Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 20, 2025 at 5:00 am
Hamas leaders have also repeatedly made it clear that their terror group has no intention of laying down its weapons. Hamas leaders -- based in luxury hotels and villas in Qatar, Lebanon and Egypt -- appear in no rush to end the war. Many of them had fled the Gaza Strip together with their families during the past few years in search of a better life in Arab and Islamic countries. From their safe homes and offices, the Hamas leaders continue to issue fiery statements about their group's refusal to make concessions to end the conflict. "They are not the ones searching for food in the rubble. They are not the ones watching their children die. They sit in safety while others pay the price.... the suffering of Gaza has never been their concern, only their weapon." — Hamza Howidy, Palestinian human rights and peace activist, X, March 18, 2025. "Enough martyrs and death. Damn those who voted for you [in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election]." — Ranem El Ali, Palestinian journalist and author, X, March 18, 2025. If the Palestinians living there want to end the war, they must revolt against Hamas and provide Israel with information about the whereabouts of the hostages. Sadly, most Palestinians seem unwilling to do so, either out of fear of Hamas or because they simply identify with the terror group and its goal of destroying Israel.
If the Palestinians living in Gaza want to end the war, they must revolt against Hamas and provide Israel with information about the whereabouts of the hostages. Sadly, most Palestinians seem unwilling to do so, either out of fear of Hamas or because they simply identify with the terror group and its goal of destroying Israel. Pictured: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists share a moment of friendship before a crowd of supporters in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on November 28, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
Palestinians are again paying a heavy price as a result of Hamas's refusal to release the remaining 59 Israeli hostages (almost half of whom are believed to be dead) held in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. On that day, thousands of Hamas terrorists and ordinary Palestinians invaded Israel, murdering 1,200 Israelis and wounding thousands others. Another 251 Israelis – alive and dead – were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. Since then, Hamas could have avoided much of the death and destruction it brought on the Palestinians by simply releasing all the hostages, laying down its weapons and relinquishing control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas, however, chose to drag the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip into a war that has claimed the lives of thousands and destroyed large parts of the coastal strip.
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by Drieu Godefridi • March 19, 2025 at 5:30 am
By giving himself the right to spend an extra €500 billion over 12 years on infrastructure and climate change, and additional to that, spend "whatever it takes" for the German military -- €40 billion more per year being the best available estimate -- [Friedrich] Merz [the likely next chancellor] is assuming considerable power, the likes of which no German chancellor has had since 1945. As the allocation of these resources is formulated in broad and vague terms, the chancellor will have immense power in the allocation of funds. In addition, the German military will be financed to the tune of €120 billion per year, giving it the potential to become the strongest force in Europe -- France spends roughly €55 billion a year. Here again, the power of Germany and its chancellor is growing considerably. It certainly seems as if Das Rheingold is emerging from the deep.
Pictured: Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor of Germany, speaks in the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) prior to the vote on a constitutional amendment, on March 18, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
In the opera Das Rheingold by Richard Wagner, the Rhine Gold is a magical treasure guarded by the Rhine Maidens (Rheinmädchen). This gold can be forged into a ring that gives its holder unlimited power. By arrogating to himself the power to put Germany into debt in a way that no chancellor has done since 1945, Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor, will be taking on an unrivalled power: that of dominating Europe.
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by Daniel Greenfield • March 18, 2025 at 5:00 am
Government and other institutions stopped being merit-based or democratic, and came to reflect the tribal coalition politics that had come to define the Democratic Party's urban machines. Tammany Hall's old corrupt apportionment of government offices based on political favors was smoothly supplemented with racial and ethnic coalition quotas in major cities. The old corrupt system that traded votes for jobs, bloc votes for political influence, was layered over with the language of civil rights and academic verbiage to make handing out jobs based on quotas seem progressive rather than the worst kind of machine politics progressives once decried. Graft became diversity. Networks of community groups swapping votes for money and jobs stopped being criminal and was celebrated as a step forward for those same machines. Even while lecturing us about "systemic racism," wokeness created an actual systemic racism. Americans have already seen that the alternative to government tribal neutrality is tribal warfare.
In a complete inversion of civil rights, from race-neutral to race-conscious, government and other institutions stopped being merit-based or democratic, and came to reflect the tribal coalition politics that had come to define the Democratic Party's urban machines. Tribalized blocs were embedded not only in elected government but within the bureaucracies. The shakedown politics of Jesse Jackson's PUSH movement and imitators like Al Sharpton began the process of embedding the same system within major corporations. Pictured: Sharpton with then First Lady Hillary Clinton in New York on January 17, 2000. (Photo by Henny Ray Abrams/AFP via Getty Images)
The great objective of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) was to tribalize our institutions, recruiting government and corporate employees into affinity groups based on their race, sex, sexuality and other factors, and then defining institutional goals around the "right" tribal mix through selective hiring and promotions. The complete inversion of civil rights, from race-neutral to race-conscious, also transformed the intended purpose of government and all lesser institutions, from tribal neutrality to tribal partisanship, and it was impossible to achieve this without tribalizing government. Government and other institutions stopped being merit-based or democratic, and came to reflect the tribal coalition politics that had come to define the Democratic Party's urban machines. Tammany Hall's old corrupt apportionment of government offices based on political favors was smoothly supplemented with racial and ethnic coalition quotas in major cities.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 17, 2025 at 5:00 am
The truth, however, is that most of the Arab countries have always refused to receive Palestinians. Most Arabs view the Palestinians as ungrateful. Qatar has funded every Islamist extremist group from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Taliban to Al Qaeda, both with donations and through its broadcasting empire Al Jazeera. Qatar was the only Arab country that provided direct financial aid to the Hamas-rulers of the Gaza Strip over the past two decades. The Qataris did not do so out of love for the Palestinians, but to ensure that Hamas remains in power, in order to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamic state. October 7, 2023 was the result. Now Qatar is negotiating to preserve its client, Hamas. The Arab plan, notably, also does not call on Hamas to lay down its weapons. Do the Arab leaders really believe that Western donors would rush to invest tens of billions of dollars in the Gaza Strip while terrorists belonging to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups continue to roam the streets? The latest Arab plan does not even include a commitment from the Arab regimes to contribute to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Instead, it states that the sources of funding would come from the United Nations, international financial institutions, and donor countries, as well as foreign direct investments and private sector contributions. For Hamas, holding onto its weapons is far more important than rebuilding the Gaza Strip. For the Arab countries, the new plan just another attempt to avoid responsibility towards their Palestinian brothers and shift the blame onto Israel. "The reality is that the Arab emergency summit was also about demonizing Israel and throwing the Gaza hot potato into its court. A closer look at the summit's final statement reveals its true purpose: attacking Israel rather than addressing Gaza's future... Until Hamas is removed, every so-called 'peace plan' will be nothing more than another chapter in an endless cycle of destruction." — Dalia Ziada, Egyptian political analyst, March 12, 2025.
The latest Arab plan does not even include a commitment from the Arab regimes to contribute to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The plan, notably, also does not call on Hamas to lay down its weapons. Do the Arab leaders really believe that Western donors would rush to invest tens of billions of dollars in the Gaza Strip while terrorists belonging to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups continue to roam the streets? Pictured: Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty (R) meets with Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in Cairo, Egypt on March 3, 2025. (Photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images)
The Arab countries have finally come up with a plan for the Gaza Strip that aims to address the humanitarian crisis, restore essential services and rebuild. The $53 billion plan, announced in early March after an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, did not come out of a genuine desire to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but as a counterproposal to US President Donald Trump's vision of relocating the residents of Gaza and turning it into the Rivera of the Middle East. If the Arab leaders really wanted to assist the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, they would have held a meeting immediately after the Hamas-Israel war, which erupted on October 7, 2023, when the Iran-backed Islamist group and thousands of ordinary Palestinians invaded Israel, slaughtering 1,200 Israelis and wounding thousands. Another 251 Israelis were kidnapped into the Gaza Strip, where 59 – alive and dead – are still being held as hostages.
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by Lawrence Kadish • March 16, 2025 at 5:00 am
(Image source iStock/Getty Images)
As Jack and his beanstalk can tell you, there are no magic beans. Unfortunately, those who believe cryptocurrency is their ticket to enormous wealth or financial security will soon find out that they, too, have no magic beans. What they may have is Monopoly money. With that in mind, it needs to be said that recent actions to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve opens the door to potentially serious issues. Equally chilling is the vulnerability of cryptocurrency to hackers. Media reports reveal that North Korean hackers recently stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency from Bybit, described as the world's second-largest crypto exchange. One can probably assume those hackers were operating under instructions from their government.
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by Amir Taheri • March 16, 2025 at 4:00 am
In the past two weeks... Macron has been all over the place with the alacrity of a butterfly. He has assumed that the 80-year alliance between European and American democracies is over, that NATO is dead, that Russia is determined to conquer Europe and that war -- if not World War III -- is inevitable. Talleyrand might have invited Macron to wait and see if the Oval Office show doesn't have a sequel that might twist the plot in another direction, now that Zelensky has opened a new dialogue with the new US administration. [Talleyrand] would have asked the French president to wait and see whether or not Trump attends the planned NATO summit to be held in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 24-25. Foch would have advised Macron not to assume that the US will sit back and watch as Russian President Vladimir Putin's army of North Koreans, Uzbeks, Chechens and Kazakhs, backed by Iranian drones, march into the Champs Élysée. Foch could have quipped that you can't push back a foe just by big-talk. If you really wish to pin Putin's back to the floor, then end his control of Ukrainian skies. That means giving Ukrainians some of the warplanes that EU member states own. Should Europe regard Russia as an eternal mortal foe or consider turning it into a tolerable neighbor -- if not a friend -- in a few years' time?
In the past two weeks, France's President Emmanuel Macron has been all over the place with the alacrity of a butterfly. He has assumed that the 80-year alliance between European and American democracies is over, that NATO is dead, that Russia is determined to conquer Europe and that war -- if not World War III -- is inevitable. Pictured: Macron meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky at the EU headquarters in Brussels on March 6, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic Marin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
As France's President Emmanuel Macron casts himself as Europe's new leader in a joust against US President Donald Trump, he might do well to have a look at two great Frenchmen who advised against haste and hubris. The first is that paragon of diplomacy, Talleyrand, who managed to survive four regimes, including one created by a bloody revolution and another that set Europe on fire before drowning it in blood. One day, Talleyrand was called in by an angry Napoleon, who ordered him immediately to draft a declaration of war on Austria in reaction to "insults from Vienna". The diplomat did so but, as he later recalled, kept the war declaration under his pillow until the following day, when the Emperor ordered him to forget about it as France wasn't ready for war. Prudence was the better part of valor.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • March 15, 2025 at 5:00 am
The Islamic Republic of Iran is not a normal state, or even a conventional dictatorship. It is an ideological entity that derives its very identity from opposition to the United States, Israel and the West. From the moment the Islamic Republic was born out of the 1979 revolution, its core identity was forged in opposition to the United States and Israel. These were not just foreign policy stances but central tenets of the regime's existence. The regime refers to the United States as the "Great Satan" and Israel as the "Little Satan," righteously positioning itself as the force of divine justice against these supposed embodiments of evil. For the Iranian mullahs, hostility toward America and Israel is not just rhetoric; it is the fundamental pillar of their legitimacy. If the regime were to abandon its enmity toward the U.S. and Israel, it would lose the entire justification upon which it has built its power. Every negotiation with Iran has followed the same pattern: the Iranian regime makes promises, secures financial and political gains, and then, once it has strengthened its position, resumes its belligerent actions. The Islamic Republic views nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantor of its survival... Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has explicitly stated that Gaddafi's fate proves why Iran should never surrender its nuclear weapons. As with North Korea, negotiations may temporarily slow Iran's nuclear weapons development; they can never stop it. The regime will agree to talks only when it needs to buy time — whether to rebuild its economy under the cover of diplomacy, to lull the West into complacency, or to wait out an unfavorable political climate, such as a Trump. Always, the regime's goal remains the same: acquiring nuclear weapons to solidify its regional dominance and deter any attempt to remove the regime from power. Regrettably, the only way to neutralize the Iranian threat is through strength. The regime in Tehran understands only force. Until the West recognizes this reality, it will continue to be bamboozled while the Iranian regime buys time to advance its ambitions unchecked.
Like it or not, the nature of the Iranian regime is inseparable from its ideological foundations. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not a normal state, or even a conventional dictatorship. It is an ideological entity that derives its very identity from opposition to the United States, Israel and the West. Pictured: Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei meets with President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on August 27, 2024. (Image source: khamenei.ir)
For more than four decades, many Western politicians have entertained the hope that negotiations with the Islamist regime in Iran might lead to a change in its behavior and attitude toward the West. Time and again, diplomatic overtures, economic incentives and concessions have been extended to Tehran in the hope that engagement could moderate its policies. Yet, every attempt at diplomacy has failed. Unfortunately, it will continue to fail. Like it or not, the nature of the Iranian regime is inseparable from its ideological foundations. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not a normal state, or even a conventional dictatorship. It is an ideological entity that derives its very identity from opposition to the United States, Israel and the West.
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by Grégoire Canlorbe • March 14, 2025 at 5:00 am
"[T]hanks to Hatzalah, we obtained 50 hours of raw material from ambulance teams. These first responders documented everything. Every horror, every burned-out car, every bullet-ridden body, from the moment the attack began." — Igal Hecht, director of The Killing Roads, a documentary that investigates Gaza's jihadi pogrom against Israel on October 7, 2023. "The average Canadian gets his information from a publicly funded broadcaster that pumps out anti-Israel propaganda daily, much like the BBC. These journalists take Hamas press releases as gospel and issue weak retractions only after the damage has been done. We've seen it repeatedly, from The New York Times parroting Hamas casualty figures to the BBC recently producing outright propaganda films." — Igal Hecht. "If this unchecked immigration and tolerance for Islamist extremism continue, Canada will follow the path of the UK, France, and the Netherlands. In 10-15 years, we shall see the same no-go zones, the same normalization of antisemitism, and the same erosion of Western values. That is the trajectory unless people wake up." — Igal Hecht. "The Sunni states are waking up to a simple truth: the main obstacle to peace is not Israel. Rather, it is the so-called Palestinians and their genocidal fantasies, like a perpetual cancer. Remove that factor from the equation, and Israel and the Arab world can thrive together. More Arab leaders are starting to see that. Hopefully, the rest of the world will, too." — Igal Hecht. "Easter and Christmas in Israel serve as testaments to the reality that Christian minorities here can observe their holiest days without fear. This is something that is virtually impossible anywhere else in the Middle East." — Igal Hecht.
"[T]hanks to Hatzalah, we obtained 50 hours of raw material from ambulance teams. These first responders documented everything. Every horror, every burned-out car, every bullet-ridden body, from the moment the attack began." — Igal Hecht. Pictured: A rescue team from United Hatzalah evacuates a wounded person near the city of Sderot, Israel on October 7, 2023. (Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)
In 1999, Igal Hecht, an Israeli based in Toronto, Canada, created Chutzpa Productions Inc. His award-winning films have been described as controversial and thought provoking. They have dealt with human rights issues as well as pop culture. Throughout his 20-year career, Hecht has been involved in the production of more than 50 documentary films and more than 20 television series. His work has been screened internationally on Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC, Documentary Channel, CBC, YES-TV (Canada) and HBO Europe, among other outlets. Grégoire Canlorbe: The Killing Roads investigates Gaza's jihadi pogrom against Israel on October 7, 2023. How did you gather the testimonies? Igal Hecht: When October 7th unfolded, I began collecting and archiving every piece of footage that emerged—raw, unfiltered, and often horrifying. As the days passed and the scale of the atrocities became undeniable, it became clear that a film was needed.
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by Daniel Greenfield • March 13, 2025 at 5:00 am
President Donald Trump is saying all the right things, on the other hand, his team is going in and saying all the wrong things. After Trump's common sense approach, Steve Witkoff, the "envoy" responsible for foisting the disastrous Biden ceasefire on us, would water them down and dismiss the president's proposals. Now White House Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Adam Boehler... said... "Hamas suggested that they would release all hostages, lay down their weapons, and no longer be part of the politics of Gaza and that the US and its allies would ensure there was no military infrastructure remaining in Gaza. In exchange, there would be a five to ten-year truce, and the US and other countries would help rebuild Gaza." Hamas is not going to "disarm." A 10-15 year truce is a period of time during which Hamas rearms and prepares for another October 7 attack, as they have told us over and over again they will do. And Hamas, not Israel or the U.S., will decide when the truce actually lapses. Much like Hamas announced the previous two-year ceasefire was over by attacking on Oct 7. This proposed deal leaves Hamas in Gaza, and has the U.S. rebuild Gaza for 10-15 years. In short, it's the worst deal imaginable for America and for Israel.
President Donald Trump is saying all the right things. On the other hand, his team is going in and saying all the wrong things. Adam Boehler, the White House Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, is pushing the same nonsense that got us to October 7, 2023. His proposed deal leaves Hamas in Gaza, and has the U.S. rebuild Gaza for 10-15 years.
In short, it's the worst deal imaginable for America and for Israel. Pictured: Boehler speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
The Trump administration's Gaza policy is completely divided. On the one hand, President Donald Trump is saying all the right things. On the other hand, his team is going in and saying all the wrong things. After Trump's common sense approach, Steve Witkoff, the "envoy" responsible for foisting the disastrous Biden ceasefire on us, would water them down and dismiss the president's proposals. Now White House Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Adam Boehler, who appeared to be a credible figure, decided to directly meet up with Hamas and came out with exactly the sort of thing John Kerry or Jimmy Carter would have come away with. Boehler said that Hamas is not interested in returning to war:
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by Lawrence Kadish • March 12, 2025 at 5:00 am
President Donald Trump needs to take a page from Roosevelt's legacy of leadership and authorize a similar "Manhattan Project" to ensure that America owns fusion power and the future that comes with it. Pictured: The HL-2M nuclear fusion tokamak, at a research laboratory in Chengdu, China. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Tariffs, Ukraine, DOGE, the budget, NATO, the Middle East; the headlines are dominated by daily issues that demand our attention, but they also serve to distract us from the strategic issues that will determine who will be the dominant superpower during the remaining years of 21st Century. So, it should come as no surprise that China is currently investing billions of dollars to create unlimited power by seeking to conquer the challenging technology of fusion power. Media reports suggest that Beijing is investing anywhere between $1 billion and $1.5 billion annually into fusion research. One Washington energy insider told the press, "...What's more important than the number, it's actually how fast they're doing this." Equally telling is one report, which observed that China's patents on crucial aspects of fusion technology are more than any other country, including our own.
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by Robert Williams • March 11, 2025 at 5:00 am
Perhaps the climate hoax is actually not about saving the environment? What is it, then? Some environmental problems of pollution are clearly caused by man; the effect of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), as in certain hairsprays for instance, on the ozone layer over the Antarctica. CFCs thin, or make a "hole," in the planet's ozone layer that protects the people from harmful ultraviolet rays. There is also the very real man-made problem of insoluble trash in the oceans. Generally, however, the problems of pollution are separate from those of climate change. Whatever can reasonably be done to curb man-made pollution should, of course, be advanced, but sometimes climate change and pollution overlap – seen by many, apparently, as an invitation to muddle and conflate them. Climate change is largely caused by solar flares. So far, at least, there is not a blessed thing anyone can do about them. Many industries offer grants for papers that support the efficacy of their products that relate to climate change. Solar flares, regrettably, do not offer grants. [Former Special Presidential Envoy for Climate] Kerry and his family flew on 48 trips and emitted more than 300 metric tons of carbon dioxide in just the 18 months between January 2021 and July 2022. Private jets "are 10 times more carbon intensive than airliners on average, and 50 times more polluting than trains," according to a 2021 report. Kerry justified his polluting by declaring, unfortunately without a trace of irony, that private jets were the "only choice for somebody like me." The answer was supplied as early as 2015 by Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change: "This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution." That would mean the destruction of capitalism and the world economy, however long that takes. When the global elites arrived in Davos, Switzerland, in 2023 to discuss the urgent need to declare climate emergencies, they did so using more than 150 private jets. Any journalists or commentators who dare to question or oppose the climate change orthodoxy are immediately shunned as "climate deniers" and met in the legacy media with an instant end to their careers. "What is, in my view, even more dangerous, is the quasi-scientific form that their many times refuted forecasts have taken upon themselves." — Former Czech President Vaclav Klaus, The New American, December 22, 2009. Klaus stressed that environmentalism disguises itself as science. Under this disguise, it attempts to force its precepts on humanity. When it comes to global warming or climate change, that process is made easier: the topic is scientifically complex, which makes it hard for most people to refute the climate scammers. "For the last 16 years, temperatures have been going down and the carbon dioxide has been going up and the crops have got greener and grow quicker. We've done plenty to smash up the planet, but there's been no global warming caused by man.... I still say it's poppycock! If you believe it, fine. But I don't and there's thousands like me." — David Bellamy, English botanist and former BBC broadcaster, The Daily Mail, January 22, 2013. It is no wonder that the climate change scam won the day. Few people have been willing to risk their livelihoods to fight against the manipulation. Meanwhile, at the latest UN Climate Conference, COP29, which took place in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2024, the agenda to destroy the world's economy and the West by forcing wealth redistribution made new strides.... [Developing countries] apparently demanded $1.3 trillion annually. In the words of energy expert Alex Epstein: "The basic idea here is what they call 'climate reparations,' which is the idea that the US and others have ruined the world with fossil fuels, and so we have to pay a trillion dollars a year to make up for it, which, by the way, if the US paid that, that's $7,700 per household per year." Notably, China retained its status as a "developing country" at the COP29, thereby exposing the enormous extent of the climate hoax. According to the International Energy Agency, "China's total CO2 emissions exceeded those of the advanced economies combined in 2020, and in 2023 were 15% higher." In addition, while China continues to build more coal-fired power plants than the rest of the entire world combined, the West continues on the path of deindustrialization in the name of the climate. Thankfully, President Donald Trump, once again, has withdrawn the US from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. As the past has shown, however, such a withdrawal holds no future guarantees. Trump also withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement during his first term, but President Joe Biden then brought the US back the first chance he got. For this reason, it is crucial that the current US administration do all it can to publish the truth about the climate scam and work towards ending it across the board.
At the latest UN Climate Conference, COP29, in November 2024, developing countries apparently demanded payments of $1.3 trillion annually from developed countries. Notably, China retained its status as a "developing country" at the COP29, thereby exposing the enormous extent of the climate hoax. According to the International Energy Agency, "China's total CO2 emissions exceeded those of the advanced economies combined in 2020, and in 2023 were 15% higher." In addition, while China continues to build more coal-fired power plants than the rest of the entire world combined, the West continues on the path of deindustrialization in the name of the climate. Pictured: A steel mill with a coal-fired generator in Hebei, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos this January, Klaus Schwab's wife, Hilde Schwab, opened the annual meeting with the assertion that Antarctica is melting. "Antarctica, which holds 91% of the world's glaciers, faces catastrophic ice loss, contributing to rising sea levels," she claimed. That statement is simply not true. According to a recent study, Antarctica gained 661 billion tons of ice during 2009-2019. "The Antarctic continent," in fact, "has not warmed in the last seven decades." A December 2024 study, in addition, concluded that "iceberg calving, the detachment of ice blocks from ice sheets and glaciers... a primary process in mass loss from ice shelf systems in Antarctica and a major source of uncertainty in future projections of sea level rise" is not necessarily a consequence of climate change, not even when we're talking about "extreme calving events".
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 10, 2025 at 5:00 am
As part of the deception, according to the IDF report, Hamas was working to convince Israel that it was interested in calm and was working for economic prosperity. The IDF investigation concluded that Hamas had planned the October 7 attack for more than 10 years. Today, everyone knows that the talk about a long-term truce was nothing but a smokescreen to conceal Hamas's real intention of launching its October 7 attack against Israel. Hamas anyway is not known for honoring ceasefire agreements.... On July 26, 2014, Hamas announced a 24-hour humanitarian ceasefire at 14.00. Hamas violated its own ceasefire a short time later. For Hamas, a hudna is a temporary break from war -- it does not indicate a desire to end it and achieve peace. While Hamas was talking, for ten years before October 7, 2023, about its desire to reach a long-term truce, it was busy preparing for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It is plainly uninformed to believe that Hamas would ever lay down its weapons and agree to end its jihad (holy war) against Israel. The Trump administration is advised to listen to what Hamas leaders say in Arabic to their own people, and not what they tell US officials during secret meetings in Qatar. Earlier this month, for instance, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, speaking in Arabic, reassured his people that his group rejects demands by Israel and the US to disarm... A ceasefire deal will allow Hamas to remain in power and prepare more massacres against Israel. The only solution for the current crisis is for Hamas to disarm, cede control over the Gaza Strip and leave the Palestinian arena.
For Hamas, a hudna is a temporary break from war -- it does not indicate a desire to end it and achieve peace. While Hamas was talking, for ten years before October 7, 2023, about its desire to reach a long-term truce, it was busy preparing for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It is plainly uninformed to believe that Hamas would ever lay down its weapons and agree to end its jihad (holy war) against Israel. A ceasefire deal will allow Hamas to remain in power and prepare more massacres against Israel. Pictured: Hamas terrorists in Gaza City on January 25, 2025. (Photo by Abood Abusalama/Middle East Images via AFP)
Adam Boehler, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, stated on March 9 that he did not rule out the possibility of reaching a long-term truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He also did not rule out the possibility that Hamas would agree to lay down its weapons, saying: "I think there's an answer here, and I think the answer is that Hamas lays down their arms. We exchange prisoners, and they [Hamas] go into a long-term truce, where they don't fight, they're not part of any political party, and that gives us lots of cooling-off time."
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by Nils A. Haug • March 9, 2025 at 5:00 am
The concept of Zionism has received adverse publicity in the press of late, especially thanks to slogans by supposedly pro-Palestinian activists in the West vilifying Jews. These supposedly pro-Palestinian activists are actually just antisemites; they have never proposed a thing that would make Palestinian lives better. Anyhow these activists call Jews "Zionists" to avoid having themselves labelled as Jew-haters. Due to a fundamental clash of irreconcilable ethical religious principles – that of Torah versus Islamic Sharia – it appears that only Israel's overwhelming military strength, command of technology and will to protect its country from tyranny can deter the nation's Islamist enemies. While combating a hostile local media that support what Netanyahu terms the "deep state", health issues, personal slights, legal charges -- many seemingly politically fabricated in the midst of an existential war by antagonistic state jurists determined to assert their control over elected politicians -- Netanyahu presses on, not only on a mission to save Israel from fundamentalist terrorism, but ultimately, by extension, the West itself. There does not appear to be anyone else in Israel who could have done a better job against the almost inestimable odds than those Netanyahu has been forced to overcome since October 7, 2023. The words describing the crucial role of Queen Esther of ancient Persia apply equally to Israel's statesman, Netanyahu: "Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?"
There does not appear to be anyone else in Israel who could have done a better job against the almost inestimable odds than those Netanyahu has been forced to overcome since October 7, 2023. Pictured: US President Donald Trump meets with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 4, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Great statesmen are generally recognized as such only after dire events faced by the nation have settled, and his strategy is seen to have succeeded. Once the threat to the nation has passed and fresh democratic elections eventually arrive, the statesman is often replaced as leader and a new prime minister or president is appointed to lead the nation into a better future – a future created through the efforts, wisdom and courage of his predecessor. This is what transpired with that great British leader, Winston Churchill.
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by Amir Taheri • March 9, 2025 at 4:00 am
Ukraine could have had an implicit security guarantee because, as Trump noted, if American companies and citizens are present on Ukrainian soil, Russia might think twice before pursuing its bombing campaign. The US would have benefited, too, by recovering at least part of the $54-$60 billion "gift" -- routinely cited by the media in Europe as opposed to the Trump figure of $350 billion -- that President Joe Biden granted Zelensky to continue fighting. The Europeans made a big mistake by hastily over-reacting to an ill-prepared meeting. The European leaders should have taken a deep breath and refrained from seeking kudos by casting the continent's oldest and strongest ally as a potential adversary. Nor should they have spread pipe-dreams about a European army and military industry that could replace in a jiffy what the US provided for eight decades. In all its history, the US has never been on the side of those who start wars.
In the meeting where Zelensky was roasted, there was no scripted and agreed agenda. To complicate matters, Zelensky, cast as a war-leader, seemed to have no clue about what to do in a tight-spot and rose to the bait cast by Vance. Had the meeting had a clear agenda and been organized in a professional manner, both sides might have benefited from the agreement that Trump had suggested. Pictured: US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House on February 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
"The US has reversed its alliances to side with Russia against Europe!" This is the idea that many commentators in Britain, France and Germany have been hammering in for the past week. The Washington Post went even further: "For Europe, this is a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency moment. The United States, which has guaranteed European security against Russia for 80 years, appears to have switched sides under President Donald Trump." Apparently sharing that analysis, the European Union organized two summits that included Great Britain as an ad hoc member. France devoted a six-hour long parliamentary debate to the subject, with Prime Minister François Bayrou and leaders of half a dozen parties advertising their rhetorical talents with florid, virtue-signaling but substance-free speeches.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • March 8, 2025 at 5:00 am
Iran has also been installing more advanced centrifuges, increasing its capacity to enrich uranium faster than ever. The Iranian regime appears to believe that nuclear weapons will give it leverage to silence opposition at home and deter any foreign intervention that could threaten its rule. A nuclear-armed Iran poses an existential threat not only to the "Little Satan," Israel, and the "Great Satan," the US, but to all the oil-rich Gulf countries in the Middle East. The task is not just about protecting Israel, Europe and the US; it is about preventing.... the mother of all arms-races throughout the Middle East. The least the West can do is help to prevent one of the most dangerous regimes on Earth from obtaining weapons of mass destruction – before it proceeds to a nuclear breakout.
Iran is moving at an alarming speed to develop nuclear weapons and advancing its uranium enrichment at an unprecedented rate. The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency provides a chilling confirmation of Iran's intentions. Pictured: A Fattah hypersonic ballistic missile is displayed during the annual military parade in Tehran, on September 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
Iran is moving at an alarming speed to develop nuclear weapons and advancing its uranium enrichment at an unprecedented rate. The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) provides a chilling confirmation of Iran's intentions. According to the IAEA, Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity — just a short step away from weapons-grade material — has increased by 92.5 kilograms since November. This brings its total stockpile of highly enriched uranium to approximately 275 kilograms, an amount sufficient to produce at least six nuclear bombs if further enriched to 90%. Iran has also been installing more advanced centrifuges, increasing its capacity to enrich uranium faster than ever.
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