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WORLD NEWS

It’s not just us. Western democracies are fragmenting. Richard Pildes –

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/opinions-it-s-not-just-us-western-democracies-are-fragmenting/ar-AAZCpNO?cvid=4689798c14724d5fab4b32a8a5fa9bf7

Three major elections on the same Sunday in June — in France, Colombia and Spain — tell the fundamental story of democracy in our era: the continuous disaffection with government, the collapse of traditionally dominant parties and figures, and the constant search for alternatives — which is quickly followed by yet more disaffection and the search for yet other alternatives. This is no longer a narrative of dysfunction distinctive to one country, if it ever was. The Conservative Party in Britain is now scrambling to find a new prime minister; the government in Italy is near collapse. The nature of political authority has fundamentally changed. Political power has become fragmented, as voters abandon traditional parties and turn to upstart, insurgent parties or independent, free agent politicians from across the political spectrum.

In multiparty democracies, such as the three that held elections last month, the fragmentation of political power makes it more difficult to form governments, causes those governments to be fragile and prone to collapse, and weakens their capacity to deliver effective policies. Politics in the United States, with our well-entrenched two-party system, are nonetheless being shaped by similar forces — although here fragmentation means the Democratic and Republican parties are torn by internal factional conflicts that party leaders struggle to surmount. Such battles made the House Republican caucus ungovernable when Reps. John Boehner and Paul Ryan took turns as House speaker, leading both to abandon that powerful position. They’re also why the Democratic Party damaged itself, perhaps irreparably for this year’s midterms, with a prolonged internal debate over whether to link major infrastructure legislation with the grander aspirations of the Build Back Better bill, as well as conflicts between the party’s moderate and progressive wings that have hamstrung immigration policy and kept critical bipartisan legislation to boost U.S. chip manufacturing in prolonged limbo. Even with unified control of government, the parties find it difficult to govern.

The Acute Danger of Iran’s Belligerence :Catherine Shakdam

https://merionwest.com/2022/07/14/the-acute-danger-of-irans-belligerence/

“Our collective inability to push back against such a hateful worldview by holding Tehran accountable for the terror it is has funded and weaponized could soon prove to be a costly mistake.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran has seldom hid its desire to see Israel fall or, as its Leadership has put it, “annihilated.” But Tehran’s attitude toward its Jewish neighbor has grown significantly more heated as of late. It is a sign, no doubt, that due to its inability to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and see the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) rebranded as a legitimate apparatus, Iran may consider more radical actions.

Although Tehran has hidden behind its proxies for decades, and many have argued that it would never directly engage Israel militarily, we should not discount its newfound confidence as it believes to have Israel surrounded. Iran’s military strategy toward Israel was summarized in 2019 by Major General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the Research Division of Israeli Military Intelligence, as “the ring of fire.” The term refers to Iran’s efforts to expand its precision guided missile project throughout the Middle East to encircle Israel and overwhelm its defenses.

For decades now, the Islamic Republic has architected a narrative around anti-Zionism, advocating not only for the destruction of Israel but also for the expulsion of its people, the Jews, from the region altogether–painting its motive as an act of grand liberation. Our collective inability to push back against such a hateful worldview by holding Tehran accountable for the terror it is has funded and weaponized could soon prove to be a costly mistake.

How Can Western Civilization Survive with Reviled Institutions? by J.B. Shurk

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18711/reviled-institutions

A Monmouth University poll released on July 5 reveals that 57% of Americans believe that U.S. federal government actions over the last six months have directly hurt their families. In that same poll, Monmouth compiles the 22 most important priorities of the American people. Neither Russia’s war in Ukraine nor Congress’s January 6 Committee hearings appear anywhere on the list; instead, the top four issues all deal with skyrocketing inflation and economic uncertainty.

A new Gallup poll documents a precipitous drop in Americans’ confidence across 16 major institutions, including historic lows for confidence in newspapers, the criminal justice system, big business, police, and all three branches of the federal government. The survey’s results represent the lowest overall institutional confidence ever recorded in its decades-long survey history, and not a single institution reflected an increase in confidence over last year’s measures. Only 7% of Americans have a “Great deal / Quite a lot” of confidence in Congress, while only 11% feel similarly about television news.

Only adding to Westerners’ perception of widespread institutional corruption, an investigation by the British Medical Journal recently documented pervasive conflicts of interest within Western drug and health regulatory agencies whose budgets are funded primarily by monetary gifts from major pharmaceutical companies, the very industry players whose products the government agencies are charged with regulating.

Westerners increasingly do not trust their governments or their major news media to report accurate and reliable information. They increasingly view government actors as perpetuating two standards of justice and economic security — one for those at the very top of society’s pyramid of wealth and power and one for everyone else.

Westerners increasingly do not trust their governments or their major news media to report accurate and reliable information. They increasingly view government actors as perpetuating two standards of justice and economic security — one for those at the very top of society’s pyramid of wealth and power, and one for everyone else.

Surely Western authorities cannot expect to maintain long-term legitimacy if their populations judge governing institutions as irredeemably marred by corruption and political leaders as indifferent, if not downright hostile, to ordinary citizens’ wants and needs.

It has become fashionable for Western politicians to divide up the global chessboard between virtuous “democracies” struggling for world peace and threatening “dictatorships” causing hardship and chaos. Whatever the West’s “democracies” are today, however, they are not bastions for representing honestly their peoples’ most dire concerns, nor are they above doling out to their citizenries hefty portions of hardship and chaos.

Institutions can be broadly categorized as those that are created and maintained through human cooperation and consent and those that require force and coercion to endure. In a “democratic” society, cooperation and consent are the principal building blocks, as well as tools, for fashioning strong institutions capable of surviving unknown threats and unexpected emergencies.

What happens when consent is replaced by government force and coercion? Laws lose legitimacy. News sources are reduced to pure propaganda. Political disagreement turns to bloodshed and murder. It is as if society’s cement has instead been replaced by strongmen trying to squeeze humanity’s discreet blocks together with sheer muscle…

Western authorities cannot expect to maintain long-term legitimacy if their populations judge governing institutions as irredeemably marred by corruption and political leaders as indifferent, if not downright hostile, to ordinary citizens’ wants and needs.

Stephen Moore: How Angela Merkel’s Green Agenda Caused the Economic Collapse of Germany It turns out that peace through weakness is a failed national and economic security strategy.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/how-angela-merkels-green-agenda-caused-economic-stephen-moore/

Remember how the world, especially the American media, fawned over former German Chancellor Angela Merkel?

The adoration was so over the top that in 2015 Time magazine named Merkel its “Person of the Year.” It described her as the “Chancellor of the Free World.”

Time owes whatever readers it has left a solemn apology. Today, Germans are suffering the bitter fruits of nearly every major economic and geopolitical decision Merkel made as chancellor.

Start with the German economy that she attempted to reset for the 21st century, which is reminiscent of how President Joe Biden explains to inflation-weary voters that we are going through “an incredible transition.”

But Merkel’s Germany was ahead of us in its “transition.” Today, the German economy is in tatters. A recent headline from Business Insider summarized the chaos: “German Industries Could Collapse Due to Russia Natural Gas Supply Cutbacks.” The Daily Telegraph recently described Germany as “the sick man of Europe.” Things are getting so desperate that the Germans are now considering rationing gas for their major industries to keep the lights on.

Russia Gives NATO New Lease on Life by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18713/russia-nato

The alliance’s new Strategic Concept, adopted at the NATO Summit in Madrid on June 28-30, focuses on addressing the return of great-power politics, specifically strategic competition with revisionist powers such as Russia and China.

The Strategic Concept affirms collective territorial defense as NATO’s fundamental mission, and effective deterrence as its main objective.

“The Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area…. Its coercive military posture, rhetoric and proven willingness to use force to pursue its political goals undermine the rules-based international order…. In light of its hostile policies and actions, we cannot consider the Russian Federation to be our partner.” — NATO 2022 Strategic Concept.

The 2022 Concept also assesses, for the first time, the “challenges” — France and Germany objected to describing China as a “threat” because it was seen as harmful to European economic interests — posed by Communist Party of China.

Finally, the 2022 Concept commits NATO member states to honor previous pledges on defense spending, but there is no enforcement mechanism.

“The February invasion led to promises for even more spending, but many countries remain disappointments. Last month Germany approved a special €100 billion fund to rearm but still won’t commit to meeting the spending pledge every year. Italy said in March it will hit 2% by 2028, and Belgium managed to be even more hapless with a vow to reach the goal by 2035. Will Mr. Biden do anything to push these laggards in Madrid?” — Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2022.

“If NATO fails to translate words into action now, it could be fatal for the Alliance.” — Ed Arnold, Royal United Services Institute, July 1, 2022.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), responding to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, has announced the biggest overhaul of European defense since the end of the Cold War. By pledging more money, more troops and more unity to deter Russia, NATO leaders have reaffirmed NATO as the cornerstone of transatlantic defense.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Protected the Indo-Pacific Region for the Free World by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18714/shinzo-abe

Perhaps Abe’s most enduring contribution to the Japanese people was successfully to mold their thinking into accepting a greater responsibility for Free World defense.

Abe’s calm demeanor, diplomatic comportment and clarity of thought on strategic security issues helped enable the rapid evolution of the “QUAD” alliance (US, Japan, Australia and India) into a formidable bulwark against Chinese Communist expansionism in the Indo-Pacific.

Abe’s most significant contribution to strengthening security in the Indo-Pacific Region may yet materialize: to amend Japan’s post World War II Constitution to allow Tokyo more aggressively to project military power in the South and East China Seas. Such as addition would be a great boost to Free Asia’s hope to keep the Indo-Pacific secure and free. It is to be hoped that all countries in the region will follow in Abe’s extraordinary footsteps.

Shinzo Abe, the most influential Japanese leader since World II, ushered in accomplishments that were transformative both in Japan’s role as a democratic power in the Indo-Pacific Region and as a dynamic player in international affairs. His aggressive initiatives on defense issues significantly strengthened the US-Japanese Alliance, just as China’s expansionist aspirations in the South and East China Seas were peaking; he continued to push for an increase in Japan’s defense budget right up to his assassination.

Mullah Mischief in Latin America Venezuela becomes a forward base for Iran against the United States. Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/mullah-mischief-latin-america-joseph-puder/

Iran and its primary terror agent, Hezbollah, are a threat not only to the security of Israel and the Arab Gulf states — their tentacles stretch across the globe. In Latin America, Iran is building a strategic response against the United States with a protected base in Venezuela under President Nicolas Maduro. Iran’s build-up of long-range ballistic missiles, and the Russian supply of the lethal S-400 missile system to Iran, pose a serious threat to the security of the United States. These Russian missiles will eventually end up in Venezuela. Russia is poised to retaliate against the U.S. supply of missiles to Ukraine, by arming both Iran and Venezuela with the S-400 missile system.

With the Biden administration’s desperate quest for a nuclear deal with Iran, it is crucial now more than ever for Washington to include Iran’s long-range ballistic missile development onto the nuclear talks agenda among other forums. The Ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran may eventually drop their demand for lifting the U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), since they already have cleverly deceived the western powers by deliberately buying time to be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for several bombs. Robert Malley, the U.S. envoy to the Vienna nuclear negotiations with Iran, recently warned that Iran can “make a nuclear bomb within a matter of weeks.”

Last March, the Biden administration flirted with lifting oil sanctions on Venezuela in order to temper surging oil prices. White House and State Department officials traveled to Caracas, Venezuela to meet with the anti-American President Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator. It seemed as if the Biden administration was willing to fund a ruthless dictator, who is serving Iran’s strategic interests in facilitating an IRGC forward military base against the U.S. At the same time, however, the Biden administration is unwilling to encourage investments in domestic energy production.

Why Arabs Are Fed up With the Palestinians by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18694/arabs-fed-up-with-palestinians

The Palestinians can only blame themselves for antagonizing their Arab brothers and consequently losing the Arab money. The Palestinians have been spitting in the face of the Arab countries, while at the same time expecting these countries to continue funding them.

The Arabs are clearly not as naïve as the Americans and Europeans, who are continuing to pour millions of dollars annually on the Palestinians without conditions and without demanding accountability.

Had the Palestinians welcomed the many peace accords between Israel and the Arab states instead of condemning them and bad-mouthing the Arab leaders, they would have been in a much better situation today. They would have continued to receive financial aid from the Arabs and been able to use this money to build a better future for their children

The Arab countries have more urgent issues to deal with than the corrupt, thankless Palestinian leaders do. You can start with the welfare of their own people. The Palestinian leadership, by contrast, is happy to fail its people by indoctrinating generation after generation with bloodlust for Jews. When Palestinian society finds itself left in the global dust of progress, it can thank its leaders for bringing them to that sorry pass.

The Palestinians are disappointed: their Arab brothers have stopped providing them with financial aid. The truth is that most of the Arab countries long ago turned their backs on the Palestinians. They can only blame themselves for ruining their relations with the rest of the Arab world.

Why Biden’s ‘Gestures’ to The Palestinians Will Not Bring Peace or Stability by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18699/biden-israel-gestures-palestinians

The Biden administration might do itself a favor if it understood that previous “gestures” made by Israel did not contribute to peace and stability in the region, and did not advance any peace process between the Israel and the Palestinians.

There is much that the Palestinian Authority can do to ease tensions and help create a suitable atmosphere for the resumption of the peace process with Israel. The PA could, for example, stop the incitement against Israel, halt payments to families of terrorists, condemn terrorism and crack down on terror groups operating under its control.

It is this unresponsive governance by the Palestinian Authority to everything except killing Jews — not the absence of “gestures” — that strengthens the support for Hamas.

The Palestinians correctly spot these fig-leaf public relations “gestures” as just political plumage for Abbas that does not require him to change how he mistreats them. So why not try Hamas?

It was hard, in fact, to find anyone in the Gaza Strip who saw Israel’s withdrawal as a positive development or as a sign that Israel wanted peace and calm. Instead, it was seen as a validation of terrorism: We shoot, they run. Great! It’s working! So, let’s keep on doing that!

Until today, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group controlling the Gaza Strip, continues to portray the withdrawal as a “defeat” for Israel and “victory” for the terror groups. In addition, Hamas continues to describe the “expulsion” of Israel from the Gaza Strip as a first step towards achieving its goal of eliminating Israel and replacing it with an Iranian-backed Islamist state.

Here is what the official Fatah Facebook page published as late as May 25, 2022: “No statute of limitations will apply to our historical right to take back all the Palestinian land from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, including the [Jordan] River and the [Mediterranean] Sea” — thereby making an alliance with Hamas all the more tempting in order to accelerate the process.

The “gestures” and “concessions” will, in fact, be seen by the Palestinians, like Israel’s retreat from the Gaza Strip, as a reward for their ongoing incitement and terrorism against Israel.

The “gestures” the Biden administration is demanding are, according to the Israeli group Regavim, illegal…

In addition, talk about increasing the Palestinian Authority presence at the Allenby Bridge border crossing between Israel and Jordan — to signal joint sovereignty and authority over Israel’s border and the secession of its control and sovereignty over the Jordan Valley — will only create an immensely destabilizing situation, for which the Biden administration will justly be blamed.

If the PA is unable or unwilling to fight against the Palestinian terror groups, how can it be trusted to assume control over a border crossing between Israel and Jordan? Does the Biden administration seriously believe that Abbas’s representatives at the border crossing would thwart attempts by terrorists to smuggle weapons into Israel?

The US delegation, however, does not seem to care about the Palestinian incitement and terror, or even how the Palestinian people are misgoverned.

The Biden administration is making a big mistake by forcing Israel to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority. Rewarding it for bad behavior will only aggravate tensions between the Palestinians and their government, embolden the extremists among them and drive the Palestinian people even further into the waiting arms of Hamas.

On the eve of President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East, Israel is once again being asked by the US administration to make “gestures” to the Palestinian Authority. The purpose of these measures, according to the Americans, is to strengthen the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.

The Future WHO (World Health Organization) by Pete Hoekstra

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18683/world-health-organization

“The alarming amendments offered by the Biden Administration to the WHO’s International Health Regulations would grant new unilateral authority to [WHO] Director-General Tedros to declare a public health crisis in the United States or other sovereign nations, without any consultation with the U.S. or any other WHO member. Specifically, the Biden Amendment would strike the current regulation that requires the WHO to ‘consult with and attempt to obtain verification from the State Party in whose territory the event is allegedly occurring in,’ ceding the United States’ ability to declare and respond to an infectious disease outbreak within the United States, dependent on the judgment of a corrupt and complicit UN bureaucracy.” — Rep. Chris Smith, ranking member of the House Global Health Subcommittee, May 18, 2022.
The delay was declared by some to be a huge win…. I believe that the time will be used to develop and market even more diabolical policies. Now is not the time to take a victory lap, it is the time to be ever vigilant.
Similar to the U.S. Disinformation Board that the Department of Homeland Security recently proposed, the WHO would now also be empowered to combat supposed disinformation and misinformation. It is disconcerting that governmental institutions and international organizations are seeking the power and public resources to combat what they determine to be misinformation; it is a development that should concern us all.
The Biden Administration, alarmingly, with its proposed 13 amendments, wanted to give this power to an international organization with no transparency, no accountability to the U.S. or anyone else, and an abysmal track record. Most conspicuously, it disregarded warnings from Taiwan about the human-to-human transmissibility of the COVID-19 virus, and instead colluded with the Chinese Communist Party in lying to the world about the danger of the virus while the CCP shut down domestic travel but encouraged foreign travel.
Expectations are already being created for what the result of these actions will be: unsettlingly, they seek to expand on the authorities the Biden Administration was prepared to concede to the WHO.
[H]ere are some steps that can and should be taken. A more than solid case can be made that the WHO failed spectacularly in the current crisis. There must be a laser-like focus pointing out how the WHO’s actions were politicized and its recommendations were many times deeply flawed. Further, Americans must demand that Congress do thorough investigations of the WHO and U.S. funding going to the organization. Those should be complemented by continued efforts to encourage more whistleblowers to expose additional shortcomings or scandals involving the WHO.
Will the U.S. maintain control of its well-being and sovereignty, and those of our allies, or put our trust in failed international organizations?