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December 2017

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Column One: A credible peace plan, at last Caroline Glick

By on December 5th, 2017

Not only does it secure the future of both Israel and the Palestinians, it enables Arab states like Saudi Arabia to work openly with Israel to defeat their joint Iranian enemy.
Monday, The New York Times published the Palestinian response to an alleged Saudi peace plan. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly presented it to PLO chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas last month.

According to the Times’ report, Mohammed told Abbas he has two months to either accept the Saudi proposal or leave office to make way for a new Palestinian leader who will accept it.

The Palestinians and their European supporters are up in arms about the content of Mohammed’s plan. It reportedly proposes the establishment of limited Palestinian sovereignty over small portions of Judea and Samaria. The Gaza Strip, over which the Palestinians have had full sovereignty since Israel pulled its military forces and civilians out in 2005, would be expanded into the northern Sinai, thus providing economic and territorial viability to the envisioned Palestinian state. While the Palestinians would not receive sovereignty over Jerusalem, they would be able to establish their capital in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.

There are several aspects of the alleged Saudi peace plan that are notable. First, the Palestinians and their many allies insist that it is a nonstarter. No Palestinian leader could ever accept the offer and survive in power, they told the Times. The same Palestinian leaders from Hamas and Fatah, and their allies, also noted that the Saudi plan as reported strongly resembles past Israeli proposals.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Living with the Palestinian ‘No!’ By Moshe Dann

By on December 5th, 2017

Awaiting a Trump administration “peace plan,” hoping to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, it would be wise to recall foreign minister Abba Eban’s observation that “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” It is important, however, to understand that this persistent failure is not because of poor judgments or unintended mistakes; it is deliberate PLO policy, strategy and ideology.

Rather than lament the absence of a “Palestinian Sadat,” willing to make peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should explain why this false scenario is inevitably doomed to fail. Calling for an Israeli leader like Menachem Begin or Yitzhak Rabin, willing to make territorial concessions, is worse because it keeps the fantasy of a “two state solution” on life support when there have been no vital signs for many years.Arab Palestinian leaders recognized this nearly a hundred years ago, when, led by the pro-Nazi Mufti Haj Amin Husseini, they rampaged in murderous attacks against Jews. After the State of Israel was established, many Israeli Arabs accepted the new reality, but many did not and never will. The reason is simple: Arabs view Jewish success as their defeat. Moreover, unlike Arabs who migrated to what was called Palestine, Jewish nationalism, Zionism, is rooted in a historical and biblical attachment to the land. Nor did local Arabs imitate Zionist institution-building during the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s. Jews built hospitals and agricultural settlements; Arabs raided them. Jews built schools and parks; Arabs initiated pogroms.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Listen to Women—Except . . . Feminists try to shout down even female critics of abortion.By Molly Gurdon

By on December 5th, 2017

Since the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, the feminist battle cry has been: “Listen to women.” Listen as they tell of sexism and abuse in the workplace. Listen as they accuse men who outrank them. This kind of openness and respect is overdue, but it comes with an asterisk: “Listen to women (unless they’re pro-life).”

Last month, pro-life students at the University of Oxford held a discussion on Ireland’s 2018 abortion referendum. It was disrupted by protesters organized by the Women’s Campaign, a student-union-sponsored group that claims it “advocates for the rights of everyone who identifies as a woman.” The protesters chanted abusive slogans—“pro-life, that’s a lie, you don’t care if women die”—for 40 minutes, preventing anyone else from being heard.

Several organizers faced the protesters, holding makeshift signs that read: “I’m a woman, where is my right to speak?” It’s a good question. If women of childbearing age aren’t allowed to question the ethics of abortion without being bullied and humiliated, who is?

“Bodily autonomy is not up for debate,” the Women’s Campaign said in a statement after the protest. But the claim that abortion is a closed question just isn’t true. Philosophical, legal and scientific discussion of it dates to ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. Within the university, no issue of moral importance should be shielded from examination. Abusing women who try to have such conversations gives the lie to any stated commitment to female empowerment.

Yet pro-life women across the West routinely face these kinds of tactics. Earlier this year the pro-life New Wave Feminists were booted as partners in the Women’s March on Washington. In October, Katie Ascough, the president of the student union at University College Dublin, was impeached after removing from a student handbook a page of abortion information that she says was illegal under Irish law. Two months ago, Rachael Harder, a pro-life member of Canada’s Parliament, was blocked from leading the Status of Women Committee. Apparently positions of power are open only to the right kind of women. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Right Move on Monuments Trump puts an end to a federal land grab in southeast Utah.

By on December 5th, 2017

President Trump announced Monday that he will dramatically reduce the acreage of two national monuments. The order ends excessive federal control of Utah land, allowing residents to protect their own territory and conserve their cultural relics.

Congress passed the Antiquities Act in 1906 to give Presidents emergency authority to prevent the looting and destruction of national treasures. The law said designated monuments should be limited to “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects,” but Bill Clinton and Barack Obama misapplied this power to carry out a Washington land grab.

Without public comment, the federal government unilaterally seized control of more than 3.2 million acres of southeastern Utah that together constitute the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments. Residents and their elected representatives had minimal influence on the draconian land-use restrictions imposed by Washington bureaucrats. In September, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke described how the Antiquities Act had been abused “to prevent public access and to prevent public use” of land, harming everyone from cattlemen to cross-country skiers.

Last spring Mr. Trump ordered a review of 27 supersized monuments. The Interior Department made recommendations only after accepting formal public comment. Mr. Trump announced Monday that he would shrink Bears Ears by about 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by nearly 46%.

Over the past few days, thousands have marched in Salt Lake to oppose the decision. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance denounced the order as “the single most harmful attack any president has ever launched on public lands.” The group claims the Trump Administration acted “at the behest of ideological extremists and dirty energy barons,” adding that the decision is “an insult to the tribes that advocated to protect Bears Ears.”

Calm down, guys. Most of the two million newly undesignated acres are still public lands, subject to rigorous federal and state protections. The Trump Administration increased Native American representation on the advisory Bears Ears Commission.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mueller’s Credibility Problem The special counsel is stonewalling Congress and protecting the FBI.

By on December 5th, 2017

Donald Trump is his own worst enemy, as his many ill-advised tweets on the weekend about Michael Flynn, the FBI and Robert Mueller’s Russia probe demonstrate. But that doesn’t mean that Mr. Mueller and the Federal Bureau of Investigation deserve a pass about their motives and methods, as new information raises troubling questions.

The Washington Post and the New York Times reported Saturday that a lead FBI investigator on the Mueller probe, Peter Strzok, was demoted this summer after it was discovered he’d sent anti- Trump texts to a mistress. As troubling, Mr. Mueller and the Justice Department kept this information from House investigators, despite Intelligence Committee subpoenas that would have exposed those texts. They also refused to answer questions about Mr. Strzok’s dismissal and refused to make him available for an interview.

The news about Mr. Strzok leaked only when the Justice Department concluded it couldn’t hold out any longer, and the stories were full of spin that praised Mr. Mueller for acting “swiftly” to remove the agent. Only after these stories ran did Justice agree on Saturday to make Mr. Strzok available to the House.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Sexual Harassment: Inexcusable, But No Easy Solutions-Sydney Williams

By on December 5th, 2017

There is no question that some men – not all, but some – feel that money, fame and power give them the right to have whatever they want, including women. Libidos, fed by arrogance, displace decency and respect. Many of these men are vocal in their defense of feminist rights, but disrespectful toward women as individuals. But there are some women – not many, but a few – to whom money, fame and power serve as aphrodisiacs. “Power,” Henry Kissinger once observed, “is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” And so it is, to a few.

While serial harassers of women, like bullies everywhere, should be dealt with severely, we live in a country where due process is law and accused are considered innocent until proven guilty. There is risk when the media are more interested in ratings and political advocacy than truth. Accusations without proof are the stuff from which revolutions are wrought. Angelo Codevilla, a professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University and a man who spent eight years on the Senate staff observed the play between politicians and staff: access to power was on one side and the offer of sex on the other. “Innocence, he wrote, was the one quality entirely absent on all sides.” That may be true, but the sides are not equally paired; leverage lies with those who wield power.

Nevertheless, we must not let disclosures of dalliances turn into witch hunts, McCarthyism, or, God forbid, Puritanism. Interestingly, the majority of those charged have been men of the Left who have visibly and vocally supported feminism and women’s rights, all the while treating female subordinates as sex objects. While many of us conservatives have derived a sense of schadenfreude watching deviant hypocrites like Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor and Charlie Rose being hoisted on petards of their own making, there should also be an acknowledgement of “there but for the grace of God go I…” In some cases, accusations go back decades, providing little opportunity for rebuttal. It is one person’s word against another’s. Stones are cast, with little attention paid to those doing the tossing.

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