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2016

Palestinians: Have The Donors Finally Woken Up? by Khaled Abu Toameh

The striking teachers are exposing the Palestinian Authority (PA) as playing Western donors for suckers.

No one, in fact, knows how many Palestinians are on the Palestinian payroll.

Donors might not be aware, for instance, that they are paying over 50,000 employees from the Gaza Strip to not work. This has been the case since 20007, when Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip. In response, the PA ordered all its employees to boycott Hamas and promised to pay them full salaries for sitting at home.

The Palestinian committee has been tasked to avoid scandal and ensure that donors do not get to the bottom of the case.

Western donors want to see a list of the names of Palestinians who are on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the PA is not happy about it.

What is driving this demand? Thousands of Palestinian school teachers in the West Bank are striking for better conditions. The Palestinian leadership, in response, has ordered a security crackdown on the strikers.

To justify the crackdown, PA officials have claimed that the strike was organized by Hamas as part of a conspiracy to embarrass and undermine the regime of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Methodists Restarting BDS War Against Israel by Susan Warner

The United Methodist Church is following in the footsteps of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ and the United Church of Canada, who all passed resolutions boycotting and divesting from the State of Israel.

In a sort of blundering naiveté, the United Methodist Church is ignoring what is surely inevitable: the very divestment they ostensibly imagine will stop the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may actually serve to exacerbate it.

“Not all is lost. Many of the delegates to the General Conference come from Africa. They have witnessed jihad up close and personal and will likely have a much more sympathetic view of Israel’s predicament than many of the delegates who live in the relative safety of the United States.” — Dexter Van Zile, Christian media analyst.

“The BDS Movement has already fulfilled part of its potential – as a stalking horse for those seeking to destroy Israel by other means. … It’s committed not to peace but to a piecemeal elimination of Israel.” — Dr. Harold Brackman, Simon Wiesenthal Center.

On May 10, 2016, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) will gather at the Oregon Convention Center, hosting thousands of Methodist leaders, delegates and visitors.

This leading policy-making event meets once every four years to revise church law and adopt resolutions on current moral, social, public policy and economic issues. The conference also approves plans and budgets for church-wide programs.

Major Jewish Group Demands ABC Cancel ‘Quantico’ for ‘Vicious Defamation of Jews, Israel and the IDF’

A major Jewish group is gathering signatures for a petition against ABC to cancel the series Quantico, amid allegations of anti-Israel and antisemitic content.

The Zionist Organization of America has been protesting what it considers the “blatant, vicious defamation of Jews, Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), promoting ugly lies against the Jewish people and the Jewish state” on the TV thriller about a group of FBI recruits training to become special agents.

In a statement released on Friday, ZOA President Morton A. Klein and Director of Special Projects Liz Berney referred to a previous complaint they had lodged with ABC – on October 30 – and what they considered an “unhelpful letter” from the network, which “failed to address Quantico’s factual anti-Semitic errors.”

Since then, they wrote, rather than doing something to rectify the situation,

Quantico intensified its anti-Semitism and its vicious portrayals of the IDF as “war criminals” when in fact, the IDF is the world’s most moral army.

Quantico also escalated its practice of mocking and portraying Jews as sniveling, untrustworthy, duplicitous, disloyal, war criminals, violent, unable to see the “greater good,” people who “follow orders” that are wrong; terrorism-plotters and ugly bomb-makers. Quantico also makes absurd “Islamaphobia” claims; portrays Muslims as moral and beautiful; glorifies a Muslim Imam who defies the FBI; and glorifies Arab terrorists and Palestinian-Arab “resistance” (a euphemism for Palestinian-Arab attacks on Jews).

61 million immigrants in US, 15.7 million of them illegals By Rick Moran

A study done by the Center for Immigration Studies has determined that there are 61 million immigrants in the U.S., with 15.7 million of them here illegally.

In 1970, there were 13.5 million immigrants in the country – 6.6% of the U.S. population. The 61 million immigrants in the U.S. today constitute an astonishing 18.9% of the population.

Washington Examiner:

“These numbers raise profound questions that are seldom even asked: What number of immigrants can be assimilated? What is the absorption capacity of our schools, health care system, infrastructure, and labor market? What is the effect on the environment and quality of life from significantly increasing the nation’s population density?” wrote Steven Camarota, the Center’s director of Research.

“With 45 million legal immigrants and their young children already here, does it make sense to continue admitting more than one million new legal permanent immigrants every year?” he added.

His report found that the normal pattern of immigration to the United States changed after 1970. At that time, there were 13.5 million immigrants, or about one in 15 U.S. residents.

But since 2000, the number of immigrants has increased 18.4 million, and now nearly one of every five U.S. residents are immigrants.

“The number of immigrants and their young children grew six times faster than the nation’s total population from 1970 to 2015 — 353 percent vs. 59 percent,” he added.

Camarota dug deep into Census Current Population Survey and other data to determine his estimate of 15.7 million illegals in the United States.

“Our best estimate is that in 2015 there were 5.1 million children with at least one illegal immigrant parent. Taken together, the best available evidence indicates that there were a total of 15.7 million illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children in the adjusted December 2015 CPS, accounting for 25.7 percent of the 61 million immigrants and their children in the country,” he said.

Yet Another Hottest Year on Record? By Norman Rogers

The people selling global warming have been at it for more than 20 years. For the last 18 years, on good authority, the Earth hasn’t warmed. It doesn’t seem to matter. The promoters of global warming are defending their turf, economic and ideological. They dismiss or deny the lack of warming, making up science as they go.

President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, put his finger on part of the problem. When science is funded by the government, it becomes less scientific and more political. Around 1970, scientists as incorruptible seekers of truth gave way to scientists as political bosses collecting grants from the government. Scientific organizations, such as the National Academies of Science, vigorously defend the financial interest of the science establishment while posing as high-minded seekers of truth. For an insider’s view, read Professor Lindzen’s essay on the corruption of climate science.

It is not practicable to power the country with windmills and solar energy. But the manufacturers of these things eagerly support global warming alarmism. A substantial part of the corn crop is wasted by mandating the production of ethanol, for global warming reasons. The ethanol industry draws political support from the corn belt.

In California, politically powerful eco-romantics are putting thousands of people out of work and bankrupting farmers in order to dump millions of acre-feet of water into the ocean for the benefit of a fish.

The romantic eco-left consists of upper-middle-class people who can’t put two and two together when it comes to economics or science. They just assume that water will come out of their faucets and electricity out of their outlets. These people love global warming because it provides a story that allows them to pursue their bizarre, anti-modern goals under the guise of saving the world.

Since science is no longer scientific, but political, global warming belief breaks down along political lines. The Democrats believe, and the Republicans are skeptical. Neither party pays much attention to the scientific facts. The facts can be hard to ascertain amid the barrage of propaganda. The president’s science adviser, John Holdren, is not a scientist, but a longtime operator in the business of promoting eco-scares. His job is to rally support from allies of the Democratic Party that work the eco-scare sector.

Peter Smith Vulgar, Crass, Despised … and Winning

Only time will tell if Donald Trump takes the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, but the fact that he is ahead of the pack surely tells us something: of all the Oval Office hopefuls, he is the only one game enough to address the issues blue-collar Americans rate as most important.
Mitt Romney didn’t mix it with Barrack Obama in 2012. He didn’t have the fortitude to skewer to him on the Benghazi attack and murder of a US ambassador mere weeks before Americans went to the polls. It was an electoral gift to the challenger, courtesy of a dead diplomat and three other slain Americans left to die without help and commemorated with a pack of lies about an irrelevant video. Yet Romney let Obama off the hook.

Where was the Commander in Chief throughout the night and early morning, when those who he had sworn to lead were fighting for their lives and when he was the only one with the authority to order in nearby airpower. Bizarrely, we still don’t know. We can conjecture. He was likely asleep, preparing for a fund-raising event while the killings went on.

What we know with certainty, no conjecture required, is that Romney was too polite (too craven?) to ask tough questions. He was unequivocally a weak reed when it counted and consequently lost an election that was eminently winnable.

The election lost and more than three disastrous years later, a strong candidate, unafraid to ask tough questions, is leading the Republican race. Hello! Here comes Mitt back from oblivion; spineless then, full of spite and spittle now. Apparently he’s afraid his grandchildren will ask him ‘What did you do, grandpa, to stop Trump?’ A more pertinent question to ask of him is what he did to stop Obama. And why he effectively threw in the towel?

It comes to this. The Republican establishment can’t stand someone outside of the political class gaining power. That is why Romney and some other elites have said that they will not vote for Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee. There is them, the political class, right or left. And then there are the outsiders. Part of the outsiders is the great unwashed, otherwise called blue-collar workers. I will come back to them.

White House Working on Renewed Mideast Peace Push The U.S. is discussing plans to revive Middle East talks before Obama leaves office, including possible Security Council resolution, senior U.S. officials say By Carol E. Lee and Rory Jones

LAME DUCK EFFORT TO WEAKEN ISRAEL RSK
The White House is working on plans for reviving long-stalled Middle East negotiations before President Barack Obama leaves office, including a possible United Nations Security Council resolution that would outline steps toward a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians, according to senior U.S. officials.

The internal discussions are aimed at offering a blueprint for future Israeli-Palestinian talks in a bid to advance a critical foreign-policy initiative that has made little progress during Mr. Obama’s two terms in the White House, the officials said.

The strongest element on the list of options under consideration would be U.S. support for a Security Council resolution calling on both sides to compromise on key issues, something Israel had opposed and Washington has repeatedly vetoed in the past.

Other initiatives could include a presidential speech and a joint statement from the Middle East Quartet, an international group comprising the U.S., the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

A senior administration official said no final decisions have been made and that Mr. Obama is considering a range of possibilities. The timing of any new White House move hasn’t been determined, but officials said it would be later this year.

The White House offered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a meeting with Mr. Obama later this month, but Mr. Netanyahu declined, administration officials said Monday.

By wading into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the final months of his presidency, Mr. Obama would be following a path some of his predecessors have taken. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both pushed for an agreement late in their second terms, but neither was able to bridge longtime divisions between the two sides. CONTINUE AT SITE

The subversion of American Evangelicals :Caroline Glick

The largest Evangelical communities remain solidly supportive of Israel, and their size dwarfs that of the rising forces of replacement theology and its concomitant hatred of Israel.

Monday the Bethlehem Bible College, an Evangelical Christian college in Jesus’s hometown, opened its fourth biennial Christ at the Checkpoint conference. The conference, which is directed specifically toward US Evangelicals, will run through the week.

Today, Evangelical communities in the US number anywhere between 60 and 150 million people, depending on who is counting. They form the backbone of American support for the Jewish state. It is the support of the Evangelical community, rather than the Jewish community in the US that ensures that come hell or high water, no matter how Israel is demonized in the media and in academia, the majority of Americans continue to support Israel.

But will this support last? One of the more surprising aspects of the 2016 elections is Evangelical support for businessman Donald Trump. Trump in many ways personifies everything that people who take the Bible seriously are supposed to oppose. He owns casinos. He curses and uses profanity in his public appearances. He has donated to Planned Parenthood and forcefully supported abortions on demand.

Trump has also insisted repeatedly that he will be neutral toward Israel.

Notable & Quotable: Restore Western Civ at Stanford- Students seek a vote on requiring two quarters of study.

From the Stanford Review editorial board’s “The Case for a Western Civilization Requirement at Stanford,” Feb. 21:

National debates erupted over Stanford’s decision to remove Western Culture requirements during the 1980s. We believe the University must reignite a national debate and reinstate a Western Civilization requirement. Therefore, the Stanford Review is petitioning to place an initiative on the undergraduate spring ballot urging the Faculty Senate to instate a two-quarter Western Civilization requirement, replacing Thinking Matters. The initiative text reads:
“In accordance with Stanford’s commitment to educating its students, and in recognition of the unique role Western culture has had in shaping our political, economic, and social institutions, Stanford University should mandate that freshmen complete a two-quarter Western Civilization requirement covering the politics, history, philosophy, and culture of the Western world.” . . .

Western civilization, more so than any other, unleashes disruptive technology on the world; and Western history brims with examples of technological revolutions and their effects on warfare, politics, culture, economics, and poverty. Technologists and policymakers working on driverless cars, for example, would surely benefit from knowledge of how transportation innovations impacted urbanization patterns, employment, and culture.

But these future business and government leaders will not have this insight. 59% of Stanford’s Class of 2019 intends to major in engineering. These students will not know the history that society needs them to grasp. Stanford must equip these students with the knowledge necessary to attain “direct usefulness in life,” as our Founding Grant requires.

BRET STEPHENS: THE RETURN OF THE 1930s

Donald Trump’s demagoguery may be a foretaste of what’s to come.

In temperament, he was “bombastic, inconsistent, shallow and vainglorious.” On political questions, “he made up his own reality as he went along.” Physically, the qualities that stood out were “the scowling forehead, the rolling eyes, the pouting mouth.” His “compulsive exhibitionism was part of his cult of machismo.” He spoke “in short, strident sentences.” Journalists mocked his “absurd attitudinizing.”

Remind you of someone?

The description of Benito Mussolini comes from English historian Piers Brendon’s definitive history of the 1930s, “The Dark Valley.” So does this mean that Donald Trump is the second coming of Il Duce, or that yesteryear’s Fascists are today’s Trumpkins? Not exactly. But that doesn’t mean we should be indifferent to the parallels with the last dark age of Western politics.

Among the parallels: The growing belief that democracy is rigged. That charisma matters more than ideas. That strength trumps principles. That coarseness is refreshing, authentic.

Also, that immigrants are plundering the economy. That the world’s agonies are someone else’s problem. That free trade is a game of winners and losers—in which we are the invariable losers. That the rest of the world plays us for suckers. That our current leaders are not who they say they are, or where they say they are from. That they are conspiring against us.

These are perennial attitudes in any democracy, but usually marginal ones. They gained strength in the 1920s and ’30s because the old liberal order had been shattered—first at Gallipoli, Verdun and Caporetto; then with the Bolshevik coup in Russia, hyperinflation in Germany, Black Tuesday in the United States. “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow/Out of this stony rubbish?” wondered T.S. Eliot in “The Waste Land,” in 1922. Mussolini’s Blackshirts marched on Rome the same year. CONTINUE AT SITE