Monthly Archives: June 2022

Pennsylvania Republicans have rallied behind a celebrity former TV host and political neophyte, choosing a charismatic convert to conservatism over a rival who espoused a purer form of the partys modern doctrine.

The above sentence could have been written in 2016, when Donald Trump defeated Senator Ted Cruz in Pennsylvanias presidential primary on his way to receiving the GOP nomination. But tonight its a description of Mehmet Oz, Americas favorite living-room M.D., who has finally won the Keystone States Republican nomination for Senate with help from the former president. Oz narrowly topped the financier David McCormick after McCormick unexpectedly conceded in the middle of a statewide recount.

Oz now faces John Fetterman, the progressive lieutenant governor who defeated Representative Conor Lamb for the Democratic nomination despite suffering a stroke four days before the May 17 primary. Trump was two-for-two in his Republican endorsements in Pennsylvania, as arch-conservative State Senator Doug Mastriano easily secured the GOP nomination for governor. Ozs victory in one of the nations most expensive Senate primaries was much tighterso tight, in fact, that it took two and a half weeks for the race to be decided.

The heart-surgeon-turned-TV-host led by fewer than 1,000 votesa margin of less than 0.1 percent out of more than 1.3 million votes castafter the initial ballot canvass, triggering an automatic recount. The Oz and McCormick campaigns wound up in court, adding an extra legal layer to the Trump proxy battle. Needing absentee ballots to close the gap, McCormick found himself in the awkward position of asking judges to require election officials to count undated ballots, the kind that Trump and Republicans went to great lengths to protest in 2020. Though it stayed neutral in the primary, the Republican National Committee backed Oz in the legal dispute. A state court ruled in McCormicks favor, but this evening he determined that the disputed ballots would not be enough to put him over the top. It is now clear to me, he said in a brief livestreamed statement, that with the recount largely complete, that we have a nominee. McCormick said he called Oz to congratulate him and pledged to help him defeat Fetterman in the fall.

The activist Kathy Barnette, whose deeply personal opposition to abortion and commitment to Trumps election lie captured many of the MAGA faithful, finished in third place with nearly 25 percent of the vote, a slight surprise after late polls showed her overtaking McCormick for second. The conservative Club for Growth bucked Trump to endorse Barnette, while Ozs backers attacked her brief support for Black Lives Matter protests and praise of former President Barack Obama. Oz initially resisted Trumps call for him to declare victory soon after the polls closed, but he eventually proclaimed himself the presumptive nominee before the recount began in late May. The delay might have put Oz at a disadvantage against Fetterman in the general election, but Fetterman mostly used the three-week head start to recuperate from his stroke. Hours before McCormick conceded today, Fetterman issued a statement saying he still needed a little more time before he could return to the campaign trail.

Read: John Fetterman wins on vibes

Oz is the latest Republican to benefit from Trumps endorsement this primary season, but his candidacy owes far more to the former president than a well-timed gesture of verbal support. Oz is, in many ways, the most Trumplike figure to emerge since 2016: an ideologically malleable celebrity who parlayed his personal brand, his wealth, and an outsiders message into a narrow victory over a crowded primary field. Whereas Trump built his persona on the front pages of New Yorks tabloids and then on The Apprentice, Oz started as Oprahs go-to doctor before landing his own show to dispense (often questionable) medical advice. He lacks Trumps bombastic style, but like the developer-turned-politician, Oz ditched his previously liberal views on issues including abortion and gun control in a bid to win over the GOP-primary electorate. (He also adopted Trumps penchant for exaggeration, at one point tweeting that he had treated hundreds of thousands of patients in his career.)

Trumps endorsement of Oz in April came as a shock to many of the former presidents conservative allies who had already embraced McCormick, a hedge-funder married to the former Trump aide Dina Powell. Other top Trump aides, including Stephen Miller and Hope Hicks, backed McCormick as well. But they shouldnt have been surprised by their former bosss decision. He has lived with us through the screen and has always been popular, respected, and smart, Trump said of Oz in his endorsement, offering a concise list of the qualities he admires mostbesides loyalty to himin a politician.

Trump has never placed a high priority on ideological purity. In recent years, neither have Republican-primary voters. Before Trump took over the party in 2016, the GOP nominated Mitt Romney and John McCain, two candidates whose flip-flops and apostasies had angered conservative stalwarts, but not the majority of the partys voters.

If theres an ideological test in todays Republican Party, it is based on loyalty to Trump and his causesprincipally his lies about the rigged and stolen 2020 election. Pennsylvanias GOP Senate primary offered the first hints that, going forward, loyalty to Trump and to his cause might not be the same thing. Barnette, who lost a congressional race two years ago, catapulted into the top tier of candidates in part because of a moving video in which she describes how her opposition to abortion in all cases stems from the fact that she is the by-product of a rape that occurred when her mother was 11 years old. But she has also promoted Trumps election falsehoods more aggressively than her rivals and was spotted protesting alongside Proud Boys outside the Capitol during the January 6 riots.

Barnettes rise had a bit of the feel of a revolution turning on its leader, and Trump was clearly flummoxed by it. He issued a statement saying that she will never be able to win the general election and alluding to her past comments denigrating Muslims and gay people. It was a rich piece of hand-wringing from a man who launched his presidential candidacy with a racist diatribe against Mexicans and later called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, only to prove wrong the many political prognosticators who said he was unelectable. As if anticipating that very retort, Trump in the same statement said that if Barnette could explain herself adequately, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party.

To Trump, Barnettes only crime was to threaten the candidate he had anointed. Despite her third-place finish, she nearly toppled Oz by siphoning away some of his support and allowing McCormick to come within 1,000 votes of victory. Ozs defeat would have undermined Trumps dominance of the GOP, suggesting both that his endorsement had lost some of its golden luster and that he had lost control of the movement he created. Oz relied on Trump as a model and as a validator. That proved to be enough, but only barely.

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How Trump Paved Dr. Oz's Path - The Atlantic

As an outside observer, my opinion of the recent federal election may well be different from both the politicians and the professional commentators.

There are many opinions, many of which may be true or partly true and some which are totally incorrect, but the more that surface the better our understanding will be in the long run.

The demographics of Australias political parties has changed over the past twenty years

The Labor Party used to represent the working class man the blue-collar worker who was supposedly treated badly by his employer.

Personally, I doubt that has been the case since at least the seventies and maybe long before, when labour started to become expensive and in in short supply. Employers, especially in small and medium companies, appreciated their employees as partners working toward making the company profitable. This benefited both the employer and employee. In addition, the working man was becoming wealthier and wanted the same standard of living as his employer.

This was not always the case in large organisations, which were highly unionised and where personal relationships were not common between management and the worker. Strong unions operated, but as time went on big companies managed to reduce their workforce and increase wages. Unions lost their foothold in most industries, especially when those industries folded because they could not compete internationally, or when they changed over to a workforce employed under specific contracts.

The major exception to this trend falls within government jobs; public service, health, education, police and city-based emergency services. These are now the core of the union movement and of the Labor Party. These workers are generally well paid, well educated, have secure employment, and enjoy working conditions amongst the best to be found anywhere.

In the early nineties, unions started to benefit from the new superannuation scheme introduced by Labor. Unions immediately started up and managed superannuation funds. This meant that they had a steady stream of money, real money, entering their coffers every single pay day. There was little control on superannuation fund management. As the funds gained wealth they also became a financial sector to be considered. Soon, the superannuation funds were large enough to exert financial pressure on businesses and investments for political purposes. They also became allied to other financial institutions.

Labor today has a very different following to its origin. Now it is the educated and wealthy who favour Labor because they benefited directly from Labor policies created to maintain that electorate support. They have lost their previous voters, who are not unionised and often work in the gig or casual sectors. They have also lost their trade and skilled followers, who have become small business people or who earn very good money because of their skills. Labor and their financial and power backers, the union, are not really interested in these people because they are too difficult to organise and the unions dont need their contributions they have plenty of funds from elsewhere.

Where the Labor party used to proclaim social benefits for the working class, they now proclaim social benefits for the wealthier members of society, their new electoral base.

Most senior union bosses and Labor career politicians have tertiary qualifications, though rarely in the hard sciences. There is little room for a shop floor worker to climb the union movement ladder or aspire to enter politics. Its the old story of who you know and scratching backs.

Although Labor did win a majority of seats and will govern as a majority party, they lost their primary vote. Their former supporters abandoned them in droves. There is no public mandate for the Labor government.

The Liberal Party was founded by Robert Menzies in 1944 as a rebellion against the then-conservative parties who favoured the rich and powerful. He established the party to cater for the requirements of the middle class, the tradesmen and shopkeepers, the farmers and the ordinary worker who wanted to improve their lot. It did not follow the socialist policies of Labor, rather they advocated small government, self-determination, national security, balanced budgets, and fiscal restraint.

As the country became wealthier, the upper echelons of the Liberal Party moved closer to big business. It was a drift towards distribution of social welfare and the buying of votes. They started to cater for big business and they were prepared to collude with any group who could assist in retaining power over the treasury. Slowly, until the last government, fiscal responsibility was loosened, though still preached. During the Morrison government all fiscal restraint was released and it was big business which benefited most from government largesse, not individual people. The core Menzies groups were left out in the cold to flounder and suffer from the policies of both federal and state governments.

The Liberals ended up with no policies which their faithful electorate could understand or agree with. They even reversed some of their earlier, favoured, policies. There was nothing of benefit for the Liberal faithful. They saw that they had been sold out by a government only intent on retaining the government benches. The Liberals have lost their way and the electorate had no option but to abandon them in droves. Although the Liberals won more of the primary vote than Labor, they did not get preferences. Trust and faith were lost and so were the seats.

The National Party has always represented the farmer the man on the land the rural citizen. In addition, they moved to try and represent the new country dwellers, the miners. They have been successful in retaining that electorate, but they were never a possibility for forming a government, they were always the hand maidens of the Liberal Party.

Unless they can cater properly to a larger electorate then they will always be left in the cold because now most people live in cities and few are directly dependent upon the land.

The Greens have done well in the past couple of decades. They have few practical policies and they would probably be a disaster if they ever had control of government benches, but they are vocal and emotional and subscribe to some fashionable social views. They do not appear to be very fiscally responsible, practical or technically knowledgeable, but they are never seriously questioned on their policies, so they get away with them. As a party never likely to gain the government benches they can (and do) exert pressure as a large cross bench group, who are well organised. They are more socialist than Labor.

Then we have a hodgepodge of independent parties and people. United Australian was basically conservative, but mainly anti-Labor. However, they advocated to vote against the Liberals, due to the governments multitude of failings. But perhaps their worst error was to allow their founder and financial backer, Clive Palmer to be their spokesman, especially as the UAP were seen to be Palmers party. Australians do not like people to own political parties, they do not like egotists. The same can be said for Pauline Hansons One Nation. There was really not too much wrong with her more conservative policies, but the party bore her name, a no go in Australia. She was supported but not her party.

The Teals, with just a small target of two policy phrases but no actual policy, received less primary votes than the UAP, but they were financed and managed by an astute businessman who managed to keep his name from the public gaze. They targeted wealthy inner-city seats in Melbourne and Sydney where the Liberal sitting members were especially weak on actual Liberal policies. Their candidates were mostly wealthy women who received excellent press coverage. The strategy was successful in getting rid of wet Liberals and keeping out Labor and the Greens.

There were a whole series of independent candidates who won seats, most notably Dai Le who defeated a favoured Labor candidate in a strong Labor seat. This showed that it was the local candidate who paid interest in local affairs that could step up and defeat a well-financed major party candidate. This, apart from any other result, must have sent shock waves through not only the Labor party but the Liberals as well.

This group gathered a third of all primary votes and a bucketful of seats

So, what is my take on this election?

Both major parties are on the nose with the electorate. They are both following policies that did not resonate with their previous core group of supporters. They favoured fashionable, but not very popular, social policies and neither explained how they were going to pay for their multitude of promises or help the economy recover from the excess expenditure during the Covid crisis. Neither party had a vision for the future, they merely proclaimed different fearful visions for the future and against their opponents. Nor did the major parties pay any attention to the problems facing the underemployed, those who cannot afford to get into the housing market, or those concerned about their rising living costs and the possibility that their living standard are falling. Labor and Liberal both believe that by giving goodies to their favoured electoral groups they can buy their way onto the government benches.

The political sphere in Australia is currently in a state of flux. The field is wide open for good leaders with solid policies which they can explain to the electorate as beneficial to the country and to them. We need the leaders to begin with.

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An outsider's view of the election - The Spectator Australia

Even if I am not much of a cook, it was inspirational to see vintage entrepreneurs like Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander featured on the front page for their skills and friendship (Sunday Age, 29/5). It makes a change from badly behaved politicians and footballers.Hazel Edwards, Blackburn South

Geoff Parkes is to be commended for his efforts to get some compensation for nashos (national servicemen) who did not serve in a war zone (Letters, 4/6). There were, however, some benefits. I was supported when completing my tertiary studies with all fees, books and stationery paid, as well as the payment of the basic wage.Chris Vasilopoulos, Fitzroy

Unlike the foot soldiers of the major parties, [Monique] Ryans volunteers did not attempt to persuade voters. Instead, they asked what mattered to residents. (Sunday Age 29/5). Wow, what a novel idea. I hope it catches on.Anne Heath Mennell, Tenby Point

Re Win for Premier on candidate picks (The Age, 4/6). Has Victorian Labor learnt nothing from the federal election? Local branch members and their communities will not be too pleased with captains picks being jettisoned into Labor preselections without a local member plebiscite occurring first.David Burt, Traralgon

Jo Stanleys article on writing your memoirs (Sunday Life, 29/5) resonated with me. I found the experience confronting but cathartic as well. I have just completed my book which is being published. When the completed copy was handed to me, I felt emotional. It was like having just given birth and I was holding the offspring.Barbara Cohen, Brighton East

I travelled in Spain recently. Trains between Madrid and Barcelona leave on the hour. Travelling at about 300km/h, it takes three hours and has reduced air traffic between these two cities by about 60per cent. Links between other cities are as fast and often as frequent. Spain is committed to generating 74per cent of its energy sustainably by 2030.

For years, we have heard about the exorbitant costs associated with building a fast train network in Australia, but not the cost of not building it. The professionals we dont train or employ to design and build it, the lost employment opportunities for people required to maintain and run it, and the resignation that the only way to get around, at great expense to our wallet and climate, is to fly.Carolyn Cliff, Armadale

It is uncertain which is the more telling reflection: Tony Wrights article Libs forgotten people took the cash and ran (The Age, 4/6) or his (unfortunately ignored by some voters) damning article Liberals as far from Menzies as imaginable (The Age, 17/5/19).

One can only agree that Tonys father, like my Pop who was a staunch admirer of Robert Menzies, would be greatly disheartened. To say the least. Wright continues to write wonderful, evocative and pertinent articles.Greg Norton, Box Hill

Clearly Victoria has a problem valuing our trees (Sunday Age, 29/5), whether it is in our parks, leafy suburbs, housing developments or forests. The confluence of poor planning regulations, ineffectual environmental laws, as well as meagre climate policies reflect a wider problem about the way we exploit our natural resources.

Our trees, vegetation and biodiversity are being extinguished at record levels, at the very time that we are also reaching record breaking temperatures on land. We have to reset our priorities to protect the very things that protect us.Brenda Tait, Kew

How good would Friday night football be without commentators and special comments? Most viewers understand the game.Richard Sykes, Bell Park

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Our partys diversity - The Age

Were empire thrown overboard, much of the monarchys symbolic power would have gone with it. From her first prorogation of Parliament, Queen Elizabeth II, like her predecessors, affirmed old imperial fictions and cultivated new ones. This was her prescribed role, her monarchical duty. She reminded her grieving nation of its imperial greatness and the sacrifices being made to save empire from encroaching terrorism in the empire. In Malaya, she declared, My Forces and the civil administration are carrying out a difficult task with patience and determination.

This difficult task, meant to suppress an anticolonial, communist insurgency, included mass detention without trial, illegal deportations and one of the empires largest forced migrations, moving hundreds of thousands of colonial subjects into barbed-wire villages. Many lived in semi-starvation, under 24-hour guard, and were forced to labor and abused.

Liberal imperialism endured, however, its elasticity giving rise to new lexicons for reform. Colonial subjects were being rehabilitated in an unprecedented hearts and minds campaign. Updated postwar humanitarian laws and new human rights conventions legally and politically problematic, particularly on Britains widespread use of torture partly prompted such doublespeak while British governments repeatedly denied repressive measures, secretly ordering wide-scale destruction of incriminating evidence.

Reformist fictions laundered Britains past, watermarking official narratives of end-of-empire conflicts in Kenya, Cyprus, Aden, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Fragments of damning evidence remain, however. Historians, myself included, have spent years reassembling them, demonstrating liberal imperialisms perfidity and the ways in which successive monarchs manifestly performed the empire and its myths, drawing symbolic power from their sublime in loco parentis role civilizing colonial subjects while perhaps unwittingly given their governments cover-ups honoring the dishonorable with speeches, titles and medals.

In 1917, for instance, King George V introduced the Order of the British Empire, celebrating civilian and military service with the Knight and Dame Grand Cross (GBE) the highest-ranking honor. The Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) is the lowest, with three others in between. To this day, the queen still confers hundreds of these medals annually, which continue to bear the motto FOR GOD AND THE EMPIRE, the two wellsprings of monarchical power.

Such conferrals are inherently political gestures. One case among many was in 1950s Kenya where Britain detained without trial over one million Africans during the Mau Mau Emergency. Terence Gavaghan, the architect of the dilution technique, or systematized violence used to break detainees, was awarded an MBE. John Cowan, his lieutenant, was also given one despite, or because of, his role in crafting the Cowan Plan, which led to the beating deaths of 11 detainees. Known as the Hola Massacre, it threatened the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan, who wrote to the queen in 1959 that the incident was by no means excused, though Her Majestys Government can hardly be held responsible for the faults of commission or omission of quite minor officials.

Scapegoating tactics and royal affirmations of empires nefarious agents were long part of Britains modus operandi, as was developmentalist language masquerading as benign reform. When independence swept through the empire in the 1960s, colonies were growing up, according to Macmillan. Britain declared its civilizing mission a triumph, and the Commonwealth of Nations, today comprising 54 countries, most of which are former British colonies, the logical coda.

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Opinion | The Imperial Fictions Behind the Queens Platinum Jubilee - The New York Times

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President Biden returned fire in a sarcastic spat with billionaire Elon Musk on Friday.

During his televised press conference on the state of the U.S. economy, Biden was asked his thoughts on Musks pessimistic assessment of where things were headed. Biden dismissed Musk, wishing him "luck on his trip to the moon."

The feud generated a buzz among media figures on Twitter.

On Thursday, news broke that the Tesla CEO had emailed company executives that he wants to cut 10% of the electric car company's jobs and put in place a hiring freeze due to his fears about the state of the economy.

MARIA BARTIROMO ON ELON MUSK'S 'SUPER BAD FEELING' ABOUT THE ECONOMY

President Biden slams Elon Musk during his press conference about U.S. economy. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Musk didnt mince words, telling the executives that he has a "super bad feeling" about the economy.

This isnt the first Musk email this week that has turned heads. Earlier, he sent out an email to Tesla execs requiring them to make sure all employees were coming into the office for work. "Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week," he wrote.

Biden was asked about Musks "super bad feeling" at his press conference and fired back with a few comments about how other major car companies making electric vehicles are investing in the economy.

"Well, let me tell you, while Elon Musk is talking about that, Ford is increasing their investment overwhelmingly. I think Ford is increasing investment in building new electric vehicles, 6,000 new employees, union employees, I might add, in the Midwest," he stated, adding that "The former Chrysler Corporation, Stellantis, they are also making similar investments in electric vehicles. Intel is adding 20,000 new jobs, making computer chips."

The president also made a dismissive quip to the worlds richest man, seeming to mock Musk's business endeavors in space exploration. "So, you know, lots of luck on his trip to the Moon. I mean, I dont I mean, you know..." Biden concluded on the subject, trailing off.

Biden sarcastically wished Elon Musk "luck" on his future space flights after the billionaire criticized the state of the U.S. economy.

Musk responded to Bidens cheeky send off on Twitter, by sharing a NASA article reporting that Musks SpaceX company will be providing the rocket systems that the U.S. government's space program will use to get men to the moon on its upcoming Artemis program.

Along with the post, he tweeted a sarcastic quip of his own, writing, "Thanks Mr President!"

Other Twitter users reacted to the spat. Some liberal accounts loved Bidens response, whereas Musk supporters slammed Biden for not taking the businessmans warning seriously.

Occupy Democrats account reveled in Bidens quip, tweeting, "BREAKING: Joe Biden mocks GOP-supporting billionaire Elon Musk for saying he wants to fire 10% of Tesla employees because he has a super bad feeling about the economy, jokingly wishes him lots of luck on his trip to the moon. RT IF YOU LOVE WHEN BIDEN SHADES RIGHT-WINGERS!"

Reuters White House editor Heather Timmons tweeted her assessment that Bidens Ford comments were the real insult to Musk. She wrote, "While Biden's sarcastic moon comment is getting a lot of play, his Ford comparison is the real dig, implying Musk is a bad manager."

The Washington Examiners Jerry Dunleavy bashed Bidens comments, tweeting, "It isnt Elon Musks trip to the Moon. It is Americas trip there. NASA picked SpaceX to help land astronauts on the lunar surface as part of NASAs Artemis mission. U.S. astronauts are slated to return to the Moon in 2025! A cool thing that Biden shouldnt be dismissive about!"

ELON MUSK CALLS OUT AOC, ASKS TWITTER FOLLOWERS IF THEY TRUST POLITICIANS OR BILLIONAIRES

Space News senior writer Jeff Foust pointed out that the government that Biden runs is investing in Musk. He tweeted, "NASA is paying SpaceX $2.9 billion for that trip to the Moon"

"FTW. [For the win]" tweeted MSNBC analyst David Corn, thinking Bidens quip was excellent.

TechCrunch transportation editor Kirsten Korosec approved of Bidens line, during the press conference, tweeting, "Biden stepping up his trolling game."

"This is a genuinely funny line," tweeted The Independent journalist Richard Hall about Biden's comment.

Quartz senior reporter Tim Fernholz slammed Biden over the comment, tweeting, "lol Musk's trip to the moon is the centerpiece of the Biden administration's space policy. Good example of this administration's lack of interest in NASA."

Elon Musk tweeted, "Thank Mr President!" after Biden swiped at him at a Friday press conference.

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Liberal journalist Ana Marie Cox actually went against Biden and his supporters on this one, tweeting, "The degree to which people are celebrating Bidens dunk on Elon Musk just reminds me of the very low bar some Democrats have for their elected officials."

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Biden spars with Musk over economy and sets off Twitter: Good luck on 'trip to the moon' - Fox News

(June 2, 2022 / JNS) The Biden administrations obsession with boosting the Palestinian cause at the expense of Israel continues apace.

It was reported last week that the administration had reluctantly abandoned its proposal to reopen the Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem.

In 2019, former President Donald Trump had closed the consulate down. Israel objected to the American plan to reopen it on the basis that a mission serving Palestinian Arabs that operated from Israeli territory was an encroachment on Israeli sovereignty.

It would reinforce the impression that the United States backed the division of Jerusalem, thus undermining the powerful gesture of American support for Israels capital by moving the U.S. embassy in 2018 from Tel Aviv to the consulate building in Jerusalem.

Furthermore, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others stated that opening a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem would be illegal under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, whichrequiresthe consent of the host country to open it, as well as theU.S. Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which recognized Jerusalem asIsraels capital and as an undivided city.

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It was reported that the Biden team had adopted a different tactic to boost Palestinian representation by elevating Hady Amr, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs, to the role of special envoy to the Palestinians.

Under this plan, Amr would work closely with the Palestinian Affairs Unit, which currently is a branch within the U.S. embassy in Israel. This would separate American diplomats serving the Palestinians from those serving the Israelis, and would thus upgrade the Palestinians status by giving them direct and public access to the U.S. government.

For his own part, Amr has a history of hostility to Israel.I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada, he wrote in 2001. After an Israeli airstrike in 2002 killed Sheikh Salah Shahada, the head of Hamass Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Amr raged that the Arabs will never, never forget what the Israeli people, the Israeli military and Israeli democracy have done to Palestinian children. And there will be thousands who will seek to avenge these brutal murders of innocents.

Amr is seen as a key figure behind the Biden administrations cooling towards Israel and its kowtowing to the Palestinians, including its plans to unconditionally restore aid to the Palestinian Authority, which was curtailed during the Trump presidency.

Whatever Amrs actual future role, it appears that the Biden team has not given up on the consulate plan. At a press conference this week, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said: We remain committed to opening a consulate in Jerusalem. We continue to believe it can be an important way for our country to engage with and provide support to the Palestinian people.

The hold-up in reopening it, he said, involved unique sensitivities and we are working through the issue with our Palestinian and Israeli partners.

Yet what the Palestinians have been doing recently hardly justifies such respect as Americas partners alongside Israel.

For the P.A. repeatedly incites violence against Israeli Jews, as can be seen in the materials posted on the websites of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) and the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

On its official Fatah Facebook page, Mahmoud Abbass Fatah Party, which runs the P.A., posted a video inciting Palestinians to stop the Israeli national flag march last week through Jerusalems Old City. Defending Jerusalem, it said, is not [just] a normal duty, but rathera test of our religious and national conscience. Jerusalem is waiting for its guardians, so dont be negligent and dont let their flags wave in our sky.

The official P.A. daily ran a column attacking the flag march, in which it once again wrote the Jews out of their own national story. It falsely and ludicrously claimed that a Palestinian nation had existed for 5,000 years with Jerusalem as its capital and denied the actual fact that Jerusalem was only ever the capital of the ancient kingdom of Israel or Judea.

In a similar vein, it also claimed that the Western Wall of the Temple Mount belonged only to believers of the religion of Islam and called on them to expel from it the Zionist herds who are stealing the Palestinian land and Judaism to their lairs, until it will be liberated peacefully or through other means of struggle.

During Ramadan recently, the P.A. encouraged violence at the Al-Aqsa mosque and its surrounding plazas, as well as elsewhere in Israel. A Fatah official vowed that Fatah wont lower the rifle, the stone nor any [other] means of resistance to the occupation.

These and many other calls for jihadi violence resulted in terrorist attacks during March and April leaving at least 19 Israelis murdered, including an Arab-Israeli police officer.

Fatah has named as heroic martyrs the two Palestinian murderers who killed eight people in two separate terror attacks in central Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak during this spate of violence. A Fatah official declared that we lovemartyrdom-deathas we love life, while Palestinians chillinglychanted: How sweet it is to kill Jews.

Although such incitement has recently reached a crescendo, the P.A. routinely promulgates Nazi-style blood libels and evil Jew conspiracy lunacies; instructs its children that their highest calling is to kill Israelis and steal their land; and continues to pay terrorists families a reward for murdering Israeli Jews.

In any sane and morally functioning universe, such people would therefore be treated as social and political pariahs, and be held to account for their murderous agenda.

So why is the Biden administration so determined instead to elevate them? Of course, there are elements within the administration of gross anti-Zionist or anti-Jewish hatred. Such bigotry marks many Palestinian supporters in progressive circles throughout the West.

But there is also a lethal refusal to face reality in the Middle East that has characterized American administrations, as well as governments in Britain and Europe, for many decades.

This has been fed by a fundamental misconception that the war of extermination waged against Israel is instead a conflict between two rival claims to the same area of land. To those wearing such blinders, the solution must therefore be a compromise between the two sides in which the land has to be shared.

But since this is in fact a war of extermination by the Palestinian side against Israel, all such attempts at compromise serve instead to legitimize, incentivize and reward its aggressionwhile punishing and weakening Israel for refusing to surrender to its existential foe.

The great fallacy of American and Western liberals is that this insistence on compromise is proof of their even-handedness.

The idea of equality, and thus moral equivalence, is a supposedly cardinal precept of liberal thought. In reality, it results in grotesque and amoral inequality. By insisting on equivalence between victim and aggressor, it always ends up favoring the aggressor and placing the victim in even greater jeopardy.

Its not possible to support the Palestinian cause without harming Israel. Palestinian supporters tell themselves they are helping those who have been deprived of a state of their own. In fact, they are aiding the potential invasion and theft of someone elses country.

Western liberals dont seem to realize it, but their support constitutes the Palestinians last chance of destroying Israel. For the Arab world has largely deserted them, and instead of trying to destroy Israel, the Arab states are increasingly normalizing relations with it.

In short, the murderous Palestinian train has left the station. The Biden administration and other Western liberalsclinging to their ideologically twisted fantasies about creating a new worldare apparently the last people to know.

Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for The Times of London, her personal and political memoir, Guardian Angel, has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, The Legacy.Go tomelaniephillips.substack.comto access her work.

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Biden administration won't stop appeasing the Palestinians - JNS.org

Published: Published Date - 11:40 PM, Sat - 4 June 22

Hyderabad: In recent years, there has been conflicting interpretations regarding the nature and the characteristic features of the Asaf Jahi rule. In particular the period of last two Nizams i.e., the sixth and the seventh (1869-1948) has been subjected to critical analysis.

One group of scholars present a negative picture of the last phase of the Asaf Jahi rule by depicting certain features like autocratic polity and aristocratic-feudal domination. While another set of scholars tend to come up with a positive developments like growth of education, industries, composite culture, etc.

Therefore, it is necessary to re-assess and re-interpret the modern history of Hyderabad State on the basis of authentic source materials and data. The formation of new Telangana State has brought forward several issues and challenges. The issue of Telangana has been a topic of public and intellectual debate for over six decades.

However, there are few academic and scholarly works which have analysed the nature and characteristic features of modern Telangana. Indeed the modern period has been pre-eminently a time for searching out the hitherto forgotten/neglected aspects, records and sources as well as to bring out the new sources of information by delving into hitherto neglected archival records and critically analysing the contradictory interpretations/debate by scholars.

Thus 19-20th century history of Telangna is of supreme importance to historical research as it will endeavour to reflect the current status of research and to uncover the many areas where new and additional research is needed.

The period between 1853 and 1883 is crucial for understanding and analyzing the contours of the birth of modern Telangana: the year 1853 signifies the beginning of Salar Jungs reforms which led to the fundamental changes in the administrative and socio-economic-cultural fields in the Nizams Dominions.

As a Regent and Prime Minister he served three Nizams for 30 years (1853-1883). The Salar Jung reforms contributed for the improvement of the States finances and administrative and socio-economic system. The second half of the 19th century was also a period of significant changes in the administrative, economic, education and socio-economic fields.

Similarly, the reign of the sixth Nizam, Mir Mahaboob Ali Pasha 1869-1911 was also significant in bringing about major changes in the political, administrative, socio- economic and cultural fields. He was a popular ruler of Hyderabad who became the beloved of the people. He was liberal and a visionary. The multisided progress in the field of administration, industries, trade and commerce and education has transformed the Hyderabad State from medievalism to modernity.

The reforms of Salar Jung and the sixth Nizam were carried forward by the last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, 1911-1948 CE. During his period the Hyderabad State witnessed significant changes in the agricultural, economic, industrial, trade and commercial sectors. The growth of public sector major industries like coal mines, railways, roads, motor transport, post and telegraphs, education, irrigation and so on were the distinctive features of the Hyderabad State under the last Nizam.

The rule of the last two Nizams i.e., 6th and 7th also witnessed the flourishing of the composite culture in the Nizams Dominions. The growth of art and architecture literature fine arts signified the distinctive Deccan culture and the emergence of a new era in the history of Telangana.

The Hyderabad State, located in the Deccan plateau, was endowed with rich mineral and forest resources, diverse raw materials as well as black cotton soils. The land tenure systems and agrarian economy were based on feudal relations, yet since the late 19th century commercialisation of agriculture in terms of the growth of export oriented cotton and oil-seeds facilitated integration of Hyderabad economy into the national and international markets.

The so-called subsistence economy was transformed into a money economy. As the Prime Minister of Hyderabad, Salar Jung was responsible for the restructuring of administrative system and the socio-economic relations. The land tenure, agrarian reforms, fiscal and taxation policies, encouragement for the growth of trade, commerce and modern industries, growth of modern/western education system, development of public works and infrastructure, have played a crucial role in the process of modernisation and socio-economic transformation.

Hence, as a visionary and development-minded statesman and administrator Sir Salar Jung was rightly described as the architect and moderniser of Hyderabad state.

To be continued ..

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The birth of modern Telangana - Telangana Today