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Obama Administration Set for One Last Strike at Israel A Paris “peace conference” and a Turtle Bay aftermath. P. David Hornik

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

A week and a half ago President Obama gave the order for the U.S. to abstain on UN Security Council Resolution 2334, thereby—effectively—voting in favor and allowing the resolution to pass.

As I noted, the resolution goes beyond “moral equivalency” by obfuscating Palestinian terror and incitement while branding Jewish life beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines a “flagrant violation under international law” and a “major obstacle…to peace.”

But the administration wasn’t through with Israel. A few days later, with the Middle East aflame from Yemen to Iraq to Syria to Libya to Sudan and Iranian expansionism on the march, Secretary of State Kerry delivered a 75-minute harangue against what he called Israel’s “pernicious policy of settlement construction that is making peace impossible.”

Critics have noted that—in the real world—Israeli construction in settlements under the recent Netanyahu governments has been so modest that it has not affected the Israeli-Palestinian population balance in the West Bank; and that if any and all Israeli presence beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines is “illegal,” then the idea of a “peace process” to settle claims over disputed land appears to be invalidated, since Israel is then nothing but a rapacious thief and the Palestinians its victims seeking redress.

As international-law scholar Eugene Kontorovich notes in the Washington Post:

The…condemnation of any Jewish presence whatsoever in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank is a unique rule invented for Israel. There has never been a prolonged belligerent occupation—from the U.S. occupation of West Berlin to Turkey’s ongoing occupation of Cyprus to Russia’s of Crimea—where the occupying power has blocked its citizens from living in the territory under its control. Moreover, neither the United Nations nor any other international body has ever suggested they must do so. What is being demanded of Israel in its historical homeland has never been demanded of any other state, and never will be.

The Obama administration’s stepped-up diplomatic and verbal assault on Israel in the last weeks of its tenure has not gone unnoticed, sparking bitter criticism even from Democratic lawmakers and mainstream American Jewish organizations that are far from any right-wing agenda.

But the extent to which the administration listens to such protests, or can be budged from its wholesale endorsement of Palestinian claims regarding the West Bank and Jerusalem, can be gauged from the fact that the Obama-Kerry team has still more in store for Israel.

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The U.S. should stop opposing Israeli settlements and start diminishing Iranian power and Arab terrorism. By Mario Loyola see note please

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

Some very good points…but same old, same old crapola about a two state dissolution…..an idee fixe that is ahistorical and delusional….rsk

President Obama’s decision to stab Israel in the back at the United Nations could prove to be a blessing in disguise. Obama’s instinct for radical overreach has achieved a reductio ad absurdum of the whole U.S. framework toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and made it far more difficult for President-elect Trump to embrace that framework without wholesale revision. And that could give us something we don’t have now: a realistic path to peace in Palestine.

Current U.S. policy toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict evolved in support of a goal — the two-state solution — set by President Bill Clinton and formally embraced by President George W. Bush. This goal has become completely disconnected from reality. That is not to say that a two-state solution is not the right ultimate goal; maybe it is. But given the circumstances of today’s Middle East, a negotiated settlement leading to a two-state solution is simply impossible. The combination of Israel’s international isolation, Palestinians’ steadfast commitment to incitement and terrorism, and Iranian ascendancy to regional hegemony and nuclear weapons means that Israel simply can’t risk the concessions that would be necessary for a final settlement of the conflict.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the territory immediately became a terrorist safe haven and a platform for missile-fired terrorism. If the same thing happens in the West Bank, which straddles Jerusalem on three sides and abuts most of Israel’s population, it will be the end of Israel. A two-state solution under current circumstances would be suicide. Peace in Palestine requires new circumstances. And the object of U.S. policy should be to create them. Hence, every element of U.S. policy, including the U.S. position on Israeli settlements, should be justifiable as part of a coherent and realistic strategy for getting from here to there.

That includes the U.S. position on Israeli settlements. Settlements are not the reason that the two-state solution is “now in jeopardy,” as Secretary of State John Kerry put it in his mea non culpa speech last week. There is only one reason the two-state solution is in jeopardy, or more accurately dead, and that is Muslim terrorism against innocent Jews. There is only one reason for the harsh security measures imposed in the occupied territories, and that is Muslim terrorism against innocent Jews. There is only one reason for the continuing conflict between Israel and its neighbors, and that is Muslim terrorism against innocent Jews.

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Obama’s Last-Minute Legacy-Padding on Foreign Policy The president is pleasing many on the left as he prepares for retirement, but his actions may empower those he hates most. By Jonah Goldberg

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

Of all Barack Obama’s costumes, the most ill-fitting is that of the hawk. The guise doesn’t work for all sorts of ideological and historical reasons. Plus there’s the fact that he’s rushing to put on the outfit as he’s heading out the door.

The new sanctions against Russia are fine with me on the merits, even if they are remarkably tardy and being sold in no small part for domestic, political reasons.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been undermining American interests for a long time now. From the annexation of Crimea and a shadow war in Ukraine to his unabashed support for the butcher Bashar Assad in Syria, Putin has given the Obama administration every excuse to punch back. But until last week, Obama’s response had been to offer various and sundry diplomatic “off-ramps” and a little bit of tongue-lashing. General dovishness combined with the single-minded pursuit of a deal with Iran led Obama to insist that we should avoid “provoking” Russia.

The satirist who goes by the moniker “Iowahawk” cut to the chase on Twitter:

Russia invades Crimea: oh well

Russia shoots down airliner: mistakes happen

John Podesta falls for phishing scam: RESTART THE COLD WAR

Obama’s volte-face should be seen in the larger context of his last-minute legacy-padding and his widely alleged desire to “box in” his successor. The president is preparing to spend the next few decades as a celebrity in liberal circles.

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Environmentalists Hand Out Condoms to Protest Feared Trump-Era Overpopulation By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

An environmental group handed out 10,000 free “endangered species condoms” at New Year’s Eve events and on college campuses nationwide to mark 2017 in a show of protest against President-elect Trump.

The Center for Biological Diversity said the condom giveaway was meant to highlight overpopulation amid fears of Trump policies on contraception along with fears of what could happen to protected wildlife species under his administration.

“Many women are already worrying about what life under President Trump is going to mean for access to affordable birth control. It’s a very real possibility that the Affordable Care Act will be gutted and contraception costs will skyrocket,” Leigh Moyer, the center’s population organizer, said in a statement. “Human population growth drives the majority of environmental problems, so making it harder to prevent unplanned pregnancy isn’t good news for women or for wildlife.”

The enviro-condoms project — using vegan, fair-trade condoms free of animal by-products — has been around since 2009, with contraceptives bearing phrases such as “wrap with care… save the polar bear” and “use a stopper… save the hopper.” The center says strong population growth in states such as Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Florida is linked to pressure on regional wildlife.

Today the group kicks off a 16-city “roadshow of resistance” against the Trump presidency called Earth2Trump, featuring “national and local speakers, live music and an opportunity to join a growing movement of resistance to all forms of oppression and all attacks on reproductive rights and our environment.”

One path of the roadshow starts in Seattle and cuts across Utah, Colorado and Illinois, while another roadshow starts in Oakland and winds through the southwest, Texas and Florida. Both plan to arrive in Washington in time for Inauguration Day, when myriad protests from various groups are planned in the capital.

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Egypt: Islamist Murders Christian for Selling Alcohol in Alexandria By Patrick Poole

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

Just three weeks after a suicide bomber killed 27 people, mostly women and children, in an attack on the main Coptic cathedral near Cairo comes a new attack in Alexandria.

According to Tahrir News, a Christian businessman was murdered by an Islamist earlier today for selling alcohol in his shop. The arrested suspect came up behind the victim and slashed his throat while he was smoking shisha in front of the store.

Images from a surveillance video show the attack.

Some reports indicate that the victim had previously agreed to not sell alcohol during Ramadan, which ran from the beginning of June to the beginning of July last year.

It should be noted that there are several liquor store chains that operate in Egypt, including goCheers and Drinkies, and beer is widely available at most restaurants in Cairo and Alexandria.

This incident appears to be an act of “hisba,” or enforcement of Islamic law.

As a report by Lorenzo Vidino on incidents of “hisba” in Europe shows, some interpretations allow any Muslim to enforce Islamic prohibitions, not just police.

I noted here at PJ Media following the Cairo cathedral bombing last month that attacks targeting the Coptic Christian community in Egypt — the largest population of Christians in the Middle East — are a fairly common occurrence.

But many of these sectarian attacks take place in Upper Egypt, where millions of Coptic Christians live, and less so in the more Western-influenced Cairo and Alexandria.

Back in August I reported on my April 2014 trip into Upper Egypt to inspect some of the 70+ churches and monasteries torched by the Muslim Brotherhood in August 2013 following the dispersal of the protests in support of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a former spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Trump Is Right about the Russian Hacking Case By Stephen D. Bryen and Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump expressed skepticism over reports that Russia hacked the U.S. election. It is well-known that Russia — and China, and various of our friends and allies — spend a lot of time and effort trying to access American military and industrial secrets, as the U.S. does theirs. But in the case of altering the election, Trump’s skepticism appears warranted.

How did we get here?

An attempted hack into Georgia’s voter registration database was traced back to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to The Wall Street Journal last month. It was a criminal act and possibly an attempt to interfere in an election. Even worse, DHS appears to have outsourced the hacking activity. One might think the breach of a state voter registration system by the Federal government would be a big story. But it was quickly replaced by the Obama administration’s claims about Russian cyber attacks on American political institutions. The FBI and DHS (yes, that DHS) then produced the Joint Analysis Report under the seal of its National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.

It should be noted that the report was prepared without input from the National Security Agency (NSA), Cyber Command, the Pentagon, or the CIA. Wonder why? The answer most likely is that they declined to endorse a report that fails to deliver proof and makes accusations unsupported by evidence. If a college student turned this report in as a research paper, he would flunk the course.

The report claims to provide an analysis of the “tools and infrastructure” used by the Russian intelligence services to “exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election” as well as a “range of U.S. government, political and private sector entities.” The report calls this “malicious cyber activity” and aggregates it under the code name Grizzly Steppe.

The notion of “malicious activity” is scary and meaningless. If information is stolen, it is theft; it is a crime. But the report cannot demonstrate theft, or even describe the activity any of the identified organizations actually engaged in, so it uses non-legal “term of art.” But grizzlies from the steppe sound pretty malicious.

Equally problematic is that the report cannot tie any of the “known” Russian-located hacking activities directly to the Russian intelligence services in respect to the hack of the email systems of the Democratic National Committee or personal email accounts, such as those of Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, to name a few of the leading targets. There is plenty of notional information that the Russian intelligence services have used private entities to carry out hacking against various Western targets. And there is some important proof that on a number of occasions the Russians have carried out sophisticated cyber attacks against foreign countries. The cases that are clear-cut include Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine, and there are surely others. But in direct attacks like those (hitting everything from power plants, banks, government agencies, military organizations, air defense systems, and communications), it does not appear that the Russians used third parties. Rather, those attacks were launched mostly by the Russian military.

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Five Ways for Trump to Put Tehran on Notice The new administration can renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal from a position of strength. By Michael Makovsky see note please

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

Oh Puleez…you cannot retrofit an evil deal with tyrants…you call the bad deal null and void and then start from scratch on our defense terms and as our renewed leadership of the free world….rsk

As the bipartisan opponents of President Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement prepare to address its many shortcomings, they should beware of unwittingly repeating some of his mistakes.

Instead of relying on more sanctions to dismantle or renegotiate the deal, the most urgent need is restoring U.S. credibility and resolve in opposing Iranian aggression and reshaping the Middle East.

Two fundamental misjudgments led to the disastrous nuclear agreement. First, Mr. Obama eschewed credible military threats and relied on congressionally generated economic sanctions to pressure Iran to negotiate. Second, he focused only on Iran’s nuclear program, ignoring its malignant regional misconduct. Free of pressure and scrutiny, Tehran shaped the agreement’s terms and expanded its aggression and influence.

The current policy debate has ignored these mistakes. Instead, it is focused on using sanctions to enforce and improve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. This narrow approach is counterproductive. The agreement front-loaded Iran’s economic benefits. But it only mothballed elements of its nuclear program; it did not eradicate it.

The U.S. will need years to rebuild a robust international sanctions regime; Iran requires mere weeks to rebuild its nuclear program. Even if Iran remains within the agreement’s framework, it might respond to sanctions by escalating its regional aggression, exerting its own more immediate and dangerous form of leverage.

A proven necessary ingredient in dealing with Iran is a credible military threat. Two examples: Tehran suspended elements of its nuclear program in 2003-04 following the U.S. overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and it never crossed Israel’s 2012 red line over its nuclear stockpile.

As the Trump administration considers Iran policy, including whether and how to enforce, renegotiate or cancel the nuclear agreement with Tehran, here are five policies it can implement to put Iran on notice and regain the strategic advantage:

First, instruct the Pentagon to update contingency plans for the use of force against Iran, including its nuclear facilities, especially in the event of a significant violation of, or withdrawal from, the nuclear agreement. This will communicate a new robust posture and prepare for what might be necessary. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Obama Can’t Redefine Sex A federal judge slaps down another executive overreach.

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

Among President Obama’s ironic legacies will be how frequently this former teacher of constitutional law has been called out by the federal courts for his aggressive abuse of executive power.

The latest rebuke came on the last day of 2016 in federal court in Texas. Judge Reed O’Connor sided with eight states and three private health-care providers that sued to block a new Health and Human Services rule. This rule defines the Affordable Care Act’s prohibitions against sex discrimination in a way that plaintiffs say will force doctors, hospitals and insurers that take federal funds to cover or perform abortions and gender-transition procedures even when this runs against their best medical judgment or religious beliefs.

The HHS rule rests on a bureaucratic redefinition of sexual discrimination and the deliberate dropping of religious protections Congress included in Title IX. As Judge O’Connor noted, the Title IX prohibitions against sex discrimination passed by Congress “unambiguously” referred to the biological distinction between men and women. The HHS redefinition, he found, deserved no deference because it was not grounded in “a valid grant of authority from Congress.”

The other part of this injunction had to do with the claims by the religious plaintiffs—including a Catholic hospital system and a Christian society of doctors—that the rule violated their rights. Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the government can infringe on religious exercise—but only where it has a compelling interest. Even when it does have a compelling interest, it has to choose the least restrictive way of pursuing it.

Judge O’Connor conceded that a preliminary injunction is “an extraordinary and drastic remedy, not to be granted routinely.” But he noted that Congress had not granted HHS the authority to redefine sex discrimination the way it had, and that the religious plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits.

In sum, another federal court has found the Obama Administration guilty of imposing its policy choices by fiat rather than doing the hard work of democracy and persuading the elected representatives of the American people. Donald Trump, please take note.

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Fake Ethics Reform Fiasco The House GOP shows it will too easily bend to liberals—and Trump.

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

The 115th Congress flopped into Washington on Tuesday with House Republicans proposing and then dropping marginal changes to an internal ethics office. The reversal is an unforced political error, but the GOP is right that the investigative body has the power to destroy reputations without due process.

By the way, Paul Ryan was re-elected Speaker Tuesday with one GOP defection, while Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi lost four Democrats. But that news was dwarfed as the House considered rules for the new Congress, and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte offered an amendment to restructure the Office of Congressional Ethics.

The office is composed of political grandees, often former Members, and it has no prosecutorial power. But it conducts investigations into Members or staffers and makes recommendations to the House Ethics Committee. The proposal limited what information can be released to the public and barred the committee from having a press secretary. Also banned: anonymous tips.

Mr. Ryan and other House leaders opposed the rule as badly timed. But the rank and file adopted the idea Monday night anyway, only to dump it on Tuesday after denunciations from the Democratic-media complex. The left rounded up callers to deluge Republican switchboards for “gutting” the outfit. Donald Trump couldn’t resist piling on with a pair of tweets: “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority.”

The reality is that the office is at best redundant and perhaps worse. Democrats created the office in 2008 to deflect attention from a crush of corruption scandals, including charges against at least three Members. The left is pitching the place as an essential institution of self-government, but the Senate manages to function without a similar office.

As it is, the ethics office is a roving investigator that can publish reports with details that may not be accurate and can damage a reputation with little or no proof of guilt. Evidence of wrongdoing in travel, campaign finances and other matters can be handled by the House Ethics Committee, and if necessary law-enforcement agencies. Both are politically accountable, unlike the independent office.

Anonymous complaints are especially insidious, as subjects of an investigation may not know who is accusing them—and the accuser may never have to press his case. Nixing the communications director is also worthy: A press secretary is nothing but a designated leaker. The office is a great tool for government “watchdog” groups that are progressives posing as transparency enthusiasts, which renders the proceedings even less fair. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Europe: The Case of the Vanishing Women by Judith Bergman

Posted By on January 4th, 2017

“It is best to wait outside. There are men in here… In this café, there is no diversity.” — Male customer in a café in Sevran, on France 2 television.

“In this café, there is no mixing. We are in Sevran, not Paris. Here there is a different mentality. It is like back home.” ­ — Another male customer in a café in Sevran, on France 2 television.

Women seem “to have been erased”, from the cafés and the streets. “So now to avoid threats, and being put under pressure, they censor themselves and keep quiet.” — Caroline Sinz, journalist, France 2 television.

This Islamization has been fueled and strengthened by Qatar’s heavy investments — particularly in mosques — in France, which currently stand at around $22 billion.

“There is a misplaced form of morality, often exercised by minority groups over a majority, which leads to the fact that the public space, supposedly belonging to both men and women, is restricted from women.” — Pascale Boistard, former French Minister for Women’s Rights

French ministers feign surprise and outrage that women in these suburbs have finally succumbed to the incessant terror against them and are disappearing from the streets.

Women have literally disappeared from cafés and bars in certain predominantly Muslim suburbs in France, according to recently aired undercover footage from the France 2 television channel. The footage featured two women activists, Nadia Remadna and Aziza Sayah, from the women’s rights campaign group, La Brigade des Mères (Brigade of Mothers), entering a café in the Paris suburb of Sevran, where they were met with surprise and hostility from the all-male customers. One told them: “It is best to wait outside. There are men in here… In this café, there is no diversity.”

Another customer told them: “In this café, there is no mixing. We are in Sevran, not Paris. Here there is a different mentality. It is like back home.”