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In this mailing:
* Con Coughlin: Blame Hamas and Hezbollah for Civilian Deaths, Not Israel
* Amir Taheri: 2024: The Pendulum Swings in a New Direction
* Lawrence Kadish: Trumpmaganomics


** Blame Hamas and Hezbollah for Civilian Deaths, Not Israel ([link removed])
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by Con Coughlin • December 29, 2024 at 5:00 am
* Whether it is using schools, hospitals and other public buildings that are supposed to be afforded immunity in conflict under international law, or simply using Palestinian civilians as human shields, Hamas terrorists have consistently jeopardised the well-being of those they purport to defend.
* Another area where Hamas deliberately intensifies the suffering of Palestinian civilians as a means of pressuring Israel to end its military offensive is by denying Palestinian families access to much-needed aid supplies.
* When the Gazans, for whom the aid is intended, try to approach it, there have been reports of Hamas operatives shooting them.
* If the Biden administration and its allies in the media, the United Nations and the European Union really want to see a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, then they should direct their criticism of the wilful mistreatment of civilians towards Hamas and Hezbollah, and their backers, not Israel.
* Ending the malign operations of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah is the best means of ending the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon respectively, and providing ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese with a genuine opportunity to make a better life for themselves.

Another area where Hamas deliberately intensifies the suffering of Palestinian civilians is by denying Palestinian families access to much-needed aid supplies. When the Gazans, for whom the aid is intended, try to approach it, there have been reports of Hamas operatives shooting them. Pictured: Hamas terrorists on a pickup truck "escort" trucks carrying humanitarian aid that they intend to loot, near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip on December 10, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)

If Western politicians and aid agencies want to apportion blame for the high death tolls in the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, then they need look no further than the Iranian-backed terror groups cynically risking the lives of innocent civilians to achieve their diabolical agenda.

From the moment Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists launched their deadly attack against Israel on October 7 last year, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 or so hostage, Hamas terrorists have shown a wilful disregard for the lives and well-being of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Whether it is using schools, hospitals and other public buildings that are supposed to be afforded immunity in conflict under international law, or simply using Palestinian civilians as human shields, Hamas terrorists have consistently jeopardised the well-being of those they purport to defend.

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** 2024: The Pendulum Swings in a New Direction ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • December 29, 2024 at 4:30 am
* A number of other pseudo-collectivist outfits that had never been anything but expensive ghosts have continued to fade away, among them the Association of South East Asian Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS+, the Russian-led Eurasia phantom, various pan-Islamic money-spenders and time-wasters, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Arab League.
* All that not to mention the so-called Axis of Resistance that the Islamic Republic of Iran had created at huge expense to "export revolution" to the four corners of the world.
* The year's revenant was Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who before the October 7, 2023, invasion by Hamas, seemed to be on his way into oblivion via a possible stint in the can. Within a few months, however, the world discovered a brand-new Netanyahu casting himself as an international statesman. British historian Andrew Roberts even compared him to Sir Winston Churchill, who was branded a sad failure in 1939 but praised as a hero a year later.
* All in all, not a bad year, and if the pendulum swings in the current direction, the best may be yet to come.

As 2024 draws to a close, one thing is certain across the globe: the pendulum of history is swinging away from the direction it had taken since the 1990s. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)

As 2024 draws to a close, one thing is certain across the globe: the pendulum of history is swinging away from the direction it had taken since the 1990s.

For almost three decades, it had swung towards what one might call soft-left, in its latest epiphanies as globalism, political correctness and multiculturalism -- all versions of collectivism.

By collectivism, we mean ideologies that see humanity in terms of groups or herds rather than individuals, and nation-states as pawns for self-perpetuating global elites to move on their imaginary chessboard.

The first institution to get hit was the United Nations that, as its name suggests, was supposed to be a nonpartisan grouping of sovereign nation states working together within a commonly accepted framework of rules and traditions in the service of peace and international cooperation.

In the past few years, however, the UN has morphed into a partisan club for soft-left ideologues.

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** Trumpmaganomics ([link removed])
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by Lawrence Kadish • December 29, 2024 at 4:00 am
Pictured: President-elect Donald Trump rings the opening bell on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange on December 12, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The new economic policies of President-elect Donald J. Trump promise to include his campaign pledge to "Make America Great Again." Just a few months ago, commentators were assessing that the Biden administration's greatest ambition was "managing America's decline." What a difference a day makes: November 5, 2024. Trump, a businessman, appears to have a good grasp of most domestic and foreign policy issues that greet him at the stable door. He has already been overflowing with ideas -- such as refusing to allow a hostile Communist China to control the Panama Canal, as it presently does; and aligning more closely with Greenland and Canada to provide the northern hemisphere a stronger foothold to safeguard its security and prosperity and that of the Free World.

In securing America's financial future, Trump's maganomic policies appear to turn on three points:

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