Tea at Trianon: Nikki Haley Walks Out

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, May 21, 2018

Nikki Haley Walks Out

From Townhall:

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley made quite the statement on the Middle East at Tuesday's Security Council meeting - and it had nothing to do with her speech. After the ambassador had finished condemning Hamas for the violence on the Gaza-Israel border this week and Palestinian Ambassador Riyad H. Mansour instead began condemning Israeli forces, she got up and left.

Half of Twitter loved her symbolic exit. The other half decried it as shameful and undiplomatic. Violence erupted in Gaza this week as the new U.S. embassy in Israel opened in Jerusalem. Several top U.S. officials were there for the ceremony, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. President Trump recorded a video address for the occasion, reiterating the U.S.'s hope for peace in the region. In his own remarks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump for his courage and his friendship. (Read more.)

Also from Townhall:

When Israel protects itself against hostile aggressors on its borders, members of the "international community" and much of the media rush to condemn "both sides," reserving special scorn for the Israeli government's "disproportionality" and lack of "restraint." In truth, the actual disproportionality lies in the amoral double standard of relentlessly singling out the world's lone Jewish state for defending its citizens and sovereignty against the Islamist terrorist threat on its doorstep. In the latest bout of this moral blindness, Israel's critics are currently wringing their hands about the senseless violence and death visited upon "peaceful protesters" along the Gaza border by the IDF. The way some news outlets tell it, these poor, downtrodden Palestinians were merely venting their frustrations over Donald Trump's embassy 'provocation' -- then Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a massacre against them. Astoundingly, that framing is only a slight exaggeration.

In reality, these were riots deliberately orchestrated and fomented by Hamas, the terrorist organization that took over Gaza after Israel unilaterally withdrew from that territory in 2005 (a titanic failure of the sort of land-for-peace goodwill gesture endlessly urged by Israel's detractors, in spite of other historical inconveniences). Here are some telling vignettes from those attempted incursions into Israeli territory, the stated purpose of which was to penetrate the border, infiltrate the country, and murder Jews. Hamas intentionally put their own people in harm's way by lying to them...(Read more.)