Palestinians: The Battle to Steal Reconstruction Funds by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17466/gaza-reconstruction-funds

The Palestinian Authority says that it should be the only party in charge of the reconstruction and that all funds must be channeled through its government. Hamas, on the other hand, insists that the funds from the international community be sent directly to its coffers.

“The Palestinians must remove this Iranian occupation in Palestine so that they can live in peace.” — Nora Shanar, Saudi author, Elaph, May 10, 2021.

The message the Arabs and Muslims are sending to the Biden administration and other Western donors: Stop showering money on corrupt and failed Palestinian leaders whose stock-in-trade is purloining international funds. The Palestinians do not need money as much as they need new leaders whose commitment to the welfare of their people outweighs their interest in their own pockets.

Last month, Egypt succeeded in its effort to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Since then, however, Egypt has been unable to secure an agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority over the reconstruction of buildings and homes that were destroyed during the 11-day Israel-Hamas conflict.

Egypt has gone out of its way to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after the recent round of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

First, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi pledged $500 million to contribute to the reconstruction effort. (Qatar has promised a similar sum to help rebuild the Gaza Strip).

Second, Egypt dispatched the head of its General Intelligence Service, Abbas Kamel, to the Gaza Strip and West Bank for talks with leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority about the reconstruction plan.

Third, Egypt sent dozens of bulldozers, cranes and engineers to the Gaza Strip as part of its effort to assist with the reconstruction.

Fourth, Egypt invited representatives of various Palestinian factions, including the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, to Cairo for talks on ways of helping the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who had lost their homes during the fighting with Israel. Egypt was also doubtless hoping that the faction leaders would finally reach agreement on ending the dispute between Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

Prime Minister-designate Naftali Bennett’s address at the swearing-in of Israel’s 36th government

https://www.jns.org/prime-minister-designate-naftali-bennetts-address-at-the-swear

I want to begin my words by saying, on my own behalf, and in the name of the members of the designated government, in the name of this House and in the name of all the citizens of Israel—thank you. Thank you to the outgoing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for your many years of service, replete with achievements, for the sake of the State of Israel. As prime minister you acted throughout many years to embolden Israel’s political, security and economic strength. I saw you from up-close, in extensive security deliberations, late into the night, investigating, making inquiries and considerations out of a sense of grave responsibility.

Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu, over the years, we have not always agreed, but we have both sacrificed much on a personal level in order to serve our people, the people of Israel. Expressing gratitude is a fundamental principle in Judaism. This is the time for the people to say to you: thank you.

I also want to take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation to the tenth president of the State of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, for his years as president, as Speaker of the Knesset, and as a public servant. And to congratulate President-elect Isaac Herzog and wish him much success. God willing, we will work together very well.

Honored ladies and gentlemen, this is a special moment. The moment in which the baton of leading the people and the country passes—as in a relay race—to the next generation. It is a sacred endowment.

The State of Israel is not “just another country.” It is the dream of generations of Jews—from Marrakech to Budapest, from Baghdad to San Francisco—a dream we merited to see realized every day before our very eyes. Each generation has its own challenges, and out of each generation comes the leaders that can overcome them.

The external challenges we face are great: the Iranian nuclear project, which is moving towards a crucial point; the ongoing war on terror; Israel’s image in the world and the unfair treatment it receives in international institutions—these are all sizable and complex tasks.

At this time, we are also facing an internal challenge. The ongoing rift in the nation, as we see in these very moments, which continues to rip apart the seams that hold us together, and has thrown us—one election after another—into a maelstrom of hatred and infighting.

Such quarrels, between the people who are supposed to be running the country, led to paralysis. One who quarrels cannot function.

Why Israel must repossess the Philadelphi Corridor This was land Israel gave away for peace but no peace ever came of it – instead endless Arab aggression. Victor Sharpe

When the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was signed in 1979, the 14 km (8.7 mile) security and buffer zone known as the Philadelphi Corridor was under Israel’s control. Its purpose was to prevent the illegal importation into the Gaza Strip from Egypt of weapons and terrorists to be used against the Jewish state. The Oslo Accords, signed in 1995, allowed Israel to retain the security corridor, but it soon became apparent that Sinai Bedouin and the Palestinian Arabs were digging ever more sophisticated smuggling tunnels under it.

Then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israel to vacate the vital security strip separating Egyptian Sinai from the Gaza Strip as a “peaceful gesture” to the Palestinian Arabs. This proved to be another land for peace disaster in which the Arabs receive the land but the Israelis don’t receive peace.

Following the infamous and tragic disengagement from Gaza in 2005, forced upon the residents of Gush Katif by Ariel Sharon, Israel ceded control of the Philadelphi Corridor to the Palestinian Authority in September of that year. Meanwhile, extensive smuggling continued. It was only a matter of time before Hamas evicted their Fatah rivals in a bloody coup—which they did in 2007. Hamas, with its charter calling for Israel’s extermination, has ruled the Gaza Strip since then, including the Philadelphi Corridor.

Ahmed Qurei, the former P.A. prime minister, once asked Tzipi Livni, Israel’s erstwhile and left-wing foreign minister, if Israel would repossess the Corridor to seal the border and cut off supplies to Hamas, the P.A.’s deadly rival. Apparently, Livni did nothing, and Hamas has been greatly strengthened militarily ever since. It is, nevertheless, crystal clear that failure to repossess this vitally strategic area now, or very soon, will spell dire security problems for Israel.

What if Egypt should fall again under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood, as it did when Hosni Mubarak was president? There would then be no more need for smuggling tunnels beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border. Instead, endless fleets of trucks would bring military supplies into the Strip from Egypt. Only by fully controlling the Philadelphi Corridor can Israel stem such a lethal tide.

Despite President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s control of Egypt, Egyptian state media, like that of Hamas and the P.A., openly proclaims its adherence to Islam’s eternal requirement that all lands once conquered in the name of Allah must, if lost, be warred on until regained for Allah. This is not extreme or radical Islam. This is authentic Islam, and the non-Muslim world ignores it at its peril. Accordingly, there can never be a lasting peace between Israel and the Muslim world; “peace now” and the “two-state solution” are simply dreams.

Therefore, Israel should repossess the Philadelphi Corridor for its own security and survival. Doing so will no doubt evoke screams of rage from the morally compromised world—but these voices will condemn Israel whatever it does. So it is surely better to be hanged in the media and the international corridors of power as a lion than as a sheep.

Scientific American is not scientific and not American By Ethel C. Fenig

For over 175 years the magazine Scientific American has bragged that it covers

the advances in research and discovery that are changing our understanding of the world and shaping our lives.  (snip) Authoritative, engaging features, news, opinion and multimedia stories from journalists and expert authors — including more than 200 Nobel Prize winners — provide need-to-know coverage, insights and illumination of the most important developments at the intersection of science and society.

However, around six years ago the American segment of the publication changed as it was purchased by a private German-British conglomerate, Springer Nature, which has affiliates and publications worldwide.  And international controversies to go along with its international nature such as highly credible accusations of succumbing to demands for censorship from Communist China against research from scientists in Tibet and independent Taiwan.   

Not very scientific.  

Further veering from science, the magazine entered the political realm for the first time in the November, 2020 election, endorsing Joe Biden for president because well, he is so scientific.  Or something.  And Donald J.  Trump is not.  Or something.

An Explanation of Tactics to Fundamentally Transform America By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/an_explanation_of_tactics_to_fundamentally_transform_america.html

In 1984, former KGB officer Yuri Bezmenov, who defected to the West in the 1970s, alerted Americans to the methods the Soviet secret service was using to subvert our political system.  The aim of the agency, he said, was gradual “ideological subversion” or “psychological warfare.”

Using ample video footage of the late Bezmenov, Brainwashed America — the latest documentary from filmmaker, radio host, and author Brannon Howse — exposes how dangerously far this process of undermining American culture has advanced.  Howse’s conclusions are based on thirty years of study of the history, utilization, and advancement of brainwashing in America.  He defines brainwashing as “a method that manipulates and modifies a person’s emotions, attitudes, and beliefs” and indoctrination as a subtle, pedagogic process “to induce someone to give up basic political, social, and religious beliefs and attitudes, and to accept contrasting regimented ideas.”

In the mid-1980s, the former spy had delineated the phases of the Soviet operation in America: demoralization, destabilization, chaos, and normalization (when communism takes hold).  This came to be called Bezmenov’s “Soviet subversion model.”  As early as 1984, he had claimed that the process of demoralization — turning youths against traditional American values — was complete and that destabilization was well under way to subvert the economy, foreign relations, and defense.  He had warned that Americans may believe it’s peacetime, but they are really “in a state of undeclared war against the basic principles and the foundations of this system.”

Howse’s documentary contemporizes Bezmenov’s warning.  It sets out the twelve-step process of brainwashing aimed at effecting a Marxist revolution in America and illustrates it using events from the coronavirus pandemic.  The twelve steps are: 1) removing principled leadership; 2) encouraging the questioning of values, convictions, and the American worldview; 3) presenting a revisionist history that portrays the free market system as oppressive; 4) propagating moral relativity to cloud the distinction between right and wrong; 5) extolling consensus and collectivism while declaring individualism dangerous; 6) focusing on emotions over facts, reason, and context; 7) fostering anxiety, confusion, social turbulence; 8) concealing the ultimate agenda; 9) using trusted individuals and institutions to enhance credibility; 10) using informants to zero in on those who don’t comply; 11) rewarding compliance and punishing dissent; and 12) winning public trust by manufacturing chaos to lay the groundwork for a benevolent-seeming rescue.

Breaking Back: My Return to the UK I’m not sure if I’m glad to be home. Katie Hopkins

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/breaking-back-my-return-uk-katie-hopkins/

After three months on the road in America giving our side a reason to gather and be reminded that America remains the greatest nation on the face of the planet, my heart finally decided it was time to make a break for Britain.

Each time a concerned-looking patriot asks me at my events, “When are you going home?” I tell them truthfully that I don’t know, that I throw myself to the wind without caution or a sell-by date and wait for my heart to decide.

I truly believe that our paths are already set out in front of us, and in order to walk in your truth every day you have to let go of the control of some of the big stuff that you are taught as a child to think important — like having a plan, or living in certainty.

(I sometimes wonder if those asking me “When are you going home?” are really asking me “When are you ever going to leave?”, like hosts whose guests have overstayed their welcome at a party. But I suspect I am overthinking somewhat.)

Of course, it’s no mean feat breaking back into a country you weren’t supposed to leave (it was illegal to leave the UK or travel to America when I left the country) and returning from a country you weren’t supposed to have been in (the USA still has a ban on Brits entering the country due to our very special kind of COVID).

Patriots at events would ask, “What’s going to happen to you when you return?” And in truth, I didn’t know. But I accepted it might not be pretty. I had an agreement with Frank Gaffney (of the Center for Security Policy) that if I were ever locked up at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in a British jail, he would co-ordinate with Mike Lindell to secure me a mattress topper for my bunk.

Given the plight of the 1/6ers and the threat to liberty facing all patriots under Biden and the Global Cabal of COVID Idiots, a prison line could be a big seller for MyPillow, I am sure of it.

Why Flag Day ‘Disturbs’ Obama and the Dems A president’s troubling relationship with the American flag. Jack Cashill

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/why-flag-day-disturbs-obama-and-dems-jack-cashill/

Named after journalist Michael Kinsley who introduced the concept, a “Kinsley gaffe” occurs when a speaker “accidentally reveals something truthful about what is going on in his or her head.” Last week, the New York Times Editorial Board Member Mara Gay made the season’s most notable Kinsley gaffe in her account on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” of a harrowing trip to New York City’s eastern suburbs on Long Island.

“I was on Long Island this weekend visiting a really dear friend, and I was really disturbed,” said Gay live on MSNBC, where she is a contributor. “I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with explicatives [sic] against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and in some cases just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing because essentially the message was clear: This is my country. This is not your country. I own this.”

After Gay had finished recounting how she found “just disturbing” the sight of “dozens of American flags,” co-host Mika Brzezinski chimed in, “Totally agree.”

The Babylon Bee responded with a story headlined, “New York Times Relocates Offices To Beijing So Reporters Won’t Have To See So Many ‘Disturbing’ American Flags,” but for people who fret about flags as Gay and Brzezinski do, the very anticipation of Flag Day, June 14, is no laughing matter.

Perhaps the most prominent of such thinkers—and the most anxious—is Barack Obama. As candidate and later as president, Obama had to pretend to care about the flag. It wasn’t easy. In his most recent memoir, A Promised Land, he spends an unseemly amount of time on an incident that most Americans had forgotten about but that apparently left the former president emotionally scarred—his failure to wear an American flag pin.

Betraying America Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the New Democrat Order. John Perazzo, Mark Tapson and David Horowitz

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/betraying-america-john-perazzo-mark-tapson-and-david-horowitz-0/

No institution in America – from government offices to schoolrooms to corporate boardrooms and beyond – is safe today from the poisonous racism of Critical Race Theory and the “1619 Project” which posit that United States history is rooted in slavery and white supremacy, and that “whiteness” is an incurable disease. The institution whose subversion poses the greatest threat to our national security is the military, now overseen by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a determined advocate of these repulsive anti-American views.

Austin has required both Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project as core elements of the Pentagon’s military training programs – concealing their sinister agendas under the innocuous-sounding “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” label. He has ordered a purging of the military ranks of what he calls “extremists,” defined as opponents of these noxious views and supporters of Donald Trump and the Capitol protest of January 6th. This transformational focus of our military forces is the Biden administration’s answer to the growing threat of a heavily-militarized China – a purging of “whiteness” and patriotic pride from the ranks of our frontline defenders.

Lloyd Austin III, nominated in late 2012 for CENTCOM commander by President Barack Obama, who openly sought the “fundamental transformation” of America, spent his eight-year tenure politicizing the military command. When Austin retired from active duty with the U.S. military in 2016, he was a four-star general. He spent the next few years in the private sector as a founder and/or board member of various corporations until last December, when President Biden nominated him for the position of U.S. Secretary of Defense. The Senate subsequently confirmed Austin on January 22 by a vote of 93-2, making him the first black Defense Secretary in American history, and also the most radical – even though most black Americans are patriots and not radical.

Austin was a natural choice for an administration that seems to value the skin color, gender and politics of its appointees over all other characteristics, and – like the President, the Vice President, and the Democratic Party generally – views America as a nation so scarred by its racist history that nothing short of a radical transformation would make it worthy of celebrating and defending. Like Obama, Austin is intent on transforming the American military with dangerous consequences for the 330 million Americans whose mission it is to defend.

During Austin’s Senate confirmation hearing on January 19, he vowed to rid the U.S. military of the many “racists and extremists” that allegedly have infiltrated it. “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies,” he said. “But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.”

Journo Who Broke 2016 Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Meeting Found Dead By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/13/journo-who-broke-2016-clinton-lynch-tarmac-meeting-found-dead-n1454268

Christopher Sign, a news anchor for ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Alabama, who broke the story about former President Bill Clinton’s secret 2016 tarmac meeting with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch was found dead Saturday morning.

“Our deepest sympathy is shared with Christopher’s loving family and close friends. We have lost a revered colleague whose indelible imprint will serve forever as a hallmark of decency, honesty and journalist integrity. We can only hope to carry on his legacy. May his memory be for blessing,” said ABC 33/40 Vice President and General Manager Eric Land in a statement.

Hillary Clinton was under investigation for her private email server by the FBI when Sign revealed a secret meeting between her husband, Bill Clinton, and Lynch on June 27, 2016, on the tarmac at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport, mere days before former FBI Director James Comey announced the FBI would not recommend charges against her.

The optics of the meeting proved problematic for Clinton, despite both Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch insisting that the ongoing investigation wasn’t brought up during their conversation.

“Bill Clinton was on that plane for 20 minutes, and it wasn’t just about golf, grandkids, and Brexit,” Sign said on Fox & Friends in February 2020. “There’s so much that doesn’t add up.”

Sign also told Fox News then that his family had received numerous death threats after he broke the story. “My family received significant death threats shortly after breaking this story. Credit cards hacked. You know, my children, we have code words. We have secret code words that they know what to do.”

His death is being investigated as a suicide. He was 45 years old and leaves behind a wife and three children. He was described by ABC 33/40 as a dedicated family man, who “turned down an opportunity to work for one of the national networks to come to ABC 33/40, and he made that decision because of his family.”

“That decision put him in a place where he could see his boys off to school in the mornings, watch them play baseball in the evenings, and take them fishing on the weekends.”

Pelosi Denies ‘Rebuking’ Omar over U.S.-Taliban Comparison: ‘She Clarified, We Thanked Her’ By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pelosi-denies-rebuking-omar-over-u-s-taliban-comparison-she-clarified-we-thanked-her/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) denied that House leadership rebuked Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) following a tweet in which Omar compared the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban, in comments on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

“Let me just say this: we did not rebuke” Omar, Pelosi told host Dana Bash. “We acknowledged that she made a clarification.”

When pressed by Bash, Pelosi emphasized that Omar is “a valuable member of our caucus.”

“What I’m saying is end of subject, she clarified, we thanked her, end of subject,” Pelosi added. “What happened is a reflection of the respect we have for our [caucus] member.”