RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.foxnews.com/world/british-parliament-finally-approves-boris-johnsons-brexit-bill-but-moments-later-votes-down-three-day-timetable

The United Kingdom’s divorce from the European Union passed one major hurdle Tuesday when Parliament lawmakers approved Boris Johnson’s Brexit bill but hit a roadblock moments later when a three-day timetable was voted down.

The House of Commons passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill by a 30-point majority, with the ayes getting 329 votes, over 299 by the Noes, sending the bill on for further scrutiny and possible amendments. Then lawmakers quickly voted down Johnson’s a three-day timetable, attempting to fast-track the bill through, by a 14-point margin.

The vote likely made it impossible for Johnson to fulfill his vow to take Britain out of the EU by the Oct. 31 deadline.

After the second vote, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said that lawmakers “refused to be bounced” into considering the withdrawal bill in just two days.

He urged the prime minister to “work with us … to agree [on] a reasonable timetable.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15049/hamas-support-erdogan-syria

If, according to Hamas, Turkey has the right to protect its border, why does Israel not have the same right?

Hamas’s support for Erdogan’s war on the Kurds seems to be in the context of its attempt to persuade the Turkish authorities to allow its members to continue using Turkey as a base for masterminding terrorist attacks against Israel.

As Hamas said in its statement, it is opposed to the “US and Israeli presence in the region.” Hamas seems to be happy that the US abandoned the Kurds and left northern Syria. Hamas does not want the US to play any political or military role in the region….

It now remains to be seen how Erdogan will reward Hamas for supporting his war on the Kurds. Hamas, meanwhile, is holding its breath, hoping that Turkey will embrace the group and facilitate its fight against Israel.

Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated terror group ruling the Gaza Strip since 2007, is the only Palestinian party that has come out in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s war on the Kurds in Syria.

A statement issued by Hamas on October 14 said that the terror group “understands Turkey’s right to protect its border, defend itself and remove threats harmful to its national security against the tampering of the Zionist Mossad in the region, as part of [Israel’s] effort to undermine Arab and Islamic national security.”

Hamas also praised Erdogan for his “support for the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people” and expressed opposition to “the Zionist and US presence in the region.”

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, voiced support for Turkey. “The Israeli media campaign against Turkey is rude and unacceptable. Israel will remain the enemy and Turkey will remain in the hearts of Muslims,” he wrote on Twitter.

Another Hamas leader, Izzar al-Risheq, said that his group is “confident that President Erdogan has no ambitions in Syria and he only wants to preserve the security of his country.” The Muslims, he added, need to “end their conflicts so they would have the time to confront the big challenge imposed by the presence of the Zionist enemy.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15048/turkey-free-syrian-army

“In the outskirts of Aleppo, the FSA [Free Syrian Army] has implemented a Sharia law enforcement police force that is a replica of the Wahhabi police in Saudi Arabia — forcing ordinary citizens to abide by the Sharia code…” — HuffPost, December 31, 2012.

Trained and funded by Turkey since 2016 and with a reputation for violence and looting, the fighters of the Syrian National Army (SNA, formerly the Free Syrian Army) resemble very much the Ottoman bashibazouks.

“Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute who has interviewed dozens of the fighters and said they appear to be driven by a desire for power and money rather than by any specific ideology… ‘Hatred of Kurds, a sense of Arab chauvinism, complete intolerance for any dissent, and just a desire to make a profit is what’s driving most of the abuses.'” — Associated Press, October 15, 2019.

During Turkey’s most recent, ongoing, military incursion into Syria, launched on October 9, SNA militias captured a major highway that runs across northern Syria. According to Associated Press, “The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the Turkey-backed fighters shot and killed six civilians along the road, including Hevreen Khalaf, a woman who led a Kurdish political party.”

Bashibazouks (“corrupted heads” in Turkish) first appeared in the Ottoman army at the end of the 18th century and fought in Egypt against Napoleon’s army. These irregular mercenary soldiers, often made up of homeless beggars and thugs, were notorious for their lack of discipline, plundering and brutality. During the Crimean War (1853-1856) the allied generals made futile attempts to discipline them. The bashibazouks’ excesses during the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-78 finally forced the Istanbul government to abandon using them.

More than two centuries after their Ottoman ancestors had used bashibazouks, the Turks found their Arab reincarnation in Syria.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15029/argentina-designates-hezbollah

Editor’s note: Argentina made history this year as the first Latin American country to designate Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization. This is an important step forward for the region and Argentina is poised to become a leader and role model with their registry (RePET) acting as a roadmap for other Latin American countries seeking to make the same designation of Hezbollah. Less than one month after Argentina, on August 9, 2019, Paraguay designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, as well, giving the region and U.S. allies in Latin America more momentum than ever in the fight against terrorism.

This past July… President Macri published Argentina’s first public registry (RePET) of those tied to terrorism. He made a clear commitment to the fight against international terrorism. The public registry is a historical landmark containing over 1,000 entries of individuals and entities tied to terrorism in Argentina, including Hezbollah.

The registry will function under the Ministry of Justice, but the Ministry of Security and our Financial Intelligence Unit or UIF-AR will have the power to designate terror groups by requesting to freeze the assets of known terrorist actors. This whole-of-government approach ensures that the country can use a variety of tools when targeting terrorists.

Previously, the only people in Argentina labeled as terrorists were those considered terrorists by the U.N. Security Council. This [new] registry works to target all terrorist organizations in the international arena, as well as persons or entities under investigation in Argentina.

The following is an edited and translated transcript of a speech given by Argentine Congressman Luis Petri on July 25, 2019 at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. during an event hosted by the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS) in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the AMIA attack in Argentina. This speech has been slightly modified and reorganized for clarity by the editors, with the approval from Congressman Petri.

There is a before and after when you consider the effects of September 11th in the world. But in Argentina, this “before and after” began a lot earlier. In 1992, the Embassy of Israel was bombed [in Buenos Aires], followed two years later [on July 18, 1994] by one of the worst terrorist attacks in Argentina against the AMIA Jewish community center, and causing 85 casualties and wounded many more.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/brexit-and-britains-broken-parliament-11571696172

Is Britain broken? That’s the question a bemused world has been asking since the unexpected result of Remainer David Cameron’s Brexit referendum plunged the U.K. into a three-year political crisis.

Two things are striking about this period of national agony and debate. The first is how sensible and peaceful the British people have remained. The Brexit referendum carried by 52% to 48% (a margin of roughly 1.3 million out of more than 33.5 million votes cast) and the consequences are unpredictable and large. Will the United Kingdom even stay united as Scotland and Northern Ireland react to Brexit? Will Britain’s economy flourish as it opens to the world or wither without privileged access to European markets? From the City of London’s financial sector to the Sunderland Nissan factory, hundreds of thousands, even millions of jobs may be at stake.

Faced with all that, the British kept calm and carried on. Across a country of 66 million, Brexit has generated less political violence than a modestly sized Antifa march can gin up on a good afternoon in Portland, Ore. Scotland may be looking for an exit from the U.K. even as the U.K. looks to exit the European Union, but there are no Barcelona-style separatist riots in Edinburgh or anywhere else. This is an extraordinary testimony to the depth of Britain’s democratic culture.

https://www.criticalthreats.org/briefs/iran-file/iran-file-october-21-2019?

Iran highlighted its willingness to target opposition figures abroad. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization *announced that it arrested exiled anti-regime activist Ruhollah Zam on October 14. Zam had been living in Paris, France, where he operated anti-regime outlet Amad News. The IRGC stated that the arrest involved deception and surprise. Iranian officials *have celebrated the IRGC and its operation in recent days.

The IRGC likely coaxed Zam to travel to Iraq, where pro-Iran agents detained him. An unidentified individual reportedly lured Zam to travel to Iraq under the false pretense that he would meet with prominent Iraqi Shia cleric Ali al Sistani. A source from Sistani’s office *denied any plans for a meeting. The French Interior Ministry confirmed that Zam left France for Iraq. The regime has boasted of its ability to feed Zam false information before when it published a *documentary on the matter in March 2019. An unidentified Iraqi source claimed that Iraqi intelligence agents arrested Zam when he arrived in Baghdad at Iran’s request and transferred him to Iranian interrogators. The IRGC then moved Zam to Iran and arrested him.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/10/20/poll-majority-of-germans-alarmed-over-anti-semitism-following-synagogue-attack/

A majority of Germans expressed that “a lot more” anti-Semitism has spread throughout their country, according to a new poll taken one week after the Oct. 9 attack on a synagogue in the German town of Halle.

“That’s a lot more – +19 points – than one year ago,” stated the German broadcaster ARD, which conducted the poll, on its website, in comparison to last year’s finding that just 40% of Germans believed anti-Semitism in the country is alarming.

Only 35% of respondents thought Jew-hatred wasn’t increasing in Germany.

The poll was published after German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced on Thursday a six-point plan to combat anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism through tougher regulations to limit online hate speech along with cracking down on purchases of illegal guns and other weapons by members of the far Right.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/20/time-critics-saw-boris-churchillian-figure/

Boris Johnson was fantastic yesterday. I’m not going to bother to be objective about it. No one else does, so why should I?

Ever since the blond magnificence threw his hat into the leadership ring, we’ve been told he’s incompetent and far-Right. Well, an idiot doesn’t do “the impossible” and renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement, and as for far-Right, his words in the Commons were so temperate and liberal they could teach the world to sing.

Let us “bring together the two halves of our hearts”, he told the Commons, meaning Leave and Remain. It was a strategic appeal, of course: the deal can only pass if enough Labour MPs back it, so he has to soften his language. But this also happens to be what the PM believes. He sits in the One Nation tradition and his Euroscepticism has always been nuanced by a love of the continent. He is anti-EU but pro-European.

That’s the sense in which he’s truly Churchillian. I can hear teeth itching when I write that. No, I’m not saying he’s a reincarnation of one of the greatest Britons who ever lived: BoJo has never won a war or the Nobel Prize for literature. But the comparison is there in the rhetoric.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15045/trade-china-cheating

[I]t is especially difficult to trade with a thief, especially when the thief views commercial contact as an opportunity to steal more…. This crime is essential to the achievement of the extraordinarily ambitious Made in China 2025 initiative [to dominate 11 crucial technology sectors].

By his silence, Liu allowed Trump to think he had a deal when, in reality, he did not. So Trump made a real concession — the tariff deferral — for a promise that was not a promise.

[T]he “engagement” of China is Washington’s “greatest foreign policy failure.” – Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania.

If all this were not bad enough, Xi’s future plans are especially pernicious… Americans are going to have to make a choice: take Chinese money or maintain a free marketplace of ideas. The disengagement of the two economies is, of course, unfortunate, but it is necessary as China presses Americans and leaves them no choice if they are to defend freedoms and sovereignty.

On October 11th, Beijing harvested another big benefit. Trump agreed to defer a tariff increase scheduled for the following Tuesday. Having gotten what it wanted, China then began to play hardball. On October 17, Beijing denied it had made a commitment to buy $40 billion to $50 billion of American farm products.

Judging from Beijing’s breaking one more trade arrangement in recent days, it is evident the communist regime in China is not able to work with the United States — or any other country for that matter. So let’s not trade with a China that lies, cheats, and steals.

“This won’t revolutionize the U.S.-China relationship or the terms of trade between us, but it shows that the two countries can work together on an important issue,” said Clete Willems of Akin Gump to Bloomberg, referring to President Trump’s “phase one deal” announced October 11. “Learning to do so is critical to avoid a broad deterioration of all aspects of our relationship, which is not in anyone’s long-term interest.”

Despite what Willems said, it now is in the long-term interest of the United States to walk away from trade deals with the People’s Republic of China.

Why? Four reasons: First, communist China has never accepted the notion of comparative advantage, which underpins the global trading system. Yes, the mercantilist Chinese believe we should buy their products, but they, the masters of non-tariff barriers and other forms of predation, have worked hard to keep foreign goods out of their market. How can America trade with a state that does not believe in the benefits of trade?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-exciting-finish-in-canadas-election-11571599515

As Canadians head to a federal election on Monday, polls have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party and Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer in a dead heat.

Mr. Scheer has turned out to be a more serious contender than many, including many conservatives, expected. But Mr. Trudeau’s biggest headaches are on his left, where Jagmeet Singh, the personally engaging candidate of the New Democratic Party, and Bloc Quebecois candidate Yves-François Blanchet threaten to siphon off progressive votes from the Liberals. This has greatly increased Mr. Scheer’s chances of winning a minority government.

Voter surveys say the race is too close to call. As Darrell Bricker of the polling company Ipsos put on Oct. 15, the multiparty jockeying “points to an Election Night which could be full of surprises and close calls.”

Some meaningful number of Canadians appear ready to punish Mr. Trudeau for his performance since taking office in 2015. A carbon tax that wasn’t supposed to hurt a bit has harmed consumers in key provinces. Liberals promised fiscal discipline but Mr. Trudeau finishes four years with a C$20 billion deficit. The ruling party now counsels Canada not to expect a balanced budget until at least 2040.

The prime minister’s authenticity deficit is his bigger problem. The self-described champion of women and minorities took a hit when photos emerged last month showing that in years past, more than once, he darkened his face at costume parties.

Mr. Trudeau has apologized profusely and by most accounts Canadians don’t brand him a racist. For good measure he got President Obama to endorse him last week.