Illustrative: Member state representatives attend the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York on September 21, 2017. (AFP/Jewel Samad)
The UN General Assembly was expected to condemn Israel nine times on Friday as “part of its annual ritual of enacting 20 Arab-sponsored resolutions singling out the Jewish state,” an NGO said.
While Israel was being slammed for a variety of alleged infringements, there would be no mention made of “Hamas stabbings, shootings or vehicular attacks against Israelis,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.
According to a statement issued from UN Watch, this year’s session will include a total of six condemnatory resolutions for the rest of the world combined —one each on Syria, North Korea, Iran, Crimea, Myanmar, as well as one on the US for its Cuba embargo.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The United States is ready to pull out of the UN Human Rights Council unless it institutes reforms, including removing Israel as a permanent item on its agenda, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley told an Israeli American audience.
“The Human Rights Council will either adopt these reforms, or the United States will leave,” Haley said to applause at the annual Washington conference of the Israeli American Council.
Haley said US proposed reforms include removing “Item 7,” which requires a report on Israeli actions in the West Bank each time the panel convenes. She said the United States also wanted structural changes that would keep major human rights abusers from joining the council; she noted the Democratic Republic of Congo’s recent ascension to the council.
The first article which began my writing “career” was written in April 2015 and it was entitled “Iran; Tekiyah-The Big Lie.” It was inspired by a presentation to the Jerusalem Press Club by Ambassador Dore Gold which dealt with the religious Muslim culture of pretense in order to achieve one’s goals against the “Infidel.” The speech pre-dated, and was a warning in regard to the risks of, the eventual “Iran Deal” proposed and concluded by then U.S. President Barak Obama.
Today’s Press Club symposium was of a very different nature. Entitled “The gap between the Iranian regime and Iranian society” I went prepared to put a more “human face” on the “Evil Empire.” How easily we all become lured by clichés and over-simplifications. Read more…
The entire country has been shocked by the politically correct witch-hunt at Wilfrid Laurier University. It’s even made headlines around the world.
Lindsay Shepherd, a 22-year-old grad student and teaching assistant, dared to play a short video clip of Professor Jordan Peterson to a group of students, as part of a lecture.
Prof. Peterson is well-known for his defence of free speech, and his objection to made-up, politically correct “pronouns” — grown-ups who talk a sort of baby talk, inventing gender-neutral words like “zhe” or “zher” instead of “he” or “her”.
In other words, Prof. Peterson is one of the few people in academia who hasn’t lost his mind. Read more…
The first year of the Trump administration has been characterized by the lack of clear policy guidelines vis-à-vis the Middle East. Although in the election campaign Trump spoke in favor of limiting United States intervention in various arenas, it appears that the US administration has no choice but to continue in the role of the “world’s policeman” to protect American interests. As to the Middle East, the United States cannot allow itself to disengage from the region.
Accordingly, the administration must formulate its objectives in the area and draft a strategy that will enable it to deal with the extremist elements, while strengthening its allies in the region who can serve as force multipliers against these radical elements. Read more…
Last June, when Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies cut their ties with Qatar over attacks on them by its sponsored news channel Al Jazeera, the US, the Saudi’s biggest ally, faced a complicated unintended consequence: its center of air operations against ISIS in the region, the Al Udeid Air Base, happens to be on Qatar soil.
Al Udeid is host to a forward headquarters of United States Central Command, headquarters of United States Air Forces Central Command, No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group RAF, and the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing of the USAF. According to media reports back when the June strife of 2017 was heating up, the base at that time hosted more than 11,000 US and US-led coalition forces and more than one hundred operational aircraft. Read more…
Underscoring the challenges in the Palestinian reconciliation effort, Hamas says its arsenal, which Fatah wants neutralized, “will not be touched. It’s not for debate or talks” • “Weapons will clearly move to the West Bank” to fight Israel, says official.
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas vowed Monday to expand its military activities against Israel into the West Bank, underscoring the challenges ahead since the organization began its reconciliation with the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Hamas has ruled Gaza since winning legislative elections in 2006 and ousting Fatah the following year in a military coup, a move that prompted an Israeli and Egyptian blockade.
In an Egyptian-brokered deal last month, Hamas transferred control of Gaza’s crossings with Israel and Egypt to the PA. Hamas was expected to take further steps to extend PA control over Gaza on Dec. 1, but disagreements between the two parties have intensified. Read more…
Many articles have been written about the growing trend of adult children choosing estrangement in American families. The recent Thanksgiving holiday has highlighted this alarming movement toward the dissolution of family bonds of love and loyalty. What is the source of this dreadful shift? What happened to honor thy father and mother?
Sheri McGregor, M.A. has written an important book titled Done With The Crying that explores the disturbing increase in families with adult children who disown their parents. There are, of course, appropriate conditions for estrangement but the current trend appears baffling to the 9,000 confused and grieving parents surveyed who cannot fathom why the children they have loved for a lifetime are choosing to reject them. Done With The Crying attempts to help devastated parents accept their loss and move on with their lives. McGregor is asking “What now?” I am asking “Why now?” Read more…
Having fought and bled for the regime’s survival, Tehran looks to cash in its support for a Mediterranean naval base, air bases and even uranium mining concessions
A little over a month ago, the Iranian chief of staff, Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, paid an unusual visit to Damascus. It was intended as a display of Syrian-Iranian amity, an expression of the excellent cooperation between the two partners in the drawn-out fight against opposition fighters and the Islamic State group. Read more…
The Islamic State has yet to take responsibility for the attack on a Sufi mosque in northern Sinai on Friday that claimed 305 lives, but there is little doubt that it was carried out by Wilayat Sinai — an Islamic State affiliate in the Sinai. The organization has targeted Sufis before in other countries and it is currently the only insurgent group operating in Sinai capable of such a large-scale attack. Which leads to the question, why is ISIS, currently in retreat in its former main strongholds of Syria and Iraq, still capable of such operations, in Egypt of all places. Read more…
Daniel Kupfert Heller, Jabotinsky’s Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 352 pages, $35.00
Daniel Kupfert Heller’s new book, Jabotinsky’s Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism, explores the development of Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky’s particular brand of statesmanship and political activism alongside the actions and principles of Betar, the youth group affiliated with Revisionism.
Previous studies of Jabotinsky (and there are many, from the laudatory to the defamatory, most recently Hillel Halkin’s Jabotinsky: A Life, in 2014) have focused almost exclusively on Jabotinsky’s ideology and statesmanship, and very little on the large number of Polish Jews—many of them young people—whom he influenced. Jabotinsky’s fame, or notoriety, is, however, due mainly to his legacy; he himself did not live to see the creation of the State of Israel. Read more…
In his “Epistle to Yemen,” Maimonides discusses how the nations have tried to destroy Israel and the Torah. In each era they employed a new method: first, by brute force, for example, Amalek, Babylon, Rome.
A second and more refined method was “argument.” The Greeks sought to demolish the Torah by philosophical controversy. Then “there arose a sect which combined the two methods, conquest and controversy … because it believed that this procedure would be more effective in wiping out every trace of the Jewish nation and [its faith]. It, therefore, resolved to lay claim to prophecy and to found a new faith, contrary to our Law, and to contend that it was equally God-given [but that it superceded the Torah].” None of these methods, says Maimonides, has succeeded in destroying Judaism or in thwarting the will of God. The Jews survived and remained loyal to their Torah.
Now in a new book, The World’s Oldest Alphabet, Douglas Petrovich has deciphered the Sinai inscriptions, and for the first time outside the Bible we can read how the slaves looked at things:
“He sought occasion to cut away to barrenness our great number, our swelling without measure.” (Sinai 349)
“Our bond servitude had lingered. Moses then provoked astonishment. It is a year of astonishment.” (Sinai 361)
T. Belman. Franzman begs the issue. It is not whether the US will will give them arms to help defeat ISIS but whether the US will give them arms to defend themselves from attacks by Turkey, Syria or Iraq. Will the US support their right to indepedance both in Iraq and in Syria, or even autonomy. That is the issue.
Turkey’s foreign minister claimed US President Trump had said the United States would not further arm the Kurdish People’s Protection Units in Syria.
The US-led coalition to defeat Islamic State will continue to provide assistance to groups comprising the Syrian Democratic Forces in eastern Syria “as long as they remain committed to the goal of fighting and defeating ISIS.” In response to an inquiry by The Jerusalem Post, the coalition said it “continues to provide material support, training, advice and assistance to the SDF in their ongoing effort to defeat ISIS in Syria.”
On Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu claimed US President Donald Trump had stated in a conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that weapons would not be given to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria. Turkey alleges that the YPG is the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which it and other countries consider a terrorist organization. Read more…
The Trudeau government’s plan to bring in close to one million new immigrants within the next three years should be of serious concern to Canadians. Next year alone, the numbers are expected to reach 310,000 but to that total must be added approximately 900,000 temporary foreign workers and foreign students who will be living in Canada. Since most of the newcomers will be settling in three of our major cities, the pressure on infrastructure and local services will be extreme.
Canada’s current immigration policy is based on myths. All of our political parties, most of the news media, big business interests, the banks and land developers favour large-scale immigration and justify this on the grounds that immigration helps our economy, strengthens the labour force and alleviates our aging problem. Read more…
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince on Sunday vowed to “pursue terrorists until they are wiped from the face of the earth” as officials from 40 Muslim countries gathered in the first meeting of an Islamic counter-terrorism alliance, AFP reported.
“In past years, terrorism has been functioning in all of our countries… with no coordination” among national authorities, said Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also Saudi defense minister, in his keynote address to the gathering in Riyadh.
“This ends today, with this alliance,” he added. Read more…
The majority of international opinion is anti-Israel and all too often, antisemitic.
That anti-Israelism has been voiced and acted on by a majority of nations and national collectives such as the European Union (EU) or the 57 Muslim UN member nations of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
It has long been the status quo at the UN and its many agencies such as UNRWA, UNESCO and the UNHRC that stack their leadership with anti-Israel and antisemitic representatives.
That anti-Israelism is also contributed to by countless organizations, most with a global reach.
These include anti-Israel Non-governmental organizations that are largely funded by anti-Israel governments: https://www.ngo-monitor.org/
Steve Bannon: The last time I was in this room was a couple years ago. I made a film, “Occupy Unmasked,” about that war starring David Horowitz and Andrew Breitbart, which was actually the film we were making when Andrew passed away and David was kind enough to take a bigger role in that. But that film, I think, showed the precursor of a lot of what laid the groundwork for the Trump victory. Read more…