The Danger to the International Community of the Two-State Solution - Dr. Shmuel Katz

 

​ by Dr. Shmuel Katz

Why it will only continue to fuel conflict.

 

The conflict in the Middle East between some Arab states and the State of Israel did not start yesterday. Unfortunately, people who are not familiar with the reality on the ground may think that there are easy solutions to the conflict.

One of the superficial ideas which was offered to solve the problem was to create two states for two peoples. Unfortunately, drawing these lines in the sand did not solve the problems, and in fact this solution has already failed in the past because it did not address the core problems that are at the heart of the conflict. They did not address seriously, for example, radical Islamic fanaticism, self-serving power trips, financial corruption, or fearful self-preservation of evil leaders.

The Ottoman Empire, which controlled the Middle East for about 400 years, crumbled during World War I, and the League of Nations created the British and the French mandates, which oversaw the transfer of the land in the Middle East to their rightful owners.

The territory that came under the Mandate of the British included the Land of Israel (including Judea and Samaria), the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, which had been renamed “Palestina” by Roman invaders about 2,000 years earlier.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration, and the legally binding ruling by the international community at the 1920 San Remo conference, recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland; there was a recommendation to help the Jewish people settle in their ancestral homeland, and at the same time to respect the human rights of all local inhabitants in the land of Israel.

Due to pressure on the British government, the British violated their Mandate in 1922 and created a brand-new Arab state – the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan – on about 80% of the British Mandate for Palestine, which was supposed to have become a part of the Jewish homeland. This was an attempt to practically solve some of the local disputes in the region via a two-state solution, but it did not solve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Various attempts to reach two-state solutions were made by the British in the years following the 1937 Peel Commission report, and again with the 1947 Partition Plan after the United Nations’ 181 Resolution, but all were rejected by the Arabs who continued with their war against the Jews.

Upon the termination of the British Mandate to Palestine, the British left the Land of Israel, and the Jews declared their national independence on May 14, 1948, based upon the UN partition resolution 181, but the surrounding Arab countries invaded the State of Israel the very next day, with the intention of destroying it.

The aggressive attempt to destroy the State of Israel repeated itself in the 1967 and 1973 wars. Luckily, the State of Israel managed to prevail on all these occasions.

Despite these conflicts, the State of Israel reached peace agreements with Egypt in 1979, with Jordan in 1994, and with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan in the year 2020, but the Palestinian Arabs refused any reasonable compromise to settle their dispute with Israel. Even worse, the Palestinian Arabs declared that their solution to the conflict is going to be the destruction of the State of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and to replace it with a brand-new Arab state by the name of Palestine where Jews will not be welcome.

Because of the Palestinian Arabs’ radical stance, all of the very generous two-state proposals that have been submitted by Israel and supported by the international community were rejected by the Palestinian Arabs in the following years: 1967, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2005, 2008 and 2009-2014. In 2005, Israel even withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza strip hoping to move closer to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, but in return, Israel has since received from Hamas barrages of rocket attacks and floating firebombs into its civilian populated areas, including its capital city Jerusalem and the highly populated city Tel Aviv.

Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority, which controls Judea and Samaria, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, continue with malicious deceptive brain washing of their own populations and that of their oblivious international supporters. In addition to destroying the wellbeing of their own people, these self-serving corrupt leaders use a big part of the financial resources that are provided to them by the international community to support terrorists and their families and to build a strong terror infrastructure that will attack anybody who stands in their way – be they Muslims, Christians, or Jews – to gain even more power and personal wealth.

Some politicians and others around the world are known to be vicious anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish operatives for whatever irrational reasons, but it is very difficult to understand why any honorable and good politician would join them in bringing any anti-Israeli resolutions to the table. We must help the good people understand that forcing Israelis to give up their security, or accept any preconditions to future negotiations, will cause serious damage to the international community and the State of Israel. Israel is known to provide the international community with serious life-saving military intelligence and major benefits from advanced research and development in many essential fields. Undermining the stability and safety of the only reliable democracy in the Middle East will deprive the free world from the benefits of the Israeli experience, and it will empower the enemies of good to solidify their grip on their own people and on their oblivious international supporters, to limit the freedom of women under their domain, and to continue the abuse of their children. It will definitively not bring peace to the region.

It has been said in the past that for evil to prevail good people only need to do nothing, and appeasing evil will bring destruction to the oblivious who did not have the wisdom to correctly assess the situation. We can see classic examples of this dynamic in the early British support of Nazi Germany and in the unopposed and out of control ascent of Iran’s puppets (Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen). The free hand that was given to Iran, the biggest supporter of international terrorism, did not bring peace to the region, and the irresponsible disengagement from Afghanistan, which allowed the powerful re-emergence of the radical Muslim Taliban and ISIS, created a time bomb, the eventual consequences of which are still being studied by the intelligence agencies.

It is important to remind the wise that appeasing the bad operatives with financial or political support will not convert them into peace-loving altruistic angels, but on the contrary, will only embolden them to stay their evil course to the detriment of all honorable peace-loving individuals across the globe.

 

Dr. Shmuel Katz

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/danger-international-community-two-state-solution-dr-shmuel-katz/

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The Big Truth: Election 2020 Really Was Rigged - James Arlandson

 

​ by James Arlandson

Mollie Hemingway has written a blockbuster book about all the strands of deception and falsehoods that converged to take down Donald Trump.

Mollie Hemingway has written a blockbuster book about all the strands of deception and falsehoods that converged to take down Donald Trump on Nov. 3 and 4 and beyond (and before) in her book: Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech and the Democrats Seized Our Elections (Regnery, 2021).  I twice asked two Barnes and Noble stores in two weeks whether they had it in stock, and each time -- no. So I finally had to order it online.  It has ten chapters, plus a prologue and an epilogue. The total number of endnotes is 1,243 (I added them up), many having extensive commentaries. Only a large and excellent team of researchers could put together a book like this, and she credits them by name in her acknowledgments. 

Hemingway’s conclusion: It is clear that the Dem party has followed a pattern of cheating, inch by inch, for a long time. 

As a class, the Dem leadership and journalists have turned into liars and false prophets. However, Ms. Hemingway begins the book with this encouragement: "You are not wrong" (the Prologue). Don't allow the media to gaslight you. You are not crazy. Hemingway thoroughly presents the end-noted evidence.

The evidence can be boiled down as follows. Trump won a fair election on Nov. 3, but lost a fraudulent one late on Nov. 3 (about 22:00) and on to Nov. 4 and beyond, in some important Electoral College states. The Dems believed their own (fake) polling data that had said Trump was far behind. But they were shocked when they saw that he was about to win by a huge margin in those states. No matter. That's when they went to Plan B and did their dirty work, in the early hours.

Instead of calling the election for Trump, the Dems, with their allies in the lying media, unprecedentedly stopped the normal vote count "coincidentally" around the same time in some of those states, sent the monitors home, and in the late hours illegally rammed through numerous lopsided ballots (a "surge"), favoring Basement Biden, such that he "won" by 10,000 to 30,000 votes, on Nov. 4+ in the targeted Electoral College States. By video, we fortuitously saw boxes filled with votes pulled out from under tables after the observers were told to go home, in Fulton County, Atlanta (Chapter 10). (In contrast, Texas and Florida got their vote counting done on time, and their populations are larger than the selected "special states.") Don't let the media gaslight you. Those ballots really were fixed and unaccounted for.

Over the next decade or two, the Dems plan to flip red states blue by their methods.  They have been doing this in carefully selected states already, over several election cycles. Here is the Dem's long-range, gradual strategy, which was exposed most visibly during election "season" (not day): (1) Find dark blue vote counting centers. (2) Promote mail-in ballots and call anyone a racist who objects (huge bundles of ballots have been found at drop-boxes). (3) Ram through those fake, lopsided Dem ballots. (4)  Or the vote counters in dark-blue cities will count many Dem ballots twice. (5) They may even employ questionable vote counting software. (6) Result: The Dem nominee wins! 

How do journalists turn themselves into compromised liars? Ms. Hemingway details the evidence in her Chapter Five, titled "The Revenge of Fake News." We don't need to spend much time here because everyone who daily reads online sources knows about the false Steele dossier, the Russian collusion hoax, the journalists lying about Trump's efforts to find a fix for COVID (Chapter Three), burying Biden's corruption (Chapter Eight), and so on. Reading these chapters may sicken fair-minded readers because they will be plunged into the heart of darkness. We all knew the media tilted left, but now they have become rabid leftists. Trump exposed their derangement syndrome, by being, well, Trump. He punched them in the mouth every day. Very gratifying.

Another main message of the book is that the GOP in various states was caught flat-footed when Dem operatives, like Marc Elias, sued or persuaded local election officials or even a secretary of state or two to give a large amount of control to private firms (Chapter One) funded by "Zuck Bucks" and other left-wing outfits (Chapter Seven). She summarizes: "The left spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its scheme to embed operatives in government election systems that aren't supposed to take sides. Republican voters had no idea what had been done until it was too late" (p. 329). 

A major solution for the GOP is to win back the office of the secretary of state, which would counter the Dem strategy of taking over this office from the middle of the 2000s. Another solution, which is hugely popular among the voters, is to insist on voter ID. Also, mail-in ballots must be eliminated or curtailed. The Virginia legislature and the new governor, for example (and many other states), must act now to implement these changes -- and not to listen to empty, overused, and false accusations of racism. 

Hemingway ends her book on a cautiously optimistic note, but with a warning stinger: "In the fight to come, those men and women [noncompliant, rebellious Americans] will have the best weapon – truth -- on their side. The only question is whether their leaders will have the courage to use it" (p. 332). But make no mistake: the GOP leadership is constantly lagging behind, trying to keep track of the relentless, unblinking, amoral left.

 

James Arlandson

Source:https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/11/the_big_truth_election_2020_really_was_rigged.html

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The latest Durham indictment is a big one - Andrea Widburg

 

​ by Andrea Widburg

[W]e're finally getting a chance to see that the Russia hoax was a fraud from beginning to end and that it reached the highest echelons of Hillary Clinton's circles.

The Democrats' nefarious Russia hoax, which sucked time, life, and political capital out of the Trump presidency, is really getting exposed.  With the arrest of Igor Danchenko and the release of the indictment behind the arrest, we're finally getting a chance to see that the Russia hoax was a fraud from beginning to end and that it reached the highest echelons of Hillary Clinton's circles.

The Russia hoax, which the Dems unleashed in 2016 and that exploded on the scene with the "pee-pee tape" allegations when BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier shortly before Trump's inauguration, dominated much of Trump's presidency.  Trump's supporters knew that it was untrue, but it was extremely difficult to unravel the details to prove the lie (although Dan Bongino's daily podcast did a superb job).

Even getting a primer on the lies didn't help identify the real culprits.  We knew that the FBI, the Department of Justice, the State Department, and various specific individuals in the government were involved, especially because it gave them the means to spy on everyone close to Trump, but there was no single culprit behind it.  This inchoate mass of accusations and wrongdoers meant that even as Trump took extraordinary steps to improve America's national security, its national sovereignty, and the economy, the Democrats relentlessly smeared him as a traitor, beholden to Putin.

Even after Mueller reluctantly conceded that Trump had not, in fact, colluded with Russia, the Democrats kept up the attack.  Only recently, I forget where, some MSNBC talking ahead again accused Trump of colluding with Russia.  John Durham's investigation, meanwhile, was so slow that many of us (me included) decided that it was as much a hoax as the Russia story.  It certainly didn't help Trump's re-election efforts.

However, on Wednesday, the feds arrested Igor Danchenko and on Thursday, the indictment against him went public.  Techno Fog has a good summary of the indictment.

Now, suddenly, the story is very interesting.  Danchenko isn't actually that interesting.  He was simply a go-between who claimed to have received a phone call from Sergei Millian informing him about Trump's conspiring with Russia.  He then passed that information along, seeding the "facts" in the Steele dossier.  It was this claimed phone call that formed the basis of the dishonest FISA warrants against Carter Page.

As a go-between, Danchenko didn't break any laws.  However, he consistently lied to the FBI about his role in the affair.  And most importantly, he lied about the fact that it wasn't Sergei Millian to whom he was speaking — and he knew it wasn't.  Instead, Danchenko was speaking to Charles Dolan, Jr.

Who is Charles Dolan, Jr.?  According to the New York Post:

After leaving the DGA, Dolan was a member of Bill Clinton's presidential exploratory committee, then served as Virginia state chairman for the Clinton-Gore campaign in both 1992 and 1996. (On both occasions, Clinton won the election, but lost the commonwealth.) After winning his second term, Clinton appointed Dolan to two four-year terms as the vice-chairman of the State Department's Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.

Dolan returned to the Democratic campaign trail in 2004, serving as a senior communications consultant for John Kerry's unsuccessful White House bid. Four years later, he advised Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire during her unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic nomination.

After that campaign, Dolan started cultivating serious business contacts in Russia.  So we have a high-level Hillary insider with Russian connections.  It was Dolan who gave Danchenko the information that started the Russia hoax and — get this — Techno Fog summarizes the indictment's legalese to say, "The Democrat PR Executive (Dolan) later admitted to the FBI he fabricated this information to Danchenko."

Hoax.  Fraud.  Lies.  And so close to the Clintons and so very deep in the heart of the Democrat party.

The whole story is very complicated, but Jesse Watters, who was sitting in for Tucker, did a great job summarizing it:

 While Watters provided the facts, Stephen Miller provides the moral context and is righteously angry about what was done to the American people through this fraud:

 

As for me, I won't be happy until I see Hillary, John Podesta, and Marc Elias sporting matching orange jumpsuits.

Image: Jesse Watters on the Igor Danchenko indictment. YouTube screen grab.

 

Andrea Widburg

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/the_latest_durham_indictment_is_a_big_one.html

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Biden Admin Silent as EU, Iran and China Freely Violate US Sanctions - Majid Rafizadeh

 

​ by Majid Rafizadeh

[S]ince the Biden administration came to power, it seems that almost everyone has been violating the US sanctions in Iran, China or wherever, and no one is being held accountable.

• The Trump administration sent a robust message that violating sanctions would not be tolerated. But since the Biden administration came to power, it seems that almost everyone has been violating the US sanctions in Iran, China or wherever, and no one is being held accountable.

• The Biden administration appears not to be taking any action against countries such as China or Iran, which continue freely to violate sanctions while using the revenues to bulk up their war machines.

• This US passivity seems due an emerging pattern from the Biden administration of serial surrenders, as seen recently in Afghanistan, on the pretext that "We still believe diplomacy is the best path forward" -- without the threat of an alternative outcome.

• This US inaction also seems due to the false belief and myth, which the Obama administration seems to have held as well, that if you appease predatory regimes -- if you side with the mullahs rather than your old regional allies such as Israel -- then the ruling mullahs will suddenly change their behavior and become constructive players in the Middle East. The eight years of appeasement towards them by the Obama administration only further empowered the Iranian regime and happily bankrolled their military adventurism and nuclear program.

Since the Biden administration came to power, it seems that almost everyone has been violating the US sanctions in Iran, China or wherever, and no one is being held accountable. The Biden administration appears not to be taking any action against countries such as China or Iran, which continue freely to violate sanctions while using the revenues to bulk up their war machines. Pictured: Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (right) and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, at the signing of the China-Iran comprehensive strategic 25-year partnership agreement on economic and security cooperation, in Tehran, Iran on March 27, 2021. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

One of the reasons behind US sanctions is to financially pressure a rogue state, such the Iranian regime, to halt its destabilizing behavior and its march towards acquiring a nuclear bomb. But if sanctions are being freely violated without any consequences, there is no incentive for a predatory and dangerous regime such as Iran to stop its malign activities.

Although the US sanctions did have a negative impact on Iran's economy when they were first re-imposed by the Trump administration in 2018, they have become far less effective as many countries ignored and violated them -- all while the Biden administration has not been taking any action to deter, disincentivize or punish those who breach the sanctions.

According to the US Treasury Department, persons and entities that are neither American nor Iranian will be sanctioned if they trade with the Iranian regime. The Treasury Department has clearly warned that the Iran sanctions are not limited to just Iranian or US entities:

"Consistent with this guidance from the President, the Department of State has revoked certain statutory waivers issued to implement the JCPOA sanctions relief, issued the necessary sanctions waivers to provide for an appropriate wind-down period, and plans to take appropriate action to keep such waivers in place for the duration of the relevant wind-down period, i.e., until August 6, 2018, or November 4, 2018, depending on the activity. Non-U.S., non-Iranian persons are advised to use these time periods to wind- down their activities with or involving Iran that will become sanctionable at the end of the applicable wind-down period."

The Trump administration was holding those who violated sanctions and did business with sanctioned entities accountable. In 2018, for instance, Communist China's Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, the world's largest telecom equipment maker, was arrested in Canada at the request of American authorities. Under the Biden administration, however, she was released to return to China. China's ZTE Corp pled guilty to breaking US sanctions against the Iranian regime during the Trump administration. The Trump administration sent a robust message that violating sanctions would not be tolerated. But since the Biden administration came to power, it seems that almost everyone is freely violating the US sanctions on Iran, China or wherever, and no one is being held accountable.

The Iranian regime, for its part, is finding customers to buy its oil and with whom to trade in spite of the sanctions. The sanctions therefore are not crippling the regime financially even slightly, let alone bringing it to its knees. Before the US Department of the Treasury leveled secondary sanctions against Iran's oil and gas sectors in 2018, for example, Tehran was exporting more than two million barrels of oil a day. In 2019 and 2020, Iran's oil exports went down to fewer than 200,000 barrel a day, representing a decline of roughly 90%. This shift took place after the Trump administration decided not to extend its waiver for Iran's eight biggest oil buyers; China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea.

In 2021, though, right after the Biden administration took office, China ramped up its oil imports from by Iran increasing them from 200,000 a day to nearly one million barrels a day. In other words, Iran is exporting approximately five times more oil than at its nadir in 2019 and 2020. Central Asian countries are also continuing to trade with the Iranian regime. As the sale of oil accounts for more than 80% of the country's export revenues, Iran's regime relies heavily on oil exports.

Additionally, in spite of the US sanctions, the European countries are freely trading with Tehran. From January to July 2021, the EU's trade with Iran brought roughly $3 billion to the regime. The Financial Tribune reports:

"Germany remained the top trading partner of Iran during the seven months under review, as the two countries exchanged €1.01 billion worth of goods."

"Italy came next with €347.96 million worth of trade with Iran.... The Netherlands with €264.48 million (down 9.23%), Spain with €178.33 million (up 9.25%) and Belgium with €140.14 million (up 6.79%) were Iran's other major European trading partners. Estonia registered the highest growth of 709.52% in trade with Iran during the seven months under review. Malta with 471.77%, Romania with 284.86% and Croatia with 169.12% came next."

Iran's commodities exports to the EU in the first six month of 2021 was worth nearly half a billion:

"Iran exported €475.75 million worth of commodities to EU during the seven-month period, indicating an 8.08% growth compared with the similar period of the previous year. Germany with €162.38 million, Italy with €96 million, Spain with €48 million, Romania with €35 million and Bulgaria with €22 million were the main export destinations."

The objectives behind the sanctions are to cut off the flow of funds to the Iranian regime and significantly impact its efforts to advance its nuclear program as well as fund and sponsor terrorist and militia groups across the region.

The Biden administration appears not to be taking any action against countries such as China or Iran, which continue freely to violate sanctions while using the revenues to bulk up their war machines.

This US passivity seems due an emerging pattern from the Biden administration of serial surrenders, as seen recently in Afghanistan, on the pretext that "We still believe diplomacy is the best path forward" -- without the threat of an alternative outcome.

This US inaction also seems due to the false belief and myth, which the Obama administration seems to have held as well, that if you appease predatory regimes -- if you side with the mullahs rather than your old regional allies such as Israel -- then the ruling mullahs will suddenly change their behavior and become constructive players in the Middle East. The eight years of appeasement towards them by the Obama administration only further empowered the Iranian regime and happily bankrolled their military adventurism and nuclear program.

History has proven again and again that appeasing a rogue state will only embolden it. As Winston Churchill warned:

"Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear, I fear greatly, the storm will not pass."

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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/17914/eu-iran-china-violate-sanctions

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Bennett’s Diplomatic Tsunami - Caroline Glick

 

​ by Caroline Glick

Under Bennett’s government, Israel’s foreign policy is predicated on making far-reaching concessions – first and foremost to the Palestinians, and second to the international Left

 

Naftali Bennett’s government’s diplomatic policies came into full view in recent weeks and were put to the test at the UN climate conference in Glasgow this week. The results are unmistakable.

Under Bennett’s government, Israel’s foreign policy is predicated on making far-reaching concessions – first and foremost to the Palestinians, and second to the international Left. Four such concessions stand out.

The first concession is Zionism. Last week, Defense Minister Benny Gantz abandoned the central tenet of Zionism – redemption of the land of Israel through land purchases for Jewish settlement. After it liberated Judea and Samaria from Jordanian occupation in 1967, the Eshkol government chose to administer the areas through the military while maintaining Jordanian law as the governing law of the areas. The military government issued orders that updated the laws from time to time to align the legal regime in the areas with basic principles of civil rights.

Jordanian law contains several racist provisions. One of the most prominent racial laws is Jordan’s land law which bars non-Muslims from purchasing land. In 1971, Israel’s military government amended the law to permit non-Muslim owned companies — but not private non-Muslim citizens — to purchase privately owned land in Judea and Samaria. The amendment required these companies to register the deals with the Civil Administration.

After the Palestinian Authority murdered a number of Palestinian land owners following the registration of their land sales at the Civil Administration, the Defense Ministry and IDF legal advisers recommended amending the law again to permit private citizens who are not Muslims to buy land from private owners.

Gantz refused to enact the recommendation. His refusal caused two Israeli NGOs to petition the Supreme Court to require Gantz to enact the recommendations which are geared towards ensuring the property rights and the lives of Palestinians Muslims and Israeli Jews.

Gantz told the justices that he chose to bar Jews from purchasing land from Palestinians to avoid angering the Palestinian Authority, which is engaging in the wholesale murder of Palestinian land sellers. He also doesn’t want to tick off the international community which, in an expression of unbridled anti-Semitism, rejects Jewish property rights in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

Israel’s second concession relates to land. Specifically, it regards Area C – the sixty percent of Judea and Samaria that includes the Israeli communities, the Jordan Valley, critical infrastructure for Israel’s national security, Jewish heritage sites and military installations.

While the Council of Israeli Communities in Judea and Samaria has praised the Bennett government for approving a few thousand building permits inside the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, the council ignored the larger context in which those permits are being granted. In the hopes of winning brownie points with the Biden Administration and the European Union, the government has approved thousands of construction schemes for the Palestinians in Area C, including plans to build Palestinian settlements inside Israeli communities and settlement blocs. The consequence of this massive Palestinian construction (legal and illegal) in Area C is self-evident, not least because the Palestinian and their EU funders have stated it outright. In due course, massive Palestinian construction in Area C will take the flourishing Israeli farms, towns and cities in Judea and Samaria and transform them into isolated, vulnerable enclaves.

Economics is the third area of major governmental concessions to the Palestinians under Bennett’s leadership. In 2018, the Knesset passed a law barring the government from transferring funds to the PA so long as it continues its Pay to Slay policy of giving salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails and to families of deceased terrorists. In violation of the spirit of the law, Gantz is pouring hundreds of millions of shekels into the coffers of the Palestinian Authority while it devotes nearly ten percent of its budget to paying salaries to terrorists. To skirt the law, Gantz winked and called the funds a loan.

As for Hamas, last weekend, Channel 13 broadcast an investigative report undertaken by Choosing Life, the forum of families of terror victims and the Ad Kan investigative NGO. The report showed that through the Muslim Brotherhood party Ra’am, whose four-member Knesset faction provides Bennett with his bare-majority 61-member ruling coalition, Hamas is also being taken care of by the Bennett government.

The report exposed close financial ties between a Ra’am-controlled fund called the 48 Fund and Hamas. With the 48 Fund’s 250 million shekel budget, senior members of Ra’am have transferred huge sums to Hamas in Gaza and terrorists in Judea and Samaria. The 48 Fund has massive ties as well to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in Turkey and Syria.

Ra’am received hundreds of millions of shekels of government funds under the coalition agreement. The budget passed in the Knesset Wednesday provides Ra’am with commanding influence over the disbursement of 53 billion shekels budgeted to Israeli Arab municipal authorities countrywide.

The fourth major concession the Bennett government made in recent weeks was directed towards the international left. Ahead of his trip to Glasgow, Bennett committed Israel to reducing carbon emissions to zero by 2050. If honored, this commitment will lay waste to Israel’s economy while doing nothing to change global temperatures. Even if it burned dirty coal from one end of the country to the other all day and all night, tiny Israel is too small to impact the world’s climate. But since Bennett has chosen to join the virtue signaling post-national left, he damned Israel’s national economy to destruction.

This brings us to Glasgow. According to Bennett’s advisors, his reception at the conference was a tribute to the success of his brilliant policies. Speaking to Israel Hayom reporter Ariel Kahana they gushed, “We have experienced a diplomatic tsunami – in a good way. This is a great time for Israel’s foreign relations. The meetings [with world leaders in Glasgow] were like speed dates.”

Unfortunately, Bennett’s flaks were partially right. His meetings with the likes of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, Indian Prime Minister Nahrendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison were like speed dates, in the sense that they were momentary thrills entirely lacking in substantive results.

Bennett’s assistants said he conversations on Iran’s nuclear program, urging his foreign counterparts to join Israel in opposing the reinstatement of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran which provides Iran with an open path to a nuclear arsenal.

Despite his climate hysteria and his strategic concessions to the Palestinians, Bennett got nowhere. No one agreed with this request. Probably the main reason for Bennett’s diplomatic flop is that the Biden administration is pushing the opposite policy.  

Not only did President Joe Biden announce the resumption of nuclear talks with Iran towards reinstating U.S. participation in the 2015 deal at the outset of the week. Biden refused to meet with Bennett in Glasgow. Those few leaders who agreed to meet Bennett no doubt saw the cold shoulder Biden gave Bennett and drew the appropriate conclusions.

For all of Biden’s contempt for Bennett, the two politicians are stuck in the same political and policy trap. To win their leadership positions in their respective countries, Biden and Bennett were both compelled to make far-reaching concessions to the leftist fringe of their countries’ political spectrum. And both men are paying a heavy price for their actions.

Bennett is polling at the edge of the threshold to get elected to Knesset. He enjoys the support of between two and six percent of the public. To avoid political oblivion, Bennett is completely beholden to his far left and Muslim Brotherhood coalition partners. He cannot change course. He’s stuck.

Bennett may well have been the only leader at Glasgow with lower approval ratings than Biden’s. The decision by both China and Russia to blow off the UN conference was a statement of contempt for Biden. G-20 organizers also showed Biden the back of their hand when they placed him at the margins of the traditional group photo of G-20 leaders.

While Bennett dangles around the margin of error for zero public support, Biden’s approval numbers are stuck in the low forties. And when Biden returned to Washington on Tuesday, he was greeted with a near sweep by Republicans in local and statewide elections in a slew of Democrat-dominated states.

The Republican victories in Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Georgia, and Minnesota, and beyond showed that under a year into his presidency, Biden has become a lame duck. The coalition of progressives and moderate suburbanites that catapulted the Democrats to power in the White House and both houses of Congress last year, has disintegrated. Independent voters and moderate Democrats have abandoned the party in droves. Republicans are the dead favorites to take control over both houses of Congress in next year’s elections. And in the meantime, moderate Congressional Democrats endangered by the turn of the wheel are likely to oppose Biden’s radical domestic and foreign policies. So a year before the Democrats formally lose their narrow House and Senate majorities at the voting booths, this week they lost their ability to make use of their existing majorities.

But just as Bennett cannot move to the right without being ousted by his coalition bosses, so Biden cannot moderate his own policies without being abandoned by the radical left which controls the party’s grassroots.

To satisfy Biden and please his leftist bosses, when Bennett travelled to Washington to meet Biden in August he refused to meet with Israel’s Republican allies. To their credit, Republican lawmakers held fast to their support for Israel all the same. This week, two hundred Republican House members sent a letter to Biden demanding he abandon his plan to open a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem. Republican Senator Josh Hawley put a hold on Thomas Nides’ confirmation as ambassador to Israel due to Nides’ statements of support for the opening of such a consulate.

Although Republicans won’t abandon their pro-Israel positions in retribution for Bennett’s rudeness, Israel is harmed by Bennett’s poor relations with its most stalwart supporters and friends. But beholden to his Republican-hating leftist and Muslim Brotherhood coalition partners, Bennett will not dare to develop relations with Republicans in any significant way.

Bennett’s diplomatic failure in Glasgow is testament to irrationality of the left’s conviction that Israel’s international standing is directly tied to its concessions to the Palestinians. It is also proof that a prime minister bereft of public support is incapable of advancing any meaningful diplomatic initiatives. Captive to his post-Zionist and anti-Zionist coalition partners, Bennett cannot change course – either to advance Israel’s interests abroad or to build up his own standing with Israeli voters.

This week Bennett did experience a diplomatic tsunami. It came in the form of a cold reality shower telling him — and us — that Israel will get nowhere in the world so long as he and his government remain in power.

Originally published in Israel Hayom.

 

Caroline Glick

Source: https://carolineglick.com/bennetts-diplomatic-tsunami/

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Yamina: Compromise on everything, insist on nothing - Ariel Plaskin

 

​ by Ariel Plaskin

Every single party in the coalition is just as afraid of elections as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's party, which has abandoned its right-wing ideology in its shift to the center.

The vote for the state budget, which was finalized early Friday, essentially ensured that Yair Lapid would become prime minister, both due to his rotation agreement with Naftali Bennett and the clause signed by the Yamina party stipulating that if the government falls for any reason – he will head the transition government.

It's obvious why Lapid insisted on including such a clause in the coalition agreement. The interesting question is why Prime Minister Naftali Bennett agreed. He had significant enough power to reject the proposal, or at least negotiate certain returns in his favor, as Lapid knew he wasn't likely to have such a prime opportunity again. The answer is simple: Yamina officially abandoned its right-wing ideology, and the party is now focusing on centrist voters or merging with a centrist party.

This new direction was also evident in the lead-up to the budget vote. Journalist Yaara Shapira revealed this week that as part of its preparations for the vote, "problematic" lawmakers were identified – from the Joint Arab List – who could torpedo the budget at the last minute. Case and response files were made for these "problematic" MKs, with tailor-made budgetary bonuses to stave off any signs of trouble.

In other words, every member of the Joint Arab List served as the buffer between the new budget and a particularly stinging slap to the face. Each of them was likely to demand and receive the moon and stars. It will have happened behind closed doors, at the last minute, almost assuredly without any attention or outcry from the press. The outrageous sum of 53 billion for Mansour Abbas was just the beginning.

Yamina is employing the customary excuse: "Everyone is compromising so the government doesn't fall." However, in the wake of the complete construction freeze (and pardon me for ignoring the latest spin), leaning on terrorist supporters, shelving the immigration bill, and essentially any law that even sounds right-wing – everyone realizes that the members of Yamina are the only ones compromising – on everything. Considering the current state of affairs – a party without a base that won't pass the electoral threshold – their concerns are understandable. But this is merely spin, and the members of Yamina know it. Every single party in the coalition is just as afraid of elections as Yamina.

Ayelet Shaked could have supported the immigration bill, which she herself drafted, instead of shuttling between MKs to make sure it failed; instead of eliminating it, Bennett could have instructed his party to support the bill that sought to keep terrorists from becoming citizens, and more. Spoiler alert: The bills would have passed, and the government wouldn't have fallen.  Yamina, a wily and clever political actor, knew this. Despite that knowledge, they still decided to concede it all.

"Today is the 104^th anniversary of the cursed Balfour Declaration," said MK Osama Saadi of the Joint Arab List during his address before the Knesset plenum on Tuesday, causing a small storm. Instead of demanding an apology or at least responding, we can only guess what Yamina's "bonus package" for Saadi entailed to ensure his budget vote. That's how it is when you've officially kicked your ideology to the curb – all that's left is guesses.

 

Ariel Plaskin

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/yamina-compromise-on-everything-insist-on-nothing/

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Deadbeat Palestinian Authority Won’t Pay Its Electric Bill - Hugh Fitzgerald

 

​ by Hugh Fitzgerald

Less than one-quarter the amount it spends on its “Pay-For-Slay” program.

 

For the past two years, the Palestinian Authority has not been paying its electric bill to the Israel Electric Company. Now that company would like to be paid, and has said that If it does not receive payment o the $156 million debt that the PA still owes for two years of electricity, It will have to turn off the power.

Here’s Version #1 of this tale, the one that most of the world’s media will disseminate:

The colonial-settler state of Israel has once again demonstrated to the world just how cruel it can be toward the Palestinians. The latest outrage is this: Israel’s Electric Company has actually demanded that the PA pay at once its outstanding bill for the electricity that It has come to rely on during the past two years. This demand comes out of the blue, and at the very moment when the Palestinians are suffering financially. Both EU donors, and Gulf Arab donors, have chosen to reduce their contributions to the PA by at least 80% in 2021. Meanwhile, the PA has been lulled by the IEC into a false sense of security, the feeling that it could postpone that IEC payment until such time as donors could be found to help pay the bill. Israel knows what financial straits the PA is now in, but has done nothing to dissuade the IEC from presenting its non-negotiable claim for payment. The IEC will show the Palestinians no mercy; the company has warned the cash-strapped Palestinians that if the debt were not paid within a week of its notice being received, the electricity will be cut off to the PA-administered territories in the West Bank. The Israelis know that the PA can’t come up with the money, but they have been unwilling to even suggest a possible solution, such as a long-term payment plan, with the debt being paid down pari passu with the amount of aid money the Palestinians manage to now raise.

But why should anyone be surprised that the Israel Electric Company would be so grasping and so unfeeling when it comes to money? It’s part of the Jewish state, after all. And how are Palestinian families expected to survive without the electricity needed to heat their nurseries for the new-born, their bedrooms, their hospitals, their modest homes, and to cook their food and provide light for their classrooms and study halls? Surely this is a matter for the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate. If Israel’s electricity company does carry out its threat and cuts off the electricity that is so desperately needed by the Palestinians, that will constitute one more Israeli “crime against humanity.” There have been so many, which is why the UNHRC decided it had to create a permanent agenda item (#7) that deals with the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.” The IEC’s denial of electricity, so critical to the survival of the Palestinians, and its unwillingness to bargain in good faith with the PA over a possible installment plan for payments, shocks the collective consciousness. The international community must not allow the IEC’s decision to stand.

Version #2 has the same facts, but a different perspective.

For two years, the Palestinian Authority has been receiving electricity from the Israel Electric Company. In that time, the PA has racked up a an accumulated debt of around NIS 500 million ($156.8 million USD) to the IEC. And like any company, the IEC cannot continue to carry such a debt on its books; it needs to be paid. A report on this is here: “Amid heavy debt, PA delegation head to Gulf on fundraising mission,” by Daniel Siryoti, Israel Hayom, October 28, 2021:

In mid-October, the IEC issued the first of two notices sent to the PA about the outstanding debt. This week, the second notice was issued; it said that if the debt was not paid within one week, power will be cut to various PA-controlled areas of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israel Hayom has learned that due to the PA’s severe shortage of funds and amassing debt, a delegation of senior Palestinian officials left Ramallah several days ago on a fundraising mission to Gulf and Arab states.

A senior PA official told Israel Hayom that the IEC debt issue would be resolved in the coming days.

The Palestinian Authority has less funds, as compared to previous years, because the donors in Europe and in the Gulf have become disenchanted with the PA. The European donors are disturbed by the massive corruption in the PA, whose leaders have diverted so much of the aid money into their own pockets, as well as those of their relatives and friends The Europeans are now convinced that there is no , prospect of the PA reforming itself, and casting out the corrupt; the EU is unhappy, too, that the PA continues to ignore its repeated promise to cleanse its schoolbooks of antisemitism. Among the Gulf Arabs who were once such generous donors to the PA, there is a belief that the Palestinians have been indulged and supported by them long enough, that their leaders, in both the PA and Hamas, are thieves, and – as the Saudi Crown Prince angrily told Mahmoud Abbas in 2018 – they should “accept whatever deal the Americans offer.”

What is most disturbing about the PA’s failure to pay its bill is that it could easily pay the IEC bill If it so chose. All it has to do is rearrange its priorities. The PA is not broke. It continues with its “Pay-For-Slay” program, according to which it provides generous stipends both to imprisoned terrorists and to the families of terrorists who died during the attacks they carried out. The “Pay-For-Slay” program costs the PA about $350 million a year. Its unpaid electricity bill from the IEC amounts to about $78 million a year, that is, less than one-quarter the amount that the PA spends on its “Pay-For-Slay” program.

All Mahmoud Abbas need do to pay the IEC’s unpaid electricity bill is to take that $156.8 million from the “Pay-For-Slay” budget for 2021-22, which will still leave that program with $200 million that can be used to subsidize terrorists and their families, even after it pays in full what it owes the IEC. The PA will still be rewarding past, and incentivizing future, terrorism, but not quite to the same horrific extent as it has been until now.

Does anyone find that unfair? Doesn’t the IEC deserve to be paid for the electricity it has provided unstintingly for two years, putting up with non-payment by the PA for as long as it could, but finally demanding what it is owed, in the full knowledge that despite its constant poor-mouthing, the PA still has enough to spend $350 million a year on its Pay-For-Slay program?

Originally posted at Jihad Watch.

 

Hugh Fitzgerald

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/deadbeat-palestinian-authority-wont-pay-its-hugh-fitzgerald/

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The Racial Hoax That's Killing America - John Perazzo

 

​ by John Perazzo

David Horowitz’s new book pounds a leftist lie into dust.

 

 

[Order David Horowitz's new book -- I Can't Breathe: How a Racial Hoax Is Killing America: HERE.]

We live in an age of many lies, and David Horowitz’s I Can’t Breathe lays bare what is perhaps the most destructive lie of them all: the claim that America is a congenitally racist nation where, as Vice President Kamala Harris puts it, black people have “never been treated as fully human.” This lie has colossal implications, for it has caused countless millions of African Americans to view themselves as nothing more than pathetic, eternal victims of contemptible white oppressors, while simultaneously causing untold millions of well-meaning, non-racist whites to rebel angrily against being wrongly smeared as bigots. If ever a lie was destined to poison race relations and breed mutual contempt between blacks and whites, it is this one. But now, with a stirring assault of hard facts and blunt candor, I Can’t Breathe pounds and grinds this leftist lie into dust. In the process, the book exposes Black Lives Matter (BLM) as a violent, malevolent movement founded by Marxist revolutionaries whose principal objective is not to promote racial justice, but to foment a race war that will tear our nation apart by any means necessary.
The book begins its assault by citing, on the very first page, “the disturbing video that recorded the last breaths of George Floyd” in May 2020 and sparked “one of the greatest eruptions of lawlessness and violence in American history.” It points out that not only did BLM activists play leading roles in about 95 percent of the more than 600 violent riots in 200+ cities that broke out shortly Floyd’s death, but that the organization’s foremost leaders steadfastly refused to condemn that violence. This, notes Horowitz, was “in direct contrast to the Civil Rights Movement leaders of the 1960s, who insisted on the principle of non-violence and whose demonstrations were not accompanied by attacks on police or the destruction of local businesses.”

I Can’t Breathe makes it clear that although BLM has chosen to break from the non-violent traditions of past civil rights crusaders, it is no mere fringe movement. Rather, it has evolved into a massive social phenomenon whose influence is enabled by mountains of cash donated by tax-exempt foundations, major American corporations, and millionaires and billionaires from all walks of life.

Moreover, the book explains, BLM has enjoyed the devoted and unwavering support of the Democratic Party, whose National Committee in 2015 went so far as to pass a resolution formally “affirming” the merits of BLM’s crusade against the supposed epidemic of “extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American[s]” in a nation where blacks are routinely “stripped of their dignity under the vestiges of slavery, Jim Crow and White Supremacy.” The Democratic Party’s foremost luminaries – the Obamas, the Clintons, Kamala Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, and a multitude of others – have gushed with praise for BLM and its ideals. During the Obama years, for instance, BLM leaders were invited multiple times to the White House, where they often had an audience with the president himself.

Throughout 2020, Democrats and leftist media outlets – claiming that 11,000+ “peaceful protests” had been held at more than 2,000 distinct locations across the country – argued that BLM’s public demonstrations were “mostly peaceful” expressions of dissent protected by the First Amendment. But Horowitz points out that their assertion is wholly illegitimate, in light of the fact that even those “peaceful” events: (a) “advanced the same Black Lives Matter indictment of America as a systemically racist society,” and (b) were most often “staged during the daytime and then regularly morphed into riots under cover of night.” In other words, writes the author, it is “difficult to regard the ‘peaceful protests’ as distinct and separate from the violence, rather than as fraternal accessories to it.”

As BLM’s toxic message intimidated and devoured one American institution after another throughout 2020, it became clear that Democratic political leaders across the country had neither any intention of standing up in defense of law-enforcement, nor any inclination to reject BLM's “Defund the Police” initiatives which were gaining traction among the left. As a result, police officers quickly concluded that the Democrats who ran their respective cities could not be counted upon to back them up in any meaningful way, and that their own law-enforcement careers, their pensions, and indeed their very lives, could suddenly go up in smoke if ever there came a moment when they might need to use deadly physical force against a black criminal suspect. Thus, the police understandably became reluctant to engage criminal suspects except where absolutely necessary. This trend, coupled with the considerable destructive energies of hordes of newly emboldened criminals, led to a sudden upsurge of violence that dwarfed anything ever before seen in American history. The national homicide total rose from 16,669 in 2019, to 21,570 in 2020 – thanks mostly to the climate of violence created by BLM and its ideological allies.

Not at all chastened by the fact that its raging rhetoric and violent orientation was directly responsible for America’s national bloodbath of 2020, BLM has been relentless in claiming that the racism of police officers -- and of white America more broadly -- constitute the deadliest threats to black lives in the U.S.  Addressing this allegation with unapologetic bluntness, I Can’t Breathe deploys a vast array of facts and statistics which reduce it from a bonfire of wild accusations to a faint, smoldering ember deprived of the intellectual oxygen it needs in order to sustain itself.

The book also examines the cases of the most significant and highly publicized “martyrs” mourned and lionized by the BLM movement – i.e., blacks whose deaths resulted, for the most part, from violent interactions with white police officers. When one reads the accounts of their deaths, the pattern that emerges is unmistakable: In case after case, the martyrs were longtime hardened and violent criminals with volcanic tempers who refused to cooperate with police, often fled from police, and sometimes even tried to murder police. Moreover, in many instances the suspects were severely impaired by their recent consumption of large quantities of alcohol or mind-altering drugs. The absurdity of blaming police for being unable to reach harmonious resolutions with such disturbed characters, is self-evident to anyone who reads the damning summaries of these encounters.

Notably, I Can’t Breathe does not turn a blind eye to incidents where police officers, under tragic and sometimes chaotic circumstances, have killed black individuals who could not, in any way, be described as out-of-control menaces. Consider, for instance, the 2014 police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a black Cleveland youth who was in a public place brandishing a toy gun that was an exact replica of a Colt M1911 semi-automatic pistol. Rice was shot by an officer who thought the boy was raising the gun in preparation to shoot at him. While some critics, in hindsight, contend that the shooting of Rice may not have been necessary, the officer who had to make a split-second, life-or-death decision did not have the same benefit of hindsight in that fateful moment.

In a similarly tragic situation, a young black man named Philando Castile was shot and killed by a Minnesota policeman who apparently misinterpreted what Castile was intending to do with a handgun in his possession and made a split-second – seemingly panicked -- decision to discharge his weapon. In a nation where 700,000 police officers engage in countless millions of encounters with civilians each year, it is inevitable that some of them will occasionally make mistakes – just as some lawyers and civil rights activists will make mistakes, and just as some longtime felons and their acquaintances will make mistakes. Tragedies happen, sometimes even to people with the best of intentions. But when BLM seizes upon such incidents in order to exploit them as evidence of a white war against black innocents, the organization’s dishonesty and malevolence stand out in bold relief.

“If Black Lives Matter were a civil rights organization,” Horowitz trenchantly observes, “one would reasonably expect its patron figure to be Martin Luther King, and its aspiration to be King’s vision of a race-free America where individuals are judged on their merits and not by their skin color. Instead, the revered figure and inspirational icon for Black Lives Matter activists is a designated terrorist and convicted cop killer: Assata Shakur.” Formerly known as Joanne Chesimard, Shakur is a lifelong Marxist revolutionary who once belonged to the Black Liberation Army, an organization that achieved its fame by robbing banks and murdering cops. Having escaped from prison in 1979 with the help of left-wing terrorists, Shakur has lived for decades as a fugitive in Communist Cuba. Indeed, the late Fidel Castro, the sadistic dictator who protected Shakur in his island nation for many years, is yet another revered icon of the BLM movement.

“If Black Lives Matter were a civil rights organization,” Horowitz writes further, “one might reasonably expect its leaders to condemn or at least distance themselves from well-known race haters like Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton. But Black Lives Matter leaders embrace both of those demagogues.” Of course it does. What else would one expect from an organization that proudly endorses the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement, a Hamas-inspired initiative designed to crush the state of Israel economically and politically?

And if BLM were indeed a legitimate civil rights organization, surely it would promote the formation of black families – particularly in the present era, where roughly 70% of black babies are born to unmarried mothers in fatherless homes. It is well documented that regardless of race, being raised without a father is the strongest predicter that a child will grow up to experience long-term poverty, psychological and emotional pathologies, and extended prison stays. And yet, in spite of all this, BLM openly disparages “the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” in favor of alternative arrangements like “collective” communities and “villages.” Why? For no reason other than because Marx and Engels saw the dissolution and abolition of the traditional nuclear family as a natural and desired outgrowth of “the abolition of private property and the introduction of socialism.” This fact alone serves as proof positive that to Black Lives Matter, the overwhelming majority of black lives don’t matter at all.

In other words, an entire year of racial strife and social upheaval that resulted in the most dramatic, sudden upsurge in homicides that our country has ever seen, was based entirely on a carefully crafted lie injected purposefully into the American psyche by a pack of destructive Marxist revolutionaries who don’t give a damn about black lives, white lives, or purple lives. By making this very demonstrable reality plain to every reader, I Can’t Breathe makes a major contribution to the vital task of finally, and blessedly, casting that lie into the dustbin of evil, discredited dogmas.

John Perazzo

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/racial-hoax-killing-america-john-perazzo/

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Pakistan: The Anti-American "Ally" - Lawrence A. Franklin

 

​ by Lawrence A. Franklin

Pakistan ultimately may pay dearly for enabling Afghanistan's Taliban.

• In an interview aired in the US in June 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that Pakistan will deny US use of its territory for "over-the-horizon" surveillance of possible terrorist activity in Afghanistan. Now, there are negotiations for the US to use Pakistan's airspace for military operations in Afghanistan, but is this really an ally on which the United States can count?

• Pakistan helped bankroll and arm the largely Pashtun Taliban terrorist movement, and Pakistani anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines were prevalent in Afghanistan. Often, Taliban fighters were extended refuge in sites established by the Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents. Islamabad's pro-Taliban stance could also be seen in ISI's construction of logistical re-supply depots and training camps for Taliban fighters. Moreover, on occasion. Pakistani military officers, provided direct military support to the Taliban.

• At times, it seemed as if Musharraf was Pakistan's face for the Americans, while other generals continued supporting [sic]
  

• In the months before 9/11, it became clear that US counterterrorist policy was focused on the eventual takedown of the Taliban's and Al Qaeda's ever-widening support for jihadi terrorists. It was then that the ISI cold-shouldered Washington by sponsoring huge pro-Taliban rallies in Pakistan's main cities of Peshawar and Lahore. Even then, it proved difficult for CIA field officers and Station Chiefs to fully shut down their ties to their old ISI counterparts. Reportedly, the CIA Station Chief in Islamabad caustically objected to the US decision to assist anti-Taliban Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan, because, the officer stated, it would infuriate the ISI.

• Pakistan ultimately may pay dearly for enabling Afghanistan's Taliban. The group consists of diverse movements, such as the so-called Pakistani Taliban (Tehrek-e-Taliban) , a coalition of at least ten terrorist organizations dedicated to overthrowing Pakistan's regime. Its recruits include former Taliban members from Afghanistan who had assessed that their former organization was too indulgent of infidels.

• Pakistan has not really been an ally of the West for decades. It was Islamabad that gave Osama bin Laden asylum until he was brought to justice by US Special Operations forces in 2011. Now, the Pakistan's government seems to have positioned the country into China's sphere of influence.

Pakistan, once presumed an ally of the US, has been willfully responsible for the slaughter of many US and NATO troops by having massively assisted enemy jihadists in Afghanistan. And in an interview aired in June, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that Pakistan will deny US use of its territory for "over-the-horizon" surveillance of possible terrorist activity in Afghanistan. Pictured: Khan in 2019. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Pakistan, once presumed an ally of the US, has been willfully responsible for the slaughter of many US and NATO troops by having massively assisted enemy jihadists in Afghanistan. Throughout the 20-year presence of US forces in Afghanistan, Pakistani intelligence operations have included the recruiting, training and arming of the largely ethnic Pashtun Taliban.

Now that the Taliban have returned to power in Kabul, it appears that US-Pakistan diplomatic ties are worsening. The Pakistani government rejects any alleged US effort to shift the blame to Pakistan for the failure of US policy in Afghanistan. Islamabad has denounced an initiative drafted by 22 US Republican Senators to sanction Pakistan for its long-term assistance to the Taliban. US diplomats first want to see if the Taliban respects its promises to establish a tolerant and inclusive regime. Recent talks between US and Pakistani officials in Islamabad revealed other points of disagreement. The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs is urging the US to release Afghanistan's billions of dollars of frozen assets to the Taliban regime while Washington wants Pakistan to press its Taliban contacts to construct a more ethnically and gender diverse governmental leadership. In an interview aired in the US in June 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that Pakistan will deny US use of its territory for "over-the-horizon" surveillance of possible terrorist activity in Afghanistan. Now, there are negotiations for the US to use Pakistan's airspace for military operations in Afghanistan, but is this really an ally on which the United States can count?

There are in Pakistan 14 million Pashtuns, ethnically indistinguishable from the millions of Pashtuns who make up about 42% of Afghanistan's population. Significantly, the Pashtun in Pakistan are contiguous to the eastern provinces of Afghanistan. Although the two countries are separated by mountains, familiar passes serve as corridors for the Pashtun and facilitate cross-border migration for purposes both military and economic. These are the same passes that had a negative impact upon US and NATO troops in their pursuit of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, who crossed national borders to flee, rest, rearm, and return again to resume their fight.

The Pakistani regime's close ties to the Afghan Taliban, as well as the network of ethnic kinship between the overwhelmingly ethnic Pashtun population on both sides of the border, has rendered the US and NATO mission difficult from the start. Pakistan helped bankroll and arm the largely Pashtun Taliban terrorist movement, and Pakistani anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines have been prevalent in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters were often extended refuge.

Despite misleading US diplomatic rhetoric counting Pakistan as an ally, apparently three-quarters of Pakistanis look upon the US unfavorably, purportedly a consequence of Washington's tilt toward Pakistan's hated arch-rival, India.

The Taliban and several other Afghanistan-based jihadi groups are also linked to Pakistan through their Islamist political party counterparts there. Many Afghan Taliban have also long maintained direct links to Pakistan's largest religious party, Jamiat-e-Islami. In addition, Pakistan's religious political parties had previously maintained ties with anti-Soviet Afghan mujahedin groups during Moscow's occupation of the country from 1980 to 1988.

It was in this period of Soviet occupation that the CIA and the ISI coordinated the Afghan mujahedeen's resistance against Soviet troops. It was the CIA's work with Pakistan's ISI in this war of anti-Soviet resistance that helped to develop the ISI into the formidable Pakistani intelligence outfit it is at present.

After the Al-Qaeda/Taliban terror bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, however, a serious cleavage in intelligence cooperation between the US and Pakistan followed. The attacks prompted President Bill Clinton to launch scores of Cruise Missiles at eight Al-Qaeda/Taliban training camps in Afghanistan, where the ISI was sponsoring terrorist groups in Kashmir who were fighting to "liberate" the Muslims there from Indian rule. After the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistani intelligence officers oversaw a massive program of military assistance from Pakistan's army to the Taliban.

Pakistani assistance and Arab Gulf State financial aid were also invaluable in helping the Taliban to launch their military campaigns in Afghanistan in 1994, until they were able to come to power in Kabul in 1996. During these years, only three states extended diplomatic recognition to the Taliban regime: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The ISI's principal objective behind its pro-Taliban policy initiative has evidently been to ensure that Afghanistan remained in Pakistan's sphere of influence. Pakistani military leaders still appear to view Afghanistan as a deep territorial reserve -- further "strategic depth" -- in the eventuality of a war with India. Alternatively, Taliban terrorists were employed by Pakistan's ISI to target any investment projects by New Delhi in Afghanistan. To that end, the ISI created a small terrorist organization, Harkat al-Ansar, specifically to execute terrorist missions against Indian targets, such as an Indian commercial jet A300 airbus jet that was hijacked in 1999 and flown to the Taliban-controlled city of Kandahar. US intelligence agencies were, it appears, fully aware of the ISI's training and military aid to other Kashmir-based terrorist groups such as Harakat Mujahedeen and Harakat-Jehad-Islami.

Three of Pakistan's Army generals who successfully staged a coup against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999, thereby installing the regime of Pervez Musharraf, apparently all had deep ties to the ISI and were zealous supporters of the Afghan Taliban. One of the coup-plotters, General Mahmoud Ahmad, was subsequently named ISI director. Another leader of the coup, General Mohammad Aziz, became a (now former) ISI director. The third, General Muzaffar Osmani, also appears, to have been a key supporter of a future Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. At times, it seemed as if Musharraf was Pakistan's face for the Americans, while other generals continued supporting Islamic terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their support included Pakistan's grant of sanctuary to the top circle of Taliban leaders in the capital city of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, Quetta, and the protected residence of the Taliban's supreme commander Mullah Omar.

The ISI appears to be more influential in determining Pakistan's foreign policy in Afghanistan than any other institution in Pakistan's government including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Pakistan, as it is home to many Central Asian Islamic terrorist groups, also plays a role in supporting Jihadist militancy in Central Asia. After the USSR's disintegration, the ISI began fomenting rebellions in the newly independent states of Central Asia, particularly in Uzbekistan. The ISI generously endowed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) while extending protection to the now-deceased IMU chief Tahir Yuldashev in Peshawar, Pakistan. The ISI especially targeted Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley region while assisting Central Asia Jihadi groups. The Fergana Valley would be an important prize for Pakistani-based terrorist groups due to its proximity to the other Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Recognizing this geopolitical reality, Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush authorized counter-terrorist training of Uzbek soldiers in this area by the Fifth US Special Forces Group of Green Berets.

In the months before 9/11, it became clear that US counterterrorist policy was focused on the eventual takedown of the Taliban's and Al Qaeda's ever-widening support for jihadi terrorists. It was then that the ISI cold-shouldered Washington by sponsoring huge pro-Taliban rallies in Pakistan's main cities of Peshawar and Lahore. Even then, it proved difficult for CIA field officers and Station Chiefs to fully shut down their ties to their old ISI counterparts. Reportedly, the CIA Station Chief in Islamabad caustically objected to the US decision to assist anti-Taliban Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan, because, the officer stated, it would infuriate the ISI.

The most lethal anti-US terrorist group supported by Pakistan's ISI is the infamous North Waziristan-based Haqqani network. The ISI originally forged its close ties to the Haqqanis during the anti-Soviet war of resistance when the network's chief, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was the senior Eastern Pashtun Commander with the Taliban. The Haqqani group, now led by Jalaluddin's son, Sarajuddin Haqqani, is now the Taliban government's Minister of Interior and leading the hunt for any Afghans who cooperated with Western forces there. He is also partially responsible for protecting and expanding Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan. The Haqqani gang for decades has conducted suicide attacks against US and Indian targets. Consequently, the US placed a $5 million bounty on Sarajuddin Haqqani's head. Thanks to protection provided by Pakistani intelligence agents, neither Haqqani, father or son, has ever been apprehended.

While the ISI acts with impunity, it is important to note that some wealthy Pakistanis, private individuals, also contribute large sums of money to the Taliban. As early as the Autumn of 2001, Pakistan's current Prime Minister Imran Khan was an open supporter of the Taliban as well as an anti-US provocateur. After the Taliban's seizure of power in Afghanistan praised in early August, Khan, consistent with his pro-Taliban stance, publicly praised the Taliban for its victory.

Pakistan ultimately may pay dearly for enabling Afghanistan's Taliban. The group consists of diverse movements, such as the so-called Pakistani Taliban (Tehrek-e-Taliban) , a coalition of at least ten terrorist organizations dedicated to overthrowing Pakistan's regime. Its recruits include former Taliban members from Afghanistan who had assessed that their former organization was too indulgent of infidels. After the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Prime Minister Khan, perhaps worried that he had helped produce a "Frankenstein monster," met with Pakistan's Tehrek-e-Taliban representatives in an apparent attempt to establish amicable relations.

Pakistan has not really been an ally of the West for decades. It was Islamabad that gave Osama bin Laden asylum until he was brought to justice by US Special Operations forces in 2011. Now, the Pakistan's government seems to have positioned the country into China's sphere of influence. As the journalist Caroline Glick noted, after 9/11, as the Taliban was the brainchild of Pakistani ISI Jihadists, "Pakistan should have been the first domino to fall."

 

Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17894/pakistan-anti-american

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