Gatestone Institute

Iranian Mullahs' Torture Epidemic: UN, EU, Biden Administration Continue Appeasing Anyhow
by Majid Rafizadeh  •  September 2, 2021 at 5:00 am

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While the Biden administration and other members of the United Nations Security Council continue to push for the resuscitation of the disastrous nuclear deal -- granting Iran nuclear weapons and global legitimacy -- they have turned a blind eye to the mullahs' ever-increasing violations of human rights.

There are reports of slow public hangings-to-death on cranes, amputations of fingers by special guillotines, electric shocks, floggings and rape....

One can also regrettably assume that neither of these men, nor any of the multitudes of others treated in a similar way, was given a fair trial or anything close to a legal defense. According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, "Three more human rights attorneys in Iran were handed unjust prison sentences in July 2021 amid an ongoing campaign to eliminate due process for activists and dissidents by intimidating the lawyers who defend them...."

The UN, instead of doing its job, appears to have granted the Iranian regime's leaders full impunity. For how long are the UN, the European Union and the Biden administration going to continue appeasing the mullahs of Iran instead of holding them accountable for their crimes against humanity?


There are reports from Iran of slow public hangings-to-death on cranes, amputations of fingers by special guillotines, electric shocks, and rape, in addition to various methods of torture such as flogging, amputation, beating detainees with cables, sticks, rubber hosepipes, knives, batons, punching and kicking and forcing political prisoners into stress positions for a long period of time, and depriving them of water, food and medical care. (Image source: iStock)
While the Biden administration and other members of the United Nations Security Council continue to push for the resuscitation of the disastrous nuclear deal -- granting Iran nuclear weapons and global legitimacy -- they have turned a blind eye to the mullahs' ever-increasing violations of human rights.

Recently, a hacking group calling itself Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) leaked videos of Iran's prisons, some of which revealed abuse, including beatings and other unspeakable treatment of detainees carried out by the Iranian authorities at the notorious Evin Prison, where political prisoners are held. "We will continue to expose the oppression," that the Iranian government is "inflicting on people," the group said.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17714/iran-torture-epidemic

UK: Welcome to the Medieval Era of 2021
by Andrew Ash  •  September 1, 2021 at 5:00 am

Advocates of multi-culturalism demand not only that we should accept sweeping changes to our cultural landscape, but also that we should be far more welcoming of some of the medieval customs, traditions, and religious laws it has taken much of the world -- often at great cost in the irrevocable currency of life as well as treasure -- centuries to get rid of.

This importation of Muslim laws and customs, which often sit at odds with the British way of life, is seen as yet another example of a "preferential treatment" that minority groups receive over and above the indigenous population. That Christians, and people of other faiths, are guiltlessly persecuted in a majority of Muslim nations only serves to increase this resentment.

The advocates of diversity then claim that those who would disagree with what seem to them outdated practices that should remain outdated, are called "racist", "xenophobic" or "Islamophobes," when actually they might just be opposed to the beating of women, child marriage, female genital mutilation or a whole host of abuses they mistakenly thought had been left behind ages ago.


Advocates of multi-culturalism demand not only that we should accept sweeping changes to our cultural landscape, but also that we should be far more welcoming of some of the medieval customs, traditions, and religious laws it has taken much of the world -- often at great cost in the irrevocable currency of life as well as treasure -- centuries to get rid of. Pictured: Anjem Choudary (center), a British radical Islamist, leads a demonstration demanding the imposition of Islamic sharia law, on January 12, 2010 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
If there is one "woke" issue that has caused more division and anger in the UK than any other, it is that of the "multi-culturalism experience" that has been incrementally dumped on us – here and in Europe -- since the end of the Second World War.

These practices have been introduced via the ever-expanding British Muslim community, which this writer was born into, and with which he therefore shares a certain understanding and affinity.

Advocates of multi-culturalism demand not only that we should accept sweeping changes to our cultural landscape, but also that we should be far more welcoming of some of the medieval customs, traditions, and religious laws it has taken much of the world -- often at great cost in the irrevocable currency of life as well as treasure -- centuries to get rid of.

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Biden Letting China Get Away with Crime of the Century
by Gordon G. Chang  •  August 31, 2021 at 5:00 am
The President of the United States does not need perfect knowledge to act.

The failure to share information when it has an obligation to do so is enough reason to impose severe costs on Beijing, but there are two additional reasons — both sufficient in and of themselves—to do so.

First, for at least five weeks, Chinese officials first covered up and then lied about the human-to-human transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2, telling the world COVID-19 was not contagious when they knew it in fact was.... Second, China's military is working on the next generation of pathogens.

If Chinese scientists succeed in designing pathogens targeting only foreigners, the next microbe, virus, or germ from China could end non-Chinese societies. This will be Communist China's civilization-killer.

The next pandemic, therefore, could be the one that leaves China as the world's only viable society. The world, therefore, needs something far more important than justice or compensation. It needs deterrence.

Beijing's determined campaign to collect genetic profiles of foreigners while preventing the transfer to recipients outside China of the profiles of Chinese is another indication that the Chinese military, in violation of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention, is building ethnic-specific bioweapons.

Up to now, Biden has shown little — and sometimes no — interest in holding China accountable.... So far, Biden, with his feeble reaction, has shown Xi Jinping that Beijing can, without cost, kill millions of non-Chinese with a pathogen. Xi, unless stopped, will certainly do so again.


If Chinese scientists succeed in designing pathogens targeting only foreigners, the next microbe, virus, or germ from China could end non-Chinese societies. This will be Communist China's civilization-killer. The next pandemic, therefore, could be the one that leaves China as the world's only viable society. The world, therefore, needs something far more important than justice or compensation. It needs deterrence. Pictured: Virologist Shi Zhengli (left) in a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, on February 23, 2017. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
On August 27, the Biden administration released an unclassified summary of the intelligence community's report on the origins of COVID-19. The IC, America's 18 intelligence agencies, could reach only a few definitive conclusions. The agencies said they needed more information, but the world now knows enough to begin imposing severe costs on China.

America and other nations must impose those costs to prevent China's Communist Party from releasing a civilization-killing disease. Yes, the People's Liberation Army is now developing pathogens to destroy non-Chinese societies.

"The IC assesses that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019 with the first known cluster of COVID-19 cases arising in Wuhan, China in December 2019," the summary states.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17709/china-crime-of-the-century

The Failed State of Lebanon to Combat 'Normalization' with Israel
by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  August 30, 2021 at 5:00 am

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"Normalization" with Israel is not what is plaguing Lebanon. The Lebanese who are dying for lack of medication could not care less about "normalization" with Israel.

"Unfortunately, they sentenced me to 10 years in prison, but they sentenced the Lebanese people to life in poverty and humiliation. The military court in Lebanon did not give me any opportunity to defend myself. The court did not inform my lawyer in Beirut even of the trial date. It did not inform me personally of anything. The least that should have been done was to inform me of the date of the trial so I could defend myself." — Dr. Jamal Rifi, sentenced to 10 years in prison for treating Israeli Arabs at the request of the Palestinian Authority, arabsaustralia.com, August 24, 2021

The case of Dr. Rifi is yet another example of the blind hatred in Lebanon and other Arab countries towards Israel. These countries are so blinded by their hate for Israel (and Jews) that they are even prepared to punish a physician who helped Palestinians living in Jerusalem. It can be fairly said of these Arabs that they are willing to fight Israel to the last Palestinian.

There is a further ironic twist to this fiasco. While most Arab countries are turning a blind eye to the deepening crisis in Lebanon, there is one country that appears ready to help the Lebanese people: Israel.

One day after the court verdicts were issued against Dr. Rifi and the other two Lebanese, Moshe Arbel, a member of the Israeli parliament (Knesset) called on Minister of Health Nitzan Horowitz to provide the Lebanese health system with emergency humanitarian assistance in light of the public health crisis as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political and economic crisis in Lebanon.

It is no wonder that Lebanon -- which is dominated by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist militia -- has become a failed state and is on the brink of collapse. A country that prioritizes fighting "normalization" with Israel over rescuing its own people from disaster will never be able to recover from its chronic illness of bigotry and hate.


Dr. Jamal Ahmed Rifi, a Lebanese physician residing in Australia, last week was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison by a military court in Lebanon for the crime of "normalization with Israel," because he volunteered to work with a project to provide medical supplies to Arab hospitals in Jerusalem and to provide training for Palestinian medical staff in hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Pictured: The Lebanon's Permanent Military Court in Beirut, on April 8, 2016. (Photo by Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images)
The financial and economic crisis in Lebanon is dragging the country towards mayhem at a quickening pace, according to various reports. Lebanon is running out of critical medicines and is witnessing fuel shortages. The economic collapse has stripped the national currency of most of its value and left four out of five Lebanese citizens below the poverty line.

The World Bank has described the crisis as among the worst in over a century.

The crisis, however, has not stopped the Lebanese authorities from again displaying their hostility towards Israel. Instead of devoting its energies to solving the economic crisis and end the suffering of its people -- not even to distract their people from problems they are clueless how to fix -- the failed Lebanese government is busy combating "normalization" with Israel.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17693/lebanon-normalization-israel

"Killing Our People Has Become Routine": The Persecution of Christians, July 2021
by Raymond Ibrahim  •  August 29, 2021 at 5:00 am
A Muslim teacher raped an 8-year-old Christian in a school bathroom, and the school and police are covering it up.... "The school management is protecting the rapist, and the police are colluding with them. Who should we look to for justice?..." — Morning Star News, July 11, 2021, Pakistan.

In July 24, another Christian girl—this time only 3-years-old—was raped at a school sponsored by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF). The man who raped Anna Chand is allegedly the female principal's own husband, Muhammad Saleem.... Since filing charges, friends of Muhammad were reportedly threatening to accuse the Christian parents with blasphemy—which would likely lead to jail or worse—unless they dropped the charges. — Pakistan Christian Post, August 5, 2021, Pakistan.

"The number of defenseless Christians hacked to death by Nigeria's Islamic Jihadists and their collaborators in the security forces in the past 200 days... has risen to no fewer than 3,462...." — Times Live, July 8, 2021, Nigeria.

Article 500 of Iran's [new] penal code now states that "any deviant education or propaganda that contradicts or interferes with the sacred Sharia [Islamic law] will be severely punished." ... "The amendment was signed into law by then-President Hassan Rouhani on Feb. 18 and went into effect on March 5." — Morning Star News, July 6, 2021, Iran.


Video footage, shared and later condemned by many Christian groups on social media, showed two Turks dancing atop and "desecrating" an old Armenian church in Istanbul, late in the evening of Sunday, July 11. In the footage, the men appear gyrating next to a stone cross atop the courtyard gate of Surp Takavor Armenian Church (pictured above in 2012), which has been desecrated before, such as in 2018, when racist graffiti was spray-painted on its walls and garbage dumped in front of it. (Image source: aachim3/Panoramio/Wikimedia Commons)
The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of July, 2021:

The Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls in Pakistan

A Muslim teacher raped an 8-year-old Christian in a school bathroom, and the school and police are covering it up. According to the July 11 report, Shahzad Masih's young daughter was "shaking and screaming in pain when she returned home from school that day, June 22, her uniform spotted with blood." "She did not utter a word all afternoon and just kept crying and screaming in pain," her father explained.

"After much asking, my daughter told her mother that she had been raped at her school. We rushed to the Sanjan Nagar Trust School where my daughter is a class-three student. Rather than listening to our grievance, school principal Farzana Kausar and another Muslim teacher, Tehmina, outright refused to admit that she had been raped on the school premises."

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17677/persecution-of-christians-july


Biden's Travel Agency in Kabul
by Amir Taheri  •  August 29, 2021 at 4:00 am
The immediate question everyone faces is whether or not to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government.
To start with, the current international doctrine is that no government produced through war and violence should be granted de jure recognition unless and until it has submitted to some form of referendum or elections supervised by the United Nations.

Whether or not to legitimize a terrorist group determined to impose a repressive regime on a long suffering nation is the key issue. It cannot be handled without the "Great Satan," now inspiring stand-up comedians, leading the way.

Whatever Fukuyma and others may fantasize about a "world without America" is not for today.


The immediate question everyone faces is whether or not to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government. Pictured: Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid (center) speaks during a press conference in Kabul on August 24, 2021. (Photo by Hoshang Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images)
Twenty years ago when the United States was sucked into the Afghan cesspool, pundits were divided about the ultimate aim of intervention. President George W Bush talked of GWOT (remember the acronym?) or Global War on Terror. His critics argued that, unless it led to nation-building in Afghanistan, the intervention would make no sense.

Two decades later, the intervention has not advanced GWOT, as Islamist terrorism has spread to two dozen countries in Asia and Africa, with sleeper cells in Latin America. As for nation-building, the US has instead ended up with a travel agency based in Kabul airport under an astonishingly incompetent management.

President Joe Biden, the man heading the travel agency, says the US has spent more than a trillion dollars to get involved in what he claims is "the most difficult operation of its kind" in history.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17696/biden-kabul-travel-agency

Biden Admin Gives Iran's Mullahs Another Victory: Taliban Takeover
by Majid Rafizadeh  •  August 28, 2021 at 5:00 am
In the past, the Iranian regime used to hide its ties with Taliban; not anymore.... "The Taliban today," Kayhan wrote recently, "is different from the Taliban that used to behead people." So far, there seems insufficient evidence if that is true. At the moment, it does not look that way.

"Thinking that the Taliban will come under Tehran's command is tantamount to growing a snake up your sleeve." — Ali Khorram, former Iranian diplomat, iranintl.com.

The Iranian regime seems happy to build alliances with any government or terror group that shares Tehran's hatred towards Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries, Israel or the US.

One of the critical opportunities that the Iranian regime sees in Taliban's takeover is that the group can once again become a safe haven for terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, or Islamic State -- called virtually identical "Pepsis" to the Taliban's "Coke" -- that attack the United States.

In 2017, a trove of 470,000 documents released by the CIA also revealed close ties between Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and the Iranian regime. A federal court ruling, found that "Iran furnished material and direct support for the 9/11 terrorists." At least eight of the hijackers passed through Iran before heading to the US. A federal US District court ordered Iran, for its role in 9/11, to pay some of its victims more than $10 billion, although there may be no way to force Iran to comply. US Federal courts have also ruled that Iran still owes Americans $53 billion for Iran having bombed the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983, and other assaults.

What we are seeing is that the Biden administration just handed the mullahs of Iran – as well as the Chinese, the Russians, the North Koreans and the Turks -- yet another victory as they all cheer the US failure in Afghanistan and celebrate the takeover of Central Asia by terrorists.


The assumption that Iran and the Taliban are not allies because one is Shia and the other is Sunni, is woefully inaccurate. In the past, the Iranian regime used to hide its ties with Taliban; not anymore. The Iranian regime seems happy to build alliances with any government or terror group that shares Tehran's hatred towards Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries, Israel or the US. Pictured: Iran's then Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (right) hosts Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (center-left) in Tehran, Iran on January 31, 2021. (Photo by Tasnim News/AFP via Getty Images)
Among the many winners of the Biden administration's failure in Afghanistan and takeover of the country by the Taliban, are the mullahs of Iran's regime. The assumption that Iran and the Taliban are not allies because one is Shia and the other is Sunni, is woefully inaccurate.

Iran's leaders have long been waiting for this takeover -- at least one of the reasons they have been cheering America's withdrawal from Afghanistan. Even before the American surrender, the Iranian regime had been meeting with the leaders of the Taliban. In January, a delegation from the Taliban was already publicly consulting with senior Iranian officials, including then Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. According to him, both parties held productive talks, and discussed their ties and the future of Afghanistan

As Zarif pointed out during his discussions with the Taliban delegation, the Iranian regime was lobbying for the Taliban and stating that:

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17678/iran-taliban-victory

China Cancels Christmas for Americans
by Gordon G. Chang  •  August 27, 2021 at 5:00 am
No, Madam Vice President, climate change has almost nothing to do with the ongoing [supply chain] disruptions. There are many factors, such as the long-term shift of manufacturing to East Asia. Moreover, there are short-term problems, the transport of empty containers being one of them.
Expect retail prices in America to go up. If you're the shipping manager for Apple, you don't really care because the additional costs for shipping, say, an iPhone are negligible. The added costs are not negligible, however, if you make larger items. "A 40-foot container can hold 20 sofas," Jonathan Bass, CEO of home décor firm WhomHome, tells Gatestone. "The dramatic increase in rates — it can now cost $25,000 to ship a container across the Pacific to the East Coast — adds about $1,625 per sofa." That increased cost puts this furniture item out-of-reach for most consumers.

Bass, a near-shoring advocate, has a fix: "Now, given shipping costs and other factors that are not temporary, it would be cheaper to makes sofas and other items in North America."

Moving production would not only employ North Americans and bring prosperity back home, it would also mean that Americans would stop funding a hostile Chinese regime that, among other things, just labeled the U.S. an "enemy."

Let us remember: Every single sofa that Americans buy from China gives its malicious regime the funds to grow biological weapons, dig missile silos, and develop even more means to kill Americans. So every sofa we build on this side of the Pacific helps defend the American republic.


Christmas in America has been called off this year. Supply-chain disruptions in Asia mean no toys for the tots in December. As a result of a multitude of factors, freight rates have skyrocketed. The cost of hauling containers across the Pacific Ocean, for example, has increased more than 500% during the last year. Pictured: The Lianyungang Port Container Terminal in Jiangsu province, China, on March 24, 2021. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
Quick, someone call Santa. Christmas in America has been called off this year. Supply-chain disruptions in Asia mean no toys for the tots in December.

At least that's what Vice President Kamala Harris suggested on her trip to Southeast Asia, and she is right. Shelves across America were bare earlier this year, and they will, in all probability, be bare again due to extraordinary supply-chain disruptions in China and throughout East Asia.

There is one solution that eliminates these disruptions and saves the planet. Harris did not mention it, and global elites just hate it.

"The stories that we are now hearing about the caution that if you want to have Christmas toys for your children, it might now be the time to start buying them, because the delay may be many, many months," said Harris to a roundtable of business leaders in Singapore on August 23. "So across the board, people are experiencing the issue."

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17692/china-cancels-christmas

Europe Braces for Tsunami of Afghan Migrants
by Soeren Kern  •  August 26, 2021 at 5:00 am
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has estimated that up to five million people will try to leave Afghanistan for Europe.

"I am clearly opposed to us now taking in more people. That will not happen under my chancellorship. Taking in people who then cannot be integrated is a huge problem for us as a country." — Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

"As minister of the interior, I am primarily responsible for the people living in Austria. Above all, this means protecting social peace and the welfare state over the long term." — Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer.

"It is clear to us that 2015 must not be repeated. We will not be able to solve the Afghanistan issue by migration to Germany." — Paul Ziemiak, general secretary of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

Afghan criminals, including rapists and drug traffickers, who previously had been deported to Afghanistan, have now returned to Germany on evacuation flights. Upon arrival in Germany, they immediately submitted new asylum applications.

"Our country will not be a gateway to Europe for illegal Afghan migrants." — Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum Notis Mitarachi.

"We need to remind our European friends of this fact: Europe — which has become the center of attraction for millions of people — cannot stay out of the Afghan refugee problem by harshly sealing its borders to protect the safety and wellbeing of its citizens. Turkey has no duty, responsibility or obligation to be Europe's refugee warehouse." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.


The Taliban conquest of Afghanistan is poised to trigger an unprecedented wave of Afghan migration to Europe. Pictured: Afghan asylum seekers disembark from an evacuation flight from Afghanistan, at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base in Spain, on August 24, 2021. (Photo by Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images)
The Taliban conquest of Afghanistan is poised to trigger an unprecedented wave of Afghan migration to Europe, which is bracing for the arrival of potentially hundreds of thousands — possibly even millions — of refugees and migrants from the war-torn country.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, expressing an ominous sense of foreboding, has estimated that up to five million people will try to leave Afghanistan for Europe. Such migration numbers, if they materialize, would make the previous migration crisis of 2015 — when more than a million people from Africa, Asia and the Middle East made their way to Europe — pale by comparison.

Since 2015, around 570,000 Afghans — almost exclusively young men — have requested asylum in the European Union, according to EU estimates. In 2020, Afghanistan was the EU's second-biggest source of asylum applicants after those from Syria.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17680/europe-afghan-migrants


Why Is Congress on the Sidelines as Afghanistan Burns?
by Pete Hoekstra  •  August 26, 2021 at 4:00 am

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But the oversight -- the real-world exercise of the constitutional separation of powers, checking and balancing each other -- that is what our host leadership wanted to avoid.

Importantly, it was the leadership--not those who served under them, often on the front lines--who resented the very thought of oversight and resisted at every turn. The troops and embassy staff were always thrilled that we took the time and ran the risk to see first-hand what was happening... Members of Congress, on the other hand, were just everyday people who knew nothing about what needed to be done or how to do it.

People are dying. America is suffering humiliation. And the president and the bureaucracy are trying to get away with it. Hats off to Meijer and Moulton, both military veterans, by the way, for showing us all that Congress is an equal branch of government -- and for refusing to let the Biden administration cover up its catastrophic failure in Afghanistan.


Congratulations to the two members of Congress, Peter Meijer (right) and Seth Moulton (left), who had the exceptional courage to pay an unannounced visit to Kabul. The situation in Afghanistan is screaming for immediate congressional oversight. (Moulton image by Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images; Meijer image by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Congratulations to the two members of Congress, Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who had the exceptional courage to pay an unannounced visit to Kabul. The situation in Afghanistan is screaming for immediate congressional oversight. Right now, before it's too late, Congress might still be able to exercise an influence over, and perhaps help change, the disastrous Afghanistan policy of the Biden administration. Americans should applaud Meijer and Moulton for bucking the corrupt Washington system, despite intense pressure to bow to it.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17679/congress-afghanistan

Cyberwar - Part One
by Peter Schweizer  •  August 25, 2021 at 5:00 am

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Directly, these attacks [on the U.S.] strike at parts of our electrical grid, our food supply, our energy providers, banks, business computer networks and government systems. Indirectly, they threaten our livelihoods and our sense of security and stability.

[Cyberwar is] an undisguised assault against military and civilian infrastructure meant to cripple the targeted country, destroy or damage its communications and command systems, and create immediate and total chaos among its people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime has denied its involvement, as it always does. No one believes them.

[Former U.S. National Security Adviser John] Bolton warns that to protect the American people, the defense establishment needs to focus much more attention on early threat-recognition.

Moreover, it is clear the U.S. government must be more assertive in pointing the finger at Vladimir Putin when a Russian attack is unmasked.


(Image source: iStock)
Cybercrime often merges with cyberwarfare. The techniques of both are similar, even if their intentions are not. Yet, unlike their "real-world" counterparts, we cannot afford to treat the former as merely a law enforcement problem and the latter as a military problem. Today's gnat is tomorrow's nuclear-tipped missile.

In a recent article, former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton highlighted the cyberwarfare being waged on the West every day by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. The assault is an accelerating proxy war, a coordinated terrorism campaign conducted by both hired criminals and military intelligence agencies, capable of great economic and societal damage. At the same time, even at lower intensity, it is a subtler attack on Western morale.

Continue Reading Article 
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17654/cyberwar-part-one

Arabs: Biden Brings Extremism, Terrorism Back to Life
by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  August 24, 2021 at 5:00 am

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For the first time in several years, the jihadis sense US weakness, confusion and lack of vision under the Biden administration.

"The United States withdrew from [Afghanistan] to open the door for its enemies and opponents to fill the vacuum.... If we assess the situation, we will find that the forces that will replace the US there are: Russia, China, Pakistan, and of course Iran. Russia and China are driven by the desire to exploit the vast mineral wealth of Afghanistan." — Jameel Al-Theyabi, Saudi journalist and political analyst, Okaz, August 15, 2021.

"The escalating threat of terrorism from Afghanistan appears to be taking place with the support and patronage of major countries... by turning a blind eye to the activities of violent and terrorist organizations, which require Arab and international solidarity to confront the threat of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda together." — Monir Adib, Egyptian expert on global terrorism, Al-Ain, August 16, 2021.

"The Americans must admit their failure to build a state, or an army, in Afghanistan, or even a movement to confront terrorism and extremism, and now it is withdrawing all its agents, leaving Afghanistan hostage in the hands of extremists." — Osama Saraya, former editor of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram; Al-Ahram, August 16, 2021.

Thanks to the Biden administration, say the Arabs and Muslims, terrorist groups that want to wage jihad (holy war) against the US and Israel and threaten the security and stability of many Arab countries have firmly increased their foothold in the Middle East.


For the first time in several years, the jihadis sense US weakness, confusion and lack of vision under the Biden administration. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
As the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas is celebrating the "defeat" of the United States in Afghanistan, the Arabs seem worried that they will be the ones to pay the price by being targeted by terrorist groups, including Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.

Commenting on the withdrawal of US troops and the speedy Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, various Arab political analysts, writers and journalists said that they have no doubt that the region is headed toward a new era of extremism and terrorism.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17672/arabs-biden-extremism


Turkey: How the Sultan's Ivy League School Axed a Professor
by Burak Bekdil  •  August 24, 2021 at 4:00 am
Turkey, with a population of 83 million and two Nobel Prizes, ranks 62nd on the list of countries by Nobel laureates per capita. This score is worse than that of the Azerbaijan, Algeria, Yemen, Ghana, Bulgaria, Guatemala, Morocco, the Palestinian territories and Iraq.

Although [Professor Amir] Hetsroni just agreed to a new three-year contract a month ago, Koç University dismissed him in June for "conduct unbecoming to a member of Koç University faculty," according to his termination notice. The reasons the university administration set out -- including "inappropriate behaviour" -- are vague, except for an accusation that he caused "significant damage to his faculty apartment by leaving its windows open."

"I was fired on the spot without any advance warning for voicing criticism of Turkey and the university in private Whatsapp conversations that were leaked by a third party to the university management.... Obviously, my criticism of Turkey has nothing to do with my teaching level, research output, or service quality. If this is enough to get fired today in Turkey, I don't even want to think about the fate of a professor who would dare say these things in class." — Amir Hetsroni, newsaboutturkey.com., June 22, 2021.
Although Professor Amir Hetsroni (pictured) just agreed to a new three-year contract a month ago, Koç University dismissed him in June for "conduct unbecoming to a member of Koç University faculty," according to his termination notice. The reasons the university administration set out -- including "inappropriate behaviour" -- are vague, except for an accusation that he caused "significant damage to his faculty apartment by leaving its windows open." (Image source: Arielinson/Wikimedia Commons)
Turkey is always fun unless one has to live there. Academia, for instance, is shockingly becoming solely "his master's voice."

There are more than 200 universities in Turkey, most of which are run by the state. There are, however, only 10 Turkish universities featured in the World University Rankings 2019, a list of top 1,018 institutions, according to Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the world's leading provider of services, analytics and insight to the higher education sector.
Turkey, with a population of 83 million and two Nobel Prizes, ranks 62nd on the list of countries by Nobel laureates per capita. This score is worse than that of the Azerbaijan, Algeria, Yemen, Ghana, Bulgaria, Guatemala, Morocco, the Palestinian territories and Iraq.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17613/turkey-amir-hetsroni

The Dreadful Consequences of the Biden Disaster in Afghanistan
by Guy Millière  •  August 23, 2021 at 5:00 am

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Most of the Afghan army, after they saw the American military pulling out of the Bagram air base, might understandably have decided not even to try to fight. The "trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of thousands of Afghan National Security and Defense Forces" with "advanced weaponry" has led to that US-provided "advanced weaponry" falling into the hands of terrorists it was meant to fight -- a donation from US taxpayers to what is now the world's best-armed terrorist state.

[T]he US has had troops in Germany and South Korea for about 70 years – a relatively modest "insurance policy" that never seemed "forever." Ironically, by handing over Afghanistan to the same Taliban that hosted Al Qaeda, which murdered nearly 3,000 people on 9/11, the US is not only making a mockery of these victims; it will soon find itself having to fight at an even greater cost in life and treasure as countries trying to eliminate America can now do it without American troops nearby, and with America's military equipment.

The French, British, Germans, Australians and Czechs have been venturing behind enemy lines to rescue their stranded citizens hiding there; Americans have not. The Pentagon and the State Department have admitted that they do not even know how many Americans are in the country; how could they know where they are?

Trump reportedly expected to leave a residual troop force in place, and apparently had a plan for an orderly military withdrawal -- based strictly on conditions on the ground. These presumably included not departing in the middle of the Taliban's summer fighting season, but in winter, when they shelter in Pakistan; not neglecting to consult with America's European allies, and not surrendering the main US air base, Bagram, before evacuating Americans and their allies, whom they had promised to rescue should plans not work out.

Trump seems to have understood what the Biden administration ignores: that terrorists are probably not all that susceptible to diplomacy, but to strength -- as Osama bin Laden put it... to "the strong horse".

After days of silence, Biden read a 19-minute speech saying that he stood behind his decision to leave Afghanistan, and even accused he Afghan security forces, which had sacrificed an estimated 66,000 men. Biden left the press conference without answering questions and returned to Camp David where he resumed his vacation". Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi praised his "strong leadership".

Pakistan is more deeply linked to the Taliban's victory than the United States might care to admit.

"Of all the foreign powers involved in efforts to sustain and manipulate the ongoing fighting, Pakistan is distinguished both by the sweep of its objectives and the scale of its efforts, which include.... soliciting funding for the Taliban, bankrolling Taliban operations, providing diplomatic support..., arranging training for Taliban fighters..., planning and directing offensives, providing and facilitating shipments of ammunition and fuel, and on several occasions apparently directly providing combat support." — Human Rights Watch.

China, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, and the Taliban have different worldviews, but do possess three things in common: they are enemies of the United States and the Western world, they want to see the United States humiliated and defeated, and they want to eliminate the United States from the region. The United States has been humiliated, defeated and eliminated from the region. Its enemies have won.

Those who love the United States, however, believe that without its strength and power, American liberty and freedom would quickly vanish from creation. Seeing what the Biden administration has done in just seven months to weaken America and strengthen its enemies has been nothing short of shattering. One can only hope for a change of course, a return to real leadership, before more damage is done.


The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is a debacle for the United States; the consequences will take shape fast. The Biden administration and President Joe Biden himself have an overwhelming responsibility for what is taking place and what will follow. Pictured: Biden speaks about the evacuations of US citizens and vulnerable Afghans, in the White House on August 20, 2021. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is a debacle for the United States; the consequences will take shape fast. The Biden administration and President Joe Biden himself have an overwhelming responsibility for what is taking place and what will follow; they have shown a degree of incompetence unseen in the United States since the calamitous Carter years.

On July 8, President Biden said, "the Afghan troops have 300,000 well equipped — as well equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban". A Taliban takeover of the country, he added, was "not inevitable". He was wrong. Most of the Afghan army, probably after they saw the American military pulling out of the Bagram air base, understandably decided not even to try to fight.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17673/afghanistan-dreadful-consequences

Western Diplomacy: Imploring the Terrorists
by Giulio Meotti  •  August 22, 2021 at 5:00 am

Born in the years of the Cold War, the German Army was the backbone of NATO forces in Europe. Today, it is... "a quasi-humanitarian organization, a kind of Médecins Sans Frontières with guns".

Meanwhile.... American officials, not humiliated enough, were trying to obtain assurances from the Taliban that, in exchange for aid, they would not attack the US Embassy in Kabul.

Afghan feminists counted on the solidarity of their German colleagues. But the Green Party was apparently too busy deleting male politicians from official photos for their feminist propaganda. Well, what about the Swedish Army, then? It was busy waving the LGBT flag.

Meanwhile, the US military was busy teaching "critical race theory" at West Point. All great on the Western front ...

In the so-called "free world" there is the thick, unhealthy air of betrayal.


American officials, not humiliated enough, have been trying to obtain assurances from the Taliban that, in exchange for aid, they would not attack the US Embassy in Kabul. Pictured: A wall mural painted on the wall of US Embassy in Kabul, on July 30, 2021. (Photo by Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images)
"What we've witnessed this week in Afghanistan is a watershed moment in Western decline", Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote. "America cares more about pronouns than the fate of Afghan women."

You could see it from the Western diplomatic response after the Taliban conquered Kabul without firing a shot and arrived in the capital as tourists.

"The Afghan government should engage with the Taliban to reach an inclusive agreement". Even before Afghanistan had fallen into hands of the Taliban, that intrepid EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was already begging the Afghans to reach an agreement with the Islamists.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17670/western-diplomacy-imploring-terrorists

Night Falls on Afghanistan: Again
by Amir Taheri  •  August 22, 2021 at 4:00 am

Rival Islamist groups are already present, controlling chunks of territory. The so-called ISIS is planted in Konar and Loghar while another outfit known as Khorasan and promising to create a new caliphate covering parts of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran is also busy recruiting. The Taliban itself is a far from united outfit with Pakistan, Islamic Republic in Iran and, it seems even Turkey, China and Russia having their respective "contacts" in the movement.

More importantly, Taliban may face an urban people-based opposition that was often absent in Afghan politics. The experience of the past four decades, especially the past 20 years, cannot be wiped out with a stroke. Millions of Afghans have had a taste, albeit furtive, of a different way of life and are unlikely to put the clock back 1,400 years as Taliban demand.

In other words, Taliban are doomed to fail, leaving Afghanistan as an ungoverned land. And that is bad news for the whole world, as an ungoverned land is ideal location for terrorist groups of all denominations.


The Taliban are doomed to fail, leaving Afghanistan as an ungoverned land. And that is bad news for the whole world, as an ungoverned land is ideal location for terrorist groups of all denominations. Pictured: A Taliban patrol in Kabul on August 19, 2021. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images)
With President Ashraf Ghani's hasty flight from Kabul, we are now witnessing the fall of the second of five regimes that label themselves "Islamic Republic" in just over two years.

The first to fall was the Islamic Republic of the Sudan and what we have left are Islamic Republics in Pakistan, Iran and Mauritania. If we include the Islamic State created in parts of Iraq and Syria a few years ago and still lingering as a bad smell, we might conclude that, despite Taliban's latest success, the label "Islamic" is not as invulnerable as some suggest.

The difference is that in Sudan the Islamic Republic was replaced by a timid, though no less sincere, attempt at democratization while the Islamic Republic in Afghanistan signals the return of the Islamic Emirate or a more radical version of Islamism.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17671/afghanistan-night-falls

History Lesson - Biden is Obama 3.0 on Embracing Jihadists
by Pete Hoekstra  •  August 20, 2021 at 5:00 am

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Biden is following in Obama's ill-fated footsteps. In fact, Biden's foreign policy is so unoriginal that you could almost describe the "Biden Doctrine" -- as more and more left-wing pundits are calling it -- as "Obama on steroids."

The Biden administration must... Refuse with absolute consistency to work with radical Islamist groups. Exceptions to this rule must be limited to cases of absolute and immediate necessity. Never trust and always verify, verify, and verify.

Send powerful messages of support to Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel and our allies in Asia such as Japan and Australia especially. These are the partners most at risk because of Biden's failure in Afghanistan, and his inadequate responses to China and Russia, our other greatest adversaries.

Make it clear, now that the U.S. is at a much greater risk than just a few weeks ago, that any attack against the U.S. will be met with the harshest response.


President Joe Biden is following in Barack Obama's ill-fated footsteps. In fact, Biden's foreign policy is so unoriginal that you could almost describe the "Biden Doctrine" -- as more and more left-wing pundits are calling it -- as "Obama on steroids." (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
"Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!" An unforgettable line from the classic movie Patton. George C. Scott, in the title role as the legendary General George Patton, is surveying the battlefield from his command post. He senses that his U.S. forces will rout the Germans, led by the brilliant Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, in this pivotal World War II tank battle in Tunisia. Why would the Americans be blessed with victory? In large part because Patton, himself a military genius, took the time to thoroughly study Rommel's book on battlefield tactics and strategy during the previous war, World War I. Patton believed in the value of knowing his history, learning from his adversaries and avoiding the mistakes of his predecessors.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17669/biden-obama-jihadists

Biden's Afghanistan Disaster Has Left the West Defenseless against Islamist Terrorists
by Con Coughlin  •  August 19, 2021 at 4:00 am

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The fear now is that, as Western intelligence agencies are no longer able to monitor the activities of Islamist extremists both in Afghanistan and in neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Iran, the West will find itself increasingly vulnerable to high profile terror attacks as a direct consequence of Mr Biden's disastrous withdrawal plan.

An important first step for the security of the United States would be immediately to shut its southern border.

The alarming implications, in terms of Western security, of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan are clearly an issue the Biden administration failed to take into consideration when deciding to abandon Afghanistan to its fate. It is an oversight that adds to the scale of the disaster that Mr Biden has just inflicted on the security of the Western alliance.


The ability of U.S. security officials to monitor and disrupt the activities of Islamist terror groups will be severely diminished as a consequence of the Biden administration's catastrophic decision to end America's military involvement in Afghanistan. Pictured: A Taliban patrol on a street in Kabul on August 17, 2021. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images)
The ability of U.S. security officials to monitor and disrupt the activities of Islamist terror groups will be severely diminished as a consequence of the Biden administration's catastrophic decision to end America's military involvement in Afghanistan.

One of the most notable achievements of the US-led coalition's presence in Afghanistan during the past two decades has been its relentless campaign to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Islamist terror groups such as Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation.

In the years immediately following the September 11th attacks in 2001, American and other intelligence agencies estimated that around 80 percent of Islamist-inspired terror plots against the West originated from Afghanistan or the lawless tribal territories on the Pakistani border.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17659/afghanistan-disaster-biden

Biden's Appalling Mistake is a Watershed for the West
by Gwythian Prins  •  August 19, 2021 at 5:00 am

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The main mission was and should have remained one of self-defence. Once this was forgotten, muddle and a sapping of will set in. Moral ambivalence about our values and ourselves, which our enemies do not have about themselves, expressing itself as an embarrassment about using force in our self-defense, meant that softer edges were attached.

We needed strategic patience of the sort that has kept US forces on the Korean peninsula, or British forces in Cyprus, for a lifetime of decades. Our leaders, and mainly one, lacked the vision to have that patience and we shall pay a heavy price.

This withdrawal is therefore a set-back for the Free World as we square off to defend our way of life against Xi Jinping's communist command group which, like the Taliban, does not understand win-win. "We win, you lose" is the next game.

[O]ur political class ... was utterly naïve at "12/11" when the PRC was let into the WTO, expecting it to become like us. This was like letting the fox into the hen-house in the expectation that it would behave like a hen.

What is needed now is a swift cold shower of geo-strategic reality in our political classes. The time for self-harming distractions with "wokus pocus," obsessing about sexual dysmorphia, Marxist "critical race theory" and "climate catastrophism" ... -- all of which the Chinese Communist Party is glad to encourage -- must end.


We needed strategic patience of the sort that has kept US forces on the Korean peninsula, or British forces in Cyprus, for a lifetime of decades. Our leaders, and mainly one, lacked the vision to have that patience and we shall pay a heavy price. Pictured: US and South Korean soldiers stand guard in the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing North and South Korea on September 16, 2020. (Photo by Park Tae-hyun/AFP via Getty Images)
Of course we, the Western Alliance, were going to withdraw from Afghanistan sometime. But not now and not like this. The twenty-year expedition in Afghanistan has been a litany of strategic and tactical errors starting with the failure to follow through on the success of Task Force Dagger to crush the Taliban when we most easily could have done so. The operationally brilliant first intervention by the Green Beret Special Forces "Horse Soldiers" of Alpha 595 (known to cinema-goers from the film "Twelve Strong" and now immortalised in an equestrian statue at 9/11 ground zero in New York), partnered with the Northern Alliance at the end of 2001, vectoring in modern Air Force fire-power from horse-back.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17657/biden-appalling-mistake

From Biden to the Taliban with Love
by Burak Bekdil  •  August 17, 2021 at 5:00 am

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The Afghans are facing possibly the world's most brutal army of radical Muslims, now installed in Kabul, and armed with what US President Joe Biden said were "all the tools... and equipment of any modern military. We provided advanced weaponry," which the Taliban has captured from the disintegrating Afghan National Army.

President Biden has, in fact, bestowed "advanced weaponry," courtesy of US taxpayers, not only on the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and ISIS, but also on Russia, China and Iran, who will doubtless now reverse-engineer the abandoned materiel.

The Afghans have good reasons to flee their own country by the millions. Iran is their typical first stop.

Once in Iran, they are given easy and safe passage to Turkey -- that is Iran's gift to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkey is already home to nearly five million migrants. The arrival, over years, of another five million would paralyze Turkey, its economy, politics and relative safety. But Afghan migrants will not be only Turkey's problem.

In 2020, Erdoğan threatened to flood EU countries with millions of Syrians.... The real number was just a couple of thousand. Erdoğan's bluff had failed. Since then, he has not tried another Turkish government-sponsored migrant dump onto Greek territory.

If the Greek and EU border agencies do not want to relive the 2015 migrant crisis, they should review their blueprints to protect Greek territory from migrants and get ready for another inflow this year.


The first 10 years of Syria's civil war created 6.5 million asylum-seeking migrants from a population of 22 million. Afghanistan's population is 75% larger than Syria's at the start of its war. Afghans have good reasons to flee their country by the millions. Iran is their typical first stop, and from there they are given easy and safe passage to Turkey. If the Greek and EU border agencies do not want to relive the 2015 migrant crisis, they should review their blueprints to protect Greek territory from migrants and get ready for another inflow this year. Thousands of Afghans crowd the tarmac of Kabul Airport on August 16, 2021, trying to flee the country. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
Locals in Istanbul were recently shocked to see hordes of young Afghan men in worn out uniforms, strolling aimlessly down neighborhoods that were already home to thousands of Syrian refugees. Later, Turkish police detained and expelled nine of the men. Hundreds of others are communicating with their relatives and friends in Afghanistan and Iran and most likely updating them on the illegal migration routes into Turkey -- Afghans would typically pay smugglers $1,000 for the trip from Kabul to Van in eastern Turkey. With the victory of the Taliban and the collapse of the Afghan government, hundreds of thousands may be crossing via Iran into eastern Turkey, finally seeking the least dangerous (and least costly) route into European Union soil.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17655/turkey-afghan-migrants

China's Xenophobic Plan to Shut Out the World
by Gordon G. Chang  •  August 16, 2021 at 5:00 am

Moreover, crackdowns in Xi Jinping's China never really end. They are more than just "wiggles," as superstar hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio called them in a July 30 LinkedIn posting, as he attempted to explain away Beijing's harsh moves against business.

The announcement follows a series of stunning attacks on private business.

Xi's moves to force China's companies off foreign exchanges could be in preparation for an expropriation of foreign shareholdings in Chinese businesses.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's moves to force China's companies off foreign exchanges could be in preparation for an expropriation of foreign shareholdings in Chinese businesses. Pictured: Xi appears on a large screen as performers dance during a mass gala marking the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party on June 28, 2021, in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
On August 11, the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee and the central government's State Council issued what the official Xinhua News Agency called "an outline on promoting the building of a rule of law government from 2021 to 2025, on the basis of the successful implementation of a previous 5-year plan."

The Chinese party-state's announcement included a promise to enact a series of laws on, among other things, national security, tech innovation, monopolies, education, health and quarantines, food and drugs, and foreigners.

"The announcement," Reuters stated, "signals that a crackdown on industry with regard to privacy, data management, antitrust, and other issues will persist on through the year."

Just "through the year"? By its own terms, the announcement makes clear that the crackdown will continue until at least the end of the ongoing 14th Five-Year Plan, in 2025.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17647/china-plan-shut-out-world

BBC: Leading the World Against Israel
by Richard Kemp  •  August 15, 2021 at 5:00 am

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Following accusations of slanted reporting of the second Palestinian intifada, which began in 2000, and the rise in Jew-hatred caused by it, in 2004 the BBC was pressured to open an inquiry into its coverage, by Malcolm Balen, former BBC News editor. For 17 years Balen's findings have been kept under lock and key by the BBC, which admitted spending $500,000 of public funds in a series of legal battles to prevent its release.

"What is it are they hiding and what are they afraid of?", Conservative peer Lord Polack asked. Responding, the Minister for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said that in "some instances it [the BBC] has fallen far short" of the required standards.

Three allegations that Bowen breached BBC guidelines on accuracy and impartiality were fully or partially upheld in 2009 by the BBC's Editorial Standards Committee, which also said that he had failed to acknowledge there were views contrary to his own.

The BBC's reporting on the Gaza conflict this year typifies its long-term bias against Israel. It constantly drew moral equivalence between Israel, a Western liberal democracy, and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both proscribed terrorist organizations.... There was no acknowledgement that the conflict had been initiated by these groups that openly seek the destruction of Israel or that without their violent actions, no Palestinians in Gaza or civilians in Israel would have died. Instead the BBC maintained the fiction — pushed by the Palestinian side — that Israel's actions in Jerusalem were the cause. Nor did they mention that Hamas misappropriated millions of dollars of international aid to construct tunnels, rockets and other engines of war to attack Israeli civilians.

This biased journalism was crowned by commentary direct from Jeremy Bowen, whose report from Gaza at the end of the conflict looked more like pro-Hamas propaganda than objective reporting.....

Why so much emphasis on Bowen's role? Because all BBC reporting on the Israel-Palestinian conflict for more than 15 years has been driven, above all, by his editorial influence.

I do not blame Bowen for the influence he wields, I blame the BBC executives that allow him, with his history, to hold a position that dominates the coverage of the world's largest broadcast media corporation. Israel. During the 2021 Gaza conflict... the BBC had to issue corrections eight times in their Arabic news coverage alone.

Senior BBC producer Alaa Daraghme recently shared a video on Twitter which he wrote was "An Israeli settler ramming a Palestinian man near the Lions Gate." In fact the video showed a car being driven onto the sidewalk after an attempt by Palestinians to lynch the driver, who then lost control. There are many other such cases of bias and distortion among BBC staff.

Like many others, the BBC rejects or ignores historical reality in order to portray Israel as an illegal occupier of Arab lands. To underpin its false narrative, for many years it has repeated Palestinian propaganda, ignored violence against their own people, and whitewashed their Jew-hate.... Israel's contributions to disaster relief and other humanitarian actions around the world are almost always ignored.

There is little likelihood, without firm intervention by the British government, that the BBC will relinquish its leadership of the global anti-Israel movement that has contributed to so much suffering, misery and bloodshed.

More than any other media organization, the BBC is responsible for inciting hatred against Israel — not just in Britain but globally. Its agenda helps to ensure continued aggression against the Jewish State, and fuels violence by Hamas and other terrorist groups. Pictured: The BBC Television Centre in London, England. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
More than any other media organization, the BBC is responsible for inciting hatred against Israel — not just in Britain but globally. Its agenda helps to ensure continued aggression against the Jewish State; fuels violence by Hamas and other terrorist groups; feeds the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement; encourages distorted condemnation of Israel by human rights groups and international bodies; and provides material to be exploited by activist university professors and students.

All of this not only seriously harms the reputation of the State of Israel and stimulates antisemitism around the world, it also worsens the suffering of Palestinians by uncritical coverage of the leadership that is responsible for their plight.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17646/bbc-against-israel

Iranian Mullahs' Deadly War at Sea, Biden Administration Silent
by Majid Rafizadeh  •  August 14, 2021 at 5:00 am

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While the Iranian mullahs have been busy breaching two critical international laws, the international community -- especially the United States, EU and UN Security Council -- have remained silent.

If it were Israel that carried out such a deadly attack, the international community would be up in arms trying to take tough actions against the tiny state.

Worse, the Biden administration and the EU probably still want to revive the catastrophic nuclear deal and lift sanctions against Iran's lawless and predatory regime.


Iran's regime has been attacking commercial oil tankers at sea, killing crew members and blatantly violating international law while the Biden administration, the EU, and the UN Security Council say not a word. On July 30, the oil tanker MV Mercer Street (pictured) was attacked by an armed drone 280km from the port of Al-Daqam in the Sea of Oman. Two crew members, one British and one Romanian, were killed in the attack. (Photo by Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images)
The Iranian regime has ratcheted up its assaults at sea while the Biden administration and the European Union continue pressing to revive the disastrous Obama nuclear deal and lift sanctions against the ruling mullahs.

On July 30, 2021, the oil tanker MV Mercer Street was attacked by an armed drone 280km from the port of Al-Daqam in the Sea of Oman. Two crew members, one British and one Romanian, were killed in the attack. The ship is Japanese-owned and Liberian-flagged, and is managed by Zodiac Maritime, a British company that is one of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer's businesses.

Many countries -- including the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and Israel -- concluded that the Iranian regime was behind the deadly attack. Following an investigation by an expert team from the US Defense Department, which inspected the MV Mercer Street following the attack, the US Central Command wrote in a statement:

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17633/iran-sea-war

Communist China Continues Illegal Actions in the South China Sea
by Judith Bergman  •  August 13, 2021 at 5:00 am

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"The Chinese government's position on the arbitration is clear, 'not accept, not participate, and not recognize'... The 'arbitral award' deemed by China as 'a piece of scrap paper' has long been thrown into the dustbin of history." — Wu Shicun, President of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Global Times, July 12, 2021.

"China's military recently deployed electronic warning and surveillance aircraft and helicopters on two disputed islands in the South China Sea in what analysts say is a sign that the People's Liberation Army has begun routine air operations from the bases." — The Washington Times, July 13, 2021.

In March, a huge Chinese fishing fleet descended on Whitsun Reef, which lies within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. The Philippine government called on China to cease "militarizing the area".

China also claims sovereignty over -- and has militarized some of -- the Paracel Islands, which it has occupied since 1974, and are also claimed by both Vietnam and Taiwan.


Five years ago, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in a legally binding decision, ruled against Communist China's claims to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea. China continues vehemently to reject the ruling in its entirety. In March, a huge Chinese fishing fleet descended on Whitsun Reef, which lies within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. The Philippine government called on China to cease "militarizing the area". Pictured: Whitsun Reef, as seen from space. (Image Source: United States Geological Survey/NASA/Wikimedia Commons)
It has been five years since the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in a legally binding decision known as the South China Sea Arbitration Case, ruled against Communist China's claims to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea.

The Philippine government filed the case against China in 2013 after China seized a reef over which both countries claim sovereignty. In addition to ruling against China's claim of historic rights to the South China Sea, the court found that China had violated the Philippines' sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone by interfering with its fishing and petroleum exploration, as well as by constructing artificial islands in the Spratly Islands archipelago, which had caused "severe harm to the coral reef environment".

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17619/china-illegal-actions-south-china-sea

Europe: Mass Protests Against Covid-19 Vaccine 'Passports'
by Soeren Kern  •  August 12, 2021 at 5:00 am

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Judging from the large number of banners with the words "Liberty" and "Freedom" that have been present at the events, it seems safe to conclude that many if not most of the marchers simply want freedom of choice.

"If tomorrow you infect your father, your mother or myself, I am a victim of your freedom when you had the possibility of having something to protect you and me. And in the name of your freedom, you may be having a serious form of the virus and you will arrive at this hospital. It is all these personnel who will have to take care of you and perhaps give up taking care of someone else. That's not freedom, it's called irresponsibility, selfishness." — French President Emmanuel Macron.

"The government has thought out the measures very well — anything that is kind of fun is made dependent on vaccination. Do you want to sip an aperitif in a café? Get vaccinated. Do you want to visit your mother by train? Get vaccinated. Do you want to go shopping? Get vaccinated." — Manfred Haferburg, German commentator, writing for the blog Achgut.

"We are neither anti-vaccine nor pro-vaccine. We are for free choice. Those of us who do not want to get vaccinated do not do so out of ideology but because we realize that there are so many doubts and perplexities about this which is in fact an experimental mass vaccination." — Protester, Genoa.

"The limits of freedoms are [when they impact on] the rights of other people. One cannot expose others to the loss of life or health." — Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński.


Protests are erupting in cities across Europe in response to government efforts to impose so-called Covid passports, documents that show proof of immunization against Covid-19. In France, President Emmanuel Macron announced what arguably are the most severe measures in Europe to coerce people to get vaccinated. As of August 9, a "health pass" (passe sanitaire) is required to gain access to many places associated with daily life. Pictured: A gendarme checks the "health pass" of a customer in a bar in Bauvin, northern France, on August 10, 2021. (Photo by François Lo Presti/AFP via Getty Images)
Protests are erupting in cities across Europe in response to government efforts to impose so-called Covid passports, documents that show proof of immunization against Covid-19. The passports, which effectively reward the vaccinated and punish the unvaccinated, have sparked a heated debate over the constitutionality of government attempts to force people to get vaccinated.

In the last two weeks alone, hundreds of thousands of people of all political persuasions have gathered in at least 300 European cities to protest government overreach and to defend civil liberties. So far, the protests have not had the intended effect of reversing government policies, but they have highlighted that Europeans are thoroughly divided on the issue of Covid vaccines.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17634/vaccine-passports-europe

China: Crisis-Testing US Presidents
by Lawrence A. Franklin  •  August 11, 2021 at 5:00 am

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Trump's adoption of a realistic relationship with China successfully slowed any CCP plans for military expansion in the South and East China Seas. What ended any possibility of a warming trend in US-China diplomatic ties was Beijing's repeated lies that there was no human-to-human transmissibility of its Wuhan virus. Soon, Chinese propaganda organs were labeling America racist for closing US airports to flights from China, even as the CCP itself had already stopped all domestic flights out of Wuhan.

China's deceit, and its continued refusal to help investigate the cause of the release of the Wuhan virus, not only killed more than 4.3 million people worldwide, but shattered countless economies. To date, there have been no reprisals and no accountability.

To date, Communist China has not been held accountable for any of its damage or duplicity, or for obstructing all investigations into the origins of the Wuhan virus, or for enslaving and torturing more than a million Uyghurs, or for destroying Tibet and Hong Kong. Instead, China is being rewarded for unspeakable behavior by being allowed to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

This event presents Biden with an opportunity: there is still time to move the Olympics to a country more deserving -- one that will not potentially use the DNA of the world's greatest athletes to genetically-engineer its future newborns. Will the US finally stand up to Communist China's provocations, let alone future ones -- whether to Australia, Taiwan, Japan, India, Malaysia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Jamaica or the Bahamas -- that are already on the way?


To date, Communist China has not been held accountable for any of its damage or duplicity, or for obstructing all investigations into the origins of the Wuhan virus, or for enslaving and torturing more than a million Uyghurs, or for destroying Tibet and Hong Kong. Instead, China is being rewarded for unspeakable behavior by being allowed to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Pictured: Then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on December 4, 2013 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
China has tested the mettle of all recent US presidents, usually early in their terms of office, and China's Communist Party (CCP) has already certainly been testing President Joe Biden. Just four days into the Biden presidency, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) fighter aircraft violated Taiwan's Air Defense Zone. The provocation was a clear message to remind the new president of China's "Red Line": not to build upon the Trump administration's increased military cooperation with Taiwan.

Beijing's harsh rhetoric, accusing the US of hypocrisy on human rights at the March 2021 meeting in Alaska with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, was probably an indication that China is still calculating to what degree it can intimidate the Biden administration into settling for policies more accommodating to Chinese military, political, security and commercial interests.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17630/china-crisis-testing-us-presidents

Arabs Celebrate Downfall of Tunisia's Islamists
by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  August 10, 2021 at 5:00 am
Tunisia is the third Arab country after Egypt and Sudan to say that it is fed up with the rule of the Islamists. With the exception of Qatar, most of the Arab countries have long regarded the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups as a major threat to security, stability and peace.

The Palestinians... seem to be the only Arabs who continue to believe in the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates, particularly Hamas, the terrorist group that has been ruling the Gaza Strip since July 2007.

Sawsan Al-Sha'er, one of Bahrain's most influential journalists and intellectuals, expressed relief over the ouster of the Islamists of Tunisia and said that this should serve as a reminder to all Arabs that Islamist parties – Shiite and Sunni alike – care about nothing else but reaching power.

"The Arabs have discovered that these parties do not have a ... development program, or a future vision; the only project they have is to reach a position of decision-making and seize power. The religious parties do not recognize sovereign borders, the state's constitution, laws, and regulations. In all the Arab countries in which these parties have reached decision-making positions, they bypassed all constitutional and political frameworks, and they do not see anything wrong with that...." — Sawsan Al-Sha'er, Al-Ain, August 1, 2021.

According to Al-Sha'er, the Islamists want to... make them subject to foreign powers, especially Iran.

"What happened in Tunisia is similar to what happened in Egypt in 2013, when the Egyptian people rose up against the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and overthrew them after discovering their subversive project, confirming once again the failure of the Islamists in managing the affairs of the state.... it confirms that the Arabs can no longer tolerate this group and its policies." — Amal Abdullah Al-Haddabi, Al-Ain, August 3, 2021.

Al-Haddabi pointed out that during the past decade, successive Tunisian governments that were dominated by the Islamists failed to score any achievements for the people.

Another reason the Tunisian Islamists failed, was because they "failed to believe in democracy in its true meaning, including freedom of the media, the independence of the judiciary and economic and social rights." — Abdel Aziz Khamis Khamis, Saudi journalist, Sky News Arabia, August 2, 2021.

The jubilation in the Arab countries over the toppling of the Ennahdah Party sends a clear message to the rest of the world against embracing or appeasing the Islamists. Sadly, this is a message that continues to be ignored by the many Palestinians and leaders in the West who continue to support Hamas and other Iranian-backed Islamist groups that seek to eliminate Israel and keep the Palestinians mired in misery.


The removal of Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda Party from power has been welcomed not only by Tunisians, but by many Arabs who have accused the Islamists, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood organization, of spreading chaos and instability in the Arab world. Pictured: Supporters of Tunisian President Kais Saied demonstrate in support of his removal of the Ennahda Party from power, near the parliament in Tunis, on July 26, 2021. (Photo by Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images)
The removal of Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda [Renaissance] Party from power has been welcomed not only by Tunisians, but by many Arabs who have accused the Islamists, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood organization, of spreading chaos and instability in the Arab world.

The Ennahda Party was inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the ideology of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

The crisis in Tunisia erupted on July 25 after President Kais Saied dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended the activities of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, whose speaker, Rached Ghannouchi, is the leader of the Ennahda Party. The decisions of the president were made in response to a series of protests against the Ennahda Party, economic hardship and spike in COVID-19 cases in Tunisia.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17629/tunisia-islamists-downfall

Gov. Cuomo Is Entitled to Due Process
by Alan M. Dershowitz  •  August 9, 2021 at 5:00 am
The report and its conclusions are based on a one-sided investigation that does not include cross examination or other truth-testing mechanisms that are essential to due process.
Cuomo has categorically denied all of these charges and, until the contrary is proved, he must be presumed innocent....

The third category is extremely dangerous to civil liberties and could seriously undercut the credibility of the report as a whole. It alleges that Cuomo "looked" at women in a creepy way, focusing on particular parts of their body and looking them up and down. This is neither a crime nor a tort, nor is it subject to proof or disproof. It is literally in the eye of the beholder and the beholden. It does not belong in a serious report about possible criminal and harassment behavior.

Its inclusion demonstrates potential bias by the investigators, the attorney general, and perhaps some of Cuomo's accusers.... The government should not be telling people who or what to look at...


The rule of law requires that New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo (pictured) be accorded the opportunity to challenge the serious allegations made against him in a report commissioned by the state's Attorney General. The report and its conclusions are based on a one-sided investigation that does not include cross examination or other truth-testing mechanisms that are essential to due process. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)
The rule of law requires that Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) be accorded the opportunity to challenge the serious allegations made against him in a report commissioned by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. The report and its conclusions are based on a one-sided investigation that does not include cross examination or other truth-testing mechanisms that are essential to due process.

The allegations in the report fall into three distinct, if somewhat overlapping, categories.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17628/andrew-cuomo-due-process

To Biden Administration: No Visa, No Negotiations with Iran Regime's Mass Murderer
by Majid Rafizadeh  •  August 7, 2021 at 5:00 am
If [Iran's President Ebrahim] Raisi is granted a visa to come to the US, the Iranian regime's legitimacy will be enhanced, and the regime will be empowered to try to kidnap more Americans on the US soil.

The senators' letter sheds a light on several examples: "In 1988, the United States barred PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat from entering the United States to attend a meeting of the United Nations. In 2014, President Obama denied an entry visa to Iranian Ambassador Hamid Aboutalebi, who was involved in taking American diplomats hostage in 1979. In 2020, the United States declined to issue a visa for Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif."

The Biden administration needs to listen to the US senators, who have accurately explained: "Ebrahim Raisi's role in the Death Commissions, brutal crackdowns on Iranian protesters, and his association with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should disqualify him from receiving a visa to the United States."

If the Biden administration has a shred of respect for human rights and those people who lost their lives to reach freedom and democracy, it should not negotiate with Iran's mass murderer president, or grant him a visa to come to New York.


If the Biden administration has a shred of respect for human rights and those people who lost their lives to reach freedom and democracy, it should not negotiate with Iran's mass murderer president, Ebrahim Raisi, or grant him a visa to come to New York. Pictured: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi stands at the podium during his swearing-in ceremony at the Iranian parliament in Tehran on August 5, 2021. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration has signaled that it is in a hurry to negotiate with the government of Iran's new president, Ebrahim Raisi, a mass murderer who is known as the Butcher of Tehran, in order to revive former US President Barack Obama's catastrophic 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- which Iran never signed -- and lift sanctions against the Iranian regime.

Just last month, Iran was exposed in an attempt to kidnap a dual US-Iranian citizen, Masih Alinejad, from her home in New York City.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17612/ebrahim-raisi-us-visa