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Obama Admin Refuses to Condemn Palestinians

October 13, 2015

Obama Admin Refuses to Condemn Palestinians for Wave of Terrorism The “cycle of violence” returns

BY:
October 13, 2015 4:40 pm

Source: Obama Admin Refuses to Condemn Palestinians

A spokesman for the Obama administration Tuesday refused to identify Palestinians as the perpetrators of a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks that have left dozens of Israelis dead and wounded in the past weeks.

Associated Press reporter Matt Lee pressed the State Department spokesman to explain why the administration says it delivers the same message to both Israeli and Palestinian leaders when only Palestinians are carrying out terrorist attacks. “Does the United States believe–does the administration believe–that Israel is inciting or not condemning violence?” Lee asked.

Spokesman Mark Toner replied, “I think what we’ve been very clear about saying is that we want to see both sides take affirmative steps.”

“So the U.S. – the administration sees both sides at fault here, is that correct?” Lee asked.

“Both sides need to, as their leaders need to express the fact that both sides need to decrease the tensions that are leading to ongoing incidence of violence. But you know, you’re asking me to assign blame and I don’t think that’s the case,” Toner said.

“Well, I mean, if the secretary is calling up both Abbas and Netanyahu and has the same message for both of them, it would suggest that you think that both of them need to do more to that,” Lee said. “I’m just trying to figure out what is it you would want the Israelis to do more in condemning the violence.”

“For one thing, upholding–for one thing, as I said upholding the status quo in Haram al-Sharif and Temple Mount,” Toner said.

“But has there been suggestion that the status quo is going to be changed?” Lee asked.

Toner then changed the subject. There has been no change in the status quo on the Temple Mount, nor any consideration given by the Israeli government to changing the status quo there. Palestinian leaders have spread the unfounded claim that Jews are threatening the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, sparking Palestinian rioting there.

Lee then pressed from a different angle.

“Do you think the Palestinian Authority, President Abbas, needs to do more to combat incitement and condemn violence?” he asked.

Toner replied, “I think that both leaders need to – need to convey that message.”

Toner later called the past month’s wave of unprovoked Palestinian terrorism “the cycle of violence that’s currently taking place.”

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Obama’s Mideast Policies Are Paid for in Christian Blood

October 13, 2015

Obama’s Mideast Policies Are Paid for in Christian Blood

by 

Tuesday, 13 October 2015

Source: Obama’s Mideast Policies Are Paid for in Christian Blood

They cut off the 12-year-old boy’s fingertips, but still he refused to convert to Islam. They then “severely beat him,” reports the group Christian Aid Mission, “telling his father they would stop the torture only if he, the father, returned to Islam. When the [father] refused, relatives said, the ISIS militants also tortured and beat him and … two other ministry workers. The three men and the boy then met their deaths in crucifixion.”

Perpetrated by Islamic State (IS) jihadists, the above crime occurred near Aleppo, Syria, just last month. But it’s a scene that has been replayed over and over in the Middle East for years now, a result, say critics, of Obama administration policy that has destabilized the region and empowered the most brutal of Islamists.

This contention is made and the Christian persecution recounted — in horrific detail — in a recent Gatestone Institute piece by Raymond Ibrahim entitled, “How Obama Ushered in the New Age of Christian Martyrdom.” And the martyrs, sadly, are many. Just consider this 2014 testimonial from Andrew White, an Anglican priest known as the “Vicar of Baghdad”:

ISIS turned up and they said to the [Christian] children, “You say the words [shehada, convert to Islam], that you will follow Muhammad.” And the children, all under 15, four of them, they said, “No, we love Jesus. We have always loved Jesus. We have always followed Jesus. Jesus has always been with us.” They [IS] said, “Say the words!” They [the children] said, “No, we can’t” [White begins weeping]. They chopped all their heads off. How do you respond to that? You just cry. They are my children. That is what we have been going through. That is what we are going through.

These are not events you read about in the establishment media, and Obama doesn’t talk about them. Both he and the media certainly find time, though, to take up the cudgels for criminals such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. Obama and his media minions also don’t explain the urgency of granting these Christians safe haven, although they devote much effort to advocating for the Muslim migrants currently pouring into Western nations. Damnable? Yes. Especially since Obama’s policies — largely rubber-stamped by the media — make him and the media culpable in the Christians’ deaths.

Obama’s support for the misnamed “Arab Spring” movement and the consequent ouster of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and the targeting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, was justified on the basis that we were backing “moderate” Arab rebels. But did the administration really believe this? Consider that Vice President Joe Biden himself admitted in a Harvard University speech last year that in Syria there is “no ‘moderate middle.’” He went on to say that our allies “were so determined to take down Assad and have a proxy Sunni-Shia war” that “they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands, of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight,” thus supplying and empowering “al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”

This was also admitted by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey in a 2014 U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee meeting. When asked by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) if he knew of any major Arab allies who embrace IS, Dempsey replied, “I know major Arab allies who fund them.”

But could this all just be “some new revelation that took the White House by surprise?” asked The New American’s Alex Newman in August. Answering “Not even close,” Newman then reported:

Judicial Watch recently obtained an explosive 2012 document from the Defense Intelligence Agency exposing the fact that the West, along with Arab and Muslim regimes in Obama’s anti-ISIS coalition, knew that al-Qaeda and other terror groups were leading the rebellion against Assad from the start. The report says, “The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”

… “The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the Syrian opposition.” The document goes on: “There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

And, of course, the same dynamic applied in Libya and Egypt.

It speaks volumes — but isn’t surprising to those not blinded by political correctness — that our Muslim “allies” might favor a radical-jihadist state over more secular leaders such as Assad. But why did Obama proceed with his reckless policies knowing such an outcome was possible? I suggested here that he could be motivated by hatred for all things Western (and the modern Middle East is a Western construct). Whatever the case, the results are clear: Muslim migrants flooding into the West, IS rampaging through the Mideast as it forges a modern caliphate — and the new age of Christian martyrdom.

But while this may be a new age, Muslim persecution of Christians is nothing new. Orthodox Christian researcher and author Ralph Sidway recounts the beheading of 100,000 Georgians in 1226 A.D., and Ibrahim writes of the murder of a “great procession” of Coptic Christians in Egypt in 1389. Of course, that the latter would occur in the belly of Dar al-Islam may come as no surprise; note, however, that persecution of Christians was not always a given in the Mideast and North Africa. For Christianity was once the regions’ dominant faith.

In fact, in the 400s A.D. there were more Christians in North Africa than in Europe. But this would change. Shortly after Islam’s birth in 622, its hordes would set out to conquer the old Christian lands, and by 709, North Africa was in their grasp. They would also invade Europe two years later, eventually getting within 125 miles of Paris before Charles Martel (the “Hammer”) stopped them at the Battle of Tours in 732. Muslims’ later conquests in Byzantine Empire (the remnant of the Roman Empire) territory would, in 1095, spark the great but misunderstood defense of Christendom known as the Crusades. And Islam’s warriors would twice reach the gates of Vienna, in 1529 and 1683.

Today, Islamic State and other Muslim jihadists are finishing the job of conversion by the sword their co-religionist forebears began, and there are no modern Crusaders riding to the rescue. For Obama’s part, he appears blithely unaware of (or indifferent to) the bloody history and — whether through malice or criminal neglect — bent on writing more of it.

 

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They can never defeat us .

October 13, 2015

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Gruesome Facebook posts set agenda for new Palestinian terrorism

October 13, 2015

Gruesome Facebook posts set agenda for new Palestinian terrorism Scornful of their leadership, mistrustful of mainstream media, young assailants impacted by pages filled with grisly images and caricatures encouraging attacks

By Elhanan Miller October 13, 2015, 7:26 pm

Source: Gruesome Facebook posts set agenda for new Palestinian terrorism | The Times of Israel

A caricature by Hasan Abadi encourages Palestinians to stab Israeli soldiers [Facebook image]

 

Less than 48 hours before he boarded a Jerusalem bus Tuesday morning and opened fire on its passengers, killing two, Bahaa Allyan was busy castigating mainstream media on his Facebook page.

On Sunday morning, a fellow resident of his village of Jabel Mukabber, Israa Ja’abees, was badly wounded in an explosion when she tried to detonate gas canisters in her car en route to Jerusalem. The alertness of an Israeli policeman who stopped the car for inspection prevented a massive terror attack in the capital, Israeli media reported. The woman yelled “Allahu Akbar” (God is most great) and set off the explosive detonator in her car, a police statement said

But on Allyan’s Facebook page, filled with posts utterly hostile to Israel and derisive of the Palestinian Authority, the story was dramatically different. A graphic designer by profession, he had been in touch with Ja’abees’s family who, he wrote, told her that her car had malfunctioned on the way to Hebrew University. The Israeli forces, they said, mistook an electric short for a terror attack and opened fire, “killing her in cold blood.”

“I am posting news on my [Facebook] page due to the absence of real media, and also to refute Hebrew media which some consider credible but is certainly not,” wrote Allyan, who was 22. “Without real media our truth will be lost.”

Jerusalem terrorist Bahaa Allyan Bahaa Allyan Facebook page

It was not only in official media that Allyan felt he had no voice. Palestinian leadership, be it local or national, had failed the people, he emphatically argued.

“Let the Palestinian Authority know that a ceasefire [with Israel] is in the hands of the people, not in the hands of any of its rulers,” he wrote on Saturday. The following day, he added: “The reassuring thing is that the leaders are out of the equation. The opportunists and those who love to appear on television will soon be marginalized.”

On October 4, Allyan had complained that Jabel Mukaber, a Palestinian village of 32,000 residents annexed to Jerusalem in 1967, was not living up to its reputation. (The village produced the Abu Jamal cousins, who carried out the terror attack on a Har Nof synagogue that killed four Jewish worshipers and a policeman in November 2014).

‘Where are the patriotic forces in Jabel Mukaber?’ wrote Bahaa Allyan two days before the attack

“When you walk around Jabel Mukaber you find only one or two shops closed and everyone else open, as though they’re not concerned by the situation,” he wrote. “Where are the patriotic forces in Jabel Mukaber? My criticism is directed at the locals before the patriotic forces. Every shop owner should decide to strike on his own. Everyone tells me not to air our dirty laundry. No! Everyone should know that there are no patriots and only two or three shops are shut, unfortunately.”

“Don’t jump up and tell me ‘no one notified us.’ Things are clear and everyone knows that situation. No one needs to tell you to strike. Our martyrs deserve mourning. Commerce is futile in light of the events.”

Allyan, like other terrorists who have shared their thoughts and emotions on Facebook ahead of their deadly attacks, belonged to a new generation which despises political authority and deeply suspects any intuition other than its own. Inspired by the activism of Arabs across the Middle East, he had nothing but scorn for the inaction of his fellow Palestinians in the face of Israel’s perceived aggressive onslaught.

Approximately one third of Palestinian society in Jerusalem and the West Bank is active on social media, said Orit Perlov, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) who specializes in Palestinian social media.

“There are no borders in social media,” she said. “The same message resonates in Gaza, Jerusalem and Um al-Fahm.”

An image posted on the Facebook account of a Palestinian activist (Facebook image)

According to Perlov, the availability of the internet in Palestinian society makes it an equalizing and democratizing tool, granting a voice to women and youths who have no say in mainstream Palestinian politics.

In recent months, she added, Israel and the PA have been monitoring and arresting prominent Palestinian social media activists in Jerusalem and the West Bank, leaving the arena “like an octopus with tentacles but no head.”

Orit Perlov, a social media expert at INSS, October 13, 2015 Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel

ِAllyan had posted photos of Palestinian attackers, lying dead in puddles of blood in Jerusalem, after being shot dead by Israeli police. The photos were doubtless downloaded from a plethora of news sites followed by youth like him — sites that post videos and photos from attack sites within seconds of their occurrence — and which have all but supplanted newspapers and satellite channels as a main source of information.

Facebook pages such as Quds News Network (3.6 million followers on Facebook, 264,000 on twitter); Shehab News Agency (4.1 million followers on Facebook, 99,000 on twitter), and Urgent from Gaza (282,000 followers on Facebook) flood Palestinian computer screens with gruesome images of dead Palestinians and caricatures encouraging more attacks, often accompanied by a hashtag ordering “stab!” or warning “al-Aqsa is in danger!”

As frustrating as it may be for Israeli decision-makers, statements by Palestinian leaders have little effect on the perpetrators of deadly attacks. If anything, it is the leaders who follow the trend set by social media at the grassroots level, adopting hashtags invented by teenagers and online activists.

Last December, Allyan posted a chilling “will for any martyr” on his Facebook page, a document that has gone viral on Palestinian media following his death.

“I instruct the factions not to claim responsibility for my martyrdom. My death was for my homeland, not for you,” read article number 1. ” Don’t turn me into a number to be counted today and forgotten tomorrow. See you in heaven.”

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New anti-terror measures, hospitals on emergency footing ready for long terror haul

October 13, 2015

New anti-terror measures, hospitals on emergency footing ready for long terror haul, DEBKAfile, October 13, 2015

Ambulance-Jerusalem_Malchei_Yisrael_Street_13.10.15Medical services on terror alert in Jerusalem

After the first shooting in the current wave of Palestinian terror, the Health Ministry Tuesday, Oct. 13, put Israeli hospitals on emergency footing for the potential contingency of multiple casualties. Medical and auxiliary staff and supply centers were put on a state of preparedness. Hospitals in Jerusalem and other parts of the country are already facing a rise in emergency admissions as a result of terrorist attacks.

The security cabinet Tuesday approved a series of anti-terror measures, while warning that the end of the terrorist offensive was not yet in sight and it would take time for the new measures to take effect.

The families of five killer-terrorists were to be notified that their homes are listed for demolition. They were given 48 hours to appeal to decision before Israel’s High Court. The order was cleared with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. It was also decided to deploy IDF troops in Israeli cities to boost security and backup for the police. Partial shutdowns is to be imposed on Palestinian residential districts and villages in Jerusalem, where some  80 percent of the terrorists live, with check posts installed to monitor and control their entries and exits.

These measures were introduced shortly after three Israelis were killed, 22 were injured in Jerusalem by three terrorists from the same Palestinian Jebel Mukaber city neighborhood, which has a long history of terror. Armed with a gun and a knife, two terrorists tried to commandeer a bus a bus in the Armon Hanatziv district of Jerusalem, killing one Israeli and injuring 16, at least six seriously. One of the pair was shot dead, the second injured.

This was the first terrorist shooting attack in the current wave of violence. One of the killers was on the payroll of Bezek, Israel’s biggest telecom company.

In downtown Jerusalem, within minutes, a Palestinian ran down a group of pedestrians waiting at the Malchei Israel bus stop. He then jumped out of the car and struck his victims with a cleaver – continuing to strike even after he was shot by a local security guard. He killed 60-year old Rabbi Yeshayahu and injured three injured victims before he was shot dead.

Earlier, five Israelis were injured in two stabbing attacks carried out by a single terrorist in the town of Raanana north of Tel Aviv. He was overpowered by a civilian with a pepper gun and a selfie stick before police shot him dead.

After the Jerusalem attacks, police spokesmen admitted for the first time that they must have been synchronized and deliberately set up, finally abandoning the “lone wolf” theory attributed hitherto by Israeli officials to the current wave of terror.

Jerusalem’s two highway links – Rtes 1 and 443 – were meanwhile briefly shut to traffic in both directions as security forces swept for terrorist cars suspected of mingling with the intercity traffic.

DEBKAfile reported Monday.

The Palestinian knifing spree in Jerusalem Monday, Oct. 12, the day after an Israeli Arab from Umm al-Fham mowed down, then knifed, four Israelis in central Israel, puts the Palestinians on the same bloody course as Israeli Arabs, who launched an anti-Israel general strike Tuesday.

The day began at the Lions Gate, Border Guards police stopped a Palestinian who acted suspiciously. He pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the police men. The blade glanced off his body armor and the terrorist was shot dead.

At noon, a female terrorist inflicted moderate injuries on another two Border Guards officers opposite National Police Headquarters in northern Jerusalem. She was stopped by gun shots and seriously hurt.

A short time later, further north at Pisgat Zeev, two terrorists worked a street in tandem. They knocked a 13-year old Israeli boy off his bike and stabbed him. He is fighting for his life at Hadassah hospital on Mt. Scopus. The terrorist’s partner attacked a second Israeli, inflicting major knife wounds. Police at the scene stopped the rampage by shooting. One was killed.

The Umm al-Fahm assailant, Ali Riyadh Ahmed Ziwad, 20, who had to be restrained by police and passersby, Sunday night, assumed an air of surprised innocence after his arrest. “It was just a traffic accident,” he said, after running over, then critically injuring a 19-year old Israeli girl with a knife and stabbing three others.

He went into an act that is typical of the Palestinian tactic of assuming the role of victim after committing terrorist outrages.

Leaders of the Israeli Arab community (roughly one-tenth of Israel’s population) including its elected members of parliament embark on a general strike Tuesday, Oct. 13, followed Wednesday by a grandstand performance by Arab MKs at Al Aqsa, accompanied by a flock of Israeli and international camera crews.

They will have plenty of microphones to proclaim how badly they are treated and, above all, to continue to spread totally unproven falsehoods about Israeli desecrations of the Muslim Mosque of Al Aqsa, which has provided the Palestinians with their most evocative and unifying emblem for most of the past century.

Seventy-nine years ago, on April 19, 1936 – when Facebook, television and an Israel state were far in the future – the Arab High Command of Palestine declared a general strike which swiftly escalated into terrorist attacks against Jews and the British and evolved into the Great Arab Revolt.

Then, too, the rallying cry was “the Mosque is in danger!” for triggering the order to “burn a thousand buildings in Tel Aviv.” By the time it was over in 1939, 600 Jews, 200 British officials and 5,000 Arabs were dead. Many of the last group died in internecine tribal feuds.

The same rallying cry has ever since fired Palestinian campaigns of terror. The “Al Aqsa Intidafa” called by Yasser Arafat on Oct. 1, 2000, which saw the first intensive use of suicide attacks for terror, cost the lives of 1,178 Israelis and 50 foreigners, injured 8,022 civilians.

The Palestinians lost 3,333 dead and 30,000 injured – many self-inflicted.

No one can tell how the latest Israeli Arab strike will develop. Their leaders are doing their utmost to inflame passions and have already incited the first Israeli Arab stabbing attack in tune with Palestinian terrorists.

Israeli Arab leaders looks as though they have the bit between their teeth and are trying to use the weakness of the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to set the pace of events for the Palestinians as well.
The Israeli government is trying to pour oil on these turbulent waters, turning to the slow-moving legislative process as a means of fighting terror, while beefing up police forces, who are barely able to keep pace with the slashing knives.

Officials and reporters still insist on the absence of a controlling hand behind the violence, despite the evidence of an unfolding stage-by-scale escalation. The policeman injured at Lions Gate Monday told reporters from his hospital bed that, while on duty at various sectors, he had traced systematic organization behind the stabbings;the knife terrorists kept on coming out at a steady, controlled pace, he said.

Israeli strategists are not moving swiftly or unhesitatingly enough to correctly evaluate this enemy and pounce strongly on his weaknesses.

Categories: Defense of Israel, Hospitals in Israel, IDF, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians
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Netanyahu ordered: The IDF will assist the police

October 13, 2015

Netanyahu ordered: The IDF will assist the police The security cabinet, which convened this afternoon, has decided to enlist IDF soldiers in order to bolster police patrolling in cities that have been a target of the latest terror wave.

Oct 13, 2015, 07:30PM | Ateret Horowitz

Source: Netanyahu ordered: The IDF will assist the police – JerusalemOnline

Photo credit: Channel 2 News

IDF soldiers will reinforce the Israeli Police forces and will take part in securing city centers: The decision was made during the security cabinet meeting this evening (Tuesday), in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took part.

As a part of the discussion with the security echelon regarding the measure needed to take in order to curb the last few days’ terror wave, it was decided that IDF soldiers will be stationed in major city intersections and crowded areas. Moreover, Soldiers will now be instructed to patrol construction sites.

The military bolster to the police forces will allow the latter to overcome the manpower shortage consequent upon the latest terror surge.

Netanyahu raised a number of other proposals during the security meeting, although some have yet to be agreed upon by other ministers in view of their legality.

One of the measure Netanyahu has proposed is to militarily crown Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem as well as to expedite the demolition of the homes of Palestinian that committed terror attacks.

Prior to the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu spoke in memory of former minister Rehavaam Zeevi, who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in 2001. “Israel will come to settle accounts with all of the murderers: not only will we prevent them from their rights – they will be charged the full price of their actions”, Netanyahu stated.

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Islamic State urges jihad against Russians, Americans.

October 13, 2015

Islamic State urges jihad against Russians, Americans: audio

Tue Oct 13, 2015 2:49pm EDT

Source: Islamic State urges jihad against Russians, Americans: audio | Reuters

Islamic State called on Muslims to launch a “holy war” against Russians and Americans over what it called their “crusaders’ war” in the Middle East, an audio message distributed by supporters of the ultra hardline group said on Tuesday.

“Islamic youth everywhere, ignite jihad against the Russians and the Americans in their crusaders’ war against Muslims,” the speech by Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani said.

The United States and Russia are carrying separate airstrike campaigns in Syria, which they say are targeting Islamic State.

Washington says Moscow’s campaign has mainly targeted other insurgent groups including those that have fought Islamic State, a charge Russia denies.

The United States is also carrying out airstrikes in Iraq, where Russia has also become separately involved. A senior Iraqi parliamentarian said on Tuesday that Russian officials were part of a new Iraq-based intelligence center with staff from Iran and Syria.

The audio message also confirmed the death of Abu Mutaz Qurashi, which the SITE monitoring service said was a reference to a senior Islamic State official killed in an airstrike in Iraq in August and referred to then as Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali.

The White House said at the time that a U.S. air strike in Iraq had killed Hayali, whom it described as the second-in-command of the group which has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

The audio made no specific mention of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose health and whereabouts became a subject of speculation earlier this week when an Islamic State convoy was hit in Iraq.

Eight senior figures from Islamic State were killed in the Iraqi air strike while meeting in an Iraqi town on Sunday, but Baghdadi did not appear to be among them, residents of the town and hospital sources said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Tolba and Sylvia Westall; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

 

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Saudis Sentence Brit to 350 Lashes for Possession of Wine

October 13, 2015

Saudis Sentence Brit to 350 Lashes for Possession of Wine, The Clarion Project, October 13, 2015

(The UN Human Rights Council, of which Saudi Arabia is the head, must be very proud of that splendid nation’s human rights achievements. — DM)

Karl-Andree-640-320Karl Andree, right. (Screenshot from video)

In a case that has recently become public, a British citizen was sentenced to 350 lashes and one year in jail by the Saudi regime after morality police found homemade wine in his car.

All alcohol is strictly prohibited in the Gulf kingdom which enforces sharia law as state law.

Karl Andree, 74, has already served the one year in prison. The sharia court which sentenced him mandated that the flogging would occur at the end of his prison time and in public.

Andree is in poor health, and it is not believed he will survive the flogging. He is being held in Jeddah’s Briman prison. Prior to his arrest he was an oil executive who worked in Saudi Arabia for 25 years.

His three children, Hugh, 46, Kirsten, 45, and Simon, 33, have now gone public with the story, though the incident took place last year in the port city of Jeddah. They are now calling on UK Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene with Saudi Arabia to secure his release.

“Our father has given 25 years of his working life to Saudi Arabia, and this is how he is treated” they said in a statement reported by The Sun. “Until his arrest, he has always been happy working there and felt safe.”

“He is 74 years of age, has had cancer three times and his wife is dying in a home in the UK. He now needs medical care for his cancer and asthma, and there is no doubt in our mind that 350 lashes will kill him. We implore David Cameron to personally intervene and help get our father home. The Saudi government will only listen to him.”

Saudi Arabia has recently drawn fire for its appalling human rights record, with two cases in particular causing an international outcry:

  • Blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for running a website critical of the government. The sentence was upheld by an appeals court in June, leaving him no further legal recourse other than a royal pardon. He received the first batch of 50 lashes in January, which incapacitated him. The rest have been temporarily postponed due to his ill health and an international outcry.
  • Human rights activist, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, now 21, was sentenced to beheading and crucifixion for taking part in pro-democracy protests during the Arab Spring in 2011 when he was just 17.

 

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Khamenei’s new book preaches hatred and annihilation of America

October 13, 2015

Khamenei’s new book preaches hatred and annihilation of America, Front Page Magazine, Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, October 13, 2015

(Please see also, The Iranian Majlis Has Not Approved The JCPOA But Iran’s Amended Version Of It. — DM)

bazzi-top-1024x750

[C]an we consider ]US] policy an informed one when the US is compelled to continue to please and spoil the Islamic Republic — by turning a blind eye on its egregious human rights abuses, imprisonment of American citizens without fair and due process, support of  terrorist groups, sabotage of US foreign policy, national, and security interests in the region — all so that Iranian leaders will stick to the nuclear deal?

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Ironically, as the financial rewards and the improved legitimacy that have resulted from Obama’s nuclear deal continue to benefit the Iranian ruling clerics, the Iranian political establishment’s hatred towards the United States is reaching its peak. 

This week, the highest authority in the Islamic Republic, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, banned and forbade any further talks and negotiations between his country and the United States: “Negotiation with US is forbidden.”

In addition, he recently made his new e-book available for download in English. The Ayatollah points out: “The regional nations truly hate America and its European branch, England. This hatred is not limited to our people: all regional nations hate them … Why do they complain about being hated? Yes, we hate you.” The book advocates for annihilating America and Israel. It rants about how the Muslim world hates the US and Israel.

As a result, how can President Obama stand behind his promise that the nuclear deal is going to make the ruling clerics of the Islamic Republic more rational, less hostile to the United States and Israel, more civilized and a more constructive player in the region?

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the theocratic leader has not even officially endorsed the nuclear deal, although the sanctions on the country are being gradually lifted. His strategy is to pull out of the nuclear deal after all economic sanctions have been lifted and Iran has obtained full nuclear capabilities.

The timing of the Supreme Leader’s announcement and other recent equally inflammatory statements is important since they come after the Islamic Republic has ensured that the nuclear deal is sealed and Tehran will be receiving over $150 billion in the short term and other additional financial rewards when the economic sanctions are fully lifted.

In addition, the Supreme Leader has heightened his anti-American and anti-Semitic views and speeches after getting indirect assurance from the Obama administration that the US will not impose any kind of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Even in the future, no sanctions will be imposed on Iran’s human rights abuses, support for terrorism, or any other outlandish inhumane actions.

As the Secretary of State John Kerry pointed out to US senators, Congress won’t be able to impose new sanction on the Islamic Republic. The administration’s rule of not imposing sanctions applies to anything, whether related to nuclear issues or not, because as Mr. Kerry pointed out, he does not desire to show the Islamic Republic that the US is projecting “bad faith.”

This suggests that the administration will support the Iranian leaders in any way possible in order to show good faith, while Iran’s paramount leader is calling for the complete annihilation of the US and Israel, and increasing his military interventions in the region by dominating Baghdad, Damascus, Lebanon, and Sana’a. He has demonstrated clear support for terrorists groups, is determined to scuttle US national, economic and security interests, and has consistently increased his anti-American and anti-Semitic speeches and foreign policies.

Speaking to the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — who spread terrorism, militarism and Islamist ideologies in the region — Ayatollah Khamenei pointed out that “[w]e are in a critical situation now as the enemies are trying to change the mentality of our officials and our people on the revolution and our national interests.” In addition, with all the advantages that President Obama has given to the Supreme Leader through the nuclear deal, Khamenei stated, “Negotiations with the United States open gates to their economic, cultural, political and security influence. Even during the nuclear negotiations they tried to harm our national interests.”

The Obama administration, on the other hand, insists in not imposing any kind of new sanction because it does not want the Iranian government to get discontent and breach the nuclear deal, as recently made clear by Secretary Kerry.

So, can we consider this policy an informed one when the US is compelled to continue to please and spoil the Islamic Republic — by turning a blind eye on its egregious human rights abuses, imprisonment of American citizens without fair and due process, support of  terrorist groups, sabotage of US foreign policy, national, and security interests in the region — all so that Iranian leaders will stick to the nuclear deal?

In other words, what Secretary Kerry is saying is that any time the Iranian leaders feel discontent, the Obama administration’s policy is to give further bonuses to the ruling clerics and implore them not to back out of the nuclear deal. This coddling has created precisely a situation in which the Iranian ruling clerics have the opportunity to take complete advantage of the American government by exploiting the administration’s weak stance. It seems that when it comes to Iran, President Obama has switched the “carrot and stick” approach to a policy anchored in lavishing rewards on the Iranian leaders.

It is also important not to forget that Iranian leaders were the ones who were desperate for the nuclear deal: they are receiving billions of dollars, global legitimacy, and ensuring their hold on power and pursuit of nuclear objectives, as well as enhancing their regional hegemonic ambitions due to this deal. But since they have smelled the weakness of President Obama, they are more than happy to capitalize on it and exploit it.

As long as the theocratic Islamist political establishment is in power in the Islamic Republic, the Iranian leaders will continue their hatred and anti-American policies towards the US even if the US provides Tehran with its every whim and desire.

Categories: Iran - sanctions relief, Iran scam, Khamenei, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's foreign failures, P5+1
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The Iranian Majlis Has Not Approved The JCPOA But Iran’s Amended Version Of It

October 13, 2015

The Iranian Majlis Has Not Approved The JCPOA But Iran’s Amended Version Of It, Middle East Media Research Institute, A. Savyon* and Y. Carmon, October 13, 2015

(Even Obama’s foggy notions of “common sense” should include the premise that, if there are multiple parties to an agreement, they should all follow the same agreement. — DM)

[T]he inclusion of these new Iranian demands in a Majlis decision constitutes the first written demand by an Iranian authority to amend the agreement, a demand that was mentioned verbally on September 3, 2015 by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

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On October 13, 2015 the Iranian Majlis approved, by a majority of 161-59 with 13 abstentions, not the JCPOA but rather an Iranian amended version it.

Paragraph 3 of the Majlis decision states that “the government will monitor any non-performance by the other party [to the agreement] in the matter of failing to lift the sanctions, or restoring the canceled sanctions, or imposing sanctions for any another reason, and will take steps to actualize the rights of the Iranian nation and to terminate the voluntary cooperation [this apparently refers to the Additional Protocol, which, according to the JCPOA, Iran will implement voluntarily] and to handle the rapid expansion of the Iranian nuclear program for peaceful purposes, so that within two years the enrichment potential in Iran will reach 190,000 SWU. The Supreme National Security Council will handle this matter, and the government will to submit to the Council a plan in the matter within four months.”[1]

Implications:

Considering that the non-cancellation of the sanctions is part of the JCPOA (according to the JCPOA, U.S. sanctions will be merely “suspended,” rather than canceled, so as to allow their “snapback” in the case of an Iranian violation); and considering that the re-imposition of sanctions, and the imposition of new sanctions, in case of an Iranian violation are likewise part of the JCPOA – the Majlis decision constitutes ratification of a nonexistent document. It was not a ratification of the JCPOA as it stands, but rather of additional demands made by Iran after the JCPOA was agreed upon on July 14, 2015 in Vienna.

Furthermore, the inclusion of these new Iranian demands in a Majlis decision constitutes the first written demand by an Iranian authority to amend the agreement, a demand that was mentioned verbally on September 3, 2015 by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.[2]

The Majlis decision defines clauses in the JCPOA as “non-performance of the agreement by the other party” and therefore the Majlis’ approval is meaningless.

* A. Savyon is director of the MEMRI Iran Media Project; Y. Carmon is President of MEMRI.

Endnotes:

[1] ISNA (Iran), October 13, 2015.

[2] Khamenei announced explicitly on September 3, 2015 that he does not accept the terms of the agreement and demanded that the sanctions should be immediately removed, rather than suspended, as a condition for accepting the agreement. See the following MEMRI reports:

Special Dispatch No. 6151, “Khamenei Declares That He Will Not Honor The Agreement If Sanctions Are Merely Suspended And Not Lifted,” September 4, 2015; Special Dispatch No. 6162, “Expected September 28 NY Meeting Between P5+1 Foreign Ministers And Iran Could Signify Reopening Of Nuclear Negotiations To Address Khamenei’s September 3 Threat That If Sanctions Are Not Lifted, But Merely Suspended, There Will Be No Agreement,” September 21, 2015.

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian parliament
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