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September 2018

The British Labour Party’s New Definition of Anti-Semitism by Denis MacEoin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12965/labour-party-antisemitism

It was clear that the Chakrabarti inquiry, described by the head of a parliamentary committee as a “whitewash”, had ignored a vast swathe of submissions, chiefly from Jewish leaders, writers, and activists.
Clearly, Jeremy Corbyn is betting that in the Britain today, anti-Semitism is quite literally the winning ticket.

The caveat is clearly designed to let anyone accused of such biased criticism (a central feature of Labour anti-Semitism in the past) wriggle out of demands for their removal and allow Labour to dismiss all but the most unspeakable forms of anti-Semitism.

Britain’s Labour Party, which remains the chief opposition to the current Conservative government, has struggled to throw off a reputation for condoning anti-Semitism and harbouring large numbers of anti-Semites in its ranks. Revelation after revelation of anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, and anti-Israel utterances, resolutions, and internal investigations have brought the party into serious disrepute and given the media and their political opponents endless opportunities justifiably to label the party with charges of racism. Anti-racism is, quite rightly, a value presumably respected by most people. Writing in British Future in April, Sunder Katwala says he spoke to an anti-racism rally for his local Labour group:

“I told the audience that Labour has been a trailblazer on race. That if you looked around the world, it might be difficult to find any other political party that has taken so much pride in having been a pioneer in fighting racism.”

So far, so good. Katwala, however, immediately continued:

“But I also spoke of my sadness that a party with that tradition and that history still has so much work to do today when it comes to tackling antisemitism in the Labour party itself.”

Now, this is really curious: the most anti-racist party standing accused by many of its own members and MPs of being anti-Semitic. How has that happened and how has it recently been reinforced by a decision made this July by the party’s National Executive Committee?

Before that, it might be helpful to quote part of a recent speech made in the House of Commons on April 16 by Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish Labour MP. She spoke during a lengthy parliamentary session devoted to anti-Semitism, when many fine speeches were made, and at the end she received a standing ovation. Her words shocked everyone in the chamber:

Over the past two years, however, I have experienced something genuinely painful: attacks on my identity from within my own Labour family. I have been the target of a campaign of abuse, attempted bullying and intimidation from people who would dare to tell me that people like me have no place in the party of which I have been a member for over 20 years, and which I am proud to represent on these Benches. My mum was a senior trade union official; my grandad was a blacklisted steelworker who became a miner. I was born into our movement as surely as I was born into my faith. It is a movement that I have worked for, campaigned for and fought for during my entire adult life, so it was truly heart-breaking to find myself in Parliament Square just over three weeks ago, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community against the poison of anti-Semitism that is engulfing parts of my own party and wider political discourse.

If the House will indulge me, I would like to read out a small sample of what I have received on social media…

“Hang yourself you vile treacherous Zionist Tory filth. You are a cancer of humanity.”

Abbas: The Same Mistakes as Arafat by A. Z. Mohamed

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12920/abbas-arafat-mistakes

The question that needs to be asked is: Is it Palestinian public opinion, brought on by decades of incitement, that is pressuring Abbas into embarking on his anti-peace and anti-Israel rhetoric?
Abbas has chosen to endorse a legacy that he himself denounced in 2011. This legacy does not consider the lack of a Palestinian state to be the problem, but the existence of a Jewish and democratic state. It is a legacy that does not believe in peace with Israel but peace without Israel.

The majority of Abbas’s people do not trust him, are dissatisfied with his leadership, and demand that he resign. He is unable and unwilling to help his people abandon nationalist and Islamist delusions and myths representing outdated objectives, beliefs, and rhetoric. At this point, he cannot grow out of them. In short, Abbas has duplicated the mistakes of Arafat.

Why did Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently reject an offer to meet with White House advisors Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt?

According to a report in the London-based, Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat, Abbas viewed the reported offer as an attempt by the Americans to push the Palestinians into agreeing to a peace process favorable to Israel.

Abbas and his PA leadership have been boycotting the US administration since President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017.

Abbas’s refusal to meet with the Trump envoys did not come as a surprise. In fact, in light of his anti-Israel rhetoric in the past few months, the Palestinian leader’s decision was expected.

Consider, for example, what Abbas said in an address to the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in January 2018, in which he approvingly quoted Egyptian intellectual Abdel-Wahab El-Messiri’s denial of the 3,000-year Jewish connection to Israel:

“The functional nature of Israel means that it was evoked by colonialism in order to fulfill a specific function, and thus it constitutes a colonialist enterprise that has nothing to do with Judaism.”

The Most Dangerous Countries in Europe for Women Have Large Muslim Immigration Statistics link Muslim immigration in Europe to sexual violence. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271213/most-dangerous-countries-europe-women-have-large-daniel-greenfield

Sweden has one of Europe’s highest rates of sexual assaults.

At 120.79 violent sexual assaults per 100,000 people, and 56 rapes per 100,000, the otherwise bleak socialist country ranks as having the second highest rate of sexual violence in Europe.

What makes Sweden so exceptionally dangerous for women? Its militant feminism is embedded in its political culture and its educational system. Sweden has boasted of a “feminist foreign policy”, 61% of Swedes in one survey identified as feminists and hold the strongest views on “gender equality” of any Europeans. Swedes are the most likely to believe that it’s okay for men to cry. Only 11% believe that women should take care of the home and only 10% believe that it’s a man’s job to support his family.

A local branch of the Left Party in Sweden even demanded that men urinate while sitting down.

And then there are the Czechs, just 13% identify as feminists, 77% think that a woman’s place is in the home, yet the sexual assault rate is 7.79 per 100,000, a tiny fraction of feminist Sweden.

If the real issues were feminism and toxic masculinity, if sufficient educational indoctrination about the evils of masculinity is needed to “teach men not to rape”, women should be safest in Sweden.

So what went wrong?

Instead of traveling from Stockholm to Prague, let’s take a closer trip over to neighboring Finland.

Finland has a third of Sweden’s rape rates and a quarter of its sexual assault rates. Its numbers are still far higher than most of Europe, but nowhere near those of Sweden.

What could possibly explain the difference?

Liberalism as Imperialism By Yoram Hazony

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/liberalism-as-imperialism-dogmatic-utopianism-elites-america-europe/

The dogmatic utopianism of elites on both sides of the Atlantic is not without its costs.

Editor’s Note: The following excerpt is adapted from Mr. Hazony’s latest book, The Virtue of Nationalism. It appears here with permission.

My liberal friends and colleagues do not seem to understand that the advancing liberal construction is a form of imperialism. But to anyone already immersed in the new order, the resemblance is easy to see. Much like the pharaohs and the Babylonian kings, the Roman emperors and the Roman Catholic Church until well into the modern period, as well as the Marxists of the last century, liberals, too, have their grand theory about how they are going to bring peace and economic prosperity to the world by pulling down all the borders and uniting mankind under their own universal rule. Infatuated with the clarity and intellectual rigor of this vision, they disdain the laborious process of consulting with the multitude of nations they believe should embrace their view of what is right. And like other imperialists, they are quick to express disgust, contempt, and anger when their vision of peace and prosperity meets with opposition from those who they are sure would benefit immensely by simply submitting.

Liberal imperialism is not monolithic, of course. When President George H. W. Bush declared the arrival of a “new world order” after the demise of the Communist bloc, he had in mind a world in which America supplies the military might necessary to impose a “rule of law” emanating from the Security Council of the United Nations. Subsequent American presidents rejected this scheme, preferring a world order based on unilateral American action in consultation with European allies and others. Europeans, on the other hand, have preferred to speak of “transnationalism,” a view that sees the power of independent nations, America included, as being subordinated to the decisions of international and administrative bodies based in Europe. These disagreements over how the international liberal empire is to be governed are often described as if they are historically novel, but this is hardly so. For the most part, they are simply the reincarnation of threadworn medieval debates between the emperor and the Pope over how the international Catholic should be governed — with the role of emperor being reprised by those (mostly Americans) who insist that authority must be concentrated in Washington, the political and military center; and the role of the papacy being played by those (mostly European, but also many American academics) who see ultimate authority as residing with the highest interpreters of the universal law, namely, the judicial institutions of the United Nations and the European Union.

These arguments within the camp of liberal imperialism raise pressing questions for the coming liberal construction of the West. But for those who remain unconvinced of the desirability of maintaining such a liberal empire, the most salient fact is what the parties of these disagreements have in common. For all their bickering, proponents of the liberal construction are united in endorsing a single imperialist vision: They wish to see a world in which liberal principles are codified as universal law and imposed on the nations, if necessary by force. This, they agree, is what will bring us universal peace and prosperity. Ludwig von Mises speaks for all the different factions when he writes:

Christopher Steele: International Man of Mystery By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/06/christopher-steele

Who exactly is Christopher Steele? The answer depends on who you ask.

According to our media overlords, he is simply a former British spy, well-regarded by the international intelligence apparatus for his skill and deep connections, and someone whose “integrity, excellence and diligence” should not be questioned. Reporters portray him as an honest broker who tried to warn U.S. law enforcement officials about the Trump campaign’s ties to the Kremlin via his infamous dossier. Steele, we are warned, now is a victim of congressional Republicans desperate to undermine the special counsel’s investigation.

But as the real story emerges about who Christopher Steele is, it raises troubling questions about his influence in the 2016 presidential campaign and in the highest echelons of the U.S. government.

Who Really Colluded with the Russians?
During the 2016 election cycle, Steele was paid by three conflicting sources: The Hillary Clinton campaign; the FBI; and a Russian oligarch tied to Vladimir Putin. This confluence of fiduciary events is the closest evidence yet about legitimate collusion between a presidential campaign and Russian interests, aided by Steele’s pals in the U.S. Department of Justice and helpful reporters in the American news media.

ELECTIONS ARE COMING-NAOMI LEVIN TAKES ON THE DEMOCRAT CARTEL IN NEW YORK

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/naomi_levin_takes_on_the_ny_democratic_cartel.html
Naomi Levin takes on the NY Democratic cartelBy Seth Ian

Entrenched Democrat establishment career politician Jerrold Nadler may have met his match in Naomi Levin. Her campaign website sums it up well: “growing up she was keenly aware that entitlement is not an American value hard work is.” Running as a Republican in the Tenth Congressional District, she seems the perfect foil to Congressman Nadler, a man who supported Obama’s disastrous Iran deal and has made resisting the duly elected President Trump his chief goal.

Levin, the daughter of immigrants from the former USSR, has been interviewed on Fox and Friends. In that interview she contrasts her capitalist views with another NY millennial turned politician. Unlike Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Naomi does not believe in socialism but rather believes in making America great and that it doesn’t need what Obama referred to as a fundamental transformation. Instead, Naomi appreciates this country and wants to cut taxes, which in NY are extremely high.

Naomi Levin is the perfect foil for her opponent. She wants to go to Washington “to influence a system overhaul.” Contrast that with Nadler, a pillar of the Washington establishment since 1993. Her opponent represents the epitome of an establishment which is seeing its political clout fading. Unlike Nadler and the open borders Democrat NY establishment, Naomi Levin supports law enforcement and believes in enforcing immigration law, saying “We also need to control who can cross our border and support our efforts to do that.”

Are Feminists Aiding Muslim Domination? By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/are_feminists_aiding_muslim_domination.html

“What do you think about … creating an awesome festival where only non-men are welcome until ALL men learn how to behave?” This comes from the article titled “Women Cheer as Sweden’s Man-Free Music Festival Kicks Off.” Initiated as a response to the wave of sexual assaults at Swedish festivals in recent years, only female bands are performing, and “neither male security guards nor journalists are allowed to enter.” However, “transgender women [sic] born as men are allowed to attend. Only men who identify with the sex they were born with, also called cis men, are banned.”

Such a radical view balkanizes and scapegoats men while applauding transgender behavior.

In fact, the misandry has led the Swedish Equality Ombudsman, a government agency that promotes equal rights, to “examine whether the festival is compatible with discrimination laws.”

It appears that the left-wing feminist movement has become the perpetrator of man-hatred, all in the name of protecting women. Yet overlooked by the advocates of the man-free festival is that it was a plethora of Muslim migrants who perpetrated the dreadful assaults and rapes. These migrants come from societies where this is considered an acceptable way to treat women. In fact, “no issue is taken with toxic Islamic masculinity. This thinly-veiled excuse-making may be considered an attempt at dispelling anti-Islamic bigotry. Yet, holding woefully low standards for men based on their background is an equally poor form of bigotry.”

Thus, the elephant in the room is being deliberately ignored. Accusations of bigotry must be avoided at all costs. It is easier to inflict collective blame than to deal with the actual guilty parties.

By scapegoating all men, ignored is the fact that Sweden is not providing the proper security to protect its women from sexual assaults. At the same time, the country is spending vast sums of money to support more migrants from the Muslim world. They bring their culture and religion to bear, and it is decidedly anti-female.

No one in authority dares question why there has been an increase in sexual assaults. No one dares wonder why the Islamic world does nothing to assist its own brethren while the West is expected to pick up the tab.

Environmentalists Need to Get Real The problem isn’t climate-change denial. It’s doubt that activists have the answers.By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/environmentalists-need-to-get-real-1536010580

“Many environmentalists fail to grasp that the real problem isn’t skepticism that the climate is changing, or even that human activity is a leading cause of the change. Millions worry about climate change and believe human activity is in large part responsible. But they do not believe that the climate movement has the answers for the problems it describes. Green policy blunders, like support for ethanol in the U.S. and knee-jerk opposition to nuclear power, erode confidence that environmental activists—who too often have an anticapitalist, Malthusian and technophobic view of the world—can be trusted, to as they often say, to “save the planet.”

Last week French environmental minister Nicolas Hulot, once a prominent supporter of President Emmanuel Macron, threw in the towel. “I don’t want to lie anymore. I don’t want to create the illusion that my presence in the government means that we are on top of [environmental] issues,” he said during a live broadcast announcing his resignation.

Mr. Hulot is not alone among environmentalists in denouncing the hypocrisy and inadequacy of government action on climate change. The Paris accords are “a fraud, really, a fake,” said climate activist James Hansen in 2015. “There is no action, just promises.”

Three years later, Mr. Hansen’s words look prescient. Even ostensibly committed countries like Germany and France are on course to miss the voluntary 2020 targets they announced to such fanfare in 2015. The Climate Action Tracker estimates that only Morocco and Gambia are on a “Paris agreement compatible” path.

The climate-change movement is stuck, even after a scorching summer elevated the issue across much of the Northern Hemisphere. It is powerful enough to command lip service from politicians, but too weak to impose the policies it says are needed to prevent catastrophic change.

British Jews Have Reason to Fear Corbyn’s Labour Party The opposition leader has called Hamas terrorists ‘brothers’ and disparaged even domestic ‘Zionists.’ By Dovid Efune

https://www.wsj.com/articles/british-jews-have-reason-to-fear-corbyns

Lord Jonathan Sacks isn’t known to throw around accusations. So when the Commonwealth’s former chief rabbi weighed in on Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, people took notice.

Rabbi Sacks last week described Mr. Corbyn as “an anti-Semite” who has “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate.” He called one Corbyn comment “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech,” a vicious anti-immigration diatribe. Rabbi Sacks was referring to Mr. Corbyn’s 2013 description of British “Zionists”: “They don’t want to study history and . . . they don’t understand English irony either.” On Sunday Rabbi Sacks doubled down, telling the BBC that the prospect of Mr. Corbyn as prime minister was a “danger” to British Jewry.

In July, 68 leading U.K. rabbis had written an open letter to the Guardian accusing Labour’s leadership of ignoring the Jewish community and the “severe and widespread” anti-Semitism plaguing the party. Shortly after, in an unprecedented move, the country’s three leading Jewish newspapers published joint cover stories describing the potential of a Corbyn-led government as an “existential threat to Jewish life” in Britain.

Some members of Mr. Corbyn’s own party have been unforgiving. A day after Rabbi Sacks’s remarks were published, Labour veteran Frank Field resigned from the party’s group in Parliament over the issue. Another senior party member, Dame Margaret Hodge, furiously confronted Mr. Corbyn in July and called him a “racist and anti-Semite.” Dozens of other party leaders have expressed outrage over the matter.

But Mr. Corbyn and his acolytes are having none of it—and have engaged in concerted efforts to undermine their critics.

A Labour spokesman called Rabbi Sacks’s comments “absurd and offensive.” The party briefly put Ms. Hodge under investigation. Labourites who participated in a March protest over anti-Semitism were accused of attempting to smear the party leader and were threatened with dismissal from the party via a process known as “deselection.” A letter endorsed by thousands of Corbyn supporters alleged that the gathering was the work of a “very powerful special interest group.” For his part, Mr. Corbyn claimed in an interview: “I’m not an anti-Semite in any way, never have been, never will be.” CONTINUE AT SITE

U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn Faces Pressure on Anti-Semitism Accusations Party leaders to meet this week to consider revising code of conduct on anti-Jewish speech and acts By Jason Douglas

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-labour-leader-jeremy-corbyn-faces-pressure-on-anti-semitism-accusations-1535904000?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=undefined&cx_artPos=2#cxrecs_s

LONDON—Tony Flacks joined the British Labour Party in the early 1980s, seeing the center-left group as the natural political home for a high-school teacher working in a rundown North London district blighted by racism and discrimination.

He quit after more than three decades of membership in 2016, angry and fed up at what he perceived as the party’s reluctance to root out an ancient prejudice that he, a British Jew, saw flowering anew within its ranks: anti-Semitism. This year, for the same reason, his 29-year-old daughter followed suit.

Century-old ties between Britain’s Jewish community and the Labour Party are fraying as the U.K.’s main opposition party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, struggle to deal with a crescendo of accusations of anti-Jewish bias.

Some lawmakers fear the controversy is denting Labour’s electoral appeal by overshadowing its attacks on Prime Minister Theresa May’s government over Brexit, housing and other policies voters say they care about.

Officials of the Labour Party, whose governing committee is meeting next week in an attempt to quell the issue, say the party deplores all forms of discrimination. They have pledged tougher penalties for any Labour members engaging in anti-Semitic speech or acts, and Mr. Corbyn has ordered up a program to educate members about anti-Semitism. The Labour leader, who has faced—and denied—several specific allegations of anti-Jewish bias himself, has told British Jews he is their ally in combating hate.Yet the party’s efforts to persuade its supporters and critics that it is tackling the problem have repeatedly fallen flat, and some supporters of the Labour leader have pushed back against the issue. Earlier this year, pollster YouGov PLC found that over 70% of the more than 1,000 Labour members it polled thought accusations of anti-Semitism were being exaggerated in a bid to undermine Mr. Corbyn’s leadership or muffle criticism of Israel.