Michael Cutler Moment:Obama’s Tsunami of Illegal Aliens and Deadly Diseases via YouTube, June 7, 2016
Archive for June 2016
Netanyahu: ‘No Syrian launchpad against Israel’
June 8, 2016Netanyahu vows: ‘Syria won’t be a launchpad against Israel’ Talking to Moscow’s Jewish leaders, PM admits Israeli activity in Syria, says he talked with Putin about new regional ‘arrangement.’
By Nitsan Keidar
First Publish: 6/8/2016, 2:57 PM
Source: Netanyahu: ‘No Syrian launchpad against Israel’ – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva
After meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday held a conference with the leaders of Moscow’s Jewish community where he spoke about Israeli activity in Syria.
The event, which was held during Netanyahu’s official visit to Russia, was attended by around 100 community leaders and businessmen including Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt and Russian Jewish Federation chief Yuri Kanner.
During the meeting, Netanyahu was asked about Syria and the future of relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime is being propped up primarily by Russian and Iran.
“You ask about the future of (Israel’s) relations with President Assad? I would ask what is the future of President Assad in general?,” replied Netanyahu, noting on the internecine civil war that has raged since 2011.
“We do not interfere in this issue. We’re making sure that Syria won’t become a launchpad for attacks against Israel.”
He clarified that Israel is ensuring it will not be attacked from Syria by taking occasional action, and said the IDF will strike Syrian and Iranian troops or Hezbollah terrorists and members of other Islamist groups in the region if they pose a threat to the Jewish state.
“There are enough enemies. My policy is to take all necessary steps to prevent attacks, and we act from time to time when the need arises,” he acknowledged.
The statement is one of the few times Netanyahu has admitted Israeli activity over the border.
While Arab reports had long alleged that Israeli jets conducted airstrikes on arms transfers for Iran’s Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah, Israel has remained tight-lipped on the subject. However, last December Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel is active in Syria.
In his remarks on Wednesday regarding Syria, Netanyahu added that, “I also ordered to build a field hospital that helped thousands of Syrians, babies, children, women, and men, with awful wounds. We are treating them there and at our hospitals. Humanitarian aid and a firm stand on our lines for the security of Israel.”
Noting on the fractured nature of Syria, he said, “I don’t know if it is possible to turn the Syrian omelette back into an egg.”
“The countries around us, Syria among them, some of them have already split apart, and therefore a different arrangement is needed. I spoke with President Putin about this at length, and the important thing is that what replaces them (the countries) doesn’t bring more tragedies and does not endanger our countries.”
While Netanyahu did not elaborate what the “different arrangement” in the Middle East that he spoke with Putin about would consist of, he recently has expressed willingness to hold negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) as well as states such as Egypt in working on a regional peace deal. Details of what such a deal might entail remain unclear.
Netanyahu also noted on the growing ties between Israel and Russia during the meeting, and thanked the Jewish leaders for being instrumental in making that happen.
Hillary Clinton Makes History as First Major Party Woman Nominee, But Bernie Sanders Refuses to Quit Race
June 8, 2016Hillary Clinton made history Tuesday night by becoming the first woman to win the nomination of a major political party for a presidential run in the US.
By: Hana Levi Julian
Published: June 8th, 2016
Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders
Photo Credit: Screenshot
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night, making American history as the first woman to lead the ticket of a major political party in a national race.
Clinton’s rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is however nowhere near to capitulating, even though he finally lost the California primary after what was, admittedly a very tough fight.
Speaking to supporters in Santa Monica towards the end of the evening while still waiting for final primary results Sanders said in a cracked voice from the podium: “The struggle continues. Next Tuesday we continue the fight in the last primary in Washington DC!” (He is under pressure from the Democratic Party leadership to ‘let go, already,’ so they can pull together the delegates for the fight against Donald Trump.)
In response to his fiery passion, the packed house roared, shaking and waving blue-and-white signs that read, “A Future to Believe In.”
“We are going …we are going …we are going to fight hard …,” Sanders went on, his weakening voice making it clear that his campaign has already been anything but easy.
“We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington DC…” he said stubbornly, his voice hoarse from shouting, “and then we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania!
But even Sanders knows the fight is almost over. His campaign managers and strategists have been discussing this issue for weeks. And he didn’t survive the U.S. Senate with a halo of white locks by ignoring reality, either. He told his supporters he had called Clinton to congratulate her on her victories. Although he won the primaries in Montana and North Dakota, the California loss made it clear that time is running out.
“I am … I am pretty good in arithmetic and I know that the fight in front of us is a very, very steep fight,” he added, “but we will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate we can get,” he told supporters. Sanders is scheduled to return home to Burlington, Vermont on Wednesday before he heads to Washington DC on Thursday.
Both he and Hillary Clinton received calls from President Barack Obama, with congratulations to the two of them on their campaigns.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was rarin’ to go as she addressed her backers in Brooklyn, New York.
She clearly had much preparation ranging from a raft of speech writers, handlers, beauticians, hair and fashion stylists, makeup artists, media coach and PR advisers.
All had coalesced for this moment.
“Thanks to you, we’ve reached a milestone,” Clinton began in warm, measured tones.
(Applause)
“The first time … the first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee,” she said, nodding her head, eyes shining with just a slight glimmer of tears, hair carefully, conservatively coifed for the occasion.
Presidentially. Wisely, she wore understated makeup – for once, even her lipstick wasn’t loud.
“Tonight’s … (here she hesitated to give the audience more time to applaud longer – and they obliged, of course) tonight’s victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible.
“In our country (ed.- an unstated reference to the fact that in many other countries there have already been female heads of state; for Jews in the audience it undoubtedly called up the image of Israel’s late Prime Minister Golda Meir) it started right here in New York, in a place called Seneca Falls, in 1824 when a small but determined group of women and men came together with the idea that women deserve equal rights and they set it forth in something called the Declaration of Sentiments – and it was the first time in human history that that kind of declaration occurred.
“So we all owe so much to those who came before. And tonight belongs to all of you,” she smiled.
Then she raised her voice, calling for unity within the party – and yes, from Bernie Sanders too, aiming straight for the jugular.
“I want to congratulate Senator Sanders for the extraordinary campaign that he ran,” she said.
Her next compliment was a direct shot designed to remind voters that he is probably too old to have really been considered a serious contender for a presidential run. It was also a quick slap at his largest support base, discrediting the youth of America with an emphasis on their lack of experience. But with all of that, she tried to heal the breach as well.
“He has spent his long career in public service fighting for progressive causes and principles and he has excited millions of voters, especially young people, and let there be no mistake – Senator Sanders, his campaign, and the vigorous debate that we’ve had about how to raise incomes, reduce inequality, increase upward mobility, have been very good for the Democratic Party and for America.
Then Clinton addressed “America” – hoping to grab at least some of the disillusioned GOP voters who are still praying for a reasonable alternative to the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump.
“This has been a hard-fought, deeply felt campaign. But whether you supported me, or Senator Sanders, or one of the Republicans, we all need to keep working toward a better, fairer, stronger America.
“Now, I know it never feels good to put your heart into a cause or a candidate you believe in and to come up short. I know that feeling well.”
LOTS of laughter greeted that remark.
“But as we look ahead…. as we look ahead to the battle that awaits, let’s remember all that unites us.
“We are all standing under a glass ceiling right now,” she said. The words were aimed right at the female voters she is hoping to grab — including those who voted for Bernie Sanders and especially those who feel disenfranchised by Donald Trump and the truncated Republican party.
“Barriers can come down. Justice and equality can win… This campaign is about making sure there are no ceilings, no limits on any of us. This is our moment to come together.”
How very … Bernie-esq. Do we hear an echo of the 60’s, perhaps? A call-out to the Youth of America? Maybe to the Aging Formerly Booming Youth of America … Let’s hear a growl for the Gray Panthers in pants suits, hair stylists and all. And don’t forget the Chardonnay.
Hana Levi Julian
ISIS launches Ramadan with terror strike in Jordan
June 7, 2016ISIS launches Ramadan with terror strike in Jordan, DEBKAfile, June 7, 2016
Jordanian mourners carry the body of intelligence corporal Omar al-Hayari, one of the five Jordanian intelligence agents killed during a gun attack at the Palestinian refugee camp of Baqaa, on June 6, 2016 during his funeral in Salt, a town west of the capital Amman./ AFP PHOTO / KHALIL MAZRAAWI
Of all the possible places braced for ISIS terror attacks when Ramadan began, the first attack on the first day of the month-long fast was launched Monday, June 6, in Jordan. Five armed men, in two cars, attacked the Jordanian General Intelligence Command in the Baqaa Palestinian camp, near the capital Amman.
Three armed men left their car, while two remained at the wheel. The three entered the command building and opened fire, killing five intelligence personnel. They then retreated to their cars and drove away.
No organization took responsibility for the attack.
DEBKAfile sources on terrorism report that this ranked as a classical terrorist operation, in which the killers appear suddenly, kill their prey and disappear without leaving traces.
For a country with advanced intelligence and counter terror agencies, which posts armed security personnel at every city corner and junction, backed by the presence of American special forces trained to fight terror targets, this attack was a grave warning.
How did they all come to be caught unawares?
But this was not just a warning for Jordan but for Israel as well.
If armed groups, consisting of Palestinians who joined ISIS, are able to move freely around Jordan, without the local intelligence and security forces catching on, there is no guarantee that killer-squads will not cross the Jordanian-Israeli security fence or infiltrate Israel through the southern Arava border for terror attacks in Israel.
Even though Jordan tries to keep its war against ISIS low profile, the kingdom tops the jihadists’ hit list, ahead even of the Euro-2016 games.
There are several reasons for this:
- The Jordanian intelligence’ undercover units behind the front lines of the wars in Iraq and Syria feed the Americans on-site information on ISIS. Data of this high quality is unavailable from any other source.
- These units mark targets for US air strikes.
- Jordanian intelligence officers engage Sunni tribal chiefs across Iraqi and Syrian borders to persuade them to fight against ISIS. These Jordanian officers have joined the Sunni fighters in the battle for Fallujah in Iraq.
- Jordan, with US assistance, is now building one of the longest security fences, 442km, and the most advanced in the Middle East along all its borders with Iraq and Syria.
- The westernmost segment of this Jordanian border wall will also serve Israel. It will block off corridors running through the Syria-Jordan-Israel border junction and so hold back ISIS from infiltrating the Golan and the Sea of Galilee region.
- Jordan is the only Arab nation to send its air force against ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq.
Just three months ago, on March, the Jordanian security forces raided the Irbid Palestinian refugee camp in northern Jordan, and tackled an ISIS cell set up in the camp, killing seven.
The recent terror attack shows that, while Jordanian intelligence and its special forces are deeply involved in the war against ISIS beyond Jordan’s borders, the terror organization is gaining strength and abilities inside the kingdom, especially among the Palestinian population.
The race-driven San Diego La Raza Association is exactly what’s wrong with the legal system.
June 7, 2016The race-driven San Diego La Raza Association is exactly what’s wrong with the legal system., American Spectator, Jeffrey Lord, June 7, 2016
(Please see also, Trump’s Jujitsu Overthrow of Liberalism and The Donald and The La Raza Judge — DM)
The GOP Establishment is in full flight.
No Abraham Lincolns here.
In a shameful haste to embrace identity politics, the latter the political descendant of slavery and segregation, Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have stunningly given thumbs up to a judge who has made no bones about injecting his ethnic heritage into his role as a lawyer and judge.
In a broadside against Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presiding over the case against Trump University (a case in itself riddled with bad judicial decision-making as the judge has assigned the case to a notoriously Clinton-supporting law firm — more of which later this week), Trump has assailed the Indiana-born judge as “of Mexican heritage” who has “an inherent conflict of interest.”
The response from the Speaker? “It’s reasoning I don’t relate to. I completely disagree with the thinking behind that.” Said McConnell: “I think it’s a big mistake for our party to write off Latino Americans.” Hello? Speaker Ryan can’t relate to standing up to fight racism? Who, Senator McConnell, is writing off Latino Americans? And isn’t it time to get right with Lincoln and write off racism — aka in the 21st century, “identity politics”? Appallingly in the case of Ryan, his latest comments embracing out and out race-driven lawyering and judging comes only weeks after he said he stood for the “Party of Lincoln, Reagan, and Kemp.” Well that didn’t last long. Somewhere Abe, Ronnie, and Jack are baffled as to why their defender has suddenly thrown them over the side to embrace the absolute worst of racial politics.
Over in the Wall Street Journal, our friends on the editorial board have written an entire editorial on the subject entitled:
Trump and the ‘Mexican’ Judge
Why equating ethnicity with judicial bias is so offensive.
Well, yes, “equating ethnicity with judicial bias” is offensive. Yet the WSJ has not a solitary word revealing to readers that Judge Curiel has been actively associated with the racially-centric San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association — a group entirely devoted to “equating ethnicity with judicial bias.” An association Curiel listed on his questionnaire filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee. The group, as I noted over at NewsBusters, specifically states its mission on its website as follows:
Our purpose is to advance the cause of equality, empowerment and justice for Latino attorneys and the Latino community in San Diego County through service and advocacy.
Note. The group supports “equality, empowerment and justice” not for all attorneys in San Diego — only for “Latino attorneys.”
Listing eight “goals” of the group, every one of which are ethnocentric, the first three reading:
- Increase the overall number of Latinos in the legal profession.
- Encourage and support Latino and Latina judicial candidates to apply to the bench.
- Advocate for the promotion and retention of Latino and Latina attorneys and judicial officers.
Note well goal number two — “Encourage and support Latino and Latina judicial candidates to apply to the bench.” In other words? The group wants to put not qualified attorneys of any color or gender on the bench. No, the insistence is a racially-oriented drive to put only one group — a group pre-selected by ethnic heritage on the bench. (Can you imagine the uproar if the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had belonged to a “white attorneys association”? Answer: Yes, you can.) Why might this be? The answer is obvious.
In a day and age when the working assumption by the Left is that all minorities, Latinos in this case, are liberal, the way to liberal decisions is by backing openly race-centric judges of Latino heritage. To get decisions from the bench that are geared to supporting Latinos — not all Americans — but Latinos only.
This idea, by the way, is certainly not limited to Latinos. Recall the demand that retiring Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall be replaced by a black nominee. President George H.W. Bush obliged with Judge Clarence Thomas. Thomas was quickly attacked by liberals the moment they realized he was a conservative. He is to this day attacked for being an “Uncle Tom” and a “traitor” to his race because the working assumption is that if you are black you are a liberal. And so it is with Latinos — and in this case Judge Curiel.
Most assuredly, Judge Gonzalo Curiel has gone out of his way to not only openly tie himself to this group of racially directed lawyers — but to participate in the left-wing agenda favored so deeply by leftist race-driven Hispanics. In 2014 the Judge served as a member of the group’s 2014 Scholarship Selection Committee, which in turn awarded a $1,500 scholarship to a self-advertised “undocumented.” Think of that for a moment. The very first act of this student was to break American law, and Judge Curiel awards him a scholarship — for law school!
In a blink Ryan and McConnell have shown exactly why Donald Trump has blown away the Republican Establishment in the GOP primary season. The GOP Establishment has lay down with the flea-infected mangy old political dog of racism — a left wing dependable from the days when Democratic Party co-founders Jefferson and Jackson allied the new-born party with slave owners. Later to turn into a permanent racial party appealing to every race-centered group from segregationists to Al Sharpton and today’s Black Lives Matter, not to mention various “La Raza” oriented groups of varying pedigree. As the GOP Establishment takes it cues from the Left — hence the charge that GOP Establishment types are “Democrat-lite” or RINOS on issues ranging from the economy to social issues — so now are they mimicking the Left on race, signing on for the out-and-out racism of “identity politics.”
Take a look here to see just how this game of race and gender is played by leftist California judges — and Judge Curiel. (Hat tip: Attorney Mark Pulliam, who formerly practiced in San Diego and now calls Texas home.)
Recall that on his Senate Judiciary Committee form, Curiel said that he was a member of the “California Judges Association.” And back there a mere year ago in January of 2015, the California Judges Association was enthusiastically supportive of a decision from the California Supreme Court that ruled, as reported by Fox News, this:
California’s Supreme Court voted Friday to prohibit state judges from belonging to the Boy Scouts on grounds that the group discriminates against gays.
The court said its seven justices unanimously voted to heed a recommendation by its ethics advisory committee barring judges’ affiliation with the organization.
Got that? It’s OK for Judge Curiel and a small army of California judges and lawyers to belong to the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association — a group openly discriminating against non-Latinos — but it’s not OK for a California judge to belong to the Boy Scouts — the Boy Scouts! — because “the group discriminates against gays.”
It doesn’t get more racist than that.
Let’s be blunt. There’s no room for identity politics in the party of Lincoln. The fact that Paul Ryan (Paul Ryan!) and Mitch McConnell would stand up and defend outright race-driven politics is utterly disgraceful.
Here, to refresh, is Abraham Lincoln himself on the subject of race. Lincoln, as noted in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, said he hoped to “‘penetrate the human soul’ until…‘all this quibbling about this man and the other man — this race and that race and the other race being inferior’” was gone from America. In more recent times, there is President John F. Kennedy telling the nation in his televised address over the racial turmoil in 1963 Birmingham, Alabama that “race has no place in American life or law.”And so it doesn’t.
Now today’s GOP Establishment, led by Speaker Ryan and Senator McConnell, are saying that Donald Trump, a defendant in the rigged trial that is the witch hunt for Trump University, must be quiet about this insistent racialization of the federal bench and the law itself. Trump is being told that now that he is the soon-to-be heir to the leadership of Lincoln’s party he must sign on to the idea that it’s perfectly OK to insist that race has a decided priority in both American life and law and that he, Donald Trump, as a defendant has no right to call attention to something that left-wing racial advocates boast of freely. Recall that when it came to light that then Supreme Court Obama-nominee Sonia Sotomayor was found to be saying in speeches that a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male,” leftist were thrilled.
Now? Donald Trump is calling out this flat-out racism by targeting a judge for what might be called the judge’s “wise Latino” ways? Suddenly the GOP Establishment is attacking —Trump?
This is shameful. But totally in character for the GOP Leadership in Congress that long ago abandoned principle for political correctness.
Speaker Ryan and Senator McConnell should be embarrassed.
More to come on the rigged case against Trump University.
Taliban Surpasses Islamic State as World’s Most Prolific Terrorist Group
June 7, 2016Taliban Surpasses Islamic State as World’s Most Prolific Terrorist Group, Breitbart, Edwin Mora, June 6, 2016
AP Photos/Allauddin Khan
Taliban jihadists replaced their Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) counterparts as the world’s chief perpetrators of terrorist attacks last year, with 1,093 individual attacks, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.
However, ISIS’s 931 terrorist attacks in 2015 wTaliban jihadists replaced their Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) counterparts as the world’s chief perpetrators of terrorist attacks last year, with 1,093 individual attacks, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.ere reportedly much deadlier than those carried out by the Taliban, resulting in 6,050 deaths compared to the 4,512 fatalities linked to the Taliban, notes the State Department’s annual reports, a congressionally mandated analytical and statistical review of global terrorism.
ISIS replaced the Nigeria-based Boko Haram as the terrorist group responsible for the most fatalities in 2015. Boko Haram was responsible for 491 terrorist attacks last year resulting in 5,450 deaths. Boko Haram is treated as a separate terrorist group as its logistics are independent of ISIS, despite the group pledging allegiance to Islamic State caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last year.
In 2015, ISIS was also responsible for causing more injuries (6,010) and taking more hostages (4,759) than any other terrorist group.
On Sunday, three Taliban jihadists attacked an Afghan court, killing seven people including “a number of prosecutors and judges,” the terrorist group announced, according to CNN.
“The attack triggered a shootout with Afghan security forces that lasted 1 1/2 hours,” adds the news network. “At least 23 people were wounded.”
The Taliban has stepped up an increasingly violent insurgency since President Obama and NATO ended their combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2014. Afghan civilians and security forces have since suffered a record number of casualties at the hands of the terrorist group.
Five terrorist groups were identified by the State Department as being responsible for the most terrorist attacks in 2015: the Taliban (1,093); ISIS (931); Boko Haram (491); the Communist Party of India-Maoist (343); and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, (238).
“A total of 270 groups and organizations were identified as perpetrators of terrorist attacks, including 78 organizations that had not previously been identified as perpetrators in the Global Terrorism Database,” reports the State Department. “The number of newly identified perpetrator organizations declined in 2015 from more than 100 in 2014.”
“The biggest surprise was the removal of the Somali group al-Shabaab from the top-five list of perpetrators, that outfit having been responsible for the third-most attacks in 2014,” notes The Atlantic magazine. “The new addition to the 2015 list was the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has re-committed to the use of political violence in a significant way, increasing the number of attacks from 47 to 38 and noncombatants killed from 12 to 287.”
Iraq was the location of the highest numbers of total attacks, deaths, and people injured and kidnapped.
Overall, “the number of attacks in which victims were kidnapped or taken hostage declined in 2015; however, the number of kidnapping victims and hostages increased,” notes the Department of State (DOS) assessment. “This was primarily due to an increase in the number of attacks involving exceptionally large numbers of victims.”
The total number of terrorist attacks across the globe last year dropped by 13 percent, from 13,482 in 2014 to 11,774, and total fatalities by 14 percent, from 32,763 to 28,328.
“This was largely due to fewer attacks and deaths in Iraq, Pakistan, and Nigeria. This represents the first decline in total terrorist attacks and deaths worldwide since 2012,” notes DOS evaluation, adding, “In several countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Syria, and Turkey, terrorist attacks and total deaths increased in 2015.”
There was also a slight decrease in the number of countries where terrorist attacks took place, from 95 in 2014 to 92 last year.
“Although terrorist attacks took place in 92 countries in 2015, they were heavily concentrated geographically,” declares DOS. “More than 55% of all attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nigeria), and 74% of all deaths due to terrorist attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, and Pakistan).”
“Of the 28,328 people killed in terrorist attacks in 2015, 6,924 (24%) were perpetrators of terrorist attacks,” it adds. “Perpetrators were killed intentionally in suicide attacks, accidentally while attempting to carry out attacks, or by security forces or victims responding to attacks. This is an 11% increase in the number of perpetrator deaths, compared to 2014.”
The Pope and the Imam
June 7, 2016The Pope and the Imam via YouTube, June 7, 2016
The blurb beneath the video states,
Pope Francis met with a high level imam in order to spread peace and co-existence. The Pope is willing to ignore 1400 years of jihad against Christians to talk about peace. But peace in Islam only comes after submission. Co-existence in Islam comes when the Kafir becomes a dhimmi and accepts Sharia law.
The last Pope to talk about the history of Islamic murder of Christians caused Muslims to riot and kill.
This Pope calls terrorism the problem, not jihad. He also uses the phony phrase “true Islam” as if jihad is not true Islam. The shop-worn word “extremist” is used to divorce the doctrine of Islam from reality of current events and history.
The imam spoke the only word of truth: “We should not treat Muslims as a terrorist threat.” The threat is not Muslims; the threat is the doctrine of political Islam.
The Pope also brought home Muslim migrants, not Christian refugees from Islamic persecution. The Pope, Christians and everybody else ignore the suffering of Christians.
The Pope is no different from the ignorant Protestants and Jews. Ignorance is the problem, ignorance of the political nature of Islam.
WATCH: Putin backs ‘just’ solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict
June 7, 2016Putin backs ‘just’ solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict After Kremlin meeting with Netanyahu, the fourth in less than a year, Russian president says Moscow and Jerusalem ‘partners’ in fighting terror
By Raphael Ahren
June 7, 2016, 5:25 pm
Source: WATCH: Putin backs ‘just’ solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict | The Times of Israel
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of a meeting at the Kremlin on June 7, 2016 (screen capture: Facebook)
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday expressed support for a “comprehensive and just” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Putin backed the two-state solution and Israel’s counter-terrorism efforts.
“We will be partners in the struggle against terrorism,” he said.
Before the press conference, Putin surprised Netanyahu with a private tour of the Kremlin and explained the history of the halls, pointing out some biblical imagery displayed on its walls, a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
Earlier, Putin hailed the increasingly cordial ties between the two countries.
“We place great importance on our relationship with Israel,” Putin said, at the beginning of their meeting in the Kremlin, noting that many Russian-speakers live in Israel. More than a million Jews and their relatives from the former Soviet Union moved to Israel when the Iron Curtain fell and travel restrictions were relaxed.
Netanyahu, speaking in Hebrew translated into Russian by Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin, said he wanted to reinforce Putin’s point and highlighted the fact that two ministers in his government are Russian-speakers. He was apparently referring to Elkin and newly sworn-in Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, and apparently forgot his new immigrant absorption minister, Sofa Landver.
The two leaders then moved to continue their discussion behind closed doors, and were to emerge later for a joint press conference.
Netanyahu headed to Moscow on Monday for a two-day trip during which he was holding his fourth meeting with Putin in less than a year. The two leaders are expected to discuss Moscow’s involvement in the Syrian civil war and its reported delivery of advanced Russian weaponry to Iran.
In addition, Netanyahu is marking some 25 years of Israeli-Russian diplomatic relations, which were reestablished in January 1992, after the Soviet Union severed them in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara take part in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in central Moscow on June 7, 2016. (AFP PHOTO/POOL/Maxim Shipenkov)
During their meeting, the two leaders were to continue their ongoing discussion over security coordination between the Russian and the Israeli armies, especially their so-called deconflicting mechanism installed to assure the Israel Defense Forces does not strike Russian jets operating in Syrian airspace.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in Moscow on Tuesday, June 7, 2016 (Prime Minister’s Office)
“They will also discuss various regional issues including the global fight against terrorism, the situation in and around Syria and the diplomatic horizon between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as bilateral economic and trade cooperation and the strengthening of cultural and humanitarian ties,” the Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday in a statement.
During Netanyahu’s visit, Jerusalem and Moscow were also to sign a bilateral pensions agreement, which seeks to “correct a historic injustice regarding emigres from the former USSR up to 1992 who lost their eligibility for a Russian pension,” the PMO said.
The agreement, which will only take effect after Russian authorities ratify it, was to be signed by Elkin and Russian Labor and Social Protection Minister Maxim Topilin. Payments to Soviet-born Israelis are expected to commence next year.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu visits the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow on Tuesday, June 7, 2016. To his left, in sunglasses, is Minister Uri Ariel.
(Haim Zach / GPO)
Netanyahu and his wife, Sara — who routinely accompanies the prime minister on his foreign trips — were also to visit the armored corps museum in Moscow, which is host to an IDF Magach-3 tank captured during the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in the 1982 Lebanon War. Last month, Israel announced that Putin had agreed to return the tank to Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walks past an honor guard upon arrival at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport at the start of his two day trip to Russia, June 6, 2016. (AFP Photo/Vasily Maximov)
Netanyahu visited the Russian capital in September 2015 and in April 2016. In addition, the two briefly got together last November on the sidelines of the Paris climate conference. In comparison, in the same time frame, Netanyahu has only met twice with US President Barack Obama.
Netanyahu told Putin — during their last powwow in April — about Israel’s “clear red lines” for purposes of self-defense. “First,” he said, “we are working to the best of our ability to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry from Iran and Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Second, we are working to prevent the establishment of an additional terror front against us on the Golan Heights. These are red lines and we will continue to maintain them.”
During the current trip, Netanyahu was also to meet with several local Jewish leaders, including Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar; Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt; and Russian Jewish Congress President Yuri Kanner.
Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, who also accompanied Netanyahu to Moscow, was scheduled to sign a memorandum of understanding with his Russian counterpart, Alexander Tkachev, on cooperation in agriculture, the dairy industry and advanced dairy technology.
State Department Funds Televised Call for Boycotting Israel; The New York Times Is Amused
June 7, 2016State Department Funds Televised Call for Boycotting Israel; The New York Times Is Amused, Algemeiner, Ira Stoll, June 6, 2016
Palestinian rioters. Photo: Wikipedia.
The State Department is using American taxpayer dollars to finance Palestinian Arabs celebrating violent attacks on Israelis and advocating a boycott of Israel and the division of its capital city.
Where’s the outrage?
Not in the New York Times, which treats the topic as subject for a light-toned feature article about what it describes as a Palestinian “reality television show.”
The show features contestants who “run” for the job of Palestinian president. TheTimes article reports that “the three finalists all had similar platforms: Boycott Israel. Designate East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.”
Later, the Times reports, almost in passing, that the television program “broadcast on the Maan satellite network to large audiences in Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Arab world — was funded mostly by a State Department grant.”
The dollar amount of the grant is unreported by the Times. Also unreported by the Times is what the members of Congress who hold the spending power under the Constitution think about the idea of having taxpayer money used to broadcast, across the Middle East, calls to boycott Israel.
An NBC news article on the program quoted one of the contestants celebrating the role of women in the “revolution and resistance — they were throwing stones.” The NBC article also included a contestant’s call for a “’right of return,’ or the right for Arabs driven from their communities in 1948 when the State of Israel was established to go back.” Never mind that some of those Arabs left of their own free will or at the urging of neighboring Arab states, or that their “return” would, as a practical matter, be a way of destroying the Jewish state.
The Algemeiner did what the New York Times did not do, which is contact a major American Jewish organization for its view on the wisdom of spending taxpayer dollars to spread this message.
The president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, told The Algemeiner that he found the State Department funding for the television program “astonishing,” and “shocking.” He said that if the State Department were found to be funding an Israeli television program advocating extremist views, there would be an uproar. In this case, however, “not a peep — the only peep is from Ira Stoll.”
“Where is the media and Congress screaming about this?” Mr. Klein asked.
It’s a good question, and one in which the Times shows a disappointing lack of interest in answering, or even in asking.
State Dept.: Hezbollah, Islamic State Maintain Presence in Latin America
June 7, 2016State Dept.: Hezbollah, Islamic State Maintain Presence in Latin America, Breitbart, Edwin Mora, June 6, 2016
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WASHINGTON, D.C. —The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has determined that Venezuela, which has refused to cooperate with the United States’ antiterrorism efforts in Latin America for nearly a decade, remains a “permissive environment” that promotes ideological and financial support for terrorist organizations, namely Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.
Although the “primary threats” to the Western Hemisphere stem from left-wing guerrillas known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Islamic extremist groups Shiite Hezbollah, also spelled Hizballah, and Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) also maintain a presence across the region, according to DOS’ Country Reports on Terrorism 2015, a congressionally mandated assessment of terrorism activities across the world authored by DOS.
The assessment declares:
South America and the Caribbean also served as areas of financial and ideological support for ISIL and other terrorist groups in the Middle East and South Asia. In addition, Hizballah continued to maintain a presence in the region, with members, facilitators, and supporters engaging in activity in support of the organization. This included efforts to build Hizballah’s infrastructure in South America and fundraising, both through licit and illicit means.
[…]
There were credible reports that Venezuela maintained a permissive environment that allowed for support of activities that benefited known terrorist groups… [including] Hizballah supporters and sympathizers.
Moreover, the DOS evaluation highlights the Tri-Border Area (TBA) between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, in addition to Peru, as regions where Hezbollah was operating last year.
“Illicit activities within the TBA remained potential funding sources for terrorist organizations, most notably Hizballah,” it says, adding, “The Tri-Border Areas of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay remained an important regional nexus of arms, narcotics, pirated goods, human smuggling, counterfeiting, and money laundering — all potential funding sources for terrorist organizations.”
The TBA border region has long been a hotbed for Hezbollah members.
In its terrorism reports, the DOS also points out that Peruvian authorities in 2014 arrested a Lebanese national and his wife, a U.S-Peruvian citizen, for suspected links to Hezbollah, adding that “there were residue and traces of explosives” in their apartment.
Hezbollah, along with other terrorists and criminals in Latin America, are known to use networks that support illicit activities, such as trafficking drugs, wildlife, bulk cash, weapons, humans, in addition to illegal logging and mining.
The DOS released its assessment Thursday, a day after the U.S. military declared the region’s illicit trafficking networks as one of the greatest security threats facing the United States.
Gen. John Kelly – former commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which oversees military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean – warned last year that jihadist groups like ISIS could exploit the illicit networks in the region to infiltrate the United States, adding that Hezbollah is already using known routes to traffic drugs and other contraband.
Although Hezbollah is believed to be the most prominent jihadist group in Latin America and the Caribbean due to Iran’s enduring presence in the region, Gen. Kelly warned in March 2015 that a small number of Sunni extremists are actively “radicalizing converts and other Muslims in the region and also provide financial and logistical support to designated terrorist organizations within and outside Latin America.”
Pentagon and DOS have recently revealed that between 100 and 150 people from Latin America and the Caribbean have traveled to the Middle East to engage in jihad on behalf of ISIS, without specifying the names of any of the countries in the region.
According to the Department of State, some people from Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Argentina, are believed to have joined ISIS in the Middle East.
“More than 70 nationals of Trinidad and Tobago are believed be fighting with ISIL in Syria,” reports DOS, adding, “It is possible small numbers of Argentine citizens may have sought to travel to Syria and Iraq to join ISIL,” without providing any specific figures.
DOS also mentioned an ISIS-related arrest in Brazil involving a money laundering group accused of moving $10 million-plus and having social media ties to the jihadist group.
Iran’s growing presence in Latin America is believed to be facilitated by Venezuela.
“The International Development Bank, a subsidiary of the Development and Export Bank of Iran, continued to operate in Venezuela [in 2015] despite its designation in 2008 by the U.S. Treasury Department under E.O. [Executive Order] 13382 (‘Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and their Supporters’),” mentions the DOS assessment.
Justin Siberell, acting coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, briefed reporters Thursday about the 2015 Country Reports on Terrorism, stressing that the enduring presence in the region of leading state sponsor of terror Iran continues to trouble the United States.
“I think Iran’s presence in the Western Hemisphere and its support for groups that might be engaged in facilitation or operational planning is a continued concern,” Siberell told reporters.
Nevertheless, he added, “I don’t think we’ve seen an increase in 2015 in Iran’s activity in the Western Hemisphere, but it remains a high priority for us.”
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