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March 2020

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Netanyahu at the Cusp of a Dramatic Comeback After Monday’s Elections By P. David Hornik

By on March 4th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/trending/netanyahu-at-the-cusp-of-a-dramatic-comeback/

Israel went to the polls on Monday. By Tuesday morning, as vote-counting proceeded, it appeared all but certain that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Likud Party, and his right-wing bloc had scored a dramatic comeback victory.

First it will help to recap.

Netanyahu was prime minister from 1996 to 1999, and again consecutively from 2009 to 2019, winning elections in 2009, 2013, and 2015. When he ran again in April 2019, it seemed he’d won again handily as the right-wing bloc took 65 seats out of Israel’s 120-member Knesset (to win you need 61).

But something happened on the way to coalition-forming. Avigdor Liberman, head of a secular-hawkish faction, demanded that Netanyahu stop making concessions to two ultra-religious parties that had been part of his coalition since 2015.

It was a demand Netanyahu had to refuse, since his ultra-religious coalition parties held far more seats than Liberman’s faction, which had won all of five seats. But when Liberman pulled out of the coalition, it was left with 60 seats—one short of the 61-seat minimum. Israel has been in electoral limbo ever since.

Especially because in the September 2019 elections, Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc—sans Lieberman’s faction—slipped even further to 55 seats. Netanyahu’s main challenger, former chief of staff Benny Gantz, led his centrist Blue and White party to an impressive performance—but his bloc, like Netanyahu’s, fell way short of 61 mandates. (If you’re wondering about the arithmetic, the remaining mandates went to the Joint List, an Israeli Arab party that’s hostile to Israel as a Jewish state and not grist for anyone’s coalition.)

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POLITICS Comments turned off

The Biden Resurgence A very Super Tuesday makes the former Vice President the best Democratic hope to beat Bernie Sanders.

By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-resurgence-11583298561?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Hold the revolution. The Bernie Sanders takeover of the Democratic Party took a detour on Super Tuesday as Joe Biden’s political resurrection that began in South Carolina on Saturday continued in the Southeast and expanded into the Middle West and even Bernie Sanders country in the Northeast. Maybe President Trump wished too soon for Mr. Sanders as his opponent.

Literally in four days the Democratic race has turned upside down. Mr. Biden replicated his South Carolina coalition of African-Americans, Baby Boomers and center-left voters for a crushing victory in Virginia with 53.3% of the vote. He won North Carolina more narrowly, but his margin with black Democrats again made the difference. He also won Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and by our deadline was competitive in Texas and Maine.

The former Vice President ran away with the vote among late deciders, which means he benefited from the rush of endorsements that followed South Carolina. The party is almost literally lifting the old war horse on its back despite his many gaffes and stumbles. The prospect of an avowed socialist at the top of the ticket has scared millions of Democrats into Mr. Biden’s arms no matter his liabilities.

His strong performance will keep him close to Mr. Sanders in the delegate count, though we won’t know how close until the results in California are clear. But his victories may be most important for restoring credibility to Mr. Biden’s argument that he is the Democrat who is best able to defeat Mr. Trump.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Is Netanyahu’s significant victory sufficient? The significance of this election—the third in less than a year—lies in its elements of surprise. In the first place, voter turnout reached 71 percent, the highest in 21 years. Ruthie Blum

By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/is-netanyahus-significant-victory-suff

Keeping in mind that the results of Israel’s Knesset elections are not final, the tally indicates that the attempt to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed abysmally. It remains to be seen whether his party’s victory on Monday means that his bloc has enough of a majority to form a government. While the initial numbers were encouraging—with Likud outnumbering its key rival, Blue and White by four mandates and the right-wing bloc surpassing the left-wing block by five—throughout Tuesday’s ongoing vote count and verification, the picture continued to fluctuate. By late afternoon, it appeared that Netanyahu’s victory was amazing, but not sufficient.

The significance of this election—the third in less than a year—lies in its elements of surprise. In the first place, voter turnout reached 71 percent, the highest in 21 years.

Despite public whining about “election fatigue” and surveys suggesting that the political deadlock would not be broken, citizens came out in record numbers to cast their ballots. Contrary to descriptions of countrywide malaise, the atmosphere at polling stations was cheerful and energetic. Social media was rife with smiling selfies of voters doing their civic duty, as well as photos of children accompanying their parents in the process.

Even most of the 5,500 Israelis subjected to house quarantine—as a result of possibly being exposed to the coronavirus—showed up at the 16 special tents set up for them across the country. Though they complained of long lines, they appeared to be happy to be out in the world after spending several days stuck in isolation, with only Netflix to keep them company.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Conservative Consensus Netanyahu beats expectations in the country’s third election.

By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-conservative-consensus-11583281438?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

A nationalist leader runs against liberal elites and a rigged system. He’s opposed by most of the security establishment, called a threat to democracy, and bombarded with legal investigations and prosecutions. Yet the efforts to use the legal system to oust him fail and even cause his support with voters to tick upward.

That could apply to President Trump, but it also reflects the political saga of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Monday outperformed expectations at the ballot box even as his corruption trial looms. Sixty-one seats in the Knesset are required for a majority government, and Mr. Netanyahu’s center-right coalition is expected to secure 58 to the opposition’s 55 in the latest Haaretz tally.

That’s a notable improvement on the 55 seats Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition won last time, but it may not be enough to break the political stalemate that has led to three Israeli elections in a year. If the numbers hold, the Prime Minister still must coax at least three parliamentarians from opposing parties to his side.

Mr. Netanyahu’s comfortable majority fell apart last May when a secular nationalist party headed by Avigdor Lieberman broke with Mr. Netanyahu over his accommodation of military exemptions for Haredi Jews. The second election in September saw Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc shrink, but the opposing Blue and White coalition also couldn’t form a government.

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

THE WHISTLERS? MARILYN PENN

By on March 4th, 2020

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2020/03/03/the-whistlers/

I can’t call this a review because I will admit that I cannot give a coherent plot line to this Rumanian film about crooks and cops and an ancient whistling language developed for sending messages across hills and valleys in the Canary Islands. I got that info from Joe Morgenstern’s review in the WSJ. He must have learned that from a helpful press release along with some other information that allowed him to sketch a thin line of action sufficient to find a “witty riff on Hitchcock” and a “surreal flow between reality and movie tropes.”

You will be able to recognize bad guys with guns and knives and stolen money, a nude sexy damsel working with them, a double-agent cop, his beautiful aging mother, his very pretty female boss, plus assorted other characters who drift into frame with or without motivation One of these is an American film-maker presumably scouting for locations. This may be a Rumanian wink understood only by fans of the director Corneliu Porumboiu – try saying that in English.

One of the things I find essential for knowing whether a movie is good, bad or both is the ability to understand what is happening. In this case, speaking Rumanian might help a bit, but it would never explain how the people who learned to communicate by whistling would ever be able to convey the message that “cristi is in the Cornaline Hospital in Room 437″ or “When you recover and get out of the hospital, meet me in Singapore in a year.” I know how hard it would be to express those messages in pig Latin so just try whistling those with your fingers in your mouth, your tongue depressed and the rest of you totally bewildered. Puleez!!!

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Top 10 Reasons Why Democratic Candidates Should Terrify You on the Glazov Gang

By on March 3rd, 2020

https://jamieglazov.com/2020/03/03/top-10-reasons-why-democratic-candidates-sh

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Get Out of Afghanistan It doesn’t matter if the peace deal is good or bad, whether it halts the fighting or causes more strife. The American people want out. Julie Kelly

By on March 3rd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/02/get-out-of-afghanistan/

Over the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tweeted out her condolences for the first known American to die from coronavirus. Recycling her two favorite yet still unconvincing words from impeachment—”sadly and prayerfully”—Pelosi mourned the loss of the still-unknown victim.

The Democratic leader has offered no such sympathy for Javier Gutierrez, Antonio Rodriguez, lan McLaughlin, or Miguel Villalon: All four are U.S. soldiers who were killed in fighting in Afghanistan this year. (Two additional service members died in a January plane crash.)

With few exceptions, America’s longest war is largely ignored by our political class while the costs and casualties mount. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held a hearing last month on the Washington Post’s explosive and infuriating series on the war in Afghanistan: Only three of his colleagues bothered to attend. The sole Democrat in attendance was the committee’s ranking member, Senator Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.).

“Doing nothing is no longer an option for any senator or member of Congress with a conscience,” Paul said, perhaps during a moment of wishful thinking. 

The long-time proponent of ending the Afghanistan war ticked off the stats: Nearly 2,400 dead U.S. servicemen and women with more than 20,000 wounded. Soldiers who have faced numerous deployments since the war began in 2001. And nearly $1 trillion in U.S. tax dollars—an average of $50 billion per year for almost 20 years, as Paul pointed out—spent in a backward nation that still ranks near the bottom of the list of the world’s most economically and politically free countries.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

We’re Accumulating More Critical Information About The Coronavirus Every Day Henry I. Miller

By on March 3rd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/03/03/were-accumulating-more-critical-information-about-the-coronavirus-every-day/

With cases of the new coronavirus (officially SARS-CoV-2, and the illness it causes designated COVID-19) spreading, there is intense interest in what we know and what we can expect. Here’s a primer.

There are several factors that determine how damaging and worrisome outbreaks will be. The first is the degree of infectiousness, or ability to spread. Examples of the extremes are noroviruses, which can sweep rapidly through an institution or cruise ship, and the rabies virus, which is almost always transmitted to humans through the bite of a warm-blooded animal.

The second is virulence — the severity or degree of pathogenicity of the infection. Using the same two examples as above, norovirus infections cause severe nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, but the symptoms are short-lived and almost never cause significant morbidity if treated symptomatically. Thus, although high in infectivity, they are low in virulence. By contrast, by affecting the brain, rabies gives rise to central nervous system symptoms and is almost always fatal once symptoms occur.

Not surprisingly, the most worrying events are a combination of high levels of both infectiousness and virulence. An example of that would be flu in a bad year — one in which the vaccines aren’t a good match for the viruses circulating in the population, which gives rise to high numbers of illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths. This flu season in the Northern Hemisphere is looking like a pretty average one; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that so far this season there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths from flu. And those figures are in spite of pretty effective vaccines — again, about average, at 45%.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hillary’s Reckoning Isn’t Over

By on March 3rd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/03/03/hillarys-reckoning-isnt-over/

The increasingly desperate Democratic Party and its allies in the media weep tears of joy at the thought of Hillary Clinton riding in to save the party, perhaps after a deadlocked Democratic National Convention. No such luck. After a judge’s decision Monday, Clinton would be wise to lay presidential dreams aside and lawyer up.

It’s been a long time since Clinton’s unquestionably illegal private email and homebrew server have even been mentioned in the media. But legal activist group Judicial Watch didn’t forget.

It was Judicial Watch’s request five years ago about the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi terrorist attack that led to the uncovering of Clinton’s private email network.

On Monday, acting on a request from Judicial Watch, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he would allow Judicial Watch to depose the one-time secretary of state, her former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and two other State Department officials.

Not only will this bring back questions about Hillary’s actions before and after the Benghazi terrorist attack, in which four Americans were murdered, but it will at minimum serve as a reminder of the failure of her tenure as the nation’s top diplomat.

In making his judgment, Lamberth made clear he doesn’t believe the government has been forthcoming in its responses thus far.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Islam, Global Muslim Jew-Hatred, And Failed Jewish “Leadership” Sheer cowardice in the face of canonical Islamic anti-Semitism. Andrew Bostom

By on March 3rd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/islam-global-muslim-jew-hatred-and-failed-jewish-andrew-g-bostom/

[Editor’s note: Below is the text of Dr. Andrew Bostom’s 10-minute talk in Nashville TN, on Thursday Feb 27, 2020, during a ‘Proclaiming Justice to The Nations, Panel on Antisemitism’, at The National Religious Broadcasters Convention.]

Islamic Law, Sharia, per Koran 9:29—the 9th sura or chapter, the 29th verse—mandates waging jihad war to submit Jews and Christians to a humiliating status of religious discrimination, and legal inequality, if they do not accept the true faith, i.e., Islam.

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

But Islam also singles the Jews out, uniquely, for opprobrium, as is evident in the 7th verse of the Koran’s first chapter, called the “fatiha,” or “opening,” which pious Muslims repeat 17- times daily. This verse refers to those who have “incurred Allah’s anger”, and both a tradition of Islam’s prophet Muhammad himself, and over 13 centuries of authoritative Koranic commentaries, till now, maintain this reference is to the Jews. Why have they engendered Allah’s anger? Here is a 1940 summary “rationale” by the great scholar of Islam’s anti-Jewish polemic Moshe Perlmann, from a chapter entitled, “Jews in the Koran and Traditions” (which mirrors a 1966 work by Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, modern Sunni Islam’s greatest Koranic commentator, and Papal equivalent Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s Vatican, from 1996 to 2010, also entitled, “Jews in the Koran and Traditions”):

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