RUTHFULLY YOURS

Amid tightened security following last Thursday’s deadly terrorist attack in Paris, French voters turned out in high numbers to the polls on Sunday for the first round of the country’s presidential election. Globalist Emmanuel Macron and populist Marine Le Pen, the two top finishers amongst the eleven candidates running to replace the Socialist French President Francois Hollande, will face each other in a run-off on Sunday, May 7th. Mr. Macron came out on top, with slightly over 23 percent of vote, and is the favorite to win the presidency outright in the May 7th run-off. Ms. Le Pen ran a close second. Neither of the top two finishers were candidates of France’s major mainstream left and right parties. The incumbent president is very unpopular, which no doubt burdened the Socialist candidate. The major right-of-center candidate has been mired in a scandal.

Not surprisingly, the lackluster economy, including 10 percent unemployment, and security concerns emanating from repeated terrorist attacks emerged as the leading issues in the race.

French voters will be choosing as their next president between two individuals with starkly different world views. As of now, according to Politico, Emmanuel Macron is ahead of Marine Le Pen by 20 to 30 percent in a one-on-one match-up. Moreover, in an initial positive response from investors to Mr. Macron’s first-place finish and prospects in the run-off, the Euro rose to a 5½-month high against the dollar. Nevertheless, given Ms. Le Pen’s close finish in the first round and her enthusiastic constituency, it is premature to count her out. After all, the pundits and pollsters were virtually unanimous in picking Hillary Clinton to win last fall over Donald Trump. We know how that turned out.

Emmanuel Macron, 39, who founded his own independent party just a year ago, is a pro-European Union centrist. He believes in gradual deregulation and fiscal discipline, while at the same time espousing even closer cooperation among the EU’s 28 member states. Several EU leaders expressed delight with Mr. Macron’s strong finish and prospects in the run-off. For example, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said, “He is the only pro-EU candidate.” Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said he was “happy that Macron will represent in the second round democratic and European values that I share.”

Mr. Macron, speaking after the election results came in, congratulated the other candidates he ran against, except Ms. Le Pen. In a barb at his opponent in the May 7th run-off, he said he would lead “the patriots facing the nationalists.”

Marine Le Pen, 48, is the leader of the nationalist Front National party. She ran on a platform combining anti-globalist sentiments with economic populism.

In a recent debate, Ms. Le Pen summed up how she viewed her candidacy: “I’m a French woman, a mother and a candidate for the presidency. For me this election is about a choice of civilizations. Our country is overrun by insecurity, economic and social disorder and Islamist terrorism. Our values and identity are under threat.”

While not endorsing Ms. Le Pen outright, President Trump remarked that she was “strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France.”

The Arab states that reject Israel today forget that they themselves would not exist without the Mandate system – a point seldom if ever acknowledged in public forums where the legitimacy of Israel is debated.

If there is any Palestinian desire for a two-state solution, it is questionable: according to current maps of “Palestine,” and the New Hamas Charter, it is supposed to be on its neighbouring state, Israel; not next to it. The wish of Palestinian leaders to have a Palestinian state is never realized solely due to the unending rejection of their Jewish neighbour.

Article 19 of the New Charter repeats that there will never be peace so long as Israel still exists. It declares: “We do not leave any part of the Palestinians’ land, under any circumstances, conditions or pressure, as long as the occupation remains. Hamas refuses any alternative which is not the whole liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

Anyone with a serious interest in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will be familiar with the oft-cited Charter (or Covenant [mithaq]) of the terrorist group currently ruling the Gaza Strip, Hamas. The Charter (in Arabic here) was published on 18 August 1988. Its proper title is “The Charter/Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement ‘Hamas’ Palestine”, Hamas being an acronym for “the Islamic Resistance Movement”.

This April, the Lebanese news site al-Mayadeen leaked a draft version of a much-revised version of the 1988 Charter, due to be released “in the coming days”. The anti-Israel website Mondoweiss subsequently provided an English translation of the draft, made by someone from the Ayda refugee camp in the West Bank. So far, I have been unable to find the Arabic text of the draft online, even though it has been discussed many times in the wider Arabic media. We shall turn to it later, but it is obviously sensible to look first at the 1988 version as a basis of comparison. And even before that, we need to see how the Hamas Covenant differed from, and resembled, the PLO Covenants of 1964 and 1968.

The full title of the movement is crucial to an understanding of the document and its aims. Hamas had been founded in 1987 as an intransigent extension of the Palestinian Mujamma linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and was explicitly hardline and neo-Salafi in its religious orientation. This was in conspicuous contrast to its rival Palestinian movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded by the Arab League in 1964 as an overtly secular and nationalist entity. The two PLO National Covenants of 1964 and 1968 exclude religion as a basis for the anti-Israel struggle.[1]

But in those versions, that secular nationalism takes two distinct forms. The 1964 PLO Charter is based on the concept of pan-Arabism as inspired by the Arab League and Egypt’s president at the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Palestinians are simply Arabs among millions of Arabs, and their struggle for liberation was carried out with little emphasis on the creation of a Palestinian state. This view changed, however, after 1967, when the Six-Day War showed the powerlessness of the Arab states to resolve the Palestinian issue. When Egypt and Jordan attacked Israel (Egypt’s closing the Strait of Tiran was a legitimate casus belli, cause for war), Israel repelled them and ended up sitting on land — Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, Judaea and Samaria — which it immediately offered to return in exchange for recognition and peace. That offer was rejected in a matter of weeks at the Khartoum Conference.

During and after the “peace process” and the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the Palestinian leadership promised that it would delete the most offensive and anti-peace clauses of the 1968 Charter. Many years later, nothing has been done, and the existing Charter remains unchanged.

Nationalism is not an Islamic concept. Even pan-Arabism falls outside the remit of Islamic ideology and practice. Almost from the beginning, Islam has been predicated on the idea of a global community (the umma), which embraces all Muslims and Islamic regions, allegedly since the beginning of time, with a promise of eventual Islamic control over the Earth. According to a sound tradition in the canonical collection by al-Bukhari, among the five things given to Muhammad that had not been given to any previous prophet was that, “Every Prophet used to be sent to his nation only but I have been sent to all mankind.”[2] In another version, he is recorded as saying: “I have been sent to all mankind and the line of prophets is closed with me.”[3]

This sense of global scale has characterized the Islamic world from its beginning in the form of empires. These started with the Umayyads (661-750) and ended with the Ottomans (1299-1922). The long history of Islamic imperialism had two imperishable effects: it prevented the development of nation-state polity and imposed the theory of religious rule. Self-identification for imperial citizens functioned only through the family, clan, tribe, village or town or city; or according to religious affiliations of various kinds. Everywhere, the only true citizens were orthodox Muslims; subjugated minorities such as Jews and Christians were kept strictly as inferiors, with a separate set of harsh laws and a special tax, the jizya, to pay for “protection”.

This legacy of Islamic dominance, of jihad as a legitimate and regular policy towards non-Muslim Europe, African regions, Central Asia and India, combined with the illegitimacy and unacceptability of Jewish, Christian or secular rule over Islamic territory, has left a deep mark on the Palestinian sense of identity. Formerly subjects of the Ottoman Empire in Syria, almost overnight in the 1920s the Arab Palestinians found themselves adrift in a sea of international rules and regulations concerning territory and national identity. This was the never-acknowledged pivot around which the growing conflict with the Jewish Palestinians revolved — and still revolves.

A nuclear power plant on the sea would ensure a continuous supply of water as coolant — a necessity for any reactor.

China’s motive for building the nuclear reactors is clear: to exert its dominance and influence throughout the area.

In April 2016, reports began coming in that China has plans to build floating nuclear power plants in the South China Sea. A floating nuclear power plant consists of one or more nuclear reactors, located on a platform at sea. China apparently plans to “speed up the commercial development” of the South China Sea and views the nuclear power plants as part of that plan. [1]

Final assembly of the reactor is reported to start in coastal city of Huludao, in Liaoning province, and will be built by Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co Ltd, a unit of China Shipbuilding Industry Corp (CSIC).[2]

China’s 2016 nuclear plan, a component of the China’s 13th five-year plan, is evidently to complete 58 nuclear reactors by 2020 and build another 100 gigawatt-sized reactors by 2030. These would make China the largest nuclear power producer in the world. China’s floating nuclear reactor initiative seems to be a component of this nuclear plan.
Reasons for such reactors

China’s stated reasons for venturing into such technologies include providing an inexpensive source of electricity and fresh water for both military and economic gains, as well as ensuring China’s strategic dominance in the South China Sea. Nuclear power plants could not only provide cheap electricity to defense facilities but also to desalination plants. Normally, the defense facilities such as airports and harbors depend on oil or coal for power generation. A nuclear power plant on the sea would ensure a continuous supply of water as coolant — a necessity for any reactor.

A 60 MWe reactor is said to be beneficial for supplying electricity, heat and desalination, and could be used on islands and on coastal areas or for offshore oil and gas exploration.

CAMP LEMONNIER, Djibouti—Piracy has made a worrisome return to the waters off Somalia after a five-year hiatus, U.S. defense officials said, prompting commercial shippers, the military and others to revisit the issue.

In the past two months, there have been as many as six incidents of piracy, according to Gen. Tom Waldhauser, head of the U.S. military’s Africa Command, speaking to reporters here Sunday. They are the first incidents since about 2012, Gen. Waldhauser said. Pirates seized food, oil and other commodities from smaller-size boats, he said.

Gen. Waldhauser appeared with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who is winding up a trip through the Middle East and North Africa. Mr. Mattis stopped in Djibouti on Sunday to meet with Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh. He also met with French troops stationed here and received briefings about U.S. operations at Camp Lemonnier, a sprawling U.S. naval base here with more than 4,000 U.S. personnel.

The base provides support for a number of U.S. activities, including training and advising forces in Somalia and in nearby Yemen, and is home to numerous logistical and tactical aircraft and drones. The senior command, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, is also based here, the only permanent U.S. base on the African continent.

Gen. Waldhauser attributed the return of piracy part to famine and drought in Somalia, adding private security measures should be kept in place to defend against pirates. CONTINUE AT SITE

As global events go, one of the safest predictions is that North Korea would take another American hostage amid growing tensions over its nuclear program. Sure enough, the Kim Jong Un regime on Saturday arrested an American teacher as he waited to board a flight out of the country.

South Korean media identified the new hostage as Kim Sang-duk, who was teaching a class in international finance and management at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. The mere thought of such a class is puzzling since North Korea’s “international finance” is smuggling. But Mr. Kim had taught at a sister school in China near the border with North Korea, and perhaps he thought he could spread some goodwill. Bad mistake.

In addition to Kim Sang-duk, the North is known to hold two other Americans. Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who was on a tour of North Korea, was detained last year for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda poster. He was convicted of subversion and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He hasn’t been seen since March 2016. American businessman Kim Dong-chul was charged with spying last year and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Hostage politics is a hardy Korean perennial, perhaps because it always seems to yield some political or diplomatic benefit. Pyongyang recently detained Malaysian citizens and traded them to Kuala Lumpur in return for the North Koreans suspected of conspiring to assassinate Kim Jong Un’s brother. The North has also traded Americans over the years for visits by high-ranking U.S. officials, even former Presidents, who offer the regime some legitimacy and sometimes more tangible benefits.

That’s the best reason for the Trump Administration not to engage in hostage negotiations. The U.S. warns Americans not to travel to North Korea, yet some still tempt fate by doing so. The U.S. can ask China to intercede for the imprisoned Americans on humanitarian grounds, but the U.S. also needs China’s help against North Korea’s nuclear missiles.

North Korea is a terrorist government that obeys none of the norms of international behavior. The only solution is regime change. But in the meantime, the U.S. should make clear that Americans who travel to North Korea do so at their own risk.

This sentence “And Ms. Le Pen’s vigorous defense of French civilization against threats real (terrorism) and imagined (Muslim immigrants in general) resonates. Mr. Macron will need credible answers to the terrorist threat—witness Thursday’s attack on the Champs-Élysées—and a growing disconnect between French society and the impoverished immigrant (often Muslim) communities in the banlieues.” The threats of terrorism from Muslim immigrants is not “imagined”…but real indeed! rsk

Sharply divided French voters on Sunday gave themselves Emmanuel Macron as a mainstream alternative to far-right Marine Le Pen in next month’s second round of presidential voting. The French will now decide between two very different visions of French nationalism.

Incomplete tallies as we went to press suggested that the independent former Socialist Mr. Macron would finish first in a crowded field, with about 23% of the vote. Ms. Le Pen of the National Front was close behind. Free-market conservative François Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon each won a little under 20%. French voters remain deeply divided about how to jolt their country out of its malaise. But they seem willing, for now and only barely, to give the center another chance.

The most stunning result is the repudiation of the two mainstream parties that have ruled France for decades. Voters rejected the ruling Socialists but also Mr. Fillon of the center-right Republicans. Mr. Fillon might have fared better if not for his personal scandals, but voters also remember the promise and failure of the last Republican President, Nicolas Sarkozy, six years ago.

Socialist President François Hollande started his term in 2012 promising a return to doctrinaire socialism before attempting a shift toward economic reform that never materialized. Unemployment has remained mostly stuck above 10%, with youth unemployment near 25%. Economic growth barely scrapes above 1% in a good year, and France’s educated young flee to London, New York, Hong Kong and other global centers.

Benoît Hamon, representing the ruling Socialist Party, notched a distant fifth place with less than 7%. The other left-wing loser Sunday was Mr. Mélenchon. Though he is personally popular for his authenticity, voters rejected this French Bernie Sanders, rightly doubting that tripling down on statism is the way to revive France’s fortunes.

The French will now have a choice between two very different political “outsiders.” Mr. Macron’s case in next month’s runoff is that to regain its former vitality France must reform and compete better with the world.

North Korea’s menace has been all over the news, including its missiles tests, visible preparations for a sixth nuclear test and its threats to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier and to reduce the U.S. to ashes with a “super-mighty preemptive strike.” Assorted experts, debating how to handle the rogue regime of Kim Jong Un, have been weighing the pros and cons of trying yet more sanctions, new negotiations, tough talk, pressure on China, displays of military might, actual use of military force to take out North Korean missiles or even nuclear facilities, or assorted permutations of all these options and then some.

Amid all the strategizing — much of which envisions somehow continuing to “manage” the North Korea problem — it’s easy to sideline a basic and profoundly important element of the Pyongyang regime, a quality we should take into account quite thoroughly, front and center, before considering any course that might leave the Kim regime in power. The feature I’m talking about is the raw moral obscenity of Kim’s North Korea.

That obscenity might seem so entirely self-evident that it needs no repeated mention. We know that Kim is a tyrant, ruling a country that doubles as a prison for its 25 million people. We know that Kim keeps power by doing horrible things to those who fail to please him, including members of his own family. It was all over the news in 2012 when he swept aside his uncle and purported mentor, Jang Song Thaek, who was abruptly denounced and executed. Kim’s regime appears to have been behind the horrific assassination with VX nerve agent of Kim’s half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, just two months ago, in a Malaysian airport.

We know that Kim runs a state which last year year sentenced a visiting American student, Otto Warmbier, to 15 years at hard labor for the prank of taking down a political propaganda poster from a hotel wall in Pyongyang — thus turning Warmbier into a likely bargaining chip in North Korea’s long-running hostage games (this weekend comes news that North Korea has added another visiting American to its current haul). We also know, as reports over the past dozen years have richly documented, that a native North Korean showing disregard for the totalitarian propaganda of Kim’s regime would risk being executed outright, or possibly exiled incommunicado, along with three generations of his or her family, to the brutal labor camps in which the regime currently holds an estimated 80,000-120,000 political prisoners.

But that scarcely begins to sum up the systematic depravities with which the totalitarian Kim regime has held onto power for three generations, from founder Kim Il Sung, to his son Kong Jong Il, to the current Kim Jong Un (who inherited power upon the death of his father, more than five years ago). For decades, reports of the Kim-family regime’s atrocities have been seeping out of North Korea, including a landmark report in 2003 from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea on North Korea’s prison camps (“The Hidden Gulag”), and another groundbreaking report in 2012 on what amounts to North Korea’s system of political apartheid (“Marked for Life: Songbun, North Korea’s Political Classification System”).