Netanyahu unveils plan to ‘surround entire state with a fence’ Threat from ‘carnivorous animals’ in neighboring countries necessitates sophisticated barriers, says PM
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot (L) visit construction work on the fence between Israel and Jordan. February 9, 2016. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday announced his intention to “surround the entire State of Israel with a fence,” including sealing off openings in the West Bank security barrier.
Speaking during a tour of the Jordan border area in the south, Netanyahu said the extensive project would also address the potential threat of cross-border tunnels into Israeli territory.
“If you’re thinking of erecting a fence there you have to take into account that they could tunnel underneath it,” Netanyahu said. “The people who said that there is no significance to [retaining] territory in the modern age should go to Gaza.”
In its 2014 conflict with Israel, the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas, as well as firing thousands of rockets and mortar shells into Israel, used a network of subterranean passages to infiltrate Israeli territory, launch attacks and in one case, during fighting inside Gaza, kidnap the body of an IDF soldier.
“In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from the carnivorous animals,” Netanyahu said in an apparent reference to extremist Islamist movements.
Unlike the borders with Egypt and Jordan, where both sides of the fence are in relatively open areas, Netanyahu hinted at potential problems implementing a reinforced barrier in West Bank “where you have built up areas, buildings along the separation line.”
But, the prime minister added, Israel is “formulating a plan to seal off the openings in the security fence in the West Bank.”
A section of the Israel-Jordan security fence, constructed in January 2016 (Defense Ministry)
“At the end of the day, in the State of Israel as I see it, there will be a fence like this one [the border fence with Jordan currently under construction] surrounding its entirety…We will surround the entire State of Israel with a fence, a barrier.”
Netanyahu called the border project a part of a “multi-year plan to surround the entire State of Israel with security fences to protect ourselves in the current and projected Middle East.”
The project, which is also set to include a new fence along the border with the Gaza Strip, will cost “many billions,” he said.
Last month, construction began on a long security fence along the Jordanian border, Israel’s only internationally recognized frontier currently without a full barrier.
In accordance with a 2015 government decision, approximately 30 kilometers (18 miles) of fence is initially being built, from the southernmost resort town of Eilat to beyond a new international airport currently under construction in the Timna Valley. This portion of the project is expected to be completed by the end of the year, and will cost approximately NIS 300 million ($77 million), which will be drawn from the Defense Ministry budget.
In 2013, Israel completed a five-meter-high barbed wire fence along its border with Sinai, seeking to prevent terror groups, drug smugglers and African migrants from infiltrating Israeli territory from the Egyptian peninsula.
Elie Leshem and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified to lawmakers Tuesday that Iran sees the nuclear deal it struck with the United States and five other world powers as a way to remove burdensome sanctions while simultaneously maintaining a strong nuclear infrastructure.
Clapper made his statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee at a hearing in which the intelligence chief discussed the intelligence community’s annual assessment of worldwide threats to U.S. interests and national security.
Part of Clapper’s testimony focused on the threats posed by the Islamic Republic and how the Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), affects the country’s relationship with America going forward.
“Iran probably views the JCPOA as a means to remove sanctions while preserving nuclear capabilities,” Clapper told lawmakers.
He added that “Iran’s perception of how the JCPOA helps it achieve its overall strategic goals will dictate the level of its adherence to the agreement over time.”
The nuclear deal was signed in July and implemented on Jan. 16, at which time Iran received an estimated $50 billion to $150 billion in sanctions relief after it took steps to curb its nuclear program.
Some experts have said Iran’s objective throughout negotiations was to ensure the removal of sanctions that were crippling its economy while retaining a nuclear weapons capability to possibly exercise at a future time.
One argument critics of the JCPOA make is that the agreement grants Tehran large-scale sanctions relief whileallowing it to have a vast nuclear infrastructure whose most important restrictions have clear expiration dates, after which time Iran could breakout to a nuclear weapon in little time.
The Obama administration maintains that the deal ensures Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon and is at least a year away from producing one.
Clapper’s testimony comes upon his release of the annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,” which outlines the current array of challenges threatening U.S. national security.
The report says the intelligence community “continue[s] to assess that Iran does not face any insurmountable technical barriers to producing a nuclear weapon, making Iran’s political will the central issue.”
Directly addressing Iran’s political will, the document adds that “Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei continues to view the United States as a major threat to Iran, and we assess that his views will not change, despite implementation of the JCPOA deal … Iran’s military and security services are keen to demonstrate that their regional power ambitions have not been altered by the JCPOA deal.”
The assessment also describes how Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is part of its “overarching strategic goals of enhancing its security, prestige, and regional influence.”
Beyond the nuclear deal, the intelligence assessment calls the Islamic Republic the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Clapper explained to lawmakers how Iran’s aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere is dangerous to American interests and national security, as well as its growing missile arsenal and cyber capabilities.
The intelligence community, according to its assessment, views Iran as “an enduring threat to US national interests” and a country that sees itself as leading an “axis of resistance” against American influence and the influence of U.S. allies.
“Tehran might even use American citizens detained when entering Iranian territories as bargaining pieces to achieve financial or political concessions in line with their strategic intentions,” the report added.
According to the German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten the Obama administration supports a planned Saudi-led invasion of Syria in order to curb Russian support for Syria. The government of Bashar al-Assad invited Russia into the country to help fight US and Saudi supported jihadists in September, 2015.
US support for the planned Saudi invasion comes as al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Army (SAA) with the help of Iranian security forces, Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’a fighters close in on the major jihadist stronghold of Aleppo and surrounding countryside.
The SAA has captured the towns of Nubul, Ta’ana and al-Zahraa and is closing in on Idlib while Kurdish troops secured several kilometers of the Gaziantep-Aleppo road and captured the town of Deir Jamal. Battles in Bayanoun, Kafr Naya, and Hayyan have defeated the jihadists and closed down a supply route over the Turkish border.
Russia has conducted airstrikes in support of the operation. The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed it has put into service a large number of T-90 Vladimir tanks in Syria and the SAA is using the third generation battle tank along with assault groups to establish control over a declared security zone between the towns of Azaz and Jarabulus on the Syria-Turkey border.
Confronting the Russians
Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten notes “the Saudis who support several terrorist groups in Syria together with the US are especially interested to overthrow President Assad. The Americans, in turn, want to prevent Russians from playing the main part in the reorganization in Syria.”
The invasion, reportedly planned for March, and billed as an offensive against the Islamic State will put the Saudi coalition into direct conflict with the SAA, Iranian security forces, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shi’a militias and the Russians.
Turkey has demonstrated its willingness to confront Russia directly. In November a Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M bomber aircraft near the Syria–Turkey border. Turkey is a member of NATO.
Following the establishment of a Russian airbase in Syria near the Turkish border President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey may enter the war on the side of the jihadists fighting against the al-Assad government.
The downing of the Russian aircraft appears to be part of a larger strategy by the United States. In October the leading globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Financial Times he advised Obama to disarm the Russians if they keep attacking the CIA-trained militants in Syria.
“The Russian naval and air presences in Syria are vulnerable, isolated geographically from their homeland,” Brzezinski said. “They could be ‘disarmed’ if they persist in provoking the US.”
“In these rapidly unfolding circumstances the US has only one real option if it is to protect its wider stakes in the region: to convey to Moscow the demand that it cease and desist from military actions that directly affect American assets,” he said.
The Saudi-led invasion is part of the strategy outlined by Brzezinski. It is designed to raise the stakes for Russia and its partners and drive Iran out of Syria.
The strategy, however, is highly risky and is likely to result in an escalation and widening of the conflict and, in a worse case scenario, precipitate direct conflict between the United States and Russia.
Cruz’s evangelical backer seeks to convert Jews, predicts new concentration camps GOP candidate has been touting endorsement from Mike Bickle, who notoriously said God sent Hitler to hunt Jews for not accepting Jesus as messiah
ASHINGTON — A controversial Christian evangelical leader whose endorsement is being proudly trumpeted by Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz works energetically to convert Jews to Christianity and has predicted that there will be a new period of concentration camps for Jews before the return of Jesus.
Mike Bickle is also notorious for having said that God sent Hitler to hunt Jews for not accepting Jesus as the messiah.
Bickle, the founder and director of the International House of Prayer, a Kansas City-based Pentecostal Christian missions organization, runs the Israel Mandate project, an effort to “mobilize an international prayer movement that would pray 24/7 for the nation of Israel to receive their Jewish Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus),” according to its website. The ministry hosts a regular livestream of such prayer for anyone to participate.
In public sermons over the years, Bickle has focused intensely on end-times prophesies, and has predicted that Jesus will not return until Jews embrace him as their Lord and savior. His website claims that “Jesus ‘bound’ Himself by His own prophecy, saying He would only come back and rule in Jerusalem when Israel’s leaders ask Him to reign as King over them.”
For Bickle, this is what explains Nazi Germany’s murder of more than six million Jews. In a 2011 sermon, Bickle cited a passage from Jeremiah 16:16 to elucidate the attempted extermination of European Jewry.
“The Lord says, ‘I’m going to give all 20 million of them the chance to respond to the fishermen. And I give them grace.; And he says, ‘And if they don’t respond to grace, I’m going to raise up the hunters.’ And the most famous hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler,” he told an audience.
On January 21, 2016, Cruz issued a press release announcing Bickle’s endorsement. It came a little more than a week before the Iowa caucuses, a contest where support among evangelicals helped Cruz edge out real estate mogul Donald Trump, who had been previously leading in the polls.
“Through prayer, the Lord has changed my life and altered my family’s story,” Cruz said in the announcement. “I am grateful for Mike’s dedication to call a generation of young people to prayer and spiritual commitment. Heidi and I are grateful to have his prayers and support. With the support of Mike and many other people of faith, we will fight the good fight, finish the course, and keep the faith.”
The press release included a biography of Bickle and a description of the many facets of his organization, including its annual conference for young adults, three full-time ministry schools and “24/7 prayer led by worship teams.” It also included a statement from Bickle.
“Our nation is in a great crisis in this hour,” Bickle said. “We need a president who will first be faithful to honor God’s Word. We need a president who will work to defend religious liberty, uphold our Constitution, keep our country safe and our economy sound, and speak truth to the nation. We have been praying for righteous leaders, and Ted Cruz is such a leader. I am enthusiastically endorsing Ted Cruz.”
Cruz has faced some criticism in recent days over his use of the term “chutzpah” to mock real estate magnate Donald Trump’s “New York values,” a comment some said reeked of anti-Semitism.
The role of Bickle and evangelical leaders in past campaigns
This is not the first time Bickle has involved himself in national politics. He played a prominent role in former Texas governor Rick Perry’s Response Prayer event that effectively launched his 2012 presidential bid. Bickle spoke on stage during the event and musicians from the International House of Prayer’s worship team performed.
This is also not the first time that a controversial evangelical leader — and one with a history of calling Hitler’s persecution of Jews an expression of God’s will — has been involved with US presidential politics. In 2008, Sen. John McCain welcomed the endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee, a televangelist and pastor of a mega-chuch in San Antonio, Texas.
Audio from a sermon in the 1990s captured Hagee, like Bickle, citing the Book of Jeremiah and saying, “If that doesn’t describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust, you can’t see that.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., heaps criticism on the Obama administration’s policies with Russia, Iran and other international hot spots as he questions Secretary of State Kerry during the committee’s hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 8, 2014. (photo credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
McCain eventually rejected the endorsement and denounced Hagee’s rhetoric, but not until three months after this sermon first came to light, and after he had secured the Republican nomination, although the veteran Arizona senator said he had been unaware of such comments at the time of accepting Hagee’s backing.
“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible,” McCain said in a statement. “I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.”
His campaign would admit that it did not sufficiently vet Hagee’s background, while also saying that it had been seeking his support early in the election process.
Bickle on the fate of Jews
Throughout Bickle’s ecclesiastical career, he has professed adamantly that biblical prophesy suggests a bleak future for the Jewish people, including another era of Holocaust-like conditions.
On December 2, 2005, he delivered a sermon that said “Israel’s condition just before Jesus’ coming is described in scripture as being in prison camps and assaulted by foreign armies. Not all of Israel,” he clarified, “but a significant number of Jews will be in work camps, prison camps or death camps.”
‘A significant number of Jews will be in work camps, prison camps or death camps’
Bickle went on to say that half the Jews in Jerusalem will wind up in those camps:
“God says, ‘I’ll gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city will be taken.’ And it says ‘half of the city,’ he said. “There’s 600,000 Jews living in Jerusalem now. And I don’t know what the number will be then, but according to the numbers now that would be 300,000 brought into prison camps from one city.” He then repeated for effect, “Three hundred thousand Jews.”
In a separate sermon, on July 23, 2006, Bickle cited more scripture to expand on what he claimed will become of the world’s entire Jewish population.
“A lot of Israel’s going to get converted, but a lot of Israel’s going to worship the anti-Christ,” he said. “A lot of Israel’s going to have revival, a lot of Israel’s going to fall away. Portions of Israel will be supernaturally protected and portions of Israel will die and go away to prison camps.”
He explained that, according to the Book of Zechariah, one third of world Jewry will “get radically saved and become lovesick worshippers of Jesus,” sparing them from the inevitable apocalyptic fate of the rest of their fellow Jews.
“And so all of Israel, at the end of the day … they end up dying or if they survive they get radically converted at the Second Coming.”
But it’s not all bad news, according to Bickle. “Many are going to get converted between now and then,” he said, reassuringly. “We’re not giving up on Israel until the Second Coming. It’s the efforts of leading people to the Lord right now that’s significantly related to the events that are going to happen.”
The Cruz campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Wadud reportedly posted an article by MOA’s Pakistan-based leader, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, on her Facebook claiming the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is a puppet of the British government and a Jewish conspiracy perpetrated the attacks on Pearl Harbor and September 11, 2001. The Clarion Projectwas the first to report on the inflammatory article.
“There was no need for America to go to war against Hitler. Hitler was not the enemy of America or the American people. There was a mutual animosity between Hitler and the Jews. So, the American people paid a very heavy price for fighting someone else’s war,” Gilani wrote.
Jamaat ul-Fuqra is led by Gilani. It is best known for a series of terrorist attacks and plots in the 1980s and early 1990s and for setting up “Islamic villages” across the country, including at least two that were shut down by the authorities. These “villages” are known to have been used for guerilla warfare training. Fuqra now goes primarily by the name of Muslims of the Americas (MOA), among other names. The group says it has 22 such “villages” in the U.S.
The Clarion Project obtained video of female members receiving basic paramilitary instruction in military fatigue at its “Islamberg” headquarters in New York. The date of the footage is cut off, only stating “Jan. 28 20,” presumably meaning it was made in 2000 or after. The best explanation MOA members have come up with is that it was a “self-defense class.”
View the video here:
The Clarion Projectidentified a Fuqra “village” in Texas in 2014 and retrieved an FBI intelligence report from 2007 that stated MOA “possess an infrastructure capable of planning and mounting terrorist campaigns overseas and within the U.S.” and “the documented propensity for violence by this organization supports the belief the leadership of the MOA extols membership to pursue a policy of jihad or holy war against individuals or groups it considers enemies of Islam, which includes the U.S. Government.”
The FBI also said “members of the MOA are encouraged to travel to Pakistan to receive religious and military/terrorist training from Gilani.” In 2001, ATF Special Agent Thomas P. Gallagher testified in court that “individuals from the organization are trained in Hancock, N.Y., and if they pass the training in Hancock, N.Y., are then sent to Pakistan for training in paramilitary and survivalist training by Mr. Gilani.”
After Clarion Project identified the Texas site and published the FBI report, a dozen Muslim groups have signed a statement calling for Fuqra’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Of course, CAIR isn’t one of them. CAIR actually came to Fuqra/MOA’s defense. And now CAIR and Fuqra have shared leadership through CAIR-Massachusetts and hold events together.
MOA’s International Islamophobia Conference took place at the Muslim Community Center of the Capital District in Schenectady, New York. CAIR-Arizona Executive Director Imraan Siddiqi is listed as a member of the Board of Directors, indicating he played more than a speaking role in setting the MOA event up.
The MOA’s event featured delegates representing the U.S., Canada, Pakistan, Senegal, India, Taiwan, Bangladesh and Egypt. Siddiqi was the delegate representing India. MOA flyers also list headquarters in Caracas, Venezuela and Las Lomas, Trinidad & Tobago. The MOA claims it had nearly 300 attendees and thousands watched online. It announced it would start a new political coalition named the “International United Muslim Forum.”
Ironically, MOA has tried to excuse itself from its terrorist and criminal history by claiming that it was infiltrated by Wahhabist/Muslim Brotherhood operatives who were sent to undermine Sheikh Gilani. It even claims that one operative was a shape-shifter who could go “through physical changes before speaking to people as if he were Sheikh Gilani.”
And now MOA is collaborating with a known Muslim Brotherhood entity. You can read our documented profiles of CAIR and MOA here and here.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker welcomes Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (L) at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels on Oct. 5, 2015. (Photo: Cihan)
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened to send buses full of refugees to Greece if the EU did not finalize an agreement with Turkey over the action plan to stem the flow of refugees to Europe, according to the leaked transcript of a meeting between Erdoğan and leaders of the EU.
According to the transcript Erdoğan pushes the EU leaders for 3 billion euros per year, for two years, instead of 3 billion euros over two years, which the EU proposed. According to the leak, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who was present at the meeting, showed Juncker an internal document belonging to the EC, which stated 3 billion euros per year.
Erdoğan also asks whether the proposal would be for 3 billion or 6 billion euros. When Juncker confirmed 3 billion, Erdoğan said Turkey did not need the EU’s money.
“We [Turkey] can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria any time, and we can put the refugees on buses,” Erdoğan was quoted as saying.
The meeting was held in Antalya in the run-up to the EU-Turkey summit on Nov. 29, 2015, in which the action plan that envisages Turkey stemming the flow of Syrian refugees to Europe was signed.
In return for keeping the refugees, the EU promised Turkey 3 billion euros, visa-free travel to Europe, the inclusion of Turkish officials in EU summits and a re-invigoration of Turkey’s EU accession process — starting with the opening of the 15th chapter of the negotiation acquis.
All 28 EU countries recently signed off on the proposal to allocate the funds to Turkey at a meeting in Brussels. The funds will be given to Ankara in return for Turkey culling the flow of immigrants to Europe.
In response to Today’s Zaman, the EU Commission declined to comment on the leak.
The transcript states that Erdoğan said the agreement on the action plan is to keep alive the Schengen project, which allows free travel among most EU member states. Many officials, including Tusk, have warned about the impending collapse of the Schengen project if the refugee crisis is not tended to urgently.
In the transcript Juncker replies to Erdoğan stating that if Schengen collapses Turkey can have no visa liberalization deal with the EU and will have to apply for visa exemptions on a bilateral basis.
According to the minutes of the meeting, Tusk told Erdoğan that the EU “really wants a deal” with Turkey, to which Erdoğan replied: “So how will you deal with the refugees if there is no deal? Kill the refugees?”
Also Erdoğan tells the EU leaders that the delaying of the European Commission’s Progress Report did not help the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to win the Nov. 1 election last year.
“Anyway, the report was an insult. Who prepared it, anyway? How can you come up with this? It’s not the real Turkey. You [EU leaders] never came to me to learn the truth,” Erdoğan said, according to the transcript.
“Again, no chapters have been opened yet, despite our [Turkey] good progress. We [Turkey] used to be at EU summits, but for 11 years you [EU officials] don’t want to be seen with us. And for five years there has been no opening of chapters,” Erdoğan said.
The EC’s report on Turkey, originally set to be published on Oct. 14, 2015, was held back until after the Nov. 1 election. It criticized the AK Party over backtracking on the rule of law, media freedom and judicial independence.
Juncker, however, is quoted as saying that the report was delayed upon Erdoğan’s request. “Why else would we be willing to get criticized for it [delaying the report]?” he was reported to have said.
Erdoğan also says Luxembourg, Juncker’s native country, is the size of a town in Turkey and that Turkey should not be compared with other EU member states due to its size.
The report prompted a member of the European Parliament from the Greek centrist party To Potami to ask the European Commission to confirm the purported talks.
“If the relevant dialogues between the EU officials and the Turkish President are true, it seems that there are aspects of the deal between Ankara and the EU which were concealed on purpose,” Miltos Kyrkos said in the question he submitted to the Commission.
“We want immediately an answer on whether these revelations are true and where the Commission’s legitimacy to negotiate, using Turkey’s accession course as a trump card, is coming from,” Kyrkos said.
Originally published by Hoover Institution’s Strategika.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
The best way to understand the Islamic State (ISIS) is to see it as the next phase of al-Qaeda. All Sunni Islamic jihadi groups—Boko Haram, ISIS, Taliban, al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda, even Hamas—share the same motivations based on a literal and orthodox reading of Islamic history and doctrine: resurrecting a caliphate (which existed in various forms from 632 to 1924) that implements and spreads the totality of sharia, or Islamic law.
Accordingly, ISIS’s notorious atrocities—beheading, crucifixion, sexual enslavement, and destruction of non-Sunni places of worship—are being committed by other jihadi groups (e.g., Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, both of which pledged allegiance to ISIS) and even by some Muslim governments (e.g., Saudi Arabia) and individual Muslims around the world.
Conversely, although al-Qaeda (AQ) adheres to the same sharia that ISIS implements, it has long waged a propaganda war against the West. AQ portrays all terrorist attacks on the West, including 9/11, as mere payback for the West’s unjust polices against Muslims, including support for Israel and Arab dictators.[1]
To maintain this “grievance” narrative, AQ knows that the innately supremacist and violent aspects of sharia—for example ISIS’ destruction of churches and subjugation of “infidel” Christian minorities—need to be curtailed or hidden from the Western world. Otherwise AQ’s efforts of portraying jihadis as “freedom fighters” resisting an oppressive West risk being undermined.[2]
Regardless, AQ’s strategy of turning Western opinion appears to have borne fruit in one pivotal area: canceling longtime Western support for secular Arab dictators. In the context of the “Arab Spring,” the Obama administration turned its back on America’s Egyptian ally of 30 years, Hosni Mubarak; helped ISIS-affiliated jihadis overthrow Libya’s Gaddafi (even though he was complying with Washington); and continues supporting ISIS-affiliated “moderates”[3] to overthrow Syria’s Assad. Idealists in both government and media forgot a primary reason the U.S. had formerly supported secular Arab dictators: they single-mindedly opposed the jihadis.
The result has been a new and emboldened phase of the jihad, a.k.a., ISIS. Born and entrenched in precisely those nations that U.S. leadership brought “freedom and democracy” to—Iraq, Syria, and Libya—ISIS (or al-Qaeda 2.0) is now indifferent to Western opinion. By widely broadcasting its savage triumphalism in the name of Islam, ISIS forfeits the “grievance card” but plays the “strength” card, thus inspiring millions of Muslims. According to the Pew Research Center, in 11 countries alone, at least 63 million and as many as 287 million Muslims support ISIS.[4]
Yet even ISIS works in stages. When criticized by Muslims for killing fellow Muslims and not attacking Israel—the supreme enemy—ISIS responded by saying it was following the pattern of the historic caliphate founded in 632.[5] Then, Caliph Abu Bakr beheaded and crucified tens of thousands of Muslims for apostatizing. Only after the rebel tribes were brought back into the fold of Islam were they set loose to conquer European/Christian territories during history’s early Muslim conquests (634–750). Indeed, it is believed that ISIS’ caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took this name to signify his focus, that is, terrorizing all “hypocrites” and “apostates” until they unify under the caliphate’s banner.
It still remains to be seen whether ISIS’ strategy—inspiring Muslims but losing Western opinion—will succeed. According to polls, “Islamophobia” is on the rise in the West, especially after the rise of ISIS, prompting several politicians to speak more candidly about the catalysts for terrorist violence.
The Obama administration’s weak responses feed into AQ’s narrative that Islamic terrorism at least in part reflects Islamic grievance; and it refuses to connect the actions of any jihadi organization—whether ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, et al—to Islamic teaching.
Time will tell whether the next administration will remain willfully ignorant of the nature of its jihadi enemy—which is fatal in war according to Sun Tzu’s ancient dictum, “know your enemy”—or whether reality will trump political correctness.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Jane Kahn and Michael Bien, two activists with the anti-Israel New Israel Fund, had a complaint about San Francisco’s Jewish Community Federation. They were unhappy that JCF wouldn’t fund Hamas.
Or more specifically, they whined that “we were unable to make donations through our JCF donor-advised philanthropic fund to certain organizations that we support”. One of those organizations was the American Friends Service Committee because the JCF narrow-mindedly refuses to help fund groups that “endorse or promote anti-Semitism” or promote BDS.
But, more importantly, the AFSC has urged the United States to deal with Hamas despite its call for the eradication of the Jewish people. It has a history of supporting Hamas front “charities” and its website defends Hamas and describes its murderous terror attacks against Israeli civilians as “the use of violence in resisting Israel’s occupation”. It tells supporters “U.S. government policy officially supports Israel’s continued siege on Gaza and the Isolation of Hamas. This is a situation that must end.” It urges supporters to demand a, “complete end to Israel’s siege on Gaza and engagement with Hamas.”
AFSC Palestine-Israel program director Mike Merryman-Lotze justifies anti-Semitic terrorism by arguing that, “Violence is the inevitable response.” AFSC figures advocate the destruction of Israel in various forms. AFSC coordinates with other extreme anti-Israel groups, including JVP. This isn’t a new development for the AFSC which has an ugly history of defending politically correct genocide.
Like many on the left, including Noam Chomsky, the American Friends Service Committee denied Pol Pot’s crimes for as long as they could, instead describing the horrifying atrocities as “the example of an alternative model of development and social organization.” There is doubtlessly an anti-Semitic component to the AFSC’s hostility toward the Jewish State, but the AFSC has supported enough horrifying dictatorships for ideological reasons that it is simply what the organization does.
The left has become so thoroughly corrupted that it is possible for Judith Butler, the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School, and Zaid Jilani, formerly of the Center for American Progress, to argue that Hamas or Hezbollah are “progressive” organizations. The notion that there is a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is swiftly collapsing as a former Doctors Without Borders president argues that Jews wearing Kippahs have it coming because Jewish religious clothing shows “allegiance to the policies of the state of Israel” or when a respected NPR host casually accuses Bernie Sanders of dual loyalty, despite his anti-Israel credentials, simply because he is Jewish.
The question though is should the Jewish Community Federation be expected to provide aid and comfort to the advocates for an organization that speaks of “Our struggle with the Jews” and states that, “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)”?
Is it really too much to ask that a Jewish community group shouldn’t be funding organizations that “endorse or promote anti-Semitism” or promote the revival of Nazi boycotts of Jewish businesses?
According to Jane Kahn and Michael Bien of the New Israel Fund, an organization that is responsible for more than its own share of controversial funding programs to groups that libel, smear and wage an unceasing war against the Jewish State, it is.
This debate did not begin yesterday. The original open letter attacking the Jewish Community Federation’s “No anti-Semites” policy back in 2010 was signed by, among others, Cindy Shamban of the misleadingly named Jewish Voice for Peace, who more recently became the only speaker to oppose a call by Jewish faculty, alumni and students for the University of California to fight anti-Semitism.
There’s a pattern here and it’s a very ugly one. Advocates of boycotting Jews complain that it’s wrong for Jewish charities to boycott them. Endorsers of an academic boycott against Israel warn of a “chilling effect” if they and their groups don’t get the money they want. Activists with organizations that aid anti-Semitism demand civility and respectful dialogue even while their comrades scream hate outside Jewish synagogues and businesses in a twisted hateful reenactment of 1930’s Germany.
All of this is an obscene farce and it should have come to an end long ago.
Jewish charities should not be funding organizations that hate Jews, that kill Jews and that justify the murder of Jews. There is no dialogue, civil or otherwise, to be had about this subject.
These phenomena are not new. Max Naumann and his VNJ blamed Nazi anti-Semitism on the Zionists. They boycotted pro-Israel programming and sponsored a tour by an “Ex-Zionist” to reveal the “Truth About Palestine”. They endorsed Hitler. The Gestapo came for them anyway. The Marxist movements in Russia that became the Yevsektsiya, the Jewish Section, helped the NKVD round up and kill Rabbis and Zionists. Until their turn came and they ended up on the wrong side of the fence. Just like the VNJ.
JVP is just VNJ. J Street is just the Yevsektsiya. And none of their twisted antics will stop a Muslim terrorist from killing them anyway. A great deal of spilled ink has been wasted on analyzing such pathological behavior. But it’s a waste of time and energy. Arguing with the insane is insanity.
Aiding those who want to kill you or those who want to help kill you is suicide. Anyone who aids their own killers is by definition insane and their arguments and justifications should be viewed as the ravings of the utterly unhinged who have chosen to commit suicide and want to take everyone else with them.
The insane can have great charismatic powers of persuasion. Not everyone who drank the Kool -Aid at Jonestown was crazy. But those who had a choice, chose to participate in homicidal and suicidal insanity. The Jewish Anti-Israel left is just Jonestown on a multinational scale. Their Kool-Aid is routed through a sophisticated network of NGOs and delivered to students on campuses around the world.
But for all the cleverness and sophistication, the billionaire funders and policy papers, the front groups and brand names, it’s all just a Jewish Jonestown with a much better marketing campaign.
That’s all it was in 1930. That’s all it is today. That’s all it ever will be.
Instead of following insanity through its complex pathways of rationalization in which black turns white and up seems down, insanity is best met with common sense. If you follow the logic of madness far enough, you can come to a point at which mass suicide seems like the logical solution. It takes common sense to say that we should not kill ourselves and we should not fund our killers or those who aid them.
The San Francisco’s Jewish Community Federation’s policy of not funding those who hate Jews and the Jewish State is only controversial to those whose survival instincts have been drowned in ideological insanity. It is elementary common sense to everyone else.
The only people who really think that a policy of not funding anti-Semitism is controversial are anti-Semites and their insane Jewish accomplices.
acebook is now removing speech that presumably almost everybody might decide is racist — along with speech that only someone at Facebook decides is “racist.”
The sinister reality of a society in which the expression of majority opinion is being turned into a crime has already been seen across Europe. Just last week came reports of Dutch citizens being visited by the police and warned about posting anti-mass-immigration sentiments on social media.
In lieu of violence, speech is one of the best ways for people to vent their feelings and frustrations. Remove the right to speak about your frustrations and only violence is left.
The lid is being put on the pressure cooker at precisely the moment that the heat is being turned up. A true “initiative for civil courage” would explain to both Merkel and Zuckerberg that their policy can have only one possible result.
It was only a few weeks ago that Facebook was forced to back down when caught permitting anti-Israel postings, but censoring equivalent anti-Palestinian postings.
Now one of the most sinister stories of the past year was hardly even reported. In September, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook at a UN development summit in New York. As they sat down, Chancellor Merkel’s microphone, still on, recorded Merkel asking Zuckerberg what could be done to stop anti-immigration postings being written on Facebook. She asked if it was something he was working on, and he assured her it was.
At the time, perhaps the most revealing aspect of this exchange was that the German Chancellor — at the very moment that her country was going through one of the most significant events in its post-war history — should have been spending any time worrying about how to stop public dislike of her policies being vented on social media. But now it appears that the discussion yielded consequential results.
Last month, Facebook launched what it called an “Initiative for civil courage online,” the aim of which, it claims, is to remove “hate speech” from Facebook — specifically by removing comments that “promote xenophobia.” Facebook is working with a unit of the publisher Bertelsmann, which aims to identify and then erase “racist” posts from the site. The work is intended particularly to focus on Facebook users in Germany. At the launch of the new initiative, Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, explained that, “Hate speech has no place in our society — not even on the internet.” She went to say that, “Facebook is not a place for the dissemination of hate speech or incitement to violence.” Of course, Facebook can do what it likes on its own website. What is troubling is what this organization of effort and muddled thinking reveals about what is going on in Europe.
The mass movement of millions of people — from across Africa, the Middle East and further afield — into Europe has happened in record time and is a huge event in its history. As events in Paris, Cologne and Sweden have shown, it is also by no means a series of events only with positive connotations.
As well as being fearful of the security implications of allowing in millions of people whose identities, beliefs and intentions are unknown and — in such large numbers — unknowable, many Europeans are deeply concerned that this movement heralds an irreversible alteration in the fabric of their society. Many Europeans do not want to become a melting pot for the Middle East and Africa, but want to retain something of their own identities and traditions. Apparently, it is not just a minority who feel concern about this. Poll after poll shows a significant majority of the public in each and every European country opposed to immigration at anything like the current rate.
The sinister thing about what Facebook is doing is that it is now removing speech that presumably almost everybody might consider racist — along with speech that only someone at Facebook decides is “racist.”
And it just so happens to turn out that, lo and behold, this idea of “racist” speech appears to include anything critical of the EU’s current catastrophic immigration policy.
By deciding that “xenophobic” comment in reaction to the crisis is also “racist,” Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people (who, it must be stressed, are opposed to Chancellor Merkel’s policies) into “racist” views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as “racist.” This is a policy that will do its part in pushing Europe into a disastrous future.
Because even if some of the speech Facebook is so scared of is in some way “xenophobic,” there are deep questions as to why such speech should be banned. In lieu of violence, speech is one of the best ways for people to vent their feelings and frustrations. Remove the right to speak about your frustrations, and only violence is left. Weimar Germany — to give just one example — was replete with hate-speech laws intended to limit speech the state did not like. These laws did nothing whatsoever to limit the rise of extremism; it only made martyrs out of those it pursued, and persuaded an even larger number of people that the time for talking was over.
The sinister reality of a society in which the expression of majority opinion is being turned into a crime has already been seen across Europe. Just last week, reports from the Netherlands told of Dutch citizens being visited by the police and warned about posting anti-mass-immigration sentiments on Twitter and other social media.
In this toxic mix, Facebook has now — knowingly or unknowingly — played its part. The lid is being put on the pressure cooker at precisely the moment that the heat is being turned up. A true “initiative for civil courage” would explain to both Merkel and Zuckerberg that their policy can have only one possible result.
Douglas Murray, a British writer, journalist and commentator, is based in London, England.
The Canadian military has been ordered by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to draft plans to house more than 6,000 Muslim migrants on a long-term basis at military bases, according to documents obtained exclusively by The Rebel (see below.)
Included in the Department of National Defence budgets are hundreds of thousands of dollars set aside for “religious support,” including the purchase of Muslim Korans, prayer mats and foot-washing towels.
The plans also call for the construction of mosques or “worship centres,” using taxpayers dollars.
The planning documents, in English and French, were released in response to a Rebel “Access to Information” request about religious expenditures by the Department of National Defence.
But the detailed Quebec budget plans also shed light on the sheer scale of the Trudeau government’s plans to set up refugee camp-style accommodations on seven Canadian Forces Bases across Quebec and Ontario.
The budget for Quebec alone totals more than $46 million for the first six months.
For a typical migrant family, that’s a $200,000/year subsidy — not including medicare or welfare.
It’s shocking that Canadian Armed Forces personnel will be ordered to abandon the coalition battle against ISIS and return to Canada to become waiters, chauffeurs and social workers for Muslim migrants, and that Canadian Forces Bases will be turned into squalid refugee camps.
It’s a disgrace that Canadian military personnel have been sent eviction notices to make way for foreign migrants.
But for the DND’s budget to be diverted away from military purposes and towards buying Korans and building mosques for foreign migrants, is especially outrageous.
To fight back against Justin Trudeau’s dangerous plan to rush tens of thousands of unvetted Muslim migrants to Canada, visit RefugeePause.ca and sign the petition!
PS: The Rebel is ONLY media company in Canada that would even ask about government-funded mosques for refugees on military bases.
RELATED: “A national embarrassment: U.S. Senate demands answers about Trudeau’s reckless refugee plan”
It’s shocking that Canadian Armed Forces personnel will be ordered to abandon the coalition battle against ISIS and return to Canada to become waiters, chauffeurs and social workers for Muslim migrants, and that Canadian Forces Bases will be turned into squalid refugee camps.
It’s a disgrace that Canadian military personnel have been sent eviction notices to make way for foreign migrants.
But for the DND’s budget to be diverted away from military purposes and towards buying Korans and building mosques for foreign migrants, is especially outrageous.
RELATED: “A national embarrassment: U.S. Senate demands answers about Trudeau’s reckless refugee plan”
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