Polish MP Invites AOC for Educational Visit to REAL Concentration Camps - Raheem Kassam

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by Raheem Kassam

Hat tip: Dr. Jean-Charles Bensoussan

Will AOC take this opportunity to educate herself?

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A Polish lawmaker and committee chairman on trans-Atlantic trade has invited Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to visit former concentration camps in his country in an effort to educate the freshman legislator.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has recently been embroiled in a war of words with the political right, and indeed members of her own Democratic Party, after suggesting the Trump administration was running “concentration camps” in the United States.

Dominik Tarczyński, a member of the Polish Sejm (parliament), wrote to Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday, in a letter seen exclusively by Human Events.

In his communication, Tarczyński writes: “I write to you out of distress in having learned of your recent statements regarding concentration camps.

“As you should be aware, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) who led Germany, were responsible for the darkest period in my country’s and our whole continent’s history by devising a chain of concentration camps in order to exterminate those who they believed were subhuman, or a threat to their imperialistic machinations- this included both Jewish Poles and non-Jewish Poles and as a result we lost six million of our citizens.

“While under German Nazi occupation, a number of concentration camps were set up in my country, Poland. It has caused a deep wound that persists on our proud Polish and European history that we must deal with every single day, and that we reaffirm to one another can never be forgotten, and never allowed to happen again.

“This is why when someone cheapens the history, or uses it for political point-scoring, we become agitated and upset.”

A full copy of the letter can be seen below:

Tarczyński concludes: “You speak often of bipartisanship, and I feel this is one area in particular where we can begin to live that ideal.”

Earlier today the Congresswoman was reprimanded by the official Twitter account of Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust memorial center in Israel.

Ocasio-Cortez has accused the Trump administration of running “concentration camps” on the U.S. Southern Border, despite the Obama administration operating the same policy.

Raheem Kassam

Source: https://humanevents.com/2019/06/20/exclusive-polish-mp-invites-aoc-for-educational-visit-of-real-concentration-camps/

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Joe Biden can’t keep his story straight - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

We can state with confidence that he is lying about his position on a matter of national security, with the only question being which version was the lie – the first or the second?

The Democrats’ front-runner (for now) has been busted in an important lie. Joe Biden has publicly told two different stories – diametrically opposed to each other – about the advice he purportedly offered when the Navy SEAL Team Six’s raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan was being discussed by President Obama’s National Security team. We can state with confidence that he is lying about his position on a matter of national security, with the only question being which version was the lie – the first or the second?

Photo credit: Ancho

Jerry Dunleavy of the Washington Examiner lays out the credibility-destroying problem and provides a convincing answer:

After initially saying that he opposed the operation and told President Barack Obama not to do it, the 2020 Democratic front-runner changed his account to say he hedged in front of other official but privately told Obama to go ahead.
Every other account of the decision-making process indicates that the former vice president's first version was true and his later accounts were not. In 2012, he said his advice was, 'Don’t go.' By 2015, he had settled on saying he'd privately told Obama to 'go.'
The former vice president’s most recent descriptions of his stance — when he morphed from vocal opponent of the raid, to private supporter of it — contradicts the public accounts of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, former CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Obama himself.

It is very hard to imagine that the four people contradicting his revised story have any reasosn to lie, so we are left with the conclusion that he simply found it advantageous to lie after the raid turned out to be a bragging point for Obama to bolster his credibility as a decisive foe of Islamist terror (even as he was pushing for the Iran nuclear deal that handed Iran billions in cash and delayed but did not end its acquisition of nuclear bombs).

This story is yet another nail in the coffin of Biden’s campaign. He simply cannot withstand the sort of close scrutiny a presidential candidate is subjected to. That’s why his previous runs at the presidency failed. 

The basic problem is that Biden is not smart enough yet loves to talk. He says what he thinks will ingratiate hiself with the audience he faces. His gifts as a “press the flesh” retail campaigner – gregarious and somewhat charismatic – worked very well in the small state of Delaware, where every taxi driver I encountered in Wilmington (I had two multi-year clients there in my consulting practice) had met him and liked him.

But on a national scale, Biden’s already occupied the only office he was qualified for, the Vice Presidency. I firmly believe that he was chosen a Barack Obama’s running mate because he was no threat to the top of the ticket as a rival and offered the image of a veteran establishment figure to take some of the rawness off of a candidate who had served only part of one term as a senator before going for the Oval Office. 

There are signs accumulating that the Democrats’ power elite understand that Biden could not run an effective campaign against President Trump, his current large lead in the polls notwithstanding. Rush Limbaugh concurs with the prediction I made a month-and-a-half ago that Biden would not make it to the top of the ticket in 2020. Yesterday, he told his millions of listeners:

I think the bottom line here is that Biden is finished but doesn’t know it. And he may know it, by the way. He just hasn’t fallen over yet. But it’s coming. Whoever this is… It could be elements of the Obama Regime. It could be the Democrat National Committee. It could be a Democrat strategerist [sic] somewhere. It could be a Democrat consultant somewhere, could be people inside his own campaign.
Somewhere, there are serious questions and doubts about Biden beating Trump, and this is also how you know that whatever the polls say today about Biden beating Trump, they don’t believe it.

It’s going to be a little sad watching Slow Joe decline and eventually pull out. It’s already pathetic to see him desperately trying to get his old boss Obama to endorse him, something that just will not happen.

Not that he doesn’t deserve all the grief he is going to be in for. His campaign kickoff spread the lie that President Trump endorsed the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, as “fine people,” and he will literally lie (as we have just seen) and pander with no limit. But watching a tired old man fail reminds us all of our own mortality.

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/joe_biden_cant_keep_his_story_straight.html

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Brit lawmakers trying to define Islam as a race - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

Both “Islamophobia” and “structural” racism are frauds.

It’s a backdoor approach toward enforcing Islamic blasphemy laws, says Soren Kern of the Gatestone Institute. The backdoor is, as you might predict, the elusive concept of “Islamophobia.”

Days after the British government rejected its preferred official definition of Islamophobia, the Muslim Council of Britain, the biggest Islamic organization in Britain, called for the ruling Conservative Party to be officially investigated for Islamophobia.
The dispute revolves around an effort by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, a cross-party formation of around two-dozen MPs in the British Parliament, to institutionalize the definition of Islamophobia in racial rather than religious terms.
The APPG, in a November 2018 report titled, "Islamophobia Defined," proposed the following one-sentence definition of Islamophobia:

"Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness."

The definition, the result of six months of consultations, was endorsed by hundreds of Muslim organizations, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, as well as several political parties, including Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Conservatives.
Proponents of the definition say that while it is true that Islam is not a race but a religion — a set of beliefs and ideas — and that Muslims are a set of believers from different races, ethnicities and nationalities, many Muslims experience prejudice, discrimination and a form of racism, which, they say, is structural.

Photo credit: Adrian Pingstone

This is utter nonsense. Kosovo is full of Caucasian Muslims, and those among them who practice violent jihad ought to be feared by any sensible person. Both “Islamophobia” and “structural” racism are frauds. Adopting this standard in Britain would merely make it possible to prosecute anyone who criticized (for example) the Koranic incitement of violence against infidels in that nation that lacks a First Amendment protection of speech. 

Hat tip: John McMahon

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/brit_lawmakers_trying_to_define_islam_as_a_race.html

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The Most Anti-Conservative Company in America is Making a Big Move - Daniel Greenfield

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by Daniel Greenfield

Is the country run by the voters or by Marc Benioff?

"You better consider the economic consequences of your social and political advocacy," Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff warned conservative states.

It was 2016 and the smirking bearded billionaire was fresh off his war against conservative states, most notably Indiana, which had dared to pass laws protecting religious freedom against his wishes.

The portly billionaire with a scraggly beard and a social justice brand that covers his ruthlessness in his business dealings responded by announcing a boycott of Indiana until it backed off religious freedom.

That same year, the Hillary Clinton backer also decided to threaten the state of Georgia.

"Salesforce’s Marc Benioff Has Kicked Off New Era of Corporate Social Activism," the Wall Street Journal gushed. “Salesforce's Benioff is brave to fight for social justice,” the Telegraph twittered.

"CEOs have the ability to use their businesses as a platform for change," Benioff had declared.

Change is supposed to happen via the ballot box, and the corporate coup against representative government that corporate activism represents is a fundamental threat to a free country.

“The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America.  Ban it,” Benioff had tweeted in 2018.
A year later, Salesforce, a dominant force in the CRM space, banned businesses that sell a variety of firearms from using its force. Salesforce’s war against the First Amendment had transitioned smoothly from a campaign against the Second Amendment using its power as leverage.

And that power and leverage are about to get a whole lot more so with the Tableau deal.

Estimates are that Salesforce’s acquisition of Tableau Software may increase its revenues from $13 billion to $22 billion. And, more significantly, make the social justice company even more dominant.

The $15.7 billion Salesforce bid will swallow up customers of Tableau, shut out competitors, and it’s expected that independent analytics may lose the ability to compete against this new behemoth.

The CRM (Customer Relations Management) market is already heavily consolidated with 10 vendors controlling 60% of the market. Salesforce dominates this market with a 25% share, up from 20% in 2016.

The anti-trust argument against Salesforce isn’t as straightforward as it would be against Google, Facebook or Amazon, which have far more dominant positions, but curiously it comes from Benioff.

In 2016, Benioff and Salesforce went to war, not just against conservatives, but against Microsoft.

Microsoft had just snapped up LinkedIn for $26.2 billion and Benioff, who had wanted the company, threw out all the stops trying to fight the deal, accusing his opponent of anti-competitive behavior.

“Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of LinkedIn threatens the future of innovation and competition,” Salesforce's legal honcho had argued. “By gaining ownership of LinkedIn’s unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage.”

Benioff complained to Recode that a Microsoft executive was talking about combining all the data together to create "essentially a barrier to entry for other players in business productivity, where they have a monopoly or other markets".

That’s an argument against the Salesforce and Tableau deal.

Benioff’s bid for the EU to block Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn failed because, unlike Salesforce, its target had a very limited presence in the CRM marketplace. As the Commission noted, “Microsoft is a relatively small player in the customer relationship management market, where it faces strong competitors, such as Salesforce, the clear market leader, Oracle and SAP.”

A small player can’t be accused of trying to block innovation and competition. The biggest player can.

Indeed, the legal team representing Salesforce in the Tableau deal included lawyers from anti-trust.

Lately, Benioff has been quite enthusiastic about a government crackdown on the tech industry. "We are in a point in our industry where enough is enough, and we need to get the value straight with these tech companies,” he argued.

And he might be right.

But while Benioff wants to see a crackdown on his rivals and competitors, there’s no apparent reason why Salesforce should be exempted from the close scrutiny of regulators over its dominant position.

Benioff has urged that Facebook should be regulated “the same way you regulated the cigarette industry.” Why shouldn’t his own monstrous company be treated like the cigarette industry?

The radical billionaire is a major political donor. And some politicians will try to protect Salesforce.

Politico reported that Salesforce had funneled millions into Clintonworld, paying Hillary $450,000 for speeches, donating $6 million to the Clinton Global Initiative and hundreds of thousands to their foundation, and had lobbied the State Department, during her tenure, on its own business issues.

Salesforce and Benioff are savvy about getting what they want. But will Americans pay the price?

Meanwhile Benioff is signaling that he will double down on exploiting the power of Salesforce to serve his radical political agenda at the expense of ordinary Americans who are no match for his might.

The description for Trailblazer, his humbly titled new book, declares, “At Salesforce, the aim was to take decisions that were not only good for business, but also for society as a whole, and this book will show you how to make these positive steps. Benioff believes that, in future, the only businesses that will thrive are those that take an active role in making the world a better place.”

There are lots of ways to make the world a better place. Donate to charity. Clean up your block. But Benioff’s way of intimidating and crushing the civil rights of individuals has no place in America.

Regulations exist to prevent companies like Salesforce from gaining too much power over Americans.

The question is whether they will be applied or whether Salesforce will continue getting a pass while its victims, across the country, continue to suffer from the disproportionate power differential between Benioff’s billions and a small business owner in Indiana or a gun shop owner in Georgia.

Benioff remains confident that Salesforce can’t be stopped, but he’s been wrong before.

In 2016, he told the Huffington Post that he wasn’t worried about his candidate, Hillary Clinton, losing the election. “I don’t think there’s any way Donald Trump will be president.”

Donald Trump is president and as Salesforce embarks on its latest expansion, the administration has signaled that it is no longer going to give Silicon Valley a pass. Salesforce may not be the best known of San Francisco’s uglier dot coms, but those who have faced its abusive behavior know its name.

What’s at stake in the debate is whether the country is run by the voters or by Marc Benioff.
“Our government leaders tend to be a little weaker than they were, CEOs have to step up and be a little stronger and have a bigger voice,” Benioff had insisted.

As Salesforce grows more monstrous, its voice deafens the democratic process and it’s up to elected officials to show whether they’re going to be weak in the face of Benioff’s bullying or take a stand.

“The Salesforce CEO is a corporate bully,” Dan Forest, lieutenant governor for North Carolina, had warned.

Will the White House stand up to the bully?

 

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/274058/most-anti-conservative-company-america-making-big-daniel-greenfield

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Turkey: Vote Until You Get It Right - Vasileios Meichanetsidis

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by Vasileios Meichanetsidis

Anti-Greek Sentiments Unleashed Again

• "Greek settlements in Asia Minor date as far back as the 11th century BC when Greeks emigrated from mainland Greece." -- Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center
• Today, less than half a percent of Turkey's population is Christian.
• The hostility of the Turkish people in Anatolia seems the result of having been indoctrinated with false information since childhood. Ironically, many Turks who harbor ill will towards Greeks are most likely of Greek origin and are actually insulting no one but their own Greek ancestors and themselves.

A key issue in Turkey today is the "redo" of the mayoral election in Istanbul, slated for June 23. The first municipal election was held on March 31, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan refused to accept its result – the loss of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidate to that of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

The CHP victor was Ekrem Imamoglu, originally from Trabzon, a city in the heartland of the historically Greek region of Pontos on the Black Sea coast in northeast Asia Minor. Since Imamoglu's now-refuted election as mayor of Istanbul, many Turkish nationalists have been denigrating him for being of "Greek" or "Pontic Greek" origin.

Ekrem Imamoglu. Since his now-refuted election as mayor of Istanbul, many Turkish nationalists have been denigrating him for being of "Greek" or "Pontic Greek" origin. Photo:YouTube/Screenshot.

At a public gathering on May 15, for instance, Mehmet Tevfik Göksu, the mayor of Esenler, said:

"What is the Greek media saying? Have you followed it? They say Greeks have won Istanbul. Wait a minute! Where is this guy [Imamoglu] from? How is it that the Greek media talks about Greeks winning Istanbul and there is no opposition to that? This is a big incident, my brothers. The scheme is big..."

The Greek media have not mentioned the real or supposed Greek origins of Imamoglu, however.

After a recent protest against Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, Ali Kopuz -- the head of the Istanbul Commodity Exchange – tweeted that the demonstrators were "Pontians [people who lived in the Pontic Mountains of Anatolia] who pretend to be Muslim, just like Ekrem [Imamoglu] does."

At a holiday festival in early June, organized by the municipality of Giresun -- another historically Pontic city – the AKP's deputy chairman, Nurettin Canikli, paid tribute to Topal Osman. Osman – with the knowledge of the Turkish nationalist movement in the 1920s – had led his followers to rape, torture and murder Greeks, Armenians and Alevis.

"Right now," Canikli said, "we, as the grandchildren of Topal Osman, are engaging in a struggle similar to the one he engaged in against Pontians and those who wanted to turn this region into Pontos during the War of Independence."

Sadly, Imamoglu responded by saying: "My allegiance is to Topal Osman."

Ironically, another shameless comment came from Lütfü Türkkan, the deputy president of the opposition Good Party (Iyi Parti), while he was attempting to defend Imamoglu against those who accuse him of being "Greek": "I wish you had not sunk too low to call people of Trabzon Greek," he tweeted on June 6.

The attacks on Imamoglu for being Greek, and Türkkan's "defense" of him for not being Greek, stem from facts about Trabzon and other cities in Asia Minor with which many Turks seem to have failed to make their peace:

• These cities were built, enriched and ruled by Greeks for millennia, well before Turks from central Asia started invading the region in the 11th century.
• The Greek population of the region dwindled and were eventually exterminated as a result of the well-documented, centuries-long persecution under Turkish rule, which culminated in the 1913-1923 Greek and Christian genocide.
• Muslims became a demographic majority in Turkey, after emptying the Greek, Armenian and Assyrian/Aramean lands of their original inhabitants through genocide, carried out by people such as Topal Osman.

As the Greek Genocide Research Center notes,

"The Greek Genocide... was instigated by two successive governments of the Ottoman Empire; the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) party, and the Turkish Nationalist Movement of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It included massacres, forced deportations and death marches, summary expulsions, boycotts, rape, forced conversion to Islam, conscription into labor battalions, arbitrary executions, and destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, historical and religious monuments. According to various sources, approximately 1 million Ottoman Greeks perished during this period."

An early eyewitness account, published in the New York Times in 1918,[i] notes assimilation policies, such as compulsory child transfer and extensive Islamization during the genocide:

"One of the most diabolical methods was the institution of the so-called orphan asylums at Panormo. These orphan institutions have in appearance a charitable object, but if one considers that their inmates are Greek boys who became orphans because their parents were murdered, or who were snatched away from their mothers, or left in the streets for want of nourishment (of which they were deprived by the Turks), and that these Greek children receive there a purely Turkish education, it will be at once seen that under the cloak of charity there lurks the 'child collecting' system instituted in the past by the Turkish conquerors and a new effort to revive the janissary system. The Greek boys were treated in this manner. What happens to the Greek girls? If we review the Consular reports about the persecutions from the year 1915 to 1917 we shall find hardly one of them which does not speak of forcible abductions and conversions to Mohammedanism. And it could not have been otherwise, since it is well known that this action, as has been stated above, was decided upon in June, 1915, in order to effect the Turkification of the Hellenic element. This plan was carried out methodically and in a diabolical manner, through the 'mixed settlements' of Greeks and Turks, always with predominance of Mohammedan males and of Greek females in order to compel mixed marriages."

Greek Christians have were exposed to this treatment in their own Anatolian lands, where they have lived for nearly three thousand years. No matter how hard many Turks try to deny the Greek origins of cities they currently inhabit, even the names of several of those areas have Greek roots.

Anatolia, for instance, comes from the Greek word for "sunrise." Pontos (or Pontus) is derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea. Trabzon, where my own ancestors were forced to flee during the genocide, also comes from its Greek version, Trapezous (or Trebizond). According to the Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center (AMPHRC):

"From the 9th century BC to the 15th century AD, Asia Minor played a major role in the development of Western civilization. Since 1923, Asia Minor has comprised the majority of the Republic of Turkey. Greek settlements in Asia Minor date as far back as the 11th century BC when Greeks emigrated from mainland Greece. They founded cities such as Miletus, Ephesus, Smyrna, Sinope, Trapezous, and Byzantium (later known as Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire). These cities flourished culturally and economically."

Instead of recognizing this history, many Turks -- including the Turkish state -- either deny it completely, or attack Greeks or those born in pre-Greek cities in Turkey, with racist epithets.

After Ottoman Turks invaded and captured Constantinople (today's Istanbul) and Pontos in the 15th century, Christians and Jews became "dhimmis," second-class subjects of the Ottoman Empire, as related by the

Historian Bat Ye'or, among others, notes[ii] practices, such as: the ghulam system, in which non-Muslims were enslaved, converted and trained to become warriors and statesmen; the devşirme system, the forced recruitment of Christian boys taken from their families, converted to Islam and enslaved for service to the sultan in his palace and to field his "new corps," the janissaries; compulsory and voluntary Islamization -- the latter resulting from social, religious and economic pressure; and the sexual slavery of women and young boys, deportation and massacre. Christians and Jews were also forced to pay taxes disproportionately higher than those of Muslims: cizye (or jizya, tribute, poll tax, head tax) and haraç (land tax). Many other dues levied on peasants and traders were heavier for dhimmis than for Muslims. Failure to pay the cizye could result in forceful conversion, enslavement, or death.

Today, less than half a percent of Turkey's population is Christian -- the result of a history throughout which Turks persecuted the region's indigenous Christians. Many Turks still proudly endorse this history, with no attempt to face it honestly, or secure respect for the victims. In fact, they falsely label the victims as perpetrators, praise the criminals and insult the memory of the victims and their descendants. On April 24 -- the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide -- Erdoğan repeated his view of the genocide:

"The relocation of the Armenian gangs and their supporters who massacred the Muslim people, including women and children, in eastern Anatolia, was the most reasonable action that could be taken in such a period."

The hostility of the Turkish people in Anatolia seems to be the result of having been indoctrinated with false information since childhood. Ironically, many Turks who harbor ill will towards Greeks are most likely of Greek origin, and are actually insulting no one but their own Greek ancestors and themselves.

Dr. Vasileios Meichanetsidis is an Athens-based historian, genocide scholar and editor of the 2011 book "The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks."

---

[i] "Turkish Cruelty Bared by Greeks. Atrocities Like Those Against Armenians revealed in Documents," in The New York Times, 16 June 1918, p. 42.: https://www.nytimes.com/1918/06/16/archives/turkish-cruelty-bared-by-greeks-atrocities-like-those-against.html
[ii] Vasileios Th. Meichanetsidis, "The Genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, 1913-1923: A Comprehensive Overview," in Genocide Studies International 9, 1 (Spring 2015): 107.

Dr. Vasileios Meichanetsidis is an Athens-based historian, genocide scholar and editor of the 2011 book "The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks."

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14416/turkey-vote-until-you-get-it-right

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The UK Showdown - David K. Rehr

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by David K. Rehr

Boris Johnson may be exactly what the Conservative Party needs to retain control.

The fifth and final round of voting among Conservative Party members of Parliament has slightly bolstered the candidacy of former London mayor Boris Johnson. He is one of two candidates to stand for prime minister after the resignation of Theresa May.

Johnson enjoys the party endorsement, leading every vote to date. He ended the fifth round of voting with 166 members of Parliament supporting his candidacy. Jeremy Hunt, his opponent, had 77 votes. Hunt is currently May’s foreign secretary and is seen as a moderate as compared to Johnson. He believes he can renegotiate May’s Brexit deal with the EU to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

Johnson has promised to leave the EU with or without an agreement to depart on October 31. He is charged with being bombastic and prone to gaffes. His strong personality, in some ways as unpredictable as President Trump, means he would bring an unconventional flair to the campaign and perhaps Downing Street.

Conservative Party members will now choose their favorite candidate via mail in ballots. The ultimate winner will be announced during the week of July 22.

Already, the attack on Johnson has begun. In Foreign Affairs, Owen Matthews wrote on June 18 “…a Johnson premiership horrifies many members of the party he aspires to lead.” Johnson’s truthfulness is challenged and his personal life is seen as a reason to oppose his candidacy, but Johnson’s biggest mistake, according to Matthews, is his heartfelt support for the British people’s decision to leave the EU.

Hunt, on the other hand, knows he has no chance of winning the Conservative Party nomination without being for Brexit. His position of wanting to renegotiate leaving shows why conservatives should keep him from the premiership -- he has the same position of Theresa May and that is why she resigned.

Moreover, his moderate sensibilities do Hunt disservice. The EU offers no incentive to negotiate anything with the U.K. First, if Britain leaves, it will be the first of several countries leaving the EU, ending the original promise of Brussels that started as a series of economic agreements to prevent another world war. The EU leadership has a significant incentive to do everything it can to make an exit miserable.

Second, if Hunt is the candidate for prime minister, many traditional Conservative Party voters will leave the party and cast their ballot for Brexit Party candidate Nigel Farrage. Unhappiness with Brexit was one of the reasons thousands of voters deserted the Conservative Party and voted for the single-issue Brexit Party during recent European elections. The Brexit Party came in first with nearly 30.5 percent of the vote. The Conservative Party came in fifth, registering only 8.8 percent of the voting electorate. 

Johnson’s strong position makes him the best candidate to keep the Conservative Party in power and thwart attempts by pro-Brexit lesser parties to take advantage of the issue.

But Johnson will need to broaden his message to win the general election. Anti-Brexit forces are mobilized to block any Brexit advancement. They argue that the majority of the British public would vote Brexit down if given another chance. Johnson can add his exuberant personality to the campaign trail and highlight the obvious danger to the British economy if Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were to win. Corbyn has taken the Labour party to more ideological extremes and has not discouraged a rash of anti-Semitism.

One positive message that could put Johnson over the top would be his embracing financial transparency -- letting the British public know where their tax dollars are being spent. In polling, this has near 90% favorability in the United States. It brings much-needed accountability to government, and it restores people’s trust in the system. 

Moreover, Johnson can bolster this position because the EU is not financially transparent at all. I still remember a conversation I had with a Dutch member of the European Parliament recently who reminded me “we have little to no understanding of how much is spent or what is accomplished with the dollars of European citizens.” When I was in Brussels several years ago, I noticed a public relations campaign that the “EU was making a positive difference.” It struck me as odd that the campaign occurred only in Brussels, the EU’s headquarters, and designed to make the well-compensated EU workers feel better.

Johnson should go on the offense against the EU leadership and hold them accountable.

Only Boris Johnson will take Brexit head on. If the Conservative Party chooses Hunt, the party will fail, and a very left-wing government will likely be sitting in 10 Downing Street.
 

Dr. David K. Rehr is Professor and Director of the Center for Civic Engagement at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/the_uk_showdown.html

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UK: A Clash of Educations - Denis MacEoin

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by Denis MacEoin

For more than two months now, a primary school in Birmingham in the UK has been at the centre of a standoff between modern Western values and the concerns of a large group of Muslim parents.

• While Britons are striving to promote British values, those increasingly appear not to be the values everyone here wants.
• The No Outsiders curriculum... teaches acceptance of people different from oneself, which is what brings pupils into contact with mutual respect for Christians, Muslims and Jews, the disabled, gays and everyone who might be considered "other". "It should make absolutely clear that no group should be left out...."
• There seems to be a broader agenda at work here: that is, to find ways in which to maintain British values when faced with people who in many instances seem to oppose them. One example might be a lesson summed up in the Anderton Park expressions about British values...: "Jewish people are equal to Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and people with no religion." Many might not agree to that sentiment, whether in primary or secondary education, and possibly many Muslim parents would wish their children not to be taught it....
• The importance of teaching children about respect for other people cannot be exaggerated. In the light of this, can there be any question that the lessons at Anderton Park school are vital for the West?

Anderton Park Primary School in Birmingham, England is an outstanding place of education for children between the ages of five and eleven. For more than two months now, it has been at the centre of a standoff between modern Western values and the concerns of a large group of Muslim parents. Pictured: Anderton Park Primary School. (Image source: Oosoom/Wikimedia Commons)

What started as a small protest in the UK has taken on wider dimensions that are already spreading to other cities. For more than two months now, a primary school in Birmingham in the UK has been at the centre of a standoff between modern Western values and the concerns of a large group of Muslim parents. As early as April, reports said, leafleters were targeting schools in Birmingham, Manchester, Oldham, London, Blackburn and Bradford.

The almost daily protests outside the schools, although on a more muted scale, are the biggest since those against Salman Rushdie and his book, The Satanic Verses back in 1988 -- events that for some radicalized a generation. According to the author Kenan Malik, those early protests sowed the seeds of rifts that have since become wider. Some form of clash between these two sets of values is taking place again.

Anderton Park Primary School is an outstanding place of education for children between the ages of five and eleven. Most of the children are Muslims, but that does not restrict the efforts to introduce them to being fully educated citizens in the country where most were born.

According to the UK's 2011 Census, Muslims, numbering 234,014, make up 21.6% of Birmingham's population, well above the average for England and Wales as a whole (4.8%). Birmingham is the largest city by population after London. Its Muslim population is almost as large, and the city itself is even more ethnically diverse than the capital. Muslims have arrived from Africa, Asia (mainly Bangladesh and Pakistan), and parts of eastern Europe. "Islam is a growing social force in Britain's second city", according to The Economist, and its Central Mosque "has influence everywhere from the classroom to the bedroom".

Clearly, what is happening in Birmingham may have a disproportionate bearing on Muslims and others throughout the UK. The context within which social pressures are growing seems, first, that Muslims now make up one in every twenty people in the UK. Alongside that, there is the understanding, developed by Dame Louise Casey in her 2016 governmental review of opportunity and integration in the UK, that Muslim communities have been proving the hardest to assimilate within British society at large.

If some Muslims find it hard to integrate (whether of their own volition or because of lack of opportunity within the general public), they often run their own communities, and often seem to reject the opportunities Britain offers them. Many have also been given to what appears to some Britons as unneighbourly behaviour in a period when many in the UK have been striving to promote British values while enjoying and accommodating the diversity of its many new inhabitants. This is what Prime Minister Theresa May emphasized in her introduction to the government's 2018 Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper, that while Britons are striving to promote British values, those increasingly appear not to be the values everyone here wants. She said:

Britain is one of the world's most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith societies. We can rightly be proud of this diversity, which has contributed so much to our culture and our economy, and has made us the strong, vibrant nation we are today. But we cannot ignore the challenges we face. We still have a long way to go to tackle the inequalities and injustices that hold people back. It is not right that where you are born, who your parents are, or where you went to school should determine your outcomes in life. The government's ground breaking Race Disparity Audit of public services reinforces the importance of addressing the inequalities that can act as barriers to integration and opportunity, barriers which prevent us from building a Britain where everyone has the chance to succeed. We must also do more to confront the segregation that can divide communities. This undermines our unity as a nation and prevents those in isolated communities from playing a full part in society and benefiting from the opportunities that living in Britain brings.

Let us take this for a broad context in which to look at Anderton Park Primary, after which we can examine the protests being made against it.

Anderton Park Primary stands out as one of several British schools that put special emphasis on teaching children the ways in which they can grow up to fulfill those hopes of Mrs May and all those in and outside government who work to bring about what they consider a good society for all citizens. Here are, first, Anderton Park's Equality Charter, and then its love for British Values. It is worth reading in some detail:

Anderton Park Equality Charter

• In our school everyone is equal.
• We treat everyone equally and fairly & challenge inequality & stereotypes
• We cannot sparkle if we are not equal
• We use positive, kind language to and about each other
• We do not use the language of hate
• We celebrate and protect differences
• We fully uphold and believe in the Equality Act 2010 and do not discriminate against anyone because of gender, race and nationality, age, disability, sexual orientation (and gender identity, LGBT+), pregnancy, religion or beliefs or marital status
• We actively promote equality and foster good relationships between people who share a characteristic and those who don't
• We always challenge views or comments that are unacceptable.
• Everyone is special. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is different.

We love Fundamental British values
By law this means we as staff, children, governors and families need to understand:

• democracy
• the rule of law
• individual liberty
• Mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.
• Our favourite law is the Equality Law 2010. We love it!
• Girls are equal to boys. Gay people are equal to straight people. Disabled people are equal to able bodied people. Jewish people are equal to Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and people with no religion. You get the idea. This is so important.
• We expect everyone to challenge any language or behaviour that is unequal.
• We do not allow 'like a girl' to be used as an insult, just as we would not allow 'gay' or 'black' to be used as an insult. Boys play with dolls, dress up, girls are builders, pink is not for girls. Thus, we help students develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence, to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England.
• We encourage students to accept responsibility for their behaviour, show initiative, and to understand how they can contribute positively to the lives of those living and working in the locality of the school and to society more widely. We teach children they have choices. We reward what we value.
• We will promote harmony & understanding between those with different cultural traditions by enabling students to acquire an appreciation for and respect for their own and other cultures.
• Watch 'Like a Girl', 'Children See Children Do', 'Love has no labels' regularly to remember why this is important.

As a reflection of these values, Anderton Park is recognized by UNICEF as a Rights Respecting School, that is to say, a school that embeds the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in their practice and ethos. There are now more than 5,000 rights respecting schools in the UK, and all compete for awards that recognize how far they have developed.

The protests against the school are being led by a young man named Shakeel Afsar, about whom little else is known other than that he has a niece and nephew at the school. "Anti-LGBT protests" have been focusing on the claim that Anderton Park is teaching young children about LGBT issues that are inappropriate on the grounds that Islam opposes and punishes homosexuals, often executing them. Parents were reportedly told, "If you take your kids to school today, you're not a Muslim and you'll burn in hell."

"LGBT issues" are, of course, a gross exaggeration of what the school actually teaches. Its head teacher, Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, has made it clear that, among other things, Anderton Park does not even teach sex lessons:

The suggestion that Hewitt-Clarkson and her dedicated team are somehow "sexualising" pupils at the school is popular among the protest's leaders. But unlike many other primary schools, Anderton Park doesn't actually teach sex education.
"We have never taught sex here," Hewitt-Clarkson says. "Some primary schools do, but we don't, and we never will."
Anderton Park also does not deliver specific lessons on LGBT rights. Instead, the idea of families with "two mummies or two daddies" is normalised through the books that children read and the discussions they have with teachers.
"When you read all these news reports or listen to these protesters, you'd think we talk about being gay the whole time," Hewitt-Clarkson says. "It's probably 0.5 per cent of the time, but because it's here there and everywhere, it's just normal.

She goes on later, in Human Rights News and Views, to discuss the school's No Outsiders curriculum, which teaches acceptance of people different from oneself, which is what brings pupils into contact with mutual respect for Christians, Muslims and Jews, the disabled, gays and everyone who might be considered "other". "It should make absolutely clear that no group should be left out...."

These lessons are based on the No Outsiders lessons programme developed in Birmingham itself:

The No Outsiders programme was created in 2014 by Andrew Moffat, the assistant head teacher at Parkfield Community School in Birmingham.
The programme aims to teach children about the characteristics protected by the Equality Act -- such as sexual orientation and religion.
Books used in programme include stories about a dog that doesn't feel like it fits in, two male penguins that raise a chick together and a boy who likes to dress up like a mermaid.

Regrettably, the protestors' emphasis on LGBT has forced schools emphasis on are forcing schools to cancel a wider programme, No Outsiders , which teaches diversity of all sorts. Next year the government might make lessons based on it compulsory.

Since the protests, several schools – Parkview Community School, and four primaries: Leigh Primary School, Alston Primary School, Marlborough Junior and Infants School and Wyndcliff Primary School – have stopped teaching "No Outsiders" altogether, even though lessons in diversity of all sorts do indeed provide the most important lesson for all children – a lesson that will be present, one hopes, throughout their lives.

What on earth, we may ask, can there be to prompt months of protest in which so many people have become incensed? In March, just before the Anderton Park School protests began, Afsar had led similar cries of outrage against another primary school not far away, Parkfield School. On that occasion, the school backed down and agreed to suspend all LGBT lessons until they came to an agreement with parents –- an agreement Afsar and others might again try to prevent.


There seems to be a broader agenda at work here: that is, to find ways in which to maintain British values when faced with people who in many instances seem to oppose them. One example might be a lesson summed up in the Anderton Park expressions about British values, which underpin so much of the school's ethos: "Jewish people are equal to Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and people with no religion."

Many might not agree to that sentiment, whether in primary or secondary education, and possibly many Muslim parents would wish their children not to be taught it as it contradicts one of the most fundamental doctrines of the Islamic faith: that in God's eyes Islam and Islam alone is the true religion. Unfortunately, however, that doctrine contravenes the law against religious discrimination under the 2010 Equality Act. Here again:

Anderton Park's approach to equalities education, which weaves teaching about equal rights and the challenging of stereotypes into the wider curriculum and has the 2010 Equality Act at its core, is nothing new. (Italics added).

Hewitt-Clarkson has for many years devoted 0.5% of her annual timetable to teaching the characteristics of the Equality Act, which underlies her school's Equality statement above. Half of the school's staff are themselves Muslim. But everyone is expected to be proactive against discrimination:

As public sector workers, teachers have a duty to eliminate discrimination, tackle prejudice and foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who don't. You don't just sit back and wait until a racist or homophobic thing happens to deal with it – you go out of your way to promote good relationships.

The headmistress's concern to meet the requirements of the Equality Act is endorsed by Amanda Spielman, the Chief Inspector of Ofsted, the government's Office for Standards in Education, which monitors, evaluates and grades all schools in the country.

With direct reference to the crisis facing Anderton Park and remarks by MP Esther McVey that parents know best and should be able to withdraw their children from relationship education until they are as old as 16, Spielman rebutted the idea forcefully:

"To be clear, this is about the Equality Act, which says children must be taught respect for the protected characteristics and to the extent we have got a case where it says this isn't a pick and choose whichever one's parents feel like."
The Equality Act is aimed at protecting people from discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.
Spielman said the new relationships education lessons were "age appropriate" and not to be confused with sex education, which is not mandatory until secondary school.
But she added that opt-outs would undermine the National Curriculum:
"The idea that, on the one hand, children need to be prepared for life in modern Britain and this is an obligation for all schools, yet at the same time parents can opt out completely ... well, what would you do if parents could opt out of biology, could opt out of geography, because they didn't want their children knowing about evolution or reproduction? Where would it end?
"At the point you start saying every parent can choose which topics, we have completely lost sight of a national curriculum, of a national education system that prepares all children in this country."

The matter will have to be concluded soon. In September 2020, RSE lessons will become statutory [relationships and sex education] for all state-funded schools. The RSE curriculum lasts to age 16 and teaches children necessary information about family and friend relationships, and in later stages about sexual matters. Many faith schools are included in the statutory requirements. To refuse to teach such classes will mean breaking the law, and parents who withdraw their children for reasons that contradict those legal requirements may well face charges of denying them an education.


The importance of teaching children about respect for other people, including people with different sexual orientations, cannot be exaggerated. In the light of this, can there be any question that the lessons at Anderton Park school are vital for the West?

Dr. Denis MacEoin has taught Persian, Arabic and Islamic studies in the UK and is currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14415/britain-education-clash

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Mae Cannon & CMEP: The New Face of the Palestinian Authority's Antisemitic "Christian" Lobby - Joshua Joseph

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by Joshua Joseph

The PA's end goal, apart from displacing Israel, is both to dilute Christians' pro-Israel beliefs and their influence, and to convert Christians outright to the PA's narrative and cause.

• The Palestinian Authority (PA) has apparently decided to shift strategies. Its latest initiative is apparently to use their "Christian" lobby — and various organizations that lobby creates — to infiltrate Christian pro-Israel communities through a carefully crafted narrative designed to appeal to Christians' love for all humanity and desire to pray for the Middle East. The PA's end goal, apart from displacing Israel, is both to dilute Christians' pro-Israel beliefs and their influence, and to convert Christians outright to the PA's narrative and cause.
• "The organisation I lead," Mae Cannon wrote, "Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), has long been a friend to Israelis." Regrettably, a serious review of the history and activities of Cannon and CMEP illustrates that her statement is demonstrably false.
• Does her audience know that she is accusing Christian supporters of Israel of increasing antisemitism and hate crimes? Does her audience know that she is writing and promoting Palestinian propaganda in media outlets? Do they know that she is working closely with the Palestinian Authority to implement the PA's strategic plan for targeting Israel by chipping away at Christian support for Israel through eroding support for Christian Zionism? Most likely they do not: Cannon's hidden agenda is disguised by a carefully constructed facade — one that claims simply to be introducing her audience to multiple narratives and perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• The current goal is shifting the balance of power so that Congress, specifically, buys into the PA's political and legislative agenda as pushed by the PA's "Christian" lobby.
• While Cannon pays lip service to opposing antisemitism and to being a "friend to Israelis," she leads CMEP in strategizing with Israel's enemies on the best way not only to undermine Christian Zionism but also — at the behest of the Palestinian Authority — to target the PA's putative enemy, the State of Israel, in the halls of the government of the United States — arguably, Israel's greatest ally.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has "expressed appreciation" for the work of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP). He has every reason to laud the work of CMEP and its executive director, Rev. Dr. Mae Cannon: CMEP was one of the signatories of an anti-Israel plan created at a strategic conference co-hosted by the PA and the Carter Center to guide American "Christian" organizations in their anti-Israel activism. Pictured: Mahmoud Abbas. (Photo by Christof Koepsel/Getty Images)

Rev. Dr. Mae Cannon — the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) — is charming and disarming. Her friendly smile, calm demeanor, and quiet passion for her topic is engaging. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Palestinian Authority (PA)/Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) appears to have selected her as the face of their strategic "Christian" anti-Israel lobby — even sharing, on the PLO's social media, a piece in which Cannon blames Christian Zionists for the rise in antisemitism and hate crimes.

Cannon seeks to disguise her true agenda (pro-PLO/PA and anti-Christian Zionism) beyond strategic coded messaging. Her friends at the PA are fully aware that directly confronting Christian supporters of Israel with their genuine agenda would probably be unfruitful. The PA seems to have become alarmed by the increased influence of Christian Zionism, which consists of genuine Christian theological support for Israel, and of Christian Zionists in particular. The PA has apparently decided to shift strategies. Its latest initiative is apparently to use their "Christian" lobby — and various organizations that lobby creates — to infiltrate Christian pro-Israel communities through a carefully crafted narrative designed to appeal to Christians' love for all humanity and desire to pray for the Middle East. The PA's end goal, apart from displacing Israel, is both to dilute Christians' pro-Israel beliefs and their influence, and to convert Christians outright to the PA's narrative and cause. The tools of infiltration include speeches, media, and trips.

When Mae Cannon spoke at Christ at the Checkpoint Conference USA in October 2018, she took issue with Dexter Van Zile, a Christian Media Analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), who has written about her work. Van Zile recounted, "A few minutes into her [Cannon's] talk, she defended CMEP and her leadership of the organization — which has been harshly critical of Israel. 'And they say my goal is to get you to pray against the Jewish people, which just for the record it's not,' she said. 'Don't believe what Dexter Van Zile says about me.'" The prayer point may be a sensitive point for Cannon as it is so very close to pulling back the curtain and exposing her pro-PLO/PA and anti Christian Zionism agenda.

"'Tip of the spear': The US Christian movement praying for Trump and Israel" was the title of an article by Azad Essa[1] in the Middle East Eye (MEE), a London-based, anti-Israel website that has been linked to both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Essa, in the March 24, 2019, MEE piece, stereotyped the theologically and racially diverse base of Christian Zionist support by portraying them as white, evangelical racists and bigots. Essa then quoted Mae Cannon:

"[Cannon] told MEE that some Christian fundamentalists are growing increasingly entrenched in their ideas because they feel 'threatened'. 'We are seeing an increase in anti-Semitism, a rise in hate crimes as a result,' Cannon said."

According to Essa's reporting, Cannon linked the rise of antisemitism and the rise in hate crimes to Christian fundamentalist supporters of Israel feeling "threatened."

As Cannon, CMEP, the rest of the PA's "Christian" lobby, and the PA itself feel increasingly alarmed by the rise of — and influence of — Christian Zionism, they have been increasingly seeking to gaslight Christian Zionists who pray for Israel. In fact, the PLO Department of Public Diplomacy & Policy's Facebook page shared the MEE piece by Essa that quotes Cannon. In it, Cannon accused Christian Zionists of causing an increase in antisemitism and hate crimes — and, in the context of the article, inaccurately implied that Christian Zionism feeds into white supremacy, thereby allegedly increasing antisemitism.

In this MEE piece, Christian Zionists' concerns about Islamic extremism became Christian Zionists being afraid of Muslims. The article went on to quote two men who apparently laid the responsibility for the horrific massacre at the New Zealand mosque at the feet of Christian supporters of Israel, and claimed that white supremacists are coming from "these right-wing Christian narratives":

Likewise, [Donald] Wagner ["a professor of religion and Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University in Chicago"] says that the recent massacre of 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand "demonstrates the severity of this [white supremacy and Christian Zionism] issue". "Many of these [white supremacists] are coming out of these right-wing Christian narratives," Wagner said. [Jonathan] Brenneman ["a Palestinian-American Christian working for the Mennonite Church USA"] agrees: "At its core, it [Christian Zionism] is an extremist ideology, but it is so widely held in the US, and so bizarre to those who aren't part of it, that Christian Zionist beliefs are largely overlooked."

Revealingly, the MEE article is like a puzzle, with quotes that seem purposely vague; the puzzle is only clear when all its pieces are put together in order. Thus, according to Cannon, Wagner and Brenneman's narrative — which was shared by the PLO — it is Christian Zionists who are responsible for the severity of white supremacy, the horrific white supremacist attack on New Zealand's Muslims, and by extension, the increase in antisemitism.

While certain white supremacists have long used Christian terminology as a convenient and deceptive cloak for a racist, antisemitic agenda, Christian scriptures stand in direct opposition to white supremacy — its ideology, agenda, and actions. Unfortunately, then, when an actual white supremacist used Christian terminology in his manifesto and murdered and injured Jewish individuals in the Chabad of Poway synagogue during an antisemitic attack, CMEP did not address the attack directly. The closest the organization came to a statement was including in its CMEP email bulletin a quote from a piece — shared in the bulletin — that mentioned the attack as part of a larger discussion of rising "anti-Semitic incidents." CMEP also tweeted the piece. Unlike CMEP's October 2018 statement after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting, when it condemned antisemitism, there were no tweets, no Facebook posts, no statements denouncing the antisemitic attack on the Chabad of Poway or expressing sympathy for those injured and murdered... only continued advocacy for the Palestinian Authority's agenda.

In spite of the MEE article's radical views and libels of Christian Zionists — as in allegedly promoting white supremacy — CMEP did not distance itself from the MEE piece. A CMEP email bulletin touted Mae Cannon's contribution to the piece — even originally crediting her for writing the piece before correcting its mistake.

CMEP and Mae Cannon's media hits are not limited to libeling Christian supporters of Israel. Using the platform of the Middle East Monitor, which — like the Middle East Eye — reportedly has ties to Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood, Cannon also sought to lobby Israelis directly ahead of their recent election "whether to continue down the present road or change direction." "The organisation I lead," Mae Cannon wrote, "Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), has long been a friend to Israelis." Regrettably, a serious review of the history and activities of Cannon and CMEP illustrates that her statement is demonstrably false.

For instance, in her Middle East Monitor piece, that was friendly to the idea of trying to destroy Israel economically, Cannon claimed:

"Opposition to the occupation among Americans, in general, is growing, paradoxically as opposition to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and other ways of expressing anti-occupation views are also increasing. The anti-occupation view is not opposition to the existence of the State of Israel."

In contrast to her claim, researchers have demonstrated time and again that those behind the BDS movement ("the anti-occupation view") are explicitly opposed to the existence of the State of Israel. Recently, even Germany's parliament branded the BDS movement as antisemitic. The resolution that the Bundestag passed flatly stated: "The argumentation patterns and methods used by the BDS movement are antisemitic."

Spreading misinformation about those who wish to obliterate Israel by strangling it economically and who hold "anti-occupation views," however, is hardly CMEP's only problematic activity. CMEP has also worked hand in glove with the PA and the PLO — the same entities that have suppressed the free speech of Palestinians and that have arrested Palestinian journalists for criticizing the government. In November 2017, Mae Cannon led a CMEP delegation trip of CRNCA (Christian Reformed Church in North America; CRNCA is a member of CMEP) leaders as part of a Middle East tour. On November 2, 2017, these "Christian" leaders were treated to a "lunch in Ramallah," which,

"... took place at the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority to honor the British citizens who walked from Great Britain across Europe over the past four months to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people on the [100th] anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
"'The delegation of people walked from the United Kingdom to Palestine to apologize for the tragic consequences of the Balfour Declaration on the Palestinian people,' said Shannon Jammal-Hollemans, racial justice team leader for the CRCNA..."

These "Christian" leaders were specifically visiting the headquarters of the PA to apologize for the Balfour Declaration — a historic declaration of support for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Jewish ancestral homeland. During the luncheon, these CRNCA leaders met and took a picture with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Abbas "expressed appreciation for CMEP's work."

President Abbas has every reason to laud the work of Mae Cannon and CMEP. CMEP, it turns out, was one of the signatories of the Atlanta Summit document — an anti-Israel plan created at a strategic conference co-hosted by the Palestinian Authority and the Carter Center to guide American "Christian" organizations in their anti-Israel activism. Mae Cannon signed the follow-up document at the Jerusalem Conference. While both documents seek to erode support for Christian Zionism, the Jerusalem Conference document even more explicitly names and targets Christian Zionism, and claims that Christian Zionism and "fundamentalist Christian teachings" have "damaging consequences."

When Cannon addresses Christian supporters of Israel, she may not explicitly be urging them to pray against the Jewish people. But through her words and actions, she is arguably saying and doing much worse. Does her audience know that she is accusing Christian supporters of Israel of increasing antisemitism and hate crimes? Does her audience know that she is writing and promoting Palestinian propaganda in media outlets? Do they know that she is working closely with the Palestinian Authority to implement the PA's strategic plan for targeting Israel by chipping away at Christian support for Israel through eroding support for Christian Zionism? Most likely they do not: Cannon's hidden agenda is disguised by a carefully constructed facade — one that claims simply to be introducing her audience to multiple narratives and perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As Craig Sanders explained in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:

On Jan. 10, Rev. Dr. Mae Cannon discussed her recent book, A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land, at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. Cannon, who considers herself an advocational academic—mixing her academic career with strong advocacy work in the United States and Middle East—is currently the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), a broadly ecumenical organization with members from 28 different denominations across the theological spectrum.
During her talk, Cannon argued that there are not two narratives regarding the situation in Israel and Palestine, but only one true dichotomy: those who are for peace and those who are not. To those who only care about the State of Israel, Cannon remarked, 'If you can't care about the Palestinians for their sake, care about them for the sake of Israel.'
Cannon dove into her academic background to unpack the history of restorationism, the Zionist Christian ideology that the Jewish people needed to be restored to the land of Israel in order to facilitate the second coming of Christ. U.S. allegiances and relationships throughout the Middle East are deeply rooted in this theology, she said, citing the current evangelical-backed administration as an example....
A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land seeks to educate Americans, mainly Christians, by providing an accurate history of events in Israel and Palestine and explaining how the restorationism theory is theologically incorrect. Her book brings in Israeli and Palestinian voices to provide multiple viewpoints on the single narrative of the land....
The Jan. 10 talk concluded with a vibrant opportunity for questions and answers. One question arose again and again in multiple ways: as individuals, what tools could we employ to change U.S. policy in the Middle East? Cannon urged attendees to talk to members of Congress, observing that if they believed they could vote differently on Israel, they would. [Emphases added.]

Thus, Cannon's intent for the book becomes clearer. Her book is simply a means to infiltrate Christian communities through the "multiple narratives" facade and under the guise of education while instead, it implements the PA's "Christian" lobby strategic plan for influencing the American Christian public to turn against support for Christian Zionism. The current goal is shifting the balance of power so that Congress, specifically, buys into the PA's political and legislative agenda as pushed by the PA's "Christian" lobby.

CMEP has demonstrated its desire to lure Christian supporters of Israel to embrace a less pro-Israel narrative while simultaneously accusing those same supporters for the rise of antisemitism and hate crimes. In concert with these efforts, Mae Cannon and the rest of the PA's "Christian" lobby are methodically implementing the PA's strategic and political agenda. One key focus is to shift the American public's view away from anti-Zionism being regarded as antisemitism.

The PA's "Christian" lobby seems to have set its sights on Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. His March 25, 2019 speech at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)'s annual event clearly articulated his belief that "anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism." Writing in Tablet Magazine about the Soviet Union's anti-Zionism and antisemitism, Izabella Tabarovsky expressed similar sentiments: "In practice, the distinction between Soviet anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism often proved a distinction without a difference. The tropes were the same, albeit with a new set of labels." Now the "anti-Zionism is antisemitism" position flies in the face of the PA's "Christian" lobby's attempts to normalize anti-Zionism and to shift the public's perspective on anti-Zionism from it being antisemitic to it being acceptable and laudable.

Cannon recently penned a piece at Religion News Service (RNS) on antisemitism with the objective of combating the "anti-Zionism is antisemitism" position and replacing it with the "anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism" narrative. While the piece mentioned the threat of "ancient Christian tropes of anti-Semitism" and "white nationalists," she conveniently failed to mention the threat that radical Islamic extremism and terrorism pose to the Jewish community and the State of Israel. Cannon constructs her own definition of antisemitism to give political cover to anti-Zionists:

"Beliefs that are detrimental and could lead to physical harm against Jews constitute anti-Semitism. Not every problematic belief manifests anti-Semitism. One can be inaccurate and wrong, and not be anti-Semitic. Nonetheless, we must be informed and attentive to when anti-Semitic sentiment, rhetoric or actions exist. In our criticism of Israeli policies, may we not compromise in also calling out violations of human rights and acts of violence by other individuals, groups and nation-states. Activists and advocates must not muddy the waters between anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israeli policies." [Emphases added.]

For Mae Cannon, the Palestinian Authority, and the rest of the Palestinian Authority's "Christian" lobby, it is critical that they shield their anti-Zionist activities from being condemned as antisemitic. Thus, they are strategically working to spread the "anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism" narrative through both advocacy work in churches and through op-eds in the news media.

To have the public buy into CMEP's opposed-to-antisemitism and "friend to Israelis" facade, however, CMEP needed to add more plaster to the facade. Whereas back in October 2018, CMEP released a statement condemning the antisemitic attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue, now, in March 2019, CMEP released a different statement — on antisemitism. The political motivation behind it was clear not only in the statement's text but also in an email blast to their supporters:

"Our statement against the politicization of anti-Semitism and calling out the double-standard attacks on Ilhan Omar, a Muslim Congresswoman, was a critical time for CMEP to go on the record standing firm in opposition to all forms of bigotry, racism, and anti-Semitism. We will be staunch in our commitment against such accusations being used as political weapons." [Emphases added.]

CMEP's statement illustrated Izabella Tabarovsky's warning in a recent Tablet piece: "Today, the often-voiced idea that today's far-left anti-Semitism is merely 'political' and therefore benign is rapidly losing its already-thin credibility." CMEP's foremost concern seems both to be fighting back against the "anti-Zionism is antisemitism" position and protecting the Palestinian Authority's political agenda so that it can continue to advance it in the halls of American government. Another CMEP email stated:

"Just last month we issued a strong statement condemning anti-Semitism, while also opposing its weaponization against those criticizing Israeli policy. CMEP's statement was rooted in our organization's stated opposition to anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim and anti-Christian words and actions." [Emphasis added.]

While claiming to oppose anti-Jewish and anti-Christian words and actions, Mae Cannon and CMEP have been providing cover to those who express anti-Israel and anti-Jewish tropes, and simultaneously libeling Christians who support Israel. The Middle East Eye piece's anti-Christian alternate reality libels Christian Zionists as contributing to antisemitism. In contrast to CMEP's political posturing, Tabarovsky's Tablet piece articulates:

"Anti-Semites recognize anti-Semitism no matter what side of the aisle they live on. It is no accident that Holocaust denier David Irving expressed admiration for the self-described anti-racist Jeremy Corbyn and white supremacist David Duke did the same for Ilhan Omar. This approval should cause the far left to ask itself some difficult questions about the role its own tropes may play in the murders executed by the far right, in the ongoing wave of hate crimes against Jews being committed by non-white assailants in New York and other cities, and in the mainstreaming of openly anti-Semitic discourse behind the fig leaf of anti-Zionism."

To give their "friend to Israelis" narrative more credibility, CMEP also selectively condemned a particularly horrific Hamas terror attack. After remaining silent in the wake of many Palestinian rocket and stabbing attacks on Israeli citizens, CMEP decided to condemn one particular Hamas rocket attack — allowing Mae Cannon to claim in her Israeli election piece, "We [CMEP] have also been critical of Hamas terrorism and the Palestinian Authority's withholding of resources from its own people." Considering Cannon's and CMEP's well-documented cozy relationship with the Palestinian Authority and long history of not consistently condemning terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, such claims would be laughable if they were not such a transparent attempt to dupe the American public and their representatives regarding Mae Cannon's and CMEP's true agenda.

How does a person and entity pay lip service to supporting Israelis and claim they are not opposed to praying for Israel while simultaneously strategizing behind the scenes with the enemies of the Jewish State on how best to stealthily attack Israel and its Christian allies? The ancient book of Numbers describes a similar figure — Balaam. After blessing Israel with his lips, Balaam worked with Israel's enemy, Balak, to seek to destroy the fledgling Jewish people. While Cannon pays lip service to opposing antisemitism and to being a "friend to Israelis," she leads CMEP in strategizing with Israel's enemies on the best way not only to undermine Christian Zionism but also — at the behest of the Palestinian Authority — to target the PA's putative enemy, the State of Israel, in the halls of the government of the United States — arguably, Israel's greatest ally. While Balaam and Balak are long dead, their spirits live on in and through the work of Mae Cannon, CMEP, the Palestinian Authority, and the PA's entire "Christian" lobby. With "friends to Israelis" like these, who needs enemies?

Joshua Joseph is an American foreign policy and Middle East analyst.

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[1] Azad Essa has "reported for Al Jazeera English" and "written for The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Guardian, Middle East Eye, among others." As the executive editor of The Daily Vox, Essa — in a piece titled, "We aren't shy to take a position on Palestine" — accused Israel of being a "coloniser and an occupier" and stated "now is probably as good a time as any" for South Africa and Israel to end their relationship.

Joshua Joseph is an American foreign policy and Middle East analyst.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14413/mae-cannon-cmep-antisemitic

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