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Death by Lashing: Saudi Arabia

June 11, 2015

Death by Lashing: Saudi Arabia, The Gatestone Institute, Salim Mansur, June 11, 2015

Nothing could uplift the universal image of Saudi Arabia and King Salman more than if today he issued a pardon. World leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who has so far been silent on the issue, should immediately speak out — as should the media and human rights groups.
There was no insult of Islam, of the prophet, or of the Quran, in what Badawi wrote; and, truth be told, God, Islam and the prophet are all beyond insults, and beyond the reach of profanity that occasionally spills forth from the bigoted or tortured minds of individuals.
The treatment of Raif Badawi stands out, not merely for its cruelty, but how it has come to symbolize the grotesquely repulsive nature of the Saudi kingdom and what it represents behind the mask of religious austerity.

Tomorrow, Friday, the virtual death sentence by 1000 lashes, delivered “very harshly” according to the flogging order, fifty at a time, might continue for Raif Badawi, a 31-year-old Saudi blogger and father of three, for allegedly “insulting Islam.”

The flogging sentence, plus ten years in prison, was upheld last week by Saudi Arabia’s supreme court, and can now only be overturned by a pardon from King Salman.

Although Badawi, who is ill and frail, would most certainly perish, in Saudi justice there is little concern for sentences to be proportionate to the crimes for which the accused are found guilty, or for adequate legal representation. Badawi’s lawyer, Walid Abu al-Khair, was also jailed, effectively for the crime of representing him.

Badawi was accused of insulting Islam in his blog posts. In a country where thinking is forbidden, Badawi had expressed forbidden thoughts by questioning the nature of his society and going public with them.

Badawi, for instance, had written, “Muslims in Saudi Arabia not only disrespect the beliefs of others, but also charge them with infidelity — to the extent that they consider anyone who is not Muslim an infidel. They also, within their own narrow definitions, consider non-Hanbali [the Saudi school of Islam] Muslims as apostates. How can we be such people and build… normal relations with six billion humans, four and a half billion of whom do not believe in Islam?”

1106

Raif Badawi and his children, before his 2012 arrest.

There was naivety in putting such thoughts in writing, as Badawi did, and drawing the attention of Saudi thought police. In another post, Badawi suggested, “Secularism respects everyone and does not offend anyone… Secularism is the practical solution to lift countries (including ours) out of the third world and into the first world.”

It appears Badawi wrote in the first blush of what seemed to have been a breath of fresh air, characterized as the “Arab Spring,” that wafted across the politically bleak landscape of the Arab world in early 2011. There had come news of a Tunisian vendor who had put lit himself on fire protesting police brutality, and had died as a result; his death sparked a movement against Arab despots.

The anguish of the Tunisian vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi, was genuine. His tragic death brought people into the streets, and the Tunisian strongman, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, eventually fled into exile in January 2011. The Tunisian protest stirred Egyptians to rise against their strongman, President Hosni Mubarak, and succeed in toppling him in February 2011.

The “Arab Spring,” for those brief few weeks in early 2011, held forth the promise of change for better across the Arab world. And young men like Raif Badawi could be forgiven for imagining that they, too, in Saudi Arabia, could no longer be denied freedom, democracy, and secularism — the accepted norms in the West.

But the hard realities of the Arab world turned the promise of the “Arab Spring” into the nightmare of religious terror and counter-terror. Saudi Arabia is the incubator and citadel of Islamic fascism, otherwise known as Wahhabism. And here in the land of the two holy cities of Islam — Mecca and Medina — religion and politics are inseparable, and anyone who trespasses either does so at the risk of losing his head — literally — in the public beheadings that are the hallmark of the Saudi kingdom.

Raif Badawi was arrested, and has been held in prison in Jeddah since June 2012. The arrest of Badawi and Souad al-Shammari came after they together set up the web site called Saudi Liberal Network. It was promptly closed by the authorities when Badawi posted criticism of the Saudi religious police.

The initial sentence for Badawi by the Criminal Court in Jeddah for mischief and subverting public order was for 600 lashes and seven years in prison. He appealed, and the court returned the verdict by raising the sentence to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison. The Saudi supreme court has upheld this sentence.

In the interim Badawi was given 50 lashes in a Jeddah public square in January of this year, while further lashings were suspended on medical grounds. Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, fears the lashings will resume — according to court order the 1000 lashes are to be completed in 20 sessions in front of a mosque — and could be fatal for her husband.

* * *

There is very little the outside world can do to change the nature of the Saudi regime, or for that matter the regime in Iran, which is indistinguishable from the Saudi regime in terms of tyranny and the cruelty to which, in both countries, dissidents are subjected.

After Raif Badawi was arrested, Ensaf Haidar and her children found refuge in Quebec, Canada. Across Quebec there has been heartfelt popular support expressed for Raif Badawi, and condemnation of his punishment. Quebec has officially protested Badawi’s sentence, while demanding his release from Saudi Arabia so that he might join his family where they have settled.

In response to a Quebec National Assembly resolution, passed unanimously in February, condemning Badawi’s lashings in Jeddah in January 2015, the Saudi ambassador to Canada wrote a letter to the Quebec politicians. The same letter was also sent to the Canadian government in Ottawa.

The letter, signed by the Saudi ambassador, Naif Bin Bandir Alsudairy, was obtained by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). It states, “The Kingdom does not accept at all any attack on it in the name of human rights especially when its constitution is based on Islamic law, which guarantees the rights of humans and preserves his blood, money, honour and dignity.”

The stand taken by the Quebec government apparently rattled the Saudi kingdom sufficiently to have its ambassador write a letter addressed to members of a provincial legislature.

* * *

It is one of the anomalies of our age that when, by a fluke of nature, large deposits of fossil fuels are discovered in a country, as in Saudi Arabia, it is accorded attention and respect by other countries in excess of anything it has done, or achieved, or by the record of its conduct in human affairs.

Apart from the oil reserves of the kingdom, the House of Saud is indistinguishable from the House of Kim ruling North Korea, and it is as deserving of the same contempt.

Oil has not only made the difference for Saudi Arabia, it has also made the West complicit in the evil that Saudi Arabia does at home and perpetrates abroad: spreading its pre-modern and perverted culture as Islam or, more appropriately, Wahhabism; and funding terror as jihadism.

The treatment of Raif Badawi stands out, not merely for its cruelty, but how it has come to symbolize the grotesquely repulsive nature of the Saudi kingdom and what it represents behind the mask of religious austerity.

Saudi Arabia is possessed with the opposite of the “Midas touch”: wherever its money buys influence, there, the natural goodness in society is stained and corroded by its touch.

The tragedy surrounding Raif Badawi is both the savage treatment meted out to a young man by the Saudi regime for simply expressing his thoughts, and of how innocence, when it goes against the culture of Saudi intolerance, is mocked, abused, and strangled.

Raif Badawi is also the face of why “official” Islam — the one portrayed by Saudi Arabia and the other OIC member states, and to which the West routinely defers – is so terribly retarded. Freedom of thought is anathema to “official” Islam and its defenders, as it once was in the former Soviet Union; it is the defining characteristic of a closed, totalitarian society.

Raif Badawi is a young man, and the thoughts he expressed were the unsullied thoughts of the young that are at once universal in expectations and desires, as they are innocent and unburdened by the hardness of life’s experiences.

There was no insult of Islam, of the prophet, or of the Quran, in what Badawi wrote; and truth be told, God, Islam, and the prophet are all beyond insults, and beyond the reach of profanity that occasionally spills forth from the bigoted or tortured minds of individuals.

“Official” Islam is an insult to Muslims and non-Muslims alike — for “official” Islam is politics devoid of any redeeming quality found in faith, which nourishes the spiritual yearning of people and uplifts them in a broken world. Through betrayal and hypocrisy, “official” Islam insults God, Islam, and the prophet, every minute of each day, and has become a torment to Muslims.

It is “official” Islam, and Wahhabism in its most perverted expression among Sunni Muslims, that has turned God — Allah in Arabic — repeatedly invoked in the Quran as the “Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful,” into a vengeful and capricious deity.

The Quran states that on the Day of Reckoning the prophet will speak forth, “O my Lord! Lo! mine own folk make this Qur’an of no account” (25:30). In another verse, the Quran instructs the prophet to tell the wandering Arabs of the desert that they have merely submitted, but they have no belief “for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts” (49:14). And then there is the verse stating categorically, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256).[1]

When religion is reduced to politics then it is the logic of politics, hence power and coercion, that takes precedence. In Albert Camus’s striking formulation, “Politics is not religion, or if it is, then it is nothing but the Inquisition.”[2] In Saudi Arabia, religion is a daily dose of inquisition, and the executioner with his sword is both the reality and the symbol of the vengeful deity that bears little resemblance to the merciful and compassionate God of the Quran.

Raif Badawi’s innocence betrayed him. Age and experience would have taught him the hard reality of his culture, veiled by the mask of “official” Islam. This hard reality of Arab culture has been best understood by Arab poets through the years of Arab and Muslim history. Here is one example of a poet’s disgust with the hard reality of his country’s culture and politics. These are lines from a poem of Nizar Qabbani (1923-98), a much-loved Syrian-Arab poet:

When a helmet becomes God in heaven
and can do what it wishes
with a citizen – crush, mash
kill and resurrect
whatever it wills,
then the state is a whorehouse,
history is a rag,
and thought is lower than boots.

When a breath of air
comes by decree
of the sultan,
when every grain of wheat we eat,
every drop of water we drink
comes only by decree
of the sultan,
when an entire nation turns into
a herd of cattle fed in the sultan’s
shed, embryos will suffocate
in the womb, women will miscarry
and the sun will drop
a black noose over our square.[3]

The Sultan’s power is vainglorious, whimsical, easily insulted, and secured by perpetrating fear, and the realm he rules by decree is by necessity a slaughterhouse.

If Raif Badawi survives the thousand lashes in the slaughterhouse that is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it will be a testimony of how an individual’s courage, born of innocence, might well defy the Sultan’s decree.

Nothing could uplift the universal image of Saudi Arabia or King Salman more than if today he issued a pardon.

World leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who has so far been silent on the issue, should immediately speak out — as should the media and human rights groups.

________________________

[1] Verses quoted from the Quran are from The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, translated by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall (New York: Alfred A. Knopf and Everyman’s Library, 1930, 1992).

[2] A. Camus, The Rebel (New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1956), p. 302.

[3] Nizar Qabbani, “From The Actors” in Salma Khadra Jayyusi (editor), Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), pp. 378-379.

Categories: Foreign policy, Freedom, Human rights, Iran, Islam, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Islamophobia, Middle East, Obama, Oil, Saudi Arabia, Secularism, Sharia law
Tags: Foreign Policy, Freedom, human rights, Iran, Islam, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Islamophobia, Middle East, Obama, Oil, Saudi Arabia, Secularism, Sharia law

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Nuclear Negotiations At An Impasse

June 11, 2015

Nuclear Negotiations At An Impasse, MEMRI, A. Savyon and Y. Carmon, June 11, 2015

Leader Khamenei Rejects Agreement Reached On Token Inspection Of Military Sites And Questioning Of Scientists; U.S. Willing To Close IAEA Dossier On Iranian PMD, To Settle For Inspecting Declared Nuclear Sites Only, And To Rely On Intelligence; EU Objects.

Introduction

This past week, members of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team revealed details about the Iran-U.S. nuclear negotiations. The negotiations were dealt a blow when Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejected an agreement reached by the two sides concerning a token inspection of military facilities and questioning of several nuclear scientists and “military personnel”; these were to be the response to the IAEA’s open dossier on possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s nuclear program to which Iran has so far refused to respond.

Iranian reports on these developments show that in order to arrive at a comprehensive agreement, the U.S. is willing to forgo actual inspection of Iranian military facilities and to settle for inspection of declared nuclear facilities only, as set forth under the Additional Protocol, while the ongoing monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program will be left to intelligence elements.[1]

Thus, at this stage, there is a deadlock: Iran is refusing both to respond to the IAEA dossier on its PMD, and to allow actual inspection of facilities that are not declared nuclear facilities.

Furthermore, the EU has announced its objections to a comprehensive agreement with Iran in the absence of satisfactory answers from it regarding the IAEA dossier on its PMD. It said that the IAEA investigation of the PMD “will be essential” to a nuclear deal.[2] IAEA Director-General Yukio Amano has also linked the investigation of Iranian PMD to the attainment of such an agreement.

The Issue: Inspection Of Iranian Military Sites, Questioning Of Iranian Scientists

On May 25, 2015, in an Iranian television interview, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and head negotiator Abbas Araghchi disclosed that this issue had been agreed upon, but that when the Iranian team returned to Tehran for Khamenei’s approval, Khamenei had rejected this agreed solution out of hand (see MEMRI TV Clip No. 4928, Top Iranian Nuclear Negotiator Abbas Aragchi: We Reached Solution with P5+1 on Site Inspection, But Khamenei Rejected It, May 25, 2015 and Appendix I).[3]

It was evident also from Aragchi’s statements that after Khamenei rejected the agreed solution, Iran even reneged from what had been agreed as part of the Additional Protocol, and is now insisting that limitations and restrictions that are part of the Protocol be implemented in a way that will make future inspections difficult. As part of Iran’s backpedaling, Araghchi repeatedly emphasized that “so far, nothing has been concluded” regarding the issue of the inspections.[4]

U.S. Willingness To Disregard IAEA PMD Dossier

Statements by negotiating team member Hamid Baidinejad show that in return for willingness on Iran’s part to sign a comprehensive agreement, the U.S. was willing to forgo actual investigation of the IAEA’s open PMD dossier on Iran and instead to conduct a token inspection of military sites and questioning of Iranian nuclear scientists and military personnel. The U.S. asked Iran to carry out a number of specific steps, thereby paving the way to a comprehensive solution for this issue. These steps included inspections at several points in Iran, including two military facilities, and questioning several senior military officials and scientists (see Appendix II).

Iranian Negotiators’ Two Versions Of Events

An analysis of these statements by the Iranian negotiators shows that there are two different versions of what took place in the negotiations. According to Araghchi, the Iranian team agreed to the U.S.’s demand for a token inspection, but when the team returned to Tehran, Khamenei completely rejected this token inspection. Aragchi’s disclosure that the Iranian negotiators had arrived at an agreement with the Americans that was subsequently rejected by Khamenei caused an uproar in the Iranian political system, triggering harsh criticism against both the negotiators and the leaders of the pragmatic camp, and even leading to a public confrontation between Khamenei and pragmatic camp leader Hashemi Rafsanjani.[5]

The second version of events emerged after the uproar sparked by Aragchi’s revelations. Another negotiator, Baidinejad, in an attempt to correct Araghchi’s claim, stated that the Iranian negotiators had rejected the U.S. demands, even the demand for token inspection, but that the Americans had pressed them to present the demand to Khamenei anyway; when they did so, at the Americans’ urging, Khamenei rejected it outright.

Conclusion

Iran’s reneging on its consent to the U.S. demand for token inspections of its military facilities and questioning of some of its scientists and military personnel in exchange for the closing of the IAEA’s PMD dossier on it places President Obama in a difficult situation, and brings the negotiations to an impasse. This is because along with Khamenei’s rejection, the EU and the IAEA director-general both oppose closing Iran’s dossier in order to arrive at a comprehensive agreement.

It was apparently under these circumstances that CIA director John Brennan was secretly dispatched in early June to Israel, in order to persuade Israel, and, via Israel, the EU, that intelligence monitoring of any Iranian PMD was a satisfactory solution and that actual investigation of the PMD, which Khamenei rejected, could be waived. To this end, Brennan also underlined,on May 31, 2015 on CBS’s Face the Nation, the close U.S.-Israel security cooperation.[6]

In light of this situation, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on May 31, 2015 that with regard to inspection, “other solutions must be discussed.”[7]

Appendix I: Aragchi’s Version Of Events

In an interview that aired May 25, 2015 on Iran’s Channel 2 TV,Araqchi said [8]: “[Our] red lines may change under certain circumstances. This is another issue. We may change some of our red lines for a certain period of time. This is not a problem. The [leader] will give us new instructions, and the team will act accordingly. We have acted within this framework, and we will do so in the future. We will not let ourselves go beyond this framework…

“The Additional Protocol, which is the internationally accepted [control] regime, was not a red line for us. As I said before, our [negotiating] team does not determine those red lines. From the very beginning – and given that the Additional Protocol is [internationally] accepted – we were given permission to accept it during the negotiations. So far, it has not been accepted – we do not have an agreement yet – but it is one of the issues that the negotiating team has been given instructions to accept. As I said, the red lines may or may not be changed in due course, and the Additional Protocol may or may not be accepted at some point, but so far, this has not happened, and our instructions have not changed…

“If the military officials, the relevant officials, the Iranian parliament or the council appointed by Khamenei reach the conclusion that the access provided for in the Additional Protocol comes under the same category as the inspections that Khamenei banned, we will obey and will categorically not allow ‘managed access…’

“The ‘Possible Military Dimension’ [PMD] has always been a strong pretext for the [West]. We have to take this pretext away from them. We have created conditions that will enable us, within the framework of reaching the final nuclear agreement, to resolve the issue of PMD. This is possible now. In the negotiations, we discussed and reached several possible solutions, but these were not accepted in Tehran. These include [allowing the IAEA] to interview several [nuclear scientists], and allowing access to several facilities. They gave us a list and said: ‘If you let us have access to these people and these facilities, we will end the issue of PMD.’ This, however, was not accepted by Tehran, and Khamenei decisively and courageously rejected it..”

Appendix II: Baidinejad’s Version Of Events

In June 1, 2015 statements on his Instagram account that were quoted by the Iranian news agency Fars, negotiating team member Hamid Baidinejad said:[9] “One of the first principles agreed upon, already at the start of the Iran-P5+1 negotiations, was that in a future nuclear agreement, Iran would implement the Additional Protocol on a temporary and voluntary basis until the Majlis decides whether to ratify it and takes into account the other side’s implementation of its obligations…

“It is natural that after a comprehensive nuclear agreement is signed, Iran would be expected to revert to its previous decision – that is, temporarily and voluntarily implementing the Additional Protocol… Without the implementation of the Additional Protocol, even if it is on a temporary basis, the IAEA will not be able to confirm that Iran’s nuclear program is civilian, and that would mean that the process for resolving the nuclear issue will have failed…

“In no way does the Additional Protocol include a clause regarding an obligation on the part of the member states to agree to inspection of their military facilities or investigation of their nuclear scientists. The only thing that the Additional Protocol does make possible is controlled access to non-nuclear facilities, for taking [soil] samples for proving that there is no nuclear activity at facilities that are not declared [to be nuclear sites]…

“Should there be evidence of nuclear material at undeclared sites, whether they are military or civilian, the IAEA will be able to demand controlled access to them [but] only by means of a specific procedure already set out, so that an [Additional Protocol] member state will agree to the sampling in order to prove that it is not conducting nuclear activity in undeclared facilities…

“The Additional Protocol is not a special agreement between the international community and Iran; it is an important international document. Over 120 states are currently members of this protocol, and some have signed it and implemented it temporarily. Therefore, the attempt to interpret it in a way that will include an obligation on the part of [member]states to undergo inspection at [their] military facilities or to allow investigation of [their] nuclear scientists is completely mistaken…

“The discussion on the issue of [Iran’s] PMD, [that is,] Western countries’ claim that Iran has a military nuclear program for producing nuclear weapons, is historically rooted in the years prior to 2003. In recent years, U.S. and Western intelligence services have said that before 2003, Iran’s military wing – commanded by specific commanders in the country – engaged in an extensive clandestine project for producing nuclear weapons. To prove their mistaken claim, [the West] presented intelligence based on their intelligence agencies; however, Iran considers all this intelligence [data] to be faked… There is no doubt that these false accusations against Iran can only be resolved with a political agreement. Discussion of this issue, no matter how lengthy, will not remove these accusations…

“[That is why] the Iranian negotiating team proposed during the talks that Iran and the P5+1 resolve this issue, because they [i.e. the P5+1] would like, along with reaching an agreement, that the issue of the accusations [that Iran] attempted to obtain nuclear weapons will be resolved. They proposed that Iran take several specific steps and thus pave the way to a comprehensive solution to the issue… Iran announced that it considers this dossier faked… But an agreement on it depends on what steps Iran will be asked to take [in order to close the dossier]. They announced that they will discuss the issue on level of the P5+1 [alone] because of its special sensitivity, and will submit their final opinion to Iran at the appropriate time.

“In the round [of talks] that preceded the [April 2015] press release in Lausanne, the P5+1 countries presented Iran with a program that includes inspection at a few points, including two military facilities, and questioning of several senior military officials and nuclear experts whose names were noted in the IAEA reports both directly and indirectly. They claimed that [if they] were allowed access to these sites, and the IAEA was permitted to question these people, that would be the end of the matter of the [PMD] accusations against Iran. As soon as this insulting proposal was raised, Iran rejected it unequivocally… At the same time, the P5+1 asked the Iranian representatives to present the P5+1’s opinion to officials in Iran, despite their express opposition, [for the officials’ approval].

“Leader [Khamenei’s] harsh response rejecting the demand by these countries to inspect military facilities and question nuclear scientists was a completely correct and accurate response. The nuclear negotiations team is proud of having expressed the exact same position [as Khamenei] three months ago, thanks to its complete grasp of the position of the regime and of the leader… Unfortunately, there were some in Iran who were not updated on the details of this issue… and instead of praising the Iranian negotiating team, took the opportunity, while being unaware of the process by which the issue was brought up for discussion – which was reported in full to top regime officials – to launch extremely harsh attacks on the Iranian negotiating team, to plan protests, and to demand a halt to the negotiations…

“These objections and accusations will not last long, but airing these concerns to public opinion can cast doubt on the regime’s main institutions. Everyone is expected to understand Iran’s critical circumstances, and, in this Year of Empathy Between the Government and the People they must join hands in defending Iran’s basic principles and rights and must unite with senior officials in order to efficiently promote the sensitive stage of the nuclear negotiations under the guidance of top senior officials in the regime of the Islamic Republic – and especially by Leader [Khamenei] who is very closely overseeing the negotiations. This way, if an agreement is reached, it will guarantee the preservation of the great Iranian nation’s basic principles.”

Endnotes:

[1] Under the Additional Protocol, the clarification of PMDs at facilities that are not declared nuclear facilities is subject to the consent of the member state under investigation; thus, such sites in fact cannot be inspected.

[2] AP, June 8 2015.

[3] In the interview, Aragchi said that the NPT’s Additional Protocol was not a red line for the Iranian team, and that the team had in fact beeninstructed to accept it. He explained that Iran could always harden its position on these issues. See MEMRI TV Clip No. 4928, “Top Iranian Nuclear Negotiator Abbas Araqchi: We Reached Solution with P5+1 on Site Inspection, But Khamenei Rejected It,” May 25, 2015. It should be mentioned that under former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, IAEA questioning of Iranian scientists was permitted, and two visits to theParchin military facility were allowed. The Iranian team’s acceptance of this demand by the international community was presumably based on this precedent.

[4] Irib (Iran), June 4, 2014.

[5] Senior figures in Iran’s ideological camp hastened to obscure Araghchi’s statements, and to correct them. Majlis speaker for national security affairs Alaa Al-Boroujerdi stated that Aragchi’s words were untrue, and added: “Aragchi only discussed the major issues, and did not say that Iran had consented to inspection of military facilities… Khamenei announced that we will not allow any talks with Iranian scientists, after he noticed that we were under threat by terrorists. The arrest of several who murdered our nuclear scientists revealed that these [perpetrators] were linked to the Mossad. We have red lines, and we will implement them. ISNA, Iran, May 25, 2015. The Javandaily, which is affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), also denied Aragchi’s statements regarding the red lines: “In a television interview, top Iranian negotiation [Aragchi] referred to a particular point, and this issue should be addressed. He said: ‘…Perhaps under certain conditions our red lines will change, and the work [of the negotiations] will proceed according to instructions.’ This declaration regarding the possibility of changes to the red lines under certain circumstances is mistaken, for several reasons… As is evident from their names, the red lines are borders that define the basic framework of the negotiations, and without them the negotiations will reach undesirable and unexpected results.” Javanalso warned the Iranian negotiating team about deviating from the red lines: “The Iranian nation supports its negotiating team as long as it operates to realize its rights in the framework of the national interests and preserves national honor. Any withdrawal from this basis, and acceptance of being forced into humiliation by the enemy side, will be met with a popular response from the nation, and will undoubtedly go down in history as a dark and negative point.” Javan, Iran, May 26, 2015. A new website affiliated with the extremist ideological camp called on May 26, 2015 on Khamenei to fire Foreign Minister Zarif and his negotiating team for their “American tendencies.” Amanpress.ir, May 26, 2015.

[6] Haaretz (Israel), June 9, 2015.

[7] Mehr (Iran), May 31, 2015.

[8] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 4928, Top Iranian Nuclear Negotiator Abbas Aragchi: We Reached Solution with P5+1 on Site Inspection, But Khamenei Rejected It, May 25, 2015.

[9] Fars (Iran), June 1, 2015.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran - underground sites, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Kerry, Obama, P5+1
Tags: Foreign Policy, Ideology, Iran - underground sites, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama

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North Korea’s Serious New Nuclear Missile Threat

June 11, 2015

North Korea’s Serious New Nuclear Missile Threat, The Gatestone Institute, Peter Huessy, June 11, 2015

China . . . seems to want to curry favor with Iran because of its vast oil and gas supplies, as well as to use North Korea to sell and transfer nuclear technology to both North Korea and Iran, as well as other states such as Pakistan. As Reed again explains, “China has catered to the nuclear ambitions of the Iranian ayatollahs in a blatant attempt to secure an ongoing supply of oil”.

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China continues to transfer, through its own territory, nuclear weapons technology involving both North Korea and Iran.
In April, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submerged platform. The North Korean underwater launch test was closely related to the further development of a missile-firing submarine capable of hitting the U.S. — “a first step,” according to Uzi Rubin, “in achieving a very serious and dangerous new military capability… it will take many years to build up the missile defenses, so we had better use the time wisely.”
Although the Chinese profess to be against nuclear proliferation, documented evidence illustrates just the opposite — as a means of asserting Chinese hegemony, complicating American security policy and undermining American influence.
Unfortunately, no matter how attractive a strategy of diplomatically ending North Korea’s nuclear program might look, it is painfully at odds with China’s established record of supporting nuclear proliferation with such collapsed or rogue states as Iran, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea and Libya.
China’s nuclear assistance to Pakistan did not stay just in Pakistan.

North Korea appears to have made significant progress in extending its capability as a nuclear-armed rogue nation, to where its missiles may become capable of hitting American cities with little or no warning.

What new evidence makes such a threat compelling?

North Korea claims to have nuclear warheads small enough to fit on their ballistic missiles andmissiles capable of being launched from a submerged platform such as a submarine.

Shortly after North Korea’s April 22, 2015 missile test, which heightened international concern about the military capabilities of North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged China and our regional allies to restart the 2003 “six-party talks” aimed at eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula and reining in North Korea’s expanding nuclear missile program.

There are some “experts,” however, who believe that North Korea’s threat is highly exaggerated and poses no immediate danger to the United States. Consequently, many believe that, given China’s oft-repeated support for a “nuclear weapons free” Korean peninsula, time is on America’s side to get an agreement that will guarantee just such a full de-nuclearization.

But, if North Korea’s technical advances are substantive, its missiles, armed with small nuclear weapons, might soon be able to reach the continental United States — not just Hawaii and Alaska. Further, if such missile threats were to come from submarines near the U.S., North Korea would be able to launch a surprise nuclear-armed missile attack on an American city. In this view, time is not on the side of the U.S. Submarine-launched missiles come without a “return address” to indicate what country or terrorist organization fired the missile.

The implications for American security do not stop there. As North Korea is Iran’s primary missile-development partner, whatever North Korea can do with its missiles and nuclear warheads, Iran will presumably be able to do as well. One can assume the arrangement is reciprocal.

Given recent warnings that North Korea may have upwards of 20 nuclear warheads, the United States seems to be facing a critical new danger. Would renewed negotiations with China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea really be able to address this threat?

Two years ago, Andrew Tarantola and Brian Barrett said there was “no reason to panic;” that North Korea was “a long way off” — in fact “years” — before its missiles and nuclear weapons could be “put together in any meaningful way.”

At the same time, in April 2013, an official U.S. assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency stated the U.S. had “moderate” confidence that “North Korea had indeed developed a nuclear device small enough to mount on a ballistic missile.”

That was followed up two years later, on April 7, 2015, when the commander of Northcom, Admiral Bill Gortney, one of the nation’s leading homeland security defenders, said the threat was considerably more serious. He noted that, “North Korea has deployed its new road-mobile KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile and was capable of mounting a miniaturized nuclear warhead on it.”[1]

At a Pentagon press briefing in April, Admiral Cecil Haney, Commander of the US Strategic Command and America’s senior military expert on nuclear deterrence and missile defense, said it was important to take seriously reports that North Korea can now make small nuclear warheads and put them on their ballistic missiles.[2]

And sure enough, in April, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submerged platform. Media reaction to the North Korean test has been confused. Reuters, citing the analysis of two German “experts,” claimed the North Korean test was fake — a not-too-clever manipulation of video images.

The Wall Street Journal, on May 21, 2015, echoed this view, noting: “[F]or evidence of North Korea’s bending of reality to drum up fears about its military prowess,” one need look no further than a consensus that North Korea “doctored” pictures of an alleged missile test from a submarine. This, they claimed, was proof that the “technology developments” by North Korea were nothing more than elaborately faked fairy tales.

However, Israeli missile defense expert Uzi Rubin — widely known as the “father” of Israel’s successful Arrow missile defense program — explained to this author that previous North Korean missile developments, which have often been dismissed as nothing more than mocked-up missiles made of plywood, actually turned out to be the real thing — findings confirmed by subsequent intelligence assessments.

Rubin, as well as the South Korean Defense Ministry, insist that on April 22, the North Korean military did, in fact, launch a missile from a submerged platform.[3]

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Kim Jong Un, the “Supreme Leader” of North Korea, supervises the April 22 test-launch of a missile from a submerged platform. (Image source: KCNA)

What gave the “faked” test story some prominence were the misunderstood remarks of the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James Winnefeld. He had said, on May 19, that the North Korean missile launch was “not all” that North Korea said it was. He also mentioned that North Korea used clever video editors to “crop” the missile test-launch images. Apparently, that was exactly what the editors did. The Admiral, however, never claimed in his speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies there had been no successful missile test.[4]

The same day, a high-ranking State Department official, Frank Rose — Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance — told a Korean security seminar on Capitol Hill that North Korea had successfully conducted a “missile ejection” test, but from an underwater barge rather than a submarine.[5]

To confuse matters further, additional pictures were released by the South Korean media to illustrate stories about the North Korean test. Those pictures, however, were of American missiles, which use both solid and liquid propellant; as a result, one photo showed a U.S. missile with a solid propellant smoke trail and one, from a liquid propellant, without a smoke trail. These photographs apparently befuddled Reuters’ “experts,” who may have jumped to the conclusion that the photos of the North Korean test were “faked,” when they were simply of entirely different missile tests, and had been used only to “illustrate” ocean-going missile launches and not the actual North Korean test.[6]

According to Uzi Rubin, to achieve the capability to eject a missile from an underwater platform is a significant technological advancement. The accomplishment again illustrates “that rogue states such as North Korea can achieve military capabilities which pose a notable threat to the United States and its allies.”

Rubin also stated that the North Korean underwater launch test was closely related to the development of a missile-firing submarine, “a first step in achieving a very serious and dangerous new military capability.”[7]

Admiral Winnefeld and Secretary Rose, in their remarks, confirmed that the North Korean test was not the “dog and pony show” some have claimed. In other words, the U.S. government has officially confirmed that the North Koreans have made a serious step toward producing a sea-launched ballistic missile capability.

While such an operational capability may be “years away,” Rubin warns that “even many years eventually pass, and it will also take many years to build up the missile defenses, so we had better use the time wisely.”[8]

Will diplomacy succeed in stopping the North Korean threats? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to think it worth a try; so he began the push to restart the old 2003 “six-party” talks between the United States, North Korea, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, to bring North Korea’s nuclear weapons under some kind of international control and eventual elimination.

After all, supporters of such talks claim, similar talks with Iran appear to be leading to some kind of “deal” with Tehran, to corral its nuclear weapons program, so why not duplicate that effort and bring North Korea back into the non-nuclear fold?

What such a “deal,” if any, with Iran, will contain, is at this point unknown. Celebrations definitely seem premature. If the “deal” with North Korea is as “successful” as the P5+1’s efforts to rein in Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program, the prognosis for the success of diplomacy could scarcely be more troubling.

Bloomberg’s defense writer, Tony Carpaccio, reflecting Washington’s conventional wisdom, recently wrote that of course China will rein in North Korea’s nuclear program: “What might be a bigger preventative will be the protestations of China, North Korea’s primary trade partner and only prominent international ally. Making China angry would put an already deeply impoverished, isolated North Korea in even more dire straits.”

Unfortunately, no matter how attractive a strategy of diplomatically ending North Korea’s nuclear program might look on the surface, it is painfully at odds with China’s established and documented track record in supporting and carrying out nuclear proliferation with such collapsed or rogue states as Iran, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea and Libya, as detailed by the 2009 book The Nuclear Express, by Tom C. Reed (former Secretary of the Air Force under President Gerald Ford and Special Assistant to the President of National Security Affairs during the Ronald Reagan administration) and Daniel Stillman (former Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory).

Far from being a potential partner in seeking a non-nuclear Korean peninsula, China, say the authors, has been and is actually actively pushing the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states, as a means of asserting Chinese hegemony, complicating American security policy and undermining American influence.

The problem is not that China has little influence with North Korea, as China’s leadership repeatedly claims. The problem is that China has no interest in pushing North Korea away from its nuclear weapons path because the North Korean nuclear program serves China’s geostrategic purposes.

As Reed and Stillman write, “China has been using North Korea as the re-transfer point for the sale of nuclear and missile technology to Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen”. They explain, “Chinese and North Korean military officers were in close communication prior to North Korea’s missile tests of 1998 and 2006”.

Thus, if China takes action to curtail North Korea’s nuclear program, China will likely be under pressure from the United States and its allies to take similar action against Iran and vice versa. China, however, seems to want to curry favor with Iran because of its vast oil and gas supplies, as well as to use North Korea to sell and transfer nuclear technology to both North Korea and Iran, as well as other states such as Pakistan. As Reed again explains, “China has catered to the nuclear ambitions of the Iranian ayatollahs in a blatant attempt to secure an ongoing supply of oil”.

North Korea is a partner with Iran in the missile and nuclear weapons development business, as Uzi Rubin has long documented. Thus, it is reasonable to believe that China may see any curtailment of North Korea’s nuclear program as also curtailing Iran’s access to the same nuclear technology being supplied by North Korea. Any curtailment would also harm the Chinese nuclear sales business to Iran and North Korea, especially if China continues to use the “North Korea to Iran route” as an indirect means of selling its own nuclear expertise and technology to Iran.

It is not as if Chinese nuclear proliferation is a recent development or a “one of a kind” activity. As far back as 1982, China gave nuclear warhead blueprints to Pakistan, according to Reed. These findings indicate that China’s nuclear weapons proliferation activities are over three decades old.[9]

Reed and Stillman also note that nearly a decade later, China tested a nuclear bomb “for Pakistan” on May 26, 1990, and that documents discovered in Libya when the George W. Bush administration shut down Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi’s nuclear program revealed that China gave Pakistan the CHIC-4 nuclear weapon design.

Unfortunately, China’s nuclear assistance to Pakistan did not stay just in Pakistan. The nuclear technology made its way from Pakistan to North Korea. For example, high explosive craters, construction of a 50 megawatt nuclear reactor (finished in 1986) and a secret reprocessing facility begun in 1987 all were done in North Korea with major Pakistani help from the A.Q. Khan “Nukes R Us” smuggling group, as Reed and Stillman document in their book.

Reed and Stillman write that when, amid disclosures in 2003 of a major Libyan nuclear weapons program, the U.S. government sought help in shutting down the Khan nuclear smuggling ring, “Chinese authorities were totally unhelpful, to the point of stonewalling any investigation into Libya’s nuclear supply network.”

More recently, Chinese companies have now twice — in 2009 and 2011 — been indicted by the Attorney for the City of New York for trying to provide Iran with nuclear weapons technology.

The indictments document that Chinese companies were selling Iran steel for nuclear centrifuges and other banned technology. A leaked State Department cable, discussing the indictments at the time, revealed “details on China’s role as a supplier of materials for Iran’s nuclear program,” and that “China helped North Korea ship goods to Iran through Chinese airports.”

And more recently, in April 2015, the Czech government interdicted additional nuclear technology destined for Iran — the origin of which remains unknown — in violation of current sanctions against Iran.

From 1982 through at least the first part of 2015, the accumulation of documentary evidence on nuclear proliferation reveals two key facts:

First, despite literally hundreds of denials by Iran that it is seeking nuclear weapons, and amid current negotiations to end Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, there is solid evidence that Iran still seeks nuclear weapons technology; and that North Korea has nuclear weapons and is advancing their capability.

Second, China continues to transfer, through its own territory, nuclear weapons technology involving both North Korea and Iran.

Although the Chinese profess to be against nuclear proliferation, their track record from the documented evidence illustrates just the opposite.

In summary, it is obvious North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles are a serious threat to America and its allies. And China, from its proliferation record for the past three decades, is making such a threat more widespread.

In this light, is dismissing North Korea’s advances in military technology and ignoring China’s record of advancing its neighbors’ nuclear weapons technology really best for U.S. interests?

_______________________

[1] The Washington Post, May 20, 2015, Anna Fifield, “North Korea says it has technology to make mini-nuclear weapons“; and Admiral Bill Gortney, US NORAD Commander, quoted in “NORAD commander: North Korean KN-08 Missile Operational“, by Jon Harper, in “Stars and Stripes”, of April 7, 2015; the Admiral said: “Our assessment is that they have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland.” He said “Yes sir” when asked if the U.S. thinks North Korea has succeeded in the complicated task of miniaturizing a warhead for use on such a missile. North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006.

[2] Department of Defense Press Briefing by Admiral Cecil Haney, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, March 24, 2015.

[3] Personal communication with Uzi Rubin, President of Rubincon, May 21, 2015.

[4] Admiral James Winnefeld, Remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Briefing on Missile Defense, May 20, 2015.

[5] U.S. Department of State, Daily Digest Bulletin, Frank Rose, Remarks on “Missile Defense and the U.S. Response to the North Korean Ballistic Missile and WMD Threat”, May 20, 2015.

[6] Explanation provided by Israel missile expert Uzi Rubin, personal communication, May 20, 2015.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] According to Reed and Stillman, in “The Nuclear Express,” none of China’s nuclear help to Pakistan and Iran could have been possible without China’s transfer of the nuclear technology through Chinese airspace.

Categories: China, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Libya, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Oil, P5+1, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen
Tags: China, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Libya, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Oil, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen

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Iran satellite launches tied to ballistic missile program, UN experts say

June 10, 2015

Iran satellite launches tied to ballistic missile program, UN experts say, Fox News, George Russell, June 10, 2015

Both of those actions, the majority concluded in 2012, were violations of U.N. sanctions resolutions that explicitly forbade any Iranian activity “related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.”

The experts’ more diffident reference to Iran’s renewed program of launches over the next year gives Iran much greater benefit of the doubt this time.

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EXCLUSIVE: Iran has launched a space satellite using technology that could “contribute to” the development of a ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons, according to a United Nations-appointed panel of experts monitoring the issue.

Tehran intends to launch more such satellites, the panel said.

The most recent launch came last February 15, the experts noted, adding that the Iranian government has already announced plans to conduct three additional satellite launches before March 2016.

The vehicle used in the February launch—from a military base in northern Iran– was based on a “space launch vehicle” that is variant of Iran’s Shahab-3 ballistic missile, which has a range of about 1,000 miles. The Shahab-3 is one of two Iranian missiles that the experts say “are believed to be potentially capable of delivery of nuclear weapons.”

The experts noted that the future satellites will be boosted aloft “from more powerful launchers and on the back of bigger carriers.”

Iran’s missile development—peaceful or not– is one of the murkier and more contentious issues surrounding the ongoing negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the world’s major powers—precisely because ballistic missiles have been shunted to the side of a potential deal centered on nuclear enrichment activities that the Obama Administration is pushing hard to conclude by June 30.

U.N. Security Council resolutions that have sanctioned Iran for its nuclear weapons development have also banned Iranian work on ballistic missile programs that could deliver the weapons. But missiles were not mentioned in the interim deal between Iran and the P5+1 powers struck last November, which has so far unfrozen billions in Iranian assets and which is supposed to be turned into a final agreement by June 30.

Last year, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called any Western expectations that Iran would restrain its missile development program “stupid and idiotic,” and called for the country to mass produce such weapons.

Even so, a 7-member U.N. expert panel which is monitoring Iran’s behavior on the proliferation issue while negotiations continue noted in its June 1, 2015 report that Iran’s officials and news media “have not been reporting any new ballistic missile developments” such as the “unveiling or testing of new types of ballistic missiles,” or tests of medium-range missiles it is already known to possess.

Satellite launches, however, are another matter. The experts noted that the February 15 satellite payload weighed 110 lbs. and was designed for “collecting imagery.” It was only a limited success: the satellite fell back into the earth’s atmosphere after just 23 days, even though it was apparently intended to stay aloft for 18 months.

CLICK HERE FOR THE EXPERT REPORT

Nonetheless, the experts added, it was Iran’s first satellite launch since two failures in 2012. They also observed cryptically that “the details of this case present similarities with the launch of another satellite by a Safir space launch vehicle in 2011” and analyzed in one of their previous reports.

And according to that earlier document, a majority of the expert panel concluded that “the satellite launch was related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons,” and the Safir satellite launch vehicle itself “made use of ballistic missile technology.”

Both of those actions, the majority concluded in 2012, were violations of U.N. sanctions resolutions that explicitly forbade any Iranian activity “related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE 2012 REPORT

The experts’ more diffident reference to Iran’s renewed program of launches over the next year gives Iran much greater benefit of the doubt this time.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Obama, P5+1
Tags: Foreign Policy, Ideology, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Obama

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The UN’s Anti-Israel Children and Armed Conflict Report

June 10, 2015

The UN’s Anti-Israel Children and Armed Conflict Report, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, June 10, 2015

(Please see also, Legal Experts Slam IDF for Over-Warning Gazans. — DM)

UN_Secretary-General_Ban_Ki-moon_-_Flickr_-_The_Official_CTBTO_Photostream_13-431x350

According to the New York Times, citing unnamed diplomats, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon bowed to “unusual pressure from Israel and the United States” in deciding not to include either Israel or Hamas on a list of “armies and guerilla groups that kill and maim children in conflicts worldwide.” The list is included in an annex to an annual report by the Secretary General entitled “Children and armed conflict,” which he just released for 2015. The list, as its title states, is intended to identify specifically the entities that “recruit or use children, kill or maim children, commit rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, or engage in attacks on schools and/or hospitals in situations of armed conflict.”

Ban Ki-moon considered the recommendation of his special representative for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, to include both Israel and Hamas on this list as a reflection of their actions and the deadly consequences to children arising from the Gaza conflict last summer. The list already includes such Islamic jihad terrorist groups as the Islamic State, the al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Al Shabaaba, Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula and the Houthis, as well as government forces of the Syrian regime, Yemen, Sudan and Afghanistan.

While the Secretary General rejected his special representative’s recommendation, leaving both the terrorist jihadist group Hamas and Israel off the list in a display of moral equivalence, the body of the report is far more condemnatory of Israel than of Hamas or other Palestinian militants. There were more than three times as many paragraphs devoted to alleged Israeli violations of children’s rights relating to the Gaza war than devoted to the actions of Hamas or other Palestinian terrorists. When there was any criticism of Palestinian actions, it was stated in the mildest of terms. Israel, on the other hand, received the full brunt of the Secretary General’s censure:

“I am deeply alarmed at the extent of grave violations suffered by children as a result of Israeli military operations in 2014. The unprecedented and unacceptable scale of the impact on children in 2014 raises grave concerns about Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, notably the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution in attack, and respect for international human rights law, particularly in relation to excessive use of force.” (Paragraph 110)

Nevertheless, Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, was not satisfied. He issued a blistering statement declaring that “It is without doubt that Israel, the occupying Power, flagrantly, systematically and grossly commits human rights violations against Palestinian children constituting grave violations that qualify it for such a listing in the annex to the Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict. The UN’s inaction, submitting to the inordinate pressures exerted, sends a most regrettable signal that the same criteria do not apply in all situations for all children, undermining the credibility of the UN system as a whole…”

As usual, Mr. Mansour stands the truth on its head. Indeed, Ban Ki-moon should have accepted his special representative’s recommendation to include Hamas on the annex list. Hamas and its other jihadist allies, not Israel, belong on the list alongside their Islamic State and al Qaeda brethren. They use children as human shields, deliberately store weapons in schools, homes hospitals and mosques where they know children are likely to be, and recruit children for jihad including the establishment of youth military training camps. They prepare children for the glory of martyrdom, extolling the virtues of suicide bombings that kill Jews.

Ban Ki-moon properly rejected his special representative’s recommendation to include Israel on the annex list. Israel does not belong on the same list as non-state and state entities that deliberately kill children with abandon, recruit children as soldiers, abduct and rape little girls, and kill their parents before their very eyes. To the contrary, the Israeli armed forces took great pains to minimize civilian casualties. It took the unprecedented step of warning civilians in advance of impending attacks on facilities that Hamas was using as launching pads from which to fire rockets at Israeli population centers and from which they were building their terrorist tunnels to sneak their fighters into Israel for the purpose of killing Israeli civilians, including women and children.

However, putting the annex list aside, Mr. Mansour should have been happy that the Secretary General reflected the institutional bias of the United Nations against Israel in the body of his report. In a crucial paragraph urging corrective actions to remedy the report’s catalogue of alleged violation of children’s rights – mostly said to be committed by Israel – the report focused solely on what Israel should do:

“I urge Israel to take concrete and immediate steps, including by reviewing existing policies and practices, to protect children, to prevent the killing and maiming of children, and to respect the special protections afforded to schools and hospitals. An essential measure in this regard is ensuring accountability for perpetrators of alleged violations. I further urge Israel to engage in a dialogue with my Special Representative and the United Nations to ensure that there is no recurrence in grave violations against children.” (Paragraph 111)

As usual, nothing is asked of the Palestinians. They are not urged to stop storing weapons in schools and hospitals. They are not asked “to protect children, to prevent the killing and maiming of children,” which they could begin to do by not using children as human shields, and not deliberately conducting rocket attacks against Israeli civilians including children and conducting other military activities from areas where they know Palestinian children are likely to be. They are not asked to close the youth military training camps or stop the online propaganda that indoctrinates Palestinian children into believing that martyrdom through jihad against Jews is the way to paradise.

We should not be surprised. Such anti-Israel bias is par for the course at the United Nations. Its Human Rights Council passes more resolutions condemning Israel than all of the other 192 member states combined. The Human Rights Council’s agenda item 7 requires that Israel’s – and only Israel’s – record of human rights be debated at every session. Investigations launched by the Human Rights Council and the UN Secretary General of alleged human rights and other international law violations in Gaza during the repeated wars there initiated by Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians are blatantly one-sided against Israel.

Israel was the only country in the world to be named as a violator of “health rights” during the UN World Health Organization’s annual assembly in May 2015. Never mind about Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, or North Korea where basic medical care and health services are scarce, if existent at all. Israel facilitates the delivery of humanitarian aid and takes care of the sick and injured, whether they be Palestinians or not. The Syrian regime prevents humanitarian aid including medical supplies from reaching besieged civilians, including Palestinian children trapped in Yarmouk. Yet the World Health Organization chose to ignore all this and adopt a resolution focusing solely on health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the Golan Heights, for which Israel is held responsible.

The UN Commission on the Status of Women, whose latest annual meeting concluded on March 20, 2015, marched to the same anti-Israel tune. The only country it condemned for its women’s rights record was Israel, presumably because of its alleged treatment of Palestinian women.

“If anyone had any doubt that there was demonization of Israel at the United Nations, here is the entire truth before our eyes,” said Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor. “There are 193 member states in the UN, and they include countries that butcher men and women, jail both male and female journalists, execute female oppositionists and legislate laws against women. All of these countries receive immunity in the UN. The UN Commission on the Status of Women is itself comprised of some of the worst violators of women’s rights, including Iran and Sudan, two of the more moderate members by comparison.”

Every day it seems that there is new proof of the demonization and attempts to delegitimize the Jewish state of Israel at the United Nations. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s report on “children and armed conflict” is but the latest example. There will certainly be more to come.

Categories: Ban Ki-Moon, Foreign policy, Gaza, Human rights, IDF, Israel, Palestinians, United Nations
Tags: Ban Ki-Moon, Foreign Policy, Gaza, human rights, IDF, Israel, Palestinians, United Nations

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France, Iran and the “Peace Process”

June 10, 2015

France, Iran and the “Peace Process,” The Gatestone Institute, Shoshana Bryen, June 10, 2015

The French draft corresponds with President Obama’s own — strongly held — belief that Israel has to ascribe to the President’s view, despite just having elected a Prime Minster who disagrees.
The air is poisoned. The CEO of the French cell phone company Orange declared his desire to boycott Israel, while Orange rakes in money from its operation in the Republic of Congo, a major human rights violator.
Smash the two stories together and you get an American President supporting France in its efforts to be a major player in the Middle East in exchange for French support for the P5+1 deal with Iran.

Sometimes, if you smash two stories together, you end up with something interesting; sometimes you get something worrisome. This is one of the latter.

The first story is about France, a member of the P5+1 negotiating a deal with Iran on nuclear capabilities. The French government has expressed increasing concern that the emerging deal is flawed — perhaps fatally. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius reportedly told the French Parliament, “France will not accept [a deal] if it is not clear that inspections can be done at all Iranian installations, including military sites.” He added, “Yes to an agreement, but not to an agreement that will enable Iran to have the atomic bomb. That is the position of France, which is independent and peaceful.”

The French Ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, told an American audience “the most worrying aspect of the agreement” is that Iran will become a “one-year breakout state.” He expressed concern that if Iran becomes a nuclear state, other countries in the region will also seek to become nuclear powers.

The French position creates a problem for President Obama because the deal has to be agreed on by the P5+1, not the “P4+1-with-one-vote-in-opposition.”

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Is President Obama supporting France in its efforts to be a major player in the Middle East, in exchange for French support for the P5+1 deal with Iran? Above, Secretary of State John Kerry (left) is pictured meeting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, on February 27, 2013. (Image source: U.S. State Dept.)

The second story is also about France. With historic ties to the Middle East, but extremely limited military capabilities there (or anywhere), France is trying to be a diplomatic power broker. Christian Makarian, deputy editor of L’Express, wrote recently that after Assad used chemical weapons against his people, France wanted to intervene in Syria but was dissuaded by President Obama. “Hollande and… Fabius frequently made reference to last year’s backtracking on military intervention in Syria, which they consider one of their greater policy failings.” This, he postulates, accounts for French willingness to support military action in Iraq.

Influence can come from arms sales, and here the French excel. From 2005-2010, France was the third largest supplier of arms to the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region, after the U.S. and Russia. MENA now accounts for nearly half the orders from the French military. Saudi Arabia, Morocco, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Tunisia and Algeria are clients, and this year, 5.2 billion euros in orders from Egypt. It amounts to a 17.3 percent increase in total arms sales abroad for 2014 over 2013.

Influence also comes from diplomacy — and this is where the stories begin to collide.

France, Britain and Germany had drafted a UN Security Council Resolution late last year to set parameters for establishing a Palestinian State and “ending the conflict.” It was not submitted because of the impending Israeli election. France is prepared to try now with a draft that would “solve” the problem by using the 1949 Armistice Line as a reference point for a Palestinian state with a shared capital in Jerusalem, a “fair” solution for refugees, and possible land swaps. It would also require that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish State.”

Fabius, speaking in New York, said, “these parameters have to be defined and recognized by the Security Council and that obviously the two parties have to discuss, but the discussion will be accompanied by an international effort.”

A French official called it a “backdoor” for negotiations, explaining in a press report that “all actors including the Americans now realize that all other ways have been explored, without success.”

The U.S. has historically opposed “internationalizing” the conflict. Giving the UN authority to establish requirements for the parties violates the Oslo Accords, something Israel opposes and the Palestinians support.

In early May, President Obama indicated that he intended to veto the French proposal, saying “a big overarching deal” is probably not “possible in the next year, given the makeup of the Netanyahu government, given the challenges I think that exist for President Abbas.” In the same interview, he suggested “confidence-building measures” that would have an impact on the economic and social lives of Palestinians and Israelis.

However, the President appears to have moved toward the French position. He recently told Israeli television:

If in fact, there’s no prospect of an actual peace process, if nobody believes there’s a peace process, then it becomes more difficult to argue with those who are concerned about settlement construction, those who are concerned about the current situation, it’s more difficult for me to say to them, ‘Be patient. Wait, because we have a process here.'”

His own expressed skepticism about the achievability of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement appears to have given way to the French notion that “all other ways have been explored,” and that it is time to let the UN determine parameters for a “big overarching deal.” And, as it happens, the French draft corresponds with the President Obama’s own — strongly held — belief that Israel has to ascribe to the President’s view, despite having just elected a Prime Minister who disagrees:

The most important thing, I think, that we can do right now in strengthening Israel’s position is to describe very clearly why I have believed that a two-state solution is the best security plan for Israel over the long term… but also, at the end of the day, to say to any Israeli prime minister that it will require some risks in order to achieve peace.

The “risks” sound ominously like Secretary of State Kerry’s 2013 “warning” that Israel might face a “third intifada” if it didn’t toe the then-American, now-French line. “I mean does Israel want a third Intifada?” he asked. “I’ve got news for you. Today’s status quo will not be tomorrow’s.”

In Washington this week, Ambassador Araud used extraordinarily tough language against Israel in a series of Twitter exchanges with American supporters of Israel, culminating in the “blocking” of one of them. Silly kids’ stuff, but the air is poisoned. The CEO of the French cell phone company Orange declared his desire to boycott Israel, while Orange rakes in money from its operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a major human rights violator.

Smash the two stories together, you get an American president supporting France in its efforts to be a major player in the Middle East in exchange for French support of the P5+1 deal with Iran.

In both cases, guess who pays the price: Israel.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, France, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace process, Two state solution
Tags: Foreign Policy, France, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace Process, Two state solution

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US finds peeling back the Iran sanctions onion no easy task

June 10, 2015

US finds peeling back the Iran sanctions onion no easy task, Israel Hayom, June 10, 2915

(For Obama, principles are as flexible as words.

Humpty words

— DM)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew | Photo credit: Reuters

Under the sanctions developed over decades, hundreds of companies and individuals have been penalized not only for their roles in the country’s nuclear program but also for ballistic missile research, terrorism, human rights violations and money laundering.

Officials say the administration can meet its obligations because of how it interprets nuclear sanctions.

For example, they say measures designed to stop Iran from acquiring ballistic missiles are nuclear-related because they were imposed to push Iran into the negotiations. Also, they say sanctions that may appear non-nuclear are often undergirded by previous actions conceived as efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

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The Obama administration may have to backtrack on its promise that it will suspend only nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran as part of an emerging nuclear agreement, officials and others involved in the process told The Associated Press Tuesday.

The problem derives from what was once a strong point of the broad U.S. sanctions effort that many credit with bringing Iran to the negotiating table in the first place.

Administration officials vehemently reject that any backtracking is taking place, but they are lumping sanctions together, differently from the way members of Congress and critics of the negotiations separate them.

Under the sanctions developed over decades, hundreds of companies and individuals have been penalized not only for their roles in the country’s nuclear program but also for ballistic missile research, terrorism, human rights violations and money laundering.

Now the administration is wending its way through that briar patch of interwoven economic sanctions.

The penalties are significant. Sanctioned foreign governments, companies or individuals are generally barred from doing business with U.S. citizens and businesses, or with foreign entities operating in the American financial system. The restrictions are usually accompanied by asset and property freezes as well as visa bans.

Negotiators hope to conclude a final nuclear deal by June 30. According to a framework reached in April, the U.S. will be required to lift sanctions that are related to Iran’s nuclear program but could leave others in place. President Barack Obama can suspend almost all U.S. measures against Iran, though only Congress can revoke them permanently.

“Iran knows that our array of sanctions focused on its efforts to support terrorism and destabilize the region will continue after any nuclear agreement,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told a gathering of American Jews in a weekend speech. U.S. officials will “aggressively target the finances of Iranian-backed terrorist groups and the Iranian entities that support them,” he said, including the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force.

The Treasury Department’s sanctions point man, Adam Szubin, has been tasked with sorting out the mess, according to U.S. officials, though no clear plan has yet been finalized.

Officials say the administration can meet its obligations because of how it interprets nuclear sanctions.

For example, they say measures designed to stop Iran from acquiring ballistic missiles are nuclear-related because they were imposed to push Iran into the negotiations. Also, they say sanctions that may appear non-nuclear are often undergirded by previous actions conceived as efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

The officials who provided information for this story spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the private discussions.

After years of negotiations, U.S. officials believe a deal is within reach that for a decade would keep Iran at least a year from being able to build a nuclear weapon.

In return, the U.S. would grant billions of dollars in relief from sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. But the whole package risks unraveling if the U.S. cannot provide the relief without scrapping sanctions unrelated to Iran’s nuclear program.

Administration officials say they are examining a range of options that include suspending both nuclear and some non-nuclear sanctions, a step that would face substantial opposition in Congress and elsewhere. Under one scenario, the U.S. could end non-nuclear restrictions on some entities, then slap them back on for another reason. But Iran could then plausibly accuse the U.S. of cheating on its commitments.

U.S. President Barack Obama has spoken about Iran potentially recouping up to $150 billion in assets trapped overseas. The process for how that would take place is still being worked through, said officials.

The Iranian Central Bank may prove the most glaring example of the administration’s dilemma, and officials acknowledge there is no way to give Iran the sanctions relief justified by its compliance without significantly easing restrictions on the institution.

The bank underpins Iran’s entire economy, and for years the U.S. avoided hitting it with sanctions, fearing such action would spread financial instability and raise oil prices. By late 2011, with Iran’s nuclear program advancing rapidly, Obama and Congress did order penalties, declaring the bank a “primary money laundering concern” and linking its activity to ballistic missile research, terror financing and support for Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The effects were far-reaching: Petroleum exports fell by 60%, Iran suffered runaway inflation, cash reserves dried up and industrial output in several sectors plummeted. And Iran agreed to talk about its nuclear program with the United States and five other world powers.

Now that the nuclear agreement is so close, Iran wants these sanctions lifted. The administration officials say all sanctions on the bank are nuclear-related.

Lew told the Jewish conference in New York that a nuclear accord would include the suspension of all “secondary” oil, trade and banking restrictions — those that apply to U.S. and non-U.S. banks, as well as foreign governments.

Many of these measures overlap with American sanctions tied to Iran’s nuclear program, and that has officials considering new sanctions to keep certain Iranian institutions under pressure.

Eliminating the secondary sanctions across the board could have wide-ranging implications, making it easier for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and its police, intelligence services and paramilitary groups to do business.

That possibility has Iran’s rivals in the region, including Israel and the Sunni monarchies of the Middle East, gravely worried.

“I share their concern,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said Tuesday in Jerusalem.

“If the deal is reached and results in sanctions relief, which results in more economic power and more purchasing power for the Iranian regime, it’s my expectation that it’s not all going to flow into the economy to improve the lot of the average Iranian citizen,” he said.

“I think they will invest in their surrogates. I think they will invest in additional military capability.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is under U.S. sanctions because of its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But because the U.S. views the corps as so pernicious, the administration is considering new measures to help block it from meddling in the internal conflicts of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

Of the 24 Iranian banks currently under U.S. sanctions, only one — Bank Saderat, cited for terrorism links — is subject to clear non-nuclear sanctions. The rest are designated because of nuclear and ballistic missile-related financing, while several are believed to be controlled by the Revolutionary Guard.

Will they be cleared for business with the world? U.S. officials still cannot say one way or another. Congress, too, has not received a list of banks and institutions that would be released from sanctions under the deal.

If the United States cannot deliver on its promises, it could take the blame for a collapse of the years-long negotiations toward a nuclear deal, putting the world — in the words of Obama and other U.S. officials — on a path toward military confrontation. At the same time, an Iran unburdened by sanctions could redouble efforts toward nuclear weapons capacity, while international unity and the global sanctions architecture on Tehran fray.

Categories: Diplomacy, Economy, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Israel, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Sanctions, Saudi Arabia, Sunni, Support for terrorism, U.S. Congress
Tags: Economy, Foreign Policy, human rights, Iran military, Iran Scam, Iranian proxies, Israel, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, Sanctions, Saudi Arabia, Sunni, Support for terrorism, U.S. Congress

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Turkey’s View of Israel

June 9, 2015

Turkey’s View of Israel, The Gatestone Institute, Uzay Bulut, June 9, 2015

The media’s unethical coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict seems to be the number one reason why people in Turkey have remained so misinformed and brainwashed about the issue. It is not just anti-Semitism, but also anti-Zionism, that is racist and hateful.
The houses and apartments Israelis built in their historic homeland are called “illegal settlements.” But there were no “settlements” before 1967. What, then were the Israelis supposedly “occupying” between 1948 and 1967? Why was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) even then trying to destroy Israel? What did it think it was “liberating”?
This “occupation” myth seems, instead, to have a lot to do with the “Islamization” of history and geography. Since the creation of the world, it goes, there has been only one religion: Islam. All our religious teachers have taught us that earlier historical figures were prophets — Isa [Jesus], Musa [Moses], Davut [David] and so on — were Muslims and that the original religions they brought were Islamic. These prophets, we are told, preached the teachings of Allah, but their followers, who came later, distorted their messages, changed the writings in their holy books, and fabricated these fake, untrue religions called Judaism and Christianity. Then Islam came as the last, the perfect and the only true and unchanged eternal word of Allah, which led to Muhammad to this world as a “liberator.”
If someone says, “there is a place related to King David and it is a Jewish place,” then a Muslim would say, “Yes, but David was also a Muslim. So this place actually belongs to Muslims.” There is never Islamic invasion; there is only Islamic liberation. If these people truly cared about Palestinian Arabs, they would do their best to stop the incitement and help to achieve a sustainable peace where both Arabs and Jews would be safe.

A large number of the citizens of Turkey, a NATO member, see Israel and the United States as enemies.

A survey conducted recently in Turkey found that nearly half the country’s citizens (42.6%) see Israel as the biggest security threat, followed by the United States (35.5%), and only then Syria (22.1%).

How do they visualize Israel, a country with which they have made several military and trade agreements, as being a security threat? Do they think Israel would ever invade Turkey? Bomb Turkey? Nuke Turkey? This view seems to be based on either religion-induced paranoia caused by Islamic anti-Semitism, or else their understanding of reality has been distorted Nazi-style by Turkish leaders and the media.

The problem is that the false myth of Israel’s being an “occupier” and “troublemaker” has been indoctrinated into the minds of most Turkish children from their early years. Almost all of us — including myself — grew up with an extreme prejudice against Israel. The media’s unethical coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict — including both the Islamist and Kemalist (secular nationalist) media — seems to be the number one reason why people in Turkey have remained so misinformed and brainwashed about the issue.

Only the intensity of the prejudice changes according to what newspaper or TV channel you follow or what family raises you. Islamic anti-Semitism, even if we might not be aware of it, has a lot to do with this kind of upbringing.

A short scanning of Turkish newspapers and TV channels would also clearly show their continual hateful propaganda against Israel.

No other state or organization has been demonized and delegitimized by the Turkish media to this extent.

Unfortunately, even the media that calls itself “progressive” has bought and reproduced the propaganda that Israel is the “invader” and the “oppressor.” One of their most popular slogans is, “We are not anti-Semitic, but just anti-Zionist.”

Zionism defends the concept that Jews — like any other people — have human rights, and are entitled to live their original Biblical homeland. Although forced out of their land many times, as by the Babylonians or the Romans, they never entirely left it.

If the demand of Jews for equality and independence disturbs anyone, it is due to his own racism — in whatever name he is trying to dress it up — and not to anything the Jews might have allegedly done. It is not just anti-Semitism, but also anti-Zionism, that is racist and hateful.

Every person who comes up with the genius idea of “not being anti-Semitic but just being anti-Zionist” should also offer their idea of what kind of a Jewish state they would like to see or whether they would like to see a Jewish state at all. If it is the political system of Israel they oppose, then they should clarify how their own alternative system would be better than the current one, and what they would do to convince Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to achieve peaceful coexistence with Israel.

They should also clarify why they are so obsessed with Israel, which has the most democratic political system in the Middle East, while autocratic, theocratic, despotic regimes abound in the region.

They might also please explain what makes the non-existent, imaginary “democratic Palestine” preferable to already existing, thriving and democratic Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah is essentially no better than Hamas; just sometimes less violent. The Palestinian Authority (PA), as stated in its charter and “phased plans,” says it prefers to displace Israel diplomatically, through the dictator-controlled United Nations and European governments, and economically through boycotts and sanctions, rather than with missiles.

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Turkish President (then Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, meeting with Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal (center) and Ismail Haniyeh on June 18, 2013, in Ankara, Turkey. (Image source: Turkey Prime Minister’s Press Office)

Now that so many Jews are all in one place, the progressives can pretend to themselves that it is “just Israel,” and not “the Jews,” who are the target of their hate. As the former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said, Israel, only slightly bigger than the city of Beijing, is a “one-bomb country.”

The progressive media’s representation of Israel as an “occupier” only caters to the genocidal desires of these anti-humanitarian regimes or groups. They never point to Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus, China’s occupation of Tibet, or Pakistan’s occupation of Kashmir — not to mention Russia’s recent flamboyant occupations.

For the past 2000 years, Jews have been exposed to unending persecution accompanied by expulsions, forced conversions, mob attacks, pogroms, property confiscations, massacres, and the 1938-45 Holocaust. Attacks against Jews in Europe continue today.

After Jews were forced from their Biblical home into the Diaspora, their lives were painful for centuries. When they were in exile in Europe, they were disposable. Now that they are back home in Israel, they are “occupiers;” again not wanted.

Under Nazi rule, Jews were “illegal,” slaughtered wholesale, tortured with fake “medical experiments” and not even considered fully human.

To end their history of 2000 years of suffering and to finally be free, Jews have returned to their home, Israel.

They have brought their light back to the land and presented gifts to the Middle Eastern peoples that no other nation there has experienced: democracy, tolerance, freedom of speech, human rights — as well as countless medical and technological innovations. This tiny country has produced some of the most brilliant minds in history, and has become the second most educated nation on earth.

What they have done is to build a truly open and productive society on sand dunes and deserts, where even the Muslim citizens, who make up 20% of Israel’s population, have the freedom to say the most horrendous things about anyone they wish, including the prime minister — and they do. In short, even the Muslims in Israel enjoy privileges that in any other country in the region would get them incarcerated.

Israel’s neighbors, however, have not shown much appreciation for these admirable traits — only more jealousy and hatred.

As thanks for the endless good the Israelis bring the region and the world, they are vilified by the anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, Jew-hating, politically-driven blocs in the Arab countries, Turkey, Europe and the UN, which clearly want to destroy them, on one pretext or another.

The houses and apartments Israelis build in their historic homeland are called “illegal settlements.” But there were no “settlements” before 1967. What, then, were the Israelis supposedly “occupying” between 1948 and 1967? Why was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) even then trying to destroy Israel? What did it think it was “liberating”?

This “occupation” myth seems, instead, to have a lot to do with the “Islamization” of history and geography.

According to Islamic ideology, all history is actually Islamic history and most of the major historical figures were actually Muslims. Islam does not recognize other religions as either genuine or original.

Since the creation of the world, it goes, there has been only one religion: Islam. Others are irrelevant, fabricated by those who came later but went astray. All our religion teachers have taught us that the earlier prophets — Issa [Jesus], Musa [Moses], Davut [David] and so on — were Muslims, and that the original religions they brought were Islamic. These prophets, we are told, preached the teachings of Allah, but their followers, who came later, distorted their messages, changed the writings in their holy books, and fabricated those fake, untrue religions called Judaism and Christianity. Then Islam came as the last, the perfect and the only true and unchanged eternal word of Allah, which led to the coming of Muhammad to this world as a “liberator.”

If someone says “there is a place related to King David and it is a Jewish place,” then a Muslim would say “Yes, but David was also a Muslim. So this place actually belongs to Muslims.”

The Islamization of history leads to the Islamization of geography. All those religious figures were Muslims, so the places in which they resided were also Muslim places. So Muslims never call their invasions “invasions.” They consider them all liberations of former Muslim places. There is never Islamic invasion; there is only Islamic liberation.

This view is the view behind the recent call of Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for “Liberating Jerusalem” from the Jews. “Conquest is Mecca,” said Erdogan in a speech in Istanbul on June 1, before millions who were celebrating the 562^nd anniversary of the fall of Constantinople. “Conquest is Saladin,” he said, “It is to hoist the Islamic flag over Jerusalem again; conquest is the heritage of Mehmed II and conquest means forcing Turkey back on its feet.”

Erdogan is calling for an invasion of Jerusalem, which basically means a call for death and destruction. He was doing that just prior to the elections, because he knew that such anti-Semitic outbursts will most likely increase the votes of the AKP party.

The biggest problem is that this statement was made by the head of a NATO member.

Why would a Turk or a Muslim want to “liberate” Jerusalem? To turn it into another Muslim land where discrimination and persecution against minorities and all kinds of human rights violations run wild? Turkey does not even treat its own minorities with respect and discriminates against them daily, for instance by not giving the Kurds even the right to be educated in their native language. For what purpose, or based on what right, should Turkish authorities want to rule over Jerusalem?

Do they want to slaughter the Jews just as they slaughtered Christians in 1915, and still deny it even today? Do they want to ban the Hebrew language just as they ban the Kurdish language in Turkey? Do they want to rape Jewish women as they raped Kurdish and Greek Cypriot women during ethnic cleansing campaigns? Do they want to convert Israel’s synagogues and churches into stables as they did those in Turkey? Or do they want to turn Israel’s prisons into centers of torture just as they did in Turkey’s Kurdistan? What on earth could Turkish authorities give to Jerusalem if they could capture it?

These people need to understand and accept the fact that the Ottoman Empire is dead and that none of its former colonies wants it back.

This is not the first time that anti-Semitism is promoted by a Turkish state authority. Anti-Semitism has a very long history in Turkey. Some of the most horrible crimes committed against Turkey’s Jews happened during the 1934 pogrom, when about 15,000 Jews in Thrace were forcibly driven out of their homes. During the pogrom, Jews were boycotted and attacked, their property was looted and burned down, and Jewish women were raped.

Just prior to the outbreak of the 1934 pogrom, Ibrahim Tali Ongoren, the inspector general of Thrace (the highest state official in the region) made a four-week inspection tour of the province. According to Tali Ongoren’s report, “The Jew of Thrace is so morally corrupt and devoid of character that it strikes one immediately.” The Jew, he wrote, possessed a “fawning, deceitful character that hides its secret intentions, always applauds the powerful, worships gold and knows no love of the homeland.”

“The Jews represent a secret danger and possibly want to establish communist nuclei in our country through the workers’ club and it is therefore an indispensable necessity for Turkish life, the Turkish economy, Turkish security, the Turkish regime and the revolution in Thrace and for Turkish Thrace to be able to recover, to finally solve [the Jewish] problem in the most radical way.” [1]

According to the historian Corry Guttstadt, although the 90-page report Ongoren prepared for the government and for the ruling Republican People’s Party (CHP) contained a wide range of topics, he seemed to be, “outright obsessed with the ‘Jewish problem,’ which comes up in nearly every chapter.”

“Tali’s report” Guttstadt wrote, “is laced with the crudest of anti-Semitic stereotypes. This contradicts not only the government’s assertion that anti-Semitism in Turkey was only a fringe phenomenon [Tali was the highest ranking official of the Republic in this region] but must also be considered proof that the expulsion of the Jews from Thrace and from the Dardanelles was in keeping with the state’s objectives, just as foreign diplomats had reported.

“The rights of the non-Muslim minorities were protected by the international Treaty of Lausanne, at least on paper. To circumvent these legal obstacles, The Turkish authorities had apparently opted for the strategy of putting the Jews under such pressure with boycott activities and anonymous threats ‘from the population’ that they would leave the area ‘voluntarily’.

“The period that followed was characterized by further boycott attempts and intimidation in Edirne and even in Istanbul.”[2]

While these crimes against Jews were committed, there was no Jewish state in Israel. But Jew-hatred was clearly rampant.

The main offenders to be held responsible for anti-Semitism in Turkey are the Turkish state authorities. A state that is an EU candidate, as well as a NATO member, is supposed to be a true ally of the West. It is supposed to fight anti-Semitism and promote a peaceful, diverse and pro-Western culture. It is supposed to provide its schoolchildren with a kind of education in which the children will rid themselves off the traditional Jew-hatred and other racism, and embrace at least some humanitarian values that will help them recognize all peoples as equal and worthy of respect.

Sadly, Turkey has done none of that. It has made a record number of military and commercial deals with the state of Israel, but domestically it has systematically propagated anti-Semitism and racism, as well as Turkish-Islamic supremacy, through its institutions and media. As a result of this propaganda, a great number of Turkish people see Israel and the USA as the biggest security threats today.

In Turkey, being Westernized has been restricted to benefiting from the technical and material innovations of the West, but rejecting the social values of the West on grounds that those values would not fit into the Turkish culture. More perplexingly, being politically and socially pro-Western is almost associated with being a “traitor.”

“Israel wants peace. Period,” wrote the journalist Israel Kasnett. “The Jewish people have never held a desire to rule over others and this remains true today. Not only are we ohev shalom [‘lovers of peace’], but we are also rodef shalom [‘active pursuers of peace’].”

Is anyone listening? Are Turks listening? Many, apparently, are not.

Throughout much of the world are bloodbaths and persecution of human beings, but it is only Israel, the sole democracy in the Middle East, that is targeted and singled out for defending itself, and is accused of “occupation.”

To many of the people here in Turkey, the problem does not seem to be whether Israel wants peace, or whether Israel is a democracy, or whether Palestinian Arabs are really suffering, or why. If these people truly cared about Palestinian Arabs, they would do their best to stop the killings and incitement and to help achieve a sustainable peace where both Arabs and Jews would be safe.

But they do not really care about the Palestinians. They do not want peace. They do not want a “two-state solution.” They want to see Jews dead. And they could not care less about how many Arabs will lose their lives in the meantime.

But there is one thing they do not seem to be aware of: Their genocidal Jew-hatred can never strip Israel off its right to self-defense. It can only empower and further legitimize this right.

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[1] Guttstadt, Corry (2013). Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust. Cambridge University Press. More slurs include: “Although (the Jews) underwent natural selection as a result of constant mixing with different blood in the last century and have almost entirely lost the physical characteristics specific to Jewry, they have completely retained the typically Jewish fawning, deceitful character that hides its secret intentions, always applauds the powerful, worships gold, and knows no love of the homeland, and have even developed these harmful traits so much further that they could inflict torment on humanity.

“In the Jewish value system, honor and dignity have no place. The Jews of Thrace owe their rise to the destructive effects of the wars on the Turkish population, that is how [the Jews] have become rich and enchanted their influence.

“The Jews of Thrace are intent on making Thrace the equivalent of Palestine. For the development of Thrace, it is of the utmost necessity that this element [the Jews], whose hands are grabbing for all the treasures of Thrace, not be allowed to continue to suck out the Turks’ blood. In the establishment of new military facilities… we must keep our administrative and military activities entirely secret from this element [the Jews].

“Above all, it is essential that this element [the Jews] be neutralized so completely that they cannot engage in spying…”

[2] Guttstadt, Corry (2013). Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust. Cambridge University Press.

“In the light of this, it hardly seems coincidental that Tali himself had travelled the entire region until a week before the events erupted and then remained in Ankara during the boycott activities and the threats. It seems that the operations then ‘got out of hand’ locally, with the nationalist mob putting itself in charge in some places and committing looting and acts of violence.

“After the reports of the riots reached the international public, the government was forced to condemn both the events and anti-Semitism in general. In the end, however, the episode achieved, for the most part, the intended goal and largely ‘solved’ the ‘Jewish problem’ in Thrace in the way favored by Tali.”

Categories: Abbas, Antisemitism, Fatah, Foreign policy, Hamas, Human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Terrorism, Turkey
Tags: Abbas, Antisemitism, Fatah, Foreign Policy, Hamas, human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Terrorism, Turkey

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Rouhani: Saving environment starts with sanctions removal

June 9, 2015

Rouhani: Saving environment starts with sanctions removal, Al-Monitor, Arash Karami, June 8, 2015

(Human rights, Iranian missiles, Iranian threats, Iranian proxies, theocratic dictatorship? Those are not relevant to the deal. But whatever may help the environment and therefore stop climate change is my top priority — Obama.

enemy

— H/t Freedom is just another word. — DM)

Rouhani’s comments linking the country’s various environmental problems and employment woes to the nuclear negotiations and sanctions relief have upset conservatives, who believe the administration is too eager to resolve the dispute and too optimistic about what the deal means for the country.

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been criticized for suggesting that once a comprehensive nuclear deal is made it will open the door to improving the country’s environmental problems. “The oppressive sanctions must be removed so that investment can come and the problems of the environment, employment, industry and drinkable water are resolved,” Rouhani said at a ceremony on June 7 commemorating Environment Week in Iran.

Rouhani described the sanctions as “a small fever … that at the beginning no attention was paid to this fever, but when the sick person fell ill and was not able to move anymore, we sought a remedy for the illness. Some did not know the reason of the sanctions but step by step, the problems became larger.”

Rouhani added that while “the oppressive sanctions must be removed,” this does not mean “that we must submit to the unreasonable wants of others.”

Iran and five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) are working through the final details of a comprehensive deal that would see Iran reduce its nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief, particularly banking sanctions that have hurt the country’s ability to sell its oil and conduct trade and have prevented Western investment in the country.

But Rouhani’s comments linking the country’s various environmental problems and employment woes to the nuclear negotiations and sanctions relief have upset conservatives, who believe the administration is too eager to resolve the dispute and too optimistic about what the deal means for the country.

In an article titled, “The water, wind, soil and forests have also been tied to sanctions,” the conservative Javan newspaper criticized Rouhani’s latest comments. The article said, “Despite experts warning of not connecting domestic issues of the country to the nuclear issue and negotiations, at this ceremony Rouhani once again suggested that with the removal of sanctions not only will investment become fluid in Iran but the issues of the environment, youth employment, water and banking will be [resolved].”

The article continued that Rouhani’s comments “resulted in many experts becoming surprised and a few hours afterward many hostile Western networks and media … took this point and broadcast this to show [that] sanctions have brought Iran to its knees.”

In an article sarcastically titled, “Solving all the problems is tied to the negotiations, even drinking water,” the Kayhan newspaper also criticized Rouhani. Kayhan repeated Javan’s warning that analysts have warned of not tying the nuclear negotiations to domestic issues and cast doubt that so many problems could be resolved with the removal of sanctions. Kayhan wrote, “Stranger than anything else, Rouhani said the removal of sanctions would increase the water levels.”

Kayhan said, “The issue of sanctions is one the most important obstacles for the negotiators because the Americans do not want to remove sanctions, which is a tool to apply pressure on Iran.”

According to his previous statements, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on the nuclear program, has warned Iranian officials about being optimistic regarding the sanctions and has emphasized focusing on domestic capabilities instead.

On April 29, he said, “The key to solving economic issues is not in Lausanne, Geneva or New York,” three locations where the Iran and P5+1 nuclear talks have taken place under the Rouhani administration. “Without a doubt, sanctions and pressure cannot stop organized and planned efforts to increase domestic production.”

Categories: Climate change, Diplomacy, Domestic policy, Economy, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran, Iranian nukes, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Rouhani, Sanctions
Tags: Climate Change, Domestic policy, Economy, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Iran, Iranian nukes, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's America, Rouhani, Sanctions

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US Diplomats Reveal EU Sanctions Assault After Iran Deal

June 9, 2015

US Diplomats Reveal EU Sanctions Assault After Iran Deal, Israel National News, Ari Yashar, June 9, 2015

EU flag

EU flag (illustration)Flash 90

Israel has been fighting the Iran nuclear deal due to the great danger it poses, but senior Western officials have revealed it is also doing so because once a deal is reached, the European Union (EU) and UN are planning a diplomatic offensive targeting the Jewish state.

The political assault is meant to force Israel into returning to yet more peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and making dangerous concessions in the process – and reportedly the EU already has a list of sanctions ready to force Israel to bend.

A senior Western diplomat told Ma’ariv in a report published Tuesday that “a diplomatic attack against Israel is expected soon that will surprise even the pessimists in Jerusalem.”

“In the (UN) Security Council, in western capitals and at EU headquarters, they are just waiting for the Iran deal to be signed and for it to be approved by the American Congress,” warned the diplomatic source.

It appears that the waiting period will likely expire in September, at which time a UN General Assembly will open in tandem with the first shots of the diplomatic barrage against Israel.

Diplomatic sources familiar with Western European positions vis-a-vis Israel said the EU already has a list ready, itemizing sanctions against Israel in the fields of trade, agriculture, science and culture.

That list is to be translated into an economic assault – unless Israel presents a new set of concessions it is willing to make for a new round of peace talks, after the last set of talks was torpedoed by the PA signing a unity deal with the Hamas terrorist organization.

“S‭enior officials in Jerusalem are aware of the existence of sanctions documents at EU headquarters, some of which have even fallen into their hands,” one diplomatic source revealed to Ma’ariv.

The source added that US President Barack Obama’s threat made in an Israeli interview this month, according to which he may cut US support for Israel at the UN, specifically was referring to “the sanctions file” against Israel which is currently biding its time at the EU headquarters.

The US is reportedly weighing its responses, as the current Israeli government does not appear to be likely to launch a new series of peace talks after the massive failure of the last round, and the PA’s unilateral moves in the international arena in breach of the 1993 Oslo Accords that founded it.

“The make-up of the government is such that no faction or minister will stand up to the lack of an initiative from Prime Minister (Binyamin) Netanyahu,” a diplomat from New York told Ma’ariv. “The coming months will be difficult for Israel. This time Israel will pay a heavy price for continued stagnation. This time, it is also uncertain if Uncle Sam will succeed in saving Israel, and maybe he won’t want to do so.”

Categories: Economy, European Union, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran scam, Israel, Multiculturalism, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Palestinian Authority, Peace process, Settlements, Two state solution
Tags: Economy, European Union, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Iran Scam, Israel, Multiculturalism, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, Palestinian Authority, Peace Process, Settlements, Two state solution

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