Saturday, December 1, 2018

'International consensus' on Jerusalem is baseless - Eldad Beck


by Eldad Beck

Canadian legal scholar Dr. Jacques Gauthier has devoted 20 years to the thorny question of the ownership of Jerusalem, and has concluded that Israel has unquestionable sovereignty not only over the whole city, but over Judea and Samaria as well.

On Aug. 20, 1980, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 478, which condemned a law passed three weeks earlier by the Knesset declaring Jerusalem Israel's "complete and united" capital.

The U.N. resolution said that declaring all of Jerusalem the capital of Israel was in violation of international law, canceled the validity of any steps by Israel as an "occupying power" to change the character of the "holy city of Jerusalem," and called on all countries that maintained embassies in Jerusalem to relocate them. The law passed by a margin of 14 votes and without the U.S. exercising its veto.

The resolution forms the basis of the "international consensus" that keeps most of the countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel from moving their embassies back to Jerusalem.

But Dr. Jacques Gauthier, a Canadian expert in international law, says there is a problem with that consensus: He says it is a blatant violation of the international law on which it is supposedly based.

Gauthier devoted his doctoral thesis to the issue of ownership and legal rights over Jerusalem. He has devoted 20 years to investigating the complicated legal questions and has made many visits to the city, as well as to other places where historic decisions were made that anchored in law Israel's legal right to sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, as well as Judea and Samaria.

"To understand it, one must go back to historical events that led to the Jewish people being granted the rights [over Jerusalem]," Gauthier tells Israel Hayom.

"The final decision by the League of Nations, the international entity that predated the U.N., which was made in April 1946, emphasized that member nations that still had a mandate over territories that had been transferred to them to manage should continue to remain in charge of them for the benefit of the people living there, in accordance with the obligations they undertook as part of that same mandate.

"When the League of Nations disappeared, the obligations of the Mandate over Palestine remained in effect. That's highly relevant for the Jewish people. The U.N. Charter, which is an international agreement binding for all nations, stresses that none of its articles can alter the rights given to any nations before it was ratified. That article was intended to protect the rights to the Land of Israel given to the Jews too. So that article obligates everything that is done in the U.N."

Dr. Jacques Gauthier has devoted 20 years to the question of who has sovereignty over Jerusalem

Gauthier stresses that according to the U.N. Charter, resolutions passed by the General Assembly – including the 1947 Partition Plan, which created the basis for the modern state of Israel – are non-binding, except for internal U.N. matters.

"Still, the Security Council was influenced by the General Assembly adopting resolutions that condemned Israel. Only a very small number of Security Council decisions are considered binding under international law. So my position is that Resolution 478 is not binding under international law," Gauthier says.

While forming his legal opinion, Gauthier sought out the historical documents that set down the ownership of Jerusalem, as well as "Palestine" as a whole.

"The Syke-Picot Agreement that divided up the Middle East was a secret deal between France and Britain that went against the Balfour Declaration, which had been announced publicly. We must not forget the principle that one cannot give away what one doesn't own. So neither France nor Britain had the ownership or the rights to these territories – it was the Ottoman Empire," Gauthier says.

"As a legal scholar, I needed to find out at what point in time these powers made decisions that they had a right to make. The Balfour Declaration is, no doubt, a very important moment. In the midst of the war [World War I] in November 1917, the British were worried about how it was going and decided to support the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. That was a very important political decision, even if it has no legal validity. In 1917, there was no country named 'Palestine.' The Holy Land was part of the Ottoman Empire and divided into districts. Palestine was seen as the Holy Land for the Jews. The British only conquered Jerusalem later on. So the Balfour Declaration does not serve as a basis for the Jews' right [to Jerusalem]."

In January 1919, peace talks were held in Paris. Among other things, the conference was supposed to settle the matter of who would control the countries defeated in the war. Arab and Zionist delegations appeared before representatives of the victors and laid out their demands for territory in the defeated Ottoman Empire.

"This was after the deal that [Chaim] Weizmann and Emir Faisal struck in January 1919," Gauthier says.

"Faisal the Hashemite made it clear he would support the Jews' claim to Palestine. He tried to gain the support of the Jews for him to control vast swathes of the Ottoman Empire – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon. But no decisions on the Middle East were made in the Paris talks. Germany and Austro-Hungary gave us their rights to any of the territories. This is the key development in international law I was looking for, the moment at which the victorious powers [in World War I] gave up their claims."

A historic turning point for the Jews took place in San Remo in April 1920.

"For two days, representatives of the victorious nations discussed what to do with the Ottoman Empire's land and how to respond to the demands from the Arabs and the Jews. On April 25, they made the decision: Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, and Japan agreed that the Jews could establish a national home in Palestine. The most fervent supporter was David Lloyd George of Britain. The French representative asked him why Palestine should be given to the Jews. He responded by pulling out a map that showed the boundaries of the Holy Land in the time of King David and King Solomon," he says.

Q: In other words, including Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria? 

"Indeed. San Remo was the first time that the Jews' historical right to the Land of Israel was recognized. The powers that had all the authority recognized that historical connection. The San Remo decision is anchored in the Treaty of Sevres that was signed with Turkey in the summer of 1920, which was not ratified by the Turks. But in 1923, in the Treaty of Lausanne, the Turks gave up ownership of territory in the Middle East, and the content of the Treaty of Sevres wasn't changed at all. That agreement clearly states that the rights [to the land] are transferred to the winning powers.

"The only difference between Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria is that Israel, the Jewish state, has adopted its right to Jerusalem. When the U.N. publishes resolutions referring to 'occupied Palestinian territories,' the term has no validity when it comes to international law, since these territories were never Palestinian. The term 'occupied' might be correct, if it is used to indicate that their status will be determined in the future."

Gauthier makes it clear that he is not taking a political stance.

"As a legal scholar, I have determined that it is not just to claim that Jews/Israelis anywhere in Jerusalem are thieves or settlers who illegally took over something that isn't theirs," he says.

"The rights [to Jerusalem] were given to the Jews at a specific point in history. That is relevant to every negotiation and any future agreement about the status of Jerusalem. The problem is that a certain political narrative has taken the place of legal arguments."


Eldad Beck

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/11/30/international-consensus-on-jerusalem-is-baseless/

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Trump hints at the scandal about to blow - Thomas Lifson


by Thomas Lifson

-- there is a solid appearance of the DOJ maneuvering to cover-up the underlying DOJ/FBI corruption by seizing -and controlling- all of the evidence.

There is big news ahead, and President Trump teased it yesterday from Argentina via Twitter. Politics has become a game of narratives, something well understood by both President Trump and his enemies in the media-Democrat establishment. For more than two years, the professionals of the cultural and media establishment have worked assiduously to create an objectively false narrative, with no evidence whatsoever, that Vladimir Putin actually changed the count of votes to hand Trump the presidency, making his victory illegitimate. Most Democrats actually believe this now, and have in earlier polls as well.

But as I keep reminding our readers, President Trump was the most successful reality television producer in the history of the medium, and understands a story arc very well, as events that can be programmed unfold. That must be kept in mind in understanding this somewhat enigmatic tweet that came from the president half a world away, in Argentina for meetings with the leaders of the 20 biggest economies in the world.




Here is the short (barely over a minute) segment on Hannity last night to which the President referred:



John Solomon has a smile on his face as he reveals that two prosecutors working for John Huber, the Salt Lake City US Attorney tasked by then-AG Sessions with investigating corruption beyond what the Mueller team is handling “reached out” to a whistleblower from the Clinton Foundation.


Fox News Channel screen grab via YouTube

The Clinton Foundation scandal is, as President Trump would say, yuuuuge. I am told by a knowledgeable source that the official that John Solomon cites “knows where the bodies are buried.”

Of course, the news that another whistleblower who came forward with information and documents on the Uranium One scandal, Dennis Nathan Cain, was raided by a team of FBI agents who spent 6 hours rummaging through his home, raises some alarming possibilities. Sundance of Conservative Tree House comments:
If the reporting of the raid by the Daily Caller is accurate; and given the nature of the timing for that raid; and accepting the at risk elements within the whistleblower case extended beyond Hillary Clinton to Robert Mueller; and noting how the SSCI was the recipient of the information/evidence as transmitted by Michael Horowitz; there is a solid appearance of the DOJ maneuvering to cover-up the underlying DOJ/FBI corruption by seizing -and controlling- all of the evidence.
[Additionally, in the background are the fingerprints of the self-serving quid-pro-quo between DOJ and SSCI] Just sayin’…
If that apparent cover-up perspective is accurate, then so too is THIS.
A cover-up just seems so implausible, because the activity is just so brutally obvious.
How is this level of blatant disregard possible? Seriously, I really don’t know. Perhaps these DOJ and FBI officials are genuinely inside a bubble and don’t know the level of information that exists outside DC…. or, maybe they just feel so above the law they simply don’t care. I don’t understand it either; but it’s happening – regardless.
The expression “high drama” is inadequate to express the nature of the infighting underway, mostly hidden from the public, but occasionally visible through public events and releases. The revelations set to come next week may open a new chapter in the story arc of Trump versus the bipartisan establishment.

Correction: The Huber team Assistant US Attorneys reached out to the whistleblower, not vice versa, as erroneously reported at first. 

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/trump_hints_at_the_scandal_about_to_blow.html

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Provoking New Crimes Rather than Uncovering Past Crimes: Mueller's Modus Operandi - Alan M. Dershowitz


by Alan M. Dershowitz

In the end, Mueller should be judged by how successful he has been in satisfying his central mission. Judged by that standard and based on what we now know, he seems to be an abysmal failure.

  • Even if Mueller could prove that members of the Trump team had colluded with Julian Assange to use material that Assange had unlawfully obtained, that, too, would not be a crime.
  • Merely using the product of an already committed theft of information is not a crime. If you don't believe me, ask the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and other newspapers that used material illegally obtained by Assange with full knowledge that it was illegally obtained.
  • In the end, Mueller should be judged by how successful he has been in satisfying his central mission. Judged by that standard and based on what we now know, he seems to be an abysmal failure.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller does not have a roving commission to ferret out political sin, to provoke new crimes, or to publish non-criminal conclusions that may be embarrassing to the President. His mandate, like that of every other prosecutor, is to uncover past crimes. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The recent guilty plea of Michael Cohen of lying represents the dominant trend in Mueller's approach to prosecution. The vast majority of indictments and guilty pleas obtained against Americans by Mueller have not been for substantive crimes relating to his mandate: namely, to uncover crimes involving illegal contacts with Russia. They have involved indictments and guilty pleas either for lying, or for financial crimes by individuals unrelated to the Russia probe. If this remains true after the filing of the Mueller report, it would represent a significant failure on Mueller's part.

Mueller was appointed Special Counsel not to provoke individuals into committing new crimes, but rather to uncover past crimes specifically involving alleged illegal coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian agents. No one doubted that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton. But Mueller's mandate was not to prosecute Russians or to point the finger at Vladimir Putin. His mandate was to uncover crimes committed by the Trump campaign with regard to Russia's attempts to influence the election.

It was always an uphill struggle for Mueller, since collusion itself is not a crime. In other words, even if he could show that individuals in the Trump campaign had colluded with Russian agents to help elect Trump, that would be a serious political sin, but not a federal crime. Even if Mueller could prove that members of the Trump team had colluded with Julian Assange to use material that Assange had unlawfully obtained, that, too, would not be a crime. What would be a crime is something that no one claims happened: namely, that members of the Trump campaign told Assange to hack the Democratic National Committee before Assange did so. Merely using the product of an already committed theft of information is not a crime. If you don't believe me, ask the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and other newspapers that used material illegally obtained by Assange with full knowledge that it was illegally obtained. Not only did they use information from Assange, but also from Chelsea Manning and from the stolen Pentagon Papers. The First Amendment protects publication by the media of stolen information. It also protects use of such information by a political campaign, since political campaigns are also covered by the First Amendment.

It is important to note that Special Counsel Robert Mueller does not have a roving commission to ferret out political sin, to provoke new crimes, or to publish non-criminal conclusions that may be embarrassing to the President. His mandate, like that of every other prosecutor, is to uncover past crimes. In Mueller's case those crimes must relate to Russia. He also has the authority to prosecute crimes growing out of the Russia probe, but that is collateral to his central mission. In the end, Mueller should be judged by how successful he has been in satisfying his central mission. Judged by that standard and based on what we now know, he seems to be an abysmal failure.

Perhaps more will come out when his report is published, but it is unlikely that he uncovered anything dramatically new with regard to allegations that the Trump campaign acted illegally in an attempt to help Russia undercut Hillary Clinton's campaign. Even if the report alleges uncharged criminal behavior, it must be remembered that much of what will be in the report are merely allegations based on uncross-examined evidence. Some of that evidence seems to come from admitted liars, who have pleaded guilty for lying. These liars would make poor witnesses in an actual trial, but if their evidence serves as a basis for conclusions reached in the Mueller report, then these conclusions may seem more credible than they actually are. We must, of course, wait for the publication of the Mueller report before reaching any final judgments, but if the Mueller report merely catalogues all the guilty pleas and indictments achieved thus far for lying and unrelated financial crimes, and tries to build a case of guilt by association around them, the American public will be justly critical of the process.


Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of The Case Against Impeaching Trump, Skyhorse publishing, 2018.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13363/robert-mueller-modus-operandi

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U.N. Israel-Bashing Day - Joseph Klein


by Joseph Klein

This time, however, the U.S. proposes a resolution condemning Hamas.




Beginning in 1977, the United Nations has observed the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" every year on November 29th. This is the date in 1947 when the UN General Assembly approved its partition resolution envisaging the establishment of two states – an independent state of Palestine and an independent Jewish state of Israel. The Palestinians and their surrounding Arab neighbors rejected the original two-state solution with their usual response - violence. The creators of the Jewish state, on the other hand, were willing to accept the partition compromise. Israel subsequently offered the Palestinians a succession of opportunities for their own state, which the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly rejected. Nevertheless, the Palestinians, with a lot of help from their friends, have managed to turn the United Nations into their propaganda arm. The highlight every year is the UN’s treatment of the November 29th anniversary of its own original two-state General Assembly partition resolution as, to quote former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, a “day of mourning and a day of grief.”  To assuage its grief, the UN General Assembly passes annually a series of blatantly one-sided anti-Israel resolutions, which have deliberately overlooked decades of Palestinian terrorism aimed at killing civilians.

Fiery anti-Israel speeches precede the votes. The UN-sponsored pro-Palestinian forum known as the UN Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People gets things started at least a day in advance. This year, not content with leaving it to the Palestinians’ friends among the member states to make their case, the committee invited Marc Lamont Hill, a CNN commentator, to the anti-Israel hatefest. CNN called Marc Lamont Hill “one of the leading intellectual voices in the country.” This  “intellectual” advocated the use of violence if necessary as a legitimate form of “resistance.” He supported the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israel and the so-called “right of return.”  He voiced the words that Palestinians have regularly used to call for the end of the Jewish state: "a free Palestine from the river to the sea." When criticized afterwards for using dog-whistle language appealing to the anti-Semitic destroy Israel crowd, Hill did not apologize. He argued that the “river to sea” expression is “a phrase used by many factions, ideologies, movements, and politicians. My reference to 'river to the sea' was not a call to destroy anything or anyone. It was a call for justice, both in Israel and in the West Bank/Gaza.” CNN was not buying Hill's lame explanation, nor should anyone else who knows anything about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most likely responding to public backlash than acting on principle, CNN announced that “Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN.”

The good news this year is that for the first time the UN member states will not just be asked to vote on the usual anti-Israel resolutions to mark the anniversary of the General Assembly partition resolution. As a result of an initiative promoted by the Trump administration, they will also have to decide whether to approve a separate draft resolution condemning Hamas for repeatedly firing rockets into Israel and for inciting violence that put “civilians at risk.” The draft resolution also demands that “Hamas cease all provocative actions and violent activity.” The administration, led by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, has reportedly been negotiating the final text of the resolution with other member states, which may require some tinkering while leaving the core condemnation of Hamas intact. There is a particular focus on obtaining European Union support. Hamas is on the 28-member EU bloc's terrorism blacklist, which the European Court of Justice has upheld. 

Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, who has been working with Ambassador Haley on the anti-Hamas resolution, is cautiously optimistic that there will be enough votes to approve it by majority vote. That vote could occur by this Monday. However, even if the resolution does not pass this time, Ambassador Danon considers the process itself, forcing the member states to take a stand on Hamas terrorism, a win-win. “The fact that now people are talking about Hamas, and that the Palestinian Authority – we all know about its relations with Hamas – is sweating to explain why they are suddenly in favor of Hamas, means we have already won,” he said.

Past attempts by Nikki Haley to have the UN Security Council and General Assembly condemn Hamas violence have been thwarted by procedural obstacles invoked by the Palestinians’ enablers. This time, however, a straight up-and-down vote approving the U.S. sponsored draft resolution by majority vote is a distinct possibility, especially if the European nations do not weasel out of doing the right thing. Hamas is apparently getting nervous that it may no longer be able to count on the UN entirely for kid-glove treatment. Thus, it has suddenly decided to launch a diplomatic offensive at the UN and invoke “international law” to justify its campaign of terrorism against civilians.

Like the criminal who murdered his parents and then pleads for mercy on the grounds that he is now an orphan, Hamas is reported to have sent a letter to the UN General Assembly President, Maria Fernanda Spinosa, condemning the U.S. initiative. Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political bureau, wrote in his letter that “We reiterate the right of our people to defend themselves and to resist the occupation, by all available means, including armed resistance, guaranteed by the international law.” He added that Hamas would "greatly count on the members of the UN General Assembly [to] stand by international legitimacy in support for the right of peoples to defend themselves and thwart these aggressive American endeavors."

According to the twisted logic of the terrorist Hamas leadership, “the right of peoples to defend themselves” includes the launch of thousands of rockets aimed deliberately at civilian populations in Israel and the use of Palestinian women and children as human shields. In response to the Hamas letter, Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, vowed that “Israel and the United States will continue to mobilize the countries of the world into a united front against the terrorism that Hamas engages in on behalf of Iran."

Hamas forcibly took control of Gaza in 2007 from Fatah, the party loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Fatah had exercised control in Gaza from the completion of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 until Fatah's ejection in 2007. Fast forward to 2018. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have still not reconciled, undermining any reasonable claim of Palestinian readiness for genuine statehood. Abbas has demanded that Hamas give up its weapons as a condition for reconciliation. “I won’t accept the reproduction of the Hezbollah experience in Lebanon” in Gaza, Abbas said last year. He has also used economic leverage to squeeze Hamas, at the expense of the Gazan people.

Despite Abbas’s in-fighting with Hamas for control over Gaza and any future Palestinian state, he has hypocritically decided to show solidarity with Hamas at the United Nations. His Palestinian Authority has conducted its own campaign against the proposed General Assembly resolution condemning Hamas’ violence. This hypocrisy puts a lie to any notion that Abbas has any interest in compromising to negotiate a workable two-state solution under which Israel and an independent Palestinian state can live side by side securely in peace.

During the opening debate in the General Assembly on the anti-Israel resolutions, Israeli Ambassador Danon turned to the Palestinians and set out three conditions that would lead to a new era in the region: "Recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people; stop the terrorist payments and incitements; and choose a leadership that is committed to the Palestinian people. Only when these conditions materialize can we continue forward in the region."

Abbas has no intention of meeting any of these reasonable conditions for a durable peace. He would rather use Hamas to violently provoke an Israeli military response that Abbas can then exploit at the United Nations for propaganda purposes, portraying the Palestinians as innocent victims of a brutal occupying power. Too often, the UN has played by Abbas’s rules. Hopefully, Nikki Haley will succeed in taking an important step forward to change those rules.


Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272097/un-israel-bashing-day-joseph-klein

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Becerra Border Betrayal - Lloyd Billingsley


by Lloyd Billingsley

California’s razaist attorney general threatens legal action over Trump border protection.




When foreign nationals attacked with rocks and bottles on Sunday, the U.S. Border Patrol dispersed the mob with tear gas. That prompted California attorney general Xavier Becerra to ponder legal action against the Trump administration.

“We have been approached by folks who have expressed complaints,” Becerra told Reuters. “We are monitoring what’s occurring.” 

American citizens and legal immigrants might think it odd that the chief law enforcement official of a U.S. state would ignore criminal violence and direct his wrath at U.S. federal agents. For Xavier Becerra, a former congressman once on Hillary Clinton’s short list as a running mate, it’s business as usual.

On his watch, MS-13 has inflicted a reign of terror in Mendota, near Fresno. The gang has murdered 14, hacking victims to death with machetes and leaving the mutilated bodies on display. Becerra took no action against MS-13 until the feds stepped in, and even then the attorney general made it clear that he was not concerned with the gang’s “status.” That too is business as usual for Becerra.

Like governor Jerry Brown, Becerra supports the sanctuary state policies that protect false-documented illegals, even violent criminals. Becerra has backed laws that would punish employers for cooperating with federal officials. In a way, Becerra is also a beneficiary of the sanctuary policy.

As head of the Democratic Caucus, Becerra controlled the server where Pakistan-born IT man Imran Awan, who worked for DNC boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz, stashed the data he lifted from House Democrats on the intelligence and foreign affairs committees. When capitol police requested the data, they got only a fake image. After the scandal broke, Becerra abandoned his seat and Jerry Brown promptly appointed him attorney general of California.

At Stanford, where he earned his bachelor and law degrees, Becerra was a member of MEChA, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano De Aztlan. A belch from the sixties’ left, MEChA calls the southwest portion of the United States “Aztlan” and seeks to regain the territory for Mexico. The MEChA slogan is “Entre la raza todo, fuera de la raza, nada,” and the “raza” is not the human race.
It’s the “cosmic race” that Mexican education minister Jose Vasconcelos, once a presidential candidate, said would replace all others. In 1979, the Chicano Studies department at Cal State LA republished Vasconcelos The Cosmic Race, the bible of the sin fronteras forces.

As Vasconcelos has it, the Black is “eager for sensual joy, intoxicated with dances and unbridled lust.” The Mongol has “slanted eyes that see everything according to a strange angle” and the peoples of Asia are “exhausted, or at least, lacking in the necessary boldness for new enterprise.” The oppressive Whites “taught the control of matter,” and like the other races have “a characteristic smell.”

These races are all disappearing and “the Anglo-Saxons are gradually becoming more a part of yesterday.” The future belongs to the Ibero-American race, the union of Spaniards and Indians, because “only the Iberian part of the continent possesses the spiritual factors, the race, and the territory for the great enterprise of initiating the new universal era of humanity.”

And just so you know, “Any teacher can corroborate that the children and youths descendant from Scandinavians, Dutch, and English found in North American universities are much slower, and almost dull, compared with the mestizo children and youths from the south.” So the evil, disappearing Yankees and “Anglo-Saxons,” razaista code for people with names like Kamenski, O’Houlihan and Gastineau, are also stupid.

As Mexican-American Communist Bert Corona explained in Memoirs of Chicano History, Vasconcelos’ racial theory was “close to the kind of German racial superiority theory supported by Hitler.”  Vasconcelos became a fascist, and as Corona explained, “I couldn’t accept all this. We’re not a superior race.”  Trouble is, Vansconcelos’ goose-stepping razaismo is now inflaming the border conflict. 

On the other hand, for the Democrat-media axis anybody less than worshipful of the intruders is racist. So no surprised that a MEChA alum would target his own federal government and serve as a pro bono attorney for criminal foreign nationals.  

California is the border state farthest from Central America. The Central American horde came there because California welcomes false-documented illegals, gives them a host of benefits, registers them to vote, and even give them official state positions. To date, no administration has required any California officials to register as agents of a foreign government, particularly Mexico.  

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be inaugurated on Saturday. Before his election victory, AMLO proclaimed, “We will defend migrants all over the American continent and the migrants of the world who, by necessity, must abandon their towns to find life in the United States,” adding, “It’s a human right we will defend.” So under Mexico’s new boss, more “migrants” will be heading north.

President Trump should defend the U.S border with more troops. If Mexico fails to deport the intruders, the president might shut down the border and start taxing the remissions Mexicans send back to their country, $26 billion in 2017 alone. And as Border Patrol chief Carla Provost explains, the old border fence of metal landing mats needs to be replaced “with a wall.”


Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Barack ‘em Up: A Literary Investigation, recently updated, and Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie IndustryBill of Writes: Dispatches from the Political Correctness Battlefield, is a collection of his journalism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272099/becerra-border-betrayal-lloyd-billingsley

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France's Meltdown, Macron's Disdain - Guy Millière


by Guy Millière

The "yellow jackets" [protestors] now have the support of 77% of the French population. They are demanding Macron's resignation and an immediate change of government.

  • "The French say, 'Mr. President, we cannot make ends meet,' and the President replies, 'we shall create a High Council [for the climate]'. Can you imagine the disconnect?" -- Laurence Saillet, spokesman for the center-right party, The Republicans, November 27, 2018
  • The "yellow jackets" [protestors] now have the support of 77% of the French population. They are demanding Macron's resignation and an immediate change of government.
  • The movement is now a revolt of millions of people who feel asphyxiated by "confiscatory" taxation, and who do not want to "pay indefinitely" for a government that seems "unable to limit spending". -- Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist.
  • European elections are to be held this Spring, 2019. Polls show that the National Gathering will be in the lead, far ahead of La République En Marche! [The Republic on the Move!], the party created by Macron.
On November 11th, French President Emmanuel Macron commemorated the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I by inviting seventy heads of state to organize a costly, useless, grandiloquent "Forum of Peace" that did not lead to anything. He also invited US President Donald Trump, and then chose to insult him. In a pompous speech, Macron -- knowing that a few days earlier, Donald Trump had defined himself as a nationalist committed to defending America -- invoked "patriotism"; then defined it, strangely, as "the exact opposite of nationalism"; then called it "treason".

In addition, shortly before the meeting, Macron had not only spoken of the "urgency" of building a European army; he also placed the United States among the "enemies" of Europe. This was not the first time Macron placed Europe above the interests of his own country. It was, however, the first time he had placed the United States on the list of enemies of Europe.

President Trump apparently understood immediately that Macron's attitude was a way to maintain his delusions of grandeur,as well as to try to derive a domestic political advantage. Trump also apparently understood that he could not just sit there and accept insults. In a series of tweets, Trump reminded the world that France had needed the help of the USA to regain freedom during World Wars, that NATO was still protecting a virtually defenseless Europe and that many European countries were still not paying the amount promised for their own defense. Trump added that Macron had an extremely low approval rating (26%), was facing an extremely high level of unemployment, and was probably trying to divert attention from that.

Trump was right. For months, the popularity of Macron has been in free fall: he is now the most unpopular French President in modern history at this stage of his mandate. The French population has turned away from him in droves.

Unemployment in France is not only at an alarmingly high level (9.1%); it has been been alarmingly high for years. The number of people in poverty is also high (8.8 million people, 14.2% of the population). Economic growth is effectively non-existent (0.4% in the third quarter of 2018, up from 0.2% the previous three months). The median income (20,520 euros, or $23,000, a year,) is unsustainably low. It indicates that half the French live on less than 1710 euros ($1946) a month. Five million people are surviving on less than 855 euros ($ 973) a month.

When Macron was elected in May 2017, he promised to liberate the economy; however no significant measures, were taken. In spite of some cosmetic reforms– such as limits on allowances for unfair dismissal or the slightly increased possibility that small businesses could negotiate short work contracts -- the French labor code, still one of the most rigid in the developed world, expertly blocks job creation. The tax burden (more than 45% of GDP) is the highest in the developed world. Even if some taxes were abolished since Macron became President, many new taxes were created. Public expenditure still accounts for about 57% of GDP (16% above the OECD countries average) and shows no signs of waning.

Macron also promised, when he was elected, to restore security. Lack of security, however, has been exploding; the number of violent assaults and rapes has been steadily on the rise. No-go zones are as widespread as a year ago and fiercely out of control. The influx of unvetted illegal immigrants into the country has sadly turned entire neighborhoods into slums.

In May, Macron warned that in many suburbs, France has "lost the fight against drug trafficking".

When Minister of the Interior Gérard Collomb resigned in on October 3, he spoke of a "very degraded situation" and added that in many areas "the law of the strongest -- drug-traffickers and radical Islamists -- has taken the place of the Republic." He was simply confirming the chilling assessments of "out of favor" commentators such as Éric Zemmour, author of Le Suicide Français, and Georges Bensoussan, author of Une France Soumise (A Submissive France).

Riots are frequent; they indicate the growing inability of the government to maintain order. Public transport strikes, which took placeduring the entire spring of 2018, were accompanied by demonstrations and an enthusiastic looting of banks and shops. France's victory at the soccer World Cup in July was followed by jubilation, which quickly gave way to violence by groups who broke store windows and attacked the police.

Since entering political life, Macron's remarks have not only revealed a contempt for the French population, but also have multiplied. That has not helped. As early as 2014, when Macron was Minister of the Economy, he said that the women employees of a bankrupt company were "illiterates"; in June 2017, just after becoming president, he distinguished between "those who succeed and those who are nothing". More recently, he told a young man who spoke of his distress at trying to find a job, that he only had to move and "cross the street". During a visit to Denmark, he announced that the French were "Gauls resistant to change".


In May, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that in many suburbs, France has "lost the fight against drug trafficking". (Getty Images)

One of the few issues Macron did seem eager to work on was Islam. He stressed several times his determination to establish an "Islam of France". What he failed to take into account werethe concerns ofthe rest of the population about the rapid Islamization the country. In June 20, 2017, he said (not quite accurately, for example here, here, here, here, here and here), "No one can make believe that (Muslim) faith is not compatible with the Republic". He also seems to have failed to take into account the risks of Islamic terrorism, which he hardly ever calls by its name. He seems to prefer using the word "terrorism", without an adjective, and simply acknowledges that "there is a radical reading of Islam, whose principles do not respect religious slogans").

The current Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, whom Macron appointed to replace Collomb, dismissed the concerns raised by his predecessor, and described Islam as "a religion of happiness and love, like the Catholic religion".

Another area in which Macron has acted relentlessly is the "fight about climate change", in which his targeted enemy arecars. On vehicles over four years old, mandatory technical controls were made more costly and failure to comply with them more punitive, evidently in the hope that an increasing number of older cars could be eliminated. Speed ​​limits on most roads were lowered to 80 km/h (50 mph), speed control radars multipled, and tens of thousands of drivers' licenses were suspended. Gas taxes rose sharply (30 cents a gallon in one year). A gallon of unleaded gas in France now costs more than $7.

The small minority of French people who still support Macron are not affected by these measures. Surveys show that they belong to the wealthy layers of society, that they live in affluent neighborhoods, and almost never use personal vehicles. The situation is painfully different for most other individuals, especially the forgotten middle class.

A recent decision to increase gas taxes was the final straw. It sparked instant anger. A petition demanding that the government roll back the tax increase received almost a million signatures in two days. On social networks, people discussed ​​organizing demonstrations throughout the country and suggested that the demonstrators wear the yellow safety jackets that drivers are obliged to store in their cars in case of roadside breakdowns. So, on November 17, hundreds of thousands of protesters blocked large parts of the country.

The government ignored the protesters' demands. Instead, officials repeated the many unproven imperatives of "climate change" and the need to eliminate the use of "fossil fuels" – but refused to change course.

After that, another national protest day was selected. On November 24, the demonstrators organized a march on Paris. Many, it seems, decided, despite a government ban, to head for the Champs Elysées and continue toward the presidential Elysée Palace.

Clashes took place, barricades were erected and vehicles were torched. The police responded harshly. They attacked non-violent protesters and used thousands of tear gas grenades and water cannons, which they had never done in the past. Although many of the protestors were holding red flags, indicating they were from the political left, the newly appointed Minister of the Interior Castaner said that the violence had come from a fractious and seditious "far right". One member of the government fueled the fire by equating the French "yellow vests" with the German "brown shirts" of the 1930s. Macron declared that those who try to "intimidate officials" should be "ashamed".

Finally, on November 25, Macron ended up recognizing, with visible reluctance, the suffering of the "working classes". Two days later, Macron delivered a solemn speech, announcing that he would create a "high council for the climate", composed of ecologists and professional politicians, and that his aim was to save the planet and avoid "the end of the world". He still did not utter a single word about the economic grievances that had poured forth during the previous ten days.

The spokesman for the center-right party, The Republicans, Laurence Saillet, remarked, "The French say, 'Mr. President, we cannot make ends meet,' and the President replies, 'we shall create a High Council [for the climate]' Can you imagine the disconnect?".

Marine Le Pen, president of the right-of-center National Rally (the former National Front party, and today the main opposition party in France), said, "There is a tiny caste that works for itself and there is the vast majority of French people who are abandoned by the government, and feel downgraded, dispossessed ".

The "yellow jackets" now have the support of 84% of the French population. They are demanding Macron's resignation and an immediate change of government. Those who speak on radio and television say that Macron and the government are hopelessly blind and deaf.

At the moment, the "yellow jackets" have decided to organize a third national protest Рtoday, Saturday, December 1st -- with another march to Paris and the Elys̩e Palace. The revolt in the country is intensifying and shows no sign of slowing down.

The political scientist Jean-Yves Camus said that the "yellow jackets" movement is now a revolt of millions of people who feel asphyxiated by "confiscatory" taxation and who do not want to "pay indefinitely" for a government that seems "unable to limit spending". He added, " Some do not measure the extent of the rejection that the demonstrators express".

Dominique Reynié, professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, said that "Macron and the government had not expected that their tax policy would lead to this".

European elections are to be held this May, 2019. Polls show that Le Pen's National Rally party will be in the lead, far ahead of the party created by Macron, La République En Marche! [The Republic on the Move!].

In a little more than a year, Macron, elected in May 2017, has lost almost all credit and legitimacy. He is also one of the last European leaders in power who supports the European Union as it is.

Macron, who claimed that he would defeat the "populist" wave rising throughout the continent, has also claimed that leaders who listened to people eager to defend their way of life were "leprosy" and "bad winds".

The "populist" wave is now hitting France; it could well mean the end of Macron's term as president.


Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13364/france-meltdown-macron-disdain

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How Many Times Can You Justify the Murder of Jews before CNN Fires You? - Daniel Greenfield


by Daniel Greenfield

Marc Lamont Hill’s years of anti-Semitism finally catch up to him.




Marc Lamont Hill is a fan of the Sixers, Farrakhan and killing Jews. He also holds the answer to the question, ‘How many times can you justify the murder of Jews before CNN fires you?’

Hill had spent at least four years justifying and defending the murder of Jews before CNN finally parted ways with its former commentator. And it did so without ever condemning his hateful remarks.

In 2014, Hill had claimed on CNN that the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teens, Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah,  one of them an American citizen, wasn’t “terrorism”, but “resistance”.

And CNN let it pass.

Earlier this year, Hill had insisted that “occupied people have a legal and moral right to defend themselves” and that the idea that Israel has a “right to exist” is “propaganda”. In May of last year, he had argued that Trump's "call for Palestine to 'reject hatred and terrorism' is offensive."

A month before a Pittsburgh synagogue was shot up by a violent bigot; Hill again justified the murder of Jews by violent bigots.

"We have allowed this nonviolent thing to become so normative that we're undermining our own ability to resist in real robust ways," he complained.

Anyone who might have been hoping that the murder of eleven Jews by a killer who also thought he was engaging in “resistance”, not “terrorism” would have touched Hill’s heart was sadly mistaken.

A month after the Pittsburgh massacre, Marc Lamont Hill addressed a UN event in support of the terror colonialists occupying parts of Israel, endorsed BDS, called for the destruction of Israel and justified the murder of Jews.

"We must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend themselves. We must prioritize peace, but we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but cannot endorse narrow politics that shames Palestinians for resisting," Hill argued.

It was an ideological defense of the murder of Jews by a CNN commentator, a Temple University prof and a BET and VH1 host only a short time after everyone had briefly agreed that anti-Semitism was bad.

And after four years of defending the murder of Jews, it proved to be too much even for CNN.

"Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN," the news network curtly announced. It didn’t condemn his hatred. It didn’t denounce his defense of the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel.

It wasn’t news to CNN that Hill believed that Israel should be destroyed or that terrorism against Jews is acceptable. Long before his call for, “Palestine from the river to the sea”, erasing the existence of Israel and the only independent political self-determination option of the Jewish people, he had made similar remarks advocating some form of a ‘one-state solution’ that would replace Israel with a Muslim state.

And it certainly wasn’t news that he had defended terrorist violence against Jews. He’d done it on CNN.

CNN was forced to let Hill go because of all the negative attention, but the media quickly circled its wagons around him with numerous stories, most prominently in the Washington Post, misrepresenting his firing as due to “pro-Palestinian” remarks or “criticism of Israel” rather than the murder of Jews.

That’s the same paper that recently provided a forum for the Houthi terrorists in Yemen whose motto is, "Allahu Akbar, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam".

If Hill can’t appear on CNN, perhaps the Washington Post will find some space for him.

And that shows that the scale of the problem is much bigger than Hill or CNN.

CNN covered for Hill as long as it could. When it no longer could, the Washington Post and other media outlets began covering for him. Like Steven Salaita whose defense of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic violence made him a media hero, the media protects Hill because it agrees with him.

The media accused President Trump of ”dog whistles”. This isn’t a dog whistle. It’s a deafening shriek.

Hill defended the murder of Israeli men, women and children in their homes, in cars and buses, in restaurants and synagogues, by the adherents of a violently anti-Semitic ideology convinced that Jews are the descendants of “apes and pigs” (Koran 5:60) who must die because the Day of Judgement “will not come unless the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims will kill them until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, and  the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.'” (Sahih Muslim)

When we talk about Islamic terrorism in Israel, this is what we are truly talking about. And the media would rather put on Hill to defend anti-Semitic terrorism than anyone who will condemn it as evil.

There is no better evidence of how hollow the post-Pittsburgh outrage was.

Temple University, where Hill works as a Professor of Media Studies and Urban Education, distanced itself from his remarks, but failed to condemn them or end its relationship with him. And there is no sign that Verizon’s Huffington Post, where some of his pro-terrorist remarks were printed, will end its relationship with him. And also, no comment from VH1 and BET about his current standing.

Even after a national dialogue about anti-Semitism, no one will condemn the whitewashing of the racist murder of Jews in the language of civil rights, framing the kidnappings, stabbings, shootings, bombings, beheadings as an alternative tactic whose racist perpetrators must not be shamed.

Hill didn’t just defend the murder of Jews as an abstract proposition, but stood by specific terrorists, like Rasmea Odeh, who had been convicted in the bombing deaths of Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner, two Jewish college students at Hebrew University who were shopping for groceries in a supermarket before the Sabbath. Edward’s brother lives in Texas and attended Odeh’s trial.

Marc Lamont Hill never mentioned Edward and Leon’s names, just as he never mentioned the names of Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah when he was defending their kidnapping and murder on CNN. Before justifying the murder of Jews, Hill dehumanizes them by refusing to say their names and acknowledge their humanity. He refuses to hear the scream of Edward’s mother, Nadine, when she learned her son had been murdered. He doesn’t want to hear Naftali’s father describe writing the eulogy for his 16-year-old son before he even knew whether he would be found dead or alive.

The case of Marc Lamont Hill shows not only how the media tolerates even the ugliest forms of anti-Semitism, but how posturing about Trump diverts the Left from addressing its own anti-Semitism.

After the Pittsburgh massacre, Hill claimed that, “Trump’s political machine often traffics in anti-Semitism.”

That claim came from the same man who had posted how “blessed” it was to “spend the last day with Minister Louis Farrakhan.” Then he claimed that the racist leader who had praised Hitler, compared Jews to termites and called Judaism a “gutter religion” was not anti-Semitic because, “I do not believe, based on my understanding and my reading of anti-Semitism, that he is an anti-Semite."

Hill, like so many on the Left, insisted on diverting every discussion about anti-Semitism by turning right to avoid a reckoning with his own hatred. He claimed that he was opposed to Israel, rather than Jews, but his defense of Farrakhan makes it clear that even that isn’t true. But many Jews on the Left continue allowing Hill, Sarsour and so many others who use that tactic to continue getting away with it.

And that’s why Marc Lamont Hill will be back.

There’s little doubt that he will be brought on board some other media outlet. And how many years of justifying the murder of Jews and posing with Farrakhan will it take this time before he’s fired?


Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272100/how-many-times-can-you-justify-murder-jews-cnn-daniel-greenfield

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