Archive for June 4, 2017

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Time for a Terrorism Accord, Not a Climate Accord

June 4, 2017

Time for a Terrorism Accord, Not a Climate Accord, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, June 3, 2017

(Another pleasing idea that won’t likely be tried and, if tried, won’t work. “America First” can work and, if given a chance, should. The Supreme Court is about to consider President Trump’s “Muslim ban” executive order. Perhaps recent events in Europe and England will push enough justices to reinstate it.That will at least be a step in the right direction. Please see also, Supreme Court Expedites Trump’s Petition on Executive Order Case. — DM)

[T]he recent Paris climate accord is not only based on bad or “cooked” Climategate science, it is a deliberate conscious/unconscious deflection from the genuine “present danger” in front of us.  It is no more than obfuscation allowing moral narcissists to feel good about themselves, virtue signaling about an environmental armageddon that hasn’t happened and may never happen while, in real life, people are actually murdered on London bridges and in Cairo churches.

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Yes, there’s a threat to civilization and it’s not global warming, manmade or otherwise.  And anyone who isn’t comatose should know what it is.

Islam, like cancer, needs a cure. And we all have to participate in the search for one before it’s too late.

Yes, this is about Islam, not “radical” Islam or some other off-shoot, real or imagined, because the tenets that have inspired the non-stop spate of terrorism across the world in recent years are spelled out clearly in sections of the Koran and the Hadith and other holy works of Islam. They provide justification for ISIS and a hundred other groups that may or may not replace them, now and in the future. This cannot continue — unless we really do want to destroy ourselves.

To be clear, this is not about bad people (many Muslims are fine human beings), but about a malignant ideology from the seventh century that must be expunged for the survival of all.

But the majority of Western leaders don’t want to know that.  In fact, I’d wager that most have not even bothered to educate themselves in any serious way about Islam nearly sixteen years after 9/11 and with all the constant carnage that has gone on since and has been increasing significantly, not just in London and Manchester but virtually everywhere.

These Westerners are not only willfully blind, they are suicidal.  But we cannot let them commit suicide for the rest of us.  They have to go.

Similarly, the recent Paris climate accord is not only based on bad or “cooked” Climategate science, it is a deliberate conscious/unconscious deflection from the genuine “present danger” in front of us.  It is no more than obfuscation allowing moral narcissists to feel good about themselves, virtue signaling about an environmental armageddon that hasn’t happened and may never happen while, in real life, people are actually murdered on London bridges and in Cairo churches.

What we need now is an international terrorism accord — and, unlike the climate accord, a binding one — that would commit the world, including the Muslim nations themselves, to the complete reformation of Islam that is the necessary basis for an end to this terrorism.

President Trump made a good start in Riyadh in his address to the Sunni leaders, but we must go much further.  It is correct that the Islamic world should be the ones to change their religion, but the rest of us on the planet are too affected by the results to stand by and wait.  From the horrifying (London this weekend) to the daily (the constant of indignity of being scanned at airports, concerts, museums, etc.), we are all victims of Islamic ideology.  We have a right, indeed an obligation, to participate in and demand its change. Otherwise, it will only get worse.

Since Trump had the courage to open the discussion in Saudi Arabia, he should attempt to expand the dialogue and create this global accord. Egypt’s el-Sisi would be a good partner because he already had the guts to criticize his own religion.  All should be invited, even those who would never come (like the mullahs).  All must confront the question of why Islam, unique among the world’s religions today, has so much violence committed in its name. What is it about Islam that attracts this?  What therefore has to be changed, both in behavior and ideology?

The event should be public, with Islam ultimately made to pledge itself to human rights as accepted by the West — equal rights for women and homosexuals, separation of church (mosque) and state, no discrimination based on race or religion (why no churches allowed in Saudi Arabia?), etc. — not the absurd Orwellian version of human rights promulgated the UN Human Rights Council.

This demand should be made to all quarters of the Islamic world with economic punishment applied if necessary.  The time for diplomatic politesse is long over. Islam must be forced to join modernity. Reactionary multiculturalists among us must be ignored, along with their hypocritical (and nonsensical) belief that all religions are equal.  To do otherwise would be to treat Muslim people like children.  And that is what the West has been doing for some time — with atrocious results for all.

Categories: Arab nations, International Community, Islamic terrorism, Muslims, Paris climate change agreement, Sisi
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Taking sides on terrorism

June 4, 2017

Taking sides on terrorism, Israel National News, Att’y Stephen M. Flatow, June 4, 2017

Members of Congress are preparing to cast their votes on legislation that is intended take a strong and clear stand against terrorism. The Taylor Force Act would stop U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority if the PA continues paying salaries to terrorists and their families. Named after an American murdered by Palestinians in 2016, the law is long-overdue. It would take a real stand against the PA’s outrageous sponsorship of terrorists.

So far, all 41 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, and all 10 co-sponsors in the Senate, are Republicans. That concerns me. At a time when even the United Nations is denouncing the PA’s glorification of terrorists, there is simply no good reason for Democrats not to support the Taylor Force Act just as much as the GOP. No matter how much ill-will there is right now between Republicans and Democrats on other issues, the fight against terrorism is an issue on which the two parties should be able to unite without the slightest hesitation.

And maybe then even Europe will wake up and realize that all terrorists are colleagues.

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Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995

We all remember President George W. Bush’s powerful declaration when he spoke at a joint session of Congress on September 21, 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make,” he said. “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

When it comes to Palestinian terrorists and their colleagues, unfortunately, much of the world has for too long shied away from taking a clear-cut stand. But that is beginning to change. Perhaps the 6 dead on London Bridge will do the trick.

The United States finally seems to be abandoning the old tried-and-failed policy of ignoring the Palestinian Authority’s incitement and support of terrorism. According to media reports, when President Trump recently met PA leader Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, he “accused Abbas of supporting incitement and terrorism with the salaries paid to prisoners” and said Abbas was “personally responsible for incitement” to violence.

This would represent a very significant change from the previous U.S. administration. President Obama and secretaries of state Clinton and Kerry looked the other way when the PA paid terrorists and incited violence by praising terrorists as “heroes” and “martyrs.”

And America is not alone. In a remarkable break from West European appeasement of the PA, the government of Norway last week demanded that Abbas return Norway’s donation to a Palestinian women’s center that the PA named in honor of mass-murderer Dalal Mughrabi. She led the terror gang that carried out the 1978 Tel Aviv Highway massacre of 37 Israelis (including 13 children) and American nature photographer Gail Rubin, the niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende was unequivocal: “The glorification of terrorist attacks is completely unacceptable, and I deplore this decision in the strongest possible terms. Norway will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists in this way. We will not accept the use of Norwegian aid funding for such purposes.” Even the United Nations (!), under new secretary-general Antonio Guterres, has denounced the naming of the center after Mughrabi as “offensive” and removed its name from the facility.

So the United States, Norway, and even the United Nations are standing against Palestinian terrorism.

Who’s on the terrorists’ side? British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is. The Daily Mail revealed that Corbyn, leader of England’s Labor Party, took part in a ceremony honoring Palestinian terrorists, including one of the key planners of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. At the ceremony, which was held in Tunisia in 2014, Corbyn placed wreaths on the graves of terrorists, including Munich mastermind Atef Bseiso, and wrote about the “poignant” event in the British radical newspaper Morning Star.

Who else is lining up on the side of the terrorists? The city of Barcelona, Spain last week hosted and subsidized a book fair at which one of the featured speakers was the unrepentant Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled. The mayor and city council members should be ashamed of themselves.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, Members of Congress are preparing to cast their votes on legislation that is intended take a strong and clear stand against terrorism. The Taylor Force Act would stop U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority if the PA continues paying salaries to terrorists and their families. Named after an American murdered by Palestinians in 2016, the law is long-overdue. It would take a real stand against the PA’s outrageous sponsorship of terrorists.

So far, all 41 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, and all 10 co-sponsors in the Senate, are Republicans. That concerns me. At a time when even the United Nations is denouncing the PA’s glorification of terrorists, there is simply no good reason for Democrats not to support the Taylor Force Act just as much as the GOP. No matter how much ill-will there is right now between Republicans and Democrats on other issues, the fight against terrorism is an issue on which the two parties should be able to unite without the slightest hesitation.

And maybe then even Europe will wake up and realize that all terrorists are colleagues.

Categories: Islamic terrorism, Islamists in Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian funding, Palestinian heroes in Israeli jails, Palestinian incitement, Taylor Force Act, US Congress
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Terror stalking UK kills 33 people in 3 months

June 4, 2017

Source: Terror stalking UK kills 33 people in 3 months

 DEBKA

The multiple London Bridge terrorist attacks Saturday night, June 3, which killed at least seven people and injured another 48, was the third terror outrage in Britain in three months. They were all the work of homegrown followers of the Islamic State. This means that an ISIS network is at large in the UK and has so far evaded the reach of British security and intelligence services.

In the first two attacks in March, a car and knife attack in Westminster left 5 people dead; the Manchester bombing nine days ago ended in 22 people killed.The “severe” terror threat level in place across Britain, four days before the general election, accounted for the rapid response of armed police and medical services to the first reports of the horrific car-ramming and stabbing attacks on London Bridge and nearby Borough Market.

Almost every day since the assault on the Manchester pop concert, the British police have announced fresh arrests of suspects linked to the Islamist terrorist network known to be operating in Britain. Saturday night’s attack exposed the fact that British security services led by MI5, which is in charge of anti-terrorist operations inside the country, had failed to uncover the malign cell at work, or found a lead to the masterminds running it.

Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber who blew up the Manchester concert, left not a single trace to the network although he had been on-and-off an intelligence watch list and the authorities had received three warnings that he was a potential threat.

Unlike Israeli police, the British authorities can no longer claim that Britain is faced with lone wolf assaults. The latest London atrocity was perpetrated by a gang of three-to-five jihadis, acting with a support system; Abedi likewise was shown to have had help.

The British are well aware that the scale of potential jihadism at home has reached crisis proportions. According to official figures, anti-terror agencies know of some 23,000 Islamist extremists, of whom 500 are rated capable to breaking into violent attacks without prior notice. It is now clear that the perpetrators of the most recent terrorist incidents in the UK were not included in either of those lists and are operating outside the net laid down by British intelligence.
MI5 is therefore without any real leads to the most dangerous Islamist terror network Britain has seen. The service may be in need of a thorough overall of its personnel and methods for a fresh start on the war on terror, a process that would take time.

Three points stand out in the combined London Bridge attack:

1. The terrorists wore fake bomb vests as a gimmick for capturing and taking hostages at one or more of the pubs or restaurants at Borough Market, which were crowded with Saturday night patrons. It was only the expeditious response of the London police which unhesitatingly shot dead three male suspects within minutes that cut the incident short.

2.  Security authorities in the West often explain attacks at home as prompted by setbacks suffered by ISIS on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq. This argument is fallacious. ISIS does not distinguish between the two fronts because it regards both as a single continuous arena of conflict for a single cause, war on the West. So long as the jihadists are able to hit Western cities, they will claim, like Al Qaeda, that they are undefeated and  continue to mount terrorist outrages.

3.  It is not much use for people in authority to call on everyone in London or Manchester – or any other city struck by terror – to carry on with their lives as usual. The attacks inevitably cast a pall of fear and individual concern about the future, even outside the immediate circle of victims.
The sights and scenes witnessed and graphically disseminated on social media are haunting and traumatic.
One witness reported on the attacks Saturday: “They were running up shouting, ‘This is for Allah.’ They stabbed this girl maybe 10 times, 15 times.”

The first police officer to reach the bridge after a white van swerved into pedestrians was stabbed. A photo showed the attackers then “used 12-inch hunting knives to attack revelers at busy bars and restaurants in the nearby Borough Market.”

One witness said he chased the attackers, who were running into pubs and bars. Some people threw bottles, chairs and other items to try and stop them.

The sight of people escaping the scenes of attacks their hands on their heads will not be easily forgotten.

London Bridge station and Borough Tube Station will remain closed for the rest of the day. Several streets around the London Bridge area remain closed. Prime Minister Theresa discontinued her campaign for the June 8 election and is chairing a Cobra emergency meeting later Sunday. She is expected to make a statement shortly.

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British Police Rush to London Bridge After Reports of Van Hitting Pedestrians

June 4, 2017

British Police Rush to London Bridge After Reports of Van Hitting Pedestrians, Washington Free Beacon, Megan Revell, , June 3, 2017

A photograph taken on a mobile phone shows British police cars blocking the entrance to London Bridge, in central London on June 3, 2017, following an incident on the bridge. Police are dealing with a “major incident” on London Bridge, Transport for London said on Saturday, after witnesses reported seeing a van mounting the pavement and hitting pedestrians. / AFP PHOTO / Daniel SORABJI (Photo credit should read DANIEL SORABJI/AFP/Getty Images)

LONDON (Reuters) – British police rushed to an incident on London Bridge on Saturday after witnesses said a van plowed into pedestrians and another witness told Reuters she saw people with throats cut on London Bridge.

Police said they were dealing with an incident but gave no further details while the London Ambulance Service said it was sending multiple resources to the incident. A Reuters reporter near the scene said she saw 10 police cars rushing towards London Bridge.

One witness told Reuters that she saw what appeared to be three people with knife wounds and possibly their throats cut.

A witness told the BBC she saw a speeding white van veering into pedestrians. The witness said the van hit five to six people. Reuters television pictures showed dozens of emergency vehicles in the area around London Bridge.

London’s transport authority said London Bridge rail station had been closed at the request of the police.

On May 22, a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a pop concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in Manchester in northern England.

The Manchester bombing was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London’s transport network.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by William Schomberg and Jonathan Oatis)

Categories: London, Terrorists
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Supreme Court Expedites Trump’s Petition on Executive Order Case

June 4, 2017

Supreme Court Expedites Trump’s Petition on Executive Order Case, Breitbart, Ken Klukowski, June 3, 2017

Molly Riley Reuters

On Friday, the Supreme Court rapidly expedited everything. The ACLU—which represents the plaintiffs—have been ordered to file their response by 3:00 p.m. on Monday, June 12. The ACLU lawyers must also respond to DOJ’s application for a stay by that time.

The Court could conceivably then vote immediately on whether to take the case, or anytime shortly thereafter. Under a normal briefing schedule, the Court would then hear arguments in October, and issue a decision by the end of 2017.

It’s also possible that the Court could accelerate briefing on an emergency basis, then hold arguments over the summer, or possibly even in June before recessing for the summer. The Court could make clear by the week of June 12 which course it is pursuing.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Supreme Court took the rare step on Friday of expediting consideration of a major case, rapidly accelerating the schedule for reviewing the Fourth Circuit’s blocking of President Donald Trump’s travel ban executive order.

President Trump issued Executive Order 13780 (EO) on March 6, Section 2(c) of which temporarily restricted travel from six Muslim-majority countries associated with terrorism while the United States developed new vetting procedures to keep the nation safe.

Immigration activists sued, along with several immigrants and their families. A liberal federal district judge in Maryland granted a preliminary injunction blocking Section 2(c) of the EO. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit then affirmed the trial court’s injunction in a 10-3 decision, ruling that the EO violated the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, and taking the almost unheard-of step of all the court’s judges hearing the case, instead of sending it to a three-judge panel.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a petition for review at the Supreme Court on Thursday. Under the Court’s rules, a response from the plaintiffs would be due July 3. By that time the Court would be on recess for the summer, meaning that the justices would vote at the Court’s annual pre-Term conference, which will take place on September 25, on whether to take the case. That would typically mean hearing arguments in December or January, with a final decision coming down in early or mid-2018.

Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall at DOJ also asked Chief Justice John Roberts (who supervises the Fourth Circuit) to stay the appellate court’s decision until the justices can decide the matter.

On Friday, the Supreme Court rapidly expedited everything. The ACLU—which represents the plaintiffs—have been ordered to file their response by 3:00 p.m. on Monday, June 12. The ACLU lawyers must also respond to DOJ’s application for a stay by that time.

The Court could conceivably then vote immediately on whether to take the case, or anytime shortly thereafter. Under a normal briefing schedule, the Court would then hear arguments in October, and issue a decision by the end of 2017.

It’s also possible that the Court could accelerate briefing on an emergency basis, then hold arguments over the summer, or possibly even in June before recessing for the summer. The Court could make clear by the week of June 12 which course it is pursuing.

The case is Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project, No. 16-1436.

Categories: "Muslim ban", ACLU, Certiorari, Department of Justice, Executive order, Supreme Court
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The British Election: Will Voters Opt for Intolerance and Xenophobia?

June 4, 2017

The British Election: Will Voters Opt for Intolerance and Xenophobia?, Alan M. Dershowitz, June 3, 2017

(If the Labour Party wins a majority in Parliament, what will it mean for BREXIT? — DM)

On June 8, British voters will head to the polls, three years early. When Prime Minister Theresa May called last month for a snap election, the assumption was that she would win easily and increase her parliamentary majority. Recent numbers, however, show the gap closing between May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn – who was given 200:1 odds of when he ran for the party leadership in 2015 – is doing surprisingly well again. This is despite the fact that Labour has been under fire for anti-Semitism in its ranks, and Corbyn himself has been accused of anti-Jewish bigotry. Corbyn denies having a problem with Jews, claiming that he is merely anti-Israel. Even if it were possible to hate Israel without being anti-Semitic – and I am not sure that it is – Corbyn’s words and deeds demonstrate that he often uses virulent anti-Zionism as a cover for his soft anti-Semitism.

For example, in a speech last year, he said that Jews are “no more responsible” for the actions of Israel than Muslims are for those of ISIS. In 2009, he announced: “It will be my pleasure and my honour to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hezbollah will be speaking. I also invited friends from Hamas to come and speak as well.”

NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND – JUNE 03: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn greets supporters at Beeston Youth and Community Centre he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week’s general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The company that Corbyn keeps, too, suggests that at best he gives a free pass to bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism within the ranks of his own party, and at worst, he espouses them. He has shared speaking platforms and led rallies with some of the most infamous Jew-haters. He has attended meetings hosted by 9/11 conspiracy theorist Paul Eisen, author of a blog titled: “My Life as a Holocaust Denier.” He has been associated with Sheikh Raed Salah – leader of the outlawed northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, a blood libel perpetuator convicted for incitement to violence and racism – whom he referred to as a “very honoured citizen” whose “voice must be heard.” Corbyn was also a paid contributor for Press TV, Iran’s tightly controlled media apparatus, whose production is directly overseen by anti-Semitic Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

One of the biggest criticisms of the “Corbynization” of British politics has been the mainstreaming of traditional anti-Semitism. The country’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has called the problem within the Labour party “severe.”

Consider the late Gerald Kaufman, a Labour veteran and close political associate of Corbyn’s who touted conspiracy theories about Jews throughout his political career. When speaking at a pro-Palestinian event, Kaufman said: “Jewish money, Jewish donations to the Conservative Party – as in the general election in May – support from the Jewish Chronicle, all of those things, bias the Conservatives.” While Corbyn condemned this remark, he refused to yield to widespread demands for disciplinary action against Kaufman. This is in keeping with what a key former adviser to Corbyn, Harry Fletcher, wrote: “I’d suggest to him [Jeremy] about how he might build bridges with the Jewish community and none of it ever happened.”

Let’s be clear: I do not believe that Corbyn’s rise in the polls is due to his hatred of Jews and Israel, but rather in spite of it. May called for elections and then refused to debate her opponents. She is running a lacklustre campaign somewhat reminiscent of U.S. Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton’s last year. For his part, Corbyn is a populist, like U.S. President Donald Trump. Although politically polar opposites, they have much in common, such as a penchant for shooting from the hip and unpredictability.

Furthermore, many British voters are unaware of Corbyn’s anti-Semitic associations. Others know, but don’t care. Those on the hard-Left, such as union activists and academics, include knee-jerk opponents of the nation state of the Jewish people and supporters of academic and cultural boycotts of Israel. Many of these favor trade and engagement with such egregious human-rights violators as Iran, Cuba, China, Russia, Belarus and Venezuela. Singling out Israel – the Middle East’s only democracy, with one of the world’s best human-rights records, rule of law and concern for enemy civilians — for boycotts itself is a form of anti-Semitism.

Corbyn himself has called for boycotts of the Jewish state. He has advocated for an arms embargo, citing Israel’s supposed “breach” of the human-rights clause of the EU-Israel trade agreement. He also led the call to boycott Israel’s national soccer team in the European Championship in Wales. (Ironically, Israel only plays in this league because it was expelled from the Asian Football Confederation due to the Arab League’s boycott.)

Corbyn, as well, has been a vocal supporter of the so-called Palestinian “right of return,” something that would lead to an Arab majority and Jewish minority within Israel, and render the two-state solution completely obsolete.

Whether anti-Semitism is the cause or effect of the Labour party’s problem is not important. What is relevant is that Corbyn not only has not stemmed the tide, but has played a big part in perpetuating it.

British voters now have the opportunity to choose where they will go as a nation. Will they opt to move away from stability, rationality and tolerance toward simple mindedness and xenophobia? I sincerely hope not.

Bernie Sanders has already made his choice. He is campaigning for Corbyn despite his record on anti-Semitism. Sanders will have to explain why a Jew is helping to elect a bigot with the views Corbyn holds about the Jewish people and their nation state.

Categories: Britain and antisemitism, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Israel, Britain and Palestinians, British elections, Jeremy Corbyn, Theresa May
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