Genocide of Jews: the declared goal of Hamas

 Ironies, paradoxes and hypocrisy abound in politics and war. At the recent pro-Hamas anti-Israel demonstrations around the world the charge is often made that Israel is perpetrating genocide against Palestinian Arabs [for the demo in Washington, DC, see here]. And this charge is not new as shown by a poster in the US Library of Congress collection.

Ironically, or perhaps as one would expect, the Hamas Charter eagerly looks forward to genocide of the Jews, cast in Islamic terms to be sure. We read in Article 7 [seven] of the Hamas Charter, the following:

... the Prophet of Allah (saas) says: The Last Hour would not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them, and until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say. Muslim or Servant of Allah there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree of Gharqad would not say it, for it is the tree of the Jews (Bukhari and Muslim).3 [this passage is quoted from the translation published by the University of California Press on behalf of the so-called Institute of Palestine Studies]. 

The translation of Prof Raphael Israeli of the Truman Institute for Peace of the Hebrew University has this passage as follows:

The time [= Judgement Day] will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: 0 Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad(17), which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim 18)

[Bukhari and Muslim were medieval compilers of collections of Islamis hadiths]

Prof Israeli points out that "the Egyptian troops who launched the assault on

the Bar-Lev Line in October 1973, were equipped with "booklets of guidance" which included, inter alia, this same quotation."

This passage is preceded in the Charter by this line:

"Hamas is one of the links in the Chain of Jihad in the confrontation with the Zionist invasion"

The translation of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is as follows:

The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem [O Slave of Allah- unexplicably omitted in this translation], there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him." (Article 7)

Ironic is it not that those who accuse Israel of genocide against Palestinian Arabs, not only practice it against Jews, as on October 7, but openly declare that as their goal? Now translations of the Hamas charter have been available for many years but it seems that the general public is unaware of what it says about murdering Jews. The press, the media and the academic world, and the Western foreign ministries pretend not to know of it. Otherwise, could Emanuel Macron, president of France, have distorted what was happening on the ground in the battle of Gaza as he did?

H St-John Philby: British Agent, Muslim convert, Enemy of Israel

 The career of H St-John Philby shows the ambivalence, if not treachery, of British policy towards Jews and Zionism in the twentieth century. Philby is described as an orientalist  meaning that he knew Arabic and several tongues of Muslim peoples in India and Iran and some of the history of that vast area.

Over the years he served the Empire as a diplomat, intelligence officer and political officer. He became a British government official in India in  1907 but his career took off during WW I when he became head of a British army occupation unit in Iraq.  In 1917 he was sent to the Nejd (central Arabia, roughly speaking) to meet its ruler at the time, Abdel-Aziz ibn Sa`ud. Philby's mission was to persuade Ibn Sa`ud not to attack Britain's ally against the Ottoman Empire, Husayn [Hussein] the Hashemite, Sharif of Mecca, recently recognized by the British as King of the Hijaz, NW Arabia, where Mecca and Medina are located. 

Philby was the British Resident in Transjordan in 1921-1924. Now Resident was a clever British imperialist institution. A  Resident was more than a diplomat. A Resident was there not to rule an obstensibly independent country directly  but to give "advice" when requested or needed --from the British standpoint, sometimes the kind of advice that one cannot afford to refuse. The British had assigned Transjordan de facto to Abdullah [also assigned to the Jewish National Home; see clause 25 of the "Mandate for Palestine" of the League of Nations], son of the  Sharif Husayn, as part of their reward to him for military aid during WW One. While Philby was the Resident for Hashemite-ruled Transjordan, The Saudis of the Nejd attacked and conquered the Hijaz [1924-25]. Some believe that Philby encouraged the Saudis to fight and conquer  their old rivals the Hashemites, although he was the Resident in Hashemite-ruled Transjordan. Be that as it may, we see that Philby was a significant figure in British policy and intrigue in the Middle East in the first half of the 20th century. The pièce de résistance may be Philby's conversion in 1930. He subsequently served as an advisor to Ibn Saud in his capital Riyadh, formerly capital of the Nejd. He stayed there until 1954, a year after Ibn Saud's death, when he was expelled, then settling in Lebanon.

Now I am going to present a report of what Philby said at a gathering of Italian and Muslim intellectuals held in Italy in 1955. Philby was a Muslim of course but not an Arab. Maybe a would-be Arab. The conclave was meant to discuss the relations between Islamic and Western civilizations. The Italian writer, Guido Piovene, reported that the meeting turned into a trial of the West on the part of the Muslim intellectuals present, including Philby. 

Here is a passage from Piovene's short book on the event that comprises a long quote from Philby as well as observations by Piovene:

"Philby is an adventurous Englishman. He converted to Islam, lived in Saudi Arabia for many years as advisor to Ibn Saud, and  was later expelled for reasons that remain in dispute. He now lives in Lebanon. Muslim fundamentalism found specifically this neophyte to be a disappointed  defender who, having abandoned the West, saw the West invading his own refuge. The authentic Muslims do not seem to consider Philby one of their own and viewed his strict Islamic practice with skepticism and reserve [emph added]. 'The Islamic world,' Philby told us, 'before putting others on trial, should put itself on trial for having left its own religion and accepted Western civilization as superior to its own. Unfortunately, Islam has lost something by Westernizing, the essential principles of its own culture as well as the conviction that its own culture was superior to all others. The materialistic culture of the West has prevailed [in the Islamic world] and has introduced there its distinguishing vices; while exploiting petroleum, the Americans have brought wealth and corruption. Previously the poor of the Orient looked forward to a reward after death. Now, like Westerners, they  aspire to the material goods of this life. The winds of modernism have induced the Muslims to contravene the precepts of the Quran; polygamy has been abandoned; the fasts have been lightened for those who work. The strict Wahhabite movement which is opposed to modern tendencies, flourished between one [world] war and the other. It has now lost its following. For that reason, what clash there might be between the two worlds is not seen, nor is on what basis the trial might take place. The conflict is merely political and its principal cause – that nobody wanted to talk about—is the problem of Palestine. The Palestinian state [here meaning Israel] is not the work of Jews but of European colonialists, imperialists, exploiters, who adopted Zionism as an instrument. Here is the reason for the conflict [between Islam & the West]; it is not a religious conflict since one of the parties [the Muslims] has already been assimilated.'

 

"Thereby Philby accepted the thesis of the majority that the clash between Orient and Occident is today merely political. But, while most of the others viewed this favorably, Philby viewed it with regret. In short, he rejected that universalism, that religious syncretism, that today make up the obligatory religion of all international gatherings." [The Italian original follows below]

This is the place to bring in  a number of my own comments and observations.

1. The Arab-Muslims at the meeting know his background and do not trust him. [The authentic Muslims do not seem to consider Philby one of their own ... etc]

2. H St-John Philby prefers authentic, traditional Islam to the Westernized Islam of the second half of the 20th century. For instance, Philby regrets the passing of polygamy.

3. H St-John Philby appears more Muslim than the Muslims. Indeed he scolds the born Muslims for copying the West. He charges them with abandoning their superior civilization for the inferior Western civilization.

4. The West is materialistic, whereas traditional Islam is spiritual. [Christianity traditionally valued --or claimed to value-- the spiritual over the material, spiritualiter against carnaliter]

5. Since the Muslims have assimilated to Western civilization, the clash between the West and Islam, or Philby might have put it as between the West and the Orient, is purely political and not religious.

6. Israel was not established by Jews but by "European colonialists, imperialists, exploiters." Hence Zionism was not an authentic, genuine Jewish movement but was a pretext for "Europeans" whose motives were colonialism, imperialism, and exploitation. The charge of "imperialism" coming precisely from a British imperialist is rather rich of course.                   Now, the whole effort to make Zionism seem to be not genuinely Jewish reminds me of a somewhat similar effort by another British imperialist, Arnold Toynbee, a historian and director of studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs [RIIA-Chatham House; also partly funded by the American Rockefeller Foundation], and frequent contributor to the RIIA's journal International Affairs, an official British publication inasmuch as it was the organ of the Royal Institute. Toynbee argued in the early or mid-1950s that Israel was not an authentically Jewish state since it had been founded and  governed at the start by unreligious Jews, by socialists and secularists rather than by religious Jews, and especially not by the so-called Ultra-Orthodox [in Israel called Haredim] whom he seems to have considered the most authentic Jews. Another similarity between Philby and Toynbee was the latter's favoring of spirituality. For Toynbee, the secularized West had rejected its spiritual Christian heritage.

7. Philby's use of the term "Palestinian state" to refer to Israel suggests that the "Palestinian people" notion was not yet in the open in 1955. Philby uses the term "Palestinian state" more as a geographic reference.

Some of the themes enunciated by Philby are still around in Western anti-Israel discourse. "Colonialist" and "imperialist" are still often used although they appear usually in "Leftist" rhetoric. "Exploiter" is not often heard nowadays since today's "Left" has little to say about the working class who used to be considered by the "Left" the constant objects of capitalist exploitation. Use of the term exploiter today would remind folk too much of the old themes of fighting for the working class, which is out for now.

Philby's sympathy for Islam is still around and was enunciated by both US presidents, Bush 2 and Obama. Bush notoriously declared that Islam was "a religion of peace." Obama traveled to Cairo in 2009 to make a speech extolling Islam and sympathizing with its travails and difficulties.

Philby spoke in favor of Islam and championed the Arab anti-Israel cause. Did he stay a British agent all his life? Was his conversion to Islam a cover for promoting British policy?

Piovene's Original Text in Italian

Philby è un inglese aventuroso, convertitosi all'Islam, vissuto a lungo nell'Arabia Saudita come consigliere di Ibn Saud, più tardi espulso per motivi che rimangono controversi. Ora vive nel Libano. L'integralismo mussulmano trovò un defensore deluso proprio in questo neofita che, abbandonato l'Occidente, vede l'Occidente invadere il suo stesso rifugio. I mussulmani autentici non sembrano considerare Philby uno dei loro, e accoglievano non senza scetticismo e riserbo il suo rigorismo islamico. "Il mondo islamico," ci ha detto Philby, "prima di processare gli altri, deve processare se stesso, per avere lasciato la propria religione e acccettato la civiltà occidentale come superiore alla sua. Disgraziatamente l'Islam ha perduto occidentalizzandosi i principi essenziali della propria cultura; e insieme la convinzione che la propria cultura sia superior a tutte. La cultura materialistica dell'Occidente vi ha prevalso, e vi ha introdotto i vizi che la distinguono; sfruttando il petrolio, gli americani hanno portato la richezza e la corruzione; i poveri dell'Oriente prima aspettavano un compenso dopo la morte, adesso ambiscono, come gli occidentali, i beni materiali di questa vita. La ventata del  modernismo ha indotto i mussulmani a contravvenire ai precetti coranici; è stata abbandonata la poligamia; sono stati alleviate i digiuno per chi lavora; il movimento rigoristico Wahabita contro le tendenze moderne, fiorito tra una guerra e l'altra, ha perduto il suo seguito. Non si vede perciò quale contrasto possa esservi tra i due mondi, né su che basi possa avere luogo il processo. Il contrasto è solo politico; e la sua causa principale, di cui nessuno ha voluto parlare, è il problema della Palestina. Lo stato palestinese [il stato di Israele] è opera non di ebrei, ma di europei colonialisti, imperialisti, sfruttatori, che hanno adottato il sionismo come strumento. Ecco il motivo del contrasto; nessun contrasto religioso, perché una delle parti è stata ormai assimilate."

 

Philby accedeva dunque alla tesi dei più, che il contrasto tra Oriente e Occidente  è oggi soltanto politico; ma, mentre la maggioranza degli altri vedeva questo con favore, Philby se ne rammaricava. Egli rifiutava insomma quell'universalismo, quell sincretismo religioso, che costituiscono oggi la religione d'obbligo di tutte le riunioni internazionali.                             [Guido Piovene, Processo dell'Islam alla civilta` occidentale (Milano: Oscar  Mondadori 2001) pp 24-25]

Abdel-Razek Abdel-Kader, Le Conflit judéo-arabe

_________ . Le Monde arabe a la veille d'un tournant

Nihad Ghadri, The Great Challenge (np, nd)

Yaacov Shimoni and Evyatar Levine, Political Dictionary of the Middle East in the 20th Century (New York: Quadrangle 1974)

Biden Administration Follows Communazi Example, Falsifies History

 The Biden Administration is bringing the USA in line with the Nazi and Communist regimes. It is falsifying history, specifically the history of the ancient Land of Israel, the land that Greeks and Romans called Judea. It is now viewing parts [or all?] of the ancient Land of Israel, Judea, as "palestine." It did so in a series of statements linked to the delivery to the "palestinian authority" of an ancient archeological finding. 

American and Palestinian officials gathered on Thursday at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Bethlehem for what was described as “the historic repatriation of a rare Palestinian cultural object.”

During the ceremony, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm (Homeland Security Investigations) delivered a 2,700-year-old cosmetic spoon to the Palestinian Authority. [World Israel News, 1-7-2023 ]

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There is no indication as to what makes this object culturally Palestinian. Yet the head of the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs, George Noll, stated that his office “is proud to facilitate the return of this rare antiquity, an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony.” [ibid.]

Now when they use the words "repatriation" and "return", they are saying that somehow the so-called Palestinian Authority," a body set up under the Oslo Accords, is the legitimate owner of this ancient artifact. Now, according to the PA's minister of tourism, Rula Maayah, 

 “The artifact that is being delivered today is a cosmetic tool that was used to pour incense and it dates to the Assyrian civilization 700-800 BC.” [ibid.]

Hence, according  to the PA's own expert, the artifact is Assyrian, not specifically "palestinian." Yet the US Govt is handing over the object to the PA, claiming that it is somehow "palestinian." 

 So the US Govt is not only recognizing a "palestinian people" that emerged after the rise of the State of Israel, it is going along with this corrupt political entity in the latter's claim to represent a "palestinian people" that existed in ancient times. To be sure, not even the Quran and traditional Arab historians make that claim. The Quran recognizes Jewish ownership --as assigned by Allah-- in several Quranic verses. The respected Arab historian Ibn Khaldun also recognizes the Jewish population of and sovereignty over the land, as well as "Syria."

By recognizing the "palestinian people", itself a notion invented in the mid-20th century by British psychological warfare experts, the US Govt is canceling the ancient Israelite/Jewish people, which is however well-documented in ancient Greek & Latin writings as well as in Assyrian and other ancient texts. 

The US Govt is now collaborating with the "palestinian authority" in  doing what the Israeli scholar, David Bukay, described as 

"Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel by erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history [here] & [here ]

 This is shameful of course. But it is also highly dangerous, worthy of Communists and Nazis as I indicate above. It is genocidal towards Jews. After all, if Jews are erased from their own ancient history, then what right do they have to make any territorial claims in modern times? The so-called "indigenous" people of "palestine" have the right to take back their ancient land. 
The genocidal implications for Jews are obvious. Yet the Jewish leadership --both genuine and self-styled-- has not apparently realized the harm done to Jews by the fabrication of ancient history. It needs to be acknowledged that the Democratic administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a silent partner of hitler in the Shoah. Roosevelt himself hated two peoples, Jews and Japanese. Japanese Americans were put into what were in fact concentration camps though not comparable in their functioning to the Nazi German camps. Yet there is great reason to doubt any decent motive in the action of the Biden administration  by handing ancient artifacts over to the PA.

The New York Times Plays Cop of the Internet

 As we and others have shown, the New York Times is not always a dependable news source. Yet the NYT's editors believe they are worthy of helping to police the Internet and it seems that the NYT has singled out certain statements or affirmations as being lies a priori, without investigation. Here is one such lie on the NYT's part that it would have the reader believe are a rejection of others' lies:

And there is no evidence that an "overwhelming amount of fraud" tipped Pennsylvania in 2020  [toward Biden instead of Trump] . . . .  [NYTimes 5 November 2022 --NYT Int'l ed; 8 November 2022; p 8]

Well, Rudolph Giuliani, who was highly respected as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York [chief federal prosecutor for NewYork City and surroundings] and later as a two-term  mayor of New York City, produced eyewitnesses who testified on Fox TV that they had observed election irregularities in Philadelphia, the largest city in Pennsylvania. These people had been Republican election observers and complained of being kept away from the actual counting  by officials working for the city and county of Philadelphia run by a Democratic mayor and other Democrats. Of course, even eyewitnesses can be cross examined and their testimony can be judged. But that requires an impartial investigation. Until there is a proper investigation and the witnesses can testify in court, the NYT has no call to claim "no evidence." 

Meanwhile, there is significant circumstantial evidence pointing to massive voting fraud in Pennsylvania [not only in Philadelphia] in the 2020 presidential election. But before bringing out that evidence, let us quote what the NYT article quoted above writes admitting its efforts to help police the Internet in favor of its own partisan cause in which opposing arguments are called "lies," "falsehoods" having "no evidence" to support them.

Youtube said it had removed a number of videos that The New York Times had flagged for violating its policies on spam and election integrity and it had determined that other content did not violate its policies. [emph. added; NYT 5 November 2022-- NYT Int'l ed; 8 November 2022; p8]

Flagged here means identified and pointed out to others, in  this case to Youtube. The sentence above is the NYT's admission, or perhaps modest boast, that it takes part in policing the Internet.

The circumstantial evidence relating to Pennsylvania is that on the evening of 3 November 2020, after the polls had closed, President Trump was reported as having a lead of more than 600,000 in that state. Now, Pennsylvania had 9,090,962 certified registered [eligible] voters for the presidential election of 2020, with a turnout of 76,5%, adding up to 6,553,695 actual voters [according to official statistics, not necessarily reliable]. So more than 600,000 is no small or narrow margin for a state with a population of 13,002,700 and approximately 6,553,000 actual  voters. Trump's leading margin over Biden on the night of election day was nearly 10% of  actual voters [by official numbers]. That is, nearly 10% of the perhaps fraudulently inflated "final count." And would have been significantly more than 10% of the count on election day after the polls closed.  Yet in a few days of counting newly found mail-in ballots [and the like], the president's margin had been outnumbered by pro-Biden ballots whereas one would think that many of the ballots that came in or were newly found after election day would have gone to Trump and that even if his lead would had been whittled down, he would have remained in the lead with enough votes to win. 

By the way, it was reported on Fox [Evil Fox, we are to believe] a truck carrying Pennsylvania ballots set out from the New York city area and went to Harrisburg [the state capital of PA] and to the city of Lancaster. But somehow that ballots that the truck was carrying were not accepted in either city. All very peculiar. 

Now, there is also circumstantial evidence involving the country as a whole. The vote for the House of Representatives in a presidential election year almost always favors the party of the newly elected president, when the newly elected president is not the incumbent but new to the office of president. Yet in 2020, the newly elected president's party, Biden's party, lost seats to the Republicans. 

A midterm election usually favors the party out of power [that is, the party not occupying the White House]. For example, the Republicans won the 1994 midterm election when Democrat Clinton was president. The Republicans again won a majority in  the House of Representatives in 2010, the midterm elections of Obama's first term. Following the rule, the Democrats won a majority in the midterm elections of Donald Trump's presidency in 2018.

Nevertheless, in the 2020 presidential  election year, Biden's Democrats lost seats in the House. They went from 235 seats in the 2018 midterm election to 222 in the 2020 presidential election year, when  their candidate for president, Biden, presumably won election for president. Yet going by the traditional pattern of elections to the House in years when somebody new becomes president, his party gets a majority in the House of Representatives. So the 2020 anomaly suggests that there may have been much more fraud in the presidential election than in the elections for the House which elect 435 representatives in 435 congressional districts. This anomaly and others suggest the possibility or likelihood of widespread fraud in the presidential election. And for those not familiar with the United States, election fraud has a long history there. Chicago, ruled for many years by the Richard Daley Democratic Party machine, was especially notorious for voting fraud. Indeed, the Daley machine was accused of "voting the cemeteries." Why voting fraud could not also take place in Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix [Arizona] and so on, is a mystery to me. Yet the NY Times denies an "overwhelming amount of fraud" in the 2020 presidential elections in Pennsylvania. Isn't it comforting to know that the New York Times is policing the Internet to protect us from fake news?

Does the New York Times Make Things Up?

 This blog was the first or one of the few blogs and news outlets that pointed out that the "august" and "respected" NY Times had put a false quote in the mouth of the Pope. The NYT article, supposedly reporting on Mahmud Abbas' visit to Pope Francis in the Vatican, had quoted Francis as calling Abbas "an angel of peace." That did not sound right. So I went into some Italian news sites, La Stampa [which covers the Vatican extensively] and others, and I saw that Francis had said [in Italian, the regular language of the Vatican] to Abbas that "You might be" [or "You could be" -- "Lei possa essere"] an angel of peace if he made peace with Israel. The words are not the same, so how could the NYT journalist have made such a mistake?

Be that as it may, I got the same feeling when reading an article about the reaction of Chinese business men to the recent Chinese Communist Party congress where Xi Jinping had reinforced his control of the Party and the country. This NYT journo claimed that after Xi's speech at the Congress, "the founder of an asset management firm in . . . Shenzhen .. . contacted me hours after the congress ended," saying, "My last,  lingering hope was dashed"

The journo, Li Yuan, went on in the same vein. A "tech entrepreneur in Beijing texted me" that the new situation was "absolutely terrifying," And "China's stocks plunged, and its currency, the renminbi, fell in value. I am hearing it ['political depression'] in the voices and messages of the many businesspeople I  have spoken to in recent weeks . . ."

The present political and public atmosphere in China may be as described but why does there seem to be something phoney here? 

China is reputed to be a police state. And a friend who often goes to China on business told me and others that the government of China is relentless and cruel when it wants to obtain some end. Now in such a situation, such a repressive atmosphere, would Chinese businessmen  knowingly contact a NY Times journalist to complain about their own government? Would they not be suspicious that their phones may be tapped? At this point, I would add that wiretapping goes on in many countries, including in the West and in the United States, among Western states. So if they fear their own powers that be, would not well informed Chinese be all the more wary of contacting precisely a journalist for the NY Times which is notorious for being the house organ of the American Establishment, also given that the USA is widely considered an adversary of China?

Hence I doubt that Mr Li Yuan got the quotes that he relays or reports or alleges in the way that he says he did. 

Indeed, towards the end of the article, the NYT journo confirms that Chinese business people are wary of electronic eavesdropping performed by their own government against them. Li Yuan writes: "At social gatherings, hosts are asking friends to surrender their phones [mobile phones in this case] to be kept in a separate place for fear of surveillance." These Chinese business people are afraid of electronic surveillance. They fear that the Chinese authorities might learn how they really feel and think. Or these Chinese authorities might see their frank conversations as conspiracy. Therefore, these people would be most unlikely to simply contact an NYT journo to complain about conditions in their country. Hence Li Yuan indirectly confirms my suspicions that the quotes are made up or came to him in ways other than the ways he claims they reached him. Or perhaps he altered and improved quotes that he received in ways other than what he claims. Or maybe the quotes are wholly made up. In the case of any of these possibilities, this NYT journo makes things up and the NYT publishes them.

[Quotes come from New York Times, "China's Business Elite See the Country that Let Them Thrive Slipping Away," 7 November 2022; "Chinese Business Leaders see country slipping away," NY Times Int'l edition, 10 November 2022, p 9; emphases added]

Save-the-Planet Hysteria: Is It a Pretext for Impoverishing the People?

UPDATED 11-4 & 11-14-2022, 10-8-2023. Mention of M Ryle added 9-10-2023 

It was about 40 years ago when all of a sudden you started to hear talk about the environment and the climate all over the press and media and from some of the school teachers who seemed to be "connected." I was suspicious right then. A coordinated blast about a previously low profile topic. Very curious.

 Now I ask; Do you believe everything that you read in the press or hear and see on the electronic media? 

Do you agree that there are a lot of lies in politics? How about Global Warming? Is it for real? Let's look at the whole discourse about "climate change" and "global warming" and the need to stop it by 2050 or 2030 or whenever.

Let's ask a few questions about the save-the-Planet hysteria:

1-- Is there climate change? In fact I agree that there has been climate change since my childhood.

2-- How does climate change take place or how does it show itself? What form does it take? How is it manifested? In what ways does it present itself?

3 --What causes these changes?

4 -- Do the measures commonly proposed to "solve" the problem or save-the-Planet match or correspond to the real or alleged causes and have the capacity to deal with the supposed phenomenon of Global Warming? Or do these measures have other motives, other purposes, other intentions?

If climate change is displayed through global warming, then why did the Middle East have a heavy blizzard in early December 2013 [before the scientific start of winter on 21 December]? The snow was piled up on my balcony in Jerusalem to a height of about a foot and a half or half a meter. There was snow in Cairo --much less than in Jerusalem to be sure, but still snow-- whereas it had not snowed in Cairo since 1904.

Another example is the summer weather here in Jerusalem in 2020, 2021, and 2022. It was very hot here in July and August of 2020 --when we were largely restricted to home because of the pandemic. It was so hot that we bought an air conditioner, for the first time while living here, and we used it often. However, the summer of 2021 was not as hot as the one of 2020. We used the air conditioner much less and in this past summer of 2022 we used it for only a few days in early  August and at the end of that month  continuing into early  September, as I recall,

So the summers have been getting cooler here in the past few years compared to 2020. Now what about that blizzard of nine years ago?

Maybe in other parts of the world the temperatures have been getting warmer but why has the Middle East or Levant been an exception? Can the true believers in global warming please explain that blizzard?

Do the examples above prove global warming OR put that notion into question?

Next let us take up the proposed causes of "global warming" and climate change.

We hear about automobile carbon dioxide emissions and even cow farts. But when the powers gathered in Paris to try to legislate supposed measures to stop global warming, much of Chinese and Indian industry were exempted. 

Before the 2015 Paris climate conference India & China had jointly called for differential treatment --as they were supposedly "developing" countries-- while  jointly calling on the "developed" countries to do the "equitable" thing and shoulder the main burden [". . .  the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, reflecting different historical responsibilities, development stages and national circumstances between developed and developing countries"; May 2015]. 

And China --an industrial giant-- uses lots of coal, acknowledged to be the dirtiest of commonly used fossil fuels. Now if China and India --an  upcoming industrial giant-- are allowed to keep on using great amounts of coal [a use likely to increase in both countries (re China, NYTimes 5 November 2022)], then what good would it do to restrict the use of less polluting fossil fuels by other countries, whether industrial giants like the USA, UK, Germany etc or smaller industrialized countries, assuming that there is global warming and that it is caused by carbon dioxide emissions?

If carbon dioxide [CO2] emissions are the main cause of "climate change" & global warming, then projects to control emissions such as the Paris Accords will not get far, when major industrial countries --such as  China or India-- are allowed to do what is "equitable" in their own eyes.

Those two countries have become major industrial powers yet their industries were exempted from the agreed on restrictions. So if those two large countries are exempted from restrictions in the 2015  Paris climate accords, then does that mean that the Powers are really not all that concerned about burning fossil fuels? Indeeed, if major users of fossil fuels like India & China are exempted, how will restricting other lands solve the alleged problem of carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and/or other sources of carbon dioxide? And since natural gas yields much less CO2  than coal and petroleum, then why ban natural gas along with coal and oil, the other two main human-controlled sources of CO2?

Now, if global warming as conventionally asserted is not taking place then what form does climate change --and I agree that there has been climate change-- take? And if global warming is not happening in a simple sense, then what is the role of carbon dioxide [CO2]? Some argue, including a founder of Greenpeace [the ostensibly pro-environment organization], now a dissenter, that humans and their acts do not control the climate and that there is natural climate change, such as the beginnings or ends of the ice ages, which mankind did not control.

Now if climate change consists of other phenomena than global warming caused by causes other than CO2 emissions then what about --why-- the supposed efforts to limit these emisions? As I said above, I do believe in climate change. What I have noted since the early 1960s is that Spring and Fall seem shorter than before, and that winter lasts longer into what is scientifically supposed to be the Spring [March 21 until June 21]. I have definitely noted that here in Jerusalem there can be chilly weather into early June. Could the change in climate be a move to the extremes in winter and summer both? Global Warming anyone?

What took place in the early 1960s that might have caused longer winters and summers and shorter Springs and Falls? In 1962 [8 July] the USA exploded a hydrogen bomb in the Van Allen Belt, or belts of radiation around the earth, made up of electrons and protons trapped in the earth's magnetic field. When the USA announced that it would set off an H-Bomb explosion  in the Van Allen Belt, a certain controversy was aroused among legislators, meteorologists, astronomers and the like. The New York Times --a more trustworthy publication at the time-- covered the controversy and published its coverage in at least one article [30 May 1962; which I read] which quoted from a number of  scientists,  both favorable to and critical of this strange project. One of those strongly objecting was Martin Ryle, the official Queen's Astronomer of the UK [Ryle's stance was not likely UK Govt policy]. Some, as I recall, warned that the explosion might or would have a harmful effect on the world's climate [a US secretary of defense admitted that "the use of electromagnetic waves. . . ."  "can alter the climate. . ." What is happening when a H-bomb goes off in the Van Allen Belt?] Others felt that that was not a concern. However, most of the scientists surveyed insisted that something like an explosion in the Van Allen Belt should be a matter for an international consensus of scientists and governments, not a matter for one government to decide unilaterally.             [by the way, Time magazine also covered the controversy, apparently using the NYTimes article as the source for most of its material, while distorting some of the quotes in order to yield the argument or "proof" that Time wanted which was to defend the unilateral US action. Distorting a quote meant, in one case, chopping a sentence in two parts in order to use the part that was favorable to Time's position and discarding the unfavorable part].                            The effects on the earth's weather patterns might be caused by what are called "geomagnetic storms" or "electromagnetic storms" originating in Van Allen Belts. Of course that is just a layman's speculation.  Be that as it may, Steve Koonin & Bjorn Lomborg, both academic experts, are skeptics towards the Save-the-Planet claims.

Now to get back to the Paris Accord. If it does not seem to be a serious international effort [because China & India are left out], if in fact carbon dioxide emissions [or "greenhouse gas emissions"] are causing global warming or, on the other hand,  if CO2 emissions are not the cause, assuming that there is global warming, then what is the purpose of all the restrictions on human activity in the various signatory countries. If purported climate change and/or global warming is caused instead by that 1962 explosion in the Van Allen Belt, instead of by carbon dioxide emissions and cow farts and the like, then what is the use or purpose of the many restrictions on fossil fuels enacted or proposed by the Biden regime in the USA, for example? The very fact that India & China are exempted from so many of the Paris accord restrictions may indicate that the massive present and future use of carbon-based fuels by those countries are not of real concern because some influential folks seem not to really believe that carbon-based fuels are the major concern.

Now if global warming is not a reality or much less significant than commonly asserted in the mass media and by bien-pensant politicians [and by Greta, let's not forget Greta], then the question of the real purpose or real ends of the restrictions on fossil fuels becomes much more salient.

We know that countries that have gone far in enforcing restrictions [and sometimes high prices] on fossile fuel have seen much harm to the standards of living of ordinary people. In Sri Lanka protests against measures supposed to "protect the environment" [forbidding chemical fertilizers]  led to massive increases in prices for food grown in the country and the fall of the government after protesters broke into the presidential palace, among other acts of mass protest. In the Netherlands too [followed by Italy, Germany & Poland] there were mass protests by farmers against restrictions on chemical substances making farmers labor and livelihoods more difficult.

In the USA inflation initiated by the restriction on gas and oil production has led to suffering and a clear lowering of the standard of living of ordinary folks. Yet   Larry Summers, a Democrat and economist for  President Obama, pointed out that shutting down building the Keystone pipeline --one of Biden's first acts as president-- made no sense because the oil that it was meant to carry would have to be transported instead by truck and/or train, less safe, less clean, more expensive means of transport for petroleum. The working class in many countries have been impoverished. Apparently, the "save-the-Planet" measures are meant to impoverish masses of people and to lower their standards of living by means of general inflation and indeed to change what has been the modern way of life what with the loss of mobility for ordinary  people due to the higher prices of fuel. Will the ordinary American family still be able to drive to a vacation in a far off place because of fuel price inflation? And we have already seen that so-called "renewables" and "sustainables" cannot replace fossil fuels, although I too dislike the soot, the filth produced by burning coal, but natural gas again is relatively clean. The "renewables" and "sustainables" have shown their incapacity. For instance in Texas several years ago, the windmills in the windfarms to generate electricity froze in a blizzard, unusual in Texas to be sure [thereby also supplying an argument against global warming since Texas is normally relatively warm], and causing suffering from the cold for millions whose electricity depended on those windmills. Of course, the sun does not always shine nor does the wind always blow. So those "renewables" and "sustainables" would need to be backed up by fossil fuels. Nor will the infrastructure for "renewables" and "sustainables" be in place for years. Yet Biden's gang --Susan Rice, Brian Deese, Jennifer Granholm etc-- want to implement a so-called Green Economy next week while conditions are not ready for that and may not be ready for a very long time, if ever.

So Save-the-Planet Hysteria is  a Pretext for Impoverishing the People.

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More Examples of Misguided --Or Misanthropic-- Measures to Limit Fossil Fuel Use

1- The Biden Regime in its  anti-fossil fuel policy, seems to have hurt poor populations such as American Indians [also called Native Americans], breaking treaties in the process. The US Government in the 19th century signed peace treaties with various Indian tribes, recognizing them as nations with sovereignty over the lands left to them, the so-called reservations. Yet the Bidens seem to have violated that sovereignty by forbidding these tribes/nations  to issue leases to oil exploration companies to explore for oil and natural gas on their tribal lands. Thereby the Biden regime prevents these peoples, often poverty stricken, from improving their economic situation both from fees paid for the leases and for potential royalties for the oil or gas found, as well as well-paying jobs for the tribal members living on these reservations. Of course, the Bidens claim to be forcing an eventual changeover to the "renewables" and "sustainables" by this policy. Meanwhile, the people on the Indian lands may be poor and may stay poor because of the regime prohibitions which are the fruit of executive orders  rather than laws passed  by Congress.

2- Electric vehicules, the divine demigods of the Save-the-Planet cultists, may be a paradoxical savior from these enthusiasts' point of view. After all, electrcity has to be generated. And EVs will require much more electricity than now being generated,  if EVs become widespread. And the "renewables" and "sustainables" are not yet up to the job of generating the needed extra electricity for EVs, if they ever will be, certainly not alone, as it seems. Moreover the batteries for the EVs require rare earths, rare minerals. Such as lithium. Now these minerals must be mined, in China or wherever else they are found. And mining requires heavy excavating and/or tunneling  equipment. Which requires fossil fuels -- unless we now have heavy equipment powered by heavy batteries. But which comes first, the chicken --as it were-- or the egg?

And do not forget that the world does not now have the capacity to generate the addiional electricity that will be needed if electric vehicles become the rule. Indeed, California, dominated by save-the-Planet enthusiasts, has been undergoing regular blackouts for a couple of years now.

Nor are the present electricity grids up to conducting the additional electricity that will be needed.

Is the Biden Gang Preparing the Way for a Renewed Azerbaijani Attack on Armenia?

 To answer the question in the  title above, Armenian-American organizations seem to think so.

Here is some what they are saying. They also mention US military aid to Azerbaijan:

ANCA pressures President Biden to stop arming Azerbaijan as Artsakh gas crisis continues

WASHINGTON, DC – The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has once again issued a national call to action urging President Joe Biden to enforce Section 907 restrictions and block all US arms and aid to Azerbaijan, as the Aliyev regime continues to choke off gas supplies to Artsakh’s Armenian population. The campaign also calls for $50 million in US aid to Artsakh to help families rebuild their lives and resettle in safety upon their indigenous Armenian homeland following the 2020 Turkey/Azerbaijan attacks.

Thousands of pro-Artsakh advocates have already contacted President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris through the ANCA’s online portal sharing, “We remain deeply troubled that you have waived Section 907 sanctions against Azerbaijan and call on you today to immediately end any and all US military or security aid to this oil-rich and openly racist regime.” They go on to urge the White House to condemn Azerbaijan’s aggression, hold its leaders accountable for war crimes and call upon all Americans to support the national and democratic aspirations of the Armenian people. Advocates are also calling the White House comment line – (202) 456-1111; this line is open Tuesdays to Thursdays from 11:00am to 3:00pm EST..

Note that the Biden administration is disregarding congressionally mandated sanctions against Azerbaijan by waiving enforcement of the relevant statutes of US law. At the same time, the Biden State Department is offering cash grants to organizations that will uncover alleged Israeli "human rights abuses." More than half the states in the world are guilty of human rights abuses. But only alleged abuses by Israel are of concern to the State Department. Azeri violations of the human and national rights of ethnic Armenians are of no concern.

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See the press reports on the renewed Azeri attacks: here & here

Bloody Western Hypocrisy Once Again [including Uncle Sham]

Wars usually bring out a goodly share of hypocrisy, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is no exception. Here and now we see tremendous upset and concern in Europe, North America and elsewhere over the horrors and injustice of the war and invasion. But there have been many  other fairly recent cases of invasion, occupation, mass slaughter, population expulsion or displacement that do not seem to get much attention or rouse much concern at all. 

In 2020 we saw the Armenia-Azerbaidjan war/ Thousands were killed and parts of historic Armenia were conquered by the Azeris. Ancient and  medieval Armenian buildings were damaged in the war and afterwards by the Azeri forces.

In 1974, Turkey occupied about 35% if the island of Cyprus. Neither the Europeans --inside and outside of the EU-- nor the Americans make much of a fuss over the continued occupation and the expulsion in that year of an estimated 200,000 ethnic Greek Cypriots from their homes plus the Turkish vandalism to age-old Greek buildings/monuments in the occupation zone in northern Cyprus. 

Then there is the Syrian civil war, going on since 2011. In the course of this civil war, an estimated 600,000 Syrians have been killed [Syrian Observatory for Human Rights]. Moreover, millions of Syrians have fled or been driven from their country by their own government or the jihadi Sunni mlitias, now mainly sponsored by Turkey or by ISIL [DA'ESH] or other forces on the ground. With more than four million Syrian refugees estimated in Turkey plus a million or so in Lebanon and another million in Jordan, the number of refugees is only exceeded by the number from the war in Ukraine. 

Now some may note that a great deal of world attention is focussed on the Palestinian Arabs. This, just parenthetically, reminds us of a rule of the "international community": Arab lives do not matter -- unless somehow the blame for the Arabs' deaths or refugee status or other plight can somehow be attributed to Israel and Jews, with some plausible degree of honesty, however minor, or without any grain of truth at all. Compare the media treatment of the Syrian Arab victims of the Syrian civil war [as well as Palestinian Arabs living in Syria] with media treatment and coverage of the Palestinian Arabs in areas under Israeli jurisdiction -- often fashionably depicted as somehow a separate nation or people but somehow connected to the Arabs in general, and as perennial victims, even as a collective Jesus in much journalistic blather.

Then we have the massacres of Kurds in Syria by Turkish-sponsored Sunni Arab militias and by the Turkish airforce, plus de facto expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Kurds from areas controlled by Turkey and those militias in northern Syria. That Kurdish suffering has not gotten much attention in the media.

All of the above is part of the general hypocrisy.

However, the USA has shown its own unique and special hypocrisy. Back in late 2013-early 2014, the USA encouraged "right-wing" or "neo-nazi" Ukrainian parties --Right Sektor & Svoboda -- to revolt against the pro-Russian Yanukovich government.  Eventually Yanukovich fled and the new rulers, the extreme nationalist parties named above, made declarations that were felt as highly threatening to the ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine, such as honoring Stepan Bandera, who had led a German-sponsored Ukrainian militia during WW2, which slaughtered Jews and ethnic Russians in the Ukraine. These provocative declarations gave Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, the pretext that he needed for invading eastern Ukraine and annexing the Crimea [which truth be told, had been a part of the Russian republic in the USSR but was transferred to Ukraine by the post-Stalin Khrushchov govt in 1954 although its population was overwhelmingly non-Ukrainian ethnically]. 

Now after the Russian government showed its hand after the overthrow of Yanukovich, the Obama administration refused to sell or give the Ukraine weapons needed for its self-defense against Russia. And this after the State Dept's Victoria Nuland had gone to Kyiw [pronounced Keef]  to  encourage the rebels. Trump and his administration were the first to supply real weapons to the post-Yanukovich govts. 

Then there was Joe Biden's shakedown of the Ukrainian leadership [Poroshenko & Yatseniuk] by threatening to withhold needed loan guarantees if a state prosecutor looking into the Burisma company that had placed Biden's son Hunter on its board, were not dismissed. The prosecutor was fired, as Joe boasted later on.

After Trump, the ill-fated Biden presidency resumed the Obama Ukraine policy. Biden & Co. have been stingy about sending weapons to Ukraine. Maybe if Washington had sent the needed weapons [such as Javelins & Stingers] when Russia began its military build up on the borders of Ukraine in the first half of 2021. Maybe it would thus have dissuaded and deterred a Russian invasion. Even when the invasion began it took some time for Joe B & Co. to decide to send needed weapons.  But then how do we explain that on the third day of the war when the Ukrainian resistance was holding up, the Biden national insecurity crowd [Susie R, Brian D, Tony B, Jake S] offered President Zelensky of Ukraine sanctuary outside of the Ukraine? Did they not understand that if the leader ran away the resistance was likely to collapse? Was this offer of sanctuary not hypocrisy? Was it not an effort to undermine the Ukrainian struggle against Russia?

Indeed we may wonder whether Biden's foreign affairs gang were keeping Ukraine relatively weak and lacking the most important self-defense weapons in order to lure the Russians into invading Ukraine [which Putin had apparently long wanted to do]. Does this sound too bizarre, too far-fetched, too unreasonable? Yes, it would -- if we did not know that a major theoretician of US foreign policy, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's advisor for national insecurity, had not boasted of luring the Soviet Union into making war in Afghanistan around 1978. Now Brzezinski was Barack Obama's mentor in foreign policy matters and Obama was planning to make him his own national insecurity advisor, as Carter had done. Indeed Brzezinski was the favorite foreign policy advisor of the Democratic Party. Now, when a big donor to the Democratic Party, Penny Pritzker, told Obama that she would not donate and  manage fund-raising for his campaign if Zbig were to be made national security advisor [Alan  Dershowitz, then a prominent Democrat, also opposed a role for Zbig in an Obama presidency], Susan Rice was brought in as a replacement. We may assume that Susan Rice's views on foreign policy, on issues of war and peace, etc, were not and are not far from Zbig's views and theories and understandings and desires. Now since Biden's foreign policy team are retreads from Obama's administration, we may assume that they all [Tony, Susie, Jake etc] share Zbig's basic proclivity for warmongering. Hence if the Ukraine were left weak and lacking needed defensive weapons, it may have been by design in order to lure the Russians into an invasion. As Zbig did in Afghanistan.

The P5+1 Powers Are Pushing for a Newer, Weaker Nuke Deal with Iran

Although the war in the Ukraine monopolizes the world's attention as the cold winter of 2022 drags toward its end  on March 21, what seems to be the quiet push towards a new and worse Nuclear Deal with Iran is now going on as most of the world is distracted by the war.

Me'ir ben Shabbat, former head of Israel's National Security Council, warns that 

"the old-new accord that the USA is now marching towards will pave a sure path for Iran towards a nuclear weapon. after expiration of the limitations [sunset clause]. It has no tools that will force it [Iran] to sit in on discussions for 'a longer and stronger agreement,' And there is no reason to believe that it [Iran] will volunteer to do that on its own initiative. The ayatollahs' regime . . . will maximize what is possible for it to obtain through the agreement and it will do what it is capable of doing -- even against the agreement. [Yisrael HaYom 4 March 2022]

After all, the new accord shaping up has a weak inspection regime which fact seems to be frustrating Raffaele Grossi, head of the IAEA [international atomic energy agency], but he can do nothing without the support of the major powers who make  up the P5+1 group. The major sunset on the limitations supposedly imposed by the accord on Iran will take place in just a few years. If and when the accord is signed, Iran will get lots of dollars and other benefits with which it can finance its terrorist militias in several Middle Eastern countries which regularly cause havoc and suffering in countries where they are hosted, willingly or unwillingly, by the host state. To get some idea of the havoc and suffering consider Lebanon where Hizbullah --an Iranian cats paw-- has a chokehold on the state and most Lebanese are suffering for it.

It is hard not to conclude that the USA and perhaps some of the other powers WANT Iran to have The Bomb.

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ADDED 6-23-2022

https://carolineglick.com/time-to-stop-lying-to-ourselves-about-qatar/

Caroline Glick on Iran's nuke project, Qatar etc

Behind the Fog of War in Ukraine, Biden & Co. Prepare the Way for Iran to Get The Bomb

 David Weinberg agrees that war in the Ukraine is a very important issue. But he sees the upcoming agreement of the P5+1 powers with Iran, a "deal" allowing the ayatollahs to pursue their nuke bomb program, an ever greater danger to world peace and stability.

See below:

SO, YES, UKRAINE is a big story, and Putin is a menace to Western stability. But I will argue here that allowing Iran to march merrily forward with its nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs and its hegemonic regional ambitions is an even worse threat to world security, and certainly to Israel’s security.

The about-to-be signed nuclear deal with Iran is “shorter and weaker” than president Barack Obama’s bad 2015 deal with the ayatollahs. The old/new deal maintains soon-coming sunset clauses; does not guarantee IAEA supervision of Iranian nuclear installations “anywhere and anytime”; and does not give global powers the actual ability to activate the “snapback mechanism,” which allowed president Donald Trump to reimpose sanctions.

It will whitewash all of Iran’s nuclear program violations to date (like enriching uranium to the 60% level) and allow Iran to keep its advanced centrifuges. It will pave a certain path for Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb in the coming years.

Reportedly, the just-round-the-corner agreement also lacks any mechanisms that will force Iran to engage in additional negotiations over a “longer and stronger” deal before the old/new deal expires – something the Biden administration had promised to Israel and the American public when it set out its goals.

Chillingly, the deal also will grant Iran hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, allowing Tehran to rehabilitate its economy and continue funding its terrorist proxies and hegemonic aggressions. Instead of reimposing maximum economic pressure and building a credible military threat against Iran, Biden is surrendering to Iran.

See more of this article in the Jerusalem Post of 24 February 2022.

Why to Not Reconcile with Erdogan? Why in the first place?

Erdogan is an enemy of Israel. Will playing up to him and making concessions to him make him less of an enemy? Obviously not. So why does the present Israeli government seem ready to accept his command/invitation that President Herzog of Israel come to Turkey to meet him? Given all that Erdogan's Turkey has done to undermine Israeli control of our capital Jerusalem and to harm Israel in world public opinion [Mavi Marmara, for example], a visit by Herzog to Ankara would be humiliating for Herzog and for Israel as a state and for Israelis. It weaken Israel in the eyes of our friends in Greece, Cyprus, and the Gulf, etc.

Seth Frantzman explains the reasons not to let Herzog go to Ankara here: 

"Turkey’s pitch regarding Israel relations is rooted in a 1950s outlook. In this analysis, Turkey believes Israel is completely isolated in the region and therefore needs it. Turkey can thus benefit from Israel’s isolation while reaping profit. In essence, in all the discussions with Ankara or claims of reconciliation, the only narrative that comes out is that Turkey profits and Israel gets nothing.

"For instance, Turkey hosts Hamas, which murders Israelis, and it has backed Hamas extremism. Turkey’s religious authorities increasingly incite against Israel, vowing to “liberate” Jerusalem. When it reconsecrated the Church of Hagia Sophia as a mosque, its leadership compared this to helping Palestinians take over Jerusalem." [read the rest]

It might be good to send an ambassador back to Ankara, whereas now Israel is  represented there by lower level diplomats. But even in that case, we need to demand expulsion of all Hamas personnel from Turkey and end to demonizing Israel in the state-controlled Turkish press/media.

And much more.

Of course, Turkey has been a protege of Western diplomacy since  1922 [Smyrna Affair]. And Washington may be behind Erdogan's efforts to pretend to make nice with Israel --as well as behind our government's failure to dismiss Erdogan's commands out of hand.

For more on his issue, read Frantzman's articles in the JPost: here.

Syria's Assad Regime Goes Humanistic -- Everybody Is a Humanitarian Nowadays

 The quote below has to be the quote of the month -- or near the top in the most astounding quote contest. It appeared in The Economist for 16 October 2021 in a report on the current Expo in Dubai:

    "We believe that every human being is part of the collective conscience."

Doesn't that sound great? How humane and how humanist? The Economist goes on about this statement: 

    ". . . a message on the walls of the Syrian pavilion . . . Why the Syrian government has spent         years dropping bombs on many of those humans is not explained."

Who knew that The Economist or its journos had a sense of humor?

Anyhow, not even The Economist asks why the Syrian regime has been accusing Jews throughout history of bizarre and horrid crimes.

Obama-Biden's Wretched Foreign Policy Legacy -- Does Biden's Supervisory Team Want to Give Us More?

addition 10-10-2010 at bottom

Obama-Biden's worst foreign policy aggression against the world was the so-called Iran Nuke Deal, officially denominated the JCPOA.  In eight years of sanctimonious hypocrisy and bloodthirsty Realpolitik in foreign affairs, the JCPOA was the poisoned cherry at the crown of the cake. We could point to other Obama-Biden offenses: the encouragement of the Muslim Brotherhood [an Islamic supremacy movement notorious for massacres of native Christian Copts in Egypt inter alia], the racist demand on Israel to stop letting Jews make their homes in Judea-Samaria beyond the Green Line [parts of the Jewish National Home erected under international law by the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations], encouraging the aggressive Turkish Islamist dictator, Recep Tayip Erdogan [who tirelessly threatens war and incites war against Israel and other eastern Mediterranean and Caucasian neighbors, etc], and so forth and so on. But all in all, the Iran Nuke Deal that allowed Iran to keep working towards a bomb because the JCPOA lacked an effective  inspection regime, plus it had a "sunset" clause that would let Iran openly continue to work for a bomb or increase its numbers of nuke bombs after eight years, plus a gift for Iran's insincere agreement to the Deal of a mere $150 billion [including a billion or so in cash, allowing Iran to surreptitiously fund its terrorist cats paws in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen], seems the most dangerous for the world. 

Biden took willing, perhaps eager, part in these destructive, warmongering policies. It was Biden who came to Jerusalem to promote the policy of apartheid against Jews in Judea-Samaria ["West Bank"], while Zbigniew Brzezinski --Jimmy Carter's national insecurity advisor-- traveled to Damascus during the 2008 presidential election campaign to let the bloody Bashar Assad know that if Obama were elected, he would have a friend in the White House. So Biden too was morally responsible for the Obama-Biden administration's foreign policy aggressions, while Biden's foreign policy [or "national security" staff] openly boast of going back to the JCPOA from which President Trump had withdrawn. Despite their planned Afghanistan fiasco in August 2021, the Biden foreign policy team still want to make it easier for Iran to achieve its longed for Bomb. They and their supporters claim that somehow a new agreement with Iran to stop working for a nuke Bomb will stop Iran from getting that nuclear bomb. But treaties do not enforce themselves and Iran has already violated the JCPOA in letter and spirit. 

We also know that in the 1990s, the USA under Bill Clinton negotiated a nuclear bomb freeze with North Korea. The Communist dictatorhip of North Korea was supposed to not make a nuclear bomb, according to that agreement with Clinton's administration. But guess what!! North Korea now has a nuclear bomb. The agreement with Clinton and his team did not in fact prevent North Korea from getting the Bomb. Even worse for the JCPOA, some of Clinton's team when he made the acccord with North Korea are now back and working on nuke negotiations with Iran [such as Wendy Sherman] as part of Biden's team. Only a fool could believe that either a new and improved JCPOA or a wholly new agreement wth Iran would actually prevent the fanatics in Teheran from getting The Bomb.

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Addition 10-10-2021 --- Michael Singh, Wall Street Journal (30 December 2015). A summary of Obama administration failures abroad in 2015

The Obama administration frequently cites the Iran nuclear deal as a marquee accomplishment. Achieving U.S. objectives through diplomacy would have been laudable, but the nuclear deal was possible precisely because the U.S. laid aside its objectives. Iran made concessions but also largely achieved its strategic aims: retaining its nuclear weapons capability and resisting demands for a broader “strategic shift” in its support for terrorism and regional policies. Iran also received sanctions relief that is broader in practice than on paper, all in exchange for temporary limits on its nuclear fuel-cycle activities.

Secretary of State John Kerry has said that “diplomacy is the art of the possible.” Yet administration officials fail to comprehend how U.S. action, or inaction, can shape what is possible. This was clear in Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama was forced to face the consequences of prematurely announcing a U.S. withdrawal. It is increasingly clear in Syria, where the White House, despite foreseeing the dangers posed by the conflict, is shifting objectives in response to others’ actmangingions rather than taking the initiative.                                      Michael Singh was at that time the managing director if the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2005 to 2008, he worked on Middle East issues at the National Security Council.

Where Did Zbig Brzezinski & Susan Rice Disappear To?

 The past couple of weeks the TV news programs and the printed press have been full of stories about the tragedy enfolding in Afghanistan, about thousands and thousands of terrified people, Westerners and Afghans, trying to leave the country just lately delivered into the hands of the jihadi Taliban by courtesy of Joe Biden's administration. But in all the jabber and hand-wringing about that country located between China, Iran, Pakistan and a few Central Asian countries, I have not heard or seen --in all the TV, radio and print press that I have consumed-- a single mention of the man who started the ball rolling for more than forty years of bloodshed and mayhem in that country nor of the woman who kept it going during Obama's unhappy eight years in office as US president [years unhappy for most others affected, if not for Obama himself].

Zbig actually boasted about his cynical deception which led to the Afghan-Russian war in the late 1970s and eventually to the wars and Afghanistan-based terrorist attacks that we look back on with dread. Up till this very moment. Zbig was a mentor of Barak Hussein Obama and was quite willing to continue his career of war contriver into Obama's administration, Indeed he was slated for a high foreign policy-making post under Obama. However, as luck would have it, one of the Democratic partys' big donors, threatened to withhold her support if Zbig were given another role in government, another chance to cook up wars and massacres, large and small, across the globe.

Nevertheless, Zbig's spirit did take up residence in Obama's regime in the unexpected form of a young woman, Susan Rice. She was designated to become Obama's national insecurity advisor. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, she advocated that the USA get of Iraq. That was the wrong war, that was Republican George W Bush's war. So many folk may have seen her as a peacemonger. She wanted to get America out of Iraq, right? But she declared that there was a right war, a good war that America and its allies ought to send more troops to. That war was the one in Afghanistan. During Obama's miserable eight years in office, with Joe Biden as vice president and Sue Rice as national insecurity advisor, I do not recall talk of getting out of Afghanistan, although maybe there was, but if so, it was rather quiet.

As we all know to our sorrow, Joe is now president and commander-in-chief and Sue is Director of the Domestic Policy Council. True, her role is now "domestic," not foreign policy. But does anyone really believe that she no longer has a foreign policy role, whereas foreign policy is her area of expertise?

In any event, throughout this tragedy unfolding in Kabul, I have not heard or read any mention of either Susan Rice or Zbigniew Brzezinski. Why not? Are the media covering up for them?

International Media Falsify the Housing Dispute in Jerusalem's Shimon haTsadiq Quarter

One of the chief ways in which international media, such as BBC, France24 or even Foxnews and i24, falsify the situation and the issues involved is by wrongly calling  the area Sheikh Jarrah. Traditionally, the area or large plot of real estate was called the Shimon haTsadiq Quarter. That is how it appears, for instance, in Dan Bahat's historical atlas of Jerusalem, and  in the Palestine Post before Israeli independence.

Simon the Just [Shimon haTsadiq] was an ancient Jewish high priest and his tomb is believed traditionally to be found on this site in Jerusalem, along with several other ancient Jewish cave tombs on the site. For that reason, the real estate around the Tomb --considered a holy place-- was bought jointly by Ashkenazi and Sefardi leaders in 1878. Besides enhancing the physical aspect of Simon's tomb, houses were built for poor Jews on part of the lot while part of it, including the location of the houses now at issue, was left undeveloped. 

Jews were driven out of the Shimon haTsadiq Quarter in December 1947-January 1948. They were the first refugees in the war who could not go home after it, since Jewish refugees from south Tel Aviv, for example, could go home after the war. Just by the way, the first refugees in the war were Jews, probably those from south Tel Aviv which was subject for months to sniper fire from the minaret of the Manshiyyah Mosque in nearby Jaffa/Yafo.

The Jewish homes on the plot were occupied by Arabs in 1948 or after. The houses now at issue were built in 1954-55 on Jewish-owned land by Jordan. 

When the whole city returned to Jewish control in 1967, Arabs living around the tomb of Simon were allowed to stay. However, Israeli courts recognized the Jewish ownership through committees of the old Ashkenazi and Sefardi religious communities in the city. Eventually Arab residents in the houses at issue were told to pay  rent to the rightful, legal owners. They could stay and not be evicted if they paid rent, which would be low because of Jerusalem's tenant protection law. Some took money offered to them to move out while eventually others, directed by the Palestinian Authority, refused to pay rent and were taken to court. In these court cases they claimed ownership supposedly granted to them by Jordan. But the courts found against them and the owners added the condition that they not only pay rent but recognize that they were not the legal owners. At this point we should say that it was very clever on the part of Abu Mazen's Palestinian Authority to direct these people not to pay rent or to acknowledge that they had to pay rent to Jewish owners. In this way, the PA created a deceptive issue or narrative: Supposedly poor Arabs, called "Palestinians," were being evicted by cruel Jews, who were labeled with the pejorative term "settlers" who wanted to sadistically take over Arab homes for their nefarious purposes when in reality, it was Jews who were driven from their homes by Arabs in 1947-1948. As said, the first refugees in the war who could not go home after it were the Jews of Shimon haTsadiq Quarter. Yet various news outlets are collaborating in justifying the Arab imperialist conquest and ethnic cleansing of the Shimon haTsadiq Quarter in 1947-48.

Media coverage of the situation in and around Shimon haTsadiq Quarter is generally characterized by ignorance, lack of historical context or false history by insinuation or assertion, as well as moral obtuseness. For instance, the Foxnews journo in Jerusalem said that the "settlers" were taking over the houses and evicting the Arabs ["Palestinians"] by an "obscure law." Nothing obscure. The courts just recognized the rightful owners. Of course it is never mentioned that the area's Jews were driven out in 12/1947 and 1/1948. 

Something else never mentioned is that the traditional tomb of Simon the Just is located on the same lot. That would acknowledge a Jewish presence there in antiquity. And one must not do that in the age of frequent distortion of history and widespread Israelophobia, the latest version of traditional Judeophobia.

Now Simon's tomb used to be considered an ideal destination for Jewish pilgrimages on Lag B'Omer, like Meron. The site appears on the list of Jewish holy places in the Rhodes armistice accords of 1949. Jordan [then Transjordan] was supposed to allow Jews access to their holy places but Jordan always violated that part of those accords, as you would expect.

The ethnic cleansing of the Shimon haTsadiq Quarter in 1947-48 is now forgotten by ignorant or deceitful journalists and presumed news outlets.

- - - - - - - - - SOURCES

Yits'haq Levi [Levitsa], Tish'a Qabin [Hebrew]

Palestine Post [forerunner of the Jerusalem Post] for 30 November 1947 through 31 January 1948

Zeev Vilna'i, Encyclopedia of Jerusalem [Hebrew]

[here] [here] [here] 

Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Jerusalem, a neighbor of Shimon ha Tsadiq Quarter [here]

Jewish property in Jerusalem seized by Arabs & Jewish property taken by Arab governments [here]