Inconvenient Reminders

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February 10, 2023

Sweeping embarrassing and painful occurrences under the proverbial carpet is a popular pastime for many.

There is always the possibility that some might throw a cold shower on current politically accepted thinking.

In most cases, this charade succeeds.

When someone comes along and explodes the myths or exposes the smoke and mirrors narrative, the general reaction is usually one of outraged moral indignation. This is subsequently followed by efforts to denigrate, censure or banish the whistleblower concerned.

Interestingly enough, but unsurprisingly, it is those who scream loudest about so-called fascist extremists and purport to represent liberal and progressive defenders of liberty who convulse most convincingly.

Recent events should demonstrate exactly how this reality plays out.

Many Australians have recently celebrated Australia Day, although it seems that a diminishing number are keen to rejoice in the fact that the country was colonized by a racist British Government. Ethnic cleansing of the British lower classes led to the establishment of the country as a penal colony and the decimation of the indigenous population.

New Zealand may not have been a penal colony, but it was also colonized by the same racist British establishment that claimed this far-flung territory for the Crown. A more enlightened Governor realized that it was impossible to defeat the native Maori tribes totally, and therefore a formal treaty was signed in 1840. In exchange for a pledge of loyalty to Queen Victoria, the British colonial authorities granted the Maoris equal civil rights. Whether this was a case of an enlightened policy or a realization that it was impossible to subdue the tribes totally remains a debatable point.

What both these examples, however, illustrate are similarities that should resonate with anybody cognizant of today’s realities.

The common fact is that a great power of the time decided to conquer territory at the other end of the globe and forcibly annex it. This was then followed by a sustained program of settlement with individuals who had no history with the countries concerned. Settlements were established on confiscated land, and thus the colonies developed. Like other empires, the colonial power had neither a historical or internationally legal right to the territories.

I understand that this was the way international affairs were conducted in those days, and Britain, of course, was not the sole guilty party.

Every 6 February, New Zealand celebrates its founding as a colony. Waitangi Day and Australia Day continue to attract controversy. This year a celebratory evening devoted to this anniversary was held in Jerusalem for expatriate Kiwis and others, where nationhood was toasted. Basically speaking, there is nothing wrong with such a get-together, but somehow, it has a somewhat jarring tinge associated with it, especially when the venue is in Israel’s unrecognized Capital.

Think about it for a moment.

Both NZ and Australia refuse to acknowledge our Capital’s status. In addition, New Zealand is the shameful co-sponsor of the notorious UN Resolution 2334, which negates any Jewish connection to our holy city and religious sites.

Just as galling is the assertion that Jews living in places their ancestors inhabited more than millennia ago are criminals and accessories to some sort of violation of “international law.” This is rich coming from countries that themselves are guilty of settling places with which they never had any legal or historical connection.

I am afraid that listening to speeches lauding undying friendship while ignoring inconvenient current policies is too much to take. Knowing that every time a resolution is put forward to condemn Israel at the corrupt UN, New Zealand will either vote with the immoral majority in favour or abstain. Celebrating a fake mateship is not on my agenda.

International hypocrisy may be the name of the game, but it is not one which I wish to embrace.

An example of inconvenient events which some would like to get covered up is the US responses to North Korea and China.

Recently the White House issued this remarkable statement: “We have no hostile intent towards North Korea. We seek serious and sustained diplomacy.” I can just imagine the convulsions of laughter in the North Korean Capital and also in Tehran at this display of American fortitude to defend its allies from the machinations of both rogue regimes. If anyone is looking for an answer as to how both of these tyrannies have managed to bully and lie their way to nuclear blackmail status, this remarkable admission by the US says it all.

If there are still South Koreans and Taiwanese deluded enough to believe that the US will ride to their rescue in time when North Korea and China decide to strike, they had better quickly wake up.

All they have to do is look at what happened when Chinese spy balloons hovered over the USA for several days. Instead of shooting these hot air balloons out of the sky the minute they were detected in US airspace, they were allowed to meander unmolested. The official excuse was that collateral damage might ensue. This guaranteed that whatever data was being recorded could be safely transmitted back to Beijing. By the time the balloons drifted over the ocean and were finally shot down, the evidence quickly sank to the bottom of the sea.

This dynamic display of self-defence over US airspace no doubt conveyed an important message to the Chinese authorities. If this was the best the Biden Administration could do just imagine how easy it will be when both Taiwan and South Korea become the targets of aggression. By the time the US State Department has exhausted its futile appeals to the United Nations and finished dithering, both countries will be overrun.

Unlike Hitler, who made hollow promises about his territorial ambitions in Europe, both North Korea and China have been upfront about their goals. With this latest farce of the balloons exposed for all to see, there can be no doubt as to the eventual scenarios.

Amazingly, there are still deluded Democrats who prefer to pretend that all is wonderful. It gives a whole new meaning to the expression “trial balloons.”

Diplomacy has its place, but when it demonstrably fails, it is time to praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

The lessons for Israel should be crystal clear.

We cannot rely on fickle friends who profess solidarity and then run for cover when the going gets tough

We must not remain silent in the face of double standards and blatant bias.

Israel: The land of the profits? The Ethics of Business with Terrorists. Is that why some do not want judicial reform?

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February 9, 2023

No mention of Iran and Palestinian antisemitism in Germany’s strategy to fight Jew-hatred

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February 9, 2023

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stands accused of whitewashing the world’s top state-sponsor of Jew-hatred and Holocaust denial, Iran’s regime, and Palestinian antisemitism, in the first signs of blowback against his national strategy report on combating the oldest hatred.

Click here to read full article.

Supreme Court denies Ben Uliel appeal

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February 8, 2023

Amiram Ben Uliel (L), the suspect in the Duma arson murder in July 2015 where three members of the Dawabshe family were killed, arrives for a court hearing in Lod on June 9, 2020. Photo by TOMER APPELBAUM/HAARETZ/POOL ***POOL PICTURE, EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES, PLEASE CREDIT THE PHOTOGRAPHER AS WRITTEN - TOMER APPELBAUM/HAARETZ/POOL*** *** Local Caption *** ãåîà
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Tuesday, February 7, 2023, 9:51 Honenu reacted to the refusal of the Supreme Court to grant Amiram Ben Uliel an additional hearing: “Chief Justice Esther Hayut, like her friends the champions of human rights, makes a mockery out of the rights of the unfortunate and the despondent and supports the use of torture to elicit confessions from interrogatees, as is done in Third World countries.

“At a time when there is talk of the Supreme Court as a ‘protector of human rights,’ Esther Hayut reminded us how many lies stand behind this statement. When it comes to a Jew with payot and a beard, the court has contempt for him and his rights.

“This morning was a bad morning for the State of Israel, a morning that reminds us all of the low to which the court known as ‘supreme’ has sunk.”

Why we desperately need Israeli judicial reform

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February 8, 2023

In June 1992, with the defeat of Israel’s Likud government and the ascension of the Labor Party to power, the Palestine Liberation Organization, an outlawed terrorist organization in a state of total war against Israel, raised its profile and initiated illegal contacts with the Labor Party.

At the time, I worked as the Jerusalem correspondent for CNN radio, with access to high-level contacts in the Israeli and U.S. governments. Thus, I was in a position to confirm that the Bush administration and subsequently the new Clinton administration laid out policy directives mandating that Israel was required to follow up on these PLO contacts, described by the U.S. government as a PLO peace initiative.

In Aug. 1993, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was summoned to Washington to coordinate a shift in Israeli policy. It officially recognized the PLO as a partner for peace, despite continuing PLO terror attacks. That policy engendered the Oslo process and an accord that was signed on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, which was never ratified by the PLO.

Sources in the Israeli security establishment and the Likud opposition in the Knesset raised objections to the U.S. pressure. It was at exactly this time that Aharon Barak became chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court.

In 1992, Barak established a precedent that threw out all legal objections to what would become the Oslo peace process.

The Barak Court did not object to the accords even though these accords were never ratified by the PLO and the PLO never renounced its public incitement to violence or rewrote its charter to renounce the goal of destroying Israel. Nor did it object to the government’s decision to supply arms to the PLO-led Palestinian Authority.

The Court also did not object to the Israeli government’s decision to free hordes of PLO felons who had been convicted of murder or attempted murder. Over the previous 30 years, families of victims murdered by these felons had appealed to the Court to file motions against releasing them, citing the government’s failure to apply any system of recidivism verification to determine whether these felons were likely to repeat their crimes. All this was to no avail. Israel has thus far freed at least 9,000 of these felons.

Another central feature of U.S. Middle East policy beginning in 1992, adopted by the Israeli government and echoed by Israel’s courts, was the delegitimization of the civil liberties and property rights of Jews who live in Judea, Samaria and even Jerusalem—as well as, until 2005, Gaza.

For 30 years, the Israeli Supreme Court tossed out numerous cases in which Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem sued for these rights.

The most egregious decisions of the Barak Court concerned the plight of Jews expelled from their homes in Gush Katif and Samaria in 2005. The harsh reality was that the Israeli government was not prepared to provide for 1,700 families evicted from their homes in the 21 Jewish communities of Gush Katif. On the eve of the expulsions, attorney Yitzhak Meron provided sobering evidence of the failures of Ariel Sharon’s government in this regard.

Dr. Meron was a senior member of the Israel Legal Forum, an organization of 50 Israeli lawyers that worked pro bono during the period leading up to the expulsion to ameliorate the difficulties of the Gush Katif residents, presenting their case to the Knesset and the courts.

The government’s approach to the settlers, according to Dr. Meron, was “aggressive” from the very beginning, with a lack of direct communication.

The prime minister never went to “look in their eyes” and ministers in the government who voted for expulsion did so without having visited the communities whose fate they were deciding. When the defense minister finally traveled to Gush Katif to meet with residents there on April 19, 2005, he refused to answer questions. I witnessed that refusal.

Three days before the expulsion was to begin, the government announced that 1,000 rooms had been rented and everyone would have somewhere to stay. The reality was that 2,500 rooms were required due to large families. Officials had to scour Israel, seeking rooms at the last moment. The Forum assisted in this emergency action. People left their homes not knowing where they were going to go. No social workers were sent by the government to help people cope logistically or psychologists to help with trauma.

Because the government ordered thousands of people removed from their homes, it was obligated to provide satisfactory alternative housing. However, that took 10 to 15 years, without any objection from the courts.

I was present when Aharon Barak rejected the final appeal before the Gush Katif expulsions. Dr. Meron, speaking on behalf of the Gush Katif community, appealed to Barak to consider the justice of their case. These “settlers” were resigned to the expulsion and, in the end, only asked for a relocation process to be implemented.

Barak turned to the government attorney and asked whether the government had a plan to resettle the communities. When the attorney responded vaguely that the government would take care of everything, Barak smiled, thanked him and gave the order for bulldozers to begin demolition.

When the U.S. announced its policy of demanding the removal of Jews from Judea, Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem, a delegation of U.S. citizens who lived in those communities approached the U.S. Consul in Jerusalem Philip Wilcox and asked about the human rights of Jews in these communities. Wilcox responded with a single sentence that echoed around the world: “If you live there, you have no human rights.”

There was silence in the room. Wilcox then asked participants if they would like coffee or tea.

The legacy of Philip Wilcox lives on in the Foundation for Middle East Peace, which finances 40 organizations that support the PLO and advocate for the continuing expulsion of Jews from their homes.

Thus, the Israeli Supreme Court paved the way for the PLO to gain land and power in the heartland of Israel.

Yet the PLO openly refuses to endorse a two-state solution. In the words of retired MK Benny Begin, “The PLO wants a two-stage solution, not a two-state solution.”

Thanks to the Israeli Supreme Court, the PLO is getting away with it.

UNRWA is Part of the Problem – Not the Solution

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February 8, 2023

The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has once again requested international financial aid. This is the same organization whose workers have been promoting violence and antisemitism on social media.
UNRWA has since done absolutely nothing to help the “refugees” move on with their lives and seek a better future for themselves or their families.
“Almost all of [the incorrectly labeled Palestinians in Gaza] have been born in Gaza, their parents have been born in Gaza, their grandparents have been born in Gaza… they were never displaced an inch. Yet, every day they hear, they learn, and they get an official stamp from the UN agency that says: ‘That’s not your home. You might have lived here all your life, but your home is there, just across the fence. That’s your real home [Israel], and it was taken from you.” — Einat Wilf, former Israeli Member of Knesset, December 1, 2015.
The Geneva-based independent human rights group UN Watch has uncovered evidence of UNRWA staff incitement which clearly violate the agency’s own rules as well as its proclaimed values of intolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.
Meanwhile, in 2021, the US government confirmed its “failure to ensure that taxpayer aid dollars sent to the Palestinian government did not ultimately make their way to terrorists.”
Terrorist groups in Gaza, such as Hamas, have continued to build terror tunnels under UNRWA schools, to use the children as human shields if Israel retaliates after it is attacked — as Hamas member Abu Khaled, openly admitted in December 2021.
“UNRWA’s procurement contracts suggest that funds are already flowing to PFLP affiliates,” wrote foreign policy expert Julia Shulman.
“[T]he Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act (PATA)…. prohibits assistance to the PA unless the administration certifies that ‘no ministry, agency, or instrumentality of the Palestinian Authority is effectively controlled by Hamas'” — Matthew Zweig, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, June 2021.
Commenting on the Biden administration decision to restore the financial aid, UN Watch said that now is the time for the US to demand that “neutrality, accountability and transparency” Secretary Antony Blinken paraded.
It does not seem, however, that UNRWA has taken far-reaching and drastic measures to end the incitement to violence and antisemitism. In fact, it has not taken any at all.
It is clear that UNRWA, like many other UN agencies, has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Instead of seeking ways to solve the problem of the so-called refugees, UNRWA has perpetuated and inflated it…. Instead of promoting peace and non-violence, UNRWA employees have been doing the reverse…. UNRWA donors might consider these evasions before they sign the next check to one of the UN’s most incompetent and corrupt organizations.

The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has once again requested international financial aid. This is the same organization whose workers have been promoting violence and antisemitism on social media.

On January 24, the agency appealed for $1.6 billion “for programs and operations.” UNRWA said it “continues to play an indispensable role in the lives of millions of Palestine refugees,” and warned that “compounding challenges over the past year, including underfunding, competing global crises, inflation, disruption in the supply chain, geopolitical dynamics and skyrocketing levels of poverty and unemployment among Palestine refugees have put immense strain on UNRWA.”

Established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 with a mandate “to provide humanitarian assistance and projection to registered Palestine refugees pending a just and lasting solution to their plight,” UNRWA has since done absolutely nothing to help the “refugees” move on with their lives and seek a better future themselves or their families.

In reality, UNRWA continues to perpetuate the refugee problem by granting refugees status through the generations.

It also perpetuates the narrative of the so-called right of return, which envisions the elimination of Israel by flooding it with millions of Arabs and turning it into another Arab state where some Jews might be allowed to live as a minority as long as they are loyal to the Arab ruler.

As then Israeli Member of Knesset Einat Wilf correctly pointed out in 2015, most of the Palestinians living in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip are incorrectly registered as refugees from Palestine:

“Almost all of them have been born in Gaza, their parents have been born in Gaza, their grandparents have been born in Gaza and lived there all their lives; they were never displaced an inch. Yet, every day they hear, they learn, and they get an official stamp from the UN agency that says: ‘That’s not your home. You might have lived here all your life, but your home is there, just across the fence. That’s your real home [Israel], and it was taken from you.”

The Geneva-based independent human rights group UN Watch has uncovered evidence of UNRWA staff incitement which clearly violate the agency’s own rules as well as its proclaimed values of intolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.

The report published by UN Watch highlights that more than 100 educators and staff members who work for UNRWA schools and social services have publicly promoted violence and antisemitism on social media platforms.

In 2021, the Biden administration decided to resume financial aid to UNRWA (which had been cut off by the Trump administration) on the grounds that the US was “deeply committed” to ensuring that its partnership with UNRWA “promotes neutrality, accountability, and transparency.”

In response to the Trump administration’s 2018 decision to end US contributions to UNRWA, Brett D. Schaefer, a Jay Kingham Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center, and James Phillips, Visiting Fellow at the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, wrote:

“This decision is long overdue. UNRWA has existed for more than 60 years as a ‘temporary’ initiative to address the needs of Palestinian refugees and to facilitate their resettlement and/or repatriation. Despite receiving ongoing financial assistance from UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee problem has only grown larger. Many of the original refugees are deceased, but the refugee population has expanded to 5.3 million individuals because UNRWA redefined and expanded its definition of refugee. Today, the agency has made refugee status available to the ‘descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children.'”

Meanwhile, in 2021, the US government confirmed its “failure to ensure that taxpayer aid dollars sent to the Palestinian government did not ultimately make their way to terrorists.” (US Government Accountability Office, March 2021)

Terrorist groups in Gaza, such as Hamas, have continued to build terror tunnels under UNRWA schools, to use the children as human shields if Israel retaliates after it is attacked — as Hamas member Abu Khaled, openly admitted in December 2021.

“UNRWA’s procurement contracts suggest that funds are already flowing to PFLP affiliates,” wrote foreign policy expert Julia Shulman in June 2021.

“As recently as March, UNRWA was funding the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), a Gaza-based entity with extensive links to the PFLP. Earlier this month, Israel charged several staff members from UHWC’s partner organization with funneling funds to the PFLP.”

In a June 2021 policy brief for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Matthew Zweig wrote:

“[T]he Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act (PATA)…. prohibits assistance to the PA unless the administration certifies that ‘no ministry, agency, or instrumentality of the Palestinian Authority is effectively controlled by Hamas’

“Still, critical questions remain about the overall package, specifically the State Department’s oversight and vetting mechanisms. The congressional notification for the assistance package declares that USAID deploys ‘rigorous partner-anti-terrorism vetting and certification, auditing, and monitoring procedures to help ensure that its assistance does not go to Hamas or other terrorist organizations.'”

“Other terrorist organizations” in Gaza that could use UNRWA as a pass-through for funding include the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

Commenting on the Biden administration decision to restore the financial aid, UN Watch said that now is the time for the US to demand that “neutrality, accountability and transparency” paraded by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“The US should demand that UNRWA adopt a zero-tolerance policy for employees who incite racism or murder by immediately terminating them,” UN Watch stressed. It also called on UNRWA to conduct a thorough investigation of its facilities and put an immediate stop to all antisemitic or terrorist-inciting activities and images found there.

It does not seem, however, that UNRWA has taken far-reaching and drastic measures to end the incitement to violence and antisemitism. In fact, it has not taken any at all.

In the Gaza Strip, UNRWA often takes great pains to avoid alienating the Palestinian terrorist groups, above all the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The two terror groups, whose declared goal is to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamist state, have long been receiving money and weapons from the mullahs in Tehran.

UNRWA has also turned a blind eye to the fact that Hamas, PIJ and other terror groups have, since 2001, been building tunnels for attacking Israel and storing weapons near the agency’s facilities, including schools, in the Gaza Strip.

On January 27, Israeli warplanes attacked a tunnel used by the terrorists to manufacture rockets. The attack came in response to the firing of a number of rockets at Israel earlier in the day. The terrorist target attacked by Israel was adjacent to an UNRWA installation in the Gaza Strip. It is not uncommon for terrorists to stockpile weapons or dig offensive tunnels near and beneath schools and hospitals.

What is particularly disturbing is the manner in which UNRWA and other international agencies relate to the serious threat posed by the terrorists.

In the past few years, UNRWA has published statements regarding the discovery of tunnels near and underneath its facilities. The agency, however, often employs ambiguous and indirect rhetoric when mentioning the tunnels. It also refrains from openly condemning Hamas or holding it directly responsible.

Take, for example, the statement issued by UNRWA in November 2022, in which it said that the agency “recently identified a man-made cavity underneath the grounds of an UNRWA school in Gaza.”

UNRWA condemned the construction under its facility, calling it a “serious violation of the Agency’s neutrality and a breach of international law.”

Needless to say, UNRWA did not dare to hold Hamas or other Palestinian terror groups fully and directly responsible for the “man-made cavity.”

The use of the word “cavity” instead of “tunnel” is laughable. What is stopping UNRWA from calling a tunnel a tunnel? Why do UNRWA and other UN agencies have no compunctions when it comes to condemning Israel but tiptoe around condemning Palestinian terrorist groups?

Is UNRWA afraid to use the word tunnel because it fears for the lives of its workers, or is it because UNRWA wants to downplay the actions of the terrorists? What are people supposed to understand by the use of the word “cavity?” That the terrorists are dentists?

The organization NGO Monitor has documented at least 7 additional incidents from the past 10 years, in which terror tunnels and weapon caches were discovered under UNRWA schools or in their close vicinity.

On June 4, 2021, UNRWA stated that an investigation, “revealed what appears to be a cavity and a possible tunnel” under the grounds of the UNRWA Zaitoun School in Gaza.

On June 9, 2017, UNRWA issued a statement, noting that “On 1 June UNRWA discovered part of a tunnel that passes under two adjacent Agency schools in Maghazi camp.”

On July 29, 2014, UNRWA stated: “A cache of rockets was found earlier today at an UNRWA school in central Gaza… We condemn the group or groups who endangered civilians by placing these munitions in our school.”

An additional four incidents in 2020, 2017 and 2014 have been documented as well.

It is clear that UNRWA, like many other UN agencies, has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Instead of seeking ways to solve the problem of the so-called refugees, UNRWA has protracted and inflated it by creating new generations of “refugees.” Instead of promoting peace and non-violence, UNRWA employees have been doing the reverse. Instead of taking a tough and clear stand against terrorism, UNRWA hides behind riddles. UNRWA donors might consider these evasions before they sign the next check to one of the UN’s most incompetent and corrupt organizations.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.

All for the money

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February 8, 2023

Ezra Seymour Gosney was a very rich man on a mission. He owned one of the largest lemon groves in California and became a director of banks and corporations.

In the 1920s, Gosney began to spend his money to promote eugenics, claimed to be a science on the breeding of race. He financed a biologist Paul Popenoe to promote California’s compulsory sterilization program, touted by those called progressives as a way to reduce mental illness and social threats. In 1929, the two men wrote and published a book that claimed that sterilization was scientific, harmless and legal. Gosney established the Human Betterment Foundation, said to have inspired everybody from the superrich to Hitler.

Persuading children

Today, there is another sterilization program being developed in Europe and the United States. It is called transgender, an industry that promises to change males to females and vice versa. The industry is based on persuading children that they are the wrong sex, which could be corrected through life-altering drugs and surgery. The marketing campaign has been conducted through the social media, where pre-adolescents find “coaches” to take them through a process that many later regret but are unable to reverse.

In 2020, Abgail Shrier, a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, wrote and published Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. The book reported on the transgender industry’s focus on adolescent girls, many of whom face such issues as anorexia, bulimia and multiple personality disorder. These girls, mostly white, are told by everybody from their peers to teachers that they have a disease called gender dysphoria and should consider a sex change regardless of the objections of their parents.

“Therapists affirm and encourage minors down this path, and even pediatricians do,” Shrier said.

Trans celebrities

The transgender issue first emerged around 2010, presented as the right to define gender regardless of your sex. Young people were susceptible to the assurances that their body can be one sex and their mind another, a condition that would produce great dissonance. The term gender dysphoria was introduced and served as the basis for the right of sex change regardless of evidence or age. Over the last few years, adolescent girls have been the main audience for transgender identification.

The community acquired legitimacy largely from trans celebrities, including Caitlyn Jenner, who changed from the Olympic gold medal winner Bruce in 2016. Laverne Cox was the first successful transgender actress. Elliot Page had been an Oscar-nominated actress named Ellen Page until she decided to change her sex. In 2020, she wrote that politicians who do not support the transgender community “have blood on their hands.”

Potential of $200 billion

Not coincidentally, the transgender issue has spawned a rapidly growing industry. In December 2020, Forbes reported that the sex change market has a potential to reach $200 billion. Entrepreneurs such as Robby Katherine Anthony developed an app to accommodate the transgender community and particularly its new recruits.

Hospitals have established wings for gender altering surgery. The pharmaceutical companies have been supplying what have been called gender blockers, actually sterilization drugs, to adolescents. Why? Because the profits are astronomical. In Europe, for example, sex change operations can cost $20,000 and are expected to rise rapidly. In the United States alone, about 9,000 such operations are performed annually.

“Sex reassignment surgery market size was worth more than USD 623 million in 2022 and is projected to register over 11.5% CAGR [compound annual growth rate] between 2023 and 2032,” a market report by Grand View Research said in January 2023. “Growing prevalence of gender dysphoria and awareness regarding sex change surgeries will influence market expansion.”

The Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, located in New York City, is regarded as one of the most active facilities in the transgender market. It plans to train young physicians in what it terms “gender-affirming surgery and gender-affirming psychiatric care.” The strategy of the hospital focuses on children.

“The short of it is to make gender-affirming care as accessible as we can,” Joshua Safer, executive director of the center, said. “But also, we know that we are dealing with young people where we want to be conservative in making sure that we are understanding them and that they are understanding the impact of certain treatment choices.”

The pushback

There has been pushback to the transgender industry. Several states, including Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas and Florida, have sought to ban sex change operations to minors. Hospitals in other northern states have been threatened with bombings by what appears to be irate parents.

The battle also pits the administration of President Joe Biden against the states and federal courts. In June, Biden issued an executive order that expanded access to transgender treatment. Already, several leading providers, including Aetna and Unicare, offer insurance for such sex-changing procedures as salpingo-oophorectomy, hysterectomy, orchiectomy or ovariectomy.

The U.S. government has withheld a five-year $5.7 million study on the long-term effects of sex change operations and puberty blockers on youngsters. The report, financed by the National Institutes of Health and which included 280 teenagers, was to have been concluded in 2020. In July 2022, the Food and Drug Administration asserted that puberty blockers pose such risks as brain swelling and vision loss.

Gosney’s star began to fade decades after his death in 1942. The link between eugenics with Nazi Germany and the campaign to stamp out minorities became repulsive in California. In January 2021, the California Institute of Technology, which had received Gosney’s assets, removed his name from the board of trustees and everywhere else on campus.

But so far, the luster of the transgender industry has not faded. The industry uses the powerful to censor or threaten those who oppose or even question the ethics of exploiting minors for mutilation and sterilization. Scientists, authors and academics have been blocked from social media outlets — their jobs threatened.

“They flip-flop based on whatever furthers their ideology,” said Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist and academic advisor for the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine. “It’s complete pseudoscience, anyway you look at it. I get messages from parents every day. And they’re horrified about what’s going on. I think a lot more harm has to get done until we get there [to a reversal].”

Blinkin Blinded

By

David Bedein

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February 7, 2023

Journalist David Bedein asked three questions US secretary of State Blinkin, during the official Blinkin visit to Israel.

1. Will the US demand that the PA repeal the PA “pay to slay” law, enacted by the PA in 2015, which provides an automatic salary for life for anyone who murders a Jew, or a salary for life to the family of the killer, if the attacker is killed during the act o murder?

https://israelbehindthenews.com/2017/01/11/incentivizing-terrorism-palestinian-authority-allocations-terrorists-families/.

2. Since the PA has adopted a school curriculum for PA and UNRWA schools which rejects any recognition of Israel and indoctrinations the next generation to oppose any two state solution and, will the US demand that PA schools recognize Israel?

https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/?s=arnon+groiss

3. In any further US aid to UNRWA, will the US demand that UNRWA call an end to any further UNRWA incitement against Israel? After all, one of the accomplishments of the Biden administration was the US-UNRWA accord, which provided anti incitement guidelines in conduct of US policy towards UNRWA?

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-2022-US-UNRWA-Framework-Signed.pdf

· This is the US response to Bedein questions placed to Blinkin, attributable to an official US embassy source;

· ” The United States has zero tolerance for incitement to violence. The President and Secretary Blinken are both on the record condemning any and all unilateral actions that increase tensions and undermine the viability of a two-state solution. That certainly includes payments related to acts of terrorism committed against Israelis”.

In other words:

Blinkin blinked, offering slogans & no policy.

MK Simcha Rothman – Clarifying the Government’s Proposed Judicial Reform

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February 7, 2023

Chairman, Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee

Rothman is a member of the Religious Zionist party. He was first elected to the Knesset in 2021.

Architect of judicial reform bill ‘eager to compromise’

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February 7, 2023

Member of Knesset Simcha Rothman expressed his openness to compromise on the judicial reform package that is currently being introduced in the Knesset at a press briefing hosted Thursday by the Jerusalem Center for Public Policy (JCPA).

“I am eager for a debate, I am eager for a discussion,” he said.

Dan Diker, the former secretary general of the World Zionist Congress and president of the JCPA, stated that the conflict surrounding judicial reform has “moved from a domestic issue to an international issue” and expressed his hope that the briefing would allow Rothman, a key figure behind the proposed reforms, to explain his stance. Diker added that there “has been confusion and a lack of clarity in the debate” on the issue.

In his opening statement, Rothman, who is chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, highlighted what he sees as problems with the Israeli Supreme Court, pointing to several examples.

Rothman criticized the Court for limiting the IDF’s ability to quickly demolish the homes of terrorists. He pointed out that this policy of house demolition has been shown to save lives, but delays caused by the Court have reduced its effectiveness. He also pointed to the Court’s decision to block Knesset laws aimed at controlling the flow of illegal immigration from Eritrea and Darfur. He said that the court has prevented “all measures enacted by the government, which is trying to stop unchecked people from entering the country.”

Rothman also targeted the chief legal advisors who serve as representatives of the judiciary in government and legislative bodies, saying they hold disproportionate power. As an illustration, he pointed to the prime minister’s inability to represent himself before the Supreme Court. The prime minister must be represented by his chief legal advisor, even if the two parties disagree. Rothman accused the chief legal advisors of having excessive control over Knesset committees and various ministries, referring to them as “the court before the court.” He explained that he believes these power dynamics need to be reevaluated.

In addition, Rothman criticized the Supreme Court for what he sees as political bias, referring to it as a “very progressive” institution. He highlighted the court’s handling of human rights issues, saying, “People who are trying to color the battle between the Supreme Court and the Knesset as a battle over human rights need to show that the Supreme Court defends human rights.”

He cited examples of what he sees as inhumane rulings, such as the Court’s treatment of illegal immigrants versus defendants prosecuted as a result of the 2005 Gaza Disengagement. He stated, “The court ruled against three years (in prison) for illegal infiltrators but ‘yes’ three years for people who stayed an extra three days in the disengagement from Gaza.”

Rothman argued that the Supreme Court’s actions do not align with the protection of human rights and that “the Knesset defends human rights way better than they do.”

He also cited the Court’s failure to strike down a COVID-related law that prevented people from attending houses of worship during lockdowns, as opposed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a similar law.

Rothman further criticized the power of Israel’s attorney general, stating, “The attorney general has more power in Israel than any leader in any democratic power.”

He also expressed concerns over the process of appointing justices to the Supreme Court. He explained that the process is conducted by a committee of nine people and that a 7-9 majority is necessary to appoint a new justice. Since three members of the committee are Supreme Court justices, the Court has a de facto veto on any new appointments.

Rothman criticized the ease with which cases can be brought before the Court, saying, “Anyone can bring a case with no evidence of harm done.” The U.S. Supreme Court, he said, accepts only 60-100 cases a year while the Israeli Supreme Court sees 10-15,000 cases, including up to 4,000 major cases.

He suggested that the Court’s intense response to the proposed reforms are possibly motivated by its desire to “protect its powers.” He argued that the Court has pushed back hard on previous, less sweeping attempts to curb its power. “Don’t read too much into their hysteria,” he said.

Rothman outlined the proposed judicial reforms, saying they focus on the appointment of judges, the Supreme Court’s power to overturn laws and the role of legal advisors.

According to Rothman, the reforms aim to change the method of appointing new judges by reforming the judicial selection committee. Three representatives from each branch of government would sit on the committee, and the requirement of a 7-9 majority would be changed to an absolute majority. In addition, representatives of the Israeli Bar Association would no longer hold seats on the committee.

The reforms would also limit the Supreme Court’s ability to overturn laws. Currently, the court can overturn laws for a variety of reasons, including “reasonableness.” Rothman said the reforms would require a unanimous decision from the Supreme Court to overturn a Knesset law, along with an override clause that would allow the Knesset to overrule Court decisions with a 61-seat absolute majority.

Regarding legal advisors, Rothman said they should act only as advisors.

He emphasized that these reforms are necessary to ensure a balanced and accountable judiciary.

Not everyone agreed with Rothman’s proposals. Irwin Cotler, a former Canadian attorney general and minister of justice, was present at the briefing. He said that some judicial reforms are necessary, but criticized the requirement that only a unanimous ruling from the Supreme Court can overturn a Knesset law, saying, “In my view, this proposal goes too far.”

In response to questions about the implications of the proposed judicial reforms on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, Rothman said, “This change should have no effect on criminal proceedings.” He emphasized that the prime minister is not involved in steering the proposed reforms.

Rothman closed the briefing by expressing his willingness to compromise on the issue. “I am eager for a debate, I am eager for a discussion, I am even eager for a compromise,” he stated.

He criticized what he described as media hysteria, saying it misinforms the public and pushes people away from the negotiating table. He also said Supreme Court President Esther Hayut is not serious about compromising on the reform package.

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