ISRAEL Comments turned off

The media must stop demonising Israel Hamas is a murderous, anti-Semitic organisation. But broadcasters barely ever mention this. Misha Mansoor

Posted By on May 25th, 2021

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/24/the-media-must-stop-demonising-israel/

On the BBC News at Six on Friday, Jeremy Bowen spoke to a Gazan man who, he said, is proudly ready to give not only his life for Jerusalem, but also those of his wife and child. We were left to wonder how on board with that his wife is. Certainly Bowen didn’t seem surprised by such an outrageous statement, or seem to want to question the sense and rationality of it. His report showed many hundreds of young Gazan men, parading along the streets and rubble, proudly claiming they have achieved victory over Israel – despite the considerable ruins of many buildings – and saying they will never give up until Jerusalem is theirs.

I switched over to Channel 4 News at 7pm and Matt Frei was also in Gaza. Presenter Fatima Manji told viewers that the ceasefire had been secured, despite ‘Israeli police firing teargas and stun grenades at demonstrators holding Palestinian flags at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’. To be fair, at least Bowen, who also reported this skirmish, mentioned that it was in response to the demonstrators throwing a petrol bomb at police. Matt Frei’s report was merely simplistic and childlike. This is the same Frei who, during an interview with a Palestinian woman on LBC recently, did not once question or challenge her claim that Israel was a colonial and apartheid state.

In his report from Gaza, Frei reminded us of how many Gazans have been killed in the most recent conflict compared with how few Israelis have been killed. ‘Of course the casualties on that side [Israel] were minimal compared with the casualties on this side – 250 dead, many of them women and children’, he said. The question we seem to be asked repeatedly in the media at the moment is: ‘How can Israel justify having so few casualties?’

Frei, like almost every reporter I see on the news at the moment, either brushes aside or says nothing about the avowed murderous intentions of Hamas and its supporters. That they want to kill Jews, to wipe all Jewish Israelis off the land of Israel, ‘from the river to the sea’, is barely ever mentioned on television. What we do see thrashed out time and again is the mismatch in military strength. Why is it, in effect, that so few Israelis die?

On social media the same comments are made over and over. Israel is behaving like the Nazis. Israel is an apartheid state. Israel (or the Jews) wants to grab all the land in the Middle East. Israel shouldn’t even exist. Delve a bit deeper and you’ll read about organ stealing and the drinking of the blood of Palestinian babies.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Today’s religion of Wokeism ignores logic, science and reason How in the name of all that is right and holy did we ever arrive in this science-denying Mad Hatter’s nightmare?By Everett Piper –

Posted By on May 25th, 2021

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/23/todays-religion-of-wokeism-ignores-logic-science-a/

Two weeks ago, on May 8, 2021, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) became the first mainline Protestant denomination to elect a transgender bishop. 

The Rev. Megan Rohrer, a female who insists on using the pronouns “he” and “him,” was elected to serve as the leader of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the ELCA, by a vote 209 yeas to 207 nays. Rohrer will be installed on September 11 at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Walnut Creek, California. 

In celebrating her election, the new bishop praised Lutherans for “dismantling” what she called the “unjust” Christian standards set 1,700 years ago at the First Council of Nicaea. In doing so, Rohrer proved herself to be more a minister of the goddess of Woke than of Christ.

In “Wokeism: The New Religion of The West” (ConvergMedia, October 20, 2020), Max Funk argues, “There is a new religion. It is moving like a tidal wave through every facet of western culture, shaping and redefining society as it goes. This religion masquerades under the guise of compassion and justice, but underneath is an evil ideology that is incompatible with western values and incongruent with the Christian worldview.”

Mr. Funk continues: “Wokeism is a religion. Although it has not been organized into any formal religious structure, it has all the functions of religious doctrine. It has a unique epistemology (theory of knowledge), an evaluation of the human condition, and a redemption narrative … The goal of [Wokeism],” says Mr. Funk, “is the complete dismantling and rebuilding of western culture from the ground up.” 

Traditional values such as “logic, science, and reason” are replaced by subjective opinions and emotions. This is a worldview of special knowledge rather than self-evident truths; a religion of no reality but my reality; a narcissistic faith grounded in gnosis rather than God’s revelation.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

LEE SMITH: STREET VIOLENCE AS A POLITICAL TOOL

Posted By on May 25th, 2021

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/street-violence-as-a-political-tool

The new Democratic Party of oligarchs and technocrats enforces its orthodoxies upon blue state clients through broken windows and beatings, administered by party militias like antifa and BLM.

The Democratic Party has had a problem. It’s a small, incoherent, and privileged clique funded by billionaire oligarchs to push policies that even mainstream Democratic voters oppose. How to bridge the gap? The solution they chose, which party officials made clear this week, was simple: the way third-world elites always do—by using street violence to keep their clients in line.

This week, pro-Palestinian demonstrators auditioned for the chance to join already established Democratic Party militias antifa and Black Lives Matter by attacking Jews in New York and Los Angeles. Apologists for the violence reason that the demonstrators are angry about the deaths of innocent Palestinian babies under Israeli fire in Gaza so they’re taking their frustrations—admittedly misplaced!—out on American Jews.

That is not what’s happening.

Who knows how many of the activists waving the Palestinian flag as they beat Jews and detonate fireworks in front of Jewish-owned businesses are genuinely Palestinian Americans? Maybe some aren’t even Arab or Muslim, but that’s irrelevant—they are staking their claim to recruit, promote, and represent Arabs and Muslims as an interest group. And so the flag they’re really flying isn’t for the Palestinians but rather for the Democratic Party.

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Can You Guess My Preferred Pronoun? We should respect individuals and call them what they want to be called. But no one should be forced to declare their personal pronouns Charles Lipson

Posted By on May 25th, 2021

https://www.discoursemagazine.com/culture-and-society/2021/05/24/can-you-gues

It is passing strange to receive emails from people who highlight their personal pronouns. Yes, James, I made a wild stab and guessed yours are “he, him.” Thanks for letting me know. My preferred sandwich is a pastrami on rye.

Preferred sandwiches are still rare in official email signatures, but “preferred pronouns” are not. They are now commonplace at woke institutions and are gradually spreading to all professional workplaces. Even though it’s a small issue, it points to a bigger problem. The insistent direction to use my “preferred pronoun,” even when that word is already obvious, is yet another step into the deepening quicksand of cultural hectoring, turning every aspect of daily life into a political battlefield. That quicksand is spreading fast, and far too many are sinking beneath it without a murmur. It’s time to call it out.

The movement to make “preferred pronouns” standard features of professional signatures began with transgender advocates. They were soon joined by people who identified as neither men nor women. Their concern was understandable. They want to be addressed in the way they prefer. That’s absolutely fine. So is letting people know how to address you, if the answer is not already clear from your name. The goal should be to make interaction easier, not to preen or harass.

The oddity is why so many other people for whom the right pronoun is obvious now include it in their e-mail. What’s the point? For some, it is the now-conventional virtue signaling, spreading their peacock tails for all to admire. For others, it’s simply following whatever their colleagues do or their boss demands. Resistance, they know all too well, can be fatal to careers.

Here’s a typical example, from a recent email to me. The sender’s name is a common female one, and her email signature at the bottom of the note reads as follows:

Development Editor: Editorial Research

Content, Resources, and Development

Major international publishing company

Pronouns: she/her

Please consider the environment before printing this email.

As an aside, there’s a delicious note of irony here, even though the sender missed it. (Irony and humor are not strong points in Woke World.) If printing is such a blot on the environment, what about her own profession? She works for a publishing company, for heaven’s sake. Is she a mere tool of the deforestation-literacy complex? A foolish consistency must be the hobgoblin of woke minds.

In the case of personal pronouns, we seldom need to be told which ones to use. Who, pray tell, is confused that Nicholas is “he” and Nicole is “she”? When James Morris, who wrote a fine trilogy on the British Empire, became Jan Morris, everyone switched smoothly from “he” to “her.” We didn’t need the hall monitor’s wagging finger to tell us. Jan’s new name made the correct pronoun clear. Such clarity is not enough for woke culture. To appease them, you must state your preferred pronouns publicly and repeatedly, no matter how obvious your name makes them—or pay the price for refusal. In fact, the wokest of the woke go even further, as this Forbes columnist did. Drop the term “preferred” because it is entirely too mild. Instead, demand these pronouns.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Recount Double Standard While Arizona and Georgia still audit the 2020 election, Democrats hypocritically cry foul. Harold Hutchison

Posted By on May 25th, 2021

https://patriotpost.us/articles/80074-the-recount-double-standard-2021-05-24?mailing_id=5855

Before 9/11 happened, the big story of 2001 was going to be the recounts conducted by a consortium of media outlets in Florida. In the wake of a failed effort to challenge the electoral votes of Florida on January 6, 2001, many on the Left were eager to see what the media recount would find.

We previously discussed the double standard applied to the plan of Senator Josh Hawley and others to challenge the electoral votes on January 6, 2021. Democrats issued the four previous challenges, and on two occasions — in 1969 and 2005 — even forced votes on whether or not disputed electoral votes should be counted. But when it came time to question a Democrat win, well…

The ballot audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, and the forthcoming audit in Fulton County, Georgia, are facing a continuation of that double standard. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by a little over 10,000 votes in Arizona, and just under 12,000 in Georgia.

Audits should be a relatively routine part of ensuring the integrity of each election. Yet the usual suspects at CNN and MSNBC, both outlets that specialize in infomercials for the Democrat Party, are attacking these audits, while officials are trying to obstruct them as much as possible. Imagine if, in 2001, then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris had tried similar tactics against the media recount of the razor-thin margin in the Sunshine State, or if Rush Limbaugh had called the Florida recount “fundamentally wicked.”

We never would have heard the end about the “assault on democracy.” Yet when grassroots Patriots rightly raise concerns about whether Biden’s 81 million votes were on the up and up, or even whether censorship by Silicon Valley tech giants rendered the 2020 election unfair, they get censored for it. Those concerns are dismissed or suppressed — all while the unfounded claims of voter suppression made by Stacey Abrams over the 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia made her a saint of “democracy” to the left-wing hacks who purport to be journalists. The same goes for Hillary Clinton’s four-year refrain decrying how the 2016 election was “stolen” from her.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Capitol Riot Narrative Is Collapsing, but Its Political Exploitation Persists Ben Weingarten

Posted By on May 25th, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-capitol-riot-narrative-is-collapsing-but-its-political-exploitation-persists_3826065.html

Virtually the entire American ruling class has invested in a narrative that is collapsing—that what transpired at the Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6 represented a murderous, armed insurrection, posing a dire threat to the republic.

Yet, the exploitation of that single event to marginalize and malign up to half the country, in a slew of efforts that pose a threat to the liberty and justice of all, continues apace.

If the foundation of these efforts is crumbling, shouldn’t these efforts be called into question, too?

The events at the Capitol on Jan. 6 were inexcusable and disgraceful, and those who committed crimes ought to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. We settle differences in America by persuasion and reason, and abjure force and coercion—something many of those hyping Jan. 6 as a “domestic terrorist attack” only seem to believe when it suits their political interests.

But this isn’t the whole story of that day. While congressional demagogues and social media speech police claim otherwise, the sole person killed in the riot was an unarmed protester, shot by a Capitol cop. Not one of the more than 400 people charged in connection with the events stormed the building with a firearm. Most of those detained face glorified trespassing offenses.

Video footage indicates that some percentage of the protesters was allowed to waltz into the Capitol, and others, once inside, were permitted to remain there by police, seemingly in contradiction of what prosecutors have argued. Authorities are concealing more than 14,000 hours of additional footage concerning Jan. 6, breathtakingly using the same argument that Spygate participants used to conceal the whole truth about their machinations, that of national security.

The Capitol riot wasn’t on the level of the Civil War, as President Joe Biden has argued, 9/11 as he implied, nor Pearl Harbor, as then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asserted.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is Biden’s inflated presidency about to burst? Matt Purple

Posted By on May 25th, 2021

https://spectator.us/topic/inflated-presidency-about-burst-inflation/

Is President Joe Biden living up to expectations? It’s hard to say, since the expectations generated on his campaign trail were so murky. Biden made plenty of promises on the stump but only one thing was ever clear: he wasn’t Donald Trump. Beyond that, no one was really certain what iteration of Biden would enter the Oval Office on Inauguration Day. A pragmatic moderate or a progressive ideologue? A return-to-normal steady hand or a malarkey-scourging bomb thrower? The law-and-order author of the PATRIOT Act or the ‘Black Lives Matter’ anti-racist he suddenly morphed into last summer?

Biden was so defined by who he wasn’t that no one ever quite worked out who he was. Now we have our answer. Whatever moderation was once attributed to him has been quickly abandoned. The Keystone XL Pipeline has been canceled, the radical Equality Act has been endorsed, the Paris Climate Agreement has been rejoined. Most glaringly of all, one of the largest spending bills in American history has been signed into law, with promises of much, much more to com e. Most recently, Biden has been haggling with the GOP Congress over his proposed infrastructure package. He wants $2.3 trillion while the Republicans have said they could go as high as $800 billion and even raise the gas tax in order to pay for it.

It’s a stunning dynamic, both because the GOP once filleted Barack Obama for trying to pass a stimulus package of about that same size (though in 2008 dollars) and because of the even higher total that the president is demanding.

So who is Joe Biden? Right now, he’s the most fiscally irresponsible president in American history. Many on the left trace an unbroken thread from FDR to LBJ to Barack Obama, all progressive Democrats who took an activist approach to government and spent big money trying to solve big problems. Biden clearly views himself in this tradition rather than in the more conservative and restrained one of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Yet there’s more going on here than mere self-indulgent FDR LARPing. Biden is a product of a post-2008 Washington that increasingly feels no constraints on its ability to spend. With interest rates and inflation having remained low for over a decade, there haven’t been any serious consequences for eye-watering deficits and national debt. In retrospect, this has proven one of the most consequential political developments of the 21st century. It’s effectively dried up both the right’s fiscally conservative streak and the left’s erstwhile desire for ‘good government’. It’s thrashed the Tea Party, cemented a humongous federal bureaucracy, and led to the largest national debt since World War Two.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

My column: Move the 2022 Beijing Olympics or Shun Beijing By Lawrence J. Haas

Posted By on May 25th, 2021

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/move-2022-beijing-olympics-or-shun-beijing-185776

“The politicization of sports will damage the spirit of the Olympic Charter and the interests of athletes from all countries,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said recently about calls for the United States and other nations to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing over China’s human-rights abuses.

That’s a bit rich because, frankly, the Olympics are inherently political. Especially at times of global tension, the big powers and their allies compete for medals not just to showcase their athletes but to promote the political and economic systems under which they have trained. That was true in the 1930s, as the democracies competed against the fascist powers, and it was true during the Cold War, as the United States and its allies competed against the Soviet Union and its satellites.

Moreover, the international community and individual countries have restricted participation in the games for political reasons on numerous occasions. Germany and Japan, for instance, were not invited to the 1948 games due to their roles in World War II; South Africa was banned from 1964 all the way until 1992 over apartheid; Rhodesia was banned in 1972 amid controversy over its racist policies; Taiwan boycotted in 1980 after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) declared that mainland China would compete as “China” and asked Taiwan to compete as “Chinese Taipei.”

The “politicization” rises exponentially when a nation of sizable power and untoward practice plays host, as Hitler’s Germany did in 1936 and China is slated to do next February. At a time when Beijing is flexing its muscles in Asia and beyond while abusing human rights in ever-more brazen fashion, President Xi Jinping and his Communist Party surely will create a spectacle of self-congratulation from the opening ceremony onward, all to promote the wonders of China’s authoritarian system.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Palestinian Voices Blinken Won’t Hear by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17401/blinken-palestinian-voices

The renewed talk about a “two-state solution” comes amid a significant increase in the popularity of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group whose charter openly calls for replacing Israel with an Islamic state. It also comes at a time when Abbas’s popularity is at its lowest ebb.

The Palestinians are telling Blinken that he is wasting his time if he thinks that they would accept “so-called peaceful solutions” or “renounce any part of Palestine.” They are also sending a warning to Abbas that recognition of Israel’s right to exist and acceptance of the “two-state solution” is tantamount to treason, a crime punishable by death.

Abbas is afraid that Hamas will try to stage a coup against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank…. Abbas, however, does not feel comfortable talking about the Palestinians’ two rival entities, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and prefers to continue pretending that the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is still a realistic option.

As long as Israel maintains overall security control over the West Bank, Abbas can feel safe sitting in his office or at home in Ramallah. It is only Israel’s presence in the West Bank that is keeping him in power and preventing Hamas from extending its control beyond the Gaza Strip.

A recent public opinion poll showed that 57% of the Palestinians are opposed to the two-state solution. Another 57% said they support the “armed struggle” and “popular resistance” against Israel. According to the poll, 68% of the Palestinians want Abbas to resign.

Blinken needs to go out and talk to ordinary Palestinians. There, he will get a good grasp of the Palestinians’ profound anti-Israel sentiments and their deep support for Iran’s proxies and others who wish to wipe Israel off the map.

On the eve of his first official visit to the Middle East, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed support for a two-state solution as the only way to provide hope to Israelis and Palestinians that they can live “with equal measures of security, of peace, and dignity.”

During his visit to Israel and the West Bank, Blinken is expected to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been urging the Biden administration to work toward “achieving a just and lasting peace that would ensure the Palestinian people’s right to freedom and independence” and the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel and Gaza: The Euphoria of Psychosis Daryl McCann

Posted By on May 24th, 2021

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/05/israel-and-gaza-euphoric-psychosis/

This is the euphoria of victory!” proclaimed Khalil al-Haya, a senior Hamas figure, in front of thousands of Gazans celebrating the end of hostilities between Hamas/Islamic Jihad and Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). An estimated 232 Gazans were killed during the latest hostilities, some by Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s own rockets. The local real estate was (once again) left partially in ruins. But a victory is a victory for the two terrorist groups that jointly rule Gaza – even when they have suffered a defeat. Now why, exactly, might that be the case?

This latest “triumph” by Hamas and Islamic Jihad over the Isreali Defence Forces (IDF) follows on from their brilliant “success” in the 2008-09 Gaza War and the 2014 Gaza War. If Hamas and Islamic Jihad keep up their winning ways a prospective 2026 Gaza War, or perhaps a 2028-29 Gaza war, will see the entirety of Gaza reduced to rubble. But our Islamo-terrorists can dream, can’t they? Approximately four thousand rockets were fired at Israel during the 11 days of the 2021 Gaza War, some even making all the way to the Isreali heartland of Tel Aviv. Next time there might be be 6,000 or maybe 8,000 Iranian-financed missiles raining down on “the brothers of apes and pigs”. Armageddon conceived along these lines is what keeps the like of Khalil al-Haya forever posing before the world’s media with a V-sign for victory. Once Jerusalem is vanquished (or obliterated) by Hamas’s Izz as-Din al-Qassem Brigades, or so the Salafi-jihadist narrative goes, a millenialist Islamic state will arise as surely as night follows day.

Inevitably, perhaps, the euphoria of radical Islamic psychosis is interpreted by our PC commentariat as something quite different. Informed by a bohemian-socialist sensibility, they see the 2021 Gaza War as a case of Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s “Noble Savage” defying colonialist “white Jews”. Our left-wing identiarians view the latest death and mayhem in much the same way  Walt Disney’s Pocahontas (1995) portrays the plight of the immaculate Powhatan Native Americans up against the “ravenous wolves” from across the sea who “devour everything in their path”. To put it in the parlance of the woke mob, the “white supremacists” have just spent eleven or twelve days waging an unprovoked war on People of Colour.

If you can make a fact-pattern fit the shape of your screwball ideology, then reality is just a mere distraction. The Sydney Morning Herald, perhaps chastened by the embarrassment of then-columnist Mike Carlton’s critique of the 2014 Gazan War, “Israel’s Rank and Rotten Fruit is Being Called Fascism”, played it more shrewdly this time. The SMH invited Asma Abu Mezied to write her eyewitness account – “I Don’t Think Gaza can Rise from the Ashes This Time” – of the damage inflicted on Gaza by the IDF. As an eyewitness to the events, Dr Mezied, the so-called women’s economic empowerment co-ordinator in Gaza, might be expected to have a touch more credibility than the buffoonish Carlton. And so, we should take her account seriously:

Over the past 12 days, more than 220 people have been killed, at least 63 of them children. Apartment blocks have been destroyed, roads critical to economic centres are pockmarked with craters, clinics and schools have been ruined and international media bureaus have been flattened on live television.             

Nowhere in Mezied’s account, however, is there any mention that Hamas kicked off the latest carnage by firing 100 missiles at Jerusalem or that Hamas/Islamic Jihad ended up firing 4,000 missiles in the direction of Israel. Or that some of those dead 63 Gazan children, if that is a genuine figure, were as likely killed by misfiring rockets from her side of the border. Or that Gazan civilians were put in harm’s way not so much by the IDF but Hamas deliberately positioning their mobile launch sites in the vicinity of hospitals/clinics, schools and civilian apartments.