AWAY ON FAMILY VACATION
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20669/turkish-textbooks
Islamists in Turkey do not teach schoolchildren that Jews have been indigenous to Israel for nearly 4000 years — since the Bronze Age — and that the reestablishment of Israel in 1948 was actually an anti-colonialist step.
Meanwhile, Turkish government authorities have targeted their own indigenous peoples of Anatolia, namely the Pontic Greeks and Armenians. In the twentieth century, Ottoman Turkey largely exterminated these peoples through a genocide.
The government of Turkey, however, refers to the genocide as the “unfounded claims” of Greeks and Armenians. The titles in the Turkish history textbooks were previously called the “Pontus Issue” and the “Armenian Question”. They are now changed to the “Unfounded Pontus Claims” and the “Unfounded Armenian Claims”.
“[T]his is not a [country ruled by the] state of law…” — Eren Keskin, Lawyer, Co-Chairman Human Rights Association (IHD).
The Turkish government is also in denial about the history of the land of Turkey. Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians are indigenous peoples of the land, just as Jews are indigenous to Israel. Muslim Turks from Central Asia arrived in the Armenian highlands and Anatoli, which was the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire at the time, only during the 11th century. Through military invasions, Muslim Turks seized the towns and cities where indigenous Christians had lived for centuries. Ottoman Turks finally invaded Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) in the fifteenth century, bringing the destruction of the Byzantine Empire. After that, abuses against Christian religious and cultural heritage became widespread.
The new Turkish textbooks also claim Greek and Cypriot waters in the Aegean Sea as belonging to Turkey. Through a doctrine that the government of Turkey calls “the Blue Homeland”, they aim to seize Greek islands and maritime space in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas.
Sadly, these textbooks will sow more hatred in Turkish children against Jews, Greeks, Christians, Armenians, Greek Cypriots and the State of Israel — all based on misinformation, willful distortion, and historic revisionism.
Turkey’s Islamist government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing to further indoctrinate Turkish schoolchildren in propaganda regarding Israel, Greeks, Armenians, Cyprus and other issues of history and geography.
New content, named “Turkey’s Century Education Model”, was added to this year’s curriculum and only recently made available for public opinion by the Ministry of National Education.
https://amgreatness.com/2024/05/30/our-revolutionary-times/
Sometimes unexpected but dramatic events tear off the thin veneer of respectability and convention. What follows is the exposure and repudiation of long-existing but previously covered-up pathologies.
Events like the destruction of the southern border over the last three years, the October 7 massacre and ensuing Gaza war, the campus protests, the COVID-19 epidemic and lockdown, and the systematic efforts to weaponize our bureaucracies and courts have all led to radical reappraisals of American culture and civilization.
Since the 1960s, universities have always been hotbeds of left-wing protests, sometimes violently so.
But the post-October 7 campus eruptions marked a watershed difference.
Masked left-wing protestors were unashamedly and virulently anti-Semitic. Students on elite campuses especially showed contempt for both middle-class police officers tasked with preventing their violence and vandalism and the maintenance workers who had to clean up their garbage.
Mobs took over buildings, assaulted Jewish students, called for the destruction of Israel, and defaced American monuments and commentaries.
When pressed by journalists to explain their protests, most students knew nothing of the politics or geography of Palestine, for which they were protesting.
The public concluded that the more elite the campus, the more ignorant, arrogant, and hateful the students seemed.
The Biden administration destroyed the southern border. Ten million illegal aliens swarmed into the U.S. without audit. Almost daily, news accounts detail violent acts committed by illegal aliens or their surreal demands for more free lodging and support.
https://issuesinsights.com/2024/05/29/americans-back-israels-war-on-hamas-but-just-37-support-a-palestinian-state-ii-tipp-poll/
Given the Biden administration’s official response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the recent call by several nations to recognize a Palestinian state, you might think that Americans are ambivalent about Israel’s tough stance against Hamas terrorism. But in fact, Americans broadly support Israel’s actions by more than 2-to-1, according to the latest I&I/TIPP Poll.
The national online poll, taken from May 1-3, asked 1,435 adults the following question: “Do you support or oppose Israel taking tough actions, such as eliminating Hamas to ensure its security within its borders?”
Of those responding, 54% said they either “strongly” supported (29%) taking such action, or “somewhat” supported it (25%).
By contrast, only 21% said they either “strongly” opposed (9%) or “somewhat” opposed (12%) Israel’s fight (the poll has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points).
Overall, 24% described themselves as “not sure,” a sign that many Americans have yet to fully sort out the issues involved.
There are some key differences within different demographic categories, particular by political affiliation.
Republicans are far more likely to support Israel (68%) than either independents (49%) or Democrats (48%). Not surprisingly, the reverse is true for opposition: Just 12% of GOP members oppose Israel’s military actions, versus 27% of Dems and 24% of independents.
https://issuesinsights.com/2024/05/30/climate-hysterics-keep-saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud/
The climate alarmists have a long habit of revealing the true motives behind the global warming scare, and of course they have nothing to do with keeping the sky from catching on fire. In the most recent tacit admission, a college professor suggests that the administration sell the climate crisis to black voters by listing all the green energy government handouts they can avail themselves of.
In the New York Times piece published over the weekend, Jerel Ezell, a University of California, Berkeley, assistant professor “who studies environmental politics and race,” expressed concern that “politicians often seem to downplay the crisis when courting black communities.”
“Democratic strategists seem to see climate change as a key political issue only for white liberal elites and assume that other groups, like black voters, are either unaware of or apathetic about it.”
So Ezell suggests that rather than appealing to “airy calls for solving a global climate crisis,” Democrats should opt for “a sharp message designed specifically for young black Americans that focuses on how the Biden administration is investing in clean energy hubs, green work force development, tax credits for home improvement measures and community grants.”
Or in the words of blogger and law professor Ann Althouse, Democrats need to let black Americans “know there are billions of dollars ‘waiting to be doled out’ to their specific communities.”
“That’s ‘how much black Americans care’ — they care about the money that might be doled out to them,” Althouse writes. “That’s what it says in the article.”
Sounds as if Ezell practices the soft bigotry of low expectations against his own community.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-hamas-and-the-law-of-war-31362893?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
As it defends itself against Hamas in Gaza, Israel has come under sustained political, media and legal attack for supposedly violating international law—and not only from hostile countries and bodies like the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. On May 10 the U.S. State Department sent a report to Congress that concluded U.S.-provided arms have been used by Israel “in instances inconsistent with its IHL”—international humanitarian law—“obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm.”
These criticisms are based on a distorted view of the law of war and its crucial legal principles—distinction, proportionality, and the obligations owed to enemy civilians. They threaten Israel’s strategic interests and the ability of all law-abiding nations to defend themselves.
The law of armed conflict is a practical set of rules directed at ameliorating the harms of war—originally with respect to those engaged in combat, and over the years expanding to noncombatants associated with the military and ultimately to civilians. Protecting civilians and civilian property is an important goal of the laws of war, but not their paramount goal.
Other equally important goals are regulating the means and methods of warfare, ensuring appropriate treatment for wounded combatants and prisoners of war, and ensuring that the war aims of belligerents—generally understood as “military necessity”—can be pursued within these rules and requirements. But the law of war is in no way intended to level the playing field in favor of the weaker party.
The law of war has many sources, but the Biden administration should have followed the standard U.S. position, as laid out in the Law of War Manual. One of its most important teachings is that “although military necessity cannot justify actions that have been prohibited by the law of war, some law of war rules expressly incorporate military necessity.” That’s especially true of rules meant to protect civilian populations affected by armed conflict, largely embodied in the principles of “distinction” and “proportionality.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/05/protect-womens-sports-from-transgender-inclusion/
Allowing boys to compete as girls will harm women’s sports. But many activists believe their feelings and the feelings of transgender athletes are more important.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by several Louisiana newspapers that are part of the Gannett-owned USA Today Network, then removed because it did not meet Gannett’s “editorial standards.” We are republishing it so that readers can judge its argument for themselves.
Many players on the New Orleans Pelicans probably feel like a kid inside when they’re on the basketball court. They might even miss their days of dominating middle-school basketball tournaments, instead of squaring up against the giants in the NBA.
No one, however, would think it was fair if Zion Williamson joined a youth basketball league simply because he identified as a twelve-year-old. No middle-school boys could stop Williamson from getting to the basket, and they’d probably end up injured if they tried.
Men and women don’t compete for the same reasons. Yet transgender activists want athletic institutions to ignore these obvious physical differences so transgender athletes can feel included, even if it hurts biological girls in the process.
From middle-school gyms to NCAA swimming pools, activists seek to force women and girls to compete against biological men and boys. These activists claim it is a “myth” that transgender athletes have an advantage, but most Americans know this is untrue and unfair.
Starting in the womb and continuing through puberty, men develop physical advantages that help them outperform women in competitive sports. On average, men are taller and have higher bone density than women. When controlled for height, women also have 15 percent smaller hearts and 12 percent smaller lungs than men’s.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/05/the-tawdriest-political-dirty-trick/
Alvin Bragg has pulled it off.
If anything has been established in the courtroom the past couple of weeks, it’s that Alvin Bragg doesn’t have much of a legal case. But he doesn’t need one.
The legalities matter here only insomuch as they provide a veneer over an audacious political trick that has kept a major-party presidential candidate off the campaign trail for several days a week, and may — within days — give his enemies a political cudgel to use against him until November.
What’s the Latin for “specious legal case in service of frankly political ends”?
It’s true that if Trump gets off on a hung jury, it will play as a major victory and vindication for the Republican candidate, yet he still won’t be able to get back the time or resources he’s wasted fighting this case.
Even the most hard-bitten, cynical political operative would have been hard-pressed to imagine a way to keep an opponent off the campaign trail entirely. Rummaging through an opponent’s garbage, stealing his debate-prep materials, distorting his record in lavishly funded negative ads — all that looks amateurish compared with abusing the criminal-justice system for political ends the way Alvin Bragg has.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-cat-is-out-of-the-bragg/
Listening to the prosecution summation by Joshua Steinglass, it is quite amazing how explicitly the state is relying on violations of FECA as the “other crime” that Donald Trump was allegedly concealing by causing his business records to be falsified.
It is impossible to draw any conclusion other than that Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg knew that, as a state prosecutor, his enforcement of federal law would be incredibly controversial since he has no such authority; the federal agencies that do have such authority investigated Trump and opted not to prosecute; and to get this prosecution done, Bragg is simply making up his own version of federal law.
Bragg had the collusion of Judge Merchan, who allowed the state to get away with not putting the “other crime” in the indictment, and rejected defense attempts to force him to provide explicit disclosure pretrial. Prosecutors hid in the tall grass until summation and are now emphatically describing Trump as having blatantly violated federal campaign law.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/05/28/rafah-reminds-us-of-the-evils-of-hamas/
The anti-Israel set is right about something for once: it is unconscionable that Rafah has been turned into a warzone. It is an affront to humanity itself that a city once teeming with civilians fleeing the ravages of war elsewhere in Gaza should now be reduced to a hellish battleground. But who did this? Who was it that decided to use this former city of civilians as a launchpad for war? Who was it that posted their military commanders there, hid their ammunition there, fired their missiles from there, dragged hostages there? Who was it who hid the machinery of war among the women and children of Rafah, knowing full well bloodshed would ensue?
It wasn’t Israel. Israel helped to facilitate the evacuation of over 900,000 civilians. No, it was Hamas. To see the evils of Hamas, look at Rafah.
There is ‘global outrage’ following Israel’s firing of a missile that hit a camp in Rafah for displaced Palestinians. According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, 45 civilians were killed. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has called it a ‘tragic mistake’. The footage from the burning camp is grim in the extreme. And Hamas bears ultimate responsibility for it. It was Hamas that forced Rafah to become the frontline in its apocalyptic war against the Jews. It was Hamas that turned this former ‘safe zone’ into one of the least safe zones on Earth. Nothing captures the ruthlessness and cynicism of these Islamofascists better than the cruel fate befalling Rafah right now.
Not that you’d know it from the public discussion. Peruse the mainstream media or the tweets of the woke and you could be forgiven for thinking Israel is attacking Rafah for sport. Both the cranky left and batshit right are even referring to the ‘tragic mistake’ in Rafah as the ‘Rafah Holocaust’. This is Holocaust inversion of the most rank variety, where Israel’s rightful pursuit of the fascists who carried out the pogrom of 7 October is rebranded as ‘fascism’; where a war on the genocidal terrorists of Hamas is reimagined as ‘genocide’. War is peace, freedom is slavery, anti-fascism is fascism.
The truth is that Hamas didn’t only start the Israel-Hamas War, with its vile pogrom – it also brought it to Rafah. Consciously, determinedly and without so much as a passing thought for the impact it might have on the people there. Indeed, as some of the news reports begrudgingly acknowledge, Hamas attacked Israel from Rafah just hours before Israel returned fire with the missiles that caused that tragic mistake. Hamas fired eight missiles from Rafah towards Tel Aviv. It gloated about its ‘major rocket attack’. It used Rafah as a staging area for anti-Semitic warfare. It knew what the consequences would be. It invited war to Rafah, and war came.
For some time, Hamas has been making Rafah the main base of its genocidal crusade against the Jewish State. Harried by the IDF from the rest of the Gaza Strip, Hamas spied in Rafah a ‘safe’ site for its warmongering. Israel believes Hamas has six battalions left, and that four of them are operating out of Rafah. Many missiles have been fired from Rafah. One killed four IDF soldiers. Others have rained down on Israeli territory, with the aim of slaughtering the Jews there. Israeli hostages are being held in Rafah. Hamas is using Rafah as a base from which to taunt, blackmail and assault the Jewish State. If you hate what has happened to Rafah, if you hate that it’s been sucked into the vortex of war, then you should hate Hamas.
Of course, the luxuriant moralists of the West, the noisy purveyors of lazy correct-think, prefer to hate Israel. They blame Israel for everything, even for things Hamas did, like the condemnation of Rafah to war. The catastrophe of Rafah ought to have prized open the eyes of Western opinion-formers to the evils of Hamas. To the bracing truth that this is a movement so bereft of basic decency it is willing to hide itself among humanitarian infrastructure, to use a city designated as a safe space from war for war. The IDF is surely right that Hamas’s use of Rafah for arms storage, hostage-keeping and missile-firing represents a ‘systematic exploitation of humanitarian facilities and spaces’.
