RUTHFULLY YOURS

Israel deployed ground forces in Gaza Thursday night both because Hamas’s terror tunnels into Israel have become an unacceptable threat, and because it had to break the deadlock that had developed between it and Hamas.

Until the ground invasion, Israel and Hamas were in a holding pattern. Hamas would not accept a ceasefire deal because Egypt’s offers provided the Iranian sponsored, Muslim Brotherhood terror army with no discernible achievements. And absent such achievements, Hamas prefers to keep fighting. Israel for its part is unwilling to make any concessions to Hamas in exchange for its cessation of its criminal terror war that targets innocent civilians in Israel as a matter of course. As Hamas sees things, it has three ways of winning.

First, if Israel had agreed to ceasefire terms that left Hamas better off than it was when it started its newest round of indiscriminate missile attacks against Israeli civilian targets, then it could have declared victory.

Hamas’s terms for a ceasefire included, among other things, an open border with Egypt, egress to the sea, open access to the border zone with Israel, an airport, a sea port, and the release of terrorists from Israeli prisons. Obviously, if Israel agreed to even a few of these terms, its agreement would have constituted a strategic victory for Hamas.

The second way for Hamas to win is if it able to accuse Israel of killing a large number of Palestinians at one time In that case, Hamas can expect for the US to join with the EU and the UN in forcing Israel to accept ceasefire terms that require it to make significant concessions to the Palestinians in Gaza as well as in Judea and Samaria.

This is what happened in Hezbollah’s war with Israel in 2006. During the fighting, Hezbollah alleged that Israel killed a great number of Lebanese civilians in Kfar Kana. Those allegations caused then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to effectively end US support for Israel’s war effort. Rice quickly coerced Israel into accepting ceasefire terms that paved the way for Hezbollah’s takeover of the Lebanese government.

If Hamas is able to create a similar situation in Gaza, it will likely achieve the same sort of strategic victory over Israel.

Yesterday, the conflict between Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government may have escalated to its most dangerous level to date. A Malaysia Airlines passenger jet carrying 295 people was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over Ukraine, approximately 35 miles from the Russian border. All 280 passengers and 15 crew members on board were killed, and burning wreckage and bodies were scattered over a 10-mile radius near the town of Shakhtars’k. Responsibility for the downing has yet to be determined, but separatist groups who have reportedly blocked Ukrainian officials from the scene claim the plane’s flight data recorder has been sent to Moscow.

The Ukrainian government claims Russia was behind the atrocity. “According to the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces, the airplane was shot down by the Russian Buk missile system as the liner was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters,” said a statement from the Foreign Ministry in Kiev. “Ukraine has no long-range air defense missile systems in this area. The plane was shot down, because the Russian air defense systems was affording protection to Russian mercenaries and terrorists in this area. Ukraine will present the evidence of Russian military involvement into the Boeing crash.”

Defense Minister Valery Heletey and National Security and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko reminded the world that this was not an isolated incident. On Monday, Heletey alerted Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that a AN-26 military transport plane had been shot down in the Luhansk region during an anti-terrorist operation. Heletey insisted that the plane’s altitude of 6.5 kilometers put it above the threshold of a man-portable air defense system, meaning “the plane was struck by another, more powerful missile that was probably launched from Russian territory.” Lysenko insisted that Russia was also to blame for a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter plane shot down Wednesday. “A military aircraft of the Russian Armed Forces launched a missile strike against an SU-25 aircraft of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which was performing tasks on Ukrainian territory,” he said.

Those assessments cannot be confirmed. Furthermore, it is being reported a social media site attributed to Ukrainian rebel commander Igor Strelkov that took credit for downing the AN-26 on June 14, killing 49 government soldiers, also claimed to have downed an additional “army transporter” yesterday—at the location where the Malaysia airliner crashed. An earlier post removed from the same site claimed they had seized the Russian-made Buk missile system from the Ukrainian army. The Buk is capable of downing an airline at the altitude at which the Malaysian airliner was flying. The deleted post had also noted that separatist fighters “had warned (the Ukrainian armed forces) not to fly in ‘our sky.’ And here is a video confirming that a ‘bird fell,’” it stated.

American intelligence confirmed that a surface-to-air missile was fired at the plane, but remained divided over its source of origin. Another separatist leader, Alexander Borodai, told Russia’s state-run Rossiya 24 TV that the plane was “truly shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force,’’ but offered no proof in that regard. He was aware of the reports about fellow rebels seizing the Buk missile, but noted that even if they did, no one was capable of operating it.

The Hamas-Israel war is a test of Israel’s power-projection and posture of deterrence, which directly impacts the national security of Jordan and other pro-US Arab countries. They rely on Israel’s posture of deterrence in their own battle against rogue Islamic regimes.

In addition, the Hamas-Israel war highlights the limited impact of the Palestinian issue – both the PLO and Hamas – on Middle East developments and intra-Arab relations. The war underlines the gap between the Western perception of the Palestinian issue, on the one hand, and the Egyptian and overall Arab perception on the other hand.

Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Egyptian President Sisi and all other Arab leaders do not consider the Palestinian issue a top priority, a strategic added-value, a core cause of Middle East turbulence or the crux of their conflict with Israel. In contrast to US policy – as executed by President Obama since his June 2009 speech in Cairo, when he elevated the Muslim Brotherhood to unprecedented heights and dumped President Mubarak – Sisi outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the “parent company” of Hamas, branded it a terror organization and sentenced its leaders to death.

The Arab World has not flexed political, financial or military muscles on behalf of the Palestinian Hamas during the current war, nor did they during the recent intensive Israeli military crackdown on Palestinian terrorism in areas controlled by Mahmoud Abbas (in the aftermath of the murder of three Israeli teens). This low Arab regard toward the Palestinian issue was, similarly, displayed in reaction to Israel’s wars against Hamas terrorism in 2009 and 2012; Israel’s 2000-2004 comprehensive war on Palestinian Authority terrorism (2nd Intifada); Israel’s 1987-1991 military suppression of PLO terrorism (1st Intifada); and Israel’s 1982-83 hot pursuit of PLO terrorists in Lebanon, all the way to Arafat’s and Abbas’ expulsion from Beirut.

Recently, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have extended a $20bn emergency financial assistance to Egypt; in 2006-7, the Saudis supported Lebanon with a $2.5bn package; during 1980-1988, Riyadh provided $1bn annually to the Muslim rebels in Afghanistan, compared to $100MN annually to the PLO; but, the Saudi financial aid to the Palestinian Authority has been limited to a total of $1bn-$1.5bn since 1994, reflecting the Saudi mistrust of Mahmoud Abbas and Arafat. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States do not forget and do not forgive Mahmoud Abbas’ participation in Saddam Hussein’s August, 1990 plunder of Kuwait, which provided home to some 300,000 of Abbas’ Palestinian relatives, friends and supporters. They are aware of Abbas’ track record of subversion and terrorism since the 1950s in Egypt, 1966 in Syria, 1970 in Jordan, 1970-1982 in Lebanon and 1990 in Kuwait.

Muslim attacks on Jews spiraling across Europe go virtually unreported by mainstream Western media; everyone, therefore, misses big story: the tsunami of anti-Jewish hatred rolling across Europe.

anti israel paris
ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS display Palestinian flags at the Place de la Bastille in Paris. Photo: DAVID YAEL
The violence against the Jews of France, which has escalated as feelings have boiled over against the war in Gaza, is shocking and terrifying.

A mob of mainly Muslim demonstrators in Paris, reportedly armed with knives, axes and iron bars and chanting “Death to the Jews,” tried on Sunday to storm the Don Isaac Abarvanel Synagogue within which nearly 200 congregants were praying for the safety of Israel.

The attackers were kept at bay by members of Jewish defense organizations. A French Jewish journalist said: “Thank God they were there, because the protesters had murder on their minds and it took awhile before police reinforcements arrived.”

The previous day, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into a synagogue at Aulnay-sous-Bois, a Parisian suburb. At Asnieres, another suburb, the police said a Muslim mob of 300 gathered in front of the synagogue and shouted anti-Israel slogans. A firebomb was hurled at a synagogue in Belleville. A Middle Eastern man shot pepper spray at the face of a 17-year-old Jewish girl on a Paris street shouting: “Dirty Jewess, inshallah you will die.”

Muslim attacks on French Jews long predate the current hostilities in Gaza. Earlier this year, a 59-year-old Jew was beaten up on a Paris street by three North African men who screamed “Dirty Jew’ and scrawled a swastika on his chest.

In 2006, Ilan Halimi, a young Parisian Jew, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. In 2012, a radicalized Muslim murdered a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

Muslim attacks on Jews are spiraling across Europe. In May, four Jews were killed in an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels; the suspect, another radicalized French Muslim, was said by the Belgian state prosecutor to have confessed to the attack “against Jews.” In Sweden, Jews have been driven out of the city of Malmo by Muslim attacks, harassment and intimidation.

All this goes virtually unreported by mainstream Western media. Street protests are routinely described as “anti-Israel.”

“Dear Colleagues,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., wrote to his fellow senators, “I write to inform you of a development that threatens the foundation of our constitutional Republic.”

That should grab them. It grabbed me.

Sessions continued, quoting from a National Journal report on a recent White House meeting where President Obama “made it clear he would press his executive powers to the limit” in order to prevent millions of illegal aliens from being deported. Obama could spare “between 5 million to 6 million adult illegal immigrants (from) deportation under a similar form of deferred adjudication he ordered for the so-called Dreamers in June 2012.”

Obama, the report continued, “has now ordered the Homeland Security and Justice departments to find executive authorities that could enlarge that non-prosecutorial umbrella by a factor of 10. Senior officials also tell (The National Journal) Obama wants to see what he can do with executive power to provide temporary legal status to undocumented adults.”

Unless my multiplication skills fail me, such a “non-prosecutorial umbrella” potentially covers a staggering 50 to 60 million persons in flagrant violation of U.S. immigration law.

“This is breathtaking,” Sessions wrote. “The action the president is reportedly contemplating would be a nullification of the Immigration and Nationality Act by the executive branch of government. Indeed, it would be an executive nullification of our borders as an enforceable national boundary. By declaring whole classes of illegal immigrants beyond the reach of the law, it would remove the moral authority needed to enforce any immigration law, creating the very open-borders policy explicitly rejected by Congress and the people. And it would guarantee that the current illegal immigration disaster would only further worsen and destabilize.”

It’s worth lingering over the senator’s sober language to absorb its explosive meaning. As Sen. Session tells it – and he tells it like it is – this president is pushing the “executive nullification of our borders as an enforceable national boundary.”

How can this be happening?

The simplest reason is the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives continue to fund the federal bureaucracy that is the mechanism of border nullification. This bureaucracy revolves around the trillion-dollar-per-year Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the Administration of Children and Families (ACF), the Office of Refugee Resettlement and other non-democratically empowered enforcers of fundamental demographic change. You like your community? Well, you can’t keep your community – not if the Washington social engineers whose salaries you pay successfully settle blocs of aliens in Yourtown, USA – “temporarily.”

This is a postscript to my previous post, which shows a feral mob of Israel-haters marching through the streets of what is not termed without reason “Londonistan” (and to which I’ve just added extra, newly issued, footage).

‘As they passed by with their disgusting chants I said ‘Why are the Palestinians firing rockets at my daughter in Tel Aviv?’ At that point they cried out “get her” and several of them left the march and came on to the pavement. They surrounded me, pushing and yelling Jew/Zionist/murderer/thief. One of them stole my phone, but a steward who witnessed what happened was able to recover it 5 minutes later. I was shaking and my neck now hurts. It was awful for me – how is this possible in Oxford Street in 2014?.

That’s what happened to a diminutive, fifty-something Jewish lady named Charlotte, in a city in which Jews have lived (following the expulsion of 1290) openly since the Cromwellian Interregnum and the subsequent reign of Charles II, integrating with their fellow citizens and contributing their full part to the wider society. It is a part which might astonish even Jews themselves, so large and diverse it has been.

The ugly incident relating to Charlotte is publicised by her friend, blogger Edgar Davidson, who remarks, beneath the photo I reproduce above that comes from his site:

“Don’t be a Jew in London. Note the antisemites’ banners are prepared by the Socialist Party”

and goes on to point out:

‘The police have now allowed 4 violent anti-Israel demonstrations in central London in the last 2 weeks and another massive one is planned for Saturday… That one is being led by the “Stop the War Campaign” – ironic given that it is the Palestinians today who decided that they did not want to stop the war under any conditions after Israel agreed to a ceasefire. Also ironic given that the “Stop the War Campaign” (which was originally set up to oppose the war in Iraq) has not managed to hold a single demonstration against the war in Syria (200,000 dead in 3 years), the current one in Iraq (100,000 dead in the last 6 months) or the myriad of other conflicts around the world where Islamists are murdering people every day in the name of their religion.’

On Thursday night, after 10 days of aerial warfare between Hamas terrorists and Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved a ground incursion into Gaza. It was a move that much of the public, many members of the political echelon and the thousands of reservists who had been called up eight days earlier, felt was long overdue.

This sense of urgency was not merely due to the incessant mortar, rocket, missile and drone strikes that have been sending Israelis across the country into bomb shelters and safe rooms for the last week and a half, often several times a day. More importantly, it was the result of well more than a decade of rocket fire on southern Israel, and two “operations” in Gaza — Cast Lead in 2008-2009 and Pillar of Defense in 2012 — that ended with international condemnation of Israel for the “disproportionate use of force” and a reinvigorated Hamas, left alone with multi-millions of euros and dollars, as well as Iranian backing, to rebuild its arsenal and infrastructure.

The sequence of events that culminated in the current war foretold its inevitability; so much so, in fact, that even the media was going easy on Netanyahu. Ironically, this had a demoralizing effect on those of us who deemed a ground invasion necessary. We skeptics assumed that, once again, the government was going to agree to a brokered, one-sided cease-fire without destroying Hamas’ military capabilities.

After all, we knew for certain that the Israel Defense Forces would never be commanded to carpet bomb Gaza from the air. We pride ourselves on the morality of our army, which takes every precaution to prevent the death of civilians, going so far as to warn them to evacuate areas we are targeting, and aborting airstrikes when civilians are spotted in those areas.

Because of this, when rumors that the infantry was given the order to enter Gaza were confirmed, I was among many Israelis who heaved a huge sigh of relief. I even apologized to Netanyahu under my breath and on Facebook for having doubted the skillful manner in which he was handling Operation Protective Edge.

I simultaneously began to panic.

Have you heard the saying “working twice as hard to be half as good?”

This is precisely the dilemma Israel finds itself in all too often. Currently Israel is again embroiled in an unwanted battle of self-defense against Hamas, an enemy obsessed with its destruction.

It seems a distant memory that in an effort to appease the demands being made upon it by world leaders, Israel made a gut-wrenching decision in 2005 to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip, after a 38-year presence.

Communities were left intact, which included useful structures such as greenhouses. Yet as if to drill their hatred into the hearts of Israelis, the Palestinian’s destroyed virtually every structure once Israel vacated Gaza.

Thus Israel’s olive branch for peace backfired. Bad went to worse in 2006 when the Palestinians democratically voted the terrorist group Hamas into power. Subsequent to this, Hamas consolidated their control by violently purging Fatah from representation in the government.

Since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal, Hamas has been actively expressing its appreciation by launching no less than 9-10,000 rockets [not including the current conflict] intended to kill civilians at Israeli cities and towns. This is an average of 1,100 each year.

Should any country have to put up with this?

In 2008 Israel decided it had tolerated enough of its civilians being under attack. In late December it launched Operation Cast Lead and went after the terrorists.

Prior to the offensive, thousands of phone calls were made to various agencies and individuals inside Gaza informing them of the impending operation. Helicopters dropped millions of leaflets, and announcements were made on TV inside Gaza. All of this was done specifically to reduce civilian casualties. What military in human history has made such an effort to reduce civilian casualties?

However, as if to ensure there would be civilian casualties, Hamas placed their rocket launching infrastructure in schools, hospitals, mosques and apartment buildings. Their strategy worked. Despite unprecedented efforts to avoid civilian deaths, Israel took resounding criticism from the media and world leaders. They were accused of using “disproportionate force” in Gaza.

Where were the voices speaking out when Israeli civilians were under relentless rocket attacks? Israel’s right to defend itself against blatant terrorism was largely ignored by the international community.

“Politics is not about the pursuit of power as an end in itself. Those who seek power for the sake of power will always fail. Politics is about seeking power though democratic means in order to take power away from the elites, whether bureaucratic or corporate, and return power to the people.”

Polite applause is the convention in Canberra when a newly minted parliamentarian rises to speak for the first time. Truth be told, good manners are essential at those moments because most maiden speeches are nothing special. Queensland Senator James McGrath (left), who delivered his maiden speech on July 16, is the exception. Below, the text of that address — republished in full because, while some of his allegedly conservative colleagues shrink from repealing Section 18C or live in fear that a wind-power lobbyist might speak ill of them, it is good to know that at least one member of the political class remains wedded to the belief that principle must always trump politics:

Freedom and liberty, 100 years ago this month, were under threat as the gods of war awoke. Armies of empires stretching back before the Middle Ages were slowly moving to Armageddon—a world war with deaths of millions, the end of four royal houses and the beginning of wicked new orders of communist and fascist cruelty. This war ended realms of geography but brought in dominions of political terror imprisoning generations under dictatorship, ending hope, freedom and liberty for many until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, the war that began in 1914 with the invasion of Belgium was the second ‘Hundred Years War’, the war against tyranny, continuing from the Armistice, pausing in 1989, and resuming in 2001 in New York.

The ‘Hundred Years War against Tyranny’ continues today on three fronts: first of all Islamist fundamentalism intent on caliphates destroying Western civilisation, especially religious freedom; secondly, democratic governments restricting freedom of speech and association, betraying hundreds of years of liberty; and, finally, leftists delegitimising all views other than their own, especially in media and education.

Freedom and liberty are not abstract concepts. You either have freedom or you are not free. Whether I serve here for 16 days or 16 years, I shall always judge myself on how I have battled against tyranny and fought for the axis of enlightenment—that is, liberty of the individual, a free market, small government and low taxes. I will let others badge and brand and box me, as, in my great broad church that is the Liberal Party, my pew is a moveable feast. I have campaigned against dictator-loving Islamist fundamentalists in the Maldives; Sinn Fein- and PLO-supporting Labour candidates in London; and godless rebranded communists in Mongolia—not to mention the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party!

My life has not been about the pursuit or gain of power but to confiscate power back from government to free people. My story is not special or unique. I come from the great blancmange that is the Australian middle class. Families are modest and shy. They are joiners and doers, workers and strivers, not shirkers. Our homes are not big and flash, and cars often second-hand. The biggest investment is never super, bricks or shares, but education. My mob are farmers, saddlers, soldiers, gardeners, small business owners, nurses, teachers, doctors and, shamefully, the odd lawyer. One side is stridently Labor and unionist, the other cheerfully Liberal National and Tory.

The first McGrath was a convict, rightly punished by a sensible judge and sent down to Australia. Family folklore has it was for stealing a sheep. On my mother’s side are the Schneiders and Doughertys. The first to arrive was German, illegitimate, with barely a word of English. He moved to western Queensland in the 1870s. His son, my great-grandfather, patented the Schneider saddle, and his store stood on George Street in Brisbane until the 1970s. Schneiders would become guests of the emperor, caught in the fall of Singapore, on the way to fight the Nazis.

Like many, my journey started young. I worked on my first Liberal campaign in the 1989 Queensland state election. I started the Capitalist Club at Toowoomba State High School a year later. When 17, continuing my quest to become the most popular kid at school, I led the campaign to save the school principal when the new Queensland Labor government engaged in some restructuring. Our school community was the only one to actively campaign for their principal’s retention. Our school community was the only one whose principal was eventually made redundant. I learned early on that you can be right in life but still lose in politics.

What happens if global temperatures actually decline — a possibility that must be considered, given the lack of solar activity and the mercury’s refusal to rise as the warmists’ atrociously inaccurate predictions insisted? The short answer: big trouble for Beijing and everyone else

After World War Two, Japanese living in other parts of Asia were repatriated to their homeland and the country’s population jumped from 72 million to 78 million, straining resources during the post-war reconstruction. Japan enthusiastically adopted family planning as a result and a population crisis was averted. The country’s population kept growing though, to a peak of 128 million in 2011. Later this century it might shrink to 70 million which is the level the country can support from its own agriculture. In the meantime, the Japanese Government tries to keep the jobless rate low with make-work schemes that mostly involve concreting the countryside, with 6% of GDP currently devoted to that task.

Across the East China Sea, China’s population kept rising fast through the 1950s, up to Great Leap Forward, which killed 30 million to 45 million. To head off the population increase, the one-child policy was first suggested by Professor Ma Yinchu, President of Peking University, in 1957. Mao didn’t like the idea because he thought that history belonged to “the big battalions”. Professor Ma was dismissed from public office and not rehabilitated until 1979. Despite the one-child policy then enacted, China’s population grew from 975 million in 1979 to the current 1,364 billion. Sheer demographic momentum is expected to take it to a peak 100 million higher around 2030.

China is one of the few countries taking food security seriously. Official policy is that the grain necessary to keep China’s population fed should be grown within its borders. Beijing maintains a grain reserve of 200 million to 300 million tonnes, although its exact size is a state secret. Though meat is considered to be an indulgence, a strategic reserve of frozen pork and live animals is maintained. China’s economic expansion of the last 15 years has allowed a big expansion in pork production, based on imported soybeans. As this graph shows, the Middle Kingdom has turned into a giant vacuum cleaner for the world’s soybeans:

SOYBEAN CHART

China now imports a third of world soybean production. Processed through pigs, these imports provide 20% of the nation’s minimum protein requirement. China has taken other steps to improve its food security, including leasing 5% of the Ukraine. Efforts at securing food production in Africa and South America have been less successful due to culture clashes with the locals.