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The post “Israel Is Built on the Ruins of Hundreds of Palestinian Villages” appeared first on Global Research.
Mayors outraged over Finance Ministry proposal to seize property taxes and redistribute funds to poorer and peripheral cities.
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
Municipalities across Israel announced a general strike on Monday in response to an ongoing dispute with the Finance Ministry, with many of the largest cities in the country participating.
The cities of Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa, and Rishon LeTzion were among the municipalities that shuttered their public daycare centers, schools, and libraries, stopped garbage collection, and said they would not allow the public to receive services inside their city halls.
The dramatic closures come after the failure of negotiations between the Finance Ministry and municipalities over a controversial new tax distribution measure.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich created a new policy after taking office, which would see his ministry seize property taxes collected by municipalities and transfer them into a national fund. Those funds would be redistributed to peripheral and poorer cities in Israel as part of an incentive to encourage the construction of new housing in those areas.
The mayors of many cities and towns in Israel have opposed the plan, as they argue that the property taxes collected by residents of their communities should not be used to benefit other municipalities.
Smotrich released a statement on Monday morning indicating that he would not back down from the new policy, despite the widespread municipal strikes. He also stressed that he believes that local authorities have too much power regarding how tax funds are distributed.
“We will not give in to threats and blackmail and will act professionally for the benefit of the State of Israel and the citizens of Israel,” Smotrich said in a media conference.
“We must not surrender to extortion. We are on the way to major struggles against huge market forces that concentrate in their hands a tremendous power that we are going to take from them – [our goal] is to break up centralization and monopolies,” he said.
Haim Bibas, mayor of the city of Modiin and head of the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel, responded angrily to Smotrich’s statement.
“The only one trying to extort public money is the Finance Ministry,” he told Hebrew-language media.
“This is money intended for residents for education, welfare and infrastructure” in the cities from which the tax funds were collected, he added.
Despite the fact that Bibas and a number of other mayors participating in the strike are members of the Likud party, a coalition politician accused those opposed to the measure as coming from a left-wing political perspective.
Interior and Health Minister Moshe Arbel (Shas) told Radio Kol BeRama that “the decision of several councils to strike today is a political decision against the government.”
Arbel framed the seizing of funds for redistribution in other municipalities as a Robin Hood-type measure, saying that “we will take from the strong and give it to the weak.”
The post No schools, garbage collection: Cities on strike across Israel appeared first on World Israel News.
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The post Biden Family ‘Got $1 Million From Romania’ While Joe Vowed to Clean Up Corruption: GOP ‘Influence-peddling’ Probe Into $10M in Foreign Cash Reveals Hunter Set Up 15 Companies After His Dad Became VP and Lay Out How Money Came from China appeared first on Global Research.
Reinhold Niebuhr had a brilliant way of criticizing unrealistic extremes. He once wrote:
“The French Revolution proclaimed ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’ a little too blithely. For liberty and equality are just as much in contradiction as they are complementary to each other. A society can destroy liberty in its search for equality; it can annul the spirit of equal justice by a too consistent devotion to liberty.”
June Bingham, Courage to Change. (New York and Canada: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961), 300.
That wisdom consolidates a lot of punch against the extremes of Marxism and laissez-faire capitalism. Economically, we should have an economy that is free and fair, not fixed as in Socialism. From a Christian viewpoint, however, there are real concerns about economic fairness and justice. Yet, even after decades of pondering these issues, I still have lingering questions.
First, let me wind back time to offer an illustrative point. My first job back in the late 1980s was selling concessions at a movie theater. I am all about fairness and justness, but it would be absurd to argue that my first job should have commanded a living wage. Yes, there is a real need for jobs that enable human flourishing, but I cannot imagine that the simple skills of a high school student could have gotten me through life. Most of us, reflecting on the jobs we once held, realize that those were jobs we cannot imagine keeping forever. They are transitional, stepping-stone jobs, as we get from one place to another. Adam Smith also shared a real concern, however, that there should be living wage jobs. In Wealth of Nations, he wrote:
“A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise, it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.”
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, edited Edwin Cannan (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976), Volume I, 76-77.
Furthermore, he added:
“Thus far at least seems certain, that in order to bring up a family, the labor of the husband and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common labor, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in the above-mentioned, or in any other, I shall not take upon me to determine.”
Ibid.
Smith is right, but when I first read the last line, I thought it seemed like the great copout. Then, as I reflected on my own job experience, I realized what a hard question Smith was trying to answer. We do need an economy that is both free and fair, and we do need living wage jobs for all hardworking adults. But that every such job generated by a free market should command a living wage, is one I still wrestle with. A sound economy should generate enough living wage jobs for its workers to seem fair. Is the “invisible hand” of the market, which Smith only briefly referred to, sufficient to provide this? In Smith’s view, the overall skill and pay of any growing free economy should steadily rise.
Thinking over Niebuhr’s quote tells us clearly why we should choose a free market over a Marxist one. It is indeed true that too consistent a devotion to equality will destroy any freedom in an economy, any incentive to rise above the lowest skilled job. On the opposite extreme, an economy left completely to its own devices would be vulnerable to the twin powers of sinfulness (in this case greed) and power. Successful businesses, run by greedy businessmen, would quash competition, and grind their labor force mercilessly into the ground. It was done in Marx’s day, and much before him Adam Smith told us to be wary of the “narrow view” merchants, who lobbied only for their self-interest, and against public welfare. Though Smith advocated for freedom, he understood something about selfish human nature too. We forget that Smith was first a moral theorist, having written the Theory of Moral Sentiments long before he wrote The Wealth of Nations.
Of course, our capitalist market has never really been completely laissez-faire, nor should it be. A fixed, state-run economy, however, tries to do what should never be done: make government do the same job of business instead of regulating its behavior. The first mistake here is an obvious conflict of interest, and an abusive consolidation of powers: productive and regulatory. In the second place, it fails to appreciate the necessary mental differences of businessmen and politicians: the one to make profit, the other to govern and enforce laws.
Certainly, I agree with Niebuhr and share his Christian concerns about a free market. Free markets are just that – free – and we cannot expect perfect freedom to produce perfect fairness. As a young minister, Niebuhr wrote Notebook of a Tamed Cynic revealing his concern:
“According to the ethics of our modern industrialism men over fifty, without special training, are so much junk.” He added further “A city which is built around a productive process, and which give only casual thought and incidental attention to its human problems is really a kind of hell. Thousands in this town are really living in torment while the rest of us eat, drink, and make merry. What a civilization!”
Reinhold Niebuhr, Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic, (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 1957), 115.
Niebuhr first demonstrated the compassion of a Christian and later acquired the realist wisdom that the Marxist solution to this Christian concern was ultimately wrong.
And what is our solution? A free market will never be a completely fair market, and that is a compromise with which we must be willing to accept in order to avoid the Marxist error. Free markets allow selfish and powerful individuals to accrue more power than they already have, while workers at a disadvantage may fall behind. Without a doubt we must pay close attention to the fairness and equity of the market, we must never turn a blind eye to it. Yet we must always be cognizant that overextended governmental power is very likely to be as dangerous as too wide a latitude for the power of free business. Balance of economic power against political power seems to be the key, just as we weigh the scales of liberty and equality. We need both. If we were to be robbed of either, wouldn’t we want the other? If I have no freedom, I will crave it. If I have no feeling of relative equality with fellow citizens, I shall desire that also. Balancing the scales of liberty and equality is not just a free-market concern, but a Christian and human one too.
The post The Best Economy: Free and Fair, But Not Fixed. appeared first on Providence.
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The NBA All-Star Ja Morant has been suspended after footage was captured of him apparently displaying a gun in a video. This is the second time the 23-year-old Memphis Grizzlies star has been suspended by the NBA, after brandishing a firearm on Instagram just a few months ago.
The footage was from an Instagram Live video that showed Ja Morant and a friend in a car while they listened and danced to a song by rapper NBA YoungBoy. Morant was seen quickly revealing the gun. NBA spokesman, Mike Bass, said: “We are aware of the social media post involving Ja Morant and are in the process of gathering more information”. The Associated Press reported that the Grizzlies have suspended him from all team activities until the NBA have reviewed the footage.
This is not the first time Morant has caused controversy. In March he went on Instagram Live at 5am from a nightclub in Denver, Colorado, and brandished a gun. He was punished by the NBA by receiving an eight-game suspension without pay. The player then went to Florida for counseling, where he learnt how to “manage stress and cope with it in a positive way”. After the incident, he deactivated his social media for a period of time, but both his Instagram and Twitter have since been restored.
In July 2022, Morant signed a five-year contract with the Grizzlies worth $194 million, giving him an annual average salary of $38,860,000, according to Sportrac. He is also endorsed by brands such as Wendy’s, Bodyarmour, Uber Eats, Powerade, PSD and Hyperice, potentially worth hundreds of millions more, as reported by Sports Illustrated.
Reacting to the incident, Nike released a statement saying they appreciated Morant’s willingness to take responsibility and to get help, and that they support his focus on his well-being.
Jewish critics have suggested that Hatem Bazian has access to the JVP Twitter account and writes some of its hateful messages.
By Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Magazine
The DNA of campus antisemitism goes back to Hatem ‘Hate’em’ Bazian. Bazian is the co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the one figure who did the most to kickstart the culture of campus hate.
Back in the ’90s, when Bazian was at San Francisco State University, he participated in an assault on the offices of the Golden Gate Xpress student newspaper, accusing it of being full of Jewish spies. Jewish students had complained about anti-Semitic behavior by Bazian in his role as student body president and his campaign against Hillel, the leading Jewish campus organization, which they said was a direct attempt to disenfranchise Jewish students.
The SJP organization allowed Hatem an even larger platform for his violent bigotry. In April 2002, 79 members attempted to disrupt a Holocaust Remembrance Day event and were arrested. At a rally to protest their arrests, Bazian said, “take a look at the type of names on the building around campus – Haas, Zellerbach – and decide who controls this university.”
SJP’s conference in 2001 was sponsored by a Hamas front group with the American head of Islamic Jihad as its keynote speaker. Bazian would later serve as the representative for KindHearts, another Hamas front group. And true to its MSA roots, the SJP Berkeley site describes Hamas as “a vast social organization” which “also has a militia established to fight Israeli troops in the occupied territories.”
So it was a little surprising to see Hatem Bazian tweeting “As a Jew” critiques to CNN over Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
“As a Jew” has a long and low dishonest history in which leftists, who happen to be of Jewish ancestry or pretending to be, denounce Israel… “as a Jew”.
It’s hard to think of anyone less Jewish than Hatem Bazian, but there he was.
So it turns out the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice For Peace org is actually run by NON-JEWISH Hamas affiliated Hatem Bazian…!?
He thought he was logged into the JVP Twitter account when he replied to @jaketapper pretending to be a Jew… pic.twitter.com/pryzcOsx0w
— A Jewish Resistance (@AJwshResistance) May 13, 2023
Bazian deleted his original tweet and claimed that he was just broadcasting a message from leftist anti-Israel hate group calling itself Jewish Voice for Peace. Jewish critics have suggested that Bazian has access to the JVP Twitter account and writes some of its hateful messages.
Either way, “as a Jew” now has the Islamist godfather of campus antisemitism playing the same phony game. It’s hard to think of any campus academic with a more sustained ugly history of antisemitism than Bazian. If he can play “as a Jew,” who can’t?
The post If godfather of Islamist antisemitism on campus can play ‘as a Jew,’ who can’t? appeared first on World Israel News.
“There’s no doubt that Charles will be the one to break this pattern” of sitting British monarchs not officially visiting the Holy Land, said one lord privy to the matter.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
King Charles III has indicated a strong desire to visit Israel officially, which would break the royal family’s longstanding custom of not having a sitting monarch come for a formal stay in the Jewish state, Britain’s Daily Mail reported Sunday.
The paper quoted Lord Stuart Polak as saying, “There is no doubt that Charles will be the one to break this pattern. The preparation has been done by his team to pave the way for this visit.”
Polak was a longtime Conservative MP who headed the right-wing party’s Friends of Israel group for over a quarter of a century before receiving a life peerage. Both the Conservative party and President Isaac Herzog, who is a personal friend of the king, have pushed for such a visit.
Herzog is said to have noted that the just-concluded Operation Shield and Arrow, when Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched a 1,400-rocket barrage at Israel over five days, had put a crimp in the plans.
However, the paper cited another diplomatic source who said that even the possible danger of Palestinian terror attacks wouldn’t deter the monarch. The king, said the source, “made it clear in recent years that he is not afraid to go to Israel and will not allow being the monarch prevent him from returning in that role.”
A royal call could be considered historic if not unprecedented, as Charles has come to Israel three times in his life in a private capacity. The first two times were as marks of respect for Israeli leaders, as he attended the funerals of the assassinated prime minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995 and of former prime minister and president Shimon Peres in 2016.
His most recent visit was in January 2020, when he came with dozens of world leaders to Yad Vashem to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz as part of International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations.
His son William, who is now the crown prince, broke the taboo on official visits when he visited Israel in June 2018. Although it was officially touted as a non-political visit, the Duke of Cambridge met with Palestinian and Israeli leaders in Ramallah and Jerusalem respectively, as well as with high-tech entrepreneurs in Tel Aviv. He also spent time at Yad Vashem, prayed at the Western Wall and stopped at the tomb of his great-grandmother, Princess Alice, who is buried in Jerusalem.
The royal itinerary angered Israel when it noted Jerusalem as being part of the “Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
According to Lord Polak, Charles would also visit the Palestinian Authority in order to prevent an international outcry.
Although the late Queen Elizabeth exhibited great warmth to her Jewish subjects and included the chief rabbis of her kingdom in many of her ceremonial occasions, she had never visited Israel even once during her 70-year reign.
The post King Charles may visit Israel soon – report appeared first on World Israel News.