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May 2019

Democrats’ Tolerance of Anti-Semitism Exposes Their Intolerance By Rick Scott

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/democratic-party-tolerance-anti-semitism-exposes-intolerance/

An old hatred is finding a new home on the far left, and Democratic leaders have failed to condemn it forthrightly.

Last week, the New York Times was widely criticized after publishing a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon. And while the image was certainly shocking, it isn’t surprising given where we are today. Something has changed; we are living in a scary time in which anti-Semitism is being tolerated. I cannot comprehend why anyone would be anti-Semitic.

The media love to decry the president for everything he says, but they seem to have fallen oddly silent when it comes to the new anti-Semitism on the left. What we saw at the New York Times merely reflects my fear that anti-Semitism is finding a home in America on the far left.

I’m proud to represent Florida, which is home to the third-largest population of Jewish Americans in the country. Unfortunately, we saw anti-Semitism and hate rear its ugly head in Florida last year. I was the first governor in Florida history to make major investments to secure our Jewish day schools after a series of bomb threats. And after the shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, I ordered state troopers to increase patrols at religious institutions all across the state.

We shouldn’t have had to do this — but unfortunately, anti-Semitism continues to be a major issue across our country. Just a few weeks ago, we saw the horrible attack on the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California.

In a major departure from the norm, every major Democratic candidate for president refused to go to the annual AIPAC conference in Washington, D.C. This is unprecedented. It turns out that Democratic candidates for president were afraid to offend the sensibilities of the far-left anti-Semites among them.

Against the Persecution of Bill Barr By David French

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/against-the-persecution-of-bill-barr/

The attorney general has gone above and beyond legal requirements in his release of the Mueller report. He deserves Congress’s gratitude, not its contempt.

The Democratic party’s current war on Attorney General William Barr is one of the most misguided, misplaced bursts of outrage that I’ve seen during the first term of the Trump administration. Barr protected the Mueller investigation, he went above and beyond legal requirements to release Mueller’s report to the public, and he has offered to congressional leaders far more details about the investigation than are publicly available. Yet now he’s subject to congressional contempt proceedings?

This is nonsense.

Barr has been far, far more transparent than governing law requires. The special-counsel regulations are crystal clear: The special counsel is required to deliver to the attorney general a “confidential report explaining [his] prosecution or declination decisions.” The attorney general is under no obligation to make that report public. Instead, the regulations state that he “may determine that public release of these reports would be in the public interest” and if so can release them subject to “applicable legal restrictions.”

This is exactly what Barr did: He released the report with minimal material redactions. The American public can read all about Russian interference in American elections, Trump’s unscrupulous campaign team, and Trump’s own deceptions right here. An annotated version can be read here. A bound volume of the report can even be bought here.

So why are Democrats now claiming that we’re in the grips of a “constitutional crisis”? Why are some openly suggesting using the sergeant at arms to arrest Barr and throw him in jail? The answer is absurd: because Barr has not complied with a congressional subpoena that demands from him documents he cannot legally disclose. Yes, that’s right. Congress is threatening Barr with contempt in part because Barr won’t break the law.

Islamic Jew-Hatred: Dishonest Takiya From Qanta Ahmed and Mohamed Z. Jasser, Honest Mea Culpa From Ayaan Hirsi Ali Andrew Bostom

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2019/05/islamic-jew-hatred-dishonest-takiya-from-qanta-ahmed-and-mohamed-z-jasser-honest-mea-culpa-from-ayaan-hirsi-ali/

The unique, global pandemic of Muslim Jew-hatred will only begin to ebb, if at all, with honest reform of Islam’s vast, ugly corpus of canonical Jew-hatred—from the Koran, and the traditions—as currently still promulgated, in all its virulence, by Islamdom’s most prestigious religious teaching institutions.

Unfortunately, Fox News’ go to so-called “reformist” Muslims, Qanta Ahmed and Mohamed Z. Jasser, completely deny this facts-on-the ground reality, while monotonously spewing apologetics that whitewash its major cause: Islam’s viscerally Jew-hating theology. In the wake of the Philadelphia Islamic Center video imbroglio—whose Islamic teaching roots I analyzed extensively—here are two recent examples of the dishonest misrepresentations Ahmed and

Jasser repeatedly put forth, unchallenged, to Fox News’ enormous viewing audiences:

[Qanta Ahmed, May 6, 2019]: “It is absolutely anathema to Islam…This is completely not what Islam teaches. Islam sees Christians and Jews as legitimate believers who are party to paradise, who have a true message from God, and they are our brethren. We cannot be Muslim unless we believe in the Bible and the Torah.”

[Mohamed Z. Jasser, May 7, 2019]: “The ideology—What they wanna do is say well the militant part is what’s the problem. No. The non-violent ‘Islamism’, the ‘supremacism of ‘Islamism’…”

A Looming Crisis in the Mideast by Ahmed Charai

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14193/looming-crisis-mideast

After raining down some 600 rockets that killed four Israelis this past week, the Netanyahu government responded with overwhelming force, deploying jet fighters to carry out multiple air strikes, killing 23 Gaza residents including a pregnant woman, according to Palestinian Authority officials. (The pregnant women and her child, however, are now confirmed as having been killed by a Palestinian rocket that feel short.)

And, so, the cycle of violence makes another cruel revolution. What makes the events of the past week different from earlier rockets-and-retaliation episodes? The reaction of Arab intellectuals and other thought leaders in Muslim world.

Consider the tweet of Dr. Turki Al-Hamad, a well-known Saudi author and thinker. He tweeted: “It’s a repeating loop: rockets [are fired] from Gaza into Israel, Israel bombs [Gaza], someone or other mediates, the fighting stops – and the common Palestinian folks pay the price. This is ‘resistance,’ my friend. Iran and Turkey are in trouble, and the Palestinians are paying the price.”

Note his use of scare quotes around resistance and his willingness to blame Iran and Turkey, two Muslim-majority nations, instead of the Jewish state. This marks a real rhetorical change.

And many influential Arab voices echoed the thoughts of Dr. Al-Hamad.

Andrew McCarthy: Congress’ contempt stunt against Attorney General Barr

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-mccarthy-congress-contempt-barr-democrats-watergate

When Congress uses its contempt power, there are basically three avenues it can pursue for purposes of enforcement. In the case of the House Judiciary Committee’s party-line vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt – for purportedly failing to produce a report he has actually produced – Democrats, who control the House, will use the route that is most political and, thus, least credible: the unilateral congressional procedure.

The committee will refer its finding for a vote by the full chamber. The stunt here is so nakedly partisan that the House won’t even try to get support from the Senate. In theory, the House could try to take enforcement action on contempt. Congress even has a jail cell in the bowels of the Capitol … though it hasn’t been used in many, many years, and it certainly is not going to be used against a cabinet officer of the executive branch. (I’m thinking the U.S. marshals would not take kindly to the House sergeant-at-arms showing up at Main Justice with a congressional arrest warrant for the attorney general).

On the other extreme, the House could theoretically avail itself of the second avenue: It could seek the help of the executive branch – specifically, the Justice Department – to pursue criminal contempt charges against the attorney general (i.e., it could ask the attorney general to prosecute the attorney general).

Waving Goodbye To the Jerusalem Waiver

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/waving-goodbye-to-the-jerusalem-waiver/90677/

Secretary of State Pompeo’s report that no further waivers are necessary in respect of the Jerusalem Embassy Act is a wonderful moment in these parlous times. It is a marker not only of principle but also of stick-to-it-ive-ness. And it puts paid to an account opened, so to speak, by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan when he was at the peak of his power in the Senate.

That was in the mid-1990s. We were editing the Jewish Forward at the time, and the senator had asked if he could stop by. He was then chairman of the finance committee and we wanted to talk about — naturally — the gold standard. He, it turned out, had no more interest in the gold standard than the man in the moon. Instead, he thrust at us a copy of the State Department telephone directory.

Moynihan handed the book to us even before he sat down. “Here,” he said once a few colleagues were seated at a round table. “Let’s talk about this.” We were stumped. So he riffed through State’s phone book, stopping at Jerusalem. It wasn’t listed under Israel, he pointed out, or any other country. Alone among capital cities, it was listed under Jerusalem — as if it were a separate nation altogether.

Expecting Israelis to pay to be killed proves Abbas isn’t interested in peace By Lawrence J. Haas

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/442905-expecting-israelis-to-pay-to-be-killed-proves-abbas-isnt-interested-in-peace

Gazan terrorists launched hundreds of rockets into Israel in recent days to overwhelm its Iron Dome anti-missile system, killing four civilians and forcing untold numbers of others to take cover. And on the West Bank, the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority planted the seeds for more killing – albeit less flamboyantly.

That Israel is more focused on Gaza of late than the West Bank is hardly surprising. One can only imagine the U.S. reaction, and reprisals, if hundreds of rockets were flying in from Canada or Mexico.

In a televised address on April 29, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas conceded that his organization faces a financial crisis but insisted that it will continue to reject all Israeli payments because the Jewish state had the audacity to deduct the cost of stipends that go to terrorists and their families.

“Our position on this issue was, and still is, clear,” the 83-year-old Abbas told the Palestinian people, looking into a camera as he sat behind a desk. “We refuse to receive the money if any amount is missing from it, especially the amount [that we pay to the families of] the martyrs, or any other amount that they owe us.”

Indeed, his position is crystal clear. Abbas announced the policy in February after Israel declared that it would withhold $140 million over the course of the year, which it said was what Abbas’ government pays to the families of “martyrs” who died while trying to kill Jews or who were now held in Israel jails for the same reason.

Democrats Face a Bleak Post-Mueller Landscape . By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/05/09/progressives_face_a_bleak_post-mueller_landscape_140279.html

Democrats have grown infuriated by Attorney General William Barr’s indifference to their hysteria over the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.

Barr recently released a brief summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusions that Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians to warp the 2016 election. Barr added that Mueller had not found enough evidence to recommend that Trump be indicted for obstruction of justice for the non-crime of collusion.

Progressives, who for 22 months had insisted that Trump was a Russian asset, were stunned. But only for a few hours.

Almost immediately, they redirected their fury toward Barr’s summation of the Mueller report. Yet few rational people contested Barr’s synopses about collusion and obstruction.

Both the Mueller report and Barr’s summation can be found on the internet. Anyone can read them to see whether Barr misrepresented Mueller’s conclusions.

Again, there have been few criticisms that Barr was wrong on his interpretation that there was no collusion and not enough evidence to indict on obstruction of justice.

The Middle East Anti-Peace Movement by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14189/anti-peace-jordan

[The Jordanian mayor] went on to say that he believes in the “liberation of Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River” – meaning that he supports the elimination of Israel.

The campaign against the Jordanian mayor is the direct result of anti-Israel incitement in Jordan and most of the Arab and Islamic states. While some of the leaders of these countries may appear to be relatively moderate in their views towards Israel, their people continue to reject any form of normalization with the “Zionist enemy.”

For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have been radicalizing their people on a daily basis against Israel. They have delegitimized Israel in the eyes of their people to a point where they can no longer be seen talking to or making peace with Israelis.

One is left wondering how any Arab leader would accept any peace plan with Israel when a mayor is being widely condemned and shamed for being caught on camera in the company of Israelis.

In order to achieve peace with Israel, Arab and Muslim leaders need to start preparing their people for peace, and not inciting them against Israel.

Ibrahim al-Karaki, the mayor of the Jordanian city of Al-Karak, 87 miles to south of Amman, with a view to the Dead Sea, is under attack for hosting Israeli (Jewish) tourists during the Jewish Passover holiday. His critics have accused him of promoting normalization with the “Israeli enemy” and are demanding his resignation.

Although Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, many Jordanians remain opposed to any form of normalization with Israelis. The same applies to Egypt, the second Arab country that has a peace treaty with Israel and where the “anti-normalization” camp remains one of the strongest in the Arab world.

CLAREMONT REVIEW OF BOOKS: HUNGARY & THE FUTURE OF EUROPE

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/05/crb-hungary-and-the-future-of-europe.php

No English-language newspaper reported on it at the time, nor has any cited it since, but the speech Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán made before an annual picnic for his party’s intellectual leaders in the late summer of 2015 is probably the most important by a Western statesman this century. As Orbán spoke in the village of Kötcse, by Lake Balaton, hundreds of thousands of migrants from across the Muslim world, most of them young men, were marching northwestwards out of Asia Minor, across the Balkan countries and into the heart of Europe.

Already, mobs of migrants had broken Hungarian police lines, trampled cropland, occupied town squares, shut down highways, stormed trains, and massed in front of Budapest’s Keleti train station. German chancellor Angela Merkel had invited those fleeing the Syrian civil war to seek refuge in Europe. They had been joined en route, in at least equal number, by migrants from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. For Hungarians, this was playing with fire. They are taught in school to think of their Magyar ancestors as having ridden off the Asian steppes to put much of Europe to the torch (Attila is a popular boys’ name), and they themselves suffered centuries of subjugation under the Ottomans, who marched north on the same roads the Syrian refugees used in the internet age. But no one was supposed to bring up the past. Merkel and her defenders had raised the subject of human rights, which until then had been sufficient to stifle misgivings. In Kötcse, Orbán informed Merkel and the world that it no longer was.