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Israeli Choreographers Banned From Oslo Festival Anti-Semitism takes center stage. Bruce Bawer

To judge by their Facebook profiles, Margrete Slettebø and Kristiane Nerdrum Bøgwald are a couple of busy young ladies. Together, they manage Feminine Tripper, an annual dance festival in Oslo, Norway, that focuses on “femininity and gender identity.” They both also work at the “Butoh-laboratorium” in Oslo, which sounds like something scientific but turns out to be a self-styled “collective” specializing in the Japanese dance style known as Butoh. A glance through the Oslo phone book shows that both women live in a couple of Oslo’s nicest neighborhoods. In addition, Bøgdwald, whose father is a noted psychiatrist and researcher, belongs to a theater company called “Grusomhetens Teater” (The Theater of Cruelty). Slettebø, for her part, is a “Dance Artist at ACTS-laboratory for performance practices” and a communications adviser to Arts Council Norway, a government agency that, its website explains, “provides grants to art and culture throughout the country” and “advises the state on cultural questions.” And, to name a couple of activities that seem especially relevant to our story, Slettebø worked for several years as office manager for the youth wing of the Socialist Left Party (an ardent supporter of Palestinians and the BDS movement) and was also an active member of the Joint Committee for Palestine (“an umbrella organization for Norwegian organizations that support the Palestinians’ cause”).

Anyway, here’s the story. On Wednesday, the Jerusalem Post reported that the Feminine Tripper festival, which this year is being held from March 19 to 25 and which professes to welcome participants from around the world, had rejected an application by six Israeli choreographers – Eden Wiseman, Roni Rotem, Nitzan Lederman, Maayan Cohen Marciano, Adi Shildan, and Maia Halter – who had received letters from Bøgwald and Slettebø stating that Israel “uses culture as a form of propaganda to whitewash or justify its regime of occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people” and that they could not, therefore, “with a clear conscience invite Israeli participants when we know that artists from the occupied Palestinian territories struggle with very restricted access to travel to international art venues and that they have little opportunity to communicate their art outside of the occupied territories.” The Israelis did not take the rejection lightly. “Would you reject a Saudi artist for Saudi restrictions on women’s rights?” they wrote back. “Would you reject an American artist for the American policies regarding the ‘Muslim ban’ regulations?”

Going for Broke, the Canadian Way By David Solway

It is no surprise that the new budget tabled by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals is permeated through and through by the feminist mentality. Writing on LifeSiteNews, Lianne Laurence argues that Trudeau’s federal budget “institutionalizes feminism, panders to left-wing interest groups, patronizes women, and is long on ideology and bureaucratic meddling, but short on economics.” It includes, among other spending measures, a “feminist foreign aid agenda,” as well as “billions to boost women in the workforce,” as the Toronto Star reports. One recalls the late Senator Everett Dirksen, who reportedly joked: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

Indeed, so pronounced is its feminist bent that the budget “appears to have been written out of Status of Women Canada … or perhaps a campus gender studies course: this is surely the world’s first ‘intersectional’ budget,” wrote National Post columnist Andrew Coyne. It is, in his words, merely a “mix of ideological cant and bureaucratic busywork known as ‘gender-based analysis,’” rendering us graphically uncompetitive with the U.S. and “any other OECD country.”

As I pointed out in an earlier article, Trudeau has assigned his minister of foreign affairs, the ineffable Chrystia Freeland (of “100 years ago pretty much all women were beaten by their husbands” fame), to represent the country in the ongoing NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) talks with the United States. Freeland wants to expand the agreement to include gender and social justice goals. This is not going to work for Canada. Moreover, Freeland, a card-carrying feminist prone to tears when trade talks are about to collapse, is simply no match for a tower-building business-minded tycoon like Donald Trump. Rebel Media host Ezra Levant had it exactly right: Freeland, “an emotional-wreck quota-token,” did not much impress the tough European negotiators at CETA (Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) with her brand of lachrymose naiveté. Unless we get lucky, Freeland will succeed at doing what she does best: harm.

The embarrassments continue to mount up. Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, Catherine McKenna (aka “Climate Barbie”), instructs us to “consider the gendered impacts of climate change on women, girls and children.” Presumably the rest of the natural creation, including men, is of no account. Moreover, the possible relation that might exist between climate change and gender has baffled most observers, apart from the fact that the hypothesis of man-made climate change has been pretty well discredited.

South African radical: White farmers should ‘leave the keys’ when they go By Rick Moran

We’ve been covering the ongoing tragedy for white farmers in South Africa for more than a year, culminating in a law passed by the radical South African parliament that expropriates white farmland that’s been in the same family for hundreds of years without compensation.

Predictably, this has set off a wave of violence against white South African farmers that has led to the death of one white every five days, according to Newsweek:

Activists say South African authorities are tacitly approving attacks on the country’s white farmers, with one being murdered every five days, and the police turning a blind eye to the violence.

The white nationalist lobbying group AfriForum says that when lawmakers passed a motion last month which could see land being seized from farmers without compensation, it sent a message that landowners could be attacked with impunity.

It said there have been 109 recorded attacks so far in 2018 and 15 farm murders, meaning that this year, one white farmer has been killed every five days.

In a statement, Ian Cameron, AfriForum’s Head of Safety said: “Our rural areas are trapped in a crime war. Although the South African government denies that a violence crisis is staring rural areas in the face, the numbers prove that excessive violence plague these areas.”

They may be “white nationalists,” but that doesn’t mean they should be slaughtered. But the radical black government claims it’s a lie and that white farmers who are now fleeing to Australia should “leave the keys” to their houses and their tractors when they go.

Never Again? By Shoshana Bryen

“Never Again” was a rallying cry for Jews after the Holocaust. Never again would Jews be defenseless. Never again would Jews be force-marched, starved, and gassed without a response. Never again would Jews wait to be rescued. Never again would Jews look at burgeoning anti-Semitism and direct threats and be slothful. Never again would Jews go quietly.

It worked out that way for the Jews. The State of Israel; the IDF; the self-confidence of Jews in the United States, Canada, and Australia; and the utter shame of the European countries for the craven and complicit way their people and governments behaved served to protect the remnant of European Jewry and rescue 800,000 Jews from Arab countries, plus Russians, Yemenites, Ethiopians, and Iranians.

But what happens when the forced march, starving, and gas happen to someone else? And what happens, specifically, when the United States, France, and Russia – World War II allies – stand around not only watching, but complicit? What happens when it happens in Syria?

To begin with – starvation and gas. The Syrian military under the protection of Russian air cover has dropped weaponized chlorine on civilians in various Sunni areas of Syria.

Secretary of defense James Mattis laid blame on both. “Either Russia is incompetent or in cahoots with Assad,” Mattis said. He said it would be “very unwise” for the Assad regime to use chemical weapons. Acknowledging there is “no evidence” of the use of sarin gas – specifically banned by the Geneva Conventions – “there’s an awful lot of reports about chlorine gas use or about symptoms that could be resulting from chlorine gas.” He added, “Right now we’re getting reports – I don’t have evidence that I can show you – but I’m aware of the reports of chlorine gas use.” Chlorine gas kills just as surely.

Demand for American Sperm Is Skyrocketing in Brazil Explosive growth spurred by more wealthy single women and lesbian couples turning to U.S. donors By Samantha Pearson

SÃO PAULO—With “jewel-tone eyes,” blond hair and a “smattering of light freckles,” Othello looks nothing like most Brazilians, the majority of whom are black or mixed-race. Yet the “Caucasian” American cashier, described in those terms by the Seattle Sperm Bank and known as Donor 9601, is one of the sperm providers most often requested by wealthy Brazilian women importing the DNA of young U.S. men at unprecedented rates.

Over the past seven years, human semen imports from the U.S. to Brazil have surged as more rich single women and lesbian couples select donors whose online profiles suggest they will yield light-complexioned and preferably blue-eyed children.

Brazil is one of the fastest-growing markets for imported semen in recent years, said Michelle Ottey, laboratory director of Virginia-based Fairfax Cryobank, a large distributor and the biggest exporter to Brazil. More than 500 tubes of foreign semen frozen in liquid nitrogen arrived at Brazilian airports last year, officials and sperm-bank directors said, up from 16 in 2011. Complete data from Anvisa, Brazil’s health-care regulator, isn’t yet available for 2017.

U.S. sperm-bank directors said preferences like those of Brazilian purchasers hold across their global market. “The vast majority of what we have and what we sell are the Caucasian blond-haired, blue-eyed donors,” said Fredrik Andreasson, CFO of Seattle Sperm Bank, which provides about a quarter of Brazil’s imports.

Everyone wants a “pretty kid” and for many parents in Brazil, where prejudice often runs deep, that means “the white biotype—light-colored eyes and skin,” said Susy Pommer, a 28-year-old data analyst from São Paulo who decided to get pregnant last year after a breast-cancer scare left her eager to raise a child right away with her partner, Priscilla. CONTINUE AT SITE

Oliver Friendship Theocratic Iran and its Citizens’ Lives

The political authority of the unelected Supreme Leader and his personally selected Guardian Council to veto bills and choose presidential candidates makes a mockery of Iran’s supposed ‘democracy’. For those who might criticise such a system, a mandatory seventy-four lashes await.

In his 1689 publication A Letter Concerning Toleration, the English philosopher John Locke recommended that the institutions of religion and state be made into totally separate entities, because such a separation would lead to a high level of social stability. Locke’s ideas were considered revolutionary at the time, but the notion of a separation of religion and state has long been a staple of developed nations. However, numerous countries, especially in the Middle East, still implement a form of government where religion and state are intertwined. Iran is one such nation.

Iran’s theocratic ruler, the “Supreme Leader”, is a clear representative of the interests of the dominant Shia Islam in the nation’s political sphere, and has a stranglehold over matters pertaining to the Iranian state. This situation has resulted in internal lawmaking that negatively affects the lives of Iranians, and a political structure that denigrates the country’s democracy.

Iran used to have a form of more democratic governance promoting the separation of religion and state until the 1979 uprising that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic. The uprising was led by the nation’s first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, and was supported by many of the older, more religiously fanatical citizens who were against the rapid modernisation and Westernisation of Iran by the then government. With this new political order came a new constitution, stating that “All civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Shia Islamic criteria.” This constitutional basis for the authority of the dominant Shia Islam over matters of state is politically and practically manifest in the role of Supreme Leader.

The current Supreme Leader of Iran is Ali Khamenei. Elected to this position not by popular vote, but by decree of the Assembly of Religious Experts, Khamenei was chosen as a “suitable cleric” to uphold the beliefs of Shia Islam in Iranian politics. The members of the Assembly of Religious Experts are also strict followers of Shia Islam and experts in the Koran and sharia law. The Supreme Leader they elect is guaranteed to be of a similar hardline Shia conviction, which Khamenei is, and act on behalf of Shia interests and principles, which Khamenei does.

The Supreme Leader operates both within and above a largely impotent publicly elected civil government and President, and has powers over matters of state that are far-reaching, controlling, and near absolute. In the Iranian constitution, the Supreme Leader’s role is defined as to “determine the interests of Islam in Iran”, and to “guide” and “supervise” the nation. This was included in the constitution by Iran’s original Islamic revolutionaries in order to assuage fears that a more moderate, democratic and Westernised government would regain power.

The Supreme Leader has far-reaching control over jurisdictions typically considered matters of state in the West. While the elected President of Iran does handle matters of small civil legislation, the theocratic Supreme Leader is totally responsible for control of the armed forces and defence, and can “dictate general guidelines of Iranian foreign and domestic policy”. The Supreme Leader also has the authority to appoint military commanders, the director of national radio and television networks, members of the national security council, the chief judge and prosecutor, and mosque leaders in all of Iran’s major cities.

How Tariffs Dampen the Energy Boom A trade war would prevent American manufacturers from taking advantage of abundant hydrocarbons. By Rupert Darwall

Is someone in the White House colluding with China? The Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on imported aluminum and steel lets China off the hook for its chronic and deliberate overproduction. Worse, it sets the stage for a trade war that would rob U.S. manufacturers of the advantages stemming from America’s recent transformation into the world’s hydrocarbon superpower.

From lifting restrictions on offshore drilling to ending the Obama administration’s war on coal, Mr. Trump’s robustly pro-growth energy policies have so far delighted American industry. Energy Secretary Rick Perry told an audience at February’s Conservative Political Action Conference that America has finally turned the page on the Jimmy Carter era of resource pessimism and energy shortages. Forecasters expect U.S. oil production to surpass Saudi Arabia’s output in 2018. Last year the U.S. produced 19.4% more natural gas than Russia.

Having freed itself from the Paris climate agreement and dumped the Clean Power Plan, the U.S. now has easy access to more low-cost energy than almost any other industrialized nation. American coal production, exports and employment rose in 2017 after years of decline. Thanks to technological innovations such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is awash in cheap, domestically produced natural gas. No other industrial nation comes close to matching America’s energy exceptionalism.

Normally all this would be great news for domestic manufacturers, which rely on energy-intensive aluminum and steel as inputs. In Europe, where green policies have pushed up energy costs, natural-gas and electricity prices are roughly double those in the U.S. Yet despite the low cost of domestic natural gas, U.S. primary production of aluminum has fallen by more than half since 2015.

The reason is simple: China. In 2000 China produced about 11% of primary aluminum; now Chinese aluminum accounts for more than half of world output. After the 2016 election, the Aluminum Association urged President-elect Trump to make China’s aluminum sector a top trade priority and force Beijing to the negotiating table. By adopting National Trade Council director Peter Navarro’s aluminum tariffs this month, the White House effectively kicked over the table instead. CONTINUE AT SITE

Saudi Arabia: What About the Hate-Filled Textbooks and Sermons? by Lawrence A. Franklin

Recent analyses by experts on religious freedom cite the continued prejudicial declarations against Christians, Jews, and Western Civilization in Saudi educational textbooks as evidence that Saudi Arabia still bears ill will against the “infidel” West.

Saudi Arabia has failed to meet agreed-upon deadlines to remove objectionable language from educational texts.

The current Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, seemed falsely to imply that hateful language appears only in past, discontinued textbooks and that current textbooks are being purged of any offensive language.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s May, 2017 Saudi Arabia trip and his address to leaders of Islamic nations may open a new era of cooperation between the United States and the world’s leading conservative Sunni Muslim states. Trump’s trip, along with reported warming relations between Israel and some Arab states, may suggest that the initial stages of an anti-Iranian, anti-terrorist alliance is in the offing.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump forcefully denounced Iran’s support for terrorism. This speech was welcomed especially by Arabian Peninsula Sunni state leaders, who could well be threatened by the aggressive policies of Shia Iran in the Persian Gulf and the Levant.

Unfortunately, however, the Saudi educational system’s textbooks, at least as of a year ago, remain rife with anti-Christian and anti-Jewish statements, as well as criticism of other Muslim sects. Perhaps one of the real litmus tests of the viability of a new era in relations between the United States and conservative Sunni Arab states will be whether the latter totally purge their abusive denunciations of peoples of other religious faiths.

Is the United Kingdom an Islamist Colony? by Tom Quiggin

If the gang members were “Asian,” records were not kept. Such is the cowardice and criminal negligence of the police involved.

These Sharia courts mean that the legal system of a foreign political ideology, Islam, has created a parallel legal system in which Sharia is placed above English common law. It is thought that some 30 to 85 Sharia courts are operating in England and Wales alone.

“The Muslim Brotherhood’s foundational texts call for the progressive moral purification of individuals and Muslim societies and their eventual political unification in a Caliphate under Sharia law. To this day the Muslim Brotherhood characterises Western societies and liberal Muslims as decadent and immoral. It can be seen primarily as a political project.” — Prime Minister David Cameron, 2014, regarding a report withheld from the public [Emphases added].

The United Kingdom, once an imperial power, now sounds more like a colonial vassal. The actions of British government officials suggest that the will of the government has collapsed in the face of terrorist and ideological assaults by the forces of political Islam. The ideology is being spread by, among others, the Muslims Brotherhood, according to a major report of the British government itself. A number of Muslim Brotherhood front groups have been identified as such by government reports such as those of the United Arab Emirates. These include the UK based Cordoba Foundation, the Muslim Association of Britain, and Islamic Relief UK. All three of these organization are listed as terrorist entities in the United Arab Emirates as well.

Our Long History of Misjudging North Korea By Victor Davis Hanson|

North Korea has befuddled the United States and its Asian allies ever since North Korean leader Kim Il Sung launched the invasion of South Korea in June 1950.

Prior to the attack, the United States had sent inadvertent signals that it likely would not protect South Korea in the event of an unexpected invasion from the north. Not surprisingly, a war soon followed.

General Douglas MacArthur, after leading a brilliant landing at Inchon in September 1950, chased the communists back north of the 38th parallel. In hot pursuit, MacArthur gambled that the Chinese would not invade, as he sought to conquer all of North Korea and unite the peninsula.

As MacArthur barreled northward to the Chinese border during the fall of 1950, the landscaped widened. American supply lines lengthened. MacArthur’s forces thinned. The weather worsened. The days shortened.

Conventional wisdom had been that the Chinese would not invade, given America’s near-nuclear monopoly and likely air superiority. But in November 1950, what eventually would become nearly a million-man Chinese army did just that, pouring southward into the Korean peninsula.

The Chinese and North Koreans pushed the American and United Nations forces past the Demilitarized Zone at the 38th parallel. In January 1951, the Communists retook Seoul after forcing the longest American military retreat in U.S. history.

With the arrival of military genius General Matthew Ridgway, U.S. forces regrouped. In early 1951, Western troops retook Seoul and drove Communist forces back across the 38th parallel. But despite continued success, Western forces chose not to reinvade the north and reunite the country.