Kerry Pushes Hamas Proposal: Undermines Israel & Egypt
After days of intense negotiations and shuttle diplomacy, Secretary of State John Kerry submitted his proposed ceasefire plan to the Israeli cabinet Friday. Cabinet ministers unanimously rejected it.
The plan was so bizarre that the Obama Administration was forced to deny that it was promoting Hamas' demands in the document.
One columnist at Haaretz, a very left-wing Israeli newspaper, blasted Kerry's deal, asking "What was he thinking?" Consider these excerpts:
"The document recognized Hamas' position in the Gaza Strip, promised the organization billions in donation funds and demanded no dismantling of rockets, tunnels or other heavy weaponry at Hamas' disposal. The document placed Israel and Hamas on the same level, as if the first is not a primary U.S. ally and as if the second isn't a terror group…
"It's not clear what Kerry was thinking when he presented this draft. … But his conduct in recent days over the Gaza cease-fire raises serious doubts over his judgment and perception of regional events. It's as if he isn't the foreign minister of the world's most powerful nation, but an alien, who just disembarked his spaceship in the Mideast."
Israel has lost more than 40 soldiers since the fighting began a few weeks ago. Proportionally, that would be the equivalent of the United States losing more than 1,600 soldiers in the same period of time. It took about two and a half years before the U.S. lost that many men during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet, while the world is pressuring Israel to end its campaign against Hamas, 87% of Israelis support continuing the effort to destroy Hamas.
Rather than forcing Israel to accommodate terrorists, the rest of free world should be figuring out how to destroy Hezbollah, ISIS and Boko Haram, which has killed more Christians in Nigeria this year than the number of Palestinians who have died in Gaza. (And world reaction has been limited to Facebook posts and re-tweets.)
News You Won't See
Several hundred Iraqi Christians gathered outside of the White House Saturday to insist that the Obama Administration and the U.N. act to stop the ongoing assault by ISIS jihadists on Christians. Similar demonstrations took place in Paris, London and the Hague.
Christians have been driven out of Mosul, Iraq, one of the earliest Christian communities in the world. Churches and other Christian sites have been destroyed by an aggressive Islamist campaign of ethnic cleansing. Sadly, there was no response from the White House.
Obama Considers Mass Amnesty
President Obama recently vowed to "fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress." Various news reports give us a clue as to what he is likely to do: grant a mass amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants through executive orders. The Los Angeles Times reports that Obama is planning to "shield from deportation large numbers of immigrants living in the country illegally."
The most likely option, according to the Times, involves allowing the illegal immigrant parents of children born in the U.S. "to apply for temporary legal status which would let them work legally in the U.S. … that option could affect about 5 million people."
Another option would limit this plan to the parents of the so-called "Dreamers," illegal immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children. More than 520,000 illegal immigrants have applied for amnesty through Obama's "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" initiative. So this option could include more than one million people.
We won't have to wait long to learn what Obama plans to do. The Los Angeles Times reports Obama will act by the end of summer.
Violent Gang Recruiting Kids
Among the tens of thousands of children pouring across the border, there is no doubt that there are thugs among those trying to find a better life. The problem is that when you fail to control the border, it is difficult to determine the good from the bad.
For example, Border Patrol agents are warning that MS-13, one of the worst violent gangs, is now recruiting children inside a detention facility in Nogales, Arizona.
What irony! We're told that these kids are fleeing Central America to escape the gangs, but evidently the gangs are inside the shelters. Members of Congress cannot get inside these shelters, but the gangs can.
Bishops Blast Government Discrimination
The nation's Catholic leaders denounced the president's recent executive order forcing federal contractors to accommodate transgendered employees. Faith leaders lobbied the White House for a religious exemption because many federal contractors are faith-based groups performing social serves for the government. But no such an exemption was included in this latest executive order.
In their statement, the bishops blasted the order as "unprecedented and extreme," warning that it "implements discrimination" and will "exclude federal contractors precisely on the basis of their religious beliefs."