I just realized that today's update was never posted - so this post will cover this morning and this evening's news:
The Washington Post reports that some members of Secretary of State John Kerry’s senior staff think it’s time to say “enough” of Kerry’s futile and delusional attempts to broker peace between the Israelis and Arabs and implement the “two-state solution.” That’s a revelation one would think the chief diplomat of the greatest power in history would have experienced decades ago.
Since the failed 1993 Oslo Accords, it has been obvious to all except the duplicitous, the ignorant, and the Jew-hater that the Arabs do not want a “Palestinian state living in peace side-by-side with Israel,” something they could have had many times in the past. On the contrary, as they serially prove in word and deed, they want Israel destroyed.
As Caroline Glick documents in her new book The Israeli Solution, the “two-state solution” is a diplomatic chimera for the West, and a tactic for revanchist Arabs who cannot achieve their eliminationist aims by military means. But the “Palestinian state” is merely one of many myths, half-truths, and outright lies that befuddle Western diplomats and leaders, and put the security and possibly the existence of Israel at risk.
First there is the canard that Israel is somehow an illegitimate state, a neo-imperialist outpost that Westerners created to protect their economic and geopolitical interests. In this popular myth, invading Jewish colonists “stole” the land and ethnically cleansed the region of its true possessors, the indigenous “Palestinian people.” This crime was repeated after 1967 Six Day War, when Israel seized the “West Bank,” occupying it as a colonial power and subjecting its inhabitants to a brutally discriminatory regime. The continuing power of this lie can be seen in the frequent comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa. And this false historical analogy in turn drives the “Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions” movement, which is attempting to make Israel even more of a pariah state in order to duplicate the success of those tactics in dismantling white rule in South Africa.
Every dimension of this narrative is false. The state of Israel came into being by the same legitimate process that created the other new states in the region, the consequence of the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Consistent with the traditional practice of victorious states, the Allied powers France and England created Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan, and of course Israel, to consolidate and protect their national interests.
Then there is the melodrama of the “displacement” of the “Palestinians,” who have been condemned to live as stateless “refugees” because of Israel’s aggression. This narrative of course ignores the fact that most of the Arabs fleeing Palestine left voluntarily, the first wave, mainly the Arab elite, beginning in November 1947 with the U.N. vote for partition.
These were followed in 1948 by 300,000 others, who either were avoiding the conflict, or were induced by the Arab Higher Committee with the promise that after victory they could return and find, as Arab League Secretary-General Azza Pasham said in May 1948, “that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean.”
In still another historical anomaly, in no other conflict have refugees failed to be integrated into countries with which they share an ethnic, religious, and cultural identity. Most of the some 800,000 Jews, for example, driven from lands like Egypt and Iraq in which their ancestors had lived for centuries, were welcomed into Israel, which footed the bill for their maintenance and integration into society. The Arab states, on the other hand, kept their brother Arabs and Muslims in squalid camps that have evolved into squalid cities, their keep paid for by the United Nations Relief Works Agency, the only U.N. agency dedicated to only one group of refugees. Thus the international community has enabled the revanchist policy of the Arab states, as Alexander Galloway, head of the UNRWA, said in 1952: “It is perfectly clear that the Arab nations do not want to solve the Arab refugee problem. They want to keep it an open sore, as an affront against the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”
This brings us to the chief myth: that there exists a distinct Palestinian “people,” the original possessors of the land who have been unjustly denied a national homeland. In the quotes above notice that no Arab ever refers to these people as “Palestinians,” but as “Arabs,” which is what most of them are, sharing the same religion, language, and culture of their Arab neighbors in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. In fact, as Sha’i ben-Tekoa documents in hisbook Phantom Nation, the first U.N. resolution referencing “Palestinians” instead of “Arabs” occurred 3 years after the Six Day War, marking international recognition of a “Palestinian people” and nation as yet another Arab tactic in gaining support in the West by exploiting an idea alien to traditional Islam. Before then “Palestinian” was a geographical designation, more typically applied to Jews. Numerous quotations from Arab leaders reveal not a single reference to a Palestinian people, but numerous one identifying the inhabitants of the geographical entity Palestine as “Arabs.”
Such an inversion is worthy of Orwell’s 1984. Yet these lies and myths––and there are many more–– have shaped and defined the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, and set the parameters of diplomatic solutions. But we should heed the Biblical injunction about the liberating power of truth. And the truth is, for a century fanatics filled with genocidal hatred have violently and viciously attacked a liberal-democratic nation legitimately established in the ancient homeland of its people. Until our diplomacy and foreign relations in the region are predicated on this truth, the “two-state solution” will continue to be a dangerous farce.
Pro-Russian activists barricaded inside a government building in eastern Ukraine proclaimed the region independent Monday and called for a referendum on seceding from Ukraine - an ominous echo of the events that led to Russia's annexation of Crimea.
The Ukrainian government vowed to quell the unrest, while Russia, which has tens of thousands of troops stationed along their joint border, warned Ukraine of more "difficulties and crises" if its leaders failed to heed Moscow's demands.
Pro-Russian activists who had seized the provincial administrative building in the city of Donetsk over the weekend announced the formation Monday of the independent Donetsk People's Republic. They also called for a referendum on the possible secession of the Donetsk region, which borders Russia, to be held no later than May 11, according to the Interfax news agency.
Government buildings were also seized in two neighboring Russian-speaking Ukrainian cities - Kharkiv and Luhansk - and top government officials headed there to try to quell the unrest.
But as of late Monday, the buildings in all three cities remained occupied by pro-Russian activists whom authorities said were armed.
In Kiev, President Oleksandr Turchinov described the developments in eastern Ukraine as an operation undertaken by Russia to sow instability.
The Russian Foreign Ministry urged Ukraine to halt any interior military preparations, which could instigate a civil war in the country, the ministry was quoted as saying on its Facebook.com account.
According to numerous reports, Ukraine is redeploying special task police units from all over the country to the southeastern regions of Ukraine in a bid to thwart anti-government protests, which flared up over the weekend. “According to our information, units of the Interior troops and Ukraine’s national guards as well as militants from the illegal armed formation ‘The Right Sector’ are being amassed in the southeastern parts of Ukraine and in the city of Donetsk,” the ministry said.
“We are particularly concerned that the operation involves some 150 American mercenaries from a private company Greystone Ltd., dressed in the uniform of the [Ukrainian] special task police unit Sokol,” the ministry said. “Organizers and participants of such incitement are assuming a huge responsibility for threatening upon the rights, freedoms and lives of Ukrainian citizens as well as the stability of Ukraine,” the ministry added.
U.S. Arms Syrian Rebels With First Heavy Weapons, Anti-Tank BGM-71 Tow Missiles - Raising War Stakes
Two Syrian rebel militias judged moderate in Washington have in the last few days taken delivery and begun using – mostly in the Idlib region - the first advanced US weapon to be deployed in more than three years of civil war...It is the heavy anti-tank, optically-tracked, wire-guided BGM-71 TOW, which is capable of piercing 500mm thickness of Syrian tank armor and Syrian fortifications at a range of 4 kilometers. Armed with this weapon now are Brig-Gen. Abdul-Hila al Bashir, the new commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army, which is headquartered at the Golan town of Quneitra, and Jamal Maarouf, head of the rebel Syrian Revolutionary Front fighting in the north.
The appearance of this advanced missile radically alters the balance of strength on the Syrian battlefield. It also denotes a striking change in Obama administration policy, which hitherto flatly resisted every demand to provide Syrian rebel groups with the heavy arms essential for them to have any chance of standing up to Bashar Assad’s superior military strength.
Our sources report that in the last few days, the new weapons are being airlifted in through two routes: the southeastern Turkish town of Diyarbakir on the Tigris, and the giant northern Saudi King Faisal Air Base at Tabuk near the Jordanian border.
To save his tanks, Assad has shifted the brunt of his anti-rebel operation to heavy air force bombardments, which claim a heavy toll among civilians.
Washington is therefore confronted with its next decision about whether to give the rebels sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons as well.
According to our sources in Washington and Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov obtained from US Secretary of State John Kerry a commitment, when they met in Paris last week, not to supply the rebels with hand held anti-aircraft missiles.
According to our sources in Washington and Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov obtained from US Secretary of State John Kerry a commitment, when they met in Paris last week, not to supply the rebels with hand held anti-aircraft missiles.
Niijima is Japan’s newest island located in the Philippine Sea that has consistently grown in size since its inception in November. A NASA satellite image from March 30 found that Niijima merged with nearby island Nishino-shima.
Niijima resulted from a seafloor volcano that sprouted in the western Pacific Ocean this past November. It is located 600 miles south of Tokyo in the Pacific “Ring of Fire, which spans from the coast Chile to Alaska and Siberia and then south to New Zealand. The volcanic island has not stopped erupting since November.
As a result of the nonstop eruption, Niijima recently merged with another nearby volcanic island, Nishino-shima. The newly formed island is about 3,280 feet across and sits 196 feet above sea level. The southern portion of the landmass continues to show volcanic activity as ashes are rising from the island’s surface.
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Volcano Shiveluch has erupted ash at an altitude of six kilometres above sea level in Russian Far East’s Ust-Kamchatsky municipal entity, Kamchatka branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences geophysical service stated on Sunday.
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A volcano in central Ecuador has spewed up a column of hot ash and smoke 10 kilometres high, increasing fears of an eruption.
Activity has been building at the Tungurahua volcano 130 kilometres south of the capital Quito since early February.
On Friday (Saturday Australian time), experts reported a loud explosion that lasted for five minutes and an expulsion of ash.
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday has declined to hear Elane Photography v. Willock, the case of a photographer who was told by the New Mexico Supreme Court that she must, as “the price of citizenship,” use her creative talents to communicate a message with which she disagrees or suffer punishment.
Nonetheless, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Elane Photography and its owners, Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin, point out that the central concern in the case—government punishment of Americans for declining to create or promote messages with which they disagree—is alive in other ADF cases moving forward around the country.
“Only unjust laws separate what people say from what they believe,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence. “The First Amendment protects our freedom to speak or not speak on any issue without fear of punishment. We had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would use this case to affirm this basic constitutional principle; however, the court will likely have several more opportunities to do just that in other cases of ours that are working their way through the court system.”
“Americans oppose unjust laws that strong-arm citizens to express ideas against their will,” added Senior Counsel David Cortman. “Elaine and numerous others like her around the country have been more than willing to serve any and all customers, but they are not willing to promote any and all messages. A government that forces any American to create a message contrary to her own convictions is a government every American should fear.”
A July 2013 Rasmussen poll found that 85 percent of Americans believe a Christian photographer has the right to say no if asked to create pictures at a same-sex ceremony that conflicts with the photographer’s religious beliefs. The editorial boards of both The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Times agreed.
A Christian couple in Pakistan have become the latest to be sentenced to death for blasphemy, after they were accused of sending a text message deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.
Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, from the eastern town of Gojra, were sentenced after what the couple's lawyer said was a case motivated by a personal grudge.
Maulvi Mohammed Hussain, a Muslim leader from a mosque in Gojra, lodged the complaint last year, claiming that Mr Emmanuel had used his wife's mobile phone to send the offending message. Nadeem Hassan, the couple's lawyer, said that the couple denied the offence and that the text message originated from a mobile phone that had been lost beforehand.
Mr Hassan said a "bogus SIM card" was presented as evidence. "The complainant was involved in a dispute with the pair and had made a threat with the full knowledge that they would face the death penalty," he said. An appeal against the sentencing will be presented to the High Court in Lahore today
The level of employment in the United States has been declining since the year 2000. There have been moments when things have appeared to have been getting better for a short period of time, and then the decline has resumed. Thanks to the offshoring of millions of jobs, the replacement of millions of workers with technology and the overall weakness of the U.S. economy, the percentage of Americans that are actually working is significantly lower than it was when this century began. And even though things have stabilized at a reduced level over the past few years, it is only a matter of time until the next major wave of the economic collapse strikes and the employment level goes even lower. And the truth is that more good jobs are being lost every single day in America. For example, as you will read about below, Warren Buffett is shutting down a Fruit of the Loom factory in Kentucky and moving it to Honduras just so that he can make a little bit more money. We see this kind of betrayal over and over again, and it is absolutely ripping the middle class of America to shreds.
Below I have posted a chart that you never hear any of our politicians talk about. It is a chart that shows how the percentage of working age Americans with a job has steadily declined since the turn of the century. Just before the last recession, we were sitting at about 63 percent, but now we have been below 59 percent since the end of 2009...
All of a sudden, the Nasdaq is absolutely tanking. On Monday, it fell more than 1 percent after dropping 3.6 percent on Thursday and Friday combined. At this point, the Nasdaq is off to the worst start to a year that we have seen since 2008, and we all remember what happened back then. So why is this happening? In recent years, the Nasdaq has been ground zero for "dotcom bubble 2.0". The hottest stocks in the entire world are on the Nasdaq - we are talking about stocks like Yahoo, Netflix, Apple, Tesla, Google and Facebook. Those stocks have gone to absolutely incredible heights, but now they are starting to fall. Some are blaming insider selling, and without a doubt the "smart money" is starting to flee the stock market. Just check out this chart. Others are blaming low expectations for first-quarter earnings or the tapering of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve. But whatever is causing this decline, it is starting to get alarming. The Nasdaq just experienced its largest three day fall since November 2011.
No stock can resist gravity forever. What goes up must eventually come down. This is especially true for stock prices that become grot
Many have compared the current state of affairs to 2008, but to me what is happening right now is eerily reminiscent of 2007. The Dow soared to record heights quite a few times that year, but there were constant rumblings of economic trouble in the background. Stocks began to drop steadily late in the year, and 2008 ultimately turned out to be an utter bloodbath.
I believe that what is happening right now is setting the stage for another financial bloodbath. I truly believe that we will look back on this two year time period and regard it as a major "turning point" for America.
And as I have written about previously, we are in far worse shape as a nation than we were back in 2008. We have far more debt, the "too big to fail banks" have a much larger share of the banking industry, the derivatives bubble has gotten completely and totally out of control, and our overall economy is far weaker than it was back then.
In other words, we are now even more vulnerable. When the next great financial crisis strikes us, it is going to be absolutely crippling.
Now is not the time to get complacent.
Now is the time to get prepared, because time is running out.
For 20 years, a tough-as-leather Nevada rancher and the federal government have been locked in a bitter range war over cattle grazing rights.
This weekend the confrontation got worse, when the feds hired contract cowboys to start seizing Cliven Bundy's cattle, which have been grazing on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The government officials brought a show of force that included dozens of armed agents in SUVs and helicopters.
Bundy, 67, who has been a rancher all his life, accuses BLM of stampeding over on his rights.
“This is a lot bigger deal than just my cows,” Bundy told FoxNews.com. “It’s a statement for freedom and liberty and the Constitution.”
The fight involves a 600,000-acre area under BLM control called Gold Butte, near the Utah border. The vast and rugged land is the habitat of the protected desert tortoise, and the land has been off-limits for cattle since 1998. Five years before that, when grazing was legal, Bundy stopped paying federal fees for the right.
“For more than two decades, cattle have been grazed illegally on public lands in northeast Clark County,” the BLM said in a statement. “BLM and (the National Park Service) have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially. Impoundment of cattle illegally grazing on public lands is an option of last resort.”
But Bundy said he has grazed cattle on the land for decades, and his father and father's father did long before his 1,000 cattle roamed the area. He has long defied orders from bureaucrats he says are bent on running him out of business.
Just before the round-up began this weekend, Bundy said federal agents surrounded his 150-acre ranch. His son was arrested on Sunday in an incident involving the agents.
“They’ve been bringing men in and equipment and setting up a compound,” Bundy told FoxNews.com Monday. “They got helicopters flying low. They got snipers around the ranch. Our access to public lands has been blocked.”
Back at the ranch, Bundy's wife Carol said she and her husband were not looking for trouble.
“We’re not pointing guns at anyone, but we’re sure getting a lot of guns pointed at us,” she said.
The trouble started when Bundy stopped paying grazing fees in 1993. He said he didn't have to because his Mormon ancestors worked the land since the 1880s, giving him rights to the land.
“We own this land,” he said, not the feds. He said he is willing to pay grazing fees but only to Clark County, not BLM.
“Years ago, I used to have 52 neighboring ranchers,” he said. “I’m the last man standing. How come? Because BLM regulated these people off the land and out of business.”
He said he won’t let the feds do that to him.
“I said, ‘No.’ Then, ‘Hell, no,’” he said.
BLM said in a statement two judges ordered Bundy to remove his cattle from Gold Butte. The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, said the federal action was long overdue.
“Despite having no legal right to do so, cattle from Bundy’s ranch have continued to graze throughout the Gold Butte area, competing with tortoises for food, hindering the ability of plants to recover from extensive wildfires, trampling rare plants, damaging ancient American Indian cultural sites and threatening the safety of recreationists,” Rob Mrowka, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement.
Supporters of Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy violated a “First Amendment Area” by staging a rally in support of Bundy, who earlier declared a “range war” against federal authorities in response to a land dispute that threatens to escalate into a Waco-style standoff.
The feds say the move is about enforcing the law and protecting the endangered desert tortoise, but the Bundy family says the spat represents a showdown between big government and American farmers.
“We’ve had enough, we’re going to take our land back, we’re done,” said Bundy’s wife, Carol Bundy, adding that the rally was held “to show that we are not standing alone. People are getting tired of the federal government having unlimited power.”
More than 100 supporters violated a crudely taped off “First Amendment Area” to rally in support of the Bundy family, erecting two flagpoles with the words “We the People” attached, above a flag which read, “Liberty Freedom For God We Stand”. The first amendment area stood empty, with one sign nearby declaring, “1st Amendment is not an area.”
“I grew up on this ranch. This is what we knew,” said Margaret Houston, Cliven Bundy’s younger sister. “It’s got nothing to do with the cattle and the tortoises. It’s about taking our rights — power — and it’s wrong.”
“Right now it looks like the movie Red Dawn, said, Ryan Bundy. “Right now we’ve got 200 plus federal agents up there in a military compound that they have put together and they’ve got snipers….everybody’s armed, and they’ve been monitoring our ranch with high-tech surveillance equipment….it was never about the grazing fees, it’s about control.”
Ranch manager Derrel Spencer warned that a “revolution” was brewing unless a solution could be found to settle the dispute.
As we reported yesterday in an article that has already garnered over 4300 comments, Bundy’s son Dave Bundy was arrested on Sunday by BLM officials after refusing to follow a dispersal order as he filmed cattle from a state highway. According to Dave’s brother Ryan Bundy, snipers had guns trained on them throughout the incident. Feds claimed Dave Bundy had violated the ludicrous “First Amendment Area,” outside of which free speech is banned.
The Bundy family posted still images of snipers who trained guns on them in the video below.
After his son’s arrest, Cliven Bundy posted a statement on his website which read, “They have my cattle and now they have one of my boys. Range War begins tomorrow.”
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department asserts that the actions against Bundy are a “federal operation,” while the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association told ABC News, “This has gotten way out of hand,” while refusing to become involved.
Evening Updates:
Arizona Rancher vs Federal Government Reaching A Tipping Point
Kerry Focuses Blame On Israel
WHO: West African Ebola Outbreak 'Most Challenging' Ever
Kerry Focuses Blame On Israel
WHO: West African Ebola Outbreak 'Most Challenging' Ever
Ain't that cute....
ReplyDeleteAbas of the PA essentially walks out and stabs Bibi and Kerry (US) in the back, says he's finished with the US and Kerry blames Israel.
But then we heard this was the plan months ago, didn't we.
And now, with us blaming Israel, the EU is free to start embargoes and sanctions on Israeli goods/services.
Nice, neat little package....ain't it.
I think I'm getting sick......