Google hides this kind of information. So, when I hear about it, I have to rely on other search engines to track down the details... "Two days after receiving a booster dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, one of 14 mice suffered spontaneous death. Upon examination, the 14-week-old mouse had abnormally large organs and cancerous lymphoma in the liver, kidneys, spleen, heart, and lungs. Although showing direct causality is complex, the authors said their findings add to 'previous clinical reports on malignant lymphoma development following novel mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.'" https://www.globalresearch.ca/mrna-...ng-turbo-cancers-young-people-experts/5827514
Women and Children First: Note the Lack of Gender Confusion as the Hostages Are Released to Israel In coming days, we'll be talking about the moral realities on the ground there and the larger issues we ought to be concerned about. But I want to go back to the situation of the hostages, the many hostages taken so violently by Hamas and taken into the Palestinian occupied territories there in Gaza. I want us to understand that there is something that is very much in the news and is very much in this discussion that frankly is not being discussed adequately. We are talking here about the hostages released at this point being women and children. Some of the women are rather aged. A lot of them are actually girls, but we're talking about boys and girls and women being released. Men, and that includes boys of a certain age not being released. You look at that and you say, "Well, I think we understand the moral calculation made there." Well, do we? Let's look at it honestly, because you'll notice that no one's complaining about this. You don't hear the feminist going on the street saying, "Oh, there needs to be absolute equality here. Men and women are absolutely equal." No, here, you have the Titanic principle made very, very clear priority given. It didn't start with the Titanic, but a lot of Americans came to know it by coming to know the story of the Titanic. women and children first, men second. If the space runs out, it runs out on the men, not on the women and children. Now, the feminist would have you to understand, and this is an argument that they've been making for over half century, that any discrimination between men and women is wrong. But you'll notice that the instinct right now on the part of just about everyone is to understand the release of women and children as a priority. I actually don't hear even people on the left complaining about the fact that a distinction is being made here between men and women, that a distinction is being made here between adults and children. You don't hear that because it would appear to be moral insanity. And indeed, it would not only appear to be moral insanity, it would be moral insanity. But if it's moral insanity in this case, then it's moral insanity wherever that argument is applied. Now, does this mean that the lives of those men and older boys are none of the same value as women and children? No, of course, it does not mean that. It does mean that men have a responsibility, a responsibility that was made clear on the Titanic. Frankly, a responsibility that was made clear for a few thousand years before the Titanic, a responsibility that's made clear right now in Gaza. Men have a responsibility to act on behalf of women and children, and moral priority when it comes to protection should be given to women and children. That's a hard thing to say. It's a hard reality to face, but frankly it is a rightful moral instinct. Right now, in the course of what's going on there in the war between Israel and Hamas, you'll notice that there are no major feminist groups that are putting out manifestos saying, "No, it should not be a matter of discrimination between men and women. We are absolutely the same." Let me tell you what else isn't showing up here, and that is the entire LGBTQ confusion. It's just not showing up here. It just doesn't fit here, and that's because, frankly, it doesn't fit in the picture altogether. As you're looking at this, there is no one really saying that Hamas cares one way or the other, or Israel is even defining one way or the other when it comes down to something like non-binary or transgender. No, there is a very clear, very straightforward, very understandable description of human beings as men and women and children, and those children being boys and girls. There's absolutely no confusion here. Now, one thing Christians need to note about this is simply something about human nature. The closer we get to matters of life and death, the less nonsense you're likely to hear. Something like this, the unadulterated evil of what Hamas undertook against Israel and the slaughter of so many people, and then the holding of these men, women, and children hostage, they are simply acting in horrifyingly immoral ways. But the immorality of it becomes even more clear with the women and children, and the moral nonsense that so many people are promoting in the very comfortable environment of so many Western societies. You have people who are ready to go march in an LGBTQ march. That would make no sense whatsoever in Gaza right now. That would make absolutely no sense whatsoever in Jerusalem right now, where, frankly, in normal times, there has been in recent years a rather significant LGBTQ movement. But as you look at it right now, that would make no sense. It makes no sense because the closer you get to moral urgency, the clearer the picture becomes. No sane person is going to question the reality of biological sex, meaning gender, when it comes to the situation going on in Gaza and in Israel right now. Reality clarifies enormously. Reality clarifies undeniably. And it's at least worth our notice that right now the word man, woman, boy, girl, it's being made without the slightest bit of irony, even among the people who seem to be rather ironic in discussing those same terms in another context. R. ALBERT MOHLER, JR.
A GOVERNMNET IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE DEGREE TO WHICH IT IS FREE OF CORRUPTION... The Question of Presidential Immunity is Complicated: The Difficulty Comes Down to Determining the Limits of Presidential Immunity and Constitutional Implications R. ALBERT MOHLER, JR. Increasingly, there is one name at the center of so much of the legal and constitutional conversation in the United States. Increasingly, that name is Donald J. Trump, the former president of the United States and current apparent front runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. We are looking potentially at a rematch of the election that took place in 2020 with Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. But now Joe Biden's the incumbent president of the United States, and former president Donald Trump is emerging as his central challenger, but also challenging our massive issues appearing before the courts. Just in recent days, several hearings have been heard in several different courtrooms, but most importantly in terms of our worldview consideration, we need to look at what took place this week at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Now, that court is second only to the Supreme Court of the United States in terms of its authority in this country and the magnitude of the issues with which it deals. It is often seen as a setup for the Supreme Court in two ways. Number one, in terms of justices who will eventually sit on the Supreme Court. Many of them have been seated previously at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. But you also have cases that are set up, cases that raise huge questions of constitutional magnitude and the establishment of legal precedent. That's why what took place at the DC Circuit this week turns out to be really, really important, because in the hearing that was held this week in Washington DC, the former president of the United States, through his attorneys, but with president in the courtroom, made the argument that he had total immunity for actions taken while he was president of the United States. By total immunity from criminal prosecution, the president's legal team clearly meant total immunity. Now, almost immediately you had people saying, "Well, that's absolutely ridiculous," but we also need to look more closely at the fact that it's not absolutely ridiculous. It's actually a very complicated question and one that bears a much closer examination. Is the president of the United States insofar as he acts as president, is he immune from criminal prosecution about presidential acts? Well, then what defines a presidential act? Could he commit some kind of criminal violation that could be judged to be not a part of his official responsibilities? Are there any limits whatsoever on this claim of presidential immunity? By the way, the only limit that the president's attorneys seem to recognize was their argument that there could be an application of this kind of criminal investigation proceeding and prosecution against a former president for acts that were undertaken as president during that tenure, that were later identified as the cause of impeachment by the House and conviction by the United States Senate, and thus removal from office. That we should note is exactly the opposite of the argument that was made by at least some of the president's attorneys during one of his impeachment proceedings. But it's not unusual that you have legal teams making contradictory arguments in very different contexts. What should we think about this? Should a president of the United States, the nation's chief executive commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, should a president be immune from criminal prosecution during that presidential term? I would suggest we not seek to answer that question too hastily, because it is complicated and we need to think about some of those complications. Life in a big government in a fallen world turns out to be very complicated even, and perhaps in this case, especially under a constitutional form of government, which means we actually are accountable to a constitutional system and to a constitutional text. What are we to think of this? A team of reporters for the New York Times reported the story on the front page this way, "A federal appeals court expressed deep skepticism on Tuesday about Former President Donald J. Trump's claim that he is immune from charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election, suggesting that it is unlikely to rule in his favor on a central element of his defense." The reporters went on to say, "As Mr. Trump looked on, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit peppered his lawyer, D. John Sauer, with tough questions about his assertion that his client could not be prosecuted for actions he took while in the White House." The paper went on to say, and I quote, "The judges seemed incredulous when Mr. Sauer said a president could use the military to assassinate a political rival and be shielded from prosecution unless the Senate first convicted him at an impeachment proceeding." Before analyzing this, let me read just one more sentence from this report, "At another point, Judge Karen L. Henderson, the panel's sole Republican appointee, seemed to reject a central part of Mr. Trump's argument that his efforts to overturn his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Cannot be subject to prosecution, because presidents have a constitutional duty to ensure that election laws are upheld." Well, there's a lot to consider there, but one of the first things we need to think about is the fact that we really haven't had to think about this issue as a country until now. There never has been this kind of criminal proceeding against a sitting or former president of the United States. There have been all kinds of issues related to whether or not presidents acted legally or illegally, constitutionally or unconstitutionally in previous contexts, but this is entirely new and it requires us to take a more thoughtful and considered look at the question. Now, we have a former president of the United States facing multiple criminal charges having to do with actions that were taken or undertaken while he was president of the United States. And he's saying, "Look, there can be, according to our constitutional system of government, no prosecution of a former president or, for that matter, of a sitting president for actions undertaken as president." Okay, massive questions here. Number one, is that true? Is it true that presidents are or should be immune from criminal prosecution for actions taken as president? Well, before you immediately say that presidents or former presidents should not have this kind of immunity from criminal prosecution, recognize that we must grant to presidents and former presidents a very wide category of actions that would be immune from criminal prosecution in the United States or elsewhere. This is not a hypothetical issue. You are looking at presidents who have to make all kinds of decisions, and frankly many of them are unknown to us or they become known only long after a president has been in office. I'm going to make a categorical statement here that may shock you. I believe that most presidents of the United States, if not all of them, have acted at some point illegally and unconstitutionally. Now, before you have a heart attack, let me just explain that, even in the founding design of our country, there is the understanding that the chief executive, as commander in chief, just to take one of the responsibilities constitutionally invested in the president. In the prosecution of war or military action and in the modern world that just gets almost infinitely more complicated with espionage and fights against organized crime and just all kinds of things that frankly we count on a president, we count on our national federal government to handle these things. But we also understand that many of these things have to be handled out of sight and out of the public mind. Furthermore, some of them are extra legal or extra constitutional. They're actions that have to be taken and, quite frankly, it is not clear that there's always a sound legal basis. For that matter, when it comes to the United States military, or for that matter, the prosecution of any kind of military effort, it has been understood--nd this is baked into the cake so to speak, even of just war theory in the Christian theological tradition--there is the understanding that there are many gray areas in terms of the extremity of moral questions such as war in which basic principles take place. But quite frankly, one of the big problems in the aftermath of war is that you have the risk of simple victor's justice. That is to say whoever wins the battle or wins the war executes justice according to that nation's priorities. That's just very dangerous. We have to understand it's also a very real threat. The United States government undertakes some actions that simply don't fit the category of national law or might not, in an even broader context, meet muster when it comes to international law. That's one of the reasons why, just to put in a footnote here, that the United States is not a signatory to many international agreements when it comes to matters of criminal law and, for that matter, human rights courts, simply because there is a pretty good assurance that the United States could be criminally prosecuted for acts that are righteously undertaken by this government in protection of the citizens of the United States of America. But at the same time, we recognize there have to be limitations upon what a president can and can't do. Even before we get to the second question, the first question is: should presidents be immune from criminal prosecution for presidential acts? Our system of government basically says that, yes, that is the presumption that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for actions undertaken as president. But even as that has been a pretty consistent legal understanding, it's also clear there are limitations, there are boundaries to that principle. And frankly, we can think of the most glaring of these by looking at the potential prosecution of President Richard M. Nixon for crimes undertaken by himself and by his administration in the Watergate scandal. There's another context of this, and that is that after the resignation of President Nixon, President Gerald Ford very controversially issued a pardon to the former president for any criminal prosecution. Now, when you accept a pardon, the legal context is you are acknowledging that you have broken the law. In giving the pardon, President Ford implied that Former President Nixon had violated the law. And in accepting the pardon, there is also a very clear sense in which the former president accepted that there had been criminal liability that could have led to criminal prosecution. Does that set a precedent? Well, it's not clear one way or the other at this time. It's also clear that if you look back to presidents, let's just say the two presidents immediately before Richard Nixon, and that would be Lyndon Baines Johnson and John F. Kennedy, both of them committed actions that certainly could have led to criminal prosecution. Now, should they have led to such prosecution? That's a different question. But it is clear that when you're looking at presidents of the United States, you were looking at a very powerful constitutional office, I believe, in our system, a very necessary constitutional office. But if that president is going to be vulnerable to criminal prosecution for acts undertaken as president, well, no president is going to be able to undertake acts. But there's another problem. As I said, there has to be a limitation on that. And in this particular hearing, you had the attorneys for the former president of the United States asked the question, "What would happen if the president of the United States used a military team, in this case a Navy SEAL team, to assassinate a political opponent? Could that president or former president be criminally prosecuted?" You'll note that the president's attorneys offered a very inadequate answer, just bluntly inadequate. They said that there could be a criminal prosecution only if that president or later former president were removed from office by impeachment, by the House, and conviction by the United States Senate. At least one of the judges on the panel just pointed out that that's a frankly ridiculous position, because that would mean that any president having committed such an act could simply resign from office and never be prosecuted even for using the United States military to assassinate a political opponent. Just to state the matter clearly, that is not going to stand, and that's why most observers looking at Tuesday's hearing at the DC Circuit felt that the former president's legal team had made arguments that no one is going to be able to accept in terms of the federal judiciary. It's going to be very interesting to see what takes place, but there is a huge second question. The first question is, should a president be immune from criminal prosecution? The answer to that has to be yes and no. And I think it's going to be very difficult for a court to say exactly how yes and exactly how no, but we're an uncharted terrain, and that's exactly what the DC Circuit team is going to have to do eventually with the authority of the DC Circuit, almost assuredly appealed to the United States Supreme Court. So, here we go again, we are in uncharted territory and time is not on our side. PART II The Great Strength of Constitutional Government: How Our Arduous Processes Enable Justice and Prevent Totalitarianism R. ALBERT MOHLER, JR. But there's a second question: Well, if there could be some actions taken by a president that would be immune from criminal prosecution, that would imply there could be other acts by a sitting president that would not be invulnerable to criminal prosecution. How do you make that distinction? What actions should be considered beyond prosecutorial reach and what actions would not be considered? Well, that is a tangled web of questions, and at least implied in the hearing before the DC circuit on Tuesday was the fact that that distinction has to be between acts that are undertaken as president of the United States, as would be contrasted with a president acting in a private capacity for his private personal interest or acting as a candidate for the presidency rather than an incumbent president. And if that sounds complicated, it's because it is complicated. But this also reminds us of the fact that the only thing worse than having this form of government as having any other, which is to say we have a constitutional form of government and it only works if there is adherence to the Constitution, respect for the Constitution, and that means respect for the process of answering very hard questions as are presented to us. Now, in the white hot heat of the 2024 presidential election, the issues are very significant and the timing is very crucial. It's going to be fascinating to see how this court acts and then what happens thereafter. But let's just say that there are two arguments that are immediately revealed to be inadequate. Number one, that a president can do anything without fear of criminal prosecution insofar as the acts were undertaken when the president was president. That's untenable. But equally untenable is the argument that everything a president does can be somehow subject to subsequent criminal prosecution. If that is the understanding, then no president can do anything, and you simply set up a political context in which you have two different parties, two different administrations. One can bring any number of charges or potential criminal investigations against a previous or sitting president. It would destroy our system of government. Huge questions at stake here. Christians understand that, in a fallen world, we should not be surprised that these questions are very vexing. We who are committed to a constitutional system of government have to recognize that respect for the Constitution also leads us to understand that there are questions that were not directly answered in the constitutional text. It's the responsibility of those who are now the legislators to establish laws consonant with the Constitution of the United States and in fulfillment of that constitutional authority. It is the responsibility of the executive branch to execute those constitutionally-defined laws and policies. It is the responsibility of the courts to adjudicate when there are vital questions of interest having to do with the legality or constitutionality of one act, one action, one policy, or another. And thus, what we have is an ongoing conversation in a constitutional system of government with hard questions addressed ultimately, in terms of the Constitution addressed by the Supreme Court of the United States and through our judicial system. Some people will say, "Well, that's quite frustrating. It's quite time consuming. We want an answer to these questions now." Well, here's how you get an answer to these questions right now. You have a totalitarian form of government and you do not have a constitutional form of government. Having a constitution means sometimes, when difficult questions are faced, it takes some time to work them out.
The Facts About Palestinians and Israel Israel’s Existence Is at Stake, and They Know It: The Truth About the “Two State Solution” to the Palestinian Issue Next to this point, it's really important that we go back and look at the situation with Israel pressing its military action against the terrorist group, Hamas, and of course much of that is taking place in the Gaza Strip. And as was predicted, the political stakes are just getting higher and higher, and the government of Israel is under incredible pressure from forces including the President of the United States, the European Union, and what can simply be described as global opinion even as its pressing its case. Now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been abundantly clear that Israel will not stop until, in his words, "Hamas is defeated." Now the definition of what exactly that means is not yet abundantly clear, even from sources inside the Israeli government. But just in recent days, Israel has invited the international press to look at the infrastructure of Islamist warfare that Hamas had built there under the surface in Gaza. It is now estimated that something like 100 miles of tunnels are under the surface there in Gaza. Some of them, by the way, are connected to Egypt. They have been used for smuggling and for other purposes but it is also clear that the infrastructure of those tunnels is intended as a deadly threat to Israel, and thus Israel is pressing towards the destruction of those tunnels even as it acknowledges that that represents a form of hand-to-hand warfare that's extremely dangerous. They also acknowledge that Hamas is hidden or is keeping many of the hostages taken in the October 7 attack, they're in those tunnels, and furthermore, it is a matter of almost daunting challenge that Israel could eradicate, even discover all those tunnels. You're talking about miles and miles, just imagine more than a hundred miles of tunnels. The international press reported on the sophistication of the tunnel effort, Hamas has been putting an awful lot of money and effort into this, an awful lot of planning. There were even facilities of course, in terms of plumbing, bathrooms, kitchen facilities, storage, places to keep arms, and as the evidence tragically is made clear, places to plan a military attack upon Israel and places to keep the hostages who were taken on October 7th. Now, I want us to look at one particular argument that has been coming particularly from Western sources, but also coming from Arab sources as well. The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran a headline, "Arab Peace Proposal Takes Shape but Israel Balks." The very same day, the New York Times had a headline, "EU," that's the European Union in Israel, "Can't Close Rift on Gaza's Fate." So what's going on here? Similar headlines by the way, would say that there is now a split between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government over the question of a ceasefire. But there's another issue that comes up and it's this issue that I want to address head on, and that is the call that is central to the European Union plan is right now central to the Biden and Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State, plan and is very much a part of the Arab plan, and that is the demand that on the other side of this conflict there be a Palestinian state. That means a Palestinian nation with a Palestinian government, and that is central to the demands made by the Palestinians in recent years. But here's where the situation becomes extremely urgent, and we need to think very, very carefully. So much of what is discussed on this topic is discussed without historical content and without an understanding of moral consequence. So let's just put the matter bluntly. Should there be a two-state solution, the state of Israel, a Jewish state, there in the region, and should there also be a state for the Palestinians, a Palestinian state with its own government, its own government authority, and all the rest? Should they be coexistent there and side-by-side you might say existing, with the Palestinians having their state and the Jewish majority in Israel having its state? Is that what we should be hoping for and working for? In short, this is what is often defined as the two-state solution. And all three of those words are important, just take them in sequence. Number one, two, the number two. two-states, two nations, Israel and a Palestinian state. And then of course state, meaning an actual nation state, a political entity, a Jewish state, and a Palestinian state. And then of course, that last word is solution, as if we come up with a two-state solution, this will actually bring peace in the Middle East and end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now, as I've said, there have been historic calls for a two-state solution going back to 1947, 1948, going back to the foundation of Israel, going back through successive American presidential administrations, and right now, very much in terms of public debate. And here's the thing, it's very easy to say, "You know that makes a lot of sense, there should be a two-state solution." It's very easy to say, "You know we have to work towards a two-state solution." But the reality is the situation's a lot more complex and anyone close to it fully recognizes that. So let's just talk about a bit of history, that's why it's often lacking in this. And the history takes us back to 1948, even before that to 1947. Let's just put those two years together, 1947 and 1948, the international plan undertaken by the United Nations for the formation of the state of Israel was a two-state plan. There was to be a state of Israel and there was to be a Palestinian state. Here's what's vitally important for us to recognize. At the time, say 1947 and early in 1948, there was not yet a Jewish state, but it's vitally important to say there was also not yet a Palestinian state. Now, if you're going to use the word nation, then you have all kinds of arguments as to what constitutes a nation. An ethnicity, is it a government? Is it a nation state? The reality is that when people use this particular word in the modern context, they mean a state, a nation state. And what's important to recognize is that until 1948, when Israel declared itself a nation and declared its independence, there was not a Jewish state, but there also was not a Palestinian state. Actually, there has never been a Palestinian state, and there are all kinds of reasons for that, and they're deeply rooted in history. For one thing, it was not seen as a priority of other Arab nations including the monarchies in the area, but later, not only the monarchies, but other Arab states, they really didn't want to see a Palestinian state. Furthermore, at no point did the Palestinians organize themselves into a recognizable state, and that's true going back through the entirety of Palestinian history. But even with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the end of World War I, even as nation states emerged elsewhere in the region, no such nation state emerged in what the Palestinians refer to as Palestine. So looking at this, we also recognize that when Israel was declared and remember, that was a United Nations action, it was also the action taken by the founders of Israel in 1948 in declaring the nation's existence, as Israel was declared to be a state and even as the United Nations had planned and proposed a two-state solution, the Palestinians were not satisfied with the two-state solution. Indeed, the Arabs responded in 1948 with the effort to annihilate Israel, to eradicate the Jewish state, to make Israel an impossibility. And so the original denial of the two-state solution came in 1948 when the Arabs organized warfare against Israel and tried to stem the existence of the nation even as it was in its earliest days. Now, we could track this through successive developments and successive wars, and most importantly, we could get through the 1967 war, we could even get through the 1973 war, and then we would be in the territory in which there is an organized effort to try to reclaim the entire region, we need to say. Not only the areas that we might refer to as the Palestinian Territories, but Israel itself to recapture that for the Palestinians, and that means of course, the eradication of Israel. An organization that was established for that very purpose was the Palestinian Liberation Organization, famously headed by Yasser Arafat. And over the course of decades, of course there were terrorist incursions, there were all kinds of tensions, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians not only did not go away, it was tremendously intensified and it broke out into periodic open warfare and what was basically a low level of warfare during the entire period. And during most of that period, the PLO and the recognized negotiating entity for the Palestinians, it was basically open and declaring that Israel must be defeated, Israel must not exist, and that the Palestinians must be given sovereignty over the entire region. Yasser Arafat and the PLO simply said that they would establish a secular Arab state and the Jewish people would be allowed to live there, but not if they were committed to Zionism and to the existence of a Jewish state. It would be an Arab dominated state. Israel would cease to exist, and of course, even at the time there were those who were arguing that the Jews themselves must be expelled from the holy land, and if forced and by terrorist attack if necessary. Calls for a two-state solution were basically rejected by most of the Palestinians and by their representatives. All that began to change or appeared to be about change in the period during the 1970s and the 1980s, even into the 1990s and the early years of the 21st century when you had negotiations and you had agreements, most famously the Wye River Agreement, and behind that, the Oslo agreement, in which what were first secret negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinians led to a proposal for a two-state solution. And it appeared that that two-state solution was going to move forward, but it is undeniable, and history will record that it was the Palestinians that withdrew. It was Yasser Arafat that withdrew from what had been a plan, and basically he had been given most of what he demanded. And of course at about the same time you had the rise of groups and most importantly Hamas and most importantly in Gaza, in the entire Gaza region, that made the point emphatically that there was not going to be an acceptance of a two-state solution from the Palestinian side, there was a demand that Israel cease to exist. On the Palestinian side, even as there are some who might move towards a negotiation for a two-state solution, most of them, if honest, would say it is a temporary arrangement. They are still committed to regain all of the territory currently held by Israel, and that means Israel's non-existence. So from the river to the sea takes on a very clear content when you understand that purpose. Now, there are a couple of footnotes to this. It is likely that Yasser Arafat and others have pulled out of these two party agreements because it would be very difficult for them to survive signing that kind of declaration and moving through with it. The Palestinian cause, as represented by Hamas and the Islamist movement, it very clearly is committed not only to the eradication of Israel, but frankly to the elimination of anyone who really calls for making peace with Israel. If you don't understand that, you do not understand Hamas and its influence there in Gaza, and increasingly on the West Bank as well. Now, over the course of the last couple of days, emphatically Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has said that Israel is not going to move towards a two-state solution now and potentially never. I'm paraphrasing him here, but this is also something that's interesting. It appears right now that on the ground in Israel and in Israel's government, that includes multi-parties, there is basically no constituency for moving to a two-state solution. There is the honest acknowledgement that what's going on right now, what began on October 7th, what's been discovered since, and all the patterns of those who were opposing Israel from the North with Hezbollah, and also with Hamas, and with the corruption of the Palestinian authority, the reality is there is no viable way to a two-state solution. Now, there are a couple of other issues we need to think about. Israel has known from the very beginning, and this was a concern in 1948, Israel has known that if there is a Palestinian state, it could very easily combine in alliance with other Arab states right there alongside Israel and destroy it. Furthermore, there's the understanding that Israel is simply not going to agree to anything in terms of any two-state solution that doesn't leave Israel, in at least military terms, in control of the entire region. And again, just to make the note, the Palestinians will never be satisfied with that, and you have to understand that they're not satisfied with that precisely because they do not want to live alongside a strong Israel. They want the entire area and they make that statement themselves. They've made it emphatically. Hamas has made it a doctrine, and remember, Hamas was elected by Palestinians there in Gaza. It has remained in office far after that term but the point is Hamas basically at this point represents politically the aspirations of so many Palestinians, most importantly younger Palestinians, and at this point it is not at all clear that there could be any real negotiating partner even for Israel to begin a conversation. It's just right now something that is more a matter of foreign policy fantasy than it is of any kind of likely outcome or reality. In this case, right now, the two-state solution fails in every word, two, and state, and solution. Even if there were to be a negotiation that produced an agreement for two states, it is virtually impossible to understand how that Palestinian state could survive Palestinian opposition. There are other footnotes to this including the fact that it is not at all clear that in reality the other Arab nations in the region are pressing for a Palestinian state but the point is this, the greatest opposition to a two-state solution is coming from the Palestinian side, where it's a doctrinal commitment in so many ways that Israel cease to exist. A two-state solution is only viable if there is the Palestinian acknowledgement of the permanence of the state of Israel. And just to state the matter honestly, and every once in a while it would be good to hear at least a little bit of this honesty from our political leaders, that isn't going to happen. Israel knows it. Typical, the kind of language you see these days is a statement over the weekend by United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Gutierrez, who said, "The right of the Palestinian people to build their own state must be recognized by all." He also said, "The refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people are unacceptable." Well, let's ask ourselves seriously. What does that tell us? It tells us that the Secretary General of the United Nations said that something short of a two-state solution is simply unacceptable to him. My point is this, folks on the ground in Israel, those responsible for Israel's security really don't care what the Secretary General of the United Nations finds acceptable or unacceptable. It's just extremely frustrating that so many people, as illustrated by the Secretary General himself, just aren't speaking honestly about this situation. You have to know that they know but they're not willing to say what they know. Instead, what you see here is political posturing, and Israel understands that that political posturing could, if it gains traction, lead to their nation's non-existence. Of all the issues of controversy and of headline significance on the world stage, this one, it seems, tends to bring out the greatest degree of dishonesty. R. ALBERT MOHLER, JR.
Being able to go wherever you want to go in this world is not a basic human right! PART I We are in a Massive Migration Crisis: America’s Borders and the Importance of Responsible Citizenship The issue of border policy, immigration, naturalization, migration, all of this, is now swirling around us, and there is no doubt that this is an inevitable issue that must be faced by this nation. And even as Congress has dithered and been basically deadlocked on any action for a matter of decades; the reality, is that as a nation, we are losing control of our borders and globally we face a massive migration crisis. All of this demands some Christian thinking. But, in order to understand the scale of what we're looking at, we just need to understand that right now something like 10,000 people a day, some days more, are coming across the American border. And this is particularly the southern border, although these days, the crisis on the northern border is becoming apparent as well. And these are people coming into the United States without permission, and thus they are not wrongly described as illegal entrants into the United States. That's not the wrong category. Every nation as a nation, just by the definition of being a nation, has borders and has a right to police those borders. Indeed, it can be argued that the nation has the responsibility to do that. Even as you look at the most basic issue of citizenship, and this goes back to Israel, it goes back to Rome, Paul acknowledges this when he cites his Roman citizenship, there is a categorical distinction between having citizenship in a nation and not having that citizenship. Now, you can look at this very simplistically and simply say, "Borders are arbitrary and there is no reason gospel-minded people should be concerned about borders." But that is actually not an argument that is tenable, certainly not for long. And it points to the fact that particularly on the left, there are many arguments that are supposedly about concern for human flourishing and human wellbeing, but it turns out that such policy arguments would actually lead to disaster. And that's often the case when you have people arguing against sensible, responsible border policies, and immigration policies, migration policies. As you look at the problem of migration globally, we need to talk particularly about the current crisis. There is a history here, but let's just address first the current crisis. Worldwide, there are millions of people seeking to move from one place to another. Now why would that be so? Well, in the vast majority of cases, the motivation is economic. Now we just need to be very quick to say, that's not an irrelevant concern morally speaking. We understand that someone is looking at an economic situation, they want to better that situation. And as you're looking at many nations in the world, people come to the conclusion they cannot really better their situation in any satisfactory way where they are, so they seek to go somewhere else where they will have better economic opportunity. Now, in one sense, we just need to acknowledge that's a very long historic part of the American story. But, we also understand there are limitations to that logic. And one of the limitations we need to keep in mind is that if you create a situation in which people are simply told, "Borders are no longer important." Or, "You can just ignore immigration regulations, naturalization policies, immigration policies. You can just go from one place to another and demand entrance." You're actually setting up a situation in which there will be massive human misery because governments cannot handle that kind of migration flow. You see that right now all throughout Europe. You see that also in North America. You see it particularly in some places such as the Mediterranean Basin. There, the primary issue is many people coming from both Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa seeking to get into Europe. And there are all kinds of economic reasons why that would be so. For one thing, Europe is not only a much richer region, but Europe also has, in many cases, a very, very expensive welfare state. And then looking at the United States, you have a similar problem where Central and South American refugees coming through Mexico present the United States with a very clear challenge. We will either have a border and we will police it, we will make it meaningful, or we will not. And we just need to understand that long-term, if we do not, the very notion of citizenship becomes a very, very discounted notion. And many of the people who think they are very broad-minded on this issue, and want to be absolutely pro-migration, they don't recognize the fact that the recipe that they're calling for is not going to lead to human happiness, but to human disaster. And furthermore, we come to understand that lessons learned on the issue of immigration through years, and you could put migration and immigration together, they have taught us some pretty hard lessons about humanity. Now, one of the things that the United States as a nation prides itself on is what we often say about ourselves that we are a nation of immigrants. And in one sense that is of course true. But it's not an even story in the sense that everyone came in the same way, there have been no rules, and it's not also true that the United States has never had policies that it later had to correct, that Americans came to believe were wrong policies at the time. That includes some ethnically based policies, clearly put in place in order to limit immigration from some populations during the 19th and 20th centuries. You had waves of immigration, you had Italian immigration, Eastern European immigration, you had of course immigration coming from places like Poland and immigration from places like Italy. And thus you ended up with ethnic communities in major cities. You had Polish neighborhoods in Chicago, Italian and Irish neighborhoods in places like New York City and the region. And this is to be expected in the American story. But at the same time, there have also been controversies over immigration in the United States having to do with immigrants coming from Asia and other sources in the East. These have been controversial in the 19th century into the 20th century. And yes, every nation, if honest, has, looking at its past, some immigration policies that are both embarrassing and we believe are morally wrong. But that does not mean that a nation can simply then say, "Okay, we will have no policies. We will set no priorities. We will have no naturalization process or we will make it irrelevant." Even as you look at this, you recognize that citizenship is a very important category. And for one thing, accepting into the nation by legal means or by default, millions of persons who are not actually expected to gain citizenship, that sets up a very dangerous two-tier system, which, if institutionalized, would simply make American society a two-tier society. That is something that long-term is not plausible. That is not compatible with the American system of government. But that means, that we also assume the responsibility to have a managed immigration policy with very real policies that are actually enforced and with a border that is legally and in actuality meaningful. And right now, that is not the case. And even as you look at, say, two administrations in a row, first of all, the administration of Donald Trump. He was quite successful in limiting illegal immigration coming in across the American border, particularly the southern border. Joe Biden, when he came into office, well, President Biden reversed many of those policies and you can draw a pretty direct line to the chaos right now. And you also have the fact that governors of states and mayors of cities are crying out for help. For example, just in recent days, the New York Times, that's a good barometer for us to think about. Here's a headline, "Democratic Governors Push Biden on Migrants." And these are Democratic governors of major Democratic states. Why are they crying out to the president for help? It is because they have people who are immigrants, or migrants, coming into their states and cities and stressing every single human services program and for that matter, presenting a challenge that these municipalities and states are simply saying they can't handle. And not only can they not handle it in the future when the numbers are even larger, they can't handle it now. There is a political reality very much at play. In red and blue America, you now have very different understandings of what should be America's immigration policy or migration policy. And on the blue side of the equation, in the Democratic Party, as is the case on so many issues, the far left has been in ascendancy and frankly, it's big enough in the Democratic Party to have something of a veto power over any kind of moderate proposal that might be, for example, bipartisan. But even as headlines have indicated in just the last few days, the same thing is true in blue states, where you have a mirror image. There you have, a call for a very restrictive border policy, and there are some people on the right, who are also going to be unwilling to join in any kind of, say, bipartisan consensus legislation. Just in the last few days, former President Trump, who of course right now is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he's jumped in, and he's warning senators and representatives on the Republican side that they had better not settle for this consensus policy that is being proposed by–particularly–some in the Senate, and that is not going to go without a pretty big political effect. Now, is that presidential election politics on the part of President Trump? Well, yes, it almost assuredly is. The same thing is true right now for anything you would say about President Biden. He is running for reelection, so guess what? Everything he does right now is political. And in reality, that's true every second a president's in the White House or a candidate is running for the office. But you have two different sets of values that are colliding on the issue of immigration. You have some people saying, "Look, it's just a human right that you should be able to basically go wherever you want to go and be welcomed wherever you want to land and be incorporated into the society and benefit by whatever social assistance and human assistance programs are available." But as you look at that, here are a couple of warning signs that would come from someone who would be in a far more conservative position. And one of the warning signs is this, if you create an economic situation, in which people believe that on a wide scale they can simply improve their lives–in terms of their economic wealth or their capacity for economic development–by moving from where they are to somewhere else, that creates an enormous moral context for which nations are responsible. The United States is not only responsible, I would argue, for having control, genuine control over borders. I think it's also morally responsible for the incentives that we either set out or allow to be presented for reasons to put their lives and families at risk in order to come to the United States; under some kind of promise that if they get in, even illegally, they will basically find their way in line in terms of the American dream. And around the world, we need to recognize that the global situation shows both equities and inequities. You are looking at very poor nations and very wealthy nations. The United States is of course among the wealthiest of nations. We should be thankful for that, but we need to recognize that that also requires the United States to be a nation and to act like a nation, and that implies, even necessitates, attention to the border. There are many other moral issues. For one thing, if you create an industry of human migration, you are basically creating an industry of human trafficking, and that's exactly what's taking place. When you look, especially right now, in the Mediterranean Basin, you see so many horror stories of people who one way or another have paid someone, basically pirates in many cases, to take them across the Mediterranean. The boat is unseaworthy, it sinks, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of lives are lost. You have the similar thing taking place throughout much of Central America with people coming from South America, having to go through jungles, very dangerous territory, susceptible to all kinds of gang activity, organized crime, and yet they're doing so because they believe that it's in their interest and in their family's interests to do so. Now, as we think in Christian worldview terms, and the moral questions that are involved, we need to understand that these have been a part of the American conversation, and before that they have been a part of other national conversations. But we really are talking about an explosion of these issues in the modern age, and these moral issues really do demand our attention and they are not simplistic in the sense that we can simply say, "Yes, we know exactly what perfect policy would lead to the maximum in terms of our national interests, which means the welfare of our people." That's not like the nation is selfish. The national welfare here should be redefined, understood in terms of the welfare of its people. PART II Legal Immigration vs. Illegal Immigration: The Complicated History of the Matter in the U.S. The history of this issue in the United States takes us back–of course–to the constitutional period when the Constitution was being written, negotiated, ratified. It was very clear that immigration, in the sense of defining citizenship in particular, was a power to be held exclusively by the federal government. So that is not something given to states. At the same time, there is no particularly comprehensive policy on immigration that was even implied in the U.S. Constitution. Basically, it's a federal power. But as you're looking at this, you need to recognize that in 1795, the United States passed pretty comprehensive legislation defining citizenship. And yet in the next century, that will be the 1800s, the 19th century, all kinds of chaos, different developments in the United States on the issue of immigration. But I need to fast-forward just for the sake of time, basically to the 20th century. Major immigration legislation passed in 1924. And as you're looking at that, it was quite restrictive, but at the same time it also, was rather targeted. And there was certainly a preference for European migration to the United States and immigration at that time. One of the key things we needed to keep in mind as a date is 1947. In 1947, a program known as the Bracero Program, it had to do with allowing persons from the south, in particular from Mexico, into the United States on something like work permits. When that expired and was not renewed by Congress in 1947, that's when there was the original surge in what we would rightly call illegal immigration, or undocumented entry into the United States. So there was an immediate surge after that fact in 1947, and then as we move forward in successive decades, it's clear the problem has just grown. And the problem comes with surges, and then less of a surge. But over the course of the last several years, the surge has been massive and growing. Now, another thing you need to understand is that when you're looking at many of the proposals, such as are being debated right now, they're not comprehensive immigration reform. That has been the label put on what people in both parties will sometimes say is their goal, comprehensive immigration reform. What we really need to acknowledge is that when you are looking at divided America, red and blue America, you're looking at two diametrically opposed understandings of what that comprehensive immigration reform should be. When it comes to many on the left, it means just about no rules for immigration. It means an amnesty for all those who come in illegally. It means documentation given to undocumented workers, allowing them to stay in the country. It means basically allowing unchecked immigration with very little, if any, border control for people coming into the United States. Now, more on that in just a moment. But on the conservative side, the big issue here has been putting significant restraint on the entire immigration system, and here's where a moral category distinction is absolutely essential, and that's the distinction between legal immigration and illegal immigration. When you look at conservatives in the United States, there is a distinction even on the issue of legal immigration, about what that policy should be. Here's where it's interesting to note that many in business and in agribusiness, farming, going back even to the 20th century, it was clear that American industry, big business, recognizes that the birth rate in the United States is not capable of supplying all the workers that are needed in the future. And so there is an economic incentive and frankly a matter of intellectual honesty, to understand that some level of immigration is going to be necessary for a growing and sustainable economy in the United States. Now, that raises huge moral and worldview issues such as the fact that Americans just aren't having enough babies. That is a moral issue, but that's not the moral issue of our consideration right now. The other big issue is that you have agribusiness that needs a lot of workers on a temporary basis. And thus, especially in places like California, in the American Southwest, in places like Florida, there is the need, seasonally, for an awful lot of people to work in agribusiness but not to stay here. And many of them sent remits, that is to say money, back to their families in the nation of origin, and many of them come for a period of time and then go back. Of course, that's difficult to manage, it's very difficult to document. But nonetheless, that's a reality and it's a reality that the United States has that need and that need is frankly undeniable. At the same time, the reality is that on the right, on the conservative argument, what you have in the mainstream conservative movement is a call for an immigration and migration policy, a naturalization policy, that fits the needs and the mission and the ethos of the United States of America. And here's where, if we're honest, some big cultural issues emerge because between the right and the left, there is also a distinction on whether or not there should be a welcome to a fundamental shift in American culture. It's just a matter of intellectual and moral honesty to admit that when you are looking at millions of persons coming into the United States, you are changing America's culture. And there are many on the left who absolutely want that. They actually see that, whether they admit it or not, as very much a part of the goal of a very liberal immigration policy. There are those on the right who want to oppose that, and they are making the argument that this is an intentional effort to try to displace Americans, who have been here by tradition for a matter of decades and more in terms of influence. But a bit of honesty is necessary to say that as we're looking at this, there is an economic reality that we need workers, but there is an even greater urgency to the fact that we desperately must gain control of our borders and we must put in place an immigration policy that is reasonable and rational and right for American purposes. And there should be no embarrassment and no hesitation in saying that. A nation that does not have the concern for immigration policies that are in its own national interest is a nation that will not long survive. And frankly, if you understand a nation as a political experiment, a political project in building a community for flourishing within it, it can't simply ignore this issue as if it's irrelevant. You look right now at the fact that undocumented entry, illegal entry into the United States is at such massive numbers. Again, as many as 10,000 and more a day. It's a sign of the times that when you were looking at this, supposedly bipartisan agreement, one of the things you note is that, at least on the Democratic side, there's some conversation we need to cut that back to a reasonable number. Like what? And then they'll say something like 5,000. That appeared in some statements yesterday in the major media. But cutting from 10,000 to 5,000 a day, you could say, "Well, that's a 50% cut." Well, even if that were to be accomplished, you're still looking at multiple thousands every single day, and week beyond that which the United States can handle. PART III A Nation That Does Not Have a Coherent Border (And Border Policy) is Headed for Disaster As Christians look at this, we need to recognize we do have a responsibility to everyone in the world in some sense. But we also need to understand a Christian principle, and that's a principle of proximity. We bear primary moral responsibility for the people who are right before us. In other words, we are concerned for every orphan everywhere in the world, but the orphan in our midst is the one that we must give moral priority. And we also have needs that, again, the principle of proximity just makes very, very clear. You have in the Old Testament language like the alien, the widow, and the orphan, in your midst. That's a categorical distinction between all those found anywhere in the world. And it also means that as we're looking at this, every nation, if honest, has to prioritize how it is going to help both its own citizens and those who aspire to be citizens. It has to make rational choices. And this is where I think the political left in the United States has simply abandoned all reason and quite frankly, abandoned most honesty in talking about this issue. Now, there are many on the right who confuse it, and there are all kinds of issues of prejudice and discrimination that can arise, but the reality is that a nation that does not control its borders, and that does not have a rational, and righteous immigration policy that fits its national needs as well as being responsive to the human needs proximately presented to it, it's setting up a disaster not only for itself but a disaster elsewhere. Again, if we incentivize people just to leave where they are in order to come to the United States, regardless of immigration laws, because we don't control our border, we are setting up, not only a national problem, but international chaos. And for that, we also will bear moral responsibility. I have to be honest and say I believe that calls for gaining control of the border, even if that means, at least for a time, shutting down the border. That is a very strong argument for the United States to establish at least some knowledge of where we are, some control over the border, some meaningful national policy, and we have a political division in the United States over this issue, that at least for decades has made it impossible to pass anything that can be honestly described as comprehensive immigration reform. That is increasingly impossible with two things, operational. One is, you have completely different understandings of what that reform should look like, but you also have a national campaign including a campaign for the presidency that is a distortion field on this. For one thing, President Biden has reversed the policies, at least some of the policies put in place by President Trump, but now he's under pressure from the reality: he wants to be reelected. And Americans are coming to the realization that there's a huge border problem. He's under political pressure. Now he's under political pressure from some Democratic governors and mayors. But what we've seen in recent years under the Biden administration is that the left, the far left in many ways, of the Democratic Party ends up being in control, if not able to set the policy, at least able to play the role of a spoiler, which is exactly what it looks like on the left right now. On the conservative side, well, there is no conservative president in the White House, and thus there will be a lot of political activity among Republicans and others believing that this issue is of such priority that it must play a major part in the 2024 presidential campaign. And I don't think it takes a prophet to predict that's exactly what is going to happen. I must be candid and say that I believe the conservative side of this argument is the much stronger argument, but the very fact that we're talking about an argument actually is a bit misleading because what we need right now is a national argument. And if nothing else, we can only hope that in the 2024 election cycle, this nation has an actual, honest argument, over immigration policy and then does something about it. R. ALBERT MOHLER, JR.