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Hamas Must Be Destroyed Before Any Peace Talks Take Place by Con Coughlin

Posted By on May 29th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20670/hamas-must-be-destroyed-before-peace

Do Ireland, Norway and Spain not see how appeasing terrorists anywhere only emboldens the militants in Europe? Last month, in Germany, more than 1,000 demonstrators took to the streets demanding that Germany become a Caliphate with sharia law.

Is [Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez] ready to grant the Catalans in Spain, who for years have been fighting for their independence, a State of Catalonia?

In Ireland, even at its most violent, there were never calls to take over Scotland, England and Wales to displace the British.

The capitulation of Ireland, Norway and Spain also reveals a deliberate misinterpretation of the root causes of Israel’s long-running conflict with the Palestinians, in which the constant refusal of successive generations of Palestinian leaders to renounce terrorism as the primary means of achieving their political objectives has made the concept of a lasting peace between the two sides impossible.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts “The Churchill of the modern Middle East,” remains bitterly opposed to Palestinian independence as a “prize for terrorism”. “A reward for terror will not bring about peace,” said Netanyahu, “and also will not stop us from winning over Hamas.”

Hamas have repeatedly used their own people as human shields and shot at them to prevent them from fleeing to safety.

While the Biden administration’s stance towards Israel in the Gaza conflict has often been hostile, its rejection of the joint declaration by Norway, Ireland and Spain is most welcome.

If Israel could be allowed to succeed in “freeing Palestine from Hamas,” it would significantly improve the prospects of both Israelis and Palestinians.

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International Criminal Court Prosecutor Threatens United States Senators by Elliott Abrams

Posted By on May 29th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20666/icc-threatens-us-senators

Many critics thought the International Criminal Court had gone too far when its prosecutor asked for arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

But as the saying goes, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Now, the prosecutor’s office has threatened to prosecute criticism of… himself. Those who seek to defend Israel and stop the malicious, deeply antisemitic action against its leaders and against the Jewish state are now being told that their words and actions may also be a crime.

This may sound like something out of Alice in Wonderland, but it is an effort not only to limit freedom of speech, but to limit the constitutional powers of the United States Congress.

After the prosecutor called for the arrest warrants for top Israeli officials, 12 United States Senators wrote to the ICC. The full text of the letter is below. The final paragraphs read:

“If you issue a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli leadership, we will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.

“The United States will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned.”

The reaction of the Prosecutor’s office came in a tweet, whose text is also below. The key language is this:

“When individuals threaten to retaliate against the Court or Court personnel…. such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offence against the administration of justice under Art. 70 of the Rome Statute….”

Wow.

The 12 United States Senators are already criminals, according to the ICC Prosecutor, for writing their letter— even if absolutely nothing else happens. Note that the Prosecutor writes of “individuals” who may threaten the ICC, whereas the Senators write as U.S. government officials about possible official U.S. government actions. In plain language, the Prosecutor is arguing that he and the ICC are above criticism. Forget freedom of speech or national sovereignty. To say that the United States, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, might react to punish the ICC for illegal and immoral actions it and its employees may take is not permitted.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Robert De Niro Melts Down During Biden Campaign Train Wreck Presser in Manhattan By Debra Heine

Posted By on May 29th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/05/28/robert-de-niro-melts-down-during-biden-campaign-train-wreck-presser-in-manhattan/

The Biden campaign faced nonstop heckles and jeers during a press conference outside the Manhattan criminal court where former President Donald Trump is listening to closing arguments in his hush money trial.

Joining Biden’s team were “special guests” Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn, two highly political and attention-seeking Jan. 6 Capitol police officers, and far-left actor Robert De Niro, who warned that Trump, if elected, “could destroy the world.”

The actor,  who arrived at the presser wearing a face mask, seemed angry and rattled by the cacophonous anti-Biden catcalls.

“I mean this is really … even these people over here are kinda … it’s kinda crazy,” De Niro complained when it was his turn to speak. “This thing, Donald Trump, has created this,” the actor added bitterly. “He should be telling them not to do this … but he wants to sow total chaos.”

Struggling to be heard over loud chants of  “f-ck Joe Biden!,” De Niro accused Trump of wanting “to destroy not only the city, but the country, and eventually, he could destroy the world.”

The 80-year-old went on to say that it was “weird” that the former president was in the courtroom across the street because “he doesn’t belong in my city.”

“I owe this city a lot. And that’s why it’s so weird that Donald Trump is just across the street because he doesn’t belong in my city. I don’t know where he belongs, but he certainly doesn’t belong here. We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot,” he said.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israelis Forced to Bail Out Biden’s Failed Gaza Aid Pier 3 US Soldiers injured. 1 seriously. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on May 29th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israelis-forced-to-bail-out-bidens-failed-gaza-aid-pier/

Biden wasted over $300 million and two months, put the lives of American soldiers to set up a pier that was supposed to provide a permanent port to move materials in and out of Gaza. I argued at the time that it was meant to be a ‘Trojan Pier” that would lock Israel out of the process.

While administration officials describe the pier as “temporary”, a senior official also admitted that “we look forward to the port transitioning to a commercially operated facility over time.”

That means it’s not actually meant to be temporary, but a permanent port for the terrorists.

That looks like it won’t be happening because the whole JLOTS setup didn’t account for the weather.

Portions of the floating pier already had to be brought to the Israeli port of Ashdod after stormy weather. And now portions of the pier have broken off and need to be taken in for repairs. Some US Navy vessels were also apparently beached. 3 soldiers were reportedly injured while one remains in critical condition. And the only end result of the pier was a lot of damage and some limited supplies delivered to Hamas.

The damage, first reported by NBC News, occurred three days after heavy seas forced two small US Army vessels to beach in Israel, according to US Central Command, while another two vessels broke free of their moorings and were anchored near the pier.

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The Globalist Perversion of Justice Agendas over principles. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on May 29th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-globalist-perversion-of-justice/

The International Criminal Court is seeking warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with three Hamas chiefs, one of whom was the mastermind of the October 7 massacre. A German government official has pledged to execute the warrant should Israel’s Prime Minister set foot on German soil.

This shameful stunt––like South Africa’s earlier charges of genocide against Israel via the International Court of Justice ––reminds us of the moral idiocy and political corruption of what British historian Corelli Barnett called “moralizing internationalism.” That century-long attempt to set aside human nature as it actually is, and replace violent conflicts with “diplomatic engagement,” international law, and transnational institutions like the ICC, has now reached its reductio ad absurdum with its disgraceful and hypocritical bout of moral preening.

The ICC was created in 1998, and like most of the “rules based international order” since the League of Nations, it came into being at a time of feckless optimism––the West’s arrogant pretensions that the tragic nature of interstate relations had ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Liberal democracy and free-market capitalism, human rights and justice under law, were now poised to expand freedom and prosperity to the whole world. With peace and trade, nationalist and ideological passions along with autocratic gangster regimes would wither away, and with them armed conflict.

Typical of this wishful thinking were the sentiments George H.W. Bush proclaimed in 1991, when he announced a “new world order . . . where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind––peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law.”

Yet despite the repudiation of this idealism on 9/11 by the horrific display of diverse creeds and beliefs about justice and violence, George W. Bush doubled-down with dubious begged questions. In the 2002 National Security Strategy, Bush defined U.S. foreign policy as a focus on the promotion of a “single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise,” for “these values of freedom are right and true for every person across the globe. We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world.”

However, subsequent history has exposed the arrogance and naïveté of this radical simplification of global diversity, which comprises an irreducible complexity of ethnicities, histories, cultures, religions, ambitions, traditions, and notions of honor and vengeance. As such, many of these global folkways necessarily conflict with our own, and those diverse markers of identity make many peoples resent the power and influence the West possesses.

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Iran’s Brisk Walk to a Nuclear Bomb Biden is trying to hide that Tehran is trotting to a weapon at a pace of its choosing.

Posted By on May 29th, 2024

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-uranium-stockpile-nuclear-weapons-international-atomic-energy-agency-biden-administration-4ec62643?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Iran keeps making substantial progress in its brisk walk to an atomic weapon, a United Nations report leaked Monday suggests, and what are they going to tell us next—that there’s gambling at Rick’s? Yet the Biden Administration wants to hide this scary truth from the world in this election year.

An International Atomic Energy Agency report has concluded that Iran has increased its stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium to 142.1 kilograms—an increase of 20.6 kilograms since the IAEA’s last estimate in February. This will be enough for three warheads once Iran completes the technologically straightforward process of enriching its hoard to 90% from 60%.

We say “will” rather than “would” since there isn’t serious dispute that Iran intends to join the nuclear-weapons club. But one does need to include the caveat that this is only the enriched uranium the rest of the world knows about. Tehran for years has thwarted the IAEA’s best efforts to fully inspect the nuclear program the mullahs insist they don’t have—one of the great flaws in Barack Obama’s misbegotten 2015 nuclear deal.

You’d think the U.S. would want the IAEA news to be released to pressure the regime. But the Journal reports that the Biden Administration has asked European allies to avoid censuring Iran for these violations of the 2015 pact when the IAEA board meets in June.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Guess Which ‘Moderate’ Palestinian Terrorist Group Participated In the October 7 Massacre by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on May 28th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20668/fatah-october-7-atrocities

[Other groups that] participated in the October 7 massacre…. include Palestinian Islamic Jihad — and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah faction headed by none other than the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas.

The involvement of terrorists from Abbas’s Fatah faction in the October 7 slaughter and terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, however, may surprise some people. Many in the West consider Fatah, which dominates the PA, to be a “moderate” party that wants to live in peace and harmony with Israel. This rumor may have come about because we have been told many times by Palestinian officials that Fatah’s armed wing, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was dismantled (at least in the West Bank).

Earlier this month, Abu Mohammed, the official spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, revealed that the group’s fighters participated in the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip.

In another recent video, Fatah claimed responsibility for a “sniper operation” against Israeli soldiers in Jabalya refugee camp, a stronghold of Hamas and PIJ in the Gaza Strip. The Fatah terrorists said that they used a Hamas-manufactured rifle called Al-Ghoul to target the Israeli soldiers. The video is clear evidence that Abbas’s Fatah loyalists have been working in coordination with Hamas.

That Fatah participated in the October 7 massacre and other terrorist attacks shows that there is really little if no distinction between Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah, and Hamas. It also demonstrates why, after Hamas is removed from power, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority absolutely cannot be trusted to rule the Gaza Strip. Both Fatah and Hamas continue to engage in terrorism and are outspokenly proud of their attacks on Jews. Fatah and Hamas seem, in fact, to be competing to prove to the Palestinians who is carrying out more terrorist attacks against Israel.

So long as Abbas and Fatah are producing and arming terrorists, all plans by the Biden administration to “revitalize” the Palestinian Authority are worthless. If the Biden administration is sincere about reforming the PA, it ought to begin by insisting that Abbas disband his own terrorist organization and stop endorsing terrorists and compensating them with monthly payments. Until then, handing over the Gaza Strip to Abbas and his Fatah terrorists would be a monstrous mistake.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

A Chill Has Fallen Over Jews in Publishing By James Kirchick

Posted By on May 28th, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/27/opinion/publishing-literary-antisemitism.html

This month, an account on X with the handle @moyurireads and 360 followers published a link to a color-coded spreadsheet classifying nearly 200 writers according to their views on the “genocide” in Gaza. Titled “Is Your Fav Author a Zionist?,” it reads like a cross between Tiger Beat and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

The novelist Emily St. John Mandel, the author of “Station Eleven” and “Sea of Tranquility,” earned a red “pro-Israel/Zionist” classification because, according to the list’s creator, she “travels to Israel frequently talks favorably about it.” Simply for posting a link to the Israeli chapter of the Red Cross, the novelist Kristin Hannah was deemed a “Zionist,” as was the author Gabrielle Zevin for delivering a book talk to Hadassah, a Jewish women’s organization. Needless to say, the creator of the list — whose post on X announcing it garnered over a million views within a few days — encourages readers to boycott any works produced by “Zionists.”

The spreadsheet is but the crudest example of the virulently anti-Israel — and increasingly antisemitic — sentiment that has been coursing through the literary world since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7. Much of it revolves around the charge of genocide and seeks to punish Zionists and anyone else who refuses to explicitly denounce the Jewish state for allegedly committing said crime. Since a large majority of American Jews (80 percent of whom, according to a 2020 poll, said that caring about Israel is an important or essential part of their Judaism) are Zionists, to accuse all Zionists of complicity in genocide is to anathematize a core component of Jewish identity.

Over the past several months, a litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel. This phenomenon has been unfolding in progressive spaces (academia, politics, cultural organizations) for quite some time. That it has now hit the rarefied, highbrow realm of publishing — where Jewish Americans have made enormous contributions and the vitality of which depends on intellectual pluralism and free expression — is particularly alarming.

As is always and everywhere the case, this growing antisemitism is concomitant with a rising illiberalism. Rarely, if ever, do writers express unanimity on a contentious political issue. We’re a naturally argumentative bunch who — at least in theory — answer only to our own consciences.

To compel them to express support or disapproval for a cause is one of the cruelest things a society can do to writers, whose role is to tell society what they believe, regardless of how popular the message may be. The drawing up of lists, in particular, is a tactic with a long and ignominious history, employed by the enemies of literature — and liberty — on both the left and the right. But the problem goes much deeper than a tyro blacklist targeting “Zionists.”

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The ICC’s War Crimes by Caroline Glick

Posted By on May 28th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20665/icc-war-crimes

Far from starving or deliberately killing civilians, Israel is doing more to protect the lives of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip than any military has done to protect the lives of civilians in war zones in human history.

The ICC’s goal in propagating this slander against the Jewish state is to criminalize the State of Israel and pave the way for its annihilation by denying it the right to self-defense.

[I]t is also illegal. The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel. Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Treaty, which founded the ICC, and set out its powers and jurisdiction. To get around that fact, the ICC illegally accepted “Palestine” as a signatory to the treaty.

The PA was established in 1994 by force of the bilateral agreements the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed with Israel during the 1990s. Those agreements —popularly known as the “Oslo Accords”— bar the PA from seeking membership as a sovereign state in international bodies, including the ICC.

Unlike the libelous accusations Khan raised against Israel’s elected leaders, Khan’s provision of material support for Hamas’s war of genocide is an actual war crime.

First, the United States should indict Hamas’s terror masters, including senior leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohamed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, and other top Hamas terrorists for the murder, rape, kidnapping and torture of U.S. citizens on and since Oct. 7. Not only should these war criminals not get a free pass for their actions, they should be held criminally liable by real courts, as opposed to the ICC’s kangaroo court….

Second, Khan and his associates should be charged with extortion of U.S. elected officials…. [O]n May 3, the ICC issued a statement that Khan posted on his X account, threatening action against anyone acting against them.

As Netanyahu explained, the ICC’s move against Israel won’t daunt him as he leads the country in this difficult war for national survival. But actions taken against Israel by the ICC and similarly corrupt international bodies form noxious precedents that can be used in the future against free nations fighting genocidal terror armies and regimes. If permitted to proceed unpunished for its crimes, the ICC will gain in power and stature. And just as it is using its power against the lone Jewish state today, so it will use it against the United States tomorrow.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Signs of America’s Declining Power and the Emerging Multipolar World If we want our country to be safe and powerful, we should start on the firm foundations of respect for peace, human life, and other nations’ sovereignty. By Christopher Roach

Posted By on May 28th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/05/28/signs-of-americas-declining-power-and-the-emerging-multipolar-world/

During Bush’s years as president, Democrats frequently criticized his foreign policy, complaining that he acted like a cowboy, pursuing wars unilaterally without the imprimatur of the “international community.” Internationalism was a particular obsession of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who lambasted the Bush administration for snubbing the United Nations and upsetting France with its Iraq policy.

Obama was mostly a darling of foreign leaders, as he ceded American power and prestige in a bid to right what he considered the historic wrongs of colonialism and western chauvinism. This was evident in his obsession with completing the Iran deal, participating in the Kyoto accords, assisting NATO attacks on Libya and Syria, and in the general tone of public diplomacy during the Arab Spring.

That said, America made quite a few interventions in the Obama years, especially in the second term, and we largely called the shots.

A Fake “International Community”

For all the talk of the international community, it was mostly a fig leaf for American unilateralism no matter which party was in charge. This practice extended from the Clinton presidency through Obama’s. When the United Nations would not approve something, we went to NATO. And when NATO wouldn’t get involved, we acted unilaterally, as in the early attacks on Syria or the targeted killing policy employed against al Qaeda

This is another way of saying that the United States acted as the sole superpower since the end of the Cold War, and this prevailed regardless of the party in power. There were some arguments on the margins, but every administration embraced this prerogative to impose the American vision of a “rules-based international order.” Even Trump, who ran on an America First platform, supported American unilateralism in Syria and expanded the provision of lethal aid to Ukraine.

In practice, the UN, NATO, and other institutions were there either to supply resources and allow the appearance of multilateralism or they were safely ignored. The United States had little fear of the International Criminal Court or the myriad other international institutions because it funded most of them, and they were effectively powerless in the face of American opposition.