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‘We don’t need this America,’ deputy minister says after UN vote, Kerry speech

December 31, 2016

Source: ‘We don’t need this America,’ deputy minister says after UN vote, Kerry speech | The Times of Israel

Former ambassador to US Michael Oren: Obama Administration’s current attitude to Israel ‘sad, tragic and dangerous’

President Barack Obama welcomes Ambassador Michael B. Oren of the State of Israel to the White House Monday, July 20, 2009, during the credentials ceremony for newly appointed ambassadors to the United States (White House photo)

President Barack Obama welcomes Ambassador Michael B. Oren of the State of Israel to the White House Monday, July 20, 2009, during the credentials ceremony for newly appointed ambassadors to the United States (White House photo)

Deputy Minister Michael Oren on Thursday slammed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s address on the peace process as historically inaccurate, offensive and dangerous, and called for a total reset of US-Israel ties.Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, also said that the outgoing administration’s critical view of the Israeli government, which culminated in the American abstention on Friday’s Security Council resolution condemning the settlements, was preordained by President Barack Obama’s insistently unwavering ideological disposition.

“Kerry’s speech was very disturbing for so many reasons,” Oren told The Times of Israel. “It is disturbing that this is the point to which US foreign policy has fallen. It’s sad, tragic and dangerous. We don’t need this relationship. We don’t need this America.”

He elaborated: “The US-Israel relationship is vital for us, for the region and I believe for the world, but we need an America whose strength and commitment to its allies is unquestioned.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry lays out his vision for peace between Israel and the Palestinians December 28, 2016, in the Dean Acheson Auditorium at the Department of State in Washington, DC. (AFP PHOTO / PAUL J. RICHARDS)

US Secretary of State John Kerry lays out his vision for peace between Israel and the Palestinians December 28, 2016, in the Dean Acheson Auditorium at the Department of State in Washington, DC.
(AFP PHOTO / PAUL J. RICHARDS)

During his speech, held Thursday in Washington, the secretary of state drew a distinction between American and Israeli values and cast doubt to Israel’s commitment to democracy, Oren charged. “But he did not raise the raise the question of why those values doesn’t lead the US to do something to save hundreds of thousands of lives in our region.”

In his lengthy address, Kerry insisted that the Obama administration “cannot be true to our own values — or even the stated democratic values of Israel — and we cannot properly defend and protect Israel, if we allow a viable two-state solution to be destroyed before our own eyes.”

Michael Oren with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador Dan Shapiro in Jerusalem during President Barack Obama's visit to Israel in March 2013 (Facebook)

Michael Oren with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador Dan Shapiro in Jerusalem during President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel in March 2013 (Facebook)

Oren, a member of the centrist Kulanu party who in August was appointed a deputy minister for diplomacy in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, took offense not only with the content of Kerry’s speech but also with the tone he struck.

“When he talked about Palestinian terror and incitement he spoke with a more or less regulated voice. But when he addressed the settlements? Oh my God, he was impassioned, furious.”

Oren said he was also deeply troubled by “the systematic distortion of the historical record” in Kerry’s presentation. “In the secretary’s records, there is no Second Intifada. There was the Oslo peace agreement, but he never stopped to think why Oslo wasn’t implemented.”

Kerry also failed to acknowledge Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and wide-reaching peace offers extended by Israeli leaders in 2000 and 2006, Oren said. Furthermore, the secretary did not sufficiently address the Palestinians’ strategy to shun bilateral talks and to internationalize the conflict instead.

Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador in Washington from 2009 and 2013, said the administration often promised him one thing and then did something else.

Kulanu party member Michael Oren attends a political debate held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on March 03, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

Kulanu party member Michael Oren attends a political debate held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on March 03, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

“It was one broken promise after the other,” he said.

Obama is guided by an ideologically rooted disdain for Israeli settlements, including the settlement blocs and Jerusalem neighborhoods outside the 1967-lines, Oren indicated. No Israeli leader — even a sworn leftist willing to dismantle most settlements — would have been able to change the president’s hostile policies vis-a-vis Israel, he postulated.

“It is the most deeply held conviction I have: that with any other (Israeli) leader, from whatever party, the result would have been the same,” Oren said. “There’s nothing we could have done changing that outcome.”

Even if Netanyahu had not accepted an invitation to address the US Congress last year to rail against the Iran nuclear deal Obama was advancing, the administration’s ostensible anti-Israel stance could not have been avoided, according to Oren. Netanyahu, he insisted, could thus not be blamed for the bad relations with Washington.

Obama was determined to combat Israel’s settlement movement from the moment he stepped into the Oval Office in early 2009, Oren continued. As ambassador in Washington, Oren advised the Israeli government “to roll with the punches” and silently accept the US’s criticism about settlement expansions. But ultimately that school of thought failed to produce results, because the president was unwilling to change his mind on any issue regarding Israel.

Since quiet diplomacy failed to achieve anything, Netanyahu is right to publicly confront the president over policies he deems detrimental to Israel’s security, Oren argued.

Then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the 2016 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference at the Verizon Center, on Monday, March 21, 2016, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the 2016 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference at the Verizon Center, on Monday, March 21, 2016, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)

“We were on a collision course to last Friday starting in 2009,” Oren said, referring to the anti-settlement UN Security Council passed that day.

It is any president’s prerogative to have a worldview different from that of the Israeli government, Oren said, but Obama’s strategic decision to put “daylight” between Washington and Jerusalem made it impossible to have an “intimate” relationship, which led to an inevitable series of crises. It was impossible to frankly and productively discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because Obama was utterly unwilling to consider points of view other than his own, Oren charged.

“One hope that I have for the upcoming administration of Donald Trump is that we can enter that discussion, enable that process to move on, to create a horizon,” he said. “You can only do that if there’s no daylight and if there’s intimacy.”

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Making Sense of the Russian Hacking Saga

December 31, 2016

Making Sense of the Russian Hacking Saga, PJ Media, Charlie Martin, December 30, 2016

Now, we have leaked files that exposed real corruption in the DNC and real conspiracies against private citizens. We’re told this is an attack on our democracy. At the same time, there was an ongoing effort to lobby, coerce, even threaten electors to get them to change their votes in the Electoral College.

So you tell me what the bigger threat to democracy is: Revealing actual facts about the DNC and the Clinton campaign? Or trying to suborn the electors and change the election results?

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

A quick trip to an alternate timeline:

New York Times, December 7, 2016

Trump Campaign Claims Times’ Coverage Skewed Election

“Hacked” Emails Responsible for Trump Loss

In a dramatic announcement, failed presidential candidate Donald J. Trump accused the New York Times and the Russian FSB of sabotaging his campaign by hacking and releasing emails from the Trump campaign’s mail servers.

Mr. Trump announced a campaign to convince members of the Electoral College to vote for him even if their state had voted for Mrs Clinton.

“A source inside the FBI told me that the Russians released these emails because they wanted Crooked Hillary to win,” Mr Trump said. “They call electors who change their votes ‘faithless electors’ but we should call them ‘faithFUL’ — faithful to what Alexander Hamilton meant electors to do. They should vote for me, to prove to Vladimir Putin he can’t corrupt American elections.”

President-Elect Clinton’s spokesperson issued this statement: “As we saw before the election, Mr Trump refused then to promise to accept the election results, and continues to refuse, even going so far as to attempt to subvert the electoral process by suborning electors. President-elect Clinton won fair and square, and Mr. Trump is, at best, grasping at straws.”

So I admit it: the “what if a Republican said that” trope has gotten to be so much a cliche that I honestly hate to use it. The problem is, it’s so often right.

For the last several weeks, people in the Democratic Party, the press, groups of crazies like Media Matters, and individual nuts like Keith Olbermann have been pushing this idea that the Rooosians are hacking our elections, doom!

So get out your tinfoil hats and let’s see if we can make some sense of this mess.

What we know for certain. Starting on July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks started releasing emails obtained from the Democratic National Committee going back well into 2015. These emails proved to be, at the very least, embarrassing to lots of people involved with the Hillary Clinton campaign: they resulted in Debbie Wasserman Schultz being forced to resign as head of the DNC when it became clear she and the DNC were conspiring behind the scenes to prevent Bernie Sanders from being nominated; they also revealed that Donna Brazile, acting head of the DNC, had been passing supposedly confidential debate questions to the Clinton campaign.

In November, WikiLeaks started to release emails obtained from John Podesta’s personal email accounts. These also proved embarrassing for many reasons — not just because of the campaign, but by exposing Podesta and the Center for American Progress conspiring to use political pressure against private citizens, in one notable case very successfully intimidating Roger Pielke Jr. into leaving the Climate Change debate entirely.

There is one more thing we know: with the exception of a desultory attempt to claim the emails had been modified, there has been essentially no attempt to deny the illicitly obtained emails were authentic.

How were the emails obtained? The consensus of the legacy press and the Clinton campaign has been that the emails were “hacked.” Now, any time you read a news story about anything relating to computer security, it’s worth remembering that to most people in either media or politics, the word “hacked” means “this happened somehow with a computer and computers are scary.” In this case, what people really mean is that somehow someone illicitly got access to a bunch of embarrassing email.

What we know is this: There were active Russian efforts to hack both Democrats and Republicans. To anyone with even a vague knowledge of intelligence and counter-intelligence — say, anyone who has read a detailed history of World War II, or a John LeCarré novel — the basic reaction to this should be, “well, duh.” The Russians are almost certainly trying to hack various email systems — as well as trying to intercept Internet traffic, exploit zero-day flaws, seduce young and impressionable (and old and lonely) staffers, dig through trash, and everything else that has been part of spying since Ur and the Assyrians. So are the Americans. And the Israelis. And the Chinese. And the Germans and the French and pretty much everyone else.

(Just as an aside — if the Russians were hacking the DNC successfully, I wonder what happened to the clintonemail.com server…)

In the case of the Russians, though, we have something more, since we have a number of statements on the part of the DNI and the DCIA that there were active Russian attempts to hack U.S. servers. And I have sources of my own who confirm the intelligence community really does have good evidence the Russians were involved.

There’s another point here: while the Russians were trying to hack both parties, there are only some unsubstantiated assertions the hackers were successful with the RNC computers. The RNC has repeatedly denied they were successfully hacked.

WikiLeaks says they didn’t get the emails from the Russians. This is one of those things that we don’t know how to evaluate. WikiLeaks honestly has a pretty good record of their released data being the real thing. When Julian Assange and Craig Murray are willing to come out publicly and say they got these emails from a disgruntled DNC staffer disgusted with what happened to Sanders, we ought to at least consider it.

On the other hand, it’s exactly what we’d expect if Assange really were a front for Russian intelligence.

What to make of that? I don’t know.

What we can suspect. Now we come to the part where I dance. These are some things I find suspicious.

What is the evidence the Russians wanted to help Trump? As far as I can tell, the public evidence for this assertion is that derogatory information was leaked about the DNC and not the RNC. But then, the RNC tells us they weren’t actually hacked.
Why did the evaluation change so quickly? In October, there was no evidence the Russians were taking sides. On November 17, there was no evidence the Russians were taking sides. On December 9, the CIA (according to anonymous sources) had decided it was an effort to help Trump, but the FBI disagreed. By December 16, the FBI reportedly came around.Here’s one other thing we know: over that same interval, a Democrat-connected PR firm began a campaign to suborn electors.
It’s possible everyone involved is telling the truth. That is, the Russians really did hack the DNC, and a DNC insider really did leak the emails to WikiLeaks.

This is an article that, by the nature of things, doesn’t have any conclusions. There’s too much we don’t know. And yes, before someone starts up on “how dare you not trust the CIA?!,” I’m just going to tell you, it’s easy.

The CIA, like every other bureaucracy, suffers from the SNAFU principal: in most circumstances, bureaucrats will tell their bosses what they think the bosses want to hear. (Yes, this is not exactly the original SNAFU principal. For a longer exposition, see this Ignite talk I did some years ago.)

Intelligence assessments almost never say something with absolute certainty; they’re usually phrased to lay out all possibilities and then say which ones seem most probable. When you hear that the intelligence says something certainly — think “slam dunk” — it means the SNAFU principle is probably in action.

After all these years, though, I am pleased to see the strange new respect the CIA is getting from the Left.

Did the Russians or WikiLeaks or both “hack the election”?

Now, here’s where we run into a third version of the word “hack.” No one is asserting that the Black Hats, whoever they were, actually affected the voting. (Well, there was one person at New York Magazine suggesting computer scientists were suggesting this, but no one took it seriously, including the computer scientists he was misinterpreting.) All that anyone is suggesting is that publishing the emails may have led some people not to vote for Clinton.

What to make of all this?

Here, at last, we wrap around to the little parallel-universe story that started this piece. We know that a number of emails, ranging from embarrassing to really really embarrassing and possibly criminal, were exposed by WikiLeaks, and after that Clinton lost the election.

This isn’t the first time documents have been released — whether by “hacking” or old-fashioned leaking. Think back to the Pentagon Papers, which were leaked to the New York Times, and published. I don’t recall anyone at the time suggesting this was a threat to democracy, and even if it was, we seem to have survived. Certainly, repeated leakings of FBI investigations during Watergate were noble moments of journalistic perfection, not threats to democracy.

Now, we have leaked files that exposed real corruption in the DNC and real conspiracies against private citizens. We’re told this is an attack on our democracy. At the same time, there was an ongoing effort to lobby, coerce, even threaten electors to get them to change their votes in the Electoral College.

So you tell me what the bigger threat to democracy is: Revealing actual facts about the DNC and the Clinton campaign? Or trying to suborn the electors and change the election results?

Categories: 2016 elections, Clinton advisers, Clinton campaign, Clinton e-mails, Hacking, President Elect Trump, President Reject Clinton, Russian hacking
Tags: Clinton advisers, Clinton campaign, Clinton e-mails, Hacking, President Elect Trump, President Reject Clinton, Russian hacking

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Germany Begins Closing Down New Year’s Celebrations

December 31, 2016

Germany Begins Closing Down New Year’s Celebrations, Gates of Vienna, Baron Bodissey, December 29, 2016

passau-silvester

This is the way the implementation of Shariah law begins.

Don’t expect a conquering Islamic army to sweep into town, stage mass executions in front of city hall, and then post a proclamation declaring that Islamic Law will henceforward be the law of the land. That’s not how it works.

Shariah is instituted as a gradual, piecemeal process. First there is a hijra — a migration of Muslims into non-Muslim lands. Then, when Muslims are present in large enough numbers, they begin assaulting, raping, terrorizing, and killing anyone in their environs who does not follow the tenets of Shariah law — that is, all the kuffar. By these means the infidels are terrorized and “feel themselves subdued”. In order to be safe, they give up their blasphemous kafir celebrations of their own initiative, thereby bringing their behavior into line with Islamic Law. Eventually they conclude a dhimma or “pact” with Islam, and pay the jizya poll tax in order to be allowed to continue living. This makes them dhimmi, people who are inferior and subordinate to Muslims. If they want to live normally, they may decide to say the shahada (La illaha ila Allah, wa Muhammadun rasul Allah) and become Muslims themselves.

On New Year’s Eve last year in Cologne and other German cities, gangs of feral young immigrant men — mostly Muslims — went wild on the streets, groping, molesting, and raping native German women. In recent weeks authorities have been watching with apprehension the approach of December 31, especially since the truck jihad in Berlin on December 19.

And now some of the New Year’s Eve events are being cancelled. What you’ll notice about the following two reports is that the police would prefer that localities and organizations not give reasons for cancelling any events. They feel it’s better for “security” if traditions that go back decades, or even centuries, just disappear without any public explanation.

In the first report, Nash Montana summarizes an article from Der Bürgerblick Passau about the cancellation of the annual New Year’s Eve party on the bridge in Passau:

The city of Passau has cancelled its traditional Silvester (New Year’s Eve) “bridge party”. Up to 1,000 people annually celebrate on the bridge, which was named after King Ludwig I, then was renamed to “Marienbrücke” in WW2, and now is known as the Innbrücke.

A reporter accidentally overheard the mayor talking about the Silvester cancellation, and immediately published it on the Internet, prompting the mayor to make an official statement in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. The mayor cited a “broad public discussion about the security of large events” as the reason, a so-called abstract terror threat.

For his presser the Mayor Jürgen Dupper included this: “The cancellation of the Silvester celebration for 2016 is an uncomfortable but responsible decision. Of course nobody made the decision lightly — we all know how popular this party is, and how especially many citizens of Passau, especially young people, have waited all year for it. But circumstances being what they are, we see it as our duty not to provoke situations in which control could be lost. I appeal to all who are out on Silvester night to not make it harder for security personnel to do their job.”

Look back one week before the attack in Berlin:

“The concept has generally done well in past years, and therefore we don’t expect any changes for this year,” said the town council spokesperson Herbert Zillinger concerning the Silvester celebration on the bridge. The spokesperson for the police, Alexandra Lachhammer, added that “Passau is safe,” and explained that in any case, the number of security personnel could be increased.

Therefore it is clear that if Berlin hadn’t happened, the Passau Silvester party would not have been cancelled.

It’s also interesting to note that thousands of refugees who today live in Germany or in neighboring European countries passed over this bridge after Passau became “Germany’s Lampedusa” in the fall of 2015.

The second report is a direct translation by Nash Montana of an article in the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung about the cancellation of a Silvester event in Walsum:

For Security Reasons — Walsum Silvester Ball cancelled

Duisburg-Walsum. The Aldenrade-Fahrn 1837 Gun Club has cancelled this year’s Silvester Ball on Saturday, December 31st in the city hall in Walsum. Reason: It’s “impossible to provide security”. The traditional party has always been seen as a social highlight of the year in the city; it was sold out (550 seats).

North Africans asked for exits and security personnel

The Gun Club learned last Friday that two days before, during the sale of the tickets, “seven unknowns” had appeared who were interested in the Ball event. The nationality of the men is not known, but an informant from the police confirmed to the newspaper that the unknowns were North Africans.

However, the discussion only concerns four men. Apparently only one of the men spoke German, according to Gudrun Henne, the chief executive of the BSV Aldenrade-Fahrn [the Gun Club]. The one who spoke German tried to find out information about exits, and he asked if there would be security personnel on location. This, says Gudrun Henne, set off the alarm in her head, especially after the Berlin Christmas market attack. She has traditionally sold the tickets herself for decades.

Henne immediately reported it to the police, and they gave her a chart with “350 pictures of suspects” to look through. One man she could identify clearly. He lives in Düsseldorf and is a known criminal. The police did not make any statements, but have confirmed that State Security has been activated. Conclusive results are not available, however. [I guess by “conclusive results” they mean raped women and massacred people everywhere? — translator] The police spokesman Ramon von der Maat said: “From our point of view there is no reason to cancel this event.”

Gun Club didn’t want to take the chance, and cancelled the Ball

By Friday the members of the Gun Club “unanimously decided” to cancel the festivities, says And Heddenhausen, the depute chairman of the BSV. Even though it would have been an anniversary ball — forty years ago the first Ball took place. “We just couldn’t take the risk,” said Gudrun Henne on Tuesday, looking visibly concerned and distraught.

“We discussed this for a long time, and have given a lot of thought to security provisions,” she explains. But in the end the conclusion was reached: “We would have lost control.” The beginning of the festivities might have gone fine, but after the fireworks when hundreds of people would be coming back into the hall, things might have happened. The caterer and the artists reacted with great understanding. Rumors were spread, and that’s why the Gun Club decided to publish the reasoning for the cancellation, against the advice of the police, says Henne.

Categories: Civilization jihad, Clash of civilizations, Germany, Islamisation, Islamist objectives, Sharia law
Tags: Civilization jihad, Clash of civilizations, Germany, Islamisation, Islamist objectives, Sharia law

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Obama’s ‘Pro-Israel’ Presidency Is Fake News

December 31, 2016

Obama’s ‘Pro-Israel’ Presidency Is Fake News, CIJ News, Harry Khachatrian, December 30, 2016

Fake news isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, for the mainstream news media, it’s practically a business model. The media’s propagation of fake news vis-à-vis the notion that Barack Obama and his administration are remotely pro-Israel dates back to his initial run for office.

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The most asinine, demonstrable falsehoods of the 2016 presidential election is the idea that anti-Semitism is a prevailing concern in the left’s moral universe. Coming in at a close second is the notion that widespread “fake news” is what bludgeoned Hillary Clinton, leading to her electoral demise.

This earnestness to investigate, report on, and speak out against anti-Semitism from the mainstream media is oddly confined to headlines consisting solely of the words “Donald Trump” – or his occasional cabinet nominees.

Take for instance this gem from the Huffington Post. Actual headline: “How It’s ‘Absolutely’ Possible For Steve Bannon To Be Pro-Israel And Anti-Semitic”. Never mind the fact that the Huffington Post has no evidence.

Self-satire news outlet Salon chimed in with, “Jewish Americans are worried about the rise in anti-Semitism after this election cycle.”

Fake news isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, for the mainstream news media, it’s practically a business model. The media’s propagation of fake news vis-à-vis the notion that Barack Obama and his administration are remotely pro-Israel dates back to his initial run for office.

Obama’s close ties to former Jimmy Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski – who in an interview with Salon, accused Israeli Jews of “buying Congress’s influence” – were effectively ignored. Obama is on record (in 2007) praising Brzezinski as “someone I have learned an immense amount from.”

The Los Angeles Times to this day refuses to release a 2003 tape of Barack Obama praising Rashid Khalidi – whom the LA Times referred to as “a harsh critic of Israel”, and the New York Times dubs, “a passionate defender of Palestinian rights.” In a speech given to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Khalidi justified the Palestinian “resistance”: “[k]illing civilians is a war crime. It’s a violation of international law. They are not soldiers. They’re civilians, they’re unarmed. The ones who are armed, the ones who are soldiers, the ones who are in occupation, that’s different. That’s resistance.”

When Jeremiah Wright – whose church Obama attended for two decades – said in an interview, “them Jews ain’t going to let him [Obama] talk to me,” CNN’s Jake Tapper simply tweeted, “Rev Wright clarifies – meant to say ZIONISTS are keeping him fr talking to POTUS, not ‘Jews.’”

In the summer of 2014, when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped three Israeli teenagers, the State Department issued a statement calling “on all sides to exercise restraint.” Nowhere to be found was the mainstream media probing the Obama Administration’s unspeakable gall to treat genocidal zealots and a free society as moral equals.

More recently, Barack Obama and John Kerry unveiled their diplomatic climax, the Iran Deal. When it was revealed that the terror-sponsoring regime of Tehran would receive 150 billion dollars a year in sanctions relief, lifting of arms and missile embargoes (and more) all while the Mullah’s chanted “death to Israel,” the media was again on the job, acting as Obama’s personal PR firm. Abnegating any responsibility to report on the deal’s bleak implications, CNN instead focused their ire on Republican reaction to Obama’s diplomatic debacle with headlines like: “Huckabee Invokes Holocaust when Talking Iran Deal.”

Most recently, New York Times’ Thomas Friedman wrote a column in response to John Kerry’s late-December speech on his proposed plan for peace between Israelis and Arabs.

Friedman opens by “simplifying” for readers, the current tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the soon-to-be Former-President of the United States.

“Barack Obama and John Kerry admire and want to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel.”

If you’ve read this far, you understand why if there ever was one exemplar of fake news being propagated by the media, this is it.

He continues,

“…He [Benjamin Netanyahu] is unwilling to make any big, hard decision to advance or preserve a two-state solution if that decision in any way risks his leadership of Israel’s right-wing coalition or forces him to confront the Jewish settlers, who relentlessly push Israel deeper and deeper into the West Bank.”

This is the biggest falsehood about the Israeli/Arab conflict perpetuated by the left, ad nauseum. For all their preening over fake news, the left does an admirable job of spreading it themselves. Friedman suggests that Netanyahu’s steadfast persistence to put up condos in Israel’s capital, East Jerusalem, or claim to ownership of the Western Wall – which Barack Obama himself visited, shamefully wearing a yarmulke – is a greater roadblock in the peace process to the waves of rocket fire, stabbings, shootings and terror both incited and carried out by the Palestinian Arabs.

Recall that in 2009, after persistent pressures from the Obama administration, Netanyahu complied, announcing a settlement freeze. After Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas still refused to enter negotiations with Israel, Obama actually scolded Israel! Friedman somehow fails to acknowledge any of this.

Moreover, Friedman makes no mention of the fact that Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas has explicitly stated, “We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel.”

Earlier this December, Friedman wrote, “The standing ovation he [Benjamin Netanyahu] got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

If any Republican – let alone Donald Trump – had suggested Congress is controlled by the “Israel lobby,” CNN would’ve shoved aside their “Canonizing Obama’s Flawless Legacy of Flawlessness” programming in a heartbeat for the chyron, “Donald Trump: The Jews Run America.”

In fact, CNN’s Brian Stetler did just that amid the election. Taking comments from Donald Trump in which he accused Hillary Clinton of placing the interests of herself and her donors ahead of the country’s (which she does), he reported it as having “echoes of anti-Semitic rhetoric.” Is Stetler’s show named “Reliable Sources” purely out of irony?

There is a reason that liberal news media’s deep concerns for anti-Semitism are scarcer than Rabbis in the Gaza Strip when it comes to covering Barrack Obama and other Democrats. The left doesn’t actually care about anti-Semitism. They care about attacking conservatives. To the left, Jews are a privileged class of colonialists oppressing Palestinians. Israeli Jews don’t have the luxury of victim-status in the left’s worldview. Their safe spaces are bomb shelters in Haifa; not the pages of the New York Times.

Categories: "Fake news", Israel, Israeli security, Media and Obama, Obama and fake news, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Obama and peace, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's lies, Palestinian terrorists, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Tags: Israel, Israeli security, Obama and fake news, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Obama and peace, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's lies, Palestinian terrorists, UN and Israel, UN Security Council

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Turkish ‘Ministry of Religion’ promotes martyrdom to children in colorful comic strips

December 31, 2016

Turkish ‘Ministry of Religion’ promotes martyrdom to children in colorful comic strips

Published time: 3 Apr, 2016 22:32 Edited time: 4 Apr, 2016 10:22

Source: Turkish ‘Ministry of Religion’ promotes martyrdom to children in colorful comic strips — RT News

The latest issue of a children’s magazine published by Diyanet, the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs, which is a government agency and the highest national religious body, contains a series of cartoons glorifying Islamic martyrdom.

A colorful cartoon titled “may god bless our martyrs, may their graves be full with holy light” features dialogues between parents and children that promotes an idea of religious martyrdom. In one box of the comics, a father says to his son: “How good it is to be a martyr…” He also adds that martyrdom gives a person an opportunity “to gain the right to go to heaven.”

Children magazine published by Diyanet, -state's highest authority for religion- encourages children to "martyr". pic.twitter.com/0gCwPXwnmR

— Turkey Untold (@TurkeyUntold) March 28, 2016

In another box from the comics, a girl can be seen saying “I wish I could be a martyr.” “If you desire enough, Allah will give you that opportunity,” the mother in the box replies to the girl.

A statement near the last picture reads: “Our prophet says: a martyr feels the pain of dying as much as you feel pain when being pinched.”

Read more

Another statement attributed to Prophet Mohammed says: “A martyr would love to go back to the real world and be martyr 10 times more after the honoring and prestige they receive in the heaven.”

Psychologist and professor Dr. Serdar Degirmencioglu harshly criticized the latest issue of the Diyanet’s “Child Magazine” featuring the controversial comics, but said that introducing children into the ideas of radical Islam has long been part of the Turkish government’s policy.

“They want to use the drawings to transfer the message of martyrdom to children because they think it will be more attractive,” he said in an interview with the Turkish Evrensel newspaper adding that the idea of martyrdom promoted by the government describes it as a “painless death and a promise of heaven.”

“Religiosity has, in recent years, turned into a literal political tool. They do not even hide it. The Ministry of Religion was provided more money than several other ministries combined and continues intensive work for religious children,” he added.

Read more

The professor also equated the mentality promoted by such comics with the mentality of those who committed deadly terrorist attacks in Turkish Ankara and Suruc, as well as Brussels and Paris.

“Turkey is overwhelmed with the pain of these massacres and with those pursuing the mentality of religiosity. All this has led to the death of people. Exactly the same mentality that blinds people to the horrors is what the Presidency of Religious Affairs is trying to spread among the children in Turkey. The children will grow up and they will run toward death when those in power tell them to,” he told Evrensel.

Diyanet follows and promotes the orthodox Sunni Islam tradition not only in Turkey, but also abroad. On Saturday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated a new multimillion Diyanet Center of America, calling it the Turkish-American Center of Culture and Civilization.

A complex, which, according to the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper, contains “one of the largest Turkish mosques” alongside conference halls, basketball courts, a restaurant, Turkish bath and a cultural research center, was built by funds from Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs as well as some NGOs.

During the opening ceremony, Erdogan called the complex “a center of civilizations” and said that it would serve both American Muslims and people of other faiths, as well as promote Islam’s message of love and compassion.

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Tags: Islam, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Islamism, Terrorism, Turkey, USA

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Britain’s Little Lies

December 31, 2016

Britain’s Little Lies, Gatestone Institute, Douglas Murray, December 31, 2016

This is a serious category error for a Prime Minister to make. It puts critics of a religion on the same plane as people wanted for terrorism. It blurs the line between speech and action, and mixes people who call for violence with those who do not.

Only now, a fortnight later, has the true duplicity of Theresa May’s speech been exposed. For now the world has learned what diplomacy the British government was engaged in even as May was making her speech. At the same time as the Prime Minister was talking about “true friendship” in front of friends of Israel, her government was conspiring with the outgoing Obama administration to kick that friend in the back. The British government was exposed as being one of the key players intent on pushing through the anti-Israel UNSC Resolution 2334. British diplomats were revealed to have been behind the wording and rallying of allies for the resolution.

The British government, whilst saying that it remains committed to a peace deal that comes as a result of direct negotiations between the two sides, has its own preconditions for peace: a freeze on the building of what it calls “settlements.” They maintain this line despite the fact that settlements have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as “settlements.” Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, “settlements,” but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.

If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose anti-Semitism but pretend it is the same thing as “Islamophobia,” then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.

On December 12, the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, gave a fulsome speech to the annual Conservative Friends of Israel lunch. Before a roomful of 800 pro-Israel Conservative MPs and party supporters, she lavished praise on the Jewish state. She praised Israel’s achievements and castigated its enemies. She said that Britain would be marking the centenary of the Balfour declaration “with pride.” She also stressed that cooperation and friendship between Britain and Israel was not just for the good of those two countries, but “for the good of the world.”

For many of the people listening in the room, there were just two discordant notes. The first was related to the focus on anti-Semitism in May’s speech. As she used the opportunity rightly to lambaste the Labour party for its anti-Semitism problem, she extended the reach of her own claims for herself. While boasting of her success as Home Secretary in keeping out the prominent French anti-Semite Dieudonné and finally deporting the Salafist cleric Abu Qatada al-Filistini back to his native Jordan, she also used the opportunity to congratulate herself for banning Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Pastor Terry Jones from coming to the UK. “Islamophobia comes from the same wellspring of hatred” as anti-Semitism, she explained.

This is a serious category error for a Prime Minister to make. It puts critics of a religion, such as Geller and Spencer, on the same plane as people wanted for terrorism (Qatada). It blurs the line between speech and action, and mixes people who call for violence with those who do not. The comparison also fails to follow the consequences of its logic to its own illogical conclusion. The comparison fails to recognise that anyone who objects to Islamic anti-Semitism is immediately known as an “Islamophobe.” Therefore, someone hoping to come to Britain would have to accept being attacked by Muslim extremists for fear of being banned from entering the UK. These are serious and basic misunderstandings for a Prime Minister to propagate.

There was, however, a clear political sense to them. A Prime Minister in a country such as 21^stCentury Britain might believe that he or she has to be exceptionally careful not to appear to be criticising any one group of people or praising another too highly. So for the time being in Britain, a moral relativism continues to stagnate. If the Jewish community complains of anti-Semitism, then you must criticise anti-Semitism. If the Muslim community complains of “Islamophobia,” then you must criticise “Islamophobia.” To make value judgements might be to commit an act of political folly. Wise leaders in increasingly “diverse” societies must therefore position themselves midway between all communities, neither castigating nor over-praising, in order to keep as many people onside as possible.

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UK Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the annual Conservative Friends of Israel lunch, December 12, 2016. (Image source: Conservative Friends of Israel)

The same tactic brought the other discordant moment at the Prime Minister’s lunch — the same tactic brought to the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. For the other discordant note in May’s speech came when she mentioned Israeli settlement building. It was carefully placed in the speech, after a passage in which May congratulated her own Department for International Development (DfID) Minister, Priti Patel. In the days before the lunch, Patel had announced that DfID would carry out an investigation to determine whether British taxpayer money being sent to what May called “the Occupied Palestinian Territories” was being used to fund salaries for Palestinians convicted of terrorism offences against Israelis. Following this May said:

“When talking about global obligations, we must be honest with our friends, like Israel, because that is what true friendship is about. That is why we have been clear about building new, illegal settlements: it is wrong; it is not conducive to peace; and it must stop.”

The comment was received in silence and May moved on.

But this comment fitted in closely with the strategy of her other comment. For having lavished praise on Israel, a castigation apparently seemed necessary. It is wrong, but hardly possible for a British Prime Minister currently to do otherwise. If there are terrorists receiving funds from British taxpayers thanks to the largesse of the UK government, then this may — after many years of campaigning by anti-terrorism organisations — finally be “investigated.” However, throughout any such investigation, the British government, whilst saying that it remains committed to a peace deal that comes as a result of direct negotiations between the two sides, has for years announced its own preconditions for peace: a freeze on the building of what it calls “settlements.” They maintain this line despite the fact that settlements have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as “settlements.” Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow — in 1948, 1956, and 1967. The core problem is not, and never was, “settlements,” but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.

At the time of May’s speech, these two issues seemed like minor cavils to some and gained little notice. Only now, a fortnight later, has the true duplicity of the speech been exposed. For now the world has learned what diplomacy the British government was engaged in even as May was making her speech.

At the same time as the Prime Minister was talking about “true friendship” in front of friends of Israel, her government was conspiring with the outgoing Obama administration to kick that friend in the back. In the wake of the collapse of the Egyptian-sponsored initiative at the UN, the British government was exposed as being one of the key players intent on pushing through the anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334. British diplomats were revealed to have been behind the wording and rallying of allies for the resolution.

The most obvious interpretation of this fact is simply a reflection that friends do not kick friends in the back. Especially not in the world’s foremost international forum for kicking that particular friend. But some people are putting a kinder interpretation on the facts. The kindest to date is that the May government believes that a sterner line on the issue of Israeli settlements would give the British government more leverage with the Palestinians.

If that is so, then it seems that the May government will have to learn abroad the same lesson that they must learn at home. Both will come about because of the same strategic mistake: a reliance on the short-term convenience of what must seem at first to be only convenient little lies. The problem is that such little lies, when tested on the great seas of domestic and international affairs, have a tendency to come to grief with exceptional rapidity and ease.

Politicians are keen on taking stands. But if you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose anti-Semitism but pretend it is the same thing as “Islamophobia,” then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand for Israel while simultaneously conniving at the UN to undermine Israel, then your duplicity will be exposed and admiration for this and other stands will falter. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding. They have before — at home and abroad — and they will again.

Categories: Antisemitism, Britain, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Israel, Britain and UN Security Council resolution against Israel, Islamophobia, Israel, Israeli settlements, Theresa May and Islamists, Theresa May and Israel, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Tags: Antisemitism, Britain, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Israel, Britain and UN Security Council resolution against Israel, Islamophobia, Israel, Israeli settlements, Theresa May and Islamists, Theresa May and Israel, UN and Israel, UN Security Council

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Happy New Year

December 31, 2016

Happy New Year

Thanks to our readers, commenters , Joe, Dan

Let 2017 be better than 2016

Amazing firework display .

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Jews and others, there and here

December 31, 2016

Source: Jews and others, there and here – Blogs – Jerusalem Post

Ira Sharkansky

Caroline Glick is a staff writer for the Jerusalem Post, whose op-eds combine a shrill style with views somewhere on the right of the Israeli spectrum.

Often she writes about Israel and the Palestinians, and it is clear who she thinks is responsible for problems, and who should be able to exercise rights, where.

In a recent article, Ms Glick takes takes aim at what she sees developing in the American Jewish community. Her targets include Jews supporting Obama, Clinton, and others of the Democratic Party establishment, their embarrassment at the election of Donald Trump, and their angst about Trump’s nomination of David Friedman as the next US Ambassador to Israel.

What is distinctive and impressive in this article is her documentation of the move away from Jews of a prominent voice on the American left that calls itself Jewish, along with other organizations long seen as part of the American Jewish establishment.

Glick begins with the expected clash between Trump-Friedman and the established policy of the State Department, whose precedent-bound bureaucrats do not recognize Jerusalem as an Israeli city, and certainly not the national capital where the US Embassy should be located. It’ll take a while before we can judge how Friedman and Trump deal with a State Department led by an Exxon CEO, who’s made his career working with governments and economic elites elsewhere in the Middle East.

In Friedman’s repertoire are comments supporting extensive Israeli settlement throughout the West Bank, and comparing American Jewish leftists to the kapos used by the Nazis to control Jews.

Glick identifies JStreet, Americans for Peace Now, and the New Israel Fund as handmaidens of Arab governments and organizations whose primary target is Israel. She writes that since 2009 it has been known that “JStreet’s political action committee was lavishly funded by Arab American and Iranian American lobbyists and activists. The head of J Street’s campus outfit, J Street U, is a Muslim.” Moreover, JStreet’s executive director came from an organization that “was hired by a Qatari foundation to lead an 18-month long anti-Israel campaign in the US with a special focus on US campuses.”

Glick cites Jewish Federations of North America, Hadassah, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conservative and Reform movements for anti-Israel actions, and takes particular aim at Hillel, and especially a

“scandalous decision, announced at its annual conference earlier this month, to have Hillel organizations on campuses in the US champion Muslim rights on campuses. In other words, the premier Jewish organization on college campuses intends to champion the rights of the very students who stand at the forefront of the campus war against Jewish students.”

She also takes note of developments within the Democratic Party.

“With Rep. Keith Ellison’s sudden emergence as the front-runner to win next month’s election to serve as the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the far Left’s takeover of the Democratic Party is essentially complete. As a former member of the antisemitic Nation of Islam, and a major supporter and beneficiary of the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned leadership of the American Muslim community, Ellison’s rise means that the Democratic Party can no longer be viewed as a pro-Israel party.”

Things have gone further, with an intemperate speech by John Kerry and a shrill response by Benyamin Netanyahu. If we’re cousins, we’re in the midst of a feverish family squabble.

Kerry expressesd his obsessive version of a mantra we’ve heard for years from leftists Jews and others who insist that they are our friends. The essence is that we must do something. If we do not accept a two-state solution, with borders pretty close or identical to those of 1949, we’re destined to accept a one-state solution that could be either Jewish and non-democratic (i.e., Apartheid), or democratic but subject to an non-Jewish majority.

The equivalent nonsense would be to insist that the US and Mexico must unite, given US investments in Mexico, Mexicans living in the US, and the miseries suffered by Mexicans in Mexico.

There is nothing inevitable in politics or history. Indeed, Israelis have expressed what is a widely held posture toward Palestinians by building a wall and guarded transfer points that keep out or monitor the vast majority of Palestinians who want to enter Israel for work, visits, health care, or some other purpose..

What to do? i.e., other than moan the drift to the crazies of American Jewish organizations and the Democratic Party?.

Among the options are to ignore Obama, Kerry, and other extremists. They or individuals like them have long been part of what Jews suffer, enjoy, or tolerate. Polls continue to show substantial support for Israel among American Jews and non-Jews, especially those in the center and right of the political spectrum. Trump’s election and Friedman’s appointment signal a significant turn in the postures of the American government. Israeli rightists should not expect to realize the wettest of their dreams, but the country may be free to continue its moderate settlement policies and the kinds of actions–including occasional aggression–it has taken in national defense.

Beyond proposing dramatic ideas on a weekly or more frequent basis, the Palestinian leadership seems as far as ever from leading a united population or capable of reaching a formal agreement with Israel. Despite the frictions, there are numerous accommodations that allow both societies to exist alongside one another peacefully, most of the time. Israeli and West Bank Palestinian casualties from occasional violence–even during last year’s uptick–have been a fraction of what each community suffers from road accidents.

Individual Israelis may lament the carnage among Muslims throughout much of the Middle East. However, their bloodshed is more significant than the pursuit against Israel of leftist Jews and others in America, Israel, or elsewhere for their moral ideals. Not only can Israel anticipate that Muslim warfare will keep those hating us most busy for years to come, but the worries and pragmatism of moderate Muslim governments has expanded those with whom Israel can cooperate.

Recent incidents in Germany, Switzerland, and Jordan, along with continued carnage in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya have provided more than enough non-Israel busy work for diplomats, politicians, and commentators.

Obama’s failure to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements, then the nastiness of Kerry and Bibi will keep us and American Jews busy for some time.

Spokespeople for Obama, Kerry and Netanyahu are blaming one another for a breakdown in communications and cooperation. Israelis beyond those usually on the right are accusing the American President and Secretary of State of betraying us, and “pissing on the party” of his political opponent who won the election, and has staked out a different policy on Israeli settlements.

Palestinians are celebrating what they see as international recognition of the justice inherent in their demands, without taking account of the US adherence, at least formally, to the idea of not imposing a future without waiting for negotiations between the parties.

The Security Council resolution and subsequent comments and tweets may do no more than add to the pile of cross national verbiage.. Yet if it provokes Palestinian aggression, Israeli countermeasures in the West Bank may replace a period of accommodation with one of serious warfare. If that occurs, the final month of the Obama Administration will be compared with a foolhardy Cairo speech of its first year, which contributed initially to Arab Spring but then to the greater wave–still at its height–of Arab Winter.

Israel may have to tolerate nastiness from Jewish and non-Jewish elites who consider themselves better judges than Israelis about what Israel must do. In the assessment of who suffers from the blather, it appears that Americans who pay upwards of $50K a year for their kids to absorb anti-Semitism lose more than Israelis in what happens on high prestige campuses.

We have to live alongside extremist Jews and others of the left and right. The noise, and occasionally worse, has long been part of the Jewish phenomena, and shows no sign of going away.

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