Displaying the most recent of 90425 posts written by

Ruth King

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Proposed Palestinian State: Western conventional wisdom vs. Middle East reality Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on January 5th, 2023

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, reiterates his commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.

According to Western conventional wisdom, the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would promote the cause of peace, stabilize the Middle East and advance Western interests.

However – just like its policy toward Iran’s Ayatollahs – Western conventional wisdom overlooks the rogue intra-Arab Palestinian track record in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait, the despotic and corrupt nature of the Palestinian Authority and its abhorrent hate-education, and the impact of such a track record upon the rogue nature of the proposed Palestinian state.  The West takes lightly the adverse impact of such a rogue state upon the Middle East, the survival of pro-Western Arab regimes (e.g., Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula entities) and vital Western interests.

Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Arabs are aware of the Palestinian track record – just as they are aware of the Ayatollahs’ track record – and are certain that the proposed Palestinian state would resemble the non-controllable, lawless and terroristic Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya much more than the moderate United Arab Emirates. Therefore, they have limited their support of Palestinians to a very positive talk, while conducting a lukewarm-to-negative walk.

Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Arabs have never flexed their military muscle (and hardly their financial and diplomatic muscle) on behalf of Palestinians. For example, no Arab-Israel war was ever launched on behalf of Palestinians, and no Palestinian war on Israel was ever assisted by Arab military.

Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Arabs have experienced the Palestinian trait of brutally-biting the (Arab) hand that feeds them: Egypt in the early 1950s, Syria in the 1960s, Jordan in 1968-1970, Lebanon in 1970-1982, Kuwait in 1990.

Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, which considers the Palestinian issue as a primary/central concern in the Middle East, the Arab conduct reflects the conviction (notwithstanding the pro-Palestinian Arab rhetoric) that the Palestinian issue is not the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, neither a crown-jewel of Arab policy-making, nor a core cause of Middle East turbulence.

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Chinese Communist Party Aggression against America By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on January 5th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/01/chinese_communist_party_aggression_against_america.html

Joe Biden’s decision to allow a Chinese company “to own 370 acres of land within 12 miles of Grand Forks Air Force Base in Grand Forks, North Dakota” portends dire consequences for America.

According to Gordon Chang,

China will be able to use a proposed $700 million corn milling plant on the site to spy on military communications and even disrupt them. In Beijing, they must be shaking their heads in disbelief at the inability of the U.S. to protect some of its most sensitive communications.

Consequently,

Fufeng USA, a subsidiary of a Shandong province-based agribusiness giant, is, at least for the moment, free to build its wet corn milling and biofermentation plant in Grand Forks.

Moreover, “[t]he Chinese will now have the ability to conduct passive, persistent surveillance of both signals controlling experimental drones that are routinely tested at that USAF facility as well as signals that are routinely beamed to and from sensitive U.S. military satellites[.]”

If that were not alarming enough, consider the fact that “[s]hould the U.S. and China end up in a shooting war over, say, Taiwan, Fufeng’s property near the Air Force base could be used to send malicious signals to jam passing satellites or disrupt the operation of drones.  We have made ourselves vulnerable on our own territory.”

So while the American military establishment worries about which pronouns to use, our enemies cannot believe their good fortune.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has already doubled its nuclear stockpile in just two years.  Moreover, in its arsenal of weaponry, China has declared “a people’s war” on the United States by using investments to undermine American strength.

According to Texas Scorecard, the CCP is doggedly pursuing the American agriculture infrastructure. 

Agricultural land, and the oftentimes attached food processing, serves a vital function in the insulation of any nation from foreign powers.

Now, with an ongoing military conflict in eastern Europe, the need to be agriculturally independent is gaining deserved attention.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Double Standard in Dealing With Israel Making a premature judgement on Netanyahu’s coalition government. by Joseph Puder

By on January 5th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-double-standard-in-dealing-with-israel/

The New York Times and the current US administration have questioned the Israeli elected government choice of ministers and speculated on its policies. While it’s true that friends and allies such as the US and Israel occasionally can question one’s policy, it is usually the US that does most of such questioning, and the US administrations have on occasion attempted to influence Israel’s election outcomes. This was the case when President Bill Clinton openly supported the election of Ehud Barak over Benjamin Netanyahu. President Joe Biden is more circumspect about taking sides in Israeli elections, but he too wished for a left-leaning and easily manipulated Israeli government that would make concessions to the Palestinians. This was the case of Yair Lapid’s short government. Israel is a mature democracy and the people of Israel, in an open and purely democratic election, have the right to elect their chosen leaders and parties. Labeling Netanyahu’s government as “extremist” before it has begun to govern is unfair and counterproductive.

The Biden administration does not like the new Israeli government, and top administration officials have expressed concerns about the posts in Netanyahu’s government of at least two right-wing politicians: Naftali Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir (the Biden administration did not qualify some parties in Lapid’s government as left-wing). Smotrich is slated to serve as Minister of Finance along with some sections of the Defense Ministry, and Ben-Gvir is to serve as Minister of Public Security. It has been said that President Biden declared that he would hold Netanyahu responsible for the policies of Israel’s government. It is interesting to note that no such concerns by the Biden administration or the New York Times were raised when Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid as Prime Ministers included an Arab Islamist party in their coalition government.

The New York Times (NYT), which tends to influence Democratic administrations and generally guide its policies, blasted the Netanyahu coalition. In an opinion piece on December 17, 2022, the NYT expressed fear that Netanyahu was catering to the demands of the most extreme elements of Israeli politics with a coalition of radical and far-right cabinet picks. The NYT opined that, “Mr. Netanyahu’s government, however, is a significant threat to the future of Israel — its direction, its security and even the idea of a Jewish homeland. For one, the government’s posture could make it militarily and politically impossible for a two-state solution to ever emerge. Rather than accept this outcome, the Biden administration should do everything it can to express its support for a society governed by equal rights and the rule of law in Israel, as it does in countries all over the world. That would be an act of friendship, consistent with the deep bond between the two nations.”

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Man Who Stabbed Two Cops in Times Square Left Chilling Manifesto The high human cost of willful ignorance. by Robert Spencer

By on January 5th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/man-who-stabbed-two-cops-in-times-square-left-chilling-manifesto/

19-year-old Trevor Bickford stabbed two cops with a machete in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, and authorities are scratching their heads and wondering why. According to the UK’s Daily Mail, “an investigation was underway to pinpoint a motive for the attack.” That investigation, however, may be more the result of officials not wanting to recognize Bickford’s obvious motive, rather than a matter of his real intentions being unclear. Bickford himself left behind a “manifesto” in which he made his perspective and intentions quite clear. But since neither he nor his attack fit the establishment media/Biden regime narrative about the “white supremacist” terror threat, they’re unlikely to get much attention.

The New York Post reported Sunday that when he was arrested after the stabbings, Bickford had a handwritten note in his backpack, asking his family to “please repent to Allah and accept Islam.” The backpack also contained a “collection of religious material” that was unlikely to have been gospel tracts. Bickford wrote: “To my family — specifically, mother —  I’m sorry for not having been a good enough son.” But then he gets down to brass tacks: “I fear greatly that you will not repent to Allah. And therefore I hold hope in my heart that a piece of you believes so that you may be taken out to [sic] the hellfire.”

Bickford addressed the same hope to his brother: “To Travis. Of anyone I’ve known who I have felt is closest to faith — it’s you. Of anyone I’ve ever wanted to accept Islam with me — it’s you. Please repent to Allah and accept Islam. I fear for you.” To his other brother, who is reportedly in the U.S. Marine Corps, Bickford wrote: “To Devon, there was a time when we were close, but that time has passed. You have joined the ranks of my enemy. And for that I can give you no kind words – return to Allah.”

The New York Post also noted that Bickford wanted to attack “a uniformed officer” or “someone with a gun,” as he believed such people to be an “enemy of the state.” Which state? The New York Post, as willfully ignorant as the rest of the establishment media, shows no curiosity about this question. But clearly, Trevor Bickford, after he converted to Islam, was no stalwart American patriot. He wanted to target a uniformed officer as an enemy of the Islamic state. He had no kind words for his brother Devon because Devon had joined “the ranks of my enemy,” that is, the U.S. military.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Did Someone or Something Seize Control of the United States? By Victor Davis Hanson

By on January 5th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/2023/01/05/did-someone-or-something-seize-control-of-the-united-states-n1658786

What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it? Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did President Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased?

Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent to dirty coal? How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas – furious over a court decision on abortion? How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d–s”?

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth? And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees?

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Twitter Files Prove Evans’ Law Of Inadequate Paranoia

By on January 5th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/05/twitter-files-prove-evans-law-of-inadequate-paranoia/

“No matter how bad you think things are, if you look closer, you’ll inevitably find it’s worse.” — M. Stanton Evans

For years Twitter denied that it targeted conservatives, despite piles of evidence to the contrary. But who could have imagined that Twitter had been working hand-in-glove with leftist officials in the federal government to silence speech they didn’t like. If Twitter was this bad, imagine what true tech giants like Facebook and Google have been up to.

As conservative paragon M. Stanton Evans rightly observed, whatever you think, it will likely turn out to be far worse.

The revelations that have been emerging over the past month from Twitter’s once-hidden corners – courtesy of Elon Musk – are being greeted with shrugs by reporters and editors who used to care about free speech. For everyone else, each layer uncovered by the Twitter files is worse than even its fiercest critics on the right had imagined.

Matt Taibbi, who is one of the few honest journalists left, has been on top of this from day one, and recently put together a compendium of what we’ve learned about a company that claimed its mission was to give people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”

The first batch exposed the internal machinations over Twitter’s decision to blacklist the New York Post’s explosive Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 elections. Much of that was already known.

The second batch showed that Twitter was in fact shadowbanning people – despite repeated claims to the contrary. “Twitter had a huge toolbox for controlling the visibility of any user,” Taibbi notes, including a “Search Blacklist,” a “Trends Blacklist,” and a “Do Not Amplify” setting.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why Palestinians Want to Slaughter Jewish Worshippers by Bassam Tawil

By on January 5th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19266/palestinians-kill-jewish-worshippers

The Palestinian Authority, which is in charge of security in Nablus, has — despite official agreements in the Oslo Accords — nevertheless refused to fulfill its commitment to protect and ensure free access to Joseph’s Tomb.

So far, no one has called out the Palestinian Authority for its grave violations of the international commitments signed with Israel ensuring free access to, and the protection of, all holy sites.

Encouraged by the silence of the international community, the Palestinian Authority has been trying to prevent Jews from visiting another holy site, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem… which is abutted by the Western Wall…. This wall happens to be the holiest site in Judaism where Jews are permitted to pray.

Instead of denouncing Abbas for his incitement and the Palestinians for their denial of Jewish links to the holy site, the United Nations General Assembly in 2021 approved a resolution that disavowed Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

Without the presence of the Israeli security forces in Jerusalem, Jews would have been attacked and slaughtered every day on their way to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

If the city or these sites were ever to be handed over to the Palestinian Authority, Jewish worshippers would have to visit their holy sites in bullet-proof vehicles accompanied by platoons of soldiers and police officers, as is necessary these days at Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus.

The Biden administration and the rest of the international community would do well to wake up to the fact that the Palestinian state they are clamoring for means the continued slaughter of Jews and the denial of their safe access to Jewish holy sites.

Tolerance and freedom of worship are not terms that can be found in the Palestinian lexicon. The Palestinians will be satisfied only when they replace Israel with an Iranian-backed terror state and erase all traces of Jewish history and faith.

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Three Muslim Knife Attacks on NYPD Officers in 8 Years Daniel Greenfield

By on January 4th, 2023

https://www.danielgreenfield.org/?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Daniel+Greenfield+Article%3A+Three+Muslim+Knife+Attacks+on+NYPD+Officers+in+8+Years&

At 9:30 PM, partygoers in Times Square wearing purple Planet Fitness hats heard a bang.

The ball hadn’t dropped, another Jihadi had. Along with three cops.

Trevor Bickford, 19, had taken the train down from Wells, Maine: a town of less than 10,000 souls. The born-again Jihadi had turned to Islam after his father’s drug overdose. He urged his mother and brothers to join him in serving Allah or they would perish in “hellfire”.

Maine isn’t a big hub of Islamic terrorism so the local teens who convert to Islam have to go to more exciting places to kill infidels in the name of Allah and earn their fellow 72 virgins.

In November, Xavier Pelkey, 19, of Waterville, Maine, a city of 15,000, was indicted for joining ISIS and plotting to kill some Shiites at a mosque in Chicago.

Pelkey and three other Jihadists intended to “enter the Shia mosque and separate the adults from the children, then murder the adults”. Then they planned to move on to a synagogue.

The plot to massacre Muslims in a mosque (never mind Jews) received virtually no coverage in the media because while Xavier is white, he’s a Muslim who had changed his name to Abdullah or ‘Servant of Allah’. Xavier’s two other pals, an unnamed 15-year-old in Chicago and a 17-year-old in Kentucky, had assembled hand painted ISIS flags and homemade bombs.

Xavier told them he wanted to be a martyr “and die while fighting in the cause of Allah”.

Trevor might have been jealous that Xavier/Abdullah beat him out by a month as the first ISIS terrorist out of Maine and took the train to New York City for what must have seemed like the biggest and juiciest target: the massive crowds gathered in Times Square to cheer the ball drop.

Muslim terrorists had previously hit public celebrations. And while Trevor was only armed with a machete, in a crowd that big, he probably figured that he couldn’t fail to kill someone.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey’s ‘Crimes against Humanity’ and Illegal Occupation of Cyprus by Uzay Bulut

By on January 4th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19290/cyprus-turkey-crimes-against-humanity

[T]he invading Turkish forces [in 1974] murdered innocent civilians, raped women and children, and plundered northern Cyprus. They forcibly displaced around 170,000 Greek Cypriots, or a third of the total population of the Republic of Cyprus….

“The widespread or systematic practice of enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity as defined in applicable international law and shall attract the consequences provided for under such applicable international law.” — United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, 2006.

According to the statistics, the highest number of complaints to the European Court of Human Rights, after Russia, involved Turkey…. In 2021, Turkey topped the list for the number of ECtHR judgments that found violations of freedom of expression.

“[T]here has been a collective decades-long failure to uphold the rule of law in an adequate manner befitting the post-1945 legal order.” — Dr. Klearchos A. Kyriakides, “The Search for Security via Answers to Questions on Law, Criminal Justice and Impunity,” forum.agora-dialogue.com, June 17, 2017

Dr. Kyriakides also notes the failure of Turkey to become a state party to more than 70 instruments of international law.

For criminal justice to be served in Cyprus, Kyriakides recommends that a new independent international criminal tribunal in the lines of the tribunals established by the victorious Allies in Nuremberg or by the UN Security Council in relation to the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda should be established concerning the crimes Turkey and its agents committed in Cyprus.

“[C]ontrary to international humanitarian law, the United Nations shoulders at least some of the responsibility for fostering a culture of impunity. The United Nations has never established any independent international criminal tribunal for the Republic of Cyprus along the lines of the precedents established….” — Dr. Klearchos A. Kyriakides, “The Search for Security via Answers to Questions on Law, Criminal Justice and Impunity,” published in connection with the “Conference on Cyprus” in Geneva, on June 28, 2017.

Investigations could warrant an independent Nuremberg-style or Hague-style tribunal to deal with the war crimes committed.

On August 15, 1974, Pavlos Solomi, 42, and his son, Solomis Pavlou Solomi, 17, were arrested by Turks at their home in the Cypriot village of Komi Kepir during the second phase of Turkey’s military invasion of Cyprus.

Panagiota Pavlou Solomi spent the remainder of her life trying to find her missing husband and son. Finally, 43 years after their abduction, in 2017, their remains were found in Galatia Lake by the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP), which exhumed what was left of them. A funeral was held for the murdered father and son in March 2018, but not in their beloved village of Komi Kepir. That village is still illegally occupied by Turkey. The family buried the corpses in the free region of the Republic of Cyprus, where they currently reside.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Equity Paradox Equal opportunity rewards excellence. Equal outcomes require tyranny and are indifferent to excellence.  By Edward Ring

By on January 4th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/03/the-equity-paradox/

If a society strives to achieve “equity” for every citizen merely by providing equal opportunity, it would need to accept unequal outcomes. If a society does not accept unequal outcomes, it would need to provide unequal opportunities. That is a circle that cannot be squared. Societies must choose one or the other.

Every major institution in America denies this paradox. Implicit in that denial is the fantasy that designing a society to favor certain groups in order to achieve equality of outcome will not fatally undermine the cohesion and vitality of the overall society. Theoretically, it might have worked several decades ago when “disadvantaged” groups constituted a minute percentage of the American population. Offering special benefits and privileges to a small fraction of the population might have been a manageable burden. But today, the vast majority of Americans belong to a “protected status group.”

The magnitude of this shift in just six decades bears enumeration. In 1960, at the dawn of the modern civil rights movement, the population of the United States was 89 percent white. The social justice programs that were launched at that time, affirmative action and the war on poverty, had a limited impact. If affirmative action released unqualified students into elite universities or unqualified engineers and executives into upper management, it only represented at most a 10 percent displacement. If welfare and other programs initiated by the war on poverty destroyed the work ethic and broke up the families of the so-called beneficiaries, at least only 10 percent of the U.S. population was so victimized.

Today, almost everyone belongs to a protected status group. Social justice advocates now demand proportional representation be extended to include not only blacks but all nonwhites, as well as all women. They demand this “equity” be applied to all university admissions, all hiring and promotions, all government contracts, and even in the number of criminal prosecutions and prison populations. 

Continue reading →