The view from America does not look good, only time will tell
The dancing that goes on in the Biden White House, in the administration, and in the Democratic Party itself, all reek of political schizophrenia.
Anyone feeling that the room is spinning when it comes to trying to understand the US policy towards Israel, is actually seeing things straight and true. The dancing that goes on in the Biden White House, in the administration, and in the Democratic Party itself, all reek of political schizophrenia.
Here was US President Joe Biden, genuinely moved by the horrors of October 7, sympathizing with Israel and standing toe to toe with us in our determination to unseat Hamas. Sounds great, but many if not most Israelis don’t know that Biden is not really calling the shots.
When a headline blares that White House staffers are angry with the president of the United States because they want a ceasefire declared (and implicitly that he should cater to that anger), then you know we have left the dock of strong presidential leadership. Biden is trying to dance at two weddings simultaneously, and his duality is all a function of US electoral politics and the upcoming election of 2024.
Biden is polling poorly. Most Americans want him to step down after his term is over. They see a doddering man incapable of meeting the challenges of the world’s most challenging job. The allegations of corruption are having an impact, and the sense that the US is not controlling its own destiny – witness the southern non-border, the Afghan debacle, and the spike in inflation – all contribute to persistently low approval ratings.
The irony, and a further contributor to the sense of incompetence, is the organized persecution of Donald Trump. The onslaught of prosecutions has turned Trump into a martyr. This is no easy feat, but counter-intuitively it has pushed Trump ahead of Biden in recent polls, especially in critical swing states.
The irony is that other Republicans do even better against Biden than Trump, so you would think the Democrats would be praying for Trump’s nomination. Regardless, the Biden administration is eager not to alienate the progressives in the party, and progressives hate Israel.
Thus, splitting the difference, as it were, in Biden’s policy, the result is to root for Israel... not to win. Certainly not to win in a way that would be a rebuke to the Palestinian sympathizers that are marauding down main streets in towns and cities across America.
Bizarre injunctions to tone down the fighting and to provide massive “humanitarian aid,” all wreak of indecisiveness and muddled thinking. The conga line of officialdom bunny hopping its way through Israel – Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Advisor Sullivan, and Defense Secretary Austin, to name a few – all are offering the advice resonant of a country that has not won a war since 1945.
The view from America does not look good
Even crazier have been the admonitions to include the Palestinian Authority in post war governance of Gaza, and the bell ringer of them all, that Israel should be seriously pursuing the two-state solution. This last one sounds like it comes from a comedy club audition, but it is deadly serious.
The view from America therefore does not look good. One wonders what historians will say in terms of the clarity and conscience of American decision makers as they endlessly seek to appease Iran and refuse to stand with their stalwart ally.
Even more important, and potentially even harsher, will be history’s judgment of Israel’s leadership in the handling of the current war and the incessant diplomatic pressures to, in effect, cut and run.
Israel’s political leadership, from the Prime Minister on down, including opposition parties currently in the Knesset, must know that the country is quite united about the need to follow through and complete the mission of dismantling Hamas.
This unity exists alongside a strong desire to retrieve our hostages. But the overwhelming sentiment in Israel is that defeating Hamas will accelerate the release of hostages, and must therefore be pursued as the primary objective.
The resolve of our soldiers, their willingness to sacrifice for their country, is sky high and rock solid. Having that sense of mission aborted by a leadership that caves to international pressure would produce a blowback of dramatic, even historic proportions.
Unfortunately, and uneasily, our leadership might be forced to choose between international approval and domestic support. Any leader seeking to stay in office, and in the case of the prime minister, any leader focused on his legacy, must know that bucking foreign leaders and saying no to them is something that Israeli leaders have done in the past.
However, being perceived as having abandoned the citizenry and dishonoring the sacrifice of those who served, and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice, will be dealt with unforgivingly.
One of the major questions that needs to be addressed on “the day after” is how Israel can stand more on its own, with fewer dependencies on the United States or any other country. For now, however, those dependencies must be viewed against the larger demands of national destiny.
October 7 gave us a wake-up call of seismic proportions. We cannot, we will not seek to ignore or to unlearn the lessons that came from that call.
Not following through on the self-apparent conclusions from that wake call will be judged very harshly by history, especially for the leaders who refused or proved unable to follow through.
Right now, Israel must understand that other countries are pursuing their own interests in seeking to determine ours. Fair enough, but we must be true, clear eyed and determined to pursue our own interests, regardless of how they are viewed abroad.
The writer is the chairman of the board of Im Tirtzu and a director of the Israel Independence Fund.
| IAF hits 230 Hamas sites in Gaza; Rocket-fire resumes after quiet day | ||
| Heavy fighting was reported in Khan Yunis, Jabalia, Shejaia, Al-Safatawi, Sheikh Radwan and Beit Hanun • IDF releases the names of three more soldiers KIA in Gaza. | ||
| By JOSHUA MARKS ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From oneof my dear friends and fellow memo readers who is of like mind. I posted this once before. +++ This is long, but it tells it like it is! Take the time read, digest and decide for yourself what has happened to our country - unbelievable to say the least - times change, but it doesn't have to be that. The IDF's advance into Khan Yunis has progressed with increased surrenders of Hamas fighters and the unveiling of more of the Hamas tunnel network. is way!!Tina Griego is a Free-Lance reporter for the Denver Post. She writes some really good stuff and she is a strong advocate for LEGAL Immigration Not Democrat, not Republican, not Liberal, and not Conservative. Just the facts by a good reporter What if they left? What if 20 Million Illegal Aliens Vacated America? I, Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News have written a column titled, "Mexican Visitors' Lament.” I interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, "Illegal aliens pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes. What happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?” Hmmm, I thought, what would happen? So I did my due diligence, buried my nose as a reporter into the FACTS I found below. It's a good question...it deserves an honest answer. Over 80% of Americans demand secured borders. What would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America? This may surprise you! In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupt hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominant language again. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone. Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals. Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67% dropout/flunk rate because of thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. Denver's 4% unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage. In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience. If 20 million illegal aliens returned 'home,' the U.S. economy would return to the Rule of Law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local, state and city coffers. No more confusion in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches. We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually and would vacate our country. In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the '18th Street Gang' would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters! America's economy is drained. Taxpayers are harmed. Employers get rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to the aliens' home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America's economy which currently suffers a $30 trillion debt. More than $30 TRILLION !! At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupt out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act. Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country - brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders. Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities' greenhouse gasses. Over one million of Mexico's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California, in what the New York Times called, 'colonias' or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, roads, electricity, or any kind of sanitation. The New York Times reported them to be America's new ' Third World ' inside our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20 million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas and Arizona; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) We already invite a million people into our country legally/annually, more than all other countries combined- with growing anarchy at our borders. It's time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our way of life. Interesting statistics below! Here are 13 reasons illegal aliens should vacate America, and I hope they are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them: 1. $14 billion to $22 billion dollars are spent each year on welfare to illegal aliens (that's Billion with a 'B’) 2. $7.5 billion dollars are spent each year on Medicaid for illegal aliens. 3. $12 billion dollars are spent each year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they still cannot speak a word of English. $27 billion dollars are spent each year for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. 4. $3 Million Dollars 'PER DAY' is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. That's $1.2 Billion a year. 5. 28% percent of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens. 6. $190 billion dollars are spent each year on illegal aliens for welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. 7. $200 billion dollars per year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. 8. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. 9. During the year 2005, there were 8 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our southern border with as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from other terrorist countries. Over 10,000 of those were middle-eastern terrorists. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin, crack, guns, and marijuana crossed into the U.S. from the southern border. 10. The National Policy Institute, estimates that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period. 11. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $65 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin, to their families and friends. 12. The dark side of illegal immigration: Nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegal immigrants in the United States! Total cost - a whopping $538.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR ! And we don't need a wall? If this doesn't bother YOU, then just delete the message. Otherwise, forward this to everyone YOU know. THOSE WHO WOULD DISRESPECT OUR FLAG, HAVE NEVER BEEN HANDED A FOLDED ONE! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hamas kills bid to revive ceasefire deal,hostage release -WSJPart of the Hamas leadership was in Cairo to discuss the, now axed, ceasefire deal.Hamas has allegedly rejected an Israeli offer for a one-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, saying they wouldn’t discuss releasing the hostages until a full ceasefire first goes into effect, Egyptian officials said, according to the Wall Street Journal report on December 20. Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political wing of the terrorist organization, met with intelligence officials in Cairo earlier today to discuss Israel's offer but allegedly said that he was there to obtain a full ceasefire and more humanitarian aid. Palestinian Islamic Jihad would have been included in talks for the first time, however, they demanded a ceasefire before any negotiations begin. They also demanded all Palestinian prisoners be released in exchange for 100 hostages. "I will spare no effort on this, and the demand is to bring everyone," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. The IDF's advance into Khan Yunis has progressed with increased surrenders of Hamas fighters and the unveiling of more of the Hamas tunnel network. Part of the Hamas leadership was in Cairo to discuss the now-axed ceasefire deal as well as incorporate the increase of aid into the Gaza Strip. "Hamas's stance remains: they don't have a desire for humanitarian pauses. Hamas wants a complete end to the Israeli war on Gaza," a Palestinian official said. Ceasefire delayedA ceasefire vote at the UN was also pushed back due to disagreements over the language of the resolution, in particular the process by which aid would arrive in the Strip. Some parties pushing for exclusive UN monitoring while the US is pushing back. Currently, Israel monitors the limited humanitarian aid coming via the Rafah crossing from Egypt and the Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing. Reuters contributed to this report. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Even staying impartial in the Gaza warcan get you denounced at Turtle Bay.A petition from the Concerned Citizens of the International Community has gathered more than 17,000 signatures to demand Ms. Nderitu’s resignation. According to the petition on change.org, Ms. Nderitu condemned Hamas’s murders on Oct. 7 but has “failed to acknowledge” the violence of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Ms. Nderitu is no declared ally of Israel. In public statements she has called for a cease-fire in Gaza. Her mortal sin in the eyes of the international civil servants is to value the lives of Israelis as well as Palestinians, condemn the barbarity of the Hamas massacre, and call for the release of Israeli hostages. In early December, the staff of the U.N.’s World Food Program attacked executive director Cindy McCain for not aligning herself with the Palestinian cause. Ms. McCain was among those who signed a letter calling for the release of hostages, greater humanitarian aid and a cease-fire. But the staff called this response “insufficient.” The only acceptable position in this crowd is to ignore the Hamas massacre and support the elimination of Israel. That’s the position taken by Sarah Douglas, U.N. Women’s deputy chief of peace and security, who recently appeared in a video from home next to a Palestine poster. Her social-media account supported 153 anti-Israel tweets before she deleted it, according to UN Watch, a Geneva-based nongovernmental organization. Among those she liked were tweets that call Israel’s military strikes in Gaza “genocide” and another claiming that the “forces of empire” are teaming up to “annihilate the Palestinian people.” She supported the views of anti-Israel members of Congress such as Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich). With friends like these among the U.N.’s top female leaders, it’s no wonder the group has been so quiet on sexual violence by Hamas, including rapes, sexual mutilation and murder of Israeli women. Section 101 of the U.N. charter on the conduct of staff notes that working as an international civil servant demands “integrity, independence and impartiality.” Staff are not permitted to make statements or “any kind of public pronouncement” that would call their impartiality into question. Yet holding that line is now grounds for a petition against Ms. Nderitu, while Ms. Douglas carries on without rebuke. The U.S. pays about 22% of the U.N. budget despite its frequent hostility to American interests. That’s bad enough, but now Turtle Bay officials are endorsing voices that support the elimination of another member state. Why are U.S. taxpayers still paying the bills? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Total agreement +++
By Editor in chief, JNS.org
Democrats are cheering the decision of Colorado's Supreme Court to ban former President Donald Trump from the Republican presidential primary ballot. By a 4-3 vote, Colorado judges banned Trump on the grounds that he was disqualified by reason of having engaged in an "insurrection." The framers of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment were referencing the Civil War when they drafted the provision that Colorado's Supreme Court relied on to take their unprecedented step, and indeed, many Democrats truly believe the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and various efforts by Republicans to challenge the 2020 election results really was an illegal rebellion comparable to the Civil War. But many more Democrats simply think a second Trump administration would mark the end of democracy, and have committed to barring him by any means necessary. The idea that a Colorado court can brand anyone as an insurrectionary without due process of law or having been convicted of such a crime, is, as the Colorado Supreme Court dissenters noted, a legal absurdity. And therein lies the irony: All the arguments we've been hearing from Democrats and their corporate media cheerleaders about defending the nation from Trumpian authoritarianism is pure projection. Taking Trump off the ballot is itself an attempt to not just thwart democracy but to essentially set up an authoritarian model for elections in which the rulers decide who may run against them regardless of the will of the people. Consider that Trump wasn't indicted by any of the various Democratic prosecutors seeking to imprison him for inciting the Capitol riot for the very good reason that, despite some irresponsible rhetoric, he had not met the legal criteria for doing so. The point of the insurrection clause in the amendment was not about protesting the results of a close election. It was to prevent those who had taken part in an armed rebellion against the government of the United States, which Trump clearly did not do, even if one accepts the dubious leap of partisan imagination needed to elevate the legal protest that turned into an illegal riot on Jan. 6, 2021 into the moral equivalent of the Confederates firing on Fort Sumter. Both accusations are wrong. Trump may have exercised poor judgment in the months after the November 2020 election. But it's also true that the normal guardrails concerning voter integrity were largely abandoned in that election due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Democratic eagerness to mobilize their supporters. The efforts of Democrats and their Big Tech oligarch supporters to suppress news about Biden family corruption scandals to stop Trump also gave Republicans reason to regard the outcome as unfair if not technically fraudulent. But whether you love Trump or hate him, the idea that we don't need to try and convict him of a crime before applying a legal penalty is a complete contradiction of Western legal tradition. The only reason this is being attempted is that Democrats don't trust the American people to defeat Trump in a rematch with Biden. Waving the bloody shirt of Jan. 6 is an argument for voting against Trump, but it is not a legitimate excuse to subvert democracy. For the courts to employ a novel legal theory in order to disqualify the leading candidate of one of our two major parties is a blatant attempt to circumvent the democratic process. When that happens in places like Russia or Iran, where Vladimir Putin and the Islamist ayatollahs have banned opposition candidates they feared, we know what to call it. It's tyranny. Democrats think they get a pass for their anti-democratic tactics because of their conviction that Trump is the next coming of Adolf Hitler. They haven't yet figured out that half the country loves Trump's hyperbolic pronouncements on various issues precisely because it outrages the liberal chattering classes. Meanwhile, they fail to remember their own effort to overturn Trump's presidency via the Russian collusion hoax. Most of all, they are profoundly mistaken to view Trump's populist approach to the issues as authoritarianism. His vow to seek to change the system so as to prevent a liberal-dominated federal bureaucracy from sabotaging his efforts to govern is inherently democratic, not tyrannical. As we've seen with the various bogus indictments of Trump that Democrats have initiated, their efforts to prevent him from running is only convincing more Americans that he must be re-elected, if only to show the liberal elites that they can't take away the electorate's right to choose the president. Those who care about defending democracy can only hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down this disgraceful effort to rig the 2024 election and that at least one of that body's three liberals will join the conservatives in doing so. The lesson here is clear: The more the Democrats show us that they believe that the American people aren't smart enough to make the right choice next November, the more certain will be their defeat. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Turning blue might be a better color than green. +++ JUDICIAL WATCH
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