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December 2017

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.N. Vote Rebukes U.S. for Jerusalem Move General Assembly votes overwhelmingly in favor of resolution despite Trump’s threats of consequences By Farnaz Fassihi

By on December 22nd, 2017

UNITED NATIONS—The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Thursday for a resolution effectively rebuking U.S. President Donald Trump for recognizing the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and pledging to move the U.S. embassy there.

The vote came despite threats by Mr. Trump and U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley that the U.S. would take punitive measures, such as reducing foreign aid and cutting contributions to the U.N., against countries voting in favor of the resolution.

The General Assembly resolution didn’t explicitly refer to the U.S., instead asserting that unilateral decisions such as Mr. Trump’s have no legal effect and must be rescinded. In the vote, 128 countries voted in favor and 9 against, with 35 abstaining.

“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” Ms. Haley said during the debate, adding Mr. Trump’s decision to move the embassy would not be affected.

“We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations,” she said, appearing visibly angry and leaving the chamber after speaking.

President Trump’s plan to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is a calculated gamble, running the risk of stirring up protests and violence. WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib explains why Mr. Trump thinks now is the time to act, when past administrations made similar promises but decided not to. Photo: AP

It remained unclear immediately after the vote precisely what the U.S. would do in retaliation for the vote. Neither Ms. Haley nor the White House spelled out specific responses.

Many U.N. diplomats said Thursday that while they valued their alliance with the U.S., their own longstanding policies on the status of Jerusalem are in line with international law and U.N. resolutions that don’t recognize the city as the capital of Israel in the absence of a peace deal.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu denounced the approach taken by Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley, who said in an email to representatives of more than 180 countries a day earlier that the U.S. would take down the names of those who vote against it. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How Many Times Did You Beat Your Wife? by Linda Goudsmit

By on December 22nd, 2017

The essential element in the question, “How many times did you beat your wife?” is its presupposition that the husband beat his wife.

Perhaps the best way to understand the ongoing debate surrounding Net Neutrality is to consider Noam Chomsky’s incisive observations on presuppositions in his book The Common Good (1998).

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.” p43

Millennials have been indoctrinated with the presuppositions of the Leftist narrative for two decades. Climate change is a classic example. The climate change argument presupposes the validity of its foundational premise of global warming. When it became abundantly clear that the earth’s temperature always fluctuates and was in fact cooling the global warming enthusiasts disingenuously changed the name of their campaign from “global warming” to “climate change” without ever accepting the scientific facts of the earth’s cooling. Why? Because global warming/climate change was never about the weather – it was always about the redistribution of wealth from rich industrialized countries to poorer non-industrialized countries in the form of taxes, fees, fines, and non-compliance penalties.

Even testimony by Patrick Moore former co-founder of Greenpeace before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, was not enough to convince millennials that global warming was a hoax because they had accepted the presupposition of the argument and were ideologically convinced they were saving the planet.

Oppositional views on climate change have actually been litigated. The court case against Mark Steyn attempted to silence Steyn’s oppositional views on climate change. Steyn argued that if courts can silence free and open debate on scientific inquiry then freedom of speech is functionally dead. The pressure to conform in climate science is very real and the viciousness and hostility toward people who disagree is overwhelming. Anyone in the science community who challenges the “settled” science of climate change is considered unhinged or a dissident to be silenced – not a respected scientist or a climatologist to be heard. Climate science is functionally political science because redistribution of wealth is a political matter unrelated to weather.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Outrageous UN Vote on Jerusalem an Opportunity to Stop Paying for the “Privilege” of Being “Disrespected” Anne Bayefsky

By on December 22nd, 2017

For decades, the United Nations has spit in the face of the United States. The demonization of the Jewish state – modern antisemitism – has been one of many UN policy priorities totally antithetical to American values and interests.

The General Assembly vote on December 21 condemning President Donald Trump’s implementation of American law recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel ought to be the last time America takes it lying down.

Let’s be clear about how we got here. Thursday’s meeting was the seventeenth time the UN General Assembly has convened the so-called “tenth” emergency special session on Israel since 1997. That’s because the “tenth” session is effectively permanent. At the end of the meeting, the President of the General Assembly stressed that the session was merely “adjourned.”

What such UN-eze means for real people is this: There has never been an emergency special session of the General Assembly on anything but Israel-bashing in twenty years. 500,000-plus dead and seven million displaced in Syria over seven years – and not one emergency special session. Neither a million dead in Rwanda, nor two million dead over two decades in Sudan, ever prompted a single emergency special session.

The issue Thursday was not about Jerusalem. It was about Jew-hatred. The resolution is the General Assembly’s twenty-first resolution in 2017 slamming Israel for violating “rights” and “law.” There was one resolution on North Korea. One on Iran. And one on the United States – criticizing U.S. Cuba policy. Altogether, there were nine resolutions critical of human rights records in specific states in the rest of the world combined.

The game is Jerusalem and 1967 borders. But the endgame is the 1948 borders and the legitimacy of a Jewish state.

The issue today was also not simply about President Trump. The State Department produces an annual report computing “coincidence of voting” in the General Assembly – or how often other countries vote the same way as the United States. In 2016, counting all the final draft resolutions of the full plenary of the General Assembly – that were adopted by a vote and on which the U.S. voted yes or no – “coincidence of voting” with the United States was a mere 37 percent.

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