20070828

"Israel won't be west's Czechoslovakia!" Israeli leader, Arye Eldad, derides U.S. resolve to protect world from apocalyptic Iran's nukes

Israel's leaders have recognized a change in US Middle East policy. Israel, facing huge weaponry sales to Arab enemies of Israel and pressure to concede further Jewish communities toward establishing an enemy Islamist state alongside its heart, Israel calls for the reasonable people of the world's sanity and unity.

Embodying the call of "Never Again," Israeli Parliamentarian, Dr. Arye Eldad, cautions that U.N. members' (including the US') abandonment to thwart Iran's nuclear weapons program is forcing Israel into a nuclear-confrontation in an exclusive video interview with DemoCast.TV.



Dr. Eldad cautions the West not to sacrifice Israel into a existential war against the Islamic world to justify an Allied retaliatory attack against Iran. If the U.S. won't pre-empt Iran from producing nukes to terrorize the world, don't complain after you force Israel to pre-empt them. Dr. Eldad emphasizes "There is no chance in the world that Israel will be willing to live under nuclear Iranian threat!"

Dr. Eldad echoes Ariel Sharon's warning, 'Israel will not be another sacrificial Czechoslovakia for the West.' That didn't appease imperialist Fascism then, neither will it now.

He calls upon Americans to urge Washington to handle Iran pre-emptively by whatever means necessary.

"God's Warrior" Strikes Back at CNN Jihad-Denial

Featured on CNN's "God's Jewish Warriors," Pastor Gary Cristfaro refutes secularist Muslim host Christiane Amanpour's distorted whitewash of imperialist Islamism. He claims that CNN's producers biased the series to reflect their personal agenda - to ameliorate Islamic-advocated terrorism by drawing a moral equivalency to political activism among Jews and Christians.


He claims CNN's producers failed to report any of the legal facts justifying Jewish rights to worship and live in Judea and Samaria without encumbrance. He alleges that they disregarded the facts they encountered in investigating Jewish communities living there, and the Christians' motivations for defending them.

MSNBC's Dan Abrams accuses CNN's Amanpour of "shoddy journalism," calling God's Warriors "an advocacy... an opinion piece" in the N.Y. Observer.

"Amanpour's Apologia" by Investors Business Daily

Global Jihad: CNN's chief apologist for Islam, Christiane Amanpour, has gone too far this time. Not content to just whitewash jihad, she says Jews and Christians are terrorists, too.

Phyllis Chesler's insightful 2-part analysis of the series is "CNN'S Master Plan: Part One" and "The Gospel According to Christiane".

"CNN: Is this for real?"
In the Jerusalem Post, Prof. Robert Eisenman provides historical and legal corrections to Amanpour's agenda-driven errors.

..."What is, therefore, the legal status of the so-called "Occupied Territories" and what is their extent? There is none. They are in a kind of legal limbo, that is, they are, strictly speaking, legally unrecognized and who knows their extent? This has yet to be determined by negotiation and, like most of the arguments one usually hears (including those on Amanpour's program), superficial. So how can the Geneva Conventions supposedly be applied to an area whose legal status was never legally or rightfully determined in any meaningful way in the first place, except for the Mandate for Palestine in 1920-23 by the League of Nations and manhandled ever since by all legal parties concerned but still rightfully recognizing a Jewish right of settlement all the way up to the Jordan River and, if the truth were told, beyond? This is one legal nicety which has never been gainsaid, whether one likes it or does not like it...

Anyhow, these are legal complexities for which the reader might wish to look at my book: Islamic Law in Palestine and Israel: A History of the Survival of Tanzimat and Shari'a in the British Mandate and the Jewish State, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1978."

20070826

Will Israel Be Czechoslovakia? Time to Put-Up or Shut-Up

In the spirit of Israel's former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cautioning the West in Oct, 2001:

"I call on the western democracies, and primarily the leader of the free world, the United States, do not repeat the dreadful mistake of 1938, when enlightened European democracies decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for a convenient temporary solution. Do not try to appease the Arabs at our expense. This is unacceptable to us. Israel will not be Czechoslovakia."

Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 proved concession doesn't appease, but rather encourages Islamist movements' crusades to conquer Israel and the West.

Condi Rice's State Dept's November-scheduled, "Peace Conference" attempts to enhance the West's image in the Arab world by making vulnerable Israel through the establishment of a militant Islamist, Palestinian state from East Jerusalem and an ethnically-cleansed (of Jews) Judea & Samaria.



Picking-up from Sharon's leadership pledge, please read the clarion plea from the brillliant Zionist leader, former Israeli Knesset Parliamentarian Elyakim Haetzni, calling to stop the freight-train of Palestinian-state creation which will fast-track an Islamist enemy state around Israel - which would be an undo-able, existential threat to Israel and global strategic mistake.



Mr. HaEtzni urges the world to delay the process to establish a Palestinian state, which he believes will only empower Jihadist terror around the world. The tool of an Islamist enemy state on land conceded by Israel, he feels, would be a global catastrophe of biblical proportion.

20070824

Anti-Semitism Threatens People of All Faiths and Cultures, Says US Special Envoy Gregg Rickman


This edition of Press Conference USA features a conversation with Gregg Rickman, US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Gregg Rickman tells VOA State Department Correspondent David Gollust and host Carol Castiel that many factors account for the rise of anti-Semitism in many parts of the world. He explains why anti-Semitism, or hatred toward Jews, threatens people of all faiths and cultures.

(Click on title to play audio courtesy radio's "Voice of America" ).

CNN's Double-Standard for "God's Warriors"- CAMERA

"...In contrast to the huge focus on the so-called "Israel Lobby" in "God's Jewish Warriors," in "God's Muslim Warriors," Amanpour doesn't mention the powerful Oil Lobby operating in America and advocating for Muslim, Arab and Palestinian perspectives. She doesn't highlight any of the numerous activist Muslim/Arab organizations that lobby and propagandize to influence American public opinion and foreign policy.

Related to this is the minimal discussion or outright omission of several key factors in the rise of Islamist extremism and increased support for terror:

• Thousands of Saudi-funded mosques and schools built worldwide, including many in the U.S., that spread an extreme supremacist form of Islam. Saudi Arabia has also funded extremist training for those who want to work as Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military and the U.S. prison system.

• Saudi-funded Middle East Studies chairs and departments in universities all over the world, including the U.S.
• Saudi-funded organizations whose goal is to provide American elementary, middle and high schools with slanted curricula and books about the history of the Middle East and Islam

• Saudi-funded student activists and organizations that indoctrinate and propagandize against Israel, the U.S. and for extreme Islamist causes.

• Extremist websites, online videos, and satellite TV networks that foster Muslim supremacist values and support for terrorism among Muslims across the globe.

Instead of examining any of the above reasons for the spread of Muslim extremism, Amanpour includes two highly questionable explanations: reactions to alleged Israeli brutality and feelings of hopelessness. She commendably does mention repressive Arab/Muslim governments as a factor, but doesn't note how these same governments often intentionally use propaganda to fan the flames of hatred for Israel and the West to deflect attention away from their repressive regimes."

20070822

Islamism's Quest- in al Qaeda's Own Words


"The al Qaeda Reader" book review by Bruce Thornton in VDH's Private Papers.

"Given that war, as both Sun Tzu and Mohammed preached, is deception, it behooves us to understand accurately the enemy’s motivations and not be fooled by his deceiving propaganda. Yet in the current war against Islamic jihad, the West has stubbornly refused to take seriously what the jihadists tell us, believing instead what Thucydides called the “pretexts” with which an enemy rationalizes his aggression. Osama bin Laden and his theorist Aymin al Zawahiri in particular have provided us with numerous texts outlining the Islamic foundations of their war against the West. A few of these pronouncements and manifestoes have long been available, but now thanks to Raymond Ibrahim’s The Al Qaeda Reader, writings previously unavailable in English can be studied and analyzed. Such study will provide powerful evidence that contrary to the deceptions of apologists and the naïve delusions of some Westerners, the bases of the jihadists’ actions lie squarely within Islamic tradition, not in the alleged Western crimes against Islam. ...

The next section of The Al Qaeda Reader comprises selections translator/editor Raymond Ibrahim calls “propaganda,” arguments designed for Westerners that exploit all the self-loathing pathologies of Western intellectuals. Every distortion of history repeated in thousands of American college classrooms, every lurid lie peddled by the Chomsky-Moore cult is repeated by bin Laden, the only difference being a much more explicit indulgence in anti-Semitism. Thus in “Israel, Oil, and Iraq,” Bin Laden really doesn’t sound much different from your typical college professor off on a rant about the Halliburton-Cheney-Bush-neocon [read Jews] nexus. We hear about the “Jews — who direct you [Americans] through the lie of ‘democracy’ to support the Israelis and their machination and in complete antagonism to our religion,” which is basically the same argument American academics continually make about the “Israeli lobby.” Bush is castigated in Chomskyean terms for “concealing his own ambitions and the ambitions of the Zionist lobby in their desire for oil.” Western guilt is massaged by statements like, “He [Bush] is still following the policy of his ancestors who slew the American Indians in order to seize their land and wealth” — this coming from a devotee of the most ruthlessly imperial religion ever. And our old leftist bogey, the “military-industrial complex,” appears when bin Laden tells our troops, “You are spilling your blood to swell the bank accounts of the White House gang and their fellow arms dealers and the proprietors of great companies.”

These leftist bromides appear over and over in subsequent speeches and manifestoes, and testify to bin- Laden’s shrewd recognition of the West’s Achilles heel: the appeasing proclivities of its elite intellectuals who, riddled with self-loathing guilt, are incapable of defending their way of life and its highest goods. So our Saudi millionaire businessman rants on about “providing business [contracts] for their [the Bush administration] private corporations,” the 2000 presidential election “stolen” by the Bush clan, the “contracts acquired by large and dubious corporations, such as Halliburton,” and the stupidity of our troops, who “convinced of injustices and lies of their government . . . fight only for the sake of capitalists, the lords of usury [code for Jews], and arms and oil dealers — such as that gang of criminals in the White House.” Even the failure to sign the Kyoto agreement, the dropping of a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and the supposed flouting of international law — standard anti-American leftist charges — are trotted out by bin Laden, who mentions not one of these complaints when talking to fellow Muslims, for the simple reason that traditional Muslims care nothing for them. But guilt-ridden, self-loathing Westerners of the sort currently agitating for withdrawal from Iraq care very much.

The Al Qaeda Reader, simply by letting our enemies speak in their own voices, explodes the popular delusion that Western crimes and policies are responsible for the “distortion” of Islam that al Qaeda represents. As Ibrahim writes, “This volume of translations, taken as whole, prove once and for all that, despite the propaganda of Al Qaeda and its sympathizers, Radical Islam’s war with the West is not finite and limited to political grievances — real or imagined — but is existential, transcending time and space and deeply rooted in faith.” This means that the fight will be long and hard, that leaving Iraq or creating a Palestinian state will not buy peace, and that the side that accurately understands its enemy and has confidence in its own beliefs will ultimately triumph.

Thanks to Raymond Ibrahim’s The Al Qaeda Reader, we have the means for achieving that understanding. ©2007 Bruce Thornton

20070820

CNN's 9/11 Tribute: Mollify Public's Jihad Resistance by Equivocating to Judeo & Christian Extremists

CNN's moral equivalence runs amok. The Media Research Group's Matthew Balan writes on newsbusters.org:

The AP's David Bauder wrote positively of Christiane Amanpour and the upcoming minseries in an article on Monday {1}. Bauder mentioned Amanpour's treatment of a "fundamentalist Christian group" called BattleCry in the miniseries (a preview of this can be viewed on YouTube [2]). The following excerpt is another clue which supports the theory that Amanpour and CNN have their "moral equivalence" hat on.


The segment on Christians explores BattleCry in some depth, digging at the roots of an organization that fights against some of the cruder elements of popular
culture and urges teenagers to be chaste. In noting how girls at some BattleCry events are encouraged to wear long dresses, Amanpour asks the group's leader how it is different from the Taliban.

Encouraging modest dress is the same as forcing girls out of school, beating women who don't wear burkhas, and publicly-executing offenders?

Links:[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070820/ap_en_tv/ap_on_tv_christiane_amanpour_6
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULnAmRtxQmM
Joe Scarborough: "I am upset a little bit about something right now. And I went on TV Newser and I and saw that CNN and Christiane Amanpour, they’re going to study religious extremism. She’s got this special. She’s going to be on Larry King tonight. I'm going to be watching ‘cause I'm going to be watching it because I’m going to be a little bothered if they're trying to say that there is moral relativity. They’re going to study Muslim extremism, then Christian extremism, because we know Christians have, have slaughtered thousands of people across the globe in bombings–"
Willie Geist: "Oh, yeah."
Scarborough: "–and Jewish extremism. [Willie Geist starts laughing.] I’m sorry. Come on! It is okay to say that, right now, the vast majority of religious extremists are members of one faith. That doesn’t mean that every Muslim is a terrorist. That doesn’t even mean that even 99 percent of Muslims are terrorists. But to do a three part series on Muslim extremism, Christian extremism and then, uh, Jewish extremism? Is this Rosie O'Donnell or is this Christiane Amanpour? You understand what I’m saying here, Willie? I mean, come on."
Willie Geist: "Well, there are Christian extremists. There are Jewish extremists, but it means an entirely different thing to be a Christian extremist and a Muslim extremist these days. I think the evidence proves that."
Scarborough: "Right. Yeah, exactly. If you're a Christian extremist, then when you send your daughter to school, her, her, her dress is below her ankles and it’s weighted so in case she jumps up, the dress stays down. Much different than the other type of extremism that we're talking about. So, I’m just a little bothered by it."

20070815

NYPD Report Radicalization in the West

The report focuses on "the trajectory of radicalization" and tracks the path of a non-radicalized individual to an individual with the willingness to commit an act of terror.

"The threat is real; this is not some bogey man we are creating here," said Rand Corporation terrorism expert Brian Jenkins, who reviewed and contributed to the NYPD report. "There are individuals who are proselytizing, inciting angry young men to go down this path."

The report identifies mosques, bookstores, cafes, prisons and flop houses as what it calls "radicalization incubators" that provide "extremist fodder or fuel for radicalization."

The leader of an American Arab civil rights group labeled the NYPD report as "unfortunate stereotyping" and at odds with federal law enforcement findings that the threat from homegrown terrorists was minimal.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/pdf/dcpi/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf

20070813

Study: Press Bias Distorts Islam vs Israel Narrative & Global Policies

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is the Chairman of the Board of Fellows of one of Israel's leading think tanks, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

He has devised a new project which exposes how much of the world's media present Israel and the Middle East conflict in a negative light.

His project reveals that the same filters applied to foreign reportage about any ordinary country (in this case, Holland) would create a similarly negative public impression.
Jamie Glazov interviews Dr. Gerstenfeld in Frontpage Magazine.com's "Distorting Israel."
"Trevor Asserson, (is) a leading British litigation lawyer. He has undertaken a number of well documented studies which detail the BBC’s systematic bias against Israel. This is particularly important because the BBC is probably Europe’s most influential media and as Asserson has outlined, a major distorter of information on Israel. The credibility of Asserson’s work has recently increased even further. In past months, the BBC’s manipulations have been exposed in many other fields. This forced them to suspend several employees and inter alia, to apologize both to the British Queen and Prime Minister Gordon Brown. ...

To cover the entire field of anti-Israel media bias is a mission impossible. The methods are almost infinite and vary from crude to subtle ones. There is also a cumulative effect of such distortion. Therefore paradigmatic pilot studies of systematic bias are so important.
Asserson has done that remarkably by investigating such an important media as the BBC. I understood that even better when I interviewed him for one of my books Israel and Europe: An Expanding Abyss?

Asserson listed in great detail how the BBC regularly in its reporting on Israel, broke many of the 15 legal obligations it is committed to under its monopolistic charter. These include that the media has to be fair, respect the truth, should not broadcast its own opinions on current affairs or current policy, ensure that opposing views are not misrepresented and not let the audience gauge the reporter’s personal views. He listed hundreds of examples of breaking these rules. The list is far too long to be exposed here.

To mention one, there was a huge contrast in how the BBC reported on the British soldiers in Iraq, who were described in warm and glorified terms, whereas Israeli troops were painted as faceless, ruthless and brutal killers.

There are hundreds of ways to be unfair in one’s reporting. One of the most powerful is omission of crucial facts and context of certain actions. If one starts from the false assumption that Israel, through an aggressive war, has conquered Arab territories in 1967 while omitting the genocidal statements against Jews of Palestinian Arab leaders since about 1930, the non-acceptance of the Arabs to create a second Palestinian state in addition to Jordan in 1948 and also ignores the genocidal Arab invasion of the former Palestinian Mandate territory in 1948, one has laid in a simple way the infrastructure for diabolizing Israel.

20070811

Appeal for Local PBS Airings for Moderate Muslims' Expose of the Radicalizing of US Mosques

As awareness grows about the “parallel societies” Islamists are trying to insinuate into Western democracies for the purpose undermining and ultimately displacing them – the importance and timeliness of this film and its companion documentary, “Muslims Against Jihad,” become all the more apparent.

There is, arguably, no more important topic for American (and, we believe, foreign) audiences to understand about the post-9/11 world than the plight of moderate Muslims at the hands of their Islamist enemies – and ours.

CAMERA's campaign:

Thanks to all of you who have been calling/writing your local PBS station to encourage them to show the important film "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center".

At least 31 stations are scheduled to run it. At the bottom of this alert is a list of those currently slated to show the film, along with the date and time. Note that nearly all dates are in August. Additional airings in September and later could be in the works.

We'd like to focus our efforts now on 10 large PBS stations that have not yet agreed to air the film. Working as a team, concentrating our letters and calls on these 10 stations, will hopefully accelerate the approval process.
For more info on the film, go to www.freethefilm.org

ACTION ITEMS:

* Please call or write the following PBS stations. Write to them one at a time, not as a group e-mail.

Let them know that "Islam vs. Islamists" is about moderate anti-Islamist Muslims in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, and the social, financial and physical dangers they face by speaking out against Muslim extremism. Remind them the documentary is now available for individual PBS stations to air and urge them to broadcast the inspirational film.

* Let CAMERA know if you contacted a station and what its response was.
Please contact as many of these stations as you can to request the film be shown!


Large PBS Stations Not Yet Showing the Film:


WPBA Atlanta Programming: 678-686-0321 or click here to submit a comment

WGBH Boston: 617-300-5400 or click here to submit a programming request. Under "subject," choose programming.

WNET New York: 212-560-1313 Local New Jersey line: 973-643-3315 programming@thirteen.org

KCET Los Angeles: 323-666-6500 programdirector@kcet.org

WHYY Philadelphia: 215-923-WHYY TV12 programming: talkback@whyy.org

WTTW Channel 11 Chicago: 773-509-1111 Click here to submit a program request.

WETA Arlington, VA 703.998.2600 Click here to submit a program request. For "subject matter," choose "TV 26".

KETC St. Louis: 314-512-9000 (ask for programming dept or general manager) letters@ketc.org

WQED Pittsburgh: 412-622-1300 (ask for programming dept or general manager)
Click here to submit programming request.

KLRN San Antonio: 210-270-9000 800-627-8193 programming@klrn.org

List of PBS TV stations airing the film

If you'd like to watch the film, check the station's schedule a week before the scheduled date, in case they change the date or time. These are listed in order of the date of the broadcast.

KUFM Bozeman, Montana Sun, Aug 12, 10:30pm
KUSM Butte, Montana Sun, Aug 12, 10:30pm
KUHT Houston, Texas; Mon, Aug 13, 10pm
KCPT Kansas City, Missouri Mon, Aug 13, 9pm
KAET Tempe, Arizona Tues, Aug 14, 10pm
KLRU Austin, Texas Tues, Aug 14, 9pm
WDCQ/WDCP University Center, MI Tues, Aug 14, 10pm
KTWU Topeka, Kansas Tues, Aug 14, 8pm
KCWC Riverton, Wyoming Tues, Aug 14, 9pm
Hawaii Public Broadcasting Wed, Aug 15, 8pm
WCNY Syracuse, New York Wed, Aug 15, 9pm
WNMU Marquette, MI Wed, Aug 15, 9pm
WIPB Muncie, Indiana Thur, Aug 16, 9pm
KERA Dallas, Texas Mon, Aug 20, 10pm

KET Kentucky Network, Lexington Mon, Aug 20, 10pm
Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portland Tues, Aug 21, 10pm
WKNO Memphis, Tennessee Tues, Aug 21, 9pm
KENW Portales, New Mexico Wed, Aug 22, 9pm
WEDU Tampa, Florida Thur, Aug 23, 9pm
KRMA Denver, Colorado Thur, Aug 23, 9pm

WTCI Chattanooga, Tennessee Mon, Aug 27, 11pm
WMFE Orlando, Florida Mon, Aug 27, 11pm
WOSU Columbus, Ohio Mon, Aug 27, 11pm
WPBO Charleston/Huntington, Ohio Mon, Aug 27, 11pm
KEET Eureka, California Mon, Aug 27, 10pm
WTIU Bloomington, IN check station's schedule
KQED San Francisco, California Thur, Aug 30, 9pm; Sept 2, 1am
KQED Encore 8/31: midnight, 4am, 8am, noon, 4pm, 8pm; 9/2: 1:30am, 2pm

KNPB Reno, Nevada Thu, Aug 30, check schedule for time
WCBB Bangor Maine Sun, Sep 9, 4pm; Sat, Sep 15
KERA/KACV Dallas, Texas Mon, Sep 10, 10pm

Thanks for your help in ensuring that they receive the largest possible audiences.

20070806

Israel must initiate talks with U.S. on conflicting Iran interests

"Israel must prepare for the possibility that the United States will try to resolve the Iranian nuclear question by reaching an accommodation with Tehran, which will not include Israel. In such an event, the document notes, Israel must ensure that "the essential interests of the State of Israel are preserved."

The document has stirred a great deal of interest among officials at the Defense and Foreign Ministries, and also at the National Security Council, a senior political source said. The document points out that Israel assumes that its interests and those of the United States on the Iranian nuclear question are identical, and that complete transparency exists between the two allies on the relevant political and military levels. However, the Reut analysts warn that the overlap between Washington and Jerusalem is not absolute at this time, and they point to Iraq as topping the American agenda as well as concerns of further deterioration in the Gulf.

The Reut researchers also point to a lessening likelihood of American military action against Iran, and growing support for dialogue with Tehran. A third option may emerge, the document warns - between striking Iran during the Bush tenure and putting the matter off until his successor comes to office - of direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

"My View of Islam" OpEd by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In Newsweek/WaPost's "OnFaith" blog, Ayaan Hirsi Ali chimes in to try to set the record straight:
"The western world would be wise to recognize the realities of Islam, a religion laid down in writing over a millennium ago with violence and oppression at its heart."

Read entire article.

20070805

Israel's Struggle for Peace Among Muslim Neighbors

We commemorate the second anniversary of Israel sacrificing Jewish civilization in Gaza towards establishing Judenrein (without Jewish people) Palestinian autonomy alongside Israel.

View a history of Israel's miraculous prevailing over perpetual Muslim rejection of and aggression to destroy the autonomous state of Israel. This Arab-Israeli-perspectived documentary, "Israel - 50 Years of War" was broadcast in 1999 on PBS and bears watching by anyone interested in learning both sides of the conflict.



Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

20070803

Israel to Revamp Press Management

"Advice to the new hasbara (public affairs / communications) czar"
by Anshel Pfeffer in The Jerusalem Post 12 July 2007

"On Sunday 8 July, the (Israeli) government approved the proposal to set up a national hasbara office to coordinate the communications efforts of all ministries and decide upon a joint national media strategy. It's still not totally clear exactly what the powers of the new office will be. It will operate in the Prime Minister's Office, but will it be able to give orders to government spokesmen? Is it no more than a hollow plan aimed at assuaging the chronic critics of Israel's media operation? " Read it all:

20070802

"My Enemy's Enemy" by Melanie Phillips

Melanie Phillips hits another home-run in deconstructing the Bush administration's generosity towards Saudi Arabia, whose support of terror movements in Iraq and globally conflict with U.S. interests.

"‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’ is a principle that has always underpinned realpolitik. It is extremely stupid. My enemy’s enemy may also be… my enemy!" ...