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Open Letter to the French President

January 14, 2015

Open Letter to the French President

by A Palestinian Journalist in Ramallah

January 14, 2015 at 5:00 am

via Open Letter to the French President.

 

Your Excellency, many Palestinians nearly fell off their chairs upon seeing their president march at the front row of a rally in your capital to protest against terrorism and assaults on freedom of the media.

Undoubtedly, you are unaware of the fact that President Abbas is personally responsible for punishing Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize him or express their views in public. Every day we see that the Western media, including French newspapers and magazines, does not care about such violations unless they are committed by Israel.

Your Excellency, you are completely mistaken if you believe that Abbas and his Palestinian Authority are tolerant toward satire or any form of criticism. While he was attending the rally, a human rights group published a report accusing the Palestinian Authority of “waging war” against university students in the West Bank.

President Abbas has managed once again to deceive you and the rest of the international community. He now has managed to create the false impression that he cares about freedom of speech and independent journalism

Palestinians like me will now pay a heaver price because Abbas has been emboldened and will now step up his assaults. France will be helping to establish another corrupt and repressive Arab dictatorship — one that glorifies and rewards terrorists no different from those who carried out the Paris attacks.

I hope now your Excellency understands why I am too scared to reveal my identity.

His Excellency, François Hollande

Dear Mr. President,

First, I wish to express my deep condolences over the killing of innocent citizens in the recent terror attacks in Paris.

Second, I want to apologize to Your Excellency for not revealing my true identity. After you read my letter, you will realize why people like me are afraid to reveal their real identity.

I decided to write to you this letter after hearing my president, Mahmoud Abbas, declare that you had invited him to attend the anti-terror rally in Paris earlier this week.

Like many Palestinians, I see President Abbas’s participation in a rally against terrorism and assaults on freedom of speech as an act of hypocrisy — a condition that is not alien to Palestinian Authority leaders.

In fact, many Palestinians nearly fell off their chairs upon seeing their president march in the front row of a rally in your capital, in protest against terrorism and assaults on freedom of the media.

President Abbas’s participation in the rally is an insult to the victims of the terror attacks. It is also an insult to Western values, including freedom of expression and democracy.

Your Excellency, myself and other journalists living under the rule of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank were the first to be offended by the invitation you extended to President Abbas to attend the anti-terror rally.

Undoubtedly, you are unaware of the fact that Abbas is personally responsible for punishing Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize him or express their views in public. Of course, Your Excellency, we cannot blame you for being unaware of this assault on public freedoms because the mainstream media, including French newspapers and magazines, deliberately turn a blind eye to these practices. Every day we see that the Western media does not care about such violations unless they are committed by Israel.

That is why, Your Excellency, you are probably unaware of the cases of several Palestinian journalists who have been arrested and intimidated by President Abbas’s security forces over the past few years. Yes, this is the same Abbas who came to Paris to express his condolences over the brutal killing of the Charlie Hebdo journalists.

The most recent example of Abbas’s crackdown on Palestinian journalists occurred shortly before Your Excellency phoned President Abbas to invite him to Paris. The case involves my female colleague, Majdolin Hassouneh, who was detained for “extending her tongue,” or insulting, President Abbas.

Your Excellency, please allow me to tell you that you are completely mistaken if you ever thought that President Abbas and his Palestinian Authority are tolerant toward satire or any form of criticism. And of course, you haven’t heard of the Palestinian Authority’s decision to cancel the only popular satirical show on Palestine TV, Watan ala Watar (Country on a String).

The show was forced off the air in 2011 because President Abbas believed it had “crossed a line” by mocking his top officials in Ramallah. This is the same Abbas who came to Paris to protest the massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

And, Your Excellency, if you want further evidence of President Abbas’s clampdown on political satire, you can ask Palestinian comedians Abdel Rahman Daher and Mahmoud Rizek. The two men are currently in Jordan because they are afraid to return to the West Bank. No, Your Excellency, they are not afraid to return home because of Israel. They are afraid of being arrested by President Abbas’s security forces, which accuse the two men of insulting their leader.

President Abbas, Your Excellency, should be the last person to walk in a march honoring journalists who were massacred because of their satirical work. His participation in the Paris rally is not only in an insult to the memory of the slain journalists, but to all those who believe in freedom of expression and media.

I also want to bring to the attention of Your Excellency that while President Mahmoud Abbas was attending the rally in Paris, a human rights group published a report accusing the Palestinian Authority of “waging war” against university students in the West Bank. According to the report, 24 students have been arrested in recent weeks by Abbas’s security forces for “political reasons.”

Again, I’m sure Your Excellency did not hear about the crackdown on university campuses because Western media outlets and foreign journalists based here do not report about such stories. You read and hear about such incidents only when the Israeli army or police are involved.

I do not want to take much of your time, Your Excellency, by telling you about President Abbas’s double standards and hypocrisy on the subject of terrorism. You can learn a lot about this by going on the Internet and seeing, with your own eyes, how our president often condones and glorifies terrorism and terrorists.

You will even discover that our president, who will soon celebrate his 80th birthday, is prepared to stay awake all night to welcome Palestinians released from Israeli prison for murdering Jews and committing terror attacks no less serious than the ones your country experienced last week.

You will also discover, Your Excellency, that our president also rewards terrorists by granting them monthly salaries and other privileges.

What would be your reaction, Your Excellency, if someone decided to reward financially the families of the terrorists who massacred the innocent civilians in Paris?

Your Excellency, perhaps it is now too late to talk about the decision to invite President Abbas to the anti-terror rally. The damage has already been done, as far as I and many Palestinians are concerned. The way we see it is as follows: President Abbas has once again managed to deceive you and the rest of the international community by placing himself on the side of the good guys in their fight against terrorism and extremism. Even worse, President Abbas has managed to create the false impression that he cares about freedom of speech and independent journalism.

Undoubtedly, now Palestinians like me will now pay a heavier price because President Abbas has been emboldened by his participation in the Paris rally. President Abbas will now step up his assaults on public freedoms because he knows that the international community will only see photos of him marching together with Your Excellency and other world leaders in defense of freedom of expression.

By extending the invitation to President Abbas, you have caused damage to Palestinians like me who have been hoping that someone — maybe even a leader like you — would finally expose the dictatorship of the Palestinian Authority for what it is. President Abbas’s participation in the Paris rally is a severe blow to people like me who are genuinely opposed to terrorism and suppression of free speech.

Your Excellency, now that the damage has already been done, all that is left for people like me is to beg you to take all what I have said into account in your future dealings with President Abbas. Please do not hesitate to raise these issues with President Abbas the next time he requests your support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Otherwise, France will be helping to establish another corrupt and repressive Arab dictatorship — one that glorifies and rewards terrorists no different from those who carried out the Paris attacks.

Finally, Your Excellency, I hope that by now you understand the reason why I am too scared to reveal my identity.

Sincerely,

A Palestinian Journalist with No Name or Voice

 

World leaders link arms at the Paris anti-terror rally on January 11, 2014. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stands at the far right of the front row. (Image source: RT video screenshot)

 


ZUM KOTZEN

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US worried by ‘rising tide’ of European anti-Semitism

January 14, 2015

US worried by ‘rising tide’ of European anti-Semitism

White House chief of staff promises Washington will wage ‘tireless’ fight against Jew hatred

By AFP and Itamar Sharon January 14, 2015, 9:23 am

via US worried by ‘rising tide’ of European anti-Semitism | The Times of Israel.

But, but, BUUUUUUTTTTTT it has nothing to do with the islam !!!

French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud addresses a "Gathering of Solidarity and Remembrance with the People of France and Its Jewish Community" at the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington on January 13, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/NICHOLAS KAMM)

French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud addresses a “Gathering of Solidarity and Remembrance with the People of France and Its Jewish Community” at the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington on January 13, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/NICHOLAS KAMM)

 

The White House voiced alarm Tuesday at a surge in anti-Semitism in Europe and in France, after last week’s attack in Paris on a kosher supermarket which killed four Jewish people.

The violent assault on the Jewish community in France that took place on Friday afternoon was the latest in a series of very troubling incidents in Europe and around the world that reflect a rising tide of anti-Semitism,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said at an American Jewish committee event in a Washington synagogue.

“On behalf of the president (Barack Obama) I am here to affirm our nations’ solidarity to the French people and the Jewish community in France, and around the world, to condemn in the strongest possible terms the violent attacks of last week,” McDonough said.

“We will not waver in our commitment to combat the scourge of anti-Semitism,” McDonough stressed, adding that: “from the president on down, you have my commitment that we will wage this fight tirelessly, and together.”

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough (screen capture: YouTube/ABC News)

Recalling Obama’s mentioning this week that France is the United States’ oldest ally, McDonough said “we stand in solidarity with the French people and share this steadfast commitment to the values of liberty, free expression, coexistence and religious freedom that were so cruelly and violently assaulted in Paris last week.”

The kosher market attack, carried out by jihadist Amedy Coulibaly, followed a shooting days earlier at satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, where 12 people were killed by brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi. Seventeen people lost their lives in the three-day killing spree all told.

But the market attack was just the latest to raise fears among European Jews. It followed killings at a Belgian Jewish Museum and a Jewish school in southwestern France in recent years. France particularly has seen numerous incidents of hate crimes, harassment of Jews and the common use of anti-Semitic slogans in anti-Israel demonstrations.

In an emotional speech to the French parliament Tuesday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls spoke out against what he called “the new anti-Semitism,” which was being spread via the Internet.

“How can we accept that in France, we still hear about the death of Jews? How can we accept that people are killed because they are Jewish,” he asked. “When the Jews of France are attacked, all of France is attacked.”

Mourners at the Jerusalem funeral for four Jewish victims of the Paris terror attacks, on January 13, 2015. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The UN is planning to hold an informal meeting on the growth of anti-Semitism on January 22 in response to a request from dozens of nations, including Israel, the United States and all European Union members.

The 37 countries sent a letter to General Assembly President Sam Kutesa on October 1 calling for a meeting in response to “an alarming outbreak of anti-Semitism worldwide.” That was well before last week’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris.

The letter, whose signatories also included Rwanda, Uruguay, Canada and Australia, noted Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s statement last August expressing concern at the spike in anti-Semitic attacks.

“At rallies, crowds have chanted ‘Gas the Jews” and ‘Death to the Jews,’” the letter said. “Firebombs have been thrown at synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses have been vandalized.”

The countries said they were requesting a meeting of the 193-member world body because “a clear message from the General Assembly is a critical component of combatting the sudden rise of violence and hatred directed at Jews.”

Israel’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor said Monday: “We have a great deal of work to do to move this issue from the headlines to the history books.”

The January 22 meeting will feature a keynote address by French philosopher and author Bernard Henri Levy and speeches by representatives from several countries.

France is home to the third largest Jewish community in the world, with a population of some half a million. Around 7,000 Jews from the country moved to Israel in 2014, a record number that officials expect to be topped in coming years. Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky recently said he sees over 100,000 Jews moving to Israel from France in the next two decades.

In wake of the killings, Israeli leaders have stepped up a drive for French Jews to move to Israel in the face of increasing anti-Semitism. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of those who urged emigration, telling the French Jewishj community that “Israel is your home.”

Such remarks have been said to anger the French government, which has vowed to combat anti-Semitism and defend its Jewish citizens.

Reuven Rivlin speaking at the Jerusalem funeral for the four victims of the Paris terror attack, on January 13, 2015. (photo credit: Amit Shabi/POOL/Flash90)

French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal, who attended the Jerusalem funeral of the four Jewish victims on Tuesday, reassured the victims’ families and all those gathered of the French government’s commitment to to preserve and protect the Jewish community, which she called “a source of pride” for France.

“Anti-Semitism has no place in France. That is the message given by the millions who marched,” she said. “The messages ‘Je Suis Charlie’ (I am Charlie) and ‘Je Suis Juif’ (I am Jewish) resonated throughout the streets.”

At the funeral, President Reuven Rivlin also called on the world to fight “rabid anti-Semitic incitement,” but stressed his desire to see French Jews move to Israel by positive choice, rather than under duress.

“Much has been said since the murders, on the issue of the immigration to Israel of French Jewry. My dear brothers and sisters, Jewish citizens of France, you are welcome. Our land is your land, our home is your home, and we yearn to see you settle in Zion,” he said.

“However, returning to your ancestral home need not be due to distress, out of desperation, because of destruction, or in the throes of terror and fear. Terror has never kept us down, and we do not want terror to subdue you. The Land of Israel is the land of choice. We want you to choose Israel, because of a love for Israel.”

AP contributed to this report.

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The Jewish Press » » US Consulate Training and Arming Arabs for Judea and Samaria Guard Details

January 14, 2015

Following the Adei Ad incident, a new report has emerged alleging the US Consulate is training and arming Arabs with criminal records to be US diplomat’s guards in Judea and Samaria.

By: Jewish Press News Briefs

Published: January 14th, 2015

via The Jewish Press » » US Consulate Training and Arming Arabs for Judea and Samaria Guard Details.

 

U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel.
U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Photo Credit: us.state.gov

The US Consulate in Jerusalem is training Jerusalem Arabs as armed security guards to escort American diplomats in Judea and Samaria, according to reports in Yediot Achronot and Arutz-7.

The report states that 7 Israeli guards were recently fired and 3 more Israeli guards quit in protest, following the appointment of the Consulate’s new security officer, Dan Cronin, and his new policies.

Cronin is reportedly hiring 35 Arab guards and sending them for training in Jericho and the US.

According to some of the former Israeli guards, a number of the Arab guards already hired have previously been arrested for stone throwing attacks and have relatives with terror records.

The former guards also describe a secret arsenal in the US Consulate, consisting of machine guns, rifles and shotguns — all without permission or coordination with Israel.

On January 4, JewishPress.com reported on an incident where US Consulate security guards allegedly pulled out a gun and an M-16, pointing their weapons at Israelis near the community of Adei Ad. The US denied they pulled out any weapons on Israeli citizens during their surveillance mission.

There has been an inordinate amount of coordination between anti-Israel activist groups and US Consulate officials as of late.

In 2010, it was revealed that the US Consulate in Jerusalem had hired the son of Hamas leader to manage their motor pool. The position gave him access to US Consulate vehicles and visiting VIPs. The employee’s brother was an advisor to a senior Hamas official in Jerusalem.

The former US Consulate employee had been arrested a number of times by Israel, previous to his being hired by the US Consulate in 2003, and was part of an Israeli 2007 investigation into Hamas activities in Jerusalem. The consulate fired him from his sensitive position in 2006 when it couldn’t ignore his Hamas connections.

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Mehdi Hassan, Political Director – Huffington Post

January 14, 2015

Mehdi Hasan – Non Muslims live like animals

 

As a Muslim, I’m fed up with the hypocrisy of the free speech fundamentalists

The response to the inexcusable murder of Charlie Hebdo’s staff has proved that many liberals are guilty of double standards when it comes to giving offence.

by Mehdi Hasan Published 13 January, 2015 – 13:49

 

Protests in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo killings. Photo: Getty
Protests in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo killings. Photo: Getty

Dear liberal pundit,

You and I didn’t like George W Bush. Remember his puerile declaration after 9/11 that “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”? Yet now, in the wake of another horrific terrorist attack, you appear to have updated Dubbya’s slogan: either you are with free speech . . . or you are against it. Either vous êtes Charlie Hebdo . . . or you’re a freedom-hating fanatic.

I’m writing to you to make a simple request: please stop. You think you’re defying the terrorists when, in reality, you’re playing into their bloodstained hands by dividing and demonising. Us and them. The enlightened and liberal west v the backward, barbaric Muslims. The massacre in Paris on 7 January was, you keep telling us, an attack on free speech. The conservative former French president Nicolas Sarkozy agrees, calling it “a war declared on civilisation”. So, too, does the liberal-left pin-up Jon Snow, who crassly tweeted about a “clash of civilisations” and referred to “Europe’s belief in freedom of expression”.

In the midst of all the post-Paris grief, hypocrisy and hyperbole abounds. Yes, the attack was an act of unquantifiable evil; an inexcusable and merciless murder of innocents. But was it really a “bid to assassinate” free speech (ITV’s Mark Austin), to “desecrate” our ideas of “free thought” (Stephen Fry)? It was a crime – not an act of war – perpetrated by disaffected young men; radicalised not by drawings of the Prophet in Europe in 2006 or 2011, as it turns out, but by images of US torture in Iraq in 2004.

Please get a grip. None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.

Has your publication, for example, run cartoons mocking the Holocaust? No? How about caricatures of the 9/11 victims falling from the twin towers? I didn’t think so (and I am glad it hasn’t). Consider also the “thought experiment” offered by the Oxford philosopher Brian Klug. Imagine, he writes, if a man had joined the “unity rally” in Paris on 11 January “wearing a badge that said ‘Je suis Chérif’” – the first name of one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen. Suppose, Klug adds, he carried a placard with a cartoon mocking the murdered journalists. “How would the crowd have reacted? . . . Would they have seen this lone individual as a hero, standing up for liberty and freedom of speech? Or would they have been profoundly offended?” Do you disagree with Klug’s conclusion that the man “would have been lucky to get away with his life”?

Let’s be clear: I agree there is no justification whatsoever for gunning down journalists or cartoonists. I disagree with your seeming view that the right to offend comes with no corresponding responsibility; and I do not believe that a right to offend automatically translates into a duty to offend.

When you say “Je suis Charlie”, is that an endorsement of Charlie Hebdo’s depiction of the French justice minister, Christiane Taubira, who is black, drawn as a monkey? Of crude caricatures of bulbous-nosed Arabs that must make Edward Said turn in his grave?

Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic. Also, as the former Charlie Hebdo journalist Olivier Cyran argued in 2013, an “Islamophobic neurosis gradually took over” the magazine after 9/11, which then effectively endorsed attacks on “members of a minority religion with no influence in the corridors of power”.

It’s for these reasons that I can’t “be”, don’t want to “be”, Charlie – if anything, we should want to be Ahmed, the Muslim policeman who was killed while protecting the magazine’s right to exist. As the novelist Teju Cole has observed, “It is possible to defend the right to obscene . . . speech without promoting or sponsoring the content of that speech.”

And why have you been so silent on the glaring double standards? Did you not know that Charlie Hebdo sacked the veteran French cartoonist Maurice Sinet in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark? Were you not aware that Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet in 2005, reportedly rejected cartoons mocking Christ because they would “provoke an outcry” and proudly declared it would “in no circumstances . . . publish Holocaust cartoons”?

Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren. Context matters, too. You ask us to laugh at a cartoon of the Prophet while ignoring the vilification of Islam across the continent (have you visited Germany lately?) and the widespread discrimination against Muslims in education, employment and public life – especially in France. You ask Muslims to denounce a handful of extremists as an existential threat to free speech while turning a blind eye to the much bigger threat to it posed by our elected leaders.

Does it not bother you to see Barack Obama – who demanded that Yemen keep the anti-drone journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye behind bars, after he was convicted on “terrorism-related charges” in a kangaroo court – jump on the free speech ban wagon? Weren’t you sickened to see Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of a country that was responsible for the killing of seven journalists in Gaza in 2014, attend the “unity rally” in Paris? Bibi was joined by Angela Merkel, chancellor of a country where Holocaust denial is punishable by up to five years in prison, and David Cameron, who wants to ban non-violent “extremists” committed to the “overthrow of democracy” from appearing on television.

Then there are your readers. Will you have a word with them, please? According to a 2011 YouGov poll, 82 per cent of voters backed the prosecution of protesters who set fire to poppies.

Apparently, it isn’t just Muslims who get offended.

Yours faithfully,

Mehdi.

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Top Member of Obama Supported Terror Group Vows “Retaliation” Against US

January 14, 2015

Top Member of Obama Supported Terror Group Vows “Retaliation” Against US

January 14, 2015 by Daniel Greenfield

via Top Member of Obama Supported Terror Group Vows “Retaliation” Against US | FrontPage Magazine.

 

Abbas-Zaki-small

Apparently we just don’t give the PLO enough money. You can’t expect terrorists to live on under a billion a year. It’s inhuman.

In a recent interview with Russian news network RT, Fatah central committee member Abbas Zaki threatened the US following the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) failed UN bid demanding recognition and Israeli withdrawals.

“The whole world should understand that the US is an enemy, pushing Israeli extremists to carry on with their actions, depriving us of our rights, and supporting Israel in everything,”said Zaki, despite the fact that American and Israeli funding keeps the PA afloat.

The RT report went on to say that Zaki was “comparing the US administration with ‘the cobra’s head,’” and that “Zaki vowed retaliation if America doesn’t change its current stance.”

They can always go back to hijacking planes. They did innovate mass airplane hijacking that Al Qaeda only copied.

Zaki is one of the more notoriously honest terrorists from a group funded by US taxpayers.

Abbas Zaki: “Those Israelis have no religion and no principles… Allah will gather them so that we can kill them.”

He’s an almost honest monster.

The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go. If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end.

Of course the media has a long history of ignoring what either Abbas says when they’re on RT.

Around the time that Obama visited him, Abbas gave an interview to Putin’s RT in which he claimed that he was just like Hamas.

“As far as I am concerned, there is no difference between our policies and those of Hamas. So why are they labeled as terrorists? In my opinion, [the EU] can remove Hamas [from the list], why not?”

This is what America continues to fund under Obama.

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Nasrallah: Hezbollah has Huge Weapons Arsenal

January 14, 2015

Nasrallah: Hezbollah has Huge Weapons Arsenal Against Israel

Hezbollah leader boasts that group has ‘whatever weapon comes to mind’ amid rumors of an inevitable war in the north.

By Tova Dvorin

First Publish: 1/14/2015, 12:22 PM

via Nasrallah: Hezbollah has Huge Weapons Arsenal – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva.

 

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in rare public appearance

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in rare public appearance
Reuters

Hezbollah has “every type of weapon” in its arsenal, the terror group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah stated Tuesday.

“The resistance in Lebanon has everything the enemy can imagine and not imagine,” he said, in a late-night interview to Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen.

“We have weapons of all types; whatever [weapons] comes to mind,” he added.

According to estimations, Hezbollah already has a rocket arsenal ten times as powerful as that of Hamas. The IDF has assessed that like Hamas, Hezbollah likely is digging terror tunnels into Israel so as to attack, but Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Tuesday there is no evidence of such tunnels at the moment.

Aside from gaining weapons from Iran, Hezbollah also is estimated to possibly benefit in a $3 billion arms deal the Lebanese army recently sealed with France. Reports have already revealed how weapons and intelligence make their way from the army to Hezbollah, which has a strong presence within the army.

Nasrallah’s remarks surface amid escalating tensions between Israel and Lebanon.

Last month, veteran military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki stated to Arutz Sheva that a future war with the group is “inevitable.”

IDF sources have reported to Arutz Sheva that the army is covertly conducting an investigation of reports that Hezbollah has been building a complex network of terror tunnels.

Security officials stated to Kol Israel Radio in October that the IDF is, indeed, losing control along Israel’s northern borders – and that any attacks by Hezbollah would be disastrous.

Alarm has also been raised after the IDF and Defense Ministry cut guard duty near northern border communities – just one year after a similar move along the Gaza Belt saw an escalation in terror and, eventually, war.

Northern residents have responded to the apparent apathy to the situation by arming themselves, and gun ownership along the Lebanese and Syrian border communities has risen as high as 60% in recent weeks.

Hezbollah itself declared that it was “ready to fight Israel” in October.

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Lieberman: “Get rid of Abbas and we can reach an agreement”

January 14, 2015

Lieberman: “Get rid of Abbas and we can reach an agreement”

The Chairman of Yisrael Beiteinu Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman presented his comprehensive way to obtain peace with the Arab world: “After the departure of Abbas and the overthrow of Hamas, we’ll begin to talk.”

Jan 14, 2015, 01:20PM | Gal Cohen

via Israel News – Lieberman: “Get rid of Abbas and we can reach an agreement” – JerusalemOnline.

 

Photo Credit: Channel 2 News

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman gave a speech this morning at a Foreign Ministry Conference relating to the terror attack targeting the kosher supermarket in Paris and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  “If you’re talking seriously about the political process, you first need to get rid of Abbas,” he said.

Lieberman, who met with Israeli ambassadors across Eurasia, defined the Palestinian Authority Chairman as a significant obstacle on the road to a political agreement.  “The man fights for his own personal survival and thinks about his personal wellbeing, not about the wellbeing of the Palestinians,” the Foreign Minister accused.  “Abbas believes that the only way for him to survive is an escalation in the international arena because it darkens his weakness against Hamas and internal criticism.”

“After Annapolis, we needed to come to the conclusion that Abbas is not a partner for peace, but rather an obstacle,” Lieberman proclaimed.  “He uses rhetoric against conventional terror but facilitates political terrorism.  The recent initiatives cannot be defined as anything but political terrorism.  If we are talking seriously about a political process, we first need to get rid of Abbas in Ramallah and destroy the Hamas regime in Gaza.  Without these two things, all of our efforts are just talk.”

The Israeli Foreign Minister warned of the implications of the Palestinian unilateral appeals at the UN, saying, “What happened, especially in the last month, is crossing all of the red lines.  Another attempt to pass the unilateral decision in the Security Council on the establishment of a Palestinian state and their joining the International Criminal Court in the Hague leaves us no choice but to act against Abbas.  We must not allow the money that is frozen for the Palestinians to ‘thaw’ after a short period of time as it has in the past.  This time, we must make it clear that the money will be transferred only after Abbas is gone.”

He sharply criticized the conduct of the European countries in the face of growing anti-Semitism after the terror attack on the kosher supermarket in France.  “Most of the conversations, around the world and in France, were regarding freedom of expression, on extremism, on Islamophobia, and not on anti-Semitism, and this is very worrying, especially following the terror attacks in Toulouse and the Jewish Museum in Brussels,” Lieberman said.  “We need to stop being so politically correct and we must start telling the truth.  It is the same classic hatred of Jews, just the modern version, and murderous anti-Semitism is the main foundation of radical Islam.”

Channel 2 News/Reuters

“Even the European states that remain silent when Erdogan speaks out against Israel, calling our country a terrorist state, contribute to the murderous hatred against Jews in Europe,” he stated.  “A Europe with a neighborhood thug like Erdogan is bringing the region back to the reality of the 1930’s.”

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TEXAS FREE SPEECH PROTEST Against SHARIA Conference to Restrict “Islamophobic” Speech January 17 | Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs

January 14, 2015

TEXAS FREE SPEECH PROTEST Against SHARIA Conference to Restrict “Islamophobic” Speech January 17

via TEXAS FREE SPEECH PROTEST Against SHARIA Conference to Restrict “Islamophobic” Speech January 17 | Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs.

 

speech rally

Islamic supremacists and terror-tied imams from across America will gather in Texas this weekend to hold the annual Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect conference, a weekend forum that is being billed as a “movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message,” according to event information.

The Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect conference declares that it is trying to start a “movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message.” This theme is strikingly similar to the motive of the Charlie Hebdo jihad killers: after they had murdered twelve people in the Charlie Hebdo offices, one of the gunmen shouted, “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad.”

This kind of hate-filled rhetoric fuels the violence and murder of freedom loving people.

We will protest this supremacism and stand in defense of free speech. Je suis Charlie!

This Saturday, January 17 at 3:00pm in CST, 4999 Naaman Forest Blvd., Garland, TX 75040

RSVP HERE

Bring lots of American flags and free speech and Je Suis Charlie!  signs.

Screen Shot 2015-01-13 at 4.02.12 PM

AFDI to hold “Stand With Free Speech” demo outside anti-free speech “Stand With the Prophet” conference

NEW YORK, January 13: The human rights advocacy group the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) today announced that it will be holding a demonstration in defense of the freedom of speech on Saturday, January 17 in Garland, Texas, outside a conference on “Islamophobia” that seeks to stifle opposition to jihad terror and restrict the freedom of speech, working to further the same Islamic law that led to the Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre.

The Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect conference declares that it is trying to start a “movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message.” This theme is strikingly similar to the motive of the Charlie Hebdo jihad killers: after they had murdered twelve people in the Charlie Hebdo offices, one of the gunmen shouted, “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad.”

The Stand With the Prophet event will feature John Esposito, a professor at Georgetown University and head of the Saudi-funded Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown; and Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and close friend of the mastermind of that bombing, the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman. Wahhaj has said: “said in 1992, “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”

AFDI President Pamela Geller said in a statement: “Saturday’s Stand With the Prophet event seeks to combat ‘Islamophobes in America’ – in line with Islamic supremacist groups’ longstanding objective of defaming, smearing and marginalizing anyone who opposes the jihad agenda. They say they want to defend Muhammad – which means to silence those who notice that defenders of Muhammad just murdered sixteen people in Paris, and tens of thousands worldwide since 9/11.”

“Our AFDI rally,” Geller added, “will stand for the freedom of speech against all attempts, violent and stealthy, to impose Islamic blasphemy laws on Americans and stifle criticism of Muhammad and Islam. As Muhammad’s followers kill more and more people, we need critics of him more than ever – and free people need to stand up against these underhanded attempts to stifle all criticism of Islam, including honest investigations of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify Jew-hatred, violence, supremacism and oppression.”

Noted Geller: “The United States and other Western nations have paid insufficient attention to the fact that Muslim communities in the West have not made any concerted effort to expel supporters of jihad terror from their midst, and have done nothing at all to teach against the jihadist understanding of Islam, even though they ostensibly reject it. That shows the hypocrisy of this Stand With the Prophet event.”

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Iran Building Missile Sites in Syria

January 14, 2015

Iran Building Missile Sites in Syria
By Adam Kredo January 13, 2015 Via The Washington Free Beacon


(Meanwhile….back on the ranch. – LS)

Iranian military leaders admitted this week to building and operating missile-manufacturing plants in Syria, where it was also revealed that Tehran is helping to build a secret nuclear facility.

An Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander stated in a recent interview that the country’s Supreme Leader ordered forces to build and operate missile plants in Syria, where Iran continues to fight on behalf of embattled leader Bashar al-Assad, according to regional media reports.

IRGC Aerospace Commander Haji Zadeh touted Iran’s capabilities and bragged that Iran has gone from importing most of its military hardware to producing it domestically, as well as for regional partners such as Assad.

“A country such as Syria which used to sell us arms, was later on to buy our missiles,” Zadeh was quoted as saying earlier this week by the Young Journalists Club. “Right now the missile manufacturing firms in Syria are built by Iran.”

It has long been suspected that Iranian forces operating in Syria are providing weaponry to Assad’s forces. Zadeh’s remarks confirm that Tehran is committed to a long fight in Syria and hopes to turn the country into an Iranian proxy state.

Iran’s military actions in Syria could constitute a gross violation of sanctions on the regime enacted by the United Nations and Western powers.

Zadeh also bragged about Tehran’s ability to build missiles capable of travelling at least 2,000 kilometers, far enough to reach into Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, according to the report.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has made it a priority for Tehran to produce advanced missiles, Zadeh said.

“The Supreme Leader wanted us to make the missiles prices, something which he had noted earlier than that,” he was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, Germany’s Der Spiegel reported over the weekend, based on leaked intelligence and other sources, that Iran has been helping to build a secret nuclear facility in Syria.

Western sources fear that Tehran is attempting to continue its controversial and clandestine nuclear work in Syria, where it does not have to battle against international nuclear inspectors and Western powers seeking to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Obama administration officials have sought to downplay the developments and said that they will not raise the issue with Iran during an upcoming round of talks over its program.

“Will you discuss this issue with the Iranians in the upcoming talks?” a reporter asked State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf on Monday.

“No,” Harf replied. “The upcoming talks are about the Iranian nuclear program.”

When pressed on the issue, Harf said that nuclear talks only focus on Iran’s domestic program and nothing else.

“We don’t discuss other issues with them at those talks, as you all know,” she said.

(What a line of crap…this absolutely amazing. – LS)

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Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Soleimani seriously injured in Iraq by ISIS suicide squad

January 14, 2015

Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Soleimani seriously injured in Iraq by ISIS suicide squad

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 14, 2015, 1:06 PM (IDT)

via Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Soleimani seriously injured in Iraq by ISIS suicide squad.

 

Will Iraq be Gen. Qassem Soleimani's last battle arena?

Will Iraq be Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s last battle arena?

Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Al Qods Brigades, and senior officer of Iranian forces in Iraq, was seriously injured in a targeted attack by an ISIS suicide squad, debkafile reports from military and intelligence sources in the Gulf.

The attack took place near Samarra in central Iraq, after agents of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant managed to infiltrate his command staff and get close enough to their target before blowing themselves up. The date of the assassination attempt has not been revealed.
Soleimani, 58, who is a member of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s closest circle and a pivotal figure in Iranian military and intelligence, was rushed to hospital in Tehran.

In an exclusive report Tuesday, Jan. 13, debkafile first revealed that ISIS had adopted a new tactic of systematically targeting top officers fighting them in Iraq, especially the Iranians, in order to sow confusion and panic among the men under their command.

Soleimani won the epithet in the West as Iran’s Shadow Commander for pulling the strings of his country’s clandestine espionage and terrorist operations outside its borders. For nine years, he has masterminded Iran’s military and political involvement in three conflicts, starting with the Hizballah-Israel war of 2006, the nearly four years of Syria’s bloody conflict and the war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Gen. Soleimani it was who laid down the strategy Iran adopted in all these military interventions.
His latest project was a major effort to weld all of Iraq’s Shiite militias into a single popular army, after coming to the conclusion that the national Iraqi army was past rebuilding as a regular military fit for combat operations after its elite division fell apart in its first confrontation with ISIS. The US had invested $25 billion in rebuilding the Iraqi army.
Tuesday, debkafile reported that ISIS had managed to wipe out the forward command group of an Al Qods Brigades commando force early Monday, Jan. 12, killing its commander, Gen. Mehdi Norouzi. His chief is now in bad shape after a jihadist attack using the same opus operandi.

 

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