RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/08/30/chinas_brand_of_communism.html

Communism is back in the news. That’s in part because the Trump administration has made a national priority of informing the public about the China challenge. Earlier this summer four senior officials — National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General William Barr, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — gave a series of speeches highlighting the communist roots of China’s autocratic conduct and of its ambitions to reconfigure world order.

Those speeches, however, did not include any scoops. They addressed a widely neglected — and sometimes aggressively downplayed — development stretching across the better part of a decade. Since his accession in 2012 to the position of general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping has ruled China with dictatorial powers while consistently reaffirming the centrality of communism to the CCP’s quest to transform China into the world’s most powerful and influential nation.

According to the “South China Morning Post,” Xi wrote in an article published this month that “The foundation of China’s political economy can only be a Marxist political economy, and not be based on other economic theories.” Therefore, “The dominant position of public ownership cannot be shaken, and the leading role of the state-owned economy cannot be shaken.” 

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/

When Britain’s foreign Secretary Dominic Raab visited Jerusalem last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly chewed his ear off.

Small wonder. It’s hard to exaggerate the perfidy, cynicism and head-in-the-sand cowardice currently being displayed by Britain, along with France and Germany, over Iran.

Instead of joining forces with those trying to neutralise the growing threat from the Iranian regime, Britain and these two other key European powers are actually acting in concert with the world’s twin empires of evil, Russia and China, in shoring up this terrorist rogue state.

Earlier this month, the United States proposed at the UN Security Council to extend the Iran arms embargo, which is due to expire on October 18.

This was strongly supported by the Gulf states, which said that Iran has continued to supply conventional weapons to terrorists and separatists in the region and to intervene militarily in neighbouring countries.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16428/lebanon-france-wish-list

The first defect of the Macron plan, as we understand it, is that it treats what Lebanon faces as a humanitarian disaster, something like a major earthquake or tsunami, rather than a man-made tragedy plotted outside and executed by elements in the Lebanese political system. In other words, Lebanon’s crisis is caused by geopolitical factors with internal manifestations.

Tehran has tried to rewrite the Lebanese rules of the game in two ways. First, it has recruited, often purchased, allies not to say clients, in all communities. To be sure, Hezbollah remains Tehran’s main Trojan horse. But Iran also has baby Trojan horses in all other communities.

The second way in which Tehran has changed the rules of the game is to transform Hezbollah into a state-within-the-state, turning the official institutions of the Lebanese state into empty shells. Worse still, Hezbollah itself is held on an increasingly tight leash from Tehran. Those who follow the official narrative in Tehran know that the hard core of the Islamic Republic leadership treat Hezbollah as servants rather than allies.

Even before the mullahs seized power in Tehran, Iran exercised some influence in Lebanon and is likely to maintain a high profile there even after the mullahs are seen off the stage. But, while Iran will always be here, it would be wrong to assume that the Islamic Republic, too, will always be there.

Does Emmanuel Macron have a plan for helping Lebanon out of its current crisis? Sources close to the French president claim he does.

The plan consists of mobilizing international support for a fund to rebuild the shattered port of Beirut and upgrade the country’s ramshackle infrastructure.

In exchange, it would require a new national consensus that transcends sectarian divides without ignoring them altogether.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16396/china-debt-trap-diplomacy

Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping’s grand thoroughfares are now global in scope, extending as far as Djibouti, a strategic maritime chokepoint in Africa, just west of the Arabian Peninsula, or Ecuador, home to South America’s third-largest oil reserves.

The economic benefits, however, of some of these deals between China and poor “Third World” countries in Africa and Latin America are questionable. A few of these bilateral packages appear contrived to imprison already impoverished states into realms of permanent economic vassalage to China.

The objectives of China’s global BRI programs are clearly as much strategic and political as they are economic. BRI projects seem not designed so much to win new friends as to win new dependents, especially in areas either neglected by the West or in the Western sphere of influence.

The ultimate objective of the global dimension of China’s BRI enterprise appears to be geared toward replacing the existing political, military and economic dimension of the West’s liberal democratic order — again not surprisingly — with one dominated solely by the Communist Party of China.

Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy proposal has been the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) commercial and strategic program. At first, the network was pitched as a restoration of the ancient overland trade route, the “Silk Road,” that linked China to Europe. This “New Silk Road,” like its predecessor, would traverse the vast steppes of Central Asia — but the contemporary BRI is allegedly meant to serve also as an economic boon for all the countries along the route.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16404/turkey-hostility-israel-uae

It should not be a surprise that a government that supports Hamas is against the normalization treaty between Israel and the UAE. The treaty will hopefully pave the way for more peaceful coexistence and cooperation between Israel, the UAE and other Muslim countries. The Erdogan regime, through its hostility to the deal, its hosting Hamas terrorists on its own soil, and its recent acts of aggression in Syria, Libya, Greece and Iraq, has once again demonstrated that it supports the destruction of Israel, regional instability, neo-Ottoman expansionism, and war.

When the Israel-United Arab Emirates (UAE) peace agreement, also known as the Abraham Accord, was announced on August 13, the UAE became the third Arab country, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, formally to normalize relations with Israel.

Turkey, however, condemned the Israel-UAE agreement despite its 71 years of diplomatic relations with the Jewish State. The Turkish foreign ministry said in a press release:

“While pursuing its narrowly defined interests, the UAE has attempted to present its betrayal to the Palestinian cause as an act of altruism. The history and the conscience of the people in the region will never forget or forgive this hypocritical act.”

Turkey’s Communication Director for the Presidency, Fahrettin Altun, said that they consider the agreement between the UAE and Israel “null and void.” The head of Turkey’s parliament, Mustafa Şentop, condemned the deal, calling it “disgraceful” and a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285939

A traveller to Eastern Europe can visit the sites of once-famous yeshivas like Slobodka, Kelm, Volozhin Telze and Ponevech and mourn at seeing buildings that once echoed with Talmudic study and which are now either empty ruins or have been transformed into community centers or shops.

Those yeshivas, however, abandoned because of the Holocaust and prior periods of persecution, and the shuls burned to the ground by Nazis and their cohorts, have been reborn in Israel (and the USA)..Today, the sound of Torah echoes from thousands of voices, more than there ever were in the renowned European yeshivas.

One cannot say the same about what is happening to Christianity in Europe, with France at the head. The worshipers are no more, and now it is the turn of the buildings.

“Should we abandon the churches of our villages, victims of de-Christianization?”, asks Stéphane Bern, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron to protect French cultural heritage, in a new essay for La Reveue des deux mondes.

On its website, the Patrice Besse real estate agency, which specializes in historic buildings, lists thirty churches currently for sale. Per square meter, desecrated churches are the cheapest lots in the country.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-admin-may-label-chinas-treatment-of-uighurs-a-genocide-report/

The Trump administration is considering whether to formally label China’s treatment of Uighurs a “genocide,” Politico reported on Tuesday.

A genocide designation by the U.S. government could have political and legal consequences for the country. If the genocide label is approved, it could pressure the U.S. to intervene in some form to counteract the genocide, though not necessarily through military means. The designation would also be sure to further inflame tensions between the U.S. and China that have soared during the coronavirus pandemic.

The National Security Council, State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security are still weighing whether to use the term, Trump administration officials told Politico. The administration could designate China’s treatment of Uighurs as “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing” if there is not enough support for a formal designation of “genocide.”

A spokesman for the Joe Biden presidential campaign said Biden supports the “genocide” designation, which could influence President Trump’s final decision on the matter.

China has imprisoned over one million Uighurs and other Muslims from the province of Xinjiang in reeducation camps aimed to stamp out detainees’ Islamic faith and indoctrinate them in communist party ideology. White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien has referred to the facilities as “concentration camps,” and reports of torture, rape, and other abuses have emerged from the camps.

China is also implementing a campaign of forced sterilizations and abortions on Uighur women.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16411/lebanon-relationship-hezbollah

Speaking shortly after the verdict was announced, Bahaa Hariri, the eldest son of the murdered prime minister, told me that the conclusion of the trial should result in Hezbollah’s complete exclusion from Lebanese politics.

Mr Hariri’s campaign for Lebanon to end the interference of Iran and Hezbollah in the country’s political system will certainly be helped by the damning material that emerged from the trial about the organisation’s links with Syria and Iran.

The man convicted of Mr Hariri’s murder, therefore, is no ordinary Hezbollah commander, but someone who operates at the organisation’s highest levels, a fact that should help enormously in Lebanon’s coming battle to rid itself of the malign influence that Hezbollah and its Iranian paymasters have exercised over the country’s fortunes.

The conviction of a senior Hezbollah terrorist for assassinating Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has provided the hard-pressed Lebanese people with incontrovertible proof of the malign influence Iran exerts over their political system.

Following an investigation that has lasted for more than a decade and cost a staggering $1 billion, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the UN-sponsored body responsible for trying four Hezbollah suspects accused of murdering Mr Hariri in a car bomb attack in Beirut in 2005, has finally passed its judgement.

https://www.meforum.org/61415/gurfinkiel-on-the-reverse-colonization-of-france

Michel Gurfinkiel, the founder and president of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute and a Ginsburg-Milstein Fellow at Middle East Forum, spoke to participants in a July 6 Middle East Forum webinar (video) about demographic changes in France in relation to her former colonies in Muslim North Africa.

At the time of the French conquest of Algeria in the 1830s, the French population numbered approximately 30 million, the Algerian population around 3 million, and the rest of North Africa between 3 and 4 million. Despite superior French technological and military power, pacifying Algeria required nearly two decades of protracted conflict.

In keeping with its post-revolutionary “universalist vision,” France sought to “turn Algeria [into] an integral part of the French state,” explained Gurfinkiel. In the 1860s, with colonial rule firmly established, Algerian Muslims were offered full-fledged French citizenship provided they accept the French civil code and in effect, renounce Islamic law (sharia). Most refused, seeing this as akin to apostasy.

Nevertheless, the French continued to see Algeria as much a part of the French nation as “Brittany, Burgundy or Provence,” said Gurfinkiel, and allowed immigration by Muslims from Algeria and other French colonies – many of them French-speaking – even after they became independent in the twentieth century. A similar stand was taken regarding the sub-Saharan African colonies.

During this time, the demographic balance between France and its former colonies shifted markedly. Today, there are 67 million citizens in the French Republic (including some French territories overseas), 43 million in Algeria, 35 million in Morocco, and 12 million in Tunisia, along with 233 million in the former colonies of West Africa, Central Africa and the Indian Ocean. Two thirds of the former colonies’ citizens are Muslims.