1. It was not unnecessary. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address at the United Nations General Assembly was only unnecessary in the eyes of the usual suspects. And in the eyes of Netanyahu’s enemies. But the speech was broadcast to millions of American viewers from coast to coast. This refutes the leftist commentators’ claim that the speech was directed only at an Israeli audience.
Israelis know the things he said in his speech, but we need a messenger to relay our truth to the world. It is important that once every year, the head of the Jewish state comes to New York to tell the truth at the United Nations hall of lies. It is among the duties of any statesman worthy of his title.
The leftist commentators also claimed that in his genocide speech, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas served the Israeli Right. Wrong. He doesn’t work for us. He revealed his true self, and that is a truth that the Left rejects.
2. Channel 2 commentator Amnon Abramovich slammed Netanyahu’s speech for lacking a solid peace plan. Labor and Meretz chairs Isaac Herzog and Zehava Gal-On echoed the assertion. And what about them? Do they have a plan? This is not the 1980s; we’ve already tried the Left’s snake oil solutions. Never mind the Israeli radicals and the Arab Knesset factions — they’d rather see us all go to hell and Israel cease to exist in its current form, or at all — but what does the rational, reasonable Left have to offer on the topic? What do they mean when they call for a “diplomatic solution” to the conflict?
Here is the Left’s ingenious plan, in a nutshell: A withdrawal to 1967 borders (with land swaps for settlement blocs), including a withdrawal from the Jordan Valley and the division of Jerusalem (including the Old City!) and an agreement resolving the refugee problem. The Left is divided on the question of how many refugees should be allowed to “return” to Israeli soil. This plan includes the evacuation/expulsion of (approximately) 100,000 Jews. They will be given the option of remaining where they are, under Palestinian sovereignty. Yeah, right.
The Palestinians have already twice rejected reckless deals involving this plan (offered by former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert). But let’s say that they were open to it: Excuse me, have we lost our minds? We withdrew from Lebanon — we got Hezbollah. We withdrew from Gaza — we got Hamas. The Israeli Left claims they won’t allow Hamas to take control over the Palestinian Authority — what are they planning to do, then? Dictate to our neighbors who they elect to power? And then, when the Arab winter begins to encroach on the Samarian hills, will they continue to conceal the truth behind catchphrases like “peace agreement” and “diplomatic horizon”?
3. I heard a radio program on which Israeli poet Nathan Zach complained about the establishment of Jewish towns and communities so close to the Gaza border. Why so close to Gaza? Is there not enough room throughout the Negev? With this complaint, Zach was trying to justify the fact that Hamas fires rockets at us. We pushed them, and they reacted… poor Hamas. The heroes living in the kibbutzim and communities along the Gaza border have now become illegitimate in the eyes of the crazy Left. They are now in the same category as the settlers.
4. The man who embodies the idea of a double standard, Israeli Arab MK Ahmad Tibi, concluded recently that saying that the IDF is the most moral army in the world is actually an oxymoron because occupation contradicts morality. He was being gentle. Last year, Tibi called the IDF an army of murderers. But we are not occupiers, Mr. Tibi. Most of the Palestinian population is currently under self rule, in the Palestinian Authority, which functions as a state. As for the rest of Judea and Samaria — it is the land of our forefathers. In any case, we never conquered land belonging to a Palestinian entity (which never existed), so at worst the land is disputed, not occupied.
As far as we’re concerned, the Arabs are the ones who invaded our land in the seventh century. Ever since the 1880s, the Zionist waves of immigration (aliyah) brought with them hundreds of thousands of people from Arab states. They came here looking for work, while the Jews were coming back to their homeland – the only place for them on earth. That is why the IDF is not an army of occupation but rather a force tasked with protecting Jews from what the Arabs of the region planned to do to us in 1948 and failed. They call their failure to kill us “Nakba” – a catastrophe.
Toward the end of his remarks, Tibi mentioned that he didn’t like the photo that Netanyahu showed at the U.N. (of rocket launchers next to children in Gaza), but that this does not justify the murder of hundreds of children. This begs the question: Putting all other rocket launch squads aside, should the particular launcher in the photo have been bombed, according to Tibi? If not, should we have waited for the rockets to explode on our children?
5. At the Channel 2 News studio, Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog was joined by three journalists who share his views. Tibi was also made to feel at home there. How is it that the only representative of the Israeli majority on the Channel 2 program, Communications Minister Gilad Erdan, was not joined by a single journalist who thinks differently than his or her colleagues?
JERUSALEM—The recent Gaza War has proven the impossibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon declared this week.
Ya’alon, the most powerful minister in the Cabinet after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was departing from the two-state formula Netanyahu endorsed five years ago and which has become a touchstone in the international dialogue on the Middle East, particularly in Washington.
Following the 51-day war in Gaza, the notion of an independent Palestinian state existing alongside Israel has become absurd, the minister told a security conference this week at a Tel Aviv think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies.
Israeli security forces must remain a permanent presence on the West Bank, he said, if the area is not to be turned into a platform for rockets and mortars fired into Israel, like the Gaza Strip. Last month, militants fired thousands of rockets and shells from Gaza into Israel. Unlike Gaza, remotely located in the south, the West Bank lies opposite the central part of Israel.
“In this situation, can one even consider restricting the freedom of action of the defense forces in (the West Bank)?” he asked. “How can one rationally reach this conclusion?”
He said that between May and July, security forces operating in the West Bank took into custody more than 90 Hamas operatives who were planning both to attack Israel and overthrow the more moderate Palestinian Authority.
If Israel withdraws from the West Bank, the minister said, it would become a “Hamastan” whose mortars could easily reach Israel’s international airport outside Tel Aviv as well as military bases. Although Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system succeeded in downing the bulk of rockets headed for built-up areas, there is as yet no system for intercepting mortar shells.
If Israel leaves the West Bank, Ya’alon warned, it would be used, as in Gaza, by global jihad organizations, which would pose a threat not only to Israel but also to neighboring Jordan. “Could it [Jordan] survive that?” he asked.
For the first time since Netanyahu publicly adopted the two-state formula, he did not raise it at the United Nations General Assembly this week as a hoped-for eventuality as he has in previous years. Instead, he called for a fresh approach to peace—“new directions”—involving moderate Arab states. However, in his meeting with President Obama in the White House the next day he did reiterate the two-state formula in the presence of reporters, but he added that given the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East the Palestinian question “is not the main issue anymore. It’s secondary.”
Ya’alon, in his talk this week, said that Israel’s ability to continue to function almost normally during the war demonstrated its strength and increased its strategic deterrence. For a long time, he said, Israel’s reluctance to respond forcefully to provocation had projected weakness and had earned from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nassrallah the disparaging comparison to a spider web that could easily be swept away.
In the Gaza war, he said, Israel showed that it could go through a protracted assault with relative equanimity. Ten minutes after sirens sounded, residents had resumed their lives and drastic damage to the economy was avoided, he said. “We were dragged into this war and we did not break. Yes, 51 days, 4,500 rockets and mortars, but in the end, as a society, we projected strength.” In the end, it was Hamas that accepted Israel’s terms for the ceasefire, he added.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US President Barack Obama, March 2014. (photo credit:REUTERS)
Following a week in which Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of genocide and US president Barack Obama’s administration condemned Israel for building in its capital, a poll broadcast Thursday found both unpopular among Israelis.
A Panels poll broadcast on the Knesset Channel found that only 27 percent of Israelis consider Abbas a worthy partner for peace talks. Sixty-three percent said he was not a worthy partner.
Asked whether they trusted Obama to manage US policy in the Middle East, 74% said not and 21% said yes.
Only 25% said they would characterize the president as a “true friend of Israel.” Sixty-two percent said they would not.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fared considerably better in the poll. It found that if elections would be held today, his Likud party would rise from 19 seats to 27.
Bayit Yehudi would be the second-largest party with 18 seats, followed by Labor with 16, Yesh Atid with 10, Yisrael Beytenu and Meretz tied at nine, United Torah Judaism with eight, Shas with seven, Hatnua with four, Hadash five, United Arab List four, and Balad three.
The party being formed by former welfare minister Moshe Kahlon was not included in the poll.
The poll found that the right-wing bloc would rise from the current Knesset’s 61 seats to 69. The Left would fall from its current 59 to 51.
(Churchill stood nearly “alone” during the mid to late 1930’s in his arguments concerning the dangers of Germany under Hitler. Churchill was right, Chamberlain was wrong. Churchill’s arguments were eventually vindicated — but only after the substantial damage left by his predecessor had diminished Britain’s abilities to fight Nazi Germany and had to be fixed. Like many directed against Churchill, the post provided below is in large measure a selective hit piece against Netanyahu. Still, it’s worth reading because it apparently reflects the views of many. Churchill was right and so is Netanyahu. Will he be vindicated as well? — DM)
The client retains its value only so long as it aligns itself with the interests of its patron — or at the very least tries not to undermine them. On Iran, however, Netanyahu has repeatedly attempted to dictate to America what its interests should be in trying to hamstring his patron’s push toward a nuclear deal with Iran.
*******************
For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, are essentially the same thing.
During a diatribe against Iran in his United Nations speech on Monday, Netanyahu asked: “Would you let ISIS enrich uranium? Would you let ISIS build a heavy water reactor? Would you let ISIS develop intercontinental ballistic missiles? Of course you wouldn’t.”
It was almost as if Netanyahu views Iran and ISIS as interchangeable. But the rest of the world doesn’t see it that way — least of all the United States, which is making a crucial last push for a comprehensive agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, even as it musters an international coalition to fight the Islamic State.
In insisting that Iran and ISIS are essentially the same enemy, Netanyahu broadcast his isolation among world leaders and underscored the jadedness of the idea that he has championed for most of his political career: the imminence of an Iranian nuclear bomb and the apocalyptic threat it would pose to the free world.
After all these years, Netanyahu still calls for every nook and cranny of Iran’s nuclear program to be demolished by military force, though preferably not Israel’s alone.
The isolation of his views was evidenced not only by the near-empty General Assembly hall when he gave his speech, but also in the Israeli media.
Although the Islamic Republic of Iran (which Netanyahu persistently, if not naggingly, referred to as “The Islamic State of Iran”) was referenced in Netanyahu’s speech many more times than ISIS, the Israeli media did not follow suit.
They instead focused on Netanyahu’s appeal to “moderate” Arab states to unite against common threats, including militant Islam. A few outlets looked at Netanyahu’s riposte to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ charges of genocide. And even the most pro-Netanyahu daily, Yisrael Hayom, led with a headline proclaiming the Israeli Defense Forces to be “the most moral army in the world”– a quote from the speech, but not about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear project.
The Israeli media’s disinterest in Netanyahu’s Iran obsession is matched at home. In poll after poll, Israelis consistently put Iran behind such concerns as street crime and the rising cost of living.
Netanyahu’s fixation on Iran has also deepened divisions between Israel’s political leadership and top military brass. The nadir was reached in 2010, when Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army to stand by for an imminent attack on Iran and the chief of staff refused to comply.
Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who related the incident two years later, added that he’d never before seen the entire political leadership adamantly insisting on one course of action and the entire professional military leadership absolutely opposing it.
Four years on, the issue still festers. At the peak of the war in Gaza this summer, analyst Shlomi Eldar accused Netanyahu of all but turning a blind eye to Hamas’ tunnels that formed a pretext for the ground incursion. The reason for this, Eldar charged, was that the prime minister was completely “obsessed” with Iran.
Netanyahu’s absolutist approach to Iran is also straining Israel’s bond with the United States. For all the grandeur, courtesy and genuine complexity that feed into the staple American reference to Israel as an ally, the relationship between the two is, on the strategic level, fundamentally that of a patron power and a client state.
The client retains its value only so long as it aligns itself with the interests of its patron — or at the very least tries not to undermine them. On Iran, however, Netanyahu has repeatedly attempted to dictate to America what its interests should be in trying to hamstring his patron’s push toward a nuclear deal with Iran.
Such an agreement could radically shift the power paradigm in the Middle East toward a more open, less violent and more consensus-based arrangement. Would Israel see itself as a player in this new arrangement or outside it?
Depends on who you ask.
The relative silence of most Israeli institutions on the talks on Iran’s nuclear program suggests they are reluctant to make themselves entirely external to the potential new paradigm. But Netanyahu’s speech — intransigent as it was – indicates that at least one Israeli leader will go down fighting rather than bring Israel on board.
Obama was heard to remark during a recent presidential golf game,
“Israel is a terrorist war criminal. It won’t even yield to my reasonable demands for a two state solution with my beloved Palestinians, whose children and other innocent civilians it relishes murdering. However, Iraq, Syria, ISIL, etc. are humanitarians and will recognize that I am like them, as I lead them to peace through the Light of My true wisdom and greatness.”
His best plan yet!
Obama functions at His very best with no intelligence. Intelligence would imperil His domestic and foreign priorities and perhaps even His brilliant world view.
I don’t think the problem is Obama’s inattentiveness. It’s not the demands of his golf game. It’s not his incessant fundraising. It’s his worldview. [Not satire.]
(The video is not satire)
The first Peace Process phase
In Iraq and now in Syria, Obama is trying to appear less humanitarian. It’s the initial focus of His Peace Process (PP), through which He plans to arrange a three state solution among the Non-Islamic Islamic State, its cohorts, friends and associates, Iraq and Syria. During His initial PP phase, He intends to gain credibility with and empathy from the Islamic State, et al. Accordingly, He has lifted His rules of engagement, previously intended to minimize civilian casualties, when striking forces of the Islamic State, et al.
The White House revealed on Tuesday that its usually strict rules of engagement, intended to prevent civilian casualties of US airstrikes, have been relaxed in the current offensive against the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups. [Emphasis added.]
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Yahoo News in an email that a much-publicized statement last year by President Barack Obama that US drone strikes would only be carried out if there is a “near certainty” of no civilian injuries would not apply to the US campaign against jihadi forces in Syria and Iraq.
Hayden wrote that the “near certainty” rule was intended “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.
“That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” she continued, but added that the strikes, “like all US military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”
The statement came after reports that a dozen civilians, including women and children, were killed on September 23 after an errant Tomahawk cruise missile hit a house in the village of Kafr Daryan, in Syria’s Idlib province, believed to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked militants. [Emphasis added.]
In a briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Syrian rebel commanders described scenes of devastation as the bodies of women and children were pulled from the beneath the rubble of the destroyed building, which was apparently being used as a shelter for displaced civilians. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]
It’s His most clever strategy yet, and only Obama could devise it: by showing the Islamic State, et al, that He agrees with their strategy of maximizing casualties, both combatant and civilian, Obama will easily convince them of the benefits of the true peace and security His PP will provide.
When asked whether, during the next Gazan conflagration, Israel should adopt His modified rules of engagement, Obama was heard to mumble at the 15th hole, “That’s entirely different. Hamas does not threaten My popularity in My country.” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki hinted at much the same in August:
US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki delivered an unusually strong condemnation of an Israeli strike near a Gaza school being used as a shelter in Rafah, saying that the US was “appalled” by the “disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school. [Emphasis added.]
The shelling, which left 10 people dead according to Palestinian reports, drew harsh condemnations worldwide, including from the United Nations, London and elsewhere, amid growing international criticism of the 27-day-long operation. [Emphasis added.]
The IDF issued a statement saying that forces had targeted three Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists on board a motorcycle in vicinity of an UNRWA school in Rafah, and added that “the IDF is reviewing the consequences of this strike.”
However, the US said that the presence of combatants did not justify targeting areas near the school. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Before the reports of the latest strike came in, senior White House adviser and Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett addressed the ongoing violence on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday morning.
Describing the conflict as “a devastating situation,” Jarrett asserted that “Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself, and we are Israel’s staunchest ally.”
At the same time, she added that “you also can’t condone the killing of all of these innocent children,” referring to the hundreds of civilian casualties reported in Gaza over the course of the past three weeks. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]
Israel’s actions have been disgracefully disproportionate and must stop. If they do not cease before I leave for my much needed family vacation at Martha’s Vineyard on August 9th, my red line will have been crossed and upon my return I may issue an Angry Executive Decree chastising Israel. Here is what Israel has done and what it must stop doing:
Israel has used WMDs (Weapons Minimizing Death and Destruction) including “Iron Dome,” warning sirens and shelters to thwart missile attacks.The Palestinians in Gaza have no even remotely comparable WMDs: They have no Iron Domes, their tunnels — clearly dug as air-raid shelters — have been destroyed maliciously and their air-raid sirens often can not be used due to Israel’s inhumane refusal to furnish electricity. They are therefore forced to use civilians, including small children, to guard their missile sites. They do so in the forlorn hope that Israel will take pity on them and refrain from attacking. Merciless Israel continues to attack, wantonly and intentionally wasting the precious lives of many innocent Palestinians. [Emphasis added.] [Satire.]
Second PP phase
Unlike the Obama Nation and its splendid coalition of the unwilling, the Islamic State, et al, have no aircraft. Nor have they any WMDs comparable to the Iron Dome used by wickedly ferocious Israel. Despite that, airstrikes have done little to diminish their effectiveness.
As of Tuesday, the U.S. and its coalition partners had conducted nearly 310 air attacks on Islamic terrorist targets, more than 230 in Iraq and 76 in Syria, a Pentagon spokesman said.
And while the air campaign has forced the terrorists to change their tactics, “We still believe ISIL remains a very potent force,” Admiral John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday. [Emphasis added.]
“Yes, they’ve changed some of their tactics, there’s absolutely no question about that, in response to the pressure that we put them under, but that doesn’t make them less dangerous or less potent over time,” Kirby said. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]
Accordingly, during the second phase of His PP strategy, Obama will cease all air strikes. He will also require Iraqi, coalition and any U.S. boots on the ground to use only stolen or abandoned weapons, ammunition and vehicles. As the photo provided below clearly shows, Islamic State, et al, forces have little more than rocks for weapons and that is not fair. Neither is forcing them to steal the few they do have, vigorously punished under Sharia law.
Additionally, all lethal weapons heretofore provided to those fighting disproportionately will now be provided only to the Islamic State, et al. Obama will make it perfectly clear that, in return, non-Islamic freedom fighters must read their rights under Sharia law (to be drafted by Attorney General Holder) to all whom they intend to execute. If convenient, the notification must be read in languages they are believed able to understand.
These steps will level the playing field and help the non-Islamic Islamic State, et al, to understand that Obama is the Messiah of true Peace, Virtue and Understanding based on true Islamic values under Sharia law, as recently articulated in a letter signed by one hundred and twenty-six moderate Islamists (not satire). They may even accept Him as the Mahdi, an honor greater even than His highly regarded and equally well deserved Nobel Peace Prize.
Third PP phase
With the realistic understanding of His life, His universe and everything which Obama will thus give to them, they will follow Him anywhere He may lead, particularly from well behind. They will jump, shout with joy and fire our their rifles into the air when He receives His second Nobel PP prize.
Conclusions
According to Reuters, Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on October 1st — the same day that His new rules of engagement increasing civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria were announced.
Even as Netanyahu pressed Obama over Iran in White House talks, the president urged the Israeli leader to help find ways to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties like those inflicted in the recent Gaza war between Israel and Hamas militants.
. . . .
While Netanyahu put the emphasis on Iran, Obama was quick to focus on the bloody 55-day Gaza conflict, which ended in August with no clear victor. This followed the collapse of U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Palestinians in April. [Not satire]
“Iran? Nukes? What’s wrong with that,” Obama didn’t ask. He probably knows that a nuke deal allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to get (or to keep) nukes will enhance His popularity ratings if Iran doesn’t actually use them until He leaves office in January of 2017, in accordance with His informal understanding with the Islamic Republic. And to Him, that’s what matters. When He leaves office, anything bad that happens will be somebody else’s fault, as He will be quick to point out.
In this post I want to highlight the brazen double standards and utter screaming hypocrisy demonstrated by that ill-mannered hostile man who stands at the head of Israel’s ostensible best friend, America. [Not satire.]
She then does so, clearly and well. I had considered writing a similar article but didn’t have the stomach for it. Therefore, I tried to write this bit of satire instead.
When does an ally cease to be an ally? This painful question is being asked by many Israelis after another blistering American attack on Israel’s sovereignty in its capital city, Jerusalem.
In a move certain to increase tensions between Israel and the United States, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest publicly criticized Israel for allowing the continuation of the planning process for homes in the Givat Hamatos area in south Jerusalem. Not skipping a beat, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki followed suit and sharpened the dagger, saying “This development will only draw condemnation from the international community, distance Israel from even its closest allies, poison the atmosphere not only with the Palestinians but also with the very Arab governments with which Prime Minister Netanyahu said he wanted to build relations,” Psaki was quoted as having told a briefing.
This very public American disrespect of a reliable ally’s sovereignty is shocking, and it should be condemned by Israeli officials in the strongest language. There is absolutely no reason why Israeli officials should feel the need, as they apparently did, to justify their actions with apologetic statements about how the Givat Hamatos project was just a “technical step” taken at the local level on a plan approved at the regional level over two years ago. Instead, Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu should immediately cease being apologetic and defensive in responding to this recurring, blatant assault on Israel’s sovereignty. Yes, Bibi was correct to complain about the implication by American officials that Israel should discriminate against Jews, but he should also respond forcefully that if President Barack Obama was a true friend of Israel, he wouldn’t criticize the granting of building permits for homes for Israeli citizens in Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem. Would Obama dare to criticize building approvals in Riyadh, in Amman, or in Cairo? This needs to be stated and stated clearly.
However, words are not enough. Binyamin Netanyahu has always been a powerful speaker, but the reality on the ground usually contradicts his words. Netanyahu has, in fact, been one of the least proactive prime ministers when it comes to advancing building projects in Jerusalem. Notwithstanding his bold statements about Israel’s eternal capital, where the prophets spoke and where kings of Israel such as David and Solomon ruled 3,000 years ago, and which Israel liberated in the Six Day War of 1967, Bibi has been pathetically weak in asserting Israel’s rights in its capital city. Sadly, the lack of action speaks louder than the impressive words. The always spoken about, but never advanced, E-1 building project in the large forsaken area between Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood and the city of Maale Adumim to its east, is a glaring example of that weakness under pressure.
It’s time to stop complaining about American statements and to start acting. One doesn’t have to go back too far in history to see how prime ministers such as Menachem Begin and Yitzchak Shamir ignored international pressure and aggressively advanced the building of whole neighborhoods like Pisgat Ze’ev and Givat Ze’ev in the liberated areas of eastern and northern Jerusalem. We Israelis have nothing to apologize for and a lot to be proud of. Let’s start being faithful to our statements about our deep roots in this land. Let’s take real action to advance the building process in our capital city. E-1 would be a very good start.
WATCH: Kurdish Women Fight against ISISIn a special aired on 60 Minutes this week, an all-female unit of the PYG was featured. These Kurdish women are fighting with great determination against ISIS in Syria. They believe that ISIS fears being killed by a woman, because men killed by women don’t go to paradise to receive their 72 virgins. They beg the west to support them.
In a special aired on 60 Minutes this week, a unique unit of the PYG, otherwise known as the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit, which consists of Kurdish women fighting against ISIS, was featured. Their organization is described by the Carnegie Middle East Center as “one of the most important Kurdish opposition parties in Syria,” which is chaired by Salih Muslim. It has been noted that the Kurdish forces, particularly the female fighters, are the west’s best hope for defeating ISIS, whether they be the Peshmerga or the PYG. “These mothers, wives and daughters are highly trained, committed and absolutely fearless,” 60 Minutes reported.
“ISIS is not a threat to a single nation,” one of the Kurdish female fighters told 60 Minutes. “It’s a threat to all humanity. It’s like a disease, like cancer spreading everywhere.” Another Kurdish female fighter reported, “They say if we are killed by the hand of a man, we will go to heaven but if we are killed by the hand of a woman, we will not go to heaven.” These facts prompt the Kurdish female fighters to be especially vigilant in their jobs.
One of the Kurdish women, Julie, dreamed of becoming an economist in Syrian Kurdistan, but because of the emergency situation in her country, she instead has joined the ranks of the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit: “We are not lovers of weapons. We are not lovers of fighting. We are not lovers of killing. All of us wanted to live a safe life, to complete our studies and to have a boyfriend. But now, as I said, we live in an emergency situation.”
“ISIS has come to our area and destroyed everything, damaged everything, killed the children, kidnapped the women, and made everything bad in the region,” she stressed on 60 Minutes. “We can say that we are fighting with our will, but ISIS is fighting with their weapons. I think that willpower is stronger than weapons. For us, when someone from ISIS is killed by the hand of a woman, for us, we are so proud because this woman killed an enemy of humanity. A woman has a right to save herself and protect herself.”
“My first responsibility as a female commander is to prove that women everywhere can have a will and a reason to exist,” Kurdish female commander Nasreen told 60 Minutes. “So many times our victories have been won by women. They even motivate the men to be stronger and better fighters. In every fight, the women prove their true strength and abilities. They proved that it is a lie that women cannot fight.”
She noted that she has a fear for the survival of her society and culture in the face of the ISIS threat: “We know their goal is not a humane goal. That’s why we fight hard.” ISIS is notorious for raping the women they capture, before either slaughtering them or selling them into slavery. But ISIS is not only a threat to Kurdish women. They also have beheaded westerners. Julie stressed, “What we hope from the world is that they will help us in fighting this terrorism movement because it is not only dangerous for us; it’s dangerous for the entire world.”
The 60 Minutes report noted that the US has armed Kurdish forces in Iraq, but these women who are fighting against ISIS on the front line in Syria have been given nothing. One of the Kurdish female fighters reported: “We need better weapons because bravery and determination are not always enough to win on the battlefield.” The west has been reluctant to support the PYG because it is affiliated with the PKK, which the United States and European Union considers to be a terrorist organization due to its armed struggle against the Turkish state. The PKK was responsible for a series of suicide bombings in Turkey in the past, but signed a ceasefire agreement in 2013. Turkey considers the PYG as nothing more than the Syrian branch of the PKK and has been opposed to countries offering the PYG help based on this belief. However, while the PYG considered jailed PKK head Abdullah Ocalan as its ideological leader, they insist that the PKK does not interfere with how the PYG conducts Syrian Kurdish affairs.
Commander Nasreen denies that the PYG is a terrorist organization and declares that her fighters are the best hope against ISIS: “No, I am not a terrorist. We only kill to defend human rights. We are fighting for justice. We are fighting for all humanity.” Julie stressed, “We are fighting here to save our nation; not only our nation, our society. For us, we want to save the humanity, civilization and culture of this region.” Whether or not the PKK has any say in how the PYG conducts Syrian Kurdish affairs, there is one thing that is certain. Unlike many elements of the Free Syrian Army that are backed by the Obama administration who are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and are now helping ISIS to defeat the Kurds, the PYG remains a secular organization that does not have an anti-western agenda.
Women, Children Barely Escape Terrifying Jerusalem Rock AmbushJewish women surrounded by a rock-throwing mob in A-Tur, on the way to Maaleh Zeitim, as daily attacks by Arabs continue.By Gil RonenFirst Publish: 10/2/2014, 4:50 PM
That is what happening if you do not finished the job.
The security situation in Jerusalem continues to be unbearable for many Jewish residents, as every day brings another story of Arab violence against Jews. At around 2:00 p.m. Thursday, a young married woman in her 20s and three girls aged 16-17, all residents of Maaleh Zeitim, were surrounded by a rock-throwing mob in A-Tur. The woman was driving the girls home after school.
According to M., who also lives in Maaleh Zeitim, the driver had decided to take the less-used road through A-Tur because the Old City is full of traffic due to the holiday and tourist season. “In addition, there were riots recently near Shaar Shchem (the Damascus Gate); the Wadi Joz road is trafficky and also runs through an Arab neighborhood, so they decided to take the a-Tur road. It’s not a road that we drive through a lot but they thought this was their only option.”
“There was a lot of traffic,” M. told Arutz Sheva. “They noticed that a crowd was forming behind their car. They felt that something was going on, and the feeling was verified when a rock hit the car. As Jerusalem residents – this in itself is something we are familiar with. It has happened to all of us before.
“They tried to press forward in traffic, but meanwhile, they saw that a crowd was coming toward them. They called security. They called the Mount of Olives hotline but it simply does not pick up the phone. They called the police, who tried to get them to describe their exact location, but the call got cut off. The police called them back, and tried to get some information about where they were and what was going on, but did not give them any advice.
“More rocks were thrown at the car, until the windows were smashed. Glass and rocks started falling on the girls in the back seat. The girls put their schoolbags over their heads, to keep from getting hurt. This worked, more or less – but one girl was hurt a bit in the back by rocks. The two girls who sat in the back were taken to Shaarei Tzedek and Hospital they are OK – no lasting injuries. Not physical, anyway.
The girls are very angry
“As the crowd got closer they tried not to panic. The mob surrounded the car – and one of the attackers threw a rock that a girl described as being ‘the size of a round watermelon.’
“The driver tried to make a U turn, but would have had to run over people to do this. She screamed at police that if they don’t come she will simply run over everyone. A car blocked them from behind, maybe on purpose, maybe not. Suddenly, they noticed that traffic had opened up a little and they drove out of the jam. The driver then saw a police car stuck in traffic. Shaking, she got out of the car, and demanded a police escort, saying she refused to go anywhere unless police came along with her. Two Border Policemen got in the car and they continued until they reached a more quiet place. There, they finally received the attention of police and medical personnel.”
“I spoke to one of the girls,” M. told Arutz Sheva, “and they are very angry. They are angry that they are not afforded the protection that they deserve, as children who are simply going home from school. She asked why schoolchildren are not protected.”
Attempts to improve security in the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus areas by creating a greater police presence, adding security cameras, creating a shuttle service for students at the university, and other measures, are simply not working. Faced with ongoing rock attacks on the Light Rail in the “seam line” neighborhoods, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat recently advocated simply hushing up the matter. Jerusalem Councillor Arieh King noted, in a tour conducted by Knesset Members, that as long as police are afraid to demolish illegal homes in hostile Arab neighborhoods like Issawiya, creating deterrence against rock-throwing is nearly impossible.
Arab rioters hurling rocks, fireworks and molotov cocktails at a Jewish infant day care center on Ma’ale Hazeitim, the Jewish neighborhood on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, were caught on film on Tuesday in further testimony to the ongoing “silent intifada” in the capital.
The video, which was posted by King to his Facebook on Tuesday, shows four Arab criminals throwing various of projectiles with impunity for many long minutes from a protected nook on one of the rooftops, forcing infants to be rushed inside to bomb shelters.
In the video a woman can be heard saying “you don’t even see a single police officer here,” as the rocks continue to hail down – reportedly the police took seven minutes to arrive. The women then can be heard shouting to the police to go up to where the Arab attackers were pelting rocks.
After Border Patrol officers begin to fire crowd dispersal charges between eight and ten rioters are seen running away from the scen
And this .
Fatah Terrorists in Shootouts in and Around Jerusalem
Abbas’s Fatah firing not only on Jews but also at each other in Jerusalem area; lawlessness deepens with prevalence of illegal arms.
By Dalit Halevy, Ari Yashar
First Publish: 10/2/2014, 4:08 PM
Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades Flash 90
In parallel to the so-called “silent intifada” of rock and firebomb terror plaguing Jerusalem, incidents of gunfire in Judea and Samaria have been sharply increasing in recent months, following Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction’s declared “return to terror.”
That announcement, which was made by Fatah’s “military wing,” the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, has led not only to an outpouring of attacks on Jews but also apparently to shootings between rival members of Fatah.
Fatah activists were ambushed this Wednesday in a hail of gunfire in the Arab town of Beit Duqqu, located in Samaria just to the northwest of Jerusalem.
The Fatah members who were fired on had taken part in a meeting to discuss disagreements in the organization regarding priorities for “action” in the Jerusalem area.
One of them told the Palestinian Arab Safa news agency that additional gunfire targeted their car as it passed adjacent to the Arab town of Al Jib, also located to the northwest of Jerusalem, and that residents told them another shooting ambush was waiting for them in the village of Beit Nabala.
In a separate incident a week ago, Fatah members were similarly shot at in the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat.
Aside from showing the lawlessness of PA-managed areas, the incidents bear stark witness to the prevalence of illegal weapons among Fatah terrorists in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.
Another example of the prevalence of arms was seen recently in the Kafr Aqab neighborhood of northern Jerusalem, where Fatah terrorists were filmed firing automatic weapons in the air, ostensibly as a warning to drug dealers and “collaborators” with Israel.
Hamas has also been getting in on the action; another video last month shows terrorists with Hamas headbands shooting at an IDF Border Patrol post with modified sub-machine guns in Jerusalem’s Shuafat neighborhood.
The ongoing violence against Jews in Jerusalem has also included countless rock, firebomb and firework attacks, including a recent assault on a infant day care center in Ma’ale Hazeitim on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem this week.
The breakdown of law comes after Jibril Rajoub, senior PA and Fatah leader and confidante of Abbas, on PA TV said his organization had made a “political decision” not to stop anyone from “slaughtering” Jews in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
Shockingly, Israeli police have been revealed to be hushing up Arab terror in Jerusalem, as Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat urges the media to stay quiet on the topic in order to avoid potential harm to local tourism.
Iraqi military pilots mistakenly gave food, water and ammunition to enemy ISIS militants instead of their own soldiers, a senior security official and a brigadier-general told NBC News. The supplies were supposed to help besieged Iraqi army officers and soldiers who had been fighting Islamist extremists for a week in Saglawyah and the village of Al-Sijar in the country’s western province of Anbar.
“Some pilots, instead of dropping these supplies over the area of the Iraqi army, threw it over the area that is controlled by ISIS fighters,” said Hakim Al-Zamili, a lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament who is a member of the security and defense committee and acts as a security liaison for service members and commanders formed by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. “Those soldiers were in deadly need of these supplies, but because of the wrong plans of the commanders in the Iraqi army and lack of experience of the pilots, we in a way or another helped ISIS fighters to kill our soldiers.”
A brigadier-general in Iraq’s Defense Ministry, who declined to be named, confirmed the incident, which occurred on Sept. 19. “Yes, that’s what had happened,” the officer said, adding that some air force pilots “do not have enough experience … they are all young and new.” Both Al-Zamili and the brigadier-general said there would be an investigation to determine the cause of the blunder.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor.
He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians 2013 and The Al Qaeda Reader 2007.
he following is an envisioning of what might eventually unfold if the Islamic State is left to flourish. Although it is only one of several scenarios, due to its ostensibly implausible nature, it deserves some delineation.
The Islamic State (IS) continues expanding its territory and influence through jihad. Religious minorities that fall under its sway—at least the fortunate ones—continue to flee in droves, helping make the Islamic State what it strives to be: purely Islamic.
Left unfettered, with only cosmetic airstrikes by an indecisive Obama administration to deal with, IS continues growing in strength and confidence, as Western powers again stand idly by.
More and more Muslims around the world, impressed and inspired by what they see, become convinced that the Islamic State is in fact the new caliphate deserving of their allegiance. Such Muslims—the most “radical” kind, who delight in the slaughter and subjugation of “infidels”—continue leaving Western nations and migrating to the Islamic State to wage jihad and live under Sharia.
In other words, a sizable chunk of the world’s most radicalized/pious Muslims all become localized in one region. There they openly and proudly display their anti-infidel supremacism.
Throughout, Western media have no choice but to report objectively—so thoroughly exposed for its barbarity has IS become that it is an insurmountable task to whitewash its atrocities. The world has seen enough about IS to know that this is a savage, hostile, and supremacist state without excuse. Even Obama, after originally citing “grievances” as propelling the Islamic State’s successes, recently made an about face, saying “No grievance justifies these actions.”
Put differently, the “Palestinian card” will not work here. Western media, apologists, and talking heads cannot portray IS terror—including crucifying, beheading, and raping humans simply because they are “infidels”—as a product of “grievances” or “land disputes.”
In time, the Islamic State’s borders are fully consolidated and the “caliphate” is a fact of reality. Its war on fellow Muslim “apostates”—its current excuse for not engaging the greatest of all “infidels” in the region, Israel—eventually comes to a close or stalemate.
Then the inevitable happens: another conflict erupts between Israel and Hamas; Muslims around the word, including those under IS authority, drunk with power and feelings of superiority, demand that the time to wipe out the Jewish infidel has finally come; that the second phase of the caliphate is now or never—conquest of “original infidels.”
As Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu recently declared during his U.N. speech, “ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree. ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control.”
Thus the Islamic State will eventually be compelled to start saber rattling and worse against Israel. After all, its entire legitimacy is founded on its namesake—that it is the “Islamic state,” the state that magnifies and protects Islam and Muslims. It must eventually confront Israel or else be proven the greatest of all hypocrites or munafiqun—a term of great rebuke in the Koran, which some Muslim authorities are already applying to IS for not confronting Israel now.
Conflicts inevitably ensue between Israel and its neighboring Islamic State. But unlike the Jewish state’s war on Hamas—which the mainstream media can manipulate and portray as a war on innocent Palestinian women and children—world governments and media will find it exceedingly difficult to criticize Israel should any conflict between it and IS arise.
Unlike sympathy for the Palestinians, non-Muslims around the world vacillate between hate for and fear of the Islamic State; even Karen Armstrong, John Esposito and their ilk cannot apologize for this particular group of Islamic savages—other than to insist that theirs is not true Islam (an irrelevant point for the purposes of this scenario).
Moreover, the argument habitually used against Israel—that its war on Hamas creates innocent Palestinian casualties—loses all legitimacy in any war on the Islamic State.
After all, IS, thestate itself—not some terrorist organization ensconced within the state—is beheading, massacring, and enslaving humans solely on the basis of their religious identity. Its citizens—who went there of their own accord, unlike “displaced” and “trapped” Palestinians—are fanatical, extremist Muslims, whose greatest aspiration is to decapitate an infidel.
No one can apologize for this. The best that can be said is that this is not “true” Islam.
This is why, even now, the pro-Islamic Obama administration is forced to condemn IS and even (if perfunctorily) militarily engage it.
In short, conventional war becomes very justifiable against IS—especially because there is no longer any worry of accidentally killing this or that moderate or non-Muslim, as they have all been driven away, replaced by Islamic terrorists from around the world.
And conventional war has traditionally been the bane of Islamists, who prefer terrorism, hiding among civilians, using them as shields, and playing the victim.
Safe from international censure and pushed to the edge, Israel eventually obliterates the Islamic State, while even Islam’s greatest apologists in the West must hold their tongue or else be seen as defenders of the state responsible for the greatest atrocities—crucifixions, beheadings, rapes, slavery, and wholesale massacres—so far committed in the 21st century.
Three positive consequences emerge from all this:
1. Not only is the Islamic State destroyed, but with it, some of the world’s most supremacist and hate-filled Muslims—those who quit their home countries, including from the West, to persecute and kill the “infidels.”
2. The rest of the world’s Muslims get a major and much needed wakeup call. Some may start to rethink the notion of “jihad” and eternal enmity for the rest of the world. Some may start to rethink Islam altogether.
3. The non-Muslim world also gets a much needed wakeup call, another lesson to add to the major wars and conflicts of the 20th century, this time about Islamic fascism, which, finally, becomes catalogued as the danger it is.
Note: I am not advocating for this scenario—admittedly, one of many different kinds of scenarios that can develop if the Islamic State is left to flourish—and would prefer to see IS made extinct now. For even if this scenario comes to pass, matters must first get significantly worse before they can begin to get better.
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