Europe loves Iran.

Which is to say, Germany loves Iran. And Germany decides what Europe loves.

Which is to say, the rulers of Germany decide what Germany decides what Europe loves.

And Chancellor Angela Merkel decides what the rulers of Germany will decide, and she has decided that Germany and therefore Europe love Iran.

She can rely on the concurrence of the EU’s mascot, French president Emmanuel Macron.   

Here’s a bark or two of his clap-trap against Brexit in an open letter:

‘Brexit … symbolizes the European trap. The trap is not being part of the European Union. The trap is in the lie and the irresponsibility that can destroy it. … And this trap threatens the whole of Europe …”  (Our emphasis.)

We hope it does more than threaten the EU. We hope Brexit brings down the whole rickety structure. It really could set an example to other member states, and with a little bit of luck the European Union will fall into a heap of rubble in a pall of dust. 

Meanwhile, it loves Iran.

From Gatestone, by Majid Rafizadeh:

According to a report published by Amnesty International on February 26, the human rights situation in Iran has “severely deteriorated”. Why then does the European Union continue to pursue appeasement policies with a regime that has an excruciating human rights record? Sadly, Europe — in spite its endless moral preening and self-righteousness — seems to have become the world most immoral player — if it was not already. The European Union, for instance, unjustly singles out for bullying the only liberal, democratic, human-rights-abiding country in the Middle East: Israel … yet tries to find ways to keep on doing business with a country such as Iran that is not only trying to establish its hegemony throughout the Middle East — through proxies in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon — but is also the serial violator of just about every human right imaginable … The only conclusion one can come to is that Europe would evidently still like to kill the Jews and is happy to support those wishing to kill them. How much more immoral can one get?

The list of unspeakable human rights violations committed by Iran’s regime is lengthy; however, by far the most disturbing seems the cruelty enacted against children.

According to the Norway-based organization Iran Human Rights (IHR), which closely monitors executions in Iran:

“Despite ratifying the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child which bans the death penalty for offenses committed at under 18 years of age, Iran stays the world’s top executioner of juvenile offenders. According to reports by IHR, Iranian authorities have executed at least 40 juvenile offenders since 2013. “

These children are held in custody and executed before they have the chance to reach adulthood. At least 6 minors, including two child brides were executed in 2018. Amnesty International comments on Iran’s use of capital punishment on children:

“Girls as young as nine can be sentenced to execution; for boys it’s 15. At least 73 young offenders were executed between 2005 and 2015. And the authorities show no sign of stopping this horrific practice. …

Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, executions can be conducted in four different ways: hanging, stoning, firing squad, or crucifixion.

Vague charges can be brought up by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary system or the Revolutionary Court, such as “waging war against God”, spreading moharebeh(“corruption on earth”) such as protesting, or endangering the country’s national security. These charges can be stretched to allow for simple acts such as criticizing the Supreme Leader to become crimes, simply to allow an order of execution to be carried out.

This is all allowed to occur while the deeply cynical EU continues to label the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as a “moderate”. …

The use of cruel and inhumane punishments is also on the rise in Iran. According to Amnesty International’s report, the use of various forms of torture such as amputation and flogging has been increasing at an alarming rate. …

Due to the recent protests in the country, the theocratic establishment has also ratcheted up its censorship of media, jamming of foreign satellite television channels, and detention of human rights defenders. Human rights defenders and prominent lawyers … who defended or supported social movements such as the opposition of  compulsory hijab, have been unfairly prosecuted and sentenced to long prison sentences.

These increasingly wanton human rights violations should raise alarms among the European governments, who are always lecturing the rest of the world about how caring they are — for instance not sending criminals back to countries where they might be tortured. It should horrify them to know that they are in some way enabling and emboldening this regime and empowering it to continue to commit these vicious acts.

But Europe is not horrified by the Iranian regime. Not in the least. In fact the EU actively supports the Iranian theocracy, because Germany rules Europe, and Angela Merkel’s Germany loves Iran.

Caroline Glick writes at Breitbart:

In a recent conversation with senior Trump administration officials, Breitbart News was told that the force behind the European Union’s trenchant support for Iran is Germany.

This EU support for Iran is manifested in a series of ways.

For example, after President Donald Trump walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal, last May, the EU responded harshly.

Brussels refused U.S. calls to join America in abandoning the deal that paves the way for Iran to develop a nuclear arsenal, and which funds its terrorism and aggression throughout the Middle East and world. The EU’s “big three”, Germany, France and Britain, spent months putting together a financial vehicle to sidestep U.S. economic sanctions on Iran. They instructed European firms to defy U.S. sanctions and maintain their economic operations in Iran.

In other words, rather than siding with their most powerful and important ally – the United States of America – in its efforts to forge a policy vis-à-vis Iran that actually diminishes the threat the regime poses to global security and stability, the Europeans – led by Germany — have stood with Iran against the United States.

The EU has also, following Germany’s lead, refused to ban Hezbollah – Iran’s terror proxy – from operating in Europe. Instead, the EU’s policy is to make an artificial distinction between what it refers to as the “military wing” of Hezbollah and what it refers to as Hezbollah’s “political wing”. The fact that even Hezbollah rejects the distinction, and that the so-called “political wing” in Europe raises money for Hezbollah and mobilizes terrorists to join Hezbollah through open indoctrination, is of no interest.

Like its Iranian controllers, Hezbollah seeks the obliteration of the Jewish state. When the British parliament voted last week to outlaw Hezbollah’s fake “political wing” from operating in the United Kingdom, the German government was quick to announce that it would not follow suit.

Germany — and through it, the rest of continental Europe — will continue to allow the genocidal terror group to operate openly on its soil.

As for the Iranians, German leaders insist that their continued allegiance to the nuclear deal stems from their conviction that the deal is a non-proliferation agreement and advances their security, and not from their support for Iran. But evidence grows by the day that the opposite is the case. Whereas in Iran, last month the regime had to hire people to fill the streets to “celebrate” the fortieth anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, senior German leaders were happy to gush in joy as they congratulated the murderous regime for its longevity.

The German Foreign Ministry sent State Minister Niels Annan and an Iran desk officer to celebrate the occasion at the Iranian Embassy in Berlin. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeyer sent a congratulatory telegram to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, praising the Islamic regime. In contrast, in November 2016, Steinmeyer refused to send a congratulatory telegram to President-elect Donald Trump and referred to him as a “hate preacher.”

In an article in the Washington Examiner, Iran expert Michael Rubin argued that Germany’s support for the Islamic regime is a function of financial interests.

In his words, “For German authorities across from the political spectrum, human rights is only a tool with which to dress its foreign policy rhetoric. … For German authorities, the primary goal is commercial benefit. The execution of gays, slaughter of Jews, repression of other minorities, and terrorism are inconveniences to ignore.”

There is much to support Rubin’s conclusion. But a cursory glance at Germany’s focus in its hypocritical human rights activism shows that money isn’t the only reason that Germany is the greatest defender of a regime that openly seeks the annihilation of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

Israel’s NGO-Monitor is a group that reports on funding for radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to advancing the cause of Israel’s destruction. NGO-Monitor has documented copiously how the German government spends millions of dollars every year funding groups that criminalize Israel’s very right to exist, and goes to great efforts to hide reporting of is funding activities.

During a visit to Israel in 2017 by Germany’s then-foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel, the depths of Germany’s commitment to these groups was laid bare. Parallel to scheduling a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gabriel ostentatiously announced his plan to meet with two radical anti-Israel propaganda groups funded by Germany …

When Netanyahu heard about Gabriel’s plan … he informed Gabriel that he had to choose between meeting with [the two anti-Israel organizations] or meeting with [him]. Gabriel insisted on meeting with the German-funded NGOs. So Netanyahu canceled their meeting.

When seen in the context of Germany’s extensive funding for political groups whose goal is to criminalize Israel and delegitimize its right to exist, Germany’s enthusiastic, warm, and supportive ties to the genocidally anti-Jewish Iranian regime seem to point to motivations far more sinister than mere greed.

We suspected that Islam-loving President Obama’s most compelling reason for wanting a “deal” with Iran that allowed it to become a nuclear-armed power, was that he thought it the most likely way Islam would be able to destroy Israel.

We suspect that Germany-dominated Europe thinks so too.

Why did President Trump appoint H. R. McMaster to head the National Security Council?

President Tump wants to “drain the swamp” – the agencies and bureaucracies of government filled with anti-American, pro-Islam, pro-illegal-immigration, pro-Iran, globalist, anti-Israel, Leftist denizens who had their heyday, glorying in the slime of treachery, under the Obama administration.

But then he goes and appoints H. R. McMaster?

Daniel Greenfield writes at Front Page:

Derek Harvey was a man who saw things coming. He had warned of Al Qaeda when most chose to ignore it. He had seen the Sunni insurgency rising when most chose to deny it.

The former Army colonel had made his reputation by learning the lay of the land. In Iraq that meant sleeping on mud floors and digging into documents to figure out where the threat was coming from.

It was hard to imagine anyone better qualified to serve as President Trump’s top Middle East adviser at the National Security Council than a man who had been on the ground in Iraq and who had seen it all.

Just like in Iraq, Harvey began digging at the NSC. He came up with a list of Obama holdovers who were leaking to the press. McMaster, the new head of the NSC, refused to fire any of them.

McMaster had a different list of people he wanted to fire. It was easy to make the list. Harvey was on it.

All you had to do was name Islamic terrorism as the problem and oppose the Iran Deal. If you came in with Flynn, you would be out. If you were loyal to Trump, your days were numbered.

And if you warned about Obama holdovers undermining the new administration, you were a target.

One of McMaster’s first acts at the NSC was to ban any mention of “Obama holdovers.”

Not only did the McMaster coup purge Harvey, who had assembled the holdover list, but his biggest target was Ezra Watnick-Cohen, who had exposed the eavesdropping on Trump officials by Obama personnel.

Ezra Watnick-Cohen had provided proof of the Obama surveillance to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. McMaster, however, was desperately working to fire him and replace him with Linda Weissgold.

McMaster’s choice to replace Watnick-Cohen was the woman who helped draft the Benghazi talking points which blamed the Islamic terrorist attack on a video protest.

After protests by Bannon and Kushner, President Trump overruled McMaster. Watnick-Cohen stayed. For a while. Now Ezra Watnick-Cohen has been fired anyway.

According to the media, Watnick-Cohen was guilty of “anti-Muslim fervor” and “hardline views”.  And there’s no room for anyone telling the truth about Islamic terrorism at McMaster’s NSC.

McMaster had even demanded that President Trump refrain from telling the truth about Islamic terrorism.

Another of his targets was Rich Higgins, who had written a memo warning of the role of the left in undermining counterterrorism. Higgins had served as a director for strategic planning at the NSC. He had warned in plain language about the threat of Islamic terrorism, of Sharia law, of the Hijrah colonization by Islamic migrants, of the Muslim Brotherhood, and of its alliance with the left as strategic threats.

Higgins had stood by Trump during the Khizr Khan attacks. And he had written a memo warning that “the left is aligned with Islamist organizations at local, national, and international levels” and that “they operate in social media, television, the 24-hour news cycle in all media and are entrenched at the upper levels of the bureaucracies”. ”

Like Harvey and Ezra Watnick-Cohen, Higgins had warned of an enemy within. And paid the price.

McMaster’s cronies had allegedly used the NSC’s email system to track down the source of the memo. The left and its useful idiots were indeed entrenched at the upper level of the bureaucracy.

Higgins was fired.

Like Harvey and Watnick-Cohen, Higgins had also become too dangerous to the Obama holdovers. Harvey had assembled a list of names and a plan to dismantle the Iranian nuclear deal. Watnick-Cohen had dug into the Obama surveillance of Trump officials. And Higgins had sought to declassify Presidential Study Directive 11. PSD-11 was the secret blueprint of Obama’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Pete Hoekstra, the former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, linked PSD-11 to the rise of ISIS and called for its declassification.

Replacing Harvey is Michael Bell. When the Washington Post needed someone to badmouth Dr. [Sebastian] Gorka, they turned to Bell: the former chancellor of the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University.  Bell suggested that Dr. Gorka was an uneven scholar. And Dr. Gorka was accused of failing to incorporate other perspectives on Islam.

The pattern has never been hard to spot.

McMaster forced out K.T. McFarland from her role as Deputy National Security Advisor. Slotted in was Dina Habib-Powell.

McFarland was an Oxford and Cambridge grad who had worked at the Pentagon for the Reagan administration. Dina Habib-Powell had no national security background. She was an Egyptian-American immigrant and former Bush gatekeeper whose pals included Huma Abedin and Valerie Jarrett. …

K.T. McFarland had written, “Global Islamist jihad is at war with all of Western civilization.”

It’s not hard to see why McMaster pushed out McFarland and elevated Habib-Powell. …

But that is typical of the McMaster revamp of the NSC. It’s populated by swamp creatures who oppose the positions that President Trump ran on. And who are doing everything possible to undermine them.

President Trump promised a reset from Obama’s anti-Israel policies. McMaster picked Kris Bauman as the NSC’s point man on Israel. Bauman had defended Islamic terrorists and blamed Israel for the violence. He had urged pressure on Israel as the solution. Ideas like that fit in at McMaster’s NSC.

Meanwhile Derek Harvey, who had tried to halt Obama’s $221 million terror funding prize to the Palestinian Authority, was forced out. …

When Adam Lovinger urged that “more attention be given to the threat of Iran and Islamic extremism,” his security clearance was revoked.  Robin Townley was forced out in the same way.

Meanwhile, McMaster sent a letter to Susan Rice, Obama’s former National Security Adviser, assuring her that the NSC would work with her to “allow you access to classified information.” He claimed that Rice’s continued access to classified information is “consistent with the national security interests of the United States.”

Why does Susan Rice, who is alleged to have participated in the Obama eavesdropping on Trump people, need access to classified information? What national security purpose is served by it?

The same national security purpose that is served by McMaster’s purge of anyone at the NSC who dares to name Islamic terrorism, who wants a tougher stance on Iran, and who asks tough questions.

And the purge of reformers and original thinkers is only beginning.

The latest reports say that McMaster has a list of enemies who will be ousted from the NSC. And when that is done, the NSC will be a purely Obama-Bush operation. The consensus will be that the Iran Deal must stay, that Islam has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism, that we need to find ways to work with the aspirations of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that Israel must make concessions to terrorists.

If you loved the foreign policy that brought us 9/11, ISIS, and billions in funding to terrorists from Syria to Libya to the West Bank, you won’t be able to get enough of McMaster’s brand new NSC.

And neither will America’s enemies.

The swamp is overflowing. The National Security Council is becoming a national security threat. 

Caroline Glick writes on her Facebook page:

The Israel angle on McMaster’s purge of Trump loyalists from the National Security Council is that all of these people are pro-Israel and oppose the Iran nuclear deal, positions that Trump holds.

McMaster in contrast is deeply hostile to Israel and to Trump. According to senior officials aware of his behavior, he constantly refers to Israel as the occupying power and insists falsely and constantly that a country named Palestine existed where Israel is located until 1948 when it was destroyed by the Jews.

Many of you will remember that a few days before Trump’s visit to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his advisers were blindsided when the Americans suddenly told them that no Israeli official was allowed to accompany Trump to the Western Wall. What hasn’t been reported is that it was McMaster who pressured Trump to agree not to let Netanyahu accompany him to the Western Wall. At the time, I and other reporters were led to believe that this was the decision of rogue anti-Israel officers at the US consulate in Jerusalem. But it wasn’t. It was McMaster. And even that, it works out wasn’t sufficient for McMaster. He pressured Trump to cancel his visit to the Wall and only visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial — ala the Islamists who insist that the only reason Israel exists is European guilt over the Holocaust. …

The thing I can’t get my arms around in all of this is why in the world this guy hasn’t been fired. Mike Flynn was fired essentially for nothing. He was fired because he didn’t tell the Vice President everything that transpired in a phone conversation he had with the Russian ambassador. … Flynn had the conversation when he was on a 72 hour vacation with his wife after the election in the Caribbean and could barely hear because the reception was so bad. He found himself flooded with calls and had no one with him except his wife.
And for this he was fired.

McMaster disagrees with and actively undermines Trump’s agenda on just about every salient issue on his agenda.

He fires all of Trump’s loyalists and replaces them with Trump’s opponents, like Kris Bauman, an Israel hater and Hamas supporter who McMaster hired to work on the Israel-Palestinian desk. …

And he not only is remaining at his desk. He is given the freedom to fire Trump’s most loyal foreign policy advisers from the National Security Council.

One source claims that Trump’s political advisers are afraid of how it will look if he fires another national security adviser. But that makes no sense. Trump is being attacked for everything and nothing. Who cares if he gets attacked for doing something that will actually help him to succeed in office? Why should fear of media criticism play a role here or anywhere for this president and this administration?

Finally, there is the issue of how McMaster got there in the first place. Trump interviewed McMaster at Mara Lago for a half an hour. He was under terrible pressure after firing Flynn to find someone.

And who recommended McMaster? You won’t believe this.

Senator John McCain.

That’s right. The NSA got his job on the basis of a recommendation from the man who just saved Obamacare.

Obviously, at this point, Trump has nothing to lose by angering McCain. …

If McMaster isn’t fired after all that he has done and all that he will do, we’re all going to have to reconsider Trump’s foreign policy.

Because if after everything he has done, and everything that he will certainly do to undermine Trump’s stated foreign policy agenda, it will no longer be possible to believe that exiting the nuclear deal or supporting the US alliance with Israel and standing with US allies against US foes — not to mention draining Washington’s cesspool – are Trump’s policies.

How can they be when Trump stands with a man who opposes all of them and proves his opposition by among other things, firing Trump’s advisers who share Trump’s agenda.

BUT  …

An article by James Carafano of the (powerful and usually admirable) Heritage Foundation contradicts all this; and so contradicts the entire conservative – and President Trump approving – ethos of the Heritage Foundation itself:

For months, there have been reports of strong disagreements in the White House.

There’s nothing wrong with that. In our view, that’s often the best way tough decisions get made.

In national security adviser H.R. McMaster, the president has a leader of the National Security Council who has made a career of fighting for national security interests that involve very real sacrifice.

McMaster is someone who can make the tough calls. He is the right leader for a tough, determined president who only wants the best for the American people.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can’t be done alone.

Here are five reasons why we think the president is already on the right track with his team.

1. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

What’s wrong with demanding winning policies and not accepting anything less? Grit and resolve were elements of character that used to be admired in Washington.

The recently released film Dunkirk resonated with many Americans for a reason. It’s not just fine filmmaking. It is a reflection of what we see in ourselve — the strength and resilience to persevere.

McMaster gets that. Throughout his career, he has worked for leaders who demanded more — and he delivered. He will do so for this president.

2. Politics end at the water’s edge.

If anything has plagued the White House’s national security and foreign policy decision-making over the past eight years, it’s that tough decisions got filtered through a political lens that put politics before the needs of the nation.

In the toughest times, the toughest presidents — Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan — never did that.

Likewise, the instincts of President Donald Trump’s team are to put the nation’s needs ahead of politics. Such instincts are the glue that helps hold this National Security Council staff together.

McMaster shares their instincts, and that is how he leads his staff.

3. There is war to be won.

America is at war with al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. It faces daunting challenges from Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and transnational criminal networks.

It’s time to settle on a team and get on with the business of winning. Now is not the time to make big changes in the national security and foreign policy team.

4. Count on character.

When it comes to national security, Trump’s Cabinet officials — as well as his vice president, chief of staff, director of national intelligence, CIA director, new FBI director, and senior officials at the National Security Council — all share a core of character, competence, and the capacity for critical thinking and decision-making.

These are the essence of strategic leadership. They are the building blocks of a great team of leaders. No one exemplifies those traits more than McMaster.

5. Leadership is a team sport.

What makes a foreign policy and national security team great is the capacity to work together in trust and confidence — regardless of the degree of difficulty or disagreements. McMaster is a team builder, not a divider or splitter.

There should be tough, tense moments in the White House. A president is ill served by yes men, and the country is ill served by a president who doesn’t demand the very best for the American people.

The finest steel comes from the hottest fire. The president and his team have an opportunity to prove this axiom is as valid as ever.

The White House needs to deliver a solid, actionable plan in Afghanistan that leaves no quarter for ISIS and al-Qaeda; that shows Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India, and the Taliban that we are winners, not quitters; and honors the sacrifices made by our military after 9/11.

We need a team that will consistently show resolve in the face of Russian aggression, patience and determination in the Middle East, support for allies in Europe and Latin America, and staying power in Asia.

In these tasks, the president will find no more a selfless servant than McMaster.

James Carafano is WRONG.

His article, in addition to being mostly bombast, is a piece of sycophancy worthy of Obama’s media toadies.

“A president is ill served by yes men “?  He’s  even worse served by no men – men who want to reverse the president’s foreign policies.

‘The finest steel comes from the hottest fire” – and the ashes of a president’s foreign policy come from any fire it’s consigned to.

McMaster must go! 

George Soros (his adopted pun-name: a “sauros” is a lizard, a kind of reptile – not unsuitable for this repulsive specimen) looks to be intent on destroying everything.

So he’s an anarchist? Mmm … no. Worse. A nihilist? No, worse still. An annihilationist? Yes. That describes him.

He’s a billionaire chaos-merchant. And Hillary Clinton is his servant*.

Thousands of documents belonging to what he calls his Open Society Foundation (an intensely sarcastic name) have been hacked and leaked. They confirm and  stress – rather than reveal –  his evil designs, most of which have been visible, but insufficiently noticed, for some time.

Caroline Glick writes at Front Page:

Major media outlets in the US have ignored the leak of thousands of emails from billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation by the activist hacker group DCLeaks. The OSF is the vehicle through which Soros has funneled billions of dollars over the past two decades to non-profit organizations in the US and throughout the world.

According to the documents, Soros has given more than $30 million to groups working for Hillary Clinton’s election in November, making him her largest single donor. So it is likely the case that the media’s support for Clinton has played some role in the mainstream media’s bid to bury the story.

It is also likely however, that at least some news editors failed to understand why the leaked documents were worth covering. Most of the information was already public knowledge. Soros’s massive funding of far-left groups in the US and throughout the world has been documented for more than a decade.

But failing to see the significance of the wider story because many of the details were already known is a case of missing the forest for the trees. The DCLeaks document dump is a major story because it exposes the forest of Soros’s funding networks.

The first thing that we see is the megalomaniacal nature of Soros’s philanthropic project. No corner of the globe is unaffected by his efforts. No policy area is left untouched. …

The vast number of groups and people he supports … all work to weaken the ability of national and local authorities in Western democracies to uphold the laws and values of their nations and communities.

They all work to hinder free markets, whether those markets are financial, ideological, political or scientific. They do so in the name of democracy, human rights, economic, racial and sexual justice and other lofty terms. … [But] their goal is to subvert Western democracies and make it impossible for governments to maintain order or for societies to retain their unique identities and values.

Black Lives Matter, which has received $650,000 from Soros-controlled groups over the past year, is a classic example of these efforts.

Until recently, the police were universally admired in the US as the domestic equivalent of the military. BLM emerged as a social force bent on politicizing support for police. Its central contention is that in the US, police are not a force for good, enabling society to function by maintaining law and order [but rather] a tool of white repression of blacks. [So now] law enforcement in predominantly African American communities is under assault as inherently racist. …

The demoralization and intimidation of police is very likely to cause a steep increase in violent crimes.

Then there are Soros’s actions on behalf of illegal immigration. From the US to Europe to Israel, Soros has implemented a worldwide push to use immigration to undermine the national identity and demographic composition of Western democracies.

The leaked emails show that his groups have interfered in European elections to get politicians elected who support open border policies for immigrants from the Arab world and to financially and otherwise support journalists who report sympathetically on immigrants.

Soros’s groups are on the ground enabling illegal immigrants to enter the US and Europe. They have sought to influence US Supreme Court rulings on illegal immigration from Mexico. They have worked with Muslim and other groups to demonize Americans and Europeans who oppose open borders. …

The notion at the heart of the push for the legalization of unfettered immigration is that states should not be able to protect their national identities.

If it is racist for Greeks to protect their national identity by seeking to block the entrance of millions of Syrians to their territory, then it is racist for Greece – or France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, the US or Poland – to exist.

Parallel to these efforts are others geared toward rejecting the right of Western democracies to uphold long-held social norms. Soros-supported groups, for instance, stand behind the push not only for gay marriage but for unisex public bathrooms.

They support not only the right of women to serve in combat units, but efforts to force soldiers to live in unisex barracks. In other words, they support efforts aimed at denying citizens of Western democracies the right to maintain any distance between themselves and Soros’s rejection of their most intimate values – their sexual privacy and identity.

As far as Israel is concerned, Soros-backed groups work to delegitimize every aspect of Israeli society as racist and illegitimate. … In the US,  Soros-backed groups from BLM to J Street work to make it socially and politically acceptable to oppose Israel.

The thrust of Soros’s efforts from Ferguson to Berlin to Jerusalem is to induce mayhem and chaos as local authorities, paralyzed by his supported groups, are unable to secure their societies or even argue coherently that they deserve security.

In many ways, Donald Trump’s campaign is a direct response … to Soros himself.

By calling for the erection of a border wall, supporting Britain’s exit from the EU, supporting Israel, supporting a temporary ban on Muslim immigration and supporting the police against BLM, Trump acts as a direct foil to Soros’s multi-billion dollar efforts.

The DCLeaks exposed the immensity of the Soros-funded Left’s campaign against the foundations of liberal democracies.

The “direct democracy” movements that Soros support are nothing less than calls for mob rule.

The peoples of the West need to recognize the common foundations of all Soros’s actions. They need to realize as well that the only response to these premeditated campaigns of subversion is for the people of the West to stand up for their national rights and their individual right to security. They must stand with the national institutions that guarantee that security, in accordance with the rule of the law, and uphold and defend their national values and traditions.

Soros the Destroyer, not surprisingly, sees the Democratic Party as a powerful tool to achieve his aims.

He is working at ways to keep the Democrats in power.

Among other measure – the hacked documents reveal – he is bent on increasing the number of ill-informed voters who, he expects, will vote Democratic.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

A top priority of liberal billionaire George Soros is to enlarge the U.S. electorate by 10 million voters by 2018, according to leaked documents.

The plan to grow the electorate by millions of voters was discussed during a May 2014 board meeting of the Open Society Foundations, a liberal [sic] grant-making group founded by Soros. A 220-page guide detailing the plan was among more than 2,500 hacked Soros documents released by DC Leaks …

The guide covers strategies and tactics the group will employ in the United States from 2015 to 2018. The top goals listed by the guide are to “advance electoral reform” and “combat suppression”. … [A strategic goal is to achieve]: Full political, economic, and civic participation of immigrants and communities of color by dismantling the barriers and strengthening the conduits to opportunity.”

Later, the guide discusses expanding the electorate by “at least 10 million voters” in the United States. This would be accomplished “by lowering barriers to voter registration through the various forms of modernization and increased ballot access while sustaining and expanding the franchise by establishing strong protections against vote suppression, denial and dilution.” …

The campaign’s leader is Marc Elias, a partner at the D.C-based law firm Perkins Coie and Hillary Clinton’s top campaign lawyer. Elias’ work on the legal project is separate from his work on the campaign, although Clinton supports the effort.

The first in a series of lawsuits claiming that voter ID laws disproportionately hurt minority voters was filed in Ohio just days before the Open Society documents were transmitted to the board of directors in May 2014.

Elias filed the Ohio lawsuit on behalf of a group called the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. That group was later replaced on the lawsuit when it was investigated by a state criminal agency for allegedly forging signatures and registering dead people to vote. Weeks after the Ohio lawsuit was filed, a second lawsuit was filed challenging Wisconsin’s voter ID laws. A third lawsuit was filed in Virginia soon afterward, a challenge Soros and Elias would ultimately lose. Lawsuits in other states followed.

Soros has also funded recent voter registration campaigns from his own bank account.

Soros donated $3 million to the Immigrant Voters Win PAC, which was established to fund the Families Fight Back campaign. That campaign aims to register 400,000 Hispanic voters in swing states before the November elections.

Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a nonprofit law firm that litigates to defend election integrity, said that Soros is spending big to transform American elections.

George Soros is involved in every aspect of manipulating the rules of American election. From funding Pew’s efforts to centralize election administration, to fueling litigation that attacks election integrity laws, to fanning the flames of racial agitation and polarization, Soros dollars are doing all they can to fundamentally transform American elections.

What is the ultimate purpose of all this subversive activity?

What it will achieve if it is not stopped (and only Donald Trump can stop it) is chaos and destruction.

Can Soros not see that? Of course he can.

Plainly, that is exactly what he wants.

 

*A series of messages within the September 2015 State Department dump of Hillary Clinton e-mails show the Secretary of State of the United States received direct orders over U.S. foreign policy from none other than Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. – from Canada Free Press.

To the extent that there is a deal of sorts between the United States and Iran, it is against the interests of the United States.

To the extent that the Iranian regime acknowledges any such deal, it is only to get sanctions lifted so it can get on with becoming a rich, formidable, aggressive power armed with nuclear weapons.

President Obama must know this. And he persistently and passionately does all he can to help the Iranian regime get its way.

Now it emerges that he has used the apparatus of the state to spy on Congressmen opposed to the deal.

The information emerges because he has had it leaked. He instructed his officials to tell the Wall Street Journal that the National Security Agency took this illegal action.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the NSA spied on Israelis, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, and US citizens with whom they were in communication.

Caroline Glick writes at Front Page:

According to the Journal report, to advance its diplomatic opening to Iran, the administration has knowingly and deliberately spied on both law-abiding US citizens who posed no risk to US national security and on US lawmakers engaged in their lawful, constitutional duties.

As the criminal activity was characterized by the report, to protect Obama’s nuclear talks with the Iranians, Netanyahu was marked as a top intelligence target for the NSA. The NSA monitored all of his communications and all communications of his senior officials – most notably Ambassador Ron Dermer. …

The picture painted by the Journal article is of an administration that made massive, continuous and deliberate use of intercepted conversations between lawmakers and private citizens with Israeli officials.

Consider the administration’s indignant fury when news broke on January 21 of last year that the Republican congressional leaders Sen. Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner had invited Netanyahu to address the joint Houses about the dangers of the Iran nuclear deal.

Obama and his advisers insisted that they were blindsided by the news. Yet … [as] we now know that the NSA was monitoring all of Dermer’s communications – including his communications with US lawmakers – it appears to follow that NSA intercepted Boehner’s call to Dermer.

According to the Journal, the White House’s demand for intelligence on Israel was so intense that the NSA was transferring transcripts of intercepted calls within six hours of their interception. …

From these intercepted communications, the administration learned Israel’s pitch for Democratic lawmakers in its efforts to convince them to oppose the deal. …

Israeli officials asked the wavering lawmakers, “How can we get your vote? What is it going to take?” Given Israel’s failure to convince a significant number of Democratic senators to oppose the deal, the suspicion arises that the administration read the answers and used the ill-begotten information as a means of blocking Israel from securing Democratic opposition to Obama’s nuclear deal.

It ought to go without saying that the administration’s massive efforts to block information about the most radical US foreign policy initiative since World War II from US lawmakers speaks volumes about how Obama and his colleagues assessed the public’s position on Iran generally and Obama’s nuclear talks with the mullocracy specifically.

The nuclear deal with Iran endangers the US directly.

It empowers the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism financially, diplomatically and militarily.

Iran declared war against the US 37 years ago and has been calling for the destruction of America and supporting terrorist attacks against the US and its allies ever since.

As to those allies, the nuclear deal with Iran specifically, and the Obama administration’s decision to embrace Iran as a potential ally more generally, place Israel in jeopardy. So, too, it endangers all of the US’s traditional Arab allies.

Yet rather than reconsider its strategic goal of courting Iran at the expense of its own national security and that of its closest allies, the Obama administration determined that its most urgent goal was to scuttle Israeli attempts to warn lawmakers and the US public about the dangers of the deal. …

Iran still refuses to approve or implement the deal. The American hostages it holds continue to languish in its prisons. Its nuclear sites remain closed to international inspectors. Its ballistic missile program is moving forward …  Iran is so emboldened … that last week it shot a missile across the Straits of Hormuz in close proximity to a US naval ship.

The ayatollahs are convinced that Obama will suffer any and all indignities to keep up the fiction that he has a nuclear deal with them. …

And yet [it is] now, as Iran daily humiliates Obama with its unbridled aggression, that senior administration officials chose to brag to Wall Street Journal reporters about how they spied on Israel in breach of Obama’s pledge not to spy on leaders of US allied nations. It is now, when Obama’s opening to Iran is a self-evident failure, that they chose to share how they broke US law by spying on US citizens and abused the president’s constitutional authority by spying on US lawmakers. …

[This administration is] so contemptuous of US lawmakers and citizens that its senior officials have no compunction about admitting that they are breaking the law.

They brazenly admit that they are undertaking unlawful spying operations against private citizens and lawmakers and in so doing conducting a massive abuse of presidential powers while trampling the spirit and arguably the letter of the US Constitution.

And they expect that no one will call them to task for it.

They are most probably right.

The rest of the world has no comeback against Obama and his gang for the furies he has let loose in it.

But will he ever be made to answer for the great harm he has deliberately done to America?

Iran is free to go. Free, that is, to become a nuclear power.

Caroline Glick writes at Front Page:

Given the Democrats’ allegiance to Obama’s disastrous policies, the only hope for a restoration of American leadership is that a Republican wins the next election. But if Republicans nominate a candidate who fails to reconcile with the realities of the world as it is, then the chance for a reassertion of American leadership will diminish significantly.

To understand just how high the stakes are, you need to look no further than two events that occurred just before the Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate.

On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to close its investigation of Iran’s nuclear program. As far as the UN’s nuclear watchdog is concerned, Iran is good to go.

The move is a scandal. Its consequences will be disastrous.

The IAEA acknowledges that Iran continued to advance its illicit military nuclear program at least until 2009. Tehran refuses to divulge its nuclear activities to IAEA investigators as it is required to do under binding UN Security Council resolutions.

Iran refuses to allow IAEA inspectors access to its illicit nuclear sites. As a consequence, the IAEA lacks a clear understanding of what Iran’s nuclear status is today and therefore has no capacity to prevent it from maintaining or expanding its nuclear capabilities.

This means that the inspection regime Iran supposedly accepted under Obama’s nuclear deal is worthless.

The IAEA also accepts that since Iran concluded its nuclear accord with the world powers, it has conducted two tests of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, despite the fact that it is barred from doing so under binding Security Council resolutions.

But really, who cares? Certainly the Obama administration doesn’t. The sighs of relief emanating from the White House and the State Department after the IAEA decision were audible from Jerusalem to Tehran.

The IAEA’s decision has two direct consequences.

First, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, it paves the way for the cancellation of the UN’s economic sanctions against Iran within the month.

Second, with the IAEA’s decision, the last obstacle impeding Iran’s completion of its nuclear weapons program has been removed. Inspections are a thing of the past. Iran is in the clear.

As Iran struts across the nuclear finish line, the Sunni jihadists are closing their ranks.

Hours after the IAEA vote, Turkey and Qatar announced that Turkey is setting up a permanent military base in the Persian Gulf emirate for the first time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire a century ago. Their announcement indicates that the informal partnership between Turkey and Qatar on the one side, and Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State on the other hand …  is now becoming a more formal alliance.

Just as the Obama administration has no problem with Iran going nuclear, so it has no problem with this new jihadist alliance. …

In other words, with the US’s blessing, the forces of both Shi’ite and Sunni jihad are on the march.

On the warpath, that is. But will the war be between Sunnis and Sunnis, and Sunnis and Shi’ites, or will it be a much wider conflagration?

Peter Apps, a Reuters defense correspondent and Executive Director of The Project for Study of the 21st Century, writes at Newsweek:

On Sunday, Nov. 28, Californians watched with bemusement and in some cases alarm as a bright light moved across the sky. It wasn’t a UFO. It was a U.S. Navy Trident ballistic missile.

It was, of course, just a test — the first of two in three days. They coincided with tough talk from U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who earlier that month had criticized Russia for engaging in “challenging activities” at sea and air, in space and cyberspace. Days earlier, he had been in the South China Sea aboard an aircraft carrier, sending a similarly robust message to China about its actions in the disputed region. …

The Project for Study of the 21st. Century recently published its survey of major conflict risk. Over six months, we polled 50 national security experts on the risk of a variety of potential wars.

The results make interesting reading. The most striking thing, though, is not the numbers themselves — it is the fact that there now seem to be multiple potential routes to a variety of potentially devastating state-on-state wars.

Our poll showed the experts — who ranged from current and former military officials to international relations professors and insurance and risk specialists — putting a 6.8 percent chance on a major nuclear war in the next 20 years killing more people than World War Two. That conflict killed roughly 80,000,000 at upper estimates. …

A majority – 60% –  of the respondents believe that “the risk of nuclear had risen over the last decade” and 52% “expected it to rise further in the decade to come”.

The increasing confrontations with China and Russia have, of course, become increasingly obvious. Of our respondents, 80 percent said they expected a further rise in the kind of “ambiguous” or “asymmetric” conflict between major states. …

The world could see bloodshed on a previously unimaginable level. …

Despite this year’s nuclear deal, our experts saw a 27 percent chance Iran would end up in a shooting war with its enemies, be that the United States, Israel, the Gulf States or all. On average, they saw a 6 percent chance of such a war including at least one nuclear detonation.

At least one? Wouldn’t there be a retaliation? Could there possibly be fewer than two? And then probably many more?

Overall, our panel estimated the risk of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization fighting Russia in at least a limited military confrontation at 22 percent. That compared to only a 17 percent chance of U.S. and Chinese forces fighting (as well as a slightly higher 19 percent chance of Japan and China doing the same). …

After a generation in which major European war was simply never thought possible, it’s worth remembering the continent is still home to more than half the world’s nuclear weapons.

And they are all likely to fall into the hands of a Muslim majority around the middle of this century.

The experts, hampered by the usual myopia of experts, do not apparently take that into account:

And yet, amid such apocalyptic talk, our survey shows that all of these conflicts remain on balance unlikely …

Unlikely? Why do they say that?

At one of our events earlier this year, Harvard geopolitics expert Professor Joseph Nye pointed out that nuclear weapons have so far acted to avert war by functioning as a brutally effective “crystal ball”. What their existence meant, he said, was that national leaders knew what the consequences of going over the edge would be — complete and utter destruction and a war which everyone would lose.

Had the leaders of Europe experienced such clarity before World War One, he suggested, they could well have stepped back from the brink. And sure enough, it’s true that we have avoided such conflicts in the era of “mutually assured destruction”.

The dark-minded mullahs who rule Iran don’t care a fig about “mutually assured destruction”. They say that the state of Israel can be destroyed with one nuke, and even if Iran lost millions in a counter-attack, Iran would still survive as a large and powerful nation.

And, they believe, the Iranian dead would all be martyrs who’d dwell in paradise forever. And there they long to go.

For all their warnings and nice academic calculations in percentage terms of the chances of our civilization being destroyed, The Project for Study of the 21st Century experts – though made nervous by something they gingerly sniff in the wind – are, in our view, far too optimistic.

And out of touch.

Caroline Glock is closer to making the prediction that needs to be spoken. But even she stops short of actually making it.

We will make it:

Unless “a Republican wins the next election” who  does not fail “to reconcile with the realities of the world as it is”, Iran will use its nukes.

“Apocalyptic” destruction will follow.

And that will be Obama’s legacy.

President Sisi of Egypt has offered to cede half of Sinai to be joined with Gaza to create an independent state of Palestine. The importance of this development cannot be overestimated.

Caroline Glick reports and comments:

Something extraordinary has happened.

On August 31, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told an audience of Fatah members that Egypt had offered to give the PA some 1,600 kilometers of land in Sinai adjacent to Gaza, thus quintupling the size of the Gaza Strip. Egypt even offered to allow all the so-called “Palestinian refugees” to settle in the expanded Gaza Strip.

Then Abbas told his Fatah followers that he rejected the Egyptian offer.

On Monday Army Radio substantiated Abbas’s claim.

According to Army Radio, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi proposed that the Palestinians establish their state in the expanded Gaza Strip and accept limited autonomy over parts of Judea and Samaria.

In exchange for this state, the Palestinians would give up their demand that Israel shrink into the indefensible 1949 armistice lines, surrendering Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Sisi argued that the land Egypt is offering in Sinai would more than compensate for the territory that Abbas would concede.

In his speech to Fatah members, Abbas said, “They [the Egyptians] are prepared to receive all the refugees, [and are saying] ‘Let’s end the refugee story’.” “But,” he insisted, “It’s illogical for the problem to be solved at Egypt’s expense. We won’t have it.”

In other words, Sisi offered Abbas a way to end the Palestinians’ suffering and grant them political independence. And Abbas said, “No, forget statehood. Let them suffer.”

Generations of Israeli leaders and strategists have insisted that Israel does not have the ability to satisfy the Palestinian demands by itself without signing its own death warrant. To satisfy the Palestinian demand for statehood, Israel’s neighbors in Egypt and Jordan would have to get involved.

Until Sisi made his proposal, no Arab leader ever seriously considered actually doing what must be done. …

“What must be done” being an Arab solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Very recently there have been huge shifts in the relations of Middle Eastern states with each other and with Israel. The amazing thing, that could not have been predicted or even imagined two years ago, is that some Arab states now see Israel as an essential ally.

So what is driving Sisi? How do we account for this dramatic shift? In offering the Palestinians a large swathe of the Sinai, Sisi is not acting out of altruism. He is acting out of necessity. From his perspective, and from the perspective of his non-jihadist Sunni allies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian campaign against Israel is dangerous.

Facing the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and the rise of jihadist forces from al-Qaida to the Islamic State to the Muslim Brotherhood, the non-jihadist Sunnis no longer believe that the prolongation of the Palestinian jihad against Israel is in their interest.

Egypt and Jordan have already experienced the spillover of the Palestinian jihad. Hamas has carried out attacks in Egypt. The Palestinian jihad nearly destroyed Lebanon and Jordan. Egypt and Saudi Arabia now view Israel as a vital ally in their war against the Sunni jihadists and their struggle against Iran and its hegemonic ambitions. They recognize that Israeli action against Sunni and Shi’ite jihadists in Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran serves the interests of non-jihadi Sunnis. And, especially after the recent conflict in Gaza, they realize that the incessant Palestinian campaign against Israel ultimately strengthens the jihadist enemies of Egypt and Saudi Arabia like Hamas.

Apparently, Sisi’s offer to Abbas is an attempt to help the Palestinian people and take the Palestinian issue out of the hands of Palestinian jihadists.

Unfortunately for Sisi and his fellow non-jihadist Sunnis, Abbas is having none of this.

In rejecting Sisi’s offer Abbas stood true to his own record, to the legacies of every Palestinian leader since Nazi agent [the “Grand Mufti”] Haj Amin el-Husseini, and to the declared strategic goal of his own Fatah party and his coalition partners in Hamas.

Since Husseini invented the Palestinians in the late 1920s, their leaders’ primary goals have never been the establishment of a Palestinian state or improving the lives of Palestinians. Their singular goal has always been the destruction of the Jewish state, (or state-in-themaking before 1948).

Sisi offered to end Palestinian suffering and provide the Palestinians with the land they require to establish a demilitarized state. Abbas rejected it because he is only interested hurting Israel. If Israel is not weakened by their good fortune, then the Palestinians should continue to suffer.

For Israel, Sisi’s proposal is a windfall.

First of all, it indicates that the Egyptian-Saudi- UAE decision to back Israel against Hamas in Operation Protective Edge was not a fluke. It was part of an epic shift in their strategic assessments.

And if their regimes survive, their assessments are unlikely to change so long as Iran and the Sunni jihadists continue to threaten them.

This means that for the first time since Israel allied with Britain and France against Egypt in 1956, Israel can make strategic plans as part of a coalition.

Second, Sisi’s plan is good for Israel on its merits.

The only way to stabilize the situation in Gaza and comprehensively defeat Hamas and the rest of the terrorist armies there is by expanding Gaza. …

Sisi’s plan is a boon for Israel as well because it calls Abbas’s bluff.

Abbas is genuflected to by the US and the EU who insist that he is a moderate. The Israeli Left insists that he is the only thing that stands between Israel and destruction.

Yet here we see him openly acknowledging that from a strategic perspective, he is no different from the last of the jihadists. He prefers to see his people … without a state to call their own, than to see Israel benefit in any way.

Abbas’s rejection of Sisi’s offer demonstrates yet again that he and his Fatah comrades are the problem, not the solution.Continued faith in the PLO as a partner in peace and moderation is foolish and dangerous. He would rather see Hamas and Iran flourish than share a peaceful future with Israel.

The only reason that Abbas is able to continuously reject all offers of statehood and an end to Palestinian suffering, while expanding his diplomatic war against Israel and supporting his coalition partner’s terror war, is because the US and Europe continue to blindly support him.

The final way that Sisi’s offer helps Israel is by showing the futility of the West’s strategy of supporting Abbas.

According to Army Radio’s report, both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration have been briefed on the Egyptian plan. The Americans reportedly support it. …

Obama supports Sisi’s plan? What has he said about it? We wait to see how the media reports Sisi’s offer, Abbas’s rejection of it, and Obama’s reaction to it. 

Sisi’s offer is a challenge to the US and Europe.

Sisi’s offer shows Washington and Brussels that to solve the Palestinian conflict with Israel, they need to stand with Israel, even if this means abandoning Abbas.

If they do so, they can take credit for achieving their beloved two-state solution. If they fail to do so, they will signal that their primary goal is not peace, but something far less constructive.

Under Obama, America has switched sides.

Caroline Glick, one of the most astute reporters and commentators on Middle East affairs, draws that conclusion, and explains why:

When US President Barack Obama phoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday night … he ended any remaining doubt regarding his policy toward Israel and Hamas.

Obama told Netanyahu that Israel must lose. He wants an unconditional “humanitarian” cease-fire that will lead to a permanent one.

And he wants it now.

And …  the eventual terms of that cease-fire must include opening Hamas-controlled Gaza’s borders with Egypt and Israel and ending Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza coast.

That is, the cease-fire must allow Hamas to rebuild its arsenal of death and destruction quickly, with US political and financial support. …

Obama is siding with Hamas, and its Muslim Brotherhood patrons in Qatar and Turkey, against Israel, and its Sunni Arab supporters – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

It is Obama who demands that Hamas have open borders so it can resupply, and receive billions of dollars – starting with an immediate cash injection of $47 million from US taxpayers – so it can pay North Korea for more missiles and import building materials to reconstruct its tunnels. …

[Obama’s] White House will never acknowledge that Israel is in the right, or that it is fighting a moral war against a barbaric foe. And since the administration will never be satisfied, Israel can expect to be condemned by various UN bodies, including the Security Council, because no matter what it does to try to earn the support of the administration, it will never receive such support. …

The [Israeli] Left understands that the administration’s behavior has destroyed it. Leftists can no longer say that Israeli territorial withdrawals will win it international support. They can no longer say that Israel will receive US support if it places the security of Palestinian civilians above the security of its own civilians and military forces. They can no longer say that the PLO is the answer.

The Israeli Left has been Obama’s ace in the hole since he first ran for office, fresh from the pews in Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic church. … They were the ones who could be counted on to tell the US media and the American Jews that Netanyahu is to blame for Obama’s hostility. …

Through his actions, Obama demonstrated that his “love affairs with the Muslim Brotherhood in the region,” are so central to his foreign policy calculations that he is willing to destroy the Israeli Left in order to strengthen the Brotherhood.

And this leads us to the larger point about Obama’s foreign policy, which his Sunday night telephone call to Netanyahu revealed. As rattled as Israelis are over Obama’s decision to support Hamas against Israel, Netanyahu made clear in his remarks Monday night that Israel has no choice but to keep fighting until we defeat this barbaric enemy.

Netanyahu didn’t mention Obama, but it was obvious that he was respectfully refusing to hand Israel’s head on a platter to Hamas’s friend in the White House.

And while it is hard for Israel to ignore Obama, it is impossible for Americans to ignore him. He runs their foreign policy.

Americans are the ones who need to be most alarmed by what Obama’s actions on behalf of Hamas reveal about the general direction of American Middle East policy under his leadership.

Obama’s choice of a vicious Islamic terrorist organization over a democratic US ally should not come as a surprise to anyone. He has signaled his bias so clearly that it could not be missed by anyone paying attention. There was his pro-Islam speech in Cairo early in his presidency; there were his bows and apologies for his country to the Saudis (though now he has turned to more radical Muslim powers than they); there are his repeated claims (purely fictitious) that Muslims made an important contribution to building the United States; there is his continuing aid to Iran, with friendly talks that give the mullahs time to develop their nuclear arms program; and plainest of all there is his open support of  the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas. Not only has he tried to keep that self-announced enemy of America (and of the whole non-Muslim world) in power in Egypt, he has placed Muslim Brothers in departments of his own government as advisers. They would hardly be advising him to let Israel win against their own sub-organization Hamas, would they now?

Caroline Glick knows this, of course:

The problem is that in every war, in every conflict and in every contest of wills that has occurred in the Middle East since Obama took office, he has sided with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, against America’s allies.

It is good if a part of the Left (the Israeli part at least) has woken up to Obama’s real agenda – the destruction of Israel and the triumph of Islam – and is shocked by it. But most of the Left everywhere else is unlikely to care very much, or they’ll positively like it.

While we are nauseated by the thought of the upstart commie-kid Obama telling the Prime Minister of Israel to lose his country’s war of survival and start making arrangements for its total extinction, we enjoy thinking of Netanyahu (of whom we have been highly critical in the past) saying – however politely – NO.

“Racism” – an infinitely elastic term – is by far the very worst crime any human being can commit according to the Left.

There is one exception, however. Essential as it is to strive (hopelessly if you’re a white person, not too hard if you’re anything else) not to be racist, it is compulsory to hate Jews. Though you mustn’t call them that. You must call them Israelis or Zionists. And hating them isn’t enough. You must work actively for their destruction.

Why, you ask? Isn’t it obvious? Because Israel is an apartheid state, Israelis are Nazis who colonized the long-established independent state of Palestine, and  Jews are carrying out savage acts of terrorism on every inhabited continent, and threatening to take over Europe and the world. While the Muslims – pacific and tolerant even though they’ve been horrifically persecuted for hundreds of years – are making huge contributions to humanity, especially through Science, so winning Nobel Prizes out of all proportion to their tiny number.

This is from Front Page, by Caroline Glick:

The main foreign policy issue that galvanizes the passions and energies of the committed American Left is the movement to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist.

This week has been a big one for the anti-Israel movement. In the space of a few days, two quasi academic organizations – the American Studies Association [ASA] and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association – have launched boycotts against Israeli universities. Their boycotts follow a similar one announced in April by the Asian Studies Association.

These groups’ actions have not taken place in isolation. They are of a piece with ever-escalating acts of anti-Israel agitation in college campuses throughout the United States.

Between the growth of Israel Apartheid Day (or Week, or Month) from a fringe exercise on isolated campuses to a staple of the academic calendar in universities throughout the US and Canada, and the rise of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to wage economic war against the Jewish state, anti-Israel activism has become the focal point of Leftist foreign policy activism in the US and throughout the Western world.

Every week brings a wealth of stories about new cases of aggressive anti-Israel activism. At the University of Michigan last week, thousands of students were sent fake eviction notices from the university’s housing office. A pro-Palestinian group distributed them in dorms across campus to disseminate the blood libel that Israel is carrying out mass expulsions of Palestinians.

At Swarthmore College, leftist anti-Israel Jewish students who control Hillel are insisting on using Hillel’s good offices to disseminate and legitimate anti-Israel slanders.

And the Left’s doctrinaire insistence that Israel is the root of all evil is not limited to campuses.

At New York’s 92nd Street Y, Commentary editor John Podhoretz was booed and hissed by the audience for trying to explain why the ASA’s just-announced boycott of Israel was an obscene act of bigotry.

Many commentators have rightly pointed out that the ASA and the NAISA are fringe groups. They represent doctorate holders who chose to devote their careers to disciplines predicated not on scholarship, but on political activism cloaked in academic regalia whose goal is to discredit American power. The ASA has only 5,000 members, and only 1,200 of them voted on the Israel- boycott resolution. The NAISA has even fewer members. It would be wrong, however, to use the paltry number of these fringe groups’ members as means to dismiss the phenomenon that they represent. They are very much in line with the general drift of the Left. … While the ASA and its comrades are on the fringes of academia, they are not fringe voices on the Left. The Left has embraced the cause of Israel’s destruction. 

Rejecting Israel’s right to exist has become part of the Left’s dogma. It is a part of the catechism. Holding a negative view of the Jewish state is a condition for membership in the ideological camp. It is an article of faith …

Consider the background of the president of the ASA. Curtis Marez is an associate professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California, San Diego. His area of expertise is Chicano Film and Media Studies. He doesn’t know anything about Israel. He just knows that he’s a Leftist. And today, Leftists demonize Israel. Their actions have nothing to do with anything Israel does or has ever done. They have nothing to do with human rights. Hating Israel, slandering Israel and supporting the destruction of Israel are just things that good Leftists do.

And Marez was not out of step with his fellow Leftists who rule the roost at UCSD. This past March the student council passed a resolution calling for the university to divest from companies that do business with Israel. Why? Because hating Israel is what Leftists do. …

Challenging the likes of Marez, or the Swarthmore students … to a reasoned debate is an exercise in futility. They do not care about human rights. They do not care that Israel is the only human rights-respecting democracy in the Middle East. … Being hypocrites doesn’t bother them either. 

You can talk until you’re blue in the face about the civilian victims of the Syrian civil war, or the gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia and the absence of religious freedom throughout the Muslim world. But they don’t care. They aren’t trying to make the world a better place.

Facts cannot compete with their faith. Reason has no place in their closed intellectual universe. To accept reason and facts would be an act of heresy.

The religion of Christianity began by plundering and anathematizing the religion of Judaism, and became a menace to the Jews. The religions of Islam and Socialism plundered and anathematized both, and menace all of us.

Religion is a self-imposed curse on humankind.

We think that Caroline Glick is at present the most perceptive commentator on the Middle East and American policy towards that tumultuous region. In a recent column she writes:

The Iranians … view diplomacy – like all their dealings with their sworn enemies – as a zero-sum game.

They are aiming to become a nuclear power. They may pretend that their nuclear arms program is negotiable, but it isn’t. President Rouhani will talk to Obama about it, and even smile as he does so, but regardless of anything that is said, or even agreed, the Iranian nuclear arms program will proceed as expeditiously as possible.

Behind Rouhani stands Qassem Suleimani, “Iran’s real strongman”.

Qassem Suleimani is the head of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. It is the most powerful organ of the Iranian regime, and Suleimani is Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s closest confidante and adviser.

Rouhani doesn’t hold a candle to Suleimani. …

Suleimani came of age as a Revolutionary Guard division commander during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988 … As the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Suleimani commands the Syrian military and the foreign forces from Iran, Hezbollah and Iraq that have been deployed to Syria to keep Bashar Assad in power. …

Has has called the Syrian military “worthless.” He has also said, “Give me one brigade of the Basij, and I could conquer the whole country.”

The Basij (The Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed) is a volunteer militia.It was established in 1979 by the Ayatollah Khomeini to fight in the Iran-Iraq war. Under the command of the Revolutionary Guards, it is now used to help put down internal opposition.

It was the Basij that crushed the anti-Islamist Green Revolution in Iran in 2009. But for a man whose formative experience was serving as a Revolutionary Guards commander in the Iran-Iraq War, Suleimani’s view of the Basij as a war-fighting unit owes to what it did in its glory days, in that war, not on the streets of Tehran in 2009. …

The Revolutionary Guards [used] the Basij during the Iran-Iraq War to serve as cannon fodder. Basij units were made up of boys as young as 12. They were given light doses of military training and heavy doses of indoctrination in which they were brainwashed to reject life and martyr themselves for the revolution. 

As these children were being recruited from Iran’s poorest villages, Ayatollah Khomeini purchased a half million small plastic keys from Taiwan. They were given to the boys before they were sent to battle and told that they were the keys to paradise.

The children were then sent into minefields to die and deployed as human waves in frontal assaults against superior Iraqi forces. By the end of the war some 100,000 of these young boys became the child sacrifices of the regime.

When we assess Suleimani’s longing for a Basij brigade in Syria in its proper historical and strategic context – that is, in the context of how he and his fellow Revolutionary Guards commanders deployed such brigades in the 1980s – we realize that Suleimani is a psychopath.

US officials have preferred to think of him as “a pragmatist”. After the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, they tried to negotiate with Sulumeini indirectly “through Iraqi politicians whom he controlled”. They failed, but persisted in their attempts. The former US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Cocker …

… was in Baghdad at the time setting up the Iraqi Governing Council. He used Iraqi intermediaries to clear all the Shi’ite candidates with Suleimani. In other words, the US government gave the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards control over the Iraqi government immediately after the US military toppled Saddam’s regime. 

Far from convincing Suleimani to pursue a rapprochement with the US, Crocker’s actions convinced him that the US was weak.

And so, shortly after he oversaw the formation of the governing council, Suleimani instigated the insurgency whose aim was to eject the US from Iraq and to transform it into an Iranian satrapy. And yet, despite Suleimani’s obvious bad faith, and use of diplomacy to entrap the US into positions that harmed its interests and endangered its personnel, Crocker and other senior US officials continued to believe that he was the man to cut a deal with.

[American officials] like to romanticize the world’s most psychopathic, evil men. Doing so helps them to justify and defend their desire to appease, rather than confront, let alone defeat them. Suleimani and his colleagues are more than willing to play along with the Americans, to the extent that doing so advances their aims of defeating the US. …

Expanding on Bush’s aversion to fighting Iran, and preference for romanticizing its leaders rather than acknowledging their barbarism, upon entering office Barack Obama embraced a strategy whose sole goal is engagement. For the past five years, the US policy toward Iran is to negotiate. Neither the terms of negotiation nor the content of potential agreements is important.Obama wants to negotiate for the sake of negotiating. …

It’s possible that Obama believes that these negotiations will transform Iran into a quasi-US ally like the Islamist regime in Turkey. That regime remains a member of NATO despite the fact that it threatens its neighbors with war, it represses its own citizens, and it refuses to support major US initiatives while undermining NATO operations. Obama will never call Turkey out for its behavior or make Prime Minister Recep Erdogan pay a price for his bad faith. The myth of the US-Turkish alliance is more important to Obama than the substance of Turkey’s relationship with the United States. A deal with Iran would be horrible for America and its allies.

Whatever else it says it will do, the effect of any US-Iranian agreement would be to commit the US to do nothing to defend its interests or its allies in the Middle East.

While this would be dangerous for the US, it is apparently precisely the end Obama seeks. His address to the UN General Assembly [September 24, 2013] can reasonably be read as a declaration that the US is abandoning its position as world leader.

Wasn’t that one of his chief reasons for striving for supreme power – to end America’s world leadership?

The US is tired of being nitpicked by its allies and its enemies for everything it does, he said. And therefore, he announced, Washington is now limiting its actions in the Middle East to pressuring its one remaining ally, Israel, to give up its ability to protect itself from foreign invasion and Palestinian terrorism by surrendering Judea and Samaria, without which it is defenseless.

Like his predecessors in the Bush administration, Obama doesn’t care that Iran is evil and that its leaders are fanatical psychopaths. He has romanticized them based on nothing. Although presented by the media as a new policy of outreach toward Tehran, Obama’s current commitment to negotiating with Rouhani is consistent with his policy toward Iran since entering office. Nothing has changed.

From Obama’s perspective, US policy is not threatened by Iranian bad faith. It is threatened only by those who refuse to embrace his fantasy world where all deals are good and all negotiations are therefore good. What this means is that the prospect of Iran becoming a nuclear power does not faze Obama. The only threat he has identified is the one coming from Jerusalem.

Israel … is Obama’s greatest foe, because it insists on basing its strategic assessments and goals on the nature of things even though this means facing down evil.

Prime Minister Netanyahu indicated in his speech to the UN (October 1, 2013) that facing down the evil of Iran is what his country will do. We watch to see if he will act on his promise.

Caroline Glick comments on the ludicrous – no, lunatic resurrection of a long dead and always pointless “peace process”, a masquerade which involves nothing more than deranged Israeli politicians, American under-informed egos, and racist Palestinians with no mandate from anybody saying yet again everything that’s been said a hundred thousand times before.

As always, Israel is “pressured” by powers and the spirits of darkness to “make concessions” – which it always does – while no pressure is brought to bear on the Palestinians to concede anything at all.

The Arabs will concede nothing ever. They want the abolition of the state of Israel nothing less. If they were to accept sovereignty over Judea and Samaria it would be as an interim measure, a stage towards their final goal of taking over the whole region –  a “stages policy” having been approved by Yasser Arafat.

What the present powers and spirits of darkness (going this time under the names of “Barack Obama” and “John Kerry”) are trying to achieve is the abolition of the state of Israel. They can bring this about by forcing Israel to shrink very small and into that remnant squeeze a few million Palestinian “refugees”. The Palestinian leaders, openly racist and with an apartheid mentality, say they will not tolerate a single Jew on their territory, and will combine what is at present Israel, plus Samaria and Judea (the ancient land of the Judeans or Israelites), and Gaza to constitute a new state named Palestine. It will be the first time such a state has ever existed. Then the Jews, expelled from the little state they let go to please “Barack Obama” and “John Kerry”, will once again be stateless and at the mercy of host nations who practice their God-enjoined neighborly love of them with periodic pogroms and genocidal massacres. “Barack Obama” and “John Kerry” will be no more pleased with them then than they are now or ever have been. One can only conclude that if Israeli leaders really do let this happen, they are either severely mentally retarded or incurably insane.

Caroline Glick looks far down the road-map and sees with brilliant clarity the insanity of the present talks. She writes (in part):

Kerry visited Israel six times in the four months leading up to the meetings in Washington this week, during which Americans, Palestinians and Israelis discussed the size of the table they will be sitting around in the coming discussions.

During the same four months, the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against its opponents on multiple occasions. Most recently, they gassed Palestinians in Yarmuk refugee camp outside Damascus, killing 22 people.

During those four months, al-Qaida strengthened its control over the Syrian opposition groups fighting the regime.

During those four months, the Syrian civil war became a focal point of a wider Sunni-Shi’ite religious war that has already spread to Lebanon and Iraq. In its post-US-withdrawal role of Iranian satrapy, Iraq has allowed Iran to use its territory and airspace to transfer war materiel to the Syrian regime.

During those four months, the Obama administration decided to begin arming the al-Qaida dominated rebel forces. It has also deliberately raised the risk of a Syrian-Israeli war by informing the media every time that Israel attacks missile sites in Syria.

Also during the four months that Kerry obsessed over convincing PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas to send his representative to Washington, Egypt experienced its second revolution in which, buffeted by millions of demonstrators who filled the squares of Egypt’s cities, the Egyptian military overthrew the US-supported Muslim Brotherhood regime. …

This week … a deeply disturbing report … explained that … Iran will reach “critical capacity” in its nuclear program by mid-2014 … [defining] critical capacity as “the technical capability to produce sufficient weapon-grade uranium from its safeguarded stocks of low enriched uranium for a nuclear explosive, without being detected.”  …

But for Kerry …  the most urgent priority was to convince the Palestinians to sit in the same room as Israelis. …

Which he did, after the Palestinians had insisted that 104 terrorists imprisoned in Israel be released. Kerry pressured Israel to release them, and Israel did.

Its a dance. The steps are prescribed. They are followed in strict order.

The 104 “prisoners” are made up of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. They are not car thieves or pickpockets. They are monsters with human faces. All 104 are serving life sentences for murder or attempted murder. Their crimes were gruesome acts of barbarism marked by demonic cruelty. …

There was nothing even vaguely courageous about Netanyahu’s decision to release these monsters.

There was nothing even vaguely courageous about his cabinet members’ decision to vote for their release. Theirs was an act of utter cravenness. They dishonored the victims, the victims’ families and the nation as a whole.

And they endangered the country. According to the Almagor Victims of Terror organization, from 2000 to 2005, 180 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists released by Israel in previous “deals.” And those terrorists had been imprisoned for non-lethal actions, (i.e., without blood on their hands).

The fact that Netanyahu and his ministers passed this decision simply to provide a sufficient payoff to Abbas for him to send Saeb Erekat to Washington to talk about nothing with (Israel’s leftist Minister of Justice) Livni, makes their actions, not only craven, but insane. …

Kerry said that the talks about the size of the table are going to bring about a situation where Israel will achieve, “not just the absence of conflict, but a full and lasting peace with the Arab and Muslim nations.”

Like Kerry’s demand that Israel free the terrorists, this statement bespeaks an underlying fanatical dementia. …

Because the “Arab and Muslim nations” have given not the least sign, not the faintest hint, that they would make peace with Israel in any circumstances whatsoever.  

As for the Palestinians, if they were interested in “lasting peace” with Israel, they wouldn’t demand freedom for terrorist murderers. Moreover, while Kerry was exulting in his brilliant success, Abbas announced that in his version of “lasting peace,” Jews will be wiped off of the map of Palestine.

As Abbas put it, “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli – civilian or soldiers – on our lands.” …

It is not surprising that Kerry, Obama and Livni are going along with this obscenity. It is not surprising that fanatics who pray to the god of the two-state solution think it is courageous to free Jewish-baby killers. It is not surprising they think the most important thing on the international agenda is to secure Israel’s surrender of land, our legal rights, and our ability to defend ourselves to a terrorist group that hates Jews so much it requires all of us to be gone before it will do us the favor of accepting sovereignty.

What is surprising – and frightening – is that Netanyahu … is going along with this.

Netanyahu knows that Israel cannot survive without Judea and Samaria. He knows what the Muslim Brotherhood is. He knows the nature of the Iranian regime. He knows that the PLO is no different from Hamas. Their goal is the same – they want to destroy Israel.

Netanyahu knows that Obama is hostile to Israel and that he will not lift a finger to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

So why is he going along with their insanity? In bowing to US pressure and approving the release of 104 terrorist murderers from prison, Netanyahu behaved like a coward. In bowing to US pressure not to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations, Netanyahu is being a coward.

The most important question for Israel today then is whether our leader is capable of being anything else.

*

And there is this depressingly accurate commentary on the “peace talks” by Avi Bell, Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, posted at The Augean Stables:

If Israel refuses to negotiate, that proves Israel is not interested in peace, because it refuses to negotiate.

If the Palestinians refuse to negotiate, that proves Israel is not interested in peace, because the Palestinians can see negotiations with Israel are pointless.

If Israel makes preconditions to negotiations, that proves Israel is not interested in peace, because it is trying to avoid negotiations.

If the Palestinians make preconditions to negotiations, that proves Israel is not interested in peace, because the Palestinians have to force Israel to be serious in the negotiations.

If Israel makes no offer of peace, that proves Israel is not interested in peace.

If the Palestinians make no offer of peace, that proves Israel is not interested in peace, because the Palestinians can see that making offers of peace with Israel are pointless.

If Israel makes an offer of peace and the Palestinians reject it, that proves Israel is not interested in peace, because Israel is not willing to make the kind of offer the Palestinians would accept.