RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/brexit-party-poses-an-existential-threat-to-the-tories/

Theresa May is probably on the way out, but the European parliamentary elections suggest a bigger threat is on the horizon for the Conservative party.

Theresa May’s departure from Downing Street and the premiership has been promised so many times and not materialized once that I react to the latest version of it like the Charlie Ruggles character to a rival suitor in the great Lubitsch comedy, Trouble in Paradise: “See here. You keep saying you’re leaving and then you stay. Why don’t you say you’ll stay and then leave?”

Last week it certainly looked as if May would finally gratify the wishes of almost all Tories outside Parliament (and now, it seems, most inside Parliament too) and resign as prime minister in early June. She and Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, agreed on a statement that kind of promised she would go but also left open the delicate question of when:

The prime minister is determined to secure our departure from the European Union and is devoting her efforts to securing the second reading of the withdrawal agreement bill in the week commencing 3rd June 2019 and the passage of that bill and the consequent departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union by the summer. We have agreed that she and I will meet following the second reading of the bill to agree a timetable for the election of a new leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/islamophobia-definition-debate-united-kindgom/

A proposed definition of Islamophobia gives relatively few clues about how it would be applied.

What criticisms of Muslims can be censured, sanctioned, or prosecuted? What kind of statements will we deem Islamophobic? The debate is starting to happen in the United Kingdom, and it will surely happen soon in American universities, corporations, and perhaps our legislatures. We ought to start thinking it through.

In the United Kingdom, the All Party Parliamentary Group of Muslims proposed a working definition of Islamophobia that runs this way: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” This definition has been rapidly adopted by smaller parties in the U.K., such as the Liberal Democrats, but rejected by the Tories and the government of Theresa May. It’s also been criticized by Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), who says such a definition, if it spread, could hamper anti-terror investigations.

Would such a definition, if adopted, apply to any of the following statements?

“They seek to enslave the bodies of women.”

“[H]e prefers theocracy to democracy. He preaches a message of enduring hatred and personifies the kind of politics that is inimical to everything the Labour party stands for. ”

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/05/exclusive-interview-with-jewish-couple-in-paris-beaten-by-muslim-home-invaders

The last of the remaining Jews living in Aubervilliers were brutally beaten and robbed in their own home. A Jewish couple in Paris was assaulted and robbed in their own home in the projects earlier this month raising the concern that the attack was the latest in a series of “home invasions” targeting Jews. A Muslim gang of four saw the *mezuzah on the door and stormed in. The Jewish couple were brutally beaten and robbed. Seine-Saint-Denis is increasingly a Muslim no-go zone. Once home to a thriving Jewish community, Seine-Saint-Denis has been ethnically cleansed.

I have an exclusive interview with the couple. Photos are exclusive as well.

The doorbell rang in the small Hazan apartment in the projects of the deprived Paris suburb of Aubervilliers. Shalom Hazan was expecting his brother so he thought nothing of opening the door. Like a scene out of ‘Death Wish’, four Muslim men in their twenties stormed into his home and spent the next 30 minutes beating Mr. Hazan and his wife.

Their faces covered (like the burka), the four demanded money, “We know you have money.” That old anti-semitic trope. Hazan lives in the projects in a tiny apartment. He has a mezzuzah on the doorpost outside his home the only mezuzahs in the building because Shalom Hazan and his wife Joelle are the only Jews remaining in the building.

63 year old Hazan tried to fight them off. While three goons pummeled him, the fourth attacked his wife while shouting “show us where the money is or we will kill your husband!” They took everything —Shalom Hazan and Joelle Hazan have lived in this tiny apartment since in 1985. Back then it was a Jewish neighborhood, safe. As Muslims moved in, they Jews were forced out. The projects that the Hazans live in was at one time 90% Jewish. Now Shalom Hazan is the last Jew. He has decided he too must leave. He is terrified and so is his wife.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14253/russia-eu-elections

Russian President Vladimir Putin is actively cultivating a network of contacts in EU member states with the aim of building a pro-Russian bloc in the next EU parliament, one that will be active in calling for the sanctions to be lifted.

Concerns about Russian influence have also been raised in France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands and Germany, while questions remain as to whether Moscow tried to interfere in Britain’s 2016 referendum on leaving the EU.

Elsewhere Moscow has worked hard to forge closer relations with Hungary and Bulgaria, two former Soviet satellites that appear to prefer maintaining good links with Russia over their support for the EU.

As part of his effort to broaden his ties with pro-Russian states, Mr Putin is now focusing on the Czech Republic, where the Kremlin is actively engaged with the country’s pro-Russian president, Miloš Zeman, as well as Andrej Babiš, the controversial prime minister…. Certainly, from Moscow’s perspective, adding the Czech Republic to the burgeoning list of EU states and political parties with pro-Russian sympathies can only strengthen its efforts to undermine the EU’s efforts to maintain a united front against Russia.

No one is working harder to achieve a successful outcome from this week’s European Union elections than Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Even though there is little prospect of Russia ever wanting to join the family of EU nations, that has not stopped Mr Putin from intensifying his efforts to expand his influence over those countries that are members of the European trade bloc.

Consequently, at a time when Moscow is desperate to have the sanctions lifted that have been imposed in response to various Russian acts of provocation, such as last year’s Salisbury poisoning, Mr Putin is investing much time and energy to ensure that a strong pro-Russian lobby is elected to the new EU parliament following Thursday’s Europe-wide ballot.

The EU, together with the US, has been at the forefront of the international campaign to hold Moscow to account for its role in the Salisbury attack in March 2018, when a team of Russian GRU intelligence officers have been accused of attempting to murder former Russian Sergei Skripal with Novichok nerve agent. The attack resulted in the strengthening of the sanctions originally imposed against Moscow in the wake of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, as well as its interference in eastern Ukraine.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14211/turkey-erdogan-armenian-genocide

“What Erdogan refers to as ‘relocation’ was actually the genocidal deportation of civilian populations –mainly women, children and the elderly — to the very interior of Asia Minor. These populations were not simply relocated to another place, contrary to what the Turkish state claims. They were sent to concentration and extermination camps or remote places in the interior to be slaughtered or to die from exposure, exhaustion, hunger or epidemics — either on the way to, or at the place of, their destinations.” — Vasileios Meichanetsidis, an Athens-based genocide scholar and editor of the 2012 book, The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks, in an interview with Gatestone Institute.

At a symposium in Ankara on April 24 — the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his distortion and denial of the 1915 mass murder of Christians at the hands of Ottoman Turks. “The relocation of the Armenian gangs and their supporters who massacred the Muslim people, including women and children, in eastern Anatolia, was the most reasonable action that could be taken in such a period,” Erdogan said. This quote was then posted on the official “Turkish Presidency” Twitter page.

“Erdogan’s statement was factually flawed, deceptive and insulting,” Vicken Babkenian, an independent researcher for the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, told Gatestone in a recent interview.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/21/politics/china-us-trade-war-rare-earths-intl/index.html

Hong Kong (CNN)Chinese President Xi Jinping’s actions this week have been rich with symbolism.

On Monday, he laid a wreath at a monument dedicated to the Long March, a fabled retreat during the Chinese civil war which helped cement Mao Zedong’s rise to power. Could this be a sign that a similar protracted struggle will be needed in the expanding trade war with the the US?
Perhaps not. But the correct interpretation of another of Xi’s actions was much clearer, spelled out for all by state media.
In Jiangxi province, in southeastern China, Xi visited a company which specializes in rare earth minerals. Such elements are vital to the production of high-tech devices including smartphones, lasers, missile systems, superconductors and a whole host of others.

China accounted for 80% of all rare earth minerals imported by the US between 2014 and 2017, according to the United States Geological Survey, and they were among the few items not hit by US tariffs in Washington’s most recent trade war escalation.
Xi was accompanied in his visit to Jiangxi by Liu He, the vice premier who has led trade negotiations. And while China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has tried to downplay the symbolism of the pair’s visit, analysts and state media were in little doubt what message was being conveyed.
Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, said Xi’s visit had “offered huge support to the critical industry that has been widely viewed as a form of leverage for China in the trade war with the US.”

This alarming list has been compiled by Kim D. a friend and e-pal….rsk

AT HOME:

Brookline, MA…
JEWISH STUDENT UNION VANDALIZED WITH SWASTIKA AT BOSTON-AREA HIGH SCHOOL (Marcy Oster, Jerusalem Post, May 20)
The swastika was discovered Friday at Brookline High School, a public high school in a near Boston suburb, the CBS affiliate in Boston reported.
Chicago, IL…
CHICAGO SYNAGOGUE TARGETED BY ARSON ATTACKS (JTA, May 20)
An arsonist attempted twice to set fire to a synagogue building in downtown Chicago. Meanwhile, on the city’s North Side, vandals smashed the windows of cars parked outside of a synagogue.

Brooklyn, NY…
BROOKLYN JEWISH BOYS CHASED BY MEN IN CAR SHOUTING ‘WE LOVE HITLER’ (Adam Warner, 1010Wins, May 19)
Another anti-Semitic incident in Brooklyn early Saturday morning has former Assemblyman Dov Hikind pleading for help in finding those responsible and calling on leaders to stand up to a disturbing trend. Two 16-year-old Hasidic boys were walking home near 12th Avenue and 51st Street in Borough Park around 1:30 a.m. when a car with four men inside pulled up to them, according to Hikind. Hikind says one man shouted “Allahu Akbar,” causing the boys to bolt away in terror. “The kids then run, run for their life, not knowing what to expect,” Hikind told 1010 WINS’ Roger Stern. But the car reportedly sped up after them and another man shouted, “Do you know Hitler? We love Hitler!” “The guy says, ‘You know who Hitler was? He did great things,’” Hikind said. “’Adolph Hitler did great things’ – this was their message to these kids.” The car, which was said to have TLC plates, took off from the scene. Hikind says the terrified boys went to the 66th Precinct stationhouse, where they filed a report. The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating.

San Diego, CA…
INCIDENT AT SDSU HIGHLIGHTS GROWING ANTI-SEMITISM IN PROGRESSIVE CIRCLES (Times of San Diego, May 18)
On May 8, the Women’s Resource Center at San Diego State University sent out a newsletter featuring announcements for lectures, courses from the Women’s Studies Department, and other items of interest. But at the bottom of the email, a student inserted a poster-like image of woman with a gun [(terrorist Leilah Khaled)] and the language “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.”… [This image] endorses both terrorism and genocide… How has SDSU responded? On the one hand, J. Luke Wood, the Chief Diversity Officer and Associate Vice President for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion (SDSU likes long titles for their administrators) sprang into action. He had the WRC take down the newsletter and issue an apology. He has also spoken to several local rabbis, and has promised further action over the summer. On the other hand, President Adela de la Torre has so far remained silent, even though she responded very quickly after similar racist incidents in the recent past…

Boston, MA…
‘SOMEBODY OUT THERE WANTS TO HURT US’: 3 ARSONS AT 2 JEWISH CENTERS IN 1 WEEK RATTLES BOSTON SUBURBS (USA Today, May 19)
Three arson attacks in one week in suburbs outside of Boston – each extinguished before producing extensive damage – have put the Jewish community and others in the area on edge. The first fire occurred last Saturday around 11 p.m. at the home of Rabbi Avi Bukiet and his family. They live on site at the Chabad Center of Jewish Life in Arlington, Massachusetts. Firefighters were called to a second fire at the same Jewish center and home Thursday around 9 p.m. About an hour later, firefighters in the town of Needham, less than 20 miles away, were dispatched to yet another fire, this time at the Needham Chabad Center. Although no one was injured in these acts of arson, the events come on the heels of recent attacks on Jewish synagogues that were fueled by anti-Semitism… Jewish leaders, including Bukiet and his wife Luna Bukiet, Arlington police and others held a news conference Friday to condemn the arsons and to call on the public to help find the perpetrators….Law enforcement officials, who are treating the fires as being intentional, say they have surveillance footage of a person of interest. A $20,000 reward is on the table for any information that leads to arrests… Chanie Krinsky, wife of Rabbi Mendy Krinsky and co-director of the Needham Center, wrote about her experience on Facebook, saying… “Somebody out there wants to hurt us…Just because we exist. And that is frightening. Hate can’t be reasoned with. Hate just needs to be eradicated. A little bit of light dispels a lot of darkness. Please take this opportunity to help us end this darkness. Do a mitzvah today to bring more light into this world!”… “Attacking any place of worship is a despicable act, but since these buildings are also family homes where children live, eat, and play, it is personal, scary and dangerous,” Robert Trestan, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League of New England tweeted. “We are united in prioritizing vigilance while refusing to be intimidated.”

ABROAD:

Poland…
POLISH CANDIDATE PUTS KIPPAH ON RIVAL, SAYS HER PARTY ‘KNEELS TO JEWS’ (Times of Israel, May 19)
An election debate in the Polish city of Kielce on Saturday descended into a display of anti-Semitism and skullcap-throwing, as candidates sparred over restitution to Jewish Holocaust victims. During the debate, Dawid Lewicki, a candidate for the far-right Confederation political alliance, stuck a kippah in front of a candidate from the ruling Law and Justice party and said, “This is the symbol of Law and Justice. They kneel before the Jews, they sell the country for $300 billion,” according to Polish press reports. The Law and Justice candidate, Anne Krupka, then threw the skullcap off the table. Later, when she got up to speak, a video showed Konrad Berkowicz, another Confederation official, picking up the kippah and holding it above her head… The debate over Holocaust restitution in Poland has surfaced in election debates ahead of EU vote and the parliamentary elections later this year. A 2018 law signed by US President Donald Trump, designed to encourage the restoration of Jewish property stolen during the Holocaust, has drawn criticism from Poland’s right-wing government, which insists the matter is closed. Nationalist groups have also opposed the law, arguing that paying compensation would ruin Poland’s economy. Last Saturday, thousands of Polish nationalists rallied against the measure in Warsaw, in what was described as one of the largest anti-Jewish street demonstrations in recent times. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki echoed the feelings of the protesters at a campaign rally later that day, saying it was Poles who deserved compensation for World War II…

France…
PARIS HOLOCAUST MONUMENT FOR CHILDREN CENSORED, VANDALIZED (Cnaan Lipshiz, Jerusalem Post, May 18)
Parts of a text commemorating the murder of Jewish children in the Holocaust were painted over at a memorial park in Paris for victims of the genocide. Police received reports this week of the unusual vandalism at the memorial space that opened in 2017 near the main Vel d’Hiv monument for Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis with help from French authorities. Among the words painted over was the assertion that victims were “killed in terrible and cruel conditions” as well as “extermination” and that the Nazis wanted to “annihilate” Jews. Also painted over was 4,115, the number of French Jewish children who were picked up by the French police of the Vichy regime in the Vel d’Hiv roundup in July 1942, separated from their parents, deported and killed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, the Le Parisien magazine reported Wednesday. “Can you imagine something more lowly,” the French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy wrote on Twitter Thursday about the incident.

UK…
WHISTLEBLOWERS ‘COLLECT 100,000 LABOUR EMAILS’ TO EXPOSE PARTY’S ATTEMPTS TO PROTECT ALLEGED ANTISEMITES (The JC, May 15)
Ex-Labour staffers are preparing to expose 100,000 emails that show Jeremy Corbyn’s team protected those accused of antisemitism, it has been reported. According to Private Eye, they will include “tens of thousands” of examples of how the party ignored complaints that supporters were promoting Jew-hate, as well as sworn affidavits describing the attempts to protect those who were seen as loyal to Mr Corbyn. One former staffer told the magazine: “The protection of antisemites was on a scale and at a level the public does not begin to understand.”…

IN MEDIA:

Reuters…
COGAT REFUTES STORY THAT ISRAEL SEPARATED GAZAN PARENTS FROM DYING DAUGHTER (Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, May 21)
Israel has refuted a story that five-year-old Aisha a-Lulu of Gaza had died of cancer alone in a Jerusalem hospital because Israel prevented her parents from leaving Gaza to accompany her for treatment. Photographs of the girl in her hospital bed have been widely circulated on social media. The Times of Gaza reported that, “those who were around her said she died crying, unable to speak, and alone.” The office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said in a statement to the media that the story was not true. “Contrary to reports, Aisha a-Lulu passed away in the Gaza Strip after having returned to her home approximately two weeks ago after surgery, which unfortunately did not succeed in the Al-Maqasid Hospital [in Jerusalem],” the statement said. Other news outlets, such as the Palestinian news agency WAFA, reported that a-Lulu had died in Gaza, but said that Israel had prevented her parents from accompanying her to Jerusalem for treatment. According to WAFA, Health Minister Mai Alkaila told reporters: “How can a little child travel alone through Israeli checkpoints without being escorted by her mother, father or brother to provide her with affection and psychological support during treatment?” … “Israel approved the entry into Israel of the child Aisha a-Lulu for medical treatment in a hospital in east Jerusalem after her parents signed a waiver, according to which they did not wish to leave the Gaza Strip with her,” COGAT said. “We emphasize that CLA [Coordination and Liaison Administration] Gaza policy requires parents to escort their minor children for medical treatments, based on the understanding that children need their parents in moments such as these.” “However, in this case, Aisha’s parents did not wish to accompany her and therefore, in accordance with CLA policy, they were requested to sign a declaration that they choose not to escort their daughter during the course of her treatment, due to their own choice, and request that another party on their behalf escort her,” COGAT said.

Reuters…
REUTERS CASTS TEL AVIV AS PALESTINIAN ARAB CITY OF TEL AR-RABEEA’ PRE-1948 (CAMERA, May 20)
In an article last week about refugees in the Gaza Strip yearning to return to their family homes which are located now in Israel, Reuters misrepresented Tel Aviv as an Arab city prior to 1948 (“Gaza fisherman clings to dream of return to Jaffa home“). Nidal al-Mughrabi wrote: Mahmoud Al-Assi comes often to this blue bench. It is one of more than 120 such brightly-coloured concrete seats that line the Gaza seafront, each marked with the name of a town or village in Palestine, before Israel’s creation in 1948. “They bear the Arabic names for Beersheba (Bir as-Saba’), Acre (Akka), and Tel Aviv (Tal ar-Rabeea’) – all towns that now lie in Israel.” Like many of Gaza’s 1.3 million refugees, Assi, 73, visits the coastal benches regularly, as an emotional link to the towns their families left behind or were forced to leave. Unlike ‘Akka and Bir as-Saba’ – Arabic names for Acre and Beersheba respectively that were in use throughout the twentieth century – there was never a place called Tel ar-Rabeea’ before 1948. That term is merely the literal Arabic translation of the Hebrew name Tel Aviv. As the “first Hebrew city” in the era of Zionism, its Jewish inhabitants adopted its name as early as 1910 after Nahum Sokolov’s Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzl’s “Altneuland” (old new state in German), and “Tel Aviv” originally appeared in Ezekiel 3:15. The introduction of Tel al-Rabeea’ into the nomenclature of Palestinian place names, primarily in the context of Nakba commemoration and the demand for return, is a means to bolster the false claim that there was a Palestinian town by that name…

AJ+…
AL JAZEERA SUSPENDS JOURNALISTS FOR SAYING ISRAEL WAS ‘BIGGEST WINNER FROM HOLOCAUST’ (Washinton Examiner, May 19)
Al Jazeera removed a video posted on AJ+, its youth-oriented Arabic news platform, that claimed the Holocaust was good for Israel, suspending the two journalists who created it. The Qatari network captioned the video on social media: “The gas chambers killed millions of Jews…So the story says. How true is the #Holocaust and how did the Zionists benefit from it?” The video conceded the Holocaust did occur but “it’s different from how the Jews tell it.” Al Jazeera journalist Muna Hawaa stated, “In all, the Nazis killed 20 million people during the Holocaust and the Final Solution, and the Jews were just a part of that. Then why does the world focus so much on Jews?”
“The Jewish groups had financial resources, media institutions, research centers, and academic voices that managed to put a special spotlight on the Jewish victims of the Nazis,” she said, adding that “statistics were inflated by the Zionist movement to help them establish Israel.” Hawaa also claimed Israel benefited from the Holocaust.
“Denouncing the Holocaust is a moral obligation, but Israel is the biggest winner from the Holocaust, and it uses the same Nazi justifications as a launching pad for the racial cleansing and annihilation of the Palestinians. The main ideology behind the ‘State of Israel’ is based on religious, national, and geographic concepts that suckled from the Nazi spirit and its main notions,” she said.

IN ISRAEL:
Yes, even in Israel…

HEBREW UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM SPOUTS ANTI-ISRAEL RHETORIC (World Israel News, May 20)
Newly released recordings from Hebrew University’s international graduate program in human rights reveal how international students are subjected to extreme anti-Israel content.

In recordings obtained from a course given by senior professor Daphna Golan, co-founder of the far-left NGO “B’Tselem,” she can be heard bringing an array of anti-Israel guest speakers to talk with the students.

Among the guest speakers was a representative from the NGO “Zochrot,” which promotes the return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel, who told the class that “most of Israeli society is going more and more in the fascist direction.”

Another speaker, who talked to the class during a tour of east Jerusalem arranged by Golan with the far-Left NGO “Emek Shaveh,” said that Israel is arresting and “torturing” Palestinian children on a “daily basis.”

During another class in which Golan brought the students to the abandoned Palestinian Arab village of Lifta, the tour guide advocated for the BDS movement.

Hebrew University’s international graduate program recently made headlines following its support of Lara Alqasem, a former member of the pro-BDS group “Students for Justice in Palestine.” Alqasem was among the students studying in the class.

Golan was also not shy in penalizing students who disagree with her viewpoint.

In a reflection paper written by a student in response to the class’ tour to Lifta, in which the student disagreed with the guide’s support for BDS, Golan gave the student a “0” and called his paper “disgraceful” and “unintelligent.”
…
Matan Peleg, CEO of the Zionist organization Im Tirtzu that obtained the recordings, said that the Hebrew University is undergoing a “moral and ethical crisis.”

“It is disgraceful that Hebrew University, which is supposed to be a beacon of academic light, has become a political incubator of anti-Zionist professors who devote their lives to attacking the State of Israel,” said Peleg.

There has been a string of cases in which Hebrew University professors have voiced anti-Israel views. In March, several Islamic Studies professors at the university objected to having IDF soldiersin their classes. In February, an Arab professor of social work from the school slandered the IDF, saying it tests weapons on Palestinian children. And in January, a Hebrew University lecturer berated a female IDF soldier on Tuesday for wearing her uniform to class.

“Who would’ve thought that students coming from abroad to study in Israel would be subjected to hateful lectures against Israel from professors who earn their living at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer.”

“The university must immediately work to implement the academic code of ethics and to root out this severe phenomenon of academic politicization,” added Peleg.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/irans-proxy-war-is-the-real-problem/

Sunday night’s landing of a Katyusha rocket less than half a mile from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was not merely the latest provocation on the part of Tehran in its battle of wills with Washington. More importantly, it verified Israeli intelligence revealing stockpiles of Iranian ballistic missiles in Iraq, poised to strike American targets. It also vindicated the dispatch of U.S. warships and fighter jets to the Persian Gulf, and the State Department’s order that all non-essential diplomatic personnel evacuate Iraq immediately.

The rocket attack, then, did not come as a total shock. Still, it came two weeks after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suddenly canceled a trip to Germany and headed to Baghdad to warn Iraqi leaders about Iran’s growing influence on their soil and threat to their sovereignty.

On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump made two statements that illustrate his administration’s dilemma about when or whether to engage in actual battle with the Islamic Republic.

In the afternoon, he tweeted: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14250/afghan-war-peace

President Trump should be lauded for working toward a withdrawal from Afghanistan, where 14,000 U.S. troops still remain. But he should not expect to leave behind a peaceful situation in the failed state, which is made up of a complex web of tribal divisions and hostilities.

Yet another factor militating against national unity is that Pashtun clans appear not to view Afghanistan’s non-Pashtun ethnic minorities as equal partners in a future Afghanistan.

These Persian, Mongol and Turkic peoples, based upon their past armed resistance to Pashtun attempts to control the whole of Afghanistan, will most likely fight to maintain their autonomy. This historical reality alone should be sufficient cause for U.S. policy-makers to abandon the seemingly impossible task of building a unified, democratic, pro-Western Afghanistan.

Sadly, no amount of blood, money or time spent in Afghanistan has been, or possibly will be, able to fashion it into a peaceful, united and democratic country.

In his State of the Union address on February 5, U.S. President Donald Trump said that his administration was “holding constructive talks with a number of Afghan groups, including the Taliban… [in order] to be able to reduce our troop presence and focus on counter-terrorism.”Trump continued, “We do not know whether we will achieve an agreement — but we do know that after two decades of war, the hour has come to at least try for peace.”