ISRAEL Comments turned off

Innovation drives Israel’s economy Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

https://bit.ly/2RYFccY

1. Pratt & Whitney – one of the three largest helicopter and airplane jet engine manufacturers in the world, accounting for a substantial portion of United Technologies’ activity – concluded a long term contract with Israel’s Bet Shemesh Engines.  The contract will extend Bet Shemesh’s manufacturing jet engine parts for Pratt & Whitney until, at least, 2039, yielding an $800MN revenue for Bet Shemesh, which brings its total revenues during the 35 year association with Pratt & Whitney to $2.6BN (Globes Business Daily, June24, 2019).

2. Intel’s Senior Vice President and President of Intel Capital, Wendell Brooks: “Innovation drives economies, and the two best places of this are Israel and the US.” He added that Israel was one of three tech hubs that Intel Capital (Intel’s investment arm) is intently focused on (alongside China’s Beijing/Shanghai and the Silicon Valley).  Moreover, often Israeli entrepreneurs have “better ideas than in the Silicon Valley.” Intel Capital capped 2018 with $120MN invested in 14 Israeli startups and companies – a record year of investments in Israeli startups. Intel is building a new plant in Israel (Kiryat Gat) involving an $11BN investment. (Israel Today, April 25).

3. Israel’s Kornit Digital, which manufactures digital systems for printing on textiles, is raising $146MN on NASDAQ, which is five times more than its initial expectation. The underwriters are Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Berkleys, William Blair, Stifel, Needham and Craig-Hallum Capital Group (Globes, June 12). Israel’s SentinelOne Cybersecurity raised $120MN in a round of private placement led by the $23BN NYC-based Insight Partners, with the participation of the South Korean giant Samsung Venture Investment, NYC-based Third Point Ventures, Menlo Park-based Redpoint Ventures and NextEquity, Palo Alto-based Data Collective, etc. (Globes, June 6). Israel’s BrightWay raised $25MN in a round of private placement led by Japan’s Koito Manufacturing and the Japanese-Israeli venture capital fund, Magenta Venture Partners (Globes, June 26).

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Are Our Independence Days Numbered? by: Diana West

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3896/Are-Our-Independence-Days-Numbered.aspx

https://www.theepochtimes.com/are-our-independence-days-numbered_2988614.html

We have arrived at a point in U.S. history that even our Founders, in their nearly infinite wisdom, may not have foreseen.

Regarding Election 2020, we are faced with the grave question of whether enough Americans remain in the 50 states to go to the polls to affirm the continued existence of the United States of America by voting for Donald Trump.

If the answer is no, if Americans are outnumbered and even surrounded by those animated by an openly anti-America agenda promoted by the Democratic Party, 2020 could be a terrible turning-point of no return.

This tells me it’s here: that pedal-to-the-metal moment, over a century in the making, when our potential survival as a nation-state really does seem to hang in the balance.

This is not because the Democratic Party has suddenly changed course. True to its beating, socialist heart, Democrats have been variously pushing us toward decriminalizing illegal immigration, establishing sanctuary cities and states (why not a sanctuary nation, too?), abolishing private health insurance, confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens, and the like for a very long time. Likewise, their reverential zeal for abortion, infanticide, and sexual psychoses, which they harness like battering rams against religious liberty and traditional morality.

What is markedly different now is that the Party’s mainstream could hardly be more aggressive in its contempt, its animus, for the U.S. Constitution, the flag, the Founding Fathers, the borders, and American citizenship.

The Democratic presidential candidates who have emerged from this hostile camp make this clear every time they speak. Listening to them in their first debates, I finally put it together in the starkest terms: Democrats hate America. Worse, they don’t care who knows it, because it’s a selling point for their anti-American constituencies. With this being the case, how are we not one election away from a phase of openly calculated national destruction?

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Democratic Candidates Aren’t on a Winning Track By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/03/democratic-candidates-arent-on-a-winning-track/

Presidential candidates from both parties usually sound hard-core in the primaries to appeal to their progressive or conservative bases. But for the general election, the nominees move to the center to pick off swing voters and centrist independents.

Voters put up with the scripted tactic as long as a candidate had not gone too extreme in the primaries and endorsed positions too far out of the mainstream.

A good example of this successful ploy was Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. In the primary against Hillary Clinton, Obama ran to her left. But he was still careful not to get caught on the record going too far left. That way, he was still able to tack to the center against John McCain in the general election.

As a general election candidate, Obama rejected the idea of gay marriage. He blasted illegal immigration. He railed against deficit spending. And he went so far as to label then-President George W. Bush as “unpatriotic” for taking out “a credit card from the bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt.”

The result was that Obama was elected. After taking office, in cynical fashion he endorsed gay marriage, ran up far more red ink than did Bush, offered blanket amnesties and relaxed immigration enforcement.

Yet the current crop of would-be Democratic nominees has forgotten the old script entirely. Nearly all of them are currently running so hard to the left that the successful nominee will never be able to appear moderate.

Bernie Sanders leads the charge for abolishing all student debt. Kamala Harris wants reparations for slavery. Joe Biden talks of jailing health insurance executives if they falsely advertise.

The entire field seems to agree that it should not be a criminal offense to enter the U.S. illegally. The consensus appears to be that no illegal entrant will be deported unless he or she has committed a serious crime.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Germany: A Shocking Degree of Self-Censorship by Judith Bergman

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14362/germany-self-censorship

There appears to be a significant gap between what Germans say in public and what they think…. Fifty-seven percent of Germans say that it is getting on their nerves that they are “increasingly being told what to say and how to behave”.

“It makes a big difference… whether citizens feel that they are increasingly being watched and evaluated… Many citizens miss being respected in the sense that they want their concerns and positions to be taken seriously, [and] that important developments are openly discussed…” — From a survey on self-censorship in Germany, conducted by Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach.

This retreat [from respect for free speech], so far, culminated in 2018 with Germany’s censorship law, which requires social media platforms to delete or block any alleged online “criminal offenses”, such as defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint. If the platforms fail to do so, the German government can fine them up to 50 million euros. People in Germany have been prosecuted for criticizing the government’s migration policies….

Dániel Tóth-Nagy, a candidate for the Liberal Democrats in the UK, was suspended from the party for comments he made, such as: “There is no such thing as Islamophobia,” and, in response to a tweet, “What about FGM? Honor Killings? Forced marriage? What do you think about the protest of women in Iran, Saudi-Arabia and other Islamic countries against the compulsory hijab? What about Sharia in Britain? LGBT rights and education denied by Muslims in Birmingham?”

A new survey on self-censorship in Germany has shown that Germans censor their own speech to an astounding degree. Asked whether it is “possible to express oneself freely in public” a mere 18% answered yes. By contrast, 59% of Germans said that in their circle of friends and acquaintances they express themselves freely.

“Nearly two-thirds of citizens are convinced that ‘today one has to be very careful on which topics one expresses oneself’, because there are many unwritten laws about what opinions are acceptable and admissible” according to the survey, conducted by Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach for the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Prager U Video: Students Celebrate Marxist Che Guevara A UC San Diego safe space is named in honor of a mass-murdering Communist. Prager University

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274193/prager-u-video-students-celebrate-marxist-che-prager-university

Prager U’s Will Witt went to the Che Cafe, named after communist revolutionary Che Guevara, at UC San Diego and asked what students think about it. Check out the short new video from Prager U below:

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Open Border Demagogues Exploit the Border Crisis No solutions – just lies and reckless nonsense. July 4, 2019 Joseph Klein

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274211/open-border-demagogues-exploit-border-crisis-joseph-klein

The open border advocates are shamelessly exploiting the humanitarian crisis caused by the massive flood of illegal immigrants and would-be asylum seekers who have overwhelmed the resources available to detain and take care of them. The demagogues appeal to raw emotions with their crocodile tears. They offer no real solutions to the crisis, which for many months they denied even existed. Their mantra is: immediate release, amnesty, and a path to citizenship.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted her impressions of conditions at border detention centers. She insulted the memories of Holocaust survivors by comparing the border detention centers to “concentration camps.”  She also falsely charged that some detainees were being forced to drink toilet water. Always the consummate narcissist, she hurled insults at federal law enforcement agents while reportedly refusing to actually tour a border facility in El Paso, Texas when given the opportunity. This self-professed Democrat-Socialist hypocritically voted against humanitarian aid for the migrants, including even the bill proposed initially by her own Democrat House leadership.

Rep.  Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) secretly recorded selective conditions he witnessed during his own visit to a southwest Texas detention facility. Referring to the would-be asylum seekers, he declared, “They need to be moved out of these facilities as quickly as possible, they’re being held way too long, unnecessarily.” Rep. Castro decided that it was not worth his time to vote on the bipartisan Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act that passed the House on June 27th.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Remembering History’s Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission: Entebbe, July 4, 1976 How Israel showed the world that the war on terror could be won. Ari Lieberman

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274197/remembering-historys-m

On July 4th, 1976, as America celebrated its Bicentennial, four Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules planes carrying over 100 Jewish passengers, twelve Air France flight personnel, and their Israeli rescuers landed safely at Ben Gurion Airport. The safe landing of civilians and commandos marked the end of a week-long, nightmarish drama that gripped all of Israel.

The saga began on June 27, when a Paris-bound Air France commercial airliner took off from Tel-Aviv. The plane was scheduled for a stopover in Athens. Lax security at Athens International Airport enabled four terrorists with forged passports – two from the notorious West German Baader-Meinhof Gang and two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – to board the flight with their guns, grenades and explosives.

Their hijacking adventure set into motion a sequence of events that would reverberate around the world. It would also ultimately serve to further enhance the prestige and reputation of Israel’s vaunted, specialized commando units and intelligences services.

After a brief refueling stopover in Benghazi, Libya, the terrorists flew their commandeered Airbus A-300 to Entebbe airport in Uganda where they were given a hero’s welcome by their mercurial Ugandan host, the cannibalistically-inclined dictator, Idi Amin. In addition to providing them with safe haven, the despotic Amin placed elements of the Ugandan army at the hijackers’ disposal. In addition to the Ugandans, the terrorists’ ranks now swelled to seven, having been joined by three PFLP operatives during the Benghazi stopover.

HISTORY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Remembering Islam’s July 4th Victory By Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/remembering_islams_july_4th_victory.html

Soon after liberating the ancient Christian city of Antioch from Muslim oppression, the First Crusaders managed in 1099 to realize their primary goal: take Jerusalem from Islam.

Despite all the propaganda that surrounds the conquest of Jerusalem, there were very few Muslim calls to jihad (only one is known, and it quickly fell on deaf ears).  After all, in the preceding decades, and thanks to Sunni and Shia infighting, local Muslim populations were hardly unused to such invasions and bloodbaths.

In Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir’s words, “[w]hile the Franks — Allah damn them! — were conquering and settling in a part of the territories of Islam, the rulers and armies of Islam were fighting among themselves, causing discord and disunity among their people and weakening their power to combat the enemy.”

In this context, the pure doctrine of jihad — warfare against infidels — was lost to the average Muslim, who watched and suffered as Muslim empires and sects collided.

It was only during the reign of Imad al-Din Zengi (d. 1146) — a particularly ruthless Turkish warlord and atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo — and even more so under his son and successor, Nur al-Din (r. 1146-1174), that the old duty of jihad was resuscitated.  They founded numerous madrasas, mosques, and Sufi orders all devoted to propagandizing the virtues of jihad and martyrdom.  Contemporary literature makes clear that Islamic zeal (or, in modern parlance, “radicalization”) reached a fever pitch during their reigns.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Whatever It Is, I’m Against It’ By Charles C. W. Cooke

Posted By on July 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/betsy-ross-flag-controversy-progressivism/

Ramesh notes the speed with which the Betsy Ross flag was deemed outré:

Even so, the shift of the Betsy Ross flag, from worth showcasing for the Obama inaugural planners in 2013 to unacceptable for a big company in 2019, has been very quick. That timeline actually downplays how quick it has been: It was nearly instantaneous. The vast majority of people hearing about this controversy, including me, had never previously been exposed to the idea that there was anything malevolent about the flag.

And even as specimens of woke culture go, this one also stands out for the tenuousness of the connection between the newly unacceptable thing and the evil it is supposed to represent.

This is true. In a couple of days, we’ve gone from a celebrity saying a flag is bad, to a major corporation indulging that judgment, to presidential candidates and governors blithely confirming and cementing it. In my view, though, the scariest part is not so much “how quick it has been,” but that there has been no argument or explanation to speak of. Upon the instant, professional progressivism has accepted the change as if it were taking orders from on high. “The flag is in the bad column now? Got it. Will amend attitude and proceed accordingly.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Shin Bet nabs Hamas bomb-maker who snuck into Israel with medical visa

Posted By on July 3rd, 2019

https://worldisraelnews.com/shin-bet-nabs-hamas-bomb-maker-who-snuck-into-israel

Israel recently thwarted a Hamas plan to establish an explosives manufacturing network in Judea and Samaria using a medical permit to sneak in a key terrorist.

By TPS

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) recently exposed and thwarted a Hamas attempt to establish a bomb-making network in Judea and Samaria that relied on Israel’s humanitarian medical permits to sneak in terrorists, the security agency revealed Wednesday.

Fadi al-Sabah, a Hamas-trained bomb expert from the Gaza Strip, infiltrated Israel by taking advantage of a permit to receive medical treatment in the country. He was tasked with establishing a bomb lab that would supply suicide bombers with explosives.

The plans were exposed after a series of arrests among terrorists in Gaza.

Al-Sabah, 35, was arrested by Israeli forces in Teibe in May. He was recruited by Hamas operative Ashraf Sabah in July 2018 and underwent training in bomb building for several months. He was also trained on how to bypass Israeli security vetting and background checks.

Sabah was imprisoned for 12 years in Israel for his involvement in executing attacks against Israeli forces on the Gaza border.

Al-Sabah was recruited by Hamas after they learned that he was in the process of receiving a permit to enter Israel for medical treatment. Hamas decided to use him for terrorism purposes.

Some of al-Sabah’s trainers were released in the Shalit deal, the Shin Bet noted.

Before al-Sabah left for treatment in Israel, Ashraf Sabah sewed notes with code words into his jacket. The codes would have been used for communication between the various terror cells.

To obtain the proper medical records that would secure him an entry permit, al-Sabah got a Gazan doctor to provide him with a note that stated that he could not be treated in the Strip. After receiving the permits, he underwent training by Hamas.

In May 2019, Fadi entered Israel through the Erez Crossing with the message-containing jacket in his luggage. He was to be treated in a Hebron hospital, but never arrived there and instead met up with terror operatives.

He was arrested a few days later in Teibe in northern Israel and was recently indicted in a military court.

A senior Shin Bet official stated, “We are again witnessing Hamas’ exploitation of humanitarian permits provided by the State of Israel and its utilization of this medium to promote the organization’s hostile activities in Israel.”

Israel previously exposed several cases in which Hamas utilized Israel’s medical permits to promote terrorism.