HISTORY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Bookworm Room Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts. (November 11, 2006)

Posted By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.bookwormroom.com/2016/11/06/bureaucrats-job-security-dangerous/

THANKS TO ANDREA WIDBURG OF AMERICAN THINKER…..RSK

EXCERPTS:

Here’s some new information for you to consider when it comes to bureaucrats run amok:  Did you know that it was British bureaucrats, determined to keep their jobs at all costs, who sparked Arab nationalism in Palestine, creating the dangerous Middle East that consumes the world today?

This story comes from Pierre van Paassen’s The Forgotten Ally, published in 1943. The book’s primary purpose is to describe the role Jewish Palestinians played in defeating Rommel – a task Britain could never have accomplished but for these Jewish troops. Before he gets to World War II, though, van Paassen tells how the British Mandate in Palestine came into being and how the Arabs, who had once welcomed the thought of Jews making that wasteland a more inhabitable place, came to be the fanatic Islamic nationalists the world now faces. Because van Paassen was a foreign correspondent in the 20s and 30s, the book has the virtue of being the recollections of a contemporaneous witness, who traveled widely in the Middle East, met many of the power players, and was privy to original documents. (He even interviewed both Hitler and the Mufti of Jerusalem!)

Because of the myriad details van Paassen provides about the creation of the modern Middle East in the years during and immediately after WWI, it’s quite easy for someone like me to get lost in the weeds. (My first draft of this post hit 5,000 words before I was even a quarter of the way through.) I’ll just touch upon a few highlights here.

Between the Roman conquest in 70 AD and Israel’s re-birth in 1948, the territory known as Palestine (or Syria-Palestine) was never a nation. It was not even an independent substate in the vast Ottoman Empire that eventually controlled it. Instead, it was simply the southern most end of Ottoman controlled Syria. During all those centuries, nobody cared about Palestine because it was a desolate, swampy, disease-filled wasteland. Here’s van Paassen’s description of Syria-Palestine in the years before, during, and immediately after WWI:

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

When it comes to Israel, Biden’s actions speak louder than words Andrea Widburg *****

Posted By on May 19th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/when_it_comes_to_israel_bidens_actions_speak_louder_than_words.html

For the first few days after Hamas started raining thousands of rockets on Israel — all of them aimed at civilians — Biden kept silent. Finally, on Wednesday, Biden said “my expectation and hope is that this will be closing down sooner than later but Israel has a right to defend itself when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory.” Saying this ought to have been a no-brainer, but it was obviously an effort on Biden’s part.

Biden instantly caught flak from the Squad. Even though, thanks to the influx of Ethiopian Jews, there are more Blacks in Israel than there are in Gaza, Ayanna Presley, a racist one-trick pony, promptly analogized herself to the downtrodden Arabs:

“As a black woman in America, I am no stranger to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). “We have been criminalized for the very way we show up in the world … Palestinians are being told the same thing as black folks in America: There is no acceptable form of resistance.”

The other Squad members were not far behind. Ilhan Omar called Benjamin Netanyahu “a far-right ethno-nationalist.” (I had no idea she knew such big words.) Rashida Tlaib reiterated the tired old trope that Israel, the only truly pluralist nation in the entire Muslim Middle East, has an “apartheid government.” And AOC said that Israeli self-defense had to yield to the Arabs’ “right to survive.”

(Again, I will no longer use the word Palestinians. It is a made-up word about a nonexistent Muslim nation. You can go here to learn why I say that.)

All of this makes it sound as if a surprisingly brave and independent Joe Biden has taken a stand against the openly far leftists and his party. However, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Biden’s actions show where his heart lies – and it’s not with Israel.

Even as Hamas is raining rockets on Israeli civilians, Biden announced that he plans to send millions of American taxpayer dollars to the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza:

As the conflict intensifies despite U.S. calls for restraint, the administration notified Congress on Thursday that it will provide $10 million to Palestinian groups in the West Bank and Gaza to support exchange and reconciliation projects with Israelis. The recipients of the aid were not named.

The State Department said Friday that the money is part of more than $100 million that the administration allocated to the Palestinians earlier this year, reversing a near total cutoff in support under former President Donald Trump.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hunter Biden Runs Back Into His House and Slams the Door When Confronted by Journalist and Huge Digital Billboard By Debra Heine

Posted By on May 18th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/17/hunter-biden-runs-back-into-his-house-and-slams-the-door-when-confronted-by-journalist-and-huge-digital-billboard/

Although he has recently granted several softball interviews to friendly corporate media outlets as part of his tone-deaf rehabilitation book tour, Hunter Biden on Monday had no time for an independent journalist who had just a few simple questions to ask.

Hunter initially came down to answer the door when journalist and filmmaker Phelim McAleer showed up outside of his home in Venice, California, but as soon as he realized that McAleer was not a state-approved journalist, “he ran back inside his home and slammed the door,” according to McAleer’s website Unreported Stories.

To be fair, it’s possible that the giant mobile digital billboard McAleer brought with him spooked the scandal-plagued Biden back into his house.

The digital billboard truck was displayed a number questions that the rest of the media refuse to ask.

• Is his father Joe Biden “The Big Guy” who got a 10% cut from his business dealings as mentioned in emails on his laptop?

• Why was Hunter being paid $80,000 per month on the board of Bursima while he was a self-admitted  crack addict and an alcoholic?

• Did Hunter lie on his federal gun background check when he claimed he was not an unlawful user of drugs?

• Is the signature on the laptop receipt yours?

The digital billboard also highlighted a rare attempt by a media outlet to get answers from the younger Biden.

The Daily Beast apparently contacted Hunter’s Hollywood publicist Annett Wolf for a reaction to McElhinney and McAleer’s efforts, but the flack said her client had no comment.

“There’s nothing to respond to,” Wolf told the Daily Beast.

“Hunter, these allegations against you are very serious,” the billboard blared. “Do you really think they don’t warrant a comment?”

MORE HEADLINES Comments turned off

MORE HEADLINES MAY 18, 2021

Posted By on May 18th, 2021

Watch: Biden & Michelle Obama Tag Team Attacking Police On The Day To Remember Fallen Officers https://redrightdaily.com/michelle-obama-cbs-this-morning/

Why Biden Slanders Police https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2021/05/16/why-biden-slanders-police-n2589523?

Canadian Pastor Dragged Off by SWAT Team Out on Bail Has a Warning for Americans https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/05/15/canadian-pastor-dragged-off-by-swat-team-is-out-on-bail-n2589518?

Video: Reporter Asked Joe Biden If Americans Should Be Worried About Inflation – His Reaction Spoke Volumes https://www.rightjournalism.com/video-reporter-asked-joe-biden-if-americans-should-be-worried-about-inflation-his-reaction-spoke-volumes/

 

Unused Trailers for Homeless Sit Empty in LA https://www.theepochtimes.com/unused-trailers-for-homeless-sit-empty-in-la_3814529.html

 

Oh, Just Shut Up Already, Dr. Fauci https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2021/05/16/oh-just-shut-up-already-dr-fauci-n2589512

  

Fauci: 40 to 50 Percent of His Agency’s Employees Are Not Vaccinated https://www.theepochtimes.com/fauci-40-to-50-percent-of-his-agencys-employees-are-not-vaccinated_3816287.html?

GUNTER: Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s remarks comparing anti-maskers to white supremacists are disgusting and ignorant https://edmontonsun.com/opinion/columnists/gunter-calgary-mayor-naheed-nenshis-remarks-comparing-anti-maskers-to-white-supremacists-are-disgusting-and-ignorant

Bill Gates Left Microsoft Board Amid Probe Into Prior Relationship With Staffer https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-directors-decided-bill-gates-needed-to-leave-board-due-to-prior-relationship-with-staffer-11621205803

When Hamas fires missiles at Israeli homes, forget nuance https://www.jns.org/opinion/when-hamas-fires-missiles-at-israeli-homes-forget-nuance/

Police in Cities Across U.S. Brace for a Violent Summer https://www.wsj.com/articles/police-in-cities-across-u-s-brace-for-a-violent-summer-11621071001

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Shawshank for January 6 Detainees The government argues the events of January 6 along with the defendants’ skepticism about the outcome of the 2020 election are evidence the accused are a threat to society. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on May 18th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/17/shawshank-for-january-6-detainees/

“I’ve been in solitary confinement for a hundred days now and haven’t been convicted of any crime with no end in sight.”

That was part of a lengthy message Jacob Lang sent to his father, Ned, the last week of April. Jacob was arrested on January 16 in New York and charged with several crimes related to his activity in Washington, D.C. on January 6. Lang, who turned 25 while incarcerated, is accused of assaulting police officers using a dangerous or deadly weapon. The government’s evidence against him appears to be strong. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

But Lang and dozens of January 6 defendants already have been convicted by Joe Biden’s Justice Department and sentenced by federal judges—presumed guilty until proven innocent—awaiting trials that won’t begin for months. It’s all part of what Attorney General Merrick Garland promised is his “top priority”—the sprawling investigation into the alleged insurrection—and what another top prosecutor boasted is the “shock and awe” campaign to punish Americans protesting the results of the 2020 presidential election.

So far, more than 400 people have been arrested in the nationwide manhunt with more charges to come, and at the same time, emerging evidence proves law enforcement allowed protestors to enter and remain in the building.

At the direction of Biden’s Justice Department, at least 50 defendants have been transported from their home states to a D.C. jail, a purely punitive move since all court hearings into the foreseeable future are virtual. In several cases, federal prosecutors successfully argued against release orders issued by local judges. The government repeatedly cites the overall events of January 6 in addition to the defendants’ skepticism about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election as evidence the accused are a threat to society.

“He armed himself and assaulted law enforcement with the intent to unlawfully enter the U.S. Capitol and stop the functioning of our government as it met to certify election results,” one assistant U.S. attorney wrote in the government’s pre-trial detention motion for Lang. “The defendant was a spoke in the wheel that caused the historic events of January 6, 2021, and he is thus a danger to our society and a threat to the peaceful functioning of our community.”

Of course, that sort of dramatic rhetoric has nothing to do with keeping people safe and everything to do with punishing law-abiding Americans who have the audacity to doubt the outcome of last year’s election. It’s guilt-by-association—anyone who supports Donald Trump is guilty of challenging the regime and must pay the price.

MEDIA Comments turned off

NY Times ‘Limited Hangout’ on Steele Dossier Spares Obama By Jack Cashill

Posted By on May 18th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/ny_emtimesem_limited_hangout_on_steele_dossier_spares_obama.html

Former CIA agent Howard Hunt introduced a useful phrase into the political lexicon during the Watergate brouhaha — “limited hangout.” Those two words well describe the recent New York Times article, “Secret Sharers: The Hidden Ties Between Private Spies and Journalists.”

Better late than never, one supposes, Barry Meier of the Times concedes that his newspaper and many others in the media fell for the trap set by former British intelligence operative, Christopher Steele, and his employers at Fusion GPS.

Only readers of the Times could be shocked to learn in May 2021 that “many of the [Steele] dossier’s most explosive claims — like a salacious “pee” tape featuring Mr. Trump or a supposed meeting in Prague between Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former attorney, and Russian operatives — have never materialized or have been proved false.” OMG!

Meier takes particular aim at his fellow journalists. He argues that “the dossier took them down a very different path” from the more traditional ones they had followed in the past –“court records, corporate documents and other tangible pieces of evidence.”

After BuzzFeed published the entire Steele dossier in January 2017, Meier notes that “countless articles, television shows, books, tweets and blog posts about it appeared.” What Meier seems to overlook, at least in this article, is that the dossier began influencing the media well before the 2016 election, not just afterwards. That, in fact, was the point of the dossier’s creation.

In September 2016, for instance, Michael Isikoff wrote a lengthy breakout article for Yahoo News based on a briefing by “multiple sources,” the most notable of whom, unnamed in the article, was Steele. As Isikoff reported, intelligence officials were investigating Trump adviser Carter Page’s “private communications with senior Russian officials.”

Isikoff reported too that Senate majority leader Harry Reid had briefed FBI director James Comey on the “significant and disturbing ties” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, information Reid could only have gotten from the dossier. The word was spreading.

In Meier’s retelling, Isikoff is something of a hero for having “backed away” from the dossier before his peers. Meier also cites Erik Wemple of the Washington Post for writing a series of columns about “the media infatuation with the dossier.” Although Isikoff’s comment is undated, Wemple’s columns appeared in 2020. No misprint, 2020.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Senator Warren Outraged By Israeli ‘Evictions’ In Sheikh Jarrah Ignoring legal history.

Posted By on May 18th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/senator-warren-outraged-israeli-evictions-sheikh-hugh-fitzgerald/

Senator Elizabeth Warren has in the last few years been delivering herself of ever more strident anti-Israel remarks.

In October 2019, she said “everything is on the table” should Israel move away from a two-state solution. By “two-state solution,” she did not mean the one offered by the Trump Administration, but one which would be based on the “1967 lines,” which means the 1949 armistice lines. In May 2020, she signed a letter with 18 Senate Democrats opposing Israel’s possible “annexation” – really, an extension of sovereignty — of territories in the West Bank. On the campaign trail, the senator said she would push Israel to end its “ongoing occupation of Palestinian land” – and denounced the country’s decision to bar Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from entering the West Bank and East Jerusalem where, of course, they would have participated in an anti-Israel propaganda fest, complete with visits to the demolished houses of terrorists and scenes of Israeli bulldozers creating new apartments in “the settlements,” and whatever else they could find to blacken Israel’s image.

In a speech at J Street recently, Warren said that “if we’re serious about arresting settlement expansion and helping move the parties toward a two-state solution, then it would be irresponsible not to consider all of the tools we have at our disposal. One of those is restricting military aid from being used in the occupied territories. By continuing to provide military aid without restriction, we provide no incentive for Israel to adjust course.”

She’s a law professor, well-versed in bankruptcy law, but international law is not her strong suit. She assumes, a bit too self-assuredly, that she doesn’t need to study further any aspect of the Arab-Israeli dispute; she’s a Harvard Law professor; don’t try to tell her there are gaps in her knowledge. Between the two attitudes — Wittgenstein’s “whereof we do not know, thereof we should not speak” and the verses aimed at Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol, “I am the master of this college/And what I don’t know isn’t knowledge” — the complacent Warren displays the second attitude every time.

For It is clear from her constantly referring to “occupied territories” that Warren has no idea that the League of Nations assigned all of the land which we now call the “West Bank” to the Mandate for Palestine, to form part of the future Jewish National Home. She has certainly not read the Palestine Mandate, and especially its Article 6, which calls on the Mandatory (Great Britain) to “facilitate Jewish immigration” and “to encourage close settlement by Jews on the land.” She does not realize that the League of Nations’ Mandates became part of international law. She does not know that Article 80 (known as “the Jewish people’s article”) of the U.N. Charter constituted the U.N.’s solemn promise to fulfill the commitments previously made by the League of Nations when it created its system of mandates.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Is the Biden administration running an anti-Israel con? By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on May 18th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/is_the_biden_administration_running_an_antiisrael_con.html

On Saturday, Israel announced that it had evidence that Hamas military intelligence assets were operating out of a building with civilian media offices – in essence, using the media as a shield. Because Hamas turned the building into a military site, it became a legitimate target under international law. So, AP and Al Jazeera lost their propaganda sites. Israel gave detailed information about notifying Biden in advance of the strike. However, on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was no such evidence. Does this represent some kind of creepy and dangerous game-playing from the Biden administration?

You can read here about Israel’s initial targeting of the Hamas building, including Israel’s detailed statement about its justification for destroying that building. In the same post, you can see how the Biden administration’s knee-jerk reaction was to castigate Israel for having destroyed the AP and Al Jazeera headquarters.

Various media outlets, however, reported that Biden had so much evidence in front of him that he “gave the OK” to Israel’s assault on the building:

PRESIDENT Joe Biden “gave the OK” for the huge Israeli blitz that levelled an alleged Hamas building in Gaza after Benjamin Netanyahu shared the “smoking gun” evidence.

The evidence is said to have been handed over by the Israeli President during his telephone conversation with Joe Biden on Saturday.

A source close to Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi is reported to have said: “We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building”.

He added Biden had “found the explanation satisfactory”, although did not provide details of the evidence.

The White House “readout” of a Saturday call between Biden and Netanyahu states that Biden “reaffirmed his strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza.” It’s not clear whether that call occurred before or after the strike on the Hamas building.

The whole equation changed, though, on Monday, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that can be distilled to his asking, Hamas? What Hamas?

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Violence in Israel Is the Price of Biden’s Weakness By Mike Pence

Posted By on May 18th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/violence-in-israel-is-the-price-of-bidens-weakness/

In the Middle East, he has replaced strength with weakness, moral clarity with confusion, and loyalty with betrayal.

The Trump-Pence administration opened the door to a future of peace in the Middle East founded on our strong and unwavering commitment to the state of Israel. But now Israel is enduring the worst outbreak of violence in at least seven years — a direct result of the weakness shown by the Biden administration from its first day in office.

Many Americans witnessing the recent bloodshed in Israel are perplexed by how quickly violence erupted after years of calm. The answer is that President Biden and congressional Democrats have abandoned unambiguous support for our ally Israel, emboldened our enemies, and turned their back on the policy that yielded historic peace deals in the Middle East.

Under the Trump-Pence administration, we made it crystal clear to the world that America stands with Israel. We withdrew from the dangerous Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama-Biden administration, which put the world’s leading state sponsor of terror on the path to nuclear weapons while sending pallets of cash to the mullahs in Iran. We acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. And President Trump kept the promise made by countless Republican and Democrat politicians by actually following through in moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Israel.

Every step of the way, Democrats and self-proclaimed foreign-policy “experts” derided our administration’s approach and issued dire warnings that blood would soon flow in the streets of Israeli cities. As usual, they were wrong.

In fact, last year, our administration brokered the Abraham Accords, a series of historic peace agreements between Israel and Arab-Muslim countries — the most significant breakthrough for peace in decades.These groundbreaking peace accords happened not in spite of America’s support for Israel, but because of it. Other nations knew where America stood with absolute certainty. They knew America would respond forcefully if our citizens or allies were threatened. As a result, they responded rationally by pursuing peace and harmony.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Terrorists Fire Thousands of Rockets at Israeli Civilians, Courtesy of Iran Biden’s reengagement with the Islamic Republic could fund thousands more. Joseph Klein

Posted By on May 18th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/terrorists-fire-thousands-rockets-israeli-joseph-klein/

It was nearly seven years ago, on former President Barack Obama’s watch, when the Palestinian Islamist terrorists deliberately rained down enormous barrages of rockets on civilian population centers in Israel. Five Israeli civilians (including one child) were killed during the 2014 Gaza War. Now, for the first time since 2014, we are seeing the Palestinian terrorists engage in the same level of savagery once again, just four months into the Biden presidency. 

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have fired nearly 3000 rockets into Israel since May 10th. In that time, Israel has already reported at least nine dead, including five women and two children. Israel has responded forcefully with hundreds of air strikes in Gaza. The strikes have killed senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders and destroyed terrorist military and intelligence facilities, command headquarters, terrorist officers’ homes, and attack tunnel networks. “No Hamas officer, high or low, should feel safe over- or under- ground,” an Israeli army spokesman warned Saturday night. “Hamas will think 500 times before ever again going to war against Israel.”

The Palestinian terrorists are armed and funded by the fanatical Islamist Iranian regime. The Biden administration will not succeed in ending the violence in the long term simply by focusing on negotiating a ceasefire of the current hostilities. The Biden administration should focus instead on cutting off the terrorists’ support line at its source. Biden must abandon any negotiations with the Iranian regime and any consideration of sanctions relief that could potentially buttress Iran’s ability to bankroll Hamas and its other terrorist proxies.

The United Nations Security Council met twice last week in closed sessions to discuss the escalating crisis. On Sunday, the Security Council held an open meeting. When the speakers were not condemning Israel as the aggressor or equating the Palestinian terrorist attacks aimed at killing or wounding Israeli civilians with Israel’s military operations to defend its own citizens, they called for maximum mutual restraint and a ceasefire. Notably, the Biden administration’s UN Ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, failed in her remarks to the Security Council to re-affirm President Biden’s prior acknowledgement of Israel’s right of self-defense. Iran’s documented role as the terrorists’ main military supplier and funder was not mentioned even once.

Moral clarity requires an unambiguous acknowledgement that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups, supported by the terrorist-sponsoring Islamic Republic of Iran, are solely responsible for the violent rampage spiraling out of control. The terrorists must be held criminally to account for the dual war crimes of targeting Israel’s civilian population and launching their rockets from within Gaza’s civilian neighborhoods and institutions. The Iranian regime must be held criminally to account as the terrorists’ sponsor, aider and abettor.