https://www.frontpagemag.com/dhfc_videos/where-did-the-85000-missing-migrant-children-go/
https://www.frontpagemag.com/macrons-flip-flop-on-israel-the-result-of-domestic-politics/
On October 7, French President Emmanuel Macron was among the first to declare his solidarity with, and support for, Israel as it began its war to root out Hamas from Gaza. Three weeks later, his tone had changed, and he has now been lecturing Israel on the need to “stop bombing,” which, if Israel were to agree to do so, would constitute a victory for Hamas and a defeat for Israel.
An Israeli official, who does not want to be identified, has said that Macron’s change in attitude toward Israel’s campaign in Gaza was the result of “domestic politics.” By that he meant the pressure on Macron from the five million Muslims in France to end his support for Israel in Gaza, and to start getting tough with the Jewish state. More on this can be found here: “French Jews worry Muslim unrest could see Macron flip on Israel, putting them at risk,” by Canaan Lidor, Times of Israel, November 14, 2023:
Philippe Karsenty, a French-Jewish media analyst and former deputy mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, was more specific. “Macron is seeking to avoid a civil insurrection by Muslims. He doesn’t want another French intifada, so he’s betraying Israel,” said Karsenty.
Karsenty is exactly right. There are only 500.000 Jews in France, but nearly five million Muslims, or ten times as many. When the Jews march, as they do so very seldom, they do so, in quiet and dignified fashion, only to express their alarm over antisemitism, and their solidarity with the embattled Jewish state. There is no yelling, no violence, no setting fire to cars, no attacks on police stations and mayoral offices.
But when the Muslim mobs form, they yell their hatred of Jews and of the French, smash shop windows, set thousands of cars on fire, ignore police orders to stop their vandalism and disperse, and even fight with the police — an entirely different affair from the Jewish marches. And if a Muslim is injured or killed by the police when fleeing, all hell breaks loose throughout the Hexagon.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-other-crises-demanding-our-attention/
Israel’s battle to neutralize Hamas has dominated our collective attention, as it should. For all of its existence, Israel has been the canary in the mine shaft, the West’s beleaguered outpost of political freedom, tolerance, and equality in the midst of illiberal and tyrannical enemies that want to destroy the West’s power and influence. As Israelis have said over the past month, Israel’s fight is our fight, and always has been.
Yet our country is at a dangerous crossroads, with other threats both at home and abroad that demand our attention, and that should be the focus of next year’s elections. We are at the point where democracy’s historically bad habit of kicking multiple cans down the road is becoming unsustainable, if not lethal.
The Ukraine Stalemate
You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to predict that the Russo-Ukrainian war would become a stalemate redolent of the Western Front in World War I. For all the self-congratulation of the Nato countries about standing up to Vladimir Putin and protecting the “rules-based world order,” their money and materiel have been just enough to create the current stasis.
We seem to be pursuing a Mr. Micawber foreign policy, waiting for “something to turn up,” like a coup in Russia, to get us out of this quagmire. But more-realist commentators are casting doubt on Ukraine’s chances of defeating Russia and recovering their purloined territories.
In the U.S., the policy positions have settled into a bipartisan contrast: America First isolationism and a “no more costly endless wars abroad” sentiment vs. “aggression must be checked and deterred” by intervention lest we incentivize other aggressors to try conclusions. The result is the choice still facing us, between the bad and the worse.
Yet this debate is an exercise in shutting the barn door after the horse got out. The real story here is how our feckless foreign policy in the Nineties assumed that in a post-Soviet world we could enjoy the “peace dividend” and cut our defense spending.
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2023/11/20/alan-dershowitz-alleged-rise-of-islamophobia-at-universities-fake-n4924086
On the latest episode of “Life, Liberty & Levin” on Fox News, famed lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz scoffed at the idea that there’s a rise of Islamophobia on college campuses today.
“Let me ask you this, Alan — we have a very big bureaucracy. We have a huge Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. We have a huge Civil Rights Division and another big bureaucracy called the Department of Education,” began host Mark Levin. “Donald Trump signed an executive order, which gives those authorities the power to act against anti-Semitism and threats on college campuses. Maybe they’re doing it here and there. I’m not seeing a big push. I’m not hearing from the attorney general. I’m not hearing from the head of either Civil Rights Division. What the hell is going on?”
Dershowitz explained how he was at the White House when Trump announced the executive order and how he congratulated him on it despite the fact Dershowitz is not a Republican.
“I congratulated him for his great efforts in getting the administration behind this effort to root out anti-Semitism,” he said. “It hasn’t worked. In fact, what’s happened, and it’s this administration and Biden as well, whenever they talk about anti-Semitism, they say, ‘and Islamophobia.’ I’ve got news for you. There is no Islamophobia at any university in the United States. It’s a fake. It’s virtue parading. Oh, we have to fight anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Let me tell you who the anti-Semites are. They are largely, not completely, the radical Muslims who claim to be victims of Islamophobia. This is a one-sided issue.”
In fact, real incidents of Islamophobia are so hard to come by that a Palestinian man in Ohio faked an Islamophobic hate crime last month. Unfortunately, too many people on the left choose to pretend this isn’t a one-sided issue.
https://issuesinsights.com/2023/11/22/democracy-dies-in-darkness-dems-overwhelmingly-back-big-tech-govt-censorship-ii-tipp-poll/
Americans have come to realize that being online can mean having your speech rights curtailed. But that doesn’t mean they like it. Indeed, they mostly oppose the idea, in particular when it’s Big Tech and Big Government censoring together, according to the latest I&I/TIPP Poll.
With growing complaints over online censorship, the online national I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from Nov. 1-3, asked 1,400 respondents the following question: “Do you approve or disapprove of Big Tech companies working with federal agencies to engage in online censorship?”
For most people, the answer is negative. Of those who responded, 43% say they either disapproved of government and large tech and social media firms cooperating with each other to curb Americans’ speech “strongly” (26%) or “somewhat” (17%).
By comparison, 36% say they approve of it “strongly” (18%) or “somewhat” (18%). A significantly large group, 22%, say they were “not sure.”
The poll has a +/-2.7 percentage point margin of error.
But, the relative closeness of the response is deceptive. When broken down by demographics and political affiliation, surprisingly sharp differences between and within different groups emerge.
Start with politics. Democrats overwhelmingly approve of Big Tech and Big Government censoring online content, 57% “approve” to just 25% “disapprove.”
Compare that with Republicans, who are almost exactly the opposite of the Dems in their response: 26% “approve,” vs. 54% “disapprove.” Similarly, independents “approve” by just 21%, while they “disapprove” by 52%. Republicans and independents are nearly identical, while Democrats are the outlier.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-hamas-hostage-deal-gaza-51e141eb?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
The hostage deal that Israel and Hamas reached Tuesday will spare the lives of some 50 Israelis, and that is a great relief to the innocents and their families. The cost is a short-term cease-fire that Hamas will exploit, and three-quarters of the 236 hostages will remain in terrorist hands.
Israeli leaders believe the trade is worth it, and it’s not our place to second-guess their judgment. In exchange for returning Israeli children and women, 12 or 13 a day, Hamas is set to receive a four-day pause in Israeli military operations and the release of about 150 of its under-18 and female operatives from Israeli prisons.
During the cease-fire, Israel will allow more fuel and aid into Gaza. The pause might also extend longer if Hamas gives up more hostages, 10 for each additional day.
The deal again shows the moral gulf between the two sides. Hamas kidnapped Israeli children as young as nine months to use as hostages and spring its jihadists who have been arrested or convicted in a fair trial for their crimes. Israel takes military risks to save its citizens. Hamas risks Palestinian civilians to save itself.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hamas-close-to-reaching-deal-with-israel-to-release-hostages-terror-group-chief-says/
The Israeli government approved the transfer of roughly 50 civilian hostages currently held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night.
While precise aspects of the deal have yet to be officially publicized, it is expected that at least a dozen Israeli hostages will be released over four days. In exchange, Israel has agreed to release Palestinian women and minors currently held in prison, and figures range from more than 400 to as low as 150. The Jewish state further agreed to accept a four-day cease-fire and to allow considerably more humanitarian aid, including fuel, into the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The vote came after tense internal negotiations within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration. “Do you trust [Yahya] Sinwar more than us?” Israeli minister Benny Gantz reportedly pointedly asked finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, an opponent of the hostage swap, referring to the Hamas mastermind allegedly behind the October 7 attacks.
“We are not united,” national-security minister Itamar Ben Gvir pushed back on one Likud cabinet member pleading for consensus. “This is a decision with generational damage that will come back to hurt us badly.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Hamas leaders acknowledged they were “close to reaching a truce agreement” with Israel, the Palestinian terrorist group’s chief Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement provided to Reuters. The agreement is in its “final stages,” and a deal is “closer than it has ever been,” a source familiar with the negotiations told the wire service.
As part of the deal, Hamas would release at least 50 women and children who were kidnapped during the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. In exchange, Israel would pause its fighting in the Gaza Strip for four or five days and release three Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli civilian released, according to multiple news outlets.
https://www.jns.org/argentinas-first-jewish-president-milei-wins-decisive-victory/
Argentina’s newly elected president, Javier Milei, won a resounding victory on Sunday on promises to save the country’s crumbling economy. But Jewish issues, too, are close to his heart.
“I am thinking about converting to Judaism and I aspire to become the first Jewish president in Argentine history,” Milei has said, according to Argentina’s Radio Perfil.
He promises to move the Argentinian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and to make the Jewish state his first international stop as president.
Milei, an iconoclastic outsider who entered politics in 2020 vowing to “blow up” the system, won by 56% to 44% against his rival, Peronist Economy Minister Sergio Massa.
Milei makes no secret of his philo-semitism, which appears to have made little difference with the Argentinian electorate, despite its being 92% Catholic. (Jews make up less than 1% of the population, though at 200,000 it is the largest Jewish population in Latin America.)
He told La Nacion, “I don’t go to church. I go to synagogue. I don’t follow a priest. I follow my rabbi. I learn Torah. I’m known internationally as a friend of Israel. And as someone who learns Torah, I’m almost Jewish. I’m just missing the ‘blood covenant.’”
He took the stage at his rock concert-like election rallies—as a teenager, Milei was the vocalist for a Rolling Stones cover band—to the sound of a shofar. At one rally in August, an image of a Jew dressed in a tallit, or prayer shawl, was projected onto a giant screen as the shofar sounded.
https://www.newenglishreview.org/georgetown-teams-with-islamist-magazine-to-whitewash-hamas-deride-israeli-deaths/
Israel’s current military campaign to destroy Hamas in the Gaza Strip exhibits “blood lust,” stated Mouin Rabbani, coeditor of the Arab Studies Institute’s (ASI) Islamist webzine Jadaliyya, during a recent Georgetown University presentation. Sponsored by Georgetown’s Saudi-established Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), “Israel-Gaza War: A Conversation with Mouin Rabbani” presented Rabbani’s Gaza ravings as fact.
As was visible in the event video, Rabbani addressed an audience in the conference room of Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS), another event sponsor with faculty that share his anti-Israel views. ACMCU’s new director, Rabbani’s fellow Israel-conspiracy-monger Nader Hashemi, moderated. The Qatari-affiliated Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN) think tank, where Hashemi is listed as an expert, also sponsored Rabbani’s talk.
Rabbani described as pure revenge killings Israel’s rooting out of Hamas jihadists from their urban, largely underground hideouts following Hamas’s October 7 atrocities in Israel. “Israeli public opinion was so outraged” that “Israeli leadership is kind of trying to make good on this by ensuring that many more Palestinians are killed than Israelis were killed on October 7,” he stated. “Flattening entire neighborhoods” is not “in any way significantly degrading actual military capabilities,” he added, as if Israel could avoid harming civilians whom Hamas deliberately exploits as human shields. Israel, he said, is committing “systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Palestinians suffering under Israel’s self-defense actions, not the Jewish and other Israeli citizens butchered by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, were to Rabbani as the real victims. He bemoaned the “demonization and delegitimization and dehumanization and outright repression of pro-Palestinian sentiment.” He complained of “selective outrage” when comparing Palestinian civilian deaths in combat, which Israel strives hard to avoid, with the Israelis mercilessly targeted by Hamas terror.
“When Palestinians are killed, we take an analytical approach; when Israelis are killed, the criteria is morality,” Rabbani stated. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby “broke down on TV like a baby” after having examined images of Hamas’s ravaged victims, Rabbani callously noted, “a blubbering baby, for God’s sake.” Yet when Kirby later answered questions about civilian casualties from Israeli military operations, “all of a sudden he’s a tough guy, war is hell, civilians die, get over it. Ok, are you Jekyll or Hyde?” Rabbani sneered.
NO URL
One need look no further than my hometown of Chappaqua, New York and its public school district (CCSD) to better understand why there has been a spike of antisemitism on our college campuses and in communities across the country following Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack against Israel. As CCSD’s Superintendent of Schools, Christine Ackerman has made clear, when it comes to teaching Middle East history and confronting the unprecedented spike of antisemitism, CCSD is a “safe space” for antisemitism, moral equivalence, and fact free history.
Recently, 450 residents of Chappaqua whose children either attend or have attended the town’s public schools, sent a letter to the CCSD asking it to address the alarming rise of antisemitic incidents in the Chappaqua schools and the scourge of anti-Jewish hatred in the community in the wake of “the horrific massacre in Israel on October 7” (attached, although the names of the signatories are redacted for confidentiality). In response, CCSD put together a Webinar it claimed was designed to address the parents’ concerns.
Following the Webinar, Ackerman sent a letter to the CCSD community “to share the feedback…that we’ve received from the recent Middle East webinar and BOE meeting public comment period, along with our proposed plan to address the concerns and questions raised by parents.” (The full text of Ackerman’s letter follows this essay below). The letter reads like a dystopian litany of Orwellian Newspeak.
It is difficult to know if Ackerman is obtuse, ignorant, or malevolent. Whichever it is, she must resign or be fired immediately. She is not qualified to have any role in educating our children and her salary is waste of my tax dollars.
Not once does she mention the word “antisemitism” or the date October 7 in text of her letter. It is not until she itemizes the “Middle East Webinar & Community Feedback” that the word “antisemitism” is mentioned. By relegating “antisemitism” to the feedback and not raising it as a concern in the body of her letter, she makes clear that the rise in antisemitism is a concern she does not share. For her, this is merely an exercise in quieting some unhappy taxpayers.
