RUTHFULLY YOURS

China’s “New Silk Road” might become history’s most ambitious investment in infrastructure. Some Chinese strategists predict an Israeli role in the project on par with, or possibly even more important than, that of Turkey. China calls the project “One Belt and One Road,” referring to a belt of railroads, highways, pipelines and broadband communications stretching through China to the West, and a “maritime Silk Road” combining sea routes with port infrastructure from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.

Israel’s location makes it possible for the Jewish state to “play the role of bridgehead for ‘One Belt and One Road’ with the completion of the ‘Red-Med’ rail project,” said Dr. Liu Zongyi at a November seminar at Remnin University. Dr. Liu, based at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, spoke of a $2 billion, 300 km rail line linking Ashkelon with the Red Sea. The “Red-Med” project is usually presented in more modest terms, as a way of absorbing excess traffic from the Suez Canal, or as an alternative route in the event of political disruption.

Biased Schabas Resigns, Scrap Tainted ‘Investigation’ and Report
If the allegations against Schabas’s bias against Israel were so strong and enduring that he was forced to resign, then the entire investigation and report is tainted.

It was announced late on Monday, Feb. 2, that the man named last year by the United Nations Human Rights Council to head an investigation and craft the official UN report on Israel’s conduct during last summer’s war has resigned due to repeated allegations of bias against Israel.

The investigation, however, is over and the report is due to be published next month; that means all of the substantive work is complete.

If the allegations against Schabas’s bias against Israel were so strong and enduring that he was forced to resign, then the entire investigation and report is tainted.

The investigation must begin anew, with an unbiased official overseeing the entire enterprise. That is the essence of the statement issued by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following the resignation of William Schabas.

President Obama has a problem, and his name is Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl apparently deserted his army unit in 2009 and was held by the Haqqani terrorist network for five years. He was released in 2014 in exchange for five high-ranking Taliban commanders held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Much to Obama’s consternation the Army is considering whether Bergdahl will be charged with desertion, some lesser offense, or nothing at all. Desertion is a capital crime.

The last US soldier executed for desertion was Pvt. Eddie Slovik, put to death almost exactly seventy years ago on January 31, 1945. Before him, no soldier had been executed for desertion since the Civil War.

But it’s not the fact that Bergdahl could face execution that poses political trouble Obama: it’s the fact that Obama chose to release an entire Taliban command structure in exchange for him. In its effort to make that appear worthwhile, Obama and his political operatives are placing enormous pressure on the Army to not charge Bergdahl with desertion, and maybe let him off without any significant discipline.

To do that, Team Obama has chosen to create a bizarre narrative that attempts to prove: (1) the Taliban aren’t terrorists, so negotiating with them isn’t contrary to US policy against negotiating with terrorists that goes back at least to Teddy Roosevelt’s “Pedicaris alive or Raisuli dead”; and (2) we never leave any soldier behind; so that (3) it was worth any trade to get Bergdahl, even one that swapped some of the most dangerous inmates in Gitmo to get him.

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner won election in November with a mandate to reinvent Illinois, and this week he teed up some of his plans.

Mr. Rauner took a warm-up swing at the unions with a speech in Decatur, which happens to be the home turf of AFL-CIO President Michael Corrigan. For starters, he wants to do away with project labor agreements (PLAs) “that are basically what the unions have worked out with the politicians” who “they influence with campaign cash and then impose those contracts on the businesses that contract with the state.” Mr. Rauner complained that PLAs, which usually require contractors to pay union wages and benefits on public construction projects, increase costs by about 18%.
Also on his agenda are “right to work zones” that allow local voters and governments to decide whether workers should be required to join a union and pay membership dues as a condition of employment. While the Republican doesn’t intend to make Illinois a right-to-work state—he wouldn’t have the votes in the heavily Democratic legislature—he fundamentally supports “employee empowerment,” which is his preferred term for right-to-work. So cities like Decatur could pass their own right-to-work ordinances without the state enacting legislation.

Obama’s disregard for federal law makes it imperative that states join the suit against him.

A very public dispute broke out last week when Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt went against Gov. Brian Sandoval’s wishes and joined a lawsuit filed by 25 other states challenging President Obama’s imposition of his immigration reform policies by executive action.

Messrs. Sandoval and Laxalt are both Republicans who agree that the current immigration system is broken and that comprehensive reform is necessary. But Mr. Sandoval opposes litigation and has suggested that new immigration reform legislation is the best way to proceed.

Even friends of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are second-guessing his decision to accept House Speaker John Boehner ’s invitation to address Congress next month on the subject of Iran, over loud objections from the Obama administration. The prospect of the speech, those friends say, has sparked a needless crisis between Jerusalem and Washington. And it has put Democrats to an invidious choice between their loyalty to the president and their support for the Jewish state, jeopardizing the bipartisan basis of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Sensible concerns—except for a few things. Relations between Israel and the U.S. have been in crisis nearly from the moment President Obama stepped into office. Democratic support for Israel has been eroding for decades. It was the U.S. president, not the Israeli prime minister, who picked this fight.

In August, Boko Haram declared an Islamic caliphate and now holds about 130 towns and villages.

The uprising killed about 10,000 people last year, compared to about 2,000 in the first four years, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian troops Sunday repelled Islamic extremists who attacked from four fronts on Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeast Nigeria, with several civilians killed by aerial bombs and grenades and mortar shells on the ground.

Soldiers said hundreds of insurgents died.

Terrified residents fled homes shaking from five hours of heavy artillery fire and streamed in from the outskirts of the besieged city of 2 million, already crowded with another 200,000 refugees from the fighting.

In a separate attack, a suspected Boko Haram suicide bomber killed himself and eight others Sunday at the home of politician Sabo Garbu in Potiskum, in neighboring Yobe state, according to witness Abdullahi Mohammed.

Garbu is contesting a legislative seat in Feb. 14 balloting that includes a presidential election too close to call. Boko Haram denounces democracy.

For weeks Boko Haram has been closing in on Maiduguri, the group’s spiritual birthplace, and if it were able to plant its Islamic State-style flag there, even briefly, it would give them a major boost as the group loses ground in remoter areas, said Jacob Zenn, author of a book about the insurgents.

Its third attack in a week on Maiduguri came as Chadian forces launched a winning offensive, acting on an African Union directive for Nigeria’s neighbors to help fight the spreading Islamic uprising by Nigeria’s home-grown Boko Haram extremists.

It seems that the leftist media and Obama’s supporters in the United States, Europe, and Israel have decided that the only way they can defeat Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli elections is through personal attacks to humiliate and ridicule him as well as by arguing that his allegedly offensive and embarrassing behavior will have harsh consequences for Israel.

Attacking the messenger instead of the message is an easy strategy when the left lacks any credible alternative message or leader and is still perceived by most Israelis as too weak on security and too apologetic and appeasing on foreign affairs. While most French Jews were cheering and chanting Bibi’s name in the Paris synagogue during his visit following the supermarket terrorist attack, the left began criticizing his so called “shameless” behavior in Paris. When he received the great honor of being invited a third time to speak in front of an adoring U.S. Congress, and was personally criticized by the shameless Obama administration, the left was eager to join in the attacks.

The month began on January 1st with the college football playoffs. Oregon beat Florida State and Ohio State defeated Alabama. The ‘Buckeyes’ then won the national championship twelve days later. The month ended on the eve of the Super Bowl, which pitted the New England Patriots – they of ‘deflategate’ fame – against the Seattle Seahawks. (New England won.) While fans get excited and Super Bowl parties are the rage, the event serves also as a reminder of the need for tax reform. Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars professional football garners, under the U.S. tax code the NFL is a 501(c) 6 organization, a tax-exempt enterprise.

But much more than football was packed into those thirty-one days. The President gave his State of the Union message, an upbeat message that seemed to have little relationship with the world as it is. Apart from multiple veto threats, it was, as Daniel Henninger wrote in the Wall Street Journal, a Peter Pan message – the world will be just fine “if only we think lovely thoughts.” Reality is quite different. Despite the President bragging he had concluded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Islamic terrorism persists. ISIS is undaunted in Iraq and Syria, continuing to behead prisoners. Four Parisians, trained by al Qaeda in Yemen, killed twelve staff members of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and four others at a kosher market. The Islamic group Boko Haram killed 2,000 people in Bara, Nigeria. Yemen, an alleged ally in the fight against al Qaeda, imploded with President Hadi and his cabinet resigning their posts, as Houthi rebels, another Islamic extremist organization, took over the capital city of Sana’a. Two Israeli soldiers were killed by Hezbollah, an Islamic group operating on the Lebanon border. Yet the Administration in Washington continues to have a hard time using the qualifier “Islamist” when talking about Islamic terrorism.

Iran Invades the ‘Forgotten Continent’ By Greg Jones

In terms of U.S. foreign policy priorities the label fits nicely; our gaze tends towards the Middle East and Asia. Besides the occasional trip to sign a trade agreement, the world’s fifth largest landmass is generally absent in the annals of American diplomacy.

That might be changing, however. The recent “suicide” of an Argentinian prosecutor by the name of Alberto Nisman should give us pause when considering the importance, or lack thereof, of our oft-overlooked Latin neighbor.

Nisman was shot point-blank in the forehead one day before he was due to testify to the Argentinian National Congress on the results of a decade-long investigation into the deadliest terror attack in that country’s history.