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The rush job regarding Hunter's guilt is twofold:
a) By trying Hunter for meaningless lesser crimes the FBI and Justice Department wish to get ahead of what they fear most - Republicans capturing both The House and Senate.
b) If the FBI and Justice Department are successful it would thwart any Republican effort to try Biden for ill gotten gains based on the sale of his office.
Thus, our alleged corrupt president would be shielded.
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America First Legal Sues FBI for Allegedly Colluding with Big Tech to Censor Hunter Biden Story
America First Legal founder and president Stephen Miller announced Tuesday that the public interest law firm filed a lawsuit against...
Read more here
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Can I talk?
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Former U.S. National Security Advisor Talks Iran, China & Russia
Ambassador Robert C. O’Brien has spent much of his career at the center of American foreign policy, most recently serving as the National Security Advisor for President Donald Trump. There, he orchestrated the historic Abraham Accords, which have changed the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East for the better. Now, he is sitting with PragerU CEO Marissa Streit to discuss his work as a hostage negotiator and foreign policy expert. His thoughts on the current challenges we're facing with Iran, China, and Russia are critical.
Biden Appoints Three Islamists to DHS Panel - Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) By Ryan Mauro The Biden Administration has appointed three Muslim leaders with Islamist backgrounds as advisors to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). On September 19, DHS announced the 25 members of its “reinvigorated” Faith-Based Security Advisory Council, which will provide “strategic, timely, specific and actionable advice to the Secretary on diverse homeland security matters.” One of the objectives of the Council is to build trust between American Muslims and law security officials. However, three appointees have a history of promoting suspicion of law enforcement in the U.S. The most prominent of the appointees is Imam Mohamed Hagmagid Ali, more commonly known as Imam Mohamed Magid. Magid is the Executive Director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Center (ADAMS) and was the President of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) from 2010 to 2014. Magid’s offices at the ADAMS mosque were raided on March 20, 2002 as part of an investigation into the SAAR network, a collection of around 100 nonprofits and corporations accused of a conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Magid was an advisor to one of the Islamist entities—the Sterling Charitable Gift Fund—alongside other Muslim Brotherhood-linked leaders. No arrests were made. Magid’s previous organization, ISNA, was designated by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation in 2007. The Justice Department also listed ISNA as an “entity” of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. In 2009, a federal judge upheld the designation because of “ample” evidence linking ISNA to the Hamas-financing network. Magid fanned the flames during the Holy Land investigation by stating that elements of the U.S. government were acting with “intent on dismantling Muslim organizations and bringing them down.” Magid spoke at a fundraiser for the rabidly anti-American imam Jabil Abdullah Al-Amin (previously known as H. Rap Brown), who was convicted of murdering a police officer in 2008. Al-Amin is the spiritual leader of a violent extremist group called Ummah that, according to the FBI, is a “nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group” whose “primary mission is to establish a separate, sovereign Islamic state within the borders of the United States, governed by Shariah law.” Magid’s appointment is particularly troubling given his role in hindering discussion of the Islamist political motives of jihadist terrorism while serving on the Obama Administration’s working group dedicated to Countering Violent Extremism program said Kyle Shideler, director of the Center for Security Policy. Under pressure from Magid and others, this group “totally erased any discussion of the Islamist political motives of jihadist terrorism,” he said. Magid has worked to burnish his reputation as a moderate by embracing a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The efforts have paid off with his recent appointment to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and his status as Chairman of International Interfaith Peace Corps. Biden also appointed Salam al-Marayati, co-founder and President of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) to the advisory panel. In 1999 he called Hezbollah attacks as “legitimate resistance.” Marayati suggested that Israel perpetrated 9/11 to distract attention away from its actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. His involvement with MPAC is remarkable because the organization was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood and has a history of concerning rhetoric. For example, the organization has claimed that the War on Terror was actually a “war on Islam” perpetuated by a conspiracy of anti-Muslim “special interest groups” working with U.S. government officials to promote “Islamophobic” policies in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2010, a MPAC policy paper argued that the Muslim Brotherhood’s “peaceful activism” is an asset to the U.S.’s efforts to fight Al-Qaeda. Three years later, it changed its tune, siding with those protesting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Marayati has also been very critical of American law enforcement agencies charged with apprehending and prosecuting terrorists. In 2003, he accused the FBI of racial profiling after 9/11, declaring, “That’s what they’ve been doing since the attacks, and we don’t know of any case that has resulted in the arrest, indictment or prosecution of a terrorist.” His rhetoric appears to have softened somewhat in recent years. In correspondence with this author, Marayati said “Neither the Quran nor the Prophet ever stated that we have to form a caliphate, i.e. it’s not a part of the creed nor is it a requirement in Islamic law.” He also recommended a paper by Dr. Wayel Azmeh that argues against the hudud punishments. The third appointee of concern is Talib M. Shareef, the President of Masjid Muhammad, a mosque belonging to the Warith Deen Mohammed congregation in Washington, D.C. The mosque’s founder, W. Deen Mohammed, the son of Nation of Islam (NOI) founder Elijah Mohammed, broke off from the original NOI movement and transformed it into a revivalist Sunni Islamic congregation. As with many W. Deen Mohammed adherents, Shareef continues to sympathize and partner with many radical Nation of Islam leaders. On the occasion of Masjid Mohammed’s 75th anniversary in 2013, Nation of Islam leaders from around the country gathered at the mosque and spoke about the closeness between the two movements. “You see the love the Minister (Louis Farrakhan) has for the imam (W.D. Mohammed),” said Imam Shareef. “He’s bringing the scholarship of Imam W.D. Mohammed to the Nation of Islam. Things are happening and we have to keep moving. Destiny is a collective destiny.” Shareef appeared in photo ops with several leading NOI figures. This hasn’t hindered Shareef’s ability to mingle with those in power. His mosque is a frequent stopping point for D.C. politicians seeking to make inroads with Muslim or African American voters. Its 2013 anniversary gala was attended by Muslim congressmen Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Andre Carson (D-Ind.), as well as local officials like Mayor Vincent Gray. Additionally, Shareef opened Eid celebrations for President Joe Biden in 2021. Taken together, the appointments are a demonstration of “how the Biden administration is really just a continuation of the two Obama terms,” said Shideler. “We can expect that these appointments will continue to mean a de-emphasizing of jihadist threats and an over-emphasis on targeting the Biden Administration’s political opponents (such as school board protestors) as their primary counterterrorism focus.” Ryan Mauro is a national security analyst and contributor to Focus on Western Islamism. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Biden's foreign policy? When you screw up prop up your enemy. +++ Biden, Venezuela and the Oil Dictators This Administration wants more oil anywhere except in America. The Editorial Board The madness of the Biden Administration’s energy policy has been horrifying to watch, like a car crash except all Americans are passengers. The latest bizarre twist is that the White House may ease sanctions on Venezuela and its dictator Nicolás Maduro in an effort to increase the supply of oil on the global market. “There are no plans to change our sanctions policy without constructive steps from the Maduro regime,” Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, told the Journal. But the regime has never been willing to concede anything to the opposition. The likeliest result would be that Mr. Maduro opens talks, the U.S. eases sanctions (after the November election), and the talks go nowhere. The Venezuela gambit is part of the Biden Administration’s rolling dictator tour to encourage more oil supply anywhere except in America. President Biden tried courting the Saudis, but this week they and OPEC+ chose to reduce production by two million barrels of oil a day. The Iran nuclear talks are supposed to liberate Tehran’s oil production, but the mullahs won’t take yes for an answer and are holding out for more U.S. concessions. That leaves Venezuela, whose production and sales have fallen off a cliff thanks to its own socialist mismanagement and the sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration. Lifting sanctions now on the mere hope of political concessions in Caracas would reward the regime for impoverishing its people and creating a refugee crisis in the region. It isn’t clear how much or how fast Venezuelan oil, which is a hard-to-refine kind of heavy oil, could reach the global market. But Mr. Biden is desperate to reduce American gasoline prices. Meanwhile, the Administration is hinting that it could allow the Justice Department to file an antitrust suit against the OPEC+ cartel for fixing prices. This might be politically satisfying, but the Saudis and its Gulf allies could easily retaliate by cutting production further and hurting U.S. consumers. In response to this week’s OPEC decision, some politicians are also threatening to withdraw U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Reps. Tom Malinowski (D., N.J.), Sean Casten (D., Ill.) and Susan Wild (D., Pa.) declared that “it is time for the United States to resume acting like the superpower in our relationship with our client states in the Gulf.” If you want to drive the Saudis further into the arms of Russia and the Chinese, keep this up, guys. All of this international drama, and growing American economic vulnerability, could have been avoided if the Biden Administration hadn’t made a policy of waging war on the domestic U.S. oil-and-gas industry. The White House blames the industry for high gas prices while it does everything it can to make drilling more difficult and financially risky. As an act of strategic self-sabotage, this is matched only by Germany’s determination over two decades to make itself vulnerable to Russian natural gas. Amid a war in Europe, a global energy crisis, and a risk of a global recession, a serious U.S. Administration would do everything in its power to encourage more domestic energy production. This Administration would rather make America more dependent on the “constructive steps” of dictators. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ America's ombudsman is a bust and has been for decades! +++ Democracy’s watchdog abandons its role US voters left ignorant of the peril from Biden’s two-faced approach to Israel and Iran By Melanie Phillips It has often been said that the media is a pillar of democracy because it keeps our politicians honest. Lifting the veil of secrecy in which authorities like to cloak themselves, revealing inconvenient truths that expose the inadequacies and worse of government actions and subjecting all politicians to forensic questioning without bias — this is how the media acts in the public interest. But when the media doesn’t deliver, truthfulness goes out of the window, propaganda and ignorance take over and democracy stumbles. We see this in much western coverage of Israel, with newspapers often delivering nothing more than thinly disguised Palestinian propaganda. So people with no knowledge of Israel or Jewish history get a wholly false impression. It’s in America, however, that we see most graphically and frighteningly the media’s abdication of its professional role. The most influential mainstream media outlets have turned into brazen shills for the Democratic Party. They became willing accomplices in the attempt to remove President Donald Trump via the bogus Russian conspiracy smear, which involved elements of the FBI, Justice Department and the Democrats. At same time, the media refused to report troubling revelations of corruption involving President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s dealings with Ukraine, which implicated Biden senior as well. And they have left Americans largely in the dark about the acute peril into which Biden’s policies are putting America, Israel and the west. Ever since a wave of attacks in the spring that killed over 20 Israelis, Israel’s security forces have been conducting a concerted military operation in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria. They have arrested more than 2,000 terror suspects, killed a number of terrorists in shoot-outs and say they have prevented hundreds of imminent terror attacks. Yet while US State Department spokesman Ned Price acknowledged the “more than 20 Israelis and other civilians” who have been killed in terror attacks, his comments to reporters mostly focused on the fact that “more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and more than 30 in Gaza” (the British embassy expressed a similar view). The State Department called on all sides to avoid escalating the situation and to restore calm. Such apparent even-handedness actually tells Israel to stop defending itself, which is morally bankrupt. This is of a piece with the Biden administration’s refusal to acknowledge the innately murderous and rejectionist reality of the Palestinian cause, which it promotes by paying lip-service to Israel’s fundamental need to protect itself while persistently undermining that defence. Yet the media does nothing to highlight and condemn such moral bankruptcy. Nor does it highlight and condemn the Biden team’s craven appeasement of, and now brazen hypocrisy towards, the Iranian regime. For four weeks now, Iran has been convulsed by astonishing protests. Women have taken to the streets in vast numbers after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly wearing her hijab, or headscarf, in a way that offended Iran’s sinister “morality police”. These protests quickly morphed into broader calls to overthrow the Islamic republic. Female students have been chanting “death to the dictator” as they rip a picture of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini from their textbooks. Girls at a school that brought in a speaker from the feared Basij paramilitary organisations welcomed him by taking off their headscarves and chanting, “Get lost, Basiji.” The disappearance and death of a 16-year-old girl who was among the protesters in Tehran has unleashed yet more demonstrations. This is the biggest wave of protests against the regime in almost three years, despite the brutal response by the security forces that has killed at least 154 protesters and seen hundreds arrested. A revolt by the Iranian people that brings down the regime is the best chance of avoiding Iran menacing the world with nuclear weapons. Previous such revolts have fizzled out. But this one is broader, longer and even more determined. There are reports that the regime’s websites, portals, servers and computers in many different areas have been destroyed. Biden has praised the “brave women of Iran” and signalled that he’ll announce more sanctions against those responsible for violence against protesters. Yet he is even now still intent upon doing a nuclear deal that would lift sanctions on Iran and empower this murderous regime. His spokeswoman is still parroting the inane mantra that Iran’s repression of its people has nothing to do with the deal, which she asserted would prevent a nuclear Iran. In fact, it would enable a nuclear Iran after a short delay. And it would funnel billions in sanctions relief into repressing the ongoing revolt, as well as into building drones and missiles to attack Israel and the west. Moreover, by appeasing Iran the Biden administration would also assist Tehran’s new best friend, Russia — which surreally is the mediator in the nuclear talks, where the Iranian regime won’t even allow the Americans into the room. If this wasn’t a Democratic president, the media would be yelling blue murder about all this. Just imagine the uproar if Trump had done a profitable deal with Putin or proposed to shore up Saudi Arabia or North Korea. Or contrast this silence over Iran with the outrage over OPEC’s announcement that, from next month, it will cut oil production by two million barrels per day. Just look at the response to this from Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who raged that the Saudis will “do what we let them get away with doing”. “We have to stop acting like the suckers in this relationship, and re-establish that the services we provide to these countries require them to take our legitimate interests and concerns into account,” he added. Precisely these savage points could and should be made about the Iran nuclear deal. Yet the Democrats are instead pushing that deal, and the media is silent about this staggering double standard just as it is silent about double standards applied to Israel. This silence, month in, month out, is one reason why so many American Jews continue to support Biden in the teeth of the threat he is posing to both Israel’s and America’s safety. Most of this support comes, of course, from American Jews who support the Democratic Party as an unshakeable article of faith. Such minds are frighteningly closed to anything that might disturb that faith and cause them to consider voting Republican. But it’s also true of some American Jews who are far more conservative and yet nevertheless think that Biden is doing just fine. This has got others scratching their heads in puzzled horror. A major reason why all these Jewish voters think like this is because the media doesn’t tell them what’s really going on. Most people don’t think very deeply about political developments abroad. They pick up the prevailing mood music and go along with that. They really have no idea of the extreme dangers of the situation — whether over Iran or the Palestinian Arabs —because no-one is telling them. True, since their tunnel vision is illogical and emotional many would remain impervious even if they were told. But no one likes to be fingered as supporting those who are empowering evil. If the media were to be hammering home that Biden is not only empowering the deadly enemies of Israel and America but also furthering the repression of the Iranian people to whom he pledges such hypocritical support, this would leave his partisans with nowhere to hide. The reason why the Biden administration is getting a free pass over its lethal idiocy is that the media has abandoned its role as democracy’s watchdog. And the free world is being imperilled as a result. Jewish News Syndicate +++++++++++++++++++++++++ STUDY: Childlessness Leads to Liberalism, Support for Homosexuality, Abortion, and Promiscuity, while Parenthood Creates Conservatism and Traditional Values. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ At times Lango can be a bit overboard but when it comes to most of his comments about robots I agree. They are a coming phenomenon. +++ Luke Lango Editor, Hypergrowth Investing Optimus Underwhelmed, But Robots Are Still the Future Last Friday, Tesla (TSLA) unveiled its humanoid Optimus robot during its annual AI Day presentation. The robot itself – which looks eerily similar to the bots in iRobot – didn’t do much. It took a few steps, waved to the crowd, pulled off a dance move. And that was that. Most folks were disappointed with the presentation. They were expecting more. Image from Tesla's AI day showcasing its humanoid robot Yet, while the presentation underwhelmed, it does signify a landmark shift to a new era – a shift to the Robotic Revolution. The Robots Have Arrived At the risk of sounding ominous, let me state that Optimus is not alone. That robot is not an isolated example. It’s a microcosm of a much bigger trend. Did you know that, right this very moment, there are robots flipping burgers at fast food chains in California? Or that robots are delivering pizzas in Houston, mowing lawns in Alabama, and waiting tables all across America? Did you know robots are packing and unpacking items at Walmart (WMT) and Amazon (AMZN) distribution centers? Indeed, robots are now even filling prescriptions at Walgreens. Robots are also making pizza, prepping smoothies, brewing coffee, picking strawberries, planting crops, vacuuming and mopping homes… There are robots everywhere. You may not see them. But they are quietly becoming a driving force of the U.S. economy. Soon enough, they’ll become its backbone. An Inevitable Trend The Robotics Revolution was always inevitable. We humans like to think of ourselves as special and unique. But research supports the notion that over 90% of everything we do is predictable. And can be replicated by data-driven models. Data-driven models operate robots. Therefore, theoretically, robots should be able to do about 90% of what humans do – more efficiently and at a lower cost. After all, a robotic server doesn’t need to take breaks. A robotic packager can package all night at a warehouse without fatigue. And a robotic burger-flipper can always cook the same burger to the perfect temperature every single time – without requiring a wage to do so! In 90% of tasks, robots are the more-efficient, less-costly choice for labor. Still, humans have retained labor force dominance because robots have suffered from software and hardware limitations. Those limitations are now quickly eroding. For most manual-labor tasks these days, some company has created some robot prototype to complete that task. Now, it’s plain to see we still have a long way to go before we have an iRobot-like cyborg – just watch Optimus’ demo! But it’s advancing to a point where robots are now ready to majorly impact the U.S. economy. The Need Is Urgent The big misconception about robots and labor automation technologies is that they are “job killers.” As it turns out, though, they’re actually “job fillers.” Think about the world we live in right now. It’s not one of labor excesses. It’s one defined by labor shortages. The volume of work companies need to get done has been and will likely continue outpacing the labor supply that’s ready and willing to do it. That’s the work that the robots are doing these days. They aren’t stealing jobs. They’re plugging into the empty roles that companies have had trouble filling for years! In that sense, the Robotics Revolution isn’t about labor replacement – it’s about labor addition. And labor addition is going to prove extremely valuable in the long run… Because here’s the bigger problem, folks: declining birth rates. The U.S. net birth rate has been collapsing in recent years. That’s mostly because younger generations have, for a variety of reasons, shunned having kids. The result? In 10 to 20 years, the labor force will be a lot smaller than what it is today. Chart showing the annual growth of working-age population If we don’t fill that gap, the U.S. economy could collapse. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
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How stupid can Lapid and Gantz get?
Lapid is appropriately named because he has become a "lap dog" for Biden's stupidity.
Lapid does not know how to say "NO."
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FEATURED COLUMN
By CAROLINE GLICK
Israel’s devastating capitulation to Hezbollah
Lapid and Gantz are bragging about signing a protection deal with the Iranian terror proxy.
(October 4, 2022 / JNS) It is almost impossible to grasp the danger of Israel’s present moment. A month before the Knesset elections, the caretaker government led by Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz is moving full speed ahead with a maritime agreement with an enemy state that it insists will obligate Israel in perpetuity. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) agreement Israel is concluding with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon will fundamentally alter Israel’s maritime borders, deny the Jewish state tens of billions of dollars, which will go instead to a government controlled by Iran’s Lebanese foreign legion, Hezbollah, and transform Hezbollah and Iran into actors in the eastern Mediterranean.
The deal in question has been under negotiation for more than a decade. In 2010, as the natural gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean were being rapidly explored and developed by Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Egypt, Israel signed agreements with its neighbors to delineate the boundaries of each state’s EEZ. Since Israel and Lebanon are enemy states, Israel did not negotiate an agreement with Lebanon. Lebanon did however negotiate an agreement with Cyprus, as part of which it drew a line delineating the southern boundary of its maritime waters. Israel accepted the Lebanese line and submitted its maritime economic zone borders to the United Nations on the basis of the Lebanese/Cypriot agreement and the bilateral agreement it had concluded with Cyprus.
Given that Hezbollah rejects Israel’s right to exist, Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon surprised no one when it immediately objected to Israel’s map, even though it was based on Lebanon’s own demarcation.
Lebanon demanded 854 square kilometers of Mediterranean waters that formally belonged to Israel. The Lebanese demand included complete control over the massive Qana natural gas field, much of which extends into Israel’s waters. Fred Hoff, who served at the time as the Obama administration’s point man for the eastern Mediterranean, offered a compromise deal which would have given around 55 percent of the area to Lebanon and left 45 percent under Israeli sovereignty. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon rejected the deal, and there the negotiations stood, more or less, until last July.
In the meantime, Israel began developing the Karish gas field, which by all accounts is located in its EEZ. Karish was scheduled to go online last month, but in July, Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah threatened to attack Karish if Israel began production before reaching a deal with Lebanon. Hezbollah then attacked Karish with four drones, which were intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces.
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Rather than retaliate for Hezbollah’s aggression, fearful of Hezbollah, Israel delayed the start of work at Karish, and Biden administration envoy Amos Hochstein swooped into action. As Lebanon expert Tony Badran from the Foundation for Defense of Democracy has copiously documented, the Biden administration is dead set on giving as much money as possible to Lebanon—with full knowledge that money to Lebanon is money to Hezbollah. The administration’s desire to enrich a state dominated by Hezbollah/Iran stems from what Badran and the Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran described in May 2021 as its overarching goal of realigning the United States away from its traditional allies—Israel and the Sunni states—and towards Iran.
During his visit to Israel in July, just days after Hezbollah’s drone attacks on Karish, Biden upped U.S. pressure on Israel to conclude a deal with Lebanon and so enable the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese government to begin raking in billions of dollars in gas revenues from the Qana field. U.S. pressure only increased since then.
Rather than stand up to the administration and oppose a deal that empowers Hezbollah both economically and strategically at Israel’s expense, the Lapid-Gantz government caved. As head of the caretaker government, Lapid, and his partisan subordinate Energy Minister Karine Elharar began marathon U.S.-mediated negotiations with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese negotiators over the maritime boundary. Gantz compelled the IDF to support the deal and present his capitulation to Hezbollah extortion as a massive strategic achievement that strengthens Israel’s deterrent edge over Hezbollah.
Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the deal is that it doesn’t obligate Lebanon. Israel’s deal is with the United States, not Lebanon. And judging by Nasrallah’s statements, Hezbollah views it as a starting point, not an ending point. During the course of the negotiations, the Lebanese negotiators suddenly presented a new, even more expansive territorial demand. Lebanon, they said, is the rightful owner of more than the disputed 854 km of Israeli waters. It is also the rightful owner of large swaths of the Karish gas field. Hochstein reportedly used the ploy, along with Nasrallah’s extortionate demands, to compel Lapid and Gantz to agree to give up a hundred percent of the disputed waters. But now that Lebanon has already tipped its hat to its next demand, and given that Lebanon is not obliged by the boundary line Israel has accepted, it’s obvious that Lebanon will disavow the deal at a time of Hezbollah’s choosing.
Lapid, Gantz and their allies portray the deal as a diplomatic and strategic masterstroke. By surrendering to all of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon’s 12-year-old demands, they brag that Israel has secured its ability to develop Karish. In other words, they’re bragging that they’re signing a protection deal with Hezbollah. In exchange for 854 square kilometers of sovereign Israeli waters, they believe that Hezbollah will permit us to exploit our natural resources—at least until Nasrallah decides to renew his threats and demands.
Aside from the Israeli media, no one has been buying their line. On Monday morning, former U.S. ambassador David Friedman tweeted incredulously, “We spent years trying to broker a deal between Israel and Lebanon on the disputed maritime gas fields. Got very close with proposed splits of 55-60% for Lebanon and 45-40% for Israel. No one then imagined 100% to Lebanon and 0% to Israel. Would love to understand how we got here.”
Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted at a press conference on Monday that whereas he held the line against Hezbollah for a decade, Lapid folded after only three months.
To try to present their agreement as something other than capitulation to Hezbollah’s extortion, Lapid and Gantz are claiming the deal is the key to a Lebanon free of terrorist influence. This claim is weird on its face. After all, they insist that the Lebanon they are negotiating with is an independent entity not controlled by Hezbollah. And at the same time, they say Lebanon needs tens of billions of dollars from gas proceeds from Qana to free itself of Hezbollah control.
And that isn’t the only absurdity in their claim. Lebanon’s financial dealings are both controlled by Hezbollah and entirely opaque. Hezbollah can be trusted to take as much of the gas proceeds as it sees fit and leave the Lebanese with the crumbs at the bottom of its plate.
In his press conference Monday, Netanyahu said that the deal will not obligate a government under his leadership because it is “illegal.” And he is right. Under Israel’s 2013 Basic Law on territorial concessions, the government is required to present all agreements involving the relinquishment of Israeli territory to the Knesset for approval. To take legal effect, an agreement requires either the support of two thirds of the Knesset or the majority of the public in a referendum. Contrary to the basic law, Lapid and Gantz are refusing to bring the deal before the Knesset for approval.
And with the support of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, they insist that since the agreement is about economic waters, it isn’t about territory and therefore doesn’t require Knesset approval. Baharav-Miara initially said that all that is required is for the Security Cabinet to approve the deal. That it doesn’t even have to be made available to the Knesset for perusal—let alone approval. Under public pressure, she updated her position Sunday and announced that the deal has to be approved by the full government and submitted to—but not approved—by the Knesset. This too is a mile short of the requirements of the law. Baharav-Miara’s behavior is also a harsh commentary on the corrupted, politicized state of Israel’s legal fraternity.
It was her predecessor Avichai Mandelblit who insisted that caretaker governments may not carry out any non-essential functions or initiate policies that will obligate a successor government. On the basis of his dictate, Mandelblit barred Netanyahu’s caretaker government from appointing an acting state prosecutor. Obviously, the Lapid-Gantz surrender deal to Lebanon’s Hezbollah-controlled government falls within the Mandelblit’s criteria for prohibited actions.
Baharav-Miara’s behavior demonstrates that as far as Israel’s politicized legal fraternity is concerned, there are two laws governing the state—one for the left, and one for the right. For the left, everything is permitted. For the right, nothing is. In other words, as far as the legal fraternity is concerned, Israel is governed by its leftist government lawyers, not by the rule of law.
This brings us to the media. In light of the strategic and economic implications of the deal, if Israel had a functioning media, journalists could have been expected to provide critical coverage of the agreement and carry out an informed debate. After all, that’s the purpose of the Fourth Estate. But rather than do its job, in a demonstration of its own political bias and corruption, with a few notable exceptions, Israel’s liberal media have done next to no due diligence in their reporting of the agreement. Instead, they have parroted the Lapid-Gantz government’s talking points one after the other.
The only Hebrew-language media outlet that has subjected the radical surrender agreement to significant scrutiny has been Israel’s new conservative outlet Channel 14. Last week, Lapid petitioned the Central Elections Commission to shutter Channel 14, which, he insists, is opposition propaganda because it doesn’t provide him with enough positive coverage.
On Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-Texas) tweeted, “I am deeply troubled that Biden officials pressured our Israeli allies to hand over their territory to the Iran-controlled terrorist group Hezbollah.” Cruz indicated that if the Republicans win control of Congress in next month’s elections, they will conduct a formal investigation of the administration’s actions. As Cruz put it, the deal is “another topic for the next Republican Congress to investigate.”
On Monday night, Globes reported that until a few weeks ago, Israel’s position was that it would retain a third of the disputed waters and its rights to the Qana gas field. But then, at a fateful meeting in the Defense Ministry, Gantz and Lapid’s representative, National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata, abandoned Israel’s long held stand and agreed to give up all of the disputed waters and Israel’s economic rights to Qana. Israel’s chief negotiator, Udi Adiri, vociferously rejected the capitulation and resigned in protest. Hulata was installed as the new head of Israel’s team.
Whether or not Republicans investigate the Biden administration’s obsessive-compulsive efforts to enrich Iran and its terror proxies at the expense of America’s Middle Eastern allies is their affair. But whatever happens in Washington, Israel needs a parliamentary probe of the Lapid-Gantz government’s shocking behavior. If this protection deal with Hezbollah is implemented, it sets not one, but multiple precedents that both separately and collectively place Israel’s national security and wealth in jeopardy.
Caroline Glick is an award-winning columnist and author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.
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Russia Will Use Its Ally, a Nuclear-Armed Iran, to Better Threaten the West
by Con Coughlin
The nationwide anti-government protests sweeping Russia and Iran demonstrate that, despite the efforts of these two rogue regimes to increase the level of military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, the overwhelming demand of the majority of ordinary Russians and Iranians is freedom from dictatorial rule.
One of the more alarming global developments in recent months has been the deepening cooperation between Moscow and Tehran as they seek to challenge the West on a number of fronts.
Russia has played a key role in supporting Iran's efforts to thwart the negotiating process aimed at reviving the controversial nuclear deal with Tehran since the start of the negotiations in Vienna last year.
While Iran is providing Russia with military equipment to support its war in Ukraine, Russia is supporting Iran's refusal to comply with Western demands to come clean about the true extent of its nuclear arsenal.
As previously reported on these pages, the Russians have actively encouraged Tehran to concentrate on relatively minor issues during the negotiations, such as when and where camera monitors can operate at sensitive nuclear sites in Iran.
By concentrating on what are regarded as peripheral concerns, the Iranian delegation has been successful in steering the talks away from core issues, such as the extent of the progress it has made in enriching uranium to weapons-grade.
As one of the signatories of the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the flawed nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, Russia, as well as China, will ultimately have a say in any new agreement that emerges from the Vienna talks.
Rather than seeking to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, Beijing and Moscow are more interested in forming an alliance with Iran to counter what they denounce as America's unilateralism, and thwarting "draconian" US sanctions.
Given Moscow's open hostility towards the West, it is abundantly clear that the Kremlin wants to exploit the weakness of the Biden administration to ensure the negotiations provide an even more unsatisfactory deal than the one signed off by Barack Obama in 2015, one that completely fails to address the very real threat Iran's nuclear weapons will pose to the wider world.
From Moscow's perspective, having a nuclear-armed Iran, one that is Russia's ally, will greatly enhance its ability to challenge the West.
In return, Iran has formed a new "axis of evil" with Moscow, providing it with weaponry, such as sophisticated drones, to support its war effort in Ukraine, while at the time providing assistance to Tehran to evade the effects of Western sanctions.
While these two despotic regimes seem determined to forge an ever closer alliance, however, their objectives are completely at odds with the demands of their respective citizens, whose primary concern is securing their freedom, not supporting the military aspirations of the ruling elites.
In Russia, the latent hostility among ordinary Russians to Putin's kleptomaniac regime has manifested itself in nationwide protests against the Russian leader's attempts to mobilise 300,000 reservists to help support his disastrous military campaign in Ukraine.
Nationwide disgust at Putin's unprovoked assault on Ukraine has seen hundreds of thousands of young Russians fleeing to the borders in a desperate attempt to avoid the horrors of conscription, and being made to fight in a war none of them supports.
In Iran, meanwhile, the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini as she was detained in custody by Iran's morality police, allegedly for refusing to wear a hijab, has resulted in Iranians of all ages taking to the streets across the country in mass protests and shouting "death to the dictator", a reference to the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran's security forces have reacted to the anti-government protests with their customary brutality; figures at the time of writing estimate at least 76 people killed in the government's crackdown. Even so, the anti-regime protests have continued to spread, with more than 80 cities and towns affected by the violence since Amini's funeral on September 17.
For many Iranians, the death of Amini, who reportedly died after being struck several times on the head, is the last straw, and the demonstrations represent the biggest anti-government uprising since the 2009 Green Revolution.
The deepening unrest in both Russia and Iran should certainly give the Biden administration pause for thought as it weighs up its next move on the nuclear negotiations.
There is growing concern in Washington that US President Joe Biden is preparing to sign a new deal with Tehran once the midterm elections have been concluded, and that his officials are prepared to sign a far weaker version of the deal than that originally agreed to in 2015.
At a time when both the Russian and Iranian governments are battling nationwide dissent, this would be a grave miscalculation on the part of the Biden administration.
This should be the moment when the US and its allies are intensifying the pressure on both Iran and Moscow, not capitulating to their interests with a weak nuclear deal which will only encourage them to indulge in further acts of aggression against the West and its allies.
Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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About the speaker: Cynthia Farahat is an Egyptian-American author, columnist, political analyst, counterterrorism expert, and fellow at the Middle East Forum. She co-founded the Liberal Egyptian Party in Egypt, which advocated for peace with Israel, capitalism, and the separation of mosque and state. She studied Islamic jurisprudence for more than twenty years and co-authored Desecration of A Heavenly Religion, which was officially banned by Al-Azhar University in Cairo in 2008 for its criticism of Egypt’s blasphemy law.
Farahat landed on an al-Qaeda affiliated group’s hit list and was officially banned from entering Lebanon for her work fostering regional peace. For almost a decade, she received daily death threats from Islamists. After her brother was tortured, her friend was murdered, and Islamists tried to assassinate her, Farahat immigrated to the United States.
Farahat has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, briefed more than two hundred congressional offices, and advised intelligence and law enforcement agencies. She received the Speaker of Truth Award from the Endowment for Middle East Truth and the Profile in Courage Award from ACT for America. Her writing has been published in many national and international outlets, and her work has been translated into more than fifteen languages
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