Author Archive

New Report Calls Hezbollah World’s “Most Powerful” Terrorist Organization on the Planet

November 2, 2017

New Report Calls Hezbollah World’s “Most Powerful” Terrorist Organization on the Planet, Iran News Update, November 1, 2017

INU -A report released this week by a group of former senior military officials and diplomats, many of them from NATO member states, concluded that Hezbollah, The Shia terrorist movement in Lebanon that is affiliated with Iran, has become the “most powerful non-state armed force on the planet.”

Members of the independent High-Level Military Group (HLMG) include Iraq war veteran US Lt. General Michael D. Barbero, General Klaus Dieter Neumann, former commander of the German armed forces, Lord Richard Dannatt, former commander of the British armed forces, and Lt. General Kamal Davar, the former head of India’s Defense Intelligence Agency. Their report asserted that Hezbollah now represents “a threat that few countries, much less sub-state organizations, on the globe can mount.”

The report warns that war with Israel is “inevitable,” and warned that it is certain to be “more violent and destructive” than previous conflicts. It has been reported that Hezbollah has been withdrawing its forces from Syria in recent weeks, and transferring them toward Israel’s borders on the Golan Heights.

“Israeli intelligence estimates put the number of projectiles in Hezbollah’s possession today at well over 100,000,” the report, titled “Hezbollah’s Terror Army: How To Prevent A Third Lebanon War,” said. “The majority of these are short-range rockets, but thousands have a much larger range, up to 150 miles and more.”

HLMG’s report points out that Hezbollah’s participation in the defense of the Iranian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad improved the organization’s “ability to maneuver and carry out relatively large-scale ground attacks at the scale of company or battalion level.”

Further, the report emphasized that Iran played a decisive role in strengthening Hezbollah’s capabilities. “The upgrade in Hezbollah capabilities is one discernible result of Iran and Hezbollah’s ongoing project to equip the latter with more accurate longer-range missiles, so as to be able to more effectively menace Israel,” it said, and continued, “Hezbollah embeds its military assets among the Lebanese civilians it claims to protect, holds Lebanese politics and questions of war and peace hostage to its Iranian-led regional military imperatives, and has infiltrated Lebanese state organs, including the army, to utilize them for its aims.”

However, the report explained that “the international environment has changed since the previous war, and a defensive assault on Hezbollah, a terror organization now strongly associated with Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, will generate full support not only from the United States, but likely also from other Western countries, in addition to tacit but increasing support from the Sunni Arab world.”

The report concluded by saying, “Hezbollah’s strategic concept, coupled to the gains Iran has made regionally … mean that Israeli decision makers are firm in the belief that they will have to respond with overwhelming force and at great speed to any escalation forced upon them.”

Terror tunnel bingo

November 1, 2017

Terror tunnel bingo, Israel National News, Jack Engelhard, October 31, 2017

Will there be parades in Gaza and Ramallah for the terrorist who committed bloodshed in Manhattan today?

Only we regret. I get it, we’re Jewish. We are supposed to be different. We are supposed to be better.

Maybe, as I’ve written elsewhere, we should be worse once in a while, and then maybe they’d leave us alone.

[T]o borrow from Patton: 

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

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A few days ago the Israelis found yet another terror tunnel leading into Israeli territory and thinking it was empty, blew it to smithereens. Turns out that there were people still inside busy as beavers, terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. So the blast, bingo, eliminated them too, about 20 of them, half sent directly to their 72 virgins, the other half injured. 

I get conflicting numbers between the naked and the dead, but within Israel there’s a larger conflict going on even as we speak.

First, the world’s leading Islamic terrorist, Mahmoud Abbas, left his EU and US- funded multi-million dollar bunker to proclaim his outrage.

The Israelis, he said with a straight face, have no right to use deadly force against terrorists. Jews have no right to protect themselves…and according to that line of depraved thinking, New Yorkers are likewise open season as we saw from Tuesday’s ramming and shooting attack in Manhattan.

That is not news. We expect that from the man behind the Klinghoffer and Munich Olympics massacres.

But it is news when the IDF seems to explain that it never intended to hurt anyone. This has sparked controversy as it amounts to an apology.

Since when do we – meaning any sovereign nation – apologize for killing the enemy?

In fact it is a command that when he comes to kill you – which is what these tunnels are all about – you are to get up early and kill him first. In every other country, that’s a good day when even by accident you’ve taken out your attackers. Lucky shot.

But this is Israel and Israel is Jewish and old habits die slowly. Jews always apologize.

Some may remember Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” article in New York Magazine. That was about a group of Black Panther types who attended Leonard Bernstein’s big shindig to celebrate Black Power. The (Liberal) Jews at the same soiree were blamed for everything – and apologized for everything. Everything!

Never mind that from the start the Jews were at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.

So now there’s a flap within Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet. One says that the IDF was wrong to apologize; the other says, leave the IDF alone.

Criticism against the IDF will never come from me. But I must say this; the response comes across as pathetic…an uncalled for justification in the fog of war.

Sorry for what? Do they apologize to us? They give out candy and build statues to their murderers. They celebrate after they kill.

Sorry we got to them before they got to us?

Will there be parades in Gaza and Ramallah for the terrorist who committed bloodshed in Manhattan today?

Only we regret. I get it, we’re Jewish. We are supposed to be different. We are supposed to be better.

Maybe, as I’ve written elsewhere, we should be worse once in a while, and then maybe they’d leave us alone.

Or take it from our Book of Deuteronomy– “Your eye shall not pity them.”

Then came this British journalist who sprang this over coffee: “Must say, the Israelis have become awfully militaristic.”

The evidence, I explained, proves otherwise. But if so, it’s about damn time. I’ll take militaristic any day against 2,000 years of sitting-duck passivity.

Yes, I will take militaristic whenever it is between them and us.

Or to borrow from Patton:

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

Why Don’t Media Treat Islamist Terror Attacks Like White Supremacist Terror Attacks?

November 1, 2017

Why Don’t Media Treat Islamist Terror Attacks Like White Supremacist Terror Attacks? Daily WireBen Shapiro, October 31, 2017

(Islamist supremacist terrorists are a protected class. White supremacist terrorists no longer have that elevated status. — DM)

If we’re going to start attributing terrorist ideologies to broader movements, we’re going to have to abide by that rule across the board; if, by contrast, we’re going to distinguish terrorist ideologies from other ideologies, let’s do that across the board. But you can’t connect white supremacism to Ed Gillespie and Confederate flag-owners while adamantly disconnecting Islamism from Islam. That’s intellectually dishonest. Actually, it’s disparaging of non-Muslim Americans more generally, unless there’s a deeper connection between white supremacism and Confederate flag-owning or conservative voting than there is between Islamism and Islam. Which there isn’t.

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On Tuesday, an apparent Islamist terrorist rammed a truck into dozens of Americans on a bike path in New York City, killing eight and injuring over ten. He popped out of the truck shouting “Allahu Akhbar” before being captured by police.

Imagine that a white supremacist had driven a truck onto a bike path filled with minority innocents, killing eight of them. Imagine that the white supremacist had emerged from his truck carrying aloft a Confederate flag.

Imagine that the media had leapt to the defense of those flying the Confederate flag, explaining that only a tiny minority of those who did so had engaged in any sort of racist violence. Imagine that all of America’s major political leaders said the same, and told those who connected the terrorism with the Confederate flag that their viewpoints represented bigotry. Imagine, too, that CNN ran a chyron reading “WITNESSES: SUSPECT WAS CARRYING SOUTHERN VERSION OF AMERICAN FLAG,” and then hosted panels assuring audiences that the Confederate flag was simply a symbol of Southern pride.

Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

Yet that was precisely the chain of events that took place after yet another Islamist terror attack on American soil. Leftist media darling and terrorist-sympathizer Linda Sarsour tweeted, “Every believing Muslim says Allahu Akbar every day during prayers. We cannot criminalize ‘God is great.’ Prosecute the criminal not a faith.” The media did its typical rush to prevent cruel Americans from engaging in “Islamophobia,” expressing that radical Islamic terrorism had no connection to actual Islam. Most of America’s political leaders quickly agreed. CNN ran a chyron reading, “WITNESSES: SUSPECT WAS YELLING ‘GOD IS GREAT’ IN ARABIC.”

Precisely the reverse takes place after white supremacist terror attacks, of course. When white supremacist Dylann Storm Roof committed a massive terror attack on a black church, the media quickly uncovered photos of him with a Confederate flag, and led a month-long discussion on whether the Confederate flag ought to be banned from public places. When a white supremacist in Charlottesville murdered an innocent woman, the media held a month-long discussion on whether Confederate statues ought to be removed. This week, a Latino interest group ran an ad attempting to connect a Republican gubernatorial candidate with a white supremacist march he had openly condemned, and created an ad showing a Confederate flag-flying white supremacist with that candidate’s bumper sticker attempting to run down minority children.

Now, we can have solid discussions about Confederate monuments and the Confederate flag. Those discussions are worthwhile. But why is that we leap to discuss those issues when a white supremacist terrorist kills innocents, but we leap to defend Islam when an Islamist kills innocents? Why the difference? Isn’t radical Islam just as horrifying as white supremacism? And isn’t white supremacism just as statistically non-representative of Confederate flag-owners throughout the South as radical Islam is of observant Muslims across the country?

That’s nonsense. If we’re going to start attributing terrorist ideologies to broader movements, we’re going to have to abide by that rule across the board; if, by contrast, we’re going to distinguish terrorist ideologies from other ideologies, let’s do that across the board. But you can’t connect white supremacism to Ed Gillespie and Confederate flag-owners while adamantly disconnecting Islamism from Islam. That’s intellectually dishonest. Actually, it’s disparaging of non-Muslim Americans more generally, unless there’s a deeper connection between white supremacism and Confederate flag-owning or conservative voting than there is between Islamism and Islam. Which there isn’t.

Reform Islam or Live the ‘New Normal’ Forever

November 1, 2017

Reform Islam or Live the ‘New Normal’ Forever, PJ MediaRoger L Simon, October 31, 2017

(What a great, original idea! It’s a shame that nobody thought of it before. But wait. Clarion Project has been promoting it for years, and so have reform groups as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. I have also argued that there is no other solution to the Islamic terrorism problem in America. In the linked article I suggested a few ways in which an Islamic reformation could be encouraged. Nothing useful has been done, so I suppose we, like most Europeans, must be content with the “new normal.” — DM)

Boston Marathon US Muslims

Two of the more repugnant Americans today are the moral narcissist judges from Maryland (Theodore Chuang) and Hawaii (Derrick Watson) who tried to upend Donald Trump’s travel ban.  They have metaphorical blood on their robes, whether they know it or not.

The fact is the travel ban is insufficient, not illegal.  It’s only a meager beginning in dealing with a situation that has not changed in any real sense since 9/11, as the events in New York Tuesday testify. If we do not move even more seriously to prevent them, they will indeed become the “new normal.”  Globally, they already have.

The ISIS-loving psycho killer who murdered eight and crippled more, Sayfullo Saipov, is from Uzbekistan, which is not on the banned list.  Not only that, he was admitted to the U.S. via something called the Diversity (yes, that word again) Visa Program, a blind lottery system that seems more like Russian roulette for existing citizens.  Spin the wheel and admit a mass murderer for Allah.

Trump, none too soon, evidently wants to do away with this insanity, but what about the travel ban? If you were realistic, you would have to include places like France and Belgium, even the UK, that are presently loaded with Islamists chomping at the bit to serve their deranged cause. (Yes, I know, these countries supposedly vet their travelers, but events within their own borders give little confidence.)

All politics may be local, but New York is far from alone.  According to TheReligionofPeace website, there were 34 jihadist attacks in 13 countries over just six days this past week (Oct. 21-27), resulting in 444 killed and 114 injured.  That doesn’t include the horrific suicide bombing in Somalia on October 28 that took over two dozen lives — “including three children and a beheaded woman.”

What most of us know — those who are even faintly honest anyway — is that Islam has a gigantic problem, the basis of which is that the so-called “radical” Islamists are actually practicing the fundamental version of their religion. What they do is approved, even required, by their holy texts.   Many of our liberals and progressives don’t know this — or don’t want to — but it’s the reality.  It is also the reason Muslim protest is so tepid and often focused on non-existent Islamophobia.

And it is finally those beliefs that explain why people like ex-Uber driver Saipov can, as was reported, seem so friendly and pleasant, and then turn around and mow down as many people as he can in a jihadist orgy. He may be psychologically disturbed in our terms, but in his own, he’s a believer.  And his belief system can ultimately be a more powerful and enduring adversary than communism or Nazism, because it promises eternal life.  (This is why I have always thought calling jihadists “cowards,” as so many of our politicians do,  silly.  They are more than willing to die.  Indeed, they crave it.)

The Left Has Blood on its Hands in Manhattan

November 1, 2017

The Left Has Blood on its Hands in Manhattan, FrontPage Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 1, 2017

(Please see also, NYC Terrorist: Lone Wolf … or Not? — DM)

The New York media’s first response after the attack was to try and blame road rage. Before long, you will see it running the standardized “Muslims fear backlash” stories that are a staple of every effort to sweep the latest Islamic terrorist attack under the rug along with the blood and the bodies.

Islamic terrorists like Sayfullo Saipov are able to do what they do because they have a long list of collaborators like the ACLU, Democrat politicians, Federal judges and the mainstream media.

While law enforcement fights a desperate battle to stop the next Saipov, the men and women tracking the terrorists know that if they get their man, the media will make them the villains. Just ask the good people who brought down Ahmed Ferhani, James Cromitie, Shahawar Matin Siraj and so many others.

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Earlier this year, a final settlement was reached in the war on the NYPD’s counterterrorist Islamic surveillance. The Manhattan courtroom where the lawfare effort to dismantle the NYPD’s ability to stop terrorist attacks was heard is blocks away from the site of the latest Islamic terrorist attack in New York.

Walk two blocks down to City Hall. And then head down Chambers to the West Side Highway. That’s where the terrorist attack that killed eight people ended when an NYPD officer shot the terrorist. If he had kept going down the West Side Highway, instead of crashing into a school bus, he would have eventually been within attack range of the 9/11 Memorial. And maybe that was his original plan.

But his message was very clear. He shouted it as he left the truck with which he murdered 8 people.

“Allahu Akbar”. These were the last words on the Flight 93 flight recorder. Mohamed Atta had advised his fellow 9/11 hijackers to, “Shout, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ because it strikes fear in the hearts of the infidels.”

Sayfullo Saipov, the Muslim terrorist who carried out the latest attack, was just listening to Atta’s advice. The 16thanniversary of the attacks has passed, but the hatred of Allah’s killers burns as hot as ever.

And the attack carried clear echoes of 9/11.

Saipov had listed an address in Paterson, NJ. Paterson, known to the locals as ‘Paterstine’ for its sizable Islamic community, is where the PLO terror flag flies over City Hall and where Islamic terrorist sympathizers celebrated after their compatriots murdered thousands on 9/11.

Paterson is also where 6 of the 9/11 hijackers lived.

The terrorist reportedly rented the truck used in the attack in Jersey City. That’s where the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center rented the van they used in the attack. And Jersey City was where some of the terrorists lived. And it’s where Muslims were caught celebrating the September 11 attacks.

The attack by the Muslim settler from Uzbekistan was almost identical to previous Car Jihad attacks in Europe. Right down to using a fake firearm. But New York City had avoided the non-stop terror wave that engulfed Paris and other European cities thanks to the hard work of the NYPD.

But every time the NYPD broke up an Islamic terror plot, the media and its leftist allies would howl that the racist police had entrapped another innocent mentally ill Muslim. When the Newburgh Four plotted to bomb synagogues in the Bronx, the media was in their corner. HBO even aired The Newburgh Sting, a piece of propaganda whitewashing the terrorists. The revisionist documentary played at the Tribeca Film Festival. And Tribeca is the site of the latest Islamic terrorist attack.

Linda Sarsour, the leading Islamic activist on the left, defended Ahmed Ferhani, who had also plotted to blow up a synagogue, and Shahawar Matin Siraj, who was convicted of plotting to blow up a Manhattan subway station, as victims of NYPD entrapment.

But it’s hard to think of a NYPD or FBI terror bust in New York that the media didn’t undermine. The Nation and the Guardian led the lynch mob. But soon CBS, The Atlantic and the New York Times joined in. All the Muslim terrorists that the NYPD had stopped were really immature and easily manipulated young men. The plots had been invented by paid informants. And it didn’t stop there.

For the last four years, the ACLU and other pro-terror groups had waged an effective lawfare campaign to cripple the NYPD’s counterterrorism. And they succeeded. The NYPD’s ability to send informants into mosques was handicapped. New York cops were now required to consider the “impact” of informants on mosques after Islamist groups claimed that their presence discouraged mosque attendance. The approvals required made it much harder to use one of the more effective terror prevention tools.

The Demographics Unit, one of the most important big picture intel tools for the NYPD, was shut down. But that wasn’t enough. Even when the NYPD agreed to a settlement, Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. insisted that it didn’t go far enough to protect “law-abiding Muslims and believers in Islam who live, move and have their being in this city.”

Sayfullo Saipov moved his being and the truck it was in over the bodies of New Yorkers leaving tire tracks over corpses. The Manhattan attack, like every Islamic attack before it, could have been stopped. But the NYPD’s hands had been tied. And the left had done the tying. It defended every Islamic terrorist that the NYPD had arrested. And prevented the NYPD from investigating mosques and radicalization.

Now it has what it really wanted. Dead Americans. And it has their blood on its manicured fingers.

The Uzbeki Islamic terrorist had listed an address in Paterson, New Jersey. The NYPD had come under attack for conducting surveillance in New Jersey. One of the targets was a mosque in Paterson. Other targets were in Jersey City. That was where Saipov allegedly rented the truck used in the attack. The Uzbeki Muslim terrorist also links back to Florida. The media has largely ignored or tried to cover up the string of Islamic terrorist attacks linked to Florida, from the Pulse Massacre in Orlando, to the latest Islamic terrorist plot to bomb the Dolphin Mall on Black Friday.

Sayfullo Saipov had come here in 2010. In that short amount of time he managed to amass criminal records in Pennsylvania and Missouri for traffic offenses. After stints in at least three other states, he went on a killing spree that took eight lives and wounded as well as traumatized countless others.

Dem leaders in New York are already rolling out the standard messages urging everyone to go back to life as usual. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack “cowardly”. But the attack wasn’t cowardly. It was vicious and murderous. It’s Bill de Blasio and the other politicians who crippled the NYPD because they were afraid of political pressure from Linda Sarsour and CAIR who are the real cowards.

They are cowards with blood on their hands.

The New York media’s first response after the attack was to try and blame road rage. Before long, you will see it running the standardized “Muslims fear backlash” stories that are a staple of every effort to sweep the latest Islamic terrorist attack under the rug along with the blood and the bodies.

Islamic terrorists like Sayfullo Saipov are able to do what they do because they have a long list of collaborators like the ACLU, Democrat politicians, Federal judges and the mainstream media.

While law enforcement fights a desperate battle to stop the next Saipov, the men and women tracking the terrorists know that if they get their man, the media will make them the villains. Just ask the good people who brought down Ahmed Ferhani, James Cromitie, Shahawar Matin Siraj and so many others.

Sane societies celebrate those who risk their lives to keep them safe. The leftist culture machine does everything it can to destroy them and to aid the Islamic butchers who run over pedestrians for Allah.

The way to stop the next Saipov is to untie the NYPD’s hands.

After every shooting, the left insists that anyone who opposes gun control wants people to die. But guns don’t hop off the shelf and shoot people. And trucks don’t run over pedestrians on their own.

Islamic terrorists drive them into crowds, over pedestrians and cyclists, in London, Nice, in Berlin, in Jerusalem and in New York City. And leftists who refuse to stop them might as well be behind the wheel.

Leftists who would rather control the police than the Islamic terrorists want people to die.

NYC Terrorist: Lone Wolf … or Not?

November 1, 2017

NYC Terrorist: Lone Wolf … or Not? Clarion ProjectMeira Svirsky, November 1, 2017

(But, but every fool knows that the Islamic State is not Islamic and that Islam is the religion of peace. Therefore, the October 31st attack in NYC had nothing to do with Islam. QED. — DM)

An ISIS ad encouraging jiahdi attacks on Halloween in France (Photo: ISIS propaganda)

ISIS had called on its supporters through social media to carry out attacks on Halloween. For example, in France, a country in which young people recently started celebrating the holiday, an ad appeared the day before Halloween with an image of a machete dripping blood over the Eiffel Tower.

The text on the ad (shown above) read: “Enjoy their gathering. Terrorize October 31” and “Get out before it’s too late,” seemingly a message to the French to abandon their country to jihadis.

The image was shared on a Twitter account that distributes news about Islamic State (ISIS), jihadi videos and images.

ISIS’ own magazine Rumiyah has extensively encouraged its followers to conduct “lone wolf” vehicular attacks, with one issue providing a step-by-step guide on how to procure a heavy truck and perpetrate such an attack.

In the guide, ISIS recommended to avoid “off-roaders, SUVs, and four-wheel drive vehicles” because they “lack the necessary attributes required for causing a blood bath.”

“Smaller vehicles lack the weight and wheel span required for crushing many victims,” the article stated, while double-wheeled trucks “[give] victims less of a chance to escape being crushed by the vehicle’s tires.”

While attacks such as the one in New York may have carried out by one person, calling such attack the work of a “lone wolf” is deceiving.

ISIS has built a sophisticated network that allows such individuals to be encouraged, tutored and ideologically supported every step of their twisted journey from the inception of the idea to the execution of a terrorist attack.

Social media is not localized. It is a powerful tool that has aided the Islamic State, without which a huge percentage of their successful recruitment of volunteers would most likely not have happened.

Young people who have grown up in the age of the internet are comfortable participating in virtual reality. Thus, online connections — through encrypted messaging, “inspirational” videos and even “personal” contact through video chatting — is as good as the real thing.

To call any terrorist in our day a “lone wolf” is a misnomer – and a dangerous one, as it takes the attention off finding and shutting down the trail of responsibility and focusing solely on the individual.

Secret Egyptian-Hamas bid to rush through Gaza crossings handover to Palestinian Authority

November 1, 2017

Secret Egyptian-Hamas bid to rush through Gaza crossings handover to Palestinian Authority, DEBKAfile, October 31, 2017

DEBKAfile’s US sources disclose additionally that there is nothing to the reports published in Israel in the last few days that the Trump administration is on the point of presenting Israel with a new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. Senior US officials in Washington told our sources that no such plan exists. They say that Middle East leaders, who are talking about it, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, are fully aware of this, but are using the non-existent US peace plan as a pretext for turning down or delaying projects they deem undesirable.

The only real project engaging Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt at present is the establishment of joint Israel-Palestinian industrial zones in Judea and Samaria.

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Egyptian intelligence and Hamas security agencies are in an overnight effort to rush through the Gaza crossings’ handover to the Palestinian Authority by Wednesday morning, Nov. 1, even if only as a token step. This is reported by DEBKAfile.

To distract attention, they put out a statement earlier Tuesday pretending that the transfer had been postponed from Tuesday to Nov. 15 in consideration of the high military tension generated around Gaza by the IDF’s destruction of a Jihad Islami terror tunnel on Monday.

Our military sources report that the latest Egyptian-brokered Palestinian unity steps are shrouded in secrecy, which Israel, too, is preserving. Therefore, there is no information about a Palestinian Authority security contingent reaching the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. Neither is there any word about this contingent obtaining permission to travel from Bethlehem through Israel and gaining entry to the territory through the Erez crossing. This contingent may still make the journey overnight under cover of dark – either through Israel or Egypt – barring another last-minute change of plan.

If they go ahead, the transfer itself will take some days.

Egyptian and Hamas officials are confident that the Jihad Islami won’t act Tuesday night on its threat to wreak vengeance on Israel for blowing up its terror tunnel in an explosion that left 11 operatives dead.

DEBKAfile’s US sources disclose additionally that there is nothing to the reports published in Israel in the last few days that the Trump administration is on the point of presenting Israel with a new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. Senior US officials in Washington told our sources that no such plan exists. They say that Middle East leaders, who are talking about it, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, are fully aware of this, but are using the non-existent US peace plan as a pretext for turning down or delaying projects they deem undesirable.

The only real project engaging Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt at present is the establishment of joint Israel-Palestinian industrial zones in Judea and Samaria.

UN Launches $65M Legal Pogrom to Hunt Down Israelis and Smear Israel as Criminal State

October 31, 2017

UN Launches $65M Legal Pogrom to Hunt Down Israelis and Smear Israel as Criminal State, PJ Media,  Anne Bayefsky, October 31, 2017

(AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

The United Nations has made a deal with the Palestinians to fund a $65 million legal pogrom directed at Israel. The party on the Palestinian side was referred to as the “Government of the State of Palestine.”

More specifically, the “United Nations System in the occupied Palestinian territory” plans to pay eight UN bodies $64,838,510 between the years of 2018 and 2022 to hunt down individual Israelis and to smear Israel as a criminal state.

The eight UN bodies or agencies to receive the funds are:

  1. Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
  2. UNICEF (the children’s fund)
  3. The UN Development Program
  4. UN Women
  5. UNESCO
  6. UN Habitat
  7. The World Health Organization
  8. UNRWA (the Palestinian refugee agency).

Except for UNESCO, which the United States no longer supports, 22% of the money will come from American taxpayers.

The deal, first signed and disseminated in Arabic on June 15, 2017, is part of the “UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for the occupied Palestinian territory for 2018-2022.”

Lawfare at the UN in Israel’s case goes by the stage name of “accountability.” It includes accusing Israel of war crimes, apartheid, and crimes against humanity; sending spurious cases to the International Criminal Court; engaging in boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns to destroy the economic well-being of Israel; and making false accusations of violations of fabricated “international law” — in particular criminalizing Israel’s right of self-defense. The goal is unambiguous: the demonization and destruction of the Jewish state.

Lawfare is the converse of a negotiated, peaceful resolution of Israeli-Palestinian disputes, as required by existing agreements between the parties.

According to the report that details the deal, the outcome was a product of consultations that involved non-governmental organizations (NGOs) well-knownfor their extremist ideologies, including the promotion of terrorism and overt anti-Semitism.

An Annex lists some of the specific NGOs consulted — such as Al-Haq, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and the Palestinian NGO Network — while keeping others confidential.

Here is some of the language from the UN Development Assistance Framework:

Strategic Priority 1: Supporting Palestine’s path to Independence

… the UNCT [the UN “country team”] will focus its interventions on providing support for Palestinian institutions, civil society and individuals to increase the effective use of international mechanisms to uphold accountability. This will be built on increasing knowledge of rights and mechanisms, strengthening capacities to document violations and their impact and on sharpening the ability to advocate effectively for rights to be respected …

Outcome 1:

Human rights mechanisms are increasingly engaged to hold Israel accountable for its obligations under international law. The UN will increase its support for Palestinian institutions (state and non-government) and Palestinian victims of violations to effectively monitor, advocate and seek legal recourse for violations by the occupying power.

This will include training, capacity-building and technical advice to ensure that Palestinian victims and institutions are equipped with the knowledge and tools to effectively access international accountability mechanisms in order to hold Israel accountable for its violations under international law. It will also aim to strengthen the capacity of Palestinian organizations to advocate effectively for the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territory …

Box 4: Summary of UNDAF Resources Required by Agency and Strategic Priority (US $)

 

Is The JCPOA Working?

October 31, 2017

Is The JCPOA Working? MEMRIYigal Carmon and A. Savyon*, October 30, 2017

Introduction

All JCPOA supporters rely on the claim that “the agreement is working” and on the eight confirmations granted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Iran that it is in compliance with the agreement.

Reality, however, invalidates this claim, on four levels:

  1. Violations of the agreement in letter, not just “in spirit,” in issues that are critical, not marginal.
  2. Developments on the ground that contradict the aim of the agreement.
  3. The lack of real inspection, making the IAEA’s confirmation misleading.
  4. The IAEA’s role in this deliberate misrepresentation that real inspection is carried out and that Iran is abiding by the agreement.

This paper will present evidence that the agreement is not working.

Violations Of The JCPOA

  • Section T –Iran is refusing to allow IAEA inspectors to monitor activities under Section T of the agreement, which prohibits Iran from carrying out “activities which could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”

Section T of the JCPOA prohibits Iran from “designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using multi-point explosive detonation systems suitable for a nuclear explosive device” and also from “designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using explosive diagnostic systems (streak cameras, framing cameras and flash x-ray cameras)” – unless these activities are “approved by the Joint Commission for non-nuclear purposes” and “subject to monitoring.”

Hence, in the most critical area of the nuclear agreement – developing options for detonating a nuclear explosive device – Iran is refusing to allow monitoring of its activity, as the agreement requires.

  1. Building advanced centrifuges –Iran is building (IR-8) and operating (IR-6) larger numbers of advanced centrifuges than is allowed by the agreement.[1]
  2. HeavyWater –Iran’s actual heavy water quota exceeds the quantity permitted it by the agreement, since according to standard IAEA verification practices, changes in heavy water inventory are registered not when the heavy water is removed from the territory of the country exporting it, but only when it arrives at the destination country that purchased it. For Iran, however, the calculation of the quantity of heavy water that it is allowed to possess does not include the quantity that is being stored for it in Oman and not being sold – while at the same time Iran is continuing to produce more heavy water.
  3. The core of the plutonium reactor at Arak –According to Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization Of Iran (AEOI) and a member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, Iran never dismantled the core of the plutonium reactor at Arak, but left it intact, saying that Iran neededit for research purposes. He also said that only the external pipelines of the reactor had been filled with cement, and that it would not take very long for Iran to reactivate it.[2] According to the Institute for Science and International Security (IISS), Iran has also tried to make changes to the fuel design for the modified Arak reactor, that differ from what the JCPOA requires.
  4. Production of uranium enriched to 5% –Iran is continuing to produce uranium enriched to 5% beyond the quantity permitted it. Two such violations have been recorded by the IAEA. Iran has exported the surplus for storage in Oman, in a procedure that does not exist in the agreement and is not allowed.
  5. Developments On The Ground That Contradict The Aim Of The JCPOA
  6. The8.5 tons of enriched uranium shipped out from Iran according to the JCPOA are not being monitored  by the IAEA,and in fact the shipment disappeared in Russia, as attested to by the Obama administration’s State Department lead coordinator on Iran, Stephen Mull, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in February 2016. (Theoretically, however, since the uranium’s location is not known, the possibility that Russia, Iran’s ally, has returned it to Iran should not be discounted.)
  7. Oman, a political satellite of Iran that has nocapability for confronting Iran, has become the warehouse for Iran’s surplus heavy water and enriched uranium. The storage of this material in Oman is nothing more than a fiction aimed at covering up the fact that Iran is exceeding the amount of uranium and heavy water allowed it in the JCPOA.
  8. Lack Of Real Inspection, Making IAEA Confirmation Misleading

The IAEA cannot conduct real inspections in Iran, and therefore its confirmation that Iran is complying with the JCPOA is misleading, for the following reasons:

  1. The inspection that the IAEA is permitted to conduct, and through which Iran receives confirmation that it is meeting the terms of the agreement, is carried out solely in the limited areas where Iran allows inspection – that is, the sites that it itself has declared to be nuclear sites. No other site in Iran, including military sites, are included. Furthermore, with regard to the military sites, Iranian officials have stressed that the IAEA will never be allowed to enter them.
  2. The agreement has created a unique inspection framework for Iran that is less stringent than that for the other Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) member countries. For example, Iran has been allowed to accept the Additional Protocol voluntarily – that is, it was not mandatory as it was for the others – meaning that it can drop out of the Additional Protocol at any time (for instance, when it is required to allow inspection of military sites) without being considered in violation of the JCPOA. That is, Iran can prevent inspection of its military sites, both under the JCPOA and because it is not bound by the Additional Protocol.
  3. The agreement has created a supreme political forum – the Joint Committee of the JCPOA – in order to bypass the IAEA  and its decisions. The Joint Committee is authorized to overrule the IAEA’s statutory professional authority. 
  4. The IAEA’s Role In The Misrepresentation Of Iran’s Compliance And Of The Inspection Process
  5. 1. The IAEA does not declare Iran’s rejection of inspections, according to Section T, a violation of the JCPOA, but rather calls for handing the issue over for discussion to the political body – the Joint Committee.
  6. The IAEA carried out a scandalous inspection at the Parchin military site, that was aimed at closing Iran’s Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) file in accordance with a predetermined political decision. IAEA inspectors did not themselves visit Parchin, and the samples from these sites were taken by the Iranians themselves and handed over to the IAEA inspectors without any way of ascertaining that the samples taken were the ones handed over to the IAEA. Furthermore, IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano was allowed entrance to Parchin for only a few minutes, and he was not permitted to bring in any equipment, not even his cellphone.[3]Through this process, the IAEA even agreed not to question nuclear scientists, as it had demanded to do over the years.
  7. The IAEA is refusing to wield its authority by initiating inspections of military sites, as sanctioned by both the Additional Protocol and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, and despite statements by IAEA secretary-general Amano that he has the authority to do this.
  8. The IAEA is acting vis-à-vis Iran in violation of its own export control system, to which exporters of heavy water such as Canada and India are subject.[4]

____________________________

*Yigal Carmon is President of MEMRI; A. Savyon is Director of the MEMRI Iran Media Project.

[1] See IISS report “Update on Iran’s Compliance with the JCPOA Nuclear Limits – Iran’s Centrifuge Breakage Problem: Accidental Compliance,” Isis-online.org, September 21, 2017.

[2] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1341, Head Of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization: Only External Pipelines Of Arak Reactor Were Filled With Cement, Its Core Was Not; Within Five Days, We Can Begin Enriching Uranium To 20%, September 1, 2017.

[3] ISNA (Iran), Sept 21, 2015.

[4] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1348, The JCPOA’s Critical Flaw Is Its Lack Of Real Inspection By The IAEA; Those Focusing On Iran’s Ballistic Missiles And The JCPOA’s Sunset Clause Are Evading The Urgent Issue – The Need For Real Inspection Now, October 3, 2017.

 

Surprise! Study Shows Islamic Terrorism is Islamic

October 31, 2017

Surprise! Study Shows Islamic Terrorism is Islamic, Gatestone InstituteJudith Bergman, October 31, 2017

Although the internet evidently did play a role in the radicalization process, the study showed that face-to-face encounters were more important, and that dawa, the proselytizing of Islam, played a central role in this process, as the men themselves became missionaries for Islam.

The third factor was the establishment of a “them and us” distinction between the radicalized men and the rest of the world, especially the belief that the West is an enemy of the Muslim world. The distinction also involved a rejection of democracy and a commitment to the establishment of a caliphate governed by sharia law, which the men want to bring about either through dawa(proselytizing) or violence (jihad).

“The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs. So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic? Al Azhar says there must be a caliphate and that it is an obligation for the Muslim world. Al Azhar teaches the law of apostasy and killing the apostate. Al Azhar is hostile towards religious minorities, and teaches things like not building churches, etc. Al Azhar upholds the institution of jizya [extracting tribute from non-Muslims]. Al Azhar teaches stoning people. So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?” — Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr, scholar of Islamic law, graduate of Egypt’s Al Azhar University, explaining why it refused to denounce ISIS as un-Islamic, 2015.

Western leaders insist that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. Evidence to the contrary appeared again this week from Mohamad Jamal Khweis, an ISIS recruit from the United States who said in a 2016 interview with Kurdistan24, “Our daily life was basically prayer, eating and learning about the religion for about eight hours.” Khweis was sentenced to 20 years in prison on October 27 for providing material support to ISIS, according to CBS News.

As early as 2001, immediately after 9/11, then-President George W. Bush gave a speech in which he claimed that in the United States, the terrorist acts in which over 3,000 people were killed “violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith” and that “Islam is peace”.

Twelve years and many spectacular terrorist attacks later, in 2013, when two jihadists murdered Lee Rigby in broad daylight in London, the prime minister at the time, David Cameron, declaredthat the attack was “a betrayal of Islam… there is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act”.

In January 2015, jihadists in Paris shouting “Allahu Akbar” attacked Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket, murdering 15 people. French President François Hollande said that the jihadists had “nothing to do with the Muslim faith”.

Two years later, when a jihadist targeted the very heart of European democratic civilization, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge, British PM Theresa May said: “It is wrong to describe this as Islamic terrorism. It is Islamist terrorism and the perversion of a great faith”.

In the face of hundreds of Muslim terrorists yelling “Allahu Akbar” while bombing, shooting, stabbing, and car-ramming thousands of innocent civilians to death and wounding thousands of others, it would be reasonable to assume that elected representatives might feel obliged to put their denial of reality on hold long enough to read at least bits of the Quran. They might start by reading the commands in “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them…” (9:5), or, “So fight them until there is no more fitna [strife] and all submit to the religion of Allah” (8:39).

If that is asking too much, perhaps they might be willing to consider a recent study by Islamic theologian and professor of Islamic religious education at the University of Vienna, Ednan Aslan, which was commissioned by the Austrian ministry of Foreign Affairs. The purpose of the 310-page study, which was conducted over 18 months and involved interviews with 29 Muslims who were all jailed or in juvenile detention (over half for having committed terrorist offenses) was reportedly to investigate the role that Islam plays in the radicalization of young Muslims in Austria. The study showed that jihadists are not, as Western leaders claim, ignorant of Islam and therefore “perverting” it. On the contrary, the jihadists apparently have a deep understanding of Islamic theology. Aslan explicitly warns against reducing the issue of Islamic terrorism to questions of “frustrated individuals, who have no perspective, are illiterate and have misunderstood Islam”.

The study found that three factors were particularly relevant to the radicalization process of the interviewees. The first factor was Islam itself: The interviewees had actively participated in their own radicalization, by engaging with the content, norms and standards of Islamic doctrine, and had apparently found this engagement to be a positive turning point in their lives. The study describes the approach to Islam of these men as “Salafism”, which it defines as the view that Islam comprises all aspects of life, religious, personal and societal. Moreover, the majority of the men evidently came from religious Muslim homes and were therefore already familiar with the foundations of Islam. The study explicitly states that the prevailing assumption that the majority of radicalized Muslims know very little about Islam could not be confirmed by the interviewers’ findings.

The second factor was the environment: the specific mosques and imams to which the men went and on which they relied. Although the internet evidently did play a role in the radicalization process, the study showed that face-to-face encounters were more important, and that dawa, proselytizing Islam, played a central role in this process, as the men themselves became missionaries for Islam. Notably, the study showed that the level of theological knowledge determined the individual’s role in the hierarchy — the more knowledge they had of Islam, the more authority they had.

The third factor was the establishment of a “them and us” distinction between the radicalized men and the rest of the world, especially the belief that the West is an enemy of the Muslim world. The distinction also involved a rejection of democracy and a commitment to the establishment of a caliphate governed by sharia law, which the men want to bring about either through dawa(proselytizing) or violence (jihad).

Critics might argue that a qualitative study of 29 radical Muslims is not representative of most Islamic terrorists, but that is hardly true. In 2015, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr, a scholar of Islamic law and graduate of Egypt’s Al Azhar University, explained why the prestigious institution, which educates mainstream Islamic scholars, refused to denounce ISIS as un-Islamic:

“The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs. So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic? Al Azhar says there must be a caliphate and that it is an obligation for the Muslim world. Al Azhar teaches the law of apostasy and killing the apostate. Al Azhar is hostile towards religious minorities, and teaches things like not building churches, etc. Al Azhar upholds the institution of jizya [extracting tribute from non-Muslims]. Al Azhar teaches stoning people. So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?”

In 2015, Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt — a prestigious institution that educates mainstream Islamic scholars — refused to denounce ISIS as un-Islamic. (Image source: Sailko/Wikimedia Commons)

Western leaders did not listen.

They also did not listen when, in 2015, The Atlantic published a study by Graeme Wood, who researched the Islamic State and its ideology in depth. He spoke to members of the Islamic State and Islamic State recruiters and concluded:

“The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam”.

How much longer can the West afford to ignore reality?

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.