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June 2017

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Over-Dramatization of Israel’s “Dilemma” By Dr. Max Singer

By on June 2nd, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel is not facing a dilemma about how much, if any, land to give up from the West Bank, because the Palestinians will not agree to take land and cannot be forced to do so. The Palestinian community sees peace with Israel as defeat in their 100-year struggle. Continued Israeli occupation is one of the Palestinians’ best weapons against Israel, and they will not give it up while their war to eliminate Israel continues. Israelis should recognize that since the Palestinians are forcing Israel to continue the temporary but long-term occupation, Israelis need to a) cooperate in reducing the moral and other costs of that occupation; and b) stop telling the world that Israel could choose to end the occupation. The occupation, like the need for military strength and to absorb casualties, is part of the price Israel has to pay to live here. Maturity means being able to go forward with no solution in sight.https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/overdramatization-israel-dilemma/

Ehud Barak recently had a long review in Haaretz of Micah Goodman’s important new book, Catch 67, to which Goodman responded the following week. Goodman argues that Israel’s 1967 victory created a “catch” or trap reflected in Israel’s current dilemma, in which both sides (the Israeli political left and right) are correct. Barak disagrees. In his view, the choice is clear: the left is correct.

Both Barak’s own view and his telling of Goodman’s ignore the reality of Israel’s actual choices today. We are not facing a dilemma about giving up territory. We are facing a distasteful task, and a need for patience over a period of decades.

Israel does not now have a choice about giving the Palestinians land or creating a Palestinian state; Israel is therefore not facing a dilemma.

While there are undoubtedly peace-seeking Palestinians, as a community, the Palestinians have not even begun to discuss the possibility of making a peace that accepts Israel and ends the Palestinian effort to gain all the land “from the river to the sea.” Nor have they begun public discussion of the possibility of most of the “refugees” settling outside Israel. Without debate among Palestinians, there is no way they can give up their determination to destroy Israel and make a genuine peace.

There is zero chance that there could be a real peace agreement now regardless of how much land Israel would be willing to give up.. A true two-state solution would finally defeat Palestinian and Arab efforts of a century, and they are not yet ready to accept defeat. Whatever disagreement there is among Israelis about how much land, if any, Israel should give up to get peace, that disagreement is not what is standing in the way of peace.

Theoretically, there are two other possibilities that might create a dilemma for Israel about giving up land. The first would be an agreement with the Palestinians to take over some of Judea and Samaria without making a full peace with Israel. The second would be a unilateral action by Israel to separate the peoples and end the occupation without Palestinian agreement.

For the reasons discussed below, neither of these is a realistic possibility regardless of how much of Judea and Samaria Israel is willing to give up. Again, no real dilemma.

The Palestinians have a voice in what happens. The choice they have made is to force Israel to “occupy” them, because they want to keep up the struggle to destroy Israel. Being a victim, an “occupied people,” improves their diplomatic position, causes Israel pain, and provokes internal conflict within Israel. These effects are bad for Israel and good for the Palestinians. Indeed, the more harmful they are for Israel, the more desirable they are for the Palestinians.

There would have to be a lot more disadvantages to the status quo for the Palestinians before they would give up such a weapon against Israel to improve their living conditions. This is especially true for the Palestinian leadership, which suffers less from the status quo than most Palestinians and benefits more from the continuation of the conflict.

But if the Palestinians will not make an agreement that would sacrifice the advantage of forcing Israel to be an “occupier”, is there any way that Israel can force them to do so by taking unilateral action to separate the peoples? This idea appealed to Sharon, and so he organized Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza. Some Israelis say the withdrawal was a good idea that only worked out badly because it was done unilaterally. But why should we think the Palestinians would have agreed to arrangements that would have been better for Israel? They consider themselves to be at war with us. They want to cause us pain and put us at a disadvantage, and are willing to accept casualties and suffering to do so.

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HOMELAND SECURITY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Report: Global Terrorism Has Tripled Since 2011, Now at an All-Time High By Patrick Poole

By on June 2nd, 2017

The Institute for Economics and Peace has released its annual “Global Peace Index” for 2017, reporting some shocking findings:According to the report, global terrorism has nearly tripled since 2011, and terrorism is now at an all-time high:

The Voice of America reports:

Worldwide terrorism is at an all-time high, and violence cost the global economy $14.3 trillion last year, with a $2.5 trillion impact in the United States alone.

These new figures from the latest Global Peace Index, a report on conflict and security, indicate that world peace has been deteriorating for the past decade, largely driven by terrorism and conflicts in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

The study says the decline interrupts long-term improvements the world had been making since the end of World War II.

According to the report, the annual number of terrorism incidents has almost tripled since 2011.

Deaths from terrorism have risen more than 900% since 2007 in the 35 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Of those members, 23 nations experienced terrorism related deaths over the past year.

Those countries include Denmark, Sweden, France and Turkey.

One eye-popping graphic from the report (p. 36):

This is quite a turnaround from this time last year during the presidential campaign — when the media was trumpeting supposed major declines in terrorism:Only a few were willing to acknowledge the growing terrorism problem developing in the West:After last month’s suicide bombing in Manchester, among other recent attacks, it appears that another “Summer of Terror” may be in the offing:

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How long before the Democrats call for a truce on the Russian probe? By Silvio Canto, Jr.

By on June 2nd, 2017

For some time, we’ve been watching the hysterical attacks on President Trump. The Democrats are calling for an “independent investigation.” Some are even calling for “impeachment” even though no one has identified a crime.

Well, don’t be surprised if the Democrats start calling for a truce and then back off completely. Why? Because the Obama investigation is about to be investigated, as James Rosen reported:

FOX News has confirmed that the FBI, the CIA, and the National Security Agency were all served today with subpoenas issued by the House Intelligence Committee. Sources say each of these subpoenas referenced unmasking and each named as figures of interest three senior Obama era officials.

Former White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice was identified by multiple news agencies last month as someone who requested the names of Trump associates whose names had appeared in coded form in classified intelligence reports be identifed for her — or ‘unmasked.’ Rice at the time denied wrongdoing and told us today through a spokesperson that she is unaware of any subpoenas ‘directed at her.’

Former CIA Director John Brennan is also named in the subpoenas. In testimony last week, Brennan decried the leaks of classified information that had bedeviled the Trump administration, and which some believe is linked to the unmasking activity. Brennan declined our request for comment.

Most noteworthy was the committee’s naming of Samantha Power, the former UN ambassador has not previously surfaced in the unmasking controversy. A Pulitzer prize-winning historian, Power served in Barack Obama’s Senate office before joining his administration.

House investigators told Fox News they are now devoting more scrutiny to Power, and they have come to see her role in the unmasking as ‘larger than previously known.’ Allegedly eclipsing the others named.

Oops, as someone said. This investigation could expose that the Obama administration was spying on U.S. citizens or unmasking them.

So don’t be surprised if the Democrats call for a truce or settlement to stop all of the investigations. The party lost its senses after Trump was elected. They could not accept the results, or the loss of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. They’ve been trying so hard to delegitimize the Trump presidency that they’ve opened the door that they didn’t want to open — an investigation of the Obama presidency.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Chastising Simon and Schuster By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on June 2nd, 2017

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/chastising_simon_and_schuster_.html

If you are disturbed about the gruesome photo shoot of Kathy Griffin depicting President Trumps’ severed head, then you will be equally disgusted at the comment of New York Times bestselling author children’s books Ken Jennings. Jennings tweeted the following:

Barron Trump saw a very long necktie on a heap of expired deli meat in a dumpster. He thought it was his dad & his little heart is breaking.

The left has no shame and that this former Jeopardy winner and author of children’s books should write this vile message should not go unnoticed. Jennings writes for Simon & Schuster. Thanks to a comment at the Gateway Pundit site, you can call the publisher at 1-800-223-2336, choose option 4 and let your voice be heard. I just did.

It is time to fight back.

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Politically Incorrect Hollywood: Some Films to see By Armando Simon

By on June 2nd, 2017

Although at times it feels—quite correctly—like one is swamped with Politically Correct propaganda in the movies and television and magazines, a number of films have been made over the years that buck the trend. Unfortunately, many of them have not been well-publicized and/or not as patronized by conservatives as they should have been. By comparison, every time Hanoi Jane, Michael Moore, or Oliver Stone make a movie, liberals trample themselves over in a mad stampede to support their propaganda movies; conservatives, on the other hand, when they hear of a movie that might be putting up a fight against the totalitarians, often stay at home scratching their rear ends, complaining that Hollywood doesn’t make enough movies that support their viewpoints—and then wait until the movie comes out at Redbox or Netflix.

So here is a list of movies that you might want to watch:

Red Family

Although Kim Ki-duk did not direct this film, he wrote and produced it and it still came out great. The film centers around North Korea sleeper agents passing themselves off as a South Korean family, all the while carrying out espionage and assassinations and maintaining a harsh discipline and ideological purity. Throughout, Damocles’ sword is hanging over their heads because they are being monitored by other agents. Although initially being vicious, cold-blooded killers, with time they become corrupted by their environment and start acting more human, and even humane, with foreseeable results.

Katyn

You have to feel for the Poles. The Russians Germans, and Austrians have repeatedly raped Poland over the centuries. The Katyn massacre is one of those items that make up That Which Must Not Be Mentioned about WWII (another one is that the Soviet Union and the Third Reich were allied during the first few years of the war as they had agreed to partition Europe between them, starting with Poland. Later, when one of the allies attacked the other one, the original pact of alliance was never mentioned, as being in bad taste if you did).

The Katyn massacre, in particular, made a deep scar in the Polish psyche. Perhaps it was due because Russia invaded the country when it was trying to fight off the German invasion, perhaps because the subsequent occupation by the Communists tried to convince the Poles that the Russians were their friends, perhaps because the Russians refused to acknowledge what everyone knew. Who knows.

Another thing that makes one sick is that the Poles behaved with honor towards the conquerors, not realizing at the time what vicious monsters they were dealing with. Example: (a) the professors naively show up at the university, summoned by the SS officer, only to be brutally rounded up and sent to Sachsenhausen (b) the Polish officers are initially loosely guarded, which means that many could have easily escaped, but did not do so and therefore were subsequently butchered by the Communists. The ending of the film is brutal to watch, but it needs to be watched

Unfortunately, to people who are unacquainted with the history, as was the case with my wife, events seem to jump and are a bit disorienting. Had the director simply inserted at the right time in the film what is going on historically, e.g., the pact of alliance between Russia and Germany, the subsequent invasion of Russia by Germany, the occupation of Poland by Russia, etc., the movie would have flowed smoothly.

Hail, Caesar!

The first time I saw it, this film left me a bit befuddled. It took me a second time of seeing the film to truly appreciate it. Part of my initial confusion is that there were so many subplots going through the movie.

Anyway. The title of the movie is the title of the movie being filmed in the movie, sometime in the 1950s. Got that? The main star gets kidnapped held for ransom from the studio. However, the main character is Eddie Mannix, one of the head honchos of the studio and he is primarily a “fixer.” He is presented with one problem after the other and he fixes the problems. Then, he is presented with the kidnapping. The kidnapping, by the way, was carried out by Hollywood communists, who are presented as a pack of intellectual buffoons spouting Marxist jargon. Mannix at the same time is being sought after to quit his job and go work for Lockheed, but he cannot make up his mind. At one point, one of the Hollywood communists gets picked up by a Soviet sub and is presumably taken to the Iron Curtain (in actual life, one of the Hollywood 10 communists did disappear and surfaced in East Germany). There are a lot of in-jokes regarding Hollywood of the ’50s, some of which, frankly, went over my head.

Pawn Sacrifice

When I was in my early 20s, I was touring Europe and the talk everywhere by Europeans was the intense chess confrontation between Fisher and the Russians in Iceland, exemplified by Spassky. Everyone was chuckling over Fisher’s antics and Spassky’s apparent befuddlement at Bobby’s behavior, thinking that the latter was messing with the Russian’s head. They jokingly referred to Fisher as being a crazy guy and were rooting for him. What nobody knew at the time, except for a handful of individuals was that Fisher was really crazy, that his antics and demands were not psychological warfare. This secret came to light many years thereafter.

The Soviets’ philosophy was that if they excelled at chess and at the Olympics, even through cheating, then it proved that Marxist totalitarianism was superior to a Western decadent democracy, so the state-funded chess players (and athletes) and gave them special treatment, unlike the Western countries. This fact is emphasized in the film.

Unfortunately, although Liev Schreiber does a convincing and likeable Spassky, the film does not show that he was a pretty decent guy, far from the usual mindless apparatchik. At a chess tournament against the Czechoslovakian players shortly after the Soviet invasion of their country, he shook their hands even though they wore black armbands as a sign of mourning, something that the Soviet authorities got angry about. Also not shown was that after Spassky lost the tournament in Iceland and returned home, he was hassled at the Moscow airport.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ireland’s Reform Example A change in leaders highlights the country’s postcrisis success. See note please

By on June 2nd, 2017

Will the new leaders put an end to the anti-Israel bias that is the more painful because Irish fighters and pilots and captains helped Israel’s fight for independence; hundreds of Irish Americans like Paul O’Dwyer, Hugh Carey, helped mobilize support for Israel in America; the Lord Mayor of Dublin Robert Briscoe was Jewish, and Israel’s Major General Chaim Herzog who became Israel’s President in 1983 was born in Ireland…..rsk

We interrupt the panic about populism in Europe to bring some good news from Ireland. That country will get a new Prime Minister on Friday, and the Irish are choosing between two good options who offer a lesson for the revival of European economies.

The leadership change is precipitated by incumbent Enda Kenny’s resignation over a complex police scandal involving charges of special treatment for prominent officials. His center-right Fine Gael party must now select a new Prime Minister and party leader.

Fine Gael is traditionally the more free market of Ireland’s main parties but has often struggled to overcome entrenched interests in Dublin. So it’s remarkable that in this race both candidates to replace Mr. Kenny are running on aggressive pro-liberalization platforms.

The leading contender, Leo Varadkar, is the more eloquent of the two. Most of the media are wowed that he’s only 38, the son of an Indian immigrant and gay. But credit Fine Gael and Irish voters for taking Mr. Varadkar’s policy ideas more seriously than his biography.

Those ideas include administrative reforms such as prohibiting strikes by public-employee unions in critical services. He wants to address widespread worries about housing costs by phasing out subsidies for first-time buyers and focusing instead on new construction.

Mr. Varadkar and his challenger, Simon Coveney, both promise to reduce Ireland’s top marginal tax rate on income—income and payroll taxes combined—to below 50%, and reduce taxes for lower-income payers by adjusting brackets. Both advocate pension reforms centered on private savings accounts. Both would keep the 12.5% top corporate-tax rate while cutting other taxes on domestic firms and the self-employed to expand the economy beyond its reliance on global companies.

That reform agreement is a lesson to most others in Europe, not least British Prime Minister Theresa May, who is running on a welfare-state-as-usual platform. Mr. Kenny and his predecessor slashed government spending by €10 billion ($11.2 billion) to repair the post-financial crisis budget, as compared to €5 billion in tax increases. This weighting toward spending cuts helped return the economy to growth, and revenues are now booming. CONTINUE AT SITE

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Trump Jerusalem Waiver The President made the embassy move a test of U.S. credibility.

By on June 2nd, 2017

No one forced Mr. Trump to make his pledge. He chose to make it a campaign issue. The Israelis will be disappointed but are still delighted to have a President who is friendlier than his predecessor. The Palestinians will pocket this concession and hold out for more.

Way back in 1995, Congress passed a law requiring the State Department to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. On Thursday Donald Trump became the latest in a long line of Presidents to issue a waiver to put the move off.

Moving the embassy to the actual capital of the Jewish State is not the most important U.S. priority in the region. But because Mr. Trump made such a point of it in the campaign—vowing that he would make good where others had backed down—the waiver damages American credibility. As President Obama’s infamous red line in Syria illustrated, the world is more dangerous when Presidents show they don’t mean what they say.

In a statement explaining the waiver, the White House said that “the question is not if that move happens, but only when.” The statement further claims the embassy waiver was given in hopes of boosting chances for an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.

Here lies the bigger problem, which is less that the embassy is staying in Tel Aviv than that the Trump White House has concluded it should spend scarce political capital on a Palestinian-Israeli peace that has eluded Presidents for decades. That peace will only have a chance when the two parties are prepared to negotiate seriously, and the Palestinians now are not. They won’t be any more likely to deal because Mr. Trump backed down on the embassy.

No one forced Mr. Trump to make his pledge. He chose to make it a campaign issue. The Israelis will be disappointed but are still delighted to have a President who is friendlier than his predecessor. The Palestinians will pocket this concession and hold out for more.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trump Bids Paris Adieu Growth and innovation are better forms of climate insurance.

By on June 2nd, 2017

President Trump announced the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement on Thursday, to the horror of green elites world-wide. If the decision shows he is more mindful of American economic interests than they are, the other virtue of pulling out is to expose the fraudulence of this Potemkin village.

In a Rose Garden ceremony, Mr. Trump broke with the 2015 agreement, starting the formal four-year withdrawal process: “We’re getting out. And we will start to renegotiate and we’ll see if there’s a better deal. If we can, great. If we can’t, that’s fine.”

This nonchalance inspired a predictable political meltdown, with the anticarbon lobby invoking death, planetary disaster and a permanent historical stain. Billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer called it “a traitorous act of war against the American people,” while Barack Obama accused his successor of joining “a small handful of nations that reject the future,” whatever that means. Get ready for another march on the White House.

But amid the outrage, the aggrieved still haven’t gotten around to resolving the central Paris contradiction, which is that it promises to be Earth-saving but fails on its own terms. It is a pledge of phony progress.

The 195 signatory nations volunteered their own carbon emission-reduction pledges, known as “intended nationally determined contributions,” or INDCs. China and the other developing nations account for 63% of annual global CO 2 emissions, and their share is rising. They submitted INDCs that pledged to peak the carbon status quo “around” 2030, and maybe later, or never, since Paris included no enforcement mechanisms to prevent cheating.

Meanwhile, the developed OECD nations—responsible for 55% of world CO 2 as recently as 2000—made unrealistic assurances that even they knew they could not achieve. As central-planning prone as the Obama Administration was, it never identified a tax-and-regulation program that came close to meeting its own emissions pledge of 26% to 28% reductions from 2005 levels by 2025.

Paris is thus an exercise in moral and social signaling that is likely to exert little if any influence on atmospheric CO 2 , much less on global temperatures. The Paris target was to limit the surface temperature increase to “well below” two degrees Celsius from the pre-industrial level by 2100. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Joint Program conclude that even if every INDC is fulfilled to the letter, the temperature increase will be in the range of 1.9–2.6 degrees Celsius by 2050, and 3.1–5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Such forecasts are highly uncertain, which is inherent when scientists attempt to predict the future behavior of a system as complex as global climate. The best form of climate-change insurance is a large and growing economy so that future generations can afford to adapt to whatever they may confront.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians: Israel’s Goodwill Gestures Send Wrong Messages by Bassam Tawil

By on June 2nd, 2017

Here is what is being said on the Palestinian street: Today Israel runs away from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip; tomorrow Israel will run away from Ashkelon, then from Tel Aviv and from there to the sea, and we have achieved our goal of destroying Israel. Therefore, we need to continue attacking Israel.

As with the Gaza Strip, the withdrawal from Lebanon taught the Palestinians that terrorism could drive Israelis out of their country.

Never have the Palestinians given Israel credit for its goodwill steps. On the contrary, they scoff at these moves and describe them as “cosmetic changes”. The Palestinian line is that Israel’s steps are “insufficient” and “unhelpful.” Its concessions are regarded as gestures of a terrified people and as the rightful reward for terrorism. Far from satiating the appetite of the terrorists, such steps prompt them to step up their attacks against Israelis.

The West suffers under a major misconception concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that “goodwill gestures” and territorial concessions on the part of Israel boost the prospects of peace in the Middle East. The facts, suggest that precisely the opposite is true.

Last week, Israel’s Channel 10 television station reported that the U.S. administration was pushing Israel to transfer parts of Area C — areas under full Israeli security and civilian control in the West Bank — to the control of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA). According to the report, the U.S. believes that the transfer of the territory to the PA would be a “goodwill step” towards the Palestinians, paving the way for the revival of the stalled peace process with Israel.

This assumption, of course, has already proven wrong. The experiences of the past few decades have shown clearly that Israeli concessions have always sent the wrong message to the Palestinians.

In fact, Palestinians read Israeli goodwill steps as signs of weakness and retreat. This misinterpretation on the part of the Palestinians then leads to more violence against Israel. It would be hard for anyone not to conclude that if pressure works, keep on pressuring.

The past 24 years are littered with examples of how the Palestinians react to Israeli concessions.

The Oslo Accords that were signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993 were seen by Palestinians as a first step by Israel towards total capitulation.

The accords, which brought the PLO from several Arab countries to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, came after five years of the first Palestinian Intifada. By allowing the PLO to assume control over large parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel sent a message that it was caving in to the violence and terrorism of the First Intifada.

Barely a breath after Oslo, Israel was again asked to conciliate the Palestinians: this time, hundreds of prisoners, many with Jewish (and Arab) blood on their hands, were released from Israeli prison in order to create an atmosphere “conducive” to the peace process.

Instead of viewing the prisoner release for what it was, namely a generous gesture, many Palestinians considered it a “victory” for terrorism and violence. Worse, it was not long before many of the released prisoners were rearrested for their role in further terrorism against Israel. The release of prisoners also sent a message of recidivism to Palestinians: terror does indeed pay! A short stint in an Israeli prison is sure to lead to release in some Israeli “confidence-building measure” or other.

According to statistics, at least half of released Palestinian prisoners have returned to terrorism.

Despite the grim statistics, the international community regularly demands that Israel release more convicted terrorists as a “gesture” towards Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinians.

Palestinian terrorists who were released from prison by Israel as a “goodwill gesture” are honored at Mahmoud Abbas’ presidential compound in Ramallah, on October 30, 2013. According to statistics, at least half of released Palestinian prisoners have returned to terrorism. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Getty Images)

Since 1993, Israel has complied again and again with such international pressure, only to reinforce the message to Palestinians: terrorism is indeed worth the trouble.

Let us consider, for a moment, Gaza. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip, after destroying 21 Jewish settlements and expelling more than 8,000 Jews from their homes there.

In Palestinian eyes, however, the Israeli “disengagement” from the Gaza Strip was anything but an olive branch of peace. The withdrawal came after five years of the bloody Second Intifada, when Palestinians waged a massive campaign of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israelis.

Thus, for Palestinians, Israel was once again retreating in the face of unremitting bloodshed.

Here is what is being said on the Palestinian street: Today Israel runs away from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, tomorrow Israel will run away from Ashkelon, then from Ashdod and Tel Aviv and from there to the sea, and we have achieved our goal of destroying Israel. Therefore, we need to continue attacking Israel.

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