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July 2018

Why Do Palestinian Leaders Oppose Helping Their People? by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12663/palestinian-leaders-gaza-crisis

Mahmoud Abbas and his West Bank-based government seek to prolong the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They want the international community to continue to believe that Israel is responsible for the ongoing, intense suffering of the Palestinians. They are hoping to use the crisis there to pursue their campaign to delegitimize Israel.

Palestinian leaders would prefer to see their people starve than make any form of concessions for peace with Israel. Yet Al-Aloul and Abbas are not the ones who are facing starvation. There is nothing more comfortable than sitting in your fashionable house in Ramallah or Nablus and talking about starvation and humanitarian aid.

The Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, who are desperate for jobs and a better life, do not really care about Trump’s upcoming peace plan. They also do not really care about a settlement or a checkpoint in the West Bank.

This is the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The Palestinians’ number one priority — the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinians in general — is destroying Israel. They would rather die than give up their dream of destroying Israel.

For years, Palestinian leaders have been complaining that the Gaza Strip was “on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.” Time and again, they have warned that unless the world helps the Palestinians living there, the Gaza Strip will “erupt like a volcano.”

Ethiopia-Eritrea: A New Hope for Peace by Ahmed Charai

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12694/ethiopia-eritrea-a-new-hope-for-peace

By renegotiating the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act, [US President Donald J. Trump] can strengthen American exports, create new export-related jobs and foster development-oriented investment on the continent. By reforming U.S. humanitarian aid to Africa, he can cut considerable bureaucratic waste, and effectively increase assistance without increasing the cost.

Washington can also take advantage of the close relationships between them and one of its biggest allies, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, Crown Prince of UAE, who has a strong ties with many African leaders and who has played an important role during the different negotiations between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has welcomed the reestablishment of cordial relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. He has stressed that such an agreement will positively reflect on boosting security and stability in both countries, the Horn of Africa and the MENA region.

Making America great again, as Trump’s campaign slogan goes, means helping Africa rise and stabilize.

The leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a declaration on July 9, ending a state of war between the two countries. It was a major step toward resolving one of post-colonial Africa’s bloodiest and most protracted conflicts.

The U.N. Security Council said the peace declaration signed by Ethiopia and Eritrea after 20 years as enemies “represents a historic and significant development with far-reaching positive consequences for the Horn of Africa and beyond.”

Reciprocity Is the Method to Trump’s Madness By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/12/reciprocity-is-the-method-to-trump

Critics of Donald Trump claim there is no rhyme or reason to his foreign policy. But if there is a consistency, it might be called reciprocity.

Trump tries to force other countries to treat the United States as it treats them. In “don’t tread on me” style, he also warns enemies that any aggressive act will be replied to in kind.

The underlying principle of Trump commercial reciprocity it that the United States is no longer powerful or wealthy enough to alone underwrite the security of the West. It can no longer assume sole enforcement of the rules and protocols of the postwar global order.

This year there have been none of the usual Iranian provocations—frequent during the Obama Administration—of harassing American ships in the Persian Gulf. Apparently, the Iranians now realize that anything they do to an American ship will be replied to with overwhelming force.

Ditto North Korea. After lots of threats from Kim Jong Un about using his new ballistic missiles against the United States, Trump warned that he would use America’s far greater arsenal to eliminate North Korea’s arsenal for good.

Trump is said to be undermining NATO by questioning its usefulness some 69 years after its founding. Yet unlike 1948, Germany is no longer down. The United States is always in. And Russia is hardly out, but instead cutting energy deals with the Europeans.

More importantly, most NATO countries have failed to keep their promises to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense.

France Gives Muslim Killer of Elderly Jewish Woman a Pass Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270716/france-gives-muslim-killer-elderly-jewish-woman-daniel-greenfield

Every other Muslim terrorist or killer in Europe has his actions blamed on mental illness or drug use. This just continues the pattern. I wrote about the murder of Sarah Halimi last year.

Sarah Lucy Halimi was thrown out of the window of the third floor Paris apartment while she begged her Muslim killer to spare her life.

The 66-year-old director of an Orthodox Jewish nursery was woken from her sleep when she was violently beaten by her twenty something Muslim neighbor who then dragged her to the window.

She died on the street outside the building where she had lived for thirty years.

The killer had allegedly shouted, “Allahu Akbar”. In the tragic comedy of denial that every Islamic terrorism investigation inevitably becomes, the authorities are still hunting around for his motiv

Yonathan Halimi, Sarah Lucy’s son, describes the killer’s family as being known for its anti-Semitism. “One day, one of the killer’s sisters pushed my sister down the stairs, and the next time she called her a dirty Jew,” he described. Sarah’s brother said that the killer called Sarah and her daughter, “dirty Jews”.

The authorities stonewalled at every turn. And, predictably, the killer gets a pass. Allahu Akbar usually means motive unknown.

TRANSCRIPT: BRANDON STRAKA # WALK AWAY!

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF BRANDON STRAKA’S VIDEO

Once upon a time, I was a liberal.

Well, to be honest, less than a year ago, I was still a liberal.

I became a liberal because I felt I’d found a tribe whose values aligned with my own.

I staunchly reject racism of any kind, I reject the marginalization of any human being based off of their gender or sexual orientation. I reject tyrannical group think, I reject a system which allows an ambitious, misinformed, and dogmatic mob to suppress free speech, create false narratives, and apathetically steamroll over the truth.

I reject the acceptance of junk science and superstition to advance ideological agendas.

I reject hate.

These are the reasons why I became a liberal and these are the same reasons why I am now walking away.

For years now, I have watched as the left has devolved into intolerant, inflexible, illogical, hateful, misguided, ill-informed, un-American, hypocritical, menacing, callous, ignorant, narrow-minded, and at times, blatantly fascistic behavior and rhetoric.

#WalkAway’s Threat to Democrats’ Base A movement launched just weeks ago is crippling the Left. Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270706/walkaways-threat-democrats-base-matthew-vadum

The grassroots #WalkAway movement aimed at getting disaffected Democrats to publicly and conspicuously abandon their increasingly radical, intolerant party is rapidly gaining steam.

The movement, founded in late May by gay hairstylist Brandon Straka, encourages Americans to share their personal stories of disillusionment with the Democratic Party and abandon, or “walk away,” from the party. #WalkAway primarily encourages the rejection of Democrat radicalism, as opposed to proselytizing on behalf of the Republican Party or Donald Trump.

“We want people on the right to use their voices and tell the world the truth about whom they are by making videos telling everyone what it means to be a conservative in America and what your values really are,” states the campaign’s website. “Tell minorities on the left, who have been told their whole lives that they are not welcome on the right because of the bigotry and hatred, that they are welcome. Tell them there is a seat at the table on the right for everybody.”

“This is a movement of Patriots from all walks of life – men, women, black, brown, white, straight, LGBTQ, religious, and non-believers – who share something very important in common. WE ARE ALL AMERICANS and we will not surrender our country.”

Democrats had been sliding left in the Obama era as the party embraced Black Lives Matter, traitor Chelsea Manning, and Antifa, but the slide has been accelerating in recent months as Trump Derangement Syndrome paralyzes their intellectual capacities. Small-c communist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s shocking upset victory in a Democrat New York primary race over House Democratic Caucus chairman Joe Crowley on an extreme-left utopian fantasy platform of abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, providing Medicare for All, and guaranteeing jobs for all, hasn’t encountered much pushback from the party establishment. Instead of the revulsion this Marxist ought to inspire, she has been welcomed with open arms. DNC Chairman Tom Perez describes the soon-to-be-congresswoman as the “future of our party.”

It is against this disturbing backdrop that the #WalkAway movement was founded.

President Trump Confronts NATO Free Riders Takes Germany to task for filling Russia’s coffers. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270713/president-trump-confronts-nato-free-riders-joseph-klein

President Trump’s visit to Brussels for the two-day NATO summit got off to an intense start. “It’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia,” President Trump said at the outset of a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday morning. “We are protecting Germany, we are protecting France, we are protecting all of these countries and then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they are paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. I think that is very inappropriate.” The president went on to characterize Germany as “a captive of Russia” because of its dependence on Russia to meet its energy needs.

President Trump also repeated his oft-stated criticism that other NATO members were not paying their fair share for collective defense. “Many countries owe us,” the president said before attending the summit at NATO headquarters. “The United States is paying far too much and other countries are not paying enough… This has been going on for decades, for decades, it’s disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the United States.”

German officials did not take President Trump’s barbs lightly.

Israel hosts UAE military delegation to review F-35s: report UAE reportedly aiming to be second Middle East country to get fifth-generation fighter

http://www.atimes.com/article/israel-hosts-uae-military-delegation-to-review-f-35s-report/

In a show of what some are calling a burgeoning Israeli-Gulf alliance against Iran, a military delegation from the United Arab Emirates is said to have traveled to Israel to get a first-hand look at advanced F-35 fighter jets acquired from the US.

Israel’s i24NEWS reported the event, citing unnamed sources who said that a US delegation was also present for the visit.

The UAE is said to be looking to become the second Middle Eastern country, after Israel, to have the fifth-generation fighter jet.

Israel received its first delivery of the Lockheed Martin-made stealth aircraft in 2016 and declared this year that it was the first country to use the jet in combat. It was later reported that the chief of the Israeli Air Force was chided by cabinet members for showing off the plane’s exploits with a photo of an Israeli F-35 flying above Lebanon.

David Goldman :NATO’s problem is that Europeans won’t fight It is refreshing to hear an American president call the Europeans out for the sybarites and deadbeats they are

http://www.atimes.com/article/natos-problem-is-that-europeans-wont-fight/

President Trump outraged European opinion by denouncing his allies on the far side of the Atlantic for their failure to meet NATO’s spending target of 2% of GDP.

Other alliance members, he added, should spend 4% of their output on defense, just like America does. His dudgeon at the Europeans was more than justified: the Europeans really are deadbeats who don’t pay their fair share of the cost of defending their own countries and leave the burden in the hands of American soldiers and taxpayers.

Trump’s remonstrations will fall on deaf ears. Why should Europeans spend money on arms, when they have no intention of using them?
A recent opinion poll found that small minorities in the core European members of NATO were willing to fight for their country under any circumstances.

Catalyzing Innovation via Centers, Labs, and Foundries Chuck Brooks

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2018/07/11/catalyzing-innovation-via-centers-labs-and-foundries/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

The cornerstone of collaboration is based on knowledge transfer; sharing of research tools, methodologies and findings; and sometimes combining mutual funding resources to meet shortfalls necessary to build prototypes and commercialize technologies.

Collaborations often involve combinations of government, industry and academia who work together to meet difficult challenges and cultivate new ideas. A growing trend for many leading companies is creating technology specific innovation centers, labs, and foundries to accelerate collaboration and invention.

As the development of new technologies continues to grow exponentially and globally, collaboration has more value as a resource for adapting to the rapidly emerging technologies landscape by establishing pivotal connections between companies, technologies and stakeholders.

In the US Federal government, the National Labs (including: Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, Argonne, Sandia, Idaho National Laboratory, Battelle, and Brookhaven, and Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC’s), and federally funded Centers For Excellence have been outlets for innovation and public/private cooperation. The benefits of the Labs’ role include experienced capability in rapid proto-typing of new technologies ready for transitioning, showcasing and commercialization. The Labs are a reservoir of specialized skills and capabilities with the best state-of-the art facilities for testing and evaluation of technologies.