Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Alexander Maistrovoy • October 30, 2024 at 5:00 am
There seem to be several reasons for the Palestinians' reluctance to reach an agreement about a two-state solution, and a lasting end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Any Palestinian leader who has recommended an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been denounced by his people as a traitor and killed. That outcome would seem quite a disincentive. As the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said, "Do you want me sitting up there having tea with Sadat?" The donations that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have received since 1993 could have turned the West Bank into a thriving area, and Gaza into a "New Singapore" or "Dubai on the Mediterranean," however, the leaders evidently had other priorities for that cash. One aim of Abbas seems to be to preserve his own wealth, estimated at $100 million, and the prosperity of his sons, who own the largest businesses in the Palestinian Authority. If donors keep throwing gigantic amounts of money at one -- especially unconditionally -- why not take it? In a situation where every attempt to achieve peace turns into another bloody war-experiment, most Israelis have apparently concluded that they would be better off without such a "peace". From the point of view of many Palestinian Arabs, and even some Americans, Jews can return to the other countries that wanted to kill them. At present, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, praised as "The Churchill of the Middle East," appears determined to disable Hamas and Hezbollah politically and militarily so they will not be able to threaten the security of Israelis again. Even with a supposed "ceasefire deal," Sinwar's successor will no doubt release the hostages as slowly as possible to allow more time for the Palestinians to rearm. For a ceasefire, Hamas -- probably also including Qatar and Iran -- is asking for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, far from the smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt. They are also asking for a "permanent ceasefire" -- meaning that they want the US administration and the international community to force Israel to stop fighting, but leave Hamas's leaders and terrorists free to rearm, regroup and ready to fight another day. In 2023, Israel allowed extra work permits to the Gazans -- who then mapped out every house to attack, including "the names of the people, how many children they had and even which of them owned dogs." At this point, whatever happens with a ceasefire or not, the region clearly does not seem ready for any kind of Palestinian state -- to say the least.
One aim of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas seems to be to preserve his own wealth, estimated at $100 million, and the prosperity of his sons, who own the largest businesses in the Palestinian Authority. If donors keep throwing gigantic amounts of money at one -- especially unconditionally -- why not take it? Pictured: US President Joe Biden is received by Abbas in Bethlehem, on July 15, 2022. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden-Harris administration appears still obsessed with a supposed ceasefire and a Palestinian state. President William Clinton, and, after him, President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State John Kerry also tried to create a Palestinian state. Now President Joe Biden with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan seem to be trying to do it again. Unfortunately, the plan for a "two-state solution" especially after the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, and the bombardments of Israel -- smaller than the state of New Jersey -- by Hezbollah virtually every day in since October 8, 2023, appears farther away than ever. The "rehearsal" for a Palestinian state -- Palestinian independence since 2005 in the Gaza Strip -- has turned out to be a national security horror of the first order. Moreover, the Palestinians have always seemed less interested in having their own state than in eliminating the Israeli one.
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by Alan M. Dershowitz and Andrew Stein • October 29, 2024 at 5:00 am
Although they could easily distinguish between combatant and non-combatant deaths, Hamas refuses to do so. They [Hamas] fail to acknowledge that many of these so-called children were also combatants. They do the same with women, conveying the impression that only men are terrorists. Without the support of the media, this strategy would not succeed. And useful ignoramuses on university campuses, along with bigots in international organizations, falsely accuse Israel of genocide, despite the successful efforts of the IDF to reduce civilian casualties to the minimum possible.... In the absence of an honest accounting, the media will continue to do Sinwar's nefarious work in increasing Palestinian casualties in order to increase the pressure on Israel. Sadly, the media's dangerous cooperation with terrorists tells us more about them than about the war about which they purport to be "reporting."
Assassinated Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar weaponized the death of Gazan civilians, especially women and children. Although they could easily distinguish between combatant and non-combatant deaths, Hamas refuses to do so. They fail to acknowledge that many of these so-called children were also combatants. Without the support of the media, this strategy would not succeed. Pictured: Hamas terrorists with their child trainee at a rally in Gaza City on May 24, 2021. (Photo by Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)
Following the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, documentary evidence has emerged confirming what many observers already knew: namely, that Sinwar weaponized the death of Gazan civilians, especially women and children. He understood that the media would emphasize these civilian deaths, attribute them all to Israel, and increase the pressure on the Israeli government to satisfy Hamas's unreasonable demands. This is how the Wall Street Journal put it, following a lengthy investigation: "Arab mediators hastened to speed up talks about a cease-fire... Sinwar in a message urged his comrades in Hamas's political leadership outside Gaza not to make concessions and instead to push for a permanent end to the war. High civilian casualties would create worldwide pressure on Israel, Sinwar said."
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by John Richardson • October 28, 2024 at 5:00 am
Members of both American political parties and other concerned observers have been asking for a while now, "Who's actually running the country?" More often it seems as if is a cadre of unelected bureaucrats – a faceless politburo – who uphold the law or not, according to political expediency or whim. American author and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has called this group "a machine." Are "open borders" legal or not? Are immigration laws being violated or not? Are illegal aliens legal or not? Are prosecutions of presidential candidates within a month of a presidential election "election interference" or not? Were the deliberate lies of former US intelligence officials to the US public about the authenticity of Hunter Biden's laptop actionable "election interference" or not? What we should probably be asking, as we head to November, is: "Do we really want to go on living like that?"
Members of both American political parties and other concerned observers have been asking for a while now, "Who's actually running the country?" Pictured: President Joe Biden is accompanied by Jill Biden, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama at the White House on September 7, 2022. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) Members of both American political parties and other concerned observers have been asking for a while now, "Who's actually running the country?" Answers include: Former President Barack Obama, who, in November 2020, said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: "People would ask me, knowing what you know now, do you wish you had a third term? And I used to say, "You know what? If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in, and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff, and then I could sort of deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing all the talking and ceremony, I'd be fine with that."
George Soros, of whom the journalist Wayne Allen Root wrote: "Obama take his marching orders from George Soros." The Chinese Communist Party, about whom Root wrote:
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by Raymond Ibrahim • October 27, 2024 at 5:00 am
"Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic 'marriages' and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers...." — morningstarnews.org, September 24, 2024, Pakistan. Headlines of the "pure genocide" of Christians from the month of September follow.... — Nigeria. "Muslims who abducted a 17-year-old Christian girl and gang-raped her for 10 days are threatening her family to pressure them to withdraw charges, even as police have failed to arrest most of the suspects." — morningstarnews.com, September 30, 2024, Pakistan. Muslims murdered, hacked to pieces, and dumped the remains of a Christian man into a Cairo canal.... Mina Musa, 21, had left his family home in Minya for a new job in Cairo.... He was responding to an advertisement on social media to assist an elderly person in Cairo. The notice included the offer of a generous salary, along with broader networking opportunities in the field of physical therapy..... The authorities managed to track the young man down to a Cairo apartment. On breaking in, they found parts of Mina's body.... Last reported, divers were searching in the canal for Mina's head. — copticsolidarity.org, October 5, 2024, Egypt. "I WILL BOMB THE POPE. I'M A TERRORIST...JUST BE CAREFUL...WAIT FOR NEWS YEEE." — posted on social media, morningstarnews.com, September 10, 2024, Indonesia. "Khosravi said the main goal of detention isn't always punishment or even to gather information, but to break a prisoner at such a fundamental level that they are shattered permanently.... Another Christian, forced to listen to the cries of a woman screaming in a near-by cell, was convinced by guards that it was his wife being raped repeatedly, he said." — morningstarnews.org, October 1, 2024, Iran. On September 18, Christian mother of four was sentenced to death on a "blasphemy" conviction.... The reason she was handed the death sentence has less to do with actual evidence and everything to do with extremist pressure groups, Hameed [her lawyer] said... "If you analyze all cases of 295-C, you will see that all the convictions of the trial court are overturned by the superior courts." — morningstarnews.org, September 19, 2024, Pakistan. "Nearly 3,000 persons have been accused of blasphemy in Pakistan since 1987..." — morningstarnews.org, September 19, 2024, Pakistan. "These are Christians who are out to convert our people to a wrong religion." — Sheikh Kalimu, Islamic leader, morningstarnews.com, September 23, 2024, Uganda. "After 1994 [when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power], the authorities tried to make Yemen an Islamic state. They wiped out our identity as Christians and refused to write 'Christian' on documents. Christians had to write either 'Muslim' or leave a blank space.... When I got full marks in Islamic education, they would reduce my grades, because they told me 'a Christian couldn't be equal to a Muslim.'... [A]ll the nuns were later killed.... In 2018, the authorities refused to renew our passports unless we wrote the word 'Islam' in the religion section of the application form, as we were told: 'There are no Christians in Yemen.'" — Badr, Yemeni Catholic woman living in Aden, catholicnewsagency.com, September 25, 2024, Yemen.
On September 12, a Muslim man and two accomplices kidnapped a 16-year-old Christian girl in Jaranwala, Pakistan, then forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Pictured: A Christian district of Jaranwala, on December 25, 2023. (Photo by Amna Yaseen/AFP via Getty Images)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of September 2024. Pakistan: Forced Conversion and Rape of Christians On September 12, a Muslim man and two accomplices kidnapped a 16-year-old Christian girl, then forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Her parents were away at the time, but when they returned, neighbors said they had seen the gun-wielding suspects bundling their daughter, Diya Iftikhar, into a white Suzuki van and fleeing the scene. "We were terrified," said the mother, Shaida, "because Ghazaal and his accomplices were involved in the Aug. 16, 2023 attacks on churches and homes in Jaranwala. They are notorious for their criminal activities, including sexual harassment of Christian girls." Four days later a video was sent to the parents of the underage girl saying she had converted to Islam and married of her own free will:
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by Amir Taheri • October 27, 2024 at 4:30 am
[T]he fact is that the US remains the "indispensable nation" it has been at least for the past century or so. By continuing his never ending monologue, Trump tells the voters more and more about himself. Harris, in contrast, talks to hide herself.
The real issue in this election is which of the two candidates Americans, or at least the 50 percent who vote, will feel more akin with. And that in itself is a huge question, huge enough to make this election historic. Pictured: Campaign signs for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump along a rural highway on September 26, 2024 near Traverse City, Michigan. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
It is late night in Paris when the phone jolts me out of my pre-sleep somnolence. It is a fellow-Iranian who wants to know who I think will be the United States' next president. As I mumble in search of an answer, the distant caller darts: So who will win? "The winner will be the American system," I say, and immediately realize that this might sound more like a dodge than a proper answer. Nevertheless, I stick with my answer because I know that citing either Donald J. Trump or Kamala Harris as the possible winner will lead to an avalanche of speculation about what will happen if he or she ends up in the White House. The avalanche has been sliding down for weeks as pundits across the pond project contradictory predictions. The Washington Post, a Harris cheer-leader, claims that Trump's win will push the world back into the 1930s when the slogan "Might is Right" led to the Second World War.
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by Lawrence Kadish • October 27, 2024 at 4:00 am
America's military is now recruiting executives in the technology sector for the purpose of making them "weekend warriors." During World War II, among the citizens who donned Army uniforms was William "Big Bill" Knudsen. A former General Motors executive, he was commissioned as a lieutenant general and proudly wore the uniform throughout the conflict. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt placed him in charge of America's armaments production program, with instructions to convert our peacetime industrial base into one that would outproduce our combined enemies on virtually every essential weapon. After his appointment, he turned around and created a team of proven industrial leaders to assist him in meeting the demands of our fighting forces. Pictured: The production line for the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter and ground-attack aircraft, on March 11, 1941, in Buffalo, New York (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).
The Pentagon is finally discovering what our nation knew some 85 years ago. If you want to create the cutting edge weapons that you need in the quality and quantities required to protect our nation, you need to turn to some very smart people in the business world. Recent media reports reveal that America's military is now recruiting executives in the technology sector for the purpose of making them "weekend warriors." It has been done before, and with war-winning results. If only the Biden White House had opened a history book four years ago.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • October 26, 2024 at 5:00 am
Iran's Islamist regime has never made a secret of its ambitions. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who seized power following the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and established the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, said: "We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle." Ignoring the warning signs will only make the price Europe pays even higher. The question is, how much more aggression will Europe tolerate before it recognizes the full extent of the threat? How come Europeans do not seem as distressed about the deaths of civilians in Ukraine as in Lebanon and Gaza? All the EU seems to do is issue statements of condemnation against Israel, which is sacrificing the lives of its people to save these sanctimonious ingrates. The first step should be to formally designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite Quds Force as terrorist organizations. This would send a powerful signal that Europe is no longer willing to tolerate Iran's military and ideological expansion, and it would empower law enforcement across the continent to act decisively against Iranian operatives. Europe should also take a bold step of shutting down all Iranian embassies and consulates on its soil. Europe should sever all trade relations with Iran. Every euro that flows into Iran is likely being funneled into Tehran's military machine and its support for Russia's war in Ukraine. The EU also needs to be prepared to form a coalition to back up its words with military action. Continuing to sit passively while Iranian missiles and drones rain down on a European nation is not a strategy; it is a surrender If Europe finds itself too hesitant to confront the Iranian regime directly, it should at the very least stand by those who are fighting the Iranian regime and its proxies. Israel has taken the lead in confronting Iranian aggression in the Middle East. Rather than undermining Israel for defending itself and the West against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, the EU should do everything it can support these heroes. Abandoning Israel while it fights Iranian-backed terror only weakens Europe and plays into the hands of everyone working to bring it down. By responding with empty words as Iranian missiles hit European soil, the EU is essentially green-lighting Tehran to escalate its aggression. The lessons of Nazi Germany are there for everyone to see. The time has come for Europe to support those risking their lives to take down this terror regime before they get a nuclear bomb. Most grateful of all would be the people of Iran.
Iran is arming Russia with missiles and attack drones, which are being used to strike Ukraine. That war is no longer just a regional conflict between Russia and Ukraine. When Iranian missiles target Ukraine, they are striking Europe itself. If this isn't the prelude to a direct act of war by Iran against all of Europe and the individual freedoms it stands for, then what is? Pictured: Firefighters in Kyiv, Ukraine try to put out a fire in a four-story residential building, in which three people were killed when it was hit by an attack drone, on October 17, 2022. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
The European powers' current approach to Iran is uncomfortably reminiscent of how, in the 1930s, they dealt with Nazi Germany. European democracies, choosing appeasement over confrontation, turned a blind eye to Hitler's rising aggression. This indulgence, not surprisingly, simply emboldened the Nazis, and led to the horrors of World War II. Today, in a similar fashion, the Europe's passivity toward Iran's escalating threats is just bolstering its regime. Iran, called by the 2023 US annual Terrorism Report, "the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism," is on the cusp of acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran's Islamist regime has never made a secret of its ambitions. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who seized power following the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and established the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, said:
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by Gordon G. Chang • October 25, 2024 at 5:00 am
Beijing maintains that the island has been an "inalienable" part of China since time immemorial. The People's Republic has never exercised control over Taiwan. In fact, no Chinese regime has ever held indisputable sovereignty to it. Chiang Kai-shek, the first Chinese ruler to exercise control of the whole island, arrived in 1949. A quarantine is a cunning maneuver at a time that China is not prepared for a full-scale war and is not ready to start hostilities by launching an invasion of Taiwan's main island. Not prepared? Xi Jinping does not trust the Chinese military, a war on Taiwan would be extremely unpopular with the Chinese people, and the Chinese regime is extremely casualty averse. Xi, therefore, is trying to intimidate everyone else into submission. "The real target is the United States." ... They were "practicing ways to ambush the U.S. Navy if it heads towards an already held-hostage Taiwan." — Chang Ching of the R.O.C. Society for Strategic Studies. Xi's implied threats to use these weapons are particularly ominous. We have to ask ourselves: When in history has a militant regime engaged in belligerent acts and constantly threatened to go to war but did not actually do so?
China on October 22 conducted live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait. The bellicose move follows a 13-hour simulated blockade of Taiwan on October 14 and 15. The People's Liberation Army, in the Joint Sword-2024B exercises, employed a record 153 planes as well 26 ships, including the Liaoning, one of the country's three aircraft carriers. Pictured: Sailors and fighter jets on the deck of the Liaoning in the Yellow Sea near Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province on April 23, 2019. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AFP via Getty Images)
China on October 22 conducted live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait. The bellicose move follows a 13-hour simulated blockade of Taiwan on October 14 and 15. The People's Liberation Army, in the Joint Sword-2024B exercises, employed a record 153 planes as well 26 ships, including the Liaoning, one of the country's three aircraft carriers. The Chinese Coast Guard participated in the massive drill as well, carrying out, as the Economist noted, an "unprecedented" patrol around the main Taiwan island. The drill, according to the Chinese Coast Guard, was a "practical action to control Taiwan island in accordance with the law based on the one-China principle." The announced drill zones for Joint Sword-2024B were only 24 nautical miles from Taiwan's shoreline, closer than zones in previous exercises.
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by Robert Williams • October 24, 2024 at 5:00 am
"In order to maintain a degree of separation from the terror cells it operates in Europe and to ensure plausible deniability, there is no direct contact between Tehran and members of the cells. In the case of the recently detained French cell, instructions on where and when to carry out attacks were relayed via international networks of criminals and drug smugglers." — Daniel Dolev, Israeli investigative journalist, shomrim.news, September 5, 2024. In addition to the Iranian dissidents that it has been hunting for years, the Iranian regime now literally hunts Jews in Europe. Iran, in other words, has extended its operations from having terrorists as proxies to having criminals as proxies. According to Britain's MI5, the situation is about to get much worse.... Despite all this clear knowledge... the leadership of the European Union and the UK refuse to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization. Instead, European countries target Israel with arms boycotts, constant condemnation and general opprobrium, although Israel's fight against Iran belongs at least as much to Europe and the West, no matter how hard -- out of dread -- they might try to deny it. If they think that pressuring Israel not to confront this existential threat will make it disappear, they are sadly mistaken. As in World War II, it is by supporting Israel in defeating aggression that they will stop it. Last year, by an overwhelming majority, the European Parliament passed a resolution to that effect, but the EU nevertheless refused to designate the IRGC as such. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell claimed there were legal obstacles, however, that claim has been refuted as a lie. After Iran's direct missile attack on Israel on April 13, the European Parliament again, by an overwhelming majority, adopted a resolution to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization.... It also requested that the EU add Hezbollah to the terror list. Borrell, once more, simply refused, arguing that "listing this organisation as a 'terrorist organisation' would have no practical effect." Designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization would make it possible to press terrorism charges and prosecute both members of the organization and those supporting it. It seems as if the majority of European leaders are once again determined, as in appeasing Churchill's crocodile, to be "eaten last." "Putting IRGC on the EU terror list is an important step to protect the national security, to protect our communities, particularly the Iranian diaspora and the Jewish community because there is a genuine terror threat and because they are not only targeting and conducting terror plots but they are also nurturing homegrown Shia islamist radicalisation, using the Isis and Al Qaeda methods. However, because IRGC is not proscribed (as a terror group), these activities are not outlawed." — Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, eureporter.co, May 6, 2024. Are European politicians really that eager for the votes of their unassimilable newcomers -- who appear to be planning to take over Europe? Or are Europe's politicians afraid that if they fail to delegitimize Israel at every opportunity, the newcomers might inflict even more terrorism on European soil? Does Europe really want to live in a state of being permanently extorted? The price goes only one way: up.
Iran, the world's "leading state sponsor of terrorism," has been recruiting gang members and drug dealers in Europe to murder Iranian dissidents, Israelis and Jews, according to a report published in September. Pictured: Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian looks on from the dais, as a Fattah ballistic missile is displayed during at a military parade in Tehran on September 21, 2024. Fattah missiles were used in Iran's October 1, 2024 attack on Israel. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran, the world's "leading state sponsor of terrorism," has been recruiting gang members and drug dealers in Europe to murder Iranian dissidents, Israelis and Jews, according to a report published in September by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) organization and journalists from nine outlets, including France's Mediapart, Germany's Der Spiegel, Spain's Infolibre and Israel's Shomrim. This is happening at the same time as Europe, and most of the world, led by the Biden-Harris administration, are doing all they can to stop Israel from putting an end to the Iranian regime and its multiple terrorist and proxy wars against Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Sudan. US and European authorities have termed it the "Iranian Transnational Assassinations Network." One of these networks -- there are several -- is led by a drug dealer. According to the US Treasury Department:
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by Lawrence Kadish • October 23, 2024 at 5:00 am
Our White House is not just a residence, it is a command post. The Free World depends on it. If there is no apparent occupant, how will the U.S. contend with threats to our allies and us? (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
"The House with Nobody In It" by Joyce Kilmers (1886-1918), brings to mind a certain house in Washington, D.C. -- the White House. Our White House is not just a residence, it is a command post. The Free World depends on it. If there is no apparent occupant, how will the U.S. contend with threats to our allies and us? China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are "the new 'Axis of Evil,'" according to Politico, hardly a right-wing outlet. How worried should we be? Probably very.
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by Robert Williams • October 22, 2024 at 5:00 am
[T]he West's political "elites" condemned Israel for defending itself by targeting Hezbollah's leadership. There was no mention of international law for Hezbollah's unprovoked, year-long attacks: bombardments of missiles and attack drones every day at a country smaller than New Jersey. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell lamented Israel's continued successful attempts at destroying one of Iran's proxy armies. When Israel took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the world's most dangerous arch-terrorists, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could barely hold back his disappointment, counterfactually calling Hezbollah's unprovoked war against Israel and the IDF's response a "cycle of violence." Only Argentina's President Javier Milei displayed a reaction fitting the removal of a terrorist mass murderer... Israel, as has been noted, is doing the entire world an enormous service by taking out Hezbollah. Iran, just since October 2023, through its militias in Syria and Iraq, has launched more than 160 attacks on the US forces in the Middle East. [W]hen Israel killed Ibrahim Aqil, the mastermind of the 1983 attacks and a member of Hezbollah's Jihad Council, its highest military body, the US could not even bring itself to thank its ally. The world's political elites apparently cannot forgive Israel for seeking to defend itself, and rid the world of terrorists working to destroy both America and Western civilization. Could these elites, wittingly or not, be working towards the same result?
The world's political elites apparently cannot forgive Israel for seeking to defend itself, and rid the world of terrorists working to destroy both America and Western civilization. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has lamented Israel's continued successful attempts at destroying one of Iran's proxy armies. When Israel took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the world's most dangerous arch-terrorists, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could barely hold back his disappointment. Pictured: Borrell (L) and Guterres at the UN headquarters in New York, September 18, 2022. (Photo by Craig Ruttle/Pool/Getty Images)
It took the world community nearly a year to condemn the war in Lebanon, but they got the wrong mark. Instead of condemning Hezbollah, the world's largest Iranian proxy terrorist army, with an estimated 40,000 - 50,000 fighters, for starting a year-long war on October 8, 2023 in support of the terrorist organization Hamas, the West's political "elites" condemned Israel for defending itself by targeting Hezbollah's leadership. The UN Security Council called an emergency session on September 20, during which UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told ambassadors that he was "appalled by the breadth and impact" of the attacks on Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies.
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by Gordon G. Chang • October 21, 2024 at 5:00 am
The world's two most dangerous states, Xi Jinping's People's Republic of China and Vladimir Putin's Russian Federation, have been growing closer in part, it seems, because they see there is no cost to ignoring the warnings of the Biden administration. "Mr. Biden can either enforce his red line through sanctions or other means, or he can signal a collapse of American resolve by applying merely symbolic penalties. Beijing and its strategic partners in Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang, and Caracas would surely interpret half-hearted enforcement as a green light to deepen their campaign of global chaos. Mr. Xi sees a historic opportunity here to undermine the West." – Matt Pottinger, wsj.com, April 30, 2024 Since then, the Biden administration has done little but impose meaningless sanctions on Chinese parties, such as the ones announced on October 17 on two companies. The American inaction today brings to mind President Obama's infamous red-line failure in Syria in 2013. We should not be surprised: Biden, then vice president, was Obama's foreign policy advisor. Britain and France [last century] issued a series of threatening words to Berlin. German leaders, from the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936 to the eve of the invasion of Poland in late summer 1939, ignored them. "Warnings were crafted in such a way so they could not be enforced and understood as not intended to be enforced." — Arthur Waldron, retired Lauder Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, to Gatestone Institute, October 17, 2024. China's aggressive leader apparently believes he can with impunity do just about anything. Hollow warnings lead to war.
The world's two most dangerous states, Xi Jinping's People's Republic of China and Vladimir Putin's Russian Federation, have been growing closer in part, it seems, because they see there is no cost to ignoring the warnings of the Biden administration. Pictured: Putin meets with Xi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Astana, Kazakhstan on July 3, 2024. (Photo by Pavel Volkov/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
"These are not dual-use capabilities," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters in Brussels on September 10, describing China's aid to Russia for use against Ukraine. "These are component pieces of a very substantial effort on the part of China to help sustain, build, and diversify various elements of the Russian war machine." The Beijing-Moscow cooperation, Campbell argued, is "not a tactical alliance." It is, instead, "a fundamental alignment." The Chinese-Russian hook-up was "orchestrated at the highest levels" in the two capitals, he said. With Campbell's words, the Biden administration for the first time accused China of providing Moscow with direct support for its war. At the same time, U.S. officials detailed Russia's technical assistance to China's submarine and missile programs.
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by Bassam Tawil • October 20, 2024 at 5:00 am
"Again and again we see that Israel absolutely made the right call in not heeding the Biden administration and the rest of the world's insistence that the IDF not invade Rafah." — Lahav Harkov, Israeli journalist, X, October 17, 2024. "Pretty rich after a year of undermining Netanyahu, saying he MUST go to a ceasefire, MUST deescalate, trying to stop Israel from going into Rafah WHERE SINWAR WAS KILLED, and Kamala boycotting his joint address to Congress - now Biden & Harris have the nerve to congratulate him for setting the path to peace. I'm sure the phone call sounds something like 'You were right Bibi [Netanyahu], we apologize,'" — US Rep. Mike Waltz, X, October 18, 2024 Israel's killing Sinwar and destroying Hamas's military infrastructure in Rafah sadly show how steadfastly the Biden-Harris administration was trying to prevent Israel from achieving victory over the Iran-backed Islamist murderers and rapists responsible for the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust. Netanyahu deserves credit for ignoring the warnings and threats by Biden and his senior officials. Thanks to Netanyahu, Hamas has been significantly debilitated and Sinwar has been eliminated, making the Middle East a safer place. It now remains to be seen whether the Biden-Harris administration will reconsider its failed foreign policies and apologize to the Israeli prime minister for attempting to undermine his efforts to combat terrorism and bring more security and stability not only to Israel, but the entire Middle East as well.
Israel's killing Yahya Sinwar and destroying Hamas's military infrastructure in Rafah sadly show how steadfastly the Biden-Harris administration was trying to prevent Israel from achieving victory over the Iran-backed Islamist murderers and rapists responsible for the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust. Pictured: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explains the importance of Rafah's Philadelphi corridor during a press conference in Jerusalem on September 4, 2024. (Photo by Abir Sultan/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration spent weeks warning Israel not to enter the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where many of the leaders of the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas were believed to be hiding. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had prepared to enter the city as part of a counterterrorism offensive to destroy Hamas's military capabilities and rescue some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by the terrorist group on October 7, 2023. The October 17 killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Rafah area proved that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did the right thing in ignoring the warnings of the Biden-Harris administration. The IDF eventually entered Rafah, where it succeeded in killing hundreds of Hamas terrorists and recovering the bodies of some of the hostages. In addition, the IDF managed to rescue one of the hostages held in a Hamas tunnel in the Rafah area.
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by Amir Taheri • October 20, 2024 at 4:00 am
What interests us here is the division of Americas into "us" and "not-us," a shady game of alterity that reduces the competition of ideas in a modern democracy into a primitive expression of fear and loathing. Trump voters were also classified as TV-watchers rather than readers of newspapers, let alone books. The subtext was that if such lower species could decide the fate of the world's only superpower, then something must be wrong with electoral democracy. "We're all Americans!" might sound trite. On closer examination, however, it is the wisest expression of a shared desire for coexistence in a system that thrives on diversity, competitive otherness, creative tension and enlightened trust in the rules of the game. Thus, whether she likes or not, Harris, though the American-ness of her family is of recent nature, represents and owns the whole of the United States' history and identity. Rather than nursing old chagrins and grievances often inherited from generations long gone and using them as a prop for fake "otherness" she should defend her own vision of America's future while acknowledging the right of the "deplorable" to do the same. Harris may yet ride her MAGA-bashing horse to victory. But even then, she wouldn't be able to provide effective leadership of a nation she has divided into "us" and "not-us." There is still time, very little time, for Harris to realize that "This is not who we are" is a misleading and dangerous sentence. She, Trump and all others Americans are "who we are" together. They are heirs to the great achievements and the regrettable injustices of their nation's history, and jointly responsible for shaping the future.
There is still time, very little time, for Kamala Harris to realize that "This is not who we are" is a misleading and dangerous sentence. She, Donald Trump and all others Americans are "who we are" together. They are heirs to the great achievements and the regrettable injustices of their nation's history, and jointly responsible for shaping the future. Pictured: Harris shakes hands with Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
"This is not who we are!" This is one of the favorite shibboleths used by US Democrat Party's presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her supporters with the aim of portraying supporters of her Republican rival Donald Trump as not quite American, if not utterly alien. One of Harris' "progressive" supporters expresses concern that she may win a huge majority of the popular vote in the November 5 election, but still fail to get the keys to the White House because of the Electoral College rule. Another Harris admirer claims that she represents a vast majority of Americans, from Noam Chomsky to Dick Cheney, against a small Make America Great Again (MAGA) minority led by Trump. Whether or not that assertion is correct will soon be put to the test. What interests us here is the division of Americas into "us" and "not-us," a shady game of alterity that reduces the competition of ideas in a modern democracy into a primitive expression of fear and loathing.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • October 19, 2024 at 5:00 am
Little Israel is showing the world how to win again – and saving civilization and a free way of life into the bargain .... let Israel keep winning! The problem with the JCPOA was, of course, its "sunset clauses." They assured Iran that it could legitimately have as many nuclear weapons as it can produce in just a few short years. The West has left Israel to fight a war that should never have been Israel's alone. The Western nations, through diplomatic miscalculations, the need for votes, cowardice and a fear of conflict, have essentially outsourced their responsibilities for maintaining global peace to Israel, watching from the sidelines as the conflict ramps up. If the West is too fearful or reluctant to engage directly in the fight against injustice, terror, and tyranny, the very least it can do is stand with Israel and stop trying to sabotage it at every turn. Support should not be limited to words but include political, diplomatic and military backing. By failing to support Israel fully, the West is empowering exactly those countries working to revise the world order -- from one of freedom to one of tyranny -- by displacing the West. It is a grotesque reflection on the international community, particularly the Biden-Harris administration and the European Union, not to be offering unequivocal support. Israel's struggle is not just for its own survival but for the security and peace of the Free World. The West, through its passivity, is failing not only Israel, it is hollowing out its own survival.
The West has left Israel to fight a war that should never have been Israel's alone. The Western nations, through diplomatic miscalculations, the need for votes, cowardice and a fear of conflict, have essentially outsourced their responsibilities for maintaining global peace to Israel, watching from the sidelines as the conflict ramps up. Pictured: Sayad 4-B missile at a military parade in Tehran, Iran on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
Culminating with the dispatch of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar this week, how many of the world's most vicious terrorists has Israel liberated the world from in a few short weeks? Little Israel is showing the world how to win again -- and saving civilization and a free way of life into the bargain. For those of us fortunate enough to live in a free society rather than in a society of fear, as the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky calls them, let Israel keep winning!
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