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Solzhenitsyn and the Life of Truth By Elizabeth Edwards Spalding

Posted By on June 14th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/08/solzhenitsyn-and-the-life-of-truth/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

What The Gulag Archipelago still teaches, 50 years later

Vladimir Kara-Murza’s deteriorating health leads his family and friends to expect that he may soon suffer the fate of Alexei Navalny.

A patriot, freedom fighter, and dissident, Navalny died in February in a remote Russian prison north of the Arctic Circle. Whether directly or nearly directly killed, his life ended under the brutal conditions of his unlawful imprisonment. Navalny fiercely criticized and opposed Vladimir Putin’s illegitimate government, including its political repression, its deep corruption, and its unjust war on Ukraine.

A successful man of means, Navalny could have chosen a comfortable life. He could have benefited financially under or quietly complied with Putin’s dictatorship — or permanently left Russia. But he wanted a better future for his country: one that would be free, democratic, and happy. He became an opposition leader. For the better part of 20 years, he endured arrests, detentions, prison stays, frequent harassment, curbs on his speech and movement, and permanent damage to his eyesight from acid thrown in his face. His response while recuperating in Germany after being poisoned by the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok: “I will not give Putin the gift of not returning to Russia.” He knew that returning to Russia would mean immediate arrest, fabricated charges, a show trial, and unjust imprisonment. Navalny left his wife and children — safely, he hoped — in the West and returned to Russia, where he was immediately arrested, underwent a show trial, and died of “natural causes” at the age of 47 in the infamous penal colony IK-3.

Kara-Murza, 42, also stands against Putin’s regime. The son of a journalist who was an outspoken critic of Leonid Brezhnev and later Putin, Kara-Murza is, among other things, a historian of Soviet-era dissidents. Like Navalny, Kara-Murza cheated death and still suffers the ill effects of poisoning at the hands of the Russian state, in his case on two occasions. Like Navalny, he left his wife and children — safely, he hopes — in the West and returned to Russia to work for civil society, freedom, and democracy. Like Navalny, he knew that a denial of due process and a lengthy prison sentence awaited him.

In spring 2022, many pleaded with Kara-Murza not to return to Russia after he spoke the truth about its invasion of Ukraine: “These are war crimes that are being committed by the dictatorial regime in the Kremlin against a nation in the middle of Europe.” For years, he had been speaking the truth about the Kremlin — from Putin’s nonconstitutional retention of the presidency and aggregation of political power to the regime’s chronic violations of human rights to the mounting number of its political prisoners. Each instance enlarged the target on Kara-Murza’s back. Yet, as he recently explained, “if you call on people to stand against the authoritarian regime, you cannot do it from a safe distance — you have to share the risks with your compatriots.” The current place of residence for this Russian-British citizen with three American-born children is Russia’s Penal Colony No. 7, where he is serving a 25-year sentence for the fabricated crime of treason.

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Truly Evil: Hamas Leader Says the Quiet Part Out Loud Guy Benson

Posted By on June 14th, 2024

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2024/06/13/truly-evil-hamas-leader-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-n2640327

It’s not really the ‘quiet’ part, honestly; with Hamas, advertising your evil is the out-loud part.  Still, it’s very important to highlight this Wall Street Journal scoop, which reports out the appalling and inhumane internal calculus of Hamas’ top military leader — Yahya Sinwar — who planned the October 7th massacre.  Sinwar is a fanatical supporter of Israeli civilian casualties, of course, and would kill every last Jew in the region if he could.  That should go without saying.  But he also explicitly advocates Palestinian civilian casualties as a strategy, referring to the innocent Gazans he deliberately places in harm’s way as worthy “sacrifices” for the cause of turning world opinion against Israel, and thus ensuring the survival of his terrorist organization.  Those aren’t the words of his critics.  They’re his own words.  The Journal’s headline is, “Gaza Chief’s Brutal Calculation: Civilian Bloodshed Will Help Hamas.”  Civilian bloodshed.  Will help Hamas.  Yes, it’s as disgusting as it sounds:

For months, Yahya Sinwar has resisted pressure to cut a ceasefire-and-hostages deal with Israel. Behind his decision, messages the Hamas military leader in Gaza has sent to mediators show, is a calculation that more fighting—and more Palestinian civilian deaths—work to his advantage. “We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in a recent message to Hamas officials seeking to broker an agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials. In dozens of messages—reviewed by The Wall Street Journal—that Sinwar has transmitted to cease-fire negotiators, Hamas compatriots outside Gaza and others, he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas. The messages were shared by multiple people with differing views of Sinwar…In one message to Hamas leaders in Doha, Sinwar cited civilian losses in national-liberation conflicts in places such as Algeria, where hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for independence from France, saying, “these are necessary sacrifices.” 

Israel takes great, historically-unprecedented pains to avoid the collateral damage of civilian casualties in Gaza. Hamas’ leader, by contrast, is committed to a strategy of increasing them. Proudly. Hamas lies constantly about the numbers and demographics of alleged “civilain” deaths inflicted by Israelis in this war that Hamas started with a vast slaughter of Jews late last year. But it’s undeniable that a signfiicant number of civilians, including children, have been killed. For Sinwar, that’s by design. When kids die in this war, Sinwar sees them as “necessary sacrifices.” And every single person who goes along with his diabolically heinous plan by blaming Israel for the deaths that Hamas ensures, in a war Hamas started, is rewarding the terrorists.  Imagine knowing this is how Hamas plans to maintain its grip on power, and actively helping them in that pursuit.  It’s unconscionable. Ultimately, Sinwar’s goal “appears to be to win a permanent cease-fire that allows Hamas to declare a historic victory by outlasting Israel and claim leadership of the Palestinian national cause,” according to the story.

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Did Biden’s Ghostwriter Admit He Obstructed the Investigation of Joe Biden?Matt Margolis

Posted By on June 14th, 2024

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/06/13/bidens-ghostwriter-admits-he-obstructed-investigation-of-joe-biden-n4929885

Joe Biden avoided facing charges of mishandling classified information because Special Counsel Robert Hur determined that a jury would see him as an “elderly man with a poor memory” who lacked the “mental state of willfulness.” However, there was an unresolved issue regarding Biden’s ghostwriter, to whom Biden disclosed classified information while working on his memoir.

According to the Hur report, “after learning of the special counsel’s appointment in this matter, Mr. Biden’s ghostwriter deleted audio recordings he had created of his discussions with Mr. Biden during the writing of Mr. Biden’s 2017 memoir”; however, Hur decided not to charge him with obstruction of justice.

Joe Biden’s ghostwriter has now admitted that he deleted those recordings from his interviews with Joe Biden partly so Hur’s team could not use them in the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents.

According to a transcript released by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer wouldn’t tell the FBI how much the investigation influenced his decision to delete the recordings.

“The outside observer is going to look at this and say, Mark Zwonitzer, President Biden’s friend, ghostwriter, collaborator learned of the special counsel’s investigation, saw this was happening and then deleted all these audio recordings,” the agent said. “I just need the truth on this one … That was part of your motivation, at least something you were aware of when you did this?”

“I’m not going to say how much of the percentage it was of my motivation,” Zwonitzer replied, adding, “I was aware that there was an investigation.” He went on to note that he was “very concerned” about being hacked by those who would then spread the audio all over the internet, but said that was mainly because there was “a lot of personal stuff and emotional stuff about Beau,” Biden’s late son. He said out of an abundance of caution, he “took the audio files subfolder from both the G drive and [his] laptop, and slid them into the trash.”

Zwonitzer noted that deleting audio files was standard practice, and not just something he did in Biden’s case, saying, “I generally save transcripts but I haven’t over the years ever saved audios.” He went on to admit he deleted the files after becoming aware of the investigation, and that after doing so, he didn’t tell anyone, nor did nobody reach out to him asking about it.

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Denouncing Israel for Rescuing its Hostages Only one nation in the world is expected to “negotiate” for the lives of its citizens. by Joseph Klein

Posted By on June 14th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/denouncing-israel-for-rescuing-its-hostages/

On June 8th, Israeli forces conducted a daring rescue of four hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The terrorists hid their captives inside two homes smack in the middle of a civilian neighborhood inhabited by Palestinian families.

Firefights ensued as Hamas fighters shot at the rescuers and the rescued hostages. A leader of the rescue mission lost his life trying to save the innocent Israeli civilians. Scores of Gazans caught in the crossfire were killed but it is unknown how many were civilian bystanders as opposed to the terrorists trying to stop the rescue. The Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry’s claim that at least 274 Palestinians died during the rescue operation exaggerates, as usual, the Palestinian death toll to score propaganda points meant to sway the international community and liberal media further against Israel.

From the United Nations to anti-Israel media outlets, Israel is blamed for the loss of Palestinian civilian lives during the rescue operation. Israel’s critics claim that the deaths could have been avoided if the Jewish state had only stuck to negotiating with Hamas and made more concessions to secure the release of the hostages.

However, it was Hamas’ decision to seize the hostages in the first place and then imprison them in residential buildings and in tunnels constructed under civilian neighborhoods. Some of the hostages were reported to have died in captivity. The four hostages who were rescued lived every day in captivity in fear for their lives. Instead of allowing these four hostages (out of the more than one hundred hostages still in captivity) to go free unharmed, Hamas used heavy fire including rocket-propelled grenades to stop their escape. Fortunately, the terrorists failed and the rescued hostages are reunited with their families and friends.

The terrorists acted with callous indifference to the lives of the Palestinian people residing in the civilian neighborhood from which the four hostages had to be rescued. Moreover, many Palestinian civilians themselves are not so innocent. As Robert Spencer noted in his June 11th Frontpage article, “it is clear that a good many of those ‘civilians’ played an active role in the holding of the hostages.” Indeed, one such “civilian” killed during the rescue operation was a so-called “journalist” for the Palestine Chronicle and Al Jazeera who supported Hamas and housed three of the rescued hostages.

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Israel’s Two-Front Crisis John Podhoretz 

Posted By on June 14th, 2024

 https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/israel-two-front-crisis/?vgo_ee=

Joe Biden did something extraordinarily beneficial at the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war: He moved two aircraft carriers  to the Mediterranean and parked them right off the shores of Lebanon. The purpose was unmistakable. America was telling Hezbollah to keep quiet and stay out of it while Israel went to war with Hamas down south. It didn’t quite work, since intermittent rocketry still led Israel to evacuate much of its northernmost population. But it worked well enough.

Something happened quietly a few months ago. The carriers left. The USS Gerald Ford returned to Norfolk. The USS Eisenhower was redeployed to the Red Sea to deal with the shipping crisis. And guess what? Without American deterrence, Hezbollah has been emboldened, the more so as time has gone on.

Another 70,000 Israelis have been newly evacuated from the North as bombardments from Lebanon have become extraordinarily savage. The town of Kiryat Shmoneh is on fire. A Druze village was unmercifully attacked. Israel is wracked with uncertainty. It cannot allow Hezbollah’s depradations to continue. It must respond. It must restore deterrence by raising the cost to Hezbollah of its actions. But it’s still got Rafah to finish. And it’s still trying to navigate the weird situation of the past two weeks, in which an “Israeli proposal” for a ceasefire and hostage release created a new sense of urgency for negotiations with Hamas—a proposal offered and re-offered that Hamas has, by my count, now rejected five different times.

Joe Biden made this all public with his strange speech “accepting” Israel’s proposal to which he then doodled a conclusion on top that said “end of war end of war” like Annette Funicello in a beach party movie writing “Mrs Frankie Avalon” over and over on her chemistry notebook. For nearly two weeks now, America has said the ball is in Hamas’ court because the Israeli proposal is so good (while Biden and others say Bibi wants to keep the war going because he’s mean or something). Hamas has replied, in effect, “well, if it’s in our court, we’re keeping the ball. Drop dead.” And still the Bidenites keep on, insisting if Hamas wants a good future for the Palestinian people it will accept the deal. What does Hamas have to do to convince these supposed experts that it has no interest in a “good future for the Palestinian people”—that what it wants are dead Jews and a crippled Israel on its way to destruction?

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Iran’s Attempts to Attack Israel Must Be Confronted by Con Coughlin

Posted By on June 13th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20702/iran-attacks-israel

Netanyahu’s resolve in the face of so many challenges, from splits in his own war cabinet over the conduct of the war in Gaza to incessant pressure from Washington to agree to a ceasefire, has prompted comparisons with British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, with Andrew Roberts labelling the Israeli PM “The Winston Churchill of the Middle East.”

There is massive evidence that the Biden administration would like to see Netanyahu removed and that someone more “compliant” to the wishes of the US replace him – a new Israeli prime minister who would not object to Hamas continuing to rule the Gaza Strip after the fighting ends, and rebuild its military to be able to attack Israel again as it has vowed to do. The US would also doubtless like an Israeli prime minister would gladly accept a Palestinian state supervised by Qatar, which has a regrettable but endless track record of promoting and sponsoring terrorists. The Biden administration would apparently like an Israeli prime minister who would agree that a nuclear-armed Iran is exactly what the Middle East needs at this time, and, to that end, has been begging European officials not to object to Iran’s nuclear program.

If the Israelis are smart, they will keep Netanyahu. He has shown time and again that he can stand up to immense pressure from whoever is trying to insert a knife in Israel’s back – whether the Obama administration proposing an Iranian nuclear bomb in 2015, or Senator Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden’s unsubtle efforts to try to get him ousted.

Unfortunately, the only way of seeing all the hostages released is by military pressure.

To prevail against determined terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel and its allies need to rally support for Netanyahu, rather than constantly criticize him.

For only by defeating these deadly Iran-backed terrorist groups can there be any realistic chance of peace.

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America’s Enemies at Home and Abroad by Lawrence Kadish

Posted By on June 13th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20701/america-enemies-home-abroad

Who are these people who love America so much, who are so grateful for the freedoms they can have only in America, that they cannot wait to take them away?

In addition to the Axis of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which is trying every day to take America down and replace it with their tyrannies, threats from within America appear graver than ever — to our freedom of speech, equal justice under the law, to our children whom we are failing to educate, except to hate America, to our underfunded military and most of all to our internal national security.

The Biden administration, which should be protecting Americans, has instead been putting them at risk – both through allowing an estimated ten million unvetted strangers in through our southern border, including an estimated 1.7 million “gotaways,” about whom nothing at all is known, including how many there are, except that they apparently do not want to be identified.

Meanwhile, more than 85,000 unaccompanied children have been “lost.” They are missing, perhaps subjected to sex trafficking and other forms of slavery, and no one in an administration supposedly so concerned about “humanitarian values” knows who they are, where they are, or has expressed any interest in finding out. Meanwhile, around 45,000 people have flooded in from Communist China – many of whom are groups of men of military age, whose exit visas have presumably been granted by China not for the purpose of a vacation at Disney World.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified earlier his year that “the Chinese Communist Party is working diligently inside the gates to undermine everything it is that we stand for.” Meanwhile, China has been sending spy balloons over America’s most sensitive military sites, and buying up US farmland, often near US military bases.

All these events have been funded, spearheaded and encouraged by the current administration, which has seemingly evaded any effort to slow it down or stop it. Who are these American who are letting the enemy inside the gates?

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Why was this anti-Semitic maniac given a slap on the wrist? A knife-wielding man who terrorised a kosher supermarket has been spared jail. The justice system is broken. Georgia Gilholy

Posted By on June 13th, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/13/why-was-this-anti-semitic-maniac-given-a-slap-on-the-wrist/

‘Are you okay?’ Those were the words a friend texted me on a drizzly day this January. My safety had not come to their mind by chance, but because a knife-wielding man was on the rampage at a kosher supermarket down the street from my flat in Golders Green, north-west London.

The attacker, later identified as 34-year-old Gabriel Abdullah, demanded that staff at Kay’s kosher supermarket tell him whether the shop’s owners supported ‘Israel or Palestine’. He then returned with a knife. He was valiantly rebuffed by staff with a broom and a shopping trolley until the Shomrim, a Jewish neighbourhood watch force, arrived. Thankfully, no one was injured and Abdullah was arrested by police.

Over the next few months, I was puzzled by the near-total media silence on the incident. Would the press be as apparently indifferent if a far-right white nationalist had attacked a halal butcher’s? Such double standards are now so obvious that they require scant discussion here.

Abdullah has since been charged and sentenced. Incredibly, he has only been convicted of affray and possession of a weapon. This week, GB News, and thus far no one else, reported he had been handed down two suspended sentences at Harrow Crown Court – one for 18 months and a second for 12 months. Both are suspended for two years. He will also be made to attend ‘rehabilitation activities’. Despite threatening the lives of innocent people for being Jewish or for working at a Jewish business, Abdullah has been spared prison.

Unfortunately, this is hardly surprising. There is a lengthy list of violent criminals and terrorists known to the authorities who either spent all of five minutes inside a cell or avoided jail completely. In some cases, they have then gone on to commit horrendous crimes. Take the example of Ali Harbi Ali, the Islamist extremist who murdered Conservative MP David Amess in 2021. Ali had been referred to Prevent, the government’s deradicalisation initiative, seven years before he brutally stabbed Amess. But after a single meeting, Ali was not checked on again.

It seems that criminals are no longer treated as responsible individuals and given their due punishments. The few who are sent to jail find themselves inside semi-lawless enclaves awash with drugs, disorder and radicalisation.

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Antisemitic Vandals Deface Homes of Brooklyn Museum’s Jewish Director, Board Members By David Zimmermann

Posted By on June 13th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/antisemitic-vandals-deface-homes-of-brooklyn-museums-jewish-director-board-members/

The homes of the Brooklyn Museum’s Jewish director and board members were defaced Tuesday night by antisemitic vandals, who left a banner at the director’s house that called her a “WHITE SUPREMACIST ZIONIST.”

Social-media posts show the front of Anne Pasternak’s home spray-painted red, with the antisemitic sign in the foreground claiming she “funds genocide” — an apparent reference to the operations Israel is carrying out to eradicate Hamas in Gaza. The words, “Blood on your hands,” could be seen on Pasternak’s front sidewalk as well.

“We are deeply troubled by these horrible acts,” a spokesperson for the Brooklyn Museum told National Review. The museum spokesperson said a police report was filed.

In New York, vandalism is punishable by possible jail time and significant fines, depending on the cost of the damaged property.

Local officials on both sides of the political aisle responded to the incident Wednesday morning, condemning the late-night vandalism.

Lincoln Restler, a Democratic member of the New York City Council, said it was “disgusting” and “despicable.” Restler added that he already spoke with Brooklyn Museum board members, staff, and the NYPD, which is currently investigating the crime. The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.

Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the New York City Council, also issued a statement on social media: “Wow. More Kristallnacht behavior from Hamasniks in NYC in 2024. There is no ‘both sides.’ Just savagery. It doesn’t matter how woke the @brooklynmuseum goes, nothing satisfies the bloodlust of the anti-Jew left. Looking forward to the city council’s upcoming debate on this.”

The Brooklyn Museum has been the target of antisemitic demonstrations as recently as last week, when anti-Israel protesters raised a Hamas flag and chanted, “We don’t want no Zionists here.”

In late May, one of the art museum’s outdoor sculptures were vandalized with graffiti. Among the derogatory phrases spray-painted on the yellow OY/YO Statue were “Ur museum kills kids in Palestine!” and “F*** ur bulls**t museum Gaza will be free.”

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Eight Suspected Terrorists Highlight Biden’s Recklessness on Vetting Illegal Aliens Andrew McCarthy

Posted By on June 13th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/eight-suspected-terrorists-highlight-bidens-recklessness-on-vetting-illegal-aliens/

Biden has returned us to September 10. That’s not apt to end well.

Haley’s report on the government’s apprehension of eight Tajiks who are suspected jihadists tied to the Islamic State (ISIS, evidently the Afghan franchise our intel agencies label “ISIS-K,” for “Islamic State – Kohrasan Province”) is important reading. It also illustrates the September 10-level threat environment we’ve returned to, courtesy of President Biden’s heedlessness.

The Biden administration wants our praise for its purported diligence in locking up potential terrorists. We’re not supposed to notice it was the Biden administration that knowingly let these potential terrorists in — and if you think that just eight of them have bored into our country, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you (as soon as we can clear out the Hamas and Hezbollah flags).

In a jaw-dropping X post, Fox News’s Bill Melugin explains that the government let the Tajiks in because its crack — or better, crackpot — vetting process “flagged nothing.” A U.S. official elaborated, “Sometimes there’s just no information on individuals, it’s quite common where there’s just nothing. You don’t have anything, there’s no criminal convictions, there’s no threat information.”

Understand, untold tens of thousands of illegal aliens are crossing our borders from countries hostile to the United States. It’s not just that the regimes in these countries do not have reliable databases and would not share them with our government if they did. In many of these countries — very much including those with sharia-supremacist cultures that are innately hostile to Western mores — actions that would violate our laws are perfectly legal. That is, the background facts that would make such people threats would never show up in any database from which our government would plead to be given information.

Bear in mind, we are talking here about illegal aliens, not Americans. Illegal aliens do not have an array of constitutional rights to be asserted against our government. The American people created the central government by the Constitution in large part to protect us from threats outside our borders. The Constitution, then, is not supposed to be a weapon to be used by those outside threats against our government, thus leaving us defenseless — that’s a total perversion. Aliens who have no right to be in this country, and whose first act is to violate our laws, do not have a presumption of innocence. It is common sense that they should be presumed hostile.