Latest Article from Matthew RJ Brodsky

Trump's Syria Strike Is a Good Start
The Chemical Genie and Principled Minimalism

April 20, 2018  •  The Weekly Standard

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the White House, apparently, it is worth 105 missiles if it shows the suffering of women and children from a lethal combination of sarin and chlorine gas. President Donald Trump's response, obliterating three chemical-weapons-related facilities in Syria, demonstrated that the United States will not stand idly by when certain chemical weapons (CW) are used against civilians. Coaxing the chemical genie back into the bottle was the right decision even if it came some five-and-a-half years after President Barack Obama declared "a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized" in Syria would constitute a red line.

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Latest Article from Clifford May

Middle East missions to accomplish

April 18, 2018  •  The Washington Times

Can we at least agree that President Trump's decision to strike three chemical weapons facilities owned and operated by Bashar Assad — vassal of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia — was consistent with American values?

The gassing of civilians by dictators is — for most of us, anyway — both morally repugnant and unambiguously criminal. Those who condone such practices, along with those who merely tut-tut about them, help normalize them.

War will always be hell but, to make war a little less hellish, civilized people establish rules and enforce them. If you're not certain that Mr. Trump did the right thing, imagine the counterfactual: That he had let this red line be transgressed with impunity once again.

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Latest Article from Soeren Kern

Germany: Crackdown on Middle Eastern Crime Families
"The state must destroy the clan structures."

April 17, 2018  •  Gatestone Institute

German authorities have launched a crackdown on Middle Eastern crime families in Essen, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia where some 70 Turkish, Kurdish and Arab-born clan members regularly engage in racketeering, extortion, money laundering, pimping and trafficking in humans, weapons and drugs.

Middle Eastern crime clans now control large swathes of German cities and towns — areas that are effectively lawless and which German police increasingly fear to approach.

The crime families, which have thousands of members, have for decades been allowed operate with virtual impunity: German judges and prosecutors were unable or unwilling to stop them, apparently out of fear of retribution.

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Latest Article from Ilan Berman

The Other Iranian Threat

April 17, 2018  •  Al-Hurra Digital

Whatever happened to the Iranian cyberthreat? Not all that long ago, American officials were preoccupied with the growing disruptive capabilities that the Islamic Republic had begun to demonstrate on the World-Wide Web. That, however, was before the start of negotiations over Iran's atomic program in 2013. Those talks allowed Iran's cyber activities to recede from public view, as policymakers in Washington focused their attention on nuclear diplomacy with Tehran, while Iranian hackers temporarily became more cautious in their choice of targets and the visibility of their attacks. More recently, worries about Iran's cyber capabilities have taken a back seat to concerns regarding Iran's growing conventional military might, and its mounting regional adventurism in places like Syria and Yemen. But now, Iran's movements in cyberspace are receiving some much-needed renewed attention, thanks to a new report from one of the world's leading cybersecurity firms, which warns the cyberthreat posed by Iran is growing in both sophistication and menace.

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Latest Article from Jonathan Schanzer

Why targeting Syria's chemical weapons is not enough to stop rising civilian death toll

April 15, 2018  •  Fox News

By firing 105 missiles at Syrian chemical weapons targets before dawn Saturday, the U.S., Britain and France sent a clear message to dictator Bashar Assad: they will not tolerate his regime's use of toxic gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his own citizens.

But it seems the tripartite alliance is prepared allow Assad to keep killing Syrians on massive scale using conventional weapons. The death toll in Syria after seven years of war is more than 500,000 – and rising. The fact that these deaths did not involve chemical weapons makes them no less tragic for their victims and surviving loved ones.

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Latest Article from Judith Miller

Trump says 'Mission Accomplished' in Syria but his broader strategy is still hard to discern

April 15, 2018  •  Fox News

President Trump was able to declare "mission accomplished" by tweet just hours after a missile attack by the U.S., Britain and France struck three key chemical weapons facilities in Syria early Saturday because the strike was limited, clearly defined and multilaterally endorsed.

And the attack was aimed at a single vital objective: restoring an increasingly ignored red line against the use of chemical weapons.

The attack was not aimed at toppling the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who continues to share the U.S. goal of defeating the Islamic State terrorist group. Nor did it target Syria's enablers, Iran and Russia, both of whom have a significant troop presence and other assets in Syria.

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Latest Article from Michael Freund

Demography and Jewish destiny

April 4, 2018  •  Jerusalem Post

The otherwise arcane subject of demography made quite a splash in recent days, thanks in no small measure to a courageous report prepared by a committee established by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry.

Tasked with exploring how the government should relate to millions of people around the world with Jewish ancestry, the committee did not shy away from tackling the crucial subject head on, offering a variety of practical recommendations to strengthen the connection between Israel and "lost Jews." These included ideas ranging from encouraging more academic research on the subject to facilitating visits to the Jewish state by those with a historical connection with the people of Israel.

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Latest Article from Asaf Romirowsky

The Real Reason That Palestinians In Gaza Are Marching

March 29, 2018  •  Forward

As Jews and non-Jews prepare for the 70th anniversary of Israel's creation, both Hamas and Fatah are preparing for the commemoration of the Nakba. Now on the eve of Passover and Easter, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs throughout Israel, will mark 'Land Day,' commemorating an Israeli decision in 1976 to expropriate land in the Galilee, an act that sparked riots that resulted in the death of six Israeli Arab citizens.

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Latest Article from Jeff Jacoby

The death penalty, humane and painless

March 21, 2018  •  The Boston Globe

OKLAHOMA PLAYED a key role in the effort to make capital punishment more humane.

It was Oklahoma's state medical examiner who in 1977 proposed lethal injections as a less painful, less violent method of executing murderers than hanging or the electric chair. A few years later, lethal injection was used for the first time to put a condemned killer to death. Soon Oklahoma's innovation was the primary method of execution in nearly every state with the death penalty on its books.

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Latest Article from Tevi Troy

How Blockchain Will Disrupt Colleges, the Media, and Unions, Too

January 26, 2018  •  The Weekly Standard

As the technology empowering Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, blockchains have been in the news a lot lately. Bitcoin, of course, has both roiled markets and is making world governments nervous about the possible creation of an alternative currency while simultaneously thrilling investors in crypto markets. Blockchain, however, is about so much more than just enabling digital currencies. It can be applied to everything from dating to contract law. And blockchain might even upending politics.

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Latest Article from Jeff Stier

It's High Time To Cut U.S. Funding For This Troubled International Cancer Agency
The United States has failed to hold the World Health Organization accountable for the nearly $2 billion in U.S. funding WHO receives each year.

December 19, 2017  •  The Federalist

Since Donald Trump's election, international bureaucracies that receive U.S. tax dollars have been on notice that our unchecked government largess to them is about to end. The World Health Organization is one example of a bloated, inefficient agency that is ripe for reform.

As Jeff wrote in June, "WHO is plagued by persistent wasteful spending, utter disregard for transparency, pervasive incompetence, and failure to adhere to even basic democratic standards." The United States has failed to hold the WHO accountable for the nearly $2 billion in U.S. funding WHO receives each year.

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