GOD FORBID IF KAMALA EVER BECOMES PRESIDENT

Kamala Harris gaffe: VP uses binocs to look at DMZ 50m away and befuddles troops with James Webb telescope talk

Kamala Harris seemed to have confused US soldiers as she talked about James Webb telescope after she viewed North Korea through binoculars... 

 

By Harshwardhan Waghela  

 

meaww

September 30, 2022

 

                             

"Oh goodie, this is just like when I looked at our border with Mexico. Hmmm ... Who is that cute little man in the black pajamas?"  [Kim Jong Un]

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA: Hours after claiming that the US had a "strong alliance" with North Korea, vice president Kamala Harris used binoculars to observe the country's border from the demilitarized zone in South Korea. She then went on to talk about NASA’s Webb telescope with the US soldiers, who seemed to be confused about the unrelated topic.

The vice president who was with US soldiers was seen on camera marveling as she peered into North Korea during her visit to South Korea. “There's something about seeing it... with your own eyes,” Harris commented. “And it's so close.” The service member then corrected her, saying: “It's 50 meters away, mam.” To which she replied, “Oh, right.” Then, out of nowhere, the vice president started discussing NASA's Webb telescope which has been photographing far-off galaxies, with the US and South Korean soldiers stationed in the demilitarized zone (DMZ). “Have you seen the photographs from the Webb telescope,” Harris told the officers as reported by Daily Mail. “It's the most humbling thing,” she added as the service members politely nodded. “You've got to see it.,” she further said. 

After her speech at the border crossing when she inadvertently praised the US partnership with "North Korea," Harris interacted with the soldiers at the demilitarized zone. “The United States shares a very important relationship, which is an alliance with the Republic of North Korea,” Harris said during a speech at the DMZ on September 29, intending to refer to the Republic of Korea, the official name of South Korea. “It is an alliance that is strong and enduring,” she continued, not appearing to recognize her mistake. 

In response to the vice president's journey to Asia, North Korea launched yet another missile on September 29, prompting her comments expressing US support for South Korea's security. Warships from South Korea, the US and Japan have begun their first trilateral anti-submarine exercises in five years after North Korea resumed missile testing this week in what seems to be retaliation for bilateral training by South Korean and US forces. Before and after US vice president Harris' visit to South Korea when he reiterated the US' "ironclad" commitment to the security of its Asian allies, North Korea launched five missiles, the first in a month. According to a South Korean navy statement, the one-day exercise was conducted off the east coast of the Korean peninsula to serve as a test of how South Korea would fare in the event that North Korea pushed to improve its capacity to launch missiles from submarines.

In recent years, Pyongyang has been developing larger submarines including one that is nuclear-powered and testing advanced missiles that can be launched from them. For its competitors, it is a concerning development since it is more difficult to anticipate the firing of underwater missiles. Last weekend, South Korean officials claimed to have found evidence that North Korea was getting ready to launch a missile test from a submarine. According to a statement from the navy, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan will participate in maneuvers alongside US, South Korean and Japanese warships.

Media sources state that as part of the drill, the military ships from the three countries were to follow and hunt for a US nuclear-powered submarine that was impersonating a North Korean submarine while sharing information. “We will respond and neutralize any forms of North Korean provocations in an overwhelming and decisive manner,” said Captain Cho Chung-ho, commander of the South Korean navy troops who took part in the training, according to the Daily Mail. North Korea possesses a range of nuclear-capable missiles in addition to its submarine-launched missiles, putting the three cooperating nations within striking distance. As it refuses to restart long-stalled nuclear dialogue with the US, Pyongyang has conducted a record number of missile tests this year.

GAFFE CONTEST BETWEEN KAMAL AND BIDEN

'Problem with anything South': Kamala Harris slated for hailing ‘alliance with NORTH KOREA’ in latest gaffe

Internet users have criticized Kamala Harris for a slew of mistakes that she and US president Joe Biden made within a 24-hour period 

 

By Harshwardhan Waghela 

 

meaww 
September 30, 2022

 

 

Kamala Harris visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) where she made the error of equating South Korea, a country that is an ally of the US with North Korea  

 

 

By incorrectly praising the US alliance with "the Republic of North Korea," Kamala Harris added to the White House's disastrous week which began the day after President Joe Biden called for a deceased lawmaker at a hunger-relief event. She received backlash on Twitter as people made fun of her huge blunder.

On September 29, the vice president visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) where she made the error of equating South Korea, a country that is an ally of the United States with communist North Korea. “The United States shares a very important relationship, which is an alliance with the Republic of North Korea,” Harris said during a speech at the DMZ, intending to refer to the Republic of Korea, the official name of South Korea. “It is an alliance that is strong and enduring,” she continued, not appearing to recognize her mistake, Daily Mail reported. 

 

                                        Dumb (L) and Dumber (R): US vice president Kamala Harris and president Joe Biden both made blunders in their respective speeches within a span of 24 hours  

 

 

For her comments, Harris was referred to as a "flat out moron" by Ted Cruz's communications director. “I cannot state enough that the commitment of the United States to the defense of the Republic of Korea is iron-clad and that we will do everything in our power to ensure that it has meaning in every way that the words suggest,” Harris added in her remarks. “In the South, we see a thriving democracy,” she added. “In the North, we see a brutal dictatorship.”

For her incorrect remarks, Twitter users have lashed out at her statements, making the most of the moment to troll the vice president one user said,"#KamalaHarris good to know we changed flag under North Korea. Seems like she's having a problem with anything south, #GoHome #disabled #disaster Pls anyone, point her on a map where we are, and where is south #UnitedStates #MAGA #Trump2024ToSaveAmerica." Another one added, "Wow. US and North Korea are allies now. Good for world peace." One user said, "Harris and Biden are having a gaffe contest and kamala had to kick it up a notch after Biden’s asking if the deceased congressperson was in the audience. Currently Biden still 6 ahead. Las Vegas has him the overwhelming favorite." Commenting on the latest blunder made by America's president Joe Biden, one person commented. "It was on the top of her mind." One user joked, "Yikes. The South Koreans should escort her to the border."

As North Korea launched yet another missile on September 29 in defiance of the vice president's travel to Asia, she made comments in which the United States declared its support for South Korea's defense. Following a catastrophic attempt by the White House to justify Biden's forgetfulness that Representative Jackie Walorski died tragically in a vehicle accident last month, there was a mix-up between North and South Korea. Harris met with the South Korean president earlier this week at his office in Seoul and reaffirmed Washington's resolve to use all of its military resources to protect the South in the event of a conflict. They raised voices against North Korea's nuclear war threats and promised a harsher reaction to significant North Korean provocations such as a nuclear test with no specifics.

In order to improve their trilateral collaboration with Washington in the area, Harris, and Yoon were also anticipated to talk about fostering new business and technological alliances and mending lately frayed ties between South Korea and Japan. Both parties reiterated their support for "peace and stability" in the Taiwan Strait during their meeting, according to Yoon's office as reported by Daily Mail.

SOCIAL JUSTICE ..... JEWS EXCLUDED

Why Social Justice Warriors Can’t Deal With Antisemitism

The war against the Jews is also the war against Western civilization.

 

by Melanie Phillips

 

JNS

September 30, 2022 

 

 

Anti-Israel protest by the Revolutionary Communist Group in London in June 2021

 

 

Ruth Wisse, an emeritus professor of Yiddish literature at Harvard and an unfailingly impressive commentator on the Jewish world, has uttered a desperate cry about the moral and spiritual state of American Jews.

Writing in Mosaic, she ponders the effect of liberal ideologies espoused by the media and universities that are promoting antisemitism and damaging foundational American values.

The flourishing of American Jews, she says, lies at the heart of American pluralism. But she warns:

“The surest sign of an America in retreat would be a Jewish community in retreat from its own Jewish heritage.”

This baleful development is what she now sees happening, largely as a result of widespread ignorance among American Jews of their own ancient culture.

 

Progressive antisemitic members of Jewish-American anti-occupation group IfNotNow protest Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem in Washington D.C., May 14, 2018.

 

Last January, more than 200 rabbis signed a statement expressing their concerns about the “shrinking space of ‘permissible’ discourse,” self-censorship and burgeoning antisemitism and anti-Zionism. This, they wrote, had arisen from an ideology that “in its most simplistic form sees the world solely in binary terms of oppressed versus oppressor, and categorizes individuals into monolithic group identities” on issues such as race and gender.

These rabbis have been left aghast by the all-too visible harm being done by the “social justice” agenda that has been embraced by the majority of American Jews. But since these are mostly rabbis from progressive denominations, it is unclear whether they also acknowledge the harm embodied in that agenda itself.

For in signing up to it, “progressive” Jews have embraced a set of values that are inimical to Judaism. More devastating still, they have convinced themselves that these are in fact authentic Jewish values updated for the modern age.

There could hardly be a more graphic illustration of this fundamental error than the current period of introspection culminating in next week’s Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.

This is a period of repentance and forgiveness. Observant Jews ask forgiveness from those whom they have wronged and from the Almighty. They show repentance by seeking to be better people in the future.

Central to this process is teshuvah, a word that means both return and restitution. Jews believe they redeem themselves through charity, prayer and a return to the better angels of their nature.

Although they ask for divine forgiveness not only for themselves but also for the wider community, personal responsibility is absolutely central. Jews believe they earn forgiveness through the repentance shown by the actions they take.

This is the reverse of today’s “social justice” agenda, which requires “oppressor” groups—such as heterosexuals, men and all white people—to repent for their presumed crimes against those who define themselves as their victims.

Under this agenda, the individual takes center stage not through acknowledging personal misdeeds but by being the victim of others. Instead of asking forgiveness from specific people the individual may have wronged, social justice warriors require entire groups—and, indeed, the whole of white, Western society—to apologize and make restitution to them.

Since individuals may be entirely innocent of the wrongdoing imputed to the “oppressor” groups to which they belong—groups that may themselves be innocent of the charges levelled against them—this cult of apology replaces personal responsibility with gross injustice. It thus vitiates the structure of morality encoded in Judaism.

Moreover, in direct conflict with the Jews’ belief that they can only forgive those who have personally harmed them and only the Almighty can dispense forgiveness to everyone else, social justice warriors arrogantly assume a god-like ability to forgive—or to be more precise, withhold forgiveness from—Western society on the basis of its perceived level of self-flagellation.

This narcissistic hubris derives from the secular belief that the individual is the center of the universe. It has encouraged people to define their own reality according to whatever fantasies they may entertain about creating a better world.

Such a substitution of objective reality by subjective feelings has led to the acceptance of lies as truth and vice versa. This is a major reason why anti-Zionism has achieved such traction in liberal circles over the past few decades.

The reversal of truth and lies, justice and injustice, victim and oppressor is intrinsic to intersectionality, the “social justice” doctrine that views alleged systems of discrimination or disadvantage such as race, class and gender as overlapping and interdependent. This is because “social justice” is based on the belief that all relationships are structures of power, whether political, military or economic.

With Israel and the Jewish people seen as powerful and therefore oppressive, intersectionality has put rocket fuel behind anti-Zionism and antisemitism in progressive circles.

This fundamental connection between “social justice” and anti-Jewish attitudes is denied by those circles—for whom any dissent is seen as proof positive of being “right-wing” and therefore evil. This is why their attempts to tackle anti-Jewish bigotry are doomed to failure.

In Britain, Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has made a determined effort to rid his party of the stain of antisemitism that spread so brazenly under his hard-left predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

The fruits of these efforts were manifest at the party’s annual conference this week. In his keynote speech, Starmer not only repeated his pledge to “rip out antisemitism by the roots,” but also spoke warmly of Israel and referred to the historic solidarity between Labour and its Israeli counterpart.

The significance of this speech was not that it was made by Starmer, a decent man married to a Jewish woman. It was that it received a standing ovation from party members who, instead of waving Palestinian flags en masse as they have done at Labour conferences as recently as last year, sang “God Save the King”—a monarchical first for the party whose customary sing-along choice is “The Red Flag.”

Whether or not this was the result of careful stage management, there seems little doubt that those in the hall had been genuinely revolted by their party’s epidemic of anti-Jewish bigotry and were relieved that Starmer had acted against it with such resolve.

But the openly anti-Jewish hard-left still exists within the party. And in “progressive” circles throughout the West, anti-Zionism and antisemitism are still rampant.

To realize this, you only have to imagine the reaction from liberal Britain and America if Israel is forced to escalate its attempts to quash the increasing levels of Arab radicalization and terrorist violence in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, or if it is forced to take military action in Gaza to suppress any renewed attacks from there.

Moreover, while Starmer boasted that Labour was now Britain’s “centrist” party, he is also the leader who in 2020 “took the knee” in support of Black Lives Matter, and who has struggled to say what a woman is.

Any leader who refuses to face down these orthodoxies, which invert right and wrong and deny both rationality and moral responsibility, won’t reduce anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bigotry.

For the fate of Western civilization is linked to its attitude towards the Jews. To be anti-West is invariably to be anti-Jew or anti-Israel; to be anti-Jew or anti-Israel is invariably to undermine Western civilization.

As Ruth Wisse writes:

“The war against the Jews remains, as it has always been, a war of ideas against the Torah’s civilizing laws.”

British and American Jews with their heads stuck in the “progressive” sand need to realize that the alliance they must make in order to defend both the Jewish people and the West is not with social justice warriors but with those who oppose them.

BIDEN INEXPLICABLY DESTROYED THE SOUTHERN BORDER ..... THREE MILLION POURED INTO THE U.S. ILLEGALLY WITHOUT AUDIT AND LARGELY WITHOUT SKILLS , HIGHSCHOOL DIPLOMAS OR CAPITAL

The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization

We are in a great experiment in which regressive progressivism discounts all the institutions and methodologies of the past that have guaranteed a safe, affluent, well-fed and sheltered America. 

 

By Victor Davis Hanson

 

American Greatness

September 28, 2022

 

 

 

Civilization is fragile. It hinges on ensuring the stuff of life.

To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home—only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival.

Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture.

So, the great achievement of Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit—was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature.

But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright.

As a result, the once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded—as civilization went headlong in reverse.

We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis.

We talk grandly about the globalized Great Reset. We blindly accept the faddish New Green Deal. We virtue signal about defunding the police. We merely shrug at open borders. And we brag about banning fertilizers and pesticides, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and discounting Armageddon in the nuclear age—as if on autopilot we have already reached utopia.

But meanwhile Westerners are systematically destroying the very elements of our civilization that permitted such fantasies in the first place.

Take fuel. Europeans arrogantly lectured the world that they no longer need traditional fuels. So, they shut down nuclear power plants. They stopped drilling for oil and gas. And they banned coal.

What followed was a dystopian nightmare. Europeans will burn dirty wood this winter as their civilization reverts from postmodern abundance to premodern survival.

The Biden Administration ossified oil fields. It canceled new federal oil and gas leases. It stopped pipeline construction and hectored investors to shun fossil fuels.

When scarcity naturally followed, fuel prices soared.

The middle class has now mortgaged its upward mobility to ensure that they might afford gasoline, heating oil, and skyrocketing electricity.

The duty of the Pentagon is to keep America safe by deterring enemies, reassuring allies, and winning over neutrals.

It is not to hector soldiers based on their race. It is not to indoctrinate recruits in the woke agenda. It is not to become a partisan political force.

The result of those suicidal Pentagon detours is the fiasco in Afghanistan, the aggression of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the new bellicosity of China, and the loud threats of rogue regimes like Iran.

At home, the Biden Administration inexplicably destroyed the southern border—as if civilized nations of the past never needed such boundaries.

Utter chaos followed. Three million poured into the United States illegally. They entered without audit, and largely without skills, high-school diplomas, or capital.

The streets of our cities are anarchical—and by intent.

Defunding the police, emptying the jails, and destroying the criminal justice system unleashed a wave of criminals. It is now open season on the weak and innocent.

America is racing backwards into the 19th century wild West. Predators maim, kill, and rob with impunity. Felons correctly conclude that bankrupt postmodern “critical legal theory” will ensure them exemption from punishment.

Few Americans know anything about agriculture, except to expect limitless supplies of inexpensive, safe, and nutritious food at their beck and call.

But that entitlement for 330 million hungry mouths requires massive water projects, and new dams and reservoirs. Farmers rely on steady supplies of fertilizer, fuels, and chemicals. Take away that support—as green nihilists are attempting—and millions will soon go hungry, as they have since the dawn of civilization.

 

 

Perhaps nearly a million homeless now live on the streets of America. Our major cities have turned medieval with their open sewers, garbage-strewn sidewalks, and violent vagrants.

So, we are in a great experiment in which regressive progressivism discounts all the institutions, and the methodologies of the past that have guaranteed a safe, affluent, well-fed and sheltered America.

Instead, we arrogantly are reverting to a new feudalism as the wealthy elite—terrified of what they have wrought—selfishly retreat to their private keeps.

But the rest who suffer the consequences of elite flirtations with nihilism cannot even afford food, shelter, and fuel. And they now feel unsafe, both as individuals and as Americans.

As we suffer self-inflicted mass looting, random street violence, hyperinflation, a nonexistent border, unaffordable fuel, and a collapsing military, Americans will come to appreciate just how thin is the veneer of their civilization.

When stripped away, we are relearning that what lies just beneath is utterly terrifying.

IAN DEVASTATES FORT MYERS AND OTHER PARTS OF FLORIDA ..... AND NOW IT'S HEADED TOWARD THE EAST COAST

Pictures and captions from Thursday's Dailly Mail

 

Eerie aerial pictures show the destruction to Fort Myers from Hurricane Ian after the 'superstorm' ripped its beloved pier from its hinges

 

Before and after shots showed the devastation to the small Florida city, with homes leveled, ships swept on to land and fires breaking out through ghost town neighborhoods

 

The extreme damage can be seen in aerial photographs, with homes swept towards the water in Fort Myers as trees and buildings lay broken

 

Aerial shots show the level of devastation caused by Hurricane Ian, as mobile homes and other less secure structures can be seen strewn across the floodwater in Fort Myers

 

Boat have been left partially submerged at a marina in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers

 

Horrifying pictures show the level of devastation in Fort Myers with boats usually in the marina being forced onto the shore amid broken palm trees and damaged infrastructures

 

People look on at destroyed boats after Hurricane Ian swept through at the Centennial Park in Fort Myers 

 

Homes in Fort Myers were on fire on Thursday morning as the area continues to be devastated in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian 

 

Homes in Fort Myers have been decimated by the storm, with several properties being washed away and crashing into other buildings

 

BONITA SPRINGS: A Plymouth vehicle was turned upside down outside of a luxury beachside property which was badly affected by the storm

 

BONITA SPRINGS: Property in Bonita Springs, close to Naples, were damaged by storm surges with holes in the walls

 

SANIBEL ISLAND: A military Chinook landed on Sanibel beach in the wake of the hurricane after all bridges to and from the island were destroyed

 

SANIBEL ISLAND: A fire broke out on several properties across Sanibel Island as emergency services battled to protect the homes

 

SANIBEL ISLAND: A section of the Sanibel Causeway was lost due to the effects of Hurricane Ian, and it is unclear when repairs will begin

 

Residents in Fort Myers were met with scenes of devastation when they were able to get to the lower floors of their properties, which were left in chaos after floodwater swept through

Properties in Fort Myers are on fire as other residents were faced with a boat outside their home in the street which had been pushed out of the marina by the hurricane

 

Vehicles are still trying to make their way through the stagnant water left from the flooding caused by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers

Debris has gathered in a lake near damaged properties in Fort Myers, Florida, being pushed to one side by the 155mph storm winds

 

Good Samaritans are seen in Orange County trying to keep children from wading through the flash floodwater as Hurricane Ian continues to cross the state 

 

A section of the Sanibel Causeway was knocked out by Hurricane Ian, leaving the population of 6,300 residents stranded in the aftermath of the killer storm as it is the only way on or off the island

 

The causeway was deserted as authorities try to assess the level of damage to the bridge, before being able to transport assistance and food to the island

 

Shawn Hulbert, 38, stands outside his damaged home in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Punta Gorda, Florida

Flamingos were evacuated to the bathroom at Sunken Gardens, St Pete, in Florida, on Wednesday after Hurricane Ian made landfall

 

A horse and a foal as well as dogs are kept in a living room of a house north of Tampa as owners took drastic measures to ensure their animals stayed safe

 

Footage shows cars struggling to make their way through the floodwater, as trees lay strewn across the road as aerial pictures show the extent of the damage

 

Jackie Pelton walks around her home that was destroyed after flood waters inundated the building and caused the first floor to be swallowed

 

Search and rescue teams started helping families flee the waterlogged areas of Kissimmee, Florida

 

A child carries a damaged plant from their home as an adult watches on, taking in the chaos caused by the hurricane in Punta Gorda

 

Orlando authorities transported a person out of the Avante nursing home amid heavy flooding in central Florida

 

Though it is not clear exactly what caused the fires to break out, it could have been sparked by damaged power cables, lightning or generators being destroyed by the storm

Dozens of damaged boats can be seen strewn across downtown Fort Myers in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, with many piled up on top of each other 

Ian blasted ashore with catastrophic force on Wednesday afternoon as a Category 4 storm, but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm by the National Hurricane Center in an update early on Thursday

FORT MYERS: Debris littered the street in Fort Myers as the clean up and rescue mission got underway, with the US Coast Guard confirming that they have performed 28 rescues

FORT MYERS: Smoldering homes in Fort Myers Beach can be seen as firefighters worked hard to put out the flames amid the water damaged homes 

FORT MYERS: Rescuers this morning admitted they are only 'scratching the surface' and the actual number of victims could soar even higher than a few hundred

FORT MYERS: A beach home has been completely destroyed by the winds and floodwater of Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers

 

FORT MYERS: Boats are stacking up together on the shores surrounding Fort Myers, with debris also overflowing into the water

 

NAPLES: A McLaren P1, worth around $1.2million, was flooded out of a garage and into the road alongside a Rolls-Royce Phantom, destroying the super car as it was washed away in Naples, Florida

ORLANDO: Orange County Sheriff's Office helped to move residents in Orlando who had become trapped by flash flooding

FORT MYERS: Police patrols the Centennial Park after Hurricane Ian hit, with floodwater still stagnant in the roads

______________________

 

Lingerie model Miranda's question for the day 

 

                                                                                                                                      

Will the Houston-Galveston area look like this after taking a direct hit from a category-4 hurricane?

HOW THE TRUMP-NETANYAHU PEACE PLAN GOT SABOTAGED

How Benny Gantz killed Israeli-Palestinian peace

Leftist leaders destroyed Israel’s chance of permanently securing its national and strategic interests in Judea and Samaria.

 

By Caroline Glick

 

JNS

September 29, 2022

 

 

        Amir Eshel and Benny Gantz

 

In an interview with Maariv last week, former Israeli Air Force commander Amir Eshel made several startling admissions about the role he and other IDF generals played in scuttling former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most significant strategic policies. His most startling admissions related to former U.S. president Donald Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

In 2019, then-Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz appointed Eshel to serve as his interlocutor with the Trump administration and its Middle East peace plan. In this position, Eshel accompanied Gantz to the White House to meet with Trump on Jan. 27, 2020, the day before Trump and Netanyahu presented the plan.

Trump’s plan called for Israel to apply its law and, through it, sovereignty to 30% of Judea and Samaria. The other 70%, which includes half of Israeli-administered Area C, as well as the areas governed by the Palestinian Authority, would remain in their current state for another four years. If the Palestinians abided by the conditions for statehood set out in the plan, they would receive control over the remaining Israeli-administered areas, which would be attached to the Palestinian cities and villages the P.A. has controlled since 1996.

Netanyahu and the Trump team agreed that the plan would be presented at the White House on Jan. 28, 2020 and that, at the Israeli government meeting following the presentation, Netanyahu would pass a government decision to apply Israeli law to the areas of Judea and Samaria demarcated by the plan. Ahead of the ceremony, then-U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman briefed selected Israeli journalists on the details of the plan, including the planned implementation of Israeli sovereignty.

Eshel told reporter Ben Caspit that, as he and Gantz departed the Oval Office, Eshel corralled Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Eshel claimed he told Kushner and Friedman that the peace plan would be stillborn due to Netanyahu’s sovereignty policy.

Eshel then explained how he and Gantz proceeded to kill the peace plan.

“Jared looked at me like someone who had just fallen off the moon,” he said. “I told him: ‘Listen, Bibi has a plan to bring the sovereignty issue before the government for an immediate vote. … If this happens, the [peace] plan will die.’”

Eshel added that Kushner “didn’t completely understand.”

So, Eshel explained it.

“I explained that no Arab leader will agree to this,” he recounted. “No one will support this.”

Kushner still didn’t know whether to believe Eshel or his own lying eyes.

“He told me: ‘What are you talking about? I spoke to every one of them. Everyone supports this,’” Eshel said.

Eshel told Kushner that he couldn’t believe anything the Arab leaders told him; that Eshel knew better than the Arab leaders did what they would or wouldn’t agree to.

“I said, ‘What were they for? That Israel will take its winnings up front, in cash without giving anything in exchange? Can you see [Egyptian President] Sisi supporting this? [Jordanian King] Abdullah? You’ll be smashed by a rebound that you won’t see coming. None of them will be able to support Israel getting something in cash and the Palestinians getting a promise on credit that will never be paid,’” Eshel stated.

Eshel concluded by saying that Gantz had two follow-up phone calls with Kushner over the next several hours and together they ensured that by the time Netanyahu and Trump presented the plan the following day, Trump and Kushner already opposed the previously agreed-upon order of events that had Netanyahu passing the sovereignty plan the following week.

Leaving aside the legal aspects of what appears to be a case of political subversion, the most stunning aspect of Eshel’s story is that he was completely unwilling to consider the possibility that Kushner’s eyes were telling him the truth and that Eshel’s conviction was based on myths. And there is every reason to believe that Kushner’s eyes—and ears—had seen and heard the truth.

Beginning with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 2012, more and more Arab leaders and citizens began distancing themselves publicly from the Palestinians and their bottomless pit of grievances and demands against Israel. Arab journalists, former ministers and unnamed senior officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain began arguing that the Palestinians had captured the discourse for too long. They received everything from the Arab world and from Israel but were never satisfied, and all they did was expand their terrorism and demands. The Egyptian military, which Sisi commanded, accused Hamas of playing a key role in forcing former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak from power and springing Muslim Brotherhood members—including Mubarak’s successor Mohamed Morsi—from prison.

In 2014, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia acted as Israel’s unofficial allies in Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza. Among other things, they blocked the Obama administration from coercing Israel into accepting Hamas’ ceasefire terms.

Their opposition to the Palestinians and support for Israel only grew during Trump’s presidency. Many people who spoke with the Egyptians, the Emiratis, Saudis and Bahrainis during this period understood that they were no longer willing to stand with the Palestinians and were willing to reach a pragmatic resolution of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria that respected Israel’s rights and interests as well as those of the Palestinians.

But blinded by ideology, and guided no doubt by Gantz’s political interest in humiliating Netanyahu ahead of the third round of elections, Eshel and Gantz ignored all of this. They insisted that nothing had changed in the Arab world since 2002, when the Saudi king gave a fake peace offer to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demanding that Israel surrender to the PLO’s maximalist demands as a condition for Arab-Israeli peace.

While Kushner seems to reject Eshel’s version of events in his recently published memoir, in a way, the veracity of Eshel’s story is less important than the fact that he takes so much pride in his version of events that he chose to share it with the Israeli public. Eshel clearly never considered that he may have been mistaken, and as a result of his own ideological blindness and political interests, he had destroyed Israel’s chance of permanently securing its national and strategic interests in Judea and Samaria.

Eshel’s blindness is a testament to the most glaring and dangerous characteristics of the left, both in Israel and throughout the Western world today. For leftists from Tel Aviv to Washington to Paris, the world is a static place where the 1960s anti-colonialist slogans that blamed all the troubles of the developing world on the West and the Jewish state are truths etched in stone—a progressive Ten Commandments. And the tablets will never be broken. Anyone who rejects these slogans, or permits reality to seep into their policymaking at any level are enemies far worse than the likes of the PLO or the Iranian regime or any terror group or regime that bases their claim to legitimacy on anti-colonialist precepts. On the other hand, unelected elites who live and die by these precepts are “objective professionals,” who protect our societies from riff raff that actually take into consideration facts, events, statements and political forces that stand these anti-Western principles on their heads.

From the progressives’ collective slobberfest over Islamic terrorists from Ramallah to Tehran, to their political and legal wars against anyone who disagrees with them, all over the West, our ability to make informed decisions, whether as voters or policymakers, is under assault. Elites who insist that their catechisms to the anti-colonialist gods are the beginning and end of all legitimate policymaking are damning us to policies that cause our nations to fail perpetually.

The Trump peace plan, including the sovereignty plan, was the first pragmatic blueprint for Israeli-Palestinian peace ever presented, because unlike all of its predecessors it was not based entirely on anti-Israel mythology. Eshel and Gantz didn’t just kill the sovereignty plan when they scared Kushner with their myths. They killed the entire concept that reality should form the basis of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians.

In his memoir and in subsequent interviews, former ambassador Friedman has said that whatever one thinks of the Trump peace plan, it was an opportunity for Israel to begin having a serious discussion about what it wants to do with Judea and Samaria. Obviously, so long as Israel’s left controls the discourse and blocks reality from entering the discussion, no such discussion will be possible.

IS BIDEN TRYING TO CREATE A RIFT BETWEEN GERMANY AND ISRAEL?

US Holding Up Sale of Israeli Missile Shield to Germany

The lack of American approval for the export of the system, which was developed with substantial US funding, is behind the delay.

 

By Yaakov Lappin 

 

JNS

 September 29, 2022

 

 Successful test of Israel's Arrow-3 missile-defense system 

 

The lack of a green light from the United States is delaying the export of the Israeli Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile interception system to Germany, a Western technical observer has confirmed to JNS.

Israel has worked for months to persuade the US to allow the sale of Arrow-3, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, which intercepts ballistic missiles in space, to Germany, which is keen on acquiring defenses against Russian threats.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made an initial request for the system in a meeting with then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in March 2022.

“Since then, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and other officials have contacted Washington several times seeking approval for the deal. It is needed as 80 percent of the system’s development costs, an estimated $2.2. billion, came from US taxpayer money,” Israel Hayom reported earlier this month. “In addition, the Arrow-3 includes technological components developed in the US.”

Speaking to JNS, the Western source said that “objectively, the delay is indeed tied to the lack of an American approval for the Israeli export of the Arrow-3 system.”

The source linked the delay to a number of wide-ranging political factors, including German-American relations and Israeli-American relations, in the context of the Qualitative Military Edge framework, in which the US is committed to ensuring that Israel retains a military edge over all other states in the Middle East, and under which the Arrow-3 was developed with US funding, in order to deal with ballistic missile threats, primarily from Iran.

One of the key issues appears to be the setting of a precedent of exporting an Israeli weapons system that was developed with the help of considerable American funding to third states.

Washington has so far reportedly failed to respond to Israel’s request to approve the export to Germany, neither confirming nor actively vetoing the sale. Israeli officials are hopeful the US will eventually greenlight the sale.

In early April, reports began surfacing that Berlin was interested in buying Israeli-made air- and missile-defense systems, in addition to unmanned aerial vehicles.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a little more than a month old, and a Bundestag Defense Committee delegation completed a visit to the Israel Defense Forces at the time.

The US has offered Germany its Lockheed Martin-made THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system.

On Sept. 12, when Prime Minister Yair Lapid visited Germany, Jerusalem appeared to be a step closer to playing a significant role in the Federal Republic’s ability to defend itself against Russian missiles.

 

       

                    Israel’s integrated, layered, missile interception system

The Arrow-3 is operational in Israel, part of the country’s multi-tier air-defense program. It intercepts and destroys ballistic threats in space using the most advanced technology, and can adeptly navigate outside the Earth’s atmosphere. IAI is now developing the Arrow-4, which will operate both within and outside the atmosphere.

During a meeting with Scholz in Berlin, Lapid told reporters that Israel “will play a role in developing Germany’s new defense force, namely in the sphere of air defense,” while Scholz said his country is “eager to collaborate with Israel” on defense, “particularly in the field of air defense, where Israel has a very effective product with the Arrow-3 system.”

Now, however, it appears as if both Germany and Israel will need to wait longer for the US to make a decision on this critical strategic matter, which could also pave the path for additional acquisitions of Israeli air defense systems by European states threatened by Russia.