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June 2022

France: Dangerous for Jews by Guy Millière

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18625/france-dangerous-for-jews

[T]he attitude of the French judiciary to [Hadjadj’s] murder is similar to how it has regarded all murders of Jews in France, for decades.

First, the authorities always say, as quickly as possible, that the murder of the Jew was not at all motivated by antisemitism. When evidence to the contrary accumulates and becomes impossible to deny, the antisemitic motive may reluctantly be recognized — as with the abduction, torture and murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006; the murder of Sarah Halimi in 2017; and the murder of Mireille Knoll in 2018.

That the murderers are generally Muslim further encourages the French judiciary not to speak of antisemitism. In fact, it is almost taboo to speak of any Muslim antisemitism in France: Muslim antisemitism is supposed not to exist. All organizations dedicated to fighting antisemitism target only the “far-right.”

The French authorities and mainstream media describe crime, but do not explain it — meaning that crime is rising but not being fought.

The French government has declined to document the religion or race of people charged with crimes. Although the refusal may be well-intentioned, it prevents any understanding of what is taking place and consequently any the means of addressing or preventing it.

Lyon, France. May 17, 2022. A district called La Duchère. René Hadjadj, an 89-year-old Jew, was thrown off a 17th floor balcony — an act quickly revealed as a murder. The murderer was Rachid Kheniche, a 51-year-old Muslim Arab, with a Twitter account containing many antisemitic messages. The public prosecutor, who has since partially reconsidered his position, immediately declared that the murder was not an antisemitic crime. The mainstream media never reported the murder; only local Jewish newspapers did. Hadjadj’s family, who live in the same neighborhood, said they preferred to remain silent.

A War That Could Change the World by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18624/war-change-the-world

Shaped over the past seven decades, that is to say after the Second World War, what is known as the international order has been based on three principles which, although not always observed, have helped keep the edifice intact.

The first principle was what is known as international law, built around the United Nations Charter and over 10,000 international treaties and protocols endorsed by a majority of the existing 193 states. The invasion of Ukraine has violated that principle in a dramatic way. Because the aggressor is a veto-holding member of the UN Security Council, the issue cannot even be handled even formally by the United Nations.

The second principle was consensus in favor of free trade, subject to bilateral and/or international accords. It took decades of negotiations at various levels for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to morph into the World Trade Organization. With the advent of globalization, support for the free flow of goods and capital, and in some cases labor, cut across ideological divides among the larger nation-states.

That principle, too, has been violated….

Suddenly a global economic system [protecting capital] that worked like a clock is hit with numerous hitches.

As you can see, we have more problems than not trying to humiliate Tsar Vladimir.

Is the war in Ukraine no more than a patch of cloud in an otherwise bright sky? This seems to be the Panglossian opinion of some elites in Western democracies who, like French President Emmanuel Macron, are anxious not to humiliate Russian President Vladimir Putin over a mere peccadillo.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

Another week, another incredible compilation of the outsize contribution of Israel to medicine, technology, science, sports, energy, the arts, global economy, and cuisine.  This dazzling list is compiled by Michael Ordman.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Israel’s most advanced cardiology hospital. The new NIS 200 million Eyal Ofer Heart Hospital has just opened on the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa. Besides “normal” cardiology treatments, it will advance research into the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and disorders, benefiting the whole world.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-708300  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btNFNOOf9Ok

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-709383

Coming soon – 3D-printed skin. (TY UWI) Hebrew University Professor Oded Shoseyov is developing Second Skin – a nano-thin 3D-printed film that mimics natural healthy skin. Burn victims or scarred patients can avoid painful skin grafts, simply applying the film like a tattoo.

https://www.israel21c.org/coming-soon-human-skin-you-can-print-at-home/

Better heart imaging. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s DiA Imaging (see here previously) is partnering California’s ScImage to integrate DiA’s LVivo Seamless AI-based automated cardiac ultrasound solution into ScImage’s unique Cloud architecture and improve the efficiency of echocardiography (heart) analysis.

https://www.dia-analysis.com/post/scimage-and-dia-imaging-analysis-team-up-to-infuse-ai-into-echocardiography-labs

The stuttering birth of a special education learning startup. To treat the stutter of their son, Niv, Biomedical Engineers Yair and Shirley believed they could develop a hi-tech solution. The result was Israel’s Amplio (see here previously). Their groundbreaking system now helps hundreds of thousands of special needs children.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sku3g7hf5   https://ampliolearning.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4BZJc3OCrk

The first AI med-tech research institute. Israel’s Technion Institute is establishing the Zimin Institute for AI Solutions in Healthcare. Headed by Professor Shai Shen-Orr, it will research human health and medicine, using big data and computational learning. It aims to benefit hospitals, new treatments, home therapy and wearables.

https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2022/06/zimin-institute-to-be-established-at-the-technion-will-focus-on-ai-in-medicine/

Heart ops on International Children’s Day. Four children from different countries were brought to Israel on International Children’s Day to undergo life-saving heart surgeries by Israeli NGO Save a Child’s Heart. They were Florim from Kosovo, Robert from Ghana, Kauthar from Zanzibar and Kidus from Ethiopia.

https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/bkd2kqro5

Land of milk, honey, and magic. In the same hour, volunteer EMTs from Israel’s United Hatzalah used their Epipens to save the lives of two Israelis who suffered anaphylactic shock from severe allergic reactions to dairy products. One paramedic was Aharon, whose main profession is a children’s magician (see here previously).

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/354926

Domestic Terrorism Ignored Scalise shooter James Hodgkinson overlooked, Reagan shooter John Hinckley goes free.  By Lloyd Billingsley

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/18/domestic-terrorism-ignored/

“Today is 6/14, a day that should live in infamy,” wrote Rabbi Jonathan Gross last Tuesday. June 14 marked five years since the attempt at “the largest-scale political assassination in our nation’s history,” when “a Democrat tried to murder dozens of Republican Congressmen as they innocently gathered to play baseball at a field just outside the nation’s capital.” 

The Democrat was James Hodgkinson, 66, a follower of Bernie Sanders. Hodgkinson “succeeded in seriously injuring Rep. Steve Scalise and three others, including two police officers before brave law enforcement officials stopped him and saved the rule of law.” 

According to Gross, who is also a civil rights attorney, this was “an actual domestic terror attack carried out by a Democrat.” That is not the only reason the establishment media and the federal government kept rather quiet on the five-year anniversary. 

Hodgkinson’s social media record bristled with hatred of President Trump and Republicans. He planned the attack for months, casing the Alexandria, Virginia baseball field where the representatives practiced. 

Hodgkinson deployed a Smith and Wesson 9mm pistol and an SKS automatic rifle, a precursor to the Soviet AK-47 that uses the same 7.62 cartridge. The SKS rifle had been legally purchased, but altered to accept a detachable magazine and folding stock. Before opening fire, Hodgkinson asked if the players on the field were Democrats or Republicans. 

Joe Incompetent Adam Smith was trying to be consoling when he said “there’s a deal of ruin in a nation.” Yes, there is. But Joe Biden is testing the limits of that home truth. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/18/joe-incompetent/

When it comes to the Biden Administration, my advice is: forget the ideology, concentrate on the incompetence. 

Yes, the Biden Administration has gone all-in on the leisured Left agenda, throwing its hat in with the race-baiters, icky sexual exotics, climate fanatics, and other wardens of wokeness. 

All that is destructive, not to mention deeply unattractive.

But even worse than the preening, self-indulgent theatrics of these unhappy would-be censors and commandants is the mind-boggling ineptitude of this administration. 

Thanks to soon-to-be-former Representative Liz Cheney (RINO-Wyo.), we’ve been hearing a lot about January 6, 2021, lately. But not only was that the day that some of Donald Trump’s supporters traipsed around the Capitol building. It was also, as it turns out, a day that provided a nice contrast between the Trump and the Biden Administrations. I am not thinking about the differences in comportment between the two but energy costs under Donald Trump compared with those costs under Joe Biden. Since Biden seems bent on fulfilling his promise to destroy the coal industry and stop all drilling, it is not surprising that the cost of energy has skyrocketed over the last year. One wag sent around a “Never Forget January 6th” notice listing the prices of fuel on that day in 2021:

Regular gas was $1.99
Premium was $2.14 
Diesel was $2.21 

42% of Young Male Dems Believe Transgender Movement a Threat to Children Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2022/06/42-young-male-dems-believe-transgender-movement-daniel-greenfield/

The numbers under the hood, especially among young male Dems, are seriously bad. And a reckoning is coming.

This is a Southern Poverty Law Center survey. And I wouldn’t be posting SPLC content if it wasn’t spectacular. And it is spectacular.

Overall, 49% of people said they believe gender ideology has corrupted American culture, including 34% of Democrats, 72% of Republicans, and 45% of Independents.

The magic happens when you break down the numbers by age and gender. Among younger Democrat men, a group that the SPLC survey defines as under 50, the numbers are dramatically different than among baby boomers.

Only 20% of Democrat men over 50 agree that “gender ideology has corrupted American culture”, but 47% of younger Democratic men agree.

Only 41% disagree.

The numbers are better among Democrat women, but there’s still a sharp age split.

Only 26% of older Democrat women agree, while 37% of younger Democrat women do.

The numbers get progressively worse for lefties on the question of transgender indoctrination of children and whether it’s a threat to children.

This is War: Jonathan Pelson

https://americanmind.org/salvo/this-is-war/

Free trade with a hostile nation is a losing game.

The following is an excerpt from Jonathan Pelson’s new book, Wireless Wars: China’s Dangerous Domination of 5G and How We’re Fighting Back.

Why didn’t the regulators and government authorities in the United States and Europe stop the damage from Huawei? Why did they allow the Chinese company to sell their gear in the U.S., and all over the world, at prices that were clearly below cost, low enough to take business from most competitors, and so low they destroyed the margins on competitors who had to slash their own prices to win the business? Shouldn’t countries prevent foreign companies from entering and dominating their markets, selling products below cost? And shouldn’t countries put up trade barriers to block foreigners if their home country doesn’t also open its markets to imports?

This is often the response from governments, whether in the Americas, Europe, or elsewhere. Leaders come to the aid of domestic industries, decrying unfair competition. Companies under threat try to position themselves as “strategic,” and warranting protection. Somehow, the truly strategic telecom sector failed to earn this designation. But should any sector block foreign suppliers, even if those suppliers are selling their products at unreasonably low prices?

There aren’t simple answers to these questions, says Mike Munger, an economist and former chair of the department of political science at Duke University, where he continues to teach political science, public policy, and economics. He argues that trade deficits aren’t a problem, and he makes the case for continuing to trade even when a partner subsidizes their products and puts up barriers to yours.

“My trade deficit with Kroger’s supermarkets is gigantic,” he deadpans. “I buy a ton of groceries from them and they never buy anything from me. The last time I tried to sell them some of my stuff, they called the cops.” Munger says that if one party has something of value and the other party has money they want to exchange for it, no voluntary exchange is bad.

Celebrating with Lee Edwards as Communism Is ‘Put on Trial’ :Jack Fowler

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/celebrating-with-lee-edwards-as-communism-is-put-on-trial/?utm_source=

Last week’s opening of the Victims of Communism Museum resulted from a 35-year effort spearheaded by NR’s old and dear friend, Lee Edwards (fun fact: His first piece for this magazine, “The Way of All France,” was published in the February 1, 1958, issue). Yours Truly corresponded with Lee prior to the ribbon-cutting, asking a few questions, getting a few answers in return. It would be a shame to not share them, and so we do:

Jack Fowler: Why will the world be a better place for there being this museum?

Lee Edwards: Because the museum will serve as the cornerstone of our global educational campaign about the manifold victims and crimes of communism.

Fowler: The Nazis have been rightly denigrated, their leaders executed for crimes against humanity, the name made synonymous with evil — but there was no such justice for East Europe’s and Asia’s communist henchmen. They are not the stuff of vilification by Western media, by Western culture, at least in no way comparable to the Nazis. Is this a driving force in part behind the creation of the Victims of Communism Memorial and the museum, this sense of a lack of justice or righteous admission of just how dastardly communism is?

Edwards: Nazism was exposed and convicted at the Nuremburg trials. VOC intends to put communism on trial in Washington, D.C. We will feature witnesses from the nearly 40 nations that suffered under communism — some 1.5 billion still do so in China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos.

Fowler: On the memorial, 100 million are recognized — are they the murdered? What is the greater number of true victims of communism?

Poll: Young Democrats Are Souring on Feminism By Nate Hochman

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/poll-young-democrats-are-souring-on-femini

Michelle Goldberg’s latest New York Times column notes a very interesting new poll regarding public opinion on feminism:

Recently the Southern Poverty Law Center and Tulchin Research commissioned a poll of 1,500 Americans to measure belief in various reactionary sentiments, including the “great replacement” conspiracy theory and the idea that trans people are a threat to children. Because misogyny is so ubiquitous in far-right spaces, Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the S.P.L.C., decided to add a question about feminism.

Predictably, most young Republicans agree with the statement, “Feminism has done more harm than good.” What was astonishing was how many young Democrats agreed as well. While only 4 percent of Democratic men over 50 thought feminism was harmful, 46 percent of Democratic men under 50 did. Nearly a quarter of Democratic women under 50 agreed, compared with only 10 percent of those 50 and older.

Goldberg, a progressive and a feminist herself, concludes that this shift is due to the fact “that feminism has been sapped of cultural vitality”: “After four years of Donald Trump, more than two years of a pandemic, and an unending right-wing onslaught, a lot of people with feminist sympathies are numb and exhausted.” I have a slightly different explanation. Feminism today is distinct from the feminism of past generations — far more radical and less tolerant, more concerned with quashing dissent than securing rights. 

Sotomayor on Thomas: ‘The One Justice in the Building That Literally Knows Every Employee’s Name By Dan McLaughlin

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/sotomayor-on-thomas-the-one-justice-in-the-building-that-literally-knows-every-employees-name/?utm

For all of the acrimony around the Supreme Court these days, it is nice to hear this public tribute by Justice Sonia Sotomayor to being friends with her colleague Clarence Thomas, before an audience at the American Constitution Society that was obviously not sympathetic to Thomas:

Justice Thomas is the one justice in the building that literally knows every employee’s name, every one of them. And not only does he know their names, he remembers their families’ names and histories, He is the first one who will go up to someone when you’re walking with him and say, ‘Is your son okay? How’s your daughter doing in college?’ He’s the first one that, when my stepfather died, sent me flowers in Florida. He is a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution, and about people.

Of course, Sotomayor noted that she and Thomas have very different philosophies, but fundamentally, “we share a common understanding about people and kindness towards them.”