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September 2023

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Oslo is dead: A Palestinian state will never exist Michael Freund

By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-758080

Thirty years on, we can say with confidence that Oslo and everything that it stood for is dead. Rather than trying to revive it, we would do well to offer it a fitting eulogy.

Next week marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords, one of the most colossal strategic errors in modern Israel’s history.

Three decades after prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO terrorist-in-chief Yasser Arafat shook hands as a beaming US president Bill Clinton looked on, the smiles have long ago been erased thanks to the disaster wrought by the agreement.

And since the legacy of that catastrophic capitulation by the Jewish state is still very much with us, it is worth gazing back, however briefly, at the folly of that regrettable attempt to appease terror with territory.

Tossing logic to the wind, and blithely ignoring the warnings of senior IDF officials as well as the opposition, Rabin and foreign minister Shimon Peres inexplicably decided to rescue Arafat from political oblivion.

Despite his ignominious career ordering the hijacking of airlines and cruise ships, plotting school massacres, and reveling in the murder of innocents, Arafat was suddenly granted legitimacy as a “partner” by Israel’s government thanks to Oslo. 

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

From Kublai to Xi: Old and New Silk Road by Amir Taheri

By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19963/china-xi-new-silk-road

Under China’s Mongol rulers, the Silk Road was a private enterprise scheme, an example of capitalist free trade producing prosperity. Xi’s folie, however, is an exercise in command economy of the kind known as “socialist planning.”

At a time when the Chinese economy has entered a bumpy patch, how has Xi’s folie project done so far?

Launching “white elephants” in Sri Lanka led to the island nation’s bankruptcy and produced regime change in Colombo, while turning China into number-one hate figure for people hit by economic collapse under the burden of debt.

In some places, such as Kazakhstan, infrastructure built in Soviet era has been revamped as new; a case of painting the canary to pass it on as parrot.

In what could become a domino effect, at least 20 states are on the verge of default because half of their national budget goes for servicing foreign debt, mostly to China. Ghana and Zambia have already defaulted, and Pakistan has just been saved with a $3 billion handout from the International Monetary Fund.

(China refuses to join the Paris Club of 22 countries, top global creditors, thus avoiding rescheduling of debts. Xi can demand payment of debts he grants even before contracts end.)

Xi’s belief that his global folie would benefit China alone is also wrong. If there is a railway or a port or a canal somewhere, everyone would be able to use it, everyone including China’s real or imagined rivals such as the US, the European Union and Japan.

President Xi! Please note that humans resent getting favors even if the donor is sincere.

Ingratitude is part of human rights.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Administration Bypassing Americans, Violating US Law, to Appease Regime of Iran by Majid Rafizadeh

By on September 10th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19959/biden-bypassing-americans-appeasing-iran

The Biden administration has been accused of secretly bypassing US laws to reach a deal with Iran’s Islamist regime.

On August 10, the Biden administration apparently cut a “deal” excluding Congress and keeping the American people and U.S. regional allies in the dark — even though they are the ones who would be the most directly affected by a “deal.”

The United States agreed to pay $6 billion dollars and release a handful of Iranian nationals who are serving prison sentences in the US, in exchange for the release of five Iranian-Americans imprisoned in Iran. The sum comes to more than a billion dollars per head — possibly largest hostage ransom payment in America’s history — and that makes every American on foreign soil a juicy mark.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul accused President Joe Biden on August 21 of breaking a 2015 law, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) by secretly negotiating and reaching a nuclear “understanding” with the Iranian regime alongside a hostage release deal.

“I urge the Administration to remember that U.S. law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress pursuant to INARA.” — US Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to President Joe Biden, August 15, 2023.

“At least $16 billion has now been made available to Iran without any congressional input—and more might be on the way. Another $6.7 billion is reportedly moving to Iran via the International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights… and reportedly … another $3 billion of regime assets frozen in Tokyo. India and China….” — Richard Goldberg, former White House Security official, thedispatch.com, August 15, 2023.

How could the Biden administration keep the American people and allies such as Israel in the dark when the Iran’s ruling mullahs have made it clear that a top priority is to attack the US, eradicate the Jewish state and “wipe Israel off the map”?

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