Archive for the ‘Israel’ category

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

What’s Obama’s Next Move on Israel?

October 9, 2015

What’s Obama’s Next Move on Israel? Commentary Magazine, , October 9, 2015

(On the other hand, Obama may concentrate on global smarming and bypassing Congress on gun control. — DM)

new-obama

The reasoning behind America’s supine reaction to Russian intervention in Syria is no mystery. It is a clear reflection of President Obama’s longstanding desire to withdraw from the Middle East, as well as his commitment to détente with Iran. Since the Iranians are hoping the Russian forces can do what Hezbollah and Iranian volunteers failed to accomplish in the last few years — destroy Bashar Assad’s opposition — it is hardly surprising that the U.S. would decide to shrug at this nightmarish reversal of fortune for American interests. But that doesn’t mean the president likes being upstaged by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The question for the White House now is how to seize back the initiative on the world stage in a manner better suited to President Obama’s sensibilities. The recent surge of Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis may provide the answer. Though the administration has its hands full with foreign crises right now, it may be that Obama’s answer to Russian adventurism will be a return to the dead in the water peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead of stronger efforts to make good on his promise to destroy ISIS, he may prefer another go at hammering Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

As late as only a couple of weeks ago, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians didn’t seem to be on the White House’s front burner. To judge by his recent speech at the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama was done with the Israel-Palestinian peace process. For the first time since he became president, Obama didn’t mention the topic once in his annual UN address. With Russia waging war in Syria, the U.S. is unable to do much about ISIS and the region in chaos. The notion that the carnage and suffering that had spread across the Middle East has anything to with Israel or the Palestinians is ludicrous. So it was little surprise that the president preferred to use his address to boast of the dubious virtues of his nuclear deal with Iran than to spout his standard lines about Israel needing to take risks for the sake of a peace process that wasn’t going anywhere.

Indeed, the scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu next month was seen as an opportunity to repair the alliance that was damaged by the debate over Iran rather than another chance for Obama to renew his longstanding feud with the Israeli leader. Though Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s farcical declaration at the UN that the Oslo Accords no longer bound him fell flat, the outbreak of a wave of Palestinian terror directed at Israelis has put that issue back in the news. The administration’s studious neutrality about the recent violence in spite of the incitement from the Palestinian Authority that has stoked the bloodshed has helped to further isolate Israel. The intractable nature of the conflict and the Palestinians’ obvious lack of interest in peace would deter a wiser man than Obama. But the need to do something to assert American influence, or at least get some attention, could prompt the president to use what may be the start of a third intifada to unleash Secretary of State John Kerry and begin a new round of pointless negotiations.

Why would the administration expend what is left of its diminishing political capital for another round of Netanyahu-bashing that would almost certainly do nothing to advance the cause of peace?

The first thing to remember about this president is never to underestimate either the strength of his obsessions or his willingness to hold onto grudges.

President Obama is a man who has learned nothing in his seven years in office. He arrived at the White House determined to foster engagement with Iran and create more daylight between the U.S. and Israel, and convinced that Netanyahu’s Likud was not to his taste. Nothing that has happened in the intervening years has altered his opinion about any of this.

Part of it is rooted in a genuine belief that the only way to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict is to put sufficient pressure on the Israelis to make concessions. That fits in nicely with his equally sincere conviction that the United States must concentrate its efforts on reaching out to the Muslim and Arab worlds rather than reinforcing the alliance with Israel, which he and advisors like Susan Rice see as an impediment to U.S. interests.

The failure of every previous attempt to foster peace has not influenced the president’s opinion. No matter how many times the Palestinian leadership says no to Israeli offers of peace or incites their people to religious-based violence — as Abbas is currently doing — Obama still thinks that the key to success will be more Israel-bashing.

However, just as important as his faith in pressure on Israel is his animus for Netanyahu. The president’s defining characteristic in office is his arrogant belief in his own superior intellect and Netanyahu’s stubborn refusal to bow to Obama’s demands irritates him in a way that can only be described as disproportionate. As State Department veteran and former Obama staffer Dennis Ross describes in his new book that was excerpted yesterday in Politico, Obama and Susan Rice were so offended by possible Israeli opposition to the Iran deal that they kept Netanyahu in the dark about the talks with Tehran and then spread canards about his dissent being rooted in racism.

It would make political sense for Obama and the Democratic Party for the president to forget about his feud with Netanyahu,  but that isn’t likely to happen. That’s especially true since the prime minister used his own UN speech to reiterate his criticisms of the Iran deal, something that was likely to drive Obama straight up the White House walls even though that’s a fight he’s already won.

Lastly, a new peace process push would let Obama preen on the international stage in a way that he likes. The president disdains and even mocks Putin’s muscular approach to international affairs, even though Russia’s advances come at America’s expense. But he really thinks that moves like appeasing Iran or putting Israel in its place enhance his prestige. That this is dangerous nonsense that only undermines American credibility seems never to occur to him.

The ultimate outcome of any new push for peace with the Palestinians is a foreordained conclusion. Neither Abbas nor his Hamas rivals are willing to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn. Moreover, the violence that Abbas has incited in order to compete with Hamas may not be so easily kept in check. American neutrality about Abbas’ double game in which he stokes hatred with one hand and seeks to restrain it with the other may serve to only make the situation even more dangerous. Instead of allowing the president to claim that the U.S. is a force for peace, more pressure on Israel will just add to the toll of suffering in Iraq and Syria, that Obama’s misguided policies have created.

 

Categories: Abbas, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama and Israel, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's affinity for Islam, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Putin, Russia - Middle East, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Column One: Abbas must be stopped

October 9, 2015

Column One: Abbas must be stopped, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, October 8, 2015

ShowImage (12)PA President Mahmoud Abbas.. (photo credit:AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)

All the Palestinian terrorist attacks that have been carried out in recent weeks share one common feature. All the terrorists believe that by attacking Jews they are protecting the Temple Mount from destruction.

And why shouldn’t they believe this obscenity? Everywhere they go, every time they turn on their televisions, read the paper, go to school or the mosque they are told that the Jews are destroying al-Aksa Mosque. Al-Aksa, they are told, is in danger. They must take up arms to defend it from the Jews, whatever the cost.

One man stands at the center of this blood libel. The man who propagates this murderous lie and orchestrates the death and mayhem that is its bloody harvest is none other than the West’s favorite Palestinian moderate: PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

On September 16 Abbas gave a speech. It was broadcast on PA television and posted on his Facebook page. In it, he incited the Palestinians to kill Jews. In his words, “Al-Aksa Mosque is ours.

They [the Jews] have no right to desecrate it with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do everything in our power to defend Jerusalem.”

Abbas added, “We bless every drop of blood spilled for Jerusalem. This is clean and pure blood, blood that was spilled for God. It is Allah’s will that every martyr will go to heaven and every wounded [terrorist] will receive God’s reward.”

Two weeks later, Abbas opened his address before the UN General Assembly with the same lies, threats, and incitement.

Almost exactly a year ago, Abbas spewed the same bile in a speech, with the same murderous consequences. In a speech before Fatah’s executive committee last October, Abbas said, “We must prevent them [the Jews] from entering the holy site in every possible way. This is our holy site, this is our al-Aksa and our church [the Church of the Holy Sepulchre]. They have no right to enter them. They have no right to desecrate them. We must prevent them from entering. We must block them with our bodies to defend our holy sites.”

In subsequent weeks, Abbas’s words were rebroadcast 19 times on Palestinian television.

During that period, Arab terrorists massacred rabbis in prayer at a Jerusalem synagogue, attempted to assassinate human rights activist Yehudah Glick, and murdered Jews standing at light rail stops in the capital.

Eleven Israelis were butchered in that terrorist onslaught.

Then as now, Abbas and his lieutenants not only incited attacks, they incentivized would be perpetrators to kill Jews.

Every year, the same PA that claims perpetual poverty pays more than $100 million to terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails. Their salaries range between four to seven times the average PA salary, depending on the lethality of the attacks they carried out.

Popular awareness of the financial benefits of terrorist activities has played a critical role in motivating Palestinians to attack Jews. This is made clear by the actions in recent weeks of several of the supposedly “lone wolf” attackers in the hours before they struck. Several of them – like their predecessors in last year’s onslaught – announced their intention to become martyrs to protect al-Aksa from the Jews on their Facebook pages immediately before they carried out their attacks.

Money may be the greatest incentive Abbas and his PA provide for potential terrorists. But it isn’t the only one. There is also the social status they confer on terrorists and their families. Every would-be terrorist knows that if he succeeds in killing Jews, he will be glorified by the Palestinian media and his family will be embraced by the PA establishment – first and foremost by Abbas himself, who has made a habit of meeting with terrorists and their families.

Presently, Israel’s security brass is embroiled in a bitter dispute with our elected leaders regarding the nature of the current terrorist offensive. The dispute bubbled to the surface Wednesday night when the generals used military reporters to criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for blaming Abbas for the violence.

The generals insist that Abbas is a good guy.

He’s trying to calm the situation, they argue, and Israel needs to support him.

From the looks of things, the IDF seems to have the upper hand in this fight. This is the only way to read Netanyahu’s announcement Wednesday night that he is barring government ministers and members of Knesset from visiting the Temple Mount until further notice. Netanyahu’s move is nothing less than a signal that he accepts Abbas’s premise that there is something wrong with Jews exercising their right to visit Judaism’s holiest site.

The generals’ rationale for defending Abbas is fairly straightforward. Throughout the current Palestinian terror onslaught they have continued to cooperate with Abbas-controlled Palestinian security forces in Judea and Samaria.

These forces cooperate with the IDF in seeking out and arresting terrorists from Hamas and other groups that are not subordinate to Abbas. The fact that Abbas has ordered his men to work with the IDF has convinced the generals that he is a positive actor. So as they see it, he must be protected.

In their view, Israel must limit its counterterrorism operations to tactical operations against trigger pullers and their immediate commanders and ignore the overarching cause of the violence.

In behaving in this manner, our security brass is being willfully blind to the fact that Abbas is playing a double game. On the one hand, he orders his forces to be nice to IDF officers in Central Command when they fight terrorist cells from Hamas and other groups not loyal to Abbas, and so wins their appreciation.

But on the other hand, Abbas works with those same terrorist forces, incites them to attack, and rewards them for doing so.

Perhaps the most outrageous aspect of the IDF’s insistence that Abbas is critical to its counterterrorism efforts is that the IDF’s own data demonstrate that Abbas has played an insignificant role in quelling terrorist attacks against Israel.

As Jerusalem Post columnist Evelyn Gordon showed in an article in Commentary this week, according to official data, from 2002 when Palestinian terrorist activities in the areas were at their peak until 2007, when Israel began transferring security control over some Palestinian cities to Abbas’s forces, levels of terrorism went down 97 percent. Even after Israel began permitting Abbas to deploy his security forces to Nablus and Jenin, the IDF has continued to operate at will in these areas, often on a nightly basis.

As Gordon noted, the only place Abbas has exercised sole security control was in Gaza. From September 2005, when Israel removed its military forces from Gaza until Hamas expelled Fatah forces from the areas in June 2007, Abbas’s forces had full control over Gaza. During this time, his forces did nothing to prevent Hamas – and Fatah forces – from attacking Israel with thousands of mortars and rockets. His forces did nothing to prevent the massive transfer of advanced weaponry to Gaza from Egypt and Iran.

True, since his forces were routed in Gaza, Abbas has ordered them to work with the IDF in Judea and Samaria to prevent Hamas from overthrowing him. But at the same time, he continuously seeks to form a unity government with Hamas.

He funds Hamas. He glorifies its terrorists. And he refuses to condemn their attacks against Israel.

Moreover, while ordering his men to help the IDF to protect him from Hamas, he leads the diplomatic war against Israel internationally. The goals of that war are to harm Israel’s economy and deny Israel the right to self-defense.

Our political leadership’s reluctance to stand up to the army is understandable. It is nearly impossible to order the IDF to take action it opposes.

At some point though, the government is going to rein in our insubordinate generals. Fortunately, the government doesn’t need the IDF to deal with Abbas and destroy his capacity to foment and direct attacks against Israel.

Our elected officials have the authority to go after the twin foundations Abbas’s terrorist offensive on their own. Those foundations are the incitement and the financial incentives he uses to motivate Palestinians to attack Jews.

On the financial end, the Knesset should pass two laws to dry up the wells of terrorism financing.

First, the Knesset should pass a law stipulating that all property belonging to terrorists, and all property used by terrorists to plan and carry out attacks, will be seized by the government and transferred to the victims of their attacks.

Moreover, all compensation paid to terrorists and their relatives pursuant to their attacks will be seized by the government and transferred to their victims.

The second law would relate to Israel’s practice – anchored in the Oslo Accords that Abbas revoked last month at the UN – of transferring tax revenues to the PA. The Knesset should pass a law prohibiting those transfers unless the Defense Minister certifies that the PA has ceased all terrorism- related activities including incitement, organization, financing, directing and glorifying terrorist attacks and terrorists.

Until he so certifies, all revenues collected should be used to pay PA debts to Israeli institutions and to compensate victims of Palestinian terrorism.

As for the incitement, the government needs to go to the source of the problem – Abbas’s blood libel regarding Jewish rights to the Temple Mount.

As things stand, Abbas is exacting a price in human lives for his obscene anti-Jewish propaganda about our “filthy feet defiling” the most sacred site in Judaism. By barring elected officials from visiting the Temple Mount, not only is the government failing to exact a price for Abbas’ obscene propaganda. It is rewarding him and so inviting Abbas to expand his rhetorical offensive.

To remedy the situation an opposite approach is required. Rather than bar elected officials from visiting the Temple Mount, Netanyahu should encourage them to do so. Just as he sent a letter to Jordan’s King Abdullah telling him that Israel is preserving the status quo on the Temple Mount, so he should write a similar letter to our lawmakers.

In his letter, Netanyahu should say that in keeping with the status quo, which protects the rights of members of all religions to freely enter the Temple Mount, so he commits the government to protect the rights of all believers of all religions to ascend the Mount.

The Palestinian terrorist onslaught now raging against us is not spontaneous. Abbas has incited it and is directing it. To stop this assault, Israel must finally take action against Abbas and his machinery of war. Anything less can bring us nothing more than a temporary respite in the carnage that Abbas will be free to end whenever he wishes.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Defense of Israel, Fatah, Filthy Jews, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Oslo Accords, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Temple Mount, Terrorists, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Russia Missile Attacks Embarrass Obama, Warn Israel

October 9, 2015

Russia Missile Attacks Embarrass Obama, Warn Israel, American Thinker, Jonathan Keiler, October 9, 2015

Beyond heaping yet another humiliation on Obama and signaling American admirals to keep their distance, the missile attack probably also sent a very pointed message to Israel. Israel currently deploys four advanced German-made and Israeli equipped Dolphin submarines, with two more on the way.

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

Russia’s October 7 cruise missile bombardment of anti-Assad Syrian rebels from ships stationed nearly 1000 miles away was probably the most expensively ineffectual display of military firepower since Bill Clinton launched a similar strike against al Qaeda in 1998. Clinton’s feckless and spendthrift action was supposedly in retaliation for the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya and succeeded by most accounts in wiping out a few empty tents with several tons of explosives and several million dollars’ worth of advanced ordnance.

It is unlikely that Vladimir Putin’s strike did much damage to Syrian rebels either. But unlike Clinton (and the current Democrat in the White House) Putin doesn’t use force to shirk greater national responsibilities, he uses it to pursue clear strategic objectives. In this case, the Russian decision to launch brand-new Kalibr-NK missiles from the Caspian Sea fleet was clearly intended as yet another poke in the eye to President Obama, and a demonstration of Russian firepower, from diminutive but still dangerous Russian warships.

The 26 missiles were launched by three patrol boats and a frigate (a warship smaller than a destroyer.)  Russian spokesmen claimed all landed within nine feet of their targets, a degree of accuracy probably not needed against dispersed irregular infantry, but necessary to hit opposing warships, like those flying American flags. The Syrian rebels served as live practice targets for the Russian missile crews, who got to shoot off the new and previously unproven (in combat) missile.

Beyond heaping yet another humiliation on Obama and signaling American admirals to keep their distance, the missile attack probably also sent a very pointed message to Israel. Israel currently deploys four advanced German-made and Israeli equipped Dolphin submarines, with two more on the way. Most analysts presume that these advanced boats are intended to penetrate the Persian Gulf in the event of war with Iran, and from their launch cruise missiles in support of Israeli air action.

However, several years ago, in this article I proposed that the Israeli purpose was probably otherwise. Israeli is widely presumed to have equipped the subs with Israeli Popeye turbo cruise missiles with a range similar to that of the Russian Kalibr-NK. With such a weapon, Israeli subs need not make the long and dangerous journey to the Persian Gulf, but could launch from off the coast of Syria, the missiles following a flight plan very similar to those the Russian weapons took (but in reverse) where they could strike targets across northern Iran.

If I could conceive of such a plan, so could Russian intelligence services, which have probably backed this idea with hard, but secret intelligence. The Russian attack is a clear signal to Israel, demonstrating that cruise missiles which can go from the eastern Mediterranean to Iran can go the other way too. It is unlikely that it was a message lost on the Israelis, and more evidence that Russia’s movement in to the Syrian arena is proving disastrous for America and her allies.

 

Categories: Defense of Israel, Iran / Israel War, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Obama - Middle East, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Obama's weakness, Putin, Russia, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war, Russian missiles
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Palestinians’ New Intifada

October 8, 2015

The Palestinians’ New Intifada, Gatestone Institute, Barry Shaw, October 8, 2015

  • “I saw a mob of 40 to 50 masked Palestinians on the side of the road. They were holding rocks and cinder blocks. … I have no doubt that I would be dead now if I hadn’t used my gun. They were going to kill me.” – Josh Hasten, Oct. 7, 2015.
  • Arab children watch other Arab children on television throw rocks and firebombs, and speaking of knifing and shooting Jews, and they want a part of the action.
  • When Arabs hear from their leaders that Jews are “desecrating” Islamic holy places with their “filthy feet” and plotting to destroy them, it is a code, telling them to go out and attack Jews.

Yesterday, a friend, Josh Hasten, was set upon by a crowd of rock-wielding Palestinians, while he was driving to Jerusalem. “I saw a mob of 40 to 50 masked Palestinians on the side of the road. They were holding rocks and cinder blocks,” Hasten said. “As they approached my car, I took out my gun and fired one round in the air. The shot obviously scared them and they ran up the hill away from the road. I have no doubt that I would be dead now if I hadn’t used my gun. They were going to kill me.”

In Europe and the West, acts of terrorist violence are relatively rare; in Israel, they occur several times a day — on a regular basis.

Last week, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas spoke at the United Nations, highlighting Israeli “crimes,” but without specifying any. He is, apparently, aware of losing control of the Palestinian “street,” which now seems to feel closer to radical elements within Palestinian society — especially since Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad take credit for recent murders in Israel.

Palestinians who commit terrorist attacks are not, as in Europe, radicalized primarily by social media or clerics. They are, rather, radicalized primarily by their own Palestinian Authority or Hamas leadership. Arab children watch other Arab children on television throwing rocks and firebombs, and speaking of knifing and shooting Jews, and they want a part of the action.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government is prevented by international pressure from disbanding these groups or arresting their leaders. The equivalent is as if Britain were plagued by daily terror attacks directed by a leadership based in Birmingham, and with the British government prevented from acting against the source, under pain of condemnation and punishment from the European Union and the United Nations.

The current wave of Arab riots and terrorist attacks has been compared to an “intifada,” an Arabic word meaning “uprising” or “shaking off” — a word used to describe the desire of Palestinian Arabs to drive the Jews out of the land.

The violent demonstrations and riots are initiated and orchestrated by the Palestinian leadership, seemingly concerned about losing the support of their own people. Palestinian leaders have been seeing, in local surveys and student elections, a growing disenchantment with the corrupt and sclerotic Fatah-led Palestinian governance, as well as a growing popularity for Hamas.

Palestinian Authority leaders have also been seeing the rise in popularity of rival groups at the same time as they are being ignored by the world’s media and diplomatic community, who are busy with Iran, Russia, Syria and ISIS.

The current violence has a greater religious component than earlier intifadas.[1] Perhaps seeing that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are strongly Islamic, PA President Mahmoud Abbas latched onto the extremist — albeit totally incorrect — Islamist theme that Jews are trying to destroy Islamic holy places. He thereby ignited a firestorm of competition among radical groups as to which faction could incite the most violence.

1280Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) ignited competition among radical groups as to which faction could incite the most violence. Left: official PA media incite Palestinians, from a young age, to murder Jews.

Hamas, ruling in the Gaza Strip, has made no secret of its wish to deepen its influence in the West Bank. This time, it was assisted by the Palestinian Authority, which used the Jewish high holy days as an excuse to accuse Jews praying at the Western Wall, of trying to take over Muslim holy places. The Western Wall, a holy place to Jews, is all that is left of the Jews’ Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

When Muslims hear from their leaders that Jews are “desecrating” Islamic holy places with their “filthy feet” and plotting to destroy them, it is a code, telling them to go out and attack Jews.

In addition, Muslim women, in organized groups funded by the Islamic Movement in Israel, have been bused to Jerusalem, and paid to abuse, and sometimes use violence, to prevent non-Muslims, mainly Jews, from visiting the Temple Mount. The women punch, kick, spit, and hurl insults at Jews (and often other non-Muslims) who visit or attempt to visit the Temple Mount.

For years, Mahmoud Abbas has been whipping up the Palestinians with claims — all false, as can be seen throughout the Bible — that Jews have no heritage or history in Jerusalem, and therefore have no right to be there. It is a charge he repeats despite a Jewish presence and culture in the land that dates back over 3000 years.

Incitement to violence leads to actual violence. So, on October 3, an impressionable 19-year-old Arab man became a murderer. Muhannad Halabi, before setting out on his killing spree, wrote on his Facebook page, “The Third Intifada has erupted!…Defending the sanctity of Al-Aqsa and its women is out pride and honor… We know only that Jerusalem is undivided and that every part of it is holy.”

This young killer was apparently caught up in the passion of the false claims of Abbas that Jews were defiling Islamic holy places with their “filthy feet,” that he took a knife and entered the Jerusalem’s Old City in search of Jews. There, he attacked a Jewish family that on its way to pray at the Western Wall. He stabbed Aharon Banita, and his wife, Adele. Hearing the screams of the victims, 41-year-old Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, armed with a pistol, ran over to stop the attack. Halabi stabbed and killed Lavi, took his gun, and shot and wounded 2-year-old Matan Banita. Seconds later, security forces arrived and killed Halabi in a shootout. Adele and Matan Banita survived.

During the attack, as the wounded and bleeding Adele Banita ran through the street screaming for help, she was jeered at, spat on, hit and insulted by Arab passersby and local Arab shopkeepers. None of them helped her. She reported later from the hospital that many of them screamed at her to die. The anti-Jewish incitement by Palestinians resulted in the killing of four Jews – simply because they were Jews.

In the minds of radicalized Palestinians, there is no difference between shooting or stabbing women and children, and shooting men.[2]

Many in the Western media fail to portray events in Israel accurately. The most morally tortured headline came from BBC News. Its headline on October 4 read “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two.” It appeared a clear effort to make readers believe that the Palestinian terrorist was the victim.

Unless the West persuades Abbas to stop the incitement, perhaps by linking financial aid to performance, his intifada will continue to escalate.

__________________________-

[1] In the first “intifada,” from 1987-1993 Arabs attacked primarily Israeli soldiers and police, mainly with rocks and firebombs. The second “intifada” (2000-2005), planned by the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, included widespread attacks — suicide bombings, shootings and car bombs — against any and all Israeli targets, mainly civilians.

[2] In 2011, for example, three of the six children from the Fogel family in the village of Itamar were hacked to death in their beds, along with their parents, when Palestinian terrorists broke into their home. It was near Itamar that four small children from the Henkin family miraculously avoided death under a hail of bullets on October 1, when Palestinians murdered their parents (Eitam and Naama Henkin) in a drive-by shooting. The nine-year-old son recited the mourner’s prayer at his parents’ graves the following day.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Filthy Jews, Hamas, Intifada, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic culture, Islamic jihad, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Obama Admin’s Iran Point Man Promotes Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theories

October 8, 2015

Obama Admin’s Iran Point Man Promotes Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theories, Washington Free Beacon,  , October 8, 2015

(Surprising? Nope. — DM)

eyrestate__2_Alan Eyre / Twitter

A State Department official closely involved in the Obama administration’s Iran push has been promoting publications from anti-Semitic conspiracy sites and other radical websites that demonize American Jewish groups and Israel, according to sources and documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Alan Eyre, the State Department’s Persian-language spokesman and a member of the negotiating delegation that struck a nuclear deal with Iran earlier this year, has in recent months disseminated articles that linked American-Jewish skeptics of the deal to shadowy financial networks, sought to soften the image of Iranian terrorists with American blood on their hands, and linked deal criticism to a vast “neoconservative worldview.”

Eyre described the one article, penned by the anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Stephen Walt, as having an “interesting thesis.”

Insiders who spoke to the Free Beacon about Eyre’s private postings pointed to a pattern of partisanship and called it a sign that key officials at the State Department are biased against the state of Israel. Such criticism has dogged the team Obama since the early days of the administration.

Eyre regularly briefed U.S. officials at the negotiating table and was responsible for proofreading draft texts of the recent Iranian nuclear agreement.

While Eyre has a public Facebook page officially sponsored by the State Department, screenshots taken from his private personal account obtained by the Free Beacon include content that insiders described as concerning.

In one Feb. 13 posting, when Iran talks were at a critical stage, Eyre disseminated a link to an article praising Iranian Quds Force Chief Ghassem Suleimani, who is directly responsible for the deaths of Americans abroad.

Image-1

Suleimani, who is listed as a terrorist by the U.S. State Department, will have international sanctions against him waived under the parameters of the nuclear accord.

In another posting from Feb. 5, Eyre links to the website LobeBlog, which is viewed by critics as anti-Israel and regularly attacks neoconservative pundits.”

The article Eyre links to, “Who Are the Billionaires Attacking Obama’s Iran Diplomacy,” attacks opponents of the Iranian deal and insinuates that wealthy Jewish donors are behind this push.

The article puts particular emphasis on the Israel Project (TIP), a non-profit advocacy organization run by Josh Block, a longtime Democrat, and claimed that wealthy Jewish individuals were behind a stealth campaign to kill the deal. TIP is portrayed as playing a crucial role in discrediting the deal and convincing lawmakers to take a stance against it.

The article was penned by a former ThinkProgress blogger, Eli Clifton, who was forced out of the Center for American Progress-backed blog following a scandal in which several writers accused Iran deal critics of being “Israel firsters.”

Image-2

In another posting, Eyre links to an article by Stephen Walt, co-author of the book The Israel Lobby, which has been branded by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an “anti-Jewish screed.”

Walt lashes out in the piece at neoconservative critics of the Iran deal, writing that “no one should listen to their advice today.”

Eyre linked to the piece with the comment, “interesting thesis.” He then quoted Walt at length, according to a screenshot:

The real problem is that the neoconservative worldview — one that still informs the thinking of many of the groups and individuals who are most vocal in opposing the Iran deal — is fundamentally flawed. Getting Iraq wrong wasn’t just an unfortunate miscalculation, it happened because their theories of world politics were dubious and their understanding of how the world works was goofy.

Image-3

Eyre also appeared to express disappointment online in March, when Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 other Republican lawmakers penned an open letter to Iran opposing the nuclear talks.

Eyre links to a March 9 Washington Post article by Paul Pillar, an Israel critic who backs boycotts of the Jewish state, titled ‘The misguided, condescending letter from Republican senators to Iran.’ He then opined in the post, “Seriously. Can someone write them a letter telling them that the most fundamental duty of Congress is to pass a budget?”

Image-4

At least one of Eyre’s Facebook friends has quibbled with his postings.

When Eyre linked to a Talking Points Memo article claiming that “49 percent of Republicans don’t believe in evolution,” one critic commented: “This post is total crap. Some 300 people were polled, and the polling criteria were, of course, not specified. This outfit has a deserved reputation as a left-leaning, professionally anti-Republican Flak Tank.”

Eyre dismissed that criticism, responding, “If you are going to fact check every incendiary posting I put up, it is going to detract from the sum total of my facebook-derived frivolity.”

In addition to his postings, Eyre has appeared as a keynote speaker at the National Iranian American Council’s Washington, D.C., conference.

The council, which has been accused as serving as a pro-Tehran lobbying shop, has helped the Obama administration disseminate pro-Iran talking points and champion the deal in the public sphere. Its top officials also have insinuatedthat Jewish lawmakers who oppose the deal have more loyalty to Israel than America.

One senior official at a Washington, D.C., pro-Israel organization expressed disappointment but not surprise at Eyre’s posting.

“The easiest way to explain the State Department’s behavior toward the Middle East is to assume that they don’t like the Israelis very much and they have this romantic fascination with Iran,” the source said. “That’s what you’re seeing here.”

“Of course they can’t admit that out loud, because the American people believe exactly the opposite, so they do it through passive-aggressive Facebook posts and occasional slips of the tongue about how moderate and sophisticated the Iranians are,” the source added.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment on Eyre’s personal postings when contacted by the Free Beacon.

“Alan Eyre is the Department’s Persian Language Spokesperson,” the official said. “In that capacity, he maintains his official page on Facebook here,” the spokesman continued, providing a link to the page.

The Facebook page in question, however, is separate from Eyre’s public-facing personal page referenced by the State Department, which said it had no knowledge of the second page.

“We’re not aware of any such content that you refer to posted on that account,” the official said.

The official did not respond to follow-up requests asking for comment from Eyre on the postings.

Categories: AIPAC, Alan Eyre, Antisemitism, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Jews, Obama, Obama - rogue president, Obama administration, Obama and Israel, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Soleimani, U.S. Congress
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Disgusting video encourages Arabs to murder Jews

October 7, 2015

Disgusting video encourages Arabs to murder Jews, elderofziyon2 via You Tube, October 6, 2015

 

 

This video was released apparently from Gaza telling Arabs to attack Jews.

Not Israelis – Jews.

Categories: Death to Israel, Fatah, Gaza, Hamas, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic culture, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Abbas is playing with fire

October 7, 2015

Abbas is playing with fire, Israel Hayom, Dr. Reuven Berko, October 7, 2015

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is continuing to play with fire. He and his ilk are claiming that because Israel is stuck in stalled negotiations, it is creating a show of violence and terrorism to increase international pressure to solve the Palestinian problem.

In reality, the situation is the exact opposite: In light of the chaos, the threat of millions of refugees from the Middle East looming over Europe, and the fact that Islamic terror is reigning over the international agenda, the Palestinian problem has nearly fallen off the radar. That is why the PA and Hamas are trying to revive the issue using Jewish blood.

The desperate situation they are in has led the PA and Hamas to use the infamous trigger: “Al-Aqsa is in danger.” Israel’s declarations that it would maintain the status quo on the Temple Mount did not help. Even as mosques and churches in the area were burned, the incitement did not stop, despite the well-known fact that it is precisely Al-Aqsa that is the best-kept mosque. Even the hadith in which Muhammad urged restraint, saying, “One drop of a Muslim blood is worth more than the Kaaba and it’s surroundings,” did not change the bloody equation appearing in Al Jazeera, the media outlet funded by Qatar’s ruling family, the house of Thani.

The truth is that Abbas and his people (as well as some of the people from the Joint Arab List and the Islamic Movement) yearn to realize the dream of a third intifada, which is supposed to be a repeat of the first one, “an unarmed mass carrying out Ghandi-style civil disobedience.” Jewish deaths are of course necessary to keep things running smoothly. However, like all pyromaniacs, Abbas and his crew have not devoted a thought to whether the fire could burn them as well, or to how they could possibly escape.

Abbas and his people have yet to condemn the recent attacks, rather, they simply issued a belated call to stop the violence. Having once advocated “controlled rock attacks,” it is now hard for them to put Hamas’ terrorist genie back in the bottle. They know very well that security cooperation with Israel primarily serves the PA’s internal security needs.

In terms of the Palestinian “constitution,” Abbas long ago lost his government’s legitimacy, and West Bank opinion polls indicate the public’s support for Hamas in the armed struggle against Israel. When Kalashnikovs fire, the rocks pile up on the graves of the top terrorists. It is clear to Abbas that if things get out of hand, as they did in Gaza in 2007, and Hamas takes over the territory, PA leaders will be thrown from rooftops and the property they accumulated thanks to their corrupt ways will be confiscated. Then, to Israel’s satisfaction, no one will pressure it to promote Hamas in the West Bank as a state alongside Islamic State.

Therefore, the PA’s threats to end security cooperation with Israel are empty, designed to extort what it wants through international pressure, with nothing in return for Israel. The Palestinian moment of truth has arrived. Abbas must now publicly recognize Israel as a Jewish state, forgo the folly of “return,” agree to land swaps, and agree to a demilitarized state with Ramallah as its capital and borders that are not under its own control.

The hadith that says, “The believer is not stung from the same hole twice,” teaches Muslims to learn lessons from the past. But the false memory of the Palestinians, and also of some Israeli Arabs who are dreaming of an intifada, has made them forget the disasters that were caused by their repeated clashes with Israel. In the wake of the “Arab Spring,” they should really consider changing their memory card.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Fatah, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Abbas Calls for Murder, Palestinians Attack

October 7, 2015

Abbas Calls for Murder, Palestinians Attack, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, October 7, 2015

  • The terrorists did not need permission from Hamas leaders to murder the first Jews they ran into. The inflammatory rhetoric of Abbas and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and media outlets was sufficient to drive any Palestinian to go out and murder Jews.
  • Instead of condemning the murder of the Jews, the PA denounced Israel for killing the two Palestinians who carried out the Jerusalem attacks.
  • The Palestinian Authority and its leaders are in no position today to condemn the murder of any Jews, simply because the PA itself has been encouraging such terrorist attacks through its ceaseless campaign of incitement against Israel.
  • The PA is playing a double game: it tells the world that it wants peace and coexistence with Israel; meanwhile it incites Palestinians against Israel, driving some to set out with guns and knives to murder Jews.
  • Although Abbas has repeatedly stated during the past few years that he does not want another intifada against Israel, his statements and actions show that he is doing his utmost to spark another wave of violence, in order to invite international pressure on Israel.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) and its leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, cannot evade responsibility for the latest wave of terror attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

True, in the end it turned out that Hamas was behind the murder of Eitam and Naama Henkin in front of their four children, but there is no ignoring the fact that the anti-Israel incitement of Abbas and other Palestinian leaders in Ramallah paved the way for the terrorists to carry out this and other attacks.

The incitement, which has been around for many years, intensified after the arson attack that killed three members of the Dawabsha family in the West Bank village of Duma in July.

Since then, Abbas and his senior officials have been waging an unprecedented campaign of incitement against Israel in general and Jewish settlers in particular, although the perpetrators of the Duma attack still have not been identified or caught. Palestinian Authority leaders have since accused the Israeli government of committing “war crimes,” and have told their people that the arson attack was actually part of an Israeli conspiracy against all Palestinians.

Abbas has even gone as far as accusing Israel of promoting a “culture of terror and apartheid.” That claim came in addition to threats by senior Palestinian officials to launch retaliatory “operations” against Israel in response to the arson attack.

The West Bank’s Palestinian media, which are controlled by the PA, have also played a role in the massive campaign of incitement against Israel and settlers. Jewish settlers are depicted in Palestinian media outlets as “gangsters” and “terrorists” and the Israeli government is dubbed the “Occupation Government.”

1279Official Palestinian Authority media outlets incite Palestinians, from a young age, to murder Jews. (Image source: Palestinian Media Watch)

The recent tensions at the Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have also been exploited by Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership to delegitimize Israel and demonize “Jewish extremists and settlers.” For several months now, Abbas and his senior officials and media outlets have been accusing Jewish visitors to the holy site of “contaminating” and “desecrating” one of Islam’s holiest shrines. Palestinian officials and journalists have been telling their people that the Jews are plotting to demolish the Aqsa Mosque. Moreover, they have been urging and encouraging Palestinians to converge on the Aqsa Mosque compound to “defend” it against purported Jewish schemes.

The campaign of incitement reached its peak recently when Abbas was quoted as accusing Jews of “defiling the Aqsa Mosque with their filthy feet.” Abbas also announced that, “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood.”

The Hamas terrorists who murdered the Henkins live in the West Bank, and were undoubtedly exposed to the incitement by Abbas and the PA. The terrorists did not need permission from the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip or Turkey to go out and murder the first Jews they ran into. The inflammatory rhetoric of Abbas and Palestinian Authority officials and media outlets was sufficient to drive any Palestinian to murder Jews.

The two Palestinian assailants who carried out last week’s stabbing attacks in Jerusalem wanted to kill Jews because they were led to believe that this was the only means to stop them from “contaminating” the Aqsa Mosque. After all, this is precisely what Abbas and other PA officials have been telling them for the past few months. Again, while the two stabbers were not Abbas loyalists (one of them, Muhannad Halabi, was affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad), there is no doubt that the incitement of the Palestinian Authority played a major role in increasing their motivation to murder Jews.

Halabi, who stabbed and shot four Israelis in the Old City of Jerusalem, killing Rabbi Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Banita, and wounding Adele Banita and her baby, wrote on his Facebook page hours before the attack: “What is happening to al-Aqsa Mosque is what is happening to our holy sites, and what is happening to the women of al-Aqsa is what is happening to our mothers and women. I don’t believe that our people will succumb to humiliation. The people will indeed rise up.” Halabi’s statements are not much different from those made by several senior PA officials in recent weeks and months.

The Palestinian Authority also bears responsibility for the wave of terror attacks: its leaders never condemned the murder of the four Jews near Nablus and in the Old City of Jerusalem. By refusing to denounce the attacks, Abbas and the PA leadership are sending a message to Palestinians that it is fine to murder Jewish parents in front of their children, or Jews on their way to pray at the Western Wall. Instead of condemning the murder of the Jews, the Palestinian Authority chose to denounce Israel for killing the two Palestinians who carried out the Jerusalem attacks. By doing so, the PA is actually inciting Palestinians to seek revenge for the “cold-blooded execution” of the two assailants.

The Palestinian Authority and its leaders are in no position today to condemn the killing of any Jews, simply because it is the PA itself that has been encouraging such terrorist attacks through its ceaseless campaign of incitement against Israel.

In this regard, the PA is playing a double game: on the one hand, it is telling the world that it wants peace and coexistence with Israel; on the other hand, it is continuing to incite Palestinians against Israel, and driving some to take guns and knives and set out to murder Jews.

The Palestinian Authority’s fiery anti-Israel rhetoric has led to a wave of terrorist attacks that could easily deteriorate into a third intifada. Although Abbas has repeatedly stated during the past few years that he does not want another intifada against Israel, his statements and actions show that he is doing his utmost to spark another wave of violence in order to draw the world’s attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and invite international pressure on Israel.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Fatah, Filthy Jews, Hamas, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Jews, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Temple Mount, West Bank
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Netanyahu curtails German trip to deal with worsening Palestinian terror crisis

October 7, 2015

Netanyahu curtails German trip to deal with worsening Palestinian terror crisis, DEBKAfile, October 7, 2015

Issawiya_Oct._5_2015Palestinian riot in Issawiyeh, Jerusalem

After the Israeli cabinet launched measures Tuesday, Oct. 6, for “strengthening anti-terror defense” – such as cameras in the sky – and officials labored to spread word that the surge of Palestinian violence of the past week was beginning to ebb, Israel was hit that night from offside by a vicious pro-Palestinian upheaval in the Tel Aviv suburb of Jaffa. Hundreds of Israeli Arabs swarmed onto the streets to hurl rocks and burning containers at police, passing buses and Jews on the street. Six police officers were injured. Fired up by the radical Israeli Northern Muslim Movement, the rioters brandished Palestinian flags and yelled “Allah is Great!”  and “With our blood we shall redeem Al Aqsa!”

The Army Radio Station studio was besieged for five hours.

At length, the police announced the disturbance had been brought to an end by negotiations with Arab community leaders in Jaffa.

That strategy was part and parcel of the efforts made by IDF officers to bring an end to the surge of Palestinian violence besetting Jerusalem and the West Bank through revived negotiations with Palestinian security chiefs and soothing rhetoric poured out for the public by government and military officials. But the gap between that rhetoric and the unruly situation on the ground was impossible to bridge. The rocks and firebombs kept on flying – even after three killer-terrorists’ homes were demolished in Jerusalem Monday night.

Here too, the measure failed to impress as a deterrent because the punishment was meted out for terrorist crimes committed in 2014 and were therefore a year old – evidence of Israeli’s extremely slow response to murderous terror.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu finds himself cornered by two conflicting crises. While facing popular demands to quell Palestinian violence that caused four Israeli deaths and 30 people injured during the High Festivals, he is confronted with a mutiny within the government coalition and his own Likud party. At least half a dozen ministers angrily reject the line taken by the prime minister and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon for the past year – that the terror crisis must be handled “calmly and responsibly” – as nothing but softness on Palestinian terror.

Netanyahu has shot back by threatening to break up the government, which is less than a year old – either by inviting the opposition parties to join a new national unity government or calling a snap election.

This threat is fairly hollow. Replacing the mutinous ministers with members of the Labor opposition is a non-starter since its leader Yitzhak Herzog scarcely controls his own party. A coalition with Yair Lapid’s Future party and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu would be harder to control than the present lineup.

Netanyahu finds himself in this corner because he is handling the two crises by political means as part of the same problem.

This tactic is taken by Palestinian extremist leaders as a sign of Israeli weakness and encourages them to pour more fuel on the fire of anti-Israel violence. Ineffective measures, such as the cameras in the sky, which never worked on the 443 highway to Jerusalem, for instance, make things worse. The trickle of rockets from Gaza contradicts Ya’alon’s pledge to stop it.  A proactive, creative hand against the escalating Palestinian violence would gain the support of all the ministers and ease the popular sense of pervasive insecurity.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Jerusalem, Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Peace process, Tel Aviv, Terrorists
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

After Blasting Israel, State Department Doesn’t Immediately Condemn Afghan Hospital Bombing

October 6, 2015

After Blasting Israel, State Department Doesn’t Immediately Condemn Afghan Hospital Bombing, Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, October 5, 2015

 

Categories: Afghanistan, DIferent strokes for different folks, Gaza, Hamas, Hospital targeted, Israel, Obama - Middle East, Obama and Israel, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Rocket attack, Rules of war, U.S. airstrikes
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »