The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
"The question of arms will fix itself, but the question of our independence will not.”
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Elliot Kaufman published in the Wall Street Journal on
December 20 an interview he had just conducted with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s a riveting read. At three key moments
since October 7, 2023, Netanyahu was given advice by the Biden
administration on the conduct of the war against Hamas, and then on the
war against Hezbollah. In all three cases, Netanyahu ignored that advice
and went ahead with what turned out to be moves essential to the IDF’s
success. More on Netanyahu’s road to victory can be found here:
“Benjamin Netanyahu: The Inside Story of Israel’s Victory,” by Elliot
Kaufman, Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2024:
…”The Americans said to me, ‘If you go into Rafah, you’re
on your own, and we’re not going to send you the critical arms,’ which
is tough to hear,” Mr. Netanyahu says. Internally, others argued that
Israel was too reliant on U.S. munitions to risk fighting on. “That’s a
legitimate case,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “But if we don’t go into Rafah, we
can’t exist as a sovereign state. We’d become a vassal state and we
won’t survive. The question of arms will fix itself, but the question of
our independence will not. That’s the end of Israel.”
In Rafah, Israel cut off Hamas’s supply route [for weapons] and later
killed Sinwar, its chief. The Biden administration imposed a de facto
arms embargo on Israel, delaying weapons shipments.
Just as Netanyahu rejected the American advice not to conduct a
ground invasion of Gaza but instead to stick to airstrikes, he rejected
the American pressure not to enter Rafah, which was accompanied by a
threat to withhold some weaponry. He was told that the people in Rafah
would not evacuate, for there was “no place” for them to go, and that
such an operation would cost 20,000 lives. The Americans were wrong on
both counts. Within a few weeks, almost one million civilians had
evacuated, as directed, from Rafah, and went to the town of Al-Mawasi on
the coast, near Khan Younis, an area where the IDF would not attack.
And instead of 20,000 casualties in Rafah — the number that the
Americans feared would result from the operation — there were only a few
thousand, both combatants and civilians.
“The U.S. withheld critical weapons,” Mr. Netanyahu
admits, but he appreciates the pressure Mr. Biden was under. “It’s not
easy to be president, let’s face it, with these very radical fringes in
his party. It wasn’t easy to do what Mr. Biden did,” including helping
Israel in its defense against Iranian missile attacks, he says….
For Israel, it’s a return to form. “Power isn’t merely guns,
missiles, tanks and aircraft,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “It’s the will to
fight and seize the initiative.”
Iran’s nuclear program now looks vulnerable. “I’m not going to talk
about that,” Mr. Netanyahu says. When I say I’ve never heard him so
reticent on his favorite subject, he responds cryptically: “I’ve always
said the jury’s out, still out on all of us, and I don’t exclude
myself.” It is perhaps on this that he expects to be judged.
Iran will enter 2025 with an ailing 85-year-old leader, staring down
the barrel of another Trump administration. I’d imagine the
president-elect hasn’t taken kindly to Iran’s attempts to kill him and
his former officials since his first term in office.
“President Trump has supported Israel throughout this war,” Mr.
Netanyahu says. There’s new optimism for a hostage deal after Mr.
Trump’s threats to Hamas, and maybe even for diplomatic normalization
with Saudi Arabia to follow. “It would be the natural expansion of the
Abraham Accords that we forged under President Trump’s leadership,” Mr.
Netanyahu says. “The threat to Hamas can only help. He places the onus
squarely on Hamas and tells them there will be consequences.”
The hostage deal Mr. Netanyahu envisions is a partial one in exchange
for a pause in the fighting. “I’m not going to agree to end the war
before we remove Hamas,” he says. “We’re not going to leave them in
power in Gaza, 30 miles from Tel Aviv. It’s not going to happen.”
There was a time when people didn’t believe him. “I was arguing for
‘total victory,’ ” he says, “and they said there’s no such thing as
victory.” You don’t hear that so much anymore, now that Israel and its
leader seem to have emerged on top….
The Americans urged him not to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, but
to stick to attacks from the air. He went ahead anyway, convinced that
such an attack was the only way to pull up Hamas by its roots. The
Americans urged him not to take over Rafah, claiming there could be
20,000 casualties and that it would be impossible to evacuate nearly one
million people. He went ahead, sending the IDF into Rafah. Almost one
million people were successfully evacuated within a few weeks to the
safe coastal city of Al-Mawasi. The total number of casualties from this
operation was not 20,000, as the Americans predicted, but a few
thousand. And by taking Rafah, the IDF was able to kill the mastermind
of the October 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar — a heavy blow to Hamas’ morale.
And now Netanyahu keeps on keeping on, keenly aware that in just a
few weeks Trump will be president, ready to keep his promise to destroy
Hamas if by then it has not freed all of the hostages. Trump will
reimpose sanctions on Iran that the Bidenites had lifted, causing still
more damage to a sinking economy. And he will give the go-ahead to the
Pentagon, to deliver 30,00-pound bunker-buster bombs to the Israelis,
and bombers big enough to carry them al the way to Iran. Iran’s rulers,
keenly aware that Israel destroyed its missile-defense system on October
26, can only wait in terror for the IAF to appear, with its missiles
and bombs, to destroy the nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and
Isfahan.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said stopping the gas flow was in the best interest of the country's national security.
Ukraine on Wednesday stopped the transportation of Russian gas supplies to Europe shortly after a pre-war transit deal expired.
Kyiv refused to renew the agreement that allowed Russian gas to be
transferred to Europe and shut down the transitional pipeline, according to The New York Times.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said stopping the gas
flow was in the best interest of the country's national security.
“This is a historic event. Russia is losing markets and will incur
financial losses. Europe has already decided to phase out Russian gas,
and (this) aligns with what Ukraine has done today,” Galushchenko said, according to the Associated Press.
Before the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia supplied almost 40% of the European Union's pipeline natural gas.
This decision will impact countries such as Germany, which gets its energy resources from Russia.
Charlotte Hazard
Source: Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said stopping the gas flow was in the best interest of the country's national security.
City's mayor and FBI differ on whether tragedy was a terrorist attack, even as authorities confirm driver fired a gun and explosive devices.
A gun-toting driver plowed his
pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's Eve revelers in New Orleans'
famed French Quarter and opened fire on officers, killing 10 and
injuring at least 35.
Authorities said they also found explosive devices on the truck in what they called an "intentional act."
The FBI confirmed Wednesday that it was investigating the incident as a terrorist attack.
"This morning, an individual drove a car into a crowd of people on
Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing a number of people and injuring
dozens of others," the FBI wrote on the social media platform, X. "The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism."
President Joe Biden has spoken to the New Orleans mayor and has received briefings on what happened, according to CNN. The Department of Homeland Security is also helping with the investigation.
“Last night, we had over 300 officers out here, and because of the
intentional mindset of this perpetrator – who went around our barricades
in order to conduct this. He was hell bent on creating the carnage and
the damage that he did,” Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said.
The injured included two officers who were wounded when the driver
shot them in an incident that occurred at the famed intersection of
Canal and Bourbon Street. Both officers was hospitalized in stable
condition.
The driver was killed in a firefight with police, law enforcement told Just the News.
The incident occurred around 3 a.m. Wednesday, just hours before it
was to host one of the college football's biggest games, the Sugar Bowl.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell declared "the city of New Orleans was impacted
by a terrorist attack,” and said police had ruled out a drunken driving
incident.
“It was not a DUI situation,” she said. “This was more complex and more serious based on the information we have right now.”
“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could," the mayor added added.
The FBI, however, disputed the mayor's assessment. “This is not a terrorist event," an agent told reporters.
The conflict with Iran “is not just Israel’s war, but the entire Western world’s,” said former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Danny Ayalon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presents a trove of Iranian
documents on Tehran's nuclear program at a press conference in Tel Aviv,
April 30, 2018. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Iran’s fortunes were on
the rise. Tehran had a vast and powerful arsenal of radicalized proxies
spreading wider and wider through the Middle East. The Islamic Republic
had ever-warming ties with Moscow and Beijing and found itself on the
leading edge of the globally significant conflict in Ukraine.
In the background, passively facilitating
all these developments, was a docile administration in the White House,
which seemed intent on ignoring Iranian ambitions and even occasionally
forwarding them (such as by freeing billions of dollars in previously
frozen assets for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s use).
Fast forward to today and the Iranians
find themselves in a starkly different reality. The Axis of Resistance
lies in rubble as one pawn after another has been removed from the board
by the Israel Defense Forces. The only reliable proxy left to them is
the Houthis in Yemen, which seem destined to be taken off the board in
the coming months.
Russia, meanwhile, seems bogged down in
Ukraine and has demonstrated a lack of interest in the Middle East after
allowing its long-term ally, Bashar Assad of Syria, to be toppled by a
group of ragtag rebels. Furthermore, the incoming U.S. president, Donald
Trump, has vowed to reinstall the “maximum pressure” campaign against
Iran, which is certain to include crippling sanctions and likely
military force.
“The Iranians are facing a dilemma that
they have never faced before because their entire strategy has been
based on the Axis of Resistance and that strategy is now collapsing,”
Alexander Grinberg, an expert on Iran at the Jerusalem Institute for
Strategy and Security (JISS), told JNS.
Grinberg further explained that the regime in Iran is plagued with rigid thinking.
“The Iranians have a fundamental strategic
problem. They do not know how to plan for unexpected circumstances.
They have a plan A but can’t even talk about a plan B or a plan C,
because even considering the option that the original plan won’t work
would be to question the wisdom of the ayatollah, which is
unacceptable,” Grinberg said.
“You can see that the Iranian elites are
in disarray and are blaming each other, pointing fingers because they
know something is wrong, but they can’t point their finger at the only
person who is truly responsible.”
Regional developments have placed Iran in
the dangerous role of a wounded animal desperately looking for a way out
of its predicament. This new reality is particularly menacing
considering Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Dueling analytical narratives have
emerged regarding Iran’s future, with some arguing that Tehran’s feeble
condition will force it to dial back its aggression, and others
claiming that it is likely to attempt a nuclear breakout in the near
future to secure the regime.
The nuclear option
There is strong evidence that the Iranians
are likely to push for a nuclear weapon instead of embracing a more
moderate approach.
“You have to understand whom you’re
dealing with. The ayatollahs in Iran are a criminal regime that is
incorrigible and dead set on destroying the West and Israel,” former
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon told JNS.
According to Grinberg, rumblings of a
shift towards the nuclear option have been increasing in Iran ever since
the war began to go badly for the ayatollahs following the first direct
Iranian attack on Israel in 2024.
“Ever since April, they have been hinting
that this option may be on the table because from their perspective the
situation is changing very rapidly,” Grinberg said.
The most recent of these “hints” came just
last week when Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters
in Beijing that “2025 will be an important year regarding Iran’s nuclear
issue.”
In practical terms, Iran has clearly
ramped up its efforts to produce a nuclear weapon in recent weeks.
According to Grinberg, the development of a nuclear bomb requires
several components: sufficient enriched uranium, a fissile explosive
that can detonate the bomb, a precise delivery platform and a nuclear
test.
On the uranium front, the United Nations
chief nuclear inspector reported that Iran has quadrupled its production
of 60% enriched uranium, which is considered near-bomb-grade material.
Rafael M. Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, called it “a dramatic acceleration” and added that “our
inspectors are on the sites confirming that the process has indeed
started.”
Furthermore, the Iranian regime has
recently ramped up efforts to produce a fissile explosive for nuclear
detonation. According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI), multiple embedded sources have confirmed significantly increased
activity from METFAZ, the Iranian research group responsible for
developing the detonation technology.
“Our information shows that METFAZ has
expanded its activities, and their main focus is the detonation of the
nuclear bomb,” Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI, said in a
recent interview with Fox News. “It’s important to see what
METFAZ does and follow its activities, because that is sort of like a
gauge on figuring out where the whole nuclear-weapons program is.”
The NCRI report also noted severely
increased activity at the Sanjarian nuclear site, located roughly 25
miles east of Tehran. While the site was mostly abandoned since 2009,
NCRI reported consistent sightings of METFAZ-affiliated nuclear
scientists at Sanjarian since April 2024.
The pressure on Iran to develop a weapon
is further compounded by an unstable home front. The Iranian economy
finds itself in free fall, with the Iranian rial dropping 18% compared
to the dollar since Nov. 5 and the inflation rate standing at
35%. General dissatisfaction with the regime is at an all-time high.
“The people of Iran are angry at their
government and regimes can fall very fast when the people turn against
them,” Ayalon explained.
Grinberg pointed out that the regime in
Tehran may see a nuclear weapon as a form of security against regime
change: “The best way to truly secure invincibility for the regime would
be to go nuclear. You can see a similar model in North Korea.”
The long-term strategy
Despite clear steps to reinvigorate its
nuclear program, there are also some signals that Iran may prefer a more
passive approach to weather the storm it currently finds itself in.
Iran has already put out feelers to the incoming Trump administration in
an attempt to reduce the chance of direct military confrontation with
the United States over the nuclear issue.
In mid-November, Iran’s U.N. ambassador
met with Elon Musk, a top adviser to Trump, in an attempt to reduce
tensions between the two countries.
“They are terrified of Trump, but they
never lose hope that perhaps some arrangement can be made. They are
testing the waters and are working in several directions, as can be seen
in their meeting with Musk,” Grinberg explained.
Iran may also choose to focus on
rebuilding its broken proxy network, rather than gambling everything on a
last-ditch attempt to push for a nuclear weapon.
As Ayalon explained, “Iran has less
control over the Houthis or the Iraqi militias than it does over
Hezbollah. Their proxy policy in Yemen and Iraq is therefore more
complicated and not as dependable for the regime in Tehran.”
In that context, Grinberg believes, Iran
may choose to focus on reinvigorating Hezbollah and repairing its broken
Syrian corridor for supplying the Lebanese terror group with munitions.
“Iran can conceptually in the long term
try to rebuild their bridge to Hezbollah through Syria by establishing
some kind of relations with the new Syrian government. This is a very
long process. It is pretty unlikely and very complicated, because HTS
[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] and Iran have been fighting each other in a
bloody war for many years. However, if you look at a case like the
Taliban you can see that the Iranian regime is capable of establishing
some sort of relationship even with extreme groups that are not
naturally aligned with Iran,” Grinberg explained. “You can already see
some hints from Iranian media of ideas of establishing relationships
down the road with HTS.”
Other reports indicate that Iran may try
to build out an air corridor to Lebanon, rather than shipping supplies
overland through Syria.
In any case, investing in projects of this nature may indicate a more long-term strategy for the regime in Tehran.
Taking out the nuclear program
Regardless of Iran’s intentions, in recent
months, Jerusalem and the incoming Trump administration have signaled
that they will not tolerate Iran’s nuclear program for much longer. As
Iran’s breakout window contracts, pressure is building to deal a
decisive blow. The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, the
destruction of Hezbollah and the re-emergence of potentially eager U.S.
partners have presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to end the
existential threat of a nuclear Iran.
Despite the favorable conditions, carrying out such an operation would be complicated to execute.
“Iran is not just Israel’s war, but the
entire Western world’s,” Ayalon told JNS. “Israel can take out Iran’s
nuclear program alone, but it would be a lot more difficult. It would be
much better to do this in a unity coalition led by the United
States and with other partners. The Iranian nuclear program is very
advanced and very complicated, with many underground bunkers and sites,
and to take all of it out may require a long campaign.”
The Arab mediators said that a hostage-Gaza ceasefire deal is unlikely to be completed by the time US President Biden leaves office.
A rally calling for the release of the Israeli hostages
held captive by Hamas in Gaza, marking 442 days since the start of the
war between Israel and Hamas, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, December 21
2024. (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)
Despite new hopes for a deal and renewed talks, Hamas and Israel have hit an impasse, Arab mediators told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
The
Arab mediators said that a hostage-Gaza ceasefire deal is unlikely to
be completed by the time United States President Joe Biden leaves
office.
Hamas
reportedly waived the possibility of discussions for a complete end to
the war the terror group started until the later stages of a deal,
instead focusing on a temporary ceasefire, the release of security
prisoners from Israeli prisons, and an increase of aid entering Gaza.
The
discussions centered around a 60 day ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for
the release of 30 hostages which meet certain conditions, according to
the Wall Street Journal. The Arab mediators also claimed Israel had refused to release some of the detainees requested by Hamas.
While
the mediators did not specify which prisoners Israel had refused to
release, reports throughout the war have suggested Hamas desires the
release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.
Barghouti, former leader of the Tanzim, a militant faction of the
Palestinian Fatah movement, was sentenced in 2004 by an Israeli court to
five cumulative life sentences and 40 years in prison for terrorist
acts in which five Israelis were murdered and many were injured.
Balloons with images of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
other members of the government are displayed as Israelis protest
against the government and to show support for the hostages who were
kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, amid the war in
Gaza, on Dec. 21, 2024. (credit: KAI PFAFFENBACH/REUTERS)
On Tuesday, it was reported that Hamas had rejected 12 of the 34 hostages requested for release by Israel - instead Hamas reportedly offered the release of 22 living hostages and 12 bodies.
Egyptian sources previously reported that Hamas refused 11 of the 34 called for by Israel, considering them to be soldiers.
While
the Biden administration expressed optimism regarding the future of a
hostage deal, the WSJ report indicates that any prospective deal would
come under the presidency of Donald Trump and his pro-Israel
administration.
Trump has repeatedly warned of "hell to pay" if Hamas continued to hold the abductees hostage.
[I]t is the tiny nation of Israel that has found itself largely alone in the desperate fight to preserve the West's Judeo-Christian ideals. It would be to the West's advantage if its other nations would join Israel in this noble task.
The moral laws of each tradition -- that of the Torah and Sharia – when applied -- result in different outcomes. Most of the punishments specified in the Torah are no longer practiced. According to Sharia,
however, punishments such as amputations or stoning to death for
adultery, "especially women" – which can include pre-marital sex or
having been raped -- as well as death for blasphemy or for choosing to
leave the religion, are in force to this day.
"If they [Muslims] had gotten rid of the punishment [often death]
for apostasy, Islam would not exist today," the late Sunni religious
leader, Yusuf al Qaradawi, speculated on Egyptian television.
Nonie Darwish responded: "The most striking thing about his statement, however, was that it was not an apology; it was a logical, proud justification for preserving the death penalty as a punishment for apostasy."
Divinely sanctioned treatment by Muslims of non-Muslims still includes rape, slavery and death.
"So, when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle], strike
[their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them, then
secure their bonds, and either [confer] favor afterwards or ransom
[them] until the war lays down its burdens. That [is the command]. And
if Allah had willed, He could have taken vengeance upon them [Himself],
but [He ordered armed struggle] to test some of you by means of others.
And those who are killed in the cause of Allah - never will He waste
their deeds." — Quran 47:4 (Sahih Translation).
As the visions of holy war and martyrdom are underpinned by Sharia,
Islamic jihadists appear to believe that they are doctrinally permitted
to sow terror, death and destruction among non-Muslims wherever they
are.
One unsurprising reason for the "wilful blindness" of the US and
other major Western powers towards religious extremists is that
politicians look for votes.
[I]t is the tiny nation of Israel that has found itself largely
alone in the desperate fight to preserve the West's Judeo-Christian
ideals. It would be to the West's advantage if its other nations would
join Israel in this noble task.
The laws of the Torah, which became known to the
world as Moses' Ten Commandments, founded the West's moral and ethical
precepts on which its laws and judicial concepts such as justice and
mercy are based. This development is reflected in the United States'
founding documents, as well as England's Magna Carta of 1215, among
others. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
The laws of the Torah, which became known to the world as
Moses' Ten Commandments, founded the West's moral and ethical precepts
on which its laws and judicial concepts such as justice and mercy are
based. This development is reflected in the United States' founding documents, as well as England's Magna Carta of 1215, among others.
The opening paragraph of America's 1776 Declaration of Independence,
for instance, refers to "the laws of nature" and "nature's God." From
this assertion, the imperative of a sound ethical, moral and religious
foundation for America's values was established. According to America's
founding fathers, the laws of Moses – those moral codes sometimes
collectively referred to as the "natural law"
– underpin the value-based Western order, or civilization as
distinguished from barbarism. In terms of religion, people in the West
generally value the underlying importance of these Judeo-Christian
values to their community.
The emphasis on definitive ethical-moral parameters might disturb
some the West. "Jewish people brought morality to the world thousands of
years ago, and some people are still mad about it," remarked the CEO of US technology giant Oracle, Safra Catz.
Islamic values, in contrast, originate from the Quran and the Hadith -- the sayings and actions of Mohammed, written 200 years after his death. Both books contain the bases of Sharia
["The Path"] and Islamic law, which, in application, can have moral and
ethical requirements antithetical to Western concepts of justice.
Sharia tenets, which have different views from those in the
West on human rights, justice, mercy and compassion, might appear alien
to Judeo-Christian precepts. Sharia, in usage, often contravenes the basic values of the West's liberal democratic tradition.
The moral laws of each tradition -- that of the Torah and Sharia – when applied -- result in different outcomes. Most of the punishments specified in the Torah are no longer practiced. According to Sharia, however, punishments such as amputations or stoning to death for adultery, "especially women" – which can include pre-marital sex or having been raped -- as well as death for blasphemy or for choosing to leave the religion, are in force to this day.
"If they [Muslims] had gotten rid of the punishment [often death] for
apostasy, Islam would not exist today," the late Sunni religious
leader, Yusuf al Qaradawi, speculated on Egyptian television.
"The most striking thing about his statement, however, was that it was not an apology; it was a logical, proud justification for preserving the death penalty as a punishment for apostasy."
The outcome of ethical and religious difference can also be seen in
the motivation of the two primary combatants of the Gaza war, started by
Hamas on October 7, 2023. Human Rights Watch released a report in July 2024, in which it stated
that Hamas and its allies had "committed numerous war crimes and crimes
against humanity during the October 2023, assault on southern Israel,"
and concluded that Hamas had engaged in a "systematic" assault against
civilians.
Unsurprisingly, these findings were rejected outright by Hamas, whose spokesman, Gazi Hamad, justified the killing of civilians: "Israel has no right to exist in this region." In another broadcast, Hamad vowed
that Hamas would repeat the October 7 attack, time and again, until
Israel is eliminated, and that everything Hamas did was justified. In
short, Israel must be eliminated, whatever the cost.
Divinely sanctioned treatment by Muslims of non-Muslims still includes rape, slavery and death.
To many Muslims, those who practice a different faith and do not subscribe to Sharia are non-believers (infidels), deemed
to be in breach of "The Path" and consequently subject to a penalty of
death. This is also true for Jews and Christians who were given the
opportunity to accept the gift of Islam but instead rejected it. If they
refuse to convert, or to live as dhimmis -- tolerated lower-class residents in subjugation to Islam -- they may be regarded as eligible for death:
"So, when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle],
strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them,
then secure their bonds, and either [confer] favor afterwards or ransom
[them] until the war lays down its burdens. That [is the command]. And
if Allah had willed, He could have taken vengeance upon them [Himself],
but [He ordered armed struggle] to test some of you by means of others.
And those who are killed in the cause of Allah - never will He waste
their deeds."
– Quran 47:4 (Sahih Translation).
On January 4, 2024, Abu Hudhayfa al-Ansar, a spokesman for the jihadist Islamic State -- an offshoot of the transnational radical movement, Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is a branch -- called on devotees around the world to carry out mass slaughter. This, he said, would be vengeance for the people of Gaza:
"Oh lions of Islam, hunt your prey — the Jews,
Christians, and their allies — in the streets and alleyways of America,
Europe, and the world. Break into their homes, kill them, and torment
them in every way you can."
That is precisely what took place in Israel on October 7, 2023,
without mercy of any kind. Validation for such horror can be found in
the Quran's many verses
prescribing fighting and death for those who decry the core Islamic
declaration: "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet."
Sura 9:5 reads, "Slay the infidels wherever you find them..."
The de facto leader of Al-Qaeda, Salem Al-Sharif, on July 16, 2024, wrote in his essay, "This Is Gaza: A War Of Existence, Not A War Of Borders,"
that Muslims should not take civilians as prisoners, as Hamas did on
October 7. "Islam," he said, "tells us killing takes precedence over
taking prisoners."
In other words, they should not bother to kidnap hostages but simply
kill them. As the recently assassinated leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, put it: "Take down the border and rip out their hearts!"
The intent of jihadist state actors such as Iran, Syria and Iraq, and
non-state actors Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, Hamas, the Houthis, and
Hezbollah, appears to be the imposition of Sharia law upon the
world. "We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the
cry, 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there
will be struggle," declared the founder of modern-day Iran, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini [1].
Such regimes and groups apparently seek to entrench Islamic law,
often upon an unwilling populace and subjugate them to a life under
constant threat of penalty. Meanwhile, Hamas's political elite in Qatar,
Lebanon Turkey, and elsewhere, became exorbitantly wealthy, enjoying comforts unavailable to the general population.
The concept of universal human rights might seem strange to
Islamists. Sourced from the tradition of Moses' Commandments, articles
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
form the basis for international humanitarian law, which in turn
defines the parameters of just-wars and armed conflicts. The precepts of
Islamist fundamentalism appear equally foreign to Westerners, who live
by the humanitarian values and principles of the Western democratic
tradition, as founded on the Torah. Based on the leniency seen in
Europe, many Westerners seem to be having a hard time trying to imagine
that other people might actually be living according to a different set
of premises (such as here, here, here and here).
Establishing humanitarian values in society provides rights and
obligations. This is why textual originalism in the interpretation of US
Constitutional law should be of particular concern to jurists. Emphasis
on the intent of the writers of the Constitution rather than the
fluctuating views of a succession of lawyers is of prime importance.
Despite a diversity of moral and ethical convictions and fickle
social popularism, there should not be a compromise on foundational
truths. Repeatedly reinterpreting them or the US Constitution becomes
like the children's game of "broken telephone": after a few migrations
from what was whispered, the original sentence soon becomes
unrecognizable: one is left with a "Pandora's Box" of competing
ideologies all striving for prominence. To avoid relaxing established
human rights through fashionable ideologies is the task of the US State
Department's Commission on Unalienable Rights.
In 2020, and on behalf of the Commission, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared
the Commission's purpose was to "Ground our discussion of human rights
in America's founding principles" -- those derived from the
Judeo-Christian moral and ethical order, rather than those which might
vary according to the spirit of the times.
This would be a concerning maneuver, yet US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made exactly such proposals
at the most recent meeting of the Commission: he concealed in his
terminology, tenets of identity politics relating to race, gender, and
the like. It seems politicians cannot restrain themselves from
manipulating foundational dogma for their own purposes.
Refuting the traditional principles of human rights results in
situations such as the September 11, 2001 massacres in the US, and
October 7, 2023, in Israel. Free from all civilized constraints yet
asserting religious convictions, Hamas revealed their motivation: jihadbased on Sharia.
Regarding themselves as independent of Western conventions of war and
human rights, they had no hesitation in slaughtering as many civilians
as they could.
As the visions of holy war and martyrdom are underpinned by Sharia,
Islamic jihadists appear to believe that they are doctrinally permitted
to sow terror, death and destruction among non-Muslims wherever they
are. Ultimately, they seem to be aiming to displace the "The Great
Satan" (the US) and Europe. To varying degrees now, all Western -- and
even some Muslim nations, such as the captive citizens of Iran -- are being adversely impacted by jihadists seeking global domination.
While much of the West bemoans the increase in Islamist
radicalization, they only pay lip-service to increased military budgets
and to general preparedness, despite looming internal and external
conflicts. This is particularly true of Europe which relies on the US to
carry much of the burden for its military defense, through NATO.
One unsurprising reason for the "wilful blindness" of the US and
other major Western powers towards religious extremists is that
politicians look for votes.
Another reason might be that the West's foreign policies are based on
an outlook which George Weigel refers to as "rationalist secularism":
Western leaders find it difficult to regard religiously-powered
radicalism with the weight it deserves. Weigel concludes: "it is precisely because it's religiously grounded that such radicalism is exceptionally dangerous."
Iran and its proxies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis
-- and other Islamists are fully grounded in religious dogma, hence
their glorification of martyrdom as anticipating lofty rewards in the
life hereafter. The late Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus suggested
that "we think it true to say that politics is, in largest part, an
expression of culture, and at the heart of culture is religion."
Inevitably, the two major monotheistic religions of the world collide
over issues of legitimacy (the biblical Creator or Allah), justice and
other values (the Torah or Sharia), as well as
transcendent truth (Judeo-Christianity or nihilist Islamism). On October
7, 2023, the confrontation between these two opposing worldviews was
once again seen earnest -- with Israel as a crucible for testing the
resolve of Western powers in safeguarding their traditional values,
society and culture.
"If we fail," said
Winston Churchill, in the British House of Commons during World War II,
1940, "then the whole world, including the United States, including all
that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new
Dark Age."
Although Churchill's statement applies to all Western nations at this
time, it is the tiny nation of Israel that has found itself largely
alone in the desperate fight to preserve the West's Judeo-Christian
ideals. It would be to the West's advantage if its other nations would
join Israel in this noble task.
Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A trial
lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association,
the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and
Letters. Retired from law, his particular field of interest is political
theory intersecting with current events. He holds a Ph.D. in Theology
(Apologetics). Dr. Haug is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the
Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent –
Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has appeared in First
Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus,
Gatestone Institute, Anchoring Truths, Jewish Journal, and elsewhere.
[1] February 11, 1979 (according to Dilip Hiro in The Longest War, p.32) p.108 from Excerpts from Speeches and Messages of Imam Khomeini on the Unity of the Muslims.
While Trump can overturn Biden’s executive orders, experts say some challenges will go through the courts and Congress.
Coming with the new year
is a new president with a very different vision on energy than
President Joe Biden, who campaigned on a promise to “end fossil fuel.”
President-elect Donald Trump is dismissive of the immediate
“climate crisis” narrative that drove much of Biden’s energy policies.
He promises to establish American “energy dominance” and focus policy on
bringing down the cost of energy.
While Trump can overturn Biden’s industry-punishing
executive orders and create a friendlier regulatory environment for the
oil, gas, coal and mining industries, experts say there are economic and
technical limits to what the outcomes of his policies will be. Looking
ahead to 2025 and beyond, here’s what we might expect for energy and
industry in the second Trump administration.
Market forces
During a speech at the Economic Club of New York luncheon in September,
Trump said he would end the Biden-Harris administration’s “anti-energy
crusade and implement a policy of energy abundance, energy independence,
and even energy dominance.” This would include, he said, getting the
price of gasoline down below $2 per gallon, which would decrease the
cost of all goods and services.
“We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other
country, including Russia and Saudi Arabia [and] will be using it. My
plan will cut energy prices in half or more than that within 12 months
of taking office. It will be an economic revival of our country like no
one has ever seen before,” Trump said before his campaign proved
successful in the November election.
While his picks speak to Trump’s commitment, there are
other challenges that may not mean an increase in oil and gas
production. Despite Biden’s promise to destroy the oil and gas industry,
the U.S. reached record-high production levels. Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer and editor in chief of Shale Magazine, said that this high production under Biden will have economic consequences limiting further increases.
"Unfriendly regulatory environment"
“Low gas prices are not what will make them go out and produce oil,” Rapier told Just the News.
The reason production is so high is because prices are high, Rapier
explained. While Biden limited drilling and exploration on public lands
and created an unfriendly regulatory environment, the high oil prices
allowed the industry to thrive within that framework.
A similar thing, Rapier said, happened during the Obama
administration. While Obama was no friend of oil and gas, high prices
drove innovation in the American oil and gas industry leading to what’s
commonly referred to as the Shale Revolution. However, there comes a point when supply meets demand.
“So what Trump will do, he will make available areas that
were put off limits by Biden. He will sweep away some of the rules that
were put in place, like methane emission rules
and some things like that. But I don't expect that to spur a lot of
drilling. I expect it to be dictated mainly by prices,” Rapier said.
Drill, baby, drill
Rapier said that oil and gas executives are telling him
that they’re not expecting the new administration will affect their
drilling plans a lot. Over the last several months, oil production has flattened out, suggesting that producers are easing back on the throttle.
“I could see production potentially declining next year. I
didn't think that was likely a year ago, but it's really going to depend
on prices,” Rapier said, adding that if prices stay below $70 per
barrel, as they’ve done for much of the past few months, he expects investments in increased production to diminish.
Alex Stevens, manager of policy and communications for the Institute of Energy Research, told Just the News
that market signals will ultimately shape production under the new
administration, but the administration will make investments safer.
“I think the main point of ‘drill baby drill’ is to signal
to American energy producers that they will have the freedom to invest
in new production so long as the market signals that it is needed. In
this environment, markets will be better able to adapt to changes in
supply and demand because regulatory red tape will not be in the way,”
Stevens said.
One area that Trump will have a positive benefit, both
Stevens and Rapier said, with respect to liquified natural gas exports.
Biden had placed a moratorium on export permits to nations without free
trade agreements with the U.S., which includes European countries.
The official reasoning of the Biden-Harris administration
was that a full study of the overall impacts of LNG exports was needed
to be done to determine if increased exports are in the public interest.
The Department of Energy released the study in mid-December, with critics questioning its conclusions. Trump is expected to overturn the moratorium upon taking office without regard to the DOE study.
“I think that'll have a significant long-term impact,
because we do have a lot of natural gas we can still produce. We have
become the largest LNG exporter in the world, and that was threatened by
the pause in the LNG exports,” Rapier said.
There is a key difference between mining and oil
production. The times between exploration and production in oil and gas
are measured in years, but in mining, it’s measured in decades. While a
“mine, baby, mine” administration will help, the impediments to domestic
mining go far beyond the machinations of the Biden-Harris
administration.
David Hammond, a mineral economist with decades of experience as a mining consultant, told Just the News that the benefits to mining of the Trump administration will be marginal.
“I think there's a number of things that Trump can do, but
the impact on them is going to be in the near term, almost, you almost
won't be able to see it,” Hammond said.
If a mining project is far along in the application
process, the Trump administration could speed things up to bring it
online. It can take 10 years just to get the federal permits needed for a
mining process. While Trump can have an influence, permitting reform
will require Congressional action, and past attempts haven’t gone smoothly. Stevens, with the Institute for Energy Research, said Congress will likely pursue “meaningful” permitting reform in 2025.
“By meaningful permitting reform, I mean changes to ESA
[Endangered Species Act], time clocks on environmental impact
statements, and a wide range of reforms that will go well beyond the
permitting talks that were being discussed towards the end of the year.
There will likely be some give and take there with the repeal of the IRA
[Inflation Reduction Act] being the focal point for negotiations,”
Stevens said.
Waiting decades
Even if those processes are expedited under Trump, or if
Congress passes effective permitting reform to shorten that time,
Hammond said litigation can delay mining projects for many years.
Additionally, there are the technical difficulties in
opening a mine. As an example, he points to the Resolution Copper mine
in Arizona, which has been in the permitting process for over a decade.
Even if Rio Tinto, the owners of the mine, were handed permits and all litigation was immediately dismissed, a near fantasy scenario, Hammond says it would be another decade before construction was complete and the mine producing.
“By the time we engineer it, and we develop the underground
workings, and we get the mill built, and we get the tailings put in —
without any more obstruction by the enviros — it still will be another
10 years before we're going to produce a single pound of copper,”
Hammond said.
There’s no guarantee in four years that a new
administration will continue Trump’s mining-friendly policies, so there
is no certainty what regulatory environment Rio Tinto will face when
it’s ready to begin production.
Likewise, there’s no guarantee what mineral prices will do. Lithium prices, for example, have completely crumbled
in the past couple of years as demand for electric vehicles failed to
keep up with federal mandates. In October, a lithium mine in Nevada won final approval. Production is still a few years away, but due to falling prices, the project may no longer be economically viable.
Trump has promised to roll back EV mandates, and Congress
may do away with EV tax credits, further lowering lithium demand.
Trump’s policies may also lower demand for solar panels and wind
turbines, which will decrease demand for rare earth and other minerals.
Hammond said that one area Trump could have lasting
positive benefits on mining is in shortening the permitting time needed
for exploration. If it were quicker, there would be a lot more
exploration done, which would help the industry identify potentially
economical mineral deposits.
Climate leadership
Frank Lasee, president of Truth in Energy and Climate and author of “Climate and Energy Lies,” told Just the News that however his policies play out, Trump’s lasting impact will be the shift in the national narrative on climate and energy.
During the Biden years, questioning if climate change is
causing a crisis justifying the rapid elimination of fossil fuels earned
skeptics the dreaded “climate denier” label. After Trump called climate
change a hoax, Democrats were quick to slap the label on him. Voters, apparently, weren’t particularly bothered by the position.
“I think that one of the biggest things Trump's going to do
is the leadership effect of continuing to say, this is a climate crisis
hoax. There isn't a climate crisis. And he'll talk with the American
people about that,” Lasee said.
The United Nations’ special rapporteur Francesca Albanese accused Israel of enacting an "ongoing genocide."
Press briefing by Francesca Albanese, Special rapporteur
on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian
Territories at UN Headquarters on October 27, 2022.(photo credit: Lev Radin/Shutterstock)
The United Nations’ special rapporteur on the situation of human rights
in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, demanded on
X/Twitter that medical professionals sever ties with Israel in response
to the IDF detaining Palestinian Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.
I urge medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel's full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza, a critical tool of its ongoing genocide.#FreeDrHussanAbuSafiyahttps://t.co/qzZ7CqufI6
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) December 30, 2024
“I urge medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of
all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel’s
full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza, a
critical tool of its ongoing genocide,” Albanese wrote.
The
IDF arrested Safiya and multiple others during operations at the Kamal
Adwan hospital, which the military reported was acting as a Hamas
stronghold in northern Gaza.
Although the IDF issued evacuation warnings to the hospital,
created defined humanitarian routes, and attempted to mitigate civilian
damage, Safiya said they resisted orders by the military, according to
Reuters.
Hamas's hold on Gaza's hospitals
The IDF confirmed Safiya’s arrest, stating he was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.”
Unmentioned
by Albanese was Hamas’s repeated abuse of the hospital and other
civilian infrastructure, as evidenced by IDF releases.
On Tuesday, the IDF released footage proving Hamas terrorists had planted explosives only meters from the hospital grounds.
The IDF published footage in October 2024 of a staff member at the hospital confirming, “Hamas military operatives
are present; they are in the courtyards, at the gates of the buildings,
and in the offices of Kamal Adwan Hospital. They operate ambulances to
transport their wounded military operatives and to transport them for
their missions, and this is instead of using the ambulances for the
benefit of civilians.”
n previous operations at the hospital, the IDF located weapons, money
used for terror purposes, and Hamas intelligence documents and arrested
some 100 terrorists.
Last
month, 60 terrorists surrendered outside the hospital after failing to
flee during an IDF operation, which saw the medical institute and
surrounding areas encircled by troops. At least one of the terrorists
detained posed as a staff member and was found to have participated in
the October 7 massacre, the IDF reported.
Despite
evidence of Hamas’s presence, a UN Human Rights Office report on
Tuesday condemned Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza, saying they had
devastated the Palestinian enclave’s health system and raised serious
concerns about Israel’s compliance with international law.
The
23-page report concluded that since the Hamas attacks of October 7,
2023, against Israel, the conduct of hostilities in Gaza had “destroyed”
local healthcare.
“The
destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing
of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks, is a direct
consequence of the disregard of international humanitarian and human
rights law,” it said.
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The Christmas and New Year festivities have been joyous for us
Americans who have suffered through the four years of incompetence and
malignity inflicted upon us by the previous administration, the most
dysfunctional since at least World War II. Both at home and abroad, a
Democrat party hijacked by the left-over left defied nature and nature’s
God with policies and programs astonishing for their gross violations
of reality and morality, not to mention common sense and the laws of
science.
But as we rejoice over our deliverance, and look hopefully to January
20, we should gird our loins and steel ourselves for the fight to come,
starting with whatever feckless policies that lame-duck Biden’s
puppeteers manage to get passed. The damage to our culture and
Constitutional order has deep roots, and has poisoned our institutions
and culture both openly and so insidiously that even those who know
better still tolerate or endorse the same policies that have weakened
our Republic.
Most of us can catalogue the examples of Democrat malfeasance. Take
the “renewable energy” and “net-zero carbon” grift that has disrupted
our economy and fed inflation in a nation blessed with huge reserves of
oil and natural gas, enough to make us energy self-sufficient. But no,
the Lefty Dems have been addled by the scientifically dicey “global
warming” hypothesis tarted up with lurid apocalyptic panic and
promiscuous scientism, all greased by corporate subsidies and tax
incentives that have befouled the free market, and created a huge moral
hazard for the future. At the same time, an already existing, actually
“clean and renewable energy”––nuclear power–– has been put on the shelf
and starved of funding, while billions are squandered on intermittent
solar and wind energy that enriches China.
Another Dem failure to “follow the science” is the transgender fad
preying on neurotic children and teens. Science tells us that mammals
are either males and females that together procreate, yet doctors
presumably trained scientifically are openly poisoning children with
puberty blockers and cross-hormone treatments, then move on to
irreversible surgeries that leave their victims mutilated for life.
Whether through greed or misplaced “compassion,” doctors are blatantly
violating their Hippocratic Oath that in the original Greek requires
physicians not just to do no harm, but to benefit their patients.
Nor should we forget the Uniparty’s feckless economic policies that
print, borrow, tax, spend, and redistribute trillions of dollars to
political clients. Or what Rudyard Kipling called “Robbing selected
Peter to pay for collective Paul,” and Churchill dubbed “Government of
the dole-drawers, by the dole-drawers, and for the dole-drawers.” The
unscientific mitigation policies and spending sprees during the Covid
pandemic damaged millions of people, and flooded the economy with more
money chasing fewer goods, the eternal formula for inflation.
More pertinent are the massive costs of entitlement programs, the
biggest items in the federal budget, a list now including the interest
on the debt used to pay for this largess fast approaching
unsustainability––in just eight years, the biggest of the big spenders,
Social Security, will have to cut benefits by a fifth. Yet the Dems
continue to create more and more unfunded liabilities with larger and
larger numbers of beneficiaries, now including 10 million mostly
unvetted illegal aliens welcomed into our country over just the last
four years.
Meanwhile, our defense spending has dwindled to just 3.4% of GDP,
even as China, our most powerful and malignant rival, is spending freely
on materiel, subsidized in part by American corporations and businesses
partnering with the Chinese communists.
But on this issue of overspending on entitlements––to a greater
(Dems) or lesser (GOP) degree–– we all are complicit, no matter what
party we follow. All democracies since ancient Athens have preferred
spending money on “butter” rather than “guns.” And they use their votes
to punish politicians who try to rein in spending by reforming
or––horribile dictu!––eliminating some entitlements. But the bill will
have to be paid at some point during Trump’s second term to keep our
economy from imploding because of debt, overspending, and deficits.
On our foreign policy blunders, the Democrats generally are more
culpable than conservatives. But the last two Dem presidents have
completely owned foreign policy disasters––the consequences of which we
are now confronting. That’s because the idealistic “rules-based
international order” is the foreign policy preference of the bipartisan
establishment––diplomats, national security agencies, the Pentagon,
university faculty, scholarly journals, think tanks, and media.
For example, this preference for “soft power” and especially
“diplomatic engagement” instead of force explains Barack Obama’s extreme
appeasement of Iran over its nuclear weapons program, murderous
proxies, and bloody adventurism throughout the region.
Worse than signing the “nuclear deal” in the first place was Obama’s
sticking with it even as Iran––as Israeli intelligence
documented––serially violated the terms of the agreement, and continued
its aggression against our military forces in the region, and our ally
Israel’s interests and security.
Donald Trump left the deal, but Joe Biden rejoined, and spent his
term trying to bribe Iran to acknowledge its deals terms. But Iran blew
off these cringing supplications while pocketing billions of dollars in
cash and sanctions relief. Unchecked by this failure, Biden ordered a
shambolic skedaddle from Afghanistan, stranding Americans and leaving
our Afghan allies to the tender mercies of the Taliban, who also
received the strategically critical Bagram Air Base, along with billions
in materiel. Whatever deterrent power we had left after the nuclear
deal and Afghanistan debacle was gone, which encouraged Putin to invade
Ukraine, and Iran and its proxies to start the savage war against
Israel.
These examples of the Dems’ failures illustrate the general principle
that bad ideas most often are the cause of bad policies. Take the
“rules-based international order” that has warped our foreign policy
establishment. It is predicated on the belief that the problems of
humanity that lead to conflicts and wars are the result of unjust
political regimes that deny people their human rights and freedoms;
Western sins like imperialism and colonialism; natural resources
plundered by the West, impoverishing those peoples and keeping their
societies undeveloped; and the persistence of dysfunctional beliefs and
superstitions, especially religion and nationalism, that interfere with
progress.
Marxism and progressivism are the political ideologies based on these
dubious and dangerous ideas. From them come the technocratic,
anti-nationalism, “one world” globalism that fancies itself, as did
Marxism, a “science” that only the uneducated, uncultured, retrogressive
Bible-thumpers reject, thus making them the prey of the plutocrats and
“fascists” for their own malign purposes. But all these claims are based
on begged questions, not science or fact, and serve the progressives’
and leftists’ lust for power in order to create the utopia of perfect
“social justice” and “equality” of wealth.
For history, millennia of experience, common sense, both our
Greco-Roman and Judeo- Christian founding civilizations, all teach us
that human beings are driven by destructive passions and selfish
interests, all empowered by our freedom to choose, and making utopia
impossible to achieve. Or as Immanuel Kant said, “From the crooked
timber of humanity, nothing straight can be made.”
The Framers knew the truth of humanity’s destructive flaws, and so
gave us a Constitution that mutually checks and balances the Federal
government’s powers, and a Bill of Rights that protects individuals from
tyranny. They also ensured holding power accountable with regularly
scheduled elections, which give we the people the ability to choose a
government that does not assault the Constitutions and our freedoms––as
we just did on November 5.
But the flaws of human nature, magnified by bad policies that distort
or ignore that truth to increase the scope of self-serving power, does
not surrender power easily. The Dems, supported by their media press
agents, are already conniving and leaving political IED’s to cripple
Donald Trump’s presidential powers. And they are abetted by Fifth
Columnist Republicans, Leviathan’s uniparty guildsmen who are full of
passionate intensity.
Now begins the hard work of keeping our Republic and restoring our Constitution.
Bruce S. Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center,
an emeritus professor of classics and humanities at California State
University, Fresno, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
His latest book is Democracy’s Dangers and Discontents: The Tyranny of
the Majority from the Greeks to Obama.
Over the past two weeks, a healthy debate has begun within the
Republican party over H-1B visas. This program allows employers to hire
foreign workers in “specialty occupations.” A precipitating event was
the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as Senior Policy Advisor for AI at
the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Krishnan is on record calling for the H1 visa program to remove caps
on how many can be awarded for any particular country. At face value,
this seems reasonable. Why would India, with 1.4 billion citizens, have the same cap as Singapore, with fewer than 4 million citizens?
In a December 23 tweet to
her 1.4 million followers, Laura Loomer pounced on Krishnan’s proposal,
accusing him of being a leftist and claiming he wants to remove all
restrictions on green card caps. In response to Loomer’s tweet,
tech entrepreneur and investor David Sacks offered a “point of
clarification,” explaining that Krishnan didn’t want to remove the
overall cap, just how they are allocated via fixed amounts per country.
The debate has become heated, with Steven Bannon and Nick Fuentes lining up behind Loomer and Elon Musk, David Sacks, and Vivek Ramaswamy supporting Krishnan.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but one premise ought to be beyond
debate: America should welcome the geniuses of the world. If somebody
with an IQ of 170 and a degree in theoretical physics graduates from an
American university and wants to work in America, we should not be
sending them back to India. Accepting this premise does not conflict
with the fact that, as it is today, our H-1B program is flawed and
exploited.
To put this into perspective, the U.S. issues 85,000 H-1B visas per
year, and of those, 20,000 are reserved for professionals graduating
with a master’s degree or doctorate. These visas are good for three
years, with one three-year renewal. In all, an estimated 700,000 H-1B visa holders currently work in the U.S. By comparison, the total U.S. workforce is 161.5 million.
This means only one in 230 American workers is here on an H-1B visa.
That’s not very many. So why so much acrimony over this policy? Elon
Musk, who has joined the debate, has been consistent in his position. It
is best expressed in a 2023 tweet
where he said, “We should greatly increase legal immigration of anyone
who is hard-working, honest, and loves America. Every such person is an
asset to the country. But massive illegal immigration of people we know
nothing about is insane.”
Musk is right, but the devil is in the details. He suggests that we
“greatly increase immigration.” That’s a potentially alarming statement.
How much is “greatly?”
Addressing this question reveals tough realities. Starting with how
many immigrants should be allowed into America—how many people should
live here? How do we cope with the fact that our internal birthrate is
way below replacement levels? Should we close our borders and hope
American women decide to start having babies again? Should we be
indifferent to the possibility that birthrates will continue to crash
and rely on automation to raise productivity enough to compensate for
the fact that our elderly retirees will eventually outnumber our
citizens of working age? And if we do that, will we retain sufficient
vitality to repel aggression from other nations? For that matter, would a
nation of mostly old people have the vitality to prevent AI-driven
automation from going rogue? So what is the optimal population for our
country?
Trying to answer this question is helped by referencing what
demographers refer to as population pyramids. This is a graphic that
depicts a set of horizontal bars stacked on top of each other. Each bar
represents a five-year age group, with 0-4 on the bottom, followed by
5-9, then 10-14, etc., until at the top you have the 100+ age group. The
width of each of these 20 bars corresponds to the number of people in
each age group. In a nation with an expanding population, such as Nigeria,
the bars at the bottom are far wider than in the middle. In Nigeria,
for every person aged between 60 and 64, there are 8 children under the
age of five.
In a nation with an imploding population,
these ratios are reversed. In South Korea, for example, for every child
under the age of five, there are more than three people between the
ages of 60 and 65. South Korea’s fertility rate has crashed to 0.68 children per woman of childbearing age, while the average Nigerian woman is still having five children. For a population merely to remain stable, the average fertility rate needs to be 2.1 per woman.
It’s a mistake to regard population growth as essential to healthy
economic growth. That model has worked for centuries but has never
before been used to justify population replacement in nations that are
experiencing a population crash. In America, the population “pyramid” reveals a slow decline. For every child under the age of five, there are 1.2 people between the ages of 60 and 64. America’s current fertility rate is 1.66 births per woman.
At this fertility rate, without immigration, America’s population
will eventually begin to decline by about 20 percent each generation,
i.e., by 2 million per year. Until we succeed in increasing the
fertility of our own population, that is how many people need to enter
the country each year merely for our population to remain stable. Is
that a “massive” number of people, and if so, why? This number of people
won’t increase demand for housing or jobs, since our population will
not increase at that level of immigration.
The problem with immigration in America, especially during the Biden administration, is that we paid minimal attention to who came into the country. The low end of the estimated arrivals during Biden’s term comes in at over 8 million.
It may be far greater, with virtually no attention paid to work ethic,
character, criminal record, cultural compatibility, job skills, or raw
intelligence.
That is what must change. We must restore strict standards and only
admit people based on these merits. Then we must enforce a cap on total
immigration. H-1B visas are the least of our worries. In a merit-based
immigration policy with a reasonable overall cap, H-1B visas could be
increased. The H-1B program needs to be fixed, not scrapped.
There are bigger issues that have made this debate heated. But we may
hope that Musk, Loomer, Ramaswamy, Bannon, and countless others will
step back and agree on a few fundamentals. Let’s set a standard of
excellence and agree that immigrants who exceed that standard will be
allowed to work here. At the same time, let’s direct unified vitriol at
even bigger threats, starting with the teachers union and the millions
of cowardly bureaucrats, public and private, that have sabotaged the
culture of excellence that has made America great. And then let’s get on
with the rest of the MAGA agenda:
We must abolish DEI, end all forms of discrimination including institutionalized discrimination against white men, restore SAT/ACT scores as the primary criteria for college admissions, scrap the watered-down SAT tests that falsely understate the already alarming level of decline in test scores,
outlaw teachers unions, establish school choice and education vouchers
nationwide, and fire 90 percent of the “administrators” that clog our
K-12 and higher education institutions and make them mediocre and
unaffordable.
At the same time, we must end the cultural war on motherhood and
restore it as a highly respected achievement and responsibility. To make
motherhood an economically viable choice, we must deregulate our
housing and energy sectors and restrict public infrastructure investment
to projects that are practical and yield long-term economic benefits.
These policies will lower the cost of living so families can again
thrive with only one person working.
Finally, and only after accomplishing these other objectives, we need
to slash spending on entitlements for everyone of working age. Once
millions of Americans are no longer vilified and discriminated against
based on race and gender quotas and believe that home ownership and
financial stability are not impossible aspirations, they will rejoin the
workforce with enthusiasm.
These things are possible. This is where unity is required from all factions of the MAGA movement.
Possibly the biggest challenge in the world today is evolving an
economic system that flourishes even when each year there are fewer
people. In the meantime, to cope with what’s coming over the next few
decades, we need every genius we can get. Let them in.
