RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/iran-tries-to-make-a-stand-in-jenin/?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–

The future of Gaza depends to some extent on what’s happening in Jenin this week.

The West Bank city is a hotbed of Iranian-backed militias who have spent years carving out a separatist haven there. It is a significant challenge to Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. Both Israel and the Palestinians who want self-determination share an interest in preventing the Iranian colonial project from accomplishing its primary aim in the West Bank: Palestinian civil war and the disintegration of the Palestinian Authority.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, that has only become more urgent. At some point, the PA is expected to take over the administration of the Gaza Strip after Hamas is removed from power. If Abbas cannot maintain control over the West Bank, the PA cannot take on Gaza as well.

And so Abbas’s decision to send Palestinian security forces into Jenin is a crucial test for the aging autocrat and his government.

“The gunmen in Jenin are not resistance fighters, but mercenaries serving the dubious agenda of an outside party,” declared PA spokesman Anwar Rajab.

The New York Times describes the riddle that the PA, Israel, and the U.S. are trying to solve. Israel has been stepping up its security raids in Jenin because Abbas is barely able to step foot in the city. Israel does not want an Iranian terror-and-tunnel project in the West Bank to match the one currently undergoing disassembly in Gaza. The U.S. wants Israel to back off a bit, to enable the Palestinian security forces to gather the strength to take back Jenin. But if Israel backs off too much or for too long, the PA will fail when it does try to restore order there.

That happened last week, in fact. According to Axios, Palestinian security forces fumbled a mission in which they were trying to arrest “several PIJ and Hamas militants who stole Palestinian security forces vehicles and used them for an armed parade through the refugee camp.” The mission failure, then was a double humiliation.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21230/south-africa-failed-state

South Africa… has an active and influential Muslim sector supportive of Hamas and Palestinian land claims. Coupled to its pathetic intelligence services, and its lamentable military and police forces, South Africa is ill-equipped to counter Islamist infiltration from neighboring regions or its growing internal extremist movements.

Apart from succeeding in overcoming Apartheid, all that the ANC and allies have put their minds to since, ends in dismal failure. Every state-owned enterprise is broke and/or dysfunctional…. The same applies to government departments….

As a mineral-rich country… South Africa is a prime target for a hostile takeover by opportunistic authoritarian state players. Russia, China and Iran are strongly positioned already…

Of the three, China, with its vast financial and political investments in Africa, carries the most influence, and this will no doubt increase beyond the West’s capacity to match it as time passes. At this moment, with its primary focus on the Middle East and Ukraine, the West is unable or unwilling to match China’s multi-faceted influence in the region and thus offers China unbounded freedom to accelerate pursuit of its interests there.

[T]he West’s loss of influence in the region might be greatly regretted for decades to come.

Although the African National Congress (ANC) remains the dominant political party in South Africa after the 2024 national elections, its power is significantly diminished in addition to its reduced parliamentary representation. After failing to command a majority, the ANC is the largest faction of South Africa’s so-called Government of National Unity – although there is little unity among its large number of members. To describe the government as a fragile coalition would be more accurate.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, an ardent critic of Israel, is the authority behind South Africa’s actions condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Ramaphosa is also a leading figure in BRICS – a group of nations seeking to bypass America’s dominance of world trade, and global financial and monetary control. As part of South Africa’s realignment from the West towards BRICS, the ANC has adopted Russia and Iran as replacement benefactors, and has strengthened ties with China.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-trudeau-tariffs-border-fight-canada

The problem with criticizing Justin Trudeau is not where to begin but where to end. Trudeau’s proclivity for gaffes and vulgarity was established long before he became prime minister. And this fluffy, insubstantial side even seemed like it might have an upside as he formed a government: as long as Trudeau focused on annoying stunts and virtue-signaling, he would have little time for screwing up the country. Sadly, however, his government’s long procession of scandals and missteps has proven that theory wrong.

Trudeau’s latest crisis is arguably the worst. The incoming Trump administration has threatened a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods entering the U.S. unless Canada stops the flow of drugs and migrants over the border. The trade relationship between Canada and the United States is the largest between any two countries in the world. The total value of cross border trade was $926 billion in 2023, or roughly $2.5 billion a day. This reality should make any problem with border security a high priority for Canada; and any threat of tariffs is a national emergency.

How did Trudeau react? First, he had dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which seems to have produced no result. Next, at the Equal Voice Gala for International Human Rights Day, Trudeau delivered a speech attacking the United States for failing to elect Kamala Harris and declaring himself a “proud feminist.” Then he executed a series of ham-fisted moves to reassign his minister of finance, Chrystia Freeland, and replace her with Mark Carney, former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. Freeland refused this demotion and tendered her resignation.

That all happened on the same morning that Freeland was to present a budgetary update known as the Fall Economic Statement, which was already weeks overdue. Whatever disagreement unfolded behind closed doors between Trudeau and Freeland likely concerned increased borrowing and spending on two cynical vote-buying schemes: a two-month holiday from the Goods and Services Tax, and a $250 rebate to families making less than $150,000 a year. What purpose is served by shoe-horning Carney into the government is not clear. But the latest episode seems to repeat an old pattern familiar from the SNC Lavalin scandal, in which Trudeau bullied and expelled his own female (and indigenous) attorney general from his cabinet for resisting pressure to cut a deal for a politically connected corporation facing corruption charges. In the event, the “feminist” Trudeau sacked the woman and replaced her with a more obedient male.