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Category: USA

USA 

Trump was never an isolationist but a patriot

Melanie

Two swallows don’t make a summer, and two military attacks in the space of a few days don’t mean a flip-flop in strategy. After his missile attack on a Syrian air base, President Trump ordered an attack on an Isis recruitment complex in Afghanistan using the Massive Ordnance Air Blast – known colloquially (and inevitably) as the Mother of All Bombs – to obliterate an estimated 36 jihadis and destroy their underground base. As I wrote in my Jerusalem Post column today, both the President’s enemies and his supporters greeted…

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USA 

The west’s ideological quagmire

Melanie

The US Tomahawk missile attack on a Syrian airfield and the reaction it provoked took the fledgling Trump presidency into new territory. The raid provoked general amazement, since in 2013 and 2014 Donald Trump repeatedly tweeted that the US should not bomb Syria. The US president, however, not infrequently reverses himself. What was different this time was the reaction. For once, the division over the Syria missile attack did not lie between pro- and anti-Trumpers. Those delighted by it were ideological interventionists on both Left and Right, as well as…

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USA Videos 

The swamp grows more fetid by the day

Melanie

Please join me here for my take on recent developments in the ever-more startling and worrying drama of Trump and the Washington swamp. The transcript of my remarks follows below the video. You know, if I hadn’t seen the unending denial and resistance of those in Britain who are dead against Britain’s exit from the European Union and want to stop it even now, I’d never have believed the extent and nature of the unremitting attempts to delegitimise and unseat in some way President Donald Trump. Even so, I find…

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Could Trump have been… you know… er, not wholly wrong?

Melanie

An 18 year-old Jewish teenager, born in the US and living in the Israeli town of Ashkelon, has been arrested on suspicion of issuing dozens of fake bomb and other threats to Jewish communities in the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand over a period of six months. The suspect reportedly used very complex methods to prevent himself from being caught so that law enforcement agencies had to use their own complex methods to find him. This is a most bizarre and disturbing development. Details of this young man, and…

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USA Videos 

Truths, untruths and true untruths

Melanie

Join me as I pick my way through some of the evidence surfacing about various explosive claims made by and about President Trump. A transcript of my remarks follows below the video. I have repeatedly called out President Donald Trump for his somewhat cavalier attitude to both language and facts. I’ve also said that, although sometimes he gets it wrong – letting fly on Twitter on the basis of something he’s seen or heard on Fox TV – sometimes we just don’t know whether he’s right or wrong; and sometimes…

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Britain Europe USA 

The alt-right smear

Melanie

The neologism “alt-right” has now become part of the political lexicon. It is thought to be merely a term describing a new political movement. This is wrong. It is being used to spread confusion and hatred. The term was invented by a white supremacist called Richard Spencer. It is an obvious piece of manipulative linguistic legerdemain. For there’s nothing remotely “alt” – standing for alternative – about what Spencer does or says, nor other white supremacists or racists or fascists or neo-Nazis who also style themselves as “alt-right”. They are…

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Instant Articles USA 

How the monstering of Donald Trump has confused the Jews

Melanie

President Donald Trump continues to be the focus of confusion and division, not least within the Jewish world. At first he was hailed as massively pro-Israel. He said he was opposed to the Iran deal and Israel’s treatment by the UN, promised to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem and appointed as US ambassador a bullish supporter of the settlers. Jews on the Right were thrilled, Jews on the Left were dismayed. But then he invited Mahmoud Abbas to the White House and sent his envoy Jason Greenblatt to make…

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Jews Britain USA 

Trump is no antisemite

Melanie

President Donald Trump seems to be a man who thinks (and tweets) from his gut. He appears emotional, self-absorbed and impulsive. His language is careless and inaccurate. He shoots his mouth off repeating something he’s seen or heard on Fox News or talk radio which as often as not turns out to be false. All these things are alarming and indefensible. Nevertheless the unprecedented distortion, fabrication, selective reporting, double standards, wrenching out of context and character assassination by association in the mainstream media’s general approach to Trump has created a…

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Global conflict Israel USA 

A parable for our times

Melanie

Today and yesterday (depending on where you are in the world) observant Jews have been celebrating the festival of Purim by reading the megillah of Esther. This is the story of the Persian king Ahasuerus, commonly identified as Xerxes I, who went along with the plan hatched by his vizier Haman to exterminate the Jews. Ahasuerus was then persuaded out of this by his Jewish queen Esther, who was urged on by her brother Mordecai, and hanged Haman instead. Witty folk have been comparing Ahasuerus to Donald Trump. This is…

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