How to Start a War

Joe Biden, and those around him, seem determined to upset the peace they inherited.

Arab rockets intercepted by Israeli defenses

Victor Davis Hanson   "Wars often arise from uncertainty. When strong countries appear weak, truly weaker ones take risks they otherwise would not.

"Sloppy braggadocio and serial promises of restraint can trigger wars, too. Empty tough talk can needlessly egg on aggressors. But mouthing utopian bromides convinces bullies that their targets are too sophisticated to counter aggression.

"Sometimes announcing “a new peace process” without any ability to bring either novel concessions or pressures only raises false hopes — and furor.

"Every new American president is tested to determine whether the United States can still protect friends such as Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Israel. And will the new commander in chief deter U.S. enemies Iran and North Korea — and keep China and Russia from absorbing their neighbors?

"Joe Biden, and those around him, seem determined to upset the peace they inherited.

"Soon after Donald Trump left office, Vladimir Putin began massing troops on the Ukrainian border and threatening to attack.

"Putin earlier had concluded that Trump was dangerously unpredictable, and perhaps best not provoked. After all, the Trump administration took out Russian mercenaries in Syria. It beefed up defense spending and upped sanctions.

"The Trump administration flooded the world with cheap oil to Russia’s chagrin. It pulled out from asymmetrical missile treaties with Russia. It sold sophisticated arms to the Ukrainians. The Russians concluded that Trump might do anything, and so waited for another president before again testing America.

"In contrast, Biden often talks provocatively — while carrying a twig. He has gratuitously called Putin “a killer.” And he warned that the Russian dictator “will pay a price” for supposedly interfering in the 2020 election." . . .

Israel still waits for Messiah to come. Meanwhile...

Ann Coulter: I Will Not Be Scienced!

 Ann Coulter

Whether the virus that destroyed the world economy and has already killed more than 3 million people came from a Chinese lab or a Chinese wet market, or a Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side (unlikely), it’s China’s fault. What is mind-boggling about Wade’s article is the overweening and baseless pomposity of our high priests of SCIENCE.

"After a year of being browbeaten by THE SCIENTISTS not to wear a mask, to wear a mask, to wear double masks, to get vaccinated and still wear a mask, our analytic overlords are still no closer to determining the tiny little issue of where this virus came from.

"Recently, the widely respected science writer Nicholas Wade published an article 

in Medium pushing the idea that — contrary to what “the scientists” assured us — COVID-19 might have come from the Wuhan virology lab, not the wet markets.

"According to Wade, the virologists attacking the lab theory were claiming scientific certainty for something unknowable, and at least one of them has a gigantic conflict of interest. Even at a time when “TRUST THE SCIENCE!” has become a liberal mating call, I’m shocked at the deceptions of these guys.

"Wade cites two groups as leading the attack on the lab theory.

"Kristian G. Andersen, a professor of immunology and microbiology at the Scripps Research Institute in California, was the lead author of a paper published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020, claiming: “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”

"Talk about influential — not only did The New York Times cite Andersen, but I did!" . . .

The Nation of the Dry Bones

 

Jewish Commentary by Meir Y. Soloveichik  "In April, 1945, Jewish prayer services in the history of Judaism. It took place on a Friday afternoon, on the eve of the Sabbath in Bergen-Belsen, only days after the concentration camp had been liberated. The worshippers, survivors all, had not participated in a minyan in years. The prayers concluded with words Walker assumed were standard Sabbath liturgy but were actually the words of “Hatikvah,” the anthem of the Zionist movement, and later of the State of Israel. As their voices faded, one of the chaplains leading the service declaimed three Hebrew words, a clarion call that can still be heard on the recording of the broadcast: Am Yisrael chai, the people of Israel liveth! 

"Walker was witness to what would become the perfect embodiment of the current period of the Jewish calendar, when Israel and world Jewry mark, one week apart, the worst and then the most miraculous moments in Jewish Diaspora history: first Yom Ha’shoah, the commemoration of the Holocaust, and then Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. In order to understand why this is so, we can begin with the Jewish chaplain whose final words defined the service, and whose later recollections and obituaries allow us to see the moment through his eyes. Leslie Hardman, staffed to Britain’s second army, had not been with the troops when the camp was liberated but was told two days later, “Keep a stiff upper lip. We’ve just been into Belsen concentration camp and it’s horrible; but you have got to go there—you’ll find a lot of your people.” He first encountered a Jewish woman whose decrepit appearance was so horrifying that he instinctively backed away, provoking her to cry out in Yiddish, “Farloz mir nit!! Geh nit avek fun mir!” Do not leave me! Do not go away from me!

Hardman walked with her and then saw the others: “Towards me came what seemed to be the remnants of a holocaust—a staggering mass of blackened skin and bones, held together somehow with filthy rags,” he recalled. “‘My God, the dead walk,’ I cried aloud, but I did not recognize my voice.” 

"All too soon he would learn that the “walking dead” were the lucky ones. The British had created mass graves for the dead. Hardman protested at the lack of respect but was told, “Padre, we’ve got to get them under the ground. Otherwise, we’ll all suffer from typhus.” Thus were Jews buried by the thousands, denied everything in death as they were in life. One haunting photograph captures Hardman standing all alone at a mass grave, reciting Kaddish. Among the bodies over whom he prayed was very possibly Anne Frank, who had died of typhoid at Belsen months before. The experience would remain with Hardman, a dedicated Zionist, his entire life." . . . More at the link...

Palestinians and Democrats Spread Misinformation on Israel’s Actions in Jerusalem

Basically a "real estate dispute".

The American Spectator  "Palestinian terror is raining upon Israel once again. Since Monday, approximately 1,000 rockets from Gaza have claimed the lives of seven Israelis, the most recent an IDF soldier who was killed as a missile hit his Jeep. An Israeli man driving near the Temple Mount was pelted with stones and nearly lynched by a mob. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared a state of emergency in Lod, a mixed Arab–Jewish city in Israel. This follows intense Arab rioting, including arson of synagogues, shops, and cars, which Lod’s mayor has called “too big for the police” and “an Intifada of Arab Israelis.”

. . . Democrats and Palestinians alike are slandering Israel through false narratives surrounding the pending Sheikh Jarrah evictions and Temple Mount riots. The Biden administration should respond to the increase in Palestinian violence by threatening to withhold additional funding to the Palestinians and by walking away from the Vienna negotiations with Iran. But given that nine Senate Democrats have signed a letter calling the Biden administration to reopen the PLO office in D.C. as well as the U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in eastern Jerusalem, appeasement abounds in the Democratic camp. Unless the U.S. pivots away from seeking a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran and the Palestinian Authority at all costs, it will continue to stoke the violence plaguing Israel.

Blackouts, Increasing Crime, Rampant Homelessness, And Man-Made Drought: Is This California Or A Third World Nation?

California is arguably the most politically “progressive” state in the country. So why can’t it make progress in eradicating problems that don’t fit its image as an innovative, forward-looking, ever-advancing state? The answer starts with a lesson: Never confuse “progressive” politics with human and civilizational progress.

 

https://www.terrellaftermath.com/

"While still trying to process the unwelcome news that we’re going to have to grind through yet another year of drought, California energy officials told us to also be ready for the power to go out when the days grow long and warm.

“ 'The managers of California’s electricity system,” the Sacramento Bee reported May 5, “can’t promise they’ll be able to keep the lights on this summer.”

"Though officials insist “they’ve fortified the power grid against more outages,” they at the same time concede “that another extraordinary surge in temperatures could spell trouble.”

"Sounds more like an implicit warning than a mere observation of what might be possible in the extreme.

"This is only one of several contemporary California afflictions. A drought “watch” began in early April with reports the state had arrived on the “edge of another protracted drought.” Then we were told the Bay Area had landed “in the ‘extreme’ drought category,” and that conditions across the state “have gone from bad to worse in scarcely a month.” By the second Monday of May, Gov. Gavin Newsom had included an additional 39 counties in his drought emergency declaration, only days after the U.S. Drought Monitor indicated that nearly 93% of the state was experiencing either severe, extreme, or exceptional dry conditions.

"But there has to be some good news, right? Somewhere there is. But a quick look at the headlines beyond blackouts and drought tell us deadly crimes in the state’s largest cities are on the rise, homelessness continues to grow, and the wildfire season, which is “already off to a fast start,” “could quickly become the worst on record.”

"This is progress?

"California is arguably the most politically “progressive” state in the country. So why can’t it make progress in eradicating problems that don’t fit its image as an innovative, forward-looking, ever-advancing state?

"The answer starts with a lesson: Never confuse “progressive” politics with human and civilizational progress." . . .

California’s Progressive Betrayal   "California’s left-wing policies hurt working-class and middle-class residents."

How long can working- and middle-class Californians endure such conditions while being hectored by billionaires and celebrities? An alternative may exist: the development of a pragmatic, solutions-oriented new party, as proposed by former GOP congressman Tom Campbell. This would constitute what the late historian Kevin Starr called “the party of California”—one that doesn’t adhere to a green religion or do the bidding of tech mavens but instead seeks to restore the promise that attracted so many to this peculiarly blessed state.