On March 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation with President of the United States Donald Trump, confirming his fundamental commitment to finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Putin expressed willingness to …
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The BRICS summit in Kazan was about making the first steps towards the reforming of the international financial system so that it promotes, rather than hinders, the economic development of countries while de-risking transactions between them. If the existing international financial system does not serve its principal purpose of facilitating financial transactions between nations and compensating for the disbalances in international trade then a growing number of countries will seek to establish additional pillars in the financial architecture
After seizing control of Netzarim Corridor, Israeli forces expand ground operation into the northern Gaza Strip, as air campaign against Hamas positions continues.
By World Israel News Staff
Israeli forces expanded their operations in the Gaza Strip Thursday, a day after IDF tanks moved into the strategically important Netzarim Corridor separating northern and southern Gaza.
On Thursday, an IDF spokesman announced that the Israeli army and Shin Bet internal security agency had begun ground operations in the northern Gaza Strip.
Earlier on Thursday, the Palestinian Authority mouthpiece WAFA reported that Israeli forces stationed in the Netzarim Corridor had barred traffic on the Salah al-Din road which runs from the northern Gaza Strip through the corridor down to the southern Strip.
According to the IDF, Israeli forces have moved beyond the Netzarim Corridor area and are now operating in the Beit Lahia district northeast of Gaza City.
“In recent hours, IDF forces have initiated ground operations along the coastal axis in the Beit Lahia area in the northern Gaza Strip,” an army spokesperson said. “Prior to the operation, the IDF and Shin Bet struck Hamas terror infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch positions in the Beit Lahia region. The IDF and Shin Bet continue to conduct waves of strikes across the Strip.”
IDF forces conducted dozens of strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight
“At the same time, the IDF and Shin Bet continued striking dozens of terror targets belonging to terrorist organizations throughout the Gaza Strip overnight. During these strikes, fighter jets and other aircraft targeted dozens of terrorists, military buildings, weapons, and additional terror infrastructure that posed a threat to IDF forces and the State of Israel,” the IDF said.
“Our forces are continuing to strike across the Gaza Strip at this moment and will continue to operate against terrorist organizations in Gaza and to eliminate any threat to the citizens of Israel.”
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claimed over 70 people were killed in the bombings overnight, with 95 additional fatalities reported by noon on Thursday.
Following a rocket salvo by Hamas terrorists from southern Gaza towards Tel Aviv, the IDF announced plans to strike the area the rockets were launched from.
The IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman issued a warning Thursday afternoon, urging Gazans to evacuate Bani Suheila, a town in the Khan Yunis district of southern Gaza.
“This is the final warning before the raid,” the IDF said.
” Terror organizations continue to launch their rockets from within civilian areas. We have warned about this area multiple times.”
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Em mais um gesto de reaproximação diplomática, os presidentes dos Estados Unidos e da Federação Russa conversaram por telefone no dia 18 de março, discutindo algumas questões na busca por uma solução pacífica para o conflito na Ucrânia. A conversa …
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To the editor of Providence Magazine
Dear Sir:
As a historian and biographer of the abolitionist John Brown with my own roots in the evangelical and Reformed tradition, I was appreciative of Shiv Parihar’s essentially positive consideration of Brown in the context of the current debate over Christian nationalism. In his thoughtful piece, Parihar drew extensively from my work in making his argument that the abolitionist was a Christian Nationalist. His portrayal of John Brown is key to his conclusion that “‘Christian Nationalism’ in the 19th century was an animating force in the demise of slavery.”
However, although Parihar’s appreciation and use of the John Brown story is a positive change in his treatment by writers, I find myself in the unfortunate position of having to disagree with him. Furthermore, I am placed in the position of pointing out that Parihar’s use of the sources as quoted in my work is significantly flawed. I have rarely been so regretful about writing in disagreement with an author, but Parihar’s use of my work, as represented, is both incorrect and does not affirm his conclusions.
Let me preface my remarks by pointing out that my work on Brown has been a project of more than twenty-five years, and my extended research and reflections have often led me to oppose conventional readings of the abolitionist, both from the right and the left. Often the conservative reaction against Brown is dismissive of his evangelicalism and more accusatory than insightful and often based on biased assessments of older writers and historians. On the other hand, Brown has often been subjected to the reductionism of the Left, which has rendered him as a revolutionary figure. Neither side has sufficiently explored primary source material but instead has concentrated on interpretations of Brown suited to their respective ideological commitments. My work has involved appreciating how Brown’s Christian faith directly informed and shaped his antislavery actions such that he was far more in the tradition of the Protestant Reformation and might therefore be considered a radical reformer rather than a revolutionary figure.
Typically, the reaction against presenting Brown as an evangelical reformer pertains to his radical actions in the Kansas territory and Harper’s Ferry, Va. (today West Va.) in 1856 and 1859. I will not attempt to provide a contextualized and documented response in Brown’s defense in this case, but I have done so in my several publications, most notably in my extensive treatment of his last days, Freedom’s Dawn (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). Certainly, I disagree with the conventional and often hackneyed treatment of Brown as a murderous fanatic and ne’er-do-well misanthrope which emerged from the post-Reconstruction period and the Lost Cause tradition, lasting well into the mid-to-late twentieth century. Thankfully, Parihar draws from the corrective biographical work that biographers like David S. Reynolds and I have done in the twenty-first century.
Nevertheless, Parihar grounds his arguments in large part on two documents that are cited in my work, unfortunately misconstruing both. First, he misinterprets a letter from John Brown to his pious father, Owen, written on December 2, 1847 (which Parihar erroneously attributes to Lucien Brown, his younger half-brother). His misrepresentation is not insignificant because he directly associates Brown’s words concerning Christ being “the end of the law” as pertaining to his violation of the law of the land in opposing slavery. To the contrary, in this letter, Brown was literally quoting Romans 10:4 in expressing confidence that his dying, half-brother, Lucien, would finish life in faith and obedience to the Lord. The full quotation from which Parihar samples thus follows:
. . . but we hope that a life still lengthened, may not all be misspent; & that the little duty to God, & mankind it may yet be in his power to do, may be done with his might; & that the Lord Jesus Christ will be the end of the law for righteousness, for that which must be left undone. This is the only hope for us; Bankrupts, as we may see at once; if we will but look at our account. (Sanborn, Life and Letters of John Brown, 23-24)
In the following paragraph, Parihar makes an even worse error by attributing the words of another correspondent to Brown. In this case, Brown was in jail awaiting the day of execution, and among the many letters he received was an encouraging note from a leading Reformed Presbyterian clergyman, the Reverend Alexander M. Milligan, a Scottish member of the Covenanter denomination. In Milligan’s letter, dated November 23, 1859, the clergyman expressed the Covenanter position, complaining that the United States had never submitted itself to the kingship of Jesus Christ, neither paying “regard to the requirements of His law” nor mentioning “his name even in the inauguration oath of its chief magistrate.” Unfortunately, to buttress his argument that Brown was a Christian Nationalist, Parihar attributes Milligan’s words to Brown. To the contrary, while Brown doubtless admired the strident abolitionism of the Covenanter sect and their commitment to the gospel, he never advocated such sentiments. Brown’s letter in response, dated November 29, is warm and appreciative but brief, because he had many letters to answer before his execution in barely three days’ time. Certainly, he makes no such remarks in any of his letters that might be construed in favor of Parihar’s thesis. (Milligan’s letter to Brown is found in James Redpath, Echoes from Harper’s Ferry [1860], 395; Brown’s response is found in Sanborn, Life and Letters, 610. The original letter from Brown is held in the collection of the Macartney Library of Geneva College.)
At best, Parihar’s misuse of these sources quite undermines the argument that Brown was a Christian Nationalist. At worst, his general argument, that Christian Nationalism was a force for good in the history of the United States, is undermined by these significant errors. Certainly, John Brown bears no resemblance to the most extreme expressions of Christian Nationalism today, which Mark Tooley has observed as advancing some form of theonomy or “Reformed Establishmentarianism.” In his own day, Brown did not join the abolitionist movement in part because it was often overrun by heterodox theological novelties; he was much closer to the Covenanters in his view of Scripture and the gospel. But he makes no argument for the overt Christianization of the government of the United States. He was plainly satisfied with the political structure handed down from the founders, except for slavery, which he contended was a great evil.
If there were Christian Nationalists in Brown’s time, arguably they were among the proslavery (and soon secessionist) clergy, or that ilk of leftover apologists of the slavocracy like Robert L. Dabney. However, Brown himself sought only the reform of the nation and the necessary elimination of slavery, nowhere arguing for anything resembling Christian Nationalism. As a patriot and Christian, Brown would doubtless have praised the constitutional amendments that followed the Civil War; but essential to his own antebellum vision was that the United States must quite literally adhere to the foundational claims of the Declaration of Independence. As an activist, he worked closely with people of different religious outlooks while retaining a rigorous commitment to his own Reformed and evangelical convictions. This aspect of his thinking was never more explicit than in his prison letters—which are far more concerned with his children’s conversion to Christ and adherence to Scripture than even to the slavery question. It would take a much longer essay to illustrate Brown’s temperament, optimism, and grounded trust in the Scriptures and the Providence of God. But thankfully, one need not look further than Tooley’s helpful conclusion about Christian Realism to find an adequate description of the thinking of John Brown the abolitionist, for it suits him quite well:
Christian Realism works to harmonize and reform society through mediating rival interests and leaning into Providence, whose works we know aren’t always visible to the human eye. It’s less theatrical than the polarities of our present times. But it is more attuned to human nature, patient about human affairs, and trusting in God’s purposes. (Mark Tooley, “Christian Realism vs Christian Nationalism,” Providence [Sept. 8, 2022].
Parihar is quite incorrect: John Brown was no Christian Nationalist. He was a Christian Realist.
…
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COVID Vaccination Batches Officially Confirmed as GMO. Slovak Republic
By , March 19, 2025
The doctor is calling upon the Slovak government take action to destroy the remaining vaccines and demand reimbursement for the costs of purchasing them …
The post Selected Articles: COVID Vaccination Batches Officially Confirmed as GMO. Slovak Republic appeared first on Global Research.
The recent detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, is troubling for many reasons. Khalil, a green card holder, has not been charged with any crime. The case against him seems to rest entirely on his political speech criticizing Israel. His arrest followed a week during which people targeted him intensely online, calling for deportation, suggesting a world in which the political wishes of right-wing extremists are translated into state policy. His rapid removal to Louisiana, far from his lawyers, his friends, and his eight-month-pregnant wife, reeks of disappearances of student radicals in authoritarian nations throughout history.
But for all that is truly novel about his situation, Khalil’s case is also a reminder of the long US history of deportation and border control as a strategy to punish political radicals and quell dissent. The most famous episode of mass deportation as a tool of political repression came during the Red Scare of 1919 to 1920. During the period of intense social upheaval that followed World War I, general strikes swept cities like Seattle, and the specter of the Bolshevik Revolution haunted American politics. In the spring of 1919, an anarchist faction sent bombs in the mail to the homes of important political figures, including that of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
While flyers distributed with the bombs were traced to a print shop operated by the followers of one radical thinker known for advocating violence, there was never enough evidence against any individual to mount a criminal case. Instead, in late 1919 and early 1920, Palmer ordered a series of raids of political meetings of radical organizations. Thousands of people were arrested and detained, some with warrants and some without, and more than 550 were ultimately deported.
Palmer insisted that these deportations were necessary to protect the American population. His argument was that the social unrest in the country, far from being a response to unemployment, inflation, or racism, was being stirred up by a network of “criminal aliens,” almost exclusively from Russia and Germany, who had “infected our social ideas with the disease of their own minds and unclean morals.” Because the government was charged with fighting crime, it could legitimately round up these actors and expel them from the nation — even if as individuals they were not linked to any acts of violence.
Although the raids were widely condemned, they had a profound impact. The argument that immigrants brought dangerous politics and radical violence to the United States helped prompt Congress to pass the Johnson-Reed Act in 1924, sharply curtailing immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
The threat of deportation and the control of the border also played an important role in the anti-communist crackdown of the 1950s. In 1952, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act. The law contained provisions that permitted the State Department to deny passports to US citizens who were members of the Communist Party or who refused to sign affidavits testifying that they were not and had never been Communists.
It also expanded the government’s powers to interrogate the political sympathies of people wanting to immigrate to the United States, a move that was widely understood as an effort to block Eastern European Jews who had been displaced by the Holocaust from entering the country on the pretext that they supported the Soviet Union. (For this reason, most Jewish organizations opposed the bill, and President Harry Truman vetoed it; Congress passed the act over his veto.)
Finally, it authorized the federal government to deport “aliens” whom the secretary of state believes might have “seriously adverse foreign policy consequences” for the United States, and to bar from naturalization and deport immigrants who advocated “world communism” or belonged to organizations that did. This was not an idle threat: the Trinidadian-born Communist activist Claudia Jones, threatened with deportation under the law, left the country voluntarily in December 1955 after being detained at Ellis Island (which was, by that time, used as a detention camp as well as still serving as an entry point for new immigrants).
This is the law that the Trump administration is now drawing on in its case against Khalil, whose story reminds us that border control has always been, at least in part, about political control. It is a fiction that immigrants bring dangerous political ideas into a nation that would be harmonious if only for their presence. Ideas, after all, move easily across barbed wire and concrete walls.
From the early twentieth century to the present, native-born Americans have found plenty to criticize in their country. Punishing people who are more vulnerable for reasons of their legal status by removing them from the body politic is a form of political coercion and an attempt to stifle dissent — not only among international students, green card holders, and immigrants, but the whole population. And the use of the 1952 anti-communist law to threaten Khalil is also a reminder that repressive legislation, once passed in a particular political context, has an impact that lingers long after. Even long dormant, its coercive power can be revived.
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