Tag: war

No room for refugees

Pitying poor refugees and granting them sanctuary in large numbers is always a mistake. Wikipedia on the Gothic War of 376-382.

In the summer of 376, a massive number of Goths arrived on the Danube River, the border of the Roman Empire, requesting asylum from the Huns. They came in two distinct groups: the Thervings led by Fritigern and Alavivus, and the Greuthungi led by Alatheus and Saphrax. Eunapius states their number as 200,000 including civilians, but Peter Heather estimates that the Thervings may have had only 10,000 warriors and 50,000 people in total, with the Greuthungi about the same size. The Cambridge Ancient History places modern estimates at around 90,000 people total.

The Goths sent ambassadors to the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens requesting permission to settle their people inside the Empire….

Many Goths inside Roman territory joined Fritigern, as did assorted slaves, miners, and prisoners. Roman garrisons in fortified towns held out, but those outside of them were easy prey. The Goths created a vast wagon train to hold all the loot and supplies pillaged from the Roman countryside, and they had much rage against the Roman population for what they had endured. Those who had started as starving refugees had transformed into a powerful army.

34 years later, Rome was sacked by Alaric. The same thing is going to happen to various cities in the USA and Europe if the “poor refugees” are not expelled from the West within the next 15-20 years.

But if your society collapses amidst ethnic violence, at least you can console yourselves with the knowledge that no one called you racist.

A terrible peace

Robert E. Lee is supposed to have said, “It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it.” But when I look around at the wreckage of what now passes for Western culture, when I see the ongoing degradation and decline of Western civilization, I cannot help but think that perhaps peace is more terrible still.

Seventy years of relative peace and prosperity has made our young men hedonists and homosexuals, cravens and cowards who are more inclined to literally emasculate themselves than demonstrate even a modicum of courage. Seventy years of relative tranquility and safety has made our young women into shameless sluts and whores, barren harridans and harpies devoid of self-respect and self-control.

What has peace done for our morals, for our arts, for our sciences? What has peace done for our universities, for our churches, for our moribund civic and social institutions? What has peace done for our nations, invaded by pagans and barbarians and prostrated before them, too helpless to even complain, let alone resist? What has peace done for our minds, our souls, even our bodies, fat, bloated, soft, and weak?

Is it possible that too many generations of peace and pleasure have proven to be little more than an enervating cancer on our culture? Is it possible that peace is more terrible than war?

If these are the fruits of peace, then peace is a dreadful thing. If this is truly the best that peace has to offer, then for the sake of Man and Western civilization, let there be war.

The best argument for Trump

From a comment at Althouse:

Once you’ve allowed the barbarians through the gates, any swashbuckling
ruffian who is willing to pick up a sword and push them back out again
is an ally. We can worry about what the city should look like
once we’ve put out the fires and have stopped the barbarians from
actively setting more of them.

And, ideally, sent the barbarians back to their homelands. It’s not about “illegal aliens”. It’s not about documentation. It’s not about legality. It’s about the largest invasion in human history. It’s about the biggest mass migration in the recorded history of Man.

Mass repatriation or war. Those are the choices left to both America and the European nations now.

Choose wisely.

In attempted defense of chickenhawks

Ben Shapiro’s defenders are more than a little sensitive to his hypocrisy and shameless, well-documented cowardice:

Ben Shapiro ‏@benshapiro
Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level. His WSJ piece is written at a ninth-grade level.

Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
And you went to law school instead of serving your country while calling for other Americans to go to war.

THE Chris Coon ‏@Coondawg68
these PC SJW Trumpkins are now yelling “Chickenhawk!!” “Bu$Hitler lied!!” FFS…

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
Now? I observed that the coward @benshapiro was the Littlest Chickenhawk back in 2005

From my August 29, 2005 WND column, The Chickenhawk Clucks

 I – like 62 percent of the soldiers and veterans who frequent Vox Popoli and Blackfive – am in accord with the notion that “chickenhawk” is an appropriate label for a warmongering young columnist who urges others to make sacrifices he has no intention of making himself.

    Most of us realize that during wartime, sacrifices must be made … But taking such a stand requires common sense and the knowledge that we are in the midst of the great battle of our time.
    – Benjamin Shapiro, WorldNetDaily, July 28, 2005

I would be remiss if I did not note that many of these military men and women favored a different 11-letter word that also begins with “chicken.”

The genuine flaw in the use of the “chickenhawk” label is that in most cases it is being applied years, even decades, after the fact, and inherently attempts to equate two different historical situations. However, due to Mr. Shapiro’s precocious position in the national media, this common flaw does not apply. While his peers are dodging sniper bullets and IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Shapiro is bravely urging them to invade five more countries in the establishment of global empire from the safety of his Harvard dorm room.

    Did Iraq pose an immediate threat to our nation? Perhaps not. But toppling Saddam Hussein and democratizing Iraq prevent his future ascendance and end his material support for future threats globally. The same principle holds true for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and others: Pre-emption is the chief weapon of a global empire. No one said empire was easy, but it is right and good, both for Americans and for the world.
    – Benjamin Shapiro, WorldNetDaily, Aug. 11, 2005

The America Bar Association already boasts more than 896,000 lawyers, America has no desperate need for another one. The U.S. Army, on the other hand, is currently 8,000 men short of its 2005 recruiting goals. I am only one of many non-pacifist, non-leftist Americans who believe that Mr. Shapiro would do well to heed his own words of Aug. 26, 2004. “Now’s the time: Either put up, or shut the hell up.”

And before you ask, on January 18th, 1991, my friend Big Chilly and I went to the Roseville, Minnesota recruiting office and attempted to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. Our enlistments were not accepted, in fact, the recruiter ripped up the papers after reading them over and asking us a few questions, but he also shook our hands and thanked us for being willing to serve our country.

So we never served, but we were ready and willing to do so without being asked. And that is something that Ben Shapiro, for all his hectoring bluster about the pressing need for Americans to die in war, was clearly not willing to do.

As further evidence The Complete List of SJW is effective, several of Shapiro’s defenders are extremely intent on having him removed from it. But unless and until he recants his public statement about hunting down and disemploying racists, (and assuming no further evidence of his social justice sympathies is discovered) he quite clearly belongs on it.

Syria or Colorado

Whose elections are less legitimate? Paul Craig Roberts points out the irony of American politicians decrying a purported lack of democratic legitimacy in Syria.

Today (April 14) Syria held parliamentary elections at 7,000 polling stations, keeping the voting open an extra five hours to accommodate the massive turnout. All were allowed to vote, even displaced Syrians from the two provinces still terrorized by Washington and Israeli backed ISIS.

Washington is angry, because Syria held elections before Washington had time to purchase its slate of politicians and organize Washington-funded NGOs to take to the streets to protest and to claim that Assad had stolen the election.

Despite the massive voter turnout and extended hours for voting, the US State Department set the tone by declaring that the elections are not legitimate in Washington’s eyes and do not represent “the will of the Syrian people.”

Washington’s two-bit punk vassals in London and Paris chimed in with both claiming that the war conditions in Syria to which London and Paris have contributed mean that the idea of elections is “totally unrealistic.”

The New York Times lied, characteristically, that the elections, which seem to demonstrate nationwide solidarity against the Western-backed overthrow of the Syrian government, “highlight divisions and uncertainty.” The Washington Post added its lies and misrepresentations to the propagandistic reporting.

The Western governments are far out on a limb with their lies that the Syrian people prefer to be governed by the Washington supported terrorists who were overrunning their country and conducting with Western supplied weapons mass murder on the Syrian people until Russia put a stop to it. Now the Western liars are exposed yet again by election results, and so the liars must pretend that the election lacks validity.

So, Republicans are in the fascinating position of arguing that Syria’s elections, which actually allow people to vote, are illegitimate and do not represent “the will of the people” because “war conditions”, whereas the Republican nomination in Colorado, where no one is even voting, is legitimate and does represent “the will of the people” despite the people having no voice because “rules”.

And people wonder why Americans support a quixotic outsider like Donald Trump. I vote for a blind and incontinent basset hound before I’d vote for any member of the Republican establishment, which now observably includes Ted Cruz. Of course, if I lived in Colorado, I wouldn’t be able to vote at all.

This isn’t that hard. Yes, we all know America is not a democracy. The point is that if you’re going to repeatedly go to war for democracy, then the first place you should do so is in the USA.

Civil war in Europe

A Danish professor’s warning:

Writing in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Professor Helmuth Nyborg, who is an expert in the connection between hormones and intelligence, discussed his previous research on how, “The effect of Europeans having few children and immigrants with low IQ” would lead to “Westerners (being) a minority in Europe, and that the average IQ drops so much that prosperity, democracy and civilization is threatened”.

Nyborg has previously asserted that low IQ migrants arriving from non-western countries leads to a decline in the average intelligence of western societies and therefore a drop in living standards and rising crime rates.

“In 2016, the current immigration policy gives us three alternatives – submission, repatriation or civil war. Unless Europe starts to lead a responsible family, immigration and integration policy, stated by the theory of evolution, I think civil war is most likely,” writes Nyborg.

Nyborg goes on to caution that simply referring to “right-wing extremism” will not make the chronic problems caused by overpopulation and failed multicultural policies disappear, warning that ethnic Europeans will be a minority in their own countries by 2050.

Ethnically homogeneous, civilized and democratic societies in Europe will be a thing of the past unless there is an “honorable repatriation” of migrants, warns Nyborg.

I concur. And I’ll go much further. I think civil war in the USA is even more likely. The war in Europe isn’t going to be much of a contest; Reconquista 2.0 will take 1/100th the time that its predecessor did. But the USA is considerably more divided, and considerably more muddled, than even the most heavily invaded European nation.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. As Martin van Creveld demonstrated in “Migration and War”, mass immigration is almost invariably connected to war in one way or another.

Clutter and Clean Cycles

Thanks to all those Americans born everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, even those who are enamored of diversity are beginning to notice that ethnically heterogeneous societies don’t tend to survive economic crashes very well:

While it is difficult for anybody who knows the Pentagon well to
imagine American generals and admirals getting together to overthrow the
civilian government — that would require obscene amounts of PowerPoint
and might endanger top brass golden parachutes with Beltway Bandits —
the notion of a Civil War 2.0, however terrifying it may be, needs to be
faced squarely, if we wish to avoid that awful fate.

America in the 21st century runs little risk of becoming Honduras Grande,
but if current politico-economic trends continue much longer, we might
well wind up a lot like Yugoslavia. That statement is sure to be
controversial, since few Americans, citizens of the global hegemon and
to many of them a most exceptional country, like to be compared with a
relatively small Balkan federation that collapsed into wars and genocide
a generation ago.

Yet the collapse of Yugoslavia offers several cautionary tales to
Americans today, and if they are wise they will heed them and set the
United States on a correction course before it is too late. As one who
witnessed the dreadful collapse of Yugoslavia and its terrible
aftermaths — including the seemingly permanent impoverishment of
Southeastern Europe, mired in crime, corruption, and extremism — I would
very much like America to discover a far happier fate. However, some of the parallels are eerie and troubling….

Managing this increasingly fissiparous country as economic prospects diminish will challenge the most gifted politicians. Indulging in ethnic resentments as a substitute for solutions to vexing politico-economic problems only makes things go from bad to worse, sometimes rapidly and painfully. With both our parties increasingly beholden to Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, average Americans of all backgrounds will not be happy that they are bequeathing a life of less affluence and opportunity to their children. In such a time of troubles, playing ethno-racial political games as a substitute for reform is deeply irresponsible.

It would be nice if Democrats and Republicans played better together, particularly on the budget and borrowing money. It would be especially nice if they seriously addressed issues of rising economic inequality and diminishing opportunities for average Americans.  But it is imperative that they not fan the flames of ethnic and racial resentments if they wish to avoid a terrible outcome for our country.

The nation is already broken and divided. What is now being done to the nations of Europe was already done to the USA back in 1965. There is no longer an Anglo-American nation with a moderate admixture of other European nations, now it is a merely a political entity with dozens of rival ethnic and religious interest groups jockeying for power and a share of the income redistribution.

As with Yugoslavia, the structure will hold so long as it doesn’t come under excessive financial stress. This is why I have long predicted the 2033 timeframe, as I thought that’s about when the US dollar will fail as the global reserve currency. Considering the current state of China, it’s possible that timeframe is too optimistic, but regardless, there is still time to prepare for the Yugoslavication and dissolution of the USA.

Choose your location carefully, and with an eye to the future, as who and what you are is likely to matter with regards to your ability to remain there. I can assure you that the idea of ethnic cleansing and forced relocations on the North American continent is neither a new nor an unthinkable idea. Just ask any American Indian.

Just as there are economic boom and bust cycles, there are longer-term demographic clutter and clean cycles. We are at the peak of the greatest demographic clutter cycle in human history, one that has lasted nearly 200 years. This tends to suggest that we are in for the mother of all clean cycles.

An ominous pattern

Consider the following facts:

  1. Russia has withdrawn elements of its tactical forces in Syria, while leaving most of its anti-aircraft and strategic air strike capabilities in place.
  2. ISIS lost control of Palmyra to Assad and the Syrian army.
  3. For over a month, there have been repeated stories about a joint Saudi-Turkish alliance preparing to invade Syria, ostensibly to fight ISIS, but actually to attack Assad and the legitimate Syrian government.
  4. The US government just withdrew all family members of U.S. troops and diplomats from its installations in Turkey, ostensibly out of fears of terrorist attack.
  5. The NATO treaty requires the USA to defend Turkey if attacked.
  6. Donald Trump has, for the first time in decades, raised serious questions, in public, about US membership in NATO.
  7. ISIS is a creation, at least in part of the USA, and the US military made no serious attempts to defeat ISIS in Syria whereas the Russian-Syrian-Iranian alliance managed to repeatedly defeat ISIS and drive it back in just 22 weeks of operations.

What does this suggest? I think it indicates that all sides are preparing for a Turko-Syrian war, which may be a proxy for a US-Russian war in the same way that the war in the Crimea was. I’m not certain whether the US is actively on the side of Turkey or if it is washing its hands of what looks like an increasingly unstable pair of proxies in Turkey and the Islamic State. For the sake of global stability, I sincerely hope the latter is the case.

There are some indications that the US has wisely decided to stay out of it. Just over a month ago, the American Free Press reported:

Moscow has made it clear to Washington it will retaliate if the Turks send forces into Syria. Moscow has made it clear to Washington it will retaliate if the Turks send forces into Syria. The Russians are convinced the Saudis are pressing Turkey to so something militarily before Russian airpower eliminates all the extreme Islamic groups the Turks and Saudis have been supporting. The source says NATO leaders in Europe have told Washington that Turkey and the Saudis will have to go it alone if they engage Russia.

Also, the fact that the US refused Turkey’s demands that it cut ties with a Kurdish group fighting in Syria bodes well for avoiding a US-Russian war. The fact that Turkey might also be facing a civil war in its south may be an important factor in its apparent decision to get directly involved in Syria before the government forces wipe out ISIS there.

In any event, the recent withdrawal of Russian and US personnel suggests that things are likely to heat up in Syria soon. It is worth noting, too, that these recent events show how insanely wrong John McCain was to advocate expanding NATO to include Ukraine, as that would have either a) shattered NATO or b) triggered a US-Russian war last year. The fact that the USA appears to be leaving its NATO ally Turkey to go to war on its own tends to indicate the former.

Hope for Holland

Geert Wilders Verified account ‏@geertwilderspvv
If I become Dutch Prime Minister next year I’ll crush Islamic terrorism, close our national borders and De-Islamize The Netherlands.

That sound you heard is the Overton Window moving. And that is the word for 2016 right there: De-Islamification. In the European context, it will be known as Reconquista 2.0. It will be interesting to see if we see Donald Trump begin using it.

UPDATE: two more bombs flash grenades go off in Brussels during police raid:

Armed police shot a terror suspect at a Brussels tram station as they launched fresh raids in the Belgian capital in the wake of the suicide attacks on Tuesday. Two explosion were heard at the start of the operation in the neighbourhood of Schaerbeek, north Brussels, after which local media reported that one man had been ‘neutralised’. Today’s raid in Brussels was linked to the arrest of ‘ISIS recruiter’ Reda Kriket, in a Paris suburb on Thursday. Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman, had been in the ‘advances stages’ of planning an attack in France prior to his arrest, and was found with heavy weapons and explosives in his apartment. 

Donald Trump speech to AIPAC

Good evening. I speak to you today as a lifelong supporter and true
friend of Israel. I am a newcomer to politics but not to backing the
Jewish state.

In late 2001, weeks after the attacks on New York City and Washington
– attacks perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists, Mayor Giuliani
visited Israel to show solidarity with terror victims. I sent him in my
plane because I backed the mission 100%.

In Spring 2004, at the height of violence in the Gaza Strip, I was
the Grand Marshal of the 40th Salute to Israel Parade, the largest
single gathering in support of the Jewish state.

It was a very dangerous time for Israel and frankly for anyone
supporting Israel – many people turned down this honor –I did not, I
took the risk.

I didn’t come here tonight to pander to you about Israel. That’s what
politicians do: all talk, no action. I came here to speak to you about
where I stand on the future of American relations with our strategic
ally, our unbreakable friendship, and our cultural brother, the only
democracy in the Middle East, the State of Israel.

My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.
I have been in business a long time. I know deal-making and let me tell
you, this deal is catastrophic – for America, for Israel, and for the
whole Middle East.

The problem here is fundamental. We have rewarded the world’s leading
state sponsor of terror with $150 billion and we received absolutely
nothing in return.


I’ve studied this issue in greater detail than almost anybody. The
biggest concern with the deal is not necessarily that Iran is going to
violate it, although it already has, the bigger problem is that they can
keep the terms and still get to the bomb by simply running out the
clock, and, of course, they keep the billions.

The deal doesn’t even require Iran to dismantle its military nuclear
capability! Yes, it places limits on its military nuclear program for
only a certain number of years. But when those restrictions expire, Iran
will have an industrial-size military nuclear capability ready to go,
and with zero provision for delay no matter how bad Iran’s behavior is.
When I am president, I will adopt a strategy that focuses on three
things when it comes to Iran.

First, we will stand up to Iran’s aggressive push to destabilize and
dominate the region. Iran is a very big problem and will continue to be,
but if I’m elected President, I know how to deal with trouble. Iran is a
problem in Iraq, a problem in Syria, a problem in Lebanon, a problem in
Yemen, and will be a very major problem for Saudi Arabia. Literally
every day, Iran provides more and better weapons to their puppet states.
Hezbollah in Lebanon has received sophisticated anti-ship weapons,
anti-aircraft weapons, and GPS systems on rockets. Now they’re in Syria
trying to establish another front against Israel from the Syrian side of
the Golan Heights.

In Gaza, Iran is supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad – and in the West
Bank they are openly offering Palestinians $7,000 per terror attack and
$30,000 for every Palestinian terrorist’s home that’s been destroyed.

Iran is financing military forces throughout the Middle East and it
is absolutely indefensible that we handed them over $150 billion to
facilitate even more acts of terror.

Secondly, we will totally dismantle Iran’s global terror network.
Iran has seeded terror groups all over the world. During the last five
years, Iran has perpetrated terror attacks in 25 different countries on
five continents. They’ve got terror cells everywhere, including in the
western hemisphere very close to home. Iran is the biggest sponsor of
terrorism around the world and we will work to dismantle that reach.

Third, at the very least, we must hold Iran accountable by
restructuring the terms of the previous deal. Iran has already – since
the deal is in place – test-fired ballistic missiles three times. Those
ballistic missiles, with a range of 1,250 miles, were designed to
intimidate not only Israel, which is only 600 miles away but also
intended to frighten Europe, and, someday, the United States.

Do you want to hear something really shocking? As many of the great
people in this room know, painted on those missiles – in both Hebrew and
Farsi – were the words “Israel must be wiped off the face of the
earth.”

What kind of demented minds write that in Hebrew? And here’s another
twisted part – testing these missiles does not even violate the horrible
deal that we made!

The deal is silent on test missiles but those tests DO violate UN
Security Council Resolutions. The problem is, no one has done anything
about it. Which brings me to my next point – the utter weakness and
incompetence of the United Nations.

The United Nations is not a friend of democracy. It’s not a friend to
freedom. It’s not a friend even to the United States of America, where
as all know, it has its home. And it surely isn’t a friend to Israel.

With President Obama in his final year, discussions have been
swirling about an attempt to bring a security council resolution on the
terms of an eventual agreement between Israel and Palestine. Let me be
clear: An agreement imposed by the UN would be a total and complete
disaster. The United States must oppose this resolution and use the
power of our veto. Why? Because that’s not how you make a deal.

Deals are made when parties come to the table and negotiate. Each
side must give up something it values in exchange for something it
requires. A deal that imposes conditions on Israel and the Palestinian
Authority will do nothing to bring peace. It will only further
delegitimize Israel and it would reward Palestinian terrorism, because
every day they are stabbing Israelis – and even Americans.

Just last week, American Taylor Allen Force, a West Point grad who
served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was murdered in the street by a
knife-wielding Palestinian. You don’t reward that behavior, you confront
it!

It’s not up the United Nations to impose a solution. The parties must
negotiate a resolution themselves. The United States can be useful as a
facilitator of negotiations, but no one should be telling Israel it
must abide by some agreement made by others thousands of miles away that
don’t even really know what’s happening.

When I’m president, believe me, I will veto any attempt by the UN to
impose its will on the Jewish state. You see, I know about deal-making –
that’s what I do. I wrote The Art of the Deal, one of the all-time
best-selling books about deals and deal making. To make a great deal,
you need two willing participants.

We know Israel is willing to deal. Israel has been trying to sit down
at the negotiating table, without pre-conditions, for years. You had
Camp David in 2000, where Prime Minister Barak made an incredible offer –
maybe even too generous. Arafat rejected it.

In 2008, Prime Minister Olmert made an equally generous offer. The
Palestinian Authority rejected it. Then John Kerry tried to come up with
a framework and Abbas didn’t even respond, not even to the Secretary of
State of the United States of America!

When I become President, the days of treating Israel like a
second-class citizen will end on Day One. I will meet with Prime
Minister Netanyahu immediately. I have known him for many years and we
will be able to work closely together to help bring stability and peace
to Israel and to the entire region.

Meanwhile, every single day, you have rampant incitement and children
being taught to hate Israel and hate the Jews. When you live in a
society where the firefighters are the hero’s little kids want to be
firefighters.

When you live in a society where athletes and movie stars are heroes,
little kids want to be athletes and movie stars. In Palestinian
society, the heroes are those who murder Jews – we can’t let this
continue. You cannot achieve peace if terrorists are treated as martyrs.
Glorifying terrorists is a tremendous barrier to peace.

In Palestinian textbooks and mosques, you’ve got a culture of hatred
that has been fermenting there for years, and if we want to achieve
peace, they’ve got to end this indoctrination of hatred. There is no
moral equivalency. Israel does not name public squares after terrorists.
Israel does not pay its children to stab random Palestinians.

You see, what President Obama gets wrong about deal making is that he
constantly applies pressure to our friends and rewards our enemies.
That pattern, practiced by the President and his administration,
including former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has repeated
itself over and over and has done nothing but embolden those who hate
America. We saw that with releasing $150 billion to Iran in the hope
that they would magically join the world community – It’s the same with
Israel and Palestine.

President Obama thinks that applying pressure to Israel will force
the issue, but it’s precisely the opposite. Already, half the population
of Palestine has been taken over by the Palestinian ISIS in Hamas, and
the other half refuses to confront the first half, so it’s a very
difficult situation but when the United States stands with Israel, the
chances of peace actually rise. That’s what will happen when I’m
president.

We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the
Jewish people, Jerusalem – and we will send a clear signal that there is
no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of
Israel.

The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between
the United States and Israel is unbreakable. They must come to the
table willing and able to stop the terror being committed on a daily
basis against Israel and they must come to the table willing to accept
that Israel is a Jewish State and it will forever exist as a Jewish
State.

Thank you very much, its been a great honor to be with you.

——————–

My comment: This is better than I would have expected, not as good as I would have hoped. It is not a ritual genuflection, but a practical acknowledgement of the current realities. The deal with Iran is ridiculous. Attacking the UN is the right thing to do and may be a harbinger of more positive developments on that front. Moving the embassy is irrelevant, but a nice gesture.

At no point is there any indication that he is inclined to wage Israel’s wars for them as the previous two presidents have done, and that is the main thing.