Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Andrew Bostom • July 26, 2024 at 5:00 am
The most basic unresolved question about Husain's metamorphosis, is why he chose to name his "Muslim anti-Islamist extremism organization"— since disbanded — after William "Abdullah" Quilliam, a lunatic, late 19th century British convert to Islam. Quilliam, a Sharia supremacist, was appointed "Sheikh ul-Islam of the British Isles," sought the re-creation of a global Caliphate, and, in a March 1896 fatwa, supported the jihadist Sudanese Mahdist state against "infidel" British soldiers. Husain wrote an anti-Zionist diatribe in 2007, punctuated by these immoral equivalences: "Zionism and Islamism are both political perversions of ancient Abrahamic faiths of Judaism and Islam.... Disregard for the sanctity of human life is a hallmark of both Zionism and Islamism... Just as Zionists claim territory based on notions of 'Jewish land' and God-given rights, Islamists wish to reconquer India and Spain as 'Muslim land,' once ruled by Muslim monarchs..." Husain's presentation at the [July 8-10, 2024, fourth National Conservativism Conference] re-stated his boilerplate apologetics, and taqiyya ("sacralized" Islamic dissimulation). An example from that talk illustrates Husain's approach: silencing informed opposition to his assertions as "Islamophobic." Husain hectored the audience over their assumed concern that, broadly, "we [Muslims] don't recognize Israel." That viewpoint, Husain insisted, was "giving the Muslim Brotherhood victory over 1.8 billion Muslims." Yet Husain ignored the concrete evidence that validates the audience's presumptive trepidation, which he tarred as "Islamophobia." Regrettably, Husain, since his much ballyhooed "moderation," espouses dishonest Islamic apologetics that never acknowledge such disturbing data. Simultaneously, he ignores the authoritative Islamic jihad and Jew-hatred that animate these widely prevalent Muslim attitudes. Husain conveniently ignores all such materials from Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's most authoritative teaching institution, given how they demolish his weak and deceptive "arguments." Concurrently, he demonizes those who do not accept his strict distinction between Islam and "Islamism" as somehow "threatening civilization." As a result, sadly, "moderate" Muslim Ed Husain is incapable of an honest discussion about the global scourge of Muslim Jew-hatred.
Regrettably, Ed Husain, since his much ballyhooed "moderation," espouses dishonest Islamic apologetics that never acknowledge such disturbing data. Simultaneously, he ignores the authoritative Islamic jihad and Jew-hatred that animate these widely prevalent Muslim attitudes. Pictured: Husain, in London, England on July 10, 2013. (Photo by UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office/Flickr; CC by 2.0)
British Muslim Ed Husain is currently a professor at Georgetown University. Previously, he was a member of the Islamic Caliphate revival organization Hizb ut Tahrir. Husain later drifted into various Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups (which included people affiliated with Hamas) and circles within the United Kingdom before allegedly disavowing all of them. Once "de-radicalized," Husain chronicled his experience (in 2007), and subsequently created the ostensibly "anti-Islamist extremism" British organization, The Quilliam Society.
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by Bassam Tawil • July 25, 2024 at 5:00 am
The Hamas document [which purports to explain why it massacred 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023] lists a number of reasons, all of which can be easily refuted, as to why the terrorist group launched its attack on Israel. This claim is totally untrue: there are absolutely no Israeli "plans" to split the Al-Aqsa Mosque into a Jewish and Muslim area or to convert it into a Jewish site. The purported "plans" exist only in the imagination of Hamas and other Palestinians. It is simply part of a Palestinian campaign of defamation against Israel to try to justify the murder of Jews. According to the "status quo," formulated by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan in 1967, Jews would not be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount but would be able to visit the site. While Israel has respected the status quo, Muslims have consistently violated it in an apparent attempt to deepen their hold on the holy site. It is also important to note that Hamas and many Palestinians consider all Jews "settlers," regardless of whether they live in Tel Aviv, or in a settlement in the West Bank, or in New York. Hamas further claims that it launched its attack because of "thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails who are experiencing deprivation of their basic rights." Most of the "detainees" Hamas is referring to are convicted terrorists who were imprisoned for murdering or attempting to murder people (usually Jews). For many years, these terrorist prisoners have enjoyed comfortable conditions, especially when it comes to entertainment and leisure. A variety of exercise equipment – including ping-pong tables, stationary bicycles and pull-up bars (in addition to chess) – is available. Each prison cell is equipped with a television, and the prisoners have access to at least 10 channels. Palestinian prisoners, in addition, are entitled to family visits and unlimited access to lawyers. In contrast, both the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have been accused by human rights organizations of "systematically torturing critics" in detention. A report published by Human Rights Watch in 2022 said: "PA and Hamas security forces routinely taunt and threaten detainees, use solitary confinement and beatings, including whipping their feet, and force detainees into painful stress positions for prolonged periods, including hoisting their arms behind their backs with cables or rope, to punish and intimidate critics and opponents and elicit confessions..." As of October 7, 2023, an estimated 18,000 - 18,500 residents of the Gaza Strip held work permits issued by the Israeli authorities to enable them to work in Israel, where their pay is five times higher than in Gaza. As noted last month: "Many of those workers to whom Israel opened its doors were apparently working in Israel by day, and by night returning to Gaza and providing Hamas with highly detailed maps and drawings of every house in Israel's border communities, and reports about everyone in them, including the pet dogs." Israel can only conclude that "no good deed goes unpunished." Hamas also claims it launched its attack on Israel because of the "seven million Palestinians living in extreme conditions in refugee camps who wish to return to their lands." If the "refugees" are living in extreme conditions, it is because their leaders have failed to permit the building of new homes for them or to improve their living conditions. There is no reason why "refugee camps" continue to exist under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, under Hamas in the Gaza Strip or anyplace else. The same abuse applies to the Arab countries hosting Palestinian "refugees": Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. What have these countries done to incorporate their Palestinian brethren? Nothing. There is no reason why a Palestinian living in an Arab country should be treated as a "refugee" or a second-class citizen. Hamas, in its document, is actually stating that it sent its men to murder, rape and kidnap Jews because Israel refused to open its borders to millions of Palestinian "refugees" who are told to murder Jews and destroy the only Jewish state. Finally, Hamas argues that it launched its attack because of the international community and world powers seeking to "prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state." This claim, of course, is completely false. In fact, most of the international community, including the United States, the EU, Russia and China, have long been pushing hard for the establishment of a Palestinian state. If anyone is to blame for the failure of the "two-state solution," it is Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The leaders of the PA were presented with multiple opportunities to create a state of their own, but each time declined Israel's offer of peace without so much as a counteroffer. [I]is laughable to hear Hamas lament the failure of the "two-state solution." This is an organization whose charter openly calls for waging Jihad (holy war) to obliterate Israel... "Resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine will remain a legitimate right, a duty and an honour for all the sons and daughters of our people and our Ummah." – Article 23, of the "new, improved" Hamas Charter of 2017. Hamas's attempt to defend its crimes against Israelis should be seen as part of its attempts to mislead and fool the international community. The October 7 massacre was orchestrated by Hamas with the sole intent of slaughtering as many Jews as possible as part of its Jihad to destroy Israel. Period.
A Hamas document, full of false claims and fabrications, seeks to justify the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas terrorists and thousands of "ordinary" Palestinians who invaded Israeli communities near the border of the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. 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 [Twitter]) Earlier this year, the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas published a document titled "Our Narrative - Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" purporting to explain why it carried out the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel during which thousands of Israelis were murdered, raped, tortured, burned alive, and kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. The document, full of false claims and fabrications, seeks to justify the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas terrorists and thousands of "ordinary" Palestinians who invaded Israeli communities near the border of the Gaza Strip that day. The Hamas document lists a number of reasons, all of which can be easily refuted, as to why the terrorist group launched its attack on Israel. Hamas claims it launched the attack in response to the "Israeli Judaization plans to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, its temporal and spatial division attempts, as well as the intensification of the Israeli settlers' incursions into the holy mosque."
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by Con Coughlin • July 24, 2024 at 5:00 am
Nothing better illustrates the perversity of the Biden administration's attitude to the Gaza conflict that, at the same time that Washington is limiting arms exports to Israel, the US is increasing its aid to the Palestinian Authority. One of the key lessons that the US should have learned from Hamas's deadly terrorist attack against Israel on October 7... is that aid donations made by foreign donors invariably end up being used to fund Palestinian terrorists. With awkward timing, the Biden administration announced its latest $100 million aid package for the Palestinians just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to leave for his visit to Washington this week. While aid officials blame Israel and the continuing war in Gaza for preventing the delivery of vital supplies from reaching Palestinian civilians, the real culprit is Hamas, which controls all the delivery networks. This means that much of the aid is diverted to those who support its terrorist operations. Biden may have announced his intention to not seek re-election, but so long as his administration remains in power, there appears little prospect of any dramatic revision taking place to its deliberately icy -- and potentially dangerous -- attitude not only towards Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza, but also its turning a blind eye toward Iran's destabilizing nuclear weapons, possibly coming soon, with the missiles to deliver them to the Middle East, Europe, and -- from Latin America and the Caribbean -- to the United States.
Aid donations made by foreign donors to the Palestinian Authority and Gaza invariably end up being used to fund Palestinian terrorists. Despite the mounting evidence that US aid supplies for the Palestinians, together with donations made by other Western nations, are failing to be used for their designated humanitarian purposes, the Biden administration appears determined to maintain its aid policy. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
Nothing better illustrates the perversity of the Biden administration's attitude to the Gaza conflict that, at the same time that Washington is limiting arms exports to Israel, the US is increasing its aid to the Palestinian Authority. One of the key lessons that the US should have learned from Hamas's deadly terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered and more than 250 taken captive and held as hostages in Gaza, is that aid donations made by foreign donors invariably end up being used to fund Palestinian terrorists. Prior to October 7, key supporters of Hamas, such as Iran and Qatar, sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza, and claimed it was to be used for humanitarian purposes such as funding schools and hospitals. Instead, it was used to build the formidable underground tunnel network Hamas constructed in Gaza that ultimately enabled it to carry out the worst terrorist attack Israel has suffered in its history.
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by Lawrence Kadish • July 23, 2024 at 10:30 am
US Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle appeared before a US House of Representatives Oversight Committee looking into the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, in a performance worthy of – well – Ford's Theater. She dodged virtually all key questions regarding accountability, oversight, and who is ultimately responsible. Pictured: Cheatle testifies before the House Oversight Committee on July 22, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chris Kleponis/AFP via Getty Images)
If there was to be an award given to an incompetent, even criminally negligent, Secret Service official, it would have to be called the "Parker Trophy." It would be named for John Parker who was the Washington D.C. policeman assigned to guard Abraham Lincoln the night he was assassinated at Ford's Theater. According to historians: "John Parker was an unlikely candidate to guard a president—or anyone for that matter.... Parker's record as a cop fell somewhere between pathetic and comical. He was hauled before the police board numerous times, facing a smorgasbord of charges that should have gotten him fired." Parker may have been in a nearby saloon or somewhere in the theater gallery to watch the play when John Wilkes Booth entered Lincoln's box and shot him at point-blank range.
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by Dawid Bunikowski • July 23, 2024 at 5:00 am
"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such..." — Definition of genocide, The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, December 9, 1948. Their genocidal aim, clear to the Hamas terrorists, was to murder Jews; others, such as Asians and Muslims, were also murdered. What is illuminating is how easily the civilized world, in this instance, accepted that as well as the abduction of 250 hostages. Those who slaughter and take hostages should be the subject of disgrace and condemnation. Instead, frequently, they were celebrated. Israel, of necessity, responded to this massacre. Israel's goals, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts "the Churchill of the Middle East," are "returning hostages from Gaza, eliminating Hamas' military and governing capabilities, ensuring that Gaza will not constitute a threat against Israel and also returning displaced Israeli residents securely to their homes in both the south and the north." Israel's goal is not to destroy the Palestinians, Arabs or Gazan civilians. The situation of displaced Gazans -- temporary evacuations are allowed by Geneva IV, Article 49 -- is certainly unfortunate; however, the main problem is the aggressive nature of Iran's and Hamas's totalitarian regimes. That is what has led to the October 7 massacre and is the seminal reason for the war and the Gazan casualties. "Israel Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Nation in History"; "Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare: Why Will No One Admit it?" — John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point; Newsweek, January 31, 2024, and March 25, 2024. It is, in fact, Iran and Hamas that should be on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. "Hamas is a religious movement, and they are a raging religious movement against Israel. The mainstream media cannot say this because they are afraid to ignite a religious war. And what I say, it already is. They want to annihilate the Jewish people because they are Jewish people, because they are a Jewish state." — Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, Fox News, October 23, 2023.
Their genocidal aim, clear to the Hamas terrorists, was to murder Jews; others, such as Asians and Muslims, were also murdered. What is illuminating is how easily the civilized world, in this instance, accepted that as well as the abduction of 250 hostages. Those who slaughter and take hostages should be the subject of disgrace and condemnation. Instead, frequently, they were celebrated. Pictured: Naama Levy, an Israeli woman abducted and taken to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, when she was 19 years old. She is still being held hostage by Hamas. (Image source: Hamas)
The official definition of genocide, as determined by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on December 9, 1948, reads: Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The Iran-backed, officially designated terrorist group Hamas -- along with other groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- on October 7, 2023, committed genocide in Israel.
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by Andrew Bostom • July 22, 2024 at 5:00 am
The jihad conquest of Palestine created an Islamic state under Sharia jurisdiction for the surviving Jews, Christians and Samaritans, with all its accompanying religious and socio-political discriminations. There was nothing "liberating" about the jihad waged against the vanquished "dhimmi," per Qur'an 9:29: "Fight against those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth [i.e., Islam] from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah1 willingly while they are humbled." This verse, and its interpretation by seminal Muslim Qur'anic commentators and jurists, was the key rationale for Sharia-based restrictions on non-Muslims' religious practices, as well as their pauperizing taxation, disarmament and inequality in penal law. Ayaan Hirsi Ali may have taken Husain's full measure — still unchanged — 17 years ago during an illuminating debate: "[I]f we continue to deny, those of us who were brought up in Islam, that there is anything wrong with the faith, then there is no point in having a debate on reformation or renaissance or any sort of change. Because if it is perfect – as most Muslims want us to believe – then there's nothing to change." It certainly appears that Hirsi Ali identified the complete obstruction to real change posed by this "ex-jihadist Muslim" turned apologist for Islam, whose replacement fanaticism is his angry denial of normative Islamic doctrine, and related history, past as prologue. Regardless, the jihad conquest of Palestine was not a "liberation," and most assuredly did not "reinstate Judaism and Jewishness to Jerusalem."
The Islamic conquest of Palestine, which began in the year 634 C.E., had devastating and decidedly "non-liberating" consequences, characterized by massacre, pillage, enslavement and deportation of the indigenous Palestinian Jewish, Christian and Samaritan populations. Pictured: The Islamic Dome of the Rock shrine, on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which was built atop the site of the destroyed First and Second Jewish Temples. (Photo by Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)
Ed Husain, self-styled ex-Hizb ut Tahrir and ex-Hamas "former radical," now "anti-Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood" campaigner, spoke on July 9, 2024 on a panel entitled, "Islam, Israel, and the West," at the fourth National Conservatism Conference. Husain is an "ex-jihadist Muslim," turned apologist for Islam. Despite his recent assertion to the contrary, the jihad conquest of Palestine was not a "liberation," and most assuredly did not "reinstate Judaism and Jewishness to Jerusalem."
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by Harold Rhode • July 22, 2024 at 4:00 am
Israel's recent strike on Houthi targets in Yemen shows to the Iranians, Arab states and others that Israel is an independent actor, not a "client state" of America, and that Israel is willing to go it alone against the advice or demands of the Americans. Pictured: Fires burn after an Israeli airstrike on an oil storage facility in the port city of Hodeida, Yemen, on July 20, 2024. (Photo by Houthi Media Center via Getty Images)
Following Israel's recent strike on Houthi targets in Yemen, White House National Security Communications Advisor John F. Kirby said: "We did not participate in today's Israeli attack on Yemen and did not help Israel." This is wonderful news. It shows to the Iranians, Arab states and others that Israel is an independent actor, not a "client state" of America. It also demonstrates that Israel is willing to go it alone against the advice or demands of the Americans. It shows the Sunni Arab countries that Israel is a reliable partner against the Iranian regime because Israel will do what it must to protect itself and stop Iran and its proxies. As Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer often says, even if the Sunnis can't have the 800-pound gorilla (the U.S.) to defend them against Iranian aggression, the 250-pound gorilla (Israel) has proved a reliable alternative. What more can we learn from Israel's attack on the (Shi'ite) Houthis?
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • July 21, 2024 at 5:00 am
It is not as if this attack could not have been anticipated and planned for.... One would think that the Secret Service would have learned from their failure [during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy] in Dallas. They did not. The Secret Service should be devoted exclusively to preventing and responding to attacks on its protectees. It must get out of the unrelated business of investigating currency counterfeiting and other crimes. This assassination attempt may well be an outgrowth of the increasing acceptance of violence by extremists on all parts of the political spectrum.... it is certainly possible that [would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks] may have been influenced by the current rhetoric justifying violence as an appropriate response to perceived injustice. Our universities are turning out students who engage in violence and are only rarely punished for it. Some faculty members are teaching that noble ends justify ignoble means. The result has been physical attacks on fellow students based on political, ideological and religious disagreements. It is only a short step from physically attacking those with whose policies you disagree, to shooting at political candidates who support such policies. [P]olitical, educational, religious and other leaders must denounce violence advocated and practiced by those on their side of the political divide. It is easy to denounce violence by one's opponents. It is far more difficult, but more important, to denounce violence by one's allies. We are not doing enough.
Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle says she will not resign, despite the failure of her agents to secure the rooftop from where the shots were fired at former President Donald Trump, and despite her refusal to come clean about the causes of the failure. Pictured: Trump is taken off a rally stage by Secret Service agents after he was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. (Photo by Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
Now that the Republican convention ended without incidents, we must get back to considering the implications of the near-assassination of former President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump two days before the convention began. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle says she will not resign, despite the failure of her agents to secure the rooftop from where the shots were fired at Trump, and despite her refusal to come clean about the causes of the failure.
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by Amir Taheri • July 21, 2024 at 4:00 am
Eight years ago, millions of Americans voted for Trump because he didn't look or sound like regular politicians. Many called that a protest vote, which it certainly was to some extent. This time, however, Trump is able to attract a vote of adhesion to an agenda which, although chaotic, at least hints at some of the reforms the US political system needs. These include a rebalancing of the powers of the federal government and the states and the authority of the president as head of the executive power in the context of a debate that started at the birth of the new nation.
Pictured: Former US President Donald Trump is joined by his wife Melania Trump after accepting his party's nomination on the last day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 18, 2024. (Photo by Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
Last week, Republicans were back under the Republican Party's convention limelight in Milwaukee. This time they looked as determined to send Donald J. Trump to the White House in November as they were in 2016. Eight years ago, Trump looked like a bolt out of the blue that, though threatening the serenity of American political sky, would prove a passing nuisance. Then Trump didn't fit the mold shaped over almost two centuries of American nationhood. He was the first businessman to enter the inner circle of aspirants to the presidency. Unlike the previous 44 presidents, he had no record of public service, civilian or military, and had never held any public office. Nor was he a graduate of the Ivy League elite universities, nor a winner of many chic scholarships.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • July 20, 2024 at 5:00 am
The continued funding of Iran's regime by the EU is crucial in bolstering Iran's ability to attack its neighbors and US troops in the region, both directly and through its proxies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis -- and to accelerate enriching uranium to complete its nuclear weapons program. The regime's actions appear part of a broader strategy aimed at ultimately annihilating not only Israel but also oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. While the EU loves to portray itself as a front-runner in human rights, often lecturing the world about those values and global security, its actions -- all mercenary, all the time -- tell a very different story.
Iran's strategy is aimed at ultimately annihilating not only Israel but also oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The continued funding of Iran's regime by the EU is crucial in bolstering Iran's ability to attack its neighbors and US troops in the region, both directly and through its proxies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis -- and to accelerate enriching uranium to complete its nuclear weapons program. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
The Iranian regime, largely thanks to the backing of a powerful ally, the European Union, has managed to sustain and even increase its revenue streams. The continued funding of Iran's regime by the EU is crucial in bolstering Iran's ability to attack its neighbors and US troops in the region, both directly and through its proxies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis -- and to accelerate enriching uranium to complete its nuclear weapons program. Support from the EU has enabled Iran to continue its regional and international militaristic endeavors without the looming threat of financial insolvency.
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by Bassam Tawil • July 19, 2024 at 11:15 am
The Biden administration's plan to "revitalize" the Palestinian Authority (PA) is being interpreted by Palestinian leaders as permission to form an alliance with the murderers and rapists of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas. Instead of starting a "reform process" within the PA, as the Biden administration has demanded, Abbas and his top officials are still pursuing unity and reconciliation with Hamas, whose members carried out the October 7 atrocities against thousands of Israelis. It is hard to see how such an alliance between the two Palestinian parties would even begin to benefit the Palestinians or advance peace and security in the Middle East. The Biden administration has so far refrained from demanding that the PA halt its efforts to form a partnership with Hamas, which is designated by the US as a foreign terrorist group. Such statements show why there is basically no difference between the PA and Hamas. Both organizations believe that murdering Jews helps the Palestinians and advances their objective of preventing Israel and the Arab states from normalizing relations with each other. The PA is lying when it states that it supports a two-state solution. The PA has always stated that it prefers a one-state solution: a state of Palestine replacing all of Israel.
The Biden administration's plan to "revitalize" the Palestinian Authority (PA) is being interpreted by Palestinian leaders as permission to form an alliance with the murderers and rapists of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas. Pictured: Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (R) and PA President Mahmoud Abbas (L) are hosted by Qatar's then Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani at a ceremony in Doha, Qatar on February 6, 2012. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration's plan to "revitalize" the Palestinian Authority (PA) is being interpreted by Palestinian leaders as permission to form an alliance with the murderers and rapists of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas. In November 2023, the Biden administration called for "revitalizing" the PA in the hopes that it would be able to oversee the Gaza Strip once the Israel-Hamas war ends. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the US looks forward to working with the new PA government headed by Mohammed Mustafa, which was established last April, "to deliver on credible reforms." "A revitalized PA is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza and establishing the conditions for stability in the broader region," Miller said. According to Yohanan Tzoreff, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies:
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by Nils A. Haug • July 18, 2024 at 5:00 am
Hamas, designated a terror group by Western nations, is an Islamist fundamentalist group whose 1988 Covenant openly supports a Sharia law-based paradisical Caliphate free of non-believers and a world free of Jews (end of Article 7). Despite Israel's compliance with humanitarian concerns, rules of war, and attempts to avoid Palestinian civilian deaths, the perception remains that Israel should be the one to make concessions for a ceasefire, not Hamas, which should immediately release the hostages it took. Hamas, like other Islamic groups from a different culture, does not accede to the West's laws of war – this much is clear from their treatment of hostages. Freed hostages tell of "cages, beatings and death threats." Hamas, in violation of the truce agreement, has not permitted the Red Cross to see the hostages. One can imagine how come. The conflict therefore becomes one between a Western state, ultimately seeking peaceful coexistence and adhering to the ethics of a just war, assaulted by terrorist groups pursuing total conquest and seeming to be driven by an ideology of unquenchable animosity toward "unbelievers." Most Western leaders apparently desire to divide Israel, even further than it already has been divided, into two sectors: one for the Jews and one for the Palestinians -- all in the name of human rights, social justice, and supposed fair play. At its core, these proposals are anti-Zionist and in practical effect, anti-Semitic. For a start, more than half the land promised to Jews by the 1917 Balfour Declaration was reallocated by the British authorities to what is now the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon. Jewish rights to what remains of their historic land is continually denied, along with stupefying proposals that the Jews should be forced to be ruled by the very people desiring their extinction. What accommodation, however, can there possibly be between two conflicting core narratives, in which one party seeks the ideal of martyrdom -- "We love death as our enemies love life" -- while the other desires to live in peace, without constant threats to its existence? Israel is not only fighting to prevent long-term future attacks from Gaza, but also to defeat terrorists from overwhelming the Judeo-Christian values that have been achieved over centuries with much sacrifice. Israel has actually been singled out for implementing "More measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other nation in history." Israel is the "only country in world," the British journalist Douglas Murray pointed out, "who are never allowed to win a war, which is a reason why wars keep occurring." US President Joe Biden and his ministers of state try their utmost to impose unacceptable cease-fire agreements upon Israel. Fortunately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "the Churchill of the Middle East," will have none of it. Israel stands firm against prematurely ceasing military action: their ultimate aim is not only to destroy Hamas's military capability and to rescue remaining hostages, but to defeat terror for the future of the Free World. "It is left to little Israel to make the first stand against radical evil and the new axis of nations dedicated to the demise of the West. With resolve, courage, and dedication, but, alas, with much more sacrifice, Israel will show the way." — Professor Leon R. Kass, aei.org, November 3, 2023.
Despite Israel's compliance with humanitarian concerns, rules of war, and attempts to avoid Palestinian civilian deaths, the perception remains that Israel should be the one to make concessions for a ceasefire, not Hamas, which should immediately release the hostages it took. Hamas, like other Islamic groups from a different culture, does not accede to the West's laws of war – this much is clear from their treatment of hostages. Pictured: A Palestinian man shows a leaflet, with instructions on humanitarian corridors and safe zones, dropped by the Israeli military over Gaza City on November 5, 2023. (Photo by Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)
Hamas, a so-called liberation movement, was voted into power as the governing party by the Palestinian people of Gaza in 2006. The group immediately engaged in armed conflict with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and his Fatah faction, and forcibly removed them from Gaza, including by throwing at least one official off the 15th floor of a building. Hamas also undertook a jihad (holy war) against the neighbouring country of Israel by attempting to kill Israelis or drive them away to take control of the land.
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by Nima Gholam Ali Pour • July 17, 2024 at 5:00 am
That Iran can, through hostage-taking and extortion, force countries such as the United States, Belgium and Sweden to hand over a convicted criminal who has clearly violated international law shows that gangster methods, used by the Iranian mullahs and others, evidently carry more weight than international law. This blackmail essentially teaches rogue states that through violence and extortion they can get Western states to make concessions, massive payments, and to de-prioritize and deviate from international law. If a state takes foreign visitors hostage, and all power then lies with those who kidnap the most, threaten the most and have the largest capacity for violence -- including the imminent probability of nuclear weapons -- then international law will soon mean nothing. Apart from effectively having a public budget to support terrorism, Iran's regime acts as lawlessly as the regimes of Russia or North Korea, and behaves in general as terrorists. It seems clear that hostage diplomacy is a deliberate strategy for Iran and Russia's current regimes. Why should it not be? It works! Countries in the West might do well to communicate this situation and disclaim responsibility for anyone who, despite that lawlessness, chooses to travel to Russia, Iran or other such states. Hostage diplomacy must be stopped.
On June 15, Iran and Sweden conducted a prisoner exchange. Two innocent Swedish citizens, Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi, were exchanged for an Iranian citizen, Hamid Noury, who had been convicted by a Swedish court of the torture and mass execution of political prisoners he had committed in Iran. Pictured: Floderus (R) is greeted by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at Arlanda Airport near Stockholm, on June 15, 2024. (Photo by Tom Samuelsson/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)
On June 15, the Swedish government announced that it had conducted a prisoner exchange with Iran's regime. An Iranian citizen, Hamid Noury, was exchanged for two Swedish citizens, Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi. Noury stood convicted by a Swedish court of the torture and mass execution of political prisoners he had committed in Iran's Gohardasht prison in the late 1980s, following a fatwa from Iran's then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In November 2019, Noury was lured to Sweden by some Iranians with promises of luxury trips, parties, and female companionship. At Arlanda Airport, Noury was met by Swedish police, and in July 2022, he was sentenced for his crimes to life imprisonment by the Stockholm District Court
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by Gordon G. Chang • July 16, 2024 at 5:00 am
Why is Chinese President Xi Jinping moving so fast at this time to exert control over peripheral waters? Prominent China analyst Willy Lam wrote last October that China's leader perhaps sees a closing window of opportunity and therefore is in a hurry to annex territory. Whether he goes to war or not, he is getting ready to do so. Both the Financial Times and CNN have reported that businesses have been establishing military units inside their organizations. "Chinese Companies Are Raising Militias Like It's the 1970s," the cable network reported. Xi is engaged in the fastest military buildup since the Second World War. In addition, he is purging military officers opposed to war, trying to sanction-proof his regime, stockpiling grain and other commodities, surveying the U.S. for nuclear weapons strikes, and mobilizing civilians for war. His economic policies emphasize war preparation, and he looks determined to take China into battle, regardless of prospects. "Even if we cannot win, we must fight," Xi is reported to have said to military officers in 2017, in connection with Taiwan. I believe that Xi wants war — or at least a ramping up of tensions — to prevent senior Chinese leaders from moving against him. He is not looking to rally the Chinese people with provocative actions or even an attack; he wants to defang political opponents in the Communist Party. Xi may not yet have made the decision to go to war, but he has clearly made the decision to risk war. That means he can strike when we least expect it.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is engaged in the fastest military buildup since the Second World War. In addition, he is purging military officers opposed to war, trying to sanction-proof his regime. Xi may not yet have made the decision to go to war, but he has clearly made the decision to risk war. That means he can strike when we least expect it. Pictured: Sailors and fighter jets on the deck of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy aircraft carrier Liaoning in the sea near Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province on April 23, 2019. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AFP via Getty Images)
In recent weeks, China has surged its naval fleet into both surrounding and far away waters. Most significantly, the People's Liberation Army Navy sent two strike groups into the South China Sea. The larger, centered on the Shandong aircraft carrier, operated off the main Philippine island of Luzon before transiting into the Western Pacific for blue water flight operations. The other is an Expeditionary Strike Group led by a Type 075 Yushen-class amphibious assault ship, one of China's largest and most advanced. Four of China's Type 055 Renhai-class cruisers, described as "the most lethal surface combatant in the world," escorted the two strike groups. China's newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, has been on its third set of sea trials. China and Russia began "Exercise Joint Sea-2024" at the Zhanjiang port in southern Guangdong province, the headquarters of the Chinese navy's South Sea Fleet.
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by Lawrence Kadish • July 15, 2024 at 3:00 pm
Pictured: Former President Donald Trump is taken off a rally stage by Secret Service agents after he was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. (Photo by Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
Once again, American history has been altered by a fraction of an inch. Donald Trump's wound could have been catastrophic by such a margin. Teddy Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt when the bullet lodged in a rolled up copy of his speech he had casually stuffed into his breast pocket. Franklin Delano Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt when the gunman's aim was faulty, killing FDR's neighboring motorcade passenger, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, and wounding five others. Ronald Reagan's bullet wound to the lung from a would-be assassin nearly killed him; he survived by the heroic efforts of emergency room doctors. So, American history will write yet another chapter of how fate, luck and the strength of the would-be victim played an enormous role in determining the future of our nation.
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