ΡΙΞΤΕ ΜΙΑ ΜΑΤΙΑ!..
1.
POPE DENOUNCES ‘RACIST’ EUROPEAN ELECTION WINNERS
But slobbers over Stalinist dictators.
“Pope Francis warned against a rise of intolerance and racism as far-right nationalists and eurosceptic parties made historic gains in European elections…”The signs of meanness we see around us heighten our fear of ‘the other’, the unknown, the marginalised, the foreigner,” he said in a message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.”
“Pope won’t meet with Italy’s Salvini because of his position on migration — Two Italian publications reported that Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini “has attempted to secure a papal audience and been rebuffed each time…Salvini had been told ‘a meeting could not occur if Salvini continues in his tough position regarding migrants.”
But perhaps my term “slobbers over” strikes some of my amigos as inappropriate? As unnecessarily hyperbolic? Perhaps even as sacrilegious?
Fair enough. Perhaps you have a point. Now please study Pope Francis’ face in these (undoctored) pics and film clips from his visits to Cuba—then decide for yourselves.
Just in case, here’s a couple more. And please pay close attention to the race of the (untried) firing squad victim as opposed to the race of the (Castro-directed) firing squad and its commander. And please remember that Pope Francis’ complaint against Matteo Salvini is his “racism.”
Also note that Pope Francis denounces “meanness.” Do firing squad murders of thousands upon thousands of untried victims, many of them yelling love of the Pope’s church with their last breaths, qualify as “meanness?
“The defiant yells (“Viva Cristo Rey!”—“Viva Cuba Libre!”-“Abajo Comunismo!”) from the bound and staked martyrs “would make the walls of La Cabana prison tremble!” wrote eyewitness to the slaughter, Armando Valladares, who suffered 22 torture-filled years in Castro’s prisons and was later appointed by Ronald Reagan as U.S. ambassador to U.N Human Rights Commission.
Given their valiant defiance even during their last seconds alive, by mid 1961 the mere binding and blindfolding of Castro and Che Guevara’s young murder victims wasn’t enough. Pope Francis’ gracious Cuban hosts then began ordering that the Catholic youths also be gagged. The shaken firing-squads demanded it. The yells were badly unnerving the trigger-pullers, you see.
Raul Castro and Che Guevara (whose visage formed the backdrop for Pope Francis mass in Cuba) were the most notorious executioners during the early years of the Cuban Revolution. The orders, of course, all issued from the late Fidel Castro, who Pope Francis went out of his way to visit and smilingly hob-nob with after the Mass, profusely thanking him for his efforts towards “world peace,” (I am NOT making this up!)
“I am not Christ or a philanthropist,” wrote Che Guevara in a letter to his mother. “I am all the contrary of a Christ–In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm.”
“The facts and figures are irrefutable. No one will any longer be able to claim ignorance or uncertainty about the criminal nature of Communism,” wrote the New York Times (no less!) about The Black Book of Communism. This “irrefutable” study on Communism’s crimes was edited by the head of France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, Stephane Courtois (not exactly an embittered dispossessed Cuban exile) and translated into English by Harvard University Press (not exactly a subsidiary of the John Birch Society.)
This impeccably high-brow scholarly study found that Castro and Guevara’s firing squads murdered between 15 and 17 thousand Cubans, the equivalent of almost half a million executions given the U.S. population. Some more perspective: the UN, (the same United Nations that proudly features Cuba on its Human Rights Council, by the way) charged former Serbian dictator Slodoban Milosevic with “genocide” for ordering 8000 executions.
And far from any of the repentance the Catholic Church supposedly requires for forgiveness, the Castro brothers have always doubled–and even tripled-down–on their gloating for those thousands of murders, historically denouncing the young victims as “CIA mercenaries!” and “terrorists!”
None of this has prevented the Castro regime from receiving the most papal visits recently of any Latin America nation, equaling the number of papal visits to Brazil, with a population of 200 million, 130 million of them declared Catholics. In contrast, Cuba has a population of 11 million, only a tiny fraction of which are practicing Catholics. Someone’s got some serious “‘splainin” to do for this Papal fetish of constantly visiting Stalinist Cuba and chumming around with her Stalinist rulers.
2.
AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT IN LONDON
The media disses the Donald — and liberty, and the American and British people.
Because my router was on the fritz during the first couple of days of the President’s state visit to the UK – a prelude to his Normandy visit on Friday marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day – I was forced to watch more TV coverage of the proceedings than would otherwise have been my wont. This meant relying heavily on CNN, the BBC, and Sky News. All of them were pretty much as snotty about Trump as expected, although the BBC did an especially obnoxious job, giving a ridiculous amount of airtime to some historian named Mark Shanahan, who in the guise of providing historical context and insight oozed anti-Trump – and anti-American – venom.
Since I’d never heard of Shanahan, I looked him up. He turned out to be an associate professor at the University of Reading, where one of his areas of specialization is “the celebritisation of American political culture from Eisenhower to Trump.” Shanahan brags on his university’s website about being “a regular media contributor to the BBC, ITN; CNN, Sky, ABC (Australia), France 24, and CTV (Canada).” During the Trump visit, no matter what the subject, he was ready with snark, both on the tube and on his Twitter feed. While Trump was visiting Westminster Abbey, Shanahan sneered that this would “play very well with American evangelicals at home.” Right, those American evangelicals who are into smoky thuribles, priests in red cassocks, and old Anglican anthems sung by boy choirs. Shanahan assured BBC viewers that Americans have an outdated “Mary Poppins” image of Britain, complete with bowler hats and chimney sweeps. Yeah, you’ve got it, Thucidydes, we’re all a bunch of dolts, who somehow slept through the Beatles, James Bond, Monty Python, the Thatcher era, Elton John, Ab Fab, Tony Blair, and all those horrible Hugh Grant romcoms. Shanahan also opined, with what seemed like at least a touch of antisemitism, that the “special relationship” is now a joke, because Trump cares less about US ties to the UK than to Israel.
Needless to say, Shanahan wasn’t alone. Pretty much every time the cable-news talking heads mentioned Trump, they found it necessary to repeat the word “controversial.” Nigel Sheinwald, a former British ambassador to the US, told Cristiane Amanpour that Trump “doesn’t value alliances as his predecessors did.” Under Trump, asserted one BBC journo, “the US is no longer the ‘shining city on the hill’…that it was under other presidents.” Sky News correspondents said that Trump “doesn’t understand criticism” and that his views on immigration clash with “British values and American values.” Last year’s “baby Trump” balloon was dragged out again and given endless coverage (although reporters chose not to mention the sea of Palestinian flags surrounding it), and airheaded anti-Trump protesters were interviewed at length by reporters who never pushed back against their preposterous smears.
On the contrary, the correspondents themselves repeatedly called Trump a sexist, racist, and xenophobe, noted that “some people” found it inappropriate to hold a state dinner for him because it would “normalize” his presidency, and portrayed him as a bull in a china shop who, by cancelling the Iran deal, backing out of the Paris accords, and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, had ignorantly undone “decades of consensus” and destroyed the hard work of gifted professional diplomats. No one spoke positively of these moves on Iran, the climate scam, and Israel, or mentioned any of Trump’s many other accomplishments as president. You would think that he’d driven the US into the ground rather than returned it to a position of prosperity, strength, and international authority in the wake of Obama’s disastrous tenure.
The cable-news crowd repeatedly compared Trump, unfavorably of course, to Obama, who you would have thought was the perfect president, diplomat, and Anglophile; dropped down the memory hole by everyone, it seemed, was Obama’s removal of the Churchill bust from the Oval Office and his condescending lecture warning Britons not to vote for Brexit if they didn’t want to go to the back of the queue. Dismissing talk of a post-Brexit trade deal between the US and UK, a CNN commentator averred that Trump “makes promises that he doesn’t always keep…he’s very erratic and inconsistent.” CNN cited “experts” to the effect that a trade deal wouldn’t do much for Britain’s economy anyway. (Were these the same “experts” who said Trump’s election would usher in “economic Armageddon”?)
Indeed, the cable-news coverage of the Trump visit wasn’t just consistently insulting to Trump and to the American people, especially the “deplorables” who’d voted for him and who consider him a hero. It was insulting to the majority of the UK electorate who, unlike the media elite, voted for Brexit, hate the EU, and presumably appreciate Trump’s support for British sovereignty. It was insulting to UK voters who, in the recent elections to the European Parliament, dealt a blow to the political establishment by giving a historic thumbs-up to Trump’s friend Farage. And it was insulting to Tory voters who have been appalled by May’s disingenuous handling of negotiations with the EU and who’d like to see Trump’s chum Boris Johnson as party head. The bottom line is that, on the occasion of his first state visit to the UK, President Trump is being slimed by the very same transatlantic elites who still refuse to accept the results of the 2016 election and the Brexit referendum – folks who malign the rise of liberty in both countries as “populism” while depicting autocratic EU rule as democracy. The hell with them. God bless America, God save the Queen, and God preserve the memories of the brave men from both countries who risked their lives on D-Day in the service of freedom.
3.
REAL RUSSIAN COLLUSION
Vladimir Bukovsky tells the real story of Soviet crimes and western complicity.
Vladimir K Bukovsky, Judgment in Moscow: Soviet Crimes and Western Complicity.
Ninth of November Press, May 2019, 728 pages.
Judgment in Moscow is not a new book. It was published in 1995, in Russian, Polish, French, German, Italian, and Romanian — but never in English. This new edition by Ninth of November Press marks its English-language debut.
The backbone of the book consists of top-secret documents from Soviet archives that dissident Vladimir Bukovsky brazenly took out of Russia in 1992. The documents themselves, while valuable primary source material (available online here), are only half of the allure. What propels this book out of mere historical documentation and into the realm of gripping narrative is the fact that Bukovsky is an excellent writer who lived through much of the history. His autobiographical commentary (along with insights into the psychology and social dynamics of a totalitarian society) is unparalleled, and should be required reading for anyone who cares about freedom and individualism.
Judgment in Moscow covers major historical events such as détente, disarmament, Soviet funding of peace movements in the west, censorship and crackdown on protests in the USSR, Soviet influence in Nicaragua and El Salvador, the invasion of Afghanistan, Polish Solidarity, and European unification. He provides hard proof of what the Soviets were actually up to, including detailed accounts of exactly how western leaders and media outlets have supported, enabled, covered for and even colluded with the Soviets. He names names, from American public figures to European heads-of-state. And he is not afraid to judge those individuals, even if the rest of the world won’t.
Bukovsky’s Years in the Gulag
As a dissident who spent over a decade in Soviet prisons, mental hospitals, and the labor camps that composed the gulag, Bukovsky is in a unique position to explain how the Soviets regarded their ideology, their enemies, and their mission in the world. He was first imprisoned as a high-school student in the early 1960s during the crackdown on political demonstrations in the post-Stalin era. Later, he was attacked by the KGB for helping to organize poetry readings in Mayakovsky Square in Moscow. Eventually, the Soviets expelled him to Switzerland in exchange for the Chilean communist Luis Corvalán. Bukovsky settled in Cambridge, England (where he still resides). For a quarter century, he has argued that the world must hold the Soviets to account for their horrible crimes in the same way the Germans were held to account for their crimes during the Third Reich.
Judgment in Moscow aims to do just that. The book’s title is a variation on the title of the 1961 movie Judgment at Nuremberg starring Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster. The movie is a dramatized version of the actual Nuremberg trials that were held immediately after the Second World War. Those trials attempted to balance the scales of justice by convicting (and sometimes executing) the most notorious architects of Third-Reich atrocities. When Bukovsky saw the movie as an adolescent, it made a profound impression on him. He argues throughout Judgment in Moscow (and in subsequent interviews reprinted in the appendix of the book), that the failure to put communists on trial for their crimes means that the Cold War is not really over. Russia and other communist countries cannot morally cleanse themselves — and the world will not be free of communism — until everyone faces up to the immense evil and suffering that is an inevitable outcome of communist ideology.
ComputerScanners and “Russian Savages”
Bukovsky’s access to the Communist Party archives — and the treasure trove of documents he was able to obtain – was a stroke of luck combined with cunning strategy. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bukovsky was summoned to Moscow as an expert witness in a court case that centered on whether the Communist Party of the Soviet Union should be outlawed. Those who wanted the CPSU outlawed were seeking examples, in the secret Soviet archives, of unconstitutional activities of the former party leadership. Bukovsky’s task was to find those examples. He took advantage of this to gather thousands of pages that later became the basis of this book.
Knowing that bureaucratic inertia and outright hostility would jeopardize his ability to get copies of the documents he wanted, Bukovsky recounts how he got around this (p. 90):
I took the precaution of acquiring a miracle of Japanese technology: a portable computer with a handheld scanner. At that time [1992] this piece of technology had only just appeared in the West, and was completely unknown to our Russian savages. Because of this, I was able to sit right under their noses and scan piles of documents, page after page, with no worries about the curious, who kept coming up to admire my machine.
After about six months, the “Russian savages” did figure it out, but by then it was too late. Bukovsky had amassed “thousands of priceless pages of our history” – the history of the Soviet Union and its activities at home and abroad, memos written by the architects of the horrors that the Soviets had perpetrated with ruthless determination. He also had documented proof of the extensive complicity — and outright collusion — of the west in helping the Soviet Union to advance its objectives at home and abroad.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989, a public reckoning would’ve been morally imperative, given the bloody history of communist regimes around the world. But the idea of putting communism on trial, Nuremberg-style, has been thwarted for decades — particularly by westerners, including key figures in the United States. Bukovsky explains why. First, exposing the unsavory relationships between prominent westerners and the Soviets would damage careers and public images. Second, such a trial would be bad for the Left as a whole: the crisis of communism in Moscow would lead to a crisis of the socialist ideal in the west, and the western leftists didn’t want that to happen, particularly in those countries where they were building their careers on socialism.
Unpatriotic, Treacherous Americans
In 1995, when this book first came out in Europe, a senior editor at Random House had serious reservations about publishing Judgment in Moscow in the United States, even though it was being released in other countries without hesitation. The Random House editor was worried that ordinary Americans would be too “surprised” to find out that well-known Americans might be guilty of “unpatriotic — or even treacherous — behavior” as he put it (p. 58), specifically mentioning former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Hollywood director Francis Ford Coppola.
When the editor tried to force Bukovsky to rewrite the entire book from the perspective of a liberal leftist, Bukovsky replied: “I am allergic to political censorship.” That ended the publishing contract. Across the Atlantic, a smaller British publisher was ready to move forward with it, but he was threatened with lawsuits and bankruptcy. So for decades, the book was unavailable to English speakers.
Hollywood: “Suffering Heroes Indeed!”
Throughout Judgment in Moscow, Bukovsky takes aim at all strata of western intelligentsia, from journalists to policy-makers, to businessmen and morally self-preening public figures and peace activists who were all too ready to do business with the Soviets, and who disarmed their critics by playing the victim-of-persecution card when anyone questioned their motives.
Along these lines, Bukovsky provides profound commentary on Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s hearings in which notable Hollywood figures, accused of communist activities, were interrogated. To be clear, McCarthy had identified a real problem and threat: namely, communist infiltration in the movie industry. But McCarthy’s tactics were reckless. As David Horowitz has pointed out, McCarthy “ought to have been stopped because the methods of his committee were effectively destroying every safeguard of free speech and free association that the Constitution affords to the individual, every protection for the innocent against an unjust trial.” (Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey, p. 26).
Thus, while McCarthy’s concerns were legitimate, his irresponsible behavior damaged the anti-communist cause for decades afterward. Indeed, the Left became wildly successful in using the term “McCarthyism” to smear anti-communists as politically repressive, paranoid, and delusional about the influence of communism on western institutions — when, in fact, that influence was and continues to be a threatening reality.
This is where Bukovsky’s perspective is especially vital. He doesn’t dwell on the problems of the McCarthy hearings except to note that they were marred by hysteria. (Hysteria is a trait he finds distastefully prevalent among Americans in general, and he goes into more detail about his problems with American culture later in the book.) Instead, Bukovsky’s most acidic comments are aimed at those actors, screenwriters and directors who testified (p. 292):
[A]t a time when [the] spiritual brothers [of the Hollywood communists] were enslaving entire peoples, destroying millions to the benefit of their common ideology, all these people had to face were questions, moreover public ones, in the presence of their lawyers, the press, and with observance of all procedural formalities, such as: ‘Are you a member of any communist group?’
That was all. I remember how glad I was in 1967 to finally say to my judges’ faces everything I thought of their political system, thereby earning three years in the camps. I never thought of myself as a sufferer. They [the Hollywood figures who were forced to testify in the McCarthy hearings] faced no threat of camps, or torture, or destruction. At worst a loss of their jobs. It’s curious how the majority of them broke so shamefully, pointing fingers at their friends and neighbors and lying under oath. Only a few refused to speak. Suffering heroes indeed! . . . Not a word about the tragedy of hundreds of millions who really suffered under the communist yoke.
Here Bukovsky understates the ordeals he and his fellow dissidents suffered. In his memoir To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter, Bukovsky describes the brutality he experienced in Soviet prisons and mental hospitals. For example, he was falsely accused of being mentally ill and then forcefully committed to a psychiatric hospital in Leningrad in the 1960s. The torture and killing of patients was routine. Some of the doctors referred to the place as “our little Auschwitz.” Bukovsky tried to stop the sadistic orderlies from routinely beating up his Ukrainian cellmate, but to no avail; he was beaten up as well. Various torments were inflicted on the inmates, including excruciatingly painful injections and other horrors, both physical and psychological, that were designed to punish and demoralize them.
Viewed through this lens, Bukovsky’s refusal to dwell on some of the abuses of the McCarthy hearings, along with his assessment that the hearings were “fully justified” is completely understandable. His deep contempt for the guilty who testified is also equally understandable.
Serendipity and Today’s Russian Collusion Narrative
The 50thanniversary edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago was published in November, with a foreword by Jordan B. Peterson. Now, just six months later, Judgment in Moscow is available for the first time in English, and it contains discussions of Bukovsky’s fellow dissidents (including Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov) and the challenges they faced in bringing their message to the world. Bukovsky details how he and Solzhenitsyn were routinely dismissed — and openly persecuted — by western leftists. The oppression of dissidents under the Soviet regime did nothing to change Left’s favorable view of the USSR. Warnings from Bukovsky that the Soviet leaders were not to be trusted went unheeded. Bukovsky and Solzhenitsyn (and other dissidents) were accused of being delusional and biased, unable to appreciate the noble goals of détente.
Judgment in Moscow deserves a prominent place in the canon of dissident literature. It also belongs to the genre of documentary history and journalism that has mapped the alliances between western institutions and the Soviet Union. Ex-communist spy Whittaker Chambers sounded the alarm of communist infiltration when he published his memoir Witness in 1952, but his book has been largely ignored. David Horowitz has been writing on the dangers of communism in the West for decades, and has been relentlessly attacked. The same is the case with Ron Radosh and Lloyd Billingsley, who have published historical accounts of communism’s extensive influence in Hollywood.
To be sure, the evidence for dangerous and illegal Soviet-western relationships is already considerable. Judgment in Moscow provides yet more hard proof that all this documentation points to something real, and cannot be dismissed.
Despite the decades-long habit by the mainstream to ignore all this evidence, things may be changing for the better. Three years ago, the American Left advanced a sinister narrative about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections. They accused President Trump and others in his administration of colluding with the Russians. Interestingly, those making the accusations were not dismissed as “McCarthyites” (although they have been accused of conducting a witch-hunt). This is significant. In the past, the point of contention between left and right had been whether Russian/Soviet infiltration was in fact real. Since 2016, that point of contention has changed. It’s no longer whether collusion with Russians is real, it’s whether any particular Americans have in fact colluded. As Attorney General William Barr summarized it in his press conference on April 18:
As the Special Counsel’s report makes clear, the Russian government sought to interfere in our election. But thanks to the Special Counsel’s thorough investigation, we now know that the Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign — or the knowing assistance of any other Americans for that matter.
So the framework has now shifted.
At this juncture, it would be vital to stress when and where real Russian collusion has actually taken place. Historian Paul Kengor, for instance, has documented and discussed a 1983 memo written by Viktor Chebrikov, then-head of the KGB, to the Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov. The memo was retrieved from the Soviet archives by a London Times reporter shortly before Bukovsky harvested his material from those same archives in the early 1990s. The KGB head describes how then-senator Ted Kennedy approached him through an intermediary with a provocative offer: Kennedy wanted to help the USSR polish its image in the United States in order to sway the American public in the direction of disarmament, and thereby thwart Ronald Reagan’s anti-Soviet strategies and chances for re-election in 1984. Of course, accusations of “collusion” and “conspiracy” were never mentioned in connection with Kennedy’s proposal because the American media (with a few exceptions) completely ignored it. And they continue to ignore this Democrat-Russian collusion to this day.
In terms of the Left’s failed attempt to trap the Trump administration in a false Russian collusion narrative, It would be ironic if this whole narrative results in a conceptual shift that sees Americans finally being able to accept — without being accused of McCarthyism or delusion — one of the central findings of Judgment in Moscow: namely, that communist infiltration and influence in the U.S. and around the world has been happening for decades. Once that fact is widely recognized, perhaps the serious journalists and historians who correctly identify the players, using real evidence, won’t be ignored or accused of exaggeration anymore. Bukovsky’s book provides important source material in this quest.
Of course, there is little hope that the Left will embark on this path. And most of its faithful certainly won’t concede the logical outcome of the ideology of which they’re so enamored. As Bukovsky points out on p. 306:
The unwillingness of the Left to admit, even now, the simple fact that there can be no ‘moral equivalence’ with the totalitarian monster, that the only result will be the gulag and destruction, is indicative in itself.
But perhaps there is hope among those who are not on the Left. Perhaps the weight of Bukovsky’s evidence and commentary will facilitate the kind of judgment of Moscow — and of communism in general — that should have occurred decades ago when the Soviet Union dissolved. We’ll see. In the meanwhile, readers with an interest in 20th-century history — especially Soviet and Russian history — will find Judgment in Moscow a valuable addition to their library.
*
Christine Silk holds a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. She is the author of Chase the Sun: Nine Short Stories of Passion, Betrayal, and Revenge.
4.
ARAB GULF STATES COZY UP TO JEWS AND ISRAEL
And how the U.S. can help.
Bahrain is slated to host a conference in its capital Manama, a conference that would deal with the economic aspects of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan also known as the “Deal of the Century.” The conference, scheduled to take place next month (June 25-26), is meant to focus on providing billions of dollars to revive the Palestinian economy. While Israel plans to dispatch a delegation led by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has already announced its refusal to attend, despite the conference aim to revive its failing economy. A senior PA official has called the White House planned conference and the “deal of the century,” a “financial blackmail.”
Bahrain’s willingness to accept the Trump administration’s request to host such a conference, despite objections from the PA, is indicative of the new attitudes emerging from the moderate Sunni-Arab Gulf states. Although relations with the Jewish state are still unofficial, a new openness can be detected toward Judaism, Jews, and Israel. The National, a publication based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reported on May 1, 2019, that the Saudi head of the Muslim World League, and former Saudi Justice Minister, Dr. Mohammad Al Issa, has signed up to become the most senior Islamic leader to visit Auschwitz at next January’s observance of the Holocaust Remembrance Day. Dr. Al Issa stated that, “By paying my respect to the victims of Auschwitz, I will encourage Muslims and non-Muslims to embrace mutual respect, understanding and diversity.”
Dr. Al Issa also asserted that “He who denies the Holocaust seeks to repeat it…rational human beings must unite and work together to restrain the advocates of murder and extermination, otherwise the lessons of history won’t be useful.” Dr. Al Issa’s empathy toward a seminal event in Jewish history – the Holocaust, reflects a general tendency in the Arab Gulf states of seeking to strengthen their ties with Judaism.
Bahrain has been a pioneer in the process of cultivating relations with Jews and Judaism. In 2008, it appointed the first Jewish female, Houda Ezra Ebraim Nonoo, as its ambassador to the U.S., a first such official appointment in the Arab world. Last estimate of the Jewish population in Bahrain was 36. On December 27, 2016, the New York Times reported that, “Orthodox Jews in black coats and skullcaps danced with Arabs in flowing robes and checkered kaffiyehs at the Hanukkah celebration over the weekend in Bahrain, a Muslim majority monarchy whose king has sanctioned celebrations of the Jewish holiday.” The event drew the ire of the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza, which called the celebration “a humiliating and disgraceful display.”
In 2017, Bahrain set another precedent, when a delegation of Bahraini Muslim clergy arrived in Israel with the aim of advancing inter-religious tolerance. In the same year, the UAE displayed Jewish artifacts, including an old Hebrew bible from Yemen, and a headstone with a Hebrew inscription, at its newly inaugurated Louvre Museum in its capital Abu Dhabi. In addition, the UAE declared 2019 the “Year of Tolerance,” and within its framework it formally recognized the Jewish community (mostly Jews from other countries) in the Emirates and opened its first synagogue in Dubai.
Qatar, identified as a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, and known as a major funder of the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza, is scheduled to host the World (soccer) Cup in 2022. It has pledged to accommodate Jews from around the world and Israelis with kosher food. The Qatar National Olympic Committee, together with the State of Israel, co-funded the Doha stadium in the Israeli-Arab city of Sakhnin in the Galilee. In 2018, the Qatari government provided attractive junkets to American-Jewish leaders. They wooed many of whom had previously criticized Qatar for being a threat to Israel. The idea behind this gesture was to improve Qatar’s image in the U.S. Qatar has used American Jews to appeal to President Trump to condemn the blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE on Qatar. Yet, at the same time, Qatar has been trying to spy on American Jewish organizations.
According to the pro-Palestinian Middle East Monitor, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have succeeded in leading Arab countries to forge overt relations with Israel. In 2018, Saudi Arabia allowed Air India to use its airspace for flights to Israel. The Middle East Monitor also reported that “Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, “Offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas $10 billion over ten years, to force him to accept the U.S. peace plan with Israel.” The same publication headline stated on May 4th, 2019, “Israeli Delegation to visit Saudi Arabia in 2020.”
The Arab world is bitterly divided at this time. Assad’s Syria, and Shiite controlled Iraq, both with close ties to the radical Iranian regime, are against the U.S. initiative, and criticize any friendly gesture toward Jews and Israel. Jordan, albeit pro-western, is hesitant about the Bahrain conference and the “Deal of the Century.” King Abdullah II is concerned about the reaction of his majority Palestinian population. Al-Sisi’s Egypt is content to stay neutral on the “Deal” and the “conference.” The Saudi’s and their Gulf allies, absent Qatar and Kuwait, are gambling on U.S. protection and warmer relations with the American Jewish community and Israel.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, founder of the Hampton synagogue in NY, has been a leader in pushing for an inter-religious dialogue and for close relations between Muslim leaders and Israel. In an interview with the Associated Press News, Schneier said, “I think there is a very keen interest in bringing Islam and Judaism together, but our role as Jewish leaders – we also need to sensitize and educate and expose both Gulf leaders and Muslim interfaith leaders to the fact that Israel again is not a political dimension for the Jewish people; it is the very core of our religion.”
It is apparent that the Gulf states cozying up to Israel and Jews has do with existential interests. Iran is clearly seen as a major threat to the Gulf kingdoms and to Saudi Arabia in particular. The close relations between Netanyahu and Trump render Israel an asset. The perceived influence of the organized Jewish community in the U.S. is another reason the Gulf states seek a warmer relationship with Jews and Judaism. One shouldn’t however, overlook the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman’s efforts to modernize his kingdom and loosen the social strictures imposed by the Wahhabi religious establishment.
The bottom line is that the Gulf states have a lot to gain from warm relations with the Jewish community and an open and formal relationship with the Jewish state. They could invest in Israel’s innovative industries and take advantage of Israel’s renowned high-tech sector. Israel’s environmental innovations could address the challenges of water shortages in the Gulf states. Similarly, the Gulf states student population could benefit from Israel’s world-class universities. Tourism is an area that could benefit both parties.
The U.S. is in a strong position to make the existing détente into a full fledge relationship between the Gulf states and Israel.
5.
WE CAN’T PREDICT WHICH IMMIGRANTS TO ADMIT
But we do know whom we should NOT admit.
My paternal grandmother Masha was a Russian serf. Her happiest moment in the old country was a spell in prison after she was arrested by the Tsar’s police for a religious crime. She had bathed one of her kids (three boys and a girl) upstream in a creek where the Tsarevich was being baptized. She loved the jail. Food twice a day, and a roof. When told that she had served out her sentence, she protested. Wasn’t there some way she could stay longer?
Yet, she had to go back to her shanty, her husband, and the four offspring. But she was determined to get out, and in 1906 she somehow managed to book a passage to New York, passed the Ellis Island exams, and, with virtually no money, and not a word of English, found lodging in Harlem.
Not the sort of immigrants we seem to be recruiting nowadays. After a few years in Harlem, where my father was born, Masha moved them to Toledo, Ohio, where she opened a little store that sold candy and newspapers. Amos Jacobs, who later gained fame as Danny Thomas, was a regular. All three boys went to college, and fathered children who did post-graduate work. All three were engineers.
No one would have predicted that Masha’s family would be such a success. By the standards of the new immigration code, they would not have been admitted. We want people who are trained in high tech, people who can enrich the tycoons of Silicon Valley. I’m all for that, but I’m also a strong believer that we should welcome those seeking a better life, the so-called “economic immigrants.”
Which is why I don’t believe our government, or any other, can reliably predict which people to accept, and which to keep out, just on the basis of their current abilities to go to work for Google or Facebook. Their children and grandchildren may turn out to be important contributors. We just don’t know how they are going to work out. My grandparents sure didn’t look like desirables at the start of the twentieth century, nor did millions of others who wanted in.
If we don’t have the wisdom to predict who will make good citizens, we do know at least some who won’t. We don’t want those who are indoctrinated in the various cults of radical Islam. Kids who have been “educated” in the madrassas of the Wahhabi fanatics, those who believe that all wisdom was handed down in the Koran and Mohammed’s hadiths, and who believe that sharia “law” is more important than constitutional law, are not likely to assimilate into American society. We don’t want immigrants who are going to create separate communities that reject the basic principles of our country.
Hence President Trump has long been on the right track in trying to block the inpouring of radical Muslims. Just as it was right to block committed Communists because we knew they would subvert American democracy, it is right to block those who will subvert democracy for other reasons. I don’t think that we should welcome Antifa leaders and activists. And I think the overwhelming majority of Americans agree. Don’t you?
Finally, if I’m right, we simply must insist on legal immigration, and stop the illegals. Otherwise we’re going to replicate the failed European open borders policies of recent years. In case you hadn’t noticed, those miserable policies have been roundly rejected in country after country, from Great Britain to Hungary. We don’t want to go through a similar convulsion.
6.
Trump announces run for second term
US President Donald Trump will formally announce his run for a second term later this month. He tweeted: “I will be announcing my Second Term Presidential Run with First Lady Melania, Vice President Mike Pence, and Second Lady Karen Pence on June 18th in Orlando, Florida, at the 20,000 seat Amway Center. Join us for this Historic Rally!”
7.
US, Russian, Israeli national security advisers to meet in Jerusalem
White House national security adviser John Bolton and his Israeli and Russian counterparts will meet in Jerusalem in June to discuss regional security issues, the White House said on Wednesday. In a brief statement, the White House said Bolton, Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, would take part in the meeting.
8.
Liberal Media Call Trump Normandy Best Speech Ever
Thursday, 06 June 2019
Acosta, who has sparred often with the Trump administration and had his White House “hard pass” revoked for a short period in November 2018, said the speech hit “all the right moments.”
“It really was one of those moments that I think Donald Trump needed to rise to in order to walk away from this cemetery, walk away from this hallowed ground, and have people back home saying, you know what—no matter what I think about the current President of the United States, he said the right thing at Normandy, he did the right thing at Normandy,” said Acosta.
9.
Milli Savunma Bakanlığından generallere hakarete suç duyurusu
Milli Savunma Bakanlığından yapılan yazılı açıklamada, “Bir televizyon kanalında TSK’da görev yapan generallere söylenen yakışıksız sözlerle ilgili, hazırlıkların tamamlanmasını müteakip suç duyurusunda bulunulacak” ifadesi kullanıldı.
“ASİL MİLLETİMİZİN MENFAATLERİNE ZARAR VERMEKTEDİR”
Açıklamada, 1 Haziran 2019’da bir TV kanalında yayımlanan programda, katılımcılardan biri tarafından, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetlerinde görev yapan generaller hakkında hakarete varan tahripkar bir dil kullanıldığı hatırlatılarak şu ifadelere yer verildi: “Asil milletimizin güvenliği ve bekası uğrunda, yargı ve istihbaratla yakın işbirliği içinde FETÖ ile her türlü mücadeleyi yapan, PKK/YPG, DEAŞ ve diğer terör örgütlerine karşı yurt içi ve yurt dışı operasyonları icra eden ve tüm vazifelerini büyük bir ciddiyet ve samimiyetle yerine getirme gayreti içinde olan Türk Silahlı Kuvvetlerine komuta eden generalleri toplum nezdinde aşağılamaya çalışmak ordumuza ve asil milletimizin hak ve menfaatlerine zarar vermektedir.
“BU HADSİZ AÇIKLAMAYI ŞİDDETLE KINIYORUZ”
Erinden generaline kadar bir ve bütün olan Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri asil milletimizin bağrından çıkmıştır. Yurt içinde ve sınır ötesinde düzenlenen çok sayıda operasyonların başarıyla icra edildiği bir dönemde yapılan bu tür sorumsuz ve düzeysiz açıklamaların tüm ordu mensuplarımızın olduğu kadar milletimizin de moral ve motivasyonunu olumsuz etkilemesi kaçınılmazdır. Anayasa çerçevesinde, yasalar ve Sayın Cumhurbaşkanımızın talimatları doğrultusunda, daima demokrasiye bağlı, milletinin emrinde, görevinin başında, ölürsem şehit kalırsam gazi anlayışı ile yurdun ve dünyanın dört bir köşesinde yaz kış, gece gündüz, dağ bayır demeden fedakarca görev yapan Türk Silahlı Kuvvetlerinin şerefli generallerine karşı yapılan bu hadsiz, yakışıksız ve yasal sınırları aşan açıklamayı, hukuki tüm yollar saklı kalmak kaydıyla şiddetle kınıyor, yasal süreçlerin yakından takipçisi olacağımızı kamuoyunun bilgisine saygıyla arz ediyoruz.”
10.
Putin: Rusya “Stratejik Silahların Azaltılması Anlaşması”ndan çekilecek
Rusya Devlet Başkanı Vladimir Putin, Rusya’nın, son olarak 8 Nisan 2010’da dönemin Rusya Devlet Başkanı Dmitriy Medvedev ve ABD Devlet Başkanı Barack Obama tarafından yenilenen ve 2021 yılında sona erecek olan Stratejik Silahların Azaltılması Anlaşması’ndan çekilmek için hazırlık yaptığını duyurdu.
ABD’nin füze savunma anlaşmalarından çekilmesinin küresel güvenliği istikrarsızlaştırmaya yönelik bir adım olduğunu söyleyen Putin, uluslararası silah kontrol sisteminin çökmesi konusunda ciddi bir risk bulunduğunu ifade etti.
St. Petersburg Uluslararası Ekonomi Forumu’nda (SPIEF 2019) uluslararası haber ajanslarının yöneticileriyle bir araya gelen Putin, ABD’nin Orta Menzilli Nükleer Kuvvetler Anlaşması’ndan (INF) çekildikleri için sorumluluk üstlenmeleri gerektiğinin bilincine varmaya başladığını kaydetti.
Sputnik’in haberine göre Washington‘un adımları nedeniyle uluslararası silah kontrol sisteminin çökmesi konusunda ciddi bir risk bulunduğunun altını çizen Rus lider, şunları söyledi:
“ABD kendi başına INF’den çekildi. Sayın baylar ve bayanlar, hanginiz bunu aktif şekilde protesto etti, dövizlerle sokağa çıktı? Yok. Sessizlik. Bu, uluslararası güvenlik alanında tüm uluslararası ilişkilerin temelini sarsan ilk ve çok ciddi bir adımdı. İkinci adım olarak da, sorumluluk üstlenmeleri gerektiğini anlamaya başlayarak suçu Rusya’nın üzerine atmaya çalışıyorlar.”
“TRUMP’LA SON GÖRÜŞMEMİZ İYİMSERLİK YARATTI”
ABD Başkanı Donald Trump‘la mayıs başında yaptıkları son telefon görüşmesinin stratejik silahların kontrolüne yönelik belirli bir iyimserlik yarattığını anlatan Putin, “Zira Donald, kendisinin de endişeli olduğunu, ABD’nin ne gibi sonuçlarla karşı karşıya kalacağını anladığını söyleyip ‘Silaha yatırılan paralar başka amaçlar için kullanılabilirdi’ dedi. Kendisiyle tamamen hemfikirim” ifadelerini kullandı.
“RUSYA’YI UZUN YILLAR KORUYACAK SİLAHLARA SAHİBİZ
ABD’nin 2021 yılında sona erecekStratejik Silahların Azaltılması Anlaşması-3’ü (START-3) uzatma konusunu Rus tarafıyla müzakere etmediğine dikkat çeken Putin, “İstemiyorlarsa, bu sözleşme uzatılmayabilir. Sahip olduğumuz en yeni sistemler, Rusya’nın güvenliğini çok uzun yıllar boyunca garanti altına alacak. İleriye doğru çok büyük bir adım attık ve hipersonik silah üretimi konusunda rakiplerimizi geride bıraktık” diye konuştu.
“GAYRİRESMİ NÜKLEER SİLAH SAHİBİ ÜLKELER DE MÜZAKERELERDE YER ALMAL
Putin, stratejik silahların kısıtlanması ve kontrolüne ilişkin müzakerelere resmi olarak nükleer silah sahibi olan ülkelerin yanı sıra bu silahlara gayriresmi olarak sahip olanların da davet edilmesi gerektiğinin altını çizdi.
Bugün itibarıyla en önemli konunun Rusya ve ABD arasında bu alanda yapılacak müzakereler olduğunun altını çizen Putin, “Müzakerelere resmi ve gayriresmi nükleer silah sahibi ülkelerin tamamı dahil edilmeli. Aksi halde gayriresmi nükleer silah sahibi ülkeler, söz konusu silahları geliştirmeye devam edecek ve nihayetinde resmi nükleer silah sahibi ülkeler arasındaki müzakerelerin durmasına yol açacak” dedi.
06.06.2019
11.
ΠΟΛΛΑ ΦΙΛΑΚΙΑ ΓΙΑΣΑΡ!
ΓΙΑ ΝΑ ΔΟΥΜΕ, ΘΑ ΤΟ ΠΑΡΕΙ ΤΟ “ΚΑΝΤΙΛ” Ο ΧΟΥΛΟΥΣΙ; Αχαχαχαχαχαχαχαχα! (“Pençe” ops.) Έχεις γίνει παράδειγμα προς… μίμηση, για πολλούς Έλληνες συναδέλφους σου! Σε λίγο θα δίνονται διδακτορικά στον ΕΣ, για το πώς μπορεί ένα στέλεχος γενόμενο άριστος τσάτσος, να φτάσει να γίνει μέχρι και Αρχηγός των ΕΕΔ!..
12.
Hindistan’dan ABD’ye büyük S-400 resti: İstediğinizi yapın
Hindistan Dışişleri Bakanlığı yaptığı açıklamada, Yeni Delhi yönetiminin, ABD’nin yaptırım tehdidine rağmen Rus yapımı S-400 hava savunma sistemi satın almaya kararlı olduğu belirtildi.
06.06.2019
ABD’den Hindistan’a Türkiye göndermeli tehdit: Onlardan örnek alın
13.
ABD Başkanı Trump’ın sloganını kullandılar! Ayasofya skandalı
Amerika Ermeni Ulusal Komitesi (ANCA), sosyal medya hesabından Ayasofya üzerinden büyük bir skandala imza attı. AK Parti’nin Ermeni asıllı İstanbul milletvekili Markar Esayan bu paylaşıma tepki gösterirken, Türk kullanıcılar da gönderinin altına Fatih Sultan Mehmet ve Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan’ın fotoğraflarını yükleyerek karşılık verdi.
ABD Başkanı Donald Trump‘ın seçimlerde kullandığı slogan “Make America Great Again (Amerika’yı tekrar büyük yap)”a atıfta bulunularak “MakeIstanbul Constantinople Again (İstanbul‘u tekrar Konstantinopolis yap)” yazılı bir görsel paylaşıldı.
ERMENİ VEKİLDEN TEPKİ
AK Parti‘nin Ermeni asıllı İstanbul milletvekili Markar Esayan da bu skandal paylaşıma sert sözlerle yüklendi. Esayan Twitter’dan, “İstanbul sonsuza kadar sürecek. Fatih Sultan Mehmet, Bizans baskısı yerine İstanbul’u fethettikten sonra 1461’de Ermeni Patrikliği’ni kurdu. Size yazıklar olsun” ifadelerini kullandı.
TÜRKLER DE TEPKİ GÖSTERDİ
Türk kullanıcılar da bu paylaşıma büyük tepki gösterdi. Çok sayıda Twitter kullanıcısı, Fatih Sultan Mehmet ve Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan‘ın resimlerini kullanarak mesaja cevap verdi.
KAYNAK: HABER7
Δριμεία επίθεση εξαπέλυσε ο Γιώργος Τράγκας από την εκπομπή του προς την «μαύρη τουλίπα» του Μαξίμου και την πολιτικής της συμμορία, η οποία μέχρι και την τελευταία στιγμή, επιδιώκει να κάνει χιλιάδες ρουσφέτια, να τακτοποιήσει κόσμο και να δώσει, όσα μπορεί παραπάνω λαθραία εκλογικά δικαιώματα σε ξένους»!..
Συγκεκριμένα είπε:
«Δεν πιστεύω τον κ. Τσίπρα σε τίποτα, μέχρι να τον δω να βγαίνει από την πόρτα του Μαξίμου. Δεν εμπιστεύομαι την “μαύρη τουλίπα”, τον μεγαλύτερο ψεύτη της αντιπολίτευσης. Μην τον εμπιστεύεστε. Δεν έχει μπέσα και αξιοπιστία. Θέλει να μας παρασύρει βαθιά μέσα στο καλοκαίρι, μέσα στη θερινή ραστώνη, μέσα στις υψηλές θερμοκρασίες. Νομίζει ότι θα μας κοιμίσει και δε θα πάμε στις κάλπες. Πιστεύει ότι θα τον διευκολύνει η αποχή στην νοθεία που ετοιμάζει με ελληνοποιήσεις και πολλά άλλα κόλπα. Σε όλη τη χώρα γελάνε μαζί του. Σε όλη τη χώρα αναρωτιούνται θα κάνει εκλογές και τί ρόλο παίζει αυτός ο Πρόεδρος της Δημοκρατίας που καθημερινά εξευτελίζεται ακολουθώντας έναν αφερέγγυο και αναξιόπιστο. Επιδιώκει να κάνει εκλογές όταν οι μισοί Έλληνες θα λείπουν διακοπές και η τουριστική σεζόν θα είναι στο φουλ.
Είναι ένας πολιτικός απατεώνας, τρικαδόρος, καταστροφέας της Ελλάδας, τυχοδιώκτης. Θέλει τα μισά εκλογικά τμήματα να είναι άδεια και τα άλλα μισά στα νησιά, σε τουριστικές περιοχές να ημι-λειτουργήσουν. Επιδιώκει να πάει η χώρα σε ακυβερνησία και σε αποσταθεροποίηση. Ο άθλιος επιδιώκει να κάνει χιλιάδες ρουσφέτια, να τακτοποιήσει κόσμο και να δώσει όσα μπορεί παραπάνω λαθραία εκλογικά δικαιώματα σε ξένους. Αυτή είναι η επώδυνη πραγματικότητα. Έχουμε να κάνουμε με έναν πολιτικό απατεώνα και έναν αγύρτη. Νομίζει ότι έτσι θα βελτιώσει τα ποσοστά του ή τουλάχιστον δεν θα υποστεί νέα πανωλεθρία.
«Έχουμε να κάνουμε με ψεύτη, αφερέγγυο, χαρτοπαίκτη και δόλιο. Φοβάται τις κάλπες και το Βατερλώ. Τρέμει για το μέλλον. Μην τον πιστεύετε μέχρι να τον δείτε να εξέρχεται του Μαξίμου μαζί με την πολιτική του συμμορία. Είναι λάθος να πιστεύει η αντιπολίτευση ότι ο Τσίπρας θέλει να πάει στην ομαλή αλλαγή των κομμάτων στην εξουσία. Είναι αναξιόπιστος, προβατόμορφος που χαίρεται στην αναμπουμπούλα. Γνωρίζει ότι δεν έχει να πει τίποτα σε αυτή την εκλογική εκστρατεία. Έχει στεγνώσει από επιχειρήματα και για αυτό θέλει να παρασύρει τον Μητσοτάκη σε μια παρατεταμένη αναμονή. Θέλει να κουράσει την κοινωνία. Μην τον εμπιστεύεται. Είναι δόλιος και ψεύτης μπροστά σε ολόκληρη την κοινωνία.
Είναι εθνοτερμίτης, καταστροφέας, με ένα πλήθος ανθελληνικών ενεργειών στην πορεία του. Αλλάζει συνεχώς ημερομηνίες και θέσεις. Και τώρα αυτό το όνειδος εμφανίζεται πάλι αντιμνημονιακός και ζητάει τις πολεμικές αποζημιώσεις, ενώ σε όλη τη θητεία του ταξίδευε με θαλαμηγούς, κάπνιζε πούρα, τα είχε καλά με επιχειρηματίες και όταν έβλεπε την καγκελάριο η μέση του ήταν από λάστιχο. Μύτη και πιγούνι σύρονταν στο πάτωμα. Ταλαίπωρε την Δημοκρατία, την οικονομία της χώρας, ανοίγει κερκόπορτες και δημιουργεί αποσταθεροποίηση.
Είναι ότι χειρότερο έχουμε γνωρίσει. Μην εμπιστεύεστε την “μαύρη τουλίπα”. Ψάχνει να βρει ευκαιρία να ανακόψει τη βούληση του ελληνικού λαού. Ψάχνει με κάθε τρόπο να κάνει νοθεία στις εκλογές, να δημιουργήσει τις κατάλληλες συνθήκες έτσι ώστε να μειώσει τη διαφορά από τη Νέα Δημοκρατία ή να αναχαιτίσει διεύρυνση της διαφοράς που θα δώσει αυτοδυναμία στη Νέα Δημοκρατία και το Μητσοτάκη. Επιχειρεί να υλοποιήσει ένα κάρο ρουσφέτια και εμφανίζεται τώρα ως ο κοχίμπα αντιμνημονιακός. Εμφανίζεται αντι-Γερμανός. Ο «Yes men», το παλικάρι που έκρυβε στην ποδιά της η Μέρκελ. Αν μπορούσε θα ανέβαλε τις εκλογές επ’ αόριστον»!..
16. ΠΟΥ ΤΑ ΒΡΗΚΕ τα 30.000 Ευρώ το… ηγετικό στέλεχος του “ΡΟΥΒΙΚΩΝΑ“, που τα έδωσε στο Κράτος που… πολεμάει (sic), ώστε να αφεθεί τελικά ελεύθερος, με 1, 2 περιοριστικούς όρους;
