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May 2017

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Thursday’s Elections in Britain: A Storm Is Coming on the Chiltern Hills The Tories reclaim much of their former support in the patriotic working class. By John O’Sullivan

By on May 7th, 2017

Thursday’s local elections in Britain look somewhat less dramatic than people were expecting in the light of national opinion polls showing Theresa May’s Tories literally twice as popular as the Labour Opposition. The BBC summary was : Tories gain eleven councils and 563 seats; Labour lose seven councils and 382 seats; and UKIP retains just one seat nationally.

That looks pretty good for the Tories, very bad for Labour; disappointing for the Liberal Democrats; and terminally bad for UKIP.

For various reasons, however — mainly low turnout — this overall picture is misleading. Though chickens shouldn’t be counted before being hatched, the Tory prospects for June’s general election are even better than they look terrific, which is terrific; Labour’s, very bad but short of terminal; the Lib-Dems’, purgatorial; and UKIP’s, terminal but with an escape clause. Unless all the pundits are wildly wrong — not an impossibility, as we know, but not likely either — the Tories will win a landslide with a three-figure parliamentary majority over all opposition parties. They are on course to be the natural governing party of Britain for the next three elections and two decades.

That’s a massive turnaround from the results of the 2010 election, when the Tories fell short of a majority, and the 2015 election, when they had a small and vulnerable majority. What happened in the meanwhile?

The answer, of course, is Brexit.

According to all the wise men (and wise women too, of course), what Brexit was supposed to do was to divide the Tory party at all levels and render it incapable of government. What Brexit actually did was to repair a deep and bitter gulf on “Europe” that had divided the Tories at all levels since the Macmillan and Heath governments committed their party to Europeanism. And within a few months of the June referendum, the Tories had both reunited with surprising ease around a clear Brexit agenda and leapt from levels of support in the high 30s to stable figures of 44 to 48 per cent in polls. Large seismic shifts in the UK’s traditional voting blocs are therefore following.

To grasp why and how that’s happening, we should first consider the nature of the Tory party.

Toryism has three overlapping identities. It is the party of economic freedom and enterprise — Mrs. Thatcher is the purest symbol of that identity. It is the party of British nationalism — Churchill and Disraeli are the greatest figures in that tradition. Its third strand, however, is a more complicated one: It’s the party that always seeks to interpret, defend, and advance the interests of the British state in a skeptical and non-partisan way — Lord Salisbury and Sir Robert Peel are the most distinguished exemplars of that view.

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EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Universities competing in race to the bottom By Carol Brown

By on May 7th, 2017

There’s stiff competition among our bastions of higher education. The race to the bottom is fast and furious. Toward that end, the University of California at Berkeley recently honored student Juan Prieto with an award for outstanding service to “undocumented” students. Juan then sent out the following tweet: “Let’s celebrate 5 de Mayo by going to Dolores Park and beating the shit out of white people, in the spirit of La Batalla de Puebla.”

But don’t worry. Juan didn’t mean it. It’s just Twitter and he often posts “dumb s*** on Twitter all the time.”

Oh, ok. I see.

Meanwhile, Florida Memorial University, a historially black college that produces a large number of teachers, announced it will be awarding a posthumous degree in Aeronautical Science to Trayvon Martin.

Also in the past few days, Emory University will cover tuition for all their students that are in the country illegally, while Mira Costa College in southern California will be offering scholarships to students who say they are “transgender.”

As I said, the race to the bottom is fast and furious. Which institution will move the bar to the lowest point imaginable remains to be seen. But, again, don’t worry. It’s only the future of America that’s at stake. Viva President Preito!

Hat tips: The Geller Report, The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Wire, The College Fix

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The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower by Yaakov Katz & Amir Bohbot Reviewed by David Isaac

By on May 7th, 2017

In 1948, as Israel was heading into its first war, an IDF general sent a letter to David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s new prime minister, politely declining his offer to become chief of staff because he had learned the Jewish State only had six million bullets. “We will need 1 million bullets a day in a war and I am not willing to be chief of staff for just six days,” he wrote.

The Weapon Wizards, an engaging look at Israel’s weapons industry, is replete with such anecdotes. (Another that’s hard to resist is how Jewish forces in Jerusalem held off Arab rioters with one gun and 11 bullets. Afterward, the commander criticized the “gratuitous use of ammo.”) Such stories drive home how little Israel had militarily in its early years. Israel’s humble beginnings make it even more remarkable that it has become a military power. The goal of the authors, Israeli journalists Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot, is to explain how that transformation came about. As they write, 60 years ago Israel’s biggest exports were oranges and false teeth. Today, weapons make up 10 percent of Israel’s exports.

Like Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, Katz and Bohbot identify national characteristics that have led to a “culture of innovation.” Leading the list is a creativity born of necessity. “With barely any resources beyond the human capital that had immigrated to the new state, Israelis had to make the most of the little they had,” the authors write. Israel has even created a subunit of autistic soldiers to analyze satellite pictures.

The Weapon Wizards is at its best showing these characteristics in action, from amusing episodes to in-depth stories focusing on the development of certain weapons systems. For instance, when illustrating the advantages of the IDF’s flexible hierarchy, the authors describe a visit by the U.S. Air Force’s F-16 program director. During a tour of IDF squadrons, one of the participants started lecturing his commander on everything that was wrong with the plane. The U.S. representative, a lieutenant general, asked the person to identify himself. He was shocked to learn the critic was a lowly mechanic. In America, the authors write, it’s unheard of to talk out of turn and argue with your commander, especially in front of a foreign officer. “In Israel, though, no one thinks in those terms. What the mechanic was doing was exactly what he had been trained to do and what he thought was expected of him—to speak his mind,” the authors write.

In a similar vein, Israel nurtures its best and brightest. A fascinating example of this characteristic is a program called Talpiot. Created in 1979, it pulls together some of Israel’s most promising young people, who sign on for nine years of service in return for degrees in fields like physics, math, and computer science. Thousands apply each year; only 30 are accepted. Talpiot graduates, called Talpions, are seeded throughout the army where they have an impact far beyond their numbers. In 40 years, the program has produced roughly 1,000 graduates, but a single one can revolutionize a unit, the authors say. Although the program met resistance early on, within a few years generals were demanding to know: “Where is my Talpion?” The prime minister was forced to hold a special meeting to resolve the issue.

Although Katz and Bohbot don’t come right out and say it, it’s evident that for all the encouragement of innovation, there remains resistance within the military one would expect from any large establishment. Talpiot had to overcome naysayers before it was embraced, and so did many of the programs the authors discuss, from satellites to the Iron Dome. This suggests the IDF fosters innovation only after a fight. What appears to distinguish the IDF from other militaries is that innovative individuals don’t quit. They also have an admirably dismissive attitude toward army regulations. The premier example is Brigadier General Danny Gold, who developed the Iron Dome.

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IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Refugee admissions up 160% in April under Trump By Ed Straker

By on May 7th, 2017

Before he left office, President Obama set a goal of accepting 110,000 refugees in the 2017 fiscal year (beginning Oct. 1st 2016), even though he was only president for four months of that fiscal year. Once Donald Trump became president, he set a revised limit of 50,000 for the 2017 fiscal year. However, a federal judge struck down the 50,000 limit.

As a result, Trump is admitting larger numbers of refugees.

The U.S. accepted 2,070 refugees in March, the lowest monthly total since 2013, according to State Department data. April ended with 3,316 refugees admitted….

That’s 160% higher than March.

Now here’s the tricky part:

While a federal judge has struck down Trump’s 50,000 limit, that does not mean that Trump is required to admit more than 50,000 refugees. He just can’t explicitly set a limit of 50,000. He could actually select fewer than 50,000, as long as he did not order a formal limit. No federal judge in the world can order President Trump to specifically select refugees to admit to America.

“As we have said repeatedly, Trump’s refugee admissions are not at the mercy of two rogue judges,” said longtime refugee watchdog Ann Corcoran in her blog post Thursday at Refugee Resettlement Watch. “He can bring in any number under the CEILING set either by Obama (110,000) or his reduced ceiling (50,000).”

So why is Trump admitting a larger number of refugees when he doesn’t have to? When he campaigned for the presidency, Trump promised to deport all Syrian refugees in America; now he is admitting more than ever, even taking in ones bound for Australia.

Trump supporters say we should be happy that Trump is admitting fewer refugees than Hillary would. But why not hold Trump to a higher standard–to his own promises? He can stop admitting any more refugees right now, not admit a single new one, and no federal judge can order him otherwise.

I guess we can file this away with other security promises that will never be fulfilled, like the wall that will be paid for by Mexico (or a wall at all), and the termination of the illegal “DREAMer” program. I just wonder, when a radical Islamic Syrian refugee that Trump admits into the country kills someone, who will Trump supporters blame? A federal judge? Paul Ryan? The Deep State? The Freedom Caucus? Ted Cruz’s father?

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Honoring a Hero Who Defied the Nazis By Elise Cooper

By on May 7th, 2017

May 4-5 was Holocaust Remembrance Day, also known as Yom HaShoah. The day honors the victims of the Holocaust, and marked the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The overwhelming theme on this day is recalling the victims of this catastrophe, and insuring that such a tragedy never happens again.

President Trump said in a speech observing this day, “We know that in the end good will triumphs over evil and that as long as we refuse to close our eyes or to silence our voices, we know that justice will ultimately prevail. We will never, ever be silent in the face of evil again. It only takes one light to illuminate even the darkest space, just like it takes only truth to crush a thousand lies and one hero to change the course of history.”

A recent novel is based on the factual story of one hero who did change the course of history, fighting against the tyranny of the Nazis. Although Beneath A Scarlet Sky is a work of fiction, based upon true facts, it will make readers think about how many other extraordinary stories of heroism are untold and in the shadows, especially since this generation is dying out? Mark Sullivan chronicles the life of Pino Lella, a seventeen-year-old boy who grew into a man during the last years of World War II. Sullivan told American Thinker “I wrote it as a novel because some minor details could not be verified, but the overall heroism of Pino is true, including his survival of an avalanche while helping Jews escape. I contacted the daughter of the Nazi General who brutally used slave labors as well as his spiritual advisor. Regarding Pino, he is still living today and I was able to verify that he did indeed work as a spy and save Jewish refuges. I did the research and verification over the course of ten years and lived in Italy spending three weeks with Pino and finding other witnesses to what he told me. His name was given to a researcher by the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Center, Yad Vashem.”

This inspiring story is a lesson on courage. Americans today should read it to realize that their current difficulties are nothing compared to what those suffered through the Nazi regime. Sullivan tells Lella’s story, showing man’s inhumanity to man in Italy, the forgotten front, where the Nazi war machine made the citizenship suffer and struggle.

The book begins in the summer of 1943, as the allies started bombing Milan. As in England, Italian families sent their children to the countryside to save them from possible death. But Pino was not content to lead a normal teenage life; instead, deciding to join the underground railroad of the Catholic Church and the Italian resistance to save Jewish lives. Unfortunately, despite heroic efforts nearly 20% of the Italian Jewish population was killed in the Holocaust. Readers will learn how the German SS found a list of Jews, rounded them up, put them on trains, and transported them to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Many others were machine gunned down or thrown into the lake, forced to freeze to death.

Yet, throughout the last years of World War II Pino risked his own life to save Jews. A very compelling scene tells how he led Jewish refugees across the dangerously snowy Alps to the Swiss border, having endured an avalanche that almost buried him and his rescues alive. Many of those trying to escape the grips of the Nazis did not have the physical strength; yet some how found the perseverance. Pino made the demanding climb up the mountain near Casa Alpina, many times with the refugees on his back, as he skied them to safety in icy weather.

The author noted, “I read accounts of what the Nazis actually did and confirmed a lot of what Pino told me. We cannot forget they had a long-range vision of genocide and atrocities, including hanging young boys’ head on barbed wire posts. I actually did the climb he did and made a video. After getting to the top, you cannot believe what these people went through to escape. It was a very dangerous and unforgiving setting.”

In addition to helping Jews escape, he also became a spy while the driver for General Hans Leyer, a commander in the Nazi engineering and construction group, Organization Todt. Pino’s parents, who insisted he sign up with Todt to avoid being conscripted by the Germans to fight on the Russian front, put him in this situation.

Unfortunately, very little is known about the general, until Pino came forward, because Leyer destroyed many of the documents.

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Venezuela is Starving By Juan Forero

By on May 7th, 2017

Once Latin America’s richest country, Venezuela can no longer feed its people, hobbled by the nationalization of farms as well as price and currency controls.

ARE, Venezuela— Jean Pierre Planchart, a year old, has the drawn face of an old man and a cry that is little more than a whimper. His ribs show through his skin. He weighs just 11 pounds.

His mother, Maria Planchart, tried to feed him what she could find combing through the trash—scraps of chicken or potato. She finally took him to a hospital in Caracas, where she prays a rice-milk concoction keeps her son alive.

“I watched him sleep and sleep, getting weaker, all the time losing weight,” said Ms. Planchart, 34 years old. “I never thought I’d see Venezuela like this.”

Her country was once Latin America’s richest, producing food for export. Venezuela now can’t grow enough to feed its own people in an economy hobbled by the nationalization of private farms, and price and currency controls.

Maria Planchart has had to go through trash to find food for her one-year-old son, Jean Pierre. She is among a growing number of Venezuelans suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Photo: Miguel Gutiérrez for The Wall Street Journal

Venezuela has the world’s highest inflation—estimated by the International Monetary Fund to reach 720% this year—making it nearly impossible for families to make ends meet. Since 2013, the economy has shrunk 27%, according to local investment bank Torino Capital; imports of food have plunged 70%.

Hordes of people, many with children in tow, rummage through garbage, an uncommon sight a year ago. People in the countryside pick farms clean at night, stealing everything from fruits hanging on trees to pumpkins on the ground, adding to the misery of farmers hurt by shortages of seed and fertilizer. Looters target food stores. Families padlock their refrigerators.

Three in four Venezuelans said they had lost weight last year, an average of 19 pounds, according to the National Poll of Living Conditions, an annual study by social scientists. People here, in a mix of rage and humor, call it the Maduro diet after President Nicolás Maduro.

For more than a month, Venezuelans have protested against the increasingly authoritarian government of Mr. Maduro; by Friday, more than 35 people had been reported killed in the unrest. The country’s Food Ministry, the president’s office, the Communications Ministry and the Foreign Ministry didn’t return calls or emails requesting comment for this article.

“Here, for the government, there are no malnourished children,” said Livia Machado, a physician and child malnutrition expert. “The reality is this is an epidemic, and everyone should be paying attention to this.”

Dr. Machado and her team of doctors are seeing a dramatic increase in emaciated infants brought to the Domingo Luciani Hospital in Caracas, where they work.

The problem is no better in towns like Yare, south of Caracas, where the government’s leftist movement was long popular. “To eat,” said Sergio Jesus Sorjas, 11 years old, “I sometimes go to the butcher and I say, ‘Sir, do you have any bones you can give me?’ ”

The boy receives nutritional formula or a traditional Venezuelan corncake from the parish priest. Sergio said he hasn’t tasted meat in months: “Sometimes, I don’t eat at all.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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Hamas Names New Leader Ismail Haniyeh replaces longtime leader Khaled Mashaal By Rory Jones and Abu Bakr Bashir

By on May 7th, 2017

Hamas on Saturday named Ismail Haniyeh as head of the Islamist movement’s political arm, a long-expected leadership change that puts the Palestinian at the helm of the group that controls Gaza Strip but is facing increasing isolation from its regional supporters.

The Islamist movement said Mr. Haniyeh, 54, will replace Khaled Meshaal, who steps down after a decade in power and just days after he issued a revised set of principles that softened the group’s stance against Israel.

Hamas dropped a longstanding call for Israel’s destruction and accepted the notion of a Palestinian state based on Israeli borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The group, however, said it would continue not to recognize Israel’s right to exist and would eventually seek to control all of historic Palestine, making up Israeli territory, the West Bank and Gaza.

The changes in its principles, dismissed by Israel as cosmetic, appeared aimed at appeasing Arab states that have increasingly isolated the group in recent years. Hamas also renounced its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group considered a terrorist organization by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Hamas’ diplomatic isolation comes as West Bank-based Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to squeeze the group financially to force it to allow his administration back into Gaza. Mr. Abbas has cut salaries to Gazan-based Authority employees and said it won’t pay for the strip’s electricity, supplied by Israel. CONTINUE AT SITE

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AMAZING ISRAEL- 69 YEARS YOUNG BY MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on May 7th, 2017

69 Years Young http://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/2017/04/69-years-young.html

Despite its phenomenal success, the Modern Jewish State is still in its relative infancy. Its prospects depend largely on whether the next generation of Israelis can emulate and build upon the achievements of its predecessors. Based on what our youngsters have accomplished during the last 12 months, however, the future is very bright.

Israeli high school students regularly win International awards. This year, two Israelis won medals at the annual International Chemistry Olympiad in Tbilisi, Georgia. Israeli children won four medals at the Physics Olympiad in Zurich and six medals at the Mathematical Olympiad in Hong Kong.

An initiative by Israel’s Education Ministry has resulted in the addition of roboticsinto the curricula of some 300 Israeli elementary schools. This should allow more Israeli schools to continue the success of Israel’s Rothschild-HaShomron High School in Binyamina, which won through to the International finals of the FIRST Robotics Competition in Shanghai and finished second of the 57 competing countries.

Israel’s leadership in the hi-tech revolution is being sustained by several programs. First Israel is producing educational curricula in science and technology, with a special emphasis on cyber-security. Meanwhile, ORT’s Israel Sci-Tech Schools are receiving international recognition for their network of institutions that focus on the education of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Finally, Israeli technical skills are being introduced very early, as Sagy Bar of the Rashi Foundation (a philanthropic group managing Israel’s new cyber education center) said, “… first grade they learn the letters, then how to read and how to write. We are building the next level of knowledge – how to code”.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/K8gdtrBkwSM?rel=0

Educational opportunities for Israeli schoolchildren are literally “out of this world”. Israeli pupils were the only high school students to build a satellite for the European Union’s QB50 Thermosphere research program. Their Cubesat (nano-satellite)Duchifat-2 is currently on board the International Space Station and will be placed into orbit in June. Israeli kids can soar to great educational heights at an even younger age. For example, pupils from Yigal Alon elementary school sent a meteorological balloon up 15 miles and used two GoPro type cameras, flight data recorder, locator and radio transmitter to collect images and complete flight data. Finally, last year, the Ramon Space Lab program ran as a pilot in 12 Israeli middle schools and this year it has been launched in 100 more.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kodHJqN0uNk?rel=0

Educational success in Israel is not limited to its Jewish population. For the second year in a row, the Galilee Druze town of Beit Jann achieved the highest rate (99%) of students passing the high school matriculation exam. The Arab village of Abu al-Hija, outside Karmiel, came in second. Meanwhile, three students from the Israeli-Arab Bustan El-Marj Sci-Tech High School (part of the ORT Sci-Tech network mentioned above) won 3rd prize at Israel’s Young Engineers’ Conference. But top of the class (and Israel’s highest achieving pupil) is Mohammed Zeidan, from theArab community of Kafr Manda in northern Israel. He scored 800 on Israeli’s Psychometric Entrance Test, the maximum possible score, and now plans to study electrical engineering at Israel’s prestige Technion Institute.

For those kids that are not so lucky, Israel recently allocated half a billion shekels ($130 million) to the budget for after-school informal education for children from lower socio-economic backgrounds. And Israeli children of Ethiopian origin graduating from high school are narrowing the educational gap with 89% taking the matriculation tests compared with the national average of 94%. The disadvantaged are also supported by charities such as Colel Chabad which recently awarded 100 orphans with academic scholarships to pay for tutoring, music lessons, summer camps and therapies to help them succeed both in school and socially. But there are many children with special needs, and Israel is there for them too. Take Ilanot for example – a Jerusalem school attended daily by 70 children aged six to twenty-one with physical and cognitive disabilities. The school provides students with knowledge to improve motor function and help independence to increase their quality of life.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/46Ah9NKNcmo?rel=0

Israel’s children will grow up to continue the task of improving relations between all of Israel’s inhabitants and seeking peace with Israel’s neighbors. They will hopefully include some of those currently studying at the multi-cultural, multi-ethnicTabeetha school in Jaffa. They will also include many of the 2,300 Jewish, Muslim, Bedouin and Druze children from 152 Israeli schools who come together regularly through their love of soccer.

Israel reaches out to Jewish children everywhere. The Naale/Elite Academy brings Jewish teenage girls from around the world for a free high school matriculation program in top Israeli religious educational institutions all over Israel. Naale is fully subsidized and supervised by the Israeli Ministry of Education.

Finally, InterNations’ Family Life Index in 2016 reported that of the world’s 41 best countries to raise a family, Israel was 4th on the list, behind Austria, Finland and Sweden. The 2017 list has recently been published and Israel has risen to third. Good childcare and education options were major factors.

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Macron and Le Pen Face Off in French Election Pitting Vision of Globalization Against Nationalism Runoff vote comes after establishment parties were knocked out in first round By William Horobin

By on May 7th, 2017

PARIS—The French headed to the polls Sunday for the deciding round of a presidential election that has sidelined mainstream parties and redrawn French politics as a contest between globalists and nationalists.

After candidates from the parties that long governed France were knocked out in the first round on April 23, the runoff pits Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration National Front, against Emmanuel Macron, a political neophyte who founded his pro-European Union party, En Marche, barely a year ago.

Polls predict Mr. Macron will win the vote with a 20-percentage-point margin, a result that would come as a relief to defenders of the EU after a long streak of advances by nationalist leaders on the continent.

Even if she loses with 40%, however, Ms. Le Pen could still seek to build on her results—expected to be the best for a far-right presidential candidate in modern French history—to become a powerful opposition leader, and further promote her protectionist ideas.

“Marine Le Pen at 40% across France in a presidential election would already be colossal,” said Jérôme Fourquet, an analyst at polling agency IFOP.
Macron vs. Le Pen in the PollsFrench poll respondents have favored Emmanuel Macron over Marine Le Pen sinceFebruary when asked whom they’d favor if the two ended up in a runoff, as they now have.

The two candidates are offering to steer France in polar-opposite directions. Ms. Le Pen pledges to extricate the country from the EU and the euro, shutting borders to immigrants and cheap imports she says harm the domestic economy. Mr. Macron says France should embrace the EU and not fear globalization, vowing unpopular overhauls of labor laws to make the country more competitive. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Israel Is Still at War By Prof. Efraim Inbar

By on May 7th, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel just celebrated its sixty-ninth anniversary. Its citizens can be proud of its many impressive achievements, and particularly the building of a very strong military that has withstood many tests. Yet acceptance by all its neighbors has not been attained. Israel is still at war.https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-still-war/

After several military defeats, the largest and strongest Arab state, Egypt, signed a historic peace treaty with Israel in 1979. The defection of Egypt from the anti-Israel Arab alliance largely neutralized the option of a large-scale conventional attack on Israel, improving Israel’s overall strategic position.

Yet Cairo refrained from developing normal relations with the Jewish state. A “cold peace” evolved, underscoring the countries’ common strategic interests but also the reluctance of Egypt to participate in reconciling the two peoples.

Jordan followed suit in 1994, largely emulating the Egyptian precedent. Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel also reflected common strategic interests – but was commonly referred to by Jordanians as the “King’s peace,” indicating a disinclination for people-to-people interactions with the Jews west of the Jordan River.

The inhibitions in the Arab world against accepting Israel should not be a surprise. Muslims seem to have good theological reasons for rejecting the existence of a Jewish state. Moreover, the education system in the Arab countries has inculcated anti-Semitic messages and hatred toward Israel for decades. Unfortunately, the dissemination of negative images of Jews and Israel has hardly changed in Arab schools and media.

This is also why the euphoria of the 1990s elicited by the “peace process” with the Palestinians, and propagated by the “peace camp”, was unwarranted. Indeed, the peace negotiations failed miserably. The process did, however, allow the Palestinian national movement a foothold in the West Bank and Gaza. As a large part of the Arab world is in deep socio-political crisis and another fears the Iranian threat, it is the Palestinian national movement and the Islamists that carry on the struggle against the Zionists.

The Palestinians are at the forefront of the war on Israel, despite their lack of tanks and airplanes. They use terror, and pay the terrorists captured by Israel as well as their families. The use of force against Jews is applauded, and killed perpetrators are awarded the status of martyrs. They use missiles against Israel’s civilian population. The limits on their firepower are the result of Israeli efforts to cut off their supply of armaments.

The Palestinian national movement denies the historic links of the Jews to the Land of Israel, and particularly Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority (PA) demanded of the UK that it apologize for the 1917 Balfour declaration, which recognized Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel. There are endless examples in Palestinian schools and media to sustain the conclusion that the Palestinians are not ready to make peace.

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