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North Korea: China ‘Dancing to the Tune of the U.S.’ with ‘Absurd’ Opposition to Nuclear Program

May 5, 2017

North Korea: China ‘Dancing to the Tune of the U.S.’ with ‘Absurd’ Opposition to Nuclear Program, Breitbart, John Hayward, May 4, 2017

AFP PHOTO / KCNA via KNS REPUBLIC OF KOREA

North Korea is a bottomless fountain of apocalyptic threats against the U.S. and its allies, but on Wednesday, its state-run media lashed out against China with unprecedented fury, accusing the Chinese of “dancing to the tune of the U.S.” with “absurd and reckless remarks” about Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

The North Korean outburst was prompted by a string of editorials in China’s similarly state-controlled media which “criticized the North’s nuclear weapons program and called for Beijing to cut off oil supplies if the North conducted another nuclear test,” as the New York Times summarizes them.

“One must clearly understand that the DPRK’s line of access to nukes for the existence and development of the country can neither be changed nor shaken, and that the DPRK will never beg for the maintenance of friendship with China, risking its nuclear program which is as precious as its own life, no matter how valuable the friendship is,” snarled the unusually harsh response from North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper. (“DPRK” is North Korea’s name for itself, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.)

“China should no longer try to test the limits of the DPRK’s patience. China had better ponder over the grave consequences to be entailed by its reckless act of chopping down the pillar of the DPRK-China relations,” the op-ed continued.

North Korea accused China of providing “lame excuses for the base acts of dancing to the tune of the U.S.” and betraying Pyongyang’s friendship “in order to avert a war which would bring danger to China.” It railed against “absurd and reckless remarks” from “ignorant politicians and media persons” in China.

“We didn’t cross the ‘red line’ of the (North Korea)-China relationship. China is violently stomping on and crossing it without hesitation,” declared another passage spotlighted by CNN.

The editorial specifically complained about “rubbish” in Chinese publications accusing North Korea of creating tensions in northeast Asia and giving the United States “excuses for deploying more strategic assets.”

On the contrary, China should “acknowledge in an honest manner that the DPRK has just contributed to protecting peace and security of China, foiling the U.S. scheme for aggression by waging a hard fight in the front line of the showdown with the U.S. for more than seven decades, and thank the DPRK for it,” according to the North Korean paper.

The New York Times notes that this broadside was not an unsigned editorial from the editors at large but was attributed to a specific author named Kim Chol.

Of course, no one would imagine such a provocative article could be published by any North Korean outfit without the blessing of dictator Kim Jong-un, but putting a single name on the piece gives North Korea a little wiggle room to disavow its harsh words if China objects too strongly or does whatever is needed to calm the Kim regime down. In either of those eventualities, it is a safe bet that someone in Pyongyang named “Kim Chol” will have a very bad day.

Another cushion for the blow noted by the NYT is that Kim Chol’s op-ed did not castigate the government of China or the Communist Party per se; the fiery criticism was directed at Chinese media – which, of course, is only slightly more independent of the government and ruling party than North Korean media.

North Korean editorialists have grumbled about Chinese policy before, but it usually takes the important precaution of leaving China’s name out of the editorials, referring vaguely to a “neighboring country.”

Indications that China might decide to handle North Korea’s outburst with kid gloves quickly appeared. The Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed both Beijing’s “consistent and clear” position on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula and “good-neighborly and friendly relations with the DPRK.”

China’s Communist Party organ, the Global Times, at first responded with some soothing noises about the marvelous friendship between Beijing and Pyongyang, slipping in a few barbs about the importance of denuclearization, China’s unwillingness to “allow its northeastern region to be contaminated by North Korea’s nuclear activities,” and a little reminder that North Korea would have been defeated by South Korea and the United States in the 1950s without Chinese intervention.

On Thursday, the Global Times directly addressed the Kim Chol editorial, very pointedly observing it was the first time China was specifically named in such a tirade.

“Overall, the editorial is nothing more than a hyper-aggressive piece completely filled with nationalistic passion,” sniffed the Global Times. “Pyongyang obviously is grappling with some form of irrational logic over its nuclear program.”

The editorial goes on to tell North Korean media to pipe down while officials in Beijing and Pyongyang hammer out their policy differences through “higher levels of dialogue with one another.” A half-dozen passages in the Global Times response boil down to condescending advice that North Korean is making its situation worse by publicly criticizing China.

“The direction of China-North Korea relations remains in the hands of China. Whether KCNA editorials mention China or Chinese media by name or not, those missions will not change the inherent logic and trend of a relationship that has been in place for over six decades. The more editorials KCNA publishes, the better Chinese society will be able to understand how Pyongyang thinks, and how hard it is to solve this nuclear issue,” the concluding paragraph reads.

Another commentary published by Rodong Sinmun on Wednesday warns Japan that it would be “blanketed with radioactive clouds if a nuclear war occurs on the Korean peninsula.”

“Not only those who try to harm us but their supporters will not be safe if any war breaks out,” this op-ed stated, adding that it would be a “piece of cake” for North Korea’s military to devastate Japan.

Categories: China and North Korea, Chinese media, North Korean media, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes
Tags: China and North Korea, Chinese media, North Korean media, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes

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FBI Study: Police Scared, Demoralized, Less Proactive Due to Anti-Cop Activism

May 5, 2017

FBI Study: Police Scared, Demoralized, Less Proactive Due to Anti-Cop Activism, Washington Free Beacon, Charles Fain Lehman, May 5, 2017

Dallas police chief David Brown, center, takes part in a candle light vigil at City Hall, Monday, July 11, 2016, in Dallas / AP

In surveying assailants, there were two expressed reasons for their actions: “a desire to kill law enforcement,” and the fear that the assailant was “going to lose their freedom by going back to jail or prison.”

Police are increasingly “scared and demoralized,” and avoid engagement with communities where they are not trusted and defiance and hostility are the norm.

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Police officers are “scared and demoralized” and have reduced “proactive policing” due to intense criticism from the public and national politicians amid heightened anti-cop activism, according to a recent FBI study.

The demoralization is in part due to the spike in attacks on police last year, which is partly driven by an anti-police narrative spread by the media and not discouraged by elected officials, the agency found.

The report, titled “Assailant Study–Mindsets and Behaviors,” was first reported Thursday by the Washington Times. It was written in April, according to FBI spokesman Matthew Bertron, and examined 50 of the 53 incidents last year in which police officers were killed on duty.

The report comes at a time when the killing of police officers is conspicuous in the news. Last summer, five officers were killed in Dallas and three in Baton Rouge in the wake of the shooting death of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police. These were two of the most high-profile incidents; 135 law enforcement officers were killed in 2016, a 10 percent increase from the prior year and the highest total since 2011, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

The main cause of officers’ deaths was firearms-related incidents, with 64 being shot and killed, representing a a 56 percent spike from 2015. Among those shootings, 21 deaths were due to ambush-style attacks, including the deaths in Dallas and Baton Rouge. The NLEOMF said this was the highest total in more than two decades.

The FBI report, which focused on “mindsets and behaviors,” broke down the thinking that inspired attacks on police, as well as the underlying factors that it believes drove them. In surveying assailants, there were two expressed reasons for their actions: “a desire to kill law enforcement,” and the fear that the assailant was “going to lose their freedom by going back to jail or prison.”

The former category, containing 28 percent of assailants, included those with social or political reasons for attacking officers, as well as a general hatred of police. This group included the ambushers in the Dallas and Baton Rouge killings, who, according to the report, “said they were influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement, and their belief that law enforcement was targeting black males.”

Assailants motivated by social or political reasons or hatred of the police often expressed their views on social media or told friends and family before their attack. In general, the desire to “get justice” for those they believed were unjustly killed by police was a major driving force in the decision to attack.

The study further highlighted the negative impact of highly scrutinized police incidents over the past few years.

“Specifically, the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, and the social disturbances that followed, initiated a movement that some perceived made it socially acceptable to challenge and discredit the actions of law enforcement,” the report stated.

“This attitude was fueled by the narrative of police misconduct and excessive force perpetuated through politicians and the media,” it continued. “Assailants were constantly exposed to a singular narrative by news organizations and social media of police misconduct and wrong-doing,” which elected officials did little to disrupt.

This narrative led, for example, to an officer afraid to shoot an assailant who had slammed him to the ground and was beating him. According to the report, the officer did not shoot the assailant because of not wanting his or her “family or the department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on the national news.”

The problem is compounded by what the report called a “turnstile justice system,” with criminal justice reform bills, including decriminalization and reducing penalties for drug use, driving an increased rate of release for criminals. This factor, the report argued, leads to criminals doubting the severity of punishments for wrongdoing, especially while under the influence of drugs.

This intersection of narrative and decreased effectiveness of the justice system causes what the report called “de-policing”: police making “the conscious decision to stop engaging in proactive policing.” Police are increasingly “scared and demoralized,” and avoid engagement with communities where they are not trusted and defiance and hostility are the norm.

De-policing, the report warned, led to a state of affairs where police were “purely reactive,” unwilling to engage with distrustful communities and cowed by a critical news media.

Across the 50 assailants examined, several common features were apparent. Eighty-six percent had prior criminal histories, and 56 percent were “known to the local police or sheriff’s department.” Twenty-four percent had known gang affiliations, 44 percent had a history of domestic violence, 26 percent had active warrants, and 32 percent were on probation or parole.

Demographically, all of the assailants were male. Nearly half, 48 percent, were white, 36 percent were black, 14 percent Hispanic, and 2 percent were Alaskan native.

Moreover, 18 percent had “diagnosed mental health issues,” but “mental health concerns were anecdotally identified” in 40 percent of cases. Sixty percent had a history of drug use, with at 32 percent under the influence at the time of the incident.

Categories: Law enforcement, Lawlessness, Media and law enforcement
Tags: Law enforcement, Lawlessness, Media and law enforcement

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Waldheimer’s Disease Returns

May 5, 2017

Waldheimer’s Disease Returns, Front Page Magazine, Lloyd Billingsley, May 5, 2017

The triumph of forgetting over memory.

As Joseph Klein recently noted, the United Nations is “once again sticking its nose into the domestic affairs of the United States” with a letter from Lithuanian psychiatrist Dainius Puras. The UN’s “Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest standard of heath care” warns that replacement of the Affordable Care Act would strip Americans of their rights and is therefore “not permissible” under international law.

“The U.S. Constitution vests no authority whatsoever in a UN Special Rapporteur with a mouthful of a title,” Klein explained. The interference, he argued, gave President Trump another reason to pull out of the UN “Human Rights Council” and withdraw funding. The president would do well to consider such a move, but there is a serious medical issue in play here.

Kurt Waldheim, UN Secretary General from 1972-1982, was a Nazi war criminal. He joined the National Socialist German Students League at age 19 and moved on to the SA, a Nazi storm trooper organization. During World War II, Waldheim served in units that executed thousands of Yugoslav partisans and deported thousands of Greek Jews to death camps.

As one wag put it, the UN boss suffered from “Waldheimer’s Disease,” a degenerative condition that made the patient forget he was a Nazi. A new strain of this disease is now causing citizens and politicians alike to forget how loathsome the United Nations really is. For example, take the United Nations’ Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.

As the Los Angeles Times noted back in 1990 “UNESCO’s obsession with the Palestine Liberation Organization reflects less a concern for the rights of the unhappy Palestinians than it does a habitual hostility to the Jewish state.” The hostility had a lot to do with UNESCO boss Amabou M’Bow, a corrupt Senegalese buffoon who spent 80 percent of the UNESCO budget at its Paris headquarters, where M’Bow and his family lived in a rent-free luxury penthouse.

M’Bow, co-author with Ali Kettani of Islam and Muslims in the American Continent, hated modern non-Muslim countries. As Joseph Klein noted in Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations and Radical Islam, M’Bow used his position with UNESCO to evangelize for Islam.

M’Bow reserved special hated for the United States, where freedom of speech and the press prevailed. His pet project was the New World Information and Communication Order, a grandiose scheme for press censorship on a global scale. That prompted Ronald Reagan to pull the United States out of UNESCO, which many have forgotten, if they knew about it in the first place.

The United Nations was also a promoter of the “North-South Economic Dialogue.” As Paul Johnson noted in Modern Times, 11 of the “South” states, including Mexico, Venezuela and Pakistan, were north of the equator, and one, Saudi Arabia, had the world’s highest per-capita income. Australia, the only continent entirely in the southern hemisphere, was considered “North.” The entire Soviet Bloc, entirely in the northern hemisphere, was omitted altogether. “The concept was meaningless, except for purposes of political abuse,” Johnson wrote, and “inevitably, America was presented as the primary villain in the North-South melodrama.” And the UN has never lacked for intrigue.

One of UN’s key architects was Alger Hiss, a key Stalinist spy in the U.S. State Department. After Yalta, Hiss’ primary mission was establishing the United Nations, and Hiss was duly appointed acting Secretary General at the founding UN conference in San Francisco in 1945. There Stalinist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who joined the Communist Party during the Stalin-Hitler Pact, ghosted the speech of U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius.

Trumbo had been tapped for the job by Hiss, who was also involved in selecting some 250 UN employees. So no surprise that when Communists commit mass murder, the UN looks the other way.

From 1975-1979, as John Barron and Anthony Paul documented in Murder of a Gentle Land: The Untold Story of Communist Genocide in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge murdered nearly two million people, approximately one-fourth of the population. During that onslaught, the Communists murdered thousands of babies by smashing their heads against a tree, and they forced prisoners to dig their own graves before killing them with clubs to save bullets.

The United Nations did not condemn the Khmer Rouge until 1988, and the UN failed to establish any kind of tribunal for the genocide. On the other hand, the United Nations voted 23 times to condemn the U.S. embargo against Cuba, a longstanding Sado-Stalinst dictatorship that plunged a prosperous nation to sub-Third World levels of poverty.

Many in the old-line establishment media seem to have forgotten all that, a symptom of Waldheimer’s Disease which causes forgetting to override memory. The best cure comes from Milan Kundera: “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” For that cure to work, however, the patient has to know what happened in the first place.

Journalists can’t remember something of which they have no knowledge, and as Ben Rhodes explained, many of the younger crowd “literally know nothing.” Worse, many don’t want to know anything that might conflict with their politically correct vision.

When the UN’s surge to save Obamacare came to light, the old-line media showed no curiosity about Special Rapporteur Dainius Puras. What was this shrink doing during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania? How much was the UN paying him? Who tasked him to stick his nose in U.S. business? In similar style, nobody in the old-line media recalled that a Nazi war criminal ran the UN for a decade and stepped out in fine style.

Kurt Waldheim still got a $124,754-a-year lifetime UN pension, paid in the currency of his choice, all part of his $2.3 million retirement haul. Most of that was provided by US taxpayers, still the major funders of a corrupt anti-American talk shop that now seeks to block health reform.

That gives President Trump good reason to cut back on contributions. The UN’s overall record makes a strong case for U.S. withdrawal and reparations.

Categories: UN - a brief history, UN and American health care
Tags: UN - a brief history, UN and American health care

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Europe: More Migrants Coming

May 5, 2017

Europe: More Migrants Coming, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, May 5, 2017

Müller added that only 10% of those currently on the move have reached Europe: “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.”

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“In terms of public order and internal security, I simply need to know who is coming to our country.” — Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka.

Turkey appears determined to flood Europe with migrants either way: with Europe’s permission by means of visa-free travel, or without Europe’s permission, as retribution for failing to provide visa-free travel.

The migrants arriving in Italy are overwhelmingly economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Only a very small number appear to be legitimate asylum seekers or refugees fleeing warzones.

The director of the UN office in Geneva, Michael Møller, has warned that Europe must prepare for the arrival of millions more migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The European Union has called on its member states to lift border controls — introduced at the height of the migration crisis in September 2015 — within the next six months.

The return to open borders, which would allow for passport-free travel across the EU, comes at a time when the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean continues to rise, and when Turkish authorities increasingly have been threatening to renege on a border deal that has lessened the flow of migrants from Turkey to Europe.

Critics say that lifting the border controls now could trigger another, even greater, migration crisis by encouraging potentially millions of new migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to begin making their way to Europe. It would also allow jihadists to cross European borders undetected to carry out attacks when and where they wish.

At a press conference in Brussels on May 2, the EU Commissioner in charge of migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, called on Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden — among the wealthiest and most sought after destinations in Europe for migrants — to phase out the temporary controls currently in place at their internal Schengen borders over the next six months.

The so-called Schengen Agreement, which took effect in March 1995, abolished many of the EU’s internal borders, enabling passport-free movement across most of the bloc. The Schengen Agreement, along with the single European currency, are fundamental pillars of the European Union and essential building-blocks for constructing a United States of Europe. With the long-term sustainability of the single currency and open borders in question, advocates of European federalism are keen to preserve both.

Avramopoulos, who argued that border controls are “not in the European spirit of solidarity and cooperation,” said:

“The time has come to take the last concrete steps to gradually return to a normal functioning of the Schengen Area. This is our goal, and it remains unchanged. A fully functioning Schengen area, free from internal border controls. Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project. We must do everything to protect it.”

The temporary border controls were established in September 2015, after hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived in Europe, and when EU member states, led by Germany, gave special permission to some EU countries to impose emergency controls for up to two years. Since then, the European Union has approved six-month extensions of controls at the German-Austrian border, at Austria’s frontiers with Hungary and Slovenia and at Danish, Swedish and Norwegian borders. (Norway is a member of Schengen but not the EU.) Since then, several countries have argued that they need border controls to combat the threat of Islamic militancy.

On May 2, Sweden, which claims to conduct the most border checks among the EU countries, announced that it will lift controls at its border with Denmark. Sweden received 81,000 asylum seekers in 2014; 163,000 in 2015; 29,000 in 2016, and the same is expected for 2017.

On April 26, Austria called for an indefinite extension of border controls. “In terms of public order and internal security, I simply need to know who is coming to our country,” Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said. Austria, which accepted some 90,000 migrants in 2015, also called for a “postponement” of the EU refugee distribution program, which requires EU member states to accept a mandatory and proportional distribution of asylum-seekers who arrive in other member nations.

On March 9, Norway extended border controls for another three months.

On January 26, Denmark extended border controls for another four months. Integration Minister Inger Støjberg said that his government would extend its border controls “until European borders are under control.”

On January 19, Germany and Austria announced that border controls between their countries would continue indefinitely, “as long as the EU external border is not adequately protected.”

Meanwhile, the number of migrants making their way to Europe is once again trending higher. Of the 30,465 migrants who reached Europe during the first quarter of 2017, 24,292 (80%) arrived in Italy, 4,407 arrived in Greece, 1,510 arrived in Spain and 256 arrived in Bulgaria, according to the International Office for Migration (IOM).

By way of comparison, the number of arrivals to Europe during each of the first three months of 2017 exceeded those who arrived during the same time period in 2015, the year in which migration to Europe reached unprecedented levels.

The trend is expected to continue throughout 2017. Better weather is already bringing about a surge of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Europe. During just one week in April, for example, a total of 9,661 migrants reached the shores of Italy.

The migrants arriving there are overwhelmingly economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Only a very small number appear to be legitimate asylum seekers or refugees fleeing warzones. According to the IOM, the migrants who reached Italy during the first three months of 2017 are, in descending order, from: Guinea, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Somalia and Eritrea.

In February, Italy reached a deal with the UN-backed government in Tripoli to hold migrants in camps in Libya in exchange for money to fight human traffickers. The agreement was endorsed by both the European Union and Germany.

On May 2, however, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel reversed course by saying the deal ignored the “catastrophic conditions” in Libya and would not curb migration. He said that Germany now favored tackling migration by fighting instability in Africa:

“What we are trying instead is to help stabilize the countries on the continent. But that is difficult. We will have to show staying power, stamina and patience. This is in the interest of Africans but also in the interest of Europeans.”

Gabriel’s long-term solution — which in the best of circumstances could take decades to bear fruit — implies that mass migration from Africa to Europe will continue unabated for many years to come.

Italy has emerged as Europe’s main point of entry for migrants largely because of an agreement the European Union signed with Turkey in March 2016 to stem migration from Turkey to Greece. In recent weeks, however, Turkish authorities have threatened to back out of the deal because, according to them, the EU has failed to honor its end of the bargain.

Under the agreement, the EU pledged to pay Turkey €3 billion ($3.4 billion), as well as grant visa-free travel to Europe for Turkey’s 78 million citizens, and to restart accession talks for Turkey to join the bloc. In exchange, Turkey agreed to take back all migrants and refugees who reach Greece via Turkey.

After the deal was reached, the number of migrants reaching Greece dropped sharply, although not completely. According to data supplied by the European Union on April 12, a total of 30,565 migrants reached Greece since the migrant deal took effect. Only 944 of those migrants have been returned to Turkey. Still, this is in sharp contrast to the hundreds of thousands of migrants who entered Greece at the height of the migration crisis. Turkey’s continued cooperation is essential to keep the migration floodgates closed.

On April 22, Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs, Ömer Çelik, issued an ultimatum, warning the European Union that if it does not grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel by the end of May, Turkey would suspend the migrant deal and flood Europe with migrants.

On March 17, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu warned that his country would “blow the mind” of Europe and renege on the deal by sending 15,000 Syrian refugees a month to Europe:

“We have a readmission deal. I’m telling you Europe, do you have that courage? If you want, we’ll send the 15,000 refugees to you that we don’t send each month and blow your mind. You have to keep in mind that you can’t design a game in this region apart from Turkey.”

In February 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had already threatened to send millions of migrants to Europe. “We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses,” he told European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. In a speech, he signaled that he was running out of patience:

“We do not have the word ‘idiot’ written on our foreheads. We will be patient, but we will do what we have to. Don’t think that the planes and the buses are there for nothing.”

In February 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (left) threatened to send millions of migrants to Europe. “We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses,” he told Jean-Claude Juncker (right), President of the European Commission. (Image source: Turkish President’s Office)

European officials say that to qualify for the visa waiver, Turkey must meet 72 conditions, including the most important one: relaxing its stringent anti-terrorism laws, which are being used to silence critics of Erdoğan, especially since the failed coup in July 2016. Turkey has vowed not to comply with the EU’s demands.

Critics of visa liberalization fear that millions of Turkish nationals may end up migrating to Europe. The Austrian newsmagazine, Wochenblick, recently reported that 11 million Turks are living in poverty and “many of them are dreaming of moving to central Europe.”

Other analysts believe Erdoğan views the visa waiver as an opportunity to “export” Turkey’s “Kurdish Problem” to Germany. According to Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder, millions of Kurds are poised to take advantage of the visa waiver to flee to Germany to escape persecution at the hands of Erdoğan: “We are importing an internal Turkish conflict,” he warned. “In the end, fewer migrants may arrive by boat, but more will arrive by airplane.”

The European Union now finds itself in a Catch-22 situation. Turkey appears determined to flood Europe with migrants either way: with Europe’s permission by means of visa-free travel, or without Europe’s permission, as retribution for failing to provide visa-free travel.

Greek officials recently revealed that they have drawn up emergency plans to cope with a new migrant crisis. Turkey is hosting some three million migrants from Syria and Iraq, many of whom are presumably waiting for an opportunity to flee to Europe.

Italy is also bracing for the worst. Up to a million people, mainly from Bangladesh, Egypt, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan and Syria are now in Libya waiting to cross the Mediterranean Sea, according to the IOM.

The director of the United Nations office in Geneva, Michael Møller, has warned that Europe must prepare for the arrival of millions more migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In an interview with The Times, Møller, a Dane, said:

“What we have been seeing is one of the biggest human migrations in history. And it’s just going to accelerate. Young people all have cellphones and they can see what’s happening in other parts of the world, and that acts as a magnet.”

German Development Minister Gerd Müller has echoed that warning:

“The biggest migration movements are still ahead: Africa’s population will double in the next decades. A country like Egypt will grow to 100 million people, Nigeria to 400 million. In our digital age with the internet and mobile phones, everyone knows about our prosperity and lifestyle.”

Müller added that only 10% of those currently on the move have reached Europe: “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.”

Categories: Erdogan, European Union, Islamic invasion, Turkey and Europe, Turkey and human rights, Turkish immigrants, Turks in Europe, Visa-free travel for Turks
Tags: Erdogan, European Union, Islamic invasion, Turkey and Europe, Turkey and human rights, Turkish immigrants, Turks in Europe, Visa-free travel for Turks

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Bazian Uses Islamist Convention to Push “Islamophobia” Scare

May 5, 2017

Bazian Uses Islamist Convention to Push “Islamophobia” Scare, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, May 5, 2017

Bazian’s effort to accuse “Islamophobes” of a racist clash of civilizations at the MAS-ICNA conference and on other occasions distracts from the Islamists’ stated desire to supplant Western civilization.

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University of California, Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian has made a career out of demonizing critics as Islamophobes and flipping the script, arguing jihad is not the problem, but its critics are. He accuses opponents of promoting a type of McCarthyism and a racist clash of civilizations against Muslims.

“…Islamophobia comes in as a way to rationalize a clash of civilizations, using cultural markers as a way of constructing difference,” Bazian said in a speech last month at the Muslim American Society’s (MAS) joint conference with the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) held in Baltimore. “Let me say the following: Cultural racism is another signpost for biological racism.”

Bazian’s anti-Semitism runs deep. As a San Francisco State University (SFSU) student in the late 1980s and early 1990s he campaigned against Hillel, the student Jewish organization. He allegedly participated in an assault on the SFSU campus newspaper, The Golden Gator, claiming it was filled with “Jewish spies,” a 2011 Campus Watch report said. Bazian also allegedly worked to prevent a Jewish student from being appointed to the Student Judicial Council. He also served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), which was aligned with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Bazian has a long association with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to isolate Israel. He helped found Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in 2001 as an outgrowth of GUPS; SJP is known for its pro-Hamas stance and anti-Semitic acts such as disrupting an on-campus Holocaust remembrance event at Northwestern University. In recent years, Bazian has served as chairman of the national board of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). It is closely connected with groups that comprised the Muslim Brotherhood’s defunct anti-Israel network in the United States called the Palestine Committee. Bazian also raised money for KindHearts, a Hamas front whose assets were frozen by the U.S. government in 2006.

Bazian’s Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project that he founded in 2009 churns out academic papers through its Islamophobia Studies Journal that blames the West for terrorism. He also helped found Zaytuna College, the first Muslim liberal arts college in America.

For Bazian, screaming “Islamophobia” is a way to build a smokescreen against inconvenient truths when debating the facts about Islamist aggression.

Some in the Islamic community, such as California Imam Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad, contend the entire concept of Islamophobia is about shirking responsibility.

“By declaring [Islamophobia], the number one threat to Islam and Muslims in the United States, we effectively bypass the central doctrines of self accountability, and moral fortitude; principles upon which our faith is founded,” Ahmad wrote in The Lotus Tree Blog in 2010. “The sooner we wake up and take an intrepid and honest look at ourselves, the better.”

Bazian’s hosts for his recent speech have their own ties to international Islamist movements.

Prosecutors describe MAS as the “overt arm” of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., and it has been alleged to have financial ties to Hamas. ICNA retains a strong spiritual connection with Islamist pioneer Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi, founder of the radical South Asian Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami. In his book Jihad in Islam, Maududi argues that Muslims should destroy “all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it.” ICNA’s 2010 Member’s Hand Book advocates the “struggle for Iqamat-ad-Deen,” or the establishment of Islam in its totality, “in this land.”

In his MAS-ICNA remarks, Bazian specifically named Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson, Pamela Geller, David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes as drivers of the “Islamophobic industry” dedicated to preserving Israel’s interests.

Playing off the foundations of Islam, Bazian defined the “five pillars of Islamophobia” starting with the government’s “constant war on terrorism that defines it as a war on Islamic terrorism.” He misleadingly cited data to argue that Muslims are responsible for only 4 percent of terrorism in the United States and Europe. He did not cite a source for his data, but did note that it covered a period ending in 1995 – before al-Qaida, ISIS, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and other Islamist terrorist movements that have recruited westerners and attacked Western targets.

Other “pillars” Bazian mentioned include the counter-jihad movement, neo-conservatives and liberal interventionists. But Bazian’s emphasis on “Islamophobes” is to be expected. One cannot expect to attract funding for an Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project without concocting the frightening specter of “Islamophobes.”

Bazian similarly denounced Emerson, Pipes and Geller following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings for connecting the bombings to jihad before the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the attacks were identified.

“…[The] crime of the terrorist is immediate, while that of the Islamophobes is long-lasting, for it creates and impresses on our collective public mind the logic of hate and racism …,” Bazian wrote in an academic paper called “Boston Bombing, Islamophobia and Sudden Ignorance Syndrome.”

But this was no wild leap of logic. The pressure-cooker bombs used in Boston were just like those recommended by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s English language magazine, Inspire. Dhzokhar Tsarnaev later told investigators he and his brother, Tamerlan, got their idea for the bombs from the magazine.

In Bazian’s world, however, it’s Islamophobic and racist to connect violent and imperialistic interpretations of Islam to acts of terrorism today. The Tsarnaevs, indeed, were the bombers, he acknowledged. “But the Islamophobic machine committed crimes against our collective consciousness by exploiting the suffering and pain of our fellow citizens.”

Much of his MAS-ICNA speech was spent attacking Samuel Huntington’s 1993 essay, “The Clash of Civilizations?” which predicted global conflict would be driven more by cultural differences than ideology and economics.

Bazian dismisses this as a “clash of ignorance,” arguing that the past sins of white Western Christians are more important to discuss than jihadist terror.

“Bernard Lewis’ question about Islam of ‘What Went Wrong?’ should be asked in relation to European history with emphasis on the Inquisition, genocide of the Natives in the Americas, the European Trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonization, 8 Apartheid South Africa, WWI and WWII, with the good White Aryan Christian Europeans responsible for the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons against civilians recorded in history to this day,” Bazian wrote.

Then as now, Bazian charged that “Islamophobes” relished in a clash of civilizations.

“It’s interesting that repeated aggressions by Islamists, both violent and non-violent [including Bazian’s speech] don’t count for anything, while criticism of Islamists is used to say that the Bill of Rights is being rescinded,” Pipes told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. “That’s highly untenable considering that we’re not the cause of jihad.”

Islamophobia has nothing to do with misunderstanding Islam or Muslims integrating into Western societies, Bazian said at the MAS-ICNA convention. It’s about protecting Western dominance over the rest of the world.

“So often [what] you get with debate and discussion, immediately the Islamophobes who jumps in – ‘well Islam is not a race.’ Well, again, race is a socially constructed category, but the directions of how people are racialized could be for a number of areas,” Bazian said. “You could be racialized because of your language; you could be racialized because of your skin tone; you could be racialized because of your religion.”

Bazian’s cultural racism concept is a flawed one, said American Islamic Forum for Democracy founder and President Zuhdi Jasser. Islam is a belief system. It cannot be treated as a monolithic entity exempt from criticism.

“If you are going to believe that Islam cannot be debated and cannot be reformed, and cannot be changed, the bottom line is you have to make it into a racial identity,” Jasser said. “That’s why Islamists are wedded … to the idea of Islam as a single tribal identity that is defined by the leaders of that tribe who are imams, clerics or theocrats.”

Islamists then use this tribal identity to depict Christians, Israeli Jews and the West as the enemy, Jasser said.

Fellow Muslims also can be “Islamophobes” if they disagree with Bazian. That’s the word he used to slur Muslims who supported the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, which ended the Muslim Brotherhood’s brief rule. Presumably this included Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s most important clerical institution, who blessed Morsi’s ouster.

When it comes to aggressive clash of civilizations rhetoric coming from Islamists, Bazian turns a blind eye. He chose to write for UCLA’s newsmagazine Al-Talib in the late 1990s and early 2000s despite the fact that Al-Talib regularly featured pro-jihadist articles. For example, an article he wrote in the March 1999 issue appeared along with a piece praising Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.

The July 1999 edition contained an editorial titled “Jihad in America” that criticized calling Osama bin Laden a terrorist. Bin Laden, it said, was a “freedom fighter” who spoke out against oppressors.

By that time, bin Laden had publicly declared war on the United States, “Jews and Crusaders.” That fatwa invoked the Quran to declare that killing Americans “an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it…” The al-Qaida suicide bombing attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania took place the year before Bazian’s Al-Talib article.

Bazian could have opted to stop writing for the newsmagazine after the pro-terrorist articles were published, yet he chose to submit articles in Al-Talib’s September 1999 issue and again in Al-Talib‘s March 2000 issue.

“I think he is a classical civilizational Islamist supremacist,” Jasser said, “meaning that until he is caught and exposed on various positions he’ll do whatever possible to advance the concept that where Muslims are a majority that an Islamic state is the best avenue for governance.”

Islamists love clash of civilizations rhetoric because they view the world in terms of the Land of Islam and the Land of War ruled by non-Muslims, Jasser said.

Bazian’s effort to accuse “Islamophobes” of a racist clash of civilizations at the MAS-ICNA conference and on other occasions distracts from the Islamists’ stated desire to supplant Western civilization.

Categories: Academia and Islamists, Clash of civilizations, Hatem Bazian, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic Jihad, Islamic media, Islamist "outreach" to heathen, Islamist infiltration, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamist State of Iran, Islamist terror - justifications, Islamist victimhood, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia
Tags: Academia and Islamists, Clash of civilizations, Hatem Bazian, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic Jihad, Islamic media, Islamist "outreach" to heathen, Islamist infiltration, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamist State of Iran, Islamist terror - justifications, Islamist victimhood, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia

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Hezbollah TV in the Bay Area of San Jose

May 5, 2017

Hezbollah TV in the Bay Area of San Jose, Israel National News, Lee Kaplan, May 5, 2017

After 9/11, Republican Sen. Bob Graham warned that Hezbollah is “believed to have the largest embedded terrorist network inside the U.S.” As potential conflict looms with Iran as it pursues nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles, the Islamic terrorism-supporting nation is exporting another form of stealth warfare via Hezbollah in America.

Shia Association Bay Area (SABA) in San Jose, California is one such pro-Hezbollah Islamic center that is under the mainstream media’s and public’s radar despite its close ties to Iran. SABA’s leadership works with Shiite imams all over the Bay Area and has under its influence the imam in charge of a satellite television station that reaches around the world.

Al-Manar TV is a terrorism-promoting entity serving to indoctrinate Muslims throughout the world to the course of violent jihad. Al Manar TV is not allowed to broadcast in the U.S. and many other countries.

But nearby,Dublin, California, hosts Velayat TV USA which plays a big part in pro-Hezbollah actvities in Northern California to promote the goals of the Ayatollahs in Iran. Velayat TV USA promotes jihad against the Shiites’ perceived enemies, the United States — the Great Satan — and Israel and the Jews, the Little Satan. In the event of war with Iran, Velayat TV can reach millions of viewers who might be sympathetic to the Mullahs back in Iran.

For now, Velayat TV tries to keep up the appearance of an innocent local TV station for Shiite Muslims who only want to fit in and “dialog” with the non-Muslim community.

Zaheer Hassan, the Imam who runs the station, completed his studies in Pakistan, then traveled to Qom, Iran, where he earned his black turban.. Qom is where the majority of Islamist mullahs are trained and the breeding ground for the militant Ayatollahs who run the totalitarian pro-terror regime in Iran today.

The regime is known as the Velayat-e Faqih, which translates “as the guardianship of the religious jurist”. The jurists are mullahs in Iran who preach the Shiite prophecy that calls for the downfall of the West and Israel with the coming of the 12th Imam.

Velayat TV USA, like Al-Manar, promotes the teachings of the mullahs in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. This is done under the supervisory religious leadership of the SABA Islamic Center in San Jose, California.

Hassan works under guidance from Nabi Raza Mir, the mullah in charge of SABA’s mosque that is the central locus for Shia Islam in the Bay Area and also supports and praises the Ayatollah Khomeini-inspired regime in Iran.

Despite the “interfaith dialog” claims on its website suggesting religious tolerance of non-Muslims, a fatwa (religious edict) can be found further inside the website from current Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calling for death to Americans and World Jewry. The list of fatwas on the SABA website include an explanation that the term “Death to America” is not just a statement or slogan, but a prayer (as defined by Khamenei).

Mir recently won a lawsuit with the help of radical lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild. Former Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano, former Attorney General Eric Holder and ex- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to keep Mir out of the country, after he visited family abroad, due to his ties to Hezbollah terrorists. All three of these government officials could scarcely be accused of Islamophobia given their cooperation and working past with the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR in Washington.

Apparently, all three government officials felt Mir was enough of a threat to homeland security to keep him out. Hassan also promotes an English version of “interfaith dialogue” on air, speaking of building a bridge between Western and Shiite communities. However, in Farsi, he really calls for a “bridge of fire,” even talking about burning people who do not adhere to the Shiite faith, that could be heard in a video from his television station, but has been recently hidden from the public.

Hassan says in English he has no political agenda. He is a militant Islamist who follows closely the teachings and exhortations of Ali Khamenei and even Holocaust-deniers. At a religious celebration meant to coordinate with the Occupy Wall Street movement in Oakland, California, youth leaders from the SABA Islamic Center appeared wearing paraphernalia of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the enforcers for the Mullahs back in Iran, as well as their accompanying governmental thug corps, the Basij.

With tools like Velayat TV , Zaheer Hassan and the mullahs back in Iran are able to guarantee a Hezbollah media foothold in the Bay Area that Al-Manar TV could only have once hoped to create throughout the U.S. and Canada.

This puts any threat from Iran on U.S. doorsteps, not just Israel’s..

Categories: California, Hezbollah TV, Iran - American relations, Iran and Hezbollah, Iranian propaganda in U.S., San Jose
Tags: California, Hezbollah TV, Iran - American relations, Iran and Hezbollah, Iranian propaganda in U.S., San Jose

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Russia, Iran, Turkey sign agreement on creation of Syria safe zones

May 5, 2017

Published time: 4 May, 2017 12:08

Edited time: 4 May, 2017 19:25

Source: Russia, Iran, Turkey sign agreement on creation of Syria safe zones — RT News

Ceasefire guarantor states Russia, Iran and Turkey have adopted a memorandum on the creation of four security zones in Syria, during peace talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana.

The de-escalation zones were earlier proposed by Russia. They are aimed at separating extremist groups, including Islamic State terrorists (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front), from the moderate opposition.

Idlib, Latakia and Homs are included in the safe zones, as well as parts of Aleppo, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Under the memorandum, any fighting between government forces and armed opposition will cease within the safe zones.

Checkpoints and observation posts are to be positioned along the de-escalation lines within the safe zones, according to the document. They will provide free movement of unarmed civilians and humanitarian access to the areas, under guarantor states’ control.

Read more

Russian chief negotiator Aleksandr Lavrentyev stated that Russia is ready to send its observers to the established zones and work more closely with the US and Saudi Arabia on Syria. He also said that a working group on an exchange of captives could be settled by the evening.

However, he lamented the US poor participation in establishing better cooperation.

“Unfortunately, the Americans are still ignoring our attempts to establish closer military cooperation, but we will keep trying,” the Russian chief negotiator said.

The Syrian armed opposition delegation stated it could not accept the memorandum, saying the creation of de-escalation zones would threaten Syria’s territorial integrity. It also stated it will not sign anything while Iran remains among the guarantor states.

“We are against the division of Syria. As for the agreements, we are not a party to that agreement and of course we will never be in favor [of it] as long as Iran is called a guarantor state,” opposition delegate Osama Abu Zaid said.

Some representatives of the Syrian armed opposition walked out of the meeting, according to media reports.

“We don’t accept Iran’s participation as a guarantor state,” one opposition delegation member reportedly shouted during a speech by Kazakhstan’s foreign minister at the signing ceremony.

Read more

Most members of the delegation reportedly remained in the room, however.

Iran says it is a massive step toward the de-escalation of the long-standing conflict and bloodshed in Syria.

“We support any initiative aimed at de-escalation of the conflict in Syria, prevention of bloodshed, destruction, leading to the fleeing of the Syrian people from their native territory. We support any step aimed at a ceasefire,” an Iranian Foreign Ministry official told RIA Novosti.

The UN special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, welcomed the deal, calling it “an important, promising, positive step in the right direction in the process of de-escalation of the conflict.”

The next round of Syrian peace talks will be hosted by Astana in mid-July, with expert meetings scheduled to be held two weeks beforehand, according to Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov.

READ MORE: ‘Russia, Iran & Turkey move center of gravity over Syria from Geneva to Astana’

“Given the new round of Geneva talks, which is to be held in late May and emphasizing the essential role of the Astana meetings in supplementing and assisting the Geneva process, we call on all members of the international community to contribute to this process and to find a lasting solution to the Syrian conflict,” the minister stated.

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Mahmoud Abbas is personally responsible for the high salaries to terrorists

May 4, 2017

Mahmoud Abbas is personally responsible for the high salaries to terrorists, Palestinian Media Watch, Itamar Marcus, May 4, 2017

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer noted yesterday that President Trump brought up the issue of salaries to terrorists in his meeting with PA Chairman Abbas:

“The president raised concerns about the payments to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who have committed acts of terror and to their families and emphasized the need to resolve this issue.” [https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/03/press-briefing-press-secretary-sean-spicer-532017-44]

As international pressure is mounting on Mahmoud Abbas to stop payments to terrorists prisoners, it should be recognized that Mahmoud Abbas himself is personally responsible for the high salaries that terrorists receive. In 2010, Mahmoud Abbas amended the Palestinian Prisoners Law, dramatically raising salaries to terrorist prisoners. Prior to that, salaries ranged from 1000-4000 shekels a month; now they start at 1400 shekels and can reach as high as 12,000 shekels each month.

In 2014, the PA transferred responsibility for payments to prisoners from the PA to the PLO in order to hide the PA responsibility for payments from the international community. At the time, Deputy Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs Ziyad Abu Ein again stressed that Abbas himself was personally responsible for the sharp rise in salaries to prisoners:

Deputy Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs Ziyad Abu Ein: “Who else has elevated the cause of the Palestinian prisoners other than President Mahmoud Abbas? All the laws, the tenfold increase of the budget of the Ministry of Prisoners’ [Affairs] – [all this] was done during the tenure of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and according to the wishes of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas…

If we go back to the source, which is the PLO, which will take care of the [prisoner] issue… we eliminate the international pressure and the attempts to tamper with this issue, so sensitive and holy to our Palestinian people. The [Palestinian] leadership wants to keep this holy issue away from the influence of the donor countries, the interference of the donor countries, and the occasional negative influence of the donor countries, by giving it [the prisoner issue] its holiness and assigning it to the leadership of the struggle of our Palestinian people. Who is the leadership of the struggle of our Palestinian people? The PLO… All the authority, all the laws, the budget, the officials and staff will be a part of the Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Commission, which will belong to the PLO, to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and to the Executive Committee of the PLO.

[Official PA TV, June 1, 2014]

Not only is Abbas personally responsible for paying salaries to terrorists, by his own admission he is responsible for sending terrorists to kill Israelis. Abbas told official PA TV in 2005, right after the PA’s five-year terror campaign (i.e., the second Intifada) had ended, that all the terrorist prisoners must be freed because they did not murder of their own volition but were sent to murder by the PA:

Mahmoud Abbas: “I demand [the release of] prisoners because they are human beings, who did what we, we, ordered them to do. We – the [Palestinian] Authority. They should not be punished while we sit at one table negotiating… This is war. One (i.e., Israel) ordered a soldier to kill, and I ordered my son, brother, or others, to carry out the duty of resistance (i.e., PA euphemism for terror). This person killed and the other person killed… He [the Palestinian prisoner] is a fighter just like any other fighter. We were in a state of fighting. When a truce is reached, in any country in the world, the past is forgotten… [If prisoners are not released] the ordinary citizen will ask me: ‘What did you get me? You ordered me – you are responsible for me.'”[Official PA TV, Feb. 14, 2005]
Click to view

Abbas indicates that, as the person who “ordered” the terrorists to kill, he is just as responsible as the killers in prison. Because of his direct responsibility for sending the terrorists, it is unlikely that Abbas will agree to stop rewarding them financially.

Categories: Abbas, Abbas meets Trump, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian funding, Palestinian heroes in Israeli jails, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists
Tags: Abbas, Abbas meets Trump, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian funding, Palestinian heroes in Israeli jails, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists

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Abating Abbas

May 4, 2017

Abating Abbas, Power Line, Scott Johnson, May 4, 2017

Palestinian Arabs lack a civic culture that would support a healthy regime and their political culture is, not surprisingly, sick. On the one hand, we have the colleagues and descendants of Yasser Arafat in Fatah. On the other hand, we have the genocidal maniacs of Hamas. As George Wallace might have put it, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them.

Although Fatah and Hamas are themselves profoundly undemocratic, they seem roughly to reflect Palestinian public opinion. Thus the depressing survey data that Daniel Polisar has recounted at Mosaic in recent essays here and here.

Khaled Abu Toameh is the respected Arab Israeli based in Jerusalem (and certainly the bravest journalist I have ever met). As he put it in a column for the Gatestone Institute: “Palestinians: The message remains no and no.”

One symptom of the sickness that permeates their politics: under Palestinian laws passed in 2004 and amended in 2013, Palestinian and Israeli Arabs who are convicted of attacks in Israel (“participation in the struggle against the occupation”) are entitled to monthly “salaries” commencing with their arrest (and continuing for life for men who serve at least five years and women who serve at least two), along with additional cash grants and priority civil-service job placements upon their release.

Thane Rosenbaum summarizes the arrangements in a good Washington Post column:

In this lethal logic, the longer a prison sentence — really, the more deadly an attack — the more profitable the payout. Even toward the lower end of the scale, the salaries are more lucrative than most West Bank jobs. In accordance with Palestinian Authority Government Decision No. 32 of 2010, those imprisoned for three to five years, for instance, get $570 a month. And those committing crimes that result in prison sentences of at least 30 years receive salaries of more than $3,400 a month — 20 times the per capita income in the West Bank. Of course, some prisoners are sentenced to multiple life terms and will never be released. But those who are can expect a lump-sum payment of as much as $25,000 — like a bonus for bad behavior.

Palestinian officials show little compunction defending these practices. Killing Israelis is part of the popular resistance, and those who serve as “martyrs” should be compensated for their sacrifice. A spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs, Hassan Abd Rabbo, said that “it is the right of all of the prisoners and martyrs who have struggled and sacrificed for Palestine to receive their full salaries from the PA.” The Palestinian prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, has stated that inmates are “prisoners of war” and that “their cause is the cause of all of us.”

Rosenbaum’s column goes into more detail on the legal incentives offered for the terrorist murder of Israelis.

What kind of a regime makes such arrangements? It is sick, sick, sick.

Rosenbaum comments: “[I]incentivizing the murder of civilians is barbarism, and it happens to offer a career path for ardent and enterprising Palestinians. The ‘lone wolves’ who perpetrate stabbings, shootings and car-rammings are not really acting alone — they are a people’s army recruited to kill by their government.”

Can we all get along? Answer: no.

Taylor Force is the former U.S. Army officer who was murdered while in a Vanderbilt University tour group last year in Jaffa. The terrorist attack that took his life left 10 others wounded. Rosenbaum’s column supports the Taylor Force Act that would put an end to American foreign supporting the Palestinian murder program. Along with Rosenbaum, Doug Feith and Sander Gerber support adoption of the bill in a NRO column that makes you wonder why it hasn’t happened long before now.

Foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority of course supports the murder program. As it has threatened their funding, Fatah officials have used their creativity to spring to its defense. At Palestinian Media Watch, Itamar Marcus reports: “Fatah is now arguing that donor countries should welcome the PA’s paying salaries to terrorists with their money, since this practice promotes peace by keeping the Palestinian terrorists from joining ‘ISIS or any other extremist party… [We] say to the donor states [whose money goes to terrorists] that your donations help the PA bring peace to the Middle East.’”

The antiwar movement fostered the slogan “kill for peace” as a gibe against the Pentagon back in the day. With a straight Palestinian spokesmen now offer a variant in support of their murder reward law.

UPDATE: As of this morning Itamar Marcus has added more here.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian funding, Palestinian heroes in Israeli jails, Palestinian public opinion
Tags: Abbas, Fatah, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian funding, Palestinian heroes in Israeli jails, Palestinian public opinion

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Into the heartland

May 4, 2017

Into the heartland, American Thinker, Lloyd Marcus, May 4, 2017

While fake news media would like us to believe they have successfully killed traditional American values, wholesome values are alive and well in the heartland.

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

Rumors of my death are exaggerated. The reason my wife Mary and I dropped off the face of the earth is because we have not had internet for almost a week, which as y’all know feels like an eternity. We drove up from Florida to close on our new home in a tiny West Virginia town, population 500. Why?

To move close to our parents and family.

The drive up from Florida was quite interesting. The number of Trump signs on display in yards, rooftops, and billboards tells me Trump has connected with everyday Americans like no other president before him.

It seemed that every time we pushed the search button on our radio another faith-based station came up. While fake news media would like us to believe they have successfully killed traditional American values, wholesome values are alive and well in the heartland.

My wife’s brother-in-law said when it snows, his neighbor plows out the road for everyone with his tracker. Mail is delivered at a central location for his group of neighbors. The mailboxes and poles were in need of repair. A neighbor took it upon himself to repair and refresh the mailboxes. Another neighbor fills potholes in their road. All these things were done without ridiculous paperwork, meetings, or government.

How small is this town, you ask? The internet company cannot hook us up until May 23rd. We can make calls on our phones, but they do not work as a hot-spot. I’m on-line at the library which is open limited hours on different days; closed from noon to 1pm for lunch with parking for 7 cars. I keep telling myself, take a deep breath and embrace the solitude.

There is no home mail delivery. When we went to the post office to sign up for a P O box, the cheerful clerk said, “Are you the Marcuses? Y’all bought the white house.”

We had to pay a $200 cash deposit at the Town Hall to get our water turned on. The clerk said, “Are y’all the people who called the other day? Y’all bought the white house.” The pleasant clerk said she would call “the” maintenance man to turn us on. One hour later, he showed up and turned on our water.

Most expressive were seniors Virginia and her husband Daniel who greeted me with big smiles when I walked into the library. “Welcome!” Virginia gave me the scoop. “Lunch at the Senior Center is $2. Today is hot dog day.” Virginia filled me in on all the churches, concluding that anyone we choose will be fine. Virginia said they are all good friendly people.

As a black guy, not once have I felt a twinge of the stereotypical racism attributed to the south — quite the opposite. Everyone has been warm and friendly.

The only store in town is Dollar General. Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes are over 20 miles away.

Mary and I stopped into “the” bank. “Y’all bought the white house.”

Yes, I am experiencing culture shock, but the people are nice and I think it is going to be fun.

Categories: American values, Fly-over country, Racism, Trump's America
Tags: American values, Fly-over country, Racism, Trump's America

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