Displaying posts published in

October 2017

Yes, Trump is Winning By Roger Kimball

Last week, I went to a dinner event at social club of which I am a member but rarely patronize. You will guess why when I tell you I ran into a friend of longstanding—someone I know well, but hadn’t seen in a couple of years—and she greeted me with the exclamation, “Here’s a Trumpster!” I could see that that was partly for the benefit of the gents she was talking to, a sort of tribal-marking announcement (“He’s one of those, boys”) but I couldn’t immediately tell whether the glint in her eye was friendly or otherwise. She soon cleared up that ambiguity. I said something about “our president.” “He’s not my president,” she snapped, adding that Donald Trump was deeply unpopular and would probably be driven from office soon.https://amgreatness.com/2017/10/15/yes-trump-is-winning/

“Actually,” I offered, “his approval ratings are on the rise.”

“So were Mussolini’s,” came the icy rejoinder.

Got it. At least I knew where we stood.

One is encouraged to leave politics at the front door of this particular club (unlike London’s “Other Club” where Rule 12 stipulates that “Nothing in the rules or intercourse of the Club shall interfere with the rancour or asperity of party politics”). But so thoroughly pink is the majority of the membership that the issue rarely arises. For the herd of independent minds, unanimity is a consoling patent of authenticity. “We all believe this, ergo it must be true—indeed, it is invisible. It simply is.”

Hence a defining irony of the contemporary progressive (one cannot truthfully call it “liberal”) dispensation: convinced that their opinions represent not their opinions but, on the contrary, that they mirror a virtuous state of nature, they regard dissent not as disagreement but as either heresy or insanity. The former calls for condemnation or ostracism, the latter for pity tinctured by contempt.

Donald Trump has introduced several novelties into this dynamic. From the point of view of my (I suspect former) friend, Trump is both (never mind the contradiction) an impossibility and an affront. Everyone she talks to knows this.

And yet on the ground, in the real world, Trump is methodically pushing ahead with the agenda he campaigned on. That includes:

Nominating judges and justices who can be counted on to interpret and enforce the law but do not endeavor to use the law to promote their social agenda;
Addressing the problem of illegal immigration and securing the borders of the United States;
Developing America’s vast energy resources;
Rolling back the regulatory state, especially the administrative overreach of agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency;
Pursuing policies that put America, and American workers, first, not to the detriment of our relationships with our international partners but through a recognition that strength and sovereign independence make nations more reliable actors;
Restoring the combat readiness and morale of the United States military;
Simplifying the U.S. tax code, making it more competitive for U.S. businesses and more equitable for individuals;
Getting a handle on the unconstitutional and shockingly inefficient monstrosity ironically called the Affordable Care Act;
Putting a stop to the obscene violation of due process that Title IX fanatics brought to college campuses across the country.

The Associated Press and the Pronoun Wars Sohrab Ahmari

The transgender movement is at war with the English language. With a new set of style guidelines, the Associated Press has joined the trenches—on the transgender side.

With its precision and plain beauty, English has long posed an obstacle for activists who insist that there is no biological basis to gender and who seek to overturn the gender binary. Unfortunately for these activists, the gender binary is built into the structure of English, with its gender-specific pronouns and many gendered expressions. Most people speak a gendered English, moreover. When we hear that one of our friends or relations is pregnant, we naturally ask: “Boy or girl?”

We speak this way because our language mirrors the natural and inseparable bond between gender and sex. For transgender activists, however, this is merely evidence of how entrenched the oppressive gender binary is. By their lights, gender is completely fluid and open to individual choice. As one overexcited activist argued in Slate in 2014: “With infant gender assignment, in a single moment your baby’s life is instantly and brutally reduced from . . . infinite potentials down to one concrete set of expectations and stereotypes.” If the movement has its way, asking “boy or girl?” would become as unacceptable as smoking—or maybe even legally proscribed.

Already among “woke” media types there is a taboo against “dead-naming” transgendered people. It is verboten to remind readers that Chelsea Manning was once named Bradley (there, I did it). A Canadian bill passed this summer restricts “discrimination” on the basis of gender “expression.” That provision, proponents hope, will lead to “monetary damages, non-financial remedies . . . and public interest remedies” for those who dare use a non-preferred pronoun. (And yet, they insist, the bill won’t trample free speech.) California has enacted similar legislation.

Now comes the AP’s gender rewrite. In a series of tweets on Tuesday explaining the changes first promulgated earlier this year, the AP’s editors contended that “gender refers to a person’s social identity, while sex refers to biological characteristics” and admonished writers to “avoid references to being born a boy or girl.” The venerable news agency also endorsed the language- and prose-disfiguring use of “they/them” as a singular pronoun. It even left open the door to more exotic made-up pronouns such as “ze” and “zir.”

Tuesday also saw the AP introduce a new rule: Instead of the expressions “sex change” or “transition,” writers are to use “gender confirmation.” This was a deep kowtow to the transgender movement, which believes that physicians don’t alter anything essential or fundamental when they perform a sex-change operation: Caitlyn Jenner was always Caitlyn Jenner. The operation merely confirmed this ontological fact.

You needn’t agree with social conservatives on transgender ideology to see that this is wrongheaded. The editors are using the AP’s style authority to declare the transgender debate over. News articles on the transgender question—still the subject of heated scientific and political debate—will now reflect the assumptions and ideological preferences of one side. Given the ongoing debate, AP’s move can’t but appear as an effort to delegitimize the other side, which includes not just orthodox Christians but also secular psychologists, social scientists, and many others.

The AP and its defenders will say that the move is necessary because journalistic prose should reflect evolving norms and usages. And they will argue that adhering to trans pronoun preferences is a matter of respect. But social norms are only “evolving” among a narrow progressive cohort. Most AP readers still use “he,” “she,” “sex change,” and the like. Most people “dead-name.” The AP is actively pushing norms in a certain direction and calling it evolution. As for respecting individuals, surely there are ways to do that without violating journalism’s core truth-seeking function. To suggest that Jenner was never “born” male is absurd and illogical.

The Left’s Sirens Are Already Hinting Our Culture Wars Will End In Another Civil War By John Daniel Davidson

The radicalization of the Democratic Party is transforming everything that happens in America into another battle in our unending culture war.

Is there anything left in American public life that isn’t an occasion for political rancor and division? NFL games are now nothing more than crude pieces of political theater. On Sunday even Vice President Mike Pence got in on the act, showing up to a Colts-49ers game then leaving after a few players knelt during the national anthem. Next day was Columbus Day, which the cities of Los Angeles and Austin decided this year to replace with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” because Christopher Columbus is apparently the new Robert E. Lee. And it’s only Tuesday.

It should be obvious by now that our culture wars will henceforth be constant and unending; the next battle could be triggered by almost anything. Whether it’s the reactions (or non-reactions) of Hollywood celebrities to the unsurprising news of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misdeeds or the outraged calls for the repeal of the Second Amendment the instant news broke of the Las Vegas massacre, very little can happen in America now without it being an occasion for an appeal to one’s own political tribe. No matter how tawdry or horrifying the news, there is vanishingly little room for solidarity because there is no appetite for it. Not even late-night comedy shows with their shrinking audiences can resist the urge to devolve into partisan political rants.

For all his eagerness to wage the culture wars in his improvised, bombastic style, this didn’t begin with Donald Trump. It didn’t begin with Barack Obama, either, but a recent study by Pew Research Center found that divisions between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values reached record levels during the Obama administration. You don’t need a Pew survey to tell you that, of course, but the data helps illuminate an otherwise vague feeling that American society is coming apart at the seams, and has been for years.
Right and Left Are Moving Farther Apart, And Fast

The Pew study measures responses to issues Pew has been asking about since 1994, things like welfare, race, and immigration. On almost every count, the gaps between Republicans and Democrats held more or less steady up until around 2010, when they began to widen. Today, “Republicans and Democrats are now further apart ideologically than at any point in more than two decades,” with the median Republican more conservative than 97 percent of Democrats and the median Democrat more liberal than 95 percent of Republicans. Here’s what that looks like in a chart:

U.S. Officials Back Trump’s Stance on Iran Nuclear Accord Technical compliance with the pact shouldn’t preclude a better deal, they say By Eric Morath in Washington and Asa Fitch in Manama, Bahrain

U.S. officials defended President Donald Trump’s refusal to certify the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, saying the country threatens global stability even while technically complying with the accord itself.

Iran is “the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism,” Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday on NBC. “You look at the ballistic missile tests that they continue to do. You look at the arms sales. When you look at all the trouble they’re causing around the world, what the president is saying is, ‘It’s not proportionate. We need to look at this.’”

Ms. Haley stopped short of saying Iran had violated the terms of the agreement, however. “No one is questioning…they are in compliance” with inspections to determine if they are developing a nuclear weapon, she said, but that shouldn’t prevent Mr. Trump from seeking a better deal.

The comments by Ms. Haley and other senior officials Sunday followed Mr. Trump’s Friday speech at the White House where the president reiterated his fierce opposition to the terms of the deal—under which Iran agreed to put limits on its disputed nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions—after denouncing what he called a “rogue regime” run by radicals.

Mr. Trump on Friday took Iran to task for a number of destabilizing behaviors, including its missile program. He said his administration would aim to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to address the other threats the country poses.

He also cited Iran’s history with America dating back to 1979, the year of the country’s Islamic revolution, pointing to attacks on American diplomatic properties and targeting American service members, as well as Iran’s support for extremist groups, alluding to al Qaeda and Hezbollah.

“Given the regime’s murderous past and present, we should not take lightly its sinister vision for the future. The regime’s two favorite chants are​‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel,’” Mr. Trump said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Death Toll Tops 200 in Weekend Bombings in Somalia Two blasts in Mogadishu came hours apart; Somalian president calls for more international support to fight Islamic militants By Nicholas Bariyo

The death toll from twin bombings in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu climbed above 200 over the weekend, making it one of the deadliest attacks in the country since an Islamist insurgency started a decade ago.

A truck bomb exploded at a busy intersection on Saturday, ripping through several buildings, including hotels and government offices, the African Union Mission in Somalia said.

Hours later, a second explosion hit the suburb of Medina, setting dozens of vehicles on fire.

The two blasts killed at least 231 people, Abdirizak Mohamed, a member of Parliament and former minister of international security, said in a message on Twitter, citing the number of dead counted at two local hospitals he said he visited.

Officials said some 275 people had been injured in the attacks, which followed several months of relative calm in the capital.

The attacks came amid a renewed push from the U.S. to rid Somalia of al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab militants.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo declared three days of mourning and called for more international support to fight the Islamic militants.

“Terrorism seeks to stop the light of our government,” Mr. Farmaajo said on Sunday, as he inspected the carnage at the scene of the first blast. “We must stand together and oppose terror.”

Emergency workers and police were digging through the rubble of flattened buildings in search of more victims. Hundreds of people waited in the hope of getting news about missing relatives, witnesses said.

At least five Red Crescent volunteers were among those killed in the blast.
People in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, on Sunday walked through the scene. Photo: mohamed abdiwahab/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The International Federation of the Red Cross warned the death toll could rise.

Scalias All the Way Down While the press goes wild over tweets, Trump is remaking the federal judiciary.By Kimberley Strassel

Ask most Republicans to identify Donald Trump’s biggest triumph to date, and the answer comes quick: Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. That’s the cramped view.

The media remains so caught up with the president’s tweets that it has missed Mr. Trump’s project to transform the rest of the federal judiciary. The president is stocking the courts with a class of brilliant young textualists bearing little relation to even their Reagan or Bush predecessors. Mr. Trump’s nastygrams to Bob Corker will be a distant memory next week. Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett’s influence on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could still be going strong 40 years from now.

Mr. Trump has now nominated nearly 60 judges, filling more vacancies than Barack Obama did in his entire first year. There are another 160 court openings, allowing Mr. Trump to flip or further consolidate conservative majorities on the circuit courts that have the final say on 99% of federal legal disputes.

This project is the work of Mr. Trump, White House Counsel Don McGahn and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Every new president cares about the judiciary, but no administration in memory has approached appointments with more purpose than this team.

Mr. Trump makes the decisions, though he’s taking cues from Mr. McGahn and his team. The Bushies preferred a committee approach: Dozens of advisers hunted for the least controversial nominee with the smallest paper trail. That helped get picks past a Senate filibuster, but it led to bland choices, or to ideological surprises like retired Justice David Souter.

Harry Reid’s 2013 decision to blow up the filibuster for judicial nominees has freed the Trump White House from having to worry about a Democratic veto during confirmation. Mr. McGahn’s team (loaded with former Clarence Thomas clerks) has carte blanche to work with outside groups like the Federalist Society to tap the most conservative judges.

Mr. McGahn has long been obsessed with constitutional law and the risks of an all-powerful administrative state. His crew isn’t subjecting candidates to 1980s-style litmus tests on issues like abortion. Instead the focus is on promoting jurists who understand the unique challenges of our big-government times. Can the prospective nominee read a statute? Does he or she defer to the government’s view of its own authority? The result has been a band of young rock stars and Scalia-style textualists like Ms. Barrett, Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett and Minnesota Supreme Court Associate Justice David Stras.

Senate Republicans have so far blown their major agenda items, but they’ve remained unified on judges. They agreed to kill the Senate filibuster for Supreme Court nominees so as to confirm Justice Gorsuch; have confirmed six other judicial nominees; and stand ready to greenlight dozens more. This is a big shift from divisions the party had over the Bush 41 and Bush 43 nominees.

Because Mr. Trump’s picks have largely spent their careers focused on administrative law and constitutional questions, few have gotten bogged down by controversial cultural rulings. They do have paper trails, but mostly on serious and technical issues. This helps reassure Republicans even as it deprives Democrats of the fodder they’d need to stage dramatic opposition. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Rest of the Russia Story Justice shouldn’t protect the FBI and Fusion GPS from House subpoenas.

The Beltway media move in a pack, and that means ignoring some stories while leaping on others. Consider the pack’s lack of interest in the story of GPS Fusion and the “dossier” from former spook Christopher Steele.

The House Intelligence Committee recently issued subpoenas to Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that paid for the dossier that contained allegations against then-candidate Donald Trump and ties to Russia. The dossier’s details have been either discredited or are unverified, but the document nonetheless framed the political narrative about Trump-Russian collusion that led to special counsel Robert Mueller.

Democrats and Fusion seem to care mostly that House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes issued the subpoenas, given that he temporarily stepped aside from the Russia probe in April. But only the chairman is allowed to issue subpoenas, and Mr. Nunes did so at the request of Republican Mike Conaway, who is officially leading the probe.

The real question is why Democrats and Fusion seem not to want to tell the public who requested the dossier or what ties Fusion GPS boss Glenn Simpson had with the Russians in 2016. All the more so because congressional investigators have learned that Mr. Simpson was working for Russian clients at the same time he was working with Mr. Steele.

Americans deserve to know who paid Mr. Simpson for this work and if the Kremlin influenced the project. They also deserve to know if former FBI director James Comey relied on the dossier to obtain warrants to monitor the Trump campaign. If the Russians used disinformation to spur a federal investigation into a presidential candidate, that would certainly qualify as influencing an election.

The House committee also subpoenaed FBI documents about wiretap warrants more than a month ago but has been stonewalled. There is no plausible reason that senior leaders of Congress—who have top-level security clearance—can’t see files directly relevant to the question of Russian election interference.

Justice Department excuses about interfering with Mr. Mueller’s investigation don’t wash. Mr. Mueller is conducting a criminal probe, while Congress has a duty to oversee the executive branch. Both investigations can proceed simultaneously. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who supervises Mr. Mueller, needs to deputize specific Justice officials to handle Congress’s requests.

The media attacks on Mr. Nunes for issuing the subpoenas are a sign that he is onto something. He recused himself in April after complaints about his role bringing to light Obama Administration officials who “unmasked” and leaked the names of secretly wiretapped Trump officials. Mr. Nunes has since been vindicated as we’ve learned that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice and former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power did the unmasking. Yet Democrats on the House Ethics Committee have refused to clear Mr. Nunes—trying to keep him sidelined from the Russia probe.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has also pursued the Fusion GPS trail, but he could use House backup. Speaker Paul Ryan needs to call on the Ethics Committee to render a quick decision on Mr. Nunes or allow him to resume his Russia investigation. Mr. Ryan should also prepare to have the House vote on a contempt citation if the Justice Department doesn’t supply subpoenaed documents.

Mr. Mueller will grind away at the Trump-Russia angle, but the story of Democrats, the Steele dossier and Jim Comey’s FBI also needs telling. Americans don’t need a Justice Department coverup abetted by Glenn Simpson’s media buddies.

HARVEST FOR THE WORLD: AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

The Jewish festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles) that has just concluded is also the harvest festival – celebrating the ingathering of crops. It is an ideal opportunity to highlight how Israel is helping combat world hunger and feed an ever-increasing global population. These examples of relevant news article are just from the last three months.

Israel has revolutionized agriculture globally with its scientific innovations. Israel’sPhytech, for example, has developed innovative crop sensors that boost agricultural productivity and are now being adopted worldwide. Israel’s Kaiima Bio-Agritech is producing high-yielding varieties of essential food and feed crops using its proprietary (non-GMO) seed-enhancing platform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNeA9N1DijY

Crop yields can also be increased by combatting pests. Israel’s EdenShield has developed a non-toxic pesticide with an aroma that repels pests. It is already used in Israel, Spain, Italy, Turkey and Greece and is soon to be launched in the USA, Mexico and the EU. Meanwhile, Israeli biotech Evogene has recently manufactured the first toxin against Western corn rootworm and bred bananas that are resistant to the hugely damaging Black Sigatoka fungus. Another Israeli biotech, BioFeed, has developed a “no-spray” solution to kill the fruit flies that have been devastating mango plantations in India.

Other ways to prevent food wastage is to pick crops at the optimum time. Israeli start-up AclarTech has developed the AclaroMeter app that works with a smartphone’s camera and the Israeli SCIO molecular scanner, to monitor the ripeness, freshness and quality of fruit and vegetables. The SCIO scanner itself has been sent to US dairy farmers to help them check the nutrition of dry forage and deliver a more consistent diet to their animals.

You cannot grow crops without an adequate water supply and Israeli innovation in water conservation is benefiting water-stressed regions of the world, from Kenya to India to California. Thanks to Israeli drip irrigation, 15,000 farmers in Karnataka, southwestern India, are currently harvesting their first monsoon season crop in years.In another Israeli approach, Ben Gurion University’s desert research farmdemonstrates how to grow crops in the drought conditions of a minimal rainfall climate.

Water is of course the basis for fish farming. Israeli aquaculture startup Latimeria breeds fish in desalinated water with salt added to save energy, minimize leakage and prevent harmful bacteria. Additional technology developed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem promotes fish growth and is providing a vital food resource in Uganda. The solution is being further developed by Israeli startup Aquinovo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0x3O2C7ghY

Israel is devoting much effort to preventing hunger in Africa. Tahal Group – a subsidiary of Israel’s Kardan – is constructing three agricultural centers in Angolaand a huge agricultural and water project in Zambia. Meanwhile, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame praised Israel’s agricultural technology, saying “Israel has continued to follow through on its commitments and objective of scaling up engagement across Africa.”

And President Faustin-Archange Touadéra made the first-ever visit to Israel by the head of state of the Central African Republic (CAR). He said to Israeli President Rivlin “we have come to Israel in order to learn – your country is a school for us.”

Two of the most effective organizations working on the African continent are MASHAV and Innovation: Africa. MASHAV (Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation) is continually busy from Burkina Faso to Zambia. Innovation: Africa’s latest successes in Uganda were ably documented in a videofeaturing the 8-year-old daughter of the Israeli NGO’s founder. Finally, while the international media has been bemoaning inter-tribal disputes in South Sudan, Israel has been distributing food aid to drought-stricken villagers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZq9D3shuxY

Israel brings overseas farmers to the Jewish State to pass on the knowledge to feed their own populations. Israel’s Arava International Center for Agriculture Training (AICAT) has changed the lives of many of its 16,000 foreign students. And 1,200 students from across Africa and Asia have just completed the 13th running of Israel’s unique post-graduate AgroStudies agriculture apprentice training program. Meanwhile 10,000 high-tech professionals descended upon Tel Aviv for its 5th annual DLD (Digital Life Design) Conference. This year’s focus was on food techin which Israel has over 500 startups.

VICTOR SHARPE: POLITICIDE – THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF THE JEWISH STATE VOLUME 4 FPRWARD BY JOAN SWIRSKY

I was both humbled and thrilled when author Victor Sharpe asked me to write the Introduction to the fourth book in a series he has written, titled Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state. Victor explains that the word politicide was coined by the late great Israeli statesman, Abba Eban, to describe the murder of a sovereign, independent state; namely the State of Israel.

The title really says it all, and Victor, a passionate student of Jewish history––as well as a prolific writer on contemporary Jewish issues––has described in painful detail the annihilating attacks upon the ancient Jewish homeland by the Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman empires (which no longer exist).

He also describes the inexpressible suffering endured by the stateless Jews throughout their 2,000 years of exile, including during the Crusades, the Inquisition, the cruel expulsion of Jews from various countries including England, Spain and Portugal, the bleak pogroms in Poland and Russia and to the worst crime in human history; the genocide of six-million Jews in Hitler’s German-occupied Europe during the 1940s.

Happily, the illustrious history of Jewish life is also included, from its beginning with Abraham the first Jew, whom we call the Holy Convert, who left his idol-making father after discovering the existence of the one and only God and thus establishing monotheism for the entire world, but also for becoming––with Isaac, Jacob and their wives––the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish People in the eternal land God brought them to: The Land of Israel.

And finally, the story of the 14-million Jews who now exist (in a world of eight-and-a-half billion people), half of them in the miraculous and flourishing State of Israel.

In short, this is a terrific, illuminating, important book that I hope you’ll buy, read, cherish and tell all your friends about.

You can buy the book by clicking on this link.

You can also buy the previous three volumes of Victor’s Politicide series by clicking here.

President Trump Did the Right Thing by Walking Away from UNESCO — for Now by Alan M. Dershowitz

By withdrawing from UNESCO – again – President Trump is sending a powerful message to the international community: that we will no longer tolerate international organizations that serve as forums for Jew-bashing.

This important message was encapsulated in a powerful statement made by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley: “The purpose of UNESCO is a good one. Unfortunately, its extreme politicization has become a chronic embarrassment… US taxpayers should no longer be on the hook to pay for policies that are hostile to our values and make a mockery of justice and common sense.”

“There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” — Charles de Montesquieu, French lawyer and philosopher (d.1755)

The State Department announced on Thursday that the United States would be withdrawing from the UN agency UNESCO.

The U.S. agency citied financial reasons, the need for reform and the body’s “continuing anti-Israel bias.” President Trump’s decision to leave UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – as of December 31, 2018, was an appropriate foreign policy decision that will hopefully prompt a much-needed rethink of the United Nations, its purpose and practices. It will also send a strong message to the Palestinians that statehood cannot be achieved on the basis of UN resolutions alone, and that the only way forward is to engage in direct negotiations with Israel, during which mutual sacrifices will be required.

In the aftermath of WWII, the intended goal of the Paris-based UN body was a noble one: to promote basic freedoms and security through international collaboration on education, science and cultural projects. UNESCO-sponsored projects focused on literacy, vocational training, equal access to basic education and preservation of human rights and historical sites are indeed praiseworthy. In practice, however, the 195-member body – with its automatic anti-Israel majority that exists in every institution of the UN – has become a springboard for Jew hatred and the rewriting of history.

To be sure, UNESCO is far from the only UN agency regularly to single out Israel for reproach. Yet, its anti-Israel adoptions have been abhorrent even by the low standards established by the broader multilateral institution. Consider a resolution introduced in May, which denied Israel – and the Jewish people’s – legal and historic ties to the city of Jerusalem, including its holiest sites. It called the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron – considered the resting place of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs – and Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem, “Palestinian sites.” Shamefully, this vote was deliberately held on Israel’s Independence Day. Only two months later, the cultural body convened in Krakow, Poland – a city soaked in Jewish blood – and declared the city of Hebron, holy to Jews, an endangered Palestinian heritage site.

Even for some of the harshest critics of Israel, this historical ignorance is sometimes too much to swallow. In October 2016, for example, when UNESCO passed a resolution denying Israel’s connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall – referring to them only by their Muslin names – UNESCO chief, Irina Bokov (whose intentions and motivations are themselves often curious) questioned the text of the Arab-sponsored resolution on Jerusalem.

This egregious distortion of history is not particularly surprising when considering the anti-Semitic political culture that has come to underpin UNESCO, particularly since 2011, when it became the first UN agency to admit the Palestinians as a full member. Hillel Neuer of the watchdog organization, UN Watch, noted that between 2009-2014 the cultural body has adopted 46 resolutions against Israel, yet only one on Syria and none on Iran, Sudan, North Korea, or any of the other known violators of human rights around the world. In fact, a representative of the regime of Syrian dictator and mass murderer Bashar al-Assad sits on a UNESCO human rights committee.

Neuer further highlights this double standard: “UNESCO paid tribute to mass murderer Che Guevara, elected Syria to its human rights committee, and created prizes named after the dictators of Bahrain and Equatorial Guinea, whose ruler Obiang says God empowered him to kill whomever he wants. UNESCO has a noble founding mission, but that has been completely hijacked by the world’s worst tyrannies and supporters of terror.”

This is not the first time that the United States has pulled out of the hypocritical UN cultural body. Under President Reagan in 1984, the United States walked away from UNESCO owing to financial mismanagement and “hostility toward the basic institutions of a free society.” It was only in 2002 that President G.W Bush re-joined the body and stated that the United States wanted to “participate fully in its mission to advance human rights, tolerance and learning.” But this vision was upturned when President Obama halted funding to the UN body in 2011 (US funding at the time accounted for one-fifth of UNESCO’s budget) when Palestine was accepted as a full member. This original level of financial support has not been restored and the cultural body has since missed out on close to $600 million of American funding.

Among the reasons are that by withdrawing from UNESCO – again – President Trump is sending a powerful message to the international community: the United States will no longer tolerate international organizations that serve as forums for Jew-bashing. This important message was encapsulated in a powerful statement made by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley: “The purpose of UNESCO is a good one. Unfortunately, its extreme politicization has become a chronic embarrassment…US taxpayers should no longer be on the hook to pay for policies that are hostile to our values and make a mockery of justice and common sense.”

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley called UNESCO’s “extreme politicization” a “chronic embarrassment.” Photo: Getty Images.

The political thinker Charles de Montesquieu famously said: “There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” It is precisely because UNESCO purports to be a cultural and educational body that its false credibility masks its pervasive bigotry.