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The Zone of Interest 2023 A masterpiece from a TV commercial director. by Danusha V. Goska

Posted By on February 16th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-zone-of-interest-2023/

Friend, please do something for me. Put this article aside and find the nearest theater showing The Zone of Interest. Walk into the theater knowing as little as possible about it. Then return to this article so we can exchange notes. I need to talk about this movie with others.

The Zone of Interest is going to generate a great deal of talk. There will be debates and podcasts. There will be university courses and peer-reviewed scholarly articles. There will be a backlash industry pooh-poohing every accolade the film receives. If you wait too long, your chance to have your own experience of the film may slip out of your hands. You may feel, “The Zone of Interest is its own industry. Seeing it would be too much like homework. I’d prefer the latest superhero movie.”

You may be thinking, “Another Holocaust film. They’re just are fishing for an Academy Award! Why can’t we have movies about other atrocities? And I don’t like watching people being tortured.”

First, there is no torture, and almost no violence, in this movie. I cry at movies and I didn’t cry while watching Zone. Days later, while merely thinking about it, I cried. I had nightmares. Even in my nightmares, there was no blood. There were merely well-groomed, clean people behaving in accord with their value system, their character, and their mental defenses. And we need Holocaust movies because the Holocaust was a big deal. And we can have movies about other atrocities, too, like Twelve Years a Slave and Killers of the Flower Moon.

Zone is universal and timeless, like W. H. Auden’s poem “Shield of Achilles,” which uses Jesus’ crucifixion and Achilles’ shield to discuss twentieth-century atrocity. Both Auden’s poem and Zone say as much about slavery or the Cambodian Killing Fields or the Gulag as films directly addressing those topics.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Taibbi: Same People That Cooked Intel Report Russia Interfered With Election Also Surveilled Trump Aides In 2016

Posted By on February 16th, 2024

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/02/14/taibbi_same_people_that_cooked_intel_report_russia_interfered_with_election_also_surveilled_trump_aides_in_2016.html

Racket News editor Matt Taibbi on Wednesday told FOX News host Jesse Watters about a “broad political espionage campaign” involving the same people in the intelligence community that cooked the intel assessment that Russia interfered with the election.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: The point remains that the Obama-Biden White House, their CIA and FBI director launched an illegal preemptive war against democracy, got caught, and have been covering it up for eight years. Shellenberger and Taibbi also said redacted FOIA documents suggested that Biden has been conspiring against Donald Trump with the intelligence committee to prosecute the former president in federal court. Which would be an impeachable offense. Matt Taibbi is the Racket News editor-in-chief and “Griftopia” author. So this is great reporting. It’s hard to verify because we were told that this special counsel, Durham, was going to get to the bottom of it. Are you saying he missed this?

MATT TAIBBI, RACKET NEWS: We were told that the scope of the Durham investigation was limited to a few areas and that he wasn’t looking at this particular direction. The information that we have, the investigation that was conducted by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, what they found was a broad political espionage campaign and there were two main conclusions that are at the center of our reports.

One is that at least 26 Trump aides and associates were improperly and without predication placed under surveillance in election year of 2016. And the other one is that these same folks cooked the intelligence for the January 6, 2017 intelligence community assessment saying that Russia interfered, I’m sorry, conducted an influence campaign to help Donald Trump. It is a WMD-style story. They suppressed dissenting opinions and created a false narrative.

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U.N. Aid Chief Calls Hamas a ‘Political Movement,’ Denies That It Is a Terrorist Group By Jimmy Quinn

Posted By on February 16th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/u-n-aid-chief-calls-hamas-a-political-movement-denies-that-it-is-a-terrorist-group/

During a television interview yesterday, the United Nations’ top humanitarian-aid official denied that Hamas is a terrorist organization. “I’ve worked with many, many, many different terrorist and insurgent groups. Hamas is not a terrorist group for us,” he said, opting to describe it as a “political movement” instead.

The official, Martin Griffiths, oversees the coordination of the U.N.’s humanitarian aid in his capacity as undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs. He made the comments during an interview on Sky News yesterday after an anchor asked him about the difficulties of negotiating with terrorist groups. Griffiths also said that it’s “very difficult to dislodge these groups without a negotiated solution which includes their aspirations.”

This sparked a controversy, with the Israeli government’s official social-media account calling the U.N. an “abomination.” Although the U.N. officially does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization, the U.S., the EU, and numerous other governments have designated it as such. Griffiths could have certainly referred to Hamas as a terrorist organization despite the perplexing lack of its official designation by the U.N.

He later tried to walk back his statement, referring to Hamas’s “acts of terror on 7 October” and writing that he merely meant to say that it is not on the U.N. Security Council’s list of terrorist organizations.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Shields Palestinians in the U.S. From Deportation

Posted By on February 16th, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/us/politics/biden-palestinians-deportation.html

The president, who is facing mounting criticism over U.S. support for Israel, used an authority that exempts people from deportation if their homeland is in crisis.

President Biden on Wednesday shielded thousands of Palestinians in the United States from deportation for the next 18 months, using an obscure immigration authority as he faces mounting criticism over U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza war.

About 6,000 Palestinians are eligible for the reprieve under a program called Deferred Enforced Departure, which allows immigrants whose homelands are in crisis to remain in the United States and work legally.

In a memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Biden said that “many civilians remain in danger” in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas.

“Therefore, I am directing the deferral of removal of certain Palestinians who are present in the United States,” he said.

The decision comes as Mr. Biden faces pressure over the war, particularly among Arab Americans who were once a reliable constituency for him. In recent weeks, pro-Palestinian groups have been demonstrating outside his campaign stops, chanting “Genocide Joe.”

While Mr. Biden’s criticism of the war has grown more forceful since the Oct. 7 attack, the United States has not signaled that it plans major policy changes such as putting conditions on billions of dollars in military aid to Israel.

Israel’s war against Hamas has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Much of Gaza has been left in ruins as Israel bombards the territory in retaliation for the attacks on Oct. 7, when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in Israel.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Don Of The ‘Biden Crime Family’-Will Biden be Convicted Before Trump?

Posted By on February 16th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/16/the-don-of-the-biden-crime-family/

The evidence of President Joe Biden’s criminal activity continues to grow. As has often been said, the wheels of justice grind slowly, but we’d like to see them get in gear in time for voters to know that their president is a crook.

During testimony earlier this week before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski said “it is clear to me that Joe Biden was ‘the Brand’ being sold by the Biden family.”

“The Biden family business was Joe Biden, period.”

Simply put, Bobulinski said Joe has been the recognizable name that the Bidens sold to amass wealth that few Americans can conceive of.

“From China to Ukraine, the Biden crime family sold access to Joe Biden,” Bobulinksi said during an impeachment inquiry deposition.

He further revealed that “the Chinese Communist Party through its surrogate, China Energy Company Limited,” a business syndicate, infiltrated and compromised Joe Biden and the Obama-Biden White House.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Liz Peek: Pfizer Super Bowl ad proves just how damaging Biden’s COVID response has been for America

Posted By on February 16th, 2024

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4470475-pfizer-super-bowl-ad-proves-just-how-damaging-bidens-covid-response-has-been-for-america/

Why did Pfizer spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad? And why are they paying Travis Kelce $20 million to act as their vaccine spokesperson?  

Because their reputation — and the reputation of America’s medical authorities — needs serious rehabilitation. A Gallup survey conducted last fall found only 18 percent of Americans have a very or somewhat positive view of the pharmaceutical industry, down from 25 percent in 2022. That’s a worse rating than any other industry group but retail.   

This is one of the most damaging leftovers of the Biden presidency.   

Joe Biden’s authoritarian approach to managing the COVID-19 outbreak, forcing all workplaces of 100 or more people to require the vaccine or regularly test their employees and the censorship of opposing views on vaccine side effects and on treatments, not only trampled on Americans’ rights — it may have led to preventable deaths.  

Nothing could have highlighted Americans’ distrust of the pharmaceutical industry more starkly than the Pfizer ad, which aimed to rebuild not only its brand but general attitudes toward medicine. It’s hard to imagine a world where a leading drug-maker feels the need to remind people that science has led to life-saving breakthroughs like the invention of penicillin and treatments for cancer, yet here we are. 

The ad, wedged between promotions for beer and donuts and other more conventional fare, combined a jazzy upbeat tune with pictures of the founders of Pfizer, seeming to place them in the same scientific galaxy as Sir Isaac Newton and Copernicus, who came alive in their portraits long enough to join in the fun. It was memorable, mainly because it seemed so out of place. 

Pfizer’s problem is, first, that sales of its COVID-19 vaccines and therapies have cratered as the disease has faded. But more important, Pfizer is dealing with backlash against Biden’s heavy-handed dictates about vaccines.  

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Strange Disconnect Between Israel and Ukraine Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 15th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/15/the-strange-disconnect-between-israel-and-ukraine/

Most of Europe, the U.S., and the West understandably supported arming Ukraine to repel Vladimir Putin’s Russian aggression. By contrast, such support for democratic Israel was strangely mixed.

The Ukrainian and Israeli wars are similar and yet also different conflicts—but in more ways than we can imagine.

Ukraine was invaded by a huge Russian state, with a population three-and-a-half times greater, a gross national product ten times larger, and an area thirty times its size.

Hamas, by contrast, is a terrorist clique of about 50,000-70,000 gunmen and terrorist kingpins who run Gaza. It is dwarfed by the Israeli population (20 times larger), economy (27 times greater), and area (60 times larger).

Both Russia and Hamas started the wars. Russia was convinced it would easily crush the smaller neighbor. Hamas hoped to spark a pan-Islamic jihad against the Jewish state.

Most of Europe, the United States, and the West understandably supported arming Ukraine to repel Vladimir Putin’s Russian aggression.

By contrast, such support for democratic Israel was strangely mixed.

In many elite, political, academic, and media circles, Israel is criticized for its massive retaliation after October 7, 2023.

The Western attitude toward the two wars grows even more inconsistent, if not incoherent.

There are constant calls for Israel to be “proportionate” in Gaza following the massacres of nearly 1,200 Jews, the vast majority civilians.

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The South Africa-Hamas-Iran Axis by Robert Williams

Posted By on February 15th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20385/south-africa-hamas-iran-axis

According to NGO Monitor, South Africa’s case at the ICJ is built on reports from groups with links to terrorist organizations. “South Africa’s submission to the court contains no fewer than 45 references to NGO publications, including several from outfits linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization.” — Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2024.

“The South African government is the same thing as Hamas. It’s an Iranian proxy, and its role in the war is to fight the ideological and ideas war to stigmatize Jews around the world.” — Dr. Frans Cronje, former CEO of the South African Institute for Race Relations, justthenews.com, January 26, 2024.

While the ICJ refused to throw out the case against Israel and is likely to spend the next many years deliberating on Israel’s purported and imaginary “genocide,” John Spencer, who is both chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and a retired US military officer, argued that Israel minimizes civilian casualties more than any military in history, and listed numerous examples of the lengths that the IDF goes to in order to protect civilians, such as warning before launching military strikes.

“Israel has taken more measures to avoid needless civilian harm than virtually any other nation that’s fought an urban war…. No military in modern history has faced over 30,000 urban defenders in more than seven cities using human shields and hiding in hundreds of miles of underground networks purposely built under civilian sites, while holding hundreds of hostages… The sole reason for civilian deaths in Gaza is Hamas. For Israel’s part, it’s taken more care to prevent them than any other army in human history.” — John Spencer Newsweek, January 31, 2024.

Action is reportedly being taken to bring Iran before the International Court of Justice on charges of Genocide. The move is long overdue.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Yemen Government Warns of Houthi Threat to ‘World’s Digital Infrastructure’ What happens if a large chunk of the world’s internet goes down? by Christine Williams

Posted By on February 15th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/yemen-government-warns-of-houthi-threat-to-worlds-digital-infrastructure/

According to the World Bank, “Yemen has long been one of the poorest countries in the Middle East and North Africa.” The Shia Houthis have been living in the “rugged mountains” since the 9th century and have been battling ever since for control of Yemen and beyond. In 2003, after the American invasion of Iraq, the Houthis adopted a slogan: “Allahu akbar, death to the U.S., death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.” The group now threatens the globe. Its siege of the Red Sea due to its support for Hamas against Israel is being felt beyond the region as reported in the Daily Mail:

The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, began attacking international shipping in the Red Sea on November 19 in support of Hamas in its war with Israel in Gaza.

Since then several dozen ships causing major disruptions to global trade, some 12 percent of which passes through the Red Sea.

The U.S. and U.K. have launched a massive airstrike campaign against them.

Now there are concerns the Houthis could respond by targeting the internet and transmission of financial data.

It is estimated that 17 percent of global internet traffic travels via underwater fiber optic cables in the Red Sea.”

A little history about the Houthis sheds light on their religious zeal, determination and threat. Houthis adhere to the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, taking their name from Zayd bin Ali, the great-grandson of Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law. In 740, Zayd rose up against the Umayyad caliphate. He died in the revolt and thus was enshrined as a martyr. His “head is believed to be buried in a shrine to him in Kerak, Jordan.” Zaydis believe that Zayd bin Ali was “a model of a pure caliph who should have ruled instead of the Umayyads.” Followers of Zayd, the Houthis established themselves in north Yemen’s rugged mountains in the ninth century, and have never wavered from their mission of conquest, though they have seldom had the chance they have now to perform actions that reverberate worldwide.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

DEI Overpromised, Under Delivered, Ran Amok Andrew I. Fillat and Henry I. Miller

Posted By on February 15th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/14/dei-overpromised-under-delivered-ran-amok/

The concept of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has been in the ascendancy for nearly a decade. The movement is an outgrowth and expansion of affirmative action, whose intention was to proactively promote opportunity for racial and ethnic minorities that were perceived to be historically disadvantaged. But as awareness that Affirmative Action had evolved into applying “good” discrimination to cure past “bad” discrimination, support for it waned, culminating in its virtual elimination by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

For many reasons, despite its noble aspirations, DEI should follow affirmative action into the dustbin of discarded feel-good but perverse social causes. In practice, DEI is irretrievably flawed. It has devolved into toxic authoritarianism on the part of those who control and promote it, while undermining basic tenets of American values, societal cohesiveness, and free expression.

The recent turmoil at Harvard concerning the discriminatory treatment of certain groups according to their identities or ideologies has helped to bring some of these failings to light. Writing in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 4, Douglas Belkin quotes professor Avi Loeb, a theoretical physicist in the Department of Astronomy on how the DEI bureaucracy functions on campus:

Under Gay’s leadership [as Dean of the Faculty] … the mandate of the administrative state of the university continued to expand and shift from serving faculty to monitoring them. The message was, ‘Don’t deviate from what they find to be appropriate’ … [DEI] became more of a police organization.