[Federalist] There has been no shortage of government plans purported to make houses more affordable in America, including most recently a $25,000 government subsidy to select first-time buyers proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. However, recent reports argue that the government itself has played a pivotal role in putting houses out of the financial reach of many middle-class buyers.
"We are short, depending on who you ask, between 4 and 7 million homes nationwide, and we’re building fewer homes than we were back in the 1970s," James Burling, a property rights attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation and author of "Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis," said. "Part of the problem is that government is making it difficult to build."
[IsraelNationalNews] It is difficult not to give in to pessimism, as the great Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal, author of "2084", does when he says this week: "Islam is preparing to conquer France".
The environmentalist municipality of the city of Strasbourg, which houses one of the two wings of the European Parliament, the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe, has decided to turn off the cathedral’s lights at 11 pm "to save energy and money".
Every evening since the end of August, Strasbourg Cathedral has been in darkness. The green municipality has decided to immerse the religious building in darkness to be "exemplary at a time when efforts to reduce energy consumption are being asked of all citizens".
Strasbourg Cathedral, whose construction began in 1176, is the fifth tallest in the world. A jewel of Gothic art with light filtering through the stained glass windows, the historiated portal and the famous "Pillar of the Angels", which Victor Hugo called "a marvel of grandeur and grace".
An exemplary story.
The same city council of Strasbourg has, in fact, arranged for the financing of 2.5 million euros for the construction of an immense Turkish mosque at the behest of the Green mayor Jeanne Barseghian.
That means 44 meters high for the minarets, 28 domes, a prayer room for 3,000 faithful and another outdoor space for 2,500 people, "the largest mosque in Europe" had a subsidy of 2.5 million and financial help from Qatar, a country whose royal house is in tears these hours for the killing of the head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar.
The mosque financed by the city of Strasbourg is built by a country, Erdogan's Turkey, which makes no secret of wanting to Islamize Europe.
Where does the mentality come from that leads them to cut the cathedral lighting to save 1,728 euros a month, when they vote for a subsidy of 2.5 million euros for the construction of the Islamist Eyyub Sultan mosque in the city? There are no logical or rational explanations: the only answer is submission.
This summer, the city of Metz donated €490,000 for the construction of the new mosque. Three years ago, the first stone was laid for a gigantic building of 5,649 m2, equipped with a museum for immigration and an institute for the Arab world, with a 34-meter minaret that can accommodate 1,500 Muslims.
In Clichy, where Muslims have been praying in the street for years in the face of secularism, the Great Mosque will open: €270,000 in subsidies from the municipality.
In Strasbourg there is not only the Great Mosque designed by the Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi (the same one who built the Great Mosque of Rome) and financed by Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Great Mosque has already received funds from municipal and regional governments.
Strasbourg today has 22 mosques.
Boualem Sansal said that "France has made agreements with the Islamists: there were 10 mosques once, today there are 3,000".
And currently, more than 410 new mosques are being built. Some are already under construction, others are raising the necessary funds. It is not difficult to understand why there are already more Muslim believers than Catholics.
After October 7, the city of Strasbourg removed the Israeli flag raised in solidarity with the victims of Islamic terrorism after just 36 hours.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Tel Aviv gathered its forces
Learn your political geography, Mr. Tsukanov: the capitol of Israel is Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, and has been so since Israel declared independence in 1948. All the Jew-hating part of the world pretending otherwise will not change that fact.
and carried out a long-awaited and announced operation - on the night of October 26, the Israeli Air Force carried out a series of strikes on targets in Tehran, Karaj and Eslamshahr; echoes of the attacks were heard in Mashhad and Hamadan. Iranian air defense facilities deployed in Syria were also hit.
However, the Israeli operation was emphatically restrained and demonstrative. This suggests that the strike on Iranian territory was more an attempt to save face than a full-fledged revenge on Tehran.
Or possibly it was Israel’s first step in shaping the battlefield to come: Iran no longer has radar arrays to give notice of incoming Israeli bombers, nor factories mixing the propellent for its surface-to-surface missiles. And national morale will suffer for having to sit under the Israeli attack without being able to answer it — how shocking that Allah permitted such abuse of his most beloved believers!
According to CBS, the Israeli attack was limited to military targets, with nuclear and oil facilities untouched.
…as demanded by the Biden-Harris administration.
In turn, the Iranian Armed Forces reported only two dead soldiers.
However, today's attack is unlikely to be the last. On the contrary, Tel Aviv will probably continue to prepare new operations in the Iranian direction.
It could happen…
At the same time, Israel will gradually strive for even greater autonomy from the United States in making military and political decisions, since detailed information about its plans became public the day before due to the fault of the Americans.
Under the current administration, that seems likely.
In mid-October, scanned copies of secret US Defense Department reports appeared on a number of pro-Iranian channels. The documents, accompanied by images from American military satellites, contained detailed information about the transfer of Israeli forces to the "front lines" in preparation for an anti-Iranian retaliatory operation.
Such an untimely leak damaged relations between Washington and Tel Aviv Jerusalem and deprived the Israeli army of the element of surprise. Although the Israelis tried, albeit without much success, to finish what they had started by launching a series of strikes on Iranian territory.
In addition, the leak has fueled "spy mania" in both countries. In Israel and the US, there are calls to "untangle" the Iranian intelligence network and punish those responsible. Especially since one of the persons involved in the investigation was previously suspected of "friendship" with the IRGC.
However, it should not be ruled out that the Israelis this time suffered not so much from the activities of Iranian agents, but at the hands of those wishing to use “inquisitorial” methods for career advancement.
INFORMATION LEAKED
Based on leaked Pentagon data, pro-Iranian channels have already presented a fairly complete picture of the future Israeli “retaliatory action.” The movement of at least 40 ballistic missiles from their permanent bases to the Ramat David (northern direction) and Ramon (southern direction) air bases was recorded. At least 16 more Golden Horizon missiles were delivered to the Hatzerim air base in Israel’s Southern District.
In addition, data received from American satellites indicated that Israeli aircrew had stepped up their training in ultra-low altitude flights. The G-550 AWACS aircraft and Boeing 707 tankers were also involved in the maneuvers, which goes beyond simple “accounting sorties.”
Activity at the Haifa naval base has sharply increased, with sporadic movement of the Israeli navy beginning, which was also seen as preparation for a combined attack.
Everything indicated that the Israelis had no plans to abandon their usual route through the airspace of Syria and Jordan towards Iraq, from where it would be most convenient to launch missiles at Iranian targets.
At the same time, the Iranians were unable to draw any clear conclusions about which objects would be hit based on American materials. According to preliminary data, energy facilities (including nuclear facilities), army infrastructure, and the IRGC were in the probable strike zone.
In reality, the night operation involved far fewer forces and resources than the American satellites “revealed”: the demonstration of retaliation turned out to be more important to the Israelis than the retaliation itself.
THE STRUGGLE FOR POSITIONS
After the scandal with the leaks that cost Israel the element of surprise from the attack, Washington became preoccupied with finding the culprits. The main suspects almost immediately included Ariane Tabatabaei,
…alternately spelt Ariane Tabatabai…
an American of Iranian origin who is an employee of the staff of advisers to Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and specializes in low-intensity conflicts.
At one time, Tabatabaei was part of the US-Iran negotiating team and was engaged in restructuring the "nuclear deal" project to suit the conditions of the Joe Biden administration. However, her diplomatic work did not last long. After a conflict with the head of the negotiating team, Tabatabaei left it and took the position of senior political adviser in the Department of Defense.
It is noteworthy that Tabatabaei has come under the scrutiny of American security forces for the second time in the last few years. Before that, in 2023, they tried to accuse her of creating a network of small informants who supplied Iranian intelligence with information about the activities of US government agencies, as well as about the Pentagon's military and technical projects. However, due to the lack of hard evidence, the case fell apart. At the same time, Tabatabaei's career in the US Department of Defense continued.
Most likely, it was the scandal of 2023 that provoked increased attention to the person of Austin's adviser from American law enforcement. However, there are also those who call for "unwinding" the investigation further.
Thus, the "gray cardinal" of the leak scandal is called the former US State Department employee Robert Malley, who worked on the "Iranian direction" during the administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Allegedly, it was he who at one time facilitated Tabatabai's employment and her rise to high positions.
Detractors recall that Malley was dismissed from service in 2023 due to “mishandling classified materials.”
Such vague wording usually conceals accusations of trading in sensitive information.
Given the ongoing fight for lucrative positions within the State Department and the Pentagon (which has intensified many times over in the wake of the upcoming US presidential elections), Tabatabai could well have become a bargaining chip. In that case, a controlled leak of classified documents would simultaneously discredit both her and Malley, and deprive the latter of the opportunity to slip out of the FBI's sight.
US security agencies are still being rather stingy with the details of the high-profile case, but their statements already suggest that at least three employees of the defense department are under investigation. It is possible that this list will expand as the chains of communication are unraveled.
ISRAEL BLAMES THE US
Despite the fact that the Israeli leadership denied the fact of the data leak for a long time and called what was happening an “internal matter” of the United States, after the United States officially confirmed the authenticity of the leaked documents, Tel Aviv Jerusalem was forced to admit that the retaliatory operation had been discredited.
It is clear from the tone of Israeli officials that the incident has dealt a blow to relations between Tel Aviv Jerusalem and Washington. First of all, the Israelis are asking two questions: why did the US conduct such detailed monitoring of the preparation of the anti-Iranian operation and why were they unable to ensure the safety of such valuable data?
And the second question quickly came to the fore. Tel Aviv Jerusalem, which had previously suffered from a series of minor spy scandals involving Iranian agents directly on the country's territory, reacts extremely painfully to the miscalculations of its allies, especially when they strike at Israeli strategic interests.
In this case, the appearance of "Tehran informants" in high offices is perceived as nothing less than the degradation of the American military machine. This idea runs through the publications of the Israeli government press like a red thread. Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet is effectively placing responsibility on the United States not only for the failure of the retaliatory operation, but also for the growth of Iran's activity in general.
At the same time, Tehran’s role in what happened is deliberately maximized: according to the interpretation of a number of publications, the Iranian leadership coordinated the operation in Washington “in manual mode.”
Of course, the leaks incident is unlikely to lead to a freeze in US-Israel cooperation. In this case, the US risks finding itself in a situation where the White House's "red lines" in the Middle East will not be immutable for Tel Aviv Jerusalem.
#1
A great deal is said by the Iranians scraping to keep the F-14's flying. They use the AN/AWG-9 radars as an AWACs. It's the best thing they've got.
(They ran out of useful Phoenix missiles long ago.)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/27/2024 10:41 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I think an F-14 could probably carry a nuclear bomb.
The problem for Iran is that they would have to build a device, mount it on the F-14 and not have Israel know about it because the IAF could pretty easily knock it down if they detected the take off.
Posted by: lord garth ||
10/27/2024 13:15 Comments ||
Top||
[IsraelTimes] PM charges Hezbollah terror group uses UN peacekeepers as human shields, while ex-IDF intelligence expert Tal Beeri says it’s long been clear that the force isn’t fulfilling its mandate
In recent days, at least five UNIFIL peacekeepers have been lightly wounded as Israel expands its fight against the Hezbollah terror group in southern Lebanon.
The IDF took responsibility for two separate incidents on Thursday and Friday in which four UN soldiers from Indonesia and Sri Lanka were wounded, and said that in both cases it was aiming at Hezbollah positions nearby and that it warned UNIFIL it was about to shoot. As for the fifth soldier, who was wounded on Friday night, the UN admitted it did not know the origin of the gunfire.
Still, UNIFIL — the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon — accused the Israeli military of firing “deliberately” on its positions, and the 40 countries that contribute troops to it unanimously condemned the incidents and highlighted the mission’s aim to bring “lasting peace in South Lebanon.”
In response to the international outcry, Israel has made the case that the UNIFIL force hinders its efforts to eradicate Hezbollah from the border and called for the peacekeepers’ withdrawal from combat areas.
On Sunday night, IDF Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said around 25 rockets and missiles were fired at Israeli towns and forces by Hezbollah from next to UNIFIL posts over the past month. One of the attacks launched from next to a UNIFIL position killed two IDF soldiers, said Adraee.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, also on Sunday that UNIFIL soldiers were “hostages” of Hezbollah and being used as “human shields.”
“This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers,” the prime minister said, noting that Israel has requested their withdrawal multiple times in the past and was always met with refusal.
The terror group’s exploitation of the peacekeeping mission as cover is nothing new, according to some Israeli pundits. In the first weeks of the war, the Alma Research Center, a privately funded nonprofit that monitors security developments on Israel’s northern border, published a map showing five UNIFIL bases that had been used by Hezbollah as cover for rocket launches on Israel.
Recently, Alma followed up with a study of four potential scenarios outlining the future of the “failed” UN peacekeeping force.
Since the start of the war, 22 rockets have been fired at Israel from within the vicinity of 5 UNIFIL peacekeeper bases in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, being responsible for all projectiles fired at Israel, deliberately uses the UN peacekeepers as human shields and is responsible… pic.twitter.com/dOeTT6qTFA
Tal Beeri, Alma’s director of research, said that UNIFIL is “unwilling and unable to confront Hezbollah.” Beeri served for decades in IDF intelligence units.
“When Hezbollah places a rocket launcher next to one of UNIFIL’s positions, 99.9% of the time UNIFIL will not do anything about it. They are afraid,” said Beeri.
“If Hezbollah tells UNIFIL forces not to get into a certain area, they won’t. If they do it anyway without prior coordination, they can get physically hurt or abducted,” said Beeri. “It has happened in the past, before this war.”
Among past incidents, in May 2013, a UNIFIL base was overrun, its ammunition stolen, and three soldiers were briefly detained. In December 2022, a UNIFIL vehicle came under gunfire and an Irish peacekeeper inside it was killed. A Hezbollah official said the terror group was not involved in the shooting but noted that the vehicle had taken an “unusual route.”
UNIFIL’S FAILURE TO FULFILL ITS CORE MISSION
UNIFIL was first deployed in 1978 after the IDF invasion of southern Lebanon. The operation came in response to the “coastal road massacre,” a terror attack in which 35 Israeli civilians were killed on a bus near Tel Aviv by Palestinians who infiltrated from Lebanon into Israel.
The Lebanese government said it had no connection to the Palestinian terrorist commandos and requested UN intervention to ensure the withdrawal of IDF troops from its territory. The UN decided to send a peacekeeping mission to restore stability to the area.
During the years of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, from 1982 until 2000, UNIFIL remained behind Israeli lines and provided humanitarian assistance to the local population, but was unable to fulfill its mandate and prevent clashes between the IDF and its Lebanese allies against “resistance” groups such as Hezbollah.
In 2006, after the end of the Second Lebanon War, UNIFIL’s mandate was confirmed and expanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for an immediate cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel and for the creation of a buffer zone in Lebanon south of the Litani River, which was supposed to remain free of arms and militias other than those of UNIFIL and the Lebanese government.
UNIFIL’s mission was extended annually over the following years. The last time its mandate was renewed was on August 28 by the UN Security Council.
However, the UN peacekeeping force has been unable to fulfill its mission, despite its massive contingent of 9,500 troops of some 50 nationalities.
Resolution 1701 has largely gone unimplemented as Hezbollah progressively entrenched itself in the border area, storing weapons there, firing countless rockets into Israel, and allegedly positioning its forces for a mass invasion of Israel last year.
While UNIFIL has made an important contribution to the residents of southern Lebanon, running projects to provide electricity, healthcare through 15 UNIFIL-run hospitals, and education, and by supporting the local economy through the presence of its thousands of soldiers, it has not fulfilled its core mission — namely, to ensure that the area of southern Lebanon between the border with Israel (the so-called Blue Line) and the Litani River remains demilitarized.
Beeri cited two recent examples of the incapacity or the unwillingness of the UN mission to deal with the terror group that it is supposed to hold at bay.
In December 2018, the IDF uncovered six tunnels dug by Hezbollah that crossed from Lebanon into Israel. The Israeli army said it provided a map of the tunnels to UNIFIL’s commander at the time, Maj. Gen. Stefano Del Col, and called on the UN peacekeeping force to destroy the passages on the Lebanese side of the border, but UNIFIL never complied, Beeri said.
On September 1, 2019, Hezbollah fired several anti-tank missiles at a military jeep and an IDF base in Avivim, in northern Israel, causing no injuries. Despite Israeli requests, UNIFIL forces have yet to visit the site from where those rockets were launched, Beeri said.
UNIFIL’s spokesperson did not respond to repeated requests for comment by The Times of Israel, about either these two claims or the allegation made by Netanyahu that it serves as Hezbollah’s “human shield.”
FOUR SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE OF UNIFIL
In early September, before the ongoing escalation in Lebanon, the Alma Research Center published a report outlining four scenarios for the future of UNIFIL.
Maintaining the status quo is undesirable for Israel, as the IDF runs the risk of inadvertently hitting UNIFIL positions that Hezbollah allegedly uses for cover.
Completely disbanding UNIFIL would also not be a sensible option. The peacekeeping force serves as a “mediation mechanism to resolve tactical conflicts on the ground,” the report indicated.
Expanding and strengthening UNIFIL to perform its mandate and actually confront Hezbollah on the ground does not seem like a realistic scenario at the moment, the report suggested, as Hezbollah would begin targeting UN troops and there would be casualties, and, as a consequence, few countries would agree to maintain their forces in Lebanon under pressure from their citizens.
Reducing the UNIFIL mandate and downsizing its deployment would appear to be the best option, as it would allow the force to preserve its liaison role and its humanitarian projects, and strengthen its reporting function, the report concluded.
However, in light of the ongoing ground offensive by the IDF in south Lebanon, uncertainty still prevails as to what force could guarantee security and confront the threat of Hezbollah fighter cells once the IDF withdraws its troops.
#2
I hear Haiti is nice this time of year. While UNFIL did not have a lot of *ahem* "mission success" in Lebanon, a lot of money changed hands and people got paid. A new mission means new donors as well as the usual suspects.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
