Trump Should Think Twice Before Claiming Credit for this Disastrous Deal

Soon to be U.S. President Donald Trump is taking credit for the reported Israel-Hamas deal that will apparently result in cessation of hostilities in Gaza for at least six weeks, the release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza (some of whom may be dead), and the release of hundreds--if not more than 1000--Arab terrorists, many of whom have blood on their hands and publicly stated murderous intentions in their minds. Trump portrays himself as the ultimate deal-maker, and he asserts that this deal is the first step toward bringing peace to the Mideast--but the reality, as I explained in Israel Must Not Repeat the Mistake of Releasing Terrorists, is that this deal is a painful, humiliating defeat in the life and death battle versus Islamist terrorists whose goal is to subjugate the non-Muslim world (which they refer to as Dar-al-harb): "If this deal takes place, it will be an unmitigated disaster not only for Israel and the Jewish people, but for the West, because this will represent a tremendous victory for Hamas specifically and Islamic terrorists in general; it will demonstrate that terrorism works, that Israel is weak, and that if you resist Israel long enough then Israel will surrender."

In Is this the best deal they could come up with?, Gary Willig wrote:

Hamas' leaders are dead. Its battalions are smashed. 20,000 of its fighters are dead, with thousands more injured or in prison. Its rocket arsenal has been reduced to a few hundred at most. Its ally Hezbollah is in shambles and unable to help it anymore. Its masters and sponsors in Tehran are reeling from losses throughout the region, the destruction of their air defenses, and an economic crisis that will make rebuilding from this war far more difficult for Hamas than previous conflicts. Hamas has 5 days until the deadline set by the next American President to release its hostages or there will be "all hell to pay."

With everything that is going against Hamas, this is the best deal Israel and the US could come up with?

David M. Weinberg details the disastrous and sordid history of Israel's lopsided hostages for terrorists exchanges in Terrorist releases in exchange for hostages threaten even more Israeli lives (emphasis in original):

Every deal involving the release of terrorists has led to more bloodshed, planned and carried out by these released terrorists.

There are no exact statistics on this (because unsurprisingly the security establishment refuses to release such statistics), though estimates range from 10% to 50% of released terrorists swiftly return to hard-core terrorist activity with devastating effects.

The 1,150 Palestinian Arab prisoners released by Israel in the 1985 so-called Jibril deal, in which three Israeli soldiers who had been taken hostage in Lebanon by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were released, proceeded to fuel the First Intifada, which ran from 1987 to 1993 and lead to the deaths and injuries of Israeli and other citizens. According to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, about 10% of the released Palestinian terrorists returned to active terrorist duty.

Then came the Oslo Accords, when Israel mistakenly allowed at least 60,000 Palestinian Arabs from "abroad" into the Palestinian Authority territories, including 7,000 card-carrying PLO terrorists. Between 1993 and 1999, Israel released additional Palestinian Arab terrorists as "gestures" to the PLO, which fueled the Second Intifada, from 2000 to 2005. These shocking figures were revealed in an Israel Defense and Security Forum report from last year.

In 2004, Israel released more than 400 Palestinian Arab prisoners and some 30 Lebanese prisoners, including leaders of Hezbollah, for one civilian captive—Elhanan Tannenbaum—and the bodies of three IDF soldiers. The Second Lebanon War against Hezbollah followed not long after.

The 2011 deal for Gilad Shalit was the worst; more than 1,000 terrorists were released in exchange for the 25-year-old IDF soldier, including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Hamas-led attacks and atrocities on Oct. 7, 2023. In fact, almost the entire Hamas command structure involved in planning last year’s Simchat Torah assault on Israeli towns and cities, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed on a single day, was made up of terrorists released in the Shalit deal.

Joe Biden's foreign policy consisted of one disastrous decision after another, including but not limited to his funding of the the PLO's "Pay for Slay" Jew-Killing program, but Donald Trump is not starting his second term well; his bragging about his role in the upcoming Israel-Hamas deal indicates that Trump pressured Israel into accepting unfavorable terms so that he could claim a foreign policy "success" that will turn out to be disastrous for Israel and the United States.

It will give me no pleasure to say "I told you so" when the terrorists released by Israel in this deal kill Israelis, Americans, and other innocent civilians. This deal will also inspire more terrorism in the United States along the lines of the recent attack in New Orleans, because terrorists will sense and exploit the weakness now being displayed by Israel and the United States.

President Trump Must Confront Qatar for Sponsoring Islamic Terrorism

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is doing a major international public service with the Qatar Monitor Project (QMP) documenting the threat that Qatar poses not just to Israel but to the United States and the entire West (footnotes omitted):

Qatar is a big winner in the Syrian revolution, having supported the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani (formerly ISIS and Al-Qaeda and now Muslim Brotherhood) who has a $10 million bounty on his head. This is Qatar's classic game: support the Islamist terrorists and then present itself as a mediator, liaison, and even peacemaker – the arsonist playing firefighter. As in Afghanistan, as in Egypt in 2010, and as in every Muslim country.

In every Muslim country where there is a battle between the Islamists and the secularists, Qatar supports the Islamists, as in Gaza supporting Hamas for years, building its military might and enabling October 7. And now, guess what – they are back in the saddle as mediators.

Who brought them back to the negotiations after the secular pro-U.S. president of Egypt threw them away? The U.S. – the country that has suffered more than any country from Qatar's duplicity and hidden subversive, anti-U.S. activities, including the 9/11 attacks.

While the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were mainly Saudis, recruited to Al-Qaeda as individuals, the mastermind of the attacks, Khaled Sheik Mohammad (KSM), was a former Qatari government employee at the Ministry of Electricity and Water in the capital Doha, who frequently was allowed to embark on terrorist missions in the world (see below). And when, in 1996, the FBI came to arrest him and told only the Emir, KSM disappeared within hours.

All of this has been substantiated in American intelligence and judicial documents, including KSM's confession.

Indeed, President-elect Trump threatened those holding hostages in Gaza with "all hell to pay" if they are not released by January 20. But this threat was not directed to any specific address and therefore devoid of any practical result. Had he directed it to Qatar, the patron of Hamas and the enabler of October 7, it would have helped, because without Qatar, Hamas is doomed. And Hamas will listen to Qatar's demands.

But since he did not point to the culprit, Qatar, but on the contrary brought Qatar back to the negotiations as an honest broker who tells him, together with a choir of "pundits" – former and current lobbyists of Qatar – that the pressure should be directed against Israel – the hostages are doomed.

Moreover, instead of helping in the negotiations, Qatar is leaking false information about a deal cut, just to disrupt the Egyptian efforts, without the U.S. even understanding what Qatar is doing.

President Biden's foreign policy decisions have been disastrous across the board, from the appeasement that emboldened Russia to invade Ukraine to funding the PLO's despicable "Pay for Slay" Jew-killing program to pressuring Israel into not achieving a decisive victory against Hamas to his defining moment: the triumph of the Taliban in the wake of his chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. President Biden not only failed to confront Qatar but he depicted Qatar as a helpful mediator. President Biden is not the only one to blame for Qatar's emergence as a major financier and supporter of Islamic terrorism, but matters became worse during his Administration, culminating in Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel.

QMP notes, "For decades, Qatar has been the foremost global sponsor of Islamist terrorist organizations and movements, both Sunni and Shia, across the Muslim world. These organizations and movements seek to topple non-Islamist regimes and replace them with Islamist ones – and have succeeded in places like Egypt and Afghanistan."

The success of President Trump's foreign policy will be determined in no small part by the extent to which he fixes (or least mitigates to the greatest degree possible) all of the disasters that President Biden created or made worse, and a major component of President Trump's agenda must be to confront Qatar and expose Qatar's malevolent actions that threaten the West.

The U.S. Should Defund UNIFIL and UNRWA

I previously explained that The United Nations is Antisemitic, Worse Than Useless, and Should Be Disbanded. Two of its constituent organizations are particularly despicable: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). I discussed UNRWA in depth in The Pathetic "Progressive" Response to Hamas' War Against Israel:

During Israel's War of Independence, several hundred thousand Arabs fled from Israel, exhorted by Arab military leaders to temporarily evacuate in order to make way for the planned massacre of Israel's Jewish residents. These Arabs expected to triumphantly return to a land with no Jews but instead Israel defeated the combined armies of her Arab neighbors. In most wars, the losing side is responsible for resettling its refugees or else a de facto population exchange occurs (few people talk about the fact that, at the same time that hundreds of thousands of Arabs voluntarily left Israel, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab countries, with most of those Jews fleeing to Israel). Not only did the Arab countries refuse to resettle their Arab brethren who they had exhorted to leave Israel but the so-called Palestinian Arabs are the only group in the world that has an entire UN organization devoted exclusively to their particular concerns: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). All other refugee crises in the world are dealt with by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. At the end of 2012, the UNHCR listed listed 45.2 million displaced people worldwide, the largest such number since 1994. The biggest single displaced person crisis in the world is focused in Pakistan, a result of decades of war, tyranny and instability in that region. The disproportionate attention paid to a fictional Palestinian nation and a real--but eminently solvable--Arab refugee problem not only does injustice to both Israel and the refugees in question (who have been exploited as political pawns by Israel's enemies for decades) but it also hinders efforts to solve other more severe refugee crises.

It is bad enough that there is an entire UN organization focusing on refugees of a fictional nation, people who share a common language, culture and religion with most of the other Arab countries in the Mideast and who should have been accepted by those countries decades ago, much like Israel welcomed Jewish refugees from Arab countries--but what really makes the UNRWA completely disgusting is that the UNRWA is complicit in war crimes committed against Israel. Three times in the past month, Hamas rockets have been found at UNRWA facilities. The first time that rockets were discovered in a UNRWA facility during the current conflict, the UNRWA handed over the rockets to Hamas, a flagrant violation of the UNRWA's purported neutrality.

Note that I wrote the above passage in 2021, two years before Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel. UNRWA actively collaborated before, during, and after October 7, 2023, further demonstrating the extent to which the organization has been completely corrupted by Hamas.

UNIFIL is just as bad as UNRWA, and Eugene Kontorovich persuasively argues that Donald Trump should make a campaign pledge to defund UNIFIL:

Created in 1978 to monitor an Israeli withdrawal in a long-forgotten skirmish with the Palestine Liberation Organization, the UN "interim" force has remained and grown, with a mission creep inversely related to its record of success. UNIFIL failed to prevent or ameliorate the Second Lebanon War in 2006, which Hezbollah began with a cross-border raid to take Israeli hostages and continued with a heavy rain of rockets on Israel...

Hezbollah has placed its armed positions within sight of UNIFIL observation posts. Yet the UN peacekeepers have done nothing to stop Hezbollah as it has turned southern Lebanon into an armed camp from which to attack Israel...

On Oct. 8, 2023, the magnitude of UNIFIL's failure became clear when Hezbollah joined Hamas' attack on Israel. Hezbollah's missile fire has continued all year, killed dozens of Israeli citizens, and made much of the tiny country's north uninhabitable. 

Now that Israel has finally moved into Lebanon to clear out Hezbollah, UNIFIL is getting in the way--knowingly providing the terrorist group cover...

U.S. taxpayers pay nearly 30% of UNIFIL's $550 million budget--essentially subsidizing indirect assistance to Hezbollah. But unlike other dysfunctional UN organizations, which are structured to be unaccountable and weather reform, UNIFIL is easy to fix. Its mandate must be reauthorized every year, or it simply ends...

UNIFIL's current mandate expires in August 2025, and there is no rational basis for reauthorizing it.

Yonah Jeremy Bob notes that Hezbollah--emboldened and financed by Iran--has spent 17 years making a mockery of UN Resolution 1701 that prohibited Hezbollah from operating in southern Lebanon:

Imagine a generation of children growing up believing that it is normal living among weapons of war. This is the monster that Hezbollah built across dozens of villages in southern Lebanon. I saw it first-hand on Oct. 10, riding in a convoy of Israel Defense Forces humvees. The IDF asked me not to identify the village lest it endanger their operations.

Almost half the village was destroyed by a mix of room-to-room battles and the Israeli military's exploding Hezbollah weapon stockpiles. IDF soldiers in tanks or bulldozers rumbled from house to house to catalogue weapons Hezbollah had buried, then demolished the homes. The terror group had hoped to tap its infrastructure in southern Lebanon to invade northern Israel in a replay of Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack...

As Israel tears apart Hezbollah's presence in southern Lebanon, it is also wiping out the West's view that this is an Israeli problem that can be solved by diplomacy alone. Since the invasion of southern Lebanon began on Sept. 30, the IDF has showered the West with evidence of weapons and materiel hidden in every third or fifth house...

The West should be raining fire and brimstone down on Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran, for making a farce of United Nations Resolution 1701. That resolution, adopted in 2006, said that Hezbollah couldn't operate in southern Lebanon.

The West can no longer deny that Hezbollah is out of control and must be restrained, preferably by diplomacy but if necessary by force. Yet the West's priority seems to be reaching a cease-fire so it can go on ignoring the dangers of these Middle Eastern actors...if the West presses Israel into a cease-fire that merely reverts to Resolution 1701--which has been ignored for 17 years with no consequences--all of Israel's successes will have been for nothing.

Rendering Israel's unprecedented successes versus Hamas and Hezbollah into nothing is precisely the tragically misguided policy being followed by President Joe Biden and fully endorsed by Vice President/presidential candidate Harris. After Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, Biden gave lip service to supporting Israel and then consistently took steps to restrict Israel's ability to defeat Hamas (and Hezbollah). Biden declared that if Hamas diverted humanitarian aid to their coffers then "it will end," but instead Biden has publicly insisted that Israel keep providing aid that he knows is sustaining Hamas--and thus prolonging the suffering of Hamas' hostages, including American citizens. Biden keeps bleating "Ceasefire!" with full knowledge that a ceasefire would not end Hamas' war to destroy Israel but would only give Hamas time to rebuild and reload. If Israel had listened to Biden then Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would still be alive sowing mayhem and destruction. 

Israel is defeating Hamas and Hezbollah despite Biden, not because of him--and if Harris is elected, the Mideast and the rest of the world will be set on fire in a way that will make the last four disastrous years of Biden's rule look like a pleasant walk in the park.

Nasrallah's Victims Rejoice at His Demise, While Western Media Outlets Display Their Distorted Moral Compasses

Israel used their elite military intelligence to locate Hezbollah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah, and then killed Nasrallah along with other high-ranking Hezbollah officials who were meeting in a residential area--a standard Hezbollah human shield tactic with the twin goals of (1) dissuading military action by Israel because Israel takes great pains to minimize civilian casualties, and (2) complaining about civilian casualties if Israel attacks. All civilian casualties in this war--on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border--are the responsibility of Hezbollah for committing the dual war crimes of intentionally targeting Israeli civilians and using their own civilians as human shields. To be even more specific, all civilian casualties in this war are the responsibility of Iran, which directs and funds the wars of annihilation that Hamas and Hezbollah are waging against Israel (and will continue to wage until either they destroy Israel or Israel eliminates their capacity to destroy Israel).

Nasrallah is responsible for murdering thousands of people, including U.S. citizens, so a naive but good-hearted person might assume that the world would congratulate Israel for finally bringing Nasrallah to justice. Iranian dissidents, Lebanese Christians, and Sunni Muslims in Lebanon--people directly impacted by Nasrallah's horrific deeds--cheered his demise. In contrast, the usual suspects--mainstream media outlets, delusional "peace" groups, and "useful idiots" on American college campuses--expressed dismay that one of the most evil people on Earth can no longer terrorize anyone. In the ultimate example of the perversion of language that George Orwell termed "Newspeak," The Washington Post praised Nasrallah's "folksy yet articulate manner," while The New York Times emphasized Nasrallah's "roly-poly figure," his "slight lisp," and his "propensity to crack jokes," and the AP noted that Nasrallah "often paused in his speeches to make jokes or break into local dialect." Would you expect a profile of Adolf Hitler to focus on such details while glossing over his war crimes? Many mainstream media outlets are worse than useless, because it is not simply that the information they provide has no value; they are engaged in a pattern of deliberating crafting inaccurate narratives to serve their notion of a "higher truth" that matters more to them than producing objective reporting free of bias.

Meanwhile, President Biden continues to speak with a forked tongue, first praising Israel for taking out a person who has much American blood on his hands but then immediately repeating his demand for a ceasefire. In case you--like Biden--are unaware, it must be emphasized that Hezbollah has clearly articulated their position on ceasefires with Israel: "We recognize no treaty with it, no ceasefire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine." It should also be noted that there is already a ceasefire in place in Lebanon, and Hezbollah has been violating that ceasefire for almost a year.

When then-Senator Biden tried to bully then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin more than 40 years ago, Begin declared to Biden, "Don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid."

Much of America's "aid" to Israel is spent buying American arms, so the "aid" is as much a government subsidy to American companies as anything else--and Israel's military is doing great work that America is either unwilling or unable to do in terms of eliminating wanted terrorists who have eluded justice for decades. 

Israel must remain steadfast and strong, and fight this war to its natural conclusion regardless of the pressure exerted by Biden and biased media outlets.

Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism

It is important to emphasize that Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable From Antisemitism Because Israel is the Jewish Homeland. It is absurd to assert that a person can hate Israel and deny Israel's right to exist but not hate Jews. Further, the denial of a nation's right to exist is a unique form of hatred directed only at the Jewish State and not at any other nation no matter how heinous that nation's actions.

In To Break the 'Moral Spine' of the Jews, Eliot Kaufman discusses the recent ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Mark C. Scarsi preventing UCLA from allowing protesters to deny access to the school's facilities to Jews who refuse to denounce Zionism. Kaufman notes that Judge Scarsi "focused on free exercise of religion," but Kaufman argues that "the marginalization of Jewish students demands our attention for other reasons." Kaufman describes what the UCLA protesters did:

They set up barriers and checkpoints, forcibly blocking students from parts of campus unless they deemed Israel guilty of the vilest crimes; rejected Zionism, or Israel's right to exist; and endorsed the protesters' political program. These are Red Guard tactics, anathema to the academic spirit. They call academia's bluff. What university that still believed in its mission would tolerate them?

Self-proclaimed "progressives" spew a lot of rhetoric about threats to democracy and threats to our freedoms, but the widespread, violent protests targeting Israel as well as individual Jews are a significant threat to democracy and our freedoms--and this hatred originates predominantly from a paradoxical yet toxic mixture of Leftist poshlost propaganda and Islamist ideology. It is disappointing that media outlets that purport to be bastions of democracy ignore or minimize the violence directed toward Jews on college campuses and elsewhere.

Fair criticism of specific Israeli policies is not anti-Zionist or antisemitic, but "fair" is an essential word in that phrase. It is demonstrably false to assert that Israel's conduct versus Hamas and Hezbollah violates international law, yet President Biden and Vice President Harris repeatedly imply--and sometimes overtly state--their disapproval of Israel's tactics, and both publicly clamor for a ceasefire that would represent a huge victory for Hamas while helping Hamas to fulfill its stated aim of repeating "again and again and again" the October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack. Denying Israel's right to self-defense against Hamas and Hezbollah--terrorist groups financed by Iran, a sworn enemy of both the United States and Israel--is anti-Zionist and antisemitic. It is apparently difficult for many lifelong Democrats to accept and understand the depths of the anti-Zionism that animate Biden's Mideast policies; don't be fooled by the agitators in Dearborn who assert that Biden is not sufficiently pro-Hamas: Biden loosened the financial shackles on Iran while also funding Palestinian Authority's "Pay for Slay" program that rewards Arabs for killing Jews. Those policies are not only anti-Zionist to the core, but they run counter to the United States' best interests.

It should also be noted that at a broader level beyond the anti-Israel policies enacted by the Biden Administration, Biden and Harris lack understanding of both military tactics and effective diplomacy, as demonstrated by--among other things--Biden's chaotic and disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, a historically significant blunder that Harris recently endorsed as "courageous and right." It would be right to say that Biden's feckless foreign policy decisions gave Vladimir Putin the courage to believe that he could invade Ukraine without a serious U.S. response, and it would also be right to say that Biden's bumbling similarly emboldened Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah to attack Israel.

As is generally the case, a foreign policy grounded in anti-Israel thinking is not effective in any sphere, nor is such a policy beneficial for the United States' long term interests here and abroad. Democracies should be working together to curb the power and influence of totalitarian regimes such as China, Iran, and Russia. Biden's policies have strengthened those regimes--and Hamas and Hezbollah--resulting in a corresponding weakening of the United States and a heightened vulnerability for Americans around the world.

Harvey Mansfield Laments the Decline of Higher Education, and Succinctly Summarizes the Difference Between a Liberal and a Progressive

The June 1-2, 2024 edition of The Wall Street Journal includes an interview titled The Long View of Higher Ed's Decline. Harvey Mansfield, the subject of the interview, may go down in history as the last conservative professor at Harvard. The entire interview deserves careful study, but two of Mansfield's points should be emphasized:

1) The combination of lowered admission standards and grade inflation throughout our higher education system has had a negative impact not just on the quality of college education but also the competency of the work force; when objective standards are discarded, excellence is no longer desirable or even measurable.

2) Mansfield provided a succinct summary of the difference between a liberal in the classical sense (an all but extinct species now) and the progressives who have taken over the Democratic Party: a liberal acknowledges America's flaws, but considers America to be redeemable and is proud to be an American; a progressive has a "loathing for his country. It goes beyond embarrassment to real dislike of America, and in a way, therefore, of themselves, because after all they're Americans."

Conservatives are often labeled "anti-intellectual," but an essential part of the intellectual life is the search for objective truth, and the willingness to engage in robust debate is part of that search. If you are so convinced that you have discovered the absolute truth that you are no longer willing to even listen to opposing views then you are not an intellectual, no matter how many college degrees you have. The extent to which progressives deride the value--or even the existence of--objective truth is jarring, and their unwillingness to consider opposing views is a major threat to our way of life: it has become commonplace for Left-controlled colleges to either refuse to let conservatives speak, or else to enable "protesters" to disrupt conservatives who are allowed to speak.

Three years ago, I noted that Critical Race Theory has infiltrated our education system to disastrous effect: 

If you are not familiar with Critical Race Theory, it is not difficult to find the source material and understand its Marxist, anti-democracy, anti-freedom, and anti-American underpinnings. Here is a good summary from Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, a 2001 book from Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic: "Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law." 

I graduated from law school and passed the Ohio bar exam, which means that I am quite familiar with both the strengths and limitations of our justice system. I know from firsthand experience that our system is flawed, but that it is also the best such system in the world. I do not want to replace it with a system based on a Marxist theory that seeks to undermine "the liberal order...legal reasoning...and neutral principles of constitutional law." Those sound principles that Critical Race Theory seeks to subvert and destroy are what separates this country from such failed and failing states as the Soviet Union, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Cuba. 

Proponents of Critical Race Theory recklessly assert that without Critical Race Theory we cannot have a fair and honest reckoning with our past. That is false, but very much in keeping with the narrow, binary thinking of the proponents of Critical Race Theory: according to them, everything is either racist or antiracist, so if you oppose Critical Race Theory then you must be a racist who refuses to acknowledge evil acts and suffering that are woven into U.S. history. I reject such binary, simplistic, and incorrect thinking.

The undermining of "the liberal order...legal reasoning...and neutral principles of constitutional law" is a foundational principle for self-proclaimed "progressives," including those who conducted violent insurrections on college campuses targeting Jews in general and Israel in particular. It is neither a surprise nor a secret that Iran is funding these campus insurrections; the fact that self-proclaimed "progressives" gladly take money from an Islamist theocracy that persecutes not only Jews but also women, homosexuals, and other minority groups demonstrates that the insurrections are not about justice for Gaza (or justice anywhere) but rather about destabilizing and overthrowing American democracy. The self-proclaimed "progressives" are deluded enough to be believe that they are fighting the evils of colonialism, which makes them the proverbial "useful idiots" serving Islamists who could not care less about--and, in fact, oppose--the "progressive" agenda.

As Mansfield noted, the decline of higher education results in a general societal decline. We see this in the work force in general, and in particular in the Left-dominated media outlets that shape public opinion in ways that threaten our freedom and our way of life. 

Perhaps nowhere is the general societal decline more evident than in our government. Former World Chess Champion turned political activist Garry Kasparov astutely noted that the United States used to be about striving for excellence, but recent Presidential elections have been about choosing the lesser of two evils. We see that yet again in this election cycle, with Republican Donald Trump--whose character flaws are well-documented--facing a Democratic Party in search of an identity and a competent candidate: first the Democratic Party attempted to prop up an obviously senile (in the practical if not clinical sense) Joe Biden, and after that misguided effort failed they anointed Kamala Harris, whose pronouncements and policy positions align with the morally bankrupt "progressive" agenda that is a major threat to Western civilization. This election is not about excellence and it is not about saving democracy; it is about choosing the lesser of two evils, and hoping that in four years both parties will present us with better options.

Pictures of Four Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Bring Several Thoughts to Mind

Looking at the pictures of the four brave young men who just fell in battle in Gaza to defend Israel, I have many thoughts but three thoughts come to the forefront:

1) If Israel were truly trying to commit genocide then she would not put her soldiers at risk in building to building targeted combat but she would just bomb Gaza to oblivion. 

2) If Israel were truly an "apartheid state" as the modern blood libel insists, then pictures of her soldiers would not look like a United Colors of Benetton ad. The reality is that tiny Israel--just twice the size of L.A. County--is the only nation between Morocco and Pakistan that embraces ethnic diversity while having free elections, free speech, women's rights, and religious freedom. An Arab who publicly questions Israel's right to exist can run for election and serve in Israel's Knesset (Parliament); the equivalent opportunity does not exist in any other country in that region. 

The outside agitators and brainwashed fools who are rampaging across U.S. college campuses chanting hate speech against Jews and Israel probably could not find Gaza on a map, and they have no clue about the historical truth about Israel or Gaza; the propaganda they spout is not only false but it is not even internally consistent: I am waiting for them to decide if (1) Gaza was a thriving area until Israel bombed it or (2) Gaza was an "open air prison." Logically, both cannot be true, but once you decide to chant "From the River to the Sea..." you abandoned logic a long time ago.

3) By pressuring Israel to delay the Rafah operation and then refusing to deliver various weapons to Israel, the United States emboldened Hamas, gave Hamas time to prepare, and thus put Israeli lives at risk. A stronger Israeli leader than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have either sent forces into Rafah weeks ago, or else made the determination that instead of endangering Israeli soldiers in close combat Israel must bomb into submission the entrenched Hamas forces.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq. provided a brilliant analysis of the history of American diplomatic pressure leading to catastrophic results, and he concluded, "The United States can weather its bad policy choices; it is big country protected by two oceans. It rarely pays any price for its diplomatic follies. That price is paid by its erstwhile allies pressured into acting against their own interests." 

In order to survive, Israel must be brave and must act in her own self interest. When Menachem Begin was Prime Minister of Israel and Joe Biden was a U.S. Senator, Begin rebuked Biden by declaring, "Don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid." 

Unfortunately, Netanyahu must be an octopus, because it seems that he does not have two trembling knees but eight trembling knees that paralyze his ability to move decisively. He bears great responsibility for weakening Israel by repeatedly caving in to outside pressure for the past two decades, and if he wants to salvage what is left of his good name then he only has two choices: finish the job in Gaza and then resign, or resign now to make room for a true leader who will finish the job in Gaza.

Finishing the job means, at a minimum, the following:

1) Hamas is eliminated as a functioning terrorist, military, and political entity.

2) Hamas' state sponsors--including but perhaps not limited to Iran and Qatar--must pay reparations for the killed, for the injured, and for the destruction of property.

3) All hostages held by Hamas must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Just hours after Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack, I predicted the following:

The broad outline of events for the next few weeks is sadly predictable:

1) For the next 24-48 hours, America and many Western countries will express sympathy for Israel.

2) After 48 hours at most, attention will shift to Israel's allegedly "disproportionate" response, and both sides--but mostly Israel--will be urged to "act with restraint."

3) Most media outlets will present false narratives about alleged "legitimate Palestinian grievances" that supposedly justify Hamas' attacks. Few people will have the courage to publicly state the truth: 

There has never been a sovereign country called Palestine, nor is there a distinct Palestinian people. If you don't believe me, then consider the words of Zuheir Mohsen, who was a high-ranking PLO leader in the 1970s. In a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, Mohsen declared:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

The word Palestine has nothing to do with Arab or Islamic history, but it dates back to the Latin name that the Romans gave to Judea (the second Jewish Commonwealth) after conquering and subjugating the Jewish people (and the Latin name is derived from a Greek word). After destroying the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Romans renamed the city Aelia Capitolina, and they proudly printed coins bearing the words "Judea Capta." The Roman Empire was long ago consigned to history's dustbin, but the Jewish people are still here and the Jewish people have reestablished their historical state in their historical land. We know when the first Jewish Commonwealth was founded (roughly 3000 years ago), we know its approximate and fluctuating borders, we know that Jerusalem was its political capital and main religious center, we know when that state was conquered by the Babylonians (roughly 2500 years ago), we know when the Maccabees established a second Jewish Commonwealth (roughly 2200 years ago), we know when the second Jewish Commonwealth was conquered by the Roman Empire (roughly 2100 years ago), and we know when the final Jewish revolt against Rome was defeated (less than 2000 years ago). We know that the people in the first and second Jewish Commonwealths spoke Hebrew. 

In contrast, the notion of a distinct Palestinian Arab nation is quite recent, and has no historical basis. The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was founded in Cairo, Egypt in 1964, with funding and support provided by the Soviet Union. What exactly was the PLO founded to "liberate"? In 1964, Egypt controlled Gaza, while Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria plus the eastern portion of Jerusalem. If the PLO had been truly interested in creating a Palestinian national state in Gaza plus the West Bank then why was the PLO conducting terrorist attacks against Israel, a nation that had no control over the areas that the PLO supposedly wanted to "liberate"? Of course, the reality is that the Soviet Union helped create the PLO to destabilize Israel and thus increase the Soviet Union's influence and power in the region. This was all about oil and about expanding Communism's reach, and had nothing to do with helping "Palestinians" or creating a "Palestinian" nation. That is why the PLO and other Arab/Islamic terrorist groups are still waging war against Israel decades after Israel gave up control of Gaza and of portions of the so-called West Bank: the goal is not creating a "Palestinian" state but rather destroying the Jewish State. The PLO has not even attempted to create a functioning government in Gaza, because the PLO was not created to govern, does not know how to govern, and has no interest in governing. 

This is a tragedy not only for Israel, but also for the innocent Arabs who are not terrorists and who just want to live in peace; being placed under the control of the PLO was the worst thing that happened to those Arabs, but many media outlets would rather blame Israel than examine and explain historical truths.

Until the nations of the world, the U.N., and major media outlets speak truth to power about both Israel and about the Palestine myth, there will never be Mideast peace.

4) In three to six weeks, Israel will declare victory. That victory will result in some form of limited ceasefire or Israel ending major military operations--but Gaza will still be governed by Hamas, and large portions of Judea and Samaria will still be governed by the terrorist organization that calls itself the Palestinian Authority, even though there is no such country as Palestine and the only "authority" that this terrorist organization exercises is waging war against Israel.

It has taken a bit longer than I expected to reach stage four but--sadly--the broad outline of events that I predicted has unfolded as I expected, which is a tragedy not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for democracy and freedom in general. Victory for Hamas--and this is turning into a victory for Hamas--is defeat for anyone who values democracy, freedom, and human rights.

Deplorable Criticism of Israel's "Deadly" Hostage Rescue Operation

Israel just accomplished something that no one else is willing or able to do: Israel went into the heart of Gaza's nest of terrorist compounds in Rafah, and rescued two of the hostages who have been held captive since Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty attack in Israel. Former hostages Fernando Simon Marman and Louis Har are alive and free today because Israel did not surrender, did not give in to cruel international pressure, and instead stayed laser-focused on the dangerous but necessary task of rescuing hostages and destroying Hamas. I fervently hope that we will see many more videos like this of Israeli soldiers bravely rescuing hostages.

It is deplorable and disgusting that Israel's brave and heroic rescue mission is labeled as "deadly" by biased media outlets; these same biased media outlets also devote a lot of attention to what they term a "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza. Few people are brave enough to speak the truth: what Hamas did and continues to do is "deadly," and the only humanitarian crisis in Gaza is that Hamas is holding over 100 hostages. Everything that is happening in Gaza is a direct consequence of Hamas' deadly actions.  

Israel is saving lives by rescuing hostages and dismantling Hamas. Hamas is responsible for every death in Gaza, and Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing all hostages unconditionally. Gazans voted Hamas into power, Gazans cheered (and participated) on October 7, and now Gazans are paying the price for their decisions and their actions. As the saying goes, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." Or, to put it more bluntly, "F-around and find out." The Gazans played their stupid games, and now they are receiving their "prizes" for killing at least 1200 people and kidnapping hundreds of others. Israel and the world community provided billions of dollars to Gaza to build a paradise, but the Gazans chose to build a hell--and after they chose to export that hell to Israel they should not be surprised or outraged by Israel's justified response.

People who speak about "proportionality" do not understand international law; in a war of self-defense, a country may legally use the necessary force to eliminate the threat. Hamas decided to use Gazans as human shields, and Israel may legally use whatever force is necessary to destroy Hamas' command centers, bases, and tunnels as long as Israel is not deliberately attacking civilian targets.

Israel must stay strong, and her supporters must stay strong as well. President Biden pretended to support Israel for a hot minute before looking at his cratering poll numbers and deciding to pander to the self-proclaimed "progressives." He cannot be trusted, and that is sadly true of the leaders of many other countries as well. It is better to be a living Jew who is criticized than a dead Jew who is mourned.

The international organizations that are supposed to protect the innocent are instead demonizing Israel. The United Nations is worse than useless; it has become an instrument of evil, and should be disbanded as soon as possible. The so-called Palestinians are the only group in the world that has an entire UN organization devoted exclusively to their particular concerns: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). UNRWA collaborated with Hamas before, during, and after Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty attack in Israel; it is long overdue that UNRWA be shut down, and now that the full truth has been revealed about UNRWA's participation in war crimes the UNRWA officials who worked with Hamas should be prosecuted for their crimes against humanity. This is unfortunately not the first time that UNRWA collaborated with Hamas to attack Israel, but it must be the last time.

President Biden and others are pressuring Israel to accede to the creation of an Arab state in Gaza, but there must never be two states west of the Jordan River. Israel belongs to the Jewish people, and there is already an Arab state in the former Palestine Mandate territory: Jordan. Arab civilians from Gaza should relocate to Jordan as soon as possible, to secure their safety and as part of a long overdue permanent solution to decades of strife and war. This is no different than the population transfers that happened as a result of World War II, the wars in the Indian subcontinent, and just about every other war in human history. 

It should be noted and emphasized that the Arab/Muslim world and the international community as a whole prefers that Gazans die while serving as Hamas' human shields as opposed to peacefully relocating Gazans to Jordan (or to other Arab/Muslim countries). Israel has encouraged Gazans to flee the war zone, and Israel has provided safe passage to Gazans to do so; it is Hamas and Hamas' supporters in the international community that have forced Gazans to remain in Gaza as human shields. That decision is regrettable, but it is not Israel's fault, nor is it Israel's responsibility.

Menachem Begin Understood How to Respond to Calls for a "Two State Solution"

Proponents of the so-called "two state solution" overlook the fact that a two state solution was implemented in Palestine decades ago: Jordan was formed by slicing off nearly 80% of the Palestine Mandate's territory, controverting the League of Nations plan that Palestine would be the location of the reborn Jewish State after the Jewish people had suffered in exile for nearly two millennia. 

Menachem Begin, Israel's Prime Minister from 1977-83, understood that a "two state solution" is based on a lie that Palestine has not already been divided into two states, and is proposed as a means for destroying Israel. In 1981, when West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt stated that Germans have a moral obligation to facilitate the creation of another Palestinian state in addition to Jordan by carving territory out of Israel, Begin did not mince words:

From a moral point of view, Schmidt's statements certainly rank as the most callous ever heard. It seems that the Holocaust had conveniently slipped his memory and he did not make mention of a million and a half small children murdered, of entire families wiped out.

The German debt to the Jewish people can never end, not in this generation and not in any other. The entire nation cheered on the murderers as long as they were victorious. But what do we hear? We hear of a commitment to those who strove to complete what the Germans had started in Europe.

Begin declared that Schmidt "must have concluded some very lucrative business deals with Saudi Arabia."

Begin's conclusion about Schmidt's motivations is the same conclusion that I have reached about both President Trump and President Biden. President Trump's so-called "Deal of the Century" envisions a two state solution and thus puts Israel's survival at risk. President Biden's funding of the PLO's "Pay for Slay" program compensates terrorists for murdering Jews, and President Biden's impotent response to Iran's nuclear program and sponsorship of terrorism has emboldened the Iranians to attack U.S. and Israeli targets in the Mideast. I believe that President Trump, President Biden, and many other leaders are well compensated for their advocacy of the "two state solution" and other policies that clearly do not represent the best interests of the United States (or anyone else other than Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others who stand to make money from brokering such deals).

President Biden is not as overtly hostile to Israel as his predecessors Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter, but Biden--like most U.S. Presidents--has an agenda that is at best indifferent to Israel's survival, and Begin understood this when he confronted then-Senator Biden in 1982 regarding the possibility of U.S. aid to Israel being reduced if Israel dared to allow Jewish people to live in Judea and Samaria (often erroneously called "The West Bank," a name which makes no sense geographically or politically, as the territory in question is part of the Palestine Mandate and does not constitute the entire western bank of the Jordan River):

Don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.

The notion that any place in the world should be "Judenrein"--let alone places within the Land of Israel such as Judea and Samaria--is despicable. Even if yet another Arab state is carved out of the territory of the former Palestine Mandate, why wouldn't Jews be allowed to live there? For that matter, why are Jews not welcome to live in Gaza, and in many Arab/Muslim countries? 

Instead of blaming Israel for problems that Israel did not cause and cannot unilaterally solve, it should be noted that Jews are not welcome throughout most of the Arab/Muslim world: after Israel's rebirth in 1948, more than 800,000 Jews were expelled (or fled to avoid being killed) from Arab/Muslim countries. It also should be noted that the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan--accepted by Jewish leaders but rejected by Arab leaders--further divided what little remained of the Palestine Mandate. What should have happened in 1948 is a population exchange, which is what typically happens after a war: the expelled Jews should have found homes in Israel (which most of them did, though some went to other countries), and the Arabs living in the western 20% of Palestine that became Israel should have either accepted Israeli citizenship (which many did) or else moved to Jordan or other countries to become full citizens. The world's cynical manufacturing, manipulation, and perpetuation of a "Palestinian refugee crisis"--including but not limited to the creation of a corrupt UN agency (UNRWA) separate from the UN agency that deals with every other refugee crisis around the world--has resulted in much misery for both Arabs and Jews.

The reality is that a two state solution has already been implemented, and it has failed because (1) creating two states in Palestine has not brought peace, (2) the "Palestinian refugees" have not been resettled in Jordan (or any other Arab country), and (3) Jordan is a non-democratic state that is barely functional. It does not make sense to assert that carving a third state out of the Palestine Mandate's territory would lead to peace, or solve the "Palestinian refugee crisis" (which should have been solved decades ago, and could be solved tomorrow if Arab nations were willing to take care of their brethren instead of exploiting them for public relations purposes). It is delusional to think that carving a third state out of the Palestine Mandate's territory would even result in the creation of a stable, functioning nation: the Gazans spent the past two decades using billions of dollars of foreign aid to build a terrorist stronghold, not a functioning state. It cannot be said that Hamas does not represent ordinary Gazans when the evidence shows otherwise: Gazans voted Hamas into power, polls have repeatedly shown that most Gazans support Hamas, and Gazan civilians were active, enthusiastic participants in Hamas's October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack (and UNRWA personnel actively collaborated with Hamas before, during, and after the attack).

For several decades, outside forces have coerced Israel into failing to achieve decisive victory each time she has been attacked by her Arab/Muslim neighbors, but Israel must not permit that to happen now. Israel's war against Hamas must continue until all of these events happen:

1) Hamas is eliminated as a functioning terrorist, military, and political entity.

2) Hamas' state sponsors--including but perhaps not limited to Iran and Qatar--must pay reparations for the killed, for the injured, and for the destruction of property.

3) All hostages held by Hamas must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Israel is under no legal or moral obligation to waste more money funding terrorist organizations in Gaza. Hamas attempted to use Gaza as a launching pad to destroy Israel, Hamas failed, and now Hamas and the Gazans who voted Hamas into power will have to live with the consequences of their bad choices and their military defeat. Name one other terrorist entity in world history that launched a failed war of extermination (Hamas' stated goal regarding Israel) and then was rewarded by being granted statehood in the very territory from which it launched the failed war of extermination? That is not how the world works.

"Two state solution" is just the polite way of saying "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." As I noted in the immediate aftermath of Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, "When Israel's Arab neighbors and their self-proclaimed 'progressive' supporters chant 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' those words must be understood for their literal meaning and intention: every Jew from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea is to be killed, Israel is to be destroyed, and yet another authoritarian Arab/Muslim state is to be established. The Arabs don't want 'land for peace'; they want to kill Jews and take control of all of the land from the 'river to the sea.' They mean exactly what they say. This is a sad and scary reality, but denying that reality will not change it. Israel's policies--and America's policies--must be grounded in reality and must be directed toward making sure that 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' is a slogan consigned to history's dustbin."

The Arabs/Muslims control most of the territory spanning from Morocco to Pakistan, and they will have to be satisfied with not controlling an area barely twice the size of Los Angeles County that is the historic homeland of the Jewish people. What many Arabs/Muslims and others fail to understand is that the Jewish people did not colonize the Land of Israel. The Romans, Turks, British, and others were the colonizers. The Jewish people returned home, and triumphed over the colonizers. The Jewish people have as much right as any other nation to live peacefully in their homeland.

October 7, 2023 is a defining historical moment. Anyone who still advocates for the "two state solution" after October 7 is either clueless, paid off, or trying to destroy Israel. Zionism is a just cause and a successful movement, regardless of the slanders and lies promulgated about the Jewish people. There is fear and shame at the heart of antisemitism and anti-Zionism because of how much the Jewish people have accomplished in Israel: triumphing over the British colonists and sending them packing back home, repeatedly defeating Arab aggressors despite being vastly outnumbered, and building a thriving democracy with a modern economy.

Israel is a role model for what post-colonialist nations can accomplish with hard work and the right mindset; her enemies provide examples of the depravity to which humanity can sink with an entitlement mentality and an ideology based on "loving death more than you love life," which is the opposite of the Jewish worldview.

Appeasement and Isolationism Are Dangerously Misguided Ideologies

Speaking about the infamous 1938 Munich Agreement in which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to give part of Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland) to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, Otto Strasser--an early member of the Nazi party--told historian John Toland in the 1970s, "He (Hitler) would have broken every promise, every signature, because these are not obligations for him. He had no moral connections. He was the most amoral man I ever have seen. And I believe this was one of the reasons for his success."

Chamberlain's inability or unwillingness to recognize Hitler's true nature set the world on a path toward oblivion. Chamberlain declared that he had delivered "peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time." Winston Churchill, who later became Prime Minister and helped lead the Allies to victory over Nazi Germany during World War II, retorted, "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war."

The main reason that history repeats itself is that very few people learn and apply the lessons that history teaches. One might think that the Jewish people, who suffered so greatly during the Holocaust in the wake of Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, would have learned the lesson that appeasement is not an effective policy toward countries and terrorist groups that openly state their genocidal goals, but--sadly--Israel has often chosen dishonor over war. For example, in 2011, Israel foolishly released more than 1000 terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli solider illegally kidnapped and held captive by the terrorist group Hamas. More than a decade later, Hamas is still launching terrorist attacks not just against Israel but against Jews worldwide. Israel's appeasement strengthened and emboldened Hamas, other terrorist groups, and Hamas' sponsor state Iran.

Many world leaders have been far too slow to understand or accept the danger posed by Vladimir Putin, whose grandiose goal to build a Russian Empire is very similar to Hitler's goal to conquer Germany's neighbors to provide lebensraum ("living room") for the so-called master Aryan race.

On March 10, 2015, I wrote Garry Kasparov Lambastes West's "Weak" Response to Vladimir Putin's Tyranny, quoting Kasparov's warning about the dangers by Putin: 

We have been facing this problem for quite a while. And so many mistakes have been made. These mistakes created an impression for Putin and his cronies and also his clients like Assad and others in the world. Iranian Ayatollahs. The West is weak. The West is not willing to get engaged. So the West will give them anything they want. Before we talk about the right strategy, what the leaders of the free world must do, let's talk about what they must not do. You cannot project weakness. Yes, I know that America will never consider seriously boots on the ground in Ukraine. Why are you talking about it? Why do you say publicly that you will not do that?

I concluded my article with these prophetic words: 

Hitler took whatever he could take through negotiation and then sought to conquer the rest through war. Putin's Russia and Iran's jihadist regime are following that same blueprint today. Hitler did not have legitimate grievances nor could he be reasoned with or placated. Hitler had strategic goals and he made those goals very clear in his writings and in his speeches. The world was foolish to ignore his words.

When will the West wake up to the dangers posed by today's tyrants, who also speak quite clearly about their ultimate goals? When will a modern-day Winston Churchill or Harry Truman emerge?

Neville Chamberlain was wrong about Adolf Hitler and Chamberlain's mistakes precipitated World War II. President Obama is wrong now about Putin's Russia and about Iran. We can only hope that the consequences of President Obama's mistakes will not be as severe. 

We now see those consequences every day in the form of headlines about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, resulting in immense suffering and loss of life. President Joe Biden, who funds the PLO's "Pay for Slay" program to kill Jews and whose defining moment is the triumph of the Taliban after his retreat from Afghanistan, is unlikely to enact policies to mitigate those consequences and curb the impact of Putin's tyranny. 

Appeasement and isolationism are two sides of the same tarnished coin. The United States should not appease tyrannical regimes, nor should the United States pretend that what happens in other parts of the world is of no consequence to the American people. Declaring that "war is not the answer" may sound great, but the reality is that in many instances there is not a peaceful way to deal with tyrannical regimes. Non-violent non-cooperation is a very effective strategy for dealing with injustices within a free, open society: it worked for Mahatma Gandhi's followers in opposition to the British, and it worked for Dr. Martin Luther King's followers in opposition to American discrimination against Black people. However, as I noted in Violence, Non-Violent Non-Cooperation, and Human Nature, "Gandhi's public assertion that European Jewry should accept without resistance whatever fate Hitler's executioners delivered is not only absurd but it is obscene. As Rabbi Shmuley Boteach explains, 'What Gandhi failed to realize is that when dealing with moral or at least somewhat humane governments, nonviolent resistance has its place. But when dealing with murderous barbarians such as ISIS or the Nazis, no level of nonviolent resistance will ever change their minds. Gandhi's philosophy would only guarantee that they take over the world.'"

Appeasement was a fatally flawed strategy in 1938, and it remains a fatally flawed strategy today. War is awful, but--as Churchill sagely noted--dishonor followed by war is even worse. If Putin's Russia, Iran, and other tyrannical regimes are not stopped today, it will become more costly (both in terms of human suffering and money) to stop them later.

Following the Science, Resisting the Propaganda

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided fascinating case studies in science, propaganda, governmental overreach, and more. I wrote about these issues at length during the height of the pandemic, and then focused my attention elsewhere, but these issues are worth revisiting:

1) Whether or not mask-wearing is effective in terms of preventing the spread of COVID-19, and whether or not the government should mandate mask-wearing both became contentious public policy issues. Agenda-driven people who supported mask-wearing haughtily and dismissively insisted that their opponents should "follow the science."

I agree that the scientific method should be followed. I strongly disagree with Anthony Fauci's arrogant contention "I represent science."  Dr. Fauci represents propaganda and his own self-interests, not science. The most recent and authoritative research indicates that wearing a mask in a public place "probably makes little or no difference" in terms of preventing the spread of COVID-19. I am not holding my breath waiting for apologies from my interlocutors in this space, Facebook, and elsewhere who mocked me for declining to join the Fauci cult and for refusing to accept every word out of the man's mouth as gospel; I have been following the science all along, and thus I left my interlocutors far behind me (literally and figuratively).

2) There is no credible scientific evidence that government imposed lockdowns had any meaningful positive effect against the spread of COVID-19, but there is plenty of evidence that those lockdowns had negative impacts that may reverberate for years, if not decades. 

The lockdowns had no scientific justification and were the result of horrific public policy decisions combined with executive branch overreach at the state and federal levels. I hope that we never face another pandemic, but if we do face another pandemic I hope that we are smart enough to not lock down significant segments of society for no reason.

3) I predicted that, before the end of the first year of Joe Biden's presidency, the public would be informed that the COVID-19 pandemic was over and that normal life could resume. That is exactly what happened and, other than some brief concern about a few COVID-19 variants, that is where we are now. Most media outlets frame the current situation as something for which President Biden deserves praise, and these outlets contrast the way that Biden supposedly followed the science with the way that President Trump supposedly did not follow the science--but the reality is that the main reason that life has mostly returned to normal is the Operation Warp Speed vaccination program initiated by President Trump's administration (with an assist from the development of natural immunity, as the strong likelihood is that most of us were exposed to COVID-19, did not develop serious symptoms, and now have bodies equipped to resist subsequent infection).

Also, it is fascinating to recall how during the Trump administration we received daily updates about "grim milestones" that had been surpassed in terms of COVID-19 death totals, and to note that such headlines disappeared after Biden became President, even though more U.S. citizens have died of COVID-19 during President Biden's administration than died of COVID-19 during President Trump's administration.

I want to make two points very clearly and emphatically:

1) Every COVID-19 death was a tragedy for the victim and that victim's family and friends.

2) I am a political independent who is proudly not a member of any political party and who considers both Trump and Biden unfit to be President.

That being said, the hypocrisy of many media outlets is blatant and disgusting. If you buy the premise that the first 500,000 U.S. COVID-19 deaths are President Trump's fault, then you also have to buy the premise that the next 600,000 (and counting) U.S. COVID-19 deaths are President Biden's fault. Media outlets that just blame one President while absolving another President are not only shamelessly engaging in partisan propaganda, but they are failing to investigate the real culprit(s): it is undisputed that COVID-19 began in the Wuhan province of China, and it would be interesting to find out if it originated from a lab leak, from improper safety protocols in open markets, from gain of function research gone wrong, or from a deliberate release of a bio-weapon. It would also be interesting to find out what Fauci knew, when he knew it, and how much he profited financially by covering up our government's support of gain of function research.

President Joe Biden Funds the PLO's "Pay for Slay" Jew-Killing Program

On Monday, I wrote about how biased media coverage of Arab terrorist attacks against Jewish people gives aid and comfort to the terrorists. It is important to note that perhaps the biggest sponsor of these terrorist attacks--to the tune of over $1 billion--is President Joe Biden's administration. The PLO's "Pay for Slay" program provides $2000-$3000 per month to terrorists who are imprisoned in Israel for killing Jews. Killing Jews pays five times more than being a teacher in that part of the world. The PLO's priorities could not be clearer. As Arab/Muslim terrorists often proudly declare, "We love death more than you love life." Self-proclaimed "progressives" who bash Israel while ignoring Arab atrocities are not only endangering the lives of Jews but they are encouraging a death-affirming culture that poses a threat to freedom and peace everywhere.

The PLO has publicly stated "Our war is with the Jews." Their war is not about national liberation or opposing colonialism or any of the empty slogans that self-proclaimed "progressives" and other fellow travelers use to justify and excuse the PLO's main raison d'etre: killing Jews.

America First Legal has filed suit against President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken to demand that Biden and Blinken abide by the stipulations of the Taylor Force Act and stop funding the Palestinian Authority, which is run by the PLO. Here is a statement from America First Legal Senior Counsel Reed D. Rubinstein:

Last Sabbath, seven innocent people were murdered at their house of worship by a Palestinian terrorist. In response to this news, tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets to hand out candy and "celebrate" the heinous crime, just as they did after 9/11. Violating both the letter and spirit of the Taylor Force Act, the Biden Administration has given over a billion U.S. taxpayer dollars to benefit the Palestinian Authority knowing full well that this money means more terror, more corruption, and more death. As the Palestinians brag about the cash bounties paid for each dead and wounded Israeli, Biden merely winks, and writes them another massive check.

West Point graduate Taylor Force was a U.S. Army veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who was murdered by Arab terrorists in Israel. His parents Stuart and Robbi Force declared:

My wife and I continue to be very upset about the murderous actions by Palestinian terrorists in Israel, with the most recent victims being the death of seven innocent people and five injured as they were leaving synagogue this past Friday night in Jerusalem, followed by the attempted murder of a father and son by a 13-year-old Palestinian terrorist the next morning.  The Taylor Force Act, named after our son, was passed by Congress and signed by President Trump to stop this Pay to Slay. Yet the Biden Administration has resumed payments to the PA notwithstanding its Pay to Slay program. Until the maiming and murder of innocents stops, there will be no hope for peace. And, until the Biden Administration stops facilitating Palestinian terrorism, the PA has no reason to stop its reprehensible behavior. For the sake of the thousands horrifically impacted now and in the future, Robbi and I call upon President Biden to stop sending fungible taxpayer dollars to the PA that will end up funding terrorism.

Donald Trump was a distasteful candidate for President for reasons that you do not have to be a self-proclaimed "progressive" to understand; life-long conservatives have publicly condemned him and refused to support him. That being said, Joe Biden has been a terrible President in many ways--including his defining moment when he facilitated the triumph of the Taliban--but one of the most distasteful is his staunch support for terrorism against Jews, a policy which is not only immoral but is contrary to the interests of the United States specifically and Western democracies broadly. President Biden and Vice President Harris can spare all of us their empty statements about valuing diversity and their vacuous photo opportunities during various Jewish holidays; those words and deeds are less than meaningless when accompanied by providing money used to pay terrorists who slaughter Jewish men, women, and children. 

Sadly, President Franklin Roosevelt's abandonment of the Jewish people during the Holocaust did little to reduce his popularity among Jewish voters, so there is not much reason to think that President Biden's funding of anti-Jewish terrorism will reduce his popularity among Jewish voters. We must hope that both parties put forth better candidates in 2024, and that voters choose wisely.

Neither Major American Political Party Has a Monopoly on Hatred or Hypocrisy

Given no other choice, would you prefer death by lethal injection or death by electric chair? Either way, death is death and neither choice is desirable, right? Choosing how you prefer to die is what it has been like to vote in the past several American election cycles, as I noted over a year ago when I mentioned Garry Kasparov's lament that America used to be about striving for excellence but the last two Presidential elections have been about choosing the lesser of two evils.

President Joe Biden's defining moment is the triumph of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is also noteworthy that President Biden is rewarding the Palestinian Authority for sponsoring terrorist attacks against Jews. If you believe that the President bears significant responsibility for the functioning of the economy--I think that Presidents get too much blame/credit for something that is multifaceted and not directly controlled by them--then it should be mentioned that the U.S. economy has tanked since President Biden took office.

Former President Donald Trump recently met with unrepentant antisemites, and his resume is filled with offensive statements and actions that have been so often discussed that they scarcely need mentioning to anyone who has paid the slightest attention for the past six years or so.

I would respect any media member or politician who criticized both men without hesitation or equivocation, and who pointed out the manifest failures of both major American political parties--but that is not how things work now. Instead, people tend to criticize everyone on the other side of the political aisle while remaining willfully blind, deaf, and silent about the flaws on their side of the political aisle.

The Democratic Party promotes itself as supporting diversity and inclusion, but the reality is that antisemitism from the Left is a growing threat that many media outlets are reluctant to cover. The Democratic Party has proven unwilling or incapable of purging itself of self-proclaimed "progressives" who spew hate, and because of this failure the Democratic Party's complaints about hatred emanating from the political Right sound hollow and hypocritical. The Democratic Party has also embraced socialist/"progressive" policies that are out of step with the viewpoints of most Americans, as is demonstrated by President Biden's low approval ratings and by the midterm election defeats suffered by Democrats who did not have the good fortune of running against Trump supporters; for example, the decisive victory of the Republican Party in the Georgia governor race suggests that if the Republicans had put forth any reasonable candidate for Senate (instead of Herschel Walker) then the voters would likely have gotten rid of Raphael Warnock (who will face Walker in a runoff because neither candidate received at least 50% of the vote).

The Republican Party is justified to condemn the hatred and antisemitism of the self-proclaimed "progressives," but loses credibility because of its refusal to speak strongly against Donald Trump and other Republicans who have engaged in hateful speech or actions. Now that the Republican Party has regained control of the House, it has vowed to remove members of the so-called "Squad" from key committee assignments, which is the correct action--but what ultimate good does that accomplish if antisemites from the Left are just replaced with antisemites from the Right such as Marjorie Taylor Greene?

The sad reality is that most politicians from either side of the political aisle are self-centered opportunists who say whatever they think is most likely to help them get elected. For example, Donald Trump's critics assert that he is a racist and antisemite, while his supporters often counter by citing specific policy actions Trump took as President that they consider positive. I look at Donald Trump differently than both his critics and his supporters in that I simultaneously abhor many of the things he has said and done while also agreeing that some of his policy actions were positive (such as withdrawing from the ineffective JCPOA deal with Iran)--but I view his words and actions from the perspective that his words and actions do not necessarily reflect not his sincerely held ideological beliefs but rather his beliefs about what he should do and say to maximize his chance to be elected. 

In a December 1987 interview with David Letterman, oddsmaker Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder (who would soon lose his TV job with CBS after he asserted that Blacks are superior athletes because Black slaves were bred for certain physical traits and that if Blacks became coaches then there would be no place left for white people in sports) assessed the likelihood that Trump could be elected President in 1988. Snyder said that Trump could not run as a moderate Republican because George H.W. Bush and Robert Dole had already staked out that territory within the party, but Snyder believed that if Trump ran as a Democrat then Trump had an excellent chance to win. Snyder's analysis was very prescient to the extent that he recognized that Trump could be elected President if Trump articulated specific political stances that may not reflect Trump's personal beliefs.

My assessment of what happened in the 2016 Presidential campaign is that Trump and his team did a similar analysis to Snyder's but for various tactical reasons chose the opposite strategy: they understood that Trump would not likely win by running as a moderate Republican, but instead of pivoting to the Left they decided to swing further to the Right. I am not convinced that Trump believes in anything other than that which will help him accumulate more money, more power, and more publicity. I see him as the real life version of the "Wiseguy" character Knox Pooley, who was portrayed by actor Fred Dalton Thompson (who later was elected as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee). Thompson said of Pooley, "He is more of a salesman, more of a conman than a white supremacist. He's using white supremacy as his latest gambit to make a killing." This comparison is not meant to minimize the dangers posed by a conman like Pooley (whose followers committed violent acts, including murder) or by a politician like Trump but rather to emphasize that the actions of such men are properly viewed not through the prism of ideology but rather from the perspective of evaluating narcissistic behavior. Pooley was equally comfortable spouting antisemitic rhetoric and then selling real estate to Jewish purchasers (which was his next scheme after his white supremacist group collapsed); Trump is equally comfortable enacting policies that may seem to benefit Jews and/or Israel, and embracing antisemites. The words and actions of Pooley and Trump only seem contradictory if you assume that Pooley and Trump are motivated by an internally consistent political ideology or moral code; if you assume that Pooley and Trump are motivated by their perceived self-interest regardless of the consequences to others, then their words and actions make sense (not from the standpoint of being moral, proper, or even consistent, but from the standpoint of advancing or attempting to advance a personal agenda).

Trump makes little to no effort to hide his inflated view of himself and his self-centered motivations, but it would be a mistake to believe that other politicians--on either side of the aisle--are much nobler; other politicians are just subtler and more polished. 

I should add that it is not fair to accuse all Republicans of being racists or to accuse all Democrats of being socialists. The extreme rhetoric emanating from both sides of the political aisle is a barrier to communication, cooperation, and progress. It is healthy for a democracy to have political parties that disagree about the means, as long as there is general agreement about the ends (to borrow the formulation used by Kasparov to describe how American politics should be). It would be wonderful if the Democrats nominated a strong leader who effectively articulates Left-wing (not socialist) policy positions, and if the Republicans nominated a strong leader who effectively articulates Right-wing policy positions without overtly or covertly sending signals that provide aid and comfort to racists.

Returning to the question that opened this article, given no other choice, would you prefer death by lethal injection or death by electric chair? Either way, death is death and neither choice is desirable, right? Sadly, in the 2024 Presidential election we may be faced with a similarly unpleasant choice in a dreadful rerun of the 2020 Presidential election.

Distorting the Truth to Serve a Supposedly Greater Good Destroys the Credibility of Journalists, and Threatens the Future of Democracy

In Media Bias and Hunter's Laptop, Holman Jenkins makes important points not just about the Hunter Biden laptop story but also about the larger issue of media bias. After pointing out that some media organizations are belatedly acknowledging that the original Hunter Biden laptop story did not appear out of thin air, was not based on Russian disinformation, and was in fact a well-sourced New York Post article, Jenkins explores why the Washington Post and so many other media outlets preferred to bury the story instead of investigate it:

The job of "newspapers of record" is to establish the truth or falsity of important matters in the public sphere, and whether the laptop was real or not certainly qualified. But instead of doing its job, the press preferred to line up behind 50 former U.S. intelligence officials who (without evidence, even they admitted) claimed the story was Russian disinformation.

...The media did so because the laptop story was plainly a threat to Joe Biden's election. They'd seen this movie before--with James Comey's late intervention in 2016--and "knew" Donald Trump's re-election would be a disaster for the country...

My own prayer is Mr. Trump won't run and that somebody half-decent will, but I don't lie to myself that the survival of the republic depends on my preferences being fulfilled. History has its own mind. Hard to describe as anything but neurotic is a press that preferred an unsupported assertion about a Russian plot to the self-evident facts of the laptop case--or, for that matter, believed a badly typed collection of anonymous claims about Donald Trump and Russia (aka the Steele dossier) was the secret record of the greatest political conspiracy in history.

What seems closer to certain is that the rule of law and our democratic system are in greater danger when elite institutions work to discredit their outcomes than when self-proclaimed "deplorables" do. Out national press cowards, though, aren't about to admit how much they strengthened Mr. Trump, almost re-elected him and made "stop the steal" credible to millions of Americans because, starting in 2016-17, they chose to oppose him with lies instead of the truth.

The phrase "chose to oppose him with lies instead of the truth" cuts to the heart of the matter, and not just regarding Donald Trump but also pertaining to a wide range of issues. Media outlets have a disturbing tendency of disregarding facts/truth in favor of what they perceive to be the "greater good" or "larger truth." In other words, once they decided that Donald Trump's re-election posed a serious threat to democracy they were willing to do anything--including lie, and bury newsworthy stories--in pursuit of what they perceive to be the "greater good." However, that is not their decision to make, or their job to do. Their job is to investigate, and then report the truth; it is the job of the voters to decide what the "greater good" is. Many media members consistently demonstrate their disdain for the public, and demonstrate that they do not believe that the public is capable of making correct decisions; that is why media outlets suppress some stories while elevating others. Unfortunately, once the media corrupts itself we move perilously close to becoming a society that has a free and independent press in name only. If the media only serves one side of the political spectrum in the interest of what media members determine to be the "greater good," we run the risk of that side gaining absolute control not only of media narratives but of the government itself. As Jenkins indicates, it is possible to both deplore Donald Trump's conduct while also recognizing the threat posed by the way that many media outlets are shirking their responsibilities.

The declining--if not completely collapsed and corrupted--standards of conduct by various media members and media outlets is a subject about which I have often written. Here are just a few such articles:

Don't Trust Media Outlets That Fail to Distinguish Between Terrorists and Victims of Terror (April 10, 2022)

Newspaper Headline Downplays Terrorist Attack Against Jews While Focusing on the Death of the Terrorist (November 29, 2021) 

The Reality About Arab Rock Throwers in Israel (November 5, 2021)

The Media's Agenda-Driven COVID-19 Coverage is Symptomatic of a Larger Problem (March 9, 2021)