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Islamist Regimes Take Over UNESCO

December 8, 2017

Islamist Regimes Take Over UNESCO, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, December 8, 2017

(UNESCO appears to reflect the UN as a whole, with the exception of the UN Security Council where, as a permanent member, America has a veto. Perhaps America should withdraw from the rest of the UN but retain her position on the Security Council, the only UN entity where we have a useful voice. — DM)

When Pablo Picasso painted the famous frescoes at UNESCO’s headquarter at Place de Fontenoy in Paris, UNESCO’s founding fathers dreamed of the rebirth of Western culture after the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazism. Now the West, intimidated by physical terror and political ransom, is allowing UNESCO to be seized by regimes that hang dissidents, lash women, execute gays, imprison Christians and leave their own people illiterate.

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The UN agency is currently dominated by the most oppressive regimes on education and culture. There is China, which recently let writer, poet and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo die an agonizing death in prison, where he was serving an 11-year jail sentence for his support of human rights and democracy. Then there is Iran, where a dean of journalism, Siamak Pourzand, committed suicide to avoid more persecution by the regime.

“UNESCO has been hijacked and abused as a tool for the persecution of Israel and the Jewish people, while concocting fake facts and fake history, meant to… rewrite global history.” — Carmel Shama Hacohen, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO.

If UNESCO is really serious about reforming itself, it should immediately issue a statement against the Islamization of Turkey’s Hagia Sophia Cathedral, a UN World Heritage Site.

Hit by the departure of the United States and Israel, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recently welcomed its new Director-General, former French Minister of Culture Audrey Azoulay. Those who care about cultural diversity and Western civilization hailed her election, because the representative of Qatar’s Islamist regime had come close to winning UNESCO’s leadership race. But the real problem is that UNESCO has been abandoned to Islamist dictatorships. A battle to save the organization has begun.

Among the critics of UNESCO there is a tendency to dismiss this agency as “irrelevant“. Yet, so long as UNESCO exists, the West cannot allow repressive regimes to dominate the world’s highest body supposedly in charge of culture, science and education. Richard Hoggart, the British scholar who served as UNESCO’s assistant director general from 1970 to 1977, once asked: “Should Unesco Survive?“.

The UN agency is currently dominated by the most oppressive regimes in regard to education and culture. There is China, which in July let writer, poet and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo die an agonizing death in prison, where he was serving an 11-year jail sentence for his support of human rights and democracy. Then there is Iran, where a dean of journalism, Siamak Pourzand, committed suicide to avoid more persecution by the regime. Last week, the assistant director for Education of UNESCO, Qian Tang, was in Iran to advance “cultural cooperation” with the Islamic Republic, but the issue of cultural freedom in the Iran was not even raised by the envoy of the UN agency. There is also Pakistan, a country that has sentenced to death essentially for being a Christian mother of five, Asia Bibi, whose condition has never even been questioned by UNESCO. There is Qatar, where a poet, Rashid at Ajami, was sentenced to three years in prison for a poem critical of the emir Hamad bin Khalifa at Thani.

Irina Bokova, then Director-General of UNESCO, is pictured speaking at China’s official Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, on May 14, 2017. Two months later, the Chinese government let writer, poet and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo die an agonizing death in prison, where he was serving an 11-year jail sentence for his support of human rights and democracy. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein – Pool/Getty Images)

UNESCO has become a grotesque forum, hosting shows such as that orchestrated by Cuba. Last June, Cuba complained of a minute of silence for Holocaust victims, but was able to hold another one for the Palestinians. At the opening of UNESCO’s 39th General Conference in Paris, the United Arab Emirates’ delegation placed a box containing a medal on the desk of each foreign delegation in honor of the UAE having sponsored the renovation of the conference hall. No box, however, was placed on the desk of Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen. These farces are nothing new at UNESCO. And they must end. The UN agency cannot allow the “uncivilized regimes“, as Shama-Hacohen called them, to continue to bully and vandalize Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.

Islamic regimes launched a takeover bid for UNESCO by investing massive financial resources and political lobbying at the UN cultural agency. Qatar, the wealthiest state in the world per capita, provided extremely generous financial support. That is why a Qatari representative, the former Minister of Culture Hamad bin Abdulaziz al Kawari, for days led the recent race for the leadership of UNESCO. The Simon Wiesenthal Center charged Qatar with bribing countries to win votes for the UN agency post. The Wiesenthal Center then launched an appeal to prevent Iran from becoming the head of UNESCO’s executive board. Meanwhile, Turkey, another country with an Islamist regime that bullies culture and freedom, joined the executive board.

This “lobbying” has enabled those Islamic countries to form the most powerful bloc at UNESCO. As Denis MacEoin has previously explained:

“Of UNESCO’s 195 member states, 35 are fully Islamic nations, another 21 are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and four are OIC observer states. That makes 60 who represent a bloc favourable to Muslim-inspired resolutions.”

Qatar has been pivotal in sponsoring anti-Semitic resolutions. There was UNESCO’s resolution denying Jewish history in Jerusalem, Islamizing historically Biblical holy sites by magic wand legerdemain, as Islam did not even exist until 600 years later. In a speech to the UNESCO General Assembly last week, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama Hacohen said :

“UNESCO has been hijacked and abused as a tool for the persecution of Israel and the Jewish people, while concocting fake facts and fake history, meant to erase our history in Jerusalem and rewrite global history.”

The Islamists’ takeover of the agency does not affect only Israel. It undermines the universal noble goal of this UN agency, which should be the protection of cultural diversity, especially where it is endangered.

The Preamble of UNESCO’s Constitution says: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed”. UNESCO is knowingly betraying its own message. It is allowing regimes that massacre the minds of men to take over the UN agency that claims to be precisely in charge of “defenses of peace”.

Last March, UNESCO’s then Director-General, Irina Bokova, expressed appreciation for Qatar’s support with a $2 million loan as part of a commitment by the Qatari authorities to donate $10 million to UNESCO. UNESCO’s headquarter in Paris hosted a forum sponsored by Saudi Arabia on “cultural and religious diversity“. It was a capitulation to barbarism; Saudi Arabia tortures bloggers such as Raif Badawi, sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison. UNESCO also held a three-day event entitled “Saudi Cultural Days” with Saudi art, food, customs and dances. Saudi King Abdallah Ibn Abdul Aziz donated $20 million to the UNESCO Emergency Fund. Donations to UNESCO have been promised by other Islamic countries, such as Algeria, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Qatar and Turkey.

The United Arab Emirates gave $6 million to UNESCO, while Kuwait gave $5 million. UNESCO now hosts the presentation of books such as The Foundations of Islam along with ISESCO, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, whose director Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri met Flavia Schlegel, assistant director general of UNESCO, to advance the cooperation between the two agencies.

At its headquarters in Paris, UNESCO also promoted a project, “Fighting Islamophobia through Education“. As the French author Pascal Bruckner explained:

“The concept of Islamophobia masks the reality of the offensive, led by the Salafists, Wahhabis, and Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and North America, to re-Islamize Muslim communities — a prelude, they hope, to Islamizing the entire Western world.”

Under UNESCO’s previous Director-General Irina Bokova, the organization allowed the “State of Palestine” to join as a member, despite its not being a state and despite the Palestinians’ clear failure to protect holy sites. Palestinians destroyed the Jewish holy shrine of Joseph’s Tomb and attacked the holy site known as Rachel’s Tomb, while Palestinian terrorists invaded the Christian holy site of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. UNESCO also kept silent when Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist terror group governing Gaza, destroyed the ancient Anthedon Harbor, which includes the ruins of a Roman temple and archaeological remains from the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras.

UNESCO’s concern for “endangered sites” — a travesty of language used by these regimes to mask the Islamization of Hebron’s Jewish cemeteries at the UN — quickly disappears when it comes to Christian churches in the Islamic world. Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral of Christianity in Istanbul, was re-Islamized by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The muezzin’s call to prayer resounded for the first time in 85 years since the country’s former leader, Ataturk, turned the cathedral into a museum. If UNESCO is really serious about reforming itself, it should immediately issue a statement against the Islamization of Hagia Sophia, a UN World Heritage Site.

Novelist and filmmaker Zulfu Livaneli, Turkey’s goodwill ambassador to the UNESCO, resigned in 2016; he accused the UN agency of hypocrisy for ignoring the destruction of a heritage site in Diyarbakir during clashes between the Turkish army and militants in his country’s mainly Kurdish southeast. “To pontificate on peace while remaining silent against such violations is a contradiction of the fundamental ideals of UNESCO,” said Livaneli, who had held the goodwill post to promote UNESCO values since 1996. More officials and personalities should take the same position protesting against UNESCO’s silence on many other destructions.

New UNESCO chief Azoulay said last week that the US “empty chair” cannot last. The American boycott, however, is not a matter of time, but of substance. The US and Israeli boycott will last until UNESCO returns to its original mission.

When Pablo Picasso painted the famous frescoes at UNESCO’s headquarter at Place de Fontenoy in Paris, UNESCO’s founding fathers dreamed of the rebirth of Western culture after the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazism. Now the West, intimidated by physical terror and political ransom, is allowing UNESCO to be seized by regimes that hang dissidents, lash women, execute gays, imprison Christians and leave their own people illiterate.

When did the West cynically decide that education and culture were worth less than a barrel of oil?

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Categories: UNESCO
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Jailhouse Jihadi: The Intriguing Case of Casey Charles Spain

December 8, 2017

Jailhouse Jihadi: The Intriguing Case of Casey Charles Spain, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Patrick Dunleavy, December 8, 2017

Often what comes out of prison is much worse than what went in. How else do we understand (explain) the case of Casey Charles Spain. He went to jail as a registered sex offender in 2010. Last August, three weeks after his release from a Virginia prison, he was arrested and accused of being a committed jihadist who had sworn allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and was willing to kill innocent men, women, and children for the cause of ISIS.

He was charged with illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted a sting operation to dupe Spain into thinking he was meeting with an ISIS soldier who would provide him with a weapon necessary to kill American infidels. When investigators approached him, Spain took off running, at one point jumping a fence, as he tried to elude capture.

We are now faced with the question of how someone like Spain became radicalized while incarcerated.

Over the years since 9/11, we have learned that several factors contribute to the radicalization process. The influence of the prison chaplain has been proven to be one. Fifteen years ago, a little known New York state prison official named Warith Deen Umar told an interviewer that the 9/11 hijackers were heroes and that prison was the ideal place for converts to Islam to become jihadists. As the director of Ministerial Services for New York, Umar was responsible for hiring and vetting all Islamic chaplains. He was also a chaplain for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A subsequent investigation by the Department of Justice’s inspector general found that unvetted Muslim chaplains were a contributing factor in prison radicalization. Also during that time, the for New York State Department of Corrections and the New York Police Department investigated prison radicalization in what was called “Operation Hades.” It uncovered numerous inmates who had been converted to a radical form of Islam that was being taught in prison mosques by both unvetted chaplains and their inmate assistants, some of whom had ties with terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

One such inmate was Edwin Lorenzo Lemmons. Lemmons was convicted of attempted robbery and sentenced to four years in a New York prison. He converted to Islam while in custody and was appointed the imam chaplain’s assistant. He then enrolled in a prison class to learn Arabic. The inmate instructor was a Jordanian-born inmate who investigators later learned had once pledged bayat (allegiance) to Osama bin Laden and was helping released inmates travel to the Middle East to receive “underground tactical training.” Lemmons was paroled in 1998 with time off for good behavior.

He traveled overseas six months after completing his parole, visiting several Middle Eastern countries including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. There, he met with contacts provided to him by the Jordanian inmate. He also enrolled in Egyptian madrassas controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. During his time abroad, investigators intercepted phone calls from him to a New York prison chaplain’s office, where he was allowed to speak with some of the prisoners. He expressed his commitment to jihad to the inmates, along with his disdain for non-believers. Lemmons returned to the United States from Egypt in September 2003. FBI agents arrested him when the plane touched down in Orlando, and charged him with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Agents saw Lemmons holding an AK-47 at a Melbourne, Fla. shooting range during another visit. He pleaded guilty to the charge and spent three years in federal prison.

Spain’s case mirrors Lemmons’ in many ways – including a prison conversion and a similar firearms charge – but with a more ominous connection. Following his release from federal prison, Lemmons was hired by the Muslim Chaplain Services of Virginia (MCSVA) It is contracted with the Virginia Department of Corrections to provide Muslim chaplains for the prison system. The MCSVA receives some of its funding from the Islamic Relief (IRUSA), an organization that has in the past been suspected of financing terrorists.

Lemmons was thus granted statewide access to Virginia inmates, making regular monthly visits to conduct Jummah services and teach Arabic.

According to Virginia prison records obtained by IPT, Casey Charles Spain was listed to attend Sunni/Jummah services at two facilities where Lemmons taught.

From 2015-2017, Lemmons and Casey Charles Spain were in the Greensville Correctional Center, prison records show, with Spain as an inmate and Lemmons as the chaplain/imam.

The Virginia Department of Corrections policy allowing an ex-inmate to re-enter its facilities to speak to inmates is not the issue. Many ex-offenders have had a positive effect in helping others turn their lives around. But when it comes to terrorism and prison radicalization, however, permitting an inadequately vetted chaplain to minister to the flock is a recipe for disaster.

In June, the Virginia corrections director and operations support manager were informed of Lemmons background by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. They were advised to contact the law enforcement agencies that investigated him in the 2004 terrorism case. The officials said they didn’t know about Lemmons’ background or 2003 arrest.

Casey Charles Spain pleaded guilty Nov. 3 to illegal possession of a firearm and faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in February. We can only hope that when he returns to prison he will not be assigned as a chaplain’s assistant like his mentor Edwin Lemmons. And certainly he should not be allowed to re-enter any prison when he is released to work as a prison imam/chaplain. Otherwise the process of radicalization will then have come full circle again.

Categories: Islamic radicalization, Prisons and Islamic indoctrination, Prisons and Islamist chaplains
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President Trump’s Jerusalem Move Deals a Blow to Terror

December 8, 2017

President Trump’s Jerusalem Move Deals a Blow to Terror, FrontPage Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 8, 2017

It’s not about a “piece of land here or there”, as the PA’s top Sharia judge clarifies, it’s a religious war. And Israel is not just a religious war between Muslims and Jews, but a shifting frontier in the larger war between Islam and the rest of the world. It’s another territory to be conquered on the way to Europe. And Europe is another territory to be conquered on the way to America. 

There can be no peace in a religious war. Nor is there anything to negotiate.

“It isn’t possible to compromise on or negotiate over Jerusalem,” Habash had said. “In politics there can be compromises here and there… In politics there can be negotiation. However, in matters of religion, faith, values, ethics, and history, there can be no compromises.”

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Hamas has announced that President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has opened the “gates of hell.” Its Muslim Brotherhood parent has declared America an “enemy state.”

The Arab League boss warned that the Jerusalem move “will fuel extremism and result in violence.” The Jordanian Foreign Minister claimed that it would “trigger anger” and “fuel tension.”

“Moderate” Muslim leaders excel at threatening violence on behalf of the “extremists”.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) warned that recognizing Jerusalem will trigger an Islamic summit and be considered a “blatant attack on the Arab and Islamic nations.”

The last time the OIC was this mad, someone drew Mohammed. And wasn’t stoned to death for it.

According to the Saudi ambassador, it will “heighten tensions”. The Deputy Prime Minister of Islamist Turkey called it a “major catastrophe”. And the leader of the largest Muslim country in Europe, France’s Emmanuel Macron “expressed concern” that America will “unilaterally recognize Jerusalem.”

PLO leaders and minions meanwhile made it quite clear that now the dead peace process is truly dead.

The Palestinian Authority’s boss warned that recognizing Jerusalem will “destroy the peace process”. The PLO’s envoy in D.C. threatened that it would be the “final lethal blow” and “the kiss of death to the two-state solution”. A top PA advisor claimed it “will end any chance of a peace process.”

A day later, the peace process is still as alive and as dead as it ever was.

Since the chance of a peace process is about the same as being hit by lightning while scoring a Royal Flush, that “chance” doesn’t amount to anything. The peace process has been deader than Dracula for ages. And even a PLO terrorist should know that you can’t threaten to kill a dead hostage.

The only kiss of death here came from Arafat.

Peace wasn’t killed though. It was never alive. Because a permanent peace is Islamically impossible.

“The world will pay the price,” warned Mahmoud Habash, the Palestinian Authority’s Supreme Sharia judge.

Habash isn’t just the bigwig of Islamic law, he’s also the Islamic adviser to the leader of the Palestinian Authority. And Abbas, the terror organization’s leader, was there when Habash made his remarks.

Previously Habash had declared that the Kotel, the Western Wall of the fallen Temple, the holiest site in Judaism, “can never be for non-Muslims. It cannot be under the sovereignty of non-Muslims.”

While the official warnings from the Palestinian Authority, the Arab League and assorted other Islamic organizations have claimed that recognizing Jerusalem threatens the non-existent peace process, Habash had in the past had made it quite clear that the issue wasn’t land, it was Jihad.

“The struggle over this land is not merely a struggle over a piece of land here or there. Not at all. The struggle has the symbolism of holiness, or blessing. It is a struggle between those whom Allah has chosen for Ribat and those who are trying to mutilate the land of Ribat,” Habash had declared.

Ribat means that Israel is a frontier outpost between the territories of Islam and the free world. The Muslim terrorists who call themselves “Palestinians” have, according to the Abbas adviser, been chosen for “Ribat” to stand guard on the Islamic frontier and expand the territories of Islam.

The sense of Ribat is that the Jihadists may not yet be able to win a definitive victory, but must maintain their vigilance for the ultimate goal, which a Hadith defines as performing Ribat “against my enemy and your enemy until he abandons his religion for your religion.”

That is what’s at stake here.

It’s not about a “piece of land here or there”, as the PA’s top Sharia judge clarifies, it’s a religious war. And Israel is not just a religious war between Muslims and Jews, but a shifting frontier in the larger war between Islam and the rest of the world. It’s another territory to be conquered on the way to Europe. And Europe is another territory to be conquered on the way to America.

There can be no peace in a religious war. Nor is there anything to negotiate.

“It isn’t possible to compromise on or negotiate over Jerusalem,” Habash had said. “In politics there can be compromises here and there… In politics there can be negotiation. However, in matters of religion, faith, values, ethics, and history, there can be no compromises.”

There’s an extremely thin line in Islamic theocracy between politics and religion. But what Habash is really saying is that there might be room to negotiate how many times a week the garbage truck comes to pick up the trash, but not who gives him the orders. Islamic supremacism is non-negotiable.

The Supreme Sharia judge warned Trump that moving the embassy is “a declaration of war on all Muslims.” Why all Muslims? Because the “Palestinians” are a myth. Islamic conquests are collective.

And it’s not as if any of the Muslim leaders disagree.

Why is Jerusalem their business? It’s not empathy for the “Palestinians”. Kuwait ethnically cleansed huge numbers of them. They aren’t treated all that much better in other Arab Muslim countries.

It’s not about them. The Muslim settlers in Israel are just there as “Ribat”. They’re the frontier guard of the Islamic conquest. Much like the Sharia patrols in the No-Go Zones of Europe or the Jihadists in Kashmir, the Rohingya in Burma and all the other Islamic Volksdeutsche variants of occupying colonists.

Sunni may fight Shiite. Muslim countries, tribes and clans may war with each other. But the land they’re fighting over belongs to all of them collectively.

It can never belong to non-Muslims. That is the essence of Islam where conquest is religion.

That’s true of Jerusalem. And of the entire world.

That is what is truly at stake in the war over Jerusalem. When countries refuse to move their embassies to Jerusalem, they are submitting to Sharia law and Islamic supremacism. The issue at stake is the same one as drawing Mohammed. It’s not about a “piece of land”. It’s about the supremacy of Islam.

Refusing to move the embassy doesn’t prevent violence. Islamic terrorism continues to claim lives in Jerusalem. And Islamic violence has been a constant before Israel liberated Jerusalem or before there was even a free Israel. The Arab League, the Jordanians, the Saudis and the rest of the gang aren’t promising an end to the violence. Instead they warn that if we don’t obey, it will grow worse.

That’s not diplomacy. It’s a hostage crisis.

President Trump made the right decision by refusing to let our foreign policy be held hostage. We don’t win by giving in to terrorists.

We win by resisting them.  Or else we’ll have to live our lives as hostages of Islamic terror.

Jerusalem is a metaphor. Every free country has its own Jerusalem. In America, it’s the First Amendment. Our Jerusalem is not just a piece of land, it’s a value. And the Islamic Jihad seeks to intimidate us into giving it up until, as the Hadith states, we abandon our religion for Islam.

Moving the embassy to Jerusalem will do much more for America than it will for Israel.

The Israelis already know where their capital is. We need to remember where we left our freedom. Islamic terrorists win when they terrorize us into being too afraid to do the right thing.

President Trump sent a message to the terrorists that America will not be terrorized.

Previous administrations allowed the terrorists to decide where we put our embassy. But Trump has made it clear that we won’t let Islamic terrorists decide where we put our embassies, what cartoons we will draw or how we live our lives. That is what real freedom means.

Categories: Islam and the world, Jerusalem - status, Jihadists and Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Authority and peace, Terrorist veto, Trump and Islamic terrorism, Trump and Israel, Trump and Jerusalem
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Commendable defiance

December 8, 2017

Commendable defiance, Israel Hayom, David M. Weinberg, December 8, 2017

What do you do when they untruthfully blame Israeli “settlements,” expressly including home construction in Jewish Jerusalem, for the failure of their botched peace process, and then abstain as the U.N. Security Council savages Israel, and only Israel, for obstruction of peace diplomacy?

You pray for new leaders in the United States who will right the wrongs, defy the rotten and callous consensus, be willing to introduce a dose of realism and truth-telling to the Arab-Israeli dynamic, and be brave enough to say, at least, that Jews have profound rights in Jerusalem and that the U.S. recognizes the indisputable fact that Jerusalem functions as Israel’s capital, justifiably so. And that the American Embassy will move to Jerusalem, as should all embassies.

You pray that somebody with Trump’s gumption will come along, become president of the United States, and do what he has just done.

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The Palestinians have no one to blame except themselves for President Donald Trump’s declaration on Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. The same goes for European leaders, who were busy this week condemning Trump’s move.

The Palestinians and the Europeans brought this on themselves by running an ugly campaign of denialism and denigration against Israel. Their brazen persistence in delegitimizing the Jewish people’s historic roots and rights in Jerusalem led to this defiant and ultimately honorable result: a reassertion of reality.

Over the past decade, and certainly since he rejected then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2014 peace initiative, President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority has been on an outrageous path, an assault on the core identity of Jews and Israelis and an offensive to deny the most fundamental, basic building blocks of Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.

At Abbas’ express urging, UNESCO has adopted insane and nonsensical resolutions declaring Jerusalem an exclusively Muslim heritage city and criminalizing Israel’s custodianship of the holy city. Most of Israel’s European allies went along with this affront, either voting for or abstaining on the resolutions.

So what do you do when the Big Lie is evident everywhere, and no one seems to care about the truth? What do you do when Abbas repugnantly engages in gross inversions of reality and says that Israel is “paving the way for bitter religious conflict” that he doesn’t want – when, in fact, it is he who is driving the conflict, not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Israel?

What you do is keep the faith, and re-assert basic truths, such as the fact that for 3,000 years Jerusalem has been the Jewish people’s ancient patrimony and that for 70 years Jerusalem has been the sovereign capital of the State of Israel.

What do you do when Abbas shamefully, regularly and falsely accuses Israel of committing “violations” against Islamic and Christian holy sites, including the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, when it is his Waqf Muslim religious trust that has turned Al-Aqsa into an armed fortress and turned every Jewish visit to Judaism’s holiest site into a skirmish?

What do you do when it his Waqf that wantonly has dug up and destroyed thousands of years of Jewish archaeological treasures on the Temple Mount, and the world has stood by without protest? What do you do when Abbas’ people have destroyed Joseph’s Tomb, sought to destroy Rachel’s Tomb, and have run Christians out of Bethlehem?

You change the way Israeli (and  hopefully now American) diplomats present Israel’s case by emphasizing Israel’s legal, historic and religious rights in this land, not just our security needs. You do not forfeit to the Palestinians the international discourse regarding human, national and civil rights, especially on Jerusalem.

You push back by declaring – against the advice of all the inveterate peace process experts and high-and-mighty European commissioners – that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, plain and simple.

What do you do when Abbas has the gall to call for “international protection for Palestinians in Jerusalem against assaults by the occupation army” and accuses Israel of “executing” teenage Palestinian terrorists, when it is Israelis who have to be afraid of Palestinian stonings, knifings and shootings in every corner of this country and who are (uncomfortably and heroically) restraining themselves from unleashing the full force of Israel’s military?

You demonstrate resilience. And you ask your good friends in the U.S., be they Republican or Democrat, evangelical or secular, to defend you and to affirm that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

What do you do when the U.N. secretary general and the pope swallow every bit of Abbas’ bile about exclusive Arab rights in Jerusalem, while ignoring his denial of Christian history in Jerusalem? What do you do when they denounce “hateful discourse on both sides,” when there is no moral equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian discourse and no factual equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian propensities to violence?

You do not go running scared. You make the determination not to be cowed by yet more threats of Palestinian rage. You resolve not to melt from adopting moral policies just because of Arab stonings, stabbings, bombings and other forms of bullying.

What do you do when the president and secretary of state of your main ally, Barack Obama and John Kerry of the blessedly expired previous American administration, doubt Israel’s sincerity in maintaining calm on the Temple Mount and cast aspersions on the defensive measures taken by the Israel Police and IDF in response to Palestinian terrorism, when in fact Israel has studiously (and I think too diligently) maintained the status quo on Temple Mount, and its security forces have acted with immense restraint in response to Palestinian atrocities?

What do you do when they untruthfully blame Israeli “settlements,” expressly including home construction in Jewish Jerusalem, for the failure of their botched peace process, and then abstain as the U.N. Security Council savages Israel, and only Israel, for obstruction of peace diplomacy?

You pray for new leaders in the United States who will right the wrongs, defy the rotten and callous consensus, be willing to introduce a dose of realism and truth-telling to the Arab-Israeli dynamic, and be brave enough to say, at least, that Jews have profound rights in Jerusalem and that the U.S. recognizes the indisputable fact that Jerusalem functions as Israel’s capital, justifiably so. And that the American Embassy will move to Jerusalem, as should all embassies.

You pray that somebody with Trump’s gumption will come along, become president of the United States, and do what he has just done.

David M. Weinberg (www.davidmweinberg.com) is vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

Categories: Europe and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Authority and peace, Palestinian issues, Palestinian lies, Pope Francis, Trump and Israel, Trump and Jerusalem, UN and Israel
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Israel to build 14,000 new housing units in Jerusalem

December 8, 2017

Israel to build 14,000 new housing units in Jerusalem, Israel National News, Ido Ben Porat, December 8, 2017

Yoav GalantMiriam Tzahi

Construction and Housing Minister Yoav Galant (Kulanu) is promoting a plan to build 14,000 housing units in Jerusalem, Hahadashot (formerly Channel 2 News) reported on Thursday.

The move follows President Donald Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

According to the report, the government would promote the construction of 5,000 housing units in Atarot, in addition to a new neighborhood in the area which is being promoted by the Jerusalem municipality.

Another 1,000 housing units are expected in Pisgat Ze’ev and are waiting for approval, 3,000 units will be built in Katamon and 5,000 units will be built in Reches Lavan.

“Following President Trump’s historic declaration, I intend to promote and strengthen the construction in Jerusalem,” said Minister Galant.

Other ministers in the Cabinet expressed support for Galant and told Hahadashot, “There are no more excuses. There are no more reasons why we should not build in the city, when the president of the United States views it as the undisputed capital of the State of Israel.”

Categories: Jerusalem - new housing to be built, Jerusalem - status, Trump and Israel, Trump and Jerusalem
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Trump Attacked for Not Inviting Anti-Israel Activists to Hanukkah Party

December 8, 2017

Trump Attacked for Not Inviting Anti-Israel Activists to Hanukkah Party, The Point (FrontPage Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 8, 2017

The Chanukah party was finally representative of the Jewish community instead of the anti-Israel left. After 8 years, it’s a nice change.

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President Trump is being attacked by the New York Times for not inviting opponents of the Jewish State to the Hanukkah party at the White House.

“Officials from J Street, a progressive pro-Israel group that strongly backed Mr. Obama and the nuclear deal he forged with Iran — which was detested by many conservative Jews — were excluded,” the New York Times complains.

Also the KKK wasn’t invited to the Civil Rights Museum opening. 

J Street has repeatedly urged a deal with Hamas. It’s just as out of place at a Chanukah party as Hamas would be. The Times also complains that Rick Jacobs wasn’t invited. Right after Jacobs became one of the few leaders to attack President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem.

Chanukah celebrates the liberation of Jerusalem and the Temple. You know, the place that Rick Jacobs and J Street would like to see taken away from Jews and turned over to Islamic terrorists.

If you don’t believe in what Chanukah represents (and no anti-Israel activist can) then why bother going to a Chanukah party?

Most of the noise seems to be coming from Nita Lowey and Debbie Wasserman Schultz who were complaining about not getting an invite. I don’t know that anyone would invite Schultz anywhere these days. Even to her own birthday party.

Lowey hypocritically claims that Trump turned the Chanukah party into a partisan event. Except that Obama’s Chanukah parties were obscene parades of anti-Israel activists to which few if any Jews who actually represented the Jewish community got an invite.

The Chanukah party was finally representative of the Jewish community instead of the anti-Israel left. After 8 years, it’s a nice change.

Categories: Trump and Israel, Trump and Israel haters, Trump's Chanukah party
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Tillerson hints at deal to resolve Arab-Israeli conflict in one fell swoop, Moscow waits in wings

December 8, 2017
https://www.rt.com/news/412430-lavrov-jerusalem-move-tillerson/
FILE PHOTO: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov © Sascha Schuermann / AFP
The US secretary of state believes he can resolve the decades-old conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors in a single ‘deal of the century.’ Moscow is waiting with bated breath to hear the details of the plan, according to its top diplomat.

“Rex [Tillerson]… hinted to me that the United States is expecting to strike a ‘deal of the century,’ which would resolve the Palestinian-Israeli problem in one swoop,” Sergey Lavrov said. “We certainly want to understand how they see this happening.”

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Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest against the U.S. intention to move its embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize the city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, December 6, 2017 Osman Orsal

Trump triggers Palestinian fury & anti-US protests in Turkey, Jordan (VIDEOS)

The comments by the Russian foreign minister followed a decision by US President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reigniting hostility between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel occupied the eastern part of the city, which is considered holy by all three major religions in the region, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, along with large parts of Palestinian territories. The occupation was not recognized as legitimate by any other nation and, similarly, no nation has acknowledged Israel’s declaration of Jerusalem as its capital – until now.

Lavrov joined an international chorus of criticism over the move by the Trump administration. “The fact is that the statement [of recognition] goes against all the previous agreements,” he said, adding that it divided global communities into two “very, very unequal parts.” Israel is the only nation openly endorsing the move, but some US allies like Canada have refrained from criticizing it too loudly.

Lavrov, who was speaking to journalists in Vienna, said the Trump administration has shot itself in the foot with the decision, undermining their own Middle East strategy. “They previously said, let’s normalize the relations between Washington and the Arab world, and once it is done, the Palestinian issue can be resolved,” he said. “By taking the decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem the Trump administration have undermined their effort to normalize the relations with the Arabs.”

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