RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18026/arab-apartheid

“Not all of the professions will be opened to Palestinians under the new decree….” — L’Orient Today, December 8, 2021.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon “are socially marginalized, have very limited civil, social, political and economic rights, including restricted access to the Government of Lebanon’s public health, educational and social services and face significant restrictions on their right to work and right to own property.” — UNRWA, September 2020.

There are several reasons why the Lebanese do not want the Palestinians. One reason is that since the 1970s, the Palestinians have brought war and destruction to Lebanon and turned refugee camps into bases for terror groups.

“It is time to end this history of discrimination and systematic segregation… Qualified Palestinians should be allowed to practice their professions, especially in fields where they are most needed…. Very few Lebanese would share my view.” — Sawssan Abou-Zahr, senior Lebanese journalist, Reliefweb, August 1, 2021.

What is clear…is that the international community has long been ignoring the abuses and human rights violations by an Arab country against the Palestinians.

The demonization of Israel by so many journalists, officials and so-called human-rights groups leaves little time to ask why a Palestinian in Lebanon is not permitted to practice medicine while a significant portion of the medical staff at Israeli hospitals consists of Arab doctors and nurses.

The issue of Arab apartheid and discrimination recently resurfaced after a Lebanese minister announced that his country decided to allow Palestinians to work in several sectors that were until now reserved just for Lebanese nationals.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/chinas-economic-world-war/

The nation’s admission 20 years ago into the WTO was a grave mistake. Congress can begin to rectify this error by immediately terminating Beijing’s special trade status.

T wenty years ago today, China joined the World Trade Organization with the promise of greater peace and prosperity for all mankind. As he championed this historic mistake, then–president Bill Clinton patronizingly said, “It is ironic, I think, that so many Americans are concerned about the impact on the world of a strong China in the 21st century.” We are now witnessing how right those Americans were.

Over the past two decades, the government of China has weaponized its nearly $17 trillion economy to wage an unrelenting economic world war that has brought pain to virtually every continent and ruin to countless communities across the globe.

Since 2001, China’s economy has grown nearly 1,200 percent, transforming from a third-rate backwater into the second-largest economy, largest exporter, and dominant industrial power in the world. The PRC today makes one-quarter of the world’s automobiles, a third of all merchant ships, 40 percent of mobile phones, 70 percent of televisions, and 96 percent of shipping containers.

More worrisome, China has gained a stranglehold over the production of many essential materials and is acquiring a dominant position in key technology areas. China manufactures more than half of the world’s steel, produces two-thirds of the active ingredients in our generic drugs, and processes 85 percent of rare-earth elements. China is also making strides in the fields of artificial intelligence and quantum computing, possesses 200 of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers, and produces 70 percent of the world’s drones.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18025/iran-exporting-revolution

This may be an exaggeration, but the Kayhan editorial says that without the “Resistance Front” there would be no Iran and, of course, no Iraq, no Syria, no Lebanon, and no Yemen. Control of the four Arab countries is vital for protecting the Islamic Revolution.

In that context, Tehran has been pumping cash and weapons into regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and, until recently, Zimbabwe. It has also been in alliance with anti-war groups in Europe and North America while funding numerous non-Muslim politicians and celebrities across the Middle East.

Non-Shiite Palestinian outfits such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have also been on the payroll of the “Resistance Front” for decades.

[W]e now know that the “Supreme Guide” is ready to take bread away from Iranians so that he can continue fattening Bashar al-Assad, Hassan Nasrallah and scores of other “for sale” personalities across the world.

To be able to do that, Khamenei is counting on US President Joe Biden to ease some of the sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump.

Zarif estimated that Tehran needed a minimum of $60 billion a year to pay its military and security personnel, keep the “Resistance Front” afloat and continue “exporting” revolution.

Khamenei demands that the P5+1 deposit $3 billion a month in a German bank and another $1 billion monthly in a French bank from Iran’s frozen assets, while allowing the Islamic Republic to increase oil exports to 2.5 million barrels a day.

His [Khamenei’s] recipe is simple: Live from one day to another but, even if you can’t export oil, make sure that you can continue exporting revolution. The Khomeinist system can survive without exporting oil, but can’t do so if it stops exporting revolution.

“The greatest achievement of Imam Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution!”

This is how the daily Kayhan in Tehran, believed to reflect the views of “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei, describes what it labels a “Resistance Front” led by Iran.

The paper’s editorial does not say why it needs to raise the controversial issue at this time. One possible reason may be a behind-the-scenes debate about the need for reviewing a policy that has cost Iran billions of dollars over the past decades.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/boris-johnson-trouble-katie-hopkins/

The latest announcement regarding new lockdown restrictions here in the UK has transpired. It’s the so-called Plan B.

I appreciate that Plan B has a very different meaning in the USA, where it is available in CVS for those who have forgotten contraception is necessary to avoid pregnancy. But Plan B in the UK, as announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a press briefing, means the Brits are once more reduced to working from home, masking up in all places, and facing the threat of a complete lockdown for Christmas.

We can all agree it is pointless trying to rationalize with the irrational. It serves no purpose to repeat the obvious evidence that the lockdowns are neither a) necessary nor b) effective.

Something far more sinister than an irrational government policy is at play. And Middle England – that great barometer called the voice of the ordinary Brit – is not playing ball anymore.

On the same day that Boris announced Plan B measures, horrible footage was “leaked” to the press about a Christmas Party held at Number 10 Downing Street – Boris’s actual home – with cheese, wine, Secret Santas, and no social distancing. The kicker: this was December 2021.

It was a practice press conference for Boris Johnson’s spokesperson Allegra Stratton, but both the optics and the content are crucifying for a supposedly serious government determined for us to believe they are “following the science” and that “no rules were broken.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17971/germany-multicultural-suicide

“I will continue to take a critical stance against those… who use the liberal structure and tolerance of the constitution to impose totalitarian views of the state and who undermine the rules of the rule of law, using anti-Western indoctrination…. I will not adapt my vision of freedom of expression to… ‘Everyone has the right to freely express their opinion in a way that is not contrary to Sharia law'”. — Ralph Giordano, FAZ.net.

Once a dam breaks, there is only a competition to see who gives way faster.

The city is also changing the name of its squares…. The new name of a square in Aachen is “Moscheeplatz” (“Mosque Place”), a name desired by the Mayor Marcel Philipp, in agreement with the Turkish [Department of Religious Affairs] …

Then there is the question of demographics: 70% of Raunheim’s population are migrants. “Here we have more Muslims than Christians”. — Mayor Thomas Jühe, Social Democrats, Die Welt, November 16, 2021.

Despite this, they say that the “Great Replacement” and the Islamization of Europe are just conspiracy theories. Have we really understood what the Europe of tomorrow will be like?

“Western hegemony is over,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently. “It lasted centuries, but it is over”.

At the same time, the mosques of Cologne, the fourth-largest city in Germany, obtained permission to broadcast the call to prayer every Friday over minaret loudspeakers.

https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=190971&sec_id=190971

France’s Jewish community—Europe’s largest—is confronting the rise of Eric Zemmour, a columnist, TV personality, bestselling author, and undeclared candidate in the April 2022 French Presidential elections. Paris-born son of Algerian-Jewish-Berber background whose parents came to mainland France in 1952, he trades in controversial assertions that have caught a wave of enthusiastic support: The “Grand Replacement,” the replacement of French culture and civilization by an immigrant Muslim population; that Maréchal Pétain saved French Jews by sacrificing foreign Jews; that Captain Dreyfus was more German than French, and others. Zemmour’s insensitive comments about the burial in Israel of several French-Jewish victims of antisemitic murders was a low point in a flow of ambiguous statements condemned by the President of the French Jewish CRIF and the Chief Rabbi of France.

        Zemmour has been polling ahead of Marine Le Pen of the far-right Rassemblement National, reaching a peak of 18-19% versus 15 to 16% —capturing some of her base with his French nationalist and anti-Muslim immigration memes. Current polls indicate he might make the Second Round in contention with incumbent French President Macron, who is shown winning re-election against all currently known candidates.

        On the commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the November 13th, 2015, Islamic terror attack, Zemmour showed up at the Bataclan theater where 90 people—of the more than 130—were savagely massacred that day and accused former President Hollande of “criminal negligence” for letting the attackers slip in with the wave of Syrian refugees. Survivors and families of victims were outraged at the political exploitation of their distress.

        These developments come amid the judgment in the case of the savage anti-Semitic murder, in 2018, of 85-year Mirelle Knoll, who narrowly escaped deportation in July 1942. Yacine Mihoub was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole before 22 years. His accomplice, Alex Carrimbacus, received a 15-year sentence for aggravated theft. Mihoub’s mother, Zouliikha Khellaf was sentenced to three years in prison, with two years suspended, for cleaning and hiding the bloodied knife used by her son to slit Mirelle Knol’s throat, slashing her 11 times before setting her body on fire. The victim’s sons, Alain, and Daniel, were “greatly relieved” by the judgment. Their lawyer, Gilles-William Goldnadel, tweeted; “Justice has been done and well done.”

        Still outstanding is the case of the brutal antisemitic murder, in April 2017, of Sarah Halimi, at the hands of her drug-addled Muslim neighbor, Kobili Traoré. The highest court (Cassation) rejected all appeals and sustained the judgment of the lower court that Traoré was unfit to stand trial. An ongoing and very thorough parliamentary investigation is bringing to light the judicial errors in this case.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18000/russia-ukraine

In July, Putin published a 5,000-word article — “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” — in which he wrote that he was convinced that the “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.”

“The Russian regime’s foremost interest is its own hold on power. All policy, internal and external, stems from this overriding goal.” — Edward Lucas, Ben Hodges and Carsten Schmiedl, Center for European Policy Analysis.

“The Russian Federation…has two main options: to escalate the armed conflict in the Donbas in order to achieve a rapid breakthrough, or to intensify long-term pressure, i.e. to play for Kyiv’s gradual exhaustion. The choice of strategy depends on the Russian perception of the situation, the attitude of Ukraine itself, and the behavior of key Western actors.” — Marek Menkiszak, Center for Eastern Studies.

The first important factor here is Moscow’s likely perception of the relative weakness of the US. The Kremlin’s initial fear of ‘retribution’ from the new Joe Biden administration for its interference in the 2016 presidential election seems to have given way to the belief that Washington is focused on domestic problems and the challenge from China, so it is seeking to improve relations with the Russian Federation. — Marek Menkiszak.

“Do not make the mistake of handing an essential part of Europe’s future to a country that is demonstratively not the EU’s friend. Time will not be kind to such decision or to those who made it.” — Olexander Scherba, Ukrainian diplomat, Jamestown Foundation.

“Russia has a clear aim: to weaken Ukraine so much that it will be relatively easy to control the country’s politics. Moscow can achieve this by forcing Kyiv to implement the Minsk agreement on its terms — which would establish a de facto Russian veto on Ukrainian domestic affairs — and by starting…anti-government revolts. Alternatively, Moscow could pressure Washington to ‘deliver’ Ukraine by signing security guarantees that favored Russia. These guarantees would prohibit Ukraine from not only joining NATO but also engaging in any form of cooperation with the West that would strengthen its resilience. This would eventually force Ukraine back into Moscow’s sphere of influence.” — Gustav Gressel, European Council on Foreign Relations.

“If Russia’s coercive strategy works well, there is no guarantee that it will stop with Ukraine.” — Gustav Gressel.

“Many European leaders do not seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation…. Ukraine has a gun to its head, but the German government only seems worried about the survival of its pipeline…. This is just the kind of poor judgement that enables Russian military aggression.” — Gustav Gressel.

A massive build-up of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border is fueling speculation of an imminent invasion. Western leaders have warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against military action, but, especially after the catastrophic American withdrawal from Afghanistan, they appear divided and weak and may be unable to stop him.

A Russian invasion of Ukraine, if successful, would expand Moscow’s sphere of influence along its western border and pave the way for Eastern Europe and the Baltics to come under Russian domination once again.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/bawer-zemmour-bruce-bawer/

Well, he’s in. And he did it in a pretty spectacular way.

Last week, in a seven-minute video, Éric Zemmour – the fearless columnist and TV commentator whose latest book, France Has Not Yet Had the Last Word, I wrote about here last month – officially announced his candidacy for president of France. And it could hardly have been more powerful. It wasn’t just an announcement; it was an oration for the ages.

“My dear compatriots,” began the man widely known as “France’s Trump,” “for years, the same feeling has gripped you, oppressed you, haunted you: a strange and penetrating feeling of dispossession.” As he spoke, music played. Beethoven’s Seventh. Many commentators jumped on this: how could a man so preoccupied with all things French use a German symphony for his music bed? Fair enough: it would’ve made more sense to pick, say, Faure’s Requiem or Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.

Zemmour continued. “You walk the streets of your city and you don’t recognize it. You look at your screens and you are spoken to in a language that is strange and, quite frankly, foreign.” The video cut back and forth between a shot of Zemmour reading his announcement – an old-fashioned radio microphone in front of him, a wall of old books behind him – and images of street violence, girls in hijabs, soccer players “taking the knee,” subway crime.

Wherever you go, said Zemmour, “you have the impression that you are no longer in the country you know.” From this description of today’s France – a description to which most Frenchmen, judging by recent polls, would vigorously nod assent – Zemmour looked back to the France of a generation or two ago, the France of history, and the France of national myth: “You remember the country you knew in your childhood, you remember the country your parents described to you; you remember the country you find in movies or in books; the country of Joan of Arc and Louis XIV, the country of Bonaparte and General De Gaulle….”

And, as we viewed images of Versailles, a classroom, a theater stage, a laboratory, the names rolled on: Hugo, Descartes, Pasteur, Molière, Racine. Even Jean Gabin and Alain Delon. Although Zemmour gave France credit for the invention of the car (arguable), it was an impressive and, yes, powerful litany. I know it was powerful because it worked on me – a person who’s capable of being quite snotty about the French.

ttps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17994/china-india-himalayas-border

While working talks have resumed, both China and India have reinforced their air and ground assets. China has advanced fighter jets at three air bases within striking distance of Indian military positions.

Indian diplomats have loudly denounced a recent law passed by the Chinese national legislature, the National People’s Congress, which makes it mandatory for China’s leaders never to negotiate away one inch of professed Chinese territory. The legislation referred to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as “sacred and inviolable.”

China also has underscored its inflexibility by constructing extended civilian housing along the Line of Actual Control, thereby defying Indian counterclaims that these future habitats are being built on territory seized by China.

It is likely that China will again initiate armed skirmishes along disputed border regions to test the Biden Administration’s will to defend U.S. allies.

China will doubtless factor U.S. responses to its attacks on allied countries in the Indo-Pacific region into its decision-making calculus on how best to seize Taiwan.

Chinese missile-laden bombers flew over a contested border area with India recently, following the breakdown of bilateral talks between Indian and Chinese regional military commanders.

The near-simultaneity of the collapse of military negotiations and the threatening fly-over by People’s Liberation Army Air Force bombers underscores China’s willingness to punish India for having resisted Beijing’s territorial claims and aggression in the region.