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November 2019

Israel’s credit rating, natural gas and automotive tech Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

1. According to Standard & Poor, Fitch and Moody’s – the world’s top credit rating companies – Israel and Australia are the only two Western countries whose 2019 credit rating (reflecting economic growth) is higher than it was before the global economic meltdown of 2007/2008. Currently, Israel is rated AA- by Standard & Poor, A+ by Fitch and A1 by Moody’s.

2. According to the London Economist (November 5, 2019), despite short-term political uncertainty, Israel’s economic growth is sustained by a strong domestic consumption, an expansion of natural gas explorations, findings and export, and the continued dynamism of the hightech sector, which has attracted substantial foreign investment. For example,Intel announced its plan to invest $11BN in a new export-oriented semiconductor manufacturing facility in Israel [as a follow up to the 2016 acquisition of Israel’s Mobileye for $15.3BN and investment in scores of Israeli startups].

Israel’s economy features low unemployment (3.7%) and rising real wages. Exports are expected to rise despite the relative global economic slowdown, and independent of the continued appreciation of the Shekel (the strongest currency against the US dollar), but due to the initiation of natural gas exports.
GDP growth is expected to slow to 2.9% in 2020, before recovering to 3.8% in 2021 and 4% in 2022.

3. The NYC-based Centerbridge Partners and Greenwich, CT-based Gallatin Point Capital acquired 32.5% of Phoenix (Israel’s 2nd largest insurance group) for $450MN (Globes Business Daily, Nov. 5, 2019). Germany’s insurance giant, Munich Re, invested $250MN in Israel’s Next Digital Insurance startup, which was founded in 2016 by entrepreneurs who in 2014 sold their previous startup, Check, to the Silicon Valley-basedIntuit for $360MN (Globes, October 8). The Greenwich, CT-based General Atlantic led a $165MN investment in Israel’s Riskified, which develops software preventing fraud and verifying consumer identities (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 5). Israel has become Europe’s Silicon Valley. During the first half of 2019, German investors accounted to 30% of the number of European deals in Israel’s ecosystem, including a branch of Merck, the global pharmaceutical giant. While German investment profile is dwarfed by the USA, 60% of the leading Frankfurt Stock Exchange companies have Israeli branches, seeking Israeli technologies, surging since 2016. In 2018, German investors were 4th in the number of Israeli deals – 5% of total deals foreign investment – between the UK’s 7% and China’s 4% (Globes, August 12).

SYDNEY WILLIAMS ON IMPEACHMENT

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

“Impeachment is a distraction to a people who must decide what sort of country they want – Socialism, with its costs in dollars and lost freedoms, or free market capitalism, which offers the social and economic escalator of opportunity that takes people up and down. For all of our sakes, I hope they choose the latter.”

The American journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken once wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the people alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” And the granddaddy of all hobgoblins is impeachment, at least here in the fourth quarter of 2019, a year from a presidential election that will see the most vilified President we have ever had run against one of the most far-left leaning candidates ever nominated. “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night,” said Bette Davis in the 1951 movie “It’s All About Eve.”  For us Americans, it will be a bumpy year.

Cynicism fills the air. Politicians live by scruples known only to themselves. Their concern is their own welfare and that of their party. Their goal is power. That end justifies whatever means or processes are felt necessary to achieve it. Yet, they wrap themselves in cloaks of righteous indignation. “Every member should support allowing the American people to hear the facts for themselves…this is nothing less than our democracy.” Stirring but hypocritical words spoken by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as she allowed Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to conduct impeachment hearings – hearings held in secret, where Republicans were not allowed to call witnesses and to which Mr. Trump’s lawyers were banned from attending. Schiff and the media have made much of diplomats fired, like the former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Do they forget that elections have consequences? Foreign policy is the responsibility of the President and changing ambassadors is expected and common.

Pompeo: United States Fostered China’s Rise At The Expense Of American Values Ben Weingarten

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/07/pompeo-united-states-fostered-chinas-rise-at-th

What was revelatory in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s remarks was his forthright recognition of the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its ambitions.

While Washington is consumed with the political theater of impeachment, Trump administration officials have begun a vital effort to engage the American people—and the world—on the defining substantive issue of our time in national security and foreign policy: The imperative to counter the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

At last week’s annual Hudson Institute Herman Kahn Award Gala, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the guest of honor, delivered a poignant and powerful address on the unfolding strategic competition between the United States and China.

In Pompeo’s speech, dubbed “The China Challenge,” he surveyed the history of American willful blindness and consequent folly toward the totalitarian regime, acknowledging that “we accommodated and encouraged China’s rise for decades…even when that rise was at the expense of American values, Western democracy, and security, and good common sense.”

He illustrated the dichotomy whereby the CCP has created a “permanent class of China lobbyists in the United States” that has manipulated U.S. leaders while exerting complete control over the flow of information into its mainland. Therefore, while the CCP’s narrative has flourished here, our counter-narrative has never entered there.

He detailed the harmful consequences for America and the world, in the way of China’s: rampant intellectual property theft; demands that those who transact with it toe the Communist Party line; asymmetric weapons development; threats to international order and commerce on the seas where trillions of dollars in goods flow; “debt trap diplomacy”—or a “loan-to-own” plan to buy power and influence around the world—memorialized by the “Belt and Road Initiative”; coercive acts eroding any semblance of “One Country, Two Systems” in Hong Kong; and persecution of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang.

McGill University’s student newspaper publishes anti-Israel editorial

https://www.jns.org/canadian-university-student-newspaper-publishes-anti-israel-editorial/

The paper also refused to publish a letter to the editor on the basis that pro-Israel students are not entitled to be part of a “dialogue that gives a platform to ideas which dehumanize a group of people.”

The newspaper at McGill University in Montreal, The McGill Daily—one of Canada’s largest student papers—published an editorial this week falsely describing Zionism as a “colonial movement,” a “racist attitude” and “a violent practice,” and advised students who wanted to learn more about Zionism to refer to a leading BDS website for more information.

The Monday editorial also expressed outrage at the school’s administration, which had stepped in to apply pressure on the editorial board to publish a letter to the editor written by two Jewish pro-Israel law students decrying the paper’s anti-Semitic description of Zionism. According to the Daily’sown constitution, it is required to publish all letters it receives.

Regardless, the editors refused to publish the letter on the basis that pro-Israel students are not entitled to be part of a “dialogue that gives a platform to ideas which dehumanize a group of people.”

After McGill administrators threatened to pull Daily funding over the issue, the paper’s editors capitulated and published the letter, titled “Response to McGill Daily on Zionism,” which also appeared in Monday’s issue. It pointed out that “there’s a reason why the vast majority of Jews around the world (especially those at McGill) identify as Zionist, and it’s not because they’re violent, racist, colonialists; it’s because they actually understand what Zionism is and through their lived experiences, understand why it’s necessary.”

Former BU Law School faculty member writes scathing letter to the university’s president

https://mailchi.mp/peaceandtolerance/boston-university-anti-semitism-scandal-heats-up?e=c4e6370125

In these times of rising anti-Semitism, I have just learned that Boston University is considering appointing Sarah Ihmoud, a terrible anti-Semite to a tenure track position in its sociology department. I understand that letters of concern and alarm submitted to the president, provost, and others have been met with a “none of your business” type of response, together with assurances that the process is being handled “based on peer evaluation of a candidate’s scholarly and professional achievements within the appropriate discipline and according to established disciplinary criteria… consistent with our established criteria and processes.”  The quote is from a form letter being sent out by President Brown. 
 
In point of fact, I have learned from colleagues on the law school faculty, where I taught in the BU Defenders Program, that nothing about this potential hire is being handled in accordance with established criteria and processes. The hire is being considered as an accommodation to a recent law faculty hire — Ihmoud is his wife. The position was not advertised, and there was no applicant pool, as required by BU’s established — and written — practices and processes.
 
What is worse is that her “scholarly” achievements are works based on viciously defamatory and easily refuted assertions about Israel. For instance, she writes in In the Absence of Justice, a report she co-authored with Shaloub-Kevorkian, another rabid anti-Semite who claims that Israelis sell Palestinian body parts, do medical experiments and test weapons on Palestinian children — see http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23511, that

Existing studies on gendered aspects of military occupation in East Jerusalem reveal that even in times of death, women are stripped of dignity and security, and their safe burial is jeopardized by the militarized regime (Shalhoub-Kevorkian 2013). Women are prevented from safely reaching health professionals and finding a safe place to give birth, and face humiliation in Israeli hospitals during treatment, operations, giving birth, miscarriages and more (ibid.). Gendered violence was also apparent when examining the effects of surveillance over women, mainly in relation to the immense security devices and cameras in and around homes, schools and streets (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2015). Sexual and psychological abuse and harassment of women at checkpoints, by Israeli soldiers was also another factor affecting women. harassment by Israeli soldiers, including being made to undress when crossing checkpoints, was found to have increased women’s sense of loss of their bodily integrity and added to their humiliation and oppression (ibid., p. 63).

APROPOS BOSTON UNIVERSITY A NOTE FROM DPS

Be sure to read the BU Law Professor’s letter to BU’s President.

I could inundate you with dozens of new articles on this subject every day. I won’t do so daily but I will periodically so the subject doesn’t fade from your consciousness. And please don’t fall for the outright lies about Israeli oppression of Palestinian Arabs. That’s nothing more than the evolution of anti-Semitism into a new form the way deadly viruses and bacteria have genetically changed themselves over the years as they become resistant to then available cures.  

Most American Jews are in a state of denial about this because it hasn’t affected them personally yet (despite the armed guards outside their synagogue entrances) and many Americans are either totally unaware of what is happening because it doesn’t affect them at all or, if they are aware of it, are willing to say it’s not good, but not willing to do a whole lot about it because it doesn’t really mean much in their daily lives. But one day they’ll come for the Christians (it has already begun) and then perhaps they get more active.

The Jews’ best allies in this war are Evangelical Christians, whom Jews on the right side of the political spectrum love and share many values with. Jews on the political left are too married to the left’s political doctrine of “social justice,” still thinking of themselves as having to right the world’s perceived wrongs – many of which are total baloney – because they were once the persecuted, and refusing to see and acknowledge that their supposed allies in those battles are now their anti-Semitic enemies. 

This Jew hatred isn’t driven by the extreme political right. They are truly a fringe element of our society. It is driven by the political left and the Muslim world – and most especially Muslims on college and university campuses around the country  Academia has been its petrie dish and now the deadly germ nurtured there has escaped into broader western culture – right into the House of Congress and one of the two major British political Parties, to cite but two highly visible examples amongst hundreds around the world every day. DPS

Do Not Support China’s Huawei, Cripple It Instead by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15138/china-cripple-huawei

China, with control of 5G, will be in a position to remotely manipulate the world’s devices. In peacetime, Beijing could have the ability to drive cars off cliffs, unlock front doors, and turn off pacemakers. In war, Beijing could paralyze critical infrastructure.

There is no mystery to how Beijing thinks it will grab control…. The Chinese will use Huawei Technologies…. Huawei is a dagger aimed at the heart of America, and as the unnamed adviser… suggests, the threat is a mortal one.

There are various strategies for meeting China’s 5G challenge, but the most direct one is crippling Huawei. The Trump administration has taken steps to do so, but now that effort is on the verge of collapse.

The Commerce Department looks set to support that dangerous Chinese firm. US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is thinking too small. The United States, instead of trying to make sales, should be stopping everyone from selling to Huawei.

The Trump administration should be forcing others — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan — to make a choice: sell to Huawei or sell to the world’s largest market, America’s…. If they should not be buying Huawei, then Americans should not be supplying that Chinese company either.

Let us put Huawei out of business, not support its efforts to harm us.

“A prominent Republican who advises President Donald Trump called America’s 5G strategy ‘the biggest strategic disaster in U.S. history,'” wrote China-watcher David Goldman recently.

Many people will regard that as an exaggeration, but America’s failure to have a 5G strategy will almost certainly prove to have historic consequences.

“5G” is shorthand for the fifth generation of wireless communication.

“In the very near future, dominating the wireless world will be tantamount to dominating the world,” wrote Newt Gingrich in Newsweek in February. That is not an exaggeration.

Middle East: The Anti-Iran Revolution is Well Underway by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15140/middle-east-anti-iran

The nationwide protests taking place in both Arab states [Lebanon and Iraq] are also driven by a burning desire to end Iran’s blatant attempts to turn them into de facto fiefdoms of Tehran.

The protests, moreover, could not have come at a worse time for Iran, where the economy is in freefall as a result of the wide-ranging sanctions that have been introduced by Washington.

Local protesters are now making plain that their dislike for Iranian meddling in their affairs could soon spell the end for Tehran’s ambition to become the region’s dominant power.

Iran’s attempts to expand its malign influence throughout the Middle East have suffered a severe setback as a result of the unprecedented anti-government protests that have erupted in Lebanon and Iraq in recent weeks.

The most obvious source of discontent in these two key Arab states has been the endemic corruption that has taken hold in both Beirut and Baghdad; in both countries, it has been the prime motivation in persuading tens of thousands of demonstrators to take to the streets.

The desire to end corrupt practices and force the governments in Beirut and Baghdad to undertake a radical overhaul of their respective countries’ governments is, though, only part of the story.

The nationwide protests taking place in both Arab states are also driven by a burning desire to end Iran’s blatant attempts to turn them into de facto fiefdoms of Tehran.

Iran’s attempts to seize control of the political agenda in Lebanon dates back to the early 1980s, when Iran established its Hezbollah militia in the southern part of the country to launch a series of terrorist attacks against Israeli forces operating in the area. Since then, Hezbollah — with Iran’s backing — has gradually extended its influence in the country to the point where Hezbollah is now widely recognised as Lebanon’s most influential political organisation.

Iranian interference in Iraq’s affairs, by contrast, is of more recent provenance, and can be traced back to the sectarian violence that erupted throughout the country following the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. More recently, Iran has been able to expand its influence in Baghdad by taking advantage of the recent campaign to defeat ISIS, where Iranian-backed Shia militias — the so-called Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) — fought against the predominantly Sunni militants who supported ISIS.

The Greatness Agenda The Pentagon, Prudence, and Missile Defense Rachel Bovard

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/06/the-pentagon-prudence-and-missile-defense/

While the allure of new technology to keep the country safe is understandable, it cannot and should not be pursued in a way that leaves the homeland open to direct threats.

Earlier this year, the U.S. military acknowledged that North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles can now hit targets anywhere in the continental United States. Bizarrely, the Pentagon has responded by cutting the one program that could stop them.

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program, which has existed since the early 2000s, is designed to protect the homeland from an intercontinental missile (ICBM) attack. Or, in other words, to act as the last line of defense in the event of nuclear war.

It does this by shooting ICBMs out of the sky. The GMD, which is made up of 64 ground-based launchers, sends out “kill vehicles” which use sensors, lasers, and rocket thrusters to track and catch ICBMs, destroying them before they hit the earth.

To most people it sounds like the stuff of “Star Wars” novels, but, increasingly, it is a necessary tool in a constantly changing, missile-heavy world. Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran either possess nuclear missiles, or are working hard to acquire them—to say nothing of other rogue nations and failed states doing the same.

This makes the Pentagon’s recent decision to terminate the program all the more confusing.

That the GMD has long been in need of an update is without question. Just one percent of the Pentagon’s mammoth budget goes toward missile defense—and of that one percent, a significant portion is spent overseas, defending U.S. forces and allies. Our “kill vehicles”—the central component of the GMD system, which take out incoming missiles—have been in need of a reboot for quite some time.

The Pentagon was working steadily toward a re-design of the program, before pausing it in May, and then outright canceling it in August.

Six Questions for Impeachment Fans Adam Mill

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/06/six-questions-for-impeachment-fans/

Advocates for impeachment are invited to answer six questions that should shed more light on the perplexities of their case.

I don’t understand. Former Vice President Joe Biden asked Ukraine to fire a prosecutor so Donald Trump needs to be impeached? I need somebody to connect the dots. Before we go any further down the road of impeachment, I’m challenging advocates of impeachment to answer these six questions.

Should Joe Biden be immune from consequence if, as suspected, he threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine to enforce his demand to remove the prosecutor investigating his son’s Ukrainian company?

This is more than a “conspiracy theory.” Joe Biden bragged openly about having the prosecutor fired. And contrary to the reporting that the investigation went dormant, we just learned from investigative reporter John Solomon that Ukrainian authorities “raided the home of the oligarch who owned the gas firm and employed Hunter Biden, a signal the long-running corruption probe was escalating in the middle of the U.S. presidential election.” Solomon went on to report that Burisma specifically invoked Hunter Biden’s name in its efforts to enlist U.S. diplomatic help to stop the investigation.

Most Americans agree that we cannot afford to have our foreign policy guided by these side-deals between foreign interests and the relatives of politicians and diplomats charged with representing U.S. interests. Americans have a lot of questions about why certain policies are promoted by the establishment in spite of public opinion to the contrary. This is a serious problem of experts ignoring elections and subverting the will of the American people.

With Hunter Biden receiving an outsized salary and his father using U.S. aid to get the prosecutor fired, why shouldn’t U.S. authorities look into that?