The Justice Department is widely reported to have offered criminal immunity to Bryan Pagliano, the techie who set up Hillary Clinton’s private email operation. Now that he has that get-out-of-jeopardy-free card, Mr. Pagliano also ought to be able to tell Congress and the public what he knows.
Last year Mr. Pagliano exercised his Fifth Amendment right not to testify about his role in maintaining a private email system for Mrs. Clinton when she was Secretary of State. But as GOP Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley wrote in a letter to him last week, “there is no longer reasonable cause for you to believe that discussing these matters with the relevant oversight committees could result in your prosecution.” They want Mr. Pagliano to appear before the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees. (Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Wednesday refused to say if Justice had offered Mr. Pagliano immunity, but that’s her standard operating procedure.) CONTINUE AT SITE
When it comes to diplomatic conflict between Turkey and Israel or Turkish anti-Semitism, there is always an unusual optimism in the official language chosen by Israeli officials or Jewish community leaders. Facts on the ground are a little bit different than the rosy picture.
If Turkish Jews are “safe and secure” in Turkey, why do they feel compelled to protect their schools and synagogues with heavy security? Why do most synagogues in Istanbul look almost like a U.S. embassy in Baghdad or Islamabad?
Anti-Semitism in Turkey reached such intensity that even anti-Semitic Islamists were not immune to anti-Semitic smear campaigns.
The 74th anniversary of an embarrassing tragedy took place in Turkey on February 24, 2016.
The MV Struma was a small iron-hulled ship built in 1867 as a steam-powered schooner, but was later re-engined with an unreliable second-hand diesel engine. In 1941, it was tasked with safely transporting an estimated 781 Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to Britain’s Mandatory Palestine. Between its departure from Constanta on the Black Sea on Dec. 12, 1941 and arrival in Istanbul on Dec. 15, the vessel’s engine failed several times. On Feb. 23, 1942 with her engine still not running but the refugees aboard, Turkish authorities towed the Struma from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea. On the morning of Feb. 24, the Soviet submarine Shch-213 torpedoed the Struma, killing all but one of the refugees and 10 crew aboard.
The Iranian distribution of cash to families of terrorists is an open incitement to an ongoing campaign of murder. It should by now have not only been condemned by the whole world, but have caused a colossal rethink among the P5+1 nations that signed the ill-judged accord with Iran.
It is worth considering another recent Iranian development: the decision — allegedly by a conglomeration of media outlets, but hardly able to be separated from the government in a country whose press is more “government” than “free” — to increase the cash-bounty on the head of the British novelist Salman Rushdie.
The British government has been strangely mute on the matter. The “normalised” relations with Iran were meant to lead to business opportunities for Britain and an increase in decent behavior from Tehran. Instead, the first major test of Iranian-British relations in several decades turns out to be precisely the same test that the late Ayatollah Khomeini drew up in 1989.
Last year, when America, Britain and four other countries (the P5+1) signed their joint plan of action with Iran there was no shortage of people who warned of the consequences. They warned that the deal would merely delay rather than prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed power. They warned of the increased grip the mullahs would have on the country they purport to govern. And in particular, those not caught up in the P5+1 jubilation warned of what Iran would do with the tens of billions of dollars’ cash bonanza it would receive once the deal was done. Would Iran use this windfall solely to improve the lives of its people? Or might it spend at least a portion of this cash doing what it has been doing for nearly four decades: that is, spreading terror?
There have already been some signs that the ill-judged deal is embedding Iran’s worst behaviour rather than elevating the regime to any higher behavioral level.
In recent days we have learned that Iran is already planning to use its windfall to encourage Palestinian terror against the State of Israel. Speaking at the end of last month, the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon used a press conference with a number of Palestinian factions to announce a new bounty-scheme to be sponsored by Iran. This scheme promises to reward financially those who carry out terror against Israel. The reward includes — according to the Iranian ambassador — a payment of $7,000 to the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists who die in the process of attacking any Israeli. And it also includes a promised payment of $30,000 to any terrorists’ families whose homes are destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces. The demolition of the home of a terrorist’s family house is one of the only disincentives that Israel or any other country could think of to dissuade people intent on suicide attacks. Now the Iranian government is trying to re-incentivise anyone who might wish to commit such an attack.
The West’s feather-footed leaders tread softly when extolling “moderate” Muslims as the purported antidote to the creed’s literalist firebrands and militant extremists. What they lack the courage to acknowledge is that the Qur’an is itself the fountainhead of radicalism.
One would need to be the infamous Blind Freddy not to recognise that the West is on a hiding to nothing as it struggles to contend with its Islamic imbroglio. There are many reasons for this but I suggest the most dangerous are found in the many common and comforting consensuses that have arisen over the Religion of Peace, as some would have it. These are no more than convenient delusions.
Perhaps the most dangerous consensus is the misconception that Islamic State (ISIS), the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist variants are the problem to be addressed and that, with sufficient firepower, the obvious manifestations of these elements can be contained or eliminated. In fact these groups are simply elements of a much larger issue: the re-emergence of a militant and resurgent Islam.
History shows that the drive for a worldwide Islamic caliphate is as old as the Qur’an itself, and in the 1,400 years since the Muslims’ sacred text appeared, the religion’s fortunes in achieving that goal have waxed and waned. Today we see a revitalization of this dream, but this time there are significant, profound differences. First, younger Islamic leaders are practicing Islam as explicitly prescribed in the Qur’an, and it is important to note that a high proportion of Muslims in Western nations are under 25 years of age. Second, over the past century Islam has moved from being Middle Eastern-centric, with but a meager demographic representation in traditional secular democracies, to having sizeable Muslim populations in those countries. Third, events in the Middle East, together with Islamist-sanctioned terrorist events across the globe, have given encouragement to those who share the hope of a worldwide caliphate. Fourth, modern technology and better management among Islamic leaders is being used to orchestrate a more coherent Islamic narrative, one that is backed by contemporary firepower.
In Roger Cohen’s article on “Anti-Semitism From the Left” (NY 3/8/16), he issues the following imprimatur: “The oppression of Palestinians should trouble every Jewish conscience.” How sad that he didn’t issue these more relevant thoughts: The deliberate murder of innocent Jewish civilians, including pregnant women and children, should plague the conscience of every Palestinian instead of being the source of perverted celebrations and rewards. Muslim imams commanding their faithful to kill Jews everywhere with anything within their reach – knives, can openers or cars – should be condemned world-wide as brutal murderers, no different from Charles Manson who instigated a massacre without soiling his own hands. The collateral damage of killing American tourists can not be tolerated by our own government whose passport is meant to be protective of its citizens. American aid to Palestinians will be withheld until these policies of random stabbings and killings are forbidden by the Muslim clergy, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
Cohen prefers to believe that Palestinian violence is unrelated to the Islamic Jihad taking place all over Europe, Asia, Africa and the U.S. Instead, he wants to convince us that West Bank Arabs are “dehumanized through Israeli dominion, settlement expansion and violence.” Conveniently, he fails to acknowledge that the Israeli company Soda Stream, employer of 600 West Bank Palestinians earning the same wages as their Israeli co-workers, along with health and other benefits – was forced to shut down because of the BDS boycott. He never mentions that the profitable nurseries left intact for Palestinians in Gaza when Israel withdrew its own population – were destroyed by Hamas, depriving Arabs of ready-made jobs in an area plagued by unemployment. No statement about how the billions of dollars given by the U.S. and Europe to aid Palestinians have been re-directed for military purposes or have lined the pockets of corrupt leaders without making a dent in the welfare of their own people.
On August 30, 1987 the Israeli government by a vote of 12-11 decided to cancel the Lavi fighter aircraft project. The Lavi was the best fighter aircraft in the world at the time, the result of the work of thousands of engineers, scientists, and technicians at Israel Aircraft Industries and at many other plants around the country, a source of pride for most Israelis. Two proto-types were already in flight test when the decision was taken. Who shot down the Lavi, the crowning achievement of Israeli technology? John Golan’s book “Lavi, the United States and Israel, and a controversial fighter jet” provides the answer in illuminating detail.
The Lavi followed IAI’s successful production of the Mirage aircraft (renamed the Nesher) after France embargoed aircraft shipments to Israel on the eve of the Six-Day War, and the production of the Kfir fighter, an improvement of the Mirage, that was engineered at IAI. It was designed to specifications determined by the Israeli Air Force that were based on the experience that had been gained by its pilots in the Yom Kippur War, and was meant to give Israel a degree of independence in the acquisition of fighter aircraft..
The program really took off after the support of the US government and the US Congress had been obtained. This support included the allocation of $250 million of annual US aid money for engineering development in Israel, plus $300 million for Lavi development in the US. Even more important was the permission that was granted for the use of American technologies in the aircraft and the participation of American companies in the project. The result was that the Lavi was in effect a joint Israeli-US project. With the explicit support of President Reagan and a large majority of the US Congress, the program seemed assured of success. The degree of US-Israel technological cooperation on defense system development reached at the time has not been equaled since.
But, as related by Golan, there was one man, US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who was determined to kill the program. Golan describes how Weinberger mounted a “rogue offensive to kill a program that had been given the president’s stamp of approval”, by charging Dov Zackheim, a middle-level financial analyst at the Pentagon, with the mission of terminating the Lavi. From that point the plot thickens.
Last week, the State Department coordinator on Iran, Stephen Mull, acknowledged that the Obama Administration has failed to monitor the transfer of Iranian uranium shipments to Russia. Mr. Mull was unable to tell the House Foreign Affairs Committee just exactly where 25,000 pounds of Iranian enriched uranium had gone.
This is only the latest development facilitating Iran’s march to nuclear weapons since the announcement of the Vienna nuclear deal between America, the West, and Iran last June. Such developments were predictable because the Vienna agreement was so comprehensively defective.
Why? Because President Obama discarded one requirement after another in order to obtain a deal.
Thus, the agreement permits Iran to retain all the components of its nuclear weapons program — uranium enrichment, thousands of centrifuges, its Arakplutonium facility, its Fordow underground nuclear facility — while shredding the international sanctions regime on Tehran, and infusing its economy with hundreds of billions of dollars in unfrozen assets and sanctions relief.
Unsurprisingly, since the agreement’s conclusion, Iran has announced a 32% increase in military spending. And that’s not all. With the deal’s massive financial windfall in the offing, Iran has significantly increased its financial support for the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Previously, support for both had dropped due to pressure on the Iranian economy. Now, cash in suitcases are coming to Hamas’ military leadership in Gaza, fueling prospects of a renewed outbreak of war with Israel.
Iranian money has also enabled Hezbollah to obtain highly developed armaments previously beyond its means, and to dispatch thousands of its fighters to Syria to bolster the Assad regime in its battle with Sunni jihadists. As Syria analyst Avi Isacharoff notes, “Today, Iran is the main, and likely only, power attempting to build terror cells to fight Israel on the Syrian Golan Heights, in areas under Assad’s control.”
Visiting Israel at the wise and weathered age of 95, America’s 1980s secretary of state reaches into history to issue a call for decisive, clearheaded and credible leadership
In 1962, George Shultz, an ex-US Marine and Princeton- and MIT-educated economics high-flyer, was appointed dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where he was a professor of industrial relations. Periodically, he’d hold a reception for the outstanding students who’d made the dean’s list. Every time, one of those outstanding students was a young Israeli named Joseph Levy.
Looking back over more than 50 years, Shultz — who would go on to serve in the Nixon administration as Labor and Treasury secretary, and most memorably as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state — still remembers Joseph Levy. And still mourns him.
Speaking to The Times of Israel on a visit to Israel last week, Shultz, a gracious, wise and weathered 95, recalls that all the kids on those dean’s lists were smart. But “there was something special” about Joseph Levy. “If you’ve been in the education business, you’ve seen this in some students right away,” says Shultz. “I could see this man was going to be a great leader. He’d got all the special attributes.”
But Levy did not go on to that anticipated greatness. As Shultz tells it, “Before I even realized that the Six Day War was on, he was dead. He came back to Israel and was killed in action.”
Levy was one of the members of the Jerusalem Brigade who died battling the Jordanians around Government House in Armon Hanatziv, southern Jerusalem, on June 5, 1967. Says the secretary, “My introduction to Israel was through Joseph Levy.” Now Shultz breaks into staccato sentences, keeping his emotions checked. “High talent. Tremendous patriotism. Tough neighborhood.”
Shultz was making this current visit to Israel as honorary chair of the Israel Democracy Institute’s International Advisory Council for four days of meetings, plus a dinner addressed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and devoted to grappling with the challenges faced by Israel’s democracy. But the IDI also reconnected him with Joseph Levy. The star Israeli graduate student had a wife and a son when he was killed, and the IDI tracked them down.
“We had a nice meeting. And then we went to the battlefield where he was killed. And there is on the hill above the battlefield a beautiful big monument … commemorating what he did.”
Again, the staccato sentences: “The monument has a great view. That’s where the field of battle was. That’s where he was killed. That was a long time ago. It initiated me to Israel.”
We all marvel, understandably, at Shimon Peres’s longevity, his indefatigability, his facility to keep moving with the times, to find the aphorism for every nuanced political shift, at 92 years of age. Shultz, three years Peres’s senior, comes across more as a rock of unshifting fundamentals — looking out on a dangerous world and lamenting, most of all, the absence of clearheaded, decisive leadership.
We talked in his room at the King David Hotel, at the tail end of his visit to a country he plainly much admires and cares for. He sat calmly, almost immobile, for our conversation, spoke in carefully formulated sentences, cherry-picking from more than two centuries of American diplomacy to make his points. But at the heart of the Shultz’s recipe for guiding the world, unsurprisingly, stood Ronald Reagan, whom he served as chief US diplomat for most of the 1980s.
Want to marginalize evil, and empower good? Take a page or three, says Shultz, from the Ronald Reagan playbook.
I am a graduate of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York with a degree in Communications Arts and Sciences. I considered several possible careers when I graduated, including journalism. Journalists are supposed to be “fact finders.”
As things turned out, I was given the opportunity to become a federal agent and found that this job would satisfy many of my professional goals and also bears similarity to the job of a journalist in that special agents are investigators and fact finders.
The difference between a federal agent and a journalist is that the goal for the journalist, who gathers facts and evidence, is to write a story to inform, educate and sometimes drive change. An agent also gathers facts and evidence, but the goal is possibly an indictment and an arrest warrant that leads to the conviction of a criminal and/or dismantles a criminal organization.
National security and public safety may hang in the balance where efforts of federal agents are concerned. Where journalists are concerned, the results may be no less significant. A democracy requires a well-informed electorate. Indeed, the Founding Fathers understood the extreme importance of journalism, and, consequently, the only profession specifically protected by the Bill of Rights is that of the journalists as duly noted in the First Amendment.
John Adams eloquently and irrefutably noted, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) continues to face the challenge of trying to meet a growing number of increasingly complex demands with too little funding. For example, the department has seen record growth in veteran health care needs — in some large hospitals a 20 percent increase in patient needs — while facing a nearly $3 billion budget shortfall.
As an economist, I look at the most efficient way to use scarce resources. In my work on health care policy, I specifically look at health care in terms of costs, efficiencies and patient outcomes. To meet this challenge, the VA must find areas where it can increase efficiencies without lowering the quality of patient care. To put it another way, how can it better use the resources and tools that it already has? One area that stands out is how the VA is utilizing — or underutilizing, as the case may be — Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN), such as certified nurse practitioners and nurse anesthetists.
APRNs are registered nurses educated at master’s or post-master’s levels and trained in specific practice areas. Although APRN education is standardized, their licensing standards are set state by state, and thus, their ability to practice to the full extent of their training varies by state. When a resource — human or otherwise — isn’t being used to its full value there is inefficiency in the system. We all know enough to recognize that inefficiencies increase costs, and in the case of the VA, the inefficiencies have also increased veterans’ wait times, among other things.
Over the last year, the VA has been conducting an exhaustive review of the rules and regulations that set forth the practice guidelines for all VA nurses. Included are proposed changes that would allow all APRNs to practice to the full extent of their education and training. Congress is also looking at this: Both H.R. 1247 and S. 2279 would permit APRNs to practice in VA facilities to the full extent of their education and training.
