Showing posts with label Linkdump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linkdump. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

From Ian:

Ben Rhodes and the Democratic Guilt Complex on Russia and Iran
When you’re good at something, you should never do it for free. That’s perhaps why Barack Obama’s former deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, is gearing up to politicize national security issues once again in a professional capacity.

On Tuesday, Rhodes revealed his intention to join former Obama administration officials, Hillary Clinton staffers, and a handful of career civil servants to form “National Security Action,” a 501(c)(4) that will not endorse candidates but will campaign against them. You can probably guess who this organization’s primary target will be. “We’re a temporary organization,” Rhodes told the Washington Post. “Our hope is to be out of business in three years.”

We’ll dispense with the fiction that the conduct of American affairs abroad should be exempt from the petty squabbling that typifies the political process at home. Politics does not and never has stopped at the water’s edge. When it comes to national security, the current administration deserves its share of criticism. The Trump administration spent its first year ceding the turf war in Syria to other competing great powers, and the conditions in the region have only worsened. Similarly, and as former Obama administration officials won’t let you forget, the Trump administration has not done nearly enough to deter Moscow from intervening in the American political process again. Even National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers recently confirmed that the Russian regime has not “paid a price that is sufficient to change their behavior.” What’s more, Rogers has not been directed by the president to “disrupt Russian cyber threats where they originate.”

These are all urgent national-security threats about which every American should be concerned, and polls suggest that they are. Unfortunately for those who take these and other national-security threats seriously, Rhodes and company are among the least credible advocates for their cause.
‘Ambassador Samantha Power Lied to My Face About Syria,’ by Kassem Eid
In A Problem From Hell, Samantha Power explains how the U.S. administration tried to cover up the genocide in Bosnia by instead labeling it a “civil war.” Yet she and President Obama escaped responsibility for the documented and proven war crimes committed in Syria under the Assad regime’s brutal campaign. If Ambassador Power was telling the truth, she should have resigned just as she chided diplomats at the State Department for not resigning during the genocide in Bosnia.

The Assad regime taught us in schools that there was no Holocaust and hid the truth of the crematoriums and the concentration camps where millions of Jews were brutally killed. But the Obama administration also refused to act on—or reveal—direct eyewitness testimony it received of the crematorium in Saydnaya Prison in Syria, where an estimated 100,000 people were brutally killed and then burned to ashes to hide the truth. I’d begged the U.S. administration during my meetings at the State Department back in 2014 to investigate the Saydnaya Prison and Qasioun mountain because my fellow activists in those areas had repeatedly told me since 2012 how they smelled the awful stench of burning flesh. But all I got were empty promises. If a bunch of Syrian activists knew about the crematorium, there’s no doubt in my mind that Obama knew about it from intelligence reports. I strongly suspect he made sure those reports weren’t made public to avoid having to take action against Assad. It was the Trump administration that finally showed the world this reality last year and publicized the truth that Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes, and President Obama tried to hide.

Ms. Power and Mr. Rhodes have been going around the country as activists for the truth, decrying “fake news” and dishonesty, which they say is creating an alternative reality. At the same time, it was these two who during the Obama administration created an alternate universe to hide the genocide in Syria. Rhodes is experienced in creative writing, and he used his skills after he was appointed to be deputy national security adviser by President Obama to write an alternative universe to hide the truth of the Syrian genocide and the Iran deal. It should boggle the mind how these two, who were so instrumental in pushing disinformation to mislead the American people, could in any way be activists for the truth.

In the summer of 2014, a defector from the Assad regime codenamed “Caesar” came to Washington, D.C., after he managed to escape from Syria with thousands of photographs of Syrians who were systematically tortured to death by the Assad regime. Caesar’s collection of photographs was yet another indisputable proof of the ongoing genocide in Syria. Caesar met with Ambassador Power, who shed a tear when Caesar described the horrors he had witnessed during his career as an Assad regime military photographer. Caesar also gave Ms. Power a handwritten note to deliver to President Obama, but he never received any response. I also requested a meeting with President Obama as a survivor of the war crimes in Syria on multiple occasions, through the White House, the State Department, and Ambassador Power, but all of my requests were also denied. Neither Ambassador Power nor President Obama wanted to acknowledge the truth.

Ambassador Power, Ben Rhodes, and President Obama owe an apology to the Syrian and the American people for covering up the evidence of war crimes and genocide in Syria and twisting facts to serve their political agenda and public image.
Trump, and only Trump, stands between us and them
We got lucky. But luck does not last forever. Neither will Trump. Our luck runs out unless we come up with someone who can fill his shoes – and it is not too early to realize this.

Yes we pray for the fullness of his time in office, but Congress can still go either way, and if it goes the wrong way, things could get difficult, even for Trump.

Without him…let’s face it…there is nothing but void. The Democrats? Not a chance. That party is pro-BDS and anti-Israel, and the worst is yet to come under Tom Perez, Ellison and Corey Booker -- if ever they get their hands on the Senate, the House and/or the White House. There is no Trump there; not even a Truman.

Farrakhan --- him you will find.

Even among Republicans there is no Trump outside of Trump. No GOP leader – though far preferable to any Democrat – comes to mind as his successor.

None over the horizon or from the list of GOP candidates he defeated would have come out so forcefully, fearlessly and courageously on Israel’s side.

On Jerusalem, Trump stood up against the world and the world rallied round to him…or is beginning to…since there is no choice…since there is only one United States and only one President Donald Trump. For now, that’s good. It’s terrific. There’s been nothing like him in the recent past.

It’s the future we need to worry about, a day when Trump will be gone with no friend in sight for America or for Israel.

Dear Voters – California has put us on notice.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

From Ian:

How the Left Became its Own Worst Enemy – Part I
One subtle shift has been the emergence of political correctness, a form of Cultural Marxism (the theory that culture more than politics drives inequality between races and classes in Western societies). Political correctness started as a reasonable exercise to protect vulnerable members of society -- blacks, women, Jews, gays, the disabled -- from offensive speech and action but ended as a modern totalitarianism that blocks free speech and open debate on just about everything.

Today's youth, particularly on university campuses, have adopted ways of thinking and behaving that contradict all the ideas that were the fundamentals of classic liberalism. There are many examples, but the one that stands out above the rest is support for radical Islam and hard-line Muslims.

The most famous instance in the UK was Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's embrace of members of the terror outfits Hamas and Hezbollah, which he described as his "friends". It took him until the summer of 2016 to say that he regretted his engagement with the terrorists.

In several European countries, including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of Italy, governments have banned fully or in part the wearing of the Islamic veil; above all, the niqab and burqa, the full-face forms. One might have thought that Western feminists would be in the vanguard of such movements, as it could not be clearer that Islamic law oppresses women far more than ever happened in the West. A British Muslim physician, Qanta Ahmed, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown have openly and repeatedly called for the abolition of all forms of veiling. Muslim women reformers across entire the Islamic world have called for an end to veils of all kinds.[1] In Iran this year, young women have been demonstrating on the streets without their compulsory hijabs, and at least 29 have been arrested as the regime clamps down again.
Joe Rogan Experience #1084 - Douglas Murray (NSFW)


Caroline Glick: What America Can Learn from Israeli Gun Laws
When mass shootings take plan in the U.S., commentators routinely raise Israel as a case study to prove that guns in the hands of citizens save lives.

Israel, with its long and painful history of contending with terrorism, is rich with examples that prove this contention. In recent years, armed citizens have stopped dozens of terrorists. In some cases, those citizens acted when cowardly police officers shrank from danger.

For instance, on March 6, 2008, a terrorist disguised as a delivery man entered the Merkaz Harav seminary in Jerusalem with an assault rifle hidden in a television box. He opened fire on students studying in the library.

Two beat cops arrived on the scene but failed to enter the building to stop the killing.

In the event, a seminary student armed with a handgun, and an off duty infantry officer who lived in the neighborhood, heard the shots and ran to the seminary. The student, a young rabbi, was armed with a handgun; the officer was carrying his assault rifle. Both men ignored the police officers who told them not to go inside. They entered the building and killed the terrorist, ending the massacre. By the time they arrived, eight students, including five high school students, had been killed, while eight more were wounded.

The most recent Palestinian terror campaign, which lasted more or less from October 2015 through April 2016, showed the need for an armed citizenry. In two major attacks in Tel Aviv, the terrorists, armed with rifles were able to kill at will for several minutes because none of the civilians at the sites of the attacks were armed.

In contrast, terror attacks in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, which took place during the same period, were repeatedly stopped at their outset by armed civilians who ran to the scene within moments.

In response to the public outcry, Public Security Minister Glad Erdan slightly loosened restrictions on eligibility for gun licenses and encouraged citizens with gun licenses to carry their weapons wherever they go.

Erdan’s move to loosen restrictions on eligibility for gun permits shone a light on an aspect of Israeli life of which foreigners are largely unaware.

From Ian:

PLO declares economic war on the United States
Saleh Rafat, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, on Sunday said that the committee would convene in the coming days to discuss the latest developments on the Palestinian issue and to follow the implementation of the decisions of the PLO Central Council, which called for the severing of ties with Israel.

In an interview with Voice of Palestine Radio, Rafat backed an appeal by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the International Criminal Court in The Hague which would demand that a legal investigation be launched against Israel for its "crimes" against the Palestinian people. He also backed the idea of "Palestine" joining 22 more international organizations.

He called on Arab countries not to agree to the American administration's peace plan which will be presented soon, to withdraw their investments from the U.S., to boycott American products, and to adhere to previous summit resolutions that cut off ties with any country that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Rafat called for the continuation of the "mass demonstrations of anger" in “Palestine” and the Diaspora in order to deal with the American position that is biased in favor of Israel.

The PA officially joined the ICC on April 1, 2015, and immediately filed a series of legal complaints with the court. In addition to claiming that Israel committed war crimes during the 2014 Gaza war, it also claimed that Israeli “settlements” are “an ongoing war crime”
PMW: PA Mufti warns of “disasters of wars,” if US embassy is moved
After the announcement by the US State Department last week that the US embassy will be moved to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018, the Palestinian Authority's Grand Mufti warned that such a move will lead to "disasters of wars" in the entire world, as it is perceived as an "attack" on all Muslims:

"He [the Mufti] explained that the transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem, if it is carried out, will not be an attack on the Palestinians alone, but rather a blatant attack on the Arabs and Muslims throughout the world, ...and that it will not serve peace and security in the region, but rather bring upon it disasters of wars, anarchy, and instability." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 26, 2018]

He further implicitly encouraged Palestinians and Muslims to use violence and seek Martyrdom, stating that they will "sacrifice all that is dear to them":
"[The Mufti] added that the residents of Jerusalem and all of the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims will not submit to this blatant attack, and will sacrifice all that is dear to them in order to confront the American stubbornness."

The PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the embassy move "a direct aggression towards our people," regarding it as "a provocative declaration and a blow to the sensibilities of the Arabs and Muslims." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 26, 2018]

MEMRI: PLO Fatah Faction Gives Apartment To Family Of Terrorist Who Murdered An Israeli
Palestinian media are reporting that the PLO faction Fatah in the Jenin area had given an apartment to the family of Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, 22, commander of the Hamas squad that murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach on January 9, 2018 near the Havat Gilad junction in the West Bank. Jarrar was killed by Israeli troops a month later, in a February 6, 2018 raid.

Fatah representatives noted that the donation of the apartment constituted fulfilment of the national obligation to the family of a martyr who had sacrificed his life for Palestine and whose home the occupation had razed. Jarrar's mother and brother thanked Fatah for its support.

The following are translated excerpts from reports on the matter in the Palestinian media, and expressions of esteem for the martyrs by Palestinian Authority (PA) officials.

Fatah Jenin: This Is The Fulfillment Of A National Obligation Towards Families Of The Martyrs

On February 24, the Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported: "The Fatah movement in the Jenin region has given a fully furnished apartment to the family of the martyr Ahmad Nassar Jarrar...

"Fatah Jenin secretary Nour Al-Din Abu Al-Rab told Wafa that the donation of the apartment to the Jarrar family was aimed at underlining that the Fatah movement was fulfilling the national duty towards the families of the martyrs whose homes were razed by the Israeli occupation. He noted that the apartment was fully furnished and praised the part played by all those who had contributed to this national task that, he said, proved that our people is united and consolidated and does not forget its martyrs who gave their lives for Palestine.

"The martyr's mother, on her part, praised Fatah for providing her family with an apartment after the occupation destroyed their home."

On its official Facebook page, Fatah posted a video showing Jarrar's mother thanking Fatah for its support of the family.

Monday, February 26, 2018

From Ian:

Israel is the Ultimate Anti-Imperialist State
In his recent anti-Semitic rant, PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas repeated the lie that Israel is a “colonial project”. This is part and parcel of a long Muslim Arab tradition to wipe out the Middle East’s indigenous pre-Islamic civilizations.

Imagine if mainstream voices in the 21st century demanded that all non-German Europeans ”integrate into proper Europe” by embracing German culture, language, identity and the Lutheran religion. In a post-Second World War Europe, it would be rightly considered unacceptable supremacist racism. By contrast, many “liberal” Jew-haters demand that Israel “integrates into the proper Middle East” in the name of “peace” by letting itself be swallowed up by the surrounding Muslim Arab world.

In an era of Western post-colonial guilt, the Middle East is often presented as a hapless victim of former European imperialism. This myth was successfully promoted by the late Arabist Edward Said and his influential propaganda book “Orientalism”, which was enthusiastically embraced by numerous Middle East departments at Western university campuses.

It is a frequently ignored fact that former European imperialism in the Middle East was preceded by Islamist imperialism. In his book Islamic Imperialism: A history, professor Efraim Karsh, documents the long and violent history of Islamic imperialism. At its height, Islamist imperialism carved out a giant Muslim empire stretching from Spain in the West to India in the East. This once mighty empire eventually fragmented and the last Muslim empire collapsed with the end of Ottoman rule in 1917.

However, Islamist imperialism largely succeeded in wiping out pre-Islamic indigenous civilizations by imposing Islam and Arabic as the new norm across the Middle East and North Africa. The Jews were one of the few indigenous nations that managed to survive Islamic imperialism and maintain a separate identity and culture.

For centuries, Jews were the ultimate “other” in a predominantly Christian Europe. Today, the reborn Jewish state is the ultimate “other” in a predominantly Muslim Arab Middle East. Persians, Turks, Kurds and Berbers have largely embraced Islam but maintain separate cultural and linguistic identities from the surrounding Arab majority.

Ancient Christian and Zoroastrian communities are oppressed and threatened under Islamic rule. Israel stands out as the only remaining independent non-Arab and non-Muslim state in the wider Middle East region.

Anti-Jewish history revisionists often claim that Israel is a “foreign body” in a “Muslim Arab” region. In reality, the reborn Jewish state is the only remaining viable and indigenous fragment that survived the onslaught of Islamic imperialism.
The New Israel Fund Harms Israel, Yet Still Gets Support
A fundamental component of all strands of Judaism is supporting Israel as the Jewish state. Whether one believes in Orthodox or Reform Judaism, follows Shabbat, etc., believing that Israel should be the Jewish homeland is something that all Jews must believe in.

That’s why I don’t understand how American Jews can support the New Israel Fund (NIF) — an organization that harms Israel on many fronts. The latest development is a joint press release from Adalah (which received more than $2 million from the NIF from 2008-2016) and Hamoked (which received more than $700K during the same period). The press release claimed that, “it is illegal upon international law to impose upon East Jerusalem residents an obligation of loyalty to the occupying power.”

As the press release notes, these organizations sent a comprehensive letter to the Interior Ministry “detailing their grave concerns regarding a newly-proposed bill to amend the Entry into Israel Law. This new bill will allow the revocation of residency status of East Jerusalem Palestinians on three possible grounds: for ‘breach of loyalty’; in cases where the status was granted on the basis of false information; and in cases where ‘an individual committed a criminal act’ in the view of the Interior Ministry.”

The new bill was drafted following the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision in September 2017 denying the revocation of permanent residency of four Palestinian parliamentarians from East Jerusalem — on the grounds of “breach of loyalty.”

These organizations argued that East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory under international humanitarian law (IHL), and that its Palestinian residents are a protected civilian population. The groups claim, therefore, that it is illegal under IHL to impose upon them an obligation of loyalty to the “occupying” power — let alone to deny them permanent residency status on this basis.

The lowdown on Israel’s foes
HOLDING aloft Alex Ryvchin’s new book, The Anti-Israel Agenda: Inside the Political War on the Jewish State, Colonel Richard Kemp, one of its contributors, referenced Benjamin Netanyahu’s Munich speech in commending the collected essays to attendees at its Victorian launch.

Kemp described Netanyahu’s February 18 appearance at the Munich Security Conference, where the Israeli PM held up a piece of an Iranian drone fired on Israel from Syria, warning the Jewish State’s enemies not to “test Israel’s resolve”.

Waving the book, the visiting Briton exclaimed, “That is also a weapon — that is a weapon you need to arm yourself in your fight to defend the State of Israel.”

The former chief of command for British forces in Afghanistan, whose testimony before the UN Human Rights Council probing the 2014 Israel-Gaza war is detailed in Ryvchin’s new work, paid tribute to the Ukrainian-born Australian writer and lawyer, who is the public affairs director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).

Liberal and Labor MPs, including Michael Sukkar (Deakin), Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports), Tim Wilson (Goldstein), and Victorian senators Kimberley Kitching and James Patterson, were on hand for the launch, co-hosted by ECAJ, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, the Zionist Federation of Australia and Zionism Victoria.

Sukkar described Israel as “the frontline of freedom in the world … yet there’s no nation probably on the earth that’s under a greater existential threat … works such as what we’re launching tonight … are so important in pointing that out”.

From Ian:

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Hamas: Full steam ahead to nowhere
The Arab nationalist movements have sunk into the deep morass of despotism. Not one of them has managed to establish and maintain a democratic nation-state on the lines of Israel. The Zionist movement succeeded exactly where the Arab nationalist movements failed, and the Hamas movement was supposed to offer an alternative religious ethos that could unfurl its flag over all the tribal and religious groups living in "Falestin": Muslims, Christians, Cherkassim, Achmadim. The religious movement failed dismally, one of the reasons being its inability to abandon the principle of Jihad long enough to join up with the PLO and establish a Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel until the time is ripe to destroy the Jewish State. Hamas does not see a way to accept the Jewish states' existence, even on a temporary basis, and is obligated to maintain a constant state of war with Israel. Let me emphasize: not an active war but a state of war. Waging a war would lead to the destruction of Gaza and topple the heads of the Hamas leaders, while a state of war gives them justification for the sad state the movement and the Gaza Strip have reached. The residents of Gaza are the albatross hanging on the neck of Hamas, weighing it down as it tries in vain to navigate a stormy sea.

The situation in Gaza provides another proof, for anyone who is still in need of one, of the inability of an Islamic movement to establish and maintain a modern state that can live in peace with its neighbors and tolerate ideologies that differ from its own.

The schism dividing the PLO and Hamas is a cultural divide expressed by means of political conflict. There is no way to create unity or a true, long-lasting reconciliation between the two groups, so that anyone counting on one unified Palestinian Arab state had better align his expectations with bitter Middle East reality, widely different from what we have become accustomed to in Europe, America and Australia.

The PLO failed because the secular nationalist ideology that does so well in Europe, cannot make a go of it in the Middle East. It has failed in every country that tried to base its existence on that kind of ideology – Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan are the exemplars. The Hamas movement is a failure because fundamentalist Islam cannot maintain a modern state with European democratic standards based on human laws. Turkey, while returning to Islam since the nineties, is also distancing itself more and more from the accepted Western model of a constitutional democracy.

The conclusion all this leads to is completely clear: There is neither a religious or secular basis for establishing a Palestinian Arab state. The only solution is the natural base of Middle Eastern society: The tribe. Only emirates in Judea and Samaria based on local families, - like those in the Gulf emirates – can operate legitimately in this region.
Melanie Phillips: The UK Needs Another Churchill to Confront Iran
Recently, there have been extraordinary scenes in cinemas throughout the United Kingdom. People have leapt to their feet in standing ovations, and grown men have been weeping. The source of the emotion? The wartime speeches of Winston Churchill in the movie, The Darkest Hour.

It’s not just because of Gary Oldman’s tremendous performance as the former prime minister. No — the movie has touched something very deep in the British psyche: the call to summon all one’s courage and resolution to defend their nation.

Showing how the UK’s previous prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, vainly tried to appease Adolf Hitler, the movie illustrates the catastrophic error of trying to compromise with a regime whose agenda brooks no compromise.

During the 1930s, the United Kingdom didn’t acknowledge this until it was almost too late. Churchill — the lone voice warning that the county needed to re-arm to deal with the Nazi threat — was scorned as a warmonger. People didn’t seem to realize that the choice before them was not between war and peace, but between war from a position of strength and war from a position of weakness.

When Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, Chamberlain’s response was to return from meeting the German dictator in Munich and announce “peace in our time.” Only when Hitler invaded Poland in September of that year did Britain finally go to war.

Victory over fascism was accordingly a close-run thing. But the point is that Britain launched a pre-emptive strike. It realized that the attack on Poland showed Hitler posed a direct threat to its own nation, and that it needed to destroy that threat before the Nazis got any closer.

Palestinians: Israel is One Big Settlement
Let us be clear about this: When Palestinians -- and some of their supporters in the international community, including Europe -- say that they want an end to the "occupation," they mean they want to see an end to Israel's existence, full stop. They do not want to throw the Jews out of their homes in the settlements; rather, they want Jews to be expelled from the whole country.

The conflict, as far as the Palestinians are concerned, did not begin in 1967, when east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip came under Israeli control. In the eyes of the Palestinians, all Jews are "settlers" and "colonialists." All the land, they argue, stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, is Muslim-owned land, and no Muslim is entitled to give up any part of it to a non-Muslim. For the Palestinians, accepting Israel's "right to exist" with Jews is seen as an act of treason.

What is really bothering the Palestinians is that Israel, with Jews, exists, period. The Palestinians want all of Jerusalem. They want all of "Palestine." They want Israel removed from the planet. It is time to listen carefully to what the Palestinians are saying -- in Arabic -- to understand that the conflict is not about Jerusalem and not about settlements.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

From Ian:

Cheering Netanyahu says US embassy move will have ‘long-term implications’
The US decision to relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will have “long-term implications,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, reiterating his praise of the announcement and thanking US President Donald Trump for the “historic” move planned for Israel’s 70th Independence Day anniversary in May.

“This is a great moment for the citizens of Israel and a historic moment for the State of Israel,” Netanyahu told his ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. “All the citizens of Israel will celebrate it together. It has long-term implications and great historic significance.”

Repeating comments he made in a Saturday night video praising the US announcement, Netanyahu thanked the Trump for the planned move, whose timing was announced Friday, following the US president’s declaration in December recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“I want to thank President Trump, on behalf of the entire government and the entire people, for both your leadership and friendship. President Trump you are a great friend to the State of Israel. We thank you,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu is expected to invite Trump to Israel in May to inaugurate the new US embassy, Hadashot TV news reported on Saturday.

The US State Department notified Congress on Friday that the Jerusalem embassy would open in May to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel declaring independence, speeding up the process by converting a building currently housing consular services into the embassy.

The State Department confirmed the timing of the move.


Why is the U.S. speeding up its Jerusalem embassy move?
When Tillerson made his comments about 2020 and beyond, he was thinking of what it would mean to relocate an entire, permanent embassy, which is a huge production that entails having to find a site, negotiate terms, provide security, and build the building.

When it indeed appeared that this would take years, other eyes started to look into the matter, including those of Friedman, and other scenarios were evaluated, one of which was to do the move in stages.

The logic behind this was that if the decision was already made, then it should be implemented as quickly as possible. The idea was also that Trump, having made the decision against the advice of most of the world, should reap the political benefits and see it happen by at least the end of his first term.

But why wait that long? What is gained by waiting that long? If security is a concern, then the existing complex in Arnona – one of the most secure sites in Jerusalem – provides a solution. And what better time to do it then to have it coincide with the 70th Independence Day.

According to this explanation that the decision was based primarily on logistical considerations, the decision to make the move now is just the result of looking at the options and realize that it is possible to make the move much earlier – if done in stages – than originally anticipated.

Saturday, February 24, 2018

From Ian:

Father of Taylor Force, US Business Student and Military Vet Murdered in Palestinian Stabbing Attack: We Are Not Suckers
Stuart Force — the father of the late Taylor Force, the American business student and military veteran who was murdered in a stabbing attack in Israel in 2016 — spoke on Friday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington, DC, and called on the Senate to approve a pending piece of legislation, named for his son, that would cut off US government funding of the Palestinian Authority if it continues to pay monetary rewards to terrorists and their families.

“The Palestinian Authority leadership tells the world that these payments are simply social welfare payments,” Stuart Force said. “But we aren’t suckers. We know that these are US taxpayer dollars being used to incentivize and fund terror.”

“It has been emotionally distressing to relive the loss of our son over the past two years,” Force told the crowd at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. “But we have come to realize there are so many more good people in the world than there are evil ones. The evil ones seem to get all the attention, online and in the media. The good people of the world deserve better. Passing the Taylor Force Act and stopping the terror funding is a great place to start the process.”

“The House [of Representatives] has passed its version of the act,” Force explained. “The next step is to allocate floor time on the Senate, pass its version, reconcile the two, and send it to President Trump for his signature.”

“This is not a partisan issue, this is an anti-terrorism issue,” Force went on to say. “This is a right versus wrong issue. We look forward to being in the Senate gallery when the act passes with unanimous, bipartisan, support, and we can fist bump, hug, and cry, like we did in the House gallery.”
Bret Stephens: Don’t Count Bibi Out — Yet
If you follow the news from Israel, you might surmise that Benjamin Netanyahu’s days as prime minister are numbered. The police recommend that he be charged on multiple counts of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Fresh charges may yet be brought in additional investigations. A former top aide to Netanyahu agreed this week to serve as a witness against him. Press reports suggest a man clinging to power.

Don’t be so sure. If an election were held tomorrow, Bibi — as Netanyahu is universally known in Israel — and his Likud party would likely win, according to recent polls. Roughly half of Israelis think the prime minister should quit, but that’s down from 60 percent in December. Netanyahu has no intention of resigning, even if the attorney general chooses to indict him. The Likud rank-and-file remain loyal to their leader. His coalition partners may detest him, but for now they see greater political advantage in a wounded prime minister than in a fresh one.

Besides, Bibi has been, for Israelis, a pretty good prime minister. Some indicators:

Economy: Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, the economy has grown by nearly 30 percent in constant dollars — nearly twice the growth rate of Germany or the United States. Some 3.6 million tourists visited Israel in 2017, a record for the Jewish state. On Monday, Israel announced a $15 billion dollar deal to export natural gas to Egypt from its huge offshore fields.

Diplomacy: Netanyahu’s personal ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are exceptionally close, as they are with Japan’s Shinzo Abe. Israel’s relations with African countries and the Arab world are the best they’ve been in decades; reaction in Riyadh and Cairo to the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem amounted to a shrug. Netanyahu’s 2015 speech to Congress opposing the Iran deal, billed as an affront to the Obama administration, turned out to be an inspiration for Israel’s neighbors. And Netanyahu’s arguments against the deal now prevail in the current White House. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Palestinian ex-terrorist deported from US invited to speak in Amsterdam
Right-wing Dutch lawmakers have protested a far-left group’s invitation of a Palestinian ex-terrorist who was deported from the United States to speak in the Dutch capital.

Machiel de Graaf and Gidi Markuszower of the Party for Freedom expressed opposition to Rasmea Odeh’s planned visit in a query they submitted Thursday to Justice and Security Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus.

“Do you agree that a convicted terrorist and immigration fraudster has nothing to look for in the Netherlands? If not, why not?” the lawmakers wrote, adding: “Are you prepared to deny her entrance? If not, why?”

In the Netherlands, lawmakers use parliamentary queries to draw the media’s attention to issues and direct scrutiny of the actions of the ministers queried, who have up to three weeks to reply.

Odeh was invited to the Netherlands by Anakbayan-Europe, a Filipino communist group, and another fringe left organization called Revolutionary Unity.

Friday, February 23, 2018

From Ian:

Human Rights Groups Refused to Help 52 Arab Victims of Palestinian Authority Torture
A group of 52 Arabs, residents of the Palestinian Authority, who needed costly medical evaluations in order to apply for compensations following a court ruling finding the PA guilty of torturing them, turned to fifteen different human rights organizations for support but were rejected by 13 of them, Israel Hayom reported Friday.

Out of the 15 NGOs, only Physicians for Human Rights and the Committee for the Prevention of Torture offered assisted the applicants. The rest refused to help or ignored the pleas. The Yesh Din organization expressed their “feelings of anger and pain,” but explained that they cannot help because they only “represent victims of violations when they are harmed by Israeli authorities or Israeli citizens.”
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Another NGO, Adalah, stated they “only help the Palestinian who are suing the State of Israel.”

Amnesty International said that their organization “does not have the professional tools to address the needs of these refugees.”

Good to know.

Last August, Judge Moshe Drori of the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the murder, abduction, imprisonment, torture and rape of 52 Arabs who are citizens of Israel or the PA. The verdict on these cases—dating back to the years 1995-2002—described torture that included electric shocks; castration; prolonged hanging by the legs with the prisoner’s head down; pouring boiling plastic on prisoners’ bodies; pulling teeth and nails; sleep deprivation and food deprivation; as well as murder and rape of family members.
Amnesty report claims Israel ‘kills,’ ‘tortures’ Palestinian children
The recent Amnesty International Report on the state of human rights in 159 countries and territories during 2017 claims Israel is “killing” and “torturing” Palestinian children with impunity.

Its critique of Israel is more extensive and critical than those of known bastions of human rights violations, including Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

“June marked 50 years since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the start of the 11th year of its illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, subjecting approximately 2 million inhabitants to collective punishment and a growing humanitarian crisis,” the report begins.

“Israeli forces unlawfully killed Palestinian civilians, including children... Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, including children, remained pervasive and was committed with impunity,” it continues.

In its “Unlawful Killings” section, the document claims Israeli soldiers, police and security guards killed at least 75 Palestinians, later noting that “some of those killed were shot while attacking Israelis or suspected of intending an attack.”

“Many, including children, were shot and unlawfully killed while posing no immediate threat to life,” the reports states.

The “Excessive Use of Force” section claims that Israeli forces killed at least 20 Palestinians and wounded thousands while being attacked during riots.

“Many protesters threw rocks or other projectiles, but were posing no threat to the lives of well-protected Israeli soldiers when they were shot,” it states.
Ellison on Farrakhan Meeting: ‘There’s No Relationship,’ I’m a ‘Fierce Opponent of Anti-Semitism’ (not satire)
Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) said Thursday he had no relationship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, saying he had always been a "fierce opponent of anti-Semitism."

Ellison, the vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee and a Muslim, attended a private dinner in 2013 with Farrakhan, an outspoken racist and anti-Semite who espouses conspiracy theories about Jews and whites, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

CNN host Wolf Blitzer recapped the saga, pointing out Ellison said in 2016 that his relationship with Farrakhan ended long ago.

"What exactly is your relationship with Farrakhan?" Blitzer asked.

"No relationship," Ellison said. "My political opponents keep pushing this out there in order to try to smear and distract from the key issues, but there's no relationship, Wolf. I have a clear record. I have always fought for equal rights for all people. I will continue to do so. I have always denounced and been a fierce opponent of anti-Semitism, from whatever source. I'll continue to do so."


From Ian:

US ‘to move embassy to Jerusalem on May 14’ — day of independence declaration
The US is planning to officially move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018 — the 70th anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence, as well as Washington’s recognition of the Jewish state — Channel 10 and Hadashot news reported Friday.

According to Hadashot the embassy will officially announce the plans later in the day. The report was confirmed to Channel 10 by high-ranking Israeli officials.

The Times of Israel has not confirmed the report.

US officials had previously said the move could take many more months, and perhaps years.

Earlier Friday four US officials told The Associated Press that the Trump administration was considering an offer from Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson to pay for at least part of the new embassy.

Lawyers at the State Department are looking into the legality of accepting private donations to cover some or all of the embassy costs, the administration officials said. The discussions are occurring as the new embassy clears its final bureaucratic hurdles.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ended weeks of delay by signing off on a security plan for moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city, according to the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and demanded anonymity.

Sheldon Adelson offers to help pay for US Jerusalem embassy — report
The Trump administration is considering an offer from Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson to pay for at least part of a new US embassy in Jerusalem, four US officials told The Associated Press.

Lawyers at the State Department are looking into the legality of accepting private donations to cover some or all of the embassy costs, the administration officials said. The discussions are occurring as the new embassy clears its final bureaucratic hurdles. On Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ended weeks of delay by signing off on a security plan for moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city, according to the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and demanded anonymity.

In one possible scenario, the administration would solicit contributions not only from Adelson but potentially from other donors in the evangelical and American Jewish communities, too. One official said Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate and staunch supporter of Israel, had offered to pay the difference between the total cost — expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars — and what the administration is able to raise.

Under any circumstance, letting private citizens cover the costs of an official government building would mark a significant departure from historical US practice. In the Jerusalem case, it would add yet another layer of controversy to Trump’s politically charged decision to move the embassy, given Adelson’s longstanding affiliation with right-wing Israeli politics.
Hotovely: '10 more countries in talks to move embassies to Jerusalem'
Israel is currently holding talks with 10 different nations over the possible relocation of their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely revealed Thursday.

Following President Donald Trump’s December 6th announcement that he had ordered the US State Department to begin work transferring the US mission to Israel from Tel Aviv to the Israeli capital, just one other country, Guatemala, followed suit.

Later that month, however, Hotovely hinted that other countries may also be interested in transferring their embassies.

On Thursday, Hotovely told American Jewish leaders that Israel is currently engaged in talks with 10 different countries regarding the relocation of their embassies.

Speaking with members of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, currently visiting Israel as part of their annual leadership mission to Israel, Hotovely briefed leaders on the progress made towards securing the embassy relocations.

"We are in a dialogue with over ten countries to transfer their embassies to our capital, Jerusalem," said Hotovely.

"We want to see at least another 10 countries that will transfer their embassies to Jerusalem after the US in the coming years."

Thursday, February 22, 2018

From Ian:

Sohrab Ahmari: The New Old European Obsession Some things never change.
Does Europe still want its Jews, and can the Jews still find belonging in Europe? Ask the likes of Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, and they will answer firmly and decisively in the affirmative. Yet their assurances ring hollow amid a resurgence of Europe’s old and unhealthy obsession with Jews.

The latest signs came this month from Brussels and Warsaw, which nicely illustrated both the geographic span of Europe’s Jewish obsession and the diverse forms it can take depending on the political context.

Start with Brussels and the European Parliament. The EU legislative body is hosting a conference on February 28 on Israeli settlements–a perennial Brussels bugbear, despite the fact that a few Jewish communities in the West Bank are far from the region’s most pressing issue. Among the speakers is the Qatari-born Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti. The invitation to Barghouti came courtesy of Ana Gomes, a Portuguese member from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, the second-largest bloc in the European Parliament.

As European Jewish leaders noted in a letter to Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, Barghouti advocates a total economic, cultural, and academic boycott of Israel and denies the Jewish state’s right to exist. Barghouti says he opposes a “binational” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on the ground that such a solution “makes two problematic assumptions: that Jews are a nation, and that such a nation has a right to exist as such in Palestine.” Barghouti, in other words, isn’t just another critic of the settlements but a bigot, who would invite Europeans to isolate the Jewish people and their state.

Economic boycotts of Jews have a long and odious history in Europe, but they are now getting a replay at the European Parliament under the respectable guise of high-minded Israel critique.
Cape Town May Dry Up Because of an Aversion to Israel
Even more confounding, the South Africans turned to Iran for help. In April 2016, when there was still enough time for a smart plan to make a difference, South Africa’s water minister visited Tehran. She brought home a memorandum of understanding in which Iran agreed to help develop South Africa’s water infrastructure.

Unlike Israel, Iran is not known for its water-management expertise. Anger over water shortages was a feature of the recent Iranian protests. Even before the South African visit, a former Iranian agriculture minister predicted that as many as 50 million Iranians—around two-thirds of the population—would need to be uprooted because of growing water scarcity.

As in South Africa, Iran’s water shortages can’t be blamed only on the weather. Water infrastructure projects in Iran are controlled by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which diverts water to favored ethnic and political groups. In Tehran largely untreated sewage is discharged into nearby waterways, a waste of water that creates health hazards. Years of regime-encouraged overpumping of groundwater has left agricultural districts without water for crops.

Two months after the South African water minister’s Iran trip, Israel brought a team of water professionals to Cape Town. Neither the mayor, also strongly hostile to Israel, nor any senior municipal official would see them.

If the South Africans are snubbing the Israelis out of solidarity with the Palestinians, they might want to consider this: The Palestinian Authority has worked with Israel on a range of water projects since 1995. Israel offers training for Palestinians in wastewater management, infrastructure and security. Israel also provides the Palestinian Authority with more than half the water for domestic consumption by Palestinians in the West Bank. And it pipes more than 2.5 billion gallons of water into Hamas-controlled Gaza each year.

Why does South Africa feel compelled to be so anti-Israel? The question has no rational answer.
150 years ago, the UK’s first and only Jewish leader changed politics forever
Many British Jews, as the Jewish Chronicle put it, recognized that the Turks were the “real protectors of the Jews in the East” and were understandably wary of Russia’s threats to intervene.

But Disraeli’s actions were not, as his critics suggested, the result of his “Jew feelings” or a reflection of an “Oriental indifference to cruelty” but a realpolitik calculation, strongly shared by Queen Victoria, that Russian expansionism posed a danger to British interests.

Even Disraeli’s eventual triumph — at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 he thwarted Russian designs on the Balkans — did not satisfy Gladstone, who continued to charge that Britain’s Jews had proved themselves “opponents of effectual relief to Christians.”

Watching Disraeli in Berlin, Bismarck proved more complimentary: “Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann [the old Jew, he is the man],” he remarked.

“One Nation” conservatism has gone through many iterations since Disraeli’s day. It is, though, a testament to the longevity of its appeal that, the morning after he was reelected in 2015, David Cameron pledged to lead a “one nation” government.

Perhaps more remarkable still, both Cameon’s defeated opponent – the Labour leader, Ed Miliband – and his successor in Downing Street, Theresa May, have both attempted to don the “one nation” mantle.

Disraeli’s conservatism was deeply held. The purpose of the Tory party, he believed, was “to maintain the institutions of the country” — the monarchy, the Church of England, the aristocracy. But that belief also necessitated knowing when it is best to reform in order to preserve.

It is this philosophy of governing that has been perhaps Disraeli’s greatest legacy to the Conservative party and which has allowed it to become the most electorally successful political party in the world.

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: A New Realism: America & Israel in the Trump Era
Of all the surprises of the Trump era, none is more notable than the pronounced shift toward Israel. Such a shift was not predictable from Donald Trump’s conduct on the campaign trail; as he sought the Republican nomination, Trump distinguished himself by his refusal to express unqualified support for Israel and his airy conviction that his business experience gave him unique insight into how to strike “a real-estate deal” to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In addition, his isolationist talk alarmed Israel’s friends in the United States and elsewhere if for no other reason than that isolationism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism often go hand in hand in hand.
But shift he did. In the 14 months since his inauguration, the new president has announced that the United States accepts Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and has declared his intention to build a new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, first mandated by U.S. law in 1996. He has installed one of his Orthodox Jewish lawyers as the U.S. ambassador and another as his key envoy on Israeli–Palestinian issues. America’s ambassador to the United Nations has not only spoken out on Israel’s behalf forcefully and repeatedly; Nikki Haley has also led the way in cutting the U.S. stipend to the refugee relief agency that is an effective front for the Palestinian terror state in Gaza. And, as Meir Y. Soloveichik and Michael Medved both detail elsewhere in this issue, his vice president traveled to Israel in January and delivered the most pro-Zionist speech any major American politician has ever given.

Part of this shift can also be seen in what Trump has not done. He has not signaled, in interviews or in policy formulations, that the United States views Israeli actions in and around Gaza and the West Bank as injurious to a future peace. And his administration has not complained about Israeli actions taken in self-defense in Lebanon and Syria but has, instead, supported Israel’s right to defend itself.

This marks a breathtaking contrast with the tone and spirit of the relationship between the two countries during the previous administration. The eight Obama years were characterized by what can only be called a gut hostility rooted in the president’s own ideological distaste for the Jewish state.
Benny Morris: The Father of the ‘Special Relationship’
Quite a few celebrities, such as Leonard Bernstein and Edward G. Robinson, passed through Israel/Palestine in 1948 and 1949, especially during the lengthy truces between the bouts of combat in that first Arab–Israeli war. Many of them met with James McDonald, who was President Harry Truman’s first “Special Representative” in Israel and then, from February 1949 until the end of 1950, America’s ambassador. Among the visitors was Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian-born journalist and novelist, who had already lived in and reported from Palestine in the late 1920s and again in 1945. For years, Koestler had identified with the Revisionist Movement (the progenitor of today’s Likud), before growing disillusioned (as was his wont with most things he touched). On September 20, 1948, he arrived on McDonald’s doorstep for “tea and sherry.”
In the fourth volume, just published, of his diary—Envoy to the Promised Land, the Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald 1948–1951—McDonald characterized the meeting as “delightful and civilized.”1 Koestler avowed that his “chief interest in this country is its intellectual future,” by which he meant its cultural-ideological-political evolution. “He sees three possibilities,” McDonald wrote. “A) Levantinism; b) Clericalism; c) Westernization.” McDonald explained: “By [Levantinism], he means the kind of superficial culture such as is prevalent…in the Arab states with a shallow but non-understanding knowledge of the West. Under [clericalism], he would lump the various possibilities arising from undue rabbinic influence.…[Westernization] is self-explanatory.” Koestler, he said, doubted that would happen. The sabras, native-born Palestinian Jews, had a “limited provincial outlook,” in Koestler’s view, and lacked “knowledge of the West” or “interest in Western Europe.”

In his quiet way, McDonald sprang to the defense, arguing that Israel was “a pioneer country in which it was natural for a generation or two or three [that] the emphasis would be on material development and perhaps rather crude nationalism rather than on culture.” This had been the case with “pioneer America and pioneer South Africa.” Koestler “seemed inclined to agree.” Somewhat contradictorily, McDonald then added that Israel was sui generis, and that all comparisons were unreasonable. What neither he nor Koestler could have foreseen was that Israel would develop simultaneously in all three directions, as it has done in the past seven decades.
Evelyn Gordon: Do Arabs Back Israel in a Clash with Iran?
What Al Jazeera’s informal poll shows is that this argument is simply false. It’s not just in Arab capitals that Iran is now more widely loathed and feared than Israel, but also on the Arab street, to the point that Arabs are even willing to openly back Israel in a clash with Iran. If Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians were still their top concern, they would instead be rooting for Iran against Israel–just as most of the Arab world did back in 2006 when Israel fought a month-long war with Iran’s wholly-owned Lebanese subsidiary, Hezbollah.

This sea change in Arab attitudes has serious foreign policy implications for anyone who calls himself a realist. As John Podhoretz correctly argued in COMMENTARY’s March issue, the realist view that Israel was the source of most Mideast problems could always more properly have been termed “fantasist”; most of the Arab world’s ills have nothing to do with Israel. But realists did have one unassailable fact on their side: When you stack Israel up against the Arab world, the latter has both the numbers and the oil. Consequently, it was at least tenable to argue–as long as you ignore all the other considerations Podhoretz cites–that America’s interests were better served by siding with the Arabs against Israel.

Today, the Arab world still has the numbers and the oil, but it’s siding with Israel against Iran. So for any realist who holds that America should align itself with Arab concerns because numbers and oil are crucial considerations, the top priority now shouldn’t be another fruitless Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but reining in Iran’s malignant behavior. To its credit, that is something the Trump Administration is trying to do by threatening to scrap the nuclear deal unless the four Israeli-Saudi-American concerns cited above are addressed.

As for all the self-proclaimed realists who remain fixated on Israel despite the change in Arab attitudes that has destroyed their main argument, perhaps it’s time to drop the “realist” label. The more accurate term for people who see Jews as the root of all evil under any and all circumstances is “anti-Semite.”

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Antisemitism in Poland a Symptom of a Larger European Problem
The crisis in relations between Israel and Poland over Warsaw’s desire to ban honest discussion of Poland’s role in the Holocaust has eclipsed every other issue relevant to Israeli-European ties. No air is left in the room to consider, for instance, the physical peril in which the Jews of France now live. No one is talking about Europe’s role in protecting Iran from U.S. sanctions. All anyone can find time to talk about is Poland and its law banning discussion of the truth about the Holocaust.

Due to the extensiveness of Polish antisemitism, it would be foolhardy for Israel or Poland to aspire to a long-term resolution of the problem. But in the interest of maintaining mutually beneficial bilateral relations, both sides are going to have to make some difficult accommodations to one another.

Israel is going to have to acknowledge that living with officially supported antisemitism is the price of relations with European states, just as it is the price of doing business with Arab states. Part of this accommodation will involve backing off its efforts to change or abrogate the Polish law.

For its part, the Polish government is going to have to restrain its anti-Jewish reflexes at least publically. To this end, the Polish government should avoid additional antisemitic and fraudulent remarks about the Holocaust and about Jews more generally.

The world is often an unpleasant place. Europe in particular has never kicked its antisemitic habit. It isn’t Israel’s job to transform Europe. It is Israel’s job to secure its interests, and when necessary, to do so in cooperation with governments it doesn’t like that have values it abhors.
When Angela Merkel started to fail the Jews and Israel
With her summer 2015 announcement of the welcoming policy for refugees, German Chancellor Angela Merkel damaged Germany, her party, her image and probably her place in history.

She has also caused damage to German Jews and Israel. Until summer 2015 Merkel had a very good record on both these issues.

In November 2005, Merkel became chancellor. In January 2006, she visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2014 she also came to Israel. In the latter year Merkel was accompanied by 16 German ministers to discuss collaboration between the two countries. She had no problem in admitting German guilt toward the Jews. In January 2018 on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Merkel called for a new culture of remembrance in view of the shrinking number of Holocaust survivors.

Merkel’s attitude greatly differed from that of several senior leaders of the Christian Democratic Union’s junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD). Their previous leader, Sigmar Gabriel, currently German foreign minister, is a consistent anti-Israel inciter.

Recently he again accused Israel of apartheid.
Melanie Phillips - “No Liberty, No Equality, No Fraternity: Dealing with the Failure of the West”
Melanie Phillips has never shied away from the battle of ideas. As someone who has lived as both a hero and villain of the social and political Left, her career as a journalist has been marked by controversy over the expression of some relatively uncontroversial ideas. Her fierce independence, and tenacious defense of civil liberties has lead her to becoming one of Britain’s leading voices on a variety of topics like Brexit, the increased threat of radicalization, and how the mainstream media treats Israel. Don't miss it!


From Ian:

PMW: Fatah honors terrorist who led murder: “Martyr who sat on shoulders of Heaven and smiled”
One of the latest new Palestinian "heroes" is "Martyr" Ahmed Nasr Jarrar - the terrorist who led the terror cell that murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a father of six, in a drive-by shooting on Jan. 9, 2018, near Havat Gilad in the Nablus area.

Terrorist Jarrar was shot and killed during an exchange of gunfire with Israeli soldiers while resisting arrest near Jenin on Feb. 6, 2018. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Abbas' Fatah Movement has honored him several times, and continues to do so as seen in additional Facebook posts below.

Palestinians have also named sports tournaments after the terrorist. A futsal championship was held in the Nablus area:

"The Martyr Ahmed Jarrar Futsal Championship"
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 12, 2018]

In Gaza too, terrorist Jarrar is a hero with two sports tournaments having already been named after him:

"The Martyr Ahmed Nasr Jarrar Table Tennis Cup" (to be held later this month)

"The Martyr Ahmed Jarrar Handball Cup" (date to be announced)
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 19, 2018]

The following are 10 Fatah posts on Facebook glorifying terrorist Jarrar:
IDF reveals it thwarted attempted Islamic State bombing of Australian flight
The Israeli army on Wednesday revealed that the Military Intelligence Unit 8200 foiled an Islamic State attempt to bomb a flight from Australia last August.

“The unit provided exclusive intelligence that led to the prevention of an air attack by the Islamic State in 2017 in Australia,” a senior IDF officer said.

“The foiling of the attack saved dozens of innocent lives and proved Unit 8200’s position as a major player in the intelligence fight against the Islamic State,” the officer said, on condition of anonymity.

Wednesday’s revelation was an unusual move for the Israeli army, which generally keeps mum on the operations of the secretive Unit 8200, which is similar to the American National Security Agency, collecting information from electronic communication, also referred to as signals intelligence.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Munich Security Conference that Israeli Military Intelligence “helped prevent dozens of terror attacks in dozens of countries by the Islamic State.” (h/t Yoel)
Exclusive: Senior PA official embezzled EU aid money
A top Palestinian official spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid money provided by the European Union on personal expenses like overseas travel, electronics and landscaping, according to information obtained by i24NEWS.

Sources in Gaza, Ramallah and Europe said that Marwan Durzi, the ex-head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in the West Bank and the current head of the Palestinian co-ordination office for Zone C (the part of the West Bank under full Israeli military control) took advantage of his position overseeing grants provided by the EU for humanitarian purposes.

The sources said that in 2017 Durzi was found to have taken 100,000 ($123,000) euros worth of business trips, many accompanied by his family.

He also purchased 60,000 euros ($74,000) of computers, phones and tablets for himself and associates after a 3G communications network was finally established in the West Bank, more than 80,000 ($98,500) euros worth of clothes and jewelry and 200,000 ($247,000) euros on gardening.

Sources said that the office he runs do not keep accurate records of the amount of funds received by the EU, and in some cases reported them to be 70% lower than they actually were. (h/t Yenta Press)

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

From Ian:

Phyllis Chesler: When Anti-Zionism Reigned at the IRS
Now we have further documentation of Obama's official anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism and its reign at the IRS between 2010 and 2017.

The mainstream or leftstream and liberal media barely covered this lawsuit. The Wall Street Journal and FOX did.

One 2010 article in Politico found the right kind of Jew, former IRS Commissioner, Sheldon Cohen who said, "he was skeptical of Z Street's motives in its high-profile lawsuit, rather than pursuing its concerns in tax court. 'They were hardly into the process when they screamed rape – nobody lifted the dress yet," he said, noting that 501(c)3 groups can't advocate for political positions.

Seven years is a long time to be unable to raise funding for educational purposes; it is also a long time in which to launch and maintain a self-defensive lawsuit, one which was immediately punished by the IRS which then froze the Z STREET application. Seven years is a long time to experience the absence of Jewish-American organizational support; the turned backs of Jewish philanthropists is another kind of sorrow and challenge.
Britain and Zionism: Did Margaret Thatcher betray Balfour?
British policy toward Zionism and Israel has been a 100-year roller-coaster, from the triumphant Balfour Declaration to the depths of the 1939 White Paper, and back again to Margaret Thatcher — the first British prime minister to visit the Jewish state, and famously pro-Israel.

Or was she?

Tel Aviv University lecturer Azriel Bermant’s new book “Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East” (Cambridge) draws on recently released British and Israeli government papers to reveal the truth about Margaret Thatcher’s Middle East policy and reassess her famous battles with the Arabists of Britain’s Foreign Office.

Author Elliot Jager’s book “The Balfour Declaration: Sixty-Seven Words – 100 Years of Conflict” (Gefen), explores the myriad of influences and personalities who came together at a pivotal point in history to issue the famous founding charter of the Jewish national home.

The two authors will reflect on the past century of Anglo-Zionist relations at a public discussion, in English, produced with the Sir Naim Dangoor Center for UK/Israel Relations at Mishkenot Sha’ananim on Tuesday, February 27. Tickets are available HERE.

Although Thatcher’s personal sympathies were pro-Israel, when it came to concrete policy “there was very little difference between the way she saw things and the way the Foreign Office saw things,” says Bermant.

Even as UK policy seemed to diverge from Israel’s – opposing Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, denouncing settlements, supporting arms and AWACs deals with Saudi Arabia, softening the UK’s rejection of the PLO – Thatcher was still lauded as a great friend.
MEMRI: Lebanese Journalist: 100 Years After Balfour Declaration, The Arabs Have Failed Where Israel Has Excelled
In a November 25, 2017 article marking the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, published in the London-based daily Al-Hayat, Lebanese journalist Karam Al-Hilu compared the meager accomplishments of the Arab world in the past century with those of the rest of the countries of the world, particularly Israel. He noted that Israel's supremacy in the areas of science, economy, society, and politics is the source of its strength as well as the source of the Arabs' failure in confronting it.

The following are excerpts from his article:
"A century after the Balfour Declaration... the Arabs have not managed to build a [a single] state that possesses knowledge, justice, and the economic, social, and human capability for confronting Zionism. One hundred years have been squandered, in all aspects; during them, the Arabs have been confronting Israel while their cultural infrastructure was in crisis – in the areas of knowledge, politics, economy, society, and thought. According to the 2014 [UN] report on knowledge in the Arab world [the Arab Knowledge Report], despite the 500 Arab universities, with an enrollment of nine million students and faculties of 220,000 lecturers, higher education in the Arab world is very meager in scientific research, in its failure to adapt to digital culture, and in its incompatibility with [universal] scientific and human culture. Outlay on scientific research is extremely negligible. Even in Egypt, the Arab country where the [cultural] awakening is the most deeply rooted, [only] 0.43% of the [gross] national product [is allocated to scientific research], versus 4.04% in South Korea and 3.39% in Japan. Therefore, scientists and research output are a rarity in the Arab world, and the research that is published [there] constitutes only 0.8% of the global average. The number of patents registered to the Arabs in the past 50 years does not exceed [the number of those] registered by Malaysia alone.

"Not a single Arab university ranks among the 500 best in the world, while Israel supersedes the Arabs at an astronomical rate, in inventions and in hi-tech export. Israel has completely wiped out illiteracy [among its citizens], while among the Arabs, 23% remain illiterate.


From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Hamas and Fatah - United against Trump
The two rival parties, Fatah and Hamas, are prepared to lay aside their differences and work together to foil US President Donald Trump's plan for peace in the Middle East, the details of which remain unknown. Thwarting Trump's peace plan has become a top priority.

Although the details of the Trump plan still have not been made public, Palestinians across the political spectrum say they will never accept any peace initiative presented by the Trump administration.

The Palestinians know that no US peace plan would comply with their demands. Abbas's Fatah is demanding 100% of the territories Israel secured in 1967, namely the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Hamas, for its part, is demanding 100% of everything, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. As Hamas leaders repeatedly affirm, the goal is to "liberate all of Palestine," meaning all of Israel.
INSS: The Palestinian Refugees: Facts, Figures, and Significance
The decision by US President Donald Trump to freeze a third of the United States' contribution to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, has brought renewed attention to an organization whose very existence and activity arouses harsh criticism in Israel. UNRWA was established in 1949 after the War of Independence to deal solely with Palestinian refugees. As with the question of Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugee issue has been seen for some seventy years as a principal obstacle to a resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. For the Palestinians who have been raised on the Nakba heritage, any compromise on this issue is an attack on Palestinian national identity.

The number of individuals forced to leave their homes during the War of Independence is estimated at 720,000. Most of them settled in refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. According to UNRWA, all the descendants of Palestinian refugees are considered refugees, and therefore today they number over five and a half million. Citizenship of another country, for example, Jordan, does not cancel their refugee status. In other words, only the return of the refugees and their descendants to their homes can cancel this status.

For Israeli governments, the Palestinian demand for the "right of return" of refugees was and remains a red line. This position is supported by an absolute majority of Israeli citizens from all parts of the political spectrum, because the return of such large numbers of Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel would have far reaching consequences for the character of the state. However, all the attempts by the State of Israel over the years to change UNRWA’s definition of refugees have failed. Israel’s efforts to change UNRWA’s status as an independent entity and subject it to the UNHCR, which handles all other refugees worldwide, has failed as well. This is largely because the Arab countries believe that such a change would make it impossible to pass on refugee status to the descendants of Palestinian refugees and thus weaken the Palestinian position in negotiations.

The social and political shockwaves in the Middle East since 2011 make it imperative to reexamine the refugee issue. First, the expanding numbers of refugees from the Middle East and Africa challenge the uniqueness of the Palestinian situation. Today there are some 60 million displaced people, including 17 million refugees, half of them under the age of 18. These refugees are the responsibility of the UNHCR (High Commissioner for Refugees), and some make their way to Europe. Their movement has enormous economic, security, political, and national consequences for most of the countries of the continent.

Salon: Netanyahu the ‘Most Dangerous Man in the Middle East’
Yes you read that correctly: according to Salon, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is “the most dangerous man in the Middle East.”

But lest you think that this headline is simply click-bait, the author of the piece, Patrick Lawrence actually believes it.

With the Israeli police report recommending criminal charges against the prime minister, issued last Tuesday, the most dangerous man in the Middle East, as I have long called Bibi, may finally be forced from office.

Let’s get some perspective. There are plenty of dangerous men in the Middle East but labeling the leader of the region’s only functioning democracy is simply laughable particularly when one considers some alternative candidates.

For example, Bashar al-Assad, responsible for gassing and bombing his own people, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands in the Syrian conflict.

What about the Iranians? Take your pick from Ayatollah Khamenei at the top, oppressing ordinary Iranians protesting for freedom, to Major General Qasem Soleimani, the senior member of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for coordinating Iranian proxies, both on the ground in Syria and further afield with the promotion of terrorism across the Middle East and beyond.

And don’t forget Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, the terrorist organization armed to the teeth and in possession of thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli civilian targets.

Monday, February 19, 2018

From Ian:

“Everyone Agrees”: Second Draft on the MSNM’s Contribution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
I have, over the past year, slowly put together a video using my archive of recordings of BBC Global and CNN International’s news broadcasts. It portrays a mindset among journalism that has them “in the name of the ‘whole world’,” misinforming the whole world by reciting Palestinian war propaganda as news. “Everybody knows it’s Israel’s fault” that there’s no peace settlement.

Among other violations of journalistic principles of presenting the relevant evidence, I indict the MSTVNM (mainstream TV news media) for not letting their audiences know what Palestinian leaders – both PA and Hamas – say in Arabic, thus compounding the misdirection involved in highlighting and affirming what Palestinian spokespeople say in English. I therefore include footage generously provided by both Palestinian Media Watch and the Center for Near East Policy Research.

Given the strong claims that I make, I also post two items:
the links to the sources that I used in the video other than BBC and CNN.
my source, that is the logging and transcription of much of the footage from which I drew my material, which includes time stamps.


Anyone who thinks I have unfairly “cherry-picked” my passages is welcome to review the body of material from which I drew them. I think research will confirm that I left out many more examples that strengthen my case (too long or too complicated, so repetitive), and that any counter-examples of the MSTVNM presenting the Israeli side offer neither the open endorsement of the journalists (that so often accompanies their presentation of the Palestinian position), nor at any point, their repetition in the journalists own words.
Everyone Agrees: The BBC and CNN on UNSC Resolution #2334 and Kerry’s Speech


No Hate of Halimi? The French Won’t See Antisemitism for What It Is
In taking stock of this monstrous event, the French authorities focused primarily on Traore’s psychological state, allowing reports of his supposed mental frailties to seep into the press. Irritatingly, they never addressed the question of how someone who was allegedly stoned and in a state of hysteria still had the presence of mind to climb from one building to another.

Certainly, the psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Zagury, who interviewed Traore, concluded that he had indeed engaged in an antisemitic attack while under the influence of drugs. At the same time, he emphasized that Traore was not sufficiently intoxicated to be unaware that he was inflicting torture and then murder on a defenseless woman. Moreover, Zagury pointed out the Islamist-inflected antisemitism embedded in Traore’s labeling of Halimi as “Satan,” noting that the idea that “the Jew is on the side of evil, of the evil one” is a common antisemitic theme.

But Zagury also observed that by going through the process of a trial, Traore was at risk of a “delusional relapse.” That was enough for the magistrate, Ihuellou, to remove the charge of an aggravated hate crime.

As things stand, Traore will not be tried for murdering Halimi because she belonged, as her brother William Attal put it, “to the Jewish people.”

Sarah Halimi’s Jewish affiliation will be, at most, a subsidiary element in a trial that will become a cautionary tale about drug use, rather than the antisemitic hatred that has established itself as an integral part of the culture of France’s Muslim immigrant communities. If the French judiciary continues refusing to see what the executive branch — all the way up to President Macron — sees all too clearly, future grandiose assurances that antisemitism is fundamentally alien to French values won’t be worth the paper they’re written on.
The British activist who went from radical Islam to staunch Israel ally
In the summer of 2001 Maajid Nawaz traveled to Jerusalem for the first time to visit the Al Aqsa mosque. He journeyed via Jordan, so desperate was he not to set foot in what he considered “Israel proper.”

“I pretty much would describe my views as typically anti-Semitic and typically anti-Israel,” he recalls. “I denied the legitimacy of the State of Israel and believed that it had no right to exist and that the caliphate would one day come to… liberate the land and return it to Muslim dominion.”

Still only in his early 20s, Nawaz, the child of a middle-class British home, was a university student and rising star activist in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a revolutionary Islamist organization founded in Jerusalem in 1953.

But shortly after arriving in Alexandria to continue his studies, his activities on behalf of the group — which seeks to resurrect and recreate the caliphate in Muslim-majority countries and impose its strict interpretation of Sharia law — landed him in an Egyptian jail. Nawaz would spend five years as a political prisoner before being released and returned to the UK in 2006.

In Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s grim prisons — notorious for their widespread torture and mistreatment of inmates — Nawaz began a journey which would radically change his views and his life.

From Ian:

JCPA: The Gaza Escalation: A Message from Iran
Is Iran Involved in the Recent Clash with Gaza?

Because Iran is behind this escalation, things might deteriorate in the future. What we know is that the Iranians, actually General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who is in charge of the terror activities of Iran in the Middle East, is in direct contact with the leaders of the military wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He is trying to escalate the situation in order to send a message to Israel not to carry out any further attacks on Syria.

Is This a Severe Escalation with Gaza or Simply a Temporary Threat?

The message Iran is sending is that if Israel continues to hit Syrian targets, it will find itself fighting on a new front, in Gaza. This way, Israel will find itself fighting on two fronts at the same time, in both Gaza and Syria. This is the message of the Iranians, and their intention is to continue and escalate the situation, especially because President Trump is planning in the future to publish his new peace plan for the Middle East. The Iranians, together with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are working together to sabotage this peace plan by terror activities from the borders of Gaza and Syria. So, Israel has to watch the borders very carefully and be ready to retaliate whenever a new attack is planned because the intention is to escalate and not to calm things down.

Gaza Health Crisis: WHO’s to Blame?
Fifty four Palestinians died in Gaza while awaiting a medical travel permit from Israel.

This is according to a joint statement issued last week by several NGOs (non-governmental organizations): Human Rights Watch (HRW), Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), that slams Israel for a 54% decrease in medical travel permits to residents of Gaza.

Except on closer examination, it appears that in most cases relevant to this 54% decrease, Israel didn’t deny the permits: the Palestinian Authority did.
Joint statement

The joint statement statement purports to be based on a report by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO).

The NGOs (including the WHO) placed blame primarily on Israel, as in the following statement from HRW:
Israeli authorities approved permits for medical appointments for only 54 percent of those who applied in 2017, the lowest rate since the World Health Organization (WHO) began collecting figures in 2008. WHO reported that 54 Palestinians, 46 of whom had cancer, died in 2017 following denial or delay of their permits.

Yet what the statement leaves out is that the WHO numbers are actually related to permit denials by the Palestinian government.


The New York Times Says Gaza Poverty Causes War With Israel. Sorry, That Doesn’t Make Sense.
One of the ways the New York Times demonstrates bias in news reports from the Middle East is with unstated, and unquestioned, assumptions.

In two recent articles, the assumption is that if economic conditions worsen in the Gaza Strip, the result will be attacks on Israel.

An example comes in this paragraph from a Times dispatch over the weekend:

Already beleaguered by Israel’s decade-old blockade of the strip, Gazans were made to suffer even more last year when the Palestinian Authority, run by Fatah, imposed harsh new restrictions in a power struggle with Hamas, its archrival. An attempt at reconciliation between the two last fall has since bogged down, and a standoff over salaries and revenue has sent the territory’s economy into free-fall, with many expecting a war with Israel as a result.

A front page Times report from earlier this month, also under the byline of the Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief, David Halbfinger, sounded some similar notes. It appeared under the print headline, “Gaza Is Near Financial Collapse, Prompting Fears of Violence”:
whether out of bluster or desperation, Gazans both in and out of power have begun talking openly about confronting Israel over its blockade in the kind of mass action that could easily lead to casualties and escalation…

One way or the other, “an explosion’s coming,” said Mr. Abu Shaaban, the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority pensioner. “We have only Israel to explode against. Should we explode against each other?”


The barely unstated assumption here is that economic difficulties in Gaza cause war with Israel.

Yet there are at least two big holes in this logic that the Times might discover if it probed more skeptically.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

From Ian:

Waving piece of downed drone, PM threatens direct military action against Iran
Brandishing a fragment of an Iranian drone downed over northern Israel a week ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned that Israel could strike the Islamic Republic directly and cautioned Tehran not to “test Israel’s resolve.”

“Mr. Zarif, do you recognize this? You should, it’s yours. You can take back with you a message to the tyrants of Tehran — do not test Israel’s resolve!” proclaimed Netanyahu at the Munich Security Conference, which was also attended by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The Iranian drone, which entered northern Israel from Syria near the Jordan border last Saturday, was shot down by an Israeli attack helicopter. In response to the drone incursion, Israeli jets attacked the mobile command center from which it was operated, the army said last week.

During the reprisal raid, one of the eight Israeli F-16 fighter jets that took part in the operation was apparently hit by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile and crashed. The Israeli Air Force then conducted a second round of airstrikes, destroying between a third and half of Syria’s air defenses, according to IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.

The flareup on the northern border marked the first direct confrontation between the Israeli air force and the Iranian regime on Israeli territory. Israel has warned of growing Iranian entrenchment in neighboring Syria and has said it will not abide an Iranian military presence on its borders.

“Through its proxies — Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza — Iran is devouring huge swaths of the Middle East,” said Netanyahu.

“Israel will not allow Iran’s regime to put a noose of terror around our neck,” he added. “We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves. And we will act if necessary not just against Iran’s proxies that are attacking us, but against Iran itself.”

US Calls for Action to Halt Iran’s Growing ‘Network of Proxies’
US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster called on Saturday for more forceful action to halt Iran’s development of what he said was an increasingly powerful network of proxy armies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

McMaster accused Iran of escalating a campaign to increase its influence in the Middle East by building and arming “Hezbollah-style” proxy armies in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere as it has done in Lebanon.

The goal was to weaken Arab governments and turn the proxy forces against those states if they pursued policies that ran counter to Tehran’s interests, he said.

“So the time is now, we think, to act against Iran,” he told the Munich Security Conference, calling on US allies to halt trade that was helping underwrite the expansion of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful military and economic force in the Islamic Republic.

The United States deems Lebanon’s Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

“What’s particularly concerning is that this network of proxies is becoming more and more capable,” he said.

Iran has denied accusations that it meddles in the affairs of its Middle East neighbours and has dismissed suggestions it stop supporting groups such as Hezbollah.
Iranian foreign minister: Israel's 'myth of invincibility' has crumbled
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday the shooting down of an Israeli jet after bombing an Iranian site in Syria had shattered Israel's "so-called invincibility", reacting to a critical speech delivered earlier by Israel's premier.

"Israel uses aggression as a policy against its neighbours," Zarif told the Munich Security Conference, accusing Israel of "mass reprisals against its neighbours and daily incursions into Syria, Lebanon."

"Once the Syrians have the guts to down one of its planes it's as if a disaster has happened," Zarif said.

He was responding to Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the conference hours before, in which the Israeli prime minister, holding a piece of what he said was an Iranian drone, accused Iran of trying to impose an "empire" across the Middle East.

Zarif described Netanyahu's address to the conference as a "cartoonish circus."

"The entire speech was trying to evade the issue... What has happened in the past several days is the so-called invincibility [of Israel] has crumbled," he said of the February 10 downing of an Israeli jet.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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