Archive for April 18, 2016

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Palestinian suicide attack hits buses in Jerusalem

April 18, 2016

Palestinian suicide attack hits buses in Jerusalem, DEBKAfile, April 18, 2016

Medics personnel evacuate a woman injured at the scene of a possible bus bombing, in jerusalem, on April 18, 2016, leaving at least 15 people injured. Police are investigating if the incident was a terror attack. The explosion occured on bus 12, while passing by the neighborhood of Talpiot, the bus was empty at the time, the injuries were from people on an adjacent bus. Photo by Nati Shohat/FLASh90 *** Local Caption *** ????? ????? ??????? ??????? ????

Medics personnel evacuate a woman injured at the scene of a possible bus bombing, in Jerusalem, on April 18, 2016, leaving at least 15 people injured.

The explosion on Jerusalem bus No. 12 on Monday as it travelled on Hebron street around 6:00 p.m., which also ripped through a second bus and injured 20 people, including two seriously, will enter the annals of the current intifada as the crossing of two red lines: one by the Palestinians, and one by the person who ordered the Israel Police to try to hide the fact that an explosive device was placed on the bus. In other words, someone decided to try to hide the fact that the “Jerusalem intifada” has entered a new stage.

When people arrive at hospitals with wounds in the lower half of their bodies from nails and ball bearings, it can only mean one thing: it was not just a bombing, but a suicide bombing.

Categories: Cover-up, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinian terrorists
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Turkey Builds Mega-Mosque in U.S., Blocks Churches in Turkey

April 18, 2016

Turkey Builds Mega-Mosque in U.S., Blocks Churches in Turkey, Gatestone Institute, Uzay Bulut, April 18, 2016

(Please see also, The loss of Jewish rights on the Temple Mount – cause and effect. — DM)

♦ As yet another enormous mosque has opened in the U.S. (funded by the Turkish government), Christians in Turkey are waiting for the day when Turkish state authorities will allow them freely to build or use their churches and safely pray inside them.

♦ In Turkey, some churches have been converted to stables or used as storehouses. Others have been completely destroyed. Sales of churches on the internet are a common practice.

♦ Meanwhile, Turkish President Erdogan said during the opening ceremony of the Maryland mosque that the center was important at a time of an “unfortunate rise in intolerance towards Muslims in the United States and the world.”

♦ How would Muslims feel if mosques in Mecca were put up for sale on the internet, turned into stables, or razed to the ground? How would they feel if a Muslim child were beaten in the classroom by his teacher for not saying “Jesus is my Lord and Savior?” How would they feel if they continually received violent threats or insults for just attempting peacefully to worship in their mosques?

On April 2, a gigantic Ottoman style of mosque was opened in Lanham, Maryland by the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The mosque, according to Turkish officials, is “one of the largest Turkish mosques built outside Turkey.”

Funds to build it, as reported by the Turkish pro-government newspaper, Sabah, came from Turkey’s state-run Presidency of Religious Affairs, known as the Diyanet, as well as Turkish-American non-profit organizations.

The mosque is actually part of a larger complex, commonly referred to as “Maryland kulliye.” Akulliye, as such Islamic compounds were called in Ottoman times, is a complex of buildings, centered on a mosque and composed of various facilities including a madrassa (Islamic religious school).

Erdogan recited verses from the Quran inside the mosque after the mosque was opened.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away from the American soil, in Turkey, Christians have for decades been deprived of the right to build their places of worship.

The 2015 report by Turkey’s Association of Protestant Churches revealed many violent, repressive and discriminatory practices against Protestant Christians in Turkey. According to the report, hate crimes, physical and verbal assaults as well as threats against Protestant Christians were commonplace in 2015 — as in previous years.[1]

“No development with regard to uncovering the perpetrators of these actions has occurred despite making known the content of the threats, the telephone numbers, email addresses, Facebook profiles and YouTube links of those making the threats in an official complaint,” according to the report.

Christians also experience many problems in the compulsory “religion and ethics” classes, which are mostly about indoctrinating schoolchildren in the teachings of Islam. An obligatory declaration of faith is one of the more serious problems facing Christians.

“The section for religious affiliation on the identity cards forces people to declare their faith and increases the risk of facing discrimination in every arena of life,” said the report. “For example, those who want to be exempt from mandatory religious instruction do not have the right to leave the religion line blank because they have to prove they are Christian in order for their children to be exempt from religion classes.”

Eleven-year-old Huseyin Bayram, for instance, a student at a primary school in Diyarbakir, converted to Protestant Christianity with his family in 2008. But because he was still officially registered as a Muslim, he had to take the compulsory Islamic class at school.

In 2010, Huseyin’s family lodged a complaint against the teacher of their child’s mandatory Islamic religious class, stating that the teacher slapped the child in the classroom.

Huseyin said that the teacher had asked the entire class to say the Islamic shahada (“There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah) three times; he did not do so. When the teacher asked him why, he said: “Sir, I go to the church. I do not know shahada and I do not want to learn it.”

The teacher, however, rejected the claims of beating: “I did not know the child was a Christian. I asked him the question that I ask to everyone.”

Like all other cities in present-day Turkey, Diyarbakir — called Dikranagerd or Dikrisagerd by the Armenian community — has a long history of Christianity.

After the division of the Roman Empire, Anatolia — from the Greek word “Anatole” meaning “east” or “sunrise” — became part of the Byzantine Empire. By the fourth century CE, Western and central Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christian and the inhabitants predominantly spoke Greek. A magnificent Christian civilization was established throughout centuries — until the territory was invaded first by the Seljuk Turks and later by the Ottoman Empire.

The year 1915 marked the peak of the Christian genocide, in Diyarbakir as well. “Most of the Armenians living inside the city were trapped,” wrote the Reverend Dr. George A. Leylegian, “and neighborhood by neighborhood, the Ottomans pillaged property and killed the helpless Dikranagerdtsis with nearly full-proof [sic] entrapment. The gendarmes sealed off each street and then raided the houses without reproach.”

Being a candidate for the European Union has not changed Turkey’s attitude towards churches and Christians.

This March, many places in Diyarbakir — including the Surp Giragos Armenian Apostolic and the Armenian Catholic churches — were expropriated by the Turkish government, as well as the Surp Sarkis Chaldean Church, the Virgin Mary Ancient Assyrian Church, and the city’s Protestant church.

Protestant Christians still experience serious problems establishing places of worship.

“Applications for opening a place of worship are rejected or left in a never-ending bureaucratic process. Previous applications that received either no response or a negative response are a clear indication of this situation…

“Apart from some exceptions, Christian congregations are prevented from using historical church buildings for Sunday services or holiday celebrations; these buildings are held by government institutions and are used for purposes other than church services.”

The Istanbul Protestant Church, for instance, officially requested that the Meryem Ana (Mother Mary) Church — in the hands of the city of Kayseri and used in the past as a sports center — be assigned to Christians living in Kayseri to meet their needs for a place of worship.

“No written response to this request has been given. However, in meetings with city officials, it was indicated unofficially that the church would be turned into a mosque or used as a museum. The church continued its efforts on this issue in 2015.”

1553The Istanbul Protestant Church officially requested last year that local Christians be allowed to worship in the Meryem Ana (Mother Mary) Church — in the hands of the city of Kayseri and used in the past as a sports center. City officials indicated that the church would instead be turned into a mosque or used as a museum.

The city of Caesarea, today called Kayseri, was where Saint Krikor Lusavoric — or Saint Gregory the Illuminator (A.D 257-331), the patron saint and first official head of the Armenian Apostolic Church — was raised and adopted Christianity as his religion.

King Tiridates III of Armenia, under leadership of Saint Gregory, proclaimed Christianity the state’s official religion in 301. Armenia thus became the first nation to adopt Christianity as its official religion.

“If Mecca is considered to be sacred for Muslims,” according to the website of Foundation of Kayseri Surp Krikor Lusavoriç Armenian Church, “Kayseri is the same for Armenians being the first city where Christianity was adopted.”

“Kayseri had a robust Armenian presence up until the 1970’s,” wrote the author Aris Nalci. “Today, there are no active Armenian churches in the city, except for the Krikor Lusavorich Church located in the city center. “In 1915, there were more than 50,000 Armenians living in this large trade city; in 1965, it is said that 130 families still remained. Now, however, there are only a few Armenians left.”

Today, the last traces of Christianity in Kayseri are about to be extinguished.

The Agape Church Association in the city of Ordu also recently applied to Turkish state authorities to be able to use the historic Tasbasi Orthodox Church as its church. The provincial director of culture and tourism affairs rejected the application, saying that “the church will be used as an archeology museum.”

Ordu, or Kotyora in Greek, was an ancient Greek town in the northern region of Anatolia historically known as Pontus (which means “sea” in Greek).

Throughout centuries, Christians thrived in the city — until the Islamic invasion of the region. The Christian inhabitants of Ordu were also victims of the Greek and Armenian genocides perpetrated by Muslim Turks between 1913 and 1923.

“There are stories,” wrote the historian Sam Topalidis, “of Armenians from Ordu being huddled into boats only to be later thrown overboard into the Black Sea to drown.”

After deportations, mass murders, death marches, rapes and other atrocities — as well as the 1923 forcible population exchange between Greece and Turkey — Ordu has almost become devoid of its Christian population, as have all other Anatolian cities.

“Similar experiences over many years have rooted the belief in the Protestant community that the legal procedures to establish or build a church are practically impossible to meet and that this right only exists on paper,” reported the Association of Protestant Churches.

Sales of churches on the internet are a common practice.

The Assyrian Mor (Saint) Yuhanna church in the province of Mardin and the historic Saint John Greek church in Bursa were put up for sale by title owners in June, 2015.

In January, 2016, another historic Greek church in the province of Kayseri was offered for sale on the internet.

On February, 2016, a 300-year-old Armenian Catholic Church in the province of Bursa was listed on an internet shopping site by a real estate agent. Its price was 1.5 million dollars.

Giving the titles of churches to private individuals was one of the policies of the Armenian genocide, said the researcher Nevzat Onaran.

“In 1915, the lives and right to property of Armenians were destroyed. The churches put up on sale today are a declaration of the fact that the process of devastation that the [Ottoman Turkish] Committee of Union and Progress government started in 1915 is still going on.”

This policy has targeted not only Armenians, but all other non-Muslim peoples in Anatolia.

Some churches have been converted to stables or used as storehouses. Others have been completely destroyed.

As Muslims in the United States have built yet another enormous mosque with Turkey’s help, Christians in Turkey are waiting for the day when Turkish state authorities will allow them freely to build or use their churches and safely pray inside them.

In the meantime, Turkish President Erdogan said during the opening ceremony of the Maryland mosque that the center was important at a time of an “unfortunate rise in intolerance towards Muslims in the United States and the world.”

Christians in Turkey have been going through not only the most intense feelings of intolerance and hatred, but also unending attacks and even murders. The Christian culture and civilization in Anatolia is on the way to total annihilation.

“Particulars gleaned from studying earlier centuries help us as Westerners to perceive the unique relationship between the religion and politics and, hopefully, to understand its modern-day manifestations better,” wrote the scholar Judy Henzel.

Today Cappadocian Greek in Turkey is a dead language. Many local languages of indigenous Christians — including Pontic Greek, Western Armenian, Suret (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic), Turoyo (Western Assyrian), and Hertevin (Eastern Aramaic) — are on the verge of extinction. It is not only places of worship that are destroyed or left to devastation in Turkey, it is an entire civilization to which the West owes so much.

In that, not only the aggression of Muslim authorities, but also the apathy of many Muslim locals have played a large part.

How would Muslims feel if their mosques in Mecca were put up for sale on the internet? Or turned into stables? Or razed to the ground? How would they feel if a Muslim child were beaten in the classroom by his teacher for not saying “Jesus is my Lord and Savior?”

How would Muslims feel if they continually received violent threats or insults for just attempting peacefully to worship in their mosques? Or if they were always to live in fear of violence? Or if they were systematically treated as if they were second-class citizens — in their indigenous lands where their ancestors once ruled?

As these issues are not discussed in Muslim countries, similar crimes are committed repeatedly — day in and day out. Apparently, one of the most obvious changes that political Islam causes in one’s psyche is the loss of empathy.

Before Muslim political or religious leaders lecture the world about the non-existent threat of “Islamophobia” or “intolerance against Muslims” in the West, they might take moral responsibility and address the real abuses against Christians in their home countries, including the intense Christian- and Jew-hatred, and the actual Christian genocide — both physical and cultural — that is happening across the Muslim world.

_____________________

[1] Protestant Christians, like other Christian denominations in Turkey, do not enjoy the right to freely share their faith with people, or train their religious leaders. Protestant communities specifically do not have the right to organize as congregations, because they are not recognized as legal entities. The report gives detailed information about all of these daily discriminatory actions against Protestant Christians.

Categories: Christianity, Erdogan, Islam and Christianity, Mosques in U.S., Turkey, Turkey and Christianity
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The loss of Jewish rights on the Temple Mount – cause and effect

April 18, 2016

The loss of Jewish rights on the Temple Mount – cause and effect | Anne’s Opinions, 18th April 2016


(“Appeasing the crocodile, hoping to be eaten last” is the truest description of the weak-willed appeasement by the Israeli government of Muslim intimidation in Jerusalem, and on the Temple Mount in particular. How can we in Israel expect the world to stand up for us when we ourselves do not stand up for our own rights? And how can we expect the West to contend with radical supremacist Islam when our own, ostensibly right-wing Israeli government is so eager to appease the Muslims at the expense of the Jews? –anneinpt).

I know that I go on a bit (OK, a lot) about Israeli sovereignty in Israel, including Judea and Samaria, and Jewish rights on the Temple Mount in particular, but this week the cause and effect of not enforcing our own sovereignty was highlighted in startling clarity.

It started with Joint Arab List MK Jamal Zahalka who warned Israel against allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount on their holy festival of Pesach (Passover), sinisterly reminding Israel of the death toll of the Second Intifada – although of course the racist MK only mentioned Arab deaths and not the 1,000 Israeli victims:

A day after he returned from a two-month suspension from the Knesset, Israeli Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (Joint List) made a call to the Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount complex “in any way possible.”

“In light of the daily increase of (Jewish) ascent to the Aksa Mosque, it is up to us to stop it in any way possible,” he told the Palestinian site Dunya al-Watan on Wednesday, ahead of next week’s Passover holiday in which Jews flock to Jerusalem’s holy sites.

How Palestinians protect Al Aqsa – with stones to throw at the Jewish worshippers at the Kotel

In his remarks, Zahalka, who leads the Balad party in the four-party Joint List alliance, said “the Palestinian people paid the price of 4,000 deaths in the second intifada in the year 2000.”

He lied brazenly with the following outrageous claim:

“Our people have the right to the mosque, and we must protect it with all of our power. The Palestinian nation is the guardian of the mosque,” he said in the interview published Thursday.

Of course the Palestinians (not a nation in any event) are nothing of the sort. If anyone is the official guardian it is Jordan.

Zahalka charged that the continuation of the alleged uptick of Jewish visits to the site would ignite the next collective Palestinian uprising against Israel.

He added that “the increase in Jews who go up will cause the third intifada to break out and continue throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem depending on which Palestinian organizations join in the fighting.”

It is quite obvious that Zahalka is itching to be suspended yet again, and is probably also angling to be the next Palestinian inciter-in-chief, I mean President for Life. The man is beyond a disgrace, and it is an outrage that he is permitted to sit in the (Zionist) Knesset while at the same time undermining his own country’s very existence and raison d’etre.

PM Binyamin Netanyahu’s pathetic response was to ask the Attorney General to investigate if Zahalka’s statement was incitement. What is to consider? Have we no brains to think for ourselves?

Zahalka only plays into the reigning conspiracy theories of “Israeli settler storming invasions” of the Al Aqsa and inflames matters even more. Elder of Ziyon has the story of what would be a hilariously misunderstood event if it weren’t so deadly dangerous. The site QPress ominously warned of “settlers in white uniforms storming Al Aqsa“. Look for yourselves at the absurdity of it all, and then let it sink in how pathetically gullible and willing to be enraged are the Muslims:

White shirts are apparently a “settler uniform” now, according to QPress, which puts up regular videos of Jews “storming Al Aqsa Mosque” and “attempting to perform Talmudic rituals.”

Here was the white uniform scene:

I can hardly bear to watch. I feel my blood pressure rising dangerously as I hear those taunting cries of “Allahu Akhbar” and wonder who is the invader and imperialist colonialist and who is really oppressed.

Our further capitulation in the face of Arab intimidation continued with the arrest – by Israeli police! – of an American tourist who was explaining a Hebrew verse of Psalms to his tour group on the Temple Mount:

If we were to describe the following scene as having taken place anywhere else on the planet, the report would have been followed by several news cycles involving angry Jewish organizations, rabbis, Israeli rightwing politicians and, undoubtedly, Prime Minister Netanyahu, condemning the blatant act of anti-Semitic repression on the part of police, carrying out the anti-Semitic policies of the national government. (See American Jew Arrested for Murmuring Prayers, 2nd Warned to Close Prayer App)

American Jew arrested by the Israeli “prayer police.”

On Sunday morning, a Jewish American tourist wearing a yarmulke stood with a group of fellow Jewish tourists and spoke about the meaning of a biblical verse. A group of black-uniformed police converged on him and accused him of engaging in Jewish prayer, which is against the law in that country. The Jewish man tried to defend himself, arguing that he was merely explaining a biblical verse, “Please, God, save [us], Please God, give [us] success” (Psalms 118:25).

The cops rushed to the man and his group as soon as they heard the words “Please, God” pronounced in Hebrew. The rest of the lecture was in English. The man insisted, in English, that he was merely explaining the verse and not praying. The cops had no patience for lengthy arguments with a Jew and arrested him.

Several other Jewish tourists tried to intervene, explaining that it was a misunderstanding, they wouldn’t have even dreamed of praying there, in a country that punishes Jews who engage in public prayer, it was merely a mention of a verse in the context of a talk. At which point the arresting officer declared:

“On the Temple Mount I decide what’s prayer.”

The Jewish legal aid organization Honenu had it exactly right:

The legal aid society Honenu said in a statement: “The conduct of the State of Israel and Police regarding the suspicion of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is, first of all, ridiculous, and in addition it is discriminatory and predatory. It is inconceivable that a law-abiding man would be arrested like the lowest criminal for explaining a verse from Psalms. In any other country such an arrest would have been called anti-Semitic.”

The very fact that Jewish prayer is forbidden on the Temple Mount is outrageous in its overt antisemitism, and is a bigotry and racism that would not be permitted anywhere else in the world against the host country’s own people.

If we do not stand up for our rights, who will? Certainly not the UN, as once again UNESCO lived down to all our expectations.

This miserable episode of denial of Jewish rights in Jerusalem and at our holiest site finished ingloriously but unsurprisingly with UNESCO’s deletion of any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount at all:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticized a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) resolution from last week in which Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall area in Jerusalem’s Old City are wholly ignored.

The resolution refers to Israel as the “occupying power” at every mention and uses the Arabic al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram al-Sharif without ever calling it the Temple Mount, as it is known to Jews. The text does refer to the Western Wall Plaza but places it in quotation marks, after using the Arabic Al-Buraq Plaza.

Birkat Cohanim – the Priestly Blessing – at the Kotel (because of course there is no Jewish connection to the Kotel at all says UNESCO)

“This is yet another absurd UN decision,” Netanyahu said Saturday. “UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where the two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and has again proven that there is no low to which it will not stoop.”

The resolution accuses Israel of “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”

This is such a sick inversion of reality that my jaw literally dropped. One wonders how those who voted in favour kept a straight face while voting. I hate to keep using the word “outraged” over and over but I can’t find a stronger word to describe what I feel.

Desecrated Jewish graves on the Mt. of Olives

As we all know and as has been thoroughly documented, Muslims regularly desecrate, vandalise and violate Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives – ancient Jewish graves dating back sometimes thousands of years, even before the invention of Islam (which is most likely what bothers them the most), Jews are not allowed full prayer rights on the Temple, and Muslims regularly desecrate and destroy priceless Jewish relics on the Temple Mount in an ongoing destruction.

How UNESCO managed to condemn Israel for the Muslims’ crimes is something for psychologists and psychiatrists, rather than diplomats and politicians, to figure out.

Who were the countries who voted in favour of this disgusting resolution?

The resolution was approved by 33 states, including France, Russia, Spain and Sweden. Seventeen countries abstained while six voted against including the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

How could France, of all countries, vote in favour after suffering such huge losses at the hands of Muslim terrorists? Or are they simply staying in character and preferring to surrender to the evil in order that the “crocodile eats them last” to mix a metaphor?

But what can we expect from the Muslims and from biased international organizations when we ourselves, or at least our pathetic weak-willed leaders, do not strongly stand up for our rights and enforce our sovereignty over own holiest sites?

If we hoped that by giving in to their antisemitic demands we could appease the Muslims, reality has hit us in the face and shown us the opposite: the more we give in, the more violence we receive.

It is beyond high time that we revoked the entire ridiculous edifice of denial of Jewish rights, whether for prayer or religious ceremonies or even building of synagogues, on the Temple Mount, and put the Muslims on the defensive. In any event they riot, commit violence and murder. We might as well derive some benefit in the process.

I’m pretty sure that the Muslim world is watch closely for our reaction to these disgraceful maneuvers, whether at the Knesset, at the UN, or on the Temple Mount itself. It is no use for Binyamin Netanyahu to hold a cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights and declare that the area “is ours forever” when he himself is not allowed to pray on his own holiest site in our own capital city.

If we don’t assert our rights in our capital, we will lose our rights everywhere in our country.

Categories: Jerusalem, Muslims, Palestinian incitement, UNESCO
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Muslim Brotherhood Day on Capitol Hill

April 18, 2016

Muslim Brotherhood Day on Capitol Hill, The Hill, Frank J. Gaffney Jr., April 18, 2016

uscmo

On Monday, April 18, legislators’ offices will be visited by individuals associated with a group unknown to most lawmakers: The United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO). In the interest of helping members of the U.S. Congress understand precisely who their interlocutors are, permit a brief introduction: The USCMO is the latest in a long series of front organizations associated with, and working to advance, the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

Members of Congress should be clear about the true nature of that agenda. It is laid out most authoritatively in a document introduced into evidence by federal prosecutors in the course of the largest terrorism financing trial in the nation’s history, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation et al. Written in 1991 by a top Muslim Brotherhood operative, Mohamed Akram, and entitled “The Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal of the Group in North America,” this internal correspondence was meant for the eyes only of the organization’s leadership in Egypt. So, the document is direct and to the point: It explicitly states that the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America is “destroying Western civilization from within … by [the infidels’] hands and the hands of the believers so that Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

There are two other important facts legislators should know about Akram’s memo.

First, the document helpfully attaches a list of 29 groups under the heading “Our organizations and organizations of our friends: Imagine if they all march according to one plan!” A number of the identified Muslim Brotherhood fronts — and many others that have come into being since 1991 — are members of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations. Representatives and associates of such fronts will be among the Islamists in congressional offices on Monday.

Second, the memo describes in detail the Muslim Brotherhood’s favored technique for accomplishing its stated goal of “destroying Western civilization” — at least until such time as they are strong enough to use violence decisively: “civilization jihad.” This sort of jihad involves employing stealthy, subversive means like influence operations to penetrate and subvert our government and civil society institutions. (The successful application of these means have been chronicled extensively in the Center for Security Policy’s “Civilization Jihad Reader Series.”)

With the launch of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations in March 2014, the Muslim Brotherhood has secured a new instrument for its subversion: a self-described U.S. “political party” meant to dominate and mobilize Muslim voters across the country and get them marching according to one plan. The object is to elicit support for the Muslim Brotherhood’s demands from candidates and to help achieve what the Islamic supremacists would regard as favorable outcomes in the 2016 elections. (For more on the USCMO, its purpose and activities to date, see “Star Spangled Sharia: The Rise of America’s First Muslim Brotherhood Party.”)

Unfortunately, some members of Congress have already embraced the Council of Muslim Organizations. For example, two with longstanding ties to assorted Muslim Brotherhood fronts, Reps. André Carson (D-Ind.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), spoke at the USCMO’s inaugural banquet in June 2014. Neither has disavowed the USCMO’s subsequent participation in anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas and pro-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations and its fundraising on behalf of Islamic Relief USA, a large, U.S.-based Islamic supremacist charity.

Another reason lawmakers and their staffs should be leery of this new Muslim Brotherhood front group is its avowed intention to make common cause with radical non-Muslim entities like the Black Lives Matter movement. At a conference in December 2015 convened by two of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most virulent fronts, the Muslim American Society and Islamic Circle of North America, leading USCMO figures publicly discussed how they could impart lessons to African-Americans by holding up the Brotherhood as the community that staged revolutions across the world.

Congress is on notice: As long as organizations associated with Islamic supremacism like the USCMO and its member organizations dominate “Muslim Advocacy Day” on Capitol Hill, it will actually be Muslim Brotherhood Advocacy Day. And legislators should have nothing to do with either its participants or its programs.

Categories: Civilization jihad, Hamas, Islam - submission, Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamists visit Congress, Muslim Brotherhood
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Senior Hamas tunnel network defector tried to flee to Israel by sea: sources

April 18, 2016

Senior Hamas tunnel network defector tried to flee to Israel by sea: sources, DEBKAfile, April 18, 2016

Alauwana_Hamas_18.4.16

Western intelligence sources monitoring events in Gaza confirmed Monday that a senior operative from the Hamas tunnel network defected to Israel last week. The sources identified the defector as Sami Atauna, a resident of the Jebalya refugee camp who came to the border fence by himself and surrendered to an IDF patrol. The sources added that the senior operative had also made an unsuccessful attempt to defect to Israel by sea during the past few weeks. It is not clear whether there is any connection between the defection and the discovery of a Hamas tunnel leading into Israel, which was announced by the IDF on Monday.

Categories: Defense of Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Terror tunnels
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IDF’s drill secures Netanyahu-Putin summit

April 18, 2016

IDF’s drill secures Netanyahu-Putin summit, DEBKAfile, April 18, 2016

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The IDF launched an unannounced military-air exercise in northen Israel Monday April 18. It will also be held in the Jordan valley, strategically located south of the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee. Despite the official explanation that the drills are part of the IDF’s training schedule for 2016, it is difficult not to see it as a follow-up to the Cabinet meeting on the Golan the previous day, including Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s declaration that “Israel will never withdraw from the Golan.”

Just as the Cabinet meeting was an “emergency” one, the exercise is not part of standard training, as an IDF statement claimed, but rather part of the overall picture of the war in Syria on the other side of the northeastern border.

The drill is mainly intended to prevent a possible attack by ISIS, Syrian, Iranian or Hizballah forces aimed at torpedoing Netanyahu’s discussions in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, April 21.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the IDF exercise shows only half of the military picture in the area.
On the other side of the border, in the triangular pocket where the Israeli, Syrian and Jordanian borders meet, heavy fighting has been underway for several days between Syrian rebels and forces of the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades and the al-Muthanna organization, which have both sworn allegiance to ISIS. The battles are taking place across from Israel’s Hamat Gader, south of the Sea of Galilee, which is the reason why the exercise is also being held in the Jordan Valley.

On the other side of the border, in the triangular pocket where the Israeli, Syrian and Jordanian borders meet, heavy fighting has been underway for several days between Syrian rebels and forces of the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades and the al-Muthanna organization, which have both sworn allegiance to ISIS. The battles are taking place across from Israel’s Hamat Gader, south of the Sea of Galilee, which is the reason why the exercise is also being held in the Jordan Valley.

On the other side of the border, in the triangular pocket where the Israeli, Syrian and Jordanian borders meet, heavy fighting has been underway for several days between Syrian rebels and forces of the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades and the al-Muthanna organization, which have both sworn allegiance to ISIS. The battles are taking place across from Israel’s Hamat Gader, south of the Sea of Galilee, which is the reason why the exercise is also being held in the Jordan Valley.

On Sunday, the leader and commander of Al-Muthanna was killed during the fighting. The goal of the rebel attack is to capture the Syrian villages in the territory held by ISIS, which threatens the Galilee and the Golan communities of Tel Katzir, Shaar Hagolan and Masada. Sources in Kuwait reported last week that Jordanian special forces and Israeli drones marked in the colors of the Jordanian air force are participating in the battles. The developments on the ground indicate that the goal of the attacking forces is to uproot ISIS from the Israeli and Jordanian border areas.

DEBKAfile’s sources provided the following exclusive details on April 17:   

The Israeli cabinet holds its weekly session Sunday April 17, on the Golan. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu will visit Moscow on Thursday, April 21 to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and to launch the most important battle of his political career, and one of Israel’s most decisive contests of the last 10 years: the battle over the future of the Golan Heights.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources and its sources in Moscow report exclusively that Israel’s top political leaders and military commanders were stunned and shocked last weekend when they found out that US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to support the return of the Golan to Syria. The two presidents gave their top diplomats, Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the green light to include such a clause in a proposal being drafted at the Geneva conference on ending the Syrian civil war.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a security and defense tour in the Golan Heights, near the Northern Israeli border with Syria. April 11, 2016. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO *** Local Caption *** ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ????? ?????? ?????. ????? ?????? ?????? ????? ?? ????? ??????? ???? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a security and defense tour in the Golan Heights, near the Northern Israeli border with Syria. April 11, 2016. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO

Israel captured the Golan from the Syrian army 49 years ago, during the Six-Day War in 1967 after the Syrian army invaded Israel.

In 1981, during the tenure of then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Israel passed a law defining the Golan as a territory under Israeli sovereignty. However, it did not state that the area belongs to Israel.

While Israel was preparing for a diplomatic battle over the future of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Obama and Putin decided to deal a diplomatic blow to Israel and Netanyahu’s government on an unexpected issue, the Golan.

It is part of an endeavor by the two powers to use their diplomatic and military cooperation regarding Syria to impose agreements on neighboring countries, such as Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

For example, Washington and Moscow are trying to impose an agreement regarding the granting of independence to Syrian Kurds, despite Ankara’s adamant opposition. The two presidents are also pressuring Riyadh and Amman to accept the continuation of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule, at least for the immediate future.

DEBKAfile’s sources report that just like the other diplomatic or military steps initiated by Obama and Putin in Syria, such as those for Assad’s eventual removal from power, the two powers see a resolution of the Golan issue as a gradual process that may take a long time, perhaps even years. But as far as they are concerned, Israel will have to withdraw from the Golan at the end of that process.

It should be noted that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not traveling to Washington to discuss the Golan issue with Obama. The frequent trips by the prime minister, senior officials and top IDF brass to Moscow in recent months show where the winds are blowing in the Middle East.

However, Moscow is not Washington, and Israel has no lobby in the Russian capital defending its interests.

It should be made very clear that the frequent trips by senior Israeli officials to Moscow have not created an Israeli policy that can influence Putin or other senior members of the Russian leadership. Putin has made occasional concessions to Israel on matters of minimal strategic importance, but on diplomatic and military steps regarding Syria and Iran he has shown little consideration of Jerusalem’s stance.

It should also be noted that there has been no basis for the enthusiasm over the Russian intervention in Syria shown by Netanyahu, Israeli ministers and senior IDF officers.

All of the calls by a number of Russia experts, mainly those of ll of the calls by a number of Russia experts, mainly those of DEBKAfile, for extreme caution in ties with Putin have fallen on deaf ears among the political leadership in Jerusalem and the IDF command in Tel Aviv.

Amid these developments, three regional actors are very pleased by Washington and Moscow’s agreement to demand Israeli withdrawal from the Golan: Syrian President Assad, the Iranian leadership in Tehran and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Now, they do not need to risk a military confrontation with Israel over the Golan because Obama and Putin have essentially agreed to do the dirty work for them.

Categories: Assad, Defense of Israel, Foreign policy, Golan, IDF, Israel, Israel borders, Israeli security, Jordan, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Obama and Russia, Obama and Syria, Putin, Russia - Israel, Russia - Syrian war, Syria war
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The Perilous Politicization of the Military

April 18, 2016

The Perilous Politicization of the Military, American Thinker, Jonathan F. Keiler, April 18, 2016

We are looking at a permanent structural change in the American armed forces that will not only weaken the nation’s ability to defend itself, but endanger constitutional principles. A year ago in an article titled “Obama’s Generals,” I described an American military increasingly politicized under the current administration.  The evidence at the time was already abundant:  the military’s refusal to identify the Fort Hood shootings as terrorism, the coddling of Bowe Bergdahl, the relief or prosecution of politically unreliable generals, and unrealistically rosy appreciations of the campaign against ISIS being the major points.  If anything, things have worsened since, most especially with the purely political decision to remove all restriction on women in combat, and as noted in a recent AT posts the mostly symbolic but still significant decisions by the Navy to issue “gender neutral” uniforms and to ignoreregulations regarding naming ships to honor Democrat politicians and leftwing social activists.  Add to this, ongoing and increasingly aggressive recruiting policies that mandate “diversity” and the situation becomes scary.

Arguably there has been some good news here and there, but even that must be taken with a large grain of salt.  Last year Congress passed legislation allowing for the soldiers wounded at Fort Hood to receive Purple Hearts, and the Army belatedly acknowledged former Major Nidal Hassan’s terrorist ties, though has yet (to my knowledge) formally remove the “workplace violence” moniker it attached to the shooting, despite the fact that Obama late last year reluctantly acknowledged the Fort Hood shooting as a terror attack.

Similarly, in the Bergdahl case, also after incredibly long delays, the Army decided to try the soldier at a General Courts Martial.  This is seen by some as the “old Army” reasserting itself in a case that reeks of liberal political influence.  Perhaps this is so.  However, the decision to try Bergdahl only came after he badly embarrassed the Army by going public with his account of his desertion and capture on NPR, practically forcing the hand of convening officer, General Robert B. Abrams.   Moreover, though the decision to try Bergdahl was made last December (four days after the first NPR appearance), the trial will not take place until August, scarcely demonstrating a hard charging prosecution in a relatively simple case.  Even assuming Bergdahl is convicted, his attorneys will argue that Bergdahl has successfully served on active duty for over two years since his release by the Taliban in May 2014, and thus deserving of leniency, undermining the contention he is a bad soldier.  This might sound ridiculous to some, but the jury will have to consider it, and it is part of the reason why military prosecutions are usually expeditious, though the Army has not demonstrated any sense of urgency in the case.

Meanwhile the low level war against ISIS goes on. The U.S. continues operate under ruinous rules of engagement which result in countless wasted strike sorties, wearing out men and equipment to no gain.  While ISIS is probably weakening under the bombardment, the campaign’s military logic is held hostage to politically correct dogmas.  The Pentagon goes along with this, hyping over-optimistic casualty reports with promises that ISIS is close to breaking.  While the Pentagon and some commentators trumpet the arrival of B-52 bombers in the region, those expecting carpet bombing will be disappointed.  The B-52s replace more capable B-1s which flew many hours but dropped only a small fraction of the munitions they are capable of throwing at the enemy.  The B-52s will do the same.  By contrast, Russia’s politically incorrect but effective Syrian intervention seems to have accomplished much more, in a much shorter time span, with inferior equipment, money and support.

I got to see some of the strain on Marine pilots, ground crew and aircraft when I visited the Beaufort Marine Air Station a few months ago.  While there I also learned a lot about recruiting, and especially political influences that are pervasive and potentially permanent. Beyond the already divisive, controversial and standard-destroying policy of allowing women in all combat billets is the military’s intensive drive to fill the ranks with as many women and other categories of “diverse” recruits as possible, at almost any cost.   Diversity is now effectively the primary goal of military recruiters, even beyond meeting basic quotas.  Recruiters that enlist too many qualified and ready applicants (read Caucasian males) that don’t meet the description of “diverse” can be sanctioned for going after easy pickings.  Recruiting goals are first defined by diversity rather than by quality, availability or cost.  In a situation in which the Marines say over 70% of young American adults are unqualified for service, and in an era in which officer quality is a serious concern, this program verges on folly.

Officers and senior enlisted who wish to progress must effectively buy into this program, and the folks they recruit and advance will too.  While diversity is not a bad thing (I live and work in very diverse environments) its empirical benefits are extremely debatable, and when adopted forcefully as a matter of policy, it is a completely political matter that reflects a strong leftist bent.  It may be desirable to have a military that reflects demographic reality in the country, but effectively favoring some categories of citizens willing to serve over others is a recipe for ineffectiveness, tension, conflict and potentially serious political turmoil.  That is not a price worth paying for a cherry-picked military selected to fit an idealized demographic template.

While to some extent the services have always been and will continue to be organizations affected by politics, among the many departments of government, the services are probably the most sensitive to political influence in terms of maintaining a free society.  The openly leftist orientation that the Obama administration continues to force on the armed forces not only damages morale and national security, but is potentially a serious long term (if not permanent) phenomenon.  Senior officers have to be sympathetic to the administration’s moves in order to advance, and junior officers are oriented politically both by selection and doctrine from the get-go.  On the other hand, mid-grade officers who do not buy in are forced out via the evaluation process or through their own disgruntlement.

While plenty of former senior officers (and Defense secretaries) have criticized the administration, and some were eventually maneuvered out, I’m not aware of any who explicitly resigned on principle, which at least might offer some encouragement for those disturbed by this process.  Whether senior officers continue to soldier on based on loyalty to the military-political system or just plain careerism is hard to say (and certainly in many cases both are true), but the practical effect of going along to get along allows this extremely dangerous politicization to snowball, a process which will only worsen if another Democrat is elected in November.

Categories: Obama administration, Obama and US military, Politicization, U.S. Military
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Saudi Arabia Threatens To Sell Off $750 Billion In U.S. Assets If Congress Allows 9-11 Families To Sue

April 18, 2016

Saudi Arabia Threatens To Sell Off $750 Billion In U.S. Assets If Congress Allows 9-11 Families To Sue, Jonathan Turley’s Blog, Jonathan Turley, April 18, 2016

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The Obama Administration is shrugging off the insult to our legal system by a country that violates every core principle of due process and civil liberties in their own country.

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While the level of protection afforded Saudi Arabia in Washington is hardly a secret, the level of that support was on display this month when officials pushed the Obama Administration to release long-withheld pages from the 9-11 report, as we previously discussed. Those pages reportedly implicate Saudi Arabia in the 9-11 attacks. Saudi Arabia response with an express threat to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars of assets if Congress were to pass a bill allowing the Kingdom to be held liable for the attacks. One would think that the response would be outrage at the threat. After all, the bill would only allow citizens to sue and a bipartisan group of Senators have joined to support the 9-11 families. Saudi Arabia could still defend itself (and according to its government, vindicate itself) in a court of law. Of course, the United States has a real court system as opposed to the government controlled, Sharia “courts” used in the Kingdom to mete out medieval justice.

The Administration not only is staying silent about this insulting threat but is doing precisely what the Saudis are demanding in trying to block the bill. When push comes to shove between the victims or 9-11 and the Saudis, the choice appears clear.

So that there would be no mistake about the threat, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month — threatening a sudden sell-off of $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets to cripple the economy. The rationale is to avoid the assets from being frozen by American courts. Interestingly, this assumes that you are likely to be found guilty of complicity in the worst terrorist attack in United States history. What is interesting is that the use of al-Jubeir seemed calculated to maximize the threat. The same message could have been delivered through leaks that the Saudis were preparing such a selloff for strategic reasons. The open threat was a serious miscalculation by the Saudis in my view. Few Americans would take the threat as anything short of a slap in the face of the victims of 9-11 and the country as a whole.

The Obama Administration is shrugging off the insult to our legal system by a country that violates every core principle of due process and civil liberties in their own country. Instead, it is suggesting that holding Saudi Arabia liable for American deaths could put Americans at legal risk overseas. Whatever the merits of the argument against the access to the courts for these citizens (and I would be very interesting to hear them), the Administration should have delivered a clear message that we do not respond to such threats, particularly when another country is balancing American lives against foreign investments.

What do you think?

Categories: 9/11, Foreign policy, Obama and Islam, Obama and Saudi Arabia, Obama's weakness, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, U.S. courts
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Merkel Offers Erdoğan The Head of German Comedian In Final Surrender Of Free Speech

April 18, 2016

Merkel Offers Erdoğan The Head of German Comedian In Final Surrender Of Free Speech, Jonathan Turley’s Blog, Jonathan Turley, April 18, 2016

(Another loss for western civilization and another win for the Islamists and the functional equivalent of Sharia law. — DM)

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angela-merkel

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to first apologize to authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a satirical poem and then approve the prosecution of the comedian is a shocking and chilling disgrace. Merkel, who hails from the former Communist East Germany, has never been a reliable ally to free speech but the crackdown on comedian Jan Boehmermann has shocked the West. Even with the recent rollback of free speech rights in Europe, Merkel’s actions (and the cringing response of ZDF television) has been wake up call for all civil libertarians.

Under German law, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government had to approve a criminal inquiry. While she said that her government would move to repeal the controversial and little-used Article 103 of the penal code, which concerns insults against foreign heads of state, this would not happen until 2018. The provision (dating back to 1871) on defamation of organs and representatives of foreign states, states:

(1) Whosoever insults a foreign head of state, or, with respect to his position, a member of a foreign government who is in Germany in his official capacity, or a head of a foreign diplomatic mission who is accredited in the Federal territory shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine, in case of a slanderous insult to imprisonment from three months to five years.

It is a ridiculous law that denies the very essence of free speech. Yet it was used successfully by Shah of Persia against a Cologne newspaper in 1964. It was also sued by hen-Swiss President, Micheline Calmy-Rey to prosecution a Swiss man living in Bavaria after he posted offensive comments Calmy-Rey, on the internet. Despite these outrageous cases, Germany has retained the law.

Moreover, Merkel’s fawning apology to Erdoğan, one of the world’s rising totalitarians, was widely viewed as the final capitulation of Western leaders to the calls for greater censorship and speech regulation.

We have seen the erosion of liberties in Turkey after the election of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his coalition of Islamic parties. Just last month, we discussed the arrest of Mehmet Emin Altunses, 16, who allegedly committed the crime of “insulting” Erdoğan. calling people who use birth control “traitors” and saying Muslims discovered America, you are not allowed to be disrespectful or insulting in discussing Erdoğan. Then there was the prosecution of model and former Miss Turkey Merve Buyuksarac, 26, for criticizing Erdogan for quoting a few lines from a poem called the “Master’s Poem” from weekly Turkish satirical magazine Uykusuz. Erdoğan’s totalitarian measures have earned him the nickname “Buyuk Usta” (the Big Master). Even a joking reference to Gollum and Erdoğan is enough to land you in jail today in Turkey.

Böhmermann will now have to prove that his poem was satire about free speech, rather than a deliberate insult — a bizarre standard since satire is often insulting and insults are part of free speech, particularly with regard to political leaders.

Merkel recently denounced the poem was “deliberately offensive” and ZDF television abandoned both free speech and its presenter in pulling Böhmermann’s weekly satire programme last week.

Despite her public apology and statement, Merkel insisted “The presumption of innocence applies” to Boehmermann.

For his part, Böhmermann used humor to respond to his own government’s persecution and told fans he planned to spend his break studying “freedom of the press and freedom of art in greater detail while traveling through North Korea.” He said that his decision to take a break was intended to allow “the public and the Internet can return to focusing on the important things in life, like the refugee crisis (and) cat videos.”

Merkel needs Turkey to take back refugees and has added $6 billion in aid to her sacrifice of free speech to keep Erdoğan happy.

It is important to note that Merkel is not alone in abandoning free speech. Despite its effort to spin the scandal, ZDF, the German network that airs Neo Magazine Royale, showed no courage or principle in taking the offending poem off the web. It then tried to maintain that it “respects” Böhmermann and will support him in any legal defense against the Turkish government.

We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in France (here and here and here and here and here and here) and England (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Much of this trend is tied to the expansion of hate speech and non-discrimination laws. We have seen comedians targeted with such court orders under this expanding and worrisome trend. (here and here).

Merkel has plunged Germany into this rising sea of censorship and criminalized speech. Fortunately, polls show Germans are opposed to her and this appeasement of Erdogan. Perhaps the case will serve to focus Germans and Europeans in general on the diminishing protections for free speech in the West. If nothing else, the attempt to imprison a comedian for insulting an authoritarian leader should capture the dire status of free speech in Europe.

Categories: Erdogan, Freedom of speech, Germany, Islamisation, Sharia law, Turkey
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UNESCO renames Western Wall “Al-Buraq Plaza”

April 18, 2016

UNESCO renames Western Wall “Al-Buraq Plaza” Jihad Watch, , April 17, 2016

There is a concerted effort among “Palestinians” and their supporters to erase all evidence of the historical connection of Jews to Israel. The UN, controlled by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, is a willing partner in these efforts. Besides being motivated by Islamic Jew-hatred, this endeavor is in line with the Islamic supremacist tendency to appropriate the holy places and sacred figures of other religions.

benjamin-netanyahu-western-wall-kotel-prayer-jerusalem

“UNESCO Renames Western Wall ‘Al-Buraq Plaza,’” by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Breaking Israel News, April 17, 2016 (thanks to Janice):

On Friday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Executive Board in Paris adopted a resolution erasing Israel’s ties to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

The UNESCO resolution referred to the Temple Mount area solely as the Al-Aqsa Mosque or Al-Haram Al Sharif, ignoring the Jewish claim to the site.

The resolution called Israel “the occupying power” and the Western Wall as Al-Buraq Plaza. It demanded that Israel not restrict Muslim access to the Temple Mount, condemning Israel for “illegal measures against the freedom of worship” at the “Muslim holy site of worship”. It demanded a return to the “status quo”. The status quo since Israel conquered the Temple Mount in 1967 forbids non-Muslim prayer on the Temple Mount and has remained unchanged.

Blaming “Israel aggression” for the violence at the site, it had no mention of the role of Muslim rioters.

It also condemned the Israel’s plans to establish an egalitarian, non-Orthodox prayer section by Robinson’s Arch.

It accused Israel of “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries” located on Waqf property east and south of the Temple Mount, and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”.

It referred to Hebron and Bethlehem as solely “Palestinian sites”.

Authorized by the executive board’s Programme and External Relations Commission, the resolution was submitted by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan. The 58-member board approved the resolution with 33 votes in favor, six against and 17 abstentions. Two countries, Ghana and Turkmenistan were absent all together. Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the US voted against the resolution. France, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden, Russia and Slovenia were among those countries that supported the resolution.

Israeli ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama, released a statement saying, “Even if UNESCO passes dozens of resolutions, and decides to continue passing thousands more, Jerusalem will always remain as part of the capital of Israel and the Jewish people.” Shama added, “As you continue on this path of incitement, lies and terror you will be sending UNESCO down a path towards irrelevance.”

“This is yet another absurd UN decision,” Netanyahu said Saturday. “UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where the two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and has again proven that there is no low to which it will not stoop.”

Categories: Islam and Jews, Israel, Jewish history, OIC, Palestinians, Temple Mount, UNESCO, Western Wall
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