From Ian:
Caroline Glick: Rubio, Cruz and US Global Leadership
Caroline Glick: Rubio, Cruz and US Global Leadership
At some point between 2006 and 2008, the American people decided to turn their backs on the world. Between the seeming futility of the war in Iraq and the financial collapse of 2008, Americans decided they’d had enough.Col. Richard Kemp: We put our reputations on the line. This is why
In Barack Obama, they found a leader who could channel their frustration. Obama’s foreign policy, based on denying the existence of radical Islam and projecting the responsibility for Islamic aggression on the US and its allies, suited their mood just fine. If America is responsible, then America can walk away. Once it is gone, so the thinking has gone, the Muslims will forget their anger and leave America alone.
Sadly, Obama’s foreign policy assumptions are utter nonsense. America’s abandonment of global leadership has not made things better. Over the past seven years, the legions of radical Islam have expanded and grown more powerful than ever before. And now in the aftermath of the jihadist massacres in Paris and San Bernadino, the threats have grown so abundant that even Obama cannot pretend them away.
As a consequence, for the first time in a decade, Americans are beginning to think seriously about foreign policy. But are they too late? Can the next president repair the damage Obama has caused? The Democrats give no cause for optimism. Led by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential hopefuls stubbornly insist that there is nothing wrong with Obama’s foreign policy. If they are elected to succeed him, they pledge to follow in his footsteps.
The High Level Military Group’s (HLMG) findings on the 2014 Gaza conflict were the diametric opposite of those of the UN Human Rights Council, human rights groups and the majority of Western media, all of whom believe Israel used disproportionate force and committed war crimes. Why?Israeli Columnist Applauded at Haaretz Conference for Calling Aliyah a Crime
Because, unlike the HLMG, these organisations lack any credible military expertise. This is a problem when you are assessing a military conflict. They also mostly hit this issue from a pre-determined position that they want to be right: Israel is the neighbourhood bully and Hamas are the hapless representatives of a bullied, down-trodden population. And they analyse the situation based on human rights law, not the laws of armed conflict. Human rights law is fine if you are dealing with a police arrest on the streets of London, but not when you’re looking at large-scale violent armed exchanges between warring factions – that is what the Geneva conventions are intended to regulate.
The upshot of this ignorant, distorted, malign and misjudged perspective is the widespread demonisation of the state of Israel. That, of course, is what Israel’s enemies, who have manipulated the UN, human rights groups and much of the media as well as many world governments, always intended.
If you are taken in by it, and you yourself condemn the Jewish state on the basis of what these organisations tell you, which to be fair is pretty much all you ever hear, then you too are an instrument of Israel’s enemies. If you are Jewish and you condemn Israel on the basis of this disinformation, then you are a doubly valuable enemy instrument. You are like Lord Haw-Haw was to the Germans during the Second World War: a valuable Brit (well, a US-born Irishman to be precise) who used Nazi propaganda against the UK.
A veteran Haaretz columnist was applauded at the Israeli daily’s conference this week in New York, after calling Jewish immigration to Israel (aliyah) a crime, the Israeli news site nrg reported on Thursday.
Amira Hass made the comment while moderating a panel on “struggles for equality” in Israel. The long-time publicist, who is known for her extreme left-wing views, pointed to the fact that, unlike an American Jew, an American of Palestinian origin wishing to immigrate to Israel would not be granted citizenship.
“Because of that, any [Jewish] individual who is planning to make aliyah should know that he is about to commit a crime,” Hass said, eliciting applause from the largely Jewish audience and no counter-argument from panel participants.
“At any given moment, every American Jew has rights in Israel that are denied to Palestinians,” she continued, claiming that while American Jews can visit, work or live anywhere in the country at any time, some Palestinians born in Israel don’t have those same rights.




























