Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Gerald M. Steinberg • December 1, 2023 at 5:00 am
Two major revelations have ripped away the curtain from HRW's moral facade, and revealed a thoroughly corrupt organization. A week later, a second earthquake ripped through HRW's carefully manicured curtain of secrecy. In 2009, Roth and HRW started hiding the full list of donors – an early red flag for an NGO claiming a moral agenda. [A]n independent investigation of all financial activities covering the past 25 years is required, accompanied by the examination of possible violations by Roth, Whitson and others of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The damage done to the moral core of human rights and to Israeli victims of Hamas terrorism is incalculable and irreversible. But an internship or work experience at HRW is no longer an asset, and being listed as a donor in HRW's glossy PR publications is worse than embarrassing.
Two recent major revelations have ripped away the curtain from Human Rights Watch's moral facade, and revealed a thoroughly corrupt organization. In 2009, then Executive Director Ken Roth and HRW started hiding the full list of donors – an early red flag for an NGO claiming a moral agenda. Pictured: Roth at a press conference at the United Nations on January 14, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
On October 7, the Palestinian Hamas terror group slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and foreign visitors in a carefully planned massacre that included the brutal torture and disfigurement of victims. Hamas abducted more than 240 other people, including more than 30 children, and took them to the Gaza Strip, holding them as hostages. Human Rights Watch (HRW), ostensibly one of the world's "most respected" moral organizations, waited more than two days to issue a statement. When this occurred, the text was not a clear and direct condemnation of this monstrous war crime. Instead, Omar Shakir (HRW's Israel and Palestine Director) framed the unfathomably evil terror attack as a justified reaction to Israeli policies, which, in HRW's list of slogans, include war crimes, unprecedented repression, unlawful closure of Gaza, inhumane acts, "domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians," and "crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution."
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 30, 2023 at 5:00 am
Awad Darawshe, 23, an Arab-Israeli paramedic, remained behind, refusing [on October 7] to abandon the wounded. "I speak Arabic. I think I can manage," Darawshe said, supposing that he could reason with the terrorists. Perhaps he thought they would not harm a fellow Muslim Arab. He was wrong. "I never felt that I'm deprived in any way.... Stop the nonsense. It is empty whining. I don't believe in that. Everyone here can get where they want. What – the country doesn't let them study? Y'allah, be a lawyer, be a teacher. Does anyone stop you? Even in prayer. Does anyone stop you praying? We pray five times a day, five times no one stops us. Whoever wants to be successful can be successful. Whoever doesn't want to be successful blames the country, the government." — Ibrahim, an Arab-Israeli citizen, YouTube, February 23, 2014. Where in the Middle East are Arabs thriving throughout society, not just in a privileged world of favors and nepotism? Israel. "We are very proud of his actions... This is what we would expect from him and what we expect from everyone in our family — to be human, to stay human and to die human." — The family of the paramedic Awad Darawshe, apnews.com, October 15, 2023. "People from all over the country come to hug and support the family. The entire nation is one family now." — Ali Alziadna, an Arab-Israeli whose four family members are currently held hostage by Hamas, haaretz.com, November 13, 2023. Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated that it cares nothing for the well-being of Arabs and Muslims. From their luxury homes and hotel rooms in the safety of Qatar and Turkey, Hamas leaders give the orders to attack Israel and then sit back and let the world weep over the destruction they wrought upon their own people. Perhaps the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should look at the Arab citizens of Israel and note how they enjoy equal rights, democracy, freedom of speech and a free media. If Palestinians wish to live well, like the Arab-Israelis, this is the time for them to get rid of Hamas and all the terror leaders who, for seven decades, have brought them nothing but one disaster after another.
The Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7 did not slaughter Jews alone. The terrorists also murdered and kidnapped scores of Muslim citizens of Israel. The terrorists' murder spree made zero distinction between young and old, Muslim and Jew. Pictured: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists share a moment of friendship for the crowds in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Stripת on November 28, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
The Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7 did not slaughter Jews alone. The terrorists also murdered and kidnapped scores of Muslim citizens of Israel, including members of the Bedouin community. The terrorists' murder spree made zero distinction between young and old, Muslim and Jew. More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered in the massacre, while another 240 were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages. Of these, scores of Arab Israelis were murdered, wounded or taken hostage. Among the kidnapped is Aisha al-Ziadna, a 16-year-old Muslim citizen of Israel. The first wave of Hamas's attack hit a music festival at Kibbutz Re'im which had an estimated 3,500 young people in attendance. The magnitude of the onslaught became apparent as bloodied and panicked people staggered into the medical tent screaming for help. Finally, the medical staff was ordered to flee along with everyone else.
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by Guy Millière • November 29, 2023 at 5:00 am
Many Muslims living in the West remain under the influence of Islamist movements and the hatred of Israel and Jews that permeates their countries of origin. Hatred of Jews and Israel is therefore markedly present in Muslim communities in the West. In the 1960s, when the Soviet Union wanted to gain more influence in the Arab Muslim world, its leaders decided to support what was at the time a sacred cause for Arab leaders: the attempt to destroy Israel. They... chose to invent a "national liberation struggle".... The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964 with the task of "liberating Palestine," and the borders of "Palestine" on the maps used by the PLO showed that the goal was to erase Israel from the face of the earth. Western leftists started vocally to express hatred of "imperialist Israel" and, ironically, the hard-won democratic freedoms they were at that moment enjoying to the fullest: freedom of speech, assembly, education, sexuality, and supposedly equal justice under the law. The Oslo Accords only made everything worse. By signing them, Israel's then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recognized... that a terrorist organization was somehow the legitimate representative of a people invented fewer than three decades earlier, and that this invented "people" had "rights" and deserved to have territory and self-government. In reality, it was Israel that decolonized the land from the grip of the British, who governed it from 1917 until Israel's war of independence in 1948. The recent pro-Hamas demonstrations in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia show that hatred of Jews and Israel among Muslims living in the West has reached a degree where many of them openly support genocidal atrocities not only against Jews in Israel but against Jews anywhere.... These demonstrations also show that support for the "Palestinian cause" sometimes also leads Westerners to support genocidal atrocities so long as they are committed against Jews. [I]f nothing is done to respond to the forces seeking to overturn Western civilization, all in the name of "democracy" of course – and Western values such as equal justice under law, equality of opportunity rather than of result, education from facts rather than from propaganda, a media that actually challenges authority rather than allowing itself to be suborned by it, freedom of speech with which one disagrees, the sovereignty of the individual rather than of groups -- the worst is bound to come.
The recent pro-Hamas demonstrations in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia show that hatred of Jews and Israel among Muslims living in the West has reached a degree where many of them openly support genocidal atrocities not only against Jews in Israel but against Jews anywhere. Pictured: Demonstrators protest against Israel on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City on November 7, 2023. (Photo by Kena Betankur/AFP via Getty Images)
The atrocities committed by the terrorist group Hamas in Israel on October 7 aroused fear and horror throughout the West. As soon as the Israeli government decided to retaliate and announced that it seeks to destroy Hamas, "the new ISIS", fear and horror began to fade and rapidly gave way to a return of "the world's oldest hatred". The mainstream media described the demonstrations that swept through Western Europe and the United States as "pro-Palestinian". They were, in reality, anti-Jew and brimming with hatred towards Israel. The slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" -- meaning that Israel must be wiped off the map -- was shouted out and emblazoned on banners.
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by Gordon G. Chang • November 28, 2023 at 5:00 am
The new index does not include Chinese and Hong Kong stocks, so to match the assets of the I Fund to the new index, the Thrift Board will have to sell Chinese and Hong Kong stocks and not buy them in the future. Investors have noticed. More than three-quarters of the foreign cash invested in Chinese stocks in the first seven months of this year has already been withdrawn from China. In excess of $25 billion has exited the country. Chinese stocks listed in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and New York have lost about $955 billion of market capitalization this year.... The plunge in the renminbi against the dollar this year has further eroded returns. Chinese economic news has become downright scary, and, unfortunately for China, there is no such thing as a brave money manager. China's companies for decades essentially had a free ride: As a practical matter, they did not have to meet U.S. disclosure requirements, which applied to companies from all other countries. This unjustified preferential treatment was reduced somewhat in August of last year when the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board surprisingly clinched an agreement with Chinese regulators to give the U.S. access in Hong Kong to the audit papers of Chinese companies. So why should companies continue to get special access to American equity markets just because they come from China? Or why should they have any access at all? The Chinese economy and financial markets are fragile. It is time to cut off all the blood supply to the Nazis of the 21st century.
(Image source: iStock)
They certainly cannot be happy in Beijing. An exceedingly technical administrative decision in Washington, D.C. will soon result in investors pulling tens of billions of dollars in investments from a cash-strapped China. On November 14, the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board changed the benchmark for the Thrift Savings Plan's International Stock Index Investment Fund, better known as the I Fund. Previously, the I Fund tracked the MSCI Europe, Australasia and Far East Index. The Thrift Board decided on November 14th instead to track the MSCI All Country World ex USA ex China ex Hong Kong Investible Market Index. The new index does not include Chinese and Hong Kong stocks, so to match the assets of the I Fund to the new index, the Thrift Board will have to sell Chinese and Hong Kong stocks and not buy them in the future. The switch in indices of the Thrift Savings Plan, essentially the 401(k) plan for federal employees, will take place next year.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 27, 2023 at 5:00 am
The stance of the Arabs and Muslims is yet another indication of their disillusionment with the Palestinians in general and Iran's proxies -- Hamas, Hizballah and the Houthis -- in particular. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan are as opposed to Hamas as they are to Israel. Hamas is another branch of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, which has long posed a threat to their national security. In 2017, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut ties with Qatar after accusing it of providing support for Islamist terrorists, including Hamas and the Taliban, as well as Iran. Now that their eyes have been once again forced open, the Palestinians should distance themselves from Hamas and other terrorist groups and join forces with those Arabs and Muslims who recognize that to create a better future for their people, it would benefit them immeasurably to recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel.
Now that their eyes have been once again forced open, the Palestinians should distance themselves from Hamas and other terrorist groups and join forces with those Arabs and Muslims who recognize that to create a better future for their people, it would benefit them immeasurably to recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel. Pictured: A Hamas terrorist holds two of the many Israeli children that Hamas abducted and brought as captives to the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. (Image source: Hamas/X) The Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group and its supporters are once again disappointed that the Arab countries did not come to the rescue of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the current war which erupted after the October 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis. At least 1,200 Israelis were murdered and more than 4,500 wounded in the massacre. Another 240 Israelis, including toddlers, children, women and the elderly were kidnapped to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
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by Con Coughlin • November 26, 2023 at 10:30 am
Seven weeks into Israel's military offensive to destroy Hamas as a military and political entity, the Biden administration now seems to be adopting a very different stance, one where it appears ready to scale down its commitment to supporting Israel's right to self-defence, and destroying Hamas, in favour of a ceasefire deal that would essentially gift victory to Hamas. Netanyahu has made no secret of his personal reservations about the hostage deal, arguing that any pause in Israel's military offensive would simply allow Hamas to regroup. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in particular, had been opposed to the deal because they wanted to maintain the pressure against Hamas on the ground in Gaza. Indeed, Washington's willingness to impose ceasefires on Israel when its forces have clearly established a military advantage on the battlefield against their enemies has been a constant feature throughout Israel's 75-year existence. The Israelis will certainly be concerned at the role played by Qatar, which is one of Hamas's main military backers, in the negotiations. While the Qataris like to claim that they are simply using their contacts with Hamas to defuse tensions, the fact that Ismail Haniyeh, who masterminded the massacres, directed the attacks from his five-star hotel in Qatar, where he has been granted a safe haven, means the Israelis have every reason to be wary of Qatar's motives.
Pictured: Convicted Palestinian terrorists, who were released from Israeli prisons, wave Hamas flags and are carried on the shoulders of people in a crowd celebrating their release, in Ramallah on November 26, 2023. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
While the release of the first groups of hostages held by Hamas has inevitably raised hopes about the fate of the remaining Israeli hostages, it also exposes the Biden administration's worrying lack of commitment to supporting Israel's declared aim of destroying the Islamist terror group. In the immediate aftermath of Hamas terrorists committing the worst terrorist atrocity in Israel's history on October 7, US President Joe Biden was quick to reassure Jerusalem that Washington fully supported Israel's right to defend itself. After speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House issued a statement declaring: "The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel.
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by Amir Taheri • November 26, 2023 at 4:00 am
Judging by what advisers are preparing on the Middle East, Trump II will focus on "closer ties" with allies, including Israel, and no more "favors" to the Islamic Republic in Iran and Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey unless he is back in line. Trump thinks that Marxists and other "crazy leftists" have seized control of US universities and are brainwashing whole generations thanks to tax-exempt private donations and public funding. So far the Democrats continue to mock Trump and refuse to take him seriously. This could cost the Democrats dearly. For even if the solutions that Trump suggests appear weird the problems he raises are real.
Judging by what advisers are preparing on the Middle East, Trump II will focus on "closer ties" with allies, including Israel, and no more "favors" to the Islamic Republic in Iran and Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey unless he is back in line. Pictured: Former President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks during a campaign rally in November 8, 2023 in Hialeah, Florida. (Photo by Alon Skuy/Getty Images)
"He is dangerously close to getting re-elected!" This is how, in a recent issue, the London weekly The Economist presented Donald Trump's chances of returning to the White House next year. This was based on a few polls indicating that, if nominated, Trump would have a chance of winning next November. One must always be careful about predictions, especially by the press. The Economist put Indonesian's ruler General Suharto on its cover and predicted he would emerge as the most powerful leader in Asia. Less than a year later, Suharto was swept away by a popular uprising. However, let us not dismiss the magazine's prediction about a second presidential term for Trump because, even if he fails to win the nomination, he has already had a lasting impact on American politics.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • November 25, 2023 at 5:00 am
Germany is the top European trade partner buying oil and non-oil commodities from Iran. "UANI [United Against Nuclear Iran] said that research had led to the identification of 2,500 businesses around the world, suspected of having involvement with Iran, with hundreds in Europe. They will publish their names if they do not receive satisfactory answers." — The National, September 22, 2023. The EU's trade with Iran, increasing the Iranian regime's revenue, is doubtless making it easier for the theocratic establishment to provide weapons to Russia, repress its own people even further, strengthen its military presence in Venezuela and Cuba, help its proxies escalate their goals of trying to annihilate Israel and the Jews, and above all, top off its nuclear weapons program with which to blackmail everyone. If this is the damage the Iranian is doing without nuclear weapons, just think what it will do with them. The Europeans' continuing business with Iran repeats the same mistake they made with Nazi Germany: feeding a war machine that will ultimately turn on them. Appeasing anyone will only encourage him to become an even greater threat. Although Europe and the US most probably will not do it, the time has come to stop.
The Europeans' continuing business with Iran repeats the same mistake they made with Nazi Germany: feeding a war machine that will ultimately turn on them. (Image source: iStock)
In spite of the Iran's increasing involvement in the war against Ukraine and against Israel and Jews, the European Union, as well as the US, appear more than happy to continue appeasing the Iran's ruling mullahs. Shouldn't this make them considered accomplices? Iran and Russia are fast making headway constructing a plant based in Russia that will mass-produce Iranian-designed kamikaze drones, presumably to help Moscow attack Ukrainian targets. Yet, no sanctions or pressure have been imposed either by the United States or the European Union just on this project, let alone Iran's lethal nuclear program or the 60+ attacks on US troops in Syria and Iraq just since October 17. According to a recent report by the Institute for Science and International Security:
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by Raymond Ibrahim • November 24, 2023 at 5:00 am
"These rapes are unfortunately customary and serve a specific purpose. It is believed that once no longer a virgin, a girl would become unsuitable for marriage, even if she belongs to a religious minority, and her only choice would be to marry one of her captors. Mishal was then forcibly converted to Islam and married to one of the kidnappers." – bitterwinter.org, October 24, 2023, Pakistan. "Some cases do land in courts. But it is not easy for the victims to win them. Sometimes, the victims are treated as if they were the perpetrators...." -- bitterwinter.org, October 24, 2023, Pakistan. "As we returned back to our grass-thatched roof house, we found some of the debris around the house. On entering the house, we found there was a threatening message, 'Today if we find you around, we shall destroy you with the house. You have become an embarrassment to our Muslim family by joining a wrong religion.'" – morningstarnews.org, October 4, 2023, Uganda. Regrettably, this scenario—a fire claims Christian lives, only for Muslim authorities to say it was "accidental"—has played out many times in the Middle East.
On October 17, "suspected Islamic terrorists" murdered three Christians — a Ugandan tour guide and a European couple — in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, on the accusation that they were "supporting Christians in Uganda and coming in the name of tourists." Pictured: Crater Lake in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. (image source: Robert Weinkove/Wikimedia Commons)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of October 2023. The Sexual Abuse and Forced Conversion of Christians Pakistan: Three Muslim men abducted and violently gang-raped a 16-year-old Christian girl, Persis Masih, on her way to Sunday church service. The girl's father, a pastor, and most of the family had left early for church, while Persis continued to get ready. She never appeared at church and was not home when they returned. After immediately filing a report with police, "the family spent a sleepless night contacting relatives in the hope of finding Persis," according to the Oct. 1 report. Eventually,
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by Drieu Godefridi • November 23, 2023 at 5:00 am
To many on the so-called "Left", it sometimes appears as if there is no insurmountable conflict between Islam and the West, or between any differing cultures, just old bits of conflict inherited from an obscure past, which will eventually be overcome by greater material equality. This thesis, which is in fact Marxist — wherein any conflict is always caused by unequal material situations — also is based more on wishful thinking than on historical evidence. Muslims do not massacre Christians, Jews and Hindus because they are richer, but because they are non-Muslims. At least, that is what many mass murderers have been stating for more than ten centuries... The "clash of civilizations" seems to be about religion, a topic that many in the West thought had been put to bed ages ago. The "no-go" Islamic zones in Europe, the attacks on 9/11, London's 7/7 attacks... the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the massacre at the Bataclan, the constant censorship (blasphemy laws), and more: a brief look at recent history of the immigrants bears witness to what seems a pervasive inability, or lack of desire, to adapt to the values of their new host countries. That, sadly, may be one of the reasons multiculturalism in the West has been such a failure -- a failure of the West. When westerners stopped having children, they started importing people en masse, indiscriminately, as if people were all the same. People are not all the same. Many Muslims, or at least a significant proportion of them, seem to have no intention of integrating, or of discarding the values they brought with them, which they appear to prefer to Western values.
Muslims do not massacre Christians, Jews and Hindus because they are richer, but because they are non-Muslims. At least, that is what many mass murderers have been stating for more than ten centuries. The "clash of civilizations" seems to be about religion, a topic that many in the West thought had been put to bed ages ago. Pictured: Islamists celebrate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decree, converting the historic Hagia Sophia Christian cathedral once again into a mosque, outside Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, on July 10, 2020. (Photo by Burak Kara/Getty Images)
Samuel Huntington's insight into the clash of civilizations is brilliant and true, but a few details in his thesis might benefit from a bit of updating. Moreover, some of his critics, especially on the "Left", might wish to rethink a few of their "conclusions". According to Huntington, since 1989 the clash between civilizations has been essentially cultural, rather than economic or political. The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the transition from a world dominated by ideological oppositions -- between communism and capitalism, imperialism and its counter-movement -- to an era of cultural divergence, with the international political scene simultaneously verging on the multipolar and multicultural.
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November 23, 2023 at 4:00 am
We have so much to be thankful for – "if we can keep it." Very Happiest Thanksgiving! All of us at Gatestone
by Raymond Ibrahim • November 22, 2023 at 5:00 am
A map, published by Christianophobie.fr, which marks with a red pin every spot where a church in France was attacked between just 2017-2018, looks like a war zone. Virtually the entire map of France is covered in red. Even Snopes, which presents itself as the final arbiter on what is real or fake news, admitted the accuracy of the map, while trying to minimize its findings... One wonders if [Snopes] would be so casual if a Christian vandalized a mosque, or broke into a mosque while screaming Christian slogans?
In July 2023, Muslims torched the 12th century Saint-Georges De La Haye church in Descartes, France. (Image source: Joël Thibault/Wikimedia Commons)
Christian churches are under attack throughout Western Europe, with very recent examples from Austria, Germany, Italy and Sweden. No Western nation, however, seems to experience as many attacks on its churches as France, once known as the "Eldest Daughter of the Church." Investigative journalist Amy Mek tweeted on July 1, 2023: "Attacks on Churches are the norm in France; two Churches a day are vandalized — they are being burned, demolished, and abandoned, and their adherents are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. Priests are under constant threat. At what point will France's open border politicians be held responsible?"
That last question inadvertently identifies the culprits — namely, migrants from the Muslim world, where attacks on churches are not abnormal.
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by Peter Schweizer • November 21, 2023 at 5:00 am
More bad news for Malley emerged recently when a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails was revealed by Semafor and Iran International. In email exchanges between Iranian Foreign Ministry officials working under the supposedly moderate then President Hassan Rouhani, they congratulate each other for the public success of what they called the "Iran Experts Initiative (IEI)," a propaganda effort they created back in 2014, and reportedly "funded and directed by an IRGC official... The IEI cultivated a network of sympathetic academics and intellectuals "with the aim of shaping political and public opinion as the Iranian government, then led by Hassan Rouhani, pursued a nuclear deal with the U.S." Other former officials told the Daily Caller that Malley and a previous advisor of his, Ariane Tabatabai, who holds a senior, security clearance level job at the Defense Department, are "compromised" and had no place running Washington's Iran policy. Tabatabai is still employed at the Pentagon where, noted the investigative reporter Lee Smith, "she has been serving as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, Christopher Maier... Tabatabai's emails show her enthusiastically submitting to the control of top Iranian officials, who then guided her efforts to propagandize and collect intelligence on U.S. and allied officials in order to advance the interests of the Islamic Republic." "The contents of the emails," wrote Lee Smith, "are damning, showing a group of Iranian American academics being recruited by the Iranian regime, meeting together in foreign countries to receive instructions from top regime officials, and pledging their personal loyalty to the regime.... Tabatabai still has high-level security clearance and access to classified information. The FBI has reportedly "refused to remove her." So, while Israel fights for its existence, a genocidal Iran is using three of its proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen — Tabatabai, who according to Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), "had the mission of influencing U.S. policymakers to agree with what the Iranian government wanted," may be sending classified information about planned U.S. and Israeli military moves back to Iran.... What could possibly go wrong? [The] use of the term "cosmopolitan" here hits on a core tenet of New Left ideology, where concern for one's own country is seen as jingoism, and the welfare of other nations, even those openly hostile to the US, occupies the highest priority. How was [Ms. Tabatabai's] "top level security clearance" approved and why is she still employed in a senior position at the Pentagon? [T]he case of Rob Malley indicates a deeper rot in our politics.... [Malley] is far closer to those Ivy League professors currently tweeting gleefully in favor of... the terrorist group Hamas, just to cite the most current example. It is a wonder Malley ever passed a background check in the first place.
The path from the clandestine treason of Alger Hiss to the case of Robert Malley indicates a deeper rot in our politics. In Malley's case, his pro-Iranian sympathy is these days the very epitome of the mindset at schools such as Harvard, thanks to the triumph of the Left's "long march" through academia. Pictured: Malley, then U.S. special envoy for Iran, testifies during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill May 25, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
Hamas's war against Israel, coordinated with Iran, has exposed the fault lines in the American Left. While mainstream Democratic liberals have sided with the innocent Israelis massacred by Hamas terrorists, leftist "Squad" members in Congress compete with Ivy League campus radicals to outdo one another by championing the vicious murderers as a "resistance." Anti-Israel sentiment has been oozing through those cracks on the Left for years, but the presidency of Barack Obama certainly primed the pump. Obama's choice of advisors reflected his deep distrust of Israel and penchant for supporting Palestinians and appeasing Iran. One of those advisor choices, the now-disgraced Robert Malley, is a case-in-point. This summer, Malley was placed on unpaid leave from the State Department and had his security clearance revoked after an internal investigation found he had "mishandled classified information."
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by Bassam Tawil • November 20, 2023 at 5:00 am
A public opinion poll published on November 14 showed that 75% of Palestinians support Hamas's murder spree, including rape and beheadings, as opposed to only 13% who disapprove. Surprisingly, the poll found that support for Hamas and its "military operation" is even higher in the West Bank, where Abbas's Palestinian Authority is based, than in the Gaza Strip. If such a large number of Palestinians in the West Bank support the murder of Israelis and Hamas, it is safe to assume that a new "Palestinian state" would be controlled by Hamas or another genocidal, antisemitic terror group. Another, but less-surprising, result of the poll is that 80% of the Palestinians reject both the "one-state" and "two-state" solutions, and instead demand all the territory, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – in short, the entire State of Israel within any borders. That a majority of Palestinians want to replace Israel with an Iran-backed terror state also shows that the Biden administration and most European governments are engaging in extreme self-deception when they talk about the need to promote the concept of a "two-state solution." How can any rational person talk about a "two-state solution" when a majority of Palestinians believe there is nothing wrong with burning, beheading and raping Jews, or baking a Jewish baby to death in an oven? The results of the poll confirm what most Arabs and Muslims already know: that the only solution most Palestinians are willing to accept is one that leads to the murder of all Jews and the destruction of Israel. It remains to be seen whether the latest Palestinian slaughter of Jews serves to awaken the Biden administration and the Europeans to this inconvenient, uncomfortable fact.
A public opinion poll published on November 14 showed that 75% of Palestinians support Hamas's murder spree, including rape and beheadings, as opposed to only 13% who disapprove. Pictured: A crowd of Hamas supporters wave the terrorist group's flag, following Friday noon prayers in Hebron on November 10, 2023. (Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images)
One of the reasons why Palestinian leaders refuse to condemn Hamas's October 7 massacre of Israelis is because they know that many Palestinians support the atrocities committed by the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group. Unlike the Biden administration and many Europeans, these leaders, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, are fully aware of the widespread support among their people for any group whose goal is to murder Israelis and destroy Israel. The Palestinian leaders, in addition, are also aware that a majority of the Palestinians are opposed to the deluded Western fantasy of a "two-state solution."
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by André Villeneuve • November 19, 2023 at 5:00 am
While many the world over had the integrity to condemn "the hideous crime, naming its perpetrators and acknowledging Israel's basic right to defend itself against the atrocity," the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches were unable to muster up such moral clarity. While the IDF goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups do their utmost to maximize them — not only by indiscriminately murdering Israelis, but also by hiding among their own civilian population and using them as human shields, resulting in disproportionately high numbers of Palestinian casualties, caused -- deliberately -- by Hamas. If there is an "occupation" problem in Gaza, the occupier is Hamas, not Israel. In this war, Christians — and all of us — have a moral responsibility to support a civilized nation's fight against barbarism. Israel must eradicate a terrorist group, Hamas, just as we confronted ISIS. Then all of us need to contain the real mastermind behind such groups, the genocidal regime of Iran. Unfortunately, there is no other viable solution if we wish to preserve the West.
It is well known that the IDF warns Palestinian civilians by means of leaflets, text messages and even phone calls to evacuate areas close to military targets before they are attacked. While the IDF goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups do their utmost to maximize them — not only by indiscriminately murdering Israelis, but also by hiding among their own civilian population and using them as human shields. Pictured: A Palestinian man shows a leaflet dropped by the Israeli military over Gaza City on November 5, 2023. (Photo by Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)
October 7, 2023: Another day that will live in infamy: Israel's Pearl Harbor. Israel's 9/11. The quiet Shabbat morning of Simchat Torah, concluding the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, suddenly turned into a bloodbath. Under the cover of heavy rocket fire, thousands of Hamas terrorists attacked Israel's southern communities and left behind them a path of carnage and devastation, ambushing army bases and motorists, murdering some 364 people at a music festival, slaughtering families in their beds, raping women, executing children and Holocaust survivors, burning civilians alive, and kidnapping 244 people in Israel to Gaza. With at least 1,200 people murdered, it was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. The barbarity of the Hamas attack was so unprecedented that even the world was brutally — if briefly — jolted out of its usual apathy and left reeling in horror.
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