Archive for the ‘Iranian proxies’ category

Obama on Iran and Syria: See no evil

June 28, 2015

Obama on Iran and Syria: See no evil, Israel Hayom, Elliott Abrams, June 28, 2015

(Obama sees evil only where he wants to see it, starting with his position that Islam is the religion of peace. — DM)

See no evil — once again. Iran’s role is systematically ignored or underplayed, because (as ‎Hof puts it), “The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran.” Namely, the nuclear ‎deal.

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

The slaughter in Syria and the awful human rights violations in Iran cannot be denied by ‎the Obama administration, but they sure can be downplayed and ignored.‎

On the Iran point, consider the release yesterday, four months late, of the State ‎Department’s annual human rights reports. The reports were presented by Secretary of ‎State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Tom Malinowski. The Iran report is ‎tough. Here’s an excerpt:

The most significant human rights problems were severe restrictions on civil liberties, ‎including the freedoms of assembly, speech, religion, and press; limitations on the citizens’ ‎ability to change the government peacefully through free and fair elections; and disregard ‎for the physical integrity of persons, whom authorities arbitrarily and unlawfully detained, ‎tortured, or killed.‎

“Other reported human rights problems included: disappearances; cruel, inhuman, or ‎degrading treatment or punishment, including judicially sanctioned amputation and ‎flogging; politically motivated violence and repression; harsh and life-threatening ‎conditions in detention and prison facilities, with instances of deaths in custody; arbitrary ‎arrest and lengthy pretrial detention, sometimes incommunicado; continued impunity of ‎the security forces; denial of fair public trial, sometimes resulting in executions without due ‎process; the lack of an independent judiciary; political prisoners and detainees; ineffective ‎implementation of civil judicial procedures and remedies; arbitrary interference with ‎privacy, family, home, and correspondence; severe restrictions on freedoms of speech ‎‎(including via the internet) and press; harassment and arrest of journalists; censorship and ‎media content restrictions; severe restrictions on academic freedom; severe restrictions on ‎the freedoms of assembly and association; some restrictions on freedom of movement; ‎official corruption and lack of government transparency; constraints on investigations by ‎international and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) into alleged violations of human ‎rights; legal and societal discrimination and violence against women, ethnic and religious ‎minorities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons based on perceived ‎sexual orientation and gender identity; incitement to anti-Semitism; trafficking in persons; ‎and severe restrictions on the exercise of labor rights.‎”

Iran is of course an important country, so how much of this did Kerry and Malinowski ‎mention in their own opening remarks? Not a word. Not one. Kerry mentioned about 10 ‎countries and “the LGBTI community,” but not Iran. Malinowski mentioned about 20 ‎countries, but not Iran (until pressed by reporters). Do we think this is accidental, that ‎neither man mentioned Iran? How likely is that?‎

Yesterday also brought another superb analysis of events in Syria, and U.S. policy there, ‎from Fred Hof of the Atlantic Council — once the administration’s lead man and “special adviser” on Syria. It is titled “Syria: Civilians Pay the Price,” Hof quotes from the June ‎‎23 report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab ‎Republic. And here are the excerpts he quotes:

“The government continues to direct attacks towards locations where civilians are likely ‎to congregate, among them, bus stations, marketplaces, and bakeries.”‎

‎”In particular, the continuing use of barrel bombs in aerial campaigns against whole areas, ‎rather than specific targets, is in violation of international humanitarian law and, as ‎previously documented, amounts to the war crime of targeting civilians.”‎

“The larger strategy [of the regime] appears to be one of making life unbearable for civilians ‎who remain inside armed-group controlled areas.”

“The previously documented pattern of attacks indicating that government forces have ‎deliberately targeted hospitals, medical units, and ambulances remains an entrenched ‎feature of the conflict.”‎

“Government sieges are imposed in a coordinated manner. … In particular, government ‎forces have refused to allow aid deliveries of essential medicines and surgical supplies. … Government authorities act in direct breach of binding international humanitarian law ‎obligations to ensure that wounded and sick persons are collected and cared for, and to ‎ensure the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief.”

“Everyday decisions — whether to go visit a neighbor, to send your child to school, to step out ‎to buy bread — have become, potentially, decisions about life and death. Large numbers of ‎children have been killed in bombardments of their homes, schools, and playgrounds.”‎

What’s the link to Iran? Hof explains:‎

“The administration also knows that Iran is the principal foreign facilitator of regime war ‎crimes and crimes against humanity. It is the Iranian factor that accounts, in large ‎measure, for the administration’s decision to leave Syrian civilians entirely at the mercy of ‎Tehran’s Syrian client. The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran. So Syrian ‎civilians get to pay the price.‎

“One searches White House and State Department press conferences in vain for any ‎systematic examination of this issue. Even though Russian leverage is as limited as its good ‎intentions, one wonders how prominently civilian protection is featured in Secretary of State ‎John Kerry’s periodic encounters with his Russian counterpart. Even though nuclear talks ‎are important, one wonders if Tehran’s facilitation of Assad regime criminality arises at all ‎in official U.S.-Iranian exchanges. Has there been a systematic diplomatic campaign aimed ‎at persuading Tehran and Moscow to oblige their client to respect pertinent United Nations ‎Security Council resolutions? Is Iran being asked to force its client to stop barrel bombing ‎and lift starvation sieges?‎”

See no evil — once again. Iran’s role is systematically ignored or underplayed, because (as ‎Hof puts it), “The administration has other fish to fry with Tehran.” Namely, the nuclear ‎deal.

This is disgraceful, as Hof states with restraint but with force:‎<

“The indelible stain that can mark the Obama legacy forever on this issue is nothing ‎compared to the terror and suffering that can be mitigated if the president elects to try. ‎Whether the motivation to act springs from legacy concerns, degrading and destroying ‎ISIL, or profound revulsion over what is happening to children and their parents, is ‎unimportant. The Iranians can negotiate while facilitating mass murder. No doubt, they can ‎do so if the greatest power on earth pushes back a bit. President Obama should act now to ‎protect Syrian civilians.‎”

Or as he puts it more angrily, what do those who complain about this policy want? “They ‎want … to persuade the president of the United States to give a damn about suffering, ‎terrified human beings.”

Let’s stop protecting, ignoring, and downplaying the murderous role Iran is playing in Syria ‎and the terrible human rights violations taking place in Iran itself.‎

Barack Obama’s Unholy Alliance: A Romance With Islamism

June 26, 2015

Barack Obama’s Unholy Alliance: A Romance With Islamism, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 26, 2015

(But Obama can make everything right by restraining carbon dioxide emissions but not The Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear weaponization. Right? DM)

Toward the end of September 2012, Barack Obama finally came to New York City after skipping it during the 9/11 anniversary. He had made it out to the city the previous week for a celebrity fundraiser and an appearance on Letterman[1] and then back again for a taping of The View while turning down a meeting with Netanyahu who did not have a talk show or an envelope filled with money.[2]

The next day, while at least one of the Americans killed in Benghazi had yet to be buried,[3] he declared at the UN General Assembly, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”[4]

That statement also encompassed the agenda of the Benghazi killers, the terrorists who would attack Charlie Hebdo and the “Draw the Prophet” contest in Texas along with all the murderous censors of Mohammed determined that the future should not belong to those who slander their holy warlord.

It was Obama’s only mention of “Islam” in a speech addressing the brutal murder of four Americans by Islamic terrorists in a terror campaign targeting American diplomatic facilities on the anniversary of the original 9/11 attacks in Benghazi. The 9/11 attacks, like so many others, had begun with a cry of “Allahu Akbar.”[5]

When the killing in Benghazi was done, the Jihadists left behind the slogan “Allahu Akbar” or “Allah is Greater” scrawled on the walls of the American compound.[6] These were the same words that Obama had recited “with a first-rate accent” for the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof. Obama had called it “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.”[7] On that too, the murderers of four Americans agreed with him.

Those who disagreed and were to be denied a future included Mark Basseley Youssef, a Coptic Christian, whose YouTube trailer for a movie critical of Islam was blamed by the administration for the attacks.

Two days after Obama’s UN speech, Youssef was arrested and held without bail. The order for his arrest came from the top. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had told Charles Woods, the father of murdered SEAL Tyrone Woods, “We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.”[8]

The ACLU, which had developed deep Islamist connections,[9] sent a letter to Hillary Clinton thanking her for her support of freedom of speech.[10]

The Supreme Court’s “Miracle Decision”[11] had thrown out a blasphemy ban for movies, but Obama’s new unofficial blasphemy ban targeted only those movies that offended Islam. The government had joined the terrorists in seeking to deny such movies and their creators a future.

At the United Nations, Obama had compared the filmmaker to the terrorists. He had used a Gandhi quote to assert that, “Intolerance is itself a form of violence.”[12] Americans who criticized Islam’s violent tendencies could be considered as bad as Muslim terrorists and if intolerance of Islam was a form of violence, then it could be criminalized and suppressed. That became the administration’s priority.

It took the administration years to make its first arrest of a Benghazi perpetrator,[13] but only days to urge Google to take down the Innocence of Muslims video[14] and weeks to arrest the man behind it.

In a little over a week, there was already a State Department apology video airing in Pakistan.[15] It took until the next month for the United States to even get access to the Benghazi compound.[16] Instead of going on the offensive against the attackers, Obama went on the offensive against critics of Islam.

His administration not only blamed a YouTube video to distract from its failures in Benghazi, but to exploit the crisis in order to suppress the truth about Islamic terrorism.

Obama had illegally fought a war to aid Islamic terrorists and was covering up his role in the Islamization of Libya by the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda[17] and eventually even ISIS.[18] He exploited a terrorist attack against Americans caused by his Islamization of Libya to advance the Islamization of America.

The new Islamized Libya, where Christians were beheaded and churches were bombed,[19] was what a nation that denied the future to those who did not accept the prophet of Islam really looked like.

Obama’s Islamist regime change had denied the Christians and non-Muslims of Libya a future. Among those non-Muslims who lost their future in Libya were four murdered Americans.

At the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama attacked Christianity for the Crusades in the presence of the foreign minister of Sudan, a genocidal government whose Muslim Brotherhood leader had massacred so many Christians and others that he had been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.[20] [21] And he told Christians that they were obligated to condemn insults to Islam.[22]

Some persecuted Christians could flee to America, but where would they flee to when Obama began denying a future to those who did not accept the moral and religious authority of the prophet of Islam?

Benghazi was not the first Islamic terror attack against Americans, but it was the first time that our government responded in the Islamic fashion by locking up a Christian for blaspheming against Islam.

Blaming the video turned a public relations disaster into a policy win. The blame was shifted from Obama’s backing for Islamist regime change in Libya to critics of Islam. Not only was the cause of the attack covered up, but Obama’s ideological agenda was advanced by an attack he had helped cause.

Stand With the Muslims

Our current conflict with Islamic terrorists is not caused by joblessness, poverty, the climate, dictators or any of the other familiar excuses. Instead it’s caused by the unholy alliance between Islam and the left.

Obama embodied that unholy alliance as no other occupant of the Oval Office since Carter had.

When discussing Muslim complaints about FBI counterterrorism operations, Obama believed that they needed assurances that, “I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”[23] Counterterrorism with its emphasis on exposing plots and potential terrorists singled out Muslims. His preferred form of counterterrorism empowered Islamists while shifting the blame to Americans.

Muslims did not need to change who they were to reject terrorism. Americans instead had to Islamize. The source of tension was not Muslim terrorism, but American ignorance and prejudice toward Islam.

Obama insisted that Americans needed to educate themselves on Islam because their country was “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Not only was his claim false,[24] but it implied that America needed to be defined by Islam and that Americans needed to integrate Islam into their own identity.

As he put it in Cairo, “Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”[25]

The Obama model did not require that Americans become Muslims, but that they make Islam a part of their culture so that, like him,   they would be able to quote the Koran or recite the Islamic call to prayer.

Obama rejected the secular common ground championed by European republics. Secularism had been used in America to limit the presence of Christianity and Judaism in public life, but the left did not accept its logic of neutral spaces when it came to Islam. Islam was treated as a culture rather than a religion. Excluding Christianity excluded a belief. Excluding Islam, unacceptably excluded a culture and a race. The new diverse American identity being constructed by the left would not be truly diverse without Islam.

If France insisted on being a secular republic, America would at least partially become a Muslim country.

After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Obama’s failure to attend the Unity March put Islamist feelings ahead of freedom of speech. Instead his administration tried to shift attention to a Countering Violent Extremism summit stacked with Islamists[26] [27] as its preferred response to Islamic terrorism.

The White House had previously been critical of Hebdo’s Mohammed cartoons.[28] While it still paid lip service to freedom of speech, in Paris, Benghazi and Garland[29] Islam came ahead of universal freedoms.

During the Cairo speech, Obama had explicitly rejected the French secular formula, stating, “It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit — for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.”

“Likewise, we can’t disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism,” he added.[30]

Christians, whose ability to practice their religion has been unprecedentedly attacked under his administration, might have found that statement disingenuous, but it was an exemption exclusively extended to Muslims. His administration might repress Christianity, but never Islam. While it accused Christians of discrimination, it fought for the Islamic right to discriminate against women.

Obama did not acknowledge the Islamic violence and repression against women that was the true basis for France’s Burqa ban. One survey had found that 77 percent of girls in France who wore the Hijab did so because of threats from Islamist groups.[31] He also ignored the growing problem of Muslim honor killings[32] and female genital mutilation (FGM) in the United States. The half-million girls and women in this country at risk for FGM[33]mattered less than enforcing Islamist standards for covering up women.

While his administration vigorously targeted any employer or school that interfered with the wearing of the Hijab,[34] [35] it showed no similar dedication in any campaign against FGM or honor killings of women.

Like the Saudi religious police who wanted to let teenage girls burn rather than allow them to escape without proper Islamic covering,[36] Obama placed the Hijab above the lives of Muslim women and girls.

The administration had made the decision to protect Islamic sexism, rather than Muslim women.

While the administration cracked down on nuns, it was suing towns over zoning ordinances that interfered with building mega-mosques.[37] [38] [39]Even though the regulations did not single out mosques or Islam, the administration stepped in specifically when Islamists wanted to bully Americans.

If the French still clung to the idea of a secular republic, Obama had chosen to Islamize America. Those who resisted were faced with huge fines and even prison. America might not be one of the world’s biggest Muslim countries, but under Obama it was beginning to act more like Saudi Arabia or Iran.

In Cairo, Obama had declared that, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”[40]

He had committed to waging a constant campaign against those who spoke out against Islam.

By the time that the Benghazi attacks took place, the pattern of promoting Islam, denying Islamic terrorism and silencing critics had become the administration’s twisted version of counterterrorism.

This brand of counterterrorism insisted that the biggest threat was not the terrorists, but the truth. Identifying Islamic terrorists as such would increase Muslim alienation and terrorist recruitment. There was nothing violent about Islam and yet videos and cartoons offensive to Islam could not be tolerated because they would lead to violence; a violence whose Islamic nature would be fervently denied.

Muslim terrorist groups, from ISIS on down, were deemed un-Islamic. Lone wolf attackers were characterized as ignorant of Islam. To disagree was to aid the terrorists, as Obama’s aides suggested.[41] Counterterrorism came to mean lying about Islam. Anyone who defined the problem could, like the “Draw the Prophet” cartoonists in Texas or Mark Basseley Youssef, be accused of having caused it.

The lie could not be challenged or the bombs would go off. Tell the truth and the terrorists win.

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), the administration’s alternative to European integration, outsourced domestic counterterrorism policy to the Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups and transformed pandering to them into the core of our domestic counterterrorism strategy.[42]

Violent extremism was a vague and undefined term. Countering it was an even more vague and undefined policy that had far less to do with phoning tips to the FBI, an act that CAIR, a leading administration Muslim Brotherhood ally, had come out against,[43] than with promoting Islam.

Since Islamic terrorism was un-Islamic, promoting Islam was the best means of fighting Islamic radicalization. The terrorists had “perverted” Islam and had to be countered with authentic Islam.[44] Radicalization was caused by Muslim alienation and the only cure for it was Islamizing America.

CVE could Islamize unlikely agencies of the United States government by redirecting their priorities. When Obama told the NASA Administrator that one of his top priorities had to be making Muslims “feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering” that was CVE in action.[45]

A CVE conference held the day after Benghazi promoted touring Muslim rappers associated with a Muslim Brotherhood front group who were sponsored by the State Department.[46] [47] [48] [49] Money that should have been used to secure Americans at risk in Benghazi was wasted on Islamist self-promotion.

It was speculated that possibly hundreds of millions of dollars were being thrown at CVE activities.[50] And CVE had not only failed in its mission, but invariably mainstreamed the worst elements in Islam.

By the post-Hebdo CVE conference, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications had been turned over[51] to Rashad Hussain, a Muslim Brotherhood linked official,[52] and before long its “Think Again Turn Away” Twitter account was promoting everything from anti-Semitism to Al Qaeda.[53] [54] [55]

Meanwhile, echoing Obama’s mandate to “educate ourselves more effectively on Islam,”[56] the educational system was being bent to promote the practice of Islam to American children.[57]

Parents across the country discovered that schools were taking their children to mosques where they were being taught to participate in Islamic worship.[58] After American soldiers had fought to liberate Afghan women, American girls in this country were being dressed in burqas.[59]

Obama had told a Cairo audience, which included the Muslim Brotherhood, that he was rejecting the French model of protecting women from Islamic coercion. Instead the United States had adopted the Brotherhood’s model of urging American women to adopt Islamist practices.

His idea of standing with the Muslims was transforming counterterrorism into a tool of Islamization.

The Brotherhood Administration

In August 2013, Al-Wafd, a paper linked to one of Egypt’s more liberal parties which supports equal rights for women and Christians, accused Obama of having close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. [60]

A year earlier, Rose El-Youssef magazine, founded by an early Egyptian feminist, had compiled a list of six Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the administration.[61] [62]

Beyond Huma Abedin, Hillary’s close confidante and aide, the list included; Arif Alikhan, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Policy Development; Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Rashad Hussain, formerly the U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference and currently the Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications; Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.

These were the types of accusations that the media tended to dismissively associate with the right, but both Egyptian publications were on the other side of the spectrum.

Egyptian liberals were the ones brandishing placards of a bearded Kerry in Taliban clothes or a photoshopped Obama with a Salafist beard. The protesters Obama had supposedly sought to support by calling for Mubarak to step down were crowding the streets accusing him of backing terrorists.

What made the Egyptian liberals who had seen America as their ally in pursuing reform come to view it as an enemy? The angry Egyptian protesters were accusing Obama of supporting a dictator; the original sin of American foreign policy that his Cairo Speech and the Arab Spring had been built on rejecting.

The progressive critiques of American foreign policy insisted that we were hated for supporting dictators. Now their own man was actually hated for supporting a Muslim Brotherhood dictator.

By 2014, 85% of Egyptians disliked America. Only 10% still rated America favorably.[63] It was a shift from the heady days of the Arab Spring when America had slid into positive numbers for the first time.[64]

Obama had run for office promising to repair our image abroad. As a candidate, he had claimed that other countries believed that “America is part of what has gone wrong in our world.” And yet the true wrongness was present in that same speech when he urged, “a new dawn in the Middle East.”[65]

That dawn came with the light of burning churches at the hands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Under Obama, America really did become part of what had gone wrong by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a crime that Obama will not admit to and that the media will not report on.

The Muslim Brotherhood was born out of Egypt and yet Egyptian views of it are dismissed by the media. Despite the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s final orgy of brutality as President Mohammed Morsi clung to power, despite the burning churches and tortured protesters, it is still described as “moderate.”

Morsi, who had called on Egyptians to nurse their children on hatred of the Jews,[66] was a moderate. Sheikh Rachid al-Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennahda, the Tunisian flavor of the Muslim Brotherhood, who had called for the extermination of the Jews “male, female and children,”[67] was also a “moderate.” Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, went one better with a fatwa approving even the murder of unborn Jews.[68] Qaradawi was another moderate.[69]

The only Muslim Brotherhood leader who hasn’t been described as a moderate is Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the ICC for genocide and crimes against humanity.[70]

But if the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t a moderate organization, if it is indeed violent and bigoted, why did Obama alienate Egyptians and others across the region by supporting it? The angry Egyptians in the street had an explanation, but they had failed to understand how deeply the infiltration truly went.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups, such as the MSA and CAIR, had become so entangled with the left that it was impossible for the latter to wash its hands of the former. Not only the administration, but its political allies on the left, such as the Center for American Progress[71] and the ACLU[72], had been infiltrated by Islamists. The administration’s infiltration was a symptom of the problem, not its cause.

Obama sits at the center of a web of intertwined progressive organizations. This web has infiltrated the government and it in turn has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Consider the case of Faiz Shakir, who went from the Harvard Islamic Society where he helped fundraise for a Muslim Brotherhood front group funneling money to Hamas, the local Muslim Brotherhood franchise, to Editor-in-Chief and Vice President at the Center for American Progress, heading up the nerve center of the left’s messaging apparatus, to a Senior Adviser to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.[73] The next step after that is the White House.

Time magazine described the Center for American Progress as Obama’s idea factory, crediting it with forming his talking points and his government.[74] In an administration powered by leftist activists, the integration between the Muslim Brotherhood and the left resulted in a pro-Brotherhood policy.

Egyptian liberals had expected that the administration’s withdrawal of support for Mubarak would benefit them, but the American left had become far closer to the Muslim Brotherhood than to them. Instead of aiding the left, it aided the Brotherhood. The Egyptian liberals were a world away while the Brotherhood’s activists sat in the left’s offices and spoke in the name of all the Muslims in America.

The left had made common cause with the worst elements in the Muslim world. It formed alliances with Muslim Brotherhood groups, accepting them as the only valid representatives of Muslim communities while denouncing their critics, both Muslim and non-Muslim, as Islamophobes.

The Arab Spring disaster, from the Muslim Brotherhood brutality in Egypt and Tunisia, the bloody civil war in Libya to the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, was the fruit of this tainted red-green alliance.

The four Americans murdered in Benghazi, the American hostages beheaded by ISIS along with the countless Christians, Yazidis and others butchered, raped and enslaved had fallen victim to the left’s support for the Brotherhood’s political ambitions, tyrannies and holy wars.

The Brotherhood Spring

“What we are witnessing these days of consecutive revolutions is a great and glorious event, and it is most probable, according to reality and history, that it will encompass the majority of the Islamic world with the will of Allah, and thanks to Allah things are strongly heading towards the exit of Muslims from being under the control of America,” Osama bin Laden wrote of the Arab Spring.[75]

“The fall of the remaining tyrants in the region became a must with the will of Allah, and it was the beginning of a new era for the whole nation,” he added.[76]

What was happening though had less to do with the will of Allah and more to do with the will of Obama.

Allah had not come down to Cairo to cut Arab allies loose, nor did he reserve seats for the Muslim Brotherhood or force regime change.[77] Osama credited Allah, but he really should have thanked Obama.

Both Obama and Osama agreed on the need to remove the current leaders of allied Arab governments and both men saw the Arab Spring as a vindication of their visions for the future. But the wave of new Islamist governments friendly to terrorists that swept across the region vindicated Osama, not Obama.

In Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannouchi , the leader of the Islamist Ennahda party, who had once declared that “Crusader America” was the “enemy of Islam”[78] had come into his own. In the past he had been denied a visa to enter the United States,[79] but in the age of Obama he was feted at an event attended by, among others, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.[80]

Only a few years earlier, he had stated that the Arab Spring would “threaten the extinction of Israel.”[81]

“The Arab region will get rid of the bacillus of Israel. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, said that Israel will disappear by the year 2027. I say that this date may be too far away, and Israel may disappear before this. “[82]

The Sheikh had already called for the mass murder of Jews, stating that, “There are no civilians in Israel. The population—males, females and children—are the army reserve soldiers, and thus can be killed.”[83]

Once in power, Ennahda chose to turn a blind eye to Islamist violence.[84] On September 11, 2012, as the Jihadist attacks on American embassies and diplomatic missions swept around the Muslim world, the embassy in Tunis came under attack. And help didn’t come from the Ennahda government.

Instead Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was forced to place an urgent phone call to the secular president, a ceremonial position in Tunisia, who dispatched his own presidential guard to protect the embassy.[85] An ungrateful Hillary then delivered a speech praising the Islamists and thanking the Islamist government, rather than the president, who had risked his own safety to protect the embassy.[86]

The attack and the response by Tunisia’s Islamist government should have been anticipated.

In the past, Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannouchi had urged, “We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.”[87]

That was exactly what the Jihadists had attempted to do on September 11, 2012 in Tunis and across the region with the complicity of the new Arab Spring governments Obama had helped bring to power.

A similar pattern of complicity emerged in Egypt where the attackers were allowed to scale the walls of the American Embassy in Cairo.[88] While the worst attack of that day took place in Benghazi, where Jihadists were in control of the city, in Tunis and Cairo a different breed of Jihadists had become the government and they had little interest in defending American lives or property.

While much of the controversy over the murder of four Americans in Benghazi has centered around the failure by the State Department to secure the diplomatic mission, that attack and many of the others came out of a volatile environment created by the empowerment of Islamists through the Arab Spring.

Nowhere was there more at stake for Obama’s “New Beginning” with the Islamists than in Cairo, but by reaching out to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, he was coming dangerously close to Al Qaeda.

The State Department’s 2008 strategic assessment stated that, “Although Usama bin Ladin remained the group’s ideological figurehead, Zawahiri has emerged as AQ’s strategic and operational planner.”[89] Even Osama bin Laden had been a Muslim Brotherhood member,[90] but after his death the organization’s leadership would become a more purely Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood affair.

Saif al Adel, the interim Emir of Al Qaeda, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current Al Qaeda leader, were products of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its splinter group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The brother of the Al Qaeda chief, Mohammed al-Zawahiri, helped organize the attack on the American embassy in Cairo[91] and allegedly engaged in discussions with Mohammed Morsi over an alliance with Al Qaeda.[92]

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a Muslim Brotherhood splinter group which merged with Al Qaeda, later reemerged under different leadership as the Islamic Party while the terrorist group Gamaa Islamiya or the Islamic Group formed the Building and Development Party and allied with Morsi.

Morsi pardoned Mostafa Hamza[93] who had ordered Gamaa Islamiya’s Luxor Massacre in which terrorists mutilated and disemboweled European and Japanese visitors. The massacre was reportedly arranged by Ayman al-Zawahiri and funded by Osama bin Laden.[94] Morsi’s alliance with the terror group even led him to attempt to appoint a Gamaa Islamiya member as Governor of Luxor.[95]

Even though Gamaa Islamiya was still listed as a terrorist group, one of its lawmakers, Hani Nour Eldin, received a visa to enter the United States and met with senior Obama administration officials including then Deputy National Security Adviser and current White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough.[96]

The terrorist asked McDonough about releasing Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the infamous Blind Sheikh who was the leader of Gamaa Islamiya, serving a life sentence for plotting attacks across New York City, after his followers bombed the World Trade Center.[97] Shortly thereafter, Morsi told a cheering crowd that he would work to free Rahman. The State Department was reportedly considering the deal.[98]

The thin firewall between the supposed extremists and moderates, between the political Islamists and the terrorists, between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, had worn so thin that it barely existed. Instead members of terrorist groups were running Egypt and openly petitioning the United States to free the figure most closely associated with the World Trade Center bombing in the minds of Americans.

And yet despite the Muslim Brotherhood’s torture and killing of protesters, its alignment with its fellow Hamas terrorists in Gaza and its flirtation with Al Qaeda and Iran, Obama continued to support it.

After videos surfaced of Morsi calling for the destruction of Israel and urging hatred of Jews as a form of worship of Allah, Secretary of State John Kerry defended the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to his regime.

“Not everything lends itself to a simple classification, black or white,” Kerry said. “We have critical interests with Egypt.[99]

Statements like “Resistance is the correct and only way to free the land from the filth of the Jews”[100] should have been easy to classify, but instead the Muslim Brotherhood’s anti-Semitism became a matter of ambiguity and nuance for an administration determined to continue aiding the terror group.

“President Morsi has issued two statements,” Kerry said, “to clarify those comments and we had a group of senators who met with him the other day who spent a good part of the conversation in relatively heated discussion with him about it.”[101]

Kerry neglected to mention that during the “heated discussion,” Morsi had suggested that the criticism was only taking place because the American media was under the control of the Jews.[102]

While Kerry had insisted at the time that the weapons transfers were necessary to safeguard American interests in Egypt and even help Israel, when another popular uprising toppled Morsi and replaced him with a new non-Islamist government, delivery of the jets was put on hold.[103] [104] This move made it clear that Obama and Kerry had not sought to supply the jets to Egypt, but to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Arab Spring had been intended as a vehicle for bringing the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied Islamists to power, not only in Tunisia and Egypt, but across the region.

Backing for Gaddafi’s overthrow had been bought by the shift of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group from Al Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood under the auspices of the Brotherhood’s Sheikh Qaradawi.[105] [106] When the mission in Benghazi needed protection, the task was handed to the Brotherhood’s February 17 Martyrs Brigade[107] [108] which had been employed by the National Transitional Council.[109]

Closely interrelated with Ansar Al-Sharia,[110] the Jihadists that launched the attack against the mission in Benghazi, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade has been accused of complicity in their attack.[111]

The NTC had been Obama’s choice for regime change[112] and its draft constitution stated that Sharia law would be Libya’s law.[113] The Benghazi attack was an early warning of a larger conflict that would see the Muslim Brotherhood and its Jihadist allies take control of Libya’s capital.[114] It was a battle in a larger war.

Across the Middle East, the Brotherhood reaped the political harvest of the Arab Spring.

In Morocco, the Arab Spring brought the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Justice and Development Party (PJD) to power.[115] Abdelilah Benkirane, its Head of Government, was a former member of Chabiba Islamia; an Islamist group working to create an Islamic State, some of whose members would go on to join the Al Qaeda interlinked Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group.

Like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Tunisia’s Ennahda, PJD was depicted as a moderate Islamist group. Little mention was made of its close ties to Hamas.[116] Benkirane had described Israel as a “hostile state”, praised Hamas and stated that Moroccans want to wage Jihad alongside the genocidal terrorists.[117]

The PJD’s 2007 platform had called for imposing Islamic law on Morocco and the destruction of Israel.[118] Even after coming to power, PJD continued to maintain close ties with Hamas. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal attended its first conference[119] and met with Benkirane.[120]

Such relationships between Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood governments were natural and inevitable. Hamas was a fellow Muslim Brotherhood embryonic government. By aiding the rise of Muslim Brotherhood governments, Obama was creating state supporters for the anti-Semitic terror group.

In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted from power. Elections made the Brotherhood’s Al-Islah into the country’s second largest party.[121] A key figure in Al-Islah was Sheikh Zindani, an Osama bin Laden mentor listed by the US as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” who had played a role in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole and Yemen’s local September 11, 2012 attack on the US embassy. [122] [123]

The Arab Spring led to Muslim Brotherhood political victories putting the group’s various arms on a path to controlling much of the Middle East. However, they fared poorly when the political conflicts grew violent, losing to popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, to the Houthis in Yemen and to ISIS in Syria.

These conflicts often flared up when the Muslim Brotherhood showed its true colors. The Brotherhood, despite its violent rhetoric and roots, produced better manipulators than warriors. It was adept at convincing American officials, the leftist opposition, tribal leaders and freelance Jihadists to follow its agenda, but sooner or later its partners realized that it sought absolute power and could not be trusted.

Obama never realized that about the Muslim Brotherhood or perhaps he chose not to realize it.

American Guilt

Beyond the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama sought to cultivate ties with the worst elements in the region.

The common element that attracted him to the Muslim Brotherhood and the mullahs of Iran, despite their being on opposite sides of the Syrian Civil War, was their mutual enmity toward America.

While the foreign policy of the right attempts to secure national interests, the foreign policy of the left seeks to atone for national crimes. It was not strategy that drove his outreach to enemies of our country, but guilt. To the left, both the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran were victims of our foreign policy.

The Muslim Brotherhood had suffered because of our backing for Sadat and Mubarak. Iran’s clerical tyrants resented us because of our support for the Shah.

Obama had taken up the Muslim Brotherhood’s cause as far back as the 2002 anti-war speech in which he had demanded that Bush stop Mubarak from “suppressing dissent.”[124] He told his Iran negotiators to understand that the Islamic terrorist state feels “vulnerable” because of the way that America “meddled in first their democracy and then in supporting the Shah and then in supporting Iraq and Saddam during that extremely brutal war.”[125] Iran and the Brotherhood were not our enemies; they were our victims.

Any Islamic enemy of America could count on the left’s sympathy and support for its victimhood.

President Bush’s denunciation of the Axis of Evil had drawn Democrats to rally around Axis members. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi visited Bashar Assad at a time when the Bush administration was seeking to pressure the Syrian dictator to shut down the flow of Al Qaeda suicide bombers murdering American soldiers.[126] And John Kerry became even more notorious for his serial pandering to Assad.[127]

But the left’s best efforts were reserved for the worst Islamic member of the Axis of Evil.

The Tehran Trio of three key administration foreign policy figures, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Sec-retary Chuck Hagel had become notorious for their pro-Iran advocacy before joining the admin-istration.[128] [129] The Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the White House, but so had the Iran Lobby in the form of the American-Iranian Council.

Animated by American guilt, the left’s foreign policy demanded a constant search for enemies to empower. This disastrous policy was less pro-Muslim than it was anti-American. The alliances that it made did not follow the consistent line of Islamic theology, but the inconsistent line of appeasement.

Every enemy of America, no matter how evil, had a part to play in dismantling our national security.

Out of Gitmo

In his first election, Obama had many endorsements, but in his second election only one name counted.

During the second presidential debate, he was asked what he had done about rising prices. Obama replied that, “Osama bin Laden is dead.” When challenged on Benghazi, he again brought up bin Laden. During the first debate, he brought out bin Laden in response to a question about partisan gridlock.[130]

By the third debate, he was so drunk on secondhand heroism that he boasted that, “I said, if I got bin Laden in our sights, I would take that shot.”[131] Obama was all but starring in his own imaginary action movie. Voters were left with the impression that he had ordered the execution of the terrorist leader.

But Obama’s real plans for Osama had actually been very different. He had not intended to use him to dismantle Al Qaeda, but to dismantle Guantanamo Bay and the military commission trials of terrorists.

If Obama’s plan had succeeded, Osama’s capture would have dealt a death blow to the War on Terror.

Despite playing patriot at the debate, Obama had told the liberal readers of Vanity Fair the real story. According to the journalist who interviewed him, “Obama saw an opportunity to resurrect the idea of a criminal trial, which Attorney General Eric Holder had planned for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”[132]

Trying a top terrorist in a civilian court had been too controversial, but capturing Osama bin Laden would have been a public relations coup that would have drowned out the protests and the criticism.

Instead of killing Osama, the goal was to bring him back and “put him on trial in a federal court.”

“I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda,” Obama boasted.[133]

If Osama bin Laden had been tried in a civilian court, it would have become impossible to argue that any lesser terrorist should be kept in the Article III system. And that would have dismantled a fundamental distinction between terrorists and criminals that defined the War on Terror and infuriated Obama.

The real target of Operation Neptune Spear wasn’t bin Laden; it was Guantanamo Bay.

When the SEALs killed the Al Qaeda leader, they sabotaged Obama’s plan to try him in a civilian court and shut down military commissions trials. But Obama recovered from that setback by exploiting bin Laden’s death to secure a second term and provide political cover for his disastrous foreign policy.

Most importantly, it diverted attention from the real target, the terrorists of Guantanamo Bay.

Gitmo had been Obama’s priority from the start. During his first days in office, three out of his first five executive orders involved the Islamic terrorists locked up at Gitmo.[134] His third executive order outlawed enhanced interrogations of terrorists “to promote the safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals in United States custody.”[135] His fourth and fifth sought to close the prison and free its terrorists.[136] [137]

It took Obama a month to set up the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. It took him two days to set up a Special Interagency Task Force on Detainee Disposition to free Gitmo terrorists. His priority was not the economy, or even gay rights, amnesty and abortion; it was aiding Islamic terrorists.

The departure of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made it clear just how much of a priority freeing Gitmo terrorists was for Obama. The former senator, an anti-war politician, shared Obama’s views on Iraq and Iran. But he was unwilling to free dangerous terrorists at the rapid rate that Obama wanted.

White House officials complained that “his concerns about the security risks posed by the release of detainees” had “thwarted” Obama’s plans for closing Guantanamo Bay. National Security Advisor Susan Rice was reportedly angry because Hagel had not wanted to rush through releases.[138] Hagel admitted to CNN that the White House had indeed pressured him to speed up terrorist releases.[139]

The White House had fought hard for Hagel, but when he tried to slow down the release of dangerous terrorists, he was shown the door. Obama’s highest priority for his Secretary of Defense did not involve freeing Afghans and Iraqis from the Taliban and ISIS, but freeing their Islamic terrorist allies from Gitmo.

The five Taliban commanders freed by Obama in exchange for a deserter made headlines because of the splashy White House photo op, but the administration had been quietly releasing even more dangerous men. These included Mohammed Zahir, the Secretary General of the Taliban’s Intelligence Directorate, who had been caught with nuclear materials while reportedly preparing to build an atom bomb.[140]

Even while America was trying to stop ISIS from taking over Syria and Iraq, terrorists from the Syrian Group, which had been run by the uncle of the former leader of ISIS back when it was known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, were being released. The freed terrorists had received training in everything from suicide bombing to forging documents. Some had links to terrorist attacks against Americans and America.[141]

Among those freed was Mohammed Abis Ourgy, a bomb maker who may have known ahead of time about September 11.[142]

At least two of the terrorists released by Obama had threatened to assassinate President Bush.

Adel Al-Hakeemy, a military advisor to Osama bin Laden, had threatened revenge against America and stated that he would kill President Bush if given the chance. Muhammed Ali Husayn had dispatched letters to Congress and the White House warning that they would “be destroyed, suffer and lose.”[143]

Obama was forcing the release of terrorists rated as high risk who had made specific threats against the United States. He even insisted on freeing terrorists from conflict zones such as Yemen and Syria.

His administration had freed five Yemeni terrorists, releasing four of them to neighboring Oman, which had been used as a gateway by the Charlie Hebdo attackers operating under orders from Al Qaeda in Yemen.[144] The four included an Al Qaeda veteran of the Yemeni military who was suspected of serving as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden[145] and an Al Qaeda terrorist who had received IED training.[146]

No responsible government would have released such terrorists in the vicinity of an active war zone.

But Obama had made freeing the Jihadists of Gitmo into his highest priority. He executed his plans at the expense of our national security, our allies and the members of his own administration.

Even his greatest unintended triumph against Al Qaeda, the death of Osama bin Laden, had never been anything other than a warped attempt at freeing more Islamic terrorists from Guantanamo Bay.

A Stolen Future

Every president is the custodian of a nation and its future.

When Obama declared to the UN that the future must not belong to those who criticize Islam’s brutality, bigotry and abuse of women, he was also defining whom it must belong to. If the future must not belong to those who slander Mohammed, it will instead belong to his followers and those who respect his moral authority enough to view him as being above criticism in image, video or word.

With these words, Obama betrayed America’s heritage of freedom and announced the theft of its future. The treason of his unholy alliance with Islam not only betrays the Americans of the present, but deprives their descendants of the freedom to speak, write and believe according to their conscience.

Obama has placed the full weight of the government’s resources behind Islam. He has suppressed domestic dissent against Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood while aiding their international goals.

And by doing so, he has aided the foreign and domestic enemies of this country.

The president is more than the sum of his office. He is the man who believes most strongly in the promise of an American future. His speeches reflect the faith that we have in ourselves.

Obama is the first occupant of the White House to openly deny American Exceptionalism. Every president before him has chosen an American future. Obama chose an Islamic future instead.

It remains up to Americans to reclaim their future by exposing and breaking Obama’s unholy alliance.

Notes:

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-W38

[2] http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/24/obama-comes-to-new-york-for-barbara-walters-and-sorta-the-united-nations/

[3] http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sierra/Slain-U-S-Ambassador-Chris-Stevens-buried-in-Grass-Valley/17556470

[4] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly

[5] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/saudi-official-western-politicians-and-media-linked-islam-to-911-thereby-driving-muslims-to-become-terrorists

[6] http://tinyurl.com/ka9jj7q

[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/opinion/06kristof.html

[8] http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/oct/25/picket-audio-father-killed-navy-seal-hillary-told-/

[9] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/aclu%E2%80%99s-islamist-friends

[10]https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/state_department_letter_on_innocence_of_muslims.pdf

[11] http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/11/why-the-us-should-oppose-defamation-of-religions-resolutions-at-the-united-nations

[12] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly

[13] http://fox40.com/2014/06/17/captured-key-benghazi-suspect-will-face-u-s-criminal-courts/

[14] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/14/white-house-asks-youtube-to-review-anti-islam-film/

[15] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/20/state-department-spending-70g-on-pakistan-ads-denouncing-anti-islam-film/

[16] http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/FBI-Benghazi-investigation/2012/10/04/id/458761/

[17] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/23/jihadists-now-control-secretive-u-s-base-in-libya.html

[18] http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/world/isis-libya/

[19] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/libyas-unleashed-hatred-for-christianity/

[20] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-attends-prayer-breakfast-with-sudanese-official-accused-of-genocide/

[21] http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2012/10/27/how-will-the-muslim-brotherhood-govern-egypt-look-to-sudan

[22] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/05/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast

[23] The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006

[24] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/us_is_one_of_the_largest_musli.html

[25] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[26] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/islamists-featured-countering-violent-extremism-summit

[27] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414064/find-countering-violent-extremism-summit-intersection-islamists-and-leftists-andrew-c

[28] http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/01/07/white-house-questioned-french-magazines-judgment-in-2012-for-publishing-naked-muhammad-cartoon/

[29] http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Pamela-Geller-Draw-the-Prophet-ISIS-threat-FBI/2015/05/07/id/643160/

[30] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[31] http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/03/02/opinion-why-france-is-right-about-the-burqa/

[32] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-29-honor-killings-in-the-US_N.htm

[33] http://www.newsweek.com/fgm-rates-have-doubled-us-2004-304773

[34] http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2004/May/04_crt_343.htm

[35] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/abercrombie-fitch-supreme-court-hijab-wearing-job-applicant-115498.html

[36]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/1387874/15-girls-die-as-zealots-drive-them-into-blaze.html

[37] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/justice-department-sues-on-behalf-of-murfreesboro-mega-mosque-federal-judge-orders-it-to-open

[38] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/cry-islamophobia-and-win

[39] http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/obama-doj-forces-city-to-pay-muslims-7-75-million/

[40] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09

[41] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/us/politics/faulted-for-avoiding-islamic-labels-white-house-cites-a-strategic-logic.html

[42] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414064/find-countering-violent-extremism-summit-intersection-islamists-and-leftists-andrew-c

[43] http://www.investigativeproject.org/2515/cair-deceptive-spin-on-fbi-support

[44] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/18/remarks-president-closing-summit-countering-violent-extremism

[45] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html

[46] http://www.wired.com/2012/10/cve/

[47] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/obamas-national-security-priority-moderate-muslim-rappers/

[48] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Deen#cite_note-rap-1

[49] http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6705

[50] http://www.wired.com/2012/10/cve/

[51] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obama-appoints-terrorist-supporter-to-head-up-counterterrorism-messaging/

[52] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/rashad-hussains-troubling-ties/

[53] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/is-the-state-depts-new-muslim-run-office-promoting-anti-semitism/

[54] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obamas-counterterrorism-messaging-promotes-islamic-takeover-of-uk/

[55] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/state-department-counters-violent-extremism-by-supporting-al-qaeda/

[56] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/us_is_one_of_the_largest_musli.html

[57]http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/allah_in_our_schools.html#.VKAAL7AwpNk.twitter

[58] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/17/school-apologizes-students-pray-allah-field-trip-mosque/

[59] http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/students-made-to-wear-burqas-in-u-s-state/

[60] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/03/egyptian-newspapers-explosive-allegation-president-obama-is-a-secret-muslim-brotherhood-member

[61] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3869/egyptian-magazine-muslim-brotherhood-infiltrates

[62] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3868/a-man-and-6-of-the-brotherhood-in-the-white-house

[63] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countries-dont-like-america-and-which-do/

[64] http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/poll-egyptian-publics-views-toward-united-states-are-much-improved/

[65] http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/24/obama.words/

[66]http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164282#.VSXffl1g8rk

[67] http://www.clarionproject.org/news/what-isna-doesnt-publicize-about-its-convention-speakers

[68] http://www.meforum.org/700/arab-liberals-prosecute-clerics-who-promote-murder

[69] http://www.investigativeproject.org/2315/moderate-qaradawi-defends-hitler-and-nuclear

[70] http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/situations%20and%20cases/situations/situation%20icc%200205/related%20cases/icc02050109/Pages/icc02050109.aspx

[71] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-center-for-american-progress-and-islamist-influences-over-the-white-house/

[72] http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/aclu%E2%80%99s-islamist-friends

[73] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/nancy-pelosi-hires-former-terrorist-fundraiser/

[74] http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1861305,00.html

[75] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75873_Page3.html

[76] https://archive.org/stream/354027-how-bin-laden-planned-to-capitalize-on-the-arab/354027-how-bin-laden-planned-to-capitalize-on-the-arab_djvu.txt

[77] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/06/-brotherhood-invited-to-obama-speech-by-us/18693/

[78] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/yale-to-host-radical-terror-sheikh-who-advocated-killing-of-u-s-soldiers/

[79] http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/a-u-s-visa-for-rachid-ghannouchi/

[80] http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2014/03/21/officials-dine-tunisian-muslim-brotherhood-leader-event-honor/

[81] http://www.investigativeproject.org/3262/media-whitewash-ghannouchi-radical-islamist-views#

[82] Ibid.

[83] http://www.meforum.org/700/arab-liberals-prosecute-clerics-who-promote-murder

[84] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-tunisia-rights-islamistsbre89e138-20121015,0,5425588.story

[85] http://world.time.com/2012/09/16/political-battles-in-tunisia-shade-attacks-on-u-s-embassy/

[86]http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/10/199102.htm

[87] http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/a-u-s-visa-for-rachid-ghannouchi/

[88] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-hosts-responsibilities/2012/09/12/4eb1edf2-fd1b-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_blog.html

[89] http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2007/103704.htm

[90] http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/09/27/Bin-Laden-was-once-in-Muslim-Brotherhood/UPI-15591348771820/

[91] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/10/al_qaeda-linked_jiha.php

[92] http://blogs.cbn.com/ibrahim/archive/2014/02/04/exposed-muslim-brotherhood-al-qaeda-connection.aspx

[93] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/muslim-brotherhood-pres-frees-monster-in-brutal-luxor-massacre/

[94] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/343207.stm

[95] http://www.clarionproject.org/news/morsi-appoints-luxor-terror-group-member-gov-luxor

[96] http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/22/us/egypt-lawmaker-visa/

[97] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/21/member-of-egyptian-terror-group-goes-to-washington.html

[98] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/09/28/egypts-morsi-i-will-do-everything-in-my-power-to-secure-freedom-for-the-blind-sheikh/

[99] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/kerry-defends-tank-and-jet-giveaway-to-muslim-brotherhood-terror-regime-video/

[100] http://haam.org/2013/01/29/morsi-obama-and-bibi-which-of-these-is-not-like-the-others/

[101] Ibid.

[102] http://www.timesofisrael.com/morsi-jewish-controlled-media-distorted-apes-and-pigs-remark/

[103] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-f-16s-to-muslim-brotherhood-yes-f-16s-to-egyptian-military-no/

[104] http://tinyurl.com/lwqvn27

[105] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/04/libyan-islamist-fighters-reject-violence

[106]http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/5/02%20libya%20ashour/omar%20ashour%20policy%20briefing%20english.pd

[107] http://cnsnews.com/news/article/testimony-elements-militia-state-dept-hired-station-members-inside-benghazi-compound

[108] http://jcpa.org/article/the-libyan-quagmire/

[109] http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/30/ozatp-libya-idAFJOE76T02P20110730

[110] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/benghazi-power-libya-militia-eyed-attack

[111] http://cnsnews.com/news/article/testimony-elements-militia-state-dept-hired-station-members-inside-benghazi-compound

[112] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/19/libya-rebels-will-receive-25-million-from-us/?page=all

[113] http://tinyurl.com/nuuzwrw

[114] http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/alarabiya-studies/2014/08/25/Libyan-Dawn-Map-of-allies-and-enemies.html

[115] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/morocco-pm-claims-he-isnt-muslim-brotherhood-muslim-brotherhood-says-he-is/

[116] http://cables.mrkva.eu/cable.php?id=71622

[117] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Moroccan-wolf-in-sheeps-clothing

[118] http://www.memri.org/report/en/print2368.htm

[119] http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/14/226341.html

[120] http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/42-48638884/moroccos-pm-benkirane-and-hamas-leader-meshaal

[121]https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/04/07/muslim-brotherhood-involvement-complicates-yemen-conflict/

[122] http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4057#.VVVwIPyrRhF

[123] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/world/middleeast/mideast-turmoil-spreads-to-us-embassy-in-yemen.html?ref=middleeast

[124] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99591469

[125] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obama-blames-america-for-iran-feeling-defensive-and-vulnerable/

[126] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415443/why-pelosis-syria-visit-remains-indefensible-tom-rogan

[127] http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kerry-frequent-visitor-syrian-dictator-bashar-al-assad_690885.html

[128] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/obamas-treason-is-the-new-patriotism/

[129] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/25/AR2008082502337.html

[130] http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/17/barack-obamas-awkward-debate-references-to-osama-bin-laden/

[131] http://www.npr.org/2012/10/22/163436694/transcript-3rd-obama-romney-presidential-debate

[132] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/obama-put-osama-bin-laden-on-trial

[133] Ibid.

[134] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/does-obama-love-america-or-islam/

[135] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2009/01/27/E9-1885/ensuring-lawful-interrogations

[136] http://tinyurl.com/kkh7wug

[137] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2009/01/27/E9-1895/review-of-detention-policy-options

[138] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html?referrer=

[139] http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/politics/hagel-guantanamo-bay-transfers-white-house-friction/

[140] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obama-frees-a-nuclear-terrorist/

[141] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamas-christmas-gift-to-isis-and-al-qaeda/

[142] Ibid.

[143] http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/is-obama-trying-to-kill-president-bush/

[144] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/16/obama-takes-heat-for-terror-approach-as-threat-spreads/

[145] http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/34-al-khadr-abdallah-muhammed-al-yafi

[146] http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/689-mohammed-ahmed-salam

Behind the French “Peace Initiative”

June 26, 2015

Behind the French “Peace Initiative,” The Gatestone InstituteBassam Tawil, June 26, 2015

  • It is a desperate attempt by the French government to buy a few more days of quiet from its Muslim community, especially from the members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organizations to which it gave birth — all waiting for the order to run riot through the streets of France.
  • If it succeeds, may Allah prevent it, it will lead to an ISIS and Hamas takeover of every inch of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws if coerced by the initiative.

  • It is evidently too frustrating and unrewarding just to sit in the U.N. and not think of some project supposedly to spread beneficence that could make your country look important to the other 190 members — even if this beneficence is lethal to its recipient.

  • When the Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Empire, the churches, including the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, were turned into mosques; that is the dream of the Islamists today, to turn the Vatican into a mosque.

  • Currently, Qatar is currently investing millions to overthrow the Egyptian regime. It is investing millions to finance incitement among Muslims around the globe by means of its Islamist network and da’wah, the cunning preaching of the Muslim Brotherhood’s variety of Islam.

  • The Arabs always secretly believed that anyone who hated their mutual enemies, the Jews, as deeply as the Europeans did, and who actually tried to achieve their total physical destruction during the Second World War, would be their ally and help to expel them from occupied Palestine.

  • Apparently, the commonly-held hatred between the Europeans and the Arabs was not enough to halt the Jews, so now the Arabs pay huge sums to bribe the leaders of Europe to help them get rid of the Jews now.

The latest missile to split the skies over the Middle East is not a rocket; it is the French “peace” initiative.

No one in the Middle East has the slightest doubt that whatever its objective may be, it will not promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is a desperate attempt by the French government to buy a few more days of quiet from its Muslim community, especially from the members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organizations to which it gave birth — all waiting for the order to run riot through the streets of France.

We, the Palestinians, have suffered, and continue to suffer, from the creation of the Islamist terrorist organizations within the Palestinian Authority territory; it is they who keep us from reaching a peace agreement with the Jews.

One has to be deaf, dumb and blind — or genuinely desperate, which is more likely — to present a unilateral peace agreement like the French one. If it succeeds, may Allah prevent it, it will lead to an ISIS and Hamas takeover of every inch of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws if coerced by the initiative.

One also has to be simply ignorant not to understand that the Middle East is going up in flames and that the Arab states are disintegrating. There is no logical reason, therefore, to construct a new state, which will be both unstable and prey to local and regional subversion. It will also be subject to a quick takeover, and the first people who will suffer will be the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

The Israelis know how to look out for themselves, but we will be left to the tender mercies of Hamas and ISIS mujahedeen. Just as they have done in Iraq and Syria, they will slaughter us without thinking twice, on the grounds that as we did not all become shaheeds [“martyrs” for Islam] trying to kill the Zionists, and even tried to reach a peace agreement with them, we are not sufficiently Muslim.

The French initiative is not a benevolent gesture meant to help the Palestinians. Without a doubt, the French government and its intelligence services know full well that the secret of the Palestinian Authority’s existence today — and its ability to function as a sovereign entity, demilitarized and de facto recognizing the State of Israel — is its security collaboration with the Israelis. It serves the interests of both sides. When, therefore, a Palestinian state is declared unilaterally, as the French propose, Israel will stop collaborating with it and the state, not even fully formed, will almost instantly fall prey to Islamist extremists. That is obvious to us: even our institutions of higher learning are ruled by Hamas today, as can be seen by Hamas’s landslide victory in the recent student elections in Bir Zeit University.

The recent visit of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham to Israel helped the Palestinians understand even more thoroughly that behind the French initiative is an attempt, as with many members of the U.N., to “be a player.” It is evidently too frustrating and unrewarding just to sit in the U.N. and not think of some project supposedly to spread beneficence that could make your country look important to the other 190 members — even if this beneficence is lethal to its recipient. One way of doing spreading such beneficence is to take over the peace process through the Security Council, force both sides into a unilateral solution, and not even to feign dismay when its first victims are the Palestinians.

Senator Graham referred to the drastic nature of the initiative and stressed that the United States supported the solution of two states for two peoples, according to the vision of Israel’s current Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. It favors a demilitarized Palestinian state that would recognize Israel as a Jewish state and make it possible for everyone, both Jews and Palestinians, to live with self-respect and independence.

Graham threatened the UN, saying that if promotes the French initiative, he would bid to halt American funding for the UN — nearly a quarter of its budget.

Today, the UN’s funds are twisted into sending peacekeepers, who have diplomatic immunity and therefore cannot be sued, out to Africa to demand sex, often from children, in exchange for food or other necessities; and to passing resolutions aimed at harming Israel, while the organization callously ignores floggings in Saudi Arabia, slavery in Mauritania; escalating executions, calls for genocide and violations of nuclear treaties in Iran, just for a start.

The situation is grotesque. They are basically accusing Israel of “terrorism” for defending itself against by rockets fired from Hamas, in a confrontation where Gazan children were hurt because Hamas used them as human shields — while ignoring the real terrorism against the children of Africa committed by the U.N.’s own peacekeepers, Boko Haram, Iran and Sudan. When they so twist logic as to accuse Israel of “terrorism,” while turning their back on the horrendous abuses by other states, they are essentially giving paedophile UN “peacekeepers,” Iran’s torturers, executioners, and nuclear weapons factories a green light.

Graham was very clear about the American point of view. He said that any country that tried to bring Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague would have sanctions imposed on it by the United States.

The parade of the grotesque is the direct result of the Western surrender to Islamic terrorism. Now, sadly, the Vatican has also joined France. The assumption that the Islamists can be pandered to and propitiated by harming the Jews is yet another prevalent misconception. Every gesture to the Islamists, even if it is aimed at “helping” the Palestinians, sends a message of weakness and vulnerability, and increases the Islamists’ aggression against Christians and other non-Muslim minorities.

In the Middle East, anyone who “turns the other cheek,” such as the Pope saying that the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, could be “an angel of peace,” will find his neck under the sword. When Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Empire, its churches, including the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, were turned into mosques; that is the dream of the Islamists today, to turn the Vatican into a mosque.

The dangerous European surrender to radical Islam is not only an attempt to hold off its threat to the free society of Europe just a little longer. It is also the result of the economic distress of the Western world, which is seeking to keep afloat by selling itself, literally, for petro-dollars. The Vatican is in desperate financial straits — there are fewer practicing Catholics and therefore fewer donating Catholics. It is hard not to feel that the anti-Israel manipulations of the Vatican administration are motivated not by a genuine desire to help the Palestinians or to save Christians in the Middle East, but by a genuine desire to extricate itself from its financial straits.

Judas sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver; Boko Haram sells girls for the price of a pack of cigarettes, and Europe is selling itself and the Israelis to Qatar.

Europe is in the same situation as the Vatican; and so are many American universities, which are selling radical Islamist education for petro-dollars from the Persian Gulf. This enables the Islamists to rewrite history and endanger the open way of life in the gullible West.

There is already a Muslim Brotherhood lobby in the United States, a syndicate trying to force the administration to undermine the current Egyptian president, who is an enemy of the murderous Muslim Brotherhood. Their aim is to restore to power the Islamist dictator Mohamed Morsi (who is also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood), and to sabotage the measures Egypt is currently taking to rehabilitate itself.

The ease with which Qatar, the petro-dollar heavyweight, manipulates terrorist organizations in the Middle East is unnerving. The country both hosts and finances senior Muslim Brotherhood figures such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and others responsible for spreading the doctrine of radical Islamism and terrorism around the world.

Qatar finances a wide range of subversive Islamist terrorist organizations, among them ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and various other global jihad organizations operating under the aegis of the Arab-Muslim regimes. Qatar also seeks to carve out enclaves in Africa and the West, and to turn the West’s pluralistic melting pot into a seething cauldron of terrorist operatives who will, when given the signal, bludgeon Europe and America to the ground.

The petro-dollars of the Qatari feudal lords, totalitarians who dictate their whims to a population with no rights, direct a global network of propaganda and incitement, through vehicles such as Al-Jazeera TV in Arabic, light years more toxic than Al Jazeera in English. It crowns kings and topples regimes throughout the Middle East, as it did by endlessly replaying the self-immolation of the young Tunisian fruit vendor who could not get a license, until it whipped up the Tunisians and Egyptians to start the “Arab Spring.” Currently, Qatar is investing millions to overthrow the Egyptian regime. It is investing millions to finance incitement among Muslims around the globe by means of its Islamist network and da’wah, the cunning preaching of the Muslim Brotherhood’s variety of Islam.

The Arabs always felt that the Europeans had a soft spot in their hearts for them. They always secretly believed that anyone who hated their mutual enemies, the Jews, as deeply as the Europeans did, and who actually tried to achieve their total physical destruction during the Second World War, would be their ally and help to expel them from occupied Palestine. Apparently, the commonly-held hatred between the Europeans and the Arabs was not enough to halt the Jews, so now the Arabs pay huge sums to bribe the leaders of Europe to help them get rid of the Jews now.

Just look at the extensive corruption of the heads of FIFA, bought and paid-for by Qatar. All it took was $100 million, and Qatar could host the World Cup. It makes one wonder what Qatar would be willing to pay for other projects, doesn’t it?

1130Now where did that envelope of cash go…?
Joseph “Sepp” Blatter (R), then president of FIFA, is pictured patting his jacket pocket a moment after awarding the hosting of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (L), on December 2, 2010. (Image source: PBS Newshour video screenshot)

 

 

The West’s Misconceptions Over the Final Nuclear Deal

June 25, 2015

The West’s Misconceptions Over the Final Nuclear Deal, Front Page Magazine, June 25, 2015

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[W]hat is the Obama administration’s strategy? Apparently, the Obama administration does not have one. This is due to the fact that the administration believes that the Islamic Republic will not cheat, interfere in other nations’ affairs, or do any harm in case sanctions are lifted. In other words, the Islamic Republic is going to be another Switzerland.

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

In a recent interview that President Obama gave to Israeli outlet Channel 2’s Ilana Dayan, he indirectly defended the Islamic Republic and suggested that the ruling clerics are not going to cheat on the terms of the final nuclear deal. But how can President Obama be so sure about Iran’s compliance if a deal is reached and when economic sanctions are lifted? Is he making such an argument based on Iran’s past history of nuclear defiance? Or based on its current military intervention in several nations and support for Shiite militia groups, proxies, and Islamic Jihad?

It is crucial to point out that the nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic came to the international spotlight due to Iran’s clandestine and underground nuclear sites. Iran had since repeatedly violated the IAEA’s terms by building additional underground nuclear sites and inching towards nuclear capabilities in order to obtain nuclear weapons.

President Obama also argued that sanctions will snap back in case Iran cheats. Nevertheless, the truth is that there is no such thing as automatic snapping back of sanctions.  In addition, by the time that the international community realizes that Iran has cheated, Iran would have reduced the nuclear break-out capacity to zero, boosted its Revolutionary Guards’ economy, and gained billions of dollars. Secondly, Russia and China will scuttle any process that would snap back the economic sanctions.

There exists a crucial underlying misconception in the West headed by the Obama administration regarding the final nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, which is approaching its June 30th deadline.

From President Obama and the Western powers’s perspective,  the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic is going to be transformational and revolutionary. This follows that the West, and particularly the White House, contends that the final nuclear deal or the nuclear resolution is going to transform the character of Iran’s political system in the long term; hence it will fundamentally alter Iran’s regional, domestic policies, shift its support for Shiite militia groups and proxies across the Middle East, moderate Iran’s foreign policy, and probably change the government in the long term.

On the other hand, from the Iranian leaders’s perspective, the nuclear deal is transitory, fleeting, momentary and transactional. In other words, Iranian authorities will follow the rules of the nuclear agreement for the limited time assigned in the deal. They will boost their economy, regain billions of dollars, and reinitiate their nuclear program soon after.

As long as Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is alive, the Islamic Republic is going to prioritize its Islamist revolutionary ideologies. The 75-years-old man, who has ruled over 25 years and continuously spread anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda, is not going to change his position and become a Western-loving person open to forces of globalization and integration. His has created a powerful social base based on his anti-American and anti-Semitic propagandas.

Since Iranian leaders view the final nuclear deal on a short-term basis, from the perspective of Iranian leaders, particularly Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and influential officials of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reaching a final nuclear deal is a no-brainer, economically speaking. In addition, the leaders of the Islamic Republic are cognizant of the fact that they will not give up their nuclear program based on the current terms of the nuclear agreement.

Most recently, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which owes the Islamic Republic an outstanding debt of more than $2 billion, has been talking about repaying Iranian leaders the debt after the nuclear deal is signed. and consequently the related sanctions are lifted. Several other foreign companies were unable to pay Iran due to the financial and banking sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council and previous US administrations. Nevertheless, President Obama is opening the way for the flow of billions of dollars into the revolutionary Islamist ideology of the Islamic Republic.

It is crucial to point out that the flow of billions of dollars into the Islamic Republic will not trickle down to the Iranian ordinary people or even be distributed equally among the governmental institutions such as Iran’s foreign ministry. An overwhelming majority of the cash will likely be controlled by the IRGC, Quds forces (an elite revolutionary branch of IRGC fighting in foreign countries) and office of the Supreme Leader. The IRGC and office of the Supreme Leader do enjoy a monopoly over major economic sectors of the Islamic Republic.

The issue of immediate access to billions of dollars is particularly appealing and crucial for the Iranian leaders due to the notion that Tehran looks at the final nuclear deal through the prism of short-term, immediate economic and geopolitical boosts.

As a result, the final nuclear deal is viewed as purely short-term business for the IRGC and the Supreme Leader.

Finally, it is rational for every government to have strategies to rein in Iran’s full economic return. But, what is the Obama administration’s strategy? Apparently, the Obama administration does not have one. This is due to the fact that the administration believes that the Islamic Republic will not cheat, interfere in other nations’ affairs, or do any harm in case sanctions are lifted. In other words, the Islamic Republic is going to be another Switzerland.

Can these forces stop a rotten Iran deal?

June 25, 2015

Can these forces stop a rotten Iran deal? The Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin, June 25, 2015

(Ms. Rubin is one of the Washington Post’s token conservatives, and anything she says is routinely disparaged by many WaPo readers. Others? Not so much. — DM)

Between the press leaks revealing serial concessions, the public incoherence of Secretary of State John Kerry and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s public declarations, the forces opposing an imminent Iran deal have plenty of material to work with. And if there is any doubt as to Israel’s position, opposition leader Isaac Herzog — whom President Obama dearly hoped would replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, made clear what Israel-watchers already knew:

“There is no difference between me and [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu in reading the threat of Iran,” Herzog said in an interview with The Telegraph. “There is no daylight between us on this issue at all. I do not oppose the diplomatic process.

However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

We want to know ‘what is the deal?’ What’s the best deal possible that can be reached and would it change the region in a better direction? And here we are worried.”

In the article, Telegraph chief foreign correspondent David Blair appeared to express frustration that Herzog did not come across as opposing Netanyahu on Iran.

“If the US administration hoped that Mr. Herzog might dilute Israel’s visceral suspicion of an imminent nuclear deal with Iran, however, then he seems likely to disappoint,” Blair wrote.

There is no divide in the country at large, with 80 percent of Israelis declaring they have no confidence in President Obama’s handling of Iran.

Most GOP presidential hopefuls have decried the president’s giveaways. On Wednesday, former Texas governor Rick Perry, for example, put out a statement, which read in part: “In reckless pursuit of any agreement, President Obama has conceded point after point after point. Iran has used deadlines and extensions as a tactic for eliciting still more concessions from the U.S. We are well past the time where further concessions are tolerable if we still intend to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapons capability rather than manage its breakout time. This agreement is shaping up to spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and increase the odds of a devastating and catastrophic military conflict in the future. President Obama should abandon these dangerous negotiations and resume international sanctions until Iran understands and accepts that they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Meanwhile, the most influential Democrat on Iran, Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), has been taking to the Senate floor on a regular basis to denounce the reported concessions. On Wednesday, former Bill Clinton secretary of defense William Cohen denounced the deal as likely to start a nuclear arms race: “Once you say they are allowed to enrich, the game is pretty much up in terms of how do you sustain an inspection regime in a country that has carried on secret programs for 17 years and is still determined to maintain as much of that secrecy as possible.” He echoed multiple critics who saw it was all downhill once Obama did an about-face on the Syrian red line: “It was mishandled and everybody in the region saw how it was handled. And I think it shook their confidence in the administration. … The Saudis, the UAE and the Israelis were all concerned about that. They are looking at what we say, what we do, and what we fail to do, and they make their judgments. In the Middle East now, they are making different calculations.” (While Sen. Lindsey Graham strongly supported military action, none of the other three senators running for president did.)

More bipartisan opposition comes from ex-lawmakers. The American Security Initiative, headed by former senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), announced a $1.4 million ad buy to inform the public about the contents of the imminent deal. Its targets include Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Michael Bennet of Colorado and Chuck Schumer of New York and independent Angus King of Maine. While Schumer likes to fancy himself as a great friend of Israel, when the chips are down, he has often given the administration cover, as he did in supporting the nomination of former senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) for defense secretary.

In addition, an all-star group of Iran and military experts including former Obama advisers Dennis Ross, Robert Einhorn and Gary Samore warn against a deal that does not include anytime/anywhere inspections, revelation of possible military dimensions of Iran’s program before sanctions relief begins, “strict limits on advanced centrifuge R&D, testing, and deployment in the first ten years, and [measures to] preclude the rapid technical upgrade and expansion of Iran’s enrichment capacity after the initial ten-year period,” gradual lifting of sanctions and no relief from non-nuclear sanctions and a timely mechanism to reimpose sanctions if Iran cheats. In other words, they’ll support a deal utterly unlike the one we are likely to get.

Other voices now are speaking out on the administration’s willingness to lift sanctions while Iran continues its support for terrorism. Manhattan’s long-time Democratic district attorney Robert Morgenthau  (who tracked Iranian finances and relations with dictators in our hemisphere) writes that “the fundamental question to be asked is whether the deal the U.S. is negotiating with Iran will curtail its role as a state sponsor of terrorism. The answer appears to be a resounding no. . . . These sanctions, particularly over the past decade, have given the U.S. powerful leverage. It appears that this leverage is being frittered away as U.S. negotiators bend over backward to strike a deal. But meaningful deals are negotiated from strength; not from desperation. Any deal that fails to address or curtail Iran’s role as a state sponsor of terrorism—and that actually undercuts our ability to confront that threat—is a deal that we must not make.”

There is little doubt that the most prominent pro-Israel organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will go all-out to defeat the deal if it contains the sorts of concessions reported in the media. As we have noted, it already has begun warning lawmakers and the public of the dangers in a deal that does not stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

The White House, aided by every left-wing group it can round up (including persistent Israel antagonist J Street) will try to make this a choice between war and its crummy deal. It will strong-arm every Democrat who will listen. It will gloss over concessions, trying to pass off critics as unfamiliar with the fine print of the deal. Working against the president, however — in addition to the ludicrous concessions — are two factors. He, according to every recent public poll out there, is distrusted on foreign policy. And he is increasingly ineffective in bullying his own party, as we saw on the Corker-Menendez bill giving Congress an up-or-down vote. (If not for GOP leadership in both houses, he’d never have gotten trade-promotion authority.) Still, opponents of the deal do not underestimate the task of getting enough votes in the Congress to override the president’s veto of a resolution of disapproval.

The most interesting figure in all this may be Hillary Clinton. Unlike trade authority, it is inconceivable that she could refuse to take a clear position on an Iran nuclear deal. If she breaks with the president (highly unlikely), the left will attack her mercilessly. If she stands by him she risks — as he does — a bipartisan repudiation and an irate electorate. It is fitting that the biggest loser in this may be Clinton, who initiated engagement with Iran and continually opposed congressional efforts to tighten sanctions. Obama’s name may be on the deal, as the president said, but if there is a deal, it will be a direct result of four years of her Iran policy that set the pattern for her successor.

Establishing a Palestinian Islamist State

June 23, 2015

Establishing a Palestinian Islamist State, The Gatestone InstituteBassam Tawil, June 23, 2015

  • The United Nations’ verdict of guilty to Israel, in its “Schabas Report,” issued yesterday, was written even before the trial began.
  • Only the wide-eyed West still does not believe that Mahmoud Abbas is telling the truth when he assures the Palestinians of his intent to destroy Israel.
  • All public opinion polls in the Palestinian Authority (PA) indicate that if elections were held today, Hamas — whose only openly-stated reason for existing is to destroy Israel — would win in a landslide, as in 2006. Gaza has already been lost to Hamas and perhaps soon to ISIS. All evidence reveals that to establish a Palestinian state now would turn it into an Islamist terrorist entity.
  • Abbas thought that forming a Unity Government with Hamas would give the PA a unified front with which to harvest more money and diplomatic concessions from Europe. But last summer, Abbas was informed of a Hamas murder plot against him.

The Middle East is at it again. At the top of the list, no one, it seems, is even thinking of stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability — and by extension at least several other countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.

First, It is dangerous enough for any openly expansionist regime, theological or not, to have nuclear weapons; Iran has recently shown itself to be nothing if not expansionist. Second, and, if possible, worse, several of the countries around Iran — who correctly feel in its crosshairs, have already announced that they will be building or buying nuclear weapons as well; and have probably already started. The Islamic State (ISIS) is also rumored to be on the market for a nuclear warhead; you too can apparently buy one for around $400 million. So we shall all have uncontrolled and uncontrollable nuclear proliferation to look forward to.

On top of all that, the Americans and Europeans are rumored to be at it again, pressuring the Palestinian Authority (PA) to renew peace negotiations with Israel. The London-based newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, recently quoted a senior Palestinian who suggested that the PA Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, meet with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to jump-start the stalled negotiations.

New signs of triggering antagonism between the Palestinians and Israel are also reflected in the Vatican’s recognition of the Palestinian Authority as the State of Palestine, despite the vandalizing of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and other acts that led to the mass-exodus of persecuted Christians from the Palestinian territories, and despite the PA having joined with the terrorist group, Hamas, in the so-called Palestinian National Consensus Government [“Unity Government”]. This union enabled Israel to accuse it of responsibility for the war crimes that really only Hamas committed against Israeli civilians during the last war. At the same time, the tottering Palestinian Authority is trying to delegitimize Israel by accusing it of war crimes in the International Criminal Court (ICC). Neither of these attacks bodes well for either Israel or the PA.

The ICC in The Hague also recently announced that it would unilaterally investigate Israel for alleged war crimes committed in the last clash in the Gaza Strip. This project will not end well for the Palestinians, the Israelis or the politicized “Jim Crow” International Criminal Court. Meanwhile, the Unite Nations’ verdict of guilty, in its “Schabas Report,” issued this week, was written even before the trial began.

The Obama Administration has also increased its pressure on Israel with not-so-subtle threats. Susan Rice and other sources within the US administration openly claimed in early March that, in view of Israel’s “refusal” to make peace, and because of its interpretations of statements made by Netanyahu during this Israel’s elections this year, Washington would not veto unilateral European proposals to establish a Palestinian state.

President, Barack Obama, on May 22, tried to reassure the Jewish community to the contrary and said that he was “an honorary member of the [Jewish] tribe,” but his assurances are suspicious. Obama has earned a reputation for not telling the truth, from blaming the 2012 slaughter of Americans at Benghazi, Libya on a YouTube video (even two weeks after he knew the video was not the reason), to welching on his “red line” commitment when Syria’s government used chemical weapons on its own people.

The Israelis regard the American stance as an anti-Israeli vendetta based on Obama’s personal dislike of both Israel and Netanyahu. Although Netanyahu has said that now might not be the best time for a Palestinian state, he has, in fact, never changed his fundamental policy: that a Palestinian state could potentially be in Israel’s best interests.

What Netanyahu did say, with justification — as hard as it is to admit he was right — is that, given the current regional chaos, establishing a Palestinian state at this time would mean establishing a terrorist state in the West Bank. To do so now would simply lead to what is euphemistically called “further regional destabilization” — namely, war. Recognizing a Palestinian state at this time will also encourage terrorist activities by giving extremist Islamic elements — presently operating throughout North Africa, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq — even more territory from which to expand their operations.

This new Islamic extremist land-and-power grab would be similar to that of Hamas after it took over the Gaza Strip, after when Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005; or the ISIS takeover of Syria and Iraq when the US withdrew or failed to act. Currently, Hamas and ISIS in the Gaza Strip menace the security of both Israel and Egypt.

A new Islamic emirate in the West Bank at this time would also be dangerous for Jordan. Even without an Islamic emirate, Jordan has to cope with waves of refugees, among whom are Islamist terrorist operatives infiltrating the kingdom with the goal of overthrowing the Hashemites and turning Jordan into a territory ruled by ISIS or the Muslim Brotherhood. Given Iran’s efforts to exploit the weakness of Sunni Islam in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Bahrain, there seems no need for another extremist Islamic arena in Jordan.

Considerable pressure is also now being directed at the Palestinian Authority to renew negotiations with Israel. Some of the pressure comes from former President Jimmy Carter’s possibly well-intentioned but totally counterproductive demand that the Palestinians hold elections.

All public opinion polls in the PA indicate that if elections were held today, Hamas, as in 2006, would win in a landslide.

Unfortunately, many decision-makers in both the United States and Europe view the situation through the lens of Western democracy and practices. The overwhelming Hamas victory in the student council elections at Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, should have been a wake-up call. Unfortunately, it was ignored.

1042Hamas supporters march during a student council election rally at Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, on April 20, 2015. The overwhelming Hamas victory in the student council elections should have been a wake-up call to the U.S. and Europe.

Mahmoud Abbas has a dilemma. If elections are held in the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas– whose only openly-stated reason for existing is to destroy Israel — wins, the PA will cease to exist and Israel will be able to avoid the peace process for all time.

If, however, elections are not held, Mahmoud Abbas will continue to rule without international or Palestinian legitimacy. Not only did his four-year term expire six years ago, but at this point, he barely represents the Palestinians in the West Bank.

The almost two million Palestinians on the other side of Israel, in Gaza, are represented almost exclusively by Hamas, with continuing attempted inroads by ISIS. Abbas is thus unable to represent “the Palestinian people” in any serious political process. The proposal for elections is therefore an embarrassment for Abbas, and is generally ignored.

Tragically, to shore up its status locally, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has taken a series of hasty, contradictory and dangerous steps. Since the PA’s chance at controlling the Gaza Strip has disappeared forever, the PA, to ensure its own continued survival, coordinates security with Israel to prevent further Hamas subversion in the West Bank.

In the meantime, senior figures in the PLO and the PA compete with Hamas in issuing strident, extremist messages to the Palestinian populace, which is consequently being radicalized — to the point now of supporting Hamas and ISIS.

Mahmoud Abbas and his high-ranking associates, nevertheless, continue to hold formal ceremonies to honor terrorists killed during attacks on Israeli targets.[1] Abbas also continues to commemorate “shaheeds” [those who die in the cause of Islam, often called “martyrs”] who killed dozens of Israeli civilians in suicide bombing attacks. Abbas erects monuments, names town squares after them, and holds sports and chess tournaments in their honor.

On this year’s Nakba Day — “the day of catastrophe,” which commemorated the 67th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel — during the May 15 ceremonies, Mahmoud Abbas promised the Palestinian masses that the occupied territories and the Palestinian diaspora would soon be restored to the independent state of Palestine. He also swore that the “resistance” — that is, armed violence and terrorism against Israel — would continue until the goal was achieved: destroying the State of Israel and establishing the Palestinian state on its ruins.

These intentions are not a secret to Israelis. They therefore do not trust his sincerity when he claims he wants “peace.” Only the wide-eyed West still does not believe that Mahmoud Abbas is telling the truth when he assures the Palestinians of his intent to destroy Israel.

The deliberate tension crafted by the Palestinian Authority has, as its only objective, bloodshed — both Palestinian and Israeli. This tactic can usually be seen when the level of violence falls below what the PA finds acceptable. It then trots out the old saw, first coined by the anti-Israeli Islamist sheikh Ra’ed Salah (whose right to free speech is protected by Israeli law), “Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger!”

At the beginning of May 2015, Sheikh Yusuf al-Dayis, the PA Minister of Religious Endowments [Waqf], made headlines in the Palestinian daily, Al-Quds, with the incendiary statement that the fate of the entire Muslim nation hung on the 35 acres of the Temple Mount. He even provided a list of what he claimed were Israeli “attacks” on Al-Aqsa mosque. Sadly for him, visitors to the Temple Mount can see every day the exorbitant security measures taken by the Israelis to protect the site. In point of fact, the record shows that every time the Palestinians want to provoke another pointless round of violence and slaughter, they say, “Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger!” It invariably causes hundreds of casualties on both sides and achieves absolutely nothing.

The last time a mosque actually was damaged was recently, in the Gaza Strip, when Hamas’s security forces removed the holy books, then used three bulldozers to raze a Salafist mosque. Hamas claimed it was in retaliation for an alleged Salafist attack on Hamas “jihad fighters” south of Khan Yunis. Sources in Gaza confirmed that seven Salafist-jihadi operatives were arrested in the mosque, and that Hamas had recently arrested 30 Salafist-jihadi Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis members. Having started terrorism in the Gaza Strip, Hamas is now reaping the result: terrorism there is “going viral.”

All evidence reveals that to establish a Palestinian state now would quickly turn it into an Islamist terrorist entity. Each time governments encourage Islamist movements, or ignore them in the hope that they will attack someone else, these movements have boomeranged into their own backyards and then moved on to their neighbors’. This will be the fate of Syria’s Bashar Assad, who let Hamas and other terrorist groups set up shop in Damascus. Former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat let Hamas into the neighborhood, and the Palestinian people are now being repaid by Hamas. Arafat wrongly assumed that letting Hamas in the door would serve him by forcing Israel to make concessions. Mahmoud Abbas thought that forming a Unity Government with Hamas would give the PA a unified front with which to harvest more money and diplomatic concessions from Europe. But last August, Abbas was informed of a Hamas murder plot against him. “We have a national unity government and you are thinking about a coup against me,” he said to Hamas’s leader, Khaled Mashaal.

The Islamist terrorist enclaves are wholly the fruit of the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine freely being spread around the Middle East and the democratic West. The so-far isolated incidents of bloodshed in Europe, Africa and the United States are just at the beginning stages of a long, bloody campaign to engulf the world.

Gaza has already been lost to Hamas and perhaps soon to ISIS. Libya and Lebanon may follow next. If the West pressures Palestinians and Israel to create a Palestinian state now, the West Bank and Jordan will be sure to follow. Enabling an expansionist Iran to have a nuclear threshold capability will also throw the region into war.

We, the Palestinians who live in the Palestinian Authority and within Israel, have not stopped dreaming of a Palestinian state, but we also witness the chaos around us and are relieved that so far the catastrophe has not harmed us or our families.

Some Palestinian politicians have turned to more extreme rhetoric to find favor with Israeli Arabs, but despite the tendency in Palestinian society towards extremism and terrorism, what is certain is that even if the establishment of the Palestinian state is postponed, most Palestinians hope the West will not make the mistake of permitting Iran to go nuclear. A nuclear Iran will create a nightmare that will make the Nakba look like a coming attraction.

____________________

[1] For recent examples, see: “Fatah glorifies arch-terrorist who planned killings of 125,” May 14, 2015; “PA honors 3 terrorists who lynched two Israeli reservists,” May 11, 2015; “PA sports presents terrorist murderers as role models,” May 4, 2015.

The Iran scam worsens — Part III, Human rights and support for terrorism

June 22, 2015

The Iran scam worsens — Part  III, Human rights and support for terrorism, Dan Miller’s Blog, June 22, 2015

(The views expressed in this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

It is likely that the P5+1 nuke “deal” with Iran will be approved soon. Military and other nuke sites which Iran has not “disclosed” will not be inspected. Nor will Iran’s nuke ties with North Korea — which P5+1 member China seems to be helping, Iran’s massive support for terrorism and abysmal human rights record be considered because they are also deemed unnecessary for “deal” approval. Sanctions against Iran are moribund and will not be revived regardless of whether there is a “deal.” However, a bronze bust of Obama may soon be displayed prominently in Supreme Leader Khamenei’s office and one of Khamenei may soon be displayed proudly in Dear Leader Obama’s office.

Iran fenced in

Iranian support for terrorism

According to the U.S. State Department, The Islamic Republic of Iran continued its sponsorship of terrorism during 2014. The linked article observes,

Iran has increased its efforts to finance and carry out terrorist activities across the world and remains a top nuclear proliferation threat, according to a new State Department assessment. [Emphasis added.]

Iran is funding and arming leading terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere, according to the State Department’s 2014 Country Reports on Terrorism, which thoroughly documents how Tehran continues to act as a leading sponsor terror groups that pose a direct threat to the United States.

The report comes as Western powers work to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran ahead of a self-imposed June 30 deadline, though it is unclear whether the new findings will come up in negotiations.

It seems clear that the new findings will not be considered.

Among many other terrorist organizations, Iran supports the Taliban.

Afghan and Western officials say Tehran has quietly increased its supply of weapons, ammunition and funding to the Taliban, and is now recruiting and training their fighters, posing a new threat to Afghanistan’s fragile security.

Iran’s strategy in backing the Taliban is twofold, these officials say: countering U.S. influence in the region and providing a counterweight to Islamic State’s move into the Taliban’s territory in Afghanistan. [Emphasis added.]

According to James Clapper, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, the intelligence community considers Iran to be the “foremost state sponsor of terrorism.”

The assessment came after criticism from the Senate that the information was omitted in a global threat assessment submitted to Congress [in February of this year.] Initially, Iran and Hezbollah were not included as terror threats in the intelligence community’s report to the Senate in February. [Emphasis added.]

Might the Obama administration have been trying to ignore Iran’s continuing support for terrorist activities because of its fixation on getting a “deal” with Iran in the ongoing P5+1 “negotiations?” Probably, but that was then. Now, it is apparently not a problem to report on Iran’s terrorist activities because they are deemed unworthy of consideration by the P5+1 negotiators. It’s terrible, but so what?

Iran is the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism. Its tentacles have a hold on Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and the Gaza Strip. Its terrorist operations know no border and its proxies partake in mass killings and war crimes. But as it has been demonstrated time and time again, the West appears unperturbed by all that. It views Iran as a potentially constructive state actor, which, as long as it gets its way, could serve to stabilize the region. [Emphasis added.]

Iran could, of course, “stabilize” the region with its own military and its terror proxies in much the same way that Hitler tried to “stabilize” Europe — by gaining military control and forcing his ideology on subjugated residents. At first, there was some resistance but that was shown to be useless as Britain under Chamberlain gave Hitler Czechoslovakia. Eventually, Britain and later her ally, the United States, became sufficiently upset to intervene militarily.

As noted in an article at Asia Times on Line, the “free world” is unwilling to confront Iranian hegemony:

For differing reasons, the powers of the world have elected to legitimize Iran’s dominant position, hoping to delay but not deter its eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons. Except for Israel and the Sunni Arab states, the world has no desire to confront Iran. Short of an American military strike, which is unthinkable for this administration, there may be little that Washington can do to influence the course of events. Its influence has fallen catastrophically in consequence of a chain of policy.

. . . .

President Obama is not British prime minister Neville Chamberlain selling out to Hitler at Munich in 1938: rather, he is Lord Halifax, that is, Halifax if he had been prime minister in 1938. Unlike the unfortunate Chamberlain, who hoped to buy time for Britain to build warplanes, Halifax liked Hitler, as Obama and his camarilla admire Iran. [Emphasis added.]

The bountiful windfall soon to be given to Iran if the P5+1 “deal” is approved, via a “signing bonus” and other Sanctions relief, will help Iran’s terror sponsorship.

[S]hould the “treaty” with Iran be consummated, this sponsor of global terrorism will receive at least $100 billion in sanctions relief. Not only will this money be used for Assad, but it will bankroll Hezbollah and Hamas with a new generation of rockets and weapons.

For Tehran, money buys weapons, and weapons buy power and influence. President Obama is counting on an accommodative Iran that receives foreign assistance. But is there any reason to embrace this hypothesis? And even if someone does, at what point can the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), or any other relevant body, determine the turnabout in Iran’s nuclear program? How do we know when a genuine peace has arrived? [Emphasis added.]

Iranian leaders have made it clear that dreams of a Persian kingdom dance like sugar plums in their imagination. For that to happen, the money pump cannot run dry. There is a need to support their Houthi surrogates in Yemen; resupply Hamas rockets that were destroyed in the last war with Israel; continue to add to the Hezbollah war machine that is poised to attack Israel; and keep Assad afloat, the mechanism by which control of Lebanon is retained. [Emphasis added.]

Iran’s abysmal human rights record is getting worse

Executions in Iran

According to Iranian Human Rights,

[T]he Iranian regime has executed a prisoner every two hours this month.

“So far in 2015, more than 560 have been executed, and we are just in the first half of the year… What we are witnessing today is not so much different from what ISIS is doing. The difference is that the Iranian authorities do it in a more controlled manner, and represent a country which is a full member of the international community with good diplomatic relations with the West.” — Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesman for Iran Human Rights. [Emphasis added.]

Now the West, with the possibility of a nuclear deal, stands to increase Iran’s diplomatic standing.

According to officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran,

Iran has “the best human rights record” in the Muslim world;[11] that it is not obliged to follow “the West’s interpretation” of human rights;[12] and that the Islamic Republic is a victim of “biased propaganda of enemies” which is “part of a greater plan against the world of Islam“.[13] According to Iranian officials, those who human rights activists say are peaceful political activists being denied due process rights are actually guilty of offenses against the national security of the country,[14] and those protesters claiming Ahmadinejad stole the 2009 election are actually part of a foreign-backed plot to topple Iran’s leaders.[15] [Emphasis added.]

Conclusions

Iran’s abysmal and already worsening records of human rights violations and support for terrorism will likely get even worse as it gets (or gets to keep) the bomb, along with a reward of massive further sanctions relief. None of that is deemed worthy of consideration by the P5+1 “negotiators,” lest Iran decline to sign a deal or lest its feelings be hurt — as they would be were IAEA inspections of “undisclosed” sites be demanded or if any Iranian demands were not met.

Iran and North Korea share not only nuclear weaponization technology; they also share a common contempt for human rights. Yet the North Korea – Iran nuclear nexus (denied by Iran) appears to be of no concern to the P5+1 “negotiators.”

Obama long ago “opened his heart” to the Muslim world.

“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” Obama declared in his first inaugural address. The underlying assumption was that America’s previous relations with Muslims were characterized by dissention and contempt. More significant, though, was the president’s use of the term “Muslim world,” a rough translation of the Arabic ummah. A concept developed by classical Islam, ummah refers to a community of believers that transcends borders, cultures, and nationalities. Obama not only believed that such a community existed but that he could address and accommodate it.

The novelty of this approach was surpassed only by Obama’s claim that he, personally, represented the bridge between this Muslim world and the West.

ALL of My policies are the best ever

ALL of My policies are the best ever

Obama does deserve some credit: His foreign policies are the most foreign in U.S. history to the security of the United States and of what’s left of the free world. Much the same is true of His domestic policies.

Report Indicates Iranian Exports are Up

June 22, 2015

Report: Iran Boosts Terror Activities Across Globe

BY: Adam Kredo June 22, 2015 5:00 am Via The Washington Free Beacon


Iranian President Rouhani is happy to serve you. (photo credit: AP)

(It’s ironic and hypocritical that this report was issued by the Department of State. – LS

Iran has increased its efforts to finance and carry out terrorist activities across the world and remains a top nuclear proliferation threat, according to a new State Department assessment.

Iran is funding and arming leading terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere, according to the State Department’s 2014 Country Reports on Terrorism, which thoroughly documents how Tehran continues to act as a leading sponsor terror groups that pose a direct threat to the United States.

The report comes as Western powers work to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran ahead of a self-imposed June 30 deadline, though it is unclear whether the new findings will come up in negotiations.

“In 2014, Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism worldwide remained undiminished through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), its Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and Tehran’s ally Hizballah, which remained a significant threat to the stability of Lebanon and the broader region,” the report states.

In addition to al Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL), Iran leads the list of dangerous state actors.

“ISIL and AQ were far from the only serious threat that confronted the United States and its allies,” according to the report. “Iran continued to sponsor terrorist groups around the world, principally through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF).”

Iran also is failing to comply with international restrictions on its contested nuclear program and has not lived up to obligations to come clean about past military work on nuclear weapons, according to the report.

“Iran remains a state of proliferation concern,” it states. “Despite multiple [United Nations Security Council resolutions] requiring Iran to suspend its sensitive nuclear proliferation activities, Iran continued to be in noncompliance with its international obligations regarding its nuclear program.”

The Islamic Republic’s support for terrorism spans across the Middle East and even into the Western hemisphere, which remains a particular concern to U.S. officials.

Iran’s terror affiliations include “Lebanese Hizballah, several Iraqi Shia militant groups, Hamas, and Palestine Islamic Jihad,” the report states. “Iran, Hizballah, and other Shia militia continued to provide support to the Assad regime [in Syria], dramatically bolstering its capabilities, prolonging the civil war in Syria, and worsening the human rights and refugee crisis there.”

Iran’s support for the embattled Syrian president includes sending arms shipments through Iraqi airspace, which violates U.N. Security Council resolutions barring such action.

This support is meant “to belittle coalition airstrikes and U.S. contributions to the Government of Iraq’s ongoing fight against ISIL,” according to the report.

However, the report also notes that Iran’s interference in Iraq has been positive in the fight against IS.

“Iraqi security forces, including the Kurdish Peshmerga, in conjunction with Iranian-backed Shia militias, demonstrated some ability to confront this challenge,” it states.

Iranian support for the terror group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, also increased in 2014.

In March, for instance, the Israeli government intercepted “a weapons shipment containing 40 M-302 rockets, 181 mortars, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition from Iran believed to be destined for militants in Gaza,” according to the report.

On Israel’s northern border, Iran continues to arm Hezbollah with sophisticated weapons meant to be used in attacks on the Jewish state.

“Iran, primarily through the efforts of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), continued to transfer arms to Hizballah,” the State Department found.

“Israeli experts believe that Iran is trying to arm Hizballah with advanced weapons systems such as anti-air and anti-ship cruise missile systems, as well as continuing to transfer long-range rockets into Lebanon,” it states.

Additionally, “Iran has admitted publicly that it armed Hizballah (in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) 1701 and 1747) with advanced long-range Iranian manufactured ‘Fateh’ missiles.”

Outside of the Middle East, Iran continues to expand its influence in a bid to establish itself as a world power.

“Iran and its proxies also continued subtle efforts at growing influence elsewhere including in Africa, Asia, and, to a lesser extent, Latin America,” according to the report. “Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. “

The United States has “remained vigilant in its efforts to monitor Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere,” the report claims.

Islamic Hate for the Christian Cross

June 22, 2015

Islamic Hate for the Christian Cross, Front Page Magazine, June 22, 2015 (Originally published by PJ Media.)

(Apparently Obama, who appears to favor Islam over all other religions, hopes that when The Islamic Republic of Iran gets or gets to keep the bomb and enjoys lots of sanctions relief its behavior toward non-Muslims will improve. — DM

pc

Islamic hostility to the cross is an unwavering fact of life—one that crosses continents and centuries; one that is very much indicative of Islam’s innate hostility to Christianity.

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

Last May in Italy, a Muslim boy of African origin beat a 12-year-old girl during school because she was wearing a crucifix around her neck. The African schoolboy, who had only started to attend the school approximately three weeks earlier, began to bully the Christian girl—“insulting her and picking on her in other ways all because she was wearing the crucifix”—before he finally “punched the girl violently in the back.”

What is it about the Christian cross that makes some Muslims react this way?

The fact is, Islamic hostility to the cross is an unwavering fact of life—one that crosses continents and centuries; one that is very much indicative of Islam’s innate hostility to Christianity.

Doctrine and History

Because the Christian cross is the quintessential symbol of Christianity—for all denominations, including most forms of otherwise iconoclastic Protestantism—it has been a despised symbol in Islam.

According to the Conditions of Omar—a Medieval text which lays out the many humiliating stipulations conquered Christians must embrace to preserve their lives and which Islamic history attributes to the second “righteous caliph,” Omar al-Khattab—Christians are “Not to display a cross [on churches]… and “Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims.”

The reason for this animosity is that the cross symbolizes the fundamental disagreement between Christians and Muslims. According to Dr. Sidney Griffith, author of The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, “The cross and the icons publicly declared those very points of Christian faith which the Koran, in the Muslim view, explicitly denied: that Christ was the Son of God and that he died on the cross.” Thus “the Christian practice of venerating the cross and the icons of Christ and the saints often aroused the disdain of Muslims,” so that there was an ongoing “campaign to erase the public symbols of Christianity, especially the previously ubiquitous sign of the cross.”

Islam’s hostility to the cross, like all of Islam’s hostilities, begins with the Muslim prophet Muhammad. He reportedly “had such a repugnance to the form of the cross that he broke everything brought into his house with its figure upon it.” He once ordered someone wearing a cross to “take off that piece of idolatry” and claimed that at the end times Jesus himself would make it a point to “break the cross”—an assertion the Islamic State regularly makes.

Islamic history following Muhammad is riddled with anecdotes of Muslims cursing and breaking crosses. Prior to the Battle of Yarmuk in 636, which pitted the earliest invading Muslim armies against the Byzantine Empire, Khalid bin al-Walid, the savage “Sword of Allah,” told the Christians that if they wanted peace they must “break the cross” and embrace Islam, or pay jizya and live in subjugation—just as his Islamic State successors are doing today in direct emulation. The Byzantines opted for war.

In Egypt, Saladin (d. 1193)—regularly touted in the West for his “magnanimity”—ordered “the removal of every cross from atop the dome of every church in the provinces of Egypt,” in the words of The History of the Patriarchate of the Egyptian Church.

Europe: Growing Violence against the Cross

Centuries later, not much has changed concerning Islam’s position towards the cross, though much has changed in Western perceptions. In other words, an African boy punching a Christian girl in Italy for her crucifix is part of a long continuum of Islamic hostility for the cross. Perhaps he learned this hatred in mosque—the same European mosques where Islamic State representatives call Muslims to jihad?

After all, earlier this year in Italy, another crucifix was destroyed in close proximity to a populated mosque.  The municipality’s Councilor, Giuseppe Berlin, did not mince words concerning the identity of the culprit(s):

Before we put a show of unity with Muslims, let’s have them begin by respecting our civilization and our culture. We shouldn’t minimize the importance of certain signals; we must wake up now or our children will suffer the consequences of this dangerous and uncontrolled Islamic invasion.

Nor is Italy the only European nation experiencing this phenomenon. In neighboring France, a “young Muslim” committed major acts of vandalism at two churches.  Along with twisting a massive bronze cross, he overturned and broke two altars, the candelabras and lecterns, destroyed statues, tore down a tabernacle, smashed in a sacristy door and even broke some stained-glass windows.  (Click for images.)

And in Germany, a Turkish man who checked himself into a hospital for treatment went into a sudden frenzy because there were “too many crosses on the wall.”  He called the nurse a “bitch” and “fascist” and became physically aggressive.

Of course, other times Europeans willingly capitulate to Islamic hostility for the cross. Real Madrid, a professional football (soccer) team in Spain reportedly stripped the traditional Christian cross from its club crest as part of a deal with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi—“so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities in the United Arab Emirates.” And in the United Kingdom, offensive crucifixes are being removed from prisons in order not to offend Muslim inmates (who are further provided with food baths for Islamic rituals).

Muslim World: Christians Killed for the Cross

If this is how some Muslims react to the Christian cross in Europe—where Muslims are aware of their outnumbered, minority status—how do other Muslims react to the cross in the Islamic world, where vastly outnumbered and ostracized Christian “infidels” are easy prey?

The answer is murderous—literally, Christians are being murdered by Muslims provoked at the sight of the cross:

Last year in Egypt, a young Coptic Christian woman named Mary was mauled to death—simply because her cross identified her as a Christian to Muslim Brotherhood rioters.   According to an eyewitness who discussed the episode, Mary Sameh George was parking her car by the church to deliver medicine to an elderly woman:

Once they [Brotherhood rioters] saw that she was a Christian [because of the cross hanging on her rearview mirror], they jumped on top of the car, to the point that the vehicle was no longer visible. The roof of the car collapsed in.  When they realized that she was starting to die, they pulled her out of the car and started pounding on her and pulling her hair—to the point that portions of her hair and scalp came off.  They kept beating her, kicking her, stabbing her with any object or weapon they could find….  Throughout [her ordeal] she tried to protect her face, giving her back to the attackers, till one of them came and stabbed her right in the back, near the heart, finishing her off.  Then another came and grabbed her by the hair, shaking her head, and with the other hand slit her throat.  Another pulled her pants off, to the point that she was totally naked.

In response, the Coptic Christian Church issued the following statement: “Oh how lucky you are, Mary, you who are beloved of Christ.  They tore your body because of the Cross.  Yet they offered you the greatest service and gave you a name of honor as one who attained the crown of martyrdom.” The statement also quoted Christ’s warning to believers: “Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service” (John 16:2).

In October 2011, seventeen-year-old Ayman Nabil Labib, a Coptic student, was strangled and beaten to death by his Muslim teacher and some fellow students—simply for refusing to obey the teacher’s orders to remove his cross. Student eyewitnesses present during the assault said that while Ayman was in the classroom he was told to cover up his tattooed wrist cross, which many Copts wear. Not only did he refuse, but he defiantly produced the pectoral cross he wore under his shirt, which prompted the enraged Muslim teacher and students to beat the Christian youth to death.

Before that, an off-duty Muslim police officer on a train from Asyut to Cairo shouted “Allahu Akbar!” and opened fire on six Christians, killing a seventy-one-year-old man and critically wounding the rest. Before opening fire he had checked for passengers with the traditional Coptic cross tattooed on their wrists. (Days ago, another Coptic woman was “shot dead by an Egyptian police officer. Although officially an “accident,” the Muslim officer is notorious for hating Christians.)

In Pakistan, when a Muslim man saw Julie Aftab, a Christian woman, wearing a cross around her neck,

The man became abusive, shouting at her that she was living in the gutter and would go to hell for shunning Islam. He left and returned half an hour later, clutching a bottle of battery acid which he savagely chucked over her head. As she ran screaming for the door a second man grabbed her by the hair and forced more of the liquid down her throat, searing her esophagus. Teeth fell from her mouth as she desperately called for help, stumbling down the street. A woman heard her cries and took her to her home, pouring water over her head and taking her to hospital. At first the doctors refused to treat her, because she was a Christian. ‘They all turned against me . . . even the people who took me to the hospital. They told the doctor they were going to set the hospital on fire if they treated me’. . . . 67 percent of her esophagus was burned and she was missing an eye and both eyelids. What remained of her teeth could be seen through a gaping hole where her cheek had been. The doctors predicted she would die any day. Despite the odds she pulled through.

All this because she was wearing a cross.

Even in Muslim nations deemed “moderate,” violence provoked by the cross is not uncommon. In 2012, a 12-year-old boy in Turkey who converted to Christianity and decided to profess his new faith by wearing a silver cross necklace in class was spit on and beat regularly by Muslim classmates and teachers.

In the Maldives, October 2010, authorities had to rescue Geethamma George, a Christian teacher from India, after Muslim “parents threatened to tie and drag her off of the island” for “preaching Christianity.” Her crime was simply to draw a compass in class as part of a geography lesson. The compass was mistaken for the Christian cross.

Christians ‘Killed’ Again for the Cross

If some Muslims kill the wearers of the cross, so do they disturb the slumber of those already dead for having the cross on their tombstones. A few of the many examples follow:

  • Libya, March 2012: A video of a Muslim mob attacking a commonwealth cemetery near Benghazi appeared on the internet. As the Muslims kicked down and destroyed headstones with crosses on them, the man videotaping them urged them to “Break the cross of the dogs!” while he and others cried “Allahu Akbar!” Towards the end of the video, the mob congregated around the huge Cross of Sacrifice, the cemetery’s cenotaph monument, and started to hammer at it, to more cries of “Allahu Akbar.”Other Christian cemeteries in post-“Arab Spring” Libya have suffered similarly.
  • France, April 2015: Christian crosses and gravestones in a cemetery weredamaged and desecrated by a Muslim. After being apprehended, he was described as follows: “The man repeats Muslim prayers over and over, he drools and cannot be communicated with: his condition has been declared incompatible with preliminary detention.” He was hospitalized as “mentally unbalanced.” (See his handiwork.)
  • Malaysia, February 2014: AChristian cemetery was attacked and desecrated in the middle of the night by unknown persons in the Muslim majority nation.  Several crosses were destroyed, including by the use of “a heavy tool to do the damage.”
  • Germany, June 2014: After Muslims were granted their own section at a cemetery in Seligenstadt, and after being allowed to conduct distinctly Islamic ceremonies, these same Muslims begandemanding that Christian symbols and crosses in the cemetery be removed or covered up during Islamic funerals.

—–

One can go on and on with more recent examples of Islam’s hostility to the cross. Last April in “moderate” Malaysia, a Muslim mob rioted against a small Protestant church due to the visible cross atop the building of worship. It was quickly removed.

And in Pakistan, a nation where the mere accusation of offending Islam get Christians burned alive—a Muslim shopkeeper is allowed to sell shoes which depict the Christian cross on their sole: “In Pakistani culture, showing the sole of one’s shoe or foot is offensive because placing anything on the ground is considered to be an insult to the object. Therefore, something on the sole of a shoe is going to be constantly insulted as the person walks.”

From an African School Boy in Italy to ‘ISIS’

In light of the above, it should come as no surprise that the Islamic State—“ISIS”—also exhibits violence to the Christian cross.   In its communiques to the West, hostile reference to the cross is often made: “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah…. [We will cast] fear into the hearts of the cross worshippers….”

After carving the heads of Coptic Christians off in Libya, the lead executioner waved his dagger at the camera and said, “Oh people, recently you have seen us on the hills of as-Sham and Dabiq’s plain [Syrian regions], chopping off the heads that have been carrying the cross for a long time.  And today, we are on the south of Rome, on the land of Islam, Libya, sending another message.”  He concluded by declaring: “We will fight you [Christians/Westerners] until Christ descends, breaks the cross and kills the pig” (all eschatological actions ascribed to the Muslim “Christ,” Isa).

Moreover, the Islamic State has committed countless atrocities against and because of the cross: it made and disseminated a video showing its members smashing crosses in and atop churches in territories under its sway; it beheaded and stabbed a man with his own crucifix after it exposed him as a Christian; and it published pictures of its members destroying Christian crosses and tombstones in cemeteries under its jurisdiction — and quoted Islamic scriptures justifying its actions.

Careful readers will note the similar parallels here: destroying crosses in churches and cemeteries and even killing Christian “infidels” for wearing them, as documented above, is not limited to “ISIS” but is happening all around the Muslim world, and even in Europe.

In short, Islam’s age-old hatred for the Christian cross—and what it represents—is not a product of the Islamic State, but of Islam.

The Palestinians’ Real Strategy

June 22, 2015

The Palestinians’ Real Strategy, The Gatestone InstituteKhaled Abu Toameh, June 22, 2015

  • Marzouk’s remarks refute claims by some in the Arab and Western media that Hamas is moving toward pragmatism and moderation, and that it is now willing, for the first time, to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Many in the West often fail to understand Hamas’s true position because they do not follow what Hamas says in Arabic — to its own people. In Arabic, Hamas makes no secret of its call for the destruction of Israel.
  • The current strategy of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is to negotiate with the international community, and not with Israel, about achieving peace in the Middle East. The ultimate goal of the PA is to force Israel to its knees. For the PA, rallying the international community and Europe is about punishing and weakening Israel, not making peace with it.
  • Their strategy is no longer about a two-state solution so much as it is about inflicting pain and suffering on Israel. It is more about seeking revenge on Israel than living in a state next to it.
  • Hamas’s terrorism also helps the PA’s anti-Israel campaign in the international community. Each terrorist attack provides the PA with an opportunity to point out the “urgent” need to force Israel to submit to Palestinian demands as a way of “containing the radicals.”

All signs indicate that the Palestinians are planning to step up their efforts to force Israel to comply with their demands. But as the Palestinians are not united, they are working on two fronts to achieve their goal.

One party, headed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), believes that, with the help of the international community, Israel will be forced to fully withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, including east Jerusalem, and accept the “right of return” for millions of refugees and their descendants to their former homes inside Israel.

The second party, represented by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and several other terror groups, continues to reject any form of compromise, and insists that the only solution lies in the elimination of Israel. Unlike the first party, this one believes that direct or indirect negotiations with the “Zionist enemy” are a waste of time and that terrorism is the only means for the Palestinians to achieve their goal.

The two Palestinian parties, the PA and Hamas, have been at war with each other since 2007, when Hamas seized full control over the Gaza Strip and forced the Palestinian Authority to flee to the West Bank.

But while the two rival parties are fighting each other, they are also working separately to overpower Israel.

On June 19, a Hamas-affiliated group claimed responsibility for the shooting attack that killed Danny Gonen, a 25-year-old man who was visiting the West Bank.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups rushed to “welcome” the killing of the young Israeli man who, by the way, was not a “settler,” but a resident of the Israeli city of Lod, near Ben Gurion Airport.

In separate statements, these terror groups explained that the attack came in the context of Palestinian efforts to “preserve the resistance” against Israel in the West Bank. They said that such attacks were “legitimate means” to achieve Palestinian rights and aspirations.

These groups made it unavoidably clear that their real objective is not to “liberate” the West Bank, but to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. As one of them said, “We will continue to support any resistance action on the land of Palestine until it is liberated, from the (Mediterranean) sea to the (Jordan) river, and cleansed from all Zionist usurpers.”

Hours after the West Bank attack, a senior Hamas leader, Musa Abu Marzouk, repeated that his movement was seeking to replace Israel with an Islamist state: “Hamas wants a state not only in the Gaza Strip, but in all of Palestine; we won’t give up our weapons and will continue to fight in order to liberate our land.”

Marzouk’s remarks refute claims by some Arab and Western media that Hamas has been moving toward pragmatism and moderation, and that it is now willing, for the first time, to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Many in the West often fail to understand Hamas’s true position because they do not follow what Hamas says in Arabic — to its own people. In Arabic, Hamas makes no secret of its call for the destruction of Israel. To Hamas’s credit, this message is often repeated in English and other languages.

While Hamas and its allies work toward destroying Israel through terrorism, the Palestinian Authority seems more determined than ever to step up its worldwide campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel with the help of various international parties, such as the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Some senior Palestinian officials like to describe this campaign as a “diplomatic war” against Israel. They argue that this war has thus far proven to be much more “effective” than rockets and suicide bombings. “When we launch rockets at Israel, we don’t get any sympathy,” explained one official. “But everyone in the international community is now supporting our diplomatic efforts. That’s why we believe that what Hamas is doing right now is harmful to Palestinian interests.”

Shortly before the Israeli man was fatally shot in the West Bank, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, revealed his plan to rally the world against Israel so that it would be forced to submit to the Palestinian Authority’s demands, above all a complete withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.

Erekat’s plan calls for working very closely with EU countries and members of the UN Security Council, to increase pressure on Israel to comply with the Palestinian demands. It also calls for recruiting international support for recognition of a Palestinian state and paving the way for it to join various international organizations and conventions.

In his plan, Erekat warns against endorsing any UN Security Council resolution that would include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, or offer concessions on the “right of return” for refugees. He also repeats the Palestinian Authority’s rejection of the idea of land swaps between the future Palestinian state and Israel. In addition, Erekat emphasizes his opposition to the idea of creating a demilitarized Palestinian state or giving up any part of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority’s current strategy is to negotiate with the international community, and not with Israel, about achieving peace in the Middle East. The PA knows that it is not going to get from Israel all that it is asking for. That is why the Palestinian leaders have chosen to negotiate with France, Britain, Sweden and the US. The Palestinians are hoping that these countries will give them what Israel cannot and is not prepared to offer at the negotiating table.

Even if Israel wanted to give one hundred percent of what it gained in 1967, the reality on he ground does not allow it. Since 1967, both Jews and Arabs have created irreversible “facts in the ground,” such as the construction of tens of thousands of houses for both Arabs and Jews. A full withdrawal would mean that tens of thousands of Jews and Arabs would lose their homes both in the West Bank and in Jerusalem.

The ultimate goal of the Palestinian Authority is, with the help of the international community, to force Israel to its knees. For the PA, rallying the international community and Europe is about punishing and weakening Israel, not making peace with it. The PA wants to see Israel degraded, isolated and turned into a rogue state. It wants to see Israelis brought before the International Criminal Court and expelled from as many international organizations as possible.

From talking to senior Palestinian Authority officials, one is left with the impression that their true goal is to see Israel in a state of surrender and defeat. Their strategy is no longer about a two-state solution so much as it is about inflicting pain and suffering on Israel. It is more about seeking revenge on Israel than living in a state next to it.

In many ways, the PA’s “diplomatic war” on Israel also helps Hamas. By constantly accusing Israel of “war crimes” and “atrocities,” the PA is helping Hamas justify its terror attacks against Israelis. The PA’s anti-Israel campaign also helps in creating sympathy and understanding for Hamas’s terror attacks.

Meanwhile, Hamas’s terrorism also helps the Palestinian Authority’s anti-Israel campaign in the international community. Each terrorist attack provides the PA with an opportunity to point out the “urgent” need to force Israel to submit to Palestinian demands as a way of “containing the radicals.”

This is how Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, although remaining sworn enemies, complement each other’s role against Israel.

And many in the international community seem to be helping these two Palestinian camps in their effort to undermine and destroy Israel.

677Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (r) meets with the Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar, July 20, 2014. (Image source: Handout from the PA President’s Office/Thaer Ghanem)