The Biden Administration’s Sinister Turn Against Israel - Caroline Glick

 

​ by Caroline Glick

What is notable about the Biden administration’s accusation is that not only did the Obama administration breach the 2004 deal—it denied the deal existed, in the first place. In June 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “in looking at the history of the Bush administration, there were no informal or…enforceable agreements.”

 

On Tuesday, the State Department summoned Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog to demand an explanation for the Knesset’s abrogation of the 2005 law banning Jews from living in four communities in northern Samaria. That law was passed in the framework of Israel’s failed plan to disengage from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.

In August 2005, Israel expelled 10,000 Jewish citizens from Gaza and northern Samaria in the hopes that the Palestinians would take the areas and build a mini-Singapore. Instead, they built a mini-Afghanistan.

The Knesset’s decision to abrogate the law was a rare example of a democracy acting to correct its prior mistake. But that’s not how the Biden administration saw it.

Around the same time Ambassador Herzog was summoned, the White House said the law was a breach of Israel’s 2004 agreement with the Bush administration. That agreement, which was given expression in an April 2004 letter then-President George W. Bush sent to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, essentially said that in exchange for Israel’s forcible uprooting of the Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Samaria, the Bush administration would accept the permanence of major Jewish communities in the rest of Judea and Samaria.

What is notable about the Biden administration’s accusation is that not only did the Obama administration breach the 2004 deal—it denied the deal existed, in the first place. In June 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “in looking at the history of the Bush administration, there were no informal or…enforceable agreements.”

Merely denying documented history would be bad enough. But the broader policy framework that informed the Biden administration’s outburst is much worse than a dispute about whether northern Samaria should be Judenrein or not.

On March 13, the Office of Palestinian Affairs in the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem posted on Twitter photos of its director, George Noll, visiting the Tomb of Lazarus north of Jerusalem. The post referred to the tomb as “an important religious site…maintained by the Palestinian Authority’s (PA’s) Ministry of Tourism.” It praised the PA’s “work preserving beautiful historical and religious sites like this throughout the West Bank.”

Many Israelis were shocked by the post because far from “preserving beautiful historical and religious sites” throughout Judea and Samaria, the PA is deliberately destroying them.

For instance, the Church of John the Baptist in Sebastia in northern Samaria, where John the Baptist was reportedly buried, is now a Hamas flag-festooned ruin. The church’s devastation is collateral damage in the PA’s effort to destroy any physical record of Jewish history in the cradle of Jewish—and Christian—civilization.

Sebastia is the Arabic name for Samaria, the ancient capital of the biblical Kingdom of Israel, and one of the most important Jewish and world heritage sites in the region—and perhaps the world. But with direct support from UNESCO, the PA is destroying Sebastia, rewriting history. Last week, for instance, Palestinian workers paved a new road in the middle of ancient Sebastia, uncovering a Jewish burial cave from the Second Temple period. The workers destroyed the cave and threw a pig’s corpse inside.

Sebastia is only one of hundreds of Jewish heritage sites that the PA is deliberately destroying. Not only is the U.S. not condemning the destruction, through Noll—it is praising it.

And it gets worse. On Monday, the State Department published its 2022 Country Report on Human Rights Practices. Its section on Israel is not merely hostile—it effectively rejects the legitimacy of Israel’s right to exist. The State Department report attacks Israel for denying prison furloughs to Palestinian terrorists. It attacks Israel for fighting terrorism. And it attacks Israel for preventing unrestricted illegal immigration.

Even worse, the State Department report effectively denies that the Jewish state has the right to enforce its laws toward its Arab citizens.

Agricultural terrorism

Take, for instance, the report’s section on Israel’s efforts to combat illegal Bedouin land seizures in southern Israel. According to Regavim, an Israeli NGO that documents illegal Arab construction, Israel’s Bedouin minority has seized land in the Negev that is larger in area than Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Beersheba combined. As Naomi Kahn, Regavim’s international director, explains, through this illegal land seizure, some 82,000 Bedouin—who make up less than 1% of Israel’s population—have illegally seized around 150,000 square acres of land. The other 99% of Israelis reside on around 232,000 square acres of land. According to a study published this week by HaShomer HaHadash, a volunteer organization that protects Israeli farmland from Arab agricultural terrorism, Bedouin protection rackets in Israel have become pervasive. A whopping 80% of Israeli business owners now pay the gangs protection money.

All of this is known to U.S. embassy staff. But it has clearly made no impression on the State Department. As it did throughout the report, the State Department based its claims in relation to Bedouin land issues on contentions put forward by anti-Israel NGOs. These groups, funded almost exclusively by foreign governments and foreign foundations, reject Israel’s right to exist, support its boycott, and accuse the only liberal democracy in the Middle East of being an “apartheid” regime. By the State Department’s own definition, all of these positions are anti-Semitic.

Presenting allegations by such groups as fact, the State Department report characterized efforts by Israel to destroy a tiny portion of the tens of thousands of illegal structures the Bedouin have built on state land as cruel and imperialist. “Civil society contacts stated the demolitions ignored traditional Bedouin semi-nomadic lifestyles predating the modern state of Israel,” it wrote.

In perhaps one of the report’s most telling sections, the State Department accuses Israel of anti-Semitism. In its words, “Jews constituted close to 74% of the population, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. The government often treat(s) crimes targeting Jews as nationalistic crimes relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than as resulting from anti-Semitism.”

In other words, Israel engages in anti-Semitism because it treats Palestinian terror attacks carried out in furtherance of the Palestinian goal to annihilate Israel as acts of war directed against the Jewish state, rather than as anti-Semitic crimes such as the ones carried out by anti-Semites in America.

Speaking of anti-Semitism, in 2016, the State Department adopted the working definition of anti-Semitism ratified by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Among other things, the IHRA definition states, “Manifestations (of anti-Semitism) might include targeting the State of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.”

The definition also stipulates that “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” is anti-Semitic.

Israel’s many critics like to use the issue of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria—whose legality the President Donald Trump-era State Department effectively recognized in 2019—as a basis for justifying anti-Israel policies. But from Noll’s praise for the PA, which is systematically erasing Jewish history, to the State Department’s denunciation of Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself and enforce its laws equally toward its Jewish and Arab citizens alike, it appears that opposition to the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria isn’t what drives the Biden administration’s abusive treatment of Israel.

Originally published at Newsweek.com.

Caroline Glick

Source: https://carolineglick.com/the-biden-administrations-sinister-turn-against-israel/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

US retaliates with airstrikes in Syria after Iranian drone strike kills US contractor - Lawrence Richard

 

​ by Lawrence Richard

U.S. intelligence assessed the UAV and determined it to be of Iranian origin before carrying out airstrikes in response

The U.S. military carried out several precision airstrikes in Syria on Thursday, reportedly killing eight Iranians, in retaliation for a drone strike Iranian forces conducted earlier in the day on a coalition base that killed one American. 

The Defense Department said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps crashed a UAV into a building near Hasakah in northeast Syria at approximately 1:38 p.m. local time, leaving one U.S. contractor dead. The attack also wounded five U.S. service members and another U.S. contractor.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, two of the American strikes killed at least eight Iranian fighters.

A U.S. airstrike at an arms depot in Harabesh, in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour left six Iranian-backed fighters dead. A second U.S. bombing at a post near the town of Mayadeen killed another two fighters, according to the Observatory, whose reporting relies on local Syrian contacts.

BIDEN WARNED AS RUSSIA, CHINA FLEX MUSCLE IN MIDDLE EAST: 'ALLIES MATTER'

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, speaks during a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley at the Pentagon in Washington, Wednesday, March 15, 2023.  (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

U.S. intelligence assessed the UAV that crashed into a coalition base, which killed the U.S. contractor, was of Iranian origin — so President Biden authorized the military to retaliate, the Pentagon said.

"At the direction of President Biden, I authorized U.S. Central Command forces to conduct precision airstrikes tonight in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)," said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. "The airstrikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against Coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the IRGC."

The Observatory reported another American strike on a military post near the town of Boukamal, near the border with Iraq. Their report has not been independently verified. 

CHINA DENIES HIDDEN MOTIVES AFTER BROKERING TALKS BETWEEN SAUDI ARABIA, IRAN

Three service members and the U.S. contractor who were wounded in the initial attack were medically evacuated to Coalition medical facilities in Iraq while the other two wounded service members were treated on-site.

"As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing," Secretary Austin continued. "No group will strike our troops with impunity."

He added: "Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues of the contractor who was killed and with those who were wounded in the attack earlier today."

General Michael Kurilla, the CENTCOM Commander, said the U.S. stands ready to retaliate against any such attacks on U.S. personnel.

"This evening, we responded to an attack on our forces that killed an American contractor and wounded our troops and another American contractor by striking facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This was another in a series of attacks on our troops and partner forces," Kurilla said.

Kurilla added: "We will always take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks."

"The thoughts and prayers of US Central Command are with the Family of our contractor killed and with our wounded servicemembers and contractor," the CENTCOM Commander also said.

And: "Our troops remain in Syria to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS, which benefits the security and stability of not only Syria but the entire region."

The Pentagon said the U.S. took "proportionate and deliberate action" that limited the risk of escalation in its targeted response.

The U.S. has roughly 900 troops stationed in Syria.

 

Lawrence Richard

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-retaliates-airstrikes-syria-iranian-drone-strike-kills-us-contractor

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Jan 6: The Worst Attack on the Capitol Since the Civil War? - Lloyd Billingsley

 

​ by Lloyd Billingsley

That’s what Biden claims. Is it true?

 

Last January, Joe Biden claimed that the events of January 6, 2021 were the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War. That invites a look at what happened at the Capitol some 80 years after the Civil War.

On March 1, 1954, Puerto Rican nationalists Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero and Irvin Flores Rodrigues, took a train from New York City to Washington DC, arriving at Union Station shortly after noon. The four entered the House gallery alongside a class of sixth-grade students from Maryland.

That day, the representatives were debating an immigration bill. At approximately 2:32 p.m. the foursome yelled “Viva Puerto Rico libre!” and began firing with .38 caliber pistols.

Rep. Alvin M. Bentley, Michigan Republican, took a bullet to the chest. Iowa Republican Ben F. Jensen took a hit in the back and Clifford Davis (D-Tennessee) suffered a bullet wound in the leg. The gunfire also wounded Democrats George Hyde Fallon of Maryland and Kenneth A. Roberts of Alabama. Amid the chaos, members took quick action.

Congressmen and pages carried the wounded to safety, and one representative used his tie as a tourniquet. Rep James Van Zandt of Pennsylvania overpowered Rafael Miranda, who had fired most of the shots. Capitol visitors captured three of the shooters and a police search turned up Irvin Rodriguez.

The shooters were members of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico (PNPR), which had attempted to assassinate President Harry Truman in 1950. On October 26, 1954, Judge Lawrence E. Walsh sentenced the four to more than 70 years in prison, a stretch they would never serve.

Andres Cordero died in 1979, and that year President Jimmy Carter commuted the sentences of Lebron, Miranda and Rodriguez. That drew a protest from Puerto Rico Gov. Carlos Romero Barcelo, who argued that the prisoners’ unconditional release would encourage terrorism and “constitute a menace to public safety.”

Carter also commuted the sentence of Oscar Collazo, who had taken part in the assassination attempt on President Truman, during which one of the president’s guards was killed. Collozo had been sentenced to death but in 1952 Truman commuted the sentence to life in prison.

The Puerto Ricans had not applied for clemency, claiming they were political prisoners. Baltasar Corrada, Puerto Rico’s nonvoting Representative in Congress, countered that the shooters were “jailed for their criminal conduct, not their political beliefs.”

The wounded all survived and continued their careers in Congress. Nearly 130 years after the Civil War, the Capitol would suffer another attack.

“Listen carefully, I’m only going to tell you this one time,” a caller from the “Armed Resistance Unit,” told the Capitol switchboard operator on November 7, 1983.  “There is a bomb in the Capitol building. It will go off in five minutes. Evacuate the building.” A Senate document, “Bomb Explodes in Capitol,” describes what happened.

The caller warned that “a bomb had been placed near the chamber in retaliation for recent U.S. military involvement in Grenada and Lebanon.” At 10:58 p.m. “a thunderous explosion tore through the second floor of the Capitol’s north wing.” The device, hidden under a bench at the eastern end of the corridor outside the Senate chamber, “blew off the door to the office of Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd.

The blast also punched a hole in a wall partition sending a shower of pulverized brick, plaster, and glass into the Republican cloakroom.” The adjacent halls were virtually deserted, so “many lives had been spared.” The attackers later called National Public Radio and proclaimed, “Tonight we bombed the U.S. Capitol.”

Historian William Rosenau explains, the Armed Resistance Unit was part of the May 19th Communist Organization, named for the shared birthdays of Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh. The May 19th Communist Organization was the “the first and only women-created and women-led terrorist group,” with leaders including Judy Clark, daughter of high-level Communist Party officials, Marilyn Buck, and Susan Rosenburg.

Marilyn Buck attended UC Berkeley, joined Students for a Democratic Society, and later lent her services to the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Susan Rosenberg, daughter of progressive parents, saw herself as part of the struggle against U.S. imperialism.

At 29, Rosenberg made the FBI’s most wanted list as a suspect in the prison escape of Joanne Chesimard of the BLA. Rosenberg was also wanted for a 1981 Brinks robbery that claimed the lives of  two police officers and a guard. In 1984, police caught Rosenberg with 12 guns, some 200 stolen sticks of dynamite, more than 100 sticks of DuPont Trovex explosives, and hundreds of fake identification documents.

In 1985 Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years, but through a plea deal escaped additional time for aiding and abetting a series of bombings at the U.S. Capitol, the National War College and New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent association. After 16 years in prison, the terrorist bomber caught a break.

On January 20, 2001, President Bill Clinton commuted Rosenberg’s sentence. That drew criticism from New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Charles Schumer, and officials such as Bernard Kerik. As the former New York police commissioner  told Fox News, “I’m sure she would have killed every single one of us if she could have.”

Like the Puerto Rican shooters of 1954, Rosenberg claimed she had been imprisoned for her political beliefs. In 2011, she published An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country. The Capitol bomber went on to become vice-chair of Thousand Currents, fiscal sponsor of the Black Lives Matter Global Network.

In the summer of 2020, BLM teamed with Antifa on riots in more than 100 cities, with some 30 killed and more than $1 billion in damages. On January 6, 2021, by contrast, the only casualties were Trump supporters, including Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, shot dead by Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd.

For Joe Biden, Jan. 6 was the greatest attack on democracy since the Civil War. He left out the shootings of 1954 and the bombing of 1983, which could easily have claimed his life. The Delaware Democrat had also forgotten another attempt on September 11, 2001.

That day al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners, including United Airlines Flight 93. According to The 9/11 Commission Report, the objective was to crash the airliner into the Capitol or the White House. The flight was 20 minutes from Washington when the terrorists were “defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93.”

Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Yes I Con: United Fakes of America, Barack ‘Em Up: A Literary Investigation, Hollywood Party, and numerous other works.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/jan-6-the-worst-attack-on-the-capitol-since-the-civil-war/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Andrew Cuomo calls out Georgia and New York Trump investigations, says they're politically motivated - Charlotte Hazard

 

​ by Charlotte Hazard

Cuomo said the New York case should be over a possible misdemeanor, and should be federal and not state.

Former New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called out the Georgia and New York investigations into former President Donald Trump, referring to them as a "cancer in our body politic."

Cuomo did an interview earlier this week with John Catsimatidis, who hosts the talk-radio show "The Cats Roundtable." He said during the interview that he doesn't understand why Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is "putting such an emphasis" on whether or not Trump paid hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

A grand jury in Manhattan has been soliciting testimony from witnesses, including disgraced former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who alleges he arranged payments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sexual encounters they claimed to have had with Trump a decade earlier.

Cuomo also said during the interview that the case should be over a possible misdemeanor, and that it should be a federal case and not a state case, according to The Hill. 

According to the former New York governor, the whole case is politically motivated. 

"I don't believe a Democratic prosecutor just happens to be attacking a Republican. I don't believe a Republican prosecutor just happens to be attacking a Democrat. I think it's all politics, and I think that's what the people of this country are saying," he said during the interview. 

"And I think it feeds the cynicism, and that's the cancer in our body politic right now," Cuomo later said. 

Charlotte Hazard

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/andrew-cuomo-calls-out-georgia-and-new-york-trump-investigations

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

'Race to the bottom': Legal experts fear escalation spiral ahead of possible Trump indictment - Ben Whedon

 

​ by Ben Whedon

"My concern is that this could trigger a type of tit-for-tat response where Republican prosecutors seek to weaponize criminal charges against Democrats," said law professor Jonathan Turley.

Ahead of a prospective indictment of former President Donald Trump, legal experts and elected officeholders are warning that such an unprecedented move may spur a dangerous escalation spiral of retributive political prosecutions that undermine the nation's justice system.

Trump announced last week that he expected to be arrested imminently. While that arrest has not yet occurred, the prospect of a Trump indictment looms large as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg continues his investigation into an alleged 2016 hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Bragg's case may rest upon the argument that a Trump payment to Daniels via his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, could be a campaign finance violation that the former president concealed by allegedly falsifying business records. Federal prosecutors have previously rejected the case, and some legal scholars have deemed it a farce.

The case lost further credibility on Wednesday with the surfacing of a purported 2018 letter from Cohen's attorney to the Federal Elections Commission attesting that Cohen acted alone and Trump was not party to the transaction.

Many experts have branded the prospective case a political prosecution, citing legal weaknesses and witnesses of questionable credibility.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley fears the possibility of Republican prosecutors retaliating by pursuing similarly flimsy cases against high-profile Democrats, fueling a self-perpetuating cycle of politicization.

"My concern is that this could trigger a type of tit-for-tat response where Republican prosecutors seek to weaponize criminal charges against Democrats," he told Just the News. "We cannot afford a race to the bottom in political prosecutions. Such prosecutions will only magnify the rage that is already pulling this country apart."

Turley believes Bragg is being influenced by external political pressures, including the publication of a book by a former prosecutor in his office.

"What is so untoward about this case is that the public watched as Bragg knuckled under to the political pressures to bring this case," he said. "Like others, Bragg clearly had doubts about the case and halted the push to the grand jury. That led to the very public resignation of two prosecutors.

"One of those prosecutors then took the highly controversial move of publishing a book based on his investigation to make the public case against a person who was not indicted, let alone convicted ... it worked. Bragg caved to the overwhelming political pressure. Bragg has reduced the criminal justice system to prosecution by plebiscite."

Turley is not alone in fearing the prospect of activist prosecutors politicizing criminal cases. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey sees parallels between Bragg's handling of the Trump case and the record of fellow George Soros-funded prosecutor Kimberly Gardner in St. Louis.

"Look, these Soros-backed prosecutors are not prosecutors," he said Wednesday on the John Solomon Reports podcast. "They're activists that are disguised as prosecutors. It used to be in this country that we elevated the rules of the game above their players and the outcome. And the left has abandoned that."

Gardner "is unlawfully refusing to do her job instead of protecting victims," Bailey argued. "She's creating more victims by her unlawful refusal to do her job."

Bailey has filed a petition in state court for the removal of Gardner from office, calling her a "failed circuit attorney."

"We're taking all legal action and keeping our foot on the gas pedal to expedite that process within the confines of due process and due diligence in order to restore the rule of law and justice for victims in the city of St. Louis," he said.

Gardner was reprimanded and fined by the Missouri Supreme Court for professional misconduct in her prosecution of former Missouri Republican Gov. Eric Greitens. After driving Greitens from office with a lurid felony invasion of privacy charge, she later dropped all charges and admitted to lacking key evidence in the case.

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz excoriated Bragg's prosecution of Trump in an interview Monday on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show.

"[I]t's a virtual certainty that there will be an indictment for this Mickey Mouse charge," said the renowned civil liberties lawyer, who represented Trump during his first impeachment trial. "You know, they spent months trying to figure out what crimes they can charge — exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to do.

"Justice [Robert H.] Jackson once said any prosecutor can rummage through the statute books and figure out some technical offense to pin on anybody. But that's not the way the law should work. The law should first find out there's a crime, then try to find out who did it, not the opposite: Let's get this guy, let's let's create a crime."

Both Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James campaigned on a promise to "get Trump," Dershowitz recalled.

"Their campaign," he said, "was 'get Trump.' I've never heard of that before, where prosecutors run for office on the promise to prosecute a particular individual. That's just not right. And it just violates their oath of office."

The Founding Fathers, Dershowitz explained, sought an elite, independent judiciary insulated from electoral pressures.

"The framers didn't want elected judges," he said. "They wanted appointed judges" comprising "an elite institution to serve as a check on the popular branches of government. And the last thing we need is popularly elected — and unelected — law enforcement officials.

"We ought to adopt a system that almost every other country in the world has, of civil service prosecutors, coupled with judges who are appointed by panels of very distinguished people, so we get the best people." 

 

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/holdlawmakers-legal-experts-warn-legal-tit-tat-ahead-possible-trump

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

The Growing Power of the China-Iran Alliance Thanks to the Biden Administration - Majid Rafizadeh

 

​ by Majid Rafizadeh

The Biden administration's failure to lead is effectively handing the US over to China, Russia and Iran on a platter, actively creating a new world order with China at the top and the US potentially wherever China wants.

• The deal grants China significant rights over the Iran's resources and help to Iran in increasing its oil and gas production. Leaked information revealed that one of the terms is that China will be investing nearly $400 billion in Iran's oil, gas and petrochemicals industries. In return, China will get priority to bid on any new project in Iran that is linked to these sectors.

• China will also be able to pay in any currency it chooses.

• The Biden administration's failure to lead is effectively handing the US over to China, Russia and Iran on a platter, actively creating a new world order with China at the top and the US potentially wherever China wants.

• Where is our commitment to a "Manhattan Project" to strengthen our defense? Why is the requested defense budget for 2024 only 3.2% higher than the 2023 budget? This means in real terms, factoring in the current inflation of 6%, that the current defense budget is a cut. Worse, it comes in below the budget increases planned for the Environmental Protection Agency (19%), Department of the Interior (12%), and Department of Veterans Affairs (5.4%). In 2022, US defense spending as a percentage of GDP was 3.1%, compared to the 8% of GDP it was in 1970.

• Thanks to the monumental serial ineptitude of the Biden Administration, China's President Xi Jinping, backed by his troika of oil suppliers -- Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran -- doubtless feels on the verge of fulfilling his fondest dream: Displacing the US as the world's leading superpower. The saddest part is that the reason is us: Why are we deliberately not protecting our Republic?

Iran and China have become more empowered and emboldened than ever. The Chinese Communist Party and the ruling Islamist mullahs of Iran have been violating US sanctions without facing any consequences from the Biden administration. Pictured: Iran's then Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (right) and China's top diplomatic official, Wang Yi, at the signing of the China-Iran comprehensive strategic 25-year partnership agreement on economic and security cooperation, in Tehran, Iran on March 27, 2021. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Thanks to the extremely dubious leadership of the Biden Administration, Iran and China have become more empowered and emboldened than ever. The Chinese Communist Party and the ruling Islamist mullahs of Iran have been conveniently violating US sanctions without facing any consequences from the Biden administration.

Since the Biden administration assumed office, here are a few of the critical developments: First, China rose to be a leading player in the Middle East. Beijing recently brokered an agreement between two of its major oil suppliers: Iran and Saudi Arabia. According to Deutsche Welle:

"China has cultivated strong economic and political ties with both Riyadh and Tehran in recent years. Saudi Arabia is China's largest oil supplier, with trade between the two countries amounting to $87 billion (€81 billion) in 2021. Commerce between Iran and China, meanwhile, was worth more than $16 billion in the same year, with Tehran depending on the Asian giant for as much as 30% of its foreign trade."

It should be noted that in 2019 and 2020, Iran's oil exports decreased to fewer than 200,000 barrel a day, representing a decline of roughly 90%. This shift took place after the Trump administration decided not to extend its waiver for Iran's eight biggest oil buyers: China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea. In 2021, however, immediately after the Biden administration took office, China ramped up its oil imports from Iran, increasing them from 200,000 a day to nearly one million barrels a day. In other words, Iran is exporting approximately five times more oil than at its nadir in 2019 and 2020.

Central Asian countries are also continuing to trade with Iran. The sale of oil accounts for more than 80% of Iran's export revenues, therefore the regime relies heavily on oil exports.

China also signed a 25-year strategic partnership deal with Iran; presently the agreement is in its early stages of implementation. According to it, China will continue to import oil from Iran despite US sanctions. According to the Tehran Times:

"For his part, the Chinese foreign minister approved of his Iranian counterpart's views expounded in his op-ed published in China's Global Times. Wang said the Iranian foreign minister's views show the promising horizon in relations between Tehran and Beijing. The top Chinese diplomat underlined his country's readiness to expand cooperation with Iran in financing, energy, banking and cultural sectors despite... sanctions..."

The deal grants China significant rights over the Iran's resources and help to Iran in increasing its oil and gas production. Leaked information revealed that one of the terms is that China will be investing nearly $400 billion in Iran's oil, gas and petrochemicals industries. In return, China will get priority to bid on any new project in Iran that is linked to these sectors.

China will also be able to pay in any currency it chooses.

The growing partnership between China and Iran is not only going to assist the Iranian regime to skirt US sanctions; it also enables the ruling mullahs to gain access to funds, empower its militia and terror groups in countries around region and continue advancing its race towards nuclear weapons.

During the Biden Administration, the power of both Iran and China will continue to grow. "Biden is a complete joke with regard to foreign policy," U.S. Senator Rick Scott pointed out.

"Biden would rather have ice cream with somebody than stand up for Americans... It's a disaster. I mean, Biden's a clown. Biden's never been a serious person. He's just a talker. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, that's all he's ever done."

Scott also cited former President Barack Obama's reported warning: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up."

The Biden administration's failure to lead is effectively handing the US over to China, Russia and Iran on a platter, actively creating a new world order with China at the top and the US potentially wherever China wants.

Where is our commitment to a "Manhattan Project" to strengthen our defense? Why is the requested defense budget for 2024 only 3.2% higher than the 2023 budget? This means in real terms, factoring in the current inflation of 6%, that the current defense budget is a cut. Worse, it comes in below the budget increases planned for the Environmental Protection Agency (19%), Department of the Interior (12%), and Department of Veterans Affairs (5.4%). In 2022, US defense spending as a percentage of GDP was 3.1%, compared to the 8% of GDP it was in 1970.

Thanks to the monumental serial ineptitude of the Biden Administration (here, here, here, here, here, here and here), China's President Xi Jinping, backed by his troika of oil suppliers -- Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran -- doubtless feels on the verge of fulfilling his fondest dream: Displacing the US as the world's leading superpower. The saddest part is that the reason is us: Why are we deliberately not protecting our Republic?

• 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/19520/china-iran-alliance

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Yale Law School — EXPOSED - J. Chrostian Adams

 

​ by J. Chrostian Adams

Churning out militant transformational radicals with a law degree.

 

Note: This is the first in a ten-part series at PJ Media examining what our nation’s top ten law schools are teaching. Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams will undertake a deep dive into what is being taught in America’s top ten-ranked law schools.

Elite law schools have become training academies not so much for effective and competent lawyers, but instead for militant transformational radicals with a law degree.

Mainstream consumers of legal services, otherwise known as paying clients, would be shocked by the evolution that has taken place in the nation’s elite law schools. Instead of producing lawyers capable of helping clients, these schools now turn out leftist activists who are most competent at using transformational designs to upend centuries of legal traditions and institutions, including, ultimately, the U.S. Constitution itself.

This problem isn’t new. But the shocking behavior at Stanford by rude, belligerent proto-totalitarian students shouting down a federal judge laid bare this rancid evolution for everyone to see.

The next generation of lawyers at these schools isn’t focused on learning contracts, torts, civil procedure, and evidence as much as they are learning how to destroy treasured American institutions such as tolerance, liberty, and free speech.

This is important. Too many Americans still think a law degree from Harvard means that the graduating lawyer is competent to practice law. The opposite is becoming more true.

Harvard, Yale, and the elite law schools are graduating increasing percentages of incompetent lawyers, at least when it comes to what lawyers have long done: practice law.

Graduates from the elite law schools are mighty good activists, but lawyers? Not so much. The law students shouting down free speech at Stanford today are the leftist activists of tomorrow.

It may be that clients would be better off hiring lawyers from a Southeastern Conference law school like University of Tennessee, University of Alabama, or a more mainstream program like Pitt, Arizona, or Miami.

Contributing to the rot are the large law firms who think filling their ranks with graduates from these elite schools justifies their staggering client billing rates. In truth, their clients are often paying top dollar for poorly prepared lawyers. They are learning the law on the client’s dime, not in law school. Clients often pay for lawyers who studied useless ideologically-saturated topics like the ones we will detail in these forthcoming articles.

Simply, lawyers from so-called “lesser” law schools are likely to be better trained to practice law in court and represent clients than the ones graduating from elite law schools.

Hans von Spakovsky and I will march through the top ten rankings by U.S. News and World Report and share with you what is taking place inside these law schools. The militancy and uselessness of the curriculum may astound many of you. Others, like the leftists who dominate law school professors, may cheer “Bravo!” at a transformational job well done.

But regular American citizens have seen their values and treasured American liberties threatened and eroded by chanting mobs at Stanford assailing an esteemed federal judge. We are losing the ability to freely speak at college, and the right to freely exercise our religion.

This assault on American values, constitutional liberties, and our treasured limits on government power almost always starts with a lawyer, somewhere. And the lawyers from elite law schools are leading this assault.

Let’s explore what students at these schools are being taught. Strap in.

Our first stop is in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale sits atop the U.S. News and World Report as the nation’s top-ranked law school. What a shame, then, to see the radical leftist courses being taught at Yale. Here are a few examples.

What better place to start than with abortion? Despite significant pro-life legal victories in courts, I could find no courses dedicated to litigating for pro-life causes. Of course, the opposite was true at Yale.

The Advanced Reproductive Rights and Justice Project is taught by Priscilla Smith, who heads Yale’s “Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice.” We could find no pro-life counterpart. The course description offers Yale students work experience in a legal area where:

Established doctrine is under siege. Students advocate for reproductive health care providers and their patients, learning the vital importance of client confidentiality, as well as the impact of political movement strategy and management of press and public messaging.

For litigation matters, students work in small teams representing reproductive health care providers and/or patients in cases being handled by attorneys at national organizations. Projects and case assignments will vary according to the posture of the cases, but all will require top-notch legal research, analysis, and writing, as well as strategy meetings with team members. Some cases involve trial level work, including informal fact development, drafting pleadings, discovery, motion practice, and negotiations. Other matters involve appellate briefing.

Students also have an opportunity to develop non-litigation skills by undertaking non-litigation matters involving legislative and regulatory work, public education, and strategic planning, at the federal, state, and local level.

In other words, abortion activist groups directly benefit from the classwork of Yale law students.

If Yale students get shut out of classes promoting abortion, they can always take courses to help put more felons on the streets:

Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic. In the field work, students represent clients in two types of cases: federal sentencing proceedings and Connecticut state parole hearings. Students will learn advocacy strategies aimed at mitigating or ameliorating their clients’ punishment, both prospectively during sentencing and retrospectively during post-conviction proceedings.

After completing “Challenging Mass Incarceration,” Yale law students are eligible to take “Advanced Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic: Fieldwork.”

And the death penalty? Naturally, Yale Law offers a course teaching students how to oppose it. This class “will examine issues of poverty and race in the criminal justice system, particularly with regard to the imposition of the death penalty.”

If you’ve grown content with abundant and relatively cheap food supplies, Yale Law has a course to help transform that, too. “Climate, Animals, Food, and Environment Law & Policy Lab” promises students the opportunity to:

…work on innovative policy proposals in collaboration with a network of NGOs interested in food system reform. … Students … will work with faculty, outside experts, and non-governmental organizations to develop innovative litigation and legislative initiatives to bring systemic change to the global food industry, which is one of the top contributors to climate change, animal suffering, human exploitation, and environmental degradation worldwide. The Lab’s primary focus areas for 2022-23 include litigation to address GHG emissions from industrial agriculture and legislative models to hold industrial food producers accountable for the currently uncounted, externalized costs of industrial agriculture.

If Yale students are looking for a concise accounting of liberal history, Yale conveniently offers a two-credit course on the History of Liberalism taught by Samuel Moyn.

Yale students who are particularly bored with concepts like adverse possession, the UCC, and limited liability company formation can take a course on “Decentralized Resistance.” There, they can study squatting, graffiti, military desertion, and mutiny. The course description:

At least four other claims about “everyday resistance” will be examined. First, that most social movement organizations are the result of the accumulation and coalescence of “everyday resistance.” Second, that the accumulation of widespread and numerous acts of everyday resistance can precipitate quasi-revolutionary change. Third, that generalized forms of everyday resistance imply and rely upon a shared sense of justice and rights to be effective. Fourth, that open protest, when crushed, is likely to devolve into less dangerous forms of everyday resistance.

Ever wonder what follows in Woke’s wake? What policies should Congress and legislatures enact once the population is sufficiently woke? Yale law students who complete the “Law and Inequality” class surely will have the answers. This three-credit course is taught by Douglas NeJaime.

The course will explore the ways that laws can enforce and/or redress different forms of inequality. (This course is not an introduction to antidiscrimination law.) In exploring inequality along lines of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and class, we will consider equal protection doctrine and classic antidiscrimination law as well as other bodies of law.

Yale law students looking for more hands-on transformation can sign up for the “Local Government in Action: San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project.”

The San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project (SFALP) is a partnership between Yale Law School and the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. SFALP students work with San Francisco Deputy City Attorneys to conceive, develop, and litigate some of the most innovative public-interest lawsuits in the country—lawsuits that tackle problems with local dimensions but national effects. SFALP has worked on a wide variety of issues, including consumer protection, nuisance abatement, wage theft, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, reproductive rights, Internet privacy, healthcare, housing, environmental protection, fairness in arbitration, childhood health and nutrition, payday lending, and access to legal services for immigrants.

Don’t think there are conservative counterparts to the avalanche of leftist curriculum at Yale that I am cataloging here. There aren’t, period. And only a tiny minority of the courses relate to the actual practice of law — the real challenges for which people hire lawyers. But even those appear to have a deconstructionist bent.

Space limitations by now are hampering my ability to give you the full measure of useless, transformational, kooky leftism being taught at the nation’s top law school. But here are a few more doozies from the Yale course catalog:

In “Sexuality, Gender, Health, and Human Rights,” “The overall goal is twofold: to engage students in the world of global sexual health and rights policy making as a field of social justice and public health action; and to introduce them to conceptual tools that can inform advocacy and policy formation and evaluation.”

“Slavery, Its Legacies, and the Built Environment” is an offering where “Multidisciplinary teams of students from across Yale’s professional and graduate schools ‘slavery-proof’ a particular input or process in projects that the architecture students are working on in their studio classes.”

Yale Law teaches “Sustainable Development Law and Governance” because the “world urgently needs a practical, universal, and effective framework for sustainable development to address the simultaneous challenges of ending poverty, increasing social inclusion, and sustaining local and planetary life systems.” Yes, this is a law school course.

“Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy” is where the “goal is to encourage students to become independent thinkers able to engage multiple avenues of persuasion simultaneously to push for structural change in service of criminal justice reform and democratic function. The clinic provides a real-world laboratory for students to tackle pressing issues related to criminal justice and inequality using a coordinated and interdisciplinary array of advocacy tools including strategic litigation, administrative advocacy, coalition building, media, and communications.”

While taking “Justice and Society,” Yale law students develop highly marketable skills for their eventual practice of law, such as “distinctions amongst differing communities with an eye toward geography, race, ethnicity, marginalization, SES, heterogeneity, architecture, and history. Elements we explore include, but are not limited to criminal justice, public safety, social cohesion, shared expectations, informal and formal social control, public health, racism, gender, legal estrangement, citizenship, political voice, and love.”

There is so much more that space limitations don’t allow me to share. But stay tuned: nine more law schools to go. Nine more journeys into crackpot curricula that help explain why America is being deconstructed so rapidly by its educated elites with law degrees from the top law schools.

 

J. Christian Adams is an election lawyer who served in the Voting Rights Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. His New York Times bestselling book is Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department (Regnery).  He is President of the Public Interest Legal Foundation and serves as a Presidential appointee on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Follow him on Twitter @electionlawctr. For media inquiries, please contact communications@pjmedia.com.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/yale-law-school-exposed/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Leftists Enraged at CNN’s Van Jones for Telling Alvin Bragg to Back Off of Trump - Robert Spencer

 

​ by Robert Spencer

“Van Jones is a sentient corn on the cob.”

 

While most Leftists are hanging streamers, putting the champagne on ice, and handing out the party hats in anticipation of watching Donald Trump marched in handcuffs into the Manhattan district attorney’s office, CNN host Van Jones is not quite ready to join the festivities. And the Party of Groupthink is as enraged as only conformists can get when they spy someone who is not just like them. Jones even had the temerity to suggest that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg (D-Trump’s Head On a Platter) should step back, calm down, and think twice about indicting Trump on flimsy (at best) charges. Bragg is unlikely to listen, and Jones is getting a lot of flak for daring to think outside the establishment Leftist line.

Jones said sensibly on Monday, “If anybody is a Republican and they had been afraid there is some well-organized conspiracy among progressives, they can relax now, because you would not start with this charge.” Indeed, because as even the New York Times conceded on March 9, Bragg’s case is long on partisan hatred and notably bereft of substance. “Hush money is not inherently illegal,” the Times admitted, and then suggest a way that the case could be made stronger: “the prosecutors could argue that the $130,000 payout effectively became an improper donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign, under the theory that because the money silenced Ms. Daniels, it benefited his candidacy.” Well, all right, but that’s a stretch. Big corporations, as well as wealthy individuals, make nuisance payouts regularly, and no one is perp-walked for them.

And so Jones suggested forgetting this hush money case and going with other pending cases against Trump that he thinks are stronger: “You would start with the charge in Georgia where he was interfering with elections. You would start with the charge that he was helping the insurrectionists in a coup.” Has Jones forgotten that Trump was actually impeached for that last one, and that there has subsequently been a House committee devoted to it, and that neither one turned up anything that would stick?

Jones was right, however, about how weak Bragg’s case was. He added, “You wouldn’t start with an 8-year-old porn star payoff. This is proof, if nothing else, that the progressives are not very well organized. This is not the one you would start with.” He even said of Bragg that “the heat is on this DA. I think he’s going to make a very sober decision, and I would not be surprised if he doesn’t step back from the brink.” Maybe, but probably not at this point. Too many powerful Leftists are slavering for the photo-op of Trump in handcuffs. Bragg appears to think he is on the brink of national adulation. He isn’t going to step back.

Jones, however, was firm: “It doesn’t seem like the right way to go. History is not going to judge Donald Trump based on Stormy Daniels. It’s going to judge him based on the election, it’s going to judge him based on the coup attempt, the insurrection. I think if I were Alvin, I would wait for Georgia to go first. You have the president calling in, trying to change the election. That seems to me the thing to start with, not this.” But Bragg is so close, so very close, to being hailed and feted, bought drinks and more, by the cosseted intelligentsia who style themselves as plucky outsiders. It’s a big step up for someone whom no one had ever heard of just weeks ago.

Leftists jumped to rake Jones over the coals for daring to dissent. American Leftists have never been more censorious and intolerant of opposing views, and so Jones didn’t exactly pick a good time to show himself to be an independent thinker. Attorney and Fortune 500 speaker Exavier Pope tweeted: “Van Jones is not a serious person and should not be taken seriously. A sentient corn on the cob.”

Jack Hopkins, a Twitter user with 82,000 followers who says he is a former Republican, added:  “I just heard Van Jones on CNN shout out to Alvin Bragg and say ‘I’d back off and let Georgia go first’ and followed up by saying he wouldn’t be surprised to see Alvin Bragg back down. Be ashamed, Van. Be very ashamed.” Leftist “journalist” Molly Jong-Fast fumed: “Back on earth one this is **not how any of this works**.” Former Bernie Sanders surrogate Jonathan Tasini went for the sharp edge: “Evergreen reminder: Van Jones only cares about Van Jones.”

Maybe he does. But it’s noteworthy how contemporary Leftists treat disagreement. The rage at Jones only underscores how unlikely it is that Bragg will back away from the ledge. He doesn’t want to face the wrath of his fellow Leftists.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 26 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest books are The Critical Qur’an and The Sumter Gambit. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/leftists-enraged-at-cnns-van-jones-for-telling-alvin-bragg-to-back-off-of-trump/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Disasters in Turkey - Burak Bekdil

 

​ by Burak Bekdil

In Turkey, not a single official resigned, including Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, who has refused to answer any one of the 64 parliamentary motions, filed by the opposition, who had warned about the earthquake.

• [W]hen the earthquakes struck, the Kızılay [Turkish Red Crescent] had, through a little-known business arm, sold thousands of tents to a Turkish charity, and scored a profit of $2.5 million, instead of dispatching the tents immediately to the victims free of charge.

• The Turkish Union of Pharmacies was one of the quickest to respond to the earthquake. The organization wanted to set up "tent pharmacies" in the earthquake zone to distribute the most urgently needed medicines for free. It needed tents. It had none. It appealed to Kızılay for help. Kızılay helped by selling them tents -- at $7,000 each.

• Turkey is a poor country, where per capita income is barely $9,000. The earthquake zone is one of the country's poorest. It was not a surprise that the Erdoğan administration pledged to build new homes for the earthquake victims. Nice? Nice. A local chamber of architects found out that the cost to build each apartment would be $40,000. The government said each apartment would be sold for $80,000.

When the recent earthquakes struck Turkey, the Kızılay (Turkish Red Crescent) had, through a little-known business arm, sold thousands of tents to a Turkish charity, and scored a profit of $2.5 million, instead of dispatching the tents immediately to the victims free of charge. Pictured: A man cleans from mud a Kızılay tent in Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey on March 16, 2023. (Photo by Ilyas Akengin/AFP via Getty Images)

Compare the response of two countries, one Middle Eastern, the other European.

In Turkey, twin earthquakes on February 6 took more than 50,000 lives, even though there was warning about the impending earthquake.

In Greece, a train crash on March 1 killed more than 50 people.

Greece's Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis, a former prime minister, immediately resigned, saying:

"I feel it is my duty [to step down], and a minimal gesture of respect to the memory of the people who perished so unfairly, and to take responsibility for the long-standing errors of the Greek state and the political system."

In Turkey, not a single official resigned, including Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, who has refused to answer any one of the 64 parliamentary motions, filed by the opposition, who had warned about the earthquake.

In 1999, Islamists took to the streets to protest the secular government after a powerful earthquake killed more than 20,000 people in Marmara region. They blamed the earthquake on "sins committed in the quake region." Twenty-four years later, Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, blamed the 2023 earthquake on "a plan of fate."

After the 1999 earthquake, the Turkish government imposed a special "earthquake levy" on mobile communications. By 2023, $37 billion had been collected from taxpayers. When confronted by the opposition about the fate of the big sum of money, Erdoğan said: "It was spent where it should have been spent. We don't have time to spend on accountability."

Enter the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay). Founded in the 19^th century as an Ottoman war and disaster relief institution, the Red Crescent is a Muslim answer to the Red Cross. Under Erdoğan's rule, the agency became a holding company in structure. After the February 6 disaster, the Red Crescent was at the epicenter of the earthquake -- but not for genuine relief efforts.

Fury in Turkey was triggered by news that when the earthquake struck, the Kızılay had, through a little-known business arm, sold thousands of tents to a Turkish charity, and scored a profit of $2.5 million, instead of dispatching the tents immediately to the victims free of charge.

Haluk Levent, a Turkish rock star and head of the AHBAP charity, tweeted:

"While people were freezing to death, trying to survive, we didn't have the luxury of debating 'should we buy these tents or not.'"

Levent conceded that Kızılay had given him "a discount," although it had charged him Value Added Tax.

Kızılay's president, Kerem Kınık, defended the sale as "moral and legal."

There is, however, more about the Islamist relief institution.

Kızılay also sold blood, which it collected from donors, to a charity after the February 6 earthquake. Sold blood. A quick glance at its financial reports showed that in 2021, Kızılay earned more than $50 million in "blood services revenues." (The 2022 figures are not out yet, but the link shows that Kızılay sold blood after the earthquake, too). Not enough? Fine. The Turkish Union of Pharmacies was one of the quickest to respond to the earthquake. The organization wanted to set up "tent pharmacies" in the earthquake zone to distribute the most urgently needed medicines for free. It needed tents. It had none. It appealed to Kızılay for help. Kızılay helped by selling them tents -- at $7,000 each.

An opposition member of parliament revealed a police report that Kızılay had sold 80 tons of clothing, donated to it, at 41 cents a kilo. "We are speechless," MP Servet Ünsal said.

But wait....

A police chief was caught in the earthquake zone after he stole and unloaded at his home hundreds of relief items including tents, electrical heaters, coats, boots and electricity generators. He had brought them to his home in a bus belonging to the police force.

Turkey is a poor country, where per capita income is barely $9,000. The earthquake zone is one of the country's poorest. It was not a surprise that the Erdoğan administration pledged to build new homes for the earthquake victims. Nice? Nice. A local chamber of architects found out that the cost to build each apartment would be $40,000. The government said each apartment would be sold for $80,000.

How do Turkish banks help the victims? In Turkey, the central bank's interest rate -- the rate that banks pay on their loans from the central bank -- is an annual 8.50%. Three public lenders announced that they would impose "only" a 0.99% interest rate per month for loans in the earthquake zone Three days after the quake they raised the monthly interest rate to 1.59%.

Turkey is fun unless one must live there.

Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19494/turkey-disasters

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

2023 Jewish demographic momentum in Israel - Yotam Ettinger

 

​ by Yotam Ettinger

Hat tip: Jenny Grigg 

Israel’s growing Jewish fertility rate reflects optimism, patriotism, attachment to roots, communal solidarity, frontier-mentality and less abortions. Arab demographic Westernization is attributed to sweeping urbanization, enhanced stature of women (education, employment, rising wedding age, shorter reproductive period) and contraceptives.

In 2022, the number of Israel’s Jewish births was 137,566 – 71%
higher than 1995 (80,400), compared to 43,417 Arab births – 19% higher
than 1995 (36,500). 

In 2022, Jewish births were 76% of total births, compared to
69% in 1995. The surge of Jewish births has taken place due to
the unprecedented rise of births (since 1995) in the secular
sector, notwithstanding a rising level of education, income and
wedding age and expanded urbanization. Since 1995, Israel’s
ultra-orthodox sector has experienced a mild decrease of fertility.

 

In 1969: Israel’s Arab fertility rate (number of births per woman) was six births higher than the Jewish fertility rate. In 2021: Jewish fertility rate – 3.13; Israeli Arabs – 2.85; Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Arabs – 3.02. 

Muslim fertility rate has been Westernized: Jordan – 2.9 births per woman, Iran – 1.9, Saudi Arabia – 1.9, Morocco – 2.27, Iraq – 3.17, Egypt – 2.76, Yemen – 2.91, United Arab Emirates – 1.62, etc.

Israel’s growing Jewish fertility rate reflects optimism, patriotism, attachment to roots, communal solidarity, frontier-mentality and less abortions. Arab demographic Westernization is attributed to sweeping urbanization, enhanced stature of women (education, employment, rising wedding age, shorter reproductive period) and contraceptives.

More information in my recent article and video. 

Demography west of the Jordan River

In 2023, Israel is the only Western democracy endowed with a relatively high fertility rate, that facilitates further economic growth, which is not dependent upon migrant labor.  Moreover, Israel’s thriving demography provides for bolstered national security (larger classes of recruits), economy and technology and a more confident foreign policy.

In 2023, contrary to projections made by the demographic establishment at the end of the 19^th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than the fertility rates in all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Sahara Muslim countries.

In 2023 (based on the latest data of 2021), the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab fertility rate (as it has been since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (as it has been since 2020).

In 2023, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than any Arab country other than Iraq’s.

In 2023, there is a race (which started in the 1990s) between the Jewish and Arab fertility rates, unlike the race between the Arab fertility rate and Jewish Aliyah (immigration), which took place in 1949-1990s (while the Jewish fertility rate was relatively low).

In 2023, the Westernization of Arab demography persists as a derivative of modernity, urbanization, women’s enhanced social status, women’s enrollment in higher education and increased use of contraceptives.

In 2023, in contrast to conventional demographic wisdom, Israel is not facing a potential Arab demographic time bomb in the combined areas of Judea, Samaria (the West Bank) and pre-1967 Israel. In fact, the Jewish State benefits from a robust tailwind of fertility rate and net-immigration.

In 2023, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in reverberating the official Palestinian numbers without due-diligence (auditing), ignoring a 100% artificial inflation of the population numbers: inclusion of overseas resident, double-counting of Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Judea and Samaria Arabs, inflated birth – and deflated death – data (as documented below).

In 2023, Israel is facing a potential wave of Aliyah (Jewish immigration) of some 500,000 Olim from the Ukraine, Russia, other former Soviet republics, France, Britain, Germany, Argentina, the USA, etc., which requires Israel to approach pro-active Aliyah policy as a top national priority.

In 2023, the Jewish demographic momentum persists (since 1995) with the secular Jewish sector making the difference, while the ultra-orthodox sector is experiencing a slight decline in fertility rate.

Jewish demographic momentum

*The number of Israeli Jewish births in 2022 (137,566) was 71% higher than 1995 (80,400), while the number of Israeli Arab births in 2022 (43,417) was 19% higher than 1995 (36,500), as reported by the February 2023 Monthly Bulletin of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS).

*In 2022, Jewish births (137,566) were 76% of total births (180,983), compared to 69% in 1995.

*The fertility rate (number of births per woman) of Israeli secular Jewish women has trended upward during the last 25 years.

*Israeli Jewish women – who are second only to Iceland in joining the job market – are unique in experiencing a direct correlation between a rise of fertility rate, on the one hand, and a rise in urbanization, education, level of income, integration into the job market and a rise of wedding age, on the other hand.

*In 1969, Israel’s Arab fertility rate was 6 births higher than the Jewish fertility rate. In 2015, both fertility rates were at 3.13 births per woman, reflecting the dramatic Westernization of Arab demography, triggered by the enhanced social status of women, older wedding age (24), expanded participation of women in higher-education and the job market, and shorter reproductive time (25-45 rather than 16-55). According to Israel’s Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, in 2021, the Jewish fertility rate was 3.13 (and 3.27 with an Israeli-born Jewish father), while the overall Arab fertility rate was 2.85 and the Muslim fertility rate was 3 (Judea and Samaria Arab fertility rate – 3.02).  The average OECD fertility rate is 1.61 births per woman.

*The unique growth in Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is attributed to optimism, patriotism, attachment to Jewish roots, communal solidarity, the Jewish high regard for raising children, frontier mentality and a declining number of abortions (34% decline since 1990).

*In 2022, there were 45,271 Israeli Jewish deaths, compared to 31,575 in 1996, a 43% increase (while the size of the population almost doubled!), which reflects a society growing younger. In 2022, there were 6,314 Israeli Arab deaths, compared to 3,089 in 1996, a 104% increase, which reflects a society growing older.  

In 2021, Israeli males’ life expectancy was 80.5 and Israeli females – 84.6.  Israel’s Arab life expectancy (78 per men and 82 per women) is higher than the US life expectancy (men – 73.2, women – 79.1). Life expectancy of Judea and Samaria Arabs: men – 74, women – 78.

*In 2022, the number of Israeli Jewish deaths was 33% of Jewish births, compared to 40% in 1995 – a symptom of a society growing younger. In 2022, the number of Israeli Arab deaths was 14.5% of Arab births, compared to 8% in 1995 – a symptom of a society growing older.

*Since 1995, the demographic trend has expanded the younger segment of Israel’s Jewish population, which provides a solid foundation for enhanced demography and economy.

*The positive Jewish demographic trend is further bolstered by Israel’s net-immigration, which consists of an annual Aliyah (Jewish immigration), reinforced by the shrinking scope of Israeli emigration: from 14,200 net-emigration in 1990 to 10,800 in 2020 (while the population doubled itself), which is higher than the 7,000 average annual net-emigration in recent years. The 2020 numbers may reflect the impact of COVID-19 on air travel.

Westernization of Arab demography

*A dramatic decline in the fertility rate from 9 births per woman in the 1960s to 3.02 births in 2022 is documented by the CIA World Factbook, which generally echoes the official Palestinian numbers. It reflects the Westernization of Arab demography in Judea and Samaria, which has been accelerated by the sweeping urbanization (from a 70% rural population in 1967 to a 77% urban population in 2022), as well as the rising wedding age for women (from 15 years old to 24), the substantial use of contraceptives (70% of Arab women in Judea and Samaria) and the shrinking of the reproductive period (from 16-55 to 24-45).

*The median age of Judea and Samaria Arabs is 22 years old, compared to 18 years old in 2005.

*The Westernization of fertility rates has characterized all Muslim countries, other than the sub-Sahara region: Jordan (which is very similar to the Judea and Samaria Arabs) – 2.9 births per woman, Iran – 1.9, Saudi Arabia – 1.9, Morocco – 2.27, Iraq – 3.17, Egypt – 2.76, Yemen – 2.91, United Arab Emirates – 1.65, etc.

*The number of Arab deaths in Judea and Samaria has been systematically under-reported (for political power and financial reasons), as documented by various studies since the British Mandate. For example, a recent Palestinian population census included Arabs who were born in 1845….

Artificially-inflated Palestinian numbers

*The demographic and policy-making establishment of Israel and the West refrains from auditing the official Palestinian data, and therefore it does not report the following well-documented Palestinian departure from a credible census:

*500,000 overseas residents, who have been away for over a year, are included in the Palestinian population census. However, internationally accepted procedures stipulate only a de-facto count. It was 325,000, as stated by the Head of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in the aftermath of the first Palestinian census of 1997; increasing to 400,000 in 2005, as documented by the Palestinian Election Commission. The number grows daily because of overseas births.

*375,000 East Jerusalem Arabs, who possess Israeli ID cards, are doubly-counted. They are included in the Israeli census as well as in the Palestinian census. The number grows daily due to births.

*Over 150,000 Arabs from Gaza and (mostly) from Judea and Samaria, who married Israeli Arabs and received Israeli ID cards, are doubly-counted counted by Israel and by the Palestinian Authority. The number expands daily because of births.

*390,000 Arab emigrants from Judea and Samaria are not excluded from the population census of the Palestinian Authority. The latter ignores the annual net-emigration of mostly-young-Arabs from Judea and Samaria (20,000 annually in recent years). Net-emigration has been a systemic feature of the area, at least, since the Jordanian occupation in 1950. For example, 15,466 in 2022, 28,000 in 2021, 26,357 in 2019, 15,173 in 2017 and 16,393 in 2015, as documented by Israel’s Immigration and Population Authority, which records all Jewish and Arab exists and entries via Israel’s land, air and sea international passages.

*A 32% artificial inflation of Palestinian births was documented by the World Bank (page 8, item 6) in a 2006 audit. While the Palestinian Authority claimed an 8% increase in the number of births, the World Bank detected a 24% decrease.

*The aforementioned data documents 1.4 million Arabs in Judea and Samaria, when deducting the aforementioned documented-data (1.6 million) from the official Palestinian number (3 million).

The bottom line

*The US should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is the US’ top force and dollar multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.

*In 1897, there was a 9% Jewish minority in the combined area of pre-1967 Israel, Judea and Samaria, expanding to a 39% minority in 1947. In 2023, there is a 69% Jewish majority (7.5mn Jews, 2mn Israeli Arabs and 1.4mn Arabs in Judea and Samaria), benefitting from a robust demographic tailwind of births and migration.

*In contrast to conventional wisdom, there is no Arab demographic time bomb.  There is, however, a robust Jewish demographic tailwind.

Support Appreciated

Yotam Ettinger

Source: https://theettingerreport.com/2023-jewish-demographic-momentum-in-israel/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter