T. Belman. “Hate speech” was criminalized many years ago in Canada where it includes an incitement to violence. Absent the call to violence, what is “hate speech”? This is not easily answered especially in a world where feelings matter and truth is irrelevant.

They also believe that  “government should be able to take action against newspapers and TV stations that publish content that is biased, inflammatory, or false.”  All three of these terms are difficult to define.  I have no trouble with “false” except that who is to decide what is true and what is false.  There is nothing wrong with “inflamatory” comments if they are true but today truth is no defense. Bias is impossible to prevent.

51 percent of Millennials want fines or jail time for ‘hate speech’

By Collin Anderson, WASH FREE BEACON

A majority of Americans believe the First Amendment should be rewritten and are willing to crack down on free speech, as well as the press, according to a new poll.

More than 60 percent of Americans agree on restricting speech in some way, while a slim majority, 51 percent, want to see the First Amendment rewritten to “reflect the cultural norms of today.” The Campaign for Free Speech, which conducted the survey, said the results “indicate free speech is under more threat than previously believed.”

“The findings are frankly extraordinary,” executive director Bob Lystad told the Washington Free Beacon. “Our free speech rights and our free press rights have evolved well over 200 years, and people now seem to be rethinking them.”
Read more…

By Jared Harris, WESTERN JOURNALISM

A woman who escaped a Chinese “reeducation” camp gave a damning testimony that makes it clear the shocking lengths the country’s regime will go to force communist values on its people.

Sayragul Sauytbay spoke to Haaretz about her time in the Chinese camps. Although she had a position that allowed her some minor comforts, she witnessed many of the horrors there firsthand.

Sauytbay and her family lived in Xinjiang province, in the remote northwest reaches of China. The province is home to the Uighurs, a minority ethnic group that Sauytbay belongs to.

Although many in the region dream of independence, there is a very small number who actually commit violence to achieve it. For this, the Chinese government is now engaged in a clandestine campaign to wipe the entire culture from the face of the earth. Read more…

T. Belman. Separating the wheat from the chaf. This is excellent.

By Dr. Alex Joffe   October 27, 2019

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,324, October 27, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The American withdrawal from Syria has produced chaotic results – but as with many aspects of President Trump’s presidency, it offers an opportunity to view realities with a new clarity. The nature of Turkey under Erdo?an, European weakness, and the unwillingness of America to support indecisive military missions have been revealed. These realities demand new approaches to European defense and to Middle Eastern engagement and disengagement.

One of the many startling attributes of the Trump presidency is the tendency his statements and policy decisions have to produce inadvertent moments of clarity. By cutting through practical and rhetorical niceties, Trump forces the US and the world to confront inconsistent and malfunctioning policies, often creating new ones in the process. The invariable outrage forces situations to be looked at directly, as does the reactive antipathy from Trump’s many adversaries. Syria is no exception. Read more…

T. Belman. I urge that a solution for these immigrants be found that converts them without the necessity of committing to orthodoxy. The large majority of Jews in Israel aren’t orthodox in practice. Should any of these non-halachicly converted Jews wish to marry an orthodox person, they can then convert hallachicly.

Two out of every three immigrants to Israel come from either Russia or Ukraine, but most aren’t recognized as Jewish – which makes things like marrying, starting a family and getting buried a problem

By Judy Maltz, HAARETZ

People waiting for their suitcases at Ben-Gurion International Airport. Nir Keidar

Two countries have been responsible for a growing share of immigration to Israel in recent years: Russia and Ukraine.

Israel invests considerable resources in promoting and facilitating aliyah, and when immigration figures are up, it is widely seen as a measure of success of the Zionist project. Indeed, over the past decade, total aliyah has virtually doubled (from nearly 15,500 in 2008 to nearly 29,500 in 2018) – thanks in no small part to the growing number of new arrivals from these two countries. Read more…

‘Iran decided not to keep quiet about Israel’s attacks anymore,’ News 13 analyst Zvi Yehezkeli says.

ARUTZ SHEVA

Hassan Rouhani,Reuters

Journalist Zvi Yehezkeli, News 13‘s Arab affairs analyst, spoke with 103 FM Radio‘s Nissim Mishal about the rising tensions on Israel’s northern border and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi’s warning that the situation may deteriorate.

Do the Iranians have an interest in conflict on the border?

“Certainly the answer is yes. The Israeli assumption up until now has been that Iran can hold back and does not want a general conflict. That’s beginning to crack. I’ll tell you what it’s about. Until now Israel has been attacking all bases and attacking all Iranian entrenchment in Syria, for over two years. All of this was done with the understanding that Iran would be exposed and not want to respond.
Read more…

DEBKA

The mass anti-government protests engulfing Lebanon and Iraq are strongly infused with resentment of Iran’s influence and Hizballah dominance. Yet both held back on bloody crackdowns.

On Friday, Oct. 25, the ninth day of popular protests in Lebanon, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned in a televised speech that they were putting the country at risk of “chaos, economic collapse and civil war.” This was an attempt post factum to justify his first furtive steps to confront the protesters with force. A special new squad of Hizballah officers and fighters, clad in civvies and armed with clubs, were already scuffling with demonstrators on Beirut’s central Riad al-Solh Square that night. Those heavies may be expected to turn up in the thick of rallies in other parts of Lebanon. To motivate his followers, Nasrallah went on to charge that foreign embassies in Beirut had hijacked the protest movement and the CIA was involved.

Read more…

by Joe Hoft, GATEWAY PUNDIT

Last night was historic.  The news coming out on four fronts indicates that the Deep State should be very worried.  Those of us uncovering the many corrupt actions taken by President Obama’s Deep State have been looking forward to this day for some time!

Last night it was as if the planets aligned against the Deep State.  On four different fronts it’s now clear that the crooks in the Obama Administration should be very worried.

1. The FISA Report

The first event reported is that the DOJ IG’s FISA report is about to be released.  FOX News reported yesterday the following –

Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz told Senate and House lawmakers Thursday that the process of finalizing his report into potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses ahead of the 2016 presidential election was “nearing completion,” according to a letter obtained by Fox News.
Read more…

Attorney general to begin consultations on possible criminal charges against PM on Sunday, with decision expected in coming weeks

By TOI STAFF   24 October 2019, 

State prosecutors have begun drafting a legal opinion recommending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stand trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, according to a television report on Thursday.

Weeks after Netanyahu’s pre-indictment hearing, in which the premier’s attorneys sought to counter the looming indictment, prosecutors were urging Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to keep the original proposed charges intact, namely bribery, fraud and breach of trust in the so-called Case 4000, as well as additional fraud and breach of trust charges in cases 1000 and 2000, the Channel 13 report said.

Mandeblit on Sunday will begin consultations with state prosecutors to make a decision on whether to indict Netanyahu in the three corruption charges against him. He aims to make the decision by mid-November, Channel 12 reported earlier this month. Other assessments suggested a decision would be made by year’s end. Read more…

THE NY SUN EDITORIAL

The backlash against Attorney General William Barr’s call for religious freedom now includes a demand that his remarks on the subject be scrubbed from the Justice Department Web site. The demand, according to Indiana Public Media, is being made by a group that reckons Mr. Barr violated his constitutional oath when he delivered the other day at Notre Dame University a speech on the importance of religion and religious liberty.

We hope that the Justice Department stands its ground. The attorney general’s remarks at Notre Dame are one of the most important statements of support that religious Americans have had at a time when a campaign is underway to cast religion as a cover for bigotry. We are in a time when the left seeks to intimidate those who would cast religion as an inherently good thing for America.
Read more…

By David Archibald, AMERICAN THINKER

T. Belman. So the AG wants more time to make a decision on whether to indict. Fair enough but why did the prosecutors announce before the Spring elections that it was going to recommend indictments.  It seems to me, that due process demands that nothing be announced short of the actual indictment. Netanyahu has been greatly harmed by the threat of potential indictment. And here we are more than 6 months later and the AG has not made up his mind. You might say that the leak of the recommendations was criminal.

By  David Israel, JEWISH PRESS

Three weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hearing by the prosecution, the Taxation and Economics Prosecutor is preparing for a decision on indictments in the pending cases, Channel 13 News reported Thursday night.

It appears that the Prosecutor’s office will recommend an indictment on bribery in Case 4000, and fraud and breach of trust in cases 1000 and 2000.

But a Justice Ministry spokesman said Thursday night: “Let us make it clear, the Attorney General is conducting an orderly and thorough process of examining the allegations that arose in the hearing on the Prime Minister’s case, and only at the end of the process will the decisions regarding the cases be made, and these will be officially announced to the public.

Read more…

T. Belman. Don’t forget that when Reform Judaism was founded in Germany in the late nineteenth century, it disavowed the nationality and ethnic identity of Jews and relegated themselves to being a religion only, certainly, not a people.  Thus they have been avowed anti-Zionists since then.

Reform Zionism has a more nuanced view of the present position of Reform Judaism.

Will they ever feel comfortable with a powerful and self-confident Israel? Can they see beyond Israel’s occupation of the disputed territories as defining the legitimacy of the state?

by  Eric R. Mandel, ISRAEL HAYOM

In a column titled, “I Was Protested at Bard College for Being a Jew,” Batya Ungar-Sargan, a liberal Zionist and the Opinion Editor of The Forward, a paper that is decidedly to the left, was targeted by progressive anti-Zionists because the panel was comprised of three Jews, including the esteemed Ruth Wisse of Harvard University.

She said the university had no plans to stop “what was fixing to become an ugly disruption of Jews trying to discuss anti-Semitism.” What shocked her more was the support of the academics and intellectuals in the audience who “applauded” the blatantly anti-Semitic disruption. “These vaunted intellectuals, flown in from across the country … were commending a display of racism against Jews,” she wrote.

Welcome to a world where far-left progressives find commonality with far-right fascists. Read more…

By Dr. Doron Itzchakov, BESA     

BESA Center Perspectives No. 1,321, October 25, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Though it prompted angry reactions from senior officials in Tehran, the Turkish attack on Syrian Kurdistan offers both pros and cons for the Islamic Republic – and the potential positives likely outweigh the negatives.

Turkey’s military offensive against the Kurds in northeastern Syria prompted recriminations from the Islamic Republic, but the Iranian regime understands that it could ultimately redound to its benefit.

Ever since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in March 2011, Iran and Turkey have been on opposing sides, with Tehran (and Moscow) playing a critical role in the survival of the Assad regime and Ankara urging its ouster and supporting the anti-regime rebellion.

Unsurprisingly, President Trump’s announcement that US troops would be evacuated from northern Syria was welcomed in Tehran, which had considered the presence of US troops on Syrian soil a flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty. However, Erdo?an’s decision to invade Kurdish territory in Syria led his Iranian counterpart, Rouhani, to condemn it on the grounds that it would increase regional instability. Read more…