‘If I didn’t believe Netanyahu, I wouldn’t stay in my job for another second’ Ruthie Blum

http://’If I didn’t believe Netanyahu, I wouldn’t stay in my job for another second’ – JNS.org

I first met Tal Gilboa in July 2023. Little could we have imagined during our upbeat encounter that a mere three months later, her beloved nephew, Guy—the 22-year-old son of her sister, Meirav, and brother-in-law, Ilan—would be hauled off violently to Gaza by Hamas terrorists. That he is still there today, a full 11 months later, is even more unfathomable.

Tal is on her second stint as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s adviser on animal rights. She served in that role during his previous government—the one that was replaced by the rotation coalition headed by Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett.

When Bibi returned to the helm in December 2022, he hired her again. An endeavor dear to both was promoting cultured meat and lowering its cost through the use of Artificial Intelligence.

I’d been familiar with her appearances on political panels on TV, and knew that she was the winner of the Israeli version of the reality show “Big Brother” in 2014. My interest was really piqued, however, when she became a target of left-wing attacks for her refusal to toe the intersectional line of her self-described yet anything but liberal peers.

When I went to work for a brief period at the Prime Minister’s Office, I introduced myself to her by revealing that I’d written an op-ed a year and a half earlier about the hypocrisy of her critics.
Given the way she’s been treated since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre—despite her nephew’s abduction from the Nova Music Festival—I felt it was time for another piece defending her against the slander to which she has grown so unfairly accustomed. But I opted, instead, to let her speak for herself.
The following are excerpts from our interview, though full disclosure requires that it be described as a conversation between two friends who share similar perspectives.

A hollow peace? Cairo facilitated weapons David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/a-hollow-peace-cairo-facilitated-weapons-smuggling-to-hamas/

Israel has uncovered 180 tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor, Gaza’s strategic border with Sinai. Observers say those tunnels served as 24-hour weapons supply lines for Hamas, not just under the watchful eyes of Egypt, but with its willing assistance.

The revelation of Egyptian complicity raises troubling questions about Israel’s purported ally.

“The feeling in Jerusalem now is that Egypt is ungrateful,” Yoni Ben Menachem, Middle East intelligence analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), said on Thursday.

Israel helped Egypt in its campaign against the Islamic State in Sinai. It allowed Cairo to double its forces in the peninsula, far more than was allowed by the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Israel even conducted bombing raids against the Islamic State at Egypt’s request. In 2014, Israel intervened on behalf of Egypt with the U.S. to ensure American aid continued.

“Now it turns out that the Egyptians have been playing a double game,” Ben Menachem told JNS. “They’ve been letting Hamas smuggle weapons for many years, especially after [Egyptian President] Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi came to power 10 years ago,” he said.

Smuggling isn’t only through the tunnels, he added, but through the Rafah border crossing, thanks to bribing of senior Egyptian officials.

Iran’s Ayatollahs challenge the US in Mexico Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

http://bit.ly/3MJaqBL

The US State Department determination to suspend and soften economic sanctions on Iran’s Ayatollahs has added – since February 2021 – some $175bn to the Ayatollahs’ national income. This added-income has bolstered the Ayatollahs’ anti-US global terrorism and drug trafficking, while the US persists in its feeble responses to the frequent assaults on US installations in the Persian Gulf, Syria and Jordan by the Ayatollahs and their proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. These rogue activities by the Ayatollahs have undermined the safety of the main trade route (the Red Sea) between Europe and the Far East, while causing a severe economic setback to the pro-US Egypt, and threatening the survival of all pro-US Arab regimes.

At the same time:

*Mexico’s expanding alignment with anti-US, pro-Iran Latin American governments – such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil and Chile – attests to the erosion of the US strategic posture in its own hemisphere, as well as the dramatic inroads made by Iran’s Ayatollahs – in collaboration with their Hezbollah proxy – into the soft underbelly of “The great American Satan.”

*Mexico has followed in the footsteps of the tri border area of Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil, becoming an arena for Iran and Hezbollah drug trafficking and terror-financing money laundering. For example, Iran’s Ayatollahs and Hezbollah have trained Mexican drug cartels in the areas of car bombs and improvised explosive devices, supplying them equipment for the construction of underground tunnels, as well as  predator unmanned aerial vehicles..

*The collusion with Mexican drug cartels has provided Iran’s Ayatollahs and Hezbollah a potent staging ground to severely undermine US homeland security, while establishing a multitude of dormant terror cells in the US.

*The Ayatollahs’ and Hezbollah’s deep involvement in Latin American terrorism and drug trafficking was initiated in the early 1980s, shortly after toppling the Shah of Iran with the ardent support of the US State Department.

MORE HEADLINES

“We Are in Desperate Need for a Change in Leadership” https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/09/we-are-desperated-need-change-leadership-billionaire-bill/

BREAKING: Gold Star families defend Trump, slam Kamala: ‘Why will you not express your condolences yourself?’ https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-gold-star-families-defend-trump-slam-kamala-why-will-you-not-express-your-condolences-yourself

 

Gold Star Mothers Set the Record Straight: Donald Trump Has Been There for Us; He Knows Our Children’s Names https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/09/03/gold-star-mothers-set-the-record-straight-donald-trump-has-been-there-for-us-he-knows-our-childrens-names/

 

‘Massive fraud’: Kamala’s running mate Tim Walz subpoenaed by Congress

https://www.wnd.com/2024/09/massive-fraud-tim-walz-subpoenaed-by-congress-over-mishandling-of-covid-cash/

Kamala Harris Buses in People From Massachusetts to Her New Hampshire Rally (VIDEO) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/09/kamala-harris-buses-supporters-her-new-hampshire-rally/

Vladimir Putin throws his support behind Kamala Harris for president https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/politics/2024/09/05/vladimir-putin-gets-behind-kamala-harris-for-president/75093602007/

The Morning Briefing: The World’s Bad Actors Do Not Want Trump to Win in November https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2024/09/05/the-morning-briefing-the-worlds-bad-actors-do-not-want-trump-to-win-in-november-n4932253#google_vignette

UN chief slammed for not condemning Hamas terrorists in statement on murdered US and Israeli hostages https://www.foxnews.com/world/un-chief-slammed-not-condemning-hamas-terrorists-statement-murdered-us-israeli-hostages

U.S. Service Members Assaulted by Turkish Nationalist Youth Group https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2024/09/02/u-s-service-members-assaulted-by-turkish-nationalist-youth-group/

 

Keffiyeh-Clad Man Injures Jewish Students with Glass Bottle at University of Pittsburgh https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2024/09/01/keffiyeh-clad-man-injures-jewish-students-with-glass-bottle-at-university-of-pittsburgh-n4932171#google_vignette

Liz Peek: Sorry, Goldman Sachs — Trump will be better for the economy

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4864694-goldman-sachs-trump-economy-harris

Democrats and their media allies are celebrating a report from Goldman Sachs concluding that the economy would be worse off under a second Trump administration than under Kamala Harris. 

Given that voters consistently rate Donald Trump more highly than Harris on their respective handling of the economy, this was a breakthrough for the left. Never mind that the much-hyped report concluded that the election of Harris and a Democratic “sweep” would result in only a “very slight boost” to 2025 GDP. Or that the reasons for the Harris edge are unpalatable, unsustainable and, essentially, idiotic.

Sorry, Goldman Sachs, but any leader who has specialized in increasing regulations, plans to significantly hike taxes, routinely bashes Big Business for profiteering and wants to break up America’s leading companies, like Google, can possibly foster a positive environment for growth.

The Goldman Sachs analysts argue that Trump’s tariffs on imported goodswill raise costs to consumers, which could “help spur an economic slowdown” and “likely cost the gross domestic product about 0.5 percent in growth, a negative headwind that would persist throughout 2025.” So, one year’s minor impact. (Not to mention that 60 percent of U.S. CEOs in a recent survey think a recession is imminent, if not already underway.) 

Meanwhile, the folks at Goldman Sachs see Trump as likely to oversee a slowdown in illegal immigration. To them, this means lower job growth. “Under a President Harris, job growth would be 10,000 a month higher than if Trump wins with a divided government and 30,000 higher if the GOP controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.”  

I have written in the past about the Biden-Harris economy teetering on a wobbly foundation of excessive federal spending and illegal immigration. Astonishingly, the Goldman Sachs analysts propose that the U.S. cannot grow satisfactorily unless the migrant floodgates remain open. This is extremely odd, given that our country had been managing quite well for years before Biden and Harris threw the floodgates open.

Iran’s Mullahs Love Hiding Behind Their Proxies — It Is Time to Stop Letting Them by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20919/iran-proxies

Iran’s regime and its proxies constantly launch attacks – at Sunni Gulf States, at Israel and at US troops — with the seeming goal of eradicating the Jewish state and driving “The Big Satan” out of the region. That way, the mullahs appear to believe, Imperial Iran would be able to enjoy the run of the corral without interference from countries they allege are imperialist, and revel in an unfettered “open season.”

Iran and its proxies have attacked US troops in the region more than 150 times just since October. The US response has not exactly been a deterrent. In the meantime, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism continues cheerfully to put the finishing touches on its nuclear weapons program.

The regime hides behind its proxies because it would rather its proxies receive retaliatory strikes instead of Tehran, Isfahan, Qom or Natanz, and it seems above all to fear losing its grip on power. The mullahs doubtless are aware that they lack broad support among the Iranian people, so it is easier to extend their influence and Islamist ideology through their proxies. Why should a country that does not treat its own people well treat others any better?

The time to put a stop to Iran’s runaway aggression is long overdue – before it launches nuclear weapons.

For nearly four decades, since the rise of Iran’s Islamist regime in 1979, the West has funneled substantial political and economic resources into combating Iran’s proxies. To what effect? Not enough, it would seem, to write home about.

After all these years, the West might consider, instead, facing a crucial realization: it might consider attacking the source, not merely its symptoms. It is high time for the West to wake up.

Trump, Harris, and Communism By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/09/trump_harris_and_communism.html

What does “full communist” even mean to generations of young people who have no idea what communism has wrought in the world?

Kamala Harris has “vowed to lower prices at the grocery store with price controls and open up the increasingly out-of-reach housing market with tax subsidies for homebuyers.” Harris asserts that she “will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food. Her plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules.”

As a result, Donald Trump said that Harris has gone “full communist.”

But what does “full communist” even mean to generations of young people who have no idea what communism has wrought in the world?

At the American Institute for Economic Research a reader learns that:

Most people in [communist] Cuba are skipping meals [.] These shortages of food are intimately linked with socialist governments, related economic policies, and, in particular, price controls.

In July, Cuban authorities imposed a new round of price controls on powdered milk, chicken, and pasta, among other goods. Vendors in Cuba are now not allowed to sell chicken parts above a price of 680 pesos, whereas market prices are typically around 700 pesos. 

Price controls are huge red flags. These are not red flags celebrating socialism. Price control’s reddest flags relate to the nature of exchange, morality, and freedom [emphasis mine].Price controls increase poverty and hunger. Contrary to the utopian dreams of policymakers, price controls distort market activity in perverse ways.

And they always lead to shortages.

Recently, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson commissioned a study looking into creating grocery stores operated by the city of Chicago. The move “by Mayor Johnson is a step to implement a communist system where the city or state owns the production and distribution of food, which history shows us [always ends] disastrously.”

As goes Cuba — so goes America?

Nazis, Marxists, and the History of Ideas While Hitler and Mussolini both expressed their opposition to and hatred of “Marxists,” they nevertheless embraced a leftism that was only marginally different from that embraced by Lenin and Stalin. By Stephen Soukup

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/07/nazis-marxists-and-the-history-of-ideas/

In light of recent events and discussions attempting to rehabilitate the historical reputation of Germany’s Nazis, it might be worthwhile to re-examine the foundations of the ideology that underpinned National Socialism and its close cousin fascism. Those who embrace the revisionism that excuses the Nazis’ crimes appear to believe that by doing so, they are defending themselves and their ideological brethren from unfair and ahistorical attacks by the broader left. They think—or at least seem to think—that because fascism is considered a “right-wing” ideology that was specifically pitted against both Communism and Western liberalism, it can hardly be as awful as has been assumed and that its association with unvarnished evil is mere propaganda.

They are wrong. Indeed, the very foundations of their sentiments are mistaken and result from the radical mischaracterization of history and the evolution of ideas in the two centuries after the Enlightenment.

The simple truth of the matter is that the standard depiction of National Socialism and fascism as right-wing ideologies is inarguably false. While Hitler and Mussolini both expressed their opposition to and hatred of “Marxists,” they nevertheless embraced a leftism that was only marginally different from that embraced by Lenin and Stalin. Their hatred was a practical matter, a question of power rather than ideas. Both economically and socially, the Nazis and their Italian cousins were inheritors of the leftist traditions.

Almost from the moment he put pen to paper, Karl Marx’s enemies, as well as his friends, set about explaining why his theories about and solutions to the conflict between capital and labor had no serious application in the real world. Marx was a fantasist, and everyone—save perhaps his occasional partner in crime, Friedrich Engles—knew it.

Alan Dershowitz leaves Democratic Party, cites DNC: ‘I was disgusted’ Dershowitz: Louis Casiano

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alan-dershowitz-leaves-democratic-party-cites-dnc-i-disgusted

Prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz announced his departure from the Democratic Party, citing several “anti-Jewish” lawmakers that make up the ranks of the party and the recent Democratic National Convention in which Vice President Kamala Harris became the party’s presidential nominee. 

Speaking with radio host Zev Brenner on “Talkline with Zev Brenner,” Dershowitz cited the DNC, which he said gave legitimacy to anti-Israel speakers, and anti-Israel protesters outside the gathering. 

“It was the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention I’ve experienced,” he said. “I was disgusted at the Democratic National Convention. Absolutely disgusted.”

“I am no longer a Democrat. I am an Independent,” he added, noting that he wouldn’t reveal whom he was voting for president until possibly after Nov. 1. “I want to see how they deal with Iran. I want to encourage the current administration to support Israel.”

The Harvard Law professor emeritus said his departure from the party was a long time coming and that he gradually resigned over time. 

“Alot of things pushed me in that direction,” he said. Dershowitz noted Harris’ failure to preside over a joint session of Congress during an address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played a big role in his decision. 

U.S. Campuses: The ‘Taboo’ Ignored Pandemic of Muslim Jew-Hate by Andrew Bostom

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20920/campus-muslim-jew-hate

ADL further recorded a total of 400 antisemitic incidents on college and university campuses, compared to only 33 incidents during the same period in 2022. Ugly incidents of U.S. campus antisemitism persisted throughout the spring 2024 semester year.

Routine empirical, if taboo, observation clearly indicates that often, the most vociferous and violent U.S. student campus antisemites share a common Islamic/Muslim religio-ethnic identity. A courageous, expansive Brandeis University study was just published addressing the potential validity of this anecdotal observation by analyzing U.S. undergraduate college student religious affiliation as a critical, independent factor animating their Jew-hatred.

Sadly, but with depressing predictability, the study’s seminal, if corroborative findings are being ignored by media, and the most voluble talking heads and “public intellectuals,” across the ideological spectrum.

The study authors concluded that although “a climate of universal anti-Jewish hatred” did not exist, Jewish student concerns about antisemitism were justified, and “driven by about a third of students who held distinct patterns of beliefs about Jews and Israel.” Specifically, “Identifying as Muslim was significantly associated with being either hostile to Israel or hostile to Jews, even after controlling for other factors.” Furthermore, compared to Christians, for example, Muslims were 2.6-fold more likely to harbor the most virulent antisemitism, namely, shared hostility to both Israel and Jews.

Since 2004, ADL surveys of Muslims have been conducted in Western (European and U.S.) societies, and Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries, where Islam is the state religion. MENA Muslim nations are by wide margins the 16 most antisemitic countries worldwide, where the prevalence of extreme antisemitism ranges from a “low” of 74% (in Egypt and Saudi Arabia), to 93% (among the Palestinian Muslims of Gaza, and the West Bank).

Largely consistent with these ADL MENA Muslim data, and strikingly concordant with the 2.6-fold excess of extreme Muslim antisemitism, relative to extreme Christian antisemitism, just revealed by the Brandeis study of U.S. college students, 2015, 2019, and 2023 ADL Western European reports, and a 2017 ADL U.S. report, found a 2- to 4-fold excess prevalence of extreme antisemitism, among Muslims versus Christians, or non-Muslims.

Discussion of the most plausible and discernible explanation for this global surfeit of Muslim Jew-hatred is also shunned: relentless inculcation of antisemitic motifs from the Qur’an itself, and other core Islamic texts, by the pre-eminent authoritative religious teaching institutions in Islam, such as Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s putative “Vatican.”

Identical, canonically sourced Jew-hating Islamic religious indoctrination is ubiquitous, and even embellished, in mainstream U.S. mosques, a baleful practice that has intensified following October 7, 2023.