Displaying posts published in

December 2019

Israel Is a Tech Superpower, and America Needs It on Its Side John Hannah And Annie Fixler

https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2019/12/israel-is-a-tech-superp

The number of AI and cybersecurity startups in Israel makes up close to 20 percent of the world’s total, likely eclipsing China and second only to the United States.

We find ourselves in strong agreement with the two central contentions of Arthur Herman’s valuable new essay in Mosaic, “The Impasse Obstructing U.S.-Israel Relations, and How to Remedy It.” First, China’s growing penetration of Israel’s economy over the past decade, particularly in the high-tech sector, poses real risks to the U.S.-Israel relationship if left unattended. But second, if addressed in a spirit worthy of the profound alliance that has bound these two great liberal democracies together for decades, the China challenge should serve instead as a major opportunity to propel the strategic partnership to new heights.

Indeed, that’s precisely the case that one of us, John Hannah, made in an article earlier this year:

Working together in close consultation, with the protection and strengthening of the alliance uppermost in their minds, [U.S. and Israeli policymakers] should make sure that China becomes the catalyst for the next major leap forward in the U.S.-Israel relationship rather than a dangerous source of division.

Herman is also spot-on in identifying the struggle for technological primacy as the central arena that will shape the geopolitics of the 21st century, in particular the escalating strategic rivalry between, on the one hand, the United States and other free societies, and, on the other hand, China, Russia, and the camp of anti-American authoritarians.

Gideon Sa’ar Cool Tel Avivian or Pro-settler Nationalist? Netanyahu Could Be Ousted by This Man

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001891.html

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces his biggest political challenge to the leadership of Israel’s ruling Likud party for over a decade, when he will be challenged in a Likud primary leadership contest by Gideon Sa’ar (a former journalist, lawyer and then a government minister). If Netanyahu loses, Sa’ar will likely become interim prime minister.

I attach two pieces below, by Anshel Pfeffer in today’s leading left-wing Israeli paper Haaretz, and by Isabel Kershner in the New York Times, a paper that continues to obsess about Israel and devote enormous amounts of space to scrutinizing the small Jewish state while all but ignoring much of the rest of the world.

Pfeffer is a very knowledgeable journalist though sometimes he allows his disdain for Netanyahu and the Likud to cloud the impartiality of his reporting.

Gideon Sa’ar is unlikely to win today’s vote. However, if he makes a strong challenge, as expected, he will set himself up as the clear favorite to succeed Netanyahu should Netanyahu fail to win the Israeli election on March 2 (the third general election in Israel in less than a year) and Netanyahu is then forced from power. (Sa’ar would likely then form a unity government with Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz.)

UN, UK Treating Persecuted Christians as “Enemies” by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15311/persecuted-christians-enemies

“You have this absurd situation where the scheme is set up to help Syrian refugees and the people most in need, Christians who have been ‘genocided,’ they can’t even get into the U.N. camps to get the food. If you enter and say I am a Christian or convert, the Muslim U.N. guards will block you [from] getting in… and even threaten you…” — Paul Diamond, British Human Rights Lawyer, CBN News, December 4, 2019.

Lord George Carey is suing the UK Home Office for allegedly being “institutionally biased” against Christian refugees and therefore complicit in what he calls “the steady crucifixion of Middle East Christians.”

When it comes to offering asylum, the UK “appears to discriminate in favour of Muslims” instead of Christians. Statistics seemed to confirm this allegation: “out of 4,850 Syrian refugees accepted for resettlement by the Home Office in 2017, only eleven were Christian….” — Barnabas Fund, November 2, 2017.

A number of other Christian orderlies were also denied visas, including another nun with a PhD in biblical theology from Oxford; another nun denied for not having a personal bank account; and a Catholic priest denied for not being married.

Christian “infidels” need not apply, but radical Muslims are welcomed with open arms.

The United Nations Refugee Agency appears to be committed to blocking persecuted Christians from receiving any assistance. According to a recent CBN News report:

Christian Syrian refugees … have been blocked from getting help from the United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, by Muslim UN officials in Jordan.

One of the refugees, Hasan, a Syrian convert to Christianity, told us in a phone call that Muslim UN camp officials “knew that we were Muslims and became Christians and they dealt with us with persecution and mockery. They didn’t let us into the office. They ignored our request.”

Chanukah, Christmas, and Western civilization By Richard Moss

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/chanukah_christmas_and_western_civilization.html

excerpt:

That Chanukah and Christmas are closely linked in the calendar is fitting for the message they each bring. The two faiths, Judaism and Christianity, taken together as the Judeo-Christian tradition, is the foundation of Western and American civilization.  Western nations are the greatest in the world because they are informed by Judeo-Christian principles.  It is in the West where human rights, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, music and the arts, science and technology have flourished and where slavery was ended. These are the nations that inhabitants from the rest of the world seek to live.  It is in Western nations where citizens are most free and enjoy the greatest prosperity.  It is not an accident. 

We must dedicate ourselves to preserving America, the West, and Western civilization, by preserving its Judeo-Christian tradition.  The light of Chanukah and Christmas must continue to burn, and illumine the night, pushing away the darkness that is always present, the norm for most of history. They should guide us and our nation and the West for all time.  It is what distinguishes us from the rest, our values, our devotion to truth, knowledge, goodness, beauty, and reason, the belief in the sanctity of the individual made in the image of God, rejecting the moral and cultural relativism of the post-modern left and the totalitarian threat of unreformed Islam.  We must rededicate ourselves in our current battle as the Maccabees did against the Greeks and as Israel did against the Arab armies that sought its destruction in 1948 and has done ever since against its many enemies.

The spirit of Chanukah and Christmas should inspire us.  Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas to all.

Hanukkah and the Occupation that isn’t By Steve Postal

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/hanukkah_and_the_occupation_that_isnt.html

It looks like the holidays cannot be complete without warped political messages. Representative Rashida Tlaib, a known anti-Semite, wished the Jews of IfNotNow a happy Hanukkah. In doing so, however, she supported the organization’s 2020 goals of “defunding the occupation in Falestine [sic] and fighting antisemitism and white nationalism.” IfNotNow claims it is “building a movement of Jews to end Israel’s occupation and transform the American Jewish community.” It also has extensive ties to American Muslims for Palestine, an organization in turn founded by groups that the U.S. government has claimed financed Hamas.

Tlaib and IfNotNow are attempting to accomplish what the Greeks tried and ultimately failed to do many years ago — deny the Jews religious and sovereign rights in their ancestral homeland of Judea and Samaria.

Give, Don’t Govern By John Stossel

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/give-dont-govern/

Big hearts are a good thing. Big government is no substitute for them.

This week, children may learn about that greedy man, Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is selfish until ghosts scare him into thinking about others’ well-being, not just his own.

Good for the ghosts.

But the way Scrooge addresses others’ needs matters.

Today’s advocates of equality, compassion, increased spending on education, health care, etc., say “we care” but demand that government do the work.

Controlling other people with the power of government doesn’t prove you care.

If you want to help the poor, clean the environment, improve the arts. Great! Please do.

But if you are compassionate, then you’ll spend your own money on your vision. You will volunteer your work and encourage others to volunteer theirs, by charity or commerce. You don’t force others to do what you think is best.

But government is not voluntary.

Government has no money of its own. Whatever it gives away, it first must take from others through taxes.

If you vote for redistribution of wealth, welfare benefits, new Medicare spending or free education, you can tell yourself you’re “generous.”

Transitioning American Foreign Policy By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/transitioning-american-foreign-policy/

For better or worse, we are returning to the mentality that followed Vietnam until the first Gulf War.

Both officially and unofficially, Trump’s foreign policy has been described as “principled realism.” What does that mean?

Neither nation building nor apologetic isolationism? Hurting Iran by not sending ground troops into the Middle East, but by ratcheting up sanctions and deterrent U.S. naval and air power in the region?

More often, proponents define that term as punishing enemies and helping friends, and thereby persuading observant neutrals to make the right choices. Principled realism is charitably described as an effort to enhance U.S. power, commercially and economically, but to use it sparingly abroad for U.S. interests — and with maximum effect when force is called upon.

Critics, on the other hand, lament that America has now become isolationist, and overly “nationalistic” in diminishing the role of idealism in its foreign policy. The United States is supposedly cynically resigned to the idea that the world is forever a dark and gloomy place and the U.S. can hardly lead a crusade to bring consumer capitalism, democracy, and human rights to 7 billion people.

Yet most would agree that the U.S. is not so much withdrawing from its 75-year postwar role of leadership of the free world as much as radically redefining it.

Ruthie Blum: Happy Hanukkah from Trump and Johnson Two world leaders convey much more than conventionally sappy, Hallmark card-like messages to Jews celebrating the Festival of Lights.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/happy-hanukkah-from-trump-and-johnson/

Politicians across the globe have been issuing holiday greetings in public statements and on social media. It’s a standard practice every December, particularly when Hanukkah and Christmas actually coincide, as they do now.

This year is exceptional, however, with two world leaders conveying much more than conventionally sappy, Hallmark card-like messages to Jews celebrating the Festival of Lights. Yes, U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson each bestowed a gift befitting of the story and celebration of Hanukkah—the defeat of Antiochus and his attempt to Hellenize Jews and wipe out Judaism.

Trump’s present, which he delivered at the annual White House Hanukkah party, was the Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism. Its stated aim is to stamp out the growing Jew-hatred on American college campuses by warning educational institutions that tolerating such behavior would result in the withholding of government funding (i.e., taxpayers’ money) from them.

Though the president’s crucial document is under attack by a number of groups, including Never Trumpers, BDS supporters and left-wing Jews with a convoluted view of the E.O.’s contents, it is about as close to a Hanukkah miracle as one can get these days.

Trump’s move came less than a week after the landslide victory of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose fostering of anti-Semitism in his party was so blatant that even longtime Jewish supporters were unable to deny it.

THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD

Yes, tiny Israel with 9 million people, the size of New Jersey is number 8!  The U.S. is 473 times the size of Israel. 
Happy Holidays from Janet Levy.

According to U.S. News and World Report, the most powerful countries in 2019 are:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/power-rankings
1.   United States
2.   Russia
3.   China
4.  Germany
5.  United Kingdom
6.  France
7.  Japan
8.  Israel
9.  Saudi Arabia
10. South Korea
11.  United Arab Emirates
12.  Canada
13.  Iran
14.  Switzerland
15.  Australia
16.  Turkey
17.    India
18.   Italy
19.   Iraq
20.  Singapore
21.   Sweden
22.  Pakistan
23.  Spain
24.  Qatar
25.  Belgium
26.  Netherlands
27.  Norway
28.  Denmark
29.  Egypt
30.  Brazil

THE FBI’S DARKEST HOUR Adam Mill

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/22/the-fbis-darkest-hour/

One can imagine the unspoken question hanging in the darkness during the January 2017 ride back to the airport. A small gaggle1 of FBI agents had just concluded their long-overdue interview with Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source. The silence must have been deafening. Steele had tried to conceal2 his source from the FBI. But the FBI knew his identity and set up an interview behind Steele’s back, and the interview contradicted several Steele assertions. The downcast agents waited for somebody to ask the question on all of their minds: “Now what?”

The right answer would have been to admit to the court that Steele was an unreliable source who exaggerates and lies and put an end to spying on Americans in pursuit of the mirage of Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia. 

When presented one last opportunity to do the right thing, the FBI instead pushed harder for their now-discredited hypothesis justifying the investigation. Peter Strzok had promised his lover, Lisa Page, he would “save” the country from Donald Trump. Given a choice between bringing the FBI back into the light of the Constitution or the darkness of blind hatred of Donald Trump, the conspirators choose darkness. It was at this precise moment that the FBI left behind any plausible deniability of “mistake” or “sloppiness.” From this point on, the FBI’s participation in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax became willful and intentional. 

This is the FBI’s darkest hour. The next time the FBI prepared a warrant renewal application, it misrepresented the interview to make it appear as though the source confirmed Steele’s fairytale. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a deliberate defrauding of a court.