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Ruth King

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How Palestinian Leaders Encourage Terrorism by Bassam Tawil

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14134/palestinian-leaders-encourage-terrorism

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s remarks at the Arab League gathering in Cairo demonstrate his preference for the well-being of terrorists over the ability of hard-working employees to put bread on the table for their families. These payments to terrorists and their families lie at the heart of Palestinian incitement to terror that drives the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If anyone is collectively punishing the Palestinians, it is Abbas himself. He is depriving tens of thousands of families of full salaries, thus preventing them from purchasing food for their children or paying various fees, including rent and university tuition. A Palestinian civil service employee who sends his son to university does not get a full salary. A Palestinian whose son sets out to murder a Jew is entitled to a full salary and earns more respect from Palestinian leaders.

What message is Abbas sending to his people? That those who wish to eat had better turn to terror. The families of the public employees who are now unable to pay their grocery bill and rent are now looking at the families of the terrorists with envy. They must be saying to themselves: “We are suckers because we didn’t send our children to stab a Jew!” This is the education that the Palestinians leaders have been providing since 1965.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas recently reaffirmed his longstanding commitment to pay families of Palestinians who were imprisoned for or killed during terrorist attacks against Israelis. “We have been paying the families of the prisoners and martyrs since 1965,” Abbas told Arab League Foreign Ministers during an emergency meeting in Cairo on April 21.

Abbas’s insistence on paying millions of dollars to families of Palestinians who murder or attempt to murder Jews, has cost the Palestinians a heavy price. In the past two months, Abbas’s government has been unable to pay full salaries to its 200,000 employees. The reason? Israel has begun deducting, from the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, the same amount the PA government pays each month to the families of the prisoners and “martyrs.”

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The European Union: Nurturing Instability and Terrorism in the Middle East by Naomi Linder Kahn

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14011/european-union-palestinians-instability

The apparent objective of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is to annex these areas and bring them under PA control as part of its larger plan for the unilateral creation of a Palestinian state. This plan was publicized in 2009, in an official PA document written by then-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; since its publication, it has been carried out virtually unhindered, with the help of massive European funding in violation of the Oslo Accords, and in violation of international law. Additionally, this type of activity is more easily presented to international media outlets and foreign benefactors as “humanitarian aid.”

The key actor in these land-grab projects is the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC). UAWC maintains close organizational and operational ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terror organization that has carried out many deadly attacks against Israel’s citizens – including numerous suicide bombings in the 2000s. UAWC is funded, for the most part, by European governments and humanitarian aid organizations, and by the European Union.

In recent years, and in particular since 2013, the Palestinians have intensified agricultural activity as a means of quickly and efficiently seizing large swaths of land under the guise of humanitarian aid for farmers. This activity is illegal and violates the international treaties to which the PA is a signatory. But this has not troubled foreign governments and organizations, including the European Union, who continue to bankroll this illegal activity – while at the same time vocally criticizing the State of Israel.

Under the guise of “agricultural assistance,” the Palestinian Authority is taking over Area C (the area placed under full Israeli jurisdiction in the Oslo Accords, pending a full peace agreement which would establish sovereignty over the area for one side or the other), with the help of massive European financial support — in violation of the law, and of international agreements signed by the EU.

Over the past decade, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has implemented a long-term program aimed at taking control of strategic locations in Area C of the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria. The PA’s apparent objective is to annex these areas and bring them under PA control, as part of its larger plan for the unilateral creation of a Palestinian state. This plan was publicized in 2009, in an official PA document written by then-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; since its publication, it has been carried out virtually unhindered, with the help of massive European funding.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Changing hearts and minds on nuclear powerBy Jim Martin and Saul Anuzis

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/changing_hearts_and_minds_on_nuclear_power.html

Until we’re able to fuel America and the rest of the world with cleaner forms of renewable energy, we need the ability to generate the electricity necessary to sustain civilization while curbing carbon emissions. For now, the clamor for less carbon, more renewable fuels and cleaner energy often ignores one of the cleanest, cheapest and most abundant supplies of energy on Earth. 

Nuclear power generates about 20 percent of the electricity in the United States today, but it holds the potential to create much more. Affordable electricity is also a key issue for millions of American seniors who live on fixed incomes and can ill afford higher utility bills. The 98 nuclear plants currently on-line in the U.S. contributed more than 73,000 thousand megawatt hours to the nation’s grid in January, making it the third most productive energy source behind coal and natural gas. But nuclear power generation has remained virtually flat over the past 18 years. The question is ‘why?’

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

UN Human Rights Council member beheads 37By Ethel C. Fenig

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/un_human_rights_council_member_beheads_37.html

While Vermont’s independent senator and Democratic presidential wannabe Bernie Sanders supports allowing all jailed individuals the right to vote, including the terrorist Boston Marathon bomber, longtime U.N. Human Rights Council member Saudi Arabia has a different opinion.  The Saudis behead those they deem terrorists.  In public.  In mass executions.  And pin the heads to poles.

Yesterday, they did it again, whacking off the heads of 37 of their citizens, mostly from a minority Islamic branch, for alleged terrorism, an act they justified with Islamic law.  Saudi Arabia on Tuesday beheaded 37 Saudi citizens, most of them minority Shiites, in a mass execution across the country for alleged terrorism-related crimes.  It also publicly pinned the executed body and severed head of a convicted Sunni extremist to a pole as a warning to others. …

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Former FBI Official Admits Hillary Clinton Emails Were Found in Obama White House By Debra Heine

By on April 24th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/former-fbi-official-admits-hillary-clinton-emails-were-found-in-obama-white-house/

A former top FBI official has admitted under oath that a repository of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email records was obtained by the Obama White House and housed in the Executive Office of the President.

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch recently coaxed the admission out of the former assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, Bill Priestap, as part of a court-ordered discovery regarding Clinton’s unauthorized email server.U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled earlier this year that discovery could commence examining Clinton’s use of the server and ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath.

The court said that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”Judicial Watch asked Priestap to identify representatives of Clinton, her former staff, and government agencies from which “email repositories were obtained” by the FBI.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

At Yale, ‘Diversity’ Means More of the Same A 2018 dispute between two students prompts yet another expansion of the massive bureaucracy. By Heather Mac Donald

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-yale-diversity-means-more-of-the-same-11556058975

Yale President Peter Salovey announced a major expansion of the school’s diversity bureaucracy this month, providing a case study in how not to lead a respected institution of higher education.

The pretext for this latest accretion of bureaucratic bloat was a May 2018 incident in a graduate student dorm. Sarah Braasch, a 43-year-old doctoral candidate in philosophy, called campus police at 1:40 a.m. to report someone sleeping in a common room, which she believed was against dorm rules. Yale administrators knew Ms. Braasch had psychological problems and that she had a history of bad blood with the sleeping student, Lolade Siyonbola, a 35-year-old doctoral candidate in African studies. But because Ms. Braasch is white and Ms. Siyonbola is black, the administration chose to turn the incident into a symbol of what Mr. Salovey called the university’s “discrimination and racism.”

Yale leaders immediately announced a slew of new initiatives: “implicit bias” training for graduate students, grad-school staff and campus police; instruction in how to run “inclusive classrooms”; “community building” sessions; a student retreat to develop the next phase of equity and inclusion programming. Despite this flurry of corrective measures, Kimberly M. Goff-Crews, Yale’s secretary and vice president for student life, ominously declared there was still “much more to do.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Thank You, Don McGahn Like so many others, he saved Trump from a major political blunder.

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/thank-you-don-mcgahn-11556057923

President Trump should be savoring the end of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation with no charges of collusion or obstruction of justice, but as ever he can’t stand prosperity. His post-report scrap with former White House counsel Don McGahn shows how this President is so often his own worst enemy.

As part of his obstruction “analysis,” Mr. Mueller recounts that in June 2017 Mr. Trump asked Mr. McGahn to ask Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to say Mr. Mueller had conflicts of interest and couldn’t remain as special counsel. Mr. McGahn took notes but no action, sought advice from White House colleagues, and planned to resign until the President dropped the subject.

Mr. Trump tweeted in response to the report to “watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” and his spokesmen have cast doubt on Mr. McGahn’s account. Mr. McGahn says the account is accurate, though the dispute has given Democrats an opening to rehash the episode and they’ve subpoenaed Mr. McGahn to appear before the House Judiciary Committee.

We believe Mr. McGahn, but the needless dispute highlights several realities of the Trump Presidency. One point is that this episode is not evidence of obstruction of justice, despite claims by the Democratic-media chorus. Mr. Trump would have had every constitutional right to fire Mr. Mueller, an inferior officer at the Justice Department. Mr. Trump let Mr. McGahn and others talk to Mr. Mueller and turn over notes, which is the reason Mr. Mueller knows about all this.

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HISTORY Comments turned off

Why Mark Levin Must Give Voice To Informed Jewish Analysts Of Muslim Antisemitism Andrew Bostom

By on April 24th, 2019

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2019/04/why-mark-levin-must-give-voice-to-informed-jewish-analysts-of-muslim-antisemitism/

The iconic Jewish conservative media figure Mark Levin recently devoted air time (here; starting at 1 hr 43 mins 4 secs) to a discussion of the Antisemitism expressed by Muslima Rep. Ilhan Omar. While I commend Mr. Levin for simply acknowledging this ugly phenomenon, his exploration of the matter did more to obfuscate, than educate.

The approach to the question of Omar’s Antisemitism adopted by Levin was rather warped. Absent any Jews who have studied the Islamic ideological drivers and/or manifestations ofMuslim Antisemitism, not to mention being its target, Levin’s audience was only allowed to understand the Islamic Jew-hatred Ilhan Omar embodies through the bowdlerizing prism of a self-designated “Muslim reformer,” who is actually an apologist/revisionist (here; here). As a result, no basic orienting information was imparted to Levin’s sizable radio audience.

Neither the overwhelming scope, and intensity of Muslim Jew-hatred—now a global pandemic, documented by hard polling data—nor its intimate nexus to canonical Islam as promulgated by Islamdom’s most important religious teaching centers, were illuminated. Sadly, Levin clung to this presentation format—well below accepted fair play standards for honest, informed discourse—after Zionist Organization of America President Mort Klein’s courageous, landmark testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, April 9, 2019.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Heaven on Earth: The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism by Joshua Muravchik A Review by Paul Hollander

By on April 23rd, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/05/06/socialisms-rise-and-fall-heaven-on-earth-book-review/

The volume here reviewed is the second edition of a book first published in 2002. I reviewed it favorably (with some reservations) in 2003. A good case can be made for the new edition, given the survival of socialist ideals and the persisting disagreements about their nature and realizability. It remains of interest why people in different parts of the world are still attracted to these ideals and why the same ideals have been so difficult to implement. Of special interest is what Joshua Muravchik calls the “afterlife” of socialism — what happened to these ideals and political aspirations after the political systems supposedly dedicated to their realization, such as the Soviet Union, ceased to exist.

As the reader is informed in the preface, the new edition is largely unchanged, except for the addition of an epilogue, some updating of the chapter on the kibbutzim (collective farms of modern Israel), and the correction of small errors.

The difficulty of coming to grips with the subject — that is, the proper understanding of the nature of socialist ideals and their realizability — has not diminished since the book was first published. The problem begins with the widely held, undifferentiated views of socialism shared by most Americans. They are unaware of the fundamental differences between authoritarian (or totalitarian) state socialism embedded in one-party systems, such as the former Soviet one or the Chinese one under Mao, and social-democratic societies, such as those in Scandinavia.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

As Liberalism Sinks, Socialism Rises Thomas McArdle

By on April 23rd, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/04/23/as-liberalism-sinks

Imagine things were different in America today. That unemployment on average wasn’t the lowest of any presidency at this point in a first term of office, buoyed by cuts in tax rates and regulations. That we were mired in a war on the other side of the world, with Americans impatient that, years on, it seemed to be getting worse, and no end was in sight. And that a porous border and illegal alien criminality wasn’t topping the list of issues of importance to the public.

Democrats took both houses of Congress from Republicans in 2006 by exploiting big problems, in particular the Iraq war. “U.S. forces in Iraq should transition to a more limited mission focused on counter-terrorism, training and logistical support of Iraqi security forces, and force protection of U.S. personnel,” Nancy Pelosi and 11 other Democrat leaders wrote to President Bush in July of that mid-term election year, charging that “your administration lacks a coherent strategy to stabilize Iraq and achieve victory” and there should be “an effective alternative to the current open-ended commitment which is not producing the progress in Iraq we would all like to see.”

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