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The U.S. President is Not Omnipotent

December 28, 2014

The U.S. President is Not Omnipotent, Algemeiner, December 28, 2014. This article was originally published by Israel Hayom.

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The United States Senate.

Will the 114th Congress follow in his footsteps, or will it abdicate its constitutional responsibilities?

Congress has often abdicated its constitutional power in the area of foreign policy, failing to fully leverage the power of the purse: funding, defunding and “fencing.”

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White House and State Department officials contend that, irrespective of Congress, President Barack Obama can apply effective diplomatic, commercial and national security pressure and coerce Israel to partition Jerusalem and retreat from Judea and Samaria to the 9-15 mile-wide pre-1967 sliver, surrounded by the violently turbulent and unpredictable Arab street.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro recently voiced this inaccurate underestimation of the power of Congress — which has traditionally opposed pressure on Israel, echoing the sentiments of most constituents — saying, “What is unmistakable about our foreign policy system is that the Constitution provides the president with the largest share of power.”

The assertion that U.S. foreign policy and national security are shaped by presidential omnipotence can be refuted by the U.S. Constitution as well as recent precedents. The Constitution was created by the Founding Fathers, who were determined to limit the power of government and preclude the possibility of executive dictatorship. They were apprehensive of potential presidential excesses and encroachment, and therefore assigned the formulation of foreign policy and national security to both Congress and the president. Obviously, the coalescing of policy between 535 legislators constitutes a severe disadvantage for the legislature.

According to the Congressional Quarterly, the U.S. Constitution rectified the mistakes of its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, upgrading the role of Congress to the primary branch of the U.S. government. “Hence, the first article of the Constitution is dedicated to Congress. The powers, structure, and procedures of the national legislature are outlined in considerable detail in the Constitution, unlike those of the presidency and the judiciary.”

Unlike all other Western democracies — where the executive branch of government dominates the legislature, especially in the area of international relations and defense — the U.S. Constitution laid the foundation for the world’s most powerful legislature, and for an inherent power struggle over the making of foreign policy between the legislature and the executive, two independent, co-equal and co-determining branches of government. Moreover, while the president is the commander in chief, presidential clout depends largely on congressional authorization and appropriation in a system of separation of powers and checks and balances, especially in the areas of sanctions, foreign aid, military assistance, trade agreements, treaty ratification, appointment confirmation and all spending.

Congressional power has been dramatically bolstered since the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and globalization, which have enhanced the involvement of most legislators in international issues, upgraded the oversight capabilities of Congress, dramatically elevated the quality and quantity of some 15,000(!) Capitol Hill staffers and have restrained the presidency.

However, Congress has often abdicated its constitutional power in the area of foreign policy, failing to fully leverage the power of the purse: funding, defunding and “fencing.” Legislators prefer to focus on domestic issues, which represent their constituents’ primary concerns and therefore determine their re-electability. Hence, they usually allow the president to take the lead in the initiation and implementation of foreign and national security policies, unless the president abuses their trust, outrageously usurping power, violating the law, assuming an overly imperial posture, pursuing strikingly failed policies, or dramatically departing from national consensus (e.g., the deeply rooted, bipartisan commitment to the Jewish state). Then, Congress reveals impressive muscle as befits a legislature, which is the most authentic reflection of the American people, unrestrained by design, deriving its power from the constituent and not from party leadership or the president, true to the notion that “the president proposes, Congress disposes.”

For example:

On August 1, 2014, Democratic senators forced Obama to separate the $225 million funding of Iron Dome batteries from the highly controversial $2.7 billion immigration and border security bill.
Since 1982 the Senate has repeatedly refused to ratify the Convention on the Law of the Sea, and since 1999 it has rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The January 2013 defense authorization bill tightened restrictions on the transfer of terrorists from Guantanamo to the U.S. In May 2009, Majority Leader Harry Reid foiled Obama’s attempt to close down the detention camp.
On February 17, 2011, Obama reluctantly vetoed a U.N. Security Council condemnation of Israel’s settlement policy, due to bipartisan congressional pressure.
In September 2012, a $450 million cash transfer to the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt was blocked by Congress.
The 2012 budget cut into Obama’s foreign aid spending request by more than $8 billion.
In 2009, bipartisan congressional opposition prevented the appointment of Charles Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council.
In 1990-1992, Congress approved a series of amendments, expanding U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation to unprecedented levels despite presidential opposition.
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush failed in his attempt to cut Israel’s foreign aid by 5 percent due to congressional opposition.
In January 1975, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment was signed into law, in defiance of the president.
Congress ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam (the 1973 Eagleton, Cooper and Church Amendments), Angola (the 1976 Clark Amendment) and Nicaragua (the 1982-1984 Boland Amendments).
In 1991, Senator Daniel Inouye fended off administration pressure to withdraw an amendment to upgrade the port of Haifa facilities for the Sixth Fleet: “According to the U.S. Constitution, the legislature supervises the executive, not vice versa.”

Will the 114th Congress follow in his footsteps, or will it abdicate its constitutional responsibilities?

Categories: Foreign policy, Ideology, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Middle East, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Obama, Peace process, Political correctness, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress
Tags: Constitution, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Middle East, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Peace Process, Political correctness, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress

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How Western Media Enable Islamic Terrorism

December 19, 2014

How Western Media Enable Islamic Terrorism, Front Page Magazine, Raymond Ibrahim, December 19, 2014

(Please see also Sharyl Attkisson’s Stonewalled for explanations of what happens in the legitimate “news” media and why. — DM)

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If the West is experiencing a rise in the sort of terror attacks that are endemic to the Islamic world—church attacks, sex-slavery and beheadings—it was only natural that the same mainstream media that habitually conceals such atrocities, especially against Christians and other minorities under Islam, would also conceal the reality of jihadi aspirations on Western soil.

As The Commentator reports:

[T]he level of the [media] grovelling after the tragic and deadly saga in Sydney Australia over the last 24 hours has been astounding.

At the time of writing, the lead story on the BBC website is of course about that very tragedy, in which an Islamist fanatic took a random group hostage in a cafe, ultimately killing two of them.

He did this in the name of Islam. But you wouldn’t get that impression if you started to read the BBC’s lead story, which astoundingly managed to avoid mentioning the words Islam, Islamic, Islamist, Muslim, or any derivations thereof for a full 16 paragraphs. The New York Times, which led by calling the terrorist, Man Haron Monis an “armed man”, waited until paragraph 11.

In the Guardian’s main story – whose lead paragraph simply referred to a “gunman” — you had to wait until paragraph 24.

If you’d have blinked, you’d have missed it.

….

In the wider media, reports about Muslim fears of a “backlash” have been all but ubiquitous.

If these are the lengths that Western mainstream media go to dissemble about the Islamic-inspired slaughter of Western peoples, it should now be clear why the ubiquitous Muslim persecution of those unfashionable Christian minorities is also practically unknown by those who follow Western mainstream media.

As with the Sydney attack, media headlines say it all. The 2011 New Year’s Eve Coptic church attack that left 28 dead appeared under vague headlines: “Clashes grow as Egyptians remain angry after attack,”was the New York Times’ headline; and “Christians clash with police in Egypt after attack on churchgoers kills 21” was the Washington Post’s—as if frustrated and harried Christians lashing out against their oppressors is the “big news,” not the unprovoked atrocity itself; as if their angry reaction “evens” everything up.

Similarly, the Los Angeles Times partially told the story of an Egyptian off-duty police officer who, after identifying Copts by their crosses on a train, opened fire on them, killing one, while screaming “Allahu Akbar”—but to exonerate the persecution, as caught by the report’s headline: “Eyewitness claims train attacker did not target Copts, state media say.”

A February 2012 NPR report titled “In Egypt, Christian-Muslim Tension is on the Rise,” while meant to familiarize readers with the situation of Egypt’s Christians, prompts more questions than answers them: “In Egypt, growing tensions between Muslims and Christians have led to sporadic violence [initiated by whom?]. Many Egyptians blame the interreligious strife on hooligans [who?] taking advantage of absent or weak security forces. Others believe it’s because of a deep-seated mistrust between Muslims and the minority Christian community [what are the sources of this “mistrust”?].”

The photo accompanying the story is of angry Christians holding a cross aloft—not Muslims destroying crosses, which is what prompted the former to this display of Christian solidarity.

Blurring the line between victim and oppressor—recall the fear of “anti-Muslim backlashes” whenever a Muslim terrorizes “infidels” in the West—also applies to the media’s reporting on Muslim persecution of Christians.

A February 2012 BBC report on a church attack in Nigeria that left three Christians dead, including a toddler, objectively states the bare bone facts in one sentence. Then it jumps to apparently the really big news: that “the bombing sparked a riot by Christian youths, with reports that at least two Muslims were killed in the violence. The two men were dragged off their bikes after being stopped at a roadblock set up by the rioters, police said. A row of Muslim-owned shops was also burned…”

The report goes on and on, with an entire section about “very angry” Christians till one confuses victims with persecutors, forgetting what the Christians are “very angry” about in the first place: nonstop terror attacks on their churches and the slaughter of their women and children.

A New York Times report that appeared on December 25, 2011—the day after Boko Haram bombed several churches during Christmas Eve services, leaving some 40 dead—said that such church bombings threaten “to exploit the already frayed relations between Nigeria’s nearly evenly split populations of Christians and Muslims…” Such an assertion suggests that both Christians and Muslims are equally motivated by religious hostility—even as one seeks in vain for Christian terror organizations that bomb mosques in Nigeria to screams of “Christ is Great!”

Indeed, Boko Haram has torched 185 churches—to say nothing of the countless Christians beheaded—in just the last few months alone.

Continuing to grasp for straws, the same NYT report suggests that the Nigerian government’s “heavy-handed” response to Boko Haram is responsible for its terror, and even manages to invoke another mainstream media favorite: the poverty-causes-terrorism myth.

Whether Muslim mayhem is taking place in the Islamic or Western worlds, the mainstream media shows remarkable consistency in employing an arsenal of semantic games, key phrases, convenient omissions, and moral relativism to portray such violence as a product of anything and everything—political and historical grievances, “Islamophobia,” individual insanity, poverty and ignorance, territorial disputes—not Islam.

As such, Western mainstream media keep Western majorities in the dark about the Islamic threat, here and abroad. Thus the “MSM” protects and enables the Islamic agenda—irrespective of whether its distortions are a product of intent, political correctness, or sheer stupidity.

Categories: Christians, Egypt, Europe, Foreign policy, Ideology, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jews, Middle East
Tags: Christians, Egypt, Europe, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Jews, mainstream media

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Jihadists Using Liberalism Against Itself

December 19, 2014

Jihadists Using Liberalism Against Itself, Commentary Magazine, Tom Wilson, December 19, 2014

This of course is the war that Israel has been fighting for years, ever since its creation in fact. Most recently there have been feverish blood libels about the IDF harvesting Palestinian organs, of summary executions during the 2010 flotilla incident, and of a supposed massacre and mass graves in Jenin during the Second Intifada. With all of these accusations Israel is obliged to investigate the conduct of its military, and so it does. That was what was so outrageous about the UN’s Goldstone investigation and indeed the subsequent attempt to have a Goldstone II following the war in Gaza this summer. Such international inquiries are only supposed to be mandated where a state has failed to adequately investigate itself first–but in Israel’s case the international community simply steps in and puts on its own investigation regardless, usually with the conclusion having been written at the outset.

The problem is that while many of them may now realize that the Islamists their armies encounter are unreasonable fanatics, they are equally convinced that the Islamists Israel faces have a legitimate grievance and a just cause.

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While the West’s enemies become ever more unrestrained in the barbaric nature of their attacks, Islamist militants are increasingly pursuing tactics aimed at limiting what the West can do in its own defense. As a recent case in Britain has demonstrated, jihadists and their supporters are more than happy to fabricate the most outlandish allegations in an often successful attempt to hinder the fight against them. This is the kind of thing that Israel has been having to deal with for decades, and at some point other Western states need to comprehend that they are all up against the same enemy, one which is willing to employ the same underhanded tactics against all of us.

In May 2004, British troops became embroiled in a three-hour gun battle with insurgents of the Mahdi Army at Al Amara, Iraq. Following the battle it was alleged that British soldiers tortured, executed, and then mutilated the bodies of twenty Iraqi detainees. These accusations have dragged on for a decade now and in response the UK government commissioned the al-Sweady Inquiry, an investigation which has cost the British taxpayer almost $49 million, with the accusers having been able to claim financial assistance from the British state to fund their case against it.

And what did the tribunal discover? The al-Sweady Inquiry has stated unequivocally that the allegations made against the British soldiers are “without foundation,” and that those making these accusations had given evidence that was “unprincipled in the extreme” and “wholly without regard for the truth.”

So after years of investigation, and tens of millions in public money spent (much of it having been used to assist those bringing claims against the British army), the soldiers have at long last had their names cleared while the jihadi militants have been exposed as liars. Hardly surprising; it’s simply delusional to imagine that those who are so unprincipled as to use terrorism to achieve their aims would suddenly become upstanding and honest witnesses once stood before a war-crimes investigation. What these people are, however, is mendacious and calculating in the extreme, and regardless of what al-Sweady may have concluded, by using public money to advance these outrageous allegations the jihadists have won by hijacking the West’s liberalism and respect for the rule of law for their own advantage.

Quite apart from the tremendous financial cost that this investigation and many more like it have carried, the decade that these allegations circulated for have been an outstanding public-relations victory for the insurgents. The media–large parts of which were eager to see Western forces fail in Iraq and Afghanistan–were all too ready to believe the stories spun by the militants and to think the worst of our soldiers. By parroting these lies ad nauseam, the Western media assisted the militants in undermining public morale at home, eroding belief in the rightness of the cause we were fighting for and convincing many that intervention overseas is rarely a defensible or admirable undertaking. In Europe particularly, these tales provide the recruiting fodder that radicalizes young Muslims into believing that their host societies are evil and that they too must join the war against the West. If nothing else, the constant fear of these damaging war crimes allegations persuade Western governments and militaries to be still more restrained in the tactics that they feel able to use in the increasingly muted attempt to counter our enemies.

This of course is the war that Israel has been fighting for years, ever since its creation in fact. Most recently there have been feverish blood libels about the IDF harvesting Palestinian organs, of summary executions during the 2010 flotilla incident, and of a supposed massacre and mass graves in Jenin during the Second Intifada. With all of these accusations Israel is obliged to investigate the conduct of its military, and so it does. That was what was so outrageous about the UN’s Goldstone investigation and indeed the subsequent attempt to have a Goldstone II following the war in Gaza this summer. Such international inquiries are only supposed to be mandated where a state has failed to adequately investigate itself first–but in Israel’s case the international community simply steps in and puts on its own investigation regardless, usually with the conclusion having been written at the outset.

Israel, like Britain and America, does undertake costly and time-consuming investigations where there are allegations of war crimes. But as we have seen so many times before, within hours the international media will have beamed the most tarnishing accusations against Israel around the world several times over. Months later when investigators have established the allegations as baseless, no one is listening anymore and the damage is done.

The debacle of the al-Sweady Inquiry has naturally caused some outrage in Britain, and so one hopes that some lessons will have been learned. But if observers have been reminded that jihadists are readily prepared to use war crimes accusations as a second front in the war against the West, they should also recognize the same tactic when they see it being deployed against Israel. The problem is that while many of them may now realize that the Islamists their armies encounter are unreasonable fanatics, they are equally convinced that the Islamists Israel faces have a legitimate grievance and a just cause.

Categories: Europe, Fairy tales, Foreign policy, Freedom, Ideology, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Palestinians
Tags: Europe, Fairy tales, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Ideology, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Palestinians

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Chutzpah redefined

December 18, 2014

Chutzpah redefined, Israel Hayom, Sarah N. Stern, December 18, 2014

(When reality is unpleasant, as it often is, those not personally experiencing reality make decisions based on pleasant fantasies. — DM)

[T]his is supposed to be a “peace process.” The operative word here is “peace.” How dare we dictate anything to the Israelis, who are forced to live with the deadly consequences of this obviously flawed foreign policy paradigm? How can we presume to know better than they what it is that the Israelis can actually live with?

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In September 1993, when Yasser Arafat was recast from the role of “granddaddy of terrorism” to that of “peacemaker,” the Oslo Accords were marketed to the Israeli public and to world Jewry wrapped in the package of “reversibility.” I remember clearly when a friend of mine, a leftist television personality, assured me: “Don’t worry, Sarah. We will be watching Arafat very closely. It all depends on his compliance with our strict guidelines. He has to stop all the incitement and all the terror. It’s only Gaza and Jericho first. If it doesn’t work, we can always go back and retrieve it.”

That was 21 years ago. Since then, not a day goes by without another fiery Palestinian Authority incident of incitement (painstakingly documented and broadcast to the world by the good work of Palestinian Media Watch). This hatred has metastasized like a cancer and an entire generation has grown up steeped in it. The horrific result is the vast number of Israelis murdered at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

This past week Khalil Shikaki from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research conducted a poll which indicated that a full 80 percent of Palestinians support stepping up violent attacks against Israelis, including random stabbings and traffic attacks. Over 86 percent believe that Haram al-Sharif (or the Temple Mount, where Al-Aqsa mosque is located) is in danger.

That comes as no surprise because 93 percent of Palestinians consider themselves to be religious Muslims, and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority has been constantly stirring up hysteria that “the Jews are desecrating Haram al-Sharif.”

Although the Oslo Accords were presented as conditional, successive Israeli governments have upheld them, despite the steady stream of constant, daily incitement and increasing number of what the Left used to euphemistically call “korbanot shel shalom” (“victims of peace”).

We Jews seem to have gotten ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole. And many of our leaders do not seem to understand the basic philosophy that “when you are in a hole, you should stop digging.”

American presidents, politicians and diplomats have consistently argued that “Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should be left up to parties themselves.”

Which brings us to Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett’s spirited debate with Martin Indyk at the Brookings Institute’s Saban Forum last week. Bennett courageously uttered the words: “We’re stuck in the conventional directions that we’ve been working on over the past three decades. There’s only one game [foreign policy paradigm] in town and that is a Palestinian state in the heart of Israel. Now, regardless of whether you support it or not, the reality is, it’s not working. It’s not working.”

The outcry from American journalists and officials, who have based their careers on the success of the peace process and the two-state paradigm, was so intense one would have thought Bennett had said something highly irresponsible, such as that Arabs are the descendants of apes and pigs (a remark that official Palestinian Authority media frequently uses to describe Jews).

After all, this is supposed to be a “peace process.” The operative word here is “peace.” How dare we dictate anything to the Israelis, who are forced to live with the deadly consequences of this obviously flawed foreign policy paradigm? How can we presume to know better than they what it is that the Israelis can actually live with?

The premise of “land for peace,” which has dominated American foreign policy and the its attitude toward Israel over the last two decades, might well work in the West when dealing with a land dispute between the United States and Mexicans or Canadians. But it is patently obvious, when listening to the inflammatory rhetoric that comes directly out of the mouths of Palestinian Authority officials, that they have never laid down the societal groundwork for peace, but rather for its very opposite.

This has been going on for over a generation. Words and ideas matter. These hateful words have seeped deep into the consciousness of an entire generation of Palestinians. They lead to tragedies like the recent attack at the Har Nof synagogue in which four Israelis were killed while reciting morning prayers (and a Druze policeman was killed coming to their aid); or earlier this week, when an Israeli family of five stopped to pick up a hitchhiker in Judea and Samaria and was subjected to an acid attack; or in October when a three-month-old, the first child for a couple who had endured years of infertility, was murdered when a Palestinian terrorist rammed his car into a group of Israelis waiting at a light rail station in Jerusalem.

For some, in America, this is merely a statistic. But for Israelis and Jews, this was somebody’s father, somebody’s mother, somebody’s brother, sister or child. Israel is a tiny country. By now there is hardly anyone in the country who does not personally know someone wounded or murdered at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

If this were a scientific experiment, we would have reached the null hypothesis a long time ago, and realized it was time to go back to the drawing board.

Whether or not one agrees with Bennett, it is impossible not to admire his moral courage and intellectual honesty for publicly declaring something every Israeli and every Palestinian already knows. He is like the little boy in the story who, in front of everyone, points to the naked monarch and declares: The emperor wears no clothes!

As Bennett said, “Let’s stop looking at perfection, the ideal dream of two states living side by side in peace and democracy. Let’s stop talking perfection that has led us to disaster.”

Yet Indyk, who has made a career out of the peace process industry, had the audacity to tell him, “You are talking pure mythology. … You live in another reality. … You live in what Steve Jobs called ‘a distorted reality.'”

Bennett responded with, “This is quite a sentence. I have been through the First Intifada, the Second Intifada. You attend conferences. I have been on the ground there. How many missiles have to fall on Ashkelon until you wake up? How many people need to die before you wake up from this illusion? When will you say you were wrong?”

Bennett deserves high praise for injecting a bit of reality into the fantasy world that exists inside the beltway, where everyone continues to cling to the illusions of 1993. So many of our think tanks, diplomats and scholars look at the Taliban attack in a school in Pakistan or the hostage crisis in a cafe in Australia as a deplorable acts of terrorism, but when it comes to Palestinian terrorists taking the lives of Israeli citizens, our State Department officials say, “Both sides have to try harder,” as Secretary of State John Kerry said at a press conference in London this week.

This is a hypocritical double standard that no one but Israel would be expected to endure. When people impose a standard on Israel, the Jewish state, that they would never impose on themselves, we have one word for it and that word is anti-Semitism.

Sometimes this anti-Semitism comes directly out of the mouths of Jews. Two thousand years of living in the Diaspora has had an indelible effect on our collective psyche. Many Jews are self-conscious of their Judaism, and want the love of the world so desperately that they have to prove to the world how liberal and broad minded they are … at the expense of their own Israeli brothers and sisters.

I could never understand how anyone sitting in a comfortable living room on this side of the Atlantic, never knowing what it is like to constantly fear for their lives and never worrying about having 60 seconds or less to gather the entire family and hide from incoming missiles, can claim to know better than the Israelis about what is good for them.

This gives new meaning to the definition of the term “chutzpah.”

Categories: Abbas, Europe, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Ideology, Islam, Israel, Leftists, Moral equivalence, Obama administration, Palestinians, Peace process, Terrorism, Two state solution
Tags: Abbas, Bennett, Europe, Foreign Policy, Gaza, Hamas, Ideology, Islam, Israel, Leftists, Moral equivalence, Obama Administration, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians, Peace Process, Terrorism, Two state solution, Yasser Arafat

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Western Indifference to the Palestinian Culture of Hate

December 15, 2014

Western Indifference to the Palestinian Culture of Hate, Front Page Magazine, Ari Lieberman, December 15, 2014

(Here is the video of the Islamic preacher.

The New York Times is by no means alone in making the “news” fit its ideological narrative. For an excellent analysis of how and why it happens, please read Sharyl Attkisson’s recent book Stonewalled.– DM)

The practice of ignoring such malevolence partly stems from the fact that the New York Times wishes to present a certain narrative at the expense of the facts and partly stems from a systematic inability of some Western media outlets to hold Arabs to a Western standard of decency and morality. Thus, Arab anti-Semitism, the same kind of anti-Semitism practiced in Europe some 75 years ago, is either ignored or attributed to mere cultural differences.

Rarely is the sort of vitriol witnessed in the videos expressed in English to Western audiences. Only the crassest among them publicly share their feelings about Jews, and the West for that matter. But behind closed doors it’s an entirely different story. Groups like MEMRI, CAMERA, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) and many others do an excellent job in exposing the malevolence hiding just beneath the surface. The problem is no one seems to care. No one cared 75 years ago either.

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A shockingly, disturbing video has recently surfaced exposing the true and pernicious face of Palestinian extremism and xenophobia. The video, made available by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) shows a bearded sheikh giving what appears to be an impromptu sermon on the Jews. (After all, what else is there to talk about?) The venue is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, considered by those who practice the “religion of peace” to be their third holiest site after Mecca and Medina.

The speech itself is filled with gut-wrenching anti-Semitism, the kind that would even make the editors of the New York Times blush. The sheikh describes how the Jews possess the vilest of traits, how they were responsible for killing the “prophets,” how they attempted to assassinate Muhammad, how their time for “slaughter is near,” how they will be slaughtered “without mercy,” and of course there’s the perfunctory, “Jews are apes and pigs” thing.

Interestingly, the speaker doesn’t mention the longing for Palestinian statehood or independence. Instead, he talks of the establishment of the “Islamic Caliphate.” “Oh Allah’” he states, “Hasten the establishment of the State of the Islamic Caliphate,” and further rants, “Oh Allah hasten the pledge of allegiance to the Muslim Caliph.” He spews forth the latter statement three times to chants of “Amen!” from the large, approving crowd congregating around him.

These comments, which would register horror and revulsion in the West (at least in some quarters) are almost banal among Palestinians. In fact, a similar video featuring a different speaker some days earlier at the same venue, conveyed identical sentiment, expressing admiration for the Islamic State and calling for murder of Jews and annihilation of America.

Guttural anti-Semitism is ingrained and interwoven in the fabric of Palestinian society. Despite their minuscule numbers, 78% of Palestinians believe that Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars while a whopping 88% believe that Jews control the global media and still more believe that Jews wield too much power in the business world.

Much of the blame for this can be placed squarely on the doorstep of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which subjects the Palestinian population to a steady diet of hate-filled, Judeophobic rhetoric through state-controlled media and educational institutions. It is so well entrenched that the process of deprogramming, if it were ever attempted, would take generations to reverse.

Some of the blame however, rests with the Obama administration and the European Union, which continues to fund the Palestinian Authority with an endless supply of taxpayer money without demanding any form of accountability. Western money is openly used to fund the Palestinian Authority’s hate apparatus with money flowing into institutions that propagate anti-Semitism and encourage terrorism.

Some Western media outlets are also culpable in perpetuating the Palestinian culture of hate. The New York Times for example has frequently and diligently covered so-called “price tag” vandalism attacks; a practice universally condemned by nearly all Israelis and vigorously prosecuted by Israeli authorities but rarely, if ever, covers the type of venomous hate speech witnessed in the above-noted videos.

Hate crimes inspired by this type of pernicious speech are also routinely ignored. Highlighting this point is the disturbing case of Asher Palmer, an American citizen who, along with his infant son was murdered when a rock thrown by a Palestinian crashed through the windshield of the car he was driving, hitting him flush in the face. The New York Times ignored the gruesome murders and only mentioned the incident in passing a few days later in the context of a reprisal “price tag” attack against a mosque. Under the unbelievably skewed editorial policies of the New York Times, it took an act of vandalism, ostensibly committed by Jews, to highlight the horrific murder of Asher Palmer and his infant son at the hands of Arabs.

The practice of ignoring such malevolence partly stems from the fact that the New York Times wishes to present a certain narrative at the expense of the facts and partly stems from a systematic inability of some Western media outlets to hold Arabs to a Western standard of decency and morality. Thus, Arab anti-Semitism, the same kind of anti-Semitism practiced in Europe some 75 years ago, is either ignored or attributed to mere cultural differences.

Indeed, the New York Times no longer even bothers to hide the fact that it engages in duplicitous double standards when it comes to reporting Palestinian-Arab racism and hate speech as evidenced from a telling exchange between New York Times’ opinion page staff editor, Matt Seaton and Tamar Sternthal, a director at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).

Rarely is the sort of vitriol witnessed in the videos expressed in English to Western audiences. Only the crassest among them publicly share their feelings about Jews, and the West for that matter. But behind closed doors it’s an entirely different story. Groups like MEMRI, CAMERA, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) and many others do an excellent job in exposing the malevolence hiding just beneath the surface. The problem is no one seems to care. No one cared 75 years ago either.

Categories: Abbas, Antisemitism, Gaza, Hamas, Ideology, Islam, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Leftists, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Obama, Palestinians, Peace process, Temple Mount, Terrorism, Two state solution
Tags: Antisemitism, Gaza, Hamas, Ideology, Islam, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Leftists, Multiculturalism, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace Process, Temple Mount, Terrorism, Two state solution

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The incestuous Government-Media-Business farce

December 13, 2014

The incestuous Government-Media-Business farce, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 13, 2014

(Mainstream media reports in the United States, and reports elsewhere reliant upon them, seem to affect perceptions in Israel and elsewhere of Israel, Islam, Iran and the Iran Scam. Here’s a question. To what extent do Israeli media mimic the U.S. mainstream media? — DM)

All the news that fits the desired narrative, and none other, shall be reported by the legitimate “news” media.

On February 11, 2013 Vice President Biden said that he and Obama are “counting on…legitimate news media” to help in their gun control efforts.

He said he knew people would continue to “misrepresent” the positions taken by himself and Obama, but that “legitimate news media” would cover them in a way that’s helpful to the administration.

In this post, I use the term “legitimate ‘news’ media” in the same sense that Biden apparently did.

I have been reading Sharyl Attkisson’s November 2014 book Stonewalled. Its thesis is that favored businesses, Government agencies and politicians set the agenda of the legitimate “news” media, which defer to them in what they report and how they report it.

Since Obama’s 2008 nomination and subsequent election, the legitimate “news” media have embraced Him by reporting (or creating) good news for Him and His administration while ignoring or disparaging any reports that they consider inconsistent with their pro- Obama ideological talking points. In doing so, they have relied excessively on administration spokespersons without verifying, independently, what they have been told.

On December 11th, The Washington Times published an article by Monica Crowley titled How do we protect Barack Obama today? It relates to the ideological perspective of the media as related by a broadcast journalist shortly before the 2012 presidential elections.

When I asked her for an example, she replied, “Every morning, we hold a meeting about how to build that evening’s broadcast. We’ve been doing this for decades. Everybody talks about which stories we’re going to air, what the line-up looks like, and which reporters we’ll have live in the field and which ones will be filing taped pieces. In the past, the left-wing bias was always left unspoken. People just ‘got it,’ because they all thought the same. [Emphasis added.]

“Once Obama pulled ahead of Hillary and certainly once he became president,” she said, “the bias came out of the closet. Now, every morning when we meet to discuss that night’s show, they literally say — out loud — ‘How do we protect Barack Obama today?’” [Emphasis added.]

Shocking? No more shocking than any other common but unpleasant reality. And it is congruent with Ms. Attkisson’s multiple accounts in Stonewalled. Less than half way through her book, I have learned more than I had previously understood about what, how and why the media reported — and did not report — on the green scam, the Benghazi scam, the Fast and Furious scam, the IRS scam and others. It’s disgusting but neither shocking nor surprising.

We have a “free press” in the legitimate “news” media. They are free to lie, to accept officially authorized “news” and to reject as not newsworthy or wrong anything which disputes, or is even merely inconsistent with, the prevailing narrative based on the official line.

Here are two interviews with Ms. Attkisson:

Many viewers and readers of the legitimate “news” media seem to be catching on. Perhaps that explains the decline in their numbers of viewers and readers. Do the legitimate “news” media care? They must, because it impacts their bottom lines. Will they continue their march into oblivion by running ever more bland pap while hoping for change they can believe in? Or will they, eventually, begin to report hard news, regardless of whom it might distress?

Please read Stonewalled. Depending on where you live, it may (or may not) be available at your local public library.

Categories: Elections in Israel, Ideology, International Community, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Islam, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Leftists, Multiculturalism, Obama, P5+1
Tags: Elections in Israel, Ideology, International Community, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Islam, Israel, Leftists, Multiculturalism, Palestinians, Sharyl Attkisson

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Op-Ed: Obama Empowers Enemies and Imperils Friends

December 4, 2014

Op-Ed: Obama Empowers Enemies and Imperils Friends, Israel National News, Matthew M. Hausman, December 2, 2014

The panel concluded that the United States and Israel have similar security concerns and identical interests in preserving cultural and political values common to both their societies. Accordingly, they find the administration’s policies in the region counterproductive and dangerous.

Clearly, Israel cannot place her trust in the Obama administration, but she can still draw strength and inspiration from Yehoshua, whose words have resonated for thousands of years and will continue to do so long after this president leaves office.

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

Even after the recent war in Gaza – and in spite of the dangers posed by ISIS and other Islamist forces – many American Jews still do not fully comprehend the risk to Israel and the West of a rejectionist ideology that promotes jihad and genocide. But the threat is real and arises from a doctrine that demands total submission from the vanquished. In failing to recognize the scope of the threat, western progressives – Jews and Gentiles alike – view the world as they believe it should be, not the way it actually is. The reality, however, is that liberal ideals are irrelevant in regions where politics have no existence independent of religion and religion is unforgivingly totalitarian.

This failure is as much political as intellectual. Moreover, it engenders complacency with the foreign policy of an administration that has not only failed to respond adequately to the Islamist threat, but whose actions have bolstered fundamentalism across the Mideast and undercut the interests of Israel – America’s only stable and dependable ally in the region.

These points were articulated at a security panel conference entitled, “Israel and the US: The Fight to Save Western Civilization from Global Jihad,” which took place in Massachusetts recently. The program featured retired Generals Jerry Boykin and Tom McInerney, former CIA Station Chief Gary Berntsen, and retired Lt. Colonel (and former congressman) Allen West. The program focused on the need to recognize the threat of jihadist extremism, as well as the myriad foreign policy failures that have helped destabilize the Mideast.

Secular progressives have become unwitting foils for Islamist radicalism by their failure to acknowledge its supremacist aspirations and their perception of Muslims as a vulnerable minority despite a global population of approximately 1.6 billion. This view is a little ironic considering the progressive tendency to disparage Jewish national claims and values and to condemn any perceived Christian intrusion into American politics, but nevertheless to discourage speech that criticizes Islam or mentions any Muslim involvement in terrorism.

Secular progressives often support anti-blasphemy laws and are quick to label as racists those who criticize Muslims on political grounds, although Islam is a religion and is not defined by race or ethnicity. Moreover, while they often rationalize Islamist extremism as an indigenous voice of protest against western chauvinism, its ubiquity is the result of conquest,colonialism, and the subjugation of “infidel” minorities. It is the height of cognitive dissonance when feminists, gay rights activists and other social progressives express support for religious extremists who persecute and kill based on gender, sexuality, and dissenting religious belief or political opinion, but condemn Israel – the only country in the Mideast where minorities have equal rights and protections under the law.

Over the last six years, the administration has sought rapprochement with the Islamic world through a series of questionable policies. Domestically, it has discouraged official use of terms such as “Islamic terrorism,” instead referring to terror incidents involving Muslims as criminal acts, workplace violence or violent extremism. On the foreign stage, it enabled the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, provided funding in areas governed by Hamas despite that organization’s stated goals of jihad and genocide, and failed to honor strategic commitments to Israel during the Gaza war.

Perhaps most troubling, the administration has used the pretense of negotiations to allow Iran to continue its quest for nuclear weapons – to the consternation not only of Israel, but of Saudi Arabia and all Sunni states in the region. Though it rationalizes that Iran should be permitted to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, critics point out that 55 percent of Iran’s domestic energy comes from natural gas, 42 percent from oil and two percent from hydroelectricity, such that it has no apparent consumer need for nuclear power. Its true intentions are reflected in the statements of its leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who recently tweeted that Israel “… has no cure but to be annihilated.”

Whether promoting Islamists, enabling Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or chastising the way Israel defended herself in Gaza, the administration has pursued policies that have empowered America’s enemies and imperiled its allies. Furthermore, by drawing meaningless redlines that it refuses to enforce and unilaterally disarming in Europe, it has signaled to the world that it is no longer willing to defend its own interests or those of its allies, but instead will stand aside while Russia, China and other geopolitical rivals assert themselves within traditional U.S. spheres of influence.

Speaking to a packed house at Ahavath Torah Congregation in Stoughton, Massachusetts, Generals Boykin and McInerney, Colonel West, and Agent Berntsen discussed the weakening of American strength and prestige under the current administration, and how this has enhanced Islamist resolve, endangered the safety of Israel, and compromised American interests around the globe.

They spoke with inside knowledge of the U.S. military and intelligence establishments and with a deep and abiding respect for Israel. General Boykin, a 36-year veteran and the first commander of Delta Force, related how he was in Jerusalem last summer when Hamas kidnapped and murdered three yeshiva boys, and how the outrage it spawned illustrated the inevitability of a military response. According to Boykin, who has spent considerable time in Israel and lived with the Golani Brigade, the kidnapping was the tipping point in a string of events, including rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and the construction of terror tunnels, which necessitated decisive counteraction.

In the panel’s view, Operation Protective Edge was essential, not only to stop rocket attacks and destroy terror tunnels, but because of the existential implications of radical Islam. These implications are reinforced by various charters calling for the destruction of Israel and Hamas’s explicit goal of exterminating the Jews, by ISIS’s goal of establishing a caliphate throughout the Mideast, and by Iran’s repeated pledges to blow Israel off the map. Despite political differences between the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, and doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shiite terror states, they all represent the same threat to Israel and the West.

Boykin sees a clear thread connecting past actions against the United States, such as the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, with the kidnappings and beheadings of westerners today. Unfortunately, Americans often have a limited frame of reference, particularly in a political climate that shuts down any critical discussion of these issues as “Islamophobic.” The problem is exacerbated by an administration that appeases enemies and alienates allies and by political elements in the military that lack the resolve to implement appropriate corrective strategies. In Boykin’s view, the latter problem is related to the exodus of young officers from all service branches in response to cuts in military spending and concomitant reductions in personnel.

The military is being cut back at a time when Islamist extremism is ascending, as demonstrated by the gruesome success of ISIS. Political and military leaders willfully ignore the ramifications of jihadi radicalism and the need to confront it from a position of strength. Despite recent acts of terror committed on North American soil, including beheadings and murders by lone-wolf perpetrators and the attack on Canada’s Parliament, the administration refuses to concede any terrorist links. Indeed, while Canadian Prime Minister Harper proclaimed that the Parliament attack was an act of terror, President Obama would not draw the same conclusion.

In contrast, Israel knows how high the stakes are because they challenge her very existence. “Israel has nowhere to go,” Boykin said, and thus cannot afford to be ignorant about the nature of an existential threat grounded in ideology, not geography.

General McInerney, a former U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff and Vice Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe, agrees that the battle against Islamists is ideological. “We have to understand the threat we face [and that] Radical Islam is as dangerous an ideology as Nazism and Communism.” According to McInerney, Islamism is not a response to western provocations, but derives from Muslim scriptural sources. Likewise, the jihadist impulse does not arise from economic privation, class struggle or geographic dispossession as western progressives often preach. Rather, it comes from deeply held religious convictions that must be understood if they are to be confronted effectively.

In order for this to happen, though, control of the dialogue has to be taken back from those who censor the use of language deemed offensive to extremists and who employ moral equivalency to justify radicalism. In addition, the dialogue should be purged of intentionally misleading buzzwords that have become commonplace, including such terms as: “occupation,” which refers to the entire State of Israel; “historical Palestine,” which legitimizes a country that never existed; and “proportionality,” which is used to criticize defensive actions taken by Israel, but not the acts of those who attack her citizens and use civilians as shields.

Accusations that Israel’s military responses are disproportionate are particularly galling, especially considering how she routinely sacrifices her strategic advantage by warning civilians of impending strikes ahead of time and by providing aid to those caught in the crossfire. The unprecedented humanity displayed by Israel during wartime should debunk the ongoing critique of the proportionality of her response in Gaza and her supposed failure to protect civilians. Such statements bespeak ignorance, bad faith or complicity in advancing anti-Israel propaganda.

According to General McInerney, the term “proportionality” is simply a euphemism for “not enough Israelis killed” and should be given no credence. Nevertheless, White House and State Department voices seem more vested in chiding Israel for civilian casualties than in blaming Hamas for starting the conflict and using noncombatants as human shields. The treatment of Hamas as a legitimate political entity defies history, logic and common sense.

The Obama administration’s apparent affinity for Islamists has not garnered it support from the Islamic world, and military reductions on its watch have fostered an image of international weakness. By unilaterally disarming in Europe, where the U.S. currently maintains almost no tanks or mechanized divisions, General McInerney believes the administration has eroded the deterrent effect of American military strength.

And by treating Iran, perhaps the largest state sponsor of global terrorism, as a rational partner for constructive engagement, the administration increases the risk of a regional arms race as the Sunni states may be forced to seek parity. The threat of a nuclear Iran cannot be minimized, the panel said, noting that it would take only a few nuclear weapons to destroy Israel. To claim that a nuclear Iran could ever be trusted is to ignore the radical ideology that has driven its quest for nuclear weapons since the Islamic revolution in 1979 and its dogmatic fixation on destroying Israel. It also ignores an Iranian worldview in which the United States remains the “Great Satan.”

The panel’s perspective on the spread of Islamism is buttressed by the long view of many in the intelligence community, but the administration seems to ignore any observations and analyses that do not jibe with the partisan and politicized assumptions underlying its foreign policy. This is all the more disturbing in light of reports during the ISIS fiasco claiming that President Obama does not read all intelligence memos that cross his desk.

The intelligence angle was addressed by Gary Berntsen, a career CIA officer, former station chief and former counter-terrorism director. A fluent Farsi speaker, Berntsen directed counterterrorism deployments in response to the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in East Africa and the attacks on 9/11, and is familiar with the evolution of both Hezbollah and ISIS. Whereas Mr. Obama claimed to have been surprised by the rise of ISIS, Berntsen said that U.S. intelligence has been tracking the faction from which it grew for years; and that despite the president’s attempt to blame the intelligence community for failing to identify the threat, the administration has been fully briefed about the capabilities and resources of ISIS on an ongoing basis.

Moreover, in evaluating the evolution of ISIS, the intelligence community had a model for comparison in Hezbollah. According to Berntsen, there were parallels to the growth of Hezbollah, which together with Islamic Jihad serves as the operational wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Hezbollah maintains a standing army, finances its operations through unsavory enterprises and billions in funding from Iran, and serves as a conduit for Iranian-exported terrorism, Berntsen noted. Moreover, it has insinuated itself in Lebanon, where it persecutes non-Muslims and threatens Israel.

ISIS followed a similar trajectory on its way to amassing a fighting force of some 30,000 men and a large arsenal of sophisticated weaponry. Initially supported by a number of Sunni states, ISIS has become self-sustaining by reaping profits from banks and oil production facilities it has seized and by stockpiling weapons and hardware taken from routed opponents across Syria and Iraq.

Though ISIS is certainly a menace that must not be ignored, the United States cannot afford to lose sight of Iran’s influence throughout the region. Without minimizing the ISIS threat, Berntsen believes that “Iran is the major confrontation state” and that American interests are ill-served by the obsession with concluding a nuclear deal. The administration appears to believe it can encourage a shift in Iranian loyalty and seems prepared to sacrifice its relationships with Sunni allies, such as Saudi Arabia, in order to do so. Given that Iran’s official views regarding the United States have not changed, and that it continues to call for the annihilation of Israel, the initiative to flip its allegiance seems grounded in fantasy.

The panel concluded that the United States and Israel have similar security concerns and identical interests in preserving cultural and political values common to both their societies. Accordingly, they find the administration’s policies in the region counterproductive and dangerous.

These observations are especially poignant in light of recent events, including continuing criticisms of Israel by the administration and State Department over the Gaza war. Official malice against Israel seemed incontrovertible after General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently lauded Israel for taking unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza and stated that the U.S. military would adopt similar strategies for fighting in civilian areas. The State Department responded by distancing itself from Dempsey’s remarks and denying that they reflected the government’s position.

Then there were the recent comments from an unnamed White House source who used expletives to describe Benyamin Netanyahu and called him cowardly for failing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, although the Obama administration discouraged the strike and reportedly leaked sensitive information (regarding strikes on similar sites in Syria) to prevent Israel from acting. When these comments are juxtaposed against the administration’s failure to contain ISIS and the domestic loss of confidence in Mr. Obama’s ability to protect and defend, the foreign policy landscape looks very bleak indeed.

The American Jewish community needs to wake up and acknowledge the administration’s abandonment of Israel. Though some Jewish Democrats still contend that Obama “has Israel’s back,” his order blocking shipments of Hellfire missiles and other military equipment to Israel during the Gaza war shows the fallacy of such claims. Furthermore, his preoccupation with reaching a nuclear deal with Iran – a rogue regime that has repeatedly vowed to obliterate the Jewish State – should give pause to all who profess support for his administration’s intentions regarding Israel.

The message delivered by the esteemed panel in Massachusetts was that American and Israeli interests are identical when it comes to dealing with global jihad, and that the failure to support Israel will only embolden those who seek to take the fight directly to the United States. The proof on the ground becomes more apparent with each foreign policy gaffe, and seems to be denied only by those who choose to ignore it or who continue to promote the administration’s regional agenda out of blind partisan allegiance.

The opening remarks of Colonel West, who moderated the panel discussion with wit and insight, actually set the tone for its conclusion. “America is at a critical crossroads in our global standing,” he said. “And this is clearly apparent in the Mideast [where] we’re facing a vile existential threat in ISIS.” The increase in Hamas’s destructive power, the evolution of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the empowerment of extremists across North Africa have coincided with the administration’s conduct in pivoting U.S. policy away from its traditional interests in the Mideast and undercutting the American-Israeli relationship.

Nevertheless, Colonel West believes the American people’s bond with Israel cannot be broken by the policies of a hostile administration. Regarding Israel’s future, he referred to the Book of Yehoshua, which says: “Be strong and courageous; be not afraid, nor be dismayed; for the Lord your G-d is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua, 1:9.).

Clearly, Israel cannot place her trust in the Obama administration, but she can still draw strength and inspiration from Yehoshua, whose words have resonated for thousands of years and will continue to do so long after this president leaves office.

Categories: Ideology, Iran, Islam, Israel, Jihad
Tags: Ideology, Iran, Islam, Israel, Jihad

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Humor: By Executive Action, Obama’s life and glory will be soon be presented in a ballet

December 2, 2014

By Executive Action, Obama’s life and glory will be soon be presented in a ballet, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 1, 2014

(Please see also Imagine a World Without America? Obama Can — DM)

A ballet depicting the life and glory of their hero, Hugo Chavez, is the current rage among all good Chavistas. Barack Humble Obama, who has brought us greater peace, prosperity, happiness and even laughter than Chavez ever did, deserves far better.

By Presidential Memorandum released on December 1st, Obama directed:

Presidential Memorandum re. public acknowledgment of My unsurpassed greatness, December First, Year the sixth of the reign of Obama:

By virtue of the authority vested in Me as the Dear Leader of the True American Revolution, We I hereby direct all Federal entities, and request all significant stakeholders, to collaborate in the creation of a ballet to memorialize My uniquely outstanding magnificence, particularly as shown through My numerous successes.

To that noble end, all Federal Agencies and Departments shall first consider among themselves and, with the voluntary cooperation of all significant stakeholders — including all State and local governmental entities, non-governmental organizations and other interested parties — shall further consider the highly treasured successes I have bestowed upon them and upon My adoring people:

♥ Vastly improved health care;

♥ Unprecedented governmental transparency;

♥ A massively stimulated national economy;

♥ Uniquely clean Government with no hint of scandal or waste;

♥ Heroic advances in social justice;

♥ Tremendously improved race and multicultural relations;

♥ Greatly diminished White privilege;

♥ My historically unique approach to foreign policy, which has united many of our allies and former enemies; and

♥ Many others which ~~We are~~ I am far too humble to mention here.

As soon as the ballet has been written and I have approved it, it shall be featured by all mass media outlets during prime time and performed in all cities and towns throughout My domain that have suitable facilities. Places unfortunately lacking such facilities are authorized and requested to apply promptly for appropriate Federal grants. My Department of Homeland Security, as well as all other relevant Federal departments and agencies, are directed to approve them expeditiously.

The ballet shall be presented each year on the twentieth day of January, which I shall soon declare a national holiday by Executive Order.

Upon reviewing the Presidential Memorandum with their customary diligence, MSNBC, NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS offered high praise for Obama’s grand initiative. Using a ballet to remind everyone in the United States of Obama of what He has done to for them was seen not only as a true masterstroke but as His most masterful yet, sure to win the hearts and minds of even His most obstructionist opponents.

They suggested that the construction of much needed theatrical facilities throughout the entire country, in places now sadly deprived of the cultural enrichment they bring, will further stimulate our already vastly improved economy. They also suggested that necessary funding be stripped from all warmongering activities of the U.S. military, sparing only funds needed to improve gender equality and multicultural advances.

Faux News had little to say beyond suggesting that such a ballet should be produced after, rather than during, Obama’s term of office. Republican House Speaker Boehner contended that too many horror shows featuring Obama are already broadcast on national television and cable and that, for that reason, no Federal funds should be wasted on Obama’s grand initiative. However, he stated that no shutdown of the Federal Government is now contemplated in response. Some right wing ~~activists~~ terrorists suggested that, as an alternative to Obama’s grand initiative, the Little Abner musical, which they had enjoyed years ago when they were children, should be presented on national television, including all cable channels.

It would be gratifying for all to learn, through the medium of ballet, that the country is now in even better hands than ever before.

Categories: Domestic policy, Foreign policy, Humor, Ideology, International Community, Islam, Obama
Tags: Domestic policy, Foreign Policy, Humor, Ideology, International Community, Islam

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Distorted perceptions of Ferguson, Israel and Islam have similar roots

November 30, 2014

Distorted perceptions of Ferguson, Israel and Islam have similar roots, Dan Miller’s Blog, November 29, 2014

Those who find “racist” repression of Blacks in Ferguson, “racist” repression of Arabs in Israel and “racist” repression of Muslims by non-Muslims everywhere have much in common.

Leftist and mainstream media perceptions of “repression” by Ferguson’s White minority of its Black majority, of Israeli “war crimes” against her minority Muslim residents and of the “peaceful” nature of Islam hinge on increasingly common notions: fairness requires inconvenient facts to be altered if possible to suit an ideology while others, inconsistent with the altered facts, must be ignored. We must speak and act with compassion toward and empathy with the oppressed. Only in this way, it is believed, can true fairness and empathetic compassion be achieved. Then, and only then, will we have true justice.

David Solway, in an excellent PJ Media article titled ‘Politricks’ and the English Language, summed it up:

[T]he Big Lie has been installed among us as the primary form of political and cultural address along the entire gamut of disinformation, from outright interment of fact and customizing of inconvenient truths to unmitigated calumny and virulent libel. The Western media and the “progressivist” left-liberal political class have, over the years, incrementally adopted the discursive techniques of totalitarian states and theocratic dispensations. [Emphasis added.]

Please read the whole article.

Perceptions of Ferguson, Missouri

Michael Brown, a Black “gentle giant,” was shot and killed by a “racist” White police officer, Darren Wilson, on August 9th. There were eyewitnesses and many others who claimed to be eyewitnesses but were not. The latter based their accounts on what others had told them and on what they believed might have happened. Rather than select a new grand jury, an existing grand jury was kept in session, apparently to avoid claims that the members of a new jury had been chosen to exonerate Officer Wilson. On November 23rd, the grand jury determined that Officer Wilson would not be charged with a criminal offense under Missouri law. Here’s what happened next. Although the facts presented to the grand jury have been released, the facts matter but little:

The riots went forward as planned; the media steadfastly distributed its prewritten narrative of evil racist white cop murdering innocent young black man. [Emphasis added.]

Some Blacks defended White-owned businesses. That’s good. Others looted and burned Black as well as White-owned businesses.

Please see also this article by Rich Lowry at Politico. His analysis points to this:

This is a terrible tragedy. It isn’t a metaphor for police brutality or race repression or anything else, and never was. Aided and abetted by a compliant national media, the Ferguson protestors spun a dishonest or misinformed version of what happened—Michael Brown murdered in cold blood while trying to give up—into a chant (“hands up, don’t shoot”) and then a mini-movement. [Emphasis added.]

When the facts didn’t back their narrative, they dismissed the facts and retreated into paranoid suspicion of the legal system. [Emphasis added.]

Beyond that, I don’t consider it necessary to dwell on what happened in Ferguson last August and what happened thereafter, before and after the grand jury declined to indict Officer Wilson for the “murder” of “gentle giant” Michael Brown. Most who will read this article are already familiar with what happened; perceptions and their bases are my focus here.

Reports of “racism” and associated violence help to sell print and broadcast advertising, particularly if the reports can be made consistent with the perceptions of audiences: White people are racist and oppress Black people. Hence, most in the mass media rely, consciously or unconsciously, on confirmation bias,

a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.^{[Note 1]}^[1] As a result, people gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. The biases appear in particular for emotionally significant issues and for established beliefs.

The “legitimate” media proceeded in similar fashion when George Zimmerman, a “racist” “White Hispanic,” shot and killed a “defenseless” Black “child” in April of 2012. The “legitimate” media changed or ignored facts in their quests to declare Zimmerman guilty, to encourage rioting and to vindicate their own perceptions that Blacks are “different” and that their actions need to be dealt with more leniently than those of others. Please see also this article about a well to do White kid who said that he deserved to be mugged because of his White privilege. Many in the mass media appear to share his perceptions, at least with respect to the mugging of others.

After digesting the factual evidence the Zimmerman trial jury disagreed with the mass media and the assorted race baiters upon whom the mass media feasted and found him not guilty. After digesting the factual evidence, the grand jury — which had three Black members — disagreed about Officer Wilson and declined to indict him.

It has been reported that, following the grand jury’s refusal to indict Officer Wilson, the Obama administration promoted indoctrination of students on the basis that Brown was “a victim of police violence.” Part of the “White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans,” the indoctrination apparently is to include this:

“During the first few weeks of classes, students can create a memorial to Michael Brown on a classroom bulletin board. This activity involves having students use whatever they feel skilled in to create something that would honor Michael Brown and other people who have been victims of police and other violence. Students may choose to draw, write poetry, design art pieces, paint, or collect news clippings. Students can use this opportunity to create a counter-narrative to negative stories and images about Ferguson and Michael Brown, or even to document stories and images they have seen in the media about the case. Engaging in this type of activity allows teachers to understand youth strengths and form classroom solidarity.” [Emphasis added.]

It is important for young people to learn how to make connections between the Michael Brown shooting and similar cases that have emerged in recent history. While a discussion of the Michael Brown shooting and the current events in Ferguson are powerful, conversations about Michael Brown with a consideration of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Renisha Mcbride and other cases that involve similar scenarios place the events in Ferguson in proper context… [Emphasis added.]

Assuming that the report is accurate, is the Obama administration trying to heal racial divides, or to exacerbate them as it has often done?

David Goldman, in an article at PJ Media titled How Far Down Do You Define Deviancy in Ferguson? summed up the positions of the current “civil rights” movement and the consequences were they to be adopted:

Young black men are disproportionately imprisoned. One in three black men have gone to prison at some time in their life. According to the ACLU, one in fifteen black men are incarcerated, vs. one in 106 white men. That by itself is proof of racism; the fact that these individuals were individually prosecuted for individual crimes has no bearing on the matter. All that matters is the outcome. Because the behavior of young black men is not likely to change, what must change is the way that society recognizes crime itself. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

[T]he solution is to decriminalize behavior that all civilized countries have suppressed and punished since the dawn of history. Because felonious behavior is so widespread and the causes of it so intractable, the criminals’ rights movement insists, society “cannot afford to recognize” criminal behavior below a certain threshold. [Emphasis added.]

If America were to accept this logic, civil society would come to an end. The state would abandon its monopoly of violence to street rule. Large parts of America would come to resemble the gang-ruled, lawless streets of Central America, where violent pathology has overwhelmed the state’s capacity to control it, creating in turn a nightmare for America’s enforcement of its own immigration law. [Emphasis added.]

The Ferguson episode was not a civil rights movement in any traditional or otherwise legitimate sense.

The response of the African-American “civil rights” establishment and the American Left to the verdict in Ferguson came quickly and predictably. Al Sharpton and other racial demagogues urged their followers to take to the streets if anything but a first degree murder indictment was handed down for Officer Darren Wilson. The protestors and rioters were prepared, but Missouri’s governor wasn’t. He failed to call out the National Guard on the day the verdict was released.

What is particularly galling is the argument that the events in Ferguson, and the no bill for Wilson, are a throwback to the segregationist era of the 1950s and 1960s, when the modern civil rights movement engaged in non-violent civil disobedience. “The Movement,” as they called it then, showed the nation and the world the immoral actions of police chief Bull Connor of Birmingham, Alabama, and others of similar ilk, thereby exposing the injustice of the system of segregation — a system based on power and violence, preventing black Americans from enjoying the rights and liberties guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution. [Emphasis added.]

Israel

Just as confirmation bias caused many in Missouri — and also in distant places — to condemn a “racist” White police officer and to preach about the benign nature of his Black “victim,” so many throughout the world blame Israel for everything bad that people do.

I recently wrote an article titled Hamas, Abbas, Obama and Islamic Savagery. It includes this photo of Palestinians celebrating their brethren’s murders of Jews praying in a Jerusalem synagogue:

Recently, there have been many more attacks on Jews in Israel.

Academia, where leftism now prevails, has done much to slander Israel as a wicked apartheid state, more barbaric than Nazi Germany.

This summer’s Israeli incursion, Operation Protective Edge, provided anti-Semites and loathers of the Jewish state with resurgent justifications for assigning the epithet of Nazi on the Jews yet another time, together with oft-heard accusations of “crimes against humanity, “massacres,” genocide,” and, according to recent comments by Turkey’s prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan, in their treatment of the Palestinians, Israel has demonstrated that “. . . their barbarism has surpassed even Hitler’s.”[Emphasis added.]

The Nazification of Israelis—and by extension Jews—is both breathtaking in its moral inversion and cruel in the way it makes the actual victims of the Third Reich’s horrors a modern-day reincarnation of that same barbarity. It is, in the words of Boston University’s Richard Landes, “moral sadism,” a salient example of Holocaust inversion that is at once ahistorical, disingenuous, and grotesque in its moral and factual inaccuracy. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

[They did so] by redefining Israel as the most glaring example of those human predations, what he called “the embodiment of all evil” of the Twentieth Century: apartheid and Nazism. He defined the process of grafting this opprobrium on Israel as “ideological anti-Semitism,” one which “involves the characterization of Israel not only as an apartheid state—and one that must be dismantled as part of the struggle against racism—but as a Nazi one.” [Emphasis added.]

. . . . [O]nce Israel had been tarred with the libels of racism and Nazism, the Jewish state had been made an international outlaw, a pariah, losing its moral right to even exist—exactly, of course, what its foes have consistently sought. “These very labels of Zionism and Israel as ‘racist, apartheid and Nazi’ supply the criminal indictment,” said Cotler. “No further debate is required. The conviction that this triple racism warrants the dismantling of Israel as a moral obligation has been secured. For who would deny that a ‘racist, apartheid, Nazi’ state should not have any right to exist today?” [Emphasis added.]

Such academic perceptions have spread worldwide. European nations are now rushing to recognize a Palestinian nation, without regard to reality.

Does anyone really think that granting, or recognizing, Palestinian statehood will make them more peaceful? On the contrary. From past experience, any time the Palestinians achieve a political goal without effort, they take that as a reward for their violent behaviour and only increase their terrorist activities.

In that context, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. General Assembly recently chastised much of the world, particularly Europe, for accepting such perceptions regardless of reality.

He did not likely make many friends; calling to people’s attention that they are sadly misguided rarely does.

Why are Islamic nations, where apartheid and violence against non-Muslims prevail, subjected to little anger and disdain while Israel, the only free and democratic nation in the entire region, gets nearly all of the anger and disdain? Might this double standard be useful because it caters to the notion that Israel’s freedom and democracy for all of her citizens, including Arabs — particularly along with her technological and financial successes — set her apart? Make her “the Other?” Might it be that Islamic nations, hugely represented at the U.N. and sadly deficient in freedom, democracy and technological prowess, reject Israeli freedom and democracy while envious of Israel’s technological success? They have substantial wealth, but it is largely based on oil and the technology of others. Little of the resulting wealth is shared with their masses.

Islam

That brings us to Islam, the “religion of peace.” According to Obama and other luminaries, the Islamic State is not Islamic. According to Obama no religion — least of all Islam — countenances the violence in which the Islamic State and other comparable Islamic terrorist groups engage. Remember His Eid-al-Fitr message?

While Eid marks the completion of Ramadan, it also celebrates the common values that unite us in our humanity and reinforces the obligations that people of all faiths have to each other, especially those impacted by poverty, conflict, and disease. [Emphasis added.]

In the United States, Eid also reminds us of the many achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy. That is why we stand with people of all faiths, here at home and around the world, to protect and advance their rights to prosper, and we welcome their commitment to giving back to their communities. [Emphasis added.]

Interfaith tolerance and respect? The “very fabric of our nation?” “Strengthening the core of our democracy?”

Let's have an honest discussion about Islam

Let’s have an honest discussion about Islam

In Islam, peace can come only after all other religions have been destroyed or subjugated. That Islamic belief now plagues Israel and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Islamic Palestinians who murder Jews are seen as heroes and more are encouraged to do more of the same.

Many Muslims adhere also to the view that the Peace of Islam can come only after other Muslims who profess variant religious doctrines — Sunni vs. Shia for example — have been destroyed or subjugated and become “true” Muslims. Sect vs. sect violence was common throughout the centuries and now seems to be worse and increasing.

That is to be expected, but why do many nations which do not yet have Muslim majorities tend to ignore these Islamic actions and view Islamic slaughter as not characteristics of Islam? Are they merely ignorant about Islam? Have they been fatally infected with multiculturalism and political correctness? Might they even view adherents to Islam as subhumans, whose violence and other depredations are best ignored or tolerated?

Conclusions

It seems reasonable to conclude that the world is spiraling ever deeper into insanity. Until leaders of “the international community,” academia and the mass media revise their views and act on the basis of facts instead of fictions, and on logic rather than on raw emotion coupled with pandering to those blinded by confirmation bias against “the Others,” sanity will continue to be increasingly rare. Insanity will continue to be manifested through violence as it persists and worsens because perceptions drive actions.

These are not optimistic conclusions, because it seems unlikely that “the international community,” academia or the mass media — which tend to proceed in tandem — will reform anytime soon.

ADDENDUM

Is Christianity dead in the Middle East? It probably is in most of the region, but not in Israel.

Is it the end of Christianity in the Middle East? Could be, he says, at least so far as Iraq is involved:

What is a Christian life there now? The Bishop of Mosul said recently that for the first time in 2,000 years there was no church in Nineveh [an ancient city that is now part of Mosul]. That’s the reality.

It is indeed the reality, and not just in Iraq. And “the West” is silent, as it has been so often when it faces evil far from its own boundaries. Meanwhile, [Anglican Canon Andrew White] has moved on, to the one country in the Middle East that provides its citizens with religious freedom and the security to practice their faith. He’s in Jerusalem, trying to achieve reconciliation between Muslim and Jewish religious leaders. It’s not an altogether new venture for him; in his last days in Baghdad, he was the “rabbi” for the city’s remaining six Iraqi Jews. And back at that conference in Copenhagen, the guest of honor at the closing banquet was the former chief rabbi of Denmark. [Emphasis added.]

Guess what? During the week, all the Iraqi religious leaders arranged for private meetings with said rabbi. Why? They’d looked at the map, and they knew that if things were going to be ok for them, they’d need help from the Jews in Israel. Andrew knew it too. He still knows it. That’s no doubt why he’s working in Jerusalem. [Emphasis added.]

Categories: Antisemitism, Diversity, Hamas, Ideology, International Community, Islam, Islamic State, Jewish occupation of Israel, Leftists, Multiculturalism, Obama, Peace process, Political correctness, Two state solution, United Nations
Tags: Antisemitism, DIversity, Ferguson, Hamas, Ideology, International Community, Islam, Islamic State, Israel, Jewish occupation of Israel, Leftists, Michael Brown, Multiculturalism, Peace Process, perceptions, Political correctness, Two state solution, United Nations

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Iran’s Ideological Camp Fears The Possibility Of A Nuclear Agreement Between Iran And The P5+1, Warns Rohani Government

November 7, 2014

Iran’s Ideological Camp Fears The Possibility Of A Nuclear Agreement Between Iran And The P5+1, Warns Rohani Government, MEMRI, A. Savyon, Y. Mansharof, and E. Kharrazi, November 6, 2014

(What might Obama and Kerry give the “ideologues” to encourage them to board their ship of State, the BHO Titanic? — DM)

Kayhan: “In Negotiations That Could Take Place In 2024, Iran Will Undoubtedly Come To The Negotiating Table With Tens Of Thousands Of Centrifuges That Are More Advanced Than Those It Has Today”; The Nuclear Mushroom Yields Results Once In A Decade

“Under Section 125 of our constitution, international commitments must be approved by the Majlis. But unfortunately, the Majlis members are not being updated at all in the nuclear negotiations issue… Government actions that disregard Majlis opinion will cause future problems, and will cause [the Majlis] to reject agreements that are against the interest of the people – which will have direct repercussions for the negotiating team.”

Democrats in the White House will try to turn their defeat in the elections to their diplomatic advantage. Obama is like a gambler who has lost everything, and he is sending his representatives to the [negotiating] table with empty pockets…

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Introduction

Both the U.S. administration and Iran’s pragmatic camp were last week preparing public opinion in their respective countries for the possibility that a nuclear agreement will be reached between Iran and the P5+1 by the November 24, 2014 deadline.[1] According to the emerging contours of the agreement, Tehran will apparently be allowed to operate 4,000 to 6,000 first-generation centrifuges,[2] and in return, in a move that will not require Congressional approval, the U.S. administration will suspend American sanctions.

The pragmatic camp in Iran, headed by Hashemi Rafsanjani and his proxy President Hassan Rohani, is pressuring the White House to reach an agreement with Iran right now, and identifying President Obama as “the weakest American president.”[3] At the same time, this camp’s leaders are laying the groundwork for obtaining Iranian approval for an agreement.

On October 22, 2014, President Rohani emphasized the need for engaging and negotiating with the enemy, framing doing so as the lesson that should be taken from the Shi’ite legend of Karbala – in contrast to the interpretation of these events commonly accepted in Iran.[4] On October 27, the pragmatic camp’s main organ, the Jomhouri-ye Eslami daily, called on the ideological camp not to sabotage the emerging agreement, stressed that the agreement was within the red lines set out by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and warned the Khamenei camp that it must not cause Iran to miss this golden opportunity.

Furthermore, on November 2, 2014, two days before the nation marked the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy and capture of its staff in Tehran, which this year coincides with Iran’s Ashura rituals, Ali Khorram, senior advisor to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, told the reformist pro-Rohani newspaper Shargh that U.S.-Iran relations are now no longer hostile, and are even “friendly.” He claimed there had been a change for the better in U.S. policy, that the two countries need not wait for Judgment Day to trust each other, and that the time had come for them to end the hostility between them. He also said that they had common interests in Iraq and Syria, and that the Americans considered the U.S. Embassy takeover an “old wound.”[5]

In contrast, the ideological camp is alarmed at the prospect of an imminent nuclear deal, voicing its apprehensions that the national interests of the regime would be damaged and that there would be a U.S.-Iran rapprochement. On October 28, 2014, the day after Jomhouri-ye Eslami called on the ideological camp to refrain from sabotaging the agreement, Majlis member Ali Reza Zakani urged the Iranian security apparatuses to intervene, and warned the negotiating team that it would bear responsibility for a “bad agreement” that both crossed the regime’s red lines and failed to completely lift the sanctions.

At the same time, the daily Kayhan, which is close to Khamenei, attacked the emerging agreement from two angles: First, the agreement crosses Khamenei’s red lines and fails to immediately lift all anti-Iran sanctions, and second, following the defeat for U.S. President Barack Obama in the November 4 midterm elections, Iran could, in another decade, according to the newspaper, come to a possible negotiating table as a nuclear power with tens of thousands of advanced-generation centrifuges. It urged the negotiating team not only to not be deterred by White House threats that once the newly elected Republicans take office the sanctions will be increased and thus Iran should sign an agreement now, but also that Iran must give the U.S. an ultimatum. The newspaper also warned of plots and of an organized scheme led by “the men of fitna” past and present – hinting at collaboration among pragmatic camp leaders Rafsanjani and Rohani and Green Movement leaders and former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both of whom have been under house arrest for several years for what the regime alleges was their role in the unrest of the 2009 presidential election. He was also hinting at coordination between them and the West, in order to anesthetize the public and Iran’s elites into inaction so that a nuclear agreement could be attained “no matter what the cost.” The paper also warned President Rohani to follow the orders issued by Khamenei on the nuclear negotiations, and even to refrain from talking with the U.S.

The website Afsaran, which is close to security circles, also expressed fears that Iranian negotiating team chief and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif – and by allusion his entire camp – is seeking to depose Khamenei by securing a nuclear deal with the U.S.

This paper will review the reaction of Iran’s ideological camp to the possibility of an Iran-P5+1 nuclear agreement:

The Pragmatic Camp: Laying The Groundwork For An Agreement, Urging Ideologues To Accept It

Rohani: From Imam Hussein And The Legend Of Karbala, We Learn We Must Engage And Negotiate

In his October 22, 2014 speech in Zanjan, in northwest Iran, Rohani called on the ideological camp to accept his camp’s policy of engaging the U.S., depicting the legend of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom at Karbala as a paradigm justifying negotiating with the enemy, rather than its customary interpretation of promoting martydom. He said: “The lesson and message of Imam Hussein is brotherhood, unity, forgiveness, [and] accepting the other’s side’s repentance. The lesson of Karbala is one of constructive engagement and negotiation, as part of the logic and the instructions [of the religion or the leader].”[6]

This statement provoked considerable criticism from the ideological camp, especially from Khamenei’s close associate and the editor of Kayhan, Hossein Shariatmadari. Shariatmadari accused Rohani of distorting the Karbala legend, stressing that that the only way to follow its example was to hold fast and to resist the oppressive enemies, even at the price of martyrdom in following God’s path.[7]

Jomhouri-ye Eslami: The Agreement’s Opponents Must Not Make Iran Miss This Chance To Resolve The Nuclear Issue

On October 27, 2014, Jomhouri-ye Eslami wrote: “For over a week, there have been positive reports from both within and without [Iran] about the progress in the Iran-P5+1 nuclear negotiations – within Iran, from statements [by officials from] President Rohani himself to the foreign minister and members of the negotiating team, and outside Iran from senior Russian, Chinese, German, French and American officials. All have emphasized the imminence of a comprehensive nuclear agreement signed by November 25…

“While it is true that there may be some changes in the decision before all members of the P5+1 sign the agreement, it is clear – and this must be noted – that there is practically zero disagreement [among the parties]. Thus, in contrast to what is depicted in the Iranian media, all the parties are more optimistic than ever that the agreement will be signed by November 25. Under the agreement, Iran is satisfied with regard to [what is agreed about] the sanctions, the centrifuges, the [uranium] enrichment, and the nuclear facilities; according to some conservative leaders, the agreement is a victory for Iran…

“Those within [Iran] who oppose the nuclear agreement must be aware of reality – this opportunity to resolve the issue must not be missed. This is because the agreement was drafted within the framework of [Iran’s] national interests and is within the red lines that were set out; also, as senior members of the negotiating team and President Rohani himself have emphasized several times, Iran will not back down one single inch from its [nuclear] right. Additionally, the entire Iranian nation desires to reach an agreement that [both] includes the nation’s right and conclusively resolves the nuclear issue. Therefore, everyone must work for the success of the negotiating team and must refrain from taking measures and from [disseminating] propaganda that will cause problems on this path.[8]

In Ideological Camp, Great Fear Of The Emerging Agreement

Majlis Member Zakani: The Agreement Crosses The Regime’s Red Lines; I Am Asking The Security Apparatuses To Act; The Negotiating Team Will Be Held Responsible

In an October 28, 2014 Majlis speech, Majlis member Ali Reza Zakani warned: “News is coming in that an agreement has been reached between Iran and America. According to this information, red lines set out by the Islamic regime are crossed in it. I hereby warn the foreign minister on the issue of the nuclear boundaries [i.e. red lines]…

“The silence of the country’s diplomatic apparatus in the face of the babbling of the American negotiation representative [Wendy Sherman] – [babbling that] constitutes a reiteration of their exaggerated declarations – is leading to impudence, greed, and nonsensical statements on the part of ‘the Great Satan,’ America.

“I see the campaign promoted by those connected to the nuclear dossier [i.e. Foreign Minister Zarif] that is called ‘any bad agreement is preferable to none at all’ as a humiliation, and I vigorously condemn it. I am asking the security apparatuses to clarify to the Iranian nation what is behind this.

“The news coming in attests that the red lines set out by the Islamic regime have been crossed in the agreement; this will undoubtedly lead to the loss of the Iranian nation’s rights and to the trampling of its nuclear achievements. Accepting the oppressive demands of the American side regarding cutbacks in our [uranium] enrichment, transforming the very essence of parts of our nuclear industry, in return for the lifting of a small part of the sanctions, is unacceptable to the Iranian nation, and will harm the national interests and the interests of the Islamic Revolution.

“Under Section 125 of our constitution, international commitments must be approved by the Majlis. But unfortunately, the Majlis members are not being updated at all in the nuclear negotiations issue… Government actions that disregard Majlis opinion will cause future problems, and will cause [the Majlis] to reject agreements that are against the interest of the people – which will have direct repercussions for the negotiating team.”[9]

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November 2, 2014 on Tasnimnews.com, which is close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC): “Kerry’s Greedy Declarations.” U.S. Secretary of State Kerry the eagle, who is sharpening his talons against the backdrop of an Israeli flag, says: “I am optimistic with regard to the nuclear agreement with Iran.”

Kayhan: “In Negotiations That Could Take Place In 2024, Iran Will Undoubtedly Come To The Negotiating Table With Tens Of Thousands Of Centrifuges That Are More Advanced Than Those It Has Today”; The Nuclear Mushroom Yields Results Once In A Decade

On November 6, 2014, two days after the Republicans swept the U.S. midterm elections, Kayhan wrote: “Obama is now at his lowest point of popularity since he was elected… At the last nuclear negotiating venue [in Oman, at the level of Foreign Minister Zarif, U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, and EU High Representative on Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton, November 9-10, 2014], the Democrats in the White House will try to turn their defeat in the elections to their diplomatic advantage. Obama is like a gambler who has lost everything, and he is sending his representatives to the [negotiating] table with empty pockets… Apparently, the White House emissaries will recommend to the Iranian team to sign the nuclear agreement as soon as possible, since if they do not, Congress will enter the arena with a stick, threats, and sanctions…

“The [negotiating] venue in Oman must be the place where the [Iranian team] gives the Americans a final ultimatum, instead of listening to their boasts… Recently, American negotiating team leader Wendy Sherman quoted former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright as saying that negotiations are ‘like a mushroom that grows best in the dark.’ Soon the result of the[se] negotiations, which have been conducted in the dark for over a year, will become clear.

“The last time that Western [officials] tried to feed Iran this poison mushroom and to force it to submit to the American greed was a decade ago. Undoubtedly, the 2014 mushroom will contain poison that was concocted in 2003. This is because at that point in the negotiations [i.e. in 2003], Iran was operating very few centrifuges, while today it has some 20,000 centrifuges. The Americans need to know that in the most optimal situation [for them], the nuclear mushroom yields results once in a decade… In negotiations that could take place in 2024, Iran will undoubtedly come to the negotiating table with tens of thousands of centrifuges that are more advanced than those it has today.”[10]

Kayhan: Rafsanjani And Rohani Are Bringing Up Various Issues To Distract The Elites From The Upcoming Agreement

On October 28, 2014, Kayhan wrote: “In the Geneva agreements, we put on the table [i.e. we were forced to give up] the product of three years of [uranium] enrichment to 20%, and [agreed to accept] a freeze on activity at the Fordow [enrichment facility] and a halt to the operations to complete the Arak [heavy water] facility, in return for the release of some $7 billion in Iranian funds…

“During the four-month extension [of the Geneva document] we expanded this give-and-take – and now America covets another part of Iran’s assets, saying ‘close Fordow or turn it into a research center; cut back your reserves of enriched [material] to 3.5%, to a quantity that we will tell [you], and remove [it] from Iran; [and] shut down 5,400 of your9,400 operating centrifuges, etc., etc. In return, we will examine your intentions for a period of seven to 20 years, [so that we can ascertain] whether or not we can trust you, or for example, [in return for] our promise not to impose new sanctions.’ This is truly a win-win game and constructive engagement [a jibe at President Rohani].

“The question is, to what point and from what assets does the government intend to pay for this extension of the negotiations and the incremental freeze [on Iran’s nuclear activity]?… When [Iran’s] nuclear technology peaked, Rafsanjani, Rohani, and even [Mir Hossein] Mousavi, and others, saw themselves as major shareholders in this progress. However when the [P5+1] began to impose its impediments, a green light was given for [Iranian] concessions based on a freeze on a small or large part of the [nuclear] program. Rafsanjani even announced his satisfaction with the Geneva negotiations, [saying], ‘Thanks to the negotiations, the taboo [on engagement] with America has been broken.’

“The negotiations apparently had two objectives: The first was to preserve the nuclear program, from the standpoint of [Iran’s right to] enrich [uranium]; the second was to get the sanctions lifted. If some political figures do not attach the requisite importance to the first, they undoubtedly need to explain the second. Therefore, [they must be asked] why not a single sanction was lifted after [Iran] made all these concessions [in the negotiations] – but the sanctions were only made harsher?…

“The acceptance of the West’s demands is the same mistake in judgment that has repeatedly led to an impasse, to the squandering [of Iran’s] strategic assets, [and] to defaming and labelling the critics [of the government] who support [the regime] in an effort to render them passive. The storm surrounding the law to preserve the hijab and modesty, the support for the modesty police, the accusations that the Majlis removed the science minister due to the scholarships scandal[11]… the exploitation of the crime of the acid attacks [against women in Isfahan by claiming that the ideological camp was behind them] – all these are taken from the script and from the organized attempt by the men of fitna and their supporters outside [Iran], with the aim of stirring up marginal scandals within Iran so that [the main issues] are ignored.

“The West sees that Iran’s irreplaceable role has redrawn the map of western Asia and the Middle East, [adding] the qualities of resistance and Islamic awakening in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen,l and Bahrain, [and says] ‘Iran must be stopped from playing this role.’

“The men of fitna and the bankrupt extremists… believe that the only way to rebuild their organizations is by dealing with marginal issues and [news-grabbing] explosions that make a huge splash. A group of them… is operating based on a plan given to them, and their media and statesmen are moving ahead in coordination with the Western scheme.

“This hypocritical combination stands out clearly in the government [of Rohani] – revolutionary national enthusiasm [combined with] whispers aimed at trapping critics of the government into dealing with marginal issues to render them passive… to the point where neither the elites nor the people will ask why the negotiations are at an impasse, so that in the atmosphere of passivity and obliviousness it will be possible to reach an agreement, no matter what the cost. [Therefore], by the time the elites and the people wake up and ask what happened, what we gave, and what we got, it will be all over [that is, the deal will be signed]. Most statesmen oppose this harmful approach.

“The government and the president have already learned from the experience acquired in their 14 months in office. They are now at a point of evaluation and course correction. It is always beneficial to prevent damage and dangerous conduct. The leader [Khamenei]… said that the American regime, which stands with Israel, is the exception to Iran’s foreign policy of engagement. The accuracy of his declaration [that we cannot talk to either the U.S. or Israel] was revealed to all over time. Obeying this instruction is the path that will benefit the government and bring it honor. Otherwise, [the Rohani government] will owe a debt to the arrogant ones outside [Iran] and to the seekers of fitna within [Iran], who are skilled in this matter; in this way [i.e. if it talks to the U.S., Iran] will gain no victory and no prestige…”[12]

Website Affiliated With Ideological Camp: The Pragmatists Are Trying To Remove Khamenei

On October 29, 2014, Afsaran.ir, which is close to Iranian security circles, published an article titled “What Is The Real Objective Of The Line Of Obliviousness [i.e. the pragmatic camp] – Taking The Majlis Or Replacing The Supreme Leader?” The article hinted that Foreign Minister Zarif is party to a Western plot to depose Khamenei, using the pragmatic camp’s strategy for dealing with the Americans, saying that if no agreement is reached, then the ideological stream that opposes rapprochement with the West will seize key political positions in Iran.[13]

The article stated: “Although America’s hostility towards the leader of the revolution [Khamenei] is nothing new, and they have acknowledged this a number of times… the [Americans’] attacks [against Iran] since the New York negotiations… [including] Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s interview on the Voice of America in Persian and [Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s] entreaties before America’s Council of Foreign Relations have colored it a different hue. Besides the abovementioned incidents, [the Iranian-American academic] Vali Nasr and other American senior officials and influential figures have mentioned Iranian leader Khamenei as the main reason why no agreement has been reached, going so far as to consider replacing him.

“Nasr said: In December 2015, elections will be held in Iran for the Iranian Assembly of Experts, which will appoint Iran’s next leader. He also said: The next [Assembly of Experts] election can change the political direction in Iran.’

“Therefore, it must be asked: Who are the people [in Iran] who directed the policymakers of the enemy [i.e. the U.S.] towards supporting this strategy of deposing the leader Khamenei during direct negotiations with America?

“After consulting with which Iranians does America now consider the nuclear negotiations as an obstacle to its realization of its objectives, and as fertile ground for changing the course of the [Islamic] Revolution [i.e. the regime]?

“In all honesty, is the foreign minister really aiming, in his request to the American Congress to cooperate with the line of obliviousness [i.e. the pragmatic camp], to [obtain American] help so that they [i.e. the pragmatic camp] can win the Majlis elections? Or is he, like Nasr, really referring to a change in the makeup of the Iranian Assembly of Experts [so that it will remove or replace Khamenei]?

“Maybe some within Iran are not yet speaking as frankly as Nasr.”[14]

Basij Posts Signs In Iranian Cities Saying ‘Know The Shimr Of Our Time’

Also, the Basij has recently posted signs in Tehran and Shiraz stating, “Know The Shimr [who in Shi’ite legend murdered Imam Hussein] Of Our Time”; the signs clearly depict President Obama and the dome of the U.S. Capitol.[15]

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Endnotes:

[1] See October 23, 2014 statement by U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, State.gov/p/us/rm/2014/233306.htm.

[2] Most reports refer to 4,000; however, two Iranian sources have referred to at least 6,000. Majlis Nuclear Committee head Ebrahim Karkhanehi reported that P5+1 had agreed to approve the operation of 6,000 to 9,000 centrifuges. Tasnim, Iran, November 2, 2014.

[3] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1127, Iran’s Pragmatic Camp Calls For Exploiting Obama’s Weakness To Attain Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement On Tehran’s Terms, October 26, 2014.

[4] The Shi’ite legend of Karbala underpins Iranian culture, particularly political culture, in post-Islamic Revolution Iran; it tells of the first Shi’ite martyr, Imam Hussein Ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet, at Karbala in 680 CE, after he demanded power and refused to accept the authority of Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu’awiyah.

[5] Shargh (Iran), November 2, 2014. An anonymous party familiar with dealings in the Foreign Ministry told Tabnak in an interview that Khorram is not an advisor to Foreign Minister Zarif, and that his views do not represent the negotiating team or the foreign ministry. Tabnak, Iran, November 4, 2014.

[6] President.ir, October 22, 2014.

[7] Kayhan (Iran), October 23, 2014.

[8] Jomhouri-ye Eslami, (Iran), October 27, 2014.

[9] Tasnim (Iran), October 28, 2014.

[10] Kayhan (Iran), November 6, 2014.

[11] Recently, the ideological camp succeeded in removing Rohani’s science minister for having a record as a reformist.

[12] Kayhan (Iran), October 28, 2014.

[13] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1127, Iran’s Pragmatic Camp Calls For Exploiting Obama’s Weakness To Attain Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement On Tehran’s Terms, October 26, 2014.

[14] Afsaran.ir, October 29, 2014.

[15] IRNA (Iran) November 2, 2014; Tasnim, October 30, 2014.

Categories: Ideology, Iran, Iranian nukes, Israel, Kerry, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Supreme Leader, U.S. Congress
Tags: Iran, Nukes, Rouhani, Supreme leader

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