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Ruth King

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Egyptian Analyst Looks Forward to ‘End of Hamas,’ the ‘Main Obstacle to Peace’ “The Jews have been in this land since the days of the Prophet Abraham. This is their land.” by Hugh Fitzgerald

By on January 24th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/egyptian-analyst-looks-forward-to-end-of-hamas-the-main-obstacle-to-peace/

Magdi Khalil does not mention a “right of return” for Palestinians. Nor does he mention the Palestinian insistence that its future capital must be in east Jerusalem. He thinks it must be left up to the parties to figure out what kind of modus vivendi will be possible. “Egyptian analyst sanity on Lebanese TV: ‘Hamas is the problem, Arabs have to stop thinking Israel will disappear, Hezbollah hijacked Lebanon,’” Elder of Ziyon, January 11, 2024:

He expressed his optimism that a solution would be reached immediately after the end of the war and after the end of Hamas, the main obstacle to peace, “since serious peace talks will begin to reach a demilitarized Palestinian state under security supervision by Israel for years, but there is not yet a qualified party [on the Palestinian side] to enter into these negotiations.”

Magdi Khalil looks forward to the “end of Hamas,” which he describes as the “main obstacle to peace,” and fully accepts the Israeli demand that any Palestinian state would have to be “demilitarized,” with Israel in charge of security “for years.” He recognizes,too, that Israel does not have a partner for peace; the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas is not the “moderate’” political force that the Western world seems to think it is. Abbas on only one occasion, during a phone call with Venezuela’s President Maduro, criticized Hamas for the October 7 attack, and then had that criticism promptly taken down. This shows just how “moderate” this corrupt leader, whom 90% of Palestinians want to resign at once, really is. His quarrel with Hamas is not over morality, but over power and money.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘People of Color’ are ‘Mascots’ for the Global Elites It’s all about class status and superiority. by Bruce Thornton

By on January 24th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/people-of-color-are-mascots-for-the-global-elites/

During the World Economic Forum’s annual conclave of plutocrats last week, the attendees enjoyed an exotic display of indigenous culture and their own virtue signaling of their love for “diversity.”  The Catholic News Agency reports, “as part of a plenary session on Wednesday titled ‘Climate and Nature: A Systemic Response Is Needed,’ Chieftess Putanny Yawanawá of the Amazonian Yawanawá tribe . . . performed a shamanic rite.” Resplendent in her tribal garb and face-paint, she stood close to each of the several panel members’ faces, coughed, then blew on their foreheads.

This show captured perfectly the condescending, patronizing attitude of the DEI mentality of the progressive left, who make the world’s real diversity into occasions for cultural slumming, and preening their superior cosmopolitan “tolerance,” at the expense of the POC’s full, complex humanity.

Such displays have for decades characterized the progressive left’s treatment of what they now call “people of color,” that superficial, vague category that simplifies, idealizes, homogenizes, and politicizes the world’s vast, intricate ethnic diversity by turning them into “mascots,” as Thomas Sowell put it in his 1995 book The Vision of the Anointed. These symbols of the cognitive elite’s lofty virtue and sensitivity are celebrated at the same time Western elites promote energy policies that make it harder for developing nations to improve their lives.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Unpacking Climate Lies

By on January 24th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/01/23/unpacking-climate-lies/

Much of the U.S. was frosted and frozen by bitter winter weather last week. But this is just further proof of manmade global warming, the media claim. Because even as America freezes, “most of the rest of the world is feeling unusually warm weather,” which is merely a “contradiction” that “fits snugly in explanations of what climate change is doing to Earth,” says the Associated Press.

Of course what doesn’t fit “snugly” is ignored. And there’s plenty of that.

For instance, we’ve been assured for decades by all the right people that Arctic ice will disappear due to man’s wanton combustion of fossil fuels. At a United Nations climate conference in 2009, Al Gore, always a gushing font of climate disinformation, said polar scientists had told him, according to CBS News, “that the latest data ‘suggest a 75% chance the entire polar ice cap will melt in summer within the next five to seven years.’”

A couple of months earlier, the BBC reported that “the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free and open to shipping during the summer in as little as 10 years’ time,” basing this statement on the word of Peter Wadhams, a University of Cambridge “top polar scientist.”

But the reality is that in the middle of January 2024, “Arctic sea ice for this date stands at its highest level in 21 years,” says Climate Change Dispatch.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

A Hundred Days after Gaza’s October 7 Part I: Double Helix over Gaza by Gwythian Prins

By on January 24th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20337/october-7-hundred-days

History has the form of a double helix: history is indeed the DNA of living memory. There is what actually happened and there is what people believe happened. They are not the same but they are inseparable….

Hamas had told Israel that it intended to focus on helping its people in Gaza and that it did not want war. Israel, to show good faith, had even provided work permits for thousands of Palestinians to enter Israel every day for better wages than in Gaza. What Israel did not know was that many of them were spies who would tell Hamas exactly where in the villages to attack.

An elated youth called Mahmoud called home to his father and mother in Gaza using a murdered Israeli woman’s phone to boast about how he had just killed ten Jews with his own hands (“oh my son God bless you”… “Mom, your son is a hero”). Part of the recording was played to the judges of the ICJ as part of the State of Israel’s must-see rebuttal of South Africa’s accusations.

Jeffrey Gettleman, in The New York Times on 28th December, published details of the unimaginable mass depravity committed by Gazan men on Israeli women….

Many of the first responses to these events, as with the Holocaust, were denials that such savageries had ever taken place.

Almost four months to the day, and not in a good way, the world has turned upside down.

In a risibly threadbare case, the victim of a depraved genocidal attack was accused at the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague of committing genocide. Lacking evidence of mens rea (criminal intention) that is prerequisite, or indeed any vestige of substantive evidence, South Africa sought to invert the object and purpose of the Genocide Convention of December 1948, which is specific to the “crime of crimes”. The accused is not just any victim, but the Jewish state, whose re-establishment in the May of the same year that the Convention was brought into effect was no coincidence.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hamas denies it slaughtered civilians on Oct. 7 The Islamist group’s about-face is in part driven by fear of destruction as the IDF closes in, says one expert on the Arab world. David Isaac

By on January 23rd, 2024

https://www.jns.org/hamas-denies-it-slaughtered-civilians-on-oct-7/

Hamas on Sunday released a statement denying its members committed atrocities on Oct. 7.

The denial is a complete reversal for the terrorist group and a total disavowal of its own footage, after it supplied GoPro cameras to its operatives so that they could capture for posterity their horrific deeds on that day.

“Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people, is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters,” Hamas stated in the 16-page document, claiming it only targeted Israeli military sites. (The Al-Qassam Brigades is Hamas’s so-called military wing.)

“We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people,” it added, saying that its members were “keen to avoid harming civilians” and that any such targeting was by accident.

The claim is astonishing given the hours of footage taken by the organization’s members in which they’re seen shooting innocent Israelis throughout Oct. 7.

Around 1,200 persons, mostly civilians, were killed that day and 253 were forcibly taken to Gaza to be held in abysmal conditions, living on starvation diets and denied medical care.

(The first batch of medicine destined for the remaining hostages entered the Gaza Strip last week. Israel is still waiting for proof that the medicines reached the captives.)

Hamas continues to hold 136 hostages, although a few dozen of them are believed to have died.

Avi Hyman, spokesman for Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate, remarking on Hamas’s recent denial, told JNS on Monday that “Hamas is only fooling themselves, if anyone at all.

“What we saw on October 7 was, in the words of the German chancellor [Olaf Scholz], a new type of Nazi. But the thing about the Nazis is the Nazis tried to cover up their crimes at the end of the war, whereas Hamas were Nazis with GoPros. They were filming the whole thing,” Hyman said.

“Why they would think that today, 108 days later, we would believe this nonsense is absurd. But again, we know who Hamas is. We know that they butcher babies and we know they butcher the truth,” he said.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

California: where freedom goes to die Gavin Newsom has turned the Golden State into a woke dystopia. Joel Kotkin

By on January 23rd, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/22/california-where-freedom-goes-to-die/

California was once a byword for liberty and opportunity. The so-called Golden State was home first to the Gold Rush, then to Hollywood and then to the tech revolution in Silicon Valley. Californians have long been proud of that legacy – indeed, during a 2022 debate against Florida governor Ron DeSantis, California governor Gavin Newsom boasted that his state epitomised ‘freedom’. While this might once have been true, under Newsom’s direction, and that of the state’s essentially one-party legislature, California has been transformed into something unrecognisable.

However much one might dislike DeSantis’ sometimes heavy-handed approach to fighting wokeness in Florida, California is unlikely to meet most people’s definitions of freedom. The state government of California now forces shops to have a gender-neutral toy section. It seeks to extract billions as reparations for slavery. It aims to control speech and indoctrinate the young. It is attempting to regulate virtually every aspect of life in the name of ‘saving the planet’.

Maybe it depends on how you define ‘freedom’. California certainly offers freedoms to those on the margins. The homeless, undocumented migrants and petty criminals now have the freedom to commit crimes without much worry of prosecution. Back when Newsom was campaigning to be mayor of San Francisco 20 years ago, he pledged to eliminate homelessness in 10 years. Now California’s homeless numbers are growing not just in San Francisco, but also across the whole state. Overall, California has 30 per cent of the US’s homeless population. The state is hardly a ‘model for the nation’, as Newsom proudly proclaims.

Left out in this freedom equation are the basic rights of ordinary citizens – the people who pay taxes, raise families and rent or buy houses. For them, Newsom’s version of freedom is the ‘freedom’ to suffer the highest crime rate in a decade. For the pleasure of lackadaisical law enforcement, and a deteriorating infrastructure, California’s middle and working classes get the right to pay among the country’s highest state taxes. At the same time, businesses suffer a regulatory tsunami, with over 400,000 rules to adhere to, a number unparalleled in any other state.

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EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Islamists are wreaking havoc in British schools Secular education is under concerted attack from hardline Muslim activists. Frank Furedi

By on January 23rd, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/23/islamists-are-wreaking-havoc-in-british-schools/

Maintaining authority in the classroom is difficult at the best of times. But it’s even harder when schools are being turned into sites of political conflict. In recent years, many of these conflicts have involved Islamist activists and Muslim parents who wish to impose their cultural and political ethos on the classroom. Their aim is to refashion schools in their own image. Those who stand in the way often court the risk of being accused of Islamophobia.

The battle over the future of Barclay Primary School in Leyton, east London is the latest example of a school under severe pressure from activists and parents. Its troubles began last November, when it asked parents to stop sending their children in wearing Palestinian flags, badges and stickers. This decision was furiously contested by a group of parents and pro-Palestinian activists. They launched a campaign to force the school to reverse this decision. It soon turned into a campaign of intimidation against the teachers and the school authorities.

In the run-up to Christmas, masked men climbed the school’s fence at night to hang Palestinian flags around its perimeter. During the day, protesters gathered outside the school gate and chanted ‘Barclay, shame on you’. There were also arson and bomb threats made to the school and individual staff. The school was forced to close two days earlier than planned before the Christmas break.

Since then, the situation has deteriorated further. Facing allegations of Islamophobia and threats of violence, teachers at Barclay have said they fear for their safety. Police officers have had to be stationed at the school, such has been the level of hostility towards staff. The school has since sent a letter out to parents saying that it might be forced to ‘revert to online learning’ if it feels that it cannot guarantee the safety of children and staff. There are reports that it may even be forced to close.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Why Do The U.S. And Israel Tolerate Qatar’s Blatant Anti-U.S. And Anti-Israel Policies? By Yigal Carmon*

By on January 23rd, 2024

https://www.memri.org/reports/why-do-us-and-israel-tolerate-qatars-blatant-anti-us-and-anti-israel-policies

Introduction

Two developments with dangerous and even explosive repercussions for the standing and interests of both the U.S. and Israel in the Middle East occurred in the last few days.

1. The U.S. has extended its presence at Qatar’s Al-Udeid airbase – CENTCOM’s main airbase in the region – for another 10 years[1]: In recent weeks, there has been criticism of Qatar for its sponsoring of terrorism, causing President Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to maintain ambiguity about the future of the U.S.-Qatar alliance. This follows years of frequent undeserved U.S. praise for Qatar.

The Qataris, realizing that their very existence is threatened if the U.S. relocates its CENTCOM operations to the UAE or Saudi Arabia, hastened to nail down the U.S. for another decade in Qatar. This happened despite Qatar’s support of both Sunni and Shi’ite terrorist organizations worldwide, and despite its open alliance with Iran, including joint Qatari naval training with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).[2] And the fact that it is standing with the Houthis, with whom the U.S. is currently engaged in military conflict to ensure free passage of shipping in the Red Sea.

Without CENTCOM in Qatar, the ruling family will be unable to continue ruling Qatar. Yet it seems like the U.S.  did not demand that Qatar reverse its policies of sponsoring terrorism – let alone demand the release of American hostages held by its proxy Hamas in Gaza, after it killed 32 U.S. nationals on October 7. How can this inconceivable approach on the part of the Americans be explained?

2. Israel is allowing Qatar to take charge of all the humanitarian support entering the Gaza Strip, where it is hijacked by Hamas gunmen as soon as it crosses the border. In fact, Qatar is keeping Hamas fighters in power, enabling them to kill Israeli soldiers every day. This is being done with the total consent of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had, over the past decade, allowed Qatar to build Hamas’s military power in the first place. Netanyahu is now actually allowing an ongoing process, by which his soldiers are being killed every day because he is a captive and hostage of Qatar, as well as its collaborator, and does not dare confront it lest it expose him. One solution to freeing the aid from Qatar’s pro-Hamas influence would be by giving the money to Egypt and Jordan, who have peace agreements with Israel, so that they could fully control the humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, with no Qatari strings attached.

These approaches on the part of the U.S. and Israel are also prompting the natural allies of both, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to distance themselves from them and to join anti-U.S. alliances such as BRICS. How can these two mindboggling phenomena be explained?

This report will attempt to answer these questions.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

They’re Black Democrats. And They’re Suing Chicago Over Migrants. The city greets new arrivals with resources like health screenings and rent support. ‘They’re giving migrants all the things we’ve been asking for since we came here in chains.’ By Olivia Reingold

By on January 23rd, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/black-democrats-sue-chicago?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

“How dare you?”

That was the first reaction Cata Truss, a 57-year-old mother on the West Side of Chicago, had when she found out who was behind the push to turn her neighborhood park into a shelter for migrants: Democrats she helped elect. 

“All these people, I have supported every one of them,” she says about Mayor Brandon Johnson and his progressive allies. “I was like, ‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ ”

There was no way she was going to let Amundsen Park—what she calls “the crown jewel of the community”—go to the newly arrived migrants from the Mexican border. Especially not when there were black Chicagoans who needed the space, which she says kept her five sons “out of trouble” and busy playing football when they were young. 

“There’s a humanitarian crisis in the black community,” said Truss. “But every time we have a need in our community, we’re told that there are no funds. There’s no money for us.”

Truss and other black residents told me that Chicago, which calls itself a “welcoming city,” has been very welcoming—just not to them. Since August 2022, Chicago has greeted nearly 35,000 new arrivals with resources like laundry services, mental health screenings, and $15,000 in rental support per person—all funds that Truss says could’ve gone a long way in Amundsen Park in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, where nearly 28 percent of residents live below the poverty line.

So last October, a day before the field house was set to become a migrant shelter, Truss raced to the local courthouse, along with three of her neighbors—plus the head of the local NAACP chapter for moral support. For the next two and a half hours, she drafted a lawsuit in a notebook, then ripped out the pages and handed them to a clerk. Her argument, handwritten in pen, was that the field house was “designated for recreational use within the community,” not housing noncitizens. One of her co-plaintiffs, Gerald K. Harris, runs the football program at the field house that trained her five sons.

“I was like, ‘bring it on,’ ” she says. “Let’s fight.” 

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Investigation: Feds Spent $20 Billion On Migrant Refugee Assistance An all-time high in illegal entrants at the border creates all-time surge in taxpayer costs. Adam Andrzejewski

By on January 23rd, 2024

The U.S. border patrol made 2.5 million migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2023, an all-time high.

There seems to be no end in sight, or meaningful plan from the Biden administration to stop or slow the number of people coming over the border. Meanwhile, federal funds flowing to migrants are growing at an exponential rate.

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com looked at just one federal office to get an idea of how much spending is going towards accommodating, transporting, and providing migrants with various other services.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a part of Health and Human Services, is a major vehicle for migrant-related spending. Congress appropriated $20 billion in just two years on “refugee and entrant assistance.”

Background

Last year, we published an oversight report on the unaccompanied children program run by the agency: up to 85,000 minors were lost after “sponsorship” with a “vetted” guardian. The New York Times found credible allegations of child labor law violations and congressional whistleblowers detailed large-scale child trafficking.

Now, our investigation into the agency reveals new oversight: 1. billion-dollar spending spikes in the adult refugee programs; and 2. potential conflicts-of-interest between agency leadership and its largest grant recipients. In fact, for decades, agency director Robin Dunn Marcos was employed in executive positions by two non-profit organizations that are among the agency’s largest grantees.

Here is a five minute interview describing the big issues in our reporting:

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