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Joel B. Pollak

Joel B. Pollak

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AP

White House Statement on ‘Violent Extremism’ Omits Islam

On Sunday, as world leaders gathered for an anti-terror rally in Paris, France, the Obama administration announced that it would convene a global “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism” on Feb. 18. The White House released a statement describing the summit agenda, which failed to mention Islam, radical Islam, or anything related to the actual ideology motivating the Paris attacks.

Abbas in Paris at Anti-Terror Rally (AP)

Palestinian Terror Gets a Pass at France Rally

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas joined the front rank of world leaders in Paris at a massive anti-terror rally on Sunday, separated by a few world leaders from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also led the march through the city streets. The gesture was intended to create a message of unity and peace, but it also had the effect of sanitizing Abbas’s ongoing support for terrorism against Israeli civilians.

San Francisco 'Charlie Hebdo' Memorial (AP / Marcio Jose Sanchez)

San Francisco Solidarity Rally with France Terror Victims

As millions gather in Paris to protest against terrorism and for free speech and tolerance, the French consulate in San Francisco will host a solidarity rally on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Civic Center Plaza. The rally will honor the victims at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket, where Islamic radicals killed 12 and four, respectively, last week.

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Dershowitz: France Shows ‘Capitulating’ to Terror Does not Work

In the book, Dershowitz argues that the main reason terrorism continues is that it tends to be rewarded, even by the nations that fight it hardest. He cites France as an example of a “capitulating” nation–one that breaks international unity against terrorism by cutting deals with terrorist organizations in the hope that its own citizens will be left alone in the future.

Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv

Dershowitz Releases Letters to Lawyers for ‘Jane Doe #3’

Attorney Alan Dershowitz continues his fight against Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell, the lawyers whose client, “Jane Doe #3,” has accused him of rape in a court case challenging the terms of a plea bargain between the federal government and Dershowitz’s former

Blue State Blues (Breitbart)

Blue State Blues: Why Ezra Klein is Minimizing Radical Islam

By deflecting attention from the cartoons, Klein is actually trying to protect Western ideas about the state, the individual, and freedom. Yet he cannot bring himself to identify the threat to those ideas, because doing so would mean admitting that the multicultural project, to which the left is politically wedded, has failed.

Manhunt intensifies after Charlie Hebdo terrorist suspects rob gas station

Opinion: The Right Not to Offend

I don’t much feel like re-posting the Muhammad cartoons for which Charlie Hebdo became famous. It’s not a matter of fear, or political correctness. A decade ago, I was living in the heart of the Muslim community in Cape Town, writing articles against fundamentalism and in defense of the U.S. and Israel even while I enjoyed breaking Ramadan fasts with friends and neighbors. I did so at some considerable risk to my personal safety. I was lucky to meet religious Muslims who wanted nothing to do with violence–and it is precisely because of those relationships that I choose not to offend, even while standing with Charlie Hebdo.

Solidarity with Charlie Hebdo in San Francisco (AP)

California Mourns Charlie Hebdo Attack, Defies Islamists

Hundreds of demonstrators poured into the streets across California in spontaneous protests against the Islamist attack on the offices of satirical newspaper “Charlie Hebdo” on Wednesday, which claimed the lives of 12 journalists, cartoonists, security personnel and police officers. The demonstrators expressed their solidarity with the newspaper, with the French people, with freedom of expression–and against radical Islam.

Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv

Lawyers Blunder by Suing Dershowitz for Defamation

In chess, blunders are noted with a “?” and major blunders with a “??”. However, the decision by lawyers Bradley J. Edwards and Paul G. Cassell to sue Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz for defamation would deserve a third

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Dershowitz is Innocent

You do not need to know–or even like–Dershowitz to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he is not guilty of the terrible crime of which he has accused in this tabloid scandal.

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7 Foreign Policy Blunders That Spell Danger on Iran

President Barack Obama has made it clear that a nuclear deal with Iran is one of his top priorities this year. Disarmament has, in fact, been the only constant in his foreign policy, not just since taking office in 2009 but since his college days at Columbia. Yet as negotiations have broken one deadline after another, America’s allies–especially Israel and Saudi Arabia–have become alarmed, fearing a weak deal that will leave Iran on the cusp of nuclear armament. Five key foreign policy blunders reinforced those fears.

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

White House Knocks GOP on Scalise; No Apology for Sharpton, Wright

The White House has hosted serial race-baiter Al Sharpton dozens of times, and has followed his cues in racially divisive controversies from the Trayvon Martin shooting to the ongoing “Black Lives Matter” protests, which have led to retaliatory violence against police across the nation. Moreover, President Barack Obama himself spent twenty years in the pews of the church of Jeremiah Wright in Chicago, enduring Wright’s racist sermons without comment or complaint, and contributing thousands of dollars to Wright’s fundraising efforts

Abbas: U.N. Security Council resolution's final draft on Palestinian statehood imminent

Would Obama Veto Palestinian State in 2015?

The Obama administration might indeed allow a UN Security Council resolution on a Palestinian state to pass, provided some wording could be found that would accommodate the terms of Resolutions 242 and 338, which encourage a negotiated peace.

Jerry  Brown ull

Jerry Brown to be Sworn in for Fourth Term

California Governor Jerry Brown is set to be sworn in for his fourth term at the state capitol today, and will combine the ceremony with his annual ‘State of the State’ address. The governor won re-election comfortably in November, and

obamacare

Troy: 2015 Will Be Obamacare’s Worst Year Yet

Health care expert Tevi Troy, writing in the new issue of Commentary, predicts that 2015 will be the worst year for Obamacare yet–not just because the steady (and delayed) implementation of the law will arouse new opposition, but because the Congress that takes office this week was partly elected on the basis of broad public opposition to the law.

Kerry, Netanyahu expected to discuss proposed U.N. Securtiy Council resolution on Mideast peace timeline

Kerry, Power Take Credit for Palestinian Loss at UN

Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Ambassador Samantha Power are being credited for their efforts in lobbying members of the UN Security Council to vote against a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Yet if they had been on top of their game, the vote never would have been held.

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Steve Scalise and the Lost Art of Honorable Resignation

The honorable resignation is a lost art in American politics. Most politicians are determined to cling to power, regardless of the cost to their reputation, their party’s standing, or their broader ideals. Scalise could have resigned with dignity, affirming the principle that even fleeting association with racism and antisemitism will not be tolerated in the Republican Party.

NPR (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News)

NPR’s Compelling Interview of Gay Pastor

National Public Radio aired a remarkable interview on Sunday’s Weekend Edition with Allan Edwards, a Presbyterian pastor who is gay, yet lives a heterosexual life. The conversation between NPR’s Renee Montaigne and Edwards–and his wife–sheds light on an often overlooked constituency in the debate over gay marriage.