What appears to be going on in Iraq is some jockeying for position before the war. This is like the so-called Phoney War that preceded the invasion of France in April 1940.

By Seth Frantzman, JPOST

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards march during a military parade to commemorate the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war in Tehran
(photo credit: MORTEZA NIKOUBAZI/ REUTERS)

Iran and its proxies are increasing their systematic and coordinated threats against the US in Iraq. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has said that any “small mistake” by Washington would be met with force. It came as reports emerged that the IRGC Quds Force head Esmail Ghaani had travelled to Iraq. In Iraq the Iranian-backed proxy groups Kataib Hezbollah and others have upped their rhetoric against the US in the last days. US  President Donald Trump warned on Wednesday afternoon that “upon information and belief, Iran or its proxies are planning a sneak attack on US troops and/or assets in Iraq. If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price.”

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By Noah Rothman , COMMENTARY     4-1-20

By Barry Shaw, IISS    APR 1, 2020, 12:58 PM

Deafened under the constant drumbeat of the virus crisis has been the ongoing efforts to form a new Israeli unity government.

What was perceived over a week ago as a quick solution between the Bibi-led Likud and the Ganz-led remnant of the Blue & White Party, cruelly named the Black & Blue Party by some members of the political right in Israel, has become bogged down in a tactical Game of Thrones, as the horse-trading for government ministries leads to friction and division.

What should have been a simple granting of departments to appease Ganz’s depleted grouping and the rapid establishment of a new government for the sake of a nation severely damaged by the growing spread of the China virus has become a tiresome quarrel over the minutia of who sits where. Read more…

By Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS     March 31, 2020

Iran’s people deserve sympathy for their coronavirus suffering. But the regime that oppresses them and is still working on a dangerous nuclear program deserves none.

The tyrants of Tehran are in trouble. The coronavirus pandemic has hit Iran particularly hard. That’s due, in no small measure, to the fact that, like their counterparts in China, the theocrats running the country suppressed news about the spread of the deadly disease, hampering efforts to contain it.

Nevertheless, they are determined to exploit the natural sympathy generated by the country’s plight in order to advance their political agenda.
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by Jim Hoft, GATEWAY PUNDIT   April 1, 2020

The international community is currently experiencing the worst global panic in modern history.

Entire economies, including the US economy, are in complete free-fall over the coronavirus pandemic and panic.

It is always good to pause and look at the actual data and not the ever-changing “models” the “experts” continue to throw at us.

We posted on the current coronavirus numbers in a previous post today.

Now this from our friend Steve at Grassfire:
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By Jim Hoft, GATEWAY PUNDIT

As we reported earlier — There were 83,780 flu-pneumonia deaths in America this season.

The CDC estimated 24,000 to 62,000 flu deaths this year.

We also have Washington DC experts continually changing their “scientific models.”
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By Victor Rosenthal

About 12% of Israel’s population are Haredim, often referred to as “ultra-orthodox,” an expression which they strongly dislike. The Haredi population is growing rapidly with a birthrate of about 7 children per woman, and if this growth rate continues, Haredim will be 32% of the population in 2065 (this estimate, however, is high because it does not take into account “dropouts” from the Haredi lifestyle). Their religious ideology varies, including Chasidim, Sefaradim, and Misnagdim (sometimes also inaccurately called “Lithuanians”). Among these major groupings there are numerous groups and sects, with strong differences in their beliefs, politics, and ways of life. It would be a mistake to generalize about “those guys in the black hats.”

On the other hand, some things are true in general, and they are not good things for the future of the state of Israel. Haredi schools mostly teach secular subjects like English, the sciences, and mathematics very poorly or not at all. The native language of many Haredi communities is Yiddish, not Hebrew. Most Haredi young men do not serve in the military, and prefer to study Torah in yeshivot than to work at a secular job. These facts make the expected increase in the percentage of the population that is Haredi extremely problematic for the future economy of the state.
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Locals in Wuhan say 42,000 people died, accounts of crematoria working 24/7

By Pamela Geller

Back in January, Geller Report published accounts of on-scene citizens in China who reported accounts of 10,000 DEAD in Wuhan.

The media ignored coronavirus in January. While President Trump was instituting travel restrictions to and from China, Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and NY’s Bill de Blasio urged Americans to ignore the “fearmongering” and “xenophobia” and co-mingle at events like the Chinese Lunar parades. Nancy Pelosi, touring San Fran’s Chinatown on Feb. 24, said,  “We do want to say to people, come to Chinatown, here we are … come join us.” That was a full month after reports were coming out of China of mass death.

Geller Report was blocked on Facebook and designated fake news by “fact-checking sites” Factcheck.org and PolitiFact because of our reporting on Coronavirus (a designation that still stands). GR was right. But facts are irrelevant. Read more…

T. Belman. I think we are headed for a fourth election. Bibi gave up too much to secure his primership and immunity. Little is left of the right wing agenda.  What’s the point of being the PM if you had to give the most important ministerial posts, such as Judicial and Defense, to the left to get it.

I rather see Gantz as PM and Bennet as Defense and Shaked as Justice.

With growing anger among longtime allies, and some even threatening to bolt, the Likud leader risks an escalating showdown with an intransigent Benny Gantz

By Haviv Rettig Gur, ISRAEL HAYOM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives to deliver a statement regarding his intention to file a request to the Knesset for immunity from prosecution, in Jerusalem on January 1, 2020. (Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP)

Benjamin Netanyahu has a problem. After much fanfare and congratulations last Thursday from his right-wing allies over his successful breakup of Likud’s greatest political threat in over a decade — the 33-seat Blue and White faction led by Benny Gantz — the prime minister has spent the past five days coming to terms with the cost of that success.

The coalition talks between Netanyahu and Gantz are entering their sticky middle phase. Grand pronouncements and posturing have been replaced by the dry, complex bartering and persistent but unreliable leaks that signal they are at their most serious stage. It is here, in the hammering out of the most minute details of the next coalition’s decision-making process and ministry distribution, that the heart and soul of the next government, its fundamental workings and, ultimately, real center of power, will be determined.
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By Frances Martel, BREITBART

The Saudi news agency al-Arabiya identified in a report Monday at least 17 senior members of the Iranian Islamic regime who have died from the Chinese coronavirus since the outbreak in that country began.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the largest anti-regime dissident organization, claimed on Monday that nearly 15,000 people in the country have died of coronavirus infections, about five times the death toll the Iranian regime officials claims to have counted.

Tehran has documented 44,605 cases of Chinese coronavirus within its borders and claims 2,898 people have died since the outbreak began there. In addition to the NCRI, many observers – including local Iranian officials – have disputed this number, most simply by noting that adding up the number of cases and deaths recorded by each Iranian region results in a much larger number than the one documented by the federal government.
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T. Belman.  NYC has roughly the same population as Israel but 50 times the number of deaths.

By Julia Marsh and Tamar Lapin, NY POST

James Messerschmidt

The Big Apple’s coronavirus death toll topped 1,000 on Tuesday afternoon — with 164 people succumbing to the illness since the morning, city data shows.

The increase in fatalities from this morning’s death toll of 932 brought the number to 1,096.

That means at least 1,095 people have fallen victim to COVID-19 in the little more than two weeks since March 14, when the first death was reported in the Big Apple.

Some 41,771 people had been infected in the five boroughs as of 5 p.m. on Tuesday. The first case was reported March 1.

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Likud, Blue and White restart talks

By Gil Hoffman, JPOST

Benny Gantz, head of Blue and White party, looks on as he gives a statement to the media in Ramat Gan, Israel March 1, 2020
(photo credit: NIR ELIAS / REUTERS)

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz faced pressure on Tuesday to give up his demand for the same number of ministers as the Likud and its satellite parties after complaints about the size of the government during an economic crisis caused by the coronavirus.

Likud and Blue and White’s negotiating teams met on Tuesday night by video conference after a day and a half with no talks.

The current plan remains for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc of Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism and Yamina to have 15 ministers and for Blue and White and Labor to have the same, even though the Right-Center bloc would have 58 MKs and the Center-Left bloc 19.
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For many in the business sector there is little appetite to celebrate at all. Others, looking at measures implemented by other governments, are green with envy.

By Eytan Halon, JPOST

Moshe Kahlon (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

The long-delayed launch of Israel’s “unprecedented” NIS 80 billion financial rescue plan was marked with little fanfare beyond the Finance Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office.”The program presented today is the largest and widest in scope that the Israeli economy has ever seen,” said Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon in his political swan song, presenting measures valued at 6% of GDP.

What explains the lack of enthusiasm following the presentation of the plan? For many in the business sector, of course, there is little appetite to celebrate at all. Others, looking at measures implemented by other governments, are green with envy. Read more…

By Andrea Widburg, AMERICAN THINKER

Trump’s approach to coronavirus is exposing one of the great fault lines in American politics, which is the battle between those who believe in the free market and the private sector versus those who believe that the answer is always the government. This fault line has obviously existed for a long time, but it’s never been exposed in starker terms than now, when there is a crushing weight bearing down on America. So far, the private sector is proving more adaptable, more effective, and more decent.

At John Solomon’s new website, Just The News, Stephanie Gutmann has written a superb article explaining how Trump’s approach to the emergency differs from the approach that any American politician, past or present, has taken, because he’s disempowering, rather than empowering, the government:

In Washington, leaders typically respond to crises by expanding federal power — drafting new laws and regulations, leaning heavily on federal muscle. The COVID-19 pandemic is revealing President Trump to be a different kind of animal, with instincts and alliances that were forged over years in the private sector, where initiatives tend to move faster and finding creative ways to save money is considered a bragging point. (After all, it is usually one’s own money.)
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By Alexander G. Markovsky, AMERICAN THINKER

The resurgence of Joe Biden and the inevitable defeat of Bernie Sanders led the pundits to declare that the Democratic Party is rejecting socialism — a development all decent men would celebrate if it were true. Yet, in a supreme irony, the Land of the Free dangerously underestimates or underappreciates the ideological nature of the contemporary Democratic Party. Neither education nor life experience has prepared Americans for grasping the Party’s epochal ideological shift toward the ideology that signifies the total inversion of the Nation’s historical traditions and values.

Every time the Democratic presidential contenders took the stage, whether it was a radical Bernie Sanders or any of the so-called moderates such as Michael Bloomberg, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, or Joe Biden, a frightening sense of déjà vu set in as those downsized American replicas of Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, Clara Zetkin, and Rosa Luxemburg clearly professed their socialist-egalitarian vision and prophetic absolutism.
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The five steps in the rise and fall of a nation or culture and how one can slow them down and prevent the fall.

By Matan Peleg, INN

“A time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot that which is planted.” (Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, verse 2).

Every individual, nation, and culture has an “expiration date.”

Unlike an individual, a nation and culture can postpone their expiration dates for great lengths of time through proper conduct, because they are essentially an intergenerational relay race where the baton keeps being handed off. As long as they work efficiently to preserve their spirit and belief in the justness of their cause, there is no reason why they should collapse.

Famed 14th century historian Ibn Khaldun identified a cycle pertaining to the rise and fall of a state, which consists of five stages: conquest, social cohesion, expansion, contentment, and decline.
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In the middle of Passover, the Blue and White chair’s allocated time to form a government comes to an end, and with it, his major leverage against the PM

By Raoul Wootliff, TOI

IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz (left) in a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015. (Avi Ohayon/GPO/Flash 90)

Despite calls from both Likud and Blue and White for negotiations on forming a national unity government to be completed as soon as possible in order to tackle the coronavirus crisis, Channel 12 news on Monday night reported that the talks could extend until the Passover holiday, which starts next week, and even beyond.

Why is Passover different from all other weeks? Because in the middle of the seven-day festival, on April 12, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz’s allocated time to form a government that he would head comes to an end, and with it, his major leverage against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu’s Likud won 36 Knesset seats in the March 2 election to Blue and White’s 33, but the Likud leader’s right-wing bloc again failed to muster a parliamentary majority. In consultations with President Reuven Rivlin, Gantz won 61 MKs’ recommendation that he form a government, including from the entire Joint List of majority-Arab parties. Read more…