RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/index.html

HALF A MILLION CHILDREN ARE TRAPPED IN SYRIA, THE UN SAYS

The United Nations said on Saturday that the number of children trapped in besieged areas in Syria had doubled in less than a year to half a million.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, said the children were among hundreds of thousands of civilians in 16 areas under siege (manly by the Assad regime and the Iranian-directed Hizbullah militia) across the country that had been “almost completely cut off from sustained humanitarian aid and basic services.”

The Obama administration and other democratic governments continue to do almost nothing to help them, not even to make aerial food and medicine drops.

ABBAS ORDERS PALESTINIAN FLAGS BE FLOWN AT HALF-MAST FOR FIDEL CASTRO

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered all Palestinian flags be flown at half-mast for Fidel Castro, WAFA, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority, reported.

http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=c0Le0Ta51734437821ac0Le0T

The Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, died on Friday at the age of 90.

Castro enjoyed a close relationship with late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and was an early supporter of “armed resistance” (i.e. terrorist attacks) against Israeli civilians.

“THE BBC REPORTS CASTRO’S DEATH MORE FAVORABLY THAN THATCHER’S”

See also:

Trudeau attacked worldwide for Castro statement: Politicians, journalists from America, Britain and elsewhere take to Twitter to decry Canadian prime minister’s glowing tribute to Cuban dictator.

Farewell to Cuba’s brutal Big Brother (Washington Post)

The UK’s Guido Fawkes blog also notes:

“The BBC are reporting Castro death more favorably than Thatcher’s. No use of the word ‘controversial’. No mention of the thousands summarily executed after the revolution. No mention that he demanded the USSR nuke the USA. No mention of the decades of impoverishment and human rights abuse. No mention of his secret police rounding up homosexuals and putting them in concentration camps. Castro gets a free pass on democratic norms – ‘his critics accused him of being a dictator’. Does the BBC think that is only an allegation? Particular congratulations to the BBC News Channel, who interviewed ‘Cuba expert’ Richard Gott, without mentioning he was a KGB agent of influence.”

(Tom Gross adds: The BBC have toned down their praise for Castro following widespread criticism.)

ISRAEL KILLS 4 ISIS-LINKED JIHADISTS IN FIRST CLASH WITH GROUP

The IDF killed four gunmen linked to the Islamic State on Sunday after they attacked Israeli forces in the Golan Heights.

The confrontation was the first of its kind between Israel and Islamic State-affiliated forces based in Syria.

The jihadists were riding in a vehicle with a machine gun mounted on its roof, when they attacked an Israeli patrol across the border. Many mortar shells have fallen inside Israel during the Syrian war, some of which may have been fired by these terrorist groups, but it is thought yesterday’s was the first deliberate attack on Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the IDF had “successfully repelled an attempted attack on the triangle of borders,” referring to the point where the borders of Israel, Syria and Jordan meet.

Israel has done its best to keep out of the five-year-old Syrian war, though Israeli doctors have treated over 1000 badly injured Syrians, including many children, who manage to reach the country’s borders and asked for help.

The Israeli government and Jewish charities have paid for the life-saving operations for Syrians in hospitals across northern Israel. Israeli authorities have also sent medical and other humanitarian aid across the border into Syria.

Israeli security experts said it was too early to say whether yesterday’s clash represented a change in strategy by Islamic State-affiliated forces, and that it may have been prompted by the need for a “propaganda victory” among their supporters in the Arab world at a time when Islamic State strongholds in Iraq and Syria were under attack.

DEATH TOLL IN NORTH SINAI ATTACK RISES TO 11

IS affiliate groups continue to be active across Israel’s southern border too, battling Egypt’s Sisi government for its rule over northern Sinai.

The Egypt Independent newspaper reports:

Death toll in North Sinai attack rises to 11
By Aswat Masriya
Egypt Independent
November 26, 2016

http://www.egyptindependent.com//news/death-toll-north-sinai-attack-rises-11

The death toll from an attack on a military checkpoint in North Sinai increased to 11 on Friday, Reuters reported, citing anonymous medical sources.

Three more bodies were found on Friday, bringing the death toll to 11 soldiers out of the checkpoint’s 31-strong force. Twelve soldiers were injured, six unarmed and the rest were missing.

Following the attack, eyewitnesses told Reuters that security forces set up several additional moving and static checkpoints in and around Arish city, where the attack took place, in search for the culprits.

FIRES BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL, BUT ENORMOUS DAMAGE REMAINS

After a five-day campaign in which thousands of Israeli troops aided the country’s firefighters, the wildfires raging across northern and central Israel have finally been brought under control.

While unusually hot, dry conditions and strong winds helped fan the flames, almost half of the fires are suspected of being arson.

Israeli police have so far arrested 18 Israeli Arabs and 6 West Bank Palestinian suspects, and also others who used social media to “incite arson.”

Some arsonists were spotted on security cameras lighting fires. The police say there is no sign of direct coordination between arsonists but they appear to have been inspired by a desire to cause harm to Jews.

However, many Israeli Arabs as well as Israeli Jews have been victims of the fires, seeing their homes and businesses, such as restaurants, burn down.

The Palestinian Authority (along with Jordan and Egypt) also sent firefighters to assist Israel.

Hundreds of Israelis were injured but no deaths were reported.

As I noted in 2012, a new Al Qaeda magazine described in detail how to start huge forest fires across America and other countries.

NETANYAHU THANKS ABBAS FOR SENDING FIREFIGHTERS

This is a press release:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this evening (Saturday, 26 November 2016), contacted Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen and thanked him for sending firefighters to assist in extinguishing the fires. The Prime Minister also appreciates the fact that Jews and Arabs alike opened their homes to those affected by the fires.

THE FIRES IN ISRAEL – IN PICTURES (THE GUARDIAN)

The Guardian, a newspaper which has been unsympathetic to Israel over many years, and its opposition to Zionism has occasionally spilled over into outright anti-Semitism (its former comment editor is now a chief advisor to the far-left British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn), has been less hostile to Israel recently, as I noted in previous dispatches.

It published this photo-compilation of the fires Israel has been experiencing, which shows how deadly they have been.

U.S. FIREFIGHTERS FLY TO ISRAEL TO BATTLE BLAZES

Several readers wrote in response to my dispatch last Thursday morning (“Israel on fire: Russia, Greece and Turkey rush firefighting planes to help, as some Arabs celebrate”), to ask if the U.S. government had also offered to help douse Israel’s out-of-control fires.

Since I wrote that dispatch, Britain, France, Spain, Italy and Canada have also sent fire-fighting equipment. The Americans have done so privately after Israel made a commercial order for equipment. And individual American firefighters were quick to help.

Some 40 veteran U.S. firefighters boarded planes from as far away as Los Angeles and Dallas to travel to Israel to help.

The men, ranging in age from 30 to 60, are part of the “Emergency Volunteer Project,” a non-profit organization launched by Israel, the U.S. and others in 2009 to train and work with firefighters and other emergency personnel during extreme circumstances.

A senior American government official who subscribes to this list says he forwarded my previous dispatch (“Israel on fire: Russia, Greece and Turkey rush firefighting planes to help, as some Arabs celebrate”) to some Emirati government officials.

They replied that Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, who had tweeted “Israel banned the muezzin and caught on fire, Blessed be Allah,” is no longer Dubai’s security chief.

CNN APOLOGIZES FOR BANNER READING “IF JEWS ARE PEOPLE”

CNN has apologized following criticism after it ran an on-screen accompanying caption last week which read “If Jews are people.”

The offending phrase appeared during a discussion about America’s alt-right movement on CNN’s “The Lead” show.

CNN said the caption had been clumsily written by a production assistant and was meant to paraphrase the words of American white nationalist leader Richard Spencer who had said of Jews: “One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem”.

The regular host of The Lead, Jake Tapper, who was on vacation on the day the caption appeared, also apologized, saying he was “horrified” and “furious” at the caption.

In his apology, the stand-in host of The Lead Jim Sciutto called Spencer’s remarks “hate-filled garbage.”

The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who bridged the Bush and Obama administrations warned that the most potentially explosive security issue the incoming administration will have to deal with is North Korea and nuclear weapons.

Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, who served as chairman from 2007 to 2011 and is now a professor at Princeton University, said the presidential transition entails “leaving campaign rhetoric behind and the reality of governing, which just hits you square in the face.”

“And so focusing on, finding out and focusing on the real issues that are facing the current administration and then developing policies and strategies, if you will, to meet those challenges,” he told ABC this morning.

Mullen said he’s “encouraged, actually” by the fact that Donald Trump “is turning to people” who have adequate foreign policy experience.

“And that will really make a difference. The world is very unforgiving. And he has said, rightfully so, that he wants to focus here in the United States,” he said. “But I’ve always found, certainly in my time, that challenges that exist internationally, whether it’s North Korea or China or Russia or the Middle East, will certainly be on his desk on day one.”

Mullen singled out the Korean peninsula as “more likely than anyplace else in the world to potentially create an explosive outcome, particularly tied to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.”

“Realize that he has nuclear weapons and the inability so far to contain him in that regard. And that’s a place where four of the five top economies in the world are centered. Stability there is critical, and at least North Korea historically has generated a surprise, if you will, for new leaders in this country,” the admiral continued, acknowledging that neither the Bush policy nor the Obama policy succeeded at reining in the regime. CONTINUE AT SITE

In a country like Italy, which has seen 63 governments since 1948, political stability is more than a campaign slogan. But it appears a real possibility that Grillo’s Five Star Party and their allies in Lega Nord may be on the cusp of once again overturning the establishment and making history.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is staking his political future on a referendum to be held next Sunday that would change the Italian constitution by weakening the upper house of parliament and strengthening the central government.

Foolishly, Renzi said he would resign if he lost the vote. This galvanized opposition parties to make the referendum a vote on Renzi’s tenure as prime minister.

Now it appears that the anti-establishment forces who successfully pushed through a British exit from the EU and elected Donald Trump president of the U.S. are ready to deal a crippling blow to Renzi’s center-left coalition by defeating the constitutional changes.

And waiting in the wings if Renzi follows through with his promise are two anti-establishment newcomers who are both committed to blowing up the EU.

Newsweek:

A defeat for Renzi will be read as a victory for Italy’s two major populist parties: the Lega Nord and the larger Five Star Movement, led by the comedian Beppe Grillo. The two parties are not allied, but both are nurtured by anti-establishment sentiment and favor “national solutions” to Italy’s problems – beginning with a return to the Italian lira.

If Renzi is defeated, Lega Nord and the Five Star Movement could join forces to support a new government and hold a new referendum – this time on the euro. If Italy – one of the world’s largest public debtors – decided to go it alone, the entire European project could be dealt a mortal blow. In the age of Donald Trump and Brexit, that outcome is far from unthinkable.

The issue at stake in the referendum is not inconsequential, but it should not decide the fate of Europe. Italians will vote on whether to strip the Senate (the parliament’s upper house) of two-thirds of its members and much of its legislative authority, making it merely a talking shop akin to the second chamber of Germany’s Bundesrat, and return some of the regions’ powers to the central government.

Changes like these have been discussed for 30 years. The lack of movement could benefit Renzi, if voters conclude that they should not waste such a rare opportunity to do something to reform their sclerotic system. President Sergio Mattarella is impartial, but he would prefer that the reforms go forward. His predecessor, Giorgio Napolitano, is also strongly in favor of the reforms, which he sayswould be “great news for Italy.”

MILAN – In the last 68 years, Italy has held 17 general elections and a few referenda. But only three times has an Italian vote claimed center stage internationally: in 1948, when the choice was between the West and communism; in 1976, when voters faced a similar choice, between the Christian Democrats and Enrico Berlinguer’s “Eurocommunism”; and now, with the upcoming referendum on constitutional reforms.

The implications of the upcoming vote are enormous. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has staked his political future on the vote, pledging to step down (though not immediately) if the reforms are rejected. Such an outcome that would irreparably weaken the center-left government coalition as well: Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) is already roiled by infighting over the reforms. In fact, the PD may not be able to avoid a split even if the vote goes the prime minister’s way.

A defeat for Renzi will be read as a victory for Italy’s two major populist parties: the Lega Nord and the larger Five Star Movement, led by the comedian Beppe Grillo. The two parties are not allied, but both are nurtured by anti-establishment sentiment and favor “national solutions” to Italy’s problems – beginning with a return to the Italian lira.

If Renzi is defeated, Lega Nord and the Five Star Movement could join forces to support a new government and hold a new referendum – this time on the euro. If Italy – one of the world’s largest public debtors – decided to go it alone, the entire European project could be dealt a mortal blow. In the age of Donald Trump and Brexit, that outcome is far from unthinkable.

The issue at stake in the referendum is not inconsequential, but it should not decide the fate of Europe. Italians will vote on whether to strip the Senate (the parliament’s upper house) of two-thirds of its members and much of its legislative authority, making it merely a talking shop akin to the second chamber of Germany’s Bundesrat, and return some of the regions’ powers to the central government.

PARIS—By choosing François Fillon as their candidate for the presidential election, the French center-right has opted for a mild-mannered conservative known for the alarm he has sounded about the country’s high public-debt levels.

The 62-year-old nominee for the center-right Républicains party emerges from the shadow of Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president who dominated the French right for over a decade with a brash and divisive leadership style.

Mr. Fillon served as Mr. Sarkozy’s prime minister, and the two men share a core policy stance that is socially conservative and favors rolling back the reach of the state. But Mr. Fillon’s calm demeanor marks a stark change in style for the French right.

An automobile and mountaineering enthusiast with a stately home in western France, Mr. Fillon at times clashed with Mr. Sarkozy, who once belittled his prime minister by describing him as an assistant. Mr. Fillon has struck back with a quietly prepared election platform that blew apart the center-right primary race in the final stretch and Mr. Sarkozy’s dreams of a presidential comeback.

“I love resisting a tenacious rival who is catching up with me or watching for an opening to jump into and overtake the person ahead of me,” Mr. Fillon said in a 2015 book describing his passion for politics and racing cars.

The son of a rural notary, Mr. Fillon boasts close ties with farming communities in the Sarthe, the region where he grew up and which he praises as “balanced, moderate and tolerant.” Unlike most French politicians who refrain from making public statements about their religious beliefs, Mr. Fillon hasn’t shied away from discussing his Catholic faith.

“I grew up in this tradition, and I kept this faith,” Mr. Fillon says in his book. CONTINUE AT SITE

It is never a sad day when a monster dies.

Fidel Castro, the mass murderer who sadistically tormented the Cuban people for nearly fifty years, died on Friday at the age of 90. Thousands of Cuban exiles understandably celebrated in the streets of Miami. Leftists around the world, meanwhile, dutifully mourned their fallen secular deity. Progressives always grieve when the vicious enforcers of class hatred die.

While leftists sob for one of the most evil tyrants of the modern era, those who cherish freedom and human rights are never sad to have one less monster walking the earth.

And so, on this significant occasion, it would do well to offer a reflection on the pain and blood that this particular monster left in his wake.

On July 13, 1994, 72 desperate Cuban citizens, including seniors and young children, floated on a wooden tugboat in a turbulent sea, trying to make their way to Florida and dreaming of the freedom that now lingered within their grasp. Their aspirations were met with a nightmarish jolt when Castro’s patrol boats suddenly rammed the back of their vessel. The frightened women held up their little children in the air to let Castro’s thugs know what the situation entailed. And the thugs returned their expected response: on the orders of the head beast in charge, they blasted the mothers with children in hand with their water cannon, mowing them — and all the other escapees on board — into the merciless waves.

Maria Garcia lost her son, Juanito, that tragic day. She also lost her husband, brother, sister, two uncles and three cousins. In all, 43 people drowned — 11 of them children. This evil murderous act became known as Castro’s Tugboat Massacre. Yisel Alvarez was 4 when she drowned. Carlos Anaya was 3. Helen Martinez was 6 months old.

Castro gave the orders for this evil massacre — and the deaths of Carlos, Yisel and Helen made him especially proud. That is why he personally decorated one of the water-cannon gunners himself.

Fidel had always derived special pleasure from sending helicopters to drop sandbags onto the rafts of would-be escapees from his prison-island, or to just gun them all down. The Tugboat Massacre, however, proved to be a special delight for him, because there were children involved. And the blood of innocent children, as Anna Geifman documents, is always a special delicacy for totalitarian death cults, whether they be of the communist or Islamist variety.

Mexico City — Fidel Castro was a remarkably lucky dictator. Unlike many — Romania’s Ceausescu and Libya’s Qaddafi come to mind — he wasn’t executed by his own people and instead died in bed at age 90. During the Cuban missile crisis, he wrung a secret promise from the U.S. that it would never invade Cuba. He then survived dozens of assassination attempts by the Kennedy administration until a Castro sympathizer named Lee Harvey Oswald put a stop to them and to the life of President Kennedy in 1963.

Castro ruled for another 45 years after that, until his retirement in 2008, persecuting dissidents, jailing gays, and murdering opponents. Even after he turned power over to his brother Raul, Fidel continued to be feted and admired by world leaders. Few dictators could have collected the kind of respectful foreign tributes that poured in from Western countries after his death last Friday.

Here in Mexico, which harbored the young revolutionary Castro and provided the launching pad for his return to Cuba in 1956, the response from government officials was pathetic. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto called Castro a friend of Mexico who had promoted bilateral relationships based on “respect, dialogue, and solidarity.”

Miguel Angel Mancera, the head of government in Mexico City, also expressed solidarity with Fidel on his Twitter account: “Death of an icon of history, Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban Revolution, go with the people of Cuba in their mourning. Rest in peace #MM”

But none of the Mexican officials descended to the depths of Jill Stein, leader of America’s Green party. She took time off fundraising to launch recounts of this month’s presidential election to tweet her homage: “Fidel Castro was a symbol of the struggle for justice in the shadow of empire. Presente!”

EU Leader Jean-Claude Juncker added to the encomia, tweeting, “With the death of #FidelCastro, the world has lost a man who was a hero for many.”