Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Majid Rafizadeh • September 7, 2024 at 5:00 am
Iran's regime and its proxies constantly launch attacks – at Sunni Gulf States, at Israel and at US troops -- with the seeming goal of eradicating the Jewish state and driving "The Big Satan" out of the region. That way, the mullahs appear to believe, Imperial Iran would be able to enjoy the run of the corral without interference from countries they allege are imperialist, and revel in an unfettered "open season." Iran and its proxies have attacked US troops in the region more than 150 times just since October. The US response has not exactly been a deterrent. In the meantime, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism continues cheerfully to put the finishing touches on its nuclear weapons program. The regime hides behind its proxies because it would rather its proxies receive retaliatory strikes instead of Tehran, Isfahan, Qom or Natanz, and it seems above all to fear losing its grip on power. The mullahs doubtless are aware that they lack broad support among the Iranian people, so it is easier to extend their influence and Islamist ideology through their proxies. Why should a country that does not treat its own people well treat others any better? The time to put a stop to Iran's runaway aggression is long overdue – before it launches nuclear weapons.
Iran's regime and its proxies constantly launch attacks – at Sunni Gulf States, at Israel and at US troops -- with the seeming goal of eradicating the Jewish state and driving "The Big Satan" out of the region. That way, the mullahs appear to believe, Imperial Iran would be able to enjoy the run of the corral without interference from countries they allege are imperialist, and revel in an unfettered "open season." Pictured: Soldiers of Iran's Houthi proxy in Sanaa, Yemen on January 19, 2024 (Photo by Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images
For nearly four decades, since the rise of Iran's Islamist regime in 1979, the West has funneled substantial political and economic resources into combating Iran's proxies. To what effect? Not enough, it would seem, to write home about. After all these years, the West might consider, instead, facing a crucial realization: it might consider attacking the source, not merely its symptoms. It is high time for the West to wake up. After nearly 40 years, it is only natural to ask whether these efforts have succeeded in even curbing Iran's proxies, terrorist groups, and militias. Unfortunately, not even a fraction of success can be claimed. On the contrary, these groups have grown stronger, more entrenched, and more lethal over the years. Their numbers and influence have multiplied, and their power has only solidified, until they are now formidable forces in the region – because no one has stopped them.
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by Andrew Bostom • September 6, 2024 at 5:00 am
ADL further recorded a total of 400 antisemitic incidents on college and university campuses, compared to only 33 incidents during the same period in 2022. Ugly incidents of U.S. campus antisemitism persisted throughout the spring 2024 semester year. Routine empirical, if taboo, observation clearly indicates that often, the most vociferous and violent U.S. student campus antisemites share a common Islamic/Muslim religio-ethnic identity. A courageous, expansive Brandeis University study was just published addressing the potential validity of this anecdotal observation by analyzing U.S. undergraduate college student religious affiliation as a critical, independent factor animating their Jew-hatred. Sadly, but with depressing predictability, the study's seminal, if corroborative findings are being ignored by media, and the most voluble talking heads and "public intellectuals," across the ideological spectrum. The study authors concluded that although "a climate of universal anti-Jewish hatred" did not exist, Jewish student concerns about antisemitism were justified, and "driven by about a third of students who held distinct patterns of beliefs about Jews and Israel." Specifically, "Identifying as Muslim was significantly associated with being either hostile to Israel or hostile to Jews, even after controlling for other factors." Furthermore, compared to Christians, for example, Muslims were 2.6-fold more likely to harbor the most virulent antisemitism, namely, shared hostility to both Israel and Jews. Since 2004, ADL surveys of Muslims have been conducted in Western (European and U.S.) societies, and Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries, where Islam is the state religion. MENA Muslim nations are by wide margins the 16 most antisemitic countries worldwide, where the prevalence of extreme antisemitism ranges from a "low" of 74% (in Egypt and Saudi Arabia), to 93% (among the Palestinian Muslims of Gaza, and the West Bank). Largely consistent with these ADL MENA Muslim data, and strikingly concordant with the 2.6-fold excess of extreme Muslim antisemitism, relative to extreme Christian antisemitism, just revealed by the Brandeis study of U.S. college students, 2015, 2019, and 2023 ADL Western European reports, and a 2017 ADL U.S. report, found a 2- to 4-fold excess prevalence of extreme antisemitism, among Muslims versus Christians, or non-Muslims. Discussion of the most plausible and discernible explanation for this global surfeit of Muslim Jew-hatred is also shunned: relentless inculcation of antisemitic motifs from the Qur'an itself, and other core Islamic texts, by the pre-eminent authoritative religious teaching institutions in Islam, such as Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's putative "Vatican." Identical, canonically sourced Jew-hating Islamic religious indoctrination is ubiquitous, and even embellished, in mainstream U.S. mosques, a baleful practice that has intensified following October 7, 2023. Unfortunately, monomaniacal focus on DEI racist bias has become just the latest device to avoid any serious discussion of Islam, and the global pandemic of excess Muslim Jew-hatred. Hope springs eternal publication of the landmark Brandeis study confirming this disproportionate pandemic has reached U.S. campuses, will finally initiate honest reckoning with such uniquely Muslim bigotry.
Routine empirical, if taboo, observation clearly indicates that often, the most vociferous and violent U.S. student campus antisemites share a common Islamic/Muslim religio-ethnic identity. Pictured: Students participate in a demonstration in support of Hamas outside Columbia University campus on November 15, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The carnage of October 7, 2023 in southern Israel was wrought by an unprovoked attack by the Jew-hating, jihad terror organization Hamas, in conjunction with local Gazan Muslims. Some 1,200 Israelis were murdered, the victims being overwhelmingly non-combatant children, women, men, and the elderly. Atrocities committed against these primarily non-combatant Israelis included, mutilation, torture, beheadings, and mass rape, followed by burning, helpfully documented by the jihadists' own videos and oral testimony (of captured jihadists), surveillance camera videos, surviving eyewitness testimony of the victims, and forensic pathology evidence.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • September 5, 2024 at 5:00 am
One of the reasons the Palestinian Authority (PA) is reluctant to crack down on the "battalions" is because PA officials are aware that the terrorists enjoy widespread support among the Palestinian public. The Palestinian Authority eventually fell victim to its own passivity. In 2007, Hamas staged a violent and brutal coup against the PA in Gaza, killing dozens of PA loyalists. According to a Human Rights Watch report: "Hamas military forces captured 28-year-old Mohammed Swairki, a cook for [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard, and executed him by throwing him to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City." The Israeli operation aims to prevent Iran and its Palestinian proxies from opening a new front against Israel from the West Bank. The PA, however, has constantly violated the terms of the Oslo Accords by, among other things, failing to stop armed groups from operating in its territory and from attacking Israelis. The PA has therefore become part of the problem, not the solution. If anyone is upset with Israel for its counterterrorism operation, they need to be more upset with the PA for not standing up to the armed groups and preventing Iran from establishing a terror base in the West Bank.
One of the reasons the Palestinian Authority (PA) is reluctant to crack down on armed terrorist groups, is because PA officials are aware that the terrorists enjoy widespread support among the Palestinian public. Pictured: Gunmen from a number of terrorist groups, including the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Izaddin al-Qassam Brigades, Al-Quds Brigades, and Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, hold what they called a "joint press conference" in Jenin refugee camp on February 25, 2023. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has condemned Israel for initiating a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, near Jordan, but it has purposely chosen to overlook the reason behind the Israeli security's operation. Israel's counterterrorism operation, called Summer Camps, targets numerous Iran-backed armed terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), that have been operating freely in PA-controlled territories in the past few years. The main objective of Israel's operation is to thwart Iran's intention, with the help of the armed groups, to turn not only Gaza, but also the West Bank into another terror base to be used as part of the Islamists' Jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel.
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by Con Coughlin • September 4, 2024 at 5:00 am
[T]he fact that the EU's foreign policy chief [Josep Borrell] has even suggested imposing punitive measures against Israel, a country smaller than the state of New Jersey, when it is involved in a desperate fight defending itself against the world's largest sponsor of state terrorism, Iran, and its proxy terrorist groups -- Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iraqi militias, as well as Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- on at least seven fronts, shows a woeful lack of understanding of the conflict. Borrell's constant articulation of anti-Israeli views also raises questions about his suitability to continue holding such an important position in the EU. Earlier this year, he launched a blistering attack against the "Israeli occupation authorities" for imposing punitive measures against an openly genocidal Palestinian Authority (PA). Even so, Borrell's stance reflects the deep anti-Israel sentiment that exists within the EU bureaucracy... After Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, rather than receiving support for her gesture of solidarity by visiting Israel, during which [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen went to the Kfar Aza kibbutz (where at least 52 of 700 residents were murdered), she faced a barrage of criticism from EU insiders, with 800 EU staffers writing an official letter of complaint criticising her "uncontrolled" support of Israel. [UN Secretary-General Antonio] Guterres's willingness to focus his criticism on Israel, and not the Iranian-backed terrorists, is yet another example of the UN's institutional anti-Israel bias. If the UN has any genuine interest in taking a balanced approach to the violence in the West Bank, then, instead of focusing its criticism exclusively on Israel, it would call on Iran to cease backing the network of terrorist groups it backs in the region, whose main goal is the destruction of Israel on the way to destroying the United States -- the main representative of the West. The failure of international bodies such as the EU and the UN to demonstrate any pretence of balance when intervening on vital international security issues such as the Iranian-sponsored conflicts taking place in Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon not only makes a mockery of their claim to be independent arbiters on the issue. It also runs the risk of making them utterly irrelevant, to the extent that they suffer the same fate as the League of Nations in the 1930s, whose inability to confront fascism condemned it to abject failure.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell's constant articulation of anti-Israeli views also raises questions about his suitability to continue holding such an important position in the EU. Earlier this year, he launched a blistering attack against the "Israeli occupation authorities" for imposing punitive measures against an openly genocidal Palestinian Authority (PA), while standing next to PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. Pictured: Mustafa (L) and Borrell at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium on May 26, 2024. (Photo by Lukasz Kobus/European Commission/Handout)
The European Union's dangerous bias on the Gaza conflict, where it constantly backs Iranian-backed terrorist groups at the expense of a democracy, Israel, has been exposed yet again by the latest anti-Israel stance adopted by Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign minister. In a move calculated to further strain the EU's already problematic relationship with Israel, Borrell has announced that he has asked the bloc's members to consider imposing sanctions on two Israeli cabinet ministers for "hate messages" against Palestinians, messages that he claimed broke international law. Borrell did not name either of the ministers specifically. But it was obvious who he was referring to given that, in recent weeks, he has publicly criticised Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich for statements Borrell has described as "sinister" and "an incitement to war crimes".
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by Bassam Tawil • September 3, 2024 at 5:00 am
Hamas leaders, who are closely observing the protests, are likely to harden their stance in the hope that the Israeli government will give in to the demonstrators' demands, including an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has the Israeli public pressuring their government to allow Hamas to "live to fight another day": to rearm, regroup and continue attacking Israelis – as Hamas official Ghazi Hamad vowed. Hamas leaders are banking on the Biden administration to compel the Israeli government to give in to the terror group's demands.... It has long been the dream of Hamas and many Palestinians to see the US turn its back on Israel. Hamas's primary goal is to remain in power and return to the pre-October 7 era, when it built a large terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Hamas knows it will not be able to accomplish its aims without a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and an official end of the war. That is why Hamas is insisting that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Israel's presence there obstructs Hamas's efforts to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip through cross-border tunnels, as it has been doing for the past two decades. Hamas is reportedly demanding US and international guarantees that Israel will not target the terror group anytime in the future. Until then, Hamas will continue to hold on to many of the hostages as an "insurance policy." Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 atrocities, will not release all the hostages at once. He will continue to physically surround himself with many of them to ensure that Israel does not kill him. Sinwar does not care how many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip perish, as long as he is permitted to stay alive. Even if Hamas were to initially release 10 or 20 hostages as part of any agreement, who could ensure that the remaining captives would be released? Are we supposed to take Hamas's word for it? Are we supposed to believe that the Americans, Egyptians and Qataris would be able to force Hamas to comply with the terms of any agreement? Hamas is only interested in a deal that would keep it in power and make Israel lose the war. Hamas does not feel under pressure, at all, to reach any deal. Why should it? If US President Joe Biden were serious about reaching a deal, all he has to do is phone the leader of Qatar and tell him, as he allegedly told Netanyahu a few weeks ago, to "stop bullshitting me!" The hostages-ceasefire negotiations have broken down because of insufficient pressure from the Biden administration on Hamas's patrons in Qatar. The failure of the negotiations should be attributed to Qatar's lack of action against the Hamas leaders who are living in luxury in Doha. Qatar is not doing anything because it is not under any serious pressure from the Biden administration. Has the Biden administration considered using the threat of withdrawing the US Central Command from Qatar's Al-Udeid Air Base from to pressure the Gulf state's rulers into convincing their friends in Hamas to free all the hostages?
After murdering six Israeli hostages last week, Hamas leaders are undoubtedly rubbing their hands with delight as startled and distraught Israelis take to the streets to demand an immediate hostage-ceasefire deal with the Islamist terror group. Hamas leaders, who are closely observing the protests, are likely to harden their stance in the hope that the Israeli government will give in to the demonstrators' demands. Pictured: Protesters demanding a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas are gathered around a bonfire on September 2, 2024 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
The aim of the execution of six Israeli hostages by the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas was to shock the Israeli public and incite it to rebel against the Israeli government. The goal of the executions, which reportedly took place in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip last week, was also to convey to the Biden administration the need to increase pressure on Israel to accede to most of Hamas's demands in exchange for the release of the captives the terrorist group is holding in the Gaza Strip.
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by John Richardson • September 2, 2024 at 5:00 am
The Biden-Harris administration apparently sees no problem with a Palestinian state being yet another terrorist state, committed to annihilating Israel -- as both Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force commander General Esmail Qaani ("Israel is a cancer that must be eliminated"), and senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad have straightforwardly vowed. A ceasefire might sound as if it is a "good thing" that benefits everyone -- understandably if a friend or family member is a hostage. The problem seems to be the Hamas demand that Israel should leave the "Philadelphi corridor" on the border between Gaza and Egypt, so that Hamas, backed by its patrons Qatar and Iran, can resume smuggling weapons and ammunition into Gaza, rearm, rebuild and attack again. It is probably more convenient, for all those trying to overthrow Netanyahu, to look at him rather than at the real perpetrators: Hamas, Iran and Qatar. Qatar, "the Trojan Horse in Washington D.C.," has long been financing Islamic terrorist organizations, as well as bestowing more than $6 billion on US universities to teach American youths whatever Qatar's leaders decide. Nevertheless, the Biden-Harris administration decided that these qualifications made Qatar perfect to negotiate the Gaza war on America's behalf, the same way the administration unfathomably decided to have Russia negotiate on America's behalf with Iran over restarting the nuclear deal. The Biden-Harris administration seems to want Netanyahu gone to be able to work with "their" prime minister: one who presumably would be delighted not only to have a terrorist Palestinian state on his borders -- a state sworn to Israel's destruction -- and who would also be delighted if Iran -- also sworn to Israel's destruction -- had nuclear weapons. It is the policy embraced by Obama, so long as Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons "on his watch." Down the road, however, would be an altogether different story. What many Israelis seem unwilling or unable to see is, sadly, that even with a ceasefire, the hostages will not be released. Hamas will hold on to as many of them as they can for as long as they can, to keep them in play as a weapon. With a ceasefire, Israel unfortunately will not get peace and will not get the hostages. The Israelis might see a few hostages at a time dribbled out, the living ones first, they hope, each one exchanged for hundreds, if not more, of convicted Palestinian terrorists released from Israeli prisons, whose first job would be to go right back to terrorizing. Meanwhile, the negotiations over every hostage would allow plenty of time for Iran and Hamas to bring more weapons in through the unguarded border from Egypt into Gaza, in order to rearm. The current leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, is himself a convicted terrorist who confessed to murdering four people with his own hands. Sinwar was serving four life sentences in an Israeli prison when he was released, among more than 1,000 terrorists, in exchange for one Israeli hostage, Gilad Shalit, in 2011. There is at least one way to get the hostages back quickly.... "Many Americans believe that they owe Qatar for its hosting of the U.S. CENTCOM base. The truth is precisely the opposite: It is Qatar that owes the U.S., for locating this base there. Without this base's presence in the country, Qatar would disappear within less than a week – its neighbors would eat it up." — Yigal Carmon, MEMRI, June 10, 2024. Instead of saying, as the propagandists no doubt like, "Bring them Home," meant to sound as if Netanyahu is hiding the hostages under the Knesset, Israelis would be better off saying, "Release the Hostages" -- directed at Hamas, Qatar and Iran. A ceasefire deal unfortunately will not bring back the hostages any time soon. Hamas will drag out each negotiation, continue attacking Israel and try to make Israelis miserable enough to give up the fight, as many seem to be doing even now.
A ceasefire might sound as if it is a "good thing" that benefits everyone -- understandably if a friend or family member is a hostage. The problem seems to be the Hamas demand that Israel should leave the "Philadelphi corridor" on the border between Gaza and Egypt, so that Hamas, backed by its patrons Qatar and Iran, can resume smuggling weapons and ammunition into Gaza, rearm, rebuild and attack again. Pictured: A large Hamas tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, beneath the Philadelphi Corridor, discovered by the Israeli military on August 4, 2024. (Photo source: IDF)
The murder of six more Israeli hostages -- Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino -- captured by the terrorist group Hamas appears to be leading many Israelis, along with most of their ever-gullible media (remember the Oslo Accords?) to think that if only their government would agree to a ceasefire, they would get their hostages back. Most people, at least in the West, would desperately like that -- not just the American ones -- all 120 of them, especially before Hamas finishes murdering them. If the Israelis really want their hostages back, however, they had better think again.
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by Raymond Ibrahim • September 1, 2024 at 5:15 am
"[T]hings don't seem to get better.... elected officials are just not interested in the welfare of the people," and are offering no protection or other practical support to the Christian communities whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed. — Fr. Andrew Dewan, Director of Communications in Nigeria's Catholic Diocese of Pankshin, canuk.org, July 16, Nigeria. On July 1, a young Christian man was sentenced to death for "blasphemy" in a Pakistani court. But first Ehsan Shan will need to serve a 22-year prison sentence and pay a fine of one million rupees. — July 2, Pakistan. On July 20, a Christian man learned that a Muslim organization had offered a $20,000 reward to anyone who beheads him for "blasphemy" .....posters circulating in Pakistan in July [were] showing his picture and calling upon Muslims to hunt the infidel down and to perform, in the words of the posters, sar tan se juda—"head separated from body"—on him." He said the reason the false blasphemy accusation was leveled against him in the first place was to intimidate him from his activist work: "I have been reporting about the forced conversion and rape of minor Hindu girls and their subsequent marriages to Muslim Men." — July 26. "The land in question has been specifically designated for religious use, but the government is discriminating against the church because it is not associated with the state's preferred religion...." — Alliance Defending Freedom, July 12, Turkey.
On July 4, a taxi driver — Jamshaid Choudhry, 44, a Muslim man of Pakistani origins — was arrested in New York for attacking large marble statues that had stood before the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in Fresh Meadows for 42 years, culminating with the decapitation of the young Christ statue. Pictured: Holy Family Roman Catholic Church, photographed in 2020. (Image source: Tdorante10/Wikimedia Commons)
Muslim Slaughter of Christians Democratic Republic of Congo: According to a July 28 report: "Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) claimed, in four statements published on July 25-27, 2024, that on July 24 its fighters attacked six villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) northeastern provinces, beheading more than 57 Christian villagers. In the two largest attacks that day, 54 villagers were beheaded, 30 and 24 respectively."
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by Amir Taheri • September 1, 2024 at 4:00 am
Plato, at least in his magnum opus The Republic, depicts the ideal society as one ruled by those who know best, with the mission to look after the populace from cradle to grave. All that people have to do is obey the rules and enjoy the good life offered by ruling philosophers. Aristotle, in contrast, focuses on the individual who is, with the exception of occasions when gods intervene, master of his destiny. The settlers who created the United States were closer to Aristotle's cult of the individual than to Plato's collective utopia. They came to the New World as individuals or in groups too small to try to impose a collective identity on others. They were farmers who became path-finders, trailblazers and eventually nation-builders, always operating as individuals and coming together only in emergencies and exceptional circumstances such as fighting enemies. In his 780-page autobiography, President Barack Obama mocks critics who suggest he may be a "closet socialist." He then reveals his attachment to collectivism, praising "the collective spirit, a thing we all wish for, a sense of connection that overrides our differences." He added that the regulatory state has made American lives a lot better -- words that bring to mind Benito Mussolini's declamations about the big corporatist state that redistributes the fruits of national endeavor. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney once noted that almost half of all Americans depended on federal handouts and perks one way or another, and thus wouldn't vote for a candidate who argued for a smaller state and the cult of the individual as hero. Well, they didn't vote for him.
(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
In one of those outbursts that he specializes in, Donald Trump, the Republican Party's nominee for the US Presidency, called his Democrat rival, Vice-President Kamala Harris, a "Communist." Since I doubt that Harris has anything but the faintest notion about Communism, a zombie ideology that went out of fashion decades ago, I think the Republican standard-bearer was off the mark. Off the mark but not totally wrong, insofar as the Democrat champion implicitly identifies with a strand of politics dating back to Plato, a strand of which Communism is one of many variations. In political philosophy, this is called collectivism. Plato, at least in his magnum opus The Republic, depicts the ideal society as one ruled by those who know best, with the mission to look after the populace from cradle to grave. All that people have to do is obey the rules and enjoy the good life offered by ruling philosophers.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • August 31, 2024 at 5:00 am
Iran's runaway strides in its nuclear program have taken place largely under the watch of the Biden-Harris administration. Will this administration allow the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism to acquire nuclear weapons? It many have been what the Obama administration wished -- so long as it was "not on my watch" -- but it was a terrible idea then, and it is a worse one now. The prospect of Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arming groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias with nuclear weapons is bad for the world's health. Iran's regime that has also repeatedly vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and the United States— after that, presumably, the oil-rich Gulf states. Iran already controls five other countries in the region: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. There are flashing neon signs that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's dream of "exporting the Revolution" is steadily extending to America's backyard. Latin American rogue states allied with Iran could potentially be transformed into nuclear-armed threats.
Iran's runaway strides in its nuclear program have taken place largely under the watch of the Biden-Harris administration. Will this administration allow the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism to acquire nuclear weapons? The prospect of Iran arming groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias with nuclear weapons is bad for the world's health. (Image source: iStock)
Despite widespread concerns over Iran's advancing nuclear program, the Biden-Harris administration, along with European leaders, are largely inactive in curbing this growing threat. As the clock ticks, there has been no concrete strategy proposed to halt Iran's march towards nuclear weapons, leaving the world in an alarming position. In a recent development, Representative Mike Turner, Chairman of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, voiced extreme concern regarding Iran's potential declaration as a nuclear weapons state. Turner pointed out the unsettling prospect that Iran could announce its nuclear status "by the end of the year." He further blamed the Biden administration's policies for contributing to this dangerous situation, and stated that they have set the stage for a significant escalation. Turner emphasized:
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by Daniel Greenfield • August 30, 2024 at 5:00 am
After laying a white rose at the site of the Diversity Festival slashing that left three dead and eight wounded, Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised rapid action would be taken against knives. Right now, people in Germany can carry knives up to 4.7 inches long. The law will be modified so that they can only carry knives up to 2.4 inches long. No one appears to have considered the possibility that Muslim terrorists on the way to killing as many infidels as possible might violate the law and carry a concealed knife of 4 inches or longer. Such thoughts are unthinkable. There were 13,844 "knife crime" incidents in Germany in 2023, which the authorities are blaming on the existence of knives and not the perpetrators, who are reportedly mostly young Muslim men. But locating the source of the problem is probably "not a very helpful insight," In the UK, people sharing such insights are being locked up even as Islamic terrorists are being freed. The German government is more moderate than the Marxist lunatics at Whitehall. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood, a supporter of Islamic terrorism, have decided to ruthlessly suppress all British opposition to mass migration with raids and prison sentences. Much like the American liberal obsession with gun control, literally objectifying the problem, talking about things so that they don't have to talk about people, and then talking about broader social and economic issues, is a useful distraction from seeing what is actually taking place.
There were 13,844 "knife crime" incidents in Germany in 2023, which the authorities are blaming on the existence of knives and not the perpetrators, who are reportedly mostly young Muslim men. Pictured: Firemen clean blood from the pavement where a Muslim migrant stabbed six people, killing one, on May 31, 2024 in Mannheim, Germany. (Photo by Kirill Kudrayavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)
After a Syrian Muslim refugee slashed the throats of a few middle-aged people at the Festival of Diversity, the German government has announced that it will ban knives over three inches long. The ISIS terrorist was one of over a million migrants who had invaded Germany while claiming to be "refugees". The migrant was also one of the many scheduled to be deported, but was not. All that the Muslim terrorist had to do to evade deportation was leave government housing when the authorities came looking for him. And then when the military-age Arab Muslim migrant came back, the deportation order had expired and he couldn't be deported. Undeported Muslim refugees have been one of the largest sources of terrorism, crime and violence in Europe. So the German government is proposing a ban on knives over three inches.
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by Uzay Bulut • August 29, 2024 at 5:00 am
The protests that started against the former Bangladeshi government have since descended into rampant violence against the Hindu community. " Jamaat-e-Islami has made a list of Hindu houses and businesses, and they are systematically targeting Hindus. I am also being told that JeI has blocked several roads with mobs walking around with guns. The network is also intermittently down and they are hardly able to contact each other. Essentially, the Hindus are boxed in a situation where they are not being allowed to communicate with each other and form groups to help each other. The situation, according to them is extremely dire. There is also news of at least 3 Hindu girls being abducted by the Muslims. There are probably far more..." — Nupur J Sharma, a journalist in Delhi, X, August 7, 2024. "That Bangladesh has violently toppled a democratically elected government and is going in the direction of Afghanistan is not news anymore.... The victims have no one to turn to, as global organizations such as the United Nations sold their souls to their Islamic masters long ago.... Bangladesh has descended into a true Islamic abyss. There are mutilated, naked, dead bodies suspended from giant structures in full public view. Islamic apologists in India have done everything in their power to whitewash the Islamic onslaught on Hindus in Bangladesh.... Leftists dub the anarchy in Bangladesh as a victory of democracy...." — Ashlyn Davis, political analyst, jihadwatch.org, August 6, 2024. Ironically, the land that is now called Bangladesh was majority-Hindu before its Islamization, which occurred after Islamic armies invaded and conquered the Indian subcontinent beginning in the eighth century. So was Pakistan. "[T]here has been a long history of violence and repression against Hindus in Bangladesh including genocide of an estimated two million then East Pakistani citizens (mostly Hindu), the ethnic cleansing of 10 million ethnic Bengalis (mostly Hindus) who fled to India, and the rape of 200,000 women (also mostly Hindu) in camps set up for the sole purpose of raping and terrorizing." — The Hindu American Foundation. Terrifying videos of riots, lynchings, and arsonists setting fire to houses and offices are being shared on social media platforms. Will the United Nations or anyone intervene and stop the atrocities? Or will the world once again see and ignore yet more crimes against humanity with no accountability for those Islamists who perpetrate them?
Hindus protest against violent Islamist attacks on their community, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 9, 2024, (Photo by Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images)
Hindus in Bangladesh are under attack. Islamists who have sabotaged the students' anti-government protests have been rioting and hunting down defenseless Hindus across the country since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and flee to India on August 5. According to reports and social media posts from the region, Hindu homes have been burned, shops looted, and temples vandalized. Muslim mobs are wreaking havoc on the Hindu minority. Countless Hindus have been victimized by the rampaging Islamists. A list of 54 attacks that targeted temples, homes and establishments that belong to the Hindu community in the country was released by the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, also on August 5. According to the X account of Voice of Bangladeshi Hindus, these attacks happened within five hours.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • August 28, 2024 at 5:00 am
Armed and funded by Iran, the "battalions," whose members are affiliated with PIJ, Hamas and the ruling Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, began operating in the northern West Bank more than three years ago. "Iran seeks as a strategic objective to surround Israel with a crescent of active fronts maintained by Iran and supported by Islamist client militias. As part of this, the [Iranian] regime is seeking to find a way to add an eastern component to this crescent – through Jordan to the West Bank... Tehran has succeeded in establishing and maintaining an arms route in which military materiel, brought from Iran into Lebanon, is then transported across the Syrian-Lebanese border, via Jordan, into the West Bank. "The maintenance of this route is of strategic importance to Iran. It is intended, over time, to flood the West Bank with weaponry, and by so doing, to eventually make this area a third front in the ongoing long war against Israel." — Jonathan Spyer, journalist, expert on radical Islamic groups, Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2024. The PA's failure to crack down on the "battalions" means that Iran now has a small army in the West Bank. It will not be long before members of this army attack Israel in the same way as the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led invasion of Israel, in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered, with many raped, tortured and burned alive. In addition, more than 240 Israelis, including babies, women and the elderly, were abducted to the Gaza Strip, where 109 of them are still being held as hostages. Those who persist in advocating for the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel must take into consideration that doing so would lead to the rise of more Iran-backed "battalions" in the West Bank and other areas over which the PA is given control. Since the gunmen are frequently praised as "heroes" by many Palestinians, neither Abbas nor anyone who replaces him would have the courage to take them on. Even if Abbas does go back to the Gaza Strip, it is not probable that he would be able to confront Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups there. As in the West Bank, new "battalions" and militias will no doubt spring up in the Gaza Strip under Abbas's PA to pursue the Jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.
Armed and funded by Iran, new armed terrorist groups, whose members are affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the ruling Fatah faction of the Palestinian Authority, began operating in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas more than three years ago. Since then, gunmen belonging to these groups have carried out countless attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. Pictured: Palestinian terrorists in Jenin on March 8, 2023, at the funeral of fellow terrorists who were killed the previous day when they attacked Israeli soldiers. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
The armed wing of the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) announced on August 26 that five of its members were "martyred while performing their combat duty in the West Bank." One of the gunmen, Yazan Daraghmeh, a commander of the Tubas Battalion militia, was killed in a "work accident": while planting an explosive device that was supposed to be used against Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in his hometown of Tubas in the northern West Bank. The four other gunmen, Oday Abu Naasa, Ahmed al-Anteer, Taher Raddad, and Mosab al-Muqasqas, were killed in recent clashes with the IDF. They belonged to similar armed groups in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, also located in the northern West Bank. Armed and funded by Iran, the "battalions," whose members are affiliated with PIJ, Hamas and the ruling Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, began operating in the northern West Bank more than three years ago.
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by Lawrence Kadish • August 27, 2024 at 11:30 am
(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
In a recent national poll, more than half of responding Americans believe that China is deliberately exporting fentanyl to the United States for the purpose of harming, or even destabilizing our nation. Were that true, some might reasonably describe that strategy as an act of war. For China, it would be historic payback time. Having lost a generation, a nation, and an empire to opium introduced by Imperial Britain during the 1800s, no one knows better than the Chinese that a drug scourge can bring a country literally to its knees.
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by Robert Williams • August 27, 2024 at 5:00 am
The Biden-Harris administration has not lifted a finger against Iran for a reported 200 attacks on US troops in the Middle East, which include firing on US Navy ships, closing the Suez Canal, launching a Hamas-Hezbollah-Houthi War against Israel, not to mention the atrocities Iran's regime commits every day against its own people. By ignoring sanctions against Iran and presenting no deterrence, the administration has, in fact, set up Iran to do all of that. The US could probably close down Iran's election-interference activities, but [m]ore to the point, the administration has the same goal as the Iranian regime: it does not want Trump elected, either. These Iranian efforts include fraudulent websites posing as news sites, and the impersonation of social and political activist groups "to stoke chaos, undermine trust in authorities, and sow doubt about election integrity." — Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, August 9, 2024 [T]here can be no doubt that a Trump presidency poses a genuine threat to Iran. Meanwhile, the lavish gifts, accommodations and appeasement that the Biden administration continues to shower upon the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, ensures the Islamic regime's survival. The Kamala Harris campaign has previously said it had no indication it was hacked. Of course, why would Iran seek to harm Harris's campaign in any way, when her presidency would guarantee the continuation of appeasement and accommodation that has been the norm for the Democratic party ever since Barack Hussein Obama was president? The million-dollar question is what the Biden-Harris administration is doing to deter, discourage and hold accountable Iran's Islamist regime for seeking to influence, destabilize, and hack the US elections? The answer appears to be: nothing The Biden-Harris administration itself, after all, has been infiltrated by Iranian agents, as an investigation by Semafor showed last fall, with at least three Iranian agents working directly under U.S. Special Representative for Iran Rob Malley. One of the agents, Ariane Tabatabai.... has been allowed to keep not only her job at the Pentagon, but her security clearance as well. In the end, the Biden-Harris administration itself is the most important shill for Iran.... Why would the Biden-Harris administration want to deter Iran from anything?
Iranian efforts to interfere with the upcoming US elections include fraudulent websites posing as news sites, and the impersonation of social and political activist groups "to stoke chaos, undermine trust in authorities, and sow doubt about election integrity," according to Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (image source: iStock/Getty Images)
Iran's influence operations in the US are growing exponentially, with the Wall Street Journal reporting this month on an FBI investigation that "comes amid rising fears that Iran has emerged as the most aggressive foreign election threat to U.S." "Iran has quickly emerged as the chief election security concern within the U.S. government. Just last month, U.S. intelligence officials told media reporters that Russia was the 'pre-eminent threat' to the November vote and viewed Iran as a lesser concern seeking solely to generate discord."
Iran's purpose? To foment chaos and prevent the reelection of Donald Trump.
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by Gordon G. Chang • August 26, 2024 at 5:00 am
With his assault on the Philippines, Xi could be finally making his own move in East Asia. Beijing claims all the features and waters inside its infamous "cow's tongue," now defined by ten dashes on official maps, which encloses about 85% of the South China Sea. Those waters, the Chinese proclaim, are "blue national soil." It appears... that China's leader is not planning to start hostilities with an invasion of the main island of Taiwan. Xi, in the domestic political landscape he has shaped, knows he is vulnerable, especially because his policies are being blamed for making a deteriorating situation worse. Xi needs a quick political victory, but unfortunately for him, a takeover of Taiwan is out of reach. That means, I think, he has decided to move on a weak neighbor. The Republic of the Philippines fits the bill. The risk is that an attack on the Philippines will lead to general conflict in the region. As an initial matter, Manila and the U.S. are parties to a 1951 treaty. The Biden State Department has issued written warnings — the last one on August 19 — that the U.S. was willing to use force against China to discharge its obligations... In addition, NATO members over the last several years have become involved in the South China Sea.
Despite lack of justification, China's President Xi Jinping has committed one provocation after another in Philippine water. For example, on August 19, Chinese Coast Guard vessels, without justification, rammed two Philippine boats near Sabina Shoal as they tried to resupply forces stationed at Flat and Nanshan Islands. Pictured: A China Coast Guard ship (top) sails dangerously close to Filipino fishermen aboard two wooden boats (center), as a Philippine Fisheries and Aquatic Resources inflatable boat observes, near the Scarborough Shoal, in the South China Sea, on February 16, 2024. (Photo by Ted Aljibe/ AFP/Getty Images)
On August 23, China's foreign ministry said that the country had taken "countermeasures" against two Philippine military aircraft near Subi Reef in the South China Sea. Four days earlier, Chinese Coast Guard vessels, without justification, rammed two Philippine boats near Sabina Shoal as they tried to resupply forces stationed at Flat and Nanshan Islands. The move follows belligerent acts on June 17 at nearby Second Thomas Shoal, when Chinese vessels rammed Philippine craft, seized two of them, and wounded eight sailors, one seriously. On March 5, China wounded four Filipino sailors at Second Thomas, where Manila in 1999 grounded the Sierra Madre, a World War II-era vessel, to bolster its territorial claims. All of these incidents took place close to main Philippine islands and therefore far from China. Sabina, for instance, is 124 nautical miles from Palawan of the Philippines and more than eight times that distance to China's Hainan.
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