Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Bassam Tawil • September 15, 2024 at 5:00 am
Abandoning the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt would enable Hamas to carry on with its decades-long practice of smuggling weapons into the enclave. It would also allow the new head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, to escape – along with many of the hostages with whom he is thought to be surrounding himself for protection -- through the tunnels into Egypt's Sinai Desert. The most recent statement from Hamas makes it clear that the terror group wants Israel to leave the Gaza Strip before any hostages are freed. According to some reports, Hamas has stated that it is willing to free the hostages in stages. It undoubtedly wants to hold on to as many hostages as possible as an "insurance policy" that Israel will not resume the war against the terror group and that the terrorist group will be able to have a free hand to attack Israel in the future. This implies that a large number of the hostages remain captive in the hands of the terror group for years. It is important to note that for the past 10 years, Hamas has been holding hostage two Israeli civilians who are believed to be still alive, as well as the remains of two IDF soldiers. Hamas is willing to fight to the last Palestinian. The terror group does not care if tens of thousands of its own people lose their lives as a result of the war it began. Its No. 1 priority is to hold on to power after the war. Hamas is evidently hoping that a ceasefire-hostage deal will help it achieve its goal of retaining control over the Gaza Strip. If the Biden-Harris administration wants to understand the real intentions and aims of Hamas, it just needs to look at what the terror group is saying in Arabic. Hamas and its allies are saying in Arabic that the only deal they would accept is one that results in Israel raising a white flag. If Hamas is permitted to win the war, Iran and its other terror proxies, such as Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis, will gain confidence and feel more empowered. In addition, this will convey to Muslim Jihadis worldwide that Israel and the West are too weak to protect their people and values against Islamist terror organizations. This weakness will lead to more terrorism not only against Israel, but also the US and most Western nations. Instead of applying pressure on Israel to end the war, the Biden-Harris administration needs to demand firmly that the Hamas murderers and rapists totally surrender, disarm, cede control over the Gaza Strip, and release all the hostages unconditionally. All this needs urgently needs to take place before Iran breaks out its nuclear weapons and sets about attacking its oil-rich neighbors, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, again.
Abandoning the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt would enable Hamas to carry on with its decades-long practice of smuggling weapons into the enclave. It would also allow the new head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, to escape – along with many of the hostages with whom he is thought to be surrounding himself for protection -- through the tunnels into Egypt's Sinai Desert. Pictured: A large Hamas tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, beneath the Philadelphi Corridor, discovered by the Israeli military on August 4, 2024. (Photo source: IDF)
The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has repeated its demand that Israel withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip in order to reach a ceasefire-hostage agreement with Israel. Hamas, in other words, is demanding that Israel lose the war so that the terrorist group can regroup, rearm and prepare for more attacks on Israel like the one it launched on October 7, 2023. In that assault, 1,200 Israelis were murdered, with many raped, tortured and burned alive. Another 240 Israelis were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 101 are still being held as hostages, many of them already murdered (see here and here).
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by Amir Taheri • September 15, 2024 at 4:00 am
The good news is that although a bloc of ultra-left groups, waving flags of Hamas and masquerading as defenders of Islam, won the largest number of seats, but not a majority, in the National Assembly, its leaders were not intelligent enough to cash their chips and seize a chunk of power in a deal with President Emmanuel Macron. Their obstinacy and the raising of the Hamas flag inside the parliament have provoked an anti-Islam backlash opposed to Houellebecq and Kepel's forecasts. Thus, France isn't going to have an extremist president next year. What has happened is that ultra-nationalist groups have seized the opportunity to portray themselves as the only bulwark against an "aggressive Islam" with the catchword "immigration" that causes "insecurity." It was only a generation ago that France, or at least the opinion-making elite, had a quite different image of Islam. At that time, Islam was seen as a deeply spiritual discipline best explained by mystics such as Ibn al-Arabi and poets such as Roumi. The soft image that French Islamologues created was used by militant Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Khomeinists of Iran and Lebanon, remnants of the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and more recently ISIS to cast themselves as "victims" of colonialism, imperialism and even racism and avoid close scrutiny, while they built no-go fiefdoms around Paris and provincial centers to promote ideologies far from Ibn al-Arabi and Roumi; let alone St. Aldebert and Meister Eckhart. Between 1980 and 2020, the French state spent more than $30 billion in its "Islamic" suburbs in the hope of preventing what Macron describes as "separatism." The project, most enthusiastically implemented by ministers such as Bernard Tapie and Jean-Louis Borloo, produced the opposite of what was desired. It helped local qaids (chiefs) to create a larger clientele and tighten their control on the "separatist" suburbs. The first re-reading [of Islam] assumed that French Muslims were owed something and engendered a policy built on guilty feeling that used bribery and apology as tools of an imaginary reconciliation. The latest re-reading plays in the hands of the small minority of radical extremists who divide the world into "them and us." Both re-readings promote the very "separatism" that Macron warns about.
Is France going to have an extremist president in a few months' time? Pictured: The Élysée presidential palace in Paris, France on March 12, 2024. (Photo by Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)
Is France going to have an extremist president in a few months' time? If we believe the prophecy made by popular novelist Michel Houellebecq in his 2015 novel Submission, the answer must be yes. In the novel, Houellebecq claimed that the French have only seven years, that is until 2025, to prevent Islamic extremists from seizing power in France through a general election with the help of leftist and politically correct groups. In a self-loathing tone, he portrayed a house divided by power-hungry clans, while many Frenchmen saw their nation drifting in uncharted waters with no anchor. Disappointed in a system that seems to have become a self-perpetuating monster with increasingly powerless governments that promise more and deliver less, the average Frenchman in the novel seeks a savior, a strongman who can flush out distant bureaucrats in Paris and Brussels.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • September 14, 2024 at 5:00 am
The Biden-Harris administration's lifting of sanctions is what enabled Iran to profit to the tune of an estimated $100 billion, used for waging terror against Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia -- and the US. Just since October, Iran and its terror proxies and militias have attacked US troops in the Middle East more than 160 times, killing three and wounding more than 120... By turning a blind eye to the actions of the Iranian regime's while releasing roughly $100 billion to the treasury of the mullahs, the Biden-Harris administration is responsible for empowering these entities. This week in Gaza, more deaths were reported after Israel took out a Hamas command center embedded in what used to function as a school in a "humanitarian zone." If Hamas cares about the Palestinians and does not want them killed, why does it deliberately put its terrorist command centers in the middle of crowded "humanitarian zones"? "He was murdered by Hamas.... And if you want the hostages home, which we all do, you have to increase the cost to Iran.... Iran is the Great Satan here. Hamas is the junior partner.... They [could not] care less about the Palestinian people." -- US Senator Lindsey Graham, referring to the murdered US-Israeli hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Fox News, September 1, 2024. It is a clear call for the Biden-Harris administration to hold Iran accountable for the remaining hostages, and to target Iran's oil refineries if the hostages are not immediately released. So long as the US government continues to sit on the sidelines, the brutality and savagery of Hamas and their Iranian benefactors will only escalate. It is high time to confront Iran's regime head-on and stop its spread of barbarity before more innocent lives are lost -- above all, before the world's "leading state sponsor of terrorism" produces nuclear weapons.
So long as the US government continues to sit on the sidelines, the brutality and savagery of Hamas and their Iranian benefactors will only escalate. It is high time to confront Iran's regime head-on and stop its spread of barbarity before more innocent lives are lost -- above all, before the world's "leading state sponsor of terrorism" produces nuclear weapons. Pictured: Sayad 4-B missile at a military parade in Tehran, Iran on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
It is almost unimaginable that in the 21st century, such horrors would still take place. The brutal acts of Hamas remind us of the darkest periods in history, such as the atrocities committed by Hitler's Germany. Yet, the Iranian regime and its proxies -- particularly terrorist groups like Hamas -- continue to bring new levels of barbarity into the modern world. The recent recovery of six executed Israeli hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, from a tunnel in Rafah highlights the extent of this cruelty. These hostages, four of whom were scheduled to be released in a draft ceasefire deal, were murdered by Hamas before Israeli Defense Forces could reach them -- a reminder of the inhumanity and savagery of Hamas, emboldened by their Iranian backers.
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by Drieu Godefridi • September 13, 2024 at 5:00 am
The French people, the plurality of whom voted "right-wing" in the first round, were astonished to discover, after the second round, a "left-of-center" National Assembly, a parliament that seemingly does not represent the real country. The message seems to be the all-too-familiar Marxist concept of Volksrache ("the people's revenge"): arousing hatreds in order to channel them towards the "enemies of the regime", and, in the end, liquidate them. The murder of a policeman, the burning of a synagogue, the death of a delinquent, a war in the Middle East, elections, no elections: everything is used as a pretext for the hate-filled, agitprop vituperation of the minions of La France Insoumise, who, by stirring up hostilities and resentments, particularly anti-Semitic ones, appear to be whipping up violent -- even terrorist -- militancy, in the tradition of France's 18th-century terreur. France appears to be sliding, slowly but surely, towards a version of chaos -- the ancestral breeding ground for the violence that would be the victory, the horizon and the ultimate goal not only of Mélenchon's phalanx, but of all those trying to take down the West.
France appears to be sliding, slowly but surely, towards a version of chaos -- the ancestral breeding ground for the violence that would be the victory, the horizon and the ultimate goal not only of La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon's phalanx, but of all those trying to take down the West. Pictured: Mélenchon (C) gives a speech on June 30 while standing on stage next to an Islamist pro-Hamas activist, Rima Hassan (R). (Photo by Victoria Valdivia/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
Since the results were announced of France's July 2024 legislative elections, President Emmanuel Macron has been unable to build a majority in the National Assembly, which appears more divided than at any time in the history of what the French call "the Fifth Republic". The elections produced three blocs, all of which appear to hate each other: the left, coalescing around Jean-Luc Mélenchon's far-left La France Insoumise ("France Unbowed"), Macron's centrist Renaissance party, and Marine Le Pen's right-wing Rassemblement National (National Rally). Three factors seem to favor France's slide towards an open or latent form of even greater internal conflict. 1. Non-democratic Republic
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by Con Coughlin • September 12, 2024 at 5:00 am
The pretence that the UK's new Labour government has moved away from the blatant anti-Semitism that was rife under its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been brutally exposed by the actions of David Lammy, the party's new Foreign Secretary. It was during Corbyn's stint as Labour leader that his party faced constant accusations of anti-Semitism. A damning report produced by the Jewish Labour Movement in 2019 said the party harboured "endemic, institutional anti-Semitism" and that there was "overwhelming evidence that anti-Semitic conduct is pervasive at all levels of the party." Having been a close political ally of two prominent Labour politicians accused of anti-Semitism, it is hardly surprising therefore that two of Lammy's first initiatives since his appointment as Labour's new foreign secretary in July have been aimed at discrediting Israel. His first act was to withdraw the British government's official objection to attempts to persuade the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges. At the same time, Lammy confirmed that the UK was to restore its funding to UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for supporting Palestinian refugees, after support for the organisation was withdrawn by a number of countries -- including the US -- over claims its staffers were directly involved in the October 7 attacks carried out by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists against Israel. Lammy has now added to his anti-Israel stance by suspending a number of UK arms contracts to Israel, a decision that was announced on the same day that Israel buried the latest group of hostages to be murdered by Hamas terrorists, a decision that was denounced by Netanyahu as "shameful". As a junior minister in Tony Blair's government in 2006, for example, the Harvard-educated Lammy called for the British media to provide a platform for them to air their "poisonous" views. His appeal came shortly after a cell of al-Qaeda terrorists had carried out their worst terrorist attack against the UK with the London bombings in July 2005, murdering 72 innocent commuters and wounding more than 700. While Lammy's anti-Israel policies will undoubtedly appeal to the Labour's Party's hard-Left, they are also likely to place Starmer's government on a collision course with Washington, which has concluded there are no grounds for suspending arms deals with Israel, and that the creation of Palestinian state, as agreed in the Oslo Accords, is contingent on successful peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Lammy's blatant anti-Israel agenda will also place the UK's long-standing strategic alliance with Israel under intense strain. Having worked closely on a number of vital security issues, such as Iran's nuclear programme and the threat posed by Islamist terrorists, the Israeli government will be disinclined to maintain cooperation with the UK's new Labour government so long as Lammy remains foreign secretary.
The pretence that the UK's new Labour government has moved away from the blatant anti-Semitism that was rife under its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been brutally exposed by the actions of David Lammy, the party's new Foreign Secretary. Pictured: Corbyn (L), then Labour Party leader, with Lammy at the Cardinal Heenen centre on June 20, 2019 in Ilford, England. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The pretence that the UK's new Labour government has moved away from the blatant anti-Semitism that was rife under its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been brutally exposed by the actions of David Lammy, the party's new Foreign Secretary. Prior to his appointment to one of the British government's key positions in Prime Minister Keir Starmer's new administration, Lammy had made his name as a Left-wing firebrand. Having first come to prominence within the Labour movement for his campaigning on racial equality issues, he became closely associated with hard-Left members of the Labour Party, including both Corbyn and former London mayor Ken Livingstone.
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by Lawrence Kadish • September 11, 2024 at 1:00 pm
Donald Trump should declare that he will make the war on Chinese-fueled fentanyl central to his plan to not only make America great again, but an America safe from attack by a foreign power who is using an insidious lethal drug as the weapon of choice. Pictured: DF-17 hypersonic missiles at a military parade in Beijing, China, on October 1, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
We can debate the economy, decry the border mocked by illegal immigrants, and step around the criminally deranged allowed to stagger through our streets, but it is the deliberate and calculated effort to destabilize our nation through fentanyl that is the dagger thrust toward the heart of America. In a national survey conducted by the respected polling company McLaughlin & Associates, it was revealed that a third of those voters asked acknowledged they know of someone who has been harmed by fentanyl. Consider that number: over 100 million people have seen the devastating impact of this drug. It reflects a crisis that makes the past plagues of heroin and cocaine a side show. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Administrator Anne Milgram acknowledged as much earlier this year when she stated:
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by Gordon G. Chang • September 11, 2024 at 5:00 am
[W]hat about similar efforts of the far larger People's Republic of China? Attorney General Merrick Garland mentioned China in passing in remarks on the 4th — he promised to be "relentlessly aggressive" against foreign powers interfering in American elections and undermining democracy — but there were no indictments or other actions by his department, Treasury, or State against the Chinese regime for election-interference offenses. It is clear that China, at this moment, is doing the same things as Russia, only on a larger scale. "China's trolls are conducting one of the world's largest covert online influence operations. Its attack element is the group called 'Spamouflage,' and it is impersonating U.S. voters to denigrate U.S. politicians and push divisive messages ahead of the November 5 election." — Kerry Gershaneck, former U.S. counterintelligence official, to Gatestone, September 2024. The operation, reported Jack Stubbs, Graphika's chief intelligence officer, was attempting "to portray the U.S. as this declining global power with weak political leadership and a failing system of governance." The effort was comprehensive. As Stubbs said, this operation was run by "Chinese state-linked actors." This election cycle, Spamouflage achieved its greatest success on TikTok. That is probably not a coincidence, as the Wall Street Journal "found TikTok pushing thousands of videos with political lies and hyperbole to its users." So, what are federal authorities doing about China now? Said Canfield: "Nothing, zero, zilch, nada."
It is good that the Biden administration is going after Russian attempts to disrupt the United States and surreptitiously influence elections, but what about similar efforts of the far larger People's Republic of China? (Images source: iStock/Getty Images)
The U.S. Department of Justice on September 4 announced it was seizing 32 internet domains "used in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns colloquially referred to as 'Doppelganger.'" DOJ also announced criminal charges against two Russian media executives. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control at the same time designated 10 individuals and two entities "as part of a coordinated U.S. government response to Moscow's malign influence efforts targeting the 2024 U.S. presidential election." The State Department also took actions against Russian parties for such conduct. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on said on September 4th, "Today's announcement highlights the lengths some foreign governments go to undermine American democratic institutions."
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by Bassam Tawil • September 10, 2024 at 5:00 am
More than 30 years ago, these "elites," overwhelmingly on Israel's political "left" (think "peace," as if most people in democracies do not want peace) played a significant role in convincing the Israeli government to sign the Oslo Accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), headed by Yasser Arafat. The assumption back then was that if you bring Arafat's PLO from the Arab countries to Gaza and the West Bank and help them create a government and police force, the Palestinians would renounce terrorism and give up their dream of destroying Israel. The Palestinian Authority, established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994, had no intention of making peace with Israel, and still has not. Palestinian leaders continue to praise terrorists as "martyrs" and "heroes" and pay monthly salaries to their families. Many Israeli "elites" chose to turn a blind eye to the Palestinian leaders' support for terrorism and incitement of violence and hatred against Israel. Some Israeli peace activists continued to argue that Abbas who, since 2014 has refused to resume peace negotiations with Israel, is somehow a credible peace partner. "He [Arafat] did not negotiate in good faith; indeed, he did not negotiate at all. He just kept saying no to every offer, never making any counterproposals of his own." – Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted by Benny Morris from interviews in late March and early April 2202. The Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip in 2005 to enable the Palestinians to create a Dubai on the Mediterranean, instead enabled Hamas and other terror groups to turn the coastal enclave into a huge base for Jihad (holy war) against Israel. With the help of Iran, the terror groups smuggled weapons into the Gaza Strip from Egypt in tunnels dug under the border, and were taught to manufacture rockets and missiles. The Gazans also built a vast network of tunnels throughout the Gaza Strip, with many extending into Egypt. It turned out the belief of Israeli "elites" that the expulsion of Jews from the Gaza Strip would contribute to peace with the Palestinians was a catastrophic mirage. The Palestinians did not see the "disengagement" as an indication that Israel wants peace. Instead, many Palestinians viewed the withdrawal as an Israeli display of weakness and retreat in the face of rockets and suicide bombings. The thinking among the Palestinians became, "Oh, it's working! So let's do it more!" In a similar way, Iran, Qatar, Hamas and Hezbollah have been gaining more confidence from the current anti-government protests in Israel, especially since the Biden-Harris administration began pressing Israel to make concessions, but never Hamas, Hezbollah, Qatar or Iran. "Continue to exert psychological pressure on the families [of the hostages], both now and during the first phase [of the ceasefire] so that public pressure on the enemy government increases.... Arab forces should serve as a buffer to prevent the enemy [Israel] from entering after the war in Gaza ends, until they [Hamas] have reorganized their ranks and military capabilities." — Hamas document, written in March for the terrorist group's leader Yahya Sinwar, discovered on a computer allegedly belonging to him that was seized by the IDF. It is wrong for Israel's anti-government demonstrators to blame Netanyahu for the deadlock in the hostages-ceasefire negotiations. As the Hamas document shows, it is actually the terror group that is not in a rush to reach a deal. Hamas and the Israeli demonstrators seem to hope that the protests will succeed in overthrowing Netanyahu, so that the Israelis can elect a new prime minister – one who will allow Hamas to rearm, regroup and attack again, and one who will allow on Israel's border a Palestinian state committed to Israel's destruction and free of Jews who might prevent further attacks. Sadly, many demonstrating in Israel today appear unaware that they are being used by Hamas; that they have walked into Hamas's trap: to force out a leader, Netanyahu, who is finally succeeding in defeating Hamas.
Sadly, many demonstrating in Israel today appear unaware that they are being used by Hamas; that they have walked into Hamas's trap: to force out a leader, Netanyahu, who is finally succeeding in defeating Hamas. Pictured: Anti-government demonstrators near the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem, Israel on September 7, 2024.
Israel's self-appointed "elites" governed Israel during the first few decades after its independence in 1948, and, after an unfortunate track record of calculating and assuming things incorrectly when it comes to Israel's policies towards the Palestinians and other Arabs, are evidently dismayed that they have not been voted back into power. These Israeli "elites" are now blocking Israel's streets to try to bring down Israel's duly elected government. They seem to have forgotten their past mistakes and are still pushing for the same failed policies that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of Israelis.
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by Robert Williams • September 9, 2024 at 5:00 am
Britain's new leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in the tried-and-true way of Communist dictators, has begun his first term by initiating a great purge of British dissidents. British protesters, denounced as "far right thugs," are being put behind bars faster than the prison services can absorb.... The youngest child arrested and charged is just 11 years old. Because the prisons, already overflowing, cannot handle the sudden influx of mass-sentenced wrongthinkers, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced that to make room for the dissidents, it will be freeing early roughly 5,500 criminals... who "will include criminals convicted of violence..." The mass arrests and trials are occurring at the same time as "Police are increasingly letting knife and sex offenders escape prosecution if they say sorry," according to an August 26 report by The Telegraph. Peter Lynch, 61, a grandfather in Rotherham, a place where children have for decades been experiencing rape, other sexual abuse, and torture at the hands of mainly Muslim grooming gangs while police and the city council looked the other way, shouted at police, "you are protecting people who are killing our kids and raping them" and "scum". Judge Richardson told Lynch: "You did not yourself attack any police officer, as far as can be detected, but what you did was encourage by your conduct others to behave violently and you were part of this mob. What a disgraceful example you are as a grandfather"... [and] sentenced him to two years and eight months. Lynch was simply telling the truth: In cities such as Rotherham, Telford, Rochdale, Oxford, Peterborough, Keighley, Newcastle and Birmingham local police and councils knowingly allowed mostly Muslim grooming gangs to rape, abuse, torture and even murder thousands of little children and teenagers for decades because they said that if they stopped the crimes, they might appear "racist". Does the Starmer government really have so much contempt for the British? They are not even allowed to protest the rape of their children. "At least one murder, sex assault or crime of violence is committed every two days by convicted criminals under supervision of the probation service after being released from jail, research has revealed." — The Telegraph, July 1, 2024. "Ideas are more powerful even than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas," said Josef Stalin. Those words appear to have become Starmer's motto... Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle recently made it clear that he thinks everything with which the government disagrees should be banned on social media. There seems to be no awareness of the essential problem: who chooses what is misinformation? Starmer's methods were once exclusively reserved for dictatorships such as China, Russia and North Korea; Western democracies did not used to sentence people to long prison sentences for speech crimes.
Britain's new leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in the tried-and-true way of Communist dictators, has begun his first term by initiating a great purge of British dissidents. British protesters, denounced as "far right thugs," are being put behind bars faster than the prison services can absorb... The youngest child arrested and charged is just 11 years old. Pictured: His Majesty's Prison Wandsworth, in London, England, photographed on July 12, 2024. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Britain's new leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in the tried-and-true way of Communist dictators, has begun his first term by initiating a great purge of British dissidents. British protesters, denounced as "far right thugs," are being put behind bars faster than the prison services can absorb. More than 1,000 people who have been arrested and more than 500 charged, are waiting for their court appearances in police holding cells: prisons have run out of space. As in the most expert dictatorship, even children and grandfathers have been arrested by the police for "rioting". The youngest child arrested and charged is just 11 years old.
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by Melanie Phillips • September 8, 2024 at 5:00 am
The demonstrators [in Israel] are backed by assorted military and intelligence types in a treasonous attempt to lever Netanyahu out of office by creating division and demoralization while Israel is fighting for its life. Their core claim is that Netanyahu is prolonging the war and condemning the hostages to death solely to appease extremists in his coalition and thus remain in power. Of course, everyone desperately wants the hostages brought back home. But the idea that the ceasefire deal would achieve this is sheer fantasy. Only a few of the hostages would be released in the first phase. Hamas would then use the ceasefire to regroup and rearm, spinning out the continuing negotiation farce to keep the rest of the hostages trapped and thus retain control of the Gaza Strip. It would only ever release all the hostages (if at all) with Israel's total surrender. That's what those calling for an immediate ceasefire deal are actually promoting. The only way to save the hostages is through military pressure. That's one reason why it's imperative for Israel to retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, the area of Gaza that borders Egypt. The importance of this corridor cannot be exaggerated. Israel's capture of it has uncovered deep below its surface an extensive infrastructure of giant tunnels into Egypt — thus revealing the principal route through which Hamas imported its rockets, weapons and ammunition. [Emphasis added] Hamas needs to control the Philadelphi corridor in order to resupply itself. Without that, it will be finished. That's why it's insisting that there will be no deal while Israel remains in control. The vast majority of the military and security officials who belong to the authoritative Israel Defense and Security Forum are adamant that Israel must not cede control of the corridor. The forum's chairman, Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, said last week that tens of thousands of rockets and thousands of Hamas Nukhbah terrorists were waiting inside the Egyptian Sinai to go into Gaza through Philadelphi. Even if Israel made only a short retreat, these troops and equipment could be brought in within a week. Egypt had made billions of dollars from the smuggling trade into Gaza and wants to continue. Moreover, said Avivi, only 30 out of more than 100 hostages were slated to be released in the first phase of the deal — and Hamas reportedly planned to take the rest of them through the Philadelphi tunnels to Sinai and then to Iran. In a security cabinet row, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reportedly called Philadelphi "an unnecessary constraint that we've placed on ourselves." Gadi Eizenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said it wasn't strategically important. Former Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel could return to the corridor if it deemed it necessary once the hostages were home. Other arguments have included getting Egypt to safeguard Philadelphi against Hamas and using electronic sensors to monitor it. This is all utterly delusional. For two decades, Egypt was complicit in the construction and use of the Philadelphi tunnels; entrusting it with Israel's security would be to put the fox in charge of the henhouse. Israeli reliance on electronic sensors was one of the reasons the October 7 pogrom happened. Despite the thousands of people in the streets, most Israelis get this. In one opinion poll, 79% agreed that Israel needed to control Philadelphi permanently to prevent weapons smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. When asked more emotively whether Israel should control Philadelphi "even at the expense of a hostage deal," more respondents said it should than those who balked at preventing a hostage deal. Gantz, Eizenkot and Gallant are part of a military and security establishment whose morally and intellectually bankrupt "conception" brought about the Oct. 7 catastrophe in the first place. ...America itself bears a significant measure of responsibility for the hostages' fate. The Biden administration forced Israel to proceed in Gaza far more slowly than the IDF judged necessary to defeat Hamas and thus save the hostages. Worse, for three months, the administration stopped Israel from entering Rafah — below which the six hostages were murdered this month. If Israel had been free to proceed at its own pace, those six captives and many others might have been saved. Whatever happens to Netanyahu, the left will almost certainly discover that, for the second time, it has made a terrible strategic error. The first such error was the 1993 Oslo Accord, which gave the Palestinians political power and status — with the Americans even training their security forces — on the assumption that they intended to live in peace alongside Israel. [T]hese same types of people have been doing the work of Hamas for it by promoting Israel's surrender....
The demonstrators in Israel are backed by assorted military and intelligence types in a treasonous attempt to lever Netanyahu out of office by creating division and demoralization while Israel is fighting for its life. Their core claim is that Netanyahu is prolonging the war and condemning the hostages to death solely to appease extremists in his coalition and thus remain in power. Pictured: Anti-government protesters set a fire and use smoke torches on September 7, 2024 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
The enormous demonstrations in Israel against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, might be giving people outside the country the impression that the Israeli public is generally against him because of his conduct of the war and that his days in office are therefore numbered. What's more likely is that the Israeli left is in the process of destroying itself once and for all. Israelis are being increasingly maddened by grief and horror over the unconscionable fate of the hostages trapped in the hellholes of Gaza. This month's cold-blooded murder of six of these captives by Hamas savages has tipped many Israelis over the edge. The demonstrators' demand for an immediate ceasefire deal to release the hostages is not only ludicrous to the point of near derangement, but also poses a direct threat to Israel's security and indeed existence — precisely the outcome that Hamas intends through its diabolical manipulation of the hostages' plight.
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by Amir Taheri • September 8, 2024 at 4:00 am
The IRGC and its appendages such as the Mobilization of the Dispossessed (Baseej), the Quds Force and at least four security and intelligence services account for less than five percent of the Iranian population. Yet they have the largest share of plum jobs in the public sector. Rather than being the army of a nation-state, it morphed into an armed force that owns a nation-state. Khamenei may have another more reason to tone down his usual tantrums: simmering dissatisfaction in both the IRGC and the regular army. The favored treatment of the IRGC in terms of salaries and the latest weaponry may be the cause of discontent in the regular army.... The IRGC's discontent may be rooted in a new wave of purges planned by Khamenei, while aging generals close to him continue to warm their seats.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its appendages such as the Mobilization of the Dispossessed (Baseej), the Quds Force and at least four security and intelligence services account for less than five percent of the Iranian population. Yet they have the largest share of plum jobs in the public sector. Pictured: The head of the IRGC, Hossein Salami, attends a military parade in Tehran, on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
"Today we are actively and selflessly present in all domains of national life in the service of our Great Leader and martyrdom-seeking people." This was how two-star General Hossein Salami, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), boasted about his force's role in Iran. Leaving aside the "selflessly" and "in the service of...," the general is right. The IRGC and its appendages such as the Mobilization of the Dispossessed (Baseej), the Quds Force and at least four security and intelligence services account for less than five percent of the Iranian population. Yet they have the largest share of plum jobs in the public sector. In other words, the IRGC is active in every field except the one that is supposed to be in: national defense.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • September 7, 2024 at 5:00 am
Iran's regime and its proxies constantly launch attacks – at Sunni Gulf States, at Israel and at US troops -- with the seeming goal of eradicating the Jewish state and driving "The Big Satan" out of the region. That way, the mullahs appear to believe, Imperial Iran would be able to enjoy the run of the corral without interference from countries they allege are imperialist, and revel in an unfettered "open season." Iran and its proxies have attacked US troops in the region more than 150 times just since October. The US response has not exactly been a deterrent. In the meantime, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism continues cheerfully to put the finishing touches on its nuclear weapons program. The regime hides behind its proxies because it would rather its proxies receive retaliatory strikes instead of Tehran, Isfahan, Qom or Natanz, and it seems above all to fear losing its grip on power. The mullahs doubtless are aware that they lack broad support among the Iranian people, so it is easier to extend their influence and Islamist ideology through their proxies. Why should a country that does not treat its own people well treat others any better? The time to put a stop to Iran's runaway aggression is long overdue – before it launches nuclear weapons.
Iran's regime and its proxies constantly launch attacks – at Sunni Gulf States, at Israel and at US troops -- with the seeming goal of eradicating the Jewish state and driving "The Big Satan" out of the region. That way, the mullahs appear to believe, Imperial Iran would be able to enjoy the run of the corral without interference from countries they allege are imperialist, and revel in an unfettered "open season." Pictured: Soldiers of Iran's Houthi proxy in Sanaa, Yemen on January 19, 2024 (Photo by Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images
For nearly four decades, since the rise of Iran's Islamist regime in 1979, the West has funneled substantial political and economic resources into combating Iran's proxies. To what effect? Not enough, it would seem, to write home about. After all these years, the West might consider, instead, facing a crucial realization: it might consider attacking the source, not merely its symptoms. It is high time for the West to wake up. After nearly 40 years, it is only natural to ask whether these efforts have succeeded in even curbing Iran's proxies, terrorist groups, and militias. Unfortunately, not even a fraction of success can be claimed. On the contrary, these groups have grown stronger, more entrenched, and more lethal over the years. Their numbers and influence have multiplied, and their power has only solidified, until they are now formidable forces in the region – because no one has stopped them.
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by Andrew Bostom • September 6, 2024 at 5:00 am
ADL further recorded a total of 400 antisemitic incidents on college and university campuses, compared to only 33 incidents during the same period in 2022. Ugly incidents of U.S. campus antisemitism persisted throughout the spring 2024 semester year. Routine empirical, if taboo, observation clearly indicates that often, the most vociferous and violent U.S. student campus antisemites share a common Islamic/Muslim religio-ethnic identity. A courageous, expansive Brandeis University study was just published addressing the potential validity of this anecdotal observation by analyzing U.S. undergraduate college student religious affiliation as a critical, independent factor animating their Jew-hatred. Sadly, but with depressing predictability, the study's seminal, if corroborative findings are being ignored by media, and the most voluble talking heads and "public intellectuals," across the ideological spectrum. The study authors concluded that although "a climate of universal anti-Jewish hatred" did not exist, Jewish student concerns about antisemitism were justified, and "driven by about a third of students who held distinct patterns of beliefs about Jews and Israel." Specifically, "Identifying as Muslim was significantly associated with being either hostile to Israel or hostile to Jews, even after controlling for other factors." Furthermore, compared to Christians, for example, Muslims were 2.6-fold more likely to harbor the most virulent antisemitism, namely, shared hostility to both Israel and Jews. Since 2004, ADL surveys of Muslims have been conducted in Western (European and U.S.) societies, and Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries, where Islam is the state religion. MENA Muslim nations are by wide margins the 16 most antisemitic countries worldwide, where the prevalence of extreme antisemitism ranges from a "low" of 74% (in Egypt and Saudi Arabia), to 93% (among the Palestinian Muslims of Gaza, and the West Bank). Largely consistent with these ADL MENA Muslim data, and strikingly concordant with the 2.6-fold excess of extreme Muslim antisemitism, relative to extreme Christian antisemitism, just revealed by the Brandeis study of U.S. college students, 2015, 2019, and 2023 ADL Western European reports, and a 2017 ADL U.S. report, found a 2- to 4-fold excess prevalence of extreme antisemitism, among Muslims versus Christians, or non-Muslims. Discussion of the most plausible and discernible explanation for this global surfeit of Muslim Jew-hatred is also shunned: relentless inculcation of antisemitic motifs from the Qur'an itself, and other core Islamic texts, by the pre-eminent authoritative religious teaching institutions in Islam, such as Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's putative "Vatican." Identical, canonically sourced Jew-hating Islamic religious indoctrination is ubiquitous, and even embellished, in mainstream U.S. mosques, a baleful practice that has intensified following October 7, 2023. Unfortunately, monomaniacal focus on DEI racist bias has become just the latest device to avoid any serious discussion of Islam, and the global pandemic of excess Muslim Jew-hatred. Hope springs eternal publication of the landmark Brandeis study confirming this disproportionate pandemic has reached U.S. campuses, will finally initiate honest reckoning with such uniquely Muslim bigotry.
Routine empirical, if taboo, observation clearly indicates that often, the most vociferous and violent U.S. student campus antisemites share a common Islamic/Muslim religio-ethnic identity. Pictured: Students participate in a demonstration in support of Hamas outside Columbia University campus on November 15, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The carnage of October 7, 2023 in southern Israel was wrought by an unprovoked attack by the Jew-hating, jihad terror organization Hamas, in conjunction with local Gazan Muslims. Some 1,200 Israelis were murdered, the victims being overwhelmingly non-combatant children, women, men, and the elderly. Atrocities committed against these primarily non-combatant Israelis included, mutilation, torture, beheadings, and mass rape, followed by burning, helpfully documented by the jihadists' own videos and oral testimony (of captured jihadists), surveillance camera videos, surviving eyewitness testimony of the victims, and forensic pathology evidence.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • September 5, 2024 at 5:00 am
One of the reasons the Palestinian Authority (PA) is reluctant to crack down on the "battalions" is because PA officials are aware that the terrorists enjoy widespread support among the Palestinian public. The Palestinian Authority eventually fell victim to its own passivity. In 2007, Hamas staged a violent and brutal coup against the PA in Gaza, killing dozens of PA loyalists. According to a Human Rights Watch report: "Hamas military forces captured 28-year-old Mohammed Swairki, a cook for [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard, and executed him by throwing him to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City." The Israeli operation aims to prevent Iran and its Palestinian proxies from opening a new front against Israel from the West Bank. The PA, however, has constantly violated the terms of the Oslo Accords by, among other things, failing to stop armed groups from operating in its territory and from attacking Israelis. The PA has therefore become part of the problem, not the solution. If anyone is upset with Israel for its counterterrorism operation, they need to be more upset with the PA for not standing up to the armed groups and preventing Iran from establishing a terror base in the West Bank.
One of the reasons the Palestinian Authority (PA) is reluctant to crack down on armed terrorist groups, is because PA officials are aware that the terrorists enjoy widespread support among the Palestinian public. Pictured: Gunmen from a number of terrorist groups, including the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Izaddin al-Qassam Brigades, Al-Quds Brigades, and Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, hold what they called a "joint press conference" in Jenin refugee camp on February 25, 2023. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has condemned Israel for initiating a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, near Jordan, but it has purposely chosen to overlook the reason behind the Israeli security's operation. Israel's counterterrorism operation, called Summer Camps, targets numerous Iran-backed armed terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), that have been operating freely in PA-controlled territories in the past few years. The main objective of Israel's operation is to thwart Iran's intention, with the help of the armed groups, to turn not only Gaza, but also the West Bank into another terror base to be used as part of the Islamists' Jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel.
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by Con Coughlin • September 4, 2024 at 5:00 am
[T]he fact that the EU's foreign policy chief [Josep Borrell] has even suggested imposing punitive measures against Israel, a country smaller than the state of New Jersey, when it is involved in a desperate fight defending itself against the world's largest sponsor of state terrorism, Iran, and its proxy terrorist groups -- Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iraqi militias, as well as Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- on at least seven fronts, shows a woeful lack of understanding of the conflict. Borrell's constant articulation of anti-Israeli views also raises questions about his suitability to continue holding such an important position in the EU. Earlier this year, he launched a blistering attack against the "Israeli occupation authorities" for imposing punitive measures against an openly genocidal Palestinian Authority (PA). Even so, Borrell's stance reflects the deep anti-Israel sentiment that exists within the EU bureaucracy... After Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, rather than receiving support for her gesture of solidarity by visiting Israel, during which [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen went to the Kfar Aza kibbutz (where at least 52 of 700 residents were murdered), she faced a barrage of criticism from EU insiders, with 800 EU staffers writing an official letter of complaint criticising her "uncontrolled" support of Israel. [UN Secretary-General Antonio] Guterres's willingness to focus his criticism on Israel, and not the Iranian-backed terrorists, is yet another example of the UN's institutional anti-Israel bias. If the UN has any genuine interest in taking a balanced approach to the violence in the West Bank, then, instead of focusing its criticism exclusively on Israel, it would call on Iran to cease backing the network of terrorist groups it backs in the region, whose main goal is the destruction of Israel on the way to destroying the United States -- the main representative of the West. The failure of international bodies such as the EU and the UN to demonstrate any pretence of balance when intervening on vital international security issues such as the Iranian-sponsored conflicts taking place in Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon not only makes a mockery of their claim to be independent arbiters on the issue. It also runs the risk of making them utterly irrelevant, to the extent that they suffer the same fate as the League of Nations in the 1930s, whose inability to confront fascism condemned it to abject failure.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell's constant articulation of anti-Israeli views also raises questions about his suitability to continue holding such an important position in the EU. Earlier this year, he launched a blistering attack against the "Israeli occupation authorities" for imposing punitive measures against an openly genocidal Palestinian Authority (PA), while standing next to PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. Pictured: Mustafa (L) and Borrell at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium on May 26, 2024. (Photo by Lukasz Kobus/European Commission/Handout)
The European Union's dangerous bias on the Gaza conflict, where it constantly backs Iranian-backed terrorist groups at the expense of a democracy, Israel, has been exposed yet again by the latest anti-Israel stance adopted by Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign minister. In a move calculated to further strain the EU's already problematic relationship with Israel, Borrell has announced that he has asked the bloc's members to consider imposing sanctions on two Israeli cabinet ministers for "hate messages" against Palestinians, messages that he claimed broke international law. Borrell did not name either of the ministers specifically. But it was obvious who he was referring to given that, in recent weeks, he has publicly criticised Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich for statements Borrell has described as "sinister" and "an incitement to war crimes".
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