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June 2020

Why Western Media is Biased Against Israel by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16078/media-bias-israel

Many foreign journalists seem to see the conflict along the lines of “good guys (Palestinians) versus bad guys (Israel).” They wake up every morning and search for any story that reflects badly on Israel. The foreign correspondents then hire Palestinians to assist them in spreading lies about Israel.

What is particularly disturbing about the dismissal of Hamad is that the Associated Press knew one of its Palestinian workers was engaged in anti-Israel activities, but failed to stop him. Hamad even ignored repeated warnings from his employers against pursuing political activities.

If Hamad had “repeatedly” violated AP policies by engaging in anti-Israel political activities, why was he allowed to continue covering Palestinian affairs even though his anti-Israel sentiments were known to his employers and everyone else?

The incident also shows that international news organizations evidently have no problem hiring anti-Israel activists as reporters and cameramen.

The AP evidently knew that Hamad was engaged in political activities. It nevertheless chose to turn a blind eye because Hamad was directing his hate only against Israel. As far as the AP is concerned, the moment Hamad spoke out against the brutality and repressive measures of the Palestinian Authority security forces, he crossed a red line. That is when he was informed of the decision to terminate his employment.

The problem is, there are many more Palestinian journalists like Hamad working for the international media in the Middle East. These journalists see themselves as soldiers serving the Palestinian cause, and their as duty bashing Israel on a daily basis.

When Palestinian journalist Eyad Hamad criticized Israel, his employers at the Associated Press (AP) summoned him for a hearing, which ended only with a warning.

When Hamad criticized the Palestinian Authority, however, he received a letter from the AP informing him that “your employment has been terminated.”

Erdoğan’s Libya Campaign: Another Neo-Ottoman Design by Burak Bekdil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16066/erdogan-turkey-libya-campaign

Erdoğan knows that every political adventure outside Turkish borders increases his popularity, especially at a time when economic hardships could prune his approval at home.

Further escalation may turn Libya into a second proxy for Turkey’s war theater, after Syria. There, Turkish and Russian interests remain deeply conflicting. Turkey wants to overthrow President Assad and to replace his regime with Sunni jihadists; Russia wants Assad in power and is fighting Sunni jihadists.

Libya is fast becoming another challenge for a man who loves military challenges — but tends to lose most of them.

A military confrontation between Turkey and Russia in Libya would be too risky a venture even for a ruler who does not want to miss a single opportunity to revive his country’s once glorious imperial past — especially at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently wishes to seal his country’s imperial dream of having a permanent presence in the Mediterranean — in Syria and Libya.

For Turkey, the Libya campaign is part of a sectarian (pro-Sunni) war. Erdoğan wants a loyal, Turkey-friendly regime in Libya, one that could be useful for restoring to power in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood, another Islamist Erdoğan ally, like Hamas

Russia’s Putin also appears keen to have his second permanent military presence in the Mediterranean after Syria.

Ironically, even during the Ottoman era (from early 16th century to 1912) Libya was divided into two parts: one linked to Tripoli in the west and the other linked to Benghazi in the east. Even then, the country largely resembled today’s division between an internationally-recognized government in Tripoli and its adversaries in the east.

More than a century after the last Ottoman soldiers left Libya following an Italian invasion in 1911, Turkey’s neo-Ottoman leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has apparently long harbored dreams of reviving the Ottoman Empire, at least revived the Libyan war theater with Turkish soldiers fighting a proxy war in the desert.

Governor Cuomo Orders Nursing Homes To Admit Rioters (Satire)

https://babylonbee.com/news/governor-cuomo-orders-nursing-homes-to-admit-rioters

ALBANY, NY—New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered nursing homes to admit violent rioters and protesters throughout the state.

“If we are going to be compassionate, caring, and pro-science, we need to admit these oppressed individuals into every care facility available,” he said at a press conference this morning. “I don’t want to hear any talk of how this might hurt old people. This isn’t the Dark Ages — we listen to SCIENCE in this state!”

The order forced nursing homes to admit anyone carrying a brick, Molotov cocktail, baseball bat, or bike lock and house them until they recover. Scientists agree this is the best possible move and say that anyone who has concerns about how it might affect the elderly is an anti-science bigot.

15 Reasons why Jews should Vote for Donald Trump Janet Levy see note please

I agree with Janet Levy completely, but the most important reason of all is that Donald Trump is good for America, the safest and most hospitable corner of the Diaspora….Please read the whole list…rsk

Liberal Cities, Radical Mayhem Democratic mayors and governors seem unable to stop the destruction of their own cities.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/liberal-cities-radical-mayhem-11591140986?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

“What all these cities have in common is that they are led by Democrats who seem to have bought into the belief that the police are a bigger problem than rampant disorder. They are either cowed by their party’s left, or they agree that America is systemically racist and rioting is a justified expression of anger against it. They offer pro forma disapproval of law breakers but refuse to act to stop them.”

The “broken-windows” school of policing says that you can help maintain public order by taking care of even small examples of disorder—such as fixing broken windows. Liberals scorned that policy in the last decade as somehow racist. Well, in recent days we’ve learned that America’s left does have a broken-windows policy: Let rioters break enough windows and loot enough stores and maybe their righteous anger will be satisfied.

That’s certainly how it looked when the June sun rose Tuesday over the broken glass, looted storefronts, burnt-out cars, and vandalized buildings in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Madison and other American cities. Public officials let rioters exploiting the memory of George Floyd run wild in the streets. Even after nearly a week of violence, these and other liberal Democratic cities let lawless radicals harass and plunder almost at will.

The Myth of Systemic Police Racism Hold officers accountable who use excessive force. But there’s no evidence of widespread racial bias. By Heather Mac Donald

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_h

George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis has revived the Obama-era narrative that law enforcement is endemically racist. On Friday, Barack Obama tweeted that for millions of black Americans, being treated differently by the criminal justice system on account of race is “tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal.’ ” Mr. Obama called on the police and the public to create a “new normal,” in which bigotry no longer “infects our institutions and our hearts.”

Joe Biden released a video the same day in which he asserted that all African-Americans fear for their safety from “bad police” and black children must be instructed to tolerate police abuse just so they can “make it home.” That echoed a claim Mr. Obama made after the ambush murder of five Dallas officers in July 2016. During their memorial service, the president said African-American parents were right to fear that their children may be killed by police officers whenever they go outside.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz denounced the “stain . . . of fundamental, institutional racism” on law enforcement during a Friday press conference. He claimed blacks were right to dismiss promises of police reform as empty verbiage.

This charge of systemic police bias was wrong during the Obama years and remains so today.

These black lives don’t matter, as far as the national media are concerned By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/these_black_lives_dont_matter_as_far_as_the_national_media_are_concerned.html

The death of George Floyd has convulsed the nation for a week now, the literal flames fanned by the national media.  But a far larger — and ongoing — death toll of (mostly) young black men in Chicago slain by gang warfare gets almost no attention — perhaps because the many killers in question are mostly other young black men of the criminal gang persuasion.

As rioters looted, burned, assaulted, and killed nationwide, Chicago saw one of its worst weekend death tolls ever.

The Chicago Sun-Times tallies “82 shot, 22 fatally, over Chicago’s most violent weekend of 2020.”  By that newspaper’s count, 17 of the 22 killed were felled on Sunday, following a Saturday night marked by riots and destruction.  The Cook County medical examiner counted only 15 gun homicides countrywide, but the office did note that the medical examiner conducted 35 autopsies that day, 15 to 20 more than normal:

“This is an unprecedented amount of homicides in one day for our office,” said Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Ponni Arunkumar. “The most I can recall in one day since I started here in 2003 is 10.”

Killer Cops and Racist Hate Crimes A reflection on separate and unequal responses. Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/minnesota-madness-lloyd-billingsley/

Within days of causing the death of African American George Floyd by holding a knee to his neck, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. If convicted, Chauvin faces 12 years in prison, the same sentence drawn by another deadly Minneapolis cop.

In 2017,  Mohamed Noor, a Somali-born Muslim (pictured above) and his partner Matthew Harrity, responded to a 911 call from Australian woman Justine Damond. The officers’ body cams were turned off so there was no video of Mohamed Noor gunning down Damond as she approached the police car.

According to the medical examiner, Noor’s bullet struck an abdominal artery and the 40-year-old woman, who was to be married within a month, lost so much blood that prompt medical attention might not have saved her. Police officer Mohamed Noor refused to speak with state investigators.

As prosecutors noted, no forensic evidence proved that Damond even touched the squad car, as the shooter Mohamed Noor claimed. The officer, 33, had been a prize police recruit, celebrated as an example of diversity. After charges were filed, Noor lost his job but the local police association supported him.

Britannia’s Riots Envy? Are there Brits who want in on the looting and vandalizing? Katie Hopkins

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/britannias-riots-envy-katie-hopkins/

EXCERPTS

“Who could have believed a virus would cause politicians to lock down free people? How did the death of one black man in custody cause riots when ten were killed by their own hand in one weekend in Chicago? How is it possible for men to hate each other this much, to want to kill a stranger over a fight neither of them started? Where are all the powerful black voices who should be calling for calm?  Democrats keep pouring fuel on the fire even when their own house is ablaze. None of it makes any sense. ”

But as I watch events unfold across America, I feel strangely returned to that world again, halfway between conscious and not. Physically present but absented by other forces out of my control. Somehow I have woken up in a place where nothing makes sense and everything is warped beyond recognition. 

Like a dog, I can feel myself tilting my head at the screens in front of me, trying to make sense of the picture and noises coming out of them.

America is on fire. A small woman stands in her doorway trying to protect her stores, attacked by a mob wielding planks and stones. A man in white jeans is set on by looters who take running kicks at his head. A rock is flung with full force, a man’s life ended by a stranger who first set eyes on him just thirty seconds earlier. 

DC, NYC, Denver, Louisiana, Minneapolis, LA County, Atlanta, all fighting on the streets, fueled by the insanity of lives locked down, divided, unable to distinguish good from bad. It’s rather like a boiling ham frothing over with all the heat that’s been applied. If you could stop people to ask why they fight, why they threw that kick, that rock, looted this store, they would answer with a slogan or a name: George Floyd. 

The Sole Justification Offered for the Riots Is a Fiction By John Hirschauer

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/the-sole-justification-offered-for-the-riots-is-a-fiction/

Rioters and their enablers claim that the present disorder is justified by an epidemic of police shootings of unarmed black men. But no such epidemic exists.

There is a lot we don’t yet know about the interaction between Derek Chauvin and George Floyd — National Review’s Andy McCarthy has done yeoman’s work in sifting through the police report and highlighting some of the remaining uncertainties. We do have that video, though. And what that video depicts — the way that Floyd writhes in pain and gasps for his late mother with his final breaths — is enough to stir even the most callous viewer to outrage.

And stir it has — the anger has been nearly universal. The president, in his way, decried the killing. Conservative and liberal commentators alike have, in their way, condemned the officer’s actions. The system, in its way, is responding, too. All of the officers involved were fired. Derek Chauvin is sitting in a maximum-security prison awaiting trial on murder and manslaughter charges. Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison is “moving as expeditiously, quickly, and effectively” as possible to arraign the other officers involved, as the facts allow. Chauvin will get his day in court. Floyd’s family will, too.

No one of prominence thinks that Chauvin should not face justice. No one of prominence has excused his behavior, or defended the indifference of his partners. No one of prominence feels anything but awful sympathy for George Floyd and his family. Most everyone agrees on these points, and most everyone is outraged.

It is in the context of this universal outrage that we are asked to consider the behavior of the looters and rioters, the vigilantes and anarchists, the masked delinquents defacing property, ransacking stores, and burning police cars in an orgy of disorder and destruction.