RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-italian-stranglehold-11560716406

Italian Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini is favored to become the country’s next Prime Minister, and European Union mandarins are improving the euroskeptic’s chances. See how Brussels is handling its latest fiscal dispute with Rome.

The European Commission is on course to impose a fine of up to €3.5 billion on Rome to punish it for breaking EU budget rules. Governments are supposed to keep their fiscal deficit below 3% of gross domestic product and total debt under 60% of GDP. Many EU members violate these strictures, but Rome is unusually bad. Italian debt is expected to reach more than 135% in 2020, and the Commission frets about Rome’s deficit, which ran 2.1% in 2018.

This triggered a fiscal showdown last year, which ended when Rome agreed to make minor changes to its budget and Brussels pretended the numbers would add up. But now the EU complains that Italy’s motley left-right coalition government isn’t abiding by that deal and is teeing up another fiscal battle. A June 5 Commission report recommends opening up an “excess deficit procedure,” though it would take weeks and several bureaucratic hurdles before a fine is imposed.

The EU seems alarmed by Mr. Salvini’s tax-reform plan, which goes to show that Brussels doesn’t understand incentives for growth. Mr. Salvini wants to capitalize on the political boost from a recent European Parliament election win to push for a flat tax on personal and small-business incomes up to €50,000. He hasn’t divulged many details, but this is the best idea anyone in Rome has had in years to simplify Italy’s tax code and maybe cut down on evasion.

EU mandarins see only what they view as “lost revenue” from this proposal, but Italy’s fiscal crisis is building despite high taxes. Some 42% of GDP goes to the government. Rome wastes too much of that on misdirected social spending. What’s missing is economic growth to expand the tax base.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14367/china-arctic

The Arctic — where both the United States and Russia maintain a military presence — is known for being rich in hydrocarbons. The Chinese, in their claims to such a valuable energy source, clearly do not wish to be left behind.

As China already has deployed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles — while planning to build and deploy floating nuclear reactors — in the South China Sea, it is certainly plausible that Beijing has similar plans for the Arctic.

Both China’s Arctic Policy and its Belt and Road Initiative seem paths towards what appears to be China’s aim at achieving global hegemony.

China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea by now is old news, but Beijing’s recent moves in the Arctic have been attracting attention.

The Arctic — where both the United States and Russia maintain a military presence — is known for being rich in hydrocarbons. The Chinese, in their claims to such a valuable energy source, clearly do not wish to be left behind.

Just as Chinese President Xi Jinping has been pushing the Belt and Road Initiative, he also aims to develop a “Polar Silk Road” for shipping lanes, which he believes are opening up due to glacial melting caused by global warming. This belief appears to stem from the “open polar sea” theory, according to which the polar seas created by climate change ultimately could be exploited for commercial purposes.

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/German-Museum-director-sparking-BDS-controversy-resigns-after-condemnations-fly-592564

The director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum, Peter Schäfer, announced his resignation on Friday “to avoid further damage” a week after The Jerusalem Post first reported that the institution endorsed the BDS campaign on the museum’s Twitter feed.

The pressure for Schäfer’s removal rose over the past week, and experts in the field of antisemitism told the Post that they implored German Culture Minister Monika Grütters, who oversees the board of the museum foundation, to take action against Schäfer and the antisemitism scandals at the museum.

“All those responsible must help ensure that the Jewish Museum Berlin can again concentrate on its important work in terms of content,” Grütters said on Friday. Schäfer’s deputy, Martin Michaelis, will assume responsibility for running the museum until a successor can be hired.

B’nai B’rith International president Charles O. Kaufman, who sent a letter last week to Schäfer about the museum’s anti-Israel direction, told the Post on Friday: “What’s crucial now is for the museum to identify leadership that commits to professionalism and the truth of sharing the long and rich Jewish life of Germany. This museum must earn the name Jewish Museum and, in doing so, earn the trust of the country, Europe and all visitors from around the world. It must not immerse itself in politicizing history, stooping to propaganda and, worse, revisionism.”

British journalist Tom Gross was invited to tour the museum by Schäfer’s office last year and expressed his dismay afterwards at some of the anti-Israel political aspects he saw.

“The important thing now, since the museum is currently replacing its permanent exhibit, due to reopen next year, is to make sure Schäfer’s replacement is someone who is more interested in remembering the enormous contributions of Berlin’s Jews to German and world history, and in accurately explaining the sheer sadistic horrors of the Holocaust, rather than engage in anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, extreme left-wing posturing,” Gross told the Post.

“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”
https://wp.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach an article from today’s Haaretz exploring the increasing way the neo-Nazi right and the extreme “progressive” (and all too often anti-Semitic) left are mimicking each other’s phrases and slogans.

After that, I attach articles from The Jerusalem Post and The New York Times, about the enforced resignation of Peter Schäfer, the director of Berlin’s Jewish museum, on Friday.

This followed widespread criticism of the increasing politicization of the museum (including my quote to the Jerusalem Post last Monday and the fact that the museum had coddled up to the Islamic regime of Iran and promoted Europeans who support the destruction of Israel).

I attach a new front-page story from yesterday’s Jerusalem Post, which included this follow-up quote by myself:

British journalist Tom Gross, who was invited to tour the museum by Schäfer’s office last year and expressed his dismay afterwards to the director’s office at some of the anti-Israel political aspects he saw, told the Jerusalem Post:

“The important thing now, since the museum is currently replacing its permanent exhibit, due to reopen next year, is to make sure Schäfer’s replacement is someone who is more interested in remembering the enormous contributions of Berlin’s Jews to German and world history, and in accurately explaining the sheer sadistic horrors of the Holocaust, rather than engaging in anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, extreme left-wing posturing.”

“Enough is enough,” said Dr. Josef Schuster, president of the nearly 100,000-member Central Council of Jews in Germany. “[Under Schäfer] the Berlin Jewish Museum seems to be completely out of control. Under these circumstances, one has to think about whether the term ‘Jewish’ is still appropriate.”

Tom Gross adds: Because of the Holocaust, and because it was opened to great international fanfare in 2001 using the designs of award-winning architect Daniel Libeskind, the Berlin Jewish museum is in some ways the most significant Jewish museum in the world.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14381/iran-diplomatic-gesticulations

That leaves the remaining members of the P5+1 with a clear choice: either pronounce the Obama [Iran] “deal” dead and seek a framework for new talks on how to solve the perennial “Iran problem” which, paradoxically, all say they are concerned about, or to unite to neutralize the United States and help Iran carry on as usual.

The present impasse may be breached in two ways.

The first is for actual or wannabe mediators to side with the US and tell the mullahs that they cannot have their cake and eat it. Once the mullahs have understood that putative “mediators” could direct their efforts at finding ways of organizing a retreat that avoids utter humiliation for the Khomeinist regime. That should not be difficult as all the remaining P5+1 nations, including Russia, share Washington’s concerns about Tehran’s “exporting revolution” and developing long-range missiles capable of carrying yet non-existent nuclear warheads.

The second way to breach the impasse is to admit that the Obama “deal” is a dead horse that will not come back to life no matter how one kicks it.

What do politicians do when they cannot do anything but are obliged to pretend that they are doing something?

One answer provided by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, is simple: you organize a meeting.

The meeting that Lavrov is setting up, later this month in Moscow, will bring together junior diplomats from Iran plus Britain, China, France and Germany, that is to say the countries (aside from the US) that formed the notorious P5+1 group created by Barack Obama to give a veneer of legal respectability to the so-called “nuke deal” he concocted with the Iranian mullahs.

For all intents and purposes the “deal’ died when the Trump administration in Washington decided to simply ditch it. Lacking an enforceable legal status, the “deal” always depended on the willingness of the participants to implement it. With Americans walking away from it, there is no way the other nations still apparently in the game could put it on a life-support machine.

Backing down after days of huge street protests, Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, said on Saturday that she would indefinitely suspend a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China.

It was a remarkable reversal for Mrs. Lam, the leader installed by Beijing in 2017, who had vowed to ensure the bill’s approval and tried to get it passed on an unusually short timetable, even as hundreds of thousands demonstrated against it this week. But she made it clear that the bill was being delayed, not withdrawn outright, as protesters have demanded.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/14/hong-kong-shows-west-has-lost-confidence-democracy-self-determination/

Three years ago I happened to be in Hong Kong as the “Umbrella Protests” were sputtering out. The pro-democracy demonstrators were still there, almost two years after they had first set up camp outside the government headquarters. But now, on a drizzly day, they were sitting huddled under the walkways off what had been the main protest site, their umbrellas practical as well as symbolic as their numbers and hopes dwindled.

It was a depressing sight, these few locals hoping for some support that never arrived. But in some ways what struck me more were the conversations I had in the weeks after that visit, as I happened to pass in close succession through the capitals of France, Britain and America.

In Paris I described the situation to friends. They listened with furrowed brows as I told them about the abduction of the Hong Kong booksellers and the tightening of Beijing’s grip on the island. All lamented the situation. But then came the inevitable reply: “Bah. But what are you going to do? It’s China.” I wished the responses in London had been different. But while the brows were equally furrowed, and some palpable embarrassment showed itself on the faces of officials, still the statement would come back. “But it’s China.”

Only in one capital was that rejoinder not commonplace. Only in Washington did people in and out of government respond with questions about what might be done to support the protestors and how the US might be a better friend to people in this tiny but significant former British colony.

I thought of those conversations this week as protests flared up once again in Hong Kong. Protests during which the British flag was waved as a symbol of freedom and defiance. A sight that should have stirred a far greater response from this country than it has remotely done. Granted, Britain’s Brexit monomania means that there seems almost no political bandwidth to deal with any other major issue. But the lack of attention is striking. For it comes from the Right as much as the Left and is as clear a demonstration as anything of this country’s ever-smaller global ambition.

The situation in Hong Kong should at least force us to think. Not just because this country owes some responsibility to the people of Hong Kong, but because our weakness on this relatively small matter betrays a greater weakness on a greater one.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14328/iran-threats-israel-us

Iran recently produced a program on its state television channel demonstrating that the government is currently practicing missile attacks, with the purpose of carrying out actual attacks on Israel…. The video excerpt included in the television broadcast showed how the operations the Iranians are striving to put into action will bombard Tel Aviv.

From the perspective of the Iranian leaders, if they continue to increase their threats against Israel, the United States will be pressured to change its strategy and lift pressure that has been placed on the clerical establishment, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and its elite branch, the Quds Force.

It is an unacceptable double-standard that the United Nations and the international community have been, and continue to be, silent about Iran’s threats against Israeli citizens. If the situation were reversed and if Israel threatened to annihilate Iran, the international community would be up in arms, and quick to defend Iran. Through political and economic pressure, the ruling mullahs of Iran should be held accountable by the international community for endangering global security and regional stability.

The Iranian government continues to defy international standards, as it refuses to act as a rational and constructive state, even apart from its repeated malign behavior in the Gulf of Oman this week. Iran’s Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who enjoys the final say in all of Iran’s domestic and foreign policies, recently proclaimed to the youth in Iran that they will soon witness the demise of Israel and all of American civilization. This announcement was confirmed on the Supreme Leader’s official website.

Khamenei made Iran’s intentions clear while meeting with students. “You young people,” he declared, “should be assured that you will witness the demise of the enemies of humanity, meaning the degenerate American civilization, and the demise of Israel”.

Iran also recently produced a program on its state television channel demonstrating that the government is currently practicing missile attacks, with the purpose of carrying out actual attacks on Israel. The video excerpt included in the television broadcast showed how the operations the Iranians are striving to put into action will bombard Tel Aviv. The video concludes with images of Israeli citizens covered in white sheets, indicating great tragedy for Israel, and a victory for the Islamic Republic.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14375/denmark-elections

A significant development in this election was that anti-immigration parties generally fared poorly.

“Many citizens wrongly think that the immigration issue is under control and that it can therefore safely be left to the Left. It is not under control… [B]y the year 2050, we will see a doubling of the Muslim population in Denmark… that would not be a problem if we had a solution for how to integrate them, but nowhere in Western Europe has a solution been found”. — Kasper Støvring, author and commentator, Debatten-DR, June 6, 2019.

Another new development was that for the first time, according to a report in Jyllands Posten, Muslim voters were organized, in certain urban areas…. [A]n electoral group was set up, which, in co-operation with a mosque and various other associations, recommended that people vote for the two parties: the center-left Det Radikale Venstre and the far left Enhedslisten… Both parties have a pro-immigration stance. Det Radikale Venstre, for instance, wants to make it easier for refugees to gain permanent residence in Denmark.

Immigration policy will be one of the main challenges for the Social Democratic Party, as it attempts to form a government with the seats of Det Radikale Venstre and Enhedslisten, in addition to the Socialist People’s Party…. the Social Democrats [wanted] the bulk of their policy focusing on how to reduce and control the influx of refugees and migrants, including the use of reception centers outside of Europe. In addition, their policy included making all stays for refugees in Denmark temporary, and extending border controls and reforming the Schengen cooperation so that individual countries decide when and how long they can control their own borders. Their policy also backs sending rejected asylum seekers home and tightening the laws in order to stop illegal migrants from working in Denmark.

In Denmark’s general election on June 5, the Danes gave the center-left and far left parties on the political spectrum — the Social Democratic Party, Det Radikale Venstre (the Danish Social Liberal Party), Socialistisk Folkeparti (the Socialist People’s Party), and Enhedslisten (the Red-Green Alliance) — 91 seats in parliament, a majority out of the 179 available seats. In doing so, the Danes waved goodbye to the current liberal-conservative government. The largest party on the left, the Social Democratic Party with 48 seats, and led by Mette Frederiksen, is currently trying to form a government.