With Kamala Harris doing nothing on the border, Joe Biden gets out his pen and phone - Monica Showalter

 

​ by Monica Showalter

Importing illegals back into the states, dumping asylum rules, allowing low-life in, there's quite a panoply of horrible things in store.

Joe Biden appointed Kamala Harris his border 'czar,' but that's a non-starter.

After loudly declaring "I can think of nobody who is better qualified to do this," he can't even get her to visit the border to get a firsthand take on all those "root causes" she babbles about.

So, he's gotten busy himself, pen and phone in hand.

Three things stand out, all of which are geared to serving foreign lawbreakers over the interests of U.S. citizens. He likes to share the wealth.

One, a rollback of President Trump's active asylum cases, which require waiting in Mexico to make such claims.

 

According to Buzzfeed News, which has lots of deep-dive news about this sort of thing:

So far, nearly 8,400 immigrants who had been forced to remain in Mexico under MPP have been able to enter the US under a process started by the Biden administration, according to an analysis from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. For the most part, only those with active cases have been able to apply to be allowed into the US, and according to the analysis, as of the end of April, 18,087 people still remained in Mexico with open cases who in theory could register to be allowed into the United States.

So he's already let 8,400 people, very likely with junk claims as most of them are, from people who are demanding to be let into the states ahead of others patiently waiting in line to legally immigrate here, either to get an instant work permit to take a job here or else to claim "free" welfare benefits as a lifestyle choice. Sometimes, it's both. And with a four-year backlog of asylum cases, that's four years of work in the states even for junk claims that get thrown out of court.

No wonder the human-smuggling cartels have such a good time advertising the benefits of partaking in their human-smuggling services and are seeing a booming trade these days. Smugglers advertise policies like these to bring in more illegals at a high profit. Why wait? Four free years of work no matter how the judge rules. Given that no one is enforcing the law, and four years of work means a new claim to have "put down roots here" it's probably more. Sounds like a marketing plan for more illegal immigration right there.

But that's not all Biden's up to: He's also getting ready to change the asylum system itself, by appointing a class of "asylum officers" to clear the backlog of asylum cases instead of the current system of having judges do it.

According to a different story from Buzzfeed:

The Biden administration is planning to dramatically reshape how asylum-seekers are processed in order to prevent an increase in the backlog of immigration court cases, potentially cutting the waiting period for some applicants by years, according to government documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The policy, which has been months in the making and was first alluded to by White House transition officials in December, has yet to be finalized. However, it would shift the decision-making power for whether certain immigrants encountered at the border are granted asylum from an immigration judge to an asylum officer. It would not, however, apply to unaccompanied children (who have a separate process) or to those who are already in court proceedings in the US.

Depending on how it is implemented, the plan could represent President Joe Biden’s most consequential immigration policy to date and fundamentally change the dynamics at the southern border by preventing asylum cases from taking years to complete in court. 

 So instead of trained judges, presumably even-handed, Biden's going to appoint a non-professional class of people, any of whom could have open-borders activist ties, to say 'yes' to every last asylum claim no matter how bad, all to claim that the "backlog" has been cleared. It's very easy to clear a backlog when you say 'yes' to every last asylum claim. Asylum-claimants also get three appeals, so it's hard for them to lose. Here's another thing about it, reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune in a piece headlined: "Biden plans to rebuild and expand legal immigration": 

Divided into seven sections, the document offers detailed policy proposals that would help more foreigners move to the United States, including high-skilled workers, trafficking victims, the families of Americans living abroad, American Indians born in Canada, refugees, asylum-seekers and farmworkers. Immigrants who apply online could pay less in fees or even secure a waiver in an attempt to “reduce barriers” to immigration. And regulations would be overhauled to “encourage full participation by immigrants in our civic life.”

He wants to let everyone in who wants to come in, and that last passage sounds like giving them voting rights, too, it will eventually, probably some motor-voter citizenship thing as the system entrenches. That's 42 million people, although he may or may not know that. Standards are set to fall. Women who make foolish personal choices to get involved with wife-beaters will have a fast track into the country as if they couldn't possibly move to anywhere else inside their own countries. Anyone who's gay or transgender gets fast-tracked in, too. Rest assured, standards will fall on this plan, with many zero-merit people who are products of social disintegration to be imported into the U.S., as well as some criminals who slip through. Crime in the states will rise. It would be nice to make these politicized "asylum officers" sueable, (as lefties seek of the police), for every foreign criminal they let in who does harm to an American, but don't hold your breath.

Will it clear a backlog, though? According to Buzzfeed, it won't. Get a load of this:

Asylum officers already decide cases for asylum-seekers who are in the US and apply from within the country, but that system has also been plagued with a massive backlog. Only certain immigrants who have been in the US for less than a year and are not already in immigration court can apply for asylum through this process, called affirmative asylum. It’s unclear what Biden’s plan would do to that backlog.

It gets worse. As if the backlog weren't enough, Biden plans to import back already-deported illegals, to gum up the lines further. According to the Associated Press (hat tip: Breitbart News):

With President Joe Biden in office, one of the new proposals from advocates urges creating a centralized Department of Homeland Security office to consider requests from deported immigrants trying to reunite with their families in the U.S.

“We have deported hundreds of thousands of individuals, and to do that and not even have an effective safety valve to review bad decisions violates due process,” said Nayna Gupta, associate director of policy for the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Washington-based nonprofit that proposed the idea.

It’s a long shot: White House officials have never publicly mentioned the idea, and it doesn’t yet have a supporter in Congress. The campaign, however, shows how immigrant advocacy has become emboldened after four years hardline immigration policies under former President Donald Trump.

Of course they haven't mentioned it. Bringing back deported people who were thrown out for failing to obey U.S. immigration law, so that they can break the law in peace here in their rightful place as part of the illegal-alien-American community, won't fly with voters. Do they want to import illegality? Because Orange Man Bad? 

As if that isn't bad enough, Breitbart noted that the illegals being imported into the states include these:

As Breitbart News reported, Biden’s plan would give amnesty to illegal aliens who were already deported from the U.S. by the Trump administration starting in January 2017.

Specifically, the provision provides DHS waivers to deported illegal aliens — as long as they have not been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors — so that they can return to the U.S. and apply for amnesty.

So they get two free misdemeanors. What are the kinds of crimes that such misdemeanors could be? According to this law site:

• DWI/DUI (VC 23152(a) 23152(b))
• Domestic Violence/Domestic Battery (PC 243(e)(1))
• Petty Theft (PC 484 & 488)
• Shoplifting
• Public Intoxication
• Receiving Stolen Property (PC 496)
• Disorderly Conduct
• Probation Violations
• Solicitation of Prostitution (PC 647(b))
• Prostitution (PC 647(b)
• Reckless Driving
• Assault and Battery (PC 240 & 242)
• Trespassing (PC 602)
• Drug Possession
• Indecent Exposure
• Violation of a Protection Order
• Disturbing the Peace
• Drunk in Public (PC 647(f)

So in addition to allowing the battered women in for being battered, their batterers are going to be allowed in, too, if Biden puts out an executive order or notice of rules change to state that any misdemeanor is no barrier to re-entry to the states. Letting wife beaters in who've only been busted twice kind of negates the purpose of asylum, does it not? Did anyone let the KGB in after authentic asylum seekers during the Cold War were allowed in? Don't think so. But according to this Biden plan, batterers will get two free wife-beating convictions and still be allowed in. That's convictions, not reported allegations where the battered woman retracts her charges or refuses to cooperate with prosecutors because she's still "in love," or for that matter, unreported or unprosecuted beatings. Just convictions, two free wife-beatings per illegal to be imported back in, quite likely at taxpayer expense.

And that's just one category of criminals -- perverts who expose themselves to children, drunk drivers, public drunks, hookers -- they get two free ones, too and will still be allowed in.

Does this sound like a plan? Actually, it sounds like a disaster. Joe Biden's trying to sneak this in, and Republicans shouldn't let him get away with it.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.

 

Monica Showalter

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/with_kamala_harris_doing_nothing_on_the_border_joe_biden_gets_out_his_pen_and_phone.html

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Texas: Man plots mass shooting at Walmart, had Qur’an, Saudi flag, Nazi symbols, media ignores Islamic items - Robert Spencer

 

​ by Robert Spencer

Why does the establishment media always consider it a duty to cover up for Islam and the crimes done in its name and in accord with its teachings?

Note that while Coleman Thomas Blevins’ Qur’an and Saudi flag (which features the Islamic profession of faith, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet”) feature prominently in the photo of his paraphernalia, the execrable New York Post doesn’t mention them, while making sure to note that he had a “swastika and other Nazi symbols and extremist books like The Turner Diaries.'”

I’m not saying he is a jihadi. He seems like a nut, with a smorgasbord of subversive material of all kinds. But why does the Post not deign to mention that some of that material was Islamic? Why does the establishment media always consider it a duty to cover up for Islam and the crimes done in its name and in accord with its teachings?

“Texas neo-Nazi arrested for planning mass shooting at Walmart: cops,” by Gabrielle Fonrouge, New York Post, May 30, 2021 (thanks to Charles):

An apparent neo-Nazi in Texas has been arrested for planning a mass shooting at a Walmart, police said Sunday.

Coleman Thomas Blevins, 28, was arrested Friday in Kerrville, about 70 miles northwest of San Antonio, after investigators intercepted a message indicating he planned to carry out a mass shooting with a specific threat that included Walmart, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office announced in a Facebook post.

Investigators from the sheriff’s office made contact with Blevins and confirmed “his affiliation and networking with extremist ideologies” and determined he was capable of “following through with the threat” so they “moved immediately to arrest him,” cops said.

The sheriff’s office posted an image of Blevins and evidence they found after a search warrant of his home.

Items found in Blevins’ home included flags depicting the swastika and other Nazi symbols and extremist books like “The Turner Diaries,” which was written by the leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

“Firearms, ammunition, electronic evidence, concentrated THC, and radical ideology paraphernalia, including books, flags, and handwritten documents” were also seized, cops said….

Meanwhile, Fox doesn’t describe what Blevins had at all:

“Texas man arrested for alleged terror plot after planning mass shooting at Walmart,” by Lucas Manfredi, Fox News, May 30, 2021:

A Texas man believed to be a threat to national security after planning a mass shooting at a local Walmart has been arrested by the Kerr County Sheriffs Office.

According to authorities, 28-year-old Coleman Thomas Blevins, of Kerrville, was arrested by the KCSO Special Operations Division in the 1000 block of Junction Highway on Friday on a warrant for a Terroristic Threat to Create Public Fear of Serious Bodily Injury.

The arrest was made in coordination with the Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Division, the Kerrville Police Department’s Patrol Division, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service.

On Thursday, investigators intercepted a message indicating that Blevins was preparing to proceed with a mass shooting, in which he made a specific threat that included Walmart. In partnership with the FBI, investigators moved to arrest Blevins after confirming his “affiliation and networking with extremist ideologies” and capability of following through with the threat.

Following the arrest, a search warrant was executed at Blevins’ residence in the 200 block of Spence Street for seizure of firearms, ammunition, electronic evidence, concentrated THC, and radical ideology paraphernalia, including books, flags, and handwritten documents….

 

Robert Spencer

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/05/texas-man-plots

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Racist Mayor: Lori Lightfoot - John Perazzo

 

​ by John Perazzo

Another Democrat carries the Left's torch of hate.

 

Shortly after 9 p.m. on the night of May 24, a 17-year-old black youth named Keyshawn Williams was standing on a sidewalk along Chicago’s South Oakley Boulevard when someone in a silver BMW opened fire and killed him in a drive-by shooting.

The night before that, a 25-year-old African American named Ladell Arnold was riding in a vehicle along West Flournoy Street in Chicago at 7:10 p.m. when he was shot and killed by a nearby gunman.

The night before that, a 46-year-old black man named Johnnie Williams was standing on a sidewalk along Chicago’s South Michigan Avenue at 7:30 p.m. when some people riding in two passing vehicles shot him dead while also wounding two others.

And at 11:50 p.m. the night before that, a 15-year-old black boy named Dajon Gater was on the front porch of a West Lexington Street house in Chicago, when two armed males approached and killed him with a gunshot to the head.

Like four tiny grains of sand among many thousands in an hourglass, the names of these four dead victims blend imperceptibly into the long list of African Americans whose lives in recent years have been snuffed out by other blacks in the killing field known as Chicago. During the past 12 months alone, more than 820 people have been victims of homicide in The Windy City. And most of them were blacks killed by other blacks.  

Of course, you’ve never before heard of any of the four individuals cited above – nor will you ever come across their names again – for the simple reason that none of their deaths can be traced to the actions of a white police officer – or to the actions of any white person at all, for that matter. Thus, there will be no Black Lives Matter protest marches held in their honor; no $25,000 celebrity-funded golden caskets eternally encasing their bodies in the grave; and no gaggle of reporters or “civil rights leaders” repeatedly recounting, with pained and pious countenances, the tragic stories of how these four individuals died, far too young, in America’s third largest city. No, the only words publicly memorializing these four people will be the names etched silently on their tombstones.

The chief political executive of the hell hole called Chicago is Lori Lightfoot, the latest in an unbroken, 90-year line of exclusively Democrat mayors extending all the way back to 1931. Under Lightfoot’s stewardship, homicides in Chicago increased by an astonishing 40 percent from 2019 to 2020 – a pattern that was seen in a host of Democrat-run cities after George Floyd’s death a year ago. And Chicago’s stratospheric homicide rate has continued well into 2021.

In light of the fact that violent death has become a way of life in Lightfoot’s Chicago, it was nothing short of remarkable to hear her recently announce that “on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of my inauguration as mayor of this great city,” she would be “prioritizing media requests from POC reporters,” an acronym meaning “people of color” -- rather than prioritizing the urgent need to get the city’s murder rate under control. Chicago political reporter Mary Ann Ahern confirmed that according to the mayor’s spokeswoman, “Lightfoot is granting 1 on 1 interviews only to Black or Brown journalists.”

Lightfoot was more than eager to defend her clearly articulated intent to separate reporters into two separate classes, the preferred (nonwhite) and the non-preferred (white). Like the Black Lives Matter racists who felt wholly justified in terrorizing hundreds of American cities and towns last year, Lightfoot is more than proud to display her own particular brand of racism like a badge of honor. In a two-page letter to the media, she wrote that her decision to deny interview requests from white reporters was based on her commitment to “fight for diversity and inclusion,” “break up the status quo” that has been “failing so many,” and pay homage to the “historic reckoning” by which the nation has recently been forced to confront its own “systemic racism” and its “deep-seated legacies around institutionalized racism.” Lamenting “the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media outlets,” Lightfoot wrote: “It's a shame that in 2021, the City Hall press corps is overwhelmingly White in a city where more than half of the city identifies as Black, Latino, AAPI [Asian American / Pacific Islander] or Native American.”

“At the two-year anniversary of my inauguration,” Lightfoot told the press, “I am issuing a challenge to you. Hire reporters of color – especially women of color – to cover Chicago politics, and City Hall in particular. If you have only a white reporter covering City Hall, make sure there’s a person of color working with them as well.” In short, Mayor Lightfoot feels justified in dictating to private media companies exactly how they should allocate their limited financial resources, and whom they should hire to do which jobs. As is invariably the case with self-identified leftwing warriors for “racial justice,” the spirit of totalitarianism burns bright and hot in the heart of Lori Lightfoot.

Nor is racial obsession anything new for Mayor Lightfoot. She’s very comfortable with it. Indeed, just three months ago Lightfoot proudly announced that “a racial healing and historical reckoning” initiative known as the  Chicago Monuments Project, which the city had launched six months earlier to confront the “hard truths of Chicago’s racial history,” had determined that no fewer than 41 separate statues and monuments situated in various locations across the city could be subject to removal from the public square because they: (a) “promot[e] narratives of white supremacy”; (b) “memorializ[e] individuals with connections to racist acts, slavery and genocide”; (c) presen[t] selective, over-simplified, one-sided views of history”; and (d) do “not sufficiently include[e] other stories, in particular those of women, people of color and themes of labor, migration and community building.” The purportedly offensive statues and monuments include those erected in honor of such notables as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Franklin, William McKinley, Leif Ericson, the French missionary Jacques Marquette, and the cartographer Louis Jolliet.

“This project is a powerful opportunity for us to come together as a city to assess the many monuments and memorials across our neighborhoods and communities—to face our history and what and how we memorialize that history,” Lightfoot said. This was particularly important, the mayor emphasized, in light of “the past year and in particular the past summer that made clear [that America’s racist] history isn’t past.”

The standards by which Mayor Lightfoot is prepared to pass judgment on the alleged moral deficiencies of historical giants and national heroes, stand in stark contrast to the standards by which she judges modern-day leftists.

Consider, for instance, how Lightfoot, in the early days of her mayoralty two years ago, gleefully celebrated the passage of Illinois’ so-called Reproductive Health Act (RHA), which repealed the state's Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act; removed restrictions on late-term abortions and on the imposition of criminal penalties against physicians who perform them; and expanded insurance coverage for abortion procedures. When the RHA initially cleared the state's Human Services Committee and was sent to the full Illinois House for consideration, Lightfoot issued a statement saying, “I applaud the legislators who voted yes tonight on the passage of the Reproductive Health Act…. The time is now to ensure that we preserve access to safe, legal abortion in our state. We won't go backwards.” When the bill was subsequently signed into law by the governor a few weeks later, Lightfoot said: “Today, the state of Illinois sent a clear message that we will protect the fundamental right of residents and expand access to reproductive health care.”

So, Lori Lightfoot’s standard is abundantly clear. Statues honoring white people who made enormous contributions to America and to Western civilization -- but who may have been insufficiently militant, by Lightfoot’s reckoning, in fighting to eradicate slavery -- should be banned from the public square as punishment for the shortcomings of those individuals. But modern-day leftwing zealots who stand in favor of legalizing the killing of fully formed human beings in the womb – in the noble name of “reproductive rights,” of course – are to be hailed and celebrated as champions of liberty. 

John Perazzo

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/racist-mayor-lori-lightfoot-john-perazzo/

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Media admits it: They've got 'egg on their faces' over their cheap dismissal of Wuhan lab-leak theory - Monica Showalter

 

​ by Monica Showalter

It's just part of the slew of lies to advance a Democrat political narrative that the press has engaged in without consequence. That egg on their faces, though, lingers ugly.

It's a little late, but according to the Daily Mail, the media are finally admitting it:

Liberal media reporters and pundits admitted over the weekend they were wrong to dismiss the Wuhan lab leak theory just because it was espoused by former President Donald Trump.

Mainstream reporters had pushed back at the idea that COVID-19 may have originated in a virology lab in Wuhan, China, and openly ridiculed the idea as Trump spoke openly about it in the early days of the pandemic. 

But now, those same reporters have admitted that it is possible that the virus came from a lab leak — as more scientists and political officials openly question the virus' origins.

'I think a lot of people have egg on their face,' ABC News' Jon Karl told Martha Raddatz Sunday morning.

 

That makes them look kind of stupid, more stupid than they realize, given that people have known about this for months, and long suspected it was happening.  Those who stated early that it may well have been lab-created had been dismissed by this bunch as conspiracy nuts.

The reporters and commentators who did this weren't reporting news; they were advancing a political "narrative," acting like the 27-year-old reporters who know "nothing," as Obama-era spinmeister Ben Rhodes once contemptuously said of them.  They were boobs in the service of charlatans, and yes, they do have egg all over their faces.  They can wear that as a badge of honor in the service of Democrats and show it to all their crummy little friends.

The whole COVID fiasco has been an amazing string of bad reporting revolving around the press's crazed desire to Get Trump.

The press lied about the Chinese origin of the virus, using it as bait to hammer home on television screen after television screen that the president was a racist.  The cover-up of the origins of this virus was useful indeed for that agenda, but the truth went untold.  They even allowed a killer clown like New York's Gov. Andrew Cuomo to claim that the virus emerged from Europe.  That, too, was a lie, and nobody called him on it.

Speaking of Cuomo, who the heck among this bunch exposed Cuomo, and four other leftist governors, for seeding nursing homes with COVID patients, the most insane and lethal move in the entire pandemic?  That government-mandated atrocity killed tens of thousands and was characterized by unusual cruelty.  Loved ones were prevented from seeing their elders even in their last moments, forcing them to die alone, to somehow "protect" them, yet untested hospital patients from COVID wards were let in, ostensibly on non-discrimination grounds, all to cough, wheeze, and breathe all over the most COVID-vulnerable people on the planet.  Only the New York Post kept on this story and got to the bottom of it.  If it weren't for the Post, Cuomo would have gotten away with it and gone on to more fawning media and millions more in book deals.  Today, he stands exposed as an ogre.

There was continuous nonsense about masks — don't wear one, wear one, why isn't Trump wearing a mask?  Wear two of them, wear one, masks don't do much.  That was the latest word from a study in Sweden, and it shows the extent to which the press just followed Fauci, the sorry National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, glowingly described, again and again, as America's foremost expert on infectious diseases, despite spending much of his career as a medical bureaucrat, ignoring the real experts who know about these things, and whose research is reflected accordingly.  A couple of them in Kentucky found that mask mandates did nothing to slow the spread of COVID during high-transmission periods.  They used actual evidence on the scientific method, based on states with and without mask mandates.

And speaking of experts who know what they are talking about, let's get into the media's treatment of Dr. Scott Atlas, M.D., a Stanford neuroradiologist and President Trump's late-appointed COVID czar, who was continuously demonized for stating the basic facts about how human immunity works, including the uselessness of lockdowns and mask mandates.  He was continuously reported to be a nut because he followed science rather than the politically motivated Get Trump agendas of the CDC and the NIAID of Fauci.  Nobody in the press bothered to look for the truth.

The press also lied about hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as effective treatments for COVID, some really big lies, which cost untold lives as sick patients were denied this treatment, all to Get Trump.  As I wrote here on May 5, 2020:

When President Trump brought up hydroxychloroquine as a promising potential treatment for COVID-19, a huge upsurge of negative political publicity followed from it.  It was strange stuff, because up until then, the treatment, which had been safely used to treat malaria, lupus, and arthritis, had been seeing promising results for COVID-19, too.  Yet the condemnations from all sides poured for weeks.  It wasn't just the political establishment blasting it; it seemed to be the medical establishment, too.  That raises questions as to whether financial interests might be involved here.

It started with the press engaging in its customary contrarianism against Trump when he called the treatment "promising."  The logic was simple: If Trump liked it, then it had to be bad.

How's this for a slanted headline and report from NPR, which ran on April 10?

COVID-19 Patients Given Unproven Drug In Texas Nursing Home In 'Disconcerting' Move

Last night, the real story was obtained by Fox News host Laura Ingraham, and it's quite a different picture.  It isn't out on YouTube yet, so I will describe it:

A Galveston-area doctor, Dr. Robin Armstrong, who was in charge of a nursing home, found himself in the middle of the worst health care nightmare anyone can imagine: a COVID-19 outbreak, on a home full of elderly people, and he was in charge.  Odds were big they were going to die.  We already know what the coronavirus did to a nursing home in Washington State, and we have subsequently learned what inserting COVID-19 patients into unwilling nursing homes in New York City did to those populations.  Coronavirus + Nursing Home = Death Sentence.  That was what he was looking at.  In desperation, the Texas doctor decided to treat his threatened patients with hydroxychloroquine in a last-ditch effort to save them...and he called it right.  Unlike those other places, his patients got well.  His informed judgment saved the lives of a building full of nursing home patients, and he reported no bad side-effects such as heart problems brought on by the treatment.  He would have been justified to take such risks because his treatment was triage, and the alternative was the death sentence.  But there wasn't even that.  His patients lived, they regained their fragile health, and there were no stacked bodies or chaotic medical scenes in his part of Texas on his watch. 

That's frankly a story of heroism, and the brilliant medical man should be celebrated for the huge number of lives he saved.

Instead, all he got were trashy stories with scare headlines like NPR's, painting him as some kind of evildoer.  Bad medicine, unproven treatment, everybody get scared.

It was worse than just this with hydroxychloroquine — people were demonized for saying it had worked for them.  A young black legislator in Michigan who said she was cured of COVID through its use, asking for it after hearing about it from President Trump, was met with a Democrat threat to expel her from the party.

Doctors who advocated for it, such as Dr. Stella Immanuel, who treated 350 patients with it and saved all of them, were censored on Facebook and other Democrat organs.  Chris Cuomo, incidentally, was someone she accused of getting the treatment himself while loudly claiming that it did not work, a pretty potent indicator of media bias if true, and even if not true, a pretty significant indicator of culpable ignorance.

As I wrote here last July:

Immanuel, whose passionate testimony beginning at about the 5:30 point of the UGE video said that she herself treated 350 COVID patients with HCQ, same as doctors in Asia, Africa and Europe do, and not one died. Her described bedside manner, telling patients 'you're not going to die' must have been immensely assuring to many a patient with a terrifying diagnosis associated with so much death, based on her sureness of knowledge. And she's got science on her side. Just three weeks ago, a huge medical study confirmed HCQ's efficacy. A previous "study" by the famed British medical journal Lancet debunking HCQ got retracted because it was found to be junk. Aside from the studies, these doctors spoke from their own medical experience, the things they saw with their own eyes on the frontlines of the COVID pandemic, and sought to tell of.

And for that, they got censored. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook removed all evidence of their testimony from their sites, leaving only smaller sites with the evidence they gave, effectively silencing them.

Things were just as bad for those who tried to speak the truth about ivermectin and its efficacy.  Two days ago, American Thinker editor-in-chief Thomas Lifson wrote about how India destroyed its runaway COVID problem by making this vital medicine easily available.  Instead of keeping patients on ventilators for weeks in the hospital and letting the patients flood in, overwhelming the system, ivermectin was given out, and people got well.  When Trump was in office, the media demonized the treatment.  When Trump was out, a New York Times big shot admitted that it was the most important story of the year, which it pretty well is.  That's right: the press ignored the biggest story of the year because, in its mind, Getting Trump was the most important narrative of the year.

There are probably a lot of lies I am forgetting in this, but that's because COVID has been a miasma of lies, ending with Joe Biden claiming credit for the vaccine development when it was President Trump who deserves that honor. 

It's disgusting.  The media may have gotten what they wanted in its continuous smog of false stories, debunkings, ignorings, and lies to Get Trump, but it's done so at a steep price: its credibility.  It lied about all sorts of things to this end — from the Russia collusion hoax to the continuous evidence-free claims that there's no such thing as election fraud, with the corollary claim that any move to stop election fraud is Jim Crow–style voter suppression.

It's crap, and there's no reason to believe them when they make such claims, given their record.  In time, with audits going on, the truth will come out.  Then it will be time for another round of egg on their faces, and it lingers ugly.  How much egg must they get before people stop paying attention entirely?

Correction: Fauci runs the NIAID, not the NIH.  We regret the error.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.

 

Monica Showalter

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/media_admits_it_theyve_got_egg_on_their_faces_over_their_cheap_dismissal_of_wuhan_lableak_theory.html

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BLM cofounder called for the end of Israel in 2015 - Andrew Kugle

 

by Andrew Kugle

Patrisse Cullors recently stepped down from the organization amid questions about her finances.

 

Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors called for the end of Israel in 2015 during a panel at the Harvard Law School. 

"Palestine is our generation’s South Africa. If we don’t step up boldly and courageously to end the imperialist project that’s called Israel, we’re doomed," Cullors said. 

BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors calls to "end the imperialist project that's called Israel." pic.twitter.com/0PgEtPMpVx

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 28, 2021

The Human Rights Program at Harvard law hosted Cullors and several other activists in April of 2015 for a panel titled, "Globalizing Ferguson: Racialized Policing and International Resistance." During the panel, Cullors shared her experience in visiting the West Bank and Gaza in 2015 as part of a delegation with other far-left activists. She claims she witnessed "violence" and the "terror" against Palestinians which was caused by Israelis and "Zionists."

She told the audience one way for Americans to fight back was to join the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to pressure Israel to change its policies toward Palestinians. 

ISRAEL, EGYPT TALK TRUCE WITH HAMAS, REBUILDING GAZA STRIP 

The BLM cofounder recently announced she was stepping down as executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation after serving in the position for five years. She claims her reason for stepping down is to devote more time to other projects like the release of her second book and a television deal with Warner Bros. 

Her sudden departure came amid questions surrounding her finances. The New York Post reported back in April that Cullors purchased four homes for $3.2 million, which raised questions among other activists. Hawk Newsome, the head of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, to call for an "independent investigation" into the foundation’s finances. The two organizations are not affiliated.

Cullors denies receiving a salary from the foundation but critics allege she might be using donations from the foundation to enrich herself. She denies those claims and says her income comes from other sources from book sales and a YouTube deal. 

In the past, Cullors has referred to  herself as a "trained Marxist."  

You can watch the full panel below. Cullors’ remarks about Israel begin around the 50:12 mark.

 

Andrew Kugle

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/blm-cofounder-called-end-israel-2015

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Bill Maher: Hamas negotiation demands are, 'You all die' - Arutz Sheva Staff

 

by Arutz Sheva Staff

Comedian Bill Maher hits back after Israel is accused of 'apartheid,' 'war crimes.' 'Hamas's charter just says they want to wipe out Israel.'

 

Comedian Bill Maher                                                                     REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

"Real Time" host Bill Maher on Friday night defended Israel's actions during the recent Operation Guardian of the Walls, Fox News reported.

"One of the frustrations I had while I was off is that I was watching this war go on in Israel … and it was frustrating to me because there was no one on liberal media to defend Israel, really," Maher, 65, said at a panel discussion.

"We've become this country now that we're kind of one-sided on this issue. And I'd also like to say off the bat I don't think kids understand -- and when I say kids I mean the younger generations – you can't learn history from Instagram.

"There's just not enough space."

Responding to The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's claim that Israel committed "possible war crimes," Maher said: "Well, Gaza fired 4,000 rockets into Israel. What would you say Israel should have done instead of what they did?"

Hamas, Maher pointed out, "purposely put the rockets in civilian places. That's their strategy."

Maher also added that, "The Jews have been in that area of the world since about 1200 B.C., way before the first Muslim or Arab walked the earth."

"I mean, Jerusalem was their capital. So if it's who got there first, it's not even close. The Jews were the ones who were occupied by everybody; the Romans took over at some point and then the Persians and the Byzantines and then the Ottomans. So yes, there was colonization going on there. Beginning in the 19th century, they started to return to Palestine, which was never an Arab country. There was never a country called Palestine that was a distinct Arab country."

According to Fox News, Maher then pointed out that under the proposed 1947 plan, the Arabs would have had a "good part of the country," calling the Arabs "the people who rejected the half a loaf and continue to attack."

"Hamas's charter says they just want to wipe out Israel. Their negotiation position is 'You all die.' The two-state solution has been on the table a number of times. There could be an Arab capital in East Jerusalem now if Yasser Arafat had accepted that in 2003. He did not.

"I mean, they have rejected this and went to war time and time again," he emphasized, "And, you know, as far as Gaza goes, it's amazing to me that the progressives think that they're being progressive by taking that side of it, the Bella Hadids of the world, these influencers.

"I just want to say in February of this year, a Hamas court ruled that a unmarried woman cannot travel in Gaza without the permission of a male guardian. Really? That's where the progressives are? Bella Hadid and her friends would run screaming to Tel Aviv if they had to live in Gaza for one day."

Maher also noted that neither Britain nor Holland had any claim to South Africa, while in Israel the situation is different, Fox News said.

"The Israelis, they have made mistakes, but it's an ‘apartheid’ state because they keep getting attacked! If they don't keep a tight lid on this s---, they get killed! That seems like something different!" he said.

 

Arutz Sheva Staff

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/307095

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European Parliament Freezes Ratification of China Investment Treaty - Soeren Kern

 

by Soeren Kern

By deepening their economic reliance on China — without coordinating their policy with fellow democracies — European nations are increasing their vulnerability to pressure from Beijing.

• The lopsided agreement, which ostensibly aims to level the economic and financial playing field by providing European companies with improved access to the Chinese market, actually allows China to continue to restrict investment opportunities for European companies in many strategic sectors. The deal also lacks meaningful enforcement mechanisms for issues that the EU claims to care about, such as climate change and human rights, including forced labor.

• "China has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to use its economic power as a strategic weapon. By deepening their economic reliance on China — without coordinating their policy with fellow democracies — European nations are increasing their vulnerability to pressure from Beijing. That is a remarkably shortsighted decision to make." — Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, January 4, 2021.

• China contends that its sanctions are tit for tat — morally equivalent retaliation — in response to those imposed by Western countries. In fact, the European sanctions are for crimes against humanity, whereas the Chinese sanctions seek to silence European critics of the Chinese Communist Party.

• "China cannot and will not be tamed. It will not adhere to the rule of law. It will not give up on its uncouth wolf warriors. It will not change its debt trap diplomacy. It will not end the weaponization of political systems, in this case the fault lines of democracies, to smother democracies. If it is counter sanctions today, it will be intellectual property theft tomorrow, and 5G data surveillance of free citizens next. Under Xi Jinping, China has become a hydra-headed monster." — Gautam Chikermane, Indian foreign affairs expert, Observer Research Foundation, May 21, 2021.

• "While halting the ratification of CAI is good, scrapping CAI altogether would be better." — Andreas Fulda, German China scholar, May 20, 2021.

The European Parliament has halted ratification of a controversial investment treaty with China until Beijing lifts sanctions on European lawmakers, academics and think tanks. Pictured: Berlaymont, the European Parliament building in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Jean-Christophe Guillaume/Getty Images)

The European Parliament has halted ratification of a controversial investment treaty with China until Beijing lifts sanctions on European lawmakers, academics and think tanks. The move, a rare display of fortitude by an institution notorious for vacillation, reflects a hardening stance in Europe toward the Chinese Communist Party.

The ratification freeze, backed by all of the major groupings in the European Parliament, is significant for several reasons: it represents a turning point in EU-China relations, in that Beijing no longer calls the shots; it marks a shift in the balance of power in favor of the European Parliament at the expense of the European Commission; and it signifies the beginning of the end of Merkelism, and ideology which has, among other things, consistently prioritized commercial interests over human rights concerns, whether in China, Russia or Iran.

The European Parliament on May 20 overwhelmingly passed a resolution to "freeze" ratification of the deal with 599 votes in favor, 30 against and 58 abstentions. A statement said:

"The resolution emphasizes that any consideration by the European Parliament of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) ... as well as any discussion on its mandatory ratification by MEPs, have 'justifiably been frozen' because of the Chinese sanctions.

"MEPs demand that China lift the sanctions before they consider the agreement.... They also remind the European Commission that MEPs will take the human rights situation in China, including in Hong Kong, into account when deciding whether to endorse the agreement or not....

"MEPs also call for re-balancing EU-China relations. They support a toolbox of autonomous measures such as legislation against distortive effects of foreign subsidies on the internal market, an import ban on forced labor goods as well as an enhanced and strengthened EU Foreign Investment Screening Regulation. The EU also needs to adequately address China's cybersecurity threats and hybrid attacks."

The CAI was concluded in great haste on December 30, 2020 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. Other EU countries were excluded from the negotiations. Merkel reportedly wanted an agreement at any cost before Germany's six-month EU presidency ended on December 31.

The lopsided agreement, which ostensibly aims to level the economic and financial playing field by providing European companies with improved access to the Chinese market, actually allows China to continue to restrict investment opportunities for European companies in many strategic sectors. The deal also lacks meaningful enforcement mechanisms for issues that the EU claims to care about, such as climate change and human rights, including forced labor.

On December 30, Von der Leyen proudly declared that the CAI will "uphold our interests" and "promote our core values." On January 6, only seven days later, Chinese launched a massive crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong.

Former Hong Kong Governor Lord Patten said the CAI makes a "mockery" of the EU's ambitions to be taken seriously as a global and economic player:

"It spits in the face of human rights and shows a delusional view of the Chinese Communist Party's trustworthiness on the international stage."

In commentary published by the Financial Times, columnist Gideon Rachman argued that the deal was "naive" and will increase China's leverage over Europe:

"Over the past year, China has crushed the freedom of Hong Kong, intensified oppression in Xinjiang, killed Indian troops, threatened Taiwan and sanctioned Australia. By signing a deal with China nonetheless, the EU has signaled that it doesn't care about all that....

"China has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to use its economic power as a strategic weapon. By deepening their economic reliance on China — without coordinating their policy with fellow democracies — European nations are increasing their vulnerability to pressure from Beijing. That is a remarkably shortsighted decision to make."

Sanctions and Countersanctions

The current standoff revolves around burgeoning evidence of massive human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, a remote autonomous region in northwestern China. Human rights experts say that at least one million Muslims are being detained in hundreds of internment camps, where they are subject to torture, mass rapes, forced labor and sterilizations.

In November 2018, Western countries including France, Germany and the United States called on China to close down detention camps in Xinjiang.

In October 2019, the Trump Administration imposed sanctions on Chinese individuals and entities accused of responsibility for abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. It imposed additional sanctions in May, June and July 2020. On January 19, 2021, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo determined that China, under the direction and control of the Chinese Communist Party, has committed genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.

In March 2021, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada, presumably under pressure from the United States, announced (here, here and here) that they too had imposed sanctions on Chinese officials accused of Uyghur-related human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

China responded by imposing sanctions (here, here and here) on more than two dozen European, British and Canadian lawmakers, academics and think tanks.

The sanctioned individuals, who are prohibited from entering China, include German lawmaker Reinhard Bütikofer, who chairs the European Parliament's delegation to China; four other Members of the European Parliament; Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament; four other Members of the British Parliament; Sjoerd Wiemer Sjoerdsma of the Dutch Parliament; Samuel Cogolati of the Belgian Parliament; Dovilė Šakalienė of the Lithuanian Parliament; Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the British Conservative Party; British scholar Joanne Nicola Smith Finley; German scholar Adrian Zenz; and Swedish scholar Björn Jerdén.

The individuals have publicly criticized the Chinese government for human rights abuses. Sjoerdsma, for instance, recently called for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022. Cogolati and Šakalienė have drafted genocide legislation, while Zenz has written extensively on the detention camps in Xinjiang.

China also sanctioned the EU's main foreign policy decision-making body, known as the Political and Security Committee; the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Human Rights; the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies; the UK-based China Research Group; the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission; and the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, a Danish think tank founded by former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

China contends that its sanctions are tit for tat — morally equivalent retaliation — in response to those imposed by Western countries. In fact, the European sanctions are for crimes against humanity, whereas the Chinese sanctions seek to silence European critics of the Chinese Communist Party.

In a March 22 statement, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said:

"The Chinese side urges the EU side to reflect on itself, face squarely the severity of its mistake and redress it. It must stop lecturing others on human rights and interfering in their internal affairs. It must end the hypocritical practice of double standards and stop going further down the wrong path. Otherwise, China will resolutely make further reactions."

In the days before the European Parliament voted on the CAI, Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly called German Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang phoned Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, in an unsuccessful effort to save the investment deal.

On May 20, Global Times, the daily tabloid newspaper owned by the Chinese Communist Party, responded to the decision to halt ratification of the CAI:

"The conditions imposed by the European Parliament for resuming ratification process are rough and arrogant. It demands that 'China lift the sanctions before Parliament can deal with the CAI.' These sanctions imposed by China are actually countermeasures against the EU's sanctions over Chinese officials and entities.

"There is no way China will lift those sanctions under pressure from the European Parliament. The European Parliament said in the motion that it 'calls on the [European] Commission to use the debate around the CAI as leverage to improve the protection of human rights' in China. Such an intent will be resisted and despised by China."

On May 21, China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that he hoped the EU "could do less emotional venting and more rational thinking, and make correct decisions in line with its own interests."

On May 25, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi launched a blistering attack against European sanctions: "Our European friends know what is genocide."

Reponses

The European Parliament's decision to freeze ratification of the CAI has been greeted with broad approval. Reinhard Bütikofer, the German MEP sanctioned by China and co-author of the resolution, said that Beijing's efforts to silence criticism of the Chinese Communist Party were "as ridiculous as they are arrogant, and they will fail." Using language from the Chinese playbook, he added: "With its sanctions, China has miscalculated. They should learn from their mistakes and rethink."

In an interview with Euronews, Bütikofer said that even if China lifts its sanctions, the CAI would have to be modified in order for it to be ratified:

"Basically, the resolution says this agreement is in the freezer, buried very deep in the freezer. And we demand that China lift its sanctions before the European Parliament could be willing to consider dealing with the matter.

"When you look at the substance of the deal, there are issues not really addressing the application of forced labor in China. The deal doesn't give a very strong conflict-resolution mechanism. If China fails to implement the provisions of the deal, the instruments that we have to force them to live by them, the letter that they have signed onto, are extremely weak.

"There are restrictions with regard to market access. This is neither providing a level playing field nor is really very beneficial to European industry, with a few exceptions maybe. And on the other hand, it allows the Chinese side to enjoy national treatment with regard to European media while European media are still excluded from the Chinese market completely."

Armin Laschet, a leading candidate to succeed Merkel as German chancellor in general elections in September, said that the CAI could not be ratified unless China lifted its sanctions: "If you want to be our partner, you have to show mutual respect. So, on that issue I would like to see movement on the Chinese side."

Portuguese MEP Pedro Marques said that China was guilty of an "attack against European democracy." He declared: "We will not tolerate it."

Adrian Zenz, the scholar sanctioned by China for unearthing human rights abuses in Xinjiang, tweeted that overwhelming support for freezing ratification of the CAI "is akin to a death sentence."

China expert Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian said:

"The Chinese government has bungled its relationship with the EU, just as it seemed that Beijing had successfully driven a wedge between a Trump-weary Europe and the Biden administration."

Indian foreign affairs expert Gautam Chikermane wrote that the EU needs to rethink its first principles "thrice over" and decide what it stands for:

"The announcement says the CAI or any other agreement with China will not move forward while the sanctions are in place. In a corollary, if China pulls back on sanctions, the EU will pull back its rejection. This is geopolitical naivete....

"China cannot and will not be tamed. It will not adhere to the rule of law. It will not give up on its uncouth wolf warriors. It will not change its debt trap diplomacy. It will not end the weaponization of political systems, in this case the fault lines of democracies, to smother democracies. If it is counter sanctions today, it will be intellectual property theft tomorrow, and 5G data surveillance of free citizens next. Under Xi Jinping, China has become a hydra-headed monster.

"Further, the gentle fine print the EU has placed is little more than good manners. Behind this fine print lie the dark lobbies of the EU's largest corporations. There is danger that the tail of EU capitalism will wag the dog of member states and sovereign democracies into submission....

"The values of liberty, equality and fraternity the EU has floated and disseminated across the world in the 20th century need to be expanded into the 21st century. Right now, these values, and through them the citizens of EU nations, are being ruthlessly smothered by Beijing.

"That the EU continues to imagine business as usual with such a country shows the internal contradictions of values, now sugar-coated by petty corporate interests."

Japanese analyst Katsuji Nakazawa, writing for Nikkei Asia, added:

"The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to freeze the ratification process of an investment pact with China — a deal that Beijing six months ago considered a big strategic victory.

"It has sent shock waves throughout China, with only one month and change before arguably the most important event in President Xi Jinping's era, the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party's establishment, on July 1.

"Some party members are worried that the centenary's festive mood will be dampened by the harsh diplomatic reality. Not only are China's relations with the U.S. bad, but now EU relations are stuck in a ditch....

"With Xi playing his cards to remain as China's top leader beyond the party's next quinquennial national Congress in the autumn of 2022, he is in no mood to admit to policy failure. Therefore, no major reversals are on the horizon."

Perhaps Andreas Fulda, a German scholar of China, said it best: "While halting the ratification of CAI is good, scrapping CAI altogether would be better."

• Follow Soeren Kern on Twitter and Facebook

  

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. 

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17420/eu-china-investment-treaty

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Lessons of the Gaza War - Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen

 

by Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen

[F]or all its operational superiority, it will have a hard time defending Israel within the 1967 borders, especially in the event of a multi-arena conflict.

Magen David Adom emergency teams at the scene of a Hamas rocket attack in Israel during Operation Guardian of the Walls, image by Magen David Adom via Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,059, May 31, 2021

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The IDF’s defensive achievements against Hamas in the most recent war were groundbreaking. Yet for all its operational superiority, it will have a hard time defending Israel within the 1967 borders, especially in the event of a multi-arena conflict.

During the recent war in Gaza, Israel was exposed for the first time to the strategy of Qassem Soleimani: encirclement in a ring of fire on all fronts, including the domestic one. This time the Gaza arena, which erupts into war from time to time, turned the al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem into a new focal point, thereby igniting nationwide riots by Israeli Arabs.

In his speech after the war, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said, “The campaign opened a door to new horizons.” Fortunately, these new horizons—and the full threat they represent—are yet to become a reality. Now that there is a ceasefire, Israel has the opportunity to assess them.

What was surprising in this war? In terms of operational preparedness, the IDF was ready to fight. At the same time, IDF intelligence admits there was a measure of surprise in the fact that Hamas initiated this round. The surprise lay in the new geopolitical framework, with Hamas centering the campaign on the issue of Jerusalem.

In the battles of the previous century, including the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, the launching of a war required a prior deployment by the enemy with the attendant warning signs of the enemy’s intent. When Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser decided in May 1967 to move his forces into Sinai, the entry to Sinai and the process of deploying the Egyptian forces provided Israel with a warning period. Likewise, in the lead-up to the Yom Kippur War, there were overt signs of preparation for war—though in that case, unfortunately, IDF intelligence chose to ignore them. Since that time, intelligence assessment has relied on close and systematic monitoring of telltale signs. It is here that Hamas’s potential to achieve surprise—and, even more so, Hezbollah’s—has brought about an essential change.

Unlike traditional military organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah employ a logic that limits preparation time for a campaign. Most of their rockets and missiles are already routinely deployed at their launching pads. The same is true for a considerable part of their forces, who are primarily locals. The Shuja’iya and Jebaliya battalions, for example, are manned by residents of those neighborhoods, from fighters all the way up to battalion commanders. This makes the transition from routine to emergency conditions very rapid and allows IDF intelligence only a brief warning.

Even under routine conditions, substantial parts of enemy combat forces are deployed at all times in a state of constant preparedness for action. The short time needed by the enemy to initiate hostilities, from the moment the leadership makes the decision to the operation itself, means surprise salvos of fire are always a possibility. This change challenges the basic assumptions of Ben-Gurion’s security concept, a cornerstone of which was dependence on a warning period.

The shortening of warning time requires Israel to revise its security concept. Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, in the new plan he formulated for the IDF’s operational approach, has indeed made changes to the traditional approach to defense. Also, under previous Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, resources were invested in upgrading defense, including the underground concrete wall around the Gaza Strip.

The IDF’s defensive achievements against Hamas in the latest round were ground-breaking and should by no means be taken lightly. Also of note were the Israeli navy’s achievements in thwarting every offensive move by Hamas’s navy, the air force’s achievements in shooting down Hamas drones—including an explosive drone that was directed at the Tamar gas rig, and defensive achievements at the Gaza border that blocked the infiltration of Hamas commando teams. Also laudable were the efforts to counteract rocket fire and the performance of the Iron Dome batteries, which can be added to the achievements in the defensive domain.

More broadly, the threat Hamas posed through the rocket firepower it directed at Israeli cities should set off warning bells about a possible Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. A Palestinian state on the 1967 borders will not be demilitarized and will have the capacity to become a far greater threat than the Gaza Strip. The magnitude of the self-production of weapons under Hamas and Islamic Jihad reveals the hollowness of the demilitarization delusion. Most of that self- production was carried out with civilian machinery and raw materials. There is no way to prevent a state from possessing computerized lathe machines, iron pipes, or phosphates. The fact that, at present, there is no rocket production in the Palestinian cities and refugee camps of the West Bank stems entirely from the monitoring and prevention made possible by the IDF forces and the presence of Israeli civilian communities deep inside the territory.

Central Command’s success during this round in containing popular terror activity and violence in the West Bank areas under its aegis demonstrates that the demand for a continued Israeli presence in those areas is justified, both tactically and generally. When one compares the resources and efforts required to secure Israel’s coastal plain, which are built around IDF activity in the West Bank and the support of the Israeli communities there, to what the defense establishment has to invest in the Gaza Strip, it becomes clear that the existing situation in the West Bank is more effective, economical, and suitable.

Those calling for further withdrawals, entailing the uprooting of communities and a retreat to the separation-fence line, base themselves on two premises:

• A withdrawal to the 1967 lines with minor adjustments will bring an end to the “occupation” and afford Israel international legitimacy and support for a military operation if its security is undermined by the Palestinian state.
• The IDF, with its perpetual superiority, can remove any security threat in a short time and at a reasonable price.

The magnitude of the threat facing Israel from Gaza, alongside hostile public opinion in Western countries (recall that Israeli proponents of the 2005 unilateral disengagement from Gaza promised that the international community would back any Israeli military response to terror attacks from the Strip, a result that never materialized), casts great doubt on the validity of those premises.

For that matter, President Biden’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself could not be taken for granted, and it is likely that a price will have to be paid for the US backing PM Netanyahu received for 10 days of warfare. The US administration, which is committed to promoting the two-state solution, was well aware that failing to support Israel while it was under a terror onslaught from Gaza would make it difficult to demand Israel’s agreement to a future West Bank withdrawal. Still, Israel was prevented by the administration from sustaining its offensive so as to bring Hamas to its knees.

The events of the past weeks, which showed the limitations of the IDF’s power in the event of a multi-arena war (including the domestic one), a prospect for which the potential is growing, indicate that additional withdrawals would pose an existential danger to Israel. With all the IDF’s operational superiority, if it has to fight in the northern arena as well, it will be unable to defend the narrow coastal strip from the pre-1967 border.

View PDF

This is an edited version of an article published in Israel Hayom on May 28, 2021.

 

Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for 42 years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges.

Source: https://besacenter.org/lessons-of-the-gaza-war/

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Rashida Tlaib’s Finance Director Says ‘No Room’ for Anti-Semitism, Then Posts Video of Anti-Semite - Joe Kaufman

 

by Joe Kaufman

The Jew hatred of Rasha Mubarak -- and the Democrats who ignore it.

 

Rasha Mubarak is an anti-Israel activist, who works hard at getting her bigoted views about Israel and Jews adopted by the Democratic Party. And while she has been shunned by part of the party – likely due to her extreme rhetoric and support for terrorists – in other parts she has been embraced. She has served as a national committeewoman for the party, and she is US Representative Rashida Tlaib’s Finance Director. This month, she made the fantastic claim on Twitter that anti-Semitism plays no role in her activism. That was right before she posted a video of rabid anti-Semite Kwame Ture. When will Democrats call out Mubarak’s bigotry and lies?

For years, Mubarak has been arguing that Israel has no right to self-defense. In November 2012, she tweeted, “#LiesImTiredOfHearing Israel has the right to defend herself.” In February 2013, she flippantly posted on Facebook that, when it comes to Israel, US diplomats mouth the words “‘right to defend itself’… when they snore.” And in May 2019, when Hamas launched more than 600 rockets into Israel leading to the deaths of four civilians, Mubarak tweeted against anyone who would dare defend Israeli retaliation, including former US Ambassador Nikki Haley, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and The Ellen Show producer Andy Lassner.

On numerous occasions, Mubarak has shown support for Palestinian terrorists. At the end of the 2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict, along with photos of a jubilant Hamas, Mubarak tweeted, “Thousands of people celebrating in the streets of Gaza for the victory. Alhamdulillah. #VictoryForGaza.” In June and July 2020, Mubarak posted memorials onto her social media for car-ramming terrorist Ahmed Erekat, who was shot and killed after attempting to run over a female Israeli border officer, at a checkpoint. And this past November, Mubarak promoted then-jailed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Maher al-Akhras with a message to free all like him.

Mubarak pushes the disingenuous notion that this – belittling Israel’s sovereignty and supporting Israel’s enemies – is all merely criticism of Israel and that it has nothing to do with Jew hatred. She did just this, when, on May 22nd, she wrote on Twitter and Facebook the following: “There has never been nor will there ever be room for antisemitism in our movement.” It was a total lie, as Mubarak, herself, has organized anti-Israel rallies featuring the worst of anti-Semitism, and she has personally derided Orthodox Jews, when they asked the Israeli government for beard-friendly gas masks for protection, mockingly commenting, “Seriously? No seriously! Ufff… Lol…”

And yet further perpetuating this lie, directly after Mubarak made the “anti-Semitism” statement, she retweeted a video of a speech given by fervent anti-Semite Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Carmichael). In the speech, Ture questions Israel’s legitimacy, saying that “Palestine didn’t belong to the British” to promise it to the Jews. Ture, in February 1990, was notorious for stating, “The only good Zionist is a dead Zionist” and “Zionism must be destroyed.” Ture has also made the outrageous claim that Israel’s European-born leaders were not Semitic (i.e. Jews), Ture labeling them, instead, with the dehumanizing term “Cossacoids.”

This was not the first time Mubarak promoted Ture on social media. She did so as well, this past July, when she retweeted a photo of Ture along with the quote from him, “In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.” The quote was a denunciation of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who Ture believed was wrong to have rejected violence in favor of peaceful protest. Ture, a former Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party, favored violent resistance.

Mubarak’s statement on anti-Semitism was in response to a similar message posted in social media by Nooran Alhamdan, an Islamist research fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI). Alhamdan is upset that singer Dua Lipa and models Gigi and Bella Hadid received criticism from a rabbi for singling out Israel for condemnation, while ignoring the deadly actions of Hamas. And both Alhamdan and Mubarak are distraught over the fact that actor Mark Ruffalo, a strong advocate for Palestinians, apologized for falsely claiming that Israel is committing “genocide,” Ruffalo admitting that the term “is being used to justify antisemitism.”

The reality is that both Alhamdan and Mubarak do exactly what Ruffalo apologized for; they use abhorrent rhetoric and exaggerated lies to foster and drive anti-Semitism. They, more so, refuse to condemn Palestinian terrorist groups, who are the real threat to Palestinian society, as these groups care little about life and focus only on murder and chaos using bombs, rockets and tunnels. The goal of Alhamdan, Mubarak and the terrorist groups is the same: destruction of the one-and-only Jewish state, ‘from the river to the sea.’ Their words distancing themselves from anti-Semitism are empty and solely an attempt to provide cover for their own bigotry.

Rasha Mubarak is a rising star in the Muslim community and a politically influential Democratic operative. This speaks volumes about the anti-Jewish ideology being propagated within her party. The Democrats who embrace Mubarak should understand that, when they do so, they as well stand in support of her hate-filled statements and activities. Shame on the Florida Young Democrats, who elected Mubarak to be their National Committeewoman; shame on Rashida Tlaib, whose re-election campaign paid $73,000 to Mubarak’s ‘Unbought Power’ for fundraising and consulting; and shame on anyone who encourages such hatred as Mubarak exemplifies.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.

 

Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative. He was the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Republican Nominee for U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/rashida-tlaibs-finance-dir-says-no-room-anti-joe-kaufman/

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