DAILY SHMUTZ | COMMENTARY / OPINION | 3/9/25

COMMENTARY / OPINION 

 

Jonathan Pollard: NO HOLDS BARRED: How to Free the Hostages  [53:58]

March 9, 2025  Machon Shilo – Discussion between the head of Machon Shilo Rabbi David Bar-Hayim & Jewish hero Jonathan Pollard

 

Israel Made a CRUCIAL Mistake in Trump Hostage Meeting  [14:57]   Yishai Fleisher

March 9, 2025

No rosy scenario ahead but Israel can do better.  Yishai weighs in…

 

“The Third Reich and the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict”   By Alex Grobman PhD. 

Not an Attempt to Limit Free Speech

9 Adar 5785 – March 9, 2025  – Asking the academy to address antisemitism and verbal attacks on Israel and Jews is not a call to limit free speech or introduce any form of censorship. When antisemitic images, demonization of Israel, Jews, hate-speech, comparisons with the Nazis, and demands for the destruction of the Jewish State are tolerated and allowed to thrive, universities cannot claim the accusations are part of a legitimate academic debate asserts Gary A. Tobin, a demographer and researcher on the Jewish community.

He adds, just as universities avow that racism and sexism and other forms of prejudice are unacceptable on their campuses, they have a moral obligation to forbid antisemitism and Israel bashing. A zero-tolerance policy should be enforced to foster academic freedom and civil discourse while protecting against intimidation, disparagement of individuals and nations, and speech that can lead to violence.

Antagonism Did Not Always Exist

This antagonism toward Israel and Jews did not always exist on college campuses. Before the 1967 Six Day War when Israel was vulnerable and encircled by hostile totalitarian regimes, she had the support and ideological backing of the liberal Left, explains  Richard L. Cravatts, author of Dispatches From the Campus War Against Israel and Jews and Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews.

This approval turned to hostility as Israel became a powerful military and economic force in the region and after her Arab neighbors unleashed a very successful propaganda campaign against the Jewish state.

 Accusations of antisemitism are very often disputed, ridiculed, and denied completely, according to Ben Cohen, an analyst on global antisemitism. This reflects “the perception of the Jews as socially privileged, disproportionately represented in the fields of glamour, intellect, and finance, and—crucially—as the agency behind the dispossession of Palestine’s native Arab inhabitants.”

Denying Antisemitism

At American universities, denying antisemitism is not a new phenomenon. Too frequently they have discovered that “there is honor not in opposing it, but in fawning before it” or “speaking truth to power” by “denying it” Cravetts said.

 In The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses, historian Stephen H. Norwood reveals how many American universities actively or passively helped to legitimize Nazi Germany. In their failure to take a stand against antisemitism, Norwood sees parallels in academia today.

“Legitimating Nazism”

During the 1930s, Harvard, ignored frequent opportunities to speak out against Hitler’s government and its antisemitic insults, degradation and acts of violence Norwood said. This silence abetted the Nazis in their attempts to improve their tarnished image in the West. The absence of concern about the plight of European Jews was common among many prominent Harvard alumni and students leaders.

Harvard welcomed Nazi leaders to the campus; feted them at prestigious university social gatherings; and sought to establish cordial relationships with the completely “Nazified” German universities of Heidelberg and Gottingen, even after they had expelled their Jewish faculty. Academic student exchange programs with Nazi universities continued throughout the period Norwood said.

 Those protesting these associations and attempts to expose Nazi brutality were criticized by the administration and students, even as the Nazis were escalating their oppression of Jews and increasing German military prowess Norwood notes.

To be sure, Harvard President James Bryant Conant formally expressed his opposition to Nazi ideology and never became an apologist for the regime as did Joseph Gray, chancellor of American University in Washington, D.C.  after returning from Germany in 1936. Still, as Norwood points out, from 1933 through 1937 Conant boosted the Nazi’s prestige by cultivating and maintaining contacts German universities and their leaders. His administration did not support protests against fascism and at times even stopped them.

Complicity and Conflict

Seven months after Nazi students held massive nation-wide book burning orgies on the night of May 10, 1933, Columbia University President Nicolas Murray Butler, who served from 1902-1945, welcomed Dr. Hans Luther, Germany’s ambassador to the U.S. Luther had been invited to lecture at the campus by the Institute of Arts and Sciences. Norwood said Butler dismissed a student organization’s criticism of the invitation by indicating he held the ambassador in high regard. Luther’s views were of no concern to him.

When Butler had the opportunity a year later to share the podium with anti-Nazi refugee Gerhart Seger, who escaped Germany, he declined to appear. Seger, a former Social Democratic deputy in the German Reichstag, provided Columbia students and faculty with one of the first eyewitness accounts of life under the Nazis.

 Professor Reinhold Niebuhr of Union Theological Seminary chaired the event. The meeting could have enabled Butler to avow his condemnation of the Nazis and demonstrate his backing for a brave enemy of Adolph Hitler.

As head of one of America’s most prestigious academic institutions, president of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, Butler could have helped influence American perceptions of the Nazi regime. Instead, he remained unmoved by Nazi persecution of the Jews. He and prominent members of his administration did not comprehend the corrosive influence that the National Socialism ideology had on German academic institutions.  As a result, they attended high-profile social events organized by the Nazis to enhance their status in the West.

Many faculty, students and administrators from Vassar, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Radcliff and Barnard actively participated in these well publicized social events and cultural exchanges with Germany Norwood said.  During the 1930s, many American colleges and universities shared a positive view of the Nazis. The attitude of these the elite women’s colleges, known as the Seven Sisters, was especially important in affecting American attitudes toward the Nazis, since they had had extensive  student exchange programs with German academic institutions.

 Yale, Princeton, Harvard and Columbia also enthusiastically participated in these programs. The University of Delaware continued its junior year program in Germany until 1936.

At the University of Virginia’s Institute for Public Affairs, seminars held from 1933 until 1941, offered a prestigious academic forum for scholars, German diplomats and polemicists to deny Germany’s responsibility for starting the World War, and propagate antisemitism. Their articles and conferences  convinced many Americans to become more understanding and sympathetic of Germany’s position.

University German departments and German Clubs like those at Rutgers University, Dartmouth College, Bennington, Smith, Wellesley, Harvard, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota  convened  receptions for Nazi diplomats, and occasionally introduced them to university presidents and administrators.

The German consul-general in Boston attended many social activities at New England universities. For promoting friendship between Germany and the US, the German government  presented  prized medals to a number of professors from American universities including the University of Southern California, Stanford and Hunter College.

Until the US entered World War II, wide support for appeasing Germany existed at American Catholic universities Norwood said. They perceived the Soviet Union, not the Nazis, to be the more serious danger to the future of western civilization. Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass, November 9–10, 1938)  changed the general apathy toward Jewish suffering, which they viewed as far less than the persecution of Catholics in Spain and Mexico.

A Final Note

One the variables antisemites can count on historian Ruth R. Wisse tells us, is that by persecuting such a small minority this virtually ensures that retaliation will not be of the same magnitude and that persecution of Jews will be seen as irrelevant to non-Jews.  Although antisemites know they cannot count on the active involvement of all bystanders, they can invariably be certain of their “passive collusion.” Actually, the more lethal the antisemitism becomes, the more average citizens are disposed for it to vanish.

 

What a judicial coup looks like

Yossi Baum | X | Mar 6, 2025

By Jonathan Klinger – Aharon Barak, CC BY-SA 2.0

Mandatory Reading – Exposure:

1. Unbelievable: The first person to claim that the Attorney General’s legal opinion was binding on the government was—yes, yes—Aharon Barak himself. As a result, Rabin’s government fell, the right-wing rose to power, and Barak found himself in personal trouble.
2. The Agranat Commission, which Barak relied on to justify his claim that the Attorney General’s opinion is binding, actually ruled the opposite—that the Attorney General’s opinion does not bind the government, raising the possibility that Barak knowingly lied. (Attached: Commission protocol.)

Before diving into the dollar account scandal and Rabin’s resignation, it’s important to note that Barak was already considered one of the most powerful figures in Israel at the time, with nicknames such as “CEO of the State” and “King of Israel.” These titles only intensified after he effectively ousted Rabin. Here’s the full story, as detailed in “Kvod?” (Aharon Barak’s biography by Naomi Levitsky).

1. We all know about Rabin’s entanglement with his wife’s dollar account in the U.S.

1. • What’s less known is that Rabin’s circle argued that the Finance Minister had the authority to impose a fine (kofer) on Rabin, which would have prevented prosecution.
   • Rabin’s Chief of Staff, Amos Eran, tried to persuade Barak on the matter—but to no avail. (Tensions between Rabin and Barak had already been brewing due to the Ofar-Yadlin affair.)

1. Barak’s own account of events:

1. • After Eran failed, pressure was put on Finance Minister Yehoshua Rabinovitz to use his authority.
   • Rabinovitz asked Barak if it was true that imposing a fine would prevent prosecution.
   • Barak’s response:
     • “Yes, but on what basis would you do such a thing?”
     • Rabinovitz: “Prosecution will harm the government, especially with elections coming up.”
     • Barak: “It won’t pass the Supreme Court.”
     • Rabinovitz: “Who will take it to the Supreme Court? No one has standing to do so.”
     • Barak: “The Attorney General has standing, and I, Aharon Barak, will petition the Supreme Court against you. You, the Finance Minister, will have to hire a private attorney, because no state prosecutor will defend you. And you’ll have to pay for that lawyer yourself—because I won’t allow the state to fund it.”
       (End quote.)

1. Rabin’s disappointment was greater than anyone anticipated.

1. • He realized his time as Prime Minister was over and immediately announced he would not run for re-election.
   • From then on, Rabin never forgave Barak. His wife, Leah, never forgave him either—until her dying day.
   • At Rabin’s funeral, as widely known, Leah Rabin refused to shake Barak’s hand.

1. The public reaction was extreme.

1. • The country was split into two camps—pro-Rabin vs. anti-Rabin.
   • Rabin’s camp attacked Barak, accusing him of “forcing a Prime Minister to resign.”
   • This sparked a major debate:
     • Is the Attorney General merely an advisor to the government, or does he dictate its position?
     • One stance was promoted in Davar newspaper, while the opposing view was championed in Maariv (see attached).

1. Barak likely did not enjoy what happened next.

1. • After Rabin resigned, elections were held.
   • The Left lost power, and Barak was blamed, earning the nickname “government toppler.”
   • From that moment on, it seems Barak vowed to ensure the Left would retain power—at all costs—regardless of which party officially held office.

1. Barak’s involvement didn’t end there.

1. • He actively interfered in Rabin’s political decisions, making things even more difficult for him.
   • After Barak, his ally Yitzhak Zamir was appointed Attorney General. (Incidentally, Barak himself had been appointed after Meir Shamgar, and all three eventually ended up on the Supreme Court—what a coincidence!)
   • Barak fully supported giving maximum power to his protégé, Zamir.
   • Not surprisingly, it was Zamir who later wrote the first formal legal opinion claiming that the Attorney General’s decisions are “binding” on the government.

1. From then on, Barak began “dripping” this idea into various rulings—suggesting that it was an established legal doctrine.

1. • This culminated in the Der’i-Pinhasi ruling, where Barak explicitly ruled that:
     “This view draws its legitimacy from our constitutional tradition. It was established in the 1962 Report of the Jurists’ Commission on the Powers of the Attorney General, and since then has become part of Israel’s legal practice.”
     (Referring to the Agranat Commission—screenshots and links attached.)
     

1. 10.  But this is a blatant deception—either an error or worse, an intentional lie.

1. • Section 5 of the Agranat Report explicitly states the opposite.
   • This principle never became a constitutional tradition because the only person who applied it was Barak himself—to his own case in the dollar account scandal.
   • And even then, it was never independently used as a decisive factor in any ruling.

1.   Not only Chief Justice Agranat held this view.

1. • His predecessor, Justice Yitzhak Olshan, also explicitly wrote that the Attorney General’s opinion is not binding.
   • There is no tradition and no constitution backing Barak’s claim.

1. 12.  Even leading jurists rejected Barak’s position.

1. • Former Attorney Generals Moshe Ben Ze’ev and Haim Cohn (who also served as Minister of Justice, State Attorney, and Deputy Chief Justice!) openly opposed Barak’s view.
   • Miriam Ben-Porat and others also rejected it.
   • At the time of the dollar account scandal, Barak acted as if this “constitutional tradition” already existed—even though everyone agreed it did not.

1. 13.  Years later, Barak admitted the truth:

1. • “Indeed, there is no legal source for this. That’s why I wrote it into a ruling—to give it the force of binding precedent.”

1. 14.  Bottom line:

1. • Barak never thought a constitutional basis was necessary to establish the Attorney General’s powers.
   • He acted as if the law and legal traditions were irrelevant—making up new legal theories out of thin air to serve his own ideological goals.
   • Some might say that he never truly believed in his own legal doctrines—but rather invented them to justify his personal and political agenda.
   • The “legal framework” he presented was nothing more than a public relations stunt.

If you’ve ever wondered what a judicial coup looks like—this is exactly how it happens.

Continue Reading for Sources 

 

Jonathan Pollard: FLOODING of the West by Foreigners  [22:45]

February 27, 2025  Machon Shilo

Discussion between the head of Machon Shilo Rabbi David Bar-Hayim & Jewish hero Jonathan Pollard about how IINO got so lost.

 

Jonathan Pollard: Trump, WORLD WAR THREE & Israel   [43:18]

Mar 4, 2025  Machon Shilo https://machonshilo.org

Discussion between the head of Machon Shilo Rabbi David Bar-Hayim & Jewish hero Jonathan Pollard

 

Tangled web   TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS

MAR 02, 2025

Those who have followed me for a while know that I don’t believe in coincidences and I take a great deal of time to understand why things happen the way they do by analyzing the sequence in which they happened and the back story behind them.

This last week was filled with seemingly disconnected events (Bondi’s tease of the Epstein files, the EU meetings at the White House & in London, the Zelensky meeting with Trump & Vance and a sudden invasion of Trump airspace over Mar-a-Lago) that I believe are all connected.

I’m going to show you why I believe that. Let’s start with the weird and disjointed release of the Epstein files.

In June 2024, Trump said that he was open to releasing ALL the Epstein files but NOT if they contained false claims (phony stuff) or damaged good people.

According to Elon Musk, the main characters to be exposed in the Epstein files are Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and Reid Hoffman – but it’s also well known that certain French and British nationals (like Prince Andrew) have also been implicated.

Continue reading

[Ed.:

 

Truth!  @Tina Doelitzsch

3/4/25  We tolerated President Obama for 8 years and kept quiet.  Here is my issue with the whole, “let us all be a United States again” that we heard from President Biden.  For the last 4+ years, the Democrats have gone and scorched earth. You have salted the fields and now you want to grow crops.  The problem is 75+ million of us have memories longer than a hamster.

We remember the women’s march (vagina hats and all) the day after inauguration.

We remember the 4 years of attacks and impeachments.

We remember “not our president” and the “Resistance…”

We remember Maxine Walters telling followers to harass us in restaurants.

We remember the Presidents spokesperson being kicked out a restaurant.

We remember hundreds of Trump supporters physically attacked.

We remember Trump supporters getting Doxed, and fired from jobs.

We remember riots, and looting.

We remember “a comedian” holding up the President’s severed head.

We remember a play in Central park paid with public funding, showing the killing of President Trump.

We remember Robert de Niro yelling “F” Trump” at the Tony’s and getting a standing ovation.

We remember Nancy Pelosi tearing up the State of the Union Address.

We remember the total in the tank move on the mainstream media.

We remember the non-stop and live fact checking on our President and his supporters.

We remember non-stop in your face lies and open cover-ups from the media.

We remember the President and his staff being spied on.

We remember five Senators shot on a ballfield.

We remember every so-called comedy show turn into nothing but Trump hate fest.

We remember 95% negative coverage in the news.

We remember the state governors asking and getting everything they ask for and then blaming Trump for their problems.

We remember a Trump top aid verbally assaulted in two DC restaurants.

We remember people banging on the Supreme Court doors.

We remember that we were called every name in the book for supporting President Trump.

We remember that Hollywood said they would leave after Trump was elected but they stayed.

We remember being called Nazis

We remember being called Deplorables

We remember being called Fascists

We remember our sitting President calling us “garbage” and Kamala (and the media) trying to tell us to “get past it because Biden doesn’t matter anymore”

This list is endless, but you get the idea.  My friends will be my friends, but a party that has been on the attack for 4 long years does not get a free pass with me.

I will never give the Democrats a break for all the trouble they’ve caused.  They’ve dug a very very deep hole and it’s going to take a very long time for them to crawl out of it.

[Ed.:

 

Kash Delivers Earthshaking Response After FBI Tries to Trick Bondi With Misleading Epstein Files   By Michael Schwarz  

February 28, 2025   The Western Journal – For many years, the FBI has targeted ordinary Americans while actively working to protect powerful pedophiles. Recent history supports no other plausible conclusion.

On Thursday, however, new FBI Director Kash Patel signaled an end to the Bureau’s recent reign of corruption and terror.

In a message posted to the social media platform X, Patel responded to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s accusations against (and directives toward) the FBI Field Office in New York by declaring that the Bureau, on his watch, will no longer conceal evidence pertaining to the late child sex offender and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Patel did not mention Epstein by name. But the context of his message left no room for doubt.

“The FBI is entering a new era—one that will be defined by integrity, accountability, and the unwavering pursuit of justice,” Patel began. He then promised “no cover-ups, no missing documents, and no stone left unturned.”

Then, after insisting that any FBI agent who “undermines” this agenda would face consequences, he pledged to “bring everything we find to the DOJ to be fully assessed and transparently disseminated to the American people as it should be.”

Earlier in the day, Bondi had published a letter alleging insubordination at the FBI Field Office in New York. She indicated that the FBI had lied to her about having produced all materials pertaining to the Epstein investigation. Thus, she directed the FBI to produce those materials by 8:00 a.m. EST Friday.

Readers may view Bondi’s letter below.

Bondi herself had built expectations when she announced on Wednesday evening that she likely would release some Epstein-related materials the following day.

Things turned chaotic and embarrassing, however, when photos of prominent conservative social media influencers standing outside the White House, smiling, and holding binders purportedly full of Epstein files began circulating on X.

When the contents of those binders finally went public hours later, they revealed roughly 200 pages of nothing significant.

Liz Wheeler, who received one of those binders, explained what happened.

“Bondi smelled a rat, because there was nothing juicy in the 200 pages, just flight logs & a Rolodex of phone numbers. No ‘smoking gun.’ Still, Bondi promised to release the documents, so she prepared a binder of them,” Wheeler wrote.

“THEN, last night a whistleblower contacted Bondi & revealed that the SDNY [Southern District of New York] was hiding potentially thousands of Epstein files, defying Bondi’s order to give them all to her,” she added.

Meanwhile, independent journalist Laura Loomer, a supporter of President Donald Trump and a prominent figure on X who did not receive a binder, spent most of Thursday blasting Bondi for the fiasco, in particular, the apparent deception and the smiling influencers, which many X users rightly viewed as disrespectful toward Epstein’s victims.

Loomer continued that attack on Friday morning.

“You find joy in gate keeping information about pedophiles and running cover for Pam Bondi’s incompetence. Be sure you put ‘exclusive’ next to that too. Your credibility has been destroyed, @Liz_Wheeler. This is abhorrent,” Loomer wrote in response to Wheeler.

Elon Musk, head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, had a sensible take on the obstacles facing Bondi and Patel.

“Imagine if you were suddenly appointed AG or head of the FBI. You were just thrown on a ship with a hostile crew. Until you appoint some new crew members and figure out the ropes, you can’t steer the ship effectively. It’s literally impossible,” Musk wrote on X.

Musk’s tweet certainly did not explain or excuse the binder fiasco.

It did, however, accurately characterize the situation facing Trump’s top law-enforcement officials.

The FBI spent years hunting down and prosecuting ordinary Americans in connection with the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021.

Meanwhile, that agency has shown no interest in bringing Epstein’s powerful pedophile clients to justice. In fact, the FBI has played an active role in concealing nearly all Epstein-related materials.

In 2022, United States Circuit Judge Alison J. Nathan sentenced former Epstein girlfriend and co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell to 20 years in prison “for her role in a scheme to sexual exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade,” including “conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor,” per the U.S. Attorney’s Office for SDNY. [graf 1]

To whom exactly did Maxwell and Epstein traffick those girls? The FBI does not seem to want anyone to know.

Now, if Bondi’s whistleblower told the truth, it appears that the FBI engaged in insubordination or even treason. If the Bureau’s behavior in recent years does not constitute betrayal of the sovereign American people, then nothing does.

Let us pray that Patel brings justice to those who have protected criminals.

 

Germany’s Five Shaky Pillars   by Amir Taheri
March 2, 2025 at 4:00 am

“Make Germany Great Again!” It was with this slogan that Friedrich Merz emerged as the main victor in last Sunday’s general election in Germany.

Sounds familiar?

To be exact, the man who is set to become Germany’s next chancellor borrowed the phrase made popular by President Donald Trump in the United States. The slogan Merz used was “Restore Germany’s greatness and respect!”, which expresses the same sentiment.

The German election put the twin center-right parties of Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union on top with their highest score since the golden days of Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard, the men who rebuilt post-war Germany as a robust democracy. The CDU/CSU also put the idea of Germany as a nation-state rather than as part of a globalist conglomeration at the center of the debate, pushing aside the 80-year trauma of seeing nationalism morph into a version of Nazism.

To be sure, the dramatic rise of the rightist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which doubled its votes, is still used by those who wish to keep that trauma alive for a verity of reasons.

All in all, however, despite efforts by label-distributing circles, AfD isn’t what the Nazi Party was in the 1930s, and could be seen as part of the radical right movement that led Britain to Brexit, brought Viktor Orbán to power in Hungary, made Giorgia Meloni prime minister of Italy and elevated Marine Le Pen’s National Rally as France’s largest political party.

The election also saw the rise of the radical left party Die Linke (The Left), which some analysts regard as a crypto-communist outfit with a support base in the former East Germany.

However, just as AfD isn’t the Nazi Party, designating Die Linke as communist is an exaggeration.

In fact, both parties campaigned on issues such as illegal immigration, fear of mass unemployment and unease about loss of national authority to transnational bodies such as the European Union and NATO.

In other words, both those radical parties belong to the undeclared coalition of “Germany First” inspired by the Trumpist movement’s “America First” shibboleth that has pushed the pendulum away from globalism.

The biggest losers in the elections were the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which survived in a truncated version, and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), which failed to gain entry into the Bundestag (parliament).

The Greens, also known as the Watermelon party because they are green outside and red — that is to say anti-capitalist — inside, also suffered defeat, especially losing a good many votes among younger electors who moved en masse to either Die Linke or AfD.

Regardless of party affiliations, the German electorate indicated that it believes that the politico-economic model developed since the 1950s is in deep crisis.

That model was based on five pillars.

The first was that Germany was covered by an American insurance policy for its national security, which enabled the nation to spend something around one percent of its GDP on defense. Many Germans now believe that those good old days are gone and support Merz’s plan for a massive rise in military expenditure.

Trump’s ambiguous attitude toward NATO and his criticism of Europeans as “freeloaders” has produced a sense of insecurity not known since the 1930s.

The second pillar was a healthy demography, initially energized by mass immigration to compensate for human losses sustained in World War II. Initially, the immigrants were ethnic Germans coming from Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and as far away as Romania and Bulgaria.

A large number of non-ethnic Germans also came from Turkey, which acted as the greatest exporter of manpower for Europe until the 1980s.

In the past three decades, however, a majority of new immigrants have come from war-torn nations such as former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, sub-Saharan Africa and, most dramatically, Syria.

These newcomers helped reduce Germany’s demographic deficit, due to a declining birthrate, but also created huge cultural, religious and security problems that foment xenophobia. An immigrant who has fled a war-torn country isn’t the same as one coming from a peaceful place with the hope of working and building a better life for himself and his loved ones in the old country.

The third pillar was stability, as Germany for the first time since its emergence as a nation-state in 1870 had passed through seven decades of development as a well-established democracy. But in the past few years that pillar, too, has appeared shaky with rising insecurity including countless knife attacks, assassinations of foreign political exiles, the emergence of extremist mini-groups and crises in intra-industrial dialogue, a hallmark of German democracy.

Built in the post-Soviet era, the fourth pillar was access to cheap oil and gas resources from Russia, which enabled Germany to reduce its dependence on the more expensive producers in the Middle East and Africa.

Finally, Germany enjoyed a fifth pillar, represented by almost unrestricted access to China’s fast-growing market, making Germany the world’s greatest exporting power in history. But that pillar, too, is proving shaky as the People’s Republic enters a cycle of slowdown that nurtures economic nationalism and the cult of tariffs.

The election revealed some disturbing trends that, if accentuated, could threaten what has been an exemplary democracy highlighted by a massive 82.5% turnout in Sunday’s elections, the highest in the European Union. Almost 60% of young voters, those aged 18 to 25, voted for radical left and right parties plus the “Watermelons”.

By all accounts, Germany is heading for a bumpy road. Negotiating it is made more difficult because of the hybrid electoral system with partial proportional representation, which prevents the emergence of a majority consensus on tackling major challenges any nation could face. Endless coalition-building haggling and adoption of contradictory options consume much of the energy needed to govern a nation in crisis.

Is Merz up to the daunting task he faces at a time when the entire European Union is in crisis? The fact that he is the first businessman to assume the chancellorship and the most “American” in style may help.

He is also an avid reader of Nietzsche who believed that “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” But who knows?

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.

Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.

 

‘A Variety of Tactics Designed to Induce Conversion’: The Persecution of Christians, January 2025  by Raymond Ibrahim
March 2, 2025 at 5:00 am

• “Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic ‘marriages’ and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children’s ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their ‘legal wives.’ — Morning Star News,
• February 7, 2025, Pakistan.
• In just the three weeks between Christmas 2024 and these attacks of Jan. 15, at least 128 Christians have been slaughtered in the North Kivu region alone. — Congo.
• “Paki establishment has created a nation where the rights of minorities are trampled upon with alarming regularity. By empowering hardline groups and allowing them free rein, the Army has nurtured a culture of extremism that targets Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis, and other minorities with brutal precision…. Police rarely act to protect victims, while legal loopholes and vague religious laws, such as the infamous blasphemy law, are weaponized against them. These tools of oppression serve not only to silence dissent but also to provide cover for the perpetrators of violence. In the case of minority girls, the judicial system often works to retain victims against their will, legitimizing forced conversions and marriages under the pretext of religious freedom. This legal framework is no accident—it is the product of an establishment that has long relied on radical Islamists as a tool of power. These alliances have turned Pakistan into a hotbed of extremism, destabilizing not just its internal fabric but the entire region. The unchecked violence against minorities is not an aberration but the inevitable outcome of decades of Army-sponsored radicalization.” — News Intervention, January 7, 2025, Pakistan.
• “There is also a new emphasis on targeting Coptic women who suffer physical or mental health problems, which make them doubly vulnerable. This enables the abductors to create confusion regarding the circumstances of a disappeared Coptic girl, creating a narrative of a love story utilizing existing relationships and communications, despite orchestrating the entire situation…” — Coptic Solidarity, January 29, 2025, Egypt.
• Court documents make clear that these sentencings revolve around religion. — Iran.
• According to multiple sources, non-Muslim students, many of whom are Christian, are being “subjected to a variety of tactics designed to induce conversion.” — Malaysia.
• “Somalia’s constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence. An Islamic extremist group in Somalia, Al Shabaab, is allied with Al Qaeda and adheres to the teaching.” — Morning Star News, February 7, 2025.
• “Christians in Indonesia say they are routinely pressured to make extra payments known as ‘grease’ to local officials or residents in order to obtain construction permits in the 83.3-percent Muslim country. When Muslim residents opposed to the St. Anthony church construction demonstrated in the street, one Catholic commented on social media, ‘Those who demonstrate do it because there was no grease available.'” — Morning Star News, February 8, 2025.
• According to an Indonesian attorney speaking on condition of anonymity, this “grease” is “a kind of bribery paid to protestors to keep them from blocking church construction, though not legally acknowledged even when it is paid in full view of police.”

The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of January 2025.

The Muslim Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls

Continue reading

 

Zelensky fails the art of statecraft in catastrophic fashion   JORDAN SCHACHTEL

President Trump and Vice President Vance were left without a choice. The unhinged Ukrainian president stepped out of line and fumbled an easy opportunity.

MAR 01, 2025

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky set off a global firestorm Friday during his meeting at the White House, once more displaying to the entire world that he is a geopolitical novice who is entirely incapable of conducting statecraft for his country’s benefit. No matter how you spin it, Zelensky left Washington, D.C., having inflicted significant additional damage to Ukraine’s standing under his stewardship.

Given that this is the number one topic worldwide today, much writing and video commentary has already been dedicated to the now-infamous 50-minute public meeting between Zelensky and President Trump, who was joined by Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others.

First, I urge you to watch the video yourself, which I’ve attached below. The more fiery content starts at around the 40-minute mark, but I recommend you take the time to watch the whole thing to fully digest what happened.

To analyze this spat honestly and remove potential biases, we must first list the objectives of the Ukrainian and American delegations.

For the American side, this is much more straightforward. President Trump has made it clear that he wants the Russia-Ukraine war to end as soon as possible, and he understands there is little appetite for more U.S. taxpayer funds being allocated to Ukraine. Unlike Ukraine, the Trump Administration views Russia as an adversary but not an enemy nation. Moscow is a well-stocked nuclear power, and the president is not interested in unnecessarily ratcheting up the chaos level with a nuclear power. Several policymakers in the administration have indicated a preference to peel Russia off from its close relationship with China. While the White House acknowledges Ukraine as a European ally, they do not consider Ukraine a top tier partner, given the lack of historic ties with Ukraine, the country’s minor standing in the world, its history of corruption, and the massively lopsided relationship in which the U.S. acts as a patron and gets little in return for its “investment.” The White House has a sober analysis of Moscow’s military might, and it simply does not at all buy the globalist internationalist World War II analogies consisting of Putin’s armies becoming capable of marching their way through Europe. For the Trump Administration, the war in Ukraine is a devastating tragedy. Indeed, a significant chunk of the fault lies with Russia, but the White House has *zero* interest in promulgating this conflict.

On the other hand, Ukraine under Zelensky comes at it from a very different perspective. For Kyiv, Moscow is their mortal enemy, a massive shift in perception from the many years in which the neighbors had a more neutral relationship. Zelensky acknowledges that he is outgunned and outmanned in battle but absolutely refuses to give up on the prospect of outside military and financial aid (and ultimately, foreign manpower) coming to the indefinite rescue of his forces. Zelensky has spent the past two-plus years appealing to benefactors (mainly in the United States) about the importance of the war effort as if it is a make-or-break for the whole of the West. While his appeals are met with rambunctious applause within the confines of the Davos circuit, he has failed to convince the Trump Administration of his framework.

Despite their differences, the Trump Administration provided Zelensky with a golden opportunity to secure a mineral deal that would benefit both Ukraine and the United States. For Americans, the White House can advertise the agreement as a lend-lease-like program, allowing the U.S. to finally receive something material for expending so much financial and political capital toward defending an outmatched Ukraine. For Ukraine, the mineral deal significantly bolsters security guarantees, given that there would be a robust American commercial presence on Russia’s doorstep. It would also help Ukraine boost relations with a skeptical patron that increasingly views Kyiv as ungrateful, despite the U.S. being solely responsible for propping up the whole of its sovereignty.

Nonetheless, Zelensky came into the White House as a man possessed, seemingly purposefully trying to sow unnecessary conflict with President Trump and Vice President Vance.

His poor attitude and consistent squabbling were all the more shocking given what occurred in September, when Zelensky visited the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania, in what many interpreted as an outside endorsement of the Kamala Harris campaign. On his trip, Zelensky was accompanied by PA Gov Josh Shapiro, a prominent Democrat and Harris supporter, and other Democratic officials, including Sen Bob Casey. Notably, no Republicans were invited to the event. Zelensky infamously arrived on a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, which further upset then-candidate Trump’s team and his supporters. The trip coincided with the release of a New Yorker interview where Zelensky criticized now-President Trump and VP Vance, calling Vance “too radical” and questioning Trump’s ability to end the war in Ukraine.

Instead of smoothing things over on Friday, Zelensky doubled and tripled down on his Biden-era, Davos-class-friendly talking points, which came off like nails on a chalkboard to America’s POTUS and VP. After forty minutes of interruptions, public disagreements in front of the press, and unnecessary challenges, Zelensky’s arrogance and disrespect were just too much to handle. The president and vice president were already very publicly (and reportedly privately) skeptical of Zelensky’s leadership, and they were not going to let the man from Kyiv’s moral grandstanding go unanswered, so they rightly put him in his place.

All Volodymyr Zelensky had to do was play nice and be respectful *to the leaders of his most crucial ally*, and he would have come back to Kyiv in much better shape. Instead, his hubris and ego detonated what should have been a win-win for relations between the United States and Ukraine. Zelensky fumbled the meeting so much that some have suggested he must have come to the White House with deliberate plans to blow up the mineral deal. No matter how you spin it, Zelensky catastrophically failed to secure the national interests of Ukraine, and he will discover that no amount of virtue-signaling X posts thanking European globalists for their support will make up for the weight of the military and political backing of the United States of America.

[SCOTT JENNINGS: “All Zelenskyy had to do today was put on a tie, show up, smile, say thank you, sign the papers, and have lunch. That’s it — and he couldn’t do that.”]

 

Europe is Falling & Needs War with Russia – Martin Armstrong   [1:08:30]   By Greg Hunter

March 1, 2025  USAWatchdog.com (Saturday Night Post) – Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is back with a new warning about war coming to Europe.  You may have seen the heated exchange between President Trump and President Zelensky of Ukraine on Friday.  If not, you should.  Some of the Trump highlights are:  “President Zelensky is not ready for peace. . . (Zelensky is) gambling with WWIII, and You either make a deal or we are out.”  It looks like Zelensky intentionally started a fight with Trump in the White House.  It also looks like every country in Europe is backing more war in Ukraine. And now, there is renewed talk of an EU army.  Armstrong says, “Why?  Because they all are facing the collapse of the European Union.  The debt is just unbelievable.  They never consolidated.  Between Covid, Climate Change and sanctions on Russia, the German economy has shrunk . . . 3% to 5%.  The economic growth (of the EU) is appalling.  Europe is falling, and this is why they need war.  So, they are backing Zelensky.”

In a new report released yesterday, Armstrong lays out the case why war in Europe is coming and coming soon.  Armstrong points out, “In this report, I gathered a bunch of headlines:  London Financial Times, what’s the headline?  ‘America is Now the Enemy of the West.’ This is why Trump is saying ‘We are out.’  Zelensky has admitted that 58% of the $350 billion the US gave him is missing.  You cut the funding, and you are going to find out the truth.  Trump should cut every single penny.  Bring it all out.  Zelensky is counting on Europe to replace the United States.  This is why he’s so arrogant. . . . Trump should get the hell out of NATO–ASAP.”

So, why are all these reports coming out in the last few months about gold coming to America from Europe?  Armstrong says, “Last week, I was on the phone, and I can’t tell you how much, but when you are about to go into war, capital moves. . . . Right now, I am concerned from about May 15th on. . . . Our computer (Socrates) says Europe is going into war, and I put it into this report, Europe will lose. . . . This is why the gold is coming to America.”

Armstrong also contends you can forget about predictions of the US dollar collapsing anytime soon—it won’t.  Armstrong says, “The Euro will become extinct.”

Armstrong also predicts, “I published what the computer “Socrates” put out on Ukraine.  It’s a flatline, and I have never seen that on any other country.  It’s a flatline.  It’s going dead.  That’s it.”

Did the election of President Trump stop a thermonuclear exchange with Russia?  Armstrong says, “Absolutely!  You had Dick Cheney endorsing Kamala. . . .  Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were on the J6 Committee.  Both of them are Neocons.  Adam Kinzinger said ‘We could defeat Russia in three days.’  They put out nothing but propaganda all the time.”

There is much more in the 70-minute in-depth interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong as he gives his analysis on war coming to the EU, which ties into Armstrong’s new report called “The Neocon Coup of Europe – Why Zelensky does not want Peace,”  for 3.1.25.

WATCH

 

The Beginning of the End for NATO   CLANDESTINE

MAR 01, 2025

Zelensky’s debacle is not just the end of Ukraine. This is the beginning of the end of NATO.

If Trump cuts off all funding to Ukraine, the world is about to quickly realize that NATO is nothing without the US.

Without the threat of the US MIL and access to US taxpayer money, NATO becomes SUBSTANTIALLY less powerful, and arguably irrelevant when compared to nuclear superpowers like Russia and China. Without the threat of the US MIL and our nuclear capabilities, NATO loses all value. Their security ‘guarantees’ would become next to useless.

If the US, under new management from Trump, were to abandon NATO, the globalist war machine would lose their ability to operate, and would eventually cease to exist.

Pictured below are the current stats on NATO spending. Without the US, NATO is nothing. We don’t need them. They need us.

 

Justice or Cover-Up? The FBI, SDNY, and the Epstein Files   @AMUSE

FEB 28, 2025

The prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell stands as one of the most enigmatic and unsettling legal cases in recent American history. What appeared to be an effort to bring accountability to a long-running, elite-backed trafficking operation instead left fundamental questions unanswered, particularly regarding the men Epstein and Maxwell allegedly served. The handling of this case by the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and the FBI raises disturbing concerns about whether justice was truly the objective—or whether the prosecution was carefully engineered to shield the powerful men who benefitted from Epstein’s crimes.

The SDNY’s handling of Epstein’s case in 2019 was, at best, peculiar. Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, was part of the team that indicted Epstein on sex trafficking charges. Given the scope of Epstein’s operation—an enterprise suspected of trafficking as many as 500 underage girls to powerful men across multiple locations, including New York, Palm Beach, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Paris—one would expect a sweeping prosecution that sought to expose and convict all those involved. Instead, the case took a tragically convenient turn: Epstein was arrested, denied bail, and within weeks was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a federal jail cell, an event so suspicious it would be dismissed as implausible in any other context.

When Epstein died, many assumed the government would pivot to dismantling his network. Instead, the prosecution’s focus narrowed to a single individual: Ghislaine Maxwell. The decision to exclude any male perpetrators from the indictment is puzzling given that Epstein’s entire operation hinged on providing underage girls to men of influence. Federal prosecutors had an extensive list of victims and a trove of physical evidence, yet they selectively pursued a case that ensured none of Epstein’s powerful friends were named, let alone prosecuted.

Consider the prosecution’s selection of witnesses in the Maxwell trial. Despite having access to hundreds of victims, Maurene Comey’s team chose to present only four victims—all of whom testified that they had been directly abused by Epstein himself, rather than high-profile clients who allegedly took part in the trafficking network. Even more revealing, two of the victims had reportedly been exploited by men other than Epstein, yet the prosecution carefully omitted those details, discussing only their abuse at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell. This strategic framing reinforced a narrative that Epstein and Maxwell acted in isolation rather than as facilitators for an elite network.

The omission of Virginia Giuffre is particularly telling. Giuffre has publicly stated that Epstein trafficked her to Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, and others, yet she was not called to testify. Her exclusion from the trial sent a clear message: the government had no interest in exposing the most politically and financially connected individuals linked to Epstein. The Maxwell case was prosecuted in such a way that only the Epstein-Maxwell relationship was scrutinized, while their clients—the men for whom these young girls were allegedly procured—remained protected.

If the selective prosecution strategy wasn’t enough to raise alarm, the FBI’s handling of crucial evidence should remove any doubt. When federal agents searched Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2019, they discovered a safe filled with CDs, hard drives, and other potential blackmail material—the kind of evidence that, if thoroughly examined, might have identified Epstein’s clients. But rather than securing and cataloging the materials immediately, the Agent in Charge inexplicably ordered the agents to leave the safe’s contents behind after merely photographing them. The official reasoning? A false claim that the warrant did not cover seizing those specific items, a contention that the agents themselves challenged at the time.

By the time a new warrant was obtained, the materials had vanished. When the FBI later contacted Epstein’s lawyers, the missing materials were mysteriously returned—but they bore evidence tape from an unknown source, indicating that they had been examined while in unofficial custody. The FBI later admitted in court that they had no way of knowing whether the files had been altered before being returned. This was not an accident. This was a cover-up.

Now, years after Maxwell’s conviction, new revelations continue to cast doubt on the integrity of the prosecution. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi recently demanded access to all Epstein-related files held by the FBI and SDNY, seeking to uncover what the government has been hiding. The response? Stonewalling. Despite the existence of thousands of pages of evidence, Bondi was initially provided with only 200 pages—a deliberate withholding of information that suggests ongoing protection of high-profile individuals. Last night, Bondi publicly announced that she had demanded the FBI turn over all Epstein files by 8:00 AM today. As of now, it remains unclear whether they complied.

All of this raises the fundamental question: Was the Epstein-Maxwell prosecution truly about justice, or was it an elaborate exercise in damage control? The deliberate narrowing of the case to focus exclusively on Epstein and Maxwell, the refusal to prosecute any of the men who allegedly engaged in abuse, and the blatant mishandling of physical evidence all suggest a coordinated effort to protect those in power.

If the goal had been justice, the Epstein case would not have ended with his death, and the Maxwell case would not have been limited to her involvement with Epstein alone. Instead, we would have seen a sweeping investigation that exposed every perpetrator who participated in the trafficking network. The reality is that this investigation never came, and if Pam Bondi’s struggles with the FBI are any indication, those in power are still working to keep the truth buried.

At its core, the Epstein scandal was never about just Epstein. It was about the elite figures who used his operation for their own perverse interests. The handling of this case suggests that these men were, and continue to be, untouchable. What should have been a landmark case in bringing down a global trafficking network instead became a carefully contained spectacle, with Epstein conveniently dying in his cell and Maxwell taking the fall alone.

If justice is ever to be served, the focus must shift to those who were protected—not just those who were prosecuted. Maurene Comey must be put under oath and compelled to provide a full list of all men known to have abused young girls trafficked by Epstein. Given that Comey did not retain such a list, she must work with the Department of Justice to compile a comprehensive record. It is paramount not only to bring these men to justice but also to clear the names of those who were merely innocent associates of Epstein, ensuring that the full truth is revealed.

 

Armies have slipped across our borders, waiting for the signal to attack

DR. PETER AND GINGER BREGGIN

Hundreds of thousands of military aged men from China, Russia, and Arab nations have crossed our borders under Joe Biden’s invitation

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FEB 28, 2025 – Our guest in this must-hear radio interview describes how hundreds of thousands of military age men from China and Russia, as well as Arab nations, have crossed our borders under Joe Biden’s invitation. They are getting ready to strike us from within at the command of Putin, Xi Jinping, or Muslim terrorist leaders. And we have no domestic army capable of hunting them down or responding to their orchestrated attacks when they begin, especially if their domestic attacks are timed with open warfare abroad. America now lives under the threat of highly organized internal armies forming in our midst, as well as scattered terrorist groups.

This situation has arisen during the last four years under Joe Biden. In 2023, we began hearing about young Chinese men crossing the border in large numbers, dressed and acting as a group, and we suspected it had to be a secret army. But we did not fully face the implications, even when expert Gordon Chang warned in July 2023, “There is now a Chinese invasion of the U.S. homeland.” [1]

Then came this stirring, world-shaking interview with former U.S. Border Agent J.J. Carrell, who has just released his new book, Treason: The Biden Administration’s Strategic Destruction of America’s Sovereignty. I was proud to write the Foreword, where I describe freedom colleague J.J. Carrell as “A Warrior in the Battle of All Times.” Now, this radio interview with him has further convinced Ginger and me that it is time to face up to the enormous threat of these invasions.

How many of you saw Border Czar Tom Homan’s presentation at CPAC’s annual conservative conference on February 22, 2025?[2] I have seen many videos of Tom, but I was struck this time by how frustrated and angry he seemed, using expletives and making threats to catch every illegal immigrant that seemed somehow too threatening. It made me think that something was standing in his way and hugely frustrating him, which our guest J.J. concurred with. Homan, J.J. observed, was fighting limited skirmishes when a massive military offensive against the invaders was required. He is very vivid about this in our interview with him.

Ginger suddenly put it into perspective, declaring in words to the effect that we were facing an army to fight a war within our borders—and that connected the dots for me. We have always had groups of people who have wanted to destroy freedom-loving America, including Russia, Communist China, and various Muslim terrorist groups sponsored by Iran. But Biden had opened our borders and let them inside America in enormous numbers, even supporting them while helping them to disperse throughout America with the help of NGOs supported by the government.

America’s core of freedom-loving people, and the fragmented people with similar values throughout the world, must face this threat. We are not the only nation that has been surreptitiously invaded in recent years by our globalist governments. We have to get real about all this. In his book Treason, J.J. declares:

We have invited the world’s criminals into our nation. We have allowed foreign nations to dump their worst into America. We have a standing army of millions of thugs, rapists, murderers, drug dealers, pedophiles, and violent gangs that are allowed to roam our country unimpeded. I don’t want anyone to read over what I just wrote, so I want to reiterate it again – there are millions of illegal alien criminals in our country.” [p. 107]

“The total number of Chinese nationals that have entered our nation in the last four years is approximately 200,000! [p. 123]

With tens of thousands of PLA soldiers inside our walls, what will it look like when they are activated?” [P. 126]

Transform your thinking about the war coming at us from within by listening to this interview with J.J. Carrell and buying his book, Treason, now available.

[1] GORDON CHANG: Chinese Agents Are Slipping Across Biden’s Broken Southern Border | The Daily Caller

[2] CPAC 2025: Tom Homan – FULL SPEECH

 

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