FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

On Confronting the Iranian Regime by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on January 20th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20319/confronting-iranian-regime

Any evaluation of the Biden administration’s policy towards the Iranian regime (and towards the Palestinians) reveals a failure: the deadly Western miscalculation that “being nice” will be reciprocated. In the culture of the Middle East, that simply does not work. Instead, one is looked on as a gullible sucker or juicy “mark,” like a jolly drunk at a strip club.

As Osama bin Laden pointed out, especially for his region, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

Former U.S. Army General Jack Keane recently noted that many possible targets are already on “the list” and suggested taking out the military installations that have been launching such attacks. Other possible responses floated include sinking Iran’s spy ship currently in the Red Sea and taking out Iran’s military communications systems.

If Iran itself is not made to pay a price, it will simply continue using its proxies to escalate aggression and take the hits. After all, that is why Iran has proxies in the first place.

The Biden administration’s reluctance to robustly respond to the rogue Islamist regime of Iran apparently only reinforces the inclination of Iran’s political and military leadership to inflict more harm.

When US responses lack decisiveness, the Islamic Republic interprets this “restraint” as a failure of nerve on the part of the US and the international community. Such leniency, it seems, simply invigorates the regime to persist in disrupting regional and global stability, and escalate its assertive military maneuvers and support for terrorist activities.

As Osama bin Laden pointed out, especially for his region, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard Establishes New Antisemitism Task Force, Appoints Professor Who Called Israel a ‘Regime of Apartheid’ By David Zimmermann

Posted By on January 20th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harvard-establishes-new-antisemitism-task-force-appoints-professor-who-called-israel-a-regime-of-apartheid/?

Harvard University has established an antisemitism task force designed to identify the “root causes” of anti-Jewish sentiment on campus, but in doing so appointed a professor who has been critical of Israel.

Interim Harvard president Alan Garber announced on Friday that the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism will be led by Derek Penslar, a professor of Jewish history, the Washington Free Beacon first reported.

In August, before the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, Penslar signed an open letter along with nearly 2,900 other signatories who at the time called Israel a “regime of apartheid” over its treatment of Palestinians.

“We, academics, clergy, and other public figures from Israel/Palestine and abroad, call attention to the direct link between Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the August letter read.

It has since been replaced by two new petitions, neither of which Penslar has signed. The latest petition, published in December, calls on President Joe Biden to help negotiate an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, facilitate a second prisoner-hostage exchange, and supply additional humanitarian aid to Gaza in the midst of the Middle Eastern conflict.

Penslar was also one of the faculty members to spearhead a December letter in support of former Harvard president Claudine Gay, following calls for her resignation after she failed to condemn the genocide of Jews at a House hearing on campus antisemitism. In the letter, over 700 faculty members urged Harvard’s administration to keep Gay in her post. Gay was fired nearly a month later.

Raffaella Sadun, a professor of business administration, will co-chair the antisemitism task force with Penslar.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Strange Resurrection of a Failed Plagiarism Hit on Neil Gorsuch By Dan McLaughlin

Posted By on January 20th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/01/the-strange-resurrection-of-a-failed-plagiarism-hit-on-neil-gorsuch/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=article

The seriousness of plagiarism depends not only on the facts but also on the field of endeavor in which it occurs.

One of the more desperate efforts made in defense of Claudine Gay as she was toppled from her position at Harvard for plagiarism was to dredge up a failed hit from 2017 on Neil Gorsuch. During the battle over Gorsuch’s confirmation, John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett of Politico wrote that Gorsuch “copied the structure and language used by several authors and failed to cite source material in his book and an academic article.” Ed Whelan responded at the time.

Both noted that there were academic experts, including the “outside supervisors for Gorsuch’s dissertation” and “the general editor for Gorsuch’s book publisher,” who saw no issue with Gorsuch’s writings under the standards for writings on legal philosophy. To my eye, Gorsuch should nonetheless have been more careful in his citations in the examples offered by Bresnahan and Everett. Yet, even they conceded that the handful of challenged passages were “a small fraction of published works by Gorsuch, which include hundreds of legal opinions, academic articles, news articles and his book.”

Are these distinctions without differences? No. Plagiarism is generally bad, but the degree to which it is bad — and the reasons why — can vary greatly by the facts and the setting. As with many things, assessing whether it’s just a minor infraction or a serious firing offense requires judgment and standards.

Is it bad to pass off someone else’s words as your own? Generally, yes. But in some contexts, it’s the norm. Young lawyers are often asked to draft memos, briefs, and complaints. Even when there’s a certain amount of style involved, it’s encouraged to copy from somebody else’s prior work in order to save on time and costs, so long as you’re careful to make sure the research is up to date and you don’t inadvertently leave in facts from a prior setting. It’s the better practice to tell your boss — who often signs the thing before a court or client — that you used a prior precedent in drafting, but nobody gets judged for doing it whether or not they disclose that. Getting the final product done right, on time and on budget, is what matters. That’s quite a different context from journalistic writing, in which giving credit to the writer is important and people get fired for copying the work of others.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Pakistan: Young Christian Unjustly Sentenced to Death by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on January 19th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20318/pakistan-christian-death-sentence

“The superintendent of police stated in his report that neither he nor the eyewitness found any blasphemy in Shahzad’s conversation. His investigation also found that Shahzad was a minor, illiterate and did not have clear knowledge of any religion and only repeated words at the direction of Ishtiak Jalali.” — CeCe Heil, Senior Counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, July 11, 2023.

“Based on this investigation the police literally said he was not guilty. He had not committed any blasphemy.” — CeCe Heil, July 11, 2023.

“[A]s a juvenile, Shahzad was entitled to be immediately released on bail and the judge obviously was not going to follow the law…. A much bigger plan seemed to be in place with the mob controlling the outcome….. This happens because Muslim fanatics pack courtrooms to intimidate the judges.” — CeCe Heil, July 11, 2023.

According to the organization Open Doors, the persecution of Christians in Pakistan is “extreme”…

It would be advisable for the US government to suspend all aid to Pakistan until its government takes concrete steps to free the many victims of its deadly blasphemy laws; persuade Pakistan to discontinue enforcing them altogether; improve minority rights, and, most importantly, stop enabling Islamist terrorism.

Shahzad Masih, a Pakistani Christian, was 16 years old and working in a hospital as a janitor in 2017, when Muslims falsely accused him of blasphemy. Since then, has spent more than five years in prison, and has been sentenced to death by hanging for statements he did not even make.

In 2017, authorities arrested Masih after a Muslim coworker and another man linked with the Islamic terrorist group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Islami Pakistan (TTIP), accused him of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. In 2022, a court sentenced Masih to death.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trying to Explain Biden’s Bumbling Policy on the Houthi Rebels and Iran The Arab TV hosts seemed confused and befuddled about Middle East security and U.S. policy toward the region. Disturbingly, this also appears to be Joe Biden’s thinking about the Middle East. By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on January 19th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/01/19/trying-to-explain-bidens-bumbling-policy-on-the-houthi-rebels-and-iran/

During recent interviews with two Arab-language TV networks, I was asked to comment on the Biden administration’s announcement that it has re-designated Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels as a terrorist organization. The programs’ hosts asked me to explain why this decision took so long and whether it indicates a significant change in the Biden administration’s policy.

My explanation puzzled the Arab TV hosts.

I started out by explaining that, despite press reports that the Biden administration reversed its 2021 decision to take the Houthis off the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, this is not exactly correct.

At the beginning of the Biden administration, the president rescinded decisions by President Trump to place the Houthis on the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and to name the group a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization (SDGT).

The FTO designation represents the generally known U.S. terrorist group list; the SGDT is a little-known, weaker designation. The Biden administration only restored the SGDT designation and postponed enacting it for 30 days. Under this designation, Houthi members can apply for a U.S. visa; it is not a crime to support them; and U.S. banks are not required to seize Houthi funds.

Moreover, tough sanctions against the Houthis imposed as part of the Trump administration’s FTO designation will not be reimposed.

The Arab TV hosts were incredulous about my explanation and asked why the Biden administration would reimpose a weak terrorist designation against the Houthis and why, after three months of Houthi missile and drone attacks against Israel and Red Sea shipping, it took Biden administration officials three months to make this decision.

I answered that this decision was made for domestic political reasons in response to growing criticism in the U.S. of how President Biden is handling increased instability in the Middle East after the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel. This was a symbolic move that allowed the White House to inform the press that the president was doing something in response to this instability. It was not a serious response to the Houthi missile and drone attacks.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Enabling Hatred of the Jewish People By Eileen F. Toplansky

Posted By on January 19th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/enabling_hatred_of_the_jewish_people.html

In Viktor Frankl’s classic Man’s Search for Meaning he writes that “there are only two races – the decent and the indecent.” 

No more proof is needed when one considers the events of October 7 and the ongoing animus of much of the world toward Israel.

The bestiality of the Islamic Jihadists continues unabated.  The rabid hatred is truly difficult to fathom.  The indifference to life, to creativity, and to progress defies the imagination.

But it is not a new story. In teaching about the evolution of the ancient Israelites, sacred writings emphasized that the ancient Canaanites were more brutal than any other people in the region.  Prominent in Canaanite religious ritual was child sacrifice.  In Deuteronomy 12:30-31, it states “Do not ask about their gods — burning their sons and daughters in sacrifice to their gods.”  In essence, the Canaanites believed and taught others that their gods wanted and enjoyed cruelty toward human beings.  In fact, the ancient Israelites were warned not to assimilate to the Canaanite ways but instead retain their differences and follow the Ten Commandments.   

Jewish people believed that they owed G-d a debt for the miracles He had performed for the early Israelites. Consequently, they became a people devoted to morality and justice as taught by the Torah.  In essence, Torah-loving people seek to do tzedakah u-mishpat -– righteousness and justice. 

Fast forward to today when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is faced with an implacable foe coupled with a media that creates a myriad of lies about the IDF’s actions. Nonetheless, according to FrontPage magazine:

What does Israel do in Gaza? Does the IDF deliberately rape, torture, and murder Palestinian civilians, as Hamas did to the Israelis at the dance party and in the kibbutzim? Does the IDF take delight in killing, in as sadistic a way as possible, as many Gazan civilians as it can? No, of course not. The IDF tries instead, to minimize civilian casualties. It has no desire to harm the truly innocent. Unfortunately, Hamas wants to maximize those civilian casualties, and to exploit that result to undermine Israel’s standing in the world.

Whenever it can, the IDF warns civilians away from areas about to be targeted. These warnings are enormous undertakings. When the IDF had concluded that it was first going to concentrate its war-making in northern Gaza, it dropped 1.5 [sic] leaflets on that area, urging inhabitants to move south of the Wadi Gaza, so as to avoid the most intense fighting that was about to begin in the north. 900,000 Gazans ultimately heeded the warning, and headed south on the north-south corridor of Salah al-Din Street. Hamas fired on, and killed, some of the Gazans trying to move south, in order to keep their civilian shields trapped in the north. Later, when the IDF began to attack Hamas in the south, it dropped both leaflets, and sent emails, with maps included, that showed Gazans the precise areas in the south, in and around Khan Yunis, where the IDF would not be attacking, and that, therefore, they should move to for safety’s sake. It was the same with buildings — schools, apartment buildings, mosques — where the IDF was about to attack. The IDF messaged, emailed, telephoned, and used the ‘knock-on-the-roof’ technique to warn civilians living in or near those buildings soon to be targeted to leave them. Furthermore, Israeli pilots will call off an airstrike if they detect too many civilians near the target.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

‘Climate Change’ Puts Biden’s EV Mandate On Thin Ice

Posted By on January 19th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/01/19/climate-change-puts-bidens-ev-mandate-on-thin-ice/

The polar vortex gripping the nation has exposed a fatal flaw in President Joe Biden’s push to force Americans into electric cars. EVs don’t work well in the cold.

Several news stories out of Chicago this week report how EV owners have been struggling to keep their cars charged as extreme cold saps their batteries of energy, extends charging times, and forces owners to wait for hours to get an open charger.

“Several motorists told local news outlets that they had been stranded at charging stations in the cold with cars with dead batteries, while successful charging was taking far longer than usual. They also claimed that many of the charging stations were not functioning,” Newsweek reports.

One motorist reported that he’d seen “at least 10 cars being towed away after their battery died, with too much energy being expended keeping the car warm while drivers waited.”

Another told CBS News Chicago that a charge that should take 45 minutes was taking two hours. “I’ve been here for over five hours at this point and I still have not gotten to charge my car,” he said.

How many of these suckers, do you think, are going to buy another EV after going through this nightmare? How many buyers are going to dive into the EV pool when they read stories like this?

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Not Ink but Blood: Meet the Hamas Press Corps

Posted By on January 18th, 2024

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/media/2024/01/not-ink-but-blood-meet-the-hamas-press-corps/

In yesterday’s Part 1, I wrote in general terms on the Committee for Protecting Journalists’ tally of Palestine journalists killed by Israeli forces since October 7. I now get into the specifics of many names on the CPJ list and on a Hamas list from which it originated. This illustrates listees’ tight associations and support for the Hamas terror campaign. The prevalence of self-portraits with assault rifles suggests some might even have died with guns in their hands.

Many listees had deep ties to Hamas leaders, according to London investigative journalist David Collier, who has exposed the CPJ flaws in a 150-page report, The “Journalists” of Gaza: a modern-day antisemitic conspiracy theory promoted by mainstream media. He studied all names in a listing of 107 alleged journalists compiled by Hamas and affiliated Palestine Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS) at January 4, from which CPJ used 70 for its own list. Collier located social media from 100 of them.

At the funeral of the grandfather of one purported journalist Hazifa Al-Najjar (PJS) in 2017, a pallbearer was Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza’s Hamas commander now being hunted by the IDF. Similarly listed by PJS is slain Gamal Haniya, eldest grandson of Ismail Haniyeh.

Mohammad Khair al-Din (CPJ) posed armed and in full Hamas uniform while with his small kids at a park festival. He posted pics of the kids in Hamas headbands and holding assault rifles. Two of his brothers were slain terrorists. His nephew, Ahmed Khaireddine, also makes the CPJ list as a Hamas journalist. CPJ adds a tribute about Ahmed working for 82 days straight and then being persuaded by a fellow reporting brother to do another assignment in the course of which he was killed. CPJ says the brother mourned, “He wanted to rest, but apparently his rest was forever.”

The CPJ list includes half a dozen Palestinian female media workers. Such women are perhaps the most likely of listees to be authentic journalists. Here’s a check.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Cause is That of All the West William Rubinstein

Posted By on January 18th, 2024

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2024/01/why-the-cause-of-israel-is-that-of-all-the-west/

There are a number of important features about Israel’s actions in Gaza against Hamas which have not been made in public commentary but need to be pointed out. If one thinks that Israel’s drastic actions against Hamas in response to the horrifying atrocities of October 7 are unjustified, consider this: if the Cuban government launched thousands of rockets and missiles at targets in Florida, and then followed this up by landing hundreds of trained terrorists in the United States, where they murdered 240 Americans at a music festival, and then invaded a nearby American town, where they killed or kidnapped everyone there, beheading American babies or burning them alive, what do you think the reaction of the president of the United States would be—any president, from either party? The response is not hard to predict: within a week or so, Havana would be a heap of smoking rubble, resembling Berlin or Dresden in 1945, destruction enthusiastically supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans. The response of the Israeli government, supported by the vast majority of its citizens, is hardly surprising.

Another notable facet of the Gaza conflict is that, as I write this, no Arab or Islamic state, even the most extreme, has given more than lip-service support to Hamas, if that. Indeed, Egypt and Jordan, Israel’s neighbours and military opponents in the 1967 and 1973 wars, have not lifted a finger to help Hamas or any other extremist Islamic group.

However, arguably the most important feature of this conflict and the support and hostility it has engendered is also very clear, but seldom commented on directly. Almost without exception, Israel’s supporters have been conservatives and those on the political Right, its opponents left-wingers and radicals (apart, of course, from Western Muslims, the largest local bloc opposed to Israel’s actions). Moderate centre-Left elements, such as President Biden and most of America’s Democratic Party, have also been strong supporters of Israel—at least so far. But those clearly on the political Left have been, to a man or woman, strongly hostile to Israel, regularly whitewashing the barbaric attacks against Israelis—in Israel itself, not in Gaza—carried out by Hamas terrorists, and totally hostile to Israel’s military response.

In the historical context of attitudes towards Jews during the past 150 years or so, this represents a near-total reversal of support for and antipathy to the Jews, and it is important to analyse the reasons for this reversal. In my opinion, perhaps the most important factor in this great shift has been the existence of the State of Israel, especially the nationalistic, tradition-minded and militarily powerful and successful nation it has become, its military prowess a necessary response to the deadly antipathy of its enemies since its establishment in 1948. The strategies and values embodied by Israel have almost entirely negated the bases of pre-1945 anti-Semitism, in which hostility towards the Jews was largely based in the fact that, almost uniquely, they were an ethno-religious group without either a state or a contiguous and distinct area of residence, but were, to their enemies, always outsiders, regardless of where they lived, and moreover, were seen as continuously engaged in a vast international conspiracy of evil.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran and Pakistan Cross Fire Puts the World on Edge By Jim Geraghty

Posted By on January 18th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/iran-and-pakistan-cross-fire-puts-the-world-on-edge/

On the menu today: We glance up from the Republican presidential-primary season’s coverage to notice that two heavily armed Muslim countries are now launching military strikes in each other’s territory. Taiwan has a new incoming president, and for that country to deter a Chinese invasion, promised U.S. arms sales must get delivered a lot faster. And one new poll shows a reason for Nikki Haley fans to feel optimistic about New Hampshire, while two other polls show Trump winning the Granite State primary comfortably.

Oh, Hey, No Big Deal, Just Iran and Pakistan Shooting at Each Other

On a regular basis, news comes across the wires that seems like it ought to make us sit up and take notice — like Iran, one of America’s preeminent foes and a country knocking on the door of developing a nuclear weapon, launching military strikes against targets within the territory of Pakistan, which is a complicated U.S. semi-ally that has an estimated 170 nuclear warheads.

Baluchistan is a region where the Iranian, Pakistani, and Afghan borders meet, stretching from the southernmost chunk of Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea, and encompassing the southwestern chunk of Pakistan and a southeastern chunk of Iran. Among the Baluchis are plenty of militant groups who want independence or just plain hate the Iranian or Pakistani government.

On Tuesday, the Iranian military launched missile and drone attacks against what it contended were targets in Pakistan associated with Jaish ul-Adl, a Sunni Muslim Baluch separatist organization. The Pakistani government contended the strikes killed two children and wounded three others and called them an “unprovoked violation” of its airspace. Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Iran and has blocked Tehran’s envoy from returning — less than ideal for the prospects of talking down either side from escalating the conflict further, or minimizing any confusion or misunderstanding. Sure, Iran thinks it’s only striking at Baluch separatists, but does the Pakistani military know that? How does the Pakistani military know that Iran isn’t directly attacking it?