RUTHFULLY YOURS

Gaming the demise of the Saudi monarchy has been a flourishing industry on the think-tank circuit for the past dozen years. Not long ago I sat in private conclaves of US national security officials with a sprinkling of invited experts where the head-shaking, chin-pulling consensus held that the Saudi royal family would be gone in ten years. A premise of the “realist” view that American policy in the region should shift towards Iran was that the Saudi monarchy would collapse and Sunni power along with it. All of us misunderestimated the Saudis.

Now the Saudis have emerged at the top of a Sunni coalition against Iran–limited for the moment to the Houthi insurgency in Yemen, to be sure, but nonetheless the most impressive piece of diplomacy in the Sunni world since Nasser, and perhaps in modern times. That attributes a lot of importance to a coalition assembled for a minor matter in a small country, but it may be the start of something important: the self-assertion of the Sunni world in response to the collapse of American regional power, the threat of Sunni jihadist insurgencies, and the Shi’ite bid for regional hegemony.

A most peculiar crisis is developing for the Chinese economy – and, indeed, for the regime — while the world’s attention is riveted on the chaos and terror in the Mideast and Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Not the smallest element is the clever manipulation by Beijing’s strategists of the world’s hopes for continued remarkable Chinese growth as a last call instrument to bail out a dawdling world economy.

That misapprehension of China’s economic capacities may well forestall, again, at least for a time, an inevitable coming to grips with basic problems of it vast society under the Communist Party monopoly. But there is growing evidence that China’s financial problems have reached a crescendo that Beijing can no longer manage.

The Romance of the Confederacy
It’s time the South dropped it in favor of a better part of its heritage. This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments re Texas’s refusal to allow Confederate flags to be stamped on license plates as part of a “Sons of Confederate Veterans” design. I wouldn’t ask sons of Confederate veterans to disown their ancestry; in fact, my mother’s mother’s family was Southern, and four of my great-great-grandfathers fought in the Confederate army. And I know that lots of Americans sincerely see the Confederate flag as a symbol of states’ rights — particularly because virtually no Confederate soldiers actually owned slaves.

But, personally, I see the Confederate flag as the symbol of men who, as Lincoln put it, wrung their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; who, “to strengthen, perpetuate, and extend” slavery, were willing to “rend the Union, even by war.” And I’m a very reasonable man. “Both parties” to the Civil War, said Lincoln, “deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” That war killed about three-quarters of a million Americans, and the Stars and Bars are the symbol of the men responsible — regardless of its having also been a symbol of men who were just trying to defend their homes.

Needless to say, the South has lots to be proud of, and — though it might not be my place — I’d like to point out something that could (and ought to) supplant its traditional reverence for the Confederacy. The best estimates of the size of the Confederate army range from 750,000 men to a million. One hundred ten thousand additional Southerners fought in the Civil War — for the Union. That means that more than one of every ten Southerners who fought in the war fought to end slavery and keep the country united.

It is entirely possible that there is a clause in the agreement that parallels the Kennedy Doctrine, except that it is aimed against Israel.Israel and the United States need to get ready to thwart a terrible surprise.

At the moment there no such thing as an Obama Doctrine for foreign policy – but one may be coming and it could prove catastrophic.I worry about bringing it up. It might give the President an idea he may have skipped, so it might be best to leave it unspoken.

What does Israel do when it is not Israel but Iran that has America’s back?But we must approach the subject, like it or not, because the possibilities are staggering. In fact, I’d be surprised if it were not already the central part of the deal being manufactured between Obama and the ayatollahs toward an agreement that is entirely favorable to Iran regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Among the most colossal shifts of our time has been the rise of China, from the black hole of Mao’s ruinous communism, to a power increasingly to be reckoned with around the globe.

But what is today’s China? Is it still communist? Capitalist? Is it friend or foe to the U.S.? Should we fear China’s rise? Resist it? Welcome it? What lies ahead?

These are the big questions tackled by PJTV in a special in-depth series of video reports: “Made in China.” Hosted by PJTV’s Bill Whittle, with Scott Ott, this is a three-part exploration of what China has become, where it came from, and what might lie ahead. You can watch a trailer, and purchase it here [1].

The troublesome truth is that there is no apartheid in Israel. Israel allows Arabs and Muslims full human and civil rights in all areas of life, including as full members of Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset.

To brand Israel as an apartheid state when none of these restrictions exist is not only defamatory propaganda but, according to the black South African Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, trivializes the real suffering of blacks under apartheid.

While Tutu et al discuss Israel the “oppressor,” Israel’s surrounding enemies seek to obliterate it in accordance with their genocidal charter. Given the silence of Tutu et al on that subject, apparently an agenda of genocide is not seen by them as an injustice.

Tutu also disregards the countless Christians being slaughtered in Muslim states; that black slaves are still being held in Muslim states such as Mauritania; the forcible taking of “infidel” slaves by Boko Haram and ISIS; the racist genocide in Darfur and the 10 million Muslims slaughtered by other Muslims since 1948.

It’s a phrase endlessly repeated since 1989. It’s been on the lips of Western diplomats, especially our own State Department types, for a quarter century: “Two-State Solution.” We must have a Roadmap to Peace and that destination must embrace a state for the Israelis and a state for the Arabs of Palestine. Anyone who questions that formulation is in danger of being marginalized. How can you oppose what Secretaries of State of both great American political parties have embraced? How can you say there are any people on earth who are not entitled to a state?

Are the Druze entitled to a state? Are the Kurds entitled to a state? How about the Chaldean or Assyrian Christians? It would seem that the state of Syria, ruled by the minority Alawites, is falling apart. What else do most Arab “states” in that region do?

The Libyans have a state. How does their state look these days? Everything would be better, they said, if only that bad man, Qaddafi, were overthrown. Hillary Clinton famously cackled on national TV when Qaddafi was killed by a vengeful mob of his fellow Libyans in 2011. Qaddafi was behind the terrorist bombing of an American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. But the junta that replaced Qaddafi in Tripoli announced that Qaddafi had been wrong to turn over to Scottish authorities the man who actually planted that bomb. Do Qaddafi’s even worse successors deserve a state? It would seem now, three and a half years after Qaddafi’s bloody death, that Libya is falling apart.

From e-pal Jerry G.

“As a former US Army Intelligence officer I am outraged by President Obama’s accusations of valued ally Israel spying on US Iranian negotiation of a political framework with the rest of the P5+1 enabling the Islamic Republic the leading state sponsor of terrorism to become a nuclear threshold states. The Administration’s untoward release of a secret 1987 Institute of Defense Analysis report on Israel’s nuclear program pursuant to a FOIA request from a virulent antisemitic and anti Israel US NGO violates long standing bi partisan policy between the US and Israel. These actions are reflective of a conscious Administration campaign to isolate Israel the only reliable ally in the Middle East. These actions violate force protection responsibilities of the Commander in Chief in faithless disregard of his oath of office to protect this country from all enemies both foreign and domestic. They may constitute grounds for Congression drawing up of a bill of impeachment for consideration by the House and Senate.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/today.php?id=1809

After years of talks with Iran, world powers see a light at the end of the tunnel. Israel, however, sees only darkness. The idea of Iranian nuclear weapon is surreal and frightening. But by Tuesday, it may be a fact on the ground. This is truly crazy.
As German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Saturday, when it comes to the Iran nuclear talks the moment of truth is drawing near. In the Swiss city of Lausanne, representatives of six world powers and Iran are working hard to remove the final obstacles standing in the way of reaching an agreement, or a memorandum of understanding, by Tuesday.
In 1897, the First Zionist Congress was held in Basel, Switzerland. This is where the Zionist vision was formulated. Now, 118 years later, in another Swiss city not too far from there, the Iranian nuclear vision is coming to fruition, representing a mortal danger to the Zionist state. So Switzerland has played a recurring important role in the lives of our people, for better or for worse.

Dan Calabrese’s new column on Hillary Clinton’s past may bring the curtain down on her political future. Calabrese interviewed Jerry Zeifman, the man who served as chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings, has tried to tell the story of his former staffer’s behavior during those proceedings for years. Zeifman claims he fired Hillary for unethical behavior and that she conspired to deny Richard Nixon counsel during the hearings:

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying.

The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes.

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

France says will propose UN Security Council draft on Israel

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — France’s foreign minister said Friday his country will propose a U.N. Security Council resolution in the coming weeks that could present a framework for negotiations toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Laurent Fabius said “there is no other solution” but said he doesn’t know what the United States, Israel’s top ally, will agree to.

The minister spoke to reporters at U.N. headquarters before leaving for the Iran nuclear talks in Switzerland.

“France will be part and parcel in proposing a resolution in the U.N.,” he said. He said discussions with partners will begin in the days ahead.

The U.N.’s top Mideast envoy, Robert Serry, challenged the Security Council on Thursday to lead the way on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying it should present a framework for talks that “may be the only way to preserve the goal of a two-state solution.”

France had put off a previous attempt at a council resolution to wait for the results of Israel’s election earlier this month. “Now look at the result,” Fabius said.