Saturday, December 31, 2022

'Rigged the COVID debate': How federally enticed censorship undermined science during pandemic - Just the News Staff

 

by Just the News Staff

Aggressive policing of controversial content stifled scientific debate during pandemic's worst months, experts say.

 

Few online platforms were better poised than Twitter to serve as a clearinghouse of insight and discovery during the dizzying early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the world scrambling to make sense of the rapidly spreading new virus, commenters and investigators around the globe were turning to Twitter's real-time public forum to share information and speculation regarding the disease. 

Monitors at Twitter, however, ended up interpreting the circumstances differently.

Driven by a pervasive fear of "misinformation" combined with unrelenting pressure from government officials, Twitter embarked on a heavy censorship campaign, suppressing entire narratives in the crucial early first year of the pandemic and presenting a largely one-sided interpretation of the COVID crisis that left little room for dissent. 

The breadth of that effort was exposed most fully this week by journalist David Zweig, who in another entry in the ongoing "Twitter files" expose revealed "how Twitter rigged the COVID debate."

The social media company accomplished this, Zweig said, "by censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy," "by discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed" and "by suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*."

Considerable pressure to regulate speech about COVID came from the federal government, Zweig said, citing internal Twitter files. "[B]oth the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes," he wrote. 

Among the Trump administration's requests to Twitter was help counteracting "runs on grocery stores," a brief but high-tension period early in the pandemic when shoppers rushed to gather supplies amid fears of shortages. 

When the Biden administration came to power, the censorship expanded. The Biden White House, for instance, specifically targeted what was called "anti-vaxxer accounts," including longtime and vociferous COVID critic Alex Berenson, a former New York Times investigative reporter. 

Berenson was among the earliest and most passionate dissenters from COVID orthodoxy, criticizing lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing policies and other intrusive pandemic interventions. He was suspended from Twitter in the summer of 2021 shortly after Biden publicly criticized social media companies for allowing people to share alternative opinions on vaccines.

Yet the company went further than that, at times censoring even highly credentialed and knowledgeable experts, among them epidemiologist and vaccine safety pioneer Martin Kulldorff, who was Harvard Medical School faculty at the time. In March 2021, Kulldorff argued that children and individuals with "prior natural infection" of COVID-19 did not need to be vaccinated against the virus. 

Those assertions are backed up by compelling scientific evidence. Children comprise a bare fraction of total COVID-19 deaths, while multiple studies have indicated that natural COVID immunity is as robust, if not more so, than vaccine-acquired immunity. Yet at the time, as Zweig pointed out, Twitter moderators locked Kulldorff's account, slapped the tweet with a "misleading" label and forbidding users from sharing it. 

Kulldorff told the Epoch Times this week that he was "not surprised" at seeing his name in the Twitter censorship files. He argued that the COVID debate, especially around vaccines, has become ideologically homogenized. 

“I think for many people, they only heard one voice," he said. "And when they heard alternative voices, [those voices] were sort of dismissed as cranks. But that’s not how medicine or science works."

About three weeks after billionaire Elon Musk completed his purchase of Twitter, Kulldorff told Just the News he had already noticed a change in how his account was treated.

He had been gaining 200-300 new followers per tweet in late 2021 through February 2022, but then "something changed" and each new tweet only drew 50-100 new followers. "Now In November it is back at around 300 new followers per tweet," he wrote in an email. 

What hadn't changed, according to Kulldorff: the "large number" of accounts impersonating his unique full name. "There are only 18 people in the world with the last name Kulldorff ... But on Twitter, Kulldorff is a very popular name including some accounts with rather disturbing sexual content."

At times Twitter even flagged and censored tweets using mainstream, official sources of data. Zweig noted that one prominent Twitter user was hit with censorship for sharing a tweet about COVID mortality rates that used data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In another case, a Rhode Island doctor was "permanently suspended from Twitter" in part for sharing "the results from a peer reviewed study on mRNA vaccines."

COVID censorship has abated under Musk's ownership, particularly as studies regarding COVID-19 mortality, masking and vaccine efficacy have become more widespread. The company ceased enforcement of its COVID-19 "misinformation" policy last month.

In his interview with the Times, meanwhile, Kulldorff speculated that Twitter's censorship crusade may have been driven not just by internal moderators and government pressure but by assistance from scientists looking to squelch alternative COVID views. 

“Were other scientists involved in urging Twitter to censor their fellow scientists who had a different opinion?” he asked. “And if so, to what extent, and who were those scientists?”


Just the News Staff

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/rigged-covid-debate-how-federally-enticed-censorship-undermined-science-during

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Where is the Middle East heading now? - Dore Gold

 

by Dore Gold

If Middle Eastern states can block Tehran from using Jordan as a route, they can assure the security of the region. But it is not clear at this stage that they will be able to achieve this goal.

 

 LEFT TO RIGHT: Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II arrive at the second Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership, at the Dead Sea, Jordan last week. (photo credit: REUTERS/ALAA AL SUKHNI)
LEFT TO RIGHT: Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II arrive at the second Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership, at the Dead Sea, Jordan last week.
(photo credit: REUTERS/ALAA AL SUKHNI)

Occasionally there are events transpiring in the Middle East that indicate how the region has been transformed. Last week, the major players in the core of the Middle East convened for what came to be known as the Baghdad II Conference. The first version of this conference was convened in Iraq in August 2021.

The idea has been put forward that to advance regional stability the parties to a new regional conference need to have their ambitions for regional hegemony addressed – that means drawing in first and foremost Ankara and Tehran. It was still called the Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership.

What stood out this time was the location of where it was held. The conference was not convened in Baghdad or any place on Iraqi soil. It was in fact convened in Jordan along the shores of the Dead Sea. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was supposed to attend, just a stone’s throw away from Israel. In the end, Iran dispatched Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian instead.

Turkey sent only a representative at ambassadorial rank. Had Raisi shown up, the entire conference would have looked like a meeting that was plainly in the shadow of Iranian hegemony.

What was the goal?

Perhaps there was some hope of “tearing Iraq away from Iranian influence,” as one Arab weekly put it. That was not going to happen. True, the attendees included an impressive list of Arab leaders from Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Kuwait. French President Emmanuel Macron also took part. The indefatigable Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, apparently was exploring how to renew the Western talks with Iran over its nuclear program.

FRENCH PRESIDENT Emmanuel Macron speaks during a video conference with international partners to discuss humanitarian aid for financially-strapped Lebanon, in Paris on December 2. (credit: IAN LANGSDON/POOL VIA REUTERS)FRENCH PRESIDENT Emmanuel Macron speaks during a video conference with international partners to discuss humanitarian aid for financially-strapped Lebanon, in Paris on December 2. (credit: IAN LANGSDON/POOL VIA REUTERS)

Dr. Ebtisam Al-Ketbi, who heads the leading research center in Abu Dhabi, the Emirates Policy Center, pointed out that the overlapping crises afflicting the Middle East have made strictly bilateral solutions completely ineffective, which drew the major players in the region to try the Baghdad II mechanism. Perhaps they were thinking about a Middle Eastern version of the Helsinki Process that drew in members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact in 1975 at the height of the Cold War.

But Iran was glued to a policy of exploiting its Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) units as its chosen instrument for spreading its regional influence – not multilateral mechanisms that the strongest party in the room was prepared to ignore. Over the last few years, Iran effectively employed its Houthi allies in Yemen to successfully strike the heart of Riyadh, shutting down for a period of time a significant percentage of Saudi Arabia’s oil production.

Indeed, a Houthi drone attack knocked out half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production in 2019. Iran did not pay a price for this bold action. Clearly, it had little incentive to restrict its behavior, given the tepid regional reaction. In fact, Jordan’s King Abdullah disclosed on CNN in July 2021 that Iranian drones had attacked Jordanian territory in increasing numbers.

For years, Tehran had built up a military presence in Lebanon and Syria. Now, Iran had been showing its interest in spreading its influence into Jordan as well. Jordan was known to be the locale of a number of Islamic holy sites that were significant to both Sunni and Shi’ite Islam. Iran sought to expand its tourism in Jordan to these areas. Some had been battlefields for early Islamic armies when they had their first military engagements with the Byzantine Empire. They were located near what is today the Saudi-Jordanian border.

Some Middle Eastern leaders hoped that today the Iranians could be placated. That might have been another reason to invite the Iranian president to the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan. Israel will have to monitor very carefully what is happening with its eastern neighbors – both Iraq and Jordan. Israel has intercepted convoys of weaponry crossing from the Iranian border, by land, to Syria and Lebanon.

It is logical that Tehran redirects its efforts to create an alternative route via Jordan. If Middle Eastern states can block this axis as well, they can assure the security of the region. But it is not clear at this stage that they will be able to achieve this goal.


Dore Gold served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and as director-general of the Foreign Ministry. Until last month, he was president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-726166

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As Democrats ramp up gun control, a supermajority in U.S. think gun ownership good for society - Just the News Staff

 

by Just the News Staff

Popularity of guns in U.S. presents stumbling block to major Democratic policies.

 

Democrats with ambitions of broad gun control in the United States face a major stumbling block in their efforts to enact those policies: American voters themselves. 

Gun rights remain broadly popular in the United States, even after years of Democratic efforts to turn high-profile mass shootings into major gun control initiatives.

A long history of gun ownership, coupled with robust constitutional protections for firearm ownership here, have led to one of the largest private gun stocks in the world.

The enduring popularity of guns in the U.S. was underscored by a recent RMG Research poll conducted by Scott Rasmussenone that earlier this month found some support for new gun laws among voters  but far more overwhelming favorability toward gun rights. 

More than six out of every 10 voters "would prefer to live in a community where people are allowed to own guns," the polling found, while more than 70% said "there are positive benefits to allowing private gun ownership."

Demographic breakdowns show the vast majority of Republicans agreeing with those sentiments, yet even Democrats feel favorable toward gun rights in the responses, with Democratic respondents evenly split on the former question and agreeing with the latter by nearly 60%. 

Notably, those numbers are up from an earlier survey conducted in September, which found just under 60% of respondents were comfortable living in a community with private gun ownership. 

An ongoing positive view of gun ownership throughout the country hasn't stopped Democratic efforts to enact stricter gun control over the years. For decades federal, state and local efforts have focused on restricting both gun ownership in general and classes of weapons available for gun owners in particular.

In June, President Joe Biden signed into law a landmark gun control bill that instituted more restrictive background check rules as well as incentives for states to institute "red flag" laws that would allow firearms to be seized from people preemptively considered a threat. 

Biden at the time admitted that the bill "doesn't do everything I want," and the president has since been vocal about his desire for further gun control, including in September a call to "ban assault weapons in this country."

Democrats have also been aggressive in pushing gun control at the state level, with well-known Democratic strongholds like New Jersey and New York boasting some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

In Washington state this month, Gov. Jay Inslee and state Attorney General Bob Ferguso announced upcoming legislative efforts to clamp down on gun rights there, including a permit requirement for gun ownership. 

“You need to get a license to drive a car in the state of Washington, you need to get a license to go fishing," Inslee said during a press conference. "It’s time that you get a license to make sure that you have safety training to purchase a gun in the state of Washington."

At times Democratic legislators have faced harsh rebukes for gun control support. In 2013 two Colorado Democratic senators were successfully recalled for their support of a package of gun control laws, including "universal background checks."

It's not just government, meanwhile, that has moved to restrict gun rights. Earlier this year it was revealed that the New York-based Amalgamated Bank was part of the effort to create a new merchant category code for gun stores, ostensibly in order to track illegal gun purchases. 

The specter of a specially designated marker for gun purchases could raise considerable opposition in the near future, particularly if the rule is ever used to signal out and track legal gun purchases pursuant to gun control efforts. 

The demographic realities of gun ownership, meanwhile, could backfire on the bank itself. Amalgamated Bank is the largest union-owned bank in the United States; the RMG Research poll from September, meanwhile, revealed that more than half of all union members in the country live in a gun-owning house.


Just the News Staff

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/democrats-ramp-gun-control-supermajority-us-think-gun-ownership-good

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The merging of the Propaganda State and the police state - Henry Pelifian

 

by Henry Pelifian

Are there the will and leadership in the nation to prevent the fall of the United States with a viable Constitution intact?

The Propaganda State in the USA envelops government, institutions, and the mainstream media.  What do they all have in common?  Their funding and wealth derive directly or indirectly from government.  Legislation created the broadcast industry that now allows six companies to own and control 90 percent of the media in America.   

The recent revelations of Twitter working with the FBI and other government departments and agencies to censor Americans is an extension of the Propaganda State becoming a police state.  Like mushrooms sprouting in the dark, the police state has emerged in the Unites States without the mainstream media reporting it.  The "Twitter Files" make clear that censorship flourished on Twitter to promote only authorized information from government.  A new political age has erupted with coordination by Big Media, Big Tech, and Big Government to control the flow of information and censor all contradictory information.  This coordination does not occur overnight.  It takes decades of hiring like-minded people and avoiding well qualified or better qualified people who do not share their political views.  The authoritarian state is here, and the institutions have been massaged for particular outcomes and political agendas to support the overwhelmingly dominant political force.

News from the mainstream media ignores the rampant crime in cities, social decay, corruption, and economic failure.  Government now divides people by race, often citing pervasive racism, though offering little or no evidence to support it beyond propaganda stereotyping police. 

The Propaganda State needs to constantly fabricate crimes to enhance its power.  Propaganda driven by Big Media and Big Tech is the megaphone to promote Big Government disinformation and indoctrination.  This is what the Twitter Files exposed clearly.  The FBI is used to censor Americans in the name of national security or preventing "misinformation," using methods of communist dictators Stalin and Mao.  We even have a show trial in Pelosi's sham January 6 "unselect committee."  There is a political pattern to the political show — two fake impeachments with no substance — like the "show trials" of Stalin in the former USSR.  Even the raid on President Trump's home appears fabricated, because every former president has removed millions of documents, and to believe that only President Trump violated the "National Records Act" in removing documents is folly.  

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was offered and rejected up to 20,000 National Guard troops by President Trump for January 6.  January 6 appears to have elements of entrapment because there is video of Capitol Police opening doors and waving people into the Capital Building.  Since Nancy Pelosi undoubtedly made the final decision rejecting the presence of the National Guard on January 6, she is primarily responsible for the "break-in" at the Capitol.

J6 Committee propaganda aims to blame President Trump for the debacle.  Many citizens are still under arrest for January 6 incident, held without bail.  Even juries are suspect in Washington, D.C., a bastion of Democrats, where brainwashing and allegiance to Big Government appear complete.  Under Pelosi, the Capitol Police have expanded, opening up offices around the country, spreading federal tentacles closer to the citizenry.

The arm of the Propaganda State has embraced and merged with the police state to target political opponents, including a president of the United States.  The Twitter Files lay bare a coordinated effort to silence and censor both a former president and thousands of average Americans in a web of suppression promoting propaganda, a gross violation of freedom of speech.  Former FBI agents were hired to assist Twitter in implementing widespread censorship.

The looming police state suppresses freedom and censors in the name of security and "misinformation," using the "terms of service" of social media platforms.  The political system is paralyzed, unable or unwilling to decisively to defeat the juggernaut of tyranny descending across the nation. 

The ease and speed with which freedom of speech was dismantled — not only on social media platforms, but also in the mainstream media and the colleges — is ominous and justifies the admonition from John Adams in a letter in 1814 to John Taylor: "Remember democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Are there the will and leadership in the nation to prevent the fall of the United States with a viable Constitution intact?

Image via Pixnio.


Henry Pelifian

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/12/the_merging_of_the_propaganda_state_and_the_police_state.html

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11 states poised to cut individual income taxes in 2023 - The Center Square Staff

 

by The Center Square Staff

Only one state, Massachusetts, is increasing its individual income tax, according to the Tax Foundation.

 

Eleven states will reduce their individual income tax rates on Jan. 1.

Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, and North Carolina will cut the individual income tax rate on New Year’s Day, according to the Tax Foundation. Over the past two years, more than 20 states have cut individual income tax rates.

Three of these states – Arizona, Idaho, and Mississippi –will also move away from a graduated-rate income tax to a flat tax where all income is taxed at the same rate regardless of income level, the Tax Foundation reported.

Only one state, Massachusetts, is increasing its individual income tax, according to the Tax Foundation. The state will change from a flat to a graduated-rate tax of 9% on any household income over $1 million.

Two states, Hawaii and Illinois, expanded their tax credit programs, which reduce the final dollar amount on the tax bill rather than reducing taxable income, according to the Tax Foundation.

States with low or no personal income tax rates are among the fastest-growing populations in the country, according to data from the U.S. Census. Among those states are Florida, Idaho, and North Carolina.

Florida has no income tax, while both Idaho and North Carolina have a flat tax on income, according to data from the Tax Foundation.

Alabama, Delaware, Iowa, Rhode Island, and Nebraska enacted exemptions for a portion to all of retirement income or military pension, according to the Tax Foundation.

Hillsdale College Professor of Economics Gary Wolfram told The Center Square that states with lower income taxes often attract more businesses and economic activity to their economies.

“States with lower income taxes attract economic activity,” Wolfram said. “The latest census data on state population growth is evidence of the fact. This results in job opportunities and increases in property values that particularly benefit the median income earners.”

States like New York, Hawaii, California, and Oregon with high income taxes have shrinking populations, data from the U.S. Census shows. These states are also among the top ten states with the highest income tax with California having the highest tax rate in the country at 13.3%.


The Center Square Staff

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/11-states-will-cut-individual-income-taxes-2023

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No, Iran Nuclear Deal Is Not Yet Dead and Russia Is Helping Iran Go Nuclear - Majid Rafizadeh

 

by Majid Rafizadeh

I have a question for you – how does Russia pay Iran for this, in your opinion? Is Iran just interested in money? Probably not money at all, but Russian assistance to the Iranian nuclear program." — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, The Jerusalem Post, November 4, 2022.

  • Evidently the lethal nuclear deal that will enable Iran to have all the nuclear weapons it wants and missiles with which to deliver them -- and for which the Obama and Biden administrations have been pining for nearly a decade so that, most likely, Iran will not try them out on their watch but wait for somebody else's -- is not yet dead, according to reports from Israeli officials.

  • For the length of a coffee-break, there were rumors that, because the Iranian regime was sending drones to Russia to help crush Ukraine, the deal was – finally – off the table, supposedly for good. In what must be one of the shortest-lived policy decisions ever, that arrangement now seems off the table for good.

  • Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is not only sending drones to Russia to crush Ukraine, but other materiel as well.

  • By providing weapons to a major power such as Russia, the Iranian regime is asserting itself as a key player enjoying significant military power on the global stage.

  • Finally, we should not dismiss the idea that Russia will also help the Iranian regime to advance its nuclear program.

  • "I have a question for you – how does Russia pay Iran for this, in your opinion? Is Iran just interested in money? Probably not money at all, but Russian assistance to the Iranian nuclear program. Probably, this is exactly the meaning of their alliance." — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, The Jerusalem Post, November 4, 2022.

  • The question of course is: What does the Biden administration intend to do about it?

The Iranian regime is not only sending drones to Russia to crush Ukraine, but other materiel as well. By providing weapons to a major power such as Russia, the Iranian regime is asserting itself as a key player enjoying significant military power on the global stage. Pictured: An Iranian-made Shahed-136 suicide drone, deployed by the Russian military, which was shot down by Ukrainian forces near the town of Kupiansk, Ukraine. (Image source: Strategic Communications Directorate of the Ukrainian Armed Forces)

Evidently the lethal nuclear deal that will enable Iran to have all the nuclear weapons it wants and missiles with which to deliver them -- and for which the Obama and Biden administrations have been pining for nearly a decade so that, most likely, Iran will not try them out on their watch but wait for somebody else's -- is not yet dead, according to reports from Israeli officials.

For the length of a coffee-break, there were rumors that, because the Iranian regime was sending drones to Russia to help crush Ukraine, the deal was – finally – off the table, supposedly for good. In what must be one of the shortest-lived policy decisions ever, that arrangement now seems off the table for good.

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is not only sending drones to Russia to crush Ukraine, but other materiel as well.

Thanks to the Biden administration, Russia and the Iranian regime's deepening and dangerous relationship appears to be reaching a peak.

Militarily speaking, Russia is moving to provide advanced military equipment to the Islamic Republic, including air defense systems, fighter jets and helicopters. This can only make the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism -- which chants "Death to America", "Death to Israel", and kills its own citizens -- a stronger and expansionist state.

Moreover, instead of just shipping its drones, Iran is planning to set up a drone assembly line in Russia to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine. Russians will be reportedly training Iranians pilots on how to use the Su-35 fighter jet.

Even White House National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby recently had to admit that Russia was offering Iran "an unprecedented level of military and technical support that is transforming their relationship into a full-fledged defense partnership."

Regarding Russian Su-35 fighter jets, Mr. Kirby acknowledged that "These fighter planes will significantly strengthen Iran's air force relative to its regional neighbors." British Defence Minister Ben Wallace also revealed to the UK parliament regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict that "Iran has become one of Russia's top military backers..."

"In return for having supplied more than 300 kamikaze drones, Russia now intends to provide Iran with advanced military components, undermining both Middle East and international security — we must expose that deal. In fact, I have, just now."

The Iranian regime has been supplying kamikaze drones to Russia which led to the Ukrainian foreign ministry stripping Iran's ambassador in Kyiv of his accreditation and reducing the embassy's diplomatic staff there, according to the Ukrainian foreign ministry's press service. The EU also acknowledged that the Iranian regime is indeed "provid[ing] military support for Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine," via "development and delivery of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Russia".

"By enabling these strikes," British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly noted in a statement, "these individuals and a manufacturer have caused the people of Ukraine untold suffering."

The ruling mullahs of Iran have also been sending troops to Crimea to assist Russia in its attacks on Ukraine's infrastructure and civilian population, and to increase the effectiveness of the suicide drones.

Intriguingly, the White House admitted on October 20, 2022 that it had evidence that Iranian troops were "directly engaged on the ground" in Crimea supporting Russian drone attacks. According to Kirby:

"The systems themselves were suffering failures and not performing to the standards that apparently the customers expected... So the Iranians decided to move in some trainers and some technical support to help the Russians use them with better lethality."

Russia and the Iranian regime have also ratcheted up their financial dealings. Tehran, hit by draconian financial sanctions, is seeking partners to increase its trade and skirt US sanctions. According to the latest report by Bloomberg:

"Russia and Iran are building a new transcontinental trade route stretching from the eastern edge of Europe to the Indian Ocean, a 3,000–kilometer (1,860–mile) passage that's beyond the reach of any foreign intervention.

"The two countries are spending billions of dollars to speed up delivery of cargos along rivers and railways linked by the Caspian Sea. Ship–tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show dozens of Russian and Iranian vessels—including some that are subject to sanctions—already plying the route."

For the Iranian regime, militarily speaking, the Russia-Ukraine war is an opportunity for the ruling mullahs to learn from the performance of their drones on the battlefield, in order to further perfect them.

By providing weapons to a major power such as Russia, the Iranian regime is also asserting itself as a key player enjoying significant military power on the global stage.

Finally, we should not dismiss the idea that Russia will also help the Iranian regime to advance its nuclear program. Moscow and Tehran previously worked together to construct several nuclear reactors in Iran and advance the regime's nuclear technology. It has become all too clear that the Islamic Republic is rushing to cross the nuclear threshold to become a nuclear-armed state. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned:

"I have a question for you – how does Russia pay Iran for this, in your opinion? Is Iran just interested in money? Probably not money at all, but Russian assistance to the Iranian nuclear program. Probably, this is exactly the meaning of their alliance."

The question of course is: What does the Biden administration intend to do about it?

 
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19264/iran-russia-weapons

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Scottish Police Helping “Support” “Minor-Attracted Persons” - Daniel Greenfield

 

by Daniel Greenfield

The normalization of pedophilia is speeding up.

 


When the norms are falling apart, the future lies with the extremes. To know what’s going to be normalized, look to what words, ideas and memes are being spread through the fringes.

It seems inconceivable pedophilia could be normalized, but show Admiral Rachel Levine to anyone in 1992 or even 2002 and gauge their reaction. For that matter even our 2012 selves would think it was an SNL skit.

So take this seriously because pedophilia is being normalized using the same infrastructure of nonprofits, “experts” and misleading claims that slice the onion by starting small and claiming to want small concessions.

Police Scotland has used the term “minor-attracted people” to describe paedophiles in a major report despite warnings it normalises child abuse.

The Left begins its attack by changing language. The push to use “minor-attracted people” has been slowly gathering steam while the people bringing attention to it, like Chaya Raychik or Libs of TikTok are treated like domestic terrorists for noticing what’s going on and the implications of it.

Chief Constable Iain Livingstone’s annual assessment of the force’s performance made reference to it working in a European project targeted at Minor-Attracted People (MAPs).

The report said the Horizon Europe Project was aimed at “providing them with the necessary support, treatment and guidance to help prevent criminal activities”.

Police Scotland emphasised it opposed describing paedophiles as MAPs and insisted the term had only been included in the report as it was used by the project’s commissioning documents.

But the report was published amid wider concerns by campaigners over what they see as attempts to rebrand paedophilia as a harmless sexual preference.

Why are we even talking about Scotland? The leftist ruling SNP has embraced Islamists and assorted perversions. Former SNP boss Alex Salmond was accused of sexual assault against multiple women, but the SNP’s grip being what it is, got away with it. Current boss Nicola Sturgeon is moving aggressively on transgender self-ID with pushback from many women, including J.K. Rowling and even the UK.

Nicola Sturgeon’s overhaul of transgender laws faces being vetoed after ministers said they were willing to use never-used-before powers to block it from receiving Royal Assent.

The Government has previously urged Nicola Sturgeon to scrap her controversial legislation which will see people as young as 16 allowed to change their legal gender simply by signing a declaration.

MSPs opposed to the law, which was passed by 86 votes to 39 at Holyrood, branded it “Nicola Sturgeon’s gender self-ID experiment” and warned that male predators would inevitably change their sex to prey on vulnerable women and girls.

Senior Whitehall figures fear the laws, which make it significantly easier for someone to officially change their legal gender than in the rest of the UK, will put single-sex spaces such as prisons and changing rooms in jeopardy across the country.

They have warned that it could lead to “trans tourism” – whereby a transgender woman could travel to Scotland to have their gender legally changed, then use their new official status to access female-only spaces south of the border.

Chaotic scenes in Holyrood on Thursday saw feminist protesters disrupted proceedings to accuse MSPs of failing women.

One repeatedly shouted “I’m a duck trapped in a woman’s body, quack, quack, quack”.

Self-ID is controversial even within Labour and the SNP. And the agenda is not subtle.

At Holyrood on Thursday, Ms Sturgeon was forced to defend voting down proposed amendments that would have banned convicted rapists from declaring their legal sex to be female.

Why not block rapists from self-ID? Same reason for describing pedophiles as Minor-Attracted Persons.

At some point, you have to assume intentionality is at work here rather than a series of random blunders. Anyone familiar with the history of the counterculture’s sexual movements knows exactly where this is going. These are not the separate civil rights movements for particular groups that they pretend to be, but a plan to destroy traditional morality and replace it with a new sexually predatory moral code.

The 70s are back.

Germany’s Green party is to launch an investigation into its active promotion in the 80s of paedophile groups who lobbied for the legalisation of sex with children.

The party’s leadership has said it will commission an independent researcher to investigate “for how long and to what extent” such groups had an influence. The party’s chief whip, Jürgen Trittin, said the initiative aimed to take a close look at the “totally unacceptable demand” in the 80s that sex with children should be made legal. He admitted that the party had made wrong decisions about paedophilia.

The inquiry follows a row over the Green party MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s apparent endorsement of sex with children in his 1975 book The Great Bazaar, in which he reported on his alleged sexual interactions with children while working at an anti-authoritarian kindergarten in the 70s.

TikTok didn’t invent anything new.


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

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/scottish-police-helping-support-minor-attracted-persons/

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Turkish 'Progress': Six-Year-Old Girl Married by Her Sheik Father - Burak Bekdil

 

by Burak Bekdil

Hey, West! Time to get to know your NATO partner.

  • On November 25, protestors gathered in several provinces to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. They were met with a heavy police presence and violent crackdown.

  • This is a picture of Turkish "progress" between 1934 and 2022.

  • Before Erdogan came to power, civil marriage was compulsory in Turkey, and conducting a religious marriage before the civil one was punishable by a prison sentence. Under Erdogan, Turkish courts legalized religious marriages and reduced the legal age of consent for sex to 12 years of age.

  • Against this backdrop, even Turkey was shocked at news that a prominent Islamic sheik, the leader of a religious order fiercely devoted to Erdogan, had married off his six-year-old daughter to a 29-year-old disciple. Six! The girl had been forced into sex and became a mother at 14. She complained to the prosecutor's office, but Erdogan's authorities apparently did not want to bother the sheik.

  • Hey, West! Time to get to know your NATO partner.

In Turkey, a prominent Islamic sheik, the leader of a religious order fiercely devoted to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, married off his six-year-old daughter to a 29-year-old disciple. The girl had been forced into sex and became a mother at 14. She complained to the prosecutor's office, but Erdogan's authorities apparently did not want to bother the sheik. (Image source: iStock)

No doubt, Turkey is more secular and modern than Afghanistan and Iran. But that is not good enough news for Turkish girls and women.

A total of 327 women were murdered by their husbands, ex-husbands, fiancés and partners, between January 1 and November 11, 2022, according to the Turkish Federation of Women's Association. The Islamist government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan should be proud.

Although they are now "ex-allies," Erdogan, when he was the prime minister of Turkey in 2007, elected as president his long-time, staunchest ally at the time, Abdullah Gul, a fellow Islamist. Gul reportedly married his wife, Hayrunnisa, when he was 30 years old and she was 14.

The marriage of underage girls and women is part of Islamist culture, including in Turkey.

In March 2021, under pressure from pious Muslims, Erdogan announced that Turkey was pulling out of the "Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence," effective July 1, 2021. The accord is better known as the Istanbul Convention after Turkey's biggest city where, in 2011, it received signatures, including Erdogan's.

"Turkey's decision to ditch a landmark international treaty to tackle violence against women and girls, could significantly set back efforts to tackle the problem," said Reem Alsalem, a senior UN-appointed independent rights expert.

Officially, around one out of four women in Turkey has suffered physical or sexual abuse from their partners, according to latest available government data from a 2014 survey, said Alsalem in a statement. There are also likely "hundreds of femicides" every year, she added, pointing to serious underreporting of the issue, owing to a lack of confidence in protection mechanisms, widespread impunity and gender-related bias and discrimination.

This is the gloomy background in a country where women won the right to vote in national elections in 1934, ten years before French women. In 1935, 18 women became Turkish MPs, or 4.6% of the parliament.

That was secular Turkey.

Today, in Turkey, the driving force is political Islam. On November 25, protestors gathered in several provinces to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. They were met with a heavy police presence and violent crackdown. Several women were detained in the protests, including 20 journalists. "We are not allowed to leave the [police] blockade," journalist Sultan Eylem KeleÅŸ wrote in a tweet.

This is a picture of Turkish "progress" between 1934 and 2022.

It is only the tip of the iceberg. As Erdogan's political Islam has poisoned the uneducated masses' freedom over the past two decades, families have turned "medieval" in their social life. The prominent Turkish columnist Yilmaz Ozdil compiled a list of crimes committed in Erdogan's Turkey in just the past few years:

  • An 11-year-old girl, who had been married by an imam, gave birth: Bolu province.
  • A 12-year-old girl gave birth under a fake ID that showed her age as 18: Gaziantep province.
  • A 12-year-old girl gave birth: Izmir province.
  • A girl named Kader, or "fate in English." She did not have good fate. She was forcibly married at 12, became a mother at 13 and committed suicide at 14: Siirt province.
  • A girl was married, at 13, to a 40-year-old man. She ran away after severe violence from the husband. Her family rejected her. At 17 she, with her three children, had no place to live: Ordu province.
  • A 15-year-old girl was forcibly married. She took refuge at a police station: Sakarya province.
  • A notary public was caught endorsing the illegal marriage of a 14-year-old girl: Tekirdag province.
  • A 12-year-old girl, who was forcibly married, appeared to be four months pregnant: Tokat province:
  • A 16-year-old girl who had been married off by her family committed suicide by throwing herself under the train: Adana province.
  • A 16-year-old married girl jumped from the seventh floor of a building: Konya province.
  • There was a case of a girl of 14 being forcibly married to a man of 70, father of five and grandfather of nine.
  • The Kanuni Sultan Suleyman Hospital in Istanbul reported to have received 115 pregnant girls under 15 in just five months. The hospital said it admits 500 pregnant girls in one year.

Before Erdogan came to power, civil marriage was compulsory in Turkey, and conducting a religious marriage before the civil one was punishable by a prison sentence. Under Erdogan, Turkish courts legalized religious marriages and reduced the legal age of consent for sex to 12 years of age.

Against this backdrop, even Turkey was shocked at news that a prominent Islamic sheik, the leader of a religious order fiercely devoted to Erdogan, had married off his six-year-old daughter to a 29-year-old disciple. Six! The girl had been forced into sex and became a mother at 14. She complained to the prosecutor's office, but Erdogan's authorities apparently did not want to bother the sheik. As she became an adult, she collected evidence of abuse, made it public, and only then the judiciary took action. Initially the court decided to try the suspects without detention, but under huge public pressure, the court detained both the father and husband. The father, in a statement, said that he was answerable only to Allah, not to a court.

Hey, West! Time to get to know your NATO partner. Erdogan's Minister of Family and Social Services, Derya Yanık (a woman), claimed that violence against women and child abuse are not the subject of politics because they are "human nature issues and can be seen in every society."

What is the link between these criminal acts and Erdogan's government? First, the sheik who married off his six-year-old daughter heads a foundation linked to the influential radical Islamist Ismailaga community. Second, the Ismailaga community is one of many that fall under the umbrella of the Naqshbandi-Khalidi order, a branch of Sunni Islam of which Erdogan is said to have been a follower. Third, the funeral of the Ismailaga sect's longtime leader earlier this year was attended by Erdogan and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.

There are civilized and medieval worlds in the 21st century -- and there are medieval leaders dressed in suits and ties who pretend to belong to the civilized world.


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

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19273/turkey-child-marriage

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If George Santos Should Resign, So Should Biden - Daniel Greenfield

 

by Daniel Greenfield

Democrats suddenly claim to care about truth. The truth is they’re all liars.

 


Democrats and their media are demanding that George Santos, a newly elected Republican congressman from New York, resign for having invented his entire backstory.

If lying about your past is an impeachable offense, there wouldn’t be a single politician in D.C.

And damn few Democrats.

Let’s start at the top. The very top.

Earlier this month, Biden told an entire story about awarding his own uncle a purple heart for fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.

His uncle died ten years before Biden became vice president.

Biden began his story by saying, “My dad, when I got elected vice president.” His father died during Bush’s second year in office.

The only possible explanation for this entire story is that Biden is crazy, senile or a liar so shameless that he makes Hillary Clinton look like the love child of Honest Abe and George Washington.

And that was just another day of Biden telling crazy lies and the media letting him do it.

Had Trump told a story about his dead father telling him to give a medal to his dead uncle, we would still be hearing about it, there would be memes, SNL skits, at least two books, one written by Michael Wolff, and probably a congressional investigation. But for Biden, it’s just Thursday.

Biden claimed that his son, Beau Biden, “lost his life in Iraq” when he died of cancer in Maryland. Then he said it again, “I’m thinking about Iraq because that’s where my son died.”

He claimed that, “I know, having had a house burn down with my wife in it — she got out safely” and  “we didn’t lose our whole home, but lightning struck and we lost an awful lot of it.”

There was actually a small kitchen fire that was quickly brought under control.

The New York Times tried to spin this under the headline, “Biden, Storyteller in Chief, Spins Yarns That Often Unravel”. That’s the nicest way of saying “con artist’s pathological lies keep falling apart” ever.

Biden has claimed that he “came out of the civil rights movement”, that he was arrested as a 14-year-old at a civil rights protest, and arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela. He claimed to have been desegregating restaurants and movie theaters.

None of it, not a single word, was true.

Biden lied, claiming that he came out of a black college. “I got started out of a HBCU, Delaware State.” The college confirmed he was never a student.

When Biden isn’t black, he’s Puerto Rican.

“I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically,” he claimed. That sounds familiar, he also lied that, “I was raised in the black church, politically, not a joke,”

When he wasn’t in the black church, he was Jewish.

“I probably went to shul more than many of you did,” he lied to Jews in October, “I’m a practicing Catholic, but I’d go to services on Saturday and on Sunday.”

You can blame some of this on his age, but the truth is that he’s always been a compulsive liar.

In the eighties, Biden claimed to have graduated in the top of his class and that he went to school on an academic scholarship.

None of that was true.

Neither is his more recent claim that he was put forward to the Naval Academy. Or that his first job offer was from a lumber company that had never heard of him. Or that his ancestors “worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania.”

“I became a teacher. I became a professor,” Biden lied. “I used to drive an 18-wheeler, man,” he lied again. A White House spokesperson explained that he had once been inside one in 1973.

There could and probably should be an entire book of Biden lies. But it would have to be digital so that it could be updated every hour on the hour.

It would be nice to think that Biden is unique. He’s not. Democrats suddenly claim to care about truth. The truth is they’re all liars. Lying, like socialism, is a basic qualifier for the Democrat nomination.

Obama’s autobiography was admitted to be heavily fictionalized. Hillary claimed that she had tried to join the Marines and NASA. Senator Elizabeth Warren claimed to be Cherokee, Senator Richard Blumenthal claimed that he served in Vietnam, and Kamala Harris claimed that she grew up under racial segregation and listened to Tupac five years before he released an album.

Democrats and the media are very interested in George Santos. They’re outraged that he lied about claiming to be Jewish. They’re much less interested in New York State Senator Julia Salazar who lied about being Jewish to justify her role in the antisemitic BDS movement.

Senator Salazar also claimed that she was a poor Colombian immigrant when she was actually born in Florida and had a trust fund worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Some of the same New York Democrat politicians fuming about Santos endorsed and campaigned with Salazar. The official Bernie Sanders site continues to promote the antisemitic con artist as evidence that his revolution of supporting extremists for higher office works.

If politicians have to resign for lying, there wouldn’t be any left. If they were expected to resign for faking their biographies, we might have a few dozen left. And we’d be better off for it.

What is truly nauseating is the selective outrage by a cultural revolution that rediscovers truth and ethics on a temporary basis when it’s politically convenient.

The truth about George Santos appears to be that he has the same shaky relationship with truth as the leadership of the Democratic Party. Just ask Joe Biden, if you can catch him in between desegregating movie theaters with the black and Puerto Rican communities, visiting synagogues, battling gang members, being forced down in Afghanistan, joining the Naval academy, getting a tryout for the NFL, graduating in the top half of his class, losing his first wife to a drunk driver, nearly losing his second wife to lightning, his son in Iraq and then awarding a medal to his dead uncle on the advice of his dead dad.

It would be wonderful if all the lying stopped. It would be a good start if the party of liars stopped acting like they care about a fake biography when all of their biographies are fake.

Why does Biden lie so much? The easy answer is because he gets away with it.

Lying, like most political crimes, has become politically selective, allowing leftists to get away with anything while throwing the book at non-leftists. There was a time when Biden’s compulsive lies killed his presidential aspirations. In the Obama era, lying stopped mattering. And Biden has responded by Cloward-Pivening the very concept of truth into oblivion by deliberately telling crazy lies. Accusing Biden of lying has no sting because no one expects him to tell the truth.

Democrats suddenly claim to care about fake biographies. They can start with the lies of the most powerful man in the land, rather than just another congressional freshman no one cared about before they decided to make him famous as the face of the Republican House.

If they want Santos to resign, let Biden lead the way.


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

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/if-george-santos-should-resign-so-should-biden/

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New gov't must take Jordan's warning on changing status quo in Jerusalem seriously - JPost Editorial

 

by JPost Editorial

Amman sees itself as a guarantor of the status quo and a custodian of the Holy Sites of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa.

 

 Jordan's King Abdullah II addresses the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York City, US, September 20, 2022.  (photo credit: AMR ALFIKY/ REUTERS)
Jordan's King Abdullah II addresses the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York City, US, September 20, 2022.
(photo credit: AMR ALFIKY/ REUTERS)

King Abdullah II of Jordan warned Israel on Wednesday against making any changes to the status quo in Jerusalem. This was timed to coincide with the swearing in of Israel’s new government, which took place a day later. 

Amman sees itself as a guarantor of the status quo and a custodian of the Holy Sites of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa. This unique status has meant that the Hashemite Kingdom often issues these kinds of warnings to Israel. 

But that’s not the only reason. Jordan is home to a large number of Palestinians and it is concerned that any conflict in the West Bank has the potential to spill over into its own borders. This means the warning is not just about Israel, it is also about Jordan. 

“If people want to get into a conflict with us, we’re quite prepared,” Abdullah told CNN. “I always like to believe that, let’s look at the glass half full, but we have certain redlines... And if people want to push those redlines, then we will deal with that.”

Abdullah added that “there are a lot of people in Israel concerned as much as we are,” implying this his statements are no different than those uttered by supporters of the outgoing government of Yair Lapid.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid holds a press conference in Tel Aviv on December 22, 2022.  (credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid holds a press conference in Tel Aviv on December 22, 2022. (credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)

Jordan has witnessed protests in recent weeks over high fuel prices. Criticizing Israel is an easy way for the king to divert attention away from the challenges his people face at home. 

It’s vital that Israel’s incoming government – led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – appreciate Jordan’s role and listen to the king’s concerns, and its layers of meanings.

Jordan’s warnings can be interpreted on face value as an assessment of the situation

But they can also be seen as a warning that Jordan could redirect local anger towards Israel. Both Israel and Jordan are entwined when it comes to security and stability, and it’s imperative that they publicly appear to listen to one another. 

The king said there are redlines related to Jerusalem. This relates to Amman’s concerns over the new Netanyahu government and its far-right members. Netanyahu has had a rocky and difficult history with Jordan but it is important to note that the king called the new prime minister shortly after it became clear he had won the election. 

The kingdom is not interested in conflict with Israel and prefers to work with the new government. The outgoing government, led by Lapid and before him, Naftali Bennett, did much to reduce tensions with Jordan and held regular meetings with officials in Amman. 

The security relationship between Israel and Jordan – always kept under the radar – is at a high level and has remained so despite whatever statements are made in public. 

We have learned the hard way however that private relations and public incitement is not helpful in the long term. The Oslo Accords were rooted in this contradiction, where the Palestinian Authority would incite against Israel and create generations of hate, while working with Israel’s security forces. 

Jordan has adopted the same strategy because the West and others have built this into the relationship: It slams Israel and then works with Israel quietly. We’ve all come to accept this as a fact even if it does not have to be this way. 

Nevertheless, it is smart to err on the side of caution. When Amman says it is concerned about a new intifada, it is worth looking at what is happening in Jenin and Nablus and the violence Israel has been dealing with in the West Bank over the past year. 

Helping reduce the violence

Jordan has a role to play in helping to reduce the violence. Not only can it put out messages of moderation, but it can also crack down on weapons smuggling, some of which comes into Israel through Jordan. 

The Hashemite Kingdom says it wants to bring people together. So does Israel, and we see the model of Israel’s relations throughout the Gulf as one example that can be used for countries to work on trade and coexistence in the region. 

We should listen to Jordan but we should also ask that the kingdom listens to Israel. 


JPost Editorial

Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-726183

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Thursday, December 29, 2022

Musk announces Twitter policy to 'follow' and 'question' science - Ben Whedon

 

by Ben Whedon

"New Twitter policy is to follow the science, which necessarily includes reasoned questioning of the science."

 

Twitter owner Elon Musk announced on Wednesday that the platform would pursue a policy of both following established science while questioning prevailing orthodoxies and challenging field experts to substantiate their positions.

"New Twitter policy is to follow the science, which necessarily includes reasoned questioning of the science," he tweeted, prompting a bevy of reactions, including many who pointed to White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and mocked his purported status on the left as an unquestionable authority.

Musk responded to one such post, saying "[a]nyone who says that questioning them is questioning science itself cannot be regarded as a scientist."

The Tesla founder did not elaborate on any tangible details, but his announcement follows revelations that the platform censored accurate information on COVID-19 that contradicted narratives from the federal government.

Internal documents have also revealed that former Twitter deputy general counsel Jim Baker unsuccessfully lobbied the platform to remove a tweet from former President Donald Trump in 2020 that expressed optimism in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.


Ben Whedon

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/musk-announces-twitter-policy-follow-and-question-science

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Will Yoav Gallant's second coming herald an Israel attack on Iran? - analysis - Yonah Jeremy Bob

 

by Yonah Jeremy Bob

Will this be Yoav Gallant and Benjamin Netanyahu's best chance to redo their missed opportunity in 2010 and attack Iran?

 

Yoav Gallant. (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post) (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Yoav Gallant. (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

That Likud MK Yoav Gallant will be the next defense minister is not really news, seeing as it was leaked weeks ago. What could be news is whether Gallant entering the defense minister’s chair with a set of 12-year-old demons to exorcise could finally lead to the climactic war with Iran that many have predicted for a long time.

What demons of the past might Gallant be contending with, and why might the decision of incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to appoint him as the new defense minister usher in an era of escalation against the Islamic Republic?

To answer that, we need to turn back the clock to August 6, 2010, when a debate of titans took place that would determine the course of Israeli history for the next decade.

Israel 2010: Yoav Gallant and the debated attack on Iran's nuclear program

On one side were then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Ehud Barak, who said they wanted to order a massive preemptive aerial strike against Tehran’s nuclear program to prevent it from crossing certain lines.

On the other side were then-IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin – all of whom opposed any attack on Iran prior to the point where the nuclear “sword” was at Israel’s throat. In other words, they viewed Netanyahu and Barak as hysterically alarmist and jumping the gun when there were other options, like covert sabotage, to avoid a war.

Then IDF Maj.-Gen. Yoav Gallant in 2010. (credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)Then IDF Maj.-Gen. Yoav Gallant in 2010. (credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)

Netanyahu and Barak backed off, but then settled on trying again once they had a new IDF chief of their choosing (Ashkenazi was appointed by former prime minister Ehud Olmert) who would take on their more aggressive approach to the Islamic Republic.

That man was Gallant.

The perfect Netanyahu-Barak plan was derailed when Gallant was essentially disqualified as unworthy by state gatekeeper officials.

On August 6, 2010, the “Harpaz Document,” originally and briefly known as the Gallant Document, was leaked by Col. (res.) Gabi Siboni to Channel 2.

It described a plot to improperly advance then-Maj.-Gen. Yoav Gallant toward becoming the next IDF chief of staff and to undermine the office and power of Ashkenazi.

When the media first published it, Gallant was in the running for IDF chief of staff.

It was even briefly thought that the document was a strategy document by Barak and his aides, who favored Gallant, or by Gallant himself, to help him get there.

Very briefly at the start, the narrative was that whoever leaked the document did so to prevent Barak or Gallant from allegedly inappropriately influencing the process.

Within a short time, however, the police determined that the document was forged.

In a turn fit for the most far-fetched conspiracy movies, the police concluded it had been drafted and leaked in order to inappropriately frame Gallant for actions he had not taken.

The investigators’ theory, which the State comptroller and prosecution later confirmed, was that someone, eventually found to be Ashkenazi ally Lt.-Col. Boaz Harpaz, opposed Gallant being appointed IDF chief of staff, and leaked the document in order to thwart his candidacy by dragging him into a made-up scandal.

Gallant was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, but the scandal led to a much deeper dig into his past and found that he had abused his military power to advance personal real estate interests.

His candidacy evaporated and he was considered “damaged goods” for years – with his new defense minister appointment being his first significant role since.

Netanyahu and Barak gave in to the existing security establishment conventional wisdom and called off the attack, trusting Israel’s fate to a mix of covert sabotage and sanctions diplomacy.

For better or for worse, this meant that there has been no war with the ayatollahs for the past 12 years, but it has also meant that Iran was eventually able to cross the lines that Netanyahu and Barak (and probably Gallant) had wanted to block them from crossing.

In the IDF, Gallant was known as a top and fearless general, but also as willing to take great risks, whether in Gaza or Iran, as well as being less concerned about civilian casualties and diplomatic fallout.

So is Netanyahu putting him in the Defense Ministry because he does not consider him a potential rival, and giving him a key high-profile role avoids helping such a rival?

Or has Netanyahu finally got the man he wanted running the defense establishment who can give him cover to strike Iran as he said he wanted more than a decade ago? Might Gallant also go rogue and order some of his own attacks, as some Israeli defense ministers have done in the past?

It is well known that a major reason the US invaded Iraq in 2003 was that a similar cohort of officials had wanted to take down Saddam Hussein in 1991, and they decided that during their next chance in office, they would finish the job.

Might this be Netanyahu and Gallant’s chance to redo their missed opportunity in 2010 to attack?


Yonah Jeremy Bob

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-726038

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