Positive Signs from Doha
By Sherwin Pomerantz
The U.S. military is expected to soon dismantle the $230m floating pier built to provide aid to Gazan civilians, which was plagued with technical issues and operated for just 20 days. Unnamed US officials told the Associated Press that the pier, which is currently docked in Ashdod, will be briefly re-anchored in Gaza to distribute the last of aid from Cyprus that has been piling up. After the aid is unloaded, it will be permanently disassembled. The off-shore pier was constructed by American military forces and opened in May, but has been beset by numerous issues related to bad weather and rough seas.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu won’t stop in Europe on his way to address the US Congress later this month due to the threat of an (obnoxious) arrest warrant being issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Israel’s Kan News reported Wednesday. Due to “a lack of preparation,” said the report, his plane, the recently commissioned Wing of Zion, would not be able to fly directly to the US if it was filled to capacity. The Prime Minister’s Office therefore looked into the possibility of adding a layover in either Hungary or the Czech Republic, where the plane could refuel while Netanyahu held diplomatic meetings before going on to Washington. At the end, he decided to significantly reduce the number of passengers instead, said the report, enabling the plane to fly nonstop across the Atlantic.
The Biden Administration has released some of the heavy bombs it had previously withheld from Israel, according to a US official. The US held up the shipments in May because they were concerned they would be used in areas with high concentrations of Palestinian civilians. The refusal to send all of the arms was seen as a means of pressuring Israel not to pursue its Rafah operation. US President Joe Biden announced in May that the US would hold back shipments of 1800 2000-lb bombs and 1700 500-lb bombs, and would put a halt to further weapons shipments if Israel began its Rafah campaign. This prompted Israel to reassure the United States that it would focus on targeted operations to eliminate terrorists and Hamas infrastructure rather than heavy bombardments. “Since our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000 lb bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza, the 500-lb bombs are moving forward as part of the usual process,” the US official concluded.
Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, said in a televised address on Wednesday that if Israel agreed to a ceasefire, Hezbollah and the “Axis of Resistance” would stop attacking Israel. “If there is a ceasefire in Gaza, then our front will also cease fire without discussion, irrespective of any other agreement or mechanisms or negotiations,” Nasrallah said. “Hamas is negotiating on its own behalf and on behalf of the Palestinian factions, and also on behalf of the entire Axis of Resistance. What Hamas accepts, we all accept,” Nasrallah said.
The “Axis of Resistance” denotes the terror groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, backed by Iran. Since October 7th, Hezbollah has been firing missiles into the north of Israel, and the Houthis have interfered with international shipping. As a result of the constant barrage of rockets, 60,000 residents of the north of Israel have been evacuated. Nasrallah issued a warning that it was not afraid of war if necessary, and it has proved by its barrage of rockets that it is ready to fight if conditions aren’t met.
Nasrallah’s statements raise the stakes of the hostage deal currently being negotiated in Doha, because it implies that, failing an agreement, Israel will have a war on two fronts–ongoing operations in Gaza and possibly a 3rd Lebanon war as Hezbollah attacks have escalated in recent weeks, culminating in the deaths of an Israeli couple whose car was hit by a Hezbollah rocket on Tuesday.
A senior US official told the Washington Post in a Wednesday op-ed that a framework has reportedly been agreed upon for a ceasefire-hostage release deal in Gaza. The opinion piece reports that it would lead to the release of some hostages and that the parties involved are in the negotiating phases of implementing such a deal. Other senior officials warned that although the framework for the deal exists, a final agreement "is not imminent" and that working on the details is complex and expected to take some time.
The Washington Post piece notes that in the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, both the Hamas terrorist organization and Israel have accepted an "interim governance" plan that would be utilized, in which neither Israel nor Hamas would control Gaza. Still, rather there will be US-provided security backed by moderate Arab allies, which would comprise a "core group of about 2,500 supporters of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza who have already been vetted by Israel," the Post reports.
Before such an interim government takes hold, the first phase of the agreement would see 33 hostages who are alive released by Hamas, which include all remaining female captives, men over the age of 50, and any of those who are injured. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners would be released by Israel, and its forces would be withdrawn from areas considered densely populated in the Gaza Strip's eastern border.
++++
The Post cites the American official as saying that Hamas told mediators it was "prepared to relinquish authority to the interim governance arrangement.” Part of the deal would also see reconstruction of hospitals and a flow of humanitarian aid into the Strip.
Let’s hope that this comes to fruition and we get our people home!!!!!
+++
Clooney is loony and some $300,000 poorer or more. Most Hollywood liberals are also dangerous.
+++
Kamala Harris thinks campus anti-Semites are very fine people
Whether or not the vice president becomes the Democratic nominee, any attempt to portray her as a friend of the Jews is undermined by her praise for pro-Hamas mobs.
By JONATHAN S. TOBIN- JNS
One of the inevitable results of President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month and subsequent refusal to drop out of the 2024 presidential race in November is the increasing attention being paid to his running mate. Vice President Kamala Harris has been something of a punch line since she assumed her current office. But now that most Democratic officeholders and pundits have realized that the president is unlikely to win re-election, she has, for a number of compelling reasons, become the most likely replacement for him should he be prevailed upon to drop out. That means that even though she has fared poorly during her time in office, many of the same biased corporate media hacks that spent years covering up the growing evidence of Biden’s lack of mental acuity are now taking up the task of convincing the country that the generally accepted opinion of Harris as someone whose talents have not kept pace with her ambition is mistaken.
One major front in the battle to reintroduce Harris to the public relates to her stance on the war waged by Israel against Hamas in Gaza after the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, has been the figurehead for the administration’s toothless “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism.” The vice president reminded the left-wing base of the party that she hopes to lead—either this year or in the future—that this is the one issue about which she’s been willing to signal her disagreement with her boss, dubbed “Genocide Joe” by pro-Palestinian protesters for his on-again/off-again backing for Israel. In an interview with the leftist magazine The Nation, Harris lauded the mobs who have demanded that the terrorists be allowed to survive, as well as backing their calls for Israel’s destruction and terrorism against Jews.
She did throw in some weasel words to distance herself from what the Israel-haters who took over campuses, and blocked streets and bridges, in addition to demonstrating outside Jewish businesses and synagogues, have been saying. But much like what Biden and other Democrats falsely assert that former President Donald Trump said about neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, Harris seems to think that those chanting “from the river to the sea” and engaging in open acts of antisemitism are very fine people.
Sympathy for anti-Semites
“They are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza,” said Harris about protesters who have, in some cases, been paid by Amnesty International or even Iran. “There are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points. But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it.”
There’s nothing new about Harris embracing those who libel Israel. In September 2021 during an appearance at George Mason University in Virginia, a student given the opportunity to ask the vice president a question launched into a tirade in which she claimed Israel’s existence was an act of “ethnic genocide” and condemned U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system that prevents its people from being slaughtered by Palestinian terrorist rockets. In response, Harris didn’t challenge these anti-Semitic libels, instead responding with a lecture about pluralism and the need for activism. “Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth cannot be suppressed, and it must be heard,” Harris told the student.
When asked about the three college presidents who wouldn’t declare that advocacy for the genocide of Jews was against their schools’ rules, Emhoff said the trio “lacked moral clarity.” The same might be said of his wife, who seems to think that a movement that has mainstreamed hatred for Jews should be judged by its supposed good intentions.
That might be the sort of answer that the intersectional wing of the Democrats that despises Israel is looking for. Still, it poses a difficult question for Jewish Democrats, who are clinging to the dubious notion that she and her Jewish husband would be allies of a Jewish community facing a post-Oct. 7 surge of anti-Semitism, let alone a friend of Israel.
I have never believed that Biden would leave the race voluntarily and have pointed out to those who assume that some shadowy group of Democratic kingmakers could force him to do so that they are mistaken. Over the course of the last 60 years, American political parties have been hollowed out in the name of democracy, and there are no bosses or machines that can decide presidential nominations. Whether referring to congressional leaders, Hollywood Democrats like George Clooney or the editorial board of The New York Times, there is no “they” that can make Biden do anything he doesn’t want to do. Everything we know about his arrogance, contempt for critics and the single-minded lust for power that defines both him and his wife argue that Biden will never concede defeat or be persuaded to withdraw. Short of Divine Providence intervening in the election in some manner (or as the president told George Stephanopoulos, “the Lord Almighty” personally telling him to drop out), Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee.
The only plausible alternative
Biden did give Harris the job of dealing with one of the country’s most important problems—the massive increase in illegal immigration at America’s southern border. Not wishing to offend her party’s left-wing base by actually trying to stop what can only be termed an invasion of several million migrants entering the country without permission, she did nothing. Indeed, she didn’t even visit the border for several months after being named the “border czar” and then only briefly.
Since then, the White House has made it clear that the president has little confidence in her and so has given Harris as little to do as possible with Biden’s staff not taking much care to conceal their contempt. As a result, she is now mainly known for speeches widely mocked as incomprehensible word salads and her trademark laugh that might better be described as a cackle. Indeed, one of the main arguments that underpinned Biden’s determination to run for a second term and to stay in the race has been the fact that Harris’s general election prospects are even worse than the president’s. While in the wake of Biden’s infirmity being exposed at the debate some polls have shown her doing better than him, the RealClearPolitics average of all polls has her trailing Trump by a larger margin than that of Biden.
Whether she gets the chance to run this year or succeeds Biden at some point in the next four years, the one thing you can say about Harris is that she is clearly interested in appealing to the Democrats’ anti-Israel left wing. She has been careful to mix in some pro forma comments about supporting the Jewish state’s right to exist and defend itself, as well as hosting a White House showing of a film about the use of rape as a weapon of war against Jews. Yet she has also cultivated a reputation as this administration’s resident Israel-basher. Indeed, while speaking at length to The Nation about her worries over whether Palestinian women have a reliable supply of feminine hygiene products, she rarely speaks about Israeli hostages and has gone out of her way to buttress false claims about Palestinian casualties and a mythical famine in Gaza.
A transitional figure
So, while not an all-out opponent of Israel in the manner of her friends in the left-wing congressional “Squad” who traffic in antisemitism, Harris can be seen as a transitional figure for the Democrats on this issue as they complete their journey from a pro-Israel party to one that is hostile to it. She not only lacks the record but the instinct to pretend to be a supporter of Zionism, as Biden has done. She also makes a greater effort than the president to show the younger generation of Democrats who have been indoctrinated in toxic ideas like critical race theory and intersectionality, which falsely label Israel and the Jews as “white” oppressors, that she is on their side.
Nor should anyone look to Emhoff as someone who can be a credible voice on antisemitism or Israel. The first man to hold the title of “second gentleman” spent his life demonstrating zero interest in Judaism or Israel until it became politically important for his wife’s career to do so. He’s representative of a large segment of people whose ties to Jewish life are largely cultural and therefore ephemeral. His daughter, Ella, a fashion model, not only spurns the title of a Jewish influencer but has raised money for the viciously anti-Israel U.N. Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) that has ties to Hamas terrorism and has helped perpetuate the century-old war on the Jewish state. Those who are relying on him to advocate effectively against anti-Semitism are fooling themselves.
When placed beside a president whose physical and mental decline is obvious, Harris—a healthy and vigorous 59-year-old—seems like a credible alternative, as well as a DEI choice who might hold together the Democratic coalition. However, the prospect of her elevation to the presidency ought to worry anyone who cares about Israel and the imperative to roll back the woke tide that is fueling a surge in antisemitism in the United States and worldwide. Her husband’s origins and any pandering to the community notwithstanding, if she winds up leading the Democrats, the case for the party as a home for Jewish voters will become even weaker than it already is.
++++
Why Palestinian Leaders Cannot Make Peace With Israel
by Bassam Tawil
Prominent Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti has been facing sharp criticism from many Palestinians after he was filmed hugging a former Israeli foreign minister during a recent conference in Italy. Barghouti is being accused of betraying the Palestinians by "promoting normalization" with Israel.
The latest "scandal" erupted after a video that appeared on social media featured Barghouti warmly hugging former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami during a meeting of parliamentary factions in Italy. Ben-Ami, a historian, is known for his role in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians more than two decades ago. He is also known for his support for the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel.
Barghouti's critics, however, do not distinguish between a right-wing and left-wing Israeli Jew. For them, all Israeli Jews, including those who support a two-state solution, are enemies.
Barghouti, who heads a party called the Palestinian National Initiative Movement, is now getting a taste of his own medicine. For many years, Barghouti has been a steadfast supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. He has also taken part in BDS activities, stating: "We are now in the early stages of a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions directed at this Israeli government for its refusal to abide by international law."
"International law" often refers to resolutions by the United Nations and other international bodies that call for the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel. Such a state, according to Palestinian public opinion polls, will be controlled by murderers and rapists from the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group.
Barghouti is also the president of Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a group that has ties with the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 2019, he participated in a conference organized by the PFLP, titled "The Crime of Normalization [with Israel] and ways of Confrontation." The conference was held in honor of the 11th anniversary of the death of PFLP founder George Habash. During the conference, Barghouti presented a paper on "The role of parties and factions in promoting the boycott concept."
Barghouti has even justified the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, during which hundreds of Israelis were killed, raped, beheaded, mutilated, burned alive, tortured, and kidnapped to the Gaza Strip:
"This initiative (attack) is... a response to those who thought that through normalization with the Arab countries, they can liquidate and marginalize the Palestinian issue. It is coming back in the most possible forceful way... It shows that Israel is not almighty and also it shows what Palestinians can do when they are determined to resist for their freedom..."
Barghouti, in other words, is saying that he is happy that the attack could thwart attempts to achieve peace between Israel and some of the Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia.
Barghouti's anti-Israel campaigns and support for the October 7 atrocities, however, are now being ignored by many Palestinians, who are accusing him of committing a crime by hugging the Israeli ex-minister. Some Palestinians have even posted a photoshopped image of Barghouti dressed in an Israeli military uniform to back up their charge that he is a traitor.
Alarmed by the accusations, Barghouti was forced to apologize to the Palestinians for daring to appear in public with an Israeli Jew. "This was an unintentional mistake that should have been avoided and not made," he said. "I have the courage and self-confidence, which I hope everyone has, to admit a mistake when it occurs."
He further pledged to continue opposing normalization with Israel:
"Our position has not and will not change. During my short visit to Italy, I was invited to participate in a political symposium that included eight speakers, including the mayor of Rome, parliamentarians and Italian diplomats. It was an open public symposium and not a Palestinian-Israeli meeting, as some malicious people claimed. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, I did not have the opportunity to adequately research the identities of all the participants in the symposium, which was attended by the Israeli politician and opposition figure who works as a lecturer at Spanish universities, Shlomo Ben-Ami."
The smear campaign against Barghouti serves as a reminder of how Palestinian leaders and officials have radicalized their people against Israel to a point where it has become impossible, if not dangerous, even to be seen in the company of an Israeli Jew. Barghouti can only blame himself for the backlash he is facing for appearing together with Ben-Ami at the conference in Italy.
Barghouti has been inciting the Palestinians and the rest of the world against Israel for a long time. He has long advocated boycotting Israel and has spoken out against normalization with Israelis. He therefore has no right to be upset about the attacks on him or to lament the defamation campaign Palestinians have launched against him.
Given the enormous uproar caused by this brief interaction between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian, one can only imagine the consequences for any Palestinian leader who dares even to discuss or consider peace with Israel. The outcry over the meeting in Italy crystallizes the basic reason why Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to return to the negotiating table with Israel for the past decade. Abbas knows full well that his recurring attacks on Israel have radicalized Palestinians against Israel to such an extent that most of them support the October 7 massacre of Israelis, are in favor of Hamas over his Palestinian Authority, and would be happy to kill him at a moment's notice for being a traitor over whatever they considered the slightest transgression.
++++
Harvard Caves, Retracts Suspensions for Five Pro-Hamas Protestors
By Ward Clark |
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.
It would be nice to see someone in the Ivy League schools grow a spine.
On Wednesday, it came to light that Harvard University had retracted the suspensions of five pro-Palestine (and, we may safely infer, pro-Hamas) student protestors. The retraction came after, as the Harvard Crimson notes, "intense backlash from students and faculty members.
The decision to drop the suspensions and ease charges against other disciplined students represents a dramatic reversal less than two months after the the Ad Board — an administrative body responsible for the application and enforcement of Harvard College policies — prevented 13 seniors from receiving their degrees at Commencement.
Harvard administrators faced intense backlash from students and faculty members for pursuing disciplinary action against the undergraduates, with several prominent professors slamming the charges as overly harsh and unprecedented. More than 1,000 people also staged a walkout during Harvard’s graduation ceremony over the decision to deny diplomas to the 13 seniors.
The tensions over the disciplinary charges revealed a rift between the Ad Board and a large group of Harvard faculty members who sought to reinstate the sanctioned seniors into the list of degrees for conferral. The FAS rebellion forced the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — to choose between siding with its own faculty or the disciplinary board.
These "protesters," we should note, are rear-end individuals who, by dint of such actions as chanting "Intifada now" and "From the river to the sea," have, in essence, aligned themselves with Hamas, the people who conducted the atrocious (in the purest sense of the word) attacks on Israel on October 7th of last year. That, in and of itself, would seem to warrant a suspension, if not an outright expulsion; that kind of hate should find no safe harbor on any university campus, much less on Harvard Yard.
++++
My dear friend, Allen West speaks out:
+++
“Boy, let me tell ya, an empty wagon makes a lot of noise.”
My Dad, US Army Corporal, World War II Veteran, Herman West Sr.
The title of this week's missive comes from one of my Dad's favorite sayings. You know, those old-school Southern men and women could whip up some real doozy nuggets of pure wisdom. What ol' Buck West was referring to is that people who don't have a lot in their head, their wagon, make a lot of noise to cover the emptiness
Many in America continue to try to peddle the concept of Socialism upon us. But the whole idea is just an empty wagon, rattling around, making a lot of noise, but with nothing to offer.
To understand, we must consider the five basic tenets of Socialism:
Wealth redistribution
Nationalization of economic production
Creation of a welfare state
Social egalitarianism
Secular humanism
It is time we here in America realize that the Founding Fathers were simple, intellectual, and principled Men who left us a full wagon of individual rights, freedoms, and liberty that has quietly traveled down many paths and roads over the past 248 years. An empty wagon is easy to tip over, and there are enemies at and within the gates of liberty seeking that end.
I invite you to read more in my Town Hall OPED this week.
Steadfast and loyal.
Allen West
Executive Director
American Constitutional Rights Union
+++
No comments:
Post a Comment