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December 2018

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From Iraq to Gaza, from Egypt to Syria, fewer Christians in the Middle East. Daniel Greenfield

By on December 20th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272250/obamas-christmas-genocide-daniel-greenfield

This Christmas, there will be fewer Christians celebrating in their homes in the Middle East than ever before.

Before Obama, Nineveh Plains hosted 90,000 Christians. Today, it’s under 40,000.

Nineveh is one of the first cities mentioned in the Bible. The Nineveh Plains are the heartland of Syriac Christianity. But now the plains are barren with ruined churches and deserted homes in formerly Christian towns and cities. And that same story repeats itself across Iraq where 81% of Christians have disappeared.

In Mosul alone, over 100,000 Christians were displaced as Jihadists marked their doors with an “N” for Nazarene. From cities to small towns, the end of the year bears witness to a Christian genocide.

In 2008, there were an estimated 700,000 Christians in Iraq, today estimates hover between 250,000 and 300,000. While ISIS is most directly associated with terror against Christians, most Jihadist groups, including those backed by Obama, intimidated, robbed and tortured them.

In January 2014, Obama dismissed ISIS as a “jayvee” team. That summer, the team took Qaraqosh and its surrounding villages, including Bartella. The Christians were given a choice between converting, paying Jizya, the traditional Dhimmi tax that Muslims impose on non-Muslims under Islamic law, and “death by the sword.”

The Shiite government finally took back Bartella, but now its Christians have found themselves under the thumb of the Shabak, a Shiite cult, whose soldiers that are part of the Shiite Jihadist Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) backed by Iran. The Christians of the Nineveh Plains that had been displaced by Sunni Jihadists backed by Turkey and Qatar are now being displaced by a Shiite Jihadist cult backed by Iran.

While the Obama administration backed the Pro-Iranian government in Baghdad and its Shiite militias, it discouraged the Americans who had volunteered to come and help protect Assyrian Christians. Congressional efforts to protect Christians were likewise stymied by the Obama administration and by State Department personnel in the region who refused to act on Congressional mandates.

The situation in the Nineveh Plains highlights the larger dilemma for the Christians in the region. As a middle class minority, instability turns Christians into immediate Jihadist targets. When Shiite and Sunni Muslims fight, they both rob the Christians. And when the fighting dies down, the Muslims go back to some version of the status quo, while the Christians lose what little they were trying to protect.

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Canada Reveals a Third Citizen Detained by China Trudeau says latest case doesn’t fit pattern of others following arrest of Huawei CFO in Vancouver By Paul Vieira

By on December 20th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/canadian-government-is-aware-of-another-citizen-detained-in-china-11545227386

OTTAWA—Canada revealed a third Canadian national in just over a week has been detained in China since the arrest in Vancouver, British Columbia, of Huawei Technologies Co.’s chief financial officer.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that this new case appears to differ from the detention last week of two Canadians—a former diplomat, Michael Kovrig, and an entrepreneur, Michael Spavor, with ties to North Korea—who are both reportedly being held on national security grounds.

Security experts and China watchers say they believe the arrests are meant to punish Canada for its role in the arrest of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou, and persuade Ottawa to release her.

“We are looking into the details of this most recent [case] that doesn’t seem to fit the pattern of the previous two,” Mr. Trudeau said at a press conference.

Later, he said the case of the third Canadian detained appeared to deal with what he described as routine issues, without elaborating. In contrast, Mr. Trudeau said, Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor “were accused of serious crimes.”

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

The U.S. Military’s Crisis of Imagination America’s longstanding position of dominance has tended to make strategists and citizens complacent. 37 Comments By Douglas J. Feith and Seth Cropsey

By on December 20th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-militarys-crisis-of-imagination-11545264636

At the heart of national-security strategy is imagination. The strategist’s job is to dream up what enemies someday might do to harm us. But there’s a lot of history supporting the adage that generals forever prepare to fight the last war. After World War I, France fortified itself against a German invasion of the kind it had spent four years stalemating in the trenches. After Sept. 11, 2001, the new Transportation Security Administration focused on airport procedures to prevent a repeat of that attack.

The problem of dangers’ being unimaginable was front and center for the bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission. Congress created the commission of national-security experts in December 2016. Its report, released last month, conjured up realistic near-term scenarios to show how the U.S., as a result of military deficiencies, might acquiesce to enemy aggression or accept defeat in battle.

Here’s one of the report’s scenarios: “Responding to false reports of atrocities against Russian populations in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, Russia invades those countries under guise of a ‘peacekeeping’ mission. . . . Russia declares that strikes against Russian forces in those states will be treated as attacks on Russia itself—implying a potential nuclear response. Meanwhile, to keep America off balance . . . Russian submarines attack trans-Atlantic fiber optic cables. Russian hackers shut down power grids and compromise the security of U.S. banks. The Russian military uses advanced anti-satellite capabilities to damage or destroy U.S. military and commercial satellites. Major [American] cities are paralyzed; use of the internet and smart phones is disrupted. Financial markets plummet. . . . The banking system is thrown into chaos. Even as the U.S. military confronts the immense operational challenge of liberating the Baltic states, American society is suffering the devastating impact of modern conflict.”

Unless one is blessed with stupid enemies—and you can’t count on that—the proper assumption is that they are innovating. For World War II, the Nazis invented blitzkrieg, which worked stunningly at the outset and made France’s static fortifications ineffective. Before 1973, intelligence leaders in Jerusalem didn’t imagine that Egypt, without being able to destroy Israel’s army, would launch a surprise attack to seize the Suez Canal. It’s hard to dream up the unprecedented, and even harder to persuade large bureaucracies to heed unfamiliar dangers.

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Palestinian Children: Victims of Arab Apartheid by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on December 20th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13442/palestinian-children-apartheid

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “legal prohibitions persist on access for Palestinian refugees to 36 liberal or syndicated professions (including in medicine, farming, fishery, and public transportation)… In order to work, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are required to obtain an annual work permit. Following a change in the law in 2001, Palestinian refugees are reportedly prevented from legal acquiring, transferring or inheriting real property in Lebanon.”

The latest failure serves as a reminder of the apartheid and discrimination Palestinians face in Lebanon. According to various human rights organizations, Palestinians there suffer systematic discrimination in nearly every aspect of daily life. The UNHCR also points out that the Palestinians in Lebanon do not have access to Lebanese public health services and rely mostly on UNRWA for health services, as well as non-profit organizations and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. The Palestinians are also denied access to Lebanese public schools.

Where are all the international human rights organizations and pro-Palestinian groups around the world that feign concern for the suffering of the Palestinians? Will they remain silent over the neglect of Wahbeh because because he died in an Arab country and Israel had nothing to do with his death?

Mohammed Majdi Wahbeh, a three-year-old Palestinian boy from the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, is the latest victim of apartheid and discriminatory laws targeting Palestinians in an Arab country.

Wahbeh was pronounced dead this week after Lebanese hospitals refused to receive him because his parents were unable to cover the cost of his medical treatment. According to reports in the Lebanese media, one hospital asked the boy’s family to pay $2,000 for his admittance. The boy had been in comma for three days before his death, but no hospital agreed to receive him because his family could not afford to cover the expenses of his treatment.

The death of the Palestinian boy at the entrance to the hospital has sparked a wave of anger among many Lebanese and Palestinians. Addressing the Lebanese Minister of Health, Ghassan Husbani, Lebanese journalist Dima Sadek wrote on Twitter:

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