The Palestinian strategy is clear: to incite the Arab masses against their leaders and governments. The Palestinian attacks are no longer directed against US President Donald Trump... Now the targets are the Arab heads of state, particularly those who are seen by Palestinians are being in collusion with Israel and the Trump administration.

As the Palestinians were condemning Arabs for agreeing to attend the conference in Bahrain, Palestinian leaders repeated their appeal to the Arab states for financial aid. On the one hand, the Palestinians are condemning Arab countries for attending a conference aimed at boosting the Palestinian economy and improving living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On the other hand, Palestinian leaders have no problem begging their Arab brothers for urgent financial aid.... The Palestinians are asking the Arabs to give them $100 million each month to help them "face political and financial pressure" from Israel and the US administration.

The Palestinians realize that some of the key Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, are no longer prepared to wait for them and have decided to board the train whose final destination is prosperity and economic opportunities for both Palestinians and Arabs.

The decision of six Arab states to attend the Bahrain conference despite the Palestinian boycott call shows that the Arabs have chosen to endorse a new direction – one that will leave the Palestinians to fend for themselves in a hell of their own making. For their choice to thumb their noses not only at the US but also at influential Arab states, the Palestinians are likely to emerge as the biggest losers.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is a pro-jihad, Islamist movement that has branches throughout the world and seeks to implement Islamic sharia under a global caliphate. Terrorism is only one of the methods the Brotherhood employs, and among its, goals, "democratization" has never been seen as one of them.

The Counter Extremism Project "has recorded 44 individuals and groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, including terrorist groups, foreign fighters, extremist propagandists, and political leaders."

The Trump administration's designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror organization would be an effective blow to pro-sharia and jihadi groups across the globe and help to bring about less violence and more stability to both the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.

The invincible Erdoğan took a great risk: a second loss for the man who thinks "who wins Istanbul wins Turkey" would mean just more than just an embarrassing mayoral loss. Comparatively speaking, the difference in votes between Imamoğlu and Erdoğan's candidate, Yıldırım, widened within less than two months from 13,000 to nearly 800,000.

""It appears that losing Istanbul entails too many risks for the AKP for the matter to be left to its own resources. Many are convinced that if the AKP were to lose Istanbul to the opposition, after having held it – with its precursor – for 25 years, a hornet's nest of vested interests, corruption, and abuse of power would be revealed" — Semih Idiz, a columnist for Sigma Turkey, an Ankara-based think tank.

The more the public feels the economic pressure, the more Erdoğan's popularity will sink.

"Frenchness" is disappearing and being replaced by a kind balkanization of enclaves not communicating with one another.... this is not a good recipe.

The more the French élites with their disposable incomes and cultural leisure cloister themselves in their enclaves, the less likely it is that they will understand the everyday impact of failed mass immigration and multiculturalism.

The globalized, "bobo-ized [bourgeois Bohemian] upper classes" are filling the "new citadels" -- as in Medieval France -- and are voting en masse for Macron. They have developed "a single way of talking and thinking... that allows the dominant classes to substitute for the reality of a nation subject to severe stress and strain the fable of a kind and welcoming society." — Christophe Guilluy, Twilight of the Elites, Yale University Press, 2019.

What he [Nobushuke Kishi, Japan's postwar statesman and prime minister], tried to tell us, in his oblique Shintoist manner, was that politics should be regarded as a public service dealing with issues of real life and not abstractions such as imperial glory.

The Iran that Shinzo Abe visited has no desire for the Japanese models, at least as far as the ruling elite is concerned.

It is clear that, for the near future, both dreams: Iran's of becoming a second Japan and Japan's of turning Iran into a strategic ally, are dead.

"Greek settlements in Asia Minor date as far back as the 11th century BC when Greeks emigrated from mainland Greece." -- Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center

Today, less than half a percent of Turkey's population is Christian.

The hostility of the Turkish people in Anatolia seems the result of having been indoctrinated with false information since childhood. Ironically, many Turks who harbor ill will towards Greeks are most likely of Greek origin and are actually insulting no one but their own Greek ancestors and themselves.

While Britons are striving to promote British values, those increasingly appear not to be the values everyone here wants.

The No Outsiders curriculum... teaches acceptance of people different from oneself, which is what brings pupils into contact with mutual respect for Christians, Muslims and Jews, the disabled, gays and everyone who might be considered "other". "It should make absolutely clear that no group should be left out...."

There seems to be a broader agenda at work here: that is, to find ways in which to maintain British values when faced with people who in many instances seem to oppose them. One example might be a lesson summed up in the Anderton Park expressions about British values...: "Jewish people are equal to Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and people with no religion." Many might not agree to that sentiment, whether in primary or secondary education, and possibly many Muslim parents would wish their children not to be taught it....

The importance of teaching children about respect for other people cannot be exaggerated. In the light of this, can there be any question that the lessons at Anderton Park school are vital for the West?

How does Abbas explain his opposition to the use of weapons and terrorism against Israel while his own faction displays rifles and a hand grenade and a map where Israel is completely ignored?

Fatah is, in other words, calling for a new Intifada [uprising] against Israel because the US is seeking ways to help the Palestinians. This is nothing less than loony.

In several interviews over the past few years, Zakariya Zubeidi made it clear that he never had any intention of renouncing terrorism. In one interview, he said that the Palestinian "resistance" could coexist alongside negotiating with Israel.... Recently, Zubeidi told an Israeli TV correspondent that he "misses the intifada and the revolution."

By its very own words and actions, Fatah makes it plainly clear that it is anything but moderate and pragmatic. This is the same faction that is supposed to be Israel's peace partner and whose leaders are welcomed around the world as advocates of peace and coexistence. If this is moderation, one wonders: how do Palestinians define extremism? The international community might check Fatah's communications in Arabic before answering that question for themselves.

Already eight years ago, the head of Iran's Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani boasted to the US General David Petraeus that: "You should know that I... control policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan. The ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who's going to replace him is a Quds Force member."

An honest analysis of acts of terrorism in the Middle East, and throughout the world, reveals that nearly every conflict, war, and tension in the Middle East, can be traced back to the Iranian government. Despite the illusion that those who would like to appease the Iranian leaders attempt to create, it is clear that the Iran, still racing toward nuclear-breakout capability, has no interest in peace.

The Quds Force has also apparently found new sources of funding to evade current US sanctions.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has apparently decided to shift strategies. Its latest initiative is apparently to use their "Christian" lobby — and various organizations that lobby creates — to infiltrate Christian pro-Israel communities through a carefully crafted narrative designed to appeal to Christians' love for all humanity and desire to pray for the Middle East. The PA's end goal, apart from displacing Israel, is both to dilute Christians' pro-Israel beliefs and their influence, and to convert Christians outright to the PA's narrative and cause.

"The organisation I lead," Mae Cannon wrote, "Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), has long been a friend to Israelis." Regrettably, a serious review of the history and activities of Cannon and CMEP illustrates that her statement is demonstrably false.

Does her audience know that she is accusing Christian supporters of Israel of increasing antisemitism and hate crimes? Does her audience know that she is writing and promoting Palestinian propaganda in media outlets? Do they know that she is working closely with the Palestinian Authority to implement the PA's strategic plan for targeting Israel by chipping away at Christian support for Israel through eroding support for Christian Zionism? Most likely they do not: Cannon's hidden agenda is disguised by a carefully constructed facade — one that claims simply to be introducing her audience to multiple narratives and perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The current goal is shifting the balance of power so that Congress, specifically, buys into the PA's political and legislative agenda as pushed by the PA's "Christian" lobby.

While Cannon pays lip service to opposing antisemitism and to being a "friend to Israelis," she leads CMEP in strategizing with Israel's enemies on the best way not only to undermine Christian Zionism but also — at the behest of the Palestinian Authority — to target the PA's putative enemy, the State of Israel, in the halls of the government of the United States — arguably, Israel's greatest ally.

One of the more disturbing discoveries regarding Iran's ever-expanding terrorism horizons has emerged in London where it was revealed by the Daily Telegraph earlier this month that a terrorist cell with links to Iran had been caught stockpiling tonnes of explosive materials on the outskirts of London at a secret bomb factory.

British intelligence officials have now concluded the stockpile was part of an international Hizbollah plot to lay the foundations for future terror attacks in Europe.

One positive outcome from Iran's increased terrorist activity has been to persuade the British government finally to designate the entire Hizbollah organisation as a terrorist organisation.

Now, with Iran being held responsible for the latest escalation in tensions in the Gulf, Britain and other European powers should demonstrate their resolve to oppose Iran's well-documented sponsorship of terrorism by backing the Trump administration in its latest confrontation with the ayatollahs.

In an address to the 7th Annual Hellenic Air Force Academy Air Power Conference on May 15, Pyatt stressed America's strong support for its long-standing alliance with Greece, but he seemed to imply that the State Department would be pressuring Athens and Cyprus to cede to Ankara in its dispute over drilling rights in the Aegean Sea.

The phrase: "win-win" -- and the sentence: "At the end of the day, Turkey is a NATO ally" -- triggered Greek fears that U.S. President Donald Trump intends to use Greece as a decoy in order to bring Turkey back in NATO's orbit.

[Former Greek Prime Minister Costas] Simitis is not the only figure, political or otherwise, to have interpreted Pyatt's words as he did. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for instance, is likely to have understood Pyatt's remarks to mean that the U.S. is preparing to impose an "agreement" on Greece that favors Turkey. Such a sense on Erdogan's part would only make him hungrier for hegemony in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The sense in Greece is that the American embassy in Athens is not conveying Trump's messages in many areas, such as illegal immigration, Islamic terrorism, Iran and U.S. trade disagreements with the Eurozone.

In China, censorship, now largely automated, has reached "unprecedented levels of accuracy, aided by machine learning and voice and image recognition." — Cate Cadell, Reuters, May 26, 2019.

As in other Communist regimes, such as that of the former Soviet Union, the Communist ideology does not tolerate any competing narratives. "Religion is a source of authority, and an object of fidelity, that is greater than the state... This characteristic of religion has always been anathema to history's totalitarian despots..." — Thomas F. Farr, President of the Religious Freedom Institute, in testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, November 28, 2018.

In 2018, China had an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras, with plans for 626 million surveillance cameras by 2020. China's aim is apparently an "Integrated Joint Operations Platform" which will integrate and coordinate data from surveillance cameras with facial recognition technology, citizen ID card numbers, biometric data, license plate numbers and information about vehicle ownership, health, family planning, banking, and legal records, "unusual activity", and any other relevant data that can be gathered about citizens, such as religious practice, travels abroad, and so on, according to reports of local officials and police.

At the moment, China is in the process of fulfilling what Stalin, Hitler and Mao could only dream about: The flawless totalitarian state, powered by digital technology, where the individual has nowhere to flee from the all-seeing eye of the Communist state.

To make matters worse, many of Maduro's 2,000 generals are also heavily involved in the drug trade, aiding the very networks they are supposed to be battling.... Meanwhile, much of the country is also controlled by "pranes," crime lords who run gangs from within the country's prisons.

"Illicit narco trafficking through Venezuela is up some 40 percent." — Navy Admiral Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command, The Hill, May 23, 2019.

"The administration's strategy seeks to force the estimated 15,000 Cuban military and security personnel out of Venezuela. '[O]nce the rocks start rolling downhill, the regime itself is unsustainable,' Bolton said." — U.S. National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, as reported by Bill Gertz in the Washington Free Beacon, June 17, 2019.

The Palestinian Authority has chosen to crack down on anti-corruption activists as part of an effort to silence its critics and deter others from demanding transparency and accountability.

Stories concerning rampant financial and administrative corruption in the Palestinian Authority do not surprise those who have been reporting on Palestinian affairs in the past two decades. What is surprising is the growing number of Palestinian individuals and groups who are openly defying Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his senior officials by talking about and exposing corruption.

What Palestinian leaders are actually telling their people, in other words, is that anyone who complains about corruption is a traitor working with the Americans and Israelis against the interests of the Palestinians. This charge not only carries the death penalty, it brings shame to the accused and his or her entire clan. Palestinians are thus understandably wary of such an accusation.

Palestinian leaders not only deny their people the right to institutions of proper governing, they are now doing their best to block any chance of improving their living conditions by boycotting the upcoming Bahrain conference, whose main goal is to offer Palestinians economic prosperity and rid them of failed leaders whose sole interest seems to be enriching their own bank accounts and those of their family members.