New calls to treat NY-NJ bombing suspect as enemy combatant, Fox News via YouTube, September 21, 2016
Archive for September 23, 2016
New calls to treat NY-NJ bombing suspect as enemy combatant
September 23, 2016Is Obama’s ‘Narrative Battle’ with ISIS or Reality?
September 23, 2016Is Obama’s ‘Narrative Battle’ with ISIS or Reality? Front Page Magazine, Raymond Ibrahim, September 23, 2016
The powers-that-be prefer that the debate—the “narrative”—be restricted to ISIS, so that the group appears as an aberration to Islam. Acknowledging that untold millions of Muslims are engaged in similar behavior leads to a much more troubling narrative with vast implications.
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According to White House press secretary Josh Earnest, “When it comes to ISIL, we are in a fight—a narrative fight with them. A narrative battle.” Earnest said this the day after two separate bombings occurred in New York, and an ISIS-linked Muslim went on a stabbing spree in Minnesota. Obama’ spokesman later elaborated:
What is important in the context of political debate is to remember ISIL is trying to assert a narrative, that they represent the religion of Islam in a war against the west and in a war against the United States. That is mythology. That is falsehood. That is not true. That is bankrupt ideology they are trying to wrap in the cloak of Islam.
This, of course, is a strawman argument: the real question isn’t whether ISIS “represents” Islam, but whether ISIS is a byproduct of Islam. And this question can easily be answered by looking not to ISIS but Islam. One can point to Islamic doctrines that unequivocally justify ISIS behavior; one can point to the whole of Islamic history, nearly 14 centuries of ISIS precedents.
Or, if these two options are deemed too abstract, one can simply point to the fact that everyday Muslims all around the world are behaving just like ISIS.
For example, Muslims—of all races, nationalities, languages, and socio-political and economic circumstances, in Arab, African, Central and East Asian nations—claim the lions’ share of Christian persecution; 41 of the 50 worst nations to be Christian in are Islamic. In these countries, Muslim individuals, mobs, clerics, politicians, police, soldiers, judges, even family members—none of whom are affiliated with ISIS (other than by religion)—abuse and sometimes slaughter Christians, abduct, enslave and rape their women and children, ban or bomb churches, and kill blasphemers and apostates.
Anyone who doubts this can access my monthly “Muslim Persecution of Christians” reports and review the nonstop persecution and carnage committed by “everyday” Muslims—not ISIS—against Christians. Each monthly report (there are currently 60, stretching back to July 2011) contains dozens of atrocities, most of which if committed by Christians against Muslims would receive nonstop media coverage in America.
Or consider a Pew poll which found that, in 11 countries alone, at least 63 million and as many as 287 million Muslims support ISIS. Similarly, 81% of respondents to an Arabic language Al Jazeera poll supported the Islamic State.
Do all these hundreds of millions of Muslims support the Islamic State because they’ve been suckered into its “narrative”—or even more silly, because we have—or do they support ISIS because it reflects the same supremacist Islam that they know and practice, one that preaches hate and violence for all infidels, as America’s good friends and allies, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar—not ISIS—are on record proclaiming?
It is this phenomenon, that Muslims the world over—and not just this or that terrorist group that “has nothing to do with Islam”—are exhibiting hostility for and terrorizing non-Muslims that the Obama administration and its mainstream media allies are committed to suppressing. Otherwise the unthinkable could happen: people might connect the dots and understand that ISIS isn’t mangling Islam but rather Islam is mangling the minds of Muslims all over the world.
Hence why White House spokesman Josh Earnest can adamantly dismiss 14 centuries of Islamic history, doctrine, and behavior that mirrors ISIS: “That is mythology. That is falsehood. That is not true.” Hence why U.S. media coverage for one dead gorilla was six times greater than media coverage for 21 Christians whose heads were carved off for refusing to recant their faith.
The powers-that-be prefer that the debate—the “narrative”—be restricted to ISIS, so that the group appears as an aberration to Islam. Acknowledging that untold millions of Muslims are engaged in similar behavior leads to a much more troubling narrative with vast implications.
Even so, until this ugly truth is accepted, countless more innocents—including born Muslims who seek to break free from Islam—will continue to suffer.
Obama’s baffling swan song
September 23, 2016Obama’s baffling swan song, Israel Hayom, David M. Weinberg, September 23, 2016
In his preachy, philosophical and snooty address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama expressed deep disappointment with the world. Alas, it seems peoples and nations are just not sophisticated enough to comprehend his sage sermonizing, smart enough to follow his enlightened example, or deep enough to understand his perfect policies.
It falls to Congress and the next president to redirect U.S. policy and hopefully base it less on whimsical, wayward beliefs and more on a hard-nosed, forceful reassertion of Western interests.
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U.S. President Barack Obama sang his swan song this week at the United Nations, and seemed baffled by the stubborn refusal of the world to reform itself in his image and on his say-so.
How can there still be “deep fault lines in the international order,” Obama wondered aloud, with “societies filled with uncertainty and unease and strife?”
Shouldn’t his identity as a man “made up of flesh and blood and traditions and cultures and faiths from a lot of different parts of the world” have served as a shining and irresistible example of blended global peace? How can it be that, after eight years of his visionary leadership, peoples everywhere aren’t marching to his tune of self-declared superior “moral imagination”?
It is indeed a “paradox,” Obama declared.
In his preachy, philosophical and snooty address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama expressed deep disappointment with the world. Alas, it seems peoples and nations are just not sophisticated enough to comprehend his sage sermonizing, smart enough to follow his enlightened example, or deep enough to understand his perfect policies.
Why does the world not snap to order as he imperiously wishes and drool in his presence?
The answer to these questions lies in the main thing missing from Obama’s U.N. address and indeed from his entire presidency: a willingness to project power.
From day one, Obama has made it clear he rejects the traditional and time-tested hard power tools of statecraft. He abjures the use of military force and other forms of raw American power. He is willing to “speak out forcefully” — how courageous and decisive of him! — but that’s it.
Obama is ashamed of America’s “overbearing” record of decisive global leadership in past. Even in this final U.N. speech, he was apologizing for American mega-wealth, “soulless capitalism,” “unaccountable mercantilist policies,” insufficient foreign assistance, and “strongman” pushing of its liberal democratic preferences.
This leaves America shorn of its ability to actually shape the world in the fine directions Obama desires. All that is left is Obama’s exhortations for brotherhood in his image, declarations that flow so naturally from his deeply narcissistic soul.
The words “enemy, “threat” or “adversary” do not appear even once in Obama’s 5,600-word address. They are not part of his lexicon, nor are concepts like “victory” for the West or “beating” the bad guys. He won’t even names foes, such as “radical Islam” or “Islamist terror.”
All this high-minded intellectualizing, self-doubt and equivocation leave the U.S. with little ability to actually drive towards a more ordered world and provide a modicum of global security.
Instead, we have only Obama’s “belief” that Russia’s imperialist moves in Ukraine and Syria, China’s power grabs in Asia, and Iran’s hegemonic trouble-making in the Middle East (and by inference, Israel’s settlement policies in Judea and Samaria) will “ultimately backfire.”
Obama has many such unsubstantiated and illusory “beliefs.” It is very important for him to tell us what he “believes,” and he does so repeatedly. Clearly, he believes in the overwhelming potency of his own beliefs, despite the global security collapse. In fact, the U.N. speech reads like chapter one of the expected Obama memoirs, which surely will be filled with more inane “beliefs” and other ostentation.
Obama has only a short time left to act on his beliefs. At the moment, it seems his beliefs are being expressed mainly through repeated cash transfers of billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
According to testimony given this week to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance by former Undersecretary of Defense Professor Eric Edelman, Iran may have received $33.6 billion in cash from the U.S. over the past two years, as well as the $1.3 billion that was flown to Tehran in January and February this year.
Basing his comments on research by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, by Claudia Rosett of the Independent Women’s Forum, and by JINSA’s Gemunder Center Iran Task Force, Edelman noted that Iran has no incentive to discontinue the dangerous behavior that led to it being paid.
“It was only half-jokingly that a reporter asked the State Department spokesman last month whether the United States still owed Iran 13 cents in interest and was it holding onto the small change for leverage. Due to the administration’s actions, that may be the only leverage the Obama administration has left,” Edelman said.
It falls to Congress and the next president to redirect U.S. policy and hopefully base it less on whimsical, wayward beliefs and more on a hard-nosed, forceful reassertion of Western interests.
RIGHT ANGLE: Hillary’s Pole Dance
September 23, 2016RIGHT ANGLE: Hillary’s Pole Dance, Bill Whittle.com via YouTube, September 22, 2016
The blurb beneath the video states, “Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers are in freefall. Steve Green walks us through how dramatically the election map has changed in the past few weeks.”
Muslim mayor of London to Americans: Get used to terrorism
September 23, 2016Muslim mayor of London to Americans: Get used to terrorism, American Thinker, Deborah C. Tyler, September 23, 2016
While visiting New York City on 9/21, London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan evidenced mild chagrin in saying terrorist attacks should be seen as “part and parcel of living in a big city.” He added, “It is a reality, I’m afraid, that London, New York, and other major cities around the world have got to be prepared for these sorts of things.”
Mayor Khan makes it clear that preparing for the sort of thing that causes streets to run with the blood of dozens of innocents should not involve a military response. He advocates police staying “in touch with communities” and “exchanging ideas and best practices.”
Two aspects of conditioned helplessness are being inflicted on the citizens of Europe and the USA, numbing and incapacitating them enough to surrender their national sovereignty and traditional ways of life to the deepening darkness of globalism. One aspect is the increasingly laughable harangue by left-wing politicians that patriotic people are racio/phobio/blah-blah-blahists suffering cases of blah-blah-blahism. Americans receive a new mental diagnosis every week, and they all indicate something very, very bad about us. President Obama doesn’t pass up a chance to insult the American people, preferably in front of an international audience. Hillary brought a bit of literary flair to her insults with the “basket of deplorables” remark. Shoulder to shoulder with the other prominent destroyers of great nation-states and proud developers of lawless tribal territories, Mayor Khan didn’t miss the chance to denigrate the tens of millions of Americans who support Donald Trump. Khan’s racist-shmacist in-your-face-ist shot was that the Trump movement is “driven by scapegoating.”
But there is a deeper, more psychologically crippling aspect to the mass psychology of globalist takeover then the vilification of patriots, and Khan has chosen to spearhead it. In his original learned helplessness experiments (now widely considered unethical), psychologist Martin Seligman electrically shocked dogs, which were divided into groups that could or could not do something to stop the shocks. The dogs for whom the shocks were inescapable developed what Seligman called learned helplessness. The most helpless dogs simply gave up, lay down, and whimpered.
The mayor of London has just said to all of us, you are those dogs, and there will be inescapable shocks causing death around you. These shocking events will kill ordinary people like you and your family in the mundane places we all need to go to. Get used to it. Accept it. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
Obama, Hillary, and Khan are committed globalists in the process of dismantling the geographic, legal, and traditional integrity of their respective nations. But the American and British people are at different stages of conditioning of helplessness to resist. Therefore, the statements of Obama and Hillary and Khan take different tacks in the normalization of terrorism. Obama and Hillary are at the stage of insulting Americans’ intelligence about terrorism. When a white kid commits a heinous mass murder in a church, they know exactly what happened and why it happened, and, as it should be, the outpouring of grief is enormous. Following each Islamic terrorist attack, Obama and Hillary display the now familiar head-bobbling confusion and say, “We don’t know what just happened, and we don’t know why.” Their expression of grief is slow in coming if it comes at all.
But England and America have very different histories. We are an armed population founded on a God-given responsibility to defend ourselves. Americans are not ready to hear that Islamic terrorism is part and parcel of their everyday lives, uncontrollable as the weather.
The British people are sufficiently crushed in spirit to hear the mayor of London say that what happened in New York during his visit was terrorism and it’s no big deal. Khan leads the way in saying the lethal terrorism “thing” will be happening over and over around you, so lie down, whimper like the helpless experimental dogs, and get used to it.
Normalizing terrorism with its constant, grinding fear is the greatest tool the globalists have to persuade citizens of the functional democracies to relinquish their borders and rights. That fear is indispensable to Mayor Khan and to the leftist-globalist cause. The Islamic terrorist is London’s new Jihadi-Bobbie. He is walking, watching, and waiting in the streets by night and day, serving a cause, which, according to the city’s mayor, cannot be stopped.
Normative Behavior
September 23, 2016Normative Behavior, PJ Media, Richard Fernandez, September 22, 2016
President Barack Obama pauses during a news conference following the G-20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey, Monday, Nov. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The devastation of Syria, according to the Guardian, will be Obama’s legacy but it won’t entirely be the story of naive neglect. Some pundits think active incompetence must have played a part too. After all, when the administration conceived of an alliance with Russia as a way the conflict could be shifted to the negotiating table, any reasonable person could have foreseen the possible dangers. Events proved the administration completely miscalculated the way in which Putin and Assad would act. How could they not have foreseen it?
“The crux of the deal is a US promise to join forces with the Russian air force to share targeting and coordinate an expanded bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, which is primarily fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad.” To say Obama was stabbed in the back would only be to repeat Samantha Power’s belated regret at Putin’s “uniquely cynical and hypocritical stunt”.
Obama should have seen it coming but didn’t. All too frequently he never does. Noting this, Charles Lister, writing at Foreign Policy, headlines his piece “Obama’s Syria Strategy Is the Definition of Insanity.” He says “none of this should come as a surprise, even as the consequences are potentially devastating.
The Russian government, much less the Assad regime, has never been a reliable partner for peace in Syria. But even after Russia’s alleged bombing of the aid convoy, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration is still plowing its energies into a deal that aims to work with the Russian government.
But Lister doesn’t accuse Obama of being actually a crazy person, just of acting like a one. Yet the suggestive evidence goes much further than Syria. Whether at social policy (which yielded riots), health policy (which resulted in Obamacare), or economic policy (which has created unemployment), the administration has shown a willingness to double down on failure. In many and varied contexts, it acts like it’s insane.
The explanation, as Michael Barone hints at, is the belief these setbacks are an acceptable price to pay for guaranteed re-election. Because liberal politics succeeds at electing candidates by promising impossible things, it promises them. That it fails to deliver is beside the point, because, quoting Dan McLaughlin at National Review, the Democrats believe their “party had unlocked the demographic code to a permanent majority.” Since misleading the electorate was the key to power, they would continue to turn it.
For all their blunders, “Republicans have lost four of the six presidential elections between 1992-2012” and Obama’s approval rating in the twilight of his term is over 50%. Since there’s no reason to hit the brakes and every incentive to step on the liberal gas, they do.
Two decades ago, lots of self-described moderates and even conservatives voted in Democratic primaries. Not so these days. The slump in Democratic primary and caucus turnout, from 38 million in 2008 to 31 million in 2016, was due to a sharp decline in turnout by self-described moderates.Hillary Clinton’s move from her husband’s 1990s triangulation to her near-total acceptance this year of Bernie Sanders’s left-wing platform was a rational response to changes in the Democratic primary electorate.
Hillary Clinton doesn’t say what she thinks but what her focus groups say the constituency wants to hear. She just channels the base, consequences be damned. Political catastrophe alone, argues Barone, can shock the system back into sanity. Absent negative feedback that hits politicians where they live, no changes can be expected from the party of Washington. Barone’s hypothesis reassuringly asserts that liberal politics is only optionally crazy and that after a few electoral defeats things could return to normal. Sleep tight: we can leave the asylum any time we want. However, he may have overlooked a crucial possibility. In his classic experiment, Yale psychologist David Rosenhan found it was easy to join the ranks of the insane but almost impossible to leave it on terms the asylum would accept.
Rosenhan’s study was done in two parts. The first part involved the use of healthy associates or “pseudopatients” (three women and five men, including Rosenhan himself) who briefly feigned auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had no longer experienced any additional hallucinations. All were forced to admit to having a mental illness and agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release.
This raises the possibility that dysfunction is rather more permanent than Barone believes. The Rosenhan experiment provides an explanation for the what could be called “the liberal trap,” where there is no way out of an irrational policy regime except on terms that irrational people will accept. In that line of argument, the persistence of Obama’s “insane” foreign and domestic policy is partly the result of being unable to change his policy to anything his constituency can mentally follow. There is no workable escape from Syria, for example, on any self-consistent basis the left would accept and therefore there is no escape.
Being the head lefty doesn’t mean they’re in there with him. It means he’s in there with THEM.
And maybe he can’t get out. Having promised them a fantasy universe, he has to pretend to attain it. By that logic “Hillary Clinton’s move from her husband’s 1990s triangulation to her near-total acceptance this year of Bernie Sanders’s left-wing platform” will make her president yet will confine her as much as it did Obama. The reader will have noted there is of course yet another possibility which will not here be discussed. Our political leaders act crazy because they are. But if that were so, how would we know?
Dangerous Weakness in Iraq and Syria
September 23, 2016Dangerous Weakness in Iraq and Syria, Counter Jihad, September 22, 2016
US Secretary of State John F. Kerry “urges” Russia and Syria to ground their military aircraft after the destruction of a humanitarian aid convoy. Meanwhile, in the eastern part of that same theater, American and Iraq forces came under a sulfur mustard (commonly known as “mustard gas”) attack from the Islamic State (ISIS).
This is not the first use of sulfur mustard by ISIS and their predecessors. They used them in IEDs against American forces during the Iraq War, and against Kurdish forces as late as last year. Nevertheless, they clearly do not fear to use them against Americans at this time. Whatever message we are conveying to ISIS, it does not include a proper respect for violating the laws of war when dealing with our soldiers.
Likewise, the Russians are not going to ground their aircraft just because we ask them to do. In fact, the Russians are sending their only active aircraft carrier to join the war in Syria. Defying an empty “urging” by our Secretary of State is just another way for Russia to show that they, and not we, are in control of the conflict.
Syrian jets, meanwhile, came close to bringing American forces under aerial attack for the first time since World War II. Only good fortune kept American soldiers from being killed by Syrian bombs. Fighters had to be scrambled to prevent additional sorties by the Syrian bombers.
In addition to Russia, Syria, and ISIS, Iran’s challenges against US Navy forces are up 50% from last year. The Iranians are violating international law on a regular and consistent basis in challenging American fleet ships over access to international waters.
According to U.S. officials, the incidents all involved the IRGC, which operates a navy in parallel to Iran’s regular naval force, and whose leaders answer directly to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Defense News reported.
Ten American sailors and their two boats were seized by IRGC naval forces in January of this year in violation of international law.
Subsequent to the sailors’ release, Iran portrayed their capture as a victory against the U.S., releasing the sailors after claiming that Washington apologized for the incident. Khamenei proclaimed that the naval forces who captured the sailors did “God’s deed” and issued medals to the commanders involved, while the IRGC announced plans to build a statue to commemorate the seizure.
In May, the deputy commander of the IRGC threatened to close the strategic Straits of Hormuz to the U.S. and its allies if they “threaten us,” adding: “Americans cannot make safe any part of the world.”
The U.S. Navy reported last month that in 2015, there were close to 300 encounters or “interactions” between American and Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. While most of the encounters were not considered to be harassment, the behavior of the Iranian navy was found to be less disciplined than that of other navies.
Weakness is provocative in a military conflict. Refusing to embrace strong measures that would control these aggressive moves is exactly how American servicemen get killed. Across the Middle East, our President’s predilection for weakness is putting American lives in grave [danger.]
Not Satire | Dallas Morning News: “Islamophobia” leads to high cholesterol, obesity, and cancer
September 23, 2016Dallas Morning News: “Islamophobia” leads to high cholesterol, obesity, and cancer, Jihad Watch,
Now we know why Ahmad Khan Rahami had packed on a few pounds: it wasn’t the fried chicken he was peddling pre-jihad, it was “Islamophobia.”
Goleen Samari is a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Texas at Austin, and one wonders if they accept this level of “scholarship” from her. Here the Dallas Morning News gives her space to claim, without a shred of evidence, that “Islamophobia” — which Samari represents as irrational hatred of and discrimination against Muslims — leads to “paranoia, psychological distress and reduced happiness as well as high cholesterol, obesity and other health problems,” including depression and even cancer.
Well, she is right about the paranoia.
“Americans,” she claims, “are exposed to political campaigns, news coverage and movies that portray Muslims as outsiders and villains. One study found that the coverage of Islam and Muslims in The New York Times was more negative than the coverage of cancer, alcohol and cocaine. Structural forms of discrimination, forms such as media coverage or political campaigns that call for a ban on Muslims, help normalize discriminatory attitudes and create the institutional system of discrimination.”
Goleen Samari, like all “Islamophobia” victimhood-mongers, presents this narrative of victimization of Muslims, as dubious as it is, as the result of bigotry and, of course, racism. She never entertains, even long enough to dismiss, the truth: any suspicion that Americans may have of Islam or Muslims stems not from “political campaigns, news coverage and movies,” but from acts of jihad terror. Ahmad Khan Rahami, with his bombs in New York and New Jersey, is a much more effective purveyor of “Islamophobia” than I could ever be, even if I were the hate-filled gargoyle of the “Islamophobia” victimhood industry’s fantasy.
“Another study finds that a lack of social support leads to depression for Arab Muslim immigrant women. Islamophobia also prevents Muslim Americans from seeking health care, resulting in more late-stage cancer diagnoses.” Are they denied care by cackling, “Islamophobic” physicians with Trump bumper stickers? It’s much more likely that if they’re depressed or afraid to go to the doctor, it’s because they’re brutalized at home and their husband doesn’t want them seen undressed by some Infidel male.
But no, it’s all about “Islamophobia.” “Islamophobia” — which in reality is wildly exaggerated, as anti-Semitic hate crimes are far more common, according to FBI statistics, than “Islamophobic” crimes, and which in fact is a term designed to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad terror — is making people sick, folks, and you know what that means: it has to be forcibly suppressed. Those “political campaigns, news coverage and movies” that dare to criticize Islam and Muslims, or that are claimed by Muslims to do so, but be silenced. Free speech? Pah! It’s a public health issue!
“Why we should treat Islamophobia as a public health issue,” by Goleen Samari, Dallas Morning News, September 21, 2016:
When I was 16, a Texas police officer pulled me over and said “it’s people like you that are ruining this country. Go back to your country.” People who speed, I thought? Girls who are late for figure skating practice? I wasn’t sure what he meant. What country was I supposed to go to? I was born and raised in Austin. Then, it dawned on me. It was a month after 9/11, and he meant Muslims.
Islamophobia is widespread. In the 15 years that have followed the Sept. 11 attacks, many Muslim or Middle Eastern Americans have been repeatedly exposed to hate and discrimination in the United States.
The unfounded hatred of Islam or stigmatization, fear and dislike of Muslims rose to 67 percent in 2015, the highest it has ever been. Right after 9/11, unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims were at 60 percent. In fact, hate speech and crimes against Muslim Americans tripled after the San Bernardino and Paris attacks. Muslim Americans have been harassed on college campuses, they have lost jobs, mosques have been vandalized, Muslim charities have had their assets frozen, and racial profiling has occurred at airports and on the streets.
But there is an effect of all this that has not been widely reported: the impact on health.
Simply put, Islamophobia has grave physical and mental health consequences for Muslims in the U.S. It is a public health issue. Yet, research on the health implications of this is understudied and often ignored by the masses.
We, as Americans, can and must do better.
Muslims are often represented as coming from non-white groups, so their religious identity is linked with racial identity. In reality, Muslim Americans include many nationalities and racial categories, including black and white, and anyone who appears Muslim-like, Sikhs and many non-Muslim Arab, Iranian and Indian Americans.
Unfortunately, Islamophobia is deeply institutionalized. Americans are exposed to political campaigns, news coverage and movies that portray Muslims as outsiders and villains. One study found that the coverage of Islam and Muslims in The New York Times was more negative than the coverage of cancer, alcohol and cocaine. Structural forms of discrimination, forms such as media coverage or political campaigns that call for a ban on Muslims, help normalize discriminatory attitudes and create the institutional system of discrimination.
A system of discrimination can lead to differential access to fundamental determinants of health such as education and employment. Moreover, when people are targeted based on their identity, the persistent exposure to discrimination has a pervasive, negative effect on health. Being a victim of Islamophobia can be traumatizing, with severe and lasting health impacts.
Members of stigmatized groups have greater stress, strained social relationships and unequal access to resources or medical care. Social marginalization increases the physiological response to stress. Discrimination against Muslim Americans has been linked to paranoia, psychological distress and reduced happiness as well as high cholesterol, obesity and other health problems.
Another study finds that a lack of social support leads to depression for Arab Muslim immigrant women. Islamophobia also prevents Muslim Americans from seeking health care, resulting in more late-stage cancer diagnoses….
Trump and Clinton: Head to head
September 23, 2016Source: Israel Hayom | Trump and Clinton: Head to head
Monday’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could be the turning point in the race to the White House • Trump suddenly has the momentum and Clinton is floundering, but even the smallest mistake on camera could turn the tide for good.
Boaz Bismuth
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Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
Photo credit: Reuters
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This is not how Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wanted this week to end.
It was supposed to be a much bigger success: a week in which she and her campaign would both finally recover; a week in which President Barack Obama would deliver his last speech at the U.N. General Assembly and lay out his “I believe” (“the world is safer and more prosperous than ever, we need to take in more refugees”); a week in which Clinton would exploit her experience as a previous secretary of state to meet world leaders, either formally or informally, in the hallways of the United Nations, among them Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
But then the terrorist Ahmad Khan Rahami came along, spoiling the Obama-Clinton duo’s plans.
The terrorist attack in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, and the additional bombs across the Hudson River in New Jersey, hovered like a dark cloud over the president’s speech. When a bomb explodes in the middle of the street in Manhattan, and when almost simultaneously the son of Somali immigrants screams “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) while stabbing 10 people in a Minnesota shopping mall, the average American citizen can’t do much other than doubt Obama’s words. The average American finds it a tad difficult to agree that the world has never been better, or to suddenly believe in the advantages of globalization.
In comparison to the exceedingly violent 14th century, the situation today really never has been better. But the everyday citizen is more interested in the present than in the distant past, and in the present there are terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, in Orlando, and now in New York and Minnesota (even though Obama doesn’t see any connection between the incidents).
One more thing that escapes the American citizen’s understanding: How is it possible that, despite Ahmad Khan Rahami’s visit to Afghanistan and his growing religious observance, the authorities in the U.S. failed to put him under surveillance? After all, even his father, Mohammad, warned the FBI two years ago: “My son is a terrorist.” But in Obama’s America, apparently, Rahami was able to walk around freely.
It doesn’t matter how you look at it, the terrorist attack in New York does not look good for Obama and certainly not for the successor to his path, Clinton, who wanted to spend the past week showing the American citizen how she is embracing the outgoing president’s legacy. Immediately following the explosion in Chelsea, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tried easing tensions, saying it was unclear whether the explosion was a terrorist attack or not.
The Americans did not like what de Blasio, who supports Clinton, had to say. When her husband, Bill Clinton, was running for office in 1992, one of his advisers coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid.” If Trump wins in November, he can apply that line to the present: “It’s the terrorism, stupid.”
Even if Hillary Clinton continues leading in most polls and maintains an advantage in the Electoral College (just a week ago, the candidates the candidates were neck and neck in this area), the momentum has shifted to Trump just days ahead of their first televised debate, in New York on Monday.
The fight in the key undecided states is still close: In New Hampshire and Colorado, both candidates received similar support in the polls. An assessment this week by renowned pollster Nate Silver, which weighed numerous factors other than just polling results, gave Clinton a 55% chance of winning the elections. This is another warning sign for her: It is the first time since July that Silver has her below the 60% barrier. Trump, on the other hand, hit a high mark this week, which predicted his chances of winning the elections at 44.5%.
‘The most watched debate in history’
The person who can expect to benefit most from recent events is Republican candidate Donald Trump. The terrorist attacks provided him the opportunity to repeat what he has already said countless times: The terrorists need to be hit hard; the war needs to be taken to their territory; immigrants need to be vetted; immigration from Muslim countries needs to be stopped. Clinton, for her part, asked the public to wait before jumping to conclusions.
CNN’s website summed it up well: Trump, it wrote, spoke to the emotions of Americans, while Clinton spoke “like a bureaucrat.” All in all, it was not a good week for someone seeking to usher in “a third Obama term.”
On Monday, at Hofstra University in New York, the moment of truth will arrive. The first presidential debate is expected to receive the highest viewership rating in the history of televised debates since their beginning in 1960 (with Richard Nixon vs. John F. Kennedy). Facebook has also realized the monumental nature of the occasion, and will broadcast the event live.
“This is going to be the most watched debate ever,” said Dr. Rosanna Perotti, associate professor of political science at Hofstra. “It is important to pay attention to which candidate has the strongest presence, who gives the American [citizen] the impression that they have the greater ability to lead.”
The issues to be debated: “the direction America is headed,” “acquiring prosperity,” “and preserving the security of the United States.” It will not be simple.
For Trump, the debate is coming at a perfect time. He even allowed himself to joke around and take a jab at his rival, who took a day off this week (“Sleep well, Hillary — see you at the debate!”). He can’t afford to be complacent: During the Republican primary debates he may have beaten his opponents, but then, due to the large number of contenders, he had less time to speak and less opportunity to make mistakes. On Monday, the spotlight will focus on two people alone, and even though the questions about Clinton’s health make her the center of attention, a great many people are looking forward to seeing Trump stumble. It’s certainly possible that Monday will be the toughest test both candidates have had to face thus far.
The sin of hubris
Either way, play time is over. The real race has begun, and without even realizing it we have reached the final stretch. Everyone knew September would likely be the turning point, because only now most Americans are waking up from their political slumber. We still didn’t expect the hot season to end with the political thunderstorm we experienced this month. The polls have for several weeks been showing that the candidates are locked in a tie, while the trend is boding well for Trump, who last week even took the lead in the key swing state of Ohio. On the other hand, some polls show Clinton is recovering — one poll this week gave her a 5 percent lead — and everything is still wide open.
Like any election campaign, the polls show two different things at the same time. First, that the voters are divided almost equally along party lines. To be more specific, the two candidates represent two tribes more than they represent two worldviews currently existing in America. Secondly, we learn how the United States is still perceived within the national ethos: a country where one must work hard to move ahead and acquire power. In this country, no one likes a person who claims to deserve victory, especially if he projects that no one is more fitting and worthy of the title.
Al Gore tried to do this in 2000, with only very partial success (depending on how the votes were counted in Florida), and this is precisely what Clinton is always trying to convey. She served as a senator and secretary of state and tried to run for president in 2008. Now, after her husband Bill and after Obama, it’s her turn.
What a shame that things don’t work like that in America. People don’t vote for a candidate who deems himself most worthy or because he or she believes it is his turn. During the debate, Clinton will likely present Trump as inexperienced and incapable, but Americans expect more than that. They want to hear what she has to offer, beyond derision toward Trump. They want her campaign to be less negative and more positive.
Trump also needs to heed this advice. He would be wise to use these final weeks of the race to create a positive, optimistic vision for his presidency. The real estate magnate from New York awakened Americans from the Obama dream, but now he must offer a new dream. After all, the land of endless possibilities was built thanks to dreams.
Back in May, we learned that Trump had essentially secured the Republican nomination after the Indiana primaries. We can assume Clinton’s campaign headquarters didn’t wait long before popping the champagne. They were certain God had granted them a gift in the form of Trump and his wind-challenged head of hair. It’s quite possible that this is where Clinton’s problems began: with the sin of hubris. In May, she thought the race was a mere formality, and perhaps she had even begun choosing the color of the furniture for the Oval Office. She was sure Trump’s verbal gaffes and the demographic situation in the key states would suffice. She thought she could keep irritating press conferences to a minimum and avoid providing satisfactory explanations regarding the email scandal.
She was wrong on all counts.
Trump, however, precisely because no one expects him to reach his rival’s level, is perceived as a different, refreshing character. While Clinton tried turning the elections into a national referendum on Trump’s character, in the hope this would spare her from having to work too hard, the Republican candidate made full use of his opportunity and essentially hijacked the news cycle (for better or for worse). Except, of course, when Clinton made headlines, most of the time unwillingly, over the email affair, the Clinton Foundation’s dubious ties, and, of course, her recent fainting spell.
Stay on the stage
The upcoming debate could prove to be the turning point. Going into a debate, the underdog holds the advantage, because expectations of him are lower and his potential impact is greater. Mitt Romney defeated Obama in their first debate in 2012. Only in the next two did the president manage to fight back.
The candidates need to be careful. Every step they take, every word they speak, every supposedly innocuous motion, can be influential and even decisive. In one of the debates between George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton, back in 1992, the former took a look at his watch. Maybe he felt time was running short, but the impression it created was different. It appeared as if Bush believed he was “doing a favor” by just appearing before the voters.
This is precisely the feeling that Hillary Clinton has fostered to this point, when she refused until recently to hold press conferences to keep voters abreast on certain important matters, including her allegedly innocent bout with pneumonia. The debate can finally give her a chance to look Americans in the eye. She has never been able to do so. Like her husband, she has always created the feeling — perhaps correctly — that she is hiding something.
If Clinton fails to point to the problems and to prove she can solve them, she will be abandoning the stage to Trump, who is approaching the first debate like an athlete getting ready for the Olympics, at the top of his game. His opponent can no longer just attack. She also has to demonstrate that she is willing to fight for every vote, and present a real plan that makes people at home nod their heads instead of being bored by the details.
During the debate, Clinton will need to connect with independent voters — those in the Republican camp who aren’t thrilled with Trump, but still aren’t ready to stand behind her. Meanwhile, she also has to wink to the voters on the far Left, who support her as a default and would rather be voting for her Democratic rival in the primaries, Bernie Sanders.
Clinton could find herself begging these voters not to jump ship in favor of the protest parties — Jill Stein’s Green Party and Gary Johnson’s Libertarian Party — which have failed to pass the minimum polling threshold for participation in the first debate, and apparently for the others as well.
If she cannot keep her own voters at home and fails to excite the independents peeking in Trump’s direction, there is a possibility that she won’t reach 270 electoral votes. Trump has almost zero room for error with the Electoral College: Not only will he have to win the states that Romney won in 2012, he will have to make strides in several other crucial states to pass the required electoral threshold.
In Clinton’s nightmares, the undecided voters could turn their backs on her, just as voters did to former British Prime Minister David Cameron in the national referendum over leaving the European Union. The separation from the EU was an expression of protest and a small window of hope, at least for the British working class and those who don’t belong to the “State of London.” All of this is applicable to the Americans who were left behind during the globalization party and new global economy, and their reasons for supporting Trump. As is well known, Cameron, who didn’t realize the need to secure the voters on the fence, ended up being forced to resign.
How did he do it?
On Monday, the best show in town is expected to provide us with one of its most scintillating battles. From Trump’s perspective, the momentum he has is encouraging. Suddenly, the political website The Hill is reporting that his standing among Hispanic voters has improved tremendously. In essence, the polls show that Trump has the same support among Hispanics as Romney did in 2012. This figure is embarrassing for Democrats and surprising for Republicans. After everything he said about Mexican immigrants and building a wall, after he called some of them “rapists,” how has Trump done it?
Among Hispanic voters are those who believe the media has demonized Trump. “They are unhappy with Hillary after eight years of Obama,” one Hispanic voter told The Hill. “He [Obama] promised immigration reforms and didn’t deliver. He never even got close to delivering.” And Clinton wants to carry Obama’s torch, while Trump signals a change.
In a week where terror in America returned to the headlines and Trump reached new heights among Hispanic voters, it’s not surprising that Clinton is still floundering. The pair will continue racing neck and neck until the debate on Monday, and eventually the elections, separate them for good.
Commentary: Forget isolation. Israel’s diplomatic ties have never been better. | Reuters
September 23, 2016Source: Commentary: Forget isolation. Israel’s diplomatic ties have never been better. | Reuters
Barack Obama is meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday, at a time when the U.S. president is considering whether to initiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before he leaves office.
If Obama does so, it will be over Netanyahu’s objections – and could trigger a very public disagreement between the two leaders during Obama’s final months in office.
This would not be the first Obama-Netanyahu spat, though. American officials were furious when they saw a recent video of Netanyahu describing opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank as “ethnic cleansing” of Jews. The State Department called it “inappropriate and unhelpful;” White House officials were reportedly livid.
On various other occasions, meanwhile, senior administration officials have described Netanyahu as “recalcitrant,” “myopic,”“reactionary,” “obtuse,” “blustering,” “pompous,” “Aspergery” and “chickenshit.” Netanyahu reportedly dislikes Obama, while Israel’s Defense Ministry has compared the Iran nuclear deal to Britain’s 1938 Munich appeasement agreement with Nazi Germany.
Given American-Israeli tension, some fret Israel risks diplomatic isolation – something even Netanyahu recently felt compelled to deny. In reality, though, Israel’s diplomatic gains have never been greater. Here’s why.
First and foremost, despite the Obama-Netanyahu friction, Israel’s partnership with its powerful American patron remains robust. Washington just agreed to provide Israel with a record-sized $38 billion military aid package. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton emphasize their strong support for Israel. The country also retains overwhelming support in Congress and – according to the latest Gallup poll – among the American public as well.
Even beyond its relationship with Washington, Israel is successfully developing close ties with an unprecedented number of countries – including many old enemies.
Consider Egypt. Although Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David accords almost 40 years ago, it has been a “cold peace” at best, and as late as 2011 Israel was forced to evacuate over 80 diplomats after protesters stormed its embassy in Cairo.
But since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s ascension to power in 2014, Israeli-Egyptian cooperation has reached new heights. Egypt’s Foreign Minister recently visited Israel, and a Netanyahu-Sisi summit may soon be possible.
Common national security and economic interests drive this newfound cooperation. Both sides see Gaza-based Islamist group Hamas as a common foe, and during Israel’s 2014 military campaign against Hamas Sisi reportedly took an even harder line on a possible Israeli-Hamas ceasefire than Netanyahu himself.
The two countries also share intelligence on Hamas and Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate. Egypt even allows Israel to conduct drone strikes against militants on Egyptian territory, according to a former senior Israeli official.
Mutual security interests also drive an Israeli-Saudi détente, particularly a shared fear of Shi’ite Iran. In the run-up to the Iran nuclear deal – which both Israel and Saudi Arabia opposed – Riyadh reportedly offered the Israeli government the use of its airspace to attack Iran as well as assistance with air-to-air refueling for Israeli jets. These contacts came to light when it was revealed that representatives from the two countries had held five secret meetings in 2015 to discuss managing the threat from Tehran.
Relations have continued this year. In May two former senior Israeli and Saudi officials – including Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief – shared the stage at a Washington think tank to discuss their mutual fear of Iran. In July a retired Saudi general led a delegation of Saudi academics and businessmen on a trip to Israel for discussions with senior Israeli officials.
While no diplomatic relationship between the two countries exists – Saudi Arabia insists an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement be signed before it recognizes Israel – it’s extremely unlikely these types of extensive contacts could occur without approval from the highest levels in Riyadh.
A new Israel-Greece-Cyprus alliance has also emerged. The Greek and Israeli militaries hold extensive air and naval exercises together, and in 2015 Greece allowed the Israeli air force to conduct exercises over Crete.
Earlier this year, meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Netanyahu held talks in Israel, followed by a three-way summit between Netanyahu, Tsipras and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades that concluded with the creation of a de-facto geopolitical bloc between the three states.
Security and economic interests drive this Israeli-Greek-Cypriot bloc. Greece and Cyprus are both historically antagonistic toward Turkey, while Israeli-Turkish relations deteriorated after the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when the Israeli navy stormed a Turkish ship trying to deliver aid to Gaza. The two countries agreed to normalize ties in June, but continue to disagree over Gaza. This makes Israeli-Greek-Cypriot defense cooperation a natural hedge against an increasingly unpredictable Ankara.
Israel’s offshore natural gas bonanza provides another reason for its alliance with Greece and Cyprus. Since Israel possesses far more gas than it needs for its own economy, Netanyahu, Tsipras and Anastasiades also discussed the possibility of building a pipeline from Israeli gas fields through Cyprus and Greece to supply Europe – something that would further cement this new three-way alliance.
Israel is also significantly expanding trade and diplomatic ties with India, the world’s largest democracy. Israel sold approximately $10 billion worth of military equipment to India in the last decade, making India the largest foreign buyer of Israeli military gear, while Israel is India’s second largest arms supplier after Russia.
On the diplomatic front, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee made an official state visit to Israel in 2015 – the first ever by an Indian head of state – while India’s foreign minister visited in January. Given India’s long history of supporting the Palestinian cause and denouncing Israel, India’s willingness to bring its relationship with Israel out from “under the carpet” represents another significant success for Israeli diplomacy.
Israel has overcome a similarly fraught history with China. For many years post-revolutionary China supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization with both diplomatic and military aid, and Beijing did not officially recognize Israel’s right to exist until 1992. But business interests drive an increasingly warm relationship. Chinese-Israeli trade has exploded and the two sides are also discussing a free trade agreement.
Israel accrues significant advantages from its growing Chinese ties. As part of its “Silk Road” initiative, China recently began building a new port in the Israeli town of Ashdod on the Mediterranean, while also agreeing to fund a so-called “Red-Med” high-speed railway line to connect Israel’s Red Sea town of Eilat to Ashdod.
Chinese venture capital firms also invested $500 million in Israeli startups in 2015, and by 2020 may hold as much as $10 billion of investments in the Israeli technology industry. Netanyahu visited China in 2013, while Chinese vice premiers traveled to Israel in 2014 and again earlier this year. In May the two countries signed a 10-year multiple entry visa agreement – making Israel only the third country granted this arrangement by Beijing.
To be clear, none of Israel’s new friends are as important to the country as the United States, and Netanyahu would be wise to develop an improved personal relationship with the next American president. Nevertheless, when viewed from Israel’s parliament, the country’s place in the world has never looked more secure.
This column has been updated since publication.
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