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Exclusive: Terror Org. Harbored by Pakistani Gov’t Now Backs ISIS

December 29, 2014

Exclusive: Terror Org. Harbored by Pakistani Gov’t Now Backs ISIS, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, December 29, 2014

Hafiz-Saeed-IPHafiz Saeed, leader of the Jamaat-ut-Dawa terror network has a $10 million bounty on his head issued by the U.S. government.

Saeed is also on record as criticizing the Islamic State for massacring Muslims as “apostates” and suggested it should focus on destroying Israel. Earlier this month, he said he’d say to the Islamic State, “I invite you, you are sitting near the Israel boarder, go and destroy the Israeli Jewish [sic].”

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The Clarion Project has learned from a first-hand source in Pakistan that the leader of Jamaat-ut-Dawa, a major terrorist group harbored by the Pakistani government, expressed support for the Islamic State in a recent sermon.

The story breaks as Pakistani embassy is condemning the television show Homeland for depicting Pakistani government officials as complicit in terrorism.

The Clarion Project’s source, whose identity has been verified and will be referred to as “Aamir,” recently attended a public sermon by Jamaat-ut-Dawa (JUD) leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed at the group’s Jamia Markaz al-Qadsi headquarters in Lahore. JUD is a rebranding of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET). The group is best known for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India that killed over 150 innocents.

The U.S. State Department lists JUD/LET as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and says it has links to Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami in Bangladesh, the Indian Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed. The U.S. Treasury Department says it works with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network and targets U.S. and Afghan forces.

The event was heavily guarded with Saeed’s own security team equipped with assault rifles. The bulk of the sermon was dedicated to promoting jihad against the U.S. and India in order to “save Islam.” Saeed explicitly told attendees to donate to jihad and even recommended registering at a website to fight. Other reports have confirmed the placement of donation boxes for jihad at his events.

Saeed said that the current jihad against America is the same one that was waged against the Soviet Union and that the U.S. is already showing it will suffer the same fate. He boasted that America is so intimidated by him that it is even afraid of his name. Attendees responded with chants of jihad.

Aamir’s report matches Saeed’s bravado. After the U.S. announced a $10 million award for his information leading to his arrest, he held a public rally next to a Pakistani base that is only 40 minutes from the U.S. embassy.

“America should give that reward money to me,” Saeed joked. “I am here. I am visible.”

According to Aamir, Saeed explicitly endorsed jihad against the U.S. in Afghanistan, against India in Kashmir and against the U.S. in Iraq, where American forces are battling the Islamic State.

Saeed’s group is taking a similar stance as other Al-Qaeda-linked groups in endorsing the Islamic State as a group but stopping short of granting legitimacy to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a caliph.

However, Saeed is also on record as criticizing the Islamic State for massacring Muslims as “apostates” and suggested it should focus on destroying Israel. Earlier this month, he said he’d say to the Islamic State, “I invite you, you are sitting near the Israel boarder, go and destroy the Israeli Jewish [sic].”

What Saeed said to an attendee indicates he is privately more supportive of the Islamic State than his public speeches reveal. Someone from the audience approached Saeed about his implied declaration of the Islamic State as an ally and asked about the group’s presence in Pakistan.

The source was shocked at Saeed’s answer. He said that the Islamic State represents pure Islam and predicted that it would take over Pakistan and seize its nuclear weapons. Saeed emphasized that the Islamic State means no harm towards Sunnis and so it should not be feared.

The immediate focus on nuclear weapons is in line with previous comments. In June, Saeed praised Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and he took part in a rally in May celebrating the anniversary of Pakistan’s first nuclear weapons test.

In 2011, Saeed and another JUD leader said at a rally that Pakistan must wage jihad against India over Kashmir, even if it means nuclear war. Saeed has reportedly said that Pakistan should share its nuclear weapons with other Islamic countries. Abdul-Qadeer Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal, is linked to JUD/LET.

Aamir said that Islamist groups in the country are becoming more supportive of the Islamic State group, even if they don’t swear allegiance to it or endorse al-Baghdadi as caliph. Increasing numbers of individuals are pledging to it and even putting pro-Islamic State bumper stickers on their cars, he said.

Even tepid support from JUD would dramatically boost the Islamic State’s fortunes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where its support is already rising. The Islamic State has been endorsed by the Jundullah terrorist group and six Pakistani Taliban commanders have sworn allegiance. It is also approaching Lashkar-e-Jhangv.

JUD is considered the “most dangerous terrorist group operating in South Asia” besides Al-Qaeda. It has been estimated to have 150,000 members, but a Pakistani journalist named Arif Jamal who wrote a book about JUD/LET says it commands at least 500,000 armed men.

It operates like a “state within a state” in Pakistan. It has boasted of having over 200 schools, as well as hospitals, charities, mosques and even ambulances and blood banks. The group has over 2,000 doctorsin its medical services and 60,000 subscribers to its monthly magazine published in Urdu.

In 1998, Saeed vowed his group would “ultimately plant the flag of Islam on [New] Delhi, Tel Aviv and Washington. All evil in the world emanated from the White House, which would be blown up…”

Its fierce Islamism and anti-Americanism creates a pool of recruits for groups like the Islamic State and encourages homegrown terrorism. It has an English website and Jamal says it has a major presence in the United Kingdom and a European headquarters in Paris.

“The U.S. and British governments have both acquired overwhelming evidence that ‘homegrown’ terror cells seeking instruction at ‘real’ terrorist training camps frequently end up at either facilities run by LET or JEM [Jaish-e-Mohammed]. JEM is essentially seen as an equal substitute for LET if the latter is unavailable,” says terrorism expert Evan Kohlmann.

The revelation that Saeed and JUD is speaking supportively of the Islamic State is an embarrassment for Pakistan when its government is railing against the American television show Homeland for presenting the Pakistani government as a sponsor of terrorism.

Aamir said the world needs to focus on the entire Pakistani infrastructure that promotes a “fascist totalitarian ideology.”

He named JUD, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi and Tablighi Jamaat as Islamist groups who openly promote this ideology in Pakistan.

The madrasses indoctrinate children with a “sense of siege” by constantly saying that Islam and Muslims everywhere are facing a dire threat from non-Muslim oppressors and that only Muslims are fit to rule.

He said anti-Semitism is common in their education and that infidel adversaries are portrayed as cowards who run from confrontations with devout Muslims. There are even prayers for the elimination of Israel and poetry about jihad.

The Islamist clerics often preach that “Islam is a religion of peace,” but that does not mean non-violence. The violent jihad waged by “peaceful” Muslims is a response to the oppression of Zionists,infidels and kuffars. These same mosques will have copies of “44 Ways to Support Jihad” by Anwar al-Awlaki, for example.

When these clerics do condemn terrorism committed by Muslim extremists, it is framed as a byproduct of non-Muslim aggression (especially U.S. drone strikes) or even the work of an anti-Islam conspiracy.

Aamir expressed deep concern about the negative impact on society and especially women due to the Islamists’ use of sexual propaganda in indoctrinating boys before they even reach puberty. He said that stories of the Taliban and other terrorists’ sexually abusing boys are not hard to come by.

Pakistan’s status as an “ally” must not depend on its arrests of Al-Qaeda leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or its offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan. This is done because of their attacks inside Pakistan and is not part of a strategy against all Islamist terrorists and radicals.

From 2002 through 2014, Pakistan has been the recipient of $28 billion in U.S. aid. If Pakistan wants to be an ally of the U.S. and continue to reap those benefits, it needs to dismantle JUD and every other Islamist terrorist network operating from within its borders.

As it stands now, T.V. shows like Homeland are closer to reality than fiction.

Categories: Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Israel, Pakistan, Terrorism
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Europe’s Year of the Jihadist

December 29, 2014

Europe’s Year of the Jihadist, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Abigail R. Esman, December 29, 2014

(But the world is less violent than it has ever been. It is also more tolerant. Thus spake Obama.

— DM)

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Among the trends of 2014 – “Gone, Girl,” Lena Dunham, and $55,000 potato salad – was another the list-makers seem to have missed: it was also a very good year for Islamic jihad. And while this was true on the battlefields of Syria and the cities and villages of Pakistan, it was true, too, in more subtle ways throughout the West – and especially in Europe. It was, for instance, the year of Mehdi Nemmouche’s slaughter of four Jews at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

It was the year that Belgium itself was named a “terrorist recruiting hub” by the Wall Street Journal. And in Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands, pro-Islamic State demonstrations laid bare the growing support of terrorism and Islamic jihad among Europe’s expanding Muslim population – all while politicians either stood back or even contributed to the praise.

Throughout 2014, Europeans faced pro-IS, anti-Jew demonstrations in Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, London and The Hague, and the establishment of “sharia zones” in London, Wupperthal, and elsewhere. True, such zones do not necessarily delineate areas in which sharia law, rather than state law, applies. But the term helps them define those largely-Muslim neighborhoods whose residents tend to be radical and who often support jihadist movements both at home and abroad.

Combined, these events signal the increasing success of Islamists who are working to change Europe from within – sometimes through violence, but more often through strategies known as “stealth jihad” – a way of applying social and political pressures to transform the current culture.

Take, for instance, the response of Josias van Aartsen, mayor of The Hague, to radical Muslims who called for the death of Dutch non-Muslims and Jews during pro-IS rallies in August: then on holiday, Van Aartsen declined to return home, ignoring even the throwing of stones at non-Muslims and the police. Only when a counter demonstration against IS was planned in the same, Muslim-majority neighborhood did Van Aartsen take action: he forbade it. “Too provocative,” he said.

Or there are the recently-leaked intelligence briefs in France, as reported by the Gatestone Institute, that “Muslim students are effectively establishing an Islamic parallel society completely cut off from non-Muslim students,” while “more than 1000 French supermarkets, including major chains such as Carrefour, have been selling Islamic books that openly call for jihad and the killing of non-Muslims.”

In England, an “Operation Trojan Horse” outlined plans to Islamize schools in Muslim neighborhoods. According to the Guardian, a government investigation of the program last summer found a “‘sustained, coordinated agenda to impose segregationist attitudes and practices of a hardline, politicised strain of Sunni Islam’ on children in a number of Birmingham schools.” Among those responsible for the “Operation” were the Association of Muslim Schools – UK and the Muslim Council of Britain – the same organization that, in 2011, declared that women who do not veil their faces “could be guilty of rejecting Islam.”

Ironically, it seems to have been England’s own culture that allowed the rise of Islamist teachings in its schools to begin with. Even Britain’s education secretary Nicky Morgan admitted to the New York Times that much of the operation’s success could be attributed to public “fear of being accused of racism and anti-Islamic views.” Not for nothing did former Obama advisor Lawrence Krauss declare the British “too polite” and “scared of offending ‘vocal and aggressive Muslims.'”

The government’s discovery of “Operation Trojan Horse” and immediate efforts to dismantle it are commendable, but it is difficult to assess the damage already done to Muslim children in the British schools. By some accounts, as many as 2,000 Britons have joined the (Sunni-led) jihad in Syria and Iraq. That includes the man known as “Jihadi John,” who beheaded U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. And, experts warn, the number of so-called “junior jihadis” – children under 10 who have become radicalized – is on the rise.

Not that such warnings are likely to do much good: The UK has, until recently, spent tremendous resources on programs aimed at preventing Muslim youth from joining militant groups, which have for the most part failed. “Having undertaken the ‘most significant domestic program by any Western country to foster a moderate version of Islam and prevent radicalization, the UK has effectively given up trying to stop jihadists from being created,” James Brandon, the former research director at one such program, told Reuters.

Despite such developments, European lawmakers have had a hard time figuring out how to deal with Muslim radicals, especially with returnees from Syria and Iraq. England is hardly the only place where politicians fear “offending” the sensibilities of Muslim groups. Although an estimated 450 Germans have joined the jihad in Syria, German Green Party domestic policy expert Irene Mihalic told the magazine Der Spiegel in September that tougher counterterrorism laws were unnecessary because “there are already ‘sufficient levers available to impose bans and limitations’ on terrorists and their supporters.” Majority parties apparently disagreed. Later that month, Germany became the first country to fully outlaw IS, along with all expressions of support for the terrorist group, from banners and graffiti to public demonstrations and endorsements by local mosques.

Such has hardly been the case in Denmark, though, where unwillingness to “offend” or “provoke” the country’s Muslim community has translated into a program that seeks to rehabilitate returning jihadists, rather than imprison them. In the country that boasts the second-largest number (per capita) of Muslims to join jihadist groups, returnees receive generous handouts in the form of government assistance in finding homes and jobs, or tuition aid in order to continue their education. In addition, the rehab program “does not try to change the fundamentalist beliefs of the returning fighters – as long as they don’t advocate violence,” CNN reports.

Evidently pampering jihadists isn’t working very well: Danish intelligence recently warned that returnees from IS and Al Nusra camps now pose a “significant” threat to the country. One jihadist profiled by CNN said that he plans to return to Syria to rejoin the caliphate once he completes his Danish government-funded education.

Other European governments have been reluctant to prosecute those recruiting for ISIS and other terrorist groups – groups that are in effect encouraging people to commit murder. In December, Dutch courts declared a 20-year-old woman “not guilty” of recruiting women to join the jihad in Syria on the grounds that women in IS are not permitted to fight – and hence cannot be considered terrorists. In another case, 23-year-old “Imad al-O” was found guilty of helping a 16-year-old girl travel to Syria via Egypt. His sentence? Three months prison time and 240 hours of community service.

Through it all, “lone wolf” radicals continue their attacks in European cities, such as the Dec. 21 attack in Dijon by a man who drove a car into a crowd of pedestrians, claiming he was “acting for the children of Palestine.”

The attack “for the children of Palestine” occurred just as French officials determined to join Sweden in recognizing a Palestinian state – a kind of international version, you might say, of England’s decision to stop trying to keep Muslim youth from radicalizing and becoming warriors for Islam. Unlike Kickstarter potato salads, it’s a trend we can well leave behind as we move into the new year.

Categories: Britain, Diversity, Europe, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Multiculturalism, Political correctness, Terrorism
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Obama on Iran Embassy: ‘Never Say Never’

December 29, 2014

Obama on Iran Embassy: ‘Never Say Never’
by Joel B. Pollak 29 Dec 2014 via Breitbart


(How soon we forget all the US troops who lost their lives at the hands of the Iranian mullahs over the last 4 decades. – LS)

President Barack Obama hinted that he might be prepared to establish a new U.S. embassy in Tehran ” if we can get a deal on making sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon,” and the deal led to warmer relations with the Iranian regime. Obama’s remarks were published Monday in an interview with National Public Radio host Steve Inskeep. Essentially, the U.S. would be prepared to tolerate and legitimize the autocratic rule of the Iranian regime, as long as it agreed not to become a nuclear threat.

Obama referred back to a remark he made during his first presidential campaign in 2007–a remark his campaign spent a great deal of effort denying later–that he would agree to meet with enemy leaders “without preconditions.” His foreign policy today, Obama said, was what he had promised earlier.

“You know, I was asked very early in my presidential race back in 2007, would I meet with these various rogue regimes? And what I said then remains true: If I thought it advances American interests, yes; I believe in diplomacy, I believe in dialogue, I believe in engagement.” A nuclear deal with Iran, he said, was still achievable.

In 2009, Obama was widely criticized by the Iranian opposition and by human rights activists for failing to support the Green Revolution, which nearly toppled the regime. Obama’s strategy was to preserve the regime in the hope of striking a grand bargain on the nuclear issue and others. In the interim, the regime has consolidated and expanded its power and nuclear program.

In the interview, Obama also took credit for sanctions against Iran, though he actually resisted them for years. He claimed to have “mobilized the international community at the start of my presidency” against Iran, though in reality America’s allies in Europe were frustrated at Obama’s lack of leadership. And he claimed that “when I came into office, the world was divided and Iran was in the driver’s seat,” though the UN Security Council had already passed near-unanimous resolutions against Iran.

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Mahmoud Abbas: Failing the Palestinians and Peace

December 29, 2014

Mahmoud Abbas: Failing the Palestinians and Peace, Front Page Magazine, , December 29, 2014

Mahmoud Abbas

[T]he increased authoritarianism of Abu Mazen is reflected in a recent survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. It indicates that 66% of Palestinians are afraid to criticise Abu Mazen and the PA, and 80% consider the PA institutions to be corrupt and infected with nepotism.

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Mahmoud Abbas, (aka Abu Mazen) has been a failure as the Palestinian “Rais.” He failed to lead the Palestinian Authority (PA) toward peace with Israel, and he mismanaged the alleged goal to achieve statehood for the Palestinians. Instead of facing the tough issues and making compromises required in negotiating peace and statehood with the Israelis, Abbas chose an alliance with the Gaza controlled terrorist group Hamas. Following Abbas’ pact with Hamas last April, Israel broke off peace negotiations with the Palestinians, just days before the talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry were scheduled to expire.

Abbas isn’t only confusing Israelis, Americans, and is his Europeans patrons, he is perplexing his own Palestinian consituents. Following last summer’s Gaza War between Hamas and Israel, Abbas threatened to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and saught to indict Israel on war crimes. PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki met with the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC last August to explore ways of joining the court by PA President Abbas signing the Rome Statute.  When, however, the U.S. Congress threatened to cut off all funding to Palestine if Abbas filed war crimes charges against Israel, Abbas backed off. At the same time though, Israel’s Prime Minister threatened to counter-sue, alleging that the rockets fired by Hamas terrorists into Israeli civilian areas constituted “double war” crimes.

The Israeli Law Center called Shurat-HaDin, led by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner submitted a complaint against Mahmoud Abbas in the ICC for “war crimes.” The complaint claims that Abbas may be tried for his responsibility in the missile attacks targeting Israeli cities, executed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which Abbas heads. It charges that Fatah, also led by Abbas, was responsible for several missile attacks on Israeli cities. Darshn-Leitner pointed out that Fatah leader Abbas may be tried by the ICC. Abbas is a citizen of Jordan and Jordan is a member-state of the ICC. The ICC has jurisdiction over crimes committed by a citizen of a member state. Darshan-Leitner added, the organization “will not allow Fatah to carry out rocket attacks on Israeli population centers, while hypocritically advocating Palestinian membership in the ICC. Abbas falsely believes that alleged crimes against Arabs are the only ones that should be prosecuted.”

A week ago, Abbas threatened again. This time he fingered the security co-ordination with Israel following the death of Ziad Abu Ein, 55, PA Minister without Portfolio. He promptly backtracked. On November 29, 2014, Abbas declared  that if the United Nations Security Council rejects the Palestinian statehood resolution, he will seek membership in the ICC. He said, “We will seek Palestinian membership in international organizations, including the International Criminal Court in the Hague. We will also reassess our ties with Israel, including ending the security cooperation between us.”

Abbas’ latest gambit is a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that would force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) within two-years. According to press reports, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry requested to postpone the Palestinian initiative at the UNSC until after the Israeli elections, (March 17, 2015) but the Palestinians refused. PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki intimated to reporters that there was disagreement between the Americans and Palestinians on how the elections in Israel would or wouldn’t advance the PA UNSC resolution. Kerry believed that a UNSC vote before the elections would impact adversely on the winners. In other words, a vote before the elections would strengthen Netanyahu and the Right in Israel. Maliki argued that a vote before January, 2015 would be rather positive.

At a closed meeting last week with 28 EU ambassadors, John Kerry revealed that he was asked by former Israeli president Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni to prevent the Palestinian initiative at the UNSC because it will help “Netanyahu and Bennett (Jewish Home Party chairman) in the upcoming elections.” Maliki posited that Kerry himself has not abided by his pledge not to intervene in the Israeli elections.

Also last week in London, Secretary of State Kerry met with Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, and according to a PA senior official, Kerry posed a number of U.S. principles that should be included in the Palestinian UNSC resolution. Kerry supposedly refused the two year time period demand by the PA for Israeli withdrawal. The resolution as Kerry suggested should include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as U.S. opposition to declare Jerusalem as a joint capital for Palestine and Israel. Erekat rejected the U.S. proposals. Kerry declared afterward that the U.S. does not accept the Jordanian (presenting the Palestinian resolution)  and French resolutions. He warned that if the Palestinians insist on presenting the resolutions, the U.S. would use its veto power. Erekat rejected Kerry’s ideas, and insisted that the resolutions would be submitted. As of December 25, 2014, Abbas rejected an Arab League request to delay the submission of the Palestinian statehood until January when five new members who support the Palestinian cause will join the Security Council.

Abbas’ gambits notwithstanding, the increased authoritarianism of Abu Mazen is reflected in a recent survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. It indicates that 66% of Palestinians are afraid to criticise Abu Mazen and the PA, and 80% consider the PA institutions to be corrupt and infected with nepotism. Last summer, according to the survey, support for Abbas (Abu Mazen) declined to 35% from 50%. “There is no doubt about the fact that outlawing freedoms and rights, especially of professional unions, is a factor in Abbas’ decline in popularity,” said Dr. Khalil Shikaki, one of the survey takers.

PA security agents inspect what is written in the social media, and threaten those who criticize Abbas. Abu Mazen critics point out that after a decade in power he is controlling all systems of government to such an extent as to minimize all resistance. Perceived political rivals such as Mohammad Dahlan, who once served as Abu Mazen’s assistant, and Salam Fayyad, the former Prime Minister of the PA, are vilified by Abbas. Following the Palestinian Unity government formation, headed by Rami Hamdallah last May, elections were to follow. But, once again, internal squabbling prevented it, and added to it was Abbas’ fear of a Hamas victory.

Abu Mazen’s strategy for the establishment of a Palestinian state has reached a cul-de-sac.  None of his gambits proved successful. His rivalry with Hamas is bitter and ongoing, despite the alliance he forged at the expense of negotiations with Israel. And, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, he balks at the idea of ‘ending the conflict’ with Israel. He knows full well that this might be a death sentence for him, targeting him for assassination. It is for this reason that Abbas and the PA are unlikely to forgo the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Israel for its part, cannot accept such a demographic suicide. This is why Abbas would rather avoid negotiations with Israel and bypass it by going to the UNSC. It is also the ostensible reason why peace with Israel cannot be achieved, and as a result, the Palestinian people continue to suffer political and economic deprivation. Abbas has not been the solution to the Palestinian problems; rather, he has been responsible for failing them.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Gaza, Hamas, Human rights, Israel, Israeli elections, Jerusalem, Kerry, Netanyahu, Palestinians, Peace process, Terrorism, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, United Nations
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The Israelis who back UN hypocrisy

December 29, 2014

The Israelis who back UN hypocrisy, Israel Hayom, Dr. Limor Samimian-Darash, December 29, 2014

[T]he more one delves into the U.N.’s outrageous conduct, the harder it becomes to separate the actions of the international community from the tailwind provided by certain Israelis.

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The growing relationship between Iran and the Palestinian Authority, as well as Iran’s arms shipments and its involvement in terrorism, are, as always, not being condemned internationally. This is in addition to the world’s silence about the Palestinian terrorist attacks in recent months, which have included stabbings, vehicular rammings and firebombings. None of these produced a U.N. resolution against the Palestinians. And if the massacre at the synagogue in Jerusalem had not looked like a classic anti-Semitic attack in Europe, it is doubtful we would have heard any condemnation of it at all.

One can, of course, complain about the hypocrisy of the world, and particularly that of European nations, who have continued to ignore the growth of Islamic radicalism and terrorism in the world and have focused instead, in a biased manner, on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Alongside this, more and more nations are symbolically recognizing a Palestinian state and turning a blind eye to all Palestinian misdeeds. These moves are indeed symbolic, not just because they have no diplomatic meaning, but also, ironically, because Israel is once again being placed on the altar for sacrifice.

But the more one delves into the U.N.’s outrageous conduct, the harder it becomes to separate the actions of the international community from the tailwind provided by certain Israelis. Indeed, Tzipi Livni, Isaac Herzog and even Avigdor Lieberman have explained to us that this is all happening because of a lack of diplomatic initiative on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They do this, of course, without attributing any blame to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who, despite all the concessions offered by Netanyahu, would not even agree to begin peace talks.

And there are now more false accusations being hurled around, such as the claim that the lack of negotiations following Operation Protective Edge is leading us toward a renewal of hostilities in the Gaza Strip. There is no mention of Hamas or its desire to expel us from the region. There is also no mention of the use of reconstruction funds by Hamas to re-arm itself ahead of the next round of fighting or the fact that the Palestinian Authority was kicked out of Gaza by the Palestinians themselves. No, they say, everything is the Israeli government’s fault for not initiating a diplomatic process.

And even more bluntly, Israeli politicians are directly appealing to the international community to apply pressure on the Israeli government. For example, Livni had the gall to implore U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to not support the unilateral Palestinian move at the U.N., as this would have strengthened the Israeli Right. Herzog made a similar claim when he sought to dissuade the British parliament from recognizing a Palestinian state.

Former Labor MK Avraham Burg took a different tack, urging his British friends to recognize a Palestinian state and force a diplomatic solution on Israel. And if we look not too far back in history, this was the exact line taken by Livni when she was appointed foreign minister in 2006 by then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Her first speech at the U.N. did not remind the nations of world about the historical right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. Instead, her debut speech on the world stage was dedicated to presenting her vision of the establishment of a Palestinian state.

These are not some words uttered by one Palestinian government minister or another. And no, they are not a biased report by a BBC presenter. Rather, these are Israeli politicians who, whether they are just trying to butt heads with the government or if they truly believe in the righteousness of Abbas, are ultimately providing fuel for unilateral anti-Israel moves at the U.N. And when they do this, they are helping the lowlifes at the U.N.

Categories: Abbas, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Israel, Israeli elections, Jerusalem, Leftists, Netanyahu, Palestinians, Peace process, Terrorism, Two state solution, United Nations
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