Democrats, American Jews and Politically Correct Bigotry - Caroline Glick

 

​ by Caroline Glick

Rashida Tlaib promotes a new blood libel against the Jewish state

Israel is the world leader in COVID-19 vaccinations. By late January, more than 85 percent of Israelis over the age of 60 had completed the two-round vaccination process. If the vaccination drive continues apace, Israel will have completed the vaccination of its adult population by mid-March.

Many observers watch Israel’s breakneck vaccination drive with admiration. But several powerful anti-Semites are using Israel’s unmatched efforts to protect its population from the pandemic as a basis for spreading a new blood libel against the Jewish state.

Israel, its haters insist, is engaging in “vaccine apartheid.” Israel is “racist” for vaccinating its citizens—both Jewish and non-Jewish—before it vaccinates the Palestinians, who are governed by the Palestinian Authority.

Representative Rashida Tlaib is one of the most powerful voices promoting this new blood libel. In a recent interview, Tlaib said of Israel’s vaccination drive, “[Israelis] have the power to distribute that vaccine to the Palestinian people, their own neighbors.”

Israel’s non-vaccination of the Palestinians, she accused, “just reiterates what the Palestinian people and even human rights groups have been telling us, that this is an apartheid state.”

Tlaib’s claim, which was repeated by her anti-Israel colleagues Representatives Joaquin Castro and Jamaal Bowman, is false and intentionally defamatory. Israel hasn’t vaccinated the Palestinians for the same reason it hasn’t vaccinated the Egyptians or the French. Like the Egyptians and the French, the Palestinians have their own government and their own health ministry that is responsible for caring for them.

That isn’t to say that Israel hasn’t given the Palestinians a tremendous amount of assistance in battling COVID-19. It has.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, and despite the fact that Israel has no responsibility for the Palestinians’ health care under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Israel has worked with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations to train Palestinian medical personnel in testing and caring for COVID-19 patients. The PA opted not to join Israel in purchasing the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as part of its boycott of the Israeli government. Instead, the PA decided to purchase Russia’s Sputnik-5 vaccines, and Israel was happy to facilitate their delivery.

Not only has the PA chosen not to work with Israel in vaccinating its own population, but it rejected COVID-19 protective gear that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) donated to its population because the UAE flight carrying the aid landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.

A sense of the depth and legitimacy of anti-Semitism in leftist circles in the U.S. and throughout the West today can be gleaned from the readiness of Tlaib’s fellow progressive lawmakers, leading “human rights” activists and media organizations to embrace her blood libel. Along with Bowman and Castro, and despite the fact that evidence abounds of Tlaib’s malicious dishonesty, groups like Human Rights Watch and media outlets like the BBC and were quick to jump on Tlaib’s anti-Semitic bandwagon and parrot her lie, rather than check its accuracy.

Inventing and disseminating blood libels against Israel is par for the course for Tlaib. The progressive congresswoman believes that Israel should cease to exist. Among other things, she is an avid supporter of the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) efforts against the Jewish state.

In America, the primary victims of BDS campaigns are American Jews who support Israel. On campuses and throughout progressive circles in America, pro-Israel American Jews are subjected daily to ostracism and harassment for daring to support Israel and embracing their Jewish identity.

Jewish students and professors have been driven from the public square on American campuses. According to a recent report by the AMCHA Initiative, which tracks on-campus anti-Semitism, Israel-related anti-Semitism now surpasses classical anti-Semitism on American university campuses.

Classical anti-Semitic attacks on Jews—including Nazi rhetoric, graffiti and slurs—dropped by 49 percent in 2019, while Israel-based anti-Semitic attacks increased by 59 percent over the same period. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns sent students to virtual campuses, progressive, anti-Israel-based anti-Semitism has dominated the anti-Semitic discourse at universities, and accounts for more that 90 percent of anti-Semitism in online learning environments.

As the Biden administration begins its term in office, the anti-Semites in its political camp are maneuvering to leverage their political power. They seek to end official efforts to combat their anti-Semitism—an effort rooted in a rejection of Jewish peoplehood and hatred of the Jewish state. To this end, they are lobbying the new administration to curtail the civil rights protections that the Trump administration previously provided for American Jews.

In late 2019, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order extending Title VI protections of the Civil Rights Act to Jewish Americans. Trump’s executive order also adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) 2016 definition of anti-Semitism and that definition’s examples of contemporary anti-Semitism as a basis for applying the law.

The IHRA definition’s examples of contemporary anti-Semitism include examples of anti-Semitism rooted in the political Right, which center on hating Jews as individuals. These include “making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such, or the power of Jews as a collective—such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

The examples also include illustrations of anti-Semitism from the Left, which center on hating Jews as a collective people and Israel as the Jewish nation-state. The examples include, “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor”; requiring Israel to abide by standards of behavior “not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”; “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli society to that of the Nazis”; and “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.”

These examples, which dismiss the common claim by Israel-haters like Tlaib and her colleagues that there is nothing bigoted about their position that the world’s largest Jewish community and only Jewish state—Israel—should be destroyed, and that its Jewish supporters in the U.S. should be ostracized and otherwise harassed, are now the target of a campaign to persuade the Biden administration to disavow the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

In recent weeks, outspoken anti-Israel campaigners and BDS supporters like Representative Ilhan Omar, former CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill and New York Times columnist Peter Beinart have been pushing for the new administration to reject the IHRA definition and legitimize BDS. They have attacked Jewish Democratic groups like the Democratic Majority for Israel, as well as the vast majority of all American Jewish groups, led by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations—all of which are urging the Biden administration to maintain the previous administration’s policies.

These efforts are being driven both by overtly anti-Israel, nominally Jewish groups like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, and by ostensibly “pro-Israel” progressive Jewish groups, including Peace Now, J Street, T’ruah and the New Israel Fund. The AMCHA Initiative report found that since 2019, 44 percent of efforts to discredit the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism were carried out by these and other like-minded Jewish-run groups.

All of these groups are calling for the Biden administration to disavow the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and its examples of contemporary anti-Semitism as a legal tool for combating anti-Semitism. IfNotNow is running a social media campaign, as well, to lobby the Biden administration to appoint an official special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism who will simply ignore leftist anti-Semitism. As the group put it in a recent Twitter post, “It is important for us to demand that [President Biden] appoint someone to the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism who’ll be committed to fighting neo-Nazis and white nationalists, not Palestinians and students.”

It is a peculiar thing to see ostensibly Jewish groups dedicating their efforts to removing legal protections against anti-Jewish discrimination from their fellow Jews. It is a mark of the corruption of the American Jewish far Left that this is what they wish to fight for today. But even more disconcerting is the anti-Semitic disposition of large swaths of the Democratic Party. Democratic activist circles are now dominated by anti-Semitic voices from the Left who denounce Israel and its supporters. The effort by progressive Jewish groups to deny civil rights protection to pro-Israel Jews is indicative of the prevailing winds in the Democratic Party. Progressive Jews believe that to remain relevant in their party, they must fill the role of Jewish fig leaves for their party’s anti-Semitic activist base.

This then brings us to the object of their lobbying efforts—President Joe Biden. Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. To mark the occasion, Biden released a strong statement decrying anti-Semitism. Arguably more significant, however, is the fact that Trump’s executive order on anti-Semitism has been scrubbed from the Biden White House’s website.

Originally published in Newsweek.com.

 

Caroline Glick  

Source: http://carolineglick.com/democrats-american-jews-and-politically-correct-bigotry/ 

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Unite and Heal With Show Trials and Fascist Purges - Daniel Greenfield

 

​ by Daniel Greenfield

Enjoy unity at gunpoint in the Bidenist banana republic.

 

Joe Biden has called for “unity” and “healing”. And nobody knows as much about healing as Joe whose wife has a doctorate in education from the university that hosts his Biden Institute and the Beau Biden Foundation which was charging $3K for lessons on preventing online child sex grooming even as Hunter’s laptop with the Foundation’s sticker allegedly showed him doing it.

Except maybe Joe’s brother who took out $650,000 in personal loans from a company that bankrupted local hospitals while trading on his brother’s name and connections to his campaign.

"I think it has to happen," Biden said, mandating the show impeachment trial of his predecessor.

Once upon a time, impeachments were rare things. These days, Democrats aren’t considered truly progressive if they don’t impeach a Republican president twice in one term. President Trump is back in Florida, but that won’t stop the Democrats from impeaching him anyway before they move on to impeaching the presidents like Washington and Lincoln whose statues their insurrectionist mobs were toppling all summer and fall back when insurrection was still cool.

When asked how he defines unity, Joe Biden, with the help of three teleprompters and a small staff communicating with him through his earpiece and a series of frantic signals and hoots, explained that, “If you pass a piece of legislation that breaks down on party lines but it get passed, it doesn't means there wasn't unity -- it just means it wasn't bipartisan.”

Like most ideas that travel the circuitous route between his handlers, his brain, and his mouth, it may be impossible to understand what Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. said, but it’s pretty clear what the senile hack ruling a city under the shadow of military occupation and political terror meant.

Unity is when Democrats get their way. Unity is when no one opposes them. Unity is when they terrorize their political opposition into submitting and keeping their mouths shut.

Or as Speaker Pelosi put it, “I don't think it's very unifying to say, 'Oh, let's just forget it and move on.' That's not how you unify."

How do you unify? The same way every great democratic people’s regime did from France to Russia to China to San Francisco -- with show trials and purges of the enemies of the people.

Nothing says unity like a city full of barbed wire and soldiers. Not to mention a one-party system that is obsessed with criminalizing its political opposition using a fake state of emergency.

"There can be no unity, federal or other, with liberal-labour politicians, with disruptors of the working-class movement, with those who defy the will of the majority," Vladimir Lenin wrote. "There can and must be unity among all consistent Marxists."

The only unity on display is the unity of “consistent Marxists” who claim to represent the will of the majority, or those parts of it willing to trade harvested ballots for a fruit basket and $25 gift cards, as they move to heal the country by eliminating women, suburbs, and the economy.

The show trial of President Trump and the city full of soldiers is just the opening act to the Great Purge of a domestic terrorism crackdown on anyone who ever retweeted the wrong meme.

Biden will embed a domestic terrorism office in the NSC, making the NSC's former abuses under Obama routine as a system meant to track foreign enemies is instead used to surveil domestic political opponents. Heading the effort will be Joshua Geltzman who had formerly falsely claimed, "No, Black Lives Matter is not a terrorist organization."

Inside of a month, Democrats had redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy. And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party.

Popular leaders don’t take their false oaths of office in a deserted city surrounded by barbed wire and military checkpoints manned by 25,000 troops. Nor do they engage in show trials of their predecessors or unroll massive efforts to surveil, arrest, and silence their opponents.

That’s not the stuff of healing, but it is how you unite a country at gunpoint under your rule.

After four years of vowing to remove President Trump by any means from massive riots to illegal eavesdropping to coups, the Democrats declared an emergency because a few Republicans had done 10% of the things they had been doing, but without dressing up as human genitalia.

Democrats had been collecting bail fund donations for mass arrests in post-election protests and even a “separate fund to raise money for the families of anyone killed in violence on or around Election Day.” And then they pivoted from prepping body bags to declaring that insurrection was a national emergency which will require the National Guard to sleep in parking lots where they won’t annoy Democrat House members until Biden sees his own shadow.

That or the show trials wrap up before they get around to mandating that all future elections take place at Democrat campaign offices preceded by poll tests about equity and white privilege.

Meanwhile the Democrat media went from writing sympathetic pieces about BLM lawyers throwing molotov cocktails at the police to demanding a thorough purge of every single person who had ever questioned the idea that Joe Biden might not be the most popular politician ever.

"Marxist philosophy holds that the law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law of the universe," Mao had argued. " Under this system, the people enjoy extensive democracy and freedom, but at the same time they have to keep within the bounds of socialist discipline."

The bounds of socialist discipline, like a black hole, sucks things in without letting them out.

Democrats aren’t proposing that Americans unite under the Constitution. There’s no room in the Constitution for criminalizing political opposition or impeaching presidents after they leave office.

The Democrats want to make sure we stay within the shrinking bounds of socialist discipline.

Unity just means bringing the opposition into the dialectic and then making sure that it plays by the new rules of the game even if they were invented last week by way of convenience.

The new rules of unity are that no one may question an election that the Democrats claim to have won, no one may say anything that Big Tech doesn’t like, and no one may suggest that Biden’s Assistant Health Secretary is a middle-aged man in a dress and a flowing blonde wig.

(Now there’s a man who knows a lot about healing. Just ask the 8,400 seniors who died in Pennsylvania nursing homes while Dr. Rick ‘Rachel’ Levine, Biden’s new Assistant Health Secretary, withdrew his mother, but forced facilities to accept infected coronavirus patients.)

Questioning an election has become incitement to insurrection. To suggest that there’s anything illegitimate about Biden is sedition. Unity means believing that Joe Biden legitimately won an election for which Democrats changed the rules beforehand, then declared a national emergency, and inaugurated him behind barbed wire and lines of soldiers authorized to shoot.

That and believing that his assistant health secretary is a woman.

Believing implausible things is the essence of party discipline. If you want to understand how hardened Communists could shout, “Long live Stalin” just before they were shot in the gulags, it’s because they had spent a generation being conditioned to believe whatever they were told.

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command,” George Orwell wrote in 1984.

When slavery is freedom, and ignorance is truth, then repression becomes healing. The dialectic unites opposites, turning lies into truth, and flattening all contradictions. The message of the party becomes a gnostic mystery whose paradoxes are overcome by political faith.

The evidence of our eyes and ears is more valuable than ever in an environment of lies.

And that ocular and aural testimony finds scant evidence of unity, but plenty of repression. Americans aren’t coming together, they’re being driven further apart under the guise of a manufactured emergency being declared by insurrectionist rioters suddenly turned patriots.

D.C. isn’t the epicenter of unity and healing, but of a wave of political purges targeting everyone from President Trump to ordinary Americans whose political views are being criminalized.

There’s no healing to be found in show trials and political purges. Only the unity that comes from eliminating the political opposition in your very own Bidenist banana republic.

 

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/2021/01/unite-and-heal-show-trials-and-fascist-purges-daniel-greenfield/ 

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I'm ignoring Biden's 'unity' talk, here's why you should, too - Michael Goodwin

 

​ by Michael Goodwin

Knitting together a fractured America around a far-left agenda was never going to work

Goodwin: Democrats ‘redefined’ election challenges as ‘sedition'

New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin reacts to House impeaching President Trump for a second time.

The joke survives the test of time and, under the circumstances, deserves repeating. As the late journalist Mickey Carroll told it, a suburban town with a population 90 percent Irish and 10 percent Jewish held a mayoral election involving two candidates — one Irish and one Jewish. 

The Irish candidate won with — wouldn’t you know it? — 90 percent of the vote. Whereupon he immediately denounced the clannishness of the Jews!

The story offers a useful way to view Joe Biden’s calls for national unity. Let’s just say our president is as sincere as the fictional Irish mayor.

Biden won the right to pursue the leftist agenda he campaigned on. But his promise that he will also work for the Americans who didn’t vote for him is more fig leaf than honest invitation. 

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As John Mitchell famously said about Richard Nixon’s White House, "Watch what we do, not what we say."

Applying that standard to Biden, we should ignore the unity talk because everything he has done leans far left.

Again, he’s entitled — elections have consequences. But knitting together a fractured America around a far-left agenda was never going to work. And Biden knows it.

In fact, his actions suggest the "Kumbaya" appeal is not directed at Trump voters or even the public in general. 

It’s really a disguised call to the factions in his own party to stick together, to give him a chance. I’ll keep you all happy, he’s saying, just watch. 

Biden kept Dems together during the campaign because everyone wanted to dump Trump.

Now that he’s won, he’s got to find other ways to keep the fault lines from widening. Early signs show he believes he can straddle the divide by staffing his administration with establishment veterans and party warhorses while giving the passionate far left early policy victories.

Their dogma lives loudly in the 25 or so executive orders the president signed as part of his promise to hit the ground running. He should have promised to walk. 

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Consider that just hours after the new president moaned in his inaugural address that "Millions of jobs have been lost, hundreds of thousands of businesses closed," he deliberately killed more jobs in the energy sector. 

One executive order revoked the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, which snuffed out thousands of good-paying union jobs in Canada and the United States. The long-disputed project would have brought Canadian crude to Nebraska.

He halted new oil, gas and coal leases on public lands and water and rejoined the Paris climate accord, which is certain to be a massive jobs killer once he sets targets for reducing carbon emissions and enforces them with regulations. Naturally, the global climate elites cheered because, well, their jobs are secure.

NYTIMES RIPPED FOR LABELING BIDEN 'MOST RELIGIOUSLY OBSERVANT' PRESIDENT IN 50 YEARS

Trump’s policies on the pipeline and fuel exploration, along with pulling America out of the climate pact, succeeded at creating jobs and achieving energy independence. By reversing those policies, Biden keeps his promise to do the opposite of Trump.

The effective campaign tactic is economically disastrous as a governing principle. It’s not even clear the politics will work for long in his own party if he keeps killing jobs before creating any. 

History teaches that raising unemployment is a fast ticket to a short honeymoon.

There are other oddities as well. After months of trashing the Trump White House over its handling of the pandemic and the vaccine, Biden said Friday "there is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months."

Lowering expectations is an old political trick, but his comment reflects a defeatist concession that can only deepen the nation’s funk.

Similarly, he said in his inaugural that America is both a great nation and systemically racist, which is hardly an uplifting message to a broad public. Then again, if you’re only appealing to wokesters and racial arsonists, the seeming incoherence makes sense. 

Despite high unemployment and the pandemic, Biden invited Central American caravans to come on in. With a moratorium on deportations of illegal crossers, he made it certain the border will be flooded, and that criminals and the COVID-infected will be among them. His press secretary described the policy as contributing to "racial equity."

Biden also signed a radical order letting boys compete in girls’ sports events if they identify as transgender. The practice already is causing an uproar and now Biden has put the federal government on the side of glaring unfairness.

He rejoined the World Health Organization, which Trump accused of obscuring China’s role in spreading the coronavirus. So Biden will spend upwards of $450 million a year for the privilege of being the WHO’s largest donor — and we’ll never get the truth about what the organization knew and when it knew it. 

The conflicts and incoherence aside, the far left and media echo chambers swooned their approval of these and other measures, but that was predictable. The real test will come when Biden doesn’t have Trump to kick around anymore. 

If Dems and some Republicans have their way, that won’t be anytime soon. 

Impeachment 2.0 moves to the Senate this week when Nancy Pelosi transmits the House charge of "incitement of insurrection" regarding the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. While Biden has ducked questions about whether trying a former president is good for the country, his failure to object is all the answer we need. 

He’s on board and why not? As long as Trump is the target, Biden can keep his coalition intact. Trump is the best uniter Dems ever had. 

Indeed, with some Senate Republicans likely to vote for conviction, including possibly Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a dethroned Trump is spurring bipartisanship in Washington.

Even if he is convicted and barred from public office, that won’t be the end of the Trump obsession. Pelosi, driven mad with hate, wants a commission to probe any Trump ties with Russia. 

At some point, however, the smoke will clear and voters will judge Biden on the merits of his own presidency. For some of us, that time began the moment he took office.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM MICHAEL GOODWIN

 

Michael Goodwin  is a Fox News contributor and New York Post columnist.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-unity-michael-goodwin 

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Iran Turns Gaza Into Storehouse for Weapons - Khaled Abu Toameh

 

​ by Khaled Abu Toameh

The Palestinian terror groups that moan about a crippling economic crisis in the Gaza Strip somehow always seem to find enough money to purchase, smuggle or manufacture weapons.

• Instead of storing medicine and vaccines, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are busy storing rockets and explosive devices.

• The Palestinian terror groups that moan about a crippling economic crisis in the Gaza Strip somehow always seem to find enough money to purchase, smuggle or manufacture weapons.

• In addition, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have frequently violated the laws of war by firing rockets from within populated areas.

• It is important to stress that Hamas is planning to participate in the election while continuing to store weapons in residential areas in the Gaza Strip.

• Had the explosion in Bet Hanoun been caused by Israel, international media outlets would have been falling over themselves to shout about another Israeli "war crime." Perhaps it is time to heed the postings.... that call out the true enemy: Hamas, PIJ, and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

Rather than doing anything to secure COVID-19 vaccines for the two million Palestinians living under their rule in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are continuing to do what they have proven themselves experts at doing: prepare for war against Israel and endanger the lives of innocent civilians, Israelis and Palestinians alike. Pictured: A spokesman for Gaza-based terrorist groups speaks at a press conference during joint military exercises led by Hamas, in Gaza City on December 29, 2020. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)

As many in the international community express more and more concern about the economic and humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the Palestinian terror groups there seem less and less concerned about improving the living conditions of their people.

These groups, specifically Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), are not doing anything to secure vaccines against COVID-19 for the two million Palestinians living under their rule in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, Hamas and PIJ are continuing to do what they have proven themselves experts at doing: prepare for war against Israel and endanger the lives of innocent civilians, Israelis and Palestinians alike.

In preparing for war, the two Iranian-backed groups are manufacturing and smuggling various types of weapons, including rockets and explosive devices, that they plan to use in their attacks on Israel. Instead of storing medicine and vaccines, Hamas and PIJ are busy storing rockets and explosive devices.

The weapons are stored in the homes of Palestinians and public institutions throughout the Gaza Strip, including schools, hospitals and mosques. Hamas and PIJ do not store weapons in their offices and installations because they are afraid of being targeted by Israel. By storing weapons among local civilians, Hamas and PIJ exhibit their total disregard for the lives of their people, who are being used as both cannon-fodder and human shields in a jihad (holy war) against Israel.

Significantly, international human rights organizations and "pro-Palestinian" advocacy groups around the world -- by ignoring the dangerous actions of Hamas and PIJ, not only against Israel, but against Palestinians as well -- are also showing disregard for the safety and lives of the Palestinians.

In the absence of international attention, Hamas and PIJ have turned the Gaza Strip into one big warehouse for stockpiling weapons of all kinds. The Palestinian terror groups that moan about a crippling economic crisis in the Gaza Strip somehow always seem to find enough money to purchase, smuggle or manufacture weapons.

The voices of the international human rights organizations and "pro-Palestinian" activists around the world are also not heard when Palestinians fall victim to the reckless practices of Palestinian terror groups.

Take, for example, the explosion that rocked Bet Hanoun, a Palestinian town in the northern Gaza Strip, the morning of January 23, 2021.

According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Public Works and Housing, the explosion that occurred inside a house completely destroyed two houses and damaged 100 others.

At least 47 Palestinians, including nine children and 15 women, were wounded in the explosion, according to the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Palestinian organization.

The explosion, which Palestinians refer to as an "accident," was caused by weapons that were stored inside a house belonging to a member of PIJ from the Alkafarna family in Beit Hanoun.

Such "accidents" are not uncommon in the Gaza Strip. In 2009, a rocket fired by Palestinian terror groups toward Israel hit a house in the town of Bet Lahiya in the Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinian girls, aged five and 12. In addition, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have frequently violated the laws of war by firing rockets from within populated areas.

On January 2, another three children and a woman were injured in another "accident" in the Shajjaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City. The explosion was apparently caused by weapons stored by Palestinian terror groups in a house.

In April 2020, a Palestinian man was killed and three others injured in yet another "accident" in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City. Again, the explosion was apparently caused by weapons belonging to Hamas and PIJ.

Four months later, four PIJ militiamen were killed when a rocket they were handling accidentally exploded east of Gaza City. The militiamen were apparently preparing to fire the rocket into Israel from a residential area in the Gaza Strip.

Most residents of the Gaza Strip are too terrified to criticize the Palestinian terror groups for storing weapons in residential areas. After the Bet Hanoun explosion, however, several Palestinians condemned Hamas and PIJ for endangering the lives of innocent civilians. according to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm:

"Social media users and citizens directed sharp criticisms against the Islamic Jihad for its reckless behavior and its lack of concern for the safety of innocent civilians, due to its concealment and storage of explosive materials in the homes of citizens, which caused many victims in the past."

The newspaper quoted an unidentified witness as saying that the Bet Hanoun explosion occurred inside a house belonging to a family known for its close relations with Hamas and PIJ.

Maysara Alkafarna, a Palestinian who lives in the area where the explosion occurred, took an unusual and brave step by attacking the Palestinian terror groups over their disregard for the safety of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In a post on Facebook, Alkafarna wrote:

"Until when will this disregard for the lives of people continue? Why should the hearts of an entire neighborhood be killed out of fear and their shouting reach the sky? Isn't it enough that they are already living in hunger and poverty? To our leaders: enough of your carelessness. You have destroyed us. We are not a field for experiments."

The Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, meanwhile, called for an investigation into the explosion. The organization revealed that a three-storey house was completely destroyed, while six adjacent houses were partially damaged, including a school, a youth club and a police station.

"The Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights views the explosion with concern," it said in a statement, adding that similar incidents have taken place in the past in residential areas in the Gaza Strip.

"These incidents violate human rights and international humanitarian law. Al-Mezan reiterates its call for a comprehensive and serious investigation into this incident, and for publishing the results of the investigation and taking the necessary measures to prevent their recurrence."

The explosion in the Gaza Strip occurred as leaders of Hamas, PIJ and other Palestinian factions are expected to meet in Egypt in the coming weeks to discuss preparations for holding new general elections. The Palestinian factions are not scheduled to discuss the consequences of the explosion, mainly because it is seen as an embarrassment for the terror groups that use the homes of civilians to store weapons.

Hamas has already expressed a readiness to participate in the upcoming elections. It is hoping to repeat its victory in the 2006 parliamentary election.

It is important to stress that Hamas is planning to participate in the election while continuing to store weapons in residential areas in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas can rest easy, knowing that the international community does not care if more Palestinians continue to pay the price for "accidents" caused by explosives and rockets stored inside the homes of Palestinians. Had the explosion in Bet Hanoun been caused by Israel, international media outlets would have been falling over themselves to shout about another Israeli "war crime." Perhaps it is time to heed the postings like those of the Alkafarna -- postings that call out the true enemy: Hamas, PIJ, and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on Twitter

 

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute. 

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17007/iran-gaza-weapons 

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Iran Regime's Agents and Illegal Activities in the US - Majid Rafizadeh

 

​ by Majid Rafizadeh

What is alarming is that Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, who has been in the US for almost 35 years, was working for the Iranian regime and getting paid [by Iran] for nearly 13 years without being detected.

• What is alarming is that Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, who has been in the US for almost 35 years, was working for the Iranian regime and getting paid [by Iran] for nearly 13 years without being detected.

• Afrasiabi presented himself as an independent political scientist, academic and expert. He allegedly wrote articles, including instance for The New York Times, a book, and gave TV interviews while getting guidance and payments from the Iranian regime. When Iranian officials reportedly asked him to revise an article already submitted, he followed up on their instructions.

• A year ago, three Republican Senators, Ted Cruz (TX), Tom Cotton (AK) and Mike Braun (IN), called on the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). "NIAC's innocuous public branding masks troubling behavior," the senators wrote. The congressmen noted that this entity was a lobby group acting as a "foreign agent of the Islamic Republic...."

• For safeguarding America's national interests, it is urgent that the US follow up on the recommendation of these Senators, at least to investigate who might be operating for the Iranian regime and what they might be up to.

Last week, Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi was arrested in Massachusetts. According to the U.S. Justice Department, Afrasiabi is charged with "acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act". Afrasiabi presented himself as an independent political scientist, academic and expert. He allegedly wrote articles, including for The New York Times. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)

The US is apparently not immune from the Iranian regime's operatives; unfortunately, the significance of this issue has long been downplayed.

Last week, Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, also known as Lotfolah Kaveh Afrasiabi, was arrested at his home in Watertown, Massachusetts. According to the U.S. Justice Department, Afrasiabi is charged with "acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)".

What is alarming is that Afrasiabi, who has been in the US for almost 35 years, was working for the Iranian regime and getting paid for nearly 13 years without being detected. It is alleged that from July 2007 to November 2020, he received at least $265,000 from the Iranian government. According to the Lobbying Disclosure Act, anyone who is paid to lobby the US federal government is required to "register with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives."

Looking at Afrasiabi's activities cannot possibly tell us what other agents of Iran may be doing. Afrasiabi presented himself as an independent political scientist, academic and expert. He allegedly wrote articles, including instance for The New York Times, a book, and gave TV interviews while getting guidance and payments from the Iranian regime. When Iranian officials reportedly asked him to revise an article already submitted, he followed up on their instructions.

In addition, without disclosing his ties with his paymaster, the Tehran regime, he helped a US Congressman draft a letter to President Barack Obama in favor of a deal desired by Iran. He also allegedly tried to acquire important information, such as sending an email to an official in the State Department asking the administration's "thinking" about Iran's nuclear program.

Why do Iran's agents conceal their connections to their paymaster? To evade paying taxes? To maintain some legitimacy and credibility by not exposing their links to what the US Department of State has called the "world's worst state sponsor of terrorism"?

The ruling mullahs of Iran attempt to spread their propaganda through their agents and to promote their preferred narratives. Some of this propaganda may include the following:

• Sanctions on Iran ought to be lifted.
• The nuclear deal, aka the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is a good deal for the West and the international community.
• Iran's involvements and interventions in other countries are minimal or nonexistent.
• Iran's military role in Syria and Iraq are for protecting those nations from extremist groups...

It is worth mentioning that a year ago, three Republican Senators, Ted Cruz (TX), Tom Cotton (AK) and Mike Braun (IN), called on the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).

"NIAC's innocuous public branding masks troubling behavior," the senators wrote. The congressmen noted that this entity was a lobby group acting as a "foreign agent of the Islamic Republic.... For example," the senators wrote, "on December 31, NIAC circulated an email memorandum blaming the United States government for Iranian-backed militias' repeated attacks against US forces in Iraq and brazen attempt to storm the US embassy in Baghdad."

NIAC is not registered as a lobby group and has been reportedly operating for more than a decade. The organization calls itself a "nonpartisan, nonprofit organization advancing interests of [the] Iranian-American community."

Intriguingly, however, according to the senators' statement:

NIAC's former acting policy director, Patrick Disney, admitted in internal emails that he and the organization's legislative director spent more than 20 percent of their time conducting lobbying activities. He wrote, "I believe we fall under this definition of 'lobbyist'...."

In addition, the former FBI associate deputy director, Oliver Revell, stated:

"[A]rranging meetings between members of Congress and Iran's ambassador to the United Nations would in my opinion require that person or entity to register as an agent of a foreign power; in this case it would be Iran."

Revell's statement came after NIAC's Swedish-Iranian founder, Trita Parsi, reportedly arranged meetings between Iran's then-ambassador to the United Nations (and current Foreign Minister) Mohammad Javad Zarif and members of the US Congress and the. According to the Iranian American Forum:

"Some of these documents are posted here and reveal NIAC's relation and collaboration with Iranian officials and business interests inside Iran. They show that NIAC coordinated its lobby with the Iranian ambassador to the UN to influence the US policy with Iran. Some of NIAC's internal documents released during the lawsuit have been used to prepare this report."

For safeguarding America's national interests, it is urgent that the US follow up on the recommendation of these Senators, at least to investigate who might be operating for the Iranian regime and what they might be up to.

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on Twitter

 

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17010/iran-agents-us 

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The real force driving the GameStop revolution - Jason Zweig

 

​ by Jason Zweig - Wall Street Journal

Amateur investors assert their advantages over professionals

SEC, Congress probing GameStop chaos, online platforms' trading freezes

This was the week when a bunch of amateur traders made Wall Street's finest look like idiots.

From Jan. 25 through Jan. 29, a ragtag army of individuals sent shares in GameStop Corp. up 500%, and sent many others skyrocketing too. In three days, many of these stocks gained more than most do in a decade. The hedge funds on the other side of these bets lost billions.

This movement is the culmination of nearly five decades of the democratization of markets set off by none other than the late founder of Vanguard Group, Jack Bogle.

For all the hyperventilating over this week's financial revolution, though, investors should regard it as the latest phase in a long evolution -- and unlikely to disrupt markets overall.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
GME	GAMESTOP CORP	325.00	+131.40	+67.87%

GAMESTOP ONLY COMES IN AS THIRD BIGGEST SHORTED STOCK

Still, this is a remarkable moment. It's as if a bunch of couch potatoes watching a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game on TV belted down their beer and nachos, barged onto the court -- and proceeded to block LeBron James's shots and mercilessly dunk on Anthony Davis.

Amateur investors have always had advantages over professionals: They can invest for the long run and ignore the short term, since they can't get fired for underperformance and don't have clients who give them money (or take it away) at the worst time.

Now, however, amateur traders are asserting their advantages, too. They can communicate instantaneously, band together by the thousands -- millions, perhaps -- and buy or sell commission-free.

Thousands of members of WallStreetBets, a forum at the online community reddit.com, have been leading the swarm of amateur individual traders buying stocks that hedge funds and other institutional investors were betting against.

Lafayette, US - December 27, 2016: GameStop Strip Mall Location. GameStop is a Video Game and Electronics Retailer IV

GOV'T STIMULUS CHECKS FUELED GAMESTOP SURGE: GUNDLACH

Moving in sync and en masse, such traders can drive a stock way up or down even if each trader commits only a few dollars. Professionals, on the other hand, are legally restricted from colluding and incur much higher brokerage costs.

These new mobs of amateur traders resemble swarms of animals that often coalesce in the wild. You may have seen videos of an immense school of fish flashing in unison through the sea or a murmuration of starlings forming a vast swirling vortex in the sky.

These swarms shift direction in swift, coordinated bursts to find prey and evade predators.

But it's simplistic to think of this trading movement as a frontal assault on Wall Street's elite by Joe Schmo and Jane Doe.

The caricature of this new breed of fast-moving trader is a 19-year-old living in mom's basement. Locked down and bored by the pandemic, with fewer sporting events to bet on and stimulus checks (or "stimmies") burning a hole in his pocket, he gets his kicks trading stocks. Often, he buys and sells options, which can produce even bigger, faster gains.

There's some truth to that stereotype. The WallStreetBets culture can be rude and crude, seeking short-term thrills with no regard for risk. Yet some of its leaders are highly sophisticated, and not everyone piling into stocks this week belongs to WallStreetBets.

photo: Robinhood/istock

TEXAS AG ANNOUNCES PROBE INTO ROBINHOOD, DISCORD AND HEDGE FUNDS

Sean Mattingly is a 35-year-old semiconductor engineer in the Portland, Ore., area. He favors a simple, diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds that he almost never trades.

On Jan. 25, Mr. Mattingly was on Bogleheads.org, one of his favorite websites, which advocates long-term investing. There, Mr. Mattingly stumbled on a reference to GameStop's wild price moves.

Cautious as he is, Mr. Mattingly likes to reserve up to 5% of his portfolio for what he calls funny money. After visiting WallStreetBets, he thought, "Wow, this might be fun. I'll take a chance and see what happens."

He bought "less than 20" shares of GameStop at about $110 on Jan. 26. Mr. Mattingly says it "absolutely has been fun" owning GameStop, which went as high as $483 this week. But, he says, "it has also been really fun to be -- without expecting to -- part of what is becoming a movement." (He says he sold at $400 a share on the morning of Jan. 29 and it "felt great.")

That movement is Mr. Bogle's monster love-child. It's the culmination of 45 years of relentless decline in the cost of investing that kicked off when the late Vanguard founder launched the first index mutual fund in 1975. Stock funds used to carry commissions of up to 8% and annual expenses as high as 2%; now you can buy index funds at zero commission and with expenses under 0.05% annually.

Decades ago, small investors might pay as much as 5% to trade a stock. A stockbroker was a 9-to-5 guy in a paneled office who picked your pocket on every trade. Nowadays, your stockbroker is in your pocket, as apps on your phone let you trade stocks at zero commissions, anytime you want.

WallStreetBets is the ultimate stage of this evolution. Thousands of people can amass small trades into giant pools of capital and whip each other into a collective frenzy.

In what neuroscientists call " dynamic coupling," the brain activations of different people doing the same task converge, firing in sync. In such situations, says Princeton University neuroscientist Uri Hasson, "I'm shaping the way you behave and you're shaping the way I'm behaving. And coordinated behavior across many, many individuals can generate dynamics that are larger than anything they could produce separately."

That can also make emotions run high. Although short-selling hedge funds are fairly small in the financial ecosystem and their managers are more often mavericks than members of the establishment, the flash mobs have sometimes portrayed them as Goliaths.

And when, on Jan. 28, leading online brokerage firms restricted buy orders for some of this month's hottest stocks, thousands of small traders took to social media simultaneously to express outrage, demand redress and exhort each other to " HOLD THE LINE," by not selling their shares.

 

Day 3 of “Hold the Line”:

What I feel like vs. reality pic.twitter.com/fJSSfqIXYW

— Caleb T. McCaughan (@CTMcCaughan) January 29, 2021

 

GAMESTOP STOCK SHORT SELLER LOSSES TOTAL MORE THAN $19B, DATA FIRM SAYS

While the David-versus-Goliath narrative was always overblown, the populist anger against brokerage firms for restricting trading is real -- and immediately was mirrored in Washington, where several members of Congress called for investigations into the matter.

This market moment, with its surge in technology-fueled social speculation, is an echo of 1999 and early 2000, when television ads for brokerage firms celebrated moms day-trading in their pajamas and claimed that tow-truck drivers could afford to buy tropical islands.

It's also reminiscent of 1901, when investors with widespread access to the telegraph and telephone bubbled with enthusiasm over the new century. Total trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange doubled from the year before to a then-unheard-of 209 million shares. On April 24 that year, two-thirds of all of Union Pacific Corp.'s outstanding shares changed hands. Across the NYSE, annual turnover, a measure of how fast stocks trade, hit 319%, a record that wouldn't be surpassed for roughly another century.

At thousands of so-called bucketshops, individuals gambled on whether stock prices would go up or down without having to buy any stock. Taking directional bets as small as $5 or $10, far below the minimum then required by legitimate firms, the bucketshops boomed -- even though they were illegal in many states.

"The desire to get rich without labor has prevailed among men at all ages," wrote the journalist and economist Horace White in 1909, "and will doubtless continue as long as human nature remains unchanged."

That brings us back to today's flash-mob traders. Beyond the few stocks that are their favorite playthings, how have they affected the stock market as a whole?

At the SPDR S&P Retail exchange-traded fund, which seeks to own approximately equal amounts of its roughly 100 holdings, GameStop reached 19.9% of total assets on Jan. 27. But such small and specialized funds are only droplets in the roughly $42 trillion ocean of the U.S. stock market.

As of Dec. 31, heavily shorted stocks like AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., BlackBerry Ltd., iRobot Corp., and others lately favored by the flash mob made up only 0.13% of the S&P 500 and only 4% to 5% of leading indexes of small stocks, according to Matarin Capital Management, an investment firm in New York.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
AMC	AMC ENTERTAINMENT HOLDINGS INC	13.26	+4.63	+53.65%
BB	BLACKBERRY LIMITED	14.10	-0.55	-3.75%
IRBT	IROBOT CORP.	120.10	-1.90	-1.56%

By Jan. 27, the most-shorted stocks still accounted for only 0.17% of the S&P 500. They did roughly double to 8.6% of the S&P 600 Small-Cap index and 11% of the Russell Microcap index. But investors who are well diversified aren't likely to feel a major impact.

Volatility for the S&P 500 so far in 2021 is up a bit but still ranks almost exactly in the middle of its levels recorded since 1928, according to Distillate Capital Partners LLC., a Chicago-based investment firm. Even the S&P 600 index of small stocks, which includes GameStop and several other flash-mob favorites, has fluctuated about one-third less sharply in 2021 than its long-run average.

Taken together, these indicators suggest the flash mobs haven't had significant effects outside the two- or three-dozen stocks they love to trade the most.

The momentary computer-trading glitch that triggered the "flash crash" of May 6, 2010, was distressing to anyone who traded within a narrow time window but left longer-term investors unscathed. Similarly, this latest upheaval will likely have a bigger impact on investors' attention than on their portfolios.

The financial flash mobs may be a symbol or a symptom of the populist disruption that has swept the world in recent years. They aren't likely to be a cause of it.

 

Jason Zweig - Wall Street Journal 

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/the-real-force-driving-the-gamestop-revolution

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Politico reporter: Trump base is 'getting stronger' since he left office, impeachment would only empower him - Joseph A. Wulfsohn

 

​ by Joseph A. Wulfsohn

'I think that there's a huge disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country'

Biggs on Liz Cheney's vote to impeach Trump

Former President Donald Trump has actually gained -- not lost -- political clout since leaving office, a political observer asserted Friday.

Politico reporter Tara Palmeri's observation runs contrary to the assumptions of many in the Washington D.C. establishment and the mainstream media.

"People don't want to hear anything against Trump," Palmeri said during an appearance on MSNBC. "Actually, the more he stays out of the media, the more that he becomes this martyr, this looming figure over the GOP."

"People don't want to hear anything against Trump."

— Tara Palmeri, Politico reporter

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at The Villages Polo Club, Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, in The Villages, Fla. (Associated Press)

In fact, there is now a "crusade" being waged on behalf of the former president in places like Wyoming, where Trump is "way more popular" that the state's high-ranking congressional Republican, U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, Palmeri said.

She drew the conclusion after speaking with locals in the Cowboy State about Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump while covering an anti-Cheney rally led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., grabs the hand of a supporter following a rally against U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021, outside the Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne. (Associated Press)

"I actually went out of my way to try to find someone who would defend her and I really could not," Palmeri told MSNBC. "She didn't have that much name recognition, considering she's a Cheney. ... I mean, I said her name at a hardware store, and someone shouted a threat." 

POLITICO RIPS MEDIA'S EUPHORIC INAUGURAL COVERAGE: 'TONE DOWN THE BIDEN ADULATION'

The "overwhelming" consensus that Palmeri heard from voters was that Cheney's vote for impeachment was "not a vote for Wyoming" and "therefore she has to go."

Tara Palmeri attends the 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner at Washington Hilton on April 28, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

She then described an apparent disconnect between what's perceived as truth in D.C. and what’s perceived as truth in Cheyenne. Palmeri mentioned locals not wearing masks, expressing distrust of the coronavirus vaccine, claiming both that the number of reported deaths from the pandemic were "inflated," believing the 2020 presidential election wasn't legitimate, and that the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill was "staged" by Antifa. 

"I think the base is getting stronger, truly. I think an impeachment [conviction] would make him even more powerful."

— Tara Palmeri, Politico reporter

Tara Palmeri is seen during an MSNBC appearance.

"I hate that they're so distrustful," Palmeri said. "It feels like another world but that's what's on the ground and I don't think that we can ignore it and I'm really happy that I went out there and saw it because I think that there's a huge disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country."

In Wyoming, she added, "A lot of people said they aren't really Republicans, that, like, they're for Trump. That's it ... I think the base is getting stronger, truly. I think an impeachment would make him even more powerful — a conviction, is what I mean."

 

Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @JosephWulfsohn.  

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/politico-tara-palmeri-trump-base-getting-stronger 

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Biden Orders the End of Construction of U.S/Mexican Border Wall - Michael Cutler

 

​ by Michael Cutler

One of many Executive Orders to reverse Trump’s successful immigration policies.

President Joe Biden is opposed to nearly everything that Trump stood for.  Biden’s dangerous immigration policies have been the focus of a number of my recent articles, for example,

Terror Arrest Highlights How Perilous Biden’s Immigration Plans Are and What Biden’s Immigration Policies Would Do To America.

During his run for the Presidency four years ago, Donald Trump made immigration law enforcement and border security key priorities for his campaign.

At numerous political rallies the raucous and enthusiastic attendees would frequently chant, “Build that wall!”

The need to secure that border and address the myriad other vulnerabilities was made abundantly clear by the 9/11 Commission which determined that the 9/11 terror attacks and other such attacks were only possible because of multiple failures of the immigration system.

Furthermore, large-scale human trafficking and the flood of narcotics flowing into the United States across that dangerous border added to the demand for securing it.

As I have noted many times in previous articles, the preface of the official report, 9/11 and  Terrorist Travel begins with the following paragraph:

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.

Let me be clear, the border wall, by itself, will not end the immigration crisis.  It is, however, an important element of what should be an integrated system.  I have come to compare the border wall with a wing on an airplane.  Without its wings and airplane will not fly, however, a wing by itself goes nowhere.

Opponents of the wall sometimes refer to it as a “Wall of Hate” allegedly designed to keep Mexicans out of the United States.  This is, of course a bald-faced lie.  Every day the Border Patrol encounters illegal aliens seeking to enter the U.S. by evading the inspections process conducted at ports of entry to prevent the entry of aliens whose presence in the U.S. would threaten public health, public safety, national security and the jobs and wages of Americans.

A review of a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S. Code § 1182 - Inadmissible aliens will quickly dispel the lies about the nature of our immigration laws that are utterly and totally blind as to race, religion or ethnicity.

Furthermore - and this may shock you - but the wall is not designed to keep anyone out of the United States! 

The wall does not block our ports of entry.  The wall is simply intended to make certain that all people and all commerce seeking entry into the U.S. are funneled through ports of entry so that they can be vetted in an orderly process and a record of entry is created.  To this point I also compare the border wall with the velvet rope at the bank that guides customers to the next available teller; or to the “cattle runs” at airports that guide lines of passengers to the inspections process conducted by the TSA to keep weapons and dangerous individuals off of airplanes.

This gives rise to an interesting question: do you know anyone who would get onboard an airliner if he/she saw fellow passengers evading the TSA inspections process?  Why then is it reasonable for Americans and lawful immigrants to be forced to live among millions of illegal aliens who evaded a very similar inspections process conducted by CBP (Customs and Border Protection) at ports of entry for a very similar purpose?

Although the need to construct a secure border was clear to everyone, nothing of consequence was ever done to actually build a physical wall even after the terror attacks of 9/11.

Members of Congress said that we needed to find a “modern” and high-tech way of securing the border.  This gave rise to various high-tech proposals such as SBInet (Secure Border Initiative Network).

Many of these supposed high-tech “solutions” came to be referred as a “Virtual Fence.”

SBINet was ultimately abandoned after an expenditure of roughly one billion dollars that was reported on Washington Technology website in the January 14, 2011 article, Boeing's SBInet contract gets the axe that included a link to the DHS report, Report On The Assessment Of The Secure Border Initiative-Network (SBInet) Program.

Donald Trump, the builder, came along and promised that he would build a wall.  A real wall!  I addressed this in an article several years ago, Why Trump’s Wall Is A Must (And why a “virtual fence” will stop no one.)

Even with Republicans controlling both the Senate and House of Representatives during Trump’s first two years, the money was never appropriated to construct the vital wall.  Lawsuits were filed to block the wall and President Trump decided to use money allocated to the military to secure the border and finally he succeeded.

On July 26, 2019 The Hill reported, Supreme Court rules Trump can use military funds for border wall construction. 

The bigger issue is why on earth would anyone be opposed to protecting America and Americans from the influx of huge numbers of illegal aliens whose backgrounds, identities, possible affiliations with criminal or terrorist organizations cannot be determined?  Why would anyone act to prevent the flood of dangerous narcotics into the United States - unless, perhaps, they were profiting from these deadly criminal enterprises of human trafficking and drug smuggling?

Trump’s tactic makes perfect sense.  The primary shared mission of the U.S. military is to keep America’s enemies as far from our shores as possible.  However, “up close and in person” that vital mission falls to the Border Patrol and ICE (Immigration and Customs enforcement).

Arrests along the border dropped as the wall’s construction began.  The wall certainly helped to deter illegal immigration, but so did the policies of the Trump administration that included the “Remain in Mexico Program” for political asylum applicants as was reported by NPR on March 11, 2020, U.S. Supreme Court Allows 'Remain In Mexico' Program To Continue.

What a difference a day or, an election makes!  Ever since Joe Biden appeared to have won the elections we have seen massive caravans of thousands of foreign nationals forming up in Central America, heading to the United States. 

Biden promised a 100 day moratorium in the deportation of illegal aliens - although that Executive Order was put on hold temporarily, on January 26, 2021. The Blaze reported,  Federal judge blocks Biden's deportation pause for two weeks,  Biden’s message is clear, any aliens who enter the U.S. by any means will not face consequences and will likely be granted lawful status via Biden’s legislative initiative to create a dangerous massive amnesty  program.

These issues all fly in the face of not only the 9/11 Commission but the findings and recommendations of many experts who have testified before numerous House and Senate hearings.

I wrote about one such hearing in my article:

World-Wide Threat Assessment Makes Powerful Case For Border Security

I have testified before more than 15 such hearings and have often said I wish that they had “listenings” instead of “hearings!”

On April 17, 2018 the House Committee on Homeland Security, Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee conducted a hearing on the topic, “State Sponsors Of Terrorism: An Examination Of Iran’s Global Terrorism Network.”

The prepared testimony of one of the witnesses, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, included this excerpt that will serve as the final word for my commentary.  I want you remember his warning the next time you see coverage of the caravans of foreign nationals heading to the United States or when you hear the leaders of Iran threaten action against the United States:

In recent years, Hezbollah’s Latin American networks have also increasingly cooperated with violent drug cartels and criminal syndicates, often with the assistance of local corrupt political elites. Cooperation includes laundering of drug money; arranging multi-ton shipments of cocaine to the United States and Europe; and directly distributing and selling illicit substances to distant markets. Proceeds from these activities finance Hezbollah’s arms procurement; its terror activities overseas; its hold on Lebanon’s political system; and its efforts, both in Lebanon and overseas, to keep Shi’a communities loyal to its cause and complicit in its endeavors.

This toxic crime-terror nexus is fueling both the rising threat of global jihadism and the collapse of law and order across Latin America that is helping drive drugs and people northward into the United States. It is sustaining Hezbollah’s growing financial needs. It is helping Iran and Hezbollah consolidate a local constituency in multiple countries across Latin America. It is thus facilitating their efforts to build safe havens for terrorists and a continent-wide terror infrastructure that they could use to strike U.S. targets.

 

Michael Cutler  

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/biden-orders-end-construction-usmexican-border-michael-cutler/ 

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