What Is Going to Change in the Middle East under Biden? - Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser

 

​ by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser

President-elect Joe Biden and his entourage have announced that they are interested in lifting sanctions on Iran and returning to the nuclear agreement.

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomes then-Vice President Biden to Israel in 2010. (Avi Ohayon, Government Press Office)

Institute for Contemporary Affairs

Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

Vol. 20, No. 24

• President-elect Joe Biden and his entourage have announced that they are interested in lifting sanctions on Iran and returning to the nuclear agreement. They also expressed the view that the new administration intends to renew U.S. ties and assistance to the Palestinian Authority.
• At the same time, Biden and his advisers have asserted that their strategic objectives are no different from those of previous administrations, i.e., preventing Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons; restraining Tehran’s dangerous activities in the region and the domestic arena; fortifying Israel’s security, in part by continuing security assistance and preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME); opposing Israel’s delegitimization; and promoting an agreement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• Significant parts of the changing reality in the Middle East appear irreversible, notably, the normalization of relations between Israel and the pragmatic Sunni states. For instance, in the agreement with the UAE, the Emirates recognized the existence of a Jewish People for the first time – a clear contradiction of the central principle underlying the Palestinian narrative that rules out the existence of such a people.
• It is unlikely that the new U.S. administration will ignore the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits financial aid to the PA if it insists on continuing to pay salaries to terrorists who murdered Israelis (and Americans). The Palestinians are considering changes in the system of payments, but it is doubtful that they really mean to stop this practice or change it in any significant way.
• In the Iranian context, it will be difficult for the Biden administration to turn the wheel back quickly. Some sanctions were deliberately imposed through mechanisms that cannot be readily repealed (such as those set under anti-terrorism legislation). Moreover, the Iranians are unwilling to agree to changes or additions to the original nuclear agreement, such as limitations on intercontinental ballistic missiles.
• Ultimately, Biden will have to take into account that relations with Israel are crucial to protecting American interests in the region and that the pragmatic Arabs are close allies of the United States.

Breaking the Palestinian Veto over the Arab World’s Relations with Israel

President Trump’s policies in the Middle East contributed significantly to changes in the rules of the game in the region, both in the Palestinian and regional contexts.

The primary change was the breaking of the paradigm claiming that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was at the heart of the Middle East impasse. By the rules of the paradigm, normal relations between Israel and pragmatic Arab countries, including diplomatic relations, could not be established without a diplomatic agreement or at least substantive progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian settlement in accordance with the principles of the Arab Peace Initiative. That initiative called for the recognition of territories Israel captured in the 1967 war, including eastern Jerusalem, as Palestinian territory and a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194. All the while, the Palestinians would refrain from recognizing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. 

The peace and normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan illustrated the exact opposite, that these rules were not obligatory. The agreements denied the Palestinians the veto they supposedly held under this rule for promoting relations between Israel and the Arab world.

The second change in the rules overturned the claim that Israel’s sovereignty over territory it had seized in the Six-Day War should not be recognized. In a precedent, the United States under Trump acted according to the opinion that the UN Security Council Resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from “territories” it seized, rather than “all territories.” The U.S. acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights, and Israel’s claim to sovereignty in eastern Jerusalem and 30 percent of Judea and Samaria, including the Jordan Valley.

Other rules of play that changed during Trump’s term were the rejection of allegations that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria were illegitimate or illegal, that an agreement would require the evacuation of some of the settlements, and that the security arrangements that would be established in the future between Israel and a future Palestinian entity would be based on Palestinian responsibility for security. The United States recognized the legality of Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria and Israel’s security needs, which require Israeli control of the Jordan Valley and overriding Israeli responsibility for security in the entire territory.

The previous paradigm demanded that Israel choose between two problematic alternatives. The first was to continue the status quo. In order to convince Israel to disavow it, the status quo is portrayed by many as inevitably forcing Israel to choose between being a Jewish state or a democratic one. The second alternative is a return to the 1967 lines with minor changes and exchanges of territory, in such a way as to enable the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank that remains committed to the vision of defeating Zionism and to the struggle to realize this vision.

Instead, the alternatives put forth were implementing the Trump peace plan in its entirety or Israel expanding normalization agreements with the Arab states while continuing the status quo in the territories and suspending the application of its sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria. Implementing the Trump plan would have allowed the expansion of Israeli sovereignty over territories vital to Israel’s security (the Jordan Valley and much of the settlements) and the non-removal of other communities, while establishing a Palestinian state in Palestinian-populated territories after the Palestinians disavowed their vision of destroying “Zionism.” Furthermore, the Palestinians would renounce terrorism (among other things, by stopping incitement and paying salaries to terrorists) and fight terrorism (including by dismantling the terrorist organizations, including Hamas). In either of these scenarios, Israel’s Jewish and democratic nature is preserved.

A Change in Palestinian Policy?

Some of these demands have already been translated by the United States and Israel into legislation, notably the Taylor Force Act, which secured wall-to-wall support in Congress and declared that the United States would not provide aid to the Palestinian Authority as long as it pays salaries to terrorists and their families. Israel passed a similar law, which also received broad support in the Knesset, and has determined that Israel will reduce the amount the PA pays in salaries to terrorists and their families from the taxes it collects for the Palestinian Authority. This deviates from the previous American practice of avoiding punitive measures against the PA, even if it blatantly violated the Oslo Accords and supported terrorism. That American practice had been followed to ensure the PA’s stability, and out of fear of a strong PA reaction. This Palestinian “deterrent” was also ignored when the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocated the American embassy to Jerusalem, actions that did not provoke a widespread negative response.

As a result of the changes in the rules of the game in the Palestinian context, the Palestinian leadership’s ability to advance its strategic objectives, primarily the struggle to defeat Zionism, has been significantly weakened. Within Palestinian society, one can see the beginnings of a re-evaluation of the logic of the Palestinian narrative that prioritizes confrontation with Zionism and places the quality of Palestinian life as a secondary priority. On the other hand, there were, of course, those who pledged to adhere to the narrative at all costs and even considered promoting unification moves between Fatah and Hamas. Biden’s election as the next president was greeted with a sigh of relief among Palestinians, who believe that the pressure on them will diminish, and perhaps even that personnel sympathetic to the Palestinians will be integrated into the president-elect’s team. But at the same time, the Palestinians understand that they have to come to terms with the new reality and the new rules. This is why they have announced that they will resume security and civilian coordination with Israel, without Israel announcing that it is giving up its intention to extend its sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.

Vice President Biden meets the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas in 2016. (Palestinian press)

Changes on the Iranian Front

In the regional context, the axiom that stated that Iran and its proxies enjoyed immunity from actions against them by the United States and Israel has ended. U.S.-imposed economic sanctions on Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Hizbullah; the elimination of Iranian Quds Force commander Maj.-Gen. Qasem Suleimani; U.S. strikes in Syria and Iraq; and the succession of Israeli strikes against Iranian targets in Syria (and possibly several actions attributed to Israel in Iran itself) reflect the change in this rule. However, the rule still stands that direct military activity against Hizbullah in Lebanon, beyond intelligence gathering, should be avoided.

The most significant practical manifestation of the change in the rules was the U.S. decision to leave the nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and to impose ever-tightening sanctions on the Islamist regime in Tehran. As a result of this change, Iran faced severe economic hardship, affecting its control of countries where it gained significant influence during the Obama era (Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon), and, in response, it chose to violate the nuclear agreement. Iran was forced to leave, at least temporarily, the safe path to a large arsenal of nuclear weapons promised by the JCPOA. Instead, it returned to the problematic trajectory of striving to “break out” and follow the path of enriching uranium to a military-grade level, which would allow for the production of a small number of nuclear weapons. Today, the time to “break out” to produce enough military-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon stands at 3-5 months, compared to one year, according to the Obama administration’s interpretation of the deal.

Israel and the Arab World

The breakthrough in relations between Israel and the pragmatic Arab countries and the pressures on Iran also changed the rules of the game between the pragmatic camp and its radical rivals from the Iranian axis and the Muslim Brotherhood axis. This led to the strengthening of the pragmatic camp, thanks to the growing commitment of the United States and Israel to its members’ security and prosperity (including arms deals with the United Arab Emirates, notably the F-35 deal).

During the election campaign, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his entourage announced that they had not come to terms with many of the changes enacted by the Trump administration, and they intended to reinstate the previous rules of the game. Messages in this vein were also heard after it became clear that Biden had, in fact, become president-elect. Biden and his top foreign policy advisers emphasized the U.S. interest in lifting sanctions on Iran and returning to the nuclear agreement, hoping that minor changes to the deal would be acceptable to the Iranians. They also expressed the view that the Palestinian issue is a key topic in the Middle East and that the new administration intends to renew U.S. ties and assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

Will Biden Follow in the Previous Administration’s Footsteps?

At the same time, Biden and his advisers have asserted that their strategic objectives are no different from those of previous administrations, i.e., preventing Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons; restraining Tehran’s dangerous activities in the region and the domestic arena; fortifying Israel’s security, in part by continuing security assistance and preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME); opposing Israel’s delegitimization; and promoting an agreement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the formula of two states – even if they are skeptical of the prospect of making significant progress towards this goal.

The ability of the new administration to advance its worldview in the Palestinian context, given the changing reality in the Middle East, will be influenced by a variety of constraints. Significant parts of the new rules of the game appear irreversible, notably, the normalization of relations between Israel and the pragmatic Sunni states, which have even adopted dimensions of moderation. For instance, in the agreement with the UAE, the Emirates recognized the existence of a Jewish People for the first time – a clear contradiction of the central principle underlying the Palestinian narrative that rules out the existence of such a people. Therefore, the ability of the PA to mobilize the Arabs to pressure Israel has been significantly reduced.

It is also unlikely (though not entirely impossible) that the new administration will ignore the Taylor Force Act and renew financial aid to the PA, even while it insists on continuing to pay salaries to terrorists who murdered Israelis (and Americans) and even announced that it would employ the terrorists who had completed their prison terms within the PA security forces. The Palestinians are considering changes in the system of payments to arrested terrorists, encouraged by sympathetic Democratic Party activists, but it is doubtful that they really mean to stop this practice or change it in any significant way that might satisfy Israel, the United States, and other donors.

It appears that Biden will refrain from returning the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv or canceling the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan Heights as part of Israel. If the Senate remains Republican-controlled, he will find it even harder to aid the Palestinians, despite expected pressure from the progressive camp in his party.

On the other hand, Biden may freeze or cancel President Trump’s peace initiative, and return to referring to the settlements in the territories as illegitimate or even lacking legal validity (in the language of UNSC Res. 2334, which the Obama administration allowed to pass in its final days), despite the opinion of the State Department under President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo, which contradicted this claim.

Biden may re-adopt the Obama-Kerry peace plan of 2013-14, which included a security concept dangerous to Israel (the “Allen Plan,” which among its many flaws included a Palestinian Special Forces unit equipped with helicopters). In any event, it is likely that despite Biden’s sympathetic attitude to Israel, he will show a more critical attitude toward it, especially compared to Trump.

Even in the Iranian context, the new rules of the game and current circumstances will make it difficult for Biden and his administration to turn the wheel back quickly. Some sanctions were deliberately imposed through mechanisms that cannot be readily repealed (such as those set under anti-terrorism legislation). Moreover, the Iranians are unwilling to agree to changes or additions to the original nuclear agreement, such as limitations on intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Iranians are now busy preparing for Iran’s upcoming presidential elections and the consequential internal tensions. Meanwhile, more information about Iran’s nuclear program has emerged and is being discovered, both on the basis of the nuclear archives uncovered by Israel and on the basis of revelations by opposition sources, which could require the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take action against Iran, complicating the situation further.

In the broad regional context, Biden is expected to adopt a more critical policy toward Saudi Arabia and other elements of the pragmatic Arab camp and move closer to Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated states and “reformists” in Iran. Groups in the United States, led by the pro-Iran National Iranian American Council (NIAC)’s Trita Parsi, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), with its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, had close relations with the Obama administration and supported Biden’s candidacy. They will be seeking “payback” for their support. Progressives in the Democratic Party will also pursue government posts in return for their support.

Maintaining the U.S.-Israel Relationship

Ultimately, however, Biden will have to take into account that relations with Israel are crucial to protecting American interests in the region and that the pragmatic Arabs are close allies of the United States, while the regimes in countries led by radical elements, such as Turkey and Iran, are involved in activities that undermine stability and blatantly violate the human rights of their citizens, much more than the pragmatic Arab camp.

It is precisely the new rules of the game that create a leverageable potential to make significant changes in Palestinian and Iranian policy during the next U.S. president’s term. The distress in which the Iranians, their proxies, and the Palestinians find themselves, and their high expectations that Biden will extract them from these pressures, create a convenient basis for the new president to demand flexibility from the Palestinians and the Iranians to further his foreign policy goals. On the other hand, attempts to reinstate the old rules of the game unconditionally, and to reject everything achieved by the Trump administration, as expressed in some of the initial statements by Biden’s people, may dissolve the potential to bring about desired changes. Such a position could result in encouraging the Iranians to become more stubborn in their demands to reject any changes in the JCPOA.

Israel must do all it can to strengthen ties with the United States under the new administration, preserve as much as possible the changes in the rules of the game created in recent years, sharpen the positive potential that is inherent in these changes, and emphasize the importance of support for the pragmatic Arab camp, even though it has its problems. The more Israel cooperates with members of this camp and expands the circle of countries that openly promote normalization of relations with it, the stronger Israel and the pragmatists will become as they seek to bring the new U.S. administration to support the positive changes in the Middle East and to realize their potential. At the same time, Israel will strive to maintain its fundamental positions and freedom of action toward Iran and the Palestinians.

 

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser is Director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center. He was formerly Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence.

Source: https://jcpa.org/article/what-is-going-to-change-in-the-middle-east-under-biden/ 

 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

The PA's policy of deception - Maurice Hirsch

 

​ by Maurice Hirsch

While the PA may hope to deceive the uninformed, the truth is incontrovertible: For the PA, rewarding terrorists is not about social welfare, but about incentivizing and rewarding terror and murder.

Richard Engel of the Council on Foreign Relations, a prestigious and influential US think tank, held an exclusive webinar on Nov. 17 hosting Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

While anyone still believing in the value of truth would have had a field day with the entire presentation, the six minutes in which Shtayyeh tried to explain and justify the PA's "pay-for-slay" policy were, by far, the most offensive.

Every year, the PA spends hundreds of millions of dollars on salaries for imprisoned terrorists and released terrorists and allowances to wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorists. The PA pays these terrorists because, as Deputy PA Prime Minister Nabil Abu Rudeina recently said, "It is impossible to send a soldier to war and then not take care of his family. We are talking about someone who acts on our behalf and receives orders from us."

Among the thousands of recipients of the PA payments are mass murderers like Abdallah Barghouti, who is responsible for multiple terror attacks in which 67 people were murdered, and the family of Abd Al-Basset Odeh, the suicide bomber who carried out the Passover attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on March 27, 2002, murdering 30 Israelis.

The beneficiaries of the payments include terrorists from all the Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular front for the Liberation of Palestine – all internationally designated terror organizations – as well as members of Fatah. Many of the terrorists are responsible not only for the murder of Israelis – Jews and Arabs alike – but also for the murder of foreigners, including, but not limited to, US, UK, French, Dutch, Australian and Russian citizens.

When it comes to "pay for slay," the only requirement to receive payment is that you were engaged in terrorism against Israel. When it comes to rewarding terror, the PA is truly an equal opportunity employer.

What made Shtayyeh's presentation so offensive was his resort to outright lies.

Shtayyeh opened his defense of the PA's squandering of billions of dollars of US and international aid by claiming that Yigal Amir, who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin on Nov. 4, 1995, "is getting a social security pension from the State of Israel."

In fact, there are multiple provisions in Israeli law that deny any state benefits whatsoever to any person being held in prison.

Shtayyeh went on to explain that the PA policy does not incentivize terror but rather compensates for the "collective punishment" he claimed Israel imposes on the terrorists and their families. According to Shtayyeh, Israel destroys the house of every terrorist arrested.

This too is a lie. The Israeli practice of employing home demolitions as a deterrent measure is reserved for cases of murder. Accordingly, of the thousands of terrorists arrested every year, the houses of only a handful are actually demolished.

Doubling down, Shtayyeh tried to explain that the PA policy is – pass the tissues – focused on the terrorists' "orphans" and "kids."

What Shtayyeh failed to mention is that according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reports, later confirmed by the Israeli Prison Service, 70% of the imprisoned terrorists are single. Many of them are minors, such as Morad Adais, the 16-year-old murderer of nurse Dafna Meir; Khalil Jabarin, also 16, who murdered Ari Fuld; or Iham Tzabach, who at the tender age of 14 convinced three of his friends to participate in the terror attack that led to the murderer of Tuvia Yanai Weissman. If "pay for slay" is all about the "orphans" why are single terrorists receiving a payment?

Shtayyeh argued that the payments were actually in Israel's security interests, claiming the IDF Military Governorate had called him to ensure the PA renewed the canteen payments to the imprisoned terrorists. Shtayyeh obviously "forgot" that it was actually Israel, following a PMW report, that stopped the canteen payments, and that only after the terrorists threatened a hunger strike did the Israeli government temporarily capitulate.

Finally, Shtayyeh tried to justify "pay for slay" by asking about the recidivism rate of terrorists who had benefited from the payments.

Before joining PMW, I spent almost 20 years in the IDF Military Advocate General's Corps. In my last position, I served as director of the IDF Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria. In total, I spent 14 years of my service dealing with Palestinian terrorism. The answer to your question, Shtayyeh, is about 60%.

While Shtayyeh may hope to deceive an uninformed audience, the reality is clear. For the PA, rewarding terrorists is not about social welfare. It is about incentivizing and rewarding terror and murder. "Pay for slay" is an abomination that should enjoy universal condemnation.

Reprinted from JNS.org.

 

Maurice Hirsch  

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-pas-policy-of-deception/ 

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Understanding the left’s plan for a ‘Great Reset’ - Andrea Widburg

 

​ by Andrea Widburg

Suddenly, the term is on everyone’s lips, so it’s time to understand what it really means.

The term “the great reset” is suddenly en vogue. For leftists, it’s shorthand for using the systemic change flowing from the world’s response to the Wuhan virus as a springboard for remaking the world in a leftist, greenie mold. Or as Rahm Emanuel said, never let a crisis go to waste.

The left has wanted to break the system for 55 years. Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, two professors of social work at Columbia University, first articulated the idea in a paper for The Nation, entitled, “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.”

Cloward and Piven found it disheartening that the poor failed to optimize the welfare benefits to which they were entitled (“it is not generally known that for every person on the rolls at least one more probably meets existing criteria of eligibility but is not obtaining assistance”). They claimed this wasn’t a flaw in the welfare system; instead, it was “an integral feature.”

The two socialists declared that any challenge to the system “would precipitate a profound financial and political crisis” – and they wanted that precipitation. By “a massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls,” they intended to destroy the welfare system and force federal intervention. “The ultimate objective of this strategy [was] to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income.”

Since then, we apply the phrase “Cloward-Piven strategy” to any leftist plan that envisions breaking the system to remake the system.

In 2020, leftists have forced system breakage. While the political class and super-wealthy leftists (Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, the Waltons) have seen their fortunes soar to the level of Byzantine potentates, much of America is broken or near breaking. This is not hyperbole. The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) has published “Cost of Lockdowns: A Preliminary Report.”

The report makes for grim reading. Every negative metric is up, with most having increased by dramatic amounts: mental health problems, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, anxiety, demands on food banks, extreme poverty, food insecurity, undernourishment, unemployment, decreased life expectancy, fatal cancer, missed cancer diagnoses, cardiovascular deaths, murder, property theft, failed businesses, and more.

Trump has done his best to counteract the breakage, using economic policies, supercharged treatment timelines, and miraculous vaccination development. His reward for this effort is that the statists (billionaires, politicians, academics, journalists) have committed fraud on an epic scale to oust Trump. In his place, they plan on a socialist administration committed to increasing government dependency.

Once the majority of people are dependent on the government, it’s time for “The Great Reset.” There’s even a website, to which Antonio Chavez, who drew the parody image that graces this post, introduced me.

A video at the site explains what’s going on: The Wuhan virus has been a useful pause in the way we’ve abused the world. (National Geographic was one of many sites suggesting that decreased pollution during the lockdown should “inspire us to do better.”)

“We now have an opportunity to use our influence for society and the planet’s best interest,” intones a heavily accented Cockney voice. And then comes that word BLM activists threw around: It’s time to “reimagine” society.

The “reset” concept is the brainchild of two men: Klaus Schwab (an engineer who is eerily like Auric Goldfinger) and Thierry Malleret (a futurist journalist). At the World Economic Forum, they joined with some of the world’s wealthiest (and often least savory, useful, or moral) people to discuss a better way to control the rest of the world – all for the little people’s benefit, of course, and with those assembled providing the world’s leadership . . . that is, when they’re not eating caviar and drinking fine wines. Stripped of its fancy trappings, the Great Reset is simple: Socialism, sold as the answer to apocalyptic climate change.

In this brave new world, there will be no pollution, no climate destruction, and no private property (although one gets the feeling that the movement’s advocates, people like Prince Charles, will keep their stuff). Overpopulation will also end (although, again, I’m betting that the nomenklatura will keep their procreative rights).

 

At bottom, the only thing that will distinguish this Brave New reset world from the Middle Ages, given that the ultimate plan is to roll back the industrial era, will be that what little energy is still produced will be used for computers to control us. Otherwise, the world will be home to absolute monarchs and serfs.

Stripped of its cult-like language, the Reset is a typical leftist Utopian project. As with all such projects, it will fail – but not before the world first welters in blood, pain, and death. We’d better hope Trump really released the Kraken, or else there are ugly times ahead.

Image: The Great Reset by Antonio Chavez.

 

 Andrea Widburg 

 Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/suddenlythetermisoneveryoneslipssoitstimetounderstandwhatitreallymeans.html 

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

A young American at the Million Maga March - Angela Van Der Pluym

 

​ by Angela Van Der Pluym

Hat tip: Dr. Carolyn Tal 

The day was electric with positive energy and civility until mobs stormed down the streets with a ‘Punch a MAGA in the face” banner.

On Saturday, November 13th, 2020, the world witnessed a momentous and truly American event in Washington DC. Hundreds of thousands of Americans of all backgrounds took to the streets to express their support for the President, but more importantly, for the foundational principles of these United States. Principles of individual freedom and plurality, tenants of this beautiful civic experiment that started in 1776, which shows no preference for any ethnic or religious group.

An unprecedented 72 million Americans voted for Donald J. Trump’s re-election, and that strong support manifested into a public outpouring of diverse voices, demanding transparency, and a free and fair election.

The mainstream media has relentlessly and dishonestly attempted to depict Trump voters as backward and barbaric white supremacists. A quick glance at the diverse sea of protesters that coalesced in Washington that day would put these lies to rest. The crowd celebrated our national tradition by singing our national anthem and reciting the pledge of allegiance. The atmosphere was joyous and euphoric. The people in attendance were not there as competing members in a grievance hierarchy, divided by racial theories of privilege, but rather as a unified people reverent to our stars and stripes.

The entire day was electric with positive energy, politeness, and civility. There were many who wore masks and there were others that did not.

To little surprise, the mainstream media described it differently. They called the crowd of American patriots “right-wing extremists”, “right-wing militia”, “super-spreaders”, and many other derogatory and dehumanizing pejoratives. Sure, there were fringes of extreme groups on the periphery, as there are in every mass gathering of people, but the overwhelming vast majority of attendees were decent people exercising their right to be heard.

What the media will of course conceal, is that Antifa and BLM protestors were waiting for the end of the Million Maga March, and they were not there to peacefully counter-protest. They stormed down the streets holding a hot pink banner that said, ‘Punch a MAGA in the face”, an incitement to violence and violation of the principle of free and peaceful expression.

The mob’s message was clear and unambiguous, and the leftist protesters did exactly what they have done so many times over these past months. Many attacked women, children, and even the elderly. Instead of giving any airtime to these attacks, the media covered for these crimes and chose to focus on an isolated incident where an African American woman was knocked down to the ground by alleged Proud Boy members. What they failed to mention in their reporting was that this BLM protester and supposed victim was armed with a knife.

The night was long. Terror struck our streets, again. Restaurants were hit with fireworks and smoke bombs while people dined, collateral damage to a spontaneous turf war that erupted between the attackers and the peaceful protestors. The event was corrupted by enemies of our great country, and a microcosm of our current dilemma unfolded in the streets of DC. An ideological war between those that want to uphold law and the preservation of the rights of all citizens, and those with a leftist utopian vision that must be implemented, even if imposed by force.

The media, the left and its paramilitary force of thugs are trying to derail what we hold sacred. The event started as truly American, and it quickly devolved into what America has become in 2020. Perhaps what is most worrisome, there seems to be no signs of de-escalation in sight. America is at a crossroads. One path leads to unification based on civic understanding and individual freedom, or one of carnage, where power is taken by force and imposed on others. The former is our only hope for saving our country, the latter will destroy us.

America, I ask you, what will be our saving grace during these tumultuous times?

Our founding fathers laid out principles for such an occasion. We must do our duty to follow those guidelines and restore a desperately needed national unity. We must all come to the table, sensibly and willingly, to discuss our future. If we cannot or will not, events that occurred in this election cycle will worsen.

Confidence in the election process has dwindled, and without a reliable and transparent election process, it is almost insurmountable to maintain a cohesive and fair democracy. The choice is before all of us now. What unfolded this past year and what unfolded at the Million Maga March will not cease. Those riots will continue and they will get worse. We must act now to stop them.

 

Angela Van Der Pluym  

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/291687 

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Are the American Media Legitimizing Terror Attacks in France? - Giulio Meotti

 

​ by Giulio Meotti

It seems that the Anglophone media live in a world deaf to reality and based on imaginary victimization; they see racism where there is none, and they do not even know what to name it when it appears in the French streets to behead a teacher.

• "In certain districts and on the internet, groups... are teaching hatred of the republic to our children, calling on them to disregard its laws. That is what I called 'separatism' .... If you do not believe me, read the social media postings of hatred... that resulted in Paty's death. Visit the districts where small girls aged three or four are wearing a full veil, separated from boys, and, from a very young age, separated from the rest of society, raised in hatred of France's values". — French President Emmanuel Macron, Financial Times, November 1, 2020.

• "I am for the respect of cultures, civilizations, but I am not going to change my law because it is shocking elsewhere". — Emmanuel Macron.

• According to a US journalist, Thomas Chatterton Williams, "'knife attack' as a description of beheading is so euphemistic that it is in fact a form of violence against language itself".

• It seems that the Anglophone media live in a world deaf to reality and based on imaginary victimization; they see racism where there is none, and they do not even know what to name it when it appears in the French streets to behead a teacher.

• It is apparently, however, out of the fear of being called a "racist" -- not even of being murdered like Samuel Paty -- that they choose self-censorship. Not to appear as cowards, they call it "respect".... Are the American media, one wonders, expecting any reciprocity?

• It is no coincidence that, in the name of "diversity", the American media in the last year have hunted and bullied journalists such as James Bennett and Bari Weiss, who resigned from the New York Times.

France's President Emmanuel Macron recently said in an interview: "Alignment with American multiculturalism is a form of defeatist thought... Our model is universalist and not multiculturalist... You should not care if someone is black, yellow or white; first, they are citizens...." (Photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)

The Financial Times has never understood France grappling with extremist Muslim terrorism and the country's battle for freedom of expression. After the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015, Tony Barber wrote in the Financial Times that the massacred journalists and cartoonists had been "stupid". The article was then edited.

It recently happened again. The British newspaper removed an article on French President Emmanuel Macron's anti-Islamist policies. The article, "Macron's war on Islamic separatism only divides France further", by Mehreen Khan, appeared in the online version of the newspaper and was then also removed. The piece argued that after two beheadings in Yvelines and Nice, Macron would need six million Muslims in the country to eradicate violent extremism, but that instead, he chose to feed "moral panic". Clearly, the article postulated, if there are Islamist attacks in France, it must be because its president has been looking for them.

Macron himself thought of attempting to educate the Financial Times.

"Who could imagine that the statements made publicly by the head of a G7 member state could be distorted by this news organisation?" Macron wrote.

"The piece misquoted me, substituting 'Islamic separatism' — a term that I have never used — for 'Islamist separatism', which is a reality in my country. It accused me of stigmatising French Muslims for electoral purposes and of fostering a climate of fear and suspicion towards them".

Macron went on to accuse the Anglophone media of not understanding what is going on in the French suburbs.

"Since 2015 it has become clear, and I said this even before I became president, that there are breeding grounds for terrorists in France. In certain districts and on the internet, groups linked to radical Islam are teaching hatred of the republic to our children, calling on them to disregard its laws. That is what I called 'separatism' in one of my speeches. If you do not believe me, read the social media postings of hatred shared in the name of a distorted Islam that resulted in Paty's death. Visit the districts where small girls aged three or four are wearing a full veil, separated from boys, and, from a very young age, separated from the rest of society, raised in hatred of France's values".

It is the first time that a French president has attacked the Anglophone media in this way -- and Macron had every reason to do so. In fact, what he wrote was the article that the columnists of the Financial Times should have the courage to write and their editors to publish; this brand of religious extremism has also claimed many victims on the streets of London.

In another interview published online by Le Grand Continent, Macron attacked "the manipulation of history" of those who want to lock him up "in the camp of those who would not respect the differences". "I am for the respect of cultures, civilizations, but I am not going to change my law because it is shocking elsewhere", he said.

This is also a major difference between France and the American mainstream outlets, of which some apparently would even like to change the date of foundation of the United States. The New York Times's "1619 Project" could serve as Exhibit A for this new "manipulation of history".

Macron plans to fight "Islamist separatism". We do not know if the French president's project will be successful; it is legitimate to have doubts about its real effectiveness in stopping the disintegration of French society operated by the extremist communitarianism that feeds terrorism. We are not, all the same, allowed to accuse France of racism and "Islamophobia", as the Anglophone media is obsessively doing. It seems that the entire American media has decided to blame the victim of terrorism.

According to Le Monde, Macron, in a recent cabinet meeting, said: "Alignment with American multiculturalism is a form of defeatist thought... Our model is universalist and not multiculturalist... You should not care if someone is black, yellow or white; first, they are citizens...." Multiculturalism in France seems to keep ending in "no-go zones".

Macron, after that, arranged an interview with The New York Times to criticise the Anglophone media:

"So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values – journalists who write in a country that is the heir to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution – when I see them legitimising this violence, and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost".

On Friday, October 16, an extremist Muslim beheaded a teacher, Samuel Paty, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. The New York Times headlined its article on the attack: "French Police shoot and Kill Man after a fatal Knife Attack on the Street". It seems that the Anglophone media live in a world deaf to reality and based on imaginary victimization; they see racism where there is none, and they do not even know what to name it when it appears in the French streets to behead a teacher.

Associated Press immediately succumbed to an avalanche of criticism. The news agency again cancelled a tweet, one accusing France of "inciting" hatred against Muslims after the wave of Islamic terror attacks the country just suffered.

"This is not only disgraceful but dangerous," the journalist Agnès Poirier replied. "The Associated Press is inciting hatred against France and its people." She too charged the American media with "malicious distortion of facts, ignorance and bad faith".

In 2015, Associated Press had been quick to censor the Islamic cartoons of Charlie Hebdo. The reason? "Deliberately provocative". They evidently have no idea what free speech is and appear uninterested in defending it.

Politico joined in, removing an op-ed, "The dangerous French religion of secularism", by the French sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar. Politico then set about publishing a letter by Gabriel Attal, a French government spokesperson, who accused Khosrokhavar of "an unthinkable reversal of roles between the attackers and the attacked".

When the Charlie Hebdo massacre occurred in 2015, the Anglophone media effectively competed to black out and censor the cartoons about Mohammed. The big American networks (CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CNN) refused to show the cartoons. Facebook blocked the French site of Le Point to prevent access to the offending drawings. Sky News interrupted a live broadcast to avoid airing them. That was when the cowardice of the American media really began to show: during the 2006 Danish cartoon crisis. The only newspapers to rebel against self-censorship were The Weekly Standard, Free Inquiry and The Western Standard, media outlets with an extremely limited circulation.

With a small paper, Seattle Weekly, a reporter, Molly Norris, in solidarity with the endangered creators of the television cartoon "South Park," drew a caricature of the prophet of Islam. She then had to disappear after death threats. The last newspaper article that talked about her stated:

"You may have noticed that the Molly Norris strip is not included in this week's issue. That's because there is no more Molly... on the advice of FBI security specialists, she will be moving and changing her name...".

You would have to search a lot to find a single voice defending Norris in all the mainstream American media.

The New York Times -- ostensibly out of "respect" towards the Muslim faith -- censored the Mohammed caricatures of Charlie Hebdo, but defended the work of Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary," in which the mother of Jesus is covered with feces and images of genitalia. The American media, it seems, show "respect" only toward Islam. Are the American media, one wonders, expecting any reciprocity?

A French scholar of Islamic extremism, Gilles Kepel, recently noted that the atmosphere now in France reminds him of the time of the Iranian fatwa in 1989 to murder the author Salman Rushdie for his fictional novel The Satanic Verses. Already then, the Anglophone media and publishing houses were blaming the victim, not the ayatollahs. Among Rushdie's colleagues, Roald Dahl, a bestselling author of children's books, said he was a "dangerous opportunist", while the king of the literary spy stories, John Le Carré, called Rushdie "arrogant", "self-righteous" and a "colonialist".

The Jewel of Medina, a novel by the American writer Sherry Jones about the life of the third wife of Muhammad, was purchased and then scrapped by the US publisher Random House. Yale University Press published a book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Jytte Klausen – but without the cartoons. "The capitulation of Yale University Press to threats that hadn't even been made yet was the latest and perhaps the worst episode in the steady surrender to religious extremism -- particularly Muslim religious extremism -- that is spreading across our culture", the late Christopher Hitchens wrote.

How, as well, can one forget the shameful list of "anti-Islamic extremists", published by the Southern Poverty Law Center? Among them were Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch parliament and the most famous dissident from Islamic world, and Maajid Nawaz, a British Muslim who has fought radicalism -- and, successfully, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau recently criticized Charlie Hebdo and declared that free speech "has limits". Trudeau, to put it bluntly, is not Charlie. He is a communitarian affirming the rights of groups, not a liberal affirming the rights of the individual.

The American media know perfectly well what is going on in France. They see a teacher beheaded for showing Islamic drawings and discussing freedom of expression; journalists under guard for criticizing extremist Islam; massacres in churches; secession in neighborhoods with a high numbers of immigrants, and the challenge that political Islam has launched to European culture and democracy. It is apparently, however, out of the fear of being called a "racist" -- not even of being murdered, like Samuel Paty -- that they choose self-censorship. Not to appear as cowards, they call it "respect".

Unfortunately, Anglophone culture has been devoured, piece by piece, by the "diversity industry". If the villain is, by definition, white, Western culture, then Muslims supposedly must be victims of colonialism -- old and new. It is no coincidence that, in the name of "diversity", the American media in the last year have bullied journalists such as James Bennett and Bari Weiss, who resigned from the New York Times.

In the jihadist war against the West, the Anglophone press, now famous for "cancel culture", has deserted the ranks. It is a shame. This war on the West was already in progress nearly twenty years ago, when two planes appeared over the skies of Manhattan.

 

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16782/media-legitimizing-terror 

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

It begins: The Biden border surge, and too bad about the COVID lockdowns - Monica Showalter

 

​ by Monica Showalter

Biden's policy of open borders stands in stark contradiction to his vow to contain COVID. Which do you think he's more serious about?

Migrants, and more important, the people who traffic and profit from migrants, are like the stock market: They're forward-looking. They make decisions now based on what they see coming down the pike.

So surprise, surprise, the media's crowning of Joe Biden president, along with many world leaders congratulating him and conducting their affairs of state with him, even as legal challenges are going on, has sent a message to Central America's gangs and Mexico's cartels, who control migrant smuggling routes to the U.S. It's time to profit. It's time to go. A new border surge has begun, in anticipation of a Biden open-borders presidency, which comes just as Democrat-run states and Biden himself are prescribing new COVID lockdowns.

According to the Washington Times's Stephen Dinan:

Border Patrol agents are already seeing a Biden surge in illegal immigration at the southwest border, officials said Thursday, with the numbers surging 21% over the last month alone.

Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan said worsening economic conditions south of the border are largely responsible for the uptick, but he also blamed “perceived and or anticipated shifts in policies” here in the U.S.

He said it’s particularly dangerous at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is taking a toll on CBP personnel. At least 1,300 CBP staffers are currently quarantined, 700 are currently COVID-positive and 15 have died of the virus.

“I’ve attended way too many funerals,” Mr. Morgan said.

Border Patrol agents and CBP officers snared about 69,000 unauthorized border crossers in October, up from about 58,000 in September.

Based on the number of COVID cases the Border Patrol is suffering, the unvetted migrants are bringing it in.

Which pretty well negates the Biden/Democrat effort to enforce more lockdowns -- the closed schools, the targeted bars, gyms and restaurants, the limited travel, the cancelled Thanksgiving, and more.

So long as there is no lockdown at the border, and COVID is rolling in from unvetted migrants with enough money to pay smuggling syndicates, any efforts to contain COVID from the stateside is nonsense. Too bad about all the boarded-up businesses.

It highlights the fundamental contradition of Biden's love for lockdowns, and support for open borders. You can have one or the other, but you can't have both. Biden's policy of open borders stands in stark contradiction to his vow to contain COVID. Which one do you think he's more serious about?

Issues & Insights had an excellent item the other day on just what he says he intends:

Instead of expelling illegals to protect U.S. neighbors and families, the Biden-Sanders priority is to make sure that “health coverage is available to everyone for testing, treatment, medical services, rehabilitation, and that vaccines are available free of charge, regardless of immigration or economic status.”

Beyond this, Biden has promised to dismantle Trump policies that had been working to restrain the flow of illegals – sorry, “undocumented people” – across the border.

Wall construction will stop. Biden promises to implement a 100-day freeze on deportations “while his administration issues guidance narrowing who can be arrested by immigration agents,” according to one news account.

He plans to reinstate catch-and-release, which created a massive loophole for illegals who are set free into the country while their asylum claim is adjudicated, never to return for their final hearing.

Up until now, President Trump has used Title 42 of the U.S. Code to expel illegal border crossers because of COVID.

That's one of the very regulations that a President Biden can end instantly with the stroke of a pen, according to this Time magazine analysis:

Biden could also end Trump’s “expulsions” that have taken place since March 2020 as COVID-19 has spread across the U.S. and most of the world.

DHS’s expulsion rule allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to immediately remove anyone who crosses the border without authorization to their last country of transit without traditional processing or a chance to have their claims heard in court because of the risks posed by COVID-19. Since the rule was adopted in March, U.S. Border Patrol has conducted more than 197,000 expulsions, according to CBP data.

And yes, these places the illegal migrants are coming from are seeing big surges in COVID as well as the terrible economic effects of local lost tourism, lost trade, lockdowns, and shutdowns, as noted in this Focus Economics report here. The migrants looking for economic opportunity in the U.S. will find the same lockdowns here, but with generous welfare and free medical care. 

For Americans, there will just be more imported COVID.

Which, to get cynical, might just be what Democrats want -- a permanent COVID that keeps the country locked down and themselves powerful, and millions and millions of COVID-filled migrants coming in to ensure that the lockdowns extend, ensuring that COVID is never contained.

You can bet Joe Biden won't be addressing this fundamental contradiction of policy. He's not serious about ending COVID. And in any case, he never answers questions. Not beyond what kind of ice cream he ordered. As long as migrants are surging the border, there will always be more waves of imported COVID.

Image credit: CBC / The National, via shareable YouTube video, screen shot.

 

Monica Showalter  

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/it_begins_the_biden_border_surge_never_mind_about_the_lockdowns.html 

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Caucasus: Clash of Imperial Dreams - Amir Taheri

 

​ by Amir Taheri

By mixing his Muslim Brotherhood jihadism with pan-Turkic themes that recall Enver Pasha, Erdogan hopes to replace the Ataturk narrative with a new narrative of religious nationalism.

• To start with, the mini-victory he [Erdogan] has won against Armenia may have whetted Erdogan's appetite for further conquests. Pro-Erdogan papers in Turkey are beating the drums about "victory in the Caucasus" as the first time, since the end of the Ottoman Empire, that Turks have managed to "liberate" a chunk of Islamdom from "infidel" rule.

• Worse still for Putin, Erdogan has already indicated he wants to involve his Foreign Legion of Jihadis in protecting "Muslim lands".

• By mixing his Muslim Brotherhood jihadism with pan-Turkic themes that recall Enver Pasha, Erdogan hopes to replace the Ataturk narrative with a new narrative of religious nationalism.

• It is no accident that he is also sharpening his anti-West rhetoric and tightening ties with the Grey Wolves, a pan-Turkish outfit banned by the European Union as a "terrorist organization." The "Grey Wolves" dream of a Turkic empire stretching from the Balkans to Central Asia.

The mini-victory that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won against Armenia may have whetted his appetite for further conquests. Pro-Erdogan papers in Turkey are beating the drums about "victory in the Caucasus" as the first time, since the end of the Ottoman Empire, that Turks have managed to "liberate" a chunk of Islamdom from "infidel" rule. Pictured: Erdogan (right) with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on April 25, 2018 in Ankara, Turkey. (Photo by Turkish President Press Office via Getty Images)

As the dust settles after the latest fighting in Transcaucasia we may be witnessing the shaping of a bigger disaster involving more parts of the Western Asian arch of instability spanning from the Caspian Basin to the Mediterranean.

Let's briefly recall what happened.

Sometime in 2018, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to help his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev to reconquer the High Qarabagh enclave captured by neighboring Armenia in the early 1990s, soon after the disintegration of the Soviet Empire. A crash program of training and arming the newly created Azeri army was launched by Ankara, financed by Azerbaijan's spiraling oil revenues. The fact that the so-called Minsk Trio, the United States, France and Russia, who guaranteed the status quo had lost interest in the whole thing enabled Erdogan to put the new and as yet fragile Azeri republic on a war footing with the help of over 100 Turkish advisers and some 300 Syrian jihadis forming part of a Turkish Foreign Legion.

Meanwhile, successive Armenian governments, thinking that Russia will always be there to protect Armenia, as it had done since the 18th century, had neglected the new nation's defense needs. Just over a month of fighting drove the Armenians onto the defensive and then defeat on various fronts. But when the Azeris and Turkish allies were swooning for the kill, Russia intervened by calling the leaders of Baku and Yerevan to Moscow to agree to a confused ceasefire that, while stopping the fighting, left the deep causes of the conflict untouched. In typical fashion of opportunist powers, Russia used the occasion to extend its military presence, already significant in Armenia, to Azerbaijan as well. Under the Moscow accord, a Russian "peacekeeping" force will seize control of the ceasefire line plus the borders of Azerbaijan and Armenia with Iran.

On balance, the Azeris didn't gain much. Most of the disputed enclave, notably its capital Stepanakert (Khan Kandi in Azeri) remains beyond their control, while a good chunk of their own territory, notably the land route between Azerbaijan proper and its "autonomous" enclave of Nakhichevan, fall under Russian control.

Armenia loses six settlements while at least half of High Qarabagh's ethnic Armenian population has chosen to flee, often burning their villages. Worse still, Yerevan will now have to consult, read obey, Moscow before attempting any revenge in the future. The message is clear: Transcaucasia was a Russian protectorate for two centuries and is again becoming a Russian glacis.

All this may recall what Putin has done in some other so-called "near neighbors" of Russia. He has annexed the Crimean Peninsula and carved out a fiefdom in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. He has annexed the Georgian enclave of South Ossetia and created another fiefdom in Abkhazia. He has a similar fiefdom in eastern Moldova, under Russian protection and is breathing down Latvia's neck with a military build-up.

And yet, Putin may turn out to be one of the losers in this deadly game.

To start with, the mini-victory he has won against Armenia may have whetted Erdogan's appetite for further conquests. Pro-Erdogan papers in Turkey are beating the drums about "victory in the Caucasus" as the first time, since the end of the Ottoman Empire, that Turks have managed to "liberate" a chunk of Islamdom from "infidel" rule. Forty-eight hours after the ceasefire, Erdogan asked the Turkish Parliament to let him send an expeditionary force to Azerbaijan. A Turkish military presence in Transcaucasia could entail the risk of direct confrontation between Moscow and Ankara which are already in conflict in a number of other places notably Syria, Libya and Kosovo.

Worse still for Putin, Erdogan has already indicated he wants to involve his Foreign Legion of Jihadis in protecting "Muslim lands". The Moscow daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta quotes Russian military experts who warn that Erdogan may have his eyes on stirring trouble among Crimean Tatar already unhappy with Russian annexation. A recent visit by a gentleman who claims to be heir to the throne of Crimea on behalf of the Develt Giray Tatar dynasty who ruled in Baghche-Sarai in medieval times was given top billing in Ankara. (Crimean Tatars were transported to Siberia en masse by Stalin but allowed to return under Khrushchev in the 1950s.)

The region is full of Muslim lands to be "liberated "from Russian "Infidel" control, notably Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia and Charkes-Qarachai, not to mention the more populated autonomous republics of Tatarstan a Bashkortostan.

More immediately, Erdogan's ambitions may threaten Armenia's very existence. Turks blame Armenians for having stabbed the Ottoman Empire in the back in the First World War by siding with Russia. It is no accident that Ankara has revived the memory of the so-called Iravan (Yerevan in Armenian) Khanate, a mini-state under a self-styled Turkic khan that enjoyed a brief existence during the period of Iranian decline under the Qajars.

Several Moscow papers claim that Erdogan's swelling ambition is dangerous for both Russia and Armenia.

By mixing his Muslim Brotherhood jihadism with pan-Turkic themes that recall Enver Pasha, Erdogan hopes to replace the Ataturk narrative with a new narrative of religious nationalism. It is no accident that he is also sharpening his anti-West rhetoric and tightening ties with the Grey Wolves, a pan-Turkish outfit banned by the European Union as a "terrorist organization." The "Grey Wolves" dream of a Turkic empire stretching from the Balkans to Central Asia. In their most cherished book, The White Lilies, they even claim that Finns and Hungarians are also Turks and would become part of the empire.

The mess created by Putin and Erdogan in Transcaucasia may also revive Armenian militancy. There are some 12 million Armenians across the globe, more than 3 million in Russia alone. In recent days we have heard noises about "volunteers" from various parts of Europe and North America who might go to the region to fight against the "Turkish enemy."

Two decades ago, we witnessed a similar trend as Serb and Croats in diaspora returned to the Balkans to fight for their respective patch of land. For almost three decades, until the fall of the Soviet Empire, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was a thorn in the side of both Turkey and Russia.

Ah, and what about Iran? It has lost its border with Armenia, and once again has Russia as a land neighbor. The latest episode revealed the Islamic Republic as a country without a proper government in the normal sense of the term, and thus as an irrelevant spectator as the "big beasts" fight it out.

This article was originally published by 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.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16783/caucasus-imperial-dreams 

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Sidney Powell has expanded on the scope of the Dominion scam - Andrea Widburg

 

​ by Andrea Widburg

Every time Sidney Powell speaks, she drops a little more information, and what she has to say always challenges our illusions about election fairness.

During an interview with Glenn Beck, Sidney Powell offered some fascinating new insights into the claim that Dominion and Smartmatic voting systems have been used to engage in systematic election interference at home and abroad. She also pushed back against media and NeverTrump claims that Trump’s legal team has no evidence to back up these charges. [UPDATE: a stunning 14-minute interview with Howie Carr later in the day added more information, and is embedded below the Glenn Beck interview.]

Of course, the lawyers do not have to give their proof to the media. The media are just as capable of digging up the material. Moreover, no lawyer should ever give the opponent (and that would be, not just the Democrat party and Dominion, but the media as well) the entire case before going into court. That’s an insane tactic.

In the interview, Powell explained some of the problems associated with giving the media a neat little package of evidence to take home with them, pick apart, and attack for Biden’s benefit:

Well, we will start putting documents online and sending them to people like you as soon as we possibly can. I would hope that we could start that by this weekend. I mean we’ve just been taking in information, not just through a fire hose. I mean, it started through a fire hose and then it became a tsunami. And some people, of course, don’t want their names disclosed. They have all kinds of fears. We have people around the country with security now that they’ve never had [it] before just because they dared to tell the truth.

[snip]

We’ve talked to probably over 500, or maybe even a thousand witnesses by now. I don’t even know what our affidavit count is. Rudy has one set and I have another, and then we share them with each other. So we haven’t even had time to read all the affidavits that our lawyers have collected.

[snip]

In fact, we already have collected more evidence than probably half the prison population is imprisoned for right now. It’s just a matter of tying it together in a way that’s digestible, and we’re in the process of doing that as we speak.

Despite the obvious challenge of putting together effective evidentiary pleadings on such a grand scale within such a short time, Powell offered some important new information:

1. Dominion is going into hiding. It bailed on an appearance before the Pennsylvania legislature and is shutting down everywhere:

You might look at the fact that both of the Dominion offices have shut down and moved all of a sudden in Toronto where they shared office space with the Soros entity. And also in Denver, all of a sudden, they just shuttered and moved. Their employees have been taking their name off LinkedIn and eliminating any affiliation with either company. There are over a hundred of those that have happened.

2. Our government definitely seized those Scytl servers we talked about here:

Servers at Scytl in Germany were confiscated the other day. I am hearing it was our forces that got those servers, so I think the government is now working on an investigation of what really happened. But we’re getting in evidence also that there were lines into the servers from four foreign countries, all extremely adverse to the interests of the United States.

3. The Dominion system was built to shift and delete votes:

You can take votes and put them in a file called an “adjudicative file,” and then just throw it away. So you can call out all the Trump votes you want, put them in that file, and put it in the trash bin.  

4. This is a worldwide fraud, and Powell believes that “elected” governments around the world, not just in America, are in a panic that they’re going to be proven to have attained their offices through fraud – and our three-letter agencies may have been involved both abroad and domestically:

It has defied the will of the American people and people around the world who have thought they were legitimately voting and their vote was being counted for the candidate of their choice, when it turns out it wasn’t their choice at all. And I can’t even express how angry this makes me from whatever the involvement of our government is, to its failure to do anything now, to its promotion of it around the world or turning a blind eye -- whatever it is, it’s absolutely hideous and appalling and un-American and contrary to everything our founders set this country up to be.

It’s a 15-minute interview and well worth your time:

 

Here is the Howie Carr interview:  

Image: Sidney Powell. YouTube screengrab.

 

Andrea Widburg 

 Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/sidney_powell_has_expanded_on_the_scope_of_the_dominion_scam.html 

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter