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alinawatson · 6 months

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Events of the Final Seven Years

Close your eyes and imagine that you are back in World War II. As your platoon marches across foreign soil toward the next exchange, you encounter a minefield. The enemy is encamped all around and your destination is just on the other side. The only option is straight ahead.

Immediately, the lieutenant yells the command, “Take out your blindfolds and put them on. We have a minefield to cross!” It doesn’t seem right, does it? Nobody in his right mind would cross a minefield blindfolded! Yet, this is exactly what it would be like to live through the next few years with little or no knowledge of end time events.

Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case. The Bible has provided us with an accurate timeline and explicit instructions to guide us through the dangerous events that lie just ahead.

A Seven-Year Timeline The Bible foretells a final seven-year period that will immediately precede the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus to the earth. It also describes the specific event that will mark the beginning of this Final Seven Years. That’s the reason we call this prophesied event “the prophecy with a date on it.” All we have to do is watch for the initial event that marks the beginning of the timeline to then know that only seven years remain until the culmination.

It is of utmost importance that each of us understands this final seven-year timeline of events, for our generation will undoubtedly live during the fulfillment of these prophecies.

In order to understand what lies ahead, we must remove those imaginary blindfolds by learning what the Bible prophesies about the events that will take place along the final seven-year timeline.

Middle East Peace Treaty Marks “The Beginning” Daniel 9:27 prophesies that the Antichrist will confirm a covenant with many for a final seven-year period. This accord will be a confirmation of God’s covenant with Abraham that Israel would always have a homeland in the Promised Land (Genesis 15:18).

The fulfillment of this prophecy will be the signing of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The prophesied agreement must do three things: 1) Establish a Palestinian state in Judea (the West Bank). 2) Allow the Jewish settlers presently living in Judea to remain in their homes, living as a Jewish minority in the new Palestinian state. 3) Place the Temple Mount under an internationally supervised sharing arrangement allowing both Jews and Muslims to worship there.

When you see the prophesied peace agreement, know assuredly that the Final Seven Years to the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ have begun!

The Sixth Trumpet War At this juncture, it must be noted that a war is coming that will emanate from the Middle East region and result in the killing of one-third of the world’s population. This war is called the Sixth Trumpet War because it will occur at the sounding of the Sixth Trumpet as described in Revelation 9:13-18. This war will take place just before, or shortly after, the peace agreement is signed. The Bible does tell us that it must take place, at the latest, before the final three and one-half years begins. It could conceivably happen at any time now.

In the aftermath of the Sixth Trumpet War, in which 2.3 billion human beings will have died, the cry for a global organization that can prevent war will be deafening. The International Community will adopt a world-governing entity to eliminate the possibility of a global war ever taking place again. The nations of the world will surrender their sovereignty to the new world government so that it can eliminate war completely.

This world government will be the culmination of years of planning that have already been in progress. For several years it had been generally believed that there were two major causes for war on earth–conflicts between nations and conflicts between religions. The solution was simple in the minds of the global leaders: (1) Do away with the nation-states and force everyone on earth to pledge allegiance to one single, ultimate political authority–a world government. (2) Abolish the doctrinal differences between all religious organizations and coerce church leaders to sign declarations of unity with a single, all-inclusive religious authority–a world religion.

The Bible predicts that these two entities will be governed by a duo of the most deceitful, demonic humans that have ever lived.

To begin with, a leader will arise from Europe (Daniel 7:8) that will have aided in the negotiations for the prophesied peace agreement. He will be a great orator and administrator, but with an ulterior motive in mind–a wolf in sheep’s clothing, if you will. He will eventually seize the reigns of influence and be the most powerful politician in Europe. From this powerbase, he will maneuver himself into control of the emerging world government.

At the beginning of his administration, this ascending world leader will be viewed, by many, as the next great peacemaker. But to those who know their Bibles, he will shortly be recognized as the Antichrist!

Simultaneous with the emergence of the prophesied world government will be the birth of a global religious system. Interfaithism, as it is already being called, will be a union of Catholicism and Protestantism under the leadership of the pope. This religious union will be founded on the belief that Jews, Muslims and Christians all worship the same God while calling him by different names. Interfaithism will attempt to embrace all the religions of the world. Scripture is clear that this religious union will be led by the pope. Whoever is pope, at the time of the Antichrist, will fill the prophesied role of the False Prophet. Even Roman Catholics believe there is an evil pope coming.

By the mid-way point of the final seven years, the world government, led by the Antichrist and the world religion (Revelation 13:11-14 and chapters 17 through 18), headed by the False Prophet, will have control over the majority of the world’s population.

First Three and One-Half Years When the final seven years begins, Revelation 11:1-2 states that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem will be placed under a sharing arrangement between Jews and Muslims. The Jewish people will be allowed to build their Third Temple (2 Thessalonians 2:4 and Revelation 11:1-2) on the Temple Mount. When the temple is completed, animal sacrifices will be resumed (Daniel 9:27), just as was done in Old Testament times.

The offering of animal sacrifices in the temple will quickly escalate into a world crisis. The animal rights activists will demand that the Antichrist stop this slaughter of animals. This dispute, over the animal sacrifices, will quickly lead to an event the Bible calls the Abomination of Desolation.

Abomination of Desolation at the Midway Point Once we reach the middle of this final seven-year period, prophetic fulfillments will rapidly increase with many events happening almost simultaneously.

The first of these events will be the stopping of the sacrifices at the Abomination of Desolation. Daniel 11:31 foretells this event, “And arms shall stand on his part, and they (the Antichrist and his partners) shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.”

It appears that stopping the sacrifices and the Abomination of Desolation will occur at the same time. Apparently, the Antichrist will explain that the sacrifices are no longer needed because he is the Messiah and God. 2 Thessalonians 2:4 states that he will sit in the temple of God while claiming to be God. In this passage, the Apostle Paul described this event as the “revealing” of the man of sin (the Antichrist).

It should also be mentioned that whoever is pope, at the time of the Abomination of Desolation, will assume his role as the False Prophet. He will be the leader of the world religious system and will perform miracles before the people of the world (Revelation 13:13-14). Through these miracles, he will influence the world to pledge its allegiance to the Antichrist.

The Great Tribulation Begins Simultaneous with the Abomination of Desolation, there will be a war in Heaven (Daniel 12:1 and Revelation 12:7-10). Michael and his angels defeat Satan and his angels, confining them to the earth. Revelation 12:12 says, “…Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” This is the beginning of the three and one-half years of tribulation when Satan will persecute Israel and the true church of Jesus Christ. This is the same tribulation period that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24:15-21. Once the Abomination of Desolation occurs, Jesus warned the Jews living in Judea (the West Bank) to flee into the mountains, “…For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”

In the midst of all this chaos, God will send his two witnesses (Revelation 11:3) to begin their ministries, which will last the next twelve hundred and sixty days (three and one-half years).

Last Three and One-Half Years? During the last half of the final seven years, many events will occur, setting the stage for the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

It is at this time that the Antichrist and the False Prophet will fully implement the economic system, known as the Mark of the Beast (Revelation 13:16-18). Economic control will be used to force the citizens of the world to comply with the dictates of the one-world government and the one-world religion. The plan will be to give everyone on earth his own unique identification number that will be necessary to function in society. If any individual does not submit, obey and pledge allegiance to the Antichrist and his supreme authority, that person’s number will be invalidated. He will not be permitted to hold a job or to participate in the global economy.

All the while, God’s two witnesses (Revelation 11:3-12) will be prophesying, performing miracles and smiting the earth with plagues. However, at the end of their ministries, the Antichrist and his world governing system will kill them. Their bodies will lie in the streets of Jerusalem for three and one-half days, while the international media broadcasts the entire incident to the world. After the three and one-half days are finished, the Lord will raise them from the dead and call them up to Heaven, while the whole world watches in amazement.

The End of the Final Seven Years At the end of this seven-year period, two of the most recognizable prophecies in the Bible will take place – the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Quite similar to Charles Dickens’ statement in his book, A Tale of Two Cities, this will be the best of times for some and the worst of times for others.

Surrounding these two prophecies will be quite a number of significant events, all leading to the culmination of this age and the beginning of the one-thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ on earth.

At the very end of the Great Tribulation, the seven vials (plagues) of the Wrath of God will be poured out (Revelation 16:1-21). The first vial is poured out on those who have received the Mark of the Beast during the tribulation period. When the sixth vial is poured out, the Great River Euphrates will be dried up in preparation for the Kings of the East to make their way down toward Israel for the Battle of Armageddon.

Once the Sixth Vial is poured out, Revelation 16:15 gives a last minute warning to the inhabitants of the earth, “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.”

Then, in verse 16, the prophecy ominously says, “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”

Armageddon The international armies of the UN will invade Israel from the north. The battle will be joined at the Plain of Megiddo in northern Israel. Israel will fight valiantly against the world government armies. However, the Israeli Defense Forces will fall back, slowly but surely, before the superior firepower of the world government.

The conflict will proceed with Israel retreating toward its capital; Jerusalem. After days of exhausting battle, Israel will make her last stand within the walls of Jerusalem. In spite of heroic efforts by the Israeli soldiers, the Jewish people will find themselves facing defeat by the armies of the Antichrist.

It is at this time that the The 7 Trumpets Bible will sound! Jesus Christ will return to gather the elect from the earth (Matthew 24:29-31), have the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and go with His saints to fight on behalf of Israel at the Battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19).

During the Battle of Armageddon, the Seventh Vial will be poured out upon the earth. This will result in great hailstones being rained upon those armies that have come down to fight against Israel at Armageddon.

Saurce Link -

#The 7 Trumpets Bible

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eretzyisrael · 3 years

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The Biden Administration and the “War of Return”

Judging from the few public statements made so far and what is known about his appointees, the Biden Administration will take the same stance toward Israel and the Palestinians as the last Democratic administration, led by Barack Obama.

That means that it will return to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria more or less on the pre-1967 lines. It will go back to financing the Palestinian Authority, which will find a way to pay terrorists and support their families while pretending not to, in order to circumvent the Taylor Force Act which requires the US to deduct such payments from aid to the PA. The administration will likely close its eyes to the subterfuge. It will go back to funding UNRWA, the agency that supports the exponential growth of a stateless population made up of the descendants of Arab refugees from the 1948 war, despite the fact that it exists to perpetuate the problem posed by this population, not to solve it.

I believe that it will return to the principle that the main reason the conflict has not ended is that Israel has not made enough concessions to the Palestinians, and that the way to end it is to pressure Israel to give in to Palestinian demands: for Jew-free land, for sovereignty without restrictions, for eastern Jerusalem, and perhaps even for the “return” of the refugee descendants. Although not directly part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will probably reduce pressure on Iran and possibly even return to the JCPOA, the nuclear deal.

It’s too early to tell if it will also adopt the open hostility to the Jewish state that characterized Obama’s reign. That will depend on who influences Biden, both among his official advisors as well as the numerous think tanks, lobbies, and pressure groups that have an interest in the conflict – including the one operated by Barack Obama himself.

I suspect that the administration will have its hands full with other matters and so will not immediately launch a new “peace” effort. But one never knows. Sometimes rationality goes out the window when the subject turns to the Jews and their state.

Although nothing can be done with those who take a position because they see it as a step in the direction of the ultimate elimination of our state, there are still “people of good faith” who believe that the Land for Peace paradigm that inspired the Oslo Accords does provide a path to ending the conflict. If the new administration is dominated by the latter type of people, there is hope that correcting their fundamental misapprehensions might lead to a more productive policy.

These misapprehensions are spelled out persuasively in a recent book, The War of Return, How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream has Obstructed the Path to Peace, by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf (All Points Books, 2020). Schwartz and Wilf fall on the left of the Israeli political spectrum (Wilf was a Member of the Knesset for the Labor Party), and they still favor a two-state solution. But unlike most of their comrades, they have listened to the Palestinians, and understand their actual concerns and objectives. In their book, they explain why the traditional approach has failed and propose the initial steps that are necessary for any settlement of the conflict.

All previous Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have miscarried because Israelis and Western interlocutors have failed to realize the paramount importance of one issue – the “right of return” demanded by the Palestinians. This is possible because they have systematically misunderstood the language – whether English or Arabic – used by the Palestinians. The “constructive ambiguity” that often characterizes diplomatic language and allows parties that don’t quite agree with each other to nevertheless sign agreements has made it possible for the same words to have diametrically opposed meanings when uttered by Westerners or Palestinians.

The prime example of this is the phrase “a just solution to the refugee problem.” To an Israeli or Westerner, this can include the normalization of the refugees* in their countries of residence, their emigration to other countries, or their resettlement in a Palestinian state, should one be created. This has been the approach taken by the international community to the numerous refugee populations, including Germans living in Eastern Europe after WWII, Holocaust survivors, Jews who were forced out of Arab countries after 1948, and so on. But the Palestinian position is that there is only one “just solution”: anyone with refugee status has the inalienable right to “return” to his “home” in Israel if he wishes to do so, or to receive compensation if he prefers. And that is what this phrase means when they use it.

Naturally, given the numbers of Arabs who claim this “right,” such a mass return would change Israel into an Arab-majority state, even assuming Jews were prepared to leave their homes and peacefully give them to their “rightful owners.” The absurdity of the demand is evident. Yet Yasser Arafat walked away from Camp David precisely because Israel would not agree to it.

Another phrase whose ambiguity has prevented agreement is “two-state solution.” Virtually every Israeli that favors this understands it as “two states for two peoples.” But the Palestinians want one totally Jew-free Palestinian state, and one state in which the right of return for Arab refugees has been implemented (and which theoretically might contain Jews, at least for a while). They have never accepted the idea of any Jewish sovereignty between the river and the sea, and hence reject the formulation “two states for two peoples.”

Schwartz and Wilf explain that Western and Israeli negotiators have always assumed – perhaps because the demand is so extreme – that the right of return was a bargaining chip that the Palestinians would cash in for the currency of borders, the removal of settlements, or rights in Jerusalem. But they were wrong. The demand for “return” is the essence of the Palestinian movement.

Palestinian children learn about it, down to the particular locations to which each has the “right” to return, in UNRWA schools where they are taught by Palestinian teachers (99% of UNRWA’s employees are Palestinians). Someday, they are told over and over, they will return. Guaranteed.

Everything UNRWA does is geared toward increasing this population of angry people, convinced that a massive injustice has been done to them, and that the only solution will be for them to return, and through this return, wipe the Jews from the face of the land they are convinced we stole from them.

UNRWA was created after the 1948 war with the intention of providing temporary assistance to the refugees until they could be resettled and normalized the way all other groups of refugees had been. But the only country that cooperated was Jordan, which gave the Palestinians citizenship and allowed them to integrate into their own populations. In Lebanon there were especially harsh restrictions and poor conditions. Little by little, the Arab nations changed the temporary UNRWA into a permanent tool to mold a refugee army that they hoped would ultimately do what their conventional armies could not: eliminate the Jewish state.

Today UNRWA is the main obstacle to solving the refugee problem. But it need not be. Schwartz and Wilf provide a relatively detailed, step by step program for phasing out UNRWA in the various places that it operates, and providing solutions for the refugees from the host countries and other agencies. For example, in the Palestinian Authority areas, they propose shifting both the responsibility for the refugees, and the money that supports UNRWA, to the PA. Former refugees would study in PA schools, go to PA health clinics, and so on. There are similar programs for Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon where the remaining refugee “camps” (today mostly neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities) are located.

Real peace can only be achieved when the consciousness of the Palestinians changes and they understand that the dream of return will not be realized. This would be a long and difficult process that could only begin with the elimination of UNRWA. But it has to start before it can finish. It will require cooperation of all of the Western donor countries that have been supporting UNRWA. Perhaps the fact that from a financial standpoint UNRWA will soon be unsustainable (after all, the number of “refugees” is growing exponentially) will encourage them to cooperate.

In the short term, it’s essential that everyone involved in relations between Israel and the Palestinians understand the real issues that underlie the conflict. And it would be a good thing if all parties could agree to use words the same way. Schwartz and Wilf say that “constructive ambiguity” should be replaced by “constructive specificity.” If the European Union, for example, believes that the State of Israel should be replaced by a Palestinian state, it should say so. Otherwise, it should unambiguously oppose a right of return, and work to dismantle UNRWA as quickly as is practical.

Back to the incoming Biden Administration. I hope it will resist the attempts of the anti-Israel Left to revive the hostility of the Obama days, and instead choose to be a force for real peace.

To that end, I will be sending Joe Biden a copy of this book, with a suggestion that he read it and pass it around among his foreign policy team.

Abu Yehuda

#Peace process #American politics #Israel and Palestinian Arabs #US-Israel Relations

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creepingsharia · 5 years

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60 Muslim Refugee-Jihadis Caught in the U.S. Profiled in New Book

“The 60 refujihadis include a Muslim translator for the U.S. Army, cab drivers, gangsters, money transfer agents, janitors, and college students.”

Here are three facts that the most hysterical voices attacking the Trump administration’s proposal to radically reduce or freeze refugee admissions don’t want you to know:

1) They make billions of dollars off the federal refugee resettlement racket;

2) They are protected by the Open Borders Inc. media, which routinely whitewashes the gobsmacking financial self-interest of the “Let Them All In” leeches; and

3) They are never held accountable when untold numbers of the world’s most wretchedly violent and aggrieved refugees come here to sabotage the American Dream.

While left-wing religious groups, tax-exempt non-profits tied or allied to George Soros, and the amnesty-shilling Catholic Church scream “No hate, no fear, everyone is welcome here!” at the top of their lungs, American neighborhoods are being overrun by dangerous foreign criminals and jihad plotters. David Miliband, president and CEO of International Rescue Committee, attacked the White House plan to slash refugee numbers from an Obama-era high of 100,000 to less than the current historic low of 30,000 as “inhumane.” Is it because cutting the numbers would cut in to Miliband’s first-class travel and business lunch tabs? Malkin Truth-O-Meter: mostly likely true!

What Miliband neglects to mention in his diatribe against President Trump that his organization is one of 9 behemoth government contractors that works with the hostile United Nations and encrusted State Department social justice warriors to import thousands of new refugees every year with little input from the communities in which they are dumped. Miliband earns nearly a million-dollar salary and by one estimate, IRC has raked in nearly $900 million in refugee resettlement profits over the last decade. When you cut through the Statue of Liberty smokescreen of the open borders “charities,” the math is clear:

Reduced refugees means reduced cash flow.

Zero refugees means zero cash flow.

Why should taxpayers continue to see their hard-earned money siphoned away to feed the Trump Resistance Machine and Democrat Party’s Permanent Ruling Majority Project?

There are even more compelling reasons to throttle the refugee flow. According to the logic-twisting, ICE-doxxing cheerleaders at the New York Times, refugee reductions are the real threat to our nation because if we don’t keep importing hordes of Muslim translators from Iraq or Afghanistan, it would “undermine” our national security.

This is just plain ass-backwards.

The Trump-bashers and border-phobes equate any and all criticism of the refugee program as racist, xenophobic hatred. But it’s not all sweetness and light. They’re not all “yearning to breathe free.” Some of them just want free stuff. Some of them want to kill us. Many of them have absolutely no interest in assimilating themselves into our customs, measures, and laws. And many of them have outright contempt for Western civilization. They’re not here to strengthen our nation with their “diversity.” They’re here to destroy it. That’s fact, not “hate.”

In Open Borders Inc, I have profiled 60 of the planet’s most maleficent refujihadis nabbed over the past dozen years. Here are their names (you can learn their full stories in Appendix G of the book) . And remember: these are only the ones we’ve caught.

Nuradin Abdi

Dritan Duka

Shain Duka

Eljvir Duka

Mohanad Shareef Hammad

Waad Ramadan Alwan

Abdow Munye Abdow

Farah Mohamed Beledi

Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax

Shirwa Ahmed

Mahamud Said Omar

Abdiweli Yassin Isse

Kamal Hassan

Salah Osman Ahmed

Adarus Abdulle Ali

Ahmed Ali Omar

Khalid Mohamud Abshir

Zakaria Maruf

Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan

Mustafa Ali Salat

Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Issa Doreh

Basaaly Saeed Moalin

Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud

Ahmed Nasiri Taalil Mohamud

Ramiz Hodzic

Sedina Hodzic

Mediha Medy Salkicevic

Armin Harcevic

Jasminka Ramic

Nihad Rosic

Abdullah Ramo Pazara

Fazliddin Kurbanov

Liban Haji Mohamed

Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan

Abdinassir Mohamud Ibrahim

Mohamud Ali Yusuf

Nima Yusuf

Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman

Adnan Farah

Hanad Mustafe Musse

Guled Ali Omar

Abdirahman Yasin Daud

Mohamed Abdihamid Farah

Abdirizak Warsame

Hamza Ahmed

Abdullahi Yusuf

Ahmed Ali Omar

Amina Farah Ali

Hawo Mohamed Hassan

Abdul Razak Ali Artan

Dahir Ahmed Adan

Omar Abdulsattar Ameen

Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan

Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab

Abdullatif Ali Aldosary

Bilal Abood

Jamshid Muhtorov

Mahad Abdiaziz Adbiraham

More than half of these foreign menaces came from Somalia.

The 60 refujihadis include a Muslim translator for the U.S. Army, cab drivers, gangsters, money transfer agents, janitors, and college students. They include convicted weapons felons, confessed aiders and abettors of terrorism, stabbing spree vigilantes, and bombers all sworn to wage war against infidels in the name of Allah – and fraudulently posing undercover as victims of political and religious persecution. Here’s just a small taste of what our blind “welcoming” culture has wrought:

Abdul Razak Ali Artan was a Somali refugee who left his homeland with his family in 2007 for Pakistan and landed in Dallas before resettling in Ohio. In 2014, he became a legal permanent resident. At Ohio State University, where he was a student, Artan raged against America and invoked radical Muslim cleric and spiritual adviser to jihadists Anwar al-Awlaki. In 2016, he plowed his car into a group of students and then broke out a knife and stabbed innocent bystanders. Eleven were injured before police shot Artan dead.

Somali refugee Dahir Ahmed Adan went on a stabbing spree at a St. Cloud, Minnesota, mall in 2016, injuring ten people before an off-duty police officer shot him dead. Police told local media Adan quizzed at least one person on whether the individual was Muslim and made references to Allah while carrying out the stabbings. A local chapter leader of the unindicted terror co-conspirators of CAIR-Hamas disseminated an obligatory condemnation of Adan’s jihad before wailing about “the potential backlash to this community.”

Mahad Abdiaziz Adbiraham pleaded guilty to stabbing two people at the Mall of America in Minnesota in January 2018. Initially, the crime was reported as an “interrupted theft” in which two men had spotted Adbiraham attempting to steal merchandise at a Macy’s. But Adbiraham made his intent clear in the courtroom when he entered his plea. His attack was a “call for jihad by the Chief of Believer, Abu-bakr Al-baghdadi, may Allah protect him, and by the Mujahiden of the Islamic State,” he wrote in a statement. “I understand that the two men I stabbed know and have explained the reason for my attack, and I am here reaffirming that it was indeed an act of Jihad in the way of Allah.” Motive: known. Adbiraham entered the U.S. with “derivative status,” meaning he came here with a relative legally (most likely a refugee or green card recipient).

Mohanad Shareef Hammadi was an Iraqi refugee who landed in Las Vegas before resettling in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 2009. He was not being hunted or oppressed by anyone. He was, in fact, a bomb-maker insurgent for Al Qaeda in Iraq who had targeted American soldiers on the battlefield and sought to amass high-powered weapons and ship them from his adopted home back to the front lines to assist his terrorist brethren. In 2013, he was sentenced to life in prison for providing material support to terrorists and “conspiring to transfer, possess, and export Stinger missiles,” not to mention making a false statement in an immigration application.

In 2015, a ring of Bosnian Muslim refugees and naturalized Bosnian-American citizens were indicted on criminal charges for sending money and supplies to terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Ramiz and Sedina Hodzic, refugees who had resettled in St. Louis, were charged in a criminal conspiracy involving fellow Bosnian immigrants Mediha Medy Salkicevic, Armin Harcevic, Jasminka Ramic, and Nihad Rosic. They raised money and purchased U.S. military uniforms, combat boots, tactical gear, and rifle scopes, which they sent to Abdullah Ramo Pazara–a Bosnian Muslim refugee who had lived in St. Louis and became a U.S. citizen just days before traveling to Syria in 2013 to fight for Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Pazara rose up the ranks of ISIS; he was reportedly killed on the Turkey-Syria border. Ramiz Hodzic, Harcevic, Salkicevic, and Ramic pleaded guilty to their charges in 2019. In May 2019, Sedina Hodzic pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism and is awaiting sentencing.

Open Borders Inc. propagandists and profiteers will do what they always do when confronted with criminal nightmares that don’t fit the Emma Lazarus fantasy narrative: Whitewash them. The vast majority of refugees are law-abiding, they’ll sputter. Only xenophobes dwell on the negative impacts, they’ll seethe. But an untold number of refugees are not just committing ordinary civilian crimes. They are Islamic oppressors masquerading as the oppressed. Never forget: Ramzi Yousef faked an asylum claim to plot the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Never forget: Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian bomb-builder who entered the U.S. illegally through Canada, claimed political asylum based on phony persecution by Israelis. Never forget: Palestinian jihadist Mir Aimal Kansi, convicted in 1997 of capital murder for the January 1993 shooting spree outside CIA headquarters in McLean, Va., claimed bogus political asylum based on his ethnic minority status in Pakistan. The 9/11 jihad attacks, which every feckless politician will commemorate during next week’s 18th anniversary events with “Never Again” platitudes, should have taught us that all it takes is a teeny-tiny minority of foreign menaces to wreak massive havoc on our safety and civil order.

How many more horrifying reasons do we need to shut off the refujihadi spigot, stop underwriting the U.N.’s sovereignty-eroding agenda, and get our house in order?

Michelle Malkin is the author of Open Borders Inc.: Who’s Funding America’s Destruction?, out September 10 from Regnery. Visit OpenBordersInc.com for more information.

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#Immigration #Jihad #Islam #Muslim #News #Politics #Legal

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ruminativerabbi · 5 years

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Dual Loyalties

I think most of us in the Jewish community take the accusation of “dual loyalty” as a feature specifically of anti-Semitic rhetoric. But the reality is that the insult itself, although always a popular way among anti-Semites to disparage Jewish Americans, has a far more complicated history than taking it “just” as a way of questioning the patriotism of American Jews would make it sound. And the philosophical underpinnings of the idea—the question of whether loyalty to one’s country by definition precludes the possibility of also harboring a deep sense of emotional, financial, or activist involvement in the affairs of some other country—is itself an interesting question to think through.

It is widely understood that the heart cannot love two other persons simultaneously with the exact same level of passion or vigor, and that, as a result, one of the two parties will always be the less loved and one the more no matter how pure one’s original intention to love them both equally well might have been. Indeed, it was the slow insinuation of this idea into our Western consciousness that led to even the most traditional Jews turning away from polygamy despite its scriptural bona fides and instead embracing the monogamous model in marriage. Nor is this just a non-binding instance of a custom falling into gentle desuetude: Rabbi Gershom ben Judah of Mainz formally interdicted polygamy in the year 1240—an amazingly daring move in his day in that it actually made (and makes) it forbidden to obey to least one of the 613 commandments according to the simple meaning of the text, which is surely how Scripture meant for it to be observed—and thus does it remain forbidden and not merely out of vogue for Jews even today.

What is true with respect to the love of another person is also widely understood to be true with respect to the love of one’s country. And, indeed, although fidelity to one’s spouse and allegiance to one’s country are hardly each other’s exact counterpart in every single way, there are features that both clearly do—and should—share. To consider the issue from an American vantage point, for example, I think it is entirely fair to say that the love of country that characterizes the patriotic citizen, rooted as it must be in a deep allegiance both specifically to the foundational ideas upon which the republic rests and more generally to the whole American ethos as it has evolved to our day, simply cannot co-exist with that citizen’s same level of allegiance to some other country and to its institutions and foundational ideas.

But does that concept of patriotic monogamy, so to speak, mean that citizens are somehow being untrue to the country of their own citizenship by caring deeply about, and feeling intensely involved in, the affairs of other nations? Is it an act of disloyalty for someone happily married to a loving spouse also to care deeply about other people—about a neighbor suffering from some terrible illness, say, or about a co-worker suddenly in danger of losing his or her home? Who would say it does? And yet the dual-allegiance derogation—with its implication that one cannot be a truly patriotic American if one also cares deeply about the affairs of another country and is emotionally or even spiritually caught up in that country’s affairs of state—continues to surface like an endlessly recurring infection that simply refuses to succumb until it has done the maximum damage possible…to those whose American patriotism it attempts to sully and, paradoxically, also to those who degrade their own allegiance to our nation’s democratic principles by using it to question the patriotism of others. And, yes, this does seem to be more focused on Jewish supporters of Israel than on others: I imagine Irish Americans care more about Ireland than most other Americans do, but I can’t recall anyone accusing them of disloyalty because of it.

Most recently, this has come up in the wake of a comment of Rashida Tlaib, the newly elected member of the House of Representatives from Michigan, who openly and publicly suggested that people backing a series of pro-Israel bills in the House appear to hear to have forgotten “what country they represent.” The implication of that remark, tweeted out to her 280,000 followers on Twitter, is completely clear in its suggestion that any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate who actively and vocally supports Israel cannot be a truly patriotic American and so should not be trusted to serve in the Congress or imagined invariably to have the best interests of American citizens at heart. (The irony that inheres in the fact that Tlaib is both a Palestinian-American and an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause, yet presumably does not see herself as unsure what country she represents, went unnoticed only by some. See below.)

The “dual loyalty” mud has been flung at many others as well over the years. The internment of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans in West Coast concentration camps during the Second World War could only be justified with reference to the fear that, now that war had come, Americans of Japanese descent might reasonably have opted to preference allegiance to their ancestral homeland over loyalty to their adopted one. The 1960 presidential election was marred by opponents of John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, openly wondering if the then-candidate’s true allegiance was to our nation or to the Vatican. There are lots of other examples too, of course. But all have in common the basic notion that caring deeply, personally, and intensely about the security and wellbeing of a foreign state is a form—albeit a minor and unactionable form—of sedition. But is that a reasonable supposition? It is one thing, after all, for the Constitution to require that the President of the United States be a “natural born Citizen,” presumably because of the fear that any citizen who was formerly the citizen of a different country will necessarily harbor in his or her heart the kind of indelible allegiance to that country that would make it impossible to be wholly loyal to this one. When spelled out that clearly, that sounds ridiculous. Or at least to me it does! But to posit that citizens in general, and not specifically those seeking the highest office in the land, are by definition disloyal if they care deeply about the fate or wellbeing of specific other nations strikes me as being infinitely more so.

Two essays published last week spoke directly to this issue and I’d like to recommend them both to you.

Writing on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency website, Andrew Silow-Carroll cited a remark by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis dating back to 1915 in which he could have been addressing himself to Rashida Tlaib directly. “Multiple loyalties,” he wrote, “are objectionable only if they are inconsistent. Every Irish American who contributed towards advancing home rule [i.e., in an Ireland then fighting for its own independence from Britain] was a better man and a better American for the sacrifice he made. Every American Jew who aids in advancing the Jewish settlement in Palestine, though he feels that neither he nor his descendants will ever live there, will likewise be a better man and a better American for doing so.” In other words, caring deeply about an ancestral homeland and feeling a tie of kinship and emotional affinity to its inhabitants is not a sign of disloyalty, much less of sedition, but rather a natural extension of the allegiance we all feel to our extended families. But Silow-Carroll’s comment on that passage is also worth citing: “The Brandeisian notion that ‘multiple loyalties’ make you a better American has guided and justified Jewish activism for Israel even before its founding in 1948. It’s based partly on Brandeis’ theoretical notion that loyalty itself is an admirable and fungible quality, like honesty or sobriety. And it assumes, as Brandeis did famously, that American values, Jewish values and Zionist values are fully aligned.” I couldn’t agree more. To read Silow-Carroll’s piece, click here.

The other essay was by Alan Dershowitz and was published on the website of the Gatestone Institute. His essay is less about Tlaib herself, however, and more about the anti-BDS legislation whose supporters Tlaib was attacking. (To read the essay in its entirely, click here.) That legislation, intended to make illegal discrimination against entities (commercial or academic or otherwise) that do business with Israel, is being widely attacked in some circles as an attack on the freedom of speech promised all Americans by the First Amendment. He addresses that charge, I think effectively and—for me, at least—conclusively, and then turns his withering gaze to Rashida Tlaib herself and addresses her tweet: “Tlaib argues that ‘boycotting is a right and part of our historical fight for freedom and equality.’ Would she have supported, in the name of equality, the right of white bigots to boycott Black owned stores in the South or Black apartment renters in the North? Would she support the right of homophobes to boycott gay owned stores? Or the right of anti-Muslim bigots to boycott Muslim-owned stores or products from Muslim nations? If she were to support legislation prohibiting anti-Palestinian boycotts, how would she respond to an accusation that she ‘forgot what country’ she represents?...No one has accused Tlaib of forgetting what country she represents when she supports the Palestinian cause, even though Palestinian terrorists, acting in the name of ‘Palestine,’ have killed numerous Americans. Americans of any religion have the right to support Israel, and most do, without being accused of disloyalty, just as Americans of any religion have the right to support the Palestinian cause. It is both bigoted and hypocritical to apply a different standard to Jews who support Israel than to Muslims who support the Palestinian cause.”

What else is there to say? I couldn’t feel myself to be a more patriotic citizen of our great country. My deep commitment to the security and wellbeing of the State of Israel is not solely rooted in the fact that Joan and I own property there, but far more deeply in my conviction that the future of the Jewish people is inextricably tied to the fate of the State of Israel. I can’t even begin to explain why anyone would argue seriously that that makes me less of an American patriot.

#Dual Loyalty Issue #Rashida Tlaib #Alan Dershowitz #Andrew Silow-Carroll

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Louisiana students (AP) After nearly 18 months of pandemic-caused schooling delays, Louisiana was just getting ready to welcome students back with open arms when Hurricane Ida struck the state. Over 150,000 students are now out of school again thanks to the storm, and with test scores steadily declining, parents are concerned for more than a few reasons. Given the devastation left behind by the hurricane, many parents were hoping for their children to have somewhere to go to escape the heat or ruined homes they were left with. Nearly half of the students are expected to return to classes later this week, but the rest are still in limbo, unsure how long the recovery will take. In some areas, temporary or makeshift classrooms will need to be set up, but even if that can be accomplished, the students may not be able to get to them. With many left unable to go back to their homes, students without power or running water are going to struggle to make it to their classrooms.

Biden Declassifies Secret FBI Report Detailing Saudi Nationals’ Connections To 9/11 (NPR) The Biden administration has declassified a 16-page FBI report tying 9/11 hijackers to Saudi nationals living in the United States. The document, written in 2016, summarized an FBI investigation into those ties called Operation ENCORE. The partially redacted report shows a closer relationship than had been previously known between two Saudis in particular—including one with diplomatic status—and some of the hijackers. Families of the 9/11 victims have long sought after the report, which painted a starkly different portrait than the one described by the 9/11 Commission Report in 2004. While the report does not draw any direct links between hijackers and the Saudi Arabian government as a whole, Jim Kreindler, who represents many of the families suing Saudi Arabia, said the report validates the arguments they have made in the case. “This document, together with the public evidence gathered to date, provides a blueprint for how al-Qaida operated inside the U.S.,” he said, “with the active, knowing support of the Saudi government.” The Saudi government has long maintained that any connections between Saudi nationals and the hijackers were coincidental.

The U.S. Senate returns (1440) The U.S. Senate reconvenes today following its August recess, with President Joe Biden’s signature agenda item, a $3.5 trillion spending plan that would expand the social safety net and invest billions in climate programs, still facing roadblocks. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a key vote in a divided Senate, spoke out on Sunday against the level of spending and suggested lawmakers adopt a slower approach than the Sept. 27 deadline advocated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Two women campaign to become France’s 1st female president (AP) Two French politicians kicked off their presidential campaigns Sunday, seeking to become France’s first female leader in next year’s spring election. The far-right National Rally party’s Marine Le Pen and Paris’ Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, both launched their presidential platforms in widely expected moves. They join a burgeoning list of challengers to centrist President Emmanuel Macron. This includes battles among multiple potential candidates on the right—including another female politician Valerie Pecresse—and among the Greens. Macron, 43, has not yet announced his reelection bid but is expected to do so.

Pope, in Slovakia, warns European countries against being self-centred (Reuters) Pope Francis warned against too much focus on individual rights and culture wars at the expense of the common good on Monday during a visit to Slovakia amid increased nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment across eastern Europe. The 84-year-old Francis, looking fit, is making his first trip since undergoing intestinal surgery in July. Asked by a reporter on Monday how he felt, he joked: “Still alive.” On the first papal visit to Slovakia since 2003, Francis returned to a theme he had touched on during a stopover on Sunday in Hungary on how nations should avoid a selfish, defensive mentality, as he recalled the region’s communist past. “In these lands, until just a few decades ago, a single thought system (communism) stifled freedom. Today another single thought system is emptying freedom of meaning, reducing progress to profit and rights only to individual needs,” Francis said. “Our Christian way of looking at others refuses to see them as a burden or a problem, but rather as brothers and sisters to be helped and protected,” he said on Monday.

Hi-tech Zapad-2021 (Reuters) The “Zapad-2021” war games is a joint military drill between Russia and Belarus, which has alarmed Ukraine and some NATO countries due to the inclusion of sites near the European Union’s borders. Reports from the defense ministry have stated that Russia unveiled new combat robots and tactical vehicles on the second day of the active main phase of the war games. According to Russian news agencies, troops used Platform-M combat robots, which are controlled remotely and armed with grenade launchers and a machine gun. New Sarmat-2 tactical vehicles were also seen. President Vladimir Putin denies the drills are directed against any foreign power and says they are sensible given increased NATO activity near Russia’s borders and those of its allies.

Chinese city with coronavirus outbreak stops buses, trains (AP) A city in southern China that is trying to contain a coronavirus outbreak told the public Sunday not to leave town, suspended bus and train service and closed cinemas, bars and other facilities. Anyone who needs to leave Putian, a city of 2.9 million people in Fujian province south of Shanghai, for an essential trip must have proof of a negative coronavirus test within the past 48 hours, the city government announced. China declared the coronavirus under control in early 2020 but has suffered outbreaks of the more contagious delta variant. Authorities say most cases are traced to travelers arriving from Russia, Myanmar and other countries. In Putian, 19 new infections that were believed to have been acquired locally were reported in the 24 hours through midnight Saturday, according to the National Health Commission.

North Korea Reports Long Range Cruise Missile Test as Arms Race Intensifies (NYT) North Korea said on Monday it had successfully launched newly developed long-range cruise missiles, its first missile test in six months and a new indication that an arms race between North and South Korea was heating up on the Korean Peninsula. In the tests that took place on Saturday and Sunday, the North Korean missiles hit targets 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away after flying more than two hours, said the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. The missiles changed their trajectories and made circles before hitting their targets, it said. A series of resolutions from the United Nations Security Council banned North Korea from developing or testing ballistic missiles, but not cruise missiles. The latest tests showed that North Korea continued to improve its arsenal of missiles while nuclear disarmament talks with the United States remained stalled.

Taliban: Women can study in gender-segregated universities (AP) Women in Afghanistan can continue to study in universities, including at post-graduate levels, but classrooms will be gender-segregated and Islamic dress is compulsory, the Taliban government’s new higher education minister said Sunday. The world has been watching closely to see to what extent the Taliban might act differently from their first time in power, in the late 1990s. During that era, girls and women were denied an education, and were excluded from public life. The Taliban have suggested they have changed, including in their attitudes toward women. However, women have been banned from sports and the Taliban have used violence in recent days against women protesters demanding equal rights.

Israel hits Hamas targets in Gaza in response to rocket fire (AP) Israeli aircraft struck a series of targets in the Gaza Strip early Monday in response to rocket launches out of the Hamas-ruled territory. It was the third consecutive night of fighting between the two sides, even as Israel’s foreign minister sought to dangle incentives for calm. Tensions have risen after last week’s escape from an Israeli prison by six Palestinian inmates, as well as struggling efforts by Egypt to broker a long-term cease-fire in the wake of an 11-day war last May. The Israeli military reported three separate rocket launches late Sunday and early Monday, saying at least two of them were intercepted by its rocket defenses. In response, it said it attacked a number of Hamas targets. There were no reports of casualties on either side.

Nigeria says 75 abducted children released amid army crackdown (Reuters) Seventy-five children who were kidnapped from their school in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara State have been released after their abductors came under pressure from a military crackdown, a state official said on Monday. More than 1,100 children have been seized since December last year. Authorities say they were abducted by heavily armed gangs of bandits seeking ransoms.

#headlines #news

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nathaniel-galadima · 3 years

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MADE BY THE SOCIETY

A society could be a cluster of people concerned in persistent social interaction, or an oversized grouping sharing an equivalent spatial or social territory, subject to an equivalent political or religious authority and dominant cultural expectations. Patterns of relationships (social relations) characterize societies between people, sharing a particular culture and institutions. Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming bound actions or speech as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior inside a society are referred to as social norms. Societies, and their norms, bear gradual and perpetual changes. The Wiktionary definitions of society are as follows: - A long-standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior and artistic forms. 2. A group of people who meet from time to time to engage in a common interest; an association or organization. 3. The sum total of all voluntary interrelations between individuals. 4. The people of one’s country or community taken as a whole. 5. High society. 6. A number of people joined by mutual consent to deliberate, determine, and act toward a common goal. And I base this article on the definition 1, 2, 4, and 6.

DOES A SOCIETY HAVE INFLUENCE ON MAN?

Many people argue the effect of influence on man. They say that they are what or who they are today as a result of their choices; they deny the fact that what and who they are today was gradually informed and influenced by someone else's actions and societal factors. But this is not wholly true. I don't deny the role of one's choice in becoming what and who they are today—because one has to choose to be what and who they want to be—but one's choice only happens from the storehouse of the vast options one has, and these options are nothing but influences or incentivized by influential factors; one cannot choose out of nothing. Choosing to become someone, good or evil, is influenced by someone's actions, good or evil, a historical figure or someone you know or you heard of, who their way of life appals you and you regard them as your model. This could even be your parent. Donald J. Trump once stated: "When you live in a society where the firefighters are heroes, little kids want to be firefighters. When you live in a society where athletes and movie stars are heroes, little kids want to be athletes and movie stars. In Palestinian society, the heroes are those who murder Jews." The above-mentioned is a categorical fact, depicting that our societies play a pivotal role in engineering our individuality. Our societies have influences on us. I would like you to note that this article focuses on your country, your Province or State in your country, your local area in your State or Province, the city, town or village you live in, your religion or belief as regard to atheism, your family, your ethnicity, your peer group, your religious group denomination, etc., as your societies. And when you read further, we will realize that these aforementioned societies and many others (irrespective of how insubstantial they are), have impacts on various areas of our lives. And sometimes, those impacts are irresistible.

1. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR CONDUCTS

No man is born wicked (evil) or good. Every man is born with a mind that is almost like a plain paper, any information written into it, produces who the man is today. And this starts from the family (society), the closest people around them, such as mother, father, or siblings. A child begins to signalize insult with fingers at a person even before the child can speak and reason because they see an adult, a member of their family do likewise. A child is not born with hate for a person from a different race; they are not born with hate for black, white, or any colored person, they grow up to see people around them being racists, and they just incorporate the racism into their life. Etc. Beyond the family circle is the neighborhood. As the child grows in the neighborhood, every day or recurrently being exposed to the doings of the other people in the neighborhood, the child gets accustomed to them, and they could be bad doings. Other than the neighborhood, it could be campus. In campuses, people learn a lot of things they see others do. And these things could be bad things. Some became gays and lesbians, occultists, armed robbers, and many more evil identities. And also we have peer groups, religious groups, and many other groups of people by which some people become what and who they are today. In fact, there are examples of groups that stand as societies in the context of this article that almost seem exhaustible to be listed. In any of the societies you find yourself, from your family to any other category, you acculturate or the society ingrains or inculcates into your life either of the two classes of conduct, good or bad. And afterwards, people describe you with the one you chose to make part and parcel of your life. Like here in my country, Nigeria, children that live in barracks, especially military barracks, are known by some common conducts or behaviors however their temperamental dispositions: Be it sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic, or choleric. These common conducts they are known by are ingrained into their lives by the society they live in, the barracks. Whatever societal information we allow ourselves to be informed by is what is going to make us and our conducts. Have you ever heard some parents or some persons say "this or that is not a good place to raise children"? They are simply saying that the society has bad impact on children. Jesus told a parable. He said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied...." (Mathew 13:24-28 NIV). Though the above parable is talking about the Kingdom of God, in relation to the context of this article, it can be used to refer to the nature of the mind of a man newly born into the world as it's, like I said earlier, like a plain paper, every information written into it, produces what the person is today. The tares in this parable stand as the bad impacts of a society on a man's good conduct. If, for instance, a man cultivated and ingrained good conducts into their life, and later changes a society to a society that has a herd of unscrupulous elements that are steadily venting out bad conducts on that good conduct or the person with the good conduct, such a person, if they aren’t careful, they may be influenced by that social factors to incorporate the bad conducts into their good conducts; their conducts may be adulterated with the bad conducts. And that's why today a person that was known to be very good in conducts, when they change environment or society, they become very naughty in their conducts. And you will hear people saying "he or she was not known to be this bad." The tares are the bad impacts of societies on man. The impact, especially bad one, of a society is just like a smoke of fire, especially fire made with woods. When you perpetually make the fire on a particular side of the wall of a building, in no distant time the wall will begin to turn black.

2. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR MINDSETS

Mindset is simply a mentality: A way of thinking; an attitude or opinion, especially a habitual one. Or In decision theory and general systems theory, it is defined as a set of assumptions, methods, or notions held by one or more people or groups of people. A mindset may be so firmly established that it creates a powerful incentive within people or groups of people to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, or tools.

SUPERIORITY COMPLEX AND INFERIORITY COMPLEX

A superiority complex is a behavior suggesting that a person believes he/she somehow is superior to others. People with superiority complex often have exaggerated opinions of themselves. They may believe their abilities and achievements surpass those of others. They often have boastful attitudes to people around them. But these are only a way to cover up feelings of failure or shortcomings. An inferiority complex is an intense personal feeling of inadequacy, often resulting in the belief that one is in some way deficient or inferior to others. Either of these two beliefs or opinions is ingrained into one's mind or made into one's mentality by the kind of society one's grows or lives in. For instance, when someone has an inferiority complex in their mindset, it might be because they are being consistently compared unfavorably to others; being treated unfavorably by one's peers due to belonging to a different race, economic background, or gender. In consequence, this situation causes feelings of physical and mental limitations, or experiences of lower social status in a person. And today because of an inferiority complex, some people however how good and adept they are at doing something, they lack self-confidence; they hold onto the opinion they still can't do it better than the others they hold with high esteem. It could be people of different religion, age, race, tribe, class, etc. As a result, we see some countries only consume products of other countries even when they themselves can manufacture those same products. Or even when some capable individuals manufacture the products, the locals may refuse to patronize them because their mindset is wired to think that their fellow compatriots cannot manufacture standard products, only substandard, and such a situation prompted Jesus Christ to say “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” (Mark 6:4 NIV). And because of superiority complex, others take themselves high above others as though God. No matter their shortcomings, no matter how dumb they are, they still feel they are better than others; they still hold others with contempt and underestimation. All these are caused by the societies we were brought up in. Today in some societies, once a man says to a lady that he loves her, even before they are married, the lady tends to put all her responsibilities on the man even while she is still under her parents. While in other societies this is otherwise. This is nothing but a mindset. The mindset with which others are parenting is not the same as others, the same thing with running a family as a husband or wife. Etc. In all these, societies play fundamental roles in creating our different mindsets.

3. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR BELIEF SYSTEM

A belief system is an ideology or set of principles that helps us to interpret our everyday reality. This could be in the form of religion, political affiliation, philosophy, or spirituality, among many other things. These beliefs are shaped and influenced by a number of different factors. Our knowledge on a certain topic, the way we were raised, and even peer pressure from others can help to create and even change our belief systems. The convictions that come from these systems are a way for us to make sense of the world around us and to define our role within it. We have several religions in the world. These religions vary by, especially population, mode of worship or piety, belief in God or god. The population of a religion in a particular country differs from the population of the same religion in a different country. And even in a particular country that has more than one religion, maybe having one religion more prevalent than the others or other, or having both religions sharing the same number of population, competing in predominance, you will figure out that the population of the religion or religions differ in the local areas or regions of the country. The perfect example of this is Nigeria. In Nigeria, it's common to see Christianity more predominant than Islam in some States, while Islam predominant than Christianity in some other States. And these States where Christianity is predominant, you may find out that in some local government areas of the States, Islam is predominant than Christianity. While in these States where Islam is predominant, you may find out that in some of the local government areas of the States, Christianity is predominant than Islam. While in Nigeria as a country, the two major religions, Christianity and Islam, share almost equal number of population; it's absolutely impossible for one to say "Christianity is populated than Islam or Islam is populated than Christianity in Nigeria." Sometimes ago, I was fond of criticizing and condemning some Muslims, especially the extremists for their barbaric and cruel way of life with regard to how the extremists take pleasure in bloodbath, killing innocent people just for not believing in Islam as a religion. But my wife said something to my hearing that put a stop to my recurrent criticism of the Muslims. She said that "we should thank God that we were born in Christian homes or by Christian parents not Muslim homes or parents, otherwise we would have been as barbaric as they are; we would have been doing the same irritating and abhorrent acts they are doing thinking it's the right things to do." This is nothing but the truth. After all, no one chose before their conception, by which home or parents they would come to this world; we didn't choose to come to this world through Christian or Muslim parents or home, we only see ourselves in either of them, though we still retain the liberty to make a choice; to choose to either continue being a Muslim or Christian or to either convert to become a Christian or Muslim. This phenomenon is influenced by the society. In a society where Islam is predominant, of course, you know the parents are Muslims and as they give birth to children; the children become automatically Muslims. And also in a society where Christianity is predominant, the parents will be Christians and as they give birth to children, the children become automatically Christians. This is the same with any society having a certain predominant religion or as with regard to atheism. Morality is also a part of our belief system. Morality is a recognition of the distinction between good and evil or between right and wrong; respect for and obedience to the rules of right conduct; the mental disposition or characteristic of behaving in a manner intended to produce morally good results. Or is a set of social rules, customs, traditions, beliefs, or practices which specify proper, acceptable forms of conduct. Or is a set of personal guiding principles for conduct or a general notion of how to behave, whether or not respectable. There is discrepancy in what is morally acceptable or unacceptable, or morally good or morally wrong irrespective of the moral-objectivism of the act. And this is caused by the differences between our societies that impact our belief system. The acts you regard today as evil or morally wrong that were ingrained into your belief system by the society you were brought up in, religious, family, or any other society, people may consider it acceptable acts. In fact, killing innocent person who is from different religion is considered by others from certain religions as acceptable act; as a good act required by their god. The same with some habits like sexual immorality, smoking, drunkenness, etc.

4. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR DESTINIES

Many may disagree with me because many believe that destiny is that to which any person or thing is destined; a predetermined state; a condition predestined by the Divine. And this implicitly means anything that happens to an individual, good or evil, is their destiny. I agree that is a condition predestined by the Divine (God) but I don't wholly agree that when evil happens to someone is still their destiny. Some believe that destiny is unchanged because it's believed to have been predestined by God, but I believe one still retains the power to alter their destiny. God says "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV). This is God or Divine predetermined destiny for man. But do you think when you live in a thuggery-oriented society, where young people do drugs, smoke weed, cigarettes, get drunk, do prostitution, robbery, cultism and any other kind of vice, and you become one of them, participating in one or more of the vices, like robbery or cultism, or drug, and you later get killed, will be said that, that is your destiny predetermined by God? No. God’s destiny or plan for you is a good one but along the path, if you allow your society to negatively have impact on you, the God good plan for you may be altered. And therefore, we will say that your society influences your Destiny. Another example is, if your destiny is to become, one day, the President of your country and you are born and brought in a society that is devoid of the opportunity to acquire formal education which unchangeably stands as the credential demanded for being a President, and you do nothing to get formal education, will it be said that it's God's will that you do not become the president? No, but rather will be that it's you or your society that alters your destiny.

5. SOCIETIES INFLUENCE OUR WELL-BEING

A society that is very careless in keeping its environment clean will have a very adverse effect on the well-being of the people living in it. And as a result, when there is an outbreak of a disease like cholera, the people are most vulnerable to it. A society that is careless in its choice of food, it negatively influences the well-being of its people. And also that's why some countries have a higher number of people with some certain sicknesses, like cancer, than other countries.

CONCLUSION

Therefore, having read about some of the areas our societies have influences on, you now know that a society can either make you or mar you because 80-90% of who and what you are today are influenced by the society you live in; the kinds of society I discuss in the context of this article like family. When you live in a moral society, it will have a good influence in some areas of your life. When you live in a corrupt society, it will have a bad influence on some areas of your life, and especially that of your children. Accordingly, choose a better society. Read the full article

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corkcitylibraries · 6 years

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The myth of return

by Izzeddeen Alkarajeh

Extract from 'Here, There, In Between' a book of poetry and stories by members of the Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre Writers’ Group.

This morning is the most joyful in our lives. The noise of celebration from people in the refugee camp has awakened everyone. People are running down to the streets to celebrate. The United Nations has just unanimously adopted the long-awaited resolution that all Palestinians who were displaced from their homes in 1948 and 1967 must be allowed to return to their own places. The third generation is entitled to live in the lands that have been occupied and used by Israel for 70 years. Israel is ordered to facilitate the return of the indigenous people by all means, and any resistance to this resolution will be met with force. Israelis are panicked. Their military forces are not blocking our city entrances, we can’t find them in our sight! People run into their cars, leaving their homes in the camp open and unattended. They are running to kiss the soil of their grandparents. I drive the car, taking my brothers and sisters to our abandoned city of Beit Jibrin.

We start dancing and singing the national anthem. For the first time in our lives, we are crossing street junctions, passing one village after another without seeing any Israeli soldiers. Oh my God, the breath of freedom is exciting.

Now, we are in front of the apartheid wall gate. The scene is amazing! The gate that used to hold us for 3 hours before letting us pass is collapsed. Soldiers who used to persecute tens of thousands of people every morning are no longer there. We are seeing the whole world through this collapsed gate that used to block our dreams and our vision. A few hundred meters beyond the apartheid wall, the domain of our beloved abandoned town begins. Israelis had a huge investment in altering its Palestinian identity and converted it to a tourist attraction. But the town recognizes us. We feel like it is opening its arms to welcome us back.

“Where are your grandparents?” the town asks.

“Oh my love, these are 70 years, do you expect them to live this long?” I answer.

“So sad, I miss you all my descendants, life is meaningless without you!” the town replies. “Don’t worry my love, finally justice has been enforced and we are back. My parents passed the house keys and title deeds to us. Where are our properties?” I asked.

“Come on in. Forget about the keys, they didn’t leave doors for you. Here is your grandparents’ house, and here is your farm. You will find the well at its corner, full of grass and rubbish.”

Every one of us is walking in a different direction. We can’t believe we are being allowed to walk around on such a vast piece of land. For three generations, we were left to live in a house of 150 square meters, that was build to replace the United Nations tent. The family has grown to become 25 men and women. Finding ourselves claiming back our 20 acre piece of land is just like taking us from prison to freedom. I step into my grandparents’ abandoned house.

Although we could keep rust away from the key, the door is too rusty. The door is half open, and it seems as if it used to be a shelter for wild animals. Grass has grown into the wall cracks and between the tiles. Wind blows and passes through the windows freely; the lean years have eaten the glass and most of the woody frames. The remains of the bathroom and kitchen tell the story of my grandparents’ lifestyle. The authenticity of our indigenousness is being proved by every stone, and everything that remains.

We spend the whole day looking around the farm. Every time we finish navigating the place, we start from the beginning as if we have just started. We look like children who were lost, and have just returned home. The sun is setting and we must leave. The place needs a lot of rehabilitation to become habitable. Although we are keen to spend our night lying on the grass, we decide that it isn’t safe to stay overnight. Although we were born and raised in the refugee camp, we feel so scared to return to it. Who likes to return to the prison after serving a life sentence?

I start the car, hoping it won’t start. Drive away slowly, hoping it won’t drive. No one is singing or celebrating this return route. The closer to the refugee camp we get, the sadder we become. We feel the sadness covering the whole town.

“There are no colonizers anymore, why are you leaving, descendants?” says the town.

“Don’t worry my love, we will be bringing our tools and coming back tomorrow”, I reply.

We arrive at the refugee camp, just realizing that we didn’t lock the doors in the morning. None of us touch the door handle to enter the house. Our neighbors gather to chat about their experiences during the day, and how beautiful they found their towns as well. People no longer want to enter their tents that developed into houses, as if the United Nations want to lock them in again.

My mother awakens me to have my breakfast before I go to work in the camp’s UN school.

I ask her, “aren’t we going to Beit Jibrin?”

“Beit Jibrin? Huh, what did you dream last night?” said my mother.

“Oh mom, don’t say I was dreaming!” I reply.

“If it was Beit Jibrin, then it’s a dream, my son. A return to Beit Jibrin needs you to awake, needs our people to awake, needs international conscience to awake, and needs international laws to be enforced equally on the powerful and the weak. Son, what was taken by force, can’t be returned by dreams”.

by Izzeddeen Alkarajeh

Download the book in PDF format at http://www.corkcitylibraries.ie/aboutus/librarypublications/here_there_in_between.pdf

#Izzeddeen Alkarajeh #directprovision #corkworldbookfest #here there in between

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go-redgirl · 5 years

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Exclusive — Michelle Malkin: 60 Terrifying Reasons Trump Is Right to Reduce Refugees

Here are three facts that the most hysterical voices attacking the Trump administration’s proposal to radically reduce or freeze refugee admissions don’t want you to know:

1) They make billions of dollars off the federal refugee resettlement racket;

2) They are protected by the Open Borders Inc. media, which routinely whitewashes the gobsmacking financial self-interest of the “Let Them All In” leeches; and3) They are never held accountable when untold numbers of the world’s most wretchedly violent and aggrieved refugees come here to sabotage the American Dream.

Miliband earns nearly a million-dollar salary and by one estimate, IRC has raked in nearly $900 million in refugee resettlement profits over the last decade. When you cut through the Statue of Liberty smokescreen of the open borders “charities,” the math is clear:Reduced refugees means reduced cash flow.

Zero refugees means zero cash flow.Why should taxpayers continue to see their hard-earned money siphoned away to feed the Trump Resistance Machine and Democrat Party’s Permanent Ruling Majority Project?There are even more compelling reasons to throttle the refugee flow.

According to the logic-twisting, ICE-doxxing cheerleaders at the New York Times, refugee reductions are the real threat to our nation because if we don’t keep importing hordes of Muslim translators from Iraq or Afghanistan, it would “undermine” our national security.

This is just plain ass-backwards.The Trump-bashers and border-phobes equate any and all criticism of the refugee program as racist, xenophobic hatred. But it’s not all sweetness and light. They’re not all “yearning to breathe free.” Some of them just want free stuff. Some of them want to kill us. Many of them have absolutely no interest in assimilating themselves into our customs, measures, and laws. And many of them have outright contempt for Western civilization.

They’re not here to strengthen our nation with their “diversity.” They’re here to destroy it. That’s fact, not “hate.”In Open Borders Inc, I have profiled 60 of the planet’s most maleficent refujihadis nabbed over the past dozen years. Here are their names (you can learn their full stories in Appendix G of the book) .

And remember: these are only the ones we’ve caught.

At Ohio State University, where he was a student, Artan raged against America and invoked radical Muslim cleric and spiritual adviser to jihadists Anwar al-Awlaki.

In 2016, he plowed his car into a group of students and then broke out a knife and stabbed innocent bystanders. Eleven were injured before police shot Artan dead.Somali refugee Dahir Ahmed Adan went on a stabbing spree at a St. Cloud, Minnesota, mall in 2016, injuring ten people before an off-duty police officer shot him dead. Police told local media Adan quizzed at least one person on whether the individual was Muslim and made references to Allah while carrying out the stabbings.

A local chapter leader of the unindicted terror co-conspirators of CAIR-Hamas disseminated an obligatory condemnation of Adan’s jihad before wailing about “the potential backlash to this community.”Mahad Abdiaziz Adbiraham pleaded guilty to stabbing two people at the Mall of America in Minnesota in January 2018. Initially, the crime was reported as an “interrupted theft” in which two men had spotted Adbiraham attempting to steal merchandise at a Macy’s.

But Adbiraham made his intent clear in the courtroom when he entered his plea. His attack was a “call for jihad by the Chief of Believer, Abu-bakr Al-baghdadi, may Allah protect him, and by the Mujahiden of the Islamic State,” he wrote in a statement. “I understand that the two men I stabbed know and have explained the reason for my attack, and I am here reaffirming that it was indeed an act of Jihad in the way of Allah.” Motive: known.

Adbiraham entered the U.S. with “derivative status,” meaning he came here with a relative legally (most likely a refugee or green card recipient).

Mohanad Shareef Hammadi was an Iraqi refugee who landed in Las Vegas before resettling in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 2009.

He was not being hunted or oppressed by anyone. He was, in fact, a bomb-maker insurgent for Al Qaeda in Iraq who had targeted American soldiers on the battlefield and sought to amass high-powered weapons and ship them from his adopted home back to the front lines to assist his terrorist brethren.

In 2013, he was sentenced to life in prison for providing material support to terrorists and “conspiring to transfer, possess, and export Stinger missiles,” not to mention making a false statement in an immigration application.

They raised money and purchased U.S. military uniforms, combat boots, tactical gear, and rifle scopes, which they sent to Abdullah Ramo Pazara–a Bosnian Muslim refugee who had lived in St. Louis and became a U.S. citizen just days before traveling to Syria in 2013 to fight for Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Pazara rose up the ranks of ISIS; he was reportedly killed on the Turkey-Syria border.

Ramiz Hodzic, Harcevic, Salkicevic, and Ramic pleaded guilty to their charges in 2019.

In May 2019, Sedina Hodzic pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism and is awaiting sentencing.Open Borders Inc. propagandists and profiteers will do what they always do when confronted with criminal nightmares that don’t fit the Emma Lazarus fantasy narrative: Whitewash them. The vast majority of refugees are law-abiding, they’ll sputter. Only xenophobes dwell on the negative impacts, they’ll seethe. But an untold number of refugees are not just committing ordinary civilian crimes.

They are Islamic oppressors masquerading as the oppressed. Never forget: Ramzi Yousef faked an asylum claim to plot the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Never forget:

Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian bomb-builder who entered the U.S. illegally through Canada, claimed political asylum based on phony persecution by Israelis.

Never forget: Palestinian jihadist Mir Aimal Kansi, convicted in 1997 of capital murder for the January 1993 shooting spree outside CIA headquarters in McLean, Va., claimed bogus political asylum based on his ethnic minority status in Pakistan.

The 9/11 jihad attacks, which every feckless politician will commemorate during next week’s 18th anniversary events with “Never Again” platitudes, should have taught us that all it takes is a teeny-tiny minority of foreign menaces to wreak massive havoc on our safety and civil order.

How many more horrifying reasons do we need to shut off the refujihadi spigot, stop underwriting the U.N.’s sovereignty-eroding agenda, and get our house in order?

Michelle Malkin is the author of Open Borders Inc.: Who’s Funding America’s Destruction?, out September 10 from Regnery. Visit OpenBordersInc.com for more information.

READ MORE STORIES ABOUT:

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the-record-columns · 5 years

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July 31, 2019: Columns

Peaches, possum, and home grown tomatoes...

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes,

What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes,

Only two things money can't buy,

That's true love and homegrown tomatoes.

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

What a great weekend.

Yes, it was hot, but not oppressively so, as it had been earlier in the week, and there so many things to do and enjoy that were just plain fun.

Just to mention a few, let's start on Friday evening. One of my favorite regular events is the music of Doug Davis and Friends at the Hardee's on 421 in Wilkesboro. They just wander in, take a seat and join in with whoever is already there and 15 minutes later, you would think they had been playing together for 15 years. This past Friday's crew, at least for the time I was there, included Don and Lee Ann Bowling, Jason Young, Jamie Prevette, Glenn Wood, Joe Price and Lindsay Ham. Lindsay, who can play about anything and play it well, treated those gathered to his rendition of "I've Got 5 Pounds of Possum in My Headlights Tonight," to everyone's delight. A little country, a little bluegrass, a little gospel, and a lot of fun is available every Friday night when these folks get together.

Then, on Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market in North Wilkesboro, the Master Gardner's group had their annual Tomato Tasting with over 30 varieties of tomatoes available. Young and old alike enjoy this event and Saturday's edition was no exception. An aside, quite often Linda Cabe and Chad Ritchie come and play music at Saturday's market, being dubbed by yours truly as The Marketplace Players. This past Saturday, they were joined by Ferguson's own Sharon Underwood who played her guitar and sang with them. As I was visiting with them, Sharon broke out in the chorus of "True Love and Homegrown Tomatoes," a great old tune I had forgotten about. All in all, it was a great market —good for vendors, good for visitors.

After the Farmer's Market, I went over to Wilkesboro for the inaugural Peach and Heritage Festival put on by volunteers from the Brushy Mountain Community Center.

When I first got to town, I knew I was going to have a good day because I saw Ann Graves and Marilyn Payne sitting on Ann's porch across from the old Smithey Hotel. I stopped, sat on the swing with Ann enjoying some of her Ketle Korn, and watched the folks stream in for the festival. I kidded them that they were the perfect pair to be "greeters" for those coming in because they have neither ever met a stranger.

Once I got up to the Commons area, I found it packed with vendors, displays, games and entertainment. There was truly something for the entire family--from toddler to grandma and grandpa. As I wandered around that morning, I could hear the gospel music playing on the main stage and I observed the amazing variety of people in attendance. Whenever I would ru into ne of the organizers, they were very pleased with their new event, and helpful with whatever questions I had.

I also went by the Heritage Museum next door where the new Splash Pad was getting a workout and the Museum itself was literally crawling with visitors, many for the first time.

As the day went on, the crowd stayed amazingly strong with many vendors selling completely our of food or merchandise. As I continued to amble around and visit, I was struck by just how contented and happy everyone seemed to be. I made some comment about this to a lady who se name I should know but cannot tink of right now and she made the reply I supposed was appropriate for the day, "Why Kenny, what would you expect--everything here today is "Just Peachy'"

International consensus is not the same as international law

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

President Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, recently told the United Nations Security Council that “international consensus is not international law. He went on to state what most Americans, especially evangelical Christians, accept as historical fact – that Jerusalem is the historic capital of the Jewish people and it is their rightful capital today.

Today the people living in the West Bank and Gaza call themselves “Palestinians” and they desire (or aspire) to make Jerusalem their exclusive capital completely ignoring thousands of years of Jewish connection to the land. This is not hearsay. It is documented from the Bible forward and is proven afresh almost every day as new archaeological finds are discovered pointing directly to Israel and the Jewish people.

So, who are the Palestinian people and why do they feel entitled to possess the land of Israel with Jerusalem as their capital? First of all, there are no “Palestinians.” They are culturally and linguistically Arab therefore they have no language, religion or general culture that distinguishes them significantly from the Arabs of Jordan, Syria or other neighboring Arab states. “Palestinian” identity is a shallow political veneer that developed in response to Zionism and it serves today as a hostile tool kept sharpened for use against Israel.

Nevertheless, Israel is willing to carve out land for those Arabs who want to identify as “Palestinians” thus creating an identity for themselves separate from the larger Arab world, but they have no historic or legal right to the land of Israel. As expressed by Mr. Greenblatt, the Palestinian aspiration to a have a capital in Jerusalem is “not a right,” and “international consensus is not international law” when it comes to creating a Palestinian state.

The decades long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians cannot be solved by international consensus. U.N. resolutions have been proposed and adopted however the wording is generally vague but always in favor of the Palestinians despite protestation from America and Israel.

No international consensus or interpretation of international law can alter the fact that Jews have lived and worshiped for nearly 3,000 years in Israel and specifically in Jerusalem and that Jerusalem has been the capital of the modern state of Israel for over 70 years. Those who try to paint Israel as “illegal occupiers” are using the phrase as a weapon to demonize Israel. According to historic facts, Israel has already returned or relinquished more than 88 percent of the territory it captured during the 1967 Six Day War in which tiny Israel was attacked by every surrounding Arab country yet, thanks to God’s intervention, Israel sent the aggressors running to the U.N. begging them to make Israel back off.

While Israel has proven to the world time and time again her willingness to cooperate in helping the “Palestinians” form an independent state, they are not foolishly willing to jeopardize their safety by giving legitimacy to the terrorists organization called Hamas which governs those “Palestinians” living in the Gaza strip or the PLO which governs the “Palestinians” in the West Bank and which is equally as corrupt as Hamas and every bit a terrorist entity - despite any consensus to the contrary.

Relax and Protect

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

Summertime busy is a different kind of busy.

We are often rushing off somewhere to relax; maybe a trip to the beach to enjoy the surf and sun or a high country visit with cooler days.

We are fortunate in the Carolinas because we have many excellent costal choices. Among those choices, we have Hilton Head, Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, Nags Head and our charming Outerbanks Island experience.

We can slowly explore nature and our iconic lighthouse trail, or we can properly roast ourselves while lounging on a choice sandy beach. The hours pass with a good book or music and moment by moment the stress of life floats away.

Sunburn pain is tempered with a variety of products which are often available in our summer travel bags. We try to remember to use our sunscreens, but sometimes forget. More seasoned travelers plan for those moments by bringing along the best sunburn pain reducing product we can find. We don’t like talking about the pain because we know we allowed it to happen. We just want it to quietly go away as soon as possible.

Most of our friends are polite enough to not go in for a hug when they notice the bright glow of summer pain. The extra loose-fitting clothing is often a giveaway.

Often, the rewards make up for the pain. The early morning and sunset walks on the beach are memorable. Setting on the balcony listing to the hypnotic waves makes life seem better, and the smell and feel of the salt air has its own power to heal.

Or maybe the coast and the smell of repeatedly applied sunscreen is not your happy place. Maybe your Zin is discovered in our beautiful Carolina mountains. You may love water; you just prefer smaller bodies of water and are most found of mountain streams.

There are many stories of lowlanders who seek the cooler mountain air environment in the summer and fall months. Like our coastal area for the Carolinas, our mountains offer great diversity. From the home of the Easter Band of Cherokee Indians to Murphy, Waynesville, Asheville and then on to the Great Smokey Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We have great variety in the High County and Foothills with Sparta, West Jefferson, Boone, Banner Elk, Grandfather Mountain and Wilkesboro.

The cooler mountain air, vistas and easier way of being brings great peace to many people. The relaxing sound of a waterfall or mountain stream has a way of melting away the stress of the day, not unlike that sunset walk on the beach. When nature can have her way with us, relaxation of life’s burdens is often the result.

I am not sure if nature is fixing us or if we are better able to deal with life when we become more relaxed. Maybe stepping aside from our worries for a moment allows solutions to reveal themselves. In any event, taking a break from our everyday demands might be a good way for us to stay busy this summer.

For those who live in the places that many of us are seeking as a place of summer refuge, forgive us as we are rushing through your hometowns. We are doing our best and we are grateful that you are sharing your environment with us.

We have a lot going on and anytime you want a distraction from your daily life come and visit our hometown.

Whatever you chose to do this summer, wisdom suggest that we all use proper protection. A little skin protection now is better than the treatment that may be required later.

Happy Summer Friends.

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warninggraphiccontent · 3 years

Text

4 June 2021

Not feeling 100%?

This is more anecdote than data, but I feel like I've been seeing a lot of clustered bar charts (where you have a number of bars, for different series, bunched together in each category) with quite a lot of bars per category recently.

This sort of thing:

Lest I risk being stripped of my Peston Geek of the Week badges, there isn't anything particularly wrong with this - it just happened to be one example I noticed this week! But personally, I find four bars per category a bit much - I don't think the key stories are as easy to read as they might be. (I should confess my own sins at this point.)

In instances like this one - where the results for a single age group will add up to 100% - I think there's an obvious alternative: a 100% bar chart.

I think this makes the same point - that attitudes to lifting lockdown divide along age lines - more clearly. The thing you might lose is being able to easily compare should/should not for a particular age group, but that's not the main point being made and (personally) I think that takes some time with the original anyway.

Again, there's nothing particularly wrong with the original in this instance. But I've definitely seen more egregious examples, where the number of clustered columns becomes a bar to understanding the data.

Some initial thoughts on other subjects:

DB I thoroughly enjoyed last night's Data Bites geo-special, which you can watch as-live here (and will appear in slightly edited form here). I even included a chart-based quiz - question here (it does get there eventually), answer here. We'll be back on Wednesday 7 July with the next one, and then back on 8 September after a short summer break.

VPs Reports (Meta data, below) suggest the government has backtracked on many of its 'vaccine passport' plans for domestic use. (Rumours government will leave much to the free market are still a concern - government needs to provide clarity and be wary of harms, whoever is developing such systems.) Here's the Ada Lovelace Institute report on vaccine passports I was involved with.

GPDPR Also below are many links about the planned General Practice Data for Planning and Research, a new NHS Digital initiative to use patient data, which is now starting to become A Thing in the press.

LN If you're interested in data sonification, a new podcast - Loud Numbers - is launching with a whole festival on the topic this Saturday. Here are my collected sonifications for the Institute for Government podcast (which I've been saying I'll write up for about a year and a half now...)

ODI There are some great jobs - including researcher and senior researcher roles - going at the Open Data Institute, where I'm a special adviser (but don't let that put you off).

OGP NAP If you'd like to get involved in shaping the UK's next national action plan for open government, remember you can sign up here.

CogX And last but not least, I'm delighted to announce I'll be chairing a session on 'AI Governance: the role of the nation in a transnational world' at this year's CogX at 1pm on Wednesday 16 June.

W:GC will be taking a break next week, and perhaps the week after if I'm feeling really decadent. Remember there are 100+ other data newsletters, podcasts or event series you can sign up to here.

Have a great weekend/week/fortnight

Gavin

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Today's links:

Graphic content

Viral content

Peru has world’s worst per capita Covid toll after death data revised (The Guardian)

Pretty big validation... (John Burn-Murdoch)

Covid-19 deaths in Wuhan seem far higher than the official count (The Economist)

This is an analysis of the rate of growth of the "delta variant" (Alex Selby)

COVID-19: Indian variant now dominant in a fifth of areas in England - do you live in one? (Sky News)

How the Indian Covid variant has surged in England* (New Statesman)

Side effects

Covid catch-up plan for England pupils ‘pitiful compared with other countries’ (The Guardian)

How England’s school catch-up funding falls £13.6bn short* (New Statesman)

Concerns about missing work may be a barrier to coronavirus vaccination* (Washington Post)

COVID-19 passports: Britons are still in favour even as government scraps plans (YouGov)

Most people in UK did not work from home in 2020, says ONS (The Guardian)

UK's culture war divisions exaggerated but real, say public – as shown by views on equal rights, cultural change and class, and online bubbles (The Policy Institute at King's College London, Ipsos MORI)

Lewis Baston: London voting patterns 2021. Not so much a doughnut as a swirl (On London)

Labour, not the Conservatives, was the largest party among low-income workers in 2019* (New Statesman)

The Greens are on the march. Who should be afraid?* (New Statesman)

Gender in public life (IfG)

Is this the beginning of the end of marriage? (Tortoise)

Small share of US police draw third of complaints in big cities* (FT)

Biden Targets Racial, Social Inequities With Vast Spending Push* (Bloomberg)

Hunger has declined dramatically across America in the past year* (The Economist)

NYC’s School Algorithms Cement Segregation. This Data Shows How (The Markup)

The Persistent Grip of Social Class on College Admissions* (The Upshot)

Building a Home in the U.S. Has Never Been More Expensive* (Bloomberg)

Nature, environment, energy

Cicadas, insecticides and children* (The Economist)

Corporate-led $1bn forests scheme is ‘just the beginning’* (FT)

European Banks’ Next Big Problem? The CO2 in Their Loan Books (Bloomberg)

How an Insurgency Threatens Mozambique’s Gas Bonanza* (Bloomberg)

Everything else

English clubs are dominating European football once again* (The Economist)

Unpacking the 2021 Digital Government Survey (FWD50)

#dataviz

A collection of visualization techniques for geospatial network data (GEOSPATIAL NETWORK VISUALIZATION)

Reconstructing the Neighborhood Destroyed in the Tulsa Race Massacre* (New York Times)

Meta data

Viral content

NHS Covid app signs £10m six-month contract extension with developer Zühlke (Public Technology)

The UK’s response to new variants: a story of obfuscation and chaos (BMJ)

Exclusive: UK vaccine passport plans to be scrapped* (Telegraph)

Introducing Covid certificates is a ‘finely balanced’ decision, says Gove (The Guardian)

SCOTTISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT DURING COVID-19: DATA NEEDS, CAPABILITIES, AND USES (Urban Big Data Centre)

Sharing data to help with the Covid-19 vaccination programme (DWP Digital)

How Modi’s fraught relationship with pandemic data has harmed India* (FT)

All those pub apps you’ve downloaded are a privacy nightmare* (Wired)

Losing patients?

Our perspective on the new system for GP data (Understanding Patient Data)

Helen Salisbury: Should patients worry about their data? (BMJ)

Your NHS data will be quietly shared with third parties, with just weeks to opt out – GPs like me are worried (i)

Dear #research, People are opting out in droves – Matt Hancock’s data grab, facilitated by NHSX, is damaging your work (medConfidential)

Matt Hancock has quietly told your GP to hand over your health data. Why? (openDemocracy)

Plans to share NHS data must be reconsidered* (FT)

GPs warn over plans to share patient data with third parties in England (The Guardian)

The Guardian view on medical records: NHS data grab needs explaining (The Guardian)

Your medical records are about to be given away. As GPs, we’re fighting back (The Guardian)

UK government

Government Digital Service: Our strategy for 2021-2024 (Strategic Reading)

Geospatial Commission sets its 2021/22 priorities (Geospatial Commission)

Office for Statistics Regulation Annual Business Plan 2021/22 (OSR)

Office for National Statistics: the number-crunching whizzes keeping Britain afloat are the unsung heroes of the pandemic (Reaction)

Digital Strategy for Defence: Delivering the Digital Backbone and unleashing the power of Defence’s data (MoD)

Introducing a Head of Digital role to DfE (DfE Digital and Technology)

Why we’ve created an accessibility manual – and how you can help shape it (DWP Digital)

Working in data, insight and user research roles at GOV.UK (Inside GOV.UK)

How to make hybrid or ‘blended’ meetings work for your team (MoJ Digital and Technology)

AI got 'rithm

How soft law is used in AI governance (Brookings)

The race to understand the exhilarating, dangerous world of language AI* (MIT Technology Review)

Can AI be independent from big tech?* (Tortoise)

Sentenced by Algorithm* (New York Review of Books)

Google says it’s committed to ethical AI research. Its ethical AI team isn’t so sure. (Recode)

Facebook’s AI treats Palestinian activists like it treats American Black activists. It blocks them.* (Washington Post)

Privacy, people, personal data

Privacy group targets website 'cookie terror' (BBC News)

EU to step up digital push with digital identity wallet (Reuters)

ICO call for views: Anonymisation, pseudonymisation and privacy enhancing technologies guidance (ICO)

Data isn’t oil, whatever tech commentators tell you: it’s people’s lives (The Observer)

Everything else

In big tech’s dystopia, cat videos earn millions while real artists beg for tips (The Guardian)

Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies (BBC News)

Gadgets have stopped working together, and it’s becoming an issue (The Observer)

German Bundestag adopts autonomous driving law (The Robot Report)

Code is cheap; ignorance is costly (Matt Edgar)

The internet is flat. (Galaxy Brain)

Opportunities

EVENT: AI Governance: the role of the nation in a transnational world (CogX)

Full programme

EVENT: Special Topic Meeting on R/local R/transmission of Covid19 (Royal Statistical Society)

EVENT: Deploying algorithms in government (Global Government Forum)

EVENT: Emerging approaches to the regulation of biometrics: The EU, the US and the challenge to the UK (Ada Lovelace Institute)

SURVEY: Help to shape the National AI Strategy (AI Council, supported by The Alan Turing Institute)

JOB: CEO (Advanced Research and Invention Agency)

BEIS seeks chief for research agency championed by Cummings (Civil Service World)

JOB: Chief Digital Officer for Health and Care for Wales (Health Education and Improvement Wales, via Jukesie)

JOB: Head of Data Strategy (Companies House)

JOB: Head of Data Policy Analysis Team (DCMS)

JOB: Data Architect (GDS)

JOBS: Open Data Institute

JOBS: Open Data Manchester

JOB: Manager, Data and Digital Team (Social Finance, via Jukesie)

And finally...

Baked in

We collected data on 1,500 politicians' favourite biscuit. Here's what we found. (Democracy Club)

NYC Mayor Race: Ranked-Choice Ballot Explained, With Bagels* (Wall Street Journal)

Maps

Countries coloured by the number of other countries they border (Helen McKenzie)

An orange or an egg? Determining the shape of the world* (The Spectator)

I'm planning to cycle around London looking at bits of internet infrastructure and general sites of interest in computer history (Reuben Binns)

"How much of Scotland is further south than the most northerly part of England?" (Alasdair Rae)

Cartoons

'It's just counting!' (Scott Murray)

Help a Computer Win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest (The Pudding)

Everything else

Can you make AI fairer than a judge? Play our courtroom algorithm game (MIT Technology Review)

Behind the painstaking process of creating Chinese computer fonts* (MIT Technology Review)

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urbansaunterer · 6 years

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The Palestinian olive tree and Ahed Tamimi

This is the writer’s daughter making a card for Ahed Tamimi celebration her 17th birthday in Texas 2018. If you pull out an olive tree from my land, I'll plant a hundred olive trees in return, and that's my heroic motto. After my father's release from the Negev prison in 1988, our family, friends, and neighbors had a huge celebration welcoming him home. He spent a few months as a political prisoner in the harsh Negev prison. I was so happy to have him home, as a 7-year-old it was terrible to have my father away from us for such a long time. At first, we couldn't recognize my father with a big beard and my little sister and brother were scarred of the strange man embracing our mother. Life was mostly normal after that, normal for a Palestinian family resisting occupation that is. Our lives were always interrupted with road closures, demonstrations, targeting of political activists some of which were my classmates, neighbors, relatives, and friends, and all kinds of restrictions on Palestinian life. Through all this my parents were determined to give their children a decent life. They struggled complete the construction of our family home which, in my culture, is the best way to guarantee a future for your family. There is a feeling that all you need is your land and home, and you can survive anything. Therefore, the confiscation of land and destruction of home in Palestine by the Israeli Occupation is one of the harshest ways that they attempt to break the will of the people. But the people continue to struggle to keep their, plant their olive trees, grow their families, and build their homes. Growing up, my father always encouraged us to be brave and not fear anything. I didn’t understand how important this was, but now I understand that being in a place where you have to struggle just to survive and have a voice you must be courageous. There are many “children of the stone” like me, children who grew up through the first Palestinian Intifada of 1987 and learned to face a force intent on destroying your way of life. The Palestinian struggle was keen on making the people aware of their human rights. It also encouraged them to stand up to oppression and defend their rights. My dad was born before the war of 1948. He lost his father at a young age, and my grandmother, at the age of 18, had to raise four children on her own. She had nothing but her children and the land she inherited from my grandfather as the main source of income. She used the land to plant an olive orchard and make a life for her and her children. The olive tree is an important part of Palestinian heritage because it has guaranteed a life for those who took care of the trees. As a young girl, my father would tell me the history of the olive tree and how the Romans brought it to Palestine when they ruled here. And Palestinians have adopted the olive tree as a symbol of their attachment to their land. This tree is a resilient tree and likewise, the Palestinians draw their strength from its strong roots and resilience. The olive harvest season in October bears socio-cultural meaning where families come together to harvest the trees. I still remember those days when we came home from school and then going out to the field to pick the olives, then coming back home to finish our homework. After the harvest is complete we would take the olives to our family factory where the olives are pressed to make olive oil. I remember standing next to my dad to have a taste of the freshest olive oil along with my pita bread. He used to say that once you drink olive oil it becomes part of your soul. I will never forget and miss always miss the smell of olives on those days. Every day, my father took us to work on our ancestral land. Taking care of olive trees or just walking around on the land. I remember on our walks seeing only settlements in the distance and my father recalling how he would visit that distant land to visit relatives as a child. As a child myself, I would ask questions about who we were there now and why can’t go there to play where he used to play, but he had no answers to give. He would tell me more stories about the olive trees and their connection with the people of Palestine and all the civilizations that governed it over the ages. The olive Tree is a sacred tree and has been mentioned in the three holy books of the Abrahamic faiths; Quran, Bible, and Torah. Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) taught the importance of this tree in providing food and medicine. Palestinians also take pride in that arguably the oldest olive tree in the world, Al Badawi, is found in Al Walaja which is a small town within the municipality of Bethlehem. The years have passed, and our trees have grown, towering with strength and dignity. Bringing a larger olive harvest every year. I returned to visit Palestine and my three children from America in December 2017, and they saw in their own eyes the presence of olive trees as a sign of our heritage. Unfortunately, our visit coincided with President Trump making a decision which could deprive Palestinians of claiming Jerusalem as their capital of Palestine. A city which has been at the root of Palestinian heritage for hundreds and thousands of years. While we were there, the events unfolded rapidly with marches and demonstrations condemning this US decision. There were, as always violations of Palestinian rights which lead to the arrest of Ahed Tamimi and her mother, Nariman Tamimi. Ahed is a Palestinian child born on the land of the village of Nabi Saleh in Palestine. She loved her family and her land and reminded me of myself when I was a little girl. She, like me, was taught the significance of our Palestinian heritage and the importance of the olive tree in Palestine. Ahed Tamimi realized that the extraction of the olive tree from its soil was more like grabbing a child from its mother's lap. The olive trees in Palestine tells our people’s history and needs to reach the ears of the whole world, it is a tale of a people ready to sacrifice everything for their land. A people ready to die with dignity like the olive tree, rather than live in humiliation.

#ahed tamimi #palestine

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quotidianoalessandriaastionline · 6 years

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American Jews: Ahed Tamimi Is Your Issue, Too Do you only feel injustice at the Western Wall, and not at the walls where Palestinians are shot and arrested? If you call yourselves progressives, you can’t just be a spectator to Palestinian suffering

Marilyn Garson Dec 31, 2017 5:00 PM 0comments Zen Subscribe now 353share on facebook Tweet send via email reddit stumbleupon

16 year-old Ahed al-Tamimi during a protest in Ramallah in September 2015. Tamimi is in custody after being arrested at home in Nabi Saleh in the northern West Bank for slapping an IDF soldier Issam Rimawi / Anadolu Agency Opinion And if Ahed Tamimi were your daughter? Opinion This year Netanyahu ditched the Jewish diaspora. The question is: Why? ‘We won’t take part in occupation’: Dozens of teens refuse to enlist in Israeli army in letter to Netanyahu Gaza rocket barrage: Direct hit to building in southern Israeli community

Dear fellow American progressive Jews,

I am sorry to hear that the setbacks of 2017 have disappointed you, not least the attitude of Israel’s prime minister towards you. Well, OK, not so much. Your previous comfort level with current-day Israel was troubling, and I am relieved for anything that loosens its grip.

You may refrain from mentioning Israel in your synagogues because you find it divisive, but you are not thereby excused from responsibility. The unmentioned rifts fester, they do not heal.

Your patient political deliberation would be solely your business if the net effect were neutral. However, the passage of time is not neutral. It embeds the status quo. It normalizes a violence that must not be allowed to feel normal.

How many settlers occupied the West Bank when you first felt queasy, and how many more live there now? How many Gazan babies have been born behind walls – condemned before birth – since you decided that justice within the Green Line should come first?

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Since Trump unilaterally handed over a city that does not belong to him, you’ve gone even quieter.

You waved an egalitarian banner so vigorously to demand justice in front of one wall this year, and I am aggrieved and indignant with you on that prayer plaza.

Palestinian mourners carry the body of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a double amputee from a 1988 Israeli bombing, who was shot and killed by Israeli troops in clashes on the Israeli:Gaza border. Dec 16, 2017 AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra Then a Gazan double amputee waved a flag before another wall. He was unarmed, far away from well-armed Israeli soldiers. When he was targeted, shot and killed by an IDF sniper, did your sense of justice join him on that field?

He was one of a dozen killed in these protests so far. Ahed Tamimi is in military custody at the age of 16 years, and her 14-year-old cousin, comatose after being shot in the face; they are among an unconscionable number of child victims.

This violence is too debased. You are not immune to other suffering, so how can you be a spectator at the suffering inflicted in your name? How can you not weigh in, with your numbers and your influence and your organizations, to arrest this accumulation of new pain, and bring peace one step closer?

Did you think you are not implicated? When an intersection of protest against the occupation embraced Palestinians and a number of young Jews, did you think they wouldn’t point at the left side of the tent?

This ‘tent’ of the American Jewish liberal conscience and community – it is an echo chamber, whose establishment sounds as scripted as their Palestinian counterparts. Worse for you, as thinking progressives, the gatekeepers of the tent regulate what should be your personal, unflinching, full-frontal encounter with power and powerlessness.

A demonstrator during clashes with Israeli troops at a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, near the West Bank city of Nablus. December 29, 2017REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman It’s past time to disintermediate the old gatekeepers, as a hopeful number of mostly-young Jews and Palestinians are doing. They are walking out. Will you?

Make 2018 your breakout year of primary sources. Here are four that help me.

Listen directly to the Palestinian voices of the new generation. Because you cannot meet them in person, make an extra effort to hear the musicians of Gaza, watch the dancers, visit the virtual art gallery, read their writing of their own stories, hire a freelancer. Let their whole humanity make demands upon yours.

Study the Jewish primary sources. Unshroud our 6000-year-old religion from a 60-year-old policy. Wrestle with the grammar and the poetry of Biblical Hebrew to read the assignment of the Prophets.

Yonah Lieberman, founder of the IfNotNow organization, being dragged away by a police officer from a recent anti-occupation protest in JerusalemJon Atkins Read the arguments. From the hilltops to the intersections, seek out your most thoughtful and ardent opponents. Debate them in substance rather than caricature.

Read about human rights and international law. Adopt the frameworks that humanize, protect, and hold our two peoples responsible. That’s the tent to dwell in.

Dear fellow Jewish progressives, there is no tame space left for this humming and hawing that Trump was, well, unfortunate but, um, still sort of right because of the, you know, facts on the ground, and the UN – OK, kind of the whole world – is just anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and anyway, they’ve always been unreasonable about Jerusalem…

The next facts on the ground to be validated will be the settlements, you know that, right? Next Year in Ramallah, in time for Trump’s Congressional elections?

Injustice is happening in your name.

So, please, make yourself uncomfortable in 2018. Study the primary source material, and take a side. Find your piece of it, and act.

Marilyn Garson worked nearly two decades with communities affected by conflict, including 2011 – 2015 in the Gaza Strip. She writes from New Zealand, and her blog is Transforming Gaza. Twitter: @skinonbothsides

Marilyn Garson read more: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.832217

GERUSALEMME. American Jews: Ahed Tamimi Is Your Issue, Too read more: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.832217 American Jews: Ahed Tamimi Is Your Issue, Too Do you only feel injustice at the Western Wall, and not at the walls where Palestinians are shot and arrested?

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ruminativerabbi · 4 years

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Lawfare is Warfare

When I first heard that the International Criminal Court based in The Hague had determined that war crimes have been committed on the West Bank, in Gaza, and in East Jerusalem and was going to embark on the process of deciding whether or not to prosecute those alleged crimes, my first tendency—like most normal people, I imagine—was to wave it away as yet another example of an organization founded to prosecute wrongdoing being hijacked by Israel’s enemies as part of a long-term effort to delegitimize the Jewish state. In a nutshell, that actually is what this is all about. But the potential consequences for Israel are serious. And the situation, as it turns out, is far more complicated than I had first understood.

The court was founded in 2002 by the signatories to the so-called Rome Statute that now serves as the court’s foundational document. Neither the United States nor Israel is a signatory to the Rome Statute, however, because at the time both nations feared—apparently entirely reasonably—that the court would end up delivering highly politicized judgments unrelated to the pursuit of justice that was supposed to be the court’s raison d’être in the first place. And although the ICC is in theory independent of the United Nations, the on-the-ground reality is that the Court is so intricately related to the U.N. so as to make of its latest machinations just another part of the U.N.’s mission to ignore—and, indeed, to whitewash—the crimes of all members states except Israel so as to have the time solely to devote itself to the demonization of the Jewish state. (More on this below.) But just to wave this latest development as just another example of the moral bankruptcy of a United Nations-related agency like UNESCO or (even more egregiously) UNRWA would be a mistake. This is an important development that needs to be taken seriously.

The ICC can only try individuals, not entire countries. And so, if the pre-trial hearing that will now ensue endorses the opinion the President of the Court, Fatou Bensouda of Guinea, that the ICC does indeed have the right to pursue the matter, what will almost inevitably follow will be the issuance of subpoenas to major Israeli political and military figures ordering them to appear before the court. If they declined to appear, warrants could then be issued for their arrest. And although it is so that the Bensouda’s original decision speaks in passing about crimes committed by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, no one appears to be taking any of that too seriously—including not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, both of which organizations openly and effusively praised Bensouda’s decision to proceed and neither of which entities seemed to harbor even the slightest worry that it might end up having to answer for any of its own actions.

There are strong arguments against the ICC decision to move forward against Israel, some procedural and some moral. Of them, though, surely not the least compelling is the relationship—ignored by the court but fully relevant—between the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Accord and the fact that the ICC only has the right to bring the citizens of member states to trial. But there are other strong arguments in Israel’s favor as well.

The ICC’s decision to treat the Palestinians as though Palestine were an independent country is rooted in the kind of wishful thinking that has characterized the fantasyland approach to reality of the United Nations for decades. Palestine, of course, could easily become an independent country: having already been recognized as a state—or at least a state in potentia—by well over one hundred countries, all the Palestinians have to do is to declare their independence and then get down to the task of negotiating a workable modus vivendi with the neighbors. It’s that last part, of course, that has gummed up the works for decades now: the obvious necessity of recognizing the reality of Israel’s existence and learning to live in harmony with the Jewish state has been the sticking point that has held back the Palestinians from doing what they endlessly insist is all they really want to do: to live in peace as an independent state among the nations of the world. But that inability to accept reality and create a nation is hardly Israel’s fault: the door to Palestinian independence has been open for decades even despite the Palestinians’ unwillingness to step through it. The ICC’s solution—simply to ignore reality—is simultaneously childish and malign, and does not do the court any credit. But there is far more to say as well.

Key too is that the court exists to prosecute individuals for war crimes in places where there is no independent judiciary that can investigate and try its own citizens. But Israel is hardly that place: the independence of the Israeli judiciary and its ability to act freely has just been demonstrated in the various indictments handed down against Benyamin Netanyahu. Even more relevant, though, is that there actually have been individuals tried over the years in Israel for having behaved with excessive force or violence against Palestinians. So the notion that the ICC would need to step in even if it did have some sort of jurisdiction in the matter is not particularly convincing. And when paired with the fact that neither the Palestinian Authority nor Hamas has ever tried anyone for war crimes committed against Israeli citizens and actually foster terror crimes against civilians by lionizing terrorists who die on the job and providing endless financial support for their families—taken together, those two facts make the whole notion of trying Israel at the ICC even more Kafkaesque.

But when all of the above is considered in light of the ICC’s own history, the situation moves past Kafka.

The ICC has, to date, undertaken investigations into twelve different countries, mostly in Africa. (The countries involved are Burundi, the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Kenya, Mali, Libya, Uganda, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.) But it has adopted a totally hands-off policy with respect to the Arab world: the government of Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of its own civilians over the last few years, destroyed countless towns and villages, and turned fully half of its own population into refugees. But the ICC has shown no interest of any sort in that behavior. Indeed, among the nations of the Middle East, only Israel arouses its ire…and merely for defending itself against entities that openly espouse terror as their weapon of choice in a war they could end tomorrow but prefer to pursue perennially as though violence directed at civilians could somehow result in the achievement of their avowed goals.

Finally, the argument—which I’ve noted in a dozen different on-line settings—that the ICC is independent of the United Nations is simply not true. For one thing, the ICC depends fully on the United Nations for all of its funding. For another, the ICC regularly bases itself on the kind of one-sided, wholly biased reporting of U.N. agencies that no reasonable person would consider even remotely accurate.

The world has mostly nodded. Yes, the P.M. of Australia, who has more on his plate this week to worry about than the ICC, took the time to opine in public that the ICC has no jurisdiction in the matter of Israel’s behavior. The German government said much the same thing, as did our own Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. So there’s that to be grateful for. But the larger issue—the public demonization of Israel in the larger forum of nations and the general willingness of the nations of the world not to care or even particularly to notice—is beyond distressing.

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, the issue itself of war crimes committed during the Gaza Uprising of 2014 is itself a bogus charge invented by Israel’s enemies without any serious evidence to muster on its own behalf. A year later, in 2015, the independent High-Level Military Group—a group led by General Klaus Naumann, the former chief of staff of the German Army and the Chairman of the NATO military committee and staffed by generals, high-level military experts, senior officers, and chiefs of staff from seven NATO nations—came to the following conclusion regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza: “Each of our own armies is of course committed to protecting civilian life during combat. But none of us is aware of any army that takes such extensive measures as did the IDF last summer to protect the lives of the civilian population in such circumstances…During Operation Protective Edge, in the air, on the ground and at sea, Israel not only met a reasonable international standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard.”

As the specter of anti-Semitism rises at home and abroad, we tend to focus on the thugs and brutes that attack Jews at worship in synagogue or at home. That rising tide has to be addressed, obviously, and somehow confronted. But to allow our distress over that kind of activity at home to divert our gaze from institutions like the ICC merely because they present themselves not as ruffians or hoodlums but as jurists concerned solely with the pursuit of justice—that would be a disastrous error of judgment. In the end, I still hope that reasonableness will prevail, but I feel less sanguine with each successive article I read, both in print and online, about the inner workings of the International Criminal Court. Our government has already spoken out forcefully on the side of decency and rationality. I mentioned above the responses of Germany and Australia. Which of our other so-called friends and allies will join us in calling out the ICC, on the other hand, remains to be seen.

#International Criminal Court #ICC

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krystynasierbien · 7 years

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ISIS IS A PLACE… ISIS IS A STATE OF MIND…

There’s been a massacre on the streets of Paris for the second time this year and again it looks like those responsible for the bloodshed were European conduits of the much reviled Islamic State. The British government is on the precipice of embarking on military action in co-ordination with its allies, in Syria; which can only mean more bombs, more carnage and more deaths. This isn’t about oil, its effervescent cousin gas; nor is it about securing pipeline through-routes as had been the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, oh no. This is about good versus evil, dark versus light; progress versus barbarism, and the emancipation of Arab women from a fate of servitude and oppression. Or is it? If there is no ultimate evil to fight; if there is no recourse to the liberation of one thing from another; then governments are unable to justify military operations to their respective electorates. Often, they’ll go ahead and do it anyway though of course. Islamic State is confused, but then so is our response to its militants. ISIS is weak, but it’s also powerful. It is isolated; but it’s also allied. It cries faith and tradition and yet it bleeds criminal syndicalism, murder, and oppression. And of course the questions remain — who’s buying their oil, who’s sending them weapons, who’s bankrolling their militants? We know that there are middlemen, but who do those shadowy figures answer to? Because we know — we know that all is far from what it seems in the Middle East in 2015 and yet it’s seemingly impossible to distinguish truth from myth, thanks to the chaos and disinformation that’s abounding from all sides. Islamic State is at the epicentre of a formless war being fought by formless sides, manipulated by formless actors with equally formless goals. In fact it looks like the ‘goal’ is to maintain, as opposed to remedy, the formlessness of the immediate region and the fractured societies struggling to survive therein. ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh — or Islamist Scumbags as Andrew Neil recently described them in his opening monologue on This Week: a spiel in which he praises the country’s nuclear capabilities in the same breath as crème brûlée, Voltaire and Camus — is the caricature of 21st century evil that the whole world seems to agree on. Perhaps it was naive to assume that what happened in January at Charlie Hebdo would be the last of the extremist violence which Parisians would have to endure this year, but assuming otherwise is hardly conducive with a society that bases its decisions, not on fear of an indeterminate enemy, but on a love for humanity. On the hope that things will get better and that enlightened justice for all will eventually prevail. You may have visited Paris before. Perhaps you even lived there for a while. You may have family, friends or colleagues who call some small corner of the city’s narrow streets home. You may know and love the city for what it is; in all its contradictory beauty. You’re confused as to why the land of liberté, fraternité et égalité inspires fundamentalist extremists to despise it so vehemently. Is this really about a hatred for the French way of life? Why didn’t this happen in London or Berlin? Why Paris, why again, and why now?

Last week, the UN Security Council (of which the UK is one of 15 member states) unanimously declared ISIS “a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security” whose continuing existence demands that ‘able states’ like Britain engage militarily against its insurgents and their strongholds in Syria, like it is doing in Iraq. Drafted in haste by French representatives in the wake of the attacks in Paris, the resolution had not been ratified in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Had it been, the Security Council itself could have then authorised military action on behalf of the international community. Because it was not, it has been left to David Cameron to hold a parliamentary vote on British military involvement in Syria in accordance with the UN’s recommendations instead in the familiar old one-two diplomatic death step. During a speech at Versailles in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, President Hollande told the international Body Politic that France and its allies were now unequivocally ‘at war’ with the amorphous extremist group, as if that weren’t already the case. French borders are now closed. A state of emergency has been declared, and the usual loud minority of opportunists are absolutely certain the bloodshed could have been avoided had the borders only been closed off sooner. “Some people have tried to draw a connection between the movement of refugees from the Middle East and the terrorist threat. This link exists because people from Iraq and Syria live in areas controlled by Islamic State and are killed by those who attack us” Hollande explained on their behalf in a public address last week, before closing those very borders. The reality is this collective ‘some’ Hollande refers to may well be the empowered majority in France come election time. Front Nationale have averaged 40% approval ratings in opinion polls this year and their political ambitions have only gained traction following the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in January. In between sobs for the victims and corresponding snarls of revulsion for the killers in the aftermath of these despicable murders, a few powerful Le Pen supporters no doubt rubbed their hands in strategic glee. Because in tragedies like these, invariably there is also political opportunity. And while refugees have been most affected by the immediate security measures — with the closure of the French borders refugees now also face severely limited access to the UK’s — this ‘blowback’ is also steadying its focus inwards. President Hollande has called upon EU leaders to suspend the Schengen Agreement and adopt the Passenger Name Records (PNR) system, which if enacted would hand European intelligence agencies extended powers — not to mention further centralise their resources — to track the movements of European citizens for counter-terrorism purposes, so that ‘enemies within’ can be effectively targeted and neutralised.

Islamic State is a place with amorphous borders and power structures, whose agents have been known to take responsibility for events which have nothing to do with them; but it’s also something immaterial. It is ideology or at least the illusion of it. The realisation that no matter how overarching Western hegemony might first appear, it’s still possible to blow up a small part of it and strike fear in the hearts of millions. They want us to hate them, because they seem to hate us just as much — and in that perceived mutual hatred, the rest of the world has found a semblance of unity. And that unity, that solidarity in the face of a most contemporary evil with the most medieval of aims has so far translated into turbo-pummelling the city of Raqqah and its 250,000 residents on an unprecedented scale in the name of justice. The majority of people who live in the ISIS city stronghold in Syria are captives. They are akin to Palestinian human shields, at the mercy of IDF soldiers and occupying Israeli forces. If it turns out that fewer than 129 of the estimated 1500 deaths in Raqqah this past fortnight were civilians does that mean their deaths were somehow justifiable, and that the response thus far on the part of French, Russian and US forces has therefore been proportionate? That the UK is righteous in joining their fellow red, white and blue allies? In recent years some of the most consequential decisions about civilian lives in the Middle East have been made within the city limits of major Western urban hubs. But for some reason we don’t think about the concentration of opportunity in these cities as anything more than a migrational and economic phenomenon. We don’t think of its coercive pull on people as a subtle appropriation of human shields on the part of Western governments themselves. Even though in a roundabout sense, that’s precisely what they’re doing. Ask yourself why you know little about how many civilians have been killed in Raqqah over the past fortnight, and why that seems ‘normal’. Ask yourself why most of the ‘on-the-ground’ coverage of the operation is being provided by the likes of CNN and its pearl toothed goons. They do a lot of talking, but how useful is the information they actually convey? What’s the point in knowing the type of missile, and how many of them have been dropped when there’s no-one around willing to quantify the casualties, or even ascertain how many of these strikes actually hit the intended targets? Ask yourself why 41 people were killed some 3000 kilometres away from Paris less than 48 hours earlier in Beirut, the capital of a country which has long-serving historical, economic, cultural and military ties with France. Then ask yourself why comparatively speaking no-one BATted an eyelash when those people were killed. Yes, “it happens there a lot” but is that an adequate excuse?

Seven suicide bombers have been identified as culprits for the murders. All of them either Belgian or French nationals. All of them millennials. According to unnamed Belgian security officials two of the men had trained and fought alongside the much reviled Islamic State a few months prior to carrying out the attacks before returning home to Belgium from the battleground of the 21st century’s most confusing proxy war along the stretch of land formerly known as Syria to execute their murderous plan. As many as 10 more suspects are thought to have been involved in the attack following a series of co-ordinated police raids in Parisian and Belgian suburbs last week, during which one 26 year old woman and former ‘boy-mad party animal’ blew herself up. One of the assailants — a 31 year old Belgian man named Ibrahim Abdeslam who has since been described as “chilled” by those who knew him — had never been a particularly devout Muslim according to his former spouse. His friends and family had no idea that he was capable of doing what he did up until the point he actually did it. He rarely attended mosque nor did he have a reputation for being a violent man. He did smoke a ton of weed and would sleep a lot during the day though. He drank alcohol from time to time, which he paid for with proceeds from welfare payments he’d been claiming for years despite being a qualified electrician. His usual poison was Russian vodka, but as yet no such concrete link has been established between this particular ISIS sleeper cell and Putin’s Kremlin.

Osama bin Laden’s bookshelf was the first thing that sprung to my mind when news about Paris surfaced. Friday 13th. I thought to myself. THEM. The Knights Templar. The “old money” and the secret power. Turns out the compound hide-out in Abbottabad where in 2011 the bookshelf and world’s most wanted man were eventually found was nothing like the Tracy Island structure Colin Powell had envisioned in the Afghan mountains in 2003. There was in fact no Extremist Industrial Complex with retractable helicopter landing pads and thermo-nuclear capabilities built into the side of exposed rockface in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden’s hide-out was a cordoned-off room in a reinforced shack with a lumpy old mattress upon the floor: more bedsit than Dr Evil-esque lair. In retrospect, it’s almost unbelievable Powell’s now infamous blueprints were received as anything other than a hilarious troll at the most inappropriate of times. What struck me was the former al Qaeda leader’s choice of reading material — material released in suspiciously close proximity to Seymour Hersh’s 10,000 word essay about Bin Laden’s 2011 assassination — which grants candid insight into his pathology, living out his final days in near solitude and most likely also soul-destroying boredom within the confines of the de-facto prison cell he’d *allegedly* called home for the previous five years. I thought about the Islam for Dummies book the Director of National Intelligence team had recovered during the raid. About whether or not that had all been an elaborate troll too. I thought about distractions, markers and symbolism. I thought about Bin Laden’s copy of Fritz Springmeier’s “Bloodlines of the Illuminati.” More than anything else though, I thought about bin Laden’s fascination with France. About the nineteen essays and reports pertaining to French economic, nuclear & defense policy that were recovered at the scene, including titles like “Did France Cause the Great Depression?”, “France on Radioactive Waste Management 2008” and “Lessons in Restructuring the Defense Industry, the French Experience.” I thought about the perpetrators of the latest carnage. Did they have a copy of Islam for Dummies on their bookshelves at home too, I wondered, or a PDF download of Bloodlines of the Illuminati on their laptops? I thought about the fact they’d likely seen all the YouTube videos I have. Former normal people armed with explosives and AK47s going buck wild on the streets of Paris, and taking so many lives along with their own. It’s frightening because it’s also banal these days. It’s not about Allah or paradise as much as it is boredom and mental illness. It is the yearning for a transcendent experience, which perhaps civilised society cannot provide, that is central to this 21st century death-cult worldview. It’s about the draw of esoteric knowledge and the thrill of the unknowable. I thought about the charred but intact Saudi passport that was miraculously found at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11. I thought about distractions, misnomers, hidden messages and symbolism; and about the rescue of Jessica Lynch. I thought about those Hussein loyalists who in 1990 ransacked a neonatal ward at a Baghdad hospital. Who removed premature Iraqi babies from the incubators they rested in, took those incubators, and then left them to die on the cold, cold floor.

The Sandra Bland Blues…

After spotting a minor traffic violation while on patrol on July 13th Trooper Brian Encinia of Waller County Sheriff’s Department, Texas, decided to pull over the offending driver; allegedly just to issue a warning. Only that warning became a ticket, which then morphed into an arrest within a matter of seconds. About as long as it took for Encinia to absorb the driver’s refusal to be coy with him. 28-year-old Black Lives Matter activist Sandra “Sandy” Bland was that driver and the particulars, well, actually, ‘particular’ – one thing – of the crime was that she had forgotten to indicate when switching lanes on a deserted Texan highway. Less than a fortnight later on July 25th Sandra was laid to rest by loved ones as the rest of the world gawped. As mourners gathered to say goodbye news crews from across the country flocked to the Chicago suburb where the ceremony took place for comment, because turning a funeral into a media circus is simply the done thing now. “That woman deserved dignity, respect!” a man (or woman) in a nearby bush (probably) exclaimed whilst idly zooming in and out of the mourner’s grief-stricken faces. During a press conference that day, at a fucking funeral, the family’s attorney confirmed they were dubious about Waller County Police Department’s version of events, which ruled Sandra’s death a suicide. Why? Because Sandra’s mother Geneva Veal-Read told Al Sharpton (who’s a newsreader now apparently) that “she just wouldn’t have killed herself” in an interview on MSNBC.

On the Bland family’s request a second, independent autopsy was conducted to compare, contrast and potentially challenge the conclusions drawn by the Waller County Police Department. The results are yet to be released but in the meantime theories and observations – from the astute to the ridiculous, the plausible to the deliberately misleading – continue to reverberate online. The focus on unveiling a cover-up is why the Black Lives Matters movement took up Sandra’s case in the first place. Because as a black woman, it’s assumed her arrest and mistreatment at the hands of the police hinged on the colour of her skin: that Sandra died because she was black, or at the very least had Sandra not been black she would not have been arrested in the first place and would therefore still be alive. In Texas, given the disproportionate number of traffic stops African Americans are subject to it’s certainly more likely that being black was a contributing factor to her being pulled over. But there’s been no significant mention from any major media outlet about how revenue generated from traffic tickets and the bail system funds many small town police departments in the US and that these mechanisms are being exploited because police departments are reliant on the income generated by both. Was Sandra pulled over because she was black or was she simply fulfilling some bullshit traffic stop quota Encinia was keeping, to begin with at least? Just recently a long serving Texan municipal court judge quit his job over what he described as a 'ticketing quota system’ in Falls and Robertson counties, claiming that the local municipal court is essentially the police department’s cash cow. It’s an exploitative system, always has been, and because African Americans are condemned to its sanctions disproportionately it hits them hardest economically. African Americans are thus forced into subsidising a law enforcement which vilifies all, but targets their ethnic group most.

The court set Sandra a $5,000 bond – which, from my cursory research is excessive in relation to her ‘crime’– that would have been returned to her upon attending the official proceedings had she been able to pay in full. At the time she couldn’t so alternatively, had she been able to pay a bail bondsman $500 to post the $5,000 on her behalf she could also have left the jailhouse. She was clearly distressed by the situation she was in and she had (apparently) been self-harming in the weeks leading up to her arrest according to the contested autopsy report, which said she had three week old cut wounds on her wrists. If she couldn’t raise the deposit to leave; and if the people she called couldn’t pool the money together either then surely Black Lives Matter could have stepped in to raise the cash had their help been requested? BLM activists – what’s the phone number people in Sandy’s situation should call from whatever jail they’re confined to to state their case for assistance with police bail when neither themselves nor their families/friends are able to raise the bond money? Why was that not the first thing you clarified after Sandra’s death? Police dash-cam footage of the arrest had to be re-released following accusations of editing and 'suspiciously timed’ technical glitches by thousands of internet sleuths. Sandra is hostile but poised towards the officer in the video when he asks her to put out the cigarette, and she commits absolutely no crime in doing so. No law compels Sandra to put out her cigarette in her own car and she is aware of this. Clearly to the annoyance of the police officers. Encinia doesn’t just fail to de-escalate the tension, he openly exacerbates it. He tries to drag Sandy from the car before threatening her with his taser. “Get out of the car, or I will light you up!” he bellows at one point as she exits the vehicle. Shortly afterwards, out of shot although clearly audible, Sandra, who is restrained on the ground at this point explains she has epilepsy, and that she had lost hearing in one ear after hitting her head on the ground during the scuffle. “Good!” Encinia responds. “And you don’t even care!” she screams back, clearly exasperated and in pain.

Sandra was, eventually, after a Kafkaesque sideshow performed by Encinia formally arrested for 'Assault on a Public Servant’. In the video, Encinia stalls in telling her exactly what she is being arrested for on multiple occasions. He implies she’s under arrest before she even exits her car, before anything that could be reasonably construed as an assault on her part takes place. He baits her until she reacts to his aggression with her own. His manner is bizarre and infantilising throughout, like a drill sergeant hungry for respect laying into an unruly new recruit. And it’s clear he’s aware of the dash-cam’s gaze. Sandra – whose actual 'crime’, remember, was forgetting to indicate – was then taken to Waller County Jail where she died under contested circumstances in a grey cell, having received no visitors and having had no luck raising the bail money that was set seventy two hours later. As the footage of the arrest clearly demonstrates Encinia was combative and unprofessional in the way he handled the situation leading up to Sandy’s arrest, to the point of goading. Sandra Bland should not have been arrested in the first place. She was on her way back home after a successful job interview for a position at her alma-meter, Prairie View A&M when Encinia’s path crossed with hers. She was planning for the future. She was a Black Lives Matter activist. She was fairly prolific on social media and would often post candid videos about the movement, along with musings about dealing with the depression, anxiety and loss life burdens us all with at one time or another. She was open. She has been described as 'complicated’ – but who isn’t? She was eloquent, fierce and a demonstrably skilful orator: the kind of activist law enforcements and security services would potentially keep tabs on. For this reason, Black Lives Matters activists are wary that Sandra’s open support for the movement may have affected the treatment she received at the hands of Waller County Police. BLM honcho @Deray revealed via his Twitter account recently that the FBI monitored his and a few of his comrade’s on and offline activities during the Ferguson protests, so it’s understandable why suspicions have been roused.

It’s certainly possible the police officers were privy to details about Sandra’s life either before or soon after she was pulled over, or later at the jailhouse. By cross-referencing the car’s license plate her name would have been found soon enough, and a Google search would have revealed the rest. But this is also a condition of the 21st Century. Everybody – by which of course I don’t mean everybody – has internet access nowadays and thanks to new encryption technologies you can mask your browsing habits anyway, if you really want to. Technology exacerbates the paradigm of doubt, its true. It’s also becoming increasingly easy to construct 'real-life’ images and scenes so as to appear authentic thanks to advances in imaging technologies: and if the saboteur is skilled enough then proving outright that the image is a forgery can be all but impossible. Luckily, most of them aren’t. However, it was on this basis of doubt and visual dissonance that Twitter sleuths made the case for Sandra being dead when her mugshot was taken. Her features were sunken. There were 'tape marks’ around her eyes. It looked like the photograph had been taken from above and her dreadlocks weren’t in the 'right’ position for her to be stood up. That kind of thing. Then a photograph purporting to be the 'real’ unedited mugshot, where Sandra’s eyes are rolled back into her skull as if already dead made its perverse rounds on social media a few days ago. People were horrified – and *morbidly fascinated* – by the idea it was true: and of course it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility given the current situation in the States and how high-profile Sandra’s death had become. For all those reasons, the rumour stuck. Then Anonymous waded in, with a video confirming the authenticity of the 'real’ mugshot and accusing Waller County Police Department of also forging both police reports. Anony-bot ends the transmission with calls for a nationwide “day of rage” in cities across the country, to demand justice for Sandra and all those who have died in the custody of the world’s most militarised police force. In a matter of days the call to arms had clocked around 2,000,000 views.

Only new footage of Sandra released by Waller County after apparent 'death threats’ made the rounds online to confirm that she was alive and wearing prison overalls at the jailhouse when her mugshot was taken; to dispel the rumour once and for all. Only it hasn’t been (completely) dispelled. People will continue to believe the macabre image is the real thing and not a forgery, believe that Sandy took her own life and that the police reports are genuine, until the second can clarify once and for all what happened. People believe either Sandra died from injuries she sustained on the highway or subsequent injuries in her cell, only for it to be covered up by Waller County Police Department. Fellow inmate Alexandria Pyle recalled that Sandra “seemed really distraught” at the jailhouse in an interview, before adding that she was “positive” Sandra had taken her own life because she believes that the guards would not have killed her. Because Sandra was an activist who advised others about their rights and defending their dignity: as in, a person who placed great value in the sanctity of the human, its difficult – unfathomable even – to accept the explanation that she killed herself. But such is the nature of depression for many, and suicide can often be sparked by whim. I didn’t know Sandra, nor her family, nor anyone from Waller County Sheriff’s Department. I don’t know what happened to her, and, for now at least, I don’t understand why *combined* her friends and family couldn’t raise the $500 to post the bail bond in the first place. Not that it’s any of my business. If Sandra was murdered or if she died as a result of injuries she sustained at Waller County Poice Department’s hands then yes, this crowd-sourced forensic investigation shit-show has ultimately led to a just outcome and is therefore legitimate, for all the falsities and crackpot theories that came with it. However, if Sandra did take her own life – which of course itself raises questions about police neglect, about not monitoring her regularly – then internet sleuths, please ask yourselves: you couldn’t defend Sandra’s dignity while she was still alive, sure, but in what way have your actions defended this woman’s dignity in death? You accused her of looking like a corpse while she was still alive for goodness sake.

#sandra bland #anti-racists are secretly racist

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