ISRAEL Comments turned off

What Do Advocates of a Two-State Solution Actually Advocate? By John F. Di Leo

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/what_do_advocates_of_a_twostate_solution_actually_advocate_.html

There are approximately 13.5 million people in the current geographical nation of Israel – about 9 million Israeli nationals and 4.5 million others known as “Palestinians” (primarily ethnic Egyptians and other Arabs who moved into the area early in the 20th century).

Due to some very peculiar agreements that would be unimaginable anywhere else on earth, this tiny country is currently divided into parts in which this external third of the population has been granted almost complete self-rule as “The West Bank” (actually, the provinces of Judea and Samaria) and “The Gaza Strip.” While these two areas are governed completely separately and somewhat differently, the rest of the world, out of ease or ignorance, refers to them together as the Palestinian Authority (PA).

It doesn’t work.

For a number of reasons that have been analyzed to death already, this artificial construct, the Palestinian Authority, is already a failed state, long before it has even achieved statehood. 

In election after election, the residents elect the terrorist leaders of Hamas, Fatah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), as their representatives (and even when they aren’t elected, these terrorists just seize power anyway, as Hamas has done in Gaza, without serious objection from their subjects).

The area they control is governed exactly as one would expect places ruled by terrorists to be governed: with minimal emphasis on economic opportunity, living conditions and the rule of law, and instead, with primary emphasis on political power and a permanent state of war.

As the current conflict – a particularly hot moment within the constant conflict that has lasted the past century, to be honest – attracts more of the world’s attention than usual, the dream remedy known as “the two-state solution” returns to the fore.

Now, what all students of the Middle East should know already, though they often need to be reminded, is that the current map is already the result of a two-state solution.  The British Mandate for Palestine of a century ago was first promised to be all Israel, then was debated, derailed, and divided as the years went on, as statecraft was practiced in country clubs and far-off retreats.  The Mandate wound up split into an Arab state and a Jewish one, the Arab one substantially larger, with seaports in the Gulf of Aqaba, the Jewish one far smaller, but blessed at least with seaports on the Mediterranean.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The Media’s Lab Leak Debacle Shows Why Banning ‘Misinformation’ Is a Terrible Idea How a debate about COVID-19’s origins exposed a dangerous hubris Robby Soave

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://reason.com/2021/06/04/lab-leak-misinformation-media-fauci-covid-19/

Facebook made a quiet but dramatic reversal last week: It no longer forbids users from touting the theory that COVID-19 came from a laboratory.

“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps,” the social media platform declared in a statement.

This change in policy comes in the midst of heated debate about how to respond to the perception that social media is amplifying the spread of false information. For the last several years, journalists and politicians have pushed to police so-called misinformation through various means. Major news organizations have hired mis- or disinformation reporters. Lawmakers such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) have urged social media sites to prohibit speech deemed wrong or dangerous—and have sometimes suggested that this should be required by law. More recently, various groups have asked President Joe Biden to establish a federal initiative to combat online misinformation.

But Facebook’s concession that the lab leak story it once viewed as demonstrably false is actually possibly true should put to rest the idea that banning or regulating misinformation should be a chief public policy goal.

It’s one thing to discuss, debate, and correct wrong ideas, and both tech companies and media have roles to play in fostering healthy public dialogue. But Team Blue’s recent obsession with rendering unsayable anything that clashes with its preferred narrative is the height of hubris. The conversation should not be closed by the government and its yes-men in journalism, in tech, or even in public health.

From False Claim to Live Possibility

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Zionism and Judaism: Are they interdependent? Moshe Dann

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/zionism-and-judaism-are-they-interdependent-67018

Judaism needs Zionism because it enabled Jews to return and to establish a state; this allows Jews to have a national identity and engage in fulfilling commandments that can only be done in Israel.

Although some people – such as those in the Reform and Reconstruction movements, “Progressives,” and some left-wing Israelis – claim to support Judaism and Zionism, in fact, they do not. For example, on May 15, 2021, a large group of students, mostly from Reform and Reconstructionist colleges, published a letter condemning Israel for “apartheid” and for “violating human rights” in its war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. This explains why some Jews in America have turned their backs on Zionism, Israel and Judaism.

Zionism is connected to Judaism because it provides a text, the Jewish Bible, or Tanach (The Five Books of Moses, Prophets, and other writings), as well as libraries of theological and philosophical writing that define and mandate the Land of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

Judaism needs Zionism because it enabled Jews to return and to establish a state; this allows Jews to have a national identity and engage in fulfilling mitzvot (commandments) that can only be done in Eretz Yisrael. This is the basis for creating the Third Jewish Commonwealth/Civilization.

Although they need each other to become fulfilled, Zionism and Judaism can and do exist separately and independently in the Diaspora. One can practice Judaism without being a Zionist, just as one can be secular or a non-Jewish Zionist.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Our Increasingly Unrecognizable Civilization Mark Steyn *******

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/increasingly-unrecognizable-civilization/?utm_campaign=imprimis&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=130183578&_

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 26, 2021, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Franklin, Tennessee.

I live about 20 minutes south of the Canadian border, which used to be called the longest undefended frontier in the world. People moved freely back and forth across it all day every day. But now it’s been closed for over a year. At one point my daughter asked me to drive her up there, because there was a 30-minute opportunity for people on one side to talk to their friends on the other. “Sad!” as President Trump would say. It was like Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin during the Cold War, except that both sides are now like East Berlin. 

I don’t know how this happened, but it is just one indication that America, and the West in general, have become almost unrecognizable from what they were not that long ago.

Look at just three things we have lost. 

One is equality before the law, something absolutely essential to a free society. In its place, we now have politicized law. If a policeman fatally shoots someone, whether his name is released to the public depends on whether the shooting is consistent with the preferred narrative of the ruling class. A policeman recently took down a [Black] young woman who was threatening the life of another young woman with a knife, and that policeman was immediately identified—indeed, his photo was posted and he was threatened by NBA superstar LeBron James on Twitter. On the other hand, we know nothing of the policeman who shot dead an unarmed [unthreatening White] woman in the U.S. Capitol on January 6. His name will apparently never be released to the public.

Second, border control. Functioning societies, at least since the Peace of Westphalia three centuries ago, have borders. America has no southern border and no plans to get one. The official position of our government seems to be that any of the seven billion persons on this planet has a right to come and stay in the U.S. for three years, until his or her assigned court date comes up. As the number of people with pending cases continues to grow, that three years will extend out to five or seven or 15 years. If we get all seven billion people to come here, the court system will break down entirely and maybe we can go back to having a functioning border.

And third, dare I bring up the fact that it is a real question whether we can go back to agreeing to have open and honest elections? And if we don’t have open and honest elections, control of our borders, and equality before the law, then we don’t have the conditions for politics or free government. 

And here’s the thing. It is not at all clear to me that many of America’s conservative politicians understand the seriousness of all this. You can see it in the fact that they go around trying to scare people with the specter of a “radical socialist agenda.” For well over a year now, we have been living in a world in which it’s accepted as normal that the state has essentially unlimited power—and in which our freedom to decide for ourselves has been diminished almost to invisibility. Why do these conservative politicians think the words “radical socialist agenda” still scare anyone in a time when the state can tell us whether we can have Aunt Mabel over for Christmas? They are completely out of touch.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Free Speech in Crisis at Stanford Law School By Dan McLaughlin

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/free-speech-in-crisis-at-stanford-law-school/

Stanford University recently threatened a liberal law student’s ability to graduate over a satirical post to an email listserv aimed at the campus chapter of the Federalist Society. Fortunately, the school has now backed down. This is yet another story of academic disciplinary systems run amok against free speech. The hero of this tale is the indispensable Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which fights for student rights to free speech, religious liberty, due process, and freedom of conscience on campuses across the country. Given the political climate on today’s campuses, that means that a lot of FIRE’s work is on behalf of conservative students, but as this case illustrates, FIRE will take on the campus censors to protect speech from all different perspectives.

The chief villain in the story is the university’s cowardly, brain-dead complaint system, the staff of which acted so unreasonably in this case that they even came under fire from the dean of Stanford Law School. The press, interested primarily in score-settling against the Federalist Society, has focused mainly on the involvement of the three law-student officers of the Stanford Federalists in triggering the disciplinary process. Those students did, in fact, have a legitimate reason to be aggrieved — but they crossed a line by invoking the disciplinary machinery of the university. There are lessons all around about how we should go about protecting free speech on campus.

The Riot Act

The controversy began on January 25, a few weeks after the January 6 Capitol Riot. Nicholas Wallace, a third-year student at Stanford Law, created a satirical poster purporting to be a Federalist Society event on “The Originalist Case for Inciting Insurrection.” The event claimed to feature Missouri senator Joshua Hawley (a Stanford alumnus) and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, hosted by the Stanford Law student chapter of the Federalist Society.

The flyer promised to hand out “riot information” and give out Grubhub coupons, and explained, “Violent insurrection, also known as doing a coup, is a classical system of installing a government. Although widely believed to conflict in every way with the rule of law, violent insurrection can be an effective approach to upholding the principle of limited government.” The flyer took pains to imitate the design and cadence of a Stanford Federalist Society event, down to the logo and formatting. You can see it below:

A modestly careful reader would notice that the event was dated January 6, the date of the riot, rather than a date in the future. Sadly, many people these days are not modestly careful readers.

In a saner time, the flyers would have been posted around the campus. Instead, Wallace posted them to a Stanford email listserv, and the drama escalated from there. Judging from the negative comments he received that day, the people who were immediately offended were thin-skinned left-leaning law students triggered both by the satire and by the very existence of Federalist Society debates on the campus. One wrote, “If cannibalism were a real, widespread fear among people in your society, then I think A Modest Proposal would be inappropriate to email to everyone en masse, under the guise of a legitimate organizational proposal.” There was also discussion of “*why* so many students believed this was a real event.” Another: “To those of you made to feel unsafe by this fictional event, I invite you to likewise reflect on the actual events hosted by the Federalist Society that have threatened our classmates’ wellbeing,” citing speakers critical of DACA and DAPA:

For the sake of “academic freedom,” our undocumented classmates must bear the trauma of attending an institution that welcomes speakers actively working to remove their right to remain in the country…I hesitate to draw the line of what is acceptable discourse at pointing out the Federalist Society’s complicity in this issue, even if done so satirically and at our discomfort. Our policy, as recently reaffirmed by Dean Martinez, is to promote discussion despite discomfort. I ask only that you reflect on the momentary dread you felt as an example of the cost of “academic freedom” we impose on our BIPOC and undocumented classmates.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Lab-Leak Theory: Evidence Beyond a Reasonable Doubt By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-evidence-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt/

Every good prosecutor will tell you that the best case is a strong circumstantial case — and that’s exactly what we have.

O f course, it’s only circumstantial evidence. We may never know the truth.”

If I’ve heard this once, over more decades than I care to admit, I’ve heard it a thousand times. It is the rote dismissal of circumstantially based cases, and it is almost always wrong.

We can no longer afford to be wrong when it comes to the origin — the generation by regime-controlled Chinese scientists, almost certainly by accident — of a pandemic that has caused nearly 4 million deaths globally (now closing in on 600,000 in the U.S.), in addition to geometrically more instances of serious illness, trillions of dollars’ worth of economic destruction, and incalculable setbacks in the educational and social development of tens of millions of children.

I was a prosecutor for a long time, and prosecutors are in the business of proving stuff. Every good one will tell you that the best case is a strong circumstantial case. It is the most airtight and least problematic kind of proof.

Circumstantial cases are a tapestry of objectively provable facts. No one of those facts, by itself, establishes the ultimate conclusion for which all the interconnected facts collectively stand. Instead, each single fact supports a subordinate proposition that must be true in order for the ultimate conclusion to be valid. Stitch enough of those subordinate propositions together and the ultimate conclusion is inexorable.

We have a natural human reluctance to trust circumstantial evidence. In our own lives, we know what we know — or at least what we think we know — because we have lived it. We don’t need to run down a plethora of clues to grasp our own experiences. We can describe them firsthand. If we worked in a lab that came under scrutiny, we could tell everyone how an accident there happened — or assure them that it didn’t happen. Ergo, we reason, what we really need is direct evidence, someone like ourselves who can narrate the goings-on.

Only then, we tell ourselves, can we really know. Even when all the disparate circumstantial trails lead to the same answer, we instinctively ask how we can trust that answer unless and until it has been confirmed by someone who was there.

But that is not how it works in the real world. Once you get beyond the narrow limits of your own experience, everything else is about what you can trust.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Taiwan’s Leader Hurt by Recent Setbacks Covid surge, blackouts and drought threaten president’s popularity as China seeks inroads by Joyu Wang

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-leader-hurt-by-recent-setbacks-11622907613?mod=hp_lead_pos5

TAIPEI—Taiwan and its leader, Tsai Ing-wen, were riding high last year as the island fended off the coronavirus, expanded its economy and won vocal support from Washington.

Now, President Tsai faces a trio of setbacks threatening to dent her popularity amid increasing pressure from China: a crippling drought, ongoing blackouts and Taiwan’s worst-yet surge in Covid-19 cases.

Some of the tension has eased in recent days. It has rained again, and more vaccines are on their way. Still, the confluence of crises is creating a rare opening for the opposition Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, which has struggled for a path back to relevance and which favors closer ties with Beijing.

Ms. Tsai—who thumped the Kuomintang last year to win a second term in office—has seen her popularity plummet to below 50% for the first time since her re-election in one poll run by a former member of her party.

The crises have dented her image as a pragmatic and capable technocrat, and complicate her efforts to maintain a delicate status quo with an increasingly assertive Beijing, which never ruled the democratic island but claims it as part of Chinese territory.

Though Ms. Tsai is unable to run again for re-election, the crises are chipping away at the political fortunes of her Democratic Progressive Party.

“Popularity and elections are not our priority at this moment. It’s people’s health,” a spokeswoman for Taiwan’s Presidential Office said, adding that the administration is aware of and open to the criticisms.

With Covid, the Taiwanese leader is in part a victim of her own success. More than 2½ weeks of daily triple-digit increases have brought the island’s total number of cases to 10,956, with 224 deaths. Those numbers are relatively small but still startling for a population that previously had fewer than 1,200 cases, thanks to a swift response to the initial outbreak last year.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why a firm stand against Beijing’s intimidation and coercion of Taiwan is both timely and important right now. By Robert S. Wang

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://www.realcleardefense.com/2021/06/05/countering_chinas_intimidation_of_taiwan_780228.html

On the first weekend following President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry reported back-to-back incursions by two large fleets of Chinese military aircraft into Taiwan’s self-declared southwestern air defense identification zone. On Jan. 23, the fleet comprised eight nuclear weapon–capable Chinese H-6K bomber planes, four J-16 fighter jets and one anti-submarine aircraft. This was followed the next day by another fleet of 12 fighters, two anti-submarine aircraft and a reconnaissance plane. Beijing repeated these exercises several times in the subsequent months.

Since the election of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016, Beijing has markedly stepped up military pressure on Taipei. According to Taiwan, Beijing sent warplanes into the same area on at least 100 days in 2020. In January 2021, Chinese military planes flew into that zone 26 out of the first 30 days. Previously, such flights were usually conducted by one to three reconnaissance or anti-submarine warfare aircraft. According to Bernard Cole, a professor at the National War College, the latest incursions “demonstrate the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s ability to put together a multiplane strike, which we would likely see in the event of a hot war against Taiwan.” Additionally, Taiwan’s defense minister informed its legislature last October that nearly 50 Chinese aircraft had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait in the first nine months of 2020.

Analysts have concluded that the latest intrusions are specifically intended to pose a direct challenge to the Biden administration regarding its future policy toward Taiwan and the region. On Jan. 23, for example, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office asserted that these exercises are designed as warnings to “separatists” in Taiwan and “external forces” who intend to interfere in China’s affairs. Following the exercises, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters: “The United States frequently sends aircraft and vessels into the South China Sea to flex its muscles. This is not conducive to peace and stability in the region.”

In response to the exercises, the State Department issued a press release: “The United States notes with concern the pattern of ongoing PRC attempts to intimidate its neighbors, including Taiwan.” State added: “The United States will continue to support a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues, consistent with the wishes and best interests of the people on Taiwan” and “to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability.” It concluded: “Our commitment to Taiwan is rock-solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region.”

Just How Solid Is the Commitment?

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Radical Reshaping of K-12 Public Education: Gender Redefinition and Self-Selection by Keri D. Ingraham

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://spectator.org/public-schools-gender-radical-reshaping/

Part one of a three-part series on extremist indoctrination in America’s schools.

Extreme ideologies are quickly taking root in U.S. K-12 public schools through new school policies, practices, and curriculums — with devastating effects on students. Unfortunately, Americans are mainly turning a blind eye instead of speaking up against political and social indoctrination that threatens our children’s education and the very fabric of our nation.

One radical development is in the area of sex/gender. Although the terms historically have been used interchangeably, a shift has occurred in recent decades, with sex primarily referring to a biological category or anatomy and gender referring to people’s thoughts or feelings about who they are. Over the past several years, schools have increasingly embraced the cultural redefinition of gender — from male and female to a host of created alternatives. Despite the biological reality of only two distinct sexes, schools embrace, and in some cases actively promote, students questioning and then self-selecting their gender based upon how they feel.

The Gender Unicorn

Starting as early as preschool and kindergarten, taxpayer money is funding radical sex education content. Just one example is the Gender Unicorn (an iteration of the Genderbread Person), a purple cartoon image featuring hearts and rainbows. Adopted in 2016 by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in Charlotte, North Carolina, Gender Unicorn use has spread nationwide and into Canada. The Washington State ASCD Curriculum in Context Spring/Summer 2020 lists the Gender Unicorn as one of several “educational materials” for teachers. The Alberta Teacher’s Association includes the Gender Unicorn in their 152-page teacher toolkit aimed at cultivating LBGTQ-inclusive classrooms.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Believe Your Own Eyes About Fauci E-Mails, Not the Fact Checkers By Jeffrey Tucker

Posted By on June 6th, 2021

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2021/06/05/believe_your_own_eyes_about_fauci_e-mails_not_the_fact_checkers_780187.html

Reading through the 4,000-plus pages of Dr. Fauci’s emails – where’s the bottle of Visine? – has not been the most exciting of literary experiences, but it certainly has been revealing. 

After all, Dr. Fauci was the US architect of the lockdowns that smashed all that we believed was true in the good ‘ol US of A; namely that we had rights and freedoms and a system of government that protected both. Suddenly we found ourselves housebound by law, prevented from going to concerts, movies, church, or even to the hospital if we didn’t have Covid-19 (health care spending fell 6% in 2020). 

So, yes, these emails are remarkable. You want to know what this guy was thinking? How and why did he convince President Trump to shut down major parts of the economy? These emails provide hints and clues as to what he was thinking before and after. They are a major key to understanding, and investigators of all sorts will be scouring through them for years. 

Whatever you do, however, don’t you dare call them a “leak” even though if Fauci had his druthers, they surely would not have been leaked; whoops, I mean released through multiple FOIA requests. The fact checkers are all over that misuse of terms, such that USA Today offers a marmish corrective to anyone who would use that term, while the Washington Post offers a mini-treatise assuring people that they do not say what you think they say. 

Say it over and over until it becomes true: there are no smoking guns herein! 

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, who are you gonna believe, the fact checkers or your own eyes? Most of the attention so far concerns when Fauci was warned that the virus might have been a lab leak, in a lab that received indirect US funding. What did Fauci do about such warnings and to what extent did he take them seriously?