ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Terrorism Jobs Program: Pampering the Palestinians Must End Threatening Terror is Not a Way to Earn a Living by Nonie Darwish

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

Palestinians need to start taking responsibility for their own existence and stop relying on the world to take care of them while they use the money freed up — by the international community — to launch jihad and intifadas.

No entity should forever be permitted to devote its resources to terror while the world is expected to owe them everything: financial support, jobs, citizenship, and even building the infrastructure that they keep destroying. The moral of the story is that if you do not want to lose wars, it would be better not to start them.

The longer financial aid and the pampering of Palestinians continue as an “insurance policy” ostensibly to prevent terrorism, the longer the suffering, dependence, terror and conflict will go on. It is time for Palestinians to learn that threatening terror is not a way to earn a living.

A British woman, Kay Wilson, apparently realized that when a Palestinian terrorist “plunged a knife into her chest”, left her for dead and then murdered her friend, it was British taxpayers who had paid for it.

“Is the UK funding the terrorists who tried to murder me?”, she asked.

Yes, it is. “According to data collected by Israel’s Defense Ministry, the PA spent a total of 1.237 billion shekels ($358 million), or about 7% of the PA’s total annual budget, on terrorist stipends last year.”

International payments to Palestinians that are used to pay terrorists in jail, as well as their families, serve both as a “reward for bad behavior” and also as a powerful incentive for youths to become terrorists.

They are a jobs program.

Some Palestinians are complaining that Arab countries are discriminating against them, and even going as far as calling themselves victims of “shameless Arab Apartheid” against Palestinians.

Such an accusation is unfair to many Arab countries, especially Egypt, which has sacrificed the blood of hundreds of thousands of its citizens to support the Islamic jihad against Israel.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Politicizing Proliferation Policy by John R. Bolton

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

North Korea’s apparently rapid progress last year in both its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs raises entirely legitimate concerns about U.S. intelligence capabilities. The New York Times recently reported that, as the Obama administration ended, intelligence-community analysts estimated that Pyongyang was over four years away from mastering the complex science and technology necessary to deliver thermonuclear weapons on targets within the continental United States.

Then, seemingly overnight, North Korea was igniting thermonuclear weapons and testing missiles that could hit the lower 48. The Times calls this an intelligence failure, certainly a serious matter. But the real reason was actually much worse.

Evidence in the Times report indicates that President Obama’s team dangerously politicized intelligence gathering and analysis, as senior officials strove to support their preconceived notions of the North’s true progress.

Throughout his presidency, Obama pursued a North Korea policy called “strategic patience,” which was in fact a synonym for doing nothing. As long as intelligence agencies assessed that Pyongyang’s threat was remote, conveniently fitting Obama’s predilection to do nothing, he could contend there was no basis for more robust measures against the North’s nuclear program.

Obama-era intelligence also conveniently painted a very similar picture about Iran, as Obama desperately sought a nuclear agreement later characterized as an achievement comparable to Obamacare in his first term. As with North Korea, if Iran’s program were not increasingly threatening, there was no danger, supposedly, from lengthy negotiations and an imperfect final agreement.

In both cases, however, the truth was much more malign, as North Korea is now demonstrating graphically. During the presidential transition, Obama blithely advised President-elect Trump that Pyongyang would be his most serious foreign challenge. How convenient that reality “changed” for the worst just after Obama departed the White House. Indeed, this “coincidence” is simply further evidence of how deeply his administration had politicized intelligence collection and analysis.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Arab Regimes Terrified by Israel’s Freedoms by Giulio Meotti

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

A prominent Tunisian-born French movie producer, Saïd Ben Saïd recently issued one of the frankest denunciations of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. The real culprit, he argued, was the prevalence of anti-Semitism fueled by Islamic extremists across the Middle East. Ben Saïd was forced to pull out of an Arab film festival last year because he had worked with Israelis.

A Lebanese director, Ziad Doueiri, did something even “worse”: he filmed some scenes on Israeli land!

“No one can deny the misery of the Palestinian people, but it must be admitted that the Arab world is, in its majority, antisemitic. This hatred of Jews has redoubled in intensity and depth not because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the rise of a certain vision of Islam”. — Saïd Ben Saïd.

Fifty years have passed since many Arab countries were humiliated by Israel in 1967 in a war the Arabs started, with the explicit goal of destroying the Jewish State and throwing the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Today, Israel has solid diplomatic relations with two of these countries — Jordan to Egypt — while Saudi officials speak with their Israeli security counterparts about the Iranian threat.

But although the Middle East is engulfed in a new wave of internal destabilization, and Iran has recently experienced a new wave of protests in which people chanted “we don’t want an Islamic Republic”, the great taboo for the Arab and Muslim world is still that of cultural exchanges with the hated “Zionists”.

A prominent Tunisian-born French movie producer, Saïd Ben Saïd, after being forced to pull out of North Africa’s most prestigious film festival, recently issued one of the frankest denunciations of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. He revealed, in an op-ed for the French daily Le Monde, that an invitation to preside over the jury of the Carthage Film Festival had been rescinded because of his work with the Israeli film director, Nadav Lapid, and for having participated on a panel at the Jerusalem Film Festival earlier this year. The real culprit, Ben Saïd argued, was the prevalence of anti-Semitism fueled by Islamic extremists across the Middle East:

“No one can deny the misery of the Palestinian people, but it must be admitted that the Arab world is, in its majority, antisemitic… This hatred of Jews has redoubled in intensity and depth not because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the rise of a certain vision of Islam”.

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Bad Ideas Behind Attacks on Trump’s Blunt Truth What hysterical attacks by the president’s detractors are designed to hide. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

Donald Trump’s leaked alleged comments about “sh*thole countries” to some Congressmen in a closed-door meeting has triggered the Dems’ and mainstream media’s usual hysterical recourse to their all-purpose smear, “racism.” With no arguments that can answer Trump’s concrete successes, the left relies on its favorite question-begging epithet to create a smog of invective in the hopes that it can distract people from Trump’s policy improvements. And other criticisms are based on ideas that are just as questionable, but remain the received wisdom of our ruling elite.

Over at Townhall one can find a selection of reactions that show how irrational and ideologically opportunistic have been the responses to Trump’s statements about Haiti and Africa. Never missing an opportunity to weaponized grievance, the Black Congressional Caucus is ginning up a Congressional resolution to censure the president for his “bigoted fear mongering,” and for insulting countries that “produce immigrants that are remarkable and make significant contributions to our country.”

This hysteria relies on taking Trump’s comments out of context. Trump was talking about getting rid of chain migration and the visa lottery, policies that some Congressmen in the meeting were negotiating to keep basically intact. But Trump believes correctly that randomly admitting immigrants without any of the standards of selection that most countries rely on has been harmful to our country. The point is to admit the best, not just anybody who accidentally has a relative already here, or got lucky in the lottery. Particularly when there are so many politically, socially, and economically dysfunctional countries whose citizens are eager to emigrate, which is why Democrats insist on accepting refugees from them. But taking in randomly selected people from such countries creates a much higher probability those immigrants will be harder to turn into productive Americans than those from other countries less dysfunctional.

Of course, good candidates exist in Haiti and everywhere else, people who can make “significant contributions” to our country. That is precisely why we need a clear-cut set of criteria for admission that can find those people, criteria based on what skills and qualities they have that will benefit both the U.S. and themselves. The current admission policies seemingly are based on some implied right of anybody from anywhere to become a U.S. citizen. This is patently absurd just as a matter of domestic and international law. Every sovereign nation determines the criteria of admission according to its own customs, mores, and national interests. Try immigrating to Saudi Arabia if you’re a Christian or Jew, or to Canada if you’re broke and badly educated.

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

More Than an Idea—a Nation By Christopher Roach

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

Both the far Left and the neoconservative Right were appalled by Donald Trump’s reported skepticism about taking in immigrants from “shithole countries.” The usual script ensued; he was called vulgar, impolitic, insane, and, of course, racist. Today not only are all men created equal, but apparently, all nations, all cultures, and all lifestyles are as well.

Trump, like the wise fools of Shakespeare, yet again, stumbled upon a forbidden truth. What he said was certainly true factually: some countries are profoundly dysfunctional, which is why their people want to leave, and why pro-immigration groups are aghast at sending them back. But what Trump said was also a true moral expression: why should a nation absorb immigrants who will do our existing people more harm than good?

The Left’s commitment to mass immigration is fairly rational and self-interested. They are future welfare state clients, and they undermine the political power of native-born Americans, who tend to support a more limited concept of American government.

The “nation-as-idea” also has a great deal of more idealistic support among mainstream “conservatives.” Lindsey Graham intoned that America is an “idea,” defined fundamentally as “a land of immigrants—it is who we are …” The sanctimonious NeverTrumper Rick Wilson said, “don’t bother calling yourself a conservative if you don’t believe there’s a way where people who come and embrace the proposition of this country can become Americans. Because we’ve worked very hard in this country to accept people from around the world and of varying backgrounds.”

While immigration has certainly been part of the American story, can it really be the defining principle of this or any nation?

Non-European immigration—save for slavery—did not begin significantly until the 1960s. All immigration was restricted significantly from 1924 until 1965. And prior generations of mostly European immigrants did not find a generous welfare state or acceptance of their attachments to their native tongue and habits. In most cases, these habits were stamped out through a not-entirely-gentle process of assimilation and, being European, through high rates of intermarriage. For a purported defining concept of the country, it is a late arrival: “nation of immigrants” was a phrase hardly uttered before the 1960s.

MEDIA Comments turned off

This is CNN . . . in 1945 By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

What if something like CNN and modern communications were around in early 1945? What if the rules of presidential news coverage were then as they are now? And what if such a mythical CNN hated Franklin Delano Roosevelt as much as it despises Donald Trump, then as right-wing as it is now hard left? How would the daily news in a mythical 1945 treat a now-iconic FDR? What would the country have thought of its president?

In the manner that we’ve learned that Donald Trump supposedly eats double servings of fast food and gulps down a dozen diet sodas a day, we instead might hear similar CNN “exclusives” about presidential diet and health, either from “unknown” sources in the White House or “fake news” exaggerations of rumor and innuendo.

Wolf Blitzer might give us a news bulletin something like this: “CNN in an exclusive report has learned that President Roosevelt is a sick, maybe dying, man. But the true nature of his health has long been covered up, most notably in last year’s election and is even now more dishonesty hidden. CNN has learned that the conspiracy of silence among the president’s family, his staff, and his doctors is long-standing, scandalous—and, in this reporter’s view, dangerous.”

“Sources tell me that the president’s blood pressure routinely hits 240 over 140. He has lost 40 pounds. Some sources tell CNN that the president suffers from chronic sinus and urinary infections. He may be battling skin cancer. CNN is now learning that the president could never walk or even stand up on his own.”

“That image of a robust president was also inaccurate—the fiction of collusion that for years has hidden the true extent of the president’s paralysis from the American people. CNN has also learned that President Roosevelt has been absent from the White House for weeks at a time and has been too ill to work at his desk. Yet he continues to chain smoke and drink a series of stiff drinks each evening, a habit dating back to Prohibition before he was president.”

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Nigerian immigrant addresses President Trump’s alleged comment on s-hole countries By Thomas Lifson VIDEO

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

Be prepared for frank sentiments about the terminology that Senator Dick Durbin alleges that President Trump employed in a private conversation. The comments below originally appeared on a forum for people from the Igala Tribe in Nigeria but were loaded onto YouTube yesterday. The Igala people I have known have been very smart, and successful in this country.

Warning: The same vulgar term alleged to have been used by President Trump is frequently employed.

I wonder what Maxine Waters would say if she watched this?

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The green empress has no clothes By Viv Forbes

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

During December 2017, Germany’s millions of solar panels received just 10 hours of sunshine, and when solar energy did filter through the clouds, most of the panels were covered in snow. Even committed Green Disciples with a huge Tesla battery in their garage soon found that their battery was flat and that there was no solar energy to recharge it.

The lights, heaters, trains, TVs, and phones ran on German coal power, French nuclear power, Russian gas, and Scandinavian hydro, plus unpredictable surges of electricity from those few wind turbines that were not iced up, locked down in a gale, or becalmed.

Germany has long supported two incompatible ideas: engineering excellence and green totalitarianism. Angela Merkel’s support of climate alarmism while preaching energy efficiency continues this discordant tradition.

But King Winter has exposed the weak underbelly of Germany’s energy policy. Empress Merkel now faces a hostile political climate with no clothes.

The green energy retreat has started in the green energy movement’s own heartland.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Fear and Loathing in Bethlehem Amit Barak

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

This piece was first published on the Hebrew-language website Mida on January 14, 2018, rendered into English by Avi Woolf, and republished here with permission. The original article can be found by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

While the Christian community in Israel is thriving and prospering, Christians living in the Palestinian Authority suffer from violence and unending persecution.

Last Christmas eve, the Muslim mayor of Nazareth, Ali Salem, decided to cancel celebrations in the city. He justified his decision as an act of protest against President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. However, we can assume that the coming Nazareth elections were a factor in his decision, as Salem is trying to get more votes from the city’s Muslims, who now constitute a majority since so many Christians have left in recent years.

The mayor’s decision aroused a great deal of anger among the Arabic-speaking Christians in Israel. Among the leaders of the protest was the Brit Aḥim (Brothers’ Covenant) organization which distributed protest letters on the subject to decision makers in Israel, Christian parties, and Israeli and international media outlets.

Among other things, the letter stated that “the mayor of Nazareth’s decision is a cynical exploitation of Christian residents and it does harm to Christians in Israel and their holiday, harm to the economy of the city, and harm to relations between the religions. . . . We want to remind Mr. Salem that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel 3,000 years ago and the Holy Books and history cannot be changed for political needs detached from reality. It’s time that the Christian community, which for the most part respects the state of Israel and sees itself as a partner in its construction, not be captive to radical political parties both in the Arab sector and the Christian community.”

In the wake of pressure from Israel and international media coverage, the mayor reversed his decision, but he moved the main stage [where public festivities were held] from its regular spot to another location in town. But Ali Salem is not the only one to take steps after the declaration of the American president.

Thirteen prominent Christian religious figures, including the Armenian patriarch, the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, archbishops from the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian churches, and the manager of the Latin patriarchate in Jerusalem signed a letter attacking the [White House’s Jerusalem] declaration. A few days later, they were present at a Christmas reception at the [Israeli] Tourism Ministry and were even hosted at the traditional gathering at the Israeli presidential residence for the New Year, and met with the mayor of Jerusalem.

Among Israeli Christians, there is a radical and vocal minority that promotes anti-Israel activity, with the prominent participation of the head of the Greek Orthodox Council in Nazareth (funded by the state of Israel), Bishop Atallah Khana. The bishop has been known to have called on Christian youth to enlist in Hamas and even recently met with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

The Pentagon’s Fading Readiness The first priority in a budget deal should be more money for defense.

Posted By on January 16th, 2018

For all the talk over a showdown with North Korea, few are asking: Do the less than 1% of Americans in the armed forces have the most lethal weapons and best training to defend the country? There is reason to wonder, and Congress has an opportunity to shore up the military as the world grows more dangerous.

Congress is trying to reach a budget deal to extend government funding that expires this month. One issue are the caps on defense spending under the 2011 Budget Control Act, which tried to force Congress to do something about the deficit by threatening automatic cuts. This has imposed useful discipline on non-entitlement spending, but the military has been hit harder than domestic accounts.
***

The military is operating at a high tempo in multiple theaters, even as funding has dropped and become more erratic. The Congressional Research Service says the Defense Department has operated under continuing resolutions, which are stopgap measures that limit spending flexibility, for more than 36 months since 2010. Compare that with fewer than nine months in the preceding eight years.

This means fewer resources for equipment maintenance and soldier training. Some of this could have contributed to the Navy’s collisions in the Pacific last year that killed 17 sailors. The Navy’s investigation revealed that training practices failed—for instance, crew members “were not familiar with basic radar fundamentals.” Ships are deployed at sea more often and for longer. A prescient 2015 Government Accountability Office report found that ships based in Japan had “no dedicated training periods” as a result of the deployment pace.