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In this mailing:
* Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Fighting against Coronavirus, for Freedom of Speech
* Peter Huessy: Lessons from History: The Reagan Legacy


** Palestinians: Fighting against Coronavirus, for Freedom of Speech ([link removed])
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 23, 2020 at 5:00 am
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* Hamas is claiming that it is worried about the safety of the Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, often for multiple murders, while its own prisons in the Gaza Strip are full of Palestinians whose only crime is that they dared to criticize the Hamas leadership or its policies.
* Did Hamas forget that just last month another Palestinian, Ahmed al-Sa'afeen, 39, died shortly after he was detained for his alleged affiliation with Fatah?
* Instead of directing millions of dollars to building hospitals or improving healthcare, Hamas has for the past few years invested approximately $150 million in rebuilding its tunnel infrastructure, and has diverted dual-use construction materials such as concrete, steel, and wood, which could have gone to rebuilding Gaza's civilian infrastructure. [DEL:
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* According to Palestinian sources, 50 Palestinians are being held in Palestinian Authority prisons in the West Bank because of their affiliation with Hamas and other opposition groups.
* Both the PA and Hamas, even during the difficult time of a pandemic, as they have made abundantly clear, do not hesitate to pursue their repressive measures against anyone who dares to speak out against financial and administrative corruption, or express views that annoy any Palestinian leaders.

Both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, even during the difficult time of a pandemic, do not hesitate to pursue their repressive measures against anyone who dares to speak out against financial and administrative corruption, or express views that annoy any Palestinian leaders. Pictured: A PA policeman mans a checkpoint at the entrance to Hebron ahead of a "mandatory quarantine," on March 22. (Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images)

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, says it has taken drastic steps to prevent the spread of the coronavirus among the two million Palestinians living under its rule.

On March 22, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health announced the first confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Gaza Strip: two Palestinians who returned from a visit to Pakistan. The ministry said the two patients were placed in quarantine in a field hospital near Gaza's border with Egypt.

The ministry also announced the suspension of Friday prayers in all mosques throughout the Gaza Strip and the closure of wedding halls, restaurants and coffee shops.

The Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers, however, still seem to have time to continue their repressive measures against Palestinians, despite increased fears that more cases of coronavirus might be detected there.

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** Lessons from History: The Reagan Legacy ([link removed])
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by Peter Huessy • March 23, 2020 at 4:00 am
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* Even if Reagan believed the Soviets would never fire a long-range missile at the US -- which he certainly did not believe -- what about the long-range missile threats against the United States from China? Certainly, given such threats, the United States had the right to build strategic missile defenses, making any deal to forgo missile defenses with the Soviets an absurd proposition.
* Even worse, what was described as "arms control" in the SALT 1 and 2 treaties was just an agreement between the Soviets and the United States largely to build-up US nuclear arsenals as it was already planning to do even without the arms treaties.
* Reagan left an open window of consensus to 1) modernize the US nuclear deterrent, 2) seek future arms control that includes limiting all nuclear weapons, including China's, and 3) deploy more robust missile defenses especially in the near term and refuse to negotiate away America's current and future missile defense capability.
* If these three "Reagan" factors can be preserved, the US may indeed remain safe from nuclear conflict. As these policies keep the US safe, hopefully its leaders will realize how well Reagan's policy of "peace through strength" worked.

If the United States faced limited strikes -- a few dozen nuclear-armed missiles -- America's missile defenses would have a much greater chance of deterring or blunting such threats, as opposed to the complaint that missile defense would just start an "arms race". Pictured: The guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald launches a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) as a part of a joint ballistic missile defense exercise, on October 25, 2012. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)

President Ronald Reagan envisioned a future with a highly survivable and modernized nuclear arsenal, markedly lower warhead numbers reduced through verifiable arms control, and the eventual deployment of robust missile defenses. The goal? To vitiate a nuclear-armed adversary's ability to disarm the USA through a massive nuclear strike and to defeat any small or limited attacks from rogue states or terror groups.

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