RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14717/britain-us-toxic-politics

What neither side of this transatlantic tag-team seems to realise is that by putting into words their apparent hatred of the West and its allies, they are exposing themselves as antagonists of the very freedoms that enable them to speak or have economic opportunity without fear of reprisal — freedoms they would never have in Somalia, the Palestinian territories, or many of the tyrannies entrenched on the planet.

What voters can see is that those are the very freedoms that these politicians might try to take away from them, too, if their policies were adopted.

By refusing to rein in his support for a variety of dubious ideas and bedfellows, Corbyn has seen his popularity dwindle to almost nothing, and turn the Labour Party into a brand that even formerly like-minded outlets now call toxic.

In the often staid world of politics, the allure of the outsider appeals to a desire for change. Sometimes all it takes to impress the public in today’s political climate is to look and sound the part.

The rise and continuing slide of UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, however, is a good example of what happens when the vote-hungry-courting of a certain demographic backfires, something that his far-left US counterparts — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley & Rashida Tlaib — the newly minted “Squad” — might do well to take on board.

Propelled to into the limelight by the same anti-economic-freedom wave, Ocasio-Cortez & Co, despite the age gap, share more in common with Jeremy Corbyn than the other white-haired Socialist, Bernie Sanders, ever did.

As a long-time outspoken ambassador for a variety of unsavoury organisations, whose interests clearly sit at odds with those of the UK, Corbyn has succeeded in alienating himself — and his party — from both traditional Labour voters and mainstream politics. For all of his frenzied endeavours to sound relevant, his efforts seem to have backfired. Instead of focusing his attention on Britain’s infrastructure or the needs of the working class — the very people Labour traditionally represented — Corbyn’s adoption of the populist-progressive memes of the day, and his allying himself to too many “controversial” causes, has resulted in his becoming sidelined. As a result, Boris Johnson, is almost certain to remain prime minister for the foreseeable future.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-agrees-to-restart-trade-talks-as-white-house-delays-new-tariffs/

After several weeks in which negotiations over a potential trade deal between the world’s two largest economies had stalled, Chinese and U.S. officials spoke over the phone Tuesday, with China’s Ministry of Commerce announcing afterward that the two powers plan to speak again in the coming weeks.

“Both sides agree to talk again on the phone within two weeks,” the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

Chinese vice premier Liu He spoke Tuesday night with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, according to the statement. They were joined by Chinese commerce minister Zhong Shan and Central Bank governor Yi Gang.

News of the reignited negotiations came as Lighthizer’s office announced the U.S. will delay a planned 10 percent tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imports.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14713/palestinians-gaza-hamas-revolt

“Fifteen years ago, Hamas raised the slogan of ‘Islam is the solution’…. Now, there is rampant corruption [under Hamas]. The corruption is in all institutions, including the judiciary and the police. Today, the corruption is organized and managed by Hamas. The corruption is at the top of the pyramid. It is the corruption of politics, the corruption in the administration, the corruption in employment, the corruption in relief aid.” — Abu Safiyeh, a representative of the PLO’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the Gaza Strip, in a Facebook post that caused his arrest.

The voices emerging from the Gaza Strip are anguished and reflect the Palestinians’ growing sense of disillusionment with Hamas. These voices, however, are still small in numbers. Hamas’s brutal methods of suppression and torture have deterred a large number of Palestinians from speaking out. These voices will grow only if the international community heeds them and calls out Hamas for its brutal crackdown on Palestinians.

Hamas is carrying out its current crackdown against Palestinian activists because it knows full well that the world will probably not utter a word. Why would it? Bashing Israel is much more rewarding than identifying Palestinian leaders as the champion violators of human rights that they are.

Hamas leaders are scared. Of what? That Palestinians will return to the streets of the Gaza Strip to demand that their leaders govern rather than tyrannize. The living conditions of Palestinians in Gaza have gone from abysmal to worse.

That is why the leaders of Hamas recently ordered their security forces to detain several Palestinian activists for allegedly planning another wave of protests similar to those that swept the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

Last March, Hamas security forces used excessive force to break up demonstrations held in various parts of the Gaza Strip under the banner “We Want to Live!”

The demonstrations were organized by Palestinians to protest the longstanding economic crisis, including soaring unemployment and increased taxes imposed by Hamas on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of Palestinians were injured and arrested during the demonstrations, including human rights activists and journalists.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14714/russia-sudan

Moscow has reportedly signed a “draft military agreement” with Sudan, “to facilitate entry of Russian and Sudanese warships to the ports of the two nations.” According to Maj. Gen. Al-Hadi Adam Musa, head of Sudan’s parliamentary subcommittee on Defense, Security and Public Order, “This deal will pave the way for more agreements and greater cooperation… possibly a Russian base on the Red Sea.”

Russia also “is looking at establishing a logistics base in Eritrea” and has reached a “draft agreement with Egypt for Russian warplanes to use Egyptian military bases.”

It is crucial for the West not only to keep a close watch on Moscow’s moves in Sudan, but to prevent Russia from increasing its influence in the region.

In January, three months before the April 11 military coup in Sudan that ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir after 30 years of iron-fisted rule, Moscow reportedly signed a “draft military agreement” with Sudan, “to facilitate entry of Russian and Sudanese warships to the ports of the two nations.” According to Maj. Gen. Al-Hadi Adam Musa, head of Sudan’s parliamentary subcommittee on Defense, Security and Public Order, “This deal will pave the way for more agreements and greater cooperation… possibly a Russian base on the Red Sea.”

This draft agreement followed other defense discussions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and al-Bashir. According to a recent report in The Arab Weekly:

“Al-Bashir has been talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin about a possible Russian military presence in Sudan since the pair met in November 2017. During their meeting, al-Bashir offered to construct an airbase for Russia on the Red Sea coast and to re-equip the Sudanese Army with Russian weapons, including SU-30 fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles…

More extraordinarily, during an interview with RIA Novosti, al-Bashir requested that Putin protect him from ‘US aggression,’ which intended to divide Sudan into five countries.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274608/eu-court-brink-mandating-anti-semitic-product-joseph-klein

Pope Francis said recently that he was “concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934.” He was talking about the rise of extreme nationalism and populism, which he feared could lead to the fragmentation of the European Union. The pope should be worried about any current resemblances in Europe to the Nazi past, but the pope’s praise of the European Union as an antidote is premature. Indeed, the European Union itself is on the verge of reviving the Nazis’ stigmatization of Jewish-made products on the pretext that they come from “occupied” Palestinian territories.

According to sources cited by the Washington Beacon, “The European Union is poised to mandate that Israeli products made in contested territories carry consumer warning labels,” which is seen by Jews as “an ominous warning sign that they say is reminiscent of Holocaust-era boycotts of Jewish businesses.” The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice recently issued a non-binding opinion to the effect that EU law requires the labeling of such products as coming from “settlements” and “Israeli colonies.” He analogized this situation to the European boycott of South African goods during its apartheid period. “The absence of the indication of the country of origin or place of provenance of a product originating in a territory occupied by Israel and, in any event, a settlement colony, might mislead the consumer as to the true country of origin or place of provenance of the food,” the Advocate General said, referring to food products. Israeli occupation and settlements could be “an objective factor which might affect the expectations of the reasonable consumer,” he added.

Brooke Goldstein, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Lawfare Project who has fought the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in various courts, remarked, “The Advocate General’s opinion said that goods produced by Muslims are to be labeled from ‘Palestine,’ and goods produced by Jews labeled as coming from ‘Israeli colonies.’ Both people are living in the same geographic location, and yet Jewish goods are being treated differently.”

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/08/12/pro-israel-politician-wins-guatemalas-presidential-election/

In 1948 Guatemala was one of the first nations to recognize Israel. Dr. Jorge Garcia Granados was Guatemala’s ambassador to the United Nations….rsk

A prominent Guatemalan supporter of Israel who once said, “He who is Israel’s enemy is Guatemala’s enemy,” won the country’s presidential election with 58.5 percent of the vote, results on Monday confirmed.

Conservative candidate Alejandro Giammattei emerged victorious in the vote in the second round of elections on Sunday, beating his rival Sandra Torres, a former first lady.

Giammattei pledged that citizens “will find a president close to the people.”

The president-elect is a noted supporter of Israel in Latin America. He has pledged to keep Guatemala’s embassy in Jerusalem and expressed his opposition to Iran’s proxy terrorist group Hezbollah, which operates extensively in the region.

He said in a campaign interview that he wanted Guatemala to emulate “the great successes that Israel has had, especially in such important issues as food production, in order to make our lands more productive.”

“This cooperation is urgent for our country,” he added.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14320/uk-returning-isis-terrorists

While the UK government is seemingly intent on prosecuting those who have fought against ISIS, what has it been doing about the at least 425 returned ISIS terrorists themselves?

Prosecuting around 400 ISIS terrorists means Britain would “lose a generation”? What about the loss of security that these terrorists pose to the rest of British society?

Killing, torturing, raping and abusing Yazidis, Christians and others for sport was something that looked “bright and attractive”?

The law does not appear to apply to ISIS terrorists the same way it applies to those young Britons who went to fight against them. The United Kingdom’s moral compass seems to be entirely broken.

The West has mercilessly let down persecuted minorities in the Middle East, while showing great concern for the well-being of returning ISIS terrorists, their children and their spouses. There seems to have been no such concern for the victims of ISIS terrorists, particularly the Christians and Yazidis.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch immigration service has been sending Yazidi asylum seekers back to refugee camps in northern Iraq, and arguing that they have sufficient access to food and other facilities, Dutch media outlet Trouw recently reported. By contrast, in February, Dutch Minister of Justice Ferdinand Grapperhaus said that the Netherlands is “looking into” the option of trying to move Dutch women and children living in refugee camps in Syria to safe areas where they can return to the Netherlands.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14699/germany-iran-israel

Germany has, in fact, been decidedly hostile to Israel in recent years… Germany continues to provide millions of euros annually to organizations that promote anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and “lawfare” campaigns, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, and violence, according to NGO Monitor.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in 2008 that Israel’s security is “non-negotiable” and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in 2018 that he went into politics “because of Auschwitz.” In practice, however, Germany consistently appears to prioritize its relations with Israel’s enemies.

Instex, an initiative of German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, would enable European trade with Iran despite U.S. sanctions. It would facilitate barter-based trade with Iran in products such as pharmaceuticals and foods, but Tehran has repeatedly insisted that Instex must include trade in oil for the mechanism to make economic sense.

Seven months after its formation, Instex remains non-operational, in part because Iran still does not comply with international legal standards to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

A senior German diplomat appointed to head an EU barter system that would enable European companies to sidestep U.S. sanctions on Iran stepped down after giving an interview in which he criticized the existence of Israel and praised Tehran’s ballistic missile program.

The episode — the latest of a series of occurrences that have laid bare the anti-Israel foundation of Germany’s foreign policy — is an embarrassing setback for the German government and will complicate its efforts to salvage the Iran nuclear deal.

https://youtu.be/ZfljAZ04wzQ