Azerbaijan destroyed Armenian churches in Arsakh

About a month ago, it was reported that, unshockingly, the repellent Azerbaijan destroyed churches in the Arsakh district:

The cathedral of the largest city in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region has been demolished, RFE/RL can confirm through satellite imagery made on April 26.

Reports that the Holy Mother of God Cathedral in Khankendi had been destroyed emerged in Armenian media in mid-April, but no clear recent imagery showing the site was available until now. [...]

Armenia's Orthodox church authorities on April 23 accused Azerbaijan of "deliberately target[ing] Armenian Christian holy sites, seeking to erase the Armenian presence," from Nagorno-Karabakh. The church alleged cross stones in the grounds surrounding the demolished Church of St. Jacob have also been destroyed.

No matter what excuses Azerbaijan's reps or anybody else's make, this is disgusting and makes clear how evil the Azeris are being in addition to what physical violence they've committed over past years.

Iran has hopefully agreed to surrender all remaining nuclear materials they still have

In what's hopefully a positive sign, Iran reportedly agreed to surrender their remaining uranium deposits:

Multiple reports have indicated that U.S. negotiators believe that Iran has committed to giving up its nuclear ambitions and its highly enriched uranium as a part of a broader peace deal with President Donald Trump.

On Saturday afternoon, President Trump announced that an “agreement has been largely negotiated” between Washington and Tehran. However, Mr Trump said that the final details of the deal were still being discussed and would not be made public at the time.

According to a report from the New York Times, citing “two U.S. officials”, the Islamist regime in Iran verbally agreed to U.S. negotiators that it would give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Although exactly how the nuclear material would be removed from the country remains unclear, such an agreement would fulfil a longstanding and major aim of the White House.

While the Islamist regime has yeet to confirm any details and has a spotty track record of following through on its commitments, an agreement would also likely shore up support from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, some of whom have expressed scepticism about coming to any agreement with the Mullahs.

While this is a good sign, we also have to hope all totalitarians still running the store will be removed from any position of rulership, and will surrender their firearms too, and cease forcing women to dress in burkas.

Iran also has to surrender any and all funding they allocate for terrorist activities worldwide, which included, but was never limited to, attacks on Israelis. There's just so much evil Iran's mullahs led to over 47 years that will take ages to clean up. Even now, nothing's final in what Trump's announced, and serious vigilance is still heavily required.

Why the NYT doesn't belong in Israel

Robert Besser makes a case for why the New York Times and its reporters have no business being in Israel:

Just because Israel is a democracy that believes in free speech does not mean that we Jews must commit suicide on the altar of the free press.

Rather, let Israel take actions to protect ourselves from the Jew-hating New York Times, including:

1) Stop New York Times reporters from working in Israel because the Times does not report truthfully about Israel.

2) Israel must not allow New York Times reporters to work in Israel because they apply a double standard in criticizing Israel that they do not apply to other countries.

3) Israel must bar the New York Times from working within Israel because they have an anti-Israel political agenda and do not provide their readers with unbiased or truthful reporting.

Of note, this issue goes far, far beyond Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times, who wrote unbelievably on May 11 that the Jews of Israel use dogs to rape Arabs.

Kristof’s column was labeled the “most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel," by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In writing such age-old antisemetic libels, Kristof was doing was what he is paid to do by the New York Times as one of their hired guns. As proof of this, senior editors allowed his May 11 blood libel against the Jews to be published. They did not fact check or question Kristof’s absurd obscenities…..because at the New York Times everyone is paid to believe such lies.

Kristof is one of the most desensitized-to-violence writers to be found in what passes for journalism today, and he could make a great example of a reporter who should no longer be welcome to enter Israel at all.

NYC communist doesn't want sex offenders jailed

Catherine Salgado says there's a communist in NYC named Conrad Blackburn who's advocating a horrific position that seems to have become a very sad staple for the most irrational leftists in the modern world:

Every day brings a new scandal for the political left in America, as yet another of its candidates turns out to be in favor of policies every American would once have found laughably disqualifying.

The latest is New York City Assembly candidate Conrad Blackburn, whom the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) back, and who believes that criminals convicted of homicide, rape, and child molestation should not go to prison, they should just go to reeducation programs. Of course, data from multiple countries and several decades proves this is a disastrous plan, but why let reality interfere with socialistic utopian policies? After all, politicians such as Blackburn probably assume that the serial criminals they release will never kill or assault them.

Bronx Defenders staff lawyer Blackburn is running against incumbent New York City Assemblyman Jordan Wright, and part of his pitch during a March episode of his podcast “Brothers In Law,” according to the New York Post, was not to jail criminals guilty of “predatory sexual assaults of children” and homicide. “Even if, like, the client is guilty as f–king sin, I still don’t think that the punishment, like, meets what happened,” Blackburn rambled.

While some of Blackburn's fellow leftists may have also attacked his positions, this still stands out as one of the most repulsive examples of what New York seems to turn out these days, and why I don't want to visit them anymore. Some of the facts the disgusting assemblyman obscures include that:

The 1996 study in Canada found that 42% of child molesters will have a new sexual or violent offense conviction within 15 to 30 years after they are released, and that among those who are homosexual and target young boys, the recidivism rate is up to 77%. A 2004 review of 95 studies estimated an overall recidivism rate for sex offenders of about 37%. The Prison Policy Initiative used Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2019 to note that over two-thirds of rapists and sexual criminals reoffend within nine years, while almost 8 and 10 violent offenders will reoffend within the same time period.

And that's why sexual violence remains a very serious issue. I hesitate to think what that man's positions could be on October 7, 2023. NYC is a burg I would rather not visit again.

Texas student received death threats after speaking out against Islamic indoctrination at school

A student from Texas told Congress he received death threats after he spoke out against Islamic indoctrination in his school district:

A Texas high school student told members of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government that he received death threats for speaking out about an Islamic group that passed out hijabs and copies of the Quran on a campus at Wylie East High School.

Marco Hunter-Lopez, a 16-year-old student at the high school in Wylie, Texas, a Dallas suburb, provided written testimony to the committee after being invited to testify about incidents he observed on his campus earlier this year. Hunter-Lopez founded the school’s Republican Student Club as a freshman student last year and told the committee he believes his group is treated differently from other groups at the school.

Hunter-Lopez told members his group faced myriad challenges from the school administration, which initially denied his club permission to operate on campus, claiming a “district-wide policy against political clubs” prohibited the establishment of his group. According to Hunter-Lopez, efforts to establish the Republican Student Club were ultimately successful after much back-and-forth with the staff.

The young student highlighted the disparate treatment the Republican Student Club received by campus administrators, saying, “Principals were caught taking down our approved posters while I was out of town. I have documented a timeline of specific instances of unfair treatment, including being pulled into the principal’s office, cornered, and talked down to. After we hosted guest speakers, the principal tried to impose new rules on the fly. My father even had to help create a guest speaker form to protect me as a minor.”

Hunter-Lopez told members about other groups faced with no such scrutiny. The teen testified about a large booth installed at the campus labeled “Islam” in the cafeteria. At the booth, Hunter-Lopez says four adult women were posted as part of the group he identified in his testimony as “Why Islam.”

The principal should be disbarred from ever working in education ever again. And of course, the Muslim group should be banned from operating on the school campus. Will Congress and Texas' own government do anything to prevent further Islamic indoctrination there?

And it goes without saying that to repeatedly encourage women to wear hijabs is offensive to women's diginity as human beings and humiliating.

IDF needs to do more than tell ultra-Orthodox soldiers there's no contradiction between religion and defending Israel

An IDF deputy chief visited a Haredi brigade and told them:

Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai visited the ultra-Orthodox Hasmonean Brigade’s training base yesterday, the IDF says, where he told soldiers that “there is no contradiction” between being “fighters and God-fearing Jews.”

“From a world of faith, discipline and mission grow strong fighters and good commanders,” Yadai told troops during the visit. [...]

The military says the deputy chief of staff was presented with the brigade’s training facilities, its recent operations in Lebanon and the adjustments being made to accommodate their ultra-Orthodox lifestyle.

If there's any problem here, it's that they just have to accomodate their "lifestyle", after all the damage it's done to women's status over the years. Granted, the soldiers here may not be doing anything like that where they're stationed, but even so, the commander has to make clear to them there's no contradiction between being a Judaist and respecting women's dignity.

The Haredi community makes use of pirate taxi services

According to this investigation, the Haredi world's made use of a cheaper but seriously illegal alternative to commercial taxis, one that's even cost the life of an infant:

The shocking accident that occurred last Friday on Israel's Highway 1, in which a 1-month-old infant was killed, was not an act of fate. It was a warning, written in blood.

The driver was not a licensed taxi driver, the infant was not strapped in, and the entire ride took place in a blind spot of Israeli law enforcement. This disaster happened on Highway 1, but with thousands of drivers operating without a shred of oversight, it is a danger that can meet anyone at every junction and in every city in Israel.

A false declaration to a bot, and you're on the road

To understand just how wide open the system is, Israel Hayom has sent an investigator to see how easy it is to become a "driver." The process was alarmingly quick: He contacted a bot-based registration system, entered false details, and the registration was completed without a hitch. No one asked to see a driver's license, no one checked the vehicle documents, and no questions were raised about insurance or the driver's identity.

While taxi drivers in Israel are required to undergo training, strict medical examinations and security screening, in the world of the "drivers" the front door is open to anyone. There is no requirement to present a valid driver's license, and no one checks the driver's traffic record.

After paying a nominal membership fee, the investigator began receiving ride offers and even carried out a ride in Jerusalem. During the ride, an English-speaking tourist who had come to Israel for a short vacation got into the car.

Asked how she had heard about the "drivers" network, she revealed just how deep the phenomenon runs. "My sister, who studied in Israel, recommended that I avoid taxis and use this service," she said. "They arrive quickly, with luxury cars, and take you with no problems." What she did not know was that in the event of an accident, she was riding in a vehicle without insurance coverage for paid passenger transport.

To secular Israelis, the term "driver" may sound like the community's version of Uber. That is a dangerous lie. While international ride-hailing apps have oversight, driver ratings and regulated insurance, in the world of the drivers, everything is wide open.

When there is no requirement to present documents, there is no one to verify that the vehicle has the proper insurance, the only insurance that covers passengers in the event of injury. Without that coverage, in the event of an accident, passengers find themselves with no financial or medical safety net.

Read it all. This is what the Haredi community's now led to, and it's simultaneously stupefying how the legal system stratospherically failed to take measures to curb this case. Will measures be taken to disqualify any and all pirate taxi drivers after this tragedy?

It's okay to defend a sane country from being corrupted

J.D. Vance sent an important message of support to the citizenry of Britain that applies also to countries like France, Italy, Spain, Denmark and even Israel:

U.S. Vice President JD Vance encouraged the British public protesting against the longstanding government policy of flooding the jobs market with mass migration to “just keep going” and remember “it’s OK” to want to live in a safe, culturally homogenous place.

The U.S. Vice President stood in for press secretary Karoline Leavitt at the White House press briefing room on Tuesday to cover her maternity leave, as reported by Breitbart News, and amid responses for a wide range of questions spoke out about the weekend’s Unite The Kingdom Rally.

The rally, convened by veteran street organiser and child rape gang critic Tommy Robinson, was called on Saturday 16th in defence of freedom of speech, civil liberties, and “our shared British identity, our history, our heritage, and the culture that connects England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland”.

Responding to a question that specifically highlighted protester’s concerns about “mass illegal migration and replacement of British culture”, Vance encouraged Britons who reject the modern paradigm of business-dominated government constantly pushing wages lower through human quantitative easing to keep fighting.

Read more. If there's something where Vance is doing the right thing, it's through messages like these, which should resonate in Israel and Europe alike too, and also Africa and Asia.

Haredi parties threatening to topple government over opposition to army recruitment are a disgrace

The Haredi parties in the Knesset have been threatening to topple the government because they simply don't want to help defend the country any more than build it. One of the government ministers has responded thusly:

Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel strongly attacked the haredi parties amid the conscription law crisis and the possibility of early elections.

"The haredim are coming and trying to topple the government. Someone who is prepared to sell off the security of the state of Israel for funding, and someone who goes to Gantz and Eisenkot to threaten the Prime Minister during a war - what kind of right-wing is that?" Haskel wondered in an interview with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News.

Haskel added, "The right is first and foremost about security, supporting IDF soldiers. It is first and foremost about holding on to the Land of Israel."

She was later asked if she was summoned to a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the leader of her faction, Minister Gideon Sa'ar, due to her opposition to the current conscription bill. Likud members were summoned to the Prime Minister."

She claimed that the proposed bill would "not lead to more haredi enlistment," and added that even without the law, there is an increase in haredi enlistees.

Haskel also presented a proposal to establish yeshivas on the borders to create a solution "that would both protect the yeshiva world and provide the IDF with the manpower it needs for security assignments." She further claimed that if the haredim would understand that they are not exempt from conscription, "The number of haredi soldiers would double."

She also addressed anti-conscription sentiments in the haredi sector: "At the moment, what we hear in haredi society is, 'We'll die and not enlist,' it's crazy." According to Haskel, "If they do not enlist, we will die. The IDF will not have the manpower to perform its security duties."

At the conclusion of the interview, Haskel was asked if she would change her position if she were blamed for toppling the right-wing government during the war. Haskel responded that "those plans should be presented to our haredi brothers and they should take responsibility, otherwise, they will pay a heavy price in the next elections and they won't be in the next government."

Honestly, with the way the Haredi public in places like Bnei Brak's been behaving of recent, they shouldn't be in the government and don't deserve to anyway. What they've done damages morale very badly, since even now, unity has never been more vital for defeating Israel's enemies, and here there's extremists who're practically risking the lives of innocents even in their own society for such monstrosities as riots and vandalism? That's abominable and can't go unopposed anymore.

What will Iran be like after the ayatollah's been finished?

That's what Jason Greenblatt talks about, now that the USA/Israeli strikes on Iran's infrastructure and nuclear sites have been carried out:

Something has changed in the Iran nuclear negotiation that many analysts are not fully accounting for. The military balance between the United States and Iran has shifted more dramatically than at any point since the Islamic Republic acquired its first centrifuges. Iran’s air defense shield, the infrastructure that for years effectively concealed and protected its nuclear program, has been destroyed. Its proxies are severely degraded. Its economy is under sanctions and naval blockade pressure that is genuinely unprecedented. Its nuclear sites have been damaged. Trump built leverage that no American president has come close to matching, and he is bringing it to the table.

The question is not whether Trump will press for his terms. He has made clear he will, and those terms—principally the physical removal of enriched uranium from Iranian soil and a permanent prohibition on nuclear weapons—are the deal the United States and the broader Middle East need. The question is whether Iran will accept them. And beneath that sits a harder one: Will the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has its own theory of deterrence and its own institutional equities in the nuclear program, allow any agreement to hold?

Both questions matter. Neither has a clean answer.

The strategic landscape today bears almost no resemblance to 2015, when the last deal was struck. When the Obama administration concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s regional power was intact. Hezbollah was the most formidable non-state military force in the Middle East. The Houthis were an insurgency, not a force capable of threatening Red Sea shipping lanes. Hamas governed Gaza with operational freedom. Iran’s air defenses, built over decades with Russian and Chinese assistance, provided real protection for nuclear infrastructure deep inside Iranian territory. The pressure on Tehran was economic—real, but not existential.

None of that is true today.

Iran’s air defense network has been dismantled. The S-300 batteries and radar infrastructure that once raised the cost of strikes on Iranian territory are gone. Its navy has been largely destroyed. Its air force is severely degraded. Command and control infrastructure, Revolutionary Guard facilities, and intelligence networks have all been struck. What remains of Iran’s conventional military capacity is a fraction of what existed before the conflict began. That is a fundamental change in the military equation.

What is clear is taht the IRGC cannot be allowed to continue to govern Iran in any way, shape or form. Nor can Islamic sharia. And of course, let's not forget that it's vital to confiscate any uranium and other nuclear materials still in Iran to ensure that in the forseeable future, they can no longer pursue such repulsive goals as world destruction.

Toronto continues to be a terrible example in Canadian territory

A terrorist organization has been allowed to hold a conference in Toronto despite being banned by the Canadian government for their terror ties:

A pro-October 7 massacre conference is set to be held in Toronto in November, according to the Masar Badil Movement Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement Instagram account, hosted by a branch of an organization banned by Canada for being a terrorist group’s front.

The Three Years of Al-Aqsa Flood Conference, subtitled “Resistance & Return From the Belly of the Beast,” is being organized by Masar Badil, an organization closely linked to Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which was listed by Canada as a terrorist entity for its close links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization. [...]

The conference was immediately endorsed by several organizations suspected of being branches of the Samidoun network after being designated by both the US and Canada as a terrorist front in 2024.

Endorsers include Tariq El-Tahrir Youth and Student Network, the Masar Badil youth movement that previously launched a petition for the release of Capital Jewish Museum shooter Elias Rodriguez, and Nidal Seattle, run by Bissan Barghouti, the former head of Samidoun Seattle. Barghouti is also an executive member of Masar Badil. Another group was Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return at the University of Washington, which has overlapping members and events with Nidal Seattle.

Seriously, this doesn't reflect well on the Canadian government at all, but then, it's sadly been led by far-leftists for decades now. This case certainly does continue to make Ontario look like a very bad place, as awful as New York can be. If the Canadian government doesn't do anything to stop this from going ahead, that'll continue to compound what a terrible image they have.