Culture wars 

Sanitising Soros through guilt by association

The law professor Alan Dershowitz has thrown a legal hand-grenade into America’s political civil war by claiming to have evidence that former President Barack Obama “personally asked” the FBI to investigate someone “on behalf” of Obama’s “close ally,” billionaire financier George Soros. He made his cryptic remark in an interview defending U.S. President Donald Trump against claims he interfered in the prosecution of his former adviser, Roger Stone. Dershowitz, a confirmed liberal, drew the ire of the left by joining Trump’s impeachment defense team —not because he’s a Trump fan,…

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Britain Culture wars 

Brexit, nationhood and the Jewish question

In Britain, the crisis so long dreaded by many British Jews is finally upon them. The general election that has been called for December raises the possibility that hard-left Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn might come to power. The election was made inevitable by political paralysis over Brexit, with the Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson effectively held hostage by a parliament dominated by Remainer MPs determined to prevent the United Kingdom from making a clean break with the European Union. This Brexit election is being described as the most important…

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Europeans lose minds and moral compass Britain Culture wars Europe 

Europe starts to fray at the seams

The European parliament elections last week have provided further graphic evidence that Britain and Europe are in the throes of a profound political and cultural upheaval. In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party pulverized both Labour and the Conservatives by winning many more seats than either to become the largest single party in the European parliament— within just five weeks of being created. Since Farage’s party stands for Britain leaving the European Union with no withdrawal deal, many Conservatives rightly believe that whoever they elect as their new leader (and therefore…

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Europe Israel 

Is Netanyahu making deals with the devil?

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been severely criticized for cozying up to sundry dictators, autocrats or governments that downplay or deny their country’s role in the Holocaust. Among those he has either visited or hosted are Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who boasts of creating an “illiberal democracy” and President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines who once compared himself to Hitler. The next summit of the Visegrád group, an alliance of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, will be held this month in Jerusalem.…

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conservatism Culture wars Israel 

Is the State of Israel supping with the devil?

The visit to Israel this week by Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has provoked criticism and dismay within the Jewish world. Salvini, who heads Italy’s right-wing “populist” Lega party, is controversial because of his anti-immigration stance. Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin declined to meet him, citing “scheduling issues.” Rivlin’s view of political parties such as Lega were made clear, however, when he told CNN that the whole world needed to work against xenophobia, discrimination and antisemitism. “There are neo-fascist movements today that have considerable and very dangerous influence, and sometimes…

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Boris Britain Culture wars Europe 

Convulsions over Brexit and the struggle for the western nation

The West is convulsing as a new world order struggles to be born. Nowhere is that convulsion currently proving more agonizing and potentially catastrophic than in the United Kingdom. The fundamental division is between, on the one hand, nationalists who want to defend the nation and its core values and, on the other, those who believe these must be superseded by trans-national institutions and laws. In the first camp are millions of ordinary people throughout the West in revolt against the steady undermining of their countries and cultures, alongside the…

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crazy world Videos 

Our crazy world: Iran appeasement, France riots, nationalism

Crazy world: why are the Europeans determined to continue to pour money into the coffers of the most lethal terrorist state in the world, which has been waging a self-declared war against the west for four decades, threatens Israel with extermination and is hell-bent on building nuclear weapons? Why is French president Emmanuel Macron posturing against western national identity, declaring America to be an enemy and presiding over the disintegration of his country’s internal security while his own citizens are rioting on the streets of Paris against his high-handed policies…

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crazy world Videos 

Our crazy world: American hysteria, Brexit, nationalism

Our crazy world: American hysteria, Brexit, nationalism Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired the attitudes I encountered on my recent speaking tour in America. We also consider the importance of the idea of the nation and the way this is vilified. And of course, the ongoing crisis over Theresa May’s catastrophic handling of Brexit. Her betrayal of the people’s decision to leave the EU, by agreeing to terms which would deliver Brexit in name only but leave the UK under EU control, is…

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conservatism Britain Israel USA 

The nation as an island: the source of Israel’s resilience

At this week’s annual dinner in London of the Anglo-Israel Association, which promotes understanding of Israel in the UK, the Israeli thinker Daniel Gordis poignantly described Israel as an island surrounded by enemies. This image of Israel under siege is currently all too apposite. With Iran’s regime now entrenched through its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, Israel now faces a genocidal enemy on three simultaneous fronts. In the face of these dangers, not to mention the recent mini-war when thousands of rockets from Gaza rained down on southern Israel,…

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conversation Britain Culture wars 

Sir Roger Scruton becomes a persecuted dissident. In Britain

If there is one event that most clearly encapsulates the vicious and socially suicidal ignorance and cultural sectarianism currently rampant in British society, it is the treatment that has been meted out to Sir Roger Scruton. Sir Roger is arguably the most important British philosopher of recent years and one of the most significant in the western world. He has devoted his life and work to advancing the causes of reason, understanding and decency. As a professor of aesthetics, a lover of the countryside and a noted champion of English…

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