WarSclerotic

Reuters

BY: Reuters
January 12, 2018 4:54 pm

Trump Issues Ultimatum to ‘Fix’ Iran Nuclear Deal

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday gave the Iran nuclear deal a final reprieve but warned European allies and Congress they had to work with him to “fix the terrible flaws” of the pact or face U.S. withdrawal.

Trump said he would waive sanctions against Iran lifted as part of the deal but only as a “last chance” and would not do so again. The ultimatum puts pressure on Europeans – key backers and parties to the 2015 international agreement – to satisfy Trump, who has called the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program “the worst ever.”

Trump wants the deal strengthened with a separate agreement within 120 days or the United States will unilaterally withdraw from the international pact, warning: “No one should doubt my word.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded on Twitter that the deal was not renegotiable and that Trump’s stance “amounts to desperate attempts to undermine a solid multilateral agreement.”

Trump, who has sharply criticized the deal reached during Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency, had privately chafed at having to once again waive sanctions on a country he sees as a rising threat in the Middle East.

“This is a last chance,” Trump said in a statement. “In the absence of such an agreement, the United States will not again waive sanctions in order to stay in the Iran nuclear deal. And if at any time I judge that such an agreement is not within reach, I will withdraw from the deal immediately.”

Underscoring the difficulty now facing Europeans, a European diplomat, speaking under condition of anonymity, said: “It’s going to be complicated to save the deal after this.”

While Trump approved the sanctions waiver, the Treasury Department announced new, targeted sanctions against 14 entities and people, including the head of Iran’s judiciary.

Trump now will work with European partners on a follow-on agreement that enshrines certain triggers that the Iranian regime cannot exceed related to ballistic missiles, said a senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the decision.

One official said Trump would be open to remaining in a modified deal if it was made permanent.

“I hereby call on key European countries to join with the United States in fixing significant flaws in the deal, countering Iranian aggression, and supporting the Iranian people,” Trump said in the statement. “If other nations fail to act during this time, I will terminate our deal with Iran.”

Republican Senator Bob Corker said “significant progress” had been made on bipartisan congressional legislation to “address the flaws in the agreement without violating U.S. commitments.”

SEVERAL CONDITIONS

Trump laid out several conditions to keep the United States in the deal. Iran must allow “immediate inspections at all sites requested by international inspectors,” he said, and that provisions preventing Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon must not expire. Trump said U.S. law must tie long-range missile and nuclear weapons programs together, making any missile testing by Iran subject to “severe sanctions.”

Trump wants the U.S. Congress to modify a law that reviews U.S. participation in the nuclear deal to include “trigger points” that if violated would lead to the United States reimposing its sanctions, the official said.

This would not entail negotiations with Iran, the official said, but rather would be the result of talks between the United States and its European allies. Work already has begun on this front, the official said.

Analyst Richard Nephew said whether Trump’s conditions could be met depended on whether he wants a face-saving way to live with the nuclear deal with the political cover of tough-sounding U.S. legislation, or whether he really wants the deal rewritten.

Nephew, a former White House and State Department Iran sanctions expert, said legislation could be drafted that might appear to assuage Trump’s concerns but that getting Iran to agree to allow unfettered international inspections or to no time limits on the nuclear deal’s restrictions was impossible.

He said Trump appeared to be looking for the deal to be rewritten in Congress.

“That’s not going to happen,” Nephew said. “If we were walking on a ledge before, now we are on a tightrope.”

Trump has argued behind the scenes that the nuclear deal makes the United States look weak, a senior U.S. official said. The argument for staying in, the official said, was to allow time to toughen the terms of the agreements.

A decision to withhold a waiver would have effectively ended the deal between Iran, the United States, China, France, Russia, Britain, Germany and the European Union. Those countries would have been unlikely to join the United States in reimposing sanctions.

Hailed by Obama as key to stopping Iran from building a nuclear bomb, the deal lifted economic sanctions in exchange for Tehran limiting its nuclear program but Trump has argued that Obama negotiated a bad deal.

PRESSURE FROM EUROPE

Britain, France and Germany called on Trump on Thursday to uphold the pact.

Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes and that it will stick to the accord as long as the other signatories respect it but will “shred” the deal if Washington pulls out.

Two EU diplomats said EU foreign ministers will discuss what to do now at their next regular meeting, scheduled for Monday Jan. 22 in Brussels.

The U.S. Congress requires the president to decide periodically whether to certify Iran’s compliance with the deal and issue a waiver to allow U.S sanctions to remain suspended.

Trump in October chose not to certify compliance and warned he might ultimately terminate the accord. He accused Iran of “not living up to the spirit” of the agreement even though the International Atomic Energy Agency says Tehran is complying.

Hard-liners on Iran in the U.S. Congress have called for the reimposition of the suspended sanctions and an end to the nuclear deal, while some liberal Democrats want to pass legislation that would make it harder for Trump to pull Washington out without congressional consent.

Trump and his top advisers have been negotiating with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill to try to change sanctions legislation so that he does not face a deadline on whether to recertify Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal every 90 days.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Doina Chiacu and David Alexander and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Robin Emmott in Brussels, John Irish in Paris and Parisa Hafezi in Ankara; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Bill Trott)

By Pamela Geller – on January 12, 2018

https://pamelageller.com/2018/01/plo-withdraw-recognition.html/

When did the PLO ever recognize the Jewish state? Never. Back in 1993, the PLO recognized “the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.” That is all that they recognized. That doesn’t say anything about Israel existing in peace and security as a Jewish state. It doesn’t indicate any renunciation of the PLO’s jihad imperative to conquer Israel “from the river to the sea” and transform it into a vastly different kind of state. At this point, should they succeed, it would be an Islamic state. So the withdrawal of this “recognition” is as meaningless as the recognition itself.

But if they’re going to withdraw it, since it has been the linchpin of the spurious “peace process,” can we get the trillions of US taxpayer dollars that we have paid to this terror organization back now?

“PLO moves to withdraw recognition of, cut ties to Israel,” by Dimu Abumaria, Jerusalem Post, January 11, 2018 (thanks to Mark):

The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the umbrella organization that is internationally-recognized as the representative of the Palestinian people, will push to withdraw formal recognition of Israel and end Washington’s longstanding role as mediator of the peace process. Instead, the PLO will pursue an “international formula” for achieving statehood. The developments were outlined in a report that aims to redefine not only the parameters for future relations with Israel and the Unites States, but also change the status of the Palestinian Authority from a “transitional authority” to a “state under occupation.” The details are intended to be finalized in a follow-up meeting of the PLO mid-month.

The PA was formed as an interim governing body by the 1993 Oslo Accords—signed by then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and previous PLO chief Yasser Arafat—and was meant to be dissolved after no later than five years as part of a final peace agreement.

Two-and-a-half decades later, the PLO is now threatening to do just that, which, in its view, would release the Palestinians from political obligations stipulated in agreements with Israel.

According to PLO Executive Committee member Ahmed Majdalani, Israel “didn’t commit to any of the terms,” thereby effectively absolving the PA of its responsibilities. “I believe we are late in making these decisions and implementing them,” he told The Media Line, “which has created a gap between the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people.”

In this respect, there does, indeed, appear to be a growing chasm between the PA and the Palestinian “Street,” with a number of individuals expressing to The Media Line a distrust of Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority. One businessman, who spoke to The Media Line on condition of anonymity, called on PA leaders to resign, as they are no longer “qualified” to make decisions “that have no impact on the ground.”

Another Palestinian, Bashar, noted that PLO leaders have made similar threats numerous times in the past, yet cooperation with Israel, security coordination foremost, remains intact. “They practice double standards,” he exclaimed, whereas another person, who asked not to be identified, went so far as to suggest that the PA shares “mutual interests” with “the [Israeli] occupation” and thus cannot be expected to advance the Palestinian cause.

Even those supportive of the PLO’s newly stated goals do not believe that they will be implemented. “These decisions might be good for Palestine,” one Ramallah resident told The Media Line, “as they could potentially change the [negative] situation caused by the Oslo Accords.” Nevertheless, she qualified, “I don’t think the PA is capable of forging a better agreement, unless they focus on a national agenda to support the Palestinian public.” Many other Palestinians echoed these sentiments, calling on the PA to change course after years of failed negotiations.

To this end, Saeb Erekat, Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee and chief Palestinian negotiator, reiterated on Tuesday the PA’s refusal to engage in any peace initiative sponsored by the US unless the Trump administration retracts its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This comes after Erekat earlier this month slammed American threats to cut aid to the Palestinians, describing the prospect as tantamount to “starving refugees…in support of Israeli positions.”…

H/T http://barenakedislam.com/2018/01/12/have-a-great-night-sleep-well-with-a-smile-susan-k/

By Geller Report Staff – on January 9, 2018

https://pamelageller.com/2018/01/arab-league-support-palestinian-bid-full-u-n-membership.html/

Palestinians seeking full membership with the United Nations have just received the support of the Arab League.

Reportedly, the Arab League is now backing Palestinians’ U.N. press, in large part because of President Donald Trump’s announced intent to move the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Here’s a quick video of that angle:

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi made the announcement on behalf of the Arab League just recently.

The Algemeiner has more:

The Palestinians will seek full membership in the United Nations with the backing of the Arab League in response to the recent US policy changes on Jerusalem, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Saturday.

“We will confront the decision by seeking a [UN] resolution, an international one, to recognize a Palestinian state on 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital,” Safadi said.

Safadi’s comments came after a meeting of six Arab foreign ministers — from Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (PA) — in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas said last month that the Palestinians would seek full membership in the UN and ultimately apply to join all 522 official international organizations in response to President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announcement of plans to move the US embassy to that city.

In between dodging the rockets being shot from Gaza to Sderot, our Israeli correspondent MC found the time to write this essay about the timeless lure of the totalitarian collective.

The Hive Mind

The Hive Mind
by MC

Rudyard Kipling wrote a story about the hive, and, of course there was the Borg (and it didn’t play tennis).

But just maybe we should think more about the concept of hive consciousness. Is Islam a hive mindset? Is socialism a Borg mentality controlled by the BBC/MSM and its ilk?

It is a fascinating concept: you assimilate into the hive, or you die. The Soviets did it with their gulags, the Nazis with their Concentration Camps, and Islam with its Ummah.

Yes, folks, we are fighting a Borg-like mentality, and we are the ones who don’t want to be assimilated and thus we are demonized.

One thing that has always mystified me is why Islam appears to be successful, but is not successful — it is just oil-rich. It is more comfortable for most who are born into it to be inside the Islamic hive mind than outside it. As for the new converts: a wealthy hive is not without its attractions

The socialist hive is more subtle than the Islamic hive, more nuanced and much more dangerous. The socialists have taken the Marxist ideas of class and transposed them into a layering system based on eugenics and a perverted meritocracy. In pre-WW2 socialist thought, the stock of humanity could be cleansed, subdued and perfected by brainwashing, by supervised breeding and by sterilization (or culling) of those considered unfit to join the breeding pool. The Nazis had one solution for this, and the Communists a slightly different one.

Once in the Gulag or Stalag, social Darwinism applied (read One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich). Life and survival was predicated on all sorts of small random events such as the size of one’s food bowl.

The despised class (or race) hierarchy becomes transformed into a hive hierarchy of the despised, the drones and the elites, where the despised are disposable slaves, the drones are part of the hive but have no individuality, and an elite whose word is law even if it is whimsical or downright wrong.

The resulting hive resonates to its own self-abnegation. It is more than a religion; it is an obsession where conformity is taken to murderous extremes. An obsession that counts mass murder as a totally acceptable tool in the hive’s arsenal of process and protection.

As the Age of Reason passes away, and the Enlightenment dims, so the emotional takes hold as the prime human need and desire. The safe space of cradle-to-grave welfare and protective encapsulation is enforced; play the game or die. The truth is too painful. It is stark and unbeautiful and uncomfortable. It means taking responsibility for one’s actions: better the make-believe of the hive mind. If everybody believes the same thing, then it must be true!

The hive used to have barbed wire fences and guard towers with searchlights and machine guns, but now it has a more effective cage, a mind-cage called visual media. We started with the movies telling us how to think, but television brought the mind-gulag into our homes, and sprayed our brains with pixilated scopolamine, imprisoning us in a controlled virtual environment. Walls? Who needs walls when electronic prisons are far more effective?

Then came mobile phones and the hive mind made a great leap forward.

The cultural Marxists specifically targeted the media, and they successfully infiltrated it. Now what was once seen as leftist propaganda has been totally absorbed into our psyche, particularly the idea that our Judeo-Christian heritage is not only of no value, but has positively damaged the ‘global’ society. The whole ‘global warming and climate change’ issue was configured to the illusion that ‘the West’ had robbed the rest of the world of its rightful share of resources and thus the white man should be made to pay it all back.

This and many other Marxist-derived memes were fed into the hive mind, along with the idea that those who resisted were somehow deranged.

The liberal-conservative right operates on a shoestring. It has few resources and those who contribute time and talents tend to do so voluntarily. But the hive, in contrast, is very well-funded indeed, so much so that it can deny a platform to any opposition. In my country of birth, England, I know that I no longer have any kind of freedom at all. My ‘rights’ are dictated by (manipulated) public opinion, and there is no longer any statute that cannot be massaged by those public servants charged with keeping people docile. The authorities in England provide a hive-friendly environment in the name of multiculturalism and diversity, where the Islamic hive is given a free rein to exploit and plot its expansion at the expense of the automatically guilty indigenous Judaeo-Christian who must pay the price for his past exploitation (‘colonialism’), supposedly on the understanding that he will not cause trouble because of the constant re-education he is subjected to.

My feeling is that the English people are seething, but the Marxist hive is moving heaven and earth to keep the lid on the pressure cooker. The whole of the British mainstream media is goose stepping to the strains of a elitist Horst-Wessel-Lied whilst selling out to the threat of terrorism. They actually believe that the Muslim hive is benign and not at all to blame, that the Muslims are the supposed victims of years of colonial oppression, and it is thus their absolute right to kill and maim whitey and take revenge on the Jew because everybody knows that it is all a Jewish plot.

This is a tangled message, with the nits combed out by the teeth of the accusation of ‘racism’ against anybody who points out that the emperor’s new clothes are somewhat skimpy.

The propaganda walls of the hive give rise to all sorts of cognitive dissonances. A relative of mine supported Brexit but did not vote because she thought that one of the leaders was a sleaze ball. It is much like a kangaroo courthouse where the (leftist) defense has only to demonstrate possible reasonable doubt but the (conservative) prosecution has to positively prove its every statement.

The hive is a literally an imprisoned audience which has its every move and thought governed by its media tormentors. As for the dissenters — we too are not immune to the hive influences. They appear regularly in the comments section here and I cannot guarantee that I am absolutely free of its honey; it is sweet and pervasive.

Like the Bereans of the Bible we should test everything. The hive mind is very powerful, and its influences are not always easy to recognise. For a modern child it starts at a tender age: father is a bumbling idiot, mother is stressed by her job, the teacher is upright and reliable and b-lie, b-lie, b-lie.

While the Internet is a wonderful tool, it is also a terribly dangerous one. Used judiciously it exposes the lies, but that is not an easy skill to acquire. To perceive the differences among fact, conspiracy theory (which often turns out to have an element of truth) and the pure out-and-out lie is hard, but to the hive mind, truth is predefined anyway, and there is simply no need to make any effort at validation. The hive is ‘truth’; it exists, therefore it is.

In the Kipling story was written at a time before education was freely available for all. In it the hive is penetrated and poisoned by mind-bending alien creatures (in our case it is a ‘conservative’ hive penetrated by Marxists). That availability of low-cost high quality education made a huge difference to Western society, and I was one of its last recipients. The government of the UK actually paid me to go to University, and the tuition was free.

However, this became very threatening. Too many free-thinkers.

Most Marxists I have met had privileged upper-middle-class backgrounds. They felt that they could justify the big house and the expensive private education only by organising the workers. When they finally discovered that the workers did not want to be organised, they switched to the immigrants etc. — anything rather than actually working for a living.

Kipling was right: the penetrated hive goes insane and dies, and the Marxists move on, happy with their destruction — Zimbabwe a mess, Venezuela a disaster, South Africa heading that way.

Next stop Europe, where the long march through the institutions has reached its apogee. Almost every government department in UK is staffed by followers of the socialist religion.

We should no longer regard political religions as separate entities from theocratic religions. Fanatics are fanatics, wherever and whatever they believe. If you are prepared to kill and maim for the cause then you are a terrorist, whether political or religious.

The Nazis settled on genocide as a political solution. Muslim fanatics want the same thing, so why do we treat them differently? The Nazis were socialists who were slightly to the right of the communists, Muslims, too, are basically socialists, but because they claim to be a theocratic ‘religion’ so everybody gets moonstruck and we have to use different words.

And we compound the problem every time we allow a jornolist to get away with the greatest hoax of the 20th century: that Nazis are from the conservative ‘right’.

The great ‘conservative’ hive so well described by Kipling has been fragmented into tiny little islands of reason, each of whom cannot agree upon reasonable behaviour because they still do not reject wholesale the smears of Nazism. And while the right accommodates the idea of Nazi ‘racism’ rather than Nazi socialism, the right will not recover.

Did the racial genocide arise out of the Nationalism or out of the Socialism?

It is very easy to put that to the test. Even if we charge the eleven million butcher’s bill of the Nazis as ‘nationalism’, it is miniscule when seen against the abattoir of the socialist slaughter…

There is nothing much wrong with Nationalism; MAGA has not yet produced any monsters. But there is a very bloody history to socialism; within the first three months of both communism and Nazism, the barbed wire, the watch towers; the camps and the political prisoners to fill them all begin to appear.

If we continue along the path defined by their hoax, and acquiesce to its taint of racism, and remain good men who do nothing, then all is lost.

At the top of the socialist pyramid is an eye, but whose eye would that be?

Just whose is the ‘all seeing eye’? Does it belong to Jesus, to Allah, to the chief Rabbi? Does it belong to the chief Atheist (whoever he is)? Or does it belong to the guy who has set out to destroy Western culture and society? We can bicker over this forever and a day; all the while the tide of tyranny sweeps in to swamp us with the raw and unpleasant truths of slavery, shackles and starvation.

Western culture’s unique gift to the world was the abolition of slavery, but it seems to me that the world wants to return to its shackles: Nazi shackles, communist manacles, or the ball and chain of Islam.

Or we conservatives can forget our differences, we can unite and fight, make war against those who wish to inundate us with their modern versions of the failed fanaticisms of yesteryear. We CAN drain the swamps — if we work together!

MC lives in the southern Israeli city of Sderot. For his previous essays, see the MC Archives.

By AFP Today, 3:11 pm

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-warns-world-to-prepare-for-us-nuke-deal-withdrawal/

US Secretary of State John Kerry sits across from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif on July 1, 2015, in Vienna, Austria (State Department photo)

20 Tevet 5778 – January 7, 2018

Watch: Egyptian Scholar Tells Rowdy Arab TAU Students They Should Thank God for Living in Israel

Rami Aziz, an Egyptian researcher and political analyst, whose research focuses on the growth and development of political Islam in Europe, recently responded to a group of Israeli Arab students who last week left a Tel Aviv University lecture hall after having interrupted and taunted the lecturer inside. Their victim was Egyptian American Sociologist and one of Egypt’s leading human rights and democracy activists, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who delivered a talk on Israeli-Egyptian relations and ways to preserve them (Israeli Arab Students Crash Egyptian Civil Rights Hero’s Lecture, Calling him a Sellout).

Millions of students in the Arab world envy you, you should thank God that you live in Israel, you bunch of hypocrites and liars,” Aziz said in his angry video, representing a familiar trend in Arab society these days, which is too busy with its own serious issues, such as the Iranian threat, to bother with crybaby Israeli Arabs.

“Only in Israel can Arab students shout at an Egyptian lecturer that he is a traitor for coming to a Zionist university. And what exactly are they doing at a Zionist university? There is no limit to the hypocrisy, disgust and aggravation of Israeli Arabs. How much can you bite the hand that feeds you?” Aziz said.

21 Tevet 5778 – January 7, 2018

Israeli Government Publishes Full Anti-BDS Blacklist

Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan, Photo Credit: Tomer Neuberg / Flash 90

The Israeli government has published the anti-BDS (anti-Israel Boycott, Divest & Sanctions) blacklist developed by the Strategic Affairs Ministry.

Those who are members of the 20 organizations on the blacklist will be unable to gain entry to the Jewish State, beginning in March.

“The boycott organizations need to know that the State of Israel will act against them and not allow them entry to harm our citizens,” said Minister Gilad Erdan. “No nation would have permitted entry to critics coming to harm the country.”

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, whose ministry will implement the ban, said, “These people are trying to exploit … our hospitality to act against Israel and to defame the country. I will act against this using every means.”

In addition to senior officials of the blacklisted organizations, and key activists, mayors and establishment figures who lead or promote boycotts against Israel will also be banned from entering the Jewish State. Activists who arrive on behalf of one of the blacklisted groups, or as part of a delegations sponsored by, or initiated or promoted by one of the blacklisted organization, will also be denied entry as well.

The Anti-BDS Blacklist

Europe

The France Association Palestine Solidarity
BDS France
BDS Italy
The European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine
Friends of Al-Aqsa
Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
The Palestine Committee of Norway
Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
War on Want
BDS Kampagne

North America

American Friends Service Committee
American Muslims for Palestine
Code Pink
Jewish Voice for Peace
National Students for Justice in Palestine (umbrella for SJP)
US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Other groups

BDS Chile
BDS South Africa
BDS National Committee