Archive for December 2017

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Twilight over the “Palestinian Cause”

December 21, 2017

Twilight over the “Palestinian Cause”, Gatestone Institute, Guy Millière, December 21, 2017

(Please see also, Palestinian claims to Jerusalem lose Saudi as well as US support. — DM)

Reports from the West Bank after the Six Day War show that the Arabs interviewed defined themselves as “Arabs” or “Jordanians”, and evidently did not yet know that they were “the Palestinian people”. Since then, they were taught it. They were also taught that it is their duty is to “liberate Palestine” by killing Jews. The Palestinians are the first people invented to serve as a weapon of mass destruction of another people.

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.” — PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen, interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 1977.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European Union has become the main financier of the “Palestinian cause”, including its terrorism. They are also contributing to war.

Iran, strengthened enormously by the agreement passed in July 2015 and the massive US funding that accompanied it, has been showing its desire to become a hegemonic power in the Middle East.

The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, recently issued a fatwa saying that “fighting the Jews” is “against the will” of Allah and that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

For many years, “Palestine” has not stopped aspiring to new heights in the so called “international community”. “Palestine” has been present at the Olympic Games since 1996, and, later, became a permanent observer to UNESCO and the United Nations. The vast majority of the 95 “embassies” of “Palestine” are in the Muslim world; many others are in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. In 2014, the Spanish Parliament voted in favor of full recognition of “Palestine.” A few weeks later, the French Parliament did the same. 

There is no other instance in the history of the world where a state that does not exist can have missions and embassies presumed to function as if that state did exist.

Now the time has probably come for the “Palestinians” to realize that they have lost and fall back to earth, as noted by the scholar Daniel Pipes.

Have “Palestinian” leaders been showing by their speeches and actions that they are ready to rule a state living in peace with their neighbors and with the rest of the world? All “Palestinian” leaders have incessantly incited terrorism, and do not hide their wish to wipe Israel off the map.

Is there a long-standing aspiration by the “Palestinian people” to have a state and to live peacefully within that state? The answer is actually no. The “Palestinian people” were invented in the late 1960s by the Arab and Soviet propaganda services. As PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen told the Dutch newspaper Trouw in March 1977:

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.”

Reports from the West Bank after the Six Day War show that the Arabs defined themselves in interviews as “Arabs” or “Jordanians”; they evidently did not know that they were the “Palestinian people”. Since then, they were taught it. They were also taught that it is their duty to “liberate Palestine” by killing Jews. The Palestinians are the first people invented to serve as a weapon of mass destruction of another people.

Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO, at the Arab League summit in Rabat, Morocco, 1974. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Is there at least a historic past that gives legitimacy to the aspiration to create a “Palestinian state”? The answer again is actually no. There is no Palestinian culture distinct from the cultures of the Muslim Arab world, no monument that can be defined as a “Palestinian” historic monument, except by falsifying history.

More basically, would a hypothetical “Palestinian state” be economically viable? Again, the answer is actually no. Territories occupied by the Palestinian movements survive only thanks to international financial assistance from the West.

How then could so many countries wish for so long to create a state whose rulers would likely be regressive, corrupt “Palestinian” leaders; whose inhabitants would be used as killing machines, whose history is non-existent-to-falsified and whose economic potential seems zero?

The answer is simple.

Behind their support for the creation of a “Palestinian state”, those countries have been pursuing other goals. For decades, countries of the Muslim world obsessively wanted one thing: the destruction of Israel.

They tried to reach their goal through conventional warfare, then terrorism, then diplomacy, then propaganda. They blamed only Israel for all the evils of the Middle East.

All the while, they know who the “Palestinian” leaders are and what they do. They know that the “Palestinian people” were invented. They know why the “Palestinian” people were invented. They know that a “Palestinian state” will not have a viable economy. Yet they have been committed to a strategy of destabilizing and demonizing a non-Muslim nation, Israel.

They call the “Palestinians” “victims“; terrorism, “militancy”; and incitement to kill, “resisting occupation”. They have been trampling rightful history and replacing it with myth.

They press “Palestinian” leaders to “negotiate”, knowing perfectly well that no agreement will ever be signed and that negotiations will end in bloodshed.

They propose only “peace plans” they know Israel must reject – those which include the “’49 ‘Auschwitz‘ armistice lines” or the “right of return” for “Palestinian refugees”, who numbered half a million in 1949, but near five million today.

They recognize a “Palestinian state” while knowing that the “state” they recognize is not a state, but rather a terrorist entity without defined borders or territory, and imbued with a will to spill more blood and create more mayhem.

They have relied on turmoil, blackmail and lies to encourage the rest of the world to think the situation requires drastic international intervention.

They have been saying they want a “Palestinian state”, but never that they want this state to renounce terrorism and end the conflict.

Instead, they have been waging a vicious war they have long hoped to win.

For more than thirty years, they benefited from the support of the Soviet Union. It financed wars (1967, 1973), terrorism, diplomacy and propaganda. The Soviet Union made the “Palestinian” enterprise an “anti-imperialist” cause — a means of strengthening Soviet positions and galvanizing the enemies of the West. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but the effects of its support for the “Palestinian cause” for a time remained. Many countries hostile to the West still support and recognize the “Palestinians” while pretending to ignore that they are recognizing a terrorist entity. They are contributing to war.

Countries of the Western world, subjected to the pressures of the Muslim world and the Soviet Union for many years, have gradually given way, some even before any pressure was applied.

France chose its camp in 1967, when General Charles de Gaulle launched what he called an “Arab policy” after its defeat in Algeria. French foreign policy become resolutely “pro-Palestinian” -– in an apparent effort to deflect terrorism, obtain inexpensive oil and compete with the US — and has remained so to this day. Western European countries have gradually adopted positions close to those of France. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European Union has become the main financier of the “Palestinian cause”, including its terrorism. Western European leaders know what the real goals are, yet they repeat without respite that creating a “Palestinian state” is “essential“. They are also contributing to war.

Although a long-time ally of Israel, the United States changed its Middle East policy in the beginning of the 1990s to positions closer to those of the Muslim world. American politicians and diplomats pressured Israelis to negotiate with “Palestinian” leaders and seemed to have lost sight of what the “Palestinian cause” was secretly about. Wishful Israeli leaders agreed to negotiate. The tragic result was the Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). It quickly became a new base of anti-Israeli terrorism. A wave of lethal, anti-Israel attacks started immediately, with a stepped-up anti-Israel diplomatic and propaganda offensive right after. A “two-state solution” was invoked. American leaders, as if they had slept through several years, started to say that a “Palestinian state” had to exist. Three American Presidents proposed “peace plans“, also contributing to war.

An additional “peace plan” is expected soon, but the parameters will be profoundly different. President Donald Trump appears to wish to break with the past.

He recently told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that “Palestinian” leaders were liars. None of the American negotiators he chose seems to have the slightest illusion about the “Palestinian” leadership or the “Palestinian cause”.

The Taylor Force Act, passed on December 5 by the US House of Representatives, plans to condition US aid to the “West Bank and Gaza” on “the actions taken by the Palestinian Authority to end violence and terrorism against Israeli citizens”; the Act could be adopted soon by the Senate. The PA rejected all the requirements in the Act.

The Muslim world is also undergoing change. Iran, strengthened enormously by the agreement passed in July 2015 and the massive US funding that accompanied it, has been showing its desire to become a hegemonic power in the Middle East. The mullahs’ regime now holds three capital cities in addition to Teheran: Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut. Iran attacks Saudi Arabia and supports the war led by the Houthi militia in Yemen; it intends to seize Sanaa and take control of Bab El Mandeb, the gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Qatar and Turkey have established close ties with Iran.

Saudi leaders appear aware of the danger. King Salman chose his son, Mohamed bin Salman, as heir to the throne, and gave him broad powers. “MBS”, as he is known, seems intent on leading a real revolution. Militarily, he is head of the 40-member Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition, and has declared his desire to “end terrorism”. Economically, he is in charge of an ambitious reform project aimed at making his country less dependent on oil: Saudi Vision 2030. All Saudi leaders in disagreement with the new orientations of the country were placed under arrest and their assets confiscated. Mohamed bin Salman has identified Iran as the main enemy, and recently described its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, as a “new Hitler.” Qatar and Turkey have been subjected to intense Saudi pressure to distance themselves from the Iranian regime. The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, recently issued a fatwa saying that “fighting the Jews” is “against the will” of Allah and that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Mohamed bin Salman has the support of the Trump administration; Vladimir Putin who, while being allied to Iran, may want a balance of power in the Middle East, and Xi Jinping, who is facing the risk of a Sunni Islamic upheaval in China’s autonomous territory, Xinjiang.

“Palestinian” leader, Mahmoud Abbas was reportedly summoned to Riyadh, where King Salman and Mohammed bin Salman told him that he had to accept the plan proposed by the Trump administration or resign, and that it would “risky” for him to consider launching an uprising – which he has anyway, although being careful to keep it lukewarm.

During the month of October, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a close ally of Mohamed bin Salman, invited the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to come to Cairo for a “reconciliation”. He apparently demanded control of the Gaza Strip to be handed to the Palestinian Authority. It also seems that the Trump administration and President Sisi told Hamas leaders that they had to approve the terms of the “reconciliation” agreement, and that if they carried out any attacks against Israel, they risked complete destruction.

The “peace plan” evidently to be presented by the Trump administration is provoking the extreme anger of “Palestinian” leaders. The goal of the “plan” seems to be to revive an open ended “peace process”, allowing Saudi Arabia and the members of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition to move closer to Israel and push the “Palestinian cause” toward the back burner.

On November 19, an Arab League emergency meeting held in Cairo strongly condemned Hezbollah and Iran. Moreover, for the first time in fifty years, a meeting of the Arab League did not even mention the “Palestinian” question.

President Trump’s recognition on December 6 of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has led to restlessness and acrimony both in the Muslim world and among Western European leaders. Sunni leaders allied to Saudi Arabia, however, as well as Saudi Arabia itself, seem too concerned about the Iranian threat to quarrel with Israel, the United States or really anyone. Western Europe has almost no weight in what is taking shape; all it has shown is cowardice, fear, and continued contempt for a fellow Western democracy: Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, now in the twelfth year of his four year term — and apparently seeing that he is getting little support — appeared to seek divine intervention: he asked the Pope for help. There would be “no Palestinian state without East Jerusalem as its capital,” Abbas said. He sounded as if he had begun to understand that the “Palestinian cause” could be fading, and, with other “Palestinian” leaders, called for “three days of rage“. A few protesters burned tires and American flags – the usual.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to convene in Istanbul on December 13, and urged leaders of Muslim countries to recognize Jerusalem as the “occupied capital of the Palestinian state”. Saudi King Salman stayed well away as did almost all other Sunni leaders. He only sent a message saying that he calls for “a political solution to resolve regional crises”. He added that “Palestinians have right to East Jerusalem” – the least he could do; he did no more. Erdogan is mainly supported by Iran, today’s foremost enemy of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries.

“It will not be the end of the war against Israel,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “but it could be the beginning of the end of the “Palestinian cause”.

It now seems a good time for Western European leaders who still blindly support the “Palestinian cause” to cut their losses, both politically and economically. Taking the side of Erdogan and the mullahs in order to support a terrorist entity that will never be a “state” will do nothing to help them fight either terrorism or the increasing Islamization of Europe.

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.

Categories: "Palestinians", Iran and Israel, Israel - Jewish state, Israel and Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey, Israel's allies, Israeli Arabs, Israeli security, Peace process, Saudi clergy, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Putin Could Not Be Reached for Comment

December 21, 2017

Putin Could Not Be Reached for Comment, Power Line,  Scott Johnson, December 21, 2017

Rep. Adam Schiff is a highly partisan proponent of the thesis that the Trump campaign colluded with Putin in the 2016 election. This week he made his incredibly thin case in this Wall Street Journal column (behind the Journal’s paywall). I infer from Schiff’s column that the collusion thesis is impervious to the failure of proof. “Complex global investigations take time,” he explained.

Schiff went further on CNN. There he supported former DNI James Clapper’s proposition that Vladimir Putin is running President Trump as a Russian asset. Decency imposes no limits on these hacks.

The collusion line is not only impervious to the failure of proof, it is impervious to contrary evidence. Yesterday, for example, reversing Obama administration policy pleasing to Putin, the Trump administration approved the sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine. The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin reported:

The Trump administration has approved the first ever U.S. commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, in a clear break from the de facto U.S. ban on arms sales that dates back to the Obama administration. The move was heavily supported by top Trump national security Cabinet officials and Congress but may complicate President Trump’s stated ambition to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Administration officials confirmed that the State Department this month approved a commercial license authorizing the export of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems, ammunition, and associated parts and accessories to Ukraine, a sale valued at $41.5 million. These weapons address a specific vulnerability of Ukrainian forces fighting a Russian-backed separatist movement in two eastern provinces. There has been no approval to export the heavier weapons the Ukrainian government is asking for, such as Javelin antitank missiles.

Vladimir Putin could not be reached for comment.

And that’s not all. Yesterday the Treasury Department announced that it added five Russians to the list of those sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act. Treasury’s press release is posted here. The press release identifies three of those sanctioned by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as a result of their involvement in the scandal uncovered by Magnitsky:

OFAC today designated Alexei Sheshenya for his involvement in the criminal conspiracy uncovered by Magnitsky. Sheshenya was the shareholder of Grand Aktiv, the plaintiff in a lawsuit against Parfenion. The lawsuit involved one of six claims against the three Hermitage Fund subsidiaries, Parfenion, Riland, and Makhaon, illegally re-registered under different ownership in 2007. The judgment in these lawsuits served as the basis for an illegal tax refund in 2007, which Magnitsky exposed.

Yulia Mayorova was also designated for her involvement in the criminal conspiracy uncovered by Magnitsky. Mayorova represented Makhaon and Riland (two of the subsidiaries of the Hermitage Fund illegally re-registered under different ownership in 2007). As noted above, the judgments in the lawsuits served as the basis for an illegal tax refund in 2007, which Magnitsky exposed. The Hermitage Fund had no prior knowledge of or acquaintance with Mayorova and never hired her or authorized her appointment.

OFAC also designated Andrei Pavlov for his involvement in the criminal conspiracy uncovered by Magnitsky. Pavlov represented two of the illegally re-registered Hermitage Fund subsidiaries in separate lawsuits brought by a company he helped to register. The Hermitage Fund had no prior knowledge of or acquaintance with Pavlov and never hired him or authorized his appointment.

Again, Vladimir Putin could not be reached for comment.

Categories: "Putin's puppet", Arms to Ukraine, Great Trump - Russia conspiracy, Magnitsky Act, Sanctions, Trump and Putin, Trump and Russia, Trump and Ukraine
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Nazi Mosques in America

December 21, 2017

Nazi Mosques in America, FrontPage Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 21, 2017

(Please see also, D.C. Transit Cop’s Trial Details Ties Between Neo-Nazism and Islamist Terrorism. — DM)

Hamas has repeatedly made use of his prayer by calling for the extermination of the Jews and Christians. Hamas’ Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council had prayed, “Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, vanquish the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one.”

There was no misunderstanding. No one misspoke.

Hamas and the two Islamic centers issued the same genocidal threats because they were referencing the same Islamic teachings. The Islamic Center of Jersey City and the Islamic Center of Davis were all echoing Hamas. And Hamas was echoing the classic Islamic teachings of Sahih Bukhari.

Meanwhile terror mosques continue to enjoy influence and access in America. But then there are the awkward moments when in between the interfaith sessions, the mosques get caught preaching the extermination of the Jews. The mosque leaders mumble something about a misunderstanding. There’s another interfaith session in which leftist Jewish and Christian clergy overlook the calls to genocide and commit to a common struggle against President Trump while chanting, “No Muslim Ban!”

And then on another Friday in Jersey City, Davis or somewhere else, it happens again. “Count them one by one, and kill them down to the very last one.”

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

It was another Friday night in the Islamic Center of Jersey City. And its imam, Sheikh Aymen Elkasaby, had some thoughts about the Jews.

“So long as the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains a humiliated prisoner under the oppression of the Jews, this nation will never prevail,” he screamed belligerently in the World Trade Center bomber’s old mosque.

“Count them one by one, and kill them down to the very last one. Do not leave a single one on the face of the Earth.”

“Kill the Jews” is as much a standard at Friday night mosque services as Springsteen’s Born to Run is on Friday night in bars well downwind of the Islamic Center of Jersey City. But the politicians who stop by the mosques before elections have to pretend that they’re shocked at all the gambling going on.

The Islamic Center of Jersey City’s  president had been a member of the New Jersey Homeland Security Interfaith Advisory Council. Senator Cory Booker had invited him as a guest to the State of the Union and praised him as an example “of how the diversity of America makes us all better.”

Was his imam calling the Jews “apes and pigs” really making us all better? And if the Islamic Center of Jersey City wasn’t making America better with its diversity, then just maybe neither was Senator Cory Booker, the Democrats and their entire Islamic immigration program.

The diversity bus had taken a wrong turn on the road to Utopia and ended up in Nazi Germany

Senator Booker demanded that the mosque disavow its imam and the mosque’s president gaslit the media by claiming that his imam had the wrong idea about Islam and had been misunderstood.

It’s a commonplace misunderstanding.

On another Friday this year, in the Islamic Center of Davis, Imam Ammar Shahin implored, “Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews.”

“Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one.”

The Islamic Center of Davis’s initial response was, “If the sermon was misconstrued, we sincerely apologize to anyone offended. “ Then, like the Islamic Center of Jersey City, it touted its interfaith work.

The Islamic Center of Jersey City’s boss whined that its genocidal anti-Semitic clergyman had spoken “in the heat of the moment”. The Islamic Center of Davis’s genocidal imam claimed that, “When we speak with emotion, words might not be put in the right places or understood correctly.”

Both Islamic Centers were preparing their defenses from the same script. They blamed the emotions of their murderous clerics. The actual apologies amounted to, “We’re sorry you misunderstood our death threats.” But both imams were also offering the same genocidal prayer. And that’s because they were both quoting the same Islamic hadith involving a ‘martyred’ Islamic Jihadist cursing his non-Muslim foes.

Hamas has repeatedly made use of his prayer by calling for the extermination of the Jews and Christians. Hamas’ Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council had prayed, “Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, vanquish the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one.”

There was no misunderstanding. No one misspoke.

Hamas and the two Islamic centers issued the same genocidal threats because they were referencing the same Islamic teachings. The Islamic Center of Jersey City and the Islamic Center of Davis were all echoing Hamas. And Hamas was echoing the classic Islamic teachings of Sahih Bukhari.

Why would an imam at the Islamic Center of Jersey City echo Hamas? For over a decade, the director of the Islamic Center had been Mohammad Al-Hanooti. Al-Hanooti was an unindicted co-conspirator in the World Trade Center bombing. The FBI’s counterterrorism director had described him as a “big supporter” of Hamas who had helped raise $6 million for the Islamic terror group.

That’s information that politicians like Senator Booker like to ignore. And then they pretend to be shocked that there’s Jihad going on at an Islamic Center formerly headed up by a Hamas fundraiser.

A few days before the failed suicide bombing in Times Square, imam Qatanani of the Islamic Center of Passaic Country had called for a new intifada and led a “blood and souls” chant in Times Square. Imam Qatanani was an accused Hamas member. His predecessor at the Islamic Center, Mohammad El-Mezai, had been convicted of funneling money to Hamas. Qatanani was able to avoid deportation because of the intervention of a roster of New Jersey pols. Including Chris Christie, who kissed him on the cheek.

Two Jersey sheriffs claimed, “I feel better as a person to be with him” and that the Hamas member “radiates peace.” Cory Booker had attended an anti-Trump protest with him.

And the Times Square Bomber’s brother prayed at the Masjid Al-Salam mosque in Jersey City. That’s the mosque where the Blind Sheikh used to preach. The Sheikh’s followers had carried out the World Trade Center bombing and plotted numerous attacks across New York City. Masjid Al-Salam was also where locals reported Muslims celebrating after 9/11.

The connections aren’t subtle. They’ve never been subtle. They’re just embarrassing to the politicians.

The Islamic Center of Jersey City isn’t firing its imam. The Islamic Center of Davis trotted out its imam for a brief apology tour.

Time will pass and it will be business as usual. Just ask Imam Qatanani.

A mosque can have persistent connections to terrorism, its leaders can be terrorists and politicians will still flock to kiss its imam on the cheek.

That is a big part of why Islamic terrorism continues to be a problem.

Under Bush, the FBI and DOJ went after the big game. Government raids struck at the heart of the Muslim Brotherhood’s operation in America. And then it all went away. Under Obama, law enforcement was retasked to fight the political opposition, whether it was monitoring returning veterans or spying on Trump officials. Counterterrorism was confined to going after lone Al Qaeda and ISIS supporters while the Muslim Brotherhood was integrated into the community policing version of counterterrorism.

Mosques with close links to the World Trade Center bombing, to 9/11 and to Hamas terror finance stayed in business. The Nazi mosques thrived. And they produced a new generation of ‘lone wolves.’

The lone wolf myth is tied to the myth of ‘internet radicalization’ that is detached from any local Islamic institution. Obama’s counterterrorism contended that the local mosque was the best defense against ‘radicalization’. Even if the corner mosque preached a certain amount of terrorism, that was okay.

The corner mosque was the methadone clinic while ISIS was the crack dealer. It would be better for the kids if they got some moderate terrorist agitprop at the local mosque instead of going full Al Qaeda. Unless the mosque was actually the gateway drug and ISIS was just the overdose.

The moderate methadone clinic philosophy is what led to the hundreds of thousands dead in the Arab Spring. What began with the Muslim Brotherhood’s “political Islam” ended in a real Islamic State with sex slaves, brutal torture and genocide. The Muslim Brotherhood’s methadone clinic isn’t how you get off the drug. It’s how you get on it. And the drug is Islamic supremacism, violence and terrorism.

Meanwhile terror mosques continue to enjoy influence and access in America. But then there are the awkward moments when in between the interfaith sessions, the mosques get caught preaching the extermination of the Jews. The mosque leaders mumble something about a misunderstanding. There’s another interfaith session in which leftist Jewish and Christian clergy overlook the calls to genocide and commit to a common struggle against President Trump while chanting, “No Muslim Ban!”

And then on another Friday in Jersey City, Davis or somewhere else, it happens again. “Count them one by one, and kill them down to the very last one.”

Categories: "Kill the Jews", Hamas, Islamic terrorists in America, Islamist clerics, Islamist clerics and Nazis, Islamist mosques
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Why Trump’s ‘America First’ doctrine is good for the Jews 

December 21, 2017

Source: Why Trump’s ‘America First’ doctrine is good for the Jews – U.S. News – Haaretz.com

After a year of Trump, and the launch of his national security platform, it’s clear: He’s not pushing isolationism, he’s pushing common sense. That’s good news for Israel, even though most U.S. Jews won’t give him credit – and don’t even care

Jonathan S. Tobin 21.12.2017 00:00 Updated: 12:01 AM

President Donald Trump speaks on national security Monday, Dec. 18, 2017, in Washington.
 President Donald Trump speaks on national security Monday, Dec. 18, 2017, in Washington. AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Trump’s new national security strategy: Israel is not the cause of the Middle East’s problems
Analysis Trump’s personality is greatest obstacle to his America First policy
Nikki Haley in threatening letter to UN members: Trump ‘will be watching’ who votes against U.S. recognition of Jerusalem.

Opinion Running to the UN won’t bring a Palestinian state closer. Abbas has to bite the bullet and talk to Trump
As with everything else about President Donald Trump, the unveiling of his administration’s foreign policy doctrine this week was more of a campaign rally than anything else.

Trump ticked off his favorite hobby horses — immigration, borders, bad trade deals, building up the military and U.S. allies not paying their fair share for the common defense.

But while the tone of economic populism that has dominated Trump’s discussion of foreign affairs since the beginning of his presidential campaign is a shift from his predecessors, the notion of a clean break with the past is, in many respects, as much a matter of smoke and mirrors as a lot of other proclamations coming out of the White House.

President Donald Trump speaks on national security Monday, Dec. 18, 2017, in Washington.AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Strip away the Trumpian braggadocio, and read the document his administration has produced, and what you find are policy guidelines that are remarkably realistic not only in terms of the challenges facing the United States but those of Israel as well.

The assumption has been that anything labeled “America First” would wind up being an isolationist creed that would mean an American withdrawal from the world – and ultimately leave the Jewish state on its own.

It is possible to interpret Trump’s Monday tweet yesterday in a similar spirit  – a tweet that seemed to assert that a Washington State train derailment was caused by the U.S. spending seven trillion dollars in the Middle East  – as proof of his lack of interest in global engagement.

Yet the text of the administration white paper, as well as the substance of Trump’s policies in his first year in office, proves the contrary. Neo-con idealism about democracy, and Obama’s faith in multilateralism and international organizations as well as outreach to Iran and the Palestinians, are dead. But in their place is something that cannot be dismissed as isolationism.

Despite the attempt on the part of both admirers and detractors to see his policy as a unique break with the past, the evidence for this is scant. Trump’s aggressive stance toward ISIS, and the change in the rules of engagement that produced a victory that eluded President Obama, was very much in line with traditional Republican doctrine. The same can be said, despite the opprobrium from the left, for his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands after delivering a speech at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, May 23, 2017.MANDEL NGAN/AFP
At the heart of the Trump doctrine are some contradictions. Trump wants to be tough on Iran, but his crush on Vladimir Putin and Obama-like reluctance to confront Iran and Russia in Syria, undermines his instinct to resist Tehran. He wants to promote American power and influence, but his pay-as-you-go version of alliances complicates Washington’s relations with its partners.

But Trump has still produced a paper that has more common sense than some of the high-flown rhetoric that emanated from Obama, Clinton and the Bushes. And the section on the Middle East is evidence of that.

Realism is a term that was used to describe opponents of George W. Bush’s policies. In one sense, that fits Trump, since he remains a fierce critic of Bush’s wars — his mention of the seven trillion dollar figure is obviously about Iraq, and not U.S. aid to Israel. But the foreign policy establishment “realists” have been quite unrealistic when it came to both Israel and the real cause of conflict in the region.

Among the most memorable lines in the 68-page document produced by the administration is a specific denunciation of one of the realists’ most sacred cows: The notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was “the prime irritant preventing peace and prosperity in the region.”

Palestinian protesters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Friday, Dec. 8, 2017Nasser Nasser / AP
Trump rightly discards this myth. Instead, his doctrine points out that “threats from jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems.” Specifically rejecting both blind faith in “democratic transformation” and “disengagement,” Trump seeks instead to strike a cautious balance between the need to assert U.S. power, and the realization that American can’t fix all of the world’s problems.

Instead of seeking to “save Israel from itself,” Trump’s doctrine acknowledges the problems with pressuring the Jewish state to make concessions to a Palestinian peace partner tainted by its subsidization of terror. His faith that an “outside-in” strategy in which the common interests of Israel and the Arab states like Saudi Arabia could lead to peace may underestimate the power of rejectionism among Palestinians and the Arab street. But it is still devoid of the magical thinking about democracy and strong-arming Israel to which Bush and Obama subscribed.

This will disappoint a Jewish left that has looked to Washington to compensate for its electoral setbacks in Israel. He will also continue to confound and outrage observers who are frustrated by his unpresidential behavior as well as his faith in détente with Moscow.

Delegates hold signs reading “Make America First Again” during the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
But, despite his lack of policy knowledge, Trump understands that Palestinian rejectionism – on display again in the over-the-top reactions to Trump’s Jerusalem statement that itself, pointedly, did not preclude a two-state solution – renders pressure on Israel pointless.

By refusing to hold U.S. policy hostage to terror threats and the Palestinians’ inability to compromise, this president is taking the U.S. in a more sensible direction.

Though he will get little credit it for this from most American Jews, who are more invested in the “resistance” to his administration than in Israel, his foreign policy doctrine strikes a sensible balance that belies the assumption that “America First” will leave the Jewish state isolated.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a contributing writer for National Review. Twitter: @jonathans_tobin
read more: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.830164

Categories: Uncategorized

Comments: 2 Comments

Trump Threatens To Hit Them Where it Hurts if They Vote Against Jerusalem

December 20, 2017
By Hana Levi Julian

Trump Threatens To Hit Them Where it Hurts if They Vote Against Jerusalem

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

Photo Credit: WhiteHouse.gov

U.S. President Donald Trump warned allies and others Wednesday they could lose their foreign aid if they vote in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution on Thursday slamming his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The warning came during a news conference with journalists at the White House in advance of the emergency special UNGA session called at the request of Arab and Muslim-majority nations.

 “They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,” Trump said, according to Reuters. “Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley likewise warned select American allies and others in a letter she sent on Wednesday, “To be clear, we are not asking that other countries move their embassies to Jerusalem . . . but simply asking that you acknowledge the historical friendship, partnership, and support we have extended and respect our decision about our own embassy… The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us.”

Categories: Uncategorized

Comments: 4 Comments

Britain: The “Islamophobia” Industry Strikes Again

December 20, 2017

Britain: The “Islamophobia” Industry Strikes Again, Gatestone Institute, Bruce Bawer, December 20, 2017

The new report is a remarkable document. Among its premises is that “anti-Muslim hate crime” is a major crisis in the U.K. that demands urgent action by politicians, police, educators, employers, civil-society groups, the media, and pretty much everybody else. As for the far more serious matter of crimes committed by Muslims, the report mentions them only within the context of discussions of anti-Muslim hate. In the town of Rotherham alone, for example, in accordance with orthodox Islamic attitudes toward “uncovered” or “immodest” infidel females, over 1400 non-Muslim girls are known to have been sexually abused by so-called Muslim “grooming” gangs in recent years – but the epidemic of “grooming” is cited in the Runnymede report only as one item on a list of practices and phenomena that it identifies as contributing to British “stereotypes” about Muslims. Similarly, here is the Runnymede Trust report’s solitary reference to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie: “In Britain…many Muslims felt unsupported in their reaction to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and faced a backlash from those who they felt prioritized freedom of speech above respect for minorities.” The point here is apparently that Britons who stood up for Rushdie’s right not to be slaughtered for writing a novel were guilty of Islamophobia.

The British government’s program Prevent, the part of its counterterrorism strategy that seeks to inhibit the radicalization of British subjects, also comes in for criticism in Runnymede’s report. Prevent is faulted both for being rooted in the notion (which it finds offensive, true or not) that the chief terrorist threat to the country is posed by “Islamist terrorists” (a term that the report puts in scare quotes) and for “put[ting] the onus on Muslim communities.” The report charges that because the British government, as part of the Prevent program, monitors (for example) imams who preach violence against the West, Prevent represents a violation of free speech. I can find no record of the Runnymede Trust ever criticizing the zealous attempts by British authorities to silence critics of Islam – a practice that has led to the banning from the U.K. of prominent American critics of Islam, even as the government has continued to permit preachers of violent jihad to enter the country

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

The Runnymede Trust report’s solitary reference to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie states: “In Britain… many Muslims felt unsupported in their reaction to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and faced a backlash from those who they felt prioritized freedom of speech above respect for minorities.” Apparently, Britons who stood up for Rushdie’s right not to be slaughtered for writing a novel were guilty of Islamophobia.

Much of Runnymede’s report is devoted to the high levels of Muslim poverty and unemployment in the U.K. — but instead of seeking reasons for this problem in Islam itself, it blames this problem primarily on “institutional racism,” while avoiding the ticklish question of why Hindus, whom one would also expect to be victims of “institutional racism” in Britain, are economically more successful than any other group in that nation, including ethnic British Christians.

The Runnymede report points out that domestic violence and child abuse are also committed by Westerners; the difference, needless to say, is that while FGM and honor violence enjoy widespread approval in Muslim societies and communities, where they are viewed as justifiable (if not compulsory) under Islam, domestic violence and child abuse are universally condemned in Western society and are never defended on cultural or religious grounds.

Founded in 1968, the Runnymede Trust describes itself as “the UK’s leading independent race equality think tank.” Its chair is Clive Jones CBE, a former executive at Britain’s ITV; its director is Omar Khan, a Governor of the University of East London and member of a variety of advisory groups involving ethnicity and integration. Runnymede’s reports are taken extremely seriously, and its recommendations heeded, at the highest levels of the British government.

In 1994, Runnymede published a report on anti-Semitism. Its title, A Very Light Sleeper, was borrowed from a statement by the author Conor Cruise O’Brien: “Anti-Semitism is a very light sleeper.” Now, anyone familiar with contemporary Britain knows that the alarming contemporary rise in Jew-hatred in that country – as in all of western Europe – is principally a consequence of the growing population of Muslims. But the Runnymede Trust’s report seemed designed mainly to divert attention away from that fact. Tracing anti-Semitism through Luther, Voltaire, Marx, Henry Ford, and Hitler, the report did a splendid job of implicitly identifying anti-Semitism as a Western phenomenon – a product of what the report presented a distinctively Western tendency to divide the world into “us” and “the Other.”

Of course, no civilization is more virulently anti-Semitic than Islamic civilization. But the Runnymede Trust’s 1994 report presented as gospel the at best exaggerated notion that medieval Islamic societies were tolerant of Jews, who were thus “able to play a full part” in those societies. To the extent that the report acknowledged the reality of today’s Muslim anti-Semitism, it depicted that prejudice (a) as being confined to “extremist” groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, that (it was quick to emphasize) are also hostile to many Muslim countries; (b) as being caused by anger over the fact that Jerusalem, “the third most sacred place for Muslims after Mecca and Medina,” is controlled by Israel; or (c) as being caused by irrational fears of the sort that also exist in Christianity and other religions.

But when it came to Jews and Muslims, the thrust of the report is summed up in its assurance that the Koran also “refers to Jews and Christians as People of the Book” – never mind that the Koran also refers to Jews as “apes and swine,” describes them as cursed, calls on Muslims to kill them, and forbids Muslims from befriending them. Reading Runnymede’s report on anti-Semitism, one gathered the impression that it was compiled mostly so that Runnymede could be able to point to it and say that it had, in fact, issued a report on anti-Semitism.

The reality is that the Runnymede Trust does not appear to be terribly interested in anti-Semitism. For many years, it has seemed to be far more exercised about the purported pervasiveness of anti-Muslim prejudice in the U.K. In 1997, it published a report, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, which “was launched at the House of Commons by then-Home Secretary Jack Straw.” Of its 60 recommendations, many were ultimately implemented. This year, on the twentieth anniversary of that report, Runnymede issued a new, 106-page report, Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, edited by Farah Elahi and Omar Khan.

The new report is a remarkable document. Among its premises is that “anti-Muslim hate crime” is a major crisis in the U.K. that demands urgent action by politicians, police, educators, employers, civil-society groups, the media, and pretty much everybody else. As for the far more serious matter of crimes committed by Muslims, the report mentions them only within the context of discussions of anti-Muslim hate. In the town of Rotherham alone, for example, in accordance with orthodox Islamic attitudes toward “uncovered” or “immodest” infidel females, over 1400 non-Muslim girls are known to have been sexually abused by so-called Muslim “grooming” gangs in recent years – but the epidemic of “grooming” is cited in the Runnymede report only as one item on a list of practices and phenomena that it identifies as contributing to British “stereotypes” about Muslims. Similarly, here is the Runnymede Trust report’s solitary reference to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie: “In Britain…many Muslims felt unsupported in their reaction to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and faced a backlash from those who they felt prioritized freedom of speech above respect for minorities.” The point here is apparently that Britons who stood up for Rushdie’s right not to be slaughtered for writing a novel were guilty of Islamophobia.

In the town of Rotherham, England, in accordance with orthodox Islamic attitudes toward “uncovered” or “immodest” infidel females, over 1400 non-Muslim girls are known to have been sexually abused by so-called Muslim “grooming” gangs in recent years. (Photo by Anthony Devlin/Getty Images)

The report does acknowledge the reality of what it euphemistically calls “the terrorist threat,” but it never seriously addresses this threat and excuses this failure by explaining that “this report is about Islamophobia.” While noting, moreover, claims that some individuals that Islam “should be subject to criticism” because it “is a system of beliefs,” the report maintains that this “focus on ideas (or ‘ideologies’) has obscured what instead should be a focus on people.” The point apparently being that even if you’re criticizing Islam strictly as a set of ideas, that act of criticism is still being directed at people – which, again, makes you an Islamophobe. Several paragraphs of the report are, indeed, devoted to a convoluted “explanation” of why, even though Islam is not a race, Islamophobia is nonetheless a form of racism.

The British government’s program Prevent, the part of its counterterrorism strategy that seeks to inhibit the radicalization of British subjects, also comes in for criticism in Runnymede’s report. Prevent is faulted both for being rooted in the notion (which it finds offensive, true or not) that the chief terrorist threat to the country is posed by “Islamist terrorists” (a term that the report puts in scare quotes) and for “put[ting] the onus on Muslim communities.” The report charges that because the British government, as part of the Prevent program, monitors (for example) imams who preach violence against the West, Prevent represents a violation of free speech. I can find no record of the Runnymede Trust ever criticizing the zealous attempts by British authorities to silence critics of Islam – a practice that has led to the banning from the U.K. of prominent American critics of Islam, even as the government has continued to permit preachers of violent jihad to enter the country.

Much of Runnymede’s report is devoted to the high levels of Muslim poverty and unemployment in the U.K. – but instead of seeking reasons for this problem in Islam itself, it blames this problem primarily on “institutional racism,” while avoiding the ticklish question of why Hindus, whom one would also expect to be victims of “institutional racism” in Britain, are economically more successful than any other group in that nation, including ethnic British Christians.

There is nothing in the Runnymede Trust report about Islamic theology – about jihad, sharia, the caliphate, the systematic subjugation of women, the execution of adulterers and apostates and gays. Audaciously, a chapter on women and Islam reduces the whole question to “Western stereotypes of Muslim women as oppressed, passive victims.” Female genital mutilation (FGM) and honor violence, the report asserts, have been “sensationalized” by the British media. In an effort to downplay the importance of these phenomena, the Runnymede report points out that domestic violence and child abuse are also committed by Westerners; the difference, needless to say, is that while FGM and honor violence enjoy widespread approval in Muslim societies and communities, where they are viewed as justifiable (if not compulsory) under Islam, domestic violence and child abuse are universally condemned in Western society and are never defended on cultural or religious grounds.

As for Islamic patriarchy, the report insists that patriarchy exists in the West as well as in the Islamic world. The report’s repeated endeavors to draw this kind of moral equivalency are so patently absurd – and desperate – that they do not even merit a civilized response. Indeed, the report itself – whose authors are manifestly determined throughout to absolve Islam of any blame for anything whatsoever, and to attribute every ill afflicting the British Muslim community to Islamophobia – would not merit any comment at all if the Runnymede Trust were not taken as seriously as it is in the corridors of British power.

Bruce Bawer is the author of the new novel The Alhambra (Swamp Fox Editions). His book While Europe Slept (2006) was a New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Categories: Formerly Great Britain, Islam - submission, Islam and females, Islam and rape, Islam in Britain, Islamic invasion, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation of Britain, Islamists in Britain, Islamophobia
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

President Trump’s America First National Security Strategy

December 20, 2017

President Trump’s America First National Security Strategy, FrontPage Magazine, Joseph Klein, December 20, 2017

In sum, the United States need not apologize to anyone. President Trump’s America First National Security Strategy is grounded in the strong belief, missing during the previous eight years, that “American principles are a lasting force for good in the world.”

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

President Trump unveiled a new National Security Strategy on December 18th, which is driven by “principled realism that is guided by outcomes, not ideology.” It is based on a sober evaluation of the world as it really is, not as some wish it to be. Policy makers responsible for America’s national security must remain fully cognizant that, as the National Security Strategy document puts it, “a central continuity in history is the contest for power.” This includes economic as well as military power. Today is no different, except that the threats to America’s national security come not only from major Cold War era global players such as Russia and China. They also come from rogue countries such as North Korea, already equipped with nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles, and Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism that harbors nuclear ambitions. And the threats come from Islamic terrorists acting out a hateful jihadist ideology that “justifies murder and slavery, promotes repression, and seeks to undermine the American way of life.”

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy is a much-needed corrective to the misguided foreign policies of the Obama era. The Obama administration avoided confronting challenges to U.S. national security head-on. It preferred instead to engage in what it called “strategic patience” with North Korea. The Obama administration enabled Iran to mimic North Korea’s path to becoming a nuclear armed nation via its disastrous nuclear deal with Iran. The Obama administration’s foreign policy of “leading from behind,” political correctness and micromanagement of battlefield decisions by bureaucrats in the White House hindered the fight against jihadist terrorist groups. Refusing to acknowledge the common radical Islamist ideology that links the jihadist groups together world-wide compounded the problem. The Obama administration also rushed into multilateral agreements that jeopardized America’s economic security, most notably the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. 

The U.S. government’s first duty, the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy document declares, is to put “America first.” This starts with policies to protect America’s national sovereignty, which means placing top priority on strengthening America’s economic competitiveness, bolstering America’s energy independence, protecting America’s borders and enhancing America’s military preparedness to meet the serious challenges confronting our nation.

The National Security Strategy identifies four vital national interests, or “four pillars” as: (1) protect the homeland, the American people, and American way of life; (2) promote American prosperity; (3) preserve peace through strength; and (4) advance American influence. “Just as American weakness invites challenge, American strength and confidence deters war and promotes peace,” states the National Security Strategy document.

The National Security Strategy addresses, without any equivocation, the key geopolitical challenges to America’s vital national interests, which are more diverse and complex than they were during the Cold War. They include:

  • The “revisionist powers of China and Russia,” which “want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests” and “are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.” Anyone who thought that President Trump would go easy on Russia or would ignore its interference in democratic elections should think again after reading the National Security Strategy document;
  • Dictatorships such as Iran and North Korea that pursue weapons of mass destruction and are “determined to destabilize regions, threaten Americans and our allies, and brutalize their own people;” and
  • jihadist terrorists and other groups “that foment hatred and use violence to advance their supremacist Islamist ideologies.”

a The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy document also focuses on challenges to America’s economic security, which arise from “unfair trade practices” and from countries (particularly China) exploiting “the international institutions we helped to build,” subsidizing their industries, forcing technology transfers, and distorting markets. Excessive regulations and high taxes have stifled growth at home.

Finally, the National Security Strategy document notes the threats to the security of the American people arising from “porous borders and unenforced immigration laws.”

After clearly stating the national security problems facing the United States, the National Security Strategy document lays out a multi-pronged blueprint to surmount them. The jihadist threat, for example, must be countered by a “fight and win” strategy, which President Trump has already implemented by giving battlefield commanders more authority to decide on the appropriate military tactics to use in defeating the enemy decisively. It has paid off with the rapid expulsion of ISIS from their strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The National Security Strategy views a strong military as the best deterrent against the aggressive designs of our enemies and as the best means in the dangerous world that we inhabit to preserve the peace. “A strong military ensures that our diplomats are able to operate from a position of strength” and will “deter and if necessary, defeat aggression against U.S. interests,” the National Security Strategy document states.

The National Security Strategy also includes the deployment of a more robust, layered missile defense system “focused on North Korea and Iran to defend our homeland against missile attacks.”

Strengthening control over our borders and enforcing our nation’s immigration laws will help “keep dangerous people out of the United States.” President Trump is already implementing this strategy through his “extreme vetting” policies, his plans for constructing a border wall, and the employment of additional enforcement personnel. President Trump intends to put an end to randomized entry and extended-family chain migration, and to refocus our immigration policies around a merit-based admission system.

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy does not blur the distinction between our allies and partners who “share our aspirations for freedom and prosperity,” and our adversaries who seek to exploit instability, poverty and sectarian conflict. “There can be no moral equivalency between nations that uphold the rule of law, empower women, and respect individual rights and those that brutalize and suppress their people.”

Facing the world as it is, while demonstrating “a positive alternative to political and religious despotism” through our “words and deeds,” is the essence of President Trump’s “principled realism.” A great example of how “principled realism” works is the Trump administration’s 180 degree turn from the Obama administration’s inexplicable coddling of Iran and its willingness to throw our only true ally and the only genuine democracy in the Middle East, Israel, under the bus. The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy recognizes Iran as a major threat to our national security, and Israel as a reliable partner for peace. “Today, the threats from jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems. States have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats.”

Just about a year after the Obama administration stood by and allowed a blatantly anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution to pass, the Trump administration vetoed a Security Council resolution that sought to invalidate President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In discussing the U.S. veto, Ambassador Nikki Haley reminded the other members of the Security Council, who had denounced President Trump’s decision and voted for the resolution, that national sovereignty matters. “The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy,” she said. “The fact that this veto is being done in defense of American sovereignty and in defense of America’s role in the Middle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the Security Council.”  She added that “the United States had the courage and honesty to recognize a fundamental reality. Jerusalem has been the political, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people for thousands of years. They have had no other capital city. But the United States’ recognition of the obvious – that Jerusalem is the capital and seat of the modern Israeli government – is too much for some.”

The UN’s handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, operating under the thin veneer of meaningless diplomatic jargon and self-righteous pronouncements, is divorced from reality, history and morality. It demonstrates why President Trump’s re-examination of the role of international institutions in the context of his administration’s National Security Strategy is so necessary. The United States, as the strategy document states, will “cooperate to advance peace abroad.”  However, the United States will not sit idly by while authoritarian leaders manipulate multilateral institutions to advance their own nefarious agendas to the detriment of the interests and values of the United States and its allies. Moreover, the United States will not cede sovereignty to the so-called international community’s wishes where they are” in conflict with our constitutional framework.”

In sum, the United States need not apologize to anyone. President Trump’s America First National Security Strategy is grounded in the strong belief, missing during the previous eight years, that “American principles are a lasting force for good in the world.”

Categories: Trump and America First, Trump and national security
Tags: ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

WATCH: Did Obama let Hezbollah terrorists off the hook to seal Iran deal?

December 20, 2017

Dec 19, 2017

https://unitedwithisrael.org/

Americans and Israelis are furious upon hearing that Obama may have thwarted a counterterrorism probe into Hezbollah in order to secure what Netanyahu repeatedly called “a very, very bad deal.”

This isn’t the first allegation saying the Obama administration was placating the Iranians, but it is the first time that dozens of former federal intelligence analysts say an order to stop the investigation against Hezbollah was politically motivated, a former State Department officer tells Fox News.

Israeli PM Netanyahu pleaded with US-led global powers not to make the “very, very bad deal.” Israelis are furious upon hearing about the previous US administration’s alleged cover-up of Hezbollah terror activities, particularly their trafficking of illegal drugs, in order to secure the agreement – at the expense of the Jewish state and the civilized world.

Americans are also enraged. Congressman Robert Pittenger expressed shock over the fact that while US soldiers were bravely fighting ISIS, with some paying the ultimate price, Obama reportedly protected Hezbollah terrorists.

Watch this Fox News video to get the full picture.

 

Categories: Uncategorized

Comments: 5 Comments

US says it’ll be ‘taking names’ of countries that oppose Jerusalem move at UN 

December 20, 2017

Source: US says it’ll be ‘taking names’ of countries that oppose Jerusalem move at UN | The Times of Israel

Nikki Haley slams emergency meeting of 193-nation assembly ‘criticizing our choice,’ threatens repercussions for those who vote against it

By TOI STAFF and AFPToday, 3:43 am  
US President Donald Trump addresses the 72nd Annual UN General Assembly in New York on September 19, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / DON EMMERT)

US President Donald Trump addresses the 72nd Annual UN General Assembly in New York on September 19, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / DON EMMERT)

United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the US will be “taking names” of countries that support a draft resolution rejecting President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, set for a General Assembly vote Thursday.

Turkey and Yemen requested the urgent meeting of the 193-nation forum on behalf of the Arab group of countries and the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) after the US vetoed the measure in the Security Council. The two countries circulated a draft resolution that mirrors the vetoed measure, reaffirming that any decision on the status of Jerusalem has no legal effect and must be rescinded.

Egypt had put forward the draft, which was backed by all 14 other Security Council members in a vote on Monday. Like the Egyptian draft, the text before the assembly does not explicitly mention Trump’s decision but expresses “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem.”

Haley reacted angrily to the move, tweeting, “On Thurs there’ll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names.”

At the UN we’re always asked to do more & give more. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don’t expect those we’ve helped to target us. On Thurs there’ll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names.

In a letter sent to several UN ambassadors, Haley warned that she would report back to Trump on the countries that supported the draft resolution.

“The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us,” she wrote. “We will take note of each and every vote on this issue.”

In an address December 6 from the White House, Trump defied worldwide warnings and insisted that after repeated failures to achieve peace, a new approach was long overdue, describing his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the seat of Israel’s government as merely based on reality. He also said the US embassy would move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but did not give a schedule for the relocation.

Trump stressed that he was not specifying the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in the city, and called for no change in the status quo at the city’s holy sites.

Border Police officers take aim at Palestinian rioters during clashes near the West Bank Qalandiya checkpoint, on the outskirts of Ramallah, on December 15, 2017. (Abbas Momani/AFP)

The announcement was hailed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by leaders across much of the Israeli political spectrum. It was criticized by many countries, condemned by the Arab world, and infuriated Palestinians, who held violent demonstrations for several days in the West Bank and on the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel.

The Palestinian permanent observer in the UN, Riyad Mansour, said he expected “overwhelming support” in the General Assembly vote, stating that Jerusalem is an issue “to be resolved through negotiations” between Israel and the Palestinians.

“The General Assembly will say, without the fear of the veto, that the international community is refusing to accept the unilateral position of the United States,” Mansour told reporters.

No country has veto powers in the 193-nation assembly, contrary to the council, where the United States, along with Britain, China, France and Russia, can block any resolution.

Key US allies Britain, France, Italy, Japan and Ukraine were among the 14 countries in the 15-member council that voted in favor of the measure.

Ambassador Haley described that 14-1 vote “an insult” and warned “it won’t be forgotten.”

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley speaks during a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East on December 18, 2017, at UN Headquarters in New York. (AFP Photo/Kena Betancur)

She went further on Monday, warning in her tweet: “At the UN we’re always asked to do more & give more. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don’t expect those we’ve helped to target us.”

In a memo to its missions around the world Tuesday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry advised diplomats to encourage their host countries to oppose the resolution at the General Assembly. In the case of countries that are planning to back the resolution, diplomats were urged to encourage their local counterparts to at least refrain from expressing public support for the proposal.

Israeli diplomats were told to emphasize that the resolution is one-sided and will harm prospects for peace by undermining Trump, and may also lead to further violence in the region.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and sees the whole of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

Categories: Uncategorized

Comments: 1 Comment

The international community and the liberal media 

December 20, 2017

Source: OUR WORLD: The international community and the liberal media – Opinion – Jerusalem Post

BY CAROLINE B. GLICK
 DECEMBER 19, 2017 21:35
It should be an embarrassment to the New York Times and its colleagues that they have refused to report why Haley and Trump are demonstrably right to stand alone.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks at the United Nations

US Amb US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks during the United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. (photo credit: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS)

Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley glared at her colleagues at the UN Security Council Monday as she cast the lone nay vote against a draft resolution presented by Egypt to nullify US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Haley then berated her UN colleagues for their assault against US sovereignty and for their prolonged efforts to delegitimize Israel and blame the Jewish state for the absence of peace. In her words, “The United States refuses to accept the double standard that says we are not impartial when we stand by the will of the American people by moving our US embassy, but somehow the United Nations is a neutral party when it consistently singles out Israel for condemnation.”

The liberal media, led by The New York Times chastised her.

“Punctuating America’s increasing international isolation, the United Nations Security Council demanded on Monday that the Trump administration rescind its decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to put the United States Embassy there,” the Times wrote in a purported news article.

While attacking Trump and Haley for isolating the US, the Times and its colleagues failed to explain what an international community-aligned US foreign policy looks like.

Notably, just such a policy and its consequences were the subject of a 15,000-word investigative report published Monday morning by Politico.

“The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook,” by Josh Meyer, detailed how in the interest of advancing a policy supported by the international community, then president Barack Obama imperiled US public health, national security and its allies.

As Meyer recalled, Obama entered office in 2009 promising to turn over a new leaf with Iran.

By promising to turn over a new leaf in US-Iran relations, Obama signaled his belief that the sorry state of those relations was America’s fault. Because if it wasn’t America’s fault, then no American president could change the situation.

Obama’s assumption was entirely wrong.

The Iranian regime declared war on the US shortly after it seized power. Months later, the regime’s shock troops stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held US diplomats hostage for 444 days.

Despite an uninterrupted record of Iranian aggression, since 1979 every US administration tried to convince the ayatollahs to abandon their hostility to America. Iran pocketed every presidential concession and redoubled its hostile actions against America and its allies and interests.

Ignoring the record, Obama argued he had the Midas touch. Obama made his case for uniqueness to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood in his speech at Cairo University in June 2009.

There Obama legitimized Iran’s grievances against the US. He invited Iran’s leaders and their Sunni jihadist counterparts in the Muslim Brotherhood to work with him.

At the same time, he attacked Israel and the US’s Sunni Muslim allies.

By attacking the US’s allies and embracing its enemies, Obama signaled Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood that he was interested in a strategic realignment of America’s Middle East posture.

In its editorial following Obama’s speech, the Times’ editors gushed, “After eight years of [American] arrogance and bullying that has turned even close friends against the United States, it takes a strong president to acknowledge the mistakes of the past.”

IN THE months and years that followed his Cairo speech, Obama’s primary goal in the Middle East was to persuade Iran’s regime to reach a nuclear accord with him. Although Obama and his advisers insisted that his nuclear diplomacy didn’t affect their willingness to confront and punish Iran for its other rogue behavior, their actions showed the opposite was true.

From his earliest days in office, Obama turned a blind eye to all of Iran’s bad behavior.

For instance, just days after his Cairo speech, the regime stole the presidential elections. Then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the poll against his two chief opponents Mir Hossain Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The public, which came out in the millions for Mousavi and Karroubi, rejected the official results. Millions took to the streets in what became known as the Green Revolution.

Instead of standing with the Iranians in the streets demanding freedom, Obama stood on the sidelines and so effectively sided with the anti-American regime against the Iranian people begging for American support.

In his report, Meyer showed another casualty of Obama’s obsessive desire to reach a nuclear accord with Tehran. Meyer chronicled the shocking fate of Project Cassandra, a multi-year investigation led by the US’s Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA probe involved 30 US and foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It was directed against Hezbollah’s worldwide narco-terrorist empire, which netted Iran’s foreign legion up to $1 billion annually.

Project Cassandra investigators “followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.”

Rather than support the investigation, which showed that Hezbollah was importing thousands of tons of cocaine to the US and using US used car dealerships to launder their drug money, the Obama administration quashed it.

“As Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way…. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.”

Meyer reports that Hezbollah used its drug profits to supply Syrian President Bashar Assad with chemical and conventional weapons he used against his own people. It used its drug money to provide tank-destroying roadside bombs to Iranian-controlled Shi’ite militias in Iraq which killed hundreds of US soldiers. It used its drug money to build apartment blocks in south Lebanon which, as the IDF has documented, double as missile launch pads and storage facilities in preparation for its next war against Israel.
And it used the money to turn a slew of Latin American countries into US enemies and Iranian allies in Tehran’s war to destroy America.

As Obama Treasury Department official Katherine Bauer claimed in written testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last February, “under the Obama administration… these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”

THIS THEN brings us back to Haley at the UN on Monday, and the US liberal media’s condemnation of her defense of Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

In November 2015, the UN Security Council unanimously approved Obama’s nuclear deal. The resolution was submitted by Obama’s UN ambassador Samantha Power.

The EU, the Russians and the Chinese all happily partnered with the Obama administration in concluding a nuclear deal. That vaunted, unanimously supported deal paved the way for Iran to become a nuclear armed state within a decade.

The international community – along with the US liberal media – cheered as Obama attacked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for daring to warn of the consequences of his nuclear pact.

At the same time, the international community, the Times and its liberal media counterparts all hid the news of Hezbollah’s narco-terrorism empire and its responsibility for thousands of cocaine-related deaths each year in America. Indeed, as of Tuesday, neither the Times’ nor The Washington Post’s websites mentioned Meyer’s report.

In her statement Monday, Haley said, “This is the first time I have exercised the American right to veto a resolution in the Security Council. The exercise of the veto is not something the United States does often…. We do it with no joy, but we do it with no reluctance.”

She added, “The fact that this veto is being done in defense of American sovereignty and in defense of America’s role in the Middle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the Security Council.”

And it should be an embarrassment to the New York Times and its colleagues that they have refused to report why Haley and Trump are demonstrably right to stand alone and why Obama was catastrophically wrong to believe that the US should stand with the “international community” against itself.

Categories: Uncategorized

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »