Sunday, December 31, 2023

All cultures are equally valuable: a deadly delusion - Mike McDaniel

 

by Mike McDaniel

Observing—assimilating--the anti-Semitic “protests” in colleges and streets, Americans now know exactly how and why the Holocaust happened.

 

The October 7, 2023 Islamist massacre of Israeli men, women, children and even animals, has had a sobering effect on some possessed of the conceit that all cultures are equally valuable, and none have the moral standing to criticize another. Seeing women serially raped, tortured, mutilated, beheaded, burned alive and kidnapped, seeing babies burned alive in ovens, seeing inhuman atrocities thought no longer possible in “civilized” humanity so gleefully committed and celebrated, tends to make an impression, at least on those willing to recognize reality. That the demons were not only Hamas terrorists, but ordinary Gazans, supposed victims of Hamas, was just a little more jarring.

Observing—assimilating--the anti-Semitic “protests” in colleges and streets, Americans now know exactly how and why the Holocaust happened.

Could it be that some cultures might be just a little…off? Not quite right? Is it possible the culture of Hamas, and of Muslims in general—differentiate them as Islamists if you prefer—is not compatible with this century’s morality? With civilization? And isn’t it a shame we had no warning of this potential schism in our collective humanity?  It turns out we did—and do:  

Image: Konstantin Makovsky, The Bulgarian Martyresses, Wikimedia commons, Public domain.

Since opening the gates to unfettered mass migration in 2015, at least 7,000 women have been raped or sexually assaulted in Germany by alleged asylum-seeking illegal migrants, an analysis of government figures has found.

report from the Swiss-German paper of record, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, claimed that statistics from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) show that more than one thousand women — mostly Germans — have been sexually assaulted by migrants seeking refuge every year since 2017.

Extrapolating from this figure, the paper calculated that therefore at least 7,000 women have been raped or sexually assaulted by asylum seekers since former German Chancellor Angela Merkel ushered in the European Migrant Crisis in 2015 by unilaterally opening the gates of Europe to massive waves of migrants from the Middle East and Africa.

And it was done with such good intentions, with the d/S/C surety all those Muslim, tribal, men were just like us, civilized, recognizing the humanity and preciousness of women, willing to lay down their lives to protect them. How could it be otherwise since no culture is superior to another; all are equally valuable--just like us? We're all human, aren't we?

Last year, NZZ reported, asylum-seeking migrants were vastly overrepresented in reported cases of rape and sexual assault. Out of the estimated 10,000 suspects, 6,366 were German while 3,679 were foreigners. Of those, 1,115 were asylum-seeking migrants, meaning that while they represented just 2.5 per cent of the population, they were responsible for over 11 per cent of the sex assaults and rapes.

This confirms longstanding trends, with migration researcher Ruud Koopmans finding that asylum seekers were five times more likely to be involved in cases of rape and that they were 3.3 times more likely to perpetrate sex crimes as a whole, including sexual harassment and sexual abuse.

The article goes on to note that it took some years to catch on, but plenty of those male immigrants “…come from societies in which women are not afforded the same rights as in Western nations.” Who coulda thunk it?  Perhaps anyone who has read the Quran, or studied the realities of those cultures? The Internet might have been helpful in that regard.

The deputy chairman of the German Federal Police Union, Manuel Ostermann, said that the migrants committing sexual assault and rape — mostly against German women — are often already known to the police and sometimes have already been convicted of a crime but remain in the country due to lax deportation standards.

“Anyone who commits crimes against sexual self-determination must not have the right to remain in Germany,” he told NZZ.

And how has that worked out?

The leftist Minister of the Interior, Social Democrat Nancy Fraser, who is charged with protecting the nation’s borders, refused to be drawn on the issue of mass migration, merely stating: “These acts are abhorrent. This applies regardless of the nationality of the suspects.”

Except some “suspects” are clearly more culturally valuable than others.

The issue of sexual violence from migrants has been longstanding in Germany. A string of sex attacks by mostly North African and Middle Eastern migrant men on New Year’s Eve in 2015, which was brought to international attention by reporting from Breitbart London, saw over a thousand women in Cologne sexually assaulted or raped. The vast majority of the perpetrators never faced justice, with merely six men being convicted of sex crimes in connection to the string of attacks.

It has worked out about as well as you might imagine. But hey, clinging to d/S/C equal culture delusions will only get thousands of your women and girls raped.  It’s not like they’ll be killed or anything.

Oh, wait…


Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor and retired police officer and high school and college English teacher.  His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. 

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/12/all_cultures_are_equally_valuable_a_deadly_delusion.html

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'Dark Money Nightmare': How Qatar Bought the Ivy League - Robert Williams

 

by Robert Williams

"At the time of writing, the State of Qatar contributes more funds to universities in the United States than any other country in the world, and raw donation totals omit critical, concerning details about the nature of Qatar's academic funding." — ISGAP report, "Networks of Hate," December 2023.

 

  • "At least 100 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undocumented contributions from foreign governments, many of which are authoritarian.... Speech intolerance—manifesting as campaigns to investigate, censor, demote, suspend, or terminate speakers and scholars—was higher at institutions that received undocumented money from foreign regimes." — ISGAP report, "The Corruption of the American Mind," November 2023.

  • Qatar makes it possible for Ivy League universities to claim that they receive no funds from the Qatari state, because the donations are funneled through the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, a not-for-profit organization established in 1995 by the Emir of Qatar. This ensures that the foundation can identify itself as a private organization, which enables Qatar to conceal its state funding as private donations.

  • "At the time of writing, the State of Qatar contributes more funds to universities in the United States than any other country in the world, and raw donation totals omit critical, concerning details about the nature of Qatar's academic funding." — ISGAP report, "Networks of Hate," December 2023.

  • "We would pay them [journalists]... Some of them have become MPs now. Others have become patriots.... We would pay [journalists] in many countries. We would pay them every year. Some of them received salaries. All the Arab countries were doing this. If not all, then most of them." — Former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim, February 2022.

The hapless testimony by three Ivy League university presidents from Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce can be traced to Qatar and its insidious campaign to buy itself influence in US academia. Pictured L-R: Claudine Gay, President of Harvard University, Liz Magill, then-President of University of Pennsylvania, Professor Pamela Nadell of American University, and Sally Kornbluth, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testify before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce on December 5, 2023. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The hapless testimony by three Ivy League university presidents from Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce can be traced to Qatar and its insidious campaign to buy itself influence in US academia.

Qatar, oil-rich and with an estimated population of only 2.5 million, is the largest foreign donor -- that we know about -- to American universities, with at least $4.7 billion donated between 2001 and 2021. Many of those billions went unreported to the Department of Education, according to research done by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP). Under federal law, colleges and universities that receive donations from foreign sources that total at least $250,000 must disclose such transactions to the Department of Education.

Qatar is far from the only authoritarian nation that donates to American universities. According to a Department of Education report from April 2023, American universities and colleges have received $19 billion from unreported sources, more than half of which has come from authoritarian and antidemocratic Middle East governments.

Flouting the law by failing to disclose foreign donations to universities has been declared a "dark money nightmare."

Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wrote in February 2023:

"While there's nothing inherently inappropriate about foreign-sourced gifts, there is a significant reason for concern if these gifts are not disclosed, as required by law.

"Unfortunately, the higher-ed lobby has made it no secret it opposes true transparency. The American Council on Education — the lobbying organization for colleges and universities — praised the Biden administration in an open letter for ending the investigations we launched into schools that were skirting the law and failing to report sources of foreign money.

"One major cause for concern is the high correlation between foreign gifts, especially from our geopolitical adversaries, and American universities that are home to major research laboratories, including those with Department of Defense contracts."

To assess properly the damage that Qatari influence in the US is causing, it is important to understand what Qatar stands for and promotes. Qatar has for decades cultivated a close relationship with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto is: "'Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." Its aim appears to be ensuring that Islamic law, Sharia, governs all countries and all matters.

Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has enjoyed Qatar as its main sponsor, to the tune of up to $360 million a year, and was until recently the home of Hamas' leadership. In 2012, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the terrorist group's political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzook, and Khaled Mashaal, among others, moved to Qatar for a life of luxury. This month, likely because of Israel's announcement that it will hunt down and eliminate Hamas leaders in Qatar and Turkey, the Qatar-based Hamas officials reportedly fled to other countries.

Qatar was also home to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who was exiled from Egypt, until his death in September 2022. According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

"Qaradawi is mainly known as the key figure in shaping the concept of violent jihad and the one who allowed carrying out terror attacks, including suicide bombing attacks, against Israeli citizens, the US forces in Iraq, and some of the Arab regimes. Because of that, he was banned from entering Western countries and some Arab countries.... In 1999, he was banned from entering the USA. In 2009, he was banned from entering Britain..."

Qaradawi also founded many radical Islamist organizations, which are funded by Qatar. These include the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which released a statement that called the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas against communities in southern Israel an "effective" and "mandatory development of legitimate resistance," and said that Muslims have a religious duty to support their brothers and sisters "throughout all of Palestine, especially in Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, and Gaza.""

Qatar also still is home to the lavishly-funded television network Al Jazeera, founded in 1996 by Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa Al Thani. Called the "mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood," Al Jazeera began the violent "Arab Spring," which "brought the return of autocratic rulers."

In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, made 13 demands of Qatar: "to cut off relations with Iran, shutter Al Jazeera, and stop granting Qatari citizenship to other countries' exiled oppositionists." They subsequently cut ties with Qatar over its failure to agree to any of the demands, including ending its support for terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Jazeera.

The Saudi state-run news agency SPA said at the time:

"[Qatar] embraces multiple terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at disturbing stability in the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS [Islamic State] and al-Qaeda, and promotes the message and schemes of these groups through their media constantly,"

This is the kind of influence that US universities and colleges are more than happy to see on their campuses in exchange for billions of dollars in Qatari donations. According to ISGAP:

"[F]oreign donations from Qatar, especially, have had a substantial impact on fomenting growing levels of antisemitic discourse and campus politics at US universities, as well as growing support for anti-democratic values within these institutions of higher education."

In November 2023 ISGAP published a report, "The Corruption of the American Mind: How concealed foreign funding of higher education in the United States predicts the erosion of democratic values and antisemitic sentiment on campus." It found that there is a direct correlation between antisemitism and censored speech on campus and undocumented contributions from foreign governments, notably Qatar. According to the report:

"At least 100 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undocumented contributions from foreign governments, many of which are authoritarian.

"In institutions receiving such undocumented money:

  • Political campaigns to silence academics were more prevalent.
    — Campuses receiving undocumented funds exhibited approximately twice as many campaigns to silence academics as those that did not.
  • Students reported greater exposure to antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.
  • Higher levels of antisemitic incidents were reported on their campuses.
  • This relationship of undocumented money to campus antisemitism was stronger when the undocumented donors were Middle Eastern regimes rather than other regimes.
    — From 2015-2020, Institutions that accepted money from Middle Eastern donors, had, on average, 300% more antisemitic incidents than those institutions that did not....

"Speech intolerance—manifesting as campaigns to investigate, censor, demote, suspend, or terminate speakers and scholars—was higher at institutions that received undocumented money from foreign regimes."

Qatar makes it possible for Ivy League universities to claim that they receive no funds from the Qatari state, because the donations are funneled through the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, a not-for-profit organization established in 1995 by the Emir of Qatar. This ensures that the foundation can identify itself as a private organization, which enables Qatar to conceal its state funding as private donations.

In a report published this month, "Networks of Hate: Qatari Paymasters, Soft Power and the Manipulation of Democracy," ISGAP wrote:

"At the time of writing, the State of Qatar contributes more funds to universities in the United States than any other country in the world, and raw donation totals omit critical, concerning details about the nature of Qatar's academic funding. For instance, Qatar concentrates its donations within a contained number of elite U.S. universities to maximize its influence. This targeted approach suggests that strategic motivations for instance—to advance Qatari state interests, influence the Qatari strategy—rather than pure philanthropy."

The issue of Qatar on US campuses, as serious as it is, is only part of a larger picture of Qatari influence in the US and the rest of the West.

Qatar funds US think-tanks, such as the Richardson Center for Global Engagement and the Brookings Institution, and infiltrates US media. In 2021, Qatar pledged that it would invest $10 billion in US ports. According to the US State department:

"In recent years, Qatar has significantly bolstered its U.S. investments through its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and its subsidiaries, notably Qatari Diar. In 2019, QIA pledged to allocate $45 billion to U.S. investments; it opened an office in New York City in 2015 to facilitate its U.S. investments. The fifth U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue took place in Doha from November 2022 to March 2023 and further strengthened strategic and economic partnerships and addressed obstacles to investment and trade."

In February 2022, former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim said in an interview, according to MEMRI, that Qatar had many journalists "in different countries" on its payroll.

"We had Journalists on our payroll. In many countries, we would pay them. Some of them have become MPs now. Others have become patriots. I know them. We would pay [journalists] in many countries. We would pay them every year. Some of them received salaries. All the Arab countries were doing this. If not all, then most of them."


Robert Williams is a researcher based in the United States.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20265/qatar-bought-ivy-league

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US Naval helicopters repel Houthi attack on merchant vessel in Red Sea - Reuters

 

by Reuters

The Houthi militants in Yemen have stepped up attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.

 

 Components of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKECSG), guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) and French Navy frigate FS Languedoc (D 653) transit the Strait of Hormuz November 25, 2023. (photo credit: VIA REUTERS)
Components of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKECSG), guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) and French Navy frigate FS Languedoc (D 653) transit the Strait of Hormuz November 25, 2023.
(photo credit: VIA REUTERS)

Iranian-backed Houthi militants attacked a Maersk container vessel, prompting the company to pause all sailing through the Red Sea for 48 hours, Maersk said on Sunday.

The attack was the latest by Houthi militants in Yemen, who have been targeting vessels in the Red Sea to show their support for Hamas fighting Israel in Gaza.

US Navy helicopters sank three of four small boats used by Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists to attack a merchant vessel in the southern Red Sea on Sunday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on social media platform X.

Helicopters from the USS Eisenhower and USS Gravely, responding to distress calls from the Maersk Hangzhou, returned fire on the Houthi boats in self-defense and sank three of the vessels with no survivors.

The fourth boat fled the area, said the statement on social media platform X.

Ship continued on its journey after attack

Danish shipping company Maersk confirmed that the crew onboard Maersk Hangzhou had reported a flash on deck on Dec 30 at around 1830 CET, when the vessel was 55 nautical miles southwest of Al Hodeidah.

The crew was safe, and there was no indication of fire onboard the vessel that was fully maneuverable and continued its journey north to Port Suez, Maersk said.

 Maersk ship Volga Maersk is docked in Riga port, Latvia May 31, 2019. (credit: REUTERS/INTS KALNINS)Enlrage image
Maersk ship Volga Maersk is docked in Riga port, Latvia May 31, 2019. (credit: REUTERS/INTS KALNINS)

The Singapore-flagged vessel with the capacity to carry 14,000 containers was en route from Singapore.


Reuters

Source: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-780191

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VIDEO: They're LYING About THE LAND?? - Robert Spencer

 

by Robert Spencer

Scholar of Islam Robert Spencer relates the basic facts regarding the "ownership" of the Land of Israel


 

Robert Spencer

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDs58krKXm0

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Girls' opposition to trans participation in sports sets up 2024 legal battle - Casey Harper

 

by Casey Harper

Four high school female track athletes in Connecticut have stood against the influx of transgender athletes seeking to compete against girls in school sports.

 

(The Center Square) -

Four high school female track athletes in Connecticut have stood against the influx of transgender athletes seeking to compete against girls in school sports, likely setting up a defining legal battle of 2024.

The U.S. Court of Appeals rescued the legal challenge, Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools, in December after a lower court dismissed the case. Now, the case will be heard in federal district court and will be a defining moment in the ongoing debate, which has been ramped up by a string of injuries to female athletes at the hands of transgender athletes in recent months.

Those girls say allowing biological boys to compete is unfair and violates Title IX, the federal law that established and protected female school sports by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex.

The girls in question are Selina Soule, Alanna Smith, Chelsea Mitchell, and Ashley Nicoletti, who say they personally lost to male athletes identifying as female.

They point out that from 2017 to 2019, two transgender athletes won 15 women’s track championship titles, titles that were previously held by nine female athletes.

Soule missed qualifying for a state championship by one spot after the two transgender athletes finished ahead of her. Nicoletti also missed the opportunity to compete at a state championship open because the transgender athletes finished ahead of her.

Mitchell, who was once ranked the fastest girl in Connecticut, lost four state championships to the transgender athletes. Smith finished behind a transgender athlete at a regional championship, pushing her back to 3rd place instead of 2nd place.

“Selina, Chelsea, Alanna, and Ashley – like all female athletes – deserve access to fair competition,” ADF Senior Counsel Roger Brook said in a statement. “The [Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference] policy degraded each of their accomplishments and scarred their athletic records, irreparably harming each female athlete’s interest in accurate recognition of her athletic achievements.”

Notably, the court said the girls who filed the lawsuit had suffered injury and thus were able to file the legal challenge.

“Plaintiffs all personally competed in high school track in Connecticut, and they all identified instances in which they raced against and finished behind one or both Intervenors,” the court said, adding that, “With these assumptions in mind, we conclude that Plaintiffs adequately pled a concrete, particularized, and actual injury in fact: the alleged denial of equal athletic opportunity and concomitant loss of publicly recognized titles and placements during track and field competitions in which they participated against and finished behind” the transgender athletes.”

The case has attracted national attention and will likely set significant precedent in the ongoing battle over biological males attempting to enter female sports in schools.

Proponents of the transgender athletes’ participation say it is unfair to prevent them from competing.

ADF boasted that a range of athletes, coaches, advocacy groups and 23 states have backed the female athletes filing 12 friend-of-the-court briefs with the 2nd Circuit.

“The en banc 2nd Circuit was right to allow these brave women to make their case under Title IX and set the record straight,” Brook said in a statement. “This is imperative not only for the women who have been deprived of medals, potential scholarships, and other athletic opportunities, but for all female athletes across the country.”


Casey Harper

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/girls-stand-against-trans-participation-sports-sets-2024-legal-battle

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Parallel economy fueled by conservatives gives consumers alternatives that support their values - Charlotte Hazard

 

by Charlotte Hazard

"We started our company with the idea that books are the most important thing because they have a special way of sparking kids' imaginations and activating their mind," Brave Books CEO Trent Talbot said.

 

While companies such as Bud Light and Target have drifted left, leading to boycotts and backlash, conservative entrepreneurs spent much of 2023 creating a parallel economy to give consumers more products that align with their values. 

Conservative leaders described to Just the News how they got involved in businesses by creating multiple alternatives in banking, books, shopping, job boards and music. 

Last year, country music star John Rich announced the creation of a new bank for Americans who support freedom of speech and have concerns about their existing bankers punishing them – and their accounts – for publicly backing issues that their banks don't support.

The bank is called Old Glory Bank and it's being led by Rich, conservative commentator Larry Elder and Dr. Ben Carson, a former cabinet secretary and 2016 presidential candidate.

"People are having their bank accounts frozen, suspended and sometimes completely turned off," Rich said on the Just the News, No Noise TV show. "It disrupts their business in such a way that a lot of people lose their businesses when that happens. So that's another hill as we say... we have to build hills that people can run to."

Earlier this year, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, subpoenaed Bank of America, requesting information related to the firm's voluntary sharing of customer data with the FBI to aid its Jan. 6 investigations.

Public Square CEO Michael Seifert agreed with Rich's point about building hills people can run to instead of just boycotting. 

Public Square describes itself as "America's Marketplace." The service, started two years ago in San Diego, promotes businesses that support conservative values and outlets such as Fox News and The Babylon Bee.

"If I don't have somewhere else to move my money towards, then boycotts are insufficient," Seifert said. "They're incomplete, and so what we try to do for people is create a hopeful, positive alternative to some of the major brands they're used to shopping with so that they know with blessed assurance, they're not funding their opposition."

According to Seifert, the parallel economy is doing very well and represents over $7 trillion in GDP.

Another avenue that conservatives have been making advances in is book publishing. Sexually-explicit books in school libraries have been making headlines over the last few years, which has led to conservatives beginning to write family-friendly books. 

This led to Trent Talbot starting a company called Brave Books where authors can publish stories that uphold family values.

"We started our company with the idea that books are the most important thing because they have a special way of sparking kids' imaginations and activating their mind," Talbot said. 

He hinted that the company would be making its way into television entertainment in 2024. 

"We do think that there is a vacuum in the children's show world and it is time that 'Brave Books' makes its way to screen, and I would fully expect the release of a TV show in the year 2024," he told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show.

Social media censorship is also a major concern, with platforms such as Meta censoring the political opinions of Americans. When Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased X, formerly called Twitter, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, referred to it as the "single most important step for free speech in decades."

Former Congressman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is the CEO of former President Donald Trump's social media platform, TRUTH Social, which now has about several million users.

"We're trying to take the best of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter or X.... and put it into one easy to use app," Nunes said in reference to TRUTH Social. 

He said that a goal of TRUTH Social is to create communities and have people interact with one another in groups privately.

"If you want to be on Social...you can develop your own little family group that's private," Nunes explained. "So if you want to get on there, and some people have private groups.....they want to talk freely amongst themselves. They don't want the fake news in there trying to grab stuff and share it."

Privacy and keeping data safe have been other big concerns consumers have when it comes to the online world.


Charlotte Hazard

Source:https://justthenews.com/nation/economy/wkd-parallel-economy-fueled-conservatives-gives-consumers-alternatives-support-their

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'I sinned': Former minister apologizes for dividing Israeli society - Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff

"I created strife and division and tension, and this tension led to a weakening, and this weakening, in many ways, led to the massacre."

 

 MK Galit Distal-Atbaryan arrives to a Likud party meeting at the Knesset. December 3, 2023. (photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
MK Galit Distal-Atbaryan arrives to a Likud party meeting at the Knesset. December 3, 2023.
(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

Former public diplomacy minister Galit Distal-Atbaryan apologized for taking action that increased strife in Israel, saying she was one of "about 100 people who shoved nine million [people] toward an abyss" in an interview with Channel 13 on Sunday.

"There were about 100 people who shoved nine million people toward an abyss, from politics, the media, influencers. I was one of these people who caused the state to weaken, who hurt people, who hurt civilians who in their day-to-day lives are my friends, my partner," said Distal-Atbaryan.

"It suddenly hit me, boom! Suddenly you realize that everything you thought you were doing well, you were doing badly. I created strife and division and tension, and this tension led to a weakening, and this weakening, in many ways, led to the massacre," added the former minister to Channel 13.

Distal-Atbaryan addressed secular, liberal Israelis, saying, "I sinned against you, I caused you pain, I caused you to fear for your lives here. I apologize for this."

 Minister Galit Distal-Atbaryan reacts during a 40 signatures debate, at the plenum hall of the Knesset. June 26, 2023. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)Enlrage image
Minister Galit Distal-Atbaryan reacts during a 40 signatures debate, at the plenum hall of the Knesset. June 26, 2023. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

Distal-Atbaryan's resignation from her post as public diplomacy minister

Distal-Atbaryan resigned from her post as public diplomacy minister shortly after the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October after widespread criticism concerning her ministry's failure to handle "hasbara" (public diplomacy) while private; civilian groups were left carrying most of the weight.

At the time, Distal-Atbaryan said that she was resigning because she felt her ministry had become redundant and was wasting the budget.

Likud MK attacks Distal-Atbaryan

Fellow Likud MK Tally Gotliv attacked Distal-Atbaryan for her comments on Sunday evening, posting on X, "No Galit. You are not to blame, and neither are we! You just don't know how to be a right-winger."

"It takes a lot of strength and power to be a true right-winger. Right-wingers suffer mud-slinging and are under threats of demonization and humiliation. The left caressing you is a dangerous illusion that endangers the entire right-wing camp" added Gotliv. "The main thing is that the right people like you, those who control the conversation and the media...too bad."


Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-780224

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2024: Where Does the Pendulum Swing? - Amir Taheri

 

by Amir Taheri

After all, no nation is small or medium as such; it's the leadership that makes a country small or great.

 

  • Another case of the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction concerns the United Nations and diplomacy in general. The UN Security Council is likely to remain inoperative for the foreseeable future, while the Secretary-General, having tripped over the Gaza war, has lost much of his authority as arbiter of international conflicts.

  • A broader and potentially more important pendulum swing in 2024 would be away from the mushy consensus formed during the golden days of globalism.

  • Finally, the pendulum looks likely to swing in favor of small- and/or medium-sized nations capable of adopting non-ideological and effective policies in the interest of their people. After all, no nation is small or medium as such; it's the leadership that makes a country small or great.

(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)

If there is a pendulum that regulates world affairs, it is important to know which way it may be swinging in the year that is about to start.

Seen from one angle, the pendulum looks like swinging towards uncertainty. In 2024, many countries with major roles in international affairs are facing dicey elections.

The United States looks set for what could be the most difficult election season in its history. Will President Joe Biden, with his physical and mental fitness questioned by some, be able to run the final mile to his party's nomination? Or will his Democrat Party be forced to rally around Kamala Harris at the last moment and out of desperation?

The Republicans face an even less predictable prospect.

Although Donald Trump continues to cast a large shadow on the whole process, a shadow is just a shadow after all. The alternative savior, Ron DeSantis, seems to be fading away, while Nikki Haley, a dark horse just a few weeks ago, is beginning to emerge as a serious pretender.

Even then, and regardless of who would win the keys to the White House next November, the United States will be on pilot mode for much of 2024 and thus, unable to take the tough decisions that only a well-settled administration could take.

The United Kingdom is also facing what is seen as the most difficult general elections it has experienced at least since the Suez Crisis of 1956. The Conservative Party seems to be in letdown mode, while the Labour Party appears unable to seize the opportunity to make a big comeback. The prospect of a hung parliament, with Labour forced to depend on the Scottish National Party (SNP) to form a government, signals a period of uncertainty as far as strategic decisions are concerned.

In the European Union, the Netherlands is already without a stable government and is likely to remain so for months, while coalition-building goes on. In Germany, the EU's big beast in economic terms, the shaky coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz could unravel at any moment, while the right-wing Alternative for Germany waits to emerge as the arbiter of a divided political scene.

Even France now seems to be heading for a period of instability as President Emmanuel Macron's shaky coalition begins to crumble, while his government is unable to secure a majority in the parliament. The prospect of dissolution of parliament and snap elections is hanging above the scene like the Damocles' sword of the myth.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin seems set to easily sail to victory on his bid for a new presidential term. But even there, the elections are likely to lead to a major reshuffle of the ruling elite, including the top brass and the inner circle of household oligarchs. After all, the thinly disguised failure in Ukraine must be blamed on someone, someone other than good old Volodia.

The only major power to appear stable at the moment is the People's Republic of China. But there too, President Xi Jinping appears more focused on managing economic slowdown and the purge of the party than being dragged into international problems that promise nothing but trouble.

The pendulum is also swinging more sharply towards conflict, instability and state failures. In 2023, the list of "ungoverned" countries was limited to Syria, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan and, according to some, Afghanistan. In 2024 Sudan, caught in a war between rival military factions, is certain to join the category, while Myanmar, with areas controlled by Karen rebels expanding, is heading in the same direction.

If you hope that the pendulum will swing towards peace, think again. In Ukraine, both sides, that is to say Russia and NATO, appear in a zugzwang that keeps them in conflict for the foreseeable future.

The Gaza war is set to continue in 2024. Even after Israel achieves its military objectives, that is to say dismantling Hamas' military machine and freeing Israeli hostages, within weeks the gargantuan task of building a new status quo is certain to take much longer.

In the meantime, the Gaza war has already ricocheted to North Yemen, still under Houthi control, and parts of Lebanon, under Hezbollah's total control. Fighting involving Iranian-controlled militias in Syria and Iraq with US-backed elements is also likely to get wider dimensions.

There are indications that both Russia and Turkey are also preparing for military action on a grander scale to secure the chunks of Syria under their control.

For its part, the Islamic Republic of Iran is likely to face a sharp swing of the pendulum towards uncertainty in both domestic and foreign policy areas.

Another case of the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction concerns the United Nations and diplomacy in general. The UN Security Council is likely to remain inoperative for the foreseeable future, while the Secretary-General, having tripped over the Gaza war, has lost much of his authority as arbiter of international conflicts.

At the end of the COP28 in Dubai earlier this month, there was much talk about multilateralism making a big comeback. But that may be nothing but wishful thinking. The coming year looks likely to see a further decline in multilateralism and an increase in bilateral efforts to deal with economic and security problems.

In some cases, lone-ranger policymaking is finding more advocates.

Hungary under Viktor Orbán, for example, is defying the EU by hosting a Chinese manufacturer of electric cars to compete with EU producers. Despite an agreement to coordinate immigration policy, EU members are developing divergent strategies likely to lead to diplomatic clashes in 2024.

A broader and potentially more important pendulum swing in 2024 would be away from the mushy consensus formed during the golden days of globalism.

Almost everywhere, we are already witnessing a return to the narrowest concept of national interests. Fear of dependence on potentially hostile or unstable powers has forced many countries, especially in the EU, to lean towards economic nationalism and discard the "comparative advantage" argument.

France, for example, has just unveiled a plan for self-sufficiency in a number of areas, notably pharmaceuticals, microchips and batteries for electrical vehicles. In a more folkloric move away from globalization, France has just revived growing a number of plants used in textile industry.

Finally, the pendulum looks likely to swing in favor of small- and/or medium-sized nations capable of adopting non-ideological and effective policies in the interest of their people. After all, no nation is small or medium as such; it's the leadership that makes a country small or great.

This article originally appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat

 
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20271/2024-pendulum

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Happy New Year, Anyway - Clarice Feldman

 

by Clarice Feldman

While it seems unlikely that 2024 will be better than this one has been, there are some reasons for optimism.

 

I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year even though, as 2023 draws to a close, it seems that “the whole world is festering in unhappy souls,” to quote the brilliant Tom Lehrer. I know at times it seems unlikely that 2024 will be better than this one has been, but there are some reasons for optimism. I credit independent journalism, Elon Musk with his fight for free speech on the internet, and the truism that eventually reality bites for my belief that the West may be wising up to the toxic mix of Islamism, traditional anti-Semitism, and Communism. Domestically, I credit the brilliant U.S. Constitution and the good sense of our citizens for my optimism.

Israel

Without much media coverage, there are awful things going on in the world outside of Israel and Gaza. In Sudan, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Libya, Arabs are enslaving, raping, and murdering Africans. In Pakistan, 1.7 million Afghanis, many who have sheltered there for decades, were forced back to their homeland in winter, with few possessions and even fewer prospects for survival. The Ukraine-Russia war is taking an enormous toll on the lives and fortunes of civilians in both countries. This toll of atrocities against civilians is nothing new, as Matti Friedman reports, so it’s worth your time to read in its entirety. The article was written in 2014 but remains relevant today. 

The volume of press coverage that results, even when little is going on, gives this conflict a prominence compared to which its actual human toll is absurdly small. In all of 2013, for example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict claimed 42 lives -- that is, roughly the monthly homicide rate in the city of Chicago. Jerusalem, internationally renowned as a city of conflict, had slightly fewer violent deaths per capita last year than Portland, Ore., one of America’s safer cities. In contrast, in three years the Syrian conflict has claimed an estimated 190,000 lives, or about 70,000 more than the number of people who have ever died in the Arab-Israeli conflict since it began a century ago.

News organizations have nonetheless decided that this conflict is more important than, for example, the more than 1,600 women murdered in Pakistan last year (271 after being raped and 193 of them burned alive), the ongoing erasure of Tibet by the Chinese Communist Party, the carnage in Congo (more than 5 million dead as of 2012) or the Central African Republic, and the drug wars in Mexico (death toll between 2006 and 2012: 60,000), let alone conflicts no one has ever heard of in obscure corners of India or Thailand. They believe Israel to be the most important story on earth, or very close.

Despite the oversize coverage of the fighting in Gaza, the psychopath Yahya Sinwar’s days seem numbered. The Hamas infrastructure is in rubble, including most of the many miles of tunnels constructed with billions of dollars of foreign aid that was meant to improve civilian life, but was commandeered to aid death-cult forays into Israel. Along with Sinwar’s demise must come the death of UNWRA, which has been fully exposed as a leading force behind Islamist terrorism in Gaza. The UN and the international press, along with our own major media, have black eyes for their role in the invasion of Israel, the butchery there, the hostage-taking -- all of it. (To take one example of many, it took 83 days after October 7 for the New York Times to finally report on the rapes and mutilations of Israeli women by Hamas.) A number of aid organizations have also exposed themselves as anti-Semites and will in time be as fully discredited. How the western press gets such reporting wrong is detailed in former AP reporter Matti Friedman’s account.

In European countries, the huge wave of Islamists and recent immigrants from Islamic countries have joined the stew of right-wing anti-Semites and communists to demand their countries force a cease-fire on Israel (that is, when they are not demanding those countries scrap their own laws and customs and replace them with Sharia law). Germany has banned such demonstrations and deported numbers of the demonstrators, France has threatened to do so, while the UK seems paralyzed to act as the streets of London are swamped with pro-Hamas and pro-Sharia thugs who beset British patriots and deface treasured national symbols. Still, there are leaders in the West whose popularity rose in defiance of these mobs:  Italy, the Netherlands, and Argentina seem to prefer rational leaders to cowards and appeasers. In any event, the demonstrators demand for a cease-fire seems futile. The latest offer of one in return for the hostages was rejected by Sinwar.

Domestic Demonstrations

Almost simultaneously with the October 7 attack, demonstrations were orchestrated by outfits like Black Lives Matter, Students for Justice in Palestine, and my favorite, “Queers for Palestine.”  Many, like the three Ivy League presidents skewered by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, showed they were bamboozled by nonsense like “oppressors and oppressed,” “apartheid,” and “colonialism” to think that “From the river to the sea” -- a call for the extermination of 7.2 million Israelis (including 2 million Moslem Israeli citizens) -- was, in “context,” just free speech. This on the very campuses which regularly punished nonsensical “microaggressions,” but not actual aggression. But the president of the University of Pennsylvania was forced to resign, and serial plagiarist and poor scholar Claudine Gay at Harvard is hanging on by a thread. Likely, along with some more sweeping changes, she will not be in the same position by the end of next year. The pressure is building both at universities and corporations to reduce substantially, if not eliminate entirely, the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) bureaucracies which, among other things, have fueled anti-white, anti-male, and anti-Semitic sentiments in both public and private institutions. Slowly but certainly, in my view, the demand for meritocracy will prevail, perhaps impelled by a growing number of lawsuits against outfits which endorse it. 

The public rioting and demonstrations -- at least as they attract the leftists among us -- seem to me driven by a hope to repeat in 2024 what worked in 2020. I don’t think they will. No longer confined to wreaking havoc among the urban poor, they have seriously overreached, blocking traffic to airports and bridges, and parading about the World Trade Center (yes, pro-Islamists at the WTC). They may get a frisson in their empty lives thinking they are the advance guard of a large following to redo America. Instead, they are royally enraging us. If, like me, you think the Left took advantage of the COVID restrictions to alter established voting practices and make it easier to cheat in 2020, I doubt that will work a second time. In droves, people are refusing to be ordered about by public-health bureaucracies now that we know how poorly they managed COVID and how hard they worked to keep the truth about the disease, its fatality rate, its spread, and its mitigation from being publicly known. Even Francis Collins, head of NIH at the time,

…acknowledged in the Covid discussion that the [Great Barrington Declaration which advocated against lockdowns, inter alia] could have been a great opportunity for a broad scientific discussion about the pros and cons” of focused protection. But then he blames the declaration’s authors for “short-circuiting” debate by trying to change national policy without first consulting public-health officials. Who really shut down that debate? Soon after the declaration was published online, Dr. Collins emailed Dr. Fauci calling for a “quick and devastating published take down of its premise.” Within a few days, myriad public-health associations attacked the declaration. 

Social media were pressured to label such discussions misinformation and posts relating to it were deleted and the posters locked out.  

Perhaps in recognition that the old ways of jiggering a national election may not be of use this time around, Colorado’s Democrat Supreme Court decided to remove Donald Trump from the Republican primary, though it has retreated upon appeal to the Supreme Court, saying he’ll be on the ballot unless the Court decides in its favor. Maine’s crazy-eyed Secretary of State has ordered Trump off the ballot, using an argument no stronger than Colorado’s. Any attempt to justify this as a means of saving “our democracy” sounds like the nonsense during the Vietnam war that we had to destroy a village to save it.

With something like 7 million illegals in the country now, many of whom have not been vetted, and both parties seemingly tied up in any effort to compel President Biden to turn off the spigot, it’s hard to predict how this will affect the election. Urban poor Hispanics and Blacks are protesting, and these are voters the Democrats regularly count on. A terrorist attack by any of these illegals will not help those who opened the door to their admission. And the DNC’s plan to hold its convention in Chicago, where anti-illegal immigration feelings are very strong, seems a mistake. Will the sight of Democrats fighting each other in what was supposed to be a show of unity around Biden really help drag him into the winner’s circle?

Anyway, don’t give up a hope that next year will be better. It very well may be.


Clarice Feldman

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/12/happy_new_year_anyway.html

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Saturday, December 30, 2023

Frontpage Magazine’s Man of the Year: The IDF Soldier - Daniel Greenfield

 

by Daniel Greenfield

In a year of defeatism and surrender, he is fighting back.

 


In a year when the civilized world is stuck in a state of retreat, he is fighting back.

Under Biden’s leadership, America has been invaded by hordes of millions of migrants, and Europe continues to stagger under an endless wave of migration from the Muslim world. That’s why American and European cities are being torn apart by rioting mobs supporting Hamas.

But after Israel was invaded on Oct 7, it fought back. The men on the front lines are not the politicians or the generals, they’re among the 360,000 reservists activated in a nation with a Jewish population of 7 million who left behind their homes, families and jobs to go and fight.

The Israeli military was unprepared for both Oct 7 and a call-up of this size. The soldiers were fed, clothed, and equipped by the people. While the media reports on the fighting, the truly incredible unreported story is how civilian volunteers have become the supply and support (the ‘tooth-to-tail’) of the Israel Defense Forces or the IDF.

In a small country, volunteers have been bringing food every day, they have provided clothes, shipped in body armor and even showed up with washing machines on pickup trucks to do the laundry. Some civilian volunteers have been wounded and even killed while delivering food. Israeli housewives have formed the Baking Battalion to make cookies, a cooking school produces meals for the troops and restaurants operate free food trucks. Others have stepped in to harvest crops and run the shops of the reservists who have been called up to serve in Gaza.

When the government and the leaders failed, the ordinary Israeli stepped up.

Some armies call themselves the “people’s army”: IDF soldiers really are. They’ve gone into Gaza knowing that the country stands behind them, not as an ideal, but as an everyday reality. Israel is a small country and everyone knows someone who died, came under attack, is among the 200,000 who left their homes to be out of range of the terrorist attacks, or in the ranks of those who are fighting or who have already fallen in defense of their nation.

Israel today reminds me of New York City after September 11 where for a brief shining moment everyone except the worst leftists pulled together against a common enemy. That spirit may well pass in Israel as it did in America, but while it lasts, it is something to admire and emulate.

Islamist mobs rampage around Manhattan and our elites celebrate Hamas, but the Israelis woke up after one terrible day and decided that they wouldn’t take it anymore. They rejected the dogma that fighting doesn’t work and they went to war. And far more than their own country is riding on the outcome. Nation after nation has surrendered to the Jihad, appeased it, and accepted the lie that Islamic terrorists can’t be defeated and fighting back only radicalizes them.

America accepted Islamic terrorism as the new normal, now we’ve accepted Muslim mobs smashing up our cities as the new normal. What new horror will we accept next?

The Israeli soldier is in the field fighting against this corrosive mainstreaming of evil. He is at war not only with the reality of Islamic terror but the idea that we are defenseless against it. That is why we all have a stake in what happens thousands of miles away. Gaza is not a territory: it’s a state of mind. There are Gazas in the ‘no-go zones’ of England and France, forming in Michigan and emerging in New York City. It is not a question of whether our war will come, but when.

For now we can still pretend that a 7th century madman’s book doesn’t affect us.

American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq all too often had to ask why they were there, no Israeli soldier in Gaza ever has to ask that question. Such questions end when the war comes home.

We’ve become used to wars that are abstractions, geopolitical policy decisions to change a regime or protect the international order, but that’s not what wars are like in Israel.

It’s a one hour drive from the hyper dense Tel Aviv metropolitan area to Kibbutz Be’eri where Islamic terrorists carried out some of the worst atrocities on Oct 7. The thousands of Jihadis, some on pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, had orders to keep going until they reached Tel Aviv. They didn’t get that far, but they did make it to Sderot, a town of 27,000 and they attacked Yad Mordechai just down the road from the city of Ashkelon.

It’s a six hour trip along Israel. On the narrowest points, it’s walkable. In wartime, there is no ‘over there’ in Israel, it’s all ‘over here’. IDF soldiers are not fighting for the international order or to nation build anything: they’re traveling hours to the north to protect their homes.

The Biden administration, the international community and the rest of the foreign policy ‘blob’ are obsessed with nation building in Gaza. They keep demanding a ‘day after’ plan from Israel. Conspiracy theorists claim that the lack of a ‘day after’ plan proves that Israel intends to expel all the Arab Muslim settlers from Gaza. The truth is that Israel doesn’t care about the same nation building nonsense that failed in every single Muslim country it’s been tried in 30 years.

When the madman across the street just butchered your family, you don’t plan out a rehab program or discuss his prison sentence while exchanging fire with him. That sort of madness is reserved for international foreign policy experts with no clue or skin in the game. The same goes for the obsession with “proportionate responses” or “winning the hearts and minds” of Hamas.

Instead of the nonsense that wasted so many of our lives, Israel is focused on winning the war.

Buried in the CNN and MSNBC reports, which are virtually indistinguishable from Al Jazeera’s Hamas propaganda barrage of bombing videos, is the fact that Israeli soldiers accomplished what the Biden administration’s military experts believed was impossible in record time.

Secretary of Defense Austin had urged Israelis to use his fight against ISIS in the Iraqi city of Mosul as a model. The fighting in Mosul took 9 months and led to over 1,000 casualties among the anti-ISIS coalition. Two weeks after the beginning of ground operations, Israel was in the heart of Gaza City. Now, IDF leaders say they’re close to having operational control over the north.

As of now, 164 IDF soldiers have fallen in the fighting against over 8,000 Hamas terrorists. Those approximate, but improve on, the casualty rates of American forces fighting against ISIS (then known as Al Qaeda in Iraq) and Iranian militias during the peak of the 2007 ‘Surge’. But the Israelis don’t have any Muslim allied forces fighting alongside them in urban battles.

Oct 7 heavily damaged the myth of the IDF, but the myth was always based on a misconception of what the Israel Defense Forces are. The IDF has its origins in groups of volunteer guards who were trained by Major General Orde Wingate, a devout Christian Zionist highly unpopular within the British military, in the unconventional doctrines that he would apply in WWII. The IDF is excellent at offensive operations, but poor at defensive ones except when individual soldiers launch desperate last stands of the kind that helped turn the tide in a few crucial battles.

The strength of the IDF has never been in its generals, though like the U.S. military it had some capable old school celebrity generals, now long gone, but in the character of the average fighting man. Strategy and leadership are crucial, but the IDF was built on the resilience of the ordinary soldier. Nations don’t make peoples and generals don’t make armies: it’s people who make nations and armies. That’s as true in Israel as it is in America.

Unlike the Islamic Jihadists they are battling, IDF soldiers don’t go to war fueled by meth or promises of 72 virgins, they go knowing that the lives of their friends and families depend on them. The politicians and the generals may fail them, but they do what needs to be done.

In Gaza now, they make beds among the rubble, put in earplugs and try to sleep while bombs and bullets shatter the night, and then, when it is time, they rise and fight. They are not superhuman or infallible: only ordinary men who know what is at stake. But they don’t know everything that is at stake. They see only their homes and the children they said goodbye to.

What they don’t see is a thousand year Jihad, the rafts bringing invaders to Europe and planes carrying them to America. They see only their small corner of the sky and earth to protect, but they are fighting a small battle that will shape the outcome of the greater civilizational war.

That is why the IDF soldier is Front Page Magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’. In a year of defeatism, he is still fighting. Even though all the experts say he should stop, he does not give up.

Those of us who see the big picture are often prone to despair, but the Israelis never look at big pictures. Israelis, unlike American Jews, have little interest in the big questions because, also unlike American Jews, they are religious in a mostly matter-of-fact way. When they look in the mirror, they don’t see insecurity, they see a fallible human being and when they look at the sky, they don’t see existential questions, they see G-d. That is why they have hope, not woke.

These are important because they not only encourage us to hope, but tell us how.

The IDF soldier is the reflection of a nation that has learned to live in the face of impossible threats by focusing on what needs to be done today. That lack of vision is a weakness, but it is also a strength. We too can turn from worrying about tomorrow and ask what we can do today.

The ordinary Israeli is in the field, or making cookies, washing khaki clothes and harvesting crops. He does not think about the unlikelihood that a nation of millions can survive the hatred of over a billion fanatics who believe that their only path to paradise is through genocide. He or she does what needs to be done, without despair or rage, but with the inner strength of purpose.

Israel is a nation at war with our enemies. The Islamists and leftists, the professional racists and deranged woke armies march through the streets of our cities calling for Israel’s destruction. It is not only a physical war, but a spiritual war, a cultural war and a moral war. It is a war that encompasses all of us, our homes, our families and our futures, but at the moment only one group of men is fighting that war, not just with words or elections, but with bullets.

Their fight gives us hope. Their fight shows us how to fight. Their fight shows us the future.


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

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/frontpage-magazines-man-of-the-year-the-idf-soldier/

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Douglas Murray, Col. Richard Kemp explain uphill battle for Israel - Gabriel Emanuel

 

by Gabriel Emanuel

Douglas Murray and Col. Richard Kemp – two of Israel’s most beloved friends, indeed – answer some FAQs on the current war.

 

 Douglas Murray (photo credit:  Douglas Murray)
Douglas Murray
(photo credit: Douglas Murray)

It might have been mistaken for a rock concert as hundreds of 20- and 30-somethings streamed into Tel Aviv’s Carlton Hotel last week. But these young adults weren’t there for any music. Instead, they were clamoring to hear the perspectives of two prominent advocates for Israel.

The featured speakers at the International Salon were the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp; and author and political commentator Douglas Murray, who has become a social media star since Oct. 7 and whose book War on the West (2018) quickly became a New York Times bestseller.

Both Kemp and Murray have spent the past two and a half months in Israel covering the war. “I’ve almost made aliyah” quipped Kemp.

When the charismatic Murray entered the room a little late, for reasons that he would later share, the audience broke into applause. While Kemp has been known for years for endorsing the IDF as the “most moral army” in the world, Murray shot to fame at the opening of the current conflict with his acerbic response to an interviewer’s question as to whether Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 could be considered “proportionate.”

In a segment on Britain’s Talk TV, which went instantly viral, Murray responded: “There is some deep perversion in Britain whenever Israel is involved in a conflict, and it’s the word you just used – ‘proportion,’ ‘proportionate,’ ‘proportionality.’ Only Britain is really obsessed with this.

 Col. Richard Kemp (credit: Richard Kemp)Enlrage image
Col. Richard Kemp (credit: Richard Kemp)

Proportionality in conflict rarely exists. But if we were to decide that we should have this fetish about proportionality, then that would mean that in retaliation for what Hamas did in Israel on Saturday [Oct. 7], then Israel should try and locate a music festival in Gaza, for instance (and good luck with that), and rape precisely the number of women that Hamas raped, kill precisely the number of young people that Hamas killed.

“They should find a town of exactly the same size of Sderot, and make sure they go door to door and kill precisely the correct number of babies that Hamas killed in Sderot and shoot in the head precisely the same number of old-age pensioners that Hamas shot in the head on Saturday.

“Proportionality in conflict is a joke,” spurned Murray. “It is only the Israelis that, when attacked, are expected to have precisely a proportionate response.”

Given both British gentlemen’s philosemitic reputations, the audience broke out with laughter and applause when they were introduced as the “two most beloved goyim” in all of Israel.

Nonplussed by the off-color moniker, Kemp stated proudly that “I am also an extremely talented ‘Shabbat goy, the result of residing in a hotel with many displaced persons from Kiryat Shmona who have used my services quite extensively.”

Asked by British moderator Deborah Danon what drew them to supporting Israel in a topsy-turvy world that was largely hostile toward the Jewish state, each had similar reasons for doing so.

“I was taught when I was very young to know right from wrong,” said Kemp, “and it’s my duty to support those who are right. There is no question who is in the right in this fight.”

Underscoring his 30 years fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kemp said that he feels duty-bound “to do what little I can do to help fight this fight with you because it’s not just your fight – it’s a fight for Western civilization. The same ideology that’s attacking you now has attacked us in the past and will intensify its attacks in the future.”

Apologizing for his late entrance, having been held up in an interview on [the TV talk show] Piers Morgan Uncensored (“It’s quite hard to get Piers to stop talking”), Murray offered another reason that drew him over to Israel’s side.

“Aside from my love for this country and its people,” he said, “I also see something that I think any writer or journalist should see and get very annoyed by, which is lies. When it’s lies about an entire nation and people, when I hear someone like this blowhard I heard earlier [on Piers Morgan Uncensored] accusing Israel of ‘genociding’ the Palestinians, I can’t sit here and not say something.

“I’m not going to allow these canards, smears, lies, and defamation to just go on. I don’t like lies being told, and Israel has been on the receiving end of some of the biggest, longest, deepest, and most wounding lies of our era,” Murray said. “So I believe in the simple cause of ‘moral hygiene’ that it’s necessary to try and clean some of that up.”

The moderator then asked: “In a world of TikTok, where Jesus is Palestinian... do you ever ask yourself ‘What’s the point?’”

“Never, actually,” Murray replied emphatically. “Even if it were the case, what option have you got?”

Despite the omnipresence of social media, where lies “rocket around the world,” Murray holds fast to a different view. “If you live in a world where 99 lies are being told and one person tells the truth, the truth will win,” he asserted. “The validity of a truth in an era of lies cannot be underestimated.”

ON THE topic of lies, it was an easy segue to Hamas’s battle figures. “I don’t know what the latest exaggerated figure is from Hamas about the number of people who have been killed in Gaza,” said Kemp. “I just know that [Hamas] has to be defeated. If it means that a very large number of people, whether military or civilian, have to die in that process, then unfortunately that’s the case.

“No sovereign, democratic state can exist under this threat. So [the threat] must be eliminated. It’s as simple as that.”

Kemp, who has been in Gaza several times, noted that he is deeply impressed by the IDF’s combat effectiveness. Regarding Hamas, he said: “They want the IDF to kill their civilians. They want as many civilians killed as possible because that then provokes the inevitable international demand for ceasefire, condemning Israel for war crimes.”

Asked about pressure from the United States, Murray said: “You should be courteous to your allies but not subservient to them,” earning him a hearty round of applause.

“The future of this state, of the Jewish people, must be in the hands of the Jewish people,” he continued. “It cannot be in the hands of anyone else. It cannot be in the hands of people who say the day after the massacre of Oct. 7 that this is why we need to double down on the two-state solution. It just can’t be in the hands of people going at that kind of slow speed.”

Had the events of Oct. 7 happened in the US, Murray pointed out, proportionately over 120,000 Americans would have been massacred on one day. “Nobody can tell me that the Americans would have listened to anyone then, nor should they,” he said.

The one potential outcome of the war that Murray absolutely rejects is that the situation might return to the status quo ante of October 6.

“Israel must be allowed to win,” he asserted. “It cannot simply always be encouraged to fight for a stalemate.”

Regarding Hezbollah, Murray poked fun at the thought that we would all have to relearn the map of the North and become experts again on the Litani River [in Lebanon].

“Since 2006, it’s just been a replay of the same thing. Anything other than actual victory by the Israelis in this conflict is unacceptable because all of these efforts to make Israel fight into a stalemate will simply prepare the groundwork for the next war, and this country deserves not to be forced into perpetual war,” he stressed.

Israel's lacking friends

RESPONDING TO the issue of the hostages, Murray said that he was genuinely shocked by “the lack of empathy for Israel internationally.”

A glaring example, he said, was the tearing down of posters of the hostages around the world. “If you put up a poster of a missing cat or dog in your neighborhood, you would not expect anyone to rip it down,” he asserted.

“And if anyone did rip it down, you would think that person was subhuman. This wasn’t dogs or cats. These were Jewish children. In city after city, sociopaths tore down these posters. This lack of empathy has been there since [Oct. 7].”

Addressing the tragic incident in which three hostages were mistakenly killed by Israeli troops, Murray said: “The media treats it as more evidence of the brutality of the Israeli soldiers – ‘they even kill their own!’

“Imagine the lives of those soldiers who shot those three hostages, how they must have felt. And yet, instead of recognizing what a tragedy that is for everybody involved, they use it as a weapon against Israel! That really has slightly startled me.”

When asked by the moderator about “the day after,” Kemp said: “The IDF has no option whatsoever, apart from to stay in control of Gaza from now on. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; it doesn’t matter what President Biden might want to happen.

“What is absolutely certain is that the IDF must maintain security control of Gaza. It means either a permanent IDF presence inside the whole of Gaza, or it means the creation of a one- or two-mile buffer zone on the inside of the Gaza border that no one is allowed to go into and that the IDF can police.”

About the general population of Gaza, Kemp said: ”The reality in Gaza is that the vast majority of allegedly innocent civilians support Hamas. Even when they see the horrors that Hamas has brought on them, they still support Hamas. And there will be efforts to have a Hamas 2.”

Murray concurred that it is a “very bleak necessity” for Israel to stay in Gaza. For how long? “Call me a pessimist,” Kemp said, “but I would say forever.”

Both Kemp and Murray spend time visiting the wounded in hospitals. On a recent visit, Murray met a farmer from a border kibbutz who had lost his wife, son, and both his legs in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack. He told Murray: “I have been a leftist all my life. I now want to look out on nothing but potato fields from here to the Mediterranean.”

Commented Murray: “Who can risk living beside these people? Nobody else in the world would be expected to have to put up with that. I think you should have the right to live in peace and know that the border you have does not contain genocidal maniacs on the other side who want to kill you.”

A future in politics?

THE AUDIENCE also had an opportunity to question the speakers. What changes would Murray like to see in present-day Britain? “Obviously the first thing I’d do would be to make Richard Kemp minister of defense,” he suggested to uproarious laughter. “I assume you’ll be prime minister, will you?” Kemp shot back. Feigning humility, Murray demurred, saying, “If the nations calls…”

On a more serious note, Murray condemned the “appalling” pro-Hamas demonstrations that have taken place in London. “I think it’s been shameful,” he said. “I want no Hamas supporters in my country. And that’s quite easy to arrange,” he added. He was referring to Muhammud Sawalha, a key Hamas terrorist from the West Bank who subsequently obtained British citizenship.

“To get a British passport, you must sign a form that says you are a person of good character. I submit that he is not a person of good character,” said Murray, “and that he lied on his form when he said that he was. I would like to see his citizenship stripped, and I would like to see him deported and to try his luck in Gaza.”

Murray also cited the case of a young woman whose British passport was recalled when she returned from having joined ISIS. She tried to pretend that she didn’t know that they were actually a “murderous, head-hacking group” and besides, “we all make mistakes.”

Murray contended that she shouldn’t get her passport back. “If you’re with an Islamist death cult, you should not be allowed to be in Britain.”

He was also asked about the quality of Israel’s hasbara (public diplomacy) in the current war. “I believe they should be given some credit,” he said.

He cited Al-Shifa Hospital as an example, pointing out that Israel released closed-circuit TV footage of some hostages being dragged into the hospital, as well as showing the weapons cache discovered there. But at the same time, he underscored why not even the best PR may succeed.

“The minute they show that the hospital has an arms dump inside it, and has a load of Kalashnikovs and grenades, Jeremy Bowen of the BBC is asked about it and says, ‘Well, it is not inconceivable that the Kalashnikovs belonged to the hospital’s security department.’”

Murray said that the following day, he responded on television by saying sarcastically, “Yeah, and it’s possible the grenades were for the cardiology department.”

Murray’s point is well taken. No matter how strong the evidence is, it is not necessarily strong enough to overcome bias.

Kemp concurred, saying, “This extraordinary propaganda campaign against Israel – everything that Israel does is wrong. For the past 10 years, the BBC has not allowed me to speak on any program about Israel. Any other security issue, any other country I’m on all the time on the BBC. Just not about Israel.”

Murray stressed how moved he is about the young people of this country. “They will be an example not just to Israel, but to the people of the world.

“I think the country is still going through a trauma, trying to work out what was done to you in October,” he continued.

“You asked at the beginning why we do this. I would just say it is the honor of my life to be standing in alliance with you.”

When the evening concluded, the young adults in the audience rushed to the small stage to take selfies with both men. Douglas Murray and Col. Richard Kemp – two of Israel’s most beloved friends, indeed.


Gabriel Emanuel

Source: https://www.jpost.com/bds-threat/article-779863

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