Who Really Denied Statehood to the Palestinian People? - Alan M. Dershowitz

 

​ by Alan M. Dershowitz

Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution....

 

• Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution....

• The Jews accepted the [1937] Peel partition plan, while the Arabs categorically rejected it, demanding that all of Palestine be placed under Arab control and that most of the Jewish population of Palestine be "transferred" — ethnically cleansed — out of the country...

• The Jewish leadership [in 1948] declared statehood in the area allocated to it by the UN. The Arab leadership responded by declaring a genocidal war against the new state of the Jewish people. They did not want a Palestinian state. And they wanted there to be no Jewish state.

• No one, therefore, should believe that it was Israel that has made the Palestinian people stateless. It was the Palestinians themselves... The current anti-Israel protesters in the West are not calling for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. They, like the failed Palestinian leadership, just wants to end Israel's existence. It is not going to happen. Until the Palestinians recognize this reality, they will be denying themselves any possibility of statehood.

In 1937, the Jews accepted the partition plan of the Peel Commission, while the Arabs categorically rejected it, demanding that all of Palestine be placed under Arab control and that most of the Jewish population of Palestine be "transferred" — ethnically cleansed — out of the country. Pictured: Lord William Peel (right) and Sir Horace Rumbold (left) leave the British War Cemetery on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem in 1936, as part of their work on the Peel Commission. (Image source: Library of Congress)

One of the most pervasive myths of the Palestinian protest movement is that Israel has denied statehood to the Palestinian people. To the contrary, Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution that would have created a Palestinian state, alongside a state for Jewish inhabitants.

In 1937 – in the midst of the terrorist revolt inspired by Adolf Hitler's ally, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – the British published the Palestine Royal Commission Report (also known as the Peel Commission Report).

The Commission recommended a partition plan by which to resolve what it characterized as "irrepressible conflict... between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country." Because of the general hostility and hatred of the Jews by the Muslims, "national assimilation between Arabs and Jews is... ruled out." Nor could the Jews be expected to accept Muslim rule over them, especially since Husseini made it clear that most of the Jews would be transferred out of Palestine if the Muslims gained complete control. The Peel Commission concluded that partition was the only solution.

The Peel Commission plan proposed a Jewish state in areas in which there was a clear Jewish majority. Divided into two non-contiguous sections, the northern portion extended from Tel Aviv to the current border with Lebanon. It consisted largely of a 10-mile-wide strip of land from the Mediterranean east to the end of the coastal plain, then a somewhat wide area from Haifa to the Sea of Galilee. A southern portion, disconnected from the northern one by a British controlled area that included Jerusalem, with its majority Jewish population, extended from South Jaffa to north of Gaza.

The proposed Arab state was, on the other hand, entirely contiguous and encompassed the entire Negev, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. It was several times larger than the proposed Jewish state. The population of the proposed Jewish state would have included 300,000 Jews and 190,000 Arabs. Another 75,000 Jews lived in Jerusalem, which would have remained under British control.

The Commission also alluded to how partition would help the rescue of Europe's Jews from Nazism.

The Jews accepted the Peel partition plan, while the Arabs categorically rejected it, demanding that all of Palestine be placed under Arab control and that most of the Jewish population of Palestine be "transferred" — ethnically cleansed — out of the country, because "this country [cannot] assimilate the Jews now in the country." The Peel Commission implicitly recognized that it was not so much that the Arabs wanted self-determination as that they did not want the Jews to have self-determination or sovereignty over the land the Jews themselves had cultivated and in which they were a majority.

The Arabs of Palestine wanted to be part of Syria and be ruled over by a distant monarch. They simply could not abide the reality that the Jews of Palestine had created for themselves a democratic homeland pursuant to the League of Nations mandate and binding international law. Even if turning down the Peel proposal resulted in no state for the Arabs, that was preferable to allowing even a tiny, non-contiguous state for the Jews.

Following the end of World War II, the United Nations also recommended partition of the area into two states -- one for the Arab population, the other for the Jewish population. Once again, the Arab leadership rejected the two-state solution, while the Jewish leadership accepted it. The Jewish leadership declared statehood in the area allocated to it by the UN. The Arab leadership responded by declaring a genocidal war against the new state of the Jewish people. They did not want a Palestinian state. And they wanted there to be no Jewish state.

As soon as Israel declared its independence, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded it, with help from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Libya. Arab armies, with the help of local Arab terrorists, determined to destroy the new Jewish state and exterminate its population.

After the Six Day War of 1967, which resulted in Israel capturing the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem, Israel signaled its willingness to negotiate land for peace. However, the Arab League met in Khartoum and issued the famous "Three No's": no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel. This led Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban, to equip: "I think that this is the first war in history that has ended with the victors suing for peace and the vanquished calling for unconditional surrender."

According to former US President Bill Clinton, the Israelis, in 2000-2001, offered to withdraw from approximately 96% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace. The Palestinians were offered large land swaps from Israel in exchange for the small amount of land that would remain under Israeli control. Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat rejected that offer and -- presumably to change the subject and deflect the blame -- initiated a wave of terrorist attacks that left thousands dead.

In 2007, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered an even better deal. Once again, the Palestinian leadership did not accept the offer. As one Israeli leader put it, "The Palestinians don't know how to take yes for an answer."

It is therefore not correct to claim that Israel denied the Palestinians statehood. The Palestinian leadership did.

The Palestinians may deserve to have a peaceful state, but their claim is no greater than that of the Tibetans, the Kurds, the Chechens, and other stateless groups. These other groups, unlike the Palestinians, have never even been offered statehood, let alone repeatedly turned it down.

No one, therefore, should believe that it was Israel that has made the Palestinian people stateless. It was the Palestinians themselves, through their anti-Jewish leadership. The current anti-Israel protesters in the West are not calling for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. They, like the failed Palestinian leadership, just wants to end Israel's existence. It is not going to happen. Until the Palestinians recognize this reality, they will be denying themselves any possibility of statehood.

• Follow Alan M. Dershowitz on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook
  

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism, and Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow" podcast.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21310/palestinian-statehood-denied

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Iran: Fitting Pieces of the Wrong-existent Puzzle - Amir Taheri

 

​ by Amir Taheri

[T]he question that Obama and Kerry didn't tackle was why the mullahs might want to build a bomb and that, if they did, what they might do with it.

 

• Henry Kissinger took a walk up the garden path with his naïve understanding of détente that implied equivalence between the Soviet Union and the "Free World" led by the United States, and arguably helped prolong the life of the Evil Empire.

• [T]he question that Obama and Kerry didn't tackle was why the mullahs might want to build a bomb and that, if they did, what they might do with it.

• Here is what ["Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei] says: "The assumption that the country's problems can be solved through talks or even relations with America, is a manifest error. America has fundamental problems with the very nature of our regime.... In other words, they want us to become an ordinary country, something that a system created by Imam Khomeini can never be!"

• Accept Iran on its own terms, warts and all, and do not fall for the fetishistic diplomatic claptrap peddled by Obama, Malley and Kerry.

(Image source: iStock)

As they prepare to leave office, some members of the Biden administration are penning op-eds and making speeches to advise the incoming Trump team on a range of issues. The gist of their message is simple: Do what we tried to do but failed!

One such issue is the perennial headache that Iran has caused eight US presidents over almost half a century.

One outgoing official, Richard Nephew, who headed the Iran desk in the National Security Council, calls for "dialogue and negotiations" with the enthusiasm of a street urchin looking at a candy store's window.

His enthusiasm has found an echo among the new presidential team in Tehran. Muhammad Reza Aref, who has self-upgraded to "Vice President" for President Masoud Pezeshkian, writes: "We are keen on dialogue and negotiations," and adds that diplomacy provides the key to all problems

(He is an assistant to president as there is no vice-presidential post in the Khomeinist system.)

The official news agency IRNA goes further by pretending that several countries including Japan, Oman and Iraq could act as "mediators" paving the way for negotiations.

Majid Takht-e-Ravanchi, who is cast as Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs, plays the same tune in a more scherzo mode.

He cast aside his minister Abbas Arqachi's emphatic statement last October that the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal is "dead and buried," and tries to paint a tantalizing horizon at which nuclear talks would extend to "all other issues."

US President Joe Biden had expressed a similar illusion at the start of his four-year tenure at the White House with his tart slogan "Diplomacy is back!" Now, however, we know that diplomacy which had supposedly been booted out by President Donald J. Trump didn't come back for two reasons.

The first was that Biden and many others before him had a fetishistic understanding of diplomacy not as a tool for achieving policy goals, but as an end in itself.

Henry Kissinger took a walk up the garden path with his naïve understanding of détente that implied equivalence between the Soviet Union and the "Free World" led by the United States, and arguably helped prolong the life of the Evil Empire.

The late Jimmy Carter prided himself in concluding the notorious Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT) that lightened the burden of a massive arms race from the broken shoulders of the USSR. Carter never wondered that if strategic arms are a threat to US security, why not aim at eliminating rather than limiting them? Diplomatic fetishists noted that before SALT, a thermonuclear war between the two "superpowers" could destroy the world 22 times, while after SALT it could be destroyed only 20 times over.

The next reason for diplomatic failure was that successive US administrations tried to build a puzzle from disparate pieces that kept changing because no overall guiding image was available. IRNA recalls the "Algiers Accord" mediated by Algeria. But it forgets that the accord in question only dealt with releasing US diplomats held hostage in Tehran, something that Carter needed to keep his chances of re-election. It did not even lead to an end of hostage-taking by the mullahs who, in the four decades that followed, seized over 1,500 hostages from 43 countries, including many Americans.

The Obama "nuclear deal" was another example of a tree hiding the woods from the view. Obama apparently never wondered why a country that has only one nuclear power station -- the fuel for which is guaranteed by its Russian builder for its entire lifespan -- needs to spend huge sums enriching uranium that has no obvious peaceful use.

Obama's Secretary of State, John Kerry, hailed the nuclear deal as a diplomatic triumph because Iran agreed not to enrich uranium above 6 percent until 2025, when the "deal" is supposed to end. Kerry didn't know that once you have the industrial wherewithal to enrich uranium, you could accelerate the process to reach the level needed for building the bomb.

That was one example of fitting a place a piece into a puzzle without knowing what its final shape is supposed to be. The question that Obama and Kerry didn't tackle was why the mullahs might want to build a bomb and that, if they did, what they might do with it.

Robert Malley, the pro-mullah part-time diplomat that Biden named as his "Iran talks man" had the answers. He noted that Iran behaved the way it did because it felt vulnerable and insecure, and thus needed its nuclear program, its missiles stockpile and its proxy forces around the region as a triple deterrent. Thus, he recommended full surrender across the lines set by "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei.

What Malley didn't ask was, why should a regime feel as vulnerable and threatened as to need such deterrents?

The answer was obvious: because the Supreme Guide openly talked of wiping Israel off the map, exporting revolution, seizing hostages, creating a state within the state in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the eastern portion of Yemen, and sending murder-squads to kill real or imagined opponents in 11 countries, including the United States. If Iran's mullahs decided not to do any of those things, who would wish to threaten them because of a putative nuclear arsenal? After all, the US and allies have never imposed sanctions on any nation because of nuclear weapons.

Unlike US politicians and pundits, Khamenei, however, sees the big picture of the puzzle he has helped shape.

Here is what he says:

"The assumption that the country's problems can be solved through talks or even relations with America, is a manifest error. America has fundamental problems with the very nature of our regime. Will our problems with America end if we retreated on the nuclear issue? No, sir! They will raise the issue of our missiles. Why do you need so many missiles, and what do you mean to do with them? Then they will raise the issue of the Axis of Resistance that we have created (across the region). If we solve those problems and retreat, they will raise the issue of human rights. But, even if you retreated on that, they will demand a separation of religion and state. In other words, they want us to become an ordinary country, something that a system created by Imam Khomeini can never be!"

There you go!

Khamenei offers a full agenda for any negotiations with Iran.

Accept Iran on its own terms, warts and all, and do not fall for the fetishistic diplomatic claptrap peddled by Obama, Malley and Kerry.

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/21309/iran-puzzle

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Merchan’s Verdict: A Conviction Without Consequence - Roger Kimball

 

​ by Roger Kimball

The New York legal system's crusade against Trump ended in farce, with a biased judge delivering a hollow conviction and wishing Godspeed to the president-elect.

 

I was at a dinner event on Thursday night when the news came that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett decided to throw a sop to the left.  At issue was whether the Democrat activist New York judge and Joe Biden contributor Juan Merchan should be allowed to sentence Donald Trump in the magic bookkeeping-error-non-disclosure-agreement case in which a possible misdemeanor underwent a legal transubstantiation and the bread of misdemeanor suddenly became a polished thirty-four-count felony. Amazing.

Along the way, Merchan issued gag orders against Trump,  interfered with his campaigning, and generally made it plain that he was singling Trump out for unfair treatment.  Still, Roberts and Barrett joined the Court’s left flank to render a 5-4 decision against Trump. Merchan could proceed with the sentencing of the past and now future president of the United States.

Merchan found Trump guilty, guilty, guilty last May. Thirty-four times did he pronounce “guilty.”  The world was amazed. The entire case was unprecedented. Not only was Merchan himself a Democrat activist, his daughter Loren has made millions from consulting for progressive candidates from Kamala Harris on down. The highly publicized case against Trump was a boon to her business.

What a long time ago May seems. Joe Biden was still running for president in May. Donald Trump had yet to be shot by a would-be assassin.  And Kamala Harris was still cackling in the wings.

We’ve had a lot of legal decisions since then, most of which have gone decidedly against the anti-Trump, lawfare establishment.  We also had an election, which Trump won handily, and a vast and sudden change in the emotional weather of the country.

When Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980, there was a surge of optimism and people said that it was “morning in America” again. The bad Carter years gave way to a period of enthusiasm and confidence. Gone was Carter’s gas rationing, his skyrocketing inflation, unemployment,  and interest rates (what Reagan called “the misery index”).  Gone too was the hostage crisis in Iran. Reagan jump-started a period of economic growth through which the developed world saw the greatest accumulation of wealth in history. Reagan’s philosophy of “we win, they lose” put the Soviet Union on the fast track to disintegration, which happened in 1991, just a couple of years after Reagan left office. The establishment loves Reagan now.  How they hated him back then. “Warmonger.” “Dangerous ignoramus.” “Actor.”

Jimmy Carter’s administration is remembered as a period of “malaise” and waning American prestige. Because Donald Trump is not shy about repeating himself, everyone now knows that the Panama Canal, one of the great engineering feats in all of history, cost some 38,000 American lives. The transoceanic passage was built by Americans, paid for by Americans, and was undertaken to serve a vital national security interest. In 1977, Carter sold the canal to Panama for one dollar, thus marking one of the nadirs of his term in office.

The “vibe shift” that Trump’s victory precipitated is, first of all, a matter of feeling and emotion, not doctrines.  As with Reagan’s “morning in America” motif, the MAGA moment involves policies.  But it is fired by an uptick in energy, enthusiasm, and cultural confidence.  From where I sit, it seems like “morning in America” on steroids. Donald Trump will not be sworn in for another week, yet already he has utterly changed the conversation on both domestic issues and, especially, foreign affairs. He has spoken early and often about retaking the Panama Canal, absorbing or otherwise laying claim to Greenland, and making official Canada’s status as a dependent of the United States. World leaders and various celebrities have flocked to Mar-a-Lago to receive his blessing or just to bask in the reflected glow of “the Trump Effect.”

All of which makes John Roberts’s and Amy Coney Barrett’s defection to the anti-Trump wing of the Court puzzling. Merchan sentenced Trump to—nothing. No fine, no jail time, no probation. Only the obloquy, such as it is, of having officially been found guilty by Juan Merchan. As the judge put it in delivering the sentence, “The only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge.”

“Unconditional discharge.”  Is that what these months of harassment have been leading up to?

In passing sentence, Merchan indulged in a bit of stern-sounding legal persiflage about the rule of law, the gravity of Trump’s offenses, and the distinction between the privilege due to the office of the president and that due to an individual who just happened to be a former president as well as current president-elect.

Mike Davis of the Article III Project zeroed in on the bizarre nature of Merchan’s non-sentence sentence.

Q. If you really believe President Trump is a 34-time felon, why aren’t you sentencing him to prison?

A. Because you know this was Democrat lawfare and election interference all along.

“Third-world tactics,” Davis continued, “from third-world trash.”

Legal pundits across the ideological spectrum expect the sentence to be reversed on appeal. Moreover, the intended moral opprobrium is unlikely to materialize. Alan Dershowitz spoke for many when, noting that Trump would likely appeal to the Supreme Court, which would likely reverse Merchan,  he said, “I’ll never call Donald Trump a convicted felon. He is a convicted innocent man. A convictively framed-up man.” Bingo.

So here we are, a week from Trump’s second inauguration. A patently biased and conflicted judge just attempted to sully Trump with the legal stigma of conviction. Trump will obliterate Marchan’s attempted maculation like a steamroller crushing an insect.  The legal commentator Jonathan Turley, noting the fundamental “lack of seriousness” in Merchan’s case, observed that “It was more inflated than the Goodyear blimp, pumped up by hot rage and rhetoric. The sentence was the pinprick that showed the massive void within this case.” What can it mean that Merchan should thunder against Donald Trump and then conclude his remarks with this optative statement: “Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume your second term in office”? Translation: “For months, I tried my damndest to put you in jail. It didn’t work. So, have a nice day.”

Turley is right. “The verdict is in. The New York legal system has rendered it against itself.”

 
Roger Kimball

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/12/merchans-verdict-a-conviction-without-consequence/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

California fires: VP Harris called out over claim about canceled insurance - Breck Dumas

 

​ by Breck Dumas

Insurance industry calls Harris' claim that insurers are canceling policies 'false, wrong and dangerous'

 

 

 

The insurance industry is pushing back after Vice President Kamala Harris suggested insurance companies have canceled the policies of victims of California's wildfires, calling her claim "false, wrong and dangerous."

During a press conference regarding the ongoing wildfires on Thursday, Harris said, "Many insurance companies have canceled insurance for a lot of the families who have been affected and will be affected, which is only going to delay or place an added burden on their ability to recover."

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the media regarding the federal response to the Los Angeles wildfires at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images / Getty Images)

"I think that is an important point that must be raised," she continued, "and hopefully there can be some way to address that issue, because these families — so many of them — otherwise will not have the resources to recover in any meaningful way, and many of them have lost everything."

CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES: ESSENTIAL PHONE NUMBERS FOR LOS ANGELES-AREA RESIDENTS AND HOW YOU CAN HELP THEM

David Sampson, president and CEO of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), told FOX Business, "It is false, wrong and dangerous to even insinuate that insurers are abandoning their customers, and it's especially concerning coming from a former California statewide elected official who should know the law."

He added, "Insurers are committed to protecting the safety of those affected and providing expedited relief to their policyholders for the covered losses." 

Plumes of smoke are seen as a wildfire burns in Pacific Palisades, California, on Tuesday. (David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Sampson noted that California law prohibits insurers from canceling an insurance policy during its term, except for very limited exceptions, such as non-payment of premiums or fraud. 

He added, "So the implication that people who have insurance coverage effective on January 7th are being canceled — just to leave that impression with people and to create that fear — is irresponsible, in my view."

FOX Business has reached out to the White House for comment.

CALIFORNIA INSURANCE CRISIS: LIST OF CARRIERS THAT HAVE FLED OR REDUCED COVERAGE IN THE STATE

Even before this week's wildfires hit, California was in the midst of an insurance crisis, with many residents unable to obtain homeowners insurance due to several carriers limiting their exposure in the state or pulling out completely in recent years because of heavy losses and the inability to adequately raise premiums or assess risk due to California's regulations.

video

Los Angeles wildfires expose insurance crisis in California

Malibu resident Saphia Hall gives a firsthand account of the catastrophic California wildfires on 'Making Money.'

The state's largest homeowners insurance carrier, State Farm, announced in March of last year that it would not renew some 72,000 home and apartment policies in the summer. The company cited inflation, regulatory costs and increasing risk of catastrophes for its decision and had previously stopped accepting new applications in the state.

CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES COULD COST INSURERS $20B, HIGHEST IN STATE'S HISTORY

Several other leading insurers, including All State, Farmers and USAA, have also in recent years curbed new policy applications in California as part of an effort to limit their exposure to policies that carry what they see as undue risk given what the state's regulators have allowed them to charge policyholders. Similar reasons of escalating risk, high repair costs and rising reinsurance premiums have been cited in those decisions.

While it is illegal for insurance companies to cancel policies before they expire in California, many homeowners whose policies were not renewed have struggled to obtain or afford coverage, as the number of carriers in the state continues to shrink.

Homes burn as powerful winds drive the Eaton Fire in Pasadena, California, on Tuesday. (David McNew/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Because of that situation, many homes destroyed by the ongoing wildfires were not insured.

In the wake of the latest fires in Southern California, some critics have blamed insurance companies for declining to cover property in the state's fire-prone areas. But Sampson says he has been warning California regulators for years about the vulnerability of the insurance market in the state.

He explained, "Over the last almost decade now, for every dollar of homeowners premium that we have collected, we have paid out $1.09 in claims — and that's not sustainable."

FOX Business' Eric Revell contributed to this report.

 

Breck Dumas

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/california-fires-vp-harris-called-out-claim-insurance-companies

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Environmentalists’ war on infrastructure hurt LA County firefighting and environment, critics say - Kevin Killough

 

​ by Kevin Killough

Billions of gallons of water that could have helped battle the Palisades Fire went into the Pacific Ocean. Firefighters have found fire hydrants empty, leaving them without resources to put out the blaze.

 

The wildfires in Pacific Palisades and others in Los Angeles County have burned over 37,000 acres and caused at least 13 deaths. While legacy media outlets are predictably blaming climate change, experts are pointing out that meteorological factors, poor land management, urban sprawl, are much larger contributors to the disaster than any changes in the climate. 

While the exact causes won’t be determined for some time, inadequate water infrastructure has hampered efforts to fight the fires. Environmentalists have been fighting the building of water infrastructure, and they’ve carried out a successful campaign to remove dams across the U.S. Besides having their own detrimental environmental impacts, these actions can have far-reaching consequences. 

Empty hydrants

Dr. Matthew Wielicki, former assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Alabama, explained on his “Irrational Fear” Substack that the past two years have been some of the wettest in a century for California, but the state lacked the water storage capacity to capture it. Billions of gallons of water that could have helped battle the Palisades Fire went into the Pacific Ocean. Firefighters have found fire hydrants empty, leaving them without resources to put out the blaze. 

Journalist Keely Covello wrote on her “America Unwon” Substack that environmentalist opposition to water infrastructure is also hurting agriculture in California. 

“For years, politicians slashed water allotments and shut off ag pumps to farmers in an effort to save a finger-length, minnow-like fish called the Delta Smelt. When President Trump took office, he said California should consider updating its water infrastructure so farmers could grow crops and cities didn’t have to burn to the ground over a minnow. This enraged Democrat activists. Their righteous indignation fueled many think pieces about the Delta Smelt,” Covello wrote, adding that the efforts did nothing to save the Delta Smelt fish population. 

Dam breaching

Environmentalists are also pursuing an effort to breach dams across the U.S. anti-dam activist group American Rivers boasts that it and other groups successfully destroyed 80 dams in 2023, which was up from 65 the previous year.

In Maine this month, local, state, and national conservation groups banded together to launch Free The Andro Coalition, which is backed by American Rivers. The group argues that fish ladders installed on the Brunswick-Topsham Dam on the Androscoggin River, which flows through Maine and New Hampshire, haven’t been effective. They are demanding the owner make changes or remove the dam. 

Opponents of dam breaching argue that, contrary to environmentalists claims, the fish ladders are effective. Journalist John Stossel argues in a video critical of the plans to breach the Snake River dams that fish populations on the Snake River are higher today than they were in the 1980s and 1990s, which follows the implementation of the fish ladders, according to University of Washington data. 

Gabriella Hoffman, policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, says in another video on the Snake River dam issue that, besides ignoring the positive impacts of salmon mitigation efforts on the dams, environmentalists aren’t looking at broader impacts of dam removal. 

Hydroelectric dams, Hoffman says, provide abundant carbon-free energy and are a boon to local economies. Todd Myers, environmental director at the Washington Policy Center, a market-oriented think tank in Seattle, said that 70% of Washington’s energy comes from hydroelectric, which is cheap and flexible, meaning it can be ramped up and down as needed. The removal of the dams will destabilize the grid and drive up electricity rates. 

Wreaking havoc

Starting in summer 2023, four dams on the Klamath River, a 257-mile long river in southern Oregon and Northern California, were removed as part of an effort to restore fish populations. The project was the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, and it was completed this year.

Rather than restore salmon populations, the removal created a sediment plume that extended two miles into the Pacific Ocean, reportedly killing large amounts of fish in the river, and impacting other wildlife in the area.

Siskiyou County Supervisor Ray Haupt told Just the News that the fish populations are at record lows as of January. 

“Was it some ocean condition or was it mortality in the river?" he asked. "I know there was mortality in the river, but time is going to tell."

Haupt said that increasing habitat for the salmon, which is the goal of the dam breaching, is only part of the issue. 

“You have to have returners to occupy that habitat, and then you have to have the number of sufficient offspring every year that are in that habitat to be able to increase the population over time. Unfortunately, though, all the focus has been on increasing habitat without looking at the other detractors that may be suppressing the population,” he said. 

The dams also provided flood attenuation, which Haupt said, slowed down the release from the upper basin. Then they could wait for the flood periods to crest on the rivers on the lower end of the system. That would moderate the intensity of the flooding downstream. 

With the dams gone, the Siskiyou County planning department has been trying to get new flood plain maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which told department official that the agency won’t know where the flood plain is for at least three to five years. 

This causes “havoc for building permits and zoning and all kinds of other things along the river. That's what we're wrestling with right now, especially with the fires that we've had where people are trying to rebuild along the river, but we can't tell them where the flood plain is, and their insurance company doesn't know whether they're in flood plain or out of flood plain,” Haupt said. 

While dams and other water infrastructure can impact aquatic life, critics say environmentalists impeding the building of infrastructure or the destruction of infrastructure aren’t considering the benefits that come from water storage, hydroelectric power and irrigation. 

The U.S. has nearly 92,000 dams, most of which were built 100 years ago. We may have to destroy many of them to remember why they were built in the first place. 

 
Kevin Killough

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/enviros-war-infrastructure-impeded-firefighting-palisades-and-harms

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

'Woke' culture has become a breeding ground for antisemitism - David Ben-Basat

 

​ by David Ben-Basat

Progressive movements that claim to fight injustice are increasingly fostering hostility toward Jews and Israel, from college campuses to social media.

 

A MACCABI Tel Aviv soccer fan is comforted upon returning to Ben-Gurion Airport on an El Al rescue flight from Amsterdam after Israelis were attacked following a match with Ajax in November.

(photo credit: Jonathan Shaul/Flash90)

Last week, a young Jewish Israeli woman living in Berlin was violently attacked. I am certain that most of my readers did not even notice the small news item that appeared on the Mako website. I, too, had overlooked it until I learned about it because the victim was the daughter of close friends. Hardly any media outlets, either in Israel or in Germany, mentioned this antisemitic incident – one of many such occurrences happening daily in countries that pride themselves on being enlightened and justice-driven.

Even Soli, the young woman who was the victim of the attack, a kind and well-meaning individual, active in a peace organization advocating for justice for our Palestinian neighbors – never imagined she would experience such violence. She was wearing a coexistence pin on the subway, shaped like a heart with the flags of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

And yet, we keep asking ourselves: What is the root of this intense hatred and antisemitism that Jews and Israelis encounter across the United States and Europe?

The incident in the Netherlands, where Muslim immigrants viciously beat Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv until they were bleeding profusely, is a direct result of being taught to hate from an early age. What can we expect from a young Muslim man who, at home and in school, is exposed daily to the poisonous idea that Jews are “descendants of apes and pigs”?

During my meetings in Europe and the US with well-educated individuals, I find myself puzzled by the one-sided criticism of Israel – not just among Muslims. This criticism is often laced with subtle antisemitism that grows more apparent as the conversation unfolds.

Dutch police patrol after riots in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 11, 2024. (credit: Mizzle Media/Handout via REUTERS)

What was once dismissed as fringe radicalism has now grown significantly. In recent years, the term “woke” has become a central element of public and political discourse worldwide. Originally, “woke” referred to a heightened awareness of social injustice and inequality, particularly in the context of racism, discrimination, and minority rights.

However, in certain circles, it has acquired a negative connotation, associated with an extreme wave of political activism aimed at enforcing a social agenda at the expense of opposing viewpoints. Some have gone as far as to label the movement a “cultural terrorist organization,” due to its suppression of free speech, influence on public policy, and punitive actions against dissenting voices.

Jewish-Canadian scholar Prof. Gad Saad, formerly chair of Evolutionary Behavioral Science and Darwinian Consumption at Concordia University in Canada, argues that extreme progressive ideas originating from academia – such as the “woke” movement and post-modernism – have led to the loss of common sense and dangerous phenomena, including the ousting of scientists and the justification of terrorism.

It didn’t take long for this “awakening” to result in alarming, and sometimes violent, incidents.

Until last year, events such as students barricading themselves on Ivy League campuses, street anarchy, looting, TikTok users idolizing Osama bin Laden, and even the dismissal of scientists and tech executives – citing research inconsistent with identity politics – were largely confined to the United States.

Since October 7, however, these phenomena have reached our doorstep. Hamas operatives have been described as “freedom fighters.” Jewish students have been forced to barricade themselves on campuses, fearing pro-Palestinian protesters, whom even the heads of prestigious institutions have refused to condemn.

What was once seen as “progressive insanity,” confined to the margins, is now recognized as something much deeper and more significant.

In an interview with Globes, Prof. Saad explained that these phenomena stem from a parasitic infiltration of distorted thought patterns into Western consciousness. 

In his groundbreaking and controversial book The “Parasitic Mind”: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, recently translated into Hebrew and published by Shibbolet Library, Saad examines how progressive herd mentality erodes rational thinking, allowing harmful ideologies to thrive – ranging from eating disorders to antisemitism. For most social scientists, he explains, “this was considered outrageous talk.” 

In the book’s sixth chapter, titled “Parasitic Ostrich Syndrome,” Saad compares the behavior of biological parasites infiltrating a host to the progressive ideologies that have overtaken the West. According to him, instead of confronting these destructive ideologies, the West chooses to ignore them.

Following October 7, he writes, “I realized something: These individuals will always prioritize their own culture while justifying every problem within the other culture.”

“Reality has a way of hitting you with common sense,” Saad observes, “and the challenging environment Israelis face provides them with a natural vaccine.”

Still, some Israelis, despite personally experiencing the horrors of October 7, continue to draw false equivalences between Israelis and Palestinians – whose spokespeople remain openly committed to Israel’s destruction.

Israeli academics and intellectuals have consciously or unconsciously embraced woke ideology, calling for economic and academic boycotts of Israel. Even in the Knesset, some members have brazenly labeled Israel an apartheid state and demanded sanctions against it.

Many woke movements focus on inequality and portray themselves as progressive, yet they frequently rely on anti-Israel or anti-Zionist narratives that lead to overt antisemitism. Activists often describe Israel as an “apartheid state” and compare its actions against Palestinians to war crimes. This approach not only delegitimizes Israel but also fosters hostility toward Diaspora Jews affiliated with Israel.

Woke movements often employ “cancel culture” tactics, silencing voices that challenge their ideology. Jews who support Israel or critique the woke agenda often find themselves targeted. Examples abound of Jews losing their jobs or being forced to step down from public positions due to statements deemed incompatible with woke values.

Dissolving individual identities

The woke ideology often seeks to dissolve individual identities in favor of universal values. This stance can clash with Jewish identity, rooted in tradition, religion, and nationality. The “woke” demand for absolute equality can lead to the rejection of specific religious values and restrictions on religious freedom.

Woke organizations actively support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, believing it to be a fight for human rights. However, this support both harms Israel economically and fosters a hostile environment for Jews worldwide, particularly on university campuses and within progressive communities.

The activities of woke movements create substantial challenges for Jews. In Israel, they amplify international criticism of the state and contribute to a rise in antisemitic incidents on campuses and in global politics. Diaspora Jews often find themselves walking a tightrope between integrating into progressive circles and defending their Jewish identity and Israel.

The battle is difficult, but we cannot afford to give up, even if it feels like the Dutch boy plugging a hole in the dike with his finger but, unlike in the tale “Hero of Haarlem,” the trickle is becoming a torrent.

Now, more than ever, advocacy efforts on social media and campuses in the US and Europe are crucial. The Israeli government must allocate appropriate budgets to support this vital mission.

David Ben-Basat is the CEO of Radios 100 FM, honorary consul general of Nauru, president of the Israeli Radio Communications Association, deputy dean of the Consular Diplomatic Corps, and vice president of the Ambassadors Club.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-836874

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Death toll in Los Angeles fires jumps to 16 as winds whip back up - John Solomon

 

​ by John Solomon

Firefighters raced to save Brentwood and other neighborhoods near the UCLA campus as gusty wind pushed flames further inland.

 

The number of people killed by the wildfires in Los Angeles grew Saturday night to 16 as winds whipped back up and pushed flames toward new communities.

Firefighters raced to save Brentwood and other neighborhoods near the UCLA campus as  gusty wind pushed the largest fire in Palisades further inland.

That Palisades Fire was at least 11% contained and the second deadliest.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner said Saturday that 5 deaths appear to be from the Palisades Fire while 11 died in the Eaton Fire.

 
John Solomon

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/death-toll-los-angeles-fires-jumps-16-winds-whip-back

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

IDF: More than 100 airstrikes in Judea and Samaria since Oct. 7 - JNS Staff

 

​ by JNS Staff

The Israeli military documented how Palestinian terrorists use mosques to carry out attacks on IDF troops.

 

Smoke rises as Israel conducts an aerial and ground offensive in Jenin, Samaria, on July 3, 2023. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90.

The Israeli Air Force carried out more than 100 strikes in Judea and Samaria since the Swords of Iron war began on Oct. 7, 2023, killing at least 165 armed terrorists who posed a threat to Israeli troops, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said in a joint statement on Saturday evening.

“The attacks are carried out while taking careful measures to avoid harm to unarmed civilians, and according to international law,” the statement read.

Time and time again, the statement continued, Palestinian terrorists have used civilian infrastructure such as mosques, hospitals and schools as bases to conduct their violent activities.

The IDF provided documentarian on three separate operations, in Jenin and in Tulkarem, in which armed groups exploited places of worship for terrorist purposes.

During an operation in the Jenin region on the night of Nov. 19, 2024, terrorists opened fire on IDF troops from a mosque. The following morning, Israeli fighters returned to the mosque and found a shooting range, a training area and firing positions on the mosque’s lower level.

The same night, an Israeli Air Force craft identified terrorists firing at Israeli troops from inside a different mosque.

On Dec. 25, 2024, an IAF craft identified Palestinian terrorists hurling explosive devices at IDF troops from the roof of a mosque in Tulkarem.

The IDF and Shin Bet accompanied the statement with footage of the three incidents.

“These are further examples in Judea and Samaria of the terrorists’ cynical use of the population and of civilian institutions for terrorist acts in flagrant violation of international law, for the sole purpose of harming the security forces and the citizens of the State of Israel while risking and exploiting the Palestinian population,” the statement concluded.

On Friday, IDF, Border Police and Shin Bet forces carried out a counter-terrorism operation in the village of Kabatia near Jenin, apprehending eight wanted terrorists, the army said.

In addition, the forces mapped out for demolition the homes of the three terrorists who carried out the deadly attack this week next to the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, close to Kedumim in Samaria.

Three Israelis were killed in the attack: sisters-in-law Rachel Cohen, 73, and Aliza Rice, 70, from Kedumim, and Master Sgt. Elad Yaakov Winkelstein, 35, a father of two, who served as an investigator at the Ariel police station.

Defense Minister Israel Katz called the attack “an act of war” that will be “met with a decisive response.

“We will strike the terrorists and their dispatchers and take firm action against the localities that harbored them. Palestinian terrorism will not be tolerated, and Jewish blood will not be spilled in vain,” Katz said during a visit to the attack site.

 
JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/idf-more-than-100-airstrikes-in-judea-and-samaria-since-oct-7/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

IDF targets Hezbollah terrorists as Lebanese army deploys - JNS Staff

 

​ by JNS Staff

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein reportedly assured Beirut that Israeli forces will fully withdraw from Lebanon by Jan. 26.

 

Smoke rises from a village in Southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, Dec. 5, 2024. Photo by David Cohen/Flash90.

The Israeli Air Force on Saturday struck three Hezbollah operatives on the Lebanese side of the border, near Israeli territory in the Har Dov area, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Also on Saturday, the IAF targeted terrorists exiting a building in Southern Lebanon that belonged to Hezbollah, according to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.

“The IDF continues to be committed to the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon, is deployed in the Southern Lebanon region and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens,” the military said following the incident.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese Armed Forces stated on X that its troops were completing their deployment in eight towns near the Israeli border, as well as in the coastal area between Naqoura and Tyre, ahead of the projected withdrawal of the IDF by the end of the month.

The LAF said it was cooperating with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the five-member committee supervising the truce in implementing the deployment.

The LAF called on civilians not to approach the area as it was conducting engineering work to remove unexploded ordnance and to clear rubble off the roads.

According to the Beirut-based, Hezbollah-affiliated Al Akhbar newspaper, U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein has assured Lebanese officials that Israel will fully withdraw its forces from Southern Lebanon as outlined in the 60-day ceasefire agreement that took effect on Nov. 27.

Hochstein met with senior Lebanese officials this past week, among them former army chief Joseph Aoun, who on Thursday was elected as the country’s president.

According to the report, the U.S. envoy obtained a detailed schedule from Israel with regard to its exit from Lebanon, citing Jan. 26 as the deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw.

Hochstein reportedly asked Beirut to strengthen its army units and raise its level of preparedness, in order to guarantee that the weapons and ammunition belonging to Hezbollah south of the Litani River will be handed over to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Lebanese army officials told the American diplomat that an agreement with Hezbollah was struck and that the LAF will soon announce the removal of all private weapons and all “militant groups” in Southern Lebanon that are not officially under the Lebanese government’s orders.

JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/idf-targets-hezbollah-terrorists-as-lebanese-army-deploys/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

More Government Is Not the Answer to America’s Healthcare Woes - Paul Bradford

 

​ by Paul Bradford

The murder of United Healthcare’s CEO has fueled calls for single-payer, but government intervention—not private insurance—is the true cause of America’s healthcare woes.

 

The murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson inspired many voices on the left to demand the government take control of healthcare. Prominent Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to excuse the killing with claims that the anger towards private health insurance is warranted.

“I think what we need to ask ourselves when we talk about health care is why we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people,” Sanders said in the wake of the assassination. The leftists want to exploit the moment to advance single-payer, allowing the government to control healthcare completely.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Bernie Sanders and AOC champion this idea. But there are others who want to use this situation to push for more government control. One such voice is former Cigna executive Wendell Potter. Potter recently published an op-ed in the New York Times denouncing private health insurance and praising government intervention. He believes the answer is “Medicare for all” and led a group with this as its stated mission.

Bernie and co. may feel emboldened by the support for their proposals. But no matter who claims the government is the answer to healthcare, it’s not. In fact, the government is responsible for much of our healthcare woes.

Americans hate the high costs, limited options, long wait times, insurance haggling, and variable quality of our healthcare system. They should look at who made it this way.

The federal government limits consumer choice and increases prices. As the Heritage Foundation explains:

[F]ederal and state government policies have contributed to the increasing consolidation of health care markets among health insurers and hospital systems, reducing the number of independent medical practices, restricting patient choices and thus driving up consumer costs. In sharp contrast to other sectors of America’s more open market economy, there is far too little price transparency in health care; consumers and patients often do not know the price of medical goods and services until the mysterious bill arrives.

Government policy drives down quality of care, according to the Cato Institute:

[G]overnment health programs literally pay producers not to improve quality.

For at least two decades, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has warned that in traditional Medicare, “providers are paid even more when quality is worse, such as when complications occur as the result of error.” One study found that when patients experience post-operative complications, Medicare ends up doubling hospitals’ net revenues from $1,880 to $3,629. Medicare rules reward private insurers for skimping on care to the sick.

Medicare’s quality-improvement efforts consistently fail to improve quality. A study of Medicare’s Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program found that “in no subgroups of hospitals was HVBP associated with better outcomes, including poor performers at baseline.” Medicare’s attempt to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions likewise had zero effect on patient outcomes.

The same culprit is responsible for long wait times, per the Wall Street Journal:

Start with the reality that Medicare and Medicaid, two government programs, cover about 36% of Americans. Both pay doctors and hospitals below the cost of providing care. As a result, many providers won’t see Medicaid patients, resulting in delayed care. A 2023 state audit of California’s Medicaid program found 43% of appointments for urgent psychiatric care for children exceeded the state’s four-day standard.

A 2019 meta-analysis of state Medicaid program audits by Yale researchers found that low-income patients were 3.3 times less likely to get an appointment to see a specialist than someone with private insurance. Another 2022 study by Yale doctors found that Medicaid patients had significantly less access to the highest-performing cancer hospitals.

Obamacare, the last major government intervention in healthcare, made the whole industry worse and more expensive. In just a few years after taking effect, the “Affordable Care Act” doubled the cost of individual premiums.

Single-payer advocates like Potter might tout the glories of Canada’s system but then ignore the tens of thousands of Canadians who travel to the U.S. every year for medical treatment. Our care is still better than that of our more socialist-inclined neighbor.

Americans are right to be frustrated with our healthcare system, but Bernie Sanders and his allies offer the wrong solutions and the wrong people to blame. Our healthcare would be a lot better if leftists stopped trying to make it “better” through government intervention. They’ve been proven to only make it worse.

Paul Bradford

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/12/more-government-is-not-the-answer-to-americas-healthcare-woes/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter