All In Plain Sight

As we see hordes of people rallying across the globe in support of Hamas and Palestine, I thought it might be informative to review the exact words of the founding charter of Hamas that dates back to 1988.

This is in what they refer to as "The Covenant of the Hamas".

As I wrote in my last blog post, "Five Things Most Don't Know About Israel/Palestine", Israel has not occupied Gaza since it pulled out all of its military in 2005. It also forcefully relocated any Israelis who had settled in Gaza.

The Palestinians in Gaza were given the right of self-determination in 2005 by Israel in the hopes that they would choose peace. Blessed with a sunny and warm climate with 25 miles of beachfront property on the Mediterranean within a 5 hour flight of most of Europe, the citizens of Gaza could have chosen leaders who had a vision and mission to make Gaza the Miami Beach of the Mediterranean. 

Taking account of the large, young labor force they could have chosen leaders who wanted to make Gaza a technology manufacturing center considering Gaza's close access to Israel's talent in innovation and technology. 

Instead of attracting tourism or exporting technological products, the Palestinians chose a group to lead them that was only interested in exporting terror.

I have no doubt that substantial numbers of the Palestinian people now regret that decision. However, once authoritarians are given power they never willingly give it up. 

What was to come was all in plain sight for everyone to see as outlined in the Hamas Covenant.

Here are a few excerpts of that Hamas Covenant that you might find interesting based on what we see transpiring in the world today.

These excerpts are taken from a translation that summarizes the main points of the Hamas Covenant.

It provides context on several key points about the Hamas position in all of this.

1) Hamas and Islam are dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

2) Hamas believes Palestine is an Islamic land and the liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Muslim wherever they may be.

3) Hamas is not interested at all in any peace initiatives or peaceful solutions to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. They believe the only solution is Jihad.

4) Hamas believes that that The Day of Judgement will not come until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.

It is all in black and white for anyone to read.

Hamas updated its Covenant in 2017 into what is now called "A Document of General Principles & Policies" that uses language that is more flowery and less direct in calling for the death of Jews. Hamas must have determined they needed to be a little more nuanced in their language to avoid global condemnation. Their wrath is now directed at "Zionists".

The intent remains the same.

Hamas will accept nothing less than control of "the river to the sea" and the expulsion of all Jews from that land.

There can be no compromise or concessions to the full and complete liberation of Palestine (and elimination of Israel).

Many apologists for Hamas have argued that civilians, women and children are legitimate targets in attacks because they are all illegal occupiers on the land of Palestine.

Where is that thinking coming from?

It comes right from the principles and policies of Hamas.

Hamas believe doing anything in furtherance of their cause is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and international norms and laws regarding their armed resistance to Israel.

Killing babies.

Attacking civilians at a concert venue.

Blindly launching rockets at civilian targets.

Taking hostages.

Using civilians as human shields.

Putting military command and control centers under hospitals or by schools.

Storing weapons in mosques.

In the words of Hamas, these are all legitimate means and methods in the resistance.

That is why a Hamas spokesman could claim shortly after the October 7 attacks that it had killed no civilians.

Source: https://news.sky.com/video/hamas-official-tells-sky-news-the-group-hasnt-killed-any-civilians-in-israel-12981264

However, after reading all of this, don't you wonder what all of those masses of people around the world supporting Hamas are thinking?

This report from Al Jazeera states that hundreds of thousands marched in various cities around the world against Israel and are demanding their governments support a ceasefire in the conflict.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/10/29/hundreds-of-thousands-march-worldwide-against-israeli-bombardment-of-gaza

The protestors are demanding a ceasefire?

Unfortunately, they must not be aware that Israel and Hamas/Islamic Jihad were already operating under a ceasefire on October 7 that was brokered by Egypt in May of 2023. This was after a previous round of rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza and Israel struck back with air strikes in the Spring.

The Palestinians violated that ceasefire with the October 7 attack.

Why should Israel trust Hamas and Islamic Jihad with another ceasefire at this point?

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/13/israel-and-islamic-jihad-agree-truce-in-gaza

The demonstrations in support of Hamas in other Muslim countries are sadly predictable

What we are seeing in Europe is disheartening but also hardly a surprise.

Most of Europe is becoming more and more Muslim with each succeeding year due to liberal immigration policies and low native birth rates.

I have written about this trend several times in the past in these pages.

I wrote this in 2011 about the impending demographic shift in Europe that would likely make cities like London and Paris unrecognizable as part of the Western world in a generation or so.

Immigration policy will also be major debate in all developed countries. 

Although the overall fertility rate is low in Europe, the Muslim birth rate in Europe is three times higher than the non-Muslim rate.  This will feed additional cultural and political divisions across Europe.

There are nearly 44 million Muslims in Europe today compared to 1.1 million Jews.  In the United States, there are 6.5 million Jews and 5.1 million Muslims.  There are actually more Jews in the United States than in Israel.  In fact, 88% of all Jews in the world live in the United States (46%) or Israel (42%).

This is a major factor in the animus of the United States in the Muslim world and why it is so difficult to engage Europe in an even handed approach in discussions about Israel and the Middle East.

I wrote this five years later in 2016 on the rise of Islam and fall of Christianity in Europe and why Israel should expect almost no support out of Europe in the future.

There are now close to 50 million Muslims in Europe. About half of those are in the EU countries that include Germany, France, Sweden etc.

Paris is now the home to more than 2 million Muslims.

There are more than 1 million Muslims in London. The mayor of London is a Muslim and Mohammed is now the most popular name in the United Kingdom.

Muslims made up about 6% of the population of Germany even before it starting welcoming hordes of Muslim refugees. In 2015, an estimated 1 million Muslim refugees entered Germany. I could not find a reliable estimate for the total in 2016 but arrivals of refugees by sea alone has exceeded 300,000.

Let's put that number in context.

There are less than 1.5 million Jews in Europe. By comparison, there were almost 10 million Jews in Europe in 1939. Do you begin to get a better idea of why there is little support for Israel in Europe or the United Nations anymore?

Most politicians in Europe no longer have the courage to support Israel and the Jewish population because of the heavy Muslim populations in their countries and their voting power.

I have told my children and others that if they have an interest in experiencing Europe, its churches, and its history as the foundation of Western culture, I would advise going sooner rather than later. The trend is clear and it favors Islam. Europe is going to look like nothing we would recognize in another 20-30 years if the trend is not reversed.

If you doubt any of this consider this UN Resolution that was voted on last week asking for Israel to end hostilities against Hamas with a ceasefire. It passed the UN General Assembly after an amendment that would have condemned Hamas and demanded immediate release of the hostages failed.

Source: https://unwatch.org/un-general-assembly-rejects-motion-to-condemn-hamas-calls-for-ceasefire/

Only 14 countries in the UN supported Israel on the resolution led by the United States.

Germany and the UK abstained.  So did Canada and Australia.

However, look at the European countries that turned their back on Israel completely and voted for the ceasefire.

It should also be understood that the reality is that Islamic extremists like Hamas have no intention in stopping if they succeed in pushing Israel off of the map.

Their stated goal is world Islamic domination.

They see it as their religious duty.

By the time many people wake up, it will be too late.

Link to video: https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1718214642017681602

It is all in plain sight if anyone would open their eyes.

Five Things Most Don't Know About Israel/Palestine

There is so much that people do not know, or have been given misinformation about, concerning Israel and Palestine.

Without knowledge of the most basic facts it is difficult to have views or opinions that are both principled and credible.

Let's consider five things that most don't know about Israel/Palestine.

Does Israel or Palestine have the strongest argument for arguing that they are entitled to the land?

First of all, it needs to be understood that Palestine has never been a country or nation state at any time.

Jewish people populated what is now Israel dating back to when the area was referred to as Judea.

Judeans or Jews were indigenous to Judea and Arabs were indigenous to Arabia.

The Romans started using the name "Palestine" (more accurately Syria Palestine) in the second century A.D. after an insurrection in the Judea territory as punishment to remove the link between the Jews and the province of Judea.

Further, the Jewish faith dates back to 640 B.C. while Islam did not appear on the scene until some 1,200 years later in the area around Jerusalem.

If there is any claim on the area being their "holy lands" based on the timeline of history, the Jews have the more compelling argument as to who has an indigenous right to the land.

Where Did The Early Settlers Of Israel Come From?

A popular misconception is that almost all of the early settlers of Israel came from eastern European countries and came to the Middle East where they were complete foreigners and interlopers to the area.

The fact is that the majority of the early settlers to Israel in the period 1948-1952 were from other Middle Eastern countries where they were seeking freedom from Muslim persecution and violence or were explicitly expelled from Middle Eastern Muslim countries.

The rest were Holocaust survivors from Europe.

You can see how the trend of Jewish populations moving away from most Arab countries continued in the succeeding years in the chart below. By 1980 there were almost no Jews living in any other country in the Middle East except Israel. 

Jews ended up in Israel because quite literally they were not welcome in most of Europe or the Middle East and had nowhere else to go.

This is put into even starker perspective when you consider that 86% of the entire Jewish population in the world today lives in just two countries--- Israel (46% of the total) and the United States (40% of the total). 

There are only 15.3 million Jewish people in the world today.

Most people are also not aware that almost 20% of the population of Israel are Muslims who have the same rights and privileges as Jews. They can vote, hold political office and serve in the military (although not required to like general Israeli citizens).

There are approximately 1.8 billion Muslims in the world.

1.8 billion Muslims aren't able to find a way to have peace with a mere 15 million Jews?

The Land

The Palestinians argue that Israel is on "their land". However, as stated above, Palestine has never been a country or nation state. 

The Jews settled in what is now Israel as far back as the 13th century B.C. when Moses led their exodus from Egypt to the land of Israel on what was referred to as "the promised land" in the Bible.

The Jews were in and out of control of the land surrounding Jerusalem for long periods of time under various Kings including Saul, David and Solomon which are all well documented in the Bible

The Jews were in control of the area in 63 B.C. when  Roman general Pompey conquered Jerusalem after which the Jews were then subjugated under Roman rule. This was the situation when Jesus Christ was born. 

The Romans controlled the area until 313 A.D. The Byzantines (which was the Eastern Roman Empire after the Western Romans collapsed) ruled the area until the seventh century when the Arabs gained control. It was during this time that Islam was founded.

The Arabs lost control of the land area to the Crusaders during the 1100-1291 A.D. period.

Muslims gained back control during the Mamluk period (1291-1516 A.D.)

The Ottomans then took control in 1517 and ruled the area for 400 years until they were on the losing side in World War I and lost control to Great Britain in 1917. 

This is the map of Israel as it existed from 1917 to 1946 under the control of Great Britain.

All of the following maps are from this source.

After World War II, the United Nations put forth a proposal that would create the Israel state out of the British territory. The UN also proposed that Palestine would also be recognized as a country for the first time with territory of its own. A two-state solution was devised for both Jews and Palestinian Arabs.

Israel accepted the plan. The Arabs rejected the plan.

Five Arab nations attacked Israel in 1948 immediately after Israel declared its independence based on the U.N. Resolution granting Israel the land in the proposal.

Despite being a fledging nation and receiving almost no support from around the world (including the Untied States which largely remained neutral in not supplying arms to either of the belligerents) Israel prevailed in the war.

As a result, after winning the war Israel actually gained territory beyond what was in the U.N. proposal.

Jordan took control of the West Bank and Egypt took control of Gaza. Both the West Bank and Gaza would have made up a Palestine state based on the U.N. proposal if the Arabs had accepted the proposal. Instead, these areas ended up under the control and occupation of Jordan and Egypt.

In 1967, war broke about between Egypt and Israel.

This war became known as "The Six Day War" as Israel defeated Egypt (and Jordan and Syria who joined the war against Israel).

As a result to is victory in the war, Israel gained massive amounts of territory including Gaza, the West Bank and the entire Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

In 1979, Israel reached a peace agreement with Egypt and agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to them as part of the deal. Sinai was returned to Egypt by 1982.

However, the agreement cost Egyptian President Anwar Sadat his life as he was assassinated by people in the Egyptian Army in 1981 unhappy with the peace agreement with Israel.

In 1993, the Oslo Accords saw Israel agree to withdraw most military assets from Gaza and the West Bank and establish a process for self-determination for the Palestinian people with the long-term objective of establishing a Palestinian state.

In 2005, Israel fully withdrew from Gaza and opened the way for the Palestinians in Gaza to elect their own government leaders. As part of the deal, Israel relocated Israeli settlements out of Gaza leaving Gaza completely to the Palestininans. The Palestinian people elected Hamas to govern their affairs in 2006.

Hamas has been on the list of foreign terror organizations of the United States Department of State since 1997.

Therefore, the Palestinian people actually elected what was then (and remains to this day) a listed foreign terror organization to be their government representatives.

The main objective of Hamas has been to terrorize Israel ever since.

Israel is referred to as an "occupier" but has not occupied Gaza since 2005.

A wall and fencing have been placed around Gaza but that was done due to continuing attacks from the Palestinians against Israel citizens.

Israel controls the northern entrance to Gaza and Egypt the southern entrance. However, Israel has been much more willing to allow traffic to flow through the entrance than Egypt has since Hamas took control. As Israel has closed the entrance at the border since the Hamas war began, the Egyptian crossing is the only way in and out and Egypt right now.  Egypt is controlling it more tightly than ever seeing to it that much goes in or out of Gaza.

Why Has Palestine Not Been Allowed Full Sovereignty As A Nation?

Palestine has been offered sovereignty five times since the British Mandate and has rejected the opportunity every time.

Why? 

It is because they refuse to agree to the right of Israel to exist.

NO #1  The British originally offered in the late 1930's to divide the British mandate between a state of Israel and state of Palestine based on recommendations of what was called the Peel Commission. Its terms would have given only abut 20% of the territory to the Jews and 80% to the Arabs. The Jews accepted the offer and the Arabs rejected the opportunity claiming it was insufficient.

NO #2  After World War II, the UN took up what the British started and proposed a two state solution. Israel accepted and was granted land. The Arabs said no again. The Arabs attacked Israel one day after it declared independence based on the UN resolution it had agreed to. Israel prevailed in the war. Most of the land set aside for the Palestinians became occupied by Jordan--the West Bank and East Jerusalem---and Egypt---Gaza.

NO #3  Jordan joined in the Six Day War with Egypt and Syria against Israel. After Israel won the war they took over the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Eqypt. After the war Israel began peace discussions with the two countries about returning the land in return for a peace treaty with the two countries.The Arab League responded with three NOs--No peace with Israel. No recognition of Israel. No negotiations with Israel.

NO #4   President Bill Clinton attempted to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 2000 to cement a lasting legacy to his presidency. He got Israel to agree to allow a Palestinian state to be formed out of Gaza, East Jerusalem and 94% of the West Bank. However, PLO leader Yassar Arafat said NO. In fact, Clinton later said that Arafat said NO to every proposal made during the discussions.

NO #5.  In 2005, Israel unilaterally left Gaza to the Palestinians instead of developing it for themselves. Israel allowed Gaza to hold their own elections in which they elected Hamas. Hamas turned the territory into a terrorist base diverting most humanitarian aid meant to develop the infrastructure to spending on terror tunnels, military equipment and rockets. In 2008, Israel again offered a peace plan and sovereignty to Palestine with even more land concessions than in 2000. The Palestinians once again said NO.

Palestine has consistently refused any peace deal with Israel or a two state solution because they refuse to recognize that Israel has a right to exist.

Hamas remains resolute today in a"all of nothing" position. There is no interest in a two-state solution. Palestine must have all the land "from the river to the sea" according to its mission statement. Nothing else is acceptable.

It also needs to be considered that even when Egypt and Jordan controlled and occupied so-called Palestinian territory (West Bank and Gaza) these Arab countries never offered to provide Palestine statehood sovereignty or provided citizenship to Palestinians of their own countries.

Has Israel been committing genocide against the Palestinians for years?

This is a statement that is often made by those who support Palestine.

It has been a common narrative for years.

If Israel has been perpetrating genocide on the Palestinian people over the years they have been doing a very poor job of it based on the chart below.

This chart compares the growth in population between Israel and Palestinians between 1960 and 2020.

Israel's population has grown 3.85x since 1960.

Palestine's population has grown 4.6x.

More sobering is the fact that before the Holocaust and World War II there were an estimated 15 million Jews in the world. That is almost exactly the same number that exist today.

In 1930, there were 2 billion inhabitants on earth of which 15 million were Jews.

In 2023, the world's population is over 8 billion but there are the same number of Jews.

World population is up 4x but the Jewish population has not changed in almost 100 years.

Think about that for a minute.

Do those protesters even know what genocide really is?

I have to think that if most of those "smart" students who march around their college campuses supporting Palestine and Hamas with posters reading "From The River To The Sea" knew a few of these things they might decide it would be better to sit this one out.

All that being said, it is understandable that the Palestinian people feel aggrieved, isolated and desperate based on their circumstances.

However, that does not mean they have the right to deny Israel's right to exist.

Does anyone remember the John Lennon and Yoko Ono song that was released in 1969 with this famous refrain and chorus line?

"All we are saying is give peace a chance."

This line is repeated 20 times in the lyrics to the song.

The problem has been, and remains the case, that the Palestinians have not offered to give peace a chance. one time in the last 75 years.

It is hard to have peace if one side has absolutely no interest in it.

Unfortunately, that is where we are.

 

Beware The Narrative

I don't think there has been a more incompetent and disingenuous Presidential Press Secretary in my lifetime that Karine Jean-Pierre.

When asked this week if there was concern about a rise of antisemitism in light of the events in Israel she said they had not seen any credible threats of anti-Semitism and actually said that Muslims have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks.

Link to video on X

What?

Every time you turn on the news you see masses of people marauding on city streets and college campuses in support of Palestine, Hamas and the elimination of the state of Israel.

Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/downtown-seattle-rally-draws-hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-protesters/

Source: https://www.redandblack.com/uganews/all-out-for-palestine-protest-held-in-downtown-athens/article_58b41b48-697c-11ee-bba6-93fe1e7d0666.html

Source: https://twitter.com/ChayaRaichik10/status/1716874568307257656

By any means necessary? 

Where are the masses of people marching and hurling epithets on the streets asking for the total destruction of Palestine?

If it is happening I am not seeing it reported.

Many Jewish students on college campuses say they are afraid on their own campuses.

However, Jean-Pierre stands up in from of the worldwide media and claims they are seeing no threats of anti-semitism in anything that is going on?

She then claims that Muslims are really the aggrieved group in the United States in all of this?

Unfortunately, the facts do not support the narrative the Biden Administration Press Secretary is promoting .

It has also been that way for a long time before the Israel-Hamas conflict blew up a couple of weeks ago.

For example, New York City has a database dashboard that tracks hate crimes in that city.

Since Biden took office in 2021 there have been 15 times as many hate crimes against Jews as compared to Muslims in New York City (611 vs. 40 thru 9/30/23). This is  even before the Hamas attack on Israel.

Jews have been victims of hate crimes 5 times more than Blacks and 3 times more than homosexual males in the city.

This word cloud on the NYPD hate crimes dashboard shows the relative frequency that each group has been targeted in a hate crime since January 20, 2021.

Source: New York City Police Department

Similar data is shown in the FBI Crime Data Explorer Database on hate crimes captured nationally by the FBI.

Despite the fact that the Jewish population is a mere 2% of the total U.S.population, 51% of all religious-related hate crimes in 2022 targeted Jews. 

Let's put that in context.

There were 1,305 hate crimes against Jews reported in the FBI database in 2022. There were 205 against Muslims/Islam.

Catholics were targeted 118 times, Hindus 31 times and Buddhists 18 times.

The Biden Administration talks a lot about the need to curb misinformation and disinformation from spreading in social media.

However, they do not seem to be concerned about spreading it themselves. 

The reality is that the narrative is all that matters for many like Karine Jean-Pierre.

The narrative must be protected and extended at all costs.

It does not matter if the facts and truth do not support what they say to advance the narrative.

The tragedy is that a substantial number of people will take what Jean-Pierre, a talking head on television, a far-left college professor or a so-called social media influencer will say to minimize anti-Semitism and tell us that Islamophobia is the real problem.

That is how we get poll results like this.

You can only get this divergence of opinion when there are those who don't know the lessons of history,  have lost the ability to think critically and have lost a certain sense of humanity.

May God help us!

Subsidizing The World

It seems that Joe Biden can't spend U.S. taxpayer money fast enough. 

Of course, can we even honestly say he is spending our tax dollars any more?

We just finished the federal government's fiscal year with a $1.7 trillion deficit and total federal debt now stands at almost $34 trillion. Any additional spending Biden wants to spend is going to come from more federal debt. This will then result in more interest expense for years and years come as we await an ultimate day of reckoning.

Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-budget-deficit-swells-to-1-7-trillion-in-fiscal-2023-as-revenue-tumbles-99b978fc?mod=home-page

Last week Biden promised $100 million of "humanitarian aid" to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Of course, Biden is not even confident that the aid will reach the Palestinian people.

He stated that fact in his televised speech to the nation last Thursday night.

These are his exact words from the transcript of the speech. My emphasis added.

Yesterday, in discussions with the leaders of Israel and Egypt, I secured an agreement for the first shipment of humanitarian assistance from the United Nations to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

If Hamas does not divert or steal this shipment — these shipments, we’re going to provide an opening for sustained delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians.

Why send $100 million of American money if there is even a small chance it will be diverted to terrorism and war efforts? 

In that speech he also made the case for over $105 billion for what he called national security measures.

Biden wants another $61 billion for Ukraine.

 

That is on top of $113 billion in funds that Congress has already appropriated for Ukraine since its war with Russia began.

This money is not just being used for military equipment and supplies.

The United States is subsidizing small businesses and farmers, funding pensions and social welfare costs, hospitals, schools and the salaries of first responders in Ukraine.

Essentially the entire Ukraine government is being subsidized by the United States.

These are Biden's exact words from a funding request last February as reported by TownHall.com.

"This so-called supplemental funding addresses the needs of the Ukrainian military during the crucial weeks and months ahead.  And it begins — it begins to transition to longer-term security assistance that’s going to help Ukraine deter and continue to defend against Russian aggression," Biden said at the White House. "It’s going to deliver much-needed humanitarian assistance as well as food, water, medicines, shelter, and other aid to Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s war, and provide aid to those seeking refuge in other countries from Ukraine." 

"It’s also going to help schools and hospitals open.  It’s going to allow pensions and social support to be paid to the Ukrainian people so they have something — something in their pocket," he continued. 

Biden also wants $14 billion for Israel for military supplies for things like keeping its Iron Dome missile defense system operating.  $2 billion for Taiwan (the next war?) and $9 billion for humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, Gaza and Israel among other places.

I have to wonder if some of the "other places" that aid might be going to is Afghanistan?

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw this tweet put out by our State Department liaison in Kabul.

The United States is the largest aid donor to the Afghan people?

The same country we abandoned to the terrorist Taliban regime.

The same country we abandoned billions of dollars of military arms and equipment in when we left.

The same country we abandoned U.S. citizens as well as many Afghan nationals who had worked as interpreters for the U.S. military when we left. 

And we are just not providing some aid, we are the largest aid donor in the world to Afghanistan!

It is incomprehensible.

The same can be said for the $6 billion in funds for Iran that were unfrozen by the Biden Administration right before Hamas (an Iranian proxy) massacred 1,400 Israelis and 30 Americans in a surprise attack two weeks ago in Israel.

Of course, that is a small piece of change compared to the oil money that Iran has been able to earn as the Biden administration eased the sanctions placed on Iran by the Trump administration.

Why would Biden do this for a regime that has openly called for the annihilation of Israel and more than once has had its legislature  chanting "death to America" on the floor of the legislative body?

One, Biden has been trying to curry favor with the terrorist regime in order to get a nuclear deal with Iran.

Second, Biden became so concerned with rising gasoline prices on their effects on Democrat election prospects in 2022 that he was eager to get Iran's oil on the world market to dampen prices. 

 

Of course, none of this makes any real sense because does anyone believe that Iran would adhere to any nuclear agreement that was struck anyway?

In addition, the United States has the means to easily solve the oil supply problem itself if the Democrats were not standing in the way of more drilling and pipeline construction.

To provide some perspective to what this has meant to Iran in dollars and cents consider this chart.

This compares Iran's oil exports in billions of dollars from 2018 (before the Trump administration imposed strict sanctions on Iran oil) to the projected 2023 totals.

Source: https://amwaj.media/article/what-do-iran-s-growing-crude-oil-exports-mean-for-the-economy

Iran's oil exports in 2020 were undoubtedly affected by reduced demand and lower oil prices due to the global pandemic in addition to Trump's sanctions.

Higher oil prices have also had some impact in higher export dollar volumes in 2022 and 2023.

However, Biden's easing of the Trump oil export sanctions has resulted in tens of billions of additional revenue to Iran to fund terror across the Middle East.

It is not a difficult stretch to connect this additional revenue that has benefited Iran with the troubles we are now seeing in the Middle East.

It is almost as if the United States has had a hand in subsidizing the terror that has been unleashed because of these mind numbingly stupid policy decisions. 

This meme on X is sadly not far off.

We are spending tax dollars to defend Israel at the same time we are subsidizing those spreading terror.

What is even worse is that most of Iran's oil exports are being sold to China at discounted prices to the global market rate.

The subsidies extend to Communist China.

In Biden's request for $105 billion for national security measures he also stated that he wants $14 billion for the border. That money is not being asked to build a wall. It is primarily going to be used to hire more border personnel to process asylum requests. Some of the money is supposedly going to be used to purchase new inspection machines to detect fentanyl coming in.

To give you an idea of how disastrous Biden's open border policy has been look at the most recent number of apprehensions at the border. Keep in mind that almost all of these illegals were released into the country  and not sent back home.

The New York Times headline says it all.

Compare how many border encounters and apprehensions in the the first three years of the Biden administration to the last year that Donald Trump was in office.

Of course, every one of those individuals who has entered the United States illegally now have to be housed and fed. They need health care and their children need to go to school.

Those burdens are no longer on the countries they left--Venezuela, Mexico, Columbia, El Salvador, Honduras and others.

We now need to subsidize these individuals which also reduces the needs for these other countries to support their own citizens.

It is a noble goal to be the world's humanitarian leader or the world's policeman.

However, at some point, you cannot subsidize the world to attempt to solve every problem.

That should be especially true when every dollar of subsidy today is being done with borrowed dollars. Somehow and someway American taxpayers will have to pay the interest on that debt and be able rollover that debt in the future if the United States of America as we know it is to survive.

With each succeeding year more and more federal spending is going to be squeezed by the need to make interest payments on the debt. It will devour more and more of the federal budget each year.

This graph provides a glimpse of the amount of interest payments on the federal debt that will have to be paid between now and 2030 based on current trends.

Something has to give.

Misguided does not begin to describe where the policies of the Biden Administration are leading us,

A Big, Beautiful and Interesting World

Mrs. BeeLine and I have just returned from a month long cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean where we visited Italy, Greece, the Greek Isles of Santorini, Mykonas and Rhodes. Turkey, Cyprus and Israel.

Our schedule of three days in Israel ended up being cut to about 13 hours as we arrived in the port of Haifa on the morning of the Hamas attacks on Israel.

We were on tour that morning heading to Caesarea when we learned there had been incursion from Gaza and missiles fired into Southern Israel.

As our tour continued at Caesarea we learned that there had been numerous killings and we were ordered to return to our ship as soon as possible.

When I heard that I knew that our visit to Israel was going to be very limited. 

This is a picture I took while we were at Caesarea.

It was quite a challenge notifying and getting everyone back on the ship but we ended up departing Haifa at about 830 pm on the night of the attacks.

We never felt in immediate danger while we were in Israel as in Haifa we were at good distance from Gaza. However, I was aware that we were well within range of Hezbollah in Lebanon if some type of coordinated attack was planned.

This map of Israel gives you some perspective on where Haifa is in relationship to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Gaza and Lebanon.

Haifa is about 60 miles from Tel Aviv and 100 miles from Gaza.

As it turned out, Hamas did target the Caesarea area with rockets that night.

However, we were on our way to an unscheduled stop in Alanya on the southern coast of Turkey which is a popular tourist area for Europeans due to its sunny climate and beaches.

In total, Hamas has sent over 7,000 missiles targeted at Israel in the last two weeks.

We were sad to miss out on our scheduled tours in Israel but sadder still for what lies ahead in a war that undoubtedly will see much bloodshed and deaths on both sides.

A few random observations that I took away from the trip.

• Tourism was back in full swing everywhere we went. Our flights were packed and the fares were up substantially compared to the last time we flew to Europe shortly before the pandemic. Hotel rates in Rome were also much pricier than the last time we were there four years ago. Almost everywhere we went it was crowded. Travel is back and people clearly want to make up for lost time.

• Poverty was more evident in Egypt than in any other country we visited. The Cairo metro area has a population that now exceeds 22 million. It is not unusual to see carts pulled by donkeys sharing the road with large tour buses. There is a strong police presence. Many. buildings in Cairo look like hollowed out shells with no windows. Driving on the freeway from Alexandria to Cairo it seems there was a mosque every couple of miles in which you could pull off the road much like a rest stop area in the United States.

• You can get some perspective on the level of poverty in Egypt by looking at this comparison of the percent of annual pay that is required to purchase a new iPhone in various countries.. It takes almost a year of pay to buy an iPhone in Egypt. It only requires 2% of a year's pay in the United States

• The standard rate for getting your picture on a camel at the Pyramids is $5. Someone I met on the ship negotiated the rate down to $3. I passed on the opportunity.

• Although Turkey (they now refer to the country as Turkiye) is 99.4% Muslim it feels a lot more like a Western country than Egypt that is 90% Muslim and 10% Christian. In fact, I saw several Christian churches in the drive between Alexandria and Cairo. The difference between Turkiye and Egypt goes back to the origins of modern Turkiye in the early 1920's where the founding father of the country, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, declared that Turkiye would be a secular country not mixing religion and state. He also dictated that the Latin alphabet would be used instead of Arabic. In talking with a few locals they were fiercely in favor of the secular nature of Turkiye and had no desire to become theocracies as is the case with almost all other Muslim countries today.

• Sailing to Istanbul we passed through the Dardanelles Strait. It is the body of water that separates the European and Asian continents in northwest Turkey. In going through the strait you pass from the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Mamara.

• During that passage through the Dardanlles we went under an enormous suspension bridge. Some quick research showed that the bridge, opened just last year, is now the longest suspension bridge in the world. It spans 2,023 meters between its two suspension towers. To put that in context, the three longest suspension bridges in the U.S. are the Verrazano Narrows Bridge that has a 1,298 meter span, the Golden Gate Bridge has a 1,280 meter span and the Mackinac Bridge is 1,158 meters. That Turkish bridge is more than 50% longer than anything in the U.S. Something I did not know before taking this trip.

1915 Cannakale Bridge between Europe and Asia in Turkey
Longest Suspension Bridge in the World

• In Turkiye it was rare to see any women wearing a hijab. Almost every woman in Egypt dressed that way and some wore burquas that covered their faces as well. One local in Istanbul told me that when I saw a woman wearing a hijab in Istanbul it was most likely she was a visitor. If a woman was wearing a burqua it meant she almost definitely was from another country.             

Grand Bazaar in Istanbul

• In that Turkiye is such a Muslim country I was surprised by the comments about Israel I got in speaking with a local in Kusadasi, Turkiye which is on the west coast of the country near the historical site of Ephesus. This was shortly after the Israel war had started and this person knew that our ship had been in Israel when the war commenced. I was measured in my comments on how the war was a tragedy for both Israel and the Palestinian people knowing I was speaking to a Muslim and expressed my hope that peace could come to both sides. I was surprised when this local Muslim told me that she was rooting for Israel and wanted Hamas to be annihilated. She said that anyone who is educated about the issue knows that Israel has a rightful call on their land. She stated that everyone she knew felt the same way. It was something I did not expect. I think it also explains why the other Muslim countries in the region have no interest in taking any Palestinian refugees.

• Our visit to Ephesus, Turkiye was one of the highlights of the trip. I think I was more impressed with what I saw at Ephesus than I was with Pompeii which I visited a few years ago. It is remarkable to get a glimpse at what was developed and built at Ephesus dating back as far as the 10th century B.C.  One remarkable fact is that Ephesus was once directly on the Mediterranean and became a major commercial center for the spread of Christianity. The Virgin Mary spent her last days in a house in Ephesus. There are reports she moved there at the behest of the Apostle Paul who spent a lot of time in Ephesus and is generally believed to have written his letters to the Ephesians while in captivity in Ephesus.

Ephesus

• You can see in the photo above that Ephesus is nowhere near the sea today. It is six miles inland. I thought this was interesting in that the narrative today is that coastal areas around the world are going to be engulfed by the seas due to manmade climate change due to the use of fossil fuels. How many fossil fuels were being used 2,000 years ago compared to today? Why is Ephesus now six miles from the Mediterranean rather than being under the sea due to all of the carbon emissions over the years? What I was told was that a river near Ephesus carried silt down from the mountains in the area that slowly filled the sea. Yet another example that natural forces on earth are much more powerful than anything that man might do to affect climate change.

A few more photos from the trip.

Santorini, Greece

Athens, Greece

Mykonos, Greece

Limassol, Cyprus

Rhodes, Greece

Sunset on the Ionian Sea

It is a big, beautiful and interesting world out there.