VIENNA (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister announced that the nuclear deal finalized by Tehran and world powers in July 2015 will be implemented today and anti-Iran sanctions will be removed after the release of IAEA report verifying that Iran has fulfilled its commitments as per the deal.
According to Tasnim dispatches, Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters upon his arrival in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Saturday that the Director-General of International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano will release the verification report, and the nuclear deal (dubbed as JCPOA) will be implemented accordingly.
A joint statement will then be issued, which will announce the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the text of the nuclear deal), he added.
As regards his Saturday agenda, Zarif said he is scheduled to meet with Amano, announce the implementation of the nuclear deal, and hold bilateral meetings with European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini and possibly with other foreign ministers of the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France, and Germany) including US Secretary of State John Kerry.
The meetings are aimed at ensuring the correct implementation of JCPOA, the Iranian minister declared, noting that a meeting with his US counterpart is especially important considering “the extensive measures the Americans have declared to have taken.”
Implementation of the JCPOA is a good opportunity for the Iranian nation to see not only the termination of all cruel resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council and the IAEA Board of Governors against Iran, but also the removal of all cruel sanctions imposed on the country due to its nuclear energy program, Zarif stressed.
This is a good day for the Iranian people, but it is also a very good day for the region, because the Middle East is now freed from an unnecessary conflict, which could cause concern for the region, the Iranian top diplomat noted.
“This day proves that we can resolve the world’s important problems through diplomacy. Problems are settled through dialog, not through threat of pressure and sanction,” he added.
Zarif arrived in the European capital along with a number of other Iranian officials including Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi, Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi, AEOI Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, and Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (also known as E3+3 and P5+1) on July 14, 2015, reached a conclusion on a 159-page nuclear agreement that would terminate all sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear energy program after coming into force.
Afterwards, the 15-memebr United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that endorsed the JCPOA.
According to the UNSC Resolution 2231, all previous UNSC sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program will be terminated when the JCPOA takes effect.
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – This image made from video posted online April 19, 2015 by supporters of the Islamic State militant group on an anonymous photo sharing website, members of an IS affiliate walk captured Ethiopian Christians along a beach in Libya. The video purportedly shows two groups of captives: one held by an IS affiliate in eastern Libya and the other by an affiliate in the south. A masked militant delivers a long statement before the video switches between footage that purportedly shows the captives in the south being shot dead and the captives in the east being beheaded on a beach. (Militant video via AP, File)
The 2016 State of the Union address was very striking for the one-sidedness and disproportion of the president’s concern for religious suffering.
President Obama worried that “politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or fellow citizens.”
But he couldn’t bring himself to worry aloud about the Christians being driven from Middle Eastern countries, the churches being burned from Nigeria to Malaysia, or the 22 Coptic Christians who were beheaded on video on a beach in Libya by Islamic supremacists.
The president went on to say that when “a kid is called names, that doesn’t make us safer, it diminishes us in the eyes of the world.”
Why is our civilization — or Islamic civilization, for that matter — diminished by name-calling, when the real damage to both is being done by virulent, violent Islamic supremacism? (After all, the vast majority of Muslims being violently killed are killed by Islamic supremacists.)
The president saw fit to blast bullying in his State of the Union speech, but he said nothing of the beheadings that leave Americans justifiably afraid. Nor did he mention San Bernardino — the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 — where the attack occurred just over a month ago.
If calling a kid names is bad enough to diminish us all, how does the President feel about the incident in France this week, in which a Muslim student in Marseille pulled out a machete and tried to kill his Jewish teacher? Indeed, the situation in France is so hostile to Jews that the leader of the Jewish community in Marseille advised that they should stop wearing yarmulkes because it makes them targets. Not since the Nazis have Jews been told it is dangerous to be overtly Jewish in a European country.
Moreover, if calling a kid names diminishes us all, how would the president characterize the hundreds of assaults and rapes of German women by immigrants over New Years? How would he describe the German media’s and German government’s efforts to censor the news so that people would not know about it?
The president talks about “telling it like it is,” but neglects to mention the thousands of women and girls sold into sexual slavery by ISIS. He says that the United States has the most powerful military on the planet, but offers no strategy for ending the brutal rule of ISIS over millions of people.
Finally, the president highlighted his delusions about the dangers of the real world at the close of his speech, when he said that he was optimistic that “unarmed truth … will have the final word.”
This is a wonderful phrase for a preacher.
It is a terrible phrase for a commander-in-chief.
Unarmed truth would have its head cut off by ISIS.
Unarmed truth would be sold into slavery by Boko Haram.
Unarmed truth would be massacred by Al-Shabab.
It is a sad reality that while President Obama is very sympathetic to the plight of Muslims, he is stunningly silent about the plight of Jews and Christians.
It is a frightening reality that President Obama has no idea how dangerous the world would be if truth did not have the protection of the American military.
This was a very disturbing State of the Union speech — an address that explains much of our current danger.
(The “Islamic state” in the article is the Islamic Republic of Iran, our wonderful partner for peace — DM)
When it comes to executions, girls are systematically more vulnerable due to the Islamist penal code of Sharia law.
Let’s take a look at the Islamist state of Iran, which creates its laws from the legal codes of Sharia and Quran. The first type of discrimination is related to age: girls are held criminally accountable at the maturity age of 9 Lunar years. (This will automatically put girls at a higher risk of execution by the court.)
Iranian ruling politicians hold the highest record when it comes to the most executions per capita in the world. Intriguingly, in the last two years that the so-called moderate, Hassan Rouhani, has been in office, there have been more than 2000 executions conducted in Iran. That is nearly 3-4 executions a day.
More importantly, Iranian leaders are also the largest executioner of women and female juveniles. Some of these executions were carried out on the mullahs’ charge of ‘Moharebeh’ (enmity with Allah), or waging war against Allah, ifsad-i Fil Arz (Sowing Corruption on Earth), or Sab-i Nabi (Insulting the Prophet).
There are three methods of execution for women and female juveniles: 1. Stoning 2. Public hanging 3. Shooting. Some women are also beaten so severely in the prison that they die before reaching the execution. Shooting, which is the fastest method of the three for execution, has not been used since 2008. Instead, the most common method to execute women is public hanging or stoning. Some of these women are flogged right before they are hanged. Public hanging not only imposes fears in the society but also aims at dehumanizing and controlling women as second-class citizens. According to the Islamist penal code of Iran, women offenses are classified as: Hadd, Diyyih, Ta`zir, and Qisas.
Some of these women are stoned for adultery. But even in stoning, the Islamists and Sharia law differentiate between men and women. Women are buried to the neck while men are buried to the waist. This allows some men to be capable of running away from the stoning, while women do not have a chance for survival, at all. If women are still alive after hours of stoning, a large block normally is smashed over their head.
Women from ethnic and religious minorities, as well as political dissidents, have also been targets of these executions. Based on the latest report, Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N.’s special “rapporteur” on human rights in Iran, pointed out that executing individuals from religious and ethnic minority groups are carried out because those victims were “exercising their protected rights, including freedom of expression and association…..When the Iranian government refuses to even acknowledge the full extent of executions which have occurred, it shows a callous disregard for both human dignity and international human rights law.”
In the latest report, Amnesty International announced: “Execution of two juvenile offenders in just a few days makes a mockery of Iran’s juvenile justice system.” And the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Iran and warned about the rise of executions in Iran which “reflect a worrying trend in Iran….Over 700 executions are reported to have taken place so far this year, including at least 40 public, marking the highest total recorded in the past 12 years.”
In many of these cases related to women and female juveniles, it is clear that they were executed for either self-defense against forced marriage or a rapist, or for charges such as freedom of expression. They often are forced to marry at a very young age to an older person, or someone they do not like, such as in the case of the child bride, Farzaneh (Razieh) Moradi – who was forced to marry at the age of 15 and was executed in the city of Esfahan. These women were beaten and raped, repeatedly, by their spouses or relatives until they could not take it anymore and defended themselves. Some of these girls are being imprisoned and executed based on the fabricated charges of possessing opium. For example, in the case of the 16-year-old Sogand, the police found opium in her father’s house, but because there was no one at home except her, they arrested her. She is still in prison as none of her family members have come forward to save her life.
Some of these executions are based on the issue of “honor.” For example, some of these girls follow their hearts and fall in love with someone they choose themselves. But since their brothers and fathers disagree with this, the females get punished. For example, in the case of Mahsa, a seventeen-year-old, her brothers are the ones seeking her execution. In addition, if an Iranian Muslim woman has sex with a Christian or Jewish person, she will be executed (but a Muslim man is allowed to have sex with non-Muslim women).
Some of these girls are raped, repeatedly, in the process of investigation and forced into “Sighah”- the Shiite Islamist law of temporary marriage – with a cleric, or a member of Etela’at (intelligence), or Revolutionary Guard Corps before they are executed. Amnesty International previously pointed out that there are a “considerable” number of reports regarding this issue.
While the West is looking to lift sanctions against Iranian leaders in a few days and normalize ties with Iran, it is critical to look at the egregious human rights violations that this country is allowing. Is being silent and turning a blind eye to these human rights abuses appropriate? Doesn’t normalizing ties with the Iranian leaders and releasing billions of dollars to them, facilitate their efforts of executing more people, including women and child girls?
______________________
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist and scholar, is president of the International American Council and serves on the board of the Harvard International Review at Harvard University. Rafizadeh is also a former senior fellow at the Nonviolence International Organization based in Washington, DC and is a member of the Gulf Project at Columbia University. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu. Follow Rafizadeh at @majidrafizadeh.
In recent months, further information about the AKP government’s support for ISIS and other jihadis in Syria has come to light. Turkish journalists who have documented their government’s support for terrorists and who have published evidence of truckloads of arms and ammunition, as well as fighters, being sent into Syria have been threatened, arrested, and imprisoned by Turkish authorities.[1] Foreign media have also extensively covered Turkey’s sponsorship of ISIS and other terrorist organizations, and documented the ease with which thousands of foreign and Turkish jihadis enter and exit Syria under the eyes of Turkish officials.
However, Western governments have refrained from criticizing Turkey’s conduct in this matter, and continue to call Turkey “a partner in the fight against terrorism.” Many in Turkey, including Mehves Evin, columnist for Turkish opposition daily Diken, have asked, in light of this heavy media coverage of Turkey’s sponsorship of jihadi terrorists, “Why isn’t there a peep from the West?”[2]
The following report presents further evidence of the Turkish government’s support and sponsorship of ISIS and other jihadi terrorist organizations:
After Turkish Daily Cumhuriyet Released Video Footage Of Weapons-Filled Syria-Bound Turkish Trucks, Paper’s Editor-In-Chief, Ankara Bureau Chief Are Imprisoned, Charged With Treason, Espionage, And Terrorism
On November 26, 2015, Can Dundar, prominent journalist and editor-in-chief of Turkey’s oldest dailyCumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, its Ankara bureau chief, were arrested; they are now being held in isolation pending a trial initiated by Erdogan himself, on charges of espionage, treason, and providing support for terrorism. The charges are in connection with the newspaper’s May 29, 2015 publication of video footage of a January 19, 2014 search conducted by Turkish judicial, security, and military officials of three large Syria-bound trucks in the Turkish border province of Adana; the search turned up heavy weaponry concealed under boxes of medicines. The weaponry, including missiles, mortars, anti-aircraft ammunition artillery, and grenades, was being transported by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) to jihadi organizations in Syria. Erdogan, at that time prime minister, immediately intervened to stop the search, and to secure the release of the MIT personnel carrying the arms into Syria.
Earlier, on January 1, 2014, a similar truck was stopped in the border province of Hatay, but no search could be conducted due to intervention by the local governor on behalf of the government.
The Adana and Hatay prosecutors’ investigations into both of the incidents, which came to be known as the “MIT trucks affair,” and all related legal files, were closed; gag orders were issued, and all security personnel, high-ranking military officers, and prosecutors involved in the searches were arrested. Erdogan, the AKP government, and its partisan media claimed that the trucks had only been carrying humanitarian aid to Turkmens in Syria.
Along with the video footage, published 17 months after the incident, Cumhuriyet also published other court documents, under the headline “The Weapons That Erdogan Said Did Not Exist”[3]
The following is the video footage published by Cumhuriyet:
Following Dundar’s imprisonment, an outcry arose in Turkey and in press organizations in Turkey and internationally; he has since received multiple press awards. Additionally, teams of journalists from the anti-AKP media, along with MPs from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), and artists and intellectuals, have been sitting in shifts outside the gates of the Silivri prison compound in Istanbul, where the detainees are being held, in solidarity.[4]
MIT Transports Jihadis, Weapons From One Syrian Battlefront To Another – Via Turkey
On June 11, 2015, Cumhuriyet also published a video of statements by two bus drivers telling authorities how they had been commissioned by the MIT to transport, on the night of January 9, 2014, over 70 Jabhat Al-Nusra (JN) jihadi fighters, along with a large load of arms and ammunition, from Atme Camp in Syria near the Reyhanli border crossing in the Turkish province of Hatay, to Tel Abyad in Syria, near the Akcakale border crossing in the southeastern Turkish province of Urfa. They showed where they had entered Syria from Turkey, without headlights, stopping near a building in Atme Camp where the JN flag was flying and “La-i-lahe-il-Allah” (“There is no God but Allah”) was painted on the wall. At Atme, they said, they had not been allowed off their buses, and the buses had been boarded there by bearded, Arabic-speaking militants who also loaded large boxes of weapons onto them. The drivers said that they then drove back into Turkey and proceeded without stopping to re-cross into Syria at Akcakale. At around 5:30 AM, near Tel Abyad, the militants disembarked with their weaponry.
It will be remembered that at that time ISIS was fighting to take control of Tel Abyad, and several days later, on January 13, it succeeded in doing so.
According to Cumhuriyet, the jihadis were transported from one point to another in Syria via Turkey because it was unsafe for Islamist fighters to travel through Syrian territory that was under Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) control, such as Kobane.
The drivers also stressed that they had committed no crime, as they had been hired by the MIT to work for the government and had been escorted throughout by MIT operatives in two black vehicles.
The AKP government called the Cumhuriyet report a lie and libel, and, on February 14, 2014, ordered the investigation into the matter and the related files closed, removed the prosecutor from his position, and sealed and covered up the incident.[5]
Left: The Cumhuriyet video showing the building in Atme Camp where the drivers picked up the jihadis. Right: The route taken by the buses carrying jihadis from Atme Camp in Syria to Tel Abyad in Syria, via Turkey.
CHP MP Says Sarin Gas Components Were Transferred To ISIS Via Turkey; Erdogan Accuses Him Of Treason; Criminal Investigation Against Him Is Launched
On several occasions – at an October 21, 2015 press conference, in an early December 2015 interview with the Russian news agency RT, and in a December 10, 2105 speech in the Turkish parliament, CHP MP Eren Erdem said that components for sarin gas had been imported from foreign countries, some of them European, by Turkish businessmen on behalf of an ISIS operative, and delivered to a terrorist organization in Syria, for the production of chemical weapons that were later used in Syria.[6]
Erdem said that his claims were based on a 2013 investigation, case file number 2013/139, by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in the southern province of Adana. According to this investigation, five Turkish citizens the wanted Al-Qaeda/ISIS militant and Syrian citizen Hayyam Qassap were arrested and prosecuted for procuring the toxic components to be transferred to ISIS in Syria.
Erdem stressed that the statements he was making were not his own, but that he had been quoting a Republic’s Chief Prosecutor. He added that in late June 2013 this case had been closed and a news blackout imposed on it, and that on July 1, 2013 the six accused had been released from prison and allowed to cross into Syria.
Erdem launched a parliamentary inquiry in October 2015 demanding government explanations in this matter, but to date Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has not responded.
On December 18, 2015, Erdogan publicly accused Erdem of treason. The same day, the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office sent a summary of proceedings to the Ministry of Justice for permission to begin legal action against Erdem; if it is sent on to the parliament, the process to strip him of his parliamentary immunity so that he can be tried for treason will begin.[7] Since then, he has been threatened by the pro-AKP media and subjected to a lynching campaign on social media; in addition, he and his family have received death threats.
On December 23, 2015, Erdogan blasted Erdem again, calling him a “traitor,” and also slammed CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu for his defense and protection of Erdem. The previous evening, in a televised interview,[8]Erdem had reiterated that he had accused neither Turkey nor the government, but had only objected to the release of the suspected businessmen and of a Syrian militant who had attempted to procure illegal chemical components to transfer to Syria via Turkey.[9]
“Jihad Hospital” In Turkey For Islamist Terrorists
In September 2015, the Turkish opposition daily Birgun visited a 75-bed “jihad hospital” in the border province of Gaziantep that treats the mujahedeen fighting in Syria, and on September 22 reported:[10] “Turkey… is turning a blind eye to a medical support network serving the Islamic Front militants. The administrators of the six-floor, 75-bed hospital in Gaziantep told Birgun that during the first eight months of 2014 they had treated well over 700 militants; they administrators also expressed their gratitude to the local security officials and the AKP municipality for their assistance, and for the AKP government’s support.”
The Birgun report continued: “The AKP government… continues to assist the jihadi organizations, and by permitting the operations of a medical network that extends from Aleppo to Ankara and Istanbul, is trying to strengthen the hand of the Islamic Front, an umbrella organization for many jihadi groups fighting in Syria, which is structured like ISIS and has at least 45,000 active fighters, especially in the Idlib and Aleppo areas. Their wounded are treated in Gaziantep.
“The treatment of the wounded fighters is made possible by ImkanDer, an Islamist association, whose regional representative is Sait Gokdere. He is the former executive of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), that became known in connection with from the 2010 sailing of the Mavi Marmara to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza. Gokdere told us that the IHH focused their activities on Syria when the civil war broke out, and that thanks to the AKP government’s permission and support, ‘may Allah bless them,’ they were able to provide health services to the mujahideen at this rehabilitation facility and in the many houses in the area that have been turned into clinics, reaching a capacity of 150 beds. He said that the hospital personnel were conducting their activities, and exiting and entering Syria officially, with the permission of the authorities.
“Doctors with whom we [Birgun] spoke explained that the treatment of wounded fighters begins with receiving news [of them] from Aleppo, through their local sources there. They then dispatch vehicles into Syria to bring them over. The seriously wounded are taken to state hospitals in Kilis or Gaziantep, and in the rare cases when they are not able to treat their injuries, they are sent to hospitals in Ankara or Istanbul. Once these wounded mujahedeen are out of intensive care, they are taken to the home clinics or to this hospital. Upon their recovery, they return to Syria to resume fighting.”
A recovering jihadi in the “jihadi hospital” in Gaziantep. Birgun, September 22, 2015
ISIS In Turkey
Since 2013, the opposition media in Turkey have been reporting on the spread of Salafi ideology within the country, and on the steady stream of thousands of Turkish jihadis who join ISIS, Jabhat Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, and other terrorist organizations in Syria. An estimated 10,000 Turkish jihadis have gone to Syria to join the fight, as the AKP government has turned a blind eye.
Turkish ISIS Militant In Ankara: ISIS “Loves Turkey, Because Of The Ease At The Borders And For Its Allowing Safe Passage To Fighters Of Many Nationalities”
Birgun interviewed multiple ISIS militants in the Hacibayram district, in Ankara, which has become an ISIS center. While its report, published July 8, 2015, included names of recruiters and recruits, the Turkish government has done nothing to stem the flow of recruits into Syria.
C.A., 29, told Birgun that initially there had been many Al-Qaeda operatives in the area, but that they had declared their allegiance to ISIS. He recounted how, after he decided to go to the Islamic State in February 2014, he had established contact with some well-known people in order to cross the border. He told how upon arrival he had received education in Koranic verses, Hadith, shari’a law, and the high purpose of ISIS’s fight, and then had received military training. He said he fought there for nine months and could not remember how many people he had killed.
Asked whether he had seen any Turkish police or soldiers during his border crossings, C.A. said: “Turkey permits the crossings to Dawla [the Islamic State]. My first time, I came face to face with a military police officer. They see you, but pretend they don’t,” Only once, he said, the last time he returned to Turkey was he caught – and that time he was taken before a judge, who released him. Asked about how ISIS views Turkey, and whether “talk that ISIS militants may [be planning to or intending to] conduct operations inside Turkey” was true, C.A. answered: “Dawla loves Turkey, because of the ease it provides at the borders and for its allowing safe passage to fighters of many nationalities. The mujahideen there [in the Islamic State] criticize Turkey because it is not ruled by Allah’s rule, but there is no thought or intention to fight Turkey. Turkey, on the other hand, helps us because we fight particularly against the Kurdish PKK. Allah knows, if ISIS is given one month without the [coalition and Russian] air raids, we will eliminate the PKK.”[11]
Turkish Jihadi: “Jihad Is A Religious Obligation, Like Daily Prayers; If A Muslim Is Hurt In The Arctic, We Would Go There Too”
The major mainstream Turkish daily Hurriyet tracked ISIS in five Turkish cities, interviewing the families of many who had joined ISIS, and some jihadis. The report, published September 22, 2014, showed how easy it was for thousands of Turkish and foreign fighters to cross the southeastern border of Turkey into Syria, and how a new breed of Islamist associations, Islamist lodges, Islamist chat rooms, and Islamist bookstores and cafes were popping up around the country encouraging young Turks to join the jihad and to receive Islamic education and preliminary training. The report also mentioned young jihadis who had fought alongside ISIS or the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra and who had returned to Turkey to receive medical treatment after being wounded.
An ISIS recruit, interviewed in Istanbul, told the reporters that he had entered Syria five times. Like the other recruits, he said, he had been escorted by militants to the border, jumped the fence, and ran into one of the houses on the Syrian side. First, he had joined Jabhat Al-Nusra, but then switched to ISIS. Asked whether he would also go to fight in other Muslim countries, he answered: “It is a religious obligation. Jihad [is] like daily prayers. If a Muslim is hurt in the Arctic, we would go there too.”
Worried families told Hurriyet that that their sons had gone “to die for the Muslims.” A father in Gaziantep said that his son, 22, and nephew, 34, had both left to join ISIS, and that when he reported this to police, he was told: “Everybody goes there [to ISIS]. Don’t mess with this issue, so as not to get yourself into trouble.”[12]
In a July 2015 column titled “ISIS Among Us,” Aydin Engin wrote in Cumhuriyet that not only were the suicide bomber who carried out the July 20, 2015 attack in Suruc, that killed 33, and the bombers who killed over 100 in Ankara on October 10, 2015 Turkish citizens who had joined ISIS, but that there were thousands more like them across Turkey. He wrote that ordinary citizens in all the cities and towns of the southern border provinces of Turkey can easily point out ISIS houses, ISIS cells, the wounded ISIS militants brought in daily from Syria to their hospitals, and groups of ISIS members sitting at tables in restaurants. Engin asked how it would be possible for the AKP government and the MIT not to be aware of what every citizen knows so well – i.e. that ISIS is everywhere in Turkey.[13]
ISIS Affiliates In Istanbul Hold Events, Call For Jihad – Without Interference By Turkish Security
While Turkish police are always present at protests, and frequently disperse crowds with water cannon, pepper gas, and, sometimes, bullets, Islamist organizations are allowed to openly demonstrate and call for shari’a law and jihad, in major cities. Similarly, the AKP government closes down media outlets and websites of dissenters and Kurds, while Islamist websites disseminating ISIS propaganda are left to operate freely.
ISIS-affiliated group at an encampment in an Istanbul park allocated to them by the AKP celebrates Ramadan, praises ISIS, and calls to jihad. Photos: Rotahaber and Twitter, July 29, 2014.
When it comes to the connection between Islam and “anti-infidel” violence, one fact must be embraced: the majority of those in positions of leadership and authority in America are either liars or fools, or both. No other alternative exist.
The reason for this uncharitable assertion is simple: If Islam was once a faraway, exotic religion, now hardly a day goes by without Americans hearing calls for, and seeing acts of, violence committed in the name of Islam. If our leaders don’t, many of us still have “ears that hear and eyes that see” (Proverbs 20:12).
Today, Muslims from all around the world and from all walks of life unequivocally and unapologetically proclaim that Islam commands them to kill or subjugate all who resist it—including all non-Muslims.
This message is hardly limited to jihadi groups like the Islamic State. It’s the official position of several Muslim governments (including America’s closest “friends and allies,” like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as demonstrated in a forthcoming article); it’s the official position of Islamic institutions of lower and higher learning, including Al Azhar, the world’s most prestigious Islamic university; and it’s the official position broadcast in numerous languages on Islamic satellite stations.
In short, there’s no excuse for ignorance about Islam in America—especially if you hold a position of leadership or authority. Yet it is precisely those in such positions who vehemently deny any connection between Islam and violence. Why?
The most recent example took place on January 7. Edward Archer, a convert to Islam, shot and wounded Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett. He later explained his motivation: “I follow Allah. I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic state. That is why I did what I did.”
Yet after showing a surveillance video of Archer in Islamic dress shooting at Hartnett, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney emphatically declared:
In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen….It is abhorrent. It is terrible and it does not represent the religion or any of its teachings. This is a criminal with a stolen gun who tried to kill one of our officers. It has nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.
Kenney’s assertions are either the product of an addled brain or calculated lies. Take your pick, but there are no other alternatives.
If those running the show still don’t “get it,” the overwhelming majority of Americans have by now learned, in Donald Trump’s words, that “there’s something going on” with Islam, “You see the hatred. I mean, we see it every day.”
“We see it every day” is absolutely correct—hence why those who deny it must either be liars or fools. (See “Muslim Persecution of Christians,” reports which I’ve been compiling every month since July 2011, and witness the nonstop violence and carnage committed against non-Muslim minorities living under Islam.)
Still, Kenney’s falsehoods and/or foolishness are mainstream. Most politicians—practically every democrat but also a majority of republicans—makes the same claims, beginning with U.S. President Obama who insists that the Islamic State “is not Islamic,” calls for the “rejection by non-Muslims of the ignorance that equates Islam with terror,” and classified the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence,” despite the overwhelming evidence that it was jihad.
More recently, democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton admonished us to get aboard the wishful thinking bandwagon: “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” Republican leaders like John McCain say that “unequivocally, without a doubt, the religion of Islam is an honorable and reasonable religion. ISIS has nothing to do with the reality of Islam.” “Conservative” talking heads like Bill O’Reilley flippantly dismiss jihad as “a perversion of Islam, we all know that.”
And so it goes. In the context of the most recent slaughter of Americans at the hands of Muslims—one last December and one last November, both in California—the usual chorus of politicians, media, and others made the same tired claims.
Despite the evidence that the Muslim couple that massacred 14 people in San Bernardino was motivated by Islamic teachings of jihad against the hated “infidel,” Obama claimed “We do not know their motivations.” Chris Hayes and MSNBC were also “baffled” in their search for a motive.
Despite the many indicators that the Muslim student who went on a stabbing spree in UC Merced was motivated by Islam—he was described as a “devout Muslim,” had an ISIS flag, and praised Allah in his manifesto—“local and federal authorities continue to insist that Faisal Mohammad, 18, carried out the vicious attack because he’d been banished from a study group.”
In response, the father of Byron Price, who was stabbed while defending some Merced victims, observed that, “Everyone is afraid to be politically incorrect… [I]t seems like to me we aren’t getting the whole story. I just wonder how much of this is driven from way higher up and is politically driven — I just don’t know.”
Unfortunately, it was one thing to be politically correct when America existed in a utopian bubble away from all the nastiness “over there,” but to be politically correct at this late hour when the tentacles of the global jihad are well entrenched in America is suicidal, literally.
Either way, political correctness is a fancy way of saying “lying”— bringing us right back to our question and a final observation: It doesn’t matter if those running the show are liars or fools, for at day’s end, the result is the same: the world’s strongest nation lays paralyzed before a vicious threat that grows more emboldened by the day.
The Obama Administration believes it is at war with Israel- not a shooting war, but a political war.
President Barack Obama boards Marine One at the Hope landing zone for departure en route to Chicago O’Hare International Airport. (photo credit:OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO / PETE SOUZA)
Over the past several weeks, we have learned that the Obama administration believes it is at war with Israel. The war is not a shooting war, but a political war. Its goal is to bring the government to its knees to the point where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loses power or begs Obama and his advisers to shepherd Israel through a “peace process” in which Israel will renounce its rights to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
One component of this war is espionage. Last month The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel is a top target for American espionage.
The other component of the administration’s war against Israel is political subversion. Over the past week, the administration has campaigned against the NGO bill sponsored by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. If the bill, which was approved by the government, becomes law, it will require political NGOs that are principally financed by foreign governments to identify as foreign agents in their official communications and interactions.
Last week, State Department spokesman James Kirby lambasted the bill at an official briefing. Among other things, Kirby rejected Shaked’s claim that her bill is less restrictive than the US’s own Foreign Agents Registration Act. Kirby offered no substantiation of his claim.
Earlier this week, US Ambassador Dan Shapiro met with Shaked. Following their meeting, the US Embassy published two statements attacking the NGO law. In one of them, the embassy sought to substantiate Kirby’s claim regarding FARA. By the embassy’s telling, FARA relates only to agents whose action are directly guided by foreign governments, while Shaked’s NGO bill relates to entities that receive financing from foreign governments whether or not their actions are directed by the government financiers.
The embassy’s claim is deeply misleading.
As attorney Lorri Lowenthal Marcus explained this week in The Jewish Press, in practice, the burden of proof that US entities are not directed by foreign governments that fund them falls on the entities, not on the US government. In her words, the US law “uses ambiguous words and tests which are far more likely to lead to over-broad applications and chilling of speech than does the straightforward Israeli proposal’s standard.”
Moreover, whereas Shaked’s proposed NGO law would fine entities that fail to abide by reporting restrictions, under FARA, US entities that fail to abide by the restrictions of the law can face both fines and up to five years in prison.
The duplicitous nature of the administration’s assault on Shaked’s bill is all the more obvious when we consider how senior US officials view these politicized organizations.
Currently, the State Department is slowly fulfilling a federal court order to publish the emails Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton sent from her private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Over the past several weeks, the department has published a number of emails regarding Israel that reveal the depth of hostility Clinton’s closest advisers harbored toward Israel.
Last week, one such email demonstrated that Clinton’s senior anti-Israel advisers viewed radical Israeli-registered NGOs as agents for the administration to use in order to carry out covert anti-Israel policies.
The email in question is a letter Clinton received in December 2011 from retired ambassador Thomas Pickering. Clinton asked her chief of staff to print out his letter.
Pickering’s illustrious career reached its peak during Bill Clinton’s administration. Clinton’s husband appointed Pickering, a former ambassador to Israel, to serve as undersecretary of state for policy planning, the third-most senior position at the State Department.
Pickering retired in 2001, at the end of the Clinton years. Since retiring, he has enjoyed the status of elder statesman among the American foreign policy elite. He has also been a loyal supporter and lobbyist for Iran, and a signatory on numerous plans to stick it to Israel.
In his letter to Clinton, Pickering recommended using leftist NGOs – including Peace Now, which he mentioned by name – to destabilize the political situation on the ground in Israel.
Pickering set out a plan, which in his view would force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ask the Americans to initiate a new diplomatic process with the Palestinians.
Pickering’s plan involved organizing a protest movement of Palestinian and Israeli women to “bring continuing pressure to change minds at the top.”
On the Palestinian side, Pickering said, “there might be peaceful demonstrations against all aspects of the occupation on the Palestinian sides – roadblocks, land confiscations, new settlement activity, around military government installations and perhaps in Area C, which they do not control.”
These actions Pickering wrote, “could create the kind of action which no army can easily use force to deal with…. With all and only women demonstrating peacefully under the eyes of the world, the chances are much less force will be used against them, since that action has its own consequences.”
In other words, Pickering sought to organize provocations of IDF units “under the eyes of the world,” in which IDF soldiers would be portrayed as being mean to Palestinian women. These women for their part would provoke them to be mean by interfering with military operations or disrupting the lives of Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria.
Pickering made no bones about the covert nature of this US anti-Israel subversion. He warned Clinton, “Most of all the United States, in my view, cannot be seen to have stimulated encouraged or be the power behind it for reasons you will understand better than anyone.
“I believe third parties and a number of NGOs on both sides would help.”
That is, Clinton’s confidante, the elder statesman who organized a lobby on behalf of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, called for the secretary of state to use radical Israeli NGOs as US agents to carry out a covert US operation against an allied government.
A notable aspect of Pickering’s plan is his underlying assumption that the US-organized demonstrations would be filmed and used against Israel in the court of public opinion.
For the past several years, the US government has funded B’Tselem’s video project.
According to NGO Monitor, in 2014 the US paid some $68,000 for the project which provides video cameras and photographic training to Palestinians. The goal is for them to film IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians in fraught situations and call their morality and legitimacy into question.
It was his recognition that cameras are the new weapon of Israel’s enemies that caused Gilad Ach, a 32-year-old master’s student at Tel Aviv University, to form his own NGO – Ad Kan. Ad Kan’s goal is to penetrate radical Israeli NGOs to expose their problematic activities.
In a bit of bad timing for the administration, last Thursday, the same day Kirby launched the administration’s public assault against Shaked’s NGO bill, and just before Pickering’s email to Clinton was published, Uvda, Channel 2’s investigative news magazine, broadcast a report revealing some of the findings that Ach and his colleagues have uncovered in Ad Kan’s three-year operation.
Over the past three years, Ad Kan employees have seeded themselves inside radical Israeli NGOs and surreptitiously filmed their operations.
The footage broadcast last week on Uvda showed senior “human rights” operatives for B’Tselem and Ta’ayush, Nasser Nawajah and Ezra Nawi, plotting to bring about the arrest, torture and murder of a Palestinian by the Palestinian Authority’s US-trained and -funded security services.
The Palestinian in question was, as far as they were concerned, marked for torture and murder because he was hoping to sell his land to Jews in the South Hebron Hills around the Israeli community of Sussiya.
One of the strangest aspects of the Uvda report was the radical Left’s response to it. By and large, leftist groups refused to condemn what Nawi and Nawajah were doing. B’Tselem, which is supposed to fight for Palestinian human rights, said that it is legitimate to turn Palestinians who wish to sell their property to Jews over to the PA, despite the fact that the PA’s penalty for such actions is death.
Beyond what their refusal to condemn solicitation of murder and torture says about their commitment to Palestinian human rights, the radical Left’s silence reveals just how key Nawi and Nawajah are to their operations.
In a word, Nawajah and Nawi are superstars of the radical Left in Israel and throughout the Western world. Last July, Nawajeh published an op-ed in The New York Times. In it, he accused Israel of denying the property rights of Palestinians in the exact area where he and Nawi plotted the murder of a Palestinian who sought to exercise his property rights by selling his land to Israelis.
As Liel Liebowitz reported in the Tablet online magazine, in 2007, after Nawi was arrested at a violent protest against the IDF, 20,000 people, including the who’s who of the radical Left in Israel and in the US, signed a petition demanding his immediate release.
Leading members of the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement in the US, including Jewish Voices for Peace, have financed Nawi’s activities.
Pickering recommended using NGOs to organize protests. Ad Kan exposed how this is done.
On Monday, Channel 2 broadcast Ad Kan surveillance footage showing a Breaking the Silence employee paying Nawi and his Ta’ayush colleague Guy Botavia for organizing a demonstration against IDF soldiers. Botavia serves as the head of Ta’ayush’s video project.
In the same report, Ta’ayush activists are filmed paying Palestinians in cash for participating in the demonstration, in which they threw rocks at IDF soldiers.
In a conversation this week with The Jerusalem Post, Ach claimed that without the NGOs, the Palestinians would not be demonstrating. “I asked one of the Palestinians if he would be rioting if the NGO wasn’t paying him. He said no.
“I asked him what he does when he isn’t rioting.
He said he’s a construction worker in Modi’in Illit, [an Israeli settlement beyond the 1949 armistice lines]. That is, five days a week, Israelis pay him to build settlements, and the rest of the week, other Israelis pay him to throw rocks on soldiers.
“This guy only works for Israelis – either to build or destroy,” Ach wryly noted.
One of the common claims the far Left has made in response to the Uvda report is that if the report is all Ad Kan managed to learn in three years of planting moles in these groups, then clearly there is nothing to expose.
But Ach explains, what Ad Kan has revealed to date is merely the tip of the iceberg.
And so, as the Obama administration ratchets up its political war against Israel in its final year in office, we can expect to learn that like the administration itself, the NGOs the administration is so concerned about protecting have and will stop at nothing to achieve their goal of demonizing Israel and destroying its good name in the Western world.
On January 12, 2016, Iranian authorities arrested 10 American sailors from two small U.S. naval craft that had strayed into Iranian territorial waters. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested and handcuffed the crew and held them at a military base, releasing them a short time later. Iranian authorities released photos of the sailors kneeling with their hands on their heads.
Following the incident, articles were published in the Arab press both by supporters of Iran and by its opponents, claiming that, with its actions, Iran had sent a message to the U.S. Tareq Al-Homayed, former editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, stated that the IRGC had shamed U.S. President Obama and shown him to be weak on the eve of the JCPOA’s “Implementation Day.” The Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, which is affiliated with Hizbullah and supports the resistance axis, argued that the IRGC was sending a message to the U.S. that Iran will be willing to clash with it if it has to, and at the same time telling other countries – that is, the Gulf states – not to mess with Iran. It should be noted that Al-Akhbar’s January 14, 2016 front page showed the photo of the American sailors kneeling with hands on their heads, under a headline reading “Tehran to Washington: I Control The Gulf.”
January 14 Cover of Al-Akhbar: “Tehran to Washington: I Control the Gulf”
Article In Lebanese Daily Close To Hizbullah: Iran Sent U.S. And Others A Message That It Is Ready For A Clash
The Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, which is close to Hizbullah and the Iranian axis, published an article by columnist Hassan Haidar, who claimed that Iran wanted to use this incident to send a message to the U.S. that it would not hesitate to clash with it if necessary. He added that this was also a message to other countries, hinting at the Gulf states, specifically Saudi Arabia, that the rules of the game have changed and that they must acknowledge their own weakness.
He wrote: “This incident was a quiet yet an important battle, since it took place off the Saudi coast, targeted an American force, and triggered American [responses expressing] hope [that Iran would not hurt the sailors], which were akin to apologizing to Iran. Washington did not threaten war or raise its voice…
“The Revolutionary Guards, which are in charge of defending the Gulf, are known to ‘see but not be seen’ – a term coined by the head of their navy, General Ali Fadavi. This means that they watch [the goings on] in the Gulf without being noticed by anyone, and in an emergency, they suddenly appear.
“The Revolutionary Guards possibly wanted to send a message to all, that if Iran feels that its interests and security are at stake, it will be willing to enter any conflict, even with the U.S…. [Furthermore,] dealing with Washington in this way ensures that smaller [countries] understand that Tehran will never hesitate to respond to any violation of its sovereignty, and that the rules of the game have changed, and therefore certain [elements] should recognize the limits of their power.”[1]
Leading Saudi Writer: Iran Kidnapped Not Only The Sailors But Obama Himself As Well
Tareq Al-Homayed, former editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote on January 14, 2016 that the arrest of the American sailors just hours before President Obama’s final State of the Union address had cast a shadow over the address, and had in effect kidnapped the president himself. He noted that the kidnapping had proven that Iran has no intention of moderating its positions, and had exposed Obama, who wanted to present the nuclear agreement with it as a great achievement, in all his weakness. Al-Homayed wrote: “When Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized two American naval craft in the Gulf on Tuesday evening [January 13, 2016], with ten American sailors on board, it was not the sailors who were the important point, but the fact that the Revolutionary Guards effectively kidnapped U.S. President Barak Obama [himself only] a few hours before he was to deliver his final State of the Union address, towards the end of his second term in office. The crisis of the American sailors [detained by] Iran ended [just] a few hours after their arrest, but it was Obama’s speech that was hijacked, since the Iranians deprived Obama of the opportunity to appear as the strong man who had forced Iran to capitulate on the nuclear dossier. The sailors’ arrest deprived Obama of the chance to boast of the legitimacy of the nuclear agreement and to tell America, which is divided on the Iranian issue, as is the entire world, that Iran has changed and will once again become an active member of the international community, [a country] that renounces violence and respects international treaties and agreements. Some may say that the Iranians’ conduct was foolish, and this is true – but so was placing faith in the Iranian regime!
“Hence, the arrest of the Iranian sailors [right] before Obama’s address exposed the weakness of the American president and sparked doubts even in those who defend his foreign policy, especially [his policy] towards Iran’s [behavior] in our region. Embarrassment was apparent even among the White House staff, as manifest in leaks and excuses conveyed by Obama’s staff to the U.S. media during the sailors’ detention. The biggest embarrassment was over Obama’s handling of the incident… and [the question of] whether or not he would refer to it in his pre-prepared speech. So what we witnessed was not so much the abduction of the sailors but the abduction of the American president himself. His ransom was the missed opportunity to present himself as a strong president enjoying the legitimacy of achieving the nuclear agreement with Iran.
“With the premeditated intent to abuse the American president and to present his weakness to all, the Revolutionary Guards arrested the American sailors, and in fact kidnapped Obama himself, [just] days before the expected implementation of the nuclear agreement they will not submit and that Obama is too weak to boast of victory over them. Likewise, the Revolutionary Guards seek to tell anyone, in Iran and outside it, that their hand is still uppermost in Tehran, despite everything that has happened to Iran recently, after the wild attack on the Saudi Embassy in Iran and Tehran’s apology to the [UN] Security Council for this. Additionally, the IRGC’s action [i.e. detaining the sailors] is a response that embarrasses the propaganda of the Iranian president [Rohani] and his men – particularly the wily foreign minister [Zarif] and others – who claim that they want peace and openness, as they market lies and corrupt accusations against Saudi Arabia.
“Obama’s predicament is not manifested only in his kidnapping, but [also] in that he wants to take a neutral stand vis-à-vis the recent Iranian hostility against Saudi Arabia and the entire region. But he himself became a victim of Iran when [Iran] kidnapped him [just] before his final State of the Union address, and wrecked his opportunity to present himself as an accomplished hero when [his accomplishments] are in fact not yet completed.”[2]
East European political leaders and their media allies have attacked ‘politically correct’ Germans in the wake of the New Year’s Eve migrant sex assaults in Cologne and other cities, labelling the assailants “nothing but hyenas”.
In a huge “we told you so” gesture, politicians from across Eastern Europe have turned their fire on the German state’s welcoming and tolerant attitude to the migrant crisis. Having warned Chancellor Merkel that her actions and the politically correct tyranny of media opinion risked bringing Europe to ruin, they now feel vindicated by events in Cologne, reports Spiegel Online.
Robert Fico, the left-nationalist Prime Minister of Slovakia, told a televised debate that the media plays down the problem as migrants are a “protected species”. Using Cologne to support his argument, he has called for an urgent EU summit to deal with the cultural and security issues thrown up by the ongoing migrant crisis, including the creation of “parallel societies”.
Mr. Fico said Slovakia would not tolerate women being insulted in the streets, nor insular Muslim communities. In his support, Slovakian media outlets slammed the politically correct media in Germany and a naive “subculture of do-gooders”.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán feels equally vindicated. He used the occasion of his weekly radio broadcast to speak of the crisis in liberalism that meant reporting the sex assaults in Cologne had been suppressed in Germany. He said it showed that the media is more free to speak in Hungary than in the West, and that his government is right to be calling for a halt to immigration.
The strongest language was used by Zsolt Bayer, a friend of Mr. Orbán and co-founder of his Fidesz Party. Writing for Magyar Hirlap the journalist known for his trenchantly right-wing views described the Cologne assailants as “North African and Arabic animals – nothing but hyenas”. He added that Mrs. Merkel is letting her family and children get eaten by them.
Another Hungarian media outlet, the quasi-official government newspaper Magyar Idök, wrote:
“There are no bastards on this earth more abominable and more destructive than these liberal pigs who are digging Europe’s grave.”
In Romania, former President Traian Basescu said his country, like other Eastern European nations, would oppose a European Union quota system for refugees. He said Muslim migrants were brought up in the spirit of the Koran and could not adapt to European culture.
The leading Conservative-Liberal Romanian MEP Traian Ungureanu has described Mrs. Merkel and her open-door invitation to Germany as the “disaster of the century”. He also criticised “official censorship” of the events of Cologne he says prevails in Germany, adding:
“Every protest, every hint against gang rape is immediately classified as racism or extremism. It is the duty of public bodies to hide the facts and to deny.”
By teaming up with Jordan for a joint war room to cover operations in southern Syria, Putin has gone around Netanyahu’s back and acquired a helper for evicting Syrian rebels from southern Syria.
***************************
In a pivotal step reflecting the changeability of military and political deals in Israel’s neighborhood, Jordan has almost overnight agreed to establish a shared war room with Russia for the concerted conduct of their operations in Syria. This represents an extreme reversal of Amman’s policy. Until now, Jordan fought against Russia’s protégée Bashar Assad from a joint war room north of Amman called the US Central Command Forward-Jordan, as part of a lineup with the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
But this week Jordan shifted onto a new plane.
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources say Jordanian King Abdullah’s decision to team up with Moscow starts a whole new ball game rolling on policy-making and intelligence-sharing. He doesn’t plan to shut down his shared command center with the US and Israel, but the center of gravity of Jordan’s military and intelligence efforts will be redirected to the new center with Russia, representing a major earthquake in those areas.
Amman is working hard to downplay the new partnership, presenting it as designed to foster better coordination between the American and Russian military efforts in Syria and the war on the Islamic State.
That picture is misleading.
With all due respect to the Jordanian monarch, his military and his intelligence services, they are not exactly qualified for the role of coordinator between the two world powers. The US and Russian presidents handle this in person. And in fact, the new Russian-Jordanian war room did come up, according to our Washington and Moscow sources, in the latest telephone conversation between the two presidents on Jan. 13.
Obama then held a quick meeting with King Abdullah at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and asked for an explanation.
For the various rebel militias holding out in large parts of southern Syria, including the Israeli border regions, the new Jordanian-Russian war room is bad news. Hitherto, Jordan provided the rebels with their main pipeline for fighters, weapons and funds from the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The US even ran training camps in Jordan for Syrian rebel fighters.
This pipeline is now likely to be shut down or reduced to a minimum.
The Jordanians gloss over their shift, claiming it is designed to force the Syrian rebels of the South to accept a ceasefire and join peace talks with the US and Russia on Syria’s future. That is no more than diplomatic-speak for the real purpose, which is to compel them to give up the fight against Assad, and make way for Moscow to achieve its key objective, which is to restore the Assad regime’s control over the South.
Ever since his major intervention in Syria, Putin has tried to persuade Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to pull the rug from under the Israeli-backed rebels in the South. They are deemed as a necessary buffer for securing Israel’s northern border and blocking the reimposition of Assad’s authority there.
The content of the exchanges between Putin and Netanyahu has only been shared with tight circles of confidants in Jerusalem and the Kremlin, so little is reliably known about their areas of agreement and dispute.
There is no doubt that the prime minister spoke firmly about Israel’s abiding concern that, once Assad regained control of the South, he would open the door up to the Israeli border and let in his allies and Israel’s arch enemies, Hizballah and the mostly-Iraqi Shiite militias fighting under the command of officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
By teaming up with Jordan for a joint war room to cover operations in southern Syria, Putin has gone around Netanyahu’s back and acquired a helper for evicting Syrian rebels from southern Syria.
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments