This past week with the swearing in of the so-called unity government, two sides of the Palestinian coin were joined together in maniacal matrimony. With an unrepentant charter sworn to annihilation of not only Israel but world Jewry, Hamas and the equally corrupt and hateful Fatah have ratified their reconciliation agreed to this past April.
But what else is new -- this isn’t really shocking news. The maneuver is just another pointless alteration in a never- ending Palestinian Arab attempt at weakening Israel politically with the goal of one day destroying her militarily.
Europeans had no problem recognizing this new terrorist, Jew-hating government.
On Monday, literally moments before most world leaders applauded this union, the Guardian printed the following article: “Israel strikes Gaza and Syria in Response to Rocket Attacks.” So in other words, there is no abatement of attacks upon Israel -- but now Fatah, the “good terrorists” can keep professing peace in the diplomatic halls of Europe while pursuing jihad aligned with the “bad terrorists” Hamas. Not surprisingly, none of this seems to matter to the EU or the UN.
And the U.S.? Once again successfully employing the tactic of deflecting one scandal by engaging in another, Obama, fresh off a litany of severe faux pas, refuses to cut off aid to the new “government.”
This past Monday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki echoed the EU mantra: “the U.S. would judge the new government between Fatah and Hamas by its actions, including its commitment to nonviolence and recognition of Israel.” A lion will make friends with a zebra before this happens.
Irrespective of the circumstances, our intrepid leader never fears contravening the U.S. Constitution when in pursuit of a pet policy. And he’s clearly in violation of U.S. law on this one.
On Wednesday, Rep. Iieana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), author of the 2006 Anti-Terrorism Act, called for an immediate suspension of U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority, stating, “the 2006 law, passed after Hamas won that year's legislative elections, prohibits support for a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority." Across the aisle, Nita Lowey (D-NY) a strong supporter of President Obama, stated that the Palestinian move "jeopardizes US assistance."
The marriage of Hamas and the PA, accepted as a legitimate entity by the world body, should be final proof to the Israeli people that pursuing a “two state solution” is folly. No amount of concession, no acquiescence of land will ever satiate a Hamas/Fatah appetite. For that matter, nothing short of total capitulation by Israel does will satisfy a Europe enmeshed in re-emergent anti-Semitism either.
Given Obama’s glaringly inept handling of foreign affairs, Israel is now making unilateral moves not seen in nearly six years. This past Sunday, in response to the Fatah-Hamas move, Israel approved construction of 3,000 new housing units beyond the Green Line. Just months ago, in the midst of the John Kerry “peace talk” obsession, it’s highly unlikely they would have done so. It appears that statements such as, “Israel is our friend, our strong ally.” made by Kerry this past week in Lebanon are beginning to ring hollow to Israeli policymakers.
As expected, the drone of protest from the usual cast of characters has begun. Effusive in their praise of an emergent terrorist government, the Europeans saved their ire for Israel today following the announcement of an additional 1466 new housing starts.
A spokesperson from the EU issued the following statement:
"We are deeply disappointed that the Israeli Land Administration has published new tenders for 1,466 housing units in settlements in east Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank," the statement read. "This move is unhelpful to peace efforts." Peace efforts? Are we missing something here?
the statement went on:
"We call on the Israeli authorities to reverse this decision and to direct all their efforts towards an early resumption of the peace talks." As if in the real world the onus should be on Israel.
Some might question why the EU didn’t first ask the new unity government to renounce the Hamas Charter of 1988 which calls for the destruction of Israel and the killing of all Jews within. At the Lebanon conference, Kerry went on to say:
"We are going to be watching (the government) very closely, as we said from day one, to absolutely ensure that it upholds each of those things it has talked about and that it doesn't cross the line.” It makes you wonder if it’s the same line Obama drew for Assad earlier this year.
In the face of such absurdity, a feckless administration, and a biased Europe reminiscent of the 30s, it may be incumbent on Israel go on the offensive, shake off the shackles imposed upon it, and conduct its own foreign policy.
In the wake of the unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas, Hamas has no intention of moderating its stance against Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday morning. Moreover, he added, rather than the Palestinian Authority gaining control over the Gaza Strip, there are signs that the militant Islamic group is making preparations to gain more power in the West Bank.
Instead of the PA taking control of Gaza, “we see more and more signs that the exact opposite will happen. That is to say, that Hamas will gain more control over Palestinian Authority areas in Judea and Samaria,” the prime minister said, using the biblical terms for the southern and northern West Bank.
At the end of last week, the Hamas leadership “again declared its intention to destroy the state of Israel,” and those who thought that the unity Palestinian government would moderate the Islamic movement are “mistaken,” Netanyahu said ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting.
Speaking to Israeli ministers, Netanyahu reiterated his call for international pressure on Abbas to dissolve the unity agreement with Hamas, and said that the issue touched on the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on the prospects for peace.
The prime minister noted that, even with Hamas now in the Palestinian government, Abbas “is obligated to honor all his previous agreements” including “the agreement to demilitarize the areas under Palestinian government control, including, of course, the Gaza Strip.”
In his remarks, Netanyahu also praised the recent announcement by the Australian government that it would no longer refer to East Jerusalem as “occupied” territory, a decision the prime minister said was courageous and refreshing.
Ex-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi took the oath of office as Egypt’s president on Sunday after a landslide election victory following the ouster of Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi last year.
The retired field marshal took the oath in a ceremony at the Constitutional Court broadcast live on television, almost a year since he overthrew Morsi and unleashed a crackdown on his Islamist followers.
The lopsided victory came nearly a year after Sissi toppled president Mohamed Morsi, winning kudos from many Egyptians who had demanded an end to the Islamist’s turbulent one-year rule.
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, crushed by a massive crackdown, boycotted the vote.
Sissi’s main challenges will be to restore stability and revive the economy after three years of turmoil, following a 2011 uprising that ousted strongman Hosni Mubarak.
Following Obama and Putin's "caught on tape" meeting Vine'd by the French President, we can't help but wonder if the Russian leaders comments were something akin to "this is not over yet." With "De-Dollarization" efforts already broadly under discussion, ITAR-TASS reports that Gazprom had signed additional agreements for clients to switch from dollars to euros and renminbi, "nine of ten consumer had agreed to switch."
Gazprom Neft had signed additional agreements with consumers on a possible switch from dollars to euros for payments under contracts, the oil company's head Alexander Dyukov told a press conference.
"Additional agreements of Gazprom Neft on the possibility to switch contracts from dollars to euros are signed. With Belarus, payments in roubles are agreed on," he said.
Dyukov said nine of ten consumers had agreed to switch to euros.
And as we have explained repeatedly in the past, the further the west antagonizes Russia, and the more economic sanctions it lobs at it,the more Russia will be forced away from a USD-denominated trading system and into one which faces China and India.
Tice told PBS and other media that the NSA is spying on – and blackmailing – top government officials and military officers, including Supreme Court Justices, highly-ranked generals, Colin Powell and other State Department personnel, and many other top officials:
Many of Tice’s allegations have been confirmed by other government whistleblowers. And see this.
Washington’s Blog called Tice to find out more about what he saw when he was at NSA.
RUSSELL TICE: We now know that NSA was wiretapping [Senator] Frank Church and another Senator. [That has been confirmed.]
And that got out by accident. All the information the NSA had back then – and probably many other senators and important people too, back in the 70s – they shredded and they destroyed all of that evidence. As much as they could find, they destroyed it all. By accident, something popped up 40 years later.
And, in fact, they were asked 40 years ago whether NSA had bugged Congress. And, of course, they lied. They lied through their teeth.
And the following facts are more important than my personal impression:
- Many of Tice’s allegations have been confirmed by Snowden and other government whistleblowers. And see this
- Soviet leaders were famous for throwing dissidents into psychiatric wards. Unfortunately, the same thing sometimes happens in modern America
Given the way that the NSA has been repeatedly caught in lies about its surveillance programs – and the way that it has attacked whisteblowers – I believe Tice over the NSA.
With the stock market hitting record highs day after day, it is easy to move on and forget that one of American's once premier cities, Detroit, has been bankrupt for nearly a year. But out of mind doesn't mean out of sight, especially now that Google has launched its street view Time Machine, which provides for 7 years worth of street images, capturing the time shift of the tumultuous period period starting in 2007. One blogger who decided to take this time lapse data and apply it to the city of Detroit isGooBing Detroit who, as the following time-lapse photos demonstrate, has captured Detoit's unprecedented slow-motion collapse into death and decay in what is the closest we have to "real time."
Perhaps what is most stunning about the following series of photos is not the ultimate fate of the bankrupt city, but how quickly a once vibrant metropolis has succumbed to blight and sheer desperation.
Hopefully not coming to a street near you.
All photos from the Goobingdetroit tumblr depict various areas and streets in Detroit, then and now.
"Blight, as Karl Baker, one Detroit resident, has seen, tends to spread. Along his block of Hazelridge Street on the East Side, he is the only remaining tenant. “Everyone went bye-bye,” Mr. Baker said the other day as he walked up the center of the silent street to get to his house since no sidewalks had been shoveled.
Most of the houses nearby are standing but abandoned, and visitors have clearly passed through — empty liquor bottles lie along debris-covered floors near broken windows and doors, every memory of a metal appliance or gutter seems to be gone from some of the homes, and two old couches that were dumped along a lawn are now blanketed by a thick layer of snow.
The last neighbor left six months ago, he said, and the single streetlight overhead has not worked for months. “I love the quiet, but if something went wrong, the city isn’t going to come,” Mr. Baker said. “They don’t do anything.”
In ways not seen since at least the McCarthy era, Americans are finding themselves increasingly constrained by a rising class—what I call the progressive Clerisy—that accepts no dissent from its basic tenets. Like the First Estate in pre-revolutionary France, the Clerisy increasingly exercises its power to constrain dissenting views, whether on politics, social attitudes or science.
The current atmosphere of ideological unanimity—in academia, the arts and much of the government bureaucracy—set the stage for the outrages of this commencement season, making painfully palpable the growing authoritarian spirit in so many of our leading institutions. They often see themselves as a liberating force in our society, but in their dislike of conflicting ideas and open debate, today’s Clerisy increasingly resembles the closed-minded dogmatists of the Medieval church
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