Republican former President Donald Trump handedly defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, and liberals have begun second guessing their strategies and choices that led to her defeat. Many consider whether Harris could have won had she (or the Democratic establishment that surrounded her) selected Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as a running mate. The popular governor might have been able to help Harris win the Keystone State (which she lost) and had more Jews support her in other races, perhaps delivering Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
The reality is that Harris and the Democrats fought a very good race – considering the TOP of the ticket. Bringing in Harris late in the election cycle, limiting her interviews to prevent gaffes, and making the election about her not being Donald Trump was smart. However, it could not overcome the Biden-Harris term being deeply unpopular and Harris could not separate herself from the administration in which she served.
The correct question for Democrats this Wednesday morning was not what they did wrong over the past few months but what they did FOUR YEARS AGO. Specifically, choosing Harris as the Vice President because she was a Black woman, and allowing the nation’s border to be overrun.
Harris never won a single delegate in her 2020 run for the president. She had a voting record as a member of the alt-left coming from a radically woke state. Had Biden chosen a moderate and qualified candidate from one of the seven swing states, the 2024 election would have been much easier for the Democrats to secure. Opting to pick a person a heartbeat from the presidency purely because of her intersectionality characteristics was more than a blunder.
In addition, the Biden-Harris failure at the borders put Americans at risk. Americans listed it as one of the key considerations in selecting a president along with the economy (in which people also preferred Trump), well above abortion rights. But the Democratic machinery was tethered to the reality of the past four years, even as they attempted to make the race about democracy and women’s rights.
Democrats began to get tough on the border late in the term but the impact was already present, much like the soaring inflation of Biden-Harris’s first years in office leveled off, but the cumulative effect was already baked into everyone’s daily living. Wars in Ukraine and Israel made the world feel unsafe and rudderless.
Picking Josh Shapiro as the VP might have helped Harris win the 2024 election but it would have just covered up bad choices of the last four years. The takeaway should be more strategic to develop better tactics for the future, not just thinking about the choice of VP in the immediate race.
Americans voted for the economy and safety. Just like Israel. As long as Democrats appear as the party of redistributing wealth, defunding the police and porous borders, with left-wing politicians from left-wing states as their spokespeople, they will continue to lose races they could have won.
The United Nations Secretary General released the biannual report on the threat posed by ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and Levant) on August 8, 2024. Vladimir Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism noted that the threat of terrorism has spread throughout the world, and in Africa in particular, noting “a vast territory stretching from Mali to northern Nigeria could fall under their effective control.”
Various countries commented on the report and the threat of terrorism by Islamic radical groups including Boko Haram, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, and ISIL-Khorasan. The representative of Sierra Leone, Council President for August, spoke in his national capacity, noting that “this new epicentre of terrorism [in Central Sahel and West Africa] accounts for almost 50 per cent of all deaths from terror acts globally.” Roughly 2,000 people in Burkina Faso were killed in 258 incidents in 2023, accounting for nearly a quarter of all terrorist deaths globally.
Many discussed the issue of border control as an essential tool in combating terrorism. Sierra Leone’s representative said that “terrorist groups often exploit porous borders, weak border controls and security vulnerabilities for cross-border illegal trafficking of weapons, drugs and people.” The Republic of Korea’s delegate warned that “terrorists can exploit a lack of governance in border areas, which exacerbates various security problems beyond those areas.” Natalia Gherman, Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate opined that there needs to be “an integrated approach to border security.”
Some members referenced the Accra Initiative which is designed to combat the spread of terrorism in Africa. One of the primary focuses was border security, where efforts led to the arrest of 700 people in 2018 and 2019. Albert Kan-Dapaah, Ghana’s national security chief said that unemployment was a factor in terrorism [a statement not proven by research] and his country would focus on job creation. “We don’t want to have a situation beyond our control, so we will also make it difficult for the jihadists to radicalise youth in border communities.”
Not one country mentioned Hamas, the jihadi Palestinian Arab terrorist group that killed over 1,200 people, until the United States was disgusted by an accusation by the Russian representative and rose to criticize Russia and “its growing influence with terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hizbullah and the Houthis, as well as with Iran — the leading State sponsor of terrorism — to end their terrorist attacks.”
While the U.S. was able to remember the threat of genocidal jihadi extremists when vilified by Russia, the Biden-Harris Administration has seemingly not been worried about terrorists streaming across U.S. borders.
The number of illegal border crossings from December 2020 (under the Trump Administration) to December 2023 went up an astounding 744% according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Center for Border Protection (CBP).
According to the March 2024 Global Terrorism Index (GTI), the United States accounted for 70% of the terrorist attacks among western countries in 2023, with only the U.S. and Belgium having fatalities from terrorism.
GTI noted that Hamas, a “designated as a terrorist organisation by several countries, including the United States, Israel, and the European Union” had been “relatively inactive as a terrorist organisation in the five years before the October 7th attacks, with only 14 attacks and one fatality recorded between 2015 and 2022.” But the political-terrorist group used that time to carefully prepare for an enormous attack which killed 1,200 and brought the region to an all-out war.
Israel is intent on maintaining a presence in the Philadelphi Corrider between Gaza and Egypt, which has long been used to bring in weapons, trained terrorists and tunnel building materials into the terrorism enclave. Doing so is blocking the restocking of Hamas in the current war and will impede its rearming in the future.
Global communities are focusing intently on their border security and immigration policy as well.
The United States is on edge with rampant antisemitism on streets and campuses with a jihadi-socialist alliance growing ever more bold. How much of it is from foreign students legally permitted into the country? How much from people entering illegally? What are they planning for the new semester? How soon until the vitriol and harassment becomes terror?
In May 2021, President Joe Biden appointed Vice President Kamala Harris to be his ‘border czar’ to handle the illegal immigration at the southern border. Biden put his full faith in Harris saying “When she speaks, she speaks for me.”
Based on her bumbling responses in an interview with Lester Holt, Biden must have been mortified. When Holt asked whether she would visit the southern border, Harris said “We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border — we’ve been to the border.” To which Holt correctly called out her lie with “you haven’t been to the border,” Harris offered “and I haven’t been to Europe,” with a chortle, in a pathetic response.
Despite Biden’s claim that his administration is doing a lot at the order, the numbers speak for themselves.
From December 2019 to December 2022, the number of land encounters with immigrants climbed OVER FIVE TIMES. Just in El Paso, from December 2021 to December 2022 the number of migrant encounters jumped 186%, as if the U.S. government has given up on the issue.
To give the 251,487 December 2022 figure some context, the United States welcomed 47,200 new legal citizens in December 2021 – the country now has over four times as many illegal citizens coming to the country as those it naturalizes. Overall, during the 2010s, the U.S. granted citizenship to 7.4 million people, averaging 740,000 per year. With Biden/Harris at the helm, there will likely be close to 3 million land border encounters just at the southern border in 2023.
The media tries to dress up Kamala Harris as being “frustrated” when she is simply grossly incompetent, to the detriment of both Americans and the millions of people from Latin America who are the victims of her ineptitude.
In the narrative war in the Israeli-Arab conflict, pro-Israel advocates often use the term “Judea and Samaria” instead of the commonly used “West Bank” in an effort to show that Jews lived in the land far longer than Arabs, and that Arabs are actually occupying Jewish land. While the rationale has merit, the approach does not.
Judea and Samaria
The Children of Israel came back to Canaan in the 12th century BCE. The land was allotted to the twelve tribes, in a division that was mostly stable for about 300 years.
Jan Jansson’s holy land map, 1630, which shows the migration of the Israelites from Egypt to the holy land, and the location of the twelve tribes.
After the death of King Solomon in 931BCE, the Jewish people split their kingdom under two rulers, creating the southern kingdom of Judah and northern kingdom of Israel. Sometimes fighting together against external foes and sometimes fighting internally, the kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians between 734 and 712 BCE from the Assyrian campaigns of Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V and Sargon II. Sargon II swapped the population of the Jews and his kingdom in Babylon as told in 2 Kings 17:
בִּשְׁנַ֨ת הַתְּשִׁעִ֜ית לְהוֹשֵׁ֗עַ לָכַ֤ד מֶֽלֶךְ־אַשּׁוּר֙ אֶת־שֹׁ֣מְר֔וֹן וַיֶּ֥גֶל אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל אַשּׁ֑וּרָה וַיֹּ֨שֶׁב אוֹתָ֜ם בַּחְלַ֧ח וּבְחָב֛וֹר נְהַ֥ר גּוֹזָ֖ן וְעָרֵ֥י מָדָֽי׃ {פ} In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. He deported the Israelites to Assyria and settled them in Halah, at the [River] Habor, at the River Gozan, and in the towns of Media. (2 Kings 17:6)
וַיִּתְאַנַּ֨ף יְהֹוָ֤ה מְאֹד֙ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וַיְסִרֵ֖ם מֵעַ֣ל פָּנָ֑יו לֹ֣א נִשְׁאַ֔ר רַ֛ק שֵׁ֥בֶט יְהוּדָ֖ה לְבַדּֽוֹ׃ The LORD was incensed at Israel and He banished them from His presence; none was left but the tribe of Judah alone. (2 Kings 17:18)
וַיָּבֵ֣א מֶֽלֶךְ־אַשּׁ֡וּר מִבָּבֶ֡ל וּ֠מִכּ֠וּתָה וּמֵעַוָּ֤א וּמֵֽחֲמָת֙ וּסְפַרְוַ֔יִם וַיֹּ֙שֶׁב֙ בְּעָרֵ֣י שֹֽׁמְר֔וֹן תַּ֖חַת בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַיִּֽרְשׁוּ֙ אֶת־שֹׁ֣מְר֔וֹן וַיֵּֽשְׁב֖וּ בְּעָרֶֽיהָ׃ The king of Assyria brought [people] from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and he settled them in the towns of Samaria in place of the Israelites; they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its towns. (2 Kings 17:24)
Those new Assyrians who were settled in Samaria were told to follow Jewish religious customs, but they did not:
עַ֣ד הַיּ֤וֹם הַזֶּה֙ הֵ֣ם עֹשִׂ֔ים כַּמִּשְׁפָּטִ֖ים הָרִֽאשֹׁנִ֑ים אֵינָ֤ם יְרֵאִים֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֔ה וְאֵינָ֣ם עֹשִׂ֗ים כְּחֻקֹּתָם֙ וּכְמִשְׁפָּטָ֔ם וְכַתּוֹרָ֣ה וְכַמִּצְוָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר צִוָּ֤ה יְהֹוָה֙ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יַעֲקֹ֔ב אֲשֶׁר־שָׂ֥ם שְׁמ֖וֹ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ To this day, they follow their former practices. They do not worship the LORD [properly]. They do not follow the laws and practices, the Teaching and Instruction that the LORD enjoined upon the descendants of Jacob—who was given the name Israel— (2 Kings 17:34)
There are many papers written by historians and archaeologists about Samaria during this time period, as there are written documents such as the Annals of Sargon II and prisms which reflect these battles, as well as a shift in types of pottery found with the population migration.
Judea refers to the province of the tribe of Judah which held Jerusalem and the area to the south. King Cyrus of Persia allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple in 538BCE, after Nebuchadnezzer destroyed the Temple in 586BCE.
The term “Jews” arose because they were the people of Judea. As noted above, Samaria was part of the region but inhabited by non-Jews who did not follow Jewish rituals.
The United Nations General Assembly voted to partition the holy land into a Jewish State and an Arab State in November 1947, but the Arab countries uniformly rejected the effort. Five Arab armies invaded Israel when it declared itself a new state in May 1948, and by the end of the war in 1949, Israel secured more land than conceived under the partition plan.
While the borders were not considered official under the 1949 Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement, (“The Armistice Demarcation Lines… are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlement or boundary lines”), the Kingdom of Transjordan opted to unilaterally – and illegally – annex the region it had seized in an offensive war.
United Nations map showing the contours of the various Armistice Lines Israel signed with its neighbors to halt the fighting.
When Transjordan annexed the area on April 24, 1950, only the United Kingdom, Iraq and Pakistan recognized its actions while the rest of the world rejected it. After that time, during the years 1950 through 1958, the United Nations used various terms for that area which were tied to either Jordan or the Jordan River:
Then, in 1959, the United Nations seemed to embrace the de facto Jordanian annexation, referring to the area simply as “Jordan,” no different than the eastern part of the kingdom. To the extent that the U.N. wanted to specifically call out that area it used wordy terms:
“Jordan side of the armistice demarcation line”
“frontier villagers in Jordan”
That changed after Jordan illegally attacked Israel in June 1967 and lost the region. By the end of that month, the United Nations quickly moved to shorthand (A/6713) by the third mention:
“the West Bank of the Jordan”
“West Bank area of the Jordan”
“West Bank”
This shortened version for that area east of the 1949 Armistice Line has stuck at the U.N. and media parlance since that time.
Judea and Samaria Versus the “West Bank”
As reviewed above, Judea and Samaria and the West Bank are not the same. Judea and Samaria are historical names to much of the land, while the “West Bank” is a smaller, modern day creation due to an illegal act of war waged by Arab states upon Israel.
When people refer to the West Bank, they are only reviewing that part of the land that has been subject to negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as laid out in the Oslo Accords, signed by both parties. They are not considering the broader reach of all of Judea and Samaria, which includes land west of the 1949 Armistice Lines inside of Israel.
If one does not like to give the term “West Bank” – an area that existed for only 18 years from 1949 to 1967 and named only upon its extinguishment – any legitimacy, then perhaps a better term would be “east of the Armistice Lines (EAL)”, to highlight that the contour of such region was created as a temporary measure to halt hostilities, was never intended to be a border, and has no historic significance.
Brett Stephens is a right-of-center opinion writer for The New York Times. For the Times’ board and readership, he is probably viewed as a right-wing extremist from their far left vantage point. However, in the interest of appearing balanced, the paper gives him a platform to share his thoughts.
On September 21, 2022, Stephens lambasted the terrible failure of the Biden Administration’s handling of the border and immigration generally. He mocked the pathetic response of the dim-witted Vice President Kamala Harris to questions about the security of the border. He reviewed the statistics of the enormous spike of immigrant encounters at the United States’ southern border. He added a few pointed remarks:
“This was not an accident of policy. It was an intention.”
“This is political malpractice on multiple levels.”
“It undermines the case for the path to citizenship”
“a see-no-problem, admit-no-fault, disavow-the-consequences, and blame-the-last-guy border policy.”
“it makes a mockery of people like Vice President Kamala Harris and others making fools of themselves by trying to defend a visibly failed policy.”
“The crisis is a failure of liberalism, classic and contemporary. It calls into question the ability, or the willingness, of a Democratic president to solve a basic law-and-order issue”
Pretty scathing stuff. A full on assault of the Biden/Harris failure to secure the border and manage the influx of immigrants. Dereliction of duty, an abandonment of law-and-order.
One would imagine a headline for such a piece along the lines of “Biden And Harris Fail America – US Citizens And Immigrants”, or “Biden Administration Deliberately Refuses To Secure The Borders” or perhaps “Biden’s Political Malpractice Regarding The Border May Cost Him The Election”.
The Times would do no such thing.
Instead, the paper titled the hit piece with a rosy “The Border Crisis Could Still Be Biden’s Opportunity.” It was as if the left-wing outlet bemoaned that they had to run Stephen’s article, and hoped that readers would only read the headline, skip the actual article, and chant “Let’s Go Brandon,” but mean it as being supportive of Biden.
Is this the path to coexistence between right-and-left? Deliberately mislabeling opinions we don’t like rather than live with the dissonance?
The Grey Lady long ago moved away from its tagline “All The News That’s Fit To Print” to “All The Opinions Our Liberal Readers Want.” It now occasionally posts criticisms of Democrats, but paints it with lipstick hoping people won’t notice.
Just today, Israel’s special coronavirus cabinet decided to place new restrictions on people coming from the United Kingdom, Denmark and South Africa. Non-Israelis are prohibited from entering Israel while Israelis will be forced to spend two weeks in quarantine.
Israel joined Italy, Netherlands and Belgium in banning entry of people from the UK after a new more contagious strain of COVID-19 was detected in Britain. Israel has thus far been the only country to also add Denmark and South Africa to the banned country list. The 501.V2 mutant variety has been detected in those other countries as well, which seems to be more severe in young adults than the prior strain.
To date, Belgium and Italy have been the worst hit countries, with 1,597 and 1,139 deaths per million people, respectively. The UK and United States are both near the 1,000 deaths per million milestone, while Denmark and Israel are much lower at 178 and 335, respectively.
Israel’s “Anglo ban” has not yet produced the vocal outrage from progressives that happened when President Donald Trump placed a ban on China early in the coronavirus pandemic or in the early days of his administration when he blocked entry of people from seven Muslim-majority countries which did not have appropriate safety protocols to monitor terrorists, or in “building a wall” along the southern border to curtail the flow of illegal immigration. Maybe it is because these three countries are perceived to be “White.” Whatever the reason, a country that is often in the crosshairs of global condemnation will welcome the pause in criticism as it battles a severe spike in positive infection rates.
Progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continue to advocate for “open borders” and to “abolish ICE” in their desire to welcome millions of immigrants into the country to add to the physical working class and hopeful union members. Meanwhile, the reality of the need to be able to secure borders for the protection of citizenry has never been more apparent.
The United Nations has long encouraged a deeply flawed directive which stands against global international law, that descendants of Palestinian Arabs who left homes in 1948 have a right to move back to such houses inside Israel.
In addition to that particular Palestinian-only ruling, the UN created a unique definition for a “refugee” as it relates to Palestinian Arabs, coupled with a unique refugee agency, UNRWA, distinct from the global refugee agency. These convoluted UN initiatives have encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to view the borders of Israel as permeable, as mere temporary and arbitrary lines with no meaning. The UN has educated generations of these Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) that with the help of the United Nations, they will all move into Israel.
Key on top of UNRWA camp in Bethlehem,
encouraging the “Right of Return” for Palestinian Arabs
Together with the incitement of their leaders from the terrorist group Hamas, Gazans have taken the next small step to view the border fence with Israel as not just irrelevant, but completely illegitimate.
It is therefore no surprise that Gazans attacked the border fence with Israel in their “Great March of Return” during the spring of 2018. The Palestinian Arabs have been given tacit approval of such actions for decades by the United Nations.
It is therefore highly appropriate that the United Nations take active steps to correct the violation of Israel’s sovereignty which the UN itself implicitly inspired.
The UN must contribute funds to Israel’s repair of its border fence with Gaza. It must make clear to the people of Gaza and around the world that Israel’s borders are inviolable and no threat to the country will be tolerated.
First One Through 