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In this mailing:
* Bassam Tawil: The Biden-Harris Administration Owes Israel's Netanyahu An Apology
* Amir Taheri: The US Election: The Danger of Otherness


** The Biden-Harris Administration Owes Israel's Netanyahu An Apology ([link removed])
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by Bassam Tawil • October 20, 2024 at 5:00 am
* "Again and again we see that Israel absolutely made the right call in not heeding the Biden administration and the rest of the world's insistence that the IDF not invade Rafah." — Lahav Harkov, Israeli journalist, X, October 17, 2024.
* "Pretty rich after a year of undermining Netanyahu, saying he MUST go to a ceasefire, MUST deescalate, trying to stop Israel from going into Rafah WHERE SINWAR WAS KILLED, and Kamala boycotting his joint address to Congress - now Biden & Harris have the nerve to congratulate him for setting the path to peace. I'm sure the phone call sounds something like 'You were right Bibi [Netanyahu], we apologize,'" — US Rep. Mike Waltz, X, October 18, 2024
* Israel's killing Sinwar and destroying Hamas's military infrastructure in Rafah sadly show how steadfastly the Biden-Harris administration was trying to prevent Israel from achieving victory over the Iran-backed Islamist murderers and rapists responsible for the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust.
* Netanyahu deserves credit for ignoring the warnings and threats by Biden and his senior officials. Thanks to Netanyahu, Hamas has been significantly debilitated and Sinwar has been eliminated, making the Middle East a safer place. It now remains to be seen whether the Biden-Harris administration will reconsider its failed foreign policies and apologize to the Israeli prime minister for attempting to undermine his efforts to combat terrorism and bring more security and stability not only to Israel, but the entire Middle East as well.

Israel's killing Yahya Sinwar and destroying Hamas's military infrastructure in Rafah sadly show how steadfastly the Biden-Harris administration was trying to prevent Israel from achieving victory over the Iran-backed Islamist murderers and rapists responsible for the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust. Pictured: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explains the importance of Rafah's Philadelphi corridor during a press conference in Jerusalem on September 4, 2024. (Photo by Abir Sultan/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration spent weeks warning Israel not to enter the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where many of the leaders of the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas were believed to be hiding. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had prepared to enter the city as part of a counterterrorism offensive to destroy Hamas's military capabilities and rescue some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by the terrorist group on October 7, 2023.

The October 17 killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Rafah area proved that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did the right thing in ignoring the warnings of the Biden-Harris administration. The IDF eventually entered Rafah, where it succeeded in killing hundreds of Hamas terrorists and recovering the bodies of some of the hostages. In addition, the IDF managed to rescue one of the hostages held in a Hamas tunnel in the Rafah area.

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** The US Election: The Danger of Otherness ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • October 20, 2024 at 4:00 am
* What interests us here is the division of Americas into "us" and "not-us," a shady game of alterity that reduces the competition of ideas in a modern democracy into a primitive expression of fear and loathing.
* Trump voters were also classified as TV-watchers rather than readers of newspapers, let alone books. The subtext was that if such lower species could decide the fate of the world's only superpower, then something must be wrong with electoral democracy.
* "We're all Americans!" might sound trite. On closer examination, however, it is the wisest expression of a shared desire for coexistence in a system that thrives on diversity, competitive otherness, creative tension and enlightened trust in the rules of the game.
* Thus, whether she likes or not, Harris, though the American-ness of her family is of recent nature, represents and owns the whole of the United States' history and identity. Rather than nursing old chagrins and grievances often inherited from generations long gone and using them as a prop for fake "otherness" she should defend her own vision of America's future while acknowledging the right of the "deplorable" to do the same.
* Harris may yet ride her MAGA-bashing horse to victory. But even then, she wouldn't be able to provide effective leadership of a nation she has divided into "us" and "not-us."
* There is still time, very little time, for Harris to realize that "This is not who we are" is a misleading and dangerous sentence. She, Trump and all others Americans are "who we are" together. They are heirs to the great achievements and the regrettable injustices of their nation's history, and jointly responsible for shaping the future.

There is still time, very little time, for Kamala Harris to realize that "This is not who we are" is a misleading and dangerous sentence. She, Donald Trump and all others Americans are "who we are" together. They are heirs to the great achievements and the regrettable injustices of their nation's history, and jointly responsible for shaping the future. Pictured: Harris shakes hands with Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

"This is not who we are!" This is one of the favorite shibboleths used by US Democrat Party's presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her supporters with the aim of portraying supporters of her Republican rival Donald Trump as not quite American, if not utterly alien.

One of Harris' "progressive" supporters expresses concern that she may win a huge majority of the popular vote in the November 5 election, but still fail to get the keys to the White House because of the Electoral College rule.

Another Harris admirer claims that she represents a vast majority of Americans, from Noam Chomsky to Dick Cheney, against a small Make America Great Again (MAGA) minority led by Trump. Whether or not that assertion is correct will soon be put to the test.

What interests us here is the division of Americas into "us" and "not-us," a shady game of alterity that reduces the competition of ideas in a modern democracy into a primitive expression of fear and loathing.

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