Month: February 2023

Interfaith Shrine Features Muslims Denouncing Others There

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2023/02/24/catholic-cardinal-opens-abrahamic-family-house-with-muslims-praying-prayers-denouncing-jews-and-christians-n1673581;

Catholic Cardinal Opens ‘Abrahamic Family House’ With Muslims Praying Prayers Denouncing Jews and Christians

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald, the Roman Catholic Church’s apostolic nuncio emeritus to Egypt and apostolic delegate emeritus to the Arab League, as well as a past president of the Pontifical Council for Irreligious, er, that is, Interreligious Dialogue, on Sunday represented Pope Francis at the first prayer service in St. Francis of Assisi Church in Abu Dhabi, which is part of the new Abrahamic Family House, an interfaith shrine that comprises not just a church, but also a synagogue and a mosque. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty.

“The place of prayer,” Fitzgerald announced happily, “should also be a place of joy, and I hope that this will be true for all of us here present.” Fitzgerald also expressed the hope that the new three-in-one house of worship would be “a house of prayer for all the peoples.” Maybe it will, but Fitzgerald and his colleagues are ignoring the fact that the Islamic prayers held in the building three days before the St. Francis of Assisi Church was inaugurated were hardly as welcoming to non-Muslims as the Christians and Jews have been to the Muslims.

ChurchMilitant.com reported Wednesday that Fitzgerald also said: “Worship opens us up to others, instilling in us care for justice, encouraging us to act with integrity. We cannot truly pray to God without remembering the other members of the Abrahamic family, and indeed of the human family.” Meanwhile, however, one of the other “members of the Abrahamic family” was not quite as generous. Muslims “had earlier prayed the Maghrib prayer in the mosque section of the shrine on Thursday evening.” According to a Muslim jurist who converted to Christianity, this was not the wonderful manifestation of interfaith harmony that Fitzgerald assumed it to be: “Remarkably, Cdl. Fitzgerald, an acclaimed Islamic scholar, ignored the fact that the Maghrib prayer contains Surah Al-Fatiha, which is one of the most anti-Christian and anti-Jewish texts in the Qur’an. The inclusion of this prayer, which is considered indispensable in Muslim worship, tells us everything we need to know about how serious Muslims are about interfaith dialogue.”

Indeed. The Fatiha (Opening) is the first sura (chapter) of the Qur’an and the most common prayer of Islam. If you’re a pious Muslim who prays the five requisite daily prayers of Islam, you will recite the Fatiha seventeen times in the course of those prayers. The final two verses of the Fatiha ask Allah: “Guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom you have favored, not of those who have earned your anger, or of those who have gone astray.”

The traditional Islamic understanding of this is that the “straight path” is Islam, while the path “of those who have evoked Allah’s anger” are the Jews, and those who have gone “astray” are the Christians. The classic Qur’anic commentator Ibn Kathir explains that “the two paths He described here are both misguided,” and that those “two paths are the paths of the Christians and Jews, a fact that the believer should beware of so that he avoids them.” Ibn Kathir is not alone; in fact, most Muslim commentators believe that the Jews are those who have earned Allah’s wrath and the Christians are those who have gone astray.

So as Cardinal Fitzgerald opened his “house of prayer for all the peoples,” one of the three principal groups included in it was praying not to be like the other two, but to be guided instead to the truth. What’s more, as I explained to Church Militant, no matter how friendly the relations are between the groups in the Abrahamic Family House, this friendliness will not lead Muslims to abandon core Islamic doctrines regarding how Christians wrongly proclaim Christ’s divinity and are under the curse of Allah as a result (cf. Qur’an 9:30; 5:17).

As in all other cases, Muslim/Christian dialogue is seen on the Muslim side as an opportunity to proselytize for Islam and intimidate Christians into fearing to discuss the rampant Muslim persecution of Christians, for fear of harming the dialogue. This interfaith shrine in Abu Dhabi is Pope Francis’ house of cards. It will result in nothing lasting except the continued ignorance and complacency of Catholics regarding the threat of Islamic jihad. Leftist Catholics such as Fitzgerald who think this is a positive step are being naïve. At best.

Biden Regime Again Shows Its Hatred of the Freedom of Speech

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/02/24/yet-another-biden-appointee-hates-freedom-of-speech-n1673553;

President Biden’s latest nominee for the federal appeals court that oversees New York and Connecticut has suggested criminalizing speech against “oppressed groups” and led trainings that taught law school graduates about how “microaggressions” can “kill you.”

Yet Another Biden Appointee Hates Freedom of Speech

Meditating on the so-called “fighting words” exception to the First Amendment — which applies to speech deemed likely to provoke violence — Kahn wrote: “The ultimate inquiry of the fighting words exception is whether a speaker’s words would reasonably result in a violent reaction by its intended recipient.”

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

How much does the Biden regime hate the freedom of speech that the First Amendment guarantees to Americans? Last year, it tried to establish a Disinformation Governance Board to restrict speech that opposed its agenda but had to back down after a public outcry. Then there was Biden’s handlers’ collusion with the Big Tech giants to silence dissenters from the regime’s COVID narrative. And now comes Maria Araujo Kahn, the regime’s nominee for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, a “diversity trainer” who has called for the criminalization of speech she dislikes. Is there no one at all connected with this appalling administration who actually believes in freedom?

The Washington Free Beacon reported Friday that Kahn, who is currently an associate justice of the Connecticut State Supreme Court, “has argued for curtailing the First Amendment and conducted training sessions that say ‘microaggressions’ can ‘kill you.’” As is so much of today’s fetid cultural swamp, “microaggressions” are an invention of the Left; apparently the idea is that giving someone an unkind glance when asked one’s pronouns, or fleetingly appearing irritated and bored during a windy and fact-free lecture about systemic racism, is a heinous crime that calls for anti-free speech legislation.

As absurd as this is, Kahn appears to be deadly serious about it, as Leftists always are. “Since 2013,” the Free Beacon notes, she has given “at least a dozen diversity trainings and presentations to lawyers across the country.” According to her Senate Judiciary Questionnaire, she has been busy offering the kind of presentations that would make one prefer to have one’s teeth pulled out with rusty pliers and no anesthesia. A popular one is evidently “Turn Off Auto-Pilot: Cultural Competence, Implicit Association, and Racial Anxiety,” which she has inflicted on hapless audiences more than once. She must really pack ‘em in for that one.

The Free Beacon adds that “to prepare for one of those trainings, offered to graduates of Fordham Law School, participants were instructed to watch an animated video, ‘How Microaggressions Are Like Mosquito Bites,’ that depicts a man-sized mosquito telling a dark-hued college student to ‘try a less challenging major’ and then sucking him dry.” That Whitey! Where is a flyswatter when you need one? In this video, a voice intones: “Some mosquitoes carry truly threatening diseases that can mess up your life for years. And other mosquitos carry strains that can even kill you.” Yes, Whitey will stop at nothing: “The video then cuts to a mosquito holding a gun next to a dead body. ‘I felt threatened,’ the insect tells officers at the scene of the crime. ‘It looked like he was up to trouble, ok?’” Yeah, happens every day. But there is payback in Maria Araujo Kahn’s world: “Another clip depicts a black woman murdering several mosquitos with a flamethrower after they ask to touch her hair.” Ah, proportional justice at last!

Kahn also appears to be as earnest about restricting speech as she is about “microaggressions.” In a 2020 opinion, according to the Free Beacon, she suggested that “courts should criminalize speech that offends ‘oppressed groups.’” She wants to expand the “‘fighting words’ exception to the First Amendment—which bans speech likely to spark violence—on the grounds that some groups are unlikely or unable to physically retaliate against insults. That means they ‘must endure a higher level of offensive speech before being afforded legal remedies,’ she wrote.” Where are racial minorities being verbally abused on a regular basis in the U.S., as Kahn seems to assume is happening? She doesn’t say, but she nonetheless “laments that bigots can ‘verbally assault certain oppressed groups’—especially women and the disabled—’ without fear of criminal prosecution.’” Yeah, once again, that happens every day.

Kahn, understandably enough given her fascism and disdain for dissent, “did not respond to a request for comment” from the Free Beacon. Yet last September, Kahn “sailed through the Senate judiciary committee with little pushback. A final vote on her nomination could come as soon as next week.” Will Senate Republicans ask her about her distaste for the freedom of speech? Will they challenge her on her commitment to the First Amendment? The Biden administration’s obvious opposition to the most important foundation of any free society ought to be the first and foremost element of the loyal opposition’s case against the regime. Yet Republican leaders rarely mention it at all. This only enables those who hate and want to destroy the freedom of speech to keep on advancing, largely unopposed.

Pew Reports 63% of U.S. Men Are Alone

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/culture/lincolnbrown/2023/02/24/pew-reports-63-of-u-s-men-are-alone-n1673551;

BY LINCOLN BROWN

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Getting older has its problems. Hair loss, high blood pressure, and joints that suddenly no longer work like they used to are just a few. But when it comes to marriage and relationships, I thank God every day that my wife and I got married when we did. I cannot imagine being a single man today. First of all, there is no way I could keep track of all my alleged microaggressions, mansplaining, manspreading, cis-gendered patriarchal, imperialist… wait, what were we talking about again?

Second, I would have no idea if my significant other was actually a woman. She might be a woman, a trans woman, a man who identifies as a woman, a trans-man, or a nonbinary woman who identifies as a lesbian mountain goat. Try finding a greeting card and anniversary gift for that person.

Just before Valentine’s Day, when love was in the air and men were staring helplessly at the flower cooler at the grocery store, Pew Research issued an interesting set of facts about who is getting into relationships and who is not. According to Pew, six in ten young men report being single, and not “married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship.” Pew reports:

When looking at age and gender together, 63% of men under 30 describe themselves as single, compared with 34% of women in the same age group. Younger men are also far more likely than older men to be single – a pattern that is not as straightforward among women. Women ages 18 to 29, for example, are just as likely as women 65 and older to report being single.

So while 63% of men between 18 and 29 are single, just 34% of women in the same age range are single. Additionally, most single adults aren’t even in the market for a significant other. Fifty-seven percent said they weren’t interested because they have “other priorities.” Oddly enough, Pew also states that single men are more likely than women to look for “romantic experiences.” Half of them want a committed relationship or a casual date. But while 42% of single people in the U.S. are looking for a girlfriend, husband, wife, or date, that number is down from 49% in 2019.

According to Breitbart, the report indicates that overall, American young men are more likely to be single, sexually uninvolved, or simply friendless. American Principles Project President Terry Schilling told Breitbart:

Men are more under attack than ever. A majority of college graduates are now women, and men are making less in the workforce. And because women expect their partner to make more than them, it’s leading to a great isolation of American men. On top of the economic attacks on men, there’s been a rise in unfettered access to pornography online so now we’re seeing a rise in not just involuntary celibate men, but a growing number of men opting out of relationships altogether. The service economy combined with the disastrous sexual revolution have wreaked havoc on our country. We need to recalibrate.

Schilling also said that the rate of suicide is four times higher for men than for women. Men are also lagging in education and degrees and are feeling isolated, which may play a role in mass shootings.

This has been the legacy of the “Boys Are Dumb — Throw Rocks at Them” t-shirts and other gear disparaging boys. But it has also been the result of girls-only STEM classes and other things meant to empower girls at the expense of boys. All of these things were meant to “level the playing field.” What they did was create an underclass, made up at least in part by boys who never had an interest in advancing the patriarchy but who also knew they were not welcome anywhere. And so began their spiral into porn and video games because they knew there was no point in leaving the house.

Congratulations feminists, you have your revenge. But because many of the men who did do terrible things are dead, retired, or are simply too self-involved to care, you inflicted that revenge on the closest people available. And in the process, you may have created another generation of men on which to blame things. The solution is not to carpet bomb an entire demographic.

To have the men that women want and society needs, boys and young men need role models — men who can help them make the transition from childhood to adulthood. They do not need another lecture on how toxic they are. I grew up with that, and ultimately, it damaged my relationship with my mother. We need men just as much as we need women. And those men do not need to be hiding out with a gaming console or glued to their phones because they have come to believe that the world does not want them anymore.

Gay Agenda/Gender Neutral/Non-Binary

Southern Baptist Convention Cuts Rick Warren’s Church Loose

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/culture/chris-queen/2023/02/25/southern-baptist-convention-cuts-rick-warrens-church-loose-n1673684;

Stacie Wood

Rick Warren Address SBC Messengers in Anaheim (2022) 8 Months Ago:

Asbury "Revival" Examined, Rick Warren's Church Ousted From SBC

BY CHRIS QUEEN

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Earlier this week, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) cut ties with Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. The influential Southern California-based congregation had been part of the SBC since its founding, but the denomination dismissed Saddleback over a decision that founding pastor Warren made shortly before he retired.

In 2021, Warren ordained three women as pastors, which caused the SBC to consider disciplining the church or kicking it out of the denomination. One of those women, Stacie Wood, the wife of lead pastor Andy Wood, is a “teaching pastor.”

On Tuesday, the SBC Executive Committee deemed Saddleback to be “not in friendly cooperation with the Convention,” which is the terminology for removing a church from the convention. The committee cited the fact that Saddleback has “a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of a pastor” in its decision.

The ordination of women at Saddleback goes against the Southern Baptist bylaws according to “Baptist Faith & Message 2000,” which unambiguously states, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

Interestingly enough, the only pastors listed with photos on the church website are the “leadership,” which includes Andy Wood, Warren, and the various campus pastors, who are all men. However, the bio for Andy Wood mentions “Pastors Andy and Stacie Wood.”

With over 23,000 in attendance and campuses throughout Southern California and in several other countries, Saddleback was the SBC’s second-largest congregation, and Warren’s influence as a pastor and author probably wasn’t lost on the Executive Committee, either. Needless to say, it was a decision that the SBC didn’t make lightly.

The committee stated that Saddleback “has a faith and practice that does not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith,” citing the presence of Stacie Wood in a pastoral role.

For its part, the church hasn’t said whether it will appeal the decision, although many in the know believe that it will appeal.

“We love and have always valued our relationship with the SBC and its faithful churches,” the elders of Saddleback said in a statement. “We will engage and respond through the proper channels at the appropriate time in hopes to serve other like-minded Bible-believing SBC churches. Meanwhile, we remain focused on following God’s leadership to love and serve our church family and the communities around our campuses.”

“Friends worldwide: I’m so touched by your love!” Warren said in a tweet that he later deleted. “We’ll respond to #SBC in OUR time & way thru direct channels.”

At the denomination’s annual convention last year, Warren stood firm on his decision to ordain women, telling those in attendance that “We have to decide if we will treat each other as allies or adversaries.”

Some churches and ministries believe in ordaining women into pastoral roles, while others — like the SBC — believe that, while there’s room for women to serve in many ways, the role of pastor isn’t one of them.

At this point, it’s not about whether the SBC or Saddleback is right about whether women should serve as pastors. Rick Warren and Saddleback have been part of the SBC for a long time, and Warren isn’t stupid. He was fully aware of the expectations and rules of the denomination.

Warren and his church chose to flaunt those rules, and the SBC has made a decision in response. Regardless of where anyone falls on the issue of female pastors, it’s commendable that the denomination stuck to its convictions rather than bowing to the whims of a large church with an “influential” founding pastor.

Physicians Group Condemns ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Children

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/02/25/association-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons-condemns-gender-affirming-care-for-children-n1673755;

BY BEN BARTEE

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The independent Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) has issued an impressively strong eight-point statement on the so-called “gender-affirming care” for kids that’s all the rage with the LGBTQ+++™ ideologies (certain sections are bolded for emphasis):

1. “Physicians and medical professionals should refuse to be mandated or coerced to participate in procedures to which they have ethical or scientific objections or which they believe would harm a patient.

2. Reproduction requires a male gamete (sperm), which can only be produced by a person of XY genotype, and a female gamete (egg), which can only be produced by a person of XX genotype. Primordial germ cells are present at birth.

3. Biological sex is determined at conception by genotype and apart from rare anomalies, which result in ambiguous genitalia, sex is correctly identified at birth—and is indeed obvious.

4. The construct of gender fluidity in the current cultural discourse is controversial.

5. Through medical, surgical, and other interventions, it is possible to change the physical appearance of one’s body. Changing physical appearance does not change biological sex.

6. There has been an explosive increase in persons who identify with the construct of gender different from sex, at an age where identity is easily malleable and brain development is not fully concluded.

7. Conflicting motivations have led to a growing industry dedicated to providing “gender-affirming” procedures that are generally irreversible and have a high probability of causing sterilization. These include puberty “blockers,” sex hormones, and surgery, such as castration, penectomy, and mastectomy. They commit a patient to a lifelong need for medical, surgical, and psychological care.

8. “Gender-affirming care” in minors is medically and ethically contraindicated because of a lack of informed consent. There are inherently unknown and unknowable long-term risks, and the consequences of removing normal, healthy organs are irreversible.

This truthful account of human biology and the various pharmacological and surgical interventions aimed at transing children runs contrary to the general orthodoxy within the medical community. The likes of the American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and, of course, The World Health Organization (WHO) regularly issue statements of support of the genital mutilation and chemical castration of children — dressed up, of course, in the language of liberal Tolerance™ and Inclusion™.

The apparent mechanism that allows the AAPS to speak truth to power while most of its peer organizations toe the fashionable line is that it is independently funded. It is therefore unreliant on financial support from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other groups that seek to manufacture a false consensus on the topic.

Rainbow-Adorned Priest Delivers Woke Sermon: ‘God Is Trans’

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/02/24/watch-rainbow-adorned-priest-delivers-woke-sermon-god-is-trans-n1673518;

WATCH: Rainbow-Adorned Priest Delivers Woke Sermon: 'God Is Trans'

BY BEN BARTEE

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

“God is gay. God is a lesbian. God is trans. God is gender non-binary,” the priest instructs his flock.

The benign message the gentleman is attempting to convey, in his own Social Justice™ way, is apparently some sort of New-Age airy abstraction that God is in everyone or whatever. “God is you, and you are God,” he says at one point. (Although I don’t think that’s theologically correct.)

But the manner in which he delivers that message is deliberately provocative by listing every sexual and ethnic identity he could think of as a descriptor for the divine sovereign.

This is your brain on Social Justice™. Subtlety, as evidenced by his rainbow surplice, is lost on these people. There is no sacred idea or concept they won’t subvert to insert their own worldly agenda.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
– 2 Peter 2:1-22

Russia Suspends Only Remaining Major Nuclear Treaty With U.S.

The New American TV: Russian Security Chief Hosts Top CCP Diplomat

China’s foreign affairs director meets with Russia’s security chief as CCP head preps for a visit to Moscow.

Chinese fentanyl is feeding the U.S. opioid crisis.

The European Central Bank meets to establish a central bank digital currency.

Kamala Harris claims that the Biden Administration has lowered energy bills, while the Consumer Price Index records record hikes.

Georgia grand jury foreman Emily Kohrs raises eyebrows with her strange behavior as well as telling hints about the panel’s recommendations. Rebecca Terrell https://thenewamerican.com/editor/rebecca-terrell/ and Daniel Natal https://thenewamerican.com/video/natal/ discuss these and other headlines.

Later in the program, CEO emeritus of The John Birch Society, Art Thompson, joins Rebecca to discuss his new book, “Property Rights: As Sacred As the Laws of God.” https://shopjbs.org/

Legislative consultants Christian Gomez https://thenewamerican.com/editor/christian-gomez/ and Peter Rykowski fill us in on important upcoming nullification matters in various states such as Texas, https://jbs.org/alert/support-the-texas-sovereignty-act-hb-384-sb-313/, Tennessee https://jbs.org/alert/restore-tennessee-sovereignty/, and South Carolina, where legislators are creating formal processes for nullifying unconstitutional federal actions.

Rounding out the program, The New American executive senior editor Steve Bonta takes us back to basics with a presentation about natural law.

Communism

Pete Buttigieg’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in E. Palestine, Ohio~Jew-Hate in the Muslim World; Could it have something to do with Islam’s holy texts?

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/02/23/pete-buttigiegs-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-trip-to-e-palestine-ohio-n1673208;

Pete Buttigieg Bombed in Visit to East Palestine — Big Time

BY MATT MARGOLIS

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

After having waited weeks to finally show up, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s visit to East Palestine, Ohio, didn’t go very well, as he faced a barrage of questions from the media regarding the slow response of the administration and his failure to come sooner. Based on his poor response to the questions, he was not prepared to handle the criticism.

“What I tried to do was balance two things,” Buttigieg tried to explain to reporters during a painfully cringeworthy news conference. “My desire to be involved and engaged and on the ground, which is how I am generally wired to act, and my desire to follow the norm of transportation secretaries, allowing NTSB to really lead the initial stages of the public-facing work.”

He added, “I’ll do some thinking about whether I got that balance right.”

But, if there was any moment that stands out as cringeworthy, it was when he was trying to argue that the situation in East Palestine had become politicized. “There’s no question that there have been enormous amounts of both information and misinformation injected into this situation, none of which is to the benefit of the community. When it comes to that misinformation… so, I think… sorry, I lost my train of thought.”

He lost his train of thought. Real nice, Pete. Real nice.

Here are some of the highlights of the brutal press conference.

Then, to make matters worse, after getting slaughtered by the media, Buttigieg bailed and left the dirty work to his press secretary.

The media largely ignored the plight of East Palestine for weeks, and now it’s finally getting the help it needs. Help us report on the stories that the mainstream media would sooner ignore by becoming a VIP member. Use promo code SAVE AMERICA for a 40% discount on a new PJ Media VIP membership. Become our partner in holding the media accountable!

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Israel Passes Law to Strip Terrorists of Citizenship~Twelve Hundred Synagogues Desecrated Judaism This Past Shabbat~Jew-Hate in the Muslim World; Could it have something to do with Islam’s holy texts?

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/twelve-hundred-synagogues-desecrated-judaism-this-past-shabbat/;

Meanwhile, Biden continues to finance the Palestinian Authority's Pay-For-Slay terror scheme.

BY Vijeta Uniyal

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/israel-passes-law-to-strip-terrorists-of-citizenship/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The Israeli parliament on Wednesday passed a law to strip terrorists of their citizenship for receiving financial rewards from the Palestinian Authority.

The new legislation, which received 94 votes in a 120-member Knesset, also gives the Israeli government the power to deport terrorists to the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank, as well as bar their reentry into Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government presented the bill after Israeli Arabs gave a “hero’s welcome” to a terrorist who was released after serving a 40-year prison sentence for kidnapping and murdering an Israeli soldier in 1983. Karim Younis, an unrepentant terrorist, “was greeted by family, friends, and supporters chanting and carrying him through the streets on their shoulders,” the Jerusalem Post reported on January 5.

The Arab Knesset members were enraged at the new legislation. They slammed the law for being “racist” towards convicted terrorists who happen to hold Israeli citizenship. “The decision, which could potentially affect hundreds of Palestinian citizens and residents of Israel, was condemned as racist by Arab lawmakers as well as Palestinian officials,” the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz lamented.

“Knesset passes law to strip terrorists who receive PA stipends of Israeli citizenship,” by Carrie Keller-Lynn, The Times of Israel, February 15, 2023:

The Knesset approved a law on Wednesday to strip convicted terrorists with Israeli nationality of their citizenship — provided they receive funding from the Palestinian Authority or an associated organization.

The law, an amendment to Israel’s 1952 Citizenship Law, applies to both Israeli citizens and permanent residents incarcerated following a conviction for terror, aiding terror, harming Israeli sovereignty, inciting war, or aiding an enemy during wartime, and enables the interior minister to revoke their status after a hearing.

The law enables citizenship to be revoked even if the person lacks a second citizenship, provided they have a permanent residence status outside of Israel. Once citizenship is revoked, the person would be denied entry back into Israel. (…)

Registering rare cross-Knesset support, the law passed with the support of 94 MKs on its third and final reading, with 10 lawmakers voting against. While its main sponsor was Likud MK Ofir Katz, it also counted members of the opposition’s right-wing and center-left lawmakers among its cosigned supporters.

Heralding the legislative victory, Katz said that the law is “the dawn of a new era,” stating from the Knesset floor that” I know and feel from the bottom of my heart that such laws are our true mission as elected officials.”

“I say unequivocally, a terrorist who receives money from the Palestinian Authority should fly from here to Gaza, anywhere else. Do not stay here. He won’t be here,” Katz said.

The PLO-run Palestinian Authority operates a multi-million dollar “Pay-For-Slay” scheme, which hands out generous salaries and allowances to terrorists and their families. According to the Israel-based watchdog Palestinian Media Watch, the “Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund” paid out around $150 million in 2020 alone.

The so-called humanitarian aid to Palestinians restored by the Biden White House — revoking President Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to cut such funding, is also diverted to finance this “Pay-for-Slay” terror financing scheme, a Jerusalem Post article noted in April 2021. In 2022, Biden administration gave $316 million to the terrorist-ridden Palestinian Authority.

__________________________________________________________________

As usual, the Left destroys everything it touches.

BY DENNIS PRAGER

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

This past Shabbat (Sabbath) was a dark day in American Jewish history. Once again — this time within Judaism — the rule that the Left destroys everything it touches was exemplified.

Twelve hundred American synagogues participated in “Repro-Shabbat.” “Repro” is short for “reproductive rights.” The idea, which originated with a left-wing organization called the National Conference of Jewish Women (NCJW), was to have as many synagogues as possible promote the idea that Judaism supports a woman’s right to abort the child she is carrying at any time in her pregnancy and for any reason, that the human fetus is never a human being — even five minutes before it is born — and that it has no innate right to live.

That this is the position of the American Left is a given. That it is counter to science and to common decency is also a given — as is most of what the Left stands for: “Men give birth”; sexual identity is “nonbinary”; young children should attend drag queen events; a person’s sex or “gender” is not a biological fact, but a subjective feeling; men who say they are women must be allowed to compete against women in sports and be placed with women in women’s prisons; young girls who say they are boys and want their breasts surgically removed should have their breasts removed; boys and girls as young as elementary-school age who say they are not a boy or a girl must have this belief “affirmed” by schools, psychotherapists, physicians and society; and schools are duty bound not to inform these children’s parents if their child identifies as the opposite sex at school and is treated as such there. These are among the many examples of left-wing nihilism.

And these are the positions of the NCJW. What is more disturbing, however, is that the NCJW and 1,200 synagogues regard the left-wing view of abortion — that it is never immoral — as the position of Judaism.

Unlike Christianity and Islam, which are religions only, Judaism is both a religion and a nation (or “people”). Therefore, to be considered a Christian one must affirm core Christian beliefs, and to be considered a Muslim one must affirm core Muslim beliefs. But Jewish beliefs do not determine who is a Jew. A person who is born to a Jewish mother (or in Reform Judaism, a Jewish father or mother) is a Jew no matter what he or she believes. One who is born a Jew can be an atheist or even a fascist or communist or work for Israel’s destruction — and remain as much a Jew as the chief rabbi of Israel.

That explains Jewish groups like the NCJW. The only thing Jewish about the National Conference of Jewish Women is that it is composed of Jews. Sadly, this is increasingly the case with regard to most rabbis and synagogues within Reform and Conservative Judaism, the two major non-Orthodox Jewish denominations. They are Jews who hold left-wing values. Left-wing values — unlike liberal and conservative values — are antithetical to normative Jewish values (just as they are to normative Christian and normative Western values). The founders of Reform and Conservative Judaism would turn in their graves if they were to see what has happened to the movements they founded.

The NCJW is so far left that its website promoting “Repro-Shabbat” urges people “to use gender-neutral language (such as) ‘people,’ ‘pregnant individuals,’ or ‘patients’ rather than ‘women,'” and “to say ‘women and all people who can get pregnant.'”

And how’s this for representing Judaism? The NCJW prepared a “Repro-Shabbat Playlist” on Spotify featuring such Jewish and holy songs as:

“Bitch” (Meredith Brooks).

“I Spent My Last $10 (On Birth Control & Beer)” (Two Nice Girls).

“Bodies” (Sex Pistols), whose lyrics deemed appropriate for Repro-Shabbat include “Ah! F— this and f— that. F— it all, and f**k the f**king brat.”

“I Luv Abortion” (Xiu Xiu): “When I look at my thighs, I see death / It is great, I love abortion!”

Wash It All Off (Foetus): “You’ve got Foetus on your breath / You’ve got Foetus on your breath / You’ve got Foetus on your breath / You’ve got Foetus on your breath.”

And the NCJW advises the song, “F— Men” (Ms. White) — perhaps to be sung while the Torah is being taken from the ark. Its refrain goes like this: “F— men / You don’t need those tears in your eyes / F— men. You can tell him that it’s too hard / And just leave him with a broken heart / And baby f— men, f— men, f— men.”

Non-Jews get a thoroughly perverted picture of Judaism as a result of the NCJW, the 1,200 synagogues and all the rabbis who went along with “Repro-Shabbat.” Of course, Judaism, like every legal system, allows abortion to save the life of the mother, and various religious authorities have allowed it in cases of rape or incest. But Judaism has never held that all abortions at any stage of pregnancy are morally acceptable. In fact, Maimonides, the great philosopher and codifier of Jewish law, a man almost universally regarded as the greatest Jewish thinker since Moses, declared abortion “akin to murder.”

Even an article on abortion in the largest left-wing Jewish periodical, The Forward (Aug. 1, 2018), acknowledged: “There are (no) halakhists (Jewish legal authorities) who permit abortion in all cases, i.e., that halakhah (Jewish law) is ‘pro-choice’; a cursory look at any of the sources cited would show clearly that such a position is unsustainable.”

If you ask any religious Jew, “What is the greatest Jewish sin?” he or she would almost definitely respond, “chillul HaShem” — the public desecration of God’s name.

That is what the 1,200 synagogues that celebrated “Repro-Shabbat” engaged in. Non-Orthodox Judaism, like mainstream Protestantism and much of contemporary Catholicism, is dying. Killed by the destroyer of all good things: the Left.

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BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/jew-hate-in-the-muslim-world/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Moderate Muslim Raheel Raza published a heartwarming story in Canada’s National Post Monday, entitled “I’m a Muslim and I love Israel. Here’s why.” In it, she notes that “every moment of my first trip to the Jewish state was an awakening about the misinformation I had been fed.” Raza tells numerous stories about the kindness shown to her by Jews and Israelis, and in this torn and weary world, that is heartwarming indeed. In the course of her lengthy article, however, she writes: “

Hate is a terrible ideology, and it feeds antisemitism, which is rampant in some parts of the Muslim world. Much of this is based on ignorance of facts and misinterpretation of the faith.”

Unfortunately, this is not only false but likely to foster dangerous complacency in the face of a genuine threat.

This is because, much as Islamic spokesmen in the West deny the fact, hatred of Jews is deeply embedded in Islam’s holy texts. There is a strong native strain of anti-Semitism in Islam, rooted in the Qur’an. The Qur’an puts forward a clear, consistent image of the Jews: they are scheming, treacherous liars and the most dangerous enemies of the Muslims.

The Qur’an presents Muhammad as the last and greatest in the line of Biblical prophets, preaching a message identical to theirs. The identical character of their messages may seem odd to those who know very well that the Qur’an’s contents are quite different in character from those of the Bible, but the Qur’an has an ingenious explanation for this: the original message of all the Biblical prophets was Islam, and they were all Muslims. Only later did their followers corrupt their messages to create Judaism and Christianity.

Consequently, in the Qur’an, Abraham is not a Jew or a Christian, but a Muslim (3:67); his message was identical to Muhammad’s. The Islamic claim is that the authentic Torah actually commands Jews to follow Muhammad and recognize his prophecy. Those who refuse to accept Muhammad as a prophet are, in the Muslim view, rejecting both Moses and the prophecies of the Torah. It is no surprise, then, that in the Qur’an both David and Jesus curse the disbelieving Jews for their disobedience (5:78).

Yet of course, Torah-observant Jews did not and do not accept Muhammad as a prophet, and this, according to Islamic tradition, enraged the prophet of Islam during his lifetime. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad initially appealed energetically to the Jews, hoping they would accept his prophetic status. He even had the Muslims imitate the Jews by facing Jerusalem for prayers, and he adopted for the Muslims the Jews’ prohibition of pork. But he was infuriated when the Jews rejected him, and Allah shared his fury in Qur’anic revelation: “And when a messenger from Allah comes to them, confirming what is with them, a faction of those who have received the book cast the book of Allah behind their backs, as if they did not know.” (2:101).

Muslims should not get close to such people: “O you who believe, do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends of one another. He among you who takes them for friends is of them. Indeed, Allah does not guide wrongdoing people” (5:51). It would hardly be appropriate for Muslims to act peaceably toward the Jews when the Jews, according to the Qur’an, are prone to war — especially against Muslims. Whenever the Jews “light a fire for war,” says the Qur’an, “Allah extinguishes it” (5:64).

In light of all this (and there is much more), an informed and committed Muslim believer will look at the Jews, and in particular at Zionism and the State of Israel, and not see a struggle over land or boundaries that can be solved through negotiations if a sufficient amount of goodwill exists on both sides. Such a believer is much more likely to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an eschatological struggle against the great spiritual enemies of the Muslims, as the Jews are designated in the Qur’an: “You will find the Jews and the idolaters the most vehement of mankind in hostility to those who believe.” (5:82)

There can be no negotiated settlement, and no peace, with these treacherous, untrustworthy, mendacious enemies. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, in short, what no policymaker, no negotiator, no one who has ever been involved with the Middle East “peace process” has ever admitted it to be: a religious war. It is wonderful that Raheel Raza has had positive experiences in Israel. But none of those experiences will end the implacable and Qur’an-based Islamic hostility toward Jews.

‘NO MORE BLANK CHECKS!’: FLORIDA GOVERNOR DeSantis Says We Can’t Just Continue to Throw Money at Ukraine

Facebook caught ‘not just hosting,’ but creating pages for the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/02/facebook-caught-not-just-hosting-but-creating-pages-for-the-islamic-state-and-al-qaeda;

BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

While Facebook shut down dissenting opinions regarding the COVID vaccine and continues to censor patriotic conservatives who reject the Left’s agenda by supporting Trump and free societies, the Big Tech giant has shown us who it thinks is deserving of its platform. Facebook has been caught creating pages for the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. According to a watchdog group Tech Transparency Project (TTP): “The company [FB] could potentially be held responsible for these pages as Facebook not just hosting but actually creating them.”

“BOMBSHELL: Facebook Caught Creating Pages for ISIS, Al-Qaeda,” United with Israel, February 20, 2023:

Facebook is no stranger to controversy, permitting Jew-hatred to fester and giving a free pass to anti-Israel lies and antisemitic propaganda.

The social media giant is now in hot water due to the technology it uses to promote content, which a watchdog group called the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) says automatically creates home pages for U.S.-designated terror groups.

Among the TTP report’s bombshell findings is evidence alleging that Facebook created over 100 pages for ISIS (Islamic State), as well as pages for other terror organizations, including the group behind the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., Al-Qaeda.

TTP reported that Facebook creates the pages based on its algorithm, automatically generating them when users add the terror groups to their profiles. The platform’s so-called ban on the groups apparently did little to prevent the automatic process that generated the terror group pages.

“Some of these automatically generated pages have been living on Facebook for years, racking up likes and posts with terrorist propaganda and imagery,” reported the Jerusalem Post in its coverage of the TTP’s findings. “The company could potentially be held responsible for these pages as Facebook not just hosting but actually creating them.”

This is only the latest chapter in Facebook’s struggles to keep hate off its platform.

Over the last several years, Facebook has been a hotbed for anti-Israel lies and antisemitic propaganda.

At the end of 2022, a post with tens of thousands of likes on Facebook claimed that the Palestinians aren’t playing in the World Cup because Israel is “murdering” their players. The claim was demonstrably false and had zero basis in reality….

U.S. to Negotiate Accord to Transfer Pandemic Management to WHO

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/u-s-to-negotiate-accord-to-transfer-pandemic-management-to-who/;

U.S. to Negotiate Accord to Transfer Pandemic Management to WHO

BY VERONIKA KYRYLENKO

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The Biden administration is in the active phase of drafting a legally binding pandemic agreement that would empower the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) to shape national policies concerning pandemic “prevention, preparedness, and response.”

Serious failures by the WHO in handling the Covid pandemic made many Americans question the supranational body’s competence, but the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was not one of them. On September 27, 2022, Becerra joined with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to announce the “U.S.-WHO Strategic Dialogue,” which provides for a “historic new financial intermediary fund” and development of a “new pandemic instrument.” That latest included, among other things, the “targeted amendments” to the International Health Regulations (IHR), a treaty the United States ratified back in 2005.

In December 2022, 194 member states of the WHO, including the United States, agreed to develop a “zero draft” of a pandemic accord set to be negotiated and finalized starting on February 27, 2023, at the meeting of the WHO’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body.

Recognizing “the catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic,” the WHO members consider it much more productive to transfer responsibility for pandemic management to the globalist experts. In essence, the WHO will have “the central role of WHO as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work” that relates to “pandemic prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery of health systems, and in convening and generating scientific evidence, and, more generally, fostering multilateral cooperation in global health governance.”

As such, the WHO director will have the authority to declare a pandemic. The draft provides a rather vague definition of “pandemic,” which can potentially describe any and all communicable diseases. Once a pandemic is declared, all signatories would submit to the authority of the WHO regarding treatments and pandemic measures.

The definition of “pandemic-causing pathogens” is yet to be agreed upon, but the draft agreement would set up the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS), “a specialized international access and benefit-sharing instrument” whose status should be legally recognized by each signatory. The PABS will be responsible for identifying pathogens and assessing vaccines and other pandemic-related products.

The agreement would require each nation to put in place a standardized system of policies and strategies that would involve not just healthcare institutions, but also actors “across the public and private sectors and relevant agencies” to ensure the “resilience of health systems, rooted in universal health coverage.” It is not clear how much private-sector entities such as pharmaceutical companies, whose only obligation is to be profitable, will aid in promoting public health, which arguably was undermined by their products during the Covid pandemic.

Further, the signatories will be required to “commit to increasing science, public health, and pandemic literacy in the population.” To that end, the countries will have to conduct “educational and public awareness campaigns,” likely akin to the propaganda campaigns put in place under the Biden administration to promote Covid shots.

Simultaneously, the countries will need to make sure that the populations do not consume “false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation,” which signatories will have to “tackle,” per the draft. In other words, all information that contradicts WHO would have to be censored. Again, that is exactly what happened when Biden colluded with Big Tech companies to suppress information critical of Covid measures such as lockdowns, masking, vaccines, treatments, etc.

Factors that could contribute to mistrust toward public health agencies and “hinder adherence” to policies such as vaccinations and the use of certain therapeutics and other measures recommended by the WHO should be “researched” and addressed.

The agreement would expand the regulatory powers of the members regarding “pandemic-related products,” which should be receiving “timely approval” and be available for use quickly. And, in the event of a pandemic, the members could even choose to accelerate the process of approving and licensing such products for “emergencies,” much as they did with Covid shots and therapeutics.

The draft specifically addresses the use of “substandard and falsified pandemic-related products,” which should be regulated. Judging from the WHO and Biden administration’s approaches adopted during the Covid pandemic, these positions would likely result in the wide distribution of poorly tested new vaccines, while preventing doctors from prescribing alternative generic treatments and medicines.

A group of 17 U.S. Senators led by Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is pushing back against the outrageous plan with a legislative proposal aimed at reinforcing Senate power to sign off on such “accords.” On February 15, they introduced the “No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act,” which states that the pandemic accord must be deemed an international treaty, requiring the approval of two-thirds of the Senate.

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Joe Biden Shackles U.S. Taxpayers with Ukraine War

President Joe Biden pledges continued U.S. support of Ukraine in the Russian conflict, while Putin counters by suspending the nuclear New START agreement. Americans react with anti-war rally in Washington D.C.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earns Democratic ire, handing 44,000 hours of J6 footage over to Fox News. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee is ramping up Hunter Biden investigations.

Post-Covid jab birth rates are nosediving, while George Soros and Bill Gates are making plans to block out the sun. Rebecca Terrell and Daniel Natal discuss these headlines.

Later in the program, we re-visit the “Rage Against the War Machine!” rally in Washington, D.C. with TNA senior editor Veronika Kyrylenko.

Christian Gomez and Peter Rykowski bring us legislative updates from Capitol Hill and various States.

And Leah Southwell, Program Manager for The John Birch Society, joins us to talk about the demise of Chile’s constitution, and what is in store for this country if we do not vigilantly guard our own founding document.

Mike Pence Comes Out for Me-Too, Do-Nothing Conservatism

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/02/22/mike-pence-says-being-a-conservative-means-letting-the-left-get-away-with-everything-n1672915;

Mike Pence Seems to Think Being a Conservative Means Letting the Left Get Away With Everything

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

In this era of deep crisis and division in America, Mike Pence wants to be the Republican nominee for president of the United States in 2024, and he wants you to know that a Pence presidency (The Pencidency, you heard it here first) would be a comforting reassertion of the Republican Party’s familiar role as the placid, country-clubbing controlled opposition, never rocking the boat as the Left sets the agenda politically, economically, culturally, and in every other way.

If you want solid, stolid, poker-faced, self-righteous impotence and me-tooism, Mike Pence is your man. Solid, stolid Pence reinforced that perception Wednesday when he called out Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) for being so un-conservative as to do something actually to resist the Left and stop it in its tracks. Good, solid, colorless Men of the Right such as Mike Pence just don’t do such things.

Pence began by defending DeSantis’ Parental Rights in Education bill, which endeavors to stop the grooming of children in primary schools. The former vice president declared that he “fully supported Florida’s initiative to protect kids and protect parental rights.” He even offered an example of why such a bill was needed: “I was just in Iowa last week where literally there’s a school — the Linn-Mar Community School — [that] will allow a student to get a gender transition plan without parental notification or approval.” That’s ghastly indeed, and it’s good to see Pence speaking out against it. But don’t take that to mean that once The Pencidency was up and running Gray Mike would do anything actually effective.

Pence went on to hit DeSantis for going too far: “I have concerns about the follow-on. Disney stepped into the fray; they lost. The idea of going after their taxing authority. That was beyond the scope of what I, as a conservative, a limited-government Republican, would be prepared to do.” Of course. As everyone knows, being a conservative, limited-government Republican means being a dutiful lapdog for the Left. It never, ever means taking on Leftist power centers such as Disney that are corrupting children on an industrial scale with woke propaganda. Oh, no. That would be Big Government Liberalism.

Pence is now the second Republican presidential hopeful to invoke conservatism in order to justify impotence and inaction in the face of the Left’s increasingly open lust to corrupt our children. On Sunday, former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, who also shares Pence’s fantasies about being the GOP nominee for president in 2024, brought up his alleged conservative credentials to explain his opposition to DeSantis.

Unlike Pence, Hogan came out entirely against the Parental Rights in Education bill but did so for reasons that Pence would find compelling: “I’m a small government, common sense conservative,” Hogan said, “and to me, it sounds like big government and authoritarian, ‘You have to agree with me, and I’ll tell you what you can and can’t do.’ But it’s an issue. It’s not the most important issue. Most people are worried about the economy, inflation, and they’re concerned about crime, but education is one of the things that we’ve got to talk about.”

Pence and Hogan should understand, after all their years in government and especially in light of the Left’s increasing aggressiveness in the culture wars, that passively going along with the Left’s agenda because to do otherwise would somehow be a manifestation of “big government” is not the kind of conservativism that anyone wants. If it proves to be a winning formula for 2024, then the Republican Party is done for, and genuine patriots should abandon the rotting shell.

There is nothing that stands in opposition to small-government principles in acting to protect children from sexualization and gender madness. There is nothing “big government” about acting to preserve parents’ rights to raise their own children without government bureaucrats using taxpayer money to erode those rights. There is nothing about preserving the principle of limited government in taking away special legal perks that alleged entertainers have received from the government once they start behaving as arrogant social engineers and forcing upon children an agenda that most parents find abhorrent.

Mike Pence is yesterday’s man. He stands for a bland conservatism that allows the Left to take charge in all fields and never, ever rocks the boat. That supine behavior was never a good look for Republicans, and in the face of the conflicts in American society today, it should be decisively repudiated once and for all. Mike Pence should give up his quixotic presidential hopes and face reality. He doesn’t have enough presence or personality to become the kind-of conservative voice on CNN or MSNBC, but he’ll find work somewhere.

WATCH: Biden Falls on the Stairs to Air Force One