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Ruth King

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Do Palestinian Arabs Want a Peaceful State Alongside Israel? What consistent polling of Palestinians tells us. Morton A. Klein and Daniel Mandel

By on May 3rd, 2017

Discussion of the Arab/Israeli situation is often unilluminating because so much of it is based on groundless assumptions and stubborn fictions. Perhaps the most pervasive one today afflicting the international political class is the notion that Palestinian Arabs primarily desire a state of their own, living peacefully alongside Israel.

Some recent examples:

December 2016, then-Secretary of State John Kerry: “polls of Israelis and Palestinians show there is still strong support for the two-state solution.”
July 2016, the Middle East Quartet (US, EU, UN and Russia): “the majority of people on both sides . . . express their support for the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security.”
December 2014, then-Vice-President Joe Biden: “a two-state solution … the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians, they think that it is the right way to go.”
May 2014, then-envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Martin Indyk: “Consistently over the last decade, polling on both sides reveals majority support for the two-state solution.”

Go back a decade, and one can easily produce essentially identical quotations from President George W. Bush, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and so on.

However, the idea that Palestinians prioritize peace, statehood and prosperity flies in the face of reality. Consistent polling of Palestinians tells a diametrically opposite story.

For example, a June 2016 joint poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) found that 58% of West Bank Palestinians oppose a Palestinian state involving mutual recognition between Israel and the envisaged Palestinian state and an end of claims.

For another, the June 2015 Palestine Center for Public Opinion poll found that, for the near term (the next five years), 49% of Palestinians support “reclaiming all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea,” while only 22% favored “a two-state solution” as the “main Palestinian national goal.”

Indeed, Daniel Polisar of Jerusalem’s Shalem College, in a recent examination of literally hundreds of Palestinian surveys, established that majorities of Palestinians reject Palestinian statehood alongside Israel by an average of more than 3 to 1.

It takes only a moment’s checking of the Palestinian scene to see that the idea of peaceful statehood and acceptance of Israel that would be its prerequisite has yet to emerge.

In the past month, official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV joined the family of a jailed Palestinian terrorist, As’ad Zo’rob, who murdered an Israeli who had given him a ride, lauding him as a “heroic prisoner” and a source of “pride for …. all of Palestine.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

UC-Berkeley: Promoting Jew-hatred and Terrorism “Let it be known that we here at Berkeley support the Intifada.” Sara Dogan

By on May 3rd, 2017

Editor’s note: The University of California-Berkeley is the latest school to be named to the Freedom Center’s report on the “Top Ten College Administrations Most Friendly to Terrorists and Hostile to the First Amendment.” It joins the campuses of Brooklyn College (CUNY), Tufts University, Brandeis University, UCLA, and Vassar College on the list. These campuses provide financial and institutional support to terrorist-linked campus organizations such as the Hamas-funded hate-group Students for Justice in Palestine while actively suppressing speech exposing the truth about Israel’s terrorist adversaries and their allies in the United States.

The Berkeley administration has shown great hostility to speech critical of Hamas and SJP. When the Freedom Center previously placed posters on the Berkeley campus exposing the links between Hamas and SJP, Berkeley Associate Chancellor Nils Gilman labeled them “a tactic of harassment and intimidation.” Last night, the Freedom Center again placed posters critical of Hamas and SJP on the Berkeley campus. These posters disrupt the anti-Israel narrative that dominates on campus and serve as a challenge to the Berkeley administration to uphold its constitutional obligation to honor the First Amendment on campus.

University of California-Berkeley: Nils Gilman, Associate Chancellor

The University of California-Berkeley has a well-deserved reputation for stigmatizing ideas which don’t fit the extreme left-wing, anti-Israel campus culture. Berkeley Associate Chancellor Nils Gilman has epitomized this double-standard by failing to condemn outright calls for terrorism and genocide against the Jews from campus anti-Israel groups while denouncing posters putting forth factual information about Students for Justice in Palestine and its links to Hamas.

In a letter sent to the entire campus community in April 2016, Gilman denounced anti-SJP posters hung on campus by the David Horowitz Freedom Center as “a tactic of harassment and intimidation.” He claimed that UC Berkeley “remains committed to combating all forms of bias and discrimination” and asked the campus community to “use this opportunity to reinforce our values as a campus, and to report any further incidents”—in other words, urging Berkeley’s students and faculty to report any speech that challenges the leftist thought control enforced at Berkeley.

When the Freedom Center again hung posters exposing the truth about SJP at Berkeley in October of 2016, Gilman issued another letter stating that the language in the posters “violates our Principles of Community” and ordered them to be taken down.

The UC-Berkeley Principles of Community which he references state, in part, “We affirm the dignity of all individuals and strive to uphold a just community in which discrimination and hate are not tolerated” and “We are committed to ensuring freedom of expression and dialogue that elicits the full spectrum of views held by our varied communities.”

But by failing to uphold free speech and intellectual diversity, Gilman’s comments in his letters to the Berkeley community violate these Principles. They also degrade the spirit of open discourse and the exploration of all sides of crucial issues which lie at the heart of the mission of the modern liberal arts university.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Yale’s ‘Starving’ Grad Students, Stuffed with Nonsense But don’t blame snowflakes; blame bureaucrats. By Aaron Sibarium

By on May 3rd, 2017

Last Tuesday, eight Yale graduate students began an indefinite hunger strike on Beinecke Plaza, just a stone’s throw away from the university’s administrative offices. The graduate students’ union, Local 33, which organized this “protest fast,” said in a statement that they would not leave until Yale initiates contract negotiations with the union.

Or until they start to feel light-headed.

According to the New Haven Independent, “if not eating endangers a student’s health, that individual will sub out and another union member will assume their place in renouncing meals.” And should low blood sugar cloud the strikers’ judgment, a team of medical professionals is standing by to monitor the fast’s progress. Such safeguards were of little comfort to Robin Canavan, who compared the physical toll of the strike to that ghastly feeling of “exhaustion after pulling an all-nighter.” An all-nighter without any coffee.

But even this crippling fatigue won’t deter Local 33 chairman Aaron Greenberg, a Ph.D. candidate in Yale’s political-science department and a self-styled civil-rights activist. In his recent op-ed in the New Haven Independent, Greenberg invoked the words of Martin Luther King to condemn Yale’s abhorrent treatment of its graduate students:

King explained that his campaign sought “to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.” This is what we did yesterday in Local 33 when we began our fast.

He goes on:

So let’s not have any mistakes about what Yale means when they say they “respect the process” of the law. . . . It’s the dynamic Dr. King described when he wrote, “‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”

Yale should up its admissions standards. Greenberg’s civil-rights analogy displays an astonishing level of historical amnesia, which trivializes the struggles of King and other black leaders. But more than that, it reflects a new and worrying trend: the corporatization of higher education.

To characterize Yale’s unwillingness to begin contract negotiations as an assault on human dignity is to reduce the relationship of students and administrators to that of employers and employees. On this view, Yale’s obligations to its graduate students are just like a company’s obligations to its workers. In forestalling collective bargaining and, by extension, in opposing Local 33, the administration functions as an oppressive corporate entity, more than willing to sacrifice the welfare of its employees to maximize profit. Indeed, the concept of graduate unionization makes sense only when it is presented as a response to precisely this sort of dynamic — the proletariat against the plutocrat.

Greenberg’s views thus rest on a grave category error, in that they apply the framework of labor relations to what is fundamentally not a labor-relations issue. When Bernie Sanders said that American workers were burnt out, I somehow doubt that Yale graduate students were the people he had in mind.

When Bernie Sanders said that American workers were burnt out, I somehow doubt that Yale graduate students were the people he had in mind.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

End Abbas’s ‘Pay for Slay’: Pass the Taylor Force Act Both Palestinians and Israelis will benefit if we stop rewarding terrorists. By Douglas J. Feith & Sander Gerber

By on May 3rd, 2017

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is scheduled to call this week on President Trump. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress is considering the Taylor Force Act, which would require Abbas to either dismantle his government’s system of rewards for terrorists or forfeit American financial aid. The proposed law is controversial largely because the PA presents a confusing picture of itself.

To much of the world, the PA represents hope for a consensual resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. Created by the 1993 Oslo peace accords, it is widely recognized as the Palestinians’ representative body. Its leader was popularly elected. President Obama and other leaders have described the PA as moderate, committed to peace, and opposed to anti-Israeli violence. What seems to confirm its reputation for moderation is its rivalry with Hamas, the extremist Islamist group that the U.S. government rightly designates as terrorists. The PA’s security forces cooperate with the Israeli Defense Forces against Hamas.

All of that is on the one hand. On the other, the PA is a nightmare of bad leadership.

It is anti-democratic. Its officials are notoriously corrupt. It’s a source of torrential anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish propaganda. Though it helps Israel fight those terrorists who oppose both Israel and the PA, it actively foments anti-Israel terrorism in its own domain through its formal legislative and bureaucratic system of professional and cash benefits for Palestinians who commit knifings, axe-murders, shootings, and car-rammings.

Abbas was elected to a four-year presidential term in 2005. Popular dissatisfaction with the PA’s pervasive corruption put his reelection in doubt, so no new elections were scheduled. He simply remains in power.

Abbas says that he supports peace, but the Israeli government offered him a generous deal in 2008. The Israelis had just handed all of Gaza over to the PA. They offered him virtually all the West Bank, with unprecedented concessions on Jerusalem. He nevertheless scorned the deal.

Abbas and his PA colleagues are bound and determined to perpetuate the conflict with Israel. Their personal interests require it. If the conflict ended, they would lose foreign aid, which makes their lucrative corruption possible. They would stop receiving invitations to the White House and other gratifying diplomatic attention. They would cease to be the leaders of a longstanding and proudly uncompromising national struggle, forfeiting their self-respect and prestige, especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds. For them, peace would be hell.

But peace could enormously benefit the Palestinian people. It could open a path to greater freedom and prosperity for them and save their children from the fatal lure of “martyrdom.” Those interests, alas, don’t influence PA policy.

The PA pays lump sums and lifetime salaries to terrorists and their families. The size of the payments correlates to the number of their victims and the severity of the harm inflicted on them.

As Abbas heads for Washington, U.S. officials should understand that at the heart of the Palestinian–Israeli problem is the conflict of interests between Palestinian leaders and their own people. That’s the context in which Congress should consider the Taylor Force Act.

Of all that’s wrong with the way the PA operates, nothing is more harmful than the elaborate apparatus it has created to push its people to become terrorists. It’s known as “pay for slay.” The PA has created two (two!) ministries specifically for this purpose, with combined budgets exceeding $330 million in 2016. The PA pays lump sums and lifetime salaries to terrorists and their families. The size of the payments correlates to the number of their victims and the severity of the harm inflicted on them. The payments dwarf the average monthly salaries of ordinary working inhabitants of the West Bank.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

David Singer: United Nations’ Fabricated Arab Narrative Deceives Academics

By on May 3rd, 2017

The United Nations publication “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917-1988” (“Study”) has deliberately misrepresented the actual wording of General Assembly Resolution 181 passed on 29 November 1947 – deceiving many academics who have disseminated the Study’s false message.

The Study has been published by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

The offending statement in the Study misleadingly declares:

“After investigating various alternatives the United Nations proposed the partitioning of Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized.”

The actual wording of Resolution 181 stated:

“Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in Part III of this Plan, shall come into existence in Palestine….”

The Study omits to mention that 78 per cent of Palestine had already become an independent Arab State in 1946 and been renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan.

The Study’s claim that Resolution 181 called for an “independent Palestinian Arab State” was not accidental but deliberately done to deceive and mislead.

Resolution 181 had denied the existence of any distinctly identifiable Palestinian people in 1947.

The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine had also only spoken of the “existing non- Jewish communities in Palestine” in 1922.

“Palestinians” were first defined in the 1964 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Charter to mean Arab citizens normally resident in Palestine in 1947 and their descendants. Jewish and non-Arab Christian residents were excluded under this racist and apartheid definition.

The PLO also claimed that Palestine was the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people – even though Resolution 181 clearly did not.

That the Study deliberately changed the actual wording of Resolution 181 to advance these fictitious PLO claims – or perhaps others unknown – for spurious reasons – is scandalous.

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EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Death of Facts by Douglas Murray

By on May 3rd, 2017

Needless to say, none of this is true. Nowhere has Heather Mac Donald suggested that black people or any other type of person has “no right to exist”. The accusation is levelled without evidence. But as with all anti-free-speech activists today, the line is blurred not merely between actual words and violence, but between wholly imagined words and violence.

Every week in America brings another spate of defeats for freedom of speech. This past week it was Ann Coulter’s turn (yet again) to be banned from speaking at Berkeley for what the university authorities purport to be “health and safety” reasons — meaning the health and safety of the speaker.

Each time this happens, there are similar responses. Those who broadly agree with the views of the speaker complain about the loss of one of the fundamental rights which the Founding Fathers bestowed on the American people. Those who may be on the same political side but find the speaker somewhat distasteful find a way to be slightly muted or silent. Those who disagree with the speaker’s views applaud the banning as an appropriate response to apparently imminent incitement.

The problem throughout all of this is that the reasons why people should be supporting freedom of speech (to correct themselves where they are in error, and strengthen their arguments where they are not) are actually becoming lost in America. No greater demonstration of this muddle exists than a letter put together by a group of students at Claremont McKenna College earlier this month to protest the appearance on their campus of a speaker with whom they disagreed.

Heather Mac Donald is a conservative author, journalist and fellow of the Manhattan Institute in New York. Her work has appeared in some of the world’s most prestigious journals. Of course, none of that was enough to deter students at Claremont from libelling her as much as possible in advance of her speech and then preventing her speech from taking place. At Claremont McKenna College, where Mac Donald was due to speak about her recent book, The War on Cops, angry students surrounded the building, screamed obscene words and banged on the windows. Mac Donald ended up giving the speech to a mainly empty room via live video-streaming and then fleeing the university under the protection of campus security. As recent events, such as the hospitalisation of a professor at Charles Murray’s recent speech at Middlebury College have shown, intimidation and violence are clearly regarded by today’s North American students as legitimate means to stop people from speaking.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France: What is the Presidential Campaign Really About? by Yves Mamou

By on May 3rd, 2017

The result of this mess is that France as one country no longer exists.

People who voted for Le Pen seem to feel not only that they lost their jobs, but that they are becoming foreigners in their own country.

Macron, for many analysts, is the candidate of the status quo: Islamists are not a problem and reforming the job market will supposedly solve all France’s problems.

The French presidential race is the latest election to shake up establishment politics. The Parti Socialiste and Les Républicains, who have been calling the shots for the past forty years, were voted out of the race. The “remainers” are Emmanuel Macron, a clone of Canada’s Prime Minster Justin Trudeau; and Marine Le Pen, whom many believe will not win.

France is a fractured country. As in the US and the UK, the rift is not between the traditional left and right. Instead, it reflects divisions — cultural, social, and economic — that came with globalization and mass migration. A map released by the Ministry of the Interior after the first round of the presidential campaign illustrates the new political scenery.

Blue represents the parts of France where Le Pen heads the list; pink, the areas supporting Macron. The blue areas coincide with old industrial areas, deeply damaged by globalization and industrial relocation. Many blue-collar workers are on welfare; and the antagonism between Muslims and non-Muslims is high. People who voted for Le Pen seem to feel not only that they lost their jobs, but that they are becoming foreigners in their own country.

The areas in pink (Macron), represent the big cities and places where the better jobs are. It also represents the areas where the “upper classes can afford to raise invisible barriers between themselves and the ‘other’, immigrants or minorities,” explains Christophe Guilluy, geographer, and author of Le crépuscule de la France d’en haut (The Twilight of Elite France).

The result of this mess is that France as one country no longer exists. One half the population (in blue-collar areas, small towns and rural areas) is shut out by the other half of the population (white-collar workers) who live in the big cities.

Guilluy adds:

“The job market has become deeply polarized and mainly concentrated in big cities, squeezing out the middle classes. For the first time in history, working people no longer live in the places where jobs and wealth are created.”

…

“But social issues are not the only determinant of the populist vote. Identity is also essential, linked as it is to the emergence of a multicultural society, which feeds anxiety in working-class environments. At a time of fluctuating majorities and minorities, amid demographic instability, the fear of tipping into a minority is creating considerable cultural insecurity in developed countries. Unlike the upper classes, who can afford to raise invisible barriers between themselves and the ‘other’ (immigrants or minorities), the working classes want a powerful state apparatus to protect them, socially and culturally. So, the populist surge is re-activating a real class vote.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

New Hamas Charter: No Destruction of Israel, Just Seizing All Israeli Lands By Bridget Johnson

By on May 3rd, 2017

Hamas unveiled at a press conference Monday an updated charter that dropped their Muslims Brotherhood ties and call for Israel’s destruction — while still refusing to recognize Israel or the Jewish state’s right to exist, and advocating the duty of jihad against it.

The Gaza rulers, who are designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, first tried to hold their presser at the Intercontinental hotel in Doha, Qatar, but the venue called off the event after warnings that they could be found in violation of sanctions for hosting Hamas. The terror group then found a home for their news conference at the U.S.-owned Sheraton hotel chain.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashal claimed to reporters that “Hamas’ struggle is not with Jews or their faith, but is a struggle against Zionism and its aggressions,” and that the group would not “recognize the Zionist entity,” meaning Israel.

Hamas, Mashal said, “will not give up any parcel of Palestinian land and strives to liberate all of the Palestinian lands,” which they consider to include all of Israel, and they are “willing to negotiate a sovereign and independent state with Jerusalem as its capital” while demanding full right of return for Palestinians.

“Opposition to the occupation through any means is a basic right that includes an armed struggle,” he said, sanctioning and encouraging continued attacks on Israel.

Hamas timed the announcement to coincide with Israel’s independence day, Yom Ha’atzmaut.

And Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas will be welcomed to the White House by President Trump on Wednesday as the latter is eager to forge a Mideast peace deal.

“Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “Daily, Hamas leaders call for genocide of all Jews and the destruction of Israel. They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians. Schools and mosques run by Hamas teach children that Jews are apes and pigs. This is the real Hamas.”

The new Hamas charter says “Palestine is a land whose status has been elevated by Islam” that “was seized by a racist, anti-human and colonial Zionist project” and carries “the sublime objective of liberation.”

The goal of Hamas “is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means.”

“By virtue of its justly balanced middle way and moderate spirit, Islam – for Hamas – provides a comprehensive way of life and an order that is fit for purpose at all times and in all places. Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. It provides an umbrella for the followers of other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and safety. Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation,” the terror group continues.

They make clear that they will not accept a divided Jerusalem in a two-state solution, emphasizing the city “is the capital of Palestine.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

2 US B-1 bombers complete joint drill over Korean Peninsula

By on May 3rd, 2017

As tensions continue to rise between the U.S. and North Korea, so has American military presence in the region.

The Air Force says two U.S. B-1 bombers completed a joint drill with South Korea and Japan over the Korean Peninsula on Monday. In a separate drill, two other bombers flew over South Korea on April 26th.

CNN is reporting that both missions were long planned, and that the U.S. wanted to keep the drills low profile.The North, however, says the U.S. is intentionally starting a military provocation. A state-run broadcaster in North Korea says American actions are getting to a point close to nuclear war.

South Korea says the U.S. bombers were put in place as a response to the North’s nuclear missile threat.

This comes a day after President Trump said he would be open to meeting with Kim Jong Un under the right circumstances.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Conservative Student Speaks Up About Campus Intimidation By Tom Knighton

By on May 3rd, 2017

When Anne Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, or Charles Murray is blocked from a speaking engagement at a liberal university due to a riot, the incident makes headlines.

But these protests aren’t the only cases of intimidation being used to silence non-Leftist speech on campus, however. Not by a long shot. Steven Glick, editor-in-chief of the student newspaper Claremont Independent, shares his experiences:

I began writing for the Claremont Independent — a student-run conservative paper at the Claremont Colleges — and became a vocal opponent of political correctness.

My classmates — as well as my former employer on campus — grew upset with my coverage of the over-the-top PC-policing and began to think up ways to silence me. I was frequently reported to the deans, and a petition even circulated asking the administration to expel me and my staff.

Part of what makes this culture so troubling is the number of double standards it engenders. “Marginalized” students perversely pursue “equality” by pulling groups perceived as privileged down. “Privileged” students are chastised for committing “microaggressions” against their marginalized peers, while marginalized students are free to commit blatant acts of racial or gender bias against those they deem privileged.

…

That’s true both outside and inside the classroom. The faculty at Pomona is incredibly unbalanced ideologically. Unsurprisingly, the curriculums are severely biased with dissenting views unwelcome. The number of class offerings shrinks dramatically for anyone unwilling to fully toe the progressive line. Several of my friends and I decide which classes to take based not on the course content or reading material, but instead based solely on which professors seem least likely to let political or racial biases affect classroom discussion and grading.

Two weeks ago, I tried to produce a video in which my peers would explain their opposition to Heather Mac Donald and describe the reasons they did not believe she should be allowed to speak on campus.

I stayed at the protest for nearly an hour, talking to as many students as I could. But students involved in the protest refused to answer any of my questions. Instead, they blocked my camera, pushed me and formed a wall around me to restrict my movement.

That is only a small sampling of Glick’s experiences, but it’s a glimpse into the fascist opposition to vocal right-leaning students on American college campuses.

Despite claims of “tolerance,” of wanting to have a “conversation” about race, sexuality, income inequality, or any number of issues, their behavior shows they want the precise opposite.

For most Americans, we can step away from that. We can spend time with like-minded friends, or just step away from politics completely for a time.

But for students like Glick looking to develop skills required for a journalism career, there is no escape. The mistreatment is a driving force in their lives, something they have to plan everything around in order to get a fair shake from their college experience. CONTINUE AT SITE

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