RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/25/irans-nightmares/

Details of the recent limited Israeli retaliatory strike against Iranian anti-aircraft missile batteries at Isfahan are still sketchy. But nonetheless, we can draw some conclusions.

Israel’s small volley of missiles hit their intended targets, to the point of zeroing in on the very launchers designed to stop such incoming ordnance.

The target was near the Natanz enrichment facility. That proximity was by design. Israel showed Iran it could take out the very anti-missile battery designed to thwart an attack on its nearby nuclear facility.

The larger message sent to the world was that Israel could send a retaliatory barrage at Iranian nuclear sites with reasonable assurances that the incoming attacks could not be stopped. By comparison, Iran’s earlier attack on Israel was much greater and more indiscriminate. It was also a huge flop, with an estimated 99 percent of the more than 320 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles failing to hit their planned targets.

Moreover, it was reported that more than 50 percent of Iran’s roughly 115-120 ballistic missiles failed at launch or malfunctioned in flight.

Collate these facts, and it presents a disturbing corrective to Iran’s non-stop boasts of soon possessing a nuclear arsenal that will obliterate the Jewish state.

Consider further the following nightmarish scenarios: Were Iranian nuclear-tipped missiles ever launched at Israel, they could pass over, in addition to Syria and Iraq, either Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, or all four. In the cases of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, such trajectories would constitute an act of war, especially considering that some of Iran’s recent aerial barrages were intercepted and destroyed over Arab territory well before they reached Israel.

Iran’s strike prompted Arab nations, the US, the UK, and France to work in concert to destroy almost all of Iran’s drones. For Iran, that is a premonition of the sort of sophisticated aerial opposition it might face if it ever decided to stage a nuclear version.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20598/qatar-mediator

The idea that Qatar has been acting as a mediator in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas is nothing short of laughable. Qatar has actually long been staunchly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, of which Hamas is an offshoot.

The Muslim Brotherhood — according to a hearing at the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security on July 11, 2018 — is a militant Islamist organization with affiliates in over 70 countries, including groups designated as terrorist organizations by the US.

“”Qatar has huge influence over the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian affiliate, Hamas…. For too long, Doha has danced between its Islamist allies and its Western and Arab partners.” — Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, The Atlantic, October 20, 2023

Qatar has a long history of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and its radical terrorist offshoots…. Qatar has also provided political and financial support to Hamas. In 2008, Doha reportedly pledged $250 million to Hamas, one year after the terror group violently seized control of the Gaza Strip. In 2012, Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani became the first head of state to visit Gaza, pledging $400 million to Hamas. Since then, the Qatari government has continued to send money to Hamas.

Qatar’s goal is to keep Hamas in power. Qatar has no reason to care if thousands of Palestinians die in the Gaza Strip, so long as Hamas is permitted to continue ruling the coastal enclave.

Recently, the rulers of Qatar demonstrated that they not only serve as gracious hosts to the leaders of the Palestinian Hamas terror group, but that they also have a sense of humor.

The Gulf state’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani announced during a press conference in Doha that his country is reassessing its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas after facing criticism.

“Qatar is in the process of a complete re-evaluation of its role,” al-Thani said. “There is exploitation and abuse of the Qatari role,” he said, adding that Qatar had been the victim of “point-scoring” by “politicians who are trying to conduct election campaigns by slighting the State of Qatar.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20590/china-world-war-iii

China is swarming the waters of the Philippines, hoping to intimidate Manila into surrendering territory. US President Joe Biden and the State Department keep on issuing warnings, but Chinese President Xi Jinping continues to ignore them, suggesting deterrence is failing….

[R]ecently, China took Scarborough Shoal …. Washington then brokered an agreement for both sides to withdraw their craft, but only Manila complied. Beijing has been in firm control of Scarborough ever since.

When Chinese leaders, generals and admirals saw Washington’s failure to act, they began moving against Second Thomas Shoal and other Philippine reefs and islets in the South China Sea, went after Japan’s islets in the East China Sea, and began reclaiming and militarizing features in the Spratly chain. Biden as vice president legitimized the worst elements in the Chinese political system by showing everyone that aggression works.

Beijing has been waging proxy wars on three continents: Europe in Ukraine, Africa across its northern rim, and Asia in Israel and surrounding areas.

Xi apparently now believes he is boss of the world. “Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years,” the Chinese leader told Russian President Vladimir Putin after their 40th in-person chat, in Moscow on March 22 last year. “And we are driving this change together.”

Biden is now trying to reestablish deterrence. Britain and France desperately attempted to do that in late summer 1939 when they warned Germany that they would declare war if it invaded Poland. Then, German leaders did not believe the British and the French would in fact fight because for three years they had failed to make good on previous warnings.

China is swarming the waters of the Philippines, hoping to intimidate Manila into surrendering territory. On March 5, China wounded four Filipino sailors at Second Thomas Shoal, in the South China Sea. Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s words and displays of solidarity with the Philippines have not impressed Chinese President Xi Jinping. His maritime militia, coast guard, and navy have stepped up aggressive tactics. Pictured: A China Coast Guard ship (top) sails dangerously close to Filipino fishermen aboard two wooden boats (center), as a Philippine Fisheries and Aquatic Resources inflatable boat observes, near the Scarborough Shoal, in the South China Sea, on February 16, 2024.

https://www.jns.org/uk-jewish-leaders-to-meet-london-police-chief-amid-row-over-anti-israel-protests/

(April 21, 2024 / JNS) The U.K. Board of Deputies of British Jews will meet later this week with Mark Rowley, commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, after requesting an urgent meeting “to repair a grievous loss of confidence” over his mishandling of anti-Israel protests in the capital, The Sunday Times reported.

“The Metropolitan Police have made a series of high-profile errors in their responses to these demonstrations,” the Board of Deputies said after the leader of a group that fights antisemitism was stopped from crossing a street by a Metropolitan Police officer for appearing “quite openly Jewish.”

“The entirely avoidable mistakes have had a devastating effect on the previously high level of trust held by the U.K.’s Jewish community in the police,” the Board of Deputies said.

On April 13, Gideon Falter, who heads the U.K.-based Campaign Against Antisemitism was prevented by a policeman from crossing a street as an anti-Israel protest passed.

“This is a pro-Palestinian march. I am not accusing you of anything, but I am worried about the reaction to your presence,” the officer told him in a video Falter’s group posted to X on April 18.

“I don’t want to stay here. I want to leave,” Falter explained to the officer, who nevertheless blocked him when he attempted to get by.

Another officer told Falter he would be arrested if he remained in the vicinity “because your presence here is antagonizing them.”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/19/hamas-apologism-has-taken-australia-by-storm/

Since the 7 October pogrom in Israel, it has become increasingly clear that hostility towards Israel is no longer confined to its Islamist enemies. It is increasingly prevalent in Western democracies, too.

This has certainly been true in Australia. Indeed, just days after Hamas committed atrocities in southern Israel, mobs stood on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, chanting ‘Gas the Jews!’. It set the tone for subsequent pro-Palestine protests, each one serenaded by the hateful chant, ‘From the river to the sea’. Israel has rarely been more threatened, and it has certainly never been so alone.

Of course, there have been anti-Israel pile-ons from activists over the years. But what had been less apparent in Australia was Hamas apologism, or a refusal to condemn the terrorists. Until now, that is.

This month, the Labor government, panicked about the prospect of losing seats to the pro-Palestine Greens, said that it intends to recognise a Palestinian state. Speaking last Tuesday, foreign-affairs minister Penny Wong said that statehood is ‘the only hope to break the endless cycle of violence’. She also said this was the best way to damage Hamas.

The response from Nasser Mashni, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, to Labor’s position was revealing. He was provided with four opportunities by Sky News host Tom Connell to repudiate Hamas and agree that its involvement in the future governance of Gaza would be intolerable. Mashni dodged and equivocated on each occasion.

‘What we need to do is move beyond this fascination or infatuation with Hamas’, Mashni said, seemingly bewildered that a group that had carefully planned and executed the murder, kidnapping and rape of 1,200 defenceless civilians – ranging from babies to the elderly – was somehow relevant to a discussion on the future of Palestine. Towards the end of the interview, Mashni laid his cards squarely on the table: ‘The problem is not Hamas – the problem is Zionism, it’s settler colonialism.’

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/18/are-irans-nine-lives-nearing-an-end/

The theocracy of Iran has been the world’s arch-embassy attacker over the last half century.

So it has zero credibility in crying foul over Israel’s April 1 attacks on its “consulate” in Damascus and the killing of Iran’s kingpin terrorists of the Revolutionary Guard Corps there.

Remember, the world was first introduced to the Iranian ayatollahs by their violent takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1980.

Iranian surrogates next bombed the American embassy in Beirut and the Marine barracks in 1983.

In fact, Iran has attacked US and Israeli diplomatic posts off-and-on for decades, most recently in 2023, when Iran helped plan an attack on the US embassy in Baghdad.

For this reason and several others, Iran’s justification for sending 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles into Israel on the grounds that Israel had bombed an Iranian diplomatic post is completely ridiculous.

One, Iran has never honored diplomatic immunity. Instead, it habitually attacks and kills embassy personnel and blows up diplomatic facilities across the world.

Two, on April 1, the Israelis attacked a pseudo-“consulate” in Damascus which was hosting grandees of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as they planned terrorist attacks on Israel.

Without Iran, the Middle East might have had a chance to use its enormous oil and natural gas wealth to lift its 500 million people out of poverty rather than to be mired in constant tribal and religious anti-Israeli, anti-American, and anti-Western terrorism.

During the Iraq War, Iran’s Shiite terrorists and its massive supplies of deadly shaped-charge explosive devices killed hundreds of Americans. It routinely hijacks container ships in the Straits of Hormuz and stages near collisions with American ships and planes.

How does Iran get away with nonstop anti-Western terrorism, its constant harassment of Persian Gulf maritime traffic, its efforts to subvert Sunni moderate regimes, and its serial hostage-taking?

The theocrats operate on three general principles.

One, Iran is careful never to attack a major power directly.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20583/jihadist-caliphate

Not only are Jews under threat, but Christians and all “unbelievers” in the radical jihadist agenda as well.

Although an “ostrich” mentality towards these genocidal objectives prevails among Western decision-makers, the reality is quite different: The driving ideology behind Hamas’s murderous intent is exemplified by the “Doomsday Clock” located in Palestine Square, Tehran, Iran. Inaugurated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2017, the clock counts down the time towards Israel’s anticipated destruction in 2040, sixteen years from now. Iran’s barrage of missiles and drones launched at Israel on April 13, 2024, was presumably another step toward fulfilling that destructive intent.

Even though Iran remains essentially responsible for the actions of its agents, it has yet to suffer any consequences despite its direct attack on Israel on April 13-14. All the while, taking full advantage of US appeasement and unencumbered by meaningful sanctions, Iran races ahead with development of nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of eliminating Israel and, thereafter Jordan and ultimately the “Great Satan,” the United States from the world map.

On April 1, 2024, Abolfazl Bazargan, an Iranian international relations expert, made it clear, with a straight face, that “…for the purpose of bringing about peace – you have to create nuclear deterrence, even if only one (bomb).” Peace, however, seems to mean “after jihad has obliterated all opposition and established an Islamic Caliphate.” This objective is couched in rational terms to appease West powers, the sympathetic world leaders, who might be persuaded that it is fair and right that Iran possess a nuclear weapon just as Israel, the US, UK, North Korea, and other nations possess such weapons. The underlying jihadist ideology of world hegemony is concealed under a veneer of rationalism, social justice, victimhood, and fairness.

“It’s a belief that goes a long way in explaining the dehumanization of the Jews: It’s much easier to brutalize and slaughter, the way Hamas did on October 7, if you think that Jews are apes and pigs. In our rational Western way of thinking, all of this is unfathomable.” — Idit Bar, expert on Islamism, Times of Israel, February 2, 2024.

Refusing to directly confront Iran as the source of Middle Eastern terror — and instead rely on diplomatic “conflict resolution” that enables Iran to buy time — amounts to a form of appeasement. At this time, preparation for war is the best deterrence, especially in the current circumstances of a misguided faith in “talking.”

It was an attitude of pusillanimous appeasement by UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Nazi Germany in 1938, with the Munich Agreement, that directly resulted in Hitler’s unrestrained march on neighbouring countries, thus inaugurating WW2. In like mode, US President Joe Biden’s acolytes now appease Iran’s Ayatollahs, an approach that commenced under President Barack Obama. Once again, the consequences for the West and the world at large will be horrendous.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/the-left/2024/04/hate-zionists-apply-for-your-grant-today/

Clementine Ford, I’m sorry to report, has found a new way of making a pest of herself. Since Hamas’ pogrom of October 7, Ford has become one of Australia’s most prolific anti-Israel activists, a project she has undertaken with all the rigour and restraint we have come to expect from the feminist termagant.

This was all on display, for example, when Ford helped dox the names and details of about 600 Jewish artists and creators, an act that led, of course, to harassment and death threats. It was also around this time that Ford herself was outed as a devoted pal of Laura Allam, the Palestinian activist currently facing charges of stomping on the head of her kidnapped victim. “I love YOU”, gushed Ford to Allam on Instagram, which, to be fair, was a rare departure in her behaviour on that social media platform. More often, Ford is shouty and deranged, fond of directing her venom at Jewish women who object to Hamas’ psychopathic campaign of rape and murder. Ford has labelled these “Zionist women”, in politer moments, as pathetic crybabies.

None of this, I’m even sorrier to report, has disqualified Clementine Ford receiving government grants. To its discredit, Screen NSW has provided her with $30,000 to co-create a TV series called Smile Bitch, which, I predict, most viewers will find unwatchable.

As usual, it gets worse. Clementine Ford isn’t some weird outlier here. A penchant for anti-Israel fanaticism, I have come to suspect, is much more likely to assist prospective applicants in their quest to be awarded with taxpayer funds. For example, Elsa Tuet-Rosenberg recently introduced herself to the Australian public as one of Ford’s fellow doxxers. As The Australian reported, Ms Tuet-Rosenberg used the incident to show off her talent for organising and delegating, as she split up her various lists of Jews into categories like ‘Artists’, ‘Sports Zios’, and the like. She then exhorted her social media followers to “let these f***ing Zionists know no f***ing peace.” This seems to be about the extent of her vocabulary, though, as she has also posed for photos where she sports both a maniacal rictus and a t-shirt with profanity-laden imprecations against Zionists and Israel.

https://quillette.com/2024/04/11/queen-of-the-gender-crits/

EXCERPT

Indeed identity politics has become as central to the SNP’s creed, if not more so, than taking Scotland out of the UK. In a reversal of Whisky Galore-type stereotypes, in fact, the Scots have now taken on the role of witch-finders, sniffing out heretical thoughts under the cover of a supposedly liberal ideology. A vast amount of parliamentary time has been wasted on bad and unnecessary legislation advocated by trans activists, including a bill to remove all safeguards from the process that allows people to change their legal gender. The UK government salvaged the day by blocking the reckless Gender Recognition Reform Act last year, but the SNP had another trick up its sleeve.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into effect on April 1—April Fools’ day, as critics were quick to point out. It’s been on the statute books since 2021, but implementation was delayed because no one could say with any certainty what it actually criminalised.

Officially described as an act “to make provision about the aggravation of offences by prejudice; to make provision about an offence of racially aggravated harassment; to make provision about offences relating to stirring up hatred against a group of persons” and various other “connected purposes,” the law extends existing protections against racial hatred to cover age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. Women are not explicitly protected. And so the female half of the population will have to wait for a separate piece of legislation that addresses misogyny at an unspecified time in the future.

At a moment when trans activists physically disrupt feminist events, and scour social media for posts they can present as transphobic, the scope for trivial and malicious complaints is endless. Opponents of the legislation warned that the Act would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech, not least because a new offence of “stirring up hatred” has no clear definition, yet attracts a sentence of up to seven years in prison. The Act has been denounced as a “clype’s charter” (clype being a Scots word meaning a sneak); and that is exactly what it has proved to be, prompting around 8,000 complaints to the police in the first week following the Act’s implementation. 

A new offence of ‘stirring up hatred’ has no clear definition, yet attracts a sentence of up to seven years in prison.

In a development that surprised no one, the Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf, who steered the bill through Parliament when he was Justice Secretary, has been accused of watering down protections for “gender-critical” women (which is to say, those who believe in a biologically-based definition of womanhood) to avoid upsetting trans activists. Susan Smith, director of the feminist organisation For Women Scotland, claimed on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour that Yousaf and his fellow SNP politicians broke a promise that she and a colleague would be involved in drawing up training materials because he thought “it would upset the trans lobby if those examples were given in the guidance to the police.” And, as everyone predicted, one of the first targets when the legislation came into operation was another English novelist who has made Scotland her home.

J.K. Rowling has lived in Edinburgh since 1993, before she published her first Harry Potter novel. Her increasingly stellar fame was initially seen as an ornament to the city and she became one of Scotland’s foremost philanthropists, setting up a charity in 2006 that supports children in orphanages in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America. More recently, after Edinburgh’s rape crisis centre appointed a trans-identified male as its CEO, Rowling set up and funded Beira’s Place, a women-only service for victims of sexual violence. In any sane world, such generous acts would have won plaudits from government ministers. Not in Scotland, however, where the SNP is convinced that even the mildest resistance to the intemperate demands of gender warriors is tantamount to heresy.