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WORLD NEWS

Can Trump End Ukraine’s ‘Endless War?’ There are lots of parties who want, and lots of incentives for, an end to our 21st-century Verdun. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/18/can-trump-end-ukraines-endless-war/

Trump was elected in part on promises to avoid “endless wars” of the sort that cost American blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq but without resulting in strategic advantage or civilized calm.

Yet as a Jacksonian, Trump also restored American deterrence through punitive strikes against ISIS and terrorist thugs like Baghdadi and Soleimani—without being bogged down in costly follow-ups. During the last four administrations, Putin stayed within his borders only during the Trump four years.

But upon entering office, Trump will likely still be faced with something far more challenging as he confronts what has become the greatest European killing field since World War II—the cauldron on the Ukrainian border that has likely already cost 1-1.5 million combined dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians.

There is no end in sight after three years of escalating violence. But there are increasing worries that strategically logical and morally defensible—but geopolitically dangerous—Ukrainian strikes on the Russian interior will nonetheless escalate and lead to a wider war among the world’s nuclear powers.

Many on the right wish for Trump to immediately cut off all aid to Ukraine for what they feel is an unwinnable war, even if that abrupt cessation would end any leverage with which to force Putin to negotiate.

They claim the war was instigated by a globalist left, serving as a proxy conflict waged to ruin Russia at the cost of Ukrainian soldiers. They see it orchestrated by a now non-democratic Ukrainian government, lacking elections, a free press, or opposition parties, led by an ungracious and corrupt Zelensky cadre that has allied with the American left in an election year.

Elise Stefanik’s UN debut can’t come soon enough Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/elise-stefaniks-un-debut-cant-come-soon-enough/

Whether the Biden administration is planning a last hurrah for the Jewish state at the United Nations—a lame-duck good riddance, à la Barack Obama, in the form of an abstention in a hostile Security Council vote—remains to be seen. The updated draft of a resolution relating to the war in Gaza and Lebanon is no better, if not worse, than its first anti-Israel version.

No surprise there. The only question is how Washington’s current dubious “ironclad commitment” to its key Mideast ally will stand up to scrutiny where the international vipers’ nest in Midtown Manhattan is concerned.

What’s certain is that President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to replace U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield can’t come soon enough.

To grasp the difference between Thomas-Greenfield and her soon-to-be-successor, Elise Stefanik, one need only compare their statements about Israel and the Iran-backed enemies bent on its annihilation.

Thomas-Greenfield opened her address last week to the UNSC by issuing a harsh rebuke. Not to Hamas, of course. No, instead, she began her Nov. 12 tirade by citing remarks by acting U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and relief coordinator Joyce Msuya.

 “There is no need to mince words here,” Thomas-Greenfield stated at the outset. “As we heard from our briefers, the situation in northern Gaza is dire. Catastrophic, as we heard from Ms. Msuya. An unconscionable number of Palestinian civilians, many women and children, have been killed.”

She proceeded to invoke a false Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report, according to which “nearly every civilian in Gaza is without adequate food, medication, clean drinking water or housing,” adding, “They simply cannot be left to suffer indefinitely.”

UNRWA Hires Palestinian Terrorists, Glorifies Violence And Terrorism by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21121/unrwa-hires-terrorists

According to Israeli intelligence, more than 450 terrorists belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA.

“By not firing them, the UN Secretary-General and UNRWA’s Commissioner General are brazenly demonstrating their determination to continue employing members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad even after having been presented with incriminating evidence to this effect. It is time for donor governments to wake up and stop funneling their taxpayers’ money to members of designated terrorist organizations.” – www.idf.il, August 5, 2024

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini recently told the UN General Assembly that his agency provides tolerant, respectful and anti-extremist education in Gaza. However, IMPACT-se’s new report unveils institutional teaching material taught in five UNRWA schools in Gaza, where Hamas commanders have been exposed masquerading as school principals.

A poem taught to seventh-graders… calls on knights, symbolizing Arab leaders, to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem “from the fist of unbelief, from Satan’s aides – revenge to the Jews.”

What is disturbing is that the UN chief and other donor countries refuse to see what many Palestinians already see, namely that UNRWA has long been playing a significant role in inciting hatred against Israel and raising another generation of Palestinian children on the glorification of violence and terrorism. It is time for this agency, as well as the entire UN, to be dismantled and removed, or at least, as suggested years ago, to have nations pay only for what they want and to get what they pay for.

It is also time for the Palestinian “refugees” to move on with their lives and stop relying on Western taxpayers’ money.

The Possibility of a ‘Golden Age’ in the Middle East by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21117/golden-age-middle-east

Iran launched from its own soil hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and attack drones at Israel, a country smaller than the state of New Jersey — a demonstration of the regime’s fundamentalist commitment to destroying the Jewish state.

President-elect Donald J. Trump at present seems averse to regime change in Iran. Unfortunately — due to the regime’s commitment to “wipe Israel off the map” and, as stated in its constitution, to export its version of Islam across the world — there does not appear to be the possibility for a real long-term peace in the Middle East without regime change. Anything short of that simply invites the regime to wait Trump out, as well as whoever succeeds him.

Not enough can be said to warn nations of the dangers that can arise from a lack of robust leadership, the perils of underestimating the ambitions of adversarial states, and the paralysis of being unable to confront an adversary for fear of escalation. The adversary, not the leader of Free World, is supposed to fear “escalation.”

The repercussions of allowing Iran… to operate without meaningful deterrence, simply underscores the need for a “Golden Age” — especially a new regime in Iran more aligned with the dreams of so many of its citizens — and not a moment too soon.

Never underestimate the power of an administration’s single term or the harm that policies – whether constructive or poorly-informed — can have on the international stage.

As President Joe Biden’s administration approaches the end of its term, it is hard not to see the global volatility, emboldened adversaries, and fractured alliances.

Those are lessons to be learned about the costs of weakness in leadership and the consequences of strategic missteps in foreign policy.

The Intifada Was Globalized in Amsterdam by Alan M. Dershowitz and Andrew Stein

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21118/amsterdam-globalized-intifada

There is no moral or legal equivalence between non-violent mischief — such as tearing down flags and shouting racial insults — and committing life-threatening assaults upon people based on their religion and ethnicity. The anti-Israel rioters were hunting down Jews…

Muslim extremists have a long history of hurling spears in response to non-violent insults. Recall the numerous deadly attacks — shootings, stabbings, bombings and lethal fatwas—against those who allegedly insulted the prophet by picturing him or authoring books about him. There was also violence against those who burned Korans or otherwise demeaned Islam. Even cartoons provoked deadly responses.

The law in no Western nation grants the victims of non-violent insults the right to respond by violence. If a Jew were to physically assault the many Muslims who have repeatedly demeaned Judaism or its nation-state during recent protests, they would be appropriately punished, as some have been.

[W]e are likely to see more anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish pogroms in other parts of the world as antisemitism moves from the fringes to the mainstream.

Protestors – both pro- and anti-Israel – have the right to express their views verbally and even symbolically, but they have no right to attack individuals or groups based on religion, ethnicity or national origin. Those who engaged in physical assaults – and many were caught on video – must be prosecuted and, if convicted, imprisoned or deported. A clear line must be drawn between lawful, even if immoral, protests, and criminal violence…. It is a bright-line distinction that many in the media are deliberately trying to blur.

The U.S. has a stake in stopping this violence: the call to “globalize the intifada” is not limited to Europe. Those who advocate globalization are inciting violence against Americans of Jewish heritage. The incitement may be too general to be denied First Amendment protection against criminal punishment, but the single standard demands that universities apply the same standard to calls for intifada than they would to calls for lynching of blacks or assaulting of gays. The real difference is that no university student or faculty member would ever call for the latter, and if they did, they would be disciplined or expelled. Yet today it is entirely acceptable, indeed expected, that radical students will call for the lynching and assaulting of Jews and Israelis. That, after all, is what an intifada entails.

The Talibanization of Bangladesh: ‘Genocidal Campaign against Minority Hindu Population.’ Where is Mohammad Yunus? by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21116/bangladesh-genocide-hindus

“Hindus targeted in #Bangladesh again. This time in Chittagong. Is administration led by Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus unable or unwilling to help Hindus?” — India Today, November 7, 2024.

Since the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government in August, the world has witnessed the full Islamization and Talibanization of Bangladesh.

“Ever since the Bangladesh prime minister was forced to flee… images, videos and accounts are streaming in of atrocities against the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, whose numbers have dangerously depleted over decades almost to the point of extinction….” — Sreemoy Talukdar, firstpost.com, August 8, 2024.

“One viral video clip shows radical Islamist lunatics inspecting the genitals of a murdered man, possibly lynched to death, and expressing satisfaction that he was a Hindu.” — Sreemoy Talukdar, firstpost.com, August 8, 2024.

In many instances, members of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, are behind these attacks and rights violations. Jamaat-e-Islami was banned by the Awami League government on August 1. Four days later, PM Hasina was forced to resign and her government collapsed.

Jamaat-e-Islami has now gained strength under Bangladesh’s Islamist interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus. Islamist radicals are the ones who brought Yunus to power.

The influence of the Hizb-ut Tahrir — another in Islamist organization that aspires to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate and globally implement Sharia law — also keeps increasing.

“The interim government led by Mohammad Yunus has largely failed to stop the violence against the minorities and has made matters worse by lifting bans on radical Islamist groups and releasing terror suspects from jail that rule the roost on the streets of Bangladesh.” — Raja Muneeb, firstpost.com, September 5, 2024.

If a power such as the US sits back, does nothing and watches as the Talibanization of Bangladesh unfold — as the Biden administration has done — it is likely that the chaos will not remain within the borders of Bangladesh. India will not allow another Islamist state on its borders to wipe out Hindus, Christians and secular Muslims in Bangladesh. India might justifiably decide that its security is threatened enough.

Second Wave of Apparently Antisemitic Attacks Breaks Out in Amsterdam Alex Welz

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/second-wave-of-apparently-antisemitic-attacks-breaks-out-in-amsterdam/

A famous Dutch tram was set ablaze by rioters in Amsterdam on Monday in what appears to be a second wave of antisemitic violence, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Rioters in all-black attire were seen throwing objects and shouting “Kanker Joden,” a phrase that translates to “Cancer Jews” but is widely interpreted as “F*** the Jews.” The tram reportedly contained no passengers.

Perpetrators shattered the windows of a different tram earlier in the day before setting it on fire in the city’s western suburbs. This prompted clashes with law enforcement and more than 50 arrests. A police spokesman reported that the blaze was likely caused by fireworks.

Masked individuals were reported to be roaming the streets shouting “Free Palestine” in the attacks’ aftermath. This comes just days after Israelis soccer fans were targeted in Amsterdam by mobs of young men following a soccer match. Five victims required hospitalization while 20 to 30 others were injured. At least 62 suspects were arrested, yet only ten remained in custody later that same day, Amsterdam’s public prosecutor René de Beukelaer told reporters.

“The Antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are despicable and echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted,” President Biden wrote on X. “We’ve been in touch with Israeli and Dutch officials and appreciate Dutch authorities’ commitment to holding the perpetrators accountable. We must relentlessly fight Antisemitism, wherever it emerges.”

The moral ghettoisation of the Jews The left’s apologism for the pogrom in Amsterdam marks a foul new low. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/11/11/the-moral-ghettoisation-of-the-jews/

Gal Binyanmin Tshuva, 29, is a keen football follower from Israel. Not a hooligan, not a thug, just a fan. In Amsterdam on Thursday night he found himself surrounded by a frothing, Israelophobic mob. They asked where he was from. ‘Greece’, he said, in a desperate bid to evade their hate and blows. They demanded to see his passport. He said he didn’t have it on him. They pushed him to the ground, stomped on his face, gashed his head, broke two of his teeth and knocked him unconscious. He came to eventually, in an ambulance, his face streaked with blood.

Adi Reuben, 24, was set upon by 10 Jew-haters. They beat him so badly they broke his nose. ‘Jewish! IDF!’, they yelled as they pummelled the Jew’s face. Aaron, a Jewish football fan from Britain, saw one of his co-religionists from Israel being stomped on and subjected to anti-Semitic abuse. He intervened to help him. The mob cornered him, yelling: ‘Are you Yehudi? Are you Jewish?’ He said he was a Brit. ‘You helped the Jew’, they said and smashed his face in. They broke his glasses and left his face coated in cuts.

Barak took refuge in Amsterdam’s Holland Casino, along with hundreds of other Israelis, as outside a mob of 200 gathered and seethed, ‘looking for blood’. A young Israeli man staggered into the casino. ‘All his face was blood’, said Barak. They were the victims of a jodenjacht – a ‘Jew hunt’. That’s the phrase used by the assailants themselves, in Telegram chats ahead of the violence. Bring fireworks, they told each other. We’ll attack this ‘cancer’, these ‘dogs’, they said, referring to the Israelis. And they did. They whizzed through the city on mopeds, using fireworks to ‘pelt’ the ‘dogs’ from the Jewish State.

Mathias Döpfner: Make Germany More Jewish Again

https://www.thefp.com/p/mathias-dopfner-make-germany-more-jewish-again?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Last week, a mob rampaged through the streets of Amsterdam, ambushing and assaulting Jews. Anyone who appeared to be a supporter of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv was targeted by groups mostly consisting of young men from the city’s Dutch Moroccan and Dutch Turkish communities. Just before the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, victims pleaded with their assailants “not Jewish, not Jewish.”

This shameful episode is only the latest example of antisemitism on Europe’s streets. It is the disgraceful consequence of an irresponsible migration policy that is equally receptive to Islamists and Holocaust deniers. Violent incidents have become more common since October 7, 2023, and the already shrinking population of European Jews is set to decline further as many Jews in the Netherlands, in France, and my country, Germany, consider emigrating. 

The decline, in Germany and Europe more generally, is greeted with a shrug. Such complacency is shameful. Particularly in Germany. The country can never make up for its historical guilt, but it could help ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. Not only should Germany be working to persuade Jews to stay—we should throw open our doors to Jews who want to move here. Allow me to explain.

In his book Why the Germans? Why the Jews?, German historian Götz Aly exposes how antisemitism is deeply rooted in a destructive envy. He describes how, for centuries, people were not only envious of the outward successes of the Jews but also of something profound and ancient—a culture, a religion, a history that has continued to exist across millennia. 

“The envious person,” Aly surmises, “is always seeking a scapegoat.” The unsettling question he poses is “Can you be envious of someone you despise?” Jews were vilified as being “rootless,” although they possessed exactly what the Germans had been looking for: a clear identity and story. 

Envy, again, is a major root cause of the global spread of Islamist antisemitism. What we know from Germany’s painful history is that when antisemitic envy, and the envy of achievement, become the dominant zeitgeist, they stand in the way of knowledge, wealth, and progress. Instead, they produce delusion, poverty, and regression. What inevitably transpires is the opposite of meritocracy: “ineptocracy,” or the rule of the least capable. 

Trump and the ‘sick man’ of Europe By Kenneth R. Timmerman

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/11/trump_and_the_sick_man_of_europe.html

Ouf! (as the French would say), we’ve got our country back. Praise the Lord for answered prayers.

World leaders sent out their congratulations.

Even Russia’s Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his resounding re-election victory. This is normal and it is healthy.

Putin has always wanted two things — and not much more, actually — from U.S. leaders: a recognition of Russia’s great power status, and respect as Russia’s legitimate leader.

Biden didn’t just deny both of those, he gratuitously threw the insults in Putin’s face. I am still grappling with the strategic purpose the Democrats saw in taking us to the brink of World War III with Russia. Maybe there wasn’t one.

Putin said he is ready for talks over Ukraine. Just three weeks ago, it was no way, Jose.

Elections have consequences.

Trump has said he wants an immediate end of the fighting. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky quite understandably is not happy with that, since the Russians occupy something like sixteen percent of Ukrainian territory. But for now, Zelensky has little to no leverage.

A ceasefire would freeze the frontlines and bring in some kind of interposition force, most likely, some combination of NATO troops and nonaligned nations. And then the real negotiations would begin.

Also among those congratulating Trump on his re-election was NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Along with saner NATO leaders, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Rutte could hear the drumbeats of war in Europe’s capitols and knew the utter devastation a war with Russia would bring.

Donald Trump just walked the hotheads like France’s Emmanuel Macron (Little Cookie) back from the brink of World War III. The proper response to that is, Mon dieu, merci!