Sex, Lies and Videotapes

Question of the day

What do extramarital sex, lies and politicians have in common? Answer: They’re all immoral. Especially damning are the videotapes of politicians in the Epstein library.

 

Politics of the day

Are you getting as tired of all the name-calling in Washington as I am? Every day somebody is calling out somebody else.  Seems like everyone in Washington must be a racist. What is the average person to make of it?

The latest is all the fuss over Democratic congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar not going to Israel. Tlaib and Omar started the fireworks by holding a press conference to tell the world that they were being treated unfairly. Tlaib said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s move to bar her and Omar from entering Israel was unprecedented.  Never mind that Obama, himself, once banned a member of Israel’s Knesset from entering the U.S.

Note: Of course, Tlaib and Omar never mentioned that they are supporters of the anti-Semtic, anti-Israel BDS movement which was condemned by Congress and that their trip to Israel was organized by a Palestinian group which is also a supporter of BDS.

HBO host Bill Maher, a progressive Democrat himself, responded by saying that “BDS is a bullshit purity test by people who want to appear woke but actually slept through history class.” Maher continued: “Let me read Omar Barghouti, one of the cofounders of the [BDS] movement. His quote: ‘No rational Palestinian … would ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.’ So that’s where that comes from, this movement. Someone who doesn’t even want a Jewish state at all. Somehow, this side never gets presented in the American media.”

Tlaib responded by suggesting a boycott of HBO.

Maher fired back that, “But here’s the thing, the house voted 318 to 17 to condemn the #BDS movement, including 93% of Dems.  Does Tlaib want to boycott 93% of her own party?”

 

Commentary

At the press conference, Omar said that Israel was not a democracy.  Slight correction.  Arabs living in Israel are considered Israeli citizens with rights equal to Jewish citizens. Arabs vote in Israeli elections and are represented in the Israeli Knesset and on the Israeli Supreme Court, just like in a democracy. Omar also said that Israel is occupying Palestinian lands.  This lie has been repeated by others ad nauseum over the years.  You need to understand that there is no such thing as a country of Palestine.  Never has been.  The lands that Omar is referring to were ceded by Jordan to Israel as a result of the peace treaty which ended the 1967 Six Days War.  The lands have been in Israeli hands ever since.

However, I think that Dr. Qanta Ahmed, a Muslim scholar, made the defining statement with respect to this issue. It took a lot of guts because her statement is politically incorrect in today’s political climate. This is what she had to say about Tlaib and Omar:  “What you are seeing is full-blown Islamist propaganda. These are professionals victim-mongering women who unfortunately have been elected to Congress but are using every tool in the playbook of the Muslim Brotherhood … they are using Islamic tactic to invert reality….”

 

Epilogue

The one thing about Tlaib and Omar that Dr. Ahmed didn’t mention is that they are also agents of the Deep State (along with many other members of Congress).  It’s a dirty little secret that you’re not supposed to know about…but, of course, now you know.

 

 

Arab Israel

Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Arab Israel. Isn’t Israel suppose to be the homeland of the Jews? What’s wrong with this picture?

The other day, terrorists at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem attacked and killed two Israeli policemen. What is not widely reported, though, is that the two Israeli policemen were actually Arabs, members of the Druze minority sect. Yes, Arab Israeli policemen.

People who have not visited Israel recently would never suspect that Israel has become such a boiling pot of diversity.  It’s one of the few  places in the world where diversity actually has had some success. Two of the largest groups of Israel citizens, about 20% of the population each, are Arabs and people of Russian ancestry. Those of Russian ancestry are generally not religious which means that nearly 40% of Israelis do not practice the Jewish faith (Judaism). In addition, there is a large group of secular (non-religious) Jews as well as atheists, Christians and a plethora of minor faiths such as Bahai. It’s fairly safe to say then that a majority of Israeli citizens do not practice the Jewish faith.

As for Israel being a Jewish homeland, that’s true but incomplete.  It is a homeland for Jews, but it isn’t the “homeland” of the Jews. The homeland of the Jewish people is actually the ancient kingdoms of Judea and Samaria which lie next door (immediately east of what is now Israel). Israel was formed by the United Nations out of a swamp-infested tract of land that ran along the Mediterranean plus the Negev Desert. It wasn’t much to write home about and it certainly wasn’t the historical Jewish homeland.

That true homeland of Judea and Samaria for the most part encompasses what is referred to as the West Bank (the lands lying immediately west of the Jordan River). For example, Bethlehem, Masada, Jericho, Qumran and Jerusalem were part of ancient Judea and Samaria. Of course, the West Bank was ceded by Jordan to Israel as the result of Jordan losing the Six-Day War in 1967 and have effectively been part of Israel ever since, a period of 50 years.  Does anyone really think that Israel will give up their homeland after having these lands for the last 50 years?

As for the Arabs who live in Israel and are citizens of Israel, with all the rights of Israeli citizens, they enjoy a better life than in any Arab nation in the Middle East.  Second place isn’t even close.  Arab women, especially, have freedom in Israel that is unparalleled throughout the Middle East. I recently met an Arab waiter in Israel who was moonlighting from his day job as a school teacher to pay for his daughter to go to medical school. Education for an Arab woman! Are you kidding, and a doctor to boot.

Arab Israel isn’t what you think it is nor as it has been portrayed by the media. Some Arabs are Israeli policemen who sometimes die for their “country.” They are represented in the Israeli Knesset (Congress/Parliament) and an Arab sits on the Israeli Supreme Court. Maybe, the world should take notice of the Arab Israeli dynamic.  They just might learn something from it.

The Real Israel

Once upon a time, almost half-way around the world the biblical kingdom of Israel existed; that is, until it was wiped off the map by the Roman Empire. Today, the country of Israel has been resurrected but there is something very strange about it – almost unrecognizable in fact. You see, it’s now very different, geographically speaking. So, why and how did that happen?

In biblical times, Israel existed as two kingdoms; one was called Judea and the other Samaria. Interestingly enough, those two kingdoms make up, more or less, what today is referred to as the West Bank. Yes, the West Bank rather than Israel. How does one explain how the creation of a 20^th century Jewish homeland never had them return to what was truly home for them. It’s sort of like someone who grew up in New York City going back home as an adult to live in New Jersey. How does that make any sense?

Well, actually there is one way that this all makes sense. The reality is that the Jewish homeland was never about geography, but rather about politics. Today, more than half of modern-day Israel is made up of the Negev Desert, which could never be considered to be a homeland for anyone, with the exception maybe of the Bedouins who have lived there for thousands of years. Further, important biblical cities/sites like Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, Masada, Jericho and Qumran are, today, all in the West Bank.

So, the true Jewish homeland is really what is now referred to as the West Bank and not some arbitrary lines drawn on a map by some politicians who carved up what was then British Palestine. The West Bank was also then part of Palestine and later became part of Jordan. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Jordan (having lost the war) ceded the West Bank to Israel, and so it remains today. Therefore, why would anyone expect that Israel would give up their true homeland? Why? Would you?

 

Epilogue

Palestine has never existed as a country, so it’s hard to see why it should exist today. This is especially true since the majority of British Palestine was spun off into an Arab nation that today is called Jordan and which is populated predominately by Palestinians. That’s why King Hussein, the former king of Jordan, said that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.

Of course, Jordan could just become a Palestinian state (as opposed to be being a Saudi/Hashemite kingdom). However, that would be too easy. Why promote a peaceful solution when you can promote one that creates chaos instead.

 

 

Palestine Fake News

So, Palestine is back in the news again. One really has to ask the question why. That is, why do the Palestinians deserve a homeland?

In recent days, the UN Security Council passed a resolution whereby Israeli settlements in the West Bank were deemed to be illegal (i.e. occupied territories). I say “deemed to be” because the UN Security Council has no legal power to tell any sovereign nation what to do. If we’re going to play the “occupied territories” card, it would only be fair to first demand that China give Tibet its freedom back or that America return the country to the Native Americans. By definition, then, the West Bank, Tibet and America are all occupied territories. The West Bank arguably falls into this category because it was won as the result of a war… and the treaty that ended that war said that the West Bank now belonged to Israel. So, that should be the end of it, right?

Aside: The fake news is that an actual, sovereign nation of Palestine has never existed; not even in biblical times. Some scholars say that a Palestinian identity did not even become a reality until after 1948, with some saying as late as 1967. Ethnically, Palestinians are actually no different from other Arabs living throughout the Middle East.

However to understand the politics of the present, one has to know a little something about the politics of the past. At the conclusion of World War I, the former Ottoman Empire was carved up and a part of it was given the name Palestine. Arabs, Christians and Jews lived in Palestine at that time and they were all considered to be Palestinians. Palestine was governed by the British under what was called the British Mandate of Palestine. Part of Palestine would later be spun off and become the Arab state of Transjordan. In 1948, Transjordan (now called Jordan) and other Arab states invaded the remainder of Palestine (then called Mandatory Palestine). The trigger for the war was Israel’s declaration of independence. The resulting treaty that ended the war gave the West Bank to Transjordan with the remainder of Mandatory Palestine recognized as the Jewish state of Israel.

Those borders remained in place until the Six – Day War of 1967. That war was initiated by various Arab nations, including Jordan, who still did not recognize the creation of the state of Israel. At the conclusion of that war, Jordan ceded the West Bank to Israel. It’s interesting to note that The United Nations did not call for a homeland for the Palestinian Arabs at that time.

However today, some fifty years later, politicians have reinvented the issue of a separate Palestinian state. Never mind that the biggest minority population in the Middle East, the Kurds, still do not have a homeland of their own; never mind that an Arab nation (Jordan) was previously carved out of Palestine and could be used to provide for a Palestinian state; and never mind that the West Bank is, more or less, the biblical Jewish lands of Judea and Sumeria, the loss of which was the reason for a Jewish homeland in the first place.

Finally, and most importantly, never mind that the Palestinian Arabs still do not recognize Israel as a sovereign state as evidenced by their rejection of John Kerry’s recent two-state solution. In those circumstances, why would anyone want to create a Palestinian state which would be next door to a nation (Israel) that they, the Palestinians, do not recognize, a nation that they would like to wipe off the map? After all, that’s how we got the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and the Six-Day War of 1967. So, you have to ask yourself if the real reason the politicians want to create a Palestinian homeland is to create a lasting peace or to start a war. Last I checked, no one makes money off of peace, only off of wars. Fake peace anyone?

 

“The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.”  –  King Hussein of Jordan

 

O Palestine, Palestine, Wherefore Art Thou Palestine?

This post certainly isn’t Shakespeare.  However, it is about a tragedy, a modern-day version.  That is, politics rarely results in anything productive. Today, with all the backroom deals and secret handshakes, the world is upside down. As Shakespeare put it, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.  That said, a little background is probably in order.

 

Historical background

After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was carved up by the victors (the Western Powers). They took a magic marker to the map of the Middle East and completely redrew all the boundaries. As a result, countries like Syria and Iraq were created out of thin air.

Further, the British were given a mandate by the League of Nations to administer certain occupied territories in the Middle East which would be used, for among other things, to create a Jewish homeland. That mandate is referred to as the Palestine Mandate, with Palestine referring to what is now the combined areas of Israel, Jordan and the West Bank. The original term of Palestinian referred to anyone then living within the boundaries of this new territory of Palestine, including Christians and Jews.

Fast forward to 1967, at which time various Arab countries attacked Israel in what would become known as the Six-Day War. Those Arab countries, which included Jordan, were on the losing side of that war and as a result Jordan ceded to Israel those lands west of the Jordan River (the West Bank). To the victors go the spoils, or so they say. Ever since, there has been an international dialogue to have Israel give the West Bank to the Palestinians to create a new and separate Arab state.

 

Making a bad situation worse

Today, the world is stuck with the political deals that the Western Powers made with each other at the end of World War I. Unfortunately, there is no way to unwind what has already been done and moving forward with a reasonable solution has proved to be elusive. So, as world leaders answer the clarion call, it would be good to remember a few salient points:

• There has been a lot of discussion of returning the West Bank to the Palestinians, as if there ever was such a country. However, there has never been a country of Palestine – not in modern times and not even in ancient times. So, creating an Arab state for the Palestinians would not be a case of returning the West Bank to them, but rather it would be creating a Palestinian state for the very first time in history.
• The Palestinians are not the only group in the world without a homeland. There are significant minority populations in any number of countries who have never had their own homeland. For example, the largest minority population in the world is actually the Kurds (who also live in the Middle East). However, there has never been any talk of giving them a homeland.
• If Israel is forced to give up the West Bank, it could set a dangerous precedent.  If that were to happen, who might be next? Is it possible that America might be asked to return the Southwestern United States (stretching all the way from California to Texas) back to Mexico, since it was acquired as a result of the U.S./Mexican War.

Unfortunately, a precedent such as this would likely have an unexpected ripple effect. So, is there a reason why the world is hell-bent to make a bad situation worse?

 

The run-up to WWWIII

Although the status quo is far more palatable to me than the solutions offered up so far, I do have a proposal that might end the stalemate. Actually, it wasn’t very difficult to come up with it either. That is, simply have Israel give the West Bank back to Jordan. Yes, the very same Jordan that the West Bank used to be a part of. Jordan is a pretty stable government and they can probably be counted on to keep the peace.  Besides, a majority of the people currently residing in Jordan are actually Palestinians!

Despite its appeal, this proposal will no doubt fall on deaf ears. That’s because there is more money to be made from war than from peace. World War III anyone?

 

Epilogue

While we’re at it, let’s return North America (Canada and America) back to the Native Americans, have China return Tibet to the Tibetans and give North Korea back to South Korea.  Who would like the task of breaking the news to Kim Jong-un?

 

“The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.”

      – King Hussein of Jordan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pelosi, Palestine and Politics

So Nancy Pelosi is at it again, essentially stating that Hamas is a humanitarian organization.  Way to go Nancy! John Kerry, for his part, has the backing of nearly all of the world’s major governments and yet has been ineffective in brokering a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.  So the needless violence continues.

A series of maps of Palestine have been making the rounds recently with no serious explanation of the context as to how this area has changed over the years.  Therefore, a little history lesson probably is required.

To begin with, the country of Palestine has never existed.  Never. No kidding.  The way that everyone talks about Palestine one would swear that Palestine was a real country, at least at some point in history; but no, Palestine has never been a country.

Palestine was the name given by Western powers to a large part of South Syria after the end of WWI, which ended with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire who ruled that area for the previous 600 years or so.  As for the Palestinians, the word was then used to refer to all people residing in the general region of Palestine, regardless of religion or ethnicity (even Christians and Jews).

After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was carved into little pieces by world leaders. It was at that time that Iraq and Syria, for example, became nations for the first time.  Don’t ask   what gave them the authority to do that – more on that later. The League of Nations, a forerunner to the United Nations, mandated that a large area of the old Ottoman Empire would be set aside for a Jewish homeland.  That area was given the name Palestine, and accordingly their action was referred to as the Palestine Mandate. Once that was accomplished, they then carved out three-fourths of Palestine to create a new Arab state. Of course politics being what it is, the new Arab nation called Transjordan (later renamed Jordan), was given to the Hashemite family (Saudis) to rule because they aided the British in fighting the Turks (Ottoman Empire). The Palestinians, who made up the vast majority of the people living in Jordan (and still do), were left out in the cold.  Politics is wonderful, isn’t it?

Fast forward to 1967.  In 1967, Israel was attacked by neighboring Arab states and at the conclusion of the Six-Day War took possession of certain parts of Jordan (generally known as the West Bank), among other lands.  The United Nations has since declared that these are occupied territories.  Again, what gives the United Nations the right to dictate to sovereign nations?  Besides, down through history the winner of wars has always acquired so-called “occupied territories”. Otherwise by the same logic, California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas are occupied territories because they were acquired by the U.S.A. as the result of their war with Mexico.  So once again, politics rules the day.

The seeds of discontent in the Middle East were sown by politicians at the end of World War I and their meddling continues to this day through the United Nations, or otherwise (for example, the U.S. government provides substantial financial support to both Israel and Hamas). The truth is that, in politics, war benefits many people whereas peace does not. Because of their financial support provided to both Israeli and Hamas, don’t you think that the U.S. government could pretty much dictate terms of a Middle East peace if they wanted to?  After all, they committed large numbers of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to presumably bring stability to those countries.  Why not to Palestine?  Politics is why not.

So the next time you hear the call for a Palestinian homeland, just remember that for politicians it is just rhetoric – part of the process of continuing the conflict rather than ending it.  After all, the Palestinians already have a homeland – it’s called Jordan.

 

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

     – H. L. Mencken

 

 

 

 

Palestine, The No-State Solution

With Palestine having been elevated to observer status by the United Nations, the issue of a Palestinian homeland seems to have moved to the back burner.  Maybe, that was the idea all along.  I’ve read a lot of other people’s opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, but in the end everything, on both sides, has been just so much highly-charged, emotional rhetoric.  Everybody seems to have self-serving reasons behind their proposed solution.

At the risk of seeming biased myself, let me give my opinion on the matter as well.  As a responsible parent I would never give the keys to the family car to my sixteen year old, especially if he said that he didn’t think that other drivers on the road had the same rights as him.  So why then should anyone take the Palestinians seriously? Their only stated objective seems to be to drive the Jews into the sea.  On that basis alone, I can’t see turning them loose in the family car let alone giving them their own homeland with all that that implies.

My angst has nothing to do with the issue of whether or not the Palestinians deserve a homeland.  Rather, it’s about the world making a responsible decision with respect to this dispute.  As a parent if I have two unruly children, I’m going to send them to their respective rooms so that hopefully they will cool off.  The problem is that the Middle East is such a small area that this becomes problematic.

The United Nations Link

However, I have a much bigger bone to pick and it’s with the United Nations.  If governments are corrupt, and we all know that they are, then the most corrupt bureaucracy in the world is the U.N. (e.g. their oil-for-food program).  The U.N. has absolutely no jurisdiction over any sovereign nation and yet they are constantly trying to control the actions of world governments, including the United States.  Recently, they have even had observers at U.S. elections and have asked for jurisdiction over U.S. territorial waters (the so-called Law of the Sea Treaty).

Well I, for one, don’t believe that the U.N. has any power to enforce a settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I’m certainly concerned about the implications of setting such a precedent.  For all I know, the U.N. might then want the U.S. to give back Texas and California to Mexico!  As for the U.N. addressing human rights concerns, one would probably not start in Palestine.  How about China or better yet the continual genocide in Africa?  Of course, the U.N. has really no interest in addressing those issues.

The No-State Solution

Unfortunately, the best solution to this problem isn’t going to happen because of political concerns.  That solution would be to go back to the pre-1967 borders, with the West Bank reverting back to Jordan and Gaza reverting back to Egypt.  That would make the Arab world responsible for the Palestinian issue.  Almost everybody is going to object, though, to this solution.

Many people are going to object because this solution doesn’t give a homeland to the Palestinians.  My response to that objection is if the issue of a homeland is such an overriding issue, why haven’t we already given a homeland to much larger minority groups in the Middle East, namely, the Kurds and the Shiites.  The Arab world, of course, will not embrace this solution either because they have little to no sympathy for their Palestinian brothers.  So if the Arab world won’t take some responsibility for this issue, why should they expect the rest of the world to solve this problem for them?

An Historical Perspective

At the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire had been defeated and Western world leaders took a magic marker to the map of the Middle East.  When they were done, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and eventually Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, had become full-fledge countries (created out of thin air).  The West was ultimately successful in installing pro-Western minority governments in all of those countries.

The ongoing conflict in the region today, including Arab Spring, is simply the result of Western colonialism dating from WW I.  Even today, the West will not admit that they manipulate Middle Eastern governments in order to advance their own special interests in the area (primarily oil, although the region also has other geopolitical value to the West vis-a-vis Russia and China).

The Palestinian Homeland Solution

In my opinion, there actually is a way, though, to give the Palestinians a homeland and possibly solve this conflict.  The solution would be to give Palestine back to the Palestinians.  By that, I mean Jordan of course.  As a matter of history, Palestine has never been a country.  It was a region that was under the control of England after WW I and out of that territory both Israel and Jordan were formed.

Jordan, like the other Middle Eastern countries formed after WW I, has a minority government while the majority of its citizens are actually Palestinians.  The country’s ruling family actually hails from the Arabian Peninsula and had never previously lived in the Jordan area.  The official language of Jordan is Arabic, same as the Palestinians.  Their religion is Islam – Sunni, the same as the Palestinians.  What better way to correct 100 years of Western meddling than by giving Jordan to the Palestinians.  By all rights, it’s probably theirs anyway.

Epilogue

So if the West was really serious about resolving this crisis, the solution in the final analysis is really pretty simple.  However, world leaders have had the last 50 years to make this problem go away and they certainly have had the resources to implement any kind of possible solution.  So why haven’t they?  Could it be because it’s in Western interests to continue the conflict?  Maybe peace was never the objective of peace talks.  As Rahm Emanuel said, “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste”.