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Ruth King

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is the Palestinian Authority Preparing for a New Intifada? by Bassam Tawil

By on August 16th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14730/palestinian-authority-new-intifada

Needless to say, none of the Jews visiting the Temple Mount was involved in violence or any kind of “provocation.” The only violence that took place at the holy site came from Palestinians, who attacked the policemen with stones and chairs and hurled insults at the Jewish visitors.

By calling the visits “incursions” and “raids,” the Palestinians are trying to create the false impression that Jews are violently storming an Islamic holy site. The Arabic word Palestinians use to describe the visits: Iktiham (storm or break in). This rhetoric is meant to imply that the “extremist settlers” are carrying out a violent action against innocent Palestinians and their holy sites, thus signaling the Palestinians to rise to defend themselves and their mosque.

In the eyes of Palestinian leaders, Jews are always the “aggressors,” while Palestinians are the perpetual “victims”… in the Palestinian lexicon, a Jew peacefully touring the Temple Mount is an “aggressor,” while a Palestinian who throws stones and chairs at police officers and abuses the visitors is the real “victim.” This is the image Abbas, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are seeking to create in the minds of their people and the rest of the world.

The total number of Palestinians killed in Syria since 2011 now stands at 3,989. Where is the outrage from Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip about that? It is reserved for a Jew peacefully visiting the Temple Mount. For them, such visits are far more important than 250 Palestinian children killed in any Arab country. This sums up the Palestinian leaders’ attitude – ruinous disregard for the lives of their own children, and malign intentions for the Jews and their children.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) spent the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha this week inciting against Israel because of Jewish visits to the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif in Arabic, in Jerusalem. The site is also sacred to Jews and Christians: it is where the First and Second Temples had stood before being destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE and by the Romans in 70 CE. (The Western Wall, or so-called Wailing Wall, sacred to Jews, an ancient retaining wall of the Temple Mount, is all that remains of them.)

Depicting the peaceful visits as “incursions by Jewish settlers and extremists,” PA officials and media outlets accused the Israeli government of repeatedly carrying out “provocations and assaults against holy sites in Jerusalem, particularly Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Mahmoud Habbash, religious affairs adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, went as far as describing the Jews visiting the Temple Mount as “terrorists.” Habbash, who also serves as Supreme Shari’a Judge, also accused the Jewish visitors of “defiling the Haram al-Sharif and provoking the feelings of Muslims.” He further appealed to all Muslims to “defend Al-Aqsa Mosque against Israeli conspiracies and barbaric violations.”

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When Britain Died Welcome to Sharia. John Glynn

By on August 16th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274592/when-britain-died-john-glynn

In April of this year, in an article titled “4 Reasons Why London is The Worst,” Maria Ebele had this to say: “London has the reputation of one of the greatest cities in the world. But I’ll let you in on a secret: if you ever want to make friends with a Brit who is not from London, casually drop in conversation that London isn’t your most favourite place in the world. Then sit back and watch. Most likely, you’ll see his or her eyes light up with glee at the opportunity to rip into the nation’s capital.”

The author has a point. Over the past couple of years, more than 340,000 people have moved away from London amid rising levels of knife crime, according to reports. Extortionate property prices and poor air quality are also cited as reasons for people choosing to leave the capital and set up a new life elsewhere in the UK. Obviously, people want a better quality of life; also, people would prefer not to get stabbed.

However, could there be another reason for the mass exodus?

I ask this because London is acquiring an increasingly Islamic face.

In the words of Maulana Syed Raza Rizvi, an eminent preacher in the city, “London is more Islamic than many Muslim countries put together.” Yes, that London, as in the home of red buses and posh accents. The “traditional” picture of London has been replaced with a more worrying one. According to Giulio Meotti, a researcher at the Gatestone Institute, by 2020, “estimates are that the number of Muslims attending prayers will reach at least 683,000, while the number of Christians attending weekly Mass will drop to 679,000.” Next year, Islam looks likely to be the dominant religion in the capital.

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Stalin-Hitler Pact Turns 80 And ignorance still prevails in the Democrat-media alliance. Lloyd Billingsley

By on August 16th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274643/stalin-hitler-pact-turns-80-lloyd-billingsley

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was born on March 15, 1933, and Senator Dianne Feinstein on June 20 of the same year. An event that occurred six years later is far more significant than both those active public figures but much less understood, if known at all.

On August 23, 1939, Joseph Stalin of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics signed a pact with Adolph Hitler’s National Socialist regime in Germany. “Fascism is a matter of taste,” quipped Soviet foreign policy boss Vyacheslav Molotov, confirming that the two totalitarian regimes were essentially the same. Though often described as a “non-aggression pact,” the reverse was true.

The month after the Pact, Stalin and Hitler both invaded Poland, starting World War II. As Ben Peck noted in 2009 at Marxist.com, the Pact provided the Nazis with raw materials which “funded the Nazi war machine in Europe.”  By 1940, Stalin supplied Hitler’s Germany with 900,000 tons of mineral oil, 100 tons of scrap iron, 500,000 tons of iron ore” and other important minerals.  Soviet diplomats “groveled before the Führer in order to ingratiate themselves. In his cynical fashion, Stalin expelled each ambassador from the territories of the USSR as their countries were occupied by the Nazi armies.”

During the Pact, the Nazi and Soviet intelligence services teamed up against the Western democracies, and as the leftist Guardian recalls, the Stalin-Hitler collaboration did not end there. “Stalin also handed back a substantial number of German communists who had taken refuge in the Soviet Union after the Nazi seizure of power.” These Jewish communists, “were taken directly from the Soviet Gulag to a German concentration camp.”  As Christopher Wolf notes, “not many people know that many Jews fled Stalin’s control as well.”

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Banned: Omar, Tlaib, Geller, and Me Should a country ban people who oppose its policies from entering? Robert Spencer

By on August 16th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274644/banned-omar-tlaib-geller-and-me-robert-spencer

The vehemently anti-Semitic and anti-Israel Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have been banned from entering Israel, and Leftists are furious. Surely Israel, and its ally in the Oval Office, have made a major blunder, no? Not necessarily.

Rep. Justin Amash fumed: “Israel should stand up to President Trump and allow our colleagues to visit. Nobody has to agree with their opinions, but it will inevitably harm U.S.-Israel relations if members of Congress are banned from the country. We must find ways to come together; there’s enough division.” 

Sure, but would Omar and Tlaib touring around Israel, providing grist for the mill of the Palestinian propaganda jihad and calling for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) measures against the Jewish state really help us “come together”?

After all, they were banned due to “suspected provocations and promotion of BDS.” And there is certainly no doubt that they would have promoted the genuinely neo-Nazi BDS movement while in Israel. Is Israel, or any other state, really obligated to allow entry to anyone who is its implacable foe, dedicated to its ultimate destruction?

Rep. David Cicilline think so. “This is a grave mistake by the Israeli government,” he thundered. “Democracy is about accepting that others don’t always share your views and respecting the right to disagree.” Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren also cast aspersions on Israeli democracy, tut-tutting that “Israel doesn’t advance its case as a tolerant democracy or unwavering US ally by barring elected members of Congress from visiting because of their political views.”

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Israel Bars Omar And Tlaib The Jewish State shows how it’s done. Ari Lieberman

By on August 16th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274645/israel-bars-omar-and-tlaib-ari-lieberman

Lawmakers Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) will not be traveling to Israel. The excursion, slated for Friday, was nixed by Israel’s interior ministry headed by Aryeh Deri. Decisions to grant or deny visas to Israel are the domain of the Ministry of Interior but given the high-profile nature of the visit, it is a virtual certainty that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was consulted and had the final say.

The decision to bar entry for the duo – known for their frequent anti-Semitic outbursts – was not without controversy but demonstrated significant political fortitude. In 2017, Israel passed a law permitting the interior ministry to deny entry to those advocating for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Omar and Tlaib are among the most notorious advocates of this malign ideology. In fact, both sponsored a congressional bill in support of BDS and obscenely compared boycotts of Israel with boycotts of Nazi Germany.

Following the asinine comparison, the United States State Department updated its definition of antisemitism to include as an example, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The malign positions held by both Omar and Tlaib place the two squarely within the State Department’s definition of antisemitism.

Last month, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, indicated that the Omar-Tlaib visit would be allowed to proceed unhindered “out of respect for the US Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America.” But circumstances changed measurably once Israel became aware of their malevolent itinerary.

The itinerary was titled, “U.S Congressional Delegation to Palestine.” The United States does not recognize a legal entity known as “Palestine.” Moreover, there was ominously no mention of Israel. The itinerary highlighted plans to meet with various heads of Arab governmental and non-governmental organizations with long records of hostility toward the Jewish State. No meetings were planned with any members of mainstream Israeli political parties. Finally, their trip was planned by MIFTAH, a Palestinian NGO headed Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian Authority lawmaker and PLO central committee member.

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Bibi does what Dems don’t have the courage to do By Silvio Canto, Jr.

By on August 16th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/08/bibi_does_what_dems_dont_have_the_courage_to_do.html

It was great to see it on the news:   

Israeli officials have decided to block U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from entering the country as part of a planned visit, a reversal that comes amid pressure from President Trump and concerns about their support for boycotts of Israel.

The country’s deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely announced the decision Thursday, despite prior assurances that the congresswomen would be allowed in.  

“Israel has decided — we won’t enable the members of Congress to enter the country,” Hotovely told public broadcaster Kan. “We won’t allow those who deny our right to exist in this world to enter Israel. In principle, this is a very justified decision.” 

Wow, Israel just made my day!

I’ve already heard some in the news say that Israel is banning two Muslim congresswomen.  In other words, they are trying to bring religion into the debate.

Israel’s decision has nothing to do with the ladies’ religion.  It has everything to do with their positions and barbaric comments against Israel.

For example, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Also, referring to Israel as “Nazi Germany,” an insult of the worst kind to a people who have direct connections to the Holocaust.

Thank you Israel.  Thank you for doing what today’s Democrats won’t do.

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Singling Out Israel By Janet Levy

By on August 16th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/08/singling_out_israel.html

The European Union has just announced a proposal that all Israeli products made in contested areas — Samaria, Judea, and other Israeli settlements — would be required to carry consumer warning labels specifying their origin.  This action comes only a few months after Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry uncovered evidence that the E.U. was funding more than a dozen NGOs, including some linked to militant groups that promote the Hamas-inspired Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel.

The E.U.’s “official” position is that it does not support or fund BDS.  Yet its failure to act on NGO funding, coupled now with the labeling proposal, reveals the E.U.’s failure to follow its own policy and to actively undermine Israel.  The idea that international law requires economic action against Israel falls flat when the E.U. failed to sanction countries that engaged in human rights violations in occupied territories.

Consider the E.U.’s lack of response to Chinese appropriation of Tibet, to Iranian subjugation and ethnic genocide in Syria, and to the Turkish invasion and more than 40 years of occupation in northern Cyprus.  Given E.U. inaction in these instances, it is glaringly obvious that Israel writer Natan Sharansky’s 3-D definition of anti-Semitism aptly applies.  That is, Israel is unfairly singled out using demonization, delegitimization, and a double standard of judging its actions.

Further, E.U. countries continue to do business with China, Iran, and Turkey despite blatant, glaring human rights violations and occupations in Tibet, Syria, and Northern Cyprus.  A brief review of those actions makes plain the E.U. bias against Israel.

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A Bad Deal, 80 Years Ago By Victor Davis Hanson

By on August 16th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/a-bad-deal-80-years-ago/

Some 80 years ago, on Aug. 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, formally known as the “Treaty of non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

The world was shocked — and terrified — by the agreement. Western democracies of the 1930s had counted on the huge resources of Communist Russia, and its hostility to the Nazis, to serve as a brake on Adolf Hitler’s Western ambitions. Great Britain and the other Western European democracies had assumed that the Nazis would never invade them as long as a hostile Soviet Union threatened the German rear.

The incompatibility between communism and Nazism was considered by all to be existential — and permanent. That mutual hatred explained why dictators Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin both despised and feared each other.

Yet all at once, such illusions vanished with the signing of the pact. Just seven days later, on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. World War II had begun.

After quickly absorbing most of Eastern Europe by either coercion or alliance, Hitler was convinced that he now had a safe rear. So he turned west in spring 1940 to overrun Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and the Netherlands.

Hitler accomplished all that relatively easily, failing only to conquer Great Britain with an exhaustive bombing campaigning.

During all these Nazi conquests, a compliant Stalin shipped huge supplies of food and fuel for the German war effort against the West. Stalin cynically had hoped that Germany and the Western democracies would wear themselves out in a wasting war — similar to the four horrific years in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time — Part XXIV Francis Menton

By on August 15th, 2019

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-8-14-the-greatest-scientific-fraud-of-all-time-part-xxiv

The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time is the fraud committed by the keepers of official world temperature records, by which they intentionally adjust early year temperature records downward in order to support assertions that dangerous human-caused global warming is occurring and that the most recent year or month is the “hottest ever.” The assertions of dangerous human-caused global warming then form the necessary predicate for tens of billions of dollars of annual spending going to academic institutions; to the “climate science” industry; to wind, solar and other alternative energy projects; to electric cars; and on and on. In terms of real resources diverted from productive to unproductive activities based on falsehoods, this fraud dwarfs any other scientific fraud ever conceived in human history.

This is Part XXIV of my series on this topic. To read Parts I through XXIII, go to this link.

The previous posts in this series have mostly focused on particular weather stations, comparing the currently-reported temperature history for each station with previously-reported data. For example, the very first post in this series, from July 2013, looked at one of my favorite stations, the one located in Central Park in New York City. Somehow, the early-year temperatures reported for the month of July for that very prominent station had been substantially adjusted downward, thus notably enhancing a previously-slight warming trend:

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The Mysterious, Outrageous Death of Jeffrey Epstein It’s next to impossible to kill oneself in jail—I know, because I’ve been there. Judith Miller ****

By on August 15th, 2019

https://www.city-journal.org/jeffrey-epstein

Here are a few things I know firsthand about being in jail. First and foremost, you have virtually no control over your life and surroundings. You can’t get so much as an aspirin without authorization. In most jails, you can’t wear a belt, or shoelaces, or keep a razor in your cell. You have no privacy, no sense of dignity, and no rights. And in a well-run jail, high-profile prisoners have virtually no chance of killing themselves.

So the alleged suicide of Jeffrey Epstein, the 66-year-old financier with powerful American and foreign friends who was about to stand trial for allegedly sexually abusing dozens of girls, many of them underage, is particularly unfathomable—and outrageous. In a letter to the Justice Department, Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska called it inexcusable that Epstein did not live to face his accusers. “Obviously, heads must roll,” he wrote. Attorney General William Barr clearly agrees. Saying that he was “appalled” to have learned that Epstein was found dead at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan, Barr instructed the department’s inspector general to investigate precisely how Epstein died at MCC, a long-troubled, pretrial detention facility.

Epstein was placed on suicide watch on July 23 after being found semi-conscious in his cell with marks on his neck, in what prison officials described at the time as a failed suicide attempt. He was removed from suicide watch six days later, on July 29, and returned to a segregated area of the prison with extra security known as the special housing unit. Why Epstein was removed from suicide watch is a focus of the DOJ investigation.

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