Archive for September 27, 2016

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries

In Debate, Hillary Dodges Blame for Libya, What Obama Called His “Greatest Mistake”

September 27, 2016

In Debate, Hillary Dodges Blame for Libya, What Obama Called His “Greatest Mistake”, Counter Jihad, September 27, 2016

16live1

The first Presidential debate revealed a Democratic candidate who believes she has all the answers even though her failed performance as Secretary of State led directly to the formation of the Islamic State (ISIS), aided the rise of Iran, and furthered much of the chaos in the Middle East.  She cannot learn anything while she believes she already knows everything.  Electing her promises more of the same, and ‘the same’ has been a disaster.

The Republican challenger, meanwhile, has much still to learn about the security structure he would command as President.  Clinton’s strongest moment against him on foreign policy came as she chided him for appearing to suggest that America would not honor its mutual defense treaties with Japan or South Korea.  Nothing is more important to the world than the reliability of America’s word.  Clinton should know that:  it was her former boss, President Obama, who personally kicked off the refugee crisis bedeviling Europe by failing to enforce his red line against Syria’s use of chemical weapons against its own people. His failure to keep his word on a security agreement gave the Syrian regime free rein to wage war on its own population, putting millions on the road to Europe.

Trump’s strongest moment against Clinton came when he accused her of bad judgment in the formation of ISIS.  She attempted to respond by saying that George W. Bush had negotiated the withdrawal from Iraq, and that “the only way that American troops could have stayed in Iraq is to get an agreement from the then-Iraqi government that would have protected our troops, and the Iraqi government would not give that.”

That’s all true, but whose job was it to obtain such an agreement?  That was her job.  She was the one who was supposed to obtain that agreement, and she failed utterly.  As our earlier coverage states:

It was her job to negotiate an arrangement with the Iraqi government that would do two things:  allow a stabilizing US military presence to remain in Iraq, and allow the US Department of State the freedom of movement it would need to step up as guarantors of the peace.  The peace, you see, had been purchased not only by the US military’s victory on the battlefields, but also by its patient negotiation with militants formerly aligned with al Qaeda in Iraq.  These tribes, mostly but not exclusively Sunni, had rejected the terrorism of al Qaeda in Iraq in return for promises of fair treatment from the Iraqi central government.  This included jobs, assistance for communities recovering from the war, and many other things that the government promised to provide in return for the support of these former enemies.  The United States helped to negotiate all these agreements, and promised to see that they would be kept faithfully.

Instead, the Secretary of State failed to produce either a new Status of Forces agreement that would permit US troops to remain in Iraq, or an agreement that would allow State Department personnel to move about the country safely to observe whether agreements were being kept.  In the wake of the precipitous withdrawal of US forces, Prime Minister Maliki moved to arrest Sunni leaders in government, and broke all his promises to the tribes.

The result was that the western part of Iraq once again became fertile ground for an Islamist insurgency.

Clinton was similarly unreflective when she argued that Trump had supported “the actions we took in Libya,” without pausing for a moment to acknowledge what a destabilizing mistake it was.  Effecting regime change with no capacity to control the outcome is what allowed radical groups, including ISIS, to expand into the vacuum.  That one is also her fault personally, as she pushed President Obama to take this action.  Her own President says that he considers ataking her advice on Libya to be his “worst mistake.”  Yet again, she has learned nothing, and does not seem to be aware that there is even anything to learn.

A similar failure to understand the lessons of the recent past occurred in their exchange on NATO.  Trump is right to be critical of the institution’s continuing relevance, but he is criticizing it on the wrong grounds.  That the other nations do not pay their way is true, but it is not the problem with NATO.  That it does not focus on terrorism is partly true, but it does not render the organization obsolete because a resurgent Russia remains a security challenge for western Europe.

Nevertheless, Clinton’s smug response is un-reflective and wrong.

You know, NATO as a military alliance has something called Article 5, and basically it says this: An attack on one is an attack on all. And you know the only time it’s ever been invoked? After 9/11, when the 28 nations of NATO said that they would go to Afghanistan with us to fight terrorism, something that they still are doing by our side.

What Clinton fails to mention here is that, like all of NATO’s decisions, invoking Article 5 must be done unanimously.  The reason to question NATO’s continued relevance is that the Turkish drift into Islamist politics makes it unlikely that a unanimous vote could still be reached.  Turkey has also shown signs recently of falling into Russia’s orbit.  If Turkey becomes a Russian ally in the way that China is, NATO may be rendered obsolete simply because it can never take a decision.  If Turkey becomes a Russian satellite, NATO will indeed have been rendered obsolete.  In either case, NATO’s continued relevance turns on figuring out how to swing Turkey away from Islamist thought and Russian influence, eliminating the unanimity requirement on NATO actions, or else developing a mechanism to expel the Turks from the alliance.   None of that exists, and since Turkey would have to agree to any of those changes, none of it is likely to come to exist.

Finally, on Iran, Clinton is wedded to a policy that Trump rightly describes as a disaster.

You look at the Middle East, it’s a total mess. Under your direction, to a large extent.

But you look at the Middle East, you started the Iran deal, that’s another beauty where you have a country that was ready to fall, I mean, they were doing so badly. They were choking on the sanctions. And now they’re going to be actually probably a major power at some point pretty soon, the way they’re going.

The horror show in Syria is linked to the Iran deal, as Obama decided to let Syria fester in order to pursue Iran’s approval of his deal.  Clinton’s role in this deal is something she herself has celebrated, so she cannot walk away from it.  Since then, Iran has developed new ballistic missiles that make sense only as a delivery mechanism for nuclear payloads.  It has bought advanced anti-aircraft missiles, and installed them around one of the nuclear sites allegedly to be made harmless by this wonderful “deal.”  Why is it hardening this site against air strikes if it intends to live by the deal?  Why develop a delivery mechanism for weapons you don’t intend to build?

Clinton cannot even ask these questions, because she is wedded to her failures.

Categories: 2016 elections, 2016 presidential debates, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Iran scam, Iraq, Islamic terrorism, Libya, Syria
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Reasoning about Islam

September 27, 2016

Reasoning about Islam, Bill Warner Political Islam via YouTube, September 27, 2016

The blurb beneath the video states,

The first key is do not use the Koran and Allah, because the Koran is structured to be hard to understand. Instead, use the Sunna of Mohammed. The Koran says 91 times that Mohammed is the perfect Muslim and he is very easy to understand. We find Mohammed in his traditions, the Hadith, and his biography, the Sira.

When we use Mohammed to explain Islam, we do what the Koran commands. Some Muslims might say that a particular hadith may not valid (meaning they don’t like what it says), but know that almost every hadith that I use is called Sahih (authentic), since I use Bukhari and Abu Muslim.

Sometimes you meet a Muslim who rejects all of the Sunna, so how do you use Mohammed? Simple, the Koran by itself cannot be understood by any person, without knowing the life of Mohammed. No Mohammed equals no understanding of the Koran.

Actually, there is an oddity about the Koran. It is said to be the perfect, exact words of Allah. However, the perfect Koran cannot be understood without knowing Mohammed. However, the life of Mohammed and his traditions were written by people who never met him, but wrote down what they heard from others. In a court of law, this is called hearsay. Hearsay is usually not admissible in our courts. So the perfect book cannot be understood without evidence that cannot be used in our courts. Odd, isn’t it?

Categories: Hadith, Islam, Mohammad, Quran
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Islamic State, a new and deadlier enemy

September 27, 2016

Islamic State, a new and deadlier enemy, The Gorka Briefing, Sebastian Gorka, PhD, September 26, 2016

isw

An analysis/opinion piece that my wife Katharine and I wrote that was published in the Washington Times:

On the evening of May 2, 2011, America had a chance at closure.

We had lost thousands of our fellow Americans nine years earlier on that beautifully sunny September morning, and thousands more of our citizen-soldiers on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But now President Obama gave the word: The master jihadi is dead.

In an audacious operation deep within Pakistan, Osama bin Laden had been located. And killed. Al Qaeda would soon be described by the commander in chief, as “on the ropes,” condemned to ever-increasing irrelevance. But this was not the end. There would be no closure for our nation.

A new, deadlier enemy has since emerged. A foe responsible for the carnage of San Bernardino and Orlando, and scores of attacks around the world. Now we are at war with the Islamic State — a threat group that has already claimed responsibility for one of the recent attacks — and its new caliph, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Al Qaeda may no longer frighten us, but the Islamic State has dethroned it and is on the march.

We may be in the final stages of a presidential campaign which has polarized opinion on all matters, mundane and significant, but the facts speak for themselves.

According to the National Counterterrorism Center, part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Islamic State currently has “fully operational” affiliates in 18 nations around the world. Two years ago, the number was seven. Some of these branches are far from Iraq and Syria, including Afghanistan, where numerous Taliban commanders have sworn allegiance to Abu Bakr, and Nigeria, where Boko Haram — one of the deadliest jihadi groups active today — has changed its name to the West Africa Province of the Islamic State. According to the analysts of the SITE Intelligence Group, the totalitarian message of jihadism is so popular around the world that since June 2, outside the war zones of Iraq and Syria, there has been a jihadi attack somewhere around the world every 84 hours.

But does this mean that Americans are in greater danger today than on Sept. 10, 2001? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding yes, and the empirical data is merciless in its incontrovertibility.

In its latest report titled “Muslim-American Involvement with Violent Extremism,” the University of North Carolina has compiled all the metadata on jihadi plots on U.S. soil since 2001. The trend they describe is an exponential one. The number of successful and intercepted terrorist attacks has grown every year (with an inordinate spike in 2009), and most disturbingly, with 2015 witnessing the greatest number of jihadi plots in America since the Sept. 11 attacks 15 years ago. Jihadism has not been weakened. Not abroad. Not in the States. With the attacks in California, Florida, and now apparently Minnesota, and potentially New York and New Jersey, ISIS has displaced al Qaeda, and it has done so here in America, too, not just in the Middle East or Africa.

In our report “ISIS: The Threat to the United States,” we answer the same question for the Islamic State that the University of North Carolina answered for all jihadists secreted within America.

The facts prove than our new enemy is more prevalent than al Qaeda ever was, with federal and state law enforcement arresting three times as many ISIS supports per month than the average for al Qaeda arrests since 2001. Here are the numbers: Since Abu Bakr declared the new caliphate from the pulpit of the Grand Mosque of Mosul at the end of June 2014, we have killed or interdicted 110 terrorists linked to ISIS, (the last one being two weeks ago in Roanoke, Va). And when one looks at what they were actually doing the picture is grimmest of all.

Just over 40 percent had sworn allegiance to ISIS and were set on leaving the United States to fight for jihad in Iraq and Syria. Just under 20 percent were management-level terrorists, the talent-spotters and recruiters who were facilitating the foreign passage of the “travelers,” as the FBI euphemistically calls them. But a full third of the ISIS suspects, like the San Bernardino killers, and Omar Mateen, the Orlando jihadi, had already decided that they could best serve the new Islamic State not by leaving but by killing infidels here on U.S. soil. This is the reality of life in the West today. Whether it is in California or Florida, or in Brussels, Paris or Nice.

As we start the 16th year of what has turned into our longest war ever, we must radically reassess our strategy for victory. The Islamic State has displaced al Qaeda and it is richer, better at propaganda, and has more fighters than bin Laden ever had.

November represents not only a choice of who the new commander in chief should be, but also what our new strategy to defeat ISIS and the global jihadi movement should be. We owe at least this to the memories of those lost on the beautifully sunny morning 15 years ago.

Categories: 2016 elections, Al Qaeda, Islam and conquest, Islamic immigration, Islamic refugees, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamists in America, Jihad in Obama's America, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic State
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

80% of Swedish police consider quitting over Muslim migrant danger

September 27, 2016

80% of Swedish police consider quitting over Muslim migrant danger, Jihad Watch, , September 27, 2016

Sweden may be descending into a crisis as a new report suggests 80 per cent of police officers are considering switching careers due to the danger they face in the field.

Every single day, the “crises” of jihadist incursion on Western soil and continued atrocities in Islamic states keep tallying up in this full blown jihad war. The situation in Sweden has been rapidly deteriorating. Last year, Stockholm released a stunning policy document which dealt with “ISIS fighters returning to the city after having had their fill of rape and beheadings of civilians.” It indicated that:

The city of Stockholm will make it a priority to provide the returning ISIS fighters with housing, free health care (physical and mental) and full financial support, until they have received earmarked jobs. All this of course fast-tracked past the line of law-abiding immigrants and indigenous Swedes.

Why? So that the poor, downtrodden jihadists don’t feel alienated; they need the generous help of Swedish politically correct politicians to help integrate them back into society. Unbelievably, Swedish councilor Rasmus Persson told the news program Tvärsnytt:

We have discussed how we should work for these guys who have come back, and to prevent them from returning to the fighting, and that they should be helped to process the traumatic experiences they have been through.

Not an iota of consideration for the innocent law-abiding citizens of Sweden. It’s no surprise that 80 percent of Swedish police are currently considering quitting; the very profession which is designated to serve and protect is now being insidiously prevented from carrying out that sworn duty by a politically correct leftist-jihadist alliance which has the West under siege.

swedish-police

“80 Per Cent Of Swedish Police Consider Quitting Over Migrant Danger”, by Chris Tomlinson,Breitbart, September 20, 2016:

Sweden may be descending into a crisis as a new report suggests 80 per cent of police officers are considering switching careers due to the danger they face in the field.

The criminal situation in Sweden may be heading for an even worse turn as a new report has shown that the vast majority of the Swedish police force is so unhappy they are looking into other careers. Sweden has been rocked by increasing levels of criminality from sex attacks at music festivals, hand grenade attacks and violence toward the police in areas populated mostly by migrants.

The report states that up to three Swedish police quit every day as they feel the government isn’t giving them the tools to tackle the epidemic of criminality Norwegian broadcaster NRK reports.

Swedish police Sergeant Peter Larsson told the broadcaster the challenges Swedish authorities face with the ever decreasing number of officers saying, “We have a major crisis. Many colleagues have chosen to leave. We will not be able investigate crimes, we have no time to travel to the call-outs we are set to do. A worsened working environment means that many colleagues are now looking around for something else.”

Larsson singles out violence against emergency services employees saying, “The violence against us in the police and the paramedics and firefighters, has become much worse. We’re talking about stone throwing, violence, fires. It has become much worse in recent years.”

Tina Svensson, a resident of one of the outer suburbs of Gothenburg says that crime has reached a fever pitch and police rarely ever arrive. Ms. Svensson described a particular incident of violence to the Norwegian broadcaster as an example of her experiences saying, “there were two guys who were shot. With some kind of automatic weapons. Two magazines, perhaps. It may not be what you would expect when you are out walking the dog.”

Ms. Svensson said that many people would not travel to her suburb because of the violence and admitted most were scared to live there.

Much of the crime in Sweden is linked to specific suburbs in large cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg that generally also have a high population of migrants. Suburbs like Rinkeby in Stockholm have become particularly famous for residents attacking journalists on more than one occasion.

Swedish police have accounted for a total of 14 no-go areas in which they rarely venture outside of their heavily fortified police stations for fear of being attacked by locals.

Categories: Islam - submission, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terror groups, Islamisation, Law enforcement, Sweden
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

EMISCO and the Ongoing Push Against “Islamophobia” by the OSCE

September 27, 2016

EMISCO and the Ongoing Push Against “Islamophobia” by the OSCE, Gates of Vienna, , September 26, 2016

(EMISCO is the European Muslim Initiative for Social Cohesion. OSCE is the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe. — DM)

Because EMISCO and the Turkish complement were force[d] to acknowledge that the term “Islamophobia” lacks a definition, this question was presented again in this forum. The other question concerned the definition of “new form of racism not based on skin color” and “manifestations of racism” as well. The panel did not answer the question on racism. Quraishy answered that Islamophobia was not about reasonable disagreements. In his closing remarks, however, Bülent Şenay became visibly agitated, went off his prepared notes (he said) and forcefully declared that our asking the question was both Islamophobic and ridiculous because “we all know what it means” and hence “I won’t define it.” He went on to insist, however, that “we must define Islamophobia as a crime.” Of course, defining Islamophobia is an issue because criminalizing an activity that lacks a definition is a serious civil rights and verges on the criminalization of thought.

********************************

The following report was written by the Counterjihad Collective after several members attended an EMISCO side event today at the OSCE/HDIM conference in Warsaw.

emisco-isis

This morning’s side event “The Consequences of Islamophobic Discourse in the European Political Parties” was hosted by EMISCO and chaired by Bashy Quraishy, the General Secretary of EMISCO (European Muslim Initiative for Social Cohesion). the panel was top-heavy with speakers giving country reports on Islamophobia in Europe. The presentations seemed forced and overloaded in the sense that little time was able to be allotted for questions.

bulentsenay

The forum was structured so that the closing statements, given by Bülent Şenay, were delivered after the question-and-answer period to ensure a final word. The panel seemed defensive, with panel members making strident statements about various political parties, labeling them as “racist” and “Islamophobic”. Building on narratives emphasized in 2014, their efforts were aimed at escalating the Islamophobia rhetoric in the guise of racism and gender, with all of the women appearing in head coverings, amid a constant reference to the wearing of headscarves. Also of note was a peculiar omission: the materials associated with side event did not provide the names of the briefers.

Because EMISCO and the Turkish complement were force to acknowledge that the term “Islamophobia” lacks a definition, this question was presented again in this forum. The other question concerned the definition of “new form of racism not based on skin color” and “manifestations of racism” as well. The panel did not answer the question on racism. Quraishy answered that Islamophobia was not about reasonable disagreements. In his closing remarks, however, Bülent Şenay became visibly agitated, went off his prepared notes (he said) and forcefully declared that our asking the question was both Islamophobic and ridiculous because “we all know what it means” and hence “I won’t define it.” He went on to insist, however, that “we must define Islamophobia as a crime.” Of course, defining Islamophobia is an issue because criminalizing an activity that lacks a definition is a serious civil rights and verges on the criminalization of thought.

Professor Bülent Şenay speaks under color of some authority, which makes his observations something more than just the comments of a professor. The professor sits on the OSCE Human Rights Advisory Council, is a founding member of the Governing Board of EMISCO, and was the Diplomatic Counsel¬or for Religious and Cultural Affairs at the Turkish Embassy in The Hague from 2008 to 2012. In September 2013, Professor Şenay oversaw the drafting of a declaration that defined Islamophobia as “a groundless fear and intolerance of Islam and Muslims” that is “detrimental to international peace” such that there “should be recogni¬tion of Islamophobia as a hate crime and Islamophobic attitudes as human rights violations.” The declaration was written for the “International Conference on Islamophobia: Law & Media” in Istanbul, which was co-sponsored by Turkey’s Directorate General of Press and Information and the OIC. At the conference, Turkish President Erdoğan stated that “Islamophobia” is a “kind of racism” that is “a crime against humanity.” In 2014, Şenay felt comfortable chiding the Western audience by saying, “if I were to present a particular favor, this would be the title, ‘A New Cultural ISIS — International Strong Ignorance Syndrome’” as he presented his briefing with the title, “Is¬lamophobia in the 21st Century: International Strong Ignorance Syndrome in Europe (ISIS).” In doing so, Şenay was suggesting that the extremism was in the reactions of the West, not in the acts of ISIS.

Categories: Europe, Hate crimes, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Islamist terror attacks, Islamophobia
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Ending the Palestinian Exception

September 27, 2016

Ending the Palestinian Exception, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, September 27, 2016

palestinian_demonstration_against_demolish_of_the_village_susya-e1433517117362

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

Ahead of Monday night’s first presidential debate, Rudolph Giuliani – former New York mayor and Republican nominee Donald Trump’s current adviser – spoke at the Israeli American Council’s annual conference. Four days of intense debate preparation with Trump preceded the talk. Giuliani insisted the time has come for the US to “reject the whole notion of a two-state solution in Israel.”

It can only be hoped that regardless of who prevails in November, Giuliani’s statement will become the official position of the next US administration.

In his speech before the UN General Assembly last week PLO and Fatah chief and unelected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said many things to drive home the basic point that he is not interested in peace with Israel. He is interested in destroying Israel. But one particular demand stands out.

It stands out not because it is new. It isn’t new.

Abbas says it all the time and his advisers say it all the time. They say it to Palestinian and international audiences alike, and it always is met with support or at least sympathy.

Abbas demanded that Israel stop arresting Palestinian terrorists and release all Palestinian terrorists from its prisons. That is, he demanded that Israel allow thousands of convicted terrorists to walk free and refrain from doing anything to interfere with terrorists engaged planning and carrying out the murder of its citizens.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinians support this demand. And so does the US government.

During US Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed peace process in 2013-14, President Barack Obama and Kerry embraced Abbas’s demand that Israel release 104 terrorist murderers from its prisons as a precondition for agreeing to negotiate with the Jewish state.

Bowing to US pressure, Israel released 78 terrorists from its jails in three tranches. Ahead of the fourth scheduled release, Abbas and his advisers bragged that they would cut off talks with Israel as soon as the last group of terrorist murderers were released.

That is, they admitted that the negotiations, such as they were, were nothing more than a means to achieve the goal of freeing murderers.

Rather than condemn Abbas and his colleagues for their cynical bad faith and repulsive immorality, the Obama administration chastised Israel for refusing to play along. When Israel responded to their statements by refusing to release the last group of 26 convicted terrorists, the administration accused Israel of breaching the terms of the negotiations.

Obama, Kerry and their advisers held Israel responsible for the talks’ failure.

It’s important to consider what Abbas’s demand for free-range terrorists says about him. It is important to ponder what the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians are partners in this demand says about them as a society.

And it is worth pondering as well the strategic rationality and moral stature of a US government that supports this position.

As far as Abbas and the Palestinians are concerned, their refusal to view mass murderers as criminals tells us a great deal about who they are and what they want.

The Palestinian national movement they have come to embody was never about a deep-seated desire for national liberation. It was never about building “Palestine.”

From the time it was created by Amin el-Husseini in 1920, Palestinian identity has been about the negation of the Jewish national liberation movement – Zionism. And since Israel achieved independence in 1948, the Palestinians have defined themselves by their collective dedication to annihilating the Jewish state – hence their support for terrorists who kill Jews.

Husseini’s heir Yasser Arafat shared his view that terrorism was a both strategic goal in and of itself and a means to achieve the ultimate end of the Palestinian movement – that is, the violent eradication of Israel.

As the heir to both men, Abbas, like his sometimes partners and sometimes rivals in Hamas, has never been interested in building anything. And indeed, he hasn’t.

Consider what is loosely referred to as the “Palestinian economy.”

In an article published this week by the Hebrew-language online journal Mida, economist Uri Redler showed that the Palestinian economy isn’t actually an economy. It is an extortion racket.

Using World Bank data, Redler showed that the Palestinian economy is an optical illusion. In its 22 years of existence, the PA has almost entirely destroyed the private sector in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Seventy-five percent of its tax income comes from indirect taxes that Israel collects for it on imports. Forty percent of its budget comes from donors. Only 18% of it income comes from direct taxation. And most of that comes from deduction at source of PA employees.

Since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, only 15% of foreign aid toward the reconstruction of Gaza has been used for reconstruction projects. The rest of the money has been used as discretionary funds by Hamas. Seventy percent of the funds have come from American and EU taxpayers. This means that the US and the EU have been directly funding Hamas terrorists.

It is not surprising that the aid has been diverted.

And it is not surprising that the US and the EU have continued to provide money they know is being diverted by Hamas.

Hamas, like Fatah, has no interest in developing a Palestinian economy. Economic development doesn’t bring in the money. Terrorism does. Palestinians with economic freedom won’t be dependent on the likes of Abbas and his Hamas counterparts for their livelihoods. So they block all independent paths to prosperity.

Rather than build roads, the PA and Hamas pay people to kill Jews. The more Jews you kill, the more money you receive.

They can maintain this policy because the US and Europe pay them to do so. The more terrorism they commit, the more headlines the Palestinians receive. And the more headlines they receive, the more money they are paid by the UN and Western governments – to advance the cause of the “twostate solution.”

This then brings us to the US and Europe, and their unstinting support for Palestinian demands for the release of terrorists. What are they thinking? Earlier this month Prof. Eugene Kontorovich of Northwestern University Law School and the Kohelet Forum published a paper on the international community’s general interpretation of paragraph 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Protocol from 1949. The relevant clause states that an “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

As Kontorovich noted, this clause the forms the basis of the international community’s constant refrain that Israeli communities built beyond the 1949 armistice lines in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are illegal.

In other words, it forms the basis of the West’s case against Israel and, by extraction, for the Palestinians’.

Just last week during his speech before the UN General Assembly, Obama attacked Israel for its continued settlement activity.

Kontorovich investigated the same international community’s view of communities built by citizens of a dozen other states in lands occupied by their governments in armed conflicts.

He noted that the activities of Moroccans in the Western Sahara, of Turks in Northern Cyprus, of Indonesians in East Timor and of other nationals in multiple other territories are legally indistinguishable from Israel’s activities in the areas it took control over from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israel war.

In none of these other cases, however, has the US, EU, UN or any other international or national authority ever invoked the Fourth Geneva Convention or otherwise claimed that those activities are a breach of international law. In other words, the legal basis for the criminalization and political condemnation of Israel in relation to the Palestinians is entirely specious and discriminatory.

In other words, US support for the so-called two state solution, like the international community’s support for it, is really just a means of discriminating against Israel. It does not advance the cause of peace or justice, for Israelis or for Palestinians. It merely empowers terrorist gangsters to kill Israelis and extort both the Palestinians and the international community.

So again, Giuliani is absolutely right.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Israel - release of Palestinian terrorists, Israel and human rights, Israel settlements, Israeli security, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian economy, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution, United Nations
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

After meat cleaver jihad attack and jihad bomb, New York launches ad campaign against “Islamophobia”

September 27, 2016

After meat cleaver jihad attack and jihad bomb, New York launches ad campaign against “Islamophobia”, Jihad Watch, , September 27, 2016

A Muslim slashed a New York cop with a meat cleaver on September 15. Another Muslim planted bombs in New York and New Jersey; one went off, wounding 29 people in Chelsea on September 17. In response, the city of New York is launching a campaign against jihad terror, calling on Muslims to institute honest, transparent, and inspectable programs inside New York mosques, teaching Muslims why they must reject jihad violence and any attempt, violent or stealthy, to bring Sharia to the U.S. They’re starting a “Stop Jihad” ad campaign on buses and subway cars.

I’m kidding, of course. None of that is happening. In reality, New York City is starting a campaign against “Islamophobia.” Because as far as New York authorities (and many others) are concerned, whenever Muslims attack non-Muslims, the real victims are…Muslims. The one thing we must remember after every jihad attack is that Muslims are victims who deserve special accommodation.

Imagine if FDR after Pearl Harbor had launched a campaign: “I am Japanese. I am USA.” He would have been accused of defeatism at best, and treason at worst. Muslims attacked New York City twice in September because they consider themselves to be jihadis at war with the United States. The proper response would be to fight that war, not to focus on the putative victimhood of other people who share the belief system and ideology of the enemy combatants.

iammuslim_banner

“New York launches ad campaign to fight anti-Muslim rhetoric, violence,” by Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters, September 26, 2016:

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – New York City kicked off a social media advertising campaign on Monday to combat negative perceptions of Muslims and counteract increasing instances of threats and violence, officials said.

Showing an array of photographs of Muslim men and women, the campaign reads “I am Muslim. I am NYC”, according to the New York City Commission on Human Rights.

The campaign is aimed at addressing negative depictions and rhetoric, officials said.

Anti-Muslim sentiment has been playing a major role as the U.S. presidential race has heated up. Republican nominee Donald Trump claimed he saw thousands of people cheering after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and has called for shutting down mosques and banning Muslims from certain countries from entering the United States.

In New York, an Afghan-born man is accused of wounding 31 people in a bombing on Sept. 17 that authorities called a “terrorist act”. The suspect had embraced militant Islamic views, authorities say.

“Now more than ever, it is important for every New Yorker to stand united as one city and reject hate and violence,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement announcing the ad campaign.

“In New York, everyone deserves to be treated with respect. Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, agnostic and atheist — it doesn’t matter,” he said. “We are all New Yorkers and we all deserve to live safely and free from hatred or discrimination.”

Some 3.3 million Muslims live in the United States, and thousands live in New York City, according to the commission.

The ads will be placed on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #IamMuslimNYC….

Categories: Islam in America, Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, New York City
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Obama Turns Blind Eye to Iranian Offenses in UN Speech

September 27, 2016

Obama Turns Blind Eye to Iranian Offenses in UN Speech, Clarion Project, Jennifer Breedon, September 27, 2016

obama-un-address-2016-hpU.S. President Barack Obama addresses the UN General Assembly on Sept. 20, 2016. (Photo: video screenshot)

The Iranian leader rightfully fears a future administration that may not be willing to tolerate a total disregard for international law or human rights, given that even President Obama’s positive nod to Iran at the UN was met with the label of “continued animosity.” 

****************************

In 2015, President Obama stated that Iran’s “support for terrorism” and “its use of proxies to destabilize parts of the Middle East” was problematic, despite the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the nuclear deal) that had been reached by that time that allowed Iran access to millions of previously frozen funds.

Yet, bafflingly, just five minutes after mentioning terror proxies in his 2016 UN address last week, President Obama seemed to turn a blind eye to Iran’s ongoing offenses by saying, “When Iran agrees to accept constraints on its nuclear program, that enhances global security and enhances Iran’s ability to work with other nations.”

Today, Iran is poised to move funds to its global terror proxies more easily due to the infusion of cash created by the unfreezing of their assets.  Even John Kerry admitted in 2015 that some of the money going back to Iran through sanctions relief would undoubtedly go to fund terrorism.

So, we all know it is happening and yet nothing is being done to stop them or to even state this obvious fact aloud before the very body that is designed to protect against such international violations.

The UN Convention that prohibits terrorism financing explicitly outlines the illegality of any government that commits such an offense when it

“directly or indirectly, unlawfully and willfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out . . . act(s) intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act” (Article 2(1)).  

Iran is guilty in spades of all of this.

Additionally, the Iranian government remains the U.S. State Department’s top proxy war and terror sponsor. Previous reports from the U.S. State Department note that Iran remains “unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qaeda (AQ) members [and has] previously allowed AQ facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran.”

The State Department has also highlighted Iran’s provision of “hundreds of millions of dollars in support of H[e]zballah in Lebanon and has trained thousands of its fighters . . . in direct support of the Assad regime in Syria” as well as terrorist groups in Palestine (Hamas), Yemen (Houthis) and “throughout the Middle East.”

President Obama’s appeals to the oppressive government of Iran have clearly fallen on deaf ears.  In a one-on-one with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd merely 24 hours after Obama’s UN speech, Iranian President Rouhani stated, “If the future administration of the United States wishes to continue animosity, it will receive the appropriate response.”

The Iranian leader rightfully fears a future administration that may not be willing to tolerate a total disregard for international law or human rights, given that even President Obama’s positive nod to Iran at the UN was met with the label of “continued animosity.”

No amount of vocal, material or financial appeasement can ease relations with the State Department’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.  Despite repeated efforts by President Obama, it will not get better until the Iranian regime abandons its practice of funding terrorism, inciting proxy wars throughout the Middle East, and oppressing their own people by using their resources to build and test weapons before providing the infrastructure needed to create a stable economy and free society for their people.

While Iranian civilians and citizens were in dire economic straits with very little government reprieve or resource allocation to ease their conditions prior to the Nuclear Deal sanctions relief, the Iranian regime was spending over $6 billion per year to support the Assad regime in Syria in its efforts to ensure a Shiite majority in the region.

The Iranian regime must be held accountable for its non-adherence to international law and its desire to finance terror globally in places like Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.

It must be held responsible for using funds to bankroll violence and oppression instead of providing basic necessities and freedoms for its own people.  As Obama said at the UN this year, Iran must “listen to voices of young people everywhere who call out for freedom, and dignity, and the opportunity to control their own lives.”

Rouhani made it clear that, despite all of the steps we’ve taken, including acknowledging them positively at the UN General Assembly, nothing the U.S. has done has thawed our relationship with Iran or helped to improve the security of people living in the areas ruled by Iran or its terror proxies.

Our leaders must continue to speak out against Iran’s human rights violations and the financing of terror if we ever hope to see change and remain a positive beacon of democracy and freedom.

 

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iran and international law, Iran and terror, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Obama and Iran, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Obama at the UN, Rouhani
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Abbas to Arab Leaders: Go to Hell!

September 27, 2016

Abbas to Arab Leaders: Go to Hell!

by Khaled Abu Toameh

September 26, 2016 at 5:00 am

Source: Abbas to Arab Leaders: Go to Hell!

 

  • Abbas and Fatah leaders in Ramallah claim that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (the “Arab Quartet”) are using and promoting Abbas’s rival, Mohamed Dahlan, in order to facilitate their mission of rapprochement with Israel.
  • Many Palestinians were surprised to see veteran Palestinian official Ahmed Qurei, a former Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister and one of the architects of the Oslo Accord, come out in favor of the Arab plan, which basically envisions ousting Abbas from power.
  • This, and not Israeli policy, is Abbas’s true nightmare. After all, he knows that without Israel’s presence in the West Bank, his regime would have long fallen into the hands of Hamas or even his political rivals in Fatah.
  • The “Arab Quartet” plan shows that some Arab countries are indeed fed up with Abbas’s failure to lead his people towards a better life. These states, which have long been politically and financially supportive of the Palestinians, have had enough of Abbas’s efforts to secure unending power — at the direct cost of the well-being of his people.

In his speech last week before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas trotted out his usual charges against Israel, citing “collective punishment,” “house demolitions,” “extrajudicial executions” and “ethnic cleansing.” However, Abbas’s thoughts seem to be elsewhere these days. He is facing a new challenge from unexpected parties, namely several Arab countries that have come together to demand that he reform his ruling Fatah faction and pave the way for the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership.

Yet this was not included in the UN speech. Indeed, why would Abbas share with world leaders that his Arab brothers are pressuring him to introduce major reforms in Fatah and end a decade-long power struggle with Hamas that has resulted in the creation of two separate Palestinian entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Abbas, his aides admit, is today more worried about the “Arab meddling” in the internal affairs of the Palestinians than he is about “collective punishment” or “settlement activities.” In fact, he is so worried that he recently lashed out at those Arab countries that have launched an initiative to “re-arrange the Palestinian home from within” and bring about changes in the Palestinian political scene.

The Arab countries behind the initiative — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates — are being referred to by many Palestinians as the “Arab Quartet.”

In an unprecedented critique of these countries, Abbas recently declared:

“The decision is ours and we are the only ones who make decisions. No one has authority over us. No one can dictate to us what to do. I don’t care about the discomfort of Washington or Moscow or other capitals. I don’t want to hear about these capitals. I don’t want the money of these capitals. Let’s free ourselves from the ‘influence’ of these capitals.”

Although he did not mention the four Arab countries by name, it was clear that Abbas was referring to the “Arab Quartet” when he was talking about “capitals” and their influence and money. Abbas’s message: “How dare any Arab country tell me what to do, no matter how wealthy and influential it may be.” Abbas sees the demand by these Arab countries for new Palestinian leadership, unity and reforms in Fatah as “unacceptable meddling in the internal affairs of the Palestinians.”

So what exactly is it in the new Arab initiative that has so enraged Abbas, to the point that he is prepared to place at risk his relations with four of the Arab world’s preeminent states?

According to reports in Arab media outlets, the “Arab Quartet” has drafted a plan to “activate the Palestinian portfolio” by ending the dispute between Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas. The plan also calls for ending the schism within Fatah by allowing some of its expelled leaders, including Mohamed Dahlan, to return to the faction. The overall aim of the plan is to unite the West Bank and Gaza Strip under one authority and end the state of political anarchy in the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The “Arab Quartet” has even formed a committee to oversee the implementation of any “reconciliation” agreements reached between Fatah and Hamas and Abbas and his adversaries in Fatah. According to the plan, if such an agreement is not reached, the Arab League will intervene to “enforce reconciliation” between the rival Palestinian parties.

When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN General Assembly on Sept. 22, 2016, he did not share with world leaders that his Arab brothers are pressuring him to introduce major reforms in his Fatah faction, and allow some of its expelled leaders, including Abbas’s rival Mohamed Dahlan (inset), to return.

Abbas’s main concern is not a “reconciliation” with Hamas. In fact, he has repeatedly expressed his readiness to form a unity government with Hamas and end the dispute with the Islamist movement. In recent weeks, there has even been renewed talk of Fatah-Hamas talks in Qatar to achieve “unity” and “reconciliation” between the two rival parties. Rather, it is the attempt to coerce Abbas into reconciling with Dahlan that is really getting to the PA president. In the view of a source close to Abbas, he (Abbas) would rather make peace with Hamas than “swallow the cup of poison” of patching things up with Dahlan.

Abbas harbors a very particular dislike for Dahlan. Until five years ago, Dahlan was a senior Fatah official who had long been closely associated with Abbas. Once, Abbas and Dahlan, a former security commander in the Gaza Strip, formed an alliance against Yasser Arafat, the former president of the PA. But the honeymoon between Abbas and Dahlan came to an end a few tears ago after the Abbas and his lieutenants in Ramallah began suspecting that Dahlan has ambitions to replace or succeed Abbas. At the request of Abbas, Dahlan was expelled from Fatah and accused of murder, financial corruption and conspiring to overthrow Abbas’s regime. From his exile in the United Arab Emirates, Dahlan has since been waging a campaign against the 81-year-old Abbas, accusing him and his two wealthy sons of running the PA as if it were their private fiefdom.

Such is Abbas’s contempt for Dahlan that last week he reportedly instructed the PA authorities to ban Dahlan’s wife, Jalilah, from entering the Gaza Strip. Jalilah runs and funds a number of charities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Her activities are seen by Abbas as an attempt to build power bases for her husband and pave the way for his return to the political scene. Abbas’s decision to ban her from entering the Gaza Strip came following reports that she and her husband were planning to organize and fund a collective wedding for dozens of impoverished Palestinian couples. The funding, of course, comes from the United Arab Emirates, whose rulers have been providing the Dahlan couple with shelter and money for several years.

When Abbas says that he “does not want the money” of certain Arab capitals, then, he is referring to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. He strongly suspects that these two wealthy countries are investing funds in Dahlan as part of a scheme to replace him and pave the way for the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership. For Abbas, who has refused to name a deputy or promote a potential successor, this is a very serious threat to his autocratic rule and a “conspiracy” by outside parties against him and his Palestinian Authority leadership.

Abbas and Fatah leaders in Ramallah are convinced that the “Arab Quartet” members are actually planning to pave the way for promoting “normalization” between the Arab world and Israel — all at the expense of the Palestinians. They claim that the four Arab countries are using and promoting Dahlan in order to facilitate their mission of rapprochement with Israel. These countries have reached the conclusion that as long as Abbas and the current PA leadership are around, it would be very difficult to initiate any form of “normalization” or peace treaties between Arab countries and Israel. The PA leadership’s position has always been that peace between the Arab countries and Israel should come only after, and not before, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.

According to Palestinian political analyst Mustafa Ibrahim:

“The plan of the Arab Quartet prepares for the transitional post-Abbas era and negotiations for peace between Arab countries and Israel. The plan is designed to serve the interests of Arab regimes more than ending divisions among the Palestinians. The goal is to eliminate the Palestinian cause and find an alternative to President Abbas.”

This analysis reflects the views of Abbas and his veteran Palestinian Authority leaders in Ramallah, who continue to be extremely wary of any talk about succession in the PA leadership.

Interestingly, the “Arab Quartet” initiative for now seems to have divided Palestinian officials, with some welcoming it, and others rejecting it.

Criticizing Abbas and the Fatah leadership for coming out against the plan, Hassan Asfour, a senior Fatah official and former PA minister of state, urged Abbas to reconsider his “impractical, irrational and hasty” decision to dismiss the initiative of the four Arab countries. Asfour pointed out that Abbas’s recent criticism of these countries was “harmful” and “unjustified.” Abbas’s close aides have retorted by claiming that Asfour was a political ally of Dahlan and therefore has a clear agenda.

Many Palestinians were surprised to see veteran Palestinian official Ahmed Qurei, a former PA prime minister and one of the architects of the Oslo Accord, come out in favor of the “Arab Quartet” plan, which basically envisions ousting Abbas from power. Abbas’s close advisors claim that Qurei has joined Dahlan in his effort to bring about regime change in Ramallah.

Dahlan, for his part, has launched his own initiative by calling for an “expanded” gathering of Palestinian factions in Cairo, to discuss ways of bringing about real change in the Palestinian political arena. Thus, Dahlan has moved from behind-the-scenes activities to topple Abbas to public moves. And in this he enjoys the political and financial backing of at least four important Arab countries that would also like to see an end to the Abbas era. This is the first time that a senior Palestinian official has openly challenged the PA leadership with the support of Arab countries. It is predicted that at least 600 people will attend the Dahlan-sponsored conference in the Egyptian capital. The PA leadership is now threatening to retaliate against anyone who attends the conference by cutting off their salaries. This will only deepen the crisis in Abbas’s Fatah and yield yet more infighting.

Abbas undoubtedly had these thoughts in mind when he addressed the UN General Assembly — the new Arab “conspiracy” to replace him with Dahlan, or someone else. This, and not Israeli policy, is Abbas’s true nightmare. After all, he knows that without Israel’s presence in the West Bank, his regime would have long fallen into the hands of Hamas or even his political rivals in Fatah.

The “Arab Quartet” plan shows that some Arab countries are indeed fed up with Abbas’s failure to lead his people towards a better life. These states, which have long been politically and financially supportive of the Palestinians, have had enough of Abbas’s efforts to secure unending power — at the direct cost of the well-being of his people. It will not take long before we see whether these Arab countries, now mocked by Abbas, will succeed in ridding the Palestinians of leaders who lead them toward nothing but ruin.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Hillary Clinton is not a friend of Israel

September 27, 2016

Hillary Clinton is not a friend of Israel, Israel National News, Aviel Shewin-Stevens, September 27, 2016

Hillary Clinton is campaigning on the basis that she is a friend of Israel, just as she did in the Senate, and Obama did twice for the presidency. As Secretary of State, she was the architect of the policy of the most anti-Israel president since the rebirth of Israel in 1948. It was a policy which reflected views she has held her entire life, with the exception of the nine-year period when she ran for and held the office of U.S. Senator from New York State. American voters should not let her get away with hiding her true self. Israel-focused Americans should vote for Republicans in Senate and congressional races, as well as for Donald Trump as president. Hillary Clinton has collapsed her election.

*************************

Hillary Clinton has a lifetime of anti-Israel positions. She said she was a big supporter of Israel when she was in the U.S. Senate, when she needed campaign contributions from American Jews and New York’s Jewish voting bloc. She has not been pro-Israel since her resignation from the Senate to become Secretary of State in January 2009.

When Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State, she helped Barack Obama craft his anti-Israel positions. Like other presidents, Obama made his own policy; he fundamentally transformed America’s foreign policy. He reoriented America’s Middle East policy in favor of the ayatollahs, to make Iran the regional superpower, disadvantaging America’s traditional allies: Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab monarchies. Like other secretaries of state, Hillary had the option of resigning if she did not agree with the foreign policy, but she shared the same flawed vision of the world as Obama.

Hillary Clinton made an official visit to the Middle East in November 1999, when her husband was the president. During the visit, Suha Arafat, the wife of Palestine leader Yasser Arafat, made slanderous allegations in her presence: “Our [Palestinian] people have been submitted to the daily and intensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children.” Suha Arafat also accused Israel of contaminating the water sources used by Palestinians with “chemical materials” and “poisoning Palestinian women and children with toxic gases.”

Hillary listened to a real-time translation of the accusations without objections. She also hugged and kissed Suha Arafat when she finished speaking. Twelve hours passed without a word from Hillary. Only when she saw the public outcry did she call Suha Arafat’s words “inflammatory.” She also called on all sides to refrain from “inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations,” including Israel, whose leaders made no such accusations.

Then Hillary did what she and her husband often do when they mess up: She blamed others. First she blamed the translator, though the Palestinians would have assigned one of their most capable translators to handle a major speech by the wife of the Palestinian leader. She then tried to blame the Americans traveling with her, who, she said, told her that Suha Arafat’s remarks were “not worthy of any particular comment.” She also blamed her husband: If she were not the First Lady, she could have spoken up sooner.

Hillary should not have been there. Her advisers told her that traveling to the Territories in the middle of a difficult peace process and her own Senate race was to court disaster. Perhaps the sumptuous trappings of overseas travel as First Lady won out. When Republicans questioned her actions, she responded with arrogance: “It is unfortunate that there are any questions about what was a very straightforward occasion.” Most Americans would not agree that public accusations that an American ally was engaging in chemical genocide make for a “straightforward occasion.” Till now, Hillary Clinton has not specifically contradicted nor denounced the lies uttered by Suha Arafat in her presence.

Hillary Clinton became a supporter of Israel in her Senate years because she needed the Jewish vote and campaign contributions. After becoming the Secretary of State, one of her first actions was to call for the end of construction of new homes for Jews in existing neighborhoods in Jerusalem and the Territories, contravening an existing U.S./Israel agreement made during the Bush administration. This was a major error by the Hillary Clinton State Department, compounded by the inclusion of Jerusalem. Elliot Abrams, who negotiated the agreement for the U.S., stated that the agreement was valid.

In early 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded the “settlement” freeze and was quickly supported by Obama. The Palestinians seized upon the Hillary-created settlement issue as an opportunity to avoid negotiations. They used the demands for a “settlement” freeze a precondition to further talks, even though there were negotiations and construction going on simultaneously before she became Secretary of State.

In August 2009 Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced a ten-month “settlement” freeze. It was approved by the Israeli cabinet and implemented on November 25, 2009 and was to run till September 25, 2010. Despite pressure from America, the Palestinians refused to join any talks the first nine months of the freeze; they did not come to the negotiation table till September 2010, three weeks before the freeze ended.

As the end of the “settlement” freeze approached, the U.S. asked Israel to extend the freeze. Israel demanded that any proposal be presented in writing, based on their experience with Hillary denying the deal negotiated by Elliot Abrams during the Bush Administration. The written offer never came; Hillary was not negotiating in good faith.

In 2011, speaking at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the left-wing Brookings Institution, Hillary Clinton attempted to delegitimize Israel as a free nation by expressing concern for Israel’s social climate in the wake of limitations regarding female singing in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and gender segregation on public transportation. Both were accommodations made to the Orthodox communities in Israel. She said the decision of some IDF soldiers to leave an event where female soldiers were singing reminded her of the situation in Iran. Whereas, in Iran the women would have been lashed or executed. In Israel the women sang, but some people, exercising their personal freedom, felt it was against their religious beliefs and were allowed to walk out. In the IDF, most senior officers supported the women’s right to sing.

Hillary Clinton also spoke of her shock that some Jerusalem buses had assigned separate seating areas for women, at the request of both men and women who are stringently Orthodox, and compared it to the segregation era in America. She said “it’s reminiscent of Rosa Parks.” Her statement was part of the continued attempt to de-legitimize Israeli democracy by the Obama administration.

In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s email scandals, the media coverage of her emails from her close friend Sidney Blumenthal has mostly been about his recommendations about Libya; however, he also sent many emails about Israel. Some of them consisted of forwarding articles from his anti-Semitic son, writer Max Blumenthal, but others were recommendations of policies describing Israel as the oppressor.

As reported by the National Review Online: Blumenthal sent dozens of e-mails advising Clinton on Israel in 2010. Before her March speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Blumenthal sent Clinton an article from left-wing Israeli writer Uri Avnery accusing the Netanyahu government of “starting a rebellion” against America and defending interests that diverge from America’s. Clinton responded: “I have to speak to AIPAC tomorrow…How — and should I — use this [sic]?” Blumenthal said he will send another memo the next day.

In that memo, he told Hillary to “hold Bibi [Binyamin Netanyahu]’s feet to the fire” on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process: “Perhaps most controversial would be to remind [AIPAC] in as subtle but also direct a way as you can that it does not have a monopoly over American Jewish opinion. Bibi is stage managing US Jewish organizations (and neocons, and the religious right, and whomever else he can muster) against the administration. AIPAC itself has become an organ of the Israeli right, specifically Likud.” Whereas, AIPAC favors Israel’s left-wing parties, and is becoming more so in reaction to J-Street, the group formed to give political cover to Obama among liberal Jews. J-Street professes to be pro-Israel, and pro-peace, but its public pronouncements regularly attack the policies of the Israeli government, and back all pressure Obama directs at Israel.

On May 17, Blumenthal forwarded Hillary an article on the Israeli government’s decision to deny pro-Palestine activist Noam Chomsky access to the Territories. Blumenthal wrote that: “Barring him for his political opinions has created a needless PR disaster. The US should not be a passive onlooker…The US effort on his behalf to gain entry should be part of the story.” Hillary forwarded the memo to her staff with instructions to “pls print 3 copies.” Chomsky is anti-Israel and has been fierce in his opposition to Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism, and had been banned from the country since 2010.

In an e-mail from May 31 entitled “Several observations on the Israeli raid,” Blumenthal blamed Netanyahu’s family “inferiority complex” for his decision to launch a raid on the “Gaza Flotilla,” a group of ships seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza: “Bibi desperately seeks his father’s approbation and can never equal his dead brother.” Blumenthal then hinted that the raid was deliberately orchestrated to kill the peace process and humiliate Obama before his scheduled visit with the prime minister. Hillary forwarded the message to Jake Sullivan, her deputy chief of staff at the State Department, and she wrote: “FYI and I told you so.”

On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks published a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails leaked to WikiLeaks. The DNC is the governing body of the United States’ Democratic Party. The leak caused the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda. The leak revealed attempts to smear Bernie Sanders, a candidate in the Democratic Party presidential primaries, with information that might damage him. Wasserman Schultz called Jeff Weaver, manager of Bernie Sanders’ campaign, a “damn liar.” The Washington Post reported: “Many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.”

The DNC wanted to use Sanders’s Jewish heritage and lack of religious belief against him. In one of the email chains, Marshall told Dacey that someone should ask Sanders if he is an atheist: “Get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God [sic]. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.” The DNC announced Wasserman Schultz would not gavel open the Democratic Party’s convention. Hillary subsequently appointed Wasserman Schultz chair of Hillary’s presidential campaign’s “50 state program.”

There is nothing in Hillary Clinton’s history that would qualify her for the presidency, and much that should disqualify her. The most important job she ever held was as the Secretary of State, heading the U.S. Department of State, principally concerned with foreign affairs. Under her watch as Secretary of State, American foreign policy had one setback after another, separated by disasters. She orchestrated the U.S. intervention in Libya and Egypt, undermining governments that were no threat to American interests, which led to terrorist chaos in Libya and Islamic extremists taking over in Egypt.

Under Hillary’s watch as Secretary of State was the radical transformation of American foreign policy and the historic catastrophe — permitting Iranians to develop nuclear  weapons while making it difficult for Israel to stop them. Obama’s years-long negotiations with Iran allowed time to multiply, disperse, and fortify Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Obama administration’s leakage of Israel’s secret agreement with Azerbaijan, allowing Israeli warplanes to refuel if attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, sabotaged any Israeli attempt to destroy Iranian facilities.

In the 2009 Iranian Green Movement, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office, Hillary Clinton was intent on “engagement” with the world’s most dangerous regime and vilest state-sponsor of terrorism. She cut funding to organizations supporting Iranian human rights, then sat by as thousands of Iranians were imprisoned, tortured and executed. She repeatedly watered down sanctions against Iran, and it was during her tenure that negotiations began with the Ahmadinejad regime, culminating in the Iranian deal, which she supported, and still supports: Iran could develop nuclear weapons and the ayatollahs get $150 billion.

Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, Islamic State, Libya, Syria and Yemen are the dark forces in Israel’s neighborhood. They could have looked different today had Hillary not betrayed America’s democratic values with her “smart power.” Hillary, as well as Obama, sought to put distance diplomatically between America and Israel.

She berated Netanyahu publicly for announcing Jerusalem home building, compared Israel to an apartheid regime, correlated the status of women in Israel to that in Iran, demanded reckless concessions from Israel to promote “peace talks” while never making serious demands of the Palestinian Authority or ever holding it accountable, granted legitimacy to George Soros-sponsored J Street, made a false equivalency between terrorist attacks on Israel and Israel’s attempts to defend itself, questioned Israel’s commitment to its American alliance, rejected the legitimacy of all Jewish construction across the Green Line including Jerusalem neighborhoods, etc.

Netanyahu infuriated the Obama administration when he talked about the truth of the internationally supported Palestinian Arab demand that Israel must transfer control over Jerusalem and the Territories to the Palestinians Jew-free. From its first days in office, the Obama administration rejected the civil rights of Jews as Jews in these areas and seeks the complete negation of their rights through destruction, mass expulsion, and property seizure: ethnic cleansing. So if Hillary were elected president, her administration could be an Obama third term: the American people could be left unprotected from Islamic terrorists, and Israel could face unprecedented pressure to submit to Palestinian Arab terrorists.

The Republicans have become the pro-Israel party. Democrats talk about their commitment to Israel, but when Hillary and Obama were abusing Israel diplomatically, there was no pushback from congressional Democrats. Even the Jewish Democrats in Congress always stood with the administration. Whereas, Republicans have stood up for Israel unapologetically, and just passed the most pro-Israel platform in American history.

The blatant anti-Semitism displayed at the 2016 Democratic National Convention merits a mention: Booing any mention of Israel, chanting “Intifada”, burning the Israeli flag, etc. The Democrats do not even try to disguise their disdain for Jews any more. Nevertheless, a vast majority of American Jews could still vote for Hillary and other Democrats.
Hillary Clinton is campaigning on the basis that she is a friend of Israel, just as she did in the Senate, and Obama did twice for the presidency. As Secretary of State, she was the architect of the policy of the most anti-Israel president since the rebirth of Israel in 1948. It was a policy which reflected views she has held her entire life, with the exception of the nine-year period when she ran for and held the office of U.S. Senator from New York State. American voters should not let her get away with hiding her true self. Israel-focused Americans should vote for Republicans in Senate and congressional races, as well as for Donald Trump as president. Hillary Clinton has collapsed her election.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump and Israel, Hillary Clinton and Israel, Obama and Israel
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries