders. | |
| • | In the midst of this resurgence of Palestinian murderers, Jews and Israelis must be armed and ready to turn the tide at any given moment, whether it's in a pizza shop, at a ballgame, during a concert, and yes, even during prayers at a synagogue. The word will get out mighty quickly not to mess with the Jews. | |
| • | ... those who say that militant Islam cannot be defeated militarily probably would have said the same thing regarding Nazism not too many generations ago. | |
| • | But that was, in fact, the only method that the Nazis understood and respected. And they were, of course, eventually defeated and disgraced. | |
| • | ISIS and all the other sub-terrorist groups have a very similar philosophy to Nazism. They believe their path is the only valid one and they will force it upon others by any means they deem necessary, including violence, terror, and murder. | |
| • | But these groups can and should be defeated militarily. We shouldn't feel bad that we have the means to do so, because it's for sure that if they did, they sure as heck would use it against the entire civilized world. | |
| • | Arm every law-abiding and responsible Israeli citizen. Background checks are essential to help eliminate potential problem individuals. | |
| • | Demolish the homes of terrorists and deport their families. If Israel is so bad for them, see how happy they are to live in Syria, or Lebanon, or almost any other Arab land. | |
| • | With every terrorist neutralized, follow the USA's example. We didn't send Bin Laden's body back to his family or home to be buried with honors. The US wasn't so shortsighted. War is war and not the time for pleasantries and gentlemen behaviors. Not a chance. His body was unceremoniously dumped into the sea. Israel needs to follow suit. | |
| • | Israel should arrest and deport any Imam who preaches racism and fosters violence. These so-called "religious leaders" are anything but. They should be held liable not just for encouraging stabbings and shootings, but also for brainwashing their people and destroying their own youth's lives. | |
| • | Cameras should be put up immediately on the Temple Mount. Why don't the Palestinian Arabs want them? What are they hiding? | |
| • | Take over completely all of the Jewish holy sites. Protect them and beautify them. It's time for some serious self-respect. | |
| • | With technology today, it shouldn't be too hard to develop effective neck and head protectors against stabbing attacks. | |
| • | For the sake of western society and democratic, freedom loving people everywhere, it's time to stop terrorists dead in their tracks. | |
There Were 452 Suicide Attacks Last Year. How Many Were By Muslims? (01/11/2016)
| • | The Religion of Peace loves a good old-fashioned bomber. "450 of 452 suicide terror attacks in 2015 were perpetrated by Muslim extremists." | |
| • | "One of the remaining two attacks was carried out by the Kurdish underground. [However it should be noted at least 98 percent of Kurds are Muslim] The other was perpetrated by a woman supporter of a leftist group in Turkey." | |
| • | Clearly, this is unique to Islam. The fact is, Islam is not a religion of peace. | |
| • | The verdict is still out on whether it is a religion of violence, despite a perilous foundational period. Early Islamic history is riddled with bloodshed and massacre. | |
| • | "It is time we admitted that we are not at war with 'terrorism.' We are at war with Islam." | |
| • | "This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims, but we are absolutely at war with the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran." | |
| • | "The only reason Muslim fundamentalism is a threat to us is because the fundamentals of Islam are a threat to us." | |
| • | The fundamentalists of any religion, naturally, shed light onto the fundamentals of a religion. | |
| • | Again, 450 of 452, a staggering 99.6% of all suicide terrorist attacks have been executed by Muslim fanatics. This isn't a coincidence. | |
| • | All the whataboutery, blame games, and finger-pointing in the world won't negate these statistics. Neither Christian ‘fundamentalists' nor Jewish ‘fundamentalists' have this problem. | |
| • | One religion, Islam, is inherently unique in its violence — at least in the modern era. | |
| • | After a Muslim fanatic exploded like a powder keg because of the city's apparent un-Quranic civil liberties, he casually ambushed and shot at a police officer sitting in his squad car. | |
| • | Edward Archer, the Muslim cop-attacker, then confessed that he did it ‘in the name of Islam.' | |
| • | Philadelphia's police commissioner corroborated this confession at a press conference on Friday. | |
| • | Just minutes later, at the same exact press conference, Mayor Jim Kenny squealed that the attack had nothing to do with "being a Muslim or the Islamic faith." | |
| • | This is no longer just a cruel joke. The Left's unwillingness to accept these inconvenient truths is dangerous. | |
| • | If we can't properly diagnose the problem, we can never solve it. | |
Israel, the border state (INN 01/10/2016)
| • | The Jewish State is the most important border between Islamists and the free world and civilization. | |
| • | Israel has never formally become a Republic: it is a "State", as if it would unwittingly wish to reflect the temporary nature of the tragic fate of a troubled democracy and state-building country unique in the world, living on against the laws of logic, history and power. | |
| • | Where has this new anti-Semitism come from? How did international public opinion begin to see Israel as the source of all evil? | |
| • | You cannot look without great pain at the Palestinian Arab child victims of the war, but our empathy should also crash against the monstrosity that makes use of their lives in the war against Israel, how they are sent to die, how they are taught to hate, how their moms say they are proud of their "martyrs". | |
| • | The Jewish state deserves the unreserved admiration of all civilized people. Instead, its enemies today are stronger and friends are increasingly stingy with friendship. | |
| • | Israel is abandoned to its fate, alone against all its foes. And time is working against it. | |
| • | Hate for Israel is the new "socialism of idiots", as August Bebel said to define anti-Semitism. | |
| • | It would be a grave mistake to take the words of the enemies of Israel as simple outbursts of demagogic hysteria. | |
| • | We made that same mistake with Hitler and Stalin, who confiscated the freedom and independence of a half-dozen European nations. | |
| • | Because if that border falls, we in the West will follow shortly. Nobody would then stop the storm. | |
Merkel's terrible blunder (INN 01/08/2016)
| • | Hordes of men described by victims as "Arabs" and as "men from North Africa" took to the streets to sexually assault the revelers, mostly female. | |
| • | To admit that this generation of Arabs is the same gang that torments Israel night and day would be a stretch too far for Europeans. | |
| • | To admit that Europe's Migrants are the same stock as Israel's Hamas and Fatah and Hezbollah would mean that Europe has awakened. | |
| • | Europe would rather sleep and destroy itself from within from immigration suicide. (Coming to America as well.) | |
| • | Europe would rather view Israel as an enemy than as a friend fighting the same war, a world war brought to us all from a generation of Arabs who know no limits, who share no Judeo Christian/Western values and who use our freedoms to liberate their carnal appetites. | |
| • | This past year alone Germany cheerfully welcomed a million such refugees, most of them men without women – likely deserters from the wars in Iraq and Syria. | |
| • | Merkel's heart was probably in the right place, but for the wrong people. It is obvious that she was motivated by atonement, guilt for the Holocaust. | |
| • | The mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, blamed the victims. Women, she declared, ought to know their place and "stay at arm's length." | |
| • | Whatever that means...or rather it means that the world belongs to the mobs...the same mob, Hamas, which trampled the streets of Jerusalem only today. | |
| • | A high-ranking police officer in Berlin announced that there was nothing the police could do. Women, in other words, are on their own. | |
| • | Too bad, ladies, but the Migrants come first. It's their feelings that count. | |
| • | Rotherham was where we first learned about the trend. Women and girls were being raped by men of Pakistani origin, a scandal hushed up to protect Muslims rather than the thousands of victims. | |
| • | People who complained were arrested for daring to speak the truth and upset the balance favoring the coddled predators. | |
| • | Chalk this up as the insanity of political correctness. | |
What can US do about North Korea? Six options after 'hydrogen bomb' test (Fox 01/07/2016)
| • | Increasing sanctions. ... proponents of tougher sanctions note that the one time Washington got Pyongyang's attention was when it cut off the ruling family's bank accounts in Macau which financed the elite's lavish lifestyle. Though the Bush administration lifted those sanctions, many now call for their revival and strengthening. | |
| • | Sanctions plus renewed engagement. ... to pursue talks aimed at a more modest goal of freezing North Korea's program rather than "seeking (and failing) to achieve another unreliable pledge to denuclearize the country." But so far, critics reply, Kim Jung Un has shown little interest in negotiating away its nuclear arsenal, which it sees as its survival insurance policy. | |
| • | Reinforce the global taboo against nuclear testing. ... Pyongyang is unlikely to abandon testing simply because other states reinforce their commitment to do so. | |
| • | The China card. "China is no friend of North Korea's at this point. But although this is the worst point ever in their relationship, the only thing worse for China than a nuclear North Korea is a collapsed North Korea." The last thing China wants is American and South Korean forces on its border. | |
| • | A stronger national security policy. ... North Korea will be deterred only if Washington pursues a national security policy based on "principle and strength instead of appeasement and weakness," pointing to the Iran nuclear agreement as an example. He urges the next administration to reinvigorate such counterproliferation programs as the Proliferation Security Initiative, agreements among states to board and seize ships carrying illicit nuclear-related goods and equipment, and the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, both Bush initiatives. He and several others also support a controversial program to protect America with a missile shield, a concept advocated by President Reagan... | |
| • | A North Korea without the Kim dynasty. ... "By clinging to the hope that Pyongyang can be induced to give up its ambitions for nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, officials are distracted from pursuing policies that might actually enable the people of North Korea to end the Kim dynasty." ... "deny North Korean actors access to international financial institutions, and support the efforts of refugees (in South Korea and elsewhere) to pass information about the Free World to friends and family in North Korea." | |
| • | ... "regime change" is the only way to end North Korea's nuclear threat. But with China as Pyongyang's protector, that is an admirable goal without a strategy for achieving it. | |
| • | For its part, South Korea announced Thursday that it would resume its cross-border broadcasts of the anti-Korean propaganda and rock music that have so infuriated Pyongyang. | |
| • | That may be the most practical route of all. If there is no obvious way to stop North Korea's nuclear program – and there isn't — we can at least drive them nuts with K-pop. | |
Humanitarian Racists (INN 01/07/2016)
| • | ... in several Western countries, both governmental and public voices are being raised more frequently against those who indirectly facilitate the interests of terrorists and movements involved in asymmetric warfare. | |
| • | British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon announced that the UK government is drawing up plans to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights. | |
| • | He explained that this was due to the over 2000 separate legal cases to date, which have been brought against the Ministry of Defense concerning actions of British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. | |
| • | Fallon remarked that such cases inhibited the operational effectiveness of British soldiers, weakening their fight against terrorists through fear of being dragged through the courts by human rights lawyers. | |
| • | The government is now working on a new national Bill of Rights to replace the European Convention. | |
| • | A public investigation known as the Al-Sweady inquiry was launched in 2009 by the then Labour Government. It examined accusations that Iraqi civilians were killed and tortured by British soldiers in 2004. The investigation cost 31 million pounds sterling and found that the most severe allegations against the Army were deliberate fabrications. | |
| • | In France, the socialist government intends to bring a proposal to change the Constitution. If accepted, it will be possible to strip convicted terrorists of their French nationality if they are also nationals of another country. A poll showed that 85% of the French people support the change. | |
| • | Many European socialists have given their indirect support to terrorism against Israel, claiming falsely that they are merely fighting for human rights. Such people may even take terrorists under their wing, claiming solidarity with the weak. | |
| • | "Part of the left goes astray in the name of great values, forgetting the context, our state of war..." | |
| • | Many European socialists also seem to follow a post-war trend which shows more interest in protecting perpetrators rather than victims. | |
| • | Israel is faced with extreme attacks by both foreign and home-grown human rights activists. Many of these look away from the genocidal intentions and extreme crimes committed by Palestinians. | |
| • | As such, their policies could better be described as humanitarian racism, a form of racism which is rarely recognized as such. One can define it as the attribution of reduced responsibility to people of certain ethnic or national groups for their criminal behavior and intentions, even if these are of major dimensions. | |
| • | Humanitarian racists judge delinquency and crime differently according to the color and socioeconomic status of those who engage in them. For example, white people are held to higher standards of responsibility than people of color. | |
| • | Israel is frequently blamed for any measures it takes to defend its citizens. | |
| • | Palestinian responsibility for suicide bombings, rocket attacks, promoting genocide, glorifying murderers of Israeli civilians, and massive incitement, including that similar to Nazi-type hatred, is often downplayed if not ignored altogether by humanitarian racists. | |
| • | Ultimately the case collapsed when a complaint was also brought against President George Bush and associates concerning the first Gulf War in Iraq. In response, the American government informed the Belgians that if the case went ahead, the headquarters of NATO would be relocated away from Brussels. | |
Yes, Muslims Should Be Asked to Condemn Islamic Terror (JWR 01/06/2016)
| • | "As an American Muslim, I am consistently and aggressively asked — by media figures, religious leaders, politicians and Internet trolls — to condemn terrorism to prove my patriotism. | |
| • | "I emphatically refuse." | |
| • | Even putting aside her refusal as a Muslim to condemn the greatest organized evil in the world, her misleading rhetoric is revealed by another aspect of the opening sentence. | |
| • | It is not to "prove [her] patriotism" that people ask her to condemn Muslim mass murder, torture and sexual enslavement. It has nothing to do with patriotism. | |
| • | Decent people (including many decent Muslims) make this request for three other reasons: One is to ascertain the moral/religious views of that Muslim. The second is to ascertain how widespread Islamist views are among Muslims. And the third reason is to have as many Muslims as possible condemn Islamist violence in the hope that Muslims considering supporting or engaging in terror will think twice about doing so. | |
| • | It is the most logical request people of goodwill can make when they ask Muslim spokespeople to react to atrocities committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. | |
| • | How else are non-Muslims to assess Islam and Muslims? | |
| • | If the Spanish Inquisition were taking place today, wouldn't every Catholic spokesperson be asked if they condemn it? Of course. | |
| • | That is what civilized and moral people are expected to do — condemn those who murder in their name. | |
| • | But, according to the ACLU official, such civilized, moral behavior is not expected of Muslims. | |
| • | If you ask Muslim spokespeople to condemn women in burqas, Muslim honor killings, Muslim annihilation of Christian communities in the Middle East, the massive support in Muslim countries for killing any Muslim who converts to another religion, or even the atrocities of Islamic state, al-Qaida, Boko Haram, al-Shabab, or the myriad other Muslim mass murder organizations, you are a bully. You are the guilty party. | |
| • | That is one of the more remarkable moral inversions of our time. | |
Unraveling the Duma circus (INN 01/05/2016)
| • | The Duma tragedy - the murder of two parents and their baby boy, a crime, an apparent act of terror — has become a circus, and everyone is in on the act. | |
| • | So who is guilty? Who murdered Saad, Reham and Ali Dawabshe, and left young Ahmed with life-changing injuries? | |
| • | Why, everyone knows the answer to that question! Only... the answer depends on who you ask. | |
| • | What is the reason for this absurd dichotomy? For the circus of collective guilt and hysteria on the Left, and of self-delusion and conspiracy theories on the Right? | |
| • | Underlying the reactions of both Left and Right are one or both of two fears. The first is that wretched psychological relic of the ghetto: "What will the world think?" As if our actions as a people must always be condemned to be judged against the yardstick of what others think. | |
| • | The second fear is related, but more internal: What happens to our perceived moral superiority? It's the Palestinians who commit acts of terror, not us, and an attack by Jewish terrorists would ruin this narrative which so many lean on as a psychological, intellectual and emotional crutch. Are we now no better than them? | |
| • | The response to either fear must either be to "prove" - to "the nations of the world" and/or to ourselves - that we are still good people, still better than the Palestinians. This can either be achieved by denying everything, or by preemptively confessing to every possible accusation (fair or unfair) and begging for forgiveness. | |
| • | And yet, this is not a sane or rational response. | |
| • | So what about "the world?" What will they say if it was indeed Jewish extremists? The answer here should be first and foremost: why should we care? Israel is a rule-of-law country, and our priority is to make sure that terrorists and criminals of all persuasions are brought to justice. Period. Criticisms from outside are totally irrelevant to this task. | |
| • | ... our response should be one of confidence, not insecurity. A single act of terror defines Israel as a racist country? Really? So what of the daily acts of anti-Jewish terror by Palestinians? What does that make their society? | |
| • | Every single nation or community in the world has its extremists: from White Supremacists and Christian fundamentalists, to extreme Hindu nationalists, even Buddhist extremists in Burma — and of course Muslim extremists, who commit daily atrocities throughout the globe. | |
| • | But societies must not be judged by the actions of a few extremists but by the reaction of the wider society to them. | |
| • | In Israel, the reaction, from Left to Right (beyond the very furthest fringes), has been nonstop condemnation. | |
| • | In Palestinian society, the response — whether from the "moderate" Fatah or the "extremist" Hamas and Islamic Jihad — has been praise, glorification, encouragement and incitement of anti-Semitic terrorism. | |
| • | We condemn it, while they revel in it — that speaks volumes. | |
| • | Those who would judge the people of Israel differently to any other nation should be dismissed out of hand as the bigots they are. We certainly don't need to prove ourselves to them (nor is there any point in doing so). | |
| • | Israel's first prime minister David Ben Gurion famously said: "We will know we have become a normal country when Jewish thieves and Jewish prostitutes conduct their business in Hebrew." | |
| • | He could equally have talked of murderers and other criminals, which exist in every normal society. | |
| • | The main thing is that the Hebrew-speaking police, judges and legislators of the law are there to ensure the criminals don't get away with it — even prime ministers and presidents. | |
| • | This, then, is the lens through which the Duma case must be viewed. | |
| • | To ensure that justice is done, without political bias or hysteria. | |
| • | To hold fast to the values of innocent until proven guilty — but to accept that the security services and justice system which work day and night to keep us safe must be allowed to work and be trusted, though with a critical eye, to get the job done. | |
| • | To hold them accountable if there are suspicions of wrongdoing. | |
| • | To neither throw our lot in with anarchists nor smear entire communities due to political biases. | |
| • | To realize that this is what being an independent, responsible, sovereign nation is all about. | |
The Foxhole: William McCants on ISIS, the Koran, and the future of the caliphate (Fox 01/05/2016)
| • | "I've been studying [ISIS] for a decade. I read Arabic. So my account is pretty informed by the primary sources about the organization." | |
| • | ... the group and its actions as rooted in Koranic interpretation – albeit selective. | |
| • | Islamic scripture is more than the Koran. It's also the words and deeds that are attributed to the founder of Islam, Mohammed, and the Islamic State finds passages in those scriptures that justifies what it wants to do. | |
| • | Mohammed himself waged a war to establish a state; so there's a lot there to draw on. ... they conveniently ignore things that cut against their political program. | |
| • | Mohammed several times says don't go after non-combatants, don't kill women and children. And it's certainly something the Islamic State has done because they are waging a brutal kind of insurgency that they think is pretty effective. | |
| • | ... it can point to other places where Mohammed seems to have advocated extreme measures when faced with an overwhelming foe or a setback on the battlefield. | |
| • | But then again, there are other scriptures that offer the opposite argumentation, and the Islamic State picks and chooses... | |
| • | ... there's no question that the Koran and other scriptures endorse violence in the service of religion. | |
| • | But they tend to try and put restrictions on it. | |
| • | The Islamic State tries to find ways around those restrictions because they are inconvenient for the type of insurgency it's trying to wage. | |
| • | "... there's been a growing realization over the past year that more than wishes and dreams are going to be necessary in order to destroy the Islamic State, and the president is putting more muscle behind it as a consequence." | |
| • | ... ISIS is a functioning state and is "going to be with us for a long time to come." | |
Another year of living dangerously NY to Tel Aviv (INN 01/03/2016)
| • | This is how civilizations begin to disintegrate, by accepting the most outrageous acts as being normal. | |
| • | Around the world, people frolicked to welcome a New Year as if it's only natural to be caged in against the threat of terrorism. | |
| • | The correct term is Islamic terrorism but authorities, certainly the media, would rather keep it simple to keep us in the dark. | |
| • | In many places around the world police, soldiers and other security personnel nearly outnumbered the revelers | |
| • | Some countries simply banned New Year's and warned citizens to keep clear of crowds. | |
| • | Nowadays we call that normal. People barely notice that because of Islamic terrorism, everything has changed. | |
| • | Checkpoints everywhere and everyone a suspect and thank you Islam for taking the safety and joy out of our lives. | |
| • | Of the millions around the world who had to pass through checkpoints, possibly no one realized that the entire world is in the same boat with Israel. It's the same threat all over coming from the same savages requiring the same roadblocks. | |
| • | We were ordered to be fearless because if we show fear they win, we lose. Well, we lost. If it takes an army to let us celebrate ourselves, we lost. | |
| • | What used to be strange and unthinkable — entire continents jittery about the next trick from Islamic extremists — is now routine. | |
| • | ... all Europe had the quivers about a New Year's gathering, or any gathering that might tempt Bad Islam, — as opposed to the other Islam, which we are assured is good and noble and peace loving if and when we ever get the luxury to tell them apart. | |
| • | Most times, like Paris, San Bernardino and Friday in Tel Aviv, it's too late. ... The Tel Aviv killer was indistinguishable from any other customer until he began to shoot. | |
| • | But even as we cannot tell the one from the other, we in the West keep bringing them in wholesale. In Allah we trust. | |
| • | Trudeau wants them. Obama can't get enough of them. We are given no choice when our leadership toss the dice and gamble with our lives. | |
| • | Let's not be puzzled about how we came to accept as normal a world turned upside down through savagery, butchery and mindless brutishness. | |
| • | It began in Israel when nobody cared so long as "only Jews" were getting killed, so why bother making a fuss? It's normal. | |
| • | Let the Jews die, said the world. We are safe. Can't happen to us. We are not Israelis. They deserve what's coming. Radical Islam is their problem. | |
| • | Sorry to rub it in, Dear World, but now who's got the problem – a problem that could have been stopped if people had cared? | |
| • | So they said, and said so again when weeks later another group of Arab terrorists "struggled for independence" by rampaging a Jewish family in Adura, murdering four, including a five-year-old. | |
| • | Witnessing the horror, the child ran to her bedroom, clutched her favorite doll for dear life and hid under the covers – and we'd rather not imagine what happened next. | |
| • | No, we cannot process such cruelty as we watch Danielle sinking herself deeper into her bed as she hears footsteps drawing closer. | |
| • | From around the world, mostly silence. Too bad, said The New York Times. That's the way it goes, said CNN. Tough luck, said the BBC. | |
| • | No concern of ours, said the world. Not our business. | |
| • | But now who's cowering under the covers? | |
The West's most precious ally (INN 01/02/2016)
| • | ... we, in our cynicism and hedonism, despise the values ??of life and those who advance them: the Israelis and the West as idea and fate, the ethos which has given us, at least so far, dignity and freedom. | |
| • | We are suffering under the shadow of two groups, the Muslim apocalyptic lunatics and the Western defeatist relativists, those who love death and those who betray the civilization of life. | |
| • | It is this chasm between the Jewish enclave, a light among the nations, and the terrorist scum around it, built on misery and oppression, that explains to us why we should consider that small country, smaller than Tuscany, our largest and most valuable ally. | |
Syria and a dictator's children: Keeping the family business going (Fox 12/31/2015)
| • | There used to be a nation called Syria, as there used to be a nation called Iraq. It is almost meaningless now to speak of those states. | |
| • | They have disintegrated, and something new will likely arise in their places. Whether that something will be better, who can know? | |
| • | In Syria — to use a term of convenience — more than 200,000 have been killed. More than 3 million have been made refugees. | |
| • | Through it all, the dictator, Bashar Assad, has remained on the throne. He has not let his father down. He has kept the family business going. | |
| • | Surely, Bashar Assad did not want to become the butcher and destroyer of Syria. He did not even want to become dictator. | |
| • | But he has done whatever is necessary to hang on to power, maintaining the family throne. | |
| • | And in Syria, you might fairly say, it's a case of kill or be killed. If Assad fell, the Alawite community from which his family comes would face slaughter. | |
| • | The only thing to do now is to protect those innocents who can be protected, and see what takes the place of the countries we've known as Syria and Iraq. | |
| • | Forces of decency should be backed wherever they can be found. Enclaves of civilization, or non-savagery, should be encouraged and bolstered. And the least awful options are sometimes the best you have. | |
Nazis were German and Islamic extremists are Muslim (INN 12/21/2015)
| • | If in the 30s, if one said "Nazis are German," no one meant "All Germans are Nazis." | |
| • | ... in the 30's, let alone the 40's, imagine the President of the United States being so delusional that he refused to say "Nazis were Germans" because "We don't want to insult all Germans" and because "We're not at war with all of Germany." | |
| • | The "Nazis are not German" President would have been impeached and arrested as a traitor. | |
| • | Nowadays, Islamic-Extremist-terrorists are to Islam, what yesterday's Nazis were to Germany. | |
| • | In the 30's, the Germans themselves, were the first, and last, line of defense to the Nazi hijacking all of Germany, and bringing all of Germany into a world war. | |
| • | Today, the Muslims, themselves, are the first, and last, line of defense against Islamist-extremism hijacking Islam, and bringing all of Islam into a world war. | |
| • | What's worse, Obama's and Clinton's rhetoric "The terrorists are not Muslim" only gives Islam a total pass on trying to defeat Islamist-extremism from within Islam. | |
| • | Instead of protecting Islam, Obama and Clinton are insuring Islamist-extremists hijack the entire world of Islam, just as the Nazis hijacked all of Germany. | |
| • | "After Adolf Hitler committed suicide and following the burning of his body, the war's winners did not just raise the flag of victory over Berlin but they also banned Nazi ideology. They prohibited teaching it or marketing it and also prevented those who are in any way related to it from practicing any social activities. | |
| • | "Today's extremist Islam is also fascist, and it resembles Nazism which is based on the concepts of discrimination and elimination. Like Nazism, extremist Islam is based on absolute loyalty to an ideology and to hatred and hostility against others, whether Muslims or not. If you want to eliminate al-Qaeda, ISIS and al-Nusra Front, you have to go after the ideology. Without doing so, we can expect the next century to be filled with anarchy and terrorism." | |
| • | My only small quibble with Al-Rashed is that he didn't add the Shiite-Safavid-Nazi-Khomenei Regime of the "Islamic Republic of Iran" to his list of Islamic-Extremists. | |
| • | Could anyone imagine the world class catastrophe had Obama succeeded in defeating Egypt's Sisi and Morsi were still in charge? | |
| • | Whatever democratic idea of governance the British left behind (i.e. Israel) is actually the only hope Islam has to defeat the Islamic-Extremists. | |
| • | Everybody seems to want to crown a different Caliph or Ayatollah of the "real Islam." | |
| • | Consequently, all the different forms of Muslim extremism are not only at war with non-Muslims, they are at war with themselves. | |
| • | Not only did Obama openly validate and glorify Islamic-extremism, but he also opened the Pandora's box of Islamic-extremist crazies, and let all the Islamic lunatics out of Gitmo. | |
| • | Obama shouldn't have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize, he should have been institutionalized. | |
| • | But more darkly related to Obama's enabling Islamist extremism is Al-Rashed's statement that "in the Middle East, our version of nationalist fascism is religious extremism, which is just as dangerous and destructive"... | |
| • | "Nazis believe in elevating the white race above all others. Nazism caused the destruction of Europe, with 60 million people killed. After this disaster, the majority took it upon itself not to allow this extremist ideology to dominate in their societies. One can be religious, patriotic and nationalistic without being committed to eliminating others. We fear that we are at the beginning of the road to destruction in our region by allowing extremists to impose their agendas on society..." | |
| • | "Confronting these groups is everyone's responsibility. Governments have major duties to fulfill, their core task being to provide protection from the evils of extremist groups that operate across borders..." | |
| • | Obama and his government's repeated lunacy of publicly absolving and/or excusing Islam and/or divorcing Islam from any Islamic violence ensures that all the good, peaceful people in Islam are prevented from successfully weeding out the bad extremist people in Islam. | |
| • | In fact, if a well-meaning Muslim tries to expose any violent Islam in his mosque he will have Obama's "Islam is a religion of Peace" thrown in his face. | |
| • | ... Obama has validated the Islamic-extremist ideology that "Islam is the victim." | |
| • | So, if Muslim leaders, and Muslims can't publicly accept that Islamic-terror originates in Islam, and publicly rail against it, how can Muslims ever root out the Islamic-extremists in their mosques. | |
| • | Obama's lunacy of publicly absolving and/or excusing Islam and/or divorcing Islam from Islamic violence insures he has paralyzed all the good people in Islam from weeding out the bad people in Islam. | |
| • | It is a tragedy that the President who has repeatedly pontificated "We will never be at war with Islam," has, in reality, set an almost irreversible path to such a terrible war. | |
Terrorism: Where to Turn? (INN 12/19/2015)
| • | After the November 13 attacks in Paris, there were concerns in the media that Europe did not fully understand the gravity of the threats posed by radical Islam. | |
| • | Next came the questions: about the claim of responsibility by ISIS, and how the coordinated attacks would nullify the "lone wolf" theory — a hypothesis largely refuted anyway. These were commandos trained to kill, and to kill themselves too. | |
| • | But what about the agile explosives handlers who prepare their suicide bomb belts and continue their grim task elsewhere? Perhaps they are preparing a second wave of "martyr attacks" in France? | |
| • | It is urgent to take their network down. One can only hope that any steps will not too quickly trigger the angelic protest of those who would prefer having lily white hands to having no hands at all. | |
| • | A thought that is usually ducked — when one does not understand something, one puts it out of his head — is that often terrorists hope to live. Not so in the Paris attacks: the terrorists knew they would die and specifically intended to reach the Paradise of Allah and the rewards waiting for them there. | |
| • | The desire to die while killing infidels, has become, in Islam, a highly powerful virus. | |
| • | We do not yet know how to "un-indoctrinate" people from it. And it is not a marginal problem. It is rotting an entire generation of young Muslims — often to the distress of their parents. | |
| • | Our reaction should be directed not against the terrorists, but against those who indoctrinate, train and finance them — and on working to eradicate this virus of the mind. | |
| • | It is also important to set aside the usual sociological considerations: the British jihadist, just eliminated by a drone attack, was a high-level IT technician, not a "victim of capitalism." | |
| • | The main point is that these attacks, like those before them — on the U.S. in 2001, Madrid in 2004, and London in 2005, all quickly forgotten in our European memory — were simply meant to sow terror: go kill as many people as you can. | |
| • | The "Crusaders" now seem exhausted. They simply do not want enemies. The Pope can insist all he likes that we are in a Third World War; it is so much more comforting to repeat that the main problem is "Israel's occupation." | |
| • | The first is that, considering that France had nothing to do in Syria to begin with — the bombing of ISIS was used to explain (justify?) the attacks in Paris — let us all just run away, leave ISIS alone and it will leave us in peace. | |
| • | The other is, conversely, to fight ISIS with everything we have, and for that, support the "moderates." These are otherwise known as, incredibly, the Iranians, on the Shiite side — the elites' new favorites — and on the Sunni side, the Muslim Brotherhood. | |
| • | This plan does not, however, take into account the dramatic Islamist religious radicalism, which has taken on the aspect of a new Nazism because of two men. | |
| • | On the Sunni side is Hassan el Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. He put at the top the duties of believers a love of death in the name of Allah in the struggle against the infidel. Banna's disciple, Sayyid Qutb, is the spiritual father of Al Qaeda and ISIS. | |
| • | On the Shiite side is Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who organized in Lebanon the first suicide bomb attack in 1982, and who sent tens of thousands of children onto Iraqi landmines. The only weapon the children had was a "key to paradise." | |
| • | This is why to hear the elegant but bloodthirsty Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in his condolences to France, trying to pass off Iran as a victim of terrorism, makes one's heart stop. | |
| • | But what is important not to forget is that the enemies of our enemies are not necessarily our friends. | |
Paris climate deal: Nothing but hot air (Fox 12/15/2015)
| • | If representatives of the nearly 200 nations gathered in Paris for the UN Conference on Climate Change had instead formed a coalition to fight a real threat — Islamic terrorism — they might have accomplished something useful. | |
| • | Instead, what they came up with is a document that even Secretary of State John Kerry, in a rare moment of candor, confessed is pointless. | |
| • | "...The fact is that even if every American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what — that still wouldn't be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world." | |
| • | "If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions — remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions — it wouldn't be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the world's carbon pollution comes from the developing world." | |
| • | Being a liberal means never having to admit error. Liberalism, it appears, has always been about intentions and feelings, not results. Fighting "climate change" makes liberals feel good. | |
| • | There has been a near complete media blackout and intimidation of anyone presenting contrary scientific evidence disproving the theory that Earth is warming and humans are responsible. | |
| • | This phony doctrine is being shoved down our throats by people who continue to fly in private jets and ride in gas-guzzling SUVs while telling the rest of us to walk or ride bikes. | |
| • | Not that facts matter to the major media and others who have embraced the doctrines of this new religion, but here are some anyway because, in my opinion, belief in "climate change" is on a par with childhood faith in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. | |
| • | Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) is a scientific research company located in Northern California, specializing in satellite microwave remote sensing of the Earth. According to RSS, the Earth's temperature has not increased in the last 18 years and nine months, a record. | |
| • | ... predictions of global warming have been based on imperfect computer models. | |
| • | That those models do not reflect reality has not affected the minds or policies of people who worship at the altar of government and wish to impose additional regulations on already overburdened corporations and individuals. | |
| • | "Data from America's most advanced climate monitoring system shows the U.S. has undergone a cooling trend over the last decade, despite recent claims by government scientists that warming has accelerated worldwide during that time." | |
| • | ... there is money and political power associated with climate change orthodoxy and next to sex, humans lust after these more than anything else. | |
| • | If you are a climate change disciple, or confused, do yourself a favor. Visit climatedepot.org and see the film "Climate Hustle," which premiered in Paris during the UN gathering. | |
| • | There is nothing wrong and much right about the goal of reducing pollution, especially in China, the world's worst polluter, but "global warming" shouldn't be the reason. | |
| • | ... why would the U.S. and other developed countries stifle their growth potential by embracing a false doctrine that could lead to predictable and even unforeseen economic consequences? | |
Climate make-believe in Paris (JWR 12/15/2015)
| • | Saving the planet has never been so easy. | |
| • | The Paris climate talks concluded in a rousing round of self-congratulation over an agreement that, we are told, is the first step toward keeping Earth habitable. | |
| • | The fact is that Paris is very meta. The agreement is about the agreement, never mind what's in it or what its true legal force is — namely, nil. Paris is a legally binding agreement not to have legally binding limits on emissions. | |
| • | It might be the most worthless piece of paper since the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war — about a decade prior to the outbreak of World War II. | |
| • | The Paris summit operated on the principle of CBDRILONCWRC, or "Common but Differentiated Responsibility in Light of National Circumstances With Respective Capability." | |
| • | That means nothing was actually mandated on anyone because that proved — understandably enough, dealing with all the countries in the world — completely unworkable. | |
| • | President Barack Obama praised 180 countries for coming to Paris "with serious climate targets in hand." ... Pakistan produced a one-page document promising to "reduce its emissions after reaching peak levels to the extent possible." For this we needed a headline-grabbing global confab? | |
| • | India "says coal provides the cheapest energy for rapid industrialization that would lift millions out of poverty." | |
| • | The agreement's celebrants believe that by making countries report their progress on cutting carbon emissions and by sending a stern signal against fossil fuels, Paris will catalyze painful cuts in carbon emissions somewhere off in the future. | |
| • | It speaks to a naive belief in the power of global shame over the sheer economic interest of developing countries in getting rich (and lifting countless millions out of poverty) through exploiting cheap energy — you know, the way Western countries have done for a couple of centuries. | |
| • | If this is the best hope of the climate alarmists, their global campaign will be a welcome fizzle. All things considered, it probably is best that they occupy themselves with grand meetings and with the exertions attendant to believing their own PR. Otherwise they could do real damage. | |
BDS lies when it calls our brave IDF soldiers “war criminals.” (INN 12/15/2015)
| • | 14 international former chiefs of staff and senior military officers reviewed the 2014 Gaza conflict from both the IDF and Hamas operations. | |
| • | They visited Israel both during and after the conflict. They interviewed soldiers from the regular foot-soldiers to unit commanders all the way up to the highest ranks of the IDF. In their fact finding missions they also spoke with military intelligence personnel. | |
| • | They began by admitting that Israel's military efforts were entirely necessary and justified in the defense of Israel's national security as a result of the aggressive and offensive operations conducted against Israeli civilian centers by Hamas and their other terror affiliates in support of Palestinian Hamas actions initiated against Israel. | |
| • | "Israel's conduct in the 2014 Gaza Conflict met and in some respects exceeded the highest standards we set for our own nation's militaries." | |
| • | "It is our view that Israel fought an exemplary campaign, adequately conceived with appropriately limited objectives, displaying both a very high level of operational capability as well as a total commitment to the Laws of Armed Conflict." | |
| • | "The IDF not only met its obligations under the Law of Armed Conflict, but often exceeded these on the battlefield at significant tactical costs, as well as in the humanitarian relief efforts that accompanied its operation." | |
| • | Where the high standards of conduct the IDF sets for its personnel have not been met incidents are investigated, including criminal investigations, through an independent mechanism under the oversight of the democratic institutions of the State of Israel. This mechanism clearly meets the requirements of legal recourse, judicial independence and democratic oversight that our own nations set for ourselves." | |
| • | "Hamas not only flagrantly disregarded the Law of Armed Conflict as a matter of course as part of its terrorist-army hybrid strategic concept, but rather it abused the very protections afforded by the law for military advantage. It embedded its entire military machinery in civilian locations and sensitive sites, including those of the United Nations." | |
| • | "Hamas indiscriminately targeted Israeli civilians throughout the conflict with extensive rocket fire and willfully sought to draw the IDF into battle in a prepared urban stronghold amid the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, for which it located its operational headquarters in Gaza's main hospital." | |
| • | Lost in the malediction of cynical media misreporting and malevolent anti-Israel propaganda disguised as Palestinian human rights concerns is the fact that, during fifty days of war, Palestinian Arabs fired 4,564 rockets at Israeli civilian targets. | |
| • | As the international experts reported, this feat was achieved by two factors: the accuracy of the surgical strikes of all elements of Israel's fighting force combined with the IDF humanitarian concern to avoid, as much as militarily possible, harming innocent civilians, even those in support of the Palestinian Hamas offensive against Israel. | |
ISIS: The road to defeating Islamic extremism runs through its epicenter in Tehran (Fox 12/14/2015)
| • | The heinous terrorist attacks in San Bernardino 12 days ago and in Paris last month were clear reminders of the growing threat of Islamic extremism. | |
| • | This vicious ideology continues to take new physical forms - once Al Qaeda, now ISIS. | |
| • | Their goal is to create an Islamic "state" capable of enforcing Sharia law by force and unwinding humanity's democratic achievements. | |
| • | The Iranian regime's regional agenda is, in the words of its Supreme Leader, "diametrically opposed" to that of the U.S. | |
| • | The Iranian regime is controlled by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — an equivalent of the "caliph" of the "caliphate." He makes all the final decisions that determine the strategic direction of the "Islamic" state. | |
| • | "We will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. Even after this deal our policy towards the arrogant U.S. will not change." | |
| • | Iran's medieval regime cannot be reformed because any sign of moderation would provide an opening for the emergence of popular demands, which would mature into protests for democracy. | |
| • | Unless and until the U.S. government looks to solve the Iranian problem by falling back on the problem itself – the regime in Tehran – it will fail to instigate genuine change. | |
| • | The removal of the epicenter of fundamentalism in Iran will ensure that the world is free of the vile threat of extremism for good. | |
The continuing failure to confront radical Islam (INN 12/12/2015)
| • | Jewish progressives are quick to praise Islamic culture as peaceful and tolerant, yet few have actually read the Quran, Hadith, Sira, or classical legal commentaries. | |
| • | Fewer still have any concept of the stringent nature of Sharia or how "infidels" are treated thereunder. | |
| • | They overlook the history of Jews in Islamic lands, where subjugation, massacres, segregation, pogroms, and forced conversions were the rule, not the exception; and they rationalize Muslim Jew-hatred as a modern consequence of the Arab-Israel conflict. | |
| • | ... jihad can be violent or nonviolent, and that in the absence of sufficient power to dominate infidel society by force, it is permissible to advance the faith by taqiyya (deception). | |
| • | Propagating the faith covertly is the modus operandi of many extremists posing as moderates in the West. | |
| • | One strategy of civilizational jihadists is to infiltrate societal institutions and pursue their goals from within. | |
| • | They commonly use political correctness to portray themselves as a minority (despite a global Muslim population of approximately 1.6 billion) and to characterize their opponents as bigots. | |
| • | ... the term "Islamophobia" was created to chill discourse by equating critical discussion of Islam or Sharia with unwarranted prejudice, adopting the strategy of gay rights activists who coined the term "homophobia" to describe opposition to their cause. | |
| • | Stealth Islamists understood how quickly the term "homophobic" became synonymous with "bigot," and endeavored to manipulate language to similar effect. | |
| • | The problem is especially acute on college campuses, where groups with ties to organizations like the Brotherhood are accorded respect and credibility, and where anti-Semitism is pervasive, Israel is vilified, and free speech is denied those who disagree with the agenda. | |
| • | Universities boasting anti-hate speech codes only seem to enforce them when progressive or Muslim sensibilities are offended, not when Jewish students are abused or conservative students are penalized for voicing their opinions. | |
| • | The divide between western enablers and critics of radical Islam is reflected in the debate over Syrian refugees. | |
| • | The left advocates relaxing immigration restrictions and admitting refugees with little scrutiny, while the majority calls for a cautious approach in light of the skewed demographic profile of the refugee population, seventy to eighty percent of which consists of single men of fighting age. | |
| • | Furthermore, many are non-Syrians with fake passports or are suspected of having terrorist sympathies or affiliations. This is especially troubling in light of reports that at least one of those responsible for the recent carnage in Paris entered France as a refugee. | |
| • | Through it all, progressives refuse to identify the problem, and their critics tend to limit the danger to extremist groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda. | |
| • | But western society would be better served by recognizing the dogmas that motivate extremism and the existence of civilizational jihad. | |
| • | If Americans and Europeans are to prevail against today's terrorism, they will need to discard their stupefying political correctness, acknowledge the doctrines that sanctify violence, and assert those values that are under attack. | |
| • | Falling short will only facilitate submission and defeat. | |
Disorder in Sharia courts (JWR 12/10/2015)
| • | Set aside for a moment the violent incidents associated with people claiming to act under the authority of their Islamic faith and consider instead what passes for normalcy. | |
| • | "Can a healthy, harmonious multicultural society tolerate private legal systems? Not if that means the subjugation of women in abusive and indeed dangerous marriages, a form of imprisonment in all but name sanctioned by their local religious leaders." | |
| • | Beyond the mass shootings in America, stabbings on London's tube and Israeli bus stops, there is the larger question of Islam's compatibility with Western values and laws. | |
| • | Will those of us who practice a different faith, including Muslims with a different view of Islam, or those who practice no faith at all, be required to adhere to Sharia law should the Muslim population become a majority? That's what radical Islamists appear to want. | |
| • | Carved into the facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., are the words "Equal Justice Under Law." | |
| • | But how equal can justice be if that law becomes Sharia law, either in a parallel legal system, or a dominant one that forces all other laws, be they based on the Ten Commandments, or secular philosophy, to succumb? | |
| • | The question is more than academic and theological. The answer could determine the future direction of the world. | |
Academia — the factory of today's political nincompoops (INN 12/09/2015)
| • | Countries are coming together in a common cause to strike ISIS in their rage, and in their fear. | |
| • | The anger that wasn't there in the past is palpable today. | |
| • | At its heart it's not ISIS that is driving Muslims to behead people, to shoot them in Paris or San Bernardino, or to cause teenagers to knife people in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, or the launch of rockets at Israeli civilians, or explode themselves on buses, or fly planes into buildings, or to slaughter tourists on a Tunisian beach or in a luxury Mali hotel. | |
| • | ISIS is not the root cause. It is merely a horrible symptom of an age-old sickness. | |
| • | It is a sickness that politicians, diplomats, media and think tank pundits cannot, or will not, identify. | |
| • | They cannot bring themselves to identify the root cause dispassionately because it passionately conflicts with everything they have been taught in the misguided halls of higher learning by radically leftist professors and lecturers. | |
| • | The result has been the sheer nonsense of American political leaders blaming Islamic terror on global warming or the lack of gun control, the Paris outrages on Palestinian discontent against Israeli policies , according to a grossly misinformed Swedish Foreign Minister, and, basically, pointing the finger at anyone or anything, except what it is. | |
| • | The fault lies with the deformed political thinking of a dishonest campus upbringing in faculties teaching a fictional form of anti-Western history designed to leave students with a guilt complex that blames the West, particularly America, Europe and Israel... | |
| • | They find it impossible to address the sickness that, through the ages, has erupted with global violence, namely an inbred Islamic thirst for a God-driven drive to world domination, intimidation and death. | |
| • | The fault lies with the educators. It has infected political thought, as evidenced by President Barack Obama. | |
| • | Can anyone tell me, in all honesty, if this man has a clue about what is going on in the world? | |
| • | Is this the quality of political thought that they produce in American universities? If so, God help us! | |
| • | Today, the sight of thin-skinned and intolerant students demanding the comfort of "safe-space zones" to escape conflicting thought they find offensive because it doesn't tally with their brain-washed numb-skulls, to avoid any full and open debate in case it damages their dogma, makes us non-academics fearful of what these campuses are producing. | |
| • | It is we, the general public that will require safe-spaces when these academic idiots graduate, join us in society, and start imposing their nonsensical thought control on the rest of us. | |
| • | The root cause of the cancer of modern-day terrorism is so obvious that simple people recognize it, but ‘progressive' leaders don't. | |
| • | It's time to reform the universities that have become riddled with radically specious teaching that has resulted in the vacuous thinking of too many of our political leadership. | |
| • | It's time to get back to common sense and plainly diagnosis of what is troubling the world. | |
Western rationalizers of Muslim terorism (INN 12/09/2015)
| • | Muslim terrorist actions in the Western world are directly linked to the major physical violence and incitement in certain areas of the Islamic world. | |
| • | Islam is a complex of religion, culture and political ideology. Several of the worst cases of mass murder, extreme incitement and other crimes in the past decades have emerged from sections of this composite entity. | |
| • | The Spanish liberal philosopher Jose Ortega Y Gasset said that "Civilization is nothing else than the attempt to reduce force to being the ultima ratio [last resort]." | |
| • | Indeed for democrats, violence should be initiated only as a last resort; for barbarians, it is in practice often the first option of choice. | |
| • | Nowadays many Muslim communities contain a disproportionate number of such barbarians. Their main targets are other Muslims. | |
| • | Fifty years ago, the Indonesian government and military suppressed the country's communist party. About half a million alleged communists were killed.[2] Over a million people were killed in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.[3] In Afghanistan's two wars during the last thirty-five years roughly a million and a half people were killed. | |
| • | Overall killings by terrorist organizations in 2014 exceeded 32 000 victims. The five most murderous organizations were all Muslim, with Boko Haram and ISIS in the forefront. | |
| • | "There's something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they're really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn't to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people." | |
| • | Here we have one of the highest ranking U.S officials, who through mental confusion attempts to differentiate between terrorist acts, immorally offering partial justifications of some murders as opposed to others. | |
| • | "These are the foundations of our model of society that the terrorists seek to destroy: Yesterday journalists and Jews; now ordinary citizens whose only crime was to enjoy life on a Friday night in Paris." | |
| • | French Jews may well understand from this that where terrorist murders are concerned, they do not count as ordinary citizens. | |
| • | There was a precedent for his mode of expression. In 1980 a bomb exploded next to the Paris liberal synagogue in the Rue Copernic. Among those killed were three passers-by. | |
| • | ... it was "a scandalous attack which wanted to hit Jews who were in the synagogue and hit innocent Frenchmen who were crossing Copernic Street." He added that these people were killed despite lack of any connection to "this issue." | |
| • | "To counteract the radicalization, we must go back to the situation such as the one in the Middle East of which not the least the Palestinians see that there is no future: We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence." | |
| • | These are ... examples of people who knowingly ignore the central component of ideological violence in parts of the Muslim world. | |
| • | In 2012 the Muslim criminal Mohamed Merah murdered three French soldiers and thereafter a Jewish teacher and three children. Tariq Ramadan, a professor at Oxford and Muslim turned him into a victim. | |
| • | "However, he was himself a victim of a social order which had already condemned him and millions of others to marginalization, to the non-recognition of his status as a citizen with equal rights..." | |
| • | One can only wonder how many more European terrorism victims are required to shame the Kerrys, Wallstroms and the like into silence. | |
| • | This even though they may be incapable of grasping the obvious, that for the most part Muslim terrorist violence is directly linked to the perpetrators' ideological views. | |
No, Mr. President, economic strain is not the reason (INN 12/09/2015)
| • | President Obama outlined his theory of the causes of terrorism: climate change is straining natural resources around the world, and "when people are not able to make a living or take care of their families," they become "desperate," and "as human beings are placed under strain, then bad things happen." | |
| • | The next day, a middle-class Muslim couple who were not under any evident financial strain and were perfectly capable of taking care of their six-month old daughter, decided to massacre fourteen people in San Bernardino, California. | |
| • | The terrorist Syed Farook was not "desperate." He was a graduate of California State University and an environmental health specialist who worked for the San Bernardino County heath department, with an annual salary of $53,000. | |
| • | His wife and co-terrorist, Tashfeen Malik, was also a college graduate (Bahuddin Zakri University in Pakistan). They lived in a two-story townhouse in a nice neighborhood. | |
| • | The idea that the cause of terrorism is poverty has long been promoted by officials of the Obama administration. | |
| • | "We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it's a lack of opportunity for jobs, whether — we can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people." | |
| • | Yet study after study of the motives of Arab and Muslim terrorists during the past two decades has found exactly the opposite. | |
| • | "None of [the bombers] were uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded, or depressed. Many were middle class and, unless they were fugitives, held paying jobs...Two were the sons of millionaires." | |
| • | "They were adults with education and skill, not hopeless young zealots. At least one left behind a wife and young children...They were not reckless young men facing dire economic conditions and dim prospects, but men as old as 41 enjoying middle class lives." | |
| • | ... the Hezbollah members were less likely than "other Lebanese, to come from poor families and were significantly more likely to have completed secondary education." | |
| • | ... there is "no significant relationship" between the economic conditions in a given country and the rise of terrorists there. | |
| • | The facts are clear, even if they soundly refute President Obama's politically correct worldview. | |
| • | Radical ideology — in this case, radical Islamist ideology — is what causes terrorism. | |
The global fight against ISIS: Channeling Churchill in Britain (Fox 12/08/2015)
| • | Wisdom can often be found in unexpected places. During debate in the House of Commons ... Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary of the liberal Labour Party, delivered a speech that approached Winston Churchill in its vision: | |
| • | "And we are here faced by fascists. Not just their calculated brutality, but their belief that they are superior to every single one of us in this chamber tonight, and all of the people that we represent. They hold us in contempt. They hold our values in contempt. They hold our belief in tolerance and decency in contempt. They hold our democracy, the means by which we will make our decision tonight, in contempt. And what we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated..." | |
| • | In the U.S., we get moronic statements claiming that climate change is "directly related" to terrorism (Sanders), endure calls for more gun laws when current gun laws are disobeyed, and stand bewildered as our president, in the face of attacks by radical Islamists, says, "We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam," while Attorney General Loretta Lynch targets people who use anti-Islamic language for fear it "will be accompanied by acts of violence." | |
| • | Meanwhile, Islamic extremists move about the U.S. with apparent impunity. | |
| • | MSNBC and other networks, meanwhile, give airtime to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a so-called advocacy group with ties to the Holy Land Foundation and Hamas, to spout propaganda that the San Bernardino murders had nothing to do with Islam. | |
| • | And let's not forget those "Christian" killers who shoot up abortion clinics, as if these are immorally equivalent. | |
| • | The BBC also refuses to label ISIS killers as terrorists, preferring to call them "militants." | |
| • | In his brief address Sunday, President Obama offered no new strategy for defeating Islamic terrorism. He disingenuously claimed his policies are working. If this is success, what does failure look like? | |
| • | The UK and U.S. have invited this madness by admitting thousands into our countries, many of whom come from regions that do not embrace Western values, foolishly hoping these people will assimilate. | |
| • | The FBI says it is investigating ISIS suspects in every U.S. state. Why, then, are we allowing more refugees in before these investigations are concluded and action taken? | |
| • | What will our leaders say if these murderers succeed in acquiring weapons of mass destruction? What happens if one of these weapons wipes out London, New York or Washington? Should we take decisive action now, or wring our hands later? | |
| • | On Nov. 16, 1934, Winston Churchill, who stood virtually alone in his early warnings about the growing rearmament of Germany and the threat it posed to a world that preferred the false comfort denial brings, told his fellow parliamentarians: | |
| • | "As we go to and fro in this peaceful country with its decent, orderly people going about their business under free institutions and with so much tolerance and fair play in their laws and customs, it is startling and fearful to realize that we are no longer safe in our island home." | |
| • | Eighty-one years later, we are again unsafe. | |
To defeat ISIS we must target the godfather of terror — Iran (Fox 12/01/2015)
| • | From a geopolitical perspective ... a key player — keeping Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in power, thereby exacerbating the crisis in Syria, and fueling the sectarian violence in Iraq — is undisputedly the theocracy ruling Iran. | |
| • | ... the solution to ISIS does not lie solely in increased security measures, enhanced manpower and resources, and better intelligence. Rather, it requires, a fundamental policy shift aimed at drying up the Islamic fundamentalists' resources and recruiting grounds. | |
| • | Let's remember that this new brand of extremism, which merged backward ideas with terrorism, emerged when the mullahs seized power in Iran in 1979. | |
| • | Ever since, Iran's clerics have institutionalized this sinister phenomenon, which has evolved into a pillar of their rule. | |
| • | Utilizing the power of a state, Iran's clerics lent Islamic fundamentalism an unprecedented scope, legitimizing their vicious conduct under the banner of Islam while mentoring and inspiring other like-minded extremists. | |
| • | Simply put, the regime ruling Iran is the Shia version of this menace, and ISIS is the Sunni version. | |
| • | Tehran is the godfather, with a much longer record and, as a state, with deeper pockets, both in terms of resources and political leverage. | |
'Nothing to do With Islam' (JWR 12/04/2015)
| • | In the aftermath of Paris and before San Bernardino, Hillary Clinton articulated the forced catechism of the left: "Let's be clear: Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism." | |
| • | The first part of what Clinton said was true. Islam is not our adversary. ... Most Muslims are peaceful. Beyond that, they practice charity, care for the sick and encourage good works. | |
| • | But there is a fever sweeping the Muslim world that has infected a significant minority of Muslims — and because Muslims are so numerous, that minority amounts to hundreds of millions. | |
| • | As for whether Muslims are tolerant, there's no doubt that some are, but as a 2013 Pew survey of global attitudes found, 88 percent of Egyptian and 62 percent of Pakistani Muslims favor the death penalty for apostates. "This is also the majority view among Muslims in Malaysia, Jordan and the Palestinian territories." | |
| • | Even among American Muslims, 7 percent told Pew in 2011 that "suicide bombing or other violence against civilians is justified to defend Islam against its enemies sometimes." | |
| • | Islam is in the throes of a religious war. The primary victims are other Muslims, but thousands of Christians, Jews, Hindus and others have been bloodied by it as well. | |
| • | As for today, we owe it to ourselves to be alert to the obvious threat that radical Islam poses to the people of the Middle East (primarily) and to the rest of us. | |
| • | Radicalism has had the wind at its back in the Muslim world for nearly a century. It shows no sign of abating just because Clinton and company bury their heads in the sand. | |
Erdogan's Turkey is a dubious ally (JWR 12/03/2015)
| • | Turkish leadership is in a shouting match with Russia's provocative president, Vladimir Putin, over Turkey's downing of a Russian jet in probable Turkish airspace. Each country has accused the other of helping terrorists in Syria. | |
| • | The problem with Turkey and the West, however, is that their relationship is decades out of date. What was once an alliance is now nothing special at all. | |
| • | ... the more Obama has appeased Erdogan, the more anti-Western and anti-American Turkey has become. | |
| • | Erdogan has insidiously eroded Turkish democracy, free speech and human rights. He is turning the once-secular state into an Islamic nation. | |
| • | Thousands of Turkish soccer fans recently shouted "Allahu Akbar" when asked for a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Paris terrorist attacks. So much for NATO solidarity. | |
| • | Under Erdogan, the new Turkish model is not the secular modern state of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Instead, Erdogan praises the ancient Ottoman caliphate, whose theocratic empire once ranged from the Persian Gulf to southern Europe. | |
| • | When the Muslim Brotherhood tried to dismantle secular government in Egypt, Erdogan egged them on and was instrumental in persuading the Obama administration to adopt a disastrous policy of support for the Brotherhood. | |
| • | Erdogan used to visit Europe and chide its leaders over their supposed mistreatment of Islamic immigrants. But at home, he has increasingly marginalized the few Turks who are not Muslims. | |
| • | Turkey used to be a friend to Israel. Both countries were worried about Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. The radical Islamic world hated secular Turkey for its past Ottoman colonialism almost as much as it despised Israel. | |
| • | Turkey now demands justice from Russia for violating Turkish airspace. But no country in the world violates foreign airspace as often as Turkey. | |
| • | A Greek defense analyst counted 2,244 times that Turkey violated Greek airspace in 2014 — an average of more than six violations per day | |
| • | Erdogan publicly boasts of his critical NATO role in curbing Islamic State terrorism. But privately, Islamic State terrorists have received a wink and nod from Turkish border authorities, given their shared hatred of Russia, Syria and Iran. | |
| • | The Islamic State may be a primordial death cult, but Erdogan apparently believes that it is at least a Sunni, not a Shiite, killing machine, and is occasionally useful in fighting common enemies, especially the Kurds. | |
| • | Erdogan's Turkey is an ally in name only. In reality, it is becoming a de facto enemy. | |
| • | Suddenly, Turkey's NATO membership is important to Erdogan in his dispute with Putin. But the real irony is that the autocratic Erdogan is the dictatorial Putin's mirror image. | |
| • | No two leaders deserve each other more. | |
The facts shoot holes in Obama's claim that US is only host to mass killings (Fox 12/03/2015)
| • | On Tuesday, President Obama stunned Americans and French alike with his false claims about gun violence in America. | |
| • | "I say this every time we've got one of these mass shootings. This just doesn't happen in other countries." | |
| • | It is a claim that he has continually repeated over the years. | |
| • | Talk about being self-absorbed. | |
| • | The French have witnessed three mass public shootings this year. January saw two attacks, one on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and another on a Paris supermarket. | |
| • | In the November attacks, 129 people were killed and 352 were injured. In just 2015, France suffered more casualties – killings and injuries – from mass public shootings than the U.S. has suffered during Obama's entire presidency (508 to 424). This number includes the San Bernandino massacre on Wednesday. | |
| • | Obama also overlooks Norway, where Anders Behring Breivik used a gun to kill 67 people and wound 110 others. Still others were killed by bombs that Breivik detonated. | |
| • | Of the four worst K-12 school shootings, three have occurred in Europe. Germany had two of these — one in 2002 at Erfut and another in 2009 at Winnenden, with a total death toll of 34. | |
| • | Obama isn't correct even if he meant the frequency of fatalities or attacks. ... It's simply a matter of adjusting for America's much larger population. | |
| • | Norway had the highest annual death rate, with 2 mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Macedonia had a rate of 0.38, Serbia 0.28, Slovakia 0.20, Finland 0.14, Belgium 0.14, and the Czech Republic 0.13. | |
| • | The US comes in No. 8 with 0.095 mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Austria and Switzerland are close behind. | |
| • | In terms of the frequency of attacks, the United States ranks ninth, with 0.09 attacks per million people. Macedonia, Serbia, Switzerland, Norway, Slovakia, Finland, Belgium, and the Czech Republic all had higher rates. | |
| • | It takes a lot of time and effort to find all the cases, but if you get all the attacks in the U.S. and miss those in other countries, it makes the U.S. look a lot worse. | |
| • | The president's statement was also limited in another sense. He was referring only to shootings in his statement, but bombs are frequently used elsewhere in the world. | |
| • | The Boston Marathon bombing was a rare exception these days in the United States. | |
| • | But countries such as Russia have frequently suffered bombings. Indeed, since 2009, the nation has seen 1.31 deaths per million from bombings that caused four or more fatalities. | |
| • | There is another common factor between mass public shootings. Virtually all of the attacks in America and Europe are taking place where general citizens can't carry guns for protection. | |
| • | At some point, it has to become apparent to gun control advocates that gun-free zones only protect the killers. | |
| • | Can Obama actually believe his claim that these attacks "just doesn't happen in other countries"? | |
| • | More likely, Obama is willing to go to any extreme as he pushes for European-type gun control. | |
| • | The last thing he wants to admit is that countries with such strict gun-control laws can have so many deadly attacks. | |
The Paris delusion (JWR 12/02/2015)
| • | Weeks after the Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more, world leaders have converged on the French capital to discuss what they call the most urgent challenge facing the planet, a crisis that threatens to spread death and destruction across the globe: an increase in global average temperatures of two degrees by the end of the 21st century. | |
| • | It's hard not to be transfixed at this grotesque sight of our leaders rushing to the scene of mass murder to indulge in ideological fantasy, all while hiding from the reality we face. | |
| • | Speaking just a few miles from where men slaughtered innocent people and then blew themselves up to kill more, President Obama reminded us that he too has seen horrors firsthand. | |
| • | He's seen them in Alaska, "where," he said, "the sea is already swallowing villages and eroding shorelines; where permafrost thaws and the tundra burns; where glaciers are melting at a pace unprecedented in modern times." | |
| • | There's something obscene in a president painting apocalyptic visions where real devastation has so recently occurred. | |
| • | Is reality not horrifying enough, its dangers not great enough, its challenges not big enough, that we need to imagine exaggerated threats to one-up the real ones? | |
| • | To see these images of real people suffering and slaughtered, at the hands of a worldwide movement that is growing in strength and numbers, and to insist nonetheless that the real threat is a computer model's guess of aggregate temperatures 100 years from now is to indulge in dangerous delusion. | |
| • | The president said in his most recent State of the Union address that "no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations" than global warming and he has argued that the media "overstates the level of alarm people should have about terrorism" compared to climate change. | |
| • | Mr. Kerry has variously called global warming "the greatest challenge of our generation," and described it as "the world's largest weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction." | |
| • | The reason is simple: the fantasy satisfies their ideological needs whereas reality does not. | |
| • | Worse, because reality offends those ideological prejudices, it too must be forced into the fantasy. | |
| • | So instead of truthfully evaluating the threat, they tell us that ISIS is "contained." Instead of admitting that we are at war with Islamic supremacism, they stage sanctimonious summits on "all forms of violent extremism." | |
| • | And instead of being honest with the American people, they classify a man killing 13 U.S. military personnel at Fort Hood while screaming "Allahu Akbar" and carrying a card declaring himself a "soldier of Allah" as "workplace violence." | |
| • | One thing is certain about the Paris climate summit this week: Nothing that happens there will affect the climate. | |
| • | All of which makes President Obama's trip there, a city struck by terrorists, a profane distraction from the threats we face, by a president trying harder and harder to hide from reality. | |
Bibi shakes Mahmoud’s bloody hand — a big mistake (INN 12/02/2015)
| • | The laugh of the day comes from Islamic terrorist Mahmoud Abbas. He accused the Israelis of destroying the "Palestinian" climate. | |
| • | All the world's leaders were there in Paris, 150 of them, at a time when we lack a single world leader. Putin comes close. | |
| • | Mahmoud Abbas showed up. He dances at every wedding. This is the thug who has overstayed his PA leadership by more than 10 years. In other words, he is no leader, world or otherwise. | |
| • | In plain language, he is a terrorist, a bum and a killer — but always good for a laugh. | |
| • | He announced, with a straight face, that Israel is carrying out ecological attacks against his people. | |
| • | "Our agriculture is being destroyed," declared Abbas, yesterday's financier of the Munich massacre and today a "world leader." | |
| • | Name any crisis anywhere about anything and he'll blame Israel; won't let it go to waste. | |
| • | ... when 10,000 Israelis were forcibly vacated from there, from Gaza, they left everything behind. This was Sharon's pogrom against his own people, the Jews. | |
| • | So they left and handed over farms and greenhouses, all in pristine condition, and what did Abbas and his Arabs do the minute they took over this billion-dollar industry? | |
| • | What did they do when they were handed this windfall, all this cutting edge agriculture? | |
| • | They trashed it and burned it all to the ground, is what they did. Overnight, rubble. Rubble. This they do well. Nothing else. | |
| • | Did anybody laugh at Mahmoud's whopper? Don't think so. World leaders don't laugh. They do shake hands. Bibi shook hands with bloody Abbas. | |
| • | Big mistake. That is not comedy when a Jewish world leader stoops so low. That is tragedy. | |
Invading Germany (JWR 12/01/2015)
| • | In an ironic twist, Germany, which in the last century twice invaded other countries, contributing to two world wars, is now being invaded by hordes of Muslims. | |
| • | ... up to 50 percent of the asylum seekers arriving in Germany have gone into hiding and their whereabouts are unknown by German authorities. | |
| • | This is especially significant given President Obama's assurance that migrants coming to the U.S. will be thoroughly vetted. | |
| • | What is especially disturbing is the response by politicians... "lawmakers are considering emergency legislation that would allow local authorities to seize private residences to accommodate asylum seekers." | |
| • | Like Chancellor Merkel, President Obama is either in complete denial, or deliberately ignoring the potential threat posed by admitting so many people who come from nations and a religion that hold anti-democratic views. | |
| • | President Obama has repeatedly said "99.9 percent of Muslims worldwide reject terrorism," but that is factually untrue. | |
| • | According to a Sun-UK poll, one in five British Muslims have sympathies for jihadis and a 2015 Mirror poll found that "1.5 million Brits see themselves as supporters of ISIS." | |
| • | In 2007, Pew found that 22 percent of German Muslims say suicide bombings are sometimes justified. The figure is higher in France (46 percent). In America, 26 percent of Muslims agree with that statement. | |
| • | Denial by Western leaders that the Islamists don't say what they mean and mean what they say will not make us safer. | |
| • | Bromides about how our "values" would be harmed if we don't allow thousands of Muslim migrants into Western countries are meaningless if the chief value — freedom — is undermined. | |
| • | The major difference is that Jews — then and today — are not the ones threatening the peace, pluralism and diversity Westerners celebrate. Jews uphold those values, as do Christians, who seem to be down on the priority list for admittance and protection. | |
| • | The one promise President Obama will have kept when he leaves office is the one to "fundamentally transform" the country. | |
| • | In Germany, that transformation is proceeding rapidly. Growing numbers of citizens feel threatened, but the politicians are not listening. | |
| • | That attitude by political elites in the UK and America 75 years ago paved the way for World War II. | |
If Putin keeps escalating, Turkey will close the straits (INN 11/30/2015)
| • | Putin is close to boxing himself into the Black Sea with the full might of NATO standing behind a Turkish closure of the Bosphorus Straits and the Dardenelles under the 1936 Montreux Convention. | |
| • | ... with Putin escalating his war of words against Turkey, Turkey may very well invoke articles 20 or 21 of the Montreux Convention which would mean Turkey could immediately shut-down any Russian military naval vessel through the Straits, crippling Putin's Syrian War efforts. | |
| • | Therefore, Putin would be well advised to dampen-down his rhetoric, and start fighting the Islamic State instead of Turkish, Saudi, and Western-backed Syrian Rebels. | |
| • | ... if Russia makes any attempts to militarily bust through the Bosphorus Straits and the Dardenelles, it would clearly be committing an act of war against Turkey that NATO would be called upon, and obligated, to defend. | |
| • | Russia's Syrian adventure rests on its naval supply line through the Bosphorus Straits and the Dardenelles. Turkey can and would shut that line down without firing a shot. | |
| • | Putin should reassess his short-term and long-term military and political goals before he begins to threaten the country that controls his military access to the mini-war in Syria. | |
| • | Turkey's hand is much stronger than Putin's words. | |
| • | Let's all hope the reality of a Bosphorus Straits/Dardenelles closure by Turkey brings Putin back to the reality that he is supporting the two greatest state sponsors of terror — Iran and Syria — in a war that is supposedly being waged against terrorists. | |
Paris climate change meetings: Best estimate for progress? Zero (Fox 11/30/2015)
| • | Unfortunately, though claims of success are already pouring in, the best estimate for that progress is approximately zero. | |
| • | That's right: forecasts using the acclaimed greenhouse gas commitments are in exactly the same range as what prior analyses, without the commitments, expected anyway. | |
| • | To understand how the world's pledges can amount to essentially nothing, look at what developing countries — who will account for four-fifths of emissions this century — have offered. | |
| • | Nevertheless, a full-court press is underway to claim historic progress. | |
| • | Global progress on climate change depends on developing countries taking costly action to reduce future emissions, yet in Paris they are promising not to. | |
| • | That makes any agreement signed at the conference a bad deal for the few countries, like the U.S., that are making serious commitments. | |
| • | And it's a bad deal for climate activists, who want meaningful change but will get empty platitudes instead. | |
| • | Only the politicians, applauding loudly for one another, stand to gain. | |
Chimera of the "substantial void" (INN 11/28/2015)
| • | ... the West has found itself in the epicenter of the storm and now repeats the same question feverishly and desperately: "How can we fight ISIS?". | |
| • | But the question is much more complicated and deep: "For the sake of what should we fight?". | |
| • | People fight for certain ideas: Motherland, national dignity, religion (as Muslims do today), ideology – and in our case, liberal values and Democracy. | |
| • | Motherland and national dignity are no longer values for the young generation of the West. They are completely cosmopolitan; patriotism for them is synonymous with nationalism, xenophobia and prejudice. | |
| • | Christianity has long been turned into something primitive, alien, an archaic relic of the "dark past". | |
| • | Liberal values in the vision of Locke, John Mill, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin were based, firstly, on the foundation of a national culture, secondly, on traditional humanistic ideals, thirdly, on principles of morality laid down by the Jewish prophets and Christian thinkers, and finally, on the concepts of Rationalism. | |
| • | In contemporary post-modern society, all these four pillars are either destroyed totally, or undermined. | |
| • | The humanistic ideal of a person striving for self-improvement, praised by Socrates and Epictetus, Tacitus and Marcus Aurelius, Alberti and Coluccio Salutati, is castrated and crucified. | |
| • | The religious-ethical code, espoused by the Hebrew prophes, including Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, has been denigrated and rejected. | |
| • | The idea of Liberal values degenerated into the concept of "human rights" but rights of which "human" and for what purpose? | |
| • | What is displayed by those people that need to be protected so ardently, and do they deserve our protection, support and even condolence? | |
| • | Do fanatics, criminals, dregs of society, perverts deserve any support? Whose rights shall we protect? | |
| • | Democracy itself is not something sacred, essential and significant. It is nothing more than a form of government derived from the mentality of the majority. | |
| • | In the name of what will the new generation of Postmodern civilization fight? For the right to protest against global warming and demonstrations in the nude? | |
| • | In the name of "Positive Thinking", public nudity, atheism, pornography, free sex, "Pride Parade", gay marriage, "Black Friday", smoking marijuana? | |
| • | People don't fight and don't die in name of such ‘ideals'. And, of course, if they do, they don't win, especially if they deal with religious fanatics. | |
| • | No one should underestimate Islam. Islam is not only and not just a terrorist phenomenon. | |
| • | A patriarchal, archaic, rigid and non-creative religion, alien to both spiritual aspirations and the desire for internal development, at the same time, Islam possesses an unusual internal stability. | |
| • | It gives a foothold, stability, ground underfoot to the small, confused, tortured, helpless, hopeless and desperate person... | |
| • | The West does not oppose ISIS. It opposes Islam as a religious-political doctrine, no matter in what form it is presented... | |
| • | And the more the West repeats, like a mantra, that "Islam is a religion of Peace", the sadder the fate it can expect. | |
| • | Confronting Islam as a dogmatic and relentless system which believes in its exclusivity is possible only if you have a deep awareness of your own values. | |
| • | As soon as these values are determined, there will be solutions in the form of deportations of radical imams, their environment and families (collective punishment is a painful, but inevitable thing, given the importance of the clan in the Arab mentality), administrative arrests, total control over mosques and social networks, differentiated social assistance, etc. | |
| • | And what is more important, the West should get rid of its "battered women syndrome", the ridiculous and futile guilt complex, because it is a one-sided game. | |
| • | It is not guilt and compassion, but unwavering thirst for power that makes up the essence of Islam. | |
| • | The irony of it is that by taking such rigid, but forced measures, the West will do a great favor to the silent majority of Muslims. | |
| • | Because an average Muslim in Paris, New York, the 'West Bank', Chechnya and Cairo, same as any other person, dreams not about "jihad", the Caliphate, the revolutionary struggle and sacrifice, but about normal life, peace and prosperity. | |
| • | In the absence of the priority of the West's own values, or even of the values themselves, there will be no victory. | |
| • | Moreover, there will be no war. It will be a surrender. | |
How to win in asymmetric warfare (INN 11/28/2015)
| • | People worldwide are looking over their shoulders wondering if the person next to them is going to stab them as they avoid gatherings. | |
| • | When rockets are fired into Israel from schools and residential buildings in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force actually warns people to exit buildings before targeting the source of these rockets. | |
| • | Then the nit-picking around the world begins as Israel is targeted by world leaders and the media for not doing the right thing. | |
| • | Hollande of France sees it differently. He simply declares war and does what has to be done as the world stays silent, even applauding him. | |
| • | So did the Russians when they flattened whole cities in Chechnya. | |
| • | The United States labels deaths of innocent civilians when it bombs the hell out of cities as "collateral damage." | |
| • | Is Israel too timid to turn the tables on the murderers and those who incite them? | |
| • | Can't the Jewish country take action once and for all, making it crystal clear to the Palestinians that Israel is here to stay? | |
| • | Imprisoning murderers is not the answer. Neither is the careful demolition of their homes. | |
| • | There can be only one answer and that is to deport the whole village or whole suburb from which a particular murderer comes to the nearest Arab country, raze that village or suburb to the ground and rebuild a Jewish settlement in its place. | |
| • | If this is done once or twice the Palestinians will understand that they have more to lose by inciting and handing out candies when a Jew is murdered. | |
| • | The alternative will be to live in peace and that will be in their hands. | |
| • | Will the whole world explode in criticism against Israel? They do anyway. | |
| • | Will the United Nations vote against Israel and try to isolate it? They are doing that at present. | |
| • | Palestinian Arab children are being brainwashed in schools with maps labelled Palestine, not Israel. They are being incited to murder innocent Israeli civilians and their teenagers actually do that, or try to, on a daily basis. No country can live with an enemy within. | |
| • | The Israeli government must decide to forget the niceties, to drop the Holocaust mentality of always being the good guys — and to declare war on these people. | |
| • | By deporting them they will still be alive and there is a good chance that this move will once and for all stop the murders of innocent men, women and children. | |
Learn a lesson from Russia (INN 11/28/2015)
| • | Russia is going to defeat ISIS. | |
| • | Not with a "coalition" of cowards, freeloaders and hypocrites led from behind by the American president, but all by itself. | |
| • | It will bomb ISIS strongholds, train and arm Syrian soldiers and destroy ISIS resistance until the Islamic State surrenders (unlikely) or ceases to exist (let's hope). | |
| • | Governor Mike Huckabee had one of the most memorable quotes of a very memorable series of Republican primary debates. He referred to war as "killing people and breaking things," that continues until the loser gives up or is destroyed. For thousands of years, that's what war has been about. | |
| • | Almost every national boundary in both hemispheres has been formed as a result of a battle followed by a surrender. | |
| • | But no more, at least not under the current Democratic regime. | |
| • | The United States has the largest and most powerful military in the world. | |
| • | Under the Obama Doctrine, however, it is no longer in the business of fighting to win. | |
| • | Indeed, the Obama Doctrine has been reduced to the following: if you are a terrorist, you may embed yourself among "civilians" and maintain your despicable enterprise until we convince you and your followers of the wisdom of our values. | |
| • | Obama and Kerry only want to fight Republicans, not terrorists. They are in a unique position in a singular moment in time to unite Arabs and Israelis, Jews and Gentiles, Shiites and Sunnis, in a successful campaign to eradicate a common and reviled enemy – ISIS. | |
| • | As part of that campaign, the United States could reasonably make demands, exert influence and seek behavioral modifications to truly make the Middle East a safer place. | |
| • | American leaders force their stellar military commanders to fight with two hands and a leg tied behind their backs. | |
| • | Rather than suppress our enemies they suppress our generals, and make sure that they keep their mouths shut and don't complain. | |
| • | Vladimir Putin gets it. He may be a "thug", ... but he knows how to identify a national objective, execute a military plan, and ultimately prevail. | |
| • | And Bibi Netanyahu gets it as well. That's why the coordination between the Russian and Israeli armies, and in particular their respective air forces, is at unprecedented levels. | |
| • | Meanwhile, the United States is nowhere in this most critical and incendiary locale. Having referred to ISIS as "contained" just a day before the deadliest terrorist attack in French history and two weeks after ISIS downed a Russian plan, his credentials as commander-in-chief are in tatters. | |
| • | There are lots of good reasons to vote Republican in the next American presidential election. | |
| • | But for those of us who still believe that the United States must take the lead in world affairs and aggressively root out evil that threatens us and our allies, for those of us who believe that Israel must finally be given the green light to defeat its intractable foes, and for those of us who believe that it is a crime to put soldiers in harms way without affording them a clear path to victory, there is no greater national imperative. | |
Western silence has condemned Christians to death (INN 11/27/2015)
| • | "IS can wipe out Christianity from Iraq in five years". | |
| • | Yet, there is no outcry in Europe or anywhere overseas. A crime against humanity is taking place, a crime about which, strangely, nobody speaks. | |
| • | Barack Obama, always full of rhetoric and ecumenical emotions, has never said a word about the death of the Eastern Christians. | |
| • | "European public opinion, so quick to mobilize, sign petitions and demonstrations of all sorts, in this case did not say anything." | |
| • | Today it is quite easy to spend tears of emotion for the exile of Christians, but it is a bit late. The time for doing something was August of 2014, when the Caliphate banished the Christians from their lands. | |
| • | Almost all the Protestant churches of America, concentrated on demonizing Israel and its "apartheid", did nothing to stop this genocide but used all their means to blame the Jewish State, although it is the only country between Casablanca and Mumbai where the number of Christians grows every year. | |
| • | Why can't those Christians from Syria and Iraq be offered sanctuary in the West? | |
| • | The disgust for our moral cowardice is balanced by the admiration for those Christians who continue to bear witness to their faith in a land that wants to expel them from history. | |
| • | We in Europe are abandoning the Churches and converting them into Mosques, tearing down the crosses to be more "inclusive" with Muslims. | |
| • | How tragic that the Christians in the East are being killed and expelled by those very same Muslims because they refuse to forsake their religion. | |
In the beginning, there was an Arab with a knife; 100 years of excuses (INN 11/25/2015)
| • | During the height of the second Intifada, the media and politicians in general were adamant, only total desperation could cause one human being to walk onto a bus full of innocent civilians and blow himself up. | |
| • | This twisted logic unashamedly blames the victims for the act of violence that kills them and removes personal responsibility from the terrorist. | |
| • | It is also a logic that only applies in Israel, as we find the same media and the same politicians have no trouble identifying the true cause of the brutal violence when it hits closer to home. | |
| • | Young, British and university educated, they had their whole lives before them, but simply believed there was more to gain from murdering Jews in Tel Aviv instead. | |
| • | It is October 2000 ... Two Israelis, Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami having accidently entered Ramallah, were ‘arrested' by PA policemen and taken to the local Police Station. There they were ‘beaten, stabbed, had their eyes gouged out, and were disembowelled' by a mob of Palestinians. | |
| • | The picture is of Aziz Salha, one of the ‘lynchers', waving his blood-stained hands from the police station window. Salha was later arrested by Israel and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. | |
| • | The general consensus amongst politicians and the western media was that this outbreak of brutal violence was the result of Ariel Sharon provoking the Palestinians by stepping foot on Temple Mount. | |
| • | It is September 1999 ... Haifa couple Sharon Steinmetz and Yehiel Finfeter went hiking in the Megiddo region when they were stabbed and murdered by an Israeli Arab... | |
| • | Although the terrorist suggested he had murdered these two ‘because they were Jewish', the media and politicians of the time were having none of it. They suggested that the late 1999 tension was caused not by the self declared hatred of Jews of the terrorist, but by the friction and stagnation of the peace process. | |
| • | It is late 1993 ... Yigal Vaknin became the first of many victims of this process, as he was stabbed to death in an orchard near the trailer home where he lived. | |
| • | Over 250 Israelis died in the years immediately following the Oslo accord, sacrificed for a peace that never came. | |
| • | Western media and politicians explained away these terrorist actions as the desperate measures of extremists intent on stopping the process. | |
| • | WIt is 21st March 1989 ... The first Intifada has hit its peak and Muhammad Zakut, an Arab construction worker in Tel Aviv began randomly stabbing Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv on the Jewish holiday of Purim. Zakut stabbed three Israelis with a commando knife as he shouted "God is great." | |
| • | Zakut received a life sentence, but like Aziz Salha from the Ramallah lynching, Zakut was released as part of the Gilad Shalit exchange. | |
| • | Around 160 Israelis were murdered during the first Intifada, with western press and politicians blaming frustration at the ‘occupation' and the building of settlements for the outbreak of violence. | |
| • | It is 1966... because most of the attacks against the Jews in Israel began beyond the border, the terrorists were armed with guns or explosives rather than knives. There were massacres on buses, attacks on trains, archaeologists, cross border shootings and numerous sniper attacks. The knife still made its appearance with an attack against the odd shepherd, kidnap rape and murder of women and various random attacks where specific details have been lost through time. | |
| • | Rather than take the available option and declare a Palestinian State, the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) was formed in Cairo in 1964 with the intention of destroying Israel. | |
| • | Through all this violence, western media and the politicians placed the blame on the tensions in the region caused by the status of the refugees created during the War of Independence that followed the birth of the State of Israel. | |
| • | It is December 2nd 1947... The Arabs begin a riot in Jerusalem, with 8 Jews reported as being killed. The New York Times pointed out that it was the knife that was the weapon of choice. | |
| • | It is impossible to calculate precise Jewish losses over each period in a conflict that was to turn from civil to regional war, but in total over 6000 Jews were to be killed in the following 18 months. Proportionally more than the UK lost in the entire 7 years of WW2. | |
| • | According to western politicians and media of the time, this, all because of the ‘understandable' Arab reaction to resolution 181 and partition. | |
| • | It is April 19–20, 1936... ‘The Bloody Day in Jaffa' is upon us and the first day of the ‘Great Arab Uprising'. By the end of the first week, 17 Jews had been murdered. | |
| • | The revolt was to last 3 years and led to an almost absolute curb on Jewish immigration into British Palestine. | |
| • | The British, and the media placed the blame for the murders and the violence of the revolt on Arab opposition to growing Jewish immigration that was caused by Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. | |
| • | It is 19th August 1929... A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi was stabbed to death by an Arab near Mea Shearim. | |
| • | The following Friday, August 23rd, a violent Arab demonstration took place at the Western Wall and that afternoon a massacre of Jews in Jerusalem began (17 Jews murdered). | |
| • | The violence spread across British Palestine and in the coming days, Hevron (65+ massacred and tortured) and Safed (18+ massacred) saw the worst of the incidents. | |
| • | The massacres and killings were to lead to the Shaw Commission analysing the cause of tension. It found Arab leaders had created and spread propaganda calculated to incite the trouble. They spread rumours of a Jewish takeover of Temple Mount (sound familiar). | |
| • | The commission believed that the underlying cause was Jewish immigration and the threat that local Arabs felt a Jewish presence in Palestine brought. | |
| • | It is 1920... We are now back in Jerusalem at the time of the Neba Musa festival. A time that was to see riots that had Arabs murdering Jews in yet another ‘excusable' massacre in Jerusalem. The knives were out again. | |
| • | 5 Jews were murdered and 216 were injured. The Palin Commission of Inquiry (don't the British love making up excuses for violence against Jews) found that Arab disappointment at the non-fulfilment of the promises of independence was the primary cause. | |
| • | It is 1910... Ariel Sharon's foot has not even been born. We are in Shiraz to witness a massacre of Jews in 1910 that was sparked by a blood libel (also 1892 & 1897). Twelve were killed, another fifteen were stabbed or hit with bludgeons or bullets and many more were injured. | |
| • | We can then travel back even further ... to the Damascus affair and the blood libel of 1840. And we find contemporary ‘mob attacks on Jewish communities throughout the Middle East'. | |
| • | We also find Jews were being murdered throughout the 19th century, just for being Jews, in Aleppo (1850, 1875), in Damascus (1840, 1848, 1890), in Beirut (1862, 1874), in Dayr al-Qamar (1847), in Jaffa (1876), in Jerusalem (1847, 1870 and 1895), in Cairo (1844, 1890), in Mansura (1877), in Alexandria (1870, 1882), and in Damanhur (1871, 1873, 1877, 1891). Each and every one before the first Zionist congress took place in 1897. | |
| • | Before the partition, before Israel, before the settlements, before the ‘occupation', before the refugees, before Sharon walked onto Temple Mount, before the ‘wall', before immigration, before Balfour and before even Zionism itself. | |
| • | In the beginning there was an Arab with a knife and he murdered a Jew, simply because he was a Jew. | |
| • | It is an absurd logic that attempts to blame Zionism for creating violence against Jews when modern Zionism only came about because of relentless violence against Jews; both in Europe and in the Middle East. | |
| • | You cannot place the cart before the horse. Enough with the excuses. | |
The Week in Nothing to do with Islam (JWR 11/23/2015)
| • | The British Home Secretary, Theresa May, was a little behind the curve when she reacted to the bloodbath in Paris by insisting that "the attacks have nothing to do with Islam". | |
| • | But why be so modest? In the United States, the most senior members of the Democrat establishment are taking it to the next level. Secretary of State John Kerry: | |
| • | It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism - I mean, you name it. | |
| • | Because the not-naming of Islam is more important than the actual naming of whatever it is. | |
| • | President-in-waiting Hillary Clinton assures us: Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. | |
| • | So not only is terrorism nothing to do with Islam, but Muslims have "nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism". | |
| • | She said this a few hours before yet another US citizen was killed by terrorists shouting "Allahu Akbar!" - this time in a mass slaughter at the Radisson Hotel in Bamako, Mali. | |
| • | Hostages were given a stark choice: if they could recite from the Koran, they would live; if they were incapable of reciting from the Koran, they would die. | |
| • | So whoever these terrorists were — "you name it" — they knew enough about Islam to be able to recognize quotations from the Koran. | |
| • | Yet they can't be Muslims because Muslims have "nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism". | |
| • | So who does have something to do with terrorism? Republicans mainly. | |
| • | President Obama on Wednesday angrily accused Republicans of feeding into the Islamic State's strategy of casting the United States as waging war on Muslims, saying the GOP's rhetoric has become the most "potent recruitment tool" for the militant group... | |
| • | "I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric coming out of here in the course of this debate." | |
| • | The president said that the group "seeks to exploit the idea that there's war between Islam and the West, and when you start seeing individuals in position of responsibility suggesting Christians are more worthy of protection than Muslims are in a war-torn land that feeds the ISIL narrative." | |
| • | So "Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism" except when Republicans goad them into it. | |
| • | In this case, they goad them by suggesting that Christians need more "protection" than Muslims. | |
| • | In the Radisson Hotel in Bamako, the Christians did, indeed, need more protection — which is why they're dead and the observant Muslims are alive. | |
| • | In Syria and Iraq, in less than two years, the oldest Christian communities on earth have been entirely eradicated - every Christian male is dead or fled, and their prepubescent daughters are now rape slaves for the sexual inadequates of ISIS. | |
| • | Muslims who were among migrants trying to get from Libya to Italy in a boat this week threw 12 fellow passengers overboard — killing them — because the 12 were Christians. | |
| • | When a swastika is found on a bathroom stall on an American campus, officialdom does not line up to say that most white people "have nothing to do with racism". | |
| • | When a single killer is discovered to have a Confederate flag emblem among his possessions, that's reason enough to have it removed from all public land within the country, and even to have ancient TV shows that include a motor vehicle with a Confederate flag decal canceled from the rerun channels. | |
| • | But when the Koran and invocations therefrom are found among the possessions of killers in Bamoko, in Tel Aviv, in Paris, in Chattanooga these are just daily 24/7 exceptions that prove the ironclad rule that Muslims "have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism". | |
| • | So it is unacceptable for western societies to have an honest discussion about, say, mass Muslim immigration and the expansion of ever more self-segregating communities within their borders. | |
| • | After the Charlie Hebdo attack, Steve Emerson was mocked across Europe and threatened with a lawsuit by the Mayor of Paris for suggesting that there were "no-go zones" where the state's writ does not run. | |
| • | In the last week the Government of Belgium has admitted that Molenbeek, five miles from the EU's governing institutions and Nato headquarters, is exactly that. | |
| • | The non-existent no-go zones are the incubators of jihad, and the entire political establishment of the western world is committed to expanding them. | |
| • | Terrorism's great achievement isn't hijacking jetliners, but hijacking the debate. Successful terrorism persuades the terror-stricken that he's conscience-stricken. | |
Rectifying Europe (INN 11/23/2015)
| • | We heard about the vicious attacks perpetrated by Muslim terrorists in Paris with great sadness. | |
| • | However, we cannot say we were surprised — for years, we knew that this would be the result of misguided policies of France and most European countries. | |
| • | Europe's actions in the past and their present official position denying the State of Israel the right to defend its security and ancestral lands of Judea and Samaria, is leading to a situation in which they lack the courage and moral justification to fight the Muslim position threatening their safety and existence. | |
| • | Champions of morality and ethics in Europe believed superficially that the more they bolstered human rights, the more ethical and better the world would become, and discrimination between people on the basis of sex, race and religion would vanish. | |
| • | The more they secured the rights of the individual, regardless of who or where they may be, the wars between nations and religions would decrease. | |
| • | However, by forsaking all other values of morality, and the moral obligation of each individual, they were mistaken and caused severe injustices, and this is reflected in the serious crisis they are now facing. | |
| • | The reason for this is that there are no rights without obligations. | |
| • | And when people are given rights without obligations, the natural evil inclination which has a propensity to exploit, lie, steal, rape and murder is nurtured within them. | |
| • | And when society's weak are supported financially regardless of who they are, this encourages them to demand rights they do not deserve, and when they don't receive them – it encourages them to attack and sabotage in order to achieve by force what was not given to them amiably. | |
| • | In this context, I found it appropriate to return and quote from an article I wrote ... a few days before the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. | |
| • | "The only thing that the terrorists understood from the Oslo process is that terrorism pays. The more lies and evil actions the terrorists commit – the more consideration they are given, similar to the way Western countries relate to the Palestinian Authority." | |
| • | "After the head of the largest terrorist gang in the world at the time, Yasser Arafat, gained international status and was even guaranteed a state, international terrorism raised its head." | |
| • | "As long as the Palestinian Authority is not punished, the world will be exposed to increasing dangers. Every country in the world will be forced to invest the best of its manpower and money in the daily struggle against terrorism." | |
| • | "If the terrorists are not stopped today, all public facilities in every country of the world will have to be constantly guarded to prevent people from getting blown up, to make sure the terrorists don't poison the water systems, to stop them from scattering epidemic-spreading bacteria, and to ensure they don't lay their hands on advanced technology that could endanger the entire world." | |
| • | "States will have to constantly increase their police forces, but nevertheless, terror will continue to strike, both in rich and poor countries." | |
| • | "All this will happen to them because Western leaders failed to differentiate between the righteous and the wicked in Israel's conflict with the Palestinians." | |
| • | The various experts and analysts mistakenly think that the problem is terrorism, and therefore, increased security will solve the problem. | |
| • | Others are ready to admit that the problem is broader, involving the struggle with radical Islam, and that by waging war against their senior leader's terror will be eliminated. | |
| • | In truth, however, we are talking about a clash of civilizations. | |
| • | The Muslims may benefit from the social welfare system and freedom in European countries, but in their hearts they believe that it is a culture of Sodom and Gomorrah, and therefore, it is permissible, and even desirable, to attack it. | |
| • | If the people of Europe do not realize the full extent of contending with Islam, terrorism and crime will continue to increase until they reach a situation of guerrilla warfare in the streets. | |
| • | An ideology based on the right of the peoples of Europe over their own countries, on their right to express their identity and their religious values ??in public, and their right to protect their identity from immigrants wanting to change it. | |
A Short History of Mideast Violence (JWR 11/25/2015)
| • | First it was repeated attacks by the combined armies of Israel's neighbors. Then it was a coordinated uprising of suicide bombings and shootings. Then it was missile attacks from Iraq. Then another uprising. Then missiles from Gaza. Now it's random attacks with knives and weaponized cars and trucks. | |
| • | And all along, according to much of the world, it's been Israel's fault for deny the rights of the Palestinian people to live peacefully in the land that has been theirs since time immemorial. | |
| • | "You're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts." | |
| • | Before 1920, even the concept of a Palestinian people did not exist. | |
| • | The next year, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill divided the region into what are now Jordan and Israel. The Arabs received 76% of the land. The rest was reserved as a Jewish homeland. | |
| • | But even that was not enough. In 1947, the United Nations divided the remaining territory roughly in half, leaving Israel with 13% of the original Mandate. The Jews accepted the compromise. The Arabs launched a war against the Jews. | |
| • | Between 540,000 and 720,000 Arabs fled Israel, encouraged by leaders who promised that they would return to their homes after the Jews had been pushed into the sea. | |
| • | "In demanding the return of the Palestinian refugees, the Arabs mean their return as masters, not slaves; or, to put it quite clearly — the intention is the termination of Israel." | |
| • | Of course, no one ever mentions the 860,000 Jews who fled Arab lands at the same time, resettled by Israel without ever received restitution from the Arab countries that expropriated their homes and property. | |
| • | "Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner... they have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, even criminal." | |
| • | But the strategy of Arab leaders has always been to use the refugees as a pretext to reject peace in pursuit of their ultimate objective: genocide. | |
| • | Even after getting 87% of the mandatory territory in 1920 and 1947, they still rejected the UN partition, then tried to exterminate Israeli Jews in 1947, 1967, 1973, and have continued terror attacks until today. | |
| • | For years, families of suicide murderers were paid tens of thousands of dollars to encourage their "martyrdom." Murders of Jews are celebrated and their perpetrators turned into heroes by naming streets and schools after them. | |
| • | There are many Palestinians who truly want peace, but any suspected of disloyalty to the power structure and the status quo are executed as sympathizers or collaborators, or else have their families threatened if they don't "prove" themselves. | |
| • | And Palestinian children grow up in schools that teach hatred of and victimization by Israel, attend paramilitary camps that train them to kill Jews, and learn that the Holocaust is a myth fabricated by Jewish sympathizers in the Western World. | |
| • | But facts don't matter. Instead, again and again, Israel is smeared with the same slanderous refrain: occupation, oppression, expansion, apartheid. | |
| • | It doesn't matter that Israeli Arabs enjoy greater prosperity, literacy, and life expectancy than the Arabs in the surrounding countries. Not to mention freedom. | |
| • | Just as it doesn't matter that Israeli Arabs have been represented in every walk of life, including an Arab captain of the Tel Aviv football team, an Arab deputy speaker of Knesset, an Arab Supreme court justice, and an Arab Miss Israel. | |
| • | It also doesn't matter that all the way back in 2000, Yasir Arafat refused to accept Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer to return 94% of the West Bank to the PLO. | |
| • | It doesn't matter that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, after which Gazans destroyed the infrastructure of greenhouses left behind by the Israelis that could have fed them. | |
| • | It doesn't matter that Hamas leaders used their new autonomy to launch missiles against Israeli civilians, while using their own people as human shields in order to win over public opinion. | |
| • | It doesn't matter that Hamas embezzled millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to build sophisticated tunnels under the border to attack Israelis. | |
| • | It also doesn't matter that the IDF goes to lengths no other country in the world would ever consider to minimize the collateral damage to Arab civilians, dropping leaflets warning of impending attacks and placing its own soldiers in far greater danger than the rules of warfare require or that make sense from a military point of view. | |
| • | The European community and the Obama administration ignore these facts and evidence to embrace political correctness and moral equivalence, thereby enabling Palestinian violence against Israeli Jews and prolonging the suffering of Jews and Arabs alike. | |
| • | "If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel." | |
ISIS threat: Will new coalition against terror keep old double standard on Israel? (Fox 11/21/2015)
| • | The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche posited, "You have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, it does not exist." | |
| • | Such moral relativism underpins the double standard that allows international leaders and powerful media to promote a crusade against ISIS terror while at the same time cast a blind eye to barbaric targeting of Israel and Jews. | |
| • | The problem is that moral relativism — or, more accurately, immoral relativism — empowers terrorism and inevitably dooms any campaign to defeat global terrorism. | |
| • | Meanwhile, the anti-Semitic World headquarters in Tehran is busy forging its latest "blame the Jew" big lie — that Israel and "Zionist aggression" lurk behind the 11/13 Paris attacks. | |
| • | And while most of the world mourned innocents murdered on a Friday night in Paris, Gaza erupted in a pro-ISIS celebration, allowed by supposedly anti-ISIS Hamas. | |
| • | They burned the French Tricolour in celebration of the Paris terror attacks as a blow for ending Zionist oppression. | |
| • | Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki praised "the heroic acts being carried out by the young Palestinians against the Israeli enemy," while equating Israelis and Nazis. | |
| • | Each of these murderers immediately enter the Palestinians' online Hall of Fame of Terror. | |
| • | The sickness and evil of anti-Israel bigotry is nourished by Mary Hughes-Thompson, co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement. She tweeted, "I haven't accused Israel of involvement. Still, Bibi is upset about the European settlement boycott. So who knows." | |
| • | And then posted a cartoon showing a grotesquely caricatured Jew saying "Merci [Thank you]" to an ISIS fighter, because "Everything is working out as planned. Soon those White goyim will be on their knees." | |
| • | What is shocking is how important leaders in democracies, wittingly or not, actually undermine the anti-ISIS campaign. | |
| • | In Sweden, where the Jewish community had to cancel all evening activities and shutter its synagogues until further notice, Foreign Minister Margot Allstrom has linked Paris terror to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in an appalling way. | |
| • | She refers to the Middle East, "where not least the Palestinians see that there is no future. We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence." Her use of "we" suggests moral solidarity, not with Jews under threat in Israel or in her own country, but with Palestinian terrorists. | |
| • | Secretary of State John Kerry further muddied the waters by declaring at the U.S. Embassy in Paris: "There's something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo [last January in Paris], and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, 'OK, they're really angry because of this and that'." | |
| • | State Department spokesman John Kirby reacted to the unending terrorist stabbings and shootings of innocent Israeli civilians by stating: "Individuals on both sides of this divide are–have proven capable of, and in our view, are guilty of acts of terrorism." | |
| • | The first post-Paris terror incident in France was the stabbing of an Orthodox Jewish teacher by an ISIS sympathizer. The world reacted with a collective yawn. | |
| • | In the Jewish State, a year and a day after two Palestinians used meat cleavers to literally butcher Rabbis at prayer in a Jerusalem Synagogue, terrorists murdered Jews at prayer in Tel Aviv and gunned down an American Yeshiva student and two Israelis on a West Bank road. | |
| • | Much of the reportage defaulted to the "cycle of violence" in the Holy Land and listed statistics of how many died on "both sides." | |
| • | "Behind these terrorist attacks stands radical Islam, which seeks to destroy us, the same radical Islam that struck in Paris and threatens all of Europe. Whoever condemned the attacks in France needs to condemn the attacks in Israel. It's the same terror. Whoever does not do this is a hypocrite and blind." | |
| • | ... sympathy for Israelis cut down by terrorist is rarely expressed and Palestinian terrorism is rarely condemned. | |
| • | The war on terror is indivisible. After France's 11/13, the world has another opportunity to launch a global action plan. | |
| • | A key starting point is to reject the "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" mantra that provides moral cover for those who direct or benefit from terrorism. | |
| • | It has worked especially well for Palestinian leaders. Why stop terror, when millions keep flowing in from donor nations, when human rights NGOs maintain a stoic silence when Jewish blood flows and when diplomatic legitimacy continues to expand? | |
| • | ...if the scourge of our time is to defaeted , civilized civilized people must set a single standard in the war to eradicate terrorism. | |
| • | Otherwise, new deadly acronyms of terror will emerge. And we and our children will be no safer. | |
It's Jihad, Europe! (INN 11/22/2015)
| • | The escalating real and imminent danger to millions of Europeans did not strike the West out of the blue. | |
| • | It was all building up starting from the 9/11 attacks in New York and is a part of the existing strategy of radical Islam from the end of 1980s on. | |
| • | The success of the 9/11 attack had been a major and victorious landmark of this strategy, major encouragement to the forces of darkness. | |
| • | But contrary to common sense and despite existing information about the radical Islamists' plans and the list of their mounting activities, the Islamization of Europe — and the West, still in progress — was allowed to happen, both by the dangerously blinded Western leadership and by a largely naive public. | |
| • | It is irrelevant to blame the special services for this. With all their shortcomings and occasional failures, the special services ... work day and night, with good results information-wise. | |
| • | The problem is what the special services are allowed - or not allowed - to do by their political bosses, by their countries' leadership. | |
| • | And here is the core of the problem with regard to really fighting a war on terror. | |
| • | The reality of the danger posed by radical Islam all over the world, in particular, in Europe and the West in general was so graphic — and so meticulously documented — that it did not leave much room for hope that it would not erupt. | |
| • | If General al-Sisi would not have come to rescue his country, the nucleus of the Middle East, from living according to the Middle-Ages dictum of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Jihad in Europe would have started in 2013, according to the detailed documented data gathered by the leading anti-terror experts. | |
| • | Still, general al-Sisi is regarded as a ‘dictator' by many Western decision-makers. | |
| • | After working on the matter for over twenty years, I have to emphasize that after the shock of the terror attack on US soil on 9/11, the last fifteen years which could have been utilized to prevent the explosion of violence in Europe have been lost by the Western community. | |
| • | What has triggered the explosion of Jihad in Europe right now? Who made it possible? Who practically invited it to happen? | |
| • | As shocking as it sounds, some of the key Western governments and the general ineptness of the Western leadership towards militant radical Islam were an essential pre-condition of the unfolding siege of Europe. | |
| • | ... in early September 2015 frau Merkel had made a mistake of her life. The calibre of that mistake is unprecedented in the newest European history. It literally has put the lives not only of over 80 million of Germans but of 750 million of Europeans at jeopardy of terrifying scale. | |
| • | It is no secret - and has never been a secret - that among the multi-million strong stream of refugees there are far too many Islamist radicals with their own agenda and purpose in coming to Europe. One simply had to be honest about it. | |
| • | Maybe, Merkel has been in office too long. It is a known phenomena that top politicians who are in office for an extended time lose focus and become detached from the reality. | |
| • | The tragedy of her fatal mistake is that she virtually took all Europe hostage for the sake of the militant and violent strangers being invited to invade. | |
| • | As the result, the entire continent with its 750 million citizens has been literally forced by their own governments into a living nightmare. | |
| • | As with other invasions, this one has been orchestrated and carried out down to the smallest detail, and the special services in every country has full details of this aggressive migration which began and received much help from Turkey. | |
| • | How could an experienced politician become so utterly irresponsible, so dangerously unreasonable, so openly blind? | |
| • | The worst part of it is that the prize for a mistake of one individual will be paid by millions, and has already claimed 130 lives in Paris. And she still does not get it, publicly, at least. | |
| • | Merkel did not utter a word on the character of the averted multiple attack on German soil although German authorities received from their French colleagues five names of Islamic terrorists, all of whom migrated to Europe at different times. | |
| • | And even after the carnage in Paris, defiant in his support of the Islamic cause, President Hollande had the guts to state that 30,000 more Syrian refugees will be welcomed to France. | |
| • | When lunacy is a private hobby, it is an individual's right; but when an individual happens to be on duty, and the duty happens to be presidency over the French Republic, it mean 66 million French citizens are to be forced to share the lunacies of their leader. | |
| • | There are live military exercises of the British Royal Marine commandos on UK ferries as there is a reason to believe that the ferries might become the other subject of the attack – by the Islamic radical terrorists. There are also controlled explosions on the packed by people malls in Kent - for the same reason. | |
| • | We are watching a hand-made terror thriller non-stop. We are playing in it, as a matter of fact. Forced to play with our lives, by our idiotic, inept governments. | |
| • | Only after the terror threat was become officially adopted as the highest one for Belgium, did the country's interior minister express his ‘wish' to inspect every household in Mollenbeck, the primarily Muslim district in Brussels that has become the terrorist Mecca of Europe. | |
| • | The question is 5 years of passively allowing a dangerous Islamic terrorist to operate inside a free democratic Western society. This is the fundamental issue of the West's hopeless attitude towards the Islamic terrorists in its midst. Hopeless, blind, and lethal – as everybody is having the pleasure to observe live. | |
| • | Using the so-called ‘Italian model' for the next wave of immigration, those forces who had been orchestrating it modelled the nightmare which has covered Europe. | |
| • | The ‘Italian model' means portraying the illegal invaders as a casualty of humanitarian catastrophe and playing the cards accordingly. | |
| • | ... "there is not the slightest coincidence in the fact that among all Islamists from Europe fighting in Syria and elsewhere today, more than half are from France. Moreover, the terrible (security) threat is the fact that they, apart from very rare exceptions, come and go back and forth almost freely. It is not good enough to know a potential terrorist's name. It is just absolutely against rules of security to let those who did fight in the Middle East on the side of militant Islam to be allowed back to the country which contains their European or any other Western residence. It is insane." | |
| • | We cried with France over 130 and possibly more victims of the carnage in Paris, but we have to be crystal clear on the understanding that it is this Hollande government that had been repeatedly warned to stop appeasing an incredible amount of French radical Islamists and start to do something real against them to protect French citizens. They bear full responsibility for fatal siege of Paris. | |
| • | For five years they followed one of the terrorists – why? until the 13th November attack? | |
| • | "Those people are not coming to Europe and the West to live. They are coming to die". | |
| • | Western European leadership has failed in its most important duty, that is, to provide security and safety for their citizens. | |
| • | But how can even the best intentions to limit Islamic radical threat be realistically carried on when the current government of Greece is enthusiastically letting all the hordes coming from the Middle East and Africa to get into Europe without bearing any responsibility for flooding the continent with hundreds and thousands of potential terrorists? | |
| • | Analysing the activities of Western European leaders with regard to handling the refugee crisis in 2015, one just cannot help being totally taken aback by their ability to do everything in their power to put their own citizens in danger. Mortal danger, for the record. | |
| • | What the West has on its hands now with regard to its leadership is that, except the current leadership of the UK, there are promising combinations of bad and even worse leaders - those who are unable to comprehend the threat posed by militant Islam, and those who support Islam in general and appease it, including the militant part of it. | |
| • | Unlike the world-swiping passionate sentiments for the victims in Paris, most of the very same Western media that has done such a good job on the Paris attacks and German and Brussels would-be-attacks, are either distorting the truth about Israel being under the siege of the Palestinian terror, or ignoring the very fact of it. | |
| • | The fact is that the attack has just started. Jihad has exploded into the face of the Western world and in the very heart of it. They have no intention of stopping or to slowing down. | |
| • | And the leaders of the West have to start to fulfil the most essential of their duties - to protect the right for life of the citizens of free, not yet quite Islamisized world. | |
Future of security: Israeli model shows high cost of living with terror threat (Fox 11/18/2015)
| • | As the grip of terror tightens on Europe, a blueprint for existing with an unrelenting threat lies to the east, where Israelis have become accustomed to metal detectors, armed guards, spot searches and long lines. | |
| • | No nation has faced more security challenges in the face of unrelenting terrorism than Israel, and now the Jewish state's methods could light the way for Europe now that much of the continent finds itself awash in refugees and under threats from ISIS. | |
| • | "Israel has the determination [to secure its citizens] but it is also a question of financial considerations, too." | |
| • | "They put a lot of money into the security services. We have guards checking shoppers, passengers. It's a big system. Some people might find it offensive in terms of living in a democracy, but this is what is needed." | |
| • | Rifle-toting guards at shopping malls and train stations, compulsory ID cards and a host of other highly visible security measures are all part of daily life in Israel. | |
| • | "If the West continues to delude itself about the scale of the challenge, those who delight in the divine gift of life will find themselves becoming increasingly constrained and terrified by those who assert an imperative to kill and be killed in the name of God." | |
| • | With a wave of hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into European cities from the war-ravaged Middle East, international law enforcement experts fear ISIS may have planted terror cells among the desperate masses. | |
| • | The terror organization has already said it would do exactly that. | |
| • | While Western nations and constitutional democracies value freedom and individual rights above all else, Israel learned the hard way that compromises must be made to keep people safe. | |
| • | The target of numerous radical Islamic militant organizations — including ISIS and Hamas — as well as states sponsoring terrorism, such as Iran, the Jewish state changed its mindset after suffering a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings during the late-1990s and early 2000s that cost many hundreds of lives – among them dozens of U.S. citizens – and maimed many more. | |
| • | The cost of defending Israel — from both foreign and internal enemies — is staggering. By the most modest estimates, Israel spends a whopping 5.2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, some 50 percent more than the U.S. | |
| • | "I am not sure that Europe is ripe for it, and I am not sure they have the political determination to change." | |
| • | "There is no foolproof system though, and Europeans (as well as Americans) have to learn to live with this [terror] phenomenon. Israel is not always successful in preventing terrorism. This is part of life in these times." | |
| • | "I think the experience of our security services is very valuable and many do come and learn from us in terms of defending installations, including airports." | |
| • | "The basic change however has to come in terms of the public atmosphere, what should be done about this, and this is something the Europeans have to do on their own." | |
Why Syrian Refugees Are Not Like Jewish Refugees in WWII (11/17/2015)
| • | Jews were not a terror threat; there is evidence terrorists are hiding among Syrian refugees. | |
| • | Jews were singled out for persecution by the Nazis, not (initially) fleeing an ongoing war. | |
| • | Jews had nowhere to go; Syrian refugees should have many places to go. | |
| • | Opposition to Jewish refugees was "racial"; opposition to Syrian refugees is based on security concerns. | |
| • | Many of the Syrian "refugees" are neither Syrian, nor refugees. | |
| • | The Jewish refugees had communities willing and able to resettle them; the Syrian refugees may not. | |
| • | There are powerful moral arguments for helping the Syrian refugees–and we should do so. But there are also alternatives to mass resettlement in the West. | |
| • | And unless the root cause of the problem–the ongoing Syrian civil war, fueled by ISIS, Iran, and others–is addressed, the flood of refugees will continue. | |
The Jews may be the first, but it never stops there (INN 11/15/2015)
| • | Israeli and French Jews are murdered, but the world is silent. At worst, President Obama and other presidents label the terrorist attacks part of a "cycle of violence" that perversely equates the Palestinian terrorist murder of innocent Israelis with those defending themselves against Palestinian Molotov cocktails and bullets. | |
| • | But when non-Jewish Frenchmen are murdered by Islamist crazies because the Iranian Shiites are murdering the Syrian Sunnis in Syria, the UN Security Council labels the terrorism "barbaric" and "heinous". | |
| • | Sorry, it doesn't wash. You can't have "good terrorism" against Jews and "bad terrorism" against non-Jews. When the world rewarded Palestinian terrorism, it validated terrorism against all peoples. | |
| • | All the current terrorism can be traced to the world's rewarding the Palestinians for their wanton butchery of Jews. | |
| • | ... all the countries of the world have a simple choice. They can either continue to reward barbaric Palestinian terrorism against Israel, and expect the Islamic terrorists to attack other countries with the same bloodthirsty pathology with which they attack Israel. | |
| • | Or, reject all Palestinian terror and any Palestinian State built on terror. | |
| • | The world must prove that terrorism will not be rewarded, and instead will be mercilessly punished for what it is: pure, unadulterated evil. | |
| • | Otherwise, expect Islamic terrorism to explode in a theater near you. | |
Western leaders ignore 'apocalyptic Islam' at their peril (INN 11/15/2015)
| • | ... glaringly absent from the discussions are any serious attempts to understand the ideological motivations of the Muslim extremists, several of them French citizens, who carried out the worse terror attacks in France in a generation — including the first-ever suicide bombings on French soil. | |
| • | "Misunderstanding the nature of the threat... of evil, is to risk being blindsided by it. ... And we're going to be blindsided by a nuclear Iran, just like we're being blindsided by ISIS." | |
| • | "At the core of it, American leaders are refusing to deal with the theology and eschatology of our enemy." | |
| • | "The question is, the ones who are — what do they want? What do they say they want? What motivates them?" | |
| • | "Obama refuses to even acknowledge radical Islam. Come on - really? At this stage in the 21st century you're not even ready to acknowledge the ideology that is motivating these folks? That's a problem." | |
| • | "Radical Islam encompasses a wide range of groups... Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Al Qaeda - all of these are serious threats." | |
| • | "But apocalyptic Islam is now the biggest threat. This is the Iranian leadership, this is ISIS." | |
| • | "Apocalyptic Islam is motivated by the idea that the end of days has come, that the Mahdi [Muslim messiah - ed.] is coming at any moment to establish a global Islamic kingdom or Caliphate, and that the way to hasten his coming is to annihilate two countries: Israel the 'Little Satan', and America the 'Big Satan'." | |
| • | "... the western political class doesn't want to even deal with the theological ideas that are driving the radical Islamists - let alone to explain the end of times theologies of two 'nation states'," Iran and ISIS's self-declared "Islamic State," which encompasses huge swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. | |
| • | "Never in history have we had one, much less than two states, whose leaders are trying to force the end of the world." | |
| • | While Jews and Christians also have their own beliefs in the "end of times" or the messianic age, the difference is that "we don't believe we have to commit a genocide to bring about the end of times." | |
| • | "ISIS's strategy is to commit genocide today, because the goal is to build the caliphate, to force the hand of the messiah to come. | |
| • | "Iran is not trying to build a caliphate today. They're building the infrastructure to build nuclear weapons. Why? Because while ISIS wants to commit genocide today Iran wants to commit genocide tomorrow. The point is: don't launch until you're ready. Rather than kill thousands in one day, Iran wants to eventually kill millions." | |
| • | "They're not interested in negotiating something together with us — they're taking a gift. You're giving us two paths to a nuclear bomb: if we cheat, or if we don't cheat? OK we'll take it!" | |
| • | "For these guys killing is at the center of what they're doing. When you bear that in mind making concessions isn't just a mistake or misguided — it's insane." | |
J'accuse Obama (INN 11/15/2015)
| • | Historically, the President of the United States wears the title "leader of the free world." | |
| • | Obama, in his presidency, has relinquished that role almost gleefully. As a result, the world is a far more dangerous place. | |
| • | President Obama is the personification of leftist progressive ideology totally out of step with harsh reality. It is a faulted policy of denial, of cover up. Making nice doesn't make it nice. | |
| • | The denial that America and the West are at war with Islamic jihad is the prime cause of the weakness of confronting a brutal and determined enemy with a global goal of Shariah law and an Islamic caliphate. | |
| • | When Israel was forced to respond to thousands of missiles and rockets fired by Hamas last year, they flew 5500 air sorties over Gaza during the fifty five days of the conflict. | |
| • | US planes have barely flown 1500 sorties in over a year against ISIS. | |
| • | It is certain that what we saw in the French capital is coming to America. It is predictable. | |
| • | You do not deflect the aims of the enemy by being nice. You do not stop them by surrendering to their demands. | |
| • | America withdrew from Iraq, and ISIS rolled in to grab major tracts of territory, stole assets, killed, raped, and turned hundreds into slaves. | |
| • | America visibly refused to meddle in Syria, and ISIS lay down its headquarters there to metastasize into a global Islamic network of evil and death. | |
| • | France's President Hollande said, "We will lead a war without pity." This is the new PC for democracy. It's a pity he said it the day after Paris and not the months before. | |
| • | It is a pity that the American president hasn't said it at all. | |
'Act of War': Will Congress finally vote to declare war on ISIS, after Paris attacks? (Fox 11/14/2015)
| • | "It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army," declared French President Francois Hollande about the chute of terror that flooded the streets of Paris on Friday night. | |
| • | There it is. That word. "War." And those words. "Act of war." | |
| • | "It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside." | |
| • | "France, because it was foully, disgracefully and violently attacked will be unforgiving with the Barbarians from Daesh." | |
| • | And there lies the question. How will France challenge these thugs? How will the United States and the rest of its allies combat them? Talk is cheap. Prayers and "Je Suis Charlie" and flowers and candlesticks outside the French Embassy in Washington are all nice. But what is the U.S. willing to do? | |
| • | "Are we capturing, killing or dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?" | |
Paris attacks: Four important lessons world must learn from French tragedy (Fox 11/14/2015)
| • | French President Francois Hollande has contended unambiguously that ISIS launched the Paris terrorist attacks Friday night, and ISIS itself has now claimed responsibility. | |
| • | It is not too early, even now, to draw important lessons from this tragedy. | |
| • | We do so both to prevent the near-term recurrence of more terrorist violence against the West, and to address seriously the broader, global Islamicist threat that has been growing, not diminishing, in recent years. | |
| • | Indeed, this is a time for statesmanship, resolve and determination, not for sweeping the cruel reality of what has just happened under the rug. | |
| • | Our ability to safeguard the future may well depend in substantial part on what we do and how we do it in just these coming days and weeks. | |
| • | First, the Paris attacks were not "senseless violence" as some media commentators observed as the news coverage unfolded. | |
| • | Nor were they "an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share," as President Obama said late Friday evening. | |
| • | This coordinated, well-planned and, sadly, well-executed series of assaults on innocent civilians was deliberate, ideologically motivated, and carefully targeted. | |
| • | These Islamic radicals know who their enemies are, and have for decades. | |
| • | It is we — or at least some of our leaders — who have forgotten who is under attack. | |
| • | At a minimum, the terrorists showed they could strike in close physical proximity to the head of the French government. | |
| • | Second, we should not view the appropriate American and Western response as "bringing these terrorists to justice," in President Obama's words. | |
| • | This is not a matter for the criminal law, as many American political and academic leaders, including the President, have insisted, even after the September 11, 2001, attacks. | |
| • | This is a war, as President Hollande has forthrightly called it, not a slightly enhanced version of thieves knocking over the corner grocery store within an ordered civil society. | |
| • | And the mechanism of response must be to destroy the source of the threat, not prosecute it, not contain it, not hope that we will "ultimately" destroy it. | |
| • | "Ultimately" is too far away. | |
| • | Third, in light of Paris and the continuing threat of terrorism it so graphically conveys, we need a more sensible national conversation about the need for effective intelligence gathering to uncover and prevent such tragedies before they occur. | |
| • | Knee-jerk, uninformed and often wildly inaccurate criticisms of programs (such as several authorized in the wake of 9/11 in the Patriot Act) have created a widespread misimpression in the American public about what exactly our intelligence agencies have been doing and whether there was a "threat" to civil liberties. | |
| • | Similarly, in the debate over immigration and refugees, it is time to take into account the national security issues at stake. | |
| • | ... thousands of European and U.S. citizens had travelled to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq, there to receive training and financing to conduct terrorist operations in their home countries. | |
| • | And imagine now the dangers posed by the massive refugee flows moving into Europe from North Africa, the Middle East and even Afghanistan. | |
| • | Finally ... the United States is already in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign. America's proper place in the world should be at the very center of the debate. | |
Call it what it is: Arab terror is racism (INN 11/12/2015)
| • | Racism is the attitude, behavior and judgment towards people based solely on their identity as being part of a group which they are inextricably part of, and which identity in turn becomes the be determining factor for any conduct directed towards them. | |
| • | The seeming random attacking of people on the street has turned out to be not so random at all. It is directed purely at Jews, and purely for the sake of the fact that they are Jews. | |
| • | Any attempt to forgive racism in the name of political resistance, is itself racism, for it is saying that for certain groups racism is permissible as a form of political opposition. | |
| • | Otherwise unacceptable behavior is countenanced solely because it is being applied to certain groups because of their racial identity. In other words, it too is racism. | |
| • | Surely, this is a morally reprehensible and indefensible position that calls into question the moral bona fides of anyone would propose it. | |
| • | Identifying Arab terror as racism in its pure and classic sense is to confront those who are willing to give a pass to despicable Arab behavior for any number of reasons, including what is often called the soft racism of low expectations. | |
| • | If our moral values are to have any meaning they must be universal in their applicability. | |
| • | If somehow, Arab behavior (which would if practiced by Jews — or Republicans — would by condemned as racism in an instant), is tolerated without condemnation, then the so-called judges and arbiters of such conduct are nothing but hypocrites, forfeiting their right to make any moral judgment. | |
| • | Can they call like it like it is, condemning racism wherever it is to be found? | |
| • | If so, then the widespread perception of what is going on here might be subject to a more sane revision. | |
| • | If not, then we should just ignore or, better yet, condemn those who would tolerate and excuse racism in the name of ideology. | |
There is no "radical Islam" and there is also no "moderate Islam" (INN 11/12/2015)
| • | The world created the image of two Islams, one radical and impossible to live with, and one moderate and "just like us." | |
| • | ... differentiation between "radical" and "moderate" Islam is what gave rise to the claim that Islam had been "hijacked" by the radicals, implying that the real and original Islam is the moderate, not the false, radical one. | |
| • | This is what allows today's Europe to relate positively to the wave of mostly-Muslim illegal immigrants washing up on its shores – they represent "moderate Islam" and all they want is to live in peace and harmony with their European neighbors. | |
| • | Islam is a text-based framework of ideas and behaviors, covering religion, culture, strictures, politics, law and economics. It is an all-embracing way of life. ... The Sharia, Muslim law, is a system of binding laws and injunctions that Muslims are obliged to obey. | |
| • | There are no two Islams, no moderate one and no radical one, there is just one Qu'ran that includes everything: verses on Jihad and all out war against unbelievers along with verses that speak of recognizing the "other" and living beside him. | |
| • | Muhammad does not have a moderate biography and a radical one; there is only one life story of the prophet of Islam and it has stories that express a radical, violent approach and others presenting a moderate one. | |
| • | There is also just one Sharia that includes everything, from the radical cutting off of a thief's hands to the unquestionably moderate admonition to care for the poor and indigent. | |
| • | That being the case, there is no "moderate Islam" and no "radical Islam", just one Islam that incorporates both terms, ranging from extreme radicalism to extreme moderation. | |
| • | The radical Muslim chooses to quote sources that support his extremist approach, while the moderate Muslim finds sources to buttress his moderate approach. | |
| • | All the Muslims in the world, all one and a half billion of them, men, women and children, are to be found somewhere on the moderate-extremist continuum. | |
| • | Life has a way of moving people along the continuum, making it harder to predict the future of an individual or group. | |
| • | If they are on the violent side of the continuum, that violence will be turned on the society that accepted them - a fact that is most evident in today's Europe. | |
Germany's self-inflicted problems and the Jews (INN 11/09/2015)
| • | Germany has been Israel's major political backer over the past decades in an increasingly morally degenerating Europe. | |
| • | Federal government expressed dismay about the way in which Germany, in its "open-arms" policy toward the refugees, was importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism and national and ethnic conflicts of other nations by letting people in with a very different attitude toward society and the rule of state law. | |
| • | These countries have enough problems of their own. They have also observed how problematic the integration of many of the Muslim immigrants in Western Europe has been in the past. In addition, the abuses perpetrated during Turkish rule, are enshrined in local history even if these events happened hundreds of years ago. | |
| • | Perhaps Merkel is seeking to offer the ultimate proof that Germany has changed, and that the new Germany has totally distanced itself from the indelible image created by Nazism. In sharp contrast to the country which expelled or murdered those it defined as outsiders, meet the new Germany, which offers a warm welcome to third world immigrants. | |
| • | A further reason probably lies in Germany's low birth rate, and its desperate need for foreigners in general, and young people in particular, to beef up its workforce. | |
| • | Many people in Germany genuinely want to welcome the refugees. However, there are also many people in Germany who strongly oppose Merkel and her refugee policy. | |
| • | Part of them are mainly concerned about the potential burdens that may result, whether general or economic. | |
| • | To believe that refugees mainly from Muslim countries will work to pay much of the pensions of an aging indigenous German population is a conceptual error. This approach has already been disproven elsewhere in Europe. | |
| • | In terms of going down in history as a great chancellor, Merkel is playing a very risky game. Merkel's policies may lead to the end of her Chancellorship, either through an internal revolt in the CDU or through losing the next elections. | |
| • | ... "if we Germans were to be tempted by our economic strength into claiming a leading political role in Europe or at least playing the role of first among equals, an increasing majority of our neighbors would mount effective resistance." | |
| • | The first concerns the impact of the newcomers, many of them anti-Semites. | |
| • | In the short term, the rise of the right should perhaps be even more worrying to Germany's Jews. | |
| • | In summary, Chancellor Merkel with her seemingly generous refugee policies may have called up many potentially dark forces which may prove difficult to control. | |
On the brink: Christianity facing Middle East purge within decade, says group (Fox 11/09/2015)
| • | The dwindling Christian population of the Middle East could vanish completely within a decade ... followers of the Bible are being killed, driven from their land or forced to renounce their faith at an unprecedented pace. | |
| • | The world has largely stood by as a dangerous tide of intolerance has washed over the region... | |
| • | While Christians are under siege from Islamic State radicals in war-torn Syria and Iraq, the report notes that the religion is being targeted throughout the region. | |
| • | "Last Christmas was the first time that bells did not ring out in the city of Mosul in 2,000 years. I think that speaks to the reality that hundreds of thousands of Christian families are living on the edge of extinction." | |
| • | The report names Egypt as the one nation in the Middle East that has reversed the trend under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, following the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist agenda. | |
| • | El-Sisi, himself a Muslim, has vowed to protect Egypt's Coptic Christians, and last Christmas attended church services with them in an unprecedented show of tolerance and solidarity. | |
| • | "Such a development holds out a potential beacon of hope for Christians and others in the Middle East against a backdrop of growing Islamism." | |
| • | Persecution has been allowed to spread in many of these countries because of the complacency of its citizens and inaction of the international community. | |
| • | "Unfortunately, there are also many who are hesitating to use the proper label for what is occurring in many of these countries, which is genocide." | |
Israel's schizophrenia isn't working (INN 11/08/2015)
| • | As a growing number of Arab Israelis – citizens of the State of Israel — have brutally taken up arms against their fellow citizens who happen to be Jewish, with the full support of Arab elected officials holding positions as high as Member of the Knesset, those of us with a less nuanced view of democracy than the Israeli Government are having a hard time understanding the political landscape. | |
| • | The benefits of citizenship to Israeli Arabs are enormous. Apart from the right to vote in a free and uncoerced election, something found nowhere else in the Middle East, Israeli Arabs get the kinds of "free stuff" that even Obama can't deliver to his constituents. | |
| • | Not only do Israeli Arabs receive free health care at the hands of first rate doctors (who scrupulously treat all patients the same regardless of religious or political belief), but they can, and in large numbers do, attend world class universities for next to nothing in tuition. And, of course, this educational opportunity is afforded to all Arab men and women – try finding that in another Arab nation. | |
| • | Israel demands nothing of its Arab citizens in exchange for these services. Nothing. | |
| • | The most serious obligation of citizenship – the obligation to serve in the defense of one's country – is waived for Arab citizens. | |
| • | But Israel demands even less. It does not even require that Arab citizens, at a minimum, observe some level of loyalty to the State of Israel and renounce violent opposition. | |
| • | You may ask, "isn't all of this, no matter how offensive, permitted in a free and open society"? | |
| • | The answer is no. In the United States, the greatest democracy in history, every new citizen and every elected official is required to confess their "faith and allegiance" to the government and to "support and defend" the Constitution "against all enemies foreign and domestic." | |
| • | Moreover, notwithstanding the First Amendment and its sacrosanct protection of free speech, it is a federal crime, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, for anyone to simply advocate the overthrow of the government by force or violence. | |
| • | Remember, this is in America, which borders the docile nations of Canada and Mexico and is separated from the world's hotspots, on either side, by three thousand miles of ocean. | |
| • | Israel's enemies are on its doorstep and it is threatened from all directions and from within. | |
| • | As in every other democracy, including the United States, there is a modest burden of citizenship that accompanies the benefits. It is the burden of every citizen – and even moreso elected officials — to support the state and to refrain from the advocacy of seditious and violent behavior. | |
Two-state word games (INN 11/07/2015)
| • | Lord Beaverbrook is said to have once asked an elegant socialite if she would spend the night with him for a million dollars, to which she responded, "yes." He then asked her if she would do so for 10 dollars, and she fumed, "Of course not, what do you think I am?" — to which he returned, "Madame, we have already established what you are. Now we are haggling over the price." | |
| • | PM Netanyahu's non-stop offerings to Abbas of the two-state solution is a bizarre takeoff on this story in reverse. | |
| • | Netanyahu has convinced himself and his followers that the only way for Israel to appear "legitimate" and "rational" to the world is to offer the two-state solution, and to beg the Palestinian Arabs for peace talks despite their incendiary blood-curdling incitement and murder rampages. | |
| • | Netanyahu's behavior could be compared to the sister of a victim of a mass murder inviting the mass-murderer for dinner. Netanyahu's offer of "talks anywhere, anytime" is beneath suicidalism. | |
| • | It shows pathetic desperation and rewards Abbas for his genocidal incitement and encouragement of blood-dripping murder sprees. | |
| • | Do Netanyahu's offerings of a 'West Bank' Palestinian state make Israel appear more "legitimate" or "reasonable" to the world? To Netanyahu, maybe. | |
| • | To the rest of the world? No. It makes Israel look like a cheap thief who was caught red-handed, and wants to start to negotiate on keeping some of his ill-gotten loot. | |
| • | Netanyahu is like the socialite, agreeing to a million-dollar "demilitarized" PA State to which Abbas responds, "How about it for $10?" Netanyahu responds, "Of course not, what kind of country to you think I am?" to which Abbas responds, we determined that when you first offered to give me the 'West Bank' in return for my calls to annihilate Israel." | |
| • | The entire world surmises that only a petty-thief who stole the land to begin with would offer half of his land as an opening offer for negotiations. Netanyahu's offer of two-states only served to convince the world that the Palestinian narrative claiming that Israel "stole the land" must be true. | |
| • | Imagine a Palestinian would-be terrorist listening to Netanyahu's offer for "anywhere, anytime" talks while Abbas is inciting teenage Palestinian Arabs to murder any Jew of any age. | |
| • | The terrorist asks himself, why serve Netanyahu a teaspoon of terrorism, if you can serve him a tablespoon of terrorism. And, still, throughout the horror of Palestinian Arab murders, Netanyahu keeps begging for peace talks and spouting about the two-state solution. | |
| • | Netanyahu's two-state solution gambits don't make Israel look reasonable, they don't make the world love us. Instead, they make Israel and the world's Jews look desperate. And that is a far cry from what the Jewish State was supposed to be about | |
Wake up and start connecting the dots (INN 11/06/2015)
| • | An acrimonious argument is going on in Israel over the explosive issue of whether the public is allowed to take the law into its own hands if confronted with a terrorist who has just stabbed a Jew. | |
| • | The dilemma is over whether it is permissible to kill a terrorist after he has knifed someone. | |
| • | The problem arises when a terrorist is neutralized, lying flat on the ground, possibly wounded or handcuffed and unable to rise and continue injuring more people. Can physically attacking him and even causing his death be condoned, or is he entitled, once neutralized, to protection against spontaneous vengeance, to medical care and a fair trial to determine his punishment? | |
| • | ... does the debate have to be based on deductions reached from the study of Israeli legal and moral systems, reflecting a country ruled by law where even a criminal is entitled to due process – or should the debate be based on the fact that the perpetrators are not part of Israeli normativity, do not accept Israel's moral standards and would like to destroy them along with the entire state, so that there is no logical reason for the system to protect them. | |
| • | In other words, should the "lynch question" debate be guided by the legal principles that serve Israeli society, or should we look at the question from the point of view of the attacker, his society and the norms by which he lives. | |
| • | And don't forget that while this argument rages on, other, more immediate questions give Israelis no respite – how can the next attack be prevented and how can the next terrorist be deterred from stabbing even 80-year-old Jews in an attempt to murder them? | |
| • | ... the moral ethos that claims that we Jewish Israelis are bound by an ethical code that prohibits our acting violently against someone who does not present a palpable and immediate danger, even if, less than a minute earlier, he stabbed us with intent to murder. | |
| • | This moralistic approach is to be found in Israeli law and in various court decisions. The principle behind it is that we do not act as our enemies do, we do not descend to their level – because we are better than they. Does this approach not smack of supercilious arrogance? | |
| • | Another "minor" detail that bears noting is that our legal and moral dilemmas do not impress our enemies one bit; they simply take advantage of the fact that we allow them to wander freely and unchecked in our midst, enabling them to draw sharpened knives from their pockets at any given moment and butcher us. | |
| • | The average stabber knows that if caught, he will be put in prison where he can study for an academic degree, that within a few years he will be exchanged for an Israeli soldier or citizen kidnapped for the very purpose of freeing terrorist murderers, and that while he is imprisoned his family will receive generous sums of money from the Palestinian Authority (the source of which funding is the American taxpayer). | |
| • | This is in addition to the great honor that his family will enjoy, whether he is killed or not. If he is killed, he will have a school named for him, one in which children will study his "heritage", and possibly a street or even an organization that will spread the spirit of anti-Israel jihad in the world. | |
| • | Our moral concerns do not interest him in the least, but if worst comes to worst, they will be the reason he will be protected from the anger of those surrounding him at the scene. He relies on Israeli law and Israel's police force to protect him from the crowd's vengeance, and is sure he will survive to stab more Jews after he is freed during a prisoner exchange. | |
| • | That is how Israeli morality works against Israel and its citizens, paralyzing Israeli deterrence and encouraging terrorists to stab Israelis. The stabbers are in a win-win situation since Israeli law and morals grant them immunity from immediate punishment by bystanders who were witness to their terrorist actions. | |
| • | This is how Israel ties its own hands, making it more difficult to respond effectively to terror. Israel has lost its ability to deter terrorist murderers because they feel that they have immunity. | |
| • | It should be a given that any terrorist who takes up a knife to stab a Jew knows that he will not return home alive, that he will be killed either by security personnel or the people who witnessed his actions. | |
| • | Isn't the period when Muslims considered Jewish blood cheap a thing of the past? Israel has no choice, it must renew its ability to deter terrorists. | |
| • | Both the left and right must remember that this is the Middle East. Peace in this region is not the lot of those who unwaveringly follow Western mores, laws and ethics. | |
| • | He who succeeds in convincing his enemies that he is invincible and that they had better leave him alone for their own good, has a chance of achieving peace. | |
| • | Anyone who does not understand this or who does not want to understand it, is cut off from reality. | |
| • | I suggest that he wake up and connect the dots for his own good, before the butcher's knife separates his head from his body - and I am not engaging in mere fear mongering. | |
| • | In case that scenario does occur, will his being a moral person be of any help? | |
The high price the world could pay for Obama’s Syria, Iraq policy (Fox 11/06/2015)
| • | President Obama's Syria/Iraq policy is ... non-policy to do as little as possible about the chaos in these countries so he can hand this mess to the next president. | |
| • | This has created a growing global perception of American weakness and indecisiveness that will embolden America's enemies for the remainder of the Obama presidency and possibly beyond. | |
| • | Pinprick airstrikes in Syria did not stop ISIS from making gains on the ground. In Iraq, ISIS took the city of Ramadi last May despite being outnumbered 10-1 by the Iraqi army. The Iraqi army and the Iraqi Kurds clamored for more arms while the Obama administration sat on its hands. | |
| • | Obama's 2014 policy shift suffered a spectacular collapse this fall when a failed $500 million program to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels was cancelled and Russia intervened in Syria and began conducting airstrikes against anti-Assad rebels, many backed by the United States. | |
| • | New U.S. demands that Assad step down make little sense due to increased Russian and Iranian support. | |
| • | So far, Mr. Obama has not agreed to Pentagon recommendations to back Iraqi forces with Apache helicopters or to allow U.S. military advisers to serve on the front lines with Iraqi forces. | |
| • | Republican congressmen continue to demand the Obama administration directly arm the Iraqi Kurds who are struggling to battle ISIS with inadequate and obsolete weapons. | |
| • | America's friends and allies know President Obama is pursuing a Syria/Iraq non-policy to run out the clock. | |
| • | Russia is filling a power vacuum in the region and is building a new alliance with Iraq, Iran and Syria. Russia has improved its relations with Egypt and Israel. | |
| • | America's enemies are certain to try to exploit the run-out-the-clock foreign policy that President Obama apparently plans to pursue for the remainder of his term in office. | |
| • | This could mean a surge in global provocations, terrorism and violence from North Korea to the South China Sea to Afghanistan and to the Middle East due to the disappearance of American leadership over the next 15 months. | |
| • | With Barack Obama dithering away America's global credibility, a catastrophic terrorist attack like 9/11 could happen again. | |
Europe reacts to its impotence by taking it out on the Jews (INN 11/05/2015)
| • | Germany's Muslim population will quadruple to an astonishing 20 million within the next five years (2020). | |
| • | The German government will receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015, and possibly even more in 2016 | |
| • | France's Muslim Population will be more than 10 percent by 2030. | |
| • | ... the British Muslim population already witnessed a 75 percent increase over the past ten years... | |
| • | The "old continent" is experiencing a devastating phenomenon of demographic self-liquidation and spiritual immolation which has no precedent in the Western civilization's history. | |
| • | Europe is finding it impossible to control its borders against Muslim migrants. And how is Europe reacting to this existential and physical impotence? | |
| • | By taking it out on the Jews, or, by displacement, the Jewish State. This makes the Europeans feel good because they are making themselves look good to their Muslim populations by doing something they, the Muslim population, will approve of. | |
| • | This is how to explain the fact that for the first time since Germany did so 70 years ago, the European Union has just imposed a special label on Jewish products. | |
| • | This is how you explain the fact that Europe's mainstream is condemning Israel's security forces for defending herself in this new terror wave. | |
| • | This is how you explain the fact that Europe is opening her trade to Iran's anti-Semitic regime while imposing sanctions on the Jewish State. | |
| • | This is how you explain the fact that, from Oxford to Bordeaux, hundreds of European academicians are undertaking a boycott of Israeli universities. | |
| • | This is how you explain the fact that anti-Semitism has become the common currency on most of Europe's streets. | |
Iran anniversary: Thirty-six years since 'Death to America' and there's no end in sight (Fox 11/04/2015)
| • | Fifty-two Americans were held captive by Iranian "students" at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, subjected to 444 days of living hell. | |
| • | The milestone might get a brief mention in U.S. news reports, but most Americans won't reflect much on what happened that day. | |
| • | Not so in Tehran, where the regime plans to commemorate the Embassy takeover and several other key events in its "revolutionary" history with chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." | |
| • | They'll hold "End of America" conferences and rallies against "global arrogance. | |
| • | ... the Supreme Leader explained that the slogan "Death to America" is not aimed at the American people, just American policies. Feel better? | |
| • | ... five Americans have faced torture and been denied medical treatment, basic legal representation, and due process. Their treatment demonstrates how Iran's leaders view the United States – with utter contempt. | |
| • | After four decades, some write off chants of "Death to America" as empty rhetoric. That's exactly what the administration does. | |
| • | But if the Obama administration continues to put false hope for cooperation with Iran over basic U.S. interests — such as the safety of American citizens — I fear the death of American leadership in the Middle East. | |
Covering terrorism against Israelis: an idiot’s guide (INN 11/02/2015)
| • | Your job is to report facts, not reinforce a narrative. Really. The facts matter — they form the basis for judgments. | |
| • | in the fifty days from September 11 through October 31, there have been 1,315 Arab Muslim attacks on Jews, including stabbings, bombings, rock-throwing, etc. That's about 26 attacks per day resulting in the murder of 11 innocent Jews. | |
| • | Adjusted for the U.S. population, that's over 1,000 knife, bomb, and other attacks per day that kill 440 people during fifty days of terror. How would the U.S. react to that? | |
| • | Remember that the weaker party can be wrong. Actually, when a Palestinian man stabs a 70-year old woman, he's not even the weaker party. Sometimes Palestinians do indefensible things. Sometimes Israel is guilty of only trying to protect its citizens from insanely hateful violence. | |
| • | Properly identify the terrorist and the victim when reporting on casualties, and describe the main causal sequence of events with relevant context. That's how you avoid headlines like "Jewish man uses his neck to attack the blade of Palestinian's knife." | |
| • | Do your homework on this region. Learn its basic history so that you don't moronically suggest (as the NY Times did) that Jews have no historical connection to the Temple Mount. | |
| • | Learn the history of this conflict enough to know that Pallywood has been actively deceiving journalists for at least 15 years now, in an effort to delegitimize Israel. Before publishing "information" fed to you by fixers and "eyewitnesses," realize that even Amnesty International has admitted the unreliability of "eyewitnesses" in this conflict. | |
| • | Learn the history of this conflict enough to know that Arab Muslims have been killing Jews in this area for over a century, with shifting excuses over time. | |
| • | Stop trying to use the latest of those shifting excuses to justify the unjustifiable. No alleged grievance warrants randomly stabbing people in the street. | |
| • | Take note of nuances. 92 Israeli Arab Muslims are among those who have committed terrorist attacks. They are not under occupation (and have better freedoms and living standards than most of the Arab world has). | |
| • | So clearly these attacks are not about any political dispute; they are driven by the same hateful incitement that rejects any state for the Jews. | |
| • | Show cause and effect (ideally one before the other), and not just effect. When you show only Israeli responses to attacks, it makes Israelis look as if they wake up every morning asking how they can hurt Arabs. | |
| • | Israelis actually have better things to do with their mornings. Like cure cancer and stuff. But when people are trying to kill them, they understandably get a bit distracted. If the world could keep Israelis safer, cancer might get cured faster. | |
| • | Articles should contain a logical subject and verb, preferably in a way that indicates who did what. | |
| • | According to CNN, Joseph's Tomb spontaneously "catches fire." CNN would rather change the laws of physics than blame Muslims for trying to burn a Jewish holy site. | |
| • | ... there is a long list of non-Muslim sites that have been desecrated or destroyed by Muslims – from the Buddhas of Bamiyan razed by the Taliban to the countless monuments and churches destroyed by the Islamic State. History is also littered with Islamic conquests that converted non-Muslim holy sites into mosques. | |
| • | Israeli lives matter. Getting both sides of the story means including photos and profiles of Israeli victims of Arab terrorism at least as often as you include photos and profiles of Arab attackers who were killed while trying to murder innocent Israelis. | |
| • | Don't be afraid to present Gazans as they present themselves (brandishing butcher knives and calling for Jewish blood). ... Showing the Palestinian death cult of Jew-hatred that runs from crib to coffin might help observers understand why there's still no peace. | |
| • | To ensure that your reporting is fair and consistent, consider how a similar event was covered in other countries/contexts. For a strikingly convenient example, contrast how differently NBC News (again!) reports on airstrikes taking place in two neighboring Mideast conflicts, within just eight days of each other. | |
| • | On October 3, NBC News used this headline to report that 60 Russian airstrikes in Syria killed 39 civilians: "Russia Launches New Wave of Airstrikes in Syria." | |
| • | On October 11, NBC News used a much more personalized headline – with victim profiles – when reporting on one Israeli air strike that killed two civilians: "Israeli Strike in Gaza Kills Palestinian Woman, Child as Violence Continues." | |
| • | Ironically, despite your endless bias in favor of Palestinian terrorists, they thank you by posing as journalists in order to stab Israelis – a deceit that only undermines the trust that combatants have in the label "PRESS" and potentially endangers true war correspondents. | |
| • | You journalists are key to a fair and civilized world. Start acting like it. | |
Unprecedented Bias (Fox 10/25/2015)
| • | What those in the media fail to recognize or at least refuse to include in their reporting is the actual reason for this violence. | |
| • | The manufactured reason is that Israel planned to reopen the Temple Mount to the Jews; however, the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly denied this. | |
| • | Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped the media from presenting the Israelis as the aggressors and provocateurs of this conflict. | |
| • | The fundamental reason for the violence this time around, is the same reason it has been since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. | |
| • | It's an underlying cancer of hatred for the Jewish people that reaches a boiling point every few years, manifesting itself into acts of terror against innocent Israeli civilians. | |
| • | The textbooks distributed to Palestinian children in schools teach that Jews are the descendants of apes and swine. Until this cancer is eradicated once and for all, there will never be peace and certainly not a resolution to this conflict. | |
| • | But the media doesn't lend any of this context to its reporting. | |
| • | ... "Palestinian teens die amid Mideast unrest." Where's the context? That headline inaccurately reflects the reality of the situation in Israel. | |
| • | These weren't innocent Palestinian teens who were killed by Israeli forces; they were terrorists wielding knives stabbing innocent Israeli civilians. | |
| • | The media has a duty to the public to deliver the news in a fair way. It has failed miserably to live up to that professional standard in its coverage of the ongoing conflict in Israel. | |
| • | I have seen very few headlines acknowledging that the Israeli soldier murdered in Beersheba was a teenager, too. | |
| • | One recent example of propaganda being spun by the Palestinian Authority and printed without question by the media is the story of Ahmed Manasrah. Ahmed, 13, and his cousin, Hassan Manasrah, 15, stabbed two innocent Israeli civilians, including a Jewish teen, also age 13. | |
| • | Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas immediately broadcasted that innocent Ahmed had been "executed in cold blood" by Israeli forces, releasing a video of Ahmed being "killed." | |
| • | And news sources immediately began bemoaning Israel's lack of restraint. After all, they said, he's just a teenager. | |
| • | But then Israel released video footage of Ahmed and Hassan stabbing two citizens, kicking the teenager once he was already on the ground with a stab wound to his neck. | |
| • | And Ahmed was not "executed." He was in stable condition and being treated in Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. The Palestinian Authority released images to the media showing Ahmed dead. In turn, Hadassah Ein Kerem showed the image of the boy alive and in stable condition being treated by Israeli doctors. | |
| • | And how did the media cover this clear illustration of propaganda and intellectual dishonesty by the Palestinian Authority? The following NBC headline tells you all you need to know: "Dispute Over Viral Video of Shot Ahmed Manasrah Sums Up Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." | |
| • | ... it's time for them to expose the true source of the terrorist outbreaks that unfortunately emerge far too frequently. ... it is the culture that glorifies terrorism and murderers which Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority foster. | |
Dear World — Would you please answer a few questions? (INN 10/24/2015)
| • | Sorry to disturb you in the middle of your very important sports events and celebrity reality shows, but please take a moment to answer a few questions regarding your blatantly anti-Semitic and double standard approach to Israel. | |
| • | Please explain to me why Israel is condemned by the international community every time it defends itself against ruthless attacks on its citizens? | |
| • | Why is the Obama Administration, among many other governments claiming the use of ‘disproportionate response' when a 13 year old boy and 70 year old woman are viciously stabbed in Jerusalem? | |
| • | Please explain to me why millions of anti-Semites posing as intellectuals and liberals can promote and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, standing side by side with people who would murder every single Jew living in Israel (and the rest of the world) if, G-d forbid, they had their way? | |
| • | ... these New Age anti-Semites, wearing suits and ties, are being invited to speak at universities rather than being tried for crimes against humanity for aligning themselves with those who openly call for the extermination of the over 6 million Jews living in their homeland, Israel. | |
| • | Please explain to me how instead of recognizing Islam for the violent, hate-mongering oppressive religion that it is, the world has instead shifted to adapt a new policy of embracing Islam, the so called ‘Religion of Peace'. | |
| • | The blood of the victims of 9/11, the London Tube bombing, the Moscow Theater hostage crisis, the Madrid train bombing and the Boston marathon attack is still fresh in our minds! | |
| • | The list goes on and on with the official numbers being estimated at 500+ major attacks by Muslims since the 1980's on every continent, claiming the lives of more than 33,000 innocent souls since 2006 alone! | |
| • | The violence happening now in Israel is no different than the violence of the 1920's and 30's when Arabs (who hadn't yet manufactured the fictitious term 'Palestinians') were stabbing, shooting and murdering hundreds of Jews all across the British mandate of Palestine. | |
| • | So please explain to me why the Jewish people are constantly being attacked by ruthless enemies who spend all of their waking hours planning and perpetrating new, twisted ways of killing us. | |
| • | Please explain to me how any human being with even the slightest shred of moral fiber can side with those raised in the cradle of hate. | |
| • | Please explain to me dear world why you hate us Jews so much. Have we not yet been afflicted by enough murder, rape, pillage, crusades, pogroms, blood libels, inquisitions and Holocausts? | |
| • | We do not ask for your assistance in dealing with this terror and we do not seek your pity. | |
| • | We demand for you to STOP justifying false claims by this FAKE people! | |
| • | Please take a step back and let us handle these savages who preemptively blow themselves up as suicide bombers in pizzerias and on buses, all in the name of ‘Allah'. | |
| • | These deceptive parasites will enjoy your support while laughing at your ignorance, because they are just waiting for the opportunity to kill all ‘Infidels' including you, your family, city and country. | |
| • | For the record, the people you are supporting with this BDS nonsense are the same exact people who following the horrific killing of 2,977 innocent Americans on that bloody day in September, were handing out candies in the streets of Gaza celebrating the death and destruction you seem to have forgotten about. | |
Leaders from hell (INN 10/24/2015)
| • | The last two weeks has brought almost daily Palestinian sponsored terror attacks against Israeli civilians. | |
| • | Many Arab communities throughout Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza come out on the streets to celebrate each gruesome murder. Palestinian adults passed out candies to the kiddies in honor of each wounded and dead Israeli victim. Some communities even staged reenactments of the murders, praising the "brave" new martyrs who were encouraged to attack the "dirty infidels" with axes, knives, and meat cleavers. | |
| • | Israel is dealing with an enemy that has been brainwashed since birth to hate and kill. ... Dying a martyr is glorified to these no longer innocent children. Their "religious" leaders preach violence, brandishing knives during their sermons, working up the masses to a frenzy for slaughtering "in the name of." | |
| • | ... rather than praise Israel for not engaging in full scale military operations to protect its citizens, Ban Ki Moon, the UN Chief, has called for an investigation of the use of Israeli force during the past weeks of this undeclared "intifada." I guess what bothers Ki Moon is that the Israelis have the audacity to defend themselves and either restrain or kill the terrorists. | |
| • | Where's Moon's call to investigate the ongoing incitement against Israel by the Palestinians? Where's his committee to review the ongoing brainwashing and incitement to violence from Abbas and his goon squad? | |
| • | Anyone who encourages its population particularly the younger segment, to put themselves in harms way is not a leader. Especially when the leaders themselves sit comfortably in their homes or religious institutions. They're quite content to let their young ones do the dirty work. | |
| • | Imagine what would happen if the American Indian chiefs in the USA urged their tribal members to go out and start stabbing and murdering civilians. Imagine what the world reaction would be if these Indians started hacking the elderly as they waited to board a bus. Or if the tribal medicine healers began calling for a holy war against the "filthy Americans." | |
| • | Imagine what Ban Ki-Moon might say if these Indians broke into his home and began killing his children, since, after all, the UN head honcho was now living on Indian land. | |
| • | There are several practical things the state of Israel can do in light of these extreme times. | |
| • | First, seal off the areas where the terrorists come from. The crazy thing is that the Arabs have greater freedoms in Israel than they do in any other Muslim country. | |
| • | Secondly, arrest the "leaders" for incitement. This step includes going after their political and religious wackos who encourage their population to now put poison on their knives to attack Israeli grandmothers and children. | |
| • | Thirdly, with these horrific daily attacks, every Israeli citizen needs to be armed and prepared, locked & loaded. Perhaps when they realize that these acts of murder are having the opposite effect, the Palestinian Arabs will realize it's not worth their own lives to blindly follow their leadership leaders. | |
| • | A fourth suggestion is for the US to get the heck out of the UN and stop funding this ridiculous, phony organization that supposedly promotes world peace. It's long been bought out by oil politics. | |
| • | When the vast majority of their meetings are to chastise the only democracy in the Middle East, it's high time to walk away with our heads held high. The UN had become a joke to the civilized world. | |
| • | In the meantime, Israel needs to remain strong and vigilant. Against all odds it has prevailed over all obstacles, and with God's help, it shall continue to rise above the political nonsense that is currently raising its ugly head throughout the globe. | |
For Israel, truth is first victim of Palestinian violence (Fox 10/22/2015)
| • | Over the years, Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators have considered the status of Jerusalem to be among the last issues to tackle because the complex mix of politics and religion stirs deep passions. | |
| • | Two Israeli prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, offered creative proposals that recognized both Israeli and Palestinian connections to Jerusalem. But Palestinian leaders spurned those ideas — which included sharing the Old City and the Temple Mount — as they rejected comprehensive peace plans in 2000, 2001, and 2008 that could have resolved the conflict. | |
| • | Instead, Palestinian leaders, backed by Arab and Muslim countries including Egypt and Jordan, the two Arab countries that signed peace treaties with Israel, have consistently propagated myths about Israeli designs on the Temple Mount, nurturing a disingenuous narrative that rejects any Jewish link to the holiest site in Judaism, the Western Wall, and denies the fact that Jewish temples existed there thousands of years ago. | |
| • | Truth is the first casualty in conflicts. | |
| • | On Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have in essence murdered truth, making it into another Palestinian "martyr." And what's worse, much of the media and many world leaders are compliant in the crime. | |
| • | Secretary of State John Kerry calls for "clarity" on the status of the Temple Mount, as if there is something unclear. | |
| • | France seeks a U.N. Security Council resolution to send international observers "to protect" the Temple Mount. | |
| • | And U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemns "extremists" on both sides, equating Israel's defensive responses with the actions of Palestinian terrorists. | |
| • | From 1948-1967, when Jordan controlled the Old City, Jews were denied access to the Western Wall, and synagoues were destroyed. | |
| • | Today, Prime Minister Netanyahu's repeated affirmations of Israeli policy protecting all religious sites, ensuring Muslim access to mosques, are drowned out by continuous, vehement hostility. | |
| • | Characterizations of the youthful Palestinian perpetrators of the current wave of attacks on Israelis as individuals acting independently is another bold-faced myth generated by Palestinian leaders who take no responsibility for the violence they have inspired. | |
| • | Abbas opened his U.N. General Assembly address last month with a call for action to defend not just al-Aqsa, but the entire Al Haram Al Sharif – the Arabic term for the Temple Mount – against alleged Israeli designs. | |
| • | Before coming to New York, he had encouraged Palestinian protestors to guard against Jews traversing the Temple Mount with their "filthy feet." | |
| • | "The inflammatory rhetoric of Abbas and Palestinian Authority officials and media outlets was sufficient to drive any Palestinian to murder Jews. | |
| • | At the U.N., Abbas announced the Palestinian Authority would no longer abide by the agreements it had signed with Israel, and he called on the "United Nations to provide international protection for the Palestinian people." | |
| • | ... to get the peace process back on track, Palestinian leadership must end their incitement and glorification of violence. | |
The insanity of treating terrorists (INN 11/22/2015)
| • | Full disclosure: My pain at the ongoing news of stabbings and murders of innocents in Israel reached an unbearable level when I learned that a member of our family, Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky, 60, was mowed down and brutally butchered with a meat cleaver in Jerusalem. | |
| • | In some of these instances the terrorists were slain before they could continue their acts of carnage. In others, however, they were merely wounded. And what followed in every occurrence is part of a pattern that is simply beyond my comprehension. | |
| • | Have you seen the picture of Hassan Manasra, the young Arab teenager who stabbed and critically wounded an Israeli boy who was riding his bicycle in Pisgat Zeev? | |
| • | Hassan, who "moderate" Palestinian President Abbas claimed was cruelly executed for no reason in an incendiary speech to his people, is resting comfortably in a bed in Hadassah Hospital. He is alive and well, provided with free food as well as the best medical care available - as are all terrorists who managed to survive their murderous killing sprees. | |
| • | Yes, we are a very compassionate people. If those who come to murder us do not succeed at first, we will nurse them back to health so that they can try once again to carry out their self-declared goals. And we call that sanity! | |
| • | "We took care of a terrorist here many years ago who was later freed in a prisoner exchange. He gave an interview in which he was asked how he was treated in the Israeli hospital and he said he greatly appreciated it, and imagined he could not have received better treatment anywhere in the Arab world. Asked afterward if he intended to leave his terror ways behind, he said: ‘No. One thing has nothing to do with the other.'" | |
| • | Of course, one thing has nothing to do with the other. Kind and civilized treatment is what the Arab world expects from us. But killing Jews is the goal to which they have committed their lives – and for which they are happily prepared to die. Yet, we continue to act with unappreciated saintliness even when it proves to be suicidal – and we call that sanity! | |
| • | International law differentiates between patients, prisoners of war, and terrorists, defining the latter as "unlawful combatants" who are not protected by the Third Geneva Convention, unlike prisoners of war. | |
| • | It was King Solomon, the wisest of all men, who summed it up in a pithy saying in the book of Ecclesiastes: "Do not be overly righteous." | |
| • | Please don't misunderstand me. I am not making a case for withholding medical treatment from our enemies. We need to provide this care not for their sake but for ours – to retain our humanity and to prevent us from sinking to their barbaric level. | |
| • | As politically incorrect as it seems at first blush, all lives are not equal. Jewish victims take precedence over Arab murderers. Those who come to kill us forfeit claim to comparable care and concern. | |
| • | To overcompensate when we treat terrorists at the expense of our own people in order to prove to the world our ethical superiority is more than sinful – it is suicidal. | |
Is it Ethical to Kill a Terrorist? (INN 11/21/2015)
| • | "We have become like Sodom and Gemorrah," the judge lamented when referring to the hard kick the Arab woman terrorist received from a Jewish bystander after an attempted stabbing. | |
| • | The Jew who kicked that Arab terrorist still has moral clarity; it is the judge who is stricken with Sodom mentality. | |
| • | Clearly, not all the Arabs are murderers. There are very good people among them, some of them personal friends of mine. I believe that many of them – perhaps even the majority – feel very badly about the wave of Arab murderousness enveloping us right now. | |
| • | But that does not change the fact that we are currently in a war | |
| • | Arabs in the Land of Israel ... backed up by determined and dominating religious and political leadership have declared that the lives of Jews are worth nothing. | |
| • | Not only have they made declarations – they carry them out, as well. | |
| • | This is not a criminal conflict in which, as soon as the intruder is neutralized, it is clear that the court — and not the victim — must determine his sentence. | |
| • | This is a war that was declared against all the Jews simply because they are Jews. And in a war, you do not fire at the enemy soldier only after he fires at you; you try to shoot first. | |
| • | As we are dealing with total de-legitimization of the very right of Jews to live, there is only one way to stop the trend and to make it non-legitimate and unacceptable to murder a Jew. | |
| • | Whoever raises a knife over a Jew in the Land of Israel will be the one to lose his privilege to breathe air on the globe – and should be killed on the spot - without any doubt. | |
| • | When Netanyahu began to explain that Abu Mazen lied and that the young Arab murderer was alive and breathing in a modern Israeli hospital – the PM proved how much he lacks understanding of the threat. | |
| • | The Israeli leader should have said the following: | |
| • | "As usual, Abu Mazen lied. The boy in question is alive. Nevertheless, I would like to clarify: The Nation of Israel did not establish its own state just three years after Auschwitz in order to once again be slaughtered in the streets. Anybody in our Land who raises a knife against a Jew has lost his humanity and the right to continue to live." | |
| • | Clearly, Netanyahu is doing just the opposite and a whole trail of confused people has followed in his footsteps. | |
| • | The result, of course, will be that the lives of the murderers will be worth their weight in gold, while police officers and civilians who were the intended victims will be severely punished. And Jewish blood will continue to be cheap. | |
Obama, Kerry and the Stabbing of Jews (INN 10/20/2015)
| • | What kind of person gets up in the morning, searches his kitchen for the longest and sharpest knife in the drawer, and then goes out looking to murder a Jew? | |
| • | What kind of a person takes a knife and plunges it into the back or neck of an elderly Jewish woman or a Jewish child on a bicycle? | |
| • | What kind of a person circulates instructions over the Internet on the most effective way to stab a Jew, making sure that either the heart or the jugular vein is targeted in the attack? | |
| • | What kind of a person encourages teenagers to engage in stabbing Jews, justifies their conduct and celebrates their achievements? | |
| • | The answer to all four questions is two simple words: "evil" and "barbaric." | |
| • | Now, what does this have to do with Obama and Kerry? Unfortunately, everything. Their nuanced and "balanced" reaction to the stabbing of Jews is heard and felt around the world and is the antithesis of the cries of outrage and indignation that one would expect of the leaders of the free world to evil and barbarism. | |
| • | British statesmen, Edmund Burke, made the famous statement, "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing." Right now, the leadership of the United States is doing nothing and, as a result, evil and barbarism against innocent Jews flourishes in Israel and elsewhere around the world. | |
The Noose Grows Tighter, the Left's Denial Deepens (INN 10/20/2015)
| • | Arab Muslims are calling for "filthy" Jewish blood — and praising the "holy" blood of those Muslim martyrs willing to shed that blood via sword, cleaver, stone, knife, gun, bomb, or car-ramming attack. | |
| • | The world says nothing and does nothing other than call for "restraint" on both sides. The world, itself addicted to Jewish blood and faraway drama, waits for the next inevitable outrage. | |
| • | On September 30, 2015, the UN flew the flag of a country that has never existed — that of "Palestine" — a flag that signifies the Arab Muslim desire to "nuke" Israel as soon as it can. | |
| • | On October 1, 2015, American Secretary of State John Kerry and American Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power were conspicuously "absent," called away by President Obama, precisely when Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke at the UN. | |
| • | On October 18, 2015, in a fashion that has been challenged as completely unconstitutional, the American President ordered the government to prepare the process of lifting American sanctions against Iran — a known terror-state, an entity that continues to vow death to both the Big Satan (America) and Little Satan (Israel), a state that carried out the bombing of the Jewish Center in Argentina and that still holds Americans as prisoners. | |
| • | On October 20, 2015, UNESCO'S World Heritage Center released a document concerning the "Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls." In effect, they are going to decide whether the Western Wall is in "danger" of being destroyed by Israel! | |
| • | The proposal calls upon the body to "decide to retain the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls on the List of World Heritage in Danger." | |
| • | Oh, they should — but the danger is coming entirely from the Palestinian Authority which has been neatly accusing Israel of the kind of damage that they alone have inflicted, to date, and over a long period of time, to this holy site. | |
| • | The outrage is this: Israel has uniquely protected the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. The Palestinian Authority has been illegally excavating the earth and the layers beneath the Temple Mount, all in order to deny any Jewish history in that very place — and it is a history which pre-dates Islam by thousands of years. | |
| • | Even if this is only symbolic, UNESCO is, essentially, voting on Israel's right to control and/or have access to the Western Wall (the Kotel), the site holiest to Jews. | |
Did The Free World Go Insane, and What Can We Do about It? (INN 10/19/2015)
| • | With the dangerous waves of out of control, wicked, radical Islam in the Middle East, in Europe, in the USA and elsewhere, there is no meaningful outrage and protest among the politicians, the media, the intellectuals and others. | |
| • | One has to be only partially awake to realize that there is a definitive advancement of the radical agenda all over the world. But for some reason, most people are oblivious to this major danger to themselves, or maybe they just do not care. | |
| • | There is a major industry of deception, promoted by the villains to advance their self-serving agendas, using lies and creative editing, to deceive their audience. | |
| • | On one hand the villains will incite their radical followers to act on their behalf, and on the other hand they will try to influence the innocent individuals to take actions and positions, even if they will become harmful to themselves, should the villains prevail. | |
| • | The manipulation of stories and the staging of confrontation has become an art, perpetrated by trained men, women and children, and often has an effective impact on the oblivious, who will believe that what they see is the truth, and as a consequence it may stimulate the expected rage. | |
| • | Let people understand that irrational "political correctness" will facilitate the infiltration of the Radical Muslims into all segments of our society... | |
Biased coverage of Israeli-Palestinian 'violence': When terror becomes 'tensions' (Fox 10/16/2015)
| • | Palestinian Authority President ... accused Israeli security forces of killing Palestinian boys "in cold blood," singling out the 13-year-old Manasra as one of the Palestinian youths Israel had "executed." | |
| • | Seven Israelis have been killed this month in some 28 attacks, many of them in Jerusalem, while Israeli security forces have killed 30 Palestinians suspected of carrying out such attacks or in other violent protests. | |
| • | There are at least two major problems with Abbas' charge: | |
| • | First, Ahmad Manasra was not "executed" or even shot by Israelis. He is alive and recovering in an Israeli hospital from wounds he incurred on Oct. 12 while fleeing the scene of an alleged knife attack on a 13-year-old Israeli boy riding a bicycle. | |
| • | Second, the Israeli adolescent Manasra stabbed is in critical condition in an Israeli hospital, fighting for his life. | |
| • | ... Manasra was hit by a car after he and his cousin, Hassan Manasra, 15, went on a furious stabbing spree. | |
| • | Hassan Manasra was shot and killed after he charged the police with a knife... | |
| • | ... senior PA officials have explicitly praised violence against Israeli civilians and have called Israeli settlers "legitimate targets." | |
| • | ... the Palestinian Cabinet issued a statement that failed to mention Palestinian violence but accused Israel of acting "to kill and assassinate defenseless children and civilians ... summary executions and cold-blooded murder." | |
Prime Minister Netanyahu, Your Highest Priority is Saving Jews (INN 10/16/2015)
| • | Everything must be done to save the individual from harm. | |
| • | Everything includes proactive and reactive efforts in the protection of the individual. | |
| • | Of course, more police protection must be made available, soldiers must also be deployed and hospitals must increase their readiness to deal with the unfortunate possibilities of harm to Israel's citizenry. | |
| • | And this is all being done. But it's all reactive; it's done as a reaction to the daily unfortunate events. | |
| • | Acting proactively requires a strategy and a plan on how to overcome and eradicate the whole problem and convince the enemies of the people of Israel to cease and desist. | |
| • | Seems Israel is always "damned if we do and damned if we don't". Washington, London, Paris and Moscow never favor any Israeli plan of action, only inaction. | |
| • | Here is a straightforward plan that has never been tried and could conceivably bring a quick end to the state of terror gripping the country: | |
| • | a) Kill or apprehend the perpetrator. | |
| • | b) Immediately destroy his family home without due process. | |
| • | c) Deport all the residents of his home with no permission without due process. | |
| • | Why will it work? The Shahid gives up his life willingly in the hope of murdering Jews, as we have seen time and again. He does however, in a screwed up kind of way, love his own family and he does not want to bring them to hardships and grief. So this plan presents a promising possibility that after 10 or 20 times that it is actually followed, the streets will become safe, even safer than before. | |
| • | And what makes it just? Parents who brought up their children to hate and kill indiscriminately deserve to be punished and what more fitting punishment than to be thrown out of the Land. | |
| • | In order to put a plan such as this into action it would require that Martial Law be imposed in Israel for a preset time... | |
| • | This plan, or any alternative proactive plan for that matter, requires courage of conviction and intestinal fortitude of the highest degree, but it will save lives... | |
The Beginning of the End of the Palestinian Authority (INN 10/16/2015)
| • | The current wave of terror on the roads of Judea and Samaria, on the streets of Jerusalem, and in other parts of Israel is a clear sign that the Palestinian Authority is becoming the latest failed Arab "state" of the Middle East and will soon dissipate into the political oblivion of Arab Islamic political rivalry. | |
| • | The PA has played a major role in the murderous incitement against Jews and the State of Israel in schools, in children's programs on TV, in the media, and over the Internet during the current wave of terror. | |
| • | Since the heyday of the Oslo agreement, a generation of Arabs have grown up with social networks and have become addicted to Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet venues with Islamic channels that not only incite to murder Jews but provide instruction material and training videos on how to go about it. | |
| • | The Palestinian Authority has been outflanked by extreme Islamic organizations with only one goal: They are espousing their hatred of Jews, through the social networks and Internet, and encouraging Arabs to go out and murder Jews. | |
| • | We are not dealing with just a majority and a minority, but rather an Arab minority with the mentality of a majority, vis-a-vis a Jewish majority with the mentality of a minority. | |
| • | Israel affords more freedom to sympathize with the enemy than is granted to any minority in any democratic state in the world. | |
| • | Israeli Arabs are increasingly electing radical representatives, and their elites are committed to the more radical version of the struggle against the Jewish state. ... Israeli Arab Knesset members have become the most extreme and vocal supporters of the current wave of terror and have encouraged the Israeli-Arab public to commit violent acts against Jews. | |
| • | Palestinian Arabs have transformed themselves into "in-house agents" of the Islamic organizations sweeping the Middle East. ... They deny the Jews any religious, historical, or political legitimacy in the land of Israel. | |
| • | The current terror wave is in fact a result of the failure of the organized Palestinian terror organizations in the past. ... With little to show for so much terror over the years, the Palestinian Arabs have turned to the Internet to instruct and encourage young men as well as women, to go out and stab a Jew. | |
| • | By adopting the ideologies of the extreme Islamic forces sweeping the Middle East, the Palestinian Arabs have placed themselves — as always — on the wrong side of history and will pay a dear price for this obsessive need to always deny Israel's legitimacy in the Middle East. | |
| • | The true test of Palestinian Arab society now is how their mainstream responds and deals with its extreme Islamic terror. Now, amid the current terror wave, it seems as if the Palestinian Arabs have wholeheartedly adopted the murderous frenzy of stabbing Jews to death. | |
| • | The Palestinian Authority and the Islamic movement that abets it are two sides of the same coin — leading the Arab population in Israel back to the Middle Ages. | |
| • | Eventually, after the current terror wave ends, the Palestinian Authority will be just another former group of corrupt Arab leaders that have been thrown out by their own people. | |
Lone Wolves? (INN 10/14/2015)
| • | It has been pointed out that the latest crop of terrorists are very young and act mostly independently of any structured terror organizations; "Lone wolves" is the term used to describe the phenomenon in the USA. | |
| • | The "Oslo Accords" and Shimon Peres' "New Middle East" were thrust upon us in September 1993. | |
| • | These very young killers, including school children who lob big fat rocks onto windshields, were born into a world of non stop incitement against Jews. | |
| • | Their greatest heroes are those who kill the greatest number of Jews. The more cruel the act, the greater the adulation and the chance to have a football team named after them. | |
| • | They were born into a culture where bravado, cruelty, dishonesty, violence and religious fantasy (seventy two virgins can be very attractive to a frustrated teen) have always reigned. | |
| • | Nevertheless even this primitive, destructive culture knows its limits. It does understand force. Force is how they govern themselves and it is what they respond to best. | |
| • | The one thing though that they truly despise is weakness. These young killers were born at a time in our history where Israel (the Jews) have been in retreat on every important and symbolic front. | |
| • | Concession, retreat means only one thing - weakness; and they just despise weakness. The weak in their culture know their place;they always have in their world. | |
| • | Ever since Muhammad succeeded in defeating and massacring the Jewish tribes in the Arabian peninsula, Muslims gave Jews the choice of humiliation or death. | |
| • | Jews never again dared raise their head. The Koran defines the proper place for Jews and they have followed the rule book ever since; that is until recent history. | |
| • | As Jews began the historic and prophetic return to their beloved land that they turned to in prayer for two thousand years, it simply upset the Islamic order. | |
| • | When Jews defied both the humiliation and the sword, the Arabs went wild, abandoning all logic and all other concerns for what totally united them: to put the Jews in their rightful place. | |
| • | These new Jews were an affront to their beliefs and to their very manhood. | |
| • | War after war against the Jewish state taught them that the rules had indeed changed and a sort of detente based on their respect for Jewish power evolved. | |
| • | Just as we had them on the ropes; just as they were losing hope of turning the tide and were resigning themselves to our strength, we did the least expected. | |
| • | ... after Oslo, an entire generation was born into a world of Jews on the run; literally and in spirit. | |
| • | The Oslo concessions and weakness which brought Yasser Arafat to our front doors brought with it deep disdain for Jews and the launching by the Palestinian Authority (that Israel created),of Nazi like, public non stop incitement to kill Jews and hail the murderers. | |
| • | It is this incitment that Israel ignored from the beginning of Oslo until today that fills the heads of the young killers. | |
| • | When Eli Wiesel was asked, "What is the lesson you learned from the Holocaust'? He responded, "The next time they say they want to kill us we must believe them." | |
| • | It is our weakness that feeds their hate and their uncontrollable blood lust. How does one reverse all that hate? | |
| • | In the long term it is possible by controlling their media and hateful clerics as was done before Oslo. | |
| • | But is the short run, how do we discourage these young products of a culture of death? | |
| • | Deport their families to Gaza. That is the last place they want to be. Do that and the rest of the parents parents will check their brood for knives etc.. before they leave the house in the morning. | |
| • | For every attack on a Jew, expand Jewish settlement in the very areas they are trying to expel us. | |
| • | And get our leaders to finally lead like real Jewish leadership or replace them. | |
Incitement: The Engine Driving Global Terrorism, Part II (INN 10/14/2015)
| • | Schools controlled by authoritarian Arab regimes and Islamic extremists provide children everywhere in the Muslim-Arab world (including mosques in America and Europe) with textbooks that espouse a bitter hatred of Israel and the West. | |
| • | From elementary school through high school, textbooks foster hatred towards Israel and the West, with Israel described as "a country of gangs, born in crime." | |
| • | By second grade, the concept of jihad, or holy struggle – used by Osama bin Laden to characterize the September 11 attacks – is introduced and taught as an enshrined value. By the sixth grade, a child is encouraged to become a shahid (martyr). | |
| • | A Palestinian Arab soccer tournament was named in honor of the suicide bomber who killed 29 people and injured 140 during that Passover Seder in Netanya. | |
| • | Incitement is pervasive in the Arab-controlled media. From political cartoons to crossword puzzles, from the sermons of radical clerics to the MTV-like videos that cater to teens, it is hate content, all the time. | |
| • | Throughout the Muslim-Arab world, newspapers and television news programs are used as government vehicles to control the population, and journalists are expected to play by the rules. | |
| • | "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them." | |
| • | A busy Hamas website has a special online children's magazine that vilifies Americans and Jews, charging that Americans' hatred and insensitivity "are caused by the Jewish filth ... inspired by the Jews' cruelty, heresy and barbarity." | |
| • | The same website has a page of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Someone wanted to know whether a woman considering a suicide attack needs to wear the required head covering mandated by Islamic law to maintain her modesty, knowing she will draw attention if the attack is attempted in Israel. Yes, she must, is the reply; however, she is also permitted to disguise herself as an Orthodox Jewish woman. | |
| • | Terrorism is fueled by wealthy Arab states that support terror in words and deeds. They offer huge rewards to families whose members become shahid suicide bombers. | |
| • | ... Saudi Arabia serves as both the ideological and financial fountainhead for global terrorism, begetting, nurturing and sustaining Islamic extremism through a vast infrastructure whose roots go back to the birth of Wahhabism, an historic extreme form of Islam that developed in Saudi Arabia and now serves as the prototype ideology for all violent Islamists. | |
| • | Many Arab leaders, most of them autocrats, refuse to thwart terrorism because they use it to stay in power. | |
| • | "For years now, anti-Americanism has served as means of last resort, by which failed political systems and movements in the Middle East try to improve their standing ... By assigning responsibility for their own shortcomings to Washington, Arab leaders distract their subjects' attention from the internal weaknesses that are their real problems." | |
| • | The portraying of America as "the Big Satan" and Israel as "the Little Satan" reveals a far deeper motivation behind Islamic extremism. Both are singled out because they epitomize the success of Westernism. Both are singled out because by their very nature they stand as beacons that challenge the prevailing culture and regimes of the Middle East – America globally, Israel regionally. | |
| • | In July 2001, Lee Hockstader, a reporter for the Washington Post described Aziz Salha – the 20-year-old Palestinian who proudly waved his bloody hands out the window of a Ramallah police station after a brutal lynching of two Israelis – in a compassionate psychoanalysis: | |
| • | "The young man was very ill when he was a baby, he stuttered, he was shy ... maybe it really wasn't him photographed in the window ... people's emotions were boiling over because of Palestinian teens shot by Israeli soldiers.... Israel's settlements and occupation were on Salha's mind ... he was calm, good-natured and athletic." | |
| • | The FBI defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." | |
| • | It is a straightforward definition that leaves no room for dodging moral prerogatives or letting perpetrators pose as victims. | |
| • | ... the British press described Israeli anti-terrorist actions as "executions" or "assassinations" carried out by "death squads" or in "killing fields," while Palestinian suicide bombings were sometimes portrayed sympathetically as retaliations for "Israeli aggression." | |
| • | The democratically elected leaders of Israel and the U.S. are vilified and slandered, the very real threats to their national security are ridiculed, and their despotic enemies are defended. Both nations are full of intellectuals and opinion makers who accept at face value unsubstantiated charges that U.S. and Israeli armed forces commit atrocities. | |
| • | Extremist Muslim-Arab leaders have consciously chosen to stymie genuine peace and coexistence with Israel. They continue to foment hatred and terror against the United States, the free world and Israel to preserve their authoritarian regimes by controlling information and deflecting criticism onto Israeli and American scapegoats. | |
| • | Terror against democratic societies has a deeper motive than just inflicting unbearable pain and cost to targeted societies. It threatens to undermine the very foundation of those democracies, putting them on par with their non-democratic adversaries by undercutting the rule of law and making daily life in New York or Washington, Tel Aviv or Jerusalem as arbitrary as life in Teheran or under the PA. | |
| • | Palestinians seek to pull Israel down into the abyss by killing and maiming as many as possible and by robbing its citizens of their way of life. Despite the resilience Israelis have shown in dealing with terror, no democratic society should be expected to accept such conditions. | |
| • | Terrorism emanates from conscious incitement. The hatred against Israel and the West, fanned by Arab leaders, has reached epidemic proportions. | |
| • | Incitement in the Arab world is massive and omnipresent. It is directed at adults and children via virtually every kind of institution and every possible media outlet. | |
| • | Incitement must be stopped – terrorists must be disarmed and disbanded. | |
| • | Incitement of hate is an uncontrollable weapon of mass destruction. | |
What Must Be Done — Now! (INN 10/14/2015)
| • | It is time to talk about both criminalizing and deporting Israeli Arab Islamist groups, mullahs, MKs, and their most vocal supporters among Arab Israeli citizens; but what does Israel do about their silent supporters, those who will be next-line attackers? | |
| • | The international community has not rushed forward to condemn this season of Jewish blood. On the contrary. The world media is busily blaming Israel for "having provoked" such attacks; as usual, the world community views Israel as guilty for daring to defend herself competently. | |
| • | Western headlines detail the number of Arab/Palestinian attackers who have been killed rather bitterly and note only in small print, that they were shot dead while attacking innocent civilians. | |
| • | It is also time to talk about building even more and higher security fences just as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Eastern European countries have done with nary a hint of international opposition. | |
| • | Really, the time has come for the Jewish state to defend its citizens from those deadly assaults which the Iron Dome cannot deter. | |
| • | Doing so may require the sacrifice, not only of lives, (as it already has), but of certain cherished principles. | |
| • | European countries are actually faced with a similar dilemma. ... How can they maintain law and order in their cities when Muslim criminals are also attacking infidel women, torching infidel property, rolling burning tires into infidel neighborhoods, and, at best, draining the European coffers dry with their obvious need for free housing, health care, education, social work, and food? | |
| • | Here is what innocent, civilian Jews are now facing: | |
| • | Islamist Muslim religious and political leaders have indoctrinated their teenage as well as adult zombie-armies to stab Jews without warning, to run over them with cars, to stone them, hack them, and shoot them with their own weapons. | |
| • | Palestinian leaders have presented Jew-murder as a religious obligation. This religious Jihad is also a colonialist enterprise — one that lusts to render the only remaining Jewish remnant in the Muslim Middle East "Judenrein." | |
| • | Today, Bret Stephens, in the Wall Street Journal describes this behavior as "psychotic" and "evil." I agree. I would also describe it as highly orchestrated, and orchestrated for so long a time that by now the Palestinians have been literally brainwashed. | |
| • | Perhaps this awful wave of violent treachery will wake up sleeping Jews everywhere. | |
An exceptional moment: The Middle East's two current wars (Fox 10/13/2015)
| • | Currently two real wars are being waged in the Middle East: Above and around Syria, combat planes of both the world's superpowers — U.S. and Russia — together with those of two regional powers that possess formidable air forces — Turkey and Israel — are flying close to each other with very limited coordination between them. | |
| • | Similarly, ground- to-air missiles in the hands of terrorist groups and multiple forces raise the likelihood of mishaps. A Russian fighter plane or missile hitting an American plane or Turkish pilots striking an Israeli plane? | |
| • | In parallel, Saudi Arabia and Iran are waging a proxy war in Yemen. This war can spill over and threaten tanker traffic is the Gulf. As part of their conflict, Iran and their Houthi cohorts may carry out terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, including against critical energy infrastructure. | |
| • | The increased likelihood of escalation in the Middle East is enhanced by the fact that Washington's ties with most of its allies in the region are shaky. | |
| • | Alliances are important not only to deter common enemies but also to deter one's allies from acting on their own. | |
| • | In parallel to the full-scale wars being waged in Syria and Yemen, a number of local conflicts are escalating. Violent attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories have become daily events and show no signs of dissipating. | |
| • | In parallel, in the last month, a number of oil and gas export pipelines in Eastern Turkey have had sections blown up and could continue to be targets of terrorist groups operating in the region. | |
| • | Stabilization of the Middle East and protection of the infrastructure of the major producers is necessary for the low price trend to continue. | |
A '60 Minutes' interview with an unserious President Obama (Fox 10/12/2015)
| • | ... it was obvious Russian President Putin decided to meddle in Ukraine because he believed President Obama's weak foreign policy guaranteed that the United States would do nothing to stop him. | |
| • | Mr. Obama's claim that Russia meddled in Ukraine out of weakness was ridiculous. | |
| • | It was a painful interview to watch as the leader of the free world spoke about his disastrous foreign policy as if he lived in a fantasy world. | |
| • | The president said a policy he announced last September to "degrade and destroy" ISIS would work "over time," not in one year. | |
| • | Mr. Obama also said he was confident the nations of the world would come together "over time" to defeat ISIS. | |
| • | "I got to tell you, if you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in, in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then we've got a different definition of leadership." | |
| • | The president added to this by explaining what he considers the marks of U.S. global leadership under his administration: leading in climate change and bringing about the nuclear deal with Iran. | |
| • | President Obama concluded his discussion of foreign policy by telling ... that that America is a safer place today because of a reduced threat of terrorism, that U.S. strategic alliances are stronger, and America has a better reputation around the world. | |
| • | ... his Syria/Iraq policy is actually a non-policy to do a little as possible about these crises so he can hand them to the next president to solve. | |
| • | President Obama false and ridiculous statements in his "60 Minutes" interview about global security issues and his failed foreign policy is why the world does not view him as a serious president. | |
| • | The world knows America is in retreat under the Obama presidency. It has learned that the word of this president means nothing. | |
| • | This is why Putin ignored the United States and intervened in Ukraine and Syria. This is why the threat from ISIS and global terrorism is growing. This is why China is expanding its efforts to control the South China Sea. | |
| • | And this is why, with America's global reputation plummeting, the world may be a much more dangerous and unstable place 15 months from now when Barack Obama leaves office. | |
Putin/Iran Will Rape Sunni Oil Riches as Stalin/Hitler Raped Poland (INN 10/07/2015)
| • | In 2015, a mere 3 months after President Obama inked his Vienna-Nuclear appeasement of Iran, Putin and Iran agreed to devour Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, thus inevitably precipitating World War III. | |
| • | Obama's inane "peace in our time" has already immediately reaped war and death "dividends" for millions of Sunni Muslims who face certain genocide and war crimes at the hands of an evil amalgam of Putin's Russian mafiacracy spliced with Khamenei's Shiite Islamic theocracy. | |
| • | What is Putin's goal? Putin plans on becoming the nuclear, UN-veto wielding Godfather of the Middle East. | |
| • | Putin has got an offer the Sunnis can't refuse, because Putin is going to kill them first, and ask questions later. | |
| • | ... under the Russian-Iranian goal of a Russian protected Iran-Syria-Iraq-Lebanon ("Russian ISIL") controlled pipeline corridor, Saudi Arabia could not survive either militarily or economically. | |
| • | What's most dangerous to the United States, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel? | |
| • | An ISIL composed of a bunch of isolated Islamic crazies controlling half of Syria and a quarter of Iraq, or a Russian ISIL controlling an Iran-Syria-Iraq-Lebanon land-mass; and then onto an European oil-gas pipeline that will hold Europe hostage to Russian-Iranian oil and gas. | |
| • | In short, we are not seeing Russia fight ISIL for the good of the world. Rather, the world is witnessing Russia and Putin commit genocide against the Sunnis, making his hostile take-over bid for the Black Gold Triangle where he can fund and expand his empire, and further extort Europe with Russia's newly stolen Saudi Arabian oil reserves. | |
Obama got his Iran deal and the rest of us got a bloody mess in the Middle East (Fox 10/07/2015)
| • | Two reports on Syria, one on American efforts to bolster rebels and one on Russian efforts to protect Bashar al-Assad, combine to tell the whole story. It's not a pretty picture. | |
| • | ... instead of victory, Obama only wanted to "force the regime to accept a political solution." | |
| • | Putin "means to forge a counter-alliance consisting of Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanese Hezbollah and demonstrate that his coalition is more effective than the West's." | |
| • | ... Putin also aims "to establish a permanent foothold in the Middle East from which he can threaten NATO's southern flank directly, project power into the Mediterranean and the Arab World, and generally re-create Russia's aura as a global power." | |
| • | The White House deliberately downplayed the Russian buildup because it undercut central promises Obama made to Congress about the Iran nuke deal, which was then being debated. | |
| • | One of those promises was that Russia would help enforce the terms. Instead, Putin actually was making common cause with Iran, and both are now killing the Syrian rebels we supported. | |
| • | Here's the scorecard: Obama got his Iran deal, and the world got a more aggressive Iran, an expanded Syrian war and wider Russian influence. With each passing day, the cost of stopping Putin grows more expensive. | |
Where's the feminist outrage over ISIS's savage treatment of women? (Fox 10/08/2015)
| • | Why would any woman who lives in a free society in the West choose to live under ISIS's barbaric tyranny? | |
| • | Doesn't she know that Syrian and Iraqi women (Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, Kurds) are desperate to flee the region, that they fear being captured, forcibly married, forcibly converted to Islam — or tortured as sex slaves? | |
| • | Why would any Western woman, any woman for that matter, want to join ISIS, you ask? | |
| • | Here are three reasons: | |
| • | 1. They romanticize their potential roles as "revolutionaries" and do not realize that all they will be allowed to do is cook, clean, sew, have sex, produce babies, and pray. | |
| • | 2. They fear they cannot meet the demands of freedom in the West which involve decision making and responsibility for one's own choices and believe that they can succeed if they had strict, set, rules to follow. | |
| • | 3. Some view a decision to join ISIS as a way of "returning to one's roots" and rejecting a secular, modern, and allegedly "Islamophobic" Western culture. | |
| • | So those are some of the answers. Now, here are more questions: Why are so few Western feminists crying out to high heaven about this? | |
| • | Why are so many Western feminists still obsessed with criticizing America first, Israel second — and ISIS only in a whisper? | |
| • | I call upon President Obama and upon Western, educated secular feminists — both women and men — to join Christian and Yazidi groups in the compassionate rescue of ISIS's sex slaves. | |
| • | I call upon our government to rescue the Christians (Syrians and Iraqis) whom ... are trapped in Turkey, with too little food and no medical care. | |
| • | Unlike their Muslims brethren, the Christians have No Exit. No money, no Muslim relatives who control matters on the ground in the Turkish refugee camps. | |
| • | They deserve to be mercifully redeemed by the West. It is in our interest to do so. | |
| • | Christians might assimilate more safely into a Judeo-Christian culture than so many of the primarily male Muslims who are flooding into Europe. | |
Acting out of weakness? Why Obama's dangerously wrong about Putin's intentions in Syria (Fox 10/06/2015)
| • | President Obama called Vladimir Putin's incursion in Syria "an act of weakness." It's his pat answer when Putin misbehaves. | |
| • | The White House likes to portray the Kremlin as a place filled with petulant children who don't understand what's in their own best interest and will one day rue their misguided behavior. | |
| • | Mr. Obama sees Putin's military adventure as a quagmire-in-waiting for the Kremlin. | |
| • | First, there is no reason to believe that, just because entering a hot war in Syria is a bad idea, Putin won't pursue it with single-minded determination. | |
| • | Second, powers inclined to "act out of weakness" can take some very dangerous and destructive steps when undeterred. | |
| • | ... it's simply irresponsible to let dangerous powers run amok in dangerous places, responding only with assurances that everything will work out in the end. | |
| • | In the Kremlin's calculus, the best way follow-up bad behavior is... more acting badly. | |
| • | And let's face it: the Syrian civil war is going to get worse. The U.S. lacks a compelling vital interest that demands we solve the problem. Nor does it make much sense to fight it out with Moscow and Tehran over Damascus. | |
| • | That said it would be wrong to ignore this disaster. And it would be wrong to condone Putin's irresponsible military gambit to bolster Assad, one of the top mass murderers of the 21st century. | |
| • | The president has a long Middle Eastern and European to-do list. But that's largely the result of his failed foreign policy, which has helped empower all the wrong people while offending our best friends. | |
Jihadist Jew Hunting in Jerusalem and Shomron (INN 10/06/2015)
| • | ... the Palestinian stabber-shooter was described as a "law student"; his victims were described as "ultra-Orthodox Jewish men." Late last week, Palestinians shot and killed two parents in front of their four children; they are described as "settlers" in the "occupied West Bank." | |
| • | In short, as many have been led to believe, these Jewish victims are somehow deserving of their fates, since they have "provoked" Palestinians by "humiliating them." | |
| • | The NYT "spin" on the Oregon shooting is, as usual, one which focuses on the need for gun control and the crisis of mental illness. The killers featured there are mainly white, mentally ill men, who had access to guns. | |
| • | The Times and other mass media do not write that Mercer-Harper is bi-racial nor do they focus on his internet love affair with Jihad. | |
| • | Take someone from such a culture and who is "mentally ill," and who is living during a period of glorified global Jihad and who has been propagandized into becoming a human bomb, stabber, or stoner of other Muslims and of all infidels and we have a very different kind of problem. | |
| • | The "mentally ill" loner-boys in the Judeo-Christian West have latched on to a variety of ideologies that are not currently collectively embraced. They are viewed by all as racists, haters, disgusting. | |
| • | The "mentally ill" loner-boys in Muslim societies are not loners once they embrace an approved ideology of violent, externally oriented Jihad. And, they are glorified, treated as martyr-heroes. | |
| • | Such distinctions must be made especially as Europe is being flooded with countless immigrants from Muslim cultures and as President Obama keeps upping the number of Muslim immigrants whom America will be accepting. | |
| • | Neither Obama nor the Pope have specifically called for the acceptance of Christians and Yazidis. One must wonder why. And, one must challenge them both on this point. | |
How Islam Creates Sociopaths (INN 10/04/2015)
| • | The daily mass killings, terror, persecutions and family executions committed by the followers of Islam are nauseating, and the ingenuity behind the attacks — always looking for new and more effective ways of killing and terrorizing people — is astonishing. | |
| • | Hijacking jumbo jets and flying them into skyscrapers, hunting unarmed and innocent people with grenades and automatic rifles in shopping malls, planting bombs in one's own body, using model airplanes as drones, attaching large rotating blades to pickup trucks and using them as human lawn movers, killing family members with acid or fire, hanging people publicly from cranes in front of cheering crowds, etc. — in addition to stabbing people in the back, shooting parents in front of their children, slitting throats of sleeping babies, etc. | |
| • | It makes one ask oneself: what creates such lack of empathy and almost playful and creative attitude towards murdering perceived enemies? | |
| • | Nobody is born a mass murderer, a rapist or a violent criminal. So what is it in the Muslim culture that influence their children in a way that make so relatively many Muslims harm other people? | |
| • | As a psychologist in a Danish youth prison, I had a unique chance to study the mentality of Muslims. 70 percent of youth offenders in Denmark have a Muslim background. | |
| • | I came to the conclusion that Islam and Muslim culture have certain psychological mechanisms that harm people's development and increase criminal behavior. | |
| • | I am, of course, aware that Muslims are different, and not all Muslims follow the Quran's violent and perverted message and their prophet's equally embarrassing example. | |
| • | But as with all other religions, Islam also influences its followers and the culture they live in. | |
| • | One group is mainly connected with religion, which aims at indoctrinating Islamic values in children as early as possible and with whatever means necessary, including violence and intimidation. | |
| • | One can understand a Muslim parent's concern about his offspring's religious choices, because the Sharia orders the death penalty for their children should they pick another religion than their parents. | |
| • | ... cultural psychological mechanisms are a natural consequence of being influenced by a religion like Islam and stemming from a 1,400 year old tribal society with very limited freedom to develop beyond what the religion allows. | |
| • | Brainwashing people into believing or doing things against their own human nature — such as hating or even killing innocents they do not even know — is traditionally done by combining two things: pain and repetition. | |
| • | The conscious infliction of psychological and physical suffering breaks down the person's resistance to the constantly repeated message. | |
| • | Totalitarian regimes use this method to reform political dissidents. Armies in less civilized countries use it to create ruthless soldiers, and religious sects all over the world use it to fanaticize their followers. | |
| • | During numerous sessions with more than a hundred Muslim clients, I found that violence and repetition of religious messages are prevalent in Muslim families. | |
| • | Muslim culture simply does not have the same degree of understanding of human development as in civilized societies, and physical pain and threats are therefore often the preferred tool to raise children. | |
| • | The Muslim tradition of using pain and intimidation as part of disciplining children are also widely used in Muslim schools — also in the West. | |
| • | Combined with countless repetitions of Quranic verses in Islamic schools and families, all this makes it very difficult for children to defend themselves against being indoctrinated to follow the Quran, even if it is against secular laws, logic, and the most basic understanding of compassion. | |
| • | And as we know from so many psychological studies, whatever a child is strongly influenced by at that age takes an enormous personal effort to change later in life. | |
| • | It is no wonder that Muslims in general, in spite of Islam's inhumane nature and obvious inability to equip its followers with humor, compassion and other attractive qualities, are stronger in their faith than any other religious group. | |
| • | Not only does a traditional Islamic upbringing resemble classical brainwashing methods, but also, the culture it generates cultivates four psychological characteristics that further enable and increase violent behavior. | |
| • | Lack of self-confidence | |
| • | No sense of responsibility for oneself | |
| • | In Muslim culture, anger is much more accepted, and being able to intimidate people is seen as strength and source of social status. We even see ethnic Muslim groups or countries proudly declare whole days of anger, and use expressions such as "holy anger" — a term that seems contradictory in peaceful cultures. | |
| • | ... criticism, no matter how true, is seen as an attack on one's honor, and it is expected that the honor is restored by using whatever means necessary to silence the opponent. | |
| • | Muslims almost never attempt to counter criticism with logical arguments; instead, they try to silence the criticism by pretending to be offended or by name-calling, or by threatening or even killing the messenger. | |
| • | Muslims are raised to experience their lives as being controlled from the outside. | |
| • | Everything happens "insha' Allah" — if Allah wills — and the many religious laws, traditions and powerful male authorities leave little room for individual responsibility. | |
| • | This is the cause for the embarrassing and world-famous Muslim victim mentality, where everybody else is blamed and to be punished for the Muslims' own self-created situation. | |
| • | ... the fourth psychological factor making Muslims vulnerable to the violent message in the Quran concerns tolerance. | |
| • | Muslims are told that they are superior to non-Muslims, destined to dominate non-Muslims, and that they must distance themselves socially and emotionally from non-Muslims. | |
| • | The many hateful and dehumanizing verses in the Quran and the Hadiths against non-Muslims closely resemble the psychological propaganda that leaders use against their own people in order to prepare them mentally for fighting and killing the enemy. | |
| • | Killing another person is easier if you hate him and do not perceive him as fully human. | |
| • | The cultural and psychological cocktail of anger, low self-esteem, victim mentality, a willingness to be blindly guided by outer authorities, and an aggressive and discriminatory view toward non-Muslims, forced upon Muslims through pain, intimidation and mind-numbing repetitions of the Quran's almost countless verses promoting hate and violence against non-Muslims, is the reason why Islam creates monsters. | |
| • | The problem with Islam and Muslim culture is that there are so many psychological factors pushing its followers towards a violent attitude against non-Muslims that a general violent clash is — at least from a psychological perspective — inevitable. | |
| • | For people to change, they have to want it, to be allowed to change, and to be able to change — and only a tiny minority of Muslims have such lucky conditions. | |
| • | Far too many people underestimate the power of psychology embedded in religion and culture. As we have already seen, no army of social workers, generous welfare states, sweet-talking politicians, politically correct journalists or democracy-promoting soldiers can stop these enormous forces. | |
| • | Sensible laws on immigration and Islamization in our own countries can limit the amount of suffering, but based on my education and professional experience as a psychologist for Muslims, I estimate that we will not be able to deflect or avoid this many-sided, aggressive movement against our culture. | |
| • | I do believe that we, as a democratic and educated society can become focused and organized concerning the preservation of our values and constitutions, can win this ongoing conflict started by the often inbred followers of Sharia. | |
| • | The big question is how much of our dignity, our civil rights, and our blood, money and tears will we lose in the process. | |
Three Cheers for Terroristine (INN 10/04/2015)
| • | We need a terrorist state. Where the politicians are terrorists, the police are terrorists and even the men sitting at the desk when you come in to drop off a form are terrorists. | |
| • | Terrorists from the top down. Terrorists everywhere. A state where every branch of government and the entire country is nothing but terrorists. | |
| • | A generation of keffiyah draped thugs, KGB operatives and human rights activists have looked out into the darkness and called it into being. | |
| • | It is a vision of a country where everyone is a murderer and children are taught from a very young age that their purpose in life is to die killing people who don't share their religion. | |
| • | Abbas, its unelected dictator, who has struggled long and hard so that one of his sons might have his own cigarette monopoly in Gaza, has come to the UN to promise that Terroristine will have "will actively contribute to the achievement of economic, cultural, and humanitarian progress of civilization." | |
| • | Terroristine, whose noble flag (that looks like nearly every other Arab flag) flies over the UN, has done wonders for civilization. | |
| • | Consider the airplane hijacking. The suicide bomber. Has there ever been a civilization that did as much for civilized living as the Terroristinians? | |
| • | Every time you get groped at an airport, thank Terroristine. Without the Terroristinian contribution to civilization, you might actually be able to get on a plane in peace. Or visit the Twin Towers. | |
| • | The Terroristinian contribution to human progress is unquestionable. But only one thing stands in the way of it unleashing its full Terroristinian potential for all mankind. | |
| • | Them. Those pesky people who live in that country that is always in the way. You know the ones, with too many Nobel prizes, newly invented tomatoes and microchips. They stand in the way of the great cultural contributions of Terroristine. They must die so that Terroristine may live | |
| • | They must be thrown out of their homes, village by village and city by city, so that the noble Terroristinians can plant their rockets on the rubble of their houses, the charred remains of their fields, and point them at their cities. | |
| • | Trying to end terrorism by creating a terrorist state makes is like trying to put out a fire with more fire. | |
| • | Until there's nothing left but Terroristines everywhere. Until all the world is Terroristine. The question is can we make it happen? Yes, we can. Oh sweet Allah, yes we can. | |
| • | But the dream failed. Farmers armed with outdated rifles. Volunteer pilots from America and Canada. Refitted cargo ships filled with half-dead men, women and children straight from the camps. Used Czech artillery. | |
| • | They held off the armies of seven Terroristinian nations. Farm by farm, they stood off tanks and infantry. In Jerusalem, they fought for every house. And so the Zionist entity survived. | |
| • | But now it's back to 1948 again. Every war undone. Every defeat turned to victory. Cut Jerusalem in two. Drive out the farmers. Burn their land. Dig up their graves. March the borders back to 1948. And fly the Terroristinian flag over dust and rubble. | |
| • | Hospitals here, launching pads there. Schools here, bomb factories there. Life here, death here. We all know the story. Olive trees and bomb belts. Rocks and dead families in burning cars by the side of the road. Children with their throats cut. Parents shot dead with their four children cowering in the back of their car. | |
| • | Why do we need Terroristine? Peace. There can be no peace without a terrorist state. Not a chance of it. The only way we'll ever have peace is to give the terrorists a country of their own. A country dedicated to terrorism. | |
| • | Only then will the Terroristinians finally give up on all the killing, and dedicate themselves to medical research, quantum mechanics and the arts. It hasn't happened yet. But it's bound to. | |
| • | After decades as an autonomous territory, spreading death and destruction, it's time for Terroristine to finally be recognized as an independent state. With contiguous borders cutting Israel in half. It is the only hope for peace in the region | |
| • | The international community is impatient. They want Terroristine and they want it now. Whatever Israel has offered in the past, it isn't enough. It must offer more and more. Whatever it takes. | |
| • | We know the Terroristinians want their own state. Every time they walk out of negotiations or end them with a round of terrorist attacks, it shows their deep and abiding passion for a state. They want it so badly they aren't willing to make a single concession for it. Or even negotiate for it. | |
| • | We know they're terrorists. That's why we're giving them a state. If they weren't terrorists, they could go to the back of the line with the Jews, Kurds and Armenians. | |
| • | Jewish store windows are smashed in London, Terroristinians butcher Rabbis in Jerusalem synagogues, fuming Terroristinians shoot up American recruiting centers. And the crowds cheer. "We Are All Terroristinians Now." | |
| • | One day the borders of Terroristine will stretch from Spain to Pakistan. Or beyond. Why settle for Jerusalem, when we can have London, Paris and Hamburg too. Why settle for anything at all? Allah is generous to the believers. | |
| • | We are all Terroristinians now. There is no other book on our shelves than the Koran. No law but Sharia in our hearts. And no nation but Terroristine. | |
Obama's Syria Debacle And A Powerless U.S. (JWR 10/02/2015)
| • | Russia is not in Syria to fight the Islamic State. The Kremlin was sending fighter planes, air-to-air missiles and SA-22 anti-aircraft batteries. Against an Islamic State that has no air force, no planes, no helicopters? | |
| • | Indeed, some of these bombed fighters were U.S. trained and equipped. Asked if we didn't have an obligation to support our own allies on the ground, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter bumbled that Russia's actions exposed its policy as self-contradictory. | |
| • | The whole point of Russian intervention is to maintain Assad in power. Putin has no interest in fighting the Islamic State. Indeed, the second round of Russian air attacks was on rival insurgents opposed to the Islamic State. The Islamic State is nothing but a pretense for Russian intervention. | |
| • | In his subsequent news conference, Carter averred that he found such Russian behavior "unprofessional." | |
| • | Good grief. Russia, with its inferior military and hemorrhaging economy, had just eaten Carter's lunch, seizing the initiative and exposing American powerlessness — and the secretary of defense deplores what? Russia's lack of professional etiquette. | |
| • | When Obama became president, the surge in Iraq had succeeded and the United States had emerged as the dominant regional actor, able to project power throughout the region. | |
| • | Russian planes roam free over Syria attacking Assad's opposition as we stand by helpless. Meanwhile, the U.S. secretary of state beseeches the Russians to negotiate "de-conflict" arrangements — so that we and they can each bomb our own targets safely. It has come to this | |
| • | Why is Putin moving so quickly and so brazenly? Because he's got only 16 more months to push on the open door that is Obama. He knows he'll never again see an American president such as this — one who once told the General Assembly that "no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation" and told it again Monday of "believing in my core that we, the nations of the world, cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion." | |
| • | They cannot? Has he looked at the world around him — from Homs to Kunduz, from Sanaa to Donetsk — ablaze with conflict and coercion? | |
| • | Where was Obama when Putin began bombing Syria? Leading a U.N. meeting on countering violent extremism. | |
Obama's Real Legacy: Creating a Global Haven for Terrorists (INN 10/02/2015)
| • | The evolving threat to America's national security has never been more random and unpredictable than in the dwindling months left at the Obama White House. | |
| • | Obama's ludicrous assertions the world is "less violent" than it has ever been, that Al Qaeda's terrorist ranks are "on the run" and have been "decimated," .."America is winning right now. America is great right now" are blatant lies based on fantasy. | |
| • | Despite the White House's orchestrated spin, nothing can be further from the truth: Under Obama's watch, global terror threat and terrorist attacks have skyrocketed. | |
| • | Global terrorism has significantly worsened, in terms of the number of attacks, their lethality, as well as the size and strength of terrorist organizations. | |
| • | Even the Director of National Intelligence contradicts Obama, saying that the terror threat against the United States is "expanding" and "2014 is the deadliest year on record for attacks around the world." | |
| • | More than 50 intelligence analysts of the U.S. Central Command formally complained that their reports were altered by Obama senior officials to make sure they adhere to the administration's public line that the USis winning the fight against ISIL. | |
| • | Most of the terrorist plots uncovered in the Middle East, have had targeted the Jewish and Christian community. Sadly, Obama has ignored the genocide of Christians around the world. | |
| • | Obama considered domestic terrorist threats "violent extremism," avoiding at all cost the term "Islamic" or "terrorist" when describing incidents such as the Fort Hood shooting, which have all been designated as "work place violence." | |
| • | It is a travesty that Obama isn't telling us the truth about the growing, global terrorist threat. With global deaths from terrorism up more than 4,000 percent in a dozen years, can we really call U.S. counterterrorism a success? | |
| • | Assuming there is no chance to reverse Obama's destructive policies, we cannot stand aside and do nothing about Muslim Brotherhood influence in the White House. | |
| • | The history is clear: When we stop appeasing the enemy, their capabilities will degrade and self-destruct. | |
| • | When we embrace a self-defeating strategy, the enemy gets emboldened and becomes a more powerful threat to global security and stability. | |
What now? How to deal with the utter collapse of Obama's Syria-Iraq strategy (Fox 09/30/2015)
| • | The president's four-step plan included: a systemic campaign of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria; increased support to forces fighting ISIS on the ground in Iraq and Syria, including training and arming moderate Syrian rebels; expanded counterterrorism efforts to weaken ISIS and cut off its resources; and continued support to humanitarian assistance to civilians displaced by ISIS. | |
| • | Twelve months later this strategy is in ruins. | |
| • | Also on Wednesday, the Russian government told the United States to stay out of Syrian airspace and remove American warplanes. | |
| • | Iran has increased its presence in Iraq; Moscow has strengthened its relationship with the Iraqi government. | |
| • | Russian officials announced a new anti-ISIS pact between Russia, Iraq, Iran and Syrian that will include intelligence sharing. | |
| • | President Obama's Iraq-Syria strategy collapsed so quickly because it was really a non-strategy to do as little as possible about this crisis for the rest of his presidency so he can hand this mess to a future president. | |
| • | Pinprick airstrikes in Syria under Obama's policy did not stop ISIS from making gains on the ground. | |
| • | In Iraq, ISIS took the city of Ramadi last May despite being outnumbered 10-1 by the Iraqi army. | |
| • | The Obama administration recently admitted its $500 million plan to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels has been a disaster. | |
| • | ... a U.S. general told Congress only "four or five" are still fighting in Syria despite a goal of training 5,400 per year. | |
| • | Mr. Obama's policy created a power vacuum in the Middle East that Russian President Vladimir Putin has filled. | |
| • | Given that this situation is the result of seven years of incompetent policy by this administration and the president's continuing refusal to take decisive action in Iraq or Syria, it is hard to see what the Obama administration can do to reverse it. | |
| • | But there are several guidelines Mr. Obama should consider employing to dig out of the hole his policy has created: | |
| • | Recognize that Russia and Iran are the problem, not the solution. | |
| • | Work with our European and regional states to form a better military alliance to combat ISIS and to counter Russian and Iranian influence. | |
| • | End the limitations on fighting ISIS in Iraq. Let U.S. troops leave their bases so they can operate behind the lines in Iraq and support Iraqi security forces. Provide better weapons to the Iraqi Kurds or let our allies arm them. | |
| • | President Obama must stop making demands he has no intention of enforcing. ... The word of the leader of the world's superpower must be enough to change international events and not viewed as chatter that can be safely ignored. | |
| • | Given his record to date, I doubt President Obama will adopt any of these guidelines. I expect his administration will continue its non-policy policy to leave this crisis for the next administration to solve. | |
Surprise, surprise, Russia is a world power again (Fox 09/28/2015)
| • | ... one thing is clear — the meeting demonstrates the sudden, even shocking, rise to power of Russia in the last several years. | |
| • | In a world full of surprises — the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the weakness in the Chinese economy, the battles within the European Union, the making of the Iran deal, the slide in the American stock market — the greatest surprise of all has been the sudden rebirth of Russian power under Vladimir Putin. | |
| • | This is amazing given that Russia has withdrawn from Eastern Europe, lost half its population, lacks modern consumer, agricultural and hi-tech sectors and suffered a 50 percent drop in the price of its oil exports. | |
| • | Russia's economy is smaller than that of England, France or Germany and has not moved towards Western democratic capitalism. | |
| • | Putin is repeatedly pilloried by Western leaders. President Obama, denigrating Russia as only a regional power, proclaimed that Putin resembled a bored kid slouching in the back of the classroom. | |
| • | German Chancellor Angela Merkel scathingly derided Putin's machismo, saying "I understand why he has to do this — to prove he's a man. He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing..." | |
| • | Yet, Russia has re-established itself as a great power courting authoritarian and often corrupt regimes all over the world. | |
| • | Alone among the major global powers, Russia is on the offensive and willing to intervene to help its allies. | |
| • | The United States under President Obama is staging a semi-withdrawal from key areas of the world. | |
| • | Syrian President Bashar Assad owes his survival to 4-5 billion dollars of Russian military aid as well as Iranian help. Russia played a key role in ensuring a lenient nuclear deal for Iran. Russia is the main weapons supplier to Iran and will build more nuclear power plants like Busheir. | |
| • | With its strong military capabilities, Eurasian geographic location, capable leadership, conservative nationalism and resuscitation of old Cold War relationships, Russia has again become a major player in the world. | |
Macho talk is Obama’s only weapon against Putin (NY Post, 09/26/2015)
| • | Pope Francis gave him a boost, Republican Speaker John Boehner is sobbing off into the sunset, and China's Xi Jinping gave him paper promises on the environment and cybertheft. No wonder President Obama is feeling cocky. | |
| • | So much so that his press secretary was eager to portray his boss as way, way tougher than Vladimir Putin. | |
| • | "President Putin was striking a now-familiar pose of less-than-perfect posture and unbuttoned jacket and, you know, knees spread far apart to convey a particular image." | |
| • | No doubt fear stalks the Kremlin and Putin is quaking. Barack Obama is mad at him and letting the whole world know! | |
| • | But Putin knows something else, too. Macho talk is the only weapon Obama is ready to use, so he sent his messenger boy out to lay on it thick. That way, maybe the press wouldn't notice how badly Obama has been tricked by Putin, again, and outmaneuvered on Syria, again. | |
| • | Recall that during the fight with Congress over the Iran nuke pact, the White House touted Russia's support and downplayed "secret" side deals between the United Nations and Iran. Now it seems there was another "secret" side deal that even the White House didn't know about. | |
| • | It is the one where Iran and Russia agreed to work together to protect Syrian butcher Bashar Assad, creating a new military axis of evil in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods. | |
| • | The mysterious visit came despite the fact that Soleimani is subject to a travel ban because he has been charged with supporting terrorism. But Putin is not the kind to let little things like terrorism spoil his master plan for spreading Russia's footprint. | |
| • | While some of that effort will fight Islamic State, the axis also will be fighting the same Syrian rebels the United States is supposedly supporting. We already spent tens of millions of dollars on them, with only a handful of trained soldiers and no advances to show for it. | |
| • | Coming as Russia continues to occupy parts of eastern Ukraine, after it gobbled up Crimea, the move into Syria shows how little Putin fears or respects Obama. And the childish taunting by the White House shows Obama's weak hand. | |
| • | If there is any "progress" at Monday's meeting, it will move in only one direction. The United States will edge closer toward accepting Assad's hold on power, long after Obama said he had to go... | |
| • | There will be one other consequence, too. Assad's survival will mean Iran has succeeded in getting America to tacitly approve its expanded influence as well as its nuclear program. | |
| • | Soon to be funded by assets Obama agreed to release, the mullahs will be better able to arm Hezbollah and Hamas and create more problems for Israel and America's Arab allies. | |
| • | "Talk softly and carry a big stick," Teddy Roosevelt famously advised. Obama has reversed the formula — and the world is a much more dangerous place as a result. | |
Assad wins... again. How Syria's president outfoxed the West (Fox 09/28/2015)
| • | Assad has an amazing track record of always saving himself or being saved at the last minute, waiting for the storm to pass. | |
| • | It all started ten years ago when Lebanese billionaire and former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was murdered in a spectacular terror attack in Beirut. | |
| • | Right away all signs pointed to Damascus' involvement in the attack triggering the Cedar revolution that caused Syrian troops to leave Lebanon and Assad to be viewed as a pariah by the international community. | |
| • | History should have taught the international community that engaging a regime like Assad's rarely works; on the contrary it actually emboldens it. | |
| • | Assad would have been history in 2012 if it were not for Iran providing a lifeline with a huge amount of cash and men through its proxy Hezbollah. | |
| • | ... again Assad was thrown a lifeline: the nuclear deal with Iran — which will free $150 billion — is the cash infusion he needed, coupled with Iran's ever growing military assistance. | |
| • | Assad, like his father, is famous for playing the arsonist/fireman strategy. Thus, Assad's assertion of "either the jihadists — whether Islamic State or Al Qaeda — or I" has resonated with the gullible West. | |
| • | Assad came to power as a naive ophthalmologist but quickly learned the ropes and surpassed his father as a shrewd poker player. He got both his allies and some of his enemies to save him: no small feat indeed. | |
Russia vs the West in Syria — a One-Way Street (INN 09/24/2015)
| • | It is not only about Syria. It's about two polar ideologies, two worldviews incompatible with each other. | |
| • | At one extreme, we see the time-honored tradition based on the primacy of national interests and perceptions of those involved as Empire. | |
| • | At the other extreme, there is a schizophrenic conglomeration of amateurism, idealism, Neo-Marxism ideology, quasi-religious utopias of the universal triumph of democracy "for all, here and now" and violently distorted conceptions of human rights and civil liberties. | |
| • | The first outlook generates calculating and cynical, but predictable policies. The second one paves the road to hell. | |
| • | Obama may cherish illusions that Iran's Ayatollahs will become US allies for as long as he wants them to, but in Tehran they even don't try to conceal their contempt for him. | |
| • | Mullahs have friends already, and they sit not in Washington, but in Moscow. Both sides coordinate every step. | |
| • | The second key point is related to Islamist threat. Putin's calls to destroy ISIS are not just empty rhetoric. The defeat of Assad would be the triumph of "jihadists", and the flame of "Green revolution" under the banner of the Prophet would inevitably spread to Muslim regions of Russia... | |
| • | Unlike the Europeans, Russia doesn't accept returning "jihadists", who went to fight for the Caliphate - Russians prefer destroying them in Syria. One of the main aims of Russians in Syria will be Chechen militants, penetrating into Syria via Turkey. | |
| • | The third point – starting from the 18th century, the Russian Empire, and after it the Soviet Union, sought to increase its presence in the "South Seas" - the Mediterranean. It would turn Russia into a leading player in world politics, would let it go beyond the Eurasian steppes and dictate its own terms to the West. | |
| • | The Eastern Mediterranean becoming Russian – the aim that was unachievable in the face of such statesman-rivals as Palmerston, Disraeli, Churchill, Truman and Reagan, became ridiculously easy with Obama. | |
| • | The fourth point - Russia wants to show to the whole world that it is a power that under no circumstances abandons its friends and allies to their fate. | |
| • | It was a useful lesson – now all countries in the region apply for mediation not to Washington, Paris or London, but to the Kremlin. | |
| • | They manipulate Obama, cynically obtaining American weapons and technology from him, but it is Russia that they consider the power capable of influencing events. | |
| • | As far as I know, Moscow planned to offer a deal to Netanyahu: the participation of "Gazprom" in Leviathan gas field development on the northern border of Israel in exchange for curbing Iran and Hezbollah | |
| • | Blackmail? Yes, to a certain degree, but at least it is much more explainable than the demands to return to "Auschwitz borders" immediately. | |
| • | Russia assumes the mission of the protector of Christian minorities in the Middle East, in the same way that it protected the Eastern Orthodoxy in the 19th century, and Great Britain, represented by Lord Shaftesbury, protected Jews in Holy Land. | |
| • | And eventually, all of these efforts coming out of Moscow are based on the deep, uncompromising belief in Russia's rightness and its divine mission... | |
| • | What does the West set against Russia? It betrays its allies by encouraging their worst enemies. This is done senselessly, egregiously, in ways harmful to own strategic interests. | |
| • | Yes, it betrays – in dirty, cowardly and hypocritical fashion - Israel, its last stronghold in the Middle East, this in the name of the mythical "Palestinian people" that never existed. | |
| • | This "people" was the inspired invention of the KGB and the Arab League and turned out to be the "sacred cow" of postmodern culture. | |
| • | The US betrayed the friendly Kurds - in the name of "good relations" with the psychopath Erdogan, whose hatred of the West is no less than that of Ali Khamenei. | |
| • | It betrayed — in the name of political correctness — Christians of the Middle East inseparably connected to Christian civilization. | |
| • | While Russia is building its Empire, the West is concerned with self-destruction. | |
| • | This is a "suicidal syndrome" in the name of "progressive thinking" that killed both the progress and thinking. | |
| • | The result of this contest is predictable. History does not like idiots, and especially "useful idiots." | |
False prophet? Why Pope Francis has disappointed many Roman Catholics (Fox 09/24/2015)
| • | The papacy is an office created personally by Our Lord. Its occupants are direct descendants of St. Peter. | |
| • | Its role and authorities have evolved over the centuries, but the core of its responsibilities has always been the preservation of traditional teachings about faith and morals and safeguarding the sacraments. | |
| • | While the papacy is a monarchy, the teaching authority in the Church is "the bishops under the pope." This means that a pope intent on change ought to consult with his fellow bishops. | |
| • | Now, here comes Pope Francis to use moral relativism to take the Church in two dangerous directions. The first is an assault on the family, and the second is an assault on the free market — two favorite political targets of the left. | |
| • | In the past month, without consulting his fellow bishops, the pope has weakened the sacrament of matrimony by making annulments easier to obtain. | |
| • | The Church has taught for 400 years that abortion is murder. Because the victim of an abortion is always innocent, helpless and uniquely under the control of the mother, abortion removes the participants from access to the sacraments. | |
| • | Last week, Pope Francis, without consulting his fellow bishops, ordered that any priest may return those who have killed a baby in a womb to the communion of the faithful. | |
| • | He said he did this because he was moved by the anguished cries of mothers contemplating the murder of their babies. | |
| • | In his papal exhortation on capitalism, Pope Francis spectacularly failed to appreciate the benefits of capitalism to the health, wealth and safety of the poor. | |
| • | The pope probably also will tell Congress that the world is an inherently unhealthy place because of human work. He will embrace the highly questionable green science of those who want the government to tell us how to live, outside our homes and inside... | |
| • | The pope has seriously disappointed those who believe the Roman Catholic Church preserves and teaches the Truth. | |
| • | The Truth is Christ risen and unity with Him. It is not a debate about the minimum wage or air conditioning. | |
Europe’s Migrants: Between Empathy and Self-preservation (INN 09/23/2015)
| • | We have all stared in dismay at heartfelt pictures of dead refugee children who had been trying to brave the waves while trying to cross from the violent and poverty-stricken Middle East to the wealthy Europe. | |
| • | Thousands of noble, well-meaning people are extending a helping hand and are doing their best. The left-wing sympathizers are in the forefront of the "Support the Refugees" movement. | |
| • | Many others, largely in Eastern Europe, have doubts and don't want to take in these migrants. ... Left-wing media denounces them as xenophobic racist Nazis. | |
| • | These sanctimonious accusers miss the main point: The refugees are predominantly Muslim. This is the key to understanding why so many people resist accepting them in their cities and neighborhoods. | |
| • | ... the Muslim religion, Islam, is rightly associated with intolerance and violence. Muslims slaughter Christians all over Middle East. They abhor Jews, Westerners and anybody who doesn't believe in Islam. Anyone that doesn't practice restrictive Muslim sharia law is to be converted, expelled or murdered. | |
| • | In essence, the governments of France, Sweden and even Great Britain have acceded to the establishment of Muslim mini-states in many of their cities and suburbs. | |
| • | Concerned Europeans, maligned by the left as xenophobes, are just normal people who follow their instinct for self-preservation. They want to protect both the cultural heritage of their countries and their own lives. | |
| • | Refugees reaching the shores of Europe are overwhelmingly economic migrants. They flee poverty, not war. Even Syrian migrants are mostly fleeing from refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan and not from the life-threatening war inside Syria. | |
| • | ... when the Danish government wanted to slow down the flow of refugees, they advertised in Arab newspapers that the benefits have been cut. | |
| • | It is clear that the wave of Muslim migrants represents a mortal danger to the whole European continent. | |
| • | Once the large Muslim population establishes a permanent presence and once major parts of big cities become Muslim-controlled no-go zones, then Muslim political demands will follow. | |
| • | Past experience shows that the big pools of European Muslims are a fertile ground for spreading ISIS-like ideas and terrorism. Muslims usually refuse to assimilate and prefer to convert their hosts to Islam. | |
| • | When we face today's difficult choice between our desires to resettle people in distress and the inescapable conclusion that resettlement will entice many more Muslims to come, we must let reason to prevail. | |
| • | We must be smart and restrain our altruistic and noble urges to do something good. Let's not allow our countries to be taken over by Muslim violence and intolerance. We must think about our self-preservation and about the preservation of our children and grandchildren. | |
| • | There are other humanitarian solutions to this problem that do not entail the settlement of Muslims in Europe. | |
| • | Europe should help establish refugee camps and safe zones in the Middle East. | |
| • | Generous welcome by Germany created a strong magnet to bring millions of migrants from Asia and Africa to Europe. | |
| • | It's unconscionable that Germany, that created the problem, wants to push it onto other European countries by demanding that they accept more migrants. | |
| • | If politicians like Angela Merkel don't understand this fundamental truth then new leaders should be elected who will undo the damage and implement a practical and effective solution. | |
The Left Has Its Pope (National Review, (09/22/2015))
| • | Pope Francis has created political controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor. | |
| • | Pope Francis is part of a larger trend of the rise of the political left among Catholic intellectuals. He is, in a sense, the culmination of that trend. | |
| • | ... putting aside religious or philosophical questions, we have more than two centuries of historical evidence of what has actually happened as the ideas of people like those Enlightenment figures were put into practice in the real world — beginning with the French Revolution and its disastrous aftermath. | |
| • | Both the authors of the Bishops' Pastoral Letter in the 1980s, and Pope Francis today, blithely throw around the phrase "the poor," and blame poverty on what other people are doing or not doing to or for "the poor." | |
| • | Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty. It is not poverty, but prosperity, that needs explaining. | |
| • | Poverty is automatic, but prosperity requires many things — none of which is equally distributed around the world or even within a given society. | |
| • | Geographic settings are radically different, both among nations and within nations. | |
| • | So are demographic differences, with some nations and groups having a median age over 40 and others having a median age under 20. This means that some groups have several times as much adult work experience as others. | |
| • | Cultures are also radically different in many ways. | |
| • | ... which has a better track record of helping the less fortunate — fighting for a bigger slice of the economic pie, or producing a bigger pie? | |
| • | In 1900, only 3 percent of American homes had electric lights but more than 99 percent had them before the end of the century. | |
| • | Infant mortality rates were 165 per thousand in 1900 and seven per thousand by 1997. | |
| • | By 2001, most Americans living below the official poverty line had central air conditioning, a motor vehicle, cable television with multiple TV sets, and other amenities. | |
| • | ... the official poverty level in the United States is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much-criticized market economy of the United States has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the Left. | |
| • | Pope Francis' own native Argentina was once among the leading economies of the world, before it was ruined by the kind of ideological notions he is now promoting around the world. | |
Why Pope Francis matters [even if you're not Catholic] (Fox 09/22/2015)
| • | First, the pope matters because he represents half of the world's 2.18 billion Christians | |
| • | Second, Francis matters because he reminds us that the pope is not only a head of state – Vatican City is the smallest independent nation in the world but also one of the most influential – he is also meant to be a pastor. And no other pontiff in my lifetime has shepherded his planet-wide flock as humbly, tenderly, or cheerily as Francis. | |
| • | Third, Pope Francis matters because he reminds us of how terribly divided we've become not only in the United States, but globally. | |
| • | Francis himself leans left in his severe upbraiding of wanton capitalism and his belief in manmade climate change. | |
| • | And he leans right in his unshakeable opposition to abortion and his defense of the Biblical definition of marriage, which is the consecrated union of a man and a woman. | |
| • | Yet he holds the two opposing views so sincerely and thoughtfully, and is so likeable in the process, that he makes it hard for the rest of us to go on demonizing our political opponents. | |
| • | The Bible reports that Jesus enjoyed a three-year honeymoon, during which he played to enlarging, adoring crowds of poor and oppressed Jews. They cheered him on, followed him everywhere, as he performed miracles and called out the Temple leadership for their arrogance and hypocrisies. | |
| • | But then they all turned on him – the people, the Temple priesthood, the Roman government – and he ended up being crucified. He was a sinless man who preached love and forgiveness, but everyone turned on him when they discovered he was not everything they wanted him to be. | |
| • | Pope Francis is now smack in the middle of the third year of his papacy's honeymoon period. He is hugely popular because he comes across as a man of the people, an unpretentious servant of God who clearly loves the down-and-out exceedingly more than he does the stuffy, pompous trappings of his office. | |
| • | It's no wonder President Obama is going to meet him at the airport immediately upon his arrival – who wouldn't want Francis on his team? | |
| • | But what will happen to Francis's popularity if he uses his visit to the Democrat-controlled White House tomorrow to reiterate – albeit lovingly – his hardline stand against abortion and gay marriage? President Obama has reportedly invited to the reception a handful of LGBT activists antagonistic to the Catholic church. | |
| • | And what will happen to the pope's soaring popularity if he uses his visit to the Republican-controlled Congress on Thursday to sound off about manmade climate change? Many conservative members of the House and Senate fervently cite scientific evidence that climate change is mostly natural. | |
| • | That's the final, important reason why Pope Francis should matter to us. He reminds everyone that we Americans aren't the center of the universe – gasp! – but that we are a nation mightily blessed by a God who values a humble spirit and a hospitable heart. | |
Fighting a Losing Battle on the Temple Mount (INN 09/21/2015)
| • | The bottom line is that until we stand up, shout, "Enough!" and clearly articulate not only our sovereignty over the Mount, not only our refusal to abide Arab verbal and physical intimidation, not to mention rioting, but also our own demands for shared, respected and unimpeded access by Jews and Christians, as well as Muslims, we are fighting a losing battle. | |
| • | We have been humiliated, reduced to the Kafka-esque posture of harassing elderly Jews who might, just might, move their lips in prayer. | |
| • | The world will only respect our rights, when we do ourselves. As to the King of Jordan, we should cordially invite him to end our security umbrella for his unrepresentative regime, or to buy his water elsewhere. | |
| • | More and more Israelis are asking themselves why we have neutered ourselves on the Temple Mount. Why have we enshrined a recent and dhimmi-like "status quo" which runs completely contrary to the actual language of the Jordanian Peace Treaty, which guarantees free access to all holy places to people of all religions? | |
| • | The Temple Mount is the great civil rights issue of Israel. It is the tyranny of the majority by a take no prisoners minority, that well understands the critical significance of the true control of the Mount. | |
| • | This is no longer a religious issue. It is a matter of protecting and projecting our sovereignty before we wake up and realize that is all a bit too late to do so. | |
| • | To our enemies the Mount is a critical battleground, because they well understand, that if we cede our holiest site, our giving up the rest of Israel will only be a matter of time. | |
An Open Letter to Reykjavik on its Eruption of Anti-Semitism (INN 09/20/2015)
| • | When your city council decided to boycott Israel, you thought you might find some respite from being looked down upon as mere whale butchers. | |
| • | Countries run by genocidal dictators, narco-tyrants, and erstwhile conquerors are exempted. Only Israel is to feel the cold of Reykjavik's newly acquired moral policy. | |
| • | I know from my discussions with leftist clergy in America that they always say, "you have to start someplace." But then why is it that after decades of advocating boycotting Israel, these men and women of God never seem to go anywhere else? | |
| • | No brutal, genocidal, psychopathic dictator engenders as much concern as a struggling democracy trying to stay alive while its neighbors call for its extinction and in each war threaten to feed the Jews to the fish. | |
| • | Yarmouk once housed 240,000 Palestinian refugees living in poverty and without hope. Despite the repeated concern for the Palestinians enunciated during regularly scheduled Israel-bashing sessions at the United Nations, no Arab state would resettle them or give them full citizenship. | |
| • | The Icelanders might want to consider that in the same period, the Arab states of the Middle East expelled 900,000 Jews, all of whom were absorbed by Israel even though there were times when there was not sufficient food in the country to provide every Israeli with three meals a day. | |
| • | In contrast, Palestinians were condemned by their own leaders and the Arab world to fester for generations in camps. | |
| • | Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has taken the unprecedented step of offering to let the Palestinian refugees escape almost-certain death in Syria by resettling them in the Sinai Peninsula. Again, Abbas has said no. | |
| • | This is the implacable enemy that Israel faces, one that would rather see its people slaughtered than give up a right to replace the Jewish state through resettlement in Israel proper that is never going to happen. | |
| • | Israel did not blockade Gaza until war materials flowed in from the sea and rockets and missiles were launched from Gaza into Israel's southern cities. Israel left Gaza on its own accord, trading land for peace — but getting rockets, missiles, and attack tunnels instead. | |
| • | The unilateral evacuation from Gaza in 2005 was an experiment to see how the Palestinians would respond. As some predicted, they responded with an escalation of brutality, targeting Israeli civilians, and not with peace. | |
| • | Maybe your city council might consider putting pressure on the Palestinians to rescue their own people. | |
| • | ... at least be consistent by also boycotting all the advances Israel has made in recent years in treating and detecting cancer and heart disease. In the latter pursuit, I wish you every success. | |
Putin's gambit, Obama's puzzlement (JWR 09/18/2015)
| • | Putin's objectives in Syria are blindingly obvious: | |
| • | 1. To assert Russia's influence in the Middle East and make it the dominant outside power. Putin's highest ambition is to avenge and reverse Russia's humiliating loss of superpower status a quarter-century ago. Understanding this does not come easily to an American president who for seven years has been assiduously curating America's decline abroad. | |
| • | 2. To sustain Russia's major and long-standing Arab ally. Ever since Anwar Sadat kicked the Soviets out of Egypt in 1972, Syria's Assads have been Russia's principal asset in the Middle East. | |
| • | 3. To expand the reach of Russia's own military. | |
| • | 4. To push out the Americans. For Putin, geopolitics is a zero-sum game: Russia up, America down. He is demonstrating whom you can rely on in this very tough neighborhood. ... Obama says Bashar al-Assad has to go, draws a red line on chemical weapons — and does nothing. Russia acts on behalf of a desperate ally. Whom do you want in your corner? | |
| • | 5. To re-legitimize post-Crimea Russia by making it indispensable in Syria. It's a neat two-cushion shot. At the United Nations next week, Putin will offer Russia as a core member of a new anti-Islamic State coalition. Obama's Potemkin war — with its phantom local troops (our $500 million training program has yielded five fighters so far) and flaccid air campaign — is flailing badly. | |
| • | Putin's offer is clear: Stop fighting Assad, accept Russia as a major player and acquiesce to a Russia-Iran-Hezbollah regional hegemony — and we will lead the drive against the Islamic State from in front. | |
| • | And there is a bonus. The cleverest part of the Putin gambit is its unstated cure for Europe's refugee crisis. | |
| • | Wracked by guilt and fear, the Europeans have no idea what to do. Putin offers a way out: No war, no refugees. Stop the Syrian civil war and not only do they stop flooding into Europe, those already there go back home to Syria. | |
| • | You almost have to admire the cynicism. After all, what's driving the refugees is the war and what's driving the war is Iran and Russia. They provide the materiel, the funds and now, increasingly, the troops that fuel the fighting. The arsonist plays fireman. | |
| • | Putin to the rescue. As with the chemical weapons debacle, he steps in to save the day. If we acquiesce, Russia becomes an indispensable partner. It begins military and diplomatic coordination with us. (We've just agreed to negotiations over Russia's Syrian buildup.) Its post-Ukraine isolation is lifted and, with Iran, it becomes the regional arbiter. | |
| • | In the end, the Putin strategy may not work, but it's deadly serious and not at all obscure. | |
Europe's Humanitarianism Is, Sadly, Not Humanitarian (JWR 09/18/2015)
| • | Human beings are hard-wired to protect young children. That's the easiest explanation of the rush of Europeans — especially, but not only, elites — to welcome huge numbers of refugees after publication of the picture of a dead three-year-old boy on a Turkish beach. | |
| • | But within days Germany was barring migrants at the Austrian border, and Hungary finished a 12-foot fence blocking migrants from Syria. Slovakia and the Netherlands imposed border controls. Sympathy turned to caution and fear. | |
| • | Most of the would-be migrants are young men, seeking economic gain rather than political refuge. Most are Muslim, with far different cultural attitudes than Europeans. Some — no one knows how many — are undoubtedly terrorists or susceptible to terrorism. | |
| • | American elites today are less certain of the worthiness of our national culture and have retarded assimilation of immigrants. European elites are worse, laden with guilt of past sins exaggerated (imperialism) and all too real (Nazism). Germans in particular understand that their history imposes special burdens on them, and have tried to shoulder them honorably. | |
| • | Successful countries have advanced not because they have fertile farmland or natural resources — some, such as Switzerland and Singapore, have neither — but because of the strengths of their national cultures. It's sensible for them therefore to fashion their immigration policies to build on those strengths. | |
| • | Europe has fallen farther short by encouraging, through "multiculturalism," separate enclaves controlled by Muslim and other immigrants who oppose national norms of tolerance and order. | |
| • | America and Europe may be uninterested in foreign disorders, but foreign disorders are interested in us. | |
| • | It's not surprising that Eastern European nations, with their experience of culture-crushing Communism, resist elites' calls to allow thousands of aliens to live in their midst. | |
| • | It's natural for civilized people to offer help when they see a drowned child wash up on a beach. But it's not always wise to offer to let anyone in who shows up. | |
| • | Such offers risk incentivizing literally millions to break the law and to risk — and sometimes lose — their lives. That's not humanitarian. | |
Europe’s Migrant Problem… Europe’s Apartheid Solution (INN 09/18/2015)
| • | Virtually overnight you've become the apartheid continent. From walls and border closures you've fenced yourselves in. | |
| • | Why won't you let them in? They are your darlings. Fences are going up all over your continent to prevent more of them from entering. | |
| • | A decade ago when Israel built a security barrier to stop the flow of terrorists, you lectured, you judged, you called it disgraceful. | |
| • | Your walls went up faster, higher, stronger than Israel ever tried or imagined about the same problem. | |
| • | Who'd have thought that finger-pointing Europeans would one day find themselves in Israel's shoes? Oh how G-d's justice comes around! | |
| • | Your frontiers are spilling over, your culture is kaput, your daughters are being raped, but you still have time to needle the Jews. | |
| • | From out of nowhere comes Reykjavik. This is the capital of Iceland and is it known only because it once hosted a Bobby Fischer chess match. | |
| • | Nothing else. Those Reykjavik citizens never even gave the world the cuckoo clock, as did the Swiss, thanks for the reminder from Orson Welles. | |
| • | But today, Iceland's capital decided it was high time to hit the Jews with something, anything. So they are boycotting all Israeli products. | |
| • | council members say they are boycotting Israel in an act of "solidarity with the Palestinian people." Ditto the European Parliament. | |
| • | Those people you love so much go back no farther than 1972 when Arafat called them a nation the same year Fischer beat Spassky. | |
| • | Those Israeli "settlers" have been there since the time of Abraham, nearly 4,000 years ago. It's in all the books. | |
| • | It's even in your Bibles that you read in church – whatever is left of your Bibles and your churches. | |
| • | You traded in your churches for mosques. You exchanged your Jews for Muslims. | |
| • | Your prayers were answered. But answered prayers are sometimes a curse. | |
Migration monotony (JWR 09/17/2015)
| • | There is a tragic monotony to the latest massive human migration, this one involving Syrians fleeing their war-torn country. | |
| • | Whether the migrants are from Mexico, the Islamic world or elsewhere, it is always the same: Migrants flock to the West. | |
| • | Sometimes the exoduses are due to endemic poverty, usually brought on by the utter failure of non-Western governments to provide jobs, security and basic social services. Sometimes tribal, religious or drug wars cause the exoduses. | |
| • | The mentalities of both the Western hosts and the non-Western migrants have become predictable. | |
| • | Many ordinary middle-class Westerners oppose massive influxes of immigrants. These citizens do not like seeing laws rendered null and void. They fear that their schools, health facilities, legal systems and social services will be overwhelmed and left unable to effectively serve their own middle classes and poor. | |
| • | The masses in the West have learned such caution from experience. The sudden appearance of huge numbers of immigrants — when coupled with poverty, lack of language facility and little education — for decades afterwards has impeded easy integration, assimilation and intermarriage within Western society. | |
| • | Western elites in politics, journalism, academia, religion and the arts snipe at their own supposedly illiberal majorities. How dare these cruel hearts question the wisdom of accepting legions of anonymous newcomers! | |
| • | These privileged Westerners assume that the real consequences of unchecked migration should always fall on others who are less sophisticated and who lack the elites' capital, education and influence to find everyday exemption from the real-life consequences of their own idealism. | |
| • | Should Harvard or Oxford open their ample campuses to migrant tent cities, should the wealthy in Malibu and Monaco allow their beaches to become refugee campgrounds, should the Vatican turn its vast plaza into beds and soup kitchens for thousands, then a member of the elite might not be so jaded about the vast abyss between what is lectured and what is actually done. | |
| • | Non-Western countries are even more two-faced about immigration. Saudi Arabia, for example, has not used its trillions of petrodollars to take in fellow Muslims from neighboring countries. But it has offered to build 200 mosques in Germany. The Saudis logically assume that unassimilated young male Muslim immigrants in Europe will be ripe for the Saudis' own brand of extremist Islamic chauvinism and resistance to Western modernism. | |
| • | In the case of Mexico, it expects that the United States would never treat immigrants in the manner that Mexico deals with migrants. | |
| • | Mexico does not want to retain its own citizens. ... And it advises them to break its neighbor's immigration laws. How else to ensure that an estimated $30 billion in remittances each year are sent home to Mexico from its expatriates? | |
| • | We all lie to ourselves about immigration. The world over seems to want what often-complacent, affluent Westerners take for granted. But no one dares to say why this is so, or why some are driving out — and others are drawing in — millions on the move. | |
Israel is Europe’s last Bulwark against Islam (INN 09/17/2015)
| • | ... the Iranian regime released a propaganda clip featuring a scene where Muslim soldiers are seen marching over Jerusalem, conquering the Temple Mount and converting the land of Israel to Islamic rule. | |
| • | ... Islamic State posted a video to rally efforts for its planned attack and capture of "Romia", Rome, the historic Christian capital. | |
| • | Israel is a bastion against an Islamic onslaught on the rest of the Judeo-Christian world. | |
| • | If Europe falls to the Jihadist tsunami, Israel will be more open to the disaster. | |
| • | But if Israel falls, Europe will be just as certainly finished by those who want to march over Jerusalem. It is in Europe's interests to admit this painful and unavoidable truth. | |
| • | We Europeans will pay a horrible price if we betray the heroic Jewish nation. | |
Putin, Obama and Iran: A Choice in the Absence of Choice (INN 09/16/2015)
| • | "The prospects are bright, but the road has twists and turns". These are the words of Mao Zedong, but they could have belonged to Obama. | |
| • | Unfortunately, with regard to the Iran deal, the "twists and turns" will be so numerous, that not many will manage to see the "bright prospects". | |
| • | In reality, having created "New Middle East", where Iranian ayatollahs play the role of the hegemon and covert ally of America, he not only threw dynamite into an already raging fire, but provoked a chain reaction of uncontrollable explosions thousands of kilometers away from the region. | |
| • | Consequences of the deal with Iran will be ominous, and not only to the Middle East: the West will have to deal not only with the ayatollahs, but with a rival incomparably more powerful and uncontrollable than the ayatollahs - Russia. | |
| • | It is not clear what exactly prompted Obama to bet on Iran, betraying American strategic allies - Israel and Saudi Arabia, and it's also past all understanding why he would be engaged in political manipulations in the backyard of Russia - Ukraine. | |
| • | ... what is much more dangerous for Russians and Putin is the fall of oil prices - the main source of income and power of Russia. | |
| • | Moscow was forced to support the deal, so as not to obstruct its ally, but the collapse of oil prices coupled with the sanctions could have extremely dangerous consequences for the Kremlin. | |
| • | Besides, the appeasement of Iran allows USA and EU to begin switching their full attention to Ukraine. This doesn't match up with Kremlin's plans. Moscow must return oil prices to an acceptable level and distract the West from the conflict in Eastern Europe. | |
| • | How? The only way is to provoke a new outburst of violence in the Middle East. The stronger the fire, the higher oil prices rise, and the more unstable the global economy becomes. | |
| • | Iran, from the point of view of the Kremlin, should and could pour fuel onto the fire in the Middle East, and this coincides with the interests of Iran itself. | |
| • | The window of opportunities opened before Tehran is unique, but short-term – the next USA president perhaps will reject the deal and maybe will try to return America to its place in the world. Iran cannot afford the luxury of waiting – it must act without a delay. | |
| • | The aims of the two states are the same. All Moscow needs is to support Iranians diplomatically, provide them with modern weapons, and free their hands, giving them a shield against attacks from outside. | |
| • | The current chaos in Europe caused by crowds of refugees was hardly left unnoticed in Tehran and Moscow. The new wave of refugees from Lebanon (there are about 1.5 million Syrian refugees there) will paralyze Europe, and this is exactly what the both states wish. | |
| • | Panic-stricken Europeans would no longer care about the Russian claims. Oil prices would go up, and the threat from Moscow would be dissolved in the face of hordes from the East. | |
| • | For the Kremlin such a progression of events is not just a preferable option. It is a matter of life and death. So far Putin has achieved the peak of his popularity, but the steady decline of prices for "black gold" and prolonged sanctions act like a noose around his neck. | |
| • | It is hardly probable that such an outcome satisfies Putin. He has become the ruler returning Russia its glory, power and primordial lands, and he must continue this mission, whether he wants to do it or not. | |
| • | However, the idea of the "Third Rome", so popular in Russia today, and the growing power of Moscow against the backdrop of Europe plunging into anarchy, cannot remain without a response from the US. | |
| • | Obama opened a "Pandora's box" with his Iran deal, and repercussions will be gloomy for the chicken-hearted, naive, and short-sighted West. | |
Europe Is Making a Fatal Mistake (JWR 09/16/2015)
| • | Little seems more obviously moral than to allow these benighted Syrians, Iraqis and others to flee from hell into heaven. | |
| • | And looking at photos and videos of families trying to escape Syria, where two monsters — the Assad regime and the Islamic State — are devouring each other and hundreds of thousands in their way, how can I not think back to a time when Jews sought to escape the Nazi monster devouring them? | |
| • | How does an ethically motivated person — Jew or non-Jew — deal with the emotionally powerful Holocaust argument? | |
| • | For one thing, the parallels are far from precise. | |
| • | Every Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe — man, woman, child, baby — was targeted for death. The Syrian people are not targeted for death. | |
| • | The only such targets in the Middle East — aside from the Jews of Israel — are Christians and Yazidis, every one of whom should most definitely be allowed into Europe and the United States. | |
| • | The parallel is also imprecise because the vast majority of the Jews of Germany and many other European countries were assimilated citizens of their respective countries, who thoroughly embraced Western culture and values. | |
| • | In contrast, most of the Muslims of the Middle East — and the largely Muslim population (from non-Arab countries) already in Europe — hold values that are not merely different from, but opposed to, those of Europe. | |
| • | Most European countries are bad at assimilating people from other cultures, especially from Muslim cultures. And large numbers of people from Muslim cultures are bad at assimilating into non-Muslim cultures. | |
| • | It is worth recalling that the 9/11 terror attack on America was planned by Muslim immigrants living in Germany. | |
| • | So, then, why would any European leader assume that things will turn out better with a million or more new Muslim immigrants from the Middle East? Or assume that the number will stop at 800,000? | |
| • | Europe means well in taking in a million refugees from the Middle East. But when good intentions trump experience and wisdom, you're asking for trouble — in this case, civilization-threatening trouble. | |
| • | ... it is as certain as night follows day that Islamic State and other terror groups will place terrorists among the refugees coming into Europe. | |
| • | ... some European countries will be threatened by far-right political movements that will arise in opposition to the threat to their national identity, values and economy. | |
| • | None of this means Europe and America should do nothing. Indeed, it was precisely Europe and America doing nothing about Assad that helped to create this horror. | |
| • | The West should supply the good guys in the Muslim Middle East — the Kurds — with vast amounts of military hardware. | |
| • | And we should spend — and demand that rich Arab states spend — upward of a billion dollars to help feed and clothe Syrians who flee to neighboring countries. | |
| • | One day, after all, the Syrian civil war will end, and they can again be financially aided to return home. Then real good will be done. | |
| • | And Europe will be spared the choice of Islamization or civil war. | |
Europe Braces For Rape Epidemic From Incoming Migrant Hordes (INN 09/10/2015)
| • | Teachers are saying this new influx into Sweden, which is already the rape capital of world due to a previous influx of the same kind, brings with it men who simply have a different way of looking at girls and women. | |
| • | Where they come from women are toys, playthings and birthing machines. | |
| • | Nor will they admit that nearly all these asylum-seekers are men without women. | |
| • | So what they say is that these new refugees, mostly from Syria, bring with them a different culture – and it is a culture that must be respected. | |
| • | Therefore it is not for them to adapt to us – it is for us to adapt to them. | |
| • | When they rape, it is our fault. They can't help themselves. | |
| • | They see a woman – and she is theirs for the taking. These well-fed lusty men simply cannot control themselves and their thrill-seeking ways. | |
| • | It is their way of life and they cannot be blamed. | |
| • | They are entirely too busy being merciful to the wicked...and we know how that ends. | |
| • | They welcome the predators who can't control their sexual appetites, as to turn them back would prove that some people are different. | |
| • | For the typical European and for the typical American Liberal, this is the guiding creed – All people are the same. All people are good. | |
| • | Rather than face the fact that people are different, that Christians and Jews share no values with cannibals from Islam, Europe is prepared to roll over to accept the virtues of brute force. | |
| • | Europeans are ready to make the switch from the Bible to the Koran; from the belief that women are to be honored and protected to a custom that treats women like cattle. | |
| • | This is your Europe of today, a place being gobbled up by people, among them savages, who know how to prey upon Western heartstrings. | |
| • | Strangely, Israel's Arabs are having no part of the stampede onto Europe. They seem quite content to stay put. Very strange. | |
| • | In time the cultured European will be inseparable from the primitive, at the expense of women who already have no place to hide. | |
| • | Still they come, and tomorrow Mr. Obama is bringing them to the United States. | |
To Assad with love: Timing of Russia's military aid to Syria no accident (Fox 09/10/2015)
| • | Clearly, Moscow and Tehran are working hand in hand. And so far the West has been unable to break them apart. | |
| • | Mr. Putin, it seems, has friends in all the wrong places. | |
| • | This new flush of support for Assad makes Syria's intractable war even more intractable. | |
| • | Grappling with ISIS weakens and distracts the U.S. and our allies in the region. Both Moscow and Tehran like that. | |
| • | Moscow's moves came just as it was clear that President Obama had wrapped up a veto-sustaining minority in the Senate — enough to let him go forward with his nuclear deal with Iran. | |
| • | The timing on the latest push from Iran and Russia in Syria is just too coincidental. | |
| • | This is just another finger in the eye of the Obama doctrine, which supposes that engaging with bullies will make them play nice. | |
| • | The U.S. agreed to cut back its nuclear force and scrap an ambitious missile defense plan for Europe. | |
| • | Moscow agreed to no nuclear cuts — indeed, it got to increase its stockpile of tactical nukes. | |
| • | Three years on, Moscow has emerged as the greatest security threat to Western Europe since the end of the Cold War. | |
| • | Even as the Administration brags that it has brought Iran to the negotiating table and reached an agreement that will prevent war in the Middle East, Russia and Tehran have ramped up their trouble-making in the region. | |
| • | And the Ayatollah renews his promises that Israel won't survive another 25 years... | |
| • | Since the Iran Deal doesn't come close to adequately restraining Tehran's nuclear ambitions, these actions and pronouncements demonstrate that Mr. Obama has gotten exactly nada for playing nice with Moscow and Tehran. | |
| • | With the Iran agreement all but a done-deal, the Oval Office is no doubt littered with popped champagne corks. | |
| • | But, the real celebrations are going on in Moscow, Tehran and Damascus where everyone knows they got something for nothing. | |
Going it Alone: Israel's Cold War with Iran (INN 09/09/2015)
| • | It's painfully clear by now that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu failed in his mission to prevent a bad deal with Iran. | |
| • | And a bad deal it most certainly is, in so many ways - if anyone needed reminding: The farcical 24-day warning period preceding any "surprise" check on nuclear sites; the fact that Iran can still continue enriching uranium, won't need to shut down its heavy water plants, and can continue research and development into faster, military-purpose centrifuges; the permission to continue its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program; that Iran isn't required to end its support for terrorism or vicious incitement to destroy Israel. | |
| • | ... how can Israel move forward from here? What can Israel do now to offset the looming threat posed by the deal which Obama is determined to pass, and will pass, thereby empowering and emboldening an already hyper-aggressive Iran and all but ensuring that it will, at some point in the future, achieve nuclear breakout capacity? | |
| • | ... if the leaders around the table in Vienna or Lausanne believed it was in their interests, financially or otherwise, to cut a deal, no third party would ever convince them otherwise. | |
| • | ... it's clear Netanyahu never stood a chance - whatever he did he was never going to succeed in persuading enough Democrats to take his side over their own president's. | |
| • | One reason for his error lies in the uniquely irrational bedrock of Israel's foreign policy: our total reliance on our "special relationship" with the United States. | |
| • | Putting aside the nature of that relationship (and the US is indeed our greatest ally), the notion that a sovereign state should rely on any other country to secure its own interests and security, no matter how lovey-dovey that relationship sounds or feels, is a fatal error. | |
| • | There are no "friendships" in international relations, and even "shared values" will only take you so far; the only currency of any enduring worth is cold, hard interests. | |
| • | That fallacy is a relic of the ghetto that our Jewish leadership has failed to completely shake off. To be a "free nation in our land," as our national anthem declares, Israel must first stop viewing itself as a humble, if beloved, serf of the United States, or of anyone else. | |
| • | To shake off that fallacy, the State of Israel must come of age politically - and recognize its true position as a regional power of no lesser caliber than its Iranian nemesis. | |
| • | Only the collective will of the international community can prevent Iranian nuclear proliferation, and clearly that will has been rapidly eroded by a combination of sheer cowardice, the prospect of major trade deals (read: greed), and Obama's indomitable ego. | |
| • | It is important at this point to recognize that the option of a direct Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is now out of the question. ... Not only would it be logistically and physically impossible without US support, but an attack at this late stage would at best set back Iran's nuclear program by a few years, while exacting a massive diplomatic cost on Israel for publicly slapping the face of every major world power that signed the deal. | |
| • | The notion that Iran's leadership, unlike for example the Soviet Union, is utterly "irrational" and so fanatical that it would surely launch a nuclear war with Israel, even if it meant mutually-assured destruction, is another fallacy... | |
| • | Yes, the Islamic Republic is ruled by extremist, fanatical, messianic, even genocidal theocrats - but they seek world domination, not suicide. | |
| • | In this context, as with the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons are a powerful political tool rather than a military one. | |
| • | So while Iran would represent a far greater threat with nuclear weapons than without, the actual threat itself comes not from nuclear warheads that will never leave their silos, but from Tehran's aggressive actions on the ground... | |
| • | Instead of maintaining an eternally defensive-reactive posture towards Iran's creeping encirclement of Israel's borders ... while praying someone else (America) solves the problem for them in the long run, Israel must take the fight to Tehran, by fighting fire with fire. | |
| • | Our struggle with Iran is, in a sense, our very own "Cold War" - and we must begin waging it as such. | |
| • | Such is the way of the Middle East. Might is not merely measured by one's military expenditure or by what you "could do," but by perceptions of strength, and the knowledge of what you will do. | |
| • | Efforts by Israel, possibly in coordination with its newfound Sunni Arab allies, to escalate, arm and train such insurgencies would be a fitting response to Iran's support for regional terrorism. | |
| • | It would simultaneously end Tehran's sense of invincibility and impunity (and nuclear weapons wouldn't help them either), while draining its resources (and cancel out any benefits from sanctions relief), forcing it to focus them domestically rather than on foreign policy adventures. | |
| • | Israel should similarly join in efforts to deny Iran the allies it needs to maintain its grip on surrounding countries. | |
| • | At the same time, Israel should continue to boost security ties with its Egyptian and Jordanian neighbors to establish a cohesive bloc against Iran (and ISIS). | |
| • | To succeed, Israel must shed its self-image as an eternal victim and realize its true status as a regional power - a position well-earned, by the Grace of God, through the blood, sweat and tears of its people. | |
| • | How would the Iranian people - particularly its educated middle-class - respond to continued investment in a failed empire-building project at their own expense? | |
| • | Whatever the answers to those questions, it is clear that with the passage of the Iranian nuclear deal Israel is entering into a new phase in its struggle against an Iranian regime sworn to its destruction. | |
| • | Our reliance on western patronage and largess failed, as we should have predicted — now it's time to go it alone. | |
Syrian Refugees, How Lucky They Aren’t Jews (INN 09/08/2015)
| • | The refugee tsunami coming out of Syria may well be genuine. But here's something to ponder. | |
| • | "We are deliberately ignoring the issue as a strategic maneuver. If these refugees go and settle in the West then they will take with them the beacon of light that is Islam," an official from the Saudi government said. | |
| • | So whatever the result, by accident or by design, the West, beginning with Europe, is being gifted by "the beacon of light that is Islam." | |
| • | Whether from ISIS and whoever else is maneuvering from behind the scenes, this could have been the plan all along... to force millions to vacate one continent in order to subsume another continent. | |
| • | By hook or by crook they keep on coming and most of them are men. Where are the women? | |
| • | Where are the 57 countries that make up the world's Islamic constituency? Oh – this has just been explained, has it not? | |
| • | The Islamic confederacies are "deliberately ignoring the issue" to deliver Islam into our homes. Understood. | |
| • | Says the Saudi authority — "We already have a lot of Muslims here. We don't need any more." | |
| • | For the Jews in the same spot only a generation ago, no tears, no hugs, no welcoming arms, no open borders, no cry to help these people – nothing. Nothing but silence, the silence of complicity. | |
| • | The New York Times could not be bothered. The paper that covered the Holocaust on page 36 as part of "in other news," today lobbies and campaigns to bring Syrians into the United States – FRONT PAGE. | |
| • | That Syrian infant washed up on shore. The world weeps. One and a half million Jewish babies never even got that far. | |
| • | ... Germany trading its Six Million murdered Jews for six million living and very active Muslims. Good luck with that. | |
| • | Canada's Mackenzie King government spoke for Canada. Asked how many Jewish refugees it was willing to absorb, a high-placed official uttered these famous words – "None is too many." | |
| • | He spoke for Canada. He spoke for the world. | |
| • | ... these Syrian men who left their women behind and pushed their children forward, only yesterday weren't they stomping the American flag and shouting death to Christians and Jews? | |
| • | Tomorrow, once settled in and comfy in their European jihadist no go zones, won't it be the same thing all over again, with raping your wives and daughters as an added feature, a specialty of the beacon of light that is Islam? It's already there, but there's more coming. | |
| • | So spare me your superior compassion because some of us fail to weep as loudly as you do for Syrian infants. We are dry of tears after weeping for Jewish toddlers in Israel who were stoned, knifed, firebombed and shot by Palestinian jihadists who share Syrian kinship. | |
| • | For you, Dear Europe, there is no stopping "the beacon of light that is Islam." That's called justice. | |
Europe's Fate will be that of the Roman Empire (INN 09/07/2015)
| • | In his new book "The Last Refuge", Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Imre Kertesz criticized the attempt to replace European culture with mass immigration: | |
| • | "Europe will soon go under because of its previous liberalism which has proven childish and suicidal." | |
| • | "... the doors are wide open for Islam; no longer does anyone dare talk about race and religion, while at the same time Islam only knows the language of hatred against all foreign races and religions". | |
| • | "I would talk about how Muslims are flooding, occupying, in no uncertain terms, destroying Europe; about how Europe relates to this, about the suicidal liberalism and the stupid democracy..." | |
| • | "It always ends the same way: civilization reaches a stage of maturation where it is not only unable to defend itself, but where it in a seemingly incomprehensible manner worships its own enemy". | |
| • | Europe is finished and being replaced by Islam. | |
| • | "Islam is the fastest growing religion in post-Christian Germany" | |
| • | And the media are all using one tragic photo to sell the immigration's ideology to the public opinion. | |
| • | No one shows the bodies launched from the Twin Towers. | |
| • | Nobody reminds us of the images of James Foley's execution. | |
| • | Nobody saw the photo of Khaled al Asaad, the archaeologist beheaded and hung upside down in Palmyra by IS. | |
| • | During the Iraqi War, the eyes of the West were all trained on four Americans grinning at Abu Ghraib. | |
| • | Nobody saw the severed head of Daniel Pearl and the remains of the Israeli soldiers displayed by Hamas. | |
| • | What Europe is witnessing is a deja vu of ancient Rome. The rationalists Voltaire and Gibbon attributed the fall of the Roman Empire to the defeatism inspired by Christianity. | |
| • | Others resorted to administrative sclerosis, detachment of spirit, the connivance with the invaders. | |
| • | The bureaucracy that has expanded uncontrollably, the selfish and lazy style of the senators and the growing religious clashes are a constant warning aimed at our apathy, our failure from within. | |
The Mideast Migrant Crisis Requires Mideast Solutions (INN 09/07/2015)
| • | He was hardly the first innocent victim of this century's most brutal war. Where has the world been for the last 54 months? | |
| • | ... the unfolding humanitarian crisis was an entirely foreseeable consequence of Obama's spineless Syria policy, and the Western European leaders who followed it. | |
| • | ... it is understandable if some collective shame for Western failures — driven by tragic images that went viral — has prompted Europe suddenly to announce that it will accept more refugees from the war-torn Middle East. | |
| • | But how did the West become more responsible for the Mideast refugee crisis than the wealthiest Mideast states (whose funding of Islamist rebels helped to create that crisis)? | |
| • | Even if Gulf states weren't at all responsible for aggravating the Syrian refugee crisis by strengthening ISIS, their wealth, proximity, and cultural/religious affinities with the refugees should still make these countries far more responsible than Europe is for their welfare. | |
| • | The vast majority of refugees are Muslim Arabs. They therefore share a common language, religion, culture and ethnicity with the wealthy Gulf countries that have shunned them for reasons of national security (as if the West didn't have such concerns). | |
| • | Even more absurd, Gulf countries are bringing in foreign laborers to build up their vast, oil-rich territories. Putting aside their horrific exploitation of those workers ... why aren't they instead accepting Mideast refugees who would happily accept the work that imported labor is now doing? | |
| • | Similarly, why have no Gulf countries granted Palestinian refugees citizenship if they so readily advocate for them at the U.N. out of some purported concern for their welfare? The cynical hypocrisy is staggering. | |
| • | By contrast, tiny Israel absorbed nearly a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa who were similarly made homeless when, in the 1940s and 1950s, their survival meant fleeing the Muslim-majority states where they had lived for millennia. | |
| • | Israel has also accepted plenty of non-Jewish refugees, from the Vietnamese boatpeople in the late 1970s to African refugees and migrants in recent years. | |
| • | ... double standards will undoubtedly worsen as Europe becomes increasingly Muslim — a trend that will only intensify with the current refugee crisis. | |
| • | Europe clearly failed to integrate Muslim immigrants into its societies, which only reinforces doubts about the wisdom of bringing in more such immigrants. | |
| • | More importantly, the EU's sudden, politically correct acceptance of refugees addresses the symptoms rather than the root cause: the rise of ISIS — an evil cancer that metastasizes with each day that the world dithers. | |
| • | The longer ISIS survives, the more people are killed, tortured, and enslaved, the more Syria's minorities are persecuted under an extreme Sunni Islamic rule, and the more refugees desperately try to flee wherever they can. | |
| • | Defeating ISIS will have to happen eventually anyway, because ISIS threatens everything that civilized life offers, so the sooner that painful task is accomplished, the sooner the related problems (like the migrant crisis) will be solved. | |
| • | ... the refugees should be able to live in security and dignity in the same region from which they fled, which means defeating ISIS and converting the ISIS-liberated territories into mini states that will serve as safe havens... | |
| • | The Kurds — who have fought ISIS with more courage and determination than any other party — have more than proven themselves worthy of a state. | |
| • | The fact that Christians were once 20% of the Middle East and are now safest in the only non-Muslim country in the entire region (Israel), reinforces the need to create a Mideast Christian State. | |
| • | The Druze — an ancient religion that has often also suffered persecution — could be given a state in southwest Syria. | |
| • | There could be yet another, non-religious state that welcomes any other minorities (like the Yazidis) and moderate Sunni Muslims. | |
| • | To address the Middle East refugee crisis intelligently, the EU should help to defeat ISIS, convert liberated territories into states for the region's persecuted minorities, and pressure Gulf states to absorb all refugees in the interim. | |
Iran Deal – Not The Bomb, But The Suspense, Is Killing Us (INN 09/06/2015)
| • | "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." | |
| • | "The bomb must never go off. Bad technique." | |
| • | Keep them guessing. Keep them wondering and worrying about what comes next. | |
| • | Makes no difference what Congress says or how many times and by how many votes the Democrats betray our greatest ally, Israel, and further betray the United States of America. | |
| • | The ayatollahs may say that Israel is one bomb away from annihilation. So what does that make Iran? Two bombs away? Okay three. Four can surely do enough of a job. | |
| • | But if they start something, they know damned well that Israel will surely wipe them off the map. They are not dumb and love their own hides. | |
| • | So if the ayatollahs know this, what's the game, what the scheme, what's the plot, what's the technique? | |
| • | In a word – suspense. Keep Israel worrying. Keep the Jews on edge. Keep them off their game. Keep them wondering what's coming next. | |
| • | The trick is to keep the anti-Semitism pot boiling...all the more fuel for the boycott movement that seeks to isolate the Jewish State. | |
| • | Never mind that the world can find no outrage in the fact that for no good reason one country daily demands the obliteration of another country. | |
| • | No good reason except that the other country is Jewish. The world does not even give this a second thought. Why, this is so ordinary. | |
| • | Another day, another call for genocide. What's the big deal? The Jews should know the score by now and not be so touchy. | |
| • | Cleverly and adeptly they are using two devices. The first is the game of suspense. Anticipation about what's coming next from the skies. | |
| • | Second, they intend to condition public opinion to the notion that Jews deserve to die. | |
Germany Replenishes Itself With 6 Million Muslims (INN 09/03/2015)
| • | Millions, even as we speak, are emptying the hellholes of Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan for the fleshpots of France, Spain, Italy and any other European country that will take them in, and most do so happily or reluctantly. | |
| • | ... by the end of the year, Germany will have taken in six million new people, mostly Muslims. Do we have to spell it out, what this means – Six Million? No, not necessary. | |
| • | But call it payback. Call it Karma, for the day is nearing for a new anthem to the tune of "The Koran Uber Alles." | |
| • | Yet word is that the Germans are happy to welcome this new resource, blissfully untroubled that this new population brings with it unique lifestyles and too often does not play well with others. | |
| • | Let's try political correctness and just say that Islam is different. Different rules, and before you know it, it's their rules that do the ruling. | |
| • | "As for you masters of Europe and your treachery; one day your sly anti-Semitism will come back to haunt you. Over the centuries, you have uprooted a thousand synagogues and replaced them with ten thousand mosques. Wait, now, and see what grows from the soil of Ishmael. Your churches are next." | |
| • | On the one hand this is a humanitarian crisis that merits kindhearted justice. | |
| • | On the other hand, one culture, arriving in numbers so large, is consuming the established culture, threatening to obliterate a thousand years of tradition. | |
| • | Back during the Korean War, America's generals were worried that China might simply make it a stampede. | |
| • | Ten million Chinese – UNARMED – would simply march in and erase all borders. | |
| • | That's Europe in a nutshell, only it's Muslims who are encamping Europe by the millions. | |
| • | In England girls and women face a rape epidemic caused by Pakistanis who've been imported by a welcoming government. | |
| • | They come as migrants seeking shelter. Our mercy knows no bounds. That's how it begins. That is never how it ends. | |
| • | Case by case we owe the refugees our mercy, but it is strange that they are not crashing the gates of Muslim countries, their brothers. | |
| • | Continents are shifting. The globe is being turned upside down. But there is a method to the chaos. There is a plan. | |
| • | One morning we will wake up to find out what it is. But by then it may be too late. | |
What six years of 'reset' have wrought (JWR 08/28/2015)
| • | On September 5, 2014, two days after President Obama visited Estonia to symbolize America's commitment to its security, Russian agents crossed into Estonia and kidnapped an Estonian security official. Last week, after a closed trial, Russia sentenced him to 15 years. | |
| • | The timing of this brazen violation of NATO territory — immediately after Obama's visit — is testimony to Vladimir Putin's contempt for the American president. He knows Obama would do nothing. Why should he think otherwise? | |
| • | Putin breaks the arms embargo to Iran by lifting the hold on selling it S-300 missiles. Obama responds by excusing him, saying it wasn't technically illegal and adding, with a tip of the hat to Putin's patience: "I'm frankly surprised that it held this long." | |
| • | Russia mousetraps Obama at the eleventh hour of the Iran negotiations, joining Iran in demanding that the conventional-weapons and ballistic-missile embargoes be dropped. Obama caves. | |
| • | Putin invades Ukraine, annexes Crimea, breaks two Minsk cease-fire agreements and erases the Russia-Ukraine border — effectively tearing up the post-Cold War settlement of 1994. Obama's response? Pinprick sanctions, empty threats and a continuing refusal to supply Ukraine with defensive weaponry, lest he provoke Putin. | |
| • | Eastern Europe has been begging NATO to station permanent bases on its territory as a tripwire guaranteeing a powerful NATO/U.S. response to any Russian aggression. | |
| • | NATO has refused. Instead, Obama offered more military exercises in the Baltic States and Poland. | |
| • | It is true that Putin's resentment over Russia's lost empire long predates Obama. But for resentment to turn into revanchism — an active policy of reconquest — requires opportunity. Which is exactly what Obama's "reset" policy has offered over the past six and a half years. | |
| • | Since the end of World War II, Russia has known that what stands in the way of westward expansion was not Europe, living happily in decadent repose, but the United States as guarantor of Western security. Obama's naivete and ambivalence have put those guarantees in question. | |
| • | Followed six months later by the unilateral American cancellation of the missile shield the Poles and the Czechs had agreed to install on their territory. Again, lest Putin be upset. | |
| • | By 2012, a still clueless Obama mocked Mitt Romney for saying that Russia is "without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe." | |
| • | Last month, Obama's choice for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that "Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security." Two weeks ago, the retiring Army chief of staff, Raymond Odierno, called Russia our "most dangerous" military threat. Obama's own secretary of defense has gone one better: "Russia poses an existential threat to the United States." | |
| • | As John Kerry awaits his upcoming Nobel and Obama plans his presidential library (my suggestion: Havana), Putin is deciding how to best exploit the final 17 months of his Obama bonanza. | |
| • | The world sees it. Obama doesn't. | |
Surviving the Obama Presidency and the Iranian Bomb (INN 08/25/2015)
| • | I never imagined a U.S. president who would ... actively try to strengthen Iran's geopolitical and financial position while providing international legitimacy to the Iranian nuclear program. | |
| • | ... a small group of undecided members of Congress may ... have to determine the course of history. They represent the last chance for a democracy to reject the nuclear appeasement of the Ayatollahs. | |
| • | The best possible outcome, at this point, would be a Congressional resolution that rejects the Iran deal but then gets vetoed by Obama. | |
| • | Why? Because if Congress overrides Obama's veto and defeats the deal, Iran will likely use that as an excuse to abandon whatever limited and temporary constraints it accepted under the agreement. Iran can then – at a time of its choosing – race towards nukes while Obama is still in office, secure in the knowledge that Obama wouldn't dare to stop Iran militarily. | |
| • | Lest anyone doubt Obama's enforcement laxity, he has already accepted Iran's brazen violations of existing sanctions. | |
| • | Incidentally, Obama claimed that "diplomacy" could handle the Syrian chemical weapons threat more effectively than force could, but now ISIS is gassing the Kurds with impunity, which undermines any notion that diplomacy will prevent nuclear abuses. | |
| • | In the Middle East, strength is far more respected than diplomacy, and it's clear that Obama projects weakness to foes and friends alike. Indeed, senior Iranian military leaders have openly laughed at the emptiness of Obama's military threats. | |
| • | The Obama administration reportedly floated the idea of attacking Israeli jets en route to destroy Iran's nuclear program. Incredibly, Obama's Iran deal arguably obligates the U.S. to help Iran protect its nuclear program from an Israeli attack. | |
| • | The Islamic Republic couldn't have a greater ally in the White House, and therefore would probably exploit a Congressional defeat of the Iran deal in order to race towards a nuclear weapon with impunity. | |
| • | As dangerous and risky as it is for Israel to undertake a unilateral military strike on Iran's hardened and dispersed nuclear sites, such an operation is effectively impossible as long as Obama is in office. | |
| • | Obama reminded Israel that he could endanger the tiny state in the middle of war by refusing to resupply its military, and his FAA isolated Israel by imposing a ban on flights to Israel after just thirteen days of conflict (it took about three years of war in Syria for the FAA to take the same action there). | |
| • | Given the Obama administration's willingness to harm Israel, the Jewish state simply cannot risk a major military operation as long as Obama is in office. Thus, the pro-Iranian nuclear deal is now, thanks to Obama, the only way to stop Iranian nukes until Obama leaves office. | |
| • | ... if Congress officially rejects Obama's disastrous deal and it survives only by Obama's veto, the next president can more legitimately rescind it and – with the help of traditional Mideast allies – stop Iranian nuclear ambitions and hegemony. | |
| • | The next president will face a far stronger and less isolated Iran, economically empowered by a world rushing to do business with the Ayatollahs. | |
| • | Until the 45th president assumes office on January 20, 2017, those concerned about Obama's reckless and feckless foreign policy and his increasingly imperial presidency need to keep him on the defensive by focusing public attention on Obama administration controversies, many of which involve abuses of power... | |
| • | The busier Obama is defending his prior excesses, the less he can commit new ones during the rest of his tenure. | |
Internet roulette (JWR 08/24/2015)
| • | Are we ready for the "Internet of Things"? Probably not. | |
| • | Be skeptical. It's not that technological opportunities aren't genuine. The trouble is that they come with huge risks — risks that tend to be minimized or presumed solvable. | |
| • | The more activities we put on the Internet and other networks, the more vulnerable we become to hacking, cyberwarfare, software glitches and the like. | |
| • | To date, these problems have been costly, inconvenient and (often) embarrassing. But they have not crippled everyday life. Greater disruptions are conceivable. | |
| • | Cybercriminals are not the chief threat; they just steal. The chief threats are cyberterrorists and other nations; they seek to weaken our defenses and sow confusion and disorder. | |
| • | Most costs are embedded in the price. If consumers and companies find the benefits not worth the price, they don't buy. | |
| • | The Internet is different. The ultimate costs of the worst-case scenario are unknown and probably unknowable. They are not included in the price and would be borne by society as a whole. | |
| • | Relieved of these costs, Internet companies can more easily expand. | |
| • | "Extending information technology (IT) systems to new devices creates many more opportunities for potential breaches, which must be managed. Furthermore, when [the Internet] is used to control physical assets, whether water treatment plants or automobiles, the consequences ... could potentially cause physical harm." | |
| • | Everyone is gung-ho for "innovation," but what if some innovations make us worse off in the long run, despite short-term benefits? Can we reconcile the demand for "progress" with the need to protect social stability? | |
| • | ... maybe we have simply made a bad bargain with the technological devil. The charms and conveniences of the Internet have seduced us. It has become so intertwined with daily life that we are, inevitably, playing an economic and technological version of Russian roulette. We keep firing the pistol and hoping there's nothing in the chamber. It's Internet roulette. | |
Middle East Withdrawal Linked to Obama's Grand Bargain with Iran (INN 08/22/2015)
| • | Obama's incredibly absurd and undeviating pattern of complete submission to Iranian demands lends credence to what was once mere speculation – his plan to preserve his contentious legacy by making a Grand Bargain with the ayatollahs for a complete US withdrawal from the turbulent Middle East. | |
| • | ... the catastrophic nuclear deal being touted as "historic" by Obama's minions has offered Tehran a lifetime opportunity to export its 1979 Islamic revolution across the globe. The farcical deal which has thoroughly compromised American security has put our allies in a bind, with all of them refusing to believe that Obama's actions, which look like they've been lifted straight out of secret Iranian military playbook, are paving the way for Tehran to create nuclear weapons. | |
| • | "Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy [Israel] and America's technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower." | |
| • | Tragically for our allies and our country, Obama's narcissism, lack of realism and fatal attraction to Iran is the driving force behind his transformational agenda for a 'balance of power' in the Middle East where he hopes Iran could become a "successful regional power" and potential US ally. | |
| • | Most astonishing of all, the United States has now become a de facto Air Force of Iran, currently giving cover to Iran's Quds Force commander General Qassem Suleimani... | |
| • | Obama's retreats from Iraq, Libya, Syria,now Afghanistan and his infamous bluff "pretending" to fight ISIS in tandem with the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism have created a catastrophic vacuum of power and destroyed US credibility. | |
| • | Once the White House gives the green light to simultaneously reduce America's presence in the Persian Gulf and Egypt's Sinai this October, something big may happen irrespective of the outcome of the September vote on Iran nuke deal. | |
| • | It is worth noting ... the Supreme Leader responded ... mocking Obama that "he would see no settlement with Iran so long as the United States maintained a military presence in the Persian Gulf" or placed his hopes in Iranian reformers. | |
| • | The underlying premise is this — delaying an Israeli military strike only enhances Iran's luck to go nuclear. If Israel does not act before Iran goes nuclear, there is no better option left for the Jewish state to defend itself except to eradicate Hezbollah and Hamas once and for all. | |
The Treaty of Catastrophe and the Secret Side Agreement (INN 08/20/2015)
| • | The nuclear agreement signed on July 14, 2015, with Iran is a catastrophe. The treaty ends the international sanctions regime against Iran, and permits Iran to develop advanced centrifuges. It does not stop the creation of nuclear weapons by Iran, but plans to slow Iran down. It removes obstacles to ballistic missiles and makes the technology attainable. It enables Iran to become a nuclear weapon capable power, and allows Iran to reach anywhere in the world with its missiles. It will also get the ayatollahs $150 billion. | |
| • | This treaty is not standard practice. It is the most important international agreement of our time. | |
| • | Obama's actions in the Middle East have not been about stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but stopping Israel from stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. ... His administration's leakage of Israel's secret agreement with Azerbaijan sabotaged Israeli attempt to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities. | |
| • | "Would Iran be less aggressive when sanctions are removed and its economy is stronger?... Would Iran fund less terrorism when it has mountains of cash to fund more terrorism?" | |
| • | Even if Iran complies with its obligations, the treaty will empower and enrich a tyrannical regime devoted to the destruction of America and Israel. | |
| • | Obama stated that among all the nations of the world, only Israel opposes the treaty. It follows that the American Jews that oppose the treaty are traitors who care more about Israel than America. | |
| • | The Death-to-America hardliners are not on the fringe of Iranian society as Obama intimated. They are the government. The entire state apparatus of Iran from the Supreme Leader to the Revolutionary Guards have been applauding, encouraging, and propagating "Death to America" for decades. | |
| • | Obama has been appeasing Iran since he took office. From the beginning of his administration, he stated his willingness to talk to Iran "without preconditions," willing to ignore U.S. property claims against Iran, and Iran's funding, providing equipment, weapons, training and giving sanctuary to terrorists. | |
| • | Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be Israel's fault if the deal goes down. Since the administration threatens that rejecting the deal will cause war, Kerry is threatening that the administration will blame Israel if war breaks out. | |
| • | Before his inauguration, Obama told a crowd of cheering supporters: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." His fundamental transformation includes American foreign policy. | |
| • | Obama alienated America's friends and emboldened America's enemies. ... He surrendered Iraq, in whose cause so many young Americans died, to America's enemy, Iran. He intervened in Libya and Egypt, undermining governments that were no threat to American interests, leading to terrorist chaos in Libya that got an American ambassador and three others killed, and Islamic extremists taking over in Egypt. Fortunately, contrary to Obama's foreign policy, the Egyptian military got rid of the extremist government that aligned itself with America's enemies, persecuted Christians, and threatened Israel. | |
| • | Americans oppose leaving their children and grandchildren at the mercy of a nuclear power Iran, at the mercy of people that have demonstrated repeatedly that they have no mercy. | |
| • | The Iran nuclear agreement is a catastrophe. It is a treaty of friendship with Obama's new ally in fundamentally transforming America, the mullahs' regime in Iran. | |
| • | The destruction of Israel is just a "secret side agreement." | |
The arrogance of powerlessness (JWR 08/19/2015)
| • | "The agreement now reached between the international community and the Islamic Republic of Iran builds on (a) tradition of strong, principled diplomacy. After two years of negotiations, we have achieved a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. It cuts off all of Iran's pathways to a bomb. It contains the most comprehensive inspection and verification regime ever negotiated to monitor a nuclear program. ... (I)t achieves one of our most critical security objectives. As such, it is a very good deal." | |
| • | If all this sounds too good to be true, that may be because it is. It also sounds familiar, for we've heard the president carry on in this same triumphant mood before. Only the triumph never seems to materialize. | |
| • | "We will continue to insist that the basic rights of the Libyan people are respected. And we will continue to work with our allies and partners in the international community to protect the people of Libya, and to support a peaceful transition to democracy." | |
| • | "We will engage as partners as the Libyan people work to build open and transparent institutions, establish security and the rule of law, advance opportunity, and promote unity and national reconciliation." | |
| • | "We will engage as partners as the Libyan people work to build open and transparent institutions, establish security and the rule of law, advance opportunity, and promote unity and national reconciliation." | |
| • | In fact Libya was already falling apart. It was undergoing not a peaceful transition to democracy but a violent collapse into the kind of anarchy long familiar throughout the Middle East — as the bloody debacle at Benghazi would soon confirm. | |
| • | As for the fabled Arab Spring, it turned to bleak Arab Winter some time ago, despite this president's happy talk: "For six months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. Square by square, town by town, country by country, the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. ... The events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and strategies of diversion will not work anymore. Satellite television and the Internet provide a window into the wider world — a world of astonishing progress. ... Through the moral force of nonviolence, the people of the region have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades." | |
| • | Welcome to the Middle East, Mr. President, where illusions come and go like any other mirage in the desert. | |
| • | "Just as Iraqis have persevered through war, I'm confident that they can build a future worthy of their history as a cradle of civilization. ... So to sum up, the United States is moving forward from a position of strength." | |
| • | By now it is clear that this administration was already moving backward from its usual position of weakness (leading from behind, it was called) even as the president was speaking. Stay tuned for more chaos to come. | |
| • | ... our president warned its dictator not to cross his red line by continuing to use chemical weapons against his own people. Of course Bashar al-Assad did (after a lot of back-and-forthing, Russian mediation and so ineffectually on). | |
| • | And of course our hapless president and commander-in-chief never enforced his red line, which soon faded to pink and then disappeared entirely. | |
Iran Deal Hastens U.S. Decline (INN 08/17/2015)
| • | Students of history and foreign policy are trained to think in terms of the "balance of power," a state of geopolitical stability which no country feels empowered to challenge through war. | |
| • | As the world's leading superpower, the United States more than any other nation must work to maintain a balance of power that preserves its military supremacy, its political influence, its trade and commercial interests and its democratic value system. | |
| • | As President Barack Obama and his foreign policy advisors close in on the conclusion of their hard-negotiated nuclear agreement with Iran, exactly whose power are they seeking to balance by permitting Iran to continue its nuclear program? | |
| • | Most of the Arab nations in the region, even if banded together, are weaker than Iran, so the deal is not aimed at balancing growing strength amongst the Arabs. The only state more powerful than Iran in the region is Israel. | |
| • | Is the policy of the U.S. government to contain Israel? | |
| • | "Because this is such a strong deal, every nation in the world that has commented publicly, with the exception of the Israeli government, has expressed support," the president said. | |
| • | So how is it that a large segment of the U.S. policy elite perceives the Iran agreement as favorable to the American national interest? | |
| • | ... just a year later Britain went to war to defend its national interests, ultimately winning the war but losing its hegemony. | |
| • | The U.S., like Britain 75 years before, may now be making a similarly fateful decision affecting international balance of power. | |
| • | The president does not seem to perceive things this way. | |
| • | "I've had to make a lot of tough calls as president, but whether or not this deal is good for American security is not one of those calls, it's not even close." | |
| • | ... the fact remains that Iran is a revisionist power just as Germany was. It does not merely seek increased power, but has strong ideological goals. | |
| • | Germany wanted to destroy the Jews, and destroyed much of Europe in the process. In like manner, the Iranian regime is feverishly devoted to its goal of destroying the United States of America in particular and the West in general, whose values are the antithesis of its backward mullahcracy. | |
| • | ... "Death to Israel" is the mask that cloaks Iran's "Death to America" chant. | |
| • | "In contrast to what shallow people believe, it is not impossible to defeat Israel and the United States. Superpowers have come and gone throughout history. Materialistic powers are neither everlasting nor infinite..." | |
| • | There are no freebies in international relations. The U.S. will eventually pay the price for its strategic and moral blindness. | |
| • | It's time we stop insulting the memory of Neville Chamberlain by comparing him to Obama. The Fuhrer wasn't promising "Death to Britain" on a daily basis, even if he was thinking it. And he wasn't on the cusp of acquiring nukes. | |
| • | From a strategic chessboard point of view, the U.S. and its Western allies ... seem to want to balance the Jewish state's strength with Iranian power. | |
| • | But while Israel has demonstrated the resolve to survive in a tough neighborhood, it is harder to see how years of U.S. and allied efforts to legitimize and organize Iran's nuclear program will not sooner rather than later shift the balance of power away from Western hegemony. | |
| • | And just as Hitler did as he said he would, the Iranian commitment to "Death to America" will surely exact a high price in American blood and treasure. | |
When Obama Adopts the Mullahs’ Style (INN 08/16/2015)
| • | Those who are sucked into big adversarial situations in history always run a number of risks. | |
| • | ... the biggest risk ... is to have an evil adversary and end up looking, behaving and even thinking like them. | |
| • | If that happens to anyone, they could be sure that even if they win many battles, they would end up losing the war. | |
| • | The effect that "the other" has on one has been observed throughout history, even at the level of great empires. | |
| • | When ancient Rome and Iran became adversaries each learned a number of things from the other. | |
| • | In more recent times, the Soviet Union and the United States, two great powers engaged in the Cold War, reciprocally adopted aspects of each other's system. | |
| • | All that came back to my mind when reading the speech that US President Barack Obama gave in Washington the other day in defense of his "nuke deal" with the Islamic Republic. | |
| • | He started by building a metaphysical heaven-and-hell duality about a very this-worldly issue. | |
| • | The beauty of life, however, lies in the fact that it is full of endless possibilities, including doing nothing when doing anything else could cause more harm. | |
| • | He diligently avoided delving into the details of a convoluted "deal" every part of which is designed to deceive. He also hid the fact that his much advertised "deal" has not been officially accepted by the Iranian state. | |
| • | Another mullahs' tactic he used is known as "takhrib" which means attacking the person of your adversary rather than responding to their argument. | |
| • | He was repeating a favorite dictum the mullahs say: Do not see what is said, see who is saying it! | |
| • | Obama forgot that among the warmongers who pushed for the invasion of Iraq were two of his closest associates, Joe Biden, his vice president, and John Kerry, his secretary of state, along with the entire Democratic Party contingent in the Congress. | |
| • | On the Iranian side, he forgot that President Hassan Rouhani and his patron former President Hashemi Rafsanjani built their entire career on "Death to America" slogans. Rouhani and his "moderate" ministers still have to walk on an American flag as they enter their offices every day. | |
| • | "Obama is the nightmare of the Republicans because he wants to destroy the America they love. His success will be a success for all those who want peace." | |
| • | ... the Vienna deal is bad for Iran, bad for America and bad for the world. | |
| • | ... as far as I can gauge public opinion, the majority of Iranians have a good opinion of America and a bad opinion of the "deal". | |
| • | Finally, another mullah concept, used by Obama, is that of "End of Discussion" (fasl al-khitab) once the big cheese has spoken. That may work in the Khomeinist dictatorship; it is not worthy of a mature democracy like the United States. | |
How to rise above materialism and find true happiness. Honest. (Fox 08/14/2015)
| • | The last ten years have seen a veritable outpouring of books intent on discrediting belief in God. Many regard their authors as heroic liberators for exposing the psychological origins of belief and the associated myths promulgated by religious traditions. | |
| • | With the superstitions of organized religion finally laid to rest, humanity can now get on with the important work of building a more sober and rational society. But is a self-contained universe without any hope of transcendence capable of satisfying the human heart? | |
| • | As human beings we're not just an assemblage of atoms and molecules but a composite of matter and spirit. | |
| • | Philosophers and sages have taught for millennia that there is a hierarchy to human desire, and because the most general definition of happiness is the fulfillment of desire, happiness is thus included in that hierarchy. | |
| • | 1. Desires connected with physical pleasure | |
| • | 2. Ego-comparative desires | |
| • | 3. Contributive-empathetic desires | |
| • | 4. Transcendental desires | |
| • | The first three levels of desire reveal the richness of our relationships with the things and other people in the world. | |
| • | We have powers to recognize and appreciate not just things in the world but also intangible realities like truth, love, goodness, and beauty and through them make contact with a transcendent, one might say, spiritual world. | |
| • | We are remarkable mysteries, possessing transcendent powers that surpass the physical world, and these powers bring us to new almost inestimable heights. | |
| • | In his 1938 book, "Psychology and Religion," Carl Jung warned that religious belief was integral to mental health and that the human psyche without religion is susceptible to a variety of mental illnesses. | |
| • | ... the abandonment of religion is tantamount to a denial of the possibility of finding ultimate meaning and fulfillment. | |
| • | ... we frustrate our quest for happiness by denying transcendence. | |
| • | A decade or two from now materialism could be as outdated as an earth-centered universe. | |
| • | After all, scientific evidence, by its own requirements, must be drawn from the material world – and so it must be asked, "How can evidence from the material world be used to disprove the transcendent, which is, by definition, beyond the material world? The answer is obvious – it can't!" In other words, reports of God's death have been greatly exaggerated. | |
| • | All of the major religions teach that the path to ultimate happiness is love of God and neighbor. | |
Responses to the President's Arguments for the Nuclear Deal (JWR 08/11/2015)
| • | In the belief that every student who was present — indeed, all Americans — should hear the other side, here are responses to claims the president made. | |
| • | President Obama: "With all of the threats that we face today, it is hard to appreciate how much more dangerous the world was at that time (when John F. Kennedy gave his peace speech at American University during the Cold War)." | |
| • | ... the Soviet Union was headed by people who valued their own lives and even those of their fellow countrymen incomparably more than the Islamic leaders of Iran do. They therefore had no interest in nuclear war, which is why the doctrine known as mutually assured destruction (MAD) worked. | |
| • | The Islamist fanatics who rule Iran might actually welcome a nuclear exchange with Israel. Iran has almost 10 times Israel's population and nearly eight times its landmass. | |
| • | ... the Soviet Union never seriously or repeatedly called for the extermination of another country, as the Islamic Republic of Iran does with regard to Israel. It is preposterous to compare Nikita Khrushchev's promise, "We will bury you," to the ayatollah's aim to "annihilate" Israel. It was simply a rhetorical flourish about communism's eventual triumph over democratic capitalism. | |
| • | ... almost no one in any communist country believed in communism. The biggest believers in communism tended to be Western intellectuals. And communists in the West weren't beheading people or plotting mass murder. | |
| • | On the other hand, at least a hundred million Muslims believe in imposing — by force, if necessary — sharia on other people. And while communists in Western European countries posed an electoral threat to democratic capitalism, more than a few Muslims in European countries pose life-and-death threats to Europeans. | |
| • | Obama: "In light of these mounting threats, a number of strategists here in the United States argued we had to take military action against the Soviets, to hasten what they saw as inevitable confrontation. But the young president offered a different vision." | |
| • | If there really were "a number of strategists" who called for "military action" against the Soviet Union during Kennedy's presidency, that number was so tiny and so irrelevant that the president's statement is essentially a straw man. | |
| • | Obama: "After two years of negotiations, we have achieved a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." | |
| • | This might be the whopper of the speech. Only an academic audience could find this statement persuasive. | |
| • | To begin with, Iran has been "permanently prohibited" from obtaining nuclear weapons since 1970, the year Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So this arms deal prohibits nothing that wasn't already prohibited more than 45 years ago. | |
| • | Even more important, the statement is utterly meaningless. It is like saying, "The United States has permanently prohibited murder." It's true, but so what? Iran's behavior clearly indicates that it wants to develop nuclear weapons, and being "prohibited" from doing so did not and will not stop it. | |
| • | Obama: "It cuts off all of Iran's pathways to a bomb." | |
| • | There are two types of lies: those one knows to be falsehoods and those the person believes. The former is more immoral. The latter, though not literally a lie, is more dangerous. | |
| • | Even if one believes the agreement to be effective, it does little or nothing to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons in 10 years. | |
| • | Furthermore, the agreement enables Iran to cheat the whole time. There is no inspection "anytime, anywhere" — which is the only type of inspection that matters. | |
| • | a) If the IAEA suspects cheating, it gives Iran up to a 24-day notice. If Iran objects, the issue goes before the P5+1 nations, which, of course, include Russia and China. | |
| • | b) The United States is prohibited from ever sending in its own inspectors. | |
| • | c) No military sites can ever be inspected. Iran can therefore establish or move nuclear facilities to whatever area it wishes and label those areas "military." | |
| • | d) How are Congress and the American people supposed to trust the president's claim given the existence of two secret appendices to the agreement? | |
| • | Obama: "It contains the most comprehensive inspection and verification regime ever negotiated to monitor a nuclear program." | |
| • | In light of all of the agreement's fatal weaknesses in preventing Iran from cheating, "most comprehensive ever negotiated" means nothing. | |
| • | Obama: "Congress decides whether to support this historic diplomatic breakthrough, or instead blocks it over the objection of the vast majority of the world." | |
| • | Since when does "vast majority of the world" matter to making America — and, for that matter, the world — secure? | |
| • | President Ronald Reagan put Pershing missiles in Europe "over the objection of the vast majority of the world." Good thing Reagan did. | |
| • | Israel knocked out Saddam Hussein's Iraqi nuclear reactor "over the objection of the vast majority of the world." Good thing Israel did. | |
| • | Obama: "Between now and the congressional vote in September, you are going to hear a lot of arguments against this deal, backed by tens of millions of dollars in advertising." | |
| • | There can be only one reason the president mentioned "backed by tens of millions of dollars in advertising": to imply that there is something nefarious about such ads. | |
| • | The left has the presidency and dominates education from pre-K through post-grad as well as mainstream print and electronic news and entertainment media. But that's not enough. Paid ads that differ with the left must be delegitimized. Of course, there are also millions of dollars in advertising for the agreement — but somehow that's legitimate. | |
| • | He labels as "treason" an address given by the Israeli prime minister to the annual meeting of the Jewish Federations of North America on reasons to oppose the Iran nuclear agreement. That's the oldest of antisemitic libels: that Jews are disloyal to the countries in which they live. | |
| • | Obama: "Many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal. | |
| • | ... whatever one thinks of the war in Iraq, the reason the Islamic State has taken over large parts of Iraq is not the war in Iraq. It's that Obama, against the advice of his military advisers, removed all of America's troops from a pacified Iraq, creating the vacuum the Islamic State now fills. | |
| • | Obama: "There will be 24/7 monitoring of Iran's key nuclear facilities." | |
| • | This is a sleight of hand. There is no 24/7 monitoring of anything Iran doesn't want monitored 24/7 and no monitoring at all of any facility Iran labels "military." | |
| • | Obama: "If Iran violates the agreement over the next decade, all of the sanctions can snap back into place." | |
| • | "Can" is the operative word here — as in "a third-party candidate can be elected president." It theoretically can happen, but it won't. | |
| • | Obama: "Unfortunately, we're living through a time in American politics where every foreign policy decision is viewed through a partisan prism... | |
| • | As usual with Obama, opposition to his policies is "partisan." But support for his policies is nonpartisan. | |
| • | Obama: "The bottom line is, if Iran cheats, we can catch them, and we will." | |
| • | That is not the bottom line. The bottom line is that Iran will cheat, we won't always catch them, and the Obama administration will likely have little inclination to call Iran out on it. In fact, the Iranians are already cheating. | |
| • | "The U.S. intelligence community has informed Congress of evidence that Iran was sanitizing its suspected nuclear military site at Parchin, in broad daylight, days after agreeing to a nuclear deal with world powers." | |
| • | Obama: "Third, a number of critics say the deal isn't worth it, because Iran will get billions of dollars in sanctions relief. ... Any negotiated agreement with Iran would involve sanctions relief." | |
| • | ... "a possible nuclear deal with Iran risks sparking a nuclear arms race in the Middle East unless the agreement grants international inspectors access to Iranian military sites and other secret facilities. ... The best agreement, if you cannot verify it, it's useless." | |
| • | Obama: "Our best analysts expect the bulk of this revenue to go into spending that improves the economy and benefits the lives of the Iranian people." | |
| • | Even if that is what happens, this money massively strengthens the Iranian regime. | |
| • | Obama: "Contrary to the alarmists who claim Iran is on the brink of taking over the Middle East, or even the world, Iran will remain a regional power with its own set of challenges." | |
| • | Every country — whether free or a police state — has "its own set of challenges." That point is meaningless. But it is hardly "alarmist" to fear Iran seeking to dominate the Middle East and helping to prop up anti-American regimes around the world. It is already doing so in Latin America. | |
| • | Obama: "We will continue to insist upon the release of Americans detained unjustly." | |
| • | If the U.S. president and secretary of state couldn't even get Iran to release four illegally imprisoned American citizens in exchange for the ending of sanctions and a porous nuclear agreement, how will he get them released now? | |
| • | Obama: "Just because Iranian hardliners chant "death to America" does not mean that that's what all Iranians believe." | |
| • | This comment is noteworthy — for its foolishness. Of course not all Iranians believe in death to America. But the Iranians who don't believe in it are irrelevant in Iran, just as good Germans were irrelevant in Nazi Germany and good Russians were irrelevant in the Soviet Union. All that matters in a police state is what the regime believes. | |
| • | Obama: "It's those hardliners chanting "death to America" who have been most opposed to the deal. They're making common cause with the Republican caucus." | |
| • | Likening Iranians who chant "death to America" to Republicans may be a new low in American presidential rhetoric. | |
| • | And it's not just mean-spirited. It's factually wrong. If anyone is "making common cause" with the Iranian hardliners, it is Obama and his supporters. The hardliners in Iran want sanctions dropped and to be able to continue their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Now they can. | |
| • | Obama: "As members of Congress reflect on their pending decision, I urge them to set aside political concerns." | |
| • | So do those of us who oppose the Iran nuclear agreement. But it's the Democrats who cannot set aside political concerns. | |
| • | Obama: "My fellow Americans, contact your representatives in Congress, remind them of who we are, remind them of what is best in us and what we stand for so that we can leave behind a world that is more secure and more peaceful for our children." | |
Questions to the Enemies of Israel (INN 08/09/2015)
| • | Which is the only country in the world that has its very existence and legitimacy constantly denied and disputed by the nations of the world? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world whose capital city is not recognized by those nations? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world, where a certain city council could authorize the construction of a few houses and apartments, and all those nations would rise up in anger and protest... | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that allows a citizen to be elected as a member of parliament, who would publicly vow for the annihilation of his own country and its invasion by alien armies, without his being arrested, summarily tried for treason and expelled? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world which hosts and embraces over 400 (four hundred!) non-governmental organizations funded by their worst enemies' dirty money... | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that grants religious freedom to the worshipers of any sect, religion or group, except for the citizens that profess their major, millennial faith? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world which has in the very heart of its capital (its holiest site) a huge area kept under the operational control of a foreign hostile entity... | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world where a terrorist (known among the liberals as "freedom fighter") cowardly kills dozens of innocent people, gets arrested and jailed in a five-star prison – much more comfortable than his own house, where he can graduate and get his master and doctor degree if he wishes, at the expense of the families of his very victims? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that, invaded by several hostile nations which try to destroy it, manages to defeat them in a humiliating way and, shortly after winning the defensive war gives to one of the defeated aggressors – totally free of charge – a part of its territory larger than its own final area, in exchange for a worthless piece of paper... | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world which fully respects the rights of women and every kind of ethnic, religious and gender minorities, notwithstanding it is unanimously condemned by so-called "liberals" throughout the world, accused of being the worst violator of human rights? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world, accused of "apartheid", where citizens belonging to all minorities enjoy full civil and voting rights, access to public education, health, social security, college education and every other possible rights? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world where the defense forces distribute millions of leaflets to the enemy, warning them to evacuate their civil buildings used as weapon caches, before attacking them... | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world where the army warns the enemy before bombing their ammunition storages, and the world media depicts is as "cruel" and "inhuman"? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world which, in order to avoid civilian casualties among their enemy, sends its own beloved sons to death on land missions, instead of simply carpet bombing the enemy as all other nations do? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that would propose to make peace with an enemy who openly declares before the world media, verbally and in writing, his intention to annihilate it and to seize all its territory "from the river to the sea"? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that would, in exchange for the remains of two young rank-and-file soldiers, who perished in combat several years ago, liberate from prison dozens of bloodthirsty terrorists jailed for murdering innocent children? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that uproots thousands of peace-loving and hard-working citizens from a territory conquered in a legitimate self-defense war, then gives this land to the defeated enemy... | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world whose boundaries, conquered with blood throughout several wars always initiated by the enemies, are continuously challenged by all nations... | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world where a terrorist could slay dozens of innocent civilians in a traitorous attack, get severely wounded, have his unworthy life saved by those he hates and, shortly after recovering his health, commit new deadly terror attacks? | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that sends the enemy thousands of trucks loaded with cement and other materials, in order to help him build houses, schools and hospitals, and those who receive such gift use it to make tunnels designed to invade the country and kill its innocent children and civilian population? (and that insane country keeps on sending more and more trucks!!) | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that, in order to recover alive a single soldier kidnapped for five years by the enemy, grants freedom to five hundred terrorists with blood in their hands (including the blood of babies)... | |
| • | Which is the only country in the world that performs amazing technical and scientific research, which revolutionizes the world daily and improves the quality of life of billions of people, in the areas of agriculture, health, computers, airspace, telecommunications etc., and as a great thank-you from the nations that enjoy such benefits, obtains worldwide campaigns for boycotting their fruits, flowers and all kinds of products – even against their musicians, orchestras, theater groups and university professors!.. | |
| • | I'd suggest each reader analyze the facts, check whether there is any inconsistency or injustice in their way of thinking, and arrive to his/her own conclusions about this tiny country and its people, who only wish to be left alone and live in peace on the land the Creator promised them, and to coexist in harmony with all nations of the Earth. | |
The Lie that Broke Israel’s Back (INN 08/09/2015)
| • | The world body was called on "to create the state of Palestine on the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967." No one blinked. | |
| • | Repeated ad nauseam, nonsense can pour into sense, plot can merge with policy, and fiction can turn to wisdom. | |
| • | Historically, there's never been Palestinian territory for Israel to occupy. Legally, Israel snapped up the territories fair and square from Egypt and Jordan. | |
| • | Resolution 242 nowhere refers to Palestinians. How could it? One, they were not a belligerent in the Six Day War. Two, the drafters of 242 may have looked to Israel the victor to give back territory, but to the defeated Arab belligerents, not to Palestinians. | |
| • | "The appearance of a distinct Palestinian national personality comes as an answer to Israel's claim that Palestine is Jewish." The monarch was explaining why a new and distinct people had to be concocted in 1968. | |
| • | The task of dressing the coveted land in respectable clothes was given to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a clique led by a badly-shaved Egyptian in keffiyeh and khaki drills. | |
| • | How was it all done? Step-by-step, with eraser and ink. The first thing that had to be erased was an obsolete declaration that the 'West Bank' and Gaza were not occupied (by Jordan and Egypt.) This made it possible to declare that the territories were occupied (by Israel.) Now for the coup de grace. The Palestinian people were sworn to liberate their Israeli occupied homeland. | |
| • | Palestinians were now people, "who had resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion." | |
| • | Immediately world spotlights turned on the new people, dispossessed, and on the new culprit. Leaders in perpetuity lost no time decorating, enlarging and tidying up a tale of Jews who had swept down from Europe to put indigenous Palestinians under their colonial boot. From there it was but a quickstep to the accepted wisdom of Occupied Palestinian Territories. | |
| • | Their god demands little: hate Zionism and revere occupied Palestinians. | |
| • | But for the big hoax the world would be a different, if quieter place. And the Zionist enterprise would not now labor under a terminal threat. | |
ISIS kidnaps more Christians. When will we put an end to this madness? (Fox 08/07/2015)
| • | ... no one in the world can say they do not know what ISIS does to Christians in the Middle East. This includes President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Biden, and all of those – Republican or Democrat – running for president. | |
| • | In the words of "emir" of the "Caliphate," ISIS intends on marching all the way to Rome and will "break their [Christian] crosses and trade and sell their women" as they go. | |
| • | So, far, they have fulfilled their promise. Every single encounter these terrorists have had with these ancient Christian communities has resulted in one of four outcomes: forced conversion, sexual slavery, extortion or execution. | |
| • | We have evidence of this – abundant evidence – including a price list from a slave market in Mosul which lists the slaves for sale by age and by religion with Christian girls listed from one-to-nine-years-old for approximately $172. Older Yazidi and Christian women can be bought for the cost of a pack of cigarettes. | |
| • | Who can forget the cover of ISIS's October magazine which superimposed an ISIS flag atop the obelisk in St. Peter's Square, the Nazi-like symbols they painted on the homes of Christians in Mosul, the scores of churches destroyed, manuscripts burned, and the crosses chipped out of the tombstones in Christian cemeteries? | |
| • | Then there were the 21 Egyptians and the 30 Ethiopians who were grotesquely executed in Libya, for their faith alone. | |
| • | ... time when the world's most ancient Christian communities face a legitimate threat of extinction at the hands of terrorists who've been allowed to run wild across our world. | |
| • | If our leaders don't begin to take this threat more seriously, the oldest Christians communities in the world will have survived nearly 2,000 years of conflict — from the likes of Ghenghis Khan — only to fade into history in the 21st century. They literally might not survive past 2015. | |
| • | Syria's quiet Christian genocide wages on while the world remains mostly indifferent. I wonder what we will say to our children and grandchildren when they ask us what we did to stop this Christian holocaust? | |
| • | William Wilbeforce's words seem apropos, "You may choose to the look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know." | |
Obama is no JFK: Today's Iran is nothing like Russia in 1963 (Fox 08/05/2015)
| • | On the surface President Obama's Iran speech Wednesday at American University seems a perfect sequel to President Kennedy's speech on a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union more than 50 years ago on the same turf. | |
| • | Iran 2015 is nothing like the Soviet Union 1963. | |
| • | The Soviet Union in 1963 was a global superpower with a GNP roughly 50% of that of the United States. It had roughly 500 strategic nuclear warheads, nearly 400 launches and 1,000 megatonnage and naval power. | |
| • | It had the No. 2 scientific complex in the world consisting of almost one million scientists, engineers and technicians. | |
| • | None of this is true of Iran. Its GNP is barely 2 percent of that of the United States and one heavily dependent on oil and gas as a petro state. | |
| • | It has no strategic or tactical nuclear weapons after more than 30 years of trying to build them and a weak technical infrastructure of a few hundred atomic scientists. | |
| • | Its 650,000 man army could not even in the 1980s beat the Iraqi army, which 150,000 American troops crushed in 22 days and seized Baghdad in 2003. | |
| • | ... while the Soviet Union was a major military and political threat to the Free World, Iran poses no such threat at this time. | |
| • | In the end it was not this or other treaties that brought the Soviet Union down in 1991 — it was massive internal disintegration. Its failing economy, defeat in Afghanistan, aging out of touch leaders, declining influence of its ideology, growing national sentiment among the half of its population that were non-Russian and a growing lag behind the rest of the world's technology. | |
| • | Thus, Obama, as an idealist, is not a realist like Kennedy. He is playing with fire in the Middle East elevating a weak and dangerous propagator of international terrorism to have an easy path towards nuclear weapons in the next decade. For as Winston Churchill once said, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." | |
Who Noticed the 459 Civilians Killed in US Strikes on ISIS? (INN 08/06/2015)
| • | That's a pretty significant discrepancy — 459 versus two. One wonders how the news media will treat that anomaly. | |
| • | When Arabs accuse Israel of killing large numbers of civilians, and the Israelis say that only a small number were killed, the Israeli position is routinely met with scoffing and derision from reporters . | |
| • | Whether the number is 459 or 2, reasonable people would agree that the Obama administration is surely doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties, so whatever the number, it must be an inevitable byproduct of war, not the result of American recklessness. | |
| • | Are U.S. military personnel telephoning civilians in the area of planned anti-ISIS bombing raids, urging them to evacuate? Are U.S. planes dropping warning leaflets in areas they are planning to hit? Not likely. Because doing so would mean giving up the military's advantage of surprise — something the Israelis did, but I doubt President Obama is demanding. | |
| • | Obama administration spokesmen undoubtedly will point out that the ultimate responsibility lies with ISIS. After all, it is ISIS that started this war, so ISIS is really to blame for the consequences. | |
| • | It does matter "who started it." That is what determines who is the aggressor, and who is acting in self-defense. That is one of the main differences between the moral side and the immoral side in any conflict. | |
| • | Which, of course, is why the massive civilian casualties that America inflicted upon Japan and Germany in World War Two were justified. And why the civilian casualties in Gaza last year were justified. | |
| • | Israeli Army officers have acknowledged that many planned strikes against Hamas were called off because civilians were in the area. Many Israeli air planes returned to base with their bombing load still intact, because the pilots saw civilians near the intended targets. The Israeli military fought with one hand tied behind its back — but that still was not sufficient to deter Obama's criticism and pressure. | |
| • | Israeli officials should publicly hail the new Obama doctrine of bombing terrorist targets, even if civilians are likely to be killed. | |
| • | There is no need for any more telephone calls to local residents. No need for leaflets. No reason to surrender the advantage of surprise. | |
| • | And if the United Nations or the New York Times point an accusing finger, Israel can say, with a perfectly straight face, that it is following President Obama's guidelines. | |
No second thoughts about a bomb for Hiroshima (JWR 08/04/2015)
| • | ... for the majority, then and now, the Bomb was a gift of Providence, developed to stop the slaughter of the most horrific war of history. Hiroshima was payback, too, for Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, the Bataan death march, the rape of China, the ravenous plunder of the Philippines, Korea and the islands that suffered in the heat, disease and squalid butchery of the South Pacific. The plunderers and butchers had it coming. | |
| • | That's what's the furor over the sellout to the mullahs in Iran is all about, the recognition and understanding that such weapons in the hands of savages driven by perversion of religion could set off a chain of events that would consume untold parts of the world — or maybe all of it. | |
| • | These so called "myths" are that the bomb ended the war, the bomb saved a half-million lives (including many thousands of Japanese), the only alternative to the bomb was an invasion of Japan, the Japanese were warned before the bomb was dropped, and America dropped the bomb to get a "master card" to deal against Russia in the approaching confrontation that history calls the Cold War. All of these "myths" are not myths at all. They were true facts in 1945, and they're true in 2015. | |
| • | No one will ever call ours "the greatest generation," and the generations now in charge cannot understand men and women who understood that stamping out evil requires first the recognition of evil, and then the determination to stamp it out. No reluctance, no flinching, no half-way measures. | |
| • | President Truman had warned Japan of the wrath to come: Unless Japan heeded the call to surrender, made at Potsdam in a fortnight earlier, there would be "a rain of ruin from the air, the likes of which has never been seen on this earth." | |
| • | History, unrevised and served without side dishes, reveals that President Truman, a man with a tutored Christian conscience, did the right thing. Until the end of a long life, he never repented of his decision to drop the bomb. Nor should he have. | |
The Iran Nuclear Agreement, A Ticking Time-Bomb, Part II (INN 08/04/2015)
| • | ... vowed that Iran would "buy weapons from wherever possible, and will provide weapons to whomever and wherever it considers appropriate." | |
| • | "Even after this deal, our policy towards the arrogant U.S. will not change." | |
| • | The Iranians know the U.S. is unprepared to use force, and with the tens of billions in funds and unlocked oil revenues handed over to Iran to acquire weapons that can be used to strike at America and its allies, it knows that the United States will be even less willing to act militarily at "break-out time" than it is now. | |
| • | ... allowing a genocidal, tyrannical, xenophobic, terrorism-sponsoring, jihadist Islamic regime that is the world's leading state sponsor of terror and which is theologically committed to achieving regional and ultimately global Islamic hegemony, and is pledged to the destruction of Israel to have a nuclear weapons program — is sheer madness. | |
| • | ... the nature of this Islamic regime - that it is inherently aggressive and motivated by an extreme religious ideology that sees moderate Arabs, the West, the United States and Israel as enemies to be destroyed — not partners for peace and cooperation. | |
| • | President Barack Obama has harmed the world by abandoning his own red lines - against the emphatic advice of his own military advisors. | |
| • | "A U.S.-approved deal sends the unequivocal message that unless you are a rogue nuclear nation, you're not going to get the payoffs, U.S. protection and privileges Obama just afforded the Iranians". | |
| • | Instead of lifting the sanctions and guaranteeing the survival of the Islamic regime, the U.S. should be increasing and enforcing them, for even if a fraction of the revenues to be returned to Iran are allocated to expanding Islamic terrorism beyond its borders (as is expected), the U.S. will have subsidized the expansion of its worst nightmare. | |
| • | The Iran deal, as presently constructed, is a mistake of historic proportions. It meets zero of the criteria for a good deal. It is not enforceable, it is not verifiable, nor is it in America's national security interest. The world's largest state sponsor of terror got everything it wanted and the free world got a ticking time-bomb. | |
The Iran Nuclear Agreement, A Ticking Time-Bomb (INN 08/03/2015)
| • | Overall, it allows for Iran's continuing research and development on its advanced centrifuges; sanctions relief (including the release of up to $150 billion in frozen assets with no automatic "snapback" mechanism); an end to the arms embargo against it; and no anytime, anywhere inspections. | |
| • | In short, the deal does not prevent a nuclear Iran. At best, it only delays it a few years. | |
| • | Russia recently finalized the sale to Iran of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system in violation of the existing embargo, and it will be providing Iran with 250 highly-advanced Sukhoi-Su-30MK1 fighters as well as 100 - IL78 MKI tanker aircraft for refueling the Iranian air force in mid-flight which brings Israel and the Middle East Arab nations at large within easy range of Iranian aerial bombardment. | |
| • | Iran is to purchase from China 150 Chengdu J-10 sophisticated jet fighters which are comparable to the U.S. F-16. These purchases are a direct result of the anticipated unfreezing of Iranian assets and the billions of dollars that will flow from it. | |
| • | The Agreement also provides that after 10 years, unlimited centrifuges can be built that will be used to enrich uranium. | |
| • | It provides that in 15 years, all limits on the level to which uranium can be enriched will end, and in 25 years, all special limitations under the deal will be lifted. | |
| • | Given Iran's long history of deception, denial of IAEA access to its nuclear sites, and its continuous denials about its nuclear program in its negotiations, together with its creeping jihad through stealth and terror across five continents, there is absolutely no basis upon which to trust them now. | |
| • | ... the inspectors — none of whom under the Agreement can be Americans — must ask for the opportunity to inspect a suspected site, not immediately, but within 24 days - no doubt followed by months of political haggling over the inspection details - giving the Iranians ample time to destroy incriminating evidence. | |
| • | Is this the "unprecedented verification" the U.S. Administration promised us? Is this what twenty months of negotiations with Iran generates? | |
| • | ... in the immediate aftermath of the signing, the Iranian delegates told their superiors that "our most significant achievement" was America's consent to the continued enrichment of uranium on Iranian territory - a complete about-face from America's declared position prior to and during the talks. | |
| • | Worse still, the parties to the Agreement are required to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities should anyone try to attack or sabotage them... | |
| • | Put into plain terms, the U.S. is protecting the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism to the detriment of Israel and its Sunni Arab Middle East allies. | |
Condemnation, not Self-Flagellation, is What is Needed Here (INN 08/03/2015)
| • | In the center of Jerusalem an obviously deranged man dressed as a hassid stabbed six people associated with or marching in a gay demonstration or parade of sorts. On Sunday one of those victims — a 16 year old girl — died. | |
| • | In the meantime someone or perhaps a number of people set a home ablaze in a Palestinian town of Duma just outside of Jerusalem and near the key Arab town of Ramallah. A young child died in the fire and others were injured. | |
| • | There is something out of sync and incongruous, even though these acts are condemnable and repugnant, about the ease with which all sides seem to relish rushing to utter the words, "Jewish terrorists," when referring to the perpetrators of this awful attack. | |
| • | But even if it is Jews that will be apprehended and tried for this terrible act of murder, how can anyone be so certain that it was an act of terror? | |
| • | On Sunday Prime Minister Netanyahu reached out to President Abbas asking that together they fight all forms of terror. There was no reaction or response from the Palestinian Arab side. | |
| • | In this case, even though at this point the perpetrators have not even been identified, all we hear from just about every direction are the words "Jewish Terror," or "settler terror." | |
| • | This is at a time when despite it going legion, President Obama and others in his administration absolutely refuse to utter the word — Islamic Terror. | |
| • | The liberal media shares the presidents reluctance to attach the words radical or terror to the word Islam. | |
| • | In Israel last week and absorbing all the breaking news, it struck me that there was no reluctance or hesitation whatsoever to refer to what took place in the Arab town of Duma as settler or Jewish terror. | |
| • | What was particularly disheartening was the way in which Jewish leaders were quick to condemn Jewish terror. | |
| • | It was Palestinian Autority Chairman Mohammad Abbas who threatened to sue Israel in the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Is he kidding? The man who has presided over hundreds if not thousands of violent attacks against Jews is incensed and bent on seeking justice? | |
| • | When an Arab driver runs over and kills or injures Israeli civilians, or stabs a Jew near the Damascus Gate there is little comment or reaction except for the UN and the U.S., urging that both sides act with restraint. | |
| • | If some wild and out of control Jewish teenagers commit a dastardly crime — as might be the case here — it is cause for the entire Jewish nation and Jews the world over to be maneuvered into a position that warrants national introspection and soul searching. | |
| • | President Obama who in reality has little more than a flimsy connection to Islam absolutely refuses to utter anything even remotely sounding like Radical Islam. | |
| • | Jewish leaders jumped on the opportunity with enthusiasm to condemn Jewish terror whether this is the case here or not. | |
| • | When Prime Minister Netanyahu said prior to the last Israel elections that there would be no Palestinian state as long he was in office, President Obama said that was it. ... The President made it clear that he had little regard for someone like that. | |
| • | When President Rouhani or Ayatollah Khameini lead thousands in a chant of "death to America," the administration's policy is to just turn the other cheek and look away. | |
| • | We need to stop being so comfortable and at ease with condemning and ridiculing ourselves. | |
| • | That a hassidic-looking, seriously mentally incapacitated man did what he did in Jerusalem last week should not cast aspersions on on the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who may dress like and resemble him. | |
| • | And if the perpetrators of the arson murder in Duma prove to be Jews or settlers. that is a far cry from qualifying or branding all people in that category as terrorists. | |
| • | I wish I could write the same thing about radical Islam. | |
POTUS wrote off Jewish Blood for his Pact with the Devil (INN 08/02/2015)
| • | The POTUS (president of the United States) had his signature legacy and Iran, for a time, would have no Bomb. | |
| • | So mullahs and ayatollahs were free to threaten a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv. And chant death to America. Add Obama's well-known aversion to bombs from the sky or boots on the ground, and considering the ephemeral red lines he draws, Tehran grasped that targeting Jews, or Israel itself, would invite no reprisal. To the contrary: America would protect Iran. | |
| • | Had he not slipped into the back of the nuclear agreement a pledge to co-operate "through training and workshops to strengthen Iran's ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage." Here was Obama protecting Iran from Israel. Not vice versa. It was not just the deal of the century but the swap of the century: firm friend for a reptilian foe. | |
| • | From such warm mullah-coddling, the regime grasped that Obama was one hundred percent committed to making a pact. Meaning, after all was said and done, that he'd find ways to exonerate any cheating they did. So dictators would get their Bomb. And redouble their terrorism with gusto. | |
| • | The Iranians knew one thing for certain: they'd got out of jail, not on parole, but with the license to spend one hundred fifty billion. Their lot was not crime and punishment, but crime and magnificent reward. Many Jews were dead and Iran would have the means to eliminate, Allah willing, many more. | |
| • | What is clear is that Western diplomatic sources told World Tribune that Washington twisted Argentina's arm to end, or at least fudge, the investigation of Iran's involvement in the crime. | |
| • | Whatever the truth, one thing is clear: the POTUS had to write off Jewish blood to get his pact with the devil. | |
‘Peace for our time’ (INN 07/31/2015)
| • | Critics of the Iran nuclear deal are right — it is a very bad deal. It surrenders to the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism the right to enrich uranium and the technological pathway to eventually build nuclear weapons, and intercontinental missiles to deliver them, on a mass industrial scale. | |
| • | ... the nuclear deal with Iran will probably make inevitable another war in the Middle East. | |
| • | The deal is so bad that it may achieve the seemingly impossible — a coalition of Israel and the moderate Arab states to launch a pre-emptive war against Iran's nuclear and missile programs. | |
| • | The nuclear deal by lifting economic sanctions will gift Iran with $150 billion that could be used to sponsor unprecedentedly destructive terror attacks worldwide — and perhaps to purchase nuclear weapons from North Korea, Iran's strategic partner by treaty. | |
| • | North Korea and Iran have both orbited satellites on trajectories that appear to practice evading U.S. national missile defenses and early warning radars by flying on south polar trajectories at altitudes consistent with making a surprise EMP attack on the 48 contiguous United States. | |
| • | Because a single nuclear weapon could achieve "Death to America" by EMP attack, the Iran nuclear deal must be airtight and absolutely sure the mullahs cannot acquire — and do not now have — even one nuclear weapon. | |
| • | Congress should now require President Obama to trash this badly flawed nuclear deal, increase sanctions, shoot down any Iranian satellites and long-range missile tests, and materially support dissidents and the majority of Iran's people who want regime change. | |
| • | Congress should pass the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act to protect the national electric grid and the American people from an EMP apocalypse — immediately. | |
The Middle East They Wanted (INN 07/30/2015)
| • | The details are debatable, and largely irrelevant, when compared to the two irrefutable aspects: The agreement guarantees that Iran will develop nuclear weapons and the ayatollahs will get $150 billion. | |
| • | U.S. Presidents regarded ratification by two-thirds of the Senate as necessary where an international agreement would bind a future president. Obama stated that he would sideline Congress by anchoring the agreement in a binding UN Security Council resolution. The resolution would force Obama's successors to uphold the agreement after he leaves office. | |
| • | He got Congress to replace the two-thirds Senate majority required to approve a treaty with a two-thirds bicameral majority necessary to disapprove an executive agreement – then pledged not to go to the Security Council until after Congress voted. | |
| • | Obama betrayed his pledge. He went to the Security Council before Congress could vote on the agreement. | |
| • | Regardless of congressional action, Iran will have a free hand to develop nuclear weapons, at least until the next president is inaugurated. | |
| • | Obama can be expected to take no military action against Iran's nuclear program and to disregard U.S. sanctions against his Iranian comrades. | |
| • | Like so much that has been done by the Obama administration, including the diplomatic recognition of Cuba, the agreement demonstrates how safe it is to be America's enemy. The administration's policies toward Israel and Ukraine demonstrate how risky it is to be America's ally. | |
| • | Since sanctions are gone, deterrence is gone; that leaves only war. Rather than diminishing the chance of war, the agreement makes it inevitable that Iran will get the bomb or there will be a full-scale war, or both. | |
| • | The most solid confirmations of the military success in Iraq were the intercepted messages from al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq to their leaders in Pakistan that there was no point sending more insurgents, because they now had no chance of prevailing against American forces. This was the situation that Obama inherited — and lost. | |
| • | If Iran is not stopped, the choice will no longer be between a nuclear Iran and war. The choice would be between surrender to Iran and nuclear devastation, since Iran has explicitly and repeatedly declared its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. | |
| • | There was a time when Israel or the United States could have destroyed Iran's nuclear facilities with little risk of war. | |
| • | The Obama administration's leakage of Israel's secret agreement with Azerbaijan, allowing Israeli warplanes to refuel during attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities, also sabotaged Israeli attempt to destroy Iranian facilities. | |
| • | There is never going to be any real inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities. They get to provide their own samples and delay things if they do not want to be inspected. | |
| • | The Keystone Pipeline from Canada has been subjected to a greater inspections regime than Iran's nuclear program will ever be subjected to, because Obama cares more about stopping Canada getting the pipeline than Iran getting the bomb. | |
| • | In January 2009, before his inauguration, Obama told a crowd of cheering supporters: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." These are not the words of a pragmatic-minded politician. | |
| • | A pragmatic politician attempts to address problems and fix them, not to "fundamentally transform" an entire nation. Transforming nations is what radicals aspire to do. | |
| • | Obama's actions in the past six years have been radical; his "fundamental transformation" did not end at America's shores. | |
| • | Obama alienated America's friends and emboldened America's enemies. | |
| • | Obama has reoriented America's Middle East policy in favor of the ayatollahs, to make Iran the regional superpower in the Middle East, disfavoring America's traditional allies: Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab monarchies. | |
Obama Knows Iran will Use its Nukes on Israel (INN 07/28/2015)
| • | Come on, does anyone (except the American left-wing cool-aid drinking Jews) really believe that Iran will abide by their "voluntary" protocols under the Vienna announcement? Of course not! | |
| • | Are Obama or any of the European Union leaders so rank stupid and naive that they think Iran won't build a bomb just like North Korea? Does anyone not know that one of Iran's first targets will be to annihilate Israel? | |
| • | Of course Obama knows Iran will seek to annihilate Israel, so that must be what Obama wants. | |
| • | Obviously, Obama doesn't care if he enables the murder of another 6 million Jews through a Palestinian State's chemical Sarin-tipped Katyusha rockets, or an Iranian Nuke. It's simple: Obama wants Israel and its Jews offed. | |
| • | Every move Obama has made from the very first moment of his presidency has been to irreparably harm Israel and Saudi Arabia, and irrevocably empower Iran. | |
| • | It doesn't matter what Obama's specific motivation is. ... All that matters is Obama is acting in ways that will allow others to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. | |
| • | And, in plain sight, Obama is crowning Iran, the greatest openly Holocaust-threatening, terror-state in the world, the nuclear hegemon-state of the Middle East because Iran is "stable." I guess Obama forgot he helped quash a popular uprising there as his first foreign policy debacle. | |
| • | And, let's also not forget that Iran's "stability" in Syria has murdered over 250,000 Syrian Sunnis. ... So, the 150 Billion Dollars Obama is giving Iran is actually a weapon of mass destruction in itself. | |
| • | When exactly did Iran enrich 10 nukes worth of Uranium? Iran enriched the uranium solely in the last 6 years because the CIA's published declassified number had virtually zero enriched Uranium when Obama became President. | |
| • | Under Obama's "Stability" theory, Obama would have also armed Hitler with an arsenal of nukes because Hitler's Nazi Germany was very stable. | |
| • | In short, Obama knows full well that Iran is building an Auschwitz-Nuke that it wants to use to annihilate Israel; and, Obama is doing everything he can to ensure that it can do so. | |
Iran nuke deal will fund terrorists’ war vs. America (Fox 07/23/2015)
| • | The U.S. nuclear deal with Iran that allows the infusion of massive amounts of cash into Iran's coffers permits Tehran and its proxies to continue their war against the United States, Europe, and Israel. | |
| • | Now, with the signing of an Iranian nuclear agreement last week, the leading state sponsor of terrorism — the Islamic Republic of Iran — will get an estimated $150 billion in sanctions relief payments. | |
| • | Making matters worse, European companies and politicians rushed to Tehran last weekend to help jump-start Iran's cash-starved economy with investments. | |
| • | Will European businesses and political leaders enable Iranian regime terrorism? | |
| • | "I don't want to see pictures in which people are hanged from German cranes." | |
| • | Iran has the fourth largest reserve of oil in the world. ... Disturbingly, the windfall of profits for Iran will enable the Mullah Regime to funnel cash to its wholly-owned subsidiary, Hezbollah. | |
| • | The terrorist group Hamas, which controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, has received missiles from Iran over the years to launch against Israel. | |
| • | According to Nigerian prosecutors, the Hezbollah operatives had "enough [military hardware] to sustain a civil war in Nigeria." | |
| • | The nuclear deal ensures that it will be business-as-usual for Iran. | |
It's Called a Persian Bazaar for a Reason (INN 07/20/2015)
| • | A phrase commonly used for a negotiation where everything is up for grabs and there are wide swings between the bids and the asks is a "Persian Bazaar." The expression refers to the ancient shuks that originated in Persia – now Iran – and remain common today throughout the Middle East, even in Israel. In a Persian Bazaar, the overriding rule is caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – and there is not even a pretext of honesty, integrity or good faith. | |
| • | The Iranian nuclear negotiations were a prototypical Persian Bazaar. The Mullahs repeatedly spoke out of both sides of their mouths, professing, simultaneously, a desire for world peace and for death to America and Israel, making supposed concessions and then taking them back, refusing to consider new issues and then adding new conditions of their own. What would you expect? They are Persians playing a game they invented. And the United States was badly outplayed. | |
| • | There are some basic rules to negotiation in such an environment. Simple and obvious rules that America flubbed at every opportunity: | |
| • | WALK AWAY: When you are not getting what you need, you must leave the table. The failure to do so sends an undeniable message to your adversary that you are not serious about your demands. Most successful negotiations include at least one such episode. | |
| • | DO NOT ACCEPT INSULTING BEHAVIOR: You cannot allow yourself to be insulted. When the Mullahs call for "Death to America" or refuse to release innocent hostages as a token of good faith, and Kerry sits there with a smile on his face, he is exuding extraordinary weakness. No self-respecting Iranian would smile in such a circumstance. There is nothing worse than to project weakness. | |
| • | BE AMBIVALENT: Do not crow about how wonderful it would be to limit Iranian nukes, even if that's what you think. With every comment, your leverage drops. It would be far better to say – publicly and privately — that you think the world might be better off just ramping up the sanctions and bringing Iran to the point of surrender. | |
| • | MAKE NO GRATUTIOUS CONCESSIONS: Don't try to appear reasonable by taking options (like a military attack) off the table. Maybe that will score you some points in Norway or Japan but not in the Middle East. Again, you just appear foolish and weak. | |
| • | The United States, the strongest and wealthiest nation on earth was completely out-maneuvered by a rogue nation on the brink of collapse. And the world is now a much more dangerous place. | |
| • | Obama arrogantly defends his ineptitude by saying that the United States gave up nothing in this deal – all options supposedly remain. He couldn't be more wrong. The United States gave up the one thing that mattered – the opportunity to rid the world of Iranian nuclear weapons through competent, strategic and hard-nosed negotiations while the Iranians were on the ropes. | |
Obama's age of nuclear chaos (JWR 07/17/2015)
| • | That deal doesn't merely show that the US is unwilling to exact a price from states that illicitly develop nuclear weapons. The US and its allies just concluded a deal that requires them to facilitate Iran's nuclear efforts. | |
| • | Not only will the US and its allies remove the sanctions imposed on Iran over the past decade and so start the flow of some $150 billion to the ayatollahs' treasury. They will help Iran develop advanced centrifuges. | |
| • | They even committed themselves to protecting Iran's nuclear facilities from attack and sabotage. | |
| • | Under the deal, in five years, Iran will have unlimited access to the international conventional arms market. In eight years, Iran will be able to purchase and develop whatever missile systems it desires. | |
| • | And in 10 years, most of the limitations on its nuclear program will be removed. | |
| • | Because the deal permits Iran to develop advanced centrifuges, when the agreement ends in 10 years, Iran will be positioned to develop nuclear weapons immediately. | |
| • | In other words, if Iran abides by the agreement, or isn't punished for cheating on it, in 10 years, the greatest state sponsor of terrorism in the world will be rich, in possession of a modernized military, a ballistic missile arsenal capable of carrying nuclear warheads to any spot on earth, and the nuclear warheads themselves | |
| • | If Congress votes down the deal, the nuclear chaos Obama unleashed on Tuesday can be more easily reduced by his successor in the White House. | |
| • | Obama will be deeply bitter if Congress rejects his "historic achievement." He can be expected to do as little as possible to enforce the US sanctions regime against his Iranian comrades. Certainly he will take no military action against Iran's nuclear program. | |
| • | As a consequence, regardless of congressional action, Iran knows that it has a free hand to develop nuclear weapons at least until the next president is inaugurated on January 20, 2017. | |
| • | Given that under all scenarios, Tuesday's deal ensures that Iran will become a threshold nuclear power, it must be assumed that Iran's neighbors will now seek their own nuclear options. | |
| • | Moreover, in light of Obama's end-run around the Congress, it is clear that regardless of congressional action, the deal has already ruined the 70-year old nonproliferation system that prevented nuclear chaos and war. | |
| • | Who will be deterred by American threats that "all options are on the table" when the US has agreed to protect Iran's nuclear installations and develop advanced centrifuges for the same ayatollahs who daily chant, "Death to America"? | |
| • | Under these new circumstances, Israel must invest every possible effort in developing and deploying active nuclear defenses. | |
| • | Here is the place to mention that Israel still may have the ability to attack Iran's nuclear sites. If it does, then it should attack them as quickly and effectively as possible. | |
| • | And no, Israel shouldn't be overly concerned with how Obama will respond to such actions. | |
| • | Just as Obama's nuclear capitulation to Iran has destroyed his influence among our Arab neighbors, so his ability to force Israel to sit on the sidelines as he gives Iran a nuclear arsenal is severely constrained. | |
| • | One day the nuclear Furies Obama has unleashed may find their way to New York City. | |
| • | But their path to America runs through Israel. We need to ready ourselves to destroy them before they cross our border. | |
Iran nuclear deal much worse than experts predicted (Fox 07/14/2015)
| • | The nuclear agreement with Iran announced Tuesday was billed by EU, Iranian and US officials as historic. It is that: it is a historically dangerous accord that will destabilize the Middle East by legitimizing the nuclear program of a radical Islamist state and a state-sponsor of terror. | |
| • | The provisions of this agreement ... contains minor concessions by Iran but huge concessions by the United States that will Iran to continue its nuclear program with weak verification provisions. | |
| • | Iran will not only continue to enrich uranium under the agreement, it will continue to develop advanced centrifuges that will reduce the timeline to an Iranian nuclear bomb. | |
| • | The Obama administration will claim provisions of the deal requiring Iran to dilute or send out of the country its reactor-grade enriched uranium stockpile is a great victory. It isn't. ... Moreover, since the agreement allows Iran to continue to develop advanced centrifuges, Tehran will have the capacity to quickly replaced its enriched uranium stockpile. | |
| • | As a result of these provisions, this deal will actually shorten the timeline to an Iranian nuclear bomb and enable Iran to produce many more nuclear bombs than it currently can construct using enriched uranium and plutonium fuel. | |
| • | This is not a verifiable agreement. The IAEA will only have 24/7 access to declared nuclear facilities. The IAEA can "press" for access to military and suspect nuclear sites. Provisions for access military and suspect military sites are extremely weak and provide for no consequences against Iran if it fails to grant access to IAEA inspectors. | |
| • | In his press conference today, Secretary Kerry tried to explain away the agreement's lack of anytime, anyplace inspections of non-declared nuclear sites by claiming Iran will be prevented from pursuing a nuclear weapons program since Iran's declared nuclear supply chain will be subject to monitoring. | |
| • | Moreover, given President Obama's obsession for a nuclear agreement with Iran and his administration's failure to hold Iran accountable for cheating on its commitments during the nuclear talks, I believe there is no chance this administration will stand in the way of declaring Iran in compliance with the new agreement. | |
| • | Some of the most stunning concessions concern lifting embargoes on conventional arms and ballistic missiles. | |
| • | These are stunning US concessions. Under this agreement, a state-sponsor of terror that currently is sponsoring terrorist groups and destabilizing the Middle East, will gain free access to the international arms market. | |
| • | Iran's missiles could currently hit Europe and it is believed to be developing ICBMs that could strike the United States. | |
| • | "What began as an admirable diplomatic effort... dissolved into a bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability. The agreement... ultimately allows Iran to become a nuclear weapon state, and indeed legitimizes Iran's possession of nuclear weapons capability... This is a bad deal for America, a bad deal for Iran's neighbors in the Middle East, and a bad deal for the world." | |
| • | This is a terrible agreement that will endanger US and international security. This deal will increase the risk of nuclear proliferation since other regional states are likely to begin enriching uranium and building heavy-water reactors. | |
| • | Israel may decide it has no choice but to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. | |
| • | It therefore is crucial that the US Congress send a message to the world by decisively rejecting this agreement and making it clear that a future Republican President will reject it on his or her first day in office. | |
Truth and reality in Iran (Fox 07/13/2015)
| • | We've reached peak farce. On Friday, while signaling yet another extension of the Iran nuclear negotiations, Secretary of State John Kerry struck an optimistic note: "I think it's safe to say that we have made progress today." "The atmosphere," he added, "is very constructive." | |
| • | Friday was "Quds Day," an annual spectacle of racist propaganda promoted by the Iranian government, where tens of thousands of regime-sponsored supporters march through the streets chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." | |
| • | Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is promising to "continue combating the arrogant power," — that is, the U.S. — no matter the results of the nuclear negotiations. | |
| • | The Iranian Foreign Ministry called for ‘resistance' as the only way for the Palestinians to ‘liberate their motherland.' It doesn't take much to figure out that Iran is once again calling for the annihilation of Israel. | |
| • | "Mr. Rouhani, joining a crowd that carried placards saying, ‘Death to Zionism,' told reporters that the negotiations were in a delicate state but that the ‘future is bright.'" | |
| • | What worries me is that President Rouhani might be right. The future does indeed look bright if you consider it from the perspective of Iran's mullahs and their terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. The future, however, looks a lot darker for the United States, Israel, and our Middle Eastern partners. | |
| • | Even if the Obama administration wins every concession it claims to want in these final moments of the negotiation, the deal is already stacked so far in Iran's favor that the outcome, for the mullahs, is irresistible. | |
| • | The Obama administration has already conceded that Iran will be allowed to continue research and development of its nuclear program for the next 10 years, building its capacity as a threshold state, and by the time critical provisions of the agreement expire; Iran will emerge flush with cash to wreak havoc across the region. | |
| • | Without ‘anytime, anywhere' inspections, the deal means nothing. | |
| • | Not only that, but Iran – with the enthusiastic support of Russian President Vladimir Putin – is demanding that the final deal includes the immediate lifting of all U.N. restrictions on its arms trade and ballistic missile program. | |
| • | "The reason that we want to stop Iran from having an I.C.B.M. program is that the ‘I' in I.C.B.M. stands for ‘intercontinental,' which means having the capability of flying from Iran to the United States." | |
| • | "Under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking." | |
| • | But relieving pressure is exactly what the Obama administration has been doing. | |
| • | We've now reached the farcical stage where the president of Iran can march in a ‘Death to Israel, Death to America' rally and on the very same day our own Secretary of State John Kerry can issue a statement saying: "The atmosphere is very constructive." | |
| • | It sounds like a farce, but the danger is real. | |
How the Failed Iran Agreement Will Threaten Israel's Nuclear Strategy (INN 07/09/2015)
| • | All that has really happened, in the inherently demeaning process of futile negotiations, is that Tehran was able to buy more valuable time to reach its unchanging nuclear objective. | |
| • | ... the Islamic Republic is surely surprised (but simultaneously delighted) by Washington's buffoon-like complicity in this game-changing Iranian achievement. | |
| • | ... Iran has won absolutely everything it really wants, and at a proportionately tolerable price. | |
| • | ... Israel is not Iran. Israel does not call for Iran's "annihilation." Israel holds its own nuclear weapons and assets for only one reason. That reason is merely to remain "alive" in the midst of still-openly genocidal foes. | |
| • | For Israel, any well-intentioned compliance with allegedly legal demands for denuclearization would prove intolerable. Even if all pertinent enemy states were to remain non-nuclear themselves, these adversaries, and also their terrorist proxies, could still find themselves in a dramatically improved position to overwhelm Israel. | |
| • | Lest anyone forget one of the most basic maxims of war and geopolitics, "mass counts." Both Iran and the Arabs have mass. Israel, smaller than America's Lake Michigan, has none. | |
| • | President Obama, who stirringly calls for a world "free of nuclear weapons," consistently fails to realize that hope is not a strategy. | |
| • | Today, both Palestinian and Iranian maps reveal flagrantly unhidden plans for genocide against "the Jews." Religiously, these contemplated rimes against humanity stem from immutable eschatologies of "sacred" violence. | |
| • | It follows, contrary to the U.S. president's repeatedly-misplaced preferences for global nuclear disarmament, that Israel's nuclear weapons actually represent (1) an incomparably important instrument of regional peace; and (2) a much-needed impediment to regional nuclear war. | |
| • | In the special case of Israel, this community will need to acknowledge what it has too-long rejected: The Jewish State's nuclear weapons may ultimately be all that can prevent a calamitous area-wide war. | |
| • | However counter-intuitive, nuclear weapons are neither good nor evil in themselves. In some circumstances, they could serve helpfully as needed instruments of stable military deterrence, and not as usable weapons of war. | |
Daesh: It's not an Organization, It's a State (INN 07/09/2015)
| • | Denial is of no use, however, and laundering a name will not change reality, because what looks like a state, sounds like a state and functions like a state – is a state, even if we dislike it intensely. | |
| • | I hereby call upon the world to open its eyes, admit the reality that has been forced on the Middle East and understand that Islamic State intends to stay and has no plans to evaporate. | |
| • | I call on the world to regard his state exactly as it did Nazi Germany, because that is the only way the world can overcome the psychological barrier that allows it to live in denial. It must wake up, look reality straight in the eye, prepare for war and destroy Islamic State. | |
| • | For as long as the world relates to that entity as an organization, gang, group, or something with unintelligible initials, there is a feeling that it can be overcome if the West bombs here and there, eliminates someone here and there – and there is no greater error than that kind of thinking. | |
| • | The world must open its eyes, awaken and begin to plan the way it is going to have to deal with Islamic State, before that state deals with the world. | |
| • | Bombing from the air will not eliminate Islamic State, the only way that will work is boots on the ground – armies that will send Islamic State fighters where they belong. | |
| • | It is either them or us, and anyone who hopes that Iran will do the work for him will be bitterly disappointed: Despite the hatred and aversion that lies between the Sunni Islamic state and Shiite Iran, both wish to see Islam's hegemony over the entire globe. | |
| • | It is a serious threat to Western civilization and if the West does not begin serious military action, the danger will turn into an existential one. The longer the West waits to respond, the harder, longer and dearer the war –and yes, it is going to be a real war – against Islamic State will be. | |
As Greece collapses, the big loser is socialism (Fox 07/06/2015)
| • | The Green citizens have rolled the dice and voted overwhelmingly to reject the "austerity" referendum. This was a way for voters to stick a finger in the eye of their creditors. | |
| • | The left around the world has responded to the vote with thunderous applause – and is seling the results as a vote for "the little guy." | |
| • | Greece is about to slide into fiscal oblivion. This is the natural and unavoidable consequence of socialism everywhere it has been tried. | |
| • | There are no "good" options for now to end this Greek tragedy. It's best for Greece to take the least bad option, which would be forced bankruptcy. | |
| • | Greece is now sitting on $350 billion of debt. Its unpayable and the international monetary experts are deluding themselves into believing that by some magic stroke, this nation of 11 million citizens will some time in the future come up with the funds to repay it. | |
| • | Greece is already overtaxed, and adding more taxing the few businesses that are still functioning is only going to ensure their eventual demise too. | |
| • | Meanwhile the Greek citizens have come to the conclusion that fat pensions and cradle to grave welfare benefits are a human right that can never be taken away. | |
| • | The Greek citizens are simply living way, way beyond their means. This is a nation with an average retirement age of 60. This is a nation that has one in four adults unemployed and half of its young people out of work. With such countrywide levels of idleness, who is there that is working to pay for these super-extravagent benefits? | |
| • | Welfare benefits will have to be slashed. Pensions for retirees will be cut based on the new reality of Greece's finances. This may seem "unfair," but how is it fair to require young Greek citizens to pay exorbitant taxes to pay for the sins of their fathers and grandfathers. | |
| • | Making it harder for bloated governments to borrow would be a positive development. More money would flow to private sector borrowing, and less to governments. | |
| • | The big lie is that Greece has already lived through austerity. This is a nation that in 2013 was spending up to 59% of its GDP on government benefits and programs. Even today the government accounts for half of all spending. How is that austerity? | |
| • | In sum, Greece needs much less socialism, and much more privatization. Sell off government assets. Cut tax rates. Sell one of the islands to Disney. Oust the communists who ruined this nation. | |
| • | And then shut down the IMF and World Bank which helped create these debt crises in the first place. | |
| • | These institutions haven't averted financial crises. They have enabled them through their lending policies that are the equivalent of giving crack cocaine hits to drug addicts. | |
| • | That story never ends well, and, alas, Greece is the first tragic example of that lesson. | |
Letter from an Australian to America: Here's why I love you, USA (Fox 07/03/2015)
| • | American exceptionalism is often derided as a phrase of partisan polemics, or worse still, a mere hypothesis, or even a myth. But it is an incontrovertible reality, however unwelcome or unpalatable this might be to those whose ears are attuned to a different siren. | |
| • | In 5,000 years of recorded human history, there has been no nation even resembling the United States. The American model has offered, and continues to offer, a greater chance for dignity, hope and happiness for more people than any other system. | |
| • | As Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, put it: "Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy." Lady Thatcher was right. The philosophy is one of individual liberty, free-market opportunity and belief that it's all a gift from God. America is the best idea the world has ever had, the greatest value system ever devised. | |
| • | What are these values that make America exceptional? Individualism, not collectivism. Patriotism, not relativism. Optimism, not pessimism. Limited government, not the nanny state. | |
| • | God, not Caesar. Faith, not secularism. E pluribus Unum, not multiculturalism. Life, not death. Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Goodness, not moral equivalence. | |
| • | America is about being bold, not bland. Brave, not meek. Striving for greatness, not mediocrity. | |
| • | Tellingly, all of these values are aligned with what today is called a conservative outlook. On every single count, traditional America both viscerally and ideologically sides with conservatism. | |
| • | America thus represents the greatest impediment to leftist aims, and it becomes the prime target of the progressive movement in all its manifestations. It is easy to love America simply for the enemies she makes. | |
| • | American success – by design, not accident – is the most significant refutation of leftist ideals. That's because America has fostered a society that allows its citizens the widest latitude for creativity and innovation. It rewards success without government approvals and bureaucratic interference. It embraces religious faith, aspiration and risk. | |
| • | As a result, the people of America have been the most enterprising, market-oriented, individualistic and averse to taxation and regulation that have ever walked the earth. | |
| • | From the beaches of Normandy to the sands of Iraq, America has spread more freedom and fought more evil than any other country, expending enormous treasure. | |
| • | Put simply, the world is a better place for America being in it. This is not to say America is perfect. She's not. But she is the best thing we have. | |
| • | We must recover a common recognition that the principles of freedom and responsibility found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are in every American's self-interest, irrespective of identity politics. | |
| • | As Americans, you should never be intimidated into mediocrity or cramped into submission. You've been given so much more. For the sake of the world, you must remain the dream-makers and the dream-keepers. | |
Iran deal: Why a smart mom [or dad] could do better. Lessons in statecraft... (Fox 06/30/2015)
| • | ... our diplomats seem lacking in good, old-fashioned common sense, which parents need in abundance to survive. | |
| • | ... while the diplomats in Vienna debate enrichment cycles and sanctions relief, they might spend some time sussing out the people they're dealing with – on both sides of the table. | |
| • | In the end, countries are just an aggregate of their leaders and people. They're motivated by some of the same incentives and disincentives as your typical 6-year-old. | |
| • | 1. Don't let your kids eat dessert before dinner. | |
| • | Iran's supreme leader insists we lift all sanctions upon signing, ... If they get everything they want up front, what is the incentive for them to carry out their end of the bargain down the road? | |
| • | 2. You DO want to see what's in that backpack, especially if your kid's been caught smoking pot in the past. | |
| • | Iran's Parliament voted to ban inspectors from military sites, documents and scientists while some legislators chanted "Death to America." | |
| • | Really? What is the most logical place for Iran to conduct nuclear weapons research? On their military bases, of course! Any agreement that doesn't allow for anytime/anyplace inspections isn't worth the paper it's written on. | |
| • | Which brings up a very important point. Are the specifics of this agreement written down anyplace? | |
| • | There should be just one public version of the Iran deal. No secret understandings. No vague principles with details left to be worked out later. | |
| • | Given the very wide gulf between what the Iranians think they're agreeing to and what Secretary Kerry says they've agreed to, the final terms should be very clearly laid out. | |
| • | Every parent knows a kid will exploit any ambiguous edict to his advantage, especially if he can play Mom off against Dad. | |
| • | 3. The store won't let you return the toy after it's been opened and played with. | |
| • | The president says don't worry about enforcement – if Iran cheats, we can always "snap back" the sanctions. He's fooling himself. | |
| • | Countries and international companies are already lined up, ready to do business with Iran the second sanctions are lifted. ... Iran has the potential to be the largest market in the Middle East. | |
| • | Does the president really think he can cancel all those contracts? These will be the very same companies he hopes will donate to the Obama Library and offer him fat speaking fees once he leaves office. | |
| • | Once those sanctions are lifted – on Day One – it will be like the California Gold Rush. Even if we catch Iran cheating, the political reality is it will be impossible to re-impose sanctions. | |
| • | 4. Good parenting is just a means to the end. | |
| • | It's not all about backpack inspections, eating dessert last or following the rules of the house. It's about raising a kid who can navigate safely through his youth, who doesn't harm himself or others and who grows up to be a self-sufficient, well-balanced, mature adult. | |
| • | The Iran agreement isn't as much about Iran's nukes as it is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. | |
| • | It's what Iran's neighbors believe this deal does or doesn't do. ... It's finding a way to prevent a nuclear arms race in the most unstable, dangerous part of the world. | |
| • | If Iran's neighbors conclude that this deal confers America's blessing on Iran's nuclear program, many of them have already pledged to build their own nuclear programs. | |
| • | Once nuclear weapons are introduced into the region, it's only a matter of time before one gets used – accidentally, inadvertently, intentionally. | |
| • | The Arab Spring has demonstrated that entrenched Middle East autocrats can be toppled overnight, and what replaces them are not stable, pro-Western, peace and freedom-loving democracies, but ISIS, terrorists, the Islamic State and jihadi chaos. | |
| • | Then we will have what has terrified the world since the dawn of the atomic age: nuclear weapons in the hands of crazy people who want to use them. | |
| • | If the Iran agreement is unverifiable, unenforceable and possibly unconstitutional, then it is also very undesirable. If the agreement doesn't stop Iran's nuclear program, then it not only won't prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, it will accelerate one. | |
| • | No doubt the Iranian diplomats are driving a hard bargain and threatening to blow up the deal if their final terms aren't met. They know the other side is most vulnerable when it's salivating for the signing ceremony. | |
| • | One of the greatest negotiators of the 20th century, my old boss Ronald Reagan, walked away from an arms control agreement with the USSR when President Gorbachev insisted on significant 11th-hour changes at Reykjavik. | |
| • | In the end, Gorbachev came around, and Reagan got the deal he wanted. | |
| • | It was a turning point in history. Within a few years the Soviet empire collapsed, and we won the Cold War without firing a shot. | |
When Will Obama Take Off the Blinders? (INN 06/30/2015)
| • | Obama's quest for a deal with Iran may indeed be prompted by the very noblest of intentions. Thus is the path to hell. | |
| • | Obsession with a monstrous, destructive force and the gross underestimating of a monster's capacity to annihilate is not just the thing of novels and fantasies but recent history. | |
| • | Chamberlain, too, believed what he wanted to believe, and the price of his misplaced trust was the lives of tens of millions. | |
| • | Just imagine what history would look like if Nazi Germany's heavy water experiments had succeeded in time and Hitler had acquired an atomic bomb. | |
| • | It's madness for the President of the United States of America not to dispassionately take into account facts about Iran that shouldn't be ignored — facts that his own advisers are almost desperate to have him understand. | |
| • | "From the moment he entered office, Mr. Obama promoted an agenda of championing the Palestinian cause and achieving a nuclear accord with Iran. Such policies would have put him at odds with any Israeli leader." | |
| • | Of course they would have. They are putting our President at odds with anyone who can understand the clear and present danger of a nuclear Iran. | |
| • | Obama made little effort to mask his personal dislike for Israel's Prime Minister, and he allowed (or perhaps encouraged) his administration to be downright confrontational. | |
| • | What did this tell Israel's enemies? Only that a new chapter had begun. Only that there was a new Pharaoh who no longer knew Joseph. | |
| • | If President Obama shed any tears for Shelly Dadon, a young Israeli woman stabbed to death by an Arab because she was Jewish, he did so privately. If our President had any concern for the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped and murdered because they were Jews, he kept those concerns well hidden. | |
| • | But when a lone Arab teenager was murdered by extremist Israelis (who were almost instantly arrested), that anomaly was regarded as immediately condemn-worthy by the President of the United States. | |
| • | As there are ongoing conflicts throughout other regions of the Middle East — in Syria, in Iraq — our President has remained focused on a "peace in our time" legacy with Iran, a mission that will change the balance of power and endanger the entire world if Iran reaches its nuclear goal. | |
Obama's Iran deal: A fiasco built on a fantasy (Fox 06/29/2015)
| • | That would be the simultaneous expansion of Islamic terrorism by both of its main sources, the Islamic State and Iran. | |
| • | On Friday alone, jihadists left their bloody tracks in countries on three continents, striking France, Tunisia and Kuwait. | |
| • | The attacks left scores dead and came after an Islamic State leader demanded that Ramadan mark a "calamity for the infidels ... Shiites and apostate Muslims." | |
| • | Spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani has said that "Muslims everywhere, we congratulate you over the arrival of the holy month. Be keen to conquer in this holy month and to become exposed to martyrdom." | |
| • | So much for the religion of peace. | |
| • | But even those horrors would pale if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, a terrifying outcome that also advanced last week and could be sealed in writing any day. | |
War Crimes in Gaza (INN 06/28/2015)
| • | ... frightening footage of Hamas training children as young as six how to kill; the torture and public corpse-desecration of anyone whom Hamas suspected was a ‘collaborator' or anyone whom they viewed as an opponent; Hamas's omnipresent but hidden "civilian" army in Gaza; the location of Hamas missiles and guns in heavily populated civilian areas... | |
| • | ... since Hamas could not inflict major military damage to Israel, their strategy became one of propaganda — the kind meant to turn the entire world against Israel. | |
| • | ... Hamas's goal is not the liberation of Palestinians but the destruction of Israel. | |
| • | We see the offensive tunnels, which open out into civilian Israel; the smuggling tunnels and the defensive tunnels, which house weapons and Hamas fighters. | |
| • | We come to understand — we see with our own eyes — how Hamas dresses its fighters as "civilians," and forces it real civilian population to function as human shields in the ground and propaganda wars begun by Hamas. | |
| • | "It would not surprise me if the Hamas deliberately lured the IDF to attack this location, as they have done it many times in this conflict before... it is extremely unlikely that children would be targeted by the IDF." | |
| • | Israel is using its own rockets and missiles to protect their people. Hamas is doing the opposite. Hamas is gaining power and money while more Palestinians are being victimized in Gaza...there is no doubt that Hamas used people as human shields. IDF sent messages to leave their houses. Hamas prevented them getting out of their houses by saying they are spies of Israel if they do. | |
| • | "The one [who] committed the genocide is Hamas. The Hamas is offering their innocent people for such a kind of war." | |
A moral world requires moral violence (JWR 06/26/2015)
| • | "It is hypocritical to talk about peace and make weapons." | |
| • | So sweeping a calumny would be unworthy coming from anyone; from a moral teacher as prominent as the Bishop of Rome, it is inexcusable. | |
| • | The Vatican itself is defended by a military force — the Swiss Guard — that is well-supplied with sophisticated firepower, including assault rifles and submachine guns. When Francis slams weapons-makers and firearms-sellers as "hypocrites" and "merchants of death," does he include those who provide the guns that keep him and the papal offices safe? | |
| • | The pope knows only too well what happens when good people — or good nations — aren't willing to fight the world's monsters with every available weapon. | |
| • | "The great powers had photographs of the railway routes that brought the trains to the concentration camps like Auschwitz to kill Jews, Christians, Roma, homosexuals, everybody. Tell me, then: Why did they not bomb them?" | |
| • | Does the pontiff hear his own words? He laments the failure to bomb the rail lines and save millions of lives. Who would have made those bombs? Who would have made the bombers to deliver them? Who made the guns and tanks and missiles that did, in the end, defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? Who supplied the arms that ended the slave trade and eradicated piracy? Were all of them conniving merchants of death? | |
| • | No, Pope Francis, it is not hypocritical to talk about peace and make weapons. For if the peaceable cannot defend themselves, they will have no peace. "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition," Americans sang during World War II. A moral world requires moral violence, and the wisdom to know when to use it. | |
Fake Iran Deal a Cover-up for Obama's Shallow Legacy (INN 06/26/2015)
| • | As the looming deadline for a final deal approaches, it is not surprising that the Iranian mullah's heads are spinning like centrifuges praising Allah for an unthinkable US enrichment of a 'historic deal' that could pave the way for them to build nuclear weapons. | |
| • | Throughout Obama's scandal ridden presidency, Americans have long suspected that the feckless administration's tilt in nuke negotiations toward Iran is because of the influence of White House Marxist senior advisor, the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett. | |
| • | Obama's tectonic shift in narrative from preventing nuclear Iran to massive capitulation is filled with deceitful absurdities. Obama's conceding anything to a terrorist Islamist country which daily seeks the destruction of America and Israel is an egregious error. | |
| • | The truth is extremely cruel: when Obama negotiated away Israel's existence, he became the real enemy of Israel. | |
| • | It is a shame that Obama's malignant narcissism and Kerry's stunning hypocrisy know no bounds. There is nothing Obama can gain from a fake deal that will most certainly lead to Mid East nuclear proliferation. The done deal - which is a non-deal - is nothing more than a nuclear swindle. | |
| • | In his warped worldview as a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, it has become abundantly clear that Obama wants a deal for the sake of claiming a foreign policy achievement, no matter what the cost, and no matter what it does to US allies, especially Israel. | |
| • | It is alarming that Obama chooses to ignore the risks to world peace and security posed by Iran. | |
| • | With Iranian cheating, lying, non-compliance and violations of multiple UN resolutions the fake Iran deal is a cruel joke. | |
| • | Why are we supposed to believe Iran for what they say but ignore their expansive terrorist activities? | |
Christianity under attack: US must do more to promote religious freedom (Fox 06/25/2015)
| • | The Obama Administration has repeatedly refused to defend religious freedom abroad and continues to ignore its devastating cost to those religious communities targeted by terrorists because of their religious beliefs. | |
| • | As a nation founded in the pursuit of religious freedom, America can and must do more to root-out the religious intolerance that is helping to foster much of the political instability and violence we see today. | |
| • | ISIS has succeeded in tearing apart the social fabric of local communities and exacerbating sectarian and ethnic divisions to recruit supporters from disaffected populations and assert control over wide swaths of otherwise insecure territory. As a result, they have precipitated a breakdown of basic order that has allowed new and unprecedented security threats to the United States and our allies to fester and grow. | |
| • | Finally, we must remain committed to religious freedom because of the special distinction religious freedom holds as a fundamental human right — a belief that is shared by democratic countries across the globe and protected by numerous international treaties and agreements. | |
'UN Enabling Hamas to Manipulate Laws of War to its Advantage' (INN 06/23/2015)
| • | Israel, ... is dealing with the kind of "enemy who views your compliance with the law, or your commitment to comply with the law, as a tactical and strategic enabler for its own objectives." | |
| • | "There is a perception that the laws of armed conflict... somehow imposes on military comanders an obligation to prevent civilian casualties. In fact, what it imposes on commanders is an obligation to mitigate risk through feasible measures designed for that purpose." | |
| • | "The process of making an effort to comply with the law is an indication of the good faith commitment to the law by the parties to the conflict." | |
| • | "There is evidence reflected in the report of two sides to the conflict, one side making significant efforts - sometimes beyond what is required by the law - to mitigate the risk to the civilian population, and the other side actually trying to increase the risk to the civilian population in order to gain a strategic advantage in the international public domain, and a tactical advantage by making it more difficult for their enemy to employ their power to bring about the objective they seek to achieve." | |
| • | "Who bears responsibility for unnecessary suffering...? On one side, where you have efforts to warn, to evacuate, to select timing of attack and weapons for use in attack that mitigate the risk to the civilian population, and you're trying to do this in an environment where the enemy deliberately locates its most vital assets at the most protected civilian sites, it reveals to you where responsibility should be allocated" for the resultant civilian casualties." | |
| • | "Military commanders must "do their best to feasibly mitigate risk - but they cant prevent it." | |
Attempting to Probe the Iranian Nuclear Future: Four Questions (INN 06/24/2015)
| • | (a) - The level of likelihood that Iran will try, whether sooner or later, to produce nuclear warheads: | |
| • | Very high, and the emphasis is on nuclear warheads being the pursued concrete outcome, not the preceding stages. | |
| • | (b) - The level of feasibility that Iran will succeed in doing this: | |
| • | High, resulting from two capabilities Iran has already acquired: technological ability to master and apply the knowhow Iran has for producing nuclear warheads; and, skillful capacity to do this in an undetectable fashion, thanks to accumulating both its own experience and friendly North Korean experience. | |
| • | (c) - The level of likelihood that Iran will leverage NW possession, for a variety of purposes: | |
| • | Very high. As clearly seen at the present time, particularly, Iran fulfills in effect its pristine ideology of gaining hegemony across the Middle East. | |
| • | (d) –The level of likelihood that Iran will employ NW, in whatever mode, constituting a first strike | |
| • | Inexcludable. The infamous Iranian statement contending, already in 2003, that Israel should be wiped out, and one atomic bomb can destroy Israel, while only small part of Iran will be destroyed by an Israeli atomic strike, is basically as valid today as was it then. | |
| • | Thus, (a), an attempt by Iran to produce nuclear warheads, is a precondition for the rest, and (b), its success in doing so, is a precondition for (c), and (d), while (c) is not necessarily a precondition for (d); nevertheless (c), the leverage of nuclear possession, which is highly likely to take place, collectively, is devastating in itself, certainly for the Middle East, and, potentially, much beyond. | |
UN report denies Israel's right of self-defense, advocates arrest of Israelis instead (Fox 06/23/2015)
| • | In other words, the democratic state of Israel, with a moral and legal obligation to defend its citizens, and the Palestinian attackers bent on genocide are moral equals. | |
| • | When Israel responds to Palestinian rocket fire – 750 rockets in 2014 alone prior to the war's start – or Palestinian terrorists emerging from tunnels into Israel bent on carnage, it is Israel who is accused of war crimes. | |
| • | While the point of all this hate speech is to demonize and delegitimize Israel, the war crimes label takes the campaign one step further. It deliberately ravages Israel's right of self-defense. | |
| • | "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of ... self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations ..." | |
| • | But incredibly, the U.N. council report purports to address legal responsibility for casualties in Gaza without once mentioning "self-defense." | |
| • | Little wonder that the report is riddled with lies and libels. It claims Israel was "directing attacks against civilians," and acted "in utter disregard of...the civilian population..." | |
| • | It omits that Hamas rejected or violated a total of 11 cease-fires that would have reduced Palestinian casualties by 90 percent. | |
| • | It says the intent of "Palestinian armed groups" in constructing and using tunnels cannot be "conclusively determined". | |
| • | It even goes so far as to lament that Palestinian "armed groups" don't have more room for their criminal enterprise: "...the obligation to avoid locating military objectives within densely populated areas is not absolute. The small size of Gaza and its population density make it difficult for armed groups to always comply with this requirement." | |
| • | The U.N. has reached a new low. The United States should start by resigning from the Human Rights Council effective immediately. | |
Pope Francis paints himself into partisan political corner (Fox 06/22/2015)
| • | At a time when blood is flowing like rivers around the globe, when Christians are being persecuted and when genocide and oppression are spreading, the world's foremost religious figure ventures too far afield and gets lost in the socialist weeds. | |
| • | Francis has shaken up the Vatican by showing a common touch, and you don't have to be Catholic to admire his compassion for the poor and downtrodden. | |
| • | But his contempt for capitalism and anything resembling free markets strikes an un-religious chord, and he makes himself easy to dismiss when he complains the Earth "is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth." | |
| • | "Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last 200 years," he declares. He decries the reliance on fossil fuels, blasts the "myth of progress," is no fan of the fruits of technology and scorns multinational companies that produce commodities. | |
Israel fires back at UN report accusing it and Hamas of violating world law in Gaza war (Fox 06/22/2015)
| • | "The Palestinians have moved the battlefield to the United Nations. The UN is the true frontlines, the Human Rights Council serves as the soldiers of the Palestinians and Hamas, and this biased report is their weapon. The UN has been taken hostage by terrorist organizations, and in this battle the international community will lose. If we continue to give legitimacy to this attack, we will all pay the price." | |
| • | "Any comparison between IDF soldiers who seek to defend innocent civilians, and the terrorists who indiscriminately target Israelis while deliberately endangering Palestinians is completely unacceptable." | |
| • | "Israel not only met a reasonable international standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard." | |
| • | "A measure of the seriousness with which Israel took its moral duties and its responsibilities under the laws of armed conflict is that in some cases Israel's scrupulous adherence to the laws of war cost Israeli soldiers' and civilians' lives." | |
A new strategy for Iraq and Syria (JWR 06/19/2015)
| • | The Iraqi army is a farce. It sees the enemy and flees, leaving its weapons behind. "The ISF was not driven out of Ramadi. They drove out of Ramadi," said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Our own secretary of defense admitted that "the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight." | |
| • | We can train them forever. The problem is one of will. They don't want to fight. And why should they? They are led by commanders who are corrupt, sectarian and incompetent. | |
| • | Redirect our efforts to friendly forces deeply committed to the fight, beginning with the Kurds, who have the will, the skill and have demonstrated considerable success. | |
| • | Abandon our anachronistic fealty to the central Iraqi government (now largely under Iran's sway anyway) and begin supplying the Iraqi Kurds in a direct, 24-hour, Berlin-style airlift. And in Syria, intensify our training, equipping and air support for the now-developing Kurdish safe zone. | |
| • | As for the Iraqi army, we can go through the motions, but the best we can hope for is wobbly containment, ultimately guaranteed by Iranian proxies. | |
| • | At the time, Iraq was a functioning state. That state is now gone. We should not expend treasure or risk blood trying to resurrect it. Our objective right now is to defeat the Islamic State and to ensure the fall of the Assad regime. That does not require an American invasion. It does require recognizing reality and massively supporting our few genuine allies on the ground. | |
The new world map (JWR 06/18/2015)
| • | Adolf Hitler started World War II by attacking Poland on September 1, 1939. Nazi Germany moved only after it had already remilitarized the Rhineland, absorbed Austria and dismantled Czechoslovakia. | |
| • | Well before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese government had redrawn the map of Asia and the Pacific. Japan had occupied or annexed Indochina, Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan, in addition to swaths of coastal China. | |
| • | Fascist Italy, by the outbreak of World War II in Europe, had already been remaking the map of the Mediterranean region in imitation of ancient Rome. Strongman Benito Mussolini had annexed what is now Ethiopia, Albania and most of Libya. | |
| • | All of these hegemonies had arisen without triggering a global war. Had Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese just been satisfied and consolidated their winnings, there was no evidence that the tired Western democracies would ever have stopped them. | |
| • | The contemporary world is starting to resemble the 1930s, and maps again must be redrawn. | |
| • | The Islamic State plans to take Baghdad to make it the capital of a radical Sunni caliphate from what is left of Syria and Iraq. | |
| • | Its enemy, theocratic Iran, is forging its own Shiite empire. Through its proxies, Iran now effectively runs much of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. | |
| • | Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks he can reconstitute the empire of the czars and the later Soviet Union. American "reset" diplomacy green-lighted his annexation of the Crimea and his occupation of areas of Ukraine. Should Putin wish to absorb Estonia or other Baltic States, NATO probably would not stop him. | |
| • | A terrified Eastern Europe, which not that long ago was part of the old Soviet Warsaw Pact, is already making the necessary political concessions in hopes that the unpredictable Putin leaves them alone. | |
| • | China is vastly increasing its strategic air force and navy — and reminding its neighbors from South Korea to Australia of its new military clout. | |
| • | Well before World War II, Great Britain and France allowed Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese to acquire what they pleased. The Western European democracies were terrified of confrontation and mired in economic crises. | |
| • | Nothing much has changed 75 years later. Western Europe is terrified of Putin and mostly disarmed. The European Union is awash with debt. | |
| • | As in the 1930s, an isolationist United States is again watching the new map unfold from the sidelines. | |
| • | Afghanistan is a quagmire. Iraq collapsed once the administration pulled out all U.S. troops. The bombing of Libya proved a disaster. | |
| • | In 1945, after some 60 million had perished in World War II, the Western democracies blamed themselves for having appeased and empowered fascist empires. That sadder but wiser generation taught us two lessons: Small sacrifices now can avoid catastrophic ones later on, and dictatorial regimes on a roll never voluntarily quit playing geostrategic poker. | |
| • | If the present trajectories continue, a reconfigured Middle East will be bookended by radical Islamic empires — the Islamic State caliphate and a new Persian empire. | |
| • | China will control most of the Pacific and adjudicate trade, commerce and politics west of Hawaii and to the south and east of India. | |
| • | The client states of a new Russian empire will border central Europe and be under constant pressure to leave the EU, NATO or both. | |
| • | How does all this end? One of two ways. | |
| • | America and its allies can reawaken, gradually restore deterrence and re-establish the old postwar order without a global war. | |
| • | Or the United States will not be bothered — at least until this new generation of dictators bothers us at home. | |
Make no mistake, Iran will acquire nuclear weapons. Soon. (Fox 06/16/2015)
| • | It's obvious that chess was invented in Persia. | |
| • | Iranian officials in negotiations with Secretary of State John Kerry's delegation over the disposition of Iran's nuclear program are executing a deception gambit worthy of any grandmaster, the inevitable result of which will be that Tehran will acquire nuclear weapons. Not in spite of, but thanks to, already agreed on U.S. terms. | |
| • | It is a counter-intuitive fact in uranium enrichment science that ninety percent of the processing required to attain weapons-grade material has already been done by the time you get to 20% enriched. | |
| • | Endless negotiating over the other terms of the agreement therefore is irrelevant: sanctions, inspections, fuel storage, overseas procurement, decommissioning sites, and civilian energy production, all are expendable chess pieces that Tehran can, after disingenuous protest, selectively surrender without cost. | |
| • | U.S.-imposed limit of 9,000 centrifuges — all the machines they need to enrich — has already been agreed on. | |
| • | The Iranians have kept the West talking about the nuclear program in one form or another since 2003, giving them more than a decade to develop centrifuges, solve problems, improve rotor design, assemble and test finicky cascades. | |
| • | The West is counting on big calendar delays inherent in weaponization and missile development before a nuclear Iran can start throwing its weight around. This is a miscalculation, and one that must surely delight the mullahs. | |
| • | Who needs a missile? Iran, in a matter of weeks could fabricate and assemble a rudimentary "breadboard" fission device the size of a refrigerator, install a GPS detonator calibrated to go off at the latitude and longitude of the Port of Newark (40.72N 74.17W), and ship it in a sea-land container through Antwerp. | |
| • | Or give it to Al Qaeda to deliver. | |
| • | Or make a pact with the Devil — ISIS — to smuggle the device into Israel or the U.S., and let the despised Sunnis suffer the consequences. | |
Nuclear War and Nuclear Peace: Israel's strategic options (INN 06/16/2015)
| • | Now, facing an effectively unobstructed nuclear threat from Iran, Israel will need to choose prudently from among available strategic options. The most starkly polar of these choices would be (1) a "last minute" preemption using only conventional forces, or (2) a protracted and presumptively stable posture of nuclear deterrence. | |
| • | Should it opt for the former, a legally defensive first-strike known in more formal jurisprudence as "anticipatory self-defense," Jerusalem could possibly hold back any further Iranian nuclearization, but only at more-or-less substantial cumulative costs. | |
| • | Should Israel's leaders decline any eleventh-hour preemption option, and select instead a plan for deterring a now-impending Islamist nuclear adversary, a number of corresponding decisions would be required. | |
| • | At that point, it will have become essential for Jerusalem to communicate unambiguously to Tehran that Israel's nuclear forces are sufficiently secure from enemy first-strikes,and sufficiently capable of penetrating enemy active defenses. | |
| • | In strategic matters, as in life generally, the most deeply meaningful reality is perceived reality. | |
| • | "In policy-making, to take a risk and to make sacrifices occasionally is necessary, but there is a limit to the dangers worthy of risk, for national existence is never to be jeopardized;" and (b) "...in (specifically) nuclear circumstances, refrain from a provocation for which the adversary may have only one response, nuclear war." | |
| • | Nonetheless, short of viewing a prompt and residual preemptive attack on Iran as its only appropriate remedy, Jerusalem has no remaining choice but to proceed according to standard military planning assumptions of enemy rationality. | |
Ex-Envoy Reveals How Obama Betrayed Israel Alliance (INN 06/16/2015)
| • | "From the moment he entered office, Mr. Obama promoted an agenda of championing the Palestinian cause and achieving a nuclear accord with Iran." | |
| • | "Mr. Obama posed an even more fundamental challenge by abandoning the two core principles of Israel's alliance with America." | |
| • | ... the first was the concept of "no daylight," by which the US and Israel avoided public disagreements so as not to encourage their common enemies to exploit the disharmony. | |
| • | "The other core principle was 'no surprises'. President Obama discarded it in his first meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, in May 2009, by abruptly demanding a settlement freeze and Israeli acceptance of the two-state solution." | |
| • | "But Mr. Obama delivered his Cairo speech, with its unprecedented support for the Palestinians and its recognition of Iran's right to nuclear power, without consulting Israel." | |
| • | "The abandonment of the 'no daylight' and 'no surprises' principles climaxed over the Iranian nuclear program," wrote Oren. "In 2014, Israel discovered that its primary ally had for months been secretly negotiating with its deadliest enemy." | |
| • | "The past six years have seen successive crises in U.S.-Israeli relations, and there is a need to set the record straight. But the greater need is to ensure a future of minimal mistakes and prevent further erosion of our vital alliance." | |
Global military leaders laud Israel's restraint in Gaza clash ahead of UN report (Fox 06/15/2015)
| • | Israel went out of its way to minimize civilian casualties and observe international law during last summer's crackdown in Gaza, even to the point of costing the lives of its own soldiers and citizens, according to a coming report by international military experts. | |
| • | "Israel not only met a reasonable international standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard." | |
| • | "We examined the circumstances that led to the tragic conflict last summer and are in no doubt that this was not a war that Israel wanted. In reality Israel sought to avoid the conflict and exercised great restraint over a period of months before the war when its citizens were targeted by sporadic rocket attacks from Gaza." | |
| • | "Once the war had begun, Israel made repeated efforts to terminate the fighting. The war that Israel was eventually compelled to fight against Hamas and other Gaza extremists was a legitimate war, necessary to defend its citizens and its territory against sustained attack from beyond its borders." | |
| • | "A measure of the seriousness with which Israel took its moral duties and its responsibilities under the laws of armed conflict is that in some cases Israel's scrupulous adherence to the laws of war cost Israeli soldiers' and civilians' lives." | |
| • | "We recognize that some of these deaths were caused by error and misjudgment... but we also recognize that the majority of deaths were the tragic inevitability of defending against an enemy that deliberately carries out attacks from within the civilian population." | |
| • | "We must therefore consider that Hamas and its terrorist associates, as the aggressors and the users of human shields, are responsible for the overwhelming majority of deaths in Gaza this summer." | |
| • | "In the main, Hamas' rocket attacks deliberately and indiscriminately targeted Israeli civilian population centers in the south of the country." | |
| • | "Hamas launched attacks against Israel from the heart of its own civilian communities in Gaza and positioned its munitions and military forces there also, including in schools, hospitals and mosques." | |
Iranian opposition group leader says Iran regime 'cannot be trusted' (Fox 06/12/2015)
| • | "Nuclear negotiations should compel the Mullahs' regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program. This is the desire of the Iranian people who oppose this program. The Mullahs need the bomb for their own survival." | |
| • | "Do not make more concessions to this regime. Adopt a firm policy and make it clear to the Mullahs ruling Iran that they have to abandon their nuclear weapons program." | |
| • | "U.S. policy has embolden the Mullahs' regime. I warn them that their illusion of changing the behavior of the Mullahs' regime by making concessions to it has already cost the Iranian people dearly, continuing on that path would have serious consequences for the region and the world." | |
| • | "There is only one reason that they are seeking the ability to have nuclear capacity, and that is in order to build a nuclear weapon." | |
| • | "The Mullahs' nuclear program is run by the Revolutionary Guards, so it is impossible to have an effective inspection regime without unconditional access to all military sites. The military dimensions of the regime's activities are taking place in the military sites." | |
| • | "A tough inspection regime, which includes access to all suspect sites anytime and anywhere, is necessary to prevent the Iranian regime from obtaining the bomb." | |
| • | "Regrettably, the current U.S. policy is misguided, because it refuses to deal with the core of the problem and the source of instability in the region, the Iranian regime." | |
| • | "The resistance movement in Iran is our ally...these are our neighbors, these are Iranian Americans and Persian Americans, people from Europe and throughout the world who love their home country and feel that it has been captured by a radical group of Islamist extremists." | |
| • | "We are negotiating with an Ayatollah who has killed hundreds of thousands of people, who has dedicated himself openly to the destruction of the state of Israel, who call us devils, who hates Americans." | |
| • | "They are going to continue to assassinate and execute people, as they have been doing now at a higher pace than they did under Ahmadinejad, so we are making an agreement with an entirely, completely reckless and unreliable government. And you don't make agreements with reckless and unreliable governments to give them nuclear weapons." | |
Iran Wants A Nuclear Deal to Avoid An All-Out War it Cannot Win (INN 06/11/2015)
| • | With all its inevitable additional imperfections, a sham deal that leaves Iran with an intact nuclear infrastructure; if signed, is a de facto recognition of the most dangerous terrorist state in the world as a threshold nuclear power. | |
| • | Ideally, Iran's existing enrichment facilities would be dismantled and there would be no nuclear enrichment possible for building weapons grade uranium and an atomic bomb. But it is almost certain that President Barack Obama will accept any deal, no matter how bad, and that he is eager for one to bolster his questionable legacy. Given US capitulation to Iranian demands, Obama has just triggered the countdown to war. | |
| • | Irrational religious fanatics in Iran who seek the destruction of the state of Israel, support global terrorism and refuse to allow the monitoring of the supply chain and nuclear infrastructures through the UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA) cannot be trusted with advanced technology, let alone with a nuclear weapon. | |
| • | Make no mistake about it. Without a "uniquely intrusive inspection and verification regime" to prevent cheating and an extension of Iran's "breakout capability" for at least a year, talking about a decade or more is an elaborate ruse designed to buy more time for Tehran to build an atomic weapon. | |
| • | Even worse, the presence of uranium or plutonium in a messianic Islamist country is a potential target for terrorism. Imagine what a nuclear Iran would do as it doles out nuclear bombs to its jihadist proxies. This would place millions of innocent lives in danger and threaten the hope for world survival — and that's enough evidence that the threat of nuclear terrorism from Iran is for real. | |
| • | Thanks to Obama's appeasement policy, Iran sees the fulfillment of its hegemonic ambition to export the 1979 Islamic revolution as a possibility. | |
| • | ... the Israelis and their Saudi allies have managed to come up with a roughly comparable substitute for the American MOAB Bunker Buster Bombs and have managed to convert a Boeing 707 tanker to a weaponized platform to carry such bombs. | |
| • | The beta test was carried out on the Iranian missile base in Yemen during the recent Saudi operation Decisive storm against the Iranian proxies (Houthis) and their Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) handlers. | |
| • | Time is running out. And before it is too late, the Israeli leadership must act now and ask questions later. Nothing else will work. There is no other option left but a preventive strike to stop Tehran from building nuclear weapons. | |
Who Lost Iraq? (JWR 06/09/2015)
| • | Today, we seem to be in the process of losing Iraq, if not to ISIS, then to Iran, whose troops are in Iraq fighting ISIS. | |
| • | The most solid confirmations of the military success in Iraq were the intercepted messages from Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq to their leaders in Pakistan that there was no point sending more insurgents, because they now had no chance of prevailing against American forces. This was the situation that Barack Obama inherited — and lost. | |
| • | Going back to square one, what lessons might we learn from the whole experience of the Iraq war? If nothing else, we should never again imagine that we can engage in "nation-building" in the sweeping sense that term acquired in Iraq — least of all building a democratic Arab nation in a region of the world that has never had such a thing in a history that goes back thousands of years. | |
| • | Human beings are not inert building blocks, and democracy has prerequisites that Western nations took centuries to develop. | |
| • | Replacing German and Japanese dictatorships with democracy after World War II was a challenge. But both countries remained under American military governments for years, slowly gaining such self-governing powers as the military overseers chose, and at such a pace as these overseers deemed prudent in the light of conditions on the ground. | |
| • | American authorities did not rush to set up an independent government, able to operate at cross purposes because it was "democratically elected" in a country without the prerequisites of a viable democracy. | |
Obama's Carte Blanche: Season of the "Big Hunt" in Eurasia (INN 06/01/2015)
| • | They are not empires yet. They don't have enough power or the resources for becoming such. However, all of them - Russians, Turks, Arabs, Persians, - are dreaming about empires, recalling old conquests and victories. And all of them should be grateful to the West, and the US president in particular. | |
| • | Erdogan dictated abortion policy, censored movies, soap operas, architectural designs and even alcoholic drinks. He imposed Islamic law on public institutions and universities; undermined and fined representatives of the independent media such as Dogan Medias Group and Hurriyet; requested dismissal of non-obedient journalists and editors; launched the persecution of generals and liberal intellectuals. Hundreds of people were imprisoned on falsified charges. | |
| • | A megalomaniac with neo-Ottoman ambitions got carte blanche from US, immediately causing Turkey's neighbors to face blackmail and threats. Hysteric vilification of Israel had become a bad habit for the home-grown sultan, yet it didn't bother Obama and his entourage. When Erdogan organized a bloody provocation with the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" (IHH, which financed this venture, is closely linked to the ruling Justice and Development Party - a branch of the "Muslim Brotherhood (MB)") - Obama and the EU accused Israel of "excessive force". | |
| • | "New Turkey" – a new term (the acronym of the Ottoman Empire) – became popular in the country. In March 2013, Milliyet published a map of "New Turkey" – it included Cyprus, the provinces of Syria, Iraq, Greece, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Bulgaria. | |
| • | Two months before the 2008 elections in the US, Moscow provoked a "treacherous attack" of Georgia on Russian's vassal, self-proclaimed South Ossetia, formally part of Georgia. Soon after, the Russian army invaded Georgia. The West's response was a report of UN's International Mission led by Heidi Tagliavini, accusing Georgia of instigating a war (as in the case of Israel, the victim became the villain). Obama's response? He called for a '"reset" in US-Russia relations. | |
| • | By the time of the crisis in Ukraine, Moscow already had a clear plan of action, while the White House didn't have a clue. Initially, it was the West that instigated a heated conflict in Ukraine, but when Russia backfired, annexed the Crimea and opened a war in the southeast part of the country, the US refrained from helping its ally by supplying the arms and tried to appease Putin. | |
| • | In November 2014, in Daugavpils (the second largest city in Latvia after Riga with large Russian minority) agitators emerged calling to join Russia. In Estonia, people fear that Narva (the third largest city in Estonia) could become "new Donetsk". Lithuanians are afraid of the same fate for Visaginas city. | |
| • | Today, Russians reminisce often about Alaska. The most fashionable slogan is "Russia rising from its knees." | |
| • | "Reset" is in full swing... | |
| • | The "Arab spring", enthusiastically supported by the US and Europe, became the turning-point for numerous supporters of the Caliphate, including MB – Obama's partners, whom Obama jealously defended against the "cruel" al-Sisi. | |
| • | Let us recollect: Muhammad Badie, the General Guide of the Egyptian MB promised that: "improvement of Muslim nation can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice"; Morsi's advisor Cleric Safwat Higazi talked about "United States of the Arabs" with its capital in Jerusalem; the spiritual preacher of MB Sheikh Ahmad Gad called "honorable Al-Azhar ...to unite the Muslim word and effort, restore the Caliphate"; theologian Ibrahim Al-Khouli said that "We must conduct jihad against the West". | |
| • | The main preacher of MB Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi declared that after fall of Constantinople in 1453, "what remains to do is to conquer Rome". | |
| • | Finally, Morsi himself declared: "The Qur'an is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, Jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal." | |
| • | If it weren't for el-Sisi, the foothold of "jihadists" would have been in Egypt, carried out by Obama's "friends". | |
| • | Obama is exceptionally consistent. In order to please all the predators, he opened the cage of one last predator - Iran. The result was instant. In September, Ali Reza Zakani, Tehran city representative in the Iranian parliament, proudly affirmed that Iran already rules in four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana'a. | |
| • | "Iran today has become an empire like it used to be throughout its history and its capital now is Baghdad". | |
| • | Russian C-300 will defend Iranian skies from external attack. (Once again, thanks to Obama). | |
| • | The God of War returns to the arena of History – thanks to infantile fools who believe that real bears, wolves, and panthers are the teddy bears of their childhood. | |
How to beat ISIS in Iraq despite Obama's feckless foreign policy (Fox 05/28/2015)
| • | First, Mr. Obama does have an Iraq strategy. It is to do as little as possible about this crisis for the rest of his presidency so he can hand this mess to a future president. | |
| • | Second, the president also is trying run out the clock in Syria but the results may be far more dire. | |
| • | If Assad falls, the bloodletting in Syria and the conversion of Syria into an ISIS-controlled terrorist state will have huge repercussions for regional and global security. | |
| • | Airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq should be significantly increased. (Why didn't we bomb the ISIS "victory parade" in Ramadi this week?) The U.S. should also send more special forces and military advisers. | |
| • | The Obama administration must do more to target ISIS by expanding counterterrorism efforts and airstrikes against it everywhere it is operating, including in Libya. | |
| • | ISIS captured Ramadi despite being vastly outnumbered by the Iraqi army because of poor leadership, poor morale, lack of weapons and ineffective U.S. airstrikes. | |
| • | I concede that much of what I am proposing is a holding action until a new American president is in office who is prepared to lead. | |
Blood Sacrifice (INN 05/31/2015)
| • | Palestinian terrorism is ultimately a conscious and current expression of primal blood sacrifice, the blood of "The Jews." For these terrorists, violence against "The Jews" is always an expression of what must be held sacred. | |
| • | Among these Arab terrorists, violence and the sacred are inseparable. | |
| • | "We must always be prepared to sacrifice our blood, as in the beginning....and as we will continue to sacrifice. Fatah is a movement of blood sacrifice....Our people gave the world a chance, and unless the world takes this opportunity, violence and havoc will come." | |
| • | "They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed, and this is a solemn oath....Our blood is cheap compared with the cause which has brought us together....but shortly we will meet again in heaven..." | |
| • | "The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice the last boy and the last girl so that the Palestinian flag will be flown over the walls, the churches, and the mosques of Jerusalem." | |
| • | The practice of sacred violence via sacrifice is always one that can be undertaken without risk of vengeance. In sacrifice, the victim, who lacks a champion, is struck down without fear of reprisal. | |
| • | It will end only when the doctrinally despised Jew has left every inch of "Palestine," which includes the entire State of Israel, or when Israel finally learns how to combat the very considerable attractions of "blood sacrifice." | |
Climate change: Mr. Obama, 97 percent of experts is a bogus number (Fox 05/28/2015)
| • | Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: Climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. | |
| • | It is tempting for a politician to claim that 97 percent of experts agree with you. But do they? | |
| • | The paper says nothing about the would-be dangers of climate change and it counts the number of publications, rather than the number of scientists, in support of human-made climate change. Never let facts get in the way of a good story. | |
| • | ... the sample was not representative, statistical tests were ignored, and the results were misinterpreted. | |
| • | A paper on the impact of a carbon tax on emissions was taken as evidence that the world is warming. A paper on the impact of climate change on the Red Panda was taken as evidence that humans caused this warming. And even a paper on the television coverage of climate change was seen by Cook as proof that carbon dioxide is to blame. | |
| • | ... That is half a per cent or less of the total, rather than 97 percent. | |
| • | There is vigorous debate about how much humans have contributed to climate change, but no one argues the effect is zero. | |
| • | What was an incompetent piece of research has become a highly influential study, its many errors covered up. | |
| • | People who express concern about the method have been smeared. | |
| • | If Cook's results are to be believed, 97 percent of experts agree that climate change is real and largely human-made. This does not tell us anything about the risks of climate change, let alone how these compare to the risks of climate policy. | |
De-Islamization is the Only Way to Fight ISIS (INN 05/26/2015)
| • | Obama can't defeat ISIS with soft power, though ISIS could beat him with soft power assuming its Caliph ever decided to agree to sit down at a table with John Kerry without beheading him. | |
| • | Iran has picked up billions in sanctions relief and the right to take over Yemen and raid ships in international waters in the Persian Gulf just for agreeing to listen to Kerry talk for an hour. | |
| • | If ISIS were to agree to a deal, it could pick up Baghdad and Damascus just in exchange for showing up. All it would have to do is find a Jihadi who hasn't chopped off any heads on camera to present as a moderate. The administration and its media operatives would accuse anyone who disagreed of aiding the ISIS hardliners at the expense of the ISIS moderates who also represent the hardliners. | |
| • | So far ISIS has preferred the classical approach of killing everything in its path. The approach, deemed insufficiently nuanced by masters of subtlety like Obama and Kerry, has worked surprisingly well. Their response, which is big on the Bush arsenal of drone strikes, Special Forces raids and selective air strikes, hasn't. But Bush was fighting terrorist groups, not unrecognized states capable of taking on armies. | |
| • | It's hard to destroy something if you don't know what it is. And it's hard to know what a thing is if you won't even call it by its name or name its ideology. | |
| • | The left loves root causes, but the root cause of ISIS isn't poverty, unemployment or a lack of democracy. | |
| • | The Islamic State isn't unnatural. Its strength comes from being an organic part of the region, the religion and its culture. Its Arab enemies have performed so poorly fighting it because their institutions, their governments and their armies are unstable imitations of Western entities. | |
| • | The United States can't make the Iraqi army work because Iraq isn't America. The assumptions about meritocracy, loyalty to comrades and initiative that make our military work are foreign in Iraq and Afghanistan where the fundamental unit is not the nation, but the tribe, clan and group. | |
| • | Iraq and Syria aren't countries; they're collections of quarreling tribes that were forced into an arrangement that included the forms of Western government without any of the substance. | |
| • | ISIS is the ultimate decolonization effort. ... The cities that ISIS controls have been truly decolonized. There is no music, there are no rights, slavery is back and every decision is made by a cleric with a militia or a militia leader with a cleric. | |
| • | That's Mohammed. It's the Koran. It's Islam. | |
| • | Before ISIS, there were the Wahhabi armies of the Ikhwan which did most of the same things as ISIS. The British bombed them to pieces in the 1920s and the remainder became the Saudi Arabian National Guard. | |
| • | The fundamental mistake of the Arab Spring was the failure to understand that Islamist democracy is still a road leading to the Caliphate. | |
| • | "The resistance is not only a reaction to the American invasion; it is part of the continuous Islamic struggle since the collapse of the Caliphate. All Islamic struggles since then are part of one organized efforts to bring back the Caliphate." | |
| • | ISIS is not a reaction. It's the underlying pathology in the Muslim world. Everything planted on top of that, from democracy to dictatorships, from smartphones to soft drinks, suppresses the disease. But the disease is always there. | |
| • | The left insists that Western colonialism is the problem. But the true regional alternative to Western colonialism is slavery, genocide and the tyranny of Jihadist bandit armies. | |
| • | Our policy for fighting ISIS is colonialism by another name. We are trying to reform Iraqi institutions in line with our values and build a viable Iraqi military along the lines of our own military. | |
| • | To deal with a problem, we must be honest about what it is and what we are doing about it. If we lie to ourselves, we cannot and will not succeed. ... The missing element is admitting that Islamization has failed because Islam was the problem all along. The West is the solution. | |
| • | Sunni Gulf Arabs responded to their military and economic dependence on the West with a largely successful campaign to Islamize the West. | |
| • | ISIS is not a military force. It is a cultural one. Much of its success has come from its cultural appeal. | |
| • | As long as the Middle East is defined in terms of Islam, some variation of the Islamic State or the Muslim Brotherhood bent on recreating the Caliphate will continue reemerging. We can accept that and give up, but the growing number of Muslim migrants and settlers mean that it will emerge in our country as well. | |
| • | ... we must carve out secular spaces by making it clear that our support is conditional on civil rights for Christians, non-believers and other non-Muslims. | |
| • | Our most potent weapon isn't the jet, it's our culture. We disrupt Islamists with our culture even when we aren't trying. Imagine what we could accomplish if we really tried. | |
| • | But first we must abandon the idea that we need to take sides in Islamic civil wars. Any intervention we undertake should be conditioned on a reciprocal degree of de-Islamization from those governments that we are protecting. | |
| • | We can't beat ISIS with Islam and we can't fight for freedom while endorsing constitutions that make Sharia law into the law of the land in places like Iraq and Libya. | |
| • | We don't only need to defeat ISIS. We must defeat the culture that makes ISIS inevitable. | |
Is Iraq Worth Saving? (INN 05/26/2015)
| • | Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was blunt: "We have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves." He was being specific in regards to Ramadi, where the Iraqi army chose to run and hide rather than stand and fight. | |
| • | We can supply them. We can train them. But courage can't be taught. | |
| • | At some point, this question needs to be asked: Is Iraq worth the trouble? Is Iraq worth more of our blood? We gave. We already gave. | |
| • | What did we get back? Nothing. | |
| • | Did it occur to Bush and to the other "experts" that some people need and deserve a brutal dictator... that only a brutal dictator can keep the lid on a thousand quarrelsome tribes aching to get at one another...and that that once this brutal dictator has been removed all hell is likely to break loose? | |
| • | That says it for our meddling in ancient rivalries that are a business strictly between Arabs. Gratitude from Iraqis for our coming to their rescue? They spat on our guys. From day one the Iraqis were unreliable friends of America and reliable enemies of Israel. | |
The Amoral Revolution in Western Values and its Impact on Israel (INN 05/24/2015)
| • | It was all about the good fighting the bad and the good were expected to win. | |
| • | Even as late as 1973, Israel was still widely seen as the good guys and the Arabs were the bad. Sympathy was with Israel because they were being picked on and bullied. There was little consideration of the ‘legitimacy' of Israel; it was taken for granted. | |
| • | This was the general view of British people, and of many in the West, obviously with plenty of exceptions. | |
| • | Back then, in the 60s and 70s, young minds were still being shaped by traditional views of good and evil. | |
| • | In general, popular culture still reflected the long accepted beliefs and principles of a Christian society. All of this shaped the views of the majority of people. | |
| • | We live in a very different world today. In 40 years the general opinion of Israelis and their Arab foes has been reversed. | |
| • | What has changed? Some say the situation is different. But this is not the case. Fundamentally the situation remains the same. Israel's stance is unchanged from 1948. A desire for the survival of the Jewish national homeland, at peace with its neighbours. | |
| • | All that has changed about this has been that Israel has made repeated costly concessions, including giving up land, for peace. Concessions which have not been reciprocated by the Palestinians, but instead exploited at the grave expense of Israel. Concessions which have not been acknowledged or remembered by the international community, who, like the Palestinians, simply and uncompromisingly demand more and more and more and more. | |
| • | Nor have the Arabs fundamentally changed. We have of course peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. And the growing threats from Iran and from expanding Sunni jihadism may be leading to some temporary and below the radar mutual cooperation from parts of the Arab world. | |
| • | But the underlying perspective and agenda, especially among the Palestinians, is the same as it was in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Rejection of Jewish communities in the land of Israel. The destruction of the Jewish State. | |
| • | Some of the basic dynamics have altered. Before, organized, uniformed and relatively disciplined and conventional Arab armies fought under their national flag. Today the armies have been replaced by terrorist gangsters and black-cloaked jihadists. Conventional war has been replaced by terrorist attacks. Battles fought between tanks and infantry in remote deserts have been replaced by battles fought in densely populated civilian areas and behind the protection of human shields. | |
| • | So I again ask the question, what has changed? And the answer is: The morality and values of the West. They have been transformed almost beyond recognition. | |
| • | As public opinion in the West in the 60s and 70s was influenced by popular culture, so it is today. Throughout most of the West, certainly in Europe, Judeo-Christian principles, honesty, family values, respect for the state, honour and loyalty have all been eroded, often beyond recognition. | |
| • | Negative values, such as the acceptance of betrayal, duplicity and deceit, have flourished. Defining values including patriotism and religious faith have been undermined. | |
| • | The 80s ushered in the insidious campaign of political correctness and moral relativity that has over the last 30 years gripped and taken over so much of our society. | |
| • | Balanced, level-headed, impartial reporting in our media has been replaced by sensationalism as the purpose of mass media has swung from informing, educating and edifying to making money – and only too often to making the news rather than just reporting it. | |
| • | We all know but rarely have the courage to say, that hypocrisy, duplicity, betrayal and sensationalism are the four cornerstones of violent radical Islam as so often demonstrated to us on our TV screens by Hamas and the Islamic State. | |
| • | It is impossible to avoid a connection between the shift in public opinion on Israel and the change in Western morality. | |
| • | Political correctness encourages individuals to say what they think is seen as acceptable and will not offend the majority, rather than what they actually believe. This perpetuates itself and can lead to wholly unacceptable beliefs being outwardly and widely accepted and becoming the received wisdom. | |
| • | The media destruction and character assassination of strong, outspoken leaders has led to the rise of the ‘grey man'. | |
| • | Sensationalism and the graphic depiction of violence has made the population increasingly immune to the horrors of violent atrocities such as public beheadings, massacre, kidnap, execution, torture and forcing your own people to die as human shields. | |
| • | The target is Western values themselves; most often represented by the United States, the most powerful country in the world. But Israel has increasingly become a proxy for the United States. For three reasons. | |
| • | Firstly, the US President and the US Government is at present left wing and liberal and thus harder for left-wing liberals to attack. Second, Israel is smaller and more easily bullied and impacted by corrosive media sniping than is a superpower. Third, Israel can be portrayed as a Western colonial outpost in a rightfully Arab world. | |
| • | These three things are underpinned by a pervasive and increasing anti-Semitism which intensifies the obsession with Israel and its portrayal as a true evil to be attacked at every possible opportunity. | |
| • | Any anti-Islam comment or perspective cannot be tolerated, while anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel perspectives are all acceptable and encouraged. | |
| • | Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups don't use human shields in the hope that Israel will refrain from attacking their rocket launchers, weapons dumps, command centers, terrorist bases or tunnel entrances. They use human shields in the hope that Israel will attack and kill their people. | |
| • | They do this for one purpose: to gain the global condemnation of the State of Israel. | |
| • | It is the media that brings pressure onto government leaders and heads of international organizations, compelling them to act in their weakness and with their values undermined. | |
| • | Never mentioning, suggesting or even hinting at what more they can do. Never acknowledging the context for the action. Never condemning Hamas for the actual war crimes of using civilian locations as military facilities, compelling citizens to remain, and failing in their legal duty to evacuate civilians from a military area. | |
| • | While remaining even-handed, Western media should remain mindful of, and to an extent reflect, the values of the society that supports them, funds them and depends upon them. | |
| • | It is not the role of the media, especially publicly-funded media, to undermine the values of their society. It is not the role of the media to turn a blind eye to wrong-doing, corruption, law-breaking and immorality of one side, while exaggerating, falsifying, distorting and over-emphasizing allegations of wrong-doing against the other. | |
| • | When the media distort and mislead, when they turn a blind eye, when they paint a false picture, they must be considered culpable for the consequences. | |
| • | For the violence that is provoked, especially in this region, when they falsely report massacres, intentional targeting of babies, war crimes. For the anti-Semitism, including violent anti-Semitic attacks, and the terrorism around the world that their false prospectus inspires. | |
| • | The defense in this case of course revolves around doing what we can to ensure that the truth is made known. Both the truth about Israel's enemies and how they act; and the truth about Israel and how its forces operate. | |
| • | The offence in this form of political warfare is in exposing the bias, distortions, and untruth of the media. This is much more difficult but it is vital. | |
| • | Make no mistake. This afternoon I have spoken about Israel's fight. But the danger that Israel faces and that the media projects extends far beyond Israel, and threatens us all. | |
| • | We should never forget the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller: "When they came for the Jews I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no-one left to speak for me." | |
| • | Israel's fight is the Western world's fight. Upon Israel's survival depends the survival of Western civilization. | |
Vatican’s ‘Palestine’ Treaty is Immoral, Illegal and Dangerous (INN 05/24/2015)
| • | The Vatican is to sign a treaty formally recognizing an entity called ‘the State of Palestine'. ... Is the pope ignorant or has he lost his balance? He called PLO leader and Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Abbas ‘an angel of peace' and gave him a medal. | |
| • | Angel? ... Is the pope's commendation for Holocaust-denial and a Nazi-style Judenrein State the sort of moral conduct Europeans would expect from a religious leader? | |
| • | Peace? Would any right-minded person who glorifies hijackers of a public bus who killed in cold blood 37 people (12 of them children) ‘an angel of peace'? ... He then told Israelis that ‘they should take their body parts and leave! | |
| • | The so-called ‘State of Palestine' has no elected government, no defined borders and is in cahoots with terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood vowed to destroy Israel. In their constitutions, the PA's National Covenant and Fatah's Charter maintains a similar objective. What would a PA State look like? Even at present the PA has a law that any Arab selling land to a Jew will be killed. | |
| • | It took a pope like John-Paul II to recognize Israeli statehood! When? 1994! Nearly a half century late! Why? Is the Vatican's bizarre move now due to a resurgence of antisemitism to sideline the State of Israel? | |
| • | What would be the purpose of signing a treaty with Abbas whose corrupt regime trains children to become martyrs by killing Jews, glorifies jihadis and celebrates them in public monuments and sport? | |
| • | The term ‘Palestine' in 1948, both before and for many years afterwards, meant the Land of Israel. ‘Palestinian' meant ‘Jews' of Israel. No Arab State called ‘Palestine' ever existed in history. (Only in the 1960s did the concept of ‘Arab Palestine' arise, thanks to Egyptian and Soviet disinformation services.) Before this Arabs called themselves ‘southern Syrians' or identified by name as Egyptians, Syrians, Saudis etc. They still do. | |
You want hypotheticals? Here's one (JWR 05/22/2015)
| • | Ramadi falls. The Iraqi army flees. The great 60-nation anti-Islamic State coalition so grandly proclaimed by the Obama administration is nowhere to be seen. | |
| • | We are scraping bottom. Following six years of President Obama's steady and determined withdrawal from the Middle East, America's standing in the region has collapsed | |
| • | The fact is that by the end of Bush's tenure the war had been won. ... By whose measure? By Obama's. As he told the troops at Fort Bragg on Dec. 14, 2011, "We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people." | |
| • | We didn't just withdraw our forces. We abandoned, destroyed or turned over our equipment, stores, installations and bases. We surrendered our most valuable strategic assets, such as control of Iraqi airspace, soon to become the indispensable conduit for Iran to supply and sustain the Assad regime in Syria and cement its influence all the way to the Mediterranean. | |
| • | Iraq is now a battlefield between the Sunni jihadists of the Islamic State and the Shiite jihadists of Iran's Islamic Republic. There is no viable center. We abandoned it. The Obama administration's unilateral pullout created a vacuum for the entry of the worst of the worst. | |
As Syria's chemical weapons return, Obama is MIA (Fox 05/19/2015)
| • | The famed "red line" warning that Barack Obama issued in August 2013 to Bashar al-Assad of Syria was arguably the defining foreign policy moment of his presidency: an unequivocal warning to a rogue leader to desist from war crimes or pay the price. | |
| • | When the incident ended in a blur, with Russian-backed promises that the Assad regime would hand over its chemical agents, responses were bifurcated. The president and his allies hailed this as a monument of diplomacy, whereby a plausible threat led bloodlessly to a major improvement in behavior. | |
| • | In contrast, critics presented Obama as a paper tiger who raged with threats that collapsed when offered meaningless assurances by a well-established liar. | |
| • | But we do remember and we do draw conclusions. It's now indisputably clear that Obama is no more than a paper tiger. His threats against the Syrian dictatorship meant nothing but vanished into thin air, replaced by squirming and prattle. | |
| • | Not only is this response important in itself, but it has implications for other hostile states, notably Russia, China, and especially Iran. If Obama dares not handle the weakling in Damascus, how might he venture to do so with the more formidable foes in Moscow, Peking, and Tehran? | |
Palestinian Statehood — Separating Fact from Fantasy (INN 05/19/2015)
| • | Security Council Resolution 242 (November 22, 1967) speaks of withdrawal by Israel from lands occupied in the Six-Day War provided that Israel's sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence and right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force are recognized. | |
| • | The response of the Palestinians and the Arab world was simple and unequivocal — The Khartoum Declaration — "No recognition, no negotiation, no peace". | |
| • | The Palestinians have broken every promise they made in the Oslo Accords and continue to seek recognition from world bodies such as the UN and the ICC so as to avoid any negotiations (as required by the Accords) or compromise that would require their recognition of the State of Israel. | |
| • | The irony is that there never was a "peace process" except in the minds of the Western media and most Western leaders who have bought into all these lies and deceptions. The intention, rather, was to use international diplomatic pressure to force Israel into making strategic concessions that would ultimately lead to its destruction. | |
| • | ... Palestinians want a state not beside Israel, but in place of it. | |
| • | ... the real truth behind the Arab-Israeli conflict – not Israel's refusal to accept a State of Palestine, but the Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state on what they consider to be Islamic lands. | |
| • | To give up further lands in exchange for a deceitful peace is something that Israel tried in the 1990s with tragic results. It should not be repeated again. | |
Deal with the devil? Baghdad turns to Iranian-backed militias in bid to retake Ramadi (Fox 05/19/2015)
| • | "If the Shia militias enter Ramadi, they will do the same things being done by [ISIS]. In both cases, we will be either killed or displaced. For us, the militias and [ISIS] militants are two faces of the same coin." | |
| • | The Shia militia fighters were responsible for some of the Iraq War's most brutal atrocities against Sunnis, and work closely with the Iranian Republican Guard. | |
| • | "In the short term, you have the immediate threat of ISIS. But in the long term, the deeper threat is to Iraq's ability to be free and independent of Iran. Dependence on the Shia militias, who have sworn allegiance to the ayatollah, is a problem. | |
| • | "Whatever operational success [Shia] militias may have in Anbar would be far exceeded by the strategic damage caused by their violent sectarianism and the fear and suspicion it breeds among Iraqi Sunnis." | |
Why we must defend Freedom of Speech (Fox 05/18/2015)
| • | The cartoon contest in Garland was organized to make a stand against this demand. We should never allow ourselves to be intimidated. Not in Europe, and not in America. | |
| • | I am an elected politician from Europe. I am a member of the House of Representatives in the Netherlands and the leader of the Party for Freedom. I oppose the Islamization of my country. | |
| • | I am on the death list of Al Qaeda and other Islamic organizations. For over ten years now, I have been living under 24/7 police protection. But I will never allow the enemies of liberty to silence me. | |
| • | The winner of the contest had made a picture of a fierce looking Muhammad, waving a sword. "You cannot draw me," Muhammad said. Underneath the picture, the artist had written: "That is exactly why I am drawing you!" | |
| • | Under Islamic Sharia law, depicting Muhammad is a crime. But as an American, the artist is not living in an Islamic country. He is living in America. In America, you are allowed to make pictures and drawings, no matter what the Sharia says. And you are also allowed to change your religion and become an apostate. | |
| • | Through violence and terrorism, these two jihadis tried to impose Sharia law on America. We should not allow them to succeed. | |
| • | We must do exactly the opposite of what the terrorists want. If they want us to stop drawing cartoons and we react by showing even more cartoons, the terrorists will have lost. | |
| • | There is more at stake than our freedom of speech. Our Judeo-Christian civilization and even our very existence are in danger. | |
| • | Islam is a Trojan horse within our societies. The more Islam we get, the less free our societies become. | |
| • | Of course I realize that while most terrorists today are Muslims, not all Muslims are terrorists. Of course, I realize that the terrorists are only a minority. | |
| • | But I am not naive. Where are the demonstrations of Muslims who do not agree with the violence committed in the name of Islam and its prophet? I have not seen them. The majority may not commit violence, but they do not oppose it either. | |
| • | The Islamic creed obliges one and a half billion people around the world to take Muhammad as their example. We have to face reality and tell the truth about Islam, Muhammad and the Koran. | |
| • | The first step towards safeguarding our freedoms is to realize the facts, speak out the truth, draw the conclusions, and act upon them. We have to restrict immigration from Islamic countries, and never allow terrorists to dictate us how to behave. | |
UK Election: What Cameron's victory means (Fox 05/08/2015)
| • | The idea that Britain is becoming a more liberal country is a myth. From government spending to immigration, the U.K. has become more, not less, conservative in recent years on most key issues. | |
Pamela Geller’s War On Radical Islam And Everybody Else (INN 05/05/2015)
| • | Have you hugged a Jihadist today? Everybody else has. | |
| • | Together with Robert Spencer, Geller organized a Mohammad Cartoon Contest in Garland, Texas; obviously as a means to illustrate that America will not be intimidated. Two apparent Jihadists (with possible links to ISIS) tried to storm the event, but were killed by local police. | |
| • | After that came the denunciations. No, not against the Islamic fanatics. But against Geller. | |
| • | Better, they allege, if Geller would hush up and forget the First Amendment. Safer, they suggest, if we submit and become a nation of wimps. | |
| • | "When you inflame people," he said, "what else can you expect?" | |
| • | Well, Don, you can expect a touch of support for a woman who champions free speech. | |
| • | Besides, how can you inflame people, these Jihadists, who are always on fire anyway? | |
| • | There was a time, among journalists especially, when Americans were unafraid and quick to speak their minds. | |
| • | Seems that we have trained ourselves to be compliant, passive, easily cowed and entirely too close to being cowards. | |
| • | If freedom of speech is not worth fighting for – what will we give up next? | |
Dutch pol who spoke at Muhammad cartoon contest warns of more attacks on US soil (Fox 05/05/2015)
| • | "I always said that what has happened in Europe will also happen in America if you don't stop Islam." | |
| • | "Cartoons do not kill jihadis, but jihadis kill cartoonists." | |
| • | "Islam [simply] wants to kill or subjugate us." | |
| • | "Never give in to terrorism. I want to live, but would rather die than give in to totalitarianism." | |
| • | "But we say, 'The future must not belong to Islam!' Do you hear Mr. Obama? We said, 'No to Islam!'" | |
| • | "We entered a new era...because this wasn't Paris, this wasn't Copenhagen, this was Texas." | |
It's time for all of us to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians (Fox 05/01/2015)
| • | The world was shocked and heartbroken as we saw Christian refugees being thrown overboard from a rubber boat last month, because they were praying to Jesus and "would not pray to Allah" as the boat began to deflate. | |
| • | Every five minutes a Christian is killed around the world simply because they are a Christian. That is over 100,000 innocent lives lost every year. Additionally, thousands are beaten, displaced, imprisoned and tortured every day. | |
| • | The situation is even worse for Christian girls and women who are routinely sexually assaulted, raped and driven into forced marriages or sold as human slaves. | |
| • | Across the globe, we are watching in real time a faith-based genocide that we have not witnessed in years. | |
| • | ... "because they [passengers] strongly opposed the drowning attempt and formed a human chain." | |
| • | Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust Survivor, Elie Wiesel, says it best when he spoke about similar violence a generation ago: "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." | |
The Marshall Islands' cautionary tale (JWR 05/01/2015)
| • | On Tuesday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps forcibly commandeered the Maersk Tigris as navigated its way through the Straits of Hormuz. Iran controls the strategic waterway through which 40 percent of seaborne oil and a quarter of seaborne gas transits to global markets | |
| • | According to the treaty, the US has "full authority and responsibility for security and defense of the Marshall Islands." | |
| • | Given the US's formal, binding obligation to the Marshall Islands, the Iranian seizure of the ship was in effect an act of war against America. | |
| • | Immediately after the incident began, the US Navy deployed a destroyer to the area. But that didn't seem to make much of an impression on the Iranians. More significant than the naval movement was the fact that the Obama administration failed to condemn their unlawful action. | |
| • | If the administration continues to stand by in the face of Iran's aggression, the strategic implications will radiate far beyond the US's bilateral ties with the Marshall Islands. | |
| • | ... "the US would be using security assurances not to shield allies from Iran but to shield Iran from allies." | |
| • | But President Barack Obama apparently won't allow a bit of Iranian naval piracy to rain on his parade. This week Obama indicated that he feels very good about where his policy on Iran now stands. And he has every reason to be satisfied | |
| • | With each day that passes, the chance diminishes that his nuclear deal with the mullahs will be scuppered. | |
| • | On the one hand, the Iranians are signaling that they are willing to sign a deal with the Great Satan. And this makes sense. For them the deal has no downside. | |
| • | The Iranian Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the bill now being debated on the Senate floor, ensures that Congress will have no ability to stand in the way of the deal. In contrast to the provisions of the US Constitution that require a two-third Senate majority to approve an international treaty, the Senate bill requires a two-third majority of senators to block the implementation of Obama's nuclear deal with the greatest state sponsor of terrorism. | |
| • | In an address before Reform Jews, Sherman issued a direct threat against Israel. In her words, "If the new Israeli government is seen to be stepping back from its commitment to a two-state solution, that will make our job in the international arena much tougher... it will be harder for us to prevent internationalizing the conflict." | |
| • | That is, by Shapiro's and Sherman's telling, Israel's unwillingness to bow to Palestinian and US demands for concessions to the Palestinians is what has caused and what feeds the international campaign to delegitimize its right to exist. | |
| • | The purpose of the BDS movement is not to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. Its purpose is to delegitimize Israel's right to exist and delegitimize support for Israel's right to exist. | |
| • | Obama claims that he wishes to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But as we see from his willingness to allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state while running wild in the Straits of Hormuz, committing mass slaughter in Syria, building an empire that includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and threatening its Arab neighbors and Israel, the purpose of the administration's negotiations with Iran is not to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. | |
| • | The purpose of the negotiations is to build an American-Iranian alliance on Iran's terms. | |
| • | But his pressure and hostility toward Israel does nothing to achieve this goal. The goal of a policy of acting with hostility toward Israel is not to promote peace. It is to distance the US from Israel and align America's Israel policy with Europe's preternaturally hostile treatment of the Jewish state. | |
| • | Three days after a ship sailing under their flag was seized by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, citizens of the Marshall Islands discovered that their decision to place their security in America's hands is no longer the safe bet they thought it was 29 years ago. | |
| • | Anyone who entertains the belief that Israel will gain diplomatic acceptance or even a respite from American pressure if it makes concessions to the Palestinians is similarly making a high risk gamble. | |
From terrorists to freeloaders? 'Uruguay Six' want Obama White House to take care of them (Fox 04/29/2015)
| • | While President Obama continues to obsess over closing Gitmo, a handful of former detainees, including men with training in suicide operations and explosives, are now protesting for cash outside the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo. They bitterly complain that Uruguay's welfare of $600 a month just isn't enough, and now they're demanding Uncle Sam chip in too. | |
| • | For these jihadist prima-donnas, even though the local labor union repeatedly offered them jobs since they were resettled on humanitarian grounds last December, they have refused them all. Apparently they consider working in construction or meat-packing beneath them. | |
| • | The "Uruguay Six," four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian are outraged that the White House isn't taking care of them financially and want their big payday. And they want it now, refusing to back down until they speak with the U.S. ambassador. | |
| • | Even though the six were given a 4-bedroom house by the Uruguayan government, Adel Bin Muhammad El Ouerghi of Tunisia told the press, "we are too many to stay in the house." | |
| • | According to his Guantanamo file, El Ouerghi was a senior explosives trainer for Al Qaeda who was captured in Afghanistan. Given his seniority and sense of notoriety as an ex-Gitmo man, perhaps he views living with 5 other men in a 4-bedroom place as beneath his dignity? | |
| • | Omar Mahmoud Faraj of Syria said the Uruguayan government "promised many things, but so far these are only words." Like his roommates, he wants his own house, and a family too. | |
| • | Even getting past his rap sheet, which includes suicide operations training and combat operations at Tora Bora, Bin Laden's last stand in Afghanistan, how can anyone expect to have a family if they aren't willing to work? | |
| • | They've also insisted that a mosque be built in Montevideo. After all, why should they adjust to Uruguay when they obviously think that Uruguayans should adjust to them? | |
| • | Even for the far-left former president of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, who took them in last year, their outrageous behavior has been too much. | |
| • | The great irony here is exposing the naivete of the international left. | |
| • | But even he was unprepared for the reality of just how undesirable these guys really are. So now he, and everybody else in Latin America have learned the hard way. The Gitmo detainees are Creeps with a capital "C." | |
| • | Meanwhile, Congress should ensure that these terrorists don't get a dime of taxpayer dollars. Americans should hold the White House accountable if they even try. | |
| • | Not one more detainee should be released from Gitmo until a better system is in place — or their fellow jihadists stop attacking us. Whichever comes first. | |
US must help protect world's cultural heritage in Iraq (Fox 04/29/2015)
| • | The terrorist group has mocked the American superpower and its allies and succeeding in successfully destroying a part of mankind's cultural heritage. Statues, artifacts of the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations have disappeared before their eyes. There was no reaction to that savage act. | |
| • | ... Gen. Martin Dempsey, declared that the protection of these archeological sites were not on the military's list of priorities. | |
| • | Iraq's national museum was also left vulnerable to burglary and thousands of irreplaceable artifacts and relics were looted and smuggled outside the country. | |
| • | ... offered the same excuse, "the protection of the cultural establishments is not on the list of our priorities." | |
| • | The United States needs to prove to Iraqis that the relationship between their two countries is strategic and will never be influenced or shaken, under any circumstances regardless of the confusing stance of the former Iraqi government towards this issue. | |
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard using navy to send message to US (Fox 04/29/2015)
| • | "There is a range of possible motivations ... just a mistake (I don't really believe that), or a way to ratchet up the pressure on Saudi Arabia and the Saudi coalition right now that is trying to constrain the opposition inside Yemen." | |
| • | "The Iranians are feeling a little bit of pressure from the United States ... threatening the straits is something they have periodically done." | |
| • | "... it should be part of the negotiations because the United States has been, in my view, conceding a great deal on the nuclear issue and not contesting Iran's effort to assert its hegemony throughout the region – this is just the latest manifestation of that." | |
| • | "Iran is not a maritime power right now ... toe-to-toe with the U.S. naval assets in theater right now, this is a losing proposition and a big one for Iran militarily." | |
To save innocent lives UN, world leaders must confront terrorism, radical Islam (Fox 04/27/2015)
| • | While migration is inevitable, the fact remains that most people leave their homes to escape violence and the certain persecution that comes from it. | |
| • | Today, terrorism and Islamic radicalism are a major cause of our refugee crisis. | |
| • | The U.N. and other international bodies, along with wealthier nations, could manage the unavoidable migration from poorer countries if there were greater focus on stopping the larger chaos created by leaders who finance and support terrorism in the name of Islam. | |
| • | The U.N. and international officials cannot simply focus on what else Western nations can do to integrate millions of people into their countries. We must collectively confront those that are creating the instability – and stop them. | |
| • | Kenya's generosity also serves as a lesson and a warning sign of how dealing with just the side-effects of migration without confronting the real problem can be an unfolding and greater disaster. | |
| • | In 1991, Kenya welcomed Somali refugees fleeing terrorism and war in their homeland to a UN-mandated camp consisting of mud huts and tents in North East Kenya. | |
| • | In 25 years, this "temporary" refugee camp has grown to house 600,000 Somalis in what Kenyan officials today say is an Islamic radical training ground for al-Shabaab militants. | |
| • | Commissioner Guterres says, "Some people argue that letting in refugees and other foreigners poses a threat to our society's way of life." | |
| • | He goes on to say, "we can't deter people fleeing for their lives. They will come. The choice we have is how well we manage their arrival, and how humanely." | |
| • | But his singular focus on managing the crisis is troubling. No one should want to manage suffering without acting to stop it. | |
| • | It isn't real compassion if we aren't committing to end it. Ignoring the actual problem is not only costly, it is inhuman. | |
UN plan to settle 1M refugees an invitation to terror, critics warn (Fox 04/27/2015)
| • | The humanitarian disaster unfolding on the Mediterranean is likely already providing a "shield" for Islamist terrorists to infiltrate waves of migrants attempting the perilous crossing from North Africa to Europe, terrorism experts and other strategic observers are warning. | |
| • | And they say a UN plan to resettle 1 million refugees in Western nations would turn the situation into a full-blown security crisis. | |
| • | The exodus now unfolding, as well as the UN call to take in refugees from war-torn Middle Eastern and African nations over the next five years, is providing a "shield for the passage of jihadists to Europe," said one analyst. | |
| • | Once absorbed into the societies of Europe and other rich countries such as the United States, ISIS operatives would be set to eventually gain all the freedoms of other citizens of those countries – including the freedom to travel, often without having to go through the extra scrutiny involved in obtaining a passport visa. | |
| • | "ISIS has threatened to [infiltrate the migrants] and German intelligence already said that this is a real threat." | |
| • | "An open door policy would – both for the USA and Europe – mean that the threat of Islamists and terrorists entering our countries would increase to a very dangerous level." | |
| • | Muslims among migrants trying to reach Italy by boat from Libya tossed 12 fellow passengers overboard this month because they were Christians, Italian police said. All 12 drowned, leading the Italian authorities to charge 15 Muslim men with murder fueled by religious hatred. | |
| • | "We could collectively offer to resettle 1 million Syrians over the next five years." | |
| • | Implementing such a plan would drive countless more migrants to seek out the criminal human trafficking networks and pay the illegal tariffs – anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars – in the hope of reaching Europe and attaining eventual re-settlement. | |
| • | "Only if migrants know they will never succeed and never reach Europe will they stop coming. They will not drown, and the criminals who smuggle them in those boats will not get their money any more." | |
| • | "If we do what Europe does today, and taxi them into [the continent], they will keep coming and drowning." | |
| • | ... the proposals of the UN and other groups are more likely to exacerbate – rather than resolve – the Mediterranean migrant crisis. | |
| • | They would be a "diversion" from the real problems of security chaos, failed governance and dire poverty that most of the migrants are fleeing... | |
| • | "The proper response to this epic humanitarian crisis should not be via the politics of the ostrich, but via strategic policies of political change in Africa." | |
| • | "What would 1 million migrants absorbed into Europe do to stop genocide, human rights abuses and hyper-corruption in Africa?" | |
| • | Former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi had spoken of dispatching tens of thousands of migrants to Europe as a political weapon to transform the identity of continent, and now jihadist militias had "opened the path" for them. | |
| • | "This is an urban militant campaign masterminded by jihadist forces on the ground in Libya." | |
| • | "This is about an organized abuse of refugees to use them as a shield for the passage of jihadists to Europe, and to also radicalize the migrants." | |
| • | Scrambling to stem the flow of migrants, the 28-nation EU is indeed seeking to launch military strikes – to destroy the boats of the smugglers before they fill them with migrants. | |
| • | European nations are already grappling with what critics call the "Islamicization" of urban centers, where insular and often impoverished Muslim communities have proven fertile recruiting grounds for international jihadists. | |
| • | "Instead of sending a million miserable refugees to Europe, the UN should enable a million African refugees to stay home and be empowered." | |
| • | "You have millions of Syrian refugees – and also highly dissatisfied Libyans, Algerians and others – who are living in refugee camps, and who are young, filled with rage and anger – and who could become radicalized and launch terrorist attacks both in Europe and the United States." | |
Bush unloads on Obama’s Iran diplomacy, anti-ISIS efforts (Fox 04/27/2015)
| • | "You've got to ask yourself, is there a new policy or did they just change the spokesman?" | |
| • | At the heart of the pending Iran deal is a commitment by Iran to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. But while President Obama says those sanctions could snap back if needed, Bush reportedly cast doubt on that claim. | |
| • | "You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That's how Americans should view the deal." | |
| • | Bush also reportedly accused Obama of putting the U.S. in "retreat" and criticized Obama's efforts to check the rise of the Islamic State. | |
| • | Bush, ... criticized Obama's decision to take all troops out of Iraq after 2011, and called ISIS Al Qaeda's "second act." | |
| • | Critics like Netanyahu say it does not close Iran's path to a nuclear weapon, and merely delays that possibility while giving Iran access to funding by lifting sanctions. | |
Obama’s Last Red-Line: Blockade of Iranian Weapons to Yemen (INN 04/26/2015)
| • | Obama's legacy would not be a Signature Iranian Nuclear deal, but an irreversible Middle East-African catastrophe that shatters anyone's worst nightmares. | |
| • | The Saudis would undeniably be confronted with the dark truth that any Obama promise of nuclear or non-nuclear protection from the Iranians would be written in disappearing ink. | |
| • | In short, we've come to the end of the Obama's false red-lines. | |
| • | If Obama's Yemen red-line becomes a green-light for Iranian aggression, one way or another there will be major fire-works that will last for a decade. | |
'Nightmare waiting to happen': Experts gathered in Nepal a week ago to ready for earthquake (Fox 04/26/2015)
| • | While the trigger of the disaster is natural — an earthquake — "the consequences are very much man-made, it's buildings that kill people not earthquakes." | |
| • | If you lived in a flat desert with no water, an earthquake wouldn't harm you, but then few people want to live there. | |
| • | "The real problem in Asia is how people have concentrated in dangerous places." | |
| • | Kathmandu was warned, first by the Earth itself: this is the fifth significant quake there in the last 205 years, including the massive 1934 one. | |
| • | "With an annual population growth rate of 6.5 percent and one of the highest urban densities in the world, the 1.5 million people living in the Kathmandu Valley were clearly facing a serious and growing earthquake risk." | |
| • | "It was also clear that the next large earthquake to strike near the Valley would cause significantly greater loss of life, structural damage, and economic hardship than past earthquakes had inflicted." | |
| • | "If you live in the Kathmandu Valley you have other priorities, daily threats and daily nasty things happen to you in terms of air quality, water quality, pollution, traffic and just poverty." | |
| • | "But it doesn't mean that the earthquakes go away." | |
The Armenian genocide was... genocide (Fox 04/24/2015)
| • | But on this issue facts rule: What the Armenians of the dying Ottoman Empire suffered was, indeed, genocide. | |
| • | Only fools and demagogues revel in old hatreds with so many new ones available. | |
| • | But labeling the long months of massacre inflicted on the Armenians anything but genocide misrepresents abundantly documented facts. The equivalent would be for the United States to deny that slavery existed on our soil. | |
| • | Turkish insistence that no genocide occurred prolongs the bitterness to no one's advantage. | |
| • | The Young Turk government that sponsored those massacres 100 years ago needed someone to blame for wartime disasters. And when embattled governments need scapegoats, minorities are, inevitably, the victims. | |
| • | The Young Turks accused the Christian Armenians of acting as a fifth column for Russian invaders, and in a burst of butchery tens of thousands of loyal Armenians wearing Ottoman uniforms died at the hands of their comrades virtually overnight. Thus it began. | |
| • | Incited by demagogues, Turks turned on Armenians, killing neighbors, pillaging homes, kidnapping children and driving survivors southeastward into the desert. Corpses clotted rivers, and the roadsides were lined with bones. | |
| • | Kurds — who since have made their peace with Armenians — raided the refugee columns to murder for sport and make off with female captives. Crimson hatred gripped populations that had lived side by side for centuries. | |
| • | This is not a myth. Nor is it anti-Turkish propaganda. We have extensive eyewitness accounts written by stunned American missionaries, shocked foreign consuls and appalled German officers sent to advise the Turks. | |
| • | Pleas went out for relief and intervention, but nothing happened to save the victims until it was too late (sound familiar?). | |
| • | For the slaughtered Armenians, there will never be justice. But there can be truth. For today's Turks, there is no shame in admitting that truth. The shame lies in denying it. | |
| • | The Young Turks who drove the genocide suffered defeat, ignominy, exile and early death. The chapter is closed, and Turks need to turn the page. | |
| • | Just as the Germans renewed themselves by facing the facts of history, so is it time for Turks to free themselves from the burden of denials. | |
| • | When Hitler first expounded the "Final Solution" to his henchmen, some of the grisliest Nazis were aghast. Hitler's response was that "Nobody remembers the Armenians." Hitler was wrong about that, but he certainly knew genocide when he saw it. | |
| • | If you can't believe Pope Francis, try Adolf Hitler. | |
Happy Earth Day 2015: The Earth is doing just fine, thank you (Fox 04/23/2015)
| • | To hear the experts like Usher and Al Gore tell the story, the planet is in a miserable state. We're running out of our natural resources, we're overpopulating the globe and running out of room, the air that we breathe is becoming toxic, the oceans are rising and soon major coastal cities will be underwater, and the Earth is, of course, heating up, except when it is cooling down. | |
| • | This is perhaps the single greatest misinformation campaign in world history. Virtually none of these claims are even close to the truth — except for the fact that our climate is always changing as it has for hundreds of thousands of years. | |
| • | Since the first Earth Day back in the 1970s, the environmentalists — those who worship the creation rather than the Creator have issued one false prediction of Armageddon after another and yet despite the fact that their betting average is zero, the media and our schools keep parroting their declinism as if they were oracles not shysters. | |
| • | Here are the factual realities we should be celebrating on Earth Day. | |
| • | Natural resources are more abundant and affordable today than ever before in history. | |
| • | Energy — the master resource — is super-abundant. | |
| • | Our air and water are cleaner | |
| • | There is no Malthusian nightmare of overpopulation. | |
| • | Global per capita food production is 40 percent higher today than as recently as 1950. | |
| • | The rate of death and physical destruction from natural disasters or severe weather changes has plummeted over the last 50 to 100 years. | |
| • | The state of the planet has never been in such fine shape by almost every objective measure. The Chicken Littles are as wrong today as they were 50 years ago. This is very good news for those who believe that one of our primary missions as human beings is to make life better over time and to leave our planet better off for future generations. | |
WSJ Editor Tells Israel to Ignore World after Obama Betrayal (INN 04/21/2015)
| • | "In a word, the Israelis haven't yet figured out that what America is isn't what America was. They need to start thinking about what comes next." | |
| • | "Yet it's different this time ... the administration's Mideast abdications are creating a set of irreversible realities for which there are no ready U.S. answers." | |
| • | "Now the president is marching us past the point of no return on a nuclear Iran and thence a nuclear Middle East." | |
| • | "When that happens, how many Americans will be eager to have their president intervene in somebody else's nuclear duel? Americans may love Israel, but partly that's because not a single U.S. soldier has ever died fighting on its behalf." | |
| • | "Obama is bequeathing not just a more dangerous Middle East but also one the next president will want to touch only with a barge pole." | |
| • | Israel is left alone to face "thousands more missiles for Hezbollah, paid for by sanctions relief for Tehran; ISIS on the Golan Heights; an Iran safe, thanks to Russian missiles, from any conceivable Israeli strike." | |
| • | "Previous quarrels between Washington and Jerusalem were mainly about differing Mideast perceptions. Now the main issue is how the U.S. perceives itself." | |
| • | "Then along came Mr. Obama with his mantra of 'nation building at home' and his notion that an activist foreign policy is a threat to the social democracy he seeks to build." | |
| • | "The result is a world of disorder, and an Israel that, for the first time in its history, must seek its security with an America that, say what it will, has nobody's back but its own." | |
| • | "How does it do this? By recalling what it was able to do for the first 19 years of its existence, another period when the U.S. was an ambivalent and often suspicious friend and Israel was more upstart state than start-up nation." | |
| • | ... "that was an Israel that was prepared to take strategic gambles because it knew it couldn't afford to wait on events. It did not consider 'international legitimacy' to be a prerequisite for action because it also knew how little such legitimacy was worth." | |
| • | "It understood the value of territory and terrain, not least because it had so little of it. It built its deterrent power by constantly taking the military initiative, not constructing defensive wonder-weapons such as Iron Dome." | |
| • | "It didn't mind acting as a foreign policy freelancer, and sometimes even a rogue, as circumstances demanded. 'Plucky little Israel' earned the world's respect and didn't care, much less beg, for its moral approval." | |
| • | ... "perhaps the next American president will rescue Israel from having to learn again what it once knew. Israelis would be wise not to count on it." | |
Obama: Cuban Information Minister? (JWR 04/17/2015)
| • | "So I want to thank President Castro for the spirit of openness and courtesy that he has shown during our interactions. ... President Castro earlier today spoke about the significant hardships that the people of Cuba have undergone over many decades. I can say with all sincerity that the essence of my policy is to ... make sure that the people of Cuba are able to prosper and live in freedom and security." | |
| • | "I believe in the free flow of information. Unfortunately, our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe." | |
| • | While Obama and Castro were speaking, goons from the Cuban security services beat Cuban human rights activists who had traveled to Panama City at the invitation of summit organizers. | |
| • | ... we tried "isolating" Cuba for 50 years and it didn't work. Depends what you mean by "work." No, the embargo didn't force the Castros to stop torturing democracy activists, or to stop fomenting communist revolutions in other Latin American countries, or to stop shipping weapons to North Korea. But at least we didn't have it on our consciences, and we didn't subsidize it. | |
| • | Had Obama been interested in reform, he could have asked for some. A freer press? Release of political prisoners? Liberalized labor laws? He asked for and received nothing in exchange for everything the Castros wanted. | |
| • | Who benefits from the thaw with Cuba? Not the Cuban people, who earn a maximum wage (yes, you read that correctly) of $20 per month. More trade and commerce will benefit their oppressors — the worst regime in our hemisphere, a sworn enemy of the USA, but Obama's newest pals. | |
Empty Phrases (INN 04/17/2015)
| • | The desperation and irresponsibility displayed by the U.S. negotiators is nothing short of startling. | |
| • | This is an agreement that came into being largely as a result of President Obama's need to point to some kind of foreign-policy achievement, even if that purported success is really a failure. | |
| • | Sometimes I wonder whether Barack Obama has learned how to deceive and mislead the American people by observing what Iran's leaders do all the time. | |
| • | ... the idea of forcing Iran to the table through crippling sanctions was having its desired effect and the next logical step was to maintain or if need be intensify sanctions to force Iran into abandoning its quest for a nuclear bomb. | |
| • | To burnish one man's legacy, the best interests of the U.S. are being contorted in an unhealthy way. | |
| • | This entire fiasco of trying to exclude Congress from having a say on the Iran matter while including the United Nations is symptomatic of a policy gone terribly wrong. | |
| • | The idea consistently floated by the administration that the choice is between this deal and war is one of the greater deceptions by the president. | |
| • | ... it was international sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table to begin with, and the leaders there need to be squeezed even more in order to get them to voluntarily give up on developing nuclear weapons. | |
| • | The original Obama–Kerry objective was for the details to remain secret until such time as they became relevant, at which point it would be far too late to do anything about the agreement. | |
| • | If we learned or accomplished anything this week, it is that there is still only one person who is the "Supreme Leader," and that is in Iran. | |
Europe's Death Throes: No to Judaism and Christianity, Yes to Islam (INN 04/17/2015)
| • | The French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has revealed that seven French citizens blew themselves up in Iraq and Syria. Six of them Christians who had converted to Islam. | |
| • | They are the children of the West at war with the West, the sons of the culture of reason, "the atheists and liars" as they define it in the audios/videos of the Islamic State. | |
| • | They want to defeat the monstrously seductive Europe relying on the wisdom of a single book, the Koran. | |
| • | In the village of Bosc-Roger-en-Roumois, the neighbors of Maxime Hauchard remember him not as a beheader, but as a "good guy, brave, helpful." The uncle said he "was not capable of hurting a fly." A young man raised in a Catholic family. As Michael Dos Santos, who was even the catechist. | |
| • | They are not manipulated, they know what they're doing". As in the case of Frenchman Pierre Robert, "the emir with blue eyes", who lived in the Loire with his wife and son, nice garden and beautiful views. Good people. | |
| • | As in the case of Thomas Barnouin, son of teachers, and David Courtailler, who produced cheese in Haute-Savoie, but one day he saw "the lights of a mosque that blinded me." | |
| • | All young people were encouraged by their parents to find their own path in a society that they would have judged "impious". A post-modern society that had taught them that there is no right and wrong, but only the judgment (hateful) and tolerance (admirable). | |
| • | Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy accused of "apostasy" by the fanatics, argues that their conversion is a reaction to secularism. | |
| • | The self indulging doubts and the relativistic choices of the French society found a solution in the homicidal certainty of Islamism. | |
| • | European youth injured by modernity and happy to swap their life with the thrill of a sacred cause and a fierce revolution sacralized by blood. | |
| • | It is the fateful end of a continent, Europe, which expelled and destroyed Judaism during the Holocaust, which has now repudiated and terminated Christianity, and which will end with Islam. | |
Attack Now – Russian Interference Leaves Israel No Choice (INN 04/17/2015)
| • | The Obama Doctrine – scorn your friends, reward your enemies – has finally reaped the whirlwind, namely Russia and its pledge to provide Iran with an array of the most advanced "defensive" missiles on earth. This leaves Israel with no choice except to act BEFORE those missiles are deployed. | |
| • | If it was difficult to successfully strike Iran's nuclear facilities today, tomorrow will be near impossible. | |
| • | If anything, Russia's move has clarified the situation. Israel's duty to defend itself has never been more urgent and an attack scaled to wipe out Iran's nuclear emplacements would likewise be a favor to any number of Sunni states that tremble from Iran's Shiite encroachments throughout the Arab world. | |
| • | On seeking a deal to stop or stall Iran's nuclear program, America's infantile negotiators, led by John Kerry were no match for the ayatollahs. These were children bargaining with grown men. The ayatollahs trifled with Obama's "best and brightest" during the negotiations and scorned them as laughable losers after the negotiations. | |
| • | The result was no deal at all. Iran gets to keep arming itself with no one to stop it from growing bolder. | |
| • | Certainly the United States, under Obama, cannot be counted on to come to the rescue. | |
| • | Enter Vladimir Putin, who saw the perfect opening, an opening he's been waiting for along the decades to replace America as the dominant world power in the Middle East. He can't be blamed. Russia does what Russia does because it is Russia. But the United States has no excuse for being so lame. | |
Holocaust Remembrance Day: My father's legacy and my duty to never forget (Fox 04/16/2015)
| • | Resurgent violence against Jews is a terrifying backdrop to Thursday's Yom Ha'Shoah/ Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed every year to memorialize the 6 million men, women and children who were savagely murdered as humanity's bystanders shriveled in silence. | |
| • | A generation of Jews, including almost all my parents' relatives, was systematically exterminated following a dramatic proliferation of virulent anti-Semitism. | |
| • | Only seven decades after my parents barely survived Europe's human slaughterhouse, Jews again are common targets – whether in a kosher grocery in Paris, a Jewish museum in Brussels, a tourist resort in Argentina or in graves across Europe. | |
| • | The world has failed to apply history's stinging lessons to present-day evil, as escalating acts of terror against Jews often are glossed over. It is human nature to embrace the notion that such malevolence cannot prevail, but the enormity of my family's experiences in a so-called civilized world proves otherwise. | |
| • | With the horrors of the Holocaust receding from memory, smoldering hatreds are rekindled. Fearful Jews in France, London and Berlin send their children outdoors stripped of Jewish identifiers, and UCLA undergraduates brazenly grill a judicial board nominee regarding her loyalties, stating "she is a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community." | |
| • | It's a chilling replay of a shameful past, when flourishing propaganda and violence against Jews were ignored as evil engulfed the world. | |
| • | There must be a collective cry against all forms of anti-Semitism, whether threats from Iran or intimidation in academia. How loudly that resonates will determine our willingness to block another free fall into moral bankruptcy. | |
Holocaust Remembrance Day: 70 years after World War II, Jew-hatred is back in Europe (Fox 04/15/2015)
| • | Seventy years after the end of World War II, the first and last documents authored and signed by Adolph Hitler continue to impact on events and the hearts and minds of men. | |
| • | Despite the fact that the genocidal monster had succeeded in destroying two out of every three European Jews, including Anne Frank and 1.5 million other Jewish children, in the document Hitler still blamed the Jews for the catastrophic global conflict he had unleashed. | |
| • | "Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry and its helpers, will grow." | |
| • | The Fuehrer was wrong. It didn't take centuries but a mere 70 years for history's oldest hate to ferociously reemerge on the streets of Europe. | |
| • | Anne Frank, who perished in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp just before British troops "liberated" the skeletal survivors, penned these words in her diary: | |
| • | "I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." | |
| • | "Forty years ago when I came to Holland it never ever happened that someone would call me in the street a dirty Jew or curse me because I am visibly Jewish"; now it is a regular occurrence. | |
| • | Just down the street from Anne Frank House many young Muslim students refuse to sit through lessons about the Shoah, they mock Anne Frank and even spout on national TV — "Hitler should have finished the job!" | |
| • | Last summer, the streets of Berlin and Frankfurt echoed those sentiments at pro-Hamas rallies with chants of "Hitler was right" and "All Jews to the Gas." | |
| • | Despite the strongest anti-hate laws in Europe, German authorities took no action. | |
| • | Jews cry not only over past martyrdom but also to mourn the growing number of European Jews killed by Islamist terrorists: A rabbi and 8-year old girl executed on a Jewish school playground; a volunteer guard gunned down at the entrance to a Copenhagen synagogue where a Bat Mitzvah celebration was taking place; four Jewish shoppers slaughtered at a kosher supermarket in Paris; and four people killed outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels. | |
| • | It is true that today's terror is different. It is not launched by a government but by a transnational, theologically-fueled terrorists. Increasingly however many European Jews are feeling the frigid chill of apathy, the type of which encouraged Hitler in the 1930s and paved the way for the genocide of the 1940s. | |
| • | No one took the then-unknown corporal seriously . Later, the world dismissed his book "Mein Kampf" as bombast and then in 1938, embraced the promise of "peace in our time" despite the evidence that Hitler was preparing for war. The next year, Hitler would launch World War II and his genocide against the Jewish people. | |
| • | The world's failure to take on Hitler's Jew-hatred then is key to understanding Bibi's and our refusal now, to believe any spin that the Ayatollah's anti-Semitic threats are mere posturing. | |
Major Holocaust Inversion in Europe (INN 04/15/2015)
| • | For many Europeans this is a necessity in order to whitewash both the continent's past and present. For some it serves to specifically cover their ancestors' crimes. | |
| • | The massive presence of anti-Semites in the world leads regularly to accusations that Israel acts toward the Palestinians like the German Nazis and their allies behaved toward the Jews. | |
| • | Far-reaching anti-Israel hate mongering is strongest in many parts of the Arab and Muslim world. However surprising, Holocaust inversion there is often combined with Holocaust denial. | |
| • | There is an additional vile dimension to the European Holocaust inversion, because behavior and ideology similar to that of the Nazis is widespread nowadays. Important movements with ideological genocidal programs similar to those of the Nazis can be found in the Muslim world. They are based on their interpretations of the Koran. | |
Guenter Grass: German Nobel laureate was no hero (Fox 04/13/2015)
| • | It is rare for me to celebrate the death of an author. Even the worst of them seldom merit sufficient indignation or contempt or, let's face it, bad manners. | |
| • | But when I heard the news that German writer Gunter Grass has died, I celebrated. | |
| • | He was 87-years-old. I am only sorry he didn't die seventy-five-years ago. | |
| • | Before he became an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth organization. Before he volunteered to serve in the murderous Waffen SS during World War II. Before he claimed the mantle of post-war Germany's conscience. Before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1999. | |
| • | The Swedish Academy gave him the prize, for literature, because they saw in Grass a modern German hero, an anti-Nazi who took on, "the enormous task of reviewing contemporary history," by exposing "...the lies people wanted to forget because they had once believed in them." | |
| • | This was quite an accolade for one of the great liars of the Twentieth Century. And Grass appealed to Europeans precisely because he was a monumentally bold liar. | |
| • | His moral authority stemmed from his innocence. As a sensitive teenager he had been forced by the Nazis to belong to the Hitler Youth. As a young man he had been an unwilling conscript who had contrived to be just a harmless "flakhelfer," a slacker who remained in the rear and hurt no one. | |
| • | This, of course, was precisely the alibi of Grass's generation — the Nazi supermen who claimed, after the war, to have been nowhere and done nothing, as well as the Nazi collaborators in a dozen occupied countries who, when the fighting ended, reinvented themselves as heroic members of the resistance. | |
| • | Like Grass they were innocent, victims in fact, of the Nazis. | |
| • | They didn't all get Nobel Prizes of course, but they awarded themselves the status of civilized and decent citizens of the New Europe, and in no time at all they were giving the rest of the world lessons in morality. | |
| • | In 2006, Gunter Grass published his memoir, "Peeling the Onion." He revealed that he not been just a hapless cog in the German army, but a soldier in the Waffen SS, a unit that embodied Nazi evil and barbarity. | |
| • | Why did Grass blow his own cover in 2006? It was, in his telling, a tribute to his own moral sensitivity. He had suffered in shamed silence for decades, he said. He could no longer lie. | |
| • | Of course, he insisted that he, personally, had never participated in Waffen SS atrocities. How could he? He was, after all, a man of conscience. | |
| • | But he couldn't continue lying about his past, he said. The pain was too great. After 60 years he could not tell a lie. It was embarrassing, he admitted, but he was a victim of his own exquisite morality. | |
| • | Some of his admirers were scandalized, but Grass didn't become a pariah among the intelligentsia of the New Europe (or the United States). | |
| • | Nor did he sentence himself to a humiliated silence. On the contrary. In 2012, Grass launched a diatribe against Israel for endangering the peace of the world. | |
| • | The Jewish State, he wrote, was guilty of arming itself against Iran, whose regime (he didn't write) deeply admires the Waffen SS and its genocidal anti-Semitism. | |
| • | He deplored "Western hypocrisy" in not singling out the Jewish State as a nuclear danger to the innocent Ayatollahs of Iran, and tossed in the Palestinians for good measure. | |
| • | He sadly predicted that his intellectual honesty would lead the Jews to defame him as an anti-Semite. Once more, he would be a victim. | |
| • | Gunter Grass was a man of his time and place, a low life con man with legions of admirers. | |
| • | He deserves to be buried in the cemetery in Bitburg alongside his Waffen SS comrades, with a headstone that reads: Here lies Gunter Grass, the Conscience of New Europe. | |
Iran's Supreme Leader scoffs at nuclear framework: Time for Congress to act (Fox 04/13/2015)
| • | First, the sanctions have crippled the regime; the Supreme Leader is far more desperate to get the sanctions lifted than when the talks started. The Supreme Leader feels threatened by his own population. As such, under no circumstances should the United States give up the sanctions, its only leverage in dealing with Tehran. | |
| • | Second, the Supreme Leader has no intention of abandoning the nuclear weapons program. He remains intent to buy time, seek more concessions, and keep the pathway to the bomb open. | |
| • | Third, the only way for the United States and its international partners to block Iran's pathway to a nuclear bomb is to force it to comply with all UN Security Council resolutions. If the P 5+1 choses to pursue the talks, it should insist on the following in the final comprehensive agreement | |
| • | Given Tehran's three-decade history of denial, deception and duplicity, it should be made clear that the cost for smallest incremental violations will be heavy and quickly enforceable. Otherwise, the mere signing of the agreement, if it ever happens, will only ensure that Tehran will play another round of nuclear shell game. | |
| • | Tehran should provide satisfactory response to a dozen outstanding questions related to Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) in a short period of time. This should be a central element of any compliance regime. Failure to do so should trigger additional punitive measurements. | |
| • | The stockpile of enriched uranium can be significantly reduced if shipped out of the country. Other options would leave the path open for cheating and denying the intended outcome. | |
| • | No research and development on advanced centrifuges should be allowed as it would enable Tehran to quickly race to the bomb at the time of its choosing. | |
The Iran deal: Anatomy of a disaster (JWR 04/11/2015)
| • | "Negotiations ... to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability ..." | |
| • | With sanctions lifted, its economy booming and tens of billions injected into its treasury, why would Iran curb rather than expand its relentless drive for regional dominance? | |
| • | You set out to prevent proliferation and you trigger it. You set out to prevent an Iranian nuclear capability and you legitimize it. You set out to constrain the world's greatest exporter of terror threatening every one of our allies in the Middle East and you're on the verge of making it the region's economic and military hegemon. | |
| • | What is the alternative, asks the president? He's repeatedly answered the question himself: No deal is better than a bad deal. | |
Christian Lives Matter (Fox 04/10/2015)
| • | In contrast to the general western perception of jihadists as impoverished and undereducated victims, Al Shabab's releases are in nearly perfect English explaining why their attack was conducted and conducted, by the way, by a group of jihadists that included at least one law school graduate whose father is a Kenyan politician. | |
| • | ... "[our] attack targeted only non-Muslims, all Muslims were allowed to safely evacuate the premises before executing disbelievers...no amount of precaution or safety measures will be able to guarantee your safety, thwart another attack or prevent another bloodbath from occurring in your cities." | |
| • | Take, for instance, the fact that only a few days before the Garissa attack in Kenya the Nigerian terrorist organization Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 500 women and children from a city in northeastern Nigeria. | |
| • | There are no trending hash tags and hardly any news; just a haunting silence, and the silence is most poignant in the halls of power in the United States and Europe. | |
| • | ... "these atrocities happen because there are those who commit them and those who simply remain silent." | |
| • | The world is far more silent than it could be, and its silence is allowing more men, women and children to be threatened, kidnapped, trafficked, and massacred every week. | |
Modern medicine did not help Germanwings pilot, it may have damaged him (Fox 04/09/2015)
| • | Whatever else may be said about Andreas Lubitz, the pilot who deliberately crashed his Germanwings jet into the French Alps, killing himself and 149 passengers, he did not lack medical attention: he as under treatment for a good proportion of his relatively short adult life. To judge by the terrible outcome, however, it didn't do him much good. | |
| • | On the contrary: it is even possible, though not provable, that it made him worse. For example, the antidepressants that he was taking might have inclined him to an extremely violent act. Many mass killers have been taking such drugs when they committed their acts... | |
| • | Of course, a tenth of the population is also taking these drugs, for the most part quite without any benefit to themselves, though with real enough side-effects. The main beneficiaries of such large-scale unnecessary, useless or even harmful prescription, apart from the pharmaceutical companies, are the doctors, who do not know what else to do for their patients. | |
| • | Depression – for which the treatment, of course, is antidepressants – is now very loosely diagnosed. Patients themselves want the diagnosis... They all described themselves instead as depressed. | |
| • | This is important, because depression is an illness... And it is only natural that people with an illness, depression, should look to their doctors to cure them. | |
| • | But often they cannot. Andreas Lubitz was not depressed, he was of bad character, for the improvement of which there is no drug. He was an angry narcissist, murderous at least as much as he was suicidal. | |
| • | Suffering reverses in life, Lubitz sought revenge on what he thought was an unjust world. Many people like him who commit suicide, or try to, imagine a continued shadowy existence after their deaths in which they are able witness the doleful effects that their death has had on others, and they enjoy the prospect. He didn't want to slip away quietly, he wanted fame, even if it were only notoriety. | |
| • | If he had killed himself by jumping from a building, say, which requires no more courage than crashing an airplane, no one would have heard of him. By crashing his plane, everyone has heard of him. The 149 people were sacrificed to his wounded vanity and his desire for fame. | |
| • | Adreas Lubitz was treated as if he were ill, thereby disguising from him his own responsibility for his state of mind. | |
| • | He was a narcissist whose sorrows and failures made him vengeful and murderous as well as suicidal. | |
| • | He thirsted for fame, though he had no achievements that entitled him to it, and he was willing to sacrifice 149 others to achieve it. He was prescribed useless drugs that possibly contributed to his aggression. It is a very modern story. | |
Iran nuke deal is no deal at all (JWR 04/09/2015)
| • | The first thing one needs to know about the nuclear deal with Iran is that it is not, in fact, a deal. | |
| • | The various parties to the talks did come away with an agreement, but it was an agreement to haggle more about what a deal might look like. | |
| • | The purpose of the nuclear talks is less about stopping the bomb as it is launching a new era of engagement with Iran. To keep the talks going, Obama has become Iran's air force in Iraq, has let Vladimir Putin literally get away with murder in Ukraine, and has grown increasingly deaf to warnings, from the French to the Israelis to the Saudis | |
| • | If the Iranian regime were interested in being a constructive member of the international community, it would have been acting like one already, right? | |
| • | At home and abroad, Obama has an invincible confidence that he understands everyone's self-interest better than they do. | |
| • | o far, Obama has calculated that the bloodshed, chaos and frayed alliances are worth it if he can be remembered as the president who opened the door to Iran. Those benefits, if they ever arise, may come at the expense of losing a hell of a lot more. | |
Kissinger Slams Obama for Conceding to Iranian 'Nuclear Arsenal' (INN 04/08/2015)
| • | "For 20 years, three presidents of both major parties proclaimed that an Iranian nuclear weapon was contrary to American and global interests - and that they were prepared to use force to prevent it. Yet negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first ten years." | |
| • | The assessment echoes statements this week by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, who celebrated the "diplomatic jihad" victory in forcing the US to change its policy and give up its military option. | |
| • | ... by "mixing shrewd diplomacy with open defiance of U.N. resolutions, Iran has gradually turned the negotiation on its head. Iran's centrifuges have multiplied from about 100 at the beginning of the negotiation to almost 20,000 today. The threat of war now constrains the West more than Iran." | |
| • | "While Iran treated the mere fact of its willingness to negotiate as a concession, the West has felt compelled to break every deadlock with a new proposal. In the process, the Iranian program has reached a point officially described as being within two to three months of building a nuclear weapon." | |
| • | "Under the proposed agreement, for 10 years Iran will never be further than one year from a nuclear weapon and, after a decade, will be significantly closer." | |
| • | ... "the gradual expiration of the framework agreement, beginning in a decade, will enable Iran to become a significant nuclear, industrial and military power after that time - in the scope and sophistication of its nuclear program and its latent capacity to weaponize at a time of its choosing... Iran will be in a position to bolster its advanced nuclear technology during the period of the agreement and rapidly deploy more advanced centrifuges ... after the agreement expires or is broken." | |
| • | ... "the ultimate significance of the framework will depend on its verifiability and enforceability." | |
| • | "The new approach complicates verification and makes it more political because of the vagueness of the criteria." | |
| • | "Under the new approach, Iran permanently gives up none of its equipment, facilities or fissile product to achieve the proposed constraints. It only places them under temporary restriction and safeguard - amounting in many cases to a seal at the door of a depot or periodic visits by inspectors to declared sites." | |
| • | ... "in a large country with multiple facilities and ample experience in nuclear concealment, violations will be inherently difficult to detect... The experience of Iran's work on a heavy-water reactor during the 'interim agreement' period — when suspect activity was identified but played down in the interest of a positive negotiating atmosphere — is not encouraging." | |
| • | "Compounding the difficulty is the unlikelihood that breakout will be a clear-cut event. More likely it will occur, if it does, via the gradual accumulation of ambiguous evasions." | |
| • | "When inevitable disagreements arise over the scope and intrusiveness of inspections, on what criteria are we prepared to insist and up to what point? If evidence is imperfect, who bears the burden of proof?" | |
| • | ... the deal gives Iran permanent sanctions relief "in exchange for temporary restraints on Iranian conduct." | |
| • | "Some of the chief actors in the Middle East are likely to view the U.S. as willing to concede a nuclear military capability to the country they consider their principal threat. Several will insist on at least an equivalent capability. Saudi Arabia has signaled that it will enter the lists; others are likely to follow. In that sense, the implications of the negotiation are irreversible." | |
| • | "Previous thinking on nuclear strategy also assumed the existence of stable state actors. Among the original nuclear powers, geographic distances and the relatively large size of programs combined with moral revulsion to make surprise attack all but inconceivable. How will these doctrines translate into a region where sponsorship of nonstate proxies is common, the state structure is under assault, and death on behalf of jihad is a kind of fulfillment?" | |
| • | "Tehran occupies positions along all of the Middle East's strategic waterways and encircles archrival Saudi Arabia, an American ally. Unless political restraint is linked to nuclear restraint, an agreement freeing Iran from sanctions risks empowering Iran's hegemonic efforts." | |
| • | "Absent the linkage between nuclear and political restraint, America's traditional allies will conclude that the U.S. has traded temporary nuclear cooperation for acquiescence to Iranian hegemony. They will increasingly look to create their own nuclear balances and, if necessary, call in other powers to sustain their integrity." | |
| • | Kissinger and Shultz called for the US to produce a "strategic doctrine for the region," calling for Iran to be forced into accepting restraint on its "ability to destabilize the Middle East and challenge the broader international order." | |
| • | "Until clarity on an American strategic political concept is reached, the projected nuclear agreement will reinforce, not resolve, the world's challenges in the region." | |
| • | "Rather than enabling American disengagement from the Middle East, the nuclear framework is more likely to necessitate deepening involvement there - on complex new terms. History will not do our work for us; it helps only those who seek to help themselves." | |
The Iran 'Agreement' Charade (JWR 04/07/2015)
| • | By abandoning virtually all its demands for serious restrictions on Iran's nuclear bomb program, the Obama administration has apparently achieved the semblance of a preliminary introduction to the beginning of a tentative framework for a possible hope of an eventual agreement with Iran. | |
| • | But even this hazy "achievement" may vanish like a mirage. It takes two to agree — and Iran has already publicly disputed and even mocked what President Obama says is the nature of that framework. | |
| • | Why then all these negotiations? Because these charades protect Barack Obama politically, no matter how much danger they create for America and the world. The latest public opinion polls show Obama's approval rating rising. In political terms — the only terms that matter to him — his foreign policy has been a success | |
| • | If you look back through history, you will be hard pressed to find a leader of any democratic nation so universally popular — hailed enthusiastically by opposition parties as well as his own — as was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain when he returned from Munich in 1938, waving an agreement with Hitler's signature on it, and proclaiming "Peace for our time. | |
| • | Now Barack Obama seems ready to repeat that political triumph by throwing another small country — Israel this time — to the wolves, for the sake of another worthless agreement. | |
| • | Back in 1938, Winston Churchill was one of the very few critics who tried to warn Chamberlain and the British public. Churchill said: "The idea that safety can be purchased by throwing a small State to the wolves is a fatal delusion." | |
| • | After the ruinous agreement was made with Hitler, he said: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war." Chamberlain's "Peace for our time" lasted just under a year | |
| • | Comparing Obama to Chamberlain is unfair — to Chamberlain. There is no question that the British prime minister loved his country and pursued its best interests as he saw it. He was not a "citizen of the world," or worse. | |
| • | There was a time when either Israel or the United States could have destroyed Iran's nuclear facilities, with far less risk of war than there will be after Iran already has its own stockpile of nuclear bombs. | |
| • | If anyone examines the hard, cold facts about the Obama administration's actions and inactions in the Middle East from the beginning, it is far more difficult to reconcile those actions and inactions with a belief that Obama was trying to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons than it is to reconcile those facts with his trying to stop Israel from stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. | |
| • | This latest "agreement" with Iran — with which Iran has publicly and loudly disagreed — is only the latest episode in that political charade. | |
The Iran framework: Devilish details to follow (JWR 04/07/2015)
| • | The United States is being asked to foolishly believe promises by a regime that is religiously motivated to eliminate Israel and ultimately the United States, is the premier sponsor of terrorism in the world, has a record of breaking promises, including past promises about nuclear weapons, and still holds American prisoners... | |
| • | The other half of the credibility gap is President Obama. We are asked to believe a man who said, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" and that his would be the most "open and transparent" administration in history, among many other obfuscations. | |
| • | Iran's chief negotiator at the talks in Switzerland, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people and Congress. Zarif claimed that in spite of statements from Secretary Kerry and a "fact sheet" released by the American delegation, the U.S. is making claims that conditions were reached for the accord that Iran did not agree to. | |
| • | If the two sides can't agree on the contents of the framework, how are they supposed to reach a final agreement by June? In this case, the devil is not in the details; the devil is Iran. | |
| • | How do you negotiate with someone who has lied from the start and is told in the Koran that lying to "infidels" is permissible in pursuit of Islamic goals? | |
| • | Stockbrokers are required to say that past performance is no guarantee of future results. With Iran, past performance IS such a guarantee. | |
| • | Delaying an inevitable military confrontation, rather than early intervention, allows the enemy to grow stronger with more loss of life and property when war comes. That is history's lesson. | |
Decoding the Obama doctrine (JWR 04/07/2015)
| • | Is this a random series of errors by an incompetent leadership or does some grand, if misconceived, idea stand behind the pattern? To an extent, it's ineptitude, as when Mr. Obama bowed to the Saudi king, threatened Syria's government over chemical weapons before changing his mind, and now sends the U.S. military to aid Tehran in Iraq and fight it in Yemen. | |
| • | But there also is a grand idea and it calls for explanation. As a man of the left, Mr. Obama sees the United States historically having exerted a malign influence on the outside world. Greedy corporations, an overly-powerful military-industrial complex, a yahoo nationalism, engrained racism, and cultural imperialism combined to render America, on balance, a force for evil. | |
| • | The Obama Doctrine is simple and universal: Warm relations with adversaries and cool them with friends. | |
| • | Several assumptions underlie this approach: The U.S. government morally must compensate for its prior errors. Smiling at hostile states will inspire them to reciprocate. Using force creates more problems than it solves. Historic U.S. allies, partners, and helpers are morally inferior accessories. | |
| • | The great question ahead is how, in their wisdom, the American people will judge the Obama Doctrine when they next vote for president in 19 months. | |
The age of the anti-Christian pogrom (JWR 04/07/2015)
| • | "The attackers were just in the next room, I heard them ask people whether they were Christian or Muslim, then I heard gunshots and screams." | |
| • | One witness described his best friend begging for his life, pretending to be a Muslim; when he couldn't recite a Muslim prayer, he was shot to death. | |
| • | Another recalls seeing three girls praying for help: "The mistake they made was to say, 'Jesus, please save us,' because that is when they were immediately shot." | |
| • | The administration's reaction to this atrocity carried out by Islamic zealots for avowedly religious reasons was typically shorn of any specific reference to what had happened, or why. The administration reverted to its core strength of tightly scripted euphemism. | |
| • | In his statement, President Barack Obama said that "innocent men and women were brazenly and brutally massacred." True enough, but he couldn't bring himself to say who had been shot by whom. | |
| • | President Obama can't restrain his anger over Bibi Netanyahu saying that Arab voters are turning out in droves prior to the Israeli election, but if coldblooded killers gun down Christians for their faith, he turns to careful verbal gymnastics. | |
| • | If the administration worries about playing into the Islamist narrative of the Western "crusaders," the 11th century wants its foreign policy back. In country after country, Christian communities are embattled and vulnerable, and obviously in no condition to crusade for anything. They don't want to take back Jerusalem; they want to survive. | |
| • | There will be more Garissa-like attacks to come, demonstrating with heartbreaking starkness the disparity in martyrdom between radical Islam and Christianity. | |
| • | The "martyrs" of militant Islam strap on suicide vests and commit hellish acts of mass murder; Christianity's martyrs die as innocents, often with a prayer on their lips. | |
Israel is the Most Important Gift to the Community of Nations (INN 04/07/2015)
| • | Decency and morality are losing ground in the whole world. | |
| • | The West is atoning uninterruptedly, infected by the idea that evil can only come from its ranks, while the rest of the world is motivated by sympathy, kindness and purity. | |
| • | The President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, should have his Nobel peace prize revoked for not stopping the Iranian nuclear program, starting a middle east nuclear race which will end in a cataclysmic tragedy. | |
| • | Europe stopped fighting a long time ago. Its highest moral voice, Pope Francis, is not even able to mention the word "Islam" despite thousands of Christians hunted down everywhere, from Pakistan to Kenya, while Francis' predecessors, Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict, were giants who fought against Communism and relativism. | |
| • | Writers and intellectuals are mute, as if they have lost the ability to say the truth. | |
| • | There is only one nation on earth fighting evil and giving a meaning to the word "civilization" - not good manners, but a hierarchy of values. That nation is the Jewish state of Israel. This is one of the last bastions of humanity. | |
| • | You see not only by Israel's willingness to fight just wars against people who bring only destruction and pain in this world. You see it in Israel through the intensity of people's devotion to a higher meaning. Only Israel today offers some hope for mankind, something that can enable us to maintain faith in human values under an unprecedented moral collapse. | |
| • | The West holds, once again, the reins of authority and power concerning Israel's existence and survival. It must act now to condemn the appeasement of Israel's enemies and to recognize that Israel's existence is the most important gift to the Gentile community of nations. | |
What Saddam Hussein tells us about the Iran nuclear deal (Fox 04/06/2015)
| • | President Barack Obama correctly has pointed out that the impending Iran nuclear deal depends for success upon United Nations inspections. | |
| • | He also said, incorrectly, that "... Iran has also agreed to the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history." | |
| • | The President seems not to remember the inspection regime for Iraq following the 1991 Kuwait war. And that inspection regime did not work, for reasons that included both Saddam's behavior and that of the U.N. Security Council. | |
| • | Nothing Iran has done or said seems to suggest they have given up the desire for a nuclear weapon capability. At best, it may be deferred. They can work the Russians and others over time. They have played a long game so far. | |
| • | Russia — and others — also may have very different incentives in a year or two, or more. | |
| • | This deal may be better than going to war. It's not clear so far that it's better than trying to sustain sanctions already in place, vs. re-imposing sanctions later when Iran elects to move further toward nuclear weapons. | |
| • | In any case, it's clear our ability to shape an outcome has become limited. | |
Nuclear ‘deal’ critics worried about ‘dueling’ fact sheets from US, Iran (Fox 04/07/2015)
| • | "The bottom line is Iran has not agreed to a political framework that addresses all parameters of a comprehensive agreement, but rather has put out a dueling framework that contradicts the one put out by the United States." | |
| • | ... Iran is touting "sort of the mirror image opposite of what's being reported here." | |
| • | U.S.: The U.S. fact sheet says Iran will "receive sanctions relief, if it verifiably abides by its commitments" — asserting sanctions relief would kick in only once conditions are met. | |
| • | Iran: The Iran fact sheet, by contrast, says "all of the sanctions will be immediately removed after reaching a comprehensive agreement." | |
| • | U.S.: The U.S. statement says Iran won't use its advanced centrifuges for 10 years and can do "limited" research before that. | |
| • | Iran: The Iran statement does not describe this research and development as "limited," but instead says: "Iran will continue its research and development on advanced machines and will continue the initiation and completion phases of the research and development process of IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, and IR-8 centrifuges during the 10 year period of the Comprehensive Plan for Joint Action." | |
| • | U.S.: The U.S. statement says "Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium over 3.67 percent for at least 15 years," and to "reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to 300 kg of 3.67 percent LEU for 15 years." | |
| • | Iran: Iran's statement does not appear to make the distinction between 10 and 15 years, saying: "The timeframe of the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action regarding Iran's enrichment program will be 10 years." It then refers to the enrichment at Natanz occurring during this period. | |
| • | U.S.: The U.S. statement says the Arak heavy water reactor will be redesigned and rebuilt, and will not produce weapons grade plutonium. The statement says, "The original core of the reactor, which would have enabled the production of significant quantities of weapons-grade plutonium, will be destroyed or removed from the country." | |
| • | Iran: The Iran statement says the Arak reactor "will remain" and will be enhanced and updated, including so it produces less plutonium. It does not mention the core being destroyed. | |
| • | "There are still details about the phase-out, if you will, of the sanctions that have not yet been agreed to. And it is the strong view of the administration that it would not be wise, and it would not be in the interest of the international community, to simply take away sanctions ... on day one." | |
The Extinction of Eastern Christianity May Figure Europe’s Own Future (INN 04/05/2015)
| • | The situation of Eastern Christianity is a tragedy of immense proportions. It entails human sufferings on a traumatic scale. Even those, like Egyptian President Sisi who would like to help, seem powerless in such dramatic circumstances. As for the West, the ideological and strategic choices it made in the last century incapacitate it and obscure its understanding. | |
| • | Natural disasters like tsunamis or earthquakes have spawned magnificent solidarity movements in the West, but the disappearance of a Christian population, of its two thousand old civilization and memory, moves no one. | |
| • | Maybe it is one more sign of Western decadence, of a deliberate policy of deleting Christian identity by choosing globalization and Islamization – a policy based on the rejection of Judeo-Christian values rooted in our actual Western culture of execration of Israel. | |
| • | We saw tens of thousands of people walking in the main European capitals on behalf of the Palestinians that were showering Israeli civilians with missiles and shouting "death to Israel and the Jews", but Christian agony in Muslim lands would bring only five hundred timid protesters out to the Parisian streets. | |
| • | Isis's rules are those that were applied after the successful jihadist conquests of the Christian Middle East. The massacres, the enslavement, the expulsions, the ransoming, the destruction of monuments, books and legacy of former civilizations or their Islamization, are described in thousands of books throughout the centuries. | |
| • | These collective experiences weave the long history of dhimmitude, which is now returning with the enforcement of a strict shariah rule that had been adulterated in some Muslim countries by modernization. | |
| • | It is difficult to foresee the evolution of this chaos provoked by a blind Europe and Obama, both probably seduced by the advice of their preferred counselors: the radicalized Muslims and Muslim Brotherhood. | |
| • | Cynical people accuse the West of encouraging Christian's emigration by giving them entry visas, but if the West wants a robust Christianity in its former homeland it must have the courage to defend it – a policy it vehemently rejected after the First World War. | |
| • | Europe has desisted from defending itself, how would it defend others? | |
| • | The proclamation of man liberty and dignity, the liberation from slavery constituted the birth certificate of the people of Israel that kept its identity and soul throughout the millenaries of serfdom. | |
| • | Fractured, traumatized by the early 20th century genocides in the Ottoman provinces, Eastern Christianity could not, without external help, reorganize itself. This was a terrible Christian failure. | |
| • | There were Christian Arabs, but most Christians were Eastern Christians who were Arabized by the Arab conquest of their lands. Moreover many Christians were not anti-Israeli and felt that the Israelis were the indigenous inhabitants of the Middle East before the Arab conquest in the 7th century. | |
| • | France, England and America refused to grant to the Assyrians and Armenians an autonomous national territory after the First World War, fearing the rage of the Muslim population of their new Arab colonies. | |
| • | They refused the Christian request for a protection in the new Arab states at the end of the mandate period, stating that their best protection would be their integration as Arabs in their new countries. The result was a great massacre of Assyrians in the 1930s. | |
| • | Having denied the history of dhimmitude, Europe now is living without knowing it under some dhimmitude's rule, evidenced by its insecurity under jihadist threats. In a way, the extinction of Eastern Christianity might figure Europe's own future. | |
| • | Since the State of Israel is still in the process of fighting for her own existence, by allying with the Jews the Christians can amend their own past mistakes and gamble in their own future. | |
The First Serious Push-Back on the West-Islamist Battlefield of Ideas (INN 04/05/2015)
| • | "There is an apocalyptic dimension to global Jihad. Jihadists believe they are engaged in a ‘sacred task' to redeem the world via conquest. We hide our eyes while they do not hide their intentions." | |
| • | In the name of anti-racism and anti-imperialism, the progressive Left has made common cause with the most imperialist and racist force on earth. Orwell himself would not be surprised by the way in which hate groups have dubbed themselves "peace" groups. | |
| • | Westerners do not want to appear provincial, tribal, judgmental, exceptional, and have rushed to embrace "other" cultures, especially those which have not evolved, are intensely tribal, and exceedingly barbaric. | |
| • | The capacity of Westerners, including Jews, to proudly embrace and "promote" their enemies is astounding. | |
| • | The foolishness of such "useful idiots" would be quite amusing were it not so tragic. | |
| • | For Jihadis, few victories could compare in value with the destruction of Israel, a triumph of immense symbolic power. It would change the direction of sacred and global history, revive Arab pride and Muslim confidence that their religion will dominate, it would make them ‘the strong horse.' | |
| • | It would also reveal the frailty of the West, sacrificing an ally to curry favor with an enemy: the weak horse." | |
| • | Surreal as this all may sound, it is the prevailing belief of many Jihadists. They envision the Queen of England wearing a burqa and the flag of Islam over the White House. | |
| • | Jihadis have used the West's free press in order to preach submission, intimidation, enslavement. Indeed, we have seen the liberal-Left Western media "mainstream Jihadi propaganda as news." | |
| • | "The only way for the democratic, multi-cultural, tolerant, self-critical, progressive West to survive the Jihadi attack, is to resist those juicy morsels of moral Schadenfreude about Jews behaving badly, and the unconscious racism of moral expectations involved, even (especially) when offered up by Jews... (they should) resist the temptation when the lethal narratives are not only inaccurate, but wrapped up as descriptions of an apocalyptic evil." | |
| • | "Ironically, to save itself, "the West must genuinely renounce its long romance with Jew-hatred which, right now, constitutes its single greatest vulnerability." | |
| • | In my view, we are now all Israelis. Civilians anywhere, everywhere, are potential targets. Increasingly, at airports, in government buildings, at television stations, the security has grown tight, and resembles the kind of security that Israel alone was first forced to pioneer and that now exists for every Jewish building in Europe and the United States. | |
Israel Should 'Seriously Consider' Striking Iran, Expert Says (INN 04/03/2015)
| • | "I hold the view that the only way to stop Iran in its journey to a nuclear bomb is through military means. Israel needs to seriously consider striking a number of important nuclear facilities." | |
| • | ... Israel had made a serious mistake in not taking out Iran's nuclear facilities until now. | |
| • | "As long as there was no deal it was easier for Israel to strike. They should have carried out a strike two years ago. This is not an easy decision but it's what needed to be done." | |
| • | "In practice no one wants to see a nuclear Iran; all of them are playing the game so that Israel can pulls the chestnuts out of the fire." | |
A deal with Iran built on lies (JWR 04/03/2015)
| • | Everything about the so-called deal with Iran, including the reputations of the men who negotiated it, is a lie. It's likely to be a deadly lie for millions of people who will die on account of it. The world should mark well everyone responsible for it. | |
| • | There's nothing in the "framework" that leads to a conclusion like that. The world won't be safer, because when Iran gets the bomb - and there's wide agreement that it's not "if" but "when" - a half-dozen Islamic countries in the Middle East will start work on a bomb of their own. | |
| • | "Simply demanding that Iran capitulate makes a nice sound bite, but [a sound bite] is not a policy, it is not a realistic plan." He should know. He doesn't want anyone to remember Mr. Obama's sound bite that Iran would never get a bomb of its own because he wouldn't allow it. | |
| • | The Iranian foreign minister concedes that Iran is "still some way away from where we want to be." No doubt. But he's entitled to his satisfied mind. Relief from sanctions, and an easily frustrated inspection scheme, is exactly what the mullahs in Tehran set out to achieve. The only price they pay is to co-operate to enable the leaders in the West to pretend they have accomplished something they haven't. | |
| • | Islamic good faith is good enough for President Obama, who has a soft spot in his heart for Islam. Islamic good faith is not good enough for the rest of us. The president is entitled to indulge that soft spot in his heart, but he is not entitled to indulge a soft spot in his head at the expense of the nation. | |
| • | He doesn't have to be the secret Muslim some of his critics say he is to be a faithful husband of the interests of the Islamic world. | |
| • | Describing Mr. Obama as an appeaser, in the tradition of Neville Chamberlain caving at a similar nexus of history in 1938, misses the point. Mr. Obama may not be appeasing at all, but enabling. | |
| • | Everything about Barack Obama suggests that he believes America must be cut down to size, that it's the arrogance of thinking America is something special, the exceptional nation, that is the source of intractable trouble in the world. | |
| • | "Mr. Obama is an amateur who is enthralled with the sound of his own voice and incapable of coming to grips with the consequences of his actions. He is surrounded by sycophants, second-rate intellectuals and a media that remains compliant and uncritical." | |
A false choice and a flawed deal (Fox 04/02/2015)
| • | The deal that the United States has negotiated with Iran poses a grave threat to American security at home and abroad. | |
| • | U.S. officials know that Iran has had a long-term plan to gain a nuclear weapon and destabilize the region through its support of terrorist organizations. | |
| • | And it is known that President Rouhani has never agreed to full and unfettered United Nations inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities. | |
| • | The Iranian government has repeatedly, flagrantly violated sanctions put in place by the United Nations. | |
| • | We know that they have flat-out lied about every nuclear facility they have built over the last three decades. | |
| • | Because of these facts, we cannot trust anything they sign. | |
| • | The message we have sent by making this deal is simple: Take our diplomats hostage for 444 days. Kill our soldiers. Cheat, lie, and be a menace to our allies in the Middle East. Raise the cost of international security, threaten your neighbors in the Persian Gulf, and support terrorist groups. Assassinate dissidents abroad and kill young Iranians who are fed up with your tyranny. | |
| • | Do all of that and we will reward you. We will treat you like a partner, like an ally, and we will place our trust in you. | |
| • | We were once viewed as an international leader that our allies could rely upon. We demonstrated our strength and capabilities, protected human rights, and led the fight to stamp out terrorism. | |
| • | We are sending a message to the world now that rogue governments can quash free speech, sponsor terrorism and denigrate our way of life, all with the tacit consent of the United States government. | |
| • | The U.N. Security Council has repeatedly called for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment efforts, but this deal recognizes Iran's right to enrich uranium. | |
| • | Iran secretly built numerous uranium enrichment facilities in violation of its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty commitments. This deal would legitimize those facilities. | |
| • | It is a sad chapter of American history when President Obama and Secretaries Kerry and Clinton are more concerned with their legacy than they are with our national security. | |
| • | Too often, this administration has presented the American people with a choice: follow our flawed national security strategy that destabilizes regions and undermines our allies or commits thousands of American ground troops to a protracted war. | |
| • | This is a false choice. | |
| • | We cannot make concessions to a government which will then take advantage of our trust. We must meet these governments with strength. | |
| • | The world is a more dangerous and tragic place when America is not leading. For these reasons, we cannot and must not accept this deal with Iran. | |
Iran nuclear deal dangerous step in wrong direction (Fox 04/02/2015)
| • | To those people who see Iranian nuclear weapons as a threat and genuinely want to prevent the medieval mullahs of Teheran from obtaining the means of mass slaughter, it is a dangerous step in the wrong direction. | |
| • | The framework mentions some limitations on the activity of certain facilities but ignores others, including laboratories and factories where key elements of nuclear weaponry are being researched and produced. | |
| • | U.S. and its partners have agreed to lift sanctions when the final accord is signed, not gradually as inspectors verify compliance. | |
| • | If the inspection regime is not rigorous and unrestricted, it will be nothing more than a cover for Iranian cheating. Even if it is perfect, it will not be able to look at facilities that it does not know about. | |
| • | Other highly relevant matters were not even addressed in Lausanne. One is the existence of a very robust Iranian ballistic missile program designed to produce rockets that can deliver a nuclear payload. Another is Iran's sponsorship of terrorist groups and proxy armies from Lebanon and Syria to the border of Saudi Arabia. | |
| • | Iran has invested billions of dollars in building its offensive capacities and creating a sophisticated nuclear program. | |
| • | This is not a vanity project.It is part of the Iranian imperial design to remake itself into a Persian-Shiite power that can dominate its Sunni neighbors. Nuclear weapons are a key component of this effort. | |
| • | Nobody in the region will want to face an atomic Ayatollah or an Iranian army operating under a nuclear umbrella. | |
| • | Seen from Teheran, Obama and Kerry appear to be weak and exhausted men, short-term pushovers concerned with their legacy. | |
| • | Khamenei's assessment is probably right. He might get the kind of deal in June to allow him to surreptitiously continue on the nuclear war path. | |
| • | Most importantly, there are already a lot of American lawmakers who are skeptical of U.S. diplomacy, and the Lausanne framework is not likely to make them believers. | |
Obama’s folly in Iran needs a page from Reagan’s playbook (Fox 04/01/2015)
| • | President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are negotiating an agreement with Iran that will accelerate a nuclear arms race in a part of the world that has begun a 30-year, fight to the finish, religious war. It is a prescription for disaster. | |
| • | The choice is not between capitulation and war. Foreign policy is what's conducted between these two extremes. Our policy shouldn't be either let Iran get the bomb or bomb Iran. | |
| • | We should do what Ronald Reagan did with the Soviet Union. He didn't accept Soviet aggression, but he didn't want to go to war with them either. Reagan maneuvered events so the people of the Soviet Union demanded regime change. | |
| • | Our policy toward Iran should not be Obama-style capitulation, or Bush-style war, but Reagan-style regime change, where we push their economy to the brink and Iranian people rise up and demand change. | |
| • | We could push for a better deal by imposing punitive sanctions. We could freeze them out of the world banking system. We could tighten the economic noose around Iran's neck. | |
| • | We could encourage the pro-American, pro-democracy movement in Iran to challenge the mullahs. We could tear down Iran's cyberwall, so their young and literate population can see what the rest of the world is like and launch a social media driven revolution of their own. | |
| • | U.S. has already conceded that Iran doesn't have to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, it just has to unplug part of it — for a while — with inadequate inspection ... and no penalties if they plug it back in. | |
| • | Each side knew if they launched a nuclear attack, they were guaranteed a nuclear attack in return. It was called Mutually Assured Destruction, or M.A.D., and it was a mutual suicide pact. It was an uneasy peace, but it kept the peace. | |
| • | But we've entered a new era. Deterrence doesn't work on suicide bombers or radical jihadists eager to usher in the end of days. If the administration is willing to let Iran get nuclear weapons, then at least try to change the Iranian regime from one chanting "Death to America" and exporting terrorism throughout the world, to one willing to live at peace with its neighbors. | |
| • | President Obama's great legacy won't be Nixon to China, but Neville Chamberlain at Munich. | |
Obama’s Two State Tantrum (INN 03/31/2015)
| • | Obama's two terms showed us that he was a sore winner. Israel's election showed us that he is even more of sore loser. | |
| • | He continued the administration's pretense of being offended by Netanyahu's election rhetoric about the absence of any partner for peace to create a Palestinian state with, insisting that "We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don't raise questions about the Prime Minister's commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations." | |
| • | Netanyahu made his commitment to peace clear when he agreed to release 104 terrorists, some of whom had murdered children, as a precondition demanded by PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas sabotaged the Kerry attempt to start negotiations anyway and Kerry predictably blamed Israel. But that's part of the administration's consistent position that Israel is always wrong. | |
| • | What message does it send when the White House Chief of Staff attacks the Prime Minister of Israel at an event featuring enemies of Israel? | |
| • | When he first ran for the White House, he appeared at AIPAC and vowed that, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." | |
| • | At AIPAC he had told the audience that, "There is no greater threat to Israel — or to the peace and stability of the region — than Iran. Now this audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats, and the enemies of Israel should have no doubt that, regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in our commitment to Israel's security." | |
| • | Then he went on to push a deal that would let Iran go nuclear while his propagandists denounced Republicans opposed to the sellout as "traitors". Most recently he had Iran delisted as a terror threat. | |
| • | Terrorist regimes are treated as untrustworthy when it comes to their rhetoric, but absolutely reliable when they negotiate. The same Ayatollah who calls for "Death to America" is supposedly lying to his own people, but his representatives will be absolutely honest when they pledge not to build a bomb. The Palestinian Authority shouldn't be paid attention to when it calls for destroying Israel, but should be relied on when it signs on the dotted line no matter how many agreements it broke in the past. | |
| • | The same political hack who shamelessly told AIPAC that he supports a united Jerusalem and then even more shamelessly took it back, pretends to be morally outraged that Netanyahu would slam a PLO state during an election. | |
| • | Israel isn't the barrier to a Palestinian state. The PLO and Hamas can't even get along long enough to form a state or hold an election. Blaming Netanyahu for actually addressing these facts is the height of cynicism from an administration that until recently avoided investing its energies in peace negotiations because it knew that was a dead end. | |
| • | Obama doesn't really believe in a Palestinian state. He's throwing a two state tantrum because it gives him a convenient angle of attack against Netanyahu. The Israeli election was about either forcing out Netanyahu or isolating him. Having failed at the first, Obama is defaulting back to the second. | |
| • | Obama claims that Netanyahu has shown that he is untrustworthy when it comes to peace. Instead he urges us to trust our lives to an Ayatollah who calls for "Death to America", but doesn't ‘really' mean it. | |
It’s time for Sisi to protect the Christians (Fox 03/31/2015)
| • | Last month's ghastly beheading of 20 Coptic Christian migrant workers on a Libyan beach prompted worldwide outrage and retaliatory airstrikes by Egypt's government. | |
| • | But out of public sight, the same victims' families and neighbors now silently face persecution at home, in Egypt. | |
| • | Following the beheadings, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered the construction of a church bearing their name in Al Our village, the hometown of 13 of the victims. This move, like the airstrikes, was meant to reassure the country's Copts that they were equal citizens in the new Egypt. | |
| • | ... a mob had marched in the village streets chanting "No church on the land," but this time the bigoted slogans were accompanied by Molotov cocktails and stones thrown at the church and homes of one of the beheading victims and other Christians. | |
| • | That local Muslims would be so incensed by the prospect of a church in their village points to the extreme culture of intolerance that has come to dominate segments of Egyptian society. | |
| • | Permitting Christians to build a church simply is now widely perceived by Muslim villagers in Egypt as an insult to them and to Islam. | |
| • | While in past similar incidents, any plan to build a church would have been scrapped, this one could not be, as it was promised by the Egyptian president himself. Instead, the governor agreed to the mob's demand of banishing the proposed church to the village outskirts. The seven men arrested for their role in the attack were released to close the matter and appease the mob. | |
| • | Thus are the new rules of Dhimmitude being enforced in Egyptian villages. | |
| • | President Sisi has courageously spoken of a need for a religious revolution and of the need to change the religious discourse fueling hatred. He has similarly spoken of saving the Egyptian state from collapsing like others in the region. If Sisi is serious about both, then he must turn his words into actions by upholding the rule of law, prosecuting those attacking Christians, and offering police protection for the Christians of Al Our. | |
French Alps crash shows psychiatrists cannot be last line of defense (Fox 03/31/2015)
| • | If only Lufthansa had regular mental evaluations of pilots, if only people at the airline knew what obvious signs to look for, this tragedy could have been avoided. | |
| • | But psychiatrists know that isn't true. It isn't just fellow workers who fail to pick up the supposed subtle hints that indicate that someone might be a danger to themselves or others. | |
| • | Psychiatrists themselves have a very poor record. Identifying mental illness is a long way from thinking that the person poses a danger. Look at the inability of psychiatrists to identify mass shooters. It's very common for mass killers to be seeing psychiatrists before their attacks. | |
| • | Again, these prominent mass killers certainly didn't lack mental health care. The problem was that even good psychiatrists failed to identify real threats. | |
| • | Psychiatrists have strong incentives to get the diagnosis right. Besides their own professional pride and desire to help, they have legal obligations to inform authorities of threats. | |
| • | It can be very difficult for mental-health professionals to accept that their patients may pose a serious violent threat. Indeed, they tend to deny it to themselves. | |
| • | There is also the risk of placing too much stigma on mental illness. Extremely few mentally ill people go on to become mass killers. Even among schizophrenics, the rate is much lower than one person out of every 100,000. | |
| • | There are no cheap or easy answers. If someone poses a true danger to others, why not lock them up? Or provide outpatient caregivers to monitor them? | |
Israel Deserves our Unconditional Admiration (INN 03/31/2015)
| • | It would be a grave mistake to take the words of Israel's enemies as a mere outburst of hysteric demagoguery. | |
| • | Thus, at the time, was the Western mistake with Hitler and Stalin, who confiscated the freedom and independence of many European states. Today it is the never turned off dream of seeing Israel sinking. | |
| • | Obama, the insane appeaser, is delivering Israel to its mortal enemy: the Islamic Republic of Iran. | |
| • | Meanwhile, Arab-Islamic governments are always forgiven by the West, who find Benjamin Netanyahu's words about the Arabs more outrageous than Ayatollah Khamenei's promise to liquidate the Jew. | |
| • | Hatred of Israel is a pre-political judgment, a moral one which arises from the depths of consciousness. | |
| • | But at the end of the day, it will be Europe and the West who will pay for their anti-Israel war. | |
| • | Because the European refusal of Israel, which smells of petroleum, games of power and prejudices, expresses the spirit of mortification demeaning of historical and moral values which Europe has always been the bearer. | |
| • | Israel must not be abandoned to the unjust her enemies are preparing. And now that her enemies are getting stronger and her friends are increasingly stingy with friendship, Israel deserves our unconditional admiration. Western civilization will go down with it. | |
Apocalyptic Betrayals (INN 03/30/2015)
| • | President Obama's far-reaching efforts to facilitate Iran's march to nukes amount to nothing less than apocalyptic betrayals of U.S. voters and allies that will make the world exponentially more dangerous. | |
| • | Obama has ignored the countless reasons to doubt that the ayatollahs will make and keep a nuclear accord that prevents them from acquiring nuclear weapons. | |
| • | Iran's president Hassan Rouhani boasted about his own role in exploiting diplomatic talks to advance Iran's nuclear program. | |
| • | Iran hid its nuclear facility in Qom until it was exposed in 2009 and continues to cover up its nuclear work in Parchin). | |
| • | Iran recently tried – in a single transaction – to buy know-how for nukes and impunity for one of its biggest terrorist attacks. | |
| • | Iran is actively developing more advanced, long-range cruise missiles. | |
| • | Iran continues to stonewall IAEA inquiries intopotential military dimensions of its nuclear program. | |
| • | The Saudis have warned that the current deal will spark a Mideast nuclear arms race. | |
| • | It could also hasten the era of nuclear terrorism. | |
| • | Breaching his promise to everyone, Obama has embraced a process that makes Iran a threshold nuclear state. | |
| • | Instead of questioning the intentions of the same theocratic regime that held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, the Obama administration has whitewashed Iran's terrorist activities/record. | |
| • | Despite Obama's attempts to influence the outcome of Israel's free elections, no Israeli government, regardless of the political parties that comprise it, can live with the existential threat posed by a nuclear Iran. | |
| • | The most successful strategy for stopping Iran's nuclear march was the very real threat of force in 2003. After the U.S. military quickly trounced Iraq, Iran was deterred from continuing its nuclear activities. | |
| • | Under Obama, the weakest U.S. president since Jimmy Carter, there is no credible military threat, as his actions in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere have shown. | |
| • | Some think that Israel will refrain from attacking because a military strike would, at best, set back Iranian nukes by a few years. | |
| • | Like "mowing the grass" with Hamas' military buildups in Gaza, Israel may simply have to take military action every few years. | |
| • | The Iranians may eventually stop trying to develop nukes, after realizing that it's a huge waste of resources to build nuclear facilities that Israel will promptly destroy. | |
| • | Despite all of the risks of attacking Iran's nuclear program, doing nothing will be riskier to Israel's survival because the world's most dangerous regime then acquires the world's most dangerous weapons. | |
| • | The Jewish nation knows all too well the dangers of ignoring genocidal threats, and Iran, the world's chief sponsor of terrorism, has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel. | |
| • | However, because Israel's capabilities are far more limited than those of the U.S. military, Israel won't be able to prevent Iranian retribution when destroying Iran's nukes. | |
| • | What follows is a nuclear World War III. Iran will retaliate with an overwhelming barrage of potent, long-range ballistic missiles on Israel's population centers. | |
| • | For all of its impressive successes, Israeli missile defense systems are simply ill-equipped to handle such a huge number of incoming missiles, and so there will be thousands of casualties. | |
| • | The world, as usual, will do nothing but excoriate Israel and call for restraint, leaving Israel with countless casualties. | |
| • | Adjusted for population differences, ten thousand dead in tiny Israel is like about 400,000 killed in the USA. | |
| • | At that point (if not much sooner), Israel will feel that it's very survival requires nuking Tehran and a few other major cities, which would destroy the regime along with maybe a million people. | |
| • | The Sunni countries threated by Shiite Iran's hegemonic aggression in the region may have already entered the fray at that point, or would do so soon after, and the centuries-old Sunni-Shia conflict would explode throughout the region even more than it already has. | |
| • | Absurdly enough, the U.S. could probably prevent such a doomsday scenario by simply asserting an ultimatum backed by very credible military force. | |
| • | If the U.S. can make such a threat credibly, then Iran will acquiesce, no actual force will be needed, and the decades-long Iranian nuclear threat will finally end. | |
| • | But, unlike apocalyptic betrayals, such a bold show of force is unthinkable for Obama, and so we could be looking at a nuclear World War III in the not-too-distant future. | |
Religious Illiteracy Hampers West’s Response to Radical Islam (INN 03/30/2015)
| • | As ISIS was busy slaughtering Yazidis, Coptic Christians and western hostages, burning fellow Muslim alive, and destroying ancient pre-Islamic artifacts, President Obama was denying its spiritual pedigree and planning a White House summit on violent extremism that would deny any connection between radical Islam and terrorism. | |
| • | The very use of the term "violent extremism" minimized the terrorist threat by obscuring its ideological motivations. And by using neutral terminology to mask its doctrinal character and goals, the president didn't simply ignore the religious connection – he affirmatively denied it and thus facilitated Islamist dissimulation. | |
| • | He also attempted to shift blame for terrorism by legitimizing Muslim grievances against the West and attributing the actions of religious extremists to economic privation. | |
| • | With other world leaders and moderate Muslims finally acknowledging the threat, President Obama's steadfast refusal to do likewise seems pathological. | |
| • | His denial of the religious foundation for much of today's terrorism – and for Iran's nuclear ambitions – is a slap in the face of reality and an insult to Israel and all other U.S. allies that are targets of Islamist aggression. | |
| • | Moreover, it demonstrates either ignorance of history or an affinity for those committed to religious totalitariarism. | |
| • | Furthermore, any discussion that misrepresents Islamist terror as "violent extremism," or fails to acknowledge that its primary targets are Jews, westerners, "infidels" and "heretics," serves only to camouflage the problem. | |
| • | ... western society's inadequate response to Islamic radicalism arises from religious illiteracy and ignorance of history. | |
| • | Gaps in popular knowledge exist because of the secular progressive penchant for belittling domestic religious traditions, criticizing western culture's global influence, and suppressing history that contravenes liberal sensibilities. | |
| • | In contrast, followers of Islam have engaged in jihad, which is explicitly referenced in the Quran, from its earliest days to the present in many parts of the world. | |
| • | The ability to understand religious differences is essential for understanding the conflict between Islamist radicalism and western values. | |
| • | ... "[we] love death, while you love life." ... this observation is indicative of a master-slave worldview in which those in control do not fear death, but rather prefer it over the loss of mastery and freedom, while the slave accepts his lowly status in order to preserve life. | |
| • | Those who value life are more likely to accept subservience than those who are willing to kill or die to advance their ideology and preserve their mastery. | |
| • | It is difficult to analyze religious extremism in the absence of a countervailing belief system against which to compare. When confronted with Islamist ideology, some progressives attempt to accommodate it in the name of multiculturalism, or to deem negative reactions to it as bigoted and insensitive. Such responses are certainly informed by religious illiteracy, but are also shaped by moral relativism and ignorance of history. | |
| • | Those who believe all religions are fundamentally the same often have little understanding of their own traditions and thus have no standard for determining how extremism deviates from normative faith. | |
| • | Christian and Jewish religious identities are shaped by relational covenants with G-d rather than the master-slave dynamic. | |
| • | This refusal has become a meme of his administration, often leading to absurd results, such as designating the Fort Hood shooting as workplace violence and referring to terrorism perpetrated by Muslims as "man-caused disasters." | |
| • | Those who refuse to make the connection must deny the long history of jihadist colonialism in the Mideast, India, Africa, Asia and Europe, where fanatical armies subjugated indigenous peoples, destroyed their sacred places, and exterminated those who refused to submit. | |
| • | In extolling the virtues of an idealized Muslim tolerance that never really existed, secular apologists from the president on down – liberals and conservatives alike – are simply parroting back dissimulation that is fed to them. | |
| • | As brutal as the Crusaders were to Jews, their campaigns against Muslims were reactions to the jihad that had been unleashed on Europe centuries earlier, and which was not finally quashed until the Battle of Vienna in 1683. | |
| • | "It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every Muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise." | |
| • | This cultural dumbing down is an inevitable consequence of the theological illiteracy and politicization of education ... which have compromised western society's ability to understand religious extremism. | |
| • | The problem is exacerbated by a multicultural elite that freely slanders and disparages Israel, Jews, Christians and western values, but which tends to excuse Islamist extremism or contextualize it disingenuously. | |
| • | However, mislabeling Islamist terrorism "workplace violence" or "violent extremism," or falsely comparing it to the lawful political activities of religious conservatives, only inhibits the ability to confront it. | |
| • | The situation will not change until westerners reclaim their own religious traditions, relearn their history, and take control of the dialogue from those who believe that religious terrorism is an understandable reaction to European and American chauvinism. | |
Obama’s Doomsday Plan for Israel – A Terrifying Possibility (INN 03/29/2015)
| • | Israel and the United States need to get ready to thwart a terrible surprise. | |
| • | I worry about bringing it up. It might give the President an idea he may have skipped, so it might be best to leave it unspoken. | |
| • | But we must approach the subject, like it or not, because the possibilities are staggering. In fact, I'd be surprised if it were not already the central part of the deal being manufactured between Obama and the ayatollahs toward an agreement that is entirely favorable to Iran regarding Iran's nuclear program. | |
| • | Could this be something in the works between Obama's Administration and Tehran? | |
| • | The deal would read that an attack upon Iran, by any country, would be viewed as an attack upon the United States. | |
| • | Farfetched? Let us hope so. But nearly every part of Obama's foreign policy is farfetched but happening. | |
| • | ... an American President abandoning Israel while embracing Iran, favoring a terrorist theocracy over an egalitarian democracy, and selling out Sunni partners for the Shiite monolith that is Iran. | |
| • | So if that's possible, anything is possible, including a mandate that forbids a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, and if such a measure failed to come from Obama's negotiators, Iran's ministers surely insisted. | |
| • | This Doctrine would be addressed against any country pondering deterrent action against Iran, but the message would be specific to Israel. | |
| • | If you say an Obama Doctrine to exclusively protect Iran would need Congressional approval, trust Obama to find a way around Congress. He always does | |
| • | He has "a pen and a phone" and he has nearly two more years. He has all the tools and he has used these tools to putrefy the Jewish State. | |
| • | But for Obama, demonizing Israel is a work in progress. Nothing has stopped him yet, whether it's getting even with America or settling scores with Israel. His remaining months in office are his for mopping up. | |
| • | Or maybe it is simply this man's nightmare. In that case forget everything I said and go back to sleep. | |
Germanwings disaster: Time to stop protecting medical privacy of pilots,.. (Fox 03/28/2015)
| • | But we do know that he had a medical condition, and that he tore up some of his doctor's notes, including one that excused him from working on Tuesday, and that he went to work in the morning instead of staying home. | |
| • | And we know that later that morning, 30 minutes after takeoff, he locked the pilot out of the cockpit and crashed an Airbus A320 into a mountain in the French Alps, killing himself and all 149 others onboard. | |
| • | How do we know that the people who hold our lives in their hands – our pilots, our train engineers, our ferry captains, our bus drivers, even our Uber taxi drivers – are mentally and physically up to the job? | |
| • | And how far are we willing to go to protect the privacy of strangers whose physical and mental condition are unknown to us, and possibly to their employers too, when they are responsible for our own safety and well-being? | |
| • | When it comes to psychological fitness, pilots are given a questionnaire that they fill it out and sign "on their honor." | |
| • | The relationship between mental illness and mass murder – whether by guns or by terrorism or by airplane – is indisputable, and the time to take measures to prevent deaths caused by that relationship is long past due. | |
| • | The health issues of individuals that put the public at risk simply have to be addressed, even if it means sacrificing some personal privacy. Self-reporting just won't do. | |
| • | We have to follow the oath of "first do no harm," and we have the responsibility to maintain patient confidentiality. But we are not taught that there's a broader perspective, a downstream effect. Our patients may have functions and responsibilities that affect the day-to-day lives of others. | |
| • | So when a doctor gives a patient a note excusing him from work, should he also have a responsibility to inform the patient's employer? Should he be obligated to report that his patient could be putting others in harm's way? | |
| • | We have to find a way to exchange personal health information between responsible parties that maintains confidentiality and also ensures that all parties are aware of a situation that could lead to a disaster. | |
| • | Going forward, it's obvious that employers will have to set higher standards in terms of what they require of their employees on the "front line." | |
| • | One obvious solution is to take greater efforts to reduce the stigma that remains attached to mental illness. | |
| • | Finally, workers on the "front line" – the pilots and bus drivers and train engineers and cabbies in whom we place our lives daily – need to have regular health evaluations that include psychological screening. | |
| • | In addition to Andreas Lubitz, 149 people lost their expectation of fruitful private lives on Tuesday. This is all the proof we need that we may have to sacrifice a little privacy for a few to ensure the continuing privacy of so many others. | |
Reassessing the Two State Solution (INN 03/27/2015)
| • | "Anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state, anyone who is going to evacuate territories today, is simply giving a base for attacks to the radical Islam against Israel. This is the true reality that was created here in the last few years." | |
| • | White House is ‘really angry' that the millions of US Government taxpayer dollars that Obama illegally spent on illegally toppling Netanyahu failed to do the trick. | |
| • | Would a Palestinian state existentially jeopardize Israel's security by constricting Israel into what is a hew Auschwitz with a Muslim terrorist Palestinian state within 10 miles of areas densely holding 70% of Israel's Jewish population on the coastal plain and another 15% of Israel's Jewish population in Jerusalem. | |
| • | If Gaza repeats itself in the 'West Bank', and the Palestinian state begins to lob katyusha rockets and anti-tank missiles into pre-1967 Israel, will the United States take the same even-handed approach it took to the combatants in all of the Gaza-Israel wars where Palestinians have fired over 20,000 rockets into pre-1967 Israel? | |
| • | If Muslims are using poison chemical gas in Syria to murder other Muslims, will the Islamist Muslims fighting in the to-be-created State of Palestine likely use poison chemical gas to murder the remaining densely-packed Jews in what is left of Israel? | |
| • | Will the rest of America's Middle East allies see Obama and America as having fatally betrayed their most vital and democratic ally? If the United States betrayed Israel, all of the US' remaining allies will likely believe they are next on the US betrayal list, and write-off the US as a reliable ally. | |
| • | After Obama's catastrophic decisions in bombing Libya's dictator, attempting to oust Mubarak from Egypt and replace him with the Muslim Brotherhood, handing Iraq to Iran, and protecting Assad, anointing Iran as a nuclear-weapons-threshold state, shouldn't Obama first reassess his own administration's total failure in the Middle East before taking any additional drastic actions? | |
| • | Or, is Obama's policy simply, without informing Congress, to unilaterally betray all of the United States' time-honored allies, and empower the hegemonic Shiite Iran with a nuclear arsenal to control the entire Middle East? | |
| • | Israel stands between 370 Million Muslims and the core NATO-Christian country of Greece, Europe's "soft-underbelly." ... Without Israel, is Greece defensible at any price? And for that matter, without Israel, is Europe defensible at any price? | |
| • | Or, instead of a Palestinian state falling to Iran, maybe it will fall to ISIS? What will America have to do to reverse such a calamity? And, what danger will this present to America's interests in the Middle East? | |
| • | Have the governing Palestinians of Hamas in Gaza and Abbas in Judea and Samaria shown themselves to be democratic, transparent civil societies? | |
| • | How will Israel's destruction affect the lives of the Palestinians that now live in relative peace and security? Will Israel become yet another Islamic sectarian battle-ground, and turn into another Syria, where millions of Muslims have been violently displaced by other Muslims and brutally murdered? | |
Inside the mind of Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz (Fox 03/27/2015)
Rethinking Israel's Position on the Palestinian Authority (INN 03/27/2015)
| • | Bitterly disappointed at the outcome of the election, President Obama and his spokespeople claim that their reassessment is the result of Netanyahu's statements on the eve of the election that apparently repudiated his previous support for the two-state solution. | |
| • | Their delicate feelings were also hurt by the Prime Minister's truthful statement on the day of the election that foreign sources were bringing Israeli-Arabs to the voting booth "en masse" in a coordinated effort to defeat him. | |
| • | Among the threats being issued by the White House and State Department representatives is the warning that the United States is likely to refrain from vetoing, and even might support, a resolution in the United States Security Council calling for the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines, the halting and dismantling of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, and the division of Jerusalem. | |
| • | Obama's undeniable antipathy towards Israel and determination to midwife the birth of a Palestinian state should not be underestimated. | |
| • | The Prime Minister can announce that the Israeli government has reassessed its longstanding support for, and protection of, the Palestinian Authority. | |
| • | Prime Minister Netanyahu can announce that if the Palestinians want independence, they can have it, in spades. The Palestinian Authority will be responsible for providing its own people with electricity, water and other government services. No longer will Israel assume that responsibility. | |
| • | The Palestinian Authority will be responsible for building its own economy and finding employment for its people, as Palestinians will no longer be able to cross the Green Line to find employment by Israelis. | |
| • | Finally, Netanyahu can announce that the IDF will no longer offer physical protection to Mahmoud Abbas and other officials of the Palestinian Authority. Abu Mazen and his henchmen can rely on their own forces to protect them from the tender mercies of Hamas. | |
| • | This will, of course, lead to the immediate disintegration of the Palestinian Authority. There will be a civil war among various Palestinian factions, and the Arab areas of Judea and Samaria will soon start to resemble what is left of Syria and Iraq as the Palestinians begin to slaughter each other. | |
| • | The collapse of the Palestinian Authority will not be cost free to Israel, which is why Abbas frequently issues empty threats to dismantle the Palestinian Authority himself. | |
| • | Nevertheless, the possibility that Israel will take this step in response to any change in support by the United States for Israel in various international bodies should be floated. | |
| • | Simply put, if the Obama Administration can reassess its position with regard to Israel, the Netanyahu government can reassess its position with regard to the Palestinian Authority. The street runs two ways. | |
Netanyahu Must Remember Begin’s Lessons From The Holocaust (INN 03/25/2015)
| • | I believe the lessons of the Holocaust are these. | |
| • | First, if an enemy of our people says he seeks to destroy us, believe him. Don't doubt him for a moment. Don't make light of it. Do all in your power to deny him the means of carrying out his satanic intent. | |
| • | Second, when a Jew anywhere in the world is threatened or under attack, do all in your power to come to his aid. Never pause to wonder what the world will think or say. The world will never pity slaughtered Jews. The world may not necessarily like the fighting Jew, but the world will have to take account of him. | |
| • | Third, a Jew must learn to defend himself. He must forever be prepared for whenever threat looms. | |
| • | Fourth, Jewish dignity and honor must be protected in all circumstances. The seeds of Jewish destruction lie in passively enabling the enemy to humiliate us. Only when the enemy succeeds in turning the spirit of the Jew into dust and ashes in life, can he turn the Jew into dust and ashes in death. During the Holocaust it was after the enemy had humiliated the Jews, trampled them underfoot, divided them, deceived them, afflicted them, drove brother against brother, only then could he lead them, almost without resistance, to the gates of Auschwitz. Therefore, at all times and whatever the cost, safeguard the dignity and honor of the Jewish people. | |
| • | Fifth, stand united in the face of the enemy. We Jews love life, for life is holy. But there are things in life more precious than life itself. There are times when one must risk life for the sake of rescuing the lives of others. And when the few risk their own lives for the sake of the many, then they, too, stand the chance of saving themselves. | |
| • | Sixth, there is a pattern to Jewish history. In our long annals as a nation, we rise, we fall, we return, we are exiled, we are enslaved, we rebel, we liberate ourselves, we are oppressed once more, we rebuild, and again we suffer destruction, climaxing in our own lifetime in the calamity of calamities, the Holocaust, followed by the rebirth of the Jewish State. | |
| • | So, yes, we have come full circle, and with G-d's help, with the rebirth of sovereign Israel we have finally broken the historic cycle: no more destruction and no more defeats, and no more oppression – only Jewish liberty, with dignity and honor. These, I believe, are the underlying lessons to be learned from the unspeakable tragedy of the Holocaust. | |
Iran Nuclear Deal: Does Obama want Israel to commit suicide? (Fox 03/24/2015)
| • | He added that in the end, his nation could not trust any nation with its fate and security. The protection of Israel, he said, was ultimately the responsibility of Israelis. | |
| • | Begin's comment was prophetic given the petulance of our current president, who behaves like an enemy of Israel when he attempts to impose a Palestinian state on Israel and negotiate a deal with Iran that can only lead to new threats against the Jewish state and further destabilize the chaotic Middle East. | |
| • | In his determination to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear weapons program (which Iran has denied exists, so what is the U.S. negotiating?), President Obama has traded history, facts and reality for a potential deal with a regime that promotes terrorism around the world and is busy attaching Iraq to its vision of a greater Persian Empire. | |
| • | Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei again called for "Death to America," just one day after President Obama appealed to Iranians in a video message to seize a "historic opportunity" for a nuclear deal and a better future. | |
| • | The president is cozying up to a nation that oppresses women, has an apocalyptic view of the world and believes that if it starts a nuclear war the 12th Imam — the Islamic messiah — will emerge from a well and bring peace on Earth and good will, at least to Shia Muslim men. | |
| • | Israel, which embraces Western values of free elections, religious tolerance and pluralism, a free press and equal rights for women is treated by President Obama and his administration as Iran should be treated. | |
| • | Do these people suffer from diplomatic dyslexia, or anti-Semitism? | |
| • | Why should Israel be forced to surrender more land to an enemy that has sworn to destroy it? A Palestinian state would likely be used as a launching pad for an attack. Gaza is a perfect example. It has been used by Hamas to attack Israel, which unilaterally and foolishly gave it up in hopes of promoting peace. | |
| • | Suicide is not in Israel's interests, or that of the United States, but suicide is what President Obama seems to want Israel to commit by pressuring it to return to indefensible 1967 borders and accept a nuclear deal with Iran. | |
| • | Arafat, his contemporaries and those who have come after him, desire only one state headed by themselves with no Jewish state and no Jewish presence, as evidenced by the wars and terrorist attacks they have launched and continue to wage against Israel. | |
| • | In his dangerous pursuit of a problematic nuclear weapons deal with Iran and his attempt to marry a cancerous Palestinian state to the land of Israel, President Obama is not purging evil; he's inviting it to spread. | |
Senator Rubio Rips Obama's 'Historic Mistake' on Israel (INN 03/20/2015)
| • | "Israel is everything we want that region of the world to be." | |
| • | ... in 2012 Obama was among the first to call and congratulate Russia's Vladimir Putin, President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as well as Chinese Communist leaders, and in 2013 he likewise rushed to call Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. | |
| • | ... after Iran's "fraudulent election" of 2009, a local Green Revolution started and was violently put down - in that case, Obama refused to "interfere in the sovereignty of Iran." | |
| • | ... Israeli withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza turned them into rocket launching grounds... | |
| • | ... the PA turned down every peace offer... | |
| • | ... 6% of the PA budget goes to jailed terrorists and their families including with foreign donor money... | |
| • | "These are the people that this president wants to put pressure on them (Israel) to cut a peace deal with" | |
| • | "I think Netanyahu is right that the conditions do not exist for a peace deal with people who teach their children that killing Jews is a glorious thing ... that there's no such thing as a Jewish people, that any methods of destroying them is valid, that pay them salaries and benefits." | |
| • | ... "this president is making an historic mistake. Allies have differences, but allies like Israel, when you have a difference with them and you make it public, it emboldens their enemies...to launch more terrorist attacks, to go to more international forums and delegitimize Israel's right to exist." | |
| • | ... "this is outrageous, it is irresponsible, it is dangerous, and it betrays the commitment this nation has made to the right of a Jewish state to exist in peace." | |
| • | "They deserve to be treated with more respect, not less, than this president is giving the supreme leader of Iran." | |
| • | "If America doesn't stand with Israel, who would we stand with? If they are not worthy of our unconditional support, then what ally of ours around the world can feel safe in their alliance with us?" | |
Security Challenges of the New Israeli Government (INN 03/20/2015)
| • | It must thwart the nuclear program of Iran and prevent Tehran from gaining dominant control of the region. | |
| • | The US is racing toward an agreement that will legitimize the nuclear threshold status of Iran. Many key Mideast powers have signaled their displeasure with the nascent accord, as well as their desire to develop uranium enrichment capabilities on par with Iran. | |
| • | The American attempt to offer a nuclear umbrella to forestall regional nuclear proliferation – which is a strategic nightmare – is doomed to failure. No Arab leader trusts President Obama. | |
| • | Therefore, only a military strike to destroy the Iranian capability to produce fissionable material needed for nuclear bombs can stop nuclear proliferation in the region. | |
| • | The only country with ‘enough guts' to do this is Israel. This decision must be taken by the next Israeli government. The timetable for such a strike is not to be determined by additional Iranian progress on the nuclear path, but by the perceptions of regional leaders of Iranian ambitions and power. | |
| • | American willingness to accept a greater Iranian regional role undermines American credibility and underscores the need for Israeli action in the near future. | |
| • | An Israeli strike is needed to prevent nuclear proliferation and to prevent imperial and Islamist Iran from acquiring hegemony in the Middle East. History indicates that such Israeli actions are not welcomed by American administrations, but are highly appreciated later on. | |
| • | Israel's main challenge is to maintain its freedom of action, while on a collision course with current American policy. | |
| • | Over 90 percent of Israel's exports travel via the East Mediterranean. Moreover, this area is rich in energy resources that are vital for Israel's future prosperity. Yet, the East Mediterranean is increasingly becoming an Islamic lake. | |
| • | In short, we may soon see real piracy and terrorist attacks in the East Mediterranean. | |
| • | Since Israel cannot prevent all surprises (that is their nature), it must prepare for worst-case scenarios rather than be tempted by best-case, rosy dreams. | |
The Real Israel Stands with Netanyahu (INN 03/20/2015)
| • | Netanyahu won despite the establishment: newspapers, televisions, former ambassadors, former heads of the Mossad, former retired generals, all the writers and artists. | |
| • | Netanyahu dominated in the remote cities threatened by missiles from Hamas and Hezbollah... | |
No peace in our time (Washington Post, 03/19/2015)
| • | Of all the idiocies uttered in reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu's stunning election victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state while he is Israel's prime minister. | |
| • | The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected. | |
| • | The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish state. | |
| • | And without that, no Israeli government of any kind will agree to a Palestinian state. | |
| • | Today, however, there is a second reason a peace agreement is impossible: the supreme instability of the entire Middle East. For half a century, it was run by dictators no one liked but with whom you could do business. | |
| • | For example, the 1974 Israel-Syria disengagement agreement yielded more than four decades of near-total quiet on the border because the Assad dictatorships so decreed. | |
| • | That authoritarian order is gone, overthrown by the Arab Spring. Syria is wracked by a multi-sided civil war that has killed 200,000 people and that has al-Qaeda allies, Hezbollah fighters, government troops and even the occasional Iranian general prowling the Israeli border. | |
| • | From Mali to Iraq, everything is in flux. Amid this mayhem, by what magic would the West Bank, riven by a bitter Fatah-Hamas rivalry, be an island of stability? | |
| • | There was a time when Arafat commanded the Palestinian movement the way Gaddafi commanded Libya. Abbas commands no one. Why do you think he is in the 11th year of a four-year term, having refused to hold elections for the last five years? Because he's afraid he would lose to Hamas. | |
| • | With or without elections, the West Bank could fall to Hamas overnight. At which point fire rains down on Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and the entire Israeli urban heartland — just as it rains down on southern Israel from Gaza when it suits Hamas, which has turned that first Palestinian state into a terrorist fire base. | |
| • | Any Arab-Israeli peace settlement would require Israel to make dangerous and inherently irreversible territorial concessions on the West Bank in return for promises and guarantees. Under current conditions, these would be written on sand. | |
| • | Well, say the critics. Israel could be given outside guarantees. Guarantees? Like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which the United States, Britain and Russia guaranteed Ukraine's "territorial integrity"? Like the red line in Syria? Like the unanimous U.N. resolutions declaring illegal any Iranian enrichment of uranium — now effectively rendered null? | |
| • | Peace awaits three things. Eventual Palestinian acceptance of a Jewish state. A Palestinian leader willing to sign a deal based on that premise. A modicum of regional stability that allows Israel to risk the potentially fatal withdrawals such a deal would entail. | |
| • | I believe such a day will come. But there is zero chance it comes now or even soon. That's essentially what Netanyahu said Thursday in explaining — and softening — his no-Palestinian-state statement. | |
| • | In the interim, I understand the crushing disappointment of the Obama administration and its media poodles at the spectacular success of the foreign leader they loathe more than any other on the planet. The consequent seething and sputtering are understandable, if unseemly. | |
| • | Blaming Netanyahu for banishing peace, however, is mindless. | |
Iran deal would reportedly ease sanctions immediately, allow nuclear enrichment (Fox 03/19/2015)
| • | "Iran's role in fomenting instability in the region — not to mention Iran's horrendous repression at home — demonstrates the risks of negotiating with a partner we cannot trust." | |
| • | "When they sign the deal, that will be the beginning of new negotiations, because Iran will violate the agreement before the ink is dry and then we'll be back at the table. I wouldn't trust these people with a spare electron." | |
| • | "We cannot trust the Iranians to do anything other than to pursue what they have been pursuing for decades, a nuclear weapons program, secretly and in the open." | |
| • | "There isn't a snowball's chance in Hell you would get the Chinese and Russians back on board. This is a permanent unraveling of the sanctions." | |
| • | After the deal expires, Iran could theoretically ramp up enrichment to whatever level or volume it wants. | |
Iran’s recent actions raise uncertainty for nuclear deal (Fox 03/19/2015)
| • | "If the sanctions are lifted immediately that would be a great mistake ... the Iranians sense that they have a pretty strong hand in trying to get these things lifted immediately." | |
| • | ... the United Nations has seen Iran doing things that already are very questionable ... will the Iranians make this agreement, but 'you still can't look at everything we have' ... if that is the case then we have no reason to trust them." | |
| • | "There is very little reason to trust Iran. Iran has repeatedly accelerated its nuclear program during that time as negotiations were taking place ... there is little reason to assume automatically that we can trust it in the future." | |
| • | "This is already the third time they have moved the timeline – I think they are going to move it another three months in part because the Iranians keep increasing their demands. I think in the end, the Iranians might be the ones who scuttle this agreement." | |
Israel election: What Netanyahu's victory means (Fox 03/18/2015)
| • | "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." | |
| • | Israel's next prime minister must come up with a plan to thwart Tehran, whose leaders continue to call for the Jewish State's annihilation, from becoming a nuclear power. | |
| • | Additionally, Jerusalem will be confronted with a new strategic threat from Iran and its Hezbollah terrorist lackeys whose brazen entrenchment on the Golan Heights has raised nary a peep from the U.S. or the European Union. | |
| • | Against this background it seems almost ludicrous for anyone to believe that Israeli voters could somehow be manipulated by forces outside of Israel as to whom they should cast their ballots for. | |
| • | For most Israeli parents — right, center, and left — who have to send their 18-year-old sons and daughters for two years of military service to protect the homeland — they cast their votes as if their lives and the lives of their children depend on making the right choice. | |
| • | Those in Washington who were reportedly involved in such an effort did a great disservice to both democracies. | |
| • | Love him or hate him, everyone in the Chamber, and Israelis watching at home, saw a true world leader in action. In the end, his respectful and masterful speech reminded everyone, that he has earned his place on the international stage, no matter how discomfiting his message is to some. | |
Israel election: Netanyahu's win rebuke to Obama, mandate to stay course (Fox 03/18/2015)
| • | And I am proud, I am proud for the people of Israel, that in the moment of truth, knew to make the right decision and to choose the real material things over immaterial things." | |
| • | This is a tremendous turn around that not only gives Netanyahu the mandate to continue to govern as he has, but it is also a clear and obvious rebuke to President Obama. | |
| • | It was more important to make his case on the controversial Iranian nuclear deal than to win friends in the White House. | |
| • | President Obama had Democrat operatives working for Netanyahu's opponent in Israel. | |
| • | But Netanyahu's win isn't just a rebuke to Obama, it also undermines the Europeans who placed a disproportionate emphasis on the importance of establishing a Palestinian state. | |
| • | As for the Iran nuclear deal, which is in the final stages of negotiations, Netanyahu's victory represents a huge point of concern for the future of the deal. | |
| • | Further, Netanyahu's win indicates that his final campaign assertion that he would not accept a Palestinian state could well have made the difference for him. | |
| • | All of this is bad news for the Iran nuclear deal and bad news for efforts to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on terms that the U.S. has wanted. | |
| • | All of this is bad news for the Iran nuclear deal and bad news for efforts to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on terms that the U.S. has wanted. | |
| • | ... make no mistake about it, this is a central rebuff to Barack Obama, his policies and approach. | |
Has a Christian Holocaust begun? When will West wake up to ISIS threat (Fox 03/16/2015)
| • | "People in the West say ‘they don't know.' How can you not know? You either support ISIS or you must have turned off all the satellites. I am sorry to say this, but my pain is big." | |
| • | Mosul was easily taken by ISIS troops, riding in on their decrepit pick up trucks with guns bolted to them. Her ancient streets have since been turned red with innocent blood, and the city has become a base for a jihad that rages wildly throughout the entire region and boils underground in scores of countries throughout the world. | |
| • | At present, as many as 300 Assyrian Christians remain in captivity having been kidnapped two weeks ago as ISIS assaulted ten Assyrian, Christian villages along the Khabour River in Syria. That assault was conducted by a group of ISIS fighters travelling in a convoy of more than 40 clearly marked ISIS vehicles directly toward these vulnerable, Christian villages. | |
| • | How is it possible that Western satellites didn't spot a forty-car ISIS convoy in route to unarmed Christian villages in Syria, and if it was spotted how is that it wasn't destroyed? | |
| • | The prevailing argument against Western engagement, or Western support of regional engagement, remains a sense that this is "their" fight and not ours. | |
| • | The fact is, we will deal with this crisis there or we will deal with it here. | |
Putin vs. the preppies and the Ph.D.s: Outsiders, not insiders, change the world (Fox 03/13/2015)
| • | Why do our "best and brightest" fail when faced with a man like Putin? Or with charismatic fanatics? Or Iranian negotiators? | |
| • | Why do they misread our enemies so consistently, from Hitler and Stalin to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliph? | |
| • | The answer is straightforward: | |
| • | Social insularity: Our leaders know fellow insiders around the world; our enemies know everyone else. | |
| • | The mandarin's distaste for physicality: We are led through blood-smeared times by those who've never suffered a bloody nose. | |
| • | Our leadership has been educated in chaste political theory, while our enemies know, firsthand, the stuff of life. | |
| • | Above all, there is arrogance based upon privilege. | |
| • | Dramatic, revolutionary change in geopolitics never comes from insiders. It's the outsiders who change the world. In the 21st century, our government suffers from the sclerosis of insider thinking that constantly reinforces itself and rejects conflicting evidence. | |
| • | The result is that we are being whipped by savages. | |
| • | And we get generals with Ivy League Ph.D.s writing military doctrine that adheres cringingly to politically correct truisms and leaves out the very factors, such as the power of religion or ethnic hatred, that prove decisive. | |
| • | That analyst overlooked the fact that Hitler had been a mere lance corporal. Stalin was a failed seminarian. Lenin was a destitute syphilitic. Ho Chi Minh washed dishes in the basement of a Paris Hotel. And when the French Revolution erupted, Napoleon was a junior artillery officer. | |
| • | The "man on horseback" is often the man from nowhere, and the members of the club ignore the torches in the streets until the club burns down around them. | |
| • | We are led by men and women educated to believe in the irresistible authority of their own words. | |
| • | When they encounter others who use words solely to deflect and defraud, or, worse, when their opposite numbers ignore words completely and revel in ferocious violence, our best and brightest go into an intellectual stall and keep repeating the same empty phrases (in increasingly tortured tones): | |
| • | "Violence never solves anything." "There's no military solution." "War is never the answer." "Only a negotiated solution can resolve this crisis." "It isn't about religion." | |
| • | Or the latest and lamest: "We need to have strategic patience," and "Terrorists need jobs." | |
| • | Every one of those statements is, demonstrably, nonsense most — or all — of the time. | |
| • | So we find ourselves with leaders who would rather defend platitudes than defend their country. | |
| • | Once-great universities have turned into political indoctrination centers worthy of the high Stalinist Era or the age of Mao's Cultural Revolution. | |
| • | This is not an argument against education. Rather, it is an argument for education and against indoctrination. | |
| • | We face a new age of barbarism. And we're led by those whose notion of violence is a rugby game at Princeton, who won't let their children play unattended but deny the murderous impulses haunting humanity. | |
Global Warming (JWR 03/11/2015)
| • | "But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact." | |
| • | "Changes in average weather conditions that persist over multiple decades or longer. Climate change encompasses both increases and decreases in temperature, as well as shifts in precipitation, changing risk of certain types of severe weather events, and changes to other features of the climate system." | |
| • | That definition covers all weather phenomena throughout all 4.54 billion years of Earth's existence. | |
| • | Today CO2 concentrations worldwide average about 380 parts per million. This level of CO2 concentration is trivial compared with the concentrations during earlier geologic periods. For example, 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period, CO2 concentrations were 4,400 ppm, and temperatures then were about the same as they are today. With such high levels of CO2, at least according to the warmers, the Earth should have been boiling. | |
| • | Climate change propaganda is simply a ruse for a socialist agenda. | |
| • | "One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy." | |
| • | "Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection. ... The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world's resources will be negotiated." | |
| • | The most disgusting aspect of the climate change debate is the statements by many that it's settled science. There is nothing more anti-scientific than the idea that any science is settled. | |
Jobs for Jihadists? Mr. Obama, poverty doesn’t create terrorism, ideology does (Fox 03/09/2015)
| • | According to President Obama and other administration officials, ISIS has been empowered because Muslims around the world lack economic opportunities. And until these "legitimate grievances" — as the president recently put it — are addressed, Islamic terrorism will continue to grow and ISIS will gain new followers. | |
| • | In blaming the rise of ISIS on economic woes and substandard social conditions in the Muslim world, President Obama has truly entered the Twilight Zone. | |
| • | Their desire to live under ISIS's brutal rule has nothing to do with lack of career opportunities or fair housing and everything to do with ideology. | |
| • | All three left behind potentially prosperous careers to join the most sadistic terrorist movement in memory. | |
| • | Even before ISIS emerged onto the world scene, the tired "poverty causes terrorism" canard had been roundly discredited (before being resurrected by the Obama administration). | |
| • | As the rise of ISIS proves yet again, poverty does not cause terrorism — ideology does. While impoverished people have committed and will continue to commit acts of terrorism, their actions ... are ultimately motivated by an ideological commitment to violent jihad. | |
| • | ... Obama administration would be well-advised to reverse its disastrous course and acknowledge that fact. | |
Exclusive: El-Sisi urges ‘Arab ready force’ to confront ISIS, questions if US 'standing by’ Egypt (Fox 03/09/2015)
| • | ... suspension of U.S. equipment and arms to his country has sent a "negative indication to the public opinion that the United States is not standing by the Egyptians." | |
| • | "We have to admit that terrorism is now a major threat not only to Egypt or even the immediate region, but it is a threat to the stability and security of the whole world." | |
| • | "We can also see that the map of terrorism and extremism is expanding, it is not recessing." | |
| • | Addressing the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in his country, he spoke out against what he described as "political Islam." | |
| • | He said the people of Egypt have a "real fear of this kind" of system, adding they feel "these people have turned their lives into a living hell." | |
A Churchillian warning: Netanyahu offered a real alternative on Iran (JWR 03/06/2015)
| • | It had been the policy of every president since 1979 that Islamist Iran must be sanctioned and contained. | |
| • | Obama, however, is betting instead on detente to tame Iran's aggressive behavior and nuclear ambitions. | |
| • | He did the same with Russia. He offered Vladimir Putin a new detente. "Reset," he called it. Putin responded by decimating his domestic opposition, unleashing a vicious anti-American propaganda campaign, ravaging Ukraine and shaking the post-Cold War European order to its foundations. | |
| • | ... Obama learns nothing. He persists in believing that Iran's radical Islamist regime can be turned by sweet reason and fine parchment into a force for stability. It's akin to his refusal to face the true nature of the Islamic State, Iran's Sunni counterpart | |
| • | The prime minister offered a concrete alternative. Sunset? Yes, but only after Iran changes its behavior, giving up its regional aggression and worldwide support for terror. | |
| • | Obama's petulant response was: "The prime minister didn't offer any viable alternatives." | |
| • | But he just did: conditional sunset, smaller infrastructure. | |
| • | And if the Iranians walk away, then you ratchet up sanctions, as Congress is urging, which, with collapsed oil prices, would render the regime extremely vulnerable. | |
| • | And if that doesn't work? Hence Netanyahu's final point: Israel is prepared to stand alone, a declaration that was met with enthusiastic applause reflecting widespread popular support. | |
| • | In its near-70 year history, Israel has never once asked America to fight for it. Not in 1948 when 650,000 Jews faced 40 million Arabs. Not in 1967 when Israel was being encircled and strangled by three Arab armies. Not in 1973 when Israel was on the brink of destruction. Not in the three Gaza wars or the two Lebanon wars. | |
| • | Compare that to a very partial list of nations for which America has fought and for which so many Americans have fallen: Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Vietnam, Korea, and every West European country beginning with France (twice). | |
| • | Change the deal, strengthen the sanctions, give Israel a free hand. Netanyahu offered a different path in his clear, bold and often moving address, Churchillian in its appeal to resist appeasement. | |
| • | This was not Churchill of the 1940s, but Churchill of the 1930s, the wilderness prophet. Which is why for all its sonorous strength, Netanyahu's speech had a terrible poignancy. | |
| • | After all, Churchill was ignored. | |
Queen Esther? Wrong Costume, Bibi (INN 03/04/2015)
| • | Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave a great speech to Congress Tuesday, as could be expected. | |
| • | Netanyahu loves to use the word "responsible" when describing his actions, and inactions. | |
| • | But what if this scenario does not unfold? If Israel does find that it stands alone, will Israel truly stand up to Iran, as he thundered from the podium? | |
| • | In this context, the analogy Netanyahu has drawn to the Purim story, and the parallel between modern day Iran and ancient Persia, creates discomfort. | |
| • | But do we really want to compare ourselves, in 2015, to these ancient lobbyists in the court of the Persian empire? | |
| • | We are, after all, not a stateless vassal nation inside an empire. We are an independent country. We have our own military, and its capabilities for wreaking destruction, at the moment, are far greater than those of Iran. | |
| • | Experts are unanimous in saying that our military options, in the face of threats of annihilation, range from attempts to destroy nuclear facilities with conventional weapons, to the use of our own unconventional weapons, such as they are | |
| • | But weapons are one thing, and the readiness to use them is something quite different, as we learned most recently in Operation Protective Edge, and as we see daily in the way soldiers and civilians are prevented from defending themseves from Arab terror attacks. | |
| • | What kind of deterrence do we project when we are afraid to annihilate Hamas mortars, even as they shell our own civilians, because some court somewhere might indict us for it? | |
| • | Who seriously believes that the same Israel that puts its own soldiers on trial for shooting terrorists, would be bold enough to launch an attack on nuclear facilities, if the attack could cause a radioactive cloud to be released – not to mention the actual use of unconventional weapons by Israel? | |
| • | Dare we launch an operation that would involve the risk of large-scale death in Iran? Or is Iran safe in the knowledge that Israel's formidable arsenal is no more than a dummy threat, never to be used, even in the most extreme of circumstances? | |
| • | "The David's Sling" anti-missile system notwithstanding, King David did not use his sling to break Goliath's sword. He used it to break Goliath's head. | |
| • | Alas, Netanyahu has chosen the wrong costume to wear this Purim. We do not need him as Queen Esther, or even as Mordechai the Jew. We need a King David. Is that too much to ask? | |
Netanyahu: Israel Will Stand Alone if It Must (INN 03/04/2015)
| • | In 1967, Benjamin Netanyahu skipped his high school graduation in Pennsylvania to head off to Israel to help in the Six Day War. That same year Obama moved with his mother to Indonesia. | |
| • | When Obama suggested that Israel return to the pre-1967 borders, described by Ambassador Eban, no right-winger, as "Auschwitz borders," it was personal for Netanyahu. Like many Israeli teens, he had put his life on hold and risked it protecting those borders. | |
| • | In the seventies, Obama was part of the Choom Gang and Netanyahu was sneaking up on Sabena Flight 571 dressed as an airline technician. Inside were four terrorists who had already separated Jewish passengers and taken them hostage. Two hijackers were killed. Netanyahu took a bullet in the arm. | |
| • | Netanyahu's speech in Congress was part of that same clash of worldviews. His high school teacher remembered him saying that his fellow students were living superficially and that there was "more to life than adolescent issues." | |
| • | He came to Congress to cut through the issues of an administration that has never learned to get beyond its adolescence. | |
| • | Obama's people had taunted him with by calling him "chickens__t." They had encouraged a boycott of his speech and accused him of insulting Obama. | |
| • | Benjamin Netanyahu had left high school behind to go to war. Now he was up against overgrown boys and girls who had never grown beyond high school. | |
| • | A measure of how thoroughly Netanyahu exposed Obama's unseriousness can be found in Obama's reply that before taking a position on a nuclear deal "it is very important not to be distracted by the nature of the Iranian regimes' ambitions when it comes to territory or terrorism." | |
| • | For Netanyahu and for many in Congress, Iran's terrorism is not a distraction; it is the main issue. | |
| • | Obama insists in that same interview that "sanctions are not sufficient to prevent Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions." And yet the entire premise of the deal he's pushing is that the sanctions forced Iran to come to the negotiating table and agree to give up its race for the bomb. | |
| • | Sanctions can't stop Iran from going nuclear, but negotiations using the sanctions as leverage can. | |
| • | It's self-contradictory nonsense that wouldn't pass muster in a high school paper in 1967. And yet it's the unchallenged argument dominating the political class, foreign policy experts and the media today. | |
| • | Netanyahu came to challenge the argument that Iran could be appeased out of getting the bomb. He had to do it because Obama and his media allies had ignored or shut up everyone who had made it before him. | |
| • | Netanyahu offered an alternative to another worthless nuclear agreement by focusing not only on Iran's nuclear capability, but on its intentions. He asked the world to turn its attention to stopping Iran from attacking its neighbors and engaging in terrorism. | |
| • | The former high school student who had been described as a "lone voice in the wilderness" closed his speech by saying, "Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand." | |
Crossing the Kremlin: Nemtsov latest in long line of Putin critics to wind up dead (Fox 03/04/2015)
| • | Enemies of Vladimir Putin have a way of winding up dead. Whether they are poisoned, gunned down on the streets of Moscow or blown to bits in their homes, people who have crossed or merely criticized the Russian president have turned up dead around the world. | |
| • | "I believe Vladimir Putin is a stone-cold killer. Anyone who gets in the way seems to be arrested, exiled or killed." | |
| • | Sergei Yushenkov was gunned down in front of his home in April 2003. Yushenkov was part of a commission that investigated claims the KGB orchestrated bombings to ignite support for Putin's war against Chechnya. A second member of the commission was fatally poisoned, a third nearly lost his life after being severely beaten, and the attorney for the commission was imprisoned for espionage. | |
| • | Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov was shot to death in Moscow in July 2004, after he reportedly uncovered a money-laundering scheme that reached the highest levels of the Kremlin. Two suspects were charged, but later acquitted. He was one of more than 300 journalists in Russia who have disappeared or been murdered since 1993, according to a June 2009 report from the International Federation of Journalists. | |
| • | In June 2004, human rights advocate and professor Nikolai Girenko was assassinated in his home. | |
| • | Andrei Kozlov, a top official at Russia's Central Bank who dedicated his career to eliminating money laundering, was killed in September 2006. | |
| • | Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote books and articles accusing Putin of human rights violations in Chechnya, was executed in an elevator in her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006. | |
| • | Human rights attorney Stanislav Markelov was shot in the head in January 2009, as he left a press conference where he announced plans to sue the Russian government. Journalism student Anastasia Barburova was killed as she tried to intervene. | |
| • | Human rights journalist Natalia Estemirova, was killed in July 2009, after being kidnapped from her home in Chechnya. | |
| • | Two well-known cases of the poisoning of Putin adversaries involved former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. | |
| • | Boris Berezovsky, a onetime billionaire who was ... leading a campaign against Putin ... turned up dead. Russian officials say he hanged himself, but an independent autopsy found Berezovsky was attacked and hanged. | |
| • | "Putin gets away with it because the Russian state controls the media in Russia, it rules with an iron fist, and Russians are deeply afraid of their own government." | |
| • | "Putin sits atop a vicious tyranny. Ordinary Russians won't stand up to the state. There is a climate of fear with the Putin regime exercising a vise-like grip over the Russian people." | |
| • | "The murder of Boris Nemtsov means that the gloves are off in Russia. It used to be, for very high-profile politicians, they were imprisoned or put into exile. But the assassination of Boris Nemtsov within feet of the Kremlin means Putin and his cronies have no shame and international and domestic opinion means nothing to them." | |
Yes, Netanyahu Pulled it Off (INN 02/03/2015)
| • | From a diplomatic perspective, Netanyahu was walking a minefield; how to oppose the White House from within Congress without it looking like an all-out attack? | |
| • | Instead, the Israeli PM merely outlined his country's perspective, and laid out clearly and succinctly, in just two points, precisely what is so wrong with the looming deal: | |
| • | 1. The fact that it allows Iran to maintain its current nuclear capabilities, merely pausing their program but still leaving Tehran fully capable of reaching the nuclear threshold at a later date of its choosing; and | |
| • | 2. Even more obscenely, giving the deal a 10-year expiration date, after which Iran is legitimately allowed to go ahead and... build nuclear weapons! | |
| • | Perversely (and that's probably the most suitable adjective to describe much of Obama's foreign policy), the very states most threatened by Iran's nuclear ambitions - Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab states - have been shunted aside throughout the entire diplomatic process, denied access to or any say whatsoever in the negotiations. | |
| • | Instead, we've been told to leave it to the boys who know best: patronizing western powers whose every naive foray into Middle Eastern diplomacy resembles an American tourist wandering haplessly through a "Persian bazaar," to borrow a rather fitting metaphor from Netanyahu's speech. | |
| • | This speech ... was Israel's attempt to foil those trying to shut it out, and have its voice heard. Nothing more, and nothing less. | |
| • | Israel is not some servile vassal state, ready and willing to die for the sake of a western experiment. | |
| • | While they can afford to be wrong, at least in the short-term, for us the stakes could not be higher. | |
| • | To put it another way: compared to the existential threat we face from a nuclear Iran, two years of a thoroughly peeved Barack Obama is a price we're willing to pay. | |
| • | As any normal country would do, we are even willing to risk our deepest friendships for the sake of our own survival and go it alone. | |
| • | "But I know that Israel does not stand alone — I know that America stands with Israel; I know that you stand with Israel." | |
| • | Where does Obama stand as he rushes headfirst into a desperate detente with Iran? That's not so clear at all. | |
Transcript of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech to Congress (Fox 03/03/2015)
| • | I know that my speech has been the subject of much controversy. I deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political. That was never my intention. | |
| • | The remarkable alliance between Israel and the United States has always been above politics. It must always remain above politics. | |
| • | Today the Jewish people face another attempt by yet another Persian potentate to destroy us. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei spews the oldest hatred, the oldest hatred of anti-Semitism with the newest technology. | |
| • | For those who believe that Iran threatens the Jewish state, but not the Jewish people, listen to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, Iran's chief terrorist proxy. He said: If all the Jews gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of chasing them down around the world. | |
| • | But Iran's regime is not merely a Jewish problem, any more than the Nazi regime was merely a Jewish problem. The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were but a fraction of the 60 million people killed in World War II. | |
| • | The regime's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, exhorted his followers to "export the revolution throughout the world." | |
| • | America's founding document promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Iran's founding document pledges death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad. | |
| • | Just last week, near Hormuz, Iran carried out a military exercise blowing up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier. That's just last week, while they're having nuclear talks with the United States. | |
| • | Iran took dozens of Americans hostage in Tehran, murdered hundreds of American soldiers, Marines, in Beirut, and was responsible for killing and maiming thousands of American service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. | |
| • | In the Middle East, Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa. And if Iran's aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow. | |
| • | So, at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations. | |
| • | We must all stand together to stop Iran's march of conquest, subjugation and terror. | |
| • | Iran's regime is as radical as ever, its cries of "Death to America,'' that same America that it calls the "Great Satan,'' as loud as ever. Now, this shouldn't be surprising, because the ideology of Iran's revolutionary regime is deeply rooted in militant Islam, and that's why this regime will always be an enemy of America. | |
| • | Don't be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn't turn Iran into a friend of America. | |
| • | Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam. One calls itself the Islamic Republic. The other calls itself the Islamic State. | |
| • | Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world. They just disagree among themselves who will be the ruler of that empire. | |
| • | So when it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy. | |
| • | The difference is that ISIS is armed with butcher knives, captured weapons and YouTube, whereas Iran could soon be armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs. | |
| • | We must always remember ... the greatest dangers facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. | |
| • | To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can't let that happen. | |
| • | The first major concession would leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure, providing it with a short break-out time to the bomb. | |
| • | True, certain restrictions would be imposed on Iran's nuclear program and Iran's adherence to those restrictions would be supervised by international inspectors. But here's the problem. You see, inspectors document violations; they don't stop them. | |
| • | Iran was also caught ... operating secret nuclear facilities in Natanz and Qom, facilities that inspectors didn't even know existed. Right now, Iran could be hiding nuclear facilities that we don't know about, the U.S. and Israel. | |
| • | "If there's no undeclared installation today in Iran, it will be the first time in 20 years that it doesn't have one." Iran has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted. | |
| • | But the second major concession creates an even greater danger that Iran could get to the bomb by keeping the deal. Because virtually all the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program will automatically expire in about a decade. | |
| • | Now, a decade may seem like a long time in political life, but it's the blink of an eye in the life of a nation. It's a blink of an eye in the life of our children. | |
| • | Now I want you to think about that. The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons and this with full international legitimacy. | |
| • | Iran could have the means to deliver that nuclear arsenal to the far-reach corners of the earth, including to every part of the United States. | |
| • | ... this deal has two major concessions: one, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program and two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade. | |
| • | So why would anyone make this deal? Because they hope that Iran will change for the better in the coming years, or they believe that the alternative to this deal is worse? | |
| • | This regime has been in power for 36 years, and its voracious appetite for aggression grows with each passing year. This deal would wet appetite — would only wet Iran's appetite for more. | |
| • | If Iran is gobbling up four countries right now while it's under sanctions, how many more countries will Iran devour when sanctions are lifted? | |
| • | Would Iran fund less terrorism when it has mountains of cash with which to fund more terrorism? | |
| • | Why should Iran's radical regime change for the better when it can enjoy the best of both world's: aggression abroad, prosperity at home? | |
| • | And many of these neighbors say they'll respond by racing to get nuclear weapons of their own. So this deal won't change Iran for the better; it will only change the Middle East for the worse. | |
| • | This deal won't be a farewell to arms. It would be a farewell to arms control. | |
| • | ... we don't have to bet the security of the world on the hope that Iran will change for the better. We don't have to gamble with our future and with our children's future. | |
| • | We can insist that restrictions on Iran's nuclear program not be lifted for as long as Iran continues its aggression in the region and in the world. | |
| • | Before lifting those restrictions, the world should demand that Iran do three things. First, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East. Second... Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world. And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state | |
| • | If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, let it act like a normal country. | |
| • | Now, if Iran threatens to walk away from the table — and this often happens in a Persian bazaar — call their bluff. They'll be back, because they need the deal a lot more than you do. | |
| • | ... for over a year, we've been told that no deal is better than a bad deal. Well, this is a bad deal. It's a very bad deal. We're better off without it. | |
| • | Now we're being told that the only alternative to this bad deal is war. That's just not true. The alternative to this bad deal is a much better deal. | |
| • | ... standing up to Iran is not easy. Standing up to dark and murderous regimes never is. | |
| • | Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel. I know that you stand with Israel. You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history's horrors. | |
| • | "Be strong and resolute, neither fear nor dread them." | |
What do All Islamist Terrorists Seek? (INN 03/01/2015)
| • | "Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power ... to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of God, and your enemies." Quran, 8:60 | |
| • | ... we need to ask a still broader and potentially more meaningful question: "What do all Jihadist terrorists really want?" | |
| • | The discovery of theory-based regularities constitutes the beginning of any science, including even Jihadist or Islamist counter-terrorism. | |
| • | To be sure, all Jihadi terrorists see themselves as responding to certain presumptively religious expectations. For them, bringing death and suffering to "apostates" and "unbelievers" is never difficult to justify. On the contrary; it is holy work. | |
| • | In theoretical matters of counter-terrorism (and nothing, one should be reminded, is ever more practical than good theory), some truths may emerge as counterintuitive. | |
| • | Aristotle's Poetics does not deal with terrorism, but it does explain that the main purpose of tragic "theatre" is not to excite us (the "audience") with the misfortunes of fellow human beings, but instead, to awaken within us a more primary fear for ourselves. | |
| • | Jihadist terrorism twists and amplifies pain within the single human body in order to influence those many others who live outside that body. Violating the inviolable, it shrieks loudly, and also with an unspeakable cruelty, "You are not immune!" ... "Your suffering will not be private." | |
| • | Oddly, we still hear, especially from educated quarters, that the Islamic "martyrs" who plan to slay Israelis or Americans or Europeans have a discernible political motive. | |
| • | At times, on the other hand, Jihadists are unabashedly truthful about their base motives: "The Palestinian problem is a religious one," says the Charter of Hamas, "to be dealt with on this premise ... `I swear by that (sic) who holds in His Hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill.'" | |
| • | In the end, what really matters to all these unheroic and unapologetic murderers, is to attain "Paradise," and, as an obvious corollary, to avoid the expectedly unbearable "torments of the grave." | |
| • | For the Jihadist terrorist, maximally cruel violence against specifically designated "others" is inextricably and perpetually linked to all that is sacred. | |
| • | Often, the openly declared motive of a Jihadist perpetrator remains as convenient fiction. For the most part, the torturer tortures, because he enjoys torturing. For the most part, the Islamist terrorist terrorizes with a deeply atavistic, and thoroughly lascivious delight. | |
| • | "Palestinians spearhead Allah's war against the Jews." preach the PA-appointed clergy on the Temple Mount: "The dead shall not rise until the Palestinians shall kill all the Jews..." | |
| • | The torturer cannot be stopped by answering his contrived questions. Similarly, the martyrdom-seeking Jihadist terrorist, spurred on by visions of a privileged ecstasy that obscenely fuses sex, violence, and immortality, cannot be slowed by any calculated surrender to his demands. | |
| • | For this Islamist operative, the chosen means of terror-violence are not only justified by the ends. Rather, they represent, in themselves, a fully complete and palpable source of deep personal satisfaction. | |
| • | "Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the ends meet and merge." | |
| • | What exactly is this ultimate power? It is power over death. | |
| • | "Do not consider those who are slain in the cause of Allah as dead," instructs the Quran, "for they are living by their Lord." | |
| • | ... humankind generally seeks to act for passion, and against reason. | |
| • | Islamist terrorists, it must be kept in mind, are never interested in any ordinary social or political objectives per se, but only as part of more presumptively obligatory "migrations," from the ephemeral Dar al-Harb (the "world of war"), to the unconquerable Dar al-Islam (the "world of Islam"). | |
| • | Whether or not this interest makes any sense to us is immaterial. The only thing that really matters is that it makes sense to them. | |
A fatal flaw: America's looming capitulation to Iran (JWR 02/27/2015)
| • | Sanctions lifted. Restrictions gone. Nuclear development legitimized. Iran would reenter the international community, as Obama suggested in an interview in December, as "a very successful regional power." | |
| • | The agreement thus would provide a predictable path to an Iranian bomb. Indeed, a flourishing path, with trade resumed, oil pumping and foreign investment pouring into a restored economy. | |
| • | Meanwhile, Iran's intercontinental ballistic missile program is subject to no restrictions at all. It's not even part of these negotiations. | |
| • | Why is Iran building them? ... Intercontinental missiles are for reaching, well, other continents. North America, for example. | |
| • | When a rogue state defies the world, continues illegal enrichment and then gets the world to bless an eventual unrestricted industrial-level enrichment program, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is dead. | |
| • | In fact, the Iranian regime just this week, at the apex of these nuclear talks, staged a spectacular attack on a replica U.S. carrier near the Strait of Hormuz. | |
| • | Well, say the administration apologists, what's your alternative? Do you want war? | |
| • | It's Obama's usual, subtle false-choice maneuver: It's either appeasement or war. | |
| • | It's not. True, there are no good choices, but Obama's prospective deal is the worst possible. Not only does Iran get a clear path to the bomb but it gets sanctions lifted, all pressure removed and international legitimacy. | |
| • | There is a third choice. If you are not stopping Iran's program, don't give away the store. Keep the pressure, keep the sanctions. Indeed, increase them. After all, previous sanctions brought Iran to its knees and to the negotiating table in the first place. And that was before the collapse of oil prices, which would now vastly magnify the economic effect of heightened sanctions. | |
| • | Congress is proposing precisely that. Combined with cheap oil, it could so destabilize the Iranian economy as to threaten the clerical regime. | |
| • | ... make it quietly known that the United States will not stand in the way of any threatened nation that takes things into its own hands. We leave the regional threat to the regional powers, say, Israeli bombers overflying Saudi Arabia. | |
| • | Such a deal makes the Cuba normalization look good and the Ukrainian cease-fires positively brilliant. We are on the cusp of an epic capitulation. History will not be kind. | |
Netanyahu is coming to Washington next week because Obama left him no choice (JWR 02/27/2015)
| • | For most of the nine years he has served as Israel's leader, first from 1996 to 1999 and now since 2009, Netanyahu shied away from confrontations or buckled under pressure. | |
| • | For his part, for the past six years Obama has undermined Israel's national security. He has publicly humiliated Netanyahu repeatedly. | |
| • | He has delegitimized Israel's very existence, embracing the jihadist lie that Israel's existence is the product of post-Holocaust European guilt rather than 4,000 years of Jewish history. | |
| • | Last summer, Obama openly colluded with Hamas's terrorist war against Israel. He tried to coerce Israel into accepting ceasefire terms that would have amounted to an unconditional surrender to Hamas's demands for open borders and the free flow of funds to the terrorist group. He enacted a partial arms embargo on Israel in the midst of war. He cut off air traffic to Ben-Gurion International Airport under specious and grossly prejudicial terms in an open act of economic warfare against Israel. | |
| • | And yet, despite Obama's scandalous treatment of Israel, Netanyahu has continued to paper over differences in public and thank Obama for the little his has done on Israel's behalf. | |
| • | Obama shocked the entire Israeli defense community when he supported the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, despite Mubarak's dependability as a US ally in the war on Islamist terrorism, and as the guardian of both Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and the safety and freedom of maritime traffic in the Suez Canal. | |
| • | Netanyahu said nothing publicly in criticism of Obama's destructive, dangerous policy. | |
| • | He held his tongue, because he believed that the damage Obama was causing Israel was not irreversible in most cases. | |
| • | As he has made clear in daily statements, Netanyahu is convinced that we have reached a juncture in our relations with the Obama administration where accommodation is no longer possible. | |
| • | Obama's one policy that Netanyahu has never acquiesced to either publicly or privately is his policy of accommodating Iran. | |
| • | Netanyahu has been clear since his first tenure in office in the 1990s, that Iran's nuclear program – as well as its ballistic missile program – constitutes a threat to Israel's very existence. He has never wavered from his position that Israel cannot accept an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. | |
| • | But now we are seeing that far from being an opportunist, Netanyahu is a leader of historical dimensions. For the past two years, in the interest of reaching a deal, Obama has enabled Iran to take over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. For the first time since 1974, due to Obama's policies, the Golan Heights is an active front in the war against Israel, with Iranian military personnel commanding Syrian and Hezbollah forces along the border. | |
| • | Whereas Israel can survive Obama on the Palestinian front by stalling, waiting him out and placating him where possible, and can even survive his support for Hamas by making common cause with the Egyptian military and the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, the damage Obama's intended deal with Iran will cause Israel will be irreversible. | |
| • | For his efforts to prevent irreparable harm to Israel Netanyahu is being subjected to the most brutal and vicious attacks any Israeli leader has ever been subjected to by an American administration and its political allies. They are being assisted in their efforts by a shameless Israeli opposition that is willing to endanger the future of the country in order to seize political power. | |
| • | As for Netanyahu's domestic opponents, their behavior is simply inexcusable. In Israel's hour of peril, just weeks before Obama intends to conclude his nuclear deal with the mullahs that will endanger Israel's existence, Labor leader Yitzhak Herzog insists that his primary duty is to defeat Netanyahu. | |
| • | Netanyahu is not coming to Washington next Tuesday to warn Congress against Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, because he seeks a fight with Obama. Netanyahu has devoted the last six years to avoiding a fight with Obama, often at great cost to Israel's national security and to his own political position. | |
| • | Netanyahu is coming to Washington next week because Obama has left him no choice. And all decent people of good will should support him, and those who do not, and those who are silent, should be called out for their treachery and cowardice. | |
The Cancer of Multiculturalism (JWR 02/25/2015)
| • | A vision that sees a moral equivalency between what Christians did centuries ago and today's Islamic savagery is quite prevalent in academia. It's part of what's worshipped on most college campuses as diversity and multiculturalism. | |
| • | College campus idiots — and that includes faculty members and administrators — call for the celebration of and respect for all cultures. In their eyes, it's racist Eurocentrism to think that Western values and culture are superior to others. | |
| • | At the very heart of multiculturalism is an attack on Christianity. Much of that attack has its roots among hypocrites in the intellectual elite. | |
| • | Western values are by no means secure. They're under ruthless attack by the academic elite on college campuses across America. These people want to replace personal liberty with government control; they want to replace equality with entitlement; they want to halt progress in order to worship Mother Earth. | |
| • | As such, they pose a far greater threat to our way of life than any Islamic terrorist or group. Visions of multiculturalism and diversity are a cancer on our society. We stupidly fund them with our tax dollars and generous charitable donations. | |
| • | Islamists and leftists attack not only Christianity but also free market capitalism. They do so because Christian nations, which have a great measure of economic liberty, have been at the forefront of the struggle for personal liberty and private property rights for centuries. | |
| • | Personal liberty and private property are anathemas to people who want to control our lives. That is part and parcel of the multicultural and diversity movements infecting the Western world. | |
Justice for Jews (INN 02/24/2015)
| • | a jury has found that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) are liable for the deaths and injuries of ten American families plus the estates of four victims. | |
| • | These attacks took place on an Israeli street, at a crowded Israeli bus stop, inside an Israeli bus, and in a cafeteria at Hebrew University. | |
| • | "... the true path to peace is not to continue demanding Israeli concessions but to stop the funding of terrorism by Iran, Qatar, and the Palestinian government itself. At the very least, the lesson is that governments that sponsor terrorism should pay a heavy monetary price for their acts. Further, while it remains to be seen whether the plaintiffs can actually collect on this judgment, the jury's finding of liability should echo throughout future peace negotiations, and should greatly impact the position of the United States as the facilitator of any future agreement." | |
| • | "It's time for President Obama to stop engaging in denial about Palestinian reality." | |
| • | Oh, but they precisely paid for these attacks and the evidence was clear and copious and consisted of payroll records, testimony, and documents which proved that the terrorists were employed and compensated by the PA and the PLO and that salaries were paid to terrorists in Israeli jails as well as payments made to the families of human homicide bombs. | |
| • | The completely corrupt Palestinian organizations are brazenly pleading poverty. I would advise the American judges to check the private bank accounts of Arafat's widow and of Mahmoud Abbas where they will find billions. | |
Getting the Story Straight (INN 02/22/2015)
| • | Since the fall of the USSR, radical Islam has been the world's major force opposing reason. | |
| • | Israel is a small country, but it is viewed by fanatics as the most powerful evil in the world. | |
| • | Israel is considered such an offense that anti-Zionism has dominated the world of Islam for half a century. | |
| • | The destruction of Israel is more important to fanatics than the liberty of the Palestinian Arabs. | |
| • | The world lost too, and the Islamic world lost most of all. It lost its art, its grace, its science, its creativity, its humanity. | |
Nuclear Deterrence is a Deadly Game (INN 02/22/2015)
| • | Traditionally, successful national strategies of deterrence require enemy rationality. In the absence of such rationality – that is, in those more-or-less residual circumstances where an enemy state would rank order certain values or preferences more highly than "staying alive" as a nation – deterrence is expected to fail. | |
| • | Nuclear deterrence is a "game" that certain sane national leaders must play, but to compete effectively, a would-be winner must always first assess (1) the expected rationality of each critical opponent; and (2) the probable costs and benefits of pretending irrationality oneself. | |
Reliving the 1930s (INN p:/p3/2015)
Glib 'Happy Talk' (JWR 02/18/2015)
UN’s steady Israel-bashing reveals true face of a failed system (Fox 02/20/2015)
| • | Hamas launched thousands of rockets at Israel last summer, and hid its weapons in schools, including United Nations-run facilities and other civilian sites. | |
| • | But there is no condemnation for all of the indiscriminate Hamas rocket barrages that ignited the conflict last summer or any note that Israelis have been the targets of indiscriminate Hamas rockets for well more than 10 years. | |
| • | What about the human rights of Israeli citizens? | |
| • | If they were honestly interested in a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they would realize that condemning Israel year after year contributes only to un-meetable Palestinian expectations and justifiable frustration on the part of Israel. | |
Obama's Iran Policy and Netanyahu's Visit (INN 02/18/2015)
| • | Iran is taking over Yemen (and throwing American diplomats out of the country); carving a sphere of influence in Iraq; continuing to support the brutal Assad regime in Damascus; strengthening Hezbollah's grip over Lebanon; engaging in subversion in Central Asia; and developing its terrorist apparatus. | |
| • | Tehran gets all it wants, while Washington gets an Iranian promise not to go nuclear as long as Obama is in the White House. | |
| • | Obama does not care about American international stature. He has advocated a retrenched position in world affairs. | |
| • | Obama fears that Netanyahu's planned March 3 speech could become a catalyst for a public debate about his own dangerous policy toward Iran. | |
| • | As long as there is a chance, however slight, that an address to Congress will reinvigorate the public debate in the US on Iran, and obstruct the administration's attempt to sign a deal, Netanyahu feels compelled to make a stand against all odds to halt a bad deal with Iran. | |
| • | But it is not only in Washington that Obama considers Netanyahu to be unwelcome. Obama wishes to be rid of Netanyahu in Jerusalem as well. | |
| • | He also takes seriously Netanyahu's statement that Israel is not bound by America's unilateral agreements. In Obama's view, a paranoid Netanyahu may still revert to the military option, and thereby destroy his only foreign policy "success." | |
| • | Obama is probably right on this point. Among the candidates for prime minister in the Israeli elections, only Netanyahu is passionate about Iran, and only Netanyahu would consider ordering the IDF to attack Iranian nuclear installations in defiance of the United States. | |
Obsessed with Jews (INN 02/17/2015)
| • | Historians of Western history have explained that at times of confusion and external dangers, and when society is unable to provide answers that make these threats go away, negative sentiment tends to revolve around Jews. | |
| • | In the years of the rise of communism and the Cold War, communists concerned with their ideological opponents talked about Jewish capitalists and cosmopolitans, or Jewish doctors plotting against the state. At the very same time, in capitalist societies threatened by communism, people condemned Jewish Bolsheviks. | |
| • | "Everything seems impossible, or frighteningly difficult, without the providential arrival of anti-Semitism, through which all things fall into place and are simplified." | |
| • | Today's current epidemic of primal hatred of Israel and of the Jews by Islamic organizations and the Western liberal intelligentsia stems from a concept known as redemptive anti-Semitism. | |
| • | A common thread unifying the desire for the total destruction of Jews is shared by Islamic terror and Nazism. It is not a coincidence that both German Nazism and modern Islamism arose in the 1920s. | |
| • | The true narrative of the Middle East is that no Arab state genuinely respects human rights. No Arab state hosts a responsible media. No Arab society fully respects the rights of women or minorities, and no Arab government has ever accepted public responsibility for its own shortcomings. Blame has become the opium of the Arabs, and the greatest blame for their failures is that directed at Israel. | |
Islamism: If You Can’t Say it, You Can’t Fight it (INN 02/16/2015)
| • | After turning a blind eye for so long – and after enabling extremist organizations such as Hamas and facilitating resurgent anti-Semitism – Europeans finally spoke truth over political correctness. | |
| • | In contrast, the Obama administration continued to ignore any connection between terrorism and radical Islam, instead referring to the perpetrators as extremists without identifying their motivating beliefs. | |
| • | This refusal to acknowledge the obvious may be political, but it is also myopic – and it undercuts any serious effort to combat global terrorism. | |
| • | Whether this willful blindness is a matter of policy or timidity is beside the point. | |
| • | The left seems to have no problem accusing Republicans of fascism, racism or any other malignant "isms" that come to mind, but they simply cannot speak the truth regarding radical Islam. | |
| • | Progressives seem compelled to excuse Islamism or pretend it doesn't exist, even when doing so compromises their commitment to constitutional principles. Whenever radical Islamists strike, the progressive impulse seems to be to defend Islam before comforting the victims. | |
| • | Though certainly not all Muslims support ISIS, it does represent a militant form of Islam similar to that which sparked an era of jihad across the Mideast, Asia, Africa and Europe starting in the eighth century. | |
| • | While ISIS, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood do not represent the views of all Muslims, their beliefs are certainly grounded in scripture and theology. It defies logic to say that such groups are not Islamic simply because other Muslims think differently or disagree with them. | |
| • | Many Muslims, particularly those acculturated to western democratic values, publicly condemn attacks against non-Muslims. But the question remains whether the wider Arab-Muslim world is philosophically or morally opposed to religious extremism. | |
| • | Those who understand the concept of taqiyya (deception of the infidel) have to wonder how much of the anti-terror sentiment expressed by clerics in Paris was genuine. | |
| • | The desire for true reformation will only be impeded by those in the west who are more concerned about protecting the sensitivities of a global religious community that numbers more than a billion strong and characterizes outsiders as infidels. | |
| • | It is ironic that some progressives accuse Republicans of fascism while giving political cover to extremists whose ideology is truly thuggish and totalitarian. This hypocrisy stems from a traditional affinity for radical ideologies and statism, whether expressed as fascism in the early to mid-twentieth century, or communism until well into the Cold War. | |
| • | If statism can be defined as the belief that economic and/or social policy should be left in the exclusive control of government, then the left's affinity for any kind of totalitarianism should not be terribly surprising. | |
| • | When progressive anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel are factored into the mix, the left-wing's reluctance to condemn Islamists whose world outlook is totalitarian, or to acknowledge their connection to terrorism, seems quite logical. | |
| • | Those who preach empathy for Islamists never hesitate to condemn conservative Christians for their views or traditional Jews for their adherence to observance. Yet, they refuse to challenge a supremacist theology that is antithetical to the liberal ideals they claim to hold dear. | |
| • | Though freedom of belief is absolute under the Constitution, freedom of practice may not be when it infringes on the rights and liberties of others. | |
| • | In contrast, terrorism against infidels and blasphemers is often celebrated in the Muslim world. It seems ironic that progressives prefer to tarnish all conservative Christians for the acts of a very few, but refuse to condemn supporters of real terrorism. | |
| • | If President Obama were serious about confronting global terrorism, he would acknowledge the ideology motivating much of it and the historical antecedents that make it possible. | |
| • | The president's failure to do so, and his apparent willingness to appease extremist sensitivities, does not auger well for the war on terror or the continued relevance of American foreign policy. | |
Persecution of Christians a significant indicator of future world chaos (Fox 02/09/2015)
| • | In every region of the world — Africa, Asia and even in the Americas — persecution of Christians is growing. | |
| • | What all Americans must understand is this: Ending the persecution of Christians is not just morally right; it is in our national interest. When we promote and defend freedom of religious expression throughout the world we are making the world safer for oppressed peoples, we are promoting a value that keeps extremism of any kind in check. | |
| • | Responsible lawmakers and those concerned with the security of all free people should be asking themselves what is filling the void left by the dramatic decline of the Christian community. The answer is obvious: As Christians are expelled, Islamist extremists are taking their place. | |
| • | Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group, has been turning up the heat on Christians in northern Nigeria for several years. Last year, at least 2,484 Nigerian Christians were executed or killed for their faith, the highest total of any of the countries on the World Watch List. | |
Why are They Converting to Islam? (INN 02/12/2015)
Western Illusions Over Ukraine (NYT, 02/09/2015)
| • | The most difficult thing for a communist, it has been observed, is to predict the past. | |
| • | In fact, the Russian annexation of Crimea tore up by forceful means "the territorial integrity" and "political independence" of Ukraine, in direct violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. | |
| • | It also shredded Russia's formal commitment under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 to respect Ukraine's international borders. | |
| • | It's time to get real over Putin. He has not poured tanks and multiple-launch rocket systems over the Ukrainian border because he is about to settle for anything less than a weak Ukraine. | |
| • | There is a language Moscow understands: antitank missiles, battlefield radars, reconnaissance drones. Bolster the Ukrainian Army with them and other arms. Change Putin's cost-benefit analysis. | |
| • | Recall that Ukraine gave up more than 1,800 nuclear warheads in exchange for that bogus commitment from Russia back in 1994 to respect its sovereignty and borders. Surely it has thereby earned the right to something more than night-vision goggles. | |
Who Was Kayla Mueller? (INN 02/11/2015)
| • | However, despite the sadness at her needless death, the myth that she was wonderful altruistic young woman should be exposed. | |
| • | Kayla Mueller was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who spent at least two years working with that terrorist support group | |
| • | She also participated in demonstrations to interfere with the IDF demolishing the homes of terrorists and suicide bombers after the courts okayed the demolitions. | |
| • | As an ISM activist she was a tool for the worldwide jihad. | |
| • | Arabs demonstrate "nonviolently" by throwing rocks at the IDF soldiers as well as incendiaries. Kayla was there with the ISM to participate. Kayla admitted to being present at the weekly riots. | |
| • | The ISM hit on a strategy of accusing the Jews in the 'West Bank' of what the Arabs do continually to Jews: throw stones, attack school children, destroy produce etc. | |
| • | "Yes, the wall will fall. The nature of impermanence is our greatest ally and soon the rules will change, the tide will turn and just as the moon waxes and wanes over this land so too the cycles of life here will continue. One day the cycle will once again return to freedom." | |
| • | Freedom? For whom? Another Arab dictatorship. Arabs who are Israeli citizens are free, but Kayla wanted the "free" Palestinian-state-to-be from the "river to the sea" as a good ISM activist. | |
| • | This certainly doesn't sound like a tireless "aid worker". Instead, it connotes a supporter of Palestinian Arab terrorist groups. Her praise of the muezzin calls and "resistance" suggests she's on the side of the worldwide jihad. | |
| • | "This family has a tragic story, but it is the story of life in Palestine. Thank you for reading. Ask me questions and ask yourself questions but most importantly, question the answers. Forever in solidarity, Kayla". | |
| • | Instead of continuing to help those who needed it in America, she chose to take the ISM's revolutionary path and to embrace part of the worldwide jihad and she died for it, tragically. | |
Ignorance is Often not Bliss (INN 02/07/2015)
| • | We have witnessed over and over again Arab and Muslim war crimes on a never ending spiral of horror inflicted upon Israel's civilian population. No doubt, future salvos of missiles will rein down upon Israeli villages, towns and cities, fired by the Iranian supported Hamas occupiers of Gaza and by Hezbollah in Lebanon. As before, the world will yawn. | |
| • | The world had also yawned before and during the dark years of World War 2 when Jews were disappearing all over Europe. It was a time of towering intolerance and we have now retreated to those terrible years yet again. | |
| • | But this time the intolerance that is leading them into a new dark age is that which Winston Churchill called a 7th century ideology wrapped in a religion: Islam. | |
| • | "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!" | |
| • | "Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live." | |
| • | "A degraded sensualism deprives this [Muslim] life of grace and refinement; the next of dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. .. all [Muslims] know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world." | |
| • | "Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome." | |
| • | "Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." | |
| • | "Appeasement is like feeding a crocodile in the hope he will eat you last." | |
| • | "Whoever is merciful to the cruel, ends by being cruel to the merciful." | |
| • | It is national suicide and the very euphemism, "Two-State-Solution," echoes in its hideous similarity that other euphemism employed by Nazi Germany as it systematically exterminated 6,000,000 Jews: "The Final Solution." | |
What about the Christians and Israelis burned alive? (INN 02/06/2015)
| • | Islamic State, which burned the Jordanian pilot alive, now symbolizes the most absolute horror, and is exorcised as "barbaric" and not "true" Islam. | |
| • | Two months ago in Pakistan, a Christian couple was burned alive in a brick kiln by an angry crowd of 400 Muslims. The two Christians were married, had three children and Shama was also pregnant. Before that, there were 5 Christians burned alive on the island of Java, Indonesia, after being trapped in a church to which a mob of thousands of Muslims had set fire. And a year ago, 42 Nigerian Christian students were burned alive in a public school in Mamudo by the apocalyptic Boko Haram. | |
| • | And when in the spring of 2004, four American contractors were burned alive and their poor remains hanged from the rafters on the Euphrates in front of a cheering Islamic crowd, there was not only indifference for them, but many Westerners watched their remains cannibalized by the glorious Iraqi people. | |
| • | The West not only ignored all the buses, restaurants, cafe and commercial malls where the Israeli Jews were burned alive by Palestinian suicide bombers. It encouraged them. A month ago, a young Israeli girl was purposely burned alive in a terrorist attack in Samaria. | |
| • | In Israel there are children with burned faces, unusable hands, and people who say they do not want to live anymore because they still feel the smell of burning flesh. | |
| • | And what about Ilan Halimi, the first victim of this new wave of anti-Semitism in France, a Jewish boy kidnapped, tortured for two weeks and then burned alive in a shabby Parisian banlieue? | |
| • | Christians, Jews, whether American, French or other nationalities ... Human pyres not only ignored by the West, but set on fire by shameful Western indifference and complacency. | |
Sadistic Death Pornography Coming to a Theater Near You (INN 02/04/2015)
| • | The entire 21st century has been characterized by an alarming and exponential rise in anti-Semitism, the beheading of Western journalists; planes being flown into buildings, ships and trains being blown up, Embassies being torched, hotels being taken hostage, children being kidnapped into slavery or used as human shields; by genocides, massacres, grisly crucifixions, human homicide bombs — and all the perpetrators have been Muslims who insisted that they were engaged in holy Jihad against an infidel world (or the wrong kind of "other" Muslim) whose values are anti-Islamic. | |
| • | King Abdullah of Jordan, like President Obama, insists that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam; that they are a criminal gang of psychopaths. I am sure they are — but they are being empowered by what they view as a religious mandate. | |
| • | Some say that European Nazis did not represent the values of post-Enlightenment Europe and that Stalin did not represent the values of Marxism. | |
| • | Whatever the case, the fact that so many good people failed to stop them at the outset, condemned hundreds of millions of innocent people to brutal, untimely deaths. | |
| • | Whoever and whatever these masked men of ISIS are — religious zealots, psychopaths, demagogues, barbarians, death-eaters — they must be defeated, definitively, and starting now. | |
| • | The atrocities of ISIS, meant to shock, (and shock they do) are only a diversion from and a prelude to what can happen once an equally barbaric Iran obtains nuclear power, apparently, something that President Obama welcomes. | |
Who is Leader of the Free World: Obama or Netanyahu? (Fox 02/03/2015)
| • | What is it about Benjamin Netanyahu that has the Obama administration so insecure and borderline hysterical? | |
| • | Perhaps it has something to do with the way the pesky and smooth-talking Israeli Prime Minister has gradually supplanted Barack Obama as the moral leader of the free world, on the most important issue of our time. | |
| • | Where there is a leadership void, someone will fill it. | |
| • | Obama and his minions' sense it, and the jealousy/resentment seem to know no bounds. | |
| • | When Netanyahu, a gifted orator in the English language, speaks on the dangers of radical Islam and a nuclear Iran, he projects a confidence and persuasiveness that the administration can't match. | |
| • | In stark contrast, when Obama speaks to these matters in his painfully couched language, knowledgeable people smell politics. | |
| • | They inherently know that radical Islam does in fact have something to do with Islam, no matter how desperately the President tries to convince them otherwise. And they understand that such Islamists, be them of the Shiite or Sunni variety should never be allowed the means to produce nuclear weapons. | |
| • | And yet Netanyahu is clearly of superior knowledge on the issue, of superior communications skills, and most of all, has a superior stake in the outcome of negotiations with Iran. | |
The rape of Ukraine (JWR 02/03/2015)
| • | While President Obama praised his mastery, Russia's troops and associated thugs were pressing ahead with the on-and-off invasion of Eastern Ukraine that has seized roughly another 200 square miles of territory the past few months. | |
| • | We believe in the power of 21st-century international norms. Russian President Vladimir Putin believes in the power of lies and brute force, and implicitly asks, in the spirit of Josef Stalin, "How many divisions do international norms have?" | |
| • | The latest Russian offensive has exposed the moral and strategic bankruptcy of the Obama administration's opposition to providing arms to the Ukrainian government. While Russia rolls its T-72 and T-80 tanks — with at least 1,000 Russian personnel in support — we have countered with night-vision goggles and first-aid kits. | |
| • | The Obama policy reflects the craven logic that says helping a victim defend itself from an aggressor is dangerously provocative. | |
| • | Will Putin use our military support to argue that Ukraine is a puppet of the West? Of course he will, but he will say this regardless. According to Putin, the Ukrainian military is already "a NATO foreign legion." | |
| • | Will it lead to further aggression? For a year now, Putin has waged an entirely unprovoked war of territorial aggrandizement that has steadily grown more brazen. | |
| • | Putin's initial design for his own rule in Russia was an authoritarian government that relied on economic growth for its legitimacy. But he eventually realized that nationalism was a surer foundation. In the Ukrainian conflict, he has chosen nationalistic glory — such as it is — over his country's own economic interests in the face of Western sanctions. | |
| • | There is no appeasing Putin. Frankly, there is no directly stopping him, either. It is only possible to raise the costs to him of his war, including the military costs. If we won't provide military materiel to Ukraine now, we deserve the contempt with which Putin regards us. | |
Egypt's Muslim Churchill (Fox 02/02/2015)
| • | "I am addressing the religious scholars and clerics... It is inconceivable that the ideology we sanctify should make our entire nation a source of concern, danger, killing and destruction all over the world. It is inconceivable that this ideology... I am referring not to 'religion,' but to 'ideology' — the body of ideas and texts that we have sanctified in the course of centuries, to the point that challenging them has become very difficult." | |
| • | As the turbaned princes of Sunni theology sat in polite, but shocked, near-silence, Sisi called for a "religious revolution," not merely reform, to deal with this menace in the heart of Islam. | |
| • | "This is what we must be — Egyptians, just Egyptians, Egyptians indeed! I just want to tell you that — Allah willing, Allah willing — we shall build our nation together, accommodate each other, make room for each other, and we shall like each other, love each other, love each other in earnest, so that people may see... So let me tell you once again, Happy New Year, Happy New Year to you all, Happy New Year to all Egyptians!" | |
| • | Instead, his spokesman, Josh Earnest, has pledged that Obama will seek to prevent media coverage that might provoke the terrorists. | |
| • | Almost unnoticed as well, Sisihas quietly scrapped the reactionary program of religious education in the public schools in favor of a more secular one to inculcate basic civic values, rather than strictly Islamic ones — a revolutionary act in itself. | |
| • | How different from our own President Obama, who backed the widely hated Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab Spring, and still won't acknowledge the Islamist ideology of our enemies — which he refers to vaguely as "extremism," denying its connection to Islam. | |
| • | Indeed, the Nazis actually partnered with jihadis in the Middle East, especially the Muslim Brotherhood — Obama's ongoing partners, wrongly branded as "moderates." | |
| • | Like Churchill, Sisi seems more and more a lion. And, also like the pugnacious British statesman, he is definitely not PC. | |
| • | No doubt el-Sisi, fighting a dangerous, increasingly Islamist State (IS)-led insurgency both in Sinai and along the border with now-destabilized Libya, could identify with Churchill's clarion call of May 13, 1940, which sounds eerily fitting today: | |
| • | "You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival." | |
| • | Instead, in last Tuesday's State of the Union address, Obama blandly recited a list of dubious achievements in a war, and against foes, that he would not clearly define (and in his 2013 Inaugural, even invoked — a la Neville Chamberlain after Munich — "peace in our time"). | |
| • | Our enemies know just who they are, and what they are fighting for — and so does el-Sisi. | |
| • | The question is, do we? | |
France Implores Jews Not to Leave (INN 01/31/2015)
| • | "If 100,000 people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure." | |
| • | What have we here? The country of Dreyfus– the country of Vichy and Drancy, Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat's home away from home, the country in which "Death to the Jews" has been yelled by mobs in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries — is this country actually waking up? | |
| • | Honorable Monsieurs: A French (and European) Intifada against the Jews has been raging, not only in Israel but in Europe (especially in France), from the autumn of the 21st century. Did you really think your non-Jews would be spared? | |
| • | France may have reaped a whirlwind of its own making as an oil-hungry nation who,under De Gaulle, got the oil breaks but only if they welcomed Muslim immigrants, their families, and their "customs. | |
| • | Europe did not want to do the hard work of vetting, deporting, or educating those Muslim immigrants who envied, feared, despised, and were intolerant toward the entire Western Enterprise. Instead, it adopted a policy of "multi-cultural relativism," which allowed such immigrants to create rural mini Algerias, Turkeys, Iraqs, Afghanistans, and Pakistans right in the heart of Europe. This was supposed to prove that a very unredeemed Europe was, after all, politically correct and anti-racist. | |
| • | France, Holland, Germany, England, Italy, Scandinavia, refused to understand that such workers would have to be carefully assimilated or they might very well form parallel, potentially hostile, anti-Western communities, something they proceeded to do. | |
| • | Over the years, I have suggested that Europe may have reaped a terrible, karmic destiny: It slaughtered the non-violent, highly assimilated Semites (the Jews), and in return has gotten our violent, Semitic cousins from North Africa, the Arab Middle East, and from central and southeast Asia. | |
| • | Only because non-Jews (Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists) were massacred for what they did, has France noticed that four French Jews were, in a connected action, massacred for who they are. | |
| • | I am not sure that wealthy and sophisticated French Jews will willingly leave lavish lives for an impoverished or uncertain future in Israel. Many wealthy German Jews lingered until it was too late to get out. | |
| • | How can we blame Netanyahu for accepting Congress's invitation to speak — when President Obama did not see fit to send a single high profile representative to march in solidarity with France and the world, and given that he was able to bring a 30 person high-profile delegation to extend condolences upon the death of Saudi King Abdullah? | |
Obama, Netanyahu and Iran: Why Israel's leader won't back down on Congress speech (Fox 01/30/2015)
| • | Far be it from me to doubt the cynicism and self-interest of any politician, especially in an election year. Bibi knows when the election is. Nor do I suppose Speaker Boehner is innocent of partisan intentions. Inviting Netanyahu is a very slick way to demonstrate the Republican congressional majority's new clout in foreign affairs, and to cause an embarrassing split in Democratic ranks. | |
| • | President Obama, it is well known, doesn't like Netanyahu (and vice versa). But his snub of the Israeli prime minister isn't personal, and it is not a matter of electoral politics (although Obama is doing what he can to help Bibi's rivals). For the president, two years from his next career, this is an issue of legacy. | |
| • | Obama came to office swearing he would not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. Perhaps he once believed himself, but he is now an older and wiser man. He has discovered that the Iranians have no intention of ending their nuclear program. | |
| • | This may be OK with President Obama, but it is not good enough for Prime Minister Netanyahu. Unlike the American president, Bibi can't afford to simply hope for the best. For almost two decades he has been obsessed with what could happen to his country if the ayatollahs get their hands on the strategic weapons to carry out their deranged Final Solution. | |
| • | Perhaps it is a tactical mistake to anger the Obama administration. Certainly it will cause a temporary chill in relations. But for Benjamin Netanyahu, this isn't a tactical issue, nor is it an electoral one. It is a matter of deep conviction. If he can help block the deal, whatever it costs in administration goodwill is worth the price. | |
| • | And if he fails, at least it will be a moment of clarity. If the United States is not going to help prevent a nuclear threat from Iran, it's better to know that right now, while there is still time to make other plans. | |
'Never Again', again? (JWR 01/30/2015)
| • | The rise of European anti-Semitism is, in reality, just a return to the norm. For a millennium, virulent Jew-hatred — persecution, expulsions, massacres — was the norm in Europe until the shame of the Holocaust created a temporary anomaly wherein anti-Semitism became socially unacceptable. | |
| • | The threat to the Jewish future lies not in Europe but in the Muslim Middle East, today the heart of global anti-Semitism, a veritable factory of anti-Jewish literature, films, blood libels and calls for violence, indeed for another genocide. | |
| • | Atheists calculate differently from jihadists with their cult of death. Name one Soviet suicide bomber. | |
| • | He acknowledged Israel's deterrent capacity but noted the asymmetry: "Application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." Result? Israel eradicated, Islam vindicated. So much for deterrence. | |
| • | A place where you wake up in the morning to find a pro-American Yemeni government overthrown by rebels whose slogan is "God is Great. Death to America. Death to Israel. Damn the Jews. Power to Islam." | |
| • | The Iranian bomb is a national security issue, an alliance issue and a regional Middle East issue. But it is also a uniquely Jewish issue because of Israel's situation as the only state on earth overtly threatened with extinction, facing a potential nuclear power overtly threatening that extinction. | |
| • | On the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz, mourning dead Jews is easy. And, forgive me, cheap. Want to truly honor the dead? Show solidarity with the living — Israel and its 6 million Jews. Make "never again" more than an empty phrase. It took Nazi Germany seven years to kill 6 million Jews. It would take a nuclear Iran one day. | |
Whitewashing savagery: Al-Jazeera English bans use of ‘terrorist’ for mass killers (Fox 01/29/2015)
| • | It's an order to journalists not to use such terms as "terrorist," "Islamist" and "jihad." | |
| • | "One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." | |
| • | But we all know what terrorists are: They are mass murderers who deliberately target innocent people in the service of some cause, often a religious one. | |
| • | This is the worst kind of political correctness, an effort to avoid calling out crimes against humanity in the name of linguistic neutrality. | |
'Never Again' in Europe is Just a Meaningless Slogan (INN 01/28/2015)
Acknowledging the Core Importance of Doctrine (INN 01/28/2015)
Netanyahu, Haunted By Jabotinsky's Nightmare (INN 01/26/2015)
| • | How's this for a Mafia message that came from somewhere inside the White House? "Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price." | |
| • | Does Obama know that only Israel — only a strong Israel — stands as a savior against regional and worldwide doom and that it is America's vital interest to support the Jewish State? Does Obama know what's going on in the Middle East? Surely he knows that it's chaos and that through a domino effect entire civilizations are tumbling. | |
| • | But his animosity against Netanyahu may cloud his judgment. | |
| • | Does Netanyahu know that Obama has nearly all the power? | |
| • | Surely he knows — and surely he must go to make his case. | |
| • | Throughout the generations the Jewish people never fared well when they chose silence. | |
| • | Zeev Jabotinsky was advised to hush up. Don't make trouble. But he kept speaking against the European catastrophe he saw coming, and it came. This time it's Iran and Netanyahu is wise to the looming catastrophe from the country that never misses a chance to declare its intentions to destroy Israel... first Israel, then America. | |
| • | For the sake of Zion, for the safety of the United States, the Prime Minister of Israel must speak, and let the chips fall where they may. | |
70 Years Later and Jewish Blood Has Not Yet Dried (INN 01/26/2015)
| • | The top spot in the new Wiesenthal list goes to a Belgian doctor who refused to treat an old Jewish woman last summer. When the son called again, the doctor stated: "Send her to Gaza for a few hours, then she'll get rid of the pain." | |
| • | Always defeated by the Israelis on the battlefield, the Arab Islamic world today aims to buy the complicity of a continent, Europe, through its intellectuals and leaders. Since the creation of Israel, Arab enemies, with the help of Westerners, have tried to destroy that small Jewish nation with open war, and failed. They then attempted to do it with terrorism and failed. Then media and culture. And here they have been much more successful. | |
Iran, Argentina, and Rafsanjani (INN 01/25/2015)
| • | In 2001, Iran's President Rafsanjani, who is generally described as a moderate, called the existence of Israel an ugly, colonialist phenomenon and said that nuclear war could destroy everything on the ground in Israel but would merely damage the world of Islam. | |
| • | The United States should not assume that Iran is acting rationally. Iran was irrational when it continued its war against Iraq for eight years; it was irrational when it blew up the Jewish center in Argentina, and it is irrational today. The only reason that Iran is paying a very high price to build a nuclear facility is its desire to destroy Israel — a country with which it has no dispute whatsoever. Irrational hatreds are always the most dangerous. | |
| • | Negotiating with Iran makes no sense. | |
Iran's emerging empire (JWR 01/23/2015)
| • | While Iran's march toward a nuclear bomb has provoked a major clash between the White House and Congress, Iran's march toward conventional domination of the Arab world has been largely overlooked. In Washington, that is. The Arabs have noticed. | |
| • | The Saudis are fighting back the only way they can — with massive production of oil at a time of oversupply and collapsing prices, placing enormous economic pressure on Iran. It needs $136 oil to maintain its budget. The price today is below $50. | |
| • | Why are you parroting Tehran's talking points, Mr. President? asks Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez. Indeed, why are we endorsing Iran's claim that sanctions relief is the new norm? Obama assured the nation that sanctions relief was but a temporary concession to give last-minute, time-limited negotiations a chance. | |
| • | Twice the deadline has come. Twice no new sanctions, just unconditional negotiating extensions. | |
| • | Our regional allies — Saudi Arabia, the other five Gulf states, Jordan, Egypt and Israel — are deeply worried. Tehran is visibly on the march on the ground and openly on the march to nuclear status. And their one great ally, their strategic anchor for two generations, is acquiescing to both. | |
'The Iranians Don't Believe Obama's Threats' (INN 01/23/2015)
| • | "President has said for some time that all options are on the table with respect to Iran's nuclear weapons program, but nobody really believes it. Worst of all, the Iranians don't believe it." | |
| • | "There is no credible American military threat against Iran's nuclear weapons program, and that's a possible reason why Iran continues to stall, continues to drag out the P5+1 negotiations, continues to ask for more concessions - because they don't fear a strong United States response." | |
| • | "The pressure that's on Iran now is due to the collapse of international oil prices — not the sanctions, and certainly not fear of the United States." | |
| • | "Sanctions work in limited circumstances in the best of times, and Iran is really past that." | |
| • | "Israel has to keep rejecting the idea of a legitimate Palestinian state — there is none. It's simply not anything consistent with international law — customary or treaty." | |
The Arab-Israel Conflict: Heroes (INN 01/23/2015)
| • | These are the heroes of Israel - men, women, and children - people who reached out in time of crisis to help others. Good people, many of them seemingly in the wrong place at the wrong time and reaching beyond themselves. | |
| • | And who are the heroes of our enemies? | |
| • | Well, Hamas says their heroes are the ones who attacked the Charlie Hedbo newspaper headquarters in France and butchered 12 people; the man who murdered four innocent men in a kosher supermarket in Paris. Samir Kuntar is their hero... he murdered two Israeli children. The men who kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teens this summer — more heroes. | |
| • | Who are the heroes of Islam? | |
| • | Yesterday, once again, the Palestinians answered. Hamza Muhammad Hasan Matrouk is their hero, not because he did anything to help another individual, not because lives were saved. He's their hero because he went on a commuter bus in the heart of Tel Aviv during rush hour - to murder people simply because they are Jews, simply because they are Israelis. Because he did it with maximum brutality and minimum mercy. | |
The Arab-Israel Conflict: Two Little Girls (INN 01/22/2015)
| • | That is what the Palestinian Authority has done. It has raised an entire generation of Palestinian children to believe that Israel is evil incarnate, that all of Israel is "occupied Palestine," and that those who kill Jews are "heroes" and "martyrs." Every day, every week, every month, year after year, PA television and programs are filled with this hateful message. It fills the mass media and saturates the classrooms. | |
| • | That is why there is no peace. It has nothing to do with settlements or refugees or borders or whether there will ever be a Palestinian state. It has to do with the hearts and minds of young Palestinians. That eleven year-old girl on PA Television truly believes that eleven year-old Ayala Shapira is a "Zionist occupier" who deserves to be burned to death. That is the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. | |
Obama Signed Charlie's Death Warrant in 2012 (INN 01/21/2015)
| • | "We [specifically President Obama] are aware that a French magazine published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the prophet Muhammad, and obviously we [especially President Obama] have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this. We know that these images will be deeply offensive to many and have the potential to be inflammatory. But we've spoken repeatedly about the importance of upholding the freedom of expression that is enshrined in our Constitution." | |
| • | Imagine if an "artist" took a statue of Jesus on a crucifix and immersed it in a clear plexiglass vat of the "artist's" own urine, and the Federal Government helped pay for the artist through the National Endowment of Arts and to add insult to injury, this defamation was exhibited in an American museum. | |
| • | Well, you don't have to imagine it, because the "Piss Christ" art story actually happened in 2012, and when it came to that slander against a religion, Obama was totally silent. To Obama, "Piss Christ" is art deserving absolute 1st Amendment protection and its offensiveness can be ignored. | |
| • | But, outside the United States, Obama only shows understanding for Islamic terrorists to commit murder and mayhem because Obama believes it is reasonable that they get upset when someone writes or draws something "deeply offensive to many" and that has "the potential to be inflammatory." | |
| • | In short, seemingly by executive-order, Obama deleted First Amendment free speech when exercised to criticize Muslims, turning anti-Muslim speech into a Muslim-self-enforced speech-crime. Obama defines this as speech that "is deeply offensive to many [Muslims] and has the potential to be inflammatory [to Muslims]", meaning that you must avoid it because the Muslim enforcers will get violent, execute judgment and murder you - and the United States won't protect you. | |
| • | As a Newtonian thought-experiment, isn't any speech supporting Israel and supporting Israel's right to militarily defend itself against Muslim terrorists bent on Israel's eradication "deeply offensive to many [Muslims]" and doesn't it "have the potential to be inflammatory [to many Muslims]"?" Will Obama's criticism extend to an understanding that one cannot publicly defend or support Israel anymore because supporting Israel will get the Muslims, and anti-Israel psychopaths upset and violent? | |
| • | To Obama, Hasan wasn't an Islamic terrorist when he was screaming Allahu Akbar and murdering American soldiers, he was enforcing the executive-order ban on anti-Muslim speech-crimes. Obama empowered offended Muslims to execute "self-help" enforcement of his executive definition of such speech-crimes. | |
Iran Sanctions Fight: Three myths no lawmaker should believe (Fox 01/21/2015)
| • | The regime is playing a game of attrition, aiming to weaken U.S. resolve, win more concessions, and maintain its nuclear infrastructure. The bipartisan sanctions bill will force Tehran to consider speedy compliance. | |
| • | The mullahs are paranoid of a disenchanted population already on edge. With rampant unemployment, inflation, and loss of oil revenues, walking away from the talks is not an option, especially if a sanctions-in-waiting bill is hovering over their head. | |
| • | Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly stated that even without additional sanctions the chances for reaching an agreement with Iran is less that 50 percent. So, as Iran tries to wear out western negotiators, clearly, additional leverage from Congress is necessary, not counterproductive. | |
| • | The oft-cited dichotomy between "hardliners" and "moderates" in Iran badly misrepresents a system whose elements are united in their strategic objectives. | |
| • | Experience has shown that diplomacy without leverage has never worked with dictators, especially in Tehran. | |
| • | The sanctions bill can be a game-changer. It will strengthen Washington's hand while helping to peacefully arrest Tehran's advance towards the bomb. One thing is for certain: Tehran's nuclear objective is anything but a myth. | |
Missing the answer to terror attacks: Guns (JWR 01/19/2015)
| • | The UK newspaper The Telegraph reported that the first two officers to arrive "were apparently unarmed" and "fled after seeing gunmen armed with automatic weapons and possibly a grenade launcher." The Independent reported "three policemen arrived on bikes but had to leave because [the attackers] were armed." A policeman who had been assigned the position of bodyguard to Charlie Hebdo editor, Stephane Charbonnier, was killed, and one policeman on a mountain bike was killed, as well. So the cops had no guns and the terrorists had a bunch. | |
| • | If one person at the office had been armed and could have put a bullet into the head of each of the terrorists, what then would have been the death toll on January 7th, 2015? | |
The West Cannot Win this War (INN 01/19/2015)
| • | Take another look at the video filmed under the Charlie Hebdo's building, the black car of the terrorists who had no fear of death and are advancing by shooting, while the white car of the policemen is forced to retreat. | |
| • | The French horror doesn't lie in the killings per se. A few hours later, in Nigeria, Boko Haram destroyed many villages and burned hundreds of people to death. Europe's horror lies in the fact that the terrorists came from the heart of the continent. | |
| • | The French terrorists rejected the French values of liberte, egalite and fraternite; the British suicide bombers rejected British multiculturalism, while Dutch terrorist Mohammed Bouyeri, who slaughtered the film maker in Amsterdam, rejected the Dutch mute values of moral indifference. | |
| • | "Every time lots of support and solidarity with the victims, but very little has changed in reality." | |
| • | The West cannot win this war. The price it would have to pay is the loss of European values: reducing the civil rights of many people, deporting them, declaring a war of values, sending boots on the ground in the Middle East, imposing Western civilization on them. Europe will never do that. Europe itself doesn't believe in these values anymore. This is also one of the reason why Europe hates Israeli Jews who daily confront evil and fight it, so deeply. | |
| • | The terrorists of Charlie Hebdo talk a religious language and use terms like honor, faith, prophet and loyalty, while the West replies to them with words such as freedom, democracy, rights, respect and tolerance. They speak theology, we reply with logic. They use bullets, we march in the streets. | |
After the Paris Killings — French Jews and Israel (INN 01/19/2015)
| • | In several French schools, Muslim pupils, who are not jihadists themselves, consider that the murder of the cartoonists should not be condemned, and some think that such murders should even be lauded. | |
| • | Outside of France,.. jihadists keep calling on French Muslims to carry out attacks against the country. | |
| • | What has not been particularly stressed is that the battle against Muslim terrorism will require an increase in phone and internet surveillance. In a country which lists freedom as one of its highest priorities, the French government will not emphasize this issue. The fact is that such bugging is often abused. Charlie Hebdo embodies one aspect of French freedom - the right to provoke and insult. Upholding one right, and at the same time, limiting another one — that of one's right to privacy - is one of the realities of our time. The Americans have taken the lead with their well-established surveillance of communications in many places, including those of their allies' leaders. | |
| • | In the city of Aubervilliers, Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti has been awarded honorary citizenship.[9] In Valenton, both a street and square have been named after him.[10] By glorifying Barghouti, the municipalities of these towns are indirect supporters of Palestinian terrorism. | |
| • | Information was leaked about another type of duplicity: Hollande preferred that Netanyahu not participate in the huge Paris solidarity march... And when Netanyahu voiced his intentions to do so, Hollande then invited Mahmoud Abbas, the glorifier of many Palestinian terrorist killers of Israeli civilians, to march along as well. | |
| • | There is major political resistance in French and European politics to concede this truth. Admitting such a semblance would mean that their carefully constructed political house of cards, with its many lies and fallacies, would collapse. | |
| • | It would also mean admitting that the Palestinians are not victims of Israel, but rather that the Palestinians are one among many Arab societies who are, in part, permeated with crime and who hold little respect for human life. | |
A Judenrein [Jew-cleansed] Europe (JWR 01/19/2015)
| • | "We hereby ask that gun licensing laws are reviewed with immediate effect to allow designated people in the Jewish communities and institutions to own weapons for the essential protection of their communities, as well as receiving the necessary training to protect their members from potential terror attacks. | |
| • | ... forget the Villiers-le-Bel schoolgirl brutally beaten by a gang jeering, "Jews must die"; and the Paris disc-jockey who had his throat slit, his eyes gouged out, and his face ripped off by a neighbor who crowed, "I have killed my Jew"; and the young Frenchman tortured to death over three weeks, while his family listened via phone to his howls of agony as his captors chanted from the Koran... | |
| • | ... consider only the city of Toulouse. In recent years, in this one city, a synagogue has been firebombed, another set alight when two burning cars were driven into it, a third burgled and "Dirty Jews" scrawled on the ark housing the Torah, a kosher butcher's strafed with gunfire, a Jewish sports association attacked with Molotov cocktails... | |
| • | "Jews with a conscience should leave Holland, where they and their children have no future, leave for the U.S. or Israel." | |
| • | Pre-war Europeans would never have entertained for a moment the construction of mosques from Malmo to Marseilles. But post-war Holocaust guilt, and the revulsion against nationalism and the embrace of multiculturalism and mass immigration, enabled the Islamization of Europe. The principal beneficiaries of the Continent's penance for the great moral stain of the 20th century turned out to be the Muslims — with the Jews on the receiving end, yet again. | |
Then They Came For Free Speech (INN 01/18/2015)
| • | Opponents to liberty never rest. They will always be with us, those who seek to muzzle our thoughts and opinions. | |
| • | An offensive anti-Jewish display in Israel provoked only a request – not a demand – to take it down. Yes, both sides have the right to express an opinion. | |
| • | Amis reportedly favored deportation, adding: "The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order." | |
| • | The Quislings spoke up. Better to hush up, they said. Cherish your liberties but fear the mobs. The mobs are given carte blanche to be violently sensitive. | |
'Religion of peace' is not a harmless platitude (Spectator 01/17/2015)
| • | To face Islamist terror, we must face the facts about Islam's history | |
| • | The West's movement towards the truth is remarkably slow. We drag ourselves towards it painfully, inch by inch, after each bloody Islamist assault. | |
| • | ... it remains government policy to say that any and all attacks carried out in the name of Mohammed have ‘nothing to do with Islam'. | |
| • | In private, they and their senior advisers often concede that they are telling a lie. | |
| • | The most sympathetic explanation is that they are telling a ‘noble lie', provoked by a fear that we — the general public — are a lynch mob in waiting. | |
| • | ‘Noble' or not, this lie is a mistake. | |
| • | First, because the general public do not rely on politicians for their information and can perfectly well read articles and books about Islam for themselves. | |
| • | Secondly, because the lie helps no one understand the threat we face. | |
| • | Thirdly, because it takes any heat off Muslims to deal with the bad traditions in their own religion. | |
| • | And fourthly, because unless mainstream politicians address these matters then one day perhaps the public will overtake their politicians to a truly alarming extent. | |
| • | ... today our political class fuels both cause and nascent effect. | |
| • | Because the truth is there for all to see. | |
| • | To claim that people who punish people by killing them for blaspheming Islam while shouting ‘Allah is greatest' has ‘nothing to do with Islam' is madness. | |
| • | Because the violence of the Islamists is, truthfully, only to do with Islam: the worst version of Islam, certainly, but Islam nonetheless. | |
| • | ‘These people are using Islam, taking a peaceful religion and using it as a tool to carry out their activities.' | |
| • | Here we land at the centre of the problem — a centre we have spent the last decade and a half trying to avoid: Islam is not a peaceful religion. | |
| • | No religion is, but Islam is especially not. | |
| • | I say this not because I hate Islam, nor do I have any special animus against Muslims, but simply because this is the verifiable truth based on the texts. | |
| • | The world would be an infinitely safer place if the historical Mohammed had behaved more like Buddha or Jesus. | |
| • | But he did not and an increasing number of people — Muslim and non-Muslim — have been able to learn this for themselves in recent years. | |
| • | Contra the political leaders, the Charlie Hebdo murderers were not lunatics without motive, but highly motivated extremists intent on enforcing Islamic blasphemy laws in 21st-century Europe. | |
| • | If you do not know the ideology — perverted or plausible though it may be — you can neither understand nor prevent such attacks. | |
| • | Nor, without knowing some Islamic history, could you understand why — whether in Mumbai or Paris — the Islamists always target the Jews. | |
| • | It is not just cartoons, but a whole system of inquiry which is being shut down in the West by way of hard intimidation and soft claims of offence-taking. | |
| • | Asma bint Marwan was a female poetess who mocked the ‘Prophet' and who, as a result, Mohammed had killed. It is in the texts. | |
| • | ... the hundreds of Jews Mohammed beheaded with his own hand. Again, that's in the mainstream Islamic sources. | |
| • | It used to be a problem for Muslims to rationalise, but now there are people trying to imitate such behaviour in our societies it has become a problem for all of us, and I don't see why people in the free world should have to lie about what we read in historical texts. | |
| • | We may all share a wish that these traditions were not there but they are and they look set to have serious consequences for us all. | |
| • | We might all agree that the history of Christianity has hardly been un-bloody. | |
| • | But is it not worth asking whether the history of Christianity would have been more bloody or less bloody if, instead of telling his followers to ‘turn the other cheek', Jesus had called (even once) for his disciples to ‘slay' non–believers and chop off their heads? | |
| • | Last month, al-Azhar University in Cairo declared that although Isis members are terrorists they cannot be described as heretics. | |
| • | It is true that most Muslims live their lives peacefully. | |
| • | But a sizeable portion (around 15 per cent and more in most surveys) follow a far more radical version. | |
| • | The remainder are sitting on a religion which is, in many of its current forms, a deeply unstable component. | |
| • | ... the results of ongoing mass immigration to the West at the same time as a worldwide return to Islamic literalism means that this is now a problem for all of us. | |
| • | To stand even a chance of dealing with it, we are going to have to wake up to it and acknowledge it for what it is. | |
A Crazy State (INN 01/17/2015)
| • | "[a polity] that puts a high priority on subverting other states and sponsoring non-conventional types of violence against them. It does not react predictably to deterrence or other tools of diplomacy and statecraft." | |
| • | A rogue state, "requires special treatment and high levels of international pressure in order to prevent it from wrecking public order, setting off wars, and subverting whole areas of the world"... "an international equivalent of incarceration or commitment to a mental institution, until there is sufficient recovery to permit reentry into the international system." | |
| • | A state with its patterns of despots, coups, assassinations, civil war, corruption, revolutions and lack of respect for human life, freedom and democracy; resembles a "crazy state" that will continue to threaten Israel and world security. | |
Changing the Rules of the Democracy Game in Europe (INN 01/16/2015)
| • | At any given moment one of the thousands of Jihadists living in Europe can be annoyed by a movie, article or caricature published in a newspaper, grab the closest Kalashnikov and spread death and destruction in editorial offices, shops, museums, schools and on the streets. | |
| • | There are various factors that indicate the potential for a major explosion: | |
| • | The enormous number — tens of millions — of Muslims in Europe, a large number to take into account even if only a small fraction of them turn radical. | |
| • | The fact is that many Muslims did not integrate into European culture... Many Muslims have really remained in their land of origin, both psychologically and mentally, and Islamic Sharia – anti-democratic by definition – is more important to them than the laws of the land in which they reside. | |
| • | Europe places almost no limitations on Muslim immigration. There is no proper guarding of the coastline and when illegal infiltrators arrive, they receive fair treatment, work permits, financial support, public housing, medical care and education without any linkage to their contribution to the society and economic system that absorbs them. | |
| • | European security forces are not using sufficient surveillance forces to keep track of the Jihadists and their fellow travelers as well as their support systems. | |
| • | As a result of these factors, many Muslims feel that Europe is theirs. They pray on the streets and block traffic, including ambulances, force supermarkets to stop selling pork and alcoholic beverages, demand that churches cease to ring their bells and force women to dress according to Islamic law when outside the home. Europe's economy – especially the financial market – is increasingly accepting Sharia requirements. | |
| • | "Algerians do not move from Algeria to France; they move Algeria to France". | |
| • | Europe's reality today is a continent that is adopting another culture at a rapid pace. Dreams of cultural diversity have been shown to be unfounded delusions, as the immigrant culture is sure of itself and easily subjugates the fragile indigent culture which has divested itself of all values and has no desire to defend itself from the external threat it faces. | |
| • | Europe is sacrificing its values and cultural and physical existence on the altar of human rights, of which nothing will survive when Europe ceases to be Europe. | |
| • | The peoples of Europe must understand that any nation that does not know how to defend itself is doomed to disappear, a culture that is unable to preserve its values is marching proudly into the window case of a museum exhibit and a society that does not bring the next generation into the world is not going to exist in that next generation | |
| • | The above measures may seem severe and anti-democratic, but it is simply hypocrisy to believe that a democracy must protect those who are against the very idea of democracy for ideological and religious reasons. | |
| • | Democracies must defend themselves and their citizens or they will simply disappear. No democracy should turn into a prescription for cultural suicide, every democracy must express itself in such a way that the culture of those who created it can survive. | |
Offenders of the Western faith (JWR 01/15/2015)
| • | Western civilization's creed is free thought and expression, the lubricant of everything from democracy to human rights. | |
| • | Westerners fight against pornography, blasphemy or hate speech in the arena of ideas by writing and speaking out against such foul expression. They are free to sue, picket, boycott, and pressure sponsors of unwelcome speech. But Westerners cannot return to the Middle Ages to murder those whose ideas they don't like. | |
| • | If the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo loses the millennia-old right to ridicule Islam from within a democracy, then there is no longer a West, at least as we know it. | |
| • | The Western media loudly proclaims its courage in taking on everyone from the Tea Party to gun owners, but it goes silent when the offended have a bad habit of lopping off heads rather than just arguing back. | |
| • | Obama, who once made a last-minute trip to Denmark to lobby for Chicago to host the Olympics, was the sole major Western leader absent from a huge rally in Paris to reiterate the West's commitment to free expression. | |
| • | In Obama's own 2009 Cairo speech, he invited the illiberal Muslim Brotherhood to attend in order to hear mostly half-true claims about the historical glories of Islam, while Obama cited Western colonialism, globalization and the Cold War as understandable incitements to Muslims. | |
| • | "The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam." | |
| • | Actually, Mr. President, the future belongs to civilized men and women who do not murder satirists who choose while in the West to ridicule any religion they please. Islam wins no special exemption. | |
| • | The issue is not whether the late editors and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were obnoxious or clever, self-destructive or courageous — but only whether Westerners reserve the right on their own soil to express themselves as they please | |
The Third World War (INN 01/13/2015)
| • | They don't want to frighten, they want to convert you. What did they want to achieve with the murder? These murderers are "acting" in the name of "Allah" which means that their target is to convert Europe to Islam. To establish Islamic and Sharia rules. | |
| • | ... the biggest silent conquest in human history is taking place right now. It is being accomplished by the Muslims who have invaded Europe, either legally or illegally. It is a religious invasion. It is the silent part of the coming religious war. | |
| • | The openness, tolerance and acceptance of the European countries and regimes are well obvious to the Europeans but they are understood by the invaders as evidence of weakness and an inability to deal with the problem. | |
| • | Don't be nice to those who interpret your niceness as weakness. | |
| • | Don't accept those who want to destroy you from the inside. | |
| • | It is not an issue of land, an issue of 'occupation' nor is it an issue of discrimination. It is an issue of blind hatred to those who are not accepting of "our Islam". Be aware that there are some Islamists, like Shiites or Sunnis, who murder one another as well but they are all are against you. If you are not one of them, you should convert or be killed. | |
| • | Don't be shocked. Be aware. Don't demonstrate. Act. Unite the forces in your countries and nearby countries. You are in the first steps of the Third World War. | |
France is Selling the Jews to buy Quiet from Islam (INN 01/13/2015)
| • | A few days before the massacres in Paris, France voted for the Palestinian Arab resolution at the United Nations. France was the first European country to vote for the PLO's membership at Unesco, the UN's cultural agency. It seems that France and the "Palestinians" deserve each other. Now France is paying for its irrational Jew hatred. | |
| • | French leaders, who are so embarrassed to appear in public with Israeli officials, believe that by selling the Jewish State they can buy tranquillity and peace. It already was tried 70 years ago. | |
| • | When the Germans invaded France, the French officials rounded up their Jews and handed them over as a welcoming present. | |
| • | The French government has surrendered again to evil and it is now too late. | |
Europe's immigration problem (JWR 01/13/2015)
| • | The New York Times ran a front-page article after the Charlie Hebdo massacre on Europe's "dangerous moment." As terrorists rampaged through Paris, ultimately killing 17, what was the cause of this particular alarm? That anti-immigration parties in Europe might gain.
If a country is manifestly having trouble assimilating the immigrants it already has, it shouldn't add to their numbers willy-nilly. | |
| • | This is a rather basic point: The quantity of immigration inevitably affects the quality of assimilation. | |
| • | Addressing a long-ago crisis in Athens, Demosthenes said of those demanding to know his alternative, "I will first give them this answer — the most just and true of all — 'Do not do what you are doing now.'" | |
What the West Must Do In Order to Survive (INN 01/13/2015)
| • | First, the European Union must dissolve itself. Borders and passports must return. No one should be allowed to travel unhindered from European country to European country. | |
| • | Second, each European country must pass legislation to deport all those who are on "no fly" lists; all radical imams at radical mosques, together with their radicalized followers in mosques and in prisons; and all those who have traveled to Iraq, Syria, and Yemen for jihadi training. | |
| • | Third, legislation must empower police and military forces to physically abolish the "no-go" zones – the hostile, separatist Muslim-only neighborhoods in which the European rule of law does not exist and which are ruled, instead, by vigilantism, terrorism, and a superstitious version of Sharia law. | |
| • | Fourth, the most vigorous requirements must be put in place for new immigrants and for the families of existing immigrants | |
| • | We must immediately close our southern border. Here, I am not talking about Hispanic children or Hispanic would-be domestic workers. I am talking about the thousands of illegal immigrants who are coming into America via this route carrying Korans. | |
| • | We must use language accurately. Jihad is not "workplace violence" or the acts of "mentally ill" and "lone" individuals... The word "Islamic" (or "Islamist") must sanely be joined to the word "terrorism" in the lexicon of the FBI, CIA, and Office of Homeland Security. | |
| • | And, not all Muslims are terrorists. But 95% of terrorism today is committed by Muslims who believe they are carrying out Koranic commandments. Until this changes, we must be on a war footing. | |
| • | Americans must understand that war has been declared against the infidel West by radical political Islamists and that the time to fight back is long overdue. Americans must demand that their government defend their country and their way of life. | |
Paris terror attacks: West's "reach out" strategy has failed to modernize anti-modernists (Fox 01/13/2015)
| • | It is delusional to think that by allowing people into our countries with little or no experience in religious diversity, tolerance, freedom of the press and democracy they will want to become like us. We think they will "catch" democracy, study war no more and beat their weapons into ploughshares. Instead they use our freedoms to promote oppression, intolerance and censorship. | |
| • | Homegrown terrorists like the Paris killers, are part of the same breed, which wishes to destroy societies they regard as wicked, claiming they are "just obeying orders" from their god. | |
| • | They wanted to die as martyrs. They died as murderers. | |
| • | The West's "reach out" strategy has failed to modernize the anti-modernists, not only in France, but in Germany and England where enclaves of radical Muslims live according to their own laws in "no go" zones. | |
| • | Our leaders won't even call these mass murders by their right name. If the perpetrators claim Islam inspires and motivates them, what right do we have to contradict them? | |
| • | President Obama is emptying Guantanamo prison of the remaining terrorists to fulfill a campaign promise. In doing so he is not fulfilling his oath of office to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. | |
| • | We should be attacking terrorist training camps in Yemen where the Paris shooters reportedly were trained. We should also outlaw all radical groups with ties to terrorism, confiscate their money and deport non-U.S. citizens. | |
ISIS beheadings: Why we're too horrified to watch, too fascinated to turn away (CNN 01/13/2015)
| • | The murderers acted with a key demographic in mind, knowing that millions of people would tune in to watch. | |
| • | When pathological criminals behead innocent civilians, the murderers address their audience and present their spoils, drawing those who watch into their narrative. The entire spectacle denotes the powerlessness of the victim, and, by extension, the powerlessness of their countrymen to intervene. | |
| • | Spectators who watch beheadings online impotently fulfil the perpetrators' desire to be seen. The ISIS murderers have relied on sophisticated manipulation of social media sites to ensure that their footage appears on our screens before we even know what we are watching. | |
| • | There is no triumph in the killer's actions until we watch. | |
| • | ... if public opinion is able to neutralize the killers' triumph by refusing to broadcast the graphic imagery they want us to see, then this is a step forward. | |
Doomed to remember more dates in infamy (JWR 01/13/2015)
| • | This is not your grandfather's country, where resolve thrived, multiplied and prospered, as we're reminded a hundred times a day. Resolve is like ice cream, delicious and satisfying in the moment, but it melts quickly. Some of the most heroic galvanized words fall from the tongue of the British and French prime ministers, and theirs are the countries most overrun with the waves of immigrants with no taste for the melting pot that once could transform an immigrant from Pakistan or Syria into an Englishman or a Frenchman, or at least a fairly reasonable facsimile thereof. No longer. | |
| • | America is led by a president who neither understands nor celebrates the America that elected him. He knows only that his election, and re-election, gave him an opportunity to get on with transforming America into a nation that your grandfather would not recognize. | |
| • | This indifference to reality is followed closely by the plotters of the evil of the Islamic State, or ISIS or ISIL or whatever they're calling evil this week. | |
| • | There's a lot that the West does not understand about a "faith" that does not require actual belief, but can be imposed by gun and scimitar. | |
Saudi blogger's flogging should outrage U.S. (CNN 01/13/2015)
New Study On The Shooting Down Of MH17 Points To Russian Forces (Forbes, 01/12/2015)
Why Arabs Are so Easily Offended (INN 01/12/2015)
| • | Westerners are brought up to think of anger as a sign of weakness, powerlessness and lack of self-control. In Muslim culture, anger is seen as a sign of strength. To Muslims, being aggressive is a way of gaining respect. | |
| • | In Western culture, self-confidence is connected with the ability to meet criticism calmly and to respond rationally. We are raised to see people who easily get angry when criticized, as insecure and immature. In Muslim culture it is the opposite; it is honorable to respond aggressively and to engage in a physical fight in order to scare or force critics to withdraw, even if this results in a prison sentence or even death. They see non-aggressive responses to such threats and violence as a sign of a vulnerability that is to be exploited. | |
| • | "Locus of control" is a term used in psychology, and relates to the way in which people feel that their lives are controlled. In Western culture, we are brought up to have an "inner locus of control," meaning that we see our own inner emotions, reactions, decisions and views as the main deciding factor in our lives. There may be outer circumstances that influence our situation, but in the end, it is our own perception of a situation and the way we handle it that decides our future and our state of mind. The "inner locus of control" leads to increased self-responsibility and motivates people to become able to solve their own problems. | |
| • | Muslims are brought up to have an "outer locus of control." Their constant use of the term inshallah ("Allah willing") when talking about the future, as well as the fact that most aspects of their lives are decided by older traditions, clan tribal affiliations and authorities, leaves very little space for individual freedom. Independent initiatives are often severely punished. This shapes their way of thinking, and means that when things go wrong, it is always the fault of others or the situation. | |
| • | Westerners are taught to be open and tolerant toward other cultures, races, religions, etc. This makes us less critical, impairs our ability to discriminate, and makes our societies open to the influence of other cultural trends and values that may not always be constructive. Muslims, on the other hand, are taught again and again that they are superior, and that all others are so inferior that Allah will throw them in hell when they die. Muslim culture's self-glorification achieves the opposite with their culture and identity. In general, Westerners are taught to be kind, self-assured, self-responsible and tolerant, while Muslims are taught to be aggressive, insecure and intolerant. | |
| • | The Western tendency to being overly forgiving in response to Muslim aggression and violence is the psychological crowbar that has opened the West to invite escalating Muslim terror against what we know in the West as "the other", that is those that don't accept the Muslim belief that their religion is superior to all other religions. | |
| • | The real question to be asked is why we feel the need to pander and apologize to the most radical, violent and intolerant extremes around the world, to let them set the tone; a tone designed to stifle all criticism of Islam, to declare as blasphemy any attempt to reform radical Islam. This more than anything else might explain why Arabs are so easily offended. | |
Obama AWOL in Paris: Message to America, allies is we don't care (Fox 01/12/2015)
| • | Sunday, President Obama morally abdicated his place as the leader of the free world. | |
| • | To speak about the most serious terrorist attack on Western soil since 9/11 in between speeches about his free community college plan demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding for the gravity of the situation in Paris and, indeed, the world. | |
| • | To this end, it is not surprising that President Obama is the only Western leader who has refused to call this attack Islamic terrorism, even though President Hollande has declared that France is it at war with radical Islam. And to not even send Vice President Joe Biden or Secretary of State John Kerry in his place shows a level of disrespect that makes me ashamed of our nation. | |
| • | Incredibly, in a speech on Friday Egyptian President el-Sisi called upon the Islamic leaders in his own country to stand up to the extremism that is destroying Islam. "We are in need of a religious revolution...You, imams, are responsible for Allah. The entire world...is waiting for your next move...because [the Islamic world] is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost – and it is being lost by our own lands." | |
| • | So why is our own president afraid to do the same? | |
Saturation coverage: Are the media playing into the terrorists’ hands? (Fox 01/12/2015)
| • | Of course we all have to cover a story like the terror that gripped France, aimed not only at a satirical newspaper that dared make fun of Islam but at Jewish grocery customers. And yet it's stunning that a handful of psychopaths with automatic weapons could cause such chaos. And I wonder whether the worldwide notoriety fueled by the media provides a perverse incentive. | |
| • | What I don't want to read now are detailed portraits of the brothers (you'll notice I'm not naming them) and how they were alienated from the mainstream and how society needs to find a way to address this problem. | |
| • | I don't want to see them on the cover of Rolling Stone, as happened with one of the brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon. Let's focus on the victims, on the failure of French intelligence, on shortcomings in our war on Islamic terror, on the principle of free speech that is under assault. | |
| • | I don't care about the French brothers, any more than I care about the lunatics who shoot up schools and movie theaters and shopping centers. They are depraved human beings who think nothing of killing innocent people in pursuit of some twisted ideology. | |
| • | The best tribute to Charb and his courageous colleagues would be for the media to aggressively report on and criticize and even mock Islamic terrorists, not shower them with the posthumous attention they so clearly do not deserve. | |
France in Islamic Peril — They Should Have Seen it Coming (INN 01/11/2015)
| • | "As for you masters of Europe and your treachery; one day your sly anti-Semitism will come back to haunt you. Over the centuries, you have uprooted a thousand synagogues and replaced them with ten thousand mosques. Wait, now, and see what grows from the soil of Ishmael. Your churches are next. For Sunday is coming, Sunday bloody Sunday." | |
| • | "Where were you when, throughout the years, thousands of jihadist bombs fell on Israel? The streets of Europe were empty. There were no pictures in the newspapers of grieving Jewish mothers and fathers. You called it 'peace' as long as the Arabs were doing the killing and the Jews were doing the dying. All was well with the world." | |
| • | "Here's the paradox: Those of us who live in freedom are imprisoned for our own safety, and for reasons of political correctness, we dare not name the enemy, though it is not Jews or Christians who keep us trapped and trembling; bolting our doors and hiding under the covers. Cries of 'kill the infidel' do not come from our synagogues or churches." | |
| • | "Here's a possibility. Maybe we have no shared values. They have their values. We have ours. Never the twain shall meet. Doesn't mean we have to hate one another. Doesn't mean we have to love one another. Just leave us alone. We don't bother you on the road to your mosque, and you leave us alone in our churches and synagogues. How's that for shared values?" | |
'France is at War - And Jews are on the Frontlines' (INN 01/10/2015)
| • | "Europe is at war with an ideology that seeks mass bloodshed and murder. It is not a war against Muslims or Islam, but against a radical interpretation which targets for death anyone that they decide is the enemy, including journalists and Jews, but all our potential targets." | |
| • | "There should be complete unity of purpose among European political leaders towards ending the import of a bloody and malevolent ideological wave of terror onto our continent. Terrorists have declared war on our way of life and we can no longer stand idly by. Words are no longer enough." | |
Israel has Endured France's Pain for Seventy Years (INN 01/10/2015)
| • | In the last year, terrorists have shed Western blood in the Canadian Parliament, in the Syrian desert, in an Australian cafe and now in a French daily newspaper and grocery. For that innocent blood, cries and solidarity have come to support the struggle, at least nominally, against terrorism. But what about the suicide bomber in Rishon Lezion who massacred a group of elderly who were enjoying the cool air on a patio, where they had no protection? | |
| • | What about the shopping malls like in Efrat, the pedestrian areas like in Hadera, the bus stops like in Afula and Jerusalem, the train stations like in Nahariya, the pizzerias like in Karnei Shomron, the nightclubs in Tel Aviv, the buses of students like in Gilo, the bars and restaurants like in Herzliya, and the cafes like in Haifa? Oh no, that blood, the Jewish blood, is not innocent and the terrorists' rage and profanity of the Jewish dead was totally justified. | |
| • | September 11 and January 7, as before them, the Spanish March 11 and the British July 7, should be remembered forever as turning points in world history. | |
| • | But Israeli civilian victims should be honored not only with the same global sorrow we have seen these days, but with an even deeper and more dramatic respect since the Israeli Jews endured this every day in the last seventy years. | |
Islamists won’t kill free speech — we will (01/09/2014)
| • | There is really no point in fatuities about Islam being just as tolerant as all other religions, which was uttered endlessly by commentators covering the Paris horror. | |
| • | For my money, the reason we don't have a slaughter like the one at Charlie Hebdo is because no such magazine would ever be allowed in Canada. | |
| • | And where are the red buttons among Christians when thousands of their fellow worshippers are being slaughtered by Muslims in Africa and the Middle East and tortured by communists in China, North Korea and Cuba? | |
| • | Terror can backfire in the sense that some people finally dislike being scared and react by doing whatever terror is discouraging. This is generally a temporary response. | |
| • | They convert the base notion of being scared into a noble weapon of seeing someone else's point of view. In fact, this is one of the most insidious aspects of terrorism: we wash our brains and convert our fear into understanding. | |
| • | The West has been ready to give up on itself for some time now. | |
| • | Fundamentalist Islam is on the march and all we can do is worry about giving offence. | |
Paris attack puts Western world in a bad spot (JWR 01/09/2015)
| • | In any war, the goal is to put your enemy in a position where he has no good options. The murderous attack on the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo does exactly that. | |
| • | It is right and good to say we are not at war with Islam, but it is dishonest to claim that there are no Muslims waging war against us. Falling back on sanitized euphemisms is the rhetorical equivalent of pixelating Muhammed; it fools no one, save fools. | |
Paris terror attacks: The Islamist goal of global silence (Fox 01/09/2015)
| • | Freedom of speech is one of the weight-bearing pillars of democracy, and if we become reluctant to express our opinions in fear of angering Islamists, democracy will stagger. We simply cannot allow fundamentalists to threaten us to silence. | |
| • | Freedom, tolerance and equality are the keywords of democracy; however, we need to remember that equality does not mean all values are equal. | |
| • | When Charlie Hebdo published satirical cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammed in September 2012, the White House officially questioned the judgment of the satirical magazine. Today it is clear that this kind of criticism is a terrible mistake. | |
| • | We cannot have free speech if it is conditional upon censoring content that may offend principles and feelings. We need to get rid of the "ifs" and "buts." If adopted by governments, this attitude will narrow the scope of the fundamental human right to express one's self freely. | |
| • | The ultimate goal of these terrorists is to silence everyone. However, this threat should not prevent us from expressing criticism – rather the contrary. This is the exact moment that we need to guard democracy by protecting the right to free speech. | |
Europe, US must confront homegrown Islamic terror threat before more die (Fox 01/09/2015)
| • | France has a big problem. So does Great Britain. So does the rest of Europe. And so does America. The problem is the several thousand young, native-born Islamist extremists who travel abroad to fight for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, or Al Qaeda in Yemen and Pakistan, and come home to kill. | |
| • | Islamist extremists look at the Paris massacre and think they won. What they saw was fellow jihadists who could carry out a plan and execute an operation to kill journalists they deemed offensive. | |
| • | Friday morning a second group of Islamist extremists stormed a kosher market in Paris. They executed women and children. | |
| • | The world is glued to television screens watching the terrorist events unfold. It's the best recruitment video Islamist extremists could have. | |
| • | This isn't the end of two terrorist attacks. It is the beginning of a war. | |
| • | There are large neighborhoods in the Paris suburbs called No-Go Zones, where non-Muslims dare not enter. There are similar areas in cities throughout Europe. They are microstates within states, governed by Shariah law, where young people go to madrassas instead of public schools. | |
| • | They are recruited over the Internet, or in their neighborhoods, or at their mosques, and they are offered all-expenses-paid trips to the Middle East to fight a holy war. | |
| • | There are over 1,000 French citizens who have gone to fight for ISIS, over 1,000 Brits and hundreds of Germans, Belgians and Dutch. | |
| • | They have launched a guerrilla war against us in our own neighborhoods. They shout "Allahu Akbar, The Prophet is Avenged." We're still calling it "workplace violence," "senseless killings" or "man-caused disasters." Our leaders insist these are criminal acts, not acts of war. | |
| • | It is a war we can win, but only if we in the West wise up now. Call it what it is: Islamist extremists who believe they are justified to fight and kill in the name of their religion. | |
| • | Take the political correctness handcuffs off intelligence and law enforcement. Employ new data mining and analysis techniques that can identify and track terrorists before they commit murder. | |
Lesson libs still haven't learned: Telegraphing weakness, appeasement encourages violence... (JWR 01/09/2015)
| • | "Allahu Akbar (Allah is Greater)," horrified witnesses recorded them saying. "We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad." | |
| • | "Time's up for denial and hypocrisy. The absolute rejection of Islamic fundamentalism must be proclaimed loudly and clearly." | |
| • | No nation in Europe has been more hostile to Israel, more supportive of the Palestinians, than France. When Islamists take French citizens hostage, French governments typically pay ransoms. | |
| • | "Wednesday's horror is a bitter lesson on the limits of this strategy of appeasement." | |
| • | President Barack Obama condemned "terrorism." After babbling nonsense about France "giving birth to democracy," Secretary of State John Kerry condemned "extremism." Neither mentioned what motivated these particular terrorists/extremists. | |
| • | "It's inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world." | |
| • | "That thinking...is antagonizing the entire world. We are in need of a religious revolution. This umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands. | |
| • | Little would be of more benefit to the world, and to Muslims, than a "Reformation" in Islam. Let's pray Mr. al Sisi's security detail is better than Anwar Sadat's. | |
The crisis of free speech (JWR 01/09/2015)
| • | ... attack on Charlie Hebdo was not just an attack on an institution but on a value. | |
| • | That their craft required such bravery in perhaps the most cosmopolitan city in the world is a testament to the embattled state of free speech in the West. | |
| • | There has been a calculated and growing threat to free speech in the West emanating from the Muslim world since the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie. | |
| • | This offensive has long relied on violence, as well as a noxious campaign of international diplomacy, to export the Muslim world's anti-blasphemy laws to the West. | |
| • | We all love the cliche that the pen is mightier than the sword. But it hasn't been true through most of human history and isn't true in many places — especially in the Muslim world — even today. The pen is an instrument that needs constant protection and the enlivening spirit of satirists of all sorts. | |
Standing up tall to Islam (JWR 01/09/2015)
| • | The radical Muslims who are making war on the world are confident they can win, destroy religious and ethical beliefs and cultures different from their own, and impose a worldwide caliphate. | |
| • | The jihadists cheerfully die in the name of their crusade to eradicate decency and democracy, taking as many innocents as they can with them. | |
| • | But recognizing that many, indeed no doubt most, Muslims are peaceful and even respectful of other religions does not require giving Islam a pass for the transgressions by its followers against decency and order. | |
| • | The Islamic radicals have neither respect nor fear for the decent and democratic strengths and traditions of the West, but they know how to exploit them for their own uses. | |
The 9/11 of Freedom of Speech in Europe (INN 01/09/2015)
| • | We are not all Charlie Hebdo, we are cowards who committed suicide toasting a champagne cocktail. | |
Je Suis Charlie Hebdo Aussi (INN 01/09/2015)
| • | Even today, media and government leaders desperately prattle on about how Islam is a religion of peace — even after 9/11, 3/11, 7/7, the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the Shoe Bomber, the Fort Hood Shooter, the rise of ISIS, Boko Haram, Hamas — and now the Muslim massacre of journalists and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo. | |
| • | Some Western journalists write that the massacre was due to Charlie Hebdo's having "provoked" the attack by insulting Islam. Yes, the satirical magazine insulted all religions and did not make an exception for Islam. Muslims expect that exception and will murder in order to get it. The West has mainly yielded. | |
| • | The Western right to criticize, including our most sacred cows, is on the line. Free thought is on the line as is free speech, freedom of religion, freedom from religion, human rights, women's rights, gay rights — the entire Western Enlightenment enterprise is on the line. | |
| • | And so on — at least until we stand, fight, and militarily decimate every last Jihadist and pro-Jihadist idea left standing. Nothing less will do. | |
Life Sentences or Death Penalty? (INN 01/08/2015)
| • | The Israeli Judea Military Court has sentenced the Palestinian mastermind to the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers to 3 life sentences. Shame on Israel and these judges because now this Arab monster will begin a new life of free room and board, health care, a library, a place to pray to Allah, cable tv and a variety of other activities, all paid for by Israeli society. | |
| • | Again, shame on Israel for following the morally bankrupt European Union by outlawing "Capital Punishment for murder." Those "sophisticated" European progressives have evolved so far, that they can actually have compassion for the most evil actions on the face of the earth — murder of innocents. That certainly says a great deal about the European mind and soul. | |
| • | What Israel and the Europeans are announcing is that no matter how many lives you have taken, and no matter how cruel your torturous acts, we will allow you to keep your life. Granted, we take your freedom away and you can no longer go bowling when you want, but so what. | |
| • | Unfortunately, Israel has imbibed the ideas of the pseudo-intellectual European Left, with its flawed logic and neurotic reasoning. The four main arguments against capital punishment can easily be refuted by any thinking teenager. It is only when you get brainwashed at a university do you find excuses for cold-blooded murderers paying the ultimate fair penalty. | |
| • | Fraudulent Argument #1 — "An innocent person could get executed." | |
| • | The reality is that everything in life has risk associated with it, and in virtually every circumstance, innocent people will die. Unfortunately, that is part of life. The trick is to make the risk as small as possible,.. | |
| • | Fraudulent Argument #2 — "The death penalty does not accomplish anything, because you cannot bring back the dead person." Of course it accomplishes something. In most cases, it revives the outlook and provides closure for the relatives of the dead person. There is immense relief. Just ask a mother whose daughter has become fertilizer, while her murderer watches cable TV and lifts weights in prison. We should be more concerned with the families of the victims, than with the murderer and his relatives. | |
| • | Fraudulent Argument #3 — "Capital Punishment is state murder. Who are we to take a life?" | |
| • | Killing Adolf Hitler would have been one of the most moral acts of the 20th century. The same act can be moral or evil depending on its context. | |
| • | Fraudulent Argument #4 — "Minorities are disproportionately executed." | |
| • | Fancy, expensive lawyers who could probably win a plea bargain for Pol Pot are the real problem. We should mete out the death penalty fairly, not drop it. | |
Radical Muslims Attack Paris — and Freedom Everywhere (JWR 01/08/2015)
| • | "Modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where one must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is of minor importance in the present context... We are on our way to a slippery slope where no-one can tell how the self-censorship will end." | |
| • | "The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims." | |
| • | To show that theirs was a religion of peace, angry Muslims set buildings on fire and vandalized churches, and according to the New York Times more than 200 people were killed — all because the Danish paper violated Muslim law by depicting the image of Mohammad. | |
| • | On February 7 the Times was concerned about "gratuitous assaults on religious symbols." On February 8 it showed a picture of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant crap. | |
| • | Appeasing radical Muslims doesn't make them more reasonable. | |
Tension mounts against Muslim immigration in the West (JWR 01/07/2015)
| • | ... there are already grave warning signs that broadcast how these new Muslim immigrants differ from the old ones. The old came — or were forced — to assimilate into European society, while the new Islamic immigrants, particularly in England, too often show they have come to change the country. | |
| • | In the north of England last year was the appalling — indeed, almost unbelievable — case of Pakistani immigrants who had taken 1,400 young English girls, "groomed" them for a year or so to become prostitutes and then put them up for sale. The police, afraid to look anti-Muslim, did nothing for more than a year. | |
| • | There are simply too many cases on the books now not to believe that there is a powerful current among these Islamic immigrants that abhors belonging and demands ruling. | |
| • | Indeed, in America itself, we need only to look critically at the trial now starting in Boston of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused in the Boston marathon terrorist attack. He comes from quite a family. Not only are young Dzhokhar and his late older brother suspected in the bombing, but his mother and two sisters were earlier accused of shoplifting and various other crimes. | |
| • | Why was this family — Muslims all, from the extraordinarily brutal Chechen ethnic region of Russia, with no means of support in this country and with no loyalty to American principles — allowed to migrate here? The odds that they would succeed, given their background and the rage they HAD to have in their hearts against the world, were virtually nil. And they have fulfilled that promise with flying colors. | |
| • | So it is time to ask the unspoken (and unspeakable?) question: Why should the U.S. and Europe take as immigrants people who are 99.9 percent allied against the Western way of life? Why are we not protecting ourselves? Why are we singing infantile songs about how all have the right to be "free" when "freedom" for them is becoming radicalized and joining a murderous group like ISIS. | |
Paris terror attacks: US, world must adapt to new face of terror, get serious about security (Fox 01/07/2015)
| • | A lone gunman opened fire in the Canadian Parliament. A fanatic self-styled radical imam gunned downed people in an Australian coffee shop. A recent Muslim convert gunned down and beheaded co-workers in Oklahoma. | |
| • | Now initial reports indicate that two or three black-hooded terrorists stormed a Paris satirical publication in an organized attack and massacred over a dozen journalists. The magazine had published a cartoon making fun of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The terrorists shouted, "The Prophet has been avenged." | |
| • | First, we should call this what it is. It is not "workplace violence." It is not the one-off crazy person. It is Islamist extremists who have been radicalized to kill in the name of religion. | |
| • | Our leaders are worried about offending people's feelings, so they refuse to link these escalating series of attacks to a religion. | |
| • | Second, stop trying to look at 100 percent of our population and giving everyone equal scrutiny. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, and it takes our finite resources and spreads them too thinly. Stop treating granny from Grand Rapids on her way to Disney World with the grandkids the same as a young man who spends his time on jihadist websites and posts pictures of himself wearing a black ski mask in front of an ISIS flag. Let's shake off our political correctness and come to our senses. This isn't racial profiling; it's terrorist profiling. | |
| • | Finally, take advantage of the technologies that didn't exist a few years ago, and use them to separate out the very small percentage of people who present the threat. After all of these attacks — in Canada, in Australia, in Oklahoma — we piece together the clues and realize the terrorists showed a lot of warning signs. We should put our new technologies to work to identify these people before they kill, and give them extra attention. | |
| • | It works by combing through multiple databases, identifying anomalies and pulling together seemingly disparate pieces of suspicious behavior to identify someone whom law enforcement should take a second look at. | |
Every Holiday Season Now Comes With Muslim Terrorism (INN 01/06/2015)
| • | For Muslims this has always been religious war. And what better target for terror, than an infidel's religious event? | |
| • | The clergy at interfaith conferences may yammer on about how we're all the children of god, but Muslims know better. They are the slaves of Allah and we are heretics and idol worshipers. It's their duty to fight us, until we submit and accept Muslim rule. | |
| • | The Islamic holy texts are dominated by a single categorical imperative, to expand, dominate and rule. For the Muslim, life is complicated, but Islam is simple. And even the most secular and westernized Muslim will sooner or later feel an imperative to escape from the complications of modern life, into the pure simplicity of Islam at a cafe or an airline flight. The media charges that such escapees misunderstand Islam, but in actuality they understand it quite well. | |
| • | Islam is a state of permanent religious war. It has no room in it for dissent or religious differences. That is why the Christian population in the Muslim world is vanishing. As the West becomes more Muslim, its Christian population will begin to decline and vanish. | |
| • | We who pride ourselves on our tolerance and slap ourselves on the back for our open-mindedness do not like to think that our civilization is an illusion, a parquet floor built over the roaring fire of barbarism underneath. | |
| • | It requires that we understand what we have done. We have imported people from a culture and religion that has never accepted the most basic premise of our way of life. Coexistence. And so we cannot coexist with them. And they cannot coexist with us. After a few years or decades of baffled attempts to adjust to a foreign way of life, they will either wall themselves off or make war on us. Or both at the same time. They cannot be our neighbors, only our enemies. | |
Straightforward Arab Message, Convoluted Jewish Answers (INN 01/06/2015)
| • | Jews are from Judea; Arabs are from Arabia. The Jews are the indigenous people of this land; Arabs are the colonizers. We are the people of Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, Galilee and Golan. We have been invaded by the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs and the Crusaders, but our link to the land has never been broken. We have resided without interruption in this land for over three thousand years. We have built the cities and every square meter holds archaeological remains from our ancient kingdoms. During the two thousand years when most Jews lived in exile, we never forgot where we came from. This was, is, and will be our nation's sacred land forever. | |
| • | Meanwhile, there never existed an Arab Palestinian nation or a country. It is a complete hoax. There never was a Palestinian Arab king of this land; there were no famous Palestinian poets, philosophers, generals; no distinct language, no architecture, no inventions, no battles, indeed, no mention of the "Palestinian" Arab people in any history book written before 1960. Arabs from neighboring countries started immigrating into Palestine in late 19th century to take advantage of the infrastructure and jobs created by the newly invigorated Jewish people. They came for the same reasons that Mexicans cross the border into the U.S. and that Muslims have flocked to Europe. They came in great numbers seeking a better life than in their Arab lands. | |
| • | During these years the Arabs dwelling in Israel were simply "Arabs" and, when the term "Palestinian" was used, it always referred to the Jews! The "Palestinian people" were invented in the 1960s for Cold War purposes by the Soviet communists. The Arabs residing in Israel began to pass themselves off as the ancient native peoples of this land. They invented the name, "The West Bank," for our provinces of Judea and Samaria. Today they even claim that Jesus was a Palestinian prophet and that the Jews never lived in this land. They have developed this pseudo-history to dupe the world into believing that their racist terror campaign against the Jews is a national liberation struggle! | |
| • | This is a message that even our European friends should be able to understand, since they are witnessing a replay of the same scenarios in their countries. Arriving as poor immigrants looking for jobs, just like in Palestine, once their numbers grow, radical Muslims take control and seek to impose their worldview and values wherever they live. | |
The Fundamental Breach of the Oslo Accords by the PA (INN 01/05/2015)
Proportional Proportionality (INN 01/05/2015)
| • | However, in international conflicts, where not all the parties act in the framework of the international conventions, the term "proportionality" becomes an one way weapon applied and used against the party who does follow them and is called to restrain and abstain from any response against the attacking party, claiming that any response may escalate the conflict because, or despite the fact that, the attacking party does not consider himself bound by "proportionalities" or any other limits or accepted rules. | |
| • | Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, expressed in his diaries his surprise that the British did not act to stop Germany when it broke the terms of the Versailles treaty. Dershowitz continued and said, "let's imagine Churchill had been there and he had acted. Perhaps 10,000 people would have died. No world war. No Holocaust. But instead of being a national hero, considered by many to be the greatest ever Englishman, Sir Winston would have been thought a pugilistic maverick who allowed thousands to die for what? To stop tinpot dictator from bloviating?" (D. Finkelstein, "What if Churchill had been PM in the 1930?", The Times, 13 December 2014, p. 25). | |
| • | The Appeasement policy of those times is equal to the claim for "proportionality" today, only under another name, in dealing with countries and organisations which have no intention to follow international rules and conventions, neither in the political field nor in the warfare field. Like the Appeasement policies devotees in the past, the "proportionality" policies devotees of today limit themselves to counting the number of victims of each side caused as a result of immediate reaction in the short term to stop violence and brutality carried out by those parties for whom the term "proportionality" does not exist. | |
America’s Unacknowledged Problem (INN 01/05/2015)
| • | Turkey is playing a double game on the issue of the Islamic State. It pretends to cooperate with the US policy in the attempt to contain radical Islam, but actually Turkey supports ISIS. It allows volunteers passage through Turkish territory to join ISIS in Iraq. ISIS receives logistical support via Turkey, and sends its wounded militants for treatment there. Turkish military forces stood idly by the besieged city of Kobani, just across the Turkish border, while the Islamists killed Kurdish fighters. Finally, Turkey denies the American air force access to Turkish bases; forcing the US to use far away bases when attacking ISIS targets. | |
| • | Turkey is also openly supporting another radical Islamist organization – Hamas. Despite the fact that the West regards Hamas a terrorist organization, Ankara regularly hosts Hamas representatives that meet the highest Turkish dignitaries. Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has a rabid anti-American position. | |
| • | In 2003, Ankara denied the request from Washington to open its territory so that the US military could attack Saddam Hussein's forces from two separate fronts. | |
| • | It is not clear why Washington puts up with such Turkish behavior. The Obama administration seems to be unable to call a spade a spade. It refuses to acknowledge that Turkey is a Trojan horse in NATO, and that Ankara undermines American interests in the Middle East and elsewhere. | |
The Ups and Downs of Israeli Political Life (INN 01/05/2015)
| • | Israel is always searching for a savior, a messianic figure that can and will solve all of our problems and make us beloved amongst the nations of the world, united at home and at peace with ourselves and our neighbors. So, anyone or any party that advertises itself as being that savior will naturally attract votes and support from a populace that is trained to ignore the realities of Jewish life and of the historical attitude of the world towards us. | |
| • | Nevertheless probably very little will change in our daily personal lives and perhaps even in the overall national life of our wonderful little country. The savior will not yet have arrived and our problems are not likely to disappear in the immediate future no matter what the results of the election may be. This does not mean that we should despair of positive change are of good leadership. But it does mean that we should be realistic, rational and we should try to retain our emotional equilibrium and good sense in judging the parties and personalities involved. | |
Hardly an Excessive Demand (INN 01/04/2015)
| • | The unwillingness to accept Israel as a legitimate non-Muslim political entity is epitomized by the Palestinians asymmetrical demands for the Right of Return of all Palestinian refugees to the Jewish state coupled with a demand that the 'West Bank' and Gaza be cleansed of all Jews. | |
| • | There has never been "a cycle of violence." Resorting to such neutral terminology requires the U.S. and Europe to acquiesce to, and perpetuate a gross misrepresentation of reality. | |
| • | Putting Israel and its neighbors on the same footing totally ignores the asymmetry of the history of the conflict and something as fundamental as "cause and effect." | |
| • | The truth is – one side has been the aggressor time-after-time. The Arabs have been the initiators of more than five major wars resulting in the death of more than 22,000 Israeli soldiers and civilians. Arabs continuously call for political and economic boycotts and unbridled incitement. The Palestinian Arabs have launched wave-after-wave of terrorism against Israelis and other Jews and made hate the fuel that directs and runs their society. | |
| • | In response to these onslaughts, Israel has not demanded reparations for the horrific causalities it has sustained in its fight for survival against repeated Arab aggression. | |
| • | It did not ask the Arab countries forrestitution on behalf of 899,000 Jews that fled "All Moslem Lands" [NY Times , May 16, 1948]. It has only asked that it be allowed to live in peace with recognized and defendable borders... and this is hardly an excessive demand. | |
Nylons for nothing in Cuba (JWR 01/02/2015)
| • | We contained, constrained, squeezed and eventually exhausted the Soviets into giving up. The dissidents inside subsequently told us how much they were sustained by our support for them and our implacable pressure on their oppressors. | |
| • | Obama brought back nothing on democratization, a staggering betrayal of Cuba's human rights crusaders. No free speech. No free assembly. No independent political parties. No hint of free elections. | |
| • | You know how to achieve a breakthrough in tough negotiations? Give everything away. Try it. You'll have a deal by noon. | |
Egypt’s Sisi: Islamic “Thinking” Is “Antagonizing the Entire World” (01/01/2015)
| • | I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing — and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It's inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible! | |
| • | That thinking — I am not saying "religion" but "thinking" — that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It's antagonizing the entire world! | |
| • | Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants — that is 7 billion — so that they themselves may live? Impossible! | |
| • | I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema — Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I'm talking about now. | |
| • | All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective. | |
| • | I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move... because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands. | |
Studying ISIS and ourselves (JWR 01/01/2015)
| • | Enemies of the recent past have written books that served as motivators for those who followed those ideologies. The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848 and written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, formed the basis for the Bolshevik Revolution six decades later and the creation of the Soviet Union. | |
| • | Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" defined his political and social philosophy as well as his plans for Germany and eventually the world. | |
| • | In this latest war, the Koran is the textbook of jihadists, and it doesn't help when Westerners seek to define what is "legitimate" Islam and what is not. Many in the Islamic world reject Western values and thus any Western interpretation of their religion. | |
| • | A poll published last July in Saudi Arabia's Al-Hayat news found that 92 percent of Saudis believe the Islamic State conforms to the values of Islam and Islamic law. Other polls throughout the Islamic world show large numbers of Muslims at least sympathetic, if not openly supportive, of tactics used by extremists. | |
| • | "In Norway, Sweden and Denmark, imams call for the decapitation and/or jail for those who reject Islam, because as immigrants they reject European laws and values." | |
| • | The U.S and "experts" can conduct their surveys and studies, but while they are trying to decipher the "psychology" of ISIS, they might consider the merits of Islam's indictment of Western "values," which don't seem so valuable anymore as many have become self-destructive. For Europe and increasingly in the U.S. these include: negative population growth (U.S. population growth is positive, thanks to immigration, but is nearly stagnant at 0.7 percent); a growing secularism that finds no purpose in life other than pleasing one's self; and the exposure and marketing of the female body, which is an affront to Muslims who regard modesty as a fundamental virtue. | |
Israel's Security is a Debt of Honor for Mankind (INN 01/01/2015)
| • | Israel is a small state-sanctuary that collects refugees of three continents, but for surreal reasons it has become the accepted symbol of violence, aggression and colonialism. Law and courts today are entirely on the other side. Not to mention compassion. | |
| • | Towards Israel, the world's public opinion oscillates between remorse and discomfort, nailing an entire people to a destiny of being exterminated or being the exterminator, perpetuating the black blood libel of a race fatally involved in bloody tragedies, and forcing seven million Israeli Jews, besieged on the outskirts of an immense Arab world to make the choice between national suicide, a new escape — or a desperate war. | |
| • | Israel is a paradox, it is the proof that faith moves mountains. It is a secular and theocratic country together, arisen from the dramatic and mysterious fidelity to a religious tradition. Israel is the political son of Western culture, but it exists only because of the vitality of a millenia old religion, whose religious ideas belong to the moral heritage of a billion people. | |
| • | That is why in 2015 Israel's security and survival remains a debt of honor to all men and women. | |
Summing Up 2014 in the Middle East (INN 01/01/2015)
Despite It All, Israel is Here to Stay (INN 12/30/2014)
| • | Israel is the world's only country which hasn't seen one day of peace since its founding. | |
| • | And Israel, the only democratic nation born from a religious idea, promoted as a refuge for the persecuted, will remain one of the most exciting human adventures. | |
| • | The Holocaust closed that noble Jewish adventure in the Diaspora. | |
| • | The people of Israel will live. The Land of Israel will thrive. Israel is here to stay. | |
Two Children, Many Questions (INN 12/29/2014)
| • | Firebombs, also known as Molotov Cocktails, are "primarily intended to set targets ablaze rather than instantly destroy them", according to Wikipedia. The attack on Thursday night succeeded. It set the target ablaze. The target is now in hospital, fighting a desperate battle for her life. She is eleven years old. | |
| • | Israeli revenge was not long in coming. It happened Saturday morning: "A Palestinian baby collapsed while crossing the border between the West Bank and Jordan, prompting the IDF to send a helicopter to evacuate the child to a Jerusalem hospital, effectively saving his life." | |
| • | PS: If, like us, you have tried to find published Arabic-language condemnations of the firebomb attack on the eleven year-old Israeli girl (and no, we don't count statements of the "we oppose all acts of violence blah blah" since their insincerity is so obvious), and failed, then you already know how thoroughly invested their world is in its addiction to terror. | |
Where Lies a "Soul": Still Hidden Meanings of Terrorism (INN 12/29/2014)
Hamas is Worse than the Islamic State (INN 12/29/2014)
| • | "Today for the first time since 1945, Jews are once again threatened openly by a radical Islamic genocidal ideology whose murderous rantings must be taken more seriously than the Nazi ones were two and more generations ago." | |
Beyond "Correct" Political Analysis (INN 12/28/2014)
| • | Enough to quote Golda Meir's biography, My Life (1975): "I have never doubted for an instant that the true aim of the Arab states has always been, and still is, the total destruction of the State of Israel, or that even if we had gone back far beyond the 1967 lines to some miniature enclave, they would not still have tried to eradicate it and us.... It is our duty to realize this truth; it is our duty to make it clear to all men of good will who tend to ignore it. We need to [face] this truth in all its gravity, so that we may continue to mobilize from among ourselves and the Jewish people all the resources necessary to overcome our enemies..." | |
| • | Given this candid assessment, was it not criminally irresponsible on the part of the Israeli Prime Ministers who succeeded Golda Meir to pursue the policy of "territory for peace" with Arab leaders? | |
| • | Was it not inane or insane to allow these Arabs to established headquarters or bases in Gaza and Ramallah, indeed, to give them swaths of Jewish land in Judea and Samaria? | |
| • | Doesn't Golda Meir's assessment of the Arabs reduce to fatuity the Government's release of thousands of Arab terrorists from prison as "good will gestures" – gestures Golda would probably have denounced as criminal irresponsibility? No wonder she was called "the only man in the cabinet," as she'd be called today, were she a member of the Netanyahu Government. | |
| • | How could any Israeli Prime Minister ignore or minimize the strategic significance of the 1,400-year engrained hostility of Muslim Arabs toward Jews? | |
| • | Have not studies indicated that despite all the political, economic, and educational benefits they enjoy as Israeli citizens – benefits elsewhere unavailable to Arabs – that many of these "disciples of Muhammad" aid and participate in terrorist attacks and thus constitute a hostile population in this country? | |
Europe Gave the Green Light to Burn a Jewish Child (INN 12/27/2014)
| • | Ayala Shapira is an 11 year old Jewish girl. She was badly injured in a Palestinian Arab firebomb attack and suffered life-threatening smoke inhalation and third-degree burns over the majority of her body and face. | |
| • | During the first Intifada, Arab terrorists from Qalqilya burned Ofra Moses and her small children to death. And hundreds of Jews have been burned to death in buses and restaurants by Palestinian Arab suicide bombers. | |
| • | Several days have passed since the attack on Ayala and you will not find a single European official who condemned Arab terrorism and the vicious attempt to burn alive a Jewish girl. Think about it. Burnt alive: the same thing the Nazis did. | |
| • | The Palestinian Arabs are always synchronized with the message coming from Europe, when it condones their cannibalism and barbarism or if it condemns it (a very rare occurrence). | |
| • | What did they do with all the money from Brussels? They used it to pay the salaries of terrorists in jail. | |
| • | Less than 48 hours after the highest European Union court of "justice" , in a manner of speaking, removed Hamas from the list of terrorists, Palestinian Arab terrorists also fired rockets at Israel from Gaza. | |
| • | 24 hours later, it was the turn of a Jewish girl burned in her car. | |
Europe is Gone (INN 12/26/2014)
| • | Israel should be pilloried and boycotted, delegitimized and isolated, while the noble Palestinians – fomenters of worldwide terrorism, intifadas and recurring wars – are worthy of diplomatic recognition, media support, financial aid and moral justification. This is Europe's revenge against the Jews for surviving the Holocaust and thereby instilling the unease and guilt that Europe feels towards Jews, Judaism and the Jewish state. | |
Is AI a threat to humanity? (CNN 12/26/2014)
| • | "One can imagine [AI] outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all." | |
The Genie, the Bottle and Those Who Took Charge (INN 12/24/2014)
Looking for Truth in the Verbal War against Israel 12/23 Looking for Truth in the Verbal War (st/0/2014)
| • | President Obama lost no time in using the attack as a lesson in moral equivalence by pointing out that Palestinians have also died (in a conflict for which they are largely responsible), and that all sides need to move beyond the massacre to achieve peace. | |
| • | By condemning the Har Nof attack equivocally while overlooking the rejectionist venom that made it possible, Mr. Obama and the UN chose to ignore history, truth and common decency. | |
| • | "Oh, those who carry out Ribat [war to take land claimed by Islam] in the plazas of the first direction of prayer of Allah [the Al-Aqsa Mosque] in the name of your people and your Arab nation... Blessed be your quality weapons, the wheels of your cars, your axes and kitchen knives. By Allah, these are stronger than the arsenals of our enemy, because [they are being used] according to Allah's will. We are the soldiers of Allah." | |
| • | "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." | |
| • | Israel has to ask whether the Palestinians and the Arab-Muslim world truly want peace with a Jewish State. Judging from the language in their charters and the words of their leaders, the answer would appear to be no. | |
Where Christmas really came from (CNN 12/23/2014)
| • | Whatever the specifics of his birth, Jesus became the Light of the World for those who follow his path. He is, indeed, the Prince of Peace, and he invites us to a change of heart, a way of overcoming violence in the world with love and grace. | |
Cold War Replay: This Time We Lose (JWR 12/22/2014)
| • | Obama's declaration that reducing our nuclear arsenal would inspire others, like North Korea and Iran, to abandon their nuclear ambitions is beyond naive — it borders on delusional. | |
| • | Human rights have not interested this president, though he makes his share of gaseous declarations about "who we are" and who we are not. When millions of Iranians poured into the streets demanding liberty, Obama coldly turned away. He couldn't spare a word of support for the people of Iran, because he was the president of the nation that had aided a coup 60 years ago! He would instead keep stretching out his hand to the regime that hates us. Their hatred is justified, after all. | |
| • | It was different when Egyptians rose up against Hosni Mubarak. That regime had been a U.S. ally. Obama was more than ready to show Mubarak the door. | |
| • | In 2009, the little communist thug Daniel Ortega lectured Obama for 50 minutes about supposed American sins against Latin America, particularly against Cuba, "whose crime has been ... fighting for sovereignty of the peoples." Did Obama snort at this outrageous inversion of reality? Did he mention the Cuban gulag, the lack of elections, the executions of those seeking to leave? No. He said, "To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was 3 months old." | |
| • | In exchange for diplomatic recognition and valuable economic concessions, the U.S. (and the Cuban people) got nothing. No promise of free elections, no guarantee of international inspections of the prisons, no freedom of the press — nothing. | |
| • | Why? Because in his heart Obama believes that his nation has always been on the wrong side, and he will use his power in the remaining two years to punish us. A deal with Iran is next. | |
Appeasing Dictators (JWR 12/22/2014)
| • | "Mr. Obama may claim that he has dismantled a 50-year-old failed policy; what he has really done is give a 50-year-old failed regime a new lease on life." | |
The Day Europe Voted for Another Holocaust (INN 12/19/2014)
Why 'Palestine' Would Be a Dangerous Legal Fiction (INN 12/19/2014)
The EU is No Innocent Bystander, No Honest Broker (INN 12/18/2014)
How to win cyberwar against North Korea (CNN 12/18/2014)
| • | A quote often attributed to Leon Trotsky reads, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." Although Washington would like very much to ignore North Korea, Pyongyang has just brought Trotsky's axiom into the 21st century with a seminal cyberattack that will have an immediate economic and cultural impact.
Using modest cybercapabilities and an American-Japanese target wholly lacking in moral courage, North Korea has aided itself and every other dictatorship on Earth mightily.
First, the United States and its allies should retaliate against their attackers in order to deter future attacks. The response should be similar to, but of a greater magnitude than the initial attack — a common feature of deterrence. Second, the United States should maintain escalatory dominance, making clear that it is always willing and able to ascend to the next higher level of conflict if so forced.
For example, the United States could disrupt communications or even the electricity grid in Pyongyang and temporarily disrupt a small number of Chinese or Russian firms that depend on Web commerce.
But with North Korea we should go further still, ceasing ever again to ignore the regime. Ultimately, improved cybersecurity will only come with the regime's replacement. Freedom and accountable government work for Koreans, a fact that is obvious from the shining example of South Korea. | |
Are drone strikes more defensible than torture? (JWR 12/18/2014)
| • | How is assassinating a suspected terrorist — and anyone unfortunate enough to be in his general vicinity — with a drone missile morally or legally different from waterboarding a confessed terrorist at Guantanamo Bay? At least the waterboarded suspect survives the ordeal. | |
Spinning Out of Control (INN 12/18/2014)
World must step up on Syria refugee crisis (CNN 12/18/2014)
| • | How can it be that such suffering exists just a few hours' plane ride from some of the world's richest capitals? And how can so many enjoy a life of abundance, and yet, despite our more interconnected world, appear so oblivious to quite how bad things have gotten? | |
North Korea wins? (CNN 12/17/2014)
Pakistan's (CNN 09/11/2014)
The Impending Vote For The Recognition of Palestine (INN 12/15/2014)
Today Damascus, Soon, Khuzestan (INN 12/13/2014)
Why Ukraine is rethinking NATO relationship (CNN 12/12/2014)
| • | Twenty years ago this month, Ukraine, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States signed an agreement that represented a major step in global anti-proliferation efforts. Under the deal, known as the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine voluntarily surrendered the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, which it had inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In return, Ukraine was offered security assurances by Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States in a document that highlighted the inviolability of Ukraine's existing borders and its sovereignty, called for the abstention from forceful actions that could threaten Ukraine's territorial integrity and prohibited economic pressure being placed on Ukraine.
Russian aggression against Ukraine, first in Crimea and soon after in eastern regions of Ukraine, has created an unprecedented challenge to international peace. Indeed, rather than simply being a domestic or even regional crisis, what has been unfolding this year constitutes a violation of international law, undermining the existing checks and balances of the international system.
As a result, many states may start to view the possession of weapons of mass destruction as the only effective means of safeguarding against external risks, in the process provoking a new arms race and ultimately increasing the threat of nuclear disaster down the road. | |
The Art of the Showdown (INN 12/10/2014)
| • | Newspaper headlines are relentless: Sweden recognizes the State of Palestine along 1967 lines, UK Parliament recognizes Palestinian state, Spain recognizes... Obama White House strongly opposes Jewish settlements, Jordanian parliament hails the two Arab terrorist brothers, Turkey calls Israel an apartheid state, European Union is working on recognition along the 1967 lines, EU demands Jews stop building houses in the "occupied territories" etc.
The Europeans observe the Jewish retreat and lose respect for them. Add to this a measure of traditional European anti-Semitism, and the Jews find themselves facing Europeans that are ever more hostile towards Israel. In order to justify siding with the aggressive Arabs, Europeans invent and promote lies about Jews to clear their own conscience and cozy up to the Arabs whom they fear and respect.
The end result is that Israel becomes victimized by both Europeans and the Arabs. Each tries to outdo the other in showing how far they can bully the Jewish victim.
I would suggest that the only viable solution for Israel is to force a showdown with its emboldened enemies. Only a determined and aggressive showdown by Israel will restore its standing and enable it to regain respect.
Sweden started the latest round of attacks with recognition of Arab Palestine state in the area of Judea Samaria and E. Jerusalem. In effect Sweden usurped the right to commandeer a part of Jewish land and gave it to another people.
Some countries might consider this an act of war | |
Yes, It is a Battle Over Jerusalem (INN 12/09/2014)
| • | The Israelis who have died were innocent victims of Palestinian terrorism. The Palestinians who have died were terrorists who were killed by Israelis in self-defense. But for Mr. Obama's lights, it's all a great big blur, with no moral distinctions and all sides being equally guilty. That's the only way for him to keep pushing forward with the fiction of Palestinian moderation, in the cause of Palestinian statehood.
The Obama administration is wrong. The United States should be on the side of its peace-making ally, Israel, in its fight against the Palestinian terrorist assault on Jerusalem. Whether the victims are three Americans beheaded by ISIS or three Americans butchered in a Jerusalem synagogue, America and Israel are fighting the same enemy. | |
Why hostage rescues fail (CNN 12/08/2014)
| • | One of the most successful hostage rescues of the modern era took place on July 4, 1976, when Israeli commandos stormed Entebbe Airport in Uganda to rescue dozens of Israeli hostages held there by a Palestinian terrorist group.
After a careful examination of a number of raids McRaven identified some key principles that had made these operations a success: Speed, purpose and, of course, the critical element of surprise.
— Speed meant that "relative superiority" over the enemy needed to be achieved in the first few minutes of the attack, as it was at Entebbe, and that the entire mission should be completed in around half an hour.
— Purpose meant both that the operation was well understood by each of the soldiers involved — "release the hostages" at Entebbe — and that the soldiers were completely committed to the mission.
— Surprise meant catching the enemy entirely off guard, as had happened at Entebbe. | |
Are Palestinian Terrorists Immune from Extradition? (INN 12/08/2014)
Pity the Real Refugees (INN 12/07/2014)
Neuter Netanyahu? Obama attempts it yet again (JWR 12/05/2014)
| • | Israel has tried to trade land for peace and gotten more terror and no peace. At the present moment it is inconceivable that any Israeli government of any stripe would withdraw from the West Bank in order to make way for what could be an even larger and more dangerous version of the Hamas terror state that currently exists in Gaza. | |
War clouds (JWR 12/04/2014)
British Prime Minister should write American immigration policy (JWR 12/04/2014)
| • | Immigrants who wish to become fully British or fully American are the kind of people our countries want. What they don't want are people who bring their agendas and seek to impose them on citizens who, through military service and sacrifice, built something they wish to sustain for themselves and their posterity.
Is that too much to ask? | |
The Priceless Treasures on the Temple Mount (INN 12/02/2014)
Understanding Islamic Terrorism as Religious Sacrifice (INN 12/01/2014)
| • | In the Arab Middle East, where theological doctrine divides carefully into the dar al-Islam (world of Islam) and the dar al-harb (world of war), acts of terror against unbelievers have long been taken as an exemplary expression of sacredness. Here, individual sacrifice derives, in large part, from a fervidly hoped-for conquest of personal death. By adopting such atavistic practice, the Jihadist terrorist expects to realize an otherwise unattainable immortality, not to mention other substantially seductive and corollary benefits.
President Obama's "Road Map" coaxes Israel along a determinably lethal excursion to unending war and terror. By ignoring the core roots of Palestinian terrorism, this twisting cartography can offer Israel only a contrived "Two-State Solution." Should Prime Minister Netanyahu agree to follow Washington's simplistic views, he will have misunderstood the deepest, and simultaneously most ineradicable, origins of Palestinian terrorism. | |
A Western Tourist Hasn't a Chance in a Persian Bazaar (INN 11/27/2014)
| • | Someone from the West – let's say a tourist, for our purposes - who enters a Middle Eastern bazaar, gets high from the odors, confused by the scenes, dizzy from the colors, excited by the music, disgusted by the crowding, and then buys whatever he sees because the prices are low, only to discover that night, at his hotel , that he overpaid, the paint is peeling off and the merchandise is falling apart or rotten. Besides, some of it is made in China and can be bought on the internet for half of what he paid.
The negotiations taking place over the last sixteen years between Iran and the West are a perfect example of the cultural abyss between the Western negotiators and their Iranian counterparts, experts at trading in the bazaar where hiding information and cheating are basic principles of their Shiite culture. The differences between the norms of a tourist and the culture of the Persian bazaar brought about the bitter outcome that gave the Iranians the object they needed the most – time. They paid the price of a few sanctions, but now they see those disappearing, and most important: they have provided very little in terms of limiting their military nuclear plans. | |
NYT Editorial Actually Condemns the World, not Israel (INN 11/26/2014)
A Decade Later, "The New Anti-Semitism" Comes of Age (INN 11/26/2014)
| • | "Dare I say it? I must. I implore Jews to stop fighting with each other. Even if we disagree, we must try to do so respectfully, soulfully... We are an eternal people engaged in an eternal struggle with evil." | |
The Colonialist Crimes of Islam (INN 11/26/2014)
Perhaps It's Time for Them to Leave (INN 11/25/2014)
| • | Palestinian society has been generationally indoctrinated against Jews by successive leadership, in the home, in the Madrases, throughout the educational system, in the Mosques, and in the media. Their doctrinal hatred is so pervasive it goes without question. | |
Debunking the "Lone Wolf" Myth (INN 11/24/2014)
| • | The Palestinian Authority's 7th grade textbook "Our Beautiful Language" states: "We shall sow Palestine with shahids (martyrs), skeletons and skulls; we shall paint the face of Palestine with blood. ... We are returning home to the plains and mountains (of pre-1967 Israel) led by jihad flags, by bloody struggles, and by the willingness to sacrifice ourselves as martyrs." | |
The diplomatic insanity of Iran talks (CNN 11/24/2014)
Would huge Nicaragua canal be win for China? (CNN 11/24/2014)
Khamenei's No Nukes Promise is a Hitlerian "Big Lie" (INN 11/22/2014)
| • | "... I am grateful to Mr. Chamberlain for all his efforts. I have assured him [Chamberlain] that the German people desire nothing but peace. I have also assured him, and I repeat this assurance here, that, once this problem is solved, there exist no further territorial problems for Germany in Europe." | |
After the Massacre: Islamic Martyrs and Islamic Peace (INN 11/21/2014)
| • | "Blessed be your quality weapons, the wheels of your cars, your axes and kitchen knives, because they are being used according to Allah's will. We are the soldiers of Allah (Sultan Abu Al-Einein, Abbas Senior Advisor and Member, Fatah Central Committee, November 19, 2014). | |
How Can We Deal With Depravity? (INN 11/21/2014)
Responding to the slaughter (JWR 11/21/2014)
It's Time to Annex the Temple Mount (INN 11/20/2014)
| • | None of this is to say that Palestinians need to be banished from their mosques. Rather, Israelis must have their civil rights restored, including the right to worship on the Temple Mount. | |
Obama: Helping Terror Go Nuclear (INN 11/20/2014)
A 'Palestinian' pogrom in Jerusalem (JWR 11/19/2014)
Is the Jewish State Bill Necessary or is it Redundant? (INN 11/18/2014)
Israeli Civilians Must Be Able to Defend Themselves (INN 11/18/2014)
A Palestinian State — What the World Should Expect (INN 11/16/2014)
The Arabs Will Lose Jerusalem Too (INN 11/15/2014)
An Intifada of Arab Disappointment — with Themselves (INN 11/13/2014)
Obama Always Puts U.S. on the Wrong Side (JWR 11/12/2014)
Abbas' Holy War of Lies (INN 11/12/2014)
| • | Or as Menachem Begin put it: "They want a holy war? We will give them a holy war." | |
Obama's False Choice on Israel (JWR 11/12/2014)
Looking Back at Yitzchak Rabin's Legacy (INN 11/12/2014)
Putin and Obama's funniest home videos (CNN 11/12/2014)
Why China needs the U.S. (CNN 11/12/2014)
A European Open Letter to the EU Foreign Affairs Chief (INN 11/11/2014)
On Iran, is Obama a sad negotiator? (CNN 11/11/2014)
| • | It is not a pretty sight — the commander-in-chief of the planet's mightiest army, the leader of the world's largest economy — sitting down at his desk, chin in hand, trying to come up with just the right words to persuade the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to make nice with America, time and again, even after his letters prompt a combination of silence and scorn. | |
Back in the 80's We Really Believed in Peace (INN 11/10/2014)
Iran, the Greatest Challenge in U.S.-Israel Relations (INN 11/10/2014)
Why and When was the Myth of al-Aqsa Created? (INN 11/10/2014)
Stop romancing North Korea (CNN 11/08/2014)
Why now? North Korea's release of Bae, Miller raises questions (CNN 11/08/2014)
The age of triumph is over (CNN 11/07/2014)
Is Israel Missing an Opportunity? (INN 11/07/2014)
Iran nuclear talks like bargaining with the devil (JWR 11/06/2014)
Killing Khorasan bomb-maker a big win — but at what cost? (CNN 11/06/2014)
The rest of the news (JWR 11/05/2014)
Is it Moral if One Side Kills and the Other Ignores It? (INN 11/04/2014)
| • | Is a situation moral in which one side can commit any crime or murder and the other is forbidden to react? | |
Why the Mastermind of Klinghoffer's Murder Went Free (INN 11/04/2014)
Will David Cameron's gamble take Britain out of Europe? (CNN 11/04/2014)
National Referendum: 'Painful Concessions' or 'Arabs Out'? (INN 11/04/2014)
| • | You decide - who was right? | |
Mr. and Mrs. Hijazi, Your Son Died for Nothing (INN 11/03/2014)
Being safe while isolated (JWR 10/31/2014)
Restoring Justice and Sanity on the Temple Mount (INN 10/30/2014)
Behind the Attempt to Assassinate Yehuda Glick (INN 10/30/2014)
Netanyahu is no Coward, but Obama is a Liar (INN 10/30/2014)
International Law is Not a Suicide Pact (INN 10/29/2014)
Africa: A Tragic Continent (JWR 10/29/2014)
Maintaining the Conflict (INN 10/27/2014)
The Strong Horse (JWR 10/27/2014)
As the World Turns: Will the West Prevail? (INN 10/26/2014)
Breaking Bad In Jerusalem (INN 10/26/2014)
There's a problem within Islam (CNN 10/26/2014)
Geert Wilders' plan to save the West (JWR 10/24/2014)
World War IV (INN 10/24/2014)
Historic Justice: A Kurdish State Now (INN 10/23/2014)
'Islamic State' Should Cause No Surprise (INN 10/21/2014)
Iran Remains the Great Threat in the Middle East (INN 10/20/2014)
Can Holocaust Remembrance be Termed Colonialist? (INN 10/20/2014)
Why Obama Must Save Kobani (INN 10/19/2014)
The Rise of the Islamic State: The Strategic Surprise (INN 10/19/2014)
Palestinian State Recognition: The Unfolding Disaster (INN 10/18/2014)
From guerrillas to conquerors: How ISIS has changed (CNN 10/17/2014)
Israel and Embattled Kurdistan (INN 10/16/2014)
Is rebuilding Gaza more important than halting Ebola? (JWR 10/15/2014)
Not a Penny to Gaza (INN 10/15/2014)
Rebuilding Gaza for the next attack (JWR 10/14/2014)
Addicted to Gaza (INN 10/14/2014)
Why women fight against ISIS (CNN 10/14/2014)
Bombing for show? Or for effect? (JWR 10/13/2014)
The Praise of Folly (INN 10/13/2014)
Analysis: Misunderstanding Palestine (INN 10/12/2014)
"Too many Israelis" Have Abandoned the Suicide Option (INN 10/12/2014)
Israel-Bashing Westerners Beg the Caliph for Mercy (INN 10/10/2014)
How to keep viruses in the wild from finding humans (CNN 10/09/2014)
The truth about diversity (JWR 10/09/2014)
Sweden: Nation, Government, People, Land (INN 10/08/2014)
Why we have to keep searching for MH370 (CNN 10/06/2014)
Netanyahu’s Escape From Washington (INN 10/06/2014)
Intractable Differences: Netanyahu and Obama (INN 10/05/2014)
When the United States pounds an enemy, then just up and left (JWR 10/02/2014)
Why Are Islamists Obsessed with Jews on the Temple Mount? 10/2 (INN 14/0/2014)
What the Arab World Produces (JWR 09/30/2014)
Where Islam Treads, It Leaves a Desert (INN 09/29/2014)
On Islam: Obama versus Ayatollah Mohammad 9/27 (INN di/0/2014)
Comparisons (INN 09/27/2014)
What a Mess the United States Has Gotten Into (INN 09/27/2014)
Is There Really an Aramean Nation? (INN 09/27/2014)
Obama's Syria dilemma: Does hurting ISIS help al-Assad? (CNN 09/24/2014)
'Not Islamic'? (JWR 09/23/2014)
Why beheading? (JWR 09/23/2014)
Putting Putin In His Place (JWR 09/22/2014)
Why is ISIS taunting the West? (CNN 09/22/2014)
Will people still be useful in the 21st century? (CNN 09/17/2014)
Obama's self-defeating fight (JWR 09/17/2014)
Time to give Ukraine defensive weapons (CNN 09/17/2014)
Multiculturalism Is a Failure (JWR 09/17/2014)
Get Ready for the Real War (INN 09/17/2014)
Cruelty is Simply a Part of Islam, Says Expert (INN 09/14/2014)
Is the Islamic State really un-Islamic? (JWR 09/12/2014)
Netanyahu: 'Madness' of Militant Islam Will Be Defeated (INN 09/11/2014)
Obama's strategy: Kill ISIS before they kill us (CNN 09/11/2014)
Islamo-Nazism in Palestine, Then and Now (INN 09/11/2014)
Obama's Delusions Dispelled? Well, we Can Hope for Change (JWR 09/09/2014)
Heavily Shackled Humanity (INN 09/09/2014)
Is the US Finally Confronting Genocide? (INN 09/09/2014)
Has NATO lost its will as well as its muscle? (JWR 09/06/2014)
Three things are certain: Death, taxes and anti-Semitism (JWR 09/08/2014)
An Open Letter to Prime Minister Rt. Hon. David Cameron (INN 09/08/2014)
Hamas' Dissolution Indispensable for Israel's Security 9/ (INN 07/0/2014)
Palestine – It’s Not Worth the Effort (INN 09/06/2014)
A foreign legion for losers (JWR 09/05/2014)
Egypt offers to absorb Palestinians. Why did Abbas refuse? (JWR 09/05/2014)
Hurry While There Is Still Time To Be Anti-Semitic (INN 09/05/2014)
Israel's Disproportionate Decency (INN 09/04/2014)
Why is ISIS so brutal? (CNN 09/04/2014)
War works well (JWR 09/04/2014)
Gaza: How to Perpetuate the Conflict (INN 09/01/2014)
IS, Hamas, Iran and the West's Naivete (INN 09/01/2014)
Staying Strong (INN 09/01/2014)
Bibi Lost the Battle — But Israel can Win the War (INN 08/27/2014)
Back to the 'Garden of the Beasts' (INN 08/27/2014)
Solution for ISIS: Obliterate Them (JWR 08/25/2014)
Israel is 'Choosing not to Win', Says British Expert (INN 08/25/2014)
Is it Hot in Here or Am I Crazy? (INN 08/25/2014)
Why Peace Failed (INN 08/23/2014)
To the Educated West, Israeli Children are Guilty (INN 08/23/2014)
Can Obama handle ISIS? (CNN 08/23/2014)
How Islamic State's defeat will happen — and what becomes of the Middle East if it doesn't (JWR 08/22/2014)
The IS Caliph is Not an Islamic Pope (CNN 08/22/2014)
ISIS: What it will take to beat terror group (CNN 08/21/2014)
ISIS 'a national security threat' (JWR 08/21/2014)
The only way to defeat ISIS (CNN 08/21/2014)
Why James Foley's murder was a message to Britain (CNN 08/20/2014)
The Trouble with Islam [Or, How Islam Made ISIS] (INN 08/20/2014)
Stop Mowing the Grass, Start Salting the Earth (INN 08/20/2014)
What is UNRWA Doing in Gaza? (INN 08/20/2014)
Boycott the Jews? You will Die Sooner (INN 08/20/2014)
2014 Gaza War Lessons (INN 08/18/2014)
The end of Iraq (INN 08/18/2014)
Obama's True Colors Finally Revealed (JWR 08/18/2014)
An Open Letter to the Jew-haters (INN 08/16/2014)
Obama Must be Told: Israel is not a Vassal State (INN 08/16/2014)
The Arab Spring and the Israeli Enemy (INN 08/16/2014)
Why Israel is the World’s Best Nation (INN 08/16/2014)
Anti-Semitism and its limitations (JWR 08/15/2014)
Bibi taking care of business while Bambi runs out the clock (JWR 08/15/2014)
Occupation of Cyprus underscores hypocrisy of Gaza outrage (JWR 08/14/2014)
Into a new void? (JWR 08/14/2014)
What the U.S. can realistically do in Iraq (CNN 08/14/2014)
Jewish self-loathing (JWR 08/13/2014)
War Crimes in Gaza? (JWR 08/11/2014)
Confirmed: Needless death and destruction in Gaza (JWR 08/11/2014)
A Responsible Commander in Chief (INN 08/11/2014)
ISIS, Hamas and Boko Haram: Believe their intentions (CNN 08/08/2014)
'Isolated' in Afghanistan, murder capital for U.S. warriors (JWR 08/08/2014)
What is Going to Become of Gaza? (INN 08/08/2014)
Obama knows he can't fix Iraq (CNN 08/08/2014)
Israeli War Ethics (INN 08/07/2014)
Where Were You? (INN 08/07/2014)
Why Vladimir Putin isn't going to make peace (CNN 08/07/2014)
Will anyone stop ISIS? (CNN 08/07/2014)
What is Putin's endgame in Ukraine? (CNN 08/07/2014)
Hypocrisy of 'condemn Israel' campaign (CNN 08/07/2014)
Islamic State in Iraq: Stop it from committing genocide (CNN 08/06/2014)
There Will be Blood (CNN 08/06/2014)
In Gaza, Hamas is on the ropes (CNN 08/06/2014)
Fanaticism needs no reason (JWR 08/05/2014)
The Moral Psychosis of Demonstrating for Hamas (INN 08/05/2014)
How I Learned To Hate The Iron Dome (INN 08/05/2014)
And the war came (JWR 08/04/2014)
Is Israel Going to Let Hamas Win? (INN 08/04/2014)
Looking Beyond Operation Protective Edge (INN 08/02/2014)
World Opinion Does Not Matter (INN 08/02/2014)
Israel Should End Hamas Rule in Gaza (INN 08/01/2014)
Welcome to an amoral world without just wars (CNN 08/01/2014)
Gaza war: The terrifying truth (CNN 08/01/2014)
Obama's Gaza Game (INN 07/31/2014)
This time, Gaza fighting is 'proxy war' for entire Mideast (CNN 07/31/2014)
Under Obama, America has switched sides (JWR 07/30/2014)
The Man Who Never Calls (JWR 07/30/2014)
Cease the Cease-Fires (JWR 07/29/2014)
IDF, Don’t Take Your Foot Off the Gas Pedal (INN 07/29/2014)
No Economic Aid to Hamas-Ruled Gaza (INN 07/29/2014)
Five lessons of the Gaza war (CNN 07/29/2014)
Like a hotel burglar... (JWR 07/28/2014)
The Real Reason (INN 07/28/2014)
Israel, Stop Placating the World’s Opinion (INN 07/27/2014)
Academic Lies in the Cognitive War Against Israel (INN 07/27/2014)
Putin's real end game in Ukraine (CNN 07/27/2014)
Hamas' useful idiots (JWR 07/25/2014)
UN a club in need of higher standards (JWR 07/25/2014)
View From Inside the Halls of Power: Israel's Strategy (INN 07/25/2014)
MH17 disaster foretells a more dangerous world (CNN 07/24/2014)
Obama to the rescue — of Hamas (JWR 07/23/2014)
Israel's Morally Impossible Self-Defense (INN 07/23/2014)
Do We Owe Gaza Our Pity? (INN 07/23/2014)
Opinion: Finally Obama Leads from the Front: The Hamas-FAA Move (INN 07/23/2014)
Hamas Tunnels: Analysis and Initial Implications (INN 07/23/2014)
No more aid to the Palestinian Authority (INN 07/22/2014)
It Was Another "Death to the Jews" Weekend (INN 07/21/2014)
Hamas media strategy relies on deaths of civilians (CNN 07/21/2014)
Vladimir Putin's big blunder (CNN 07/20/2014)
Israel Holds the Free World's Destiny in Her Hands (INN 07/20/2014)
Gaza — Israel Takes off the Gloves (INN 07/20/2014)
Invasion — the American Way (INN 07/18/2014)
Israel Must Abandon the Obscene "Purity of Arms" Mantra (INN 07/17/2014)
Attacking Israel with the big lie (JWR 07/16/2014)
The current conflict between Israel and Hamas shatters myths (JWR 07/16/2014)
The Jewish State in a Morally Sick World (JWR 07/13/2014)
Nuts to Your Moral Equivalency on Gaza (INN 07/13/2014)
Lessons from the Gaza War, I: Maintain the Blockade (INN 07/12/2014)
The time has come for America to stand up (JWR 07/11/2014)
A Tale of Two Moralities (JWR 07/11/2014)
Jewish "Victim Mentality" (INN 07/11/2014)
They Still Believe It's All Israel's Fault (INN 07/11/2014)
Gaza: Blame The Left For This War (INN 07/10/2014)
Israel’s Gaza Operation — War At Last (INN 07/09/2014)
Why This Operation is Different (INN 07/09/2014)
When atrocity invites atrocity (JWR 07/08/2014)
Palestinian Statehood Revisited (INN 07/06/2014)
The Big and Lethal Lies — Coming at Us Faster than Ever (INN 07/06/2014)
How to keep ISIS terror from U.S. shores (CNN 06/30/2014)
The Black Gold Triangle — or Death (INN 06/27/2014)
Netanyahu, It's Time for an Authentic Jewish Response (INN 06/27/2014)
Did Obama botch the endgame in Iraq? (CNN 06/27/2014)
Middle East Advice for America (INN 06/27/2014)
Revisionist history prevails on Iraq invasion (JWR 06/26/2014)
Fixing the World After Iraq (INN 06/26/2014)
Time for Israel to Help the Kurds (INN 06/26/2014)
It's Jew-Hatred, Stupid (INN 06/26/2014)
Next Goal for ISIS — Jordan. And Then? (INN 06/26/2014)
Iraq agonistes (JWR 06/24/2014)
Leaving From Behind (JWR 06/23/2014)
Fear and Loathing in Baghdad (JWR 06/23/2014)
The Pretense of Moderate Islam (INN 06/22/2014)
The real threat in Iraq (JWR 06/20/2014)
Abdication has a price (JWR 06/20/2014)
Obama's sensible Iraq plan is likely doomed (CNN 06/20/2014)
U.S. troops return to Iraq... too little, too late? (JWR 06/19/2014)
Kidnapping Crisis: Will Begging Bring Back our Boys? (CNN 06/20/2014)
Would U.S. air power work in Iraq? (CNN 06/17/2014)
Trust, the Weak Link in Nuclear Agreement with Iran (INN 06/18/2014)
Iraq is on its own! (JWR 06/17/2014)
A Bitter After-taste (JWR 06/17/2014)
Israel’s Kidnap Crisis: Shut Up and Scream (INN 06/17/2014)
They are Still Missing (INN 06/17/2014)
Deluxe Jihadists? Dear World, I Told You So (INN 06/16/2014)
An appointment in Samarra (JWR 06/16/2014)
Obama, don't get sucked into Iraq III (CNN 06/14/2014)
The Palestinian Arab Cause Gets Vicious in Boston (INN 06/14/2014)
Three Teens, One an American. We are All Israelis (INN 06/14/2014)
The end of illusions (JWR 06/13/2014)
So Much for Arab Nationality; Ditto for "Occupation" (INN 06/13/2014)
The United Kingdom's Muslim Trojan Horse (INN 06/12/2014)
Who's to blame for Iraq crisis (CNN 06/12/2014)
How to respond to the ISIS threat (CNN 06/12/2014)
5 predictions revisited: Iraq's troubles are years in the making, experts say (CNN 06/12/2014)
How a century-old war affects you (CNN 06/11/2014)
The siege of Mosul: What's happening? Why is it significant? (CNN 06/11/2014)
Israel is not America (JWR 06/10/2014)
America Cannot Do a Damned Thing (JWR 06/10/2014)
Pope Francis: Pets Can't Replace Children (JWR 06/10/2014)
Shockingly, Obama Will Fund Hamas-Aligned PA Regime (INN 06/10/2014)
Dangerous and False PA-Hamas Unity (INN 06/06/2014)
From Athens to Jerusalem: A Journey in Strategic Wisdom (INN 06/03/2014)
Should Marine be in Mexican prison? (CNN 06/03/2014)
Edward Snowden, Moscow's Accidental Tourist (JWR 06/02/2014)
Who are the real science abusers and deniers? (JWR 06/02/2014)
Honoring Jew-Haters Leads to Murder in Brussels (INN 05/31/2014)
Standing Up to Turkey — Like a Wimp (INN 05/29/2014)
Saudis could Turn to Pakistan for Nukes, Congress Warned (INN 05/29/2014)
For Shame, Pope Francis (INN 05/26/2014)
Obama Outmaneuvered By Russia In China Gas Deal (JWR 05/23/2014)
Israel's new Christian friends (JWR 05/23/2014)
Let's End the Rachel Corrie Circus: The Big Lies (INN 05/20/2014)
Is Vladimir Putin Another Adolf Hitler? (JWR 05/15/2014)
Modern world is still premodern in many ways (JWR 05/15/2014)
Jewish Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred, Adopted Persecution (INN 05/10/2014)
What do the Putins of the world want? (JWR 05/08/2014)
This planet comes with limits (CNN 05/08/2014)
Good thug, bad thug (JWR 05/06/2014)
Rejectionism Makes Peace Unlikely, not Merely Elusive (INN 05/04/2014)
Why no international effort for 200 kidnapped girls? (CNN 05/01/2014)
Financing the Flames III: Lawmakers Ready to Defund PA (INN 04/30/2014)
Running Away From Statehood — Again (INN 04/29/2014)
Ukraine crisis: Who will blink first, Vladimir Putin or the West? (CNN 04/28/2014)
Amid Holocaust remembrance, antisemitism adapts and thrives (JWR 04/28/2014)
PA-Hamas Unity Government — A Blessing (INN 04/27/2014)
Why didn't Flight 370's emergency beacon work? Lack of signal buoys hope (CNN 04/25/2014)
The question no one wants to ask: What if Flight 370 is never found? (CNN 04/24/2014)
Let Abbas Resign! (INN 04/23/2014)
The twin dangers of the Ukraine crisis (CNN 04/23/2014)
How will the Ukraine crisis end? Five possible scenarios (CNN 04/23/2014)
The New Cold War (INN 04/22/2014)
Opinion: Why Geneva accord on Ukraine is tactical victory for Russia (CNN 04/20/2014)
How Ukraine crisis could pull U.S. to war (CNN 04/18/2014)
8 Emirates for the Palestinian Clans — That's the Answer (INN 04/18/2014)
Historical Amnesia (INN 04/18/2014)
Ukraine fighting erupts; Obama hails UConn basketball coaches for championships (JWR 04/17/2014)
Did Christians really 'steal' Easter? (CNN 04/17/2014)
The Only Viable Option (INN 04/16/2014)
Goodbye, good luck to Ukraine? (CNN 04/15/2014)
Why Ukraine crisis has China in a bind (CNN 04/15/2014)
In Contests Of Strong, Decisive Policy Obama Comes Up Short (JWR 04/14/2014)
Snowden and His Accomplices (WSJ, 04/14/2014)
The West Leaves Ukraine to Putin (WSJ, 04/14/2014)
U.S. giving Putin green light in Ukraine? (CNN 04/14/2014)
The West must not blame itself for Putin's revanchism (CNN 04/13/2014)
Quit Kerrying On (INN 04/13/2014)
MEATO: The Trans-Riyadh-Jerusalem-Athens Alliance (INN 04/13/2014)
Why Kerry Let the 'Palestinians' Make a Fool Out of Him (JWR 04/10/2014)
Kerry's folly (JWR 04/10/2014)
Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame? (JWR 04/09/2014)
Putin tells Obama: 'Crimea river' (JWR 04/09/2014)
There is Apartheid in Israel (INN 04/09/2014)
Opinion: Turning Crimea into 'Putinland'? (CNN 04/08/2014)
The dangers of Obama's passive foreign policy (CNN 04/09/2014)
10 Reasons Why Russia Will Invade Ukraine (INN 04/08/2014)
How to prevent future airplane disappearances (CNN 04/07/2014)
Declare Abbas a Terrorist (INN 04/04/2014)
Jonathan Pollard Saves Israel — Again (INN 04/04/2014)
Who really won the Cold War? (INN 04/04/2014)
Past Crimes as Legal Prologue to Statehood (INN 04/03/2014)
Is Vladimir Putin irrational? (CNN 04/03/2014)
Team Obama Considers Israel a 'Hostile Power' (INN 04/01/2014)
Olmert, Harvard, the Best, the Brightest (INN 04/01/2014)
Pilot: Why Flight 370 may never be found (CNN 04/01/2014)
More Than Ever, Israel Must Rely Upon Itself (INN 03/29/2014)
Questions from Someone Who Just Arrived on Planet Earth (INN 03/29/2014)
Does Obama really understand Putin? (CNN 03/28/2014)
Why blaming the pilots makes no sense (CNN 03/28/2014)
Fanciful-Thinking Obama Vs. 'Weak' Putin Is A Mismatch (JWR 03/28/2014)
Relax, Israel, America Doesn't Care (INN 03/28/2014)
Keeping Russia out: Is Crimea Putin’s last territorial demand? (JWR 03/27/2014)
Inside the Ring: U.S. fears Russia planning to federalize Ukraine, alarming Congress (JWR 03/27/2014)
Energy's Role in the Path to Peace (JWR 03/26/2014)
How Obama can save the day (CNN 03/26/2014)
Why the Saudis unfriended the U.S. (CNN 03/26/2014)
The power of one man: Great men matter — and so do evil ones (JWR 03/25/2014)
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Tragedy or Suicide Mission? (INN 03/25/2014)
All the Wrong Moves in Crimea (INN 03/25/2014)
Did flammable cargo doom Flight 370? (CNN 03/25/2014)
Inside the mind of Vladimir Putin (CNN 03/25/2014)
Pilot: How mechanical problem could have downed Flight 370 (CNN 03/24/2014)
Ukraine crisis: Is Russia done after Crimea? (CNN 03/24/2014)
What does Vladimir Putin want next? (CNN 03/21/2014)
The invasion will be catered: Ukraine asks for military assistance; Obama offers rations (JWR 03/21/2014)
Don't be scared to support a One State Solution (JWR 03/21/2014)
How West can respond to Russia's aggression (CNN 03/21/2014)
Humiliation nation (s) (JWR 03/20/2014)
This is no time to go wobbly on Ukraine (JWR 03/20/2014)
A pain-free victory for Putin (JWR 03/20/2014)
Is Russia's annexation of Crimea opportune or opportunistic? (CNN 03/19/2014)
Crimea remarries — but that divorce will be messy (CNN 03/19/2014)
If Putin remains anti-American, he need not worry about Obama (JWR 03/19/2014)
On Crimea takeover, since talking at Putin doesn't work, Obama tries it some more (JWR 03/19/2014)
Not your father's Cold War (JWR 03/19/2014)
Being Vladimir Putin (JWR 03/19/2014)
Opinion: Obama can't have it both ways on Crimea (CNN 03/17/2014)
A wary Asia watches as Russia overreaches (03/13/2014)
Back by popular demand: Tyranny (JWR 03/17/2014)
Putin's Orwellian theft of Crimea (CNN 03/17/2014)
Pilot: Was that Boeing 777 diverted deliberately? Not necessarily (CNN 03/16/2014)
Should Israel Retake Gaza? (INN 03/15/2014)
Many Ukrainians expect war with Russia (CNN 03/14/2014)
Another region where the Russian military threatens to dominate the U.S. (CNN 03/14/2014)
Curb Russian aggression with energy independence (CNN 03/13/2014)
Why Gaza conflict risks wider war (CNN 03/13/2014)
Pilot: 777s don't just disappear (CNN 03/13/2014)
A Letter from Africa (JWR 03/11/2014)
Russia is playing a weak hand very strongly (CNN 03/11/2014)
Here's why the Ukraine crisis won't affect Russia, U.S. space collaboration (CNN 03/05/2014)
Ukraine Has a Useless Piece of Paper (INN 03/10/2014)
Christian Suffering Stands in Way of Middle East Peace (INN 03/10/2014)
Why so few clues about missing Malaysia flight? (CNN 03/10/2014)
When passenger jets mysteriously disappear (CNN 03/09/2014)
Five myths about the Ukraine crisis (CNN 03/08/2014)
The U.S. retreats: History tells us who will fill the vacuum (JWR 03/07/2014)
PA Demands are an Assault on the Law of Nations (INN 03/07/2014)
Gingrich: Beyond empty symbols, a serious strategy for dealing with Russia (CNN 03/06/2014)
5 lessons for a new Cold War (CNN 03/06/2014)
If Russia swallows Ukraine, the European system is finished (CNN 03/06/2014)
Rein in Ukraine's neo-fascists (CNN 03/06/2014)
How to strike at Putin where it hurts (JWR 03/05/2014)
1936, the sequel (JWR 03/05/2014)
Netanyahu's inaction to Obama's provocations sends powerful message (JWR 03/05/2014)
Hillary, Putin's no Hitler (CNN 03/05/2014)
Has Putin broken international law? (CNN 03/05/2014)
China's awkward 'banana' slip (CNN 03/05/2014)
Putin's Ukrainian endgame and why the West may have a hard time stopping him (CNN 03/04/2014)
What can Obama do about Russia's invasion of Crimea? (CNN 03/04/2014)
Crimea and "Palestine" (INN 03/04/2014)
Bullying Israel But Bowing to Tyrants (INN 03/04/2014)
The two Putins (CNN 03/03/2014)
How U.S. should respond to Russia (CNN 03/02/2014)
How Putin carries out power grab (CNN 03/02/2014)
Putin's move could be costly to U.S., Middle East (CNN 03/02/2014)
Will Ukraine's Crimea region be Europe's next 'frozen' conflict? (CNN 02/28/2014)
Crimea: Where Ukraine could explode (CNN 02/27/2014)
America's quiver of outrage is empty (JWR 02/27/2014)
Michael Oren's Peace Plan: Salvation or Suicide? (INN 02/27/2014)
Iran Has the Bomb (INN 02/27/2014)
What the West owes Ukraine (CNN 02/24/2014)
Stop Iran and Stabilize Syria, Weaken Fatah and Hamas (INN 02/25/2014)
The grace and greatness of losing (CNN 02/22/2014)
Is Vladimir Putin really the puppet-master in Ukraine's crisis? (CNN 02/21/2014)
Rousing America from its slumber (JWR 02/21/2014)
Venezuela: 9 things to know about the protests (CNN 02/20/2014)
'New' Russia in Sochi: Same old Russia in Ukraine (CNN 02/19/2014)
20 questions: What's behind Ukraine's political crisis? (CNN 02/18/2014)
Can Israel and a Nuclear Iran Coexist? (INN 02/19/2014)
Another Galling Betrayal (JWR 02/18/2014)
In Contests Of Strong, Decisive Policy Obama Comes Up Short (JWR 02/18/2014)
Will Venezuela abandon Chavismo? (CNN 02/17/2014)
Moral Dilemmas Faced by IDF Soldiers (INN 02/11/2014)
The US Should Cut a Deal (INN 02/10/2014)
Is There No Way Out? (INN 02/07/2014)
World in peril: Obama's self-fulfilling nuclear policy inching ever closer (JWR 02/07/2014)
Who Will Benefit from the Demise of the West? (INN 02/03/2014)
'Leading from behind' to a new world disorder (JWR 02/03/2014)
Palestine — and the World's Collective "Amnesia" (INN 02/03/2014)
Israel — Insisting on Being Recognized as a Jewish State (INN 02/01/2014)
The Universalist Holocaust Goes On (INN 01/30/2014)
A Southern Strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean (INN 01/29/2014)
From the Hebrew Press: McCarthyism, Made in Israel (INN 01/29/2014)
East vs West — What's behind Ukraine's political crisis? (CNN 01/28/2014)
What Preoccupies the Left? What Preoccupies the Right? (JWR 01/28/2014)
How the lies of 'Lawrence of Arabia' continue to put the West in peril (JWR 01/22/2014)
Allies don't let allies destruct (JWR 01/17/2014)
The Immorality of Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan (JWR 01/14/2014)
Ariel Sharon Created a Palestinian Arab State in 2005 (INN 01/13/2014)
A purge for the books (JWR 01/10/2014)
Is China copying the old imperial Japan? (JWR 01/09/2014)
Have we entered a historical period and just not know it? (JWR 01/08/2014)
Obama/Kerry using limitless leverage to emasculate Israel (JWR 01/08/2014)
Why People Believe America Is the 'Greatest Threat to Peace' (JWR 01/07/2014)
Democracy and Peace Pushed Farther Away (JWR 01/03/2014)
The New York Times destroys Obama (JWR 01/03/2014)
Kerry's Peace Plan Will Destroy Israel Piece by Piece (INN 01/03/2014)
Obama has killed America's freedom agenda (JWR 12/27/2013)
Kerry isn't just another fool masquerading as a wise man. He's dangerous (JWR 12/27/2013)
The war on Christians (JWR 12/27/2013)
Israel vs. Islamists: Setting the Record Straight (INN 12/24/2013)
Opinion: The West's problem is not Ukraine — it's Russia (CNN 12/20/2013)
India overreacts to diplomat's arrest (CNN 12/20/2013)
Mandela in the mirror (JWR 12/20/2013)
Obama 'Would Abandon Israel Just Like South Vietnam' (INN 12/19/2013)
Territory or Insanity? On Military Wisdom 40 Years Ago (JWR 12/18/2013)
EU Pressures Threaten Israel Policy (INN 12/14/2013)
Magical Thinking and the Doom of Nations (INN 12/12/2013)
Nuclear gangbangers have upper hand on global police (JWR 12/12/2013)
Israel's Press: Taking Our Leave of America (INN 12/10/2013)
Analyst: Kerry's Jordan Valley Arrangements 'A Death-Trap' (INN 12/10/2013)
Mandela without the tears (JWR 12/10/2013)
The Left Learned Wrong Lessons from Nazism (JWR 12/10/2013)
The Politics of Subversion (JWR 12/04/2013)
Israel's New Strategic Position (JWR 12/04/2013)
The Two-State Delusion (INN 12/03/2013)
Why Ukraine's future lies with the EU, not Russia (CNN 12/03/2013)
U.S. boxes in Israel, not Iran: Surrender in Geneva (JWR 12/02/2013)
Israel Can't Count on America - Can It Count on Itself? (INN 11/30/2013)
Obama's Munich (JWR 11/26/2013)
A Victory for Iran (JWR 11/26/2013)
It's 1938 all over again (JWR 11/25/2013)
Ayatollahs, 1; West... Damned (JWR 11/25/2013)
In Iran, a bad actor gets a sweet deal (CNN 11/25/2013)
A 'sucker's deal': The U.S. offer to Iran is absurdly asymmetric (JWR 11/22/2013)
A vastly changed Middle East (JWR 11/22/2013)
Israel, U.S. — stop dissing each other over Iran (CNN 11/22/2013)
Experts: US 'Unprepared' for Potential Iran Attack (CNN 11/21/2013)
Hopes are dim for Afghanistan (CNN 11/21/2013)
A Nuclear Iran is a Major Concern for the USA (INN 11/18/2013)
Global cooling: When the climate changed astonishingly fast (CNN 11/19/2013)
Obama's Nebulous Nuclear Sellout Leads to Iran War (INN 11/18/2013)
Chamberlain, Munich 1938: How... Incredible It Is... (INN 11/18/2013)
The Case for the Death Penalty for Terrorists in Israel (INN 11/13/2013)
The coming betrayal of Israel (JWR 11/12/2013)
Cheer up — things are getting better (JWR 11/12/2013)
Iran was never ready to deal on nukes (CNN 11/11/2013)
Netanyahu: I Won't be Silenced on Israel's Security (INN 11/11/2013)
Why the U.S. and Israel are split over the Iran deal (CNN 11/10/2013)
Obama Fallout: Saudis Broker Port Said to Putin's Navy (INN 11/09/2013)
Bad Iran deal worse than no deal (CNN 11/09/2013)
Why Did so Many Wanted Nazis Convert to Islam? (INN 11/06/2013)
The true godfathers of 'Narcoland' (CNN 11/06/2013)
Everything that is good for Obama is necessarily bad for Israel (JWR 11/06/2013)
Lowering the Iron Curtain on the Middle East (INN 11/05/2013)
At Trial, True Justice will Reveal Morsi’s Alliances (INN 11/02/2013)
ObamaCare victims and Israel (JWR 11/01/2013)
Why much of Europe's indignation is surely feigned for domestic consumption (JWR 10/28/2013)
Jesus Denial and more Global Anti-Semitism 'Denialisms' (INN 10/26/2013)
Diplomats decking serving soldiers is the least of it (CNN 10/25/2013)
"The MOIS Station Chief" in the White House (CNN 10/22/2013)
Rediscover the lost art of democracy (CNN 10/20/2013)
White House seems giddy about genocidal, nuclear weapons-developing mullocracy (JWR 10/19/2013)
Who Stole $3 Billion from the PA Cookie Jar? (INN 10/16/2013)
The People Who Gave the World Terrorist Tunnel-Building (INN 10/13/2013)
Obama's forced apology embarrasses America, himself and Israel (JWR 10/11/2013)
Mr. Netanyahu and the end of days (JWR 10/10/2013)
The slick salesman from Teheran (JWR 10/10/2013)
Why do the Jews Fear the Muslims on the Temple Mount? (INN 10/07/2013)
Obama is Sacrificing Israel on an Iranian Deal Altar (INN 10/02/2013)
The Goal of Muslim Immigration According to Muhammad's Teachings (10/02/2013)
| • | The concept of Muslim immigration began with Islam's prophet. | |
| • | They formed in Medina the first body of Muslim immigrants in history and very soon changed the face of Medina, making it the city of the victorious Islam. | |
| • | Immigration transformed Muslims from weak and scattered groups of individuals loyal to their religious leader, into a consolidated army, then a united community and finally, into a socio-religious political state. | |
| • | Muslims learned and remembered this lesson, and since then the concept of Hijrah — Immigration — as a means of supplanting the native population and reaching the position of power became a well-developed doctrine in Islam. | |
| • | Immigration in Islam is not a Western liberal romance about how the newcomers gratefully search for opportunities for a better life in liberty and offer their talents and loyalty to the benefit of their new homeland. | |
| • | Immigration as Islam sees it is an instrument of Islamic expansionism that employs religious and ethnic separatism in order to gain special status and privilege, then subvert, subdue, and subjugate non-Muslim societies and pave the way for their total Islamization and implementation of Shari'ah law. | |
| • | The main principle for a Muslim community in a non-Muslim country is that it must be separate and distinct. | |
| • | ... if they immigrate with the ultimate goal of spreading Islam and making it victorious, or at least this is a part of the reason for their immigration, then they are allowed both pleasure and personal gain. | |
| • | ... all those discussions so popular among Western liberals about which method is best for the integration of the religious Muslim immigrants into the host non-Muslim societies are not only futile; they are amusing, like disputes about the best way to make a tiger a vegetarian. | |
| • | ... the more Muslims come to a non-Muslim country, the more possibilities this will open for infiltration in all structures of this country with the final goal of securing victory for Islam, and more soldiers will stand up when the time of Jihad comes. | |
| • | Immigration is a preparatory stage to Jihad, and Muhammad made it very clear when he said: | |
| • | "I charge you with five of what Allah has charged me with: to assemble, to listen, to obey, to immigrate and to wage Jihad for the sake of Allah." | |
| • | "Those who believed and emigrated, and strove hard and fought in Allah's Cause..." | |
| • | Immigration goes as a step stone for Jihad; where you cannot establish Islam by force is where Immigration enters. | |
| • | Islam in Egypt, Palestine and Persia was spread by the sword; but many other countries- Indonesia, Malaysia, Central Asia, some parts of India — were gained through "immigration." | |
| • | Immigration in Islam is merely a disguised conquest. | |
| • | ... immigration ends only when Islam achieves its goal of conquering the world, and Muhammad, again, stated this very clearly: | |
| • | "Migration cannot be ended as long as there is kufr (unbelief) or as long as there is an enemy that resists." | |
| • | Jihad does not end until all the world is Islamic, and Muslims should not stop until Islam dominates the world. | |
| • | Muslim immigration is a transitional period of preparation for transforming the host society from an open society into an Islamic society of the "slaves of Allah" and of establishing a political system, a State, based on Islamic principles. | |
Response to the atheist god (JWR 10/01/2013)
Are Western Nations 'Rich Enough To Be Stupid?' (JWR 09/30/2013)
The president's U.N. speech (JWR 09/25/2013)
Confusing evil (JWR 09/25/2013)
Obama would rather negotiate fecklessly than contend responsibly (JWR 09/23/2013)
Don't be shocked by Pope Francis (CNN 09/20/2013)
Syria problem is not going away (CNN 09/19/2013)
Strategy, Ideology and the Close of the Syrian Crisis (JWR 09/18/2013)
Yes, We Are the World's Policeman (JWR 09/17/2013)
U.S. at risk of being laughed off world stage (JWR 09/16/2013)
Twenty Years to Oslo, A Summary (INN 09/15/2013)
An American Zionist Response to Mr. Putin (INN 09/15/2013)
Israel's Twenty Year Nightmare (JWR 09/13/2013)
The Weapons of Mass Destruction deception (JWR 09/12/2013)
Point/Counterpoint: Examining key themes from Putin's opinion piece (JWR 09/12/2013)
Oslo 20 Years Later: Lessons Learned? (JWR 09/11/2013)
Could the Oslo Fiasco Have Been Averted? (JWR 09/09/2013)
Syrian Intrigues Abound — Where is the Truth? (INN 09/08/2013)
Starting World War III (INN 09/08/2013)
The Wrong Target on WMDs (JWR 09/04/2013)
Europe Deserves Islam (INN 09/03/2013)
In Syria, no matter who wins, America loses (JWR 09/03/2013)
Four questions for backers of Syria mission (CNN 09/03/2013)
A U.S. strike would be self-wounding (CNN 09/02/2013)
US shouldn't risk picking between bad, worse in Syria (JWR 09/02/2013)
Failed Foreign Policy (INN 09/01/2013)
Analysis: Syria is not Iraq, or Libya or... (CNN 08/31/2013)
Terrible Days are Coming Upon Europe (INN 08/30/2013)
Up the hill and down again (JWR 08/30/2013)
Bluster, bluff and backstabbing: Obama's bread and circuses (JWR 08/30/2013)
So, what exactly are Obama's options on Syria? (CNN 08/30/2013)
Western Christians Are Out Fighting en Masse for Islam (INN 08/30/2013)
What next in Syria: 5 lessons from Iraq (CNN 08/29/2013)
Once more into the snake pit (JWR 08/29/2013)
Syria Does Not Satisfy the Powell Doctrine (JWR 08/29/2013)
When 'never again' turns into 'yet again' (JWR 08/29/2013)
The Israeli Spring (JWR 08/29/2013)
Obama's Bluff (JWR 08/28/2013)
For U.S., Syria is truly a problem from hell (CNN 08/26/2013)
Does Obama's fascination with the Muslim Brotherhood border on schizophrenia? (JWR 08/26/2013)
The choice in Egypt: A dictatorship is better for the country and the U.S. (JWR 08/24/2013)
Never since America's founding has the US appeared so untrustworthy,.. (JWR 08/23/2013)
A post-Christian Middle East? (CNN 08/22/2013)
What Mubarak's release means (CNN 08/22/2013)
Obama backing the wrong side in Egypt (JWR 08/21/2013)
Reality Versus Mirages in Egypt (JWR 08/20/2013)
WWII Deja Vu: Pro-British Arabs vs. Pro-Nazi Muslims (INN 08/20/2013)
Obama is a Prisoner of his own Agenda (INN 08/16/2013)
Sleepy time guys at the White House (JWR 08/16/2013)
Their Worst Demands Our Best (INN 08/15/2013)
Words vs. Bullets: How Obama Fights Terrorism (INN 08/15/2013)
A Case For Masterly Inactivity? (JWR 08/13/2013)
Proud to be the Home of the... Weak? (JWR 08/09/2013)
True believers: Bibi, Barry, Kerry, and the inevitable destruction... (JWR 08/02/2013)
Meaningless concessions (JWR 08/01/2013)
PLEASE NOT AGAIN: Releasing Terrorists for "Peace" (INN 07/28/2013)
U.S. has Kardashians, Brits have royals (CNN 07/23/2013)
Jews Die When the World Talks "Peace" (INN 07/22/2013)
Palestinian Aggression Will Never End (INN 07/22/2013)
The strange case of Mexican emigration (JWR 07/18/2013)
Egypt's Military Brings Hope, not Coup (INN 07/18/2013)
What Egyptians Need (JWR 07/17/2013)
Egypt After Morsi: The Defeat of Political Islam? (INN 07/13/2013)
Not the Same God (INN 07/12/2013)
On Palestinian Statehood and Its Advocates (INN 07/12/2013)
Europe's Favorite Occupation (INN 07/09/2013)
A Tale of Two Spies (INN 07/05/2013)
Will Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood survive? (CNN 07/05/2013)
Obama missed out on Arab Spring (CNN 07/03/2013)
Will Democracy Finish Off Israel? (INN 07/02/2013)
The Princess and the Brotherhood (INN 07/01/2013)
Facing a Nuclear Iran: Israel's Remaining Options (INN 06/30/2013)
The Limits of a Rational Iran (INN 06/24/2013)
Talking to the Taliban (JWR 06/20/2013)
A new age of protests (CNN 06/19/2013)
Fair is Foul and Right is Left (INN 06/17/2013)
Iran Toppled Mubarak (JWR 06/14/2013)
The Islamic war on the West is a complete fraud (JWR 06/10/2013)
Helping Syrian rebels a dangerous risk (CNN 05/30/2013)
Muslim Terror is NOT on the Run (JWR 05/29/2013)
It takes two to end a war (JWR 05/29/2013)
The 'Muslims-Killed-by-the-West' Lie (JWR 05/29/2013)
Mental Aberration, Moral Corruption and BDS (INN 05/29/2013)
Bystanders in their own fate (JWR 05/27/2013)
On the London Beheading: The Ideology of the Sword (INN 05/26/2013)
Thank you, Hafez al-Assad (JWR 05/24/2013)
Scots And Jews: Braveheart, Meet Ben Yair (INN 05/17/2013)
Mitigating Islam (INN 05/17/2013)
The World's Sophisticated Hypocrisy Mechanism (INN 05/16/2013)
Heart-eating video raises pressure to end Syrian war (CNN 05/16/2013)
What North Korea could learn from Myanmar (CNN 05/14/2013)
The Church of Scotland's Scandal (JWR 05/14/2013)
Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces (JWR 05/10/2013)
Ugly truth, but sometimes torture works (JWR 05/09/2013)
Q&A: Is Syrian war escalating to wider conflict? (CNN 05/06/2013)
Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again (JWR 05/06/2013)
Revisiting Hatred of the Jews (JWR 05/03/2013)
Reflections on Islam (INN 04/29/2013)
Islam's World War Came to Boston (INN 04/28/2013)
Time to confront Obama (JWR 04/26/2013)
Israel Will Strike Iran's Subterranean Nuclear Sites (INN 04/26/2013)
How to stop the North Korea madness (CNN 04/26/2013)
Why Do So Many Muslims Embrace Terror and Warfare? (INN 04/24/2013)
Boston 2013: Time to Speak the Truth (INN 04/21/2013)
What Will US Do if Israel Attacks Iran? (INN 04/18/2013)
A magnificent but temporary interlude in a great nation’s bizarre, remorseless self-dissolution (JWR 04/15/2013)
North Korea already won (CNN 04/13/2013)
Will North Korea's young leader sit up and listen to China? (CNN 04/12/2013)
N. Korea endgame: 3 scenarios (CNN 04/12/2013)
And there arose a prophetess in the land... (JWR 04/11/2013)
The essence of Thatcherism (JWR 04/11/2013)
What 'the Iron Lady' forged (JWR 04/10/2013)
Holocaust lessons that don't force guilt or anger? Yes, for Jew and gentile alike (JWR 04/09/2013)
'Proportional' Response (JWR 04/09/2013)
The perils of blinksmanship (JWR 04/09/2013)
The Least Interesting Fact About Margaret Thatcher (JWR 04/09/2013)
Why Thatcher made so many enemies (CNN 04/08/2013)
Why Britain needs another Thatcher (CNN 04/08/2013)
Why Margaret Thatcher was both icon and outcast (CNN 04/08/2013)
An accident, then war with North Korea? (CNN 04/05/2013)
North Korea is far from suicidal (CNN 04/05/2013)
Israel's Complex Nuclear Imperatives, Part III (INN 04/04/2013)
Judea and Samaria are Our Iron Dome (INN 04/04/2013)
Israel's Nuclear Imperatives Part II (INN 04/03/2013)
Middle East 'Democracy' (JWR 04/03/2013)
Israel's Increasingly Complex Nuclear Imperatives, Pt I (INN 04/02/2013)
5 signs the Middle East is changing (CNN 04/02/2013)
Korean nightmare: Experts ponder potential conflict (CNN 03/27/2013)
The president recalibrates: What really happened in Jerusalem (JWR 03/29/2013)
Reminder: How Mexico Treats 'Undesirable' Foreigners (JWR 03/28/2013)
Obama: Peacemaker or Trojan Horse? (INN 03/28/2013)
Why North Korea regime is scary (CNN 03/28/2013)
Analysis: What's Kim Jong Un up to? (CNN 03/27/2013)
The Jewish People Are Always Alone (CNN 03/27/2013)
Both Right and Left May Be Wrong About Obama's Speech (JWR 03/21/2013)
Flight of fancy (JWR 03/21/2013)
On balance, was the Iraq war worth it? (INN 03/21/2013)
Intellectuals and Race (JWR 03/20/2013)
The Paradox of Obama's Visit to Israel (INN 03/15/2013)
Intellectuals and Race: Part IV (JWR 03/15/2013)
Intellectuals and Race: Part III (JWR 03/14/2013)
Intellectuals and Race: Part II (JWR 03/13/2013)
Intellectuals and Race (JWR 03/12/2013)
10 reasons why I will not miss Chavez (CNN 03/06/2013)
Underestimating North Korea and Iran (INN 02/28/2013)
American recessional (JWR 02/24/2013)
Hagel’s $160 Billion 'West Bank' US Troops Deathtrap (CNN 02/24/2013)
From 'La Serenissima' to bunga bunga: How Italy fell into a coma (CNN 02/20/2013)
Beware: Obama's Iran War Talk is Israel's Suicide Walk (INN 02/19/2013)
A Game Changer in Iran's Nuclear Program (INN 02/09/2013)
Why Obama is visiting Israel (CNN 02/06/2013)
War is like rust (JWR 01/31/2013)
Europe's wishes came true (JWR 01/24/2013)
Six reasons events in Mali matter (CNN 01/16/2013)
Avoiding the Wars That Never End (JWR 01/16/2013)
Abandon Afghanistan? A dumb idea (CNN 01/10/2013)
Western leaders keep silent on Afhghanistan murders (JWR 12/28/2012)
Name and shame China over North Korea launch (CNN 12/13/2012)
Prank call pitted 'the great' against the powerless (CNN 12/10/2012)
How vulnerable are U.S. bases in the Pacific now? (CNN 12/07/2012)
The peace talks to nowhere good (JWR 12/04/2012)
Expert: Israel Should Let the PA Collapse (INN 12/02/2012)
Q & A: What's driving Egypt's unrest? (CNN 11/30/2012)
Why the Middle East is a mess (CNN 11/30/2012)
The Case for Palestinian Independence (JWR 11/29/2012)
T-ball war in the Middle East (JWR 11/29/2012)
Prof. L. Beres: "Palestine" More of a Threat than Any Uprising (CNN 11/29/2012)
Palestinian move at U.N. won't solve anything (CNN 11/29/2012)
The land of pharaohs: The more Egypt changes... (JWR 11/28/2012)
Men Blinded by Their Brains (JWR 11/27/2012)
Morsi's second Muslim Brotherhood coup: Obama risks standing on wrong side of history (JWR 11/27/2012)
Obama and the Morsi Dictatorship (JWR 11/26/2012)
British Colonel Kemp: Hamas Leaders 'Running for Their Lives' (INN 11/25/2012)
How to prevent the next clash with Hamas (CNN 11/23/2012)
The trap that Ariel Sharon built (JWR 11/23/2012)
'Ceasefire' in a war against the 'occupation' of a Jew-free Gaza? (JWR 11/23/2012)
A vast moral difference (JWR 11/22/2012)
After Israel-Gaza: Who won, who lost? (CNN 11/22/2012)
Analysis: Conflict shifts balance of power in the Middle East (CNN 11/22/2012)
In Israel-Hamas clash, Iran casts a shadow (CNN 11/21/2012)
Opinion: London 1940-Tel Aviv 2012. What's the Difference? (INN 11/16/2012)
New dangers in familiar Gaza violence (CNN 11/16/2012)
Why land for peace is dead (CNN 11/15/2012)
A time for courage, and action (JWR 11/09/2012)
Feckless pols are letting America's enemies get away with murder (JWR 10/25/2012)
How Obama & friends helped 'advance' the Middle East (JWR 10/19/2012)
Syria policy risks trading a tyrant for extremists (CNN 10/16/2012)
The uses and limits of Iran sanctions (CNN 10/15/2012)
Administration welcomed wolves into the sheepfold (JWR 10/12/2012)
Chavez clown prince of a decaying society (CNN 10/08/2012)
Ed Koch Op-ed: A History Lesson from 1010 B.C.E. to Now (JWR 10/04/2012)
In this clash of civilizations, the West seems to have a lot of fifth columnists (JWR 10/01/2012)
They Should Have Walked Out Before A-Jad Began to Speak (INN 09/27/2012)
Deciphering the "Red Line" Controversy (INN 09/26/2012)
Obama on world stage: More hope than change? (CNN 09/26/2012)
Savvy authoritarians: Meet the modern strongmen (CNN 09/26/2012)
Fecklessness and Failure as Foreign Policy: Obama at UN (INN 09/25/2012)
Opinion: Why Nazi hunting is still a worthy pursuit (CNN 09/24/2012)
Those Self Destructive American Apologies (INN 09/20/2012)
Obama administration clueless on Mideast turmoil (CNN 09/20/2012)
Politics by mob in China and Mideast (CNN 09/18/2012)
How a remote rock split China and Japan (CNN 09/18/2012)
Arab Spring nations don't yet grasp freedom of dissent (CNN 09/13/2012)
Extremists and leaders incite violent protests (CNN 09/13/2012)
No Dithering on 60 Minutes for Navy Seal bin Laden Hit (INN 09/10/2012)
Left-Wing Historian: Arab Hate the Obstacle to Peace (INN 09/08/2012)
Why 2013 will be a year of crisis (CNN 09/03/2012)
How — and why — Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu became equals (JWR 08/23/2012)
PC Kills American troops: More than 100 unarmed already murdered by Muslim 'friends (JWR 08/22/2012)
Top economist ponders India's trust deficit (JWR 08/22/2012)
Assange and diplomatic asylum: A primer (CNN 08/19/2012)
After the Fall (JWR 08/02/2012)
On world stage, Romney showed smarts (CNN 08/02/2012)
Syria's chemical weapons threat demands a response (CNN 07/25/2012)
Hillary's Role in Obama's Mideast Disasters (JWR 07/17/2012)
Today's Kids Inherit World Reverting To Barbarism (JWR 07/16/2012)
The Islamist ascendancy: What the Arab Spring has wrought (JWR 07/13/2012)
Obama's spectacular failure (JWR 07/13/2012)
The world is changing minute by minute (JWR 07/12/2012)
Opinion: Why do planes still crash? (CNN 07/05/2012)
Why the interest rate scandal could bring real change (CNN 07/03/2012)
Putin and Netanyahu joining forces in quest for stability (JWR 06/26/2012)
Can we trust Egypt's new president? (CNN 06/25/2012)
Why we fool ourselves into optimism (CNN 06/24/2012)
The Brotherhood's useful idiots (JWR 06/22/2012)
Culture still matters (JWR 05/31/2012)
A night that put Israel to shame (CNN 05/28/2012)
The peace process battered Israel's reputation (JWR 05/24/2012)
What Iran's Rulers Want (JWR 05/24/2012)
Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: Baghdad talks highlight Western naivete (JWR 05/23/2012)
How the euro crisis will affect you (CNN 05/21/2012)
Embracing dangerous delusions and not our friends (JWR 05/18/2012)
On drug violence, Mexico must look inward (CNN 05/18/2012)
Did Obama betray a Chinese hero? (CNN 05/02/2012)
Obama's strategic retreat in Afghanistan (CNN 05/02/2012)
Obama knows best (JWR 04/27/2012)
Law Games (JWR 04/26/2012)
Will Obama move thwart murderous regimes? (CNN 04/25/2012)
UN Amb. Prosor Explodes ‘Myths’ of PA-Israeli ‘Struggle’ (INN 04/24/2012)
Hemorrhage of hatred (JWR 04/20/2012)
A game changer for Syria? (CNN 04/20/2012)
Does the internet breed killers? (CNN 04/19/2012)
Why the French still crave America's love (CNN 04/18/2012)
Euro crisis invites political extremism in French vote (CNN 04/17/2012)
U.S. strikes kill 6 in Yemen, say officials (CNN 04/17/2012)
North Korea's message to Washington and Iran (CNN 04/13/2012)
Dare we actually listen to the Islamists? (JWR 04/12/2012)
Why North Korea gets away with it (CNN 04/12/2012)
Why did North Korea launch a rocket? (CNN 04/12/2012)
CBS's Ben Stein Warns of Second Holocaust (CNN 04/10/2012)
Opinion: Birthday launch masks North Korea's struggles within (CNN 04/09/2012)
Israel, Get Ready For More Obama Leaks (JWR 04/04/2012)
The chickens are coming home to roost in the Middle East (JWR 04/03/2012)
Analysis: The Afghan balance sheet – a transition to ‘good enough’ (CNN 03/30/2012)
The politics of Tibetan self-immolations (CNN 03/28/2012)
Mohamad Merah, Man of the West (JWR 03/24/2012)
Europe's blind spot on anti-Semitism (CNN 03/23/2012)
Laying the groundwork for the Toulouse massacre (JWR 03/22/2012)
Obama's Iran problem and the Bush doctrine (CNN 03/20/2012)
A Guide for the Perplexed Fareed Zakaria (JWR 03/15/2012)
America has made the world freer, safer and wealthier (CNN 03/14/2012)
Israel would face challenge in bombing Iran nuclear sites, experts say (CNN 03/14/2012)
Why U.S., Israel aren't neatly aligned on Iran (CNN 03/13/2012)
Israel's 'Iron Dome' system isn't enough protection (CNN 03/13/2012)
America's self-defeating cycle in Afghanistan (CNN 03/12/2012)
Washington base back in spotlight after Afghan shootings (CNN 03/12/2012)
Israel weighs risk, benefits of Iran strike (CNN 03/09/2012)
Why U.S. shouldn't rush to war in Syria (CNN 03/09/2012)
Analysis: Is Iran's Khamenei flirting with the 'Great Satan'? (CNN 03/09/2012)
Obama vs. Israel (Washington Post, 03/08/2012)
Sick and tired of the Middle East (JWR 03/08/2012)
Iran's nuclear program: the riddle, the enigma and the mystery (CNN 03/08/2012)
The romance of the empty rhetoric (JWR 03/06/2012)
Russian Elections Had Only One Possible Outcome: A Putin Victory (INN 03/06/2012)
When all else fails, blame the U.S. (CNN 03/03/2012)
What Putin 2.0 will mean (CNN 03/02/2012)
Will Putin be able to make Russia great? (CNN 03/02/2012)
War Crimes and Punishment (JWR 03/01/2012)
The State of the World: Explaining U.S. Strategy (JWR 02/29/2012)
Iran: What is it thinking? (CNN 02/29/2012)
Is Iran another North Korea? (CNN 02/28/2011)
Iran’s Gamble – The Proliferation Sprint (INN 02/26/2012)
Germany's lesson for U.S. — keep faith with workers (CNN 02/24/2012)
Why the world isn't intervening in Syria (CNN 02/23/2012)
The State of the World: A Framework (JWR 02/22/2012)
Will Iran tensions lead to war? (CNN 02/21/2012)
‘Israel Needs 100 Planes to Attack Iran’ (CNN 02/20/2012)
Who Truly Deserves a State? The Kurds or the Palestinians? (02/19/2012)
Talking with the Taliban, making peace with the guilty (CNN 02/16/2012)
U.S., Iran, Israel should cool the rhetoric (CNN 02/16/2012)
U.S. should take tough stance on Iran, Syria (CNN 02/13/2012)
Our love-hate relationship with China (CNN 02/13/2012)
No Libya play for the West in Syria (CNN 02/08/2012)
Obama's rhetorical storm (JWR 02/07/2012)
Al-Assad missed chance to reform Syria (CNN 02/06/2012)
Can a nuclear Iran be deterred? (CNN 02/06/2012)
Why China, Russia won't condemn Syrian regime (CNN 02/05/2012)
Hamas and the Washington establishment (JWR 01/31/2012)
What does the future hold for Iran? (CNN 01/27/2012)
One Year Later: The Failure of the Arab Spring (JWR 01/26/2012)
To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews... (JWR 01/26/2012)
In Syria, many caught 'in the middle' (CNN 01/24/2012)
America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent (JWR 01/24/2012)
Ex-Coast Guard chief: Captain failed in every way (CNN 01/19/2012)
Why the Crocodile Tears, Hillary? (JWR 01/18/2012)
No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be (JWR 01/17/2012)
Who's killing Iranian nuclear scientists? (CNN 01/11/2012)
The Historian, the Diplomat, and the Spy (JWR 01/06/2012)
Are we alone in the universe? (JWR 12/30/2011)
Obama's foreign policy failures have yet to explode, but when they do... (JWR 12/30/2011)
Iran threat: Serious or saber-rattling? (CNN 12/29/2011)
Has Obama's ‘let's talk’ approach worked with US adversaries? A report card (JWR 12/28/2011)
North Korea's moment of truth (CNN 12/27/2011)
When censoring science makes sense (CNN 12/22/2011)
A nation ruled through anguish and terror (CNN 12/20/2011)
My Take: Kim Jong Il and the danger of deifying leaders (CNN 12/20/2011)
What's Islam Got to Do with It? (JWR 12/15/2011)
Gingrich's fresh hope (JWR 12/13/2011)
Gingrich and the ‘Invented People’ (JWR 12/12/2011)
Britain, Germany and France — Europe's reluctant dance partners (CNN 12/09/2011)
Obama Default Mode: Blame Israel (JWR 12/09/2011)
Egypt and the Idealist-Realist Debate in U.S. Foreign Policy (JWR 12/07/2011)
An ally no more (JWR 12/06/2011)
Obama pressure leads to predictable fiasco (JWR 12/06/2011)
America Has Squandered Its Opportunity To Lead (JWR 12/05/2011)
Everything You Need to Know about Muslim Brotherhood (INN 12/05/2011)
Was Pakistan tipped off to bin Laden raid? (CNN 12/05/2011)
The real war in Iran (JWR 12/02/2011)
Calling things by their names (JWR 11/25/2011)
Spain turns right to escape crisis (CNN 11/21/2011)
The myth of America's decline (CNN 11/17/2011)
Appease, temporize, posture and gesture? (JWR 11/17/2011)
Will Syria listen to anyone as crisis grows? (CNN 11/17/2011)
Will Ayatollah Khamenei eliminate the Iranian presidency? (CNN 11/17/2011)
Iraq's Iran problem, Iran's Iraq problem (CNN 11/14/2011)
Why the euro crisis is an American problem (CNN 11/14/2011)
Why did Arab League move on Syria? (CNN 11/13/2011)
With friends like these (JWR 11/11/2011)
Resenting Israel, Not Netanyahu (JWR 11/10/2011)
Waiting out Obama (JWR 11/08/2011)
For world leaders, G-20 an enormous waste of time (CNN 11/07/2011)
Delegitimizing the delegitimizers (JWR 11/04/2011)
Why the West is losing out to the rest (CNN 11/04/2011)
Staring into the abyss: What if Greece rejected austerity? (CNN 11/02/2011)
Obama risks Iraq for political expediency (CNN 10/26/2011)
Who lost the world? Obama has paved the way for an explosive era (JWR 10/25/2011)
U.S. enters Libya, leaves Iraq (CNN 10/25/2011)
Did Netanyahu Put Polls Ahead of Security? (INN 10/21/2011)
Gadhafi's demise and the Arab Spring (CNN 10/21/2011)
Amnesty International are Lying S.O.B.'s (INN 10/19/2011)
Iran's war to win (JWR 10/18/2011)
A pact signed in Jewish blood (JWR 10/17/2011)
Why Did Israel Betray Its Victims? (INN 10/14/2011)
What U.S. should do about Iran (CNN 10/13/2011)
China-U.S. trade wars: What's at stake (CNN 10/12/2011)
Was Khamenei reckless - or set up? (CNN 10/12/2011)
Explaining the Iran-Saudi rivalry (CNN 10/12/2011)
What if the terror plot had succeeded? (CNN 10/12/2011)
The forgotten Christians of the East (JWR 10/12/2011)
Kristof is an enemy of Israel (JWR 10/10/2011)
Anwar Al-Awlaki's American Journey (JWR 10/04/2011)
Will the U.N. actually reward mass murder? (JWR 10/04/2011)
Analyst: Egypt Falling Apart, Could Go Broke Soon (INN 10/05/2011)
The Arab Spring’s unintended consequences (CNN 09/27/2011)
The Palestinians Want Peace — Just Not With a Jewish State (JWR 09/27/2011)
America and Pakistan: A messy divorce? (CNN 09/26/2011)
This Is Where I Came In... (JWR 09/26/2011)
No Acknowledgment of Israel? No More Money (JWR 09/26/2011)
Why the U.N. cannot create Palestine (CNN 09/25/2011)
Israel's path to victory (JWR 09/23/2011)
Can Israel Survive? (JWR 09/22/2011)
The non-hawk's case against a forced Palestinian state (JWR 09/21/2011)
A Palestinian state? Don't count on it (JWR 09/21/2011)
Opinion: The Famous State of Palestine (INN 09/20/2011)
Funding the enemy (JWR 09/20/2011)
‘Diplomacy of September’ (JWR 09/20/2011)
If Israel Disappears (JWR 09/20/2011)
The UN Disaster is Obama's Fault (JWR 09/19/2011)
Palestinian bid at U.N. distracts from the real crisis (09/16/2011)
The Palestinian obsession (JWR 09/16/2011)
Will the President and the Congress Send a Message to Turkey and Egypt... (JWR 09/13/2011)
Lessons from the embassy takeover (JWR 09/13/2011)
Endgame for Egypt (09/13/2011)
Israel’s hostile neighborhood (Washington Post, 09/11/2011)
9/11: A Decade Later and We Are Still All Israelis (INN 09/11/2011)
Disoriented (JWR 09/08/2011)
Who won the post 9/11 war? (JWR 09/07/2011)
The truth should be taught about the 1948 war (09/07/2011)
International jihad is against the Bible and those who regard it as sacred (JWR 09/02/2011)
Analysis: Battle for Libya not quite over (CNN 09/01/2011)
The perils of a remilitarized Sinai (JWR 08/30/2011)
Israel — an Apartheid State? (JWR 08/30/2011)
Time to disband Libyan rebel forces (CNN 08/28/2011)
Glenn Beck's revealing visit (JWR 08/26/2011)
Better understanding of Islamist experience needed (JWR 08/25/2011)
Don't celebrate Libya just yet (CNN 08/24/2011)
Q&A: Gadhafi's options, future scenarios and more (CNN 08/24/2011)
Factors in the unfolding of next Israeli-Arab crisis (JWR 08/24/2011)
For Libyan rebels, forgiving Gadhafi supporters could be toughest task of all (JWR 08/23/2011)
Libya victory celebrations are premature (CNN 08/22/2011)
The Left's Faustian bargain (JWR 08/17/2011)
Britons must stand up to bad behavior (CNN 08/13/2011)
What will Vice President Biden find in China? (CNN 08/11/2011)
Syria: Understanding the unrest (CNN 08/08/2011)
Obama's only policy (JWR 08/04/2011)
Who's to Blame for Terrorism? (JWR 08/04/2011)
Beyond the range of rational (JWR 08/03/2011)
Breivik and totalitarian democrats (JWR 07/29/2011)
Manifesto suggests massacre suspect troubled, not insane, experts say (CNN 07/26/2011)
Israel's only two options (JWR 07/19/2011)
Caution: Storm Approaching (JWR 07/15/2011)
Three unlearned lessons about appeasement... (JWR 07/12/2011)
An ugly reality that only the most enlightened refuse to concede (JWR 07/08/2011)
MAD in the 21st Century (JWR 07/07/2011)
Unmasking the ‘international community’ (JWR 07/01/2011)
Who Is The Muslim Brotherhood? (INN 07/01/2011)
Analysts blame faulty assumptions for prolonged Libya war (CNN 06/29/2011)
Britain's Long, Sad Journey of Jew Hatred (INN 06/29/2011)
A biblical warning about populist ‘leaders’ (JWR 06/24/2011)
What Kind of Game Is China Playing? (WSJ, 06/11/2011)
Myths of the Middle East (WND, 05/31/2011)
Where Obama is leading Israel (JWR 05/31/2011)
What Obama did to Israel (JWR 05/27/2011)
The lessons of Netanyahu's triumph (JWR 05/27/2011)
Rebuttal to AP's Unprecedented Rebuttal of Netanyahu's Speech (INN 05/26/2011)
Obama explains — and makes it worse (JWR 05/26/2011)
The gullible, the guilty, and the ignorance of truth are crucial in advancing Obama's... (JWR 05/25/2011)
Obama's diversionary tactics (JWR 05/24/2011)
Betraying Israel (JWR 05/24/2011)
If President Obama does not change his position on the Jewish State, I cannot vote for his reelection (JWR 05/24/2011)
A false friend can do more damage than an open enemy (JWR 05/24/2011)
No go: The Western politician who understands China best tries to explain it — but doesn’t quite succeed (Economist)
Obama pushing wrong way in Middle East (CNN 05/19/2011)
What Will Prime Minister Netanyahu Say to the US Congress? (INN 05/19/2011)
President Obama's Mistake (HuffPost, 05/19/2011)
As America sinks deeper in debt, Obama will call for billions in aid to Egypt and Tunisia (JWR 05/19/2011)
Muslim outreach, Take 2 (JWR 05/19/2011)
Are the Jews the Chosen People? (JWR 05/19/2011)
Why Pakistan knew it could hide Osama (JWR 05/09/2011)
Obama's newest ambush (JWR 05/17/2011)
Is U.S. role in Afghan war obsolete? (CNN 05/09/2011)
Al-Qaeda After Bin-Laden: Can the 'Brand' Survive? (CNN 05/06/2011)
4 reasons to release bin Laden photos (CNN 05/06/2011)
Drug trafficking, kidnapping fund al Qaeda (CNN 05/04/2011)
Targeted Killing Vindicated (JWR 05/03/2011)
Administration's initial misstatements raise questions (CNN 05/03/2011)
Netanyahu's time to choose (JWR 04/29/2011)
Why attack Libya and not Syria? (CNN 04/26/2011)
Obama's altruistic foreign policy (JWR 04/22/2011)
How Assad survives (JWR 04/22/2011)
Former CIA director on the Agency's role in the new Middle East (CNN 04/18/2011)
Gadhafi's choice — power or prison? (CNN 04/18/2011)
Missing the good old days of the Cold War (JWR 04/07/2011)
Petraeus Misfires on Quran Burning (CNN 04/07/2011)
The lessons that can — and must — be learned from the Goldstone affair (JWR 04/05/2011)
Uganda's President on the Gadhafi he knows (CNN 03/28/2011)
Why (or why not) nuclear energy? (INN 03/26/2011)
Analysis: What's Behind the Obama Reversal on Libya (INN 03/18/2011)
Restoring Japan’s confidence and its people’s big dreams (CNN 03/17/2011)
Three massacred children (JWR 03/15/2011)
A challenge to the ‘peace’ camp (JWR 03/15/2011)
Transcript: Vaclav Havel on unrest in the Arab world (CNN 03/09/2011)
Why U.S. must intervene in Libya (CNN 03/07/2011)
Caught in the Middle East Minefield (JWR 03/03/2011)
Left still blind to evil — but this time the stakes are far greater (JWR 03/01/2011)
Eight Reasons Not To Be Optimistic About Egypt (JWR 03/01/2011)
Egypt faces rough, uncharted road (CNN 02/22/2011)
Lara Logan and media rules (JWR 02/19/2011)
Muslim Brotherhood's key role in Egypt (CNN 02/14/2011)
Ideologically-driven strategic ineptitude (JWR 02/11/2011)
You say you want a revolution? (JWR 02/11/2011)
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Lurks as a Long-Term Threat to Freedom (Heritage Foundation, 02/08/2011)
Debate swirls over Mubarak legacy (CNN 02/06/2011)
Could unrest in Egypt produce an Iranian-style regime? (CNN 02/06/2011)
The Sweep: The risk of democracy in the Middle East (CNN 02/05/2011)
A look at the major players in Egypt's political crisis (JWR 02/02/2011)
Folly to Desert Egypt's Mubarak (NewsMax, 02/01/2011)
Clueless in Washington (JWR 02/01/2011)
On the anniversary of Khomeini's return, a warning from the first post-Iranian revolution president (JWR 02/01/2011)
Egypt's protests: What's next? (CNN 01/30/2011)
The Muslim Brotherhood is the Enemy (01/30/2011)
Will leaks end Mideast peace process? (CNN 01/25/2011)
U.S. must not overlook China's rights abuses (CNN 01/18/2011)
Why Tunisia revolt could be huge (CNN 01/16/2011)
Vaccine-autism researcher should be prosecuted (CNN 01/14/2011)
We Should Not Underestimate Dangers of China (NewsMax, 01/11/2011)
Israel's supporters better wake up! (JWR 01/10/2011)
WikiLeaks no favor to historians (CNN 01/01/2011)
Terrorists: Just the Tip of the Jihadi Iceberg (12/15/2010)
2010: The year the internet got tricky (CNN 12/15/2010)
The Sweep: WikiLeaks stirs anarchy online (CNN 12/15/2010)
WikiLeaks builds case against Iran (CNN 11/26/2010)
China's support of North Korea grounded in centuries of conflict (CNN 11/26/2010)
Analysis: NATO points finger at Pakistan (CNN 10/18/2010)
Israel Media Attacks Haaretz Writer's 'Demonization' of Israel (INN 10/17/2010)
Opinion: October 12th — A Day of Infamy (INN 10/12/2010)
How the World Saved Hamas (INN 07/19/2010)
John Bolton: Israeli Attack is Only ‘Iranian Option’ (CNN 07/02/2010)
Opinion: 'If Israel Goes Down, We All Go Down' (INN 06/20/2010)
Guilty Until Proven Guilty (FP, 06/08/2010)
Israel's Conflict as Game Theory (INN 06/05/2010)
Those troublesome Jews (Washington Post, 06/04/2010)
Letter to the People of Turkey (INN 06/04/2010)
Israel's Actions Entirely Lawful (INN 06/03/2010)
Stop the hypocrisy about Israel (CNN 06/01/2010)
Facing Up to North Korea (03/01/2003)
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