Nationalism, National-Socialism, and Soviet Fascism in America

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within… The traitor is the carrier of the plague. You have unbarred the gates of Rome to him.” — Cicero


A similar idea was expressed by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln; and human nature has not changed since Cicero. It is true—the traitor is the carrier of the plague…My beloved America the Beautiful is experiencing that exact plague today that was brought to us by Soviet Fascism…

For over thirty years, I have exposed this plague and warned Americans about it constantly by refraining the phrase: “Knowledge of Russia and its Intelligence is a MUST.” The former AG Jeff Sessions was a victim of the plague, because he did not know Russia, its Intelligence apparatus and recused himself from Russia Probe. Now, as a result, we have a political chaos in America every day for three years. Jeff Sessions Has Big Plans For 2020 running for Senate. I will forgive him on the condition that he will start learning the ideology of Soviet fascism today.

Nationalism and National-Socialism

During last three years President Trump has undergone relentless attacks and several incredible accusations: mentally ill, ignorant, incapable of thinking, Stalin, racist-Hitler, and nationalist. All of those has nothing to do with reality, but… he is a Nationalist. And I want to talk about Nationalism, because I am also a Nationalist.

Nationalism, an ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpasses other individual or group interests. Encyclopedia Britannica

I am a nationalist and I know that a family is an initial-origin cell and foundation of any society. Family always seeks peace and tranquility for all its members, a society and nation as a whole have the same desire… Nationalism is a very peaceful, loyal and devoted concept of people who want to have a country with one culture, one language, one nation whose territory has secure borders. Nationalism is an ancient idea in history. Jews have been striving for a nation state since Antiquity, and achieved their goal of establishing the state of Israel only in 1948. Every nation wants to have a national identity, one culture and language on their territory plus strong and secure borders. Nationalism is a very patriotic and peaceful idea, unlike national-socialism, which was born in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

For your information national-socialism has an abbreviation—Nazi, Nazism. It has the same definition as Fascism. Europe is well familiar with national-socialism; every country in Europe had its own Quisling and Mosley. Europe has given the world three different types of Fascism: Italian fascism with mild application of force, German fascism with Holocaust, gas-chambers, excessive abuse of power by the Gestapo, and the third one Stalinist Soviet Fascism. All three are known to the world as militant, aggressive, and expansionist political forces with a common agenda–to conquer the world. Do you see the differences between nationalism and national-socialism? Yet, there is more…

The most well-known fascist leaders, Mussolini and Hitler, were proud to publicize their fascist ideology, in their speeches and books. You can read Hitler’s “Mein Kam” today. Japan joined Italy and Germany by 1940 and the three had established the “Axis.” Very soon their real agenda to fight Western civilization was revealed. Germany attacked Poland September 1, 1939 and WW II began. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. The entire world was involved in killing, destroying, harming, sabotaging and terminating instead of creating, building, generating and producing. I saw all of that in Russia, Ukraine, and Europe…

The tragedy of the WW II is staggering: Deaths directly caused by the war (including military and civilians killed) are estimated at 50–56 million people, while there were an additional estimated 19 to 28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine. Total price to defeat the fascist “Axis” cost the world population 70-80 million. The Marshall Plan cost about $13.3 billion at the time, but dollars during the 1950s could purchase much more than today’s dollars. Adjusting for inflation and stated in today’s dollars, the Marshall Plan investment would be equal to $103.4 billion, invested by the United States of America. But … Fascism is alive and well…

Fascism Never Sleeps: Soviet Fascism

As a matter of fact, the Soviet fascism developed under the Iron Curtain is unknown to the world. That is the reason I have been writing about the ideology of Stalinism for the last thirty years. Unlike Hitler and Mussolini, being proud of their ideology, Stalin had masked and covered up the real identity of the Soviet regime—Soviet Fascism. He created a system of Political Correctness to deceive the opposition and the world. Under the term Socialism, Soviet fascism had been disseminated across the world with the application of Political Correctness deceiving and defrauding the people. Do you see now the main difference between Nationalism and national-socialism? We must pay attention to the ideology of Socialism, as an integral part of Fascism!!! Read here Political Correctness and the Socialist Revolution in America, October 31, 2019

There is only one Socialist system in the world practiced in real life—Stalin’s Soviet Socialism. It was an inextricably, intertwined blend of Socialist ideology with the force of punitive agencies—I use the term KGB talking about them. That force, coordinated by the KGB, helped HIS Socialist system to survive for many years, yet Socialism ended in the country where it was born. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 meant the collapse of the Socialist economy, which wasn’t able to produce, but the Police State under the KGB has re-emerged, bringing the KGB operative Vladimir Putin to the presidency of the Russian Federation. Nothing substantial has changed and under Putin’s leadership, the current crop of apparatchiks are flourishing in Russia today. The KGB is still running the country with a crony capitalism instead of failed socialism. Yet, the absence of Socialism opens the door to the Truth—the real name of the ideology is Soviet Fascism…

From the first day of Obama’s presidency the war against the American Republic began to transform our country to a Socialist Administrative State. Obama, the socialist, did not hide his real agenda, openly calling for the transformation, and began fighting the unique political system left to us by our Founding Father. Following Stalin’s model of weaponizing the Intel, Obama appointed as CIA Director a man who voted in the previous election for a Communist candidate—John Brennon. Socialist/Communist’s brain-washing war on America’s mind and soul had started by Socialist-Obama, lying constantly, using Stalinist Political Correctness and his holdovers. The train-engine of the coup against Trump has been moving ahead, combating Western civilization and you, the American people.

I have writing about the Dems’ American Socialist mafia, the carrier of the plague that has come from the KGB. I found plenty of Socialist methods and tricks being implemented in America, especially by America’s Socialist mafia. Schiff’s fabrication is reminiscent of the former head of the KGB in the Soviet Union, Lavrenty Beria’s, famous boast, “You bring me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” You see it in America today. Knowing well the Soviet abusive power of the KGB, I was stunned seeing the same here being exercised by the current Anti-Trump cabal, America’s Socialist mafia. I am using a term KGB meaning the entirety of Russian Intelligence Services.

The Dems were committing crimes and putting the finger of blame on the opposition for the last 3-4 decades. Nothing is left of Truman’s Party, only the title—the Democrat Party, an old shell, used by the America’s Socialist mafia to cover up its actual adherence to the ideology of Soviet fascism a plague brought by the KGB to our land. I have support from a professor of Law. LISTEN: Liberal Democrat Dershowitz Compares Democrats To Russian Secret Police Under Stalin, Blisters CNN, by Hank Berrien, November 11, 2019, DailyWire.com Derschowitz also ripped Democrats, comparing them to the Russian secret police under the murderous Russian dictator Josef Stalin, asserting, “The Democrats are now making up crimes.” He is right, I know Stalinism. Alas, it is here.

What does Rep. Sean Maloney and other Dems members of the Impeachment procedure know about Stalinism and Soviet fascism? They have been deceived and mislead by DNC for decades and now they are led by a Communist, Tom Perez, the Deep State, and “the Squad” –the plague Cicero was talking about…There are some decent Dems, but they are deceived and tricked—they don’t know Russia and its Intelligence apparatus and don’t understand how it is operating here, just like Jeff Sessions did not. Moreover, they don’t know Ukraine and the unthinkable corruption there—Soviet scale corruption…

They had no idea of how wide Stalinism and Soviet Fascism are spread across the globe. If you know Soviet fascism, you know what is going on in Hong Kong. It took Stalin two decades to build a Chinese Communist State with all the attributes of Soviet fascism, schooled by the Russian KGB. Things going on in Stalinist Russia years ago, is being repeated in all countries of “the Axis of Evil” under the Russian umbrella. Listen to this story:

A Christian house church leader told Bitter Winter the Communist Party is “replacing the words of God with human moral standards, secretly distorting the doctrine and eroding the foundations of the Christian faith.”

“This is a truly sinister approach. Only the devil would do such a thing,” the leader said. In China, the government controls churches by requiring them to belong to its Three-Self Patriotic Movement. ‘Truly sinister’: Jesus’ words twisted to promote communism.” ‘Only the devil would do such a thing’ By WND Staff Published November 10, 2019.

I have bad news for Robert Levinson’s family. Iran is a member country of “the Axis of Evil”. I am afraid that it was Russia who dealt with Robert Levinson. That means that experiment with Otto Warmbier in North Korea can be repeated in Levinson’s case, the way it initially was performed on Raoul Wallenberg in Russia. Read my book What is Happening to America? Xlibris, 2012. Soviet fascism is alive and well and never sleeps…

My fellow Americans!

President Donald J Trump presents an existential threat to Soviet Fascism.

Do you realize now what the radical Left armed with the ideology of Soviet Fascism means?

It was the ultimate goal and agenda of Stalin, Andropov and Putin to destroy America from within…

And the Democrat Party of the 21st century is doing just that before the eyes of the world…

Our Founding Fathers are rolling over their graves.

The human nature definitely has not changed since Cicero!

To be continued www.simonapipko1.com and on www.drrichswier.com/author/spipko/.

©2023. Simona Pipko. All rights reserved.

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Harvard Donors Start to Notice the Shift in Culture at this Formerly Great Institution

Billionaire Harvard Donor, Bill Ackman writes letter exposing the fully communist nature of the culture at Harvard.

Daily Mail: Bill Ackman posts excoriating letter to Harvard’s president Claudine Gay taking aim at anti-Semitism, free speech and discrimination against straight white men and Asian students in the guise of ‘equity’

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman took aim once again at Harvard University’s leadership in a scathing open letter in which he highlights their failure to address anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination on campus. 

Ackman, 57, posted the letter on his X page on Sunday. In one section he wrote that anti-Semitism is ‘the canary in the coal mine for other discriminatory practices at Harvard.’

The Harvard graduate also alleged that straight white males are subject to discrimination and denied opportunities at the school.

The Daily Mail article emphasizes Harvard’s antisemitism. But Ackman equally excoriated Harvard for its anti-White hatred, where antisemitism is merely a subset of anti-white hatred because Jews are seen as white. Sadly, this means that while Ackman is capable of observing what is obvious and stating it, he is not yet understanding what is taking place on the Harvard Campus. Communism views things in terms of power. What they view is the group holding power must be overthrown, and those who do not have power must be elevated in what will be a PERPETUAL revolution. Exactly like the pamphlet said in the anti-Israel protest in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago. The photo below is from the Trotskyist League at the anti-Israel demo, Nov. 25th

To get a good read on the Ackman letter, please check out that segment of Today’s Charlie Kirk show.

It is well worth the time. And as Kirk said, when you meet Harvard grads, at least recent ones, its time to treat them as they are. Not as the legacy they bought.

WATCH:

IN FOCUS: College Presidents Defend Antisemitism with Rep. Mary Miller – OAN

Congressional hearing with the University Presidents

Major Democrat Donor Calls Out Harvard for Participating in the War on White People

RELATED ARTICLES:

Ivy League Presidents Invoked Free Speech To Defend Anti-Jewish Protests. Here’s How They’ve Treated Conservatives

Enlightened Jew hatred

RELATED PODCAST: Moral Bankruptcy of Harvard, MIT and Penn!

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EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column posted by Eeyore is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Florida Republican Registrations Report — November 2023

Note: The registrations numbers in this writing refer to active registrations, a subset of total registrations.

Note: The Republican Party of Florida, at least occasionally, has issued their own monthly registrations report and their numbers usually differ only slightly from the numbers presented in this report. The numbers for this report are generated from those numbers listed on the various Supervisor of Elections (SOE) websites after business hours on the last day of the month, with the exception of some counties who post their registration numbers monthly (an example of a county which posts a monthly number is Miami-Dade County).


Some, perhaps most, counties which post their numbers as being up to date, are likely to be at least a day behind in their postings. The difference in registration reports is usually small, and since this report is consistent in the manner in which the numbers are collected, the immediacy of the report is thought to be more important than the normal minor differences that exist in the date of data collection. Also owing to immediacy, if updated numbers are not available by noon of the third business day of the month, the county will have an asterisk by their name in the tables, and the numbers for the county will be the numbers from the prior month.

Last month, the normal small difference in the two reports was fairly large owing to Palm Beach and Sarasota Counties, which had significant differences in the number that was posted on their website on the last day of the month, and the official number reported to the state. This large change is believed to be caused by the adjustments being made by the change in law instituted to more easily move voters to the inactive voter status (see note below).

Florida Republicans continue the trend of making relative gains in active voter registrations as Republican registrations relative to Democrat registrations increased by 36,058 registrations in November and by 386,718 registrations since the book closing for the 2022 general election. Florida Republicans now have a 692,668 relative registrations advantage over the Democrats. Republican registrations were 38.09% of total registrations and Republicans now enjoy a 5.12% of total registrations advantage over the Democrats (click here to view tables).

The Democrats lost 50,736 additional registrations in November, 509,285 registrations since the 2022 book closing, and 841,210 registrations since the 2020 election. The Republican registrations decreased by 14,678 in November, and the number of registrations which are neither Republican nor Democrat decreased by 49,751 registrations in November (click here to view the charts).

Note: There have been some relatively large shrinkages in the number of registrations in Florida Counties. The law was changed to make it easier to shift voters into the inactive voter category, a category where the process of removing voters from the voter rolls is initiated. The decreases in the number of registrations should end when the supervisors of elections complete the job of making the transfers in accordance with the new measures.

The Year in Review

The intent of this report is to provide information to operatives so they can monitor their efforts to grow the Republican share of the vote, which between elections may be the best measured by changes in voter registrations. Of interest is that none of the recommendations made in this report over the past year have been implemented, and as far as what is known, the recommendations are not even being considered for implementation. The Republican political class appears content with the status quo at the local, state, and national level.

What is the Republican status quo? The Republican status quo (RSQ) consists entirely of campaign efforts, of which there are four pillars: candidate, money, message, and voter turnout. The RSQ does not take the underlying political orientation of an electorate, the most significant election factor in nearly every state, into consideration. The pillars of the RSQ only matter when the underlying political orientation of an election district is somewhat neutral.

The RSQ believes Republican candidates in California (where Republicans captured 12 of 52 (23%) national congressional seats in 2022) have the same chance of Republicans winning elections as they have in Florida (where Republicans captured 20 of 28 (71%) national congressional in 2022). The RSQ is total nonsense.

In the 2022 Florida general election there were five state senate seats, and 14 state house seats where Republicans did not field candidates. If elections depend on a simple yet potent formula: candidates, messaging, money, and voter turnout, and not about the underlying political orientations, then why were there no Republicans candidates in these races?

The RSQ needs to change! Republicans should be actively working to positively change the underlying political orientation of election districts.

Republicans limiting themselves to the RSQ has defied explanation, but current gender confusion may provide some clarity. Some people believe that gender identity should be up to the individual to decide. In this line of thinking, biological males may identify as females and biological females may identify as males.

What does gender confusion have to do with political strategy? There exists political confusion in the Republican Party. The Republican Party may identify as a political party. Republicans can deeply believe the Republican Party is a political party. Without strategies to change the underlying political orientation of electorates, the Republican party is not a political party, the Republican Party is a campaign organization.

The Republican presidential candidate carried 49 states in 1984, 30 states in 2000, and 25 states in 2020. The pool of states where the underlying political orientation favors Republicans, or where the underlying political orientation is neutral enough for Republicans to win, has shrunk to a critical level. This is no time to let sleeping dogs lie.

The California/Florida Conundrum

The Democrat takeover of California should have led to the Republicans adopting new strategies, but the takeover has led to no such thing. Democrats have totally outfoxed, and continue to outfox, Republicans. For Republicans not to adopt strategies that positively change the underlying political orientations of electorates is political malpractice.

One way for Democrats to politically prosper is to corrupt real estate markets. Corrupted real estate market results in increased home prices, forcing a higher percentage of voters to rent. Renters vote Democrat at a much higher rate than homeowners vote Republican, and therefore Democrats make outsized political gains by marginally raising the rates of rentership.

Perhaps owing to Republican voters generally gaining financially from having corrupted real estate markets, the gains in wealth arising from higher home values, there has been little or no political opposition by Republicans to the corruption of the real estate markets.

Comparing 2022 congressional races in California and Florida demonstrates the dynamism of the Democrat strategy of corrupting real estate markets. California Democrats captured a super majority (40 of 52, 77%) of 2022 California national congressional races while in Florida Republicans captured a super-majority (20 of 28, 71%) of 2022 Florida national congressional races. Housing is the difference!

The various housing metrics are as follows. California national congressional districts captured by Republicans had an average rentership rates of 34.24%, slightly higher than the 30.15% rate found in Florida congressional districts captured by Republican congressmen. California congressional districts captured by the Democrats had an average rentership rate of 46.95%, 12.71% higher than the average California districts captured by Republican congressmen. Florida congressional districts captured by Democrats had an average rentership rate of 39.98%, 9.83% higher than the average Florida districts captured by Republican congressmen.

The average rentership rate of California national congressional districts captured by Democrats was roughly 7% higher than the average rentership rate found in Florida national congressional seats held by Democrats. Most of this difference between the rentership rates in California and Florida Democrat districts was owing to California having districts where the rentership rates were exceedingly high such as 61.85% (CD42, Congressman Robert Garcia), 62.27% (CD11, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi), 67.56% (CD30, Congressman Adam Schiff), 69.04% (CD37, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove), and 77.09% (CD34, Congressman Jimmy Gomez) skewing their average to be higher. The highest rentership rate found in a Florida congressional district (CD24, Frederica Wilson) was 50.62%.

California has a higher overall statewide rentership rate of 44.5% and a super-majority Democrat congressional delegation compared to Florida’s overall 33.5% statewide rentership rate and super-majority Republican congressional delegation.

Republican success in Florida has not been obtained by purposefully adopting policies that lead to lessening of the rentership rate, it is owing to Florida not being as bad as California.

Given these numbers, and assuming Republicans wish to win elections, why isn’t there a Republican Party effort to improve Republican chances of winning elections by positively changing the underlying political orientation of electorates?

The Anti-Conservative Republican Primary System

Florida has a primary election law that often leads to the election of the most liberal Republican candidates in local elections. The pool of local politicians is often the source of candidates for higher office. This leads to Republican office holders who are generally much more liberal than the Republican Party as a whole. This is a problem owing to liberal Republican politicians tend to support policies that tend to change the underlying political orientation of an election district to become more Democrat.

The item at the primary level that is so troublesome for Florida Republican conservatives is the universal primary. A universal primary is required when there are only candidates from one political party in the election. In this case, the normally closed primary, a primary where only registered members of the party may vote, becomes universal, allowing all registered voters, regardless of a voter’s party registration designation, to vote. Since the voter pool of the entire electorate is more liberal than is the pool of registered Republican voters, the winner of a universal primary, awarded the office at the primary level, is likely to be the most liberal Republican in the race.

There is little stopping a Democrat candidate from reregistering as a Republican and becoming a Republican candidate. A Democrat strategy in areas that are heavily Republican is to have their candidates do just that, and to not enter a candidate in the primary. The crazy Florida primary system favors the election of these Democrats, turned Republicans, to win. Since the system is full of Republicans who were elected in this crazy system, that is no political will to change the law.

I have, who I would refer to as a political friend, who became disenchanted with the Republican Party, and joined the Constitution Party. Republicans should be actively trying to get the Constitution Party candidates to enter primary elections. This would put a halt to the Democrat strategy of winning the local elections by running their candidates as Republicans.

Please join the efforts to positively change underlying political orientations of election districts to build support for The U.S. Constitution, and by extension, the Republican Party!

©2023. Steve Meyer. All rights reserved.

Venezuelan Embassy Bogotá Colombia Confrontation

So today Karina and I had to go to the Venezuelan embassy in Bogotá Colombia to verify some apostilled Venezuelan documents to ensure Karina has smooth exit from Colombia to Miami, Florida.

The Commie Venezuelan Consulate Assistant invited us into the embassy for the verification process.

I declined the invite – I told the lady I’m an American and if I set foot on your Commie Venezuelan territory I’ll no doubt become a political hostage of the Maduro reign of terror.

So we made the Venezuelan consular officer verify the documents at the front gate of the embassy in the street on Colombian territory which she did.

I then told her in Spanish Trump is going to kick dictator President Maduro’s ass in 2025 and I said their Sunday election was a massive fraud

We then thanked her for verifying and approving the apostilled documents.

The Venezuelans in line behind us to enter the embassy gave me a high fives smiling as we left and then we went to eat lunch.

I think tomorrow we will return to the Communist Venezuelan Embassy and hang our Trump flag on the front gate for a photo op.

©2023. Geoff Ross. All rights reserved.

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DISSENT TV: Interview with Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff an Austrian mother devoted to the preservation of freedom of speech.

Today’s guest on DISSENT TV is Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff.

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is an Austrian mother devoted to the preservation of freedom of speech. A diplomat’s daughter, she was a child in Iran during the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and later lived in Iraq, Kuwait, and Libya. During the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, she was among the Austrian citizens who were held hostage.

Elizabeth subsequently worked as assistant to the Vice Chancellor of the Republic of Austria, at the Austrian Embassy Kuwait and the Austrian Embassy Tripoli, Libya.

She recently published her book “Truth Was My Crime – A Life fighting For Freedom”, which details her decade of fighting for her right to free speech.

Watch our full interview with Elizabeth [which begins at the 4:21 mark].

Elisabeth will return to the United States in February until March of 2024 and can be booked for speaking engagements. If you wish to have Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff as a guest speaker please contact her at: esab_kwt@yahoo.com

ABOUT ELISABETH SABITSCH-WOLF

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is a woman caught up in extraordinary times.

She has been hectored, vilified, persecuted and prosecuted for the grave offense of telling the truth about Mohammed and his “marriage” to a very young child as related in Islamic sacred literature.

Her case has exposed the grave danger to freedom of speech (and thus, freedom of thought itself) in Europe.

She fought bravely in the legal arena through the Austrian courts and on to the European Court of Human Rights to defend her freedom (and by extension the rights of all Europeans), to freely voice her opinion.

She lost.

In Europe, human rights are no longer thought to be intrinsic to the individual as a gift given by God, but are rather thought to be a gift of the state, which can be limited and revoked at will. This is a dangerous development and it has already made its way to America.

The book, which is an updated, revised version of her 2019 book The Truth is No Defense, begins by relating Elisabeth’s life’s odyssey, living in a number of Muslim countries even as a young child. Her father served in the Austrian diplomatic corps. She was living in Iran when the Islamic Revolution broke out.

Later, she too followed the path of diplomatic service and gained extensive experience working in the Muslim world. She was living in Kuwait when Saddam Hussein invaded. Elisabeth knows whereof she speaks.

Her book serves as a warning call, because she believes that there are many Americans willing to preserve their God-given right to free speech and because there is still still enough freedom in America to fight for freedom. Freedom of expression the basis for all freedom. There is no other freedom without it.

A key quote from the book:

The appeals court verdict is interesting, but even more shocking that the first guilty verdict. The judge explained that while it is certainly within the law to say that “Mohammed had sex with a 9-year-old,” calling this spade a spade is considered “excessive” and thus “denigrating.” Imagine that you were no longer allowed to call a murderer “heinous” because you might be convicted of having an “excessive” opinion as a result.

To read more about Elisabeth’s fight for freedom of expression in the Austrian and European justice systems, get the full book at Amazon.com. It is available in paperback and Kindle formats.

Visit TruthWasMyCrime.com.

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

As Israel-Hamas War Resumes, U.S. Navy Intercepts Drones in Red Sea

Israel is at war again. A four-day truce turned into eight, as the combatants took turns releasing prisoners — with Hamas releasing hostages captured in its October 7 raid, and Israel releasing three times as many security prisoners. But, on Friday, instead of delivering all the promised hostages to Israel, Hamas delivered another barrage of rockets.

Hamas “has not met its obligation to release all of the women hostages today and has launched rockets at Israeli citizens,” lamented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hamas also took credit for a terrorist attack on Thursday — during the ceasefire — in which two Palestinians opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem, killing four people and wounding five.

Netanyahu promised, “Upon the resumption of fighting, we emphasize: The Government of Israel is committed to achieving the goals of the war: Releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas, and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to the residents of Israel.” The IDF responded to Friday’s missile barrage with 200 airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza.

Despite their overwhelming military superiority and rapid success in dismantling the Hamas command-and-control node at the Al-Shifa Hospital, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) face even more difficult tasks ahead. The IDF must press southward into southern Gaza, where Hamas militants have hunkered down behind even more civilians, after residents of northern Gaza fled southward through Israel’s humanitarian corridor to avoid the fighting. The presence of extra civilians — an estimated two million people — makes it easier for Hamas to hide behind them, and harder for Israel to destroy Hamas with minimal civilian casualties.

Additionally, just because Israeli forces occupy an area does not mean Hamas resistance there has been eliminated. The IDF is still proceeding neighborhood by neighborhood to clear out Hamas fighters in Gaza City. In a Saturday airstrike, the IDF killed Wissam Farhat, an architect of the October 7 terror attack and commander of Hamas’s Shejaiya battalion — Shejaiya is a “neighborhood” of nearly 100,000 people in Gaza City. On Sunday, an IDF Arabic-language spokesman posted pictures of the remaining commanders of the Shejaiya battalion and warned them to surrender, “this is a final notice. You are all targets.”

In addition to above-ground resistance, the IDF must also clear out Hamas’s intricate network of tunnels, which allow militants to hide from surveillance and airstrikes, shelter behind protective barriers, and appear at any point at will. The IDF said Sunday they have discovered more than 800 tunnel shafts in the Gaza Strip leading to hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, leading to Hamas’s “strategic assets,” as well as schools, mosques, and playgrounds.

Before their forces push southward, Israel is trying to go the extra mile to protect civilians. In one spectacular move, the IDF dropped leaflets over the Gaza Strip to warn civilians to leave homes in a “dangerous battle zone” east of Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold, according to the Associated Press.

In the same report, the Associated Press did everything possible to give readers the impression that Israel was the party responsible for ending the ceasefire. “Airstrikes hit houses and buildings in the Gaza Strip minutes after a weeklong truce expired,” said the very first sentence. The second paragraph recorded, “militants in Gaza resumed firing rockets into Israel” with no mention of the timeframe, leading readers to infer this occurred in response to Israel’s bombing. Not until paragraph 13 — after the fifth inserted picture — did the AP admit that Hamas launched rockets before the ceasefire ended. Even after including such an admission, the article brazenly maintained, “Israel and Hamas traded blame for ending the truce.”

It sounds like the AP is still sore about Israel bombing their Gaza headquarters in 2021. The AP’s offices were located in the same building as Hamas’s military intelligence unit, a fact of which the international fact-gathering conglomerate claimed to be unaware.

The AP’s insinuations are simply misleading. But don’t take my word for it. Take the word of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the lead diplomat pressuring Israel to give Hamas an off-ramp. “It’s important to understand why the pause came to an end,” he said Friday from Dubai. “It came to an end because of Hamas. Hamas reneged on commitments it had made.”

“In fact, even before the pause came to an end, it committed an atrocious terrorist attack in Jerusalem,” Blinken added. “It began firing rockets before the pause ended, and as I said it reneged on the commitments it made in terms of releasing certain hostages.”

Blinken is no warmonger out for Palestinian blood. In a recent conversation, he insisted, “You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north.” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant responded, “The entire Israeli society is united behind the goal of dismantling Hamas, even if it takes months.” Blinken shot back, “I don’t think you have the credit for that.” Apparently, the U.S. Secretary of State would rather negotiate with terrorists than see our ally defeat them.

On this point, Blinken is not going rogue from his boss. President Biden has begun dictating Israel’s military tactics for them. Ostensibly, U.S. diplomatic pressure on Israel pretends a concern for Palestinian civilians. But the best outcome for Palestinian civilians is where Israel is given a free hand to stamp out the brutal extremists who rule and terrify them. The true effect of U.S. demands would be to ensure the survival of Hamas.

“Israel is the only responsible actor in this conflict. Therefore, it is the only party that can be shamed and cajoled out of pursuing its own national-security imperatives,” wrote National Review’s Noah Rothman. “And yet, the 10/7 massacre was so vicious — such a paradigm-altering event — that Israel, too, is no longer as responsive to the hectoring it routinely receives from comfortable quarters in the West as it has been in previous rounds of fighting.”

After suffering a surprise attack comparable to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, Israel is committed to destroying Hamas, and no outside pressure is going to stop them.

It’s not like Israel has a choice. Last week, Hamas’s top leader Yahya Sinwar threatened that the October 7 massacre “was just a rehearsal.”

Israel faces enemies elsewhere, too. On Israel’s northern border, the IDF has exchanged cross-border fire with Hezbollah, a terror group operating out of Lebanon. The Yemen-based Houthi terror group has also fired missiles at Israel, which have been intercepted by the IDF and the U.S. Navy. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are Islamist terrorist groups supported and financed by Iran’s extremist regime, which is committed to the destruction of Israel. Iran maintains a network of terror group proxies across the Middle East.

Israel is not alone in facing these enemies. From October 17 to November 30, U.S. bases in the Middle East sustained 74 attacks from Iranian proxies, Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said in a press briefing. On Sunday, the Houthis fired missiles in the direction of a U.S. destroyer and nearby commercial vessels in the Red Sea. “The way things are stacked up right now, Israel and the United States are intertwined in terms of how this plays out,” said Shalom Lipner, who served in the Israeli Prime Minister office from 1990-2016.

Israel is at war, and the U.S. is at war right alongside them.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

FBI Raids Traditional Catholic Family’s Home over Son’s Memes

The Biden administration’s FBI is once again targeting faithful Catholic Americans by raiding a Catholic family’s home. According to a report from American Greatness, the Rufini family were “dragged out of their home at gunpoint, handcuffed and locked in a van” by FBI agents earlier this year.

According to Jeremiah Rufini, his 15-year-old son was targeted for posting allegedly “offensive” memes online and in social media group chats, prompting the FBI’s raid. Rufini also alleges that undercover FBI agents infiltrated “right wing” social media chat groups, befriended his son there, and convinced or “goaded” him to generate content which they could then target.

Rufini explained that his son, an altar boy and volunteer firefighter, stepped up to take care of his 93-year-old great-grandmother. The boy was not “raised with cell phones or unrestricted internet access” but his responsibility taking care of his great-grandmother necessitated cell phone use. “He spent a lot of time alone with nothing to do but wait and think and the cell phone became a welcome distraction,” Rufini explained. He added that his son’s “interests in history and theology led him down a rabbit hole where he was recruited into group chats targeting teenage traditionalist Catholics with extreme political content.” Rufini said he later found that the group chats his son was involved in were “closely monitored, and possibly operated by, FBI agents as part of an effort to investigate Traditional Catholics…”

He further noted, “Ironically, our legal troubles began when he had an attack of conscience and abruptly deleted all of his chat apps. He later told us that he felt using social media was a coping mechanism and it had been affecting his mood and ability to sleep.” The FBI’s investigation against the teenager, which his father categorized as “very disproportionate,” reportedly yielded a misdemeanor conviction for breach of peace, but cost the Rufini family over $20,000 in legal fees spent combating the U.S. Justice Department.

Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “From the way the Rufini family describes it, the FBI targeted their son on social media and undercover agents might have encouraged him to commit some sort of offense for which they could arrest him.” She explained, “This is unspeakably cruel to a minor, and it creates problems that were not naturally there. Federal authorities should never foment illicit activity just to confirm their own bias against Christians.” Del Turco added, “This is yet another example of the FBI’s bizarre series of attempts to catch traditional Catholics in some kind of wrongdoing.”

This follows a series of instances in which FBI agents and the Biden Justice Department have aggressively targeted conservative Catholic individuals or communities for harassment or investigation over the past two years. In September of 2022, for example, around two dozen heavily-armed FBI agents equipped with riot gear raided the home of Catholic pro-life advocate and father of seven Mark Houck, handcuffing him in front of his wife and children. Houck was accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act by physically assaulting a Planned Parenthood employee. At trial, Houck’s defense team demonstrated that the Planned Parenthood employee had actually violated the abortion business’s policies, left his post, and crossed the street to where Houck and his son were peacefully praying. After the Planned Parenthood employee began following the two and verbally harassing Houck’s son, Houck shoved the man. Houck was acquitted earlier this year.

In February 2023, a memo was leaked from the FBI’s field office in Richmond, Virginia, detailing plans for infiltrating and spying on Catholic parishes which celebrate the Tridentine Mass, sometimes called the Traditional Latin Mass. The memo labeled Tridentine Mass-goers potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and relied heavily on information from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC classifies “radical traditional Catholics” as a hate group and places them on par with neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Despite initial claims that the memo was the misguided product of only one FBI field office, later documents and testimony revealed that multiple FBI field offices had contributed to the creation of the memo, including FBI field offices on the West Coast which had already infiltrated and spied on traditional Catholic communities.

When asked, months later, if he considered “traditional” American Catholics to be extremists, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland responded in a Congressional hearing, “I have no idea what ‘traditional’ means here.” After being pressed repeatedly to clarify his position on traditional Catholics and repeatedly refusing to answer directly, Garland finally admitted, “Catholics are not extremists, no.” When asked if anyone in the FBI or Justice Department had been disciplined over the creation of the memo, Garland replied, “I don’t know.”

Additionally, the FBI and Justice Department have done little to investigate or prosecute hundreds of attacks against Catholic churches in the U.S. According to a report by advocacy group CatholicVote, nearly 400 Catholic churches have been attacked over the past three years, including 99 in 2023 alone. The attacks have ranged from vandalism and spray-painting to destruction of property and desecration of Catholic statues to firebombing and attempted arson. Attacks have taken place in 42 states and Washington, D.C. A fresh spate of attacks took place in Ohio in late September and early November, ahead of the referendum vote on Issue 1, which enshrined a “right” to abortion in the Buckeye State’s constitution. According to CatholicVote, arrests have been made in less than 25% of attacks on Catholic churches.

Del Turco commented, “The FBI’s resources could be more effectively allocated if they would stop pursing imaginary terrorist threats among Catholics. One would think there is enough crime in America to keep the FBI busy.” She added, “When the FBI’s hyper-fixation on Catholics is inexplicable in the natural, that may just mean it’s spiritual. Spiritual warfare is real, and it affects human events.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

United Nations Targets America’s Energy, Food and Freedom at COP28

“Make no mistake,” COP 28, the big UN climate conference in Dubai, is “targeted at America.”


That’s what CFACT’s Marc Morano told the Fox News audience, reporting live from Dubai.

Watch Marc’s hard-hitting Fox report now at CFACT’s Climate Depot.

Thanks to the best supporters any organization ever had, CFACT’s team of policy experts is hard at work advocating freedom in the halls of UN climate power.  We are right inside the belly of the beast.

As Marc reports, Vice President Kamala Harris just pledged $3 billion American dollars  to the UN’s “Green Climate Fund.” When precisely did Congress appropriate that?

John Kerry took the UN stage and promised to shut down ALL “unabated” American coal power plants.  Meanwhile China is building 182 new ones!

The UN is not only targeting American energy and tax dollars, they are coming for our food supply as well.  They aim to eliminate fifty percent of American meat consumption and ninety percent of American beef!

Policy analyst Peter Murphy, an essential member of CFACT’s team in Dubai, reports that COP 28 got off to an embarrassing start when conference chairman Sultan Al Jaber spoke hidden truths out loud, saying:

There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5°C” above preindustrial levels … Show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.

Thanks for the honesty, Sultan!  Let’s hope the UN does not succeed in silencing you before you reveal again.

Murphy further reports on another moment of revealing candor when Isabela Tagomori, who works on integrated assessment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) at Utrecht University, told a UN panel that, it is essential to inject “fairness  principles” and “distributional justice” into climate policy.

“Murph” pulled no punches.  He took the microphone and told the speaker that her redistribution talk smacked of “Marxism.”

You should have seen how fast she backpedaled!

“Oh, no,” she countered, rather her organization’s effort was merely to collect “many different dimensions.”

When threatened with the facts, climate campaigners retreat to vague, opaque language.

Senior policy analyst Bonner Cohen explains at CFACT.org that COP 28 is… you guessed it… all about the money.

Who is lining up to pocket the billions of dollars Kamala Harris and the rest are throwing at climate?

Investors, dictators, and incredibly well-funded left-wing climate pressure groups.

For nature and people too.


TRANSCRIPT

Today I’m proud to announce a new 3 billion-dollar pledge to the green climate fund our collective pledge today to rapidly increase renewable energy also includes a call for all nations to stop building new on the bidding coal power plants plants.

Rachel: vice president Harris pushing the expensive green agenda on the world stage during the un annual climate action in dubai while climate envoy John Kerry promised to shut down all coal plants in America the announcement comes as the United Nations is expected to call on Americans to dramatically reduce their meat consumption in the name of climate change, Mark Morano joins us live from Dubai with more.

Rachel: I’m so glad you’re down there I’m always wondering what the control freaks in the billionaires are plotting over there what is happening what is the end goal.

Morano: A great question this conference in Dubai has more than doubled last year’s in Egypt the end goal is very simple to move more power to fewer and fewer people at the un as solon and the global corporations to billionaires of Bill Gates and King Charles and the corporations that are participating in the new form of fascism where the government cooperation to impose an agenda upon the world that we did not vote for. For Kamala Harris to give a speech saying $3 billion to the climate fund I was at the climate summit in South Africa and it was explained by its south African development the UN will take it and give it to the poor nation leaders who are best able to keep their citizens locked in poverty. Kamala Harris is saying we will get it to prevent development and fossil fuel energy in the poorest regions of the world they will give money to the leaders and they will ensure reelection of build monuments and keep the poor people from developing

This is immoral and the whole conference is gaining more control so we don’t have a say in our democracy anymore and how we liberal lives everything from freedom of movement to food to energy. Rachel: when you put it in those terms you’re right these poor countries need more energy so they can develop and have a better life and what they do is pay off the leaders to block them down and prevent development because they hate humans and they hate modern life and they want to lock us down John Kerry wants to shut down every coal plant in America how many coal plants have China open heaven into the open every month month.

One every two weeks one a week depending on the estimate China is not subject to the un climate regulations John Kerry says will shut down U.S. Domestic energy so we could be more reliant at the Biden Administration Venezuela, the Middle East China for rare-earth, I like to say China with rare-earth every EV battery half a million pounds of materials China is digging the earth nine brady bunch 1970 but fossil fuel intensive way and the earth they are exempt from this were offshore in our CO2 the U.S. has led the world in reducing CO2 admission if you care about that this conference make no mistake about it is the targeted at America you mentioned the meat-eating, the going for 90% reduction of meat eating in America that the new guidance coming from the un the same with the call with doctor guidance they’re coming after the American farmer Bill Gates said we don’t need farms he wants all meat grown in a lab from stem cells cal, she mixed with fetal blood put in a petri ds and printed on a 3d printer without eyes, bring this is frankenstein food that’s why they want to go after traditional meet.

Rachel: Bill Gates for example these are weirdos. No taking control of our food supply and energy in our currency those are the three things they need to control as a population and they’re doing it and you’re on the ground I only have a couple of sections you people know who you are and what you’re up to.

Had been arrested by climate cops at U.S. summit and people recognize me I may need a food taster to make sure I’m okay but the un does not like it and we have fun stuff planned while were here. Rachel: we will follow all of it my advice don’t eat the bugs. I know you want. Thank you so much we want more updates, come back to us.

Morano: Thank you Rachel.


RELATED ARTICLE: President Of UN Climate Confab Says There’s ‘No Science’ Behind Push To Phase Out Fossil Fuels

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EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

How to Escape Mediocrity and Mental Illness – The Road Less Traveled

The following is a transcript of this video.

“Since ultimately people heal themselves with or without the tool of psychotherapy, why is it that so few do and so many do not? Since the path of spiritual growth, albeit difficult, is open to all, why do so few choose to travel it? It was to this question that Christ was addressing himself when he said, “Many are called, but few are chosen.””

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

No matter the current state of our life or the problems we face, we all have the capacity for self-transformation, the ability to overcome our problems, and to move towards the ideal of peak psychological health. Yet most of us do not exercise this capacity; rather, we leave our personal problems unsolved and stay stuck in a mediocrity that situates us far below our potential and places us at risk of mental illness. Why is this limiting life-path the norm? In this video, drawing from the insights of the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, we examine this question and explore how we can be one of the few who proceeds upon the path of personal growth – which Peck called “the road less traveled”.

“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths….Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy…Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

One of the primary marks of wisdom is the capacity to accept that life is difficult, problems inevitable, and suffering inescapable. A second mark of wisdom is the understanding that if we confront our problems and work to solve them, we will suffer, but it will be the type of suffering that is meaningful and promotive of personal growth. Many of us do not possess these marks of wisdom. Rather, we cling to the illusory hope that if only we can make enough money, meet the right person, or get the right job, then life will be easy. Many of us also try to evade our problems via a variety of avoidance tactics. We blame our problems on other people or social circumstances. We procrastinate, hoping our problems will disappear. We engage in self-deception and deny that we have problems, or we turn to alcohol, drugs, or compulsive technology use to escape awareness of our problems and to numb the suffering that accompanies them. And as Peck observed:

“Some of us will go to quite extraordinary lengths to avoid our problems and the suffering they cause, proceeding far afield from all that is clearly good and sensible in order to try to find an easy way out, building the most elaborate fantasies in which to live, sometimes to the total exclusion of reality…We attempt to skirt around problems rather than meet them head on. We attempt to get out of them rather than suffer through them.”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

This attempt to avoid our problems and find an easy way out of suffering is doomed to fail. Not only does it lead us into fantasies and delusions, but it exacerbates our problems and makes us susceptible to a meaningless and neurotic type of suffering that is central to many forms of mental illness. Or as M. Scott Peck explained:

“This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness…In the succinctly elegant words of Carl Jung, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.” But the substitute itself ultimately becomes more painful than the legitimate suffering it was designed to avoid. The neurosis itself becomes the biggest problem. True to form, many will then attempt to avoid this pain and this problem in turn, building layer upon layer of neurosis…when we avoid the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that problems demand from us. It is for this reason that in chronic mental illness we stop growing, we become stuck.”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

There is only one way out of the neurotic suffering of mental illness, and this is to endure the legitimate suffering that is part and parcel of accepting our problems and then actively working to solve them. To heighten our capacity to endure suffering, it is beneficial to remember that suffering is not our enemy, but the greatest of teachers. “Those things that hurt, instruct.”, as Benjamin Franklin put it. Or as the ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus observed 2500 years ago: The gods have ordained a solemn decree that from suffering alone comes wisdom.” When we stop fleeing from and numbing ourselves to our suffering, then suffering shows us where we are going wrong in life and opens our eyes to the full extent of our problems and the necessity of change. This is why M. Scott Peck labeled depression as a healthy symptom which only becomes pathological when we try to suppress it and evade the life changes that its presence is calling for. Or as Peck explained:

“…depressive symptoms are a sign to the suffering individual that all is not right with him or her and major adjustments need to be made…depression is a normal and basically healthy phenomenon.”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

A further benefit of enduring suffering, instead of avoiding or masking it, is that eventually there comes a time when we grow sick of suffering and are struck by an intense motivation to resolve, once and for all, the problems underlying it. Once we cross this “threshold of suffering”, it typically becomes easy to leave behind bad habits and self-sabotaging behaviors, and to cultivate the discipline needed to move in a life-promoting direction. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used this threshold of suffering as a catalyst to eradicate some of his most harmful habits, and as he wrote:

“Indeed, from the bottom of my soul I am gratefully disposed to all my misery and sickness…because such things leave me a hundred back-doors through which I can escape from permanent [bad] habits.”

Nietzsche, The Gay Science

If suffering motivates us to confront our bad habits and problems, we will then have to struggle and suffer in order to overcome them. But in contrast to neurotic suffering which breeds stagnation and a wasted life, this type of suffering is constructive as it leads to personal growth. Or as Peck observed:

“It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn…it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning….Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of the pain of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

It is because legitimate suffering is a great teacher and a spur to personal growth that M. Scott Peck observed that: “…wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems.” Two of the wisest figures in history, Buddha and Jesus, harnessed the pain inherent in their problems to ascend to an elevated level of consciousness that was marked not only by a profound capacity to endure suffering, but also to experience overflowing joy. Or as Peck explained:

“One measure—and perhaps the best measure—of a person’s greatness is the capacity for suffering. Yet the great are also joyful. This, then, is the paradox. Buddhists tend to ignore the Buddha’s suffering and Christians forget Christ’s joy. Buddha and Christ were not different men. The suffering of Christ letting go on the cross and the joy of Buddha letting go under the bo tree are one.”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

But it is not just the tendency to avoid the pain of our problems that locks us in a mediocre and mentally ill life. It is also our laziness – for as the psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz wrote:

“When people try to evade problems you first have to ask if it is not just laziness. Jung once said, “Laziness is the greatest passion of mankind, even greater than power or sex or anything.””

Marie Louise von Franz, The Way of the Dream

M. Scott Peck defined laziness as “the force of entropy as it manifests in the lives of us all.”  In the external world entropy is the tendency of systems to degenerate into a disordered and stagnant state; while in the inner world of the psyche it is the force of laziness that breeds disorder and stagnation. Laziness is so common and pervasive that Peck called it the one and only original sin, or as he wrote:

“For many years I found the notion of original sin meaningless, even objectionable…Gradually, however, I became increasingly aware of the ubiquitous nature of laziness…original sin does exist; it is our laziness. It is very real…Some of us may be less lazy than others, but we are all lazy to some extent. No matter how energetic, ambitious or even wise we may be, if we truly look into ourselves we will find laziness lurking at some level. It is the force of entropy within us, pushing us down and holding us all back from our spiritual evolution.”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Many will protest that they are not lazy as they work long hours and devote their limited free time to doing chores, spending time with friends and family, and resting. But as Peck notes, “laziness takes forms other than that related to the bare number of hours spent on the job or devoted to one’s responsibilities to ‘others.’…A major form that laziness takes is fear.” (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled) Although many of us give lip service to wanting to change, grow, succeed, and perhaps even attain greatness, we often fear personal development more than we desire it, simply because of the immense amount of work and effort that is required. This intimate connection between fear and laziness is why the mind unconsciously devises ingenious ways to justify laziness; as but one example, we tell ourselves that our laziness is not really laziness, but merely the drive to relax and enjoy life – a type of refined hedonism. Or as Peck writes:

“In the earlier stages of spiritual growth, individuals are mostly unaware of their own laziness…This is because the lazy part of the self, like the devil that it may actually be, is unscrupulous and specializes in treacherous disguise. It cloaks its own laziness in all manner of rationalizations, which the more growing part of the self is still too weak to see through easily or to combat.”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Friedrich Nietzsche also identified laziness as an entropic psychological force which exhibits devil-like qualities, and he recommended a joyful approach to overcoming it. When we see through our rationalizations and become aware of our laziness, instead of feeling guilty, we should laugh at it in the recognition that it is an innate part of human nature. And then we should remind ourselves that true happiness is not found in maximizing time spent in passive leisure activities, rather, it is a byproduct of voluntary effort in the service of personal growth and meaningful goals. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche called the entropic force of laziness “the spirit of gravity”, and as he wrote:

“And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity – through him all things are ruined. Not by wrath, but by laughter do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity! I learned to walk; since then I have run. I have learned to fly: since then I do not have to be pushed in order to move. Now I am nimble, now I fly, now I see myself under myself, now a god dances within me.”

Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Enduring the legitimate suffering that accompanies confronting and solving personal problems and exerting a joyful self-willed effort in the quest to override the original sin of laziness, is the road less traveled and the way to escape the mediocrity and mental illness that is so rampant in our age. Some may find this advice to be too general and desire a more specific and personalized plan for overcoming their problems, but as Peck cautions:

“There are many who, by virtue of their passivity, dependency, fear and laziness, seek to be shown every inch of the way and have it demonstrated to them that each step will be safe and worth their while. This cannot be done. For the journey of spiritual growth requires courage and initiative and independence of thought and action. While the words of the prophets…are available, the journey must still be traveled alone. No teacher can carry you there. There are no preset formulas.”

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

EDITORS NOTE: This Academy of Ideas video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Is America Worth Saving?

Men and Women, like nations, think they’re eternal. What person in his 20s or 30s doesn’t believe, at least subconsciously, that we’ll live forever? In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. As you pass 70, it’s harder to hide from reality as you lose more and more friends and relatives.

Nations also have seasons: Imagine a Roman of the 2nd century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever…. Forever was about 500 years, give or take…. not bad, but gone!

France was pivotal in the 17th and 18th centuries; now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the rapidly expanding Muslim ummah (Arabic for community).

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British empire; now Albion exists in perpetual twilight. Its 96-year-old sovereign is a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline.

In the 1980s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low and its population aging so rapidly that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone.

I was born in 1945, almost at the midpoint of the 20th century — the American century. America’s prestige and influence were never greater. Thanks to the ‘Greatest Generation,’ we won a World War fought throughout most of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed. It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity.

We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia and fought international terrorism. We rebuilt our enemies and lavished foreign aid on much of the world. We built skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. We conquered Polio and now COVID. We explored the mysteries of the Universe and the wonders of DNA…the blueprint of life.

But where is the glory that once was Rome? America has moved from a relatively free economy to socialism – which has worked so well NOWHERE in the world.

We’ve gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. We have less freedom with each passing year. Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. We’ve traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution.

The pathetic creature in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers. At the G-7 Summit, his wife had to lead him around like a child. In 1961, when we were young and vigorous, our leader was too. Now a feeble nation is technically led by the oldest most corrupt man to ever serve in the presidency.

We can’t defend our borders, our history (including monuments to past greatness) or our streets. Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds. We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity.  Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.

The president of the United States can’t even quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence (‘You know – The Thing’) correctly. Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago. Crime rates soar and we blame the 2nd. Amendment and slash police budgets.

Our culture is certifiably insane. Men who think they’re women. People who fight racism by seeking to convince members of one race that they’re inherently evil, and others that they are perpetual victims. A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about ‘unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.’

We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom, while our birth rate dips lower year by year. Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It’s a $30+ trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality. Our ‘entertainment’ is sadistic, nihilistic, and as enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash.   Our music is noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive.

Patriotism is called an insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified. A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress. We’re asking soldiers to fight for a nation our leaders no longer believe in.

How meekly most of us submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks, lockdowns, and hand sanitizers) shows the impending death of the American spirit.

How do nations slip from greatness to obscurity?

  • Fighting endless wars they can’t or won’t win
  • Accumulating massive debt far beyond their ability to repay
  • Refusing to guard their borders, allowing the nation to be inundated by an alien horde
  • Surrendering control of their cities to mob rule
  • Allowing indoctrination of the young
  • Moving from a republican form of government to an oligarchy
  • Losing national identity
  • Indulging indolence
  • Abandoning God, faith and family – the bulwarks of any stable society.

In America, every one of these symptoms is pronounced, indicating an advanced stage of the disease.

Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had? I’m surrounded by ghosts urging me on: the Union soldiers who held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, the battered bastards of Bastogne, those who served in the cold hell of Korea, the guys who went to the jungles of Southeast Asia and came home to be reviled or neglected.

This is the nation that took in my immigrant grandparents, whose uniform my father and most of my uncles wore in the Second World War. I don’t want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely.

During Britain’s darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk and a German invasion seemed imminent, Churchill reminded his countrymen, ‘Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished.’

The same might be said of causes. If we let America slip through our fingers, if we lose without a fight, what will posterity say of us?

While the prognosis is far from good. Only God knows if America’s day in the sun is over.”

Read it and weep, forward or erase it! I read it and am now forwarding it to you, believing that we in America are at the moment in time to stand up, or let it fall! We now may soon be at the next step in our country’s future. I believe that it might be closer than we think. Is America worth saving? What will you do?

©2023. Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

Hamas Likely Held Back Women Hostages To Keep Them From Talking ‘About What Happened To Them,’ State Dept. Says

It is likely that Hamas has not released more of its women hostages because the terrorist group doesn’t want them to talk about their experiences in captivity, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a press briefing on Monday.

The pause in conflict between Israel and Hamas ended on Friday because Hamas did not release all of its women hostages and “violated” the terms of the temporary truce. Miller said on Monday that, though the State Department has not yet independently confirmed details, it is probable that Hamas is not releasing the women hostages so they can’t talk about what they’ve endured while in the terrorist group’s captivity.

“We’ve obviously seen the reports that Hamas has committed sexual violence, they’ve committed rape,” Miller said Monday. “We have no reason at all to doubt those reports.”

WATCH: 

“When you look at all the atrocities that Hamas carried out on Oct. 7, and the atrocities that they’ve carried out since, the fact that they continue to hold women hostages, the fact that they continue to hold children hostages, the fact that it seems one of the reasons they don’t want to turn women over that they’ve been holding hostage – and the reason this pause fell apart – is they don’t want those women to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody,” Miller said.

“There is very little that I would put beyond Hamas.”

Hamas took over 200 hostages during its Oct. 7 terrorist attacks against Israel that left 1,200 civilians dead. As part of the temporary truce deal that ended on Friday, Hamas released over 100 hostages in exchange for a temporary pause in conflict with Israel.

Hamas currently retains approximately 122 hostages, including Israeli citizens, foreign nationals and American citizens, according to The Washington Post. Israel resumed its sweeping counteroffensive in the Gaza Strip on Nov. 30 and has turned some of its operations toward southern Gaza, where several Hamas commanders remain in hiding.

AUTHOR

JAKE SMITH

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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Hamas Raped and Sexually Mutilated Men As Well as Women During October 7 Atrocities

Just when you thought you’d heard it all….

Hamas raped men as well as women during October 7 attack: Investigators reveal how sex assault victims were tied up, stripped and mutilated as Israel launches its ‘biggest ever criminal investigation’

Advocacy group said sexual violence was perpetrated against both sexes

By: Summer Goodkind and David Averre, Mail Online, 4 December 2023

Israeli investigators probing the fallout of the brutal October 7 attacks have found evidence that men as well as women suffered sexual violence and rape at the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad attackers, activists have claimed.

Yael Sherer, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Survivors of Sexual Violence advocacy group, said there was physical evidence as well as eyewitness accounts of sexual violence perpetrated against both sexes amid the attacks.

‘There was sexual violence and rape in these communities in the south of Israel… we have a few living survivors – not a lot – of both genders. It didn’t only happen to women, it happened to men as well,’ she told BBC Radio 4.

Yael Sherer, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Survivors of Sexual Violence advocacy group, said there was physical evidence as well as eyewitness accounts of sexual violence perpetrated against both sexes amid the attacks.

‘There was sexual violence and rape in these communities in the south of Israel… we have a few living survivors – not a lot – of both genders. It didn’t only happen to women, it happened to men as well,’ she told BBC Radio 4.

‘Aside from finding bodies of people who were murdered, a lot of the bodies were mutilated… terrorists made sure to disgrace these people and dishonor them,’ she added.

It comes as Israeli police opened up the biggest investigation into sexual violence and crimes against women ever in the nation.

The leader of the investigation, Shelly Harush, said: ‘It’s clear now that sexual crimes were part of the planning and the purpose was to terrify and humiliate people.’

Police have collected thousands of statements, photographs and video clips that have been called unbearable to watch from a mother’s perspective and include ‘girls whose pelvises were broken they had been raped so much’.

A pile of bodies are seen lying among debris at the Nova festival following the attacks

Yoni Saadon, 39, who survived the attack on the Nova music festival by hiding under dead bodies, this weekend gave a harrowing account of the sexual violence he saw perpetrated against women at the campground.

One horrifying image he described was the moment a woman’s decapitated head rolled across the road, after she was beheaded for refusing to be stripped naked.

As the sun rose on the desert festival and Hamas terrorists stormed in, Yoni took cover under a music stage. But a woman hiding alongside him was identified by terrorists.

‘She fell to the ground, shot in the head, and I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it would look as if I was dead too,’ he told The Sunday Times.

‘I will never forget her face. Every night I wake to it and apologise to her, saying ”I’m sorry”.’

After an hour, the shift manager peeked out. ‘I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her.’

The woman was screaming ‘stop it’ he said, and begged the terrorists to kill her to put her out of her misery.

‘When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head’, he said.

The father of four admitted how his mind kept reminding him it could have been one of his daughters, or his sister, who at the last minute bowed out of the festival.

The horror was far from over for Yoni as, hiding in the bushes, he saw two more Hamas fighters catch a woman.

‘She was fighting back, not allowing them to strip her,’ he recalled. ‘They threw her to the ground and one of the terrorists took a shovel and beheaded her and her head rolled along the ground. I see that head too.’

Yoni shared his story with The Sunday Times at a support group for the festival survivors in Sitria, south east of Tel Aviv.

Three times a week survivors from around Israel get together with parents whose children were among those slaughtered.

Volunteer therapists on hand included Bar Yuval-Shani, 58, who lost her only sister, Deborah, and brother-in-law, Shlomi Matias, both musicians and peace activists, killed on Holit kibbutz by militants who broke into their safe room.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

INTERVIEW: Islamic Expert Analyzes Rising Threat of Hezbollah

This past May, I had the life changing experience of visiting Israel. It is deeply heartbreaking to watch all that is unfolding now. One of the trip’s leaders, Tom Trento of The United West, is an academic authority on Islamic extremism. He joined The American Spectator to discuss the Israel–Hamas war and the significance of jihad in Islam.

In Israel we visited Misgav Am, a northern kibbutz on the border of Lebanon. There, Col. Bady Dumitreseu gave a briefing on national security and the threat of the kibbutz’s terrorist neighbor, Hezbollah. Just across the border in Lebanon, civilian homes controlled by terrorists serve as a cover for Hezbollah. Often civilians live in the top floors of the houses while the basements store missiles and weapons. As Trento explained, “Those homes there are military bases for Hezbollah to destroy the northern part of Israel.”

Notably, Hezbollah builds tunnels that are used to sneak into Israel and harm or kidnap civilians. Trento had the opportunity to go more than halfway down the terrorist tunnels, which extend about 250 feet into the ground.

“The tunnels are designed for the Hezbollah fighters to sneak out, go into Misgav Am or any of the other little communities, steal a bunch of people, and do exactly what Hamas is doing now,” Trento explained. “Then, trade those people for an untold, ungodly amount of convicted terrorists. So yeah, it’s a mess up north right now.”

Suffice to say that, despite the claims of some in the media, civilian homes and areas are used by terrorist groups as human shields.

Trento explained that a quarter of a million Israeli residents in the north, including those of Misgav Am, have been evacuated as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) battles Hamas in the south and risk of aggression from Hezbollah increases. Over the past few days, the IDF has been striking Hezbollah targets following a missile attack from Lebanon aimed at northern Israel. Should Hezbollah, a far bigger beast than Hamas, become more involved, the war would only escalate.

Watch the full interview to find out more.

The column originally appeared on The American Spectator.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLE: Islam Needs Reform — But Is That Possible?

EDITORS NOTE: This The United West column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

How the American dream was lost

As we enter into a presidential election year in the United States, we will soon be hearing more about the fierce political divisions there and the social and economic factors behind them.

With this in mind, David Leonhardt of The New York Times has set out to diagnose the central economic problems, while also encouraging his counterparts on the political Left to broaden their appeal.

Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream, published in October, is the fruit of his labour.

The writer of his paper’s flagship The Morning newsletter has produced an absorbing, readable and in many ways persuasive account of the long decline of the “American Dream”.

Surveying the evidence of sluggish growth in incomes, deteriorations in various measures of public health and stagnating life expectancy, Leonhardt labels recent decades as the “Great American Stagnation”.

The promise of upward social mobility lay at the heart of America’s self-understanding, and this was not a fictional notion. It was instead the norm.

Leonhardt points to analysis by the Harvard economist Raj Chetty which showed that 92 percent of children born in 1940 grew up to have higher household incomes than their parents.

In subsequent decades, it became far less likely that children would surpass their parents on the economic ladder. In fact, Professor Chetty states that about half of the babies born in 1980 will attain this feat, thereby meaning that “achieving the American dream is a 50-50 proposition.”

Leonhardt notes additional evidence showing that the typical American family in 2019 had a net worth lower than the typical family in 2001, before describing the range of ways in which life appears to have gotten worse.

“The number of children living with only one parent or with neither has doubled since the 1970s. The obesity rate has nearly tripled. The number of Americans who have spent time behind bars at some point has risen five-fold. Measures of childhood mental health have deteriorated,” he writes.

Social institutions

The book’s nostalgic title is no accident. As the author makes clear, things were not always like this. Colonial America was strikingly less unequal in economic terms than most countries in western Europe, with their systems of inherited wealth and hereditary title.

As the author recounts, the extraordinary levels of income inequality which developed during the ‘Gilded Age’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries eventually led to a decisive reversal in US economic policy: with President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration increasing regulations, strengthening labour unions and intervening more in critical sectors of the economy.

While Leonhardt is clearly a supporter of the Democratic Party, he goes to considerable lengths to highlight the achievements of the moderate Republican administrations of the mid-20th century, in particular that of President Dwight Eisenhower which prioritised infrastructural improvements and greatly increased federal spending on research and development — thus laying the groundwork for future innovation by private sector companies.

Unions are a core focus here. Leonhardt maintains that the rise of the labour movement from the Depression era onwards helped usher in the period of widespread affluence which followed, just as he believes that declining union membership is central to the poor wage growth of recent decades.

Government policy certainly played a role in making union membership more common — more than 30 percent of American workers were union members by the mid-40s, up from just over 10 percent a decade prior to that.

Frustratingly though, the author does little to connect these shifts to the broader trends of decreased institutional involvement (be that in unions, churches, membership associations or so forth) in the last half-century.

For a book that assails economic individualism while also taking occasional aim at social individualism, this is certainly a weakness.

Movers and shakers

Leonhardt is on steadier ground in identifying a greater sense of social responsibility among mid-20th century business leaders, who were far less likely to seek disproportionately high salaries.

The author’s profiles of particularly important figures throughout his narrative constitute a powerful part of this book’s appeal.

One particularly effective description is that of the businessman turned politician George Romney, who turned down enormous performance-related bonuses while serving as a very successful chief executive of American Motors Corporation.

Even in good times, Romney did not wish to violate the salary cap which he had helped put in place. Leonhardt draws a sharp contrast between George and his son Mitt, who decades later would earn vastly more money running a private equity firm.

The comparison between Romney Senior and Junior highlights the rapid growth in executive pay in recent decades in an era of declining median family incomes, not to mention the transformation of an economy centred around making things to one centred around making money.

Much of the space in Leonhardt’s book is dedicated to his critique of the more market-oriented policies which have been pursued from the time of President Ronald Reagan onwards.

However, he also laments the tendency of today’s progressives to downplay economic solidarity while promoting a radical social agenda which is not always supported by most voters.

Why has this been the case?

According to Leonhardt, the motivations of the ‘New Left’ which came to the fore in the 1960s contrasted sharply with those of the left-wing reformers in the New Deal era. They had less interest in the importance of social institutions (such as unions) and were also less favourably inclined to the patriotic views of most ordinary Americans.

Instead of seeking to expand on the work of those who went before them in bringing their nation together, the (often affluent) 1960s liberals rebelled against the social status quo while “calling for a new individualism without acknowledging that individualism was often a better deal for privileged members of a society than for everybody else.”

One noteworthy example of this is the author’s description of the feminist campaigner Betty Friedan, whose analysis of gender relations was heavily focused on higher-income females, and whose criticism of traditional family life was not popular with many American women.

In time, this class division became more obvious as college graduates began to gravitate ever more strongly towards the Democratic Party.

At the same time, concerns over the rapid increase in crime from the 1960s onwards helped the Republican Party to make major inroads among low- or middle-income voters.

Indeed, a similar trend is now at play when it comes to liberal (and usually upper-class liberal) demands to ‘defund the police’, a tagline which has become a key weapon in an increasingly racially diverse GOP’s rhetorical arsenal.

Melting pot

Immigration is arguably the most contentious issue in American politics today.

Leonhardt’s overview of how immigration levels have increased significantly since the liberal reforms of the 1960s — and the degree to which this change came about in spite of public opinion tending towards a more restrictionist policy — is probably the bravest part of this liberal’s book.

It also has a much wider relevance to the debates taking place across advanced Western societies.

Again and again, we can observe working-class voters defecting from the centre-left parties of their parents and embracing conservative or populist alternatives precisely because of cultural changes taking place against their wishes. Leonhardt offers a perceptive explanation for what is happening.

“When immigration is a salient issue, it serves to remind many working-class voters that they agree with conservative parties on questions of patriotism, nationhood and security. When immigration fades as an issue, voters think less about these questions and more about a society’s economic divisions. Those class divisions, in turn, remind workers that they generally agree with progressive parties on economic policies, such as tax rates and government benefits,” he explains.

Likely with one eye towards a fateful date in November 2024, Leonhardt advises American progressives to take a number of steps: to listen more to working-class concerns; to cease insisting that all aspects of the socially liberal agenda (like transgender issues) are non-negotiable; and to adopt a more patriotic position in place of the recent tendency of many on the Left to denigrate or at least distance themselves from American traditions.

No reasonable observer could disagree with any of this. Unfortunately for the author, reasonableness is in short supply among those who have embraced progressive radicalism on race, gender and sexuality.

This book is not perfect. The author does not place sufficient attention on increasing societal atomisation, instead seeking to use the heavy hand of government to forcibly reverse the decline in the number of Americans choosing to join one particular institution: the trade union.

It is also regrettable that the dichotomy which is sometimes presented between college-educated people and the working-class is not examined in a more comprehensive way.

Questions could have been asked about whether the current educational structure is not itself to blame by overvaluing academic credentials while undervaluing practical skills — not to mention the way colleges often serve as incubators for the most destructive ideas and ideologies.

Leonhardt’s book still offers an exceptional analysis of the American political scene though, especially the flaws within the American Left, which are daily increasing the chances of President Trump’s return to the White House.

AUTHOR

James Bradshaw writes on topics including history, culture, film and literature.

EDITORS NOTE: This Mercator column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Jürgen Habermas, Celebrated German Philosopher, Defends Israel’s Response to Hamas

While such deep thinkers as Susan Sarandon and Roger Waters denounce tiny Israel, for daring to defend itself so fiercely against the Hamas murderers, the noted German philosopher Jurgen Habermas has come out foursquare for the Jewish state’s military response. Among the thinking classes, his words carry weight. More on Habermas’ statement on Israel, Hamas, Germany, and antisemitism, can be found here:

Leading German Philosopher Jürgen Habermas Declares Support for Israel, Opposition to Resurgent Antisemitism 

by Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, November 15, 2023:

One of Germany’s most storied political theorists has issued a statement supporting Israel’s military response to the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, decrying as well the surge of antisemitism in Germany during the intervening period.

The current situation, created by the cruel attack by Hamas and Israel’s response to it, has led to a cascade of moral and political statements and demonstrations,” Jürgen Habermas observed in the statement published on Monday on the website “Normative Orders,” which is devoted to philosophy and social theory. As well as Habermas, the scholars Nicole Deitelhoff, Rainer Forst, and Klaus Guenther all endorsed the statement.

“We believe that with all the conflicting views that are expressed, there are some principles that should not be disputed. They underlie the well-understood solidarity with Israel and Jews in Germany,” the statement continued….

The statement also urged Israel to observe the “principles of proportionality” in its response. However, the authors were in no doubt that the Hamas pogrom was carried out “with the declared intention of eliminating Jewish life in general,” adding: “Despite all the concern for the fate of the Palestinian population, however, the standards of judgment slip completely when genocidal intentions are attributed to Israel’s actions.”

The statement emphasized that “Israel’s actions in no way justify antisemitic reactions, especially not in Germany. It is intolerable that Jews in Germany are once again exposed to threats to life and limb and have to fear physical violence on the streets.” Postwar Germany’s commitment to preserving both Jewish life and a secure existence for the State of Israel “is fundamental to our political life,” the statement asserted.

Commenting on the statement, the Italian columnist Ricardo Canaletti said that it was “difficult to overestimate Jürgen Habermas’ contribution to contemporary thought.”…

Canaletti noted that when “Habermas claims that the Federal Republic of Germany is also based on respect for the integrity of a state of Israel, he is saying something that in Italy, in a month of war, we haven’t heard yet.” He argued that Italy, like Germany, needed to base its postwar existence as a democratic republic on an awareness of its fascist period, which involved “racial laws, the hunt for Jews, and the political alliance with the Third Reich.”

Read more.

Canaletti reminds his readers that Italy too had its infamous “leggi razziali” (Racial Laws), its own history of persecution and murder of Jews during the Fascist period, when Jews were rounded up and sent to death camps in Poland, and yet this part of Fascist Italy’s history is often overlooked by Italians themselves, who identify murderous antisemitism only with the Nazis. Canaletti thinks that if they were made keenly aware of such events, they would place the defense of Israel among their government’s highest priorities.

In Germany, Habermas’ statement on Israel, his insistence that Israel must be supported, and that its military response has in his view been proportionate, will mean a great deal to the thinking classes.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.