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December 2017

In the Mideast, Trump Gives Reality a Chance The first step toward peace is to stop indulging the Palestinians’ fantasies of destroying Israel. By Reuel Marc Gerecht

A lot of people are in a funk over President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The liberal media, most former government officials who’ve dealt with the Israeli–Palestinian imbroglio, and just about everyone at the United Nations appear certain that the decision had a lot to do with Mr. Trump’s disruptive nature, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Evangelical Christians and pro-Israel Republican donors.

It’s possible that his decision was based instead on an old-fashioned understanding of the way the world works, one that would be familiar to Middle Easterners: There are winners and losers in every conflict, and Palestinians have decisively lost in their struggle with the Jews of the Holy Land. Diplomacy based on denying reality isn’t helpful.

This view runs smack into the tenets of contemporary conflict resolution, in which diplomacy tries to make losers feels like winners, so that unpleasant compromises, at least in theory, will be easier to swallow. It alleviates the guilt of a Westernized people triumphing over Arabs that has made many in Europe and even the U.S. uncomfortable with Israeli superiority. It also runs counter to an assumption held widely among Western political elites—to wit, quoting the current French ambassador to the U.N.: “Israel is the key to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.” Israelis, in this view, must make the big compromises.

The truth is surely the opposite. Recognizing the extent and irreversibility of Palestinian defeat is the first step in the long process of salvaging Palestinian society from its paralyzing morass. Far too many Palestinians still want to pretend they haven’t lost, that the “right of return” and Jerusalem’s unsettled status give hope that the gradual erosion of Israel is still possible. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas tapped a common theme among Palestinians in his recent oration before the Organization of Islamic Cooperation when he complained that Jews “are really excellent in faking and counterfeiting history and religion.”

The biggest problem the Palestinians have is that the Israelis don’t trust them, and the Israelis cannot be ignored, sidestepped, bullied, bombed or boycotted out of eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. Fatah, the lead organization of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the muscle behind the Palestinian Authority, has often acted publicly as if the Israelis weren’t the foreigners who truly mattered, appealing to Europeans, Russians and Americans to intercede on its behalf. Americans and Europeans have consistently encouraged this reflex by stressing their own role in resolving the conflict, usually by suggesting that they would cajole or push Israelis toward Palestinian positions.

For the Israelis, this has seemed a surreal stage play. The Fatah leadership is well aware that only the Israeli security services have kept the West Bank from going the way of the Gaza Strip, where Fatah’s vastly better-armed forces were easily overwhelmed by Hamas in 2007. Fatah’s secular police state—and that is what the Palestinian Authority is—has proved, so far, no match for Hamas.

Western diplomacy has failed abysmally to recognize the profound split between Palestinian fundamentalists and secularists and played wistfully to the hope that a deeply corrupt Fatah oligarchy could conclude a permanent peace accord with Israel. This delusion’s concomitant bet: Such a deal would terminally weaken Hamas, since the secularists would have finally brought home the mutton. CONTINUE AT SITE

Democracy, Putin-Style The Kremlin fears Alexei Navalny is too popular, bars his candidacy.

The rules for Russia’s presidential election this spring may appear opaque and confusing to outsiders, but they boil down to one. Vladimir Putin is running for re-election, and if you are someone whose popularity holds the potential to embarrass him, you’re not going to be allowed on the ballot.

That is what is now happening to Alexei Navalny, the Russian lawyer who uses a popular blog to expose corruption in government and state-owned entities. These included a March video that went viral accusing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of graft. For the past year, Mr. Navalny has been making trips across the country in a grass-roots election bid for the Russian presidency. As the election nears, Mr. Navalny is proving too popular for Mr. Putin’s tastes.

On Monday Russia’s top election body barred Mr. Navalny from running for president, invoking a politically motivated conviction for embezzlement to declare him ineligible. Mr. Navalny has responded by calling for Russians to boycott the election. So the Kremlin is now saying Mr. Navalny’s call for a boycott may also be illegal, and perhaps that will serve as pretext for another arrest.

Welcome to democracy, Putin-style. In today’s Russia, an opposition candidate is convicted on trumped up charges that are designed to scare him off from politics and his anticorruption campaigns. He decides to run anyway, and then is declared ineligible by virtue of the conviction. Which leaves the Kremlin in the position of threatening Mr. Navalny with more jail time for boycotting an election the Kremlin has prevented him from entering.

Mr. Navalny is a brave man who knows what he is doing and what he’s risking. But Mr. Putin’s moves against Mr. Navalny and his associates aren’t those of a strong and confident man. To the contrary, they are the actions of someone letting his fears get the best of him. In the video statement Mr. Navalny put out after he was declared ineligible, he had it exactly right: “Putin is terribly scared and is afraid of running against me.”

MY SAY: THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND

There is much to admire in England- bravery and resolve and a civilized society- the land of George Eliot, Lord Josiah Wedgwood and the Christian Zionists, Margaret Thatcher, Robert Conquest the great historian, Douglas Murray, Andrew Roberts, marvelous Netflix mysteries and the adorable Kate Middleton.

There is much to despise them and their sordid and duplicitous and murderous history with respect to Palestine. The series of White Papers after the Balfour promises truncated the Jewish state into only 20% of Palestine. Furthermore, their obstinate and venal appeasement of the Arabs shut the gates of Palestine to millions of Jews who might have been saved from the genocide. Their post war turpitude led them to apprehend and fire upon thousands of traumatized survivors of the Holocaust seeking refuge and succor in Palestine….thousands died in the sinking vessels and others were interned in harsh conditions in Cyprus detention centers. See http://www.zionism101.org/ for a full narrative of the struggle for Israel.

At the conclusion of the 1948 Arab war against Israel, Great Britain and Pakistan were the only nations that recognized Jordan’s illegal occupation of the “West Bank” and East Jerusalem.

And their latest vote in favor of a blatantly anti Israel resolution in the U.N. is just a continuation of their bias for when it comes to anti-Semitism there will always be an England.

UK: Going about Our “Normal” Lives? by Douglas Murray

One of the most striking images from the night of the London Borough Market terror attack was of drinkers being marched out of the Market under police escort with their hands on their heads. The British public at that point looked not like stoical, pugnacious heroes, but like a defeated army being marched into captivity.

Contrary to all our public statements, we have become terrorised, just as the terrorists want.

It is a glimpse into the soul of a city; and like all such ugly glimpses, we will turn away from looking at it, rather than considering it and wondering what it truly suggests.

Whenever Britain suffers a terrorist attack — and it has suffered four Islamist attacks this year alone — the British public responds the same way.

Twelve years ago, when four suicide bombers detonated homemade bombs on the London underground and on a red-top bus in central London, there was much talk of “Blitz spirit”. After 7/7, the media erupted with boasts of wartime echoes. Some people who lived in London noticed a rather different atmosphere. Of course people “got on with their lives” (what else could they do?) but in the days and weeks after the attacks it was not really “business as usual”. Especially not after another four suicide bombers went onto the tube a fortnight later, on July 21, and attempted to repeat the exercise. Fortunately, on that occasion the bombs failed to detonate. But during the period that ensued, it was certainly easier than usual to get a seat on the London Underground.

Of course, political leaders relish the opportunity to accentuate and exaggerate these echoes. If the British public are the citizens of London in the Blitz, then the politicians are Winston Churchill. After attacks like the 2013 daytime slaughter of Drummer Lee Rigby on the streets of London, then-Prime Minister David Cameron stressed from the steps of Downing Street that “One of the best ways of defeating terrorism is to go about our normal lives. And that is what we shall all do.” These themes are thought to play deep to the spirit of the British people.

But the more this conspicuous, self-conscious egging-on of such attitudes is stressed, the thinner it seems to get. In March, after Khalid Masood ploughed a car across Westminster Bridge, mowing down locals and tourists, and crashed the car and stabbed policeman Keith Palmer to death inside the gates of the Palace of Westminster, one prominent British journalist took to the pages of the New York Times to pour out the clichés.

“By Thursday morning, London was, if not quite back to normal, then certainly back in business. As I traveled through the south of the city, up to Chelsea and later over to King’s Cross, Londoners really were going about their lives as on any other day.

“This behavior reflects something deeper than conscious defiance, I think. It would simply not occur to the 8.6 million citizens of this megalopolis to allow one man to send them into hiding. As they say in the East End, you’re having a laugh, aren’t you?”

Palestinians: Where Have They Gone? by Shoshana Bryen

American funding for UNRWA is problematic itself because the organization is inextricably intertwined with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This may be the right time to review the number of Palestinian “refugees” in the world and the world’s obligation to them.

Ten years ago, in a forum on Capitol Hill, then-Rep. Mark Kirk called for an international audit of UNRWA. Kirk admitted he was unsuccessful, despite such accounting anomalies as a $13 million entry for “un-earmarked expenses” in an audit conducted by UNRWA’s own board.

Palestinians are the only “refugee” group that hands the status down through generations, which is why they are governed by UNRWA; all other refugees are under the care of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which has a mandate to settle refugees so they can become citizens of new countries.

Palestinian refugees are a slippery population — but when 285,535 of them go missing from a small country such as Lebanon, it should raise eyebrows.

UNRWA in Lebanon reports on its website that 449,957 refugees live under its protection in 12 camps, but a survey by Lebanon’s Central Administration of Statistics, together with the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, could only find 174,535. The Lebanese government said the others “left.” Okay, maybe they did — Lebanon constrained them viciously, so it would make some sense. What does NOT make sense, then, is the UN giving UNRWA a budget based on nearly half a million people when, in fact, there are far fewer than a quarter of a million. Who is paying and who is getting the money?

We are and they are.

The UNRWA website shows a budget of $2.41 billion combined for FY 2016 and 2017. The U.S. provides more than $300 million to UNRWA annually, about one-quarter of the total. In August 2017, UNRWA claimed a deficit of $126 million. A former State Department official said the budget shortfalls are chronic but that “the funds seemed eventually arrive” after pressing others for more money — some of that additional money is from the U.S.

American funding for UNRWA is problematic itself because the organization is inextricably intertwined with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon; see here, here and here. And specifically for Lebanon, the connection goes as far back as 2007. But stay with the “floating” population problem for a moment.

The huge discrepancy in Lebanon suggests that UNRWA may have trouble counting refugees in the West Bank, Jordan, Gaza, and Syria as well. (We’ll give them a pass on Syria for now.) The problem is not new, but that Palestinian agencies were running the census may help the United States overcome its own long-term obstinacy when it comes to counting and paying.

Czech President Miloš Zeman: Warrior for Truth by Josef Zbořil

“If you want the unspoken truth, Islamic migration is not possible to integrate, and it is not capable of being assimilated into European culture. ” — Miloš Zeman, President of the Czech Republic.

“This country is ours. And this country is not and can not be for all.” — Miloš Zeman.

“In my opinion, much of the guilt lies on the current leadership of the European Union, which is totally incompetent, bureaucratic, causing the alienation of European citizens from European institutions… We do not need censorship, we do not need an ideological police, we do not need a new press and information office if we are to continue living in a free and democratic society…” — Miloš Zaman, 2016.

Czech President Miloš Zeman, it was recently said, is “a world leader guided by principles, a man not only knows right from wrong, but has never been afraid to voice it. ” Known for his longstanding support for the US, Israel and the Jews, he was the only European president publicly to support then-candidate Donald Trump before the US presidential election.

The historical relationship of Czechoslovakia, later the Czech Republic, towards Israel is most likely based on when the Czechs were overrun by Hitler in 1938, and learned the hard way that “appeasement never works”. Zeman defends the Czech presidents’ motto: “Truth prevails”.

A Euro-federalist and leftist, Zeman became known to the public in August 1989, three months before the Velvet Revolution, thanks to an article, “Prognostics and Perestroika.” In it, he criticized the totalitarian Czechoslovak régime at that time:

“The stolen future was not shared by a society which was not planning for itself but for which plans were being made…. Current events have already proven that long-term [economic] lagging has not contributed to the prestige of socialism. Also not contributing to it is a persistent unwillingness to admit its own responsibility for this lagging… There is nothing antisocialist about criticizing the incompetence of an uncontrollable power. On the contrary, there is nothing socialist about tolerance or even support for that incompetence.”

Thanks to this article, he was not only fired from his job, but in August 1989, was also invited to appear on the television show Economic Notebook, where he said:

“For the past forty years, we have dropped from tenth place in the world to around the fortieth. In some areas, even worse. For example, in the development of science and technology… we are today roughly at the level of Algeria or Peru, and far below Portugal, which is considered the most undeveloped country in Western Europe … I explain this development by [the government’s] having taken economic decisions that were casually accepted; there was no sound competition of alternative ideas, and even ideas that would have extremely cautious consequences were taken without any evaluation of their effectiveness.”

Trump’s Strong Start on Policy A first-year report card By Ramesh Ponnuru

Gorsuch confirmed, ISIS defeated, taxes cut: The Trump administration has compiled a solid record of accomplishment in its first year, one that compares well with the records of many of its predecessors.

Two of the biggest accomplishments came late in the year. The prime minister of Iraq declared victory over ISIS on December 9. Republicans reached a deal that seemed to secure passage of a tax bill on December 15. Until then, it appeared possible that 2017 would end without an all-Republican government enacting any major legislation.

Now the Republicans’ policy record looks better, at least as most conservatives see it. The tax bill advances several longstanding conservative objectives. It cuts tax rates for most Americans, slashes the corporate-tax rate for the first time in decades, expands the tax credit for children, limits the reach of the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, and scales back the tax break for expensive homes. By scaling back the deduction for state and local taxes, it may encourage a more conservative fiscal politics in the states. And it allows drilling to proceed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The tax bill also partly makes up for the failure of Republican efforts earlier in 2017 to repeal Obamacare. The health-care law imposes fines on people who go without insurance. The tax bill sets the fines at zero. The least popular feature of Obamacare is thus effectively nullified.

Some conservatives would have considered voting for Trump in November 2016 worth it just for Justice Neil Gorsuch. His appointment to the Supreme Court means that Justice Scalia’s seat will remain filled by an originalist for the next few decades. If one of the Democratic appointees or Justice Anthony Kennedy leaves the Court while Republicans hold the Senate, Trump will have the opportunity to create the first conservative majority in modern constitutional history. Trump has also nominated many well-qualified conservative jurists to the appeals courts. (The quality of his district-court nominees appears to be significantly lower.)

The administration has begun to rein in regulation. It has withdrawn and modified several of the Obama administration’s regulations, often in concert with Congress. It has stopped or slowed the progress of many others that were barreling down the tracks. The Environmental Protection Agency, now run by Trump appointee Scott Pruitt, has also taken steps to end the practice of “sue and settle,” in which activist groups get the agency to adopt new policies through lawsuits.

Is Academic Rigor Racist? The latest casualty of the Left’s Academic-Industrial-Complex. Jack Kerwick

If you’re a parent who is giving consideration to refinancing your home for the sake of sending your child off to a university, you may want to reconsider.

Most parents, doubtless, regard college as nothing more or less than a means to the end of a lucrative profession for their children. Still, even some of these may be of one mind with those parents who expect that, while pursuing their degrees, their children will and should receive a decent education.

Unfortunately, however, the view of Donna Riley, a professor of engineering education at Purdue University, is representative of a growing number of academics from around the country. In “Rigor/Us: Building Boundaries and Disciplining Diversity with Standards of Merit,” an article featured in the most recent edition of the journal Engineering Studies, Riley writes that rigor—“the aspirational quality academics apply to disciplinary standards of quality”—actually “accomplishes dirty deeds” in the fields of “engineering, engineering education, and engineering education research [.]”

To repeat: Academic rigor serves dirty deeds.

These “dirty deeds” are “disciplining, demarcating boundaries, and demonstrating white male heterosexual privilege.”

Riley trades in the Newspeak that we’ve come to expect from contemporary leftist academics. This lends to her prose an aura of Gnosticism, the semblance of esotericism. Ultimately, though, Riley’s thesis is hardly original. In fact, it is but another expression of the dogmatic, Politically Correct status quo of her peers. It goes something like this:

Traditional academic standards, being the legacy of straight white men, are not unlike any other legacy of straight white men insofar as they “privilege” straight white men.

In other words, academic standards like that of rigor are “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” “classist,” and so forth and so on.

Guatemala follows U.S. to Jerusalem By Monica Showalter Please see note

In 1948 Guatemala’s ambassador to the United States, Jorge Garcia Granados (who was a friend of my father’s) lobbied for recognition of Israel. rsk

Apparently, there was nothing fake or merely symbolic about Guatemala’s support for the U.S. moving its embassy to Jerusalem in its United Nations vote last week. Guatemala is moving its own embassy to Jerusalem, too.

According to the New York Post:

GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala’s president announced on Christmas Eve that the Central American country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, becoming the first nation to follow the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump in ordering the change.

Guatemala was one of nine nations that voted with the United States and Israel on Thursday when the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a non-binding resolution denouncing Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

It’s enough to turn heads about the tiny Central American nation and give it our salute.

Because it’s rather courageous to be the first to follow the U.S. in places such as the United Nations. Guatemala’s act suggests it wasn’t just looking for goodies from the U.S. when it cast that vote, it really wanted to acknowledge the reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

Its president, Jimmy Morales, said as much, in his Christmas eve announcement of the event:

“Guatemala is historically pro-Israeli,” he said in Guatemala City. “In 70 years of relations, Israel has been our ally. We have a Christian way of thinking that, as well as the politics of it, has us believing that Israel is our ally and we must ­support it.

“Despite us only being nine in the world (in the UN vote), we have the total certainty and conviction that this is the right path.”

It’s true Guatemala would probably like some development help from Israel but just the fact that they are reaching out for it and not whining about something or other speaks well for them. A willingness to learn from Israel means a nation passes the Israel Test, as the brilliant George Gilder wrote of in his excellent book. Guatemala passes. Another reason too take a second look at Guatemala.
Apparently, there was nothing fake or merely symbolic about Guatemala’s support for the U.S. moving its embassy to Jerusalem in its United Nations vote last week. Guatemala is moving its own embassy to Jerusalem, too.

According to the New York Post:

GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala’s president announced on Christmas Eve that the Central American country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, becoming the first nation to follow the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump in ordering the change.

Guatemala was one of nine nations that voted with the United States and Israel on Thursday when the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a non-binding resolution denouncing Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

It’s enough to turn heads about the tiny Central American nation and give it our salute.

Because it’s rather courageous to be the first to follow the U.S. in places such as the United Nations. Guatemala’s act suggests it wasn’t just looking for goodies from the U.S. when it cast that vote, it really wanted to acknowledge the reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

Its president, Jimmy Morales, said as much, in his Christmas eve announcement of the event:

“Guatemala is historically pro-Israeli,” he said in Guatemala City. “In 70 years of relations, Israel has been our ally. We have a Christian way of thinking that, as well as the politics of it, has us believing that Israel is our ally and we must ­support it.

The Case against Mahmoud Abbas By Dan Calic

There’s been plenty of rancor since President Trump declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. Some are saying his remarks have brought the peace process to a halt.

To such accusations I say, “what peace process?”

I submit that if anyone is guilty of why there is no peace process, it is none other than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Unless you are spelling it p-i-e-c-e. The record shows that rather than p-e-a-c-e with Israel, he wants to take it apart piece by piece until it doesn’t exist anymore. In order to present the case, I will lay out the evidence to the court of public opinion.

Exhibit 1- Munich Olympics

Who will ever forget the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre where 11 Israeli athletes were held hostage by Arab terrorists and lost their lives. The financier of the operation was Mahmoud Abbas.

Exhibit 2- Holocaust Denial

In 1982, he wrote his PhD thesis entitled: “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism.” The topic was denial of the Holocaust. Such views are associated with anti-Semitism. Aside from Israel, 21 countries have made Holocaust denial a crime. The United States does not criminalize it.

In January 2005, he was elected to a four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority. Here’s a short list of what’s taken place during his never-ending four-year term:

Exhibit 3- Rejects Recognition of Jewish State

While several Israeli prime ministers, including Benjamin Netanyahu have acknowledged acceptance of a ‘Palestinian’ state, Abbas has repeatedly said he will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Demanding recognition of a Palestinian state while rejecting Israel’s right to exist proves he is not serious about peace. Moreover, he has no business talking about a “just solution. Most recently Abbas challenged Israel’s right to be recognized as a state by the international community saying it is “invalid.”

Exhibit 4- Right of Return

Abbas demands the “right of return,” for so-called “refugees” from the 1948 and 1967 wars, along with their descendants. Their numbers vary, but suffice to say this would eliminate the Jewish majority in Israel. Thus the only homeland the Jewish people have would cease to exist as such, and become the Middle East’s 23rd Muslim Arab-dominated country while the Jews would have none.

Exhibit 5- No Jews Allowed in Future Palestinian State

There are well over 1 million Arabs who live in Israel with full benefits of citizenship. They vote, own businesses, own property, are doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. They are elected to the Knesset and have even been members of the Supreme Court. They also have complete freedom of worship. There are mosques throughout Israel. Yet Abbas says not one Israeli [Jew], civilian or soldier will be tolerated in any future Palestinian state. Ironically, he’s accused Israel of being an ‘apartheid state.’

Exhibit 6- Fatah Constitution

He is head of the Fatah Party. Their constitution calls for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.