INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW

... The dominant foreign-policy vision animating left and right in recent years has been promiscuous intervention. While elites disagreed on tactics and targets, both major political parties shared a belief that Washington, DC should micromanage the world ... Ultimately, the U.S. government is created, funded, staffed and defended by the American people. Its first and overwhelming obligation is to those it represents — and coerces. It has no cause to squander its wealth and risk the lives of its own citizens unless something serious is at stake ... U.S. government officials should put America First. Their failure to do so in recent years has resulted in high costs to the American people: thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of serious injuries, and destructive blowback including terrorism and massive debt.

Donald Trump’s travel ban on refugees and visitors from seven Muslim countries entering the US makes a terrorist attack on Americans at home or abroad more rather than less likely. It does so because one of the main purposes of al-Qaeda and Isis in carrying out atrocities is to provoke an over-reaction directed against Muslim communities and states ... The great success of Mohammed Atta and his eighteen hijackers was not on the day that they and 3,000 others died, but when President George W Bush responded by leading the US into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that are still going on ... Though 9/11 is cited as an explanation for Trump’s executive order, none of the countries whose citizens were involved (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Lebanon) are facing any restrictions.

... The idea of a permanent barrier between our countries [US and Mexico] goes to the heart of the divide between our two Americas on the most fundamental of questions. Who are we? What is a nation? What does America stand for? ... Were we from the beginning a new, unique, separate and identifiable people like the British, French and Germans? Or was America a new kind of nation, an ideological nation, an invented nation, united by an acceptance of the ideas and ideals of Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln and Dr. King? ... To the tens of millions for whom Trump appeals, what the [proposed] wall represents is our last chance to preserve that nation and people. To many on the cosmopolitan left, ethnic or national identity is not only not worth fighting for, it is not even worth preserving.

President Donald Trump’s executive orders last week limiting immigration to the U.S. may be the first such directives in recent years, but they are hardly the first time the U.S. government has sought to restrict immigration ... In the late 1800s, Congress moved for the first time to limit the number of immigrants. Lawmakers targeted Asians, especially Chinese ... In the 1920s, restrictions on immigration increased. The Immigration Act of 1924 was the most severe: it limited the overall number of immigrants and established quotas based on nationality. Among other things, the act sharply reduced immigrants from Eastern Europe and Africa. And it completely restricted immigrants from Asia, except for Japan and the Philippines.

... Recent research has shown us that most enslaved persons in the Americas before 1700 were Indians; that Indians constituted a sizable proportion of the global slave population thereafter; and that Europeans enslaved Indians from Quebec to New Orleans, and from New England to the Carolinas ... In his beautifully written (and National Book Award-nominated) The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America, Andrés Reséndez offers a tour-de-force account of the enslavement of Indians in the New World, and in the process broadens our definitions of slavery.

... Today our children our being taught that the people who lived in the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere were not “merciless Indian savages” (as Jefferson calls them in the Declaration of Independence), many of whom delighted in torture and cannibalism, but rather spiritually enlightened “native Americans” whose wise and peaceful nobility was rudely destroyed by invading European barbarians ... ; and that Africans were not uncultured slave traders and cannibals, but unappreciated builders of great empires. But just how did these peoples live before they came into contact with Europeans? Although historical myth is ever more rapidly replacing factual history, not only in popular culture but also in our schools and universities, we may still find accurate historical accounts buried in larger libraries or in used book stores.

... I don't defend a false or romanticized image of the Indians, as propagated, for example, by Hollywood in such films as "Pocahontas" and the others mentioned in the Journal. But just as inaccurate as the currently fashionable media image of the "Noble Red Man" is the disgraceful picture drawn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) in the article reprinted from a 1870 issue of The Galaxy ... While the Iroquois' ferocity against their enemies may seem quite shocking to us, what real difference is there between burning people to death on scaffolding by Indians in the 17th century, and incinerating tens of thousands of people at a time in fire-bombings (Hamburg, Dresden) or with atomic blasts (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) by "civilized" Whites in the "enlightened" 20th century?

... A study from Iceland is the latest to raise the prospect of a downwards spiral into imbecility. The research from deCODE, a genetics firm in Reykjavik, finds that groups of genes that predispose people to spend more years in education became a little rarer in the country from 1910 to 1975 ... Those who carried more “education genes” tended to have fewer children than others. This led the scientists to propose that the genes had become rarer in the population because, for all their qualifications, better educated people had contributed less than others to the Icelandic gene pool.

The first-ever direct China-to-Britain freight train pulled into London last week - the latest milestone in China’s ambitions to redevelop the old "Silk Road" trade routes from Asia to Europe ... After 18 days and 28,000 kilometers, the freight train pulled into London on time last week. It passed through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France, finally crossing under the English Channel ... But there’s more to the train than its cargo. Analysts say the historic journey also carried with it a political message – that China is forging new trade routes and new markets. Already, 15 European cities are served by freight trains from China as part of Beijing’s "One Belt, One Road" initiative.

American Jews are watching the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency with both fear and hope. Many have expressed worries about some of his supporters’ ties to the so-called “alt-right” movement, whose followers traffic variously in white nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment, anti-Semitism and a disdain for “political correctness.” ... Yet others have praised Trump’s stance on Israel and his nomination of David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who supports West Bank settlement construction and has expressed doubts about the two-state solution, as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Trump won 24 percent of the Jewish vote, with especially strong support in the Orthodox community. Here is a look at the president’s Jewish advisers who will be helping to shape U.S. policy for the next four years.

As the world’s mandarins prepare for their annual reunion in Davos, Switzerland, the British charity Oxfam is calling attention to income inequality by pointing out that eight billionaires — three of them Jewish — hold as much wealth as the poorest half of the Earth’s population. In their ranked list, headed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($75 billion), the Jews come in at six, seven and eight. They are Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg ($44.6 billion), Larry Ellison ($43.6 billion), chief executive of the software maker Oracle number seven and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($40 billion) ... This is the thirty first annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. In that time the share of wealth owned by the global elite has increased by all measures.

As President, Nixon had a number of Jewish advisers ... During the Yom Kippur war, when Israel’s future was at its bleakest, it was Nixon who went to Congress and asked them to sign off on emergency aid to the Jewish state ... Make no mistake, Nixon was an antisemite, as the publication of his taped conversations has made clear. “Most Jews are disloyal,” the President opined in one conversation, though he said his own aides were exceptions. “Generally speaking,” he continued, “you can’t trust the bastards. They turn on you.” ... Nixon was demonstrating exactly the sort of thinking popular among elements of the far-right and far-left today. You know the type — “most Jews are despicable, but there are some good Jews, because they happen to hold positions I agree with. In fact, they are some of my best friends.”

Over the last few decades, economists and psychologists have quietly documented the many ways in which a person's IQ matters. But, research suggests that a nation's IQ matters so much more. As Garett Jones argues in Hive Mind, modest differences in national IQ can explain most cross-country inequalities. Whereas IQ scores do a moderately good job of predicting individual wages, information processing power, and brain size, a country's average score is a much stronger bellwether of its overall prosperity. Drawing on an expansive array of research from psychology, economics, management, and political science, Jones argues that intelligence and cognitive skill are significantly more important on a national level than on an individual one because they have "positive spillovers."

... During the years that Tchaikovsky worked on many pieces that will be performed in this series, the composer exchanged at least 1,100 letters with von Meck, the wealthy Russian woman who supported him through his most active years. An editor of the letters, which shed light on the composer’s personality and, in some instances, his anti-Semitism has written that Tchaikovsky’s tie to von Meck was “all-important to his survival.” ... They also show flashes of anti-Semitism. Writing von Meck in April, 1878 about a cottage where he’s staying, he writes of his unhappiness about a nearby Jewish village and his relief that “the Yids are not visible.” At one point, he refers to Benjamin Disraeli as “that detestable Jew.”

Before 'nationalism' became a dirty word, it was the inspiration for all sorts of idealistic and reform-minded people. This was never more true than in the history of music ... But apart from imperialism, there was also a discernibly strong vein of anti-Semitism in the [Russian] group, often focused on the international virtuoso Anton Rubinstein. Glinka complained that ‘the yid Rubinstein’ had talked about A Life for the Tsar in Germany ... The Five allowed this sort of thing to creep into their music ... It is a mystery to me how sensitive some critics can be to any anti-Semitic sounds in the first act of Wagner’s Siegfried while ignoring the vile diatribe contained in the ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle’ movement in Musorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition.

... Performance of Wagner’s music is unofficially — but effectively — banned in Israel. But should it be? ... Why not prohibit Bruckner as well? And if anti-Semitism is a criterion for performance in Israel, why not ban Tchaikovsky, who hated Jews as much as Wagner did? ... Wagner was obsessed with overthrowing the Jewish God of Covenants. He did not so much hate Jews as individuals as hate everything the Jewish people represented ... In a Jewish state, the public has a right to ask Jewish musicians to be Jews first and musicians second. With reluctance, and in cognizance of all the ambiguities, I think the Israelis are right to silence him.

Much of what's written about the role of Christianity in Third Reich Germany, and about Hitler's views on religion, is grossly distorted or just plain wrong. The official program of Hitler's National Socialist Party expressed support for "positive Christianity, and nearly all NS Party members were either Evangelical Lutherans or Roman Catholics. Although Christianity had a favored status in the Third Reich, Germans were free to profess any religious outlook, or none. In many public statements Hitler affirmed a religious and spiritual outlook, and expressed admiration for Christian ethics and traditions. But privately he grew steadily more critical of the Christian worldview. Runtime: 51 mins.

Anti-semitism is on the rise in Poland, a country with almost no Jews. A new national study conducted by the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw finds a significant increase in negative attitudes toward Jews since 2014. The research, covering the years 2014-2016, shows that anti-Semitic hate speech is becoming increasingly acceptable and enjoys a growing popularity on the Internet and on Polish television. The study took actual examples of anti-Semitic statements found in different media and asked respondents if they found these statements offensive. In all cases, the statements were found to be less offensive in 2016 than in 2014. The difference was most pronounced among young people ... Poles are increasingly unwilling to accept Jews as co-workers, neighbors, or a member of their family.

Prof. Zahavit Gross, head of research of the Van Gelder Institute for Holocaust Studies at Bar Ilan University, discovered quite by accident the phenomenon of “antisemitism in the playground" in Australia, when she came to Australia as part of a large study ... Gross says that the Jewish children in public schools hear "classic antisemitic expressions as we can find in literature" she says, "the Jew who has a long nose, Jews pursuers of money, and who want to dominate the world". Modern antisemitism is also part of it, Gross adds. "They are being persecuted because of Israel, because of the occupation, and because of the way Israel treats Palestinians." Gross indicates that the data were a real shock for her ... Gross says that the majority of students in elementary and high schools prefer to hide their Jewishness in order to avoid incidents of this type.

... The notion of political correctness came into use among Communists in the 1930s as a semi-humorous reminder that the Party’s interest is to be treated as a reality that ranks above reality itself. Because all progressives, Communists included, claim to be about creating new human realities, they are perpetually at war against nature’s laws and limits. But since reality does not yield, progressives end up pretending that they themselves embody those new realities. Hence, any progressive movement’s nominal goal eventually ends up being subordinated to the urgent, all-important question of the movement’s own power ... The imposition of P.C. has no logical end because feeling better about one’s self by confessing other people’s sins, humiliating and hurting them, is an addictive pleasure the appetite for which grows with each satisfaction.

The American Century is over. We can tell, not only because the Americans have elected a ludicrous President, but because, for all his nationalist braggadocio, Trump’s ambitions are so modest. He aspires, after all, only to make America great again ... The American century in its pomp was lit not by greatness, but by supremacy, the certainty of being called by destiny, divine or secular, to play a role that was not just unique, but above all others ... America has not extinguished itself. But what it has extinguished is its claim to global political authority. That authority had been on the wane anyway ... The rhetorical justification for the American century was fashioned first by painting the Kaiser and then Hitler as a historic evil. Conversely, it was the "good American hegemon" that made and remade Germany ...

... Failure to foresee the aggressive and disintegrating role which a victorious Soviet Union might be expected to play in a smashed and ruined Europe and Asia was the principal blunder of America's crusading interventionists ... It was an illusion that the United States was at any time in danger of invasion by Nazi Germany. It was an illusion that Hitler was bent on the destruction of the British Empire. It was an illusion that China was capable of becoming a strong, friendly, western-oriented power in the Far East. It was an illusion that a powerful Soviet Union in a weakened and impoverished Eurasia would be a force for peace, conciliation, stability, and international co-operation.

... Beginning with Barack Obama, and now Donald Trump, American presidents seem to so totally identify with aspects of Jewishness that their Jewish supporters regard them, only half ironically, as honorary Jews ... Here is the catch in this crowning American Jewish moment: Both Obama and Trump deeply identify with only one part of the Jewish community. And it is precisely that profound identification with “his” Jews that leads each man to resent those Jews in the opposing camp for betraying authentic Jewish values and interests. For the outgoing president and the president-elect, the Jewish people is divided between “good Jews” and “bad Jews.” ... In the era of “Jewish” presidents, American Jews need to avoid the dangers of a treacherous philo-Semitism and maintain the integrity of their communal discourse.

... Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump’s biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course ... If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this.

... Not only does Trump routinely act on impulse, he has attacked the JCPOA [Iran nuclear deal], during and after the campaign ... “My number-one priority,” he proclaimed in March while addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which did its best to sink the agreement, “is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” ... Under Trump, the Iranian-American relationship is essentially guaranteed to get a whole lot worse, whatever happens to the treaty itself. Even if Trump does adhere to the agreement, he could easily attempt to show both his contempt for the Iranians and his resolve by getting tough in a host of other ways.

It’s no secret that many of President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers favor killing the Iran nuclear deal. But to hear Europe tell it, they will not blindly follow suit ... The past 20 years demonstrate that some skepticism is warranted. There are many reasons to doubt Europe’s willingness to craft an Iran policy independent of Washington’s preferences, but three stand out above all else ... Reality is that on Iran-related issues, Europe long ago outsourced its sovereignty to the United States, and there’s no discernable reason to believe that will change in the foreseeable future ... This begs the question: What can the EU do to save the Iran deal, avoid another war in the Middle East, and help prevent an already tragic refugee crisis in Europe from spiraling out of control? ... There are a variety of options at Europe’s disposal.

Character traits, such as grit or desire to learn, have a heavy hand in academic success and are partially rooted in genetics, according to a psychology study at The University of Texas at Austin. Though academic achievement is dependent on cognitive abilities, such as logic and reasoning, researchers believe certain personality and character traits can motivate and drive learning. In a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, UT Austin psychology associate professor Elliot Tucker-Drob found that genetic differences among people account for about half of the differences in their character, and that the remaining variation in character was influenced by environmental factors occurring outside of the home and school environments.

Head of the German party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) Frauke Petry criticized what she views as a contradictory understanding of freedom of speech demonstrated by the German government. Following the meeting of leaders of the European Parliament’s faction “Europe and Freedom Nations” (ENF) in Koblenz, Petry told journalists that the German government can’t deal with people who have an alternative opinion. According to Petri, people whose opinion differs from that of the majority are “immediately labeled as anti-democratic.” “We see that the government is clearly having a problem with freedom of speech and that it can hardly deal with critically-minded citizens,” Petri said.