#2319 (5/23) "Santa Fe, the Human Heart, and the Need for God"

"SANTA FE, THE HUMAN HEART, AND THE NEED FOR GOD" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, May 21, 2018; https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA18E40&f=WU18E13 [AS I SEE IT: This article shares how the media has missed (intentionally?) the story of the great faith of athe community that deals with the latest school shooting. They have much to say to those who only seek answers in such things as gun control. - Stan]

     It was one of the last pictures ever taken of Christian Garcia. With the sun on his face, the Santa Fe teenager leaned his head on the wooden slats that would one day be his bedroom. On the framing of the house he'll never live in, Christian had taken a sharpie and written Psalm 46:10: "Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth."

     Today, those words echo across a Texas town in desperate need of the reminder that God is still there. For the 10 families who never dreamed they were saying their last goodbyes Friday morning, the pain of another school shooting is a raw and profound reminder of how desperately our world needs the Savior. Wrapped in a grief familiar to too many communities, a heartbroken Santa Fe turned, as it always has, to faith. Moments after the first shots rang out, phones started buzzing. "Please pray," came one text after another. Cars started to pour into church parking lots; prayer chains sprang into action. In a city that just survived the worst of Hurricane Harvey, everyone knew what direction to look in tragedy -- up.

    Now, as the first bodies of those eight students and two teachers are laid to rest, America returns to the question burned on everyone's mind: why? Angry outsiders demand gun control. Others lay the blame at the feet of the NRA. And while the rest of the country debates what our country could have done differently, Texas's top officials try to return the conversation back to the heart of the problem -- the heart. "We have devalued life in this country," Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said plainly. "We threw God out of school... We have families that are broken apart, no fathers at home. We have incredible heinous violence as a [video] game, two hours a day in front of their eyes. And we stand here and we wonder why this happens to certain students."

    In Sunday services across Texas, teary parents seemed to have the same response. At Arcadia First Baptist Church, one grandmother's eyes welled up just thinking about her grandson, who was supposed to be in the art room where the shooting started. "We need God back in our schools," she said. For Santa Fe, where students still pray before football games and some teachers still hold lunchtime Bible studies, "thoughts and prayers" aren't throwaway words when heartbreak strikes. They're a way of life. "This is not," Patrick insisted, "about guns. This is about us, as a culture and a nation. Who are we?"

   Who we are is a broken country in dire need of the God we keep pushing away. "The world has never been a nice place," Matt Walsh pointed out the Daily Wire, "but it got quite a bit meaner when we abandoned religion. That is no coincidence." It's human nature to want to blame something, but the problem has never been guns. Are there policies we could strengthen? Absolutely. But mankind has had instruments of destruction dating back to Cain and Abel. The real crisis is the moral vacuum left behind when society kicked religion -- and with it, morality -- out of the public space. Violence, relativism, promiscuity, and suicide didn't get their start when God was expelled from school. But they've certainly been given a culture in which to thrive now that we've removed the Judeo-Christian foundation that anchored the country. Walsh warned:

    "The nightmare we have lived since the turn of the previous century has been the direct result of the world's rejection of God. We fled from His embrace and what we found out here in the wilderness, in our 'freedom,' is evil and despair on an unimaginable scale. We have become an empty country, an empty generation, an empty world. 'They withdrew from me, went after emptiness, and became empty themselves,' God says through the Prophet Jeremiah. He speaks as much to us as He spoke to the people of Jeremiah's time."

    Of course, some liberals don't want to have a discussion about the underlying problem, because it would mean acknowledging the fallen nature of man. That, not stricter gun laws, is what's keeping us from finding real solutions as a nation. We can talk about limiting access to guns, but if we're truly concerned about violence, let's also talk about expanding access to God. Until we're willing to address both -- the instrument and the motivation – nothing will change. A spiritually sick society that embraces violence instead of values needs God.

    Maybe a community as deeply sincere about their faith as Santa Fe can help the nation understand that. Looking across the rows of empty school chairs, they know better than anyone -- Guns don't steer men wrong, hearts do.

[italics and colored emphasis mine]

#2318 (5/22) "At Graduation, No Tassel without Tussle over Faith"

"AT GRADUATION, NO TASSLE WITHOUT TUSSLE OVER FAITH" - Tony Perkins, Washington Watch, May 21, 2018; https://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20180521/no-tassel [AS I SEE IT: They say it's "religon" but the real issue is JESUS. Mention Buddha or Mohammed but don't mention Jesus! Whether it's a school graduation or any other public venue, the question becomes will we stand up for our rights while we still can in America or will we slowly but surely allow our freedom to express our faith be taken from us as it has been in so many countries to so many tens of millionis of believes around the world. What we give up today will be lost as well for future generations. If not now, when. If not believers today, then will there even be believers tomorrow?  P.S. - Christian youth today should be challenged to do the hard things, the things that are not "politically correct" or popular in today's culture but to do and say things that are driven by Biblical truth. If their faith is not something they stand up for, then it will be a faith they are sure to eventually abandon when pressed by the world. (Rom. 12:1-2) - Stan]

     There's power in the name of Jesus -- and the administrators of West Prairie High School must know it. Hours before Valedictorian Sam Blackledge was scheduled to give his graduation speech, he was called into the principal's office. And it wasn't to congratulate him on the personal testimony he'd included. 

     "They said they didn't want to make it a religious ceremony," Sam told Fox News's Todd Starnes. "They told me that if I took out Christ I could say everything else." There's just one problem, he pointed out. Without Christ, not much about the speech mattered. Sam fought to keep the text, explaining that his relationship with Jesus is what impacted his life. The principal didn't budge, insisting that it wasn't "appropriate for the setting." Sam offered to start his speech with a disclaimer, and the answer was the same: no.

    "I never felt like that feeling before," he said. "It was terrible." After the ceremony, Sam went to work making sure that what happened to him wouldn't happen to another student. He contacted First Liberty Institute and asked the group to help him change the policy. "School officials should remember that students retain their constitutional rights to freedom of expression from the schoolhouse gates all the way through the graduation ceremony," First Liberty's Jeremy Dys argued.

    Unlike a lot of the graduation dust-ups, West Prairie took direct aim at the name of Jesus. To them, that's what's offensive -- not religion, not God. It's a dilemma as old as the New Testament. Peter and John faced this same intolerance when they were told not to preach in Jesus's name. Hauled before the Sanhedrin, the apostles were asked to explain why they were declaring the resurrection of Christ. Peter pointed to the lame man who'd been healed. "If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this... It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed."

    "Salvation," Peter said simply, "is found in no one else." That's why, to this day, people like these administrators don't want the name of Jesus mentioned. Militant secularists want Him locked up in our hearts and homes, where the world can't see His transformative light. Unfortunately, too many people give in, shrinking back in fear of controversy or offense. This is exactly why we have to fight for religious freedom, so that the power of revival is still possible -- not just in West Prairie, but everywhere!

[italics and colored emphasis mine]

#2317 (5/21) "Moving Embassy to Jerusalem Shows the US Is Unique. Just Like Israel."

"MOVING EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM SHOWS THE US IS UNQIUE. JUST LIKE ISRAEL." - Star Parker / @UrbanCURE / May 16, 2018 / https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/05/16/moving-embassy-to-jerusalem-shows-the-us-is-unique-just-like-israel

A road sign directs traffic toward the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo: Chine Nouvelle/Sipa/Newscom)

     I was privileged to attend the dedication of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem on May 14—an event of enormous import that will remain with me forever. I am deeply grateful to Ambassador David Friedman and his wife, Tammy, for inviting me to this historic event. The United States recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is important not just for the United States and Israel but also for the entire world.

   We might start thinking about this by considering the unique relationship between these two countries. Regardless of how some choose to think about the United States today, the country’s founding generation was largely Christian men and women. Alexis de Tocqueville, author of “Democracy in America,” widely deemed to be the most insightful book ever written about the United States, wrote in 1835, “There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.”

   Perhaps there is no better example demonstrating this truth, and the deep roots of Christian Americans in the Hebrew Bible, than the inscription on the Liberty Bell from the Book of Leviticus: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all inhabitants thereof.” The United States and Israel are different from other nations in that both are defined by a creed and by principles. I would go so far to say that the extraordinary success of both countries springs from these principles.
  What are the great principles that can be extracted from the Ten Commandments in the Hebrew Bible? Reverence for the Lord, reverence for family, reverence for the sanctity of life, reverence for private property and personal responsibility, and a prohibition of envy.

   Some surely will say that the United States has strayed so far from these principles that they no longer define the country. But I travel constantly. I have been in every state of the union. And I have met enough of the many millions of Americans that still subscribe to these truths to know they are still very much alive in America.
   And I also believe that the problems that plagued America in the past, and that plague America today, trace to abandonment of these great truths—these great truths rooted in the Hebrew Bible.

   I see President Donald Trump’s courageous step forward to lead the United States to be the first nation in the world to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel, and to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem, as implicit recognition that the common ground on which both nations stand is our shared belief in these great and holy truths.

   The achievements of the young state of Israel, which celebrates its 70th birthday this year, have been truly awesome. Writer, social philosopher, and investor George Gilder wrote a book called “The Israel Test.” What is the Israel Test according to Gilder?
   He asks the question: How do you react to those who excel you in innovation, in creativity, in wealth? Do you envy them and feel diminished by them? Or do you admire what they have achieved and try to emulate them?
   Those who say the latter pass the Israel Test. According to Gilder, it is the Israel Test that drives today’s tensions in the Middle East. I would take it a step further and say that it is the Israel Test that drives the tensions in America. Gilder says that those who pass the Israel Test tend to become wealthy and peaceful. Those who fail it tend to become poor and violent.

   The great principles that join America and Israel are equally true and crucial for all of mankind. Congratulations to Trump for helping America pass the Israel Test. Now we wait for the other nations of the world.

[italics and colored emphasis mine]

Star Parker is a columnist for The Daily Signal and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education.

#2016 (5/20) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "How Pentecost Sunday Changed Everything"

"HOW PENTECOST SUNDAY CHANGED EVERYTHING" [This weekend marks one of the most important events in human history.] -  Josh Hayes, June 2, 2017; https://relevantmagazine.com/article/how-pentecost-sunday-changed-everything-2/

    Every generation has its watershed moments, events that divide time and make the “after” somehow different than the “before.” For millennials, 9/11 stands out as the prime example. For Gen Xers, perhaps it is the fall of the Berlin Wall or the O.J. Simpson trial, and for baby boomers, maybe the assassination of JFK. But did you know that many churches this weekend will recognize a more impactful era-defining watershed moment than all of the aforementioned events combined? 

Rediscovering Pentecost
    According to the Church’s storied liturgical calendar (or Christian year), [THIS] Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, a day where Christians for nearly two millennia have celebrated the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on God’s people. However, when people hear the word “Pentecost” these days, they may be more likely to think about a particular denomination, sprightly choir robes, tambourines and ecstatic glossolalia (i.e., speaking in tongues).

A denomination alone, though, is not what Christians should associate primarily with Pentecost and its ongoing significance. Instead, when it comes to Pentecost, we should think new creation. We should shout, “The dead now live.” We should declare, “The King is on His throne”—and we’re not talking about the potential of LeBron’s playoff run this postseason.

Pentecost is the watershed moment for all who confess the name of Christ, since “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). Nothing more important has happened since then. No world wars, no technological inventions, no sporting events, nothing—no, not even one.

More than sorting us according to millennial, Gen X, or baby boomer, the Spirit’s advent tells Christians that we belong to an eternal order, not a by-gone era or a fleeting phase. We are citizens of a coming kingdom with no expiration date and no geopolitical boundaries, but nevertheless, we at present groan to go home as exiles living in a foreign but fading empire (Romans 8:22-23).
The Spirit who hovered over the chaos at the outset of creation is the same Spirit who brings forth new creation order out of our chaotic rebellion against our Creator (Genesis 1:2; Titus 3:3-7).

Pentecost is as every bit of a gospel event as Jesus’ ministry and miracles, death and resurrection. The Spirit’s coming grants us assurance, hope and identity as much as a bloody cross or an empty tomb. The gift of the Holy Spirit is part and parcel of Christ’s work on behalf of His people. To glory in our Redeemer without also glorying in the Spirit is akin to enjoying a bacon cheeseburger without bacon. It’s just impossible! 

The New Era
   Pentecost is important because the Spirit’s arrival is important—what some might call the birth of the new-covenant church. But there’s a history that precedes even this.
   The name comes from the Greek word Pentekostos, meaning “50.” The day marks that 50 days have passed since the Passover Sabbath, and in the Old Testament this date on the agricultural calendar is called the Feast of Weeks (see Leviticus 23:15). This feast expressed that Israel’s God was responsible for providing them with crops and thus worthy of the first fruits of the harvest. The agricultural metaphor extends further (lest you farmers were worried). Christ’s resurrection is the first fruits of the final resurrection—our resurrection—the dawn of the new creation (1 Corinthians 15:20).
   If Jesus’ rising from the dead is the first fruits of the harvest, then the Spirit’s coming is the taste of the first harvest meal. To taste of the Spirit is to taste and see that the Lord is good because Jesus and the Spirit are of the same quality crop (e.g., 1 Corinthians 15:45; John 14:16; 16:7).
   Like a king showering his loyal subjects with precious bounty, the ascended Lord Jesus shares the revitalizing gift of the Spirit with His people (Acts 2:32-33). To belong to Jesus is to possess the Spirit; to be of the Spirit is to be in Christ (Romans 8:9).Thus, as those who partake of the same Holy Spirit who made a memorable entrance inside the Jerusalem upper room, Pentecost becomes our event when we come to faith in Christ.

Part of Something Bigger
   Whenever we are crucified with Christ, we are also baptized into the Spirit (see Galatians 2:20; 1 Corinthians 12:13). Each time a sinner once dead in sins and trespasses is born again, another soul joins the party—a party that began with 120 people, quickly expanded to 3,000, and later swelled to billions and counting (see Acts 1:15; 2:41). All political rallies Democrat and Republican fall desperately short in comparison.
   So, whether we are concerned about those promising to “make America great again” or the consequences of bathroom policies, the Spirit’s presence in our lives reminds us that these things will one day pass away and only a new heavens and new earth will remain. The flesh is weak and failing; the Spirit is willing and omnipotent. Because of Pentecost, we defy and transcend whatever identities and labels our present world might try to shackle us with and seek to confine us to.
  There is one Pentecost, for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether baby boomer, Gen Xer or millennial. And no political election, sporting event, celebrity scandal or major terrorist attack will provide a greater source of unity and identity.

Pentecost has changed history and made the “after” like nothing “before.”

[italics and colored emphsis mine]

#2015 (5/19) PRO-LIFE SAT: "President Donald Trump Defunds Planned Parenthood, Will Cut Almost $60 Million in Taxpayer Funding"

"PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [PARTIALLY] DEFUNDS PLANNED PARENTHOO, WILL CUT ALMOST $60 Million IN TAXPAYER FUNDING" - Micaiah Bilger, May 18, 2018| http://www.lifenews.com/2018/05/18/president-donald-trump-defunds-planned-parenthood-will-cut-almost-60-million-in-taxpayer-funding/ [NOTE: Just to clarify the title of this article - the action by President Trump only partially helps defund Planned Parenthood. Read below. Le't pray for the day when PP will be totally defunded by the federal government!]

      The Trump administration is announcing new regulations today to partially defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses of tens of millions of tax dollars. This is the second time Trump has taken steps to revoke taxpayer funding for the nation’s biggest abortion business — after yanking taxpayer from from International Planned Parenthood during his first week in office.

The United States spends about $260 million in Title X funds annually for family planning for low-income individuals, and Planned Parenthood is a huge recipient of those funds, as much as $50-$60 million annually.
   But under the proposed “Protect Life Rule,” Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses would not receive any of those tax dollars unless they completely separate their abortion business from their taxpayer-funded services, The Washington Examiner reports. That would mean housing their family planning services elsewhere — potentially in separate buildings and coordinated by separate staff and organizations from its abortion enterprise.
  “This proposal does not necessarily defund Planned Parenthood, as long as they’re willing to disentangle taxpayer funds from abortion as a method of family planning, which is required by the Title X law,” a Trump administration official said. “Any grantees that perform, support, or refer for abortion have a choice – disentangle themselves from abortion or fund their activities with privately raised funds.”

Of course, Planned Parenthood is unwilling to do so. Abortion is its primary focus, and it already is threatening a lawsuit to stop the defunding. However, the proposal is modeled after similar Reagan administration rules that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in Rust v. Sullivan in 1991. Planned Parenthood Vice President Dawn Laguens quickly slammed the proposal with an absurd claim that her abortion chain is the only place women can go for basic health care.
“This is an attempt to take away women’s basic rights, period,” Laguens said. “Under this rule, people will not get the healthcare they need. They won’t get birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing, and treatment, or even general women’s health exams.”

   Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser refuted this by pointing to the growing number of community and rural health centers that far outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities.
“We thank President Trump for taking action to disentangle taxpayers from the abortion business,” Dannenfelser said. “Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, is responsible for more than 300,000 abortions a year and has been receiving $50-60 million in Title X taxpayer funds annually. The Protect Life Rule doesn’t cut a single dime from family planning. It instead directs tax dollars to Title X centers that do not promote or perform abortions …”

Here’s more from the Washington Examiner:
   The proposal, which is being filed with the Office of Management and Budget, is based off a policy from when Ronald Reagan was president. An administration official denied that the proposal would contain a “gag rule” preventing doctors from counseling women about abortion, as several news reports have stated, though acknowledged that the rule would no longer contain a mandate that clinics must counsel and refer for abortion. …
   The Department of Health and Human Services said that the proposal was being filed in order to “ensure compliance” with laws that prohibit federal funds from going toward abortions. The amount the federal government spends on family planning services, including birth control, STD testing, and cancer screenings, will not be cut. The program covers 4 million low-income people.

Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins praised the proposed rules.
   “You can really see how insidiously entangled the abortion industry is in our government run healthcare programs when abortion allies in Congress get apoplectic because family planning programs don’t require a sales pitch to end the lives of family members,” Hawkins said. “The Trump Administration has every right to require that Title X programs focus on healthcare, not abortion …”

   The proposal comes amid strong pleas from grassroots Americans and members of Congress to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood. In April, 154 U.S. House members sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar asking for a rule to prohibit tax dollars from being use to promote abortions. Title X funds are supposed to be used to help low-income women and men receive birth control, cancer screenings and other health care services. While the tax money cannot be used to pay for abortions, it indirectly funds Planned Parenthood’s vast abortion business.

The Trump administration has cut several other streams of funding to Planned Parenthood as well. Soon after Trump took office, he signed the Mexico City Policy to prevent the funding of groups that promote or perform abortions overseas. This includes the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which received tax dollars under the Obama administration.

In addition, in 2017, the Trump administration cut millions of dollars in grants to Planned Parenthood through the failed Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. HHS spokesman Mark Vafiades told the New York Times last year that there is very little evidence that the program was successful. However, the abortion chain recently filed a lawsuit challenging the cuts.

   Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion business in America, aborting approximately 320,000 unborn babies every year. Its most recent annual report showed a record income of $1.46 billion, with about half a billion dollars coming from taxpayers.

In December, the U.S. Department of Justice said it is investigating whether the abortion chain illegally sold aborted baby body parts.

SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned Parenthood Immediately - https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/congress-must-de-fund-planned-parenthood-immediately.html

[italics and colored emphasis mine]

"Trump's New Regs Move Tax Dollars away from Abortion" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, May 18, 2018; https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA18E37&f=WU18E12

"It's a big day in Washington where an injustice a quarter of a century in the making is finally being corrected. It was January 22, 1993 -- the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade -when then President Bill Clinton suspended President Ronald Reagan's regulation preventing federal Title X funds from going to family planning clinics where abortions are performed. Unbelievably, Clinton even went so far as to require every provider to refer for abortion, which disqualified pro-life and faith-based groups that have religious and moral objections to abortion from participating in the program.

Since then, Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers have used these federal family planning programs as a slush fund to pay overhead expenses including staff salaries, facility rent, and even furniture. Sadly, no president over the past 25 years has stopped this co-mingling of taxpayer funds with the abortion industry -- that is until today.

Under President Trump's rule announced today, like Reagan's, Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers will have to choose between dropping their abortion services from any location that gets family planning dollars and moving those abortion operations offsite. Either way, this will loosen Planned Parenthood's grip on more than $60 million in taxpayer dollars. The new regulations will draw a bright line between abortion centers and family planning programs -- just as the federal law requires and the Supreme Court upheld in a 1991 ruling...

With hundreds of millions at stake, Planned Parenthood's PAC announced last month that they will spend $ 30 million dollars on the midterm elections. Obviously, it's illegal for Richards to use even a cent of federal funds on the group's political activities. And while her accountants use every possible trick to keep the monies separate, it is hard to separate the fact that $30 million is available to influence elections because the outcome of those elections has produced nearly a half a billion dollars of government money to fund their Leftist mission. In the meantime, President Trump is following through on his campaign promise that his administration will advocate for mothers and their unborn children every day he occupies the White House and take important steps to ensure taxpayers are not subsidizing the abortion industry. Join me in thanking the president by sending him an email of appreciation via the White House comment page. - https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

#2314 (5/18) "Behind Smoke and Mirrors to Attack Israel"

"HAMAS HIDES BEHIND SMOKE AND MIRRORS TO ATTACK ISRAEL" - James Phillips / May 17, 2018 / https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/05/17/hamas-hides-behind-smoke-and-mirrors-to-attack-israel/ [AS I SEE IT: Again, the mainstream media shows its bias by largely presenting only the Hamas' version of these clashes. The media's reporting in effect compounds the attack being made on Israel . This article shows again why we must be vigilant in watching their reports and realize that there is another side to the story they are presenting. - Stan]

Palestinians clash with Israeli forces at the Israel-Gaza border, May 11, 2018. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/APAImages / Polaris/Newscom)

    Much of the news media’s coverage of Monday’s opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem linked the ceremony to Palestinian riots along Gaza’s border with Israel, suggesting that there was a cause-and-effect relationship. That is a false conclusion. 

    The Gaza border riots were orchestrated by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist terrorist organization, as part of its “Great March of Return” propaganda campaign against Israel. The campaign sought to underscore the Palestinians’ self-proclaimed “right of return” by tearing up the border fence, ostensibly to allow Palestinians to “return” to homes that they had abandoned or been forced to leave in the 1948 war that led to the creation of modern Israel.
The riots would have occurred regardless of where the U.S. Embassy was located, because they were aimed at discrediting Israel on the 70th anniversary of its founding.

   Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in a bloody 2007 coup, has held almost 2 million Gazans hostage to its uncompromising goal of destroying Israel. Hamas militants hid among Palestinian civilians to fire rockets at Israeli civilians, provoking three wars with Israel in 2008, 2012, and 2014. After Israel reduced the rocket threat through targeted strikes and the deployment of missile defenses, Hamas began building tunnels under the border that it used in attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

As part of its “Great March of Return” propaganda offensive that began in March, Hamas has mobilized Palestinian civilians as human shields to hide systematic efforts to dismantle the border fence and stage a mass infiltration of Israel that could threaten thousands of Israeli civilians along the border. Hamas literally has used smoke and mirrors to disguise its assault on the border, which has included the use of firearms, explosive devices, Molotov cocktails, firebomb kites, and incendiary balloons.

   Although apologists for the Hamas riot strategy have leveled one-sided criticism against Israel for the use of excessive force against “protesters,” Hamas has clearly stated its violent intentions.
“This is not peaceful resistance. Has the option [of armed struggle] diminished? No. On the contrary, it is growing and developing. That’s clear,” senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahhar told Al Jazeera TV on May 13. “So, when we talk about ‘peaceful resistance,’ we are deceiving the public. This is a peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies, and enjoying tremendous popular support.”
   On May 16, another senior Hamas official, Salah al-Bardawil, admitted that 50 of the 62 Palestinians killed on May 14, the day the U.S. Embassy was opened, were members of the terrorist group.

Clearly, responsibility for the political violence along the border lies with Hamas. No government in the world would allow a hostile force dedicated to its destruction to cross its border to commit mass murder.

   An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is impossible as long as Hamas retains its stranglehold on Gaza. Until Hamas is defeated or discredited, it will go on sacrificing the lives and welfare of the Palestinians it has taken as hostages. For Hamas, Palestinian civilians are useful pawns to manipulate as part of its militant Islamist death march.

   It is bad enough that Hamas cynically employs these gruesome tactics to advance its goal of destroying Israel, but it would be even worse if Western media fail to see through the smoke and mirrors deployed by Hamas. That would enable Hamas to prolong its brutal rule over Gaza and encourage it to continue hiding behind Palestinian civilians to kill Israeli civilians.

[italics and colored emphasis mine]

For more on this topic:
"Q and A: Analyzing the Embassy Move to Jerusalem, Palestinian Protests " - https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/05/14/qa-analyzing-the-embassy-move-to-jerusalem-palestinian-protests/
"What Trump’s Decision on Jerusalem Means for Israel and the Middle East "- https://www.heritage.org/middle-east/commentary/what-trumps-decision-jerusalem-means-israel-and-the-middle-east
"Q andA: What Are These Tunnels Hamas Is Using to Attack Israel?" - https://www.dailysignal.com/2014/07/25/qa-tunnels-hamas-using-attack-israel/
"The Escalating Conflict Between Hamas and Israel" - https://www.dailysignal.com/2012/11/19/morning-bell-the-escalating-conflict-between-hamas-and-israel/
"End Hamas Hostage Strategy to Bring Peace to Gaza" - https://www.heritage.org/middle-east/report/end-hamas-hostage-strategy-bring-peace-gaza

   James Phillips is the senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He has written extensively on Middle Eastern issues and international terrorism since 1978. Read his research.
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"Media Coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian Clash Is Built on a Myth" - by David Harsanyi, May 18, 2018; https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/media-myths-portray-hamas-as-victims-not-aggressors/

#2313 (5/17) "Kanye West Threatens the Democratic Party’s Hold on Black Americans"

"KANYE WEST THREATENS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S HOLD ON BLACK AMERICANS" - Walter E. Williams / @WE_Williams / May 16, 2018 / https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/05/16/kanye-west-threatens-the-democratic-partys-hold-on-black-americans/ [AS I SEE IT: If you've watched any of the "entertainment/celebrity" reporting recently, you will note that there has not been any positive coverage that lends support to West re: his support of conservatives and conservative values. In fact, you can only hear ridicule of him. Hmm...Hollywood media bias? For sure! - Stan]

    The big difference between black libertarians/conservatives and West is that he has 28 million Twitter followers and a huge audience of listeners, whereas few blacks have even heard of libertarian/conservative blacks outside of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (Photo: John Barrett-PhotoLink/Newscom)

    In the aftermath of the Kanye West dust-up, my heart goes out to the white people who control the Democratic Party. My pity stems from the hip-hop megastar’s November announcement to his packed concert audience that he did not vote in the presidential election but if he had, he would have voted for Donald Trump.

Then, on April 21, West took to his Twitter account, which has 28 million followers, to announce, “I love the way Candace Owens thinks.” Owens is Turning Point USA’s director of urban engagement and has said that former President Barack Obama caused “damage” to race relations in the United States during his two terms in office.

West’s support for Trump, along with his criticism of the “plantation” mentality of the Democratic Party, has been met with vicious backlash from the left. In one song, West raps, “See, that’s the problem with this damn nation. All blacks gotta be Democrats. Man, we ain’t made it off the plantation.” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said West “talks out of turn” and advised, “He should think twice about politics—and maybe not have so much to say.”

The bottom-line sin that West has committed is questioning the hegemony of the Democratic Party among black Americans. The backlash has been so bad that West had to hire personal security to protect him against threats made against his life. Fortunately, the police are investigating those threats.

   West is not saying anything different from what Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Jason Riley, I, and other black libertarians/conservatives have been saying for decades. In fact, West has tweeted quotations from Sowell, such as “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it” and “The most basic question is not what is best but who shall decide what is best.” Tweeting those Sowell quotations represents the highest order of blasphemy in the eyes of leftists.

   The big difference between black libertarians/conservatives and West is that he has 28 million Twitter followers and a huge audience of listeners, whereas few blacks have even heard of libertarian/conservative blacks outside of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (I might add in passing that Sowell is one of the nation’s most distinguished and accomplished scholars alive today.)

   The West problem for the Democratic Party is that if the party doesn’t keep blacks in line and it loses even 20 to 25 percent of the black vote, it can kiss any hope of winning any presidential and many congressional elections goodbye. Democrats may have already seen that threat. That’s why they support illegal immigration and voting rights for noncitizens. Immigrants from south of the border who are here illegally may be seen as either a replacement for or a guarantee against the disaster of losing the black vote. Keeping blacks blind to the folly of unquestioned support for the Democratic Party by keeping blacks fearful, angry, and resentful and painting the Republican Party as racist is vital. Democrats never want blacks to seriously ask questions about what the party has done for them.

Here are some facts. The nation’s most troublesome and dangerous cities—Indianapolis, Stockton, Oakland, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Kansas City, Baltimore, Memphis, St. Louis, and Detroit—have been run by Democrats, often black Democrats, for nearly a half-century. These and other Democratic-run cities are where blacks suffer the highest murder rates and their youngsters attend the poorest-performing and most unsafe schools.

Democrats could never afford for a large number of black people to observe, “We’ve been putting you in charge of our cities for decades. We even put a black Democrat in the White House. And what has it meant for us? Plus, the president you told us to hate has our unemployment rate near a record low.”

    It turns out that it’s black votes that count more to black and white politicians than black well-being, black academic excellence, and black lives. As for black politicians and civil rights leaders, if they’re going to sell their people down the river to keep Democrats in power, they ought to demand a higher price.

[italics and colored emphasis mine]

Walter E. Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and a professor of economics at George Mason University.