Palestinians - We're sick and tired of you! - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

This article is not about how Israelis feel. It is about why the Arab world is not taking up the Palestinian Arab struggle.

I would like to raise a few pointed questions at the start of this article:
Why doesn't the Arab world make an all out effort to free "Falestin" from the Jews and give it to the Palestinian Arabs?

How come the Arab world, most of which has not recognized Israel's right to exist -  goes on about its business, despite the fact that two major countries, Egypt and Jordan, have made peace with Israel? Why doesn't it boycott those two countries, except for the short period during which Egypt was ousted from the Arab League?

Why hasn't the Arab world waged a total war against Israel for the last 44 years - that is,since 1973?

Why did the Iraqis expel the Palestinians from Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003?

Why did the Egyptian regime persecute the Gazan Palestinians? Is it a political struggle against Hamas or does it signal something deeper?

Why did all the sides fighting one another in Syria - Assad, Hezbollah, the rebels, Islamic State - behave with such cruelty to the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Syria?

Why do the Arabs continue to keep the Palestinians in refugee camps?

Why, over the past 68 years, haven't the Arab countries, except for Jordan, granted citizenship to the refugees within their borders?

These are only a few of the questions that can be raised regarding the antipathy of the Arab nations and the Arab people to the so-called "Palestinians" - despite the constant mantras of "Arab unity" and "Arab solidarity". The only explanation which answers most of the questions asked above is that the Arab world's treatment of the "Palestinians" is the result of some deep seated negative feelings about them which no one is willing to reveal, let alone discuss.

The must-not-be-mentioned feeling regarding the Palestinian Arabs is that they themselves are responsible for all the sufferings brought upon them by Israel. Even prior to 1948 (when Israel declared its statehood) they lost the battles that were supposed to have rid them of the Zionists. Why? Because they were not united, were disorganized and because some of them did not participate in the struggle and some of them even cooperated with the Zionists.

The second negative feeling is based on the well-known fact that many of these Palestinian Arabs sold lands to Jews way before 1948 and continued to do so afterwards, including lands in Judea and Samaria after Israel "occupied" those areas in the June 1967 Six Day War. Palestinian Arabs sold land to Jews for billions, took the money out of the country, some of them depositing their riches in numbered Swiss bank accounts, and are now wailing to the Arab world to free their "stolen lands" for them.

This is most conspicuous in Jerusalem, the city in which Arab residents sold land, homes and apartments to Jews and are now complaining about the "Judaization of Jerusalem." 

Arafat is another reason for Arab anger. His support for the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under the Saddam Hussein regime caused the expulsion of many thousands of workers from Kuwait's oil industry, and everyone knew quite well why that happened. Many Arabs also understood that Arafat always wore the same military uniform because its many pockets contained slips of paper with the first names of those in whose hands he had placed millions taken from money meant for aid. The day Arafat died, they all became instant millionaires, and no one has any idea how much money Arafat handed each of them.

A third unpleasant feeling results from the fact that these very same Palestinians earned large sums of money working to build communities built by Jews since 1948, both within the "Green LIne" (1949 Armistice lines) and in the post-1967 "occupied territories." They are the ones who built the State of Israel, literally. Palestinian Arabs are employed in industries established by Jews in all these areas, they purchase the products manufactured by Jews and contribute to the expanding Israeli economic presence in the "occupied territories."

A fourth nasty feeling about the Palestinians is the Arab world's knowledge that the UN has been helping the "Palestinian refugees" since 1948 most generously, mostly by way of UNRWA, granting them more funding than is given to the all the other refugees in the Arab world today - in Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey - combined. Many Arabs feel that the Palestinians use extortion to blackmail the world's conscience and obtain large sums from its dwindling financial resources, so that not enough is left for the real refugees, those from Syria or Iraq, for example, who are desperately in need of UN aid.

The fifth uneasy feeling about the Palestinians surfaced at the start of 2011, when the "Arab Spring" broke out and brought down the regimes of Mubarak in Egypt, Qaddafi in Libya, Tsalach in Yemen and placed Assad's rule in danger. Many Arabs expected the Palestinians to take advantage of these events to begin a real uprising that would get rid of the Israeli "occupation." This did not occur. The Palestinians placidly watched their fellow Arabs streaming into the streets, filling the squares, demonstrating in the public arena and turning the tables on established rulers. They watched the events via the media while munching on sunflower seeds, the Middle Eastern equivalent of popcorn, but did nothing. The Arab man on the street asks: What are the Palestinians waiting for? For Israel to become stronger? For the Arab world to become weaker and even more divided against itself?

And- worst of all -- there is a feeling in the Arab world that the Palestinians prefer to continue under Israel "occupation" because they have so much to gain, especially economically, from its continued existence.

In conclusion, the Palestinian's image in Arab media has fallen to an unbelievable and unprecedented low. There is not one Arab country today willing to be endangered by fighting for them. And I will not be surprised if other Arab countries (Morocco, Tunisia and the Emirates, for example) recognize Israel in the near future, whether or not there is a negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Written for Arutz Sheva, translated by Rochel Sylvetsky


Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs in Israel.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20123

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Putting Iran on Notice - Kenneth R. Timmerman

by Kenneth R. Timmerman

When uncertainty is our friend.

The announcement from National Security Advisor Lieutenant General Michael Flynn on Wednesday that the Trump administration was “putting Iran on notice” after its latest ballistic missile test is bad news for the ruling clerical elite and its Revolutionary Guards, and potentially good news for Iranians who love freedom.

Pundits in the United States and Europe bemoaned a lack of specificity, although one snarky establishment commentator noted, it sounded like Flynn was saying, “do that again, and we’ll pop you.”

The Iranians responded with predictable chest-thumping. “Iran is the strongest power in the region and has a lot of political, economic and military power,” said former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, now a top advisor to absolute ruler Ayatollah Khamenei.

He and other Iranian leaders warned that Iran would act in “self-defense” if the United States struck first, a scarcely-veiled threat to attack U.S. assets, U.S. friends and allies in the region, and possibly to carry out terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

So what exactly did Flynn mean?

First, the obvious: there is a new Sheriff in town. Donald Trump is not Barack Obama. Nor is he George W. Bush, or Bill Clinton, or any of his predecessors who for the past 38-years have pretty much given the Islamic regime in Tehran a pass whenever it has attacked Americans.

What will the new Sheriff do? It’s easy to imagine Tehran’s leaders with their turbans in a twist, trying to read between General Flynn’s lines.

Did he mean the United States will blow Iranian patrol boats out of the water the next time they try to “swarm” a U.S. navy vessel in the Persian Gulf? The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been practicing such tactics for years, breaking off just hundreds of meters short of collision.

Those swarming attacks are a serious threat, since our naval gunners cannot know which of a dozen small boats may be intending to break off from the swarm in a suicide attack against our ship.

Or did he mean that the U.S. will respond if Iran test-fires another long-range ballistic missile? How so? Militarily? With new sanctions? Or with some form of technical sabotage such as Stuxnet?

That’s just it: they can’t know.

Perhaps General Flynn was referring to the “emergency” United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday, convened by the United States? But that’s where both Russia and France came to Iran’s aid, praising the nuclear deal and calling on the United States to maintain it.

Perhaps General Flynn was responding to the failure of the United Nations to respond, meaning that the U.S. is planning unilateral measures?

Oh, my: in Tehran, they just can’t know.

Strategic uncertainty, as long as it is followed up at some point with concrete action, is a huge advance in our policy toward the Islamo-fascist regime in Tehran. Keeping the Iranians guessing exactly what we will do, and how hard, potentially could even deter them from taking some aggressive actions.

A new, more muscular policy toward the Islamic state in Iran will have many moving parts. But first and foremost, it will identify the regime as an enemy of the United States of America. Because that is how they have behaved since their inception thirty-eight years ago next week.

America has never used the powerful tools at our disposal to punish – or heaven forbid, actually undermine – the Iranian regime. Here are just a few of the options that should be on the table:

• The U.S. could intensify Persian-language broadcasting from the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, providing Iranians deprived of a free press with accurate information about the United States and about their own country. This will require major reforms at both services spearheaded by a dynamic new CEO at the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

• The U.S. could use the levers of power diplomacy to shun Iran at international organizations such as the United Nations Human Rights Council and UNESCO, and to prevent Iranian diplomats from international travel.

• The U.S. could use our permanent delegation to the IAEA in Vienna, Austria, to intensify intelligence sharing with UN inspectors to ensure they conduct rigorous inspections of Iran’s nuclear installations.

• The U.S. could take steps to curtail Iranian expansionism into Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

• The U.S. could actually punish the Iranian regime for its acts of international terrorism, including the 1983 Beirut bombings of our embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks, the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers, the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole, the September 11, 2001 attacks, the ongoing supply of Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs) to militias in Iraq that have taken the lives of an estimated 1,500 U.S. servicemen, the bounty offered by the IRGC to Taliban terrorists for every American they kill, and the September 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi.

Many of these attacks were carried out in conjunction with al Qaeda or al Qaeda affiliates, a relationship long pooh-poohed by the U.S. intelligence community but which in recent years has been well-documented.

Punishment could include identifying as war criminals the Iranian regime officials responsible for these acts, indicting them, and issuing Interpol Red Notices on them to prevent them from international travel. It could also include Treasury and intelligence community efforts to identify, block, and seize their overseas assets.

Finally, and most important of all, the U.S. could provide support for opponents of the Iranian regime to include open support for human rights and freedom advocates similar to what President Reagan did for Soviet refusniks, and covert support for active opposition groups inside Iran.

What will President Trump choose from this menu – and from the many other policy proposals that undoubtedly are being floated by his advisors?

Oh, my: in Tehran, they don’t know.

If it were my decision, I would say: let’s keep them guessing until the policies are ready for prime time. Then let’s roll them out and watch the Islamic State of Iran’s leaders squirm.

Kenneth R. Timmerman

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265687/putting-iran-notice-kenneth-r-timmerman

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The Trump Way of War - Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick

Unlike his predecessors, Trump is serious about winning.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 


The PLO is disoriented, panicked and hysterical. Speaking to Newsweek this week, Saeb Erekat, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s chief conduit to Israel and the Americans, complained that since President Donald Trump was sworn into office, no administration official had spoken to them.


“I don’t know any of them [Trump’s advisers]. We have sent them letters, written messages. They don’t even bother to respond to us.”

The Trump administration’s shunning of the PLO is a marked departure from the policies of its predecessor. For former president Barack Obama, together with Iran, the Palestinians were viewed as the key players in the Middle East. Abbas was the first foreign leader Obama called after taking office.


Erekat’s statement reveals something that is generally obscured. Despite its deep support in Europe, the UN and the international Left, without US support, the PLO is irrelevant.


All the achievements the PLO racked up under Obama – topped off with the former president’s facilitation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 against Israel – are suddenly irrelevant. Their impact dissipated the minute Trump took office.


Israel, in contrast, is more relevant than ever.


While Trump occasionally pays lip service to making peace in the Middle East, his real goal is to win the war against jihadist Islam. And he rightly views Israel as a woefully underutilized strategic ally that shares his goal and is well-placed to help him achieve it.


During the electoral campaign, Trump often spoke derisively of Obama’s nuclear pact with Tehran. And he repeatedly promised to eradicate Islamic State. But when asked to explain what he intended to do on these scores, Trump demurred. You don’t expect me to let the enemy know my plan, do you? 


Trump’s critics dismissed his statements as empty talk. But since he came into office, each day signals that he does have a plan and that he is implementing it. The plan coming into focus involves a multidimensional campaign that if successful will both neutralize Iran as a strategic threat and obliterate ISIS.


Regarding Iran specifically, Trump’s moves to date involve operations on three levels. First, there is the rhetorical campaign to distinguish the Trump administration from its successor [sic].


Trump launched the campaign on Twitter on Wednesday writing, “Iran is rapidly taking over more and more of Iraq even after the US has squandered three trillion dollars there.”


Shortly before his post, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Abadi appointed Iranian proxy Qasim al Araji to serve as his interior minister.



At a minimum, Trump’s statement signaled an abandonment of Obama’s policy of cooperating with Iranian forces and Iranian-controlled Iraqi forces in the fight against ISIS in Iraq.


At around the same time Trump released his tweet about Iranian control of Iraq, his National Security Adviser Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn took a knife to Obama’s obsequious stand on Iran during a press briefing at the White House.


While Trump’s statement related to Iran’s growing power in Iraq, Flynn’s remarks were directed against its nonconventional threat and its regional aggression. Both were on display earlier this week.


On Sunday, Iran carried out its 12th ballistic missile test since concluding its nuclear deal with Obama, and its first since Trump took office.


On Monday, Iranian-controlled Houthi forces in Yemen attacked a Saudi ship in the Bab al-Mandab choke point connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.



Flynn condemned both noting that they threatened the US and its allies and destabilized the Middle East. The missile test, he said, violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that anchored the nuclear deal.



Flynn then took a step further. He drew a sharp contrast between the Obama administration’s responses to Tehran’s behavior and the Trump administration’s views of Tehran’s provocative actions.


“The Obama administration failed to respond adequately to Tehran’s malign actions – including weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms,” he noted.


“The Trump administration condemns such actions by Iran that undermine security, prosperity and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East and place American lives at risk.”


Flynn ended his remarks by threatening Iran directly.


“As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” he warned.


While Flynn gave no details of what the US intends to do to Iran if it continues its aggressive behavior, the day before he made his statement, the US opened a major, multilateral, British-led naval exercise in the Persian Gulf. US naval forces in the region have been significantly strengthened since January 20 and rules of engagement for US forces in the Persian Gulf have reportedly been relaxed.


Perhaps the most potent aspect of Trump’s emerging strategy for defeating the forces of jihad is the one that hasn’t been discussed but it was signaled, through a proxy, the day after Trump took office.


On January 21, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a remarkable message to the Iranian people on his Facebook page. Netanyahu drew a sharp distinction between the “warm” Iranian people and the “repressive” regime.


Netanyahu opened his remarks by invoking the new administration.


“I plan to speak soon with President Trump about how to counter the threat of the Iranian regime, which calls for Israel’s destruction,” the prime minister explained.


“But it struck me recently that I’ve spoken a lot about the Iranian regime and not enough about the Iranian people, or for that matter, to the Iranian people. So I hope this message reaches every Iranian.”


Netanyahu paid homage to the Green Revolution of 2009 that was brutally repressed by the regime. In his words, “I’ll never forget the images of proud, young students eager for change gunned down in the streets of Tehran in 2009.”


Netanyahu’s statement was doubtlessly coordinated with the new administration. It signaled that destabilizing with the goal of overthrowing the regime in Tehran is a major component of Trump’s strategy.


By the looks of things in Iran, regime opponents are taking heart from the new tone emanating from Washington. Iranian dissidents have asked for a meeting with Trump’s team. And a week and a half before Trump’s inauguration, regime opponents staged a massive anti-regime protest.


Protesters used the public funeral of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to denounce the regime. In 2009, Rafsanjani sided with many of the Green Movement’s positions. His daughter was a leader of the protests.


Among the estimated 2.5 million people who attended the funeral, scores of thousands interrupted the official eulogies to condemn the regime, condemn the war with Syria and condemn the regime’s Russian allies.


This then brings us to Syria, where the war against ISIS and the campaign against Iran are set to converge. To date, Trump has limited his stated goals in Syria to setting up safe zones inside the country where displaced Syrians can live securely. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have agreed to cooperate in these efforts.


Trump is now engaged in a talks with the Kremlin both above and below the radar about the possibility of coordinating their operations in Syria to enable safe zones to be established.


It is fairly clear what the US objective here would be. The US wishes to convince Moscow to effectively end its alliance with the Iranian regime. Trump repeatedly stated that the entire spectrum of US-Russian relations is now in play. Talks between the two governments will encompass Ukraine, US economic sanctions on Russia, nuclear weapons, Russian bases in Syria and Russia’s alliance with Iran and its Hezbollah proxies.


Everything is on the table.


Trump understands that Russia is threatened by Sunni jihadists and that Russia views Iran as a counterweight to ISIS and its counterparts in the Caucasus. A deal between the US and Russia could involve a Russian agreement to end its support for Iran and Hezbollah in exchange for US acceptance of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, cancellation of sanctions and perhaps some form of acquiescence to Russia’s military presence in Syria.

Russia and the US could then collaborate with Arab states with Israeli support to defeat ISIS and end the Syrian refugee crisis.


Combined with actions the Trump administration is already taking in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and its telegraphed aim of backing a popular Iranian insurrection, Trump’s hypothetical deal with Russia would neutralize Iran as a conventional and nonconventional threat.


This then brings us back to Israel – the first target of Iran’s aggression. If Trump’s strategy is successful, then the PLO will not be Israel’s only foe that is rendered irrelevant.


Earlier this week it was reported that in the twoand- a-half years since the last war with Hamas, the Iranian-backed, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliate terrorist group has rebuilt its forces. Today Hamas fields assets and troops that match the capabilities it fielded during Operation Protective Edge.


Hezbollah, with its effective control over Lebanon, including the Lebanese military, is a strategic threat to Israel.


To date, Israel has demurred from targeting Hezbollah and Hamas missile arsenals, but not because it is incapable of destroying them. Israel’s efforts to avoid conflict with its enemies, even at the price of their rearmament, also haven’t stemmed from fear of European or UN condemnation or even from fear of the so-called “CNN-effect.”

Israel has chosen not to defeat its enemies – not to mention the EU-backed NGOs that whitewash them – because the Americans have supported them.


The Clinton administration barred Israel from taking decisive action against either Hezbollah or the Palestinians.


The Bush administration forced Israel to stand down during the war with Hezbollah in 2006.
The Obama administration effectively sided with Hamas against Israel in 2014.


In other words, across three administrations, the Americans made it impossible for Israel to take decisive military action against its enemies.


Under Obama, the US also derailed every Israeli attempt to curb the power of EU-funded subversive organizations operating from inside of Israel.


Trump’s emerging strategy on Iran and ISIS, together with his refusal to operate in accordance with the standard US playbook on the Palestinians, indicates that the US has abandoned this practice. Under Trump, Israel is free to defeat its enemies. Their most powerful deterrent against Israel – the US – is gone.


Israel has long argued that there is no difference between al-Qaida and Hamas or between ISIS and Hezbollah. It has also argued that Iran threatens not only Israel but the world as a whole. Hoping to co-opt the forces of jihad rather than defeat them, successive US administrations have chosen to deny this obvious truth.


Unlike his predecessors, Trump is serious about winning. To do so, he is even willing to take the radical step of accepting Israel as an ally.


The PLO is right to be hysterical. 

Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265695/trump-way-war-caroline-glick

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'Muslim ban' injunction is a judicial coup against President Trump - Ed Straker

by Ed Straker

Judge Robart  has clearly usurped his authority.

Federal district judge James Robart of Seattle ordered a complete, nationwide temporary restraining order against President Trump's temporary ban on visitors from seven Middle Eastern countries. If you read the ruling, as I have, you can see that this is clearly unconstitutional on its face, and constitutes a judicial coup against President Trump and the executive branch.

1) The standards for granting a temporary restraining order are quite high. The plaintiff must show that he is likely to succeed on the merits and will suffer irreparable harm if the injunction is not granted. Here the people from the excluded countries cannot show irreparable harm – only that their entry to the United States will be delayed. And they are unlikely to succeed on the merits, because the president has no obligation to let foreigners into the country. On the contrary, there may be irreparable harm if the temporary travel ban is lifted, as terrorists may enter the country and kill people.

2) By the way, the plaintiffs here aren't even the people from the excluded countries. They are the states of Washington and Minnesota, who claim that their citizens will be harmed if the temporary ban is not lifted. Perhaps Microsoft is being deprived of some cheap labor. It's a flimsy argument at best. This ruling has no substantial effect on states' residents, contrary to what Judge Robart has said.

3) President Trump clearly has discretion to decide whom to admit to the United States and whom not to when it comes to admitting people who are not citizens. Foreigners do not enjoy the protection of our Constitution. The fact that a citizen may incidentally benefit from a foreigner coming to America doesn't mean that that citizen has standing.

4) President Trump has the right to exclude people from a certain country, or even a certain religion. The Constitution does not prevent the government from discriminating on the basis of religion when admitting people to the country because, again, foreigners do not have any rights under our Constitution. President Trump could legally exclude all Muslims, or all women, or all gays, or any other group you care to think of, as long as they are not Americans.

5) In any event, it is clearly not a "Muslim ban," because so many Muslim countries are excluded from it. If anything, it is a ban of Muslims from the most dangerous countries. This is not the same thing as a Muslim ban per se.

6) Presidents are traditionally given wide latitude by courts in matters of national security, and this is very much a matter of national security.

7) It is highly questionable whether federal district courts can issue nationwide injunctions. It is called a federal district court because the court's authority is limited to a district. If it weren't, there would be no need for circuit courts, and we would never see different federal circuits having slightly different laws. One district court could simply impose whatever it likes on the nation. It doesn't work that way.

Judge Robart, who was appointed by George W. Bush (should we be surprised or not?), has clearly usurped his authority. The case clearly has no plaintiffs with standing or any kind of validity. At most, Judge Robart should have stayed his decision pending appeal to circuit courts. His radical injunction smacks of a judicial coup, of a single federal district judge asserting his authority over the entire executive branch. His arguments for doing so are unconstitutional, as is his manner of issuing the order. We are living in a time when judicial ayatollahs are usurping the power of our elected officials, and it is very much like a judicial coup.


Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com, is an attorney by training, and was in the same law school at the same time as Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch...but never knew him (very big class sizes).

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/muslim_ban_injunction_is_a_judicial_coup_against_president_trump.html

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Who are Those Refugees Australia Doesn't Want? - Shoshana Bryen

by Shoshana Bryen

The refugees are the collateral damage in Australia's widely criticized "Stop the Boats" policy

• The refugees are the collateral damage in Australia's widely criticized "Stop the Boats" policy, the rule that asylum seekers who try to reach Australian shores by sea will never "make Australia home," even if they are genuine refugees, are children or have skills. — Los Angeles Times.
• "[T]he arrivals by sea seem to prompt anger. One reason for this could be that migrants and refugees who try to reach Australia by sea are, in fact, coming illegally. Those that are being resettled through its Humanitarian Programme, meanwhile, are registered refugees being accepted under Australia's international obligations." — J. Weston Phippen, in The Atlantic.
• Then-Secretary of State John Kerry worked out the deal with Australia to "fast track" the immigrants, but did not tell Congress. It would be illegal if the deal was considered a treaty negotiated by Kerry. According to the Constitution, it would have to have been sent to Congress for ratification.

It is hard to complain about Australia -- democratic, sunny, cheerful, and oh, those koalas and kangaroos. On a more serious note, Australia is a welcome ally, participating in military operations around the world with American forces and sharing our concerns about aggressive Chinese behavior in the South- and East China Seas. Australia is spending billions to modernize its military forces.

But a few things about Australia should be made clear as President Trump scuttles an Obama-administration deal to take 1,250+ refugees currently in Australian-run internment camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Internment camps? Papua New Guinea and Nauru?
The Wall Street Journal explains:

Under laws first put in place in 2001, successive Australian governments have required asylum seekers coming by boat to be intercepted. The conservatives, on winning power in 2013, set up a maritime blockade that Mr. Turnbull has offered as a model for Europe. But the system began to unravel after Papua New Guinea's highest court last year ordered the closure of the Australian-operated immigration center on Manus Island, ruling asylum seekers were being held illegally.

So chipper Australia has been intercepting ships at sea and dropping the passengers off on less well-developed islands. They are mostly men from Myanmar (Rohingya Muslims), Malaysia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, although there some women and children. The Los Angeles Times further explains:

The refugees are the collateral damage in Australia's widely criticized "Stop the Boats" policy, the rule that asylum seekers who try to reach Australian shores by sea will never "make Australia home," even if they are genuine refugees, are children or have skills. "If you come to Australia illegally by boat, there is no way you will ever make Australia home," an Australian army chief warned in a 2014 video aired online and on television in countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Australia does take thousands of refugees each year under official programs. J. Weston Phippen wrote in The Atlantic:

To be sure, it's not that Australia has an issue with refugees–in fact, it has agreed to resettle 12,000 Syrians, atop the refugees it typically takes through its Humanitarian Programme. It granted 13,800 refugee visas between 2013 and 2014, and 20,000 between 2012 and 2013.
But the arrivals by sea seem to prompt anger. One reason for this could be that migrants and refugees who try to reach Australia by sea are, in fact, coming illegally. Those that are being resettled through its Humanitarian Programme, meanwhile, are registered refugees being accepted under Australia's international obligations. The two main parties also contend that its policies deter human-smuggling.

So off they go to Nauru and Manus.

Out of sight, perhaps out of mind until the UN documented serious problems in the camps, including physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The Guardian (Australia) published a series last summer on abuses at the Manus camp, following the leak of more than 2,000 "incident reports" detailing "assaults, sexual abuse, self-harm attempts, child abuse and living conditions endured by asylum seekers held by the Australian government, painting a picture of routine dysfunction and cruelty." Although children make up only 18% of those in detention, more than 51% of the incident reports involve children.

The Manus Island regional processing facility, where Australia sends illegal immigrants. (Image source: Australia Department of Immigration and Citizenship)

Cases of depression and self-harm are high; two people set themselves on fire last year, one of whom died, and one girl swallowed bleach. Many have reported that the biggest problem is the sense of paralysis at being trapped in limbo indefinitely, according to Tracey Donehue, a former teacher at one of the facilities interviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

Following the very unpleasant exposure, the government of Malcolm Turnbull announced in August 2016 that it would close one center on Manus Island, but would bring none of its internees – 854 adults, all men – to the Australian mainland, raising the question of what to do with them. Australia's Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, said Canberra's "position is very clear, and that is we are not going to accept people who have sought to come to our country illegally by boat, they will not settle permanently in our country."

Enter President Obama.

In September, Turnbull agreed to resettle Central American refugees who were in a processing center in Costa Rica. At the time, Australian officials said firmly there would be no quid pro quo. "There will not be a people swap," announced Scott Ryan, a special minister of state. The American agreement to take Australian internees came two months later, providing a convenient way for Mr. Turnbull to keep his promise to his people and get rid of people who had become a public relations disaster.

Then-Secretary of State John Kerry worked out the deal with Australia to "fast track" the immigrants, but did not tell Congress. In November, responding to information it received, WND reported that the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees demanded details:

"Congress only learned of the deal through media reports two weeks ago [November, 2016] and – according to a letter sent to administration officials by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) – the deal is not only a matter of grave national security concern, but it could be illegal."

It would be illegal if the deal was considered a treaty negotiated by then-Secretary Kerry. According to the Constitution, it would have to have been sent to Congress for ratification.

Asked if he had discussed the deal with then-candidate Donald Trump, Turnbull said, "We deal with one administration at a time and there is only one president of the United States at a time." But Donald Trump is now president and his decision appears to have left the Australian government with few choices.

Asked if there was a "Plan B" for Australia, Turnbull said he was examining several options, but that Australia would not back down on its decision not to let those refugees stopped at sea enter the country:

"Our expectation naturally, given the commitments that have been made, is that it will go ahead. The only option that isn't available to [the refugees] is bringing them to Australia for the obvious reasons that that would provide a signal to the people smugglers to get back into business."

Whether there is an agreement to be had between the United States and Australia for the resettlement of Australia's interned population or not, it is clear that this deal had more to it than the Obama Administration -- or the Turnbull government -- wanted to admit. The United States and Australia both had reasons not to admit the migrants closest to their borders, but trading Central Americans who wanted to come to the U.S. for Muslims who wanted to reach Australian shores would allow Turnbull to keep a campaign promise and Obama to divert attention from the massive breach of America's southern border.

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of the Jewish Policy Center.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9883/australia-refugees

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Quebec: The Crisis of the West - Giulio Meotti

by Giulio Meotti

-- what happens when one of the most famous Catholic territories in the world undergoes such a cultural and religious revolution?

• Quebec, like the entire West, is facing an existential demographic and religious crisis.
• Quebec's death spiral is explicitly linked with the calls for increased immigration. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who put an end to the military campaign against the Islamic State, just called on Muslim migrants to come to his country.
• Resistance to Quebec's dramatic collapse of Christianity does not necessarily require a new embrace of an old Catholicism, but it certainly does need a sane rediscovery of what a Western democracy should be. That includes an appreciation of Western identity and Judeo-Christian values -- everything Trudeau's government and much of Europe apparently refuse to accept.

Welcome to Quebec, with its flavor of an old French province, with its beautiful landscapes, where streets are named after Catholic saints, and where a gunman just murdered six people in a local mosque.

Violence can be the consequence of societal convulsions, as in the 2011 massacre on Norway's island of Utoya, in a country that prided itself of being ultra-secularized, and part of the global "good society". Quebec, also, like the entire West, is facing an existential demographic and religious crisis.

George Weigel, writing in the American publication, First Things recently called Quebec "Catholicism's Empty Quarter". "There is no more religiously arid place," he wrote, "between the North Pole and Tierra del Fuego; there may be no more religiously arid place on the planet".

Sandro Magister, one of Italy's most prominent journalists on Catholic affairs, wrote, "while Rome talks, Quebec has already been lost".

Quebec's Catholic buildings are empty; the clergy is aging. Today, inside the Church of Saint-Jude in Montreal, personal fitness trainers take the place of Catholic priests. The Théatre Paradoxe in Montreal now sits where the church of Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours was before it shut. The former Christian nave is now used for concerts and conferences, while Christian hymns on Sundays are replaced by disco shows.

The Church of Saint-Jude in Montreal is today the "Saint-Jude spa" for "wellness worshippers," complete with personal trainers, trendy cocktail parties and custom-built crucifix-shaped benches in the changing rooms. (Image source: Montreal.TV video screenshot)

The Catholic Diocese of Montreal sold 50 churches and other religious buildings in the last 15 years. On May 24, 2015, the last Mass was celebrated in the famous Church of St. John the Baptist, dedicated to the patron of French Canadians. The Auxiliary Bishop of Quebec, Gaetan Proulx, said that "half of the churches in Quebec" will close in the next ten years.

In Denys Arcand's film "The Barbarian Invasions," there is a moment when a Catholic priest surveys the worthless religious art kitsch with which his diocese is burdened, to point to the irrelevance. The old priest says:

"Quebec used to be as Catholic as Spain or Ireland; everyone believed. At a precise moment, during the year 1966 in fact, the churches suddenly emptied in a matter of months. A strange phenomenon that no one has ever been able to explain".

"Man without history, without culture, without country, without family and without civilization is not free: he is naked and condemned to despair", writes Quebec's philosopher, Mathieu Bock-Côté.

The state of Catholicism in Quebec today is indeed desperate. In 1966, there were 8,800 priests; today there are 2,600, most of whom are elderly; many live in nursing homes. In 1945, weekly mass was attended by 90% of the Catholic population; today it is 4%. Hundreds of Christian communities have simply disappeared.

The Quebec Council of the Religious Heritage has reported that in 2014 alone, a record 72 churches closed. The situation is even worse in the Archdiocese of Montreal. From 257 parishes in 1966, there were 250 in 2000, and in 2013 only 169 parishes. Christianity seemed at the risk of extinction; the Archbishop of Montreal, Christian Lépine, launched a moratorium on the sale of the churches.

While Quebec's authorities used an aggressive secularism as a tool to advance multiculturalism, Quebec witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of young Muslim men who joined the Islamic State. Terror attacks were committed by converts to Islam -- people who rejected Canadian relativism to embrace Islamist fanaticism. "Quebec's secularist fundamentalism has gone so far as to impose on all state and private schools -- the first instance of its kind in the world -- an obligatory course on 'ethics and religious culture'", Sandro Magister wrote.

An academic report concluded:

"Canadian census data shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the country, and that although most of the Muslim population growth is related to Muslim birth rates and migration, since 2001 the Muslim population has also increased as a result of religious conversions by non-Muslim Canadians".

Quebec's demographic decline is also telling. The birth rate has fallen from an average of four children per couple to just 1.6 -- well below what demographers call the "replacement rate". Quebec was unique compared to developed nations in the intensity and speed with which total fertility rates dropped.

Quebec's death spiral is explicitly linked with the calls for increased immigration. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who put an end to the military campaign against the Islamic State, just called on Muslim migrants to come to his country.

According to demographers, the province of Quebec alone needs between 70,000 and 80,000 immigrants a year to compensate for its low birth rate. But to compensate for a demographic fall, what happens when one of the most famous Catholic territories in the world undergoes such a cultural and religious revolution?

Resistance to Quebec's dramatic collapse does not necessarily require a new embrace of an old Catholicism, but it certainly does need a sane rediscovery of what a Western democracy should be. That includes also the appreciation of the Western identity and Judeo-Christian values -- everything that Trudeau's government and much of Europe apparently refuse to accept. Half of Trudeau's ministers were not sworn in with a religious oath. They refused even to say "so help me God".

Quebec's motto is: "Je me souviens": I remember. But what, exactly? In "Catholicism's empty quarter", will the winner be Islam?

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

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9881/quebec-crisis

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The French Inquisition - Yves Mamou

by Yves Mamou

France's New Dreyfus Trial, a Jihad against the Truth

• "It is a shame to deny this taboo, namely that in the Arab families in France, and everyone knows it but nobody wants to say it, anti-Semitism is sucked with mother's milk." — George Bensoussan, historian of Moroccan heritage, on trial for saying that.
• "When parents shout at their children, when they want to reprimand them, they call them Jews. Yes. All Arab families know this. It is monumental hypocrisy not to see that this anti-Semitism begins as a domestic one. " — Smaïn Laacher, French-Algerian professor of sociology.
• This witch-hunt against Bensoussan is symptomatic of the state of free speech today in France. Intellectual intimidation is the rule. Complaints are filed against everyone not saying that Muslims are the main victim of racism in France.
• In December 2016, Pascal Bruckner, a writer and philosopher, was also brought to court for saying: "We need to make the record of collaborators of Charlie Hebdo's murderers." He named the people in France who had instilled a climate of hatred against Charlie.
• Muslims, especially young Muslims, as the new revolutionary labor class. It did not matter that most of them were not working: they were "victims".
• "Anti-racist vigilance became a gag rule... Anti-racist organizations are in the denial of 'Muslim racism.'" — Alain Finkielkraut, philosopher and academic.

An important red line in France has just been crossed. In true dhimmi fashion, in a move reminiscent of both the Inquisition and the Dreyfus Trial, all of France's so-called "anti-racist" organizations have joined a jihad against free speech and against truth.

On January 25, 2017, France's "anti-racist" organizations -- all of them, even the Jewish LICRA (International League against Racism and anti-Semitism) -- joined the Islamist CCIF (Collective against Islamophobia) in court against Georges Bensoussan, a highly regarded Jewish historian of Moroccan extraction, and an expert on the history of Jews in Arab countries.

Georges Bensoussan, a highly regarded Jewish historian of Moroccan extraction, and an expert on the history of Jews in Arab countries. (Image source: Jusqu'au dernier video screenshot)

Not only did the Islamist CCIF and the Jewish LICRA unite against him, but also the French Human Rights League, SOS Racism and MRAP (Movement against Racism and for Friendship with People).

Bensoussan is being prosecuted for remarks he made during a "France Culture" radio debate, about antisemitism among French Arabs:

"An Algerian sociologist, Smaïn Laacher, with great courage, just said in a documentary aired on Channel 3: It is a shame to deny this taboo, namely that in the Arab families in France, and everyone knows it but nobody wants to say it, anti-Semitism is sucked with mother's milk."

The documentary that Bensoussan was referring to was called "Teachers in the Lost Territories of the Republic," and was aired in October 2015, on Channel 3. In this documentary, Laacher, who is a French professor of Algerian origin, said:

"Antisemitism is already awash in the domestic space... It... rolls almost naturally off the tongue, awash in the language... It is an insult. When parents shout at their children, when they want to reprimand them, they call them Jews. Yes. All Arab families know this. It is monumental hypocrisy not to see that this anti-Semitism begins as a domestic one."

No complaint was filed against Laacher. But as soon as Bensoussan, in the heat of a radio debate, referred to Arab anti-Semitism as "sucked in with mother's milk", CCIF, followed by all anti-racist associations, brought Bensoussan to supposed justice. Their accusation was simple: "mother's milk" is not a metaphor for cultural anti-Semitism transmitted through education, but a genetic and "essentialist" accusation. It means: "all Arabs are anti-Semitic" -- in other words, Bensoussan is a racist.

Professor Smaïn Laacher, of the University of Strasbourg, denied the quote and told the website Mediapart. "I have never said nor written that kind of ignominy". He filed a complaint against Bensoussan, but later withdrew it.

Judgment will be rendered March 7.

This witch-hunt against Bensoussan is symptomatic of the state of free speech today in France. With the leading Islamist CCIF stalking "Islamophobia", intellectual intimidation is the rule. Complaints are filed against everyone not saying that Muslims are the main victim of racism in France.

In December 2016, Pascal Bruckner, a writer and philosopher, was also brought to court for saying in 2015, on Arte TV, "We need to make the record of collaborators of Charlie Hebdo's murderers". He named people in France who had instilled a climate of hatred against Charlie: the entertainer Guy Bedos, the rap singer Nekfeu, anti-racist organizations like The Indivisibles, or the journalist Rokhaya Diallo and the supremacist movement for "people of color" known as Les Indigènes de la République ("The Indigenous of the Republic").

It was not the first time that Islamists filed complaints against people they dislike. Charlie Hebdo was twice brought to court by Islamist organizations. Twice, the accusations of Charlie's Islamist accusers were dismissed.

But with the Bensoussan trial, we are entering in a new era. The most venerable, the most authentic anti-racist organizations -- some of them are older than a century -- are, shamefully, lining up with Islamist organizations.

This tipping point was initiated in the 1980s by with SOS Racism. This organization, founded to organize young Muslims and help them to assimilate into French society rapidly, became a political movement, manipulated by the Socialist Party. SOS Racism and its slogan, "Don't hurt my buddy", rapidly became a new direction to the working class. With the working class attracted by the far-right party Front National, the Socialist party needed a new "clientele". They chose Muslims, especially young Muslims, as the new revolutionary labor class. It did not matter that most of them were unemployed: they were "victims".

Thirty years later, it is easy for Islamist organizations to take the reins of this ideology of victimization, and to transform "anti-racism" into a fight against "Islamophobia".

In 2016, at a symposium in Paris dedicated to "False Friends and Useful Idiots of Secularism", Alain Jakubowicz, president of the Jewish anti-racist group LICRA, described the anti-racist field war:

"Today, CCIF (Collective against Islamophobia) is the leading anti-racist organization. This is terrifying. Today, CCIF and Indigenous of the Republic are the leading fighters against racism... not against anti-Semitism, because they do not care. This is not the question for them. And they are very clever to recruit "useful idiots" like rap singers. And Muslim youths, who have good reason to protest being those "left behind" in French society, see their idols promoting CCIF and its accusations of "state racism". In 2016, how is it possible to talk about a racism practiced by the state in the French Republic ? This is unbelievable!"

In 2017, what is unbelievable is to see the same Alain Jakubowicz and the Jewish LICRA sitting side by side in court with CCIF to file a complaint against a prominent historian who simply speaks what he sees about the cultural transmission of anti-Semitism within the French Arab and French Muslim community.

Richard Abitbol, president of the Confederation of French Jews and Friends of Israel, accused Jakubowicz and LICRA of obeying the "necessity for them to find a Jewish scapegoat to build a virginity in order to comply with those who fight Islamophobia".

To evaluate the treason of this Jewish anti-racist movement colluding with its worst enemy, it is important to remember that LICRA has been created to defend Samuel Schwartzbard. In 1920, in Paris, Schwartzbard had killed Simon Petlioura, a Cossack leader responsible for killing thousands of Jews in Ukraine. Schwartzbard was acquitted. LICRA militants were also famous in the 1930s for their street-fights against far-right anti-Semitic "Camelots du roi".

But the LICRA disarray can be generalized to all the "anti-racist" movements. SOS Racism -- which in 2008 supported the firing of a veiled Muslim employee by her employer -- is today a follower of CCIF.

The venerable French League of the Human Rights (LDH), in 2006, had two prominent members -- Antoine Spire and Cedric Porin -- resign from the CCIF and publish an op-ed in Le Monde accusing the CCIF "of responding to the racism experienced by young people of immigrant background by showing complacency towards the Islamist organizations that claim to represent them".

When the French philosopher Robert Redeker received death threats from Islamist terrorists because he criticized Islam, the LDH stated that it did not share the "noxious ideas" of Mr Redeker, but conceded that, "whatever one thinks of the writings of Mr Redeker, there is no reason for him to undergo such treatment".

Regarding the MRAP (Movement against Racism and for Friendship with People), it is enough to say that its leader, Mouloud Aounit , publicly joins Tariq Ramadan of the Muslim Brotherhood to fight "Islamophobia".

In September 2009, Sihem Habchi, president of the feminist association Ni Putes, Ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Doormats), wrote in France Soir: "When I see MRAP, LDH, and Ligue de l'Enseignement accept female genital mutilation as a cultural practice, I realize that these people are not ready to help me to be free".

In court, in defense of Bensoussan, Alain Finkielkraut, philosopher and academic, explained to the judge:

"A rogue anti-racism makes you to criminalize a concern instead of fighting the cause of this concern. If the court obeys to this injunction, it will be a moral and an intellectual catastrophe".

Finkielkraut should have added: a political and civilizational catastrophe.

Later, at the radio Finkielkraut added: "Anti-racist vigilance became a gag rule.... For a long time, racism in France had only a white face and his victims were Arabs, Blacks and Romas". In other words, it is forbidden today in France to say that anti-Semitism comes essentially from the (not all, but a big part of) Muslim population. "Anti-racist organizations are in denial of 'Muslim racism'. And LICRA today is joining the denial of an anti-racist party". Finkielkraut, a senior member of LICRA, sent his resignation to the organization's board.

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Yves Mamou is a journalist and author based in France. He worked for two decades for the daily, Le Monde, before his retirement.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9885/france-bensoussan-trial

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