RUTHFULLY YOURS

Tumbling oil prices have sent repressive regimes around the world reeling. Liberals should rejoice.

Christmas came early for the world’s liberal democracies this year, with news in mid-December that repressive regimes from Russia to Venezuela and from Iran to Belarus are tumbling down an economic spiral. Who or what should we thank for this geopolitical yuletide? The neocons? Pro-democracy protesters? George W. Bush and Tony Blair ?

No. Thank instead American shale producers. The shale-gas and hydraulic-fracking revolution is lighting a figurative bonfire under the world’s petrocracies. Dictatorships that for years blackmailed the West in the knowledge that we would come crawling back for the black stuff are now catching a glimpse of a bleak future.

As the American people and companies shift more of their consumption to cheaply produced domestic energy, the geopolitical leverage of oil-rich autocrats diminishes. A barrel of crude on Monday sold for less than $60, down nearly 50% since June when it went for $115. Take that, ayatollah.

This is a price drop made in the shale-rich heartlands of the U.S. Between 2007 and 2012, shale production in America jumped by more than 50% a year. In that time the shale share of total U.S. gas production rose to 39% from 5%. Last year the U.S. overtook Russia as the world’s leading energy producer; next year America is projected to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest producer of crude oil.

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001503.html

CONTENTS

1. Syria: Government News Agency features Israeli containers at port
2. Turkey: As Arabs shun Hamas, Meshaal and Erdogan cozy up
3. Iran: Hamas leader Meshaal to visit Tehran
4. Egypt prepares to destroy Palestinian 1,200 homes next to Gaza
5. “Israelis ask Egyptians to redraw border a bit”
6. Sinai: Militant attacks continue
7. Gaza: Explosion hits beauty salon

Moshe Arens (born 1925) was an aeronautical engineer who became a leading Israeli statesman, serving as ambassador, minister without portfolio, and defense minister.He graduated from high school in New York City and served in the United States Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. He secured a B.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but went to Israel at the outbreak of its 1948 war of independence and served in the Irgun Zvai Leumi. He returned to the United States in 1951 to study at the California Institute of Technology where he received an M.A. degree in aeronautical engineering in 1953. He then worked for a number of years on jet engine development in the aviation industry in the United States before his return to Israel.He was involved in the design of airplanes and the development of missiles and won the Israel Defense Prize in 1971. He was active in Herut Party politics from the outset and was elected to the Knesset (parliament) in 1974. After the Likud election victory of 1977 he became chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He voted against the Camp David Accords in 1978, but subsequently supported the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979 as an established fact.He regarded the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) as an integral part of Israel in keeping with the views of Vladimir Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin: these territories are historically part of Israel, and they serve a security purpose.
Abbas does not want to sign an agreement with Israel, nor is he capable of implementing it if he were to sign one, and he knows it. He prefers to be a phantom at the UN.

The recurring attempts by western European states to recognize and define the borders of a nonexistent Palestinian state, and the maneuvers by Mahmoud Abbas to obtain a seat for this putative state at various UN forums and to have the Security Council determine the deadline for and outcome of negotiations between him and Israel to create such a state, are unprecedented in the annals of nation-states and in the UN’s history.
In some ways they are reminiscent of Charles De Gaulle’s vain call, “Vive le Quebec libre,” during his visit to Montreal in July 1967, which did not change Quebec’s status at all. That’s not how nation-states are created.
All this is surely clear to the sundry statesmen and parliamentarians engaged in these maneuvers. Why are they doing this?
Presumably it is because they sincerely believe in the right of self-determination and would like to ram a Palestinian state down Israel’s throat.
They have fallen under the spell of the catchy slogan “two states for two peoples.” How can you object to that? Not only Europeans and Americans have fallen for it, but many Israelis as well.
There is only one catch here, which they insist on ignoring: The Palestinians already have a state of their own. That’s Jordan, where 70% of the population is Palestinian. If Jordan is not an expression of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people, then what is?

The negotiations in Vienna to restrict or prevent Iran from enriching sufficient fissile material to build nuclear weapons, raises the specter of yet a new round in what some have described as “the second nuclear age.” For the uninitiated, the first nuclear age was the period in the Cold War when the U.S. and allies confronted the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal. The second nuclear age is defined by the multiplicity of nuclear powers linked together by varying levels of cooperation and conflict.

Although the Soviet Union and the United States had tense and hostile moments, they did reach some accord for maintaining strategic stability. However, in the second nuclear age, deterrence involving threats from two or more potential adversaries is complicated. Actions of self-defense by nation one against nation two, may be threatening to nation three. Furthermore, non-nuclear technologies such as missile defense, cyber-attacks and precision weapons could challenge strategic balance.

Hence, there is a need to carve out a unique and unalterable restraint mechanism among nuclear powers to avoid endangering stability; what I have described as “a safe zone” to reduce the risk of deliberate, accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.

At the moment five nuclear powers, the U.S., China, Russia, France and England, maintain an uneasy, but recognized regimen under the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty with India and Pakistan included in the forum. Clearly North Korea is an outlier and Israel is an ambiguous supporter. But despite tensions on the foreign policy front among the Big Seven, equilibrium, however shaky at times, has held. Surely this fragile system needs buttressing with transparency and confidence boosting measures.

“Britain remains the world’s leading recruiting ground for al-Qaeda.” — Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph.

When she sought help from the police and a lawyer, “the family of the defendants were insulted that she had gone to the law. They wanted her back within the family fold… Therefore, it was decided that she should be forced to comply or be killed.” — Prosecutor of Ahmed A-Khatib, who murdered his wife for becoming “too westernized.”

British school teachers are afraid to teach their students about Christianity out of fear of offending Muslims. — Roger Bolton, BBC Radio 4’s Feedback program.

Rather than taking steps to protect British children, police, social workers, teachers… and the media deliberately played down the severity of the crimes [of Muslim sexual grooming gangs] in order to avoid being accused of “Islamophobia” or racism. — From the report “Easy Meat: Multiculturalism, Islam and Child Sex Slavery.”

A group of British lawyers launched a website, Sharia Watch UK. The group called Sharia law “Britain’s Blind Spot.”

After Adebolajo, who murdered and tried to behead British soldier Lee Rigby with a meat cleaver, was given a “whole-life” prison term, his brother said his sibling was the victim of “Islamophobia.”

“The problem of honor-based violence and forced marriages in England is “worse than people think.” — Claire Phillipson, Wearside Women in Need

Cap tax-deductible CEO remuneration at a maximum of 30 times the salary of that public company’s lowest paid worker. Thereabove, salaries will not be tax deductible as an operating expense for an employer. In addition, no bonuses (in cash or shares) for top management of a public company will be tax deductible if the company suffered losses by the end of the relevant year.
Limit the amount of airtime (on both public television and radio) eligible for advertiser tax deductions, to about 90 percent of the current level. Any advertising time above this level will not be tax deductible, reducing the cost-effectiveness of additional advertisements and helping to stem our country’s advertising epidemic.

By way of both suggestions 1 and 2, companies can allocate resources exactly as they wish. However, the government will cease to incentivize obviously counterproductive decisions.

Erdogan was happy. At least until a few days ago….

Erdogan probably did not know the Emir of Qatar’s next move on the Middle Eastern chessboard.

Turkey aspires to be a regional leader with no, little or problematic dialogue with about a dozen countries in its region.

Back in 2011, everything ostensibly was coming up roses between Turkey and Egypt. In a speech that year, then-Turkish President Abdullah Gul mentioned “…an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region [Turkey and Egypt], from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley…”

In September 2011, then-Prime Minister [now President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan found an emotional hero’s welcome at Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Tens of thousands of Egyptians had flocked to the Cairo airport to welcome him. Streets were decorated with posters of Erdogan.

In early 2012, a survey by TESEV, a Turkish think-tank, found that Turkey was the most popular country for the residents of seven Arab countries, including Egypt.

But against that glittering backdrop, this author wrote in June 2011: “For Ankara, Cairo can be the new Damascus until another capital becomes the new Cairo. At that time, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erdogan’s one-time best regional ally, had already become his worst regional nemesis.

The Turkish-Egyptian love affair would, in fact, be quite short-lived.

Glazov Gang’s 2014 Episode of The Year: Geert Wilders

A titan and courageous truth-teller crystallized the only way the West will be able to preserve itself.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/glazov-gangs-2014-episode-of-the-year-geert-wilders/

“You are always a student, never a master.

You have to keep moving forward.”

Conrad Hall (1926-2003)

Cinematographer

The end of the year is a good time to reflect on subjects we deem of particular importance. Education, along with stability at home, is perhaps the most critical requirement for future success. I want to offer my own experience and to provide some additional thoughts. In public schools, administrators too often put students and parents second to demands of unions. They are, for example, reluctant to approve options available to the well-off. Vouchers and charter schools are inimical to their interests. In colleges and universities, political correctness has driven out the concept of liberalness – the importance to confront differing opinions. Walter Lippman once wrote: “When genuine debate is lacking, freedom of speech does not work as it is meant to work.” With ten grandchildren in school, education, especially its promises, is close to my heart.

Too often, our high schools are considered successful if 80% of their students graduate on time and matriculate. The fact that many seniors may be illiterate and/or innumerate seems of little concern. Any number of colleges and universities – for profit as well as not-for-profit – have sprung up to accommodate the growing supply of students, most of whom must borrow the cost of tuition, and many of whom are unqualified. They have been told that a college degree – not education – is critical to success.

What has been lost in this mechanical process of sloppy manufacturing has been learning how to think. Too often, high school students graduate in need of remedial training. College seniors, in turn, graduate unprepared for the real world. I recognize that condemnation is broad; it ignores hundreds of good schools – public and private – and tens of thousands of even better teachers. But, as a generalization it stands; for learning should be pleasurable, solid and provocative.

I am sensitive to this issue because of my own experience. While I grew up in an educated household – my father, like his father and both his grandfathers, were alumni of Harvard – I never took advantage of the opportunities offered …or I did not until I was twenty-one, after I met the woman who became my wife. I blame only myself. I did have a few teachers in school and in college who tried to reach an unreachable boy. I remember those few fondly, and some of what they taught did stick, in spite of my best efforts to remain impervious to their attempts.

There has been essentially no global warming since 1998. Some would choose 1997, others would more conservatively use 2002 as the proper starting date, based on satellite data. Of course, this is quite unexpected, since CO2 — a leading GHG, which climate models presume to cause anthropogenic global warming (AGW) — has been increasing rapidly in the 21st century.

Even if we cannot readily find the cause for the “pause” — as it is sometimes called — we can be absolutely sure that it was not predicted by any of the dozens of the UN-IPCC’s General Circulation Models (GCMs). Therefore, logically, such non-validated GCMs cannot, and should not, be used to predict the future climate — or as a basis for policy decisions.

Here I would like to discuss some of the possible causes for the GW “hiatus.” Its existence is creating a scientific challenge for climate skeptics — and a real crisis for alarmists; it can no longer be ignored by any who consider themselves to be scientists — nor, indeed, by responsible politicians.

One possibility, of course, may be that the pause is simply a statistical fluctuation, like tossing a coin, with 15 to 18 heads in a row. Such an explanation cannot be dismissed out of hand, even though it has a very low probability — which becomes even smaller with each passing year of no GW. Obviously, climate alarmists like this possibility — although the number of such ‘true believers’ is shrinking. Most have started to look for a physical cause for the pause — an explanation of why current GCMs are failing to match observations.