The United States government has announced that it is withdrawing American troops from Syria. They are currently stationed in the north-east, the Kurdish part of Syria. The Kurds, who are pro-West, fought bravely and lost many of their people fighting for the West, and were the ones who defeated ISIS, with American help. Without them the United States would have had to deploy huge numbers of troops to defeat ISIS.

With the withdrawal of the US troops, Turkey is preparing to invade the Kurdish area, like it did in Afrin in January-March 2018, killing hundreds and ethnically cleansing 300,000 Kurds, and bringing in settlers to occupy Kurdish homes and farms. Disgracefully, the West, including governments, most of the media and human rights groups, remained silent.

Having used them to defeat ISIS, the West is now going to leave the majority Kurdish population to the same fate. 1.6-2.5 million people are about to be betrayed again.

Remember that the Kurds fought for us.

[Photograph by Kurdish Struggle]

Australia’s Prime Minister gave a contradictory speech on Jerusalem. He stated that he recognised West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital but that he would not move Australia’s embassy until there was a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel.

This not only makes his claim of recognising West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital empty words, it gives veto power to the Arabs, who have refused any kind of peace with Israel for eight decades, even when presented with the incredibly generous offer made in 2008. They want nothing short of Israel’s destruction as a Jewish state.

Even worse, he recognised East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. This was the Jewish Quarter until the Jordanian Army invaded in 1948 and brutally cleansed it of its then majority Jewish population, destroyed 58 synagogues and desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery there. Judaism’s holiest sites such as the Wailing Wall are in that Quarter.

In summary, not only did the Prime Minister not really recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, he indirectly gave approval to the cleansing of Jews from their holy sites.

Photograph: An Arab Legion soldier in ruins of Hurva Synagogue, Jerusalem 1948.

The photographs say it all. Which would you rather attend? In which one would you feel safer? This is why Poles are resisting German pressure to change their policies.

Top: Krakow, Poland (Photograph: Learn Polish Daily). Bottom: Berlin, Germany (Photograph: The Local De).

This week demonstrated quite clearly why the United Nations must go. This institution, which is run by a majority of dictatorships, has made the spreading of antisemitism its chief role.

This week it passed six resolutions which wrote out of existence any link that Judaism and Christianity have to Jerusalem. This city was the centre of Judaism and also held importance to Christians before Islam was created. The UN has tried to wipe out 3,000 years of history. Only ten countries, among them the United States, Canada and Australia, voted against these resolutions. In another slap in the face of decency the UN opposed a resolution condemning the terrorist organisation Hamas which runs the Gaza strip and keeps its population in poverty while waging a war of attrition against Israel. The UN supports terrorism rather than nation building.

Much of the Western world panders to this organisation run by human rights abusers rather than saying enough is enough. Like its predecessor, the League of Nations, the UN has outlived its usefulness. It is time for decent nations to stop funding it and start a new organisation that will uphold the ideals of human decency.

We are starting a new country, a country that is not defined by borders but by values. It consists of citizens who are all motivated by a desire to make the world work better. This will be a country with the power to bring about real change in the international community.

The Good Country aims to have millions of citizens spread around the globe, teaching leaders of other nations how to achieve their aims without harming other populations or the planet.

Sometimes The Good Country will use its financial muscle to push other countries to do the right thing.

The Good Country will use its powers of persuasion and the collective voice of its citizens.

The Good country will use new forms of diplomacy and foreign policy to get the best out of the community of nations.

The Good Country will use its own resources to design, build and manage innovative new systems that will help make the world work better.

Its citizens will work on policy.

The Good Country does not exist because we want to build an ideal country but because we need a new country to build a better world.

The Good Country was started by Simon Anholt, who is an advisor to governments, and Madeline Hung.

The Good Country is funded by an annual tax of US $5.00.

To make a difference become a citizen here: goodcountry.org

Airbnb has joined the BDS movement, whose aim is to destroy Israel, by boycotting Jewish listings. Officially Airbnb refuses to list houses for rent in Jewish West Bank towns. It claims that, “We spent considerable time speaking to various experts, including those who have criticized our previous approach, about this matter. As a global platform operating in 191 countries and regions and more than 81,000 cities, we must consider the impact we have and act responsibly.”

Apart from the historical inaccuracy of “occupied territories” (disputed territories is more accurate), Airbnb is antisemitic because it has no problem with doing business with Arabs in the same disputed territories, as well as East Jerusalem, which was brutally cleansed of Jews and their houses given to Arabs, or doing business in occupied territories such as Turkish occupied Northern Cyprus, Moroccan occupied Western Sahara, Russian occupied Crimea, South Osetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, or Chinese occupied Tibet.

This makes Airbnb’s claim hollow and is by definition antisemitic.

This week saw the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, November 9-10th. Throughout Germany Jews and Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were attacked. 91 Jews were murdered and 30,000 were arrested and later deported to the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau. 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed. Police and firefighters joined in the destruction.

80 years later we witness once again the rise of antisemitism right across Western Europe and in the United States, on the streets, in the media and in universities. The rise is being led, by sheer weight of numbers and volume of hate, by the left, including the British Labour Party, and so-called human rights activists such as the BDS movement, the Women’s March, Antifa, UNRWA-run schools in the Middle East and many university run groups such as the SJP. Jews marking the anniversary in Hyde Park, London were attacked.

Newspapers mostly either are silent or feed this rise, or only talk about the racism of the right, which in numbers is small compared to left wing extremists. Politicians give lip service but do nothing about it. It is the 1930s all over again.

The worry is that students at the forefront of this hate will be our leaders in a few short years. “Never again” suddenly sounds like a cry falling on deaf ears unless good people truly stand up and push back.

Two ground-shaking events have happened this week. The first was the much publicised visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Oman, an Arab Gulf State, at the invitation of the country’s leader, Sultan Sayyid Qaboos bin Said Al Said. In another first, the Israeli national anthem, the Hatikvah, was played when Israeli athletes stood on the podium at the Judo Grand Competition in Abu Dhabi, Untied Arab Emirates. In the past, if Israeli athletes were begrudgingly allowed to play, and won, it was without their flag or national anthem. Often they were barred from playing sport, even in internationally run sporting events. These come on top of behind-the-scenes co-operation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

So is this a new beginning? Only time will tell. PD suspects though, that rather than a change of heart, the Arab countries are changing strategy because they fear Iran and its proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, as well as Islamic State, and they feel that Israel may be their only hope of survival. All this is normal in the ever-shifting alliances and feuds in the Middle East.

In a recent by-election in Australia the Prime Minister expressed that he was considering moving Australia’s embassy to West Jerusalem, which is undisputed territory, prompting a huge outcry from the usual quarters who predicted all kinds of violence and war should he do so, much like they said about the USA’s move.

Of course East Jerusalem was brought out again as a carnard. Never mind that East Jerusalem was the Jewish quarter for millennia until Jordanian Arab forces brutally occupied and ethnically cleansed it in 1948, turned its 58 ancient synagogues into rubble, desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery, and colonised it with its Arab population. Jordan annexed East Jerusalem (along with the West Bank, which was Israeli territory until then), an occupation recognised by only three countries – the UK, Iraq and Pakistan.

The appointed Jordanian Governor of East Jerusalem, Abdullah El-Tell, stated at the time, “For the first time in over a thousand years, not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews return here impossible.”

Israel retook its territory nineteen years later, in the Six Day War in 1967. Now the world cries out that Israel is the occupying force in East Jerusalem, in effect supporting ethnic cleansing of Jews and destruction of their heritage and culture again.