Review of Behind the Silken Curtain

by Amir Taheri, GATESTONE  •  April 20, 2022

• “If my experiences in the days and weeks devoted to this problem have taught me any one thing, it is that everywhere the need is felt for an American foreign policy — a foreign policy so firmly embedded on principle that it will hold equally for United States troops in China or the atom bomb, or Palestine.” — Bartley Crum.
• [Crum’s] account … clearly shows that President Truman, who always… sided with the forces of freedom and progress, was often opposed by his own State Department that practiced a value-free diplomacy in the name of preserving the status quo.
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by Judith Bergman, GATESTONE  •  April 20, 2022

• If Saudi Arabia were to break the tradition of pricing its oil in US dollars, as it is contemplating doing, others could well start to price oil in Chinese yuan or other currencies — negatively affecting the US dollar’s status and potentially the entire US economy.
• “China must brace for a full-blown escalation of the struggle with the United States and prepare to gradually decouple the Chinese yuan from the US dollar.” — Zhou Li, former deputy director of the Communist Party’s International Liaison Department, South China Morning Post, July 5, 2020.
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T. Belman.   Retired Swiss Military-Intelligence Officer: ‘Is it Possible to Actually Know What Has Been And is Going on in Ukraine?’ I sent this very important article to my friend Alex Markovsky. as I thought he would be very interested in it. He holds degrees in economics and political science from the University of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow

He wrote back to inform me that he wrote a very similar sentiment five years ago.

His article reminded me of the satirical movie, The Mouse  That Roared. In it, a small principality, in dire financial straits, decided to declare war on the United States, then surrender, taking advantage of American largesse toward its defeated enemies to rebuild the defeated nation’s economy.

By Alexander G. Markovsky, AM THINKER     Mar 26, 2017

The future of American-Russian relations and the balance of power in Europe will – at least in the short run – depend on a resolution of the Ukrainian conflict.

While  President Trump expresses the desire to have good relations with Russia, his UN envoy Nikki Haley stated, “The United States continues to condemn and call for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea.” She added, “Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine”– the administration unaware, apparently, that the historical experience of “return” is hardly a Russian specialty.
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TIERNEY NEWS

 Whistleblowers, who will be featured in Dinesh’s upcoming documentary called 2000 Mules, said that evidence of voter fraud was presented to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich in August 2020, before the stolen 2020 election, but he chose to do nothing about it.

“They could have stopped this.”

Two men in Yuma County, Arizona, David Lara and Gary Snyder, took down a San Luis ballot trafficking operation using undercover cameras during the 2020 primary election. Their evidence, which was presented to Arizona AG Mark Brnovich, resulted in felony forgery and conspiracy charges filed against Guillermina Fuentes, a member of the San Luis School District Board.

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My sentiments exactly

In a triumphant moment, Israel’s flag was hoisted over the newly conquered Temple Mount—then quickly taken down.

By Yossi Klein Halevi, THE ATLANTIC  June 7 2017

Israeli commander Motta Gur and his brigade observe the Temple Mount during the 1967 War (Government Press Office / Reuters )

In June 6, 1967, Major Arik Achmon, chief intelligence officer for Brigade 55 of Israel’s paratrooper reservists, celebrated his 34th birthday while standing on a rooftop in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood that overlooked no-man’s-land, a strip of minefields and barbed wire and fortified bunkers separating Israeli-held West Jerusalem from Jordanian-held East Jerusalem. Raising binoculars, he could see little through the near-total darkness and the smoke rising from artillery shells falling on either side of the urban divide. But when he radioed headquarters, seeking an update on Jordanian troop movements, the answer was the same he’d been receiving all day: Sorry, we know as little as you do.
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T. Belman. Under no conditions should Bennett agree to this. It is unthinkable that the Muslims would have sovereignty over the Temple Mount in the heart of Israel. We have Gen Moshe Dayan to thank for this. It is one thing to turn over control of the Al Aqsa Mosque, the alleged third holiest site in Islam, to the Jordan Wakf, it is another thing to turn over the whole Temple Mount, the undisputed holiest site in Judaism.

It is for this reason I discussed this with Mudar Zahran and he said if he becomes the leader of Jordan, he will not want to be in charge of the Wakf and suggested Israel should set up an Israeli Wakf run by Israeli Muslims. I publicly raised the idea that a perimeter should be set up around the Al Aksa Mosque within which the Walk would have control but that the rest of the Temple Mount would be recognized as a Jewish holy site.

After suspending cooperation with coalition, Ra’am presents list of demands to remain in the government,

Israel National News    18.04.22

Mansour AbbasYonatan Sindel/Flash90

The Ra’am party has submitted its conditions for remaining part of the coalition to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, maintaining the status quo at the Temple Mount under which Jews are banned from any form of prayer at their holiest site, Channel 12 News reported.

In addition, the party demands an agreed outline for the implementation of the economic five-year plan within a year, accelerating the recognition and regulation of villages in the Negev and expanding the program to eradicate crime and violence in the Arab sector.

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T. Belman. When I started promoting the Jordan Option, it was necessary for me to point out the many ways Jordan under Abdullah II’s rule was our enemy. I posted many articles to this effect. The general attitude in America and Israel towards him was to view him without blemish. So I am very please to see this headline. Israel has finally had enough. I predict that the Hashemite kingdom will come to an end very soon. Apparently Jordan was behind much of the violence during Ramadan.

Israeli leaders say Jordan supporting, encouraging violence on Temple Mount.

Israel National News  18.04.22 

Security forces clash with rioters on the Temple Mount  Shulo Shalom/TPS

Israel is considering possible responses to the conduct of the Jordanian foreign minister, who summoned an Israeli representative to Jordan for a clarification call.

Political sources claim that Jordan’s conduct in recent days has encouraged tensions in Jerusalem and backed Arab riots in the Old City of Jerusalem.

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https://rumble.com/v11gxvu-vaxxed-pilot-goes-into-cardiac-arrest-in-cockpit-freedom-flyers-expose-mass.html

This exposee is similar to this one.

A Jaw-Dropping 769 Athletes have Collapsed While Competing Over The Past Year –

A lesson from the past about choosing freedom over servitude

BY Alana Newhouse, TABLET   APRIL 14, 2022

This weekend, millions of people will sit around Seder tables and memorialize the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.

Guided by the Haggadah, or Passover text—one of the most popular Jewish books ever written—Seder participants are led along in a series of prayers, texts, and activities. We talk and talk and talk about the miracle of liberation; we parse the details of its unfolding, enumerating the many miracles involved; we go over whether we are supposed to commemorate the blessing of freedom only in this life or also in the next one; we assert in words and song the gratitude we feel for being the lucky descendants of those who escaped from slavery.
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By Jacques Baud, The Unz Review   Sat, 02 Apr 2022

[…] Just recently I came across perhaps the clearest and most reasonable account of what has been going on in Ukraine. Its importance comes due to the fact that its author, Jacques Baud, a retired colonel in the Swiss intelligence service, was variously a highly placed, major participant in NATO training operations in Ukraine. Over the years, he also had extensive dealings with his Russian counterparts. His long essay first appeared (in French) at the respected Centre Français de Recherche sur le Renseignement. A literal translation appeared at The Postil (April 1, 2022). I have gone back to the original French and edited the article down some and rendered it, I hope, in more idiomatic English. I do not think in editing it I have damaged Baud’s fascinating account. For in a real sense, what he has done is “to let the cat out of the bag.” — Boyd D. Cathay
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T. Belman.  I totally support the burning of a Koran as an expression of free speech. Neither the Swedes nor the Israeli Jews should be intimidated by the ensuing riots. We should not succumb to the anti-blasphemy laws. Muslims are free to enact any laws they wish within Muslim dominated countries, but they have to respect our laws in our countries. They are allowed to peacefully protest. We must not be intimidated.

That is not to say that we should make a practice of burning Korans. The opposite, we should be cordial and expect the same from them.

By Kent Ekeroth, ISLAMISM NEWS April 18, 2022

Muslims rioted in six cities in Sweden over Easter weekend.

The riots began soon after a Danish-Swedish politician, Rasmus Paludan, leader of the Stram Kurs (“Hard Line”) political party, lit a Koran on fire last Thursday. His stated goal was to emphasize the right to free speech in Sweden and highlight the threat to freedom Islamists present in the country.
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By Judi McLeod. CFP

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who brands Canadians who disagree with his dictator-like policies “racists”, is now warning them against what he calls “excessive populism and overnationalism.”

Nobody should be surprised that “nationalism” would be scorned by a prime minister who completely caved in with the Klaus Schwab-led Great Reset that awarded him a Soapbox of Sanctimony in order to bring other countries into the hypocrisy of so-called building back better.

As Theo Fleury says, “We’re headed to you’ll own nothing and be happy territory.”
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By Thomas Lifson, AM THINKER

Conservative Marine Le Pen will face France’s President Emmanuel Macron next Sunday in a runoff election for the presidency of France. Quite obviously, Le Pen’s nationalism and scares the transnationalists in Brussels and they have now retaliated. The UK Guardian reports:

The European Union’s anti-fraud body has accused Marine Le Pen and several of her party members – including her father – of embezzling about €620,000 while serving as members of the European parliament.

France’s investigative website Mediapart published a section of the new 116-report alleging that the MEPs misused EU funds for national party purposes.

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Ideology, unlike philosophy, seeks to remake human nature.

By Thaddeus G. McCotter, AM GREATNESS April 15, 2022

In what seems like a lifetime ago, a friend explained to me his thumbnail distinction between philosophy and ideology. Philosophy requires one to fit one’s mind to the world; ideology compels one to fit the world to one’s mind. The crux was how each viewed human nature: philosophy accepted the imperfectability of human nature; ideology demanded its perfection.

Within this admittedly narrow limning, one can see how philosophy and ideology respond when confronted by reality. By accepting the imperfectability of human nature, a philosophic attitude encourages intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and societal growth. By rejecting the imperfectability of human nature and recognizing instead only the capricious whims of untrammeled will, the horrific consequences of the ideologues’ effort to fit the world to their minds can be seen from Paris during the 18th-century Reign of Terror and Stalin’s purges to Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” and the killing fields of Cambodia.

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If true, the Biden team’s reported grovelling to Tehran is beyond shocking

By Melanie Phillips   Apr 17

The Battle of Israel and Amalek; Luca Giordano, 1634-1705

I have written many times — as here, here, and here — about the astonishing desperation of the Biden administration to make a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme.

If the Obama administration had some of us scratching our heads in horror over its 2015 deal which guaranteed an Iranian path to nuclear weapons with at best only a few years’ delay, the successor deal on the verge of being agreed by the Biden team was shaping up to be very much worse.

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T. Belman. I am told that the criticism by Arab peace partners of how the IDF handled the riots, should not concern us. They are with us. Only Jordan really meant the criticism. That also should not concern us as time will tell.

With the Temple Mount now at the epicenter of tensions, Israel fears violence might spill over to the Gaza Strip

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ  Apr 18/22

Israeli security forces on the Temple Mount on Friday.Credit: Ohad Zweigenberg

Nearly a month since the beginning of the current wave of terrorism, the security situation still seems unstable. The focus of the current friction is Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount in particular. The danger of full-scale eruption there, which could hover over the city throughout the week and perhaps throughout the current Muslim holy month of Ramadan, could also cause a larger, regional conflagration.

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