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In this mailing:
* Alan M. Dershowitz: And the Winner Is — Hamas!
* Amir Taheri: Western Farmers: Fork in the Road


** And the Winner Is — Hamas! ([link removed])
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • February 18, 2024 at 5:00 am
* What will happen if Hamas is allowed to win this war? If Hamas is permitted to accomplish what it intended by its mass murders, kidnappings and rapes? If the victims of these atrocities — the people of Israel and all countries fighting terrorism — lose? If the prospects for peace in the region and the Free World are seriously damaged? If the relationship between the US and Israel, and the loss of faith in the US as the guarantor of freedom, continues to be fractured?
* Instead, the Biden administration may be rewarding Palestinian terrorists by unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian State, which will, of course, soon become militarized.
* The anti-Israel left-wingers are not going to vote for Trump, who is more pro-Israel than Biden. Nor are they likely to stay home on Election Day and help Trump. Centrist voters, on the other hand, are likely to vote against Biden if they think he is beholden to the Squad or other anti-American woke extremists.
* As important as are the domestic electoral implications of Biden's weakening support for Israel, the international implications are far more consequential. The world will be a far less safe place if Israel is prevented from defeating Hamas and dismantling its military capabilities.
* Israel is doing everything reasonable to decrease civilian casualties, while Hamas tries to increase them on both sides. American policy should be to help Israel defeat Hamas and prevent the recurrence and spread of its terrorism against civilians, rather than to help Hamas secure a victory by tying Israel's hands.
* So, unless the Biden administration changes course and encourages Israel to achieve its legitimate military goal of defeating Hamas, terrorism will win and civilization will lose.

What will happen if Hamas is allowed to win this war? If Hamas is permitted to accomplish what it intended by its mass murders, kidnappings and rapes? Pictured: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists congratulate each other on their murderous atrocities in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Stripת on November 28, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

What will happen if Hamas is allowed to win this war? If Hamas is permitted to accomplish what it intended by its mass murders, kidnappings and rapes? If the victims of these atrocities — the people of Israel and all countries fighting terrorism — lose? If the prospects for peace in the region and the Free World are seriously damaged? If the relationship between the US and Israel, and the loss of faith in the US as the guarantor of freedom, continues to be fractured?

Instead, the Biden administration may be rewarding Palestinian terrorists by unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state, which will, of course, soon become militarized. The failures of UNIFIL to keep peace in South Lebanon and UNRWA to counter terrorism in Gaza should suggest caution.

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** Western Farmers: Fork in the Road ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • February 18, 2024 at 4:00 am
* Globalization rules enabled many nations to use their comparative advantage in terms of climate, richness of soil, less expensive labor and variety of products to claim a growing chunk of the traditional Western markets. At the same time, Western farmers had to cope with the growing cost of environmental measures concocted by the "save-the-planet" lobby.
* The real world is divided into nation-states with frontiers, different cultures and legal systems, and resistance to the one-size-fits-all sought by ultra-globalists.
* Protesting European farmers demand a "level playing field", something that, if regarded as a perfect model, does not and cannot exist in every human transaction. The "win-win" concept peddled by ultra-globalists is a myth. What matters is that the sum-total of relations among nation-states does not favor some and hurt others in the medium- and long-term.
* Polls show that most Europeans sympathize with their farmers. But will they continue doing so if the price is more expensive and less varied food and ditching part of the ecological dogma?

Pictured: Farmers use their tractors to block traffic as they protest in Hamburg, Germany, on January 29, 2024. (Photo by Morris Mac Matzen/AFP via Getty Images)

In the past few weeks European farmers have taken to the streets of their capitals to advertise a rebellious mood that few expected to see.

Having enjoyed a comfortable life for decades, thanks to subsidies from their respective governments and the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), they were not expected to invade the grand capitals, together with their sheep, cows and tractors, with a litany of woes.

The question of food security was first raised after World War II as a top priority for Western European nations as they tried to rebuild their shattered economies.

At the time, global shortages of food were still seen as a looming threat, while large scale famines claimed millions of victims in the People's Republic of China and several sub-Saharan African nations, and Western European countries gradually dismantled the rationing systems set up during the war.

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