VIDEO: Hamas’ Efforts, Assisted By UNRWA, To Seize Control Of Humanitarian Aid Entering Gaza Strip thumbnail

VIDEO: Hamas’ Efforts, Assisted By UNRWA, To Seize Control Of Humanitarian Aid Entering Gaza Strip

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By Middle East Media Research Institute

Palestinians | Special Dispatch No. 11222

Hamas has recently been attempting to seize control of the delivery and distribution of  humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, out of recognition that such control is critical to maintaining its rule and its grip on the populace.[1] These efforts were spurred by reports that Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are in contact with armed clans in Gaza with the aim of establishing a local Palestinian force to replace the Hamas administration, which will distribute the humanitarian aid to the civilian population.[2]

Several reports reveal that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is helping Hamas in its efforts to seize control of the humanitarian aid, and coordinates the arrangements to deliver, secure and distribute the aid directly with the Hamas apparatuses. For instance, it was reported that a convoy of 12 aid trucks entered the northern Gaza Strip on March 17, 2024, guarded by armed operatives subordinate to Hamas, following a preparatory coordination meeting between representatives of the Hamas police and of UNRWA that took place at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital on March 16. In remarks to Reuters, a senior UN official openly admitted  that his organization is coordinating with the Hamas police. The official, Jamie McGoldrick, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said that the UN coordinates with the “Blue Police” (i.e., Hamas police), albeit “in a discreet manner,” because Israel views this force as part of the Hamas infrastructure.[3] Several Arab media outlets, among them the Rai Al-Youm online daily, likewise reported about the coordination between UNRWA and Hamas and the direct involvement of Hamas in securing the aid convoys and distributing the aid.[4] Furthermore, in a video posted on the Telegram channel of Hamas’ Civil Defense Force, a member of this force stated that his men secured the March 17 convoy.[5]

At the same time, Hamas is evidently attempting to conceal its direct involvement in, and control of, the delivery of the aid, presumably in order to deceive Israeli and international elements that are likely to oppose this. It is doing so by acting through proxies, such as “the Popular Defense Committees”, whose members explicitly note that they are subordinate to the Hamas interior ministry, and “Palestinian clans” which openly assert that they will cooperate with Hamas.[6]

Watch excerpts from the video posted by the Hamas Civil Defense Force.

This document presents the reports on coordination between Hamas and UNRWA regarding the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip, and Hamas’ efforts to conceal its direct involvement in the distribution of the aid by operating through proxies.

UNRWA, Hamas Representatives Hold Coordination Meeting At Shifa Hospital

As stated, Hamas is making efforts to take control of the aid entering the Gaza Strip and to oversee its distribution, out of recognition that this is vital to maintaining its control of the Strip. To this end, its representatives recently held coordination meetings with representatives of UNRWA, at which it was agreed that the aid would be handed over to local elements, such as tribal forces – presumably in order to obscure Hamas’ involvement – but that Hamas gunmen would oversee the operations.

On March 18, the Palestinian news site Ultrapal reported that a 12-truck aid convoy that entered Gaza on the night between March 16 and March 17 had arrived following a coordination meeting held on March 16 at Al-Shifa hospital between tribal representatives and UNRWA representatives, which was also “attended by representatives of [Hamas’] Palestinian security forces in Gaza.” According to the report, the Hamas representatives agreed that the aid trucks would “be received by the tribal [elements], who would be guarded by ’emergency committees’ comprising armed members of the various factions, chiefly Hamas, that have formulated a plan on the ground to prevent the theft of the aid and ensure that it reaches as many of the people as possible.”[7] It was also reported that, in order to ensure the orderly distribution of the aid, the “Palestinian security forces” had issued guidelines to the public, and that the “emergency committees” had been instructed to take firm measures against anyone trying to steal the aid or disrupt its distribution.[8] These committees are subordinate to Hamas’ interior ministry,[9] and the context makes it clear that the “Palestinian security forces” likewise belong to Hamas.

The “Popular Defense Committees” That Escort Humanitarian Aid Trucks: Strawman Groups Belonging To Hamas’s Interior Ministry

As mentioned above, Hamas is attempting to conceal its direct involvement in aid distribution, apparently with the goal of deceiving Israeli and international elements that may oppose this involvement since it is a way of maintaining Hamas’ control over the Gaza Strip. An additional goal may be to protect the Hamas operatives from Israeli strikes. The primary method used by Hamas to this end is the employment of organizations that ostensibly have no ties to it. Among these organizations are the “Popular Defense Committees” that were established by Hamas in February 2024, following the mass plundering of humanitarian aid trucks by civilians[10] and the criticism faced by Hamas following reports that its operatives are seizing the aid and selling it to civilians for profit.[11]

The Popular Defense Committees are comprised of masked thugs who are generally armed with clubs or with rifles, tasked with assisting Hamas’s interior ministry in managing the humanitarian aid and in dealing with thieves or vendors who inflate the prices of goods. A typical Popular Defense Committee group consists of several operatives armed with clubs, led by an operative armed with a rifle.

Even though the members of these committees claim to be volunteers,[12] they openly state that they are subordinate to Hamas’ interior ministry. For example, in one video that was circulated on social media an armed Popular Defense Committee operative says that the committees were established “to assist [Hamas’s] interior ministry.”[13] It is clear that these groups are an attempt by Hamas to conceal its direct involvement in “securing” the humanitarian aid convoys. It should also be noted that it is difficult to distinguish between Popular Defense Committee operatives and the armed and masked thugs who were seen violently seizing humanitarian aid before the establishment of the committees.

Another reason for Hamas’ use of unknown groups such as the Popular Defense Committees is presumably to protect its police officers from being targeted by Israel. According to the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, the Palestinian factions in Rafah agreed to establish “Popular Committees” that would distribute humanitarian aid at UNRWA facilities without the open involvement of Hamas police officers, out of concern that the officers would be attacked by Israel.[14]

Hamas Has Also Recruited Local Clans To Assist In Distributing Humanitarian Aid

In order to conceal its efforts to seize control of the humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, Hamas has also been employing local clans. Moreover, in light of reports that local armed tribes have been in contact with Israel and the PA in order to establish a local Palestinian force that will distribute humanitarian aid to civilians instead of Hamas, these tribes are apparently between a rock and a hard place and must take pains to defend themselves against Hamas accusations that they are collaborating with Israel and the PA. It appears that some of these clans continue to cooperate with Hamas, as evidenced by a statement published by the Supreme Council of Tribes in the Gaza Strip asserting that the tribes are unwilling to work with Israel by accepting responsibility for the distribution of humanitarian aid and that this must be done exclusively by the Hamas government.[15]

Further reports about the humanitarian aid that arrived in Gaza on the night between March 16 and March 17 suggest that Hamas coordinated the transfer of the aid not just with the Popular Defense Committees described above, but also with tribal elements. For example, the Al-Arabi Al-Jadid daily reported that the convoy arrived at UNRWA warehouses escorted by “tribesmen and security personnel.”[16] The Al-Jazeera Network likewise reported that the convoy’s arrival had been coordinated in advance by “senior tribesmen” and UN officials, and was escorted by “Palestinian security forces in Gaza.”[17]

The “Home Front” Telegram channel, operated by Hamas’ interior ministry,[18] shared on March 17 a post praising the “efforts of the Popular Committees” and the cooperation of the “families” (i.e., clans) which had enabled the arrival of the convoy, as broadcasted live on Al-Jazeera.[19]

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

[1] It should be noted that reports continue to be published about protests in the Gaza Strip against the Hamas authorities. See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10961, Anti-Hamas Protests In The Gaza Strip: The People Want To Topple Hamas; Sinwar – You Are A Collaborator, Traitor; Haniyeh – We Want To Return Home; Osama Hamdan – Come Back From Lebanon, February 1, 2024.

[2] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1755, Tensions Between Hamas And Palestinian Authority, And Between Hamas And Gaza Elements That Are Challenging It, March 19, 2024.

[3] Reuters.com, March 20, 2024.

[4] According to the Rai Al-Youm report, the March 17 aid convoy was guarded by the “Hamas police.” Raialyoum.com, March 17, 2024.

[5] T.me/dcdgaza, March 18, 2024.

[6] These attempts at deception have apparently been successful. Some reports in the Arab media claim that the delivery of humanitarian aid is carried out in coordination with local elements, such as “the Popular Committees” or “Palestinian clans” in the Gaza Strip, with no mention of any involvement by the Hamas government or its apparatuses. For example, a report on the Saudi news website Independent Arabia quoted the spokesman for the Hamas Civil Defense Force, Mahmoud Bassal, as saying that “those who coordinated [with the UN] to enable the arrival of this aid are groups of clans and civilians, overseen by the Popular Committees and by [representatives of] the neighborhoods and the mukhtars, with no presence or involvement of the security apparatuses of the [Hamas] government in Gaza.” Independentarabia.com, March 18, 2024.

[7] The report states that the ones who were responsible for disrupting the delivery of aid to the northern Strip in the past months were “gangs” and clans that oppose Hamas. This appears to be a case of apologetics, aimed at exonerating Hamas of responsibility for incidents in which the aid was seized, including by its own apparatuses.

[8] Ultrapal.ultrasawt.com, March 18, 2024.

[9] T.me/moigovps, May 12, 2023.

[10] These incidents of plundering were so extreme that the UN World Food Program halted its distribution of humanitarian aid in the northern Gaza Strip. See: Wfp.org, February 20, 2024.

[11] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 11024 – Growing Criticism Of Hamas And Its Officials By Gaza Residents: They Brought A Needless War Upon Us; Our Lives Are Worthless In Their Eyes; We Yearn To See The End Of Hamas – December 18, 2023.

[12] As stated, for instance, by one of these operatives to France24. See France24.com, March 6, 2024. The use of anonymous individuals in civilian clothing is a known tactic of Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups. For example, it is obvious that the various “units” that participated in the Right of Return Marches in 2018-2021 were operating on the orders of Hamas’s leadership and that their key operatives were members of Hamas’s military wing who simply “took off their uniforms,” as described by Hamas’ leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar. See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 7476 – The ‘Great Return March’ Campaign: An Initiative Sponsored By Hamas, Whose Goal Was To Breach The Border Fence, Penetrate Israeli Territory – May 18, 2018.

[13] T.me/mahmoudallouh90, February 28, 2024.

[14] Al-akhbar.com, March 18, 2024.

[15] Aljazeeramubasher.net, March 16, 2024.

[16] Alaraby.co.il, March 18, 2024. Twitter.com/alaraby_ar, March 16, 2024.

[17] Aljazeera.net, March 17, 2024.

[18] For examples of announcements to the people of Gaza by the “Home Front” headquarters, see MEMRI reports: Special Dispatch No. 10861 – Hamas Calls On Residents Of Northern Gaza Strip Not To Evacuate, Says Israel’s Warning Is ‘Psychological Warfare’ – October 13, 2023; Special Dispatch No. 10847 – Hamas And Palestinian Islamic Jihad To Gaza Strip Residents: Do Not Evacuate From Areas About To Be Targeted In Airstrikes –  October 10, 2023; Special Dispatch No. 10690 – Hamas Encourages Young Children To Visit Weapon Exhibitions In Gaza – July 3, 2023.

[19] Facebook.com/aljazeerachannel, March 16, 2024; T.me/aljabhaldakhliagaza, March 17, 2024.

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Biden’s Duplicitous History Against Israel

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By Barry Shaw

Biden’s long and contentious relationship with Israel goes back to June 1982 when, as a senator, Biden threatened another Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin with holding back US aid.

Joe Biden is, once again, at loggerheads with Israel.

This has been brewing for decades. Biden infamously admitted telling Benjamin Netanyahu, “Bibi I love you, but I don’t agree with a damn thing you say.” Biden seems to have learned nothing from his personal contentious relationship with Israel going back decades. Biden’s animus towards Israel has not been confined to Netanyahu.

Biden’s long and contentious relationship with Israel goes back to June 1982 when, as a senator, Biden threatened another Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin with holding back US aid to Israel which caused Begin to respond, “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”

Senator Biden reportedly banged on the table with his fist, to which Begin retorted, “This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what they think we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us.” It seems Biden failed to learn from that experience.

As a fledgling senator, Biden made his first visit to Israel in 1972, just days before the Arab attack against Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Biden visited a worried Golda Meir having come from Egypt and, according to one official who was present at that meeting, Biden told a tense Israeli prime minister that Egypt was not preparing for war against the Jewish state because, as he put it, they accepted Israel’s military superiority.

Biden was wrong. Forty days later, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan launched their war against the Jewish state on Judaism’s holiest day. Biden had been deceived by the Arabs and brought a deceptive message to Israel. Some people are saying he is doing the same today.

As vice president in the final days of the Obama presidency, Biden played a key role in delivering the anti-Israel votes in the UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016, which, in its deceptive language, cast Israel as illegally occupying land in1967 that had been illegally occupied by Jordan since the Arab war of 1948 on territory that had been granted to Israel by virtue of a majority vote for the UN Partition Plan Resolution 181 from 1947 and on which the State of Israel was established the following year.

This was Obama’s stab in Israel’s back as they were preparing to leave the White House after their defeat at the hands of Donald Trump. Obama had been upset by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s vocal challenge to the Obama-Biden disastrous appeasement policy toward a nuclear-ambitious Iran. Biden’s role in this duplicitous diplomatic move was delivering the votes for Obama who deliberately failed to apply the US veto to a damagingly anti-Israel bill they actively introduced.

When I heard Biden repeatedly say, immediately after the genocidal Palestinian Hamas horrors of October 7, that he had our backs, I preferred to reserve judgment.

Biden repeated that message when he said on October 18 that he had told Israel’s War Cabinet, “We will continue to have Israel’s back as you continue to defend your people.” I wrote at that time that given Biden’s character and two-face history, that Biden’s support would be temporary based on his inconsistent relationship with Israel.

Now Biden has proved me right in my assessment as we see Biden playing to his electoral base as he heads toward an election in which he is trailing in the polls.

Biden’s political career has centered on personal advancement. There has been no defining issue or matter of principle on which he has pinned his fate. He blows in the direction that will advance him personally and, right now, he needs votes. His pro-Palestinian base is screaming for an end of the war in support of Hamas. So now he is raising his voice and making threats to stop Israel from completing its mission in Gaza, the eradication of Hamas, and the release of our hostages, some of whom, Biden seems to have forgotten, are American.

Biden knows that Israel is setting up a safe zone for Gazans leaving Rafah. He knows that Israel is preparing a humanitarian corridor for them to travel safely. He knows that Israel will give the Gazans in Rafah early warning with instructions where to go to. In fact, many people are already leaving. But Biden fails to publicly support Israel’s efforts. Instead, he warns against an Israeli invasion into Rafah as if these humanitarian steps are not being organized by us.

This is disingenuous. Biden’s behavior is becoming erratic. In a hot mike moment, Biden is heard telling Anthony Blinken and Pete Buttigieg that, “I told him, Bibi, that you and I are going to have a ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting.”

Recently, he maliciously imposed presidential executive orders against four Israelis who killed no one accusing them of being “violent Israeli settlers,” while staying silent about the hundreds of Palestinians that have murdered thousands of Israelis, not counting the victims of 7/10.

US-Israel relations are not helped by a President expressing a Hamas-supporting narrative while inviting Benny Ganz to the White House.

This was a deliberate display of divisive politics; a malevolent act designed to split Israeli public opinion and bring down Israel’s democratically elected government at a time when we have reached a critical stage in our war against a lethal enemy.

Israel expects the US administration fully supporting our justified efforts to destroy the Hamas regime. Instead, we see Chuck Schumer, the Democrat Senate leader, following Biden’s lead. Biden and Schumer are hitting on Israel to pacify their radical base ahead of a crucial election.

The polls do not look good for Biden and Schumer, but that should not be the reason for them to stab us in the back. In fact, it will lose them even more votes given that 82% of Americans support Israel, according to a recent Harvard poll.

Both Biden and Schumer have warned they could stop vital arms supplies to Israel. This constitutes a treacherous and existential threat to Israel. If they go through with his threat, Israel may not be able to complete its mission in Gaza. Also, Israel will be unable to deal with the Hezbollah threat from Lebanon that is preventing a hundred thousand displaced residents from returning to their homes and businesses in the north of Israel.

Furthermore, Iran could use the opportunity of an under-supplied Israel to order their Lebanese Hezbollah proxy to unleash their massive arsenal of 160,000 powerful and precision-guided rockets that could destroy the coastal heartland of Israel in a blitzkrieg of epic and devastating proportions.

Israel needs to finish the job in Gaza, reject Biden’s vindictive punishment of individual Israelis with his iniquitous Executive Orders, and resist his efforts to reward Hamas and Fatah with the creation of a “technocrat” Palestine state.

©2024. Barry Shaw. All rights reserved.

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Noble Dreaming

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By Juliana Geran Pilon

In “Time for Two States,” Rachel Lu observes that after the shocking events of October 7, “the sequence of events was somewhat predictable. Israel retaliated. It was clear they would win.” Well, maybe not win, exactly. But definitely, “Israel’s war with Hamas is reaching its final stages.” If only it were. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Israelis have made only partial progress in finding and destroying Hamas’s vast tunnel network [i.e., 350 miles of tunnels under an area 30 miles by 8 miles].” It is exceptionally treacherous. No one can reliably anticipate the potential damage, reports the Journal.

Still, Ms. Lu’s optimism is undaunted. She concludes that “however the end game plays out, the IDF should soon have its victory.” I sincerely pray that she may be right. One must hope that Hamas’s Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, is wrong to believe that it is Hamas who is actually winning despite the major losses it has clearly suffered. After all, all it has to do, says Sinwar, is “declare a historic victory by outlasting Israel’s firepower and claim the leadership of the Palestinian national cause.”

It is in that context that one must evaluate Ms. Lu’s view that “there is no reasonable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem that does not involve two sovereign states.” Fair enough. But the question is: when and in what circumstances? Definitely not now, argues Israeli historian Gadi Taub. In a powerful article published February 12, 2024, in Tablet Magazine, Taub writes that “compelling as it is as a debating strategy, or a form of self-therapy, [the two-state formula] is no solution at all … a noble dream … but just that—a dream.” A lifelong liberal, he had shared that dream with many other Israelis until October 7, which was the nation’s wake-up call, a living nightmare for all but a negligible number of the mislabeled “woke.”

Palestinian self-rule is undoubtedly preferable to most alternatives. But as the former head of the East Jerusalem mission of the Quartet (consisting of the US, EU, UK, and Russia) Envoy Robert Danin told reporters on March 1, 2024:

[Palestinians] don’t want the Israelis there, but they don’t want the Palestinian Authority either; the PA doesn’t care about Gaza. They don’t want Hamas either. They want to have a voice for themselves.

Will that voice be allowed to be heard? For unless and until it does, any two-state solution is predicated on premises that are at best dubious and at worst delusional.

Recent surveys indicate that a majority of Palestinians support Hamas and approve of the October 7 massacres. These include the populations under the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) jurisdiction, which they detest as corrupt and weak. Hence, the Biden administration’s plan to put the PA in charge of Gaza is utterly unrealistic, argues Taub. “There is no such thing as a ‘revitalized’ Palestinian Authority, because there is no one who wants to ‘revitalize’ it in such a way as to make it conform to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s sales pitch.” Under the circumstances, Israelis “believe that turning Judea and Samaria into another Hamastan to satisfy those who see the massacre as an inspiration and its perpetrators as role models would be suicidal. Who in their right mind would inflict the ensuing bloodshed on their partners, children, friends, and parents?” For Ms. Lu, therefore, to argue that the only way to peace “probably will not be possible without a good-faith commitment on Israel’s part to work towards a two-state solution,” must be seen in the proper context.

Israel is currently fighting not only for its own survival but also for ours.

Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration proclaimed that the British government “view with favor the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in their homeland,” the Jews have hoped that their two-thousand-year-old exile would finally end. They sought to live alongside their neighbors as best they could. Yet in all that time, writes Taub, “there never was a Palestinian leadership ready to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish nation-state. That is a constant fact of life in the conflict.” Israel never denied the Palestinians a right to govern themselves. By contrast, “the Arab side has rejected any and all partition plans starting with the Peel Commission in 1937, the United Nations partition resolution of 1947, and all the way through the various American mediation plans and Israeli offers, and those offered by Israeli leaders.” Israel’s “land-for-peace” strategy, whereby it relinquished territory it had acquired after pushing back Arab military attacks in exchange for accepting its right to exist, was an utter failure.

Ms. Lu concludes her article by reminding her readers that “we should bear in mind that citizenship, and the basic rights and freedoms that go with it, really aren’t the kind of thing that a person should have to earn.” A commendable ideal, without a doubt. One shouldn’t have to earn rights that America’s founders, invoking the key commandment of Genesis, declared self-evident. But since when have basic rights and freedoms not been earned at the steep price of its defenders’ lives? Since when has freedom, that most fragile of human blessings, not had to be earned again and again?

Palestinians have yet to be given a chance to enjoy those rights by those who use them as cannon fodder, expropriate their food and medicine, and reduce them to misery. Fellow Muslims on Iran’s payroll have shown them far less empathy than do Jewish medical personnel who save Palestinian lives in Israeli hospitals, and soldiers who seek to keep Palestinian civilian casualties at a minimum while fighting to free innocent Jewish hostages, including women, little children, and grandparents, who are severely maltreated in captivity.

Basic rights and freedoms must never be taken for granted. When lost, recovering them is hardly guaranteed. Americans would do well to remember that, because whether we realize it or not, we too are in the line of fire. Iran’s leadership considers Israel merely the Little Satan; Big Satan is none other than America. The growing alliance of this barbaric Islamist regime with Russia, China, and North Korea, all of which deny their own populations the most basic rights, does not bode well. Israel is currently fighting not only for its own survival but also for ours.

*****

This article was published by Law & Liberty, and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

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Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

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REPORT: Biden Administration’s Abuse of Parole for Illegal Aliens Now Outpaces Admission of Legal Immigrants

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By Federation for American Immigration Reform

Washington, D.C. — Unprecedented abuse of immigration parole authority by the Biden administration is currently allowing more illegal aliens into the United States than the U.S. admits through the legal immigration process, finds a new report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Data detailed in the report, Immigration Parole: The Executive Branch’s Shadow Immigration System, reveals that during the first two quarters of fiscal year (FY) 2023, 636,601 foreign nationals gained entry to the United States via parole compared with 545,419 who were granted green cards through our legal immigration system.

The abuse of parole is effectively creating a shadow immigration system that circumvents Congress. The Biden administration has paroled in at least 1.8 million individuals in two years, giving these illegal aliens nearly the same benefits as green cardholders. This widespread abuse of parole authority has been carried out in order to make the unprecedented influx of illegal aliens under the Biden administration less visible to the American public.

In addition to illegal aliens who are granted parole upon entering the country illegally – such as Jose Ibarra, who is accused of murdering Laken Riley, the Georgia nursing student – the administration has created a parole program that allows citizens of certain countries who don’t have visas and are ineligible to be admitted to fly directly to the United States. Upon their arrival, they receive parole, are released, and become eligible for work permits and other benefits. Illegal aliens who are granted parole to enter the U.S. have undergone inadequate vetting, increasing the national security and public safety risks to Americans.

“The Biden administration has taken a program that, by statute, is supposed to be temporary and exercised on a case-by-case basis and created what they term as a ‘new legal pathway’ for people to enter and remain permanently in the country,” said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “To be clear, there is nothing legal about these pathways. Under our Constitution, only Congress has the authority to create legal avenues for people to enter the United States. Nevertheless, the administration has usurped that authority to implement what amounts to a shadow immigration system that now exceeds in scope the formal legal immigration process.”

Among the Biden administration’s most egregious abuses of parole authority include:

  • Development of the CBP One app, which facilitates appointments for illegal migrants heading to the U.S., and has resulted in the parole of over 43,000 illegal aliens each month from ports of entry.
  • Creation of new programs for nationals of Ukraine and Afghanistan, which violate the statutory prohibition on paroling in refugees, bypass the established refugee process, and circumvent its standard vetting procedures.
  • Establishment of country specific parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that allow as many as 360,000 inadmissible aliens a year to fly directly to the United States.
  • Creating “Family Reunification Parole” programs for the above-mentioned nationalities plus citizens of Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Honduras.
  • Reinstatement of the Obama-era Central American Minors (CAM) and International Entrepreneurial parole programs.

Illegal aliens granted parole are eligible for numerous public assistance programs and work authorization, and are able to adjust their status to green card holders. In addition, they are not monitored or required to check in with the government while in the United States.

“This week Congress is holding hearings to examine the scope and impact of the Biden administration’s flagrant abuse of parole. It is imperative that these hearings result in Congress passing clearly worded legislation – such as those provisions included in H.R. 2 — that curtails executive discretion and explicitly defines the specific, and limited, circumstances under which an alien may be released via parole into the United States,” Stein concluded.

FAIR’s full report, Immigration Parole: The Executive Branch’s Shadow Immigration System, can be found here.

EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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RFK Jr. Comes Out Against Gaza Ceasefire

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By The Daily Caller

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. strongly questioned the wisdom of a ceasefire in Gaza during an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

“I don’t even know what that means right now,” Kennedy, who is running as an independent, told Reuters in response to a question about a temporary ceasefire.

Kennedy argued that Hamas had used every previous ceasefire to merely “rebuild and then launch another surprise attack,” the outlet noted.

“So what would be different this time?” Kennedy asked Reuters.

Kennedy argued that Israel had not chosen to fight the current war and blamed Hamas for rejecting a two-state solution and for its history of aggression.

“Any other nation that was adjacent to a neighboring nation that was bombing it with rockets, sending commandos over to murder its citizens, pledging itself to murder every person in that nation and annihilate it, would go and level it with aerial bombardment,” he said. “But Israel is a moral nation. So it didn’t do that. Instead, it built an Iron Dome to protect itself so it would not have to go into Gaza.”

Kennedy told Reuters that the Oct. 7 attack — which killed over 1,200 people and left some 250 as Hamas hostages — left Israel with no other option but to invade Gaza.

“[T]he scale of these attacks means it is likely that Israel will need to wage a sustained military campaign to protect its citizens,” Kennedy tweeted the day of the terrorist attack. “Statements of support are fine, but we must follow through with unwavering, resolute, and practical action. America must stand by our ally throughout this operation and beyond as it exercises its sovereign right to self-defense.”

This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense. We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself — now. As President, I’ll make sure that our policy…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 7, 2023

Kennedy’s rejection of a ceasefire with Hamas puts the ex-Democrat at odds with an increasing number of prominent politicians in his former party.

A group of House Democrats, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, introduced a ceasefire resolution on Oct. 16, 2023; Democratic Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley wrote an article backing a ceasefire on Nov. 20; and Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed an “immediate ceasefire” on March 3.

AUTHOR

ILAN HULKOWER

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Posters By Al-Qaeda Supporter Call On Muslims To Kill Jews, Americans, Britons Worldwide In Support Of Islam

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By Middle East Media Research Institute

In recent days, Sandar Al-Ghafiqi, a prolific Al-Qaeda supporter, published two posters inciting Muslims around the world to jihad. This report reviews the posters.

Call For Jihad To Resist Harm Of Muslims In Gaza, Europe, Sudan

On March 8, Al-Ghafiqi published[1] a poster in Arabic on the Al-Qaeda-operated Rocket.Chat server, titled “Who [Will Come] to [Support] the Wounds of Islam?“, calling on Muslims to support Islam with jihad in light of the difficult situation of Muslims in various places around the world.

Among the places mentioned are Gaza, where Al-Ghafiqi alleges residents are being “exterminated” by Jews, shelled by their aircraft, and starved; Europe—referred to as the “land of Ibn Tashfin,” alluding to the fourth leader of the Almoravid dynasty, who ruled Al-Andalus [Spain] in the 11th century—where Muslim children, women, and the elderly are being killed and robbed because of their faith by “hateful Crusaders”; and Sudan, where Al-Ghafiqi claims Muslim women are harmed and their honor violated with impunity. Referring to these events, he asserts that “conscience and hearts no longer exist.”

The poster concludes: “Hurry up, O sons of Islam, as the matter is serious and severe. How can you live in peace while Muslim blood is shed in every tract of land? Islam will not achieve a relief nor a victory without jihad; you will only be humiliated and degraded if you abandon the sword of truth.”

Killing Jews, Americans, Britons Brings Muslims Closer To Allah; War In Gaza Will Be Followed By ‘Decisive Battles’ Foreseen By Prophet Muhammad

On March 19, Al-Ghafiqi published[2] a poster in Arabic titled “Implement the Commandment and Fulfill the Commitment,” calling on Muslims around the world to kill Jews, Americans, and Britons.

Addressing Muslims “everywhere,” including “the West and the East, Muslim and non-Muslim countries,” the poster urges the killing of every Jew, American, and Briton they encounter, as only this “blessed act” will “deter” them. It asserts: “By their blood, you get closer to Allah Almighty.”

The poster further urges Muslims to prepare for future “decisive battles.” It warns that “Al-Aqsa Flood” [Hamas’ name of the war in Gaza] will be followed by additional battles, and calls on readers to prepare for the “greatest epic battle” mentioned by the Prophet Muhammad, and retain readiness to protect Islam and “its people.”

Claiming that the ummah [Islamic nation] is “occupied” and “controlled,” the writer stresses that Muslims must revolt, fight for the sake of Allah, and stop “wandering.” This applies not only to the mujahideen of Al-Qaeda and other groups, he emphasizes, but to every Muslim.

Al-Ghafiqi concludes: “We must feel what our Muslim brothers in Gaza, Palestine, and everywhere are experiencing, and we must rise up to stop this injustice and abuse of the servants of Allah and our Muslim brothers everywhere.”

Alongside the text, a photo of Khalid Batarfi, deceased leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is displayed. Batarfi’s death was announced in a March 10 official AQAP video,[3] without specifying its circumstances.

Since the beginning of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, Al-Ghafiqi has published multiple posters, essays and even a video clip inciting Muslims to jihad against Jews and their allies worldwide.[4]

1] March 8, 2024.

[2] March 19, 2024.

[3] See MEMRI JTTM report: Al-Qaeda In Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Announces Death Of Leader Khalid Batarfi, Names Successor, March 11, 2024.

[4] See MEMRI JTTM reports: Poster By Al-Qaeda Supporter Declares Jihad Only Way To Defeat U.S., Jews, Arab Rulers, February 26, 2024; Pro-Al-Qaeda Poster Incites Attacks On Embassies, Malls, Festivals, And Jewish Neighborhoods And Businesses: ‘Make The Jews Forget The Devil’s Whispers With Your Actions’, January 29, 2024; Supporters Of Islamic State (ISIS), Al-Qaeda, Exploit Sudan’s Conflict To Incite Muslims To Join Ranks Of Jihad, January 3, 2024; Prominent Al-Qaeda Supporter Calls On Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese To Storm Israel’s Borders And ‘Annihilate The Jews’, December 12, 2023; Video By Prominent Al-Qaeda Supporter Calls To Support Gaza By Killing ‘Zionists’ Around The World, Boycotting Israel, November 27, 2023.

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RELATED VIDEO: Michael Yon on the Darién Gap: A Gateway for Population Invasion

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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As the Border Crisis Intensifies, Almost 70% Link Migrants to Violent Crime

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By Family Research Council

This week, Jason Riley, father of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley who was brutally killed, joined NBC News in a heartfelt interview claiming that his daughter was “like an angel” and “so full of life.”

When discussing his daughter’s murderer, a Venezuelan migrant who entered the U.S. illegally in 2022, Riley told the interviewer that he might not have been in the U.S. “had we had secure borders,” in the first place. The grieving father went on to share that he feels like his daughter is “being used somewhat politically,” especially after Joe Biden’s State of the Union, when he erroneously referred to her as “Lincoln Riley.”

Riley’s interview came shortly after Laken’s mother, Allyson Phillips, wrote a Facebook post addressing the “most devastating, unimaginable loss” of her daughter. Despite her sorrow, Phillips attributed her strength to the Lord. “I would like to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for being with me and my family during this heartbreaking time,” she said. “I encourage everyone to have a personal relationship with Jesus. I give Him all the glory for getting us through this.”

In the bleak weeks following Laken’s death, lawlessness from illegal immigrants has soared in the U.S., leading almost 70% of people to believe that the open borders “may contribute to the violence crime in America.” The Rasmussen poll, interestingly, found that 64% of white people are concerned about the crime committed by illegals, while among black people, 73% are worried. “And why wouldn’t they be?” Breitbart’s John Nolte asks. “[They] disproportionately live in Democrat-run cities that posture as sanctuary cities.”

Even a majority of Democrats — 51% — think there’s a connection between our border crisis and crime (compared to 84% of Republicans. “When asked if illegal immigration makes America better or worse, only 14% said better.”

And the evidence seems to be everywhere. While Riley’s murder continues to circle the news, the leader of a human trafficking ring has also been sentenced to prison for sneaking over 1,000 migrants across the southern border and then dropping them off in Phoenix, Arizona. The consequence of Martin Garcia-Velazquez’s furtive actions is 7.5-years in prison, followed by 35 months of supervised release. The Mexican native was also mandated to pay a special assessment of $5,000 by U.S. District Judge Scott Rash.

The investigation, conducted by Homeland Security, found that Garcia-Velazquez had three co-conspirators, all prosecuted in October. In a statement issued by the Department of Justice, it notes that the prosecution was an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation, which “identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States.”

Another tragedy making headlines involves a 26-year-old Haitian native, Cory Alvarez, who reportedly raped a disabled 15-year-old girl last week at a hotel housing migrants. Amidst the current chaos in Haiti, Alvarez was flown into New York City last summer by President Biden’s CHNV parole program. The program, established in October of 2022, authorizes 30,000 people each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, “to fly into the U.S. and be granted two years of humanitarian parole, which allows them to apply to work in the U.S.”

While Alvarez might have entered the U.S. lawfully, conservative leaders have criticized the current administration for their loose hold on immigration. “Biden flew this illegal dirtbag into our Country. No border, no budget. Shut it down,” tweeted Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett.

As millions of illegal immigrants flood the U.S. southern border and thousands fly over it, reports suggest that the Biden administration has financed the whole operation.

“According to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) findings by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) put hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants on planes and flew them into 43 different U.S. airports last year alone,” wrote The Washington Stand’s S.A McCarthy.

This administration’s choices regarding the border, economy, and foreign affairs are unfavorable, as only 39.8% of Americans approve of Biden’s job as president. The president’s low rating for his third year in office claimed the title of second worst. “Among prior presidents in the Gallup polling era who were elected to their first term, only Jimmy Carter fared worse in his third year.” Carter’s 37.4% rating was primarily attributed to high gas prices, rising inflation, and because U.S. citizens were taken hostage by Iran. Experts argue that President Biden’s low rating can be attributed to the flood of illegal aliens allowed into the U.S. under the current administration.

AUTHOR

Abigail Olsson

RELATED ARTICLE: Supreme Court Pivots, Will ALLOW Texas To Arrest, Deport Illegals In Stunning Blow to Biden Regime

RELATED VIDEO: Michael Yon on the Darién Gap: A Gateway for Population Invasion

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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Netanyahu after talk with Biden: ‘We are determined to complete the elimination of Hamas’

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By Jihad Watch

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains resolute despite world pressure and interference. He addressed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about his continued goals. He also discusses briefly a phone call with Joe Biden. (Courtesy: Israel Government Press Office)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 19 March 2024), made the following remarks at the start of his meeting with the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee [translated from Hebrew]:

“We are in a dual campaign – a military campaign and a diplomatic campaign. Of course, they are inter-connected, the diplomatic fight gives us the time and the resources to reach the full results of the war.

We have been fighting for over five months, this is a record in the history of Israel’s wars, except for the War of Independence. We are – of course – under growing international pressure, which we are rejecting in order to achieve the goals of the war. The goals of the war are, to be succinct: The destruction or elimination of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the release of all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel.

In order to do this, we need to complete the military elimination of Hamas. There is no alternative to this. We cannot go around it; neither can we say ‘We will destroy 80% of Hamas and leave 20%’, because from that 20%, they will reorganize and take over the Strip again and – of course – constitute a new threat to Israel. And of course, this will be a victory for the greater axis that threatens us – the Iranian axis.

Therefore, we are determined to complete the elimination of Hamas. This requires the elimination of the remaining battalions in Rafah and – of course – the 1.5 battalions in the camps in the center. We are determined to do this. We have a debate that I will put on the table, and we all know it. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also said this yesterday. We have a debate with the Americans over the need to enter Rafah, not over the need to eliminate Hamas, but the need to enter Rafah. We see no way to eliminate Hamas militarily without destroying these remaining battalions. We are determined to do this.

Out of respect for the President, we agreed on a way in which they can present us with their ideas, especially on the humanitarian side; of course, we fully share this desire to facilitate an orderly exit of the population and the providing of humanitarian aid to the civilian population. We have been doing this since the beginning of the war.

However, I made it as clear as possible to the President that we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion.”

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Hamas’s New Friend In The White House

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By Mark Wallace

The 20th century and early 21st century are remarkable for the large number of terrorist organizations arising during these years.  They include not only those most recently in the news — Hamas and Hezbollah — but also the Baader-Meinhof Gang (Germany), the Japanese Red Army, the Weathermen (U.S.), the Red Brigades (Italy), Black September (Arab), Timothy McVeigh and others.  What they all have in common is a willingness to extinguish human life to achieve some purported political objective.  Typically, terrorists don’t much care if they happen to kill babies and toddlers.  For example, Timothy McVeigh described the death of infants and children in a child care center in the Oklahoma City federal building that he destroyed as “collateral damage.”

But all terrorist groups are not created equal.  Some are clearly far more barbaric and savage than others.  Although the more mellow terrorists feel themselves to be free to murder children and infants along with adults, even they appear to be reluctant to intentionally target children.  For example, there is no recorded instance of the Baader-Meinhof Gang or the Red Brigades bombing a kindergarten class.

During the last six months, the terrorist organization Hamas has proven itself to be the most savage, barbaric, ruthless and evil terrorist organization the world has yet seen.  Hamas’s totally unprovoked October 7 attack on Israel included not just the rape and murder of civilians, but also putting innocent young babies into ovens and burning them alive — all for the crime of being Jewish. 

After Black September murdered Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972, the State of Israel hunted down and killed each and every participant in that atrocity.  This action was completely justified.  After Hamas murdered thousands of Israelis on October 7, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made it an objective of the State of Israel to ideally eliminate but in any event greatly degrade Hamas’s ability and capacity to subject Israel’s population to further atrocities.  This action is also completely justified.

Hamas is currently holding United States of America citizens as hostages.  One would think that this fact, along with the incredible savagery and brutality of the October 7 attack, would have led the Biden Administration to encourage Prime Minister Netanyahu to do everything in his power to rid the world of Hamas.  Clearly, Hamas’s members and adherents are miscreants who have no place in this world or the next.  A world without Hamas would be a far better world.

Incredibly — and most unfortunately — President Biden has completely lost whatever moral compass he may originally ever have had and appears to have chosen up sides in favor of Hamas.  Through Senator Chuck Schumer (with whom Biden has said he agrees), Netanyahu has been called an impediment to peace.   It has been suggested that Israel hold a new election so that this “impediment to peace” can be removed from office and replaced with a more Hamas-friendly politician.  Get rid of the guy who is winning the war for Israel and ridding the world of the most savage and brutal terrorists it has ever known and replace him with someone willing to disregard the October 7 barbarity and make peace with those committed to Israel’s destruction (“from the river to the sea”).

Imagine that. Imagine if in 1940 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had called for the British people to oust Winston Churchill and replace him with a new prime minister more friendly to Hitler.

The conservative media has alleged that Biden is siding with Hamas in order to curry favor with Arab-Americans in the must-win states of Michigan and Minnesota.  And what happens if the American hostages end up dead in all this?  Biden probably would call it “collateral damage.”  As Lenin said, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

One can imagine Hamas operatives sitting in their tunnels and rubbing their hands with glee upon hearing that the Biden Administration is now urging Israel to jettison Netanyahu, Hamas’s most formidable enemy.  One can also hope that the good people of Israel will have the common sense of retaining in office the great Israeli patriot who is leading them to victory over some of the worst people ever to inhabit this planet.

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

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Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce Law Allowing Police To Arrest And Deport Illegal Immigrants

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By The Daily Caller

The Supreme Court allowed Texas’ law enabling local police to arrest illegal migrants to take effect Tuesday.

After extending a pause on the law multiple times, the Supreme Court allowed Texas’ SB 4 to take effect Tuesday, declining the Biden administration’s effort to halt it while litigation continues. The Department of Justice (DOJ) first filed its lawsuit against Texas to prevent enforcement of the law in January.

“The Court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos, when the only court to consider the law concluded that it is likely unconstitutional,” Justice Sonia Sotomyaor wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “This law implicates serious issues that are subject to ongoing political debate, and Texas’s novel scheme requires careful and reasoned consideration in the courts to determine which provisions may be unconstitutional.”

Justice Elena Kagan also wrote in a dissent that she would not have allowed the law to take effect.

🚨🚨 HUGE WIN: Texas has defeated the Biden Administration’s and ACLU’s emergency motions at the Supreme Court. Our immigration law, SB 4, is now in effect. As always, it’s my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and to lead us to victory in court.

— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) March 19, 2024

U.S. District Court Judge David Alan Ezra, a Reagan appointee, blocked Texas’ law from taking effect in February, finding it “threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.” The Fifth Circuit issued an administrative stay early March allowing the law to take effect while it considered the appeal, prompting the Biden administration to file an emergency application with the Supreme Court.

“So far as I know, this Court has never reviewed the decision of a court of appeals to enter—or not enter—an administrative stay,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a concurrence joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “I would not get into the business.”

“Texas’s motion for a stay pending appeal was fully briefed in the Fifth Circuit by March 5, almost two weeks ago,” Barrett wrote. “Merits briefing on Texas’s challenge to the District Court’s injunction of S. B. 4 is currently underway. If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this Court.”

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Federal Judge Blocks Texas Law That Would Allow Law Enforcement To Arrest Illegal Migrants

POST ON X:

🚨🚨🚨BREAKING: Delivering a massive loss to Biden’s open border regime, in a 6-3 emergency order SCOTUS will allow Texas to arrest and deport illegals asserting broad new authority arguing the Constitution authorizes the state to defend itself against an invasion.

Boom!!

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 19, 2024

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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Israel’s Strategic Game Of Survival

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By Center For Security Policy

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s obscene call on the Senate floor on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ouster from power was the latest sign that Hamas’s strategy is working.

On the “Caroline Glick Show” this week, U.S. Military Academy professor Col. John Spencer, who chairs West Point’s Urban Warfare Studies Program, explained that the terrorist organization’s plan for victory is a concerted political-military strategy.

Hamas, he said, knew that the Israeli Defense Forces would respond in force to its Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel. “They wanted Israel’s counterattack, and then they wanted to hold in the tunnels and use the hostages just to buy time for the international community—namely, the United States—to stop the IDF in their operations.

“Their only goal is to survive. … It’s all about time. They want to survive Israel’s attack against them, which gives them immense political power. If they survive in any way, they have strategically won the war,” said Spencer.

Hamas didn’t invent this approach. This has been the Palestinians’ strategy for defeating Israel since at least the 1982 First Lebanon War. In that conflict, the PLO relied on the United States to force Israel to permit the PLO to survive to fight another day, by leaving Lebanon for Tunisia.

The Palestinians clearly identified Israel’s greatest strategic vulnerabilities and built their strategy around them.

Its first vulnerability is its Jewishness. Israel is the Jew of the international community. As such, it is continuously scapegoated, just as Jews have been scapegoated throughout history. The United States is the only powerful nation that has ever been willing to stand up to international bigotry against the Jewish state. So the only thing needed to collapse Israel’s international position is for America to turn against it.

This goes double for military capabilities. Since 1973, Israel’s ability to keep its military operating during a war has been dependent on U.S. resupply. The Palestinians reason that if their many friends can convince Washington not to supply Israel with weapons in wartime, then their terrorist forces will survive.

Since all the Palestinian terrorists need to do to win is survive, their strategic aces in the hole are antisemitism and time.

Today, all aspects of U.S. policy regarding the Hamas war against Israel in Gaza and the larger Iranian-directed war to destroy the Jewish state are aligned with the Palestinian strategy.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Caroline Glick

Caroline B. Glick is a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy. She is a senior columnist at Israel Hayom and the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, (Crown Forum, 2014). From 1994 to 1996, she served as a core member of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

POSTS ON X:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
“I made it clear to President Biden in our conversation, in the clearest way, that we are determined to complete the elimination of Hamas in Rafah as well.” pic.twitter.com/hpxxCjWA7L

— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) March 19, 2024

Biden considers cutting off Israel in its defense against Hamas and other jihadists. https://t.co/ABSTDF5yLt

— J Michael Waller (@JMichaelWaller) March 19, 2024

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

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House Launches Broad Probe into China’s Infiltration of U.S.

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By Dr. Rich Swier

On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee announced the launch of a wide-ranging investigation into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to infiltrate “every sector and community” in the U.S.

The probe, which has the stated objective to “thwart the CCP’s political and economic warfare campaign,” is being initiated with letters sent to nine different federal agencies requesting reports on what the agencies are doing to counter the communist regime’s efforts, along with how the agencies are coordinating their efforts with each other.

“Without firing a single bullet, the Chinese Communist Party is waging war against the U.S. by targeting, influencing, and infiltrating every economic sector and community in America,” Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) stated. “The lives and security of all Americans are affected. The Oversight Committee has a responsibility to ensure the federal government is taking every action necessary to protect Americans from the CCP’s ongoing political warfare.”

The sectors that the investigation will focus on include education, agriculture, critical infrastructure, research, energy, business, space, and technology. Examples of the CCP’s incursion into these sectors have been making headlines for decades. Here are some recent examples in each sector.

Education: Almost 150 U.S. K-12 schools have been linked to “Confucius Classrooms” which attempt to spread communist propaganda. In higher education, “Confucius Institutes” (which have now been rebranded but have the same communist goal) have popped up in dozens of American universities. In addition, the regime has given over $426 million to U.S. universities since 2011, which experts say has led to increasing influence behind closed doors.

Agriculture: Chinese companies have purchased hundreds of thousands of acres of American farmland, some of which are near U.S. military installations.

Infrastructure: The Chinese government is attempting to “covertly plant offensive malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure networks,” which is currently at “a scale greater than we’d seen before,” according to a report from FBI Director Christopher Wray in February.

Research and Technology: The CCP’s efforts to steal American scientific research and technology are well documented. Comer wrote to the National Science Foundation noting that the regime’s efforts to steal and influence research “takes a holistic approach and includes covert and legal means” and that it is attempting to weaponize “U.S.-backed research and technology for uses that are contrary to U.S. national security and competitiveness.”

Energy: In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Comer writes that the CCP has “successfully pressured U.S. environmental players and industries into adopting initiatives that plainly benefit China at great costs to American businesses and consumers.”

Business: China’s influence over corporate America was illustrated quite clearly recently when a room full of U.S. corporate executives gave Chinese President Xi Jinping multiple standing ovations in his visit to the U.S. last November. Comer also noted the CCP’s efforts to launder money through America’s real estate and casino industries. “These activities allow the CCP to engage in corporate espionage, feed the fentanyl crisis in the U.S., influence our nation’s schools and culture, and otherwise advance destructive goals on American soil,” he wrote in a letter to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Space: As previously reported, the regime is currently pursuing “a ‘space coercion’ strategy that includes the use of both ground-based missiles ‘capable of hitting satellites orbiting at all altitudes,’ as well as orbital missiles — including nuclear warheads.” Comer argued in a letter to NASA that China’s space program should be “properly understood for what it is: an arm of its military, the People’s Liberation Army.”

Many other threats to the U.S. posed by the CCP abound, such as a massive influx of Chinese nationals of military age being apprehended at the southern border, balloon surveillance, the discovery of CCP “police stations” in U.S. cities, and the discovery of a suspicious biolab with ties to China in California. In a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Comer also voiced concern over the CCP engaging in “chemical warfare seeking to poison America with fentanyl, and how the Drug Enforcement Agency is responding.” Reports indicate that “nearly all the precursor chemicals that are needed to make fentanyl come from China.”

In a press release announcing the House investigation, Comer concluded, “Actions taken by the Committee today are just the beginning and I look forward to full cooperation from agencies as we work to thwart China’s efforts to influence and infiltrate the United States of America.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, ChinaAid Founder and President of Bob Fu stated, “It is indeed way overdue for the American people and government across the political spectrum to pay close attention and take an all of society approach to address the serious threat of the CCP’s well designed, decades in the making, comprehensive infiltration effort with unlimited warfare strategy.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘A Great and Effective Door of Opportunity’: Perkins Visits Israel to Meet with Key Leaders thumbnail

‘A Great and Effective Door of Opportunity’: Perkins Visits Israel to Meet with Key Leaders

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By Family Research Council

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins touched down in Israel on Saturday, March 9 to meet with Israeli leaders and assure them of American Christians’ support. The next day, Perkins visited Re’im, the site of the October 7 attack where, as Perkins described it, “over 300 people were brutally murdered, tortured, raped, and abducted by both members of the Hamas terrorist army and civilians from Gaza who were the second wave that came in behind the fighters.” Perkins reported that Hamas’s October 7 attack “was not designed to be terrorist strikes, but an invasion and occupation of the various kibbutz that were attacked.”

While visiting Re’im, Perkins told The Washington Stand, “We prayed and repented for America’s complicit role through the funding of Hamas through the UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency] and through the billions released to Iran, which is the puppet master behind Hamas and the other rogue actors in the region.”

Perkins and his team also visited Kibbutz Be’eri, where at least 130 people were killed by Hamas insurgents on October 7. “We walked among the bullet-pocked houses where grenades were tossed into houses by terrorists and RPGs were fired at houses in an attempt to breach the reinforced walls of the safe rooms where families were hiding,” Perkins recounted. “When they could not get the families out of the safe rooms, they set the house on fire. When the smoke forced the families to open the bulletproof windows of the safe room for air, they waited outside the widows to toss in grenades.” Hamas forces also invaded the nearby city of Ofakim, which Perkins visited. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) cleared the city of Hamas soldiers on October 8.

On Monday, Perkins stopped in Samaria, along with mayor Yossi Dagan and Israeli parliamentarian Ohad Tal. Perkins explained, “Approximately 70% of what we read in the Bible took place in Samaria and Judea. This includes Bethlehem, Hebron, Shiloh, Schechem, and so many other places. It is also what is deceptively called the West Bank, as if it were not part of Israel.” He added, “We stood on the mountains of Samaria and looked down on Tel Aviv, showing how impossible it would be to defend Israel under the ‘two-state’ solution that is being promoted that would give the heart of Israel over to the Palestinians.”

“We stood on the Mount of Blessing and prayed for God’s peace and blessing upon Israel, recognizing that the blessing comes from God when we obey His word and walk in His ways,” Perkins recalled. “We also prayed for America to walk according to His word and ways.”

Perkins also met with Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, who is now serving as the country’s Minister of Strategic Affairs. Perkins recounted, “In our meeting with Dermer, his opening question posed to me, but directed at the group in a lighthearted way, was, ‘You’re not going wobbly on us, are you?’ I assured him we were not going wobbly.”

Next, Perkins sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “discussed the situation and made clear the resolve of Israel to protect itself and that victory must be complete, which is the elimination of Hamas.” Perkins said that Netanyahu “expressed appreciation for America’s support, past and present. Still, under the present political circumstances, which was not spoken about but understood, he asked for Christians in America to stand with Israel.” Afterwards, the FRC president prayed over the Israeli prime minister and attended a late-night worship service. As Perkins described it, “Everywhere we went, including at that worship service, people were so thankful for us coming to Israel at this time.”

After an interview with Dan Cohen of NewsMax, Perkins recalled that “a small crowd had gathered to watch, and one very elderly lady came up to me with tears in her eyes and said in broken English, ‘Thank you, thank you for coming to Israel,’ and she began weeping, ‘We need you to be with us.’” He continued, “There is clearly a sense that Israel, apart from America, is standing alone, and with President Biden’s statements, America looks wobbly. In one kibbutz, it was said by one person that many members of the community had come there to escape persecution elsewhere and that Israel had been the safe haven they had fled to — what now?”

His delegation also visited the site of the 1929 Hebron massacre, where nearly 70 Jews were killed by Palestinian Arabs before being evacuated by the British authorities. Perkins explained that the Hebron massacre, “while not in scope but in brutality, was a mirror of October 7.” He added, “Hebron, like Bethlehem, is a Palestinian area with just a small enclave of Jews living there that the media refers to as ‘settlers.’”

Perkins also met with Yossi Fuchs, Netanyahu’s chief cabinet secretary. “[A]gain,” recounted Perkins, “the focus was on Israel’s need for the church to be visible and vocal in their support of Israel because the threat is great.”

On the team’s final day in Israel, they visited with Holocaust survivors and a senior citizen choir at a Jewish Agency-sponsored retirement community. “That joy-filled event was followed by a very somber visit with families of hostages at the hostage headquarters in Tel Aviv,” Perkins recalled. “It was encouraging for both the families and for us that after hearing their ongoing grief and struggle, we prayed for them and hugged them. The impact was visible.”

Perkins concluded:

“Every generation has its test of how it will treat the Jewish people. While not all have persecuted this population, which represents less than half of a percent of the world’s population today, many remained silent. October 7 was preceded by growing antisemitism, and it has pulled back the curtain on even more, right here in America. What will our generation do? Ignore it until the horrifying evidence of the consequences of our silence can no longer be denied, or will we stand against it and heed the promise and warning of Genesis 12? There is a great and effective door of opportunity opening to the church to show love in a tangible way to the Jewish state of Israel by standing with them in their hour of need.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Israel has become a partisan issue. Do American Jews care?

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Lebanese Muslim caught at border says he’s Hezb’allah jihadi, ‘I’m going to try to make a bomb’ thumbnail

Lebanese Muslim caught at border says he’s Hezb’allah jihadi, ‘I’m going to try to make a bomb’

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By Judicial Watch

When will Old Joe and his henchmen invite Basel Bassel Ebbadi to the White House?

Illegal migrant from Lebanon caught at border admitted he’s a Hezbollah terrorist hoping ‘to make a bomb’ — and was headed for NY

by Jennie Taer, New York Post, March 17, 2024:

A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he’s a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York, The Post can reveal.

Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by the US Border Patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody, he was asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied, “I’m going to try to make a bomb,” according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post.

But Ebbadi later claimed in an interview that he had been trying to flee Lebanon and Hezbollah because he “didn’t want to kill people” and said “once you’re in, you can never get out,” according to internal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) documents.

Ebbadi said in a sworn interview after his arrest that he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served as an active member guarding weapons locations for another four years, the documents show.

Ebbadi’s training focused on “jihad” and killing people “that was not Muslim,” he said….

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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POSTS ON X:

An illegal caught sneaking over the southern border has admitted to being a member of Hezbollah.

The Lebanese migrant headed for NY said he was hoping to “make a bomb.”

Biden’s open border is enabling terrorist threats to our nation.

— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) March 18, 2024

Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah has an elite sleeper cell called “Unit 910” that has infiltrated the United States.

“First of all, know that this is a very real thing”
– Todd Bensman, CIS Senior National Security Fellow@BensmanTodd pic.twitter.com/wy88LLiSrP

— Adrian Norman (@AdrianNormanDC) November 22, 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

NATO’s ‘Welfare’ States: Treating the U.S. As ‘Room Service’ thumbnail

NATO’s ‘Welfare’ States: Treating the U.S. As ‘Room Service’

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By Peter Hoekstra

Last month, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg conceded what former US President Donald Trump has been warning about for nearly a decade: America’s allies are not paying their fair share — as they had agreed — for national defense. After four years in which Trump held our NATO allies accountable for funding their share of NATO’s collective defense, US President Joe Biden has once again allowed many of them to pass significant burdens of NATO spending on to American taxpayers – threatening the security of the NATO alliance in the process.

The very nature of alliances is that they are a two-way street. Americans should rightly expect to realize benefits from U.S. participation in NATO, just as the citizens of other NATO nations can expect to benefit from their country’s relationship with the United States.

Indeed, that was the original idea behind the North Atlantic Treaty Organization when it was founded in 1949. In the wake of WWII, 12 nations agreed to band together to guard against the threat of the Soviet Union, a number that has now grown to 32 with the recent addition of Sweden.

The NATO alliance today, however, more closely resembles an international welfare program than a true alliance, with most countries failing to meet their defense commitments and instead relying on the generosity of the United States.

As the eminent journalist Amir Taheri put it: “others… treat the US as a ‘room service’ reachable by pressing a button…”

In 2014, every NATO member agreed to allocate just 2% of their nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) to defense spending. This minimum baseline target is crucial to ensuring military readiness in the face of growing threats from hostile nations such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

A decade later, 19 out of 32 NATO member nations have failed to meet this goal. Moreover, most of those countries that have reached the 2% target, such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Greece, are smaller nations with smaller GDPs.

The United States, meanwhile, accounts for a staggering 70% of all NATO defense spending — even though the combined GDP of the other 31 member nations is roughly equal to that of the United States. Germany, by far the richest NATO member behind the United States, allocates just 1.57% of its GDP to defense spending.

The combined population of these 31 NATO member states, at more than 620 million, also now dwarfs that of the United States, at 333 million. In other words, each American citizen is now effectively responsible for funding the national defense of two people in another NATO nation.

The situation in Europe today is far different than at the founding of NATO, when many nations were still relying on the Marshall Plan funding to be rebuilt. Our NATO allies have highly advanced economies and immensely capable citizens. American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize their national defense.

If NATO is to function as an effective deterrent to military aggression from Russia and other adversaries, there seriously needs to be a new commitment by every NATO member state to invest in a strong national defense. Yet, the failure of our European allies to meet their spending commitments means they are woefully unprepared from a military standpoint to defend their countries – thus endangering the United States as well as themselves by threatening to draw America into war unnecessarily because of European weakness.

President Trump wisely recognized this threat and accordingly made holding our NATO allies accountable a top priority of his foreign policy. Under his leadership, NATO member countries increased their defense spending by $350 billion.

President Biden has failed to continue the momentum Trump created. After our NATO allies’ defense spending increased 4.6% in 2020, it dropped to only a 2% increase by 2022.

As U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, in a meeting with Dutch business professionals, I would be asked about the emphasis the Trump administration was putting on the 2% number. People would remark that the Dutch had other priorities, such as healthcare, infrastructure and education. They said they considered the military threat to Europe as miniscule.

Other Dutch citizens asked at various times if Russia would really roll across the borders of Europe with tanks. They had a hard time believing that the Netherlands could ever be in danger. They seemed convinced Trump, and Americans in general, were being unreasonable, distraught and completely out of touch with the security situation in Europe.

A couple of years later, the world discovered the truth. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in fact appears extremely willing to roll his tanks into battle in Europe. After Trump was ridiculed by our NATO allies for demanding European countries do more to protect themselves, unfortunately history has proven him correct.

The United States and the world need an American president who is committed to ensuring our NATO allies share the burden of deterring conflict and attacks upon members of the alliance.

The magnificent Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, in the Netherlands, is the final resting place for 8,288 American servicemen and where another 1,722, whose names are engraved on the Tablets of the Missing, are remembered.

The Dutch have a unique relationship with the cemetery. Every American grave since 1945 has been adopted by a Dutch family. It is a beautiful recognition of the personal sacrifices made for the sake of freedom and liberty – but also a stark reminder of the horrific cost of war and of the failure to deter it.

The strengthening of the NATO alliance by insisting on burden-sharing by all the member states was a hallmark policy of Trump’s first term, and it most probably will be again if voters return him to the White House this November. All of America’s leaders also need to embrace the reality that if our allies are unwilling to do more to keep the world safe and secure, we may need to reassess the relationship we have with them, and cease being “room service.” Alliances are only alliances when the costs and benefits run both ways. Anything less, especially from the richest countries in Europe, is not only disrespectful, but an unacceptable breach of contract.

*****

This article was published by The Gatestone Institute and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

EXCLUSIVE: Firm Tied To China’s Military Industrial Complex Plans To Roll Out Massive Battery Chemical Plants In U.S. thumbnail

EXCLUSIVE: Firm Tied To China’s Military Industrial Complex Plans To Roll Out Massive Battery Chemical Plants In U.S.

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By The Daily Caller

The Chinese manufacturer of chemicals for electric vehicle batteries planning to build two U.S. factories has long-standing ties to China’s military industrial complex, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

Capchem Technology USA, the wholly-owned subsidiary of China-based Shenzhen Capchem Technology (Capchem), plans to build factories in both Ohio and Louisiana that would produce components for electric vehicle batteries. Chinese government documents reveal the Chinese chemical giant was selected over a decade ago to conduct aerospace research for China’s military industrial complex as part of a program overseen by a blacklisted Chinese government agency.

Corporate reports show the company, as recently as 2023, received payments from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology — a government agency spearheading the Chinese government’s so-called “Military-Civil Fusion” efforts.

“This network of [Chinese Communist Party] military-linked companies proliferating across the United States is a great example of why blind economic engagement with China is a national security threat,” Bryan Burack, senior policy advisor for China and the Indo-Pacific at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, told the DCNF.

The DCNF’s investigation is based, in part, on information provided by the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action.

Capchem specializes in manufacturing chemicals for electric vehicle batteries, and for years, the firm has advertised its products’ military uses in annual reports and online. Indeed, until very recently, the firm’s website boldly stated its products were used in “high-end military equipment.”

Yet, Capchem denied supplying the Chinese military, and the reference to “high-end military equipment” was scrubbed from the firm’s website within 24 hours of the DCNF reaching out for comment.

Capchem “does not have products used by Chinese military, or any other military organizations,” a spokesperson told the DCNF.

“When the English/U.S. website was developed, the ‘military’ reference was inadvertently included,” the spokesperson said. “You brought it to the company’s attention, and it was removed just as it had been in the Chinese version in 2020.”

However, the military reference also appeared on Capchem’s Chinese-language website when the DCNF reached out for comment. The reference on Capchem’s Chinese-language site appears to have been removed around the same time as their English-language was being scrubbed.

Capchem business filings and corporate announcements from 2023, along with Chinese financial service research reports from as recent as January 2024, also note the firm’s products had military applications.

‘Military-Civil Fusion’

Capchem’s work with China’s military industrial complex extends back to at least 2012. That year, the Guangdong province Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced Capchem was one of 70 companies selected to serve as a “Guangdong Provincial National Defense Science And Technology Industry Military-Civil Fusion Superior Work Unit.”

The work unit focused on “critical components within the aerospace field,” including “space flight-grade, high-reliability and core electronic components, high-end general chips, base software, etcetera,” the 2012 Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announcement reads.

The project was overseen by China’s Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, which is “under direct supervision of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology,” and responsible for “nuclear weapons, aerospace technology, aviation, armament, watercraft and electronic industries,” according to China’s State Council.

China’s “Military-Civil Fusion strategy supports the modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army by ensuring it can acquire advanced technologies and expertise developed by PRC companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities,” according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi recently sent a letter to the Treasury and Defense departments noting the U.S. government’s blacklist of Chinese military companies extends to companies working with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

“Among other qualifying considerations, a company is a ‘military civil fusion contributor’ if such company is ‘affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, including research partnerships and projects,’” the lawmakers wrote in January 2024. “The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was formed in 2008 and is key to the PRC’s military-civil fusion strategy.”

Capchem’s annual reports show the firm has received millions of dollars in payments from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology since 2017. The ministry paid the firm approximately $1.5 million for an “Industrial Foundation Project” in 2017, according to Capchem’s annual report for that year.

Capchem’s most recent annual report shows the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had a subsidy of just under $1 million earmarked for the firm at the end of the 2023 mid-term reporting period.

Despite this, Capchem initially denied getting any “money/subsidies/donations from the Chinese government” in an email to the DCNF, though a spokesperson did say the firm had received “economic development tax incentives.”

However, the spokesperson changed their tune when the DCNF pointed to the firm’s own annual reports.

“The last time the company received any Chinese government subsidies besides standard incentives or awards provided for all eligible companies was between 2016 and 2018,” the spokesperson said. “Any reference to subsidies in company reports apply to those received during that time. The company has received no such subsidies since 2018.”

Capchem’s corporate reports list $26 million in subsidies from various Chinese government entities. The company’s 2023 mid-term report lists roughly $10 million worth of new government subsidies in a section labeled “Programs Involving Government Subsidies.”

Heritage’s Burack said Capchem has been “subsidized by the Chinese government” and “manufactures for China’s military.”

“There’s no question who these companies really work for,” Burack said. “There’s no such thing as a private Chinese company.”

‘Aerospace And Military Industries’

Capchem has long advertised the dual military-civilian use for its products. For instance, Capchem’s 2009 annual report touted how the company’s products are used in “aerospace and military industries.”

The vice president of Capchem’s research institute, Liu Zhongbo, discussed the military application of the company’s sodium-ion batteries at a July 2023 battery forum in Jiangsu province.

“Lithium-ion batteries and sodium-ion batteries are representative of new battery types serving as an important foundation for supporting the wide application of new energy sources in the domains of electricity, transportation, communication, military, etcetera,” Liu said during the event, according to Capchem’s website.

“In the future, Capchem will closely follow the national strategy to support the mass production of sodium-ion batteries,” Liu said.

More recently, a January 2024 research report from Chinese financial service firm Huaan Securities identified Capchem’s “fluorinated polyimide” product as being used in the nuclear industry and by the military, and the firm’s “perfluoropolyether oil” product’s use in aerospace landing gear, rudders and aircraft control mechanisms.

‘Security Risks’

Capchem’s plans to expand their U.S. footprint come as federal and state officials move to prohibit the ownership of U.S. land by Chinese entities. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson recently issued an executive order in January 2024 banning entities tied to China from purchasing agricultural land within 10 miles of any “critical military facilities” in the state.

Capchem USA is planning on building an approximately $120 million factory in Lawrence County, Ohio, Capchem announced in June 2023. County commissioners recently approved a 50% tax abatement for Capchem USA’s facility, the Herald Dispatch reported. The facility will serve as a “production facility for the manufacturing of battery chemicals,” according to Capchem.

Capchem USA is also considering a $350 million plant in Louisiana, according to Louisiana Economic Development, a government agency.

Ohio Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup’s congressional district includes Lawrence County. Barbara Boland, Wenstrup’s press secretary, told the DCNF that the congressman has “warned of the potential security risks to our supply chains, intellectual property and national security posed by Chinese-owned companies operating in the U.S.”

“Congressman Wenstrup recommends local governments and those pursuing economic development opportunities to fully vet any companies seeking to establish a footprint in their communities,” Boland said.

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter, political journalist, and China watcher. Twitter: @LenczyckiPhilip.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: Republican Attorney General Urges Biden Admin To Restrict Foreign Land Ownership Near Major Military Base

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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Biden’s 2025 Budget Ignores the Border Crisis

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By Federation for American Immigration Reform

Last week, the Biden Administration released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget proposal. Unsurprisingly, the $7.3 trillion budget maintains status quo on the border, allocating billions in taxpayer dollars towards funding an open-borders, anti-enforcement agenda.

Of the $107.9 billion in proposed spending for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), $19.8 billion is allocated to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), $9.7 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and $6.8 billion for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). However, instead of proposing any meaningful changes to secure our borders, the President chose to use the budget request to reinforce his failed policies and again call on Congress to enact a Senate border package that fails to reform our asylum system, end widespread abuse of parole, or stop the mass catch-and-release of illegal aliens.

A deeper dive into the funding proposal shows that the Biden Administration’s FY25 budget continues to focus on quickly processing and releasing illegal aliens into the country. The budget provides funding to hire 310 more “processing coordinators” and an additional 641 asylum and refugee officers, in part to support the unprecedented flow of illegal aliens claiming asylum when the vast majority are economic migrants.

In addition, $5 billion would be allocated to a new Southwest Border Contingency Fund to support surges at the border, a slush fund for Mayorkas, with very few details on how the funds would be spent. While ostensibly that fund is to help DHS respond to immigration surges along the southern border, in reality, it would serve as a replacement for the Shelter and Services Program by financially supporting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) facilitating illegal immigration. The budget request provides for tranches of the $4.7 billion fund to be made available at quarterly intervals, assuming that encounters at the southern border reach certain levels.

The creation of this $4.7 billion slush fund appears calculated to give the Biden administration as much flexibility as possible in spending taxpayer dollars while ensuring as little accountability as possible. With such broad guidelines as to the purposes for the money, the “contingency fund” would provide easy access to billions of taxpayer dollars for DHS Secretary Mayorkas to distribute as he sees fit. The first $1.4 billion would be released on January 1, 2025, three months into the fiscal year, if total encounters reach 165,000. Another $1.52 billion would be released on April 1, 2025, if total encounters reach 575,000. For context, illegal encounters through January 1 in FY23 reached over 715,000 and through April 1 reached 1.2 million. The third threshold represents a closer margin based on FY23 encounters – a 2.23 million encounter rate by July 1 as opposed to roughly 1.8 million in FY23. Even with a higher bar for the third batch of funding, though, the first two tranches, totaling nearly $3 billion, would almost certainly be dispersed.

In addition to the DHS slush fund, the President’s budget includes $652 million for an “emergency contingency fund” within Health and Human Services to handle the surge of unaccompanied alien children (UACs). The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), would be provided $9.3 billion, of which $5.5 billion would support the care and custody of UACs. This office would also use hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to support the resettlement of 125,000 new refugees from around the world as asylum seekers flood our borders.

Finally, for all of the billions in proposed spending, the President’s budget clearly conveys that removing and detaining illegal aliens is still not a priority. The proposed budget only proposes removing 125,000 aliens in FY25, a stark contrast from an average of over 400,000 per year in the first three years of the Trump Administration. Given that nearly 10 million have entered in the last three years, removing 125,000 each year would take 80 years to deport just those who entered under Biden’s watch.

The Biden administration’s failure to remove illegal aliens has also contributed to the explosion of the non-detained docket, which represents aliens who are in the country illegally, released into the interior and waiting for a court hearing. The President’s budget reveals that the non-detained docket has now exploded to over 6.3 million aliens. To make matters worse, many of the aliens on the non-detained docket have criminal backgrounds. A House Judiciary report released this January revealed there are 617,607 aliens on the non-detained docket – nearly 10 percent – who have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.

In short, President Biden’s budget shows that he has no interest in securing the border, as he continues to advocate for harmful policies, refuses to take any executive action to end the crisis, and shifts blame to Congress for his own administration’s shortfalls. As highlighted by FAIR, American taxpayers are already on the hook for $151 billion to offset the costs of illegal immigration every year. The President’s FY25 budget would only compound the costs imposed on Americans while doing nothing to ensure that their safety and security is protected.

To read more about actions that Biden can take to secure our borders today, click here.

AUTHOR

Kari joined FAIR in June 2023 after graduating from the College of the Holy Cross with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies. She has spent time working in local, state and federal politics, the most notable being her work on a gubernatorial campaign, and with a U.S. Senator. As FAIR’s Government Relations Associate, Kari uses her prior experience to establish and maintain effective working relationships with congressional offices, federal agency personnel, and coalition members. She also plays a role in complex research and writing assignments on immigration-related topics.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR column is republished with permission. © COPYRIGHT 2024 FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff Publicly Raising Money for Group Who Was Part of Oct. 7 Atrocities and Terrorist Attack on Israel thumbnail

Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff Publicly Raising Money for Group Who Was Part of Oct. 7 Atrocities and Terrorist Attack on Israel

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By The Geller Report

Of all the worthy causes for which one can raise money this is what the coprophagic Ella Emhoff comes up with!

However, this should not come as a surprise since her step-mother, Kalamity Harris, was urging people to contribute to a fund for bailing out Antifa and BLM rioters in 2020.

Supporting murderous scum has become something of a family tradition.

Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff publicly raising money for relief group allegedly tied to Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel

By: Jon Levine, NY Post,  March 16, 2024

Story continues below advertisement

The stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris is publicly raising cash for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — even as the United States has cut funding to the group over its members’ alleged participation in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel.

Ella Emhoff — whose father is second gentleman Doug Emhoff — posted a link to UNRWA’s English-language fundraising page on her personal Instagram, and only removed it after a Post inquiry to the White House.

“We urge Ms. Emhoff to go on the website of UN Watch and read our reports showing how UNRWA teachers and school principals systematically promote and encourage Jihadi terrorism and the slaughter of Jews,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the nonprofit United Nations watchdog.

UNRWA, the largest employer in Gaza, has long faced international criticism for its close ties to Hamas, which has ruled the enclave since 2006.

Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff makes another bizarre NYFW appearance
UNRWA, the largest employer in Gaza, has long faced international criticism for its close ties to Hamas, which has ruled the enclave since 2006.

President Trump cut US aid to the organization in 2018 — a decision President Biden initially reversed when he took office.

Under Biden’s leadership, at least $730 million found its way to UNRWA’s coffers.

The rapprochement ended, however, in January, when Israel presented evidence that UNRWA employees had been involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that left at least 1,200 dead at a music festival near the Gaza Strip.

As many as 450 UNRWA workers are members of extremist groups in the Gaza Strip, Israel contends.

Hamas tunnels were uncovered under the agency headquarters in Gaza where they also siphoned off the building’s electricity, Israeli officials said.

One released Israeli hostage said they were held prisoner in the home of an UNRWA teacher, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Paul Schnee

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UNRWA inciting violence with U.S. funding , study shows

As Biden funds UNRWA, UNRWA teachers call for Jew-murder

UN bars Israel’s ambassador from displaying pro-Hitler posts by UNRWA teacher

Watchdog: Dozens of UNRWA Teachers Incite To Violence, Spread Jew-Hatred Online

UNRWA Caught Teaching Terrorism, Jew-Hatred as Biden Regime Resumes American Taxpayer Funding

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Muslims Understand Compassion Differently Than We Do thumbnail

Muslims Understand Compassion Differently Than We Do

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By Harold Rhode

The idea that compassion is between man and man, not just God and man, barely exists.

The origins of Islam are twofold. It was a revealed religion, but grew out of pre-Islamic Arabian tribal—that is, Bedouin—culture. When Bedouin cultural values conflicted with Islam, Bedouin culture almost always won out. Over time, Islam and Bedouin culture melded into one. It is this combination that constitutes today’s Islamic culture.

The problem with Islam today is not a problem with Islam as a religion but rather Islamic culture. If Muslims choose to pray five or even 50 times a day, that is no concern of ours. But regarding Islamic culture and its view of non-Muslims, we do have a say.

Hebrew and Arabic share many common words and roots, but their meanings often diverge. For example, in both Arabic and Hebrew, the root R-Ḥ-M refers to the womb and signifies compassion. But the understanding of compassion in Judaism is very different from that of Islam.

The opening line of the Quran is: “In the name of Allah, the merciful and the compassionate.” We know what “merciful” and “compassionate” mean in English. It relates to the relationship between God and man, and between man and man.

In Islamic culture, by contrast, compassion is only between God and man. Compassion between man and man is almost absent. This does not mean that individual Muslims do not share our Western concept of compassion, but if they do, it is not derived from Islamic culture.

When a Jew asks God for compassion and forgiveness during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he must first approach people he has wronged and ask for forgiveness. The person asked is required to have compassion and forgive. We believe that only by showing compassion to our fellow human beings will God be compassionate and forgiving towards us on Yom Kippur. Islamic culture is quite different.

On Oct. 7, we witnessed the results of this. Among those slaughtered by Gaza Muslims on that day were Bedouin Muslims who were Israeli citizens. They were killed along with Israeli Jews. Unlike the Nazis, who tried to hide their extermination program, the Muslims who slaughtered their fellow human beings—Muslims and non-Muslims—were proud of what they did, as demonstrated by the recordings of phone calls they made to the victims’ parents and friends as the murderers were terrorizing and murdering the recipients’ loved ones.

Why did the murderers also kill other Muslims? Because Muslims care first and foremost about their family, their clan and tribal associations, in that order. This has been true throughout Islamic history. Compassion towards one’s fellow human beings often barely exists.

There are many examples of this phenomenon:

When Hamas, the Iranian regime and Hezbollah send shahids—martyrs—to kill themselves in the name of Allah, they do not choose them from their own families. If they had compassion for others, why would they send other people’s children to their deaths? As we say, put your money where your mouth is.

In Arab culture, blood feuds continue for years without forgiveness or compassion. Perceived “wrongs” must be “righted” by deadly vengeance even if the original insult or crime might have happened generations ago.

Women suspected of dishonoring their families may be killed by family members. In some cases, the woman’s “transgression” is merely talking to a man who is not from the same family. It is not uncommon for fathers and even mothers to tell one of their sons to erase the blot on the family honor by killing his sister. We know of cases in which the son protested and his father told him that if he refused to kill his sister, he would be cast out of the family—which is the only security the son has.

Co-author Harold Rhode once taught a class in the Islamic world about Islamic culture. A female Muslim student wearing a hijab told him that she had to be very careful about talking to a non-relative. At the end of the day, when classes were over, her father personally escorted her home to her village. This student understood very well that if there were any rumors about her, she could end up dead. Moreover, her sisters pleaded with her not to do anything that might dishonor their family and thereby prevent them from being able to marry.

Before the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the country’s population was as high as 22 million. Since then, millions of Syrians have been killed, expelled or displaced to other countries. We have no idea what the population of Syria is today. It could be as little as 6-10 million. We wonder how Syrian dictator Bashar Assad could do this to his “own” people. But Assad doesn’t see most of them as his “own” people. He is a member of the Alawite sect. He is not a Sunni Muslim like approximately 72% of Syria’s pre-war population. To him, these Sunnis are expendable because their existence threatens his regime. Compassion does not enter into the equation.

When Kurdish citizens of Turkey refuse to call themselves “Turks,” the Turkish government has often labeled them “terrorists” to justify imprisoning or killing them. Not for nothing do the Kurds have a proverb: “No friends but the mountains,” expressing their feelings of loneliness, betrayal and abandonment.

When Islam conquers, it conquers by the sword. That is why there is a sword on the Saudi flag. Saudi Arabia’s ruling creed is an extreme form of Sunni Islam. Its flag symbolizes this creed. Beautiful calligraphy on the flag reads: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” This simple statement, called the Shahada, is the central principle of the Islamic creed. The sword symbolizes their prophet’s conquest of pagans. The message: Either convert to Islam or die.

When shahids capture enemies, they do not just kill them. They usually make them suffer. Only then does the shahid kill his victim.

In 1947-1948, when Palestinian Arabs fled then-Palestine, their fellow Arabs responded by putting them into refugee camps, where many of them and their descendants still languish. Their “fellow Arabs” never had compassion on them and assimilated them. By contrast, when Jews fled from the surrounding Arab countries, Israel welcomed them, and the fledgling state helped to establish them as full citizens.

In Persian, the closest equivalent to the English phrase “it doesn’t matter” is “it doesn’t bring shame” (eib na-dareh). This means that what you have done will not shame or humiliate you and your family. We rarely think about shame and humiliation, but Muslims almost always have them in the back of their minds. If someone does something shameful or humiliating, others have no compassion for them.

These are just a few examples of how differently we Westerners and the Muslim world understand compassion. Our concepts of compassion and mercy are very different from those of Islamic culture. This, in short, is why so much of the Muslim world is so violent not only towards others, but towards other Muslims as well.

This article originally appeared in the Jewish News Syndicate.

AUTHORS

HAROLD RHODE

Harold Rhode received in Ph.D. in Islamic history and later served as the Turkish Desk Officer at the U.S. Department of Defense. He is now a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

BENNETT RUDA

Bennett Ruda is a freelance journalist for The Jewish Press and a contributor to the popular Elder of Ziyon blog.

©2024. . All rights reserved.

Military Recruitment Crisis: What If It *Is* The Product? thumbnail

Military Recruitment Crisis: What If It *Is* The Product?

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By Rebecca Burgess

Any phenomenon manifesting in a large, complex, multipart institution whose dynamics are downwind of society at large is bound to have not just one cause, but many. Current institutional case in point: the U.S. Armed Forces and the military recruitment crisis.

For the two-plus years that the military’s branches (outside of the U.S. Marines) have faced a significant (Navy) to severe (Army) shortage of incoming recruits, analysts have invoked many now familiar arguments for the causes why: economic considerations (low unemployment); societal considerations (Covid; fitness unfitness/obesity epidemic); public misperceptions (“broken veteran” narrative; civil-military divide related to the All-Volunteer Force); historical considerations (twenty continuous years of the Global War on Terror; disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan; overreliance on the military family pipeline); culture war considerations (“wokeness”; overhyped accusations of “right-wing extremism” among those who’ve served; over-recruitment from the South/West “smile”); and finally, generational considerations (not meeting the digitally native Gen Z where it’s at).

While an over-generalization, these “reasons why” can be more or less classified as marketing problems, and the Pentagon seems to be treating them as such. But what if there are more tangible, and more fundamental reasons, for the crisis tied to the “product” itself—the military as it functions today—and to the less fundamental but no less consequential institutional barriers to join that it inflicts on itself?

In terms of barriers, some keen-eyed observers have begun drawing attention to the military’s recent medical records modernization effort, the Military Health System Genesis (MHS Genesis), which went into effect in March 2022. MHS Genesis is an automated and integrated medical information system that is meant to enable a thorough medical screening of applicants and boost efficiency with the same. While a fantastic concept for those already in the military and those transitioning into the VA health care system (no more having to keep track of physical paper records!), it’s proving a nightmare for potential recruits. Simply put, it requires a person’s full prescription medication history, as National Review’s Luther Ray Abel recently explained. “If someone has had painkillers prescribed by a doctor working at a hospital, more than likely they got surgery. We then need all the documents explaining why a prescription was made.” Moms everywhere know what this means—endless calls and visits with doctors’ offices to try to track down a growing list of paperwork explanations for care prescribed and received, and further documentation of why. The delay this is creating in terms of time has been profound.

But the military “doesn’t like a medicated recruit unless he’s a Motrin devotee,” and can pretty much use any prescription (whether actually used or not) as grounds for rejecting the recruit. This hits especially the high-performing, athletic recruits particularly hard—if they’ve participated in competitive sports, they’re likely to have been injured at some or several point(s). And it also hits today’s youth hard with what is increasingly just another aspect of their life—a mental health diagnosis of ADHA or something similar. A 2022 survey found that 42% of Gen Z have a mental health diagnosis; a 2023 report claims that 60% have a “medically diagnosed anxiety condition.” The military has not adjusted to this fact or determined new standards to differentiate between, say, chronic severe depression and psychotic behavior versus middle school ADHD. And, as Abel notes—“White kids are treated for mental health at twice the rate of others, and boys (9.8 percent) were medicated more often than girls (7 percent).” Not surprisingly, the Army is experiencing a sharp decline in white recruits.

Another institutional barrier that’s worth revisiting: Currently, single parents with a dependent under 18 years old cannot join the Army, for instance. They have to have given up guardianship of any children prior to the duration of at least the first enlistment (two to six years) to be eligible to join. But with 119,186 single parents serving in the U.S. military in 2021, it seems clear that the military has figured out how to work with this population. Furthermore, considering that only around 10% of the Armed Forces are currently even classified as combat arms, especially outside a time of war it seems like there are thousands of military jobs that a single parent with a dependent could qualify for that would not undercut the effectiveness or efficiency of the institution as a whole. And considering that there are roughly 11 million single-parent households currently in the United States, now seems a rational time to reassess this policy barrier.

But then there’s the matter of the military “product” itself. While the American public is increasingly unfamiliar with who and what its military is and does and how, breaking stories about the military’s inability to house service members in safe, sanitary, non-mold-infested barracks and homes can only further already-imbibed prejudices about the military being a last-resort option for desperate individuals at the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. Or how about its inability to feed a whole installation-worth of junior enlisted for several months? This summer, one of the Army’s largest bases, Fort Cavazos (formerly Hood), Texas, could barely operate two out of a total of ten major dining options, and did not advertise to soldiers which would be open and when. Conditions at this summer’s ROTC Cadet Summer Training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, might possibly have been even worse, with cadets having to eat sometimes even expired MREs when dining services were suspended. Fort Knox is supposed to be the nation’s “Gold Standard Army Installation.”

This isn’t even to touch on problems of scandal among officers and of morale within each of the military’s service branches. The Navy—or Coast Guard, for that matter—can’t seem to shake itself free from scandals involving its officers, whether with defense contractors (“Fat Leonard” scandal) or otherwise. The Army followed its familiar pattern of behavior when it recently opted merely to slap the wrist of a male lieutenant colonel rather than severely discipline him, for having hid a video recording device in a teen-centric clothing store dressing room in California. Just last year more than a handful of Special Operators at Fort Liberty (Bragg) found themselves under questioning in relation to drug trafficking and even possible sex trafficking of underage girls. In 2022, the Air Force Academy had to expel 22 cadets and put on probation 210 more for cheating and plagiarism. Accounts of “toxic leadership” and the need for reform within the senior officer ranks have been proliferating for close to a decade now. And who among us willingly rushes to join a toxic workplace culture?

None of this presents a novel or unprecedented situation for the U.S. military. It has been here before—most recently, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the Armed Forces struggled and learned its way through the transition from being a conscript military to the All-Volunteer Force. The military emerged stronger and better—and more attractive to a diverse cadre of potential recruits—after undergoing that baptism by fire. But it only did so by its senior leaders being honest with themselves about the true sources of its problems, having the courage to swim upstream against entrenched modes of thinking and behavior, and knowing when and how to adapt to new circumstances. It fixed its product even while it was working on its marketing. Our military can do the same again, today.

*****

This article was published by The Independent Women’s Forum and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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