by Hugh Fitzgerald | July 12, 2024

John Spencer served in the US Army for twenty-five years, including two tours in Iraq. Since then he been a Professor of Urban Warfare at West Point. Recognized as an expert in his field, John Spencer has become more widely known for his recent writings on the IDF’s conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza. His latest posting on the subject can be found here: “‘Israel is measured by double and triple standards,’ does more than anyone to prevent civilian harm, US warfare expert says,” All Israel News, June 27, 2024:

“Israel is being measured by double and triple standards” in its fighting in Gaza, a standard “that does not exist anywhere in the world,” said John Spencer, head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, at a recent “War Room” briefing in collaboration with the Jerusalem Institute for Public and State Affairs (JCPA).

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Peloni:  The gross lack of logic supporting this newly proposed study speaks loudly of the inconsistencies which are impossible for the ‘vaccine’ hawks to competently respond.  While they suggest the study is in response to “vaccine hesitency”, the reality is that it is in response to public awareness that old ‘safe and effective’ doesn’t mean what they would like you to think it means.  Still, as Siri correctly notes, this study provides an important opportunity for both sides to field their concerns and have a fair and adequate analysis of both the safety and efficacy behind the medical countermeasures.  Yet, I would argue that this is not what the vaccine advocates are actually advocating.  Instead, as we will no doubt come to see, they will use this opportunity to add to their overwhelming pool of data which is selectively collected to convey a predetermined conclusion of “safe and effective” once more.

Dr. Stanley Plotkin, the world’s leading vaccinologist, and his disciples, have just capitulated. After decades of claiming vaccine safety is robustly studied, they just admitted it is not, neither before nor after licensure. But don’t be fooled – read my stack or this long tweet… pic.twitter.com/FAxYgmy678

— Aaron Siri (@AaronSiriSG) July 10, 2024

Daniel Greenfield | July 12, 2024

A scenario they could never have imagined.

When the English arrived in Australia, they discovered tribesmen using curved pieces of wood that they called “bou-mar-rangs” or “boomerangs” which fly away and come back at you.

Politics has lots of boomerangs. The latest throwing stick to fly out and come circling back when least expected was a Democrat conspiracy aimed at keeping Trump out of the White House.

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Will the Huffington Post, the SPLC, and the ADL now apologize?

Robert Spencer | July 12, 2024

For years, national security experts and freedom activists have sounded the alarm about Muslim Brotherhood activity in the United States, only to be tarred and dismissed as hysterical “hatemongers” and “Islamophobes.” Now, however, an internationally prominent former Brotherhood activist has confirmed the warnings. Is he, too, a “hatemonger” and “Islamophobe?”

In a June 6, 2024, interview, Sami al-Arian, a former Palestinian Islamic Jihad organizer, stated that “there was a Muslim Brotherhood movement in America… whose early beginnings were in the late 1960’s.” Asked if it was “registered officially,” al-Arian responded, “No, no. This turned into a problem later on.” Nevertheless, he said, “the Muslim Brotherhood movement existed in America. It consisted of people who were Muslim Brotherhood members in their countries and came to the U.S. to study, or people who studied there.”

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RUSSELL BRAND: “Do you believe that those medications [COVID shots] killed more people than they saved?”

DR. DAVID MARTIN: “What we can say is every single adverse effect was in fact an effect that happened WITHOUT a social benefit. In other words, the cost to society and the… pic.twitter.com/G5sWI5XHTU

— The Vigilant Fox ? (@VigilantFox) July 9, 2024

Full video can be seen here:

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Seth J. Frantzman | FDD | July 11, 2024

The Israel Defense Forces IDF) released the first of what is expected to be numerous inquiries into specific battles and operational failures that took place during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. The first inquiry focuses on the battle for Kibbutz Beeri, where Hamas killed 101 civilians and took 30 hostages. Along with the massacre at the Nova Music Festival and attacks on several other Kibbutzim along the border, Beeri experienced one of the worst death tolls in a single location on October 7.

The findings were released during 40 hours of intense activity on multiple fronts for the IDF and Israel. Israeli forces ended a two-week battle in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Shejaiya on July 10, having eliminated 150 terrorists and destroyed eight tunnels.

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See translations below tweet

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— Abedalelah Almaala (@AbedAlmaala) July 11, 2024

Translations:

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By Alexander G. Markovsky | July 11, 2024

Image: Volodymyr Zelensky at a NATO summit. YouTube screen grab.

NATO’s war against Russia is progressing through three distinct phases: euphoria, apprehension, and despair.

Phase I. Euphoria

The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, caused a sense of euphoria in Washington and at NATO headquarters. The tactic of escalating Moscow’s anxiety about Ukraine’s impending NATO membership had proven successful. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a European Parliament joint committee meeting: “So he (Putin) went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders….”

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Peloni:  No one should be deceived into believing that this bill has even the slightest chance of becoming law, but it does make it clear to the American public that the power and authority of the American people has been replaced by the power and authority of the American elites.

The good news is the SAVE Act preventing illegals from voting in our elections passed the House

The bad news is that 198 Democrats voted against it

They aren’t even pretending anymore

They’re trying to replace Americans with illegal aliens pic.twitter.com/yl0phQhIiB

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) July 10, 2024

Jeffrey A. Tucker | July 9, 2024

Portrait of Ernest Renan (1823-1892) by Antoine Samuel Adams-Salomon (The Art Institute of Chicago/Public Domain)

The year was 1882 and the speaker at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, was the essayist and historian Ernest Renan. His topic: “What Is a Nation?” The thesis rocked the continent and the world. What he called for, in essence, was nations by choice not by force.

I know that it is hard for us today to imagine that the words of any academic intellectual could or would have that impact but times were different. People in those days took intellectuals seriously, probably because they existed and earned their reputations.

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Peloni:  Very revealing analysis.

But it is unlikely to reach its goals

by Stephen Bryen and Shoshana Bryen | WEAPONS AND SECURITY | July 10, 2024

NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  The name should have been changed long ago, when NATO shifted its focus and operations south and eastward. NATO is shifting once again, most seriously by expanding its membership without any serous planning about how to secure its new flanks.

Outgoing NATO Chief  Jens Stoltenberg said last month that China should face consequences for its support of Russia. He wasn’t specific. “It’s too early for me to say exactly… My message is that is… it’s not sustainable and viable that China continues to fuel the biggest security threats … for NATO allies, especially in Europe.”

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Peloni: Avivi condemns what he desribes as the concept of “settlement”, behind which he explains there is only one thing, “losing the war and leaving Hamas intact without achieving the goals of the war, including the failure to return all of the abductees, not to mention Hamas’s ability to re-strengthen endlessly.”  He goes on to explain that this concept will include the notion that Hezbollah is dettered in an attempt to lure the Northern residents to return to their homes.  Avivi warns that this concept will only lead to new fighting in the north and the south and that the only solution to be had is, for the south, to meet the war aims as previously established, and for the north, a campaign pressing Hezbollah back beyond the Litani river.  He rebukes the politicians who are involving themselves in petty politics as they fail to appreciate the magnitude of the threat facing the nation.

Please click on tweet to see full 3-tweet thread

???? ?? ????? ??????? ???? ?????? ??????? ?? ??? ???? ??????? ????? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ??????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ???? ?????? ???? ????????. ????? ?????? ????? ????? ???????? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ??.

— Amir Avivi ???? ????? (@Amir_Avivi) July 10, 2024

Peloni:  With the recent report of the Israeli govt considering giving up control of the Philadelphia Corridor, this analysis becomes even more relevant.

When you only have a hammer. . .

by Will Selber & Bill Rogio | FDD | July 10, 2024

GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS WAS ALL THE RAGE in the mid-2000s. No American general captured the public imagination in the way that he did, in part because he was one of the most prominent advocates of the strategy adopted to turn around the war in Iraq: population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN). For the better part of a decade, the COIN mantra “clear, hold, and build” echoed through the halls of the Pentagon and dominated the debate among the civilian leadership—and of Petraeus it could be said literally that he wrote the book on the subject.

David Galula, Lawrence of Arabia, and Edward Lansdale. The Anbar Awakening and the subsequent Sons of Iraq movement were the gold standard throughout the DoD. For a brief moment, Iraq seemed destined to succeed. However, President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces in 2011 destroyed all that progress. Of note, General Petraeus did not publicly criticize President Obama’s decision. Less than three years later, the Islamic State captured Mosul and declared its caliphate. Ultimately, President Obama reversed course, sending American forces back to Iraq, where they remain today.

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The conflict in Israel’s north and the displacement of tens of thousands cannot continue indefinitely. Something has to give.

Douglas Altabef | July 9, 2024

Israeli soldiers watch the Syrian side of the border in the Golan Heights in northern Israel on Oct. 30, 2023. Photo by Michael Giladi/Flash90.

Franz Kafka would feel right at home in northern Israel.

Life here has a surreal, absurdist character with the indivisible mix of the mundane and the potentially catastrophic. A quiet day has only a handful of rocket or drone attacks and we have become used to incessant plane noise and to looking up and around after a boom or two.

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Daniel Greenfield | July 9, 2024

“Democracy begins with each of us,” Joe Biden, shadowed by two teleprompters and multiple off-stage handlers declared on the beaches of Normandy.

Biden wasn’t celebrating winning WWII so much as the end of the Democrat primaries a day earlier which had handed him Guam and the Virgin Islands. The artfully rigged primaries which had boosted South Carolina while banishing New Hampshire had made Biden the nominee.

All he had to do was get through a debate and a convention. How hard could that be?

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