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The German Dilemma By David Solway

As one of Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood’s characters said in Surfacing, “The trouble some people have being German, I have being human.” True enough. But these days the trouble many Germans have being Germans has little to do with the vices and cruelties of collective human nature and everything to do with modern German history and its Nazi legacy. It’s a curious, even paradoxical problem, since the vast majority of Germans are demonstrably anti-Nazi and ashamed of the country’s brutal, fascist and anti-Semitic past. They will do anything to disavow that horrendous patrimony and ensure that nothing like it ever happens again.

This is a major reason that the official and much of the public response to the migrant Islamic invasion, which is poised to bankrupt the country and unleash a firestorm of violence upon its citizens — as it is in process of doing — is so tentative, lame and mired in denial of the obvious. How can Germany permit itself to inflict upon the Islamic horde now tearing up the country the same punitive, oppressive, and potentially lethal measures it visited upon the Jewish community in the first half of the last century? How can it be seen to assemble another Wannsee Conference leading to a kind of “Final Solution,” the forcible incarceration and expulsion of the migratory wave of Muslims inundating the nation?

This is the German dilemma: the inability or unwillingness to distinguish between Judaism and Islam, to detect the difference between repression and survival, to remember that in the 1930s there were no terrorist synagogues preaching violence, the conquest of the state, and the enslavement of its citizens as today there are terrorist mosques advocating and promoting these very atrocities. The motive for defensive action is justified, but the clear-minded resolve is lacking.

Germans are prisoners of their own past, not in the sense that they wish to prolong it but precisely in the sense that they wish to prevent it. And this hampers their capacity to perceive or to acknowledge what is transpiring before their very eyes. It explains their helplessness before the social and economic devastation manifesting daily in the public square. They are making reparations for the nation’s past by sacrificing the nation’s future, by treating the treacherous and parasitical Muslim invaders of the 21st century as they should have treated the loyal and productive Jewish citizens of the 20th.

Modi’s Landslide Victory A stunning win in state elections gives India new reform momentum.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies won a remarkable 80% of the assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, in election results announced on Saturday. This political earthquake will boost Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chances of re-election in 2019 and give him a fresh chance to advance economic reforms.

The opposition Congress Party and its allies thought Mr. Modi crippled his party’s chances when he withdrew almost 90% of the country’s banknotes last November. The resulting chaos hit the poor hard and slowed the economy. But voters saw the move as necessary to tackle corruption, crime and tax evasion.

It is tempting to attribute the BJP’s wins in Uttar Pradesh and two other states to Mr. Modi’s promises to reinvigorate manufacturing and create jobs. But Mr. Modi said little about economic reform in his stump speeches. Instead he focused on development broadly, making government more responsive to the poor and continuing the anticorruption campaign.

As always, caste played an important role. Mr. Modi’s strategist Amit Shah handpicked the candidates for each constituency rather than using the usual party loyalists and quota-fillers. Fresh faces from backward castes drew votes from these key communities, even as the BJP delivered a message of pan-Hindu unity and rejection of the incumbent Samajwadi Party’s caste-based politics.

That shrewd coordination shows the importance of a strong national leader. By contrast, Congress is saddled with Rahul Gandhi, whose indecisiveness and lack of charisma have left the party rudderless. Congress won in Punjab only because the incumbent BJP-allied Akali Dal Party saw its support collapse after communal violence.

The question is whether Mr. Modi will use some of his political capital to jump-start reform immediately or wait until after 2019. Mr. Modi has been stymied by the BJP’s lack of a majority in Parliament’s upper house, which is largely selected by state assemblies.

Saturday’s wins will increase the government’s leverage in the upper house, but only after a delay. Uttar Pradesh is not due to replace its legislators until April 2018. By then the looming general election will put much-needed but unpopular changes to labor laws and land acquisition on hold.

President Trump to Invite Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas to White House Eli E. Hertz

I suggest President Trump review the text below before the meeting.

The PLO Charter, also known as “the Palestinian National Charter” or “the Palestinian Covenant,” was adopted by the Palestine National Council (PNC) on July 17, 1968. It reads:

“Article 2 : Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.

“Article 9 : Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. Thus it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase.

“Article 19 : The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time.

“Article 20 : The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history.”

The FATAH Constitution calls under Article 12 for the:

“Complete liberation of Palestine, and obliteration of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.”

As for how it will achieve its goal to wipe Israel off the map, Fateh’s constitution, Article 19, minces no words:

“Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People’s armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.”

The Hamas Charter (acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement” and at times referred to as the Hamas Covenant) states in its second paragraph:

“Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors. The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, May Allah Pity his Soul.”

Why has Iran wrecked its economy to fund war in Syria? With a growing dependence on China and Russia and budding geopolitical ambitions, Iran is willing to make sacrifices David Goldman

Estimates of Iran’s military expenditure in Syria vary from $6 billion a year to $15-$20 billion a year. That includes $4 billion of direct costs as well as subsidies for Hezbollah and other Iranian-controlled irregulars. Assuming that lower estimates are closer to the truth, the cost of the Syrian war to the Tehran regime is roughly in the same range as the country’s total budget deficit, now running at a $9.3 billion annual rate. The explanation for Tehran’s lopsided commitment to military spending, I believe, is to be found in Russian and Chinese geopolitical ambitions and fears.

The Iranian regime is ready to sacrifice the most urgent needs of its internal economy in favor of its ambitions in Syria. Iran cut development spending to just one-third of the intended level as state income lagged forecasts during the three quarters ending last December, according to the country’s central bank. Iran sold $29 billion of crude during the period, up from $25 billion the comparable period last year. The government revenues from oil of $11 billion (655 trillion rials) were just 70% of official forecasts, and tax revenues of $17.2 billion came in 15% below expectations.

Chaos in Iran’s financial system prevents the Iranian government from carrying a larger budget deficit. The $9.3 billion deficit reported by the central bank stands at just over 2% of GDP, under normal circumstances a manageable amount. But that number does not take into account the government’s massive unpaid bills. According to a February 27 report by the International Monetary Fund, the government arrears to the country’s banking system amount to 10.2% of GDP. Iran’s delegate to the IMF Jafar Mojarrad wrote to the IMF, “Public debt-to-GDP ratio, which increased sharply from 12% to 42% in 2015-16, mainly as a result of recognition of government arrears and their securitization, is estimated to decline to 35% in 2016-17 and to 29% next year. However, it could rise again above 40% of GDP after full recognition of remaining government arrears and their securitization and issuance of securities for bank capitalization,” Iran’s banks have so many bad loans that the government will have to issue additional bonds to recapitalize them, Mojarrad added. Iranian press accounts put toxic assets at 45% of all bank loans.

Iran’s financial system is a black hole, and the government cannot refinance its arrears, recapitalize its bankrupt banks, and finance a substantial budget deficit at the same time. Its infrastructure requirements are not only urgent, but existential. The country’s much-discussed water crisis threatens to empty whole cities and displace millions of Iranians, particularly the farmers who consume more than nine-tenths of its disappearing water supplly. Despite what the Tehran Times called “a desperate call for action” by Iranian environmental scientists, the government slashed infrastructure spending by two-thirds during the last fiscal year.

The Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps evidently has first claim on the public purse. It is also willing to shed blood. Reported dead among Iranian-led forces in Syria include at least 473 Iranians, 583 Afghans, and 135 Pakistanis, as well as 1,268 Shi’a fighters from Iraq. In addition, perhaps 1,700 members of the Hezbollah militia have died. Other estimates are much higher. The IRGC’s foreign legions include volunteers from Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Shi’ites are an oppressed minority often subject to violent repression by the Sunni majority. IRGC-controlled forces include the Fatemiyoun Militia recruited mainly from Shi’ite Hazara refugees from Afghanistan, with reported manpower of perhaps 12,000 to 14,000 fighters, of whom 3,000 to 4,000 are now in Syria. Iranians also command the Zeinabiyoun militia composed of Pakistani Shi’ites, with perhaps 1,500 fighters in Syria.

This compares to an estimated 28 Russian casualties in Syria. Moscow has a very good bargain with Tehran. Despite the high casualty rate, the IRGC “has more volunteers for the Syrian War than it knows what to do with,” Kristen Dailey reported last year in Foreign Policy.

Going Red for International Women’s Day… and Its Useful Idiots The perfect color for a better “gender world.” Paul Kengor

The ability of the communist left to consistently dupe an ever-wider group of suckers never ceases to amaze. It’s practically another constant of the universe.

I wrote here a few weeks ago about the now-infamous Women’s March, a parade of perversity and vulgarity that erupted after the Trump inaugural in January, where none other than Angela Davis — America’s longtime leading female Marxist revolutionary — was honorary co-chair and featured speaker. Comrade Angela fired up the female faithful as they donned ridiculous pink hats and cheered her revolution. Now, this week, the female front was enlisted again, this time going not pink but red — figuratively and literally.

Last week we had International Women’s Day. If you know little to nothing of the history of this event, then you probably know more than the vast majority of young ladies and oblivious corporate sponsors tapped as dutiful foot soldiers.

The fact is that the origins of International Women’s Day are communist-socialist. That reality is so unavoidably obvious that the “About” section at the official International Women’s Day website candidly lays out the origins in touting this glorious “collective day of global celebration” and “calls on the masses” to “help forge a better working world.” Take a look at this surprisingly honest historical timeline provided at the website:

International Women’s Day timeline journey

1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman’s Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. […]

1910
In 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named Clara Zetkin (Leader of the ‘Women’s Office’ for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women’s Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day — a Women’s Day — to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women’s clubs — and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament — greeted Zetkin’s suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women’s Day was the result. […]

1913-1914
On the eve of World War I campaigning for peace, Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. In 1913 following discussions, International Women’s Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Women’s Day ever since. […]

1917
On the last Sunday of February, Russian women began a strike for “bread and peace” in response to the death of over 2 million Russian soldiers in World War 1. Opposed by political leaders, the women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. The date the women’s strike commenced was Sunday 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. This day on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere was 8 March.

I must concede kudos to the International Women’s Day website developers for sharing this accurate history. This is spot on.

Readers will, of course, recognize many of these dates and names, especially the Russian ones. They may not identify names like Clara Zetkin. Old Clara was a big-time German commie — or, as leftists will prefer to call her, a socialist or “social democrat.” In fact, Lenin and Trotsky and pioneering cultural Marxists like Herbert Marcuse were also social democrats. Clara was a cheerleader for Lenin. I have clips from Working Woman magazine, the January 30, 1934 edition, which I copied from the Soviet Comintern files on Communist Party USA. This particular edition included a preview of the coming International Women’s Day of March 8, 1934. It featured a glowing review of Clara’s lovely book Reminiscences of Lenin, including praise for the late despot’s “warm smile,” “keen joy” for workers, “clear thinking,” and “masterly eloquence.” This was Clara’s valentine to Vladimir the killer in January 1924, at his death, amid her “hour of grief” and “deepest personal sorrow” at the “irreparable loss” of this “great man.”

The North Korea Syndrome Recalling a left-wing hero’s reversal of history. Lloyd Billingsley

When not assassinating relatives such his estranged half-brother Kim Jong-Nam, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un has been launching missiles that fly perilously closer to U.S. allies such as Japan, and few doubt that the ultimate target is the American mainland. In response, as the Washington Times reported, the Trump administration seeks to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) in South Korea by the end of 2017.

This move has “angered not only North Korea but also China and Russia, which see the system’s powerful radars as a security threat.” THAAD is purely defensive but its deployment is described as “controversial.” So is the history of conflict in the region, too important to be left to an American KGB collaborator the establishment media still passes off as an independent journalist.

With aid from American Stalinist spies such as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Stalin gained the technology to build nuclear weapons. The USSR exploded its first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949 and the blast encouraged Stalin to mount a surge in his expansionist plans. He urged his North Korean ally Kim Il-Sung to attack South Korea, an ally of the United States, and on July 25, 1950, the Communist forces invaded.

According to The Hidden History of the Korean War, it was South Korea that invaded North Korea. That was the official Soviet position, and no surprise from author I.F. Stone. As John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev explain in Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, Stone was in fact a Soviet agent who took money from the KGB. He made a career of recycling Communist propaganda but “by the time he died in 1989, I.F. Stone had been installed in the pantheon of left-wing heroes as a symbol of rectitude and a teller of truth to power.” At no time did Stone fit that description, least of all on Korea.

As the National Interest recalled, “In November 1950, China and the United States went to war. Thirty-six thousand Americans died, along with upwards of a quarter million Chinese, and half a million or more Koreans. If the United States was deeply surprised to find itself at war with the People’s Republic of China, a country that hadn’t even existed the year before, it was even more surprised to find itself losing that war. The opening Chinese offensive, launched from deep within North Korea, took U.S. forces by complete operational surprise.”

U.S. forces fought bravely in battles such as Pork Chop Hill. As U.S. Army private Angelo Palermo of the 17th Infantry recalled “The Chinese were on their loudspeakers telling us to surrender. If we did not, they said we were all going to die.”

Another Axe on Islam’s Crazy Train Our governments are lying and out of their mind. Daniel Greenfield

In a Dusseldorf train station, Fatmir, a Muslim refugee from Kosovo, went on the attack with an axe. His victims included several adults and a 13-year-old girl.

The authorities are blaming his attack on that familiar standby; drug and psychological problems.

There have been quite a few Muslims in Germany boarding the crazy train and trying to ride it all the way to the 72 virgins, dazzling white camels and musk mountains of Islamic paradise.

In July, a Muslim refugee took an axe and assaulted passengers on a train in Würzburg while shouting, “Allahu Akbar”.

Muhammad Riyad, the unaccompanied Afghan minor, had come seeking asylum. He concluded his stay in Germany by slashing and stabbing a family from Hong Kong. His motive was hotly debated.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann insisted that he wasn’t an ISIS Jihadist. He denied that ISIS had ordered the attack. Then an ISIS flag was found in his room.

The Interior Minister vowed to follow every lead to determine his motive. To help him out, ISIS released a video of Muhammad brandishing a knife while vowing to “slaughter infidels”.

“They will slaughter you in your own back yard and they will live in your houses and break your rules and take your land. We will target you in every village, every city and every airport Allah Willing,” he ranted.

That was a strongly worded hint. But German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere argued that the attack occupied “a grey area between a crazed rampage and a terrorist act.”

Poor Muhammad. He had done everything he could. He had the flag. The made a video. He shouted, “Allahu Akbar”. And German authorities remained skeptical that he was really an Islamic terrorist.

What did he have to do? Get a notarized letter to Angela Merkel from the Caliph of ISIS?

The Dirty Little Secret of Palestinian Journalism – with Agence France-Presse Collusion by Bassam Tawil

Nasser Abu Baker, Chairman of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), who also works as a correspondent for Agence France-Press (AFP), also lashed out at Al-Quds for publishing the Israeli advertisement. “We are determined to combat normalization and those who promote it,” he vowed.

Abu Baker, who recently ran in the election for the Fatah Revolutionary Council, is the architect of the PJS campaign to boycott Israeli journalists and media outlets. His political activism constitutes a flagrant violation of the regulations and principles of AFP, and a conflict of interest. However, this does not seem to bother his employers at the French news agency, who apparently do not see a problem with one of their employees running in the election for Fatah’s Revolutionary Council.

Abu Baker and his colleagues have one mission: to “combat normalization” with Israel. For them, this task far exceeds in importance exposing financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority (PA) or reporting about assaults on freedom of expression. It is also evidently more important than protesting the arbitrary arrest and torture of their colleagues at the hands of the PA and Hamas.

One can only imagine the response of the Western mainstream media if the chairman of the Israeli Journalists Union or the Government Press Office called for a boycott of Palestinian journalists.

Palestinian journalists are up in arms. The Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip are arresting and torturing them, and imposing severe restrictions on their work and freedom of expression. But that is not what is upsetting them.

No, the journalists are angry because a Palestinian daily newspaper dared to publish a paid advertisement by the Israeli authorities. The journalists are now demanding that the newspaper, Al-Quds, apologize for running the advertisement by the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank.

From Execution to Medieval Torture: “Iran’s Mandela”, Ayatollah Boroujerdi by Majid Rafizadeh

Ayatollah Boroujerdi has long advocated for the abolishing of “execution, and cruel, inhumane, and degrading punishments; such as torture, stoning and whipping. He rejected anti-Semitism and advocated religious freedom. He established charities and welfare centers to help the poor and assist victims of natural disasters. He condemned personal financial gain from religious activities.

His prison sentence was recently completed. It is critical to point out that Boroujerdi is still nowhere near free.

“He is said to have been beaten, thrown against a wall, and had cold water thrown on him when he was sleeping. He suffers from a heart condition, pulmonary issues, diabetes, severe problems with his eyes including untreated cataracts, and kidney stones. His legs are swollen which makes it very difficult for him to walk. His hands also shake as a result of his Parkinson’s disease. While in detention, he has not been receiving necessary medical treatment…” – Amnesty International.

Ayatollah Seyed Hossein Kazemeini Boroujerdi is a high-ranking prominent dissident clergyman in Iran. He has strongly called for separation of religion and state, and he condemns Islamic radicalism, fundamentalism, and terrorism. He is opposed to political Islam and the rule of Velayet-e-Faqih (Islamic custodianship over people), the theocratic system that governs Iran. Boroujerdi has many supporters and is known as Iran’s Mandela.

“He has long advocated for the abolishment of execution, and cruel, inhumane, and degrading punishments; such as torture, stoning and whipping. He rejected anti-Semitism and advocated religious freedom. He established charities and welfare centers to help the poor and assist victims of natural disasters. He condemned personal financial gain from religious activities. His call has been welcomed by an increasing number of followers to the point that, until his arrest, his gatherings surpassed the theocracy’s organized ceremonies, by their sheer size and numbers.”

For these humanitarian endeavors, he was sentenced to execution by the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, due to international pressure, in 2006, the Iranian regime changed the judgment to 11 years in Iran’s most notorious prison, Evin.

The Golden Age of Jewish Baseball Next foe for the Israeli nine is Cuba. Lee Smith

After going 3-0 in the first round of the World Baseball Classic, Israel moves on to the second round of pool play this weekend in Tokyo when it squares off against international powerhouse Cuba Saturday (10 p.m. EST). The other two teams in Pool E are the Netherlands, whom Israel defeated Wednesday night 4-2 in the preliminary round, and Japan, the 2006 and 2009 WBC champions. The pool winner and the runner-up will move on to Los Angeles for the semi-final round starting March 20. If the Israeli nine makes it through, it might be the first time a Chavez Ravine crowd gets to the park early and stays till the end.

The club’s success, Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer told me, “is a real home run for the Jewish state.” Some credit the team’s undefeated run to mascot “Mensch on the Bench,” while more seasoned baseball observers note that the lowest-ranked club in the 16-team tournament is stacked with current or former major leaguers, like pitcher Jason Marquis, catcher Ryan Lavarnway, first baseman Nate Freiman, designated hitter Ike Davis, third baseman Ty Kelly, and centerfielder Sam Fuld, while the rest of the roster has plenty of minor league experience.

It’s not a star-studded lineup, like the Dominican Republic’s, for instance, but they play good baseball. They’re also playing role of lovable underdog. One broadcaster read aloud from the promotional material concerning Israel’s slick-fielding shortstop during Wednesday night’s game like a mother boasting about her son. In high school, “Scott Burcham was selected top defensive shortstop in the Southland by the Los Angeles Times prior to his senior season.” We are all very proud of Scotty.

Yes, even people who aren’t normally baseball fans are pulling for Israel. Even before the U.S. team has taken the field (the Americans open Friday night against Colombia), the Israeli squad has generated an unusually high level of interest in the WBC. Initiated in 2006, followed by the 2009 and 2013 tournaments, the WBC is roughly modeled after the FIFA World Cup, held every four years. Previously, the WBC seemed to get lost in that strange gre -zone of spring training, somewhere between catchers and pitchers first reporting the second week of February and opening day. For scouts and baseball executives, it’s an opportunity to get a closer look at foreign talent, especially Asian players and the Cubans. In past WBCs, Cuban stars who eventually signed major league contracts after fleeing the island, like Aroldis Chapman and Jose Abreu, showed they could more than match up with big leaguers.

But for most casual fans, the WBC is essentially a string of exhibition games. Sure, you’re watching some of the game’s greats go against each other, but it’s not clear why Robinson Cano working Daisuke Matsuzaka to a 3-2 count is super exciting just because they’re in the uniforms of their national teams. It’s still March.

It’s different for fanatics with immigrant backgrounds from the Caribbean baseball powers, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the 2013 WBC championDominican Republic. Here some of the Dominican players celebrate “plátano pride,” and Baltimore Orioles star Manny Machado explains why he’s playing for the D.R. rather than the United States. The U.S. third baseman and star of the Colorado Rockies Nolan Arenado, whose mother’s family is Puerto Rican and father’s family comes from Cuba, remembers that his family made it “clear that I should be proud to live in this country because so many of the freedoms we have here do not exist in Cuba. But despite the negative views of the Cuban government, my family members still root like crazy for the Cuban national baseball team.”

I suspect there’s something similar going on with the Israeli club. American Jews are thrilled to see Jewish ballplayers take their place among the nations of baseball. Most of the Israel roster is made up of American ballplayers whose family history qualifies them for Israeli citizenship, but only two active players are Israelis. There’s veteran pitcher Shlomo Lipetz, and Dean Kremer, a right-handed pitcher the Los Angeles Dodgers selected out of the University of Nevada Las Vegas last year in the fourteenth round. He’s the first Israeli drafted by a big league club.