Pundicity: Informed Opinion and Review
 
Pundicity

Latest Article from Ilan Berman

Trump Needs A New 'Maximum Pressure' Policy ... Against Russia

February 5, 2025  •  Newsweek

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine in February 2022, it set off an unprecedented wave of Western economic pressure. That "shock and awe" campaign, orchestrated by the Biden administration and U.S. allies in Europe, was designed to ratchet up the costs of the war for the Kremlin via a raft of sanctions and other restrictions designed to isolate Russia from global markets. So far, though, Western pressure has proved to be less than meets the eye. For all of its public rhetoric to the contrary, Europe has failed to meaningfully wean itself off Russian energy, a key strategic vulnerability. In fact, the continent's dependence on Moscow has grown, as European imports of Russian natural gas actually rose from 2023 to 2024. And, despite early optimism about a mass exodus of commercial activity as a result of the war, hundreds of Western businesses (including prominent American firms like Guess, TGI Friday's, and Tupperware) still retain sizable stakes in the Russian market. As a result, although it definitely hasn't thrived, Russia's economy has managed to survive, even growing modestly over the past calendar year. For instance, wages for workers, especially those in the defense sector, have increased, while overall unemployment has decreased. This and other trends have fed official Russian triumphalism that the country will ultimately outlast the West, at least in economic terms. Yet, as the Ukraine conflict nears its third anniversary, evidence is mounting that the bill for the Kremlin's war of choice is finally coming due.

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Pundicity

Latest Article from Asaf Romirowsky

Deporting pro-terror protestors will restore order to lawless campuses

February 1, 2025  •  New York Post

"It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence."

So states an executive order signed this week by President Trump, allotting all US department and agency heads 60 days to come up with meaningful new ways to fight the rise in anti-Jewish incidents in America.

Should these officials need of inspiration, the order also refers to existing immigration laws, which permit the immediate deportation of any resident alien who "endorses or espouses terrorist activity or supports a terrorist organization."

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Pundicity

Latest Article from Clifford May

Hamas-Israel hostage deal sets dangerous diplomatic precedent

January 22, 2025  •  The Washington Times

As the ceasefire-for-hostages agreement went into effect over the weekend, Hamas terrorists – now wearing uniforms and green headbands, no longer disguising themselves as civilians – ascended from their multimillion-dollar tunnels, held their weapons high, and rode through the streets of Gaza in fully fueled vehicles.

Actual civilians also were out on the streets celebrating. In online videos you can see that they're well-fed and energetic. Many have cell phones and some carry fancy cameras.

Ask yourself: Do these people look like victims of genocide?

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Pundicity

Latest Article from Tevi Troy

Hollywood should remember what villains really look like

January 17, 2025  •  The Washington Examiner

In Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise's character must train a team of hotshot pilots to take out a facility in an unnamed country with snow-covered mountains. Were they training for a mission in Switzerland? Hollywood was so wary of having any villains identified in this one that pilots from the generic foreign adversary were literally faceless. Maverick was actually a better film than the original Top Gun —rewatch the original before complaining — but one aspect of the original that far surpassed the sequel was the thrill of seeing Cruise flip the bird to his clearly identified Russian adversaries.

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Pundicity

Latest Article from Michael Freund

Israel should annex all of Mount Hermon from Syria

January 10, 2025  •  Jerusalem Post

Early last month, shortly after the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Israel took a step that dramatically altered the strategic landscape of the entire region.

Quietly and without any prior indications, the IDF entered the buffer zone on the Golan Heights separating Israel and Syria and liberated the highest peak of Mount Hermon, raising the blue-and-white banner over the tallest mountain in either country.

And while Israeli officials were quick to insist that the move was temporary, it would be a grave mistake to forgo this territory.

For both strategic and historical reasons, the Jewish state should annex all of the newly acquired parts of Mount Hermon and formally incorporate them into Israel.

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Pundicity

Latest Article from Jonathan Schanzer

A New Era of Hezbollah Defeat

December 18, 2024  •  Commentary

Nothing lasts forever. Hezbollah's self-proclaimed "Era of Victories"—which the group inaugurated after the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon—appears to have run its course. Its new Secretary-General Naim Qassem just confessed in a televised address that Hezbollah's lifeline through Syria is now gone, thanks to the downfall of the Assad regime.

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Pundicity

Latest Article from Judith Miller

Trouble in Paradise
Palm Beach residents seek to fend off local development, but the neighboring town has other plans.

November 1, 2024  •  City Journal

Though Hurricanes Helene and Milton killed at least 24 people in Florida, caused over an estimated $50 billion worth of damage to homes and infrastructure, and left millions of residents without water and power, Palm Beach, one of the state's wealthiest enclaves, escaped the giant storms' wrath. Yet all is not well in Paradise South, home to some of the nation's wealthiest citizens.

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Pundicity

Latest Article from Soeren Kern

Is Israel Too Dependent on the United States?

September/October 2024  •  Israel My Glory

The Biden administration's decision to cut off weapons supplies to Israel during the war in Gaza has raised concerns that the Jewish state is overly dependent on the United States for its security. Washington has supplied Israel with more than 10,000 tons of munitions since October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered more than 1,200 Israelis. However, the White House has threatened to suspend further arms transfers to restrain the Israeli military by conditioning how American armaments can be used against Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iranian- backed terrorist proxy in Lebanon.

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Pundicity

Latest Article from Henry I. Miller M.D.

Mask Up Again? As COVID Cases Rise, Look To Science And Not Pundits or Politicians
Politicizers and minimizers of the pandemic continue to spread disinformation about both the effectiveness and safety of masks

September 7, 2023  •  American Council on Science & Health

I can't believe we're having this discussion in September 2023, just as the fall respiratory virus season commences and we're experiencing a new wave of COVID-19, but the politicizers of COVID won't let up. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) this week introduced legislation that "would prohibit any federal official, including the President, from issuing mask mandates applying to domestic air travel, public transit systems, or primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools."

There was also the ill-timed article by John Tierney in City Journal on August 27th claiming that "maskaholics are incorrigible" and everyone should reject masks because "we're rational."

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Pundicity

Latest from Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's Blog

The Tribal Uprising Against the Syrian Democratic Forces in Dayr al-Zur: Interview

September 4, 2023

While the ongoing protests in Syria's southern province of al-Suwayda' against the Syrian government and its policies are noteworthy, the tribal uprising in the eastern countryside of the eastern province of Dayr al-Zur against the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is arguably of greater significance, as it amounts to an actual armed revolt that has posed a serious challenge to the SDF's authority over the area- an authority that was only established because of the American-led campaign against the Islamic State. In turn the revolt raises very serious issues about U.S. policy in the region and the supposed ongoing American mission to ensure the "enduring defeat" of the Islamic State.

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