Archive for the ‘Jerusalem’ category

Video: AIPAC Allies Weakened Pro-Israel Language in 2012 GOP Platform

July 8, 2016

Video: AIPAC Allies Weakened Pro-Israel Language in 2012 GOP Platform, Washington Free Beacon: , July 8, 2016

(There seems to be no suggestion the GOP  pro-Israel platform for 2016 has yet been weakened, although there appear to be efforts to that end that AIPAC may make. — DM)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, Monday, March 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, Monday, March 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s foremost pro-Israel lobby, pursued a quiet campaign to weaken pro-Israel language in the Republican Party’s 2012 platform, according to video obtained by the Washington Free Beacon and sources who attended the 2012 platform committee deliberations.

The sources described AIPAC’s bid to weaken the GOP’s language on Israel as an attempt to bring it more in line with the Democratic Party’s platform, in order to reinforce the perception long promoted by AIPAC that both parties are equally pro-Israel.

The lobby’s ultimately successful effort to weaken the 2012 pro-Israel language left some Republicans angered, according to sources who told the Free Beacon that the fight over the platform’s Israel language is likely to revive next week in Cleveland, when AIPAC will again face Republicans who advocate language that is more pro-Israel than that of the Democratic Party. AIPAC denies working to water down pro-Israel language in the 2012 GOP platform.

AIPAC-backed changes to the 2012 platform included the removal of support for an “undivided” Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, as well as the removal of language calling for the relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The 2008 Republican platform stated: “We support Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and moving the American embassy to that undivided capital of Israel.”

That language was not included in the 2012 version, which states: “[W]e envision two democratic states—Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine—living in peace and security.”

During the 2012 discussions, the removal of the 2008 language was carried out at the behest of members of the platform committee who were allied with AIPAC, according to video of the session obtained by the Free Beacon.

The video shows amended language being proposed on behalf of Sue Lynch, a past president of the National Federation of Republican Women, a staunch pro-Israel advocate, and a close ally of AIPAC who has spoken at AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference. Free Beacon sources involved in the platform fight said that the language changes proposed by Lynch were encouraged by AIPAC.

When reached for comment, Lynch told the Free Beacon that during the 2012 platform meetings she “worked with AIPAC to insure strong language supporting” Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. When asked about the video footage showing an amendment bearing her name removing the “undivided” language and the endorsement of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, she said, “that doesn’t seem correct” and added that “my memory recalls supporting Jerusalem as the capital.”

Yet when delegates who opposed the AIPAC-supported changes presented alternative language that reaffirmed the GOP’s 2008 position, Lynch and others succeeded in defeating it according to subsequent video footage obtained by the Free Beacon.

The alternate language stated, “We desire Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its undivided and eternal capital, and call for the American embassy to be moved there in fulfillment of U.S. law,” according to a copy obtained by the Free Beacon.

Lynch told the Free Beacon that “I did not support their efforts” to revive the 2008 language.

The initial platform-drafting meeting ended without resolution and the dispute was taken up at a meeting the next day.

In the hours between the two meetings, AIPAC allies are said to have privately persuaded delegates to oppose the alternative resolution.

A live broadcast of the platform committee’s final meeting hints at the internal discord that had erupted behind-the-scenes over the Israel language.

Randy Page, a delegate from South Carolina, led the failed effort to replace the AIPAC-approved platform with the alternate language supported by a significant number of Republican leaders.

“With all due respect, I believe that our present plank on Israel is way off base,” Page said during a live CSPAN broadcast of the platform committee’s meeting.

“Our present Israel platform is a nearly identical copy of the Democrat’s Israel platform,” Page said. “Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me. Now let me ask: How many of you here today agree with President Obama’s policy of pressuring Israel? Because our platform sure seems to. That is not what’s in the heart of everyday Republicans who stand with Israel.”

The platform committee again ended its session without resolving the Israel issue.

Top Republican leaders aligned with AIPAC completed the final language behind closed doors, sources said. Excluded from that meeting were delegates who had backed the alternative pro-Israel language.

When the final platform was unveiled at the 2012 convention, all of AIPAC’s recommended changes were included, sources claimed. References to an “undivided” Jerusalem and the relocation of the U.S. embassy were omitted.

AIPAC denies that it worked to strip language advocating an undivided Jerusalem and moving the U.S. embassy there.

The charges are “not true,” an AIPAC spokesman told the Free Beacon. “AIPAC’s position has consistently been that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, should remain undivided, and we have supported moving the U.S. embassy there—and that remains our position.”

“AIPAC actually worked to strengthen the 2012 Republican platform on Jerusalem,” the spokesman said. “When it was noticed that Jerusalem was omitted from the original draft, we urged that language be included reflecting Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”

A source close to AIPAC told the Free Beacon that the only discussion AIPAC was involved in surrounded the issue of a two-state solution, which AIPAC supports.

The source further maintained that the original GOP platform proposal did not include any language mentioning an undivided Jerusalem. AIPAC staffers noticed this omission and recommended that such language be included, according to the source, who added that there was never any effort from AIPAC to weaken the platform language, but instead strengthen it.

While language on Jerusalem was ultimately added to the platform, the term “undivided” was rejected.

One source involved in drafting the 2012 platforms told the Free Beacon that AIPAC sought to ensure that the Republican and Democratic platforms used similar language with regards to Israel—despite objections from leaders in both parties.

GOP delegate Alan Clemmons, a South Carolina state representative, maintained AIPAC was behind efforts to suppress the alternate language and drag the GOP closer in line with the Democratic Party.

“The Obama years have proven a disastrous misery for anyone who cares about Israel,” Clemmons said. “AIPAC’s only responding tactic has been to pull the Republicans leftward in order to manufacture the appearance of bipartisanship. This has significantly lowered the bar in the process of making policy, so much so that we may now have to live with a nuclear Iran for example.”

Another source involved in the fight to strengthen the platform’s language told the Free Beacon that AIPAC is working to undermine its own agenda. The lobby played a key role in pushing 1995 legislation requiring the U.S. embassy in Israel be moved to Jerusalem.

“It’s strange that AIPAC, which led on this issue in 1995 with the Jerusalem Embassy Act that requires the U.S. government to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move our embassy there, has now gutted support for the same policy in both parties’ platforms,” the source said. “Major leaders in the Democratic Party today like Harry Reid, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Patty Murray, Diane Feinstein, Charles Rangel, Charles Schumer, and Dick Durbin, were all co-sponsors of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act.”

“So not only has AIPAC walked the Democrats back from an undivided Jerusalem, they’ve succeeded in steering the Republican party away from an undivided Jerusalem as well. And they did it by tricking people,” the source said.

The 2012 controversy is viewed by some members of the platform drafting committee as a prelude to a similar dispute that will play out in the 2016 drafting meetings. Clemmons says he will lead the charge to change the 2016 platform.

“Public polling has consistently proved that the GOP base does not support many of the positions being promoted by AIPAC,” he said. “The new language I will propose in Cleveland will accurately reflect the views of the base, and put support for Israel back into the hands of those everyday Americans whose support for Israel is the most honest and sincere.”

“Having been at the 2012 GOP Convention to personally witness AIPAC’s staff and operatives shamelessly kill the party’s support for an undivided Jerusalem, I can say that it was easily the most tragic and dishonest political episode I have ever witnessed,” Clemmons said.

The Old Generals’ Old Plan

May 31, 2016

The Old Generals’ Old Plan, Front Page MagazineCaroline Glick, May 31, 2016

al-aqsa_martyrs_brigade

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post

The Israeli Left is a one trick pony. As it sees things, all of Israel’s problems – with the Palestinians, with the Arab world, with Europe and with the American Left – can be solved by giving up Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem (along with Gaza which we gave up already).

Once Israel does this, the Left insists, then the Palestinians, the Arab world, Europe and Bernie Sanders voters will love us as they’ve never loved us before.

The events of the past quarter century have shown the Left’s position to be entirely wrong. Every time Israel has given the Palestinians land, it has become less secure. The Arabs have become more hostile.

The West has become more hostile. The Palestinians have expanded their demands.

Because of their negative experience with the Left’s policy, most Israelis reject it. This is why the Right keeps winning elections.

Given the failure of its plan, the Left could have been expected to abandon it and strike out on a different course. But it didn’t. Instead it has tried to hide its continued allegiance to its failed withdrawal strategy by pretending it is something else.

A central component of the Left’s concealment strategy is its use of former generals.

Over the past quarter century, and particularly since the Palestinians began demonstrating in 2000 that they have no interest in a state living side by side with Israel, the Left has carted out retired generals at regular intervals to proclaim that continued allegiance to the Left’s failed policy of withdrawal is not irrational.

Every couple of years, a new initiative of former generals – often funded by the EU – is published.

Each in turn uses whatever the popular memes of the day may be to repackage their call for withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and the partition of Jerusalem.

The media, itself dominated by the Left, backs these initiatives. The retired war heroes are paraded before the cameras and presented to the public as responsible adults who have grudgingly entered the political fray, despite their aversion to it, because of their patriotism. Just as they heeded the call of duty and led forces in wars of earlier generations, so today, we are told, they heed the call again, in yet another last-ditch effort to save the country.

Just in time for Avigdor Liberman’s swearing in as defense minister, a new group of old generals released a new version of their old, discredited plan.

A group calling itself “Commanders for Israeli Security” has mobilized an impressive roster of 214 generals that have signed on to a new position paper called “Security First: Changing the rules of the game, a plan to improve Israel’s security-diplomatic position.”

The group has a great website replete with a highend web commercial that has been flooding social media feeds for the past several days. The ad shows a person ripping up a “Peace Now” bumper sticker and replacing it with a call for “Security now, peace later.”

Their plan, the ad proclaims, will improve Israel’s security, strengthen its international position, repair the cleavages in Israeli society and set the conditions for future negotiations with the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, like every leftist plan to date, if the generals get their way and the government takes their advice, the results will be precisely the opposite of what they promise. As has been the case with every other well-packaged withdrawal plan, Israel’s security will be harmed. Our international position will be wrecked. Bernie Sanders voters along with the Europeans will expand their devotion to bashing Israel. And the Sunni Arab states that now flock to us will again abandon us.

The generals’ new package involves opening their plan with a hawkish call for continued Israeli security control over Judea and Samaria, until the Palestinians decide to make peace with us.

But as we soon see, that was just throat clearing.

Having established their sober-mindedness, the generals turn to the Left’s unchanging fantasy.

They call for the government to formally relinquish Israel’s sovereign rights over the vast majority of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

They call for the government to permanently stop respecting the property rights of Jews in the areas of Judea and Samaria outside of the security perimeter.

The more than one hundred thousand Jews who live in those areas, they insist, must be denied all right to property, save the right to sell whatever they now own.

They must not be allowed to build anything – no new houses; no new communities; no new infrastructure.

As for the communities inside the perimeter, the generals insist that those should be permitted to continue respecting Jewish property rights, within limits, albeit. For instance, those communities must not be permitted to expand beyond their current construction boundaries. In other words, Jews can build up, but not out.

Jerusalem, which they believe should never have been unified in 1967, should be effectively partitioned.

The generals call for the municipal government to stop administering the city as a unified mixed Jewish and Arab city. Instead, they say, the city should set up a separate governing authority for Arab neighborhoods in eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem. That separate authority should be responsible for all planning and zoning activities in Arab neighborhoods as well as the education system and every other aspect of the daily lives of the Arabs of the city.

Gaza, which has been operating as a Hamas state since 2007, is also brought in from the cold. The generals call for the government to continue to supply Gaza with everything that Hamas demands – water, electricity, employment in Israel, a Hamas-controlled port. They even call for Israel to allow Europe to pay the salaries of Hamas terrorists.

Moreover, the generals recommend that the government announce that Gaza, Judea and Samaria and partitioned Jerusalem are one political entity, despite the fact that they aren’t.

The generals insist that by taking these steps, Israel will prove its devotion to peace and keep the dream of a Palestinian state alive. As a consequence, they say, the Palestinians will be happy and stop trying to murder Israelis. The Arab world will line up to sign peace treaties with Israel. Europe along with Bernie Sanders’ voters will bury the hatchet and embrace Israel.

The problem with the generals’ newest plan and the ones its replaces is that they all ignore basic facts.

There is no Palestinian constituency for peace with Israel. The more Israel offers the Palestinians, the less interested they are in settling.

By announcing that Israel renounces its claims to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and treating the Jews east of the 1949 cease-fire lines as second class citizens, the generals will not only widen Israel’s social cleavages. They will tell the Palestinians that they are right to feel contempt for us. The worse they behave, the more we will offer them. The more Jews they murder, the more the Jews will turn against one another.

As for improving Israel’s international position, it is hard to understand why the generals refuse to learn the lessons of the Gaza withdrawal. Despite the fact that Israel uprooted 24 Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Samaria, and removed its military forces from the area, without exception, the international community insists that Israel still “occupies” Gaza. How can the generals expect the world to act more fairly towards a more limited withdrawal plan from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem? As for Gaza, Operation Protective Edge brought out into the open the fact that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab states support Israel in its war against Hamas. They do so because they fear Islamic State and Iran more than they hate Israel, whose power they trust.

If Israel announces its intention of leaving Judea and Samaria, which the Arabs know will become a Hamas enclave faster than Gaza did, the Arab faith in Israel’s power will diminish. As a consequence, if Israel follows the generals’ advice our relations with the Sunnis will worsen, not improve.

It is a tragedy for Israel that the generals have allowed the Left to use them in this way. Their role in perpetuating Israel’s destructive adherence to the devastating two-state policy model diminishes their past contributions and endangers Israel’s future.

Islam is Winning and Western Civilization is losing – Parts I and II, America and Israel

April 19, 2016

Islam is Winning and Western Civilization is losing – Parts I and II, America and Israel, Dan Miller’s Blog, April 19, 2016

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

CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations are winning. Islamic terror in America, Europe and Israel has killed a thousand or so people. That’s a lot, but Islamization kills entire civilizations; with the death of our civilization, more deaths than Islamic terrorism has brought can be expected.

Should we give up and voluntarily commit civilizational suicide? Much of Europe has already done so and that’s what Obama and His minions are seeking for America. The forces pushing for it are strong and we can react with greater strength only if we have the will. Do we?

Part I – America

a. Muslims already in Obam’s America

Obama Muslim Brotherhood

The video embedded above promotes a new book titled See No Sharia, which deals with the Muslim Brotherhood and related Islamist organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood’s vision for America is laid out in a document put in evidence at the Holy Land Foundation criminal trial of several Islamist Muslim Brotherhood conspirators for funding Hamas, a terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law.

[w]ritten in 1991 by a top Muslim Brotherhood operative, Mohamed Akram, and entitled “The Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal of the Group in North America,” this internal correspondence was meant for the eyes only of the organization’s leadership in Egypt. So, the document is direct and to the point: It explicitly states that the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America is “destroying Western civilization from within … by [the infidels’] hands and the hands of the believers so that Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” [Emphasis added.]

Following guilty verdicts against indicted conspirators, the Obama administration could (and should) have sought indictments against their multiple unindicted co-conspirators. It chose not to do so, most likely because pursuing the matter further would have been inconsistent with Obama’s world view — which seems to be consistent with that of the Muslim Brotherhood, et al.

See No Sharia, and to some extent the related video, illuminate ways in which Obama’s America has been seduced by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Muslim Brotherhood-related Islamist groups into requiring our law enforcement agencies to reject the notion of Islamist Terrorism and to accept instead that of non-denominational “Violent Extremism.” We are repeatedly told that Violent Extremism has nothing to do with Islam.

Although the connection between the Muslim Brotherhood and Nazism should not be overlooked, it generally is.

It was the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Cairo in 1928, that established Islamic Jihad as a mass movement. The significance of the Muslim Brotherhood to Islamic Fascism is comparable to the significance of the Bolshevik Party to Communism: it was, and it remains to this day, the ideological reference point and the organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including Al Queda and Hamas. [Emphasis added.]

While British colonial policy contributed to the rise of Islamic radicalism, the Brotherhood’s jihad was not directed against the British, but focused almost exclusively on Zionism and the Jews.

Membership in the Brotherhood rose from 800 members in 1936 to over 200,000 in 1938. In those two years the Brotherhood conducted a major campaign in Egypt, and it was against the Jews, not against the British occupiers. This campaign against the Jews, in the late 1930s, which established the Brotherhood as a mass movement of Islamic Jihadists, was set off by a rebellion in Palestine directed against Jewish immigration from Europe and Russia. That campaign was initiated by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini. [Emphasis added.]

Al-Husseini was extremely impressed with Adolf Hitler and his anti-Jewish rhetoric. In 1941 he visited Hitler in Berlin. He was so enthralled with Hitler and the Nazis, and their plans to exterminate the Jews that he decided to remain in Berlin. He lived there from 1941 to 1945, recruiting Muslims in Europe for the Waffen-SS. He was very close to Hitler. Husseini’s best friends were Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann.

He convinced Hitler that he would be able to persuade his Muslim brothers in the Arab world to carry out the extermination of Jews in the Middle East, just as the Nazis were doing in Europe.

Grand Mufti and Hitler

Back then, Hitler was largely focused on the elimination of Jews. That remains the focus of Hamas, of which the Muslim Brotherhood remains a principal supporter. Might it be due to long-standing Muslim Brotherhood ideas that many blame all of the conflicts in the Middle East on the Jewish “occupation” of Israel? That view is held by Obama and members of His administration. Hence, their persistent efforts to turn parts of Israel over to the “Palestinians,” culminating in a two state solution giving Hamas and the Palestinian Authority enhanced leverage in driving Jews from Israel.

Under pressure from the Obama administration, our law enforcement agencies cooperate with Islamist organizations to implement Sharia principles to fight “Islamophobia” rather than to locate, arrest and prosecute Islamist terrorists and wannabe Islamist terrorists. One possible rationale is that if we are nice, they may reduce their efforts to “radicalize” Muslims and, perhaps, stop some Islamic attacks. Another more likely rationale is that our dear leaders actually believe that Islamophobia (along with the Jewish “occupation” of Israel) is the principal cause of Islamic terrorism and that Sharia compliance (along with the “two state solution” and death of Israel) will solve the problems.

America has no blasphemy laws and should want none. They would violate our First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The Organization for Islamic Cooperation, consisting of fifty-seven Islamic nations, has been pushing the United Nations to impose Sharia law-style laws prohibiting blasphemy. They do not seek such laws for their own nations because they already have them to protect Islam. They seek them for America and the rest of what’s left of Western civilization, but seem to have little or no interest in prohibiting “blasphemy” against Judaism or Christianity.

muhammad-bomb-turban

The cartoon is blasphemous under Sharia law because it depicts Muhammed; some Muslims seek to kill those who produce such material. An “art exhibit” featuring an image of the Virgin Mary in a glass of urine is considered sacrilegious; some Christians seek to have government funding removed.  I am reminded of this rather old Andrew Klavan video:

b. Muslims coming to Obama’s America

As correctly observed in an article titled How Obama’s Refugee Policies Undermine National Security,

The issue of the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States has understandably ignited a firestorm of protest by Americans concerned about their safety and the safety of their families. These Americans are not exhibiting “xenophobia,” the usual claim made by the open borders immigration anarchists. They have simply been paying attention to what James Comey, the Director of the FBI, and Michael Steinbach, the FBI’s Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division, have stated when they testified before congressional hearings about the Syrian refugee crisis. They made it clear that these refugees cannot be vetted. There are no reliable databases to check and no capacity to conduct field investigations inside Syria to verify the backgrounds of these aliens. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

I focused on these issues in my October 7, 2015 article for FrontPage Magazine, “Syrian ‘Refugees’ and Immigration Roulette: How the government is recklessly playing with American lives.”

Further reports have provided disturbing information that ISIS operatives have seized blank Syrian passports and other identity documents, along with the printing devices used to prepare passports and other ID, and have sold these documents to reporters in false names. These identity documents are indistinguishable from bona fide documents because they are bona fide documents — except that the photos and biometrics do not relate to the original person but create credible false aliases for anyone willing to pay for them.

Even if we had the documentation referred to above, it would be of little help because due to pressure from Muslim Brotherhood-related groups, we are not allowed to “profile” Muslims. As noted here,

obeisance to politically correct proscriptions against “profiling” is just one of the myriad ways in which we tell the jihadist enemy we really aren’t serious about the latest battle in the 14-century-long war of Islam against the infidel West.

. . . .

This lack of seriousness is endemic in this administration. Refusing to call ISIS “Islamic,” even going so far as to censor comments by French president François Hollande that used the word, bespeaks a dangerous frivolity. . . .

Our problem, however, goes beyond the politicians. Too many of us have failed to understand that this war did not begin on 9/11. It did not begin when al Qaeda declared war on us in the 90s and attacked our embassies and naval vessels. It did not begin in 1979, when our alleged neo-colonialist depredations supposedly sparked the Iranian revolution and created today’s Islamic (N.B., Mr. President) Republic of Iran, the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism. It did not begin in 1948, when five Arab nations, all but one members of the U.N., violated Resolution 191 and attacked Israel. It did not begin when after World War I the victorious Entente powers exercised mandatory powers, granted by the League of Nations and codified in international treaties, over the territory of the Ottoman Empire that had sided with the Central Powers.

All these acts of aggression were merely the latest in a war begun in the 7th century when Islam attacked the eastern Roman Empire and began its serial dismemberment of the heart of Christendom, the old word for the West. For a thousand years the armies of Allah successfully invaded, conquered, occupied, enslaved, and raided the West, in accordance with its doctrine of jihad in the service of Muslim domination, and in homage to Mohammed’s injunction, “I was told to fight all men until they say there is no god but Allah.” This record of success began to end in the 17th century with the rise of the modern West and its technological, economic, and political advantages. [Emphasis added.]

But the war didn’t end with that Muslim retreat, even after what bin Laden called the “catastrophe” –– the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate, and the division of its territory into Western-style nation-states. The West won that battle, but it did not win the war. One reason is the Muslim nations of the Middle East never suffered the wages of their aggression. They sided with the Central Powers in World War I. They sat out World War II––apart from the many thousands who fought on the side of the Nazis––and received fugitive Nazis as guests after the war. Their serial aggression and terror against Israel has never been repaid with bombed-out capitals or punitive postwar reprisals. Their governments have never been punished for funding and proliferating mosques and madrassas teaching hatred of the infidel and terrorist violence in the service of jihad. [Emphasis added.]

Instead of paying the price of aggression, partly because of the Cold War, more recently because of Western failure of nerve and civilizational exhaustion, Muslims have been the beneficiaries of billions in Western aid, Western arms, Western defense against enemies, Western lax immigration policies, Western appeasement, and Western suicidal ideas like cultural and moral relativism. In short, Muslims have never accepted their defeats, and have never experienced the humiliating cost of their aggression, because the modern West has never forced them to pay for it. [Emphasis added.]

Thus they look at our unserious, godless culture of consumption and frivolity, of self-loathing and guilt, and these serious believers are confident that 350 years of defeat in battle have not led to defeat in the long war. And so the war goes on. The frivolous Western dogs bark, but Allah’s caravan moves on. [Emphasis added.]

Part II — Israel

Israel is constantly attacked by various UN organizations, most recently UNESCO, which has named the Western Wall after Muhammed’s flying horse, Barack Buraq.

There is a concerted effort among “Palestinians” and their supporters to erase all evidence of the historical connection of Jews to Israel. The UN, controlled by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, is a willing partner in these efforts. Besides being motivated by Islamic Jew-hatred, this endeavor is in line with the Islamic supremacist tendency to appropriate the holy places and sacred figures of other religions.

Buraq is claimed to have transported Muhammed from Mecca to Jerusalem, hence giving Palestinians valid claim to all of Israel. Here’s one depiction of Buraq. Obviously, there are no photographs of Muhammed actually riding him, because images of Muhammed are prohibited. Look closely at the picture. Where did the horse’s head come from?

Buraq

Here’s an explanation of the Muslim nexus with the Western Wall:

Various scholars and writers, such as Ibn al-Faqih, Ibn Abd Rabbih, and Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, have suggested places where Buraq was tethered, mostly locations near the southwest corner of the Haram.[7] However, for several centuries the preferred location has been the al-Buraq mosque, just inside the wall at the south end of the Western Wall plaza.[7] The mosque sits above an ancient passageway that once came out through the long-sealed Barclay’s Gate whose huge lintel remains visible below the Maghrebi gate.[7] Because of the proximity to the Western Wall, the area next to the wall has been associated with Buraq at least since the 19th century.[8]

A New York Times editorial published in October of last year purported to compare the Jewish and Muslim claims to the Temple Mount. An article by Daniel Greenfield at Front Page Magazine posed a few questions for the NUT NYT editorialists.

The Temple Mount is holy to Jews because of the Temples. So the New York Times chose to discuss whether the Temples really existed. It’s holy to Muslims because Mohammed supposedly flew there on a flying horse (with a woman’s head).

. . . .

Let’s interview some of the same scholars and archeologists as to whether the entire Muslim basis for laying claim to the area has any basis in reality. The New York Times discusses the need for “independent scientific verification” of the Temples. How about “independent scientific verification” of this?

Here are some things for the New York Times to verify…

1. Buraq was a flying horse with a woman’s head. Can we get any verification that such a creature ever existed.

2. Buraq flew from Mecca to Jerusalem and back in one night. “The distance between Mecca and Jerusalem is 755.1 miles. To complete this feat in one night would have meant that Buraq must have been jet propelled in the 7th Century.” Please provide independent scientific verification of the existence of a flying horse with a woman’s head that can travel faster than the speed of sound.

Oddly the New York Times doesn’t appear to be interested in independent scientific verification of Islamic Supremacist myths.

Evidently, UNESCO puts more stock in flying horses than in Jewish claims to the Temple Mount.

In view of the gravity of the Islam vs. Everybody Else situation, I decided to try to inject a bit of humor into only one of the many problems Israel faces with the UN, the OIC, Obama’s America, Europe, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and others. I had originally intended to write a more comprehensive piece on Islam vs. Israel, and will probably do so after I post Part III of this series dealing with the Islamisation of Europe.

A better and more detailed account of the UNESCO – Temple Mount absurdity is provided here.

Conclusions

Obama’s America has the will to “win,” but confuses winning with eradicating Islamophobia and slicing Israel into pieces to give to the “Palestinians” and perhaps Syria, hence bringing “peace” to the Middle East. Under that definition of “winning,” Israel, the only democratic nation and the only solid ally of the United States in the region, will cease to exist; the Islamists will have won.

We need a very different version of “winning,” one under which our constitutional freedoms and our democratic nature will be cherished and protected. Both are inconsistent with Sharia law and are not part of any definition with which Obama would agree.

We can win against Islamist encroachments on our government and in our society only if enough of us recognize the dangers they entail. Then, we will have not only the means to win but the will to do so. A first step will be to bid Obama good riddance and to welcome a successor who recognizes the dangers of Islamism and is prepared — and wants — to move quickly and effectively against it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeJ-iv3MOTo

Palestinian suicide attack hits buses in Jerusalem

April 18, 2016

Palestinian suicide attack hits buses in Jerusalem, DEBKAfile, April 18, 2016

Medics personnel evacuate a woman injured at the scene of a possible bus bombing, in jerusalem, on April 18, 2016, leaving at least 15 people injured. Police are investigating if the incident was a terror attack. The explosion occured on bus 12, while passing by the neighborhood of Talpiot, the bus was empty at the time, the injuries were from people on an adjacent bus. Photo by Nati Shohat/FLASh90 *** Local Caption *** ????? ????? ??????? ??????? ????

Medics personnel evacuate a woman injured at the scene of a possible bus bombing, in Jerusalem, on April 18, 2016, leaving at least 15 people injured.

The explosion on Jerusalem bus No. 12 on Monday as it travelled on Hebron street around 6:00 p.m., which also ripped through a second bus and injured 20 people, including two seriously, will enter the annals of the current intifada as the crossing of two red lines: one by the Palestinians, and one by the person who ordered the Israel Police to try to hide the fact that an explosive device was placed on the bus. In other words, someone decided to try to hide the fact that the “Jerusalem intifada” has entered a new stage.

When people arrive at hospitals with wounds in the lower half of their bodies from nails and ball bearings, it can only mean one thing: it was not just a bombing, but a suicide bombing.

The loss of Jewish rights on the Temple Mount – cause and effect

April 18, 2016

The loss of Jewish rights on the Temple Mount – cause and effect | Anne’s Opinions, 18th April 2016


(“Appeasing the crocodile, hoping to be eaten last” is the truest description of the weak-willed appeasement by the Israeli government of Muslim intimidation in Jerusalem, and on the Temple Mount in particular. How can we in Israel expect the world to stand up for us when we ourselves do not stand up for our own rights? And how can we expect the West to contend with radical supremacist Islam when our own, ostensibly right-wing Israeli government is so eager to appease the Muslims at the expense of the Jews? –anneinpt).

I know that I go on a bit (OK, a lot) about Israeli sovereignty in Israel, including Judea and Samaria, and Jewish rights on the Temple Mount in particular, but this week the cause and effect of not enforcing our own sovereignty was highlighted in startling clarity.

It started with Joint Arab List MK Jamal Zahalka who warned Israel against allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount on their holy festival of Pesach (Passover), sinisterly reminding Israel of the death toll of the Second Intifada – although of course the racist MK only mentioned Arab deaths and not the 1,000 Israeli victims:

A day after he returned from a two-month suspension from the Knesset, Israeli Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (Joint List) made a call to the Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount complex “in any way possible.”

“In light of the daily increase of (Jewish) ascent to the Aksa Mosque, it is up to us to stop it in any way possible,” he told the Palestinian site Dunya al-Watan on Wednesday, ahead of next week’s Passover holiday in which Jews flock to Jerusalem’s holy sites.

How Palestinians protect Al Aqsa – with stones to throw at the Jewish worshippers at the Kotel

In his remarks, Zahalka, who leads the Balad party in the four-party Joint List alliance, said “the Palestinian people paid the price of 4,000 deaths in the second intifada in the year 2000.”

He lied brazenly with the following outrageous claim:

“Our people have the right to the mosque, and we must protect it with all of our power. The Palestinian nation is the guardian of the mosque,” he said in the interview published Thursday.

Of course the Palestinians (not a nation in any event) are nothing of the sort. If anyone is the official guardian it is Jordan.

Zahalka charged that the continuation of the alleged uptick of Jewish visits to the site would ignite the next collective Palestinian uprising against Israel.

He added that “the increase in Jews who go up will cause the third intifada to break out and continue throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem depending on which Palestinian organizations join in the fighting.”

It is quite obvious that Zahalka is itching to be suspended yet again, and is probably also angling to be the next Palestinian inciter-in-chief, I mean President for Life. The man is beyond a disgrace, and it is an outrage that he is permitted to sit in the (Zionist) Knesset while at the same time undermining his own country’s very existence and raison d’etre.

PM Binyamin Netanyahu’s pathetic response was to ask the Attorney General to investigate if Zahalka’s statement was incitement. What is to consider? Have we no brains to think for ourselves?

Zahalka only plays into the reigning conspiracy theories of “Israeli settler storming invasions” of the Al Aqsa and inflames matters even more. Elder of Ziyon has the story of what would be a hilariously misunderstood event if it weren’t so deadly dangerous. The site QPress ominously warned of “settlers in white uniforms storming Al Aqsa“. Look for yourselves at the absurdity of it all, and then let it sink in how pathetically gullible and willing to be enraged are the Muslims:

White shirts are apparently a “settler uniform” now, according to QPress, which puts up regular videos of Jews “storming Al Aqsa Mosque” and “attempting to perform Talmudic rituals.”

Here was the white uniform scene:

I can hardly bear to watch. I feel my blood pressure rising dangerously as I hear those taunting cries of “Allahu Akhbar” and wonder who is the invader and imperialist colonialist and who is really oppressed.

Our further capitulation in the face of Arab intimidation continued with the arrest – by Israeli police! – of an American tourist who was explaining a Hebrew verse of Psalms to his tour group on the Temple Mount:

If we were to describe the following scene as having taken place anywhere else on the planet, the report would have been followed by several news cycles involving angry Jewish organizations, rabbis, Israeli rightwing politicians and, undoubtedly, Prime Minister Netanyahu, condemning the blatant act of anti-Semitic repression on the part of police, carrying out the anti-Semitic policies of the national government. (See American Jew Arrested for Murmuring Prayers, 2nd Warned to Close Prayer App)

American Jew arrested by the Israeli “prayer police.”

On Sunday morning, a Jewish American tourist wearing a yarmulke stood with a group of fellow Jewish tourists and spoke about the meaning of a biblical verse. A group of black-uniformed police converged on him and accused him of engaging in Jewish prayer, which is against the law in that country. The Jewish man tried to defend himself, arguing that he was merely explaining a biblical verse, “Please, God, save [us], Please God, give [us] success” (Psalms 118:25).

The cops rushed to the man and his group as soon as they heard the words “Please, God” pronounced in Hebrew. The rest of the lecture was in English. The man insisted, in English, that he was merely explaining the verse and not praying. The cops had no patience for lengthy arguments with a Jew and arrested him.

Several other Jewish tourists tried to intervene, explaining that it was a misunderstanding, they wouldn’t have even dreamed of praying there, in a country that punishes Jews who engage in public prayer, it was merely a mention of a verse in the context of a talk. At which point the arresting officer declared:

“On the Temple Mount I decide what’s prayer.”

The Jewish legal aid organization Honenu had it exactly right:

The legal aid society Honenu said in a statement: “The conduct of the State of Israel and Police regarding the suspicion of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is, first of all, ridiculous, and in addition it is discriminatory and predatory. It is inconceivable that a law-abiding man would be arrested like the lowest criminal for explaining a verse from Psalms. In any other country such an arrest would have been called anti-Semitic.”

The very fact that Jewish prayer is forbidden on the Temple Mount is outrageous in its overt antisemitism, and is a bigotry and racism that would not be permitted anywhere else in the world against the host country’s own people.

If we do not stand up for our rights, who will? Certainly not the UN, as once again UNESCO lived down to all our expectations.

This miserable episode of denial of Jewish rights in Jerusalem and at our holiest site finished ingloriously but unsurprisingly with UNESCO’s deletion of any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount at all:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticized a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) resolution from last week in which Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall area in Jerusalem’s Old City are wholly ignored.

The resolution refers to Israel as the “occupying power” at every mention and uses the Arabic al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram al-Sharif without ever calling it the Temple Mount, as it is known to Jews. The text does refer to the Western Wall Plaza but places it in quotation marks, after using the Arabic Al-Buraq Plaza.

Birkat Cohanim – the Priestly Blessing – at the Kotel (because of course there is no Jewish connection to the Kotel at all says UNESCO)

“This is yet another absurd UN decision,” Netanyahu said Saturday. “UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where the two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and has again proven that there is no low to which it will not stoop.”

The resolution accuses Israel of “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”

This is such a sick inversion of reality that my jaw literally dropped. One wonders how those who voted in favour kept a straight face while voting. I hate to keep using the word “outraged” over and over but I can’t find a stronger word to describe what I feel.

Desecrated Jewish graves on the Mt. of Olives

As we all know and as has been thoroughly documented, Muslims regularly desecrate, vandalise and violate Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives – ancient Jewish graves dating back sometimes thousands of years, even before the invention of Islam (which is most likely what bothers them the most), Jews are not allowed full prayer rights on the Temple, and Muslims regularly desecrate and destroy priceless Jewish relics on the Temple Mount in an ongoing destruction.

How UNESCO managed to condemn Israel for the Muslims’ crimes is something for psychologists and psychiatrists, rather than diplomats and politicians, to figure out.

Who were the countries who voted in favour of this disgusting resolution?

The resolution was approved by 33 states, including France, Russia, Spain and Sweden. Seventeen countries abstained while six voted against including the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

How could France, of all countries, vote in favour after suffering such huge losses at the hands of Muslim terrorists? Or are they simply staying in character and preferring to surrender to the evil in order that the “crocodile eats them last” to mix a metaphor?

But what can we expect from the Muslims and from biased international organizations when we ourselves, or at least our pathetic weak-willed leaders, do not strongly stand up for our rights and enforce our sovereignty over own holiest sites?

If we hoped that by giving in to their antisemitic demands we could appease the Muslims, reality has hit us in the face and shown us the opposite: the more we give in, the more violence we receive.

It is beyond high time that we revoked the entire ridiculous edifice of denial of Jewish rights, whether for prayer or religious ceremonies or even building of synagogues, on the Temple Mount, and put the Muslims on the defensive. In any event they riot, commit violence and murder. We might as well derive some benefit in the process.

I’m pretty sure that the Muslim world is watch closely for our reaction to these disgraceful maneuvers, whether at the Knesset, at the UN, or on the Temple Mount itself. It is no use for Binyamin Netanyahu to hold a cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights and declare that the area “is ours forever” when he himself is not allowed to pray on his own holiest site in our own capital city.

If we don’t assert our rights in our capital, we will lose our rights everywhere in our country.

Christians wither under Muslim rule

April 17, 2016

Christians wither under Muslim rule,  Israel Hayom, Yoram Ettinger, April 17, 2016

Bethlehem’s Christian Arab leaders lobbied Israel against transferring the city to the Palestinian Authority. Thus, in 1993, on the eve of signing the Oslo Accords, the Christian mayor of Bethlehem, Elias Freij, urged then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to annex Bethlehem to Greater Jerusalem, as it was under Ottoman, British and Jordanian rule of the area, predicting that “transferring Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority would relegate it to a town of many churches, but devoid of Christians.”

Before Oslo, the Christian mayor of Beit Jala — Bethlehem’s twin town — Farah al-Araj, told the late New York Times syndicated columnist William Safire: “The PLO will force a wave of Christian emigration, making Belize in Central America a home for more Beit Jala Christians then left in Beit Jala.” In 1967, shortly following the Six-Day War, then Mayor of Bethlehem Elias Bandak, a Christian, warned then Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan: “An Israeli failure to annex Bethlehem to Greater Jerusalem would doom the city’s Christian character.”

Since the 1993 establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the Christian majorities of Ramallah — Mahmoud Abbas’ headquarters — Bethlehem and Beit Jala have been transformed into insignificant minorities, due to physical, social, economic, legal and political intimidation. More Christian emigrants from these towns reside in Latin America than Christians remaining there.

The violent discrimination of Christians has been a systematic feature of Muslim Arab societies. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, Christians were murdered, expelled or converted until the 10th century. Currently, non-Muslims cannot become Saudi citizens and Christians working in — or visiting — Saudi Arabia are not allowed to worship, or display Christian items (Bibles, crucifixes, statues, carvings, etc.), openly. While Egyptian President, General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, has attempted to minimize the traditional intimidation of Egypt’s Coptic Christian (10%) minority — which possesses ancient Pharaonic roots — the abduction of Coptic women and girls has been routine and Copts face deep-seated discrimination in all walks of life. Moreover, conversion to Christianity is prohibited under Islam. While physical assaults on Coptic communities were a daily occurrence during the brief rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, it has become a monthly event under el-Sissi.

The persecution of Christians in Arab lands is based on the teachings of Muhammad, which dominates the social, political, cultural, judicial, military and educational aspects of the Muslim Middle East. Therefore, the political establishments in Muslim Arab countries are not secular in the Western sense. According to the Quran, Jews and Christians — “the people of the book” who rejected Islam — transgressed egregiously, were the enemies of God, were rejected by God, causing Judaism and Christianity to be replaced by — and subordinated to — Islam, the only legitimate and inherently supreme religion. Islam commands Muslims to pursue the domination of the “House of Islam” over the “House of the infidel,” which includes Christians. Hence, the centrality of jihad, the holy war.

A typical Quranic reference to Christians and other “infidels” appears in Surah 5:60 and 86: “God cursed and blustered those whom he transformed to apes [Jews] and pigs [Christians]. … The infidels shall inherit hell.”

The submission of Christians and other “infidels” to Islam was further institutionalized under the seventh-century Pact of Umar, which severely restrained and humiliated Christians — and later extended to other “infidels” — consistent with the Quran.

In fact, the legalized persecution and scapegoating of Christians are in accordance with the Muslim concept of “dhimmis,” who are the non-Muslim citizens in Muslim lands. As stipulated by the Islamic code of law (the Shariah), they are subordinated to and protected by Islam as long as they accept Islamic supremacy. The attitude towards the dhimmis is specified in the Quran 9:29: “Fight the people who received the book [Jews and Christians] — who do not adhere to the truthful religion [Islam] — until they pay the jizya [infidel tax], while they are humiliated.” Non-Muslim citizens are faced with three choices: conversion to Islam, accepting dhimmitude or death.

Since the 1683 defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the gates of Vienna, Islam has declined dramatically, witnessing the rise to global domination by the “infidel, inferior and arrogant” Christian world, and alarmed by the penetration of “infidel” ideologies and values into the “abode of Islam.” This perceived humiliation has led to tectonic eruptions of Islamic rage and terrorism, aimed at regaining the, supposedly, inherently supreme, megalomaniacal status of Islam.

Also, the Islamic religious and political establishments consider the “infidel” Christian/Western modernity and civil liberties clear, present and lethal threats, which fuel endemic domestic instability. Furthermore, the recent erosion of the Western posture of deterrence, as well as Western appeasement and retreats, have provided a tailwind to the Islamic surge, fueling the anti-Christian/Western Islamic rage in spite of the generally pro-Arab Christian/Western policy (including the U.S. arms embargo during Israel’s War of Independence, while the British supplied arms to the Arabs; punishing Israel for destroying Iraq’s nuclear reactor; pressuring Israel to redivide Jerusalem; and President Barack Obama’s courting of Muslim regimes and condemnation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies).

While most of the Christian/Western world pressures Israel to accept Palestinian demands, a common battle cry in Palestinian Authority-inspired rallies is: “After Saturday comes Sunday,” which communicates a Muslim warning to Christian minorities throughout the Arab world: Muslims will do away with Christians after they have dealt with the Jews!

As befits the fate of dhimmis, churches, convents, monasteries, Christian cemeteries, schools, homes, land and Christian women in the Palestinian Authority are subject to desecration, destruction, burning, confiscation, intimidation, rape and harassment. For example, in April-May 2002, Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity — with its priests and nuns — was hijacked, looted and booby-trapped for 39 days by Palestinian terrorists.

The 1970-1982 Palestinian terror surge in Lebanon accelerated the flight of Lebanese Christians, reducing them from the ruling sector to a dwindling minority. Since 1993, the Palestinian Authority intimidation of Christians has intensified the flight of Christians. However, the Vatican and most Christian and Western governments have — knowingly — sacrificed the religious and civil liberties of Christian minorities — and their very existence — on the altar of wishful thinking, political correctness and appeasement.

Report: Obama to use UN to divide Jerusalem

March 8, 2016

Report: Obama to use UN to divide Jerusalem, Israel National News, David Rosenberg, March 8, 2016

Senior US officials revealed that the President is looking to initiate a final negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority using United Nations Security Council resolutions, a step that would obligate not only Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but effectively determine the direction of US policy for the president’s successor as well.

The report comes ahead of Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel on Tuesday, where he is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and senior Palestinian Authority officials.

On Monday, the Prime Minister’s Office reported that Netanyahu’s annual trip to the US, planned for later this month, had been cancelled. Israeli officials remarked that the cancellation was in part due to President Obama’s refusal to schedule a meeting with the Prime Minister. Later on Monday, the White House issued a statement denying those claims, asserting that the president had in fact invited the Israeli leader to talks during his visit.

According to the plan described by senior US officials, Obama is considering reviving the dormant Middle East Quartet, a diplomatic body including the US, UN, EU, and Russia, to apply pressure to Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume active negotiations.

The President is also considering use of a United Nations Security Council resolution to forcibly extract concessions from Israel and the PA. The US has until now vetoed any such resolutions, though Mr. Obama has in the past threatened to allow them to pass.

A Security Council resolution would be binding upon all parties, unlike General Assembly measures which are non-obligatory recommendations. Such a resolution would remain in force even after the president leaves office next January, effectively shaping the future of American policy in the region for Mr. Obama’s successors.

The resolution would require Israel cease construction over the Green Line and would force Israel to recognize eastern Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

At the same time, the Palestinian Authority would be obliged to officially recognize Israel as a Jewish state and would be pressured to give up the long-standing demand for a right of return.

New Iranian-Backed Terror Group Makes Inroads in West Bank, Gaza

January 19, 2016

New Iranian-Backed Terror Group Makes Inroads in West Bank, Gaza, Washington Free Beacon, January 19, 2016

Screen-shot-from-al-Sabireen-propaganda-videoScreen shot from al-Sabireen propaganda video

A new Iranian-backed terror group is making inroads in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, where it operates underground with the potential capacity to deliver devastating attacks to Israel, according to regional experts who have been investigating the organization’s rise.

The group, which goes by the name Harakat al-Sabireen, was established around May 2014 but has begun in recent months to boost its public profile on social media and brag about its plots to wage jihad against Israel, according to information gathered by regional analysts and provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

Al-Sabireen is believed to receive $10 million a year from Iran via funds that are smuggled through a large network of tunnels built by terrorists to facilitate illicit travel beneath the Gaza Strip, according to estimates disseminated in the Arab language press.

Like Hezbollah, the Iranian-funded terror group that controls territory along Israel’s northern border, al-Sabireen is being used by the Islamic Republic to indirectly wage war on the Jewish state and foster unrest in the Palestinian territories, according to experts, who view the group’s rise as a sign that Iran is not interested in scaling down its global terror network following the recent implementation of the nuclear agreement.

A State Department official who was not authorized to speak on record said that officials are aware of al-Sabireen and its activities. However, the group has not been officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization, though it is possible this could occur in the future.

Al-Sabireen says it has established an armed wing with militants in Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to a recent interview with the Palestinian news agency Ma’an.

“Given the tense relationship between Tehran and Hamas the past few years, it makes sense that Iran would look to form another proxy in Gaza,” Grant Rumley, a Middle East analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “However, Sabireen’s entire model of expansion hinges on its ability to present itself as a Palestinian, non-sectarian movement.”

Like Hezbollah, al-Sabireen’s official logo closely resembles that of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is responsible for giving orders to these types of terror groups.

The group’s charter condones violent jihad and promotes attacks on “the racist Zionist body” and “America the great Satan,” according to a copy published by the group on its official Arabic-language website.

Al-Sabireen has taken to its website and Facebook page in recent months to praise operatives who have been killed while conducting reconnaissance missions on the group’s behalf.

In one posting from late October, the group celebrated the death of one operative who was killed “after direct targeting from the Zionist forces while he was leading a monitoring and reconnaissance team.”

Mourners raised flags during a funeral ceremony for this individual from a variety of Palestinian political groups, including Fatah, which is largely viewed by Western governments as a moderate voice, according to photographs posted by al-Sabireen on its Facebook page.

It also has been plucking recruits from rival terrorist groups, according to Rumley.

“It’s unclear exactly what Sabireen’s operational capabilities are right now, but we know that they’ve pulled recruits from a more established terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that they’ve lost at least two fighters in two separate Israeli strikes, so they’re on Israel’s radar,” Rumley said.

Al-Sabireen has been present at pro-Hezbollah rallies in Gaza that were also attended by leading Hamas officials.

While not much is known about the group’s composition, it appears to have two main leaders, one an operational leader and another who provides intellectual guidance.

Hisham Salem, the terror group’s top leader, formerly served as a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a State Department-designated terror organization, according to information provided by regional analysts. Salem, who is in his early 50s, was raised in the Gaza Strip and began referring to himself as al-Sabireen’s leader in 2014.

Salem claimed in a recent interview with the Palestinian press that armed members of the group are currently in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

“We have an armed branch whose goal it is to wage war on the Israeli occupation everywhere,” Salem was quoted as saying. “Within this framework we have members in the West Bank and Jerusalem who will soon receive financial and military support from us.”

A recent propaganda video produced by the organization and posted to YouTube shows soldiers marching through Gaza with AK-47s.

Al-Sabireen’s second in command, Mohammad Abu Nadi, frequently writes on al-Sabireen’s official website and praises Palestine as integral to the Arab world.

Al-Sabireen has taken a hardline stance against the United States, claiming in September on its Facebook page that the United States is responsible for “producing terrorists.”

The group’s Facebook page remains active with near-daily postings despite attempts by Facebook to shut it down.

While al-Sabireen has faced difficulty in expanding its base in Gaza, where the Hamas-controlled government cracks down on rival terror groups, it has been able to gain a foothold in the West Bank, where it can directly challenge both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinians: Save Us from the Good-Hearted Westerners!

January 1, 2016

Palestinians: Save Us from the Good-Hearted Westerners! Gatestone InstituteBassam Tawil, January 1, 2016

(How many other “Palestinians” agree with Tawil? — DM)

♦ Every Palestinian knows in his heart that we do not want a state of our own alongside Israel, but rather instead of Israel. This includes all the land of Palestine and Israel. It means that Jews have no right to exist on even one speck of it.

♦ Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claims he wants to reach a peace agreement with Israel. But at the same time he and his henchmen incite the Palestinians to stab, run over and shoot Israelis to death, while he idealizes, glorifies and finances — with the funds he receives from the West — the terrorists and their families.

♦ The Palestinian people are already almost totally radicalized, even in the West Bank. They do not seem concerned about living under an Islamist regime run by Hamas or Islamic State.

♦ Abbas’s goal is now, with the help of the international community, to impose a solution on Israel. The solution he seeks – a full withdrawal to the 1967 lines – would pose an existential threat to Israel. It would also just be a matter of time before the Palestinian state will be run by Hamas or Islamic State.

What can be done with these Americans and Europeans? They always seem pining for a dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would end in a peace agreement, yet oddly all of them seem aware that the Palestinians have not, in all honestly, met Israel’s most minimal demands: the cessation of incitement (agreed to even under the Oslo accords — and requiring no funding!) and the recognition of Israel as a Jewish State. Many throughout the world still view Israel as potentially the next — and 22nd — Arab state.

As hard as it is to say it, the Jews have a point. There is a legitimate concern that without such a stipulation, there will be two Palestinian States: the West Bank and Israel – actually three if you count Gaza.

The Americans and Europeans seem not to realize that, for the Jewish people, the request for a state has to be a precondition for any discussion of Jerusalem, as well, based on its history. Before 1967, when half of Jerusalem was in the hands of Jordan — what the international community says it wants Israel to go back to — around 38,000 ancient Jewish headstones were taken from the Mount of Olives cemetery by Arab residents and used to pave latrines.[1]

These good-hearted Americans and other Westerners nevertheless pressure Israel to act as the “responsible adult” and make unilateral gestures of goodwill. They ask the Israelis to withdraw from the occupied territories and to take Jewish residents of the West Bank settlements with them. They seem already to have forgotten what happened just over ten years ago, in the Gaza Strip, when the Israelis did offer a unilateral gesture of good will. The Israelis unilaterally evacuated every meter of Gaza in 2005, so the Palestinians could build a Singapore — no conditions attached! In return, they were met by Hamas and a nine-year war of rockets. If anyone thinks the Israelis are about to try that again, they have a surprise coming.

As a Palestinian, I welcome the humanistic approach that calls on the strong to cede to the weak; but an honest examination of the issues makes me wonder if Westerners even understand the Middle East. In trying to find a just solution, they keep making every possible mistake. First, they keep demanding from the Israelis concessions that would undermine the country’s security — and they do not demand from the Palestinians so much as a statement, such as “Israel has the right to exist.”

Westerners, it seems, want to frighten Israel into making concessions. What seems to have been forgotten is that under UN Security Council Resolution 242, the territories would be occupied until the dispute is settled. Now, that makes a nice game of rope-a-dope: You never end the dispute, so the territory stays occupied, then you blame the other side for occupying you! Even we can see that.

The Westerners’ latest good-hearted demand — so devastating to the employment situation for Palestinians — is to label goods from the occupied territories. This requirement is asked of no other occupying nation: not Russia in Crimea and Ukraine, Turkey in Cyrus, Pakistan in Kashmir, nor China in Tibet. It is basically a form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), presumably intended to crush Israel economically.

What these good-hearted Westerners fail to see is that their threats only strengthen Israel’s perception of danger, and end up creating a result that is the opposite of what the Europeans intended. Instead of bringing the Israelis and the Palestinians to the negotiating table, such a move understandably strengthens Israel’s resolve to protect itself. But exerting pressure on Israelis will not induce them to commit collective suicide. Rather, it will make both the Israelis and Palestinians more intransigent than ever.

The American threat of Israel turning into a binational state is meant to frighten Israel into waiving its vital interests while getting nothing from the Palestinians in return. In reality, the threat just stiffens the Palestinians’ resolve and keeps our leaders from granting even the least of Israel’s demands. The American threat is an obstacle to peace.

Most of all, what, staggeringly, Westerners do not seem to understand, is that the aim of the current incitement and attacks by the Palestinian Authority (PA) comes from a desire to replaceIsrael with a Palestinian state.

Look for a minute at the Palestinian Authority. In the Middle East, sooner or later, anything that can collapse, collapses — regardless of efforts to shore it up. The Israelis, all too experienced in such matters, are understandably not about to cast their lot with the PA’s current leader, Mahmoud Abbas. The death rattle of his regime gets louder every week, as even Westerners can surely see. So if the PA can expire at any time, how can anyone even think of asking the Israelis to place their future in Abbas’s trembling hands? Do Westerners seriously mean for the Israelis to give up their security in return for the empty promises of a regime a few faltering steps from implosion?

Unfortunately, the Israelis already know — again from history — that so far, at least, Palestinian promises are not worth an old shoe. Again, just as one example, in the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians signed an agreement no longer to use terrorism to advance political aims.

Mahmoud Abbas may serve as the President of Palestine, but whom does he represent? He certainly does not represent the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and anyplace else there are Palestinians. He does not even represent the Palestinians in his own West Bank. Broad swaths of Palestinians in the West Bank no longer consider Abbas their lawful representative. His term of office ended years ago; he is now in the eleventh year of his four-year term. I can promise to sell you that that olive tree over there, but what do I do if it is not my olive tree to sell? He cannot truthfully promise anything to anyone.

The Palestinians in Gaza also reject the legality of Abbas’s reign. They support Hamas. Not only that, but in the West Bank, supporters of Hamas make up roughly half of the population. Their goal is to destroy the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas along with it.

Israelis therefore regard the Palestinian president as terminally ill, on life support — also known as the Israeli security forces, Israeli economic support and Western handouts.

Despite relying totally on this charity, Abbas’s position is so weak that to remain in power, he needs to pander to his opponents, to the “resistance front” and the Islamist terrorist organizations in the Palestinian camp. He therefore claims he wants to reach a peace agreement with Israel and that “Palestinian hands are extended in peace;” but at the same time he relentlessly attacks Israel on the international front, in UN agencies and in the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile, he and his henchmen incite the Palestinians to stab, run over and shoot Israelis to death, while he idealizes, glorifies and finances — with the funds he receives from the West — the terrorist “shaheeds” [martyrs] and their families.

Hamas and ISIS at least tell the truth. They openly and repeatedly declare their intentions to destroy “infidel” places such as Israel and Rome — the same way Islam conquered the former seat of Christianity, Constantinople. Mahmoud Abbas, by contrast, is a merely a cowardly hypocrite who successfully dupes the world by talking peace while inciting terror.

If an Islamist terrorist organization does take control of the Palestinian Authority, it will actually make life far easier for Israel. Israel will be able to explain its security position to the world and fight terrorism in the occupied territories — without having to negotiate, make concessions or beg the Palestinians for recognition.

There are some Israelis who worry about the possible fall of Mahmoud Abbas and a radical Islamist takeover of the West Bank. But no Western country will support the establishment of an Islamic emirate in the West Bank. The Islamists will kill the Palestinian Authority’s leaders, the same way Hamas did in 2006-2007 in Gaza. And as usual, only the Palestinians will suffer.

The only people rightly frightened by the thought of a Hamas or ISIS takeover of the West Bank are Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah loyalists. The Palestinian leadership will be summarily executed and their ill-gotten gains confiscated.

The Palestinian people, on the other hand, already almost totally radicalized, and do not seem even slightly concerned about living under an Islamist regime run by Hamas or Islamic State. They are Muslims: many feel it will make them more pure.

The Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is not only a matter of semantics that could change over time. It is a deep-seated ideology that will never change; it is part and parcel of the militant Palestinian-Islamist perception that the Jews are a religious sect — not a nation — and therefore not deserving of sovereignty, a homeland or nationhood.

The Palestinians, like other Muslims all over the world, believe that any land once conquered by Islam becomes part of the waqf, Islam’s religious endowment, owned by Islam in perpetuity. This includes the land of Palestine and Israel, and means that the Jews have no right to exist on even one speck of it.

Our leaders know that recognition of the Jewish state would mean relinquishing the “right of return” of the Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel, and instead settling them only in the future Palestinian state. They simply cannot agree to that.

Every Palestinian knows in his heart that we do not want a state of our own alongside Israel, but rather instead of Israel. Palestinians have not relinquished, and will not relinquish, the right of return; deep down, they hope it will lead to Israel’s demographic extinction and, on its ruins, the establishment of a State of Palestine.

The Jews living in the Middle East understand Middle Eastern dynamics and the challenge of maintaining an independent, democratic state in a region beset by chaos and internecine conflict. They know that anyone who blinks is perceived as weak, and that any blink is perceived by an adversary as an open door.

Despite the threats from the West, the Israelis do not seem particularly shaken. Israel has opened vast new markets in the Far East and appear to be doing brilliantly. Demographically, the number of Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is rising.

What our past-the-expiry-date leaders have failed to grasp is that the Israelis have set a trap for us: they are building their plans on the foundation of our intransigence. Our leaders are only encouraged by the false hopes and unreasonable expectations given them by the good-hearted Westerners.

Their intentions may even be good, but they persistently refuse to see that our leaders simply do not have the will, the courage or the ability to deliver so much as a dish full of mud. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership prefer to leave things as they are rather than be denounced as traitors by their people for sitting with Israelis at a negotiating table.

1410Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is regularly fêted by good-hearted Westerners such as France’s President François Hollande (left) and top European Union officials like Federica Mogherini and Jean-Claude Juncker (right).

Abbas knows — as many of the leaders in Europe apparently do not — that without Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Hamas and Islamic State would execute him, along with his aides, in a public square tomorrow.

Abbas does not want to return to negotiations with the Israelis because he knows has absolutely nothing to offer. His main goal is now, with the help of the international community, to impose a solution on Israel. The solution he seeks — a full withdrawal to the 1967 lines — would pose an existential threat to Israel. It would also just be a matter of time before the Palestinian state will be run by Hamas or Islamic State.

We thank these good-hearted Westerners for all their good intentions. But they are causing suffering to everyone and accomplishing nothing. Our wish for the New Year is, please, for these good-hearted Westerners good-heartedly to stop.

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[1] On the Mount of Olives, the Jordanian Arabs removed 38,000 tombstones from the ancient cemetery and used them as paving stones for roads and as construction material in Jordanian Army camps, including use in latrines. When the area was recaptured by Israel in 1967, graves were found open with the bones scattered. Parts of the cemetery were converted into parking lots and a gas station, and an asphalt road was built through it.

Palestinian Attacks Continue Amid Report Abbas Ordered Shift to West Bank

October 31, 2015

Palestinian Attacks Continue Amid Report Abbas Ordered Shift to West Bank, Investigative Project on Terrorism, October 30, 2015

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a directive 11 days ago to cease attacks in Jerusalem in order to increase attacks in the West Bank, emphasizing the areas of Gush Etzion and Hebron, the Jerusalem Post reported.

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Palestinian violence against Jews continues, as a terrorist stabbed and injured an Israeli man in Jerusalem on Friday, reports the Times of Israel.

Israeli police shot and critically wounded the terrorist; however a second Israeli man was accidentally injured by police gunfire.

The stabbing was the first in Jerusalem since Oct. 17, and comes amid analyses that the Palestinian violence has shifted primarily from the Israeli capital to the West Bank.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a directive 11 days ago to cease attacks in Jerusalem in order to increase attacks in the West Bank, emphasizing the areas of Gush Etzion and Hebron, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The clear difference in Israeli authorities’ ability to prevent attacks in eastern Jerusalem versus the West Bank shows the extent of the PA’s influence over the Palestinians in the capital. However, today’s events show that not all Jerusalem Arabs are heeding to Abbas’ call to divert attacks, suggesting that broader societal Palestinian incitement continues to play a major role in driving violence against Jews.

Meanwhile, two Palestinian attackers attempted to stab Border Police officers at the Tapuah Junction in the West Bank and were subsequently shot by Israeli authorities – one terrorist died as a result.

Palestinians rioted in the West Bank city of Ramallah, leading Israeli police to shoot an assailant who was ready to throw a Molotov cocktail. As Israeli first responders administered first aid to the wounded Palestinian, another Palestinian terrorist approached the medical officers wielding a sharp object. Seeking to prevent another terrorist attack, an Israeli commander in a jeep ordered his driver to approach the terrorist. The driver hit the second Palestinian and moderately wounded him.

These incidents mark more than 60 separate terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and security personnel in the last month, killing 10 Israelis and injuring dozens more