On Sunday, NBC News reporter <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-woman-rescued-burning-car-virginia-n1084166">Ben Kesslen</a> posted a screenshot of an Instagram post from Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, that quickly drew backlash online.
As noted by Kesslen, the post includes a photo of Mayor Pete at a Holocaust memorial in Berlin. The caption, posted by Chasten, is a flirty &#8220;This guy.&#8221;
&#8220;Is this&#8230;.at the holocaust memorial in berlin&#8230;.,&#8221; a stunned Kesslen posted Sunday night.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
is this&#8230;.at the holocaust memorial in berlin&#8230;. <a href="https://t.co/8bvmz9Zs7z">pic.twitter.com/8bvmz9Zs7z</a>
&mdash; ben kesslen (@benkesslen) <a href="https://twitter.com/benkesslen/status/1196233122037280769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The photo remains up on Chasten&#8217;s Instagram:
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/BSW9plJBkZQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:500px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">
<div style="padding:16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BSW9plJBkZQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;" target="_blank"> 
<div style=" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display:block; height:50px; margin:0 auto 12px; width:50px;"><svg width="50px" height="50px" viewBox="0 0 60 60" version="1.1" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><g stroke="none" stroke-width="1" fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"><g transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)" fill="#000000"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style=" color:#3897f0; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style=" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
</a> 
 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BSW9plJBkZQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">This guy.</a>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/chasten.buttigieg/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Chasten Buttigieg</a> (@chasten.buttigieg) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2017-04-01T22:03:20+00:00">Apr 1, 2017 at 3:03pm PDT</time>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
The replies to the reporter&#8217;s post were filled with people calling Pete &#8220;tone deaf&#8221; and remarking that the photo and &#8220;innuendo&#8221; caption was &#8220;inappropriate,&#8221; considering the location.
Here&#8217;s a sampling of some of that reaction via <a href="https://twitter.com/benkesslen/status/1196233122037280769">Twitter</a>:
<blockquote>Stupid and tasteless. Pete and his husband need to grow up before even suggesting that Pete is or ever will be prepared for high office. He hasn’t even managed his mayoral office well.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’d imagine the Holocaust Memorial isn’t the right instagram backdrop for fawning innuendo about ur husband 
My partner and I went to Auschwitz-Birkenau. We took many photos of what we saw there. We took no photos of ourselves. I don&#8217;t think we even took photos where the other person happened to be in the shot. There are some things that you just don&#8217;t do if you have self-awareness.
Just another example of the tone-deafness that seems to emanate from the entire campaign.
I hate the idea of a former concentration camp being used as a GQ-esque photo op.
If Ilhan Omar did that, she’d be accused of anti-semitism. Is media golden boy <a href="https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg">@PeteButtigieg</a> going to have to answer questions for this wildly inappropriate pic?</blockquote>
And via Instagram:
<blockquote>When you pose for the couple pic at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin&#8230;
This is so horrible and disappointing
Ew, really? Pretty disrespectful, bro
Yikes
F***ing delete this
This is a Holocaust memorial not a place to take Instagram photos&#8230; 
This is really poor taste
Read the f***ing room my guy. Show some respect at a literal holocaust memorial maybe???
This&#8230;is the memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe&#8230;</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
And here’s a taste of the reaction: <a href="https://t.co/yfHzWoSCfG">pic.twitter.com/yfHzWoSCfG</a>
&mdash; Amanda Prestigiacomo (@AmandaPresto) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmandaPresto/status/1196379990704689152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The photo was posted by chasten in 2017.
As reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-scandal-involving-black-community-hits-buttigieg-campaign">The Daily Wire</a> on Sunday, Pete recently ran into controversy over an apparently false claim of endorsement:
<blockquote>Far-left Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is facing a new scandal involving the black community after reports surfaced over the weekend that indicated Buttigieg falsely claimed to have endorsements for his plan to reach out to the black community, used a stock photo from Africa to depict African-Americans, and falsely claimed that the plan had support from hundreds of black voters who were actually white.</blockquote>
&#8220;In July, he released his campaign’s chief piece of policy outreach to black voters, called &#8216;The Douglass Plan: A Comprehensive Investment in the Empowerment of Black America.&#8217; The plan covers everything from criminal justice reform to public health care, education, and beyond,&#8221; The Intercept <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-scandal-involving-black-community-hits-buttigieg-campaign">reported</a>. &#8220;It proposes using federal contracting rules to increase the amount of contracts going to minority- and women-owned firms to 25 percent, and offers student loan deferment and forgiveness to Pell Grant recipients who go on to start businesses that employ at least three people.&#8221;
The Democrat&#8217;s campaign had promoted a list of 400 supposedly black South Carolina supporters of his plan, though nearly half the people on the list were white.

Pete And Chasten Buttigieg

Chasten Buttigieg’s ‘Innuendo’ Instagram Post Of Husband At Holocaust Memorial Sparks Backlash

2020 Election

Democratic Party

Germany

Holocaust

Pete Buttigieg

“A republic, if you can keep it,” is a quote famously attributed to Benjamin Franklin as he emerged from the Constitutional Convention, upon being asked what sort of government the convention’s delegates had created. What interests me most is the second half of Franklin’s quote: Franklin, a student of various forms of government, emphasizing the fragility of government. Our republic has proven to be resilient — surviving a schism in the 1860s, and other calamities before and since — but its continuation is neither a foregone conclusion nor a certainty.
This year and next mark the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two, perhaps the most massive undertaking in human history: The triumph of good over evil, with countless acts of heroism, and chilling, institutionalized viciousness. It also marks the victory of the rule of law over totalitarian government and all that follows from it. The lessons of the era, while we casually consider what would be revolutionary changes to our form of government, are many.
One lesson, in particular, is how evil incarnate can rise to power. Take one eminently despicable SS Nazi general, Hans Kammler, as an example. Kammler was an early adherent of the Nazi Party, joining the Party even before Hitler fully rose to power. He was an architect and engineer by training, distinguishing himself in the early years of the war as an efficient manager of civil engineering projects. When the Holocaust was to be implemented, it was Kammler who chose Auschwitz as a key camp site, creating the blueprints to double and then redouble the size of the camp. It was Kammler who designed the standard concentration camp barracks. It was Kammler who then installed the gas chambers and crematoria — at Auschwitz and at other camps throughout the Third Reich. He worked not from the safe distance of a bureaucrat, but with weekly and even daily visits to the camps, barking orders, demanding changes, and even firing his pistol into the air to demand greater activity by his underlings. Kammler became an expert at mechanizing death.
His next innovation was Germany’s slave labor trade. In charge of the concentration camps, Kammler and the SS decided to make slaves of the most able-bodied prisoners, renting them out to the German government and German industry and creating a revenue stream for the SS. Kammler became the overseer and predominant user of slave labor in the Nazi regime, using them both to fuel his SS construction projects and to turn a profit for the SS.
In the final year of the war, Kammler became the sole officer promoted to Obergruppenfuhrer, the highest commissioned rank in the SS — second only to Heinrich Himmler himself. From that perch, he ruled all of Germany’s secret weapons, including the revolutionary Vengeance Weapons, the V-1 and V-2 rockets. These were the ultra-secret ‘wonder weapons,’ hinted at in Hitler’s speeches, that were to reverse the course of the war in Germany’s favor. But, as detailed in my new book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Nazi-Untold-Story-Americas/dp/162157735X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1568307115&amp;sr=8-1">The Hidden Nazi</a>,” Kammler knew that even with the V-2, the war was lost. In December 1944, he cut a deal with the Americans — trade Germany’s rocket team with the Americans to escape justice. A month after the deal was struck, Kammler moved the rocket team to prevent them falling into the hands of the advancing Russians. A month later, Kammler learned the rocket team’s new location would be within the Russian post-war zone of occupation — so he moved the rocket team yet again, to Bavaria, into the path of the American Army.
Kammler, having delivered the rocket team, never faced justice for his horrendous war crimes. Conventional history reports that he committed suicide in the final hours of the war, and so no one pursued him. However, “The Hidden Nazi” presents documents revealing the stranger-than-fiction truth about Kammler. He did not die at the end of the war, but rather lived on. The “Hidden Nazi” tells the rest of the story in detail, with broad lessons about the fragility of the rule of law, and how a highly cultured society can so quickly and thoroughly run off the rails.
Winston Churchill was fond of citing the old saw that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Now is not the time to retry other failed forms of government.
&nbsp;
Dean Reuter is the principal author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Nazi-Untold-Story-Americas/dp/162157735X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1568307115&amp;sr=8-1">The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America’s Deal with the Devil</a>” (Regnery History), and co-editor and author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01A4XVTC0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1">Liberty’s Nemesis, and Confronting Terror</a>.”

&#8220;Hidden Nazi&#8221; cover

REUTER: The Fragility Of The Rule Of Law

Nazis

Authorities say that two people are dead after what early reports suggest are multiple suspects — at least one wearing tactical gear — opened fire at multiple locations near a synagogue in the German town of Halle on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
&#8220;According to initial findings, two people were killed in Halle. There were several shots,&#8221; local police said in a tweet reported by <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/germany-synagogue-attack-halle-grenade-reportedly-thrown-jewish-cemetery-today-2019-10-09/">CBS News</a> early Wednesday.
In follow-up tweets, authorities said that they had detained one suspect they believed to be connected to the attack but urged citizens to stay vigilant. Statements by officials indicate that multiple suspects were involved.
&#8220;According to initial information, two people have been killed in Halle,&#8221; a law enforcement spokesperson said in a statement reported by the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-shooting-synagogue-attack-latest-halle-today-shooter-death-toll-grenade-a9148791.html">Independent</a>. &#8220;Several shots were fired. The alleged perpetrators are fleeing in a vehicle. We are asking the public to stay in their homes.&#8221;
Witnesses told German media they saw at least one of the attackers, dressed in tactical gear, open fire and then flee to a car, CBS reports. Video posted on social media appears to confirm the witness accounts, showing a suspect in &#8220;tactical gear including body armor and a helmet firing several rounds&#8221; with an unidentified weapon, the network notes.
Video has emerged showing a man dressed in tactical gear getting out of a silver car and firing what appears to be a shotgun down the street multiple times (via the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7554173/Gunman-shoots-dead-woman-outside-German-synagogue-goes-run.html">Daily Mail</a>):
<iframe id="molvideoplayer" title="MailOnline Embed Player" src="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/2023086.html" width="698" height="573" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> 
Authorities say there were at least two locations targeted around the Anschlag vor Synagogue in Halle, resulting in two fatalities. According to <a href="https://www.mz-web.de/halle-saale/schiesserei-im-paulusviertel-polizei---hallenser-sollen-in-ihren-wohnungen-bleiben-33289538">local media</a>, after reportedly attempting to break into the synagogue, which holds around 80 worshippers, one suspect reportedly shot and killed a passerby outside.
&#8220;The <a class="body-link" href="https://www.bild.de/regional/sachsen-anhalt/sachsen-anhalt-news/schiesserei-in-halle-mindestens-ein-toter-65233386.bild.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-vars-item-name="BL-9148791-https://www.bild.de/regional/sachsen-anhalt/sachsen-anhalt-news/schiesserei-in-halle-mindestens-ein-toter-65233386.bild.html" data-vars-event-id="c6">Bild </a>newspaper reported that the attacker used a submachine gun in the assault, and threw a hand grenade into the cemetery,&#8221; the Independent reports.
Another victim was found at a nearby kebab shop.
&#8220;Konrad Rösler, a 28-year-old railway worker interviewed on German TV, said that he had been in a kebab shop when he saw a man with a helmet and military jacket launch the attack,&#8221; the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7554173/Gunman-shoots-dead-woman-outside-German-synagogue-goes-run.html">Daily Mail</a> reports. &#8220;Rösler said the attacker threw a grenade at the shop, which bounced off the door frame, before he fired shots into the shop. He said he locked himself in the toilet and heard several more loud bangs before police arrived.&#8221;
In the town of Landsberg, about 20 minutes away from Halle, another shooting was reported when a taxi driver was injured after an attempted hijacking, <a class="body-link" href="https://www.bild.de/regional/sachsen-anhalt/sachsen-anhalt-news/schiesserei-in-halle-mindestens-ein-toter-65233386.bild.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-vars-item-name="BL-9148791-https://www.bild.de/regional/sachsen-anhalt/sachsen-anhalt-news/schiesserei-in-halle-mindestens-ein-toter-65233386.bild.html" data-vars-event-id="c6">Bild</a> reports. The Independent notes that police have not confirmed a connection between the incidents.
A police spokesman told the press that they do not yet have &#8220;any indication about the motive of this act.&#8221;
As reported by CBS, the attack comes amid an <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rise-of-extreme-nationalist-groups-in-germany-return-of-anti-semitic-acts/">increase in anti-Semitic acts</a> in Germany, authorities citing over 400 reports of anti-Semitic attacks in the first half of 2018, which constitutes a 10% increase over the previous year. CBS links the attacks to &#8220;a marked rise of extreme nationalist groups in Germany.&#8221;
The Independent reports that the attack comes two days after a 32-year-old Syrian man allegedly hijacked a truck and deliberately drove it into victims, resulting in multiple minor injuries and an investigation into possible Islamist motivations.
This is a developing story; updates to come as more information comes to light.

Halle Germany Attack

Yom Kippur Attack: Two People Killed Near German Synagogue; Video Of Gunman Emerges

Anti-Semitism

Judaism

United States Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell announced on Tuesday that the American mission in Berlin has saved U.S. taxpayers approximately $20 million over the last two fiscal years.
&#8220;I believe strongly that American taxpayers expect efficiency and frugality from overseas missions,&#8221; Grenell wrote in <a href="https://de.usembassy.gov/2019-savings-statement-by-ambassador-grenell/">a press release</a>. &#8220;I am happy to report that after coming $6 million under budget for [the fiscal year 20<abbr title="Fiscal Year 2018">18]</abbr>, Mission Germany came $14 million under budget in [the fiscal year 2019].&#8221;
&#8220;Additionally, we zeroed-out all growth requests for the most recent Mission Resource Review, committing to a static budget through 2021,&#8221; the statement continued. &#8220;Through continuous analysis of our operations and goals, we have been able to meet emerging requirements through efficiencies and reprogramming existing resources as needed.&#8221;
While the ambassador&#8217;s statement did not provide further detail on how exactly the office was able to cut costs and reduce spending, the <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-ambassador-to-germany-saves-taxpayers-20-million/">Washington Free Beacon</a> reported that Grenell and the embassy streamlined operations and cut down on burdensome bureaucracy.
&#8220;I constantly think about my mother on her fixed income when making budget decisions,&#8221; Grenell told The Daily Wire on Wednesday. &#8220;I ask myself if my mom would be ok with me spending her tax money for this purpose.&#8221;
&#8220;If you knew my mom, you would know this is a good litmus test,&#8221; he added.
The move largely falls in line with President Donald Trump&#8217;s campaign promise to &#8220;cut so much your head will spin,&#8221; thereby reducing costly and inefficient regulations. Accordingly, Trump signed an executive order only days after coming into office that required the elimination of two significant regulations for every new one added.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration has ever eliminated,&#8221; he said at the time. &#8220;And that means four years, eight years, or, in one instance, 16 years.&#8221;
The White House also announced in April that it is moving to dissolve the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and reorganize the agency&#8217;s responsibilities into three existing departments in order to better streamline efficiencies and save taxpayers from unnecessary expenses.
&#8220;We have space utilization opportunities that we think are important,&#8221; Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget and acting OPM director, said of the restructuring. &#8220;At the end of the day our goal is to re-skill the employees we have, automate some of the lower value added components of their work so that they can actually do more with fewer people.&#8221;
Grenell, however, has also been instrumental in aiding Trump&#8217;s foreign policy agenda. The ambassador is known for his hawkish stance on national security and has been an outspoken critic of Iran and the 2015 nuclear deal. He has also been a staunch defender of the Jewish people and has castigated the recent spread of anti-Semitism both in the United States and worldwide.
As Trump&#8217;s envoy to Germany, Grenell led the effort in launching a global initiative to end the criminalization of homosexuality in a host of nations where it is still illegal, primarily concentrated in Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.

GERMANY-US-GAS-TRADE-DIPLOMACY

U.S. Ambassador To Germany Saves America Millions

Richard Grenell

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that Germany will work to meet its obligations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), just a week or so after the U.S. Ambassador to Germany called the country out for ducking its responsibilities.
Stars and Stripes <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/merkel-says-germany-must-improve-its-military-amid-spending-row-with-us-1.594396">reported</a> last week that Merkel announced Germany would improve its military and boost its contributions to NATO. Member nations are required to spend 2% of their GDP on defense spending, yet Germany – Europe’s largest economy – barely pays more than 1%.
President Donald Trump has criticized Germany for failing to meet its NATO obligations even as other members have increased their defense spending.
“People are paying and I am very happy with the fact they are paying,” Trump <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/trump-praises-nato-allies-for-spending-but-says-germany-not-contributing-enough-1.575399">said</a> in April while meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump added, “Germany, honestly, is not paying their fair share.”
Earlier in August, Richard Grenell, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, heavily criticized Germany’s failure to fund its military, which appears to be what prompted Merkel’s change. In a statement to The Daily Wire, Grenell emphasized the need for Germany to increase defense spending.
“We have made clear that meeting the NATO obligation of paying 2% of your GDP for defense is important for the largest economy in Europe,” Grenell said. “There is lots of talk in Europe about multilateralism but I can’t think of a more successful multilateral organization than NATO.”
Grenell, according to Stars and Stripes, also released a statement calling it “actually offensive” that the U.S. was paying to keep troops stationed in Germany while the country wouldn’t even meet the minimum defense spending target of 2% GDP.
The 2% requirement started in 2014, under President Barack Obama. Other European nations have increased their defense spending since Trump took office. Poland has even offered $2 billion to build a permanent base of U.S. troops. Grenell and other Trump administration officials had previously threatened to move troops out of Germany and into Poland if Berlin didn’t start increasing defense spending.
Now Merkel appears to have gotten the message, announcing last week that Germany would move toward contributing 2% of GDP to its military.
“I think that the German (bases) are good locations for the American soldiers,” Merkel said Wednesday after meeting with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.
“There are good reasons for the (U.S.) bases here in Germany but at the same time we know that we must take the pains to get the German military in better shape,” she added.
Germany is a long way from 2%. Stars and Stripes reported that the country would strive to contribute 1.5% of GDP toward defense spending by the end of 2020 and wouldn’t likely reach 2% until after 2024.
“So this means in the direction of 2%, and we will continue to go in this direction also after 2024,” Merkel said, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics-merkel-nato/merkel-promises-to-meet-defense-spending-target-amid-us-criticism-idUSKCN1V31NX">according to Reuters</a>.

GERMANY-CHINA-DIPLOMACY

Germany Will Now Work To Meet NATO Obligations After U.S. Ambassador Calls Out Their Deficiency

Angela Merkel

NATO

&#8220;The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.&#8221; – Zvi Rex, Israeli psychiatrist
Last month, Jason Greenblatt, who is the Trump administration&#8217;s special representative for international negotiations and, along with Jared Kushner, a co-leader of the administration&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49232/fleisher-end-100-year-arab-israeli-war-yishai-fleisher">yet-to-be-unveiled comprehensive proposal</a> for Israeli-Palestinian peace, <a href="https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-at-a-un-security-council-open-debate-on-the-middle-east-9/">addressed</a> the United Nations Security Council. In a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/greenblatt-peace-plan-wont-be-based-on-fictions-of-international-consensus/">paradigm-shifting</a> speech, Greenblatt assailed the longstanding consensus of much of the morally relativistic &#8220;international community&#8221; — for which the anti-Semitic dullards of Turtle Bay serve as quintessential proxies — in no uncertain terms. Whereas the <a href="https://unwatch.org/un-general-assembly-shames-21-resolutions-israel-six-rest-world/">institutionally anti-Israel</a> U.N. Security Council has long tried its best to unilaterally impose a &#8220;two-state solution&#8221; from the outside in — based on a fundamental misunderstanding of international law with respect to <a href="https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2019/07/the-many-incoherences-and-hypocrisies-of-international-law-on-jerusalem/">eastern Jerusalem</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/11948/breaking-down-israeli-occupation-myth-elliott-hamilton">Judea and Samaria</a> — Greenblatt rebutted that &#8220;if there is to be such a solution, only the parties themselves, through direct negotiations, can work this out.&#8221;
Later in the speech, Greenblatt reiterated, &#8220;Both Israel and the Palestinians have asserted a claim to certain land. This is an unresolved dispute and it will only be through direct negotiations between the parties that we have a chance of resolving that dispute and achieving a comprehensive peace.&#8221;
Greenblatt&#8217;s speech is well worth watching in full:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cyWt1_irJNI" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
Common sense, right? Alas, perhaps not to anti-Israel, sycophantically pro-Palestinian Europeans on the U.N. Security Council.
As Reuters <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">highlighted</a>, Germany, France, and Russia did not exactly respond favorably to Greenblatt&#8217;s address. That would be the same Germany that refuses to recognize all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and is <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/03/08/caroline-glick-germanys-love-affair-with-iran-about-more-than-greed/">leading the European effort to undermine</a> President Trump&#8217;s decision to exit the catastrophic Iran nuclear deal, the same France whose insane immigration policies have led to crisis levels of Islamist-inspired anti-Semitism, and the same Russia that de facto allies itself with the genocidal Jew-hating mullahs in Tehran to prop up a murderous madman tyrant in Damascus.
&#8220;For us, international law is not menu a la carte,&#8221; <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">said</a> Germany&#8217;s U.N. ambassador, Christoph Heusgen. &#8220;Security Council resolutions are international law, they merely need to be complied with,&#8221; oh-so-helpfully <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">added</a> Russia&#8217; U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia.
Greenblatt <a href="http://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Greenblatt-hits-back-at-Germany-UN-resolutions-are-not-way-to-make-peace-598135">pushed back</a> this week against the European backlash, publishing a <a href="http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article198179335/UN-Debatte-Mit-Verlaub-Herr-Botschafter-Heusgen.html?wtrid=onsite.onsitesearch">German newspaper op-ed</a> that firmly but diplomatically rebuked Heusgen. &#8220;With respect, Ambassador [Heusgen] &#8230; we clearly stated that a solution cannot be forced upon the parties, and the only way ahead is direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,&#8221; Greenblatt wrote. &#8220;Our point was that collectively, U.N. Security Council resolutions passed with the intent of providing a framework for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed to create progress.&#8221; Greenblatt also excoriated the Europeans&#8217; insistence on the U.N. as a focal point of the peace process, coupled with their own failure to recognize the U.N.&#8217;s institutional anti-Israel bias, as &#8220;disingenuous.&#8221;
At the risk of stating the obvious: Good for Greenblatt and good for the Trump administration.
Hamas, a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">genocidal Islamist jihadist outfit</a> set not merely on eliminating Israel but also set on killing every Jew in the world, currently controls the Gaza Strip. So-called &#8220;moderate&#8221; Fatah, which directly subsidizes murderous (and <a href="http://twitter.com/MicheleChabin1/status/1159797725199831040">celebrated</a>!) jihad against Israeli Jews, is currently led by <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/how-holocaust-denial-shaped-mahmoud-abbas-worldview/">Holocaust-denying</a> kleptocratic chieftain Mahmoud Abbas. Much as Ezra Klein&#8217;s Vox would imagine it to be otherwise, there is <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/17/voxs-motto-should-be-explaining-the-news-incorrectly-repeatedly/">no bridge</a> connecting Gaza with Judea and Samaria. There is approximately zero appetite whatsoever among either the Palestinian-Arab leadership or the Palestinian-Arab populace to forfeit the so-called &#8220;right of return&#8221; — a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/43792/pro-palestinian-frauds-unrwa-called-out-lying-josh-hammer">legally risible</a> claim that would demographically destroy Zionism itself. There is approximately zero appetite whatsoever right now among either the Palestinian-Arab leadership or the Palestinian-Arab populace to recognize Israel as a Jewish and secure state within any cognizable boundaries at all.
In short, those, like the Europeans and the global pro-Palestinian/pro-&#8220;international community&#8221; Left, who insist that Israeli-Palestinian peace can be imposed from the outside in, are simply not living in the real world. There are endless unresolved issues that can truly, only be finalized via direct negotiations between the two sides. The only reasonable conclusion is that such quixotic insistence on an outside-in imposition is hardly motivated by genuine concern for the establishment of a durable, lasting peace — the facts and reality on the ground make such calls, in the present, fanatical to the point of lunacy. On the contrary, such calls for an &#8220;international community&#8221;-imposed solution are ultimately reflective of Europeans&#8217; loathing for Israel. Perhaps there is something fundamentally sinister here, too. Zvi Rex, the above-quoted Israeli psychiatrist, was likely onto something.
In any event, good for Jason Greenblatt and the Trump administration. The jury may still be out on the administration&#8217;s yet-to-be-unveiled comprehensive peace proposal, but the jury is very much in on the administration&#8217;s continued efforts to stand up for Israel and rebuke bullying Israel-haters at the U.N. The Trump administration is in the right — and the Europeans are in the wrong.

White House adviser on Israel Jason Greenblatt speaks during

HAMMER: The Trump Administration Is Right. The U.N. Can Never Dictate An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal.

Europe

Foreign Policy

Israel

Jared Kushner

Palestinians

Trump Administration

United Nations

German weekly magazine Der Spiegel wrote last Thursday that the American people aren’t that concerned with whether the country will assist the U.S. in its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran by accompanying merchant vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
Der Spiegel chief correspondent Roland Nelles <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/news-iran-donald-trump-richard-grenell-burkaverbot-nordstream-a-ap-rocky-a-1279460.html">mocked</a> Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, for suggesting the country help the U.S. and other countries that have agreed to join what was previously known as Operation Sentinel.
Nelles began by quoting Grenell as saying: “What we want, what the American people want, is a clear commitment by the German people to support the West.” He went on to suggest the American people don’t care whether Germany participates or not, suggesting Grenell’s statement was “big drama”:
<blockquote>In truth, &#8220;the American people&#8221; &#8211; at least for the moment &#8211; should not care much about whether or not Germany participates in the Iran mission. Contrary to Grenell&#8217;s suggestion, the German attitude in matters of sea-mission in the USA has so far been practically no issue at all. At most, a few smaller messages have made it so far in the US media. Of course, the Trump government in Washington looks to Berlin. But the &#8220;population&#8221; quoted by Grenell talks about the Democrats&#8217; TV debate or about the change of baseball player Zack Greinke to the Houston Astros.</blockquote>
The situation in the Strait of Hormuz may not be the most talked about issue in America, but that doesn’t mean the American people aren’t concerned with whether our European allies are assisting with our foreign policy tactics.
Germany has so far refused to join the U.S.-led mission in the Strait of Hormuz, with the country’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas justifying the decision by saying the German government does not agree with America’s tactics against Iran. Maas said, according to another Der Spiegel <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/heiko-maas-deutschland-beteiligt-sich-nicht-an-golf-mission-a-1279929.html">article</a>, that Germany would rather continue to focus on diplomacy rather than military escalation.
On Monday, Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/05/uk-us-persian-gulf-1448151">reported</a> that Britain is joining the effort and taking a “leading role” in the mission. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said over the weekend that he was mindful of why other countries would be hesitant to join the effort.
“Nobody wants to be drawn into conflict with Iran,” he said.
Grenell sees something else. He called out Germany for failing to pay its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) obligations.
“We have made clear that meeting the NATO obligation of paying 2% of your GDP for defense is important for the largest economy in Europe,” Grenell told The Daily Wire. “There is lots of talk in Europe about multilateralism but I can’t think of a more successful multilateral organization than NATO.”
Grenell has been at odds with Der Spiegel before. Earlier this week, Grenell <a href="https://www.jpost.com/International/German-Jews-and-US-ambassador-Weekly-magazine-spreads-Nazi-propaganda-597543">criticized the magazine</a> for its portrayal of Jews in a recent article. In December, Grenell called for an investigation into the media outlet after Der Spiegel reporter Claas Relotius admitted to making up more than a dozen articles critical of America. Deutsche Welle <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/us-ambassador-to-germany-demands-spiegel-fake-news-investigation/a-46837330">reported</a> that Relotius invented people, quotes, and large portions of his stories.

German Magazine Claims Americans Don’t Care If Germany Participates In The West Or Not. U.S. Ambassador Responds.

Iran

According to Germany&#8217;s government commissioner on anti-Semitism, Jews in his country should stop wearing kippahs (skullcaps) in public lest they incur the wrath of anti-Semites.
Quoted in an interview published on Saturday by the Funke regional press group, Felix Klein, whose job was created in 2018, stated, &#8220;I cannot advise Jews to wear the kippah everywhere, all the time, in Germany.&#8221; Klein posited that &#8220;the lifting of inhibitions and the uncouthness which is on the rise in society&#8221; had contributed to the soaring rise in anti-Semitism, commenting, &#8220;The internet and social media have largely contributed to this, but so have constant attacks against our culture of remembrance.&#8221; Klein added he had &#8220;changed his mind compared to previously.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/26/jews-in-germany-warned-of-risks-of-wearing-kippah-cap-in-public">The Guardian</a> notes, &#8220;Antisemitic hate crimes rose by 20% in Germany last year, according to interior ministry data, which blamed nine out of ten cases on the extreme right. There were 62 violent antisemitic attacks, compared to 37 in 2017. &#8220;
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin responded on Sunday, saying that he was &#8220;shocked&#8221; by Klein&#8217;s recommendation, continuing, &#8220;Fears about the security of German Jews are a capitulation to anti-Semitism and an admittance that, again, Jews are not safe on German soil. We will never submit, will never lower our gaze and will never react to anti-Semitism with defeatism &#8212; and expect and demand our allies act in the same way.&#8221;
Richard Grenell, U.S. ambassador to Germany, added on Twitter, &#8220;The opposite is true. Wear your kippa. Wear your friend&#8217;s kippa. Borrow a kippa and wear it for our Jewish neighbors. Educate people that we are a diverse society.&#8221;
In April 2018, Klein noted that some of the rising anti-Semitism in Germany came from immigrants from the Middle East. He <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/27/germanys-first-ever-anti-semitism-commissioner-says-the-problem-is-becoming-more-aggressive/?utm_term=.ae141829fc0a">asserted</a>:
<blockquote>
There are several developments. One, of course, is the great influx of refugees and people who came to Germany that were raised and educated in countries that are still in the state of war with Israel, or that have been brought up with certain perceptions of Jews in Israel that are totally unacceptable to a German society. So we&#8217;re facing an integration problem. Because, of course, these people do not leave that image of Jews in Israel when they enter Germany &#8230; We have Palestinians in Germany that have lived here for a long time, and we see that crimes and incidents are also committed at a high percentage by people from that group.
</blockquote>
Klein quickly added, &#8220;I would not say that generally Arabs or Muslims are anti-Semitic. That&#8217;s not true. You can&#8217;t generalize it. But of course there&#8217;s a certain image of Jews that is not acceptable.&#8221;
Asked which was more pervasive, anti-Semitism from Muslim immigrants or from the far-Right, Klein answered:
<blockquote>
I wouldn&#8217;t like to prioritize the kind of anti-Semitism to combat first. It is generally unacceptable. But what I think is particularly difficult, and absolutely unacceptable, is the way the extreme right is threatening and insulting Jews, also with historical prejudices and arguments. That&#8217;s particularly insulting to them. Whereas I think more aggression and physical attacks maybe generally fall more into the category of anti-Semitic attacks that are motivated by Muslims.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Antisemitism/German-antisemitism-commissioner-warns-Jews-in-Germany-to-not-wear-kippot-590641">The Jerusalem Post</a> noted:
<blockquote>
According to the interior ministry, right-wing extremists committed 90% of the 1,800 incidents in 2018. The real number of Islamic-animated antisemitic attacks in Germany is not well documented due to authorities characterizing Islamic antisemitism as right-wing antisemitism.
</blockquote>

German Government Tells Jews: Don&#8217;t Look Like Jews

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47368/germany-takes-stronger-stance-against-anti-josh-hammer">reported</a> last week, the national parliament of Germany recently decided to formally condemn the &#8220;Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions&#8221; movement (BDS) against the state of Israel as anti-Semitic &#8212; thus taking a stronger stance against anti-Semitism in the year 2019 than has the United States&#8217; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44424/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">Democratic Party</a>:
<blockquote>
To borrow from <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Through_the_Looking-Glass">Lewis Carroll</a>, we in the year 2019 truly appear to be &#8220;through the looking-glass.&#8221;
Today, the German parliament took the great step of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-parliament-denounces-anti-israel-boycott-movement-as-anti-semitic/">approving</a> a resolution that condemns the &#8220;Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions&#8221; (BDS) movement against Israel as anti-Semitic and reminiscent of Nazi-era boycotts that harrowingly targeted German Jews during the rise of the Third Reich.
Unbelievably, this makes the parliament of Germany &#8212; the erstwhile highly sophisticated and industrialized nation that nonetheless oversaw the most lethal and systemically executed genocide against the Jews in the history of the Jewish people (or any people, for that matter) &#8212; less anti-Semitic than the Democratic Party in the United States. The Democratic Party in the year 2019, after all, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-06/anti-bds-bill-approved-by-senate-avoids-first-amendment-questions">votes against</a> anti-BDS legislation, harbors presidential candidates who categorically <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45074/watch-pences-powerful-aipac-speech-slams-dems-hank-berrien">boycott</a> the annual confab for the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45203/hammer-what-exactly-current-role-aipac-josh-hammer">milquetoast</a> pro-Israel group AIPAC, diligently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44279/hammer-house-democrats-anti-anti-semitism-josh-hammer">waters down resolutions</a> that merely condemn Jew-hatred, and utterly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47244/miller-rashida-tlaib-and-propaganda-her-anti-abraham-h-miller">refuses to condemn</a> virulent anti-Semites in its ranks.
</blockquote>
Indeed, as The Times of Israel <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-parliament-denounces-anti-israel-boycott-movement-as-anti-semitic/">reported</a>, &#8220;The German motion stated that &#8216;the pattern of argument and methods of the BDS movement are anti-Semitic.'&#8221; The motion then expressly compared BDS with the Jew-hating tactics employed during the rise of the Third Reich: &#8220;The campaign&#8217;s calls to boycott Israeli artists, along with stickers on Israeli goods that are meant to dissuade people from buying them, are also reminiscent of the most terrible phase of German history. The BDS movement&#8217;s &#8216;Don&#8217;t Buy&#8217; stickers on Israeli products inevitably awake associations with the Nazi slogan &#8216;Don&#8217;t Buy from Jews!&#8217; and similar scrawls on facades and shop windows.&#8221;
Now, amidst <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43200/corbyn-effect-anti-semitism-uk-reaches-record-high-josh-hammer">soaring anti-Semitism</a> in the United Kingdom and the leadership of the once-venerable leftist Labour Party by an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43983/course-anti-semite-corbyn-tells-labour-mps-its-ok-josh-hammer">incorrigible Jew-hater</a>, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt now claims that he agrees with the German parliament and that BDS is, in fact, anti-Semitic. Per <a href="http://www.thetower.org/7347-british-foreign-secretary-supports-german-anti-bds-resolution-deems-boycott-antisemitic/">The Tower</a>:
<blockquote>
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has thrown his support behind a landmark resolution passed in the German parliament on Friday, which deemed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel &#8220;antisemitic.&#8221;
In a tweet, the foreign secretary and a front runner in the race to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, wrote: &#8220;Boycotting Israel &#8212; the world&#8217;s only Jewish state &#8212; is antisemitic.&#8221;
He added: &#8220;I salute Germany for taking stand.&#8221;
&#8220;Tremors, turbulence &amp; terror in Mid East remind us of urgent need for peace: two-state solution,&#8221; Hunt said in his tweet. But he noted that &#8220;the foundations for peace are respect &amp; coexistence,&#8221; implying that the boycott of Israel is a major obstacle in achieving those goals.
</blockquote>
Sardonically, as Israel National News <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/263512">notes</a>, both the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas terrorist groups condemned Germany for its recent move:
<blockquote>
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), however, blasted the German motion, saying that the resolution was &#8220;an attack against the Palestinian people and its legitimate rights,&#8221; adding that the BDS movement is part of the fight of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation regime, apartheid and racial segregation.
Similarly, Hamas also criticized Germany, saying, &#8220;We condemn passing this unfair resolution by the German Bundestag that is against the Palestinian people&#8217;s right to resist the Israeli occupation, which is the most terrible occupation in history, with all means possible, given that boycott is a peaceful means of resistance against the Israeli occupation.&#8221;
</blockquote>
In any event, good for Foreign Secretary Hunt.

BDS Is Anti-Semitic, British Foreign Secretary Says

Great Britain

United Kingdom

Al Jazeera faced widespread backlash over the weekend after the Qatari government-owned publication published a video it produced which states that Israel is the biggest winner of the Holocaust and has been <a href="https://twitter.com/EmmanuelNahshon/status/1129982982960353280">labeled</a> as &#8220;Holocaust-denying&#8221; by Israel&#8217;s Foreign Ministry.
The video was &#8220;posted on its website and social media, the Al Jazeera video questioned Holocaust history, accused Jews of exploiting the massacres of their European communities in order to establish the State of Israel, and suggested that Zionism itself is derived from Nazi ideology,&#8221; The Times of Israel <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/al-jazeera-suspends-journalists-over-holocaust-video/">reported</a>.
After the video was translated into English, outrage began to grow rapidly online, which led to Al Jazeera deleting the video and filing copyright claims against people who had reposted the video on social media to show the evil nature of the content that the network produced.
&#8220;The narrative that six million Jews were killed by the Nazi movement was adopted by the Zionist movement, and it is being reiterated every year on the so-called &#8216;Holocaust Memorial Day,'&#8221; the video begins, according to a translation provided by the <a href="https://www.memri.org/tv/al-jazeera-holocaust-denial-israel-biggest-winner-same-justification-annihilate-palestinians/transcript">Middle East Media Research Institute</a> (MEMRI). &#8220;After the Holocaust, the Zionist movement claimed that 2 out of every 3 Jews were killed.&#8221;
The video states that the Jews were just &#8220;part&#8221; of who Hitler targeted, and that they are the only group that is remembered because &#8220;the Jewish groups had financial resources, media institutions, research centers, and academic voices that managed to put a special spotlight on the Jewish victims of the Nazis.&#8221;
The video states that the number of those killed in the Holocaust &#8220;remains one of the most prominent historical debates to this day.&#8221; Al Jazeera offered three perspectives that it said comprises the debate on the number of victims from the Holocaust:
<ul>
<li>&#8220;those who deny the annihilation&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;others who think that the outcome was exaggerated&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;and others yet who accuse the Zionist movement of blowing it out of proportion in the service of the plan to establish what would later be known as the &#8216;State of Israel.'&#8221;</li>
</ul>
Al Jazeera later stated, &#8220;but Israel is the biggest winner from the Holocaust,&#8221; and falsely claimed that Israel &#8220;uses the same Nazi justifications as a launching pad for the racial cleansing and annihilation of the Palestinians.&#8221;
MEMRI <a href="https://twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1130038755589541889">posted</a> the video to their Twitter account, which was taken down after Al Jazeera filed a copyright claim against them with Twitter. MEMRI posted the video on their website, which is available below.
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe frameborder="0" height="540" width="960"></iframe></div>
MEMRI provided the following <a href="https://www.memri.org/tv/al-jazeera-holocaust-denial-israel-biggest-winner-same-justification-annihilate-palestinians/transcript">translation</a> of the video:
<blockquote>
The narrative that six million Jews were killed by the Nazi movement was adopted by the Zionist movement, and it is being reiterated every year on the so-called &#8220;Holocaust Memorial Day.&#8221; Let us tell you about the story of the Holocaust. [&#8230;]
More than nine million Jews lived in Europe before World War II, most of them in the countries that would later be taken over by the Nazis. After the Holocaust, the Zionist movement claimed that 2 out of every 3 Jews were killed. [&#8230;]
The Nazis targeted anyone they considered to be &#8220;human surplus&#8221; &#8211; either because they were &#8220;racially inferior,&#8221; or because they were not accepted politically. This means that the Jews were not the only victims of that era. The Nazis targeted the Romani, the Slavic nations, and some Arabs, as well as other groups like communists, socialists, trade unions, homosexuals, and the handicapped. [&#8230;]
Along with others, the Jews faced a policy of systematic persecution, which culminated in the &#8220;Final Solution,&#8221; or annihilation. Their books were burned, they were fired from their jobs, their property was confiscated, and they were torn from their homes, in order to live in the secluded ghetto neighborhoods. They were forced to wear a special badge on their clothes. They were sent to detention centers, and they were worked to death in forced labor. The victims of the Nazis &#8211; who were following Hitler&#8217;s orders &#8211; exceeded 20 million people. The Jews were part of them.
So why is there a focus only on them? The Jewish groups had financial resources, media institutions, research centers, and academic voices that managed to put a special spotlight on the Jewish victims of the Nazis. Nevertheless, the number of victims of the Holocaust remains one of the most prominent historical debates to this day.
People are divided between those who deny the annihilation, others who think that the outcome was exaggerated, and others yet who accuse the Zionist movement of blowing it out of proportion in the service of the plan to establish what would later be known as the &#8220;State of Israel.&#8221; Let us take a pause here. How did Israel benefit from the Holocaust? In the first months following the Nazis&#8217; rise to power, an agreement was signed between Nazi Germany and the Jewish Agency, the purpose of which was to make it easy for the Jews to immigrate to Palestine, in exchange for surrendering their property to Germany. [&#8230;]
This agreement, along with other documents, made some people believe that Hitler supported Zionism. Former Mayor of London [Ken Livingstone] publicly declared this belief, and he was suspended from the Labour Party because of this. The persecution and the suffering &#8211; the much-regurgitated narrative of the Holocaust sorrows &#8211; paved the way for the Jewish immigration to Palestine. [&#8230;]
[Germany] is still paying huge reparations for what happened in World War II to a state that did not even exist at the time of the annihilation. Greece, the Serbs, Yugoslavia, and the Romani people have all suffered, but the Germany reparations to those victims cannot be compared to the payments to Israel, which, in turn, devoured the reparations of all the Jewish victims of Nazism.
The Holocaust never stops to be a tragic event. Several countries denounce it as a crime. Dozens of institutions sponsor large museums in various capitals in the world commemorating the tragedy of the Jews. This provoked great interest in this incident, even though similar crimes, no less heinous, are still being perpetrated against other peoples.
The annihilation of any people because of their race, sex, or religion, is an unacceptable thing that deserves to be strongly denounced. Denouncing the Holocaust is a moral obligation, but Israel is the biggest winner from the Holocaust, and it uses the same Nazi justifications as a launching pad for the racial cleansing and annihilation of the Palestinians. The main ideology behind the &#8220;State of Israel&#8221; is based on religious, national, and geographic concepts that suckled from the Nazi spirit and its main notions. So how can a Palestinian denounce a crime that has become the flip side of his own tragedy?
</blockquote>

WATCH: The &#8216;Holocaust-Denying&#8217; Video Al Jazeera Produced They Don&#8217;t Want You To See

Al Jazeera

To borrow from <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Through_the_Looking-Glass">Lewis Carroll</a>, we in the year 2019 truly appear to be &#8220;through the looking-glass.&#8221;
Today, the German parliament took the great step of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-parliament-denounces-anti-israel-boycott-movement-as-anti-semitic/">approving</a> a resolution that condemns the &#8220;Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions&#8221; (BDS) movement against Israel as anti-Semitic and reminiscent of Nazi-era boycotts that harrowingly targeted German Jews during the rise of the Third Reich.
Unbelievably, this makes the parliament of Germany &#8212; the erstwhile highly sophisticated and industrialized nation that nonetheless oversaw the most lethal and systemically executed genocide against the Jews in the history of the Jewish people (or any people, for that matter) &#8212; less anti-Semitic than the Democratic Party in the United States. The Democratic Party in the year 2019, after all, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-06/anti-bds-bill-approved-by-senate-avoids-first-amendment-questions">votes against</a> anti-BDS legislation, harbors presidential candidates who categorically <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45074/watch-pences-powerful-aipac-speech-slams-dems-hank-berrien">boycott</a> the annual confab for the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45203/hammer-what-exactly-current-role-aipac-josh-hammer">milquetoast</a> pro-Israel group AIPAC, diligently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44279/hammer-house-democrats-anti-anti-semitism-josh-hammer">waters down resolutions</a> that merely condemn Jew-hatred, and utterly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47244/miller-rashida-tlaib-and-propaganda-her-anti-abraham-h-miller">refuses to condemn</a> virulent anti-Semites in its ranks.
The Times of Israel <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-parliament-denounces-anti-israel-boycott-movement-as-anti-semitic/">reports</a> on the remarkable German resolution:
<blockquote>
German lawmakers on Friday approved a resolution denouncing the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement against Israel, describing its methods as anti-Semitic and reminiscent of Nazi-era calls to boycott Jews.
The motion called on the German government not to support events organized by BDS or other groups that actively pursue its aims, and vowed that parliament wouldn&#8217;t finance any projects that call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the movement. It was filed by the country&#8217;s three governing parties, along with two mainstream opposition parties, and passed by a large majority.
The German motion stated that &#8220;the pattern of argument and methods of the BDS movement are anti-Semitic.&#8221;
&#8220;The campaign&#8217;s calls to boycott Israeli artists, along with stickers on Israeli goods that are meant to dissuade people from buying them, are also reminiscent of the most terrible phase of German history,&#8221; it added. &#8220;The BDS movement&#8217;s &#8216;Don&#8217;t Buy&#8217; stickers on Israeli products inevitably awake associations with the Nazi slogan &#8216;Don&#8217;t Buy from Jews!&#8217; and similar scrawls on facades and shop windows.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Israel&#8217;s ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, was highly praising of Germany&#8217;s resolution: &#8220;This is an important decision in its own right and especially as it was adopted in a leading parliament in Europe. The decision reflects the understanding that BDS makes no attempt to build bridges, to engage in dialogue and to encourage coexistence for stability and peace between Israel and all its neighbors.&#8221;
In a Hebrew language <a href="https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/1129415992734568448">tweet</a>, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5510885,00.html">tweeted</a>: &#8220;I hope that this decision will bring about concrete steps and I call upon other countries to adopt similar legislation.&#8221; Netanyahu <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/German-Bundestag-rules-BDS-is-antisemitic-589999">further hailed</a> the &#8220;important decision to recognize BDS as an anti-Semitic movement,&#8221; condemning BDS as &#8220;work[ing] against the existence of the State of Israel.&#8221;
Notably, Germany is the first European nation to officially equate BDS with anti-Semitism.
Nonetheless, Germany&#8217;s recent foreign policy ventures in the Middle East leave much to be desired, from a pro-Israel perspective. As Caroline Glick has <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/03/08/caroline-glick-germanys-love-affair-with-iran-about-more-than-greed/">detailed</a>, Germany is far too cozy with the jihadist Iranian regime and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah:
<blockquote>
As for the Iranians, German leaders insist that their continued allegiance to the nuclear deal stems from their conviction that the deal is a non-proliferation agreement and advances their security, and not from their support for Iran. But evidence grows by the day that the opposite is the case. Whereas in Iran, last month the regime had to hire people to fill the streets to &#8220;celebrate&#8221; the fortieth anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, senior German leaders were happy to gush in joy as they congratulated the murderous regime for its longevity.
The German Foreign Ministry sent State Minister Niels Annan and an Iran desk officer to celebrate the occasion at the Iranian Embassy in Berlin. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeyer sent a congratulatory telegram to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, praising the Islamic regime. In contrast, in November 2016, Steinmeyer refused to send a congratulatory telegram to President-elect Donald Trump and referred to him as a &#8220;hate preacher.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Much still to be desired, indeed.

Germany Takes A Stronger Stance Against Anti-Semitism Than Does The Democratic Party

Ilhan Omar

Rashida Tlaib

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46710/jewish-agency-chairman-jews-are-once-again-unsafe-josh-hammer">noted</a>, yesterday marked the annual March of the Living at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland:
<blockquote>
In Europe, 10,000 marched today at Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of the annual &#8220;<a href="https://motl.org/">International March of the Living</a>,&#8221; which <a href="https://motl.org/about/">describes</a> itself as &#8220;an annual educational program, bringing individuals from around the world to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust and to examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hatred.&#8221; The March of the Living, which started in 1988, has had 260,000 unique individuals participate to-date &#8212; with those participants hailing from 52 distinct countries. The marchers always tread the same three-kilometer path at the concentration camp.
</blockquote>
Harrowingly, as The Daily Wire also noted, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel &#8212; which is the largest Jewish nonprofit organization in the world, and which is the group primarily responsible for fostering Aliyah to Israel from Diaspora Jewry &#8212; sounded a clarion alarm on the future (or lack thereof) for Jewish life in Europe. Per <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/watch-10000-join-march-of-the-living-in-commemoration-of-holocaust-victims/">The Times of Israel</a>:
<blockquote>
As over 10,000 people joined in the 2019 International March of the Living on Thursday afternoon in the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog warned that &#8220;Jews are once again unsafe on the streets of Europe.&#8221; &#8230;
&#8220;From this place, I call on world leaders to fight rampant anti-Semitism erupting around the world, especially the shocking and dramatic rise of hate crimes in Europe, Latin America, the United States and around the world,&#8221; Herzog, one of the few Israeli officials to attend this year, said at the gathering&#8217;s main ceremony.
&#8220;It is inconceivable that 74 years after that wretched war, Jews are once again unsafe on the streets of Europe. Jews cannot be murdered in Pittsburgh and San Diego or anywhere[.]&#8221;
</blockquote>
Now, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/jewish-group-alarmed-after-german-police-let-neo-nazis-march">reports</a> how, on the eve of Yom HaShoah (Israel&#8217;s Holocaust Remembrance Day) and the March of the Living this week, German Jews were alarmed at a highly visible neo-Nazi march that was allowed to peacefully proceed in eastern Germany:
<blockquote>
Germany&#8217;s leading Jewish organization is expressing alarm over footage of flag-waving neo-Nazis in self-styled uniforms marching through a town in eastern Germany on May Day, unhindered by police.
The Central Council of Jews said Thursday the march in Plauen by members of The Third Way party &#8220;brings back memories of the darkest chapter in German history.&#8221;
Footage of the march Wednesday prompted widespread outrage in Germany and calls for authorities in the state of Saxony, where far-right sentiment is particularly strong, to step in.
</blockquote>
The situation in eastern Germany &#8212; and the general balancing of overt, even genocidal animus with free speech protections &#8212; may bring to mind for some Americans the famous 1977 U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/432/43/">case</a> of National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, Illinois, in which the Court&#8217;s majority effectively permitted the American Nazi party to freely march in the largely Jewish Chicago suburb. As the Court&#8217;s per curiam majority held, &#8220;as we read the controlling Supreme Court opinions, use of the swastika is a symbolic form of free speech entitled to first amendment protections. Its display on uniforms or banners by those engaged in peaceful demonstrations cannot be totally precluded solely because that display may provoke a violent reaction by those who view it.&#8221;

There Was An Alarming Neo-Nazi March In Germany On The Eve Of Holocaust Remembrance Day

When Donald Trump first launched his presidential campaign, many feared that his <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/charles-a-lindbergh#section_4">Charles Lindbergh-esque</a> calls for an &#8220;America first&#8221; foreign policy might serve as a proxy for Ron Paul-style isolationism &#8212; and, some of Trump&#8217;s most zealous detractors speculated, potentially something much more <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/history/charles-lindbergh-and-the-rise-of-1940s-nazi_1/">nefarious</a>.
Those fears have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45450/hammer-here-are-three-reasons-why-i-plan-vote-josh-hammer">not come to pass</a>. Trump has been fairly trigger-happy in bombing some of Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s military assets in Syria, has (<a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/now-pull-the-plug-on-afghanistan/">incorrectly</a>, in my view) recommitted to a prolonged U.S. military presence in <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-strategy-afghanistan-south-asia/">Afghanistan</a>, has been consistently defiant in his hardline opposition to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">genocidal</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45641/report-trump-administration-designate-iranian-kassy-dillon">mullocracy</a> of Tehran, and has generally been substantively hawkish in dealing with both <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/08/trump-administration-ups-russia-sanctions-977650">Russia</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/trump-says-china-tariffs-could-stay-in-place-amid-trade-deal-talks.html">China</a> alike. To the extent Trump&#8217;s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf">National Security Strategy</a> has promulgated &#8212; and to the extent he has acted upon &#8212; a foreign policy doctrine that is at odds with the past two to three decades of the bipartisan Wilsonian/neoliberal D.C. Smart Set&#8482;&#65039; consensus, Trump has merely placed a greater emphasis on prizing <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Nationalism-Yoram-Hazony/dp/1541645375">nation-state sovereignty</a> over the interests of sovereignty-undermining inherently leftist transnational institutions. And for that, Trump ought to be <a href="https://www.themaven.net/theresurgent/contributors/destroy-the-united-nations-MRHU9AcfJUW0v67EHdQI-Q/">praised</a>.
Over the weekend, Yoram Hazony and Ofir Haivry of the Jersualem, Israel-based <a href="https://herzlinstitute.org/en">Herzl Institute</a> think tank, published a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-america-needs-new-alliances-11554503421">deeply incisive op-ed</a> in The Wall Street Journal that builds upon the Trump presidency to-date and articulates what a forward-looking American foreign policy doctrine &#8212; which properly and solely prioritizes America&#8217;s national security interest above all else &#8212; ought to look like. Here is the crux of the authors&#8217; argument:
<blockquote>
On paper, America has defense alliances with dozens of countries. But these are the ghosts of a rivalry with the Soviet Union that ended three decades ago, or the result of often reckless policies adopted after 9/11. These so-called allies include Turkey and Pakistan, which share neither America&#8217;s values nor its interests, and cooperate with the U.S. only when it serves their purposes. Other &#8220;allies&#8221; refuse to develop a significant capacity for self-defense, and are thus more accurately regarded as American dependencies or protectorates. &#8230;
An American strategic posture aimed at minimizing the danger from rival powers needs to focus [instead] on deterring Russia and China from wars of expansion; weakening China relative to the U.S. and thereby preventing it from attaining dominance over the world economy; and keeping smaller hostile powers such as North Korea and Iran from obtaining the capacity to attack America or other democracies. &#8230;
Rather than carelessly accumulate dependencies, the U.S. must ask where it can develop real allies &#8212; countries that share its commitment to a world of independent nations, pursue democratic self-determination (although not necessarily liberalism) at home, and are willing to pay the price for freedom by taking primary responsibility for their own defense&#8230;
</blockquote>
As Hazony and Haivry argue, it is long past time for the bipartisan U.S. foreign policy ruling class to rethink shibboleths to which it has been recalcitrantly tethered. Turkey, which the authors properly highlight, is a prime example of an &#8220;ally&#8221; gone awry. Turkey was founded as a secular state out of the post-World War I ashes of the Ottoman Empire, and during the Cold War served as a NATO member (which it, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-07-11/nato-s-real-crisis-is-turkey-not-trump">unfathomably</a>, still is) and key strategic linchpin against aspirational Soviet hegemony. But under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become an irredeemably totalitarian, Islamist dictatorship that <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/erdogans-turkey-worlds-biggest-prison-journalists-opinion-1125718">jails more journalists</a> than any nation in the world and &#8212; along with <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/the-americas/us-national-security-adviser-qatar-and-turkey-are-new-sponsors-of-radical-ideology-1.683989">Qatar</a> &#8212; has long surpassed the (largely reformed, at least from an Islamist exportation perspective) Saudi monarchy as a top international funder of extremist Sunni madrasas abroad.
Is Turkey an &#8220;ally&#8221; because it is nominally still a part of NATO, or is it a geopolitical foe because it shills for Hamas, al-Qaeda, and even <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/28/turkey-is-lying-about-fighting-isis/">Islamic State</a> &#8212; all whilst generally aligning with the Iran-Qatar-Muslim Brotherhood axis that wreaks destabilizing havoc all throughout the Middle East? The question ought to answer itself.
Rather than be dragged down by inherently Western Europe-centric transnational institutions such as NATO and the United Nations, U.S. foreign policy hands must wake up to the reality that, as Hazony and Haivry put it, &#8220;China, Russia and hostile Islamist groups&#8221; serve as the three largest threats for America this century. In a short <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1114971667179147265">tweet thread</a> yesterday, I elaborated on the proper way to assess would-be U.S. alliances, under this analytical framework.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
America&#8217;s three big geopolitical threats this century are China, Russia, and Islamism&#8212;and it is time for our foreign policy elites to start formulating strategy, accordingly.
&#8212; Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1114971667179147265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
A prime example of a country that many view as an &#8220;ally,&#8221; but which is really not an ally under this premise, is Germany.
China has recently been Germany&#8217;s biggest trading partner. Germany is Putin&#8217;s main energy export outlet. And Germany is infamously cozy with Iran/Hezbollah.
&#8212; Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1114972718103969792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Similarly, two prime examples of countries that many would not view as natural &#8220;allies,&#8221; but are under this premise, are Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Saudis and Emiratis are key U.S. partners in the fight against the Iran-Qatar-Turkey-Muslim Brotherhood axis of Islamism.
&#8212; Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1114973089882869762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Above all else, conservatives must articulate a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">hard-headed foreign policy</a> that, if need be, <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1114933730878066688">subordinates</a> amorphous &#8220;values&#8221;-based concerns in favor of much more tangible &#8212; and much more legitimate &#8212; concerns about prioritizing and maximizing America&#8217;s national security. And in so doing, American foreign policy hands ought not to elevate the interests and clout of unaccountable transnational institutions. Nor should America needlessly prolong the deleterious status quo of making satrapies of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/nato-defense-spending-target/index.html">derelict</a> nations too stingy or otherwise careless to provide for their own defense.
Rather, America ought to ally with self-sufficient nation-states who care about their sovereignty and share our core national security interests in deterring Russian hegemony, Chinese ambitions, and/or Islamist aggression. In Europe, that means focusing more on nations like <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/18456/who-are-europe-most-important-politicians">Viktor Orban&#8217;s Hungary</a> than it does on nations like Angela Merkel&#8217;s Germany or on institutions like NATO. In Asia, that means focusing more on nations like India and Japan than it does on institutions like the U.N. &#8212; and potentially even the <a href="http://time.com/5565816/south-north-korea-trump-kim-moon-sanctions/">exceedingly dovish current government</a> of historic U.S. ally South Korea. And in the Islamic world, that means focusing more on nations like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates than it does on Islamist-exporting, Muslim Brotherhood-cozy states like Turkey and Qatar.
Hazony and Haivry have outlined a brilliant forward-looking foreign policy doctrine for the United States. With any luck, our bipartisan elites will follow their lead.

HAMMER: America Needs To Re-Think Its Global Alliances. Here Is How.

Japan

Saudi Arabia

Turkey

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

On Wednesday, while speaking at a conference in Washington, D.C. marking NATO&#8217;s 70th anniversary, Vice President Mike Pence used the opportunity to slam NATO allies Germany and Turkey.
While Pence said that &#8220;the alliance at 70 has never been stronger,&#8221; that did not stop him from criticizing both countries for being poor allies. 
Of Germany, Pence restated a point President Donald Trump has said for years: Germany is falling short on meeting the 2% of GDP defense spending target for NATO members.
&#8220;America is leading on the world stage once again but, you know, part of leadership is being as good as your word and holding your friends to their word,&#8221; Pence said. &#8220;In 2014, in the NATO summit in Wales, all of our allies agreed &#8212; of their own accord &#8212; to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense. The United States has done all of that and more &#8212; well more than our fair share. We make up more than two-thirds of NATO members&#8217; combined defense budget.&#8221;
When Pence singled out Germany, he said Germany was &#8220;chief among&#8221; the members falling short.
&#8220;Germany is Europe&#8217;s largest and healthiest economy,&#8221; Pence said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a leading global exporter that has benefitted from U.S. protection of Europe for generations. But last year&#8217;s annual report to parliament, on the state of the German Armed Forces, revealed glaring deficiencies in Germany&#8217;s military readiness. And yet as we stand here today, Germany still refuses to make the necessary investment of 2% GDP to our common defense. After great prodding, it agreed to spend only 1.5% of its GDP by 2024. But the draft budget for 2019 just presented to the German Parliament actually falls short of even that commitment, promising only 1.3%. Germany must do more.&#8221;
Last month, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/nato-defense-spending-target/index.html">reported</a> that only seven of the 29 NATO allies are meeting the 2% of GDP defense spending target; others included the U.S., U.K, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania. Germany reportedly is only currently spending 1.23%.
Pence was also critical of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which would transport Russian gas to Germany, according to <a href="https://www.axios.com/pence-germany-turkey-nato-conference-trump-speech-cdb1e557-1e29-45d5-aba6-fac6cf518e0c.html">Axios</a>.
&#8220;And we cannot ensure the defense of the west if our allies grow dependent on Russia and if Germany persists in building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as President Trump has said,&#8221; Pence stated. &#8220;It could turn Germany&#8217;s economy into literally a captive of Russia. It is simply unacceptable.&#8221; 
&#8220;It is simply unacceptable for Europe&#8217;s largest economy to continue to ignore the threat of Russian aggression and neglect its own self-defense and our common defense at such a level,&#8221; Pence added. &#8220;And it&#8217;s also wrong for Germany to allow itself to become energy-dependent on Russia.&#8221;
When it came to Turkey, Pence slammed the country for buying an advanced missile defense system from Russia as opposed to the U.S.
&#8220;We have made it clear that we will not stand idly by while NATO allies purchase weapons from our adversaries &#8212; weapons that threaten the very cohesion of this alliance,&#8221; Pence said. &#8220;Turkey&#8217;s purchase of a 2.5 billion S-400 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia poses great danger to NATO and to the strength of this alliance.&#8221;
Pence called Turkey&#8217;s decision to continue with the purchase even after the U.S. offered to sell it the Patriot air defense system &#8220;deeply troubling.&#8221;
Pence threatened that if Turkey completes the purchase, Turkey will risk expulsion from the joint F-35 program. He added that the U.S. notified the Turkish government this week that it would be &#8220;immediately suspending shipments of all F-35 joint strike fighter-related equipment to Turkey.&#8221;
&#8220;Turkey must choose,&#8221; Pence said. &#8220;Does it want to remain a critical partner in the most successful military alliance in history or does it want to risk the security of that partnership by making such reckless decisions that undermine our alliance?&#8221;
Axios reports that Turkey&#8217;s foreign minister said the purchase from Russia was &#8220;a done deal&#8221; at the same conference. 
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KB0t2DLgwag" width="560"></iframe></div>

Mike Pence Slams Turkey And Germany In NATO Speech

Mike Pence

After a strongly worded statement from United States Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, the German government has disallowed a planned anti-Semitic &#8220;Boycott, Divestment, Sanction&#8221; event in Berlin, and expelled its headline speaker, convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh.
<a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Germany-slated-to-allow-Palestinian-terrorist-to-speak-in-Berlin-583322">The Jerusalem Post reports</a> that the German government and the Berlin Department for the Interior responded quickly to international outcy following the announcement that Odeh was set to speak at a &#8220;Palestinian Women in the Liberation Struggle&#8221; in the country&#8217;s capital city, even after initially pledging to allow the event to go forward.
Odeh, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was the mastermind and lead bomber in an attack on a Jewish grocery store in Israel in 1969 which left two Hebrew University students dead and scores injured. She was convicted and jailed for a decade before being released in a prisoner exchange. Eventually, she ended up in the United States. She was finally deported back to her home country of Jordan in 2017, after U.S. authorities discovered she had lied about her terrorism convictions on her immigration application.
The elderly Odeh remains a hero to anti-Israel activists across the globe, and has fans in both Congresswoman Rashida Tliab (D-MI) and Women&#8217;s March leader Linda Sarsour, <a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/03/germany-to-deport-palestinian-terrorist-rasmea-odeh-at-urging-of-u-s-ambassador-richard-grenell/">according to William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection</a>. No surprise, both women have been known to express anti-Semitic views.
Grenell petitioned the German government on behalf of the Trump administration to boot Odeh when the administration discovered Germany&#8217;s interior minister planned to allow Odeh to speak at the BDS event because Germany does not explicitly prohibit the PFLP, even though both Germany and the European Union consider the group a terrorist organization.
&#8220;The rise of anti-Semitism around the world is very troubling,&#8221; Grenell <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/outrage-after-germany-permits-convicted-terrorist-entry-to-speak/">told Fox News in an interview late last week</a>, according to The Washington Free Beacon. &#8220;Some people plant the seeds of anti-Semitism while others water it and help it grow. Offering a public speaking role to a Palestinian terrorist convicted of murder, terrorism and immigration fraud legitimizes anti-Semitism at a time when we should be condemning it. I join the chorus of others who have raised their voices in Berlin standing against anti-Semitism no matter where it&#8217;s found.&#8221;
He wasn&#8217;t alone. As soon as Germans found out about Odeh&#8217;s scheduled appearance, they protested. They were still present when Berlin police approached Odeh and told her she was being sent back to Jordan, according to the <a href="https://berlinspectator.com/2019/03/15/germany-to-deport-palestinian-terrorist-rasmea-odeh/">Berlin Spectator</a>.
&#8220;Before 6:00 p.m., police officers approached Rasmea Odeh, confiscated her passport and instructed her to come to the foreigners&#8217; registration office on Monday. She might be deported to Jordan on the same day. The terrorist was also told not to participate in any events of the kind she was going to attend,&#8221; the Spectator reported.
Berlin&#8217;s mayor seemed happy about the development. Berlin, he told media, is a &#8220;cosmopolitan and tolerant city that does not give room to extremist propaganda. Anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic arguments wrapped in liberation rhetoric have no place here. I&#8217;m glad we found a way to stop this incitement.&#8221;

Germany Deports Convicted Palestinian Terrorist Rasmea Odeh, Cancels BDS Event After Outcry

Rasmea Odeh

Leave it to CNN to remind readers that even though someone is receiving threats, they probably deserve it if they are a Republican.
Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, has received at least one death threat along with other threats recently. CNN reported that one letter sent to the ambassador earlier this year &#8220;told him to leave Germany or he would be killed.&#8221;
So, how did CNN frame the situation in their headline?
&#8220;Controversial US ambassador to Germany receives threats,&#8221; the original headline read.
CNN was quickly mocked for the headline, including by Donald Trump Jr., who posted a screenshot of the headline.
&#8220;USA&#8217;s most effective ambassador is &#8216;controversial,&#8217; and it looks like CNN feels like the threats he&#8217;s been receiving just might be justified because he&#8217;s been systematically implementing @realDonaldTrump&#8217;s foreign policy agenda. What a disgrace,&#8221; the president&#8217;s oldest son tweeted.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
USA&#8217;s most effective ambassador is &#8220;controversial,&#8221; and it looks like CNN feels like the threats he&#8217;s been receiving just might be justified because he&#8217;s been systematically implementing <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a>&#8217;s foreign policy agenda. What a disgrace. <a href="https://t.co/hSXb8mU7Zs">pic.twitter.com/hSXb8mU7Zs</a>
&#8212; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1106392189624557571?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The screenshot he provided says the article was &#8220;updated 8:15 pm.&#8221; If one <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/us-envoy-germany-grenell-death-threats/index.html">visits the article now</a>, the word &#8220;controversial&#8221; has been removed from the headline and the article now says it was &#8220;updated 12:17 am.&#8221;
The only mention of the word in the article comes in the fourth paragraph, claiming Grenell is a &#8220;controversial figure in his host country&#8221; because he has warned the German government &#8220;against pursuing a gas pipeline to Russia, using Chinese technology and business contracts with Iran.&#8221;
By this logic, every ambassador should be &#8220;controversial&#8221; in their host country for pushing policies that help the U.S.
CNN goes on to claim Grenell &#8220;has carved an incendiary path since presenting his diplomatic credentials to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in May 2018, clashing with officials, businesses and the media.&#8221; The outlet also says he &#8220;has become such a polarizing figure that a large protest against him had been planned for early 2019 in Berlin.&#8221;
When asked about the threats, Grenell&#8217;s spokesman, Joseph Giordono-Scholz, told CNN: &#8220;[W]e do not publicly discuss security issues and procedures.&#8221;
CNN certainly isn&#8217;t helping matters by burning Grenell back home. In further discussing the threats, the media outlet wrote that his &#8220;tempestuous 10-month tenure provides a backdrop to the letters.&#8221;
And let&#8217;s not forget what the real issue the left-wing media has with Grenell: He&#8217;s the first openly gay U.S. ambassador and he was appointed by a Republican, not a Democrat. Many ambassadors push hard for policies that would protect America&#8217;s interests overseas. Grenell gets the most attention because of the Left&#8217;s fury that a Republican nominated him and because he&#8217;s effective.
Media bias takes many forms. One of the most vile is the not-so-subtle suggestion that a Republican deserves the threats against them. It happened after the mass shooting at a baseball field as Republicans practiced for the upcoming congressional game. The media reported the shooting for about a day (had it been Democrats who were shot we&#8217;d still be hearing about the attack) and every article added multiple caveats that the Republicans who were shot supported policies with which the left-wing media disagreed.
Grenell declined to comment for this article.

CNN Labels First Gay U.S. Ambassador As ‘Controversial’ In Article About Threats He Receives

Media Bias

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43983/course-anti-semite-corbyn-tells-labour-mps-its-ok-josh-hammer">reported</a> last month, the United Kingdom recently decided to collapse its artificial distinction between the ostensibly distinct &#8220;military&#8221; and &#8220;political&#8221; wings of the Shiite supremacist group Hezbollah, and declared that it would henceforth recognize all of Hezbollah as a unified terrorist organization.
As Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-lebanon-hezbollah/britain-to-ban-lebanons-hezbollah-as-terrorist-group-idUSKCN1QE1D2">reported</a> at the time:
<blockquote>
Britain said on Monday it plans to ban all wings of Hezbollah due to its destabilizing influence in the Middle East, classing the Lebanese Islamist movement as a terrorist organization.
London had already proscribed Hezbollah&#8217;s external security unit and its military wing in 2001 and 2008 respectively, but now wants to outlaw its political arm too.
</blockquote>
But as The Daily Wire also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43983/course-anti-semite-corbyn-tells-labour-mps-its-ok-josh-hammer">reported</a>, far-Left Labour Party chieftain &#8212; and self-dubbed &#8220;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/04/jeremy-corbyn-says-he-regrets-calling-hamas-and-hezbollah-friends">friend</a>&#8221; of Hezbollah &#8212; Jeremy Corbyn signaled his opposition to Britain&#8217;s new unified definition:
<blockquote>
Jeremy Corbyn, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/opinion/jeremy-corbyn-anti-semitism-labour-britain.html">barely veiled anti-Semite</a> who heads Britain&#8217;s increasingly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43632/mini-brexit-seven-mps-flee-labour-blast-it-josh-hammer">far-Left</a> Labour Party and has referred to jihadist groups Hamas and Hezbollah alike as his &#8220;friends,&#8221; has now responded as one might expect a &#8220;friend&#8221; of Hezbollah to respond. &#8230;
Such open terror apologia is not new for Corbyn. As The Jerusalem Post <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Labour-leader-Corbyn-photographed-laying-wreath-for-Munich-terrorists-564636">reported</a> last year, Corbyn in 2014 was photographed laying a commemorative wreath in Munich for the graves of 11 Islamic jihadists who brutally murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics held in the Bavarian city.
</blockquote>
Now, it seems that the German government &#8212; which has a <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Germany-stalls-Iran-talks-over-labeling-Hezbollah-as-terrorists-546713">long-running sordid history</a> of refusing to adequately deal with the Shiite terrorist group &#8212; agrees with Corbyn. Per <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-lebanon-hezbollah/germany-wont-classify-iran-ally-hezbollah-as-terrorist-spiegel-idUSKCN1QP1YT">Reuters</a>:
<blockquote>
Germany will not follow Britain&#8217;s lead in declaring Iran-backed Hezbollah a terrorist organization, a senior official was quoted as saying on Friday, a decision that may fuel tensions with Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Minister of State Niels Annen told weekly news magazine Der Spiegel that the Shi&#8217;ite Muslim Islamist movement remained a relevant factor in Lebanese society and the European Union had already added its military wing to a list of proscribed groups in 2013. &#8230;
Long the most powerful group in Lebanon, Hezbollah&#8217;s influence has expanded at home and in the region. It controls three of 30 ministries in the government led by Western-backed Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, the largest number ever.
</blockquote>
Hezbollah, as a Shiite group, is notably a patron of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terror-exporting Iranian regime&#8217;s</a>. Conservative columnist Michael Rubin recently <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/germanys-celebration-of-irans-murderous-regime-is-nothing-new">excoriated</a> the German government for its close ties with the Islamist mullocracy in Tehran:
<blockquote>
Germany has long been at the forefront of efforts to embrace Iran regardless of regime behavior. &#8230;For German authorities across from the political spectrum, human rights is only a tool with which to dress its foreign policy rhetoric. The German public may care about human rights, but few German elites, from the political right or from the political left, do. For German authorities, the primary goal is commercial benefit. The execution of gays, slaughter of Jews, repression of other minorities, and terrorism are inconveniences to ignore.
</blockquote>
Hezbollah, which has its roots in Lebanon, now operates as a transnational terrorist/criminal/trafficking outfit. As a breathtaking Politico Magazine <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/">exposé</a> discussed in great depth in 2017, Hezbollah&#8217;s malign activities have recently metastasized throughout the Americas:
<blockquote>
[&#8220;Operation Cassandra&#8221; was] launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
</blockquote>

Shameful: Germany Refuses To Designate Hezbollah A Terrorist Group

Radical Islam

Radical Islamic Terror

Terrorism

President Trump took a break from blasting out tweets smacking the &#8220;Obstructionist Democrats&#8221; for blocking the border wall on Thursday to take a swipe at another one of his favorite targets: CNN and the rest of the &#8220;Fake News Universe.&#8221; The occasion? The latest faux scandal, which is already backfiring on the glaringly partisan outlet that manufactured it.
&#8220;CNN &amp; others within the Fake News Universe were going wild about my signing MAGA hats for our military in Iraq and Germany,&#8221; Trump wrote Thursday evening. &#8220;If these brave young people ask me to sign their hat, I will sign. Can you imagine my saying NO? We brought or gave NO hats as the Fake News first reported!&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
CNN &amp; others within the Fake News Universe were going wild about my signing MAGA hats for our military in Iraq and Germany. If these brave young people ask me to sign their hat, I will sign. Can you imagine my saying NO? We brought or gave NO hats as the Fake News first reported!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1078431231262502912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
On Thursday, CNN <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39709/cnn-rips-troops-iraq-bringing-maga-hats-trump-sign-hank-berrien">targeted the U.S. troops</a> in Iraq who asked President Trump to sign their &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; hats and their &#8220;Trump 2020&#8221; patches during his visit Wednesday to air bases in Iraq and Germany. The network dedicated a segment of &#8220;The Situation Room&#8221; on the supposed controversy and published a follow-up on its website that suggested troops violated rules by asking Trump to sign their pro-Trump gear.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Troops bringing President Trump &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; hats to sign may have violated a military rule <a href="https://t.co/AfKkrYq7PV">https://t.co/AfKkrYq7PV</a> <a href="https://t.co/gnRoQge82S">pic.twitter.com/gnRoQge82S</a>
&#8212; CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1078086319883145218?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
For the &#8220;Situation Room&#8221; segment, CNN brought on Retired Rear Adm. John Kirby, a former Obama administration spokesperson, who said that the troops&#8217; actions were &#8220;completely inappropriate&#8221; because MAGA and Trump 2020 are campaign slogans. In its online coverage, CNN charged that &#8220;requests for the autographs could brush up against Department of Defense guidelines for political activities.&#8221; CNN then cited Department of Defense <a href="http://ogc.osd.mil/defense_ethics/topics/political_activities.html">guidelines</a> stating that &#8220;active duty personnel may not engage in partisan political activities and all military personnel should avoid the inference that their political activities imply or appear to imply DoD sponsorship, approval, or endorsement of a political candidate, campaign, or cause.&#8221;
But as The Daily Wire&#8217;s Hank Berrien <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/39739/take-cnn-air-force-says-troops-did-nothing-wrong-hank-berrien">highlights</a>, the network failed to include this clause from the guidelines: &#8220;Active duty members may, however, express their personal opinions on political candidates and issues, make monetary contributions to a political campaign or organization, and attend political events as a spectator when not in uniform.&#8221;
As the controversy heated up online, the U.S. Air Forces Europe (USAFE) responded to the CNN-promoted issue with an unequivocal statement: &#8220;There is no rule against Airmen bringing personal items to be signed by the president. Any time the commander in chief offers the opportunity to meet with Airmen, such as this official holiday visit by the President and First Lady, Airmen are welcome to participate. No policy violations have been brought to our attention at this time.&#8221;
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has also responded to CNN&#8217;s troop-targeting faux scandal. &#8220;CNN will attack anyone who supports President Trump, including the brave men and women of our military who fight everyday to protect our freedom,&#8221; she wrote Thursday.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
CNN will attack anyone who supports President Trump, including the brave men and women of our military who fight everyday to protect our freedom <a href="https://t.co/x6VjuUJFdF">https://t.co/x6VjuUJFdF</a>
&#8212; Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1078355874803056640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
CNN is now facing backlash for revealing, once again, that it has a double standard when it comes to President Trump. &#8220;Oddly, CNN never criticized troops when former President Barack Obama and his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, signed memorabilia back when Mr. Obama was campaigning to become president in 2008,&#8221; writes The Daily Wire&#8217;s Amanda Prestigiacomo.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39741/trump-amanda-prestigiacomo">CNN Attacked Troops For Getting &#8216;MAGA&#8217; Hats Signed By Trump. CNN Said Nothing When Obama Did It. </a>

Trump Mocks CNN For &#8216;Going Wild&#8217; Over Him Signing MAGA Hats For Troops

Donald Trump

Iraq

Military

On Thursday, in another victory for the Trump Administration, the German company Krempel, whose material was utilized in Iranian rockets that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad used to gas 21 adults and children, announced it would not deliver material to the Iranian government any more.
As <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-News/German-company-linked-with-Irans-rockets-stops-business-with-Tehran-575624">The Jerusalem Post</a> notes, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell has been instrumental in convincing German companies to follow Trump&#8217;s lead and separate from Iran. He stated, &#8220;Corporations realize that doing business with Iran means funding the IRGC&#8217;s terror strategy.&#8221;
Krempel spokesman Rainer Westermann said, &#8220;Since several months ago, Krempel no longer delivers goods to Iran.&#8221; Krempel makes electronic press boards used in the motors of rockets.
The announcement was a switch, as Krempel told The Jerusalem Post last April that it did not intend to terminate doing business with Iran.
The Jerusalem Post <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/German-company-involved-in-Syrian-chemical-attacks-defies-US-warnings-549486">reported</a> last April: &#8220;After a Syrian photographer found parts made by German company the Krempel Group in the remains of Iranian-produced chemical rockets that gassed Syrian civilians in January and February, the firm rejected on Wednesday new US warnings about the dangers of conducting business with the Islamic Republic &#8230; &#8220;
When asked whether it had ignored U.S. warnings, Krempel told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday it has continued business deals with Iran, but &#8220;Krempel GmbH complies strictly with legal guidelines. In unclear situations, we seek legal advice and apply corresponding measures in order to remain in compliance.&#8221; Krempel added that it now &#8220;delivers a different presspan (also not a dual-use good) exclusively to a manufacturer (OEM) [Original Equipment Manufacturer] in Iran because we can know the end usage.&#8221;
Julie Lenarz, a senior fellow at the Israel Project, fired back at Krempel, asserting:
<blockquote>
On Saturday, harrowing footage of children foaming at the mouth, dying in agony from exposure to chemical weapons, flashed across our television screens again. If our politicians want to move beyond empty mantras of condemnation, they can start by punishing the protectors of the murderous Assad regime. Since the nuclear accord was signed with Iran in 2015, European countries and companies have flocked to Tehran for lucrative business deals. The consequences have been grim.
Material sold by Krempel was caught in Iranian chemical rockets deployed against Syrians civilians. And yet the company refuses to stop trading with Iran, hiding behind smug legal truisms.
</blockquote>
Last June, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/boeing-says-not-deliver-aircraft-iran-163408191.html">Boeing announced</a> it would not deliver aircraft to Iran. A Boeing spokesman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31539/trump-effect-boeing-will-terminate-selling-hank-berrien">stated</a>, &#8220;We have not delivered any aircraft to Iran, and given we no longer have a license to sell to Iran at this time, we will not be delivering any aircraft. We did not factor the Iran orders into our order backlog either.&#8221;
At <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31696/report-after-trump-scrapped-nuclear-deal-huge-hank-berrien">roughly the same time</a>, according to an exclusive report from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-iran-nayara-exclusive/exclusive-indias-nayara-energy-begins-cutting-iran-oil-imports-sources-idUSKBN1J70XB?utm_source=Eye+on+Iran%3A+Iranian+Official%3A+We+Protected+Al-Qaeda+Terrorists+before+9%2F11&amp;utm_campaign=eye-on-iran&amp;utm_medium=email">Reuters</a>, a huge Indian energy company cut its oil imports from Iran virtually in half.
In August, Trump won <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34296/trump-wins-again-germanys-central-bank-stops-400-hank-berrien">another victory</a>: Germany&#8217;s central bank terminated a $400 million cash delivery to Iran. Deutsche Bundesbank had previously worked with the Iranian-owned European-Iranian trade bank (EIH) to end-around sanctions the United States has placed on Iran.

Another Trump Win: German Company Says It Won&#8217;t Sell Rocket Parts To Iran

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume had some fun online following the implosion of yet another concerted effort by the left-leaning media to criticize President Trump over a fact-challenged claim.
As NBC News and others reported that Trump was the first president in over a decade and a half to not visit the troops during Christmastime, Trump was already gearing up for his weeks-long scheduled surprise trips to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq and Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.
&#8220;On Christmas Day, President Donald Trump took part in a long-running practice of presidents who called troops stationed around the country and the world,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-becomes-first-president-2002-not-visit-troops-christmastime-n951846">NBC News</a> reported a day before news of the trip, plans for which had been &#8220;shrouded in secrecy,&#8221; broke. &#8220;But he broke from a recent tradition of actually visiting troops and wounded warriors. He did so in 2017, when he visited wounded troops at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Dec. 21 (and invited Coast Guard service members to play golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida). By staying home on Tuesday, Trump became the first president since 2002 who didn&#8217;t visit military personnel around Christmastime.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet"></div>
Celebrities and reporters blasted out posts criticizing Trump for supposedly neglecting the troops, including Montel Williams, #resistance-leading actress Alyssa Milano, and MSNBC&#8217;s Kyle Griffin:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Trump becomes first president since 2002 not to visit troops at Christmastime. <a href="https://t.co/VEyyij9B0S">https://t.co/VEyyij9B0S</a>
&#8212; Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) <a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1078004430836948993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Trump becomes the first president since 2002 not to visit troops at Christmastime. <a href="https://t.co/mQH2W7Bl93">https://t.co/mQH2W7Bl93</a>
&#8212; Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) <a href="https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1077896811271151616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
A few hours after NBC&#8217;s big report, the White House revealed that Trump was in Iraq visiting with troops on a surprise trip, which had been in the works for weeks. &#8220;President Trump and the First Lady traveled to Iraq late on Christmas night to visit with our troops and Senior Military leadership to thank them for their service, their success, and their sacrifice and to wish them a Merry Christmas,&#8221; tweeted White House Press Sec. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
&#8220;Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!&#8221; wrote Trump.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
President Trump and the First Lady traveled to Iraq late on Christmas night to visit with our troops and Senior Military leadership to thank them for their service, their success, and their sacrifice and to wish them a Merry Christmas. <a href="https://t.co/s2hntnRwpw">pic.twitter.com/s2hntnRwpw</a>
&#8212; Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1078007105339224064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/FLOTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FLOTUS</a> Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.! <a href="https://t.co/rDlhITDvm1">pic.twitter.com/rDlhITDvm1</a>
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1078026520021544960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
The news forced NBC to add an editor&#8217;s note at the top of the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-becomes-first-president-2002-not-visit-troops-christmastime-n951846">piece </a>(though they didn&#8217;t bother to update the false title, &#8220;Trump becomes first president since 2002 not to visit troops at Christmastime&#8221;). &#8220;On Wednesday, a day after this article was published, President Trump made a surprise visit to Iraq to greet U.S. troops. It was his first presidential visit to a combat zone,&#8221; the brief update reads.
Hume took some time to make sure the Trump critics who were so excited to hit the president over the false claim didn&#8217;t miss the update:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
By the time this was posted, the President and Mrs. Trump were in Iraq with the troops. <a href="https://t.co/g9ACNO5hxn">https://t.co/g9ACNO5hxn</a>
&#8212; Brit Hume (@brithume) <a href="https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1078021122032062464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8220;Christmastime&#8221; last at least 12 days. Dumb to post an absolute statement about it until it&#8217;s over. <a href="https://t.co/utkWvZPXnn">https://t.co/utkWvZPXnn</a>
&#8212; Brit Hume (@brithume) <a href="https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1078011709154123776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
But, as noted by The <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/26/brit-hume-schools-soledad-obrien-over-trump-shamin/">Washington Times</a> and <a href="https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2018/12/27/your-tweet-was-ridiculous-soledad-obriens-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-trump-troops-tweet-got-even-worse/">Twitchy</a>, Hume really had some fun with Soledad O&#8217;Brien, who attempted to credit the media&#8217;s &#8220;shaming&#8221; of Trump for his visit to the troops.
&#8220;Shaming him seems to work,&#8221; tweeted O&#8217;Brien in response to Hume&#8217;s comment to Milano.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Shaming him seems to work. <a href="https://t.co/KMSPnDAPyE">https://t.co/KMSPnDAPyE</a>
&#8212; Soledad O&#8217;Brien (@soledadobrien) <a href="https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1078039069072883712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Yes, Ma&#8217;am. Trump read this tweet when it was posted and time-traveled himself back to yesterday and flew to Iraq,&#8221; Hume replied. &#8220;Genius take.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Yes, Ma&#8217;am. Trump read this tweet when it was posted and time-traveled himself back to yesterday and flew to Iraq. Genius take.
&#8212; Brit Hume (@brithume) <a href="https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1078053063347372034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
O&#8217;Brien then &#8220;spell[ed] it out&#8221; what she supposedly really meant to Hume: &#8220;Sorry&#8212;let me spell it out more slowly so you can understand me: the President (according to cnn&#8217;s Barabar Starr) prepped for this trip several weeks ago. The shaming seems to have worked. I hope you&#8217;re having a nice holiday. Try not to be such an a**hole in 2019.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Sorry&#8212;let me spell it out more slowly so you can understand me: the President (according to cnn&#8217;s Barabar Starr) prepped for this trip several weeks ago. The shaming seems to have worked. I hope you&#8217;re having a nice holiday. Try not to be such an a**hole in 2019. &#65039;
&#8212; Soledad O&#8217;Brien (@soledadobrien) <a href="https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1078106365221134337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Hume wasn&#8217;t impressed. &#8220;Then why&#8217;d you post your tweet in response to one that was about a tweet sent today?&#8221; he asked. &#8220;Your tweet was ridiculous.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Then why&#8217;d you post your tweet in response to one that was about a tweet sent today? Your tweet was ridiculous.
&#8212; Brit Hume (@brithume) <a href="https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1078106767136116737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
O&#8217;Brien felt the need to &#8220;spell it out&#8221; even more: &#8220;Maybe google the number of things that have been written about the president not visiting troops?
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Maybe google the number of things that have been written about the president not visiting troops?
&#8212; Soledad O&#8217;Brien (@soledadobrien) <a href="https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1078107699181748224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39712/luke-skywalker-asked-compare-trump-darth-vader-you-james-barrett">Luke Skywalker Asked To Compare Trump To Darth Vader; You Can Guess How It Goes</a>

Menu