Zelenskyy says UN, Red Cross order Russia to take its 'mountains of corpses' - Caitlin McFall

 

by Caitlin McFall

Zelensky says Ukrainian forces have 'broken' Russia's troops 'psychologically'

 

 

The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have directed Russian President Vladimir Putin to remove his "mountain of corpses," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday. 

"They abandoned their military," Zelenskyy said in an interview with a Ukrainian news outlet. "They were dying, but they didn't care. Recently I was told that they are only now thinking about taking the corpses. 

"When the war started…they used to pretend that there were no corpses," he continued. "The UN and the Red Cross said – take these bags away. Mountains of corpses of their military."

A Russian Armoured personnel carrier (APC) burns next to an unidentified soldier's body during a fight with the Ukrainian armed forces in Kharkiv. (Photo by SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty Images)

UKRAINE'S ZELENSKYY PUSHES FOR NEW SECURITY AGREEMENTS WITHOUT RUSSIA, APART FROM PEACE TALKS

Moscow has long relied on its propaganda machine to fuel support for its conflict in Ukraine and Putin has refused to declare open war on Kyiv, instead calling it a "special military operation."

Reports surfaced early in the invasion that Russia was potentially relying on a "mobile crematorium" to dispose of dead soldiers to help cover the evidence of mounting causalities. 

The Pentagon has assessed that Russia is behind schedule in eastern Ukraine, where it intends to gain "full control."

But press secretary John Kirby said Friday that the U.S. has assessed that Russian forces are still making "incremental gains" in the Donbas and a senior U.S. defense official told reporters this week the U.S. believes Moscow is making some headway in the Black Sea as well.

"The Russians are still well behind where we believe they wanted to be when they started this revitalized effort in the eastern part of the country," Kirby said from the Pentagon. "And while they have made, and we have been very honest about this, they have made some incremental progress in the Donbas. It is incremental, it is slow, it's uneven, and the Ukrainians continue to push back."

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife Olena Zelenska attend the funeral of Leonid Kravchuk, independent Ukraine's first president, at the International Convention Center Ukrainian House, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 17, 2022. Kravchuk led Ukraine to independence amid the collapse of the Soviet Union and served as its first president. He died on May 10 at the age of 88.  (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

UKRAINE MORALE IS 'HUGE' BOOST IN WAR WITH RUSSIA, NATO MILITARY CHIEFS SAY

Zelenskyy said Ukrainians are fighting to protect their independence and championed that 700,000 Ukrainians are fighting against Russian forces across the war-torn nation. 

The Ukrainian president said he signed a decree in early 2022 to add 100,000 additional troops to its fighting force by next year, but warned he is not sure that this will be enough to take on the entire might of Russia.

Western defense officials have argued Russia does not appear to have properly planned for its major offensive against Ukraine, and Zelenskyy said Saturday his nation had been bracing for an attack since September 2021 as Russia started to amass troops along its southern border.

But Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is fighting more than just Russia and has Belarus to contend with as it has backed Putin's deadly campaign.

Soldiers place the Ukrainian flag on the coffin of 41-year-old soldier Simakov Oleksandr, during his funeral ceremony, after he was killed in action, at the Lychakiv cemetery, in Lviv, western Ukraine, Monday, April 4, 2022.  (AP)

Zelenskyy said he could not predict when the war with Russia would end, but said Ukrainians have already psychologically "broken" Russia’s forces by prolonging a fight Putin apparently believed would last a matter of weeks.

"We have to look at the cost of this war," he said. "We broke the back of one of the world's strongest armies. We have already done it. Psychologically we have done it. 

"They will not stand on their feet for the next few years," he added.

 

Caitlin McFall

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/zelenskyy-un-red-cross-russia-mountains-corpses

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China Starting Next Global Crisis By Gobbling Up Sri Lanka - Gordon G. Chang

 

by Gordon G. Chang

The Chinese have established a pattern. "China extends debt on onerous terms, backs up authoritarian governments when there are financial collapses or civil disobedience, and then takes everything it can find," Cleo Paskal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Gatestone.

• Sri Lanka is only the world's opening act.

• Events in Sri Lanka also highlight how China is going about dominating the world. Beijing is corrupting national leaders, drowning them in debt, and ultimately destabilizing their governments. Beijing, it appears, is particularly targeting democracies.

• China is the world's predatory lender, something evident from its Belt and Road Initiative, also known as BRI. Beijing's grand infrastructure project specializes in roads, ports, and railroads that have, like the Sri Lankan projects, little or no commercial justification. So far, 146 countries have signed BRI memo agreements with Beijing.

• The Chinese have established a pattern. "China extends debt on onerous terms, backs up authoritarian governments when there are financial collapses or civil disobedience, and then takes everything it can find," Cleo Paskal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Gatestone.

• In December 2017, Beijing took control of the Hambantota port.... Now there are concerns that Hambantota will eventually become a Chinese naval base. China's admirals have long eyed Sri Lanka...

• A base in Sri Lanka would allow Chinese aircraft and surface combatants as well as submarines to cut sea lanes in the Indian Ocean and force next-door India to divert military assets to a threatening presence.

• Sri Lanka is now looking for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, but that is not necessarily a good idea. The international community should not be helping a voracious China gobble up small, vulnerable societies.

• If the IMF bails out Sri Lanka without ensuring that it is no longer aligned with Beijing, it will have subsidized Chinese investment and politically reinforced a country that becomes a Chinese proxy." – Cleo Paskal, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, to Gatestone, May, 2022.

Events in Sri Lanka highlight how China is going about dominating the world. China is the world's predatory lender. Beijing is corrupting national leaders, drowning them in debt, and ultimately destabilizing their governments. Beijing, it appears, is particularly targeting democracies. Pictured: Police use tear gas to disperse protesters who are demanding the resignation of Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in Colombo on May 19, 2022. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP via Getty Images)

On May 12, India confirmed that it would provide a desperate Sri Lankan government 65,000 metric tons of urea, pursuant to an existing $1 billion credit line. The sale, which overrides New Delhi's ban on the exports of the commodity, relieves severe pressure on the government of Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Sri Lanka since the end of March has been wracked by violent protests. "Shoot-on-sight" orders have for the most part restored order, but the unrest has led to the replacement of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, once the country's dominate political figure. His brother, the president, is unlikely to survive the tumult. The ongoing economic and financial crisis is Sri Lanka's worst since independence from Britain in 1948.

Sri Lanka is only the world's opening act. Disturbances there constitute the first in a series of crises about to engulf vulnerable countries, perhaps even large ones. The war in Ukraine, aggravating underlying problems in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, is shaking just about every corner of the planet.

Events in Sri Lanka also highlight how China is going about dominating the world. Beijing is corrupting national leaders, drowning them in debt, and ultimately destabilizing their governments. Beijing, it appears, is particularly targeting democracies.

India's urea, a fertilizer, will allow Sri Lankan farmers to plant in the May-August Yala cultivation season. It comes at a time of critical need. The country was spending about $400 million annually to import fertilizer but had not been able to make purchases recently due to the lack of foreign exchange. The government last year, to conserve currency reserves, banned chemical fertilizer.

The finance ministry reports that the country has only $25 million in usable foreign reserves on hand, hardly sufficient to service obligations. Sri Lanka is scheduled to repay $7 billion in debt this year, a part of the $26 billion due by 2026. The country's total foreign debt is $51 billion.

The chemical fertilizer ban forced farmers to abandon paddies, and some joined the recent protests.

There is, as a result, hunger in the country, and soaring food prices have fueled protests. "I've been living in Colombo for 60 years, and I've never seen anything like this," said Vadivu, a domestic worker, to AFP in March. "There's nothing to eat, there's nothing to drink." This month, food prices there, Sri Lanka's most-populous city, tripled in the space of a few days.

The new prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said he would ensure that everyone had three meals a day. "There won't be a hunger crisis, we will find food," he told the BBC.

That is a promise Wickremesinghe may not be able to keep. Sri Lanka cannot solve its problems on its own. The COVID-19 pandemic ended tourism, a main source of revenue. Moreover, the Russian invasion of Ukraine—both countries are big sources of tourists for Sri Lanka—killed hopes for a recovery this year.

The issue, however, goes beyond tourist arrivals. The Ukraine war looks as if it is ending a decades-long period of globalization, and this transition is going to be difficult for countries that are especially dependent on others. The Sri Lankan crisis, therefore, is only the beginning. "Sri Lanka is the first country to buckle under the mounting economic pressures triggered by the war in Ukraine," London's Guardian stated. "It is unlikely to be the last."

Sri Lanka also faces another difficulty: China. The dominant Rajapaksa clan, long thought to be in Beijing's pocket, borrowed heavily from Chinese sources for misconceived ventures. Many of the "white-elephant projects" are in the Hambantota district, the home of the Rajapaksas.

The Hambantota port, losing $300 million in six years, was ill-conceived from the beginning. Port operators, therefore, were unable to service $1.4 billion in loans from China. Close to the port is a rarely used $15.5 million conference center. Thanks to a $200 million loan from China, Sri Lanka was able to build the nearby Rajapaksa Airport, which could not pay even its electricity bills.

In Colombo, there is Sri Lanka's answer to Dubai: the Chinese-funded Port City, an island of 665 acres of landfill and a "hidden debt trap." In that city is also the never-opened-to-the-public Lotus Tower, also funded by China. "What is the point of being proud of this tower if we are left begging for food?" asked Krishantha Kulatunga, the owner of a small stationery store near the landmark. "We are neck-deep in loans already."

China extended around 17% of the country's total debt. Very few know the full extent of the indebtedness to Chinese parties because there are hard-to-track loans to Sri Lanka's state firms and to the country's central bank.

Whatever their amount, Chinese loans have broken Sri Lanka. In April, it declared a suspension of repayment of foreign debt. The BBC reports that the suspension, the first default since independence, is "largely because it cannot service loans from China that paid for massive infrastructure projects."

China is the world's predatory lender, something evident from its Belt and Road Initiative, also known as BRI. Beijing's grand infrastructure project specializes in roads, ports, and railroads that have, like the Sri Lankan projects, little or no commercial justification. So far, 146 countries have signed BRI memo agreements with Beijing. Some of them find themselves in hock to the Chinese.

The Chinese have established a pattern. "China extends debt on onerous terms, backs up authoritarian governments when there are financial collapses or civil disobedience, and then takes everything it can find," Cleo Paskal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Gatestone.

This pattern is evident in Sri Lanka. In December 2017, Beijing took control of the Hambantota port, grabbing 70% of the equity and signing a 99-year lease, after that project could not repay high-interest loans extended by China. Now there are concerns that Hambantota will eventually become a Chinese naval base.

China's admirals have long eyed Sri Lanka: In both September and October 2014 the Sri Lankan government allowed a Chinese submarine and its tender to dock at the Chinese-funded Colombo International Container Terminal.

A base in Sri Lanka would allow Chinese aircraft and surface combatants as well as submarines to cut sea lanes in the Indian Ocean and force next-door India to divert military assets to a threatening presence.

It is no coincidence that Djibouti, also heavily indebted to Chinese parties, is now the site of China's first offshore military base.

"This pattern is deep, entrenched, and expanding, and so it's like the dominoes have all been set up and Beijing is perfectly happy to have them fall down so that it can come to the rescue economically and politically and entrench itself even more," Paskal noted.

Sri Lanka is now looking for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, but that is not necessarily a good idea. The international community should not be helping a voracious China gobble up small, vulnerable societies.

"It's not financial restructuring that you need, it's political restructuring that you need before you should put in any more money," Paskal said. "If the IMF bails out Sri Lanka without ensuring that it is no longer aligned with Beijing, it will have subsidized Chinese investment and politically reinforced a country that becomes a Chinese proxy."

• Follow Gordon G. Chang on Twitter

 

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18545/sri-lanka-crisis-china

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Iran Takes More Foreign Hostages; Biden Administration, EU Stay Silent - Majid Rafizadeh

 

by Majid Rafizadeh

The Biden administration and the EU should not remain silent in the face of the Iranian regime taking more foreign hostages. The only language that all rogue and predatory regimes, including that of the mullahs, understand is the language of pressure.

• "[T]here are extensive, vague and arbitrary grounds in Iran for imposing the death sentence, which quickly can turn this punishment into a political tool.... In addition, the structural flaws of the justice system are so deep and at odds with the notion of rule of law that one can barely speak of a justice system. The entrenched flaws in law and in the administration of the death penalty in Iran mean that most, if not all, executions are an arbitrary deprivation of life." — Javaid Rehman, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, October 25, 2021.

• The Iranian regime most likely believes that detaining Western nationals will put pressure on the EU and the US to accept its demands and seal the nuclear deal as soon as possible.

• The Biden administration and the EU should not remain silent in the face of the Iranian regime taking more foreign hostages. The only language that all rogue and predatory regimes, including that of the mullahs, understand is the language of pressure. Why not try using it?

The Biden administration and the EU have remained silent in the face of the Iranian regime taking more hostages. Iran recently announced that a Swedish-Iranian national, Ahmadreza Djalali will be executed by May 21, 2022. He was arrested in 2016 on the trumped-up charge of spying for a country that the Iranian regime wants to annihilate: Israel. Pictured: Demonstrators protest against Djalali's imprisonment and death sentence, on May 14, 2022 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)

The European Union appear excited that the nuclear talks have reopened again to revive the nuclear deal that will bring nuclear weapons to the "world largest state sponsor of terrorism," Iran, and additional billions of dollars to the treasury of the country's ruling mullahs and to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to practice more terrorism. In the meantime, the Biden administration and the EU have remained silent in the face of the Iranian regime taking more hostages.

Iran's Ministry of Intelligence recently detained two French citizens. The Iranian authorities claimed that they arrested the two because they were planning to cause "chaos, social disorder, and instability". Iran's judiciary spokesperson, Zabihollah Khodaian, also stated that a Swedish-Iranian national, Ahmadreza Djalali, has received a death sentence and he will be executed by May 21, 2022. He was arrested in 2016 on the trumped-up charge of spying for a country that the Iranian regime wants to annihilate: Israel.

The ruling clerics bring vague charges against detainees. These accusations can be "national security crimes", "moharebeh" (enmity against God), "ifsad fil arz" (sowing corruption) and "baghi" (armed rebellion). As Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, told the UN General Assembly:

"there are extensive, vague and arbitrary grounds in Iran for imposing the death sentence, which quickly can turn this punishment into a political tool.... In addition, the structural flaws of the justice system are so deep and at odds with the notion of rule of law that one can barely speak of a justice system. The entrenched flaws in law and in the administration of the death penalty in Iran mean that most, if not all, executions are an arbitrary deprivation of life."

The mullahs are ratcheting up hostage-taking for several reasons. To begin with, the regime most likely wants to gain more leverage, more concessions, and to obtain the upper hand in the ongoing nuclear talks.

The nuclear talks, which are being held in Vienna, have been dragging on for nearly a year; the regime seems desperate to revive the nuclear deal and have economic sanctions lifted. It is facing a huge budget deficit, the unemployment rate and inflation are high, and Tehran is finding it extremely difficult to fund its network of militia and terror groups across the Middle East.

The Iranian regime most likely believes that detaining Western nationals will put pressure on the EU and the US to accept its demands and seal the nuclear deal as soon as possible. Notably, the detention of the two Europeans came right before the European Union envoy and coordinator of the nuclear talks, Enrique Mora, met with Iran's nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, in Tehran.

An important demand by the Iranian leaders has been to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its elite branch, the Quds Force -- which has blood of many Americans on its hands -- from the terrorist list. By taking hostages, the ruling clerics want to pressure the Biden administration and the EU to accept all of their demands, in particular removing the IRGC from the terrorist list.

In addition, the Iranian regime recently sentenced to death a Swedish-Iranian national, likely to put pressure on Sweden to release Iranian diplomat Hamid Nouri, who is on trial in Sweden. Nouri is the first Iranian diplomat under the Islamic Republic to be tried in a foreign country.

The Swedish authorities arrested Nouri in November 2019; he is believed to have been involved in the 1988 massacre where nearly 30,000 political prisoners were executed by the Iranian regime. In July, after 21 months of investigation, prosecutors at Stockholm District Court issued an indictment against him. His trial began the following month; a verdict is expected this year.

The Iranian regime appears enraged by Nouri's trial. Iran's foreign ministry recently summoned the Swedish envoy to protest what it calls "the baseless and fabricated accusations that the Swedish prosecutor made against Iran during Nouri's court case". Iran's foreign ministry is basically saying that their diplomat is on trial based on false accusations (involvement in the 1988 massacre). They did not explain, however, what fabrications they were talking about. They just said that their diplomat should not be on trial.

The Iranian regime also has been known to hold foreign hostages as pawns for financial gain. The Obama administration, for instance, shipped $400 million in an unmarked plane to Iran for the release of four Iranian-American prisoners.

The Biden administration and the EU should not remain silent in the face of the Iranian regime taking more foreign hostages. The only language that all rogue and predatory regimes, including that of the mullahs, understand is the language of pressure. Why not try using it?

• 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/18546/iran-foreign-hostages

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Riots at the Funeral Cortege of Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh - Hugh Fitzgerald

 

by Hugh Fitzgerald

The real story of why Israeli police intervened.

 

You have all seen the videos of Israeli police appearing to be beating back, for no apparent reason, Palestinian mourners trying to hold onto, or to reach, the coffin of Shireen Abu Akleh. The videos make the police look bad, because the viewer has not been provided with any context: why are the police doing what they are doing? But if you investigate further and find out what the police felt they had to do for the sake of Shireen Abu Akleh’s family, your mind will change. A report on what the Israeli police were trying to do, and ultimately succeeded in doing, is here: “Israel Police: Officers Intervened at Reporter’s Funeral to Prevent ‘Mob’ From Taking Coffin Against Family’s Wishes,” Algemeiner, May 13, 2022:

Israeli police said Friday that they charged a group of Palestinians carrying the coffin of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh to prevent them from taking the coffin on an “unplanned procession by foot,” against the wishes of the slain journalist’s family.

Shireen’s family did not want her funeral turned into a political spectacle and circus; they wanted her coffin to be taken from St Joseph’s French Hospital to the church for her funeral, and then to the cemetery on Mt. Zion, in a quiet and dignified fashion, and not be held aloft by a raucous mob of rioting Palestinians, chanting anti-Israel slogans, wearing T-shirts with photographs of M-19 rifles printed on their front, and shouting the Muslim war cry “Allahu akbar,” which would surely have disturbed Shireen’s Christian family. Shireen in death was more valuable to the Palestinians than she was when alive; she was no longer a person but had become a weapon in the Palestinian propaganda war, and the Palestinians were determined to make the most of her funeral and burial, whatever the family itself wanted.

On Friday, about 300 rioters arrived at Saint Joseph hospital in Jerusalem and prevented the family members from loading the coffin onto the hearse to travel to the cemetery — as had been planned and coordinated with the family in advance,” an Israel Police statement said.

Instead, the mob threatened the driver of the hearse and then proceeded to carry the coffin on an unplanned procession to the cemetery by foot,” it continued. “This went against the wishes of the Abu Akleh family and the security coordinations that had been planned to safeguard the large number of mourners.”

The group refused instructions from Israel Police as well as the Abu Akleh family and an EU diplomat, the statement continued.

This provides an entirely different understanding of the violence just outside St. Joseph’s French hospital. The Israeli police were only trying to enforce the wishes of the Abu Akleh family, who had planned to have her coffin travel by hearse to the Mt. Zion cemetery, where she was to be buried next to her parents. The Israeli police were beating back those trying to grab the coffin and violate her family’s wishes. The 300 Palestinian rioters who had arrived to appropriate the coffin prevented Shireen Abu Akleh’s relatives from loading the coffin into the hearse, to be transported to the church. The mob prevented the hearse itself from moving by threatening the driver, then they seized the coffin from the pallbearers who were relatives and friends of Shireen Abu Akleh, and tried to make off with it, on their unstable shoulders, so as to parade it through the streets of Jerusalem, accompanied by Allahu-akbaring crowds (Shireen Abu Akleh was a Christian), to the church for the funeral. Instead the Israeli police managed, within just a few minutes, to wrest control of the casket from the mob so that it could be placed in the hearse, which then drove off to the church.

The videos of those few minutes, when the police were struggling to wrest control of the casket from the mob, however, did great damage to Israel’s image. One saw policemen pushing and wielding their batons at what, to the unwary, simply seemed to be grieving Palestinians determined to carry the coffin of their “martyr” to her funeral. There was no way to know, from those videos that every national newscast carried, that rioters were violating the wishes of the Abu-Akleh family, who wanted the casket to be transported by hearse, instead of being carried by a raucous and mostly Muslim mob as part of political theatre, and that the Israeli police were attempting only to enforce the family’s desires. Nor could viewers see the M-16 rifles imprinted on the tee-shirts worn by the members of the mob, or hear what they were shouting. 

Israeli Police intervened to disperse the mob and prevent them from taking the coffin, so that the funeral could proceed as planned in accordance with the wishes of the family,” it added. “During the riot that was instigated by the mob, glass bottles and other objects were thrown, resulting in the injury of both mourners and police officers.”

Several minutes after police intervened, Abu Akleh’s coffin was placed in a vehicle that headed toward the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin in Jerusalem’s Walled Old City, where the funeral ceremony proceeded peacefully.

Police said earlier Friday that six suspects were arrested at the scene for violating public order and attacking police officers before and at the beginning of the funeral procession.

What was the reaction of the Bidenites to Israel’s attempts to enforce the wishes of the Abu Akleh family? They rushed to judgment.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was “deeply troubled” by the violent scenes, and said American officials remained in close contact with Israeli and Palestinian authorities, calling on parties to “maintain calm and avoid any actions that could further escalate tensions.”

That is exactly what the Israeli police were trying to do: to “maintain calm” by preventing rioters from grabbing and making off with the coffin as part of their celebration of Abu Akleh’s “martyrdom,” and to ensure that the coffin travelled by hearse to the cemetery as the family had wanted. And that is what the police accomplished within a few minutes, taking control of the coffin and having the designated pallbearers place it in the hearse – but the videos offer no context in showing Israeli police using batons to beat back those trying to make off with the coffin, and preventing it from being loaded into the hearse.

The Bidenites were quick to deplore the “intrusion of what should have been a peaceful procession” at the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh, failing to realize that the “peaceful procession” had been destroyed not by the Israeli police, but by 300 Palestinian rioters who ha arrived to seize the coffin of the dead woman, attempting to take it away from family members who did not want her funeral turned into a violent political event. The Israeli police were trying to prevent those rioters from grabbing the coffin, and to ensure that it was placed in the hearse that would take it to the cemetery. The police succeeded, and the coffin went, as the family wanted, by hearse to the that it remained with the pallbearers chosen by the family.

The Bidenites, however, were quick to comment, apparently unwilling to wait to hear Israel’s explanation of the violent encounter between police and rioters outside the St. Joseph’s French Hospital. A report on their reaction is here: “US Conveys ‘Anger, Frustration’ to Israel Over Violence at Journalist’s Funeral,” Algemeiner, May 13, 2022:

The White House Friday described as “deeply disturbing” footage from the Jerusalem funeral of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh that showed Israeli police forces rushing the start of the procession.

The White House apparently saw the scenes of baton-armed Israeli police, trying to keep hundreds of rioters from making off with the casket, without understanding what was going on – that Israeli forces intervened only to ensure that the family’s wishes to have the casket transported by hearse to the church would be carried out.

“We have all seen those images, they’re obviously deeply disturbing,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “We regret the intrusion of what should have been a peaceful procession.”

The Bidenites ought to have discussed the situation with Israel, to understand what exactly was going on with the casket, the family, and the rioters, before issuing their hasty and wrongheaded condemnation, that appears to blame the Jewish state, which ought instead to be praised for rescuing the casket from those who wanted to exploit it for their own purposes.

Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that the administration of President Joe Biden conveyed a harsher message to Jerusalem. According to the Walla! news site, White House sources said there was “anger and frustration” at the actions of Israeli police during the funeral procession.

“We have urged respect for the funeral procession, the mourners and the family at this sensitive time,” Psaki said.

Respect “for the funeral procession, the mourners, and the family” are exactly what the Israeli police were trying to enforce. It was not they who were intent on ignoring the family’s wishes, but the rioters.

Asked if she condemned the Israeli forces’ actions, she responded: “I think when we said they were disturbing, we obviously were not justifying them.”

If the Bidenites had understood the true situation, they would not have expressed “anger and frustration” – even privately — with the Israelis. They would have said, instead, that “we deplore the attempt of several hundred people to interfere violently with the funeral cortege of Shireen Abu Akleh by trying to seize the casket, snatching it away just before it could be put into the hearse. After a few – minutes, order was thankfully restored by the police, the casket placed in the hearse, according to the wishes of the family, and then transported to the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin for her funeral.”

That is what the Bidenites should have said. As usual, they rushed ahead with their condemnation of Israel, based on a gross misunderstanding of what the dead girl’s family wanted, and what the rioters were trying to accomplish in snatching the casket away from the pallbearers. 

Israel now must patiently explain to Washington and to the world what the protesters tried to do, and why the Israeli police were right to prevent them, instead of letting a mob violate the wishes of the deceased woman’s family. There is, of course, the perennial problem whenever Israel is maligned and then tries to set the record straight. It’s what Mark Twain once said: “A lie can go halfway round the world, while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

 

Hugh Fitzgerald

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/riots-funeral-cortege-shireen-abu-akleh-hugh-fitzgerald/

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Demonization, American Style - Caroline Glick

 

by Caroline Glick

The idea of using demonization as a political tool was most powerfully introduced to radical US politics by political guru Saul Alinsky

 

Demonization, the effort to portray a political rival as an inhuman monster, has long been a means to mobilize public support. The ancient Romans did it. The Soviets didn’t know there was another option.

While negative campaigning has long been a tried and true method for winning elections in the free world, actual demonization was fairly rare, particularly in the United States, actual demonization was a fairly rare phenomenon until after the turn of the century. But in recent decades, and with unprecedented intensity and venom since 2016, the Democrats have aped the Soviets and adopted demonization as their main political tool for winning elections. The primary object of their hatred is former President Donald Trump.

Last Sunday, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi showed how it is done in an interview with CNN. The interview focused on the Democrat Party’s concern that the conservative majority in the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the federal mandate for abortions and letting the separate states decide for themselves whether to place limitations on the procedure. Concerns among Democrats and the party’s progressive base rose exponentially earlier this month when in a shocking break with the past, a source at the Supreme Court leaked a draft judgment on the issue authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito to Politico.

Sunday, CNN‘s Dana Bash asked Pelosi if the fact that conservatives are now the majority on the Supreme Court means that the Democrats dropped the ball on abortion rights. Pelosi rejected Bash’s assertion and instead blamed Trump.

Brimming with rage Pelosi seethed, “Who would have ever suspected that a creature like Donald Trump would become president of the United States, waving a list of judges that he would appoint, therefore getting the support of the far-right, and appointing those anti-just freedom justices to the court?”

In that one sentence, Pelosi managed to demonize Trump, demonize Trump voters and delegitimize three sitting justices of the Supreme Court. It bears noting that as Pelosi made these remarks, Democrat activists were staging threatening demonstrations outside the homes of conservative justices.

Pelosi’s statement wasn’t an isolated event. It was part of an overall partisan strategy ahead of the Congressional elections in November. President Joe Biden gave voice to it in a speech last Friday where he spoke of “Ultra MAGA Republicans.” Just to make clear what he was talking about, he called Trump “King MAGA.” MAGA, or Make America Great Again, was of course Trump’s election slogan in 2016. Since then, MAGA has become shorthand for Trump supporters.

The obvious purpose of Biden’s coinage of “Ultra MAGA” was to link all Republicans to Trump and to make the 2022 elections a referendum on Trump, the demonic “creature” even though Trump isn’t on the ballot and the Democrats control the White House and both houses of Congress.

The administration is so excited by the new term their invented that Biden’s spokeswoman bragged that “Ultra MAGA” was the product of six months of market research.

Wednesday, Politico reported that the progressive fundraising giant Moveon.org is launching a $30 million “Us vs. MAGA” ad campaign ahead of November. Moveon.org executive director Rahna Epting told the progressive online publication that the purpose of the campaign is to tie Republicans to Trump, who all right-thinking people hate because he threatens the very existence of America.

The idea of using demonization as a political tool was most powerfully introduced to radical US politics by political guru Saul Alinsky. Alinsky’s 1971 book Rules for Radicals became the political bible for revolutionary leftists in the Democrat Party. There Alinsky warned his disciples that in light of the unpopularity of their America-hating agenda, the way to win is by distracting the public from their actual agenda and to focus their target audience instead of on their political opponents, whom they would defeat by presenting him as the devil.

One of Alinsky’s star pupils was a young coed at Wellesley College named Hillary Rodham, better known by her married name Hillary Clinton. Alinsky’s methods were adopted and taught in the 1990s by a community organizer in Chicago named Barack Obama.

As the US moves into elections mode, the last thing the Democrats want to talk about is policy. The only issue they may want to run on is abortion, and it’s unclear how popular the issue will be in swing states and districts. The more the US public feels the impacts of the Democrats’ economic, energy, and social policies, the lower the party’s polling numbers drop. Every day another shocking story appears about the fruits of the Democrats’ revolutionary agenda.

This week, for instance, the school board in Kiel, Wisconsin, a small town of some 3,000 people decided to charge three middle school boys with sexual harassment.

Their crime?

They didn’t refer to a girl in their class as “they” or “them” after she said she decided she is no longer willing to be referred to as “her” or “she,” because she no longer considers herself a female.

According to Critical Race Theory expert Christopher Rufo, depending on the questions asked, between 60-80% of Americans oppose revolutionary sexual policies. The more stories appear like the one from Kiel, Wisconsin, or even more distressing ones about children given sexual hormones by school officials without their parents’ knowledge or consent, the more voters abandon the Democrat Party in fear.

The Democrats’ response to the public’s rejection of their agenda isn’t to move toward the public by ending their support for sex-change operations for minors. They remain stridently committed to their agenda.

The Democrats’ response to the public’s rejection of their policies is to castigate the Republicans as the evil acolytes of Trump who share his demonic characteristics – first and foremost, “racism.”

Last weekend, an 18-year-old racist antisemite murdered 10 people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. Biden, Democrat politicians from coast to coast, the progressive media, and Hollywood stars all rushed to blame Trump, Fox News, and the entire Republican Party for the slaughter. Never mind that the same day, a Chinese man motivated by hatred of Taiwanese entered a church attended by Taiwanese immigrants in California and opened fire killing one and wounding four other worshippers. Last December, a black racist mowed down six people, and wounded 77 more, (all white) at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Republicans didn’t blame Biden and the Democrats.

Tuesday, Democrat advertising executive Donny Deutsch explained the Democrats’ post-Buffalo massacre efforts on MSNBC. In Deutsch’s words, the Democrats’ mission post-Buffalo is to, “Brand every Republican,” as the party of “racist, violent replacement theory.”

“Take a branding iron, put it on them so any mainstream Republican has to wear that badge.”

Notably, the Democrats’ “Ultra-MAGA campaign hasn’t raised any concern among Republicans. Indeed, immediately after Biden launched it, the Republican National Committee began printing “Ultra MAGA” t-shirts to give away to party donors.

Some 95% of Republicans voted for Trump in 2016 and in 2020. Despite its near-unanimous support, the Democrats’ demonization of the former president did have an impact at the margins of the party and among independent voters. Members of these groups were convinced that Trump and the Republicans are a demonic force that threatens the soul of America.

It wasn’t the likes of Deutsch who convinced them. That job was carried out by a smattering of former Republicans who share the Democrats’ visceral hatred of Trump. In the 2018 Congressional elections, and to an even greater degree in the 2020 presidential race, members of this tiny minority of Republicans appeared nearly around the clock on progressive media organs to castigate Trump and his voters as dangerous, racist and evil. While their overall impact was indiscernible, in all-important swing states where Biden’s margins of victory were miniscule, they appear to have made a difference.

Today the same group of former Republicans is working full throttle at the side of the Democrats to prevent their former party from winning the mid-term elections and taking control of Congress.

Sitting at Deutsch’s side on the MSNBC panel Tuesday was political activist and former Republican Miles Taylor. While serving as a mid-level official in the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, Taylor anonymously published an op-ed in the New York Times and a book where he claimed that many officials inside the administration believed that Trump was a danger to the United States. These officials, he said, were working together to subvert Trump’s policies and save America from its duly elected president. Now Taylor is running a well-funded Super-PAC, where “former Republicans” run campaign ads against Republicans.

Taylor explained that the goal is to shame Republicans into leaving the party.

“I tried and failed to save the party in my own little way,” he said.

“We tried to prevent Trump from rising in 2016. Some of us tried from within to contain his reckless impulses. We thought we beat him in 2020, but we didn’t. Trumpism is alive and it’s well and it’s fueling this so that what conservatives need to do is convince other conservatives to quit the Republican Party.”

It’s hard to know what these former Republican conservatives tell themselves when they see empty shelves in supermarkets, $4.00/ gallon gas, cratering stock markets, and boys being persecuted for being boys in schools across America. It’s hard to know what they tell themselves when they see children indoctrinated to reject their biological sex and hate their parents and their country.

But what is clear enough is that through their efforts to demonize their fellow conservatives, former party and former president, these Trump-hating former Republicans enable the progressive revolution. Under the mask of anti-Trump paranoia, this revolution rejects the foundations of the United States and seeks to transform the country from the land of the free and the home of the brave into the land of the unfree, and home of the bullied, cowed and socially engineered.

Originally published in Israel Hayom.

 

Caroline Glick

Source: https://carolineglick.com/demonization-american-style/

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Trump reacts to testimony that Clinton spread Russia allegations: 'Where do I get my reputation back?' - Brooke Singman

 

by Brooke Singman

Trump says, 'For three years, I had to fight her off,' referring to Hillary Clinton

 

FOX EXCLUSIVE: Former President Donald Trump reacted to the bombshell testimony out of the trial of Michael Sussmann that Hillary Clinton herself approved the dissemination of false information alleging a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank to the media.

Trump told Fox News Digital that the entire Russia investigation is "one of the greatest political scandals in history," and that he will "never" get his "reputation fully back."

Former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook on Friday testified as part of the first criminal trial out of Special Counsel John Durham’s years-long investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, saying Clinton approved and "agreed" to share the discredited data with the media.

HILLARY CLINTON APPROVED DISSEMINATION OF TRUMP-RUSSIAN BANK ALLEGATIONS TO MEDIA, CAMPAIGN MANAGER TESTIFIES

Former FBI General Counsel James Baker testified Thursday that the bureau investigated the data alleging a Trump connection to the Kremlin-linked bank, and found that "there was nothing there." 

Former President Donald Trump speaks during the American Freedom Tour at the Austin Convention Center on May 14, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

"This is one of the greatest political scandals in history," Trump told Fox News Saturday morning. "For three years, I had to fight her off, and fight those crooked people off, and you’ll never get your reputation fully back."

"Where do I get my reputation back?" Trump said again.

"I had to fight them off," Trump said. "And if we had real leadership, instead of people like Mitch McConnell, they would do something about it. And guys like Bill Barr. They would have done something about it."

Trump said that the law enforcement and intelligence community resources devoted to investigating him and members of his 2016 campaign distracted officials from what "could have been a real danger with Russia."

Attorney Michael Sussmann departs the U.S. Federal Courthouse after opening arguments in his trial in Washington, D.C.  (REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson)

The FBI, in July 2016, opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether candidate Donald Trump and members of his campaign were colluding or coordinating with Russia to influence the 2016 campaign.

That FBI investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, was handed off to Special Counsel Robert Mueller after Trump was elected. Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017.

DECLASSIFIED TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE DOCS TO DATE: WHAT TO KNOW 

After nearly two years, Mueller’s investigation yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election.

Durham was tapped in 2019, shortly after Mueller announced his findings, by Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the origins of the FBI’s original investigation into the Trump campaign, which led to the appointment of Mueller as special counsel.

Special Counsel John Durham departs the U.S. Federal Courthouse after opening arguments in the trial of attorney Michael Sussmann. (REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson)

Mook, during cross-examination by government prosecutor Andrew DeFillippis, was asked about the Clinton campaign’s understanding of the Alfa Bank allegations against Trump and whether they planned to release the data to the media.

Mook said he was first briefed about the Alfa Bank issue by campaign general counsel Marc Elias, who at the time was a partner at law firm Perkins Coie.

Mook testified that he was told that the data had come from "people that had expertise in this sort of matter."

Mook said the campaign was not totally confident in the legitimacy of the data, but had hoped to give the information to a reporter who could further "run it down" to determine if it was "accurate" or "substantive."

He also said he discussed whether to give the information to a reporter with senior campaign officials, including campaign chairman John Podesta, senior policy advisor, now White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and communications director Jennifer Palmieri.

"I discussed it with Hillary as well," Mook said.

"I don’t remember the substance of the conversation, but notionally, the discussion was, hey, we have this and we want to share it with a reporter," Mook said.

The government asked Mook if Clinton approved "the dissemination" of the data to the media. 

"She agreed," Mook testified.

DECLASSIFIED TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE DOCS TO DATE: WHAT TO KNOW 

Mook later said he "can't recall the exact sequence of events," when asked if he shared the idea to give the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations to the media with Clinton before or after the decision was made. 

"All I remember is that she agreed with the decision," Mook testified. 

Sussmann has been charged with making a false statement to the FBI when he told Baker in September 2016, less than two months before the presidential election, that he was not doing work "for any client" when he requested and attended a meeting in which he presented "purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communicates channel" between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin.

Durham’s team alleges Sussmann was, in fact, doing work for two clients: the Hillary Clinton campaign and a technology executive, Rodney Joffe. Following the meeting with Baker, Sussmann billed the Hillary Clinton campaign for his work.

Sussmann has pleaded not guilty to the charge. 

Mook, earlier in questioning from the defense, was asked whether he or anyone on the Clinton campaign approved or gave Sussmann permission to bring the allegations to the FBI, to which he said: "No."  

Later, the defense further questioned Mook, asking if Hillary Clinton herself approved Sussmann going to the FBI. 

"I'm not aware," Mook testified.

When asked again, he said: "I don't know…I don't know why she would." 

Meanwhile, Baker testified Thursday that the FBI began an investigation into the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations, which lasted "several weeks, maybe a month, maybe a month and a half."

"We concluded there was no substance," Baker testified. "We couldn’t confirm it. We could not confirm there was a surreptitious communications channel."

Baker added: "There was nothing there." 

FLASHBACK: MUELLER REPORT SHOWS PROBE DID NOT FIND COLLUSION EVIDENCE, REVEALS TRUMP EFFORTS TO SIDELINE KEY PLAYERS

In testimony on Tuesday afternoon, FBI Special Agent Scott Hellman also said the data revealing the alleged covert communications channel between Trump and Russia that Sussmann brought to the FBI turned out to be untrue, and said he did not agree with the narrative. 

Hellman testified that whoever drafted the narrative describing the DNS data was "5150," and clarified on the stand that meant he believed the individual who came to the conclusions "was suffering from some mental disability."

Mook’s testimony revealing Clinton approved the plan to share the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations with the media comes after Fox News first reported that the CIA, dating back to July 2016, had information of Clinton’s "approval of a plan" to tie Trump to Russia "as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server."

Fox News obtained declassified notes from then-CIA Director John Brennan after briefing then-President Obama on July 28, 2016, memorializing Clinton’s purported "proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service."

DNI DECLASSIFIES BRENNAN NOTES, CIA MEMO ON HILLARY CLINTON 'STIRRING UP' SCANDAL BETWEEN TRUMP, RUSSIA

The information was properly forwarded to the FBI in an Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL), and to the attention of then-FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok on Sept. 9, 2016.

"The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate," the 2016 CIA memo to Comey and Strzok stated.

FLASHBACK: SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE FINDS NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN

"Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date," the memo continued. "An exchange [REDACTED] discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server."

The memo was heavily redacted.

Fox News first reported that those materials were provided to the Justice Department by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe in 2020 to support Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

 

Brooke Singman

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-reaction-hillary-clinton-spread-russia-allegations-media

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Must fossil fuel extraction be stopped to limit global warming? - E. Calvin Beisner

 

by E. Calvin Beisner

Demands that we cease using fossil fuels, replacing them as rapidly as possible with wind, solar, and other "renewables," all rest on a particular worldview, framework, or perspective that -- human impact on nature is always harmful, both to it and to people.

"Fossil Fuel Extraction Must Be Stopped to Limit Global Warming."  That's the headline of an article at Earth.com, an environmental activist website.  It purports to convey the message of a study published May 17, 2022, in Environmental Research Letters, "Existing fossil fuel extraction would warm the world beyond 1.5°C," though the study makes no such claim.

According to the study, the world is already committed, through its 25,000 oil and gas fields and 3,000 coal mines, to emitting so much carbon dioxide that global warming cannot be limited to the 1.5°C targeted by the Paris climate agreement and the Glasgow climate pact.  That means, say the authors, "that staying below 1.5°C may require governments and companies not only to cease licensing and development of new fields and mines, but also to prematurely decommission a significant portion of those already developed."

The authors don't mention that there is no enforcement mechanism in either the Paris agreement or the Glasgow pact; that both China and India, which together constitute 35% of the world's population, have every intention to increase their consumption of fossil fuels for decades to come — and are absolutely justified in doing so to ensure that their 2.8 billion people can flourish.  Indeed, most of the world's developing countries, with their additional 2.3 billion people, have the same intention.  With no enforcement mechanism and no buy-in to the agenda by developing countries with their 63% of the world's population, the target is simply unattainable.  As Vaclav Smil, probably the world's leading scholar on energy — how we produce and use it and at what costs — told a New York Times Magazine reporter, "Germany, after nearly half a trillion dollars, in 20 years they went from getting 84 percent of their primary energy from fossil fuels to 76 percent.  Can you tell me how you'd go from 76 percent fossil to zero by 2030, 2035?  I'm sorry, the reality is what it is."  If Germany's not going to do it, developing nations certainly aren't.

Does this mean we're all doomed?  No.  The whole worry depends, as Alex Epstein explains in his new book Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas — Not Less, 1.5° — or even three or four times that much — certainly doesn't spell doom, either for humanity or for the rest of life on Earth, and the benefits of fossil fuels, direct and indirect, both to humanity and the rest of life, far outweigh the negative side-effects.

Demands that we cease using fossil fuels, replacing them as rapidly as possible with wind, solar, and other "renewables," all rest on a particular worldview, framework, or perspective: that nature is delicate and nurturing to humanity, and consequently human impact on nature is always harmful, both to it and to people.  Instead, Epstein argues — persuasively — nature is neither delicate nor nurturing to human (or any other) life.  Instead, unshaped by human action, it is "dynamic, deficient, and dangerous and requires massive, intelligent, productive impact by human beings."

If you doubt that, try living entirely from what you obtain by nothing more than gathering what grows naturally around you.  Or, if you're not brave enough to try that, just look at living conditions (per capita income equivalent to under $1/day), infant and child mortality rates (about 50%), and life expectancy (about 27 years) before the Industrial Revolution.

Because they are abundant, highly concentrated stores of reliable energy at scales necessary to serve the needs of billions of people, fossil fuels are uniquely suitable to provide the energy without which that "massive, intelligent, productive impact by human beings" simply cannot happen.

And what about the side-effects of fossil fuel use — global warming and sea level rise, driven by carbon dioxide emissions?  The warming happens primarily toward the poles (especially the North Pole), primarily in winter, and primarily at night.  That means already high temperatures (toward the equator, in summer, in daylight) but cold temperatures that raise global average temperature, and that's good news, because extreme cold kills 20 times as many people per day as extreme heat.  The sea-level rise, at a rate of about a 1 to 1.5 feet per century, is slow enough for us to adapt at a cost that is a small fraction of global GDP.

There is, in short, no need to reduce fossil fuel use and every need instead to expand it.  It's the path to human flourishing.  The opposite, by keeping the currently unempowered world unempowered and disempowering the currently empowered world, condemns humanity to poverty.

 

E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D. is president of The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and author of Prosperity and Poverty: The Compassionate Use of Resources in a World of Scarcity and Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population, Resources, and the Future. 

Source:https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/must_fossil_fuel_extraction_be_stopped_to_limit_global_warming.html

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Government coalition crisis reaching an end - Gil Hoffman

 

by Gil Hoffman

A Knesset dissolution bill will be brought forward on Wednesday by the Joint List.

 

Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi

(photo credit: ELAD MALKA)

The crisis in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s governing coalition will be over by Monday, sources in the coalition said Saturday night after meetings with Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi.

The dissatisfied MK met for two hours on Saturday with Meretz Minister Esawi Frej and discussed her demands. She is asking to increase state funding for the French Hospital in Nazareth.

Bennett called for avoiding elections and keeping his government together on Friday, in his first comments since Rinawie Zoabi announced that she was leaving the coalition to protest a series of issues important to the Arab community in Israel.

The prime minister said giving up on his coalition now would be wrong, despite all the challenges facing its MKs across the political spectrum.

“It is correct that it is difficult,” he wrote on Facebook. “But the future of the state is in danger. We must fight and defeat Palestinian terror and we must fight to maintain the unity of our nation internally. We have no other country. Therefore we all must stand strong.”

MK GHAIDA RINAWIE ZOABI attends a Special Committee on Arab Society Affairs meeting, in the Knesset in June (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

In a series of radio interviews on Friday, Rinawie Zoabi appeared to backtrack from her decision to leave the coalition completely.

“I will support the coalition as long as it is attentive to the needs of Arab society,” she told Army Radio.

Joint List faction chairman MK Ahmad Tibi took credit on Friday for persuading Rinawie Zoabi to leave the coalition.

Sources close to Bennett said he was disturbed by how she initiated her protest, surprising the prime minister and other leaders of the government by publishing a protest letter in the media instead of raising her concerns internally.

“This is not the kind of behavior that gets you a meeting with the prime minister,” a source close to Bennett said.

Rinawie Zoabi spoke on Friday to her party leader Nitzan Horowitz, who tried to persuade her to remain in the coalition, and if not, to give up her seat in the Knesset in favor of the next candidate on the Meretz list.

It is too early to eulogize the current government, Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid wrote on social media on Friday. Lapid spoke to Rinawie Zoabi on Thursday and had what both termed a “positive conversation.”

“This government is the right thing for the State of Israel and the people of Israel,” Lapid wrote. “We have no intention of surrendering or giving up on it. We have no intention of giving 'Bibi' [former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and [MK Itamar] Ben-Gvir a chance to destroy the country. We will do what we do every time: sit with whom we need to sit, and fix what needs to be fixed.”

Defense Minister Benny Gantz wrote on social media from Washington that security considerations require keeping the current government together.

“After years of political paralysis that harmed our government and statesmanship, we have a functional government,” Gantz wrote. “We don’t lack difficulties but we serve the citizens of Israel well, and I intend to continue to do everything possible to allow our government to continue to function.”

The Joint List announced Friday that it would raise a bill this Wednesday to dissolve the Knesset. If it does not pass, no MK can bring a Knesset dissolution bill to a vote for six months. “This evil government must fall,” Joint List MK Sami Abou Shahadeh, who will propose the bill, said on Twitter.

Bennett’s office denied a KAN report that NIS 200 million had been budgeted for a road in the Arab sector at the request of Tibi, in an effort to obtain the Joint List’s support in the Knesset.

The Likud responded that Yamina MKs should leave the coalition to protest the allocation. Opposition leader Netanyahu’s party said the money allocated for the road should provide scholarships for released IDF soldiers instead.

There is a bill that would fund scholarships up to two-thirds of tuition, but it lacks a majority, because the Likud is insisting on funding 100% of the tuition and neither Arab faction intends to vote for the bill.

That bill will come to a vote on Monday – if there is a majority to pass it. 

 

Gil Hoffman

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-707253

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Shabak uncovers Iranian plot to lure Israelis abroad to kidnap them - Israel National News

 

by Israel National News

Iranian plot to use identities of real people to lure Israeli academics and former security officials abroad to kidnap them foiled.

 

one of then suspicions messages                                                             Shabak spokesperson

The Shabak has uncovered an Iranian operation to lure Israeli academics and former defense officials to lure them abroad in order to kidnap them.

The plot involved Iranian intelligence agents contacting Israelis while impersonating academics, journalists, businessmen and philanthropists, using the identities of real people who were unaware their names were being used in an intelligence operation.

Contact with the Israeli targets was made by e-mail, using a very similar email address to the real person being impersonated in order to appear authentic, in order to arrange a meeting outside of Israel where the target could be kidnapped or otherwise harmed.

After the initial contact was made with the Israeli target, the target would be asked to move the conversation to WhatsApp with a phone number unfamiliar to them.

The Israelis who received these communications did not respond to the request to move the conversations to WhatsApp and a number of them contacted security forces about the suspicious messages, leading to the uncovering of the plot.

 

Israel National News

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/327854

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